Valuable Body Part harvesting farm

[Jowgen]

It has occured to me that there are quite a few creatures out there that have valueable body parts, and that hunting them down to get them isn't really efficient. It would be far more efficient to capture them and then keep taking the valuable body parts while providing means of having them grow back. A Dukar Hand Coral (CoV), for example, would be a cheap option.

There are creatures that serve as the basis for Grafts, a few odd metamagic/power components, weapon special materials... there is a lot of stuff spread over a lot of resources.

So, if you were to set up this sort of (likely super evil) harvesting farm, how would you go about doing so and what "samples" would you collect for your farm?

[Jowgen]

No takers? :smallconfused:

[ExLibrisMortis]

I suppose that ideally, you would use a single creature, an at-will regenerate power (with Rapid Spell applied), and a way to keep its wisdom score at zero (unconscious, willing - after a few amputations, the creature may become unwilling to accept regenerate spells). Alternatively, you may be able to use a creature with natural regeneration, but that usually takes a lot longer (minutes, for a limb). Rapid regenerate takes one full round to cast, so a resetting guillotine trap plus a resetting rapid regenerate trap will produce 14.400 beholder eyestalks (or whatever) per day. Most likely, you should combine this with harvesting liquid pain, although unconsciousness may interfere with that.

[Inevitability]

Monstrous Regeneration does about the same as Regenerate but is only 5th-level.

Interesting body parts may be dragonhide (druids in particular will be interested) or a rust monster's antennae. The head of a creature with a gaze attack covered in Unguent of Timelessness can be very useful for people with the Heads Up feat (perhaps offer a free Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle for buyers?).

[Vereshti]

Obligatory OOTS link: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0326.html

Now I want some good barbeque.

[Jowgen]

Okay, so keep one of the mental ability scores at 0 to ensure willingness, and use Monstrous Regernation or something similar to regrow the body parts.

For body parts so far we have dragon hide and eye stalks.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I've looked at the spell description for regenerate and monstrous regeneration, and it turns out that both take quite a while to regrow wholly new body parts: 2d10 rounds for regenerate, presumably 3d6 minutes for monstrous regeneration, as per the troll ability. I thought regenerate worked entirely within its three-round casting time, being instantaneous and all, but it doesn't. Interestingly, this means you can regrow body parts within an antimagic field, provided the spell was cast outside, but it also means my earlier estimate of 14.400 eyestalks per day is too high :smallfrown:.

If you can cut ten stalks per beholder per 2d10+1 rounds (one round for casting), you still get about 5/6th of a stalk per round, or 12.000 per day. You really, really don't want to be that beholder, though.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

To make this even easier, double-polymorph any object on a rock to make your own monsters. If one dies, just double-PAO on the corpse to turn it into a living creature again.


If you can cut ten stalks per beholder per 2d10+1 rounds (one round for casting), you still get about 5/6th of a stalk per round, or 12.000 per day. You really, really don't want to be that beholder, though....I'm pretty sure you can get more than 12 per day.

[DirePorkChop]

There are so many things to harvest:

Unicorn Hair/ Blood/ Horn if given willingly

Poisons/ Ravages

Rare animal hides

If using the rules out of UA for spell materials there is a bunch

I know BoVD definitely has some things you can harvest, but I do not have my books right now, and I think most of those things come from intelligent creatures

[almondsAndRain]

...I'm pretty sure you can get more than 12 per day.

ExLibrisMortis probably meant twelve-thousand. A lot of countries use periods in place of commas when writing out numbers with four or more digits.

[ExLibrisMortis]

...I'm pretty sure you can get more than 12 per day.
Like regular people, I use the 10.000,00 number format. You strange English-speaking folks insist on using non-standard marks, but not me!

It's actually pretty interesting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark). Apparently, the comma as decimal separator is the ISO standard, but the space is for digit grouping, ergo, that should properly be 12 000,00 stalks per day.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/DecimalSeparator.svg/940px-DecimalSeparator.svg.png

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Given that more people live in just a small portion of the blue in Eastern Asia than live in the entire world outside of it, and about half the rest of the world is also in blue, that means the vast majority actually use the period-as-decimal standard.

http://i.imgur.com/CK6aONG.jpg

So take that, you weirdo. :smalltongue:

[Gildedragon]

Or keep them conscious, put some nippleclamps of masochism on them, and get some ambrosia out of the process... Yeah you might leave your donor with some odd fetishes afterwards though.

[Inevitability]

Giant fire beetle glands are harvestable body parts, and a single Unguent of Timelessness can cover eight, meaning you can sell them at 25 GP a piece and make 6.25 GP with each one you sell.

The unguent-covered glands may actually be popular: they're nonmagical alternatives to Everburning Torches that lack the ET's illumination radius and duration, but are cheaper and harder to extinguish.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Enter talks with a shaper psion to purchase quintessence by the ounce at a discount. Normally, discounts don't work on spellcasting-type services, but psions are fairly limited on powers known, so you might be able to swing reduced prices in exchange for steady (and quite lucrative) income. Use the quintessence to preserve any parts you don't have immediate use for by coating a large container that you then store the parts in. You won't have to scrape nearly as much off, as the majority of the container won't need scraped in order to retrieve the parts -- you just open the hinge on the lid.

Alternatively, purchase two fast-time demiplanes created by arcane genesis. One of the demiplanes in question has large ponds filled with quintessence from portals to the second plane which is made from the quintessence. Harvest the ponds as you need them, and since they're fast-time, the second plane should produce the stuff much faster than you can use it.

[Honest Tiefling]

You could also go the diplomancer route. I mean, there has to be some magical creature down on its luck who wouldn't mind a painless procedure in exchange for gold. Tell a Unicorn that you'll donate its share to an orphanage or something, and that by donating, it is potentially saving lives. That'll impress the virgins!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You could also go the diplomancer route. I mean, there has to be some magical creature down on its luck who wouldn't mind a painless procedure in exchange for gold. Tell a Unicorn that you'll donate its share to an orphanage or something, and that by donating, it is potentially saving lives. That'll impress the virgins!You could also offer to use regenerate on one that's already damaged, but in order for it to work, you'll need to cut the offending damaged limb off, so you agree to a magically binding contract to put the critter under using a spell to put it to sleep, perform the surgery, and cast regenerate. Your price is that you get to use what you remove as you desire, so long as it won't hurt anyone else (assuming the critter cares about that sort of thing). And since you're selling to someone else, you're not hurting anyone.

Just don't tell the critter (and make sure the contract is somewhat vague on certain details) that you plan on harvesting more than just the one damaged part. Definitely uphold your end of the deal, and since the critter is under, AND it will waken undamaged and not in pain, it'll be none the wiser, and it won't demand further payment for what you took. It's not losing anything, after all, and you DID keep your end of the bargain. Underhanded? Maybe a little. But it's not hurting anyone. Not exactly, anyway.

"Hey, do you know anyone else who needs help regenerating something that was damaged? Tell your friends!"