Tracking Components: How Would You Go About This?

[Kobold Catgirl]

Essentially, the title. If you wanted to instate a house rule that casters had to actually obtain material components through individual purchases or gathering, how would you go about making it fair and non-boring?

I think there's a lot of flavor opportunities in eliminating the "magic bag", but it's definitely not easy to do without just causing huge tedium to ensue.

[Cyrad]

By having the material components mean something other than a tedious book keeping restriction.

[Puna'chong]

Personally, I'd just remove the material component as a requirement but add in a material bonus if they do actually want to take the time to gather things. It couldn't be a spell-by-spell thing, though, more like "Bat guano increases the save DC of fire spells by 1 when used as a special component," or something like that.

It's already kinda in-game, with alchemical items, but this way you aren't forcing bookkeeping and instead making it a way for spellcasters to hunt down things that benefit their favored spells. Even spontaneous or divine casters could use these components, despite eschewing materials or only having a divine focus. Hell, you could further differentiate it by making arcane and divine components, but I'd personally want to keep it simple. Make them cost about the same as a poison, maybe, depending on the potency?

Could even have a feat that lets spellcasters apply an additional special component if they wanted... Hmmm....

Edit: This, of course, would be for spells with a negligible component cost. Not things like raise dead.

[Azothath]

1) to be honest, most people GMs and Players ignore it unless they are in a pinch (grappled, in jail, tied up... etc).

2) An easy way is to have the player spend 1 silver per Spell level. The spellcaster buys 50 components (5GP) and starts checking them off. Anything that costs more than a gold or is a focus is paid for independently.

3) If you stick with classic components, use the Alchemy Manual, and make up some more synergies with materials and foci.
It also means that monster parts will become valuable for spells and alchemical products, so get a price list going before your players start baggin an taggin...

I always required PCs have a bit (1cc) of the creature they were going to polymorph into or make a simulacrum of. This really controls the spells far better than anything else. Of course that was before the polymorph fixes...

so really 3 options...

[Milo v3]

Apparently Unchained will try to handle this, by having each school possess only one component type so you don't need to purchase a billion different types of components.

[rainzax]

Azothath,
Would you run Alchemist Extracts the same?

[Flame Effigy]

Short answer:
1. )You don't

Long answer:
1.) You have everyone buy a spell pouch that has a bunch of powdered components in it that can function as cheap components for whatever spell they need to cast. Take a bit between your fingers, throw it out, there's your spell.
2.) However, make them need to actually have on-hand any expensive item that is required to cast the spell, but make it so that it is not consumed during the casting process (I actually don't know if expensive items are normally consumed or not). Your wizard that loves to cast create pit? Well he can be a fancy wizard always carrying around his trusty shovel which he uses to focus his arcane energy to create pits.
3.) Allow your players to make use of of fallen enemies. If they kill something that did a lot of fire powers, allow them to use it as a component for fire spells in a pinch. This can give you some interesting ideas if you ever do the whole "You wake up in a prison without a spellbook/spell components." Let them be creative with what they use to cast spells.
Your player can go "Well I want to cast Spider Climb, but I have no components. Ah-ha. I search the cell for a spider, and eat it/crush it in my hands/whatever"

[Azothath]

from Alchemist
Creating extracts consumes raw materials, but the cost of these materials is insignificant—comparable to the valueless material components of most spells. If a spell normally has a costly material component, that component is expended during the consumption of that particular extract. Extracts cannot be made from spells that have focus requirements (alchemist extracts that duplicate divine spells never have a divine focus requirement).

rainrax - in short, Yes. I'd run extracts using the same method as you use for Wizards.

Most games I've experienced use option 1 or 2. Often 2 becomes 1 as players don't mark off their uses and GM's don't check. In all 3 cases players still pay for expensive components and foci, that's just standard. It's more about how much detail you want in the game.

Option 3 (the most detail) gives the GM and players more variance and customizes the game. It takes some work to do well. Most people just want to have fun, not do paperwork. So ask your players before you do it - or work up the tables and do it from the start. It's a lot of paperwork for an extra point here or there. I prefer option 3 in my home games. Certainly colloidal silver, vampire dust, the hand of villain brought to justice all have some use...