D&D 3E/3.5 D&D 3.5: Harvesting Dragonhide

[Karei]

My DM says I need to make a survival check to harvest the hide from a dead dragon. As far as I can tell, that is an assumption (a logical assumption, but an assumption nonetheless,) without any support from the source material.

It's not something I necessarily disagree with, but I just want to see if it has any official basis to stand on.

 

[Dandu]

Survival would cover things like getting the hide off of animals, but so would a craft or profession check in a relevant area like... leathercrafting? Tanning? Taxidermy?

 

[Trance-Zg]

My DM says I need to make a survival check to harvest the hide from a dead dragon. As far as I can tell, that is an assumption (a logical assumption, but an assumption nonetheless,) without any support from the source material.

It's not something I necessarily disagree with, but I just want to see if it has any official basis to stand on.

No official but in general D&D asks some common sense in many things.

So DC of 10 + CR of animal/dragon to skin it sounds nice.

 

[Rhun]

I think your DMs ruling is perfectly fine. Survival could certainly include the proper skinning of animals. As Dandu pointed out, I think there are several other skills that could work as well.

 

[lordxaviar]

related query... there is a spell that I just became aware of that uses a dragon scale as a material component... anyone have a good idea for price? I am working on using the couple of prices for dragon part components that have been pub... Blood and bones... but they are not similar enough, so im kinda stuck with WAG anyone else have an idea.. perhaps some FR reference or other source?

 

[Rhun]

Why not just handwave it as a common material component? Per RAW, it would automatically be in a Spell Component Pouch:

Spell Component Pouch
A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn’t fit in a pouch.

 

[Celebrim]

My DM says I need to make a survival check to harvest the hide from a dead dragon. As far as I can tell, that is an assumption (a logical assumption, but an assumption nonetheless,) without any support from the source material.

It's not something I necessarily disagree with, but I just want to see if it has any official basis to stand on.

It's the sort of thing that the default game seems to consider largely unimportant.

Personally, I'd consider it more of a Craft check than Survival, but Survival is reasonable and more generous than Craft (Skinner) or something of the sort as your party is more likely to have it at a high level.

 

[Empirate]

related query... there is a spell that I just became aware of that uses a dragon scale as a material component... anyone have a good idea for price? I am working on using the couple of prices for dragon part components that have been pub... Blood and bones... but they are not similar enough, so im kinda stuck with WAG anyone else have an idea.. perhaps some FR reference or other source?

I'd rule it costs no really mentionable amount of gp, according to the component pouch text quoted by Rhun, and based on the assumption that dragons moult or something, to explain where all the scales are coming from. Since nothing to the contrary is stated in the spell description (only "dragon", not "true dragon"), you could feasibly just use Pseudodragon, or Wyvern, or heck, dragonwrought kobold scales.

 

[Greenfield]

Trying to harvest the skin of anything sounds like either Survival or Profession- Trapper or Tanner.

As for individual scales... Many reptiles shed skin, either in sections or as a whole piece. The idea of dropped scales being available without anyone having to go kill the beastie seems pretty reasonable.

 

[Ranger19k]

related query... there is a spell that I just became aware of that uses a dragon scale as a material component... anyone have a good idea for price? I am working on using the couple of prices for dragon part components that have been pub... Blood and bones... but they are not similar enough, so im kinda stuck with WAG anyone else have an idea.. perhaps some FR reference or other source?

Without knowing the exact spell, I can't be sure, but normally spells that have an expense associated with the material component will list that price specifically: identify requires that stupid 100gp pearl. If the spell you want just lists "dragon scale" as the material component, without saying something like "50 gp dragon scale", then the baseline assumption should be that the dragon scale is of negligible cost, and is either already in the spell component pouch or easy enough to find.

Now if you want to make dragon scales rare and tag a material cost onto casting that spell, that is certainly your prerogative, but in that case you are breaking your own ground, so really, charge what you feel is appropriate. If you want to make it difficult to cast the spell, make the scales expensive, if not, make them relatively cheap. It's houserule territory, so you should be free to use the price as a mechanism to either encourage or discourage the use of that particular spell.