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View Full Version : Alternative Loot, Monster Parts, And Other Assorted Adventuring Delights



Flayerman
2012-02-13, 05:48 PM
So I'm really kind of bored of the usual treasure stuff.

I don't know what it is, but I guess as a GM, I've hit this point where I see all the tropes unfolding before my eyes for everything. I've tried making magic items that were unique and well-named, but they had the effect of unbalancing some party members, and though I was easily able to correct it it meant I didn't want to continue doing so. I've tried giving out almost *no* magic items, making nearly nonmagical worlds, and it didn't help either; as much as the players liked getting cool stuff like Houses and titles, it didn't help them get better at combat, so the game's combat pace started to change heavily when they got higher-level.

And then I had an idea.

I remembered the Monster Hunter games exist.

Monster Hunter, for those who don't know, is a game series about killing giant monsters and taking their body parts to make into your next level of gear. It's a staple of fantasy fiction, one often overlooked by D&D and indeed most fantasy games I can think of off the top of my head; the ability to kill a Dragon and make its tooth into a sword is more of a fluff thing than an upgrade thing, usually.

So I've started working on a system for this kind of thing. Reactions of my players have been promising and interesting.

What about you? What do you do when the +1 swords with cool names and histories start going onto the Resale Pile and the +1 armor just doesn't thrill them anymore?

lt_murgen
2012-02-13, 07:30 PM
Step number 1- remove all magic items from play. If they are getting bored with all the cool magical stuff, take it away. Make them play a 10th level fighter with a masterwork longbow and armor.

It's easy enough to do it in-game. Say that the king has issued an edict that all magic items are to be turned in upon penalty of death "for the good of the kingdom." Have decent level inquisitors with detect magic rings around. THey have to obey or be outlaws, he is the king afterall.

Then create an underground that will 'enhance' objects if they can provide the correct items. For example, Unicorn hair can be braided into a bowstring to give it a +1 to hit, and still not show up magically. A scabbard of a certain kind of wood can be fashioned into a scabbard that makes drawing a weapon a free action, rather than a move action, etc.

Deepbluediver
2012-02-13, 08:03 PM
Letting players craft their own armor is kind of hit and miss, I think, especially if they have to spend precious skill points and/or feats getting the appropriate skill check high enough. Instead just have an entire group of NPCs (maybe even a worldwide organization and/or various guilds) that specialize in crafting fantastic items out of monster parts. It does take an extra step or two, but after every adventure rather than heading back to town spend gold and restock on potions of heroism, you head to the local monster-er and ask him what he can make with your beholder eyes/dragon's teeth/griffin skin/demon's tongue, etc.

The actual crafting can be a combination of both physical labor and magic, so that weapons and armor can end up looking however you want them to (i.e. you don't need to actually have a dozen teeth sticking out of your sword).

Another_Poet
2012-02-14, 02:07 AM
Step number 1- remove all magic items from play. If they are getting bored with all the cool magical stuff, take it away. Make them play a 10th level fighter with a masterwork longbow and armor. It's easy enough to do it in-game.

but


I've tried giving out almost *no* magic items, making nearly nonmagical worlds, and it didn't help either;

#reading

@Flayerman: When this happened to me, I first ran a game in a bronze age setting where all the items were reflavored (similar to playing Dark Sun I guess) and then I ran an entire campaign in Iron Kingdoms (http://privateerpress.com/iron-kingdoms). That resulted in a totally new style, flavor and power arc of gear for what became about a 10 level game.

I also experimented with rewarding characters with 4e style "powers" even though we used Pathfinder. I found that this led to some really cool combat options and happy players. Of course, the powers were not given out like candy and I was careful to maintain a 3.x/PF feel.

Aidan305
2012-02-14, 07:11 AM
Simple.

Have the players witness a transaction pays a fortune for a minotaur horn.

Or an assassin vine flower, or mummy dust, or a lychanthropes tooth, etc.

Players being players, they'll immediately start to think in terms of monsters = cash, or monsters = useful and start looking in to ways of getting more bang for their monster.

Noedig
2012-02-14, 11:54 AM
I believe power components are a step in this direction. Can't remember what book, though I'd like to say Complete Arcane.

Anderlith
2012-02-14, 01:02 PM
I believe power components are a step in this direction. Can't remember what book, though I'd like to say Complete Arcane.

Unearthed Arcana


Try to work in a fetch quest where a broker wants someone to collect a few harpy feathers for a Cape of Charisma that is going to a nearby noble. After the quest is done the broker tells the players that most magical items can be crafted with suitable monster parts replacing the spell requirements of magic items. Want a flaming sword? Go get a magmin's heart, if you temper your blade in it, the heat from the forge will forever burn on the blade. A wyvern's stinger will replace the need for knowing poison when creating a Dagger of Venom, & etc.

Doorhandle
2012-02-15, 06:52 AM
As a Fan if not a player of monster hunter, who approved of this approach for 5th Edition, I will say I approve of this thread.

You could easily make it the plot of the game to harvest such materials for profit.

Also, consider allowing grafts, there is an excellent hombrew on the subject on these very forums.

QuidEst
2012-02-15, 09:14 AM
If I were you, I would draft a table of some basic properties for a sword, what it requires, a gold cost for labor (with some rare monster part that gets you a large discount), and make up a thing or two to go along with.

Throw in a few non-monster parts for some things as well to make it realistic- stuff like special metal, etc. that they buy or raid some villains' armories for.

Make up a few properties for really tough monsters.

For some insane monsters, consider letting players propose some properties that are within reason. Depends on the players, though. XP

Jay R
2012-02-15, 04:30 PM
In Chivalry and Sorcery 1E, all magic items took specific, hard-to-find components. I once went red dragon hunting because I needed a piece of red dragon for some project.

I quickly got in the habit of disassembling monsters after killing them. I needed a red dragon's eye (I think), but I came home with eyes, teeth, claws, hide, sinews, bones, a couple of quarts of blood, a heart, etc.

Gensh
2012-02-15, 06:44 PM
The last time I ran a 3.5 game, what I think the final encounter was before the group just kind of stopped meeting was fighting a hellcat. After it was dead, the duskblade asked if he could wear it, what with the natural semi-invisibility and all. If I ran another game, I'd certainly try to do that sort of thing with the magic items, but the system itself assumes certain items will be given to the players and doesn't exactly scale well without them.

Doorhandle
2012-02-16, 02:03 AM
The last time I ran a 3.5 game, what I think the final encounter was before the group just kind of stopped meeting was fighting a hellcat. After it was dead, the duskblade asked if he could wear it, what with the natural semi-invisibility and all. If I ran another game, I'd certainly try to do that sort of thing with the magic items, but the system itself assumes certain items will be given to the players and doesn't exactly scale well without them.

Contived monster arrangement will work in your favor here.

"Right, so those Lich-skull helms give you the combined benefits of Mind Blank and death-ward, as well as telepathy to one foot. The liches mostly use the telepathy to tell you how much they hate your miserable living face, but that's neither here nor there."

Coidzor
2012-02-16, 02:13 AM
Just be careful. The end result might just have them end up hunting down the tarrasque, tearing it a new one so far down into the negatives that their NPC followers/hirelings/henchmen/cohorts/employees can make a 24/7 business out of harvesting meat, bone, hide, and horn from the beastie.

And that's how Tarrasque City was founded. And then from there the entire setting is forever altered, at least, so long as no one is able to let the tarrasque go or has a mind to Wish it dead.

Does remind me of how I was considering making a character with taxidermy/bonecarving skills to convert the remains of various monsters into various items. Elephants aren't the only ivory-bearing beasties, after all...

MesiDoomstalker
2012-02-16, 01:54 PM
My DM runs her games somewhat like this. Regular magic items are not scarce (she runs a somewhat more difficult to navigate Magic Mart system) but if you decide to bring pieces of various monsters (magical is better) to certain characters, you can get special stuff or discounts. For example, we fought a White Dragon. We harbested its teeth, claws, and skull. We also took a large portion of its innards but they spoiled before we could make use of them. When we got to town, we learned the claws and teeth could be used to infuse cold into things making enchantment/equpiment the focuses around cold cheaper. Incidentally, we just sold the teeth/claws outright since none of use but the minotaur wanted them. The minotaur payed some one to take out his teeth and replace them with the dragons teeth (he only had 4). It was...interesting from then on out to say the least.

Doorhandle
2012-02-17, 01:02 AM
Just be careful. The end result might just have them end up hunting down the tarrasque, tearing it a new one so far down into the negatives that their NPC followers/hirelings/henchmen/cohorts/employees can make a 24/7 business out of harvesting meat, bone, hide, and horn from the beastie.

And that's how Tarrasque City was founded. And then from there the entire setting is forever altered, at least, so long as no one is able to let the tarrasque go or has a mind to Wish it dead...


Not a problem, use it to make a big bad.

The millennia of torture and dissection have caused the hatred, agony, rage, anguish, and hunger of the tarresque to coagulate and materialise inside the beast, giving it a fiendish intellect and incalculable spellcasting power.

It has escaped it’s confinements, rendered the city as unto a Philadelphian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment)hellhole, and plans to do this to every settlement, humanoid or otherwise, one by one…

Quietus
2012-02-17, 09:42 AM
What I've done along these lines is, when it was clear my players were interested in gathering the remains of monsters for interesting uses, I would assign those remains a gold value based on what the treasure should be. So when they fought a dusk beast (two headed riding-dog-sized lizard made of shadow), instead of awarding them X amount of gold and magic items, they wanted to skin it for its hide. I gave that hide the 1,000 GP value that they were due from the fight, and told them they could either sell it for that value, or could use it to make a thematically appropriate magical item, and get that value off of it. A cloak of elvenkind, or shadow armor, or cloaks of displacement, or really pretty much anything they can fluff as "It works because it's shadowy!"

Aotrs Commander
2012-02-17, 09:58 AM
I've had a very similar train of thought. Even after ten years or so of 3.x, as a group, we've never really got away from looting bits of dragons/demons etc, despite them having no use...

So, on my most recent campaign-world, I started to do something about it. Basically, instead of XP and GP, crafting magic items requires the full base price, half of which must be made up of appropriate regagents - e.g. gemstones or appropriate creature bits. (In this setting, however, magical items are considered trade goods, however, as are the reagents themselves.)

I assigned the value of (roughly) 35gp per HD of an appropriate creature (though we haven't really heavily used this system yet), as an arbitary starting value. (Level does count, as the heart of a necromancer or something is a better reagent if he was a better wizard.)

(And assigned a list of appropriate gems and bits for various schools etc.)



It should also be noted in passing, for completeness that this world is designed to drop off a lot of the basic magical gear - i.e. +x stuff, and instead gives everyone (and everything) a flat level-based progression of pluses; i.e. at 2nd level, everyone treats their weapons and armour as +1 enchancement (though this is no longer a magical bonus, and actual magic bonuses are reclassified as untyped. Though this doesn't necessarily have a bearing on the above.

MesiDoomstalker
2012-02-17, 02:58 PM
I talked to my DM on how she determines this and she gave me a quick list of what she does prior to each session:


Determine the monsters the group will be fighitng
Determine realistically what could possibly be salvaged from a corpse
Determine properties for salvageable parts
Determine market price based on function
Determine difficulty of salvaging and perserving parts (ie skill checks and what level spell/ritual/etc is neccesary to preserve them if any
Determine DC for identifying what parts can be salvaged


Make sure you save this for every creature so you can use it later and not have discrepencies (though she notes that most monsters that could be fought later in levels should have varying degrees of parts that may not be salvagable at earlier levels, like dragons).

Lea Plath
2012-02-17, 03:01 PM
One GM I've talked to did something called "Reforging".

Basically, he would give out normal loot, but then he added people who could reforge items to make them something diffrent, provide diffrent bonuses etc.

For example, one person had a sword that on a command would burst into flames. All well and good, but it was proving more a hindrance than a help. So he could take it to a reforger and pay him and the bonus could be changed into something else. This was a northern type campaign, so he chose to make his sword give him an aura of warmth and instead of being set on fire, it would could turn very hot, not red hot but close. So instead of having a generic sword which set stuff on fire for extra damage, he now had a slightly weaker but more personalized sword that kept him warm and seared stuff.

Edit: Oh yes, he could also have stuff improved. For example, that searing sword could be upgraded to do more damage if they, for example, found a rare type of metal that conducted heat better, or a wizard who would empower the spell.

One of the items he mentioned was a spear that launched lightning bolts. Over time, it changed so it summoned lightning when it struck an enemy, and eventually, over a long long gaming period, became a legendary item, which when thrown, vanished, and reappeared as a bolt of lightning, striking down a foe before returning to his hand. For that to happen, he had it reforged, upgraded the hilt and the spear head a number of times (eventually the head was star iron, and the stick was an old wizards staff that had been treated) then empowered by a storm giant.

Silverscale
2012-02-21, 11:49 AM
In our longest running game we had a high level NPC wizard who decided to be our friend. He was also capable of taking the enchantment from one or more items and apply it to another item. I can't remember the exact way the scale worked but if you wanted to take something that had an effective bonus of +1 (either just a flat magic bonus or from something like Flaming, Keen, etc) and give it an effective +2 bonus, you had to have 4 items with a +1 bonus on them to be stripped of their magic energy. If you wanted a particular enhancement like Flaming Burst on your shinny sword, you had to find an item that had that enchantment to be moved onto your sword.

In this way we were each able to have our epic level gear with w number of different enchantments on each item, customized for us as we level up, instead of our DM having to come up with greater and greater items specific to our characters.

For example I think my Cloak wound up with both a resistance bonus and a charisma bonus.