Creature body parts?

JohnnFour

Explorer
Have there been any rules or systems crafted for harvesting monster body parts, whether for magic item creation, spell components, crafting, or treasure?

I've got a low magic game going and would like to use dead monsters as a treasure source somehow.
 

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AEG's Dragon had a nice job of this for dragons. I came up with some rules for it in a campaign last year but I think it turned out to be too much work for not much gain.
 

Didn't there used to be a list of some of those in the AD&D DM's guide? I think it was in the section for crafting magic items and listed the gp value of the items and some of their uses. It could be a starting point.
 

Check out Ronin Arts' excellent 101 Arcane Spell Components, and 101 Divine Spell Components for some rules on harvesting organs and whatnot.

Edit: They can be found here.
 
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Green Ronin in their DM book I believe had some generic rules for this. It just gave the parts a point value and those points would help the XP part of crafting items.
 

I agree, the Ronin Arts 101s are very good, and those two would be particularly useful for this. However, I like 101 Mundane Treasures (and Another 100MT) most of all, I think. . . FWIW. :)

Spells & Spellcraft has a section in one chapter called "Magical Materials", which is rather handy, if you're looking to do this kind of thing.

The Advanced Gamemaster's Guide has rules for "Levin", which can be used in place of XP for magic item creation, or in spellcasting.

Some of the monsters in Denizens of Avadnu have a 'Physiological Uses' entry. Plus, it's a great book anyway, though overlooked (most likely due to a lack of marketing, AFAIK).

Unearthed Arcana has rules for Metamagic Components, some of which are from monsters. These rules can also be found here. Not sure how much use that'd be, but hey. Another thing to look at, and free if you prefer. :)
 
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There was some stuff in Unearthed Arcana on using monster parts to apply metamagic effects to spells. You can find details here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/metamagicComponents.htm#monsterParts

Dragon #317 had an article on power components from monsters to enhance spells, and #332 had another specifically about power components from dragons and looting dragon corpses in general. And Dragon #303 had an article about making armour from dragon corpses (how much armour you could get from different sizes dragons, for example)
 

The Artificer's Handbook has a whole chapter on that very topic.

Also includes gems, herbs, and "weird" components like "the winds of change" or "the monkey off someone's back".
 

I've been thinking about a system that despends on a generic monster type, hit die, and special abilities formula rather than specific monster and parts there of. That would make it easier to keep track of because it would be generic rather than than a long list of specific parts for use as power components. it would be very abstract and not up to heavy scrutiny for virisimiltude but would speed things up.

Something like saying that a monster can be harvested for power components for their hit die time a number based on monster type in XP equivilent components. Animals and vermin might just be 1. Humanoids might be for 3 but use imparts an [evil] subtype to the spell. Magical Animals would be 10. Dragons 20. etc. etc. This would reqire a Spellcraft check of 10 + hit die to successfully harvest.

Meat would be something like size times hit die in pounds. Value would again be determined by monster type. Animals might be 1 CP per pound. Magical beasts would be 1 GP per pound. Dragons 5 GP per pound. etc. So a large (10'x10') 5 hit die animal type would resut in 50 pounds of meat worth 1 CP each. (hrrm. Maybe square the size) This would be a check of Survival or an appropriate profession of 10+ hit die to gather. Maybe another check to store long term by drying or slating which might raise or lower value.

Material good such as leather, fur, ivory etc. would be stock value of hit die times GP with a monster type modifier. Would require a survival or appropriate profesion check to harvest as well as time needed for tanning and such if needed.

Assume all three could be done without interfering with eachother. Still not sure how to handle abilites and such but these were just rough rules anyway.
 

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