Killed a dragon, now they wanna strip it

[UngeheuerLich]

Ritual:

Bath in dragon blood: gain resist 5 for a week. (making sure you had monsters placed which were too tough without that resist)

Dragon blood oil: apply it after an extended rest to give resist 5 vs appropriate damage type until end of next day.

Green dragon acid flask:
Like a high level acid bomb, which would not be affordable at this level.

 

[Obryn]

I have no idea what it is, but there's something about D&D that turns all PCs into amateur taxidermists. If you're a new DM, I'd get used to it - this is just the beginning!

Now that you know it's what your players are into, I'd work it into your treasure parcels. Have fun with it - you now know for certain they will want to make armor out of dragon scales, daggers out of dragon teeth, and so on.

-O

 

[korjik]

Draconomicon 1 details this exact thing: Dragon parts as treasure. Chapter 2 gives various uses for different body parts and how they might be used in rituals. It also has the following to say about dragon armor:
Unfortunately for those who desire to make armor from dragon scales, harvesting scales is difficult, and armor constructed from such scales lasts only a few weeks after it is taken from a living dragon. Everyone knows stories of unique sets of magic armor made of dragon scales, but it might be impossible to construct a mundane armor from harvested scales without a long-lost creation ritual.

That is wierd. Seems to me that a mundane armour made of dragons scales would be Scale Armour if they want it to be more powerful, that will take magic, and then it is masterwork scale armour (of some sort).

 

[lukelightning]

I'd make the corpse act as part of loot.... say "the skin can be made into a suit of magic scale armor up to level 9 (or whatever), the teeth can be made into magic daggers..." etc.

Because I'd be consciously giving this out at loot, rather than treasure, I'd let them be crafted without the enchant magic item ritual (since this is basically just replacing items that would otherwise be found).

Or just say "the corpse is worth x amount of residuum"

Or have the dragon explode when it dies.

 

[avin]

Unfortunately for those who desire to make armor from dragon scales, harvesting scales is difficult, and armor constructed from such scales lasts only a few weeks after it is taken from a living dragon. Everyone knows stories of unique sets of magic armor made of dragon scales, but it might be impossible to construct a mundane armor from harvested scales without a long-lost creation ritual.

laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!

somebody please fire the responsible for this kind of atrocities on 4E...

one of the coolest things for me was always selling or making cool items with dead monsters.

 

[Saagael]

That is wierd. Seems to me that a mundane armour made of dragons scales would be Scale Armour if they want it to be more powerful, that will take magic, and then it is masterwork scale armour (of some sort).

I see it this way: a dragon is a creature of immense magic and elemental energy. That energy suffuses all parts of the dragon while its alive. Once the dragon dies, the elemental energy that makes dragon-scales such potent armor begins to decay and you end up with scales that are brittle and not energy-resistant. That is why they make poor armor, and why it takes a fair bit of magic weaved into the armor to allow the dragon scales to keep their magic.

Luckily my players have been fine taking teeth and scales as trinkets and trophies rather than try to make armor, but I might use some of the ideas here later in my game.

 

[Turtlejay]

My players got oddly specific with me. My brother in particular made a list of the organs he was harvesting to place in jars for Arcane components for rituals, while another wanted to skin the dragon to make Hide armor, etc. I told them they can take the skin with them, but they are going to need a tanner or something if they expect any gear made from it. As it was a Black Dragon, I think some Resist 5 Acid armor seems appropriate.

This is what roleplaying *is*, though. Unless your brother has jars of organs in his room, he is pretending to be someone that would do such a thing. This may or may not be to your liking, but you can harness this creativity to make your game better and more fun.

Let them do it. Hide armor unenchanted is dirt cheap for anything but starting adventurers, residuum encourages ritual use, which is awesome, and plot hooks can be mined from this.

What if a cult of black dragonborn take offense at the armor made from the dragon's scales. Now they have a nemesis.

What if the gallbladder of a dragon has a property that causes a random effect when used in a ritual. What if their flaunting of the dragon's parts earns them fame as dragonslayers, and that draws the attention of powerful people in the area?

You can tie these into your current plans for adventure. Or not. It is up to you!

Jay

 

[JohnnyO]

My party wanted to do exactly the same thing, so what I did was have them hire the local tanner and blacksmith in town to fashion them some weaponry, which ended up giving each party member a +1 item for use in the followup adventure.

I got input from each player about what they wanted (i.e. armor/weapon/etc) and then made up the items for the next play session.

This was of course specific to my group, but you could customize either way. The item in brackets at the end is the actual item from the books, I just changed the name.


1) Cold Resistant Dragon Scale Armor - The fighter wanted armor, so the tanner fashioned him some scale armor out of the dragon scales, with an added resistance to cold. [Scale Armor of Resistance +1 (choose cold)]

2) Dragontooth Shuriken - By fastening a series of dragon's teeth around a metal disc, you have a serviceable and deadly shuriken [This was just a basic +1 Shuriken]

3) Dragonclaw Pick - For the warlord, a dragon's claw fastened to a stick is a serviceable weapon, but be careful how you grip it [Bloodclaw War Pick +1]

4) For the Druid, a collection of reagents from the body (i.e. Eye of Dragon, Lymph Nodes, etc etc) It amounts to about the same value as the weapons others got

5) For the ranger, a Talon Amulet. I didn't even have to change the flavor text on this one, but I think I houseruled that it only worked against cold damage for the daily power

 

[LightPhoenix]

There's a lot of ways you could take it, but I'd avoid flat out saying no to the players. If the players use the parts in item creation, you could knock off some of the cost, or add additional (but minor) effects. You could let them use rituals (I love UngeheuerLich's blood bath idea) with the components. You could use the magical component items in AV1, and give them treasure in that. Perhaps the items can be used, but none of the PCs are a high enough level, so if they want to make that dragonbone sword, they'll have to find a smith capable. Maybe they harvest the parts, and people start to look at them weird for being creepy. Perhaps dragons start hunting the PCs for defiling their dead.

 

[mneme]

Most of the replies are good, but I'll note that if the players want to get involved enough in this to take up a fair amount of play time, it might be worth turning "butchering/crafting the dragon bits" into its own skill challenge. Figure out the maximum value they're hunting for and pick a difficulty rating, letting them use Nature, Perception, Athletics and Arcana as key skills (for a start). On a sucess, they get useful treasure, mabye some magic armor or weapons, and body parts that can be sold or act as residium. On failure, they get less treasure (and half xp for the skill challenge), and lose some surges when parts of the dragon explode on them or are ruined by clumsy work.

By doing this way, you can increase the value they're getting legitimately, rather than either deflating what they get later for what they do now or giving out extra treasure. Plus? Ad-hoc skill challenges are pretty awesome.