Rare Material Components to boost spells?

[Cedric]

I am tinkering with a new Homebrew setting I just came up with the idea for this morning. In doing so, I was thinking...two of the things that most irritate casters are failing a roll to beat SR and having the bad guys save and take half or no damage.

So I was thinking about coming up with a list of rare material components. They wouldn't be the type of things you could buy...but stuff you would have to adventure, or perhaps trade for.

There might be things like...ash from a destroyed fire elemental to augment a fireball so that it gets a +4 to SR, or white dragon blood to make it so that any "ice" spell can't be evaded completely. Failed save is full damage, save is 3/4 damage, save with evasion is 1/2 damage, save with improved evasion is 1/4 damage...or something of the like.

Thoughts?

 

[Archade]

I'm always very interested in this sort of thing.

Just FYI, the most recent Monster Manual IV has this sort of thing for variant summoned creatures (you must have X ranks in Knowledge the Planes and use 50 gp of ruby dust, etc).

I also vaguely recall some extra material components in Complete Mage for metamagic effects, etc, and thinking they were very cheap.

 

[gamecat]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=153312

Enjoy.

 

[Cedric]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=153312

Enjoy.

Great stuff, thanks.

 

[frankthedm]

Thoughts?

Do it Carefully. Unless you have some risk to doing so, you boost the casters by allowing this. Actually, this can also work to dial back the power of some spells, requiring the exotic component, otherwise the spell has lesser effect.

An eyelid of a fey creature, added to an invisibility spell allows for a duration of five or ten minutes a level.

Exotic warpaints that when aplied to unused magic item slots allow the animal buff spells to have longer durations. [10min/level. maybe the old hour a level]

Requiring a pound of actual gold dust to get the blinding property of glitterdust. [i feel it is a little cheesy]

 

[Archade]

Something interesting to note. When Unearthed Arcana came out, they had crazy lists of expensive optional material components, most of which added a metamagic feat to a spell.

As well, in Book of Vile Darkness or Book of Exalted Deeds, there are a few material components that have an X% chance of adding a metamagic effect, and a very reduced expense.

With Complete Mage, they've included items that affect categories of spells, such as abjurations, at about half the cost.

Off the top of my head, one of the items is 'angel down' which is really pollen collected from the Upper Planes. It extends abjurations at a cost of 100 gp per spell level.

One caveat I'd add to Frank's post, is avoid using 'critter bits' excessively, otherwise the PCs will start wanting to 'harvest' valuable bits of a monster.

With the Complete Mage in mind, it's worth going back to my AD&D DMG to look at the properties of gems ...

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the UA list is quite ok, albeit they are a bit pricey.

The problem I see is that if you give these ingredients a cost, typically the players will assume they can just buy them in the shop 'round the corner, and it becomes less funny.

I would make them free, but only if I can make them rare enough that the characters cannot take too much advantage of it. So for example, I wouldn't design an ingredient that can be taken from common monsters or even plants.

Otherwise, it is also possible to think of something cheap/free AND easy-to-get, but only it comes as a sort of in-game reward for players being particularly smart in an adventure. E.g. you could have a PC learn from an unusual book or from an NPC how to make his Fireballs slightly better by adding (insert simple ingredient here).

 

[frankthedm]

One caveat I'd add to Frank's post, is avoid using 'critter bits' excessively, otherwise the PCs will start wanting to 'harvest' valuable bits of a monster.

Nothing wrong with that IMHO. I hate seeing Treasure: None in a monster entry. Creature parts are important part of the fluff of magic. From eye of newt to medusa hair snakes, magic has always wanted those critter bits. And there are mundane applications of this too, from maticore pelts as popular trophies to the pelt of a big furry monster that could count as masterwork cold weather clothing worth a fair bit of coin. I can't stand D&D shying away from this because of the real world agendas of some game designers.

 

[Archade]

I don't mind having more treasure - I too hear the lamentation of players who fight multiple beasts with nothing to show for it. I don't think filling a selection of pickle jars is very heroic.

I'm thinking UA was too pricey, and a bit too specific. I'm looking to build a broader list based on the Complete Mage costs.

 

[Cedric]

Nothing wrong with that IMHO. I hate seeing Treasure: None in a monster entry. Creature parts are important part of the fluff of magic. From eye of newt to medusa hair snakes, magic has always wanted those critter bits. And there are mundane applications of this too, from maticore pelts as popular trophies to the pelt of a big furry monster that could count as masterwork cold weather clothing worth a fair bit of coin. I can't stand D&D shying away from this because of the real world agendas of some game designers.

Yes, critter bits was going to be a cornerstone of the system I had in mind. As to making caster's more powerful, I actually don't have a problem with that, I intend to make them more powerful. Just in a selective and difficult to control manner.

Learning to identify and use the critter parts will likely wind up being its own craft skill in my game, bolstered by a knowledge skill. So players will either have to invest time and effort into becoming good at this, or rely on luck and happenstance.

There will be places to sell the stuff they find, but never at a fair price and the merchant will never reveal the properties of what they are agreeing to buy.

Buying the critter bits will be largely out of the question, except for perhaps buying them from other adventurers who won't trust them.

I don't intend it to be a commonly used tool to augment a spell. More like a precious cache of materials that the desperate wizard might extract in a pinch when the chips are down. Kind of an "oh crap" option.