Trophy Dismemberment

[jamminjelly]

I've noticed that in almost every tabletop game that I've ever played, regardless of edition, there has been at least one character that loves to take a body part of a slain foe as a trophy.

I can understand why people do this, but I've always felt weird about it. Sure it makes sense from an RP perspective but I have never seen anything interesting done with this by either the PC or the DM.

What do think about this often recurring trait and have any of you ever done anything special with a character's collection of remains?

[herrhauptmann]

Well phb2 does have rules and feats for crafting trophies.

Best I've seen, a 2nd ed game where a monster was convinced to join the PC's, he only ever crit'ed against naga's, and cuz of that, the party made him a suit of leather armor crafted from naga skins and he started taking levels of ranger. Which gave him ridiculous bonuses against nagas, but still didn't do squat tohelp him against ANY other creature.

[Tempest Fennac]

I don't remember anyone doing that in games I've been in. There is a Ranger feat called Trophy Hunter, page 85 of http://crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Feats.pdf , which lets you use trophies to get some bonuses, though.

[overduegalaxy]

There's also a PrC in Stormwrack, Leviathan Hunter, that collects trophies from slain foes for various bonuses.

[jamminjelly]

I get the feeling that this phenomenon was happening enough on its own for rules to be made about it later.

[potatocubed]

One of the characters in my current game has a collection of body parts. A severed head on a stick, a mummified hand, a heart, and some other odds and ends. The character is evil, though, so.

Oh, and?

>.>
<.<

The mummified hand is going to be important later on!

I mean, seriously, carrying around severed bits of powerful undead? That's just asking for trouble.

[Sinfire Titan]

I get the feeling that this phenomenon was happening enough on its own for rules to be made about it later.

The devs sometimes manage to catch onto ideas posted on the forums. Trophy collection was a common theme even in mythology that when stories and home brew began appearing on the main site, they decided to make an official rule about it.


They had one in 3.0, but it was a feat that offered absolutely no mechanical advantages (not even a +1 to a skill check), it just said "Here's a DC for the craft check, you need this feat to even attempt it though, and having this and making the check does nothing but waste time".

PH2 and Stormwrack rectified it with the PrC and the feat.

[TheThan]

I never really came across the trophy hunter, but I have been in games where we kept “score” of our kills.

[Decoy Lockbox]

I've noticed that in almost every tabletop game that I've ever played, regardless of edition, there has been at least one character that loves to take a body part of a slain foe as a trophy.

I can understand why people do this, but I've always felt weird about it. Sure it makes sense from an RP perspective but I have never seen anything interesting done with this by either the PC or the DM.

What do think about this often recurring trait and have any of you ever done anything special with a character's collection of remains?

Special? Oh my yes.

A couple years ago, we were playing an AD&D 2e campaign, and our characters, in addition to being adventurers, ran a bar/inn in our spare time, called the "Drunk as Gods" tavern. We would bring things back from our adventures, like a whole umber hulk, or severed drow heads (both from our underdark trip), and mount them on the walls, like you would see at one of those whacky theme restaurants that flourished during the 90s in America. We even put a Hawaiian shirt on the umber hulk and sunglasses on the severed drow heads to get the right ambience.

Needless to say, there was a strong comedy component to that campaign.

[#Raptor]

What do think about this often recurring trait and have any of you ever done anything special with a character's collection of remains?

Well, I've got this character concept for a Necromancer, who basically goes adventuring because, well... every Necromancer with taste needs a throne made of skulls, no?

And you can't just buy those in the next Ikea.

[Epinephrine]

We have a trophy hunting (not for any feat though) barbarian in a group, he's always cutting off parts of creatures.

My druid borrowed the head of the green dragon we killed (Ozyrrandion) and popped it in through the mayor's window, yelling about how I was going to devour him for daring to send those adventurers out after me.

Good times. And apparently, the mayor lacks a sense of humour. The same can't be said of the druid :)