D&D 4E 4e Power Components

[Sylvaroth]

In 3.X there was the idea of using monster parts to reduce or totally replace gp or XP costs in the creation of magic items.

I wanted to give it a try for 4e, so the magic item shops could reopen and fill their shelves again with bottled eyeballs, canned organs, and twitching limbs.

Outlined below you'll find one of two ways to use components in your game (for examples and Method II see the links at the end of this post).


Method I: Make money of members
First of all I calculated the total monetary value (MV) of the four magic item parcels of each individual level (DMG, pages 126-129). Those are now divided by 10 (the average number of encounters per level) to get the average value of a magic item. The result is divided again by 5 to get the average sale price of such an item.

MV / 50​

Voila, there is the average gp resp. residuum value of power components you could harvest per encounter.

I do not think this would unbalance the game even if you added the power component value to the total treasure value (magic items+coins, gems, potions, etc). On average, one single component will only reduce the creation cost of a magic item resp. starting no earlier than 5th will it be able to totally replace the cost of an item five levels below the average party level.
Still your players can now sell components or use them to make their creations their own (e.g. harvesting parts of a young red dragon the party just slew to use them in the creation of a rod for the dragonborn Warlock).

The knowledge of such power components could be included in the information gained via monster knowledge checks, and the preparation and preservation of such items could be a new use of the Brew Potion ritual.

Thread Links

• Examples of Method I & Talisman of the Slaughter Wight
• Method II: Residuum Value

 

[Garthanos]

Love, it. I have been wondering if there was a way to allow "gathering of ritual components" instead of "buying" them

 

[Sylvaroth]

Love, it. I have been wondering if there was a way to allow "gathering of ritual components" instead of "buying" them

Nice to hear you like it.

Some example encounters:

1. Battlefield Control (Easy level 3 encounter for lvl5 PCs)
   1x124.8 gp (lvl3 controller) + 6x60.8 gp (lvl1 skirmishers)
   
2. Double Line (Hard level 18 encounter for lvl 15 PCs)
   4x2.7k gp (lvl17 minions) + 3x6k gp (lvl 15 soldiers)
   + 2x7.6k gp (lvl16 artillery) + 1x10.8k gp (lvl17 controller)
   
3. Dragon's Den (Standard level 26 encounter for lvl 25 PCs)
   1x855k gp (lvl26 solo)

Minions = 1/4 Standard Component Value
Elites = 2x Standard Component Value
Solos = 5x Standard Component Value

Take the gp-value of harvestable components as a guideline for their use as components in rituals, the enchantment of magic items, etc.
Now you can send your players to slay monsters and bring the obtained components to a master crafter.

Take the level 16 troll encounter as an example:
Skinning the two war trolls (lvl 14 soldiers) earns the party trollskin worth the equivalent of 8.8k gp. Subtract that amount off the 25k a +3 trollskin armor would normally cost and they get a 15th level magic item with a 35% discount.

If that is too mundane for you, remember the horn of the rare red minotaur (DMG 3.5, p. 36), which was needed to cast greater restoration without any XP costs for the caster.

You could even decide to use the Enchant Magic Item-ritual to create disposable items.
For example, the enchanted claw of a slaughter wight could drain and store a limited number of healing surges to be used in the casting of rituals.

Example:
Talisman of the Slaughter Wight Level X
This gruesome talisman resembles the leathery claw of an undead creature.
Item Slot: Neck
Power (Daily): When you drop an enemy to 0 hit points or fewer with a critical hit the talisman stores 1 healing surge. The talisman can store up to 5 healing surges.
Special: Whenever a power or ritual requires you to spend a healing surge, you can instead use a healing surge stored in the talisman. After all five healing surges have been drained, the talismane shriveles and crumbles to dust.
Requires the casting of Enchant Magic Item performed on the hand of a Slaughter Wight.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I've always done something along these lines. It can also be used to make knowledge skills a bit more interesting. The wizard makes some Arcana checks at the end of the encounter and figures out that "hmmm, some owlbear feathers will work pretty good as ritual components". These components don't always need to be part of the monsters you just defeated either. They can be things which are just present in the area.

 

[Quickleaf]

I figured out the same thing a while ago to calculate monster bounties. Of course, the lion's share of the work lies in determining what each monster's residuum can be used for (unless you rule they all turn to magic dust).

Your idea for consumable monster parts is just awesome.

 

[Sylvaroth]

Yeah, I've always done something along these lines. It can also be used to make knowledge skills a bit more interesting. The wizard makes some Arcana checks at the end of the encounter and figures out that "hmmm, some owlbear feathers will work pretty good as ritual components". These components don't always need to be part of the monsters you just defeated either. They can be things which are just present in the area.

Care to elaborate a bit about the area-part?

I figured out the same thing a while ago to calculate monster bounties. Of course, the lion's share of the work lies in determining what each monster's residuum can be used for (unless you rule they all turn to magic dust).

Your idea for consumable monster parts is just awesome.

Thank you very much for your kind words.

As for, as you call it, the monsters residuum: Instead of orienting your calculations by the magic item value of the treasure parcels of a level you could also use the magic threshold as a guideline for the amount of residuum you can steal from a monster. I tried something like that before so let me explain:

Method II: Residuum Value​

Take tables MONSTER MAGIC THRESHOLD, DMG, p. 174 and MAGIC ITEM PRICES, PHB, p. 223 as a reference.

Monsters of up to level 5 don't have a magic threshold (or at least a magic threshold of +0), starting at level 6 and every five levels after that they gain +1 to their threshold (+1 at lvl6, +2 at lvl11, +3 at lvl16, aso.).

Now let us assume that the threshold value equals the sale price of a magic weapon of the same enhancement value (e.g a lvl6 monster = Magic weapon +1).
Going by that premise a level 11 monster contains residuum equal to that of a magic weapon of its level -5 (360 gp).
Coincidentally that is exactly 1/10 of the monetary treasure of all level 6 encounters (DMG, p. 126).

Now you can decide to either give all monsters within the specific threshold level a flat residdum value (lvl6-10 = 360gp, lvl 11-15 = 1,800 gp, lvl 16-20 = 9,000 gp, etc.) or you could just give them 1/10 of the levels total monetary treasure value resp. the sale price of a magic item 5 levels below that of the monster.

I'd prefer the latter method, because this way there is a difference (talking about residuum) between killing a lvl6 and a lvl10 monster.

The residuum values you get from this method are most of the time a little bit higher than the values you get from Method I.