Player Collects Body Parts

[nakedonmyfoldin]

The Title says it all. A dwarven fighter of mine, chaotic neutral, likes to pour over the bodies of his fallen enemies and loot the parts that he thinks will be useful. Its pretty smart, and while its a little gross, he justifies it in the way that American Indians used every part of their hunt.

My question is... to what degree should I allow this? I'm not going to tell him he can't, obviously he's entitled to his quirks. But what can he do with these trophies? He skinned a Grick and insists on using the sheet of belly scales as a cloak. Should I have made him do a skill check to obtain these scales? Should he have to pay a craftsman or perform a craft skill himself to clean the scales into a suitable cloak? Should such a cloak bestow any AC, or just be for style? Similarly, he has tried to remove poison glands from pseudodragons and similar things like that, and I just made up a dexterity check that he had to make to remove the sac without bursting it.

Does anybody have any ideas with this? I like that he's looting like a mofo, but I don't want him to get too overpowered by decking himself in skins, pelts, etc. Increased armor penalties? Disease? CHA penalties?

Thanks in advance

[ILM]

The stench of carrion attracts all sorts of unfriendly creatures. Also, massive diplomacy penalties (to him and any ally around).

[Troacctid]

He should be making craft checks to get this stuff into usable forms. Craft (leatherworking), craft (taxidermy), craft (poisonmaking), etc.

[Heliomance]

You could try pointing him at the Trophy Collector feat from the PHB2. Personally, I tend to make harvesting useful bits from slain monsters run off a Survival check. You could also consider giving discounts if he (or another party member) uses them as components to craft an (appropriate to the trophy) magic item, or if they get a craftsman to craft them into armour or something. By themselves, though, they should be pretty useless unless some serious skill is applied to them. Except poison, obviously - just make that a straight Survival or Craft (Poisons) roll to harvest, and then they hvae poison.

[IslandDog]

Um, how is he familiar enough with monster anatomy to even know where to look for poison glands without destroying them?
In fact, the idea of glands might even be unknown to him.
If he wants to skin them, he should be able to try. But do you think you could skin a monster? I don't think I could skin a chicken. That's because I have 0 ranks in Survival. How many does he have? Make him make a survival check of increasing difficulty based on the part. If he puts skilll points into survival, then sure, give him a small bonus for what he finds - he's losing power by not investing them elsewhere anyways.

[BWR]

First question: does this really matter?
Is this really a big deal? Is the player getting lots of stuff out of this that makes any sort of difference in the game? If not I would just let him carry on. At worst make some hints about how the PC is not particularly welcome in finer social circles because he's dressed entirely inappropriately.

If this really is a big deal for you (and I don't really see how it should be, based on what you've said), just make him justify and actually plan out his harvesting. Is he a trained butcher or hunter? If not, he might have to make rolls to harvest without ruining the stuff he's trying to get. He may have to make rolls to make useful stuff out of the gathered stuff. Does he have time to spend an hour or more harvesting a creature while the rest of the party is moving on? Does he have time to properly treat all the stuff he harvests? Curing and tanning hides takes a lot of time and effort and can't be done in one evening by the campfire. How does he keep stuff from rotting? If he carries around lots of body parts without some way of preserving them he's going to smell unbelivably bad. Increased chance of random encounters, penalties (eventually sickened/nauseous), his party members are likely to complain.

[Zaq]

There's a feat related to that: Trophy Collector, from PHB2. Unfortunately, the feat has some issues. First, the creature you're taking the trophy from has to be higher CR than your level (equal-level foes aren't good enough), which is weird. Second, you have to spend a really, really long time to actually make the trophies—they have a value of the critter's CR × 100 gp, and you have to use the normal Craft rules to make the trophy, which means that you're going to be spending a long time on each one. Finally, they don't even really give you a worthwhile bonus. They just give you a small bonus on saves against fear, and a +2 on Intimidate against creatures of the same type as one or more of your trophies.

I'd recommend using that feat as a guideline, but then tweaking it to make it less, well, terrible. Make the bonuses more generally applicable, make the trophies take not forever to make, and make it so that equal-level foes (or maybe even "foes that are part of an equal-level encounter") are good enough to make trophies from.

[Brookshw]

its a little gross [...] I'm not going to tell him he can't Leaving aside rules issues, if what he's doing at the table is bothering you feel free to say "no". Also there should be rules regarding using these things after removing them, no rules no benefits basically. Great, he removed the poison gland, craft poison to do anything with it etc.

[daremetoidareyo]

Offer him tidbits from the prestige class mortal hunter in the book of vile darkness. Refluff it out of evil into some sort of nature worshippy type of thing.


The rule of cool says that it should be so. As to the other poster who claimed that middle aged people didn't know about poison glands, I don't think that is a decent assessment of how industrious a carnivorous species we were. Sharp thing + dead body = body part. If they want it in particularly good shape, survival, or craft leatherworking works.

[sideswipe]

i once had an ogre who had a dire white tiger he encountered and killed, skinned and made into a cloak for him by a taxidermist, and a necklace with a jeweled skull of a young dragon around his neck. all done professionally, i think that would not be warranting a penalty to social skills.

[IslandDog]

The rule of cool says that it should be so. As to the other poster who claimed that middle aged people didn't know about poison glands, I don't think that is a decent assessment of how industrious a carnivorous species we were. Sharp thing + dead body = body part. If they want it in particularly good shape, survival, or craft leatherworking works.

Well that's actually what I meant :P. I was just saying that a warrior dwarf who hasn't been studying or farming or even hunting during his life might not be aware of them - he'd need knowledge (nature) or survival skills. Of course, I'm assuming a middle ages ish campaign, where very few people were literate and they still thought milk soured from evil spirits. Heck, washing your hands between surgeries on diseased people is a relatively new idea.

[atemu1234]

He should be making craft checks to get this stuff into usable forms. Craft (leatherworking), craft (taxidermy), craft (poisonmaking), etc.

This makes me remember a joke my forensics teacher used.

Tonight with Ed Gein on Bonecraft! (Homecraft channel joke)

[tensai_oni]

The stench of carrion attracts all sorts of unfriendly creatures. Also, massive diplomacy penalties (to him and any ally around).

Oh no, a player is trying to roleplay. Better hit him with the penalty stick.

OP, ask the player what does he want. If it's just for flavor, let him do what he wants. If he actually plans to use the trophies he collects, Craft rolls. Also the feat, but others mentioned that already.

[atemu1234]

Oh no, a player is trying to roleplay. Better hit him with the penalty stick.

OP, ask the player what does he want. If it's just for flavor, let him do what he wants. If he actually plans to use the trophies he collects, Craft rolls. Also the feat, but others mentioned that already.

It does make sense though. No one's saying he can't roleplay, just that he can't in good conscience desecrate his opponent's bodies.

Have him have an NPC bard follow him around, telling tales of his great deeds through song and dance. That'd be fun, to say the least.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Looks like the consensus is Survival/knowledge/craft checks to obtain the stuff. Pay professionals to make it useful, or develop the profession himself. If he doesn't have a means of preserving the material, it will cause stench, vermin, and possibly disease

[Blackjackg]

It's worth keeping in mind that unless he makes a profession of it (e.g., selling hides or stuffed trophies), this is a character trait that will probably burn itself out pretty quickly. Many D&D characters kill several enemies a day, and eventually he will run out of things to do with the parts. I would guess that within a few sessions he'll be tired of the idea (not to mention massively overencumbered if he doesn't have a portable hole to shove stuff in) and you can move on.

That being said, I'd say use a straight up craft or profession (furrier or tanner?) check to collect parts from dead foes. That way you have at least a basic metric to figure out how much labor it takes and how much the final product can be worth.

Generally I would agree with Tensai_Oni that players who aren't gaining mechanical benefits shouldn't be hit with mechanical penalties, but if a character is brazenly walking around displaying the body parts of humanoids, that would probably make relations with other humanoids more difficult. Maybe not a penalty to social rolls per se, but possibly a worsened starting attitude?

[Vhaidara]

It does make sense though. No one's saying he can't roleplay, just that he can't in good conscience desecrate his opponent's bodies.

Why not? He's CN. This sounds exactly like CN.

I had a fellow player who became an amalgamation of trophies. We killed multiple dire animals, so he lined his armor with dire spikes (DM eventually let me use Craft to upgrade the armor to spiked), a yrthak horn on the butt of his axe, a giant snake skull as a helmet, and some hippogrif talons on his boots

[awa]

if hes not trying to get a mechanical bonus from it let him and in my opinion unless the pcs are forced to shell out cash for new clothing every week or two let him do it for free or no more then a couple silver.

Poison is another story personally id let him use it for 1 attack at reduced dc and dam becuase it was improperly collected and stored with a chance of poisoning himself during the collection and have the poison go bad if he holds onto it to long. If he plans to sell the poison reduce the value of the poison for reason the mentioned by a substantial amount so it does not interfere with wealth by level.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Keledrath seems to be accurately describing the mannerism of the player. I'll talk to him about the craft skills and what he can do with them. And it would make sense that the poison would maybe go bad after a while, but I don't see why it would be any less effective than it was coming out of the pseudodragon's stinger.

[awa]

there are a couple of good justifications for weaker poison pick your favorite to maintain game balance
1) as the poison starts going bad it gets weaker it starts going bad almost immediately proper preservation is why it cost so much to buy
2) injecting the poison is far more effective then merely smearing it on the blade
3) with out some kinda of added agent to get it to stick to the blade most of it just slips off leaving you with just the residue and therefore a weaker poison

[Bullet06320]

Some body parts are worth more than others of course, preservation is key, tanning, curing, storing, cooking, smoking, etc, etc otherwise you end up with spoilage. That would require a skill check, craft or profession most likely, but I like the idea of survival check as a good substitute or Gentle Repose would work in the field till you got back to base camp or appropriate facilities.

hide armors, leather armor, depending on the critter and how intact the hide is
leather for equipment
skin for book binding, shark skin was traditionally used by some cultures as grips for swords or daggers
bones can be turned into tools, weapons, musical instruments or parts of
feathers for fletching, and bedding
blood and organs for medicinal, magical components, poisons as discussed already
bones and teeth for jewelry, rattles, dice
tusks can be valuable, ivory
specialty meat, a little wyvern jerky or troll kabobs anyone?

The right knowledge skills, a couple craft skills, and your muderhobos have a steady stream of extra cash flow, take leadership and a couple of your low level experts do all the dirty work for you

[ILM]

Oh no, a player is trying to roleplay. Better hit him with the penalty stick.

OP, ask the player what does he want. If it's just for flavor, let him do what he wants. If he actually plans to use the trophies he collects, Craft rolls. Also the feat, but others mentioned that already.
If he wants to look badass with bits of felled enemies all over his bloodied and banged up armor, that's great - but if all he does is randomly eviscerate monsters with zero knowledge of how to skin a pelt cleanly or extract a poison gland (is that something that comes naturally to people? Like, I kill a platypus and I automatically know how to perform a glandectomy with my two-handed axe?), and then stick dead body parts on him or in his bags, then they're going to rot, because that's how things go. And since a surprisingly small amount of people enjoy the smell of dead, rotting flesh, it's likely they won't enjoy interacting with him. Oh no, consequences!

Now if he actually rolled Survival and a token Knowledge check here and there - quick, without Wikipedia: where's the poison gland on a platypus? Yeah, didn't think so - and made an effort to handle the practical consequences of having dead body parts on him at all times, then fine, let's make him an intimidating trophy-collecting warlord. Until then, he's literally just a crazy butcher smelling like the end of the world.

also:
and loot the parts that he thinks will be useful.
I've had players like this. In my case it wasn't so much 'I wanna look cool' roleplay as 'in every encounter henceforth I'm going to list through all the crap I cut off and ask if it can help me'. "Does this hippogriff talon give me a bonus to unarmed damage?" "Uh, no." "Ok. How about this dragon scale, does it give me Fire resistance?" "Nope." "Ok. Then this Wyvern tail: how many doses of poison does it give me?" :smallsigh:

[Heliomance]

Now if he actually rolled Survival and a token Knowledge check here and there - quick, without Wikipedia: where's the poison gland on a platypus? Yeah, didn't think so

Hind legs, and only on males.

[Chd]

I'd as DM would provide the opportunity for the Dwarf Player to Learn/Rank Up in Survival through Training.

Have the Party help a Hunter/Skinner back to town, and he rewards each of the party with training of their choice of Survival, Profession: Hunter, or Craft: Poison.

As a Player, I once created a Half-Orc Shaman, and made bone weapons, hide and bone armor, and other grizzly trophies that were used for the sole purpose of making NPC's sick with Dread.

One week he was wielding the legs he ripped off a still-screaming victim as flails, and proceeded to 'skin' (poorly) the fallen. The next week, he used those skins to make a flag at the entrance to the victim's home fort.

Admittedly, this was an all-evil campaign, but the point remains. If it's a quirk that you are finding a break-in-immersion, patch it up!

[Harlot]

I see no reason at all to stop him from doing this.
But tell him, that regardless of what he collects, its just for looks and flavor, so no bonus to AC for the hide/scales etc. So if he pays someone to craft him an armor from the Grick skin, tell him it looks really awesome but it is still just a leather armor.

And as stated elsewhere, in some situations possibly a penalty on diplomacy checks, but this should not be in genearal, just if they're somewhere where this armor (or the chain of bug-bear ears around his neck) might offend people

I'd even let him harvest the poison if possible using Knowledge Nature (to know where the gland is) Survival (to remove it) and Craft (Poisons) to handle it. All three checks would have to succeed. So if he seriously wants this behavior to be a trademark of sorts, he has to place ranks in these skills.

Also, in another thread someone informed me that BoVD has a list of body part prices, though they are fairly low (silver and coppers). So he could sell of the unwanted bodyparts as they travel, if he finds them useless or is encumbered.

Let him have fun with it.

[Curmudgeon]

My oldest D&D character, converted up from 2nd edition AD&D, doesn't collect body parts — but he does dissect bodies to study their anatomies and thus discern vital areas to attack. In other words, I roleplay the mechanics of how sneak attack works.

I suggest you play along. As others have noted, toting around bits of rotting flesh will have downsides. If a player wants their character to interact with your world, you're there to play everything other than PCs.

[Killer Angel]

The Title says it all. A dwarven fighter of mine, chaotic neutral, likes to pour over the bodies of his fallen enemies and loot the parts that he thinks will be useful. Its pretty smart, and while its a little gross, he justifies it in the way that American Indians used every part of their hunt.

not a big problem, 'til he applies this practice only to what we can recognize as a "standard" body-part trophy. I hope it will not start to skin dead drows, or similar... :smallwink:

[StreamOfTheSky]

There's a feat related to that: Trophy Collector, from PHB2. Unfortunately, the feat has some issues. First, the creature you're taking the trophy from has to be higher CR than your level (equal-level foes aren't good enough), which is weird. Second, you have to spend a really, really long time to actually make the trophies—they have a value of the critter's CR × 100 gp, and you have to use the normal Craft rules to make the trophy, which means that you're going to be spending a long time on each one. Finally, they don't even really give you a worthwhile bonus. They just give you a small bonus on saves against fear, and a +2 on Intimidate against creatures of the same type as one or more of your trophies.

I'd recommend using that feat as a guideline, but then tweaking it to make it less, well, terrible. Make the bonuses more generally applicable, make the trophies take not forever to make, and make it so that equal-level foes (or maybe even "foes that are part of an equal-level encounter") are good enough to make trophies from.

Dragon Compendium v.1 had a much better albeit much more circumstantial "trophy" style feat. It was called "Heads Up." It let you take the severed head of a creature with a gaze attack and use it yourself up to 3 times (per head) in the next 24 hours.

Never took it, always have appreciated it for existing, though.

[chihawk]

If he's not claiming any bonuses from it I can't think of a legitimate issue he shouldn't be able to. He's there to have fun too, so why not let him? If you think it's getting out of hand, use it as an adventure hook and he'll likely eventually reduce doing it on his own.

If he wants some sort of gain for his character by doing it then there's already well established guidelines for him to follow.