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Sir Daniel
2016-10-19, 12:30 PM
So, in a adventure I'm running, at the end, is a young dragon boss fight. The people I play with are all smart, and given enough time, I'm sure that they could harvest these super durable dragon scales and turn them into armor. How do I stop this?

ComradeBear
2016-10-19, 12:42 PM
You either don't have a dragon, express that the total weight of a full dragon hide is insanely heavy, that dragon scales are not much bigger than Lizard scales and so they're gonna take several days to harvest them all, etc.
You could also mention that providing the materials does reduce the cost for dragonscale armor, but it's still crazy expensive.


But in the end, know that players are agents of chaos. They will do crazy things and destroy everything you worked for. It's their job.
So if you don't want them to figure out a way to benefit from Dragon Parts, don't use a dragon. Otherwise they can probably figure something out.

LibraryOgre
2016-10-19, 12:44 PM
"If dragons don't want to be killed, why are they made out of loot?"

Beyond that, though, why prevent them from doing so? Make it a time/money sink. Or, if you're determined, have another dragon, a larger dragon, come and claim the body. Dragons have a ritual about death, you see, and while the older dragon isn't necessarily going to fight the characters, nor is she going to let them desecrate the body of a young dragon to wear.

kyoryu
2016-10-19, 12:48 PM
I see three basic strategies, with tons of variations:

1) Transportation: How do you get the dragon bits from point A to point B without damaging or destroying them?

2) Knowledge: Who knows how to take dragon bits and turn them into treasure?

3) Notoriety: Dragon bits are useful, and many people will want them and attempt to acquire them.

icefractal
2016-10-19, 12:57 PM
First off, why do you want to prevent this? Dragon-scale armor is pretty classic. And it varies from game to game, but dragon-scale armor is not usually overwhelmingly powerful - it's just masterwork armor with a small amount of energy resistance in 3E, for example.

However, if you do want to prevent it, you can just change how dragons work in your campaign - who says they have to leave a useful corpse? Depending on how you feel about the natural-ness of dragons, they could:
A) Melt into horrible toxic arcane sludge, which poisons the land where it falls for a generation.
B) Turn into a natural feature - a green dragon might sprout into impossibly fast-growing forest, a red one might cause a hot spring or a small lava fissure where it falls, etc.
C) Something else that doesn't leave a body around.

Peelee
2016-10-19, 01:00 PM
In addition to what other people said....

Cows are covered in leather. That doesn't mean I could skin a dead cow, travel a few days to a town, and get some leather armor made. Stuff needs to be cured, tanned, processed in some ways. Soon as the cow dies, its materials start to deteriorate. People have processes to slow or stop that.

Why would dragon scales be different? Does someone in the party know how to preserve them? Anyone with skill ranks in any sort of armor or smithing profession? Anyone with skill ranks in survival? They may be able to get scales, but will the scales last long enough to get the armor made?

JeenLeen
2016-10-19, 01:06 PM
With respect to some earlier questions, in the game you are playing, how is dragonhide armor compared to others?

Regardless of the answer, I think some of the above are good answers. The most 'in-game' to me feels like saying it takes special prep soon after death for the scales to be salvagable. But also, if this would be an issue for balance and such, I recommend telling the players out-of-game that you are concerned about how it would make it hard to balance encounters with this armor boost, so please don't try to work around it. Maybe all they can do is sell the dragonhide for some extra gold or favors.

You might need to be direct (kind, but direct) out-of-game for some players to realize what the in-game things hint at. Also, if they understand why you don't want it to happen, I would think most would understand and relate.

Kantaki
2016-10-19, 01:15 PM
Simple. Dragons -„real” dragons, not overgrown lizards -don’t leave much of a body under normal circumstances.

The reason for that is that the species primarily feeds on magic- that is the main reason they collect gold by the way. As a conduit for magical energies. Because of this a good part of their body consists actually of the magic they feed on.
And when they die and their soul/will/however you call it that held the whole mess together vanishes the magic energy flows back into the surrounding area.

Most „dragon remains” on display or used in equipment would be either replicas or come from other sources.
If you really want to use the body parts of a proper dragon you would need to undertake highly specific- and expensive -preparations.

The Glyphstone
2016-10-19, 01:24 PM
Alternatively...is it a problem? You've left the edition unspecified, but in 3.5, there were strict limits on how much dragonhide armor one corpse could make. If it's a Large dragon, they can make one single suit of hide armor from its remains. Unless 4E or 5E has more generous allowances, just use that guideline, and I can't imagine one suit of hide armor will break your game.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialMaterials.htm#dragonhide

Strigon
2016-10-19, 01:27 PM
My recommendation is to let them do it.
Letting your players do what they want (within reason) is one way to make them enjoy playing at your table; it's just a matter of balancing. If you want, you can make the dragon very hard to kill, then make its corpse valuable and easy to exploit - they beat a boss, give them something nice. Alternatively, you can make the dragon a fair fight, and simply make its corpse difficult to exploit; most dragons are associated with fire or another element. Maybe their blood is actually lava, or something. If it's one of the acid-breathing dragons, make it a xenomorph. They're magical creatures; get creative.
Finally, you can make their loot not that great. Personally, I'd avoid this, but maybe dragonscale armour is just like regular armour but lighter; stuff like that.

However, since you asked how to stop them? Make the dragon tough; by the time they bring it down, the scales/bones/teeth/whatever are all ruined; it takes a skilled dragon slayer to kill such a beast and leave its valuables intact.

Knitifine
2016-10-19, 01:40 PM
Gonna echo everyone else; why is this a problem?

oudeis
2016-10-19, 02:05 PM
So, in a adventure I'm running, at the end, is a young dragon boss fight. The people I play with are all smart, and given enough time, I'm sure that they could harvest these super durable dragon scales and turn them into armor. How do I stop this?I'm with the others on this: it isn't at all clear why this is such a problem. However, it's your game and you can make whatever rules you wish. I try to use in-game lore and mechanics for solutions rather than arbitary or capricious restrictions or gross fiat, so here are some things you could try in that spirit:

Dragons are intelligent creatures, and making clothing from the corpse a la 'Buffalo Bill' from Silence of the Lambs would lead to widespread revulsion, condemnation, and ostracism from civilized society. This is of course aside from the immediate and unrelenting vendetta that will be pursued by every dragon of any color against any who dared do such a thing.
When a dragon dies, the body consumes itself spectacularly as the magic that kept the embodied elemental forces at bay vanishes: fire-breathers erupt in explosive conflagration, gas-breathers are dissolved by their own corrosive vapor, lightning-breathers are obliterated by massive thunderous discharges of electricity that arc repeatedly from head to tail and back again, etc.
In a similar vein, perhaps the skin is charged with the residual magic of the dragon, subjecting the wearer to constant low-grade thermal/electrical/chemical attacks. Is the extra protection worth the chronic skin blistering?
Dragon skin is heavy. Wearing the equivalent of a modern bomb-disposal suit might make you effectively invulnerable from battlefield threats but you won't be able to do much more than walk slowly.
Dragon scales are hard but extremely brittle, like ceramic plates. Dragons are constantly shedding and regrowing them but the players will need to replace broken scales after every fight or lose any armor benefit.

cobaltstarfire
2016-10-19, 02:35 PM
It's a young dragon, maybe the hide/scales simply aren't thick/big enough to be usable, or there are only so many scales of the right size/shape/quality and probably not nearly enough to make armor from.

veti
2016-10-19, 03:25 PM
I would go with "crafting armour from dragonhide is a complex and skilled job. The nearest blacksmith capable of such a feat is about 800 miles thataway, and for some reason his time is in very high demand, so good luck getting anything out of him this side of next winter. Of course you could learn the craft yourself, but you'll have to get the same guy to teach you, and that will take even longer. Or you could try to learn by trial and error, but the operative word there is 'error' and without so much as a pattern to go on, I would expect you to ruin several dozen dragon hides before you get it right."

PrincessCupcake
2016-10-19, 04:03 PM
Well, it takes a Large dragon minimum to create a set of armor from the hide. and a Young dragon is only medium sized. Unless the party includes a gnome/halfling/goblin/ratfolk/other small sized character, they won't be able to create a useable set of armor out of it.
and if you're going with Pathfinder, harvesting useful materials from a dragon and creating something with them requires a feat and quite a few skill ranks. "don't have the feat? okay you cut up the dragon corpse but standard methods of preserving the parts are ineffective."

I'm not sure why this is an issue in a standard campaign, but there you have some ways.

(although the previous suggestion of a dragon corpse melting/exploding/transforming into some natural wonder is actually pretty cool.)

AnBe
2016-10-19, 05:44 PM
You could always make it a scale-less dragon, you know, have it be like a naked albino dragon or something? Then there are no scales to worry about, but the young dragon might lose his/her natural armor (if any).

Koo Rehtorb
2016-10-19, 06:32 PM
Why is this a bad thing? D&D is about fighting monsters and getting loot. Dragon scale armour out of a slain dragon sounds perfectly fine to me.

It's within your rights to make an adventure out of harvesting the stuff, getting it back to town, and turning it into armour, though.

RazorChain
2016-10-19, 10:45 PM
Let the dragon kill the PC's.


Then the dragon can make an armor out of them.

Problem solved.

Lord Torath
2016-10-19, 10:45 PM
In 2E AD&D, armor made from dragon hide weighed about 30 lbs (for human-sized suits), was flexible, had no innate magical properties from the dragon it came from, cost about 5 grand to make, and provided an AC four points worse than the dragon it came from. A young dragon would have a base AC roughly equivalent to platemail, or maybe full plate, which means the armor made from its scales would be somewhere between Leather and Chainmail. Not really worth the 5 grand it costs to make it. Full Plate cost 4,000 - 10,000 gold, so until your dragon had armor 4 points better than that, you were generally better off with mundane armor (unless you were a thief, bard, or ranger).

How disruptive will it be if your PCs get access to 1 suit of expensive dragonscale that's about as effective as Platemail?

In Xanth, dragon steaks are considered a delicacy (although more dragons ate people than people ate dragons). How bad is it for the body of the dragon to be considered part of the treasure?

Inevitability
2016-10-19, 11:06 PM
If you're set on stopping your PC's but don't want it to seem forced, I suggest the 3.5 Final Strike feat. Almost all dragons have an elemental subtype, so they qualify, and one of its side benefits is explosion upon death.

If your game is 4e or 5e, there's no rules for creating dragonhide armor anyway, so you can rule as you want.

Pauly
2016-10-20, 04:01 AM
You can always use the solution from The Hobbit.
Dragon falls into deep water, and warring armies turn up to dispute the spoils of the dragon hoard.

Corsair14
2016-10-20, 07:35 AM
In addition to everything above, your average PC even with a smithing or leatherworking skill would have very little clue on how to deal with dragon scale and more likely than not would destroy it in the attempt. Even if miraculously they succeeded, the most they would get out of a young dragon is a cool looking suit of leather armor.

Actually if your PCs were thinking dragon scale they are thinking really small. In old editions dragon blood by itself was worth far more to alchemists than the scales were along with the bones. I remember years back we killed a dragon, red I think, and sat there dumping potion bottles to collect as much as we could and made a pretty mint at multiple alchemy shops.

I have never heard of this need treasure for magic conduit thing before in 30+ years of gaming. Is this some kind of retcon of established fluff from the newest monstrous manual or 4ed's? Used to be it was all about dragon greed and even good dragons had it. Some dragons, greyhawk dragons if I remember right, lived in cities and didn't have a horde of treasure but instead had palatial homes and stuff. I know they screwed up my favorite dragon in the newest book, the Shadow Dragon which is supposed to be a race of underdark dragons closely connected to the plane of shadow, not some silly changed surface dragon. So I will be ignoring that entry when I inevitably add one to my campaign.

Jay R
2016-10-20, 08:38 AM
If they don't have Craft(Tanning) or Profession (Tanner) or some such, then they won't know how to preserve the scales. The scales will be stinking within a day or two, and worthless not much later.

My recommendation is that by the time they get back to town, most but not all of the hide and/or scales are ruined, so that they get enough to make their own armor or other cool thing, but none left over to sell. Give them the cool part (wearing dragon scales) without the absurdly exploitative part (making lots of money).

Cernor
2016-10-20, 09:02 AM
When my party finally killed a dragon and decided to make its hide into armour, we ended up having to go to a major city (Waterdeep in FR, which was a multiple-hundred-mile journey), give up most of our wealth we'd gathered to date (including its hoard), and wait about a month for the crafting process to be complete.

What I've found is that if you're giving out enough loot to keep players happy, they'll generally only take trophies, rather than taking everything they can sell. What adventurer doesn't want some dragon horns to hang on the wall of their tavern after they retire?

Telonius
2016-10-20, 09:11 AM
I encourage it. (And I'll use the opportunity to link to one of my favorite villains (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya7mwQYeICQ)).

Grac
2016-10-20, 09:16 AM
Gonna have to go with everyone else, asking why it's a problem. If you don't want the PCs to have an item, don't put it in the game. Don't want them to get access to a magical instrument that casts charm Monster at will? Don't give it to *anyone* in the game, in case they somehow get it. Especially don't give it to some fey demigod that challenges the party bard to a performance. Don't want them to get Dragon scale armour? Don't put Dragon scales in the game.

Professor Chimp
2016-10-20, 09:32 AM
If they don't have Craft(Tanning) or Profession (Tanner) or some such, then they won't know how to preserve the scales. The scales will be stinking within a day or two, and worthless not much later.Unless they have a lv3+ Cleric with them. They'd be able to preserve the remains with Gentle Repose. Near as I can tell, there's nothing in RAW to prevent them from casting it again when the first is about to run out, effectively delaying the decay indefinitely.

Anyway, I agree with many here to just allow the PCs to harvest the scales, but having it require some forethough on how to preserve them and specialized skills to properly turn them into armor. Skills the PCs more than likely don't have, so they'd need to find someone who does while keeping the remains from spoiling. You could use that as a hook for a small quest.

Vinyadan
2016-10-20, 01:41 PM
In addition to what other people said....

Cows are covered in leather. That doesn't mean I could skin a dead cow, travel a few days to a town, and get some leather armor made. Stuff needs to be cured, tanned, processed in some ways. Soon as the cow dies, its materials start to deteriorate. People have processes to slow or stop that.

Why would dragon scales be different? Does someone in the party know how to preserve them? Anyone with skill ranks in any sort of armor or smithing profession? Anyone with skill ranks in survival? They may be able to get scales, but will the scales last long enough to get the armor made?

In theory, you can just take away the inner fat layer with a pincer or a small knife and put the pelt into salt, leaving the rest of the elaboration to when you have the needed material or have more skins to work on. In practice, unless the PCs walk around with, I don't know, 50 kg of salt, there is no way they could carry around that stuff for various days and keep it workable, it's, like, 20-50% of the pelt weight in salt. Gentle repose or similar could do the trick, however, if they think about it. Option 2 is keeping it frozen. Option 3 is somehow simply taking the water out of the pelt (a drying spell?).

The best thing is just to make the stats of the dragonloot acceptable for the power level of your campaign. After all, it is a young dragon.

Sir Daniel
2016-10-20, 04:57 PM
Thank you for the feedback. The reason that I was worried about this is that I overestimated the properties of dragonscale armor. Maybe I'll say that the scales aren't hard enough to make armor, and there isn't that much, but you can make a masterwork shield that's immune to acid (its a young black dragon) out of the hide and some of the scales. Or boots.

Strigon
2016-10-20, 05:27 PM
Thank you for the feedback. The reason that I was worried about this is that I overestimated the properties of dragonscale armor. Maybe I'll say that the scales aren't hard enough to make armor, and there isn't that much, but you can make a masterwork shield that's immune to acid (its a young black dragon) out of the hide and some of the scales. Or boots.

Sure; heck, you can even leave the door open for more powerful armour if you want, and just say its scales aren't fully developed as it's too young. Say they're still somewhat soft, and you prevent them from getting it now, but you also avoid closing the door on dragonscale armour in the future!

thirdkingdom
2016-10-20, 06:01 PM
So, in a adventure I'm running, at the end, is a young dragon boss fight. The people I play with are all smart, and given enough time, I'm sure that they could harvest these super durable dragon scales and turn them into armor. How do I stop this?

Er, why would you want to stop them from doing this?

Quertus
2016-10-20, 07:59 PM
Almost everything I'd say has been said.

Most everyone has asked why you'd try to stop this. Even in 2e D&D, where Dragon hide armor was arguably the pinnacle of defensive materials, this young dragon's scales wouldn't upset game balance. If it was a serious problem, I'd say Final Strike, or ask if they have the skills (but Gentle Repose is one of my favorite spells...).

That brings up an alternative that hasn't been mentioned: the dragon might serve better as an undead than as armor.

However, if the players feel arbitrarily limited, expect them to remove those limitations on the next dragon. Yes, the next one. Expect them right subdue it, cast regeneration, and keep skinning it over and over until they've wallpapered their cattle in dragon hide, and are using it as toilet paper. Heck, they might not be satisfied until they've turned Tiamat into a tea cozie.

But, more importantly,


In 2E AD&D, armor made from dragon hide weighed about 30 lbs (for human-sized suits), was flexible, had no innate magical properties from the dragon it came from, cost about 5 grand to make, and provided an AC four points worse than the dragon it came from.

Where did that rule live?

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-20, 09:10 PM
So, in a adventure I'm running, at the end, is a young dragon boss fight. The people I play with are all smart, and given enough time, I'm sure that they could harvest these super durable dragon scales and turn them into armor. How do I stop this?
The simplest answer would be to include the corpse of the dragon in the calculated horde size. (E.g, chop out 5,000 gp of gems to account for a 5,000 gp suit of dragonmail.)
Or you could just have them fight something other than dragons with harvestable hides. There are plenty of possibilities—smaller (younger) dragons, dracoliches, dragon ghosts, exotic dragons, dragons maddened by reptilian mange, anything that isn't a dragon...


Let the dragon kill the PC's.
Then the dragon can make an armor out of them.
Problem solved.
I know someone who tried that. (Friend of a friend. Well, acquaintance of a friend, really.) He was the insane kind of CE, in case you couldn't guess. He got himself killed before making more than an elvenhide helm (which, incidentally, didn't do much to stop the mace which smashed open his skull).


I encourage it. (And I'll use the opportunity to link to one of my favorite villains (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya7mwQYeICQ)).
I'm not sure where he gets all of those sickening ideas. (Some of them are just silly. If dragon liver cured colds, we wouldn't have rhinoviruses, now would we? And how does he intend to harvest tears from the dragon if he's harvested its fat and blood and nose?) I swear, next thing you know he'd talk about cutting off our horns for use as aphrodasiacs.

Blue Duke
2016-10-20, 11:02 PM
I second any opinion that is more then just 'make it go away'. arbitrarily taking away something that -should- be a reward for finishing a fight takes away a lot of the fun. if they can properly gather the materials its not going to be cheap to get dragon hide/dragon bone stuff made and it wont be QUICK, make sure they know both those things rather then just saying 'aaaaaand the corpse melts'.

Anderlith
2016-10-20, 11:09 PM
Just go with the downtime activities section. Reduce the cost but keep the time limit.

Mutazoia
2016-10-21, 12:44 AM
What weapons are your PC's using to kill the dragon? A young dragon won't have a whole lot of surface area to begin with. After being hacked, slashed, perforated with arrows, and blasted with magical energies various and sundry, there may not be enough intact scales to make anything useful.

thirdkingdom
2016-10-21, 06:43 AM
What weapons are your PC's using to kill the dragon? A young dragon won't have a whole lot of surface area to begin with. After being hacked, slashed, perforated with arrows, and blasted with magical energies various and sundry, there may not be enough intact scales to make anything useful.

It's for a game called Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS, which is a retroclone of the old D&D Basic/Expert sets), but there's a supplement coming out soon called Lairs and Encounters (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/lairs-and-encounters) that spends a fair amount of space dealing with exactly these questions: how much are the body parts of various monsters worth, how long does it take to harvest them, what sort of expertise is needed to harvest them and how does combat damage affect the value.

Lord Torath
2016-10-21, 07:32 AM
But, more importantly,
<Snip summary of 2E AD&D rule on dragonhide armor>
Where did that rule live?
Page 63 of the Monstrous Manual, 1st Printing, under Dragon, General, 2nd Column:

Dragon Hide: Dragon skin is prized by armorers with the skill to turn it into shields and armor, valuable because of its appearance and the protection it affords. Dragon armor grants its wearer an Armor Class of 4 less than the Armor Class of the dragon it was taken from, for a minimum Armor Class of 8. For example, armor from a juvenile brass dragon (AC 0) grants its wearer AC 4. Dragon armor is supple and non-bulky, weighing only 25 pounds.

The scales of gem dragons take on properties of actual gems; they are faceted and reflect light. They are slightly more brittle than those of other dragons, so armor made from them requires repair more often.

Dragon armor affords no extra protection, such as resistance to fire or cold, although the armor can be enchanted to provide such protection. A dragon's resistance to certain elements is based on its total makeup, not just its skin. Plain dragon armor is expensive to make, costing 1,000 - 10,000 gp, based on the workmanship and protection the armor affords. Dragon skin armor can be enchanted, just as other forms of armor can, to a maximum of +5.

Dragon shields also offer no additional protection. They are made of stretched hide over a wooden frame. Such shields weigh 3 pounds (if small) or 8 pounds (if large) and cost 20-120 or 30-180 gold pieces.Looks like I was off a bit on the weight. As an interesting side note, there are no rules for how often your armor needs to be repaired, so the bit about gem dragonhide armor needing more repair is kind of meaningless.

Also, 2E dragons got huge. An adult white dragon has a body 41-50 feet long with a 36-45 foot tail, and an adult red dragon had a body 80-99 feet long and a tail 68-87 feet long. A white great wyrm (oldest age category) was 95-104 feet in the body, and 85-94 feet in the tail, while a red was 174-183 feet and 162-171 feet in the body and tail respectively. And the Red Great Wyrm had an AC of -11 (equivalent to 31, I believe, in later editions), so you could get a LOT of really good armor from one. A radiant dragon could get up to 1400 feet long with an AC of -7.

Quertus
2016-10-21, 07:53 AM
Page 63 of the Monstrous Manual, 1st Printing, under Dragon, General, 2nd Column:

Thanks!


while a red was 174-183 feet and 162-171 feet in the body and tail respectively. And the Red Great Wyrm had an AC of -11 (equivalent to 31, I believe, in later editions), so you could get a LOT of really good armor from one.

Get it enchanted up to +5, and we're talking 22 points of armor bonus to AC for the entire party town. :smalltongue:

Lord Torath
2016-10-21, 10:21 AM
Get it enchanted up to +5, and we're talking 22 points of armor bonus to AC for the entire party town. :smalltongue:And maybe you can throw in another +5 vs missiles. :smallamused:

Also, they are supposed to have a wingspan equal to their body length.

shadow_archmagi
2016-10-21, 10:51 AM
In theory, you can just take away the inner fat layer with a pincer or a small knife and put the pelt into salt, leaving the rest of the elaboration to when you have the needed material or have more skins to work on. In practice, unless the PCs walk around with, I don't know, 50 kg of salt, there is no way they could carry around that stuff for various days and keep it workable, it's, like, 20-50% of the pelt weight in salt. Gentle repose or similar could do the trick, however, if they think about it. Option 2 is keeping it frozen. Option 3 is somehow simply taking the water out of the pelt (a drying spell?).

The best thing is just to make the stats of the dragonloot acceptable for the power level of your campaign. After all, it is a young dragon.

I mean, *my* PCs carry a dragon's weight in salt everywhere, but that's because I'm running ACKS and that's just a general consequence of the system.


Thank you for the feedback. The reason that I was worried about this is that I overestimated the properties of dragonscale armor. Maybe I'll say that the scales aren't hard enough to make armor, and there isn't that much, but you can make a masterwork shield that's immune to acid (its a young black dragon) out of the hide and some of the scales. Or boots.

Acid-proof boots all around seems reasonable to me. Make sure to throw a room full of ankle-deep acid into the next dungeon. Also, make sure to include an acid-spitting monster, and to say "yes" when the party monk asks to kick its spit back.


It's for a game called Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS, which is a retroclone of the old D&D Basic/Expert sets), but there's a supplement coming out soon called Lairs and Encounters (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/lairs-and-encounters) that spends a fair amount of space dealing with exactly these questions: how much are the body parts of various monsters worth, how long does it take to harvest them, what sort of expertise is needed to harvest them and how does combat damage affect the value.

OH HEY THERE. FANCY SEEING YOU ON THESE BOARDS. #ACKS4LYFE

thirdkingdom
2016-10-21, 01:55 PM
OH HEY THERE. FANCY SEEING YOU ON THESE BOARDS. #ACKS4LYFE

Hey yourself! I've done a quick search of the Autarch boards, but it seems like no one has addressed making dragonhide armor; obviously, it's pretty easy to extrapolate using the hide as a precious component to making magical armor, but there doesn't seem to be any discussion about using the hide to create masterwork or quality armor.

Corsair14
2016-10-21, 03:04 PM
Actually armor damage is not meaningless. I actually make my characters repair their armor in between adventures at a gp per AC for light and medium and 2gp per ac for heavy. If no one has actually blacksmithing or leatherworking skills they have to find a smith who can do it that charges double. Failure to do so drops the AC by a point for each fight after the adventure. If ac ever drops to zero it is destroyed. I do armored martial arts full contact, armor breaks a lot in fights and even the best armor needs new rivets and straps which cost money.

Whyrocknodie
2016-10-21, 05:16 PM
I'd just say the resulting scales counted as leather. Nothing terribly special about it, except the colour.

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-21, 08:39 PM
Actually armor damage is not meaningless. I actually make my characters repair their armor in between adventures at a gp per AC for light and medium and 2gp per ac for heavy. If no one has actually blacksmithing or leatherworking skills they have to find a smith who can do it that charges double. Failure to do so drops the AC by a point for each fight after the adventure. If ac ever drops to zero it is destroyed. I do armored martial arts full contact, armor breaks a lot in fights and even the best armor needs new rivets and straps which cost money.
That's what is known as a "house rule," which is not in the rulebooks. For anyone who plays without such a house rule, rules on armor repair taking longer or not as long are meaningless—and those who do houserule it can add more houserules about it themselves.

LibraryOgre
2016-10-22, 07:22 AM
That's what is known as a "house rule," which is not in the rulebooks. For anyone who plays without such a house rule, rules on armor repair taking longer or not as long are meaningless—and those who do houserule it can add more houserules about it themselves.

Complete Fighter's Handbook did have some explicit rules about armor damage, and was contemporary to the Monstrous Manual and its talk of armor damage.

Telok
2016-10-22, 03:38 PM
Well there is one pretty good option.

How would a powerful elven wizard react to seeing a bunch of orc adventurers walking into town wearing elf-baby armor?

Tiktik Ironclaw
2016-10-22, 03:48 PM
Yeah, this does seem like a non-issue in terms of wealth. As for moral compunction, I'd rather not open this can of wyrms, but your PCs will essentially be killing a child. And taking its skin. Peaceful negotiations, anybody?

Lord Torath
2016-10-24, 11:20 AM
Complete Fighter's Handbook did have some explicit rules about armor damage, and was contemporary to the Monstrous Manual and its talk of armor damage.Huh. I've got that book, and I don't remember seeing rules for armor damage. :smallredface: Guess I'll have to give it another look. Thanks for pointing that out! :smallsmile:

Vinyadan
2016-10-24, 11:28 AM
Another option for solving the problem is "exploding dragons": in this setting, all dragons see their bodily remains violently disappear in a gust of their element the moment they die. The same happens if you cut away a piece of a living dragon to that piece.

LibraryOgre
2016-10-24, 01:48 PM
Huh. I've got that book, and I don't remember seeing rules for armor damage. :smallredface: Guess I'll have to give it another look. Thanks for pointing that out! :smallsmile:

Page 112, according to the TOC.

Pugwampy
2016-10-24, 06:33 PM
Who cares if they build an acid immune shield .

How many acid spitters are going to be tossed their way during your campaign ?

Kish
2016-10-24, 06:35 PM
Eat 'em.

Oh, the question isn't how dragons can stop them exploiting dragon corpses?

Segev
2016-10-24, 07:09 PM
Yeah, dragonscale armor is nice but not great on its own.

CarpeGuitarrem
2016-10-24, 11:03 PM
I'm gonna have to come down on the side of "What's wrong with the PCs going all Monster Hunter?"

Because honestly, it sounds kinda awesome. Well. Moral compunctions involved in killing a sapient being and skinning it aside.

Segev
2016-10-25, 09:04 AM
I'm gonna have to come down on the side of "What's wrong with the PCs going all Monster Hunter?"

Because honestly, it sounds kinda awesome. Well. Moral compunctions involved in killing a sapient being and skinning it aside.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/images/oots0207.gif

Quertus
2016-10-25, 09:33 AM
I'm gonna have to come down on the side of "What's wrong with the PCs going all Monster Hunter?"

Because honestly, it sounds kinda awesome. Well. Moral compunctions involved in killing a sapient being and skinning it aside.

Yeah, the last time I brought up that my evil character had moral issues with all this murdering of sentient beings that the "good" party was doing, I got kicked from the group. So it's probably best to just ignore the horrible moral implications in D&D.

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-25, 01:28 PM
Yeah, the last time I brought up that my evil character had moral issues with all this murdering of sentient beings that the "good" party was doing, I got kicked from the group.
Ah, the morals of a D&D party. I frequently end up playing neutral characters who futilely try to keep the rest of the party under control.
Then I cut the pretense of neutrality and played a paladin. I found it a bit more satisfying to have an excuse for being the party's moral center which didn't paint the rest of the party as being deeply unheroic.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-25, 02:42 PM
For some reason every time I see this thread in the list view, I have to read the title twice, because I keep reading it as "How to stop PCs from exploding dragon corpses."

Inevitability
2016-10-25, 02:45 PM
For some reason every time I see this thread in the list view, I have to read the title twice, because I keep reading it as "How to stop PCs from exploding dragon corpses."

The solution is the same: have the dragon explode upon death. :smalltongue:

Katrina
2016-10-26, 05:11 AM
I once had a rogue bring up that she had never killed a person until she joined up with the "good guys" who were making her come along as a penance for getting caught picking the wizard's pockets.

The chaotic good cleric did not take kindly to the implications.

Lord Gehnvaar
2016-10-26, 06:57 AM
As has been said many times, dragon scale/hide wouldn't be that great, but if you absolutely must prevent them from getting the dragon's hide you should make the loot far more interesting than the dragon's corpse, maybe rule that they can either transport the dragon or the loot, but not both due to size/weight.

Segev
2016-10-26, 08:21 PM
I once had a rogue bring up that she had never killed a person until she joined up with the "good guys" who were making her come along as a penance for getting caught picking the wizard's pockets.

The chaotic good cleric did not take kindly to the implications.

In what form did his not-kind-taking manifest?

Inevitability
2016-10-27, 02:11 AM
In what form did his not-kind-taking manifest?

They killed the rogue, of course. Fortunately, she was Evil so it was morally proper. :smalltongue:

Segev
2016-10-27, 11:07 AM
They killed the rogue, of course. Fortunately, she was Evil so it was morally proper. :smalltongue:

...they seriously murdered a fellow party member because the party member implied they were more murderous than said party member herself was?

Did they see the irony?

Âmesang
2016-10-27, 11:28 AM
+1 on dracoliches. :smallamused: Can't harvest any hide if there is none.

Inevitability
2016-10-27, 02:04 PM
...they seriously murdered a fellow party member because the party member implied they were more murderous than said party member herself was?

Did they see the irony?

They didn't. I am not a part of that group, I was just poking fun at the silliness inherent in the alignment system.

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-27, 02:37 PM
...they seriously murdered a fellow party member because the party member implied they were more murderous than said party member herself was?

Did they see the irony?
It didn't happen that way, but...they probably wouldn't have.

Jay R
2016-10-27, 03:39 PM
They didn't. I am not a part of that group, I was just poking fun at the silliness inherent in the alignment system.

That's not the silliness inherent in the alignment system., That's the silliness inherent in abusing the alignment system to pretend an evil act can be justified as good.

Murder is evil. Not "murder of a good person". Not "murder of a lawful person". Not "murder of a neutral person".

Murder. It's an evil act.

Starshade
2016-10-27, 04:08 PM
Calculate the material value of the dragon hide as part of the dragon's hoard? Dragonhide armor sounds great, if the players really want it, why not? It would take some work to skin, dry or salt Down the hide , then take it to someone who can make custom masterwork armor of an unusual type of material :smallsmile:

D+1
2016-10-27, 06:39 PM
So, in a adventure I'm running, at the end, is a young dragon boss fight. The people I play with are all smart, and given enough time, I'm sure that they could harvest these super durable dragon scales and turn them into armor. How do I stop this?
"Sorry, there is no dragon scale armor."
...or,
"Okay, there IS such a thing as dragon scale armor. You pay a bunch of gold and you now have armor made of dragon scales. It's AC 4 as a base so it's pretty good armor. Of course, it is not magical and has no other special properties other than looking REALLY cool."

Dude, it's YOUR game world. Run it the way YOU want to run it, not the way any book or player tells you to run it. If you don't want them making a ton of money and special stuff from a dragon corpse all you have to do is say "No. I don't want your characters to profit all that much because I don't want game balance shot to hell because of a dead dragon", or at worst you just let them profit as much as YOU want them to profit from it. If your players are worthwhile they will be perfectly cool with this.

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-27, 08:34 PM
That's not the silliness inherent in the alignment system., That's the silliness inherent in abusing the alignment system to pretend an evil act can be justified as good.

Murder is evil. Not "murder of a good person". Not "murder of a lawful person". Not "murder of a neutral person".

Murder. It's an evil act.
Shocking how often the alignment system condones murder of goblins, ropers, and other dungeon-dwellers.

Jay R
2016-10-28, 08:39 AM
Shocking how often the alignment system condones murder of goblins, ropers, and other dungeon-dwellers.

As both a player and a DM, I have stopped people from indiscriminate murder. But killing a rabid dog found in a suburban neighborhood isn't murder, and for the same reason, killing things that attack me, or are a danger to people, is likewise justified.

But yes, many people assume that they can, in Belkar's quaint idiom, "wander around, kill some sentient creatures because they had green skin and fangs and we don't, and then take their stuff. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0013.html)"

This made more sense in original D&D, when the model was that the wilderness had been civilized by humans(because it had ruins and dungeons still containing lost human items), but fairly recently run over by monsters and raiders that were a continual threat, and the ultimate goal of adventurers was supposed to be to clear out some of that wilderness, re-civilize it, and develop the land.

You can certainly find lots of people who abuse the alignment system to make their PCs' actions more simplistic. But don't blame the alignment system.

Segev
2016-10-28, 08:50 AM
The general assumption in D&D tends to be that those evil races have posed an existential threat in some fashion. They've been raiding villages, or they've driven the rightful owners out of their homes, or they're ambushing you to kill you, or you're actively at war with them because they've picked the fight.

The assumption isn't that murder is justified. It's that killing them isn't murder because they've done something that necessitates and justifies their death.

Obviously, if you throw that justification out by either saying it's insufficient or by not providing it, the situation changes.

Vinyadan
2016-10-28, 09:02 AM
So the justification is "war, duh."

Segev
2016-10-28, 09:39 AM
So the justification is "war, duh."

It can be. Doesn't have to be.

thirdkingdom
2016-10-28, 01:11 PM
"Sorry, there is no dragon scale armor."
...or,
"Okay, there IS such a thing as dragon scale armor. You pay a bunch of gold and you now have armor made of dragon scales. It's AC 4 as a base so it's pretty good armor. Of course, it is not magical and has no other special properties other than looking REALLY cool."

Dude, it's YOUR game world. Run it the way YOU want to run it, not the way any book or player tells you to run it. If you don't want them making a ton of money and special stuff from a dragon corpse all you have to do is say "No. I don't want your characters to profit all that much because I don't want game balance shot to hell because of a dead dragon", or at worst you just let them profit as much as YOU want them to profit from it. If your players are worthwhile they will be perfectly cool with this.


Rather than try and come up with some sort of reason in-game why they can't skin the dragon -- the corpse explodes or melts, the ancient order of the Society for the Protection of Dragons starts to hunt them, whatever -- just sit down with your players and explain your reasoning. Say "Look, this isn't the kind of game I want to run. I'll make sure you guys get plenty of cool treasure and gold from the dragon, and in return I'd prefer it if you didn't flense every monster you kill for body parts."

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-28, 01:35 PM
The alignment system doesn't condone murder—it's always justified and/or it's the players, not the alignment system.
First off, it's illogical to try and disentangle the alignment system from how it's used. I mean, if there were rules which let you determine exactly what deaths count as murder (the way there are rules which let you determine exactly how hard it is to kill something), and people were ignoring those, that's one thing, but all we have are guidelines of varying levels of specificity.

Second, the difference between "non-premeditated murder" and "killing something I thought was a threat" is far from clear-cut. I've had plenty of players who didn't wait to see if the goblins would run away or surrender or ask about the price of gouda in local villages before attacking it, and plenty who would go out of their way to ambush them, even if they were open to diplomatic solutions at other times. Once, I even had one of those players decide that such diplomacy wasn't working out and broke out a demonstration of argumentum ad bacalum by way of sword to face.
If a campaign is set up such that every encounter with what could be seen as a hostile, is, then great—everything the PCs kill is justified. But if not...well, player behavior can change, and it often does, but not enough that players never commit what our morality calls murder.

Segev
2016-10-28, 02:00 PM
Second, the difference between "non-premeditated murder" and "killing something I thought was a threat" is far from clear-cut. I've had plenty of players who didn't wait to see if the goblins would run away or surrender or ask about the price of gouda in local villages before attacking it, and plenty who would go out of their way to ambush them, even if they were open to diplomatic solutions at other times. Once, I even had one of those players decide that such diplomacy wasn't working out and broke out a demonstration of argumentum ad bacalum by way of sword to face.
If a campaign is set up such that every encounter with what could be seen as a hostile, is, then great—everything the PCs kill is justified. But if not...well, player behavior can change, and it often does, but not enough that players never commit what our morality calls murder.

Honestly, I think this says more about their expectations for what kind of game it would be than it does about their views on alignment and murder. It sounds like either they've been taught bad lessons by the game up to that point, or they didn't clearly understand that you're running a game where goblins can be peaceful.

Vinyadan
2016-10-28, 02:10 PM
Rather than try and come up with some sort of reason in-game why they can't skin the dragon -- the corpse explodes or melts, the ancient order of the Society for the Protection of Dragons starts to hunt them, whatever -- just sit down with your players and explain your reasoning. Say "Look, this isn't the kind of game I want to run. I'll make sure you guys get plenty of cool treasure and gold from the dragon, and in return I'd prefer it if you didn't flense every monster you kill for body parts."

"Dragons are powerful, intelligent creature who can level cities, use tracking magic and will gang up on fellows who dress with their skins..."

Batou1976
2016-10-29, 05:30 AM
That's not the silliness inherent in the alignment system., That's the silliness inherent in abusing the alignment system to pretend an evil act can be justified as good.

As well as the silliness inherent in trying to apply Earth's 21st century Western ethics to a fantasy world that may-or-may-not be (sort of) simulating medieval Europe. :smallannoyed: Murders are homicides... but not all homicides are murders, and to define as murder the employing of lethal force in defense of self is absurd. Moreso in a world where the forces of law and order are at best minimal but usually nonexistent thus necessitating everyone see to their own protection.


As for keeping players from looting a dragon corpse for its various meats... there's a long and proud tradition of monsters and villains not falling over dead the instant a fatal blow is landed, but instead fleeing to expire elsewhere at a later time. They can't loot what they can't reach... or even find. :smallamused:

Inevitability
2016-10-29, 06:14 AM
As for keeping players from looting a dragon corpse for its various meats... there's a long and proud tradition of monsters and villains not falling over dead the instant a fatal blow is landed, but instead fleeing to expire elsewhere at a later time. They can't loot what they can't reach... or even find. :smallamused:

This is just terrible. Unless the DM said in advance 'hey, sometimes when you kill a monster I'm going to have it stay alive and run away', the players are playing with the idea that they should have at least some chance of killing monsters they encounter. Deliberately bending that rule without the players' consent isn't merely cheap, it goes against the spirit of the game.

Jay R
2016-10-29, 08:36 AM
So the justification is "war, duh."

That's over-simplified. When we kill a rabid dog, or somebody stops a murderer by killing him, it isn't war. But it is justified.


This is just terrible. Unless the DM said in advance 'hey, sometimes when you kill a monster I'm going to have it stay alive and run away', the players are playing with the idea that they should have at least some chance of killing monsters they encounter.

If it flies away to die elsewhere, then they did kill the monster. They didn't recover the body - a totally different thing.


Deliberately bending that rule without the players' consent isn't merely cheap, it goes against the spirit of the game.

Could you please quote the rule in question? I don't remember reading it. And "the spirit of the game" as I play it doesn't require molesting all corpses of all enemies.

If losing that body goes against the spirit of the game, then so does the death of a vampire or a demon, both of which have bodies that disappear (in some rulesets).

I wouldn't have an enemy fly away after it lost its last hit point, but I have had them flee when deeply wounded. I've even once seen a creature try to fly away, and be killed by a last arrow, falling to its death in a canyon where we couldn't find the body.

I've failed to recover bodies when fighting over a raging river, and seen one enemy fall into lava. Losing a corpse doesn't go against the spirit of the game.

Inevitability
2016-10-29, 08:44 AM
If it flies away to die elsewhere, then they did kill the monster. They didn't recover the body - a totally different thing.

Could you please quote the rule in question? I don't remember reading it. And "the spirit of the game" as I play it doesn't require molesting all corpses of all enemies.

If losing that body goes against the spirit of the game, then so does the death of a vampire or a demon, both of which have bodies that disappear (in some rulesets).

I wouldn't have an enemy fly away after it lost its last hit point, but I have had them flee when deeply wounded. I've even once seen a creature try to fly away, and be killed by a last arrow, falling to its death in a canyon where we couldn't find the body.

I've failed to recover bodies when fighting over a raging river, and seen one enemy fall into lava. Losing a corpse doesn't go against the spirit of the game.

Oh, the examples you quote are fine: it is quite possible for enemy corpses to be irretrievable, nor is it a bad thing for monsters to flee when they're nearly dead. It's just that the way Batou phrased it implies the monster would be flying away even if it's stunned, blinded, and heavily damaged. Making a monster flying away effectively a scripted event just to prevent players from getting some rare leather is illogical and unfair.

Not to mention that the PC's won't necessarily know the monster died somewhere else and may think it's still alive, which would make this (from their perspective) a 'tough luck, my special NPC doesn't die' from the DM.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-29, 08:58 AM
Humans have been using stuff from the animals they kill since before they were actually homo sapiens sapiens. It's past of who we are.

If you're going to put creatures in the game that have useful parts, the characters are going to try to use those parts.

Quertus
2016-10-29, 09:16 AM
They didn't. I am not a part of that group, I was just poking fun at the silliness inherent in the alignment system.

Alignment is, IMO, the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs. But even I wouldn't blame this on alignment.

And I'm the one who has the history to parallel this, +1. After my "evil" character commented that he wasn't comfortable with the "good" characters' murder of sentient beings, I was kicked from the group.

Kish
2016-10-29, 11:33 AM
As well as the silliness inherent in trying to apply Earth's 21st century Western ethics to a fantasy world that may-or-may-not be (sort of) simulating medieval Europe. :smallannoyed:
Whereas I would say the silliness is inherent in pretending that "Earth's 21st-century Western ethics" aren't part of a game played solely by people in the 21st century on Earth and published in the West, and ignoring all the things you have to ignore to pretend it's "simulating medieval Europe" in the name of getting to "good people can be as racist and murderous as I want while still being good!"

(With, of course, the added complication that Gary Gygax, way back when, seems to have intended something more like "Good means agreement with the personal ethics of Gary Gygax," which didn't have a problem with racist murderousness and, instead of even trying to bring in medieval Europe, cheerfully quoted Nazi slogans ["nits make lice"] and ranted about pacifism being insanity. Gygax has, however, blessedly not had anything to say about alignment descriptions for a long time now. How did we get here, anyway? Oh right--someone observed that no thread is complete without someone randomly dumping on the alignment system.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-29, 11:55 AM
Whereas I would say the silliness is inherent in pretending that "Earth's 21st-century Western ethics" aren't part of a game played solely by people in the 21st century on Earth and published in the West, and ignoring all the things you have to ignore to pretend it's "simulating medieval Europe" in the name of getting to "good people can be as racist and murderous as I want while still being good!"

(With, of course, the added complication that Gary Gygax, way back when, seems to have intended something more like "Good means agreement with the personal ethics of Gary Gygax," which didn't have a problem with racist murderousness and, instead of even trying to bring in medieval Europe, cheerfully quoted Nazi slogans ["nits make lice"] and ranted about pacifism being insanity. Gygax has, however, blessedly not had anything to say about alignment descriptions for a long time now. How did we get here, anyway? Oh right--someone observed that no thread is complete without someone randomly dumping on the alignment system.)

Given Gygax's stated influences, I don't think "medieval Europe" had much to do with his vision of the game beyond window dressing.

Vinyadan
2016-10-29, 12:05 PM
As well as the silliness inherent in trying to apply Earth's 21st century Western ethics to a fantasy world that may-or-may-not be (sort of) simulating medieval Europe. :smallannoyed: Murders are homicides... but not all homicides are murders

Think how cool is that, in XXI century West it is normal to be called a murderer without having committed backed or taken part in homicide! Power of Facebook!

Batou1976
2016-10-30, 12:37 AM
This is just terrible. Unless the DM said in advance 'hey, sometimes when you kill a monster I'm going to have it stay alive and run away', the players are playing with the idea that they should have at least some chance of killing monsters they encounter. Deliberately bending that rule without the players' consent isn't merely cheap, it goes against the spirit of the game.

A monster’s morale breaking and it running away when wounded or overmatched has always been a possibility, and definitely in the spirit of the game, no DM forewarning needed. Earlier editions even had rules to adjudicate if/ when that happened . I wasn’t suggesting taking away the players’ possibility of slaying the beast at all.


It's just that the way Batou phrased it implies the monster would be flying away even if it's stunned, blinded, and heavily damaged. Making a monster flying away effectively a scripted event just to prevent players from getting some rare leather is illogical and unfair.

Um, that’s not what I wrote. At all. :smallannoyed:

“As for keeping players from looting a dragon corpse for its various meats... there's a long and proud tradition of monsters and villains not falling over dead the instant a fatal blow is landed, but instead fleeing to expire elsewhere at a later time. They can't loot what they can't reach... or even find.”

I said nothing about stunned or blinded or merely heavily damaged. I also didn’t suggest scripting it, to keep loot away from the players or otherwise. It’s simply an option the DM can exercise, or not. Although, I’ve read, and written, plenty of adventures that script various things happening when this or that happens in combat (or other interactions). I don’t get why scripted events are a problem. :smallconfused:



Whereas I would say the silliness is inherent in pretending that "Earth's 21st-century Western ethics" aren't part of a game played solely by people in the 21st century on Earth and published in the West, and ignoring all the things you have to ignore to pretend it's "simulating medieval Europe" in the name of getting to "good people can be as racist and murderous as I want while still being good!"

The players are in the here-and-now, certainly, and doubtless their play will be guided by whatever sensibilities are contemporary to them. But… Imagine Hans Talhoffer found himself somehow transported from the 1460’s into the present day. If he tried to operate according to the mores he knew from the 15th century, he would quickly find himself running afoul of our society and its laws. By the same token, if you were to find yourself in Herr Talhoffer’s world and tried to operate in it according to 21st century ideals, you would similarly find yourself in some sort of dire trouble because of it.
I’m not suggesting slaying an elf on sight, simply for the crime of “Being an Elf in the 3rd Degree” is or should be OK, nor would I condone cutting someone down for trifling things like “he bumped into me and didn’t apologize fast enough to suit me”. I’m simply saying: Faerûn, Krynn, Oerth, Ravenloft, Mystara, your hombrew world…. None of these are 21st century America, or the UK, or Germany, etc. While this doesn’t mean you can get away with redefining Skeletor as a hero there, it doesn’t necessarily mean current societal mores make sense there, either.


Think how cool is that, in XXI century West it is normal to be called a murderer without having committed backed or taken part in homicide! Power of Facebook!

Uh… what? :smallconfused: Are you maybe missing some commas?

Mutazoia
2016-10-30, 01:35 AM
Humans have been using stuff from the animals they kill since before they were actually homo sapiens sapiens. It's past of who we are.

If you're going to put creatures in the game that have useful parts, the characters are going to try to use those parts.

Just because the parts are useful, doesn't mean that every person in the world knows how to successfully salvage those parts. Not everybody in the medieval era knew how to skin an animal and tan it's hide, for example. A tanner could skin a creature and tan the hide, but could he also properly butcher the meat? A butcher could properly butcher the creature and prepair the meat for cooking, but could he skin it and tan the hide?

Just assuming "Hey, my character lives in pseudo-medieval times, that means he automatically knows how to do all this stuff", doesn't make it so. That's why (most) games have skills you have to invest in, in some way/shape/form. Saying "I take all the useful parts", is giving your character a skill with out paying for it.

I would expect a character to have the necessary knowledge and/or craft skill before letting them do more than hack off a few hunks of flesh. Depending on the roll, he/she may be successful or not, or manage to only salvage a small part of the creature in question, or even have it spoil long before he/she get's it back to a town for sale.

Even if they do get the parts back to a town before the parts spoil, is the town large enough to have a market for said parts? A rural village won't have enough money in the entire village to pay for some parts, and probably wouldn't be interested in them anyway, as it may be years (if ever) before anybody with even a slight interest in said parts happens to be passing through. Other than the hide, creature parts don't keep forever (with out magical assistance).

Kish
2016-10-30, 08:31 AM
The players are in the here-and-now, certainly, and doubtless their play will be guided by whatever sensibilities are contemporary to them. But… Imagine Hans Talhoffer found himself somehow transported from the 1460’s into the present day.
No. I don't want to imagine that; it's got nothing to do with D&D. Torturing the English language to pretend that right and wrong in 3.5 D&D are significantly different from right and wrong in the real world has two purposes that I can see. 1) To feel an unjustified superiority to those who have read the books rather than tortured them. 2) To be able to handwave "genocidal racism is good" without acknowledging it as a house rule. I consider those both wholly bad and so your demand that I endeavor to immerse myself in the silly "it's medieval Europe" mindset makes no sense.

(We can go around with you saying "medieval Europe" and me saying "no" as many times as you like, but I don't see it accomplishing much.)

Inevitability
2016-10-30, 08:54 AM
No. I don't want to imagine that; it's got nothing to do with D&D. Torturing the English language to pretend that right and wrong in 3.5 D&D are significantly different from right and wrong in the real world has two purposes that I can see. 1) To feel an unjustified superiority to those who have read the books rather than tortured them. 2) To be able to handwave "genocidal racism is good" without acknowledging it as a house rule. I consider those both wholly bad and so your demand that I endeavor to immerse myself in the silly "it's medieval Europe" mindset makes no sense.

(We can go around with you saying "medieval Europe" and me saying "no" as many times as you like, but I don't see it accomplishing much.)

Right and wrong in 3.5 D&D are different from right and wrong in the real world, though. Maybe not on the 'genocidal racism' front, but definitely in other situations.

For example, in 3.5 it's 'evil' to cheat at games or unintentionally betray a person, while spells that scour an area of evil creatures but leave the good ones unharmed are the example of good.

Kish
2016-10-30, 09:00 AM
Really? Is that something you actually read in a book, or is it received wisdom from people sneering at the alignment system? 'Cause it sure doesn't say anything like that here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm).

Inevitability
2016-10-30, 09:05 AM
Really? Is that something you actually read in a book, or is it received wisdom from people sneering at the alignment system? 'Cause it sure doesn't say anything like that here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm).

The first. Book of Vile Darkness, page 7, as well as about every damaging spell in the Book of Exalted Deeds's spell section.

I can provide quotations, if you'd like.

Kish
2016-10-30, 09:24 AM
If you like. From Exalted Deeds only, though; Vile Darkness is 3.0. Or possibly we can short-circuit this.

There are certainly dodgy things in Book of Exalted Deeds (Sanctify the Wicked, for example), but even if you consider them to overrule what they contradict from the alignment sections of the core books, they're dodgy interpretations of morality by that author (which are agreed with by quite a few people, though not by me in the Sanctify the Wicked case anyway), not "this is medieval Europe."


Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
That's a description of morality. It's not a description of the strange, universally rejected by humanity thought processes of weird, alien creatures, nor does it have anything to do with medieval Europe.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-30, 10:13 AM
Just because the parts are useful, doesn't mean that every person in the world knows how to successfully salvage those parts. Not everybody in the medieval era knew how to skin an animal and tan it's hide, for example. A tanner could skin a creature and tan the hide, but could he also properly butcher the meat? A butcher could properly butcher the creature and prepair the meat for cooking, but could he skin it and tan the hide?

Just assuming "Hey, my character lives in pseudo-medieval times, that means he automatically knows how to do all this stuff", doesn't make it so. That's why (most) games have skills you have to invest in, in some way/shape/form. Saying "I take all the useful parts", is giving your character a skill with out paying for it.

I would expect a character to have the necessary knowledge and/or craft skill before letting them do more than hack off a few hunks of flesh. Depending on the roll, he/she may be successful or not, or manage to only salvage a small part of the creature in question, or even have it spoil long before he/she get's it back to a town for sale.

Even if they do get the parts back to a town before the parts spoil, is the town large enough to have a market for said parts? A rural village won't have enough money in the entire village to pay for some parts, and probably wouldn't be interested in them anyway, as it may be years (if ever) before anybody with even a slight interest in said parts happens to be passing through. Other than the hide, creature parts don't keep forever (with out magical assistance).

That really doesn't contain much response to anything I actually said -- it appears to be attaching a lot of bagged to a simple statement.

I didn't say anything about the technical side or the difficulties. All I said was that if a setting includes humans, and creatures with parts that humans would find useful, then it's unfair and unrealistic to expect the humans to not use those parts.


Now, that said, "butchering" is not a special skill in a time period when people hunt for food on a regular basis -- and some game/landscape combinations require a modern real-world hunter to do their own breaking down of the carcass if they want to bring anything back with them. Trust me, they are not "just cutting off a few hunks". If someone is hunting for skins as well, they can be expected to know how to preserve the skin well enough to have it last in a useable or sellable state.

This idea that only a specialist has the skills to do something, and everyone else is at best dabbling, is a qaintly modern one.

Vinyadan
2016-10-30, 10:16 AM
I don't think anyone would be so crazy as to seriously recreate an historical European medieval moral system for a campaign setting. Even if you went straight to the most important manual of morals of the most important moral institution of the time, it would take you years to actually understand it in its full depth. And, of course, in the meantime there were concurrent models, like courteous life or jester communities. And there also were no dragons.



Uh… what? :smallconfused: Are you maybe missing some commas?

Four of them, I guess. My keyboard is disgusting, I should stop eating on it. It was a joke about "meat is murder". BTW I thought it was just a slogan, I had no idea there was a band behind it.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-30, 10:23 AM
Right and wrong in 3.5 D&D are different from right and wrong in the real world, though. Maybe not on the 'genocidal racism' front, but definitely in other situations.

For example, in 3.5 it's 'evil' to cheat at games or unintentionally betray a person, while spells that scour an area of evil creatures but leave the good ones unharmed are the example of good.


So if someone tricks you into betrayal, completely against your intent, and without any knowledge on your part that you're doing it... that's still "evil"?

Remind me again why we should take anything in any of the D&D alignment system versions seriously?

Inevitability
2016-10-30, 10:26 AM
So if someone tricks you into betrayal, completely against your intent, and without any knowledge on your part that you're doing it... that's still "evil"?

If you can't see through some simple deception, you don't deserve to be called Good!


Remind me again why we should take anything in any of the D&D alignment system versions seriously?

It's heavily intertwined with the mechanics (especially in 3.5) and the trouble caused by using the system the way it is is slightly less than the trouble caused by overhauling everything.

Quertus
2016-10-30, 11:28 AM
A monster’s morale breaking and it running away when wounded or overmatched has always been a possibility, and definitely in the spirit of the game, no DM forewarning needed. Earlier editions even had rules to adjudicate if/ when that happened . I wasn’t suggesting taking away the players’ possibility of slaying the beast at all.

Um, that’s not what I wrote. At all. :smallannoyed:

“As for keeping players from looting a dragon corpse for its various meats... there's a long and proud tradition of monsters and villains not falling over dead the instant a fatal blow is landed, but instead fleeing to expire elsewhere at a later time. They can't loot what they can't reach... or even find.”

I said nothing about stunned or blinded or merely heavily damaged. I also didn’t suggest scripting it, to keep loot away from the players or otherwise. It’s simply an option the DM can exercise, or not. Although, I’ve read, and written, plenty of adventures that script various things happening when this or that happens in combat (or other interactions). I don’t get why scripted events are a problem. :smallconfused:

Well, your original post seemed to say, ignore the rules, have the mortally-wounded dragon fly off and die elsewhere (oh, and don't let the PCs follow it). I'm not sure how else one could read your original post, while still making it present a solution to the stated problem.

Most GMs who go that route would hard code / railroad the dragon's escape, even if it were blinded / whatever. Otherwise, it's not really a solution to the problem. So that's not really a great logical leap from what you posted to others' replies.

And no DM forewarning needed for monsters running away when scared is not the same as no DM forewarning needed for monsters running away having already taken lethal damage. And the latter sets up an interesting precedent, should the PCs every take lethal damage...

Vinyadan
2016-10-30, 11:33 AM
"Contingency spell going off!"

shadow_archmagi
2016-10-30, 11:34 AM
So, first off, I agree that a dragon retreating after becoming injured would be a valid choice for that dragon to make. In fact, if it was losing the fight badly, I can't really imagine it not retreating. Dragons are smart and generally fear death.

That said, this quote deserves some unpacking.



I don’t get why scripted events are a problem.

It breaks a rule, rather than expanding it. That is, if everybody falls unconscious at 0 hp, except for this one dragon at this one time, then you're establishing that in YOUR game, sometimes the rules change with no warning. D&D is at its best when players are making meaningful choices- and to be meaningful, a choice also has to be informed. If the properties of things change in arbitrary ways, then making informed choices is impossible. If you create a special rule just to deny your PCs dragon-armor, then they'll anticipate more special rules in the future.

"Okay guys, how are we going to deal with this vampire?"
"Well, we could kick in the door, or we could use these maid costumes the DM gave us last week. I think he planned on us straight combat or bluffing our way in."
"What if instead of the costumes, we could sneak in and kill him while he's asleep?"
"Nah, he's probably got some magic alarm that we can't possibly sneak past because the DM wants us to do the fight."
"What if we just burn his house down during the day?"
"Probably fireproof. Or, actually, the DM will probably decide that he has a water elemental minion, and trying to burn it down just adds an extra thing to fight."
"Heck, do we even have a reason to think this vampire is going to die when he's killed? Nobody else seems to."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"I'm gonna go play Dragon Age. That gives me the same number of ways to solve each problem, but has a better soundtrack and actual voice actors."

Jay R
2016-10-30, 06:44 PM
It breaks a rule, rather than expanding it. That is, if everybody falls unconscious at 0 hp, except for this one dragon at this one time, then you're establishing that in YOUR game, sometimes the rules change with no warning.

That's correct. Sometimes, in my game, I make an exception to the rules with no warning. But also with no fanfare.

On those rare occasions that I have ignored a rule for the benefit of the story, no player has complained, because no player has ever known.


D&D is at its best when players are making meaningful choices- and to be meaningful, a choice also has to be informed. If the properties of things change in arbitrary ways, then making informed choices is impossible. If you create a special rule just to deny your PCs dragon-armor, then they'll anticipate more special rules in the future.

You are assuming that a DM who makes an exception to the rules does so stupidly, awkwardly, and publicly. There's no basis for that assumption.

I don't like the idea of the dragon flying off at zero hit points either, but assume that you're a player attacking a dragon, and after it takes a lot of damage, it suddenly tries to fly away.

How would you know it had 0 hp left, instead of 1 or 2? Your response above assumes that the players know exactly how many hit points their enemy has.

Dragonexx
2016-10-30, 08:29 PM
Depends on the GM i guess. I always post hit point totals for online games. Mostly for my benefit.

Mutazoia
2016-10-31, 12:01 AM
D&D is at its best when players are making meaningful choices- and to be meaningful, a choice also has to be informed. If the properties of things change in arbitrary ways, then making informed choices is impossible.

And informed choice, is one that can be made after doing research on the topic in question. A non-researchable value, such as how healthy/robust/tough any given creature is, is not something that can be researched ahead of time. You can, at best, research the average size and weight of a given dragon type, but that won't tell you how many times you are going to need to hit it, to kill it. That information will also be subject to change from one creature of the same genus/phylum to another: No two young black dragons will be identical in height/weight/health.

Intelligent creatures (especially one as, if not more, intelligent than the characters) fleeing when they start losing a fight, makes perfect sense, and dragons are known to be crafty enough to have back up plans and escape routes ready at all times.

Batou1976
2016-10-31, 03:46 AM
No. I don't want to imagine that; it's got nothing to do with D&D. Torturing the English language to pretend that right and wrong in 3.5 D&D are significantly different from right and wrong in the real world has two purposes that I can see. 1) To feel an unjustified superiority to those who have read the books rather than tortured them. 2) To be able to handwave "genocidal racism is good" without acknowledging it as a house rule.

Why, hello Strawman! Have a seat and put your feet up! :smallcool:
Have I said anything about racism, genocidal or otherwise? Nope, I sure haven’t, have I?
Have I claimed to feel superior? I haven’t, because I don’t.

What I have said was-
“As well as the silliness inherent in trying to apply Earth's 21st century Western ethics to a fantasy world that may-or-may-not be (sort of) simulating medieval Europe”
and
“I’m not suggesting slaying an elf on sight, simply for the crime of ‘Being an Elf in the 3rd Degree’ is or should be OK”
and
“Faerûn, Krynn, Oerth, Ravenloft, Mystara, your hombrew world…. None of these are 21st century America, or the UK, or Germany, etc. While this doesn’t mean you can get away with redefining Skeletor as a hero there, it doesn’t necessarily mean current societal mores make sense there, either”


I consider those both wholly bad and so your demand that I endeavor to immerse myself in the silly "it's medieval Europe" mindset makes no sense. We can go around with you saying "medieval Europe" and me saying "no" as many times as you like, but I don't see it accomplishing much.)

I don’t consider either of those things to be good, as well. :smallconfused: My statement “fantasy world that may-or-may-not be (sort of) simulating medieval Europe” was meant to encompass other eras, cultures, and locations in addition to the Standard Fantasy Default® (aka pseudo-medieval pseudo-Europe) and certainly wasn’t put forth as any kind of “demand” you or anyone else do something. :smallfrown:

And from all this you apparently got “Batou is defending racism and genocide” (despite an explicit statement to the contrary). There may be some torturing of language going on here… but I’m not the one who’s doing it. :smallannoyed: I’ve seen some pretty strong reactions to things I haven’t actually said; given that, I’d have to agree not much is going to be accomplished… so I don't think I'm going to follow this thread anymore. :smallsigh:
Thanks for reminding me why I’ve generally been loath to join alignment discussions, though.

Inevitability
2016-10-31, 04:03 AM
Why, hello Strawman! Have a seat and put your feet up! :smallcool:

I'm not part of this debate, but could I point out that addressing others in this kind of way accomplishes exactly nothing?

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-31, 07:01 AM
Honestly, I think this says more about their expectations for what kind of game it would be than it does about their views on alignment and murder. It sounds like either they've been taught bad lessons by the game up to that point, or they didn't clearly understand that you're running a game where goblins can be peaceful.
To be perfectly fair, it was a situation I had expected combat. But then...isn't that kind of the point? 90% of the time, violent problem-solving is expected; 95% of the time, it's used. It's hard to claim that doing otherwise is usual in any sense of the word.



Humans have been using stuff from the animals they kill since before they were actually homo sapiens sapiens. It's past of who we are.
For the record, those animals usually weren't capable of intelligent thought (and let's not quibble over semantics here). Or spellcasting.



Alignment is, IMO, the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs.
I disagree. I would personally prefer an alignmentless D&D most of the time, but alignments are important for getting new players into the roleplaying mindset. Alignment inspires the player to ask two vital questions—"How is this character different from most heroes?" and "How is this character different from me?" I think we can agree that those are important questions to recognize.



...but even if you consider them to overrule what they contradict from the alignment sections of the core books, they're dodgy interpretations of morality by that author ...
For the record, the entire alignment system is made of dodgy interpretations of morality by various authors. Except the parts that are made out of intentionally vague ones.



Even if you went straight to the most important manual of morals of the most important moral institution of the time, it would take you years to actually understand it in its full depth.
Which basically no one did, and those who did disagreed on its meaning. I think it's fair to say that no culture has ever truly based much of its morality on a book, rather than justifying its morality with said book (and perhaps picking up a few more pieces which don't conflict with the main part).



I'm not part of this debate, but could I point out that addressing others in this kind of way accomplishes exactly nothing?
It presumably makes them feel better. And clarifies their feelings on the matter, letting them feel better about leaving the debate without a response later on if things continue to get worse.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-31, 08:29 AM
For the record, those animals usually weren't capable of intelligent thought (and let's not quibble over semantics here). Or spellcasting.


Which, as with the other poster, appears to be addressing something you're attaching to the statement, rather than the statement itself.

GreatWyrmGold
2016-10-31, 08:30 AM
Which, as with the other poster, appears to be addressing something you're attaching to the statement, rather than the statement itself.
I'm just saying...it's comparable, but not that comparable.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-31, 08:39 AM
I'm just saying...it's comparable, but not that comparable.

OK, yes, true.

My issue was with the idea of imposing contrived constraints or "GM screwjobs" out of the concern that the characters are going to get neat stuff from killing creature X.

The issue you bring up is that the characters should be reluctant to skin and gut an intelligent being and wear its parts as armor... and I can agree with that.


(I'm just getting really touchy about the way certain posters -- not you -- like to respond to things that aren't in the post they're responding to, and then get insulting when called on it.)

Segev
2016-10-31, 09:36 AM
I'm not part of this debate, but could I point out that addressing others in this kind of way accomplishes exactly nothing?


It presumably makes them feel better. And clarifies their feelings on the matter, letting them feel better about leaving the debate without a response later on if things continue to get worse.

Well, he's also not insulting the speaker so much as calling his argument a strawman fallacy. He's doing so in a somewhat jocular manner, which I assume is why it comes off as insulting. (Such sarcasm has a bite of insult to it, after all.) But he's not engaging in ad hominem, and isn't technically insulting the speaker except insofar as accusing him of using a strawman argument in that particular manner implies some derision.


To be perfectly fair, it was a situation I had expected combat. But then...isn't that kind of the point? 90% of the time, violent problem-solving is expected; 95% of the time, it's used. It's hard to claim that doing otherwise is usual in any sense of the word.Absolutely. I agree.

If you present goblins-as-antagonists in a typical fantasy RPG, the first expectation of the players is most likely to be, "Gotta kill them before they kill us." Honestly, replace "goblins" with "bandits" (of any race) and you probably will get a similar reaction. This is due to genre conventions. If you want it to be otherwise, you'll have to signal it somehow, whether in OOC means by flat-out telling the players not to assume all hostiles must be dealt with via violence, or through cues IC that "something is up."

Kish
2016-11-01, 11:16 AM
Why, hello Strawman! Have a seat and put your feet up! :smallcool:
Have I said anything about racism, genocidal or otherwise? Nope, I sure haven’t, have I?
Have I claimed to feel superior?

I would say such is inherent in blanket-declaring everyone who disagrees with you "silly." But it is true that you did not specify why you're insisting that D&D books reflect something significantly different from 21st century ethics, and you appear to have retreated to an entirely defensive position where you don't say anything, you only unsay things ("I'm not saying...this doesn't mean...").

If you want to take an actual position (other than "it's silly to act like the books reflect 21st-century ethics because I say it's silly," which I've already addressed to my satisfaction if not yours), let me know.

Mordaedil
2016-11-02, 06:41 AM
40 years later and we're still having the same arguments about alignment. We really just have to boil this down to the source concern, because I don't think we can move on without it.

Humans and their equals in D&D are just humans. They make mistakes. Their general behavior and attitudes inform their alignment even if they've done bad things, like loot, plunder, murder and trespass. Acting in perfect accordance to alignment wouldn't be a game, certainly not a very fun one, because the only way to remain good would be to not adventure. To put a lock on the scabbard of your blade and present it monthly to your septum as evidence that you managed to maintain composure even with the threat of a weapon at your side.

So instead we accept that higher concepts are what inform our alignments, or possibly even how people see themselves rather than how they are observed. A paladin would see himself as just and true until he himself commits an action he cannot reconcile as true or just any longer. This despite having murdered and looted before. And yet playing it true would be considered a hindrance for other players, so most of us put up at best a token resistance to these acts. Because we have to. It is the code of the table.

I feel it is best to pick an alignment you think your character would be to begin with and just act as how your character would behave, as a human. Because humans are imperfect, you shouldn't have problems with this even with the occational discrepancy from alignment. That is how humans are all the time, after all.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-11-02, 11:24 AM
I find it best to rip alignment out of the game and not touch it with a ten foot pole. Because alignment is bad.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-02, 12:26 PM
I find it best to rip alignment out of the game and not touch it with a ten foot pole. Because alignment is bad.

My experience is frequently the opposite. Games without alignment often devolve into "do whatever you like", with characters who have moral strictures stuck bashing against characters who do not, yet they can't be free of them because they're played by another "real world" person. Bob wanted to play an insane cyborg, so we're stuck dealing with an insane cyborg, even if we're all city rat hackers.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-11-02, 12:36 PM
My experience is frequently the opposite. Games without alignment often devolve into "do whatever you like", with characters who have moral strictures stuck bashing against characters who do not, yet they can't be free of them because they're played by another "real world" person. Bob wanted to play an insane cyborg, so we're stuck dealing with an insane cyborg, even if we're all city rat hackers.

Do you really find that alignment stops a person like Bob in practice? And if it does, does it do it in a way that just having a simple ten minute chat about what people expect out of the game before the game starts wouldn't?

VoxRationis
2016-11-02, 12:40 PM
My experience is frequently the opposite. Games without alignment often devolve into "do whatever you like", with characters who have moral strictures stuck bashing against characters who do not, yet they can't be free of them because they're played by another "real world" person. Bob wanted to play an insane cyborg, so we're stuck dealing with an insane cyborg, even if we're all city rat hackers.

I agree that this can be an issue. Games I've run where I've told people to disregard alignment have ended up including actions like using slaves to dismantle grenades and summoning lions in the middle of a shop to convince the shopkeeper that the area was "dangerous."

LibraryOgre
2016-11-02, 12:43 PM
Do you really find that alignment stops a person like Bob in practice? And if it does, does it do it in a way that just having a simple ten minute chat about what people expect out of the game before the game starts wouldn't?

Yep. Played with Bob in another game, with alignment, and a stated stricture against evil alignments. Happened several times, with several different Bobs. If there's no stated moral or ethical code for them, they go hog wild. If there is one, they tend to stick within bounds.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-11-02, 01:01 PM
Yep. Played with Bob in another game, with alignment, and a stated stricture against evil alignments. Happened several times, with several different Bobs. If there's no stated moral or ethical code for them, they go hog wild. If there is one, they tend to stick within bounds.

Huh. I find that bizarre. But hey, whatever works for you, I guess. :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2016-11-02, 01:29 PM
My experience is frequently the opposite. Games without alignment often devolve into "do whatever you like", with characters who have moral strictures stuck bashing against characters who do not, yet they can't be free of them because they're played by another "real world" person. Bob wanted to play an insane cyborg, so we're stuck dealing with an insane cyborg, even if we're all city rat hackers.

That's not a problem of not having alignment.

That's a problem of player(s) who aren't willing to work with the GM and the rest of the players on the concept of their character.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-02, 03:02 PM
That's not a problem of not having alignment.

That's a problem of player(s) who aren't willing to work with the GM and the rest of the players on the concept of their character.

That is solved by having ground rules in the form of alignment.

Max_Killjoy
2016-11-02, 03:14 PM
That is solved by having ground rules in the form of alignment.

I've found that the sort of players in question will find ways to be who they are, regardless of any ground rules, and that the problem is solved by not involving those players in the game to start with.

ComradeBear
2016-11-02, 05:25 PM
That is solved by having ground rules in the form of alignment.

Or spending a few minutes during Session 0 establishing expectations.

Things like where Apocalypse World says "During the first session, your characters know one another and are generally on the same side. You don't have to like one another, but you're basically allies. This can change over time."

I've never had a PvP problem in Apocalypse World because of this paragraph that I read at the start of every campaign. And it's not a codified ruleset. Just an expectation.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-02, 06:23 PM
Or spending a few minutes during Session 0 establishing expectations.

Things like where Apocalypse World says "During the first session, your characters know one another and are generally on the same side. You don't have to like one another, but you're basically allies. This can change over time."

I've never had a PvP problem in Apocalypse World because of this paragraph that I read at the start of every campaign. And it's not a codified ruleset. Just an expectation.

And yet, I've found, repeatedly, that removing the mechanical expectation of morality leads to some folks inevitably becoming indiscriminate murderhobos... people who won't become indiscriminate murderhobos if they have an annotation on their sheet saying "You're a good guy."

ComradeBear
2016-11-02, 10:55 PM
And yet, I've found, repeatedly, that removing the mechanical expectation of morality leads to some folks inevitably becoming indiscriminate murderhobos... people who won't become indiscriminate murderhobos if they have an annotation on their sheet saying "You're a good guy."

Granted, Apocalypse World handles that by making it very hard to be a Murderhobo. There's on way to be really good at murder, but if you piss off the wrong gang you're still gonna be dead. (Players have 6 slots of health, and with a Large gang fighting a single individual with 2 armor, they'll ne taking 3 Harm every time the MC deals harm. And when rolling the Harm move, they now have a much higher chance of getting into "Take additional harm" categories. So the price of the murderhobo lifestyle is very high. Not to mention your fellow players hold a lot of sway over you, as does the GM.

Stars Without Number has no alignment involved whatsoever, and while my one long campaign of it involved some folks being smugglers, they weren't particularly cruel or evil about it. Again because combat is high-risk even for the powerful.

Then again, alignment in my experience does as much to stop people who like being murderhobos from doing their thing as the "don't walk on the grass" signs on my college campus are at keeping people off the grass. Namely, pretty ineffective.

I don't know what kind of unique mental situation your players have where they think "Oh hey, it would be a really good idea to murder the bartend- oh wait, theres an NG in my alignment box. I am now cured of my desire for random violence." But it is certainly unique.

Mutazoia
2016-11-03, 12:07 AM
*ahem*

Sooooo....about this dragon corpse.....

ComradeBear
2016-11-03, 09:27 AM
*ahem*

Sooooo....about this dragon corpse.....

I gave my 2 cents about it on page 1, and at this point the thread is going in circles of agreeance that the best response is either to require specific skillsets to make use of the thing, make the thing explode, or make dragonscale armor not particularly much better than any other leather made from reptile hide.

And we keep repeating these options over and over with the occassional alternative sprinkled in.

The topic has been about as badly beaten to death as the dragon in question. :P

Segev
2016-11-03, 11:21 AM
*ahem*

Sooooo....about this dragon corpse.....

Oh, right, let me get out the black onyx...

Vinyadan
2016-11-03, 11:33 AM
There is another option: if they are acting on behalf of a town, they might propose the dragon to surrender peacefully to be tried by the town council. Diplomacy check, anyone? :smallbiggrin: And then a bunch more checks to see how the trial goes.

etrpgb
2016-11-06, 11:01 AM
-Hi, I am Bob the Prismatic Great Wyrm. I am here to collect the corpse of this fellow dragon for doing a proper funeral. If you do not like the idea, please remember I have more than 2000hp, 100 of AC, and I am 30 level Sorceror. Any question?

Inevitability
2016-11-06, 01:02 PM
-Hi, I am Bob the Prismatic Great Wyrm. I am here to collect the corpse of this fellow dragon for doing a proper funeral. If you do not like the idea, please remember I have more than 2000hp, 100 of AC, and I am 30 level Sorceror. Any question?

I really hope this is satire.

Templarkommando
2016-11-06, 01:59 PM
Because of the thread topic, I thought that this was obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya7mwQYeICQ

That said, the way I would spin this is to use the randomosity (totally a word) of your party as a gateway to adventure. Yeah sure, you've got the carcass of a dragon, but now what do you do?

The process of turning dragon parts into useful items can itself be an adventure. What sort of person can turn dragon scales into armor? Well maybe anyone, but what if the way to get the most mileage out of your dragon scales is to commission a particular hill dwarf that lives in the underdark who doesn't really like visitors, but he needs a few favors done.

Maybe other factions are after items made from dragon parts, so possessing dragon parts makes the party a target... maybe the other faction is dragons and they're mad about the party killing dragons and flagrantly wearing their body parts.

If you're really dead-set on stopping the party from exploiting dragon corpses, make harvesting dragon parts hazardous. It's not a huge jump to think that a dragon that breathes fire also spurts boiling hot blood onto anyone that tries to skin him. It's also not a big jump to apply this to dragon's that breathe poison, ice, etc. Failing that, maybe hyarvesting dragon parts without a license is a criminal activity. The Dragon-Tanner's Guild has a royal endorsement, so if you want to harvest dragon parts, you have to pay a fee to get a "professional" to get the pieces. This fee will get you dragon armor, but you don't actually come out ahead by much from doing it.

I'd really say to shy away from telling the party "No, you can't do that." I've made this mistake of doing that too often to not advise caution. Best case scenario, my party would try to find more inventive ways to harvest dragon parts, and worst case scenario I get a huge out of character argument that sucks up as much game time as it would have to just let the party skin the dragon.

etrpgb
2016-11-06, 03:00 PM
I really hope this is satire.

Satire of what?

This thread already done its argument, but for the sake of my opinion I would simply say: let them do.

Inevitability
2016-11-06, 04:05 PM
Satire of what?

Bad GMing behaviors? Using something as blatantly overpowered as a Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon to push the PC's down a certain path is the definition of railroading.

Vinyadan
2016-11-06, 06:47 PM
-Hi, I am Bob the Prismatic Great Wyrm. I am here to collect the corpse of this fellow dragon for doing a proper funeral. If you do not like the idea, please remember I have more than 2000hp, 100 of AC, and I am 30 level Sorceror. Any question?

And thus did the menacing "My name is Sue/How do you do?" turn into "My name is Bob/I run the mob!"

etrpgb
2016-11-07, 03:51 AM
Bad GMing behaviors?
Well, then sure. That's was the point; after all the thread topic is about that.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-07, 03:42 PM
Bad GMing behaviors? Using something as blatantly overpowered as a Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon to push the PC's down a certain path is the definition of railroading.

On the other hand, consider that dragons may well have a priest class that do funerals for dead dragons, and Bob the Dragon showing up to request the corpse for proper disposal is pretty reasonable.

Inevitability
2016-11-08, 03:53 AM
On the other hand, consider that dragons may well have a priest class that do funerals for dead dragons, and Bob the Dragon showing up to request the corpse for proper disposal is pretty reasonable.

Sure, but Bob the Dragon being literally the strongest monster in the entire game and showing up moments after the dragon's death isn't reasonable, it's railroading.

Mutazoia
2016-11-08, 05:24 AM
Sure, but Bob the Dragon being literally the strongest monster in the entire game and showing up moments after the dragon's death isn't reasonable, it's railroading.

Unless you consider the fact that Bob the Dragon is a dragon diety, who can, quite literally, be in multiple places at once, and shows up like this EVERY time a dragon dies. Then it's World Lore.

Besides, Railroading is when you force the players to take specific actions. When you deny them a dragon corpse, just because, it's not railroading, it's just being an a-hole.

Vinyadan
2016-11-08, 06:02 AM
This can be legitimate if you give some info about it before Bob The Dragon God Of Funeral Parlours shows up. It's the kind of things legends would pop up about everywhere.

Segev
2016-11-08, 09:19 AM
Unless you consider the fact that Bob the Dragon is a dragon diety, who can, quite literally, be in multiple places at once, and shows up like this EVERY time a dragon dies. Then it's World Lore.

Besides, Railroading is when you force the players to take specific actions. When you deny them a dragon corpse, just because, it's not railroading, it's just being an a-hole.

By that logic, Pelor shows up in person to deal with the deceased who worship him moments after they die. As does Gruumsh (who wants to take the corpse for use in infernal rituals). I assume you have nobody looting corpses in your setting?

Inevitability
2016-11-08, 10:16 AM
By that logic, Pelor shows up in person to deal with the deceased who worship him moments after they die. As does Gruumsh (who wants to take the corpse for use in infernal rituals). I assume you have nobody looting corpses in your setting?

Abyssal rituals: Gruumsh is CE. Geez, why can't people remember the proper terminology for a dark god's evil rites?

LibraryOgre
2016-11-08, 11:36 AM
By that logic, Pelor shows up in person to deal with the deceased who worship him moments after they die. As does Gruumsh (who wants to take the corpse for use in infernal rituals). I assume you have nobody looting corpses in your setting?

I don't know, there are a lot more humans than there are dragons. Bob might have more time on his hands.

Inevitability
2016-11-08, 11:46 AM
I don't know, there are a lot more humans than there are dragons. Bob might have more time on his hands.

Getting Time Stop at-will is trivial for any deity worth his proverbial salt.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-08, 11:50 AM
Getting Time Stop at-will is trivial for any deity worth his proverbial salt.

Still, man, gotta be boring. With dragons, especially adult dragons, you might have one or two deaths per year... most in violence with humans and demihumans. Humans, you get one or two deaths per round. Bob's just got more time to make it special, you know? It's a big day in their lives.

ComaVision
2016-11-08, 12:27 PM
Still, man, gotta be boring. With dragons, especially adult dragons, you might have one or two deaths per year... most in violence with humans and demihumans. Humans, you get one or two deaths per round. Bob's just got more time to make it special, you know? It's a big day in their lives.

I can't be the only one enjoying the thought of Bob, Deity of Dragon Funerals, being a very lonely fellow.

Mutazoia
2016-11-09, 02:12 AM
I can't be the only one enjoying the thought of Bob, Deity of Dragon Funerals, being a very lonely fellow.

It's a part-time gig while he writes his screenplay. But what he really want's to do is direct.

etrpgb
2016-11-09, 06:40 AM
I assume you have nobody looting corpses in your setting?
"looting corpses" in the literal sense, nobody does.
Bob does not pickup the equipment. Just the body, at least for the topic thread title. This is what is wanted.

Still it can just be a things of dragons, rare and magical as they are. What is the problem?

Sure, it is a somewhat boring job for Bob. "Hi dear, I just come home with some warthogs I pickup in the forest so we can have di.... oh, dear. Another dragon died just now, see you soon!" five minutes later: "...so we can have dinner."

But, heck... welcome to the world of boring jobs. Maybe there are multiple Bobs, that take turns?

Vinyadan
2016-11-09, 07:49 AM
I can't be the only one enjoying the thought of Bob, Deity of Dragon Funerals, being a very lonely fellow.

It's a part-time gig while he writes his screenplay. But what he really want's to do is direct.

Bob, the God of Dragons, wrote poetry,
Looking for awesome plot twists for a biopic of Bruce Lee

And as a side job since the times were tough
He buried bones and dragon wings and thought it was great fluff

Dragons live forever unless they are cut short
So the PCs with weaponries made sure to have much sport

Once they attempted a skin away to haul
And so did Bob a hatchet job and sure he filmed it all!

Bob, the God of Dragons, won a Golden Globe
He had success, then made a mess, and went back burying bones!

Sir Daniel
2016-11-10, 10:20 AM
*clapping*

Christopher K.
2016-11-10, 10:27 AM
Let the players try, but don't the PCs have something more urgent to do? Dragons usually live in places that are dangerous to anybody but them - if a cave-in occurs, that dragon hide armor they're hoping to make won't exactly save them.

Choking heat from the magma in a red's lair, risk of frostbite in a white's, and deadly spores from a green dragon's lair all come to mind immediately.

Raimun
2016-11-10, 11:16 AM
Well, you could just decide that dragon carcasses don't make any better armor and weapons than the carcasses of smaller animals.

But if you run with the default where pretty much all parts of a dragon can be used as magic items... I don't know. Is that really a problem? Magic items will be found anyway and in-universe someone else would eventually steal the dead dragon and either use it for their own purposes or sell the parts or make magic items out of it for sale. Why not the PCs if they are so inclined? Slaying a dragon is known to be a rewarding experience. Literally.

If it is a problem, here's a few tips:

- Time is of essence. As I remember it, in one of the latest dragon slayings I was involved in, we didn't have time to harvest the dragon for parts because we were too busy to immediately leave the town the dragon attacked so that we could intercept a warband that marching towards it as well. So, make them too busy to even entertain the idea of exploiting a dead dragon.
- Make it clear that harvesting dragons is distasteful and frowned upon because they are an intelligent species. And dragons like that even less.
- Stress that it requires skill (as in skill points), right tools, a lot of time and that's just the skinning. Making usable stuff is a different skill, require different tools and demand even more time.

Segev
2016-11-10, 11:36 AM
"looting corpses" in the literal sense, nobody does.
Bob does not pickup the equipment. Just the body, at least for the topic thread title. This is what is wanted.

Still it can just be a things of dragons, rare and magical as they are. What is the problem?

Sure, it is a somewhat boring job for Bob. "Hi dear, I just come home with some warthogs I pickup in the forest so we can have di.... oh, dear. Another dragon died just now, see you soon!" five minutes later: "...so we can have dinner."

But, heck... welcome to the world of boring jobs. Maybe there are multiple Bobs, that take turns?

So... it's a hackneyed excuse for the DM really saying, "I don't want you doing this. Please don't." The only reason I'd really argue with a DM over this is that the best way to prevent it is to make it not worth doing, rather than trying to punish them for doing it. And honestly... D&D already does that. Dragonscale armor is only really different than normal armor in "wow" factor. I mean, there are some small benefits, but they're hardly the sort of thing that even would get a PC out on an adventure on their own, let alone game-breaking. The dragon's hoard is going to likely be more of a source of problems.