Harvesting monstrous kills for more loot?

[arkieNork]

Looking for every official and 3pp system proposal by which PCs could use their Skills to extract additional trade value out of slain monsters.

Things like arcane, alchemical materials, furs, hides etc...

I am aware of the PF 1 Trophy gathering system which I like. Any others?

[Fero]

3.5 has the Trophy Collector feat. Unfortunately, actually crafting a trophy takes some crazy amount of time absent a Fabricate spell.

[ShurikVch]

Book of Vile Darkness have rules for Harvesting Venom

Dragon #317 has "Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog: Using Power Components" article - with rules for harvesting the aforementioned Power Components (and Harvester's Field Kit toolkit)

Dragon #332 includes articles "Cutting Up the Dragon" (with rules for harvesting from dead Dragons) and "Trophy Hunting" (with Trophy Hunter feat)

[arkieNork]

Book of Vile Darkness have rules for Harvesting Venom

Dragon #317 has "Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog: Using Power Components" article - with rules for harvesting the aforementioned Power Components (and Harvester's Field Kit toolkit)

Dragon #332 includes articles "Cutting Up the Dragon" (with rules for harvesting from dead Dragons) and "Trophy Hunting" (with Trophy Hunter feat)

thank you. sounds like what I'm looking for

[Feantar]

Well, if pathfinder content can be considered 3rd party, there's the Harvest Parts line (Harvest Parts, Haunt Scavenger, Grisly Ornament, Monstrous Crafter) which should be exactly what you're looking for. They are distinct from the Harvesting Monster Parts rules.

[Skysaber]

Dragons, by Alderac Entertainment Group, has the feat Dragonsmith, you can make magic items for 25% less so long as you have access to a supply of fresh dragon parts.

Pairs really well if you've also taken the Dragon Familiar feat. After all, blood, toenail clippings, saliva and tears are all dragon parts.

And people IRL give blood for worthy causes all of the time. How much more readily would we do so if there were healing potions?

[Biggus]

Dragon #317 has "Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog: Using Power Components" article - with rules for harvesting the aforementioned Power Components (and Harvester's Field Kit toolkit)


Some of the power components in Complete Champion (p.131-133) can also be extracted from defeated monsters.

[aglondier]

And sometimes you can use harvested monster bits to make up some of the gp value for crafting magic items. For example, using the hands of an ogre as the central component of Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Or chitin harvested from giant spiders to craft barding of spider climb for the druid's wolf companion because your DM keeps having opponents retreat up walls out of melee reach...

[Jay R]

I often take Craft (tanning), so my PC can bring home owlbear pelts, dragon leather, etc.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Yeah been there, the players think every dead body is literally a pile of loot. Our definitely not "good" heroes are even willing to sell bodies to necromancers. I had to start debating actual market value of bodies, actual body parts as they tried turning monsters into food from meat, leather etc. It made balancing gold / income.. difficult. Because then I had to get into actual economic thoughts to make sure the towns/cities around them made sense with the revelation my players are probably right and these resources wouldn't just be wasted for no reason..

But yeah I never found a functional system I just made it up as I went along to the best of my ability.

[arkieNork]

Yeah been there, the players think every dead body is literally a pile of loot. Our definitely not "good" heroes are even willing to sell bodies to necromancers. I had to start debating actual market value of bodies, actual body parts as they tried turning monsters into food from meat, leather etc. It made balancing gold / income.. difficult. Because then I had to get into actual economic thoughts to make sure the towns/cities around them made sense with the revelation my players are probably right and these resources wouldn't just be wasted for no reason..

But yeah I never found a functional system I just made it up as I went along to the best of my ability.

same situation. my players enslaved a hill giant solely to use him as a chariot driver and to have him drag large corpses back to closest village to sell to the locals for harvesting. Ended up having to read up on colonial era pelt trade in North America...

I am using a table from Arms and Equipment Guide. Pg. 40. 3rd edition, to get pricing of different hides and exotic materials.

[ShurikVch]

I often take Craft (tanning), so my PC can bring home owlbear pelts, dragon leather, etc.
Also - Craft (taxidermy)

[Satinavian]

Yeah been there, the players think every dead body is literally a pile of loot. Our definitely not "good" heroes are even willing to sell bodies to necromancers. I had to start debating actual market value of bodies, actual body parts as they tried turning monsters into food from meat, leather etc. It made balancing gold / income.. difficult. Because then I had to get into actual economic thoughts to make sure the towns/cities around them made sense with the revelation my players are probably right and these resources wouldn't just be wasted for no reason..

But yeah I never found a functional system I just made it up as I went along to the best of my ability.Oh, when it just comes to meat, fur etc, there are a lot of systems that give a full list for what can be harvested in their monster manuals. Occasionally including skills and DCs for the harvest and preparation. TDE for example does that in most editions.
But neither of that is 3.x compatible nor does it give all the monsters valuable/special loot. A monster pelt is not necessarily better than a regular pelt and the meat is often even worse than that from lifestock specifically bred for meat. And that is if the PCs manage to not damage the monster too much in the fight, manage the skill checks even with the tools they have and manage to get the harvest anywhere before it starts to spoil.
For D&D that would not be relevant money after the first couple of levels. Because D&D economy is borked and PCs very soon leave the realm of affordable daily necessities of the common folk. Who would be the ones supposed to buy the monster meat.

As for corpses for necromancers : It would be pretty reasonable to assume that the spell material components are more expensive/limiting than the corpses. Unless there is some special monster corpse making some extraordinary undead, necromancers would be able to source enough corpses for their HD limits relatively easy.


All that is different for special, powerful ingredients. I do know systems that focus on those but haven't seen any compatible with 3.x.

[Promethean]

There's a 3rd party pathfinder 1e/3.5 book that goes into this: Tome of Alchemy.

It breaks down amount, value, and types of magical reagents you can get from monsters by basing it on creature HD, type, and specific monster. The system is abstract and flexible enough to be easy to apply to any monster.

The fun thing about ToA reagents is that it clarifies that This Is What You're Buying when you spend gold to craft a magic item, do spell research, etc. It's actually the only place I've seen that tells you what the [insert generic magic components] are and where they come from.

Quick Warning: the 3.5/pf version of the book is mislabeled as a 5e supplement on many sites because there was a 5e version released by the same company. Preview and double-check to make sure you got the right copy.

[arkieNork]

Because D&D economy is borked and PCs very soon leave the realm of affordable daily necessities of the common folk. Who would be the ones supposed to buy the monster meat.

All that is different for special, powerful ingredients. I do know systems that focus on those but haven't seen any compatible with 3.x.

Regarding this specific point: " the realm of affordable daily necessities of the common folk"

I think that's not the proper economic target to gauge against. In modern society people place significant value on the purchasing power of the commoner masses but most DnD settings are closer to medieval societies where vast majority of spending on things that are not the bare necessities is done by nobility and the elites.

So the possibility of such trade should be measured against the coffers of the elites rather than common folk.

I think meat would be the least tangible to profit off simply due to it spoiling - though even in that regard, Purify Food and Drink is relatively accessible to rich people and historically, the elites of our real world have been known to spend rather obscene amounts for delicacies. Same as they have always spent obscene amounts for trophies of powerful predators - and in our world those predators represent a relatively mild threat.

The monster harvesting bit first came up in my game when players brought down a pack of six worgs and I started thinking about what that pack would mean for a medieval society, the kind of threat they would represent and what it would take for humans to go out and try to hunt a pack of lion sized wolves that could plan and think with a cunning of Int 6 creatures and would seek to evade a powerful force and skirmish to the best of their ability.

It was difficult to even come up with a proper response that a medieval society from our history could put against a pack of 6 worgs that decided to skirmish on the borders of a country. It would take strong-point garrisons of 20+ men-at-arms to repel such a pack from a village and a group of knights to hope to be able to confront them out in the open without high chance of casualties. Would have to be something like strong-points of patrols of 20+ men-at-arms or a fist of knights - even so the worgs would always have the option of simply retreating and going after weaker targets.

I figured that the feat of defeating 6 worgs would likely be seen as a rather heroic deed. The kind of thing that could see a participating commoner promoted to minor nobility or secure a knight's prestige for decades, be noteworthy for the local town's chronicles.

Their hides and skulls would probably make for a relatively desirable trophies based on that alone.

This is before delving into possibility of using any of their remains for magic crafting or spell components.