Rare Material Components to boost spells?

[smootrk]

I would require a Knowledge (appropriate kind) to know that a particular monster part might have a 'metamagic' quality. DC in the range of 10 or more past the HD of the creature depending on the effectiveness or rarity of the creature in question. I would only allow 1 or maybe 2 'doses' to be salvagable from any creature, although a particular creature might have 1 or 2 different types of 'metamagic' qualities.

You could also require some sort of knowledge roll for the actual harvesting aspect. Sometimes certain additional preparations must have been made to make harvesting the more rare and powerful materials... like:

a vial of formaldehyde, oil, preservatives (or similar substances) that must be used to hold the material.
Special masterwork surgical tools to allow proper retrieval (large assortment of heavy specialized tools - weight being the bane of many wizard types).
short term potency dates (use by MMDDYY or possible other detrimental effects possible)
certain spells immediately cast over the collected materials to 'activate' the quality
no fighters simply ripping out certain organs

Can open up the door to some interesting character concepts and roleplay, but also may make for tedious book-keeping (which some love).

 

[Cedric]

I would require a Knowledge (appropriate kind) to know that a particular monster part might have a 'metamagic' quality. DC in the range of 10 or more past the HD of the creature depending on the effectiveness or rarity of the creature in question. I would only allow 1 or maybe 2 'doses' to be salvagable from any creature, although a particular creature might have 1 or 2 different types of 'metamagic' qualities.

You could also require some sort of knowledge roll for the actual harvesting aspect. Sometimes certain additional preparations must have been made to make harvesting the more rare and powerful materials... like:

a vial of formaldehyde, oil, preservatives (or similar substances) that must be used to hold the material.
Special masterwork surgical tools to allow proper retrieval (large assortment of heavy specialized tools - weight being the bane of many wizard types).
short term potency dates (use by MMDDYY or possible other detrimental effects possible)
certain spells immediately cast over the collected materials to 'activate' the quality
no fighters simply ripping out certain organs

Can open up the door to some interesting character concepts and roleplay, but also may make for tedious book-keeping (which some love).

Close to what I had in mind, I was thinking of something like a Knowledge: Occult Material to know about the components, and it's not just something you can spend skill points on, you have to find tomes or teachers to go beyond each rank divisible by 5, (5, 10, 15, 20, etc).

Along with a Craft: Taxidermy (or something similar) to carefully harvest the appropriate material.

Also, if you want it to last more than a few days, you need a special pouch...think Hewards Handy Haversack, with Gentle Repose worked into the creation. I wouldn't make them terribly expensive though.

 

[frankthedm]

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.

A wizard casting an attack spell is already in "in a pinch". Other than battle hungry warmages and other suicidal types [adventurers], wizards don't willingly put themselves into harms way.

 

[Cedric]

A wizard casting an attack spell is already in "in a pinch". Other than battle hungry warmages and other suicidal types [adventurers], wizards don't willingly put themselves into harms way.

Hehe, I think the wizards in my games (as a GM and a Player) differ notably from the Wizards in your games. Mine tend towards more of a "kill them before they kill you" mentality.

Also, for what it's worth, I was coming up with this for an upcoming Homebrew world I'm going to be working on, where adventurers are going to be a more common subset of the populace and becoming an adventurer is a guilded profession.

Basically in the vein of "only the strong survive" ...the weak are fewer in number and the strong are the glue holding countries and cities together.

 

[Archade]

Along with a Craft: Taxidermy (or something similar) to carefully harvest the appropriate material.

For some strange reason, Craft (taxidermy) drives me up the wall. The idea of the skill is fine, but the name strikes me as jarring.

Can anyone come up with a better synonym or replacement name?

 

[Cedric]

For some strange reason, Craft (taxidermy) drives me up the wall. The idea of the skill is fine, but the name strikes me as jarring.

Can anyone come up with a better synonym or replacement name?

I'd be open minded to that, it bugged me as well. How about... Craft: Necropsy (that's the animal version of an autopsy).

 

[GreatLemur]

Wouldn't Craft (material component) make the most sense? Or, if you want something that sounds a little better, Craft (reagent)? I guess that breaks the naming convention for Craft skills, though. Maybe Craft (reagent harvesting)?

I'm seriously loving the ideas in this thread, by the way. This kind of houserule--especially if played fast and loose, rather than working from a set list of recipes--just sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, to me.

 

[Cedric]

Wouldn't Craft (material component) make the most sense? Or, if you want something that sounds a little better, Craft (reagent)? I guess that breaks the naming convention for Craft skills, though. Maybe Craft (reagent harvesting)?

I'm seriously loving the ideas in this thread, by the way. This kind of houserule--especially if played fast and loose, rather than working from a set list of recipes--just sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, to me.

Hehe, I planned on building the list as they found, killed and harvested stuff instead of sitting down with the MM and trying to come up with stuff.

Pl: So, we killed this displacer beast, can we get anything from it...
DM: I dunno, Roll. Knowledge: Occult Material
PL: Natural 20! That gives me a 28 total.
DM: Ok, if you can manage to harvest the glands from it's tentacles, they'll help with some spells, like Displacement, but you have to harvest it just right. Roll Craft: Necropsy
PL: I rolled an 18, that gives me a 26.
DM: Ok, you have two glands. That will help with the Displacement spell, that's all you know.

Later on in the adventure, the player casts Displacement as they prep for a battle and decides to use one of the glands.

The spell affects the caster + one creature touched, and lasts 1 minute/level instead of one round per level.

That's just an "off the top of my head" idea. But after that encounter, I would write down the properties of that gland for future reference.

But, let's say the same group came across two dragons doing battle and the ancient black dragon (call it CR 18) crashes to the ground in the distant field and the Gold dragon it was fighting flies off.

The party approaches the black dragon and asks if they can harvest anything. Well, let's say the wizard had 8 ranks in Knowledge: Occult Material and 8 Ranks in Necropsy. Unfortunately, no matter how good they might roll, they simply don't know enough about a CR 18 creature to know what to harvest.

I realize that's quite a bit different from how other skills work, but I don't want to tempt them into places they shouldn't be just to scavenge.

 

[smootrk]

I don't like adding more skills to the game, but your idea has merits. You could come up with or build a list with minor, major, and greater effects based upon the quality/rarity/degree of successful harvesting... so that you can have a mechanic to the enhancement rather than arbitrarily deciding what happens.

The DC of the 'havesting roll' could be HD of the creature +10 for minor reagent, +15 for major reagent, and +20 for greater reagent (although these are just out-of-thin-air suggestions).

Minor might be +1 caster level, or +1 DC (or something equivalent)
Major might be the minor effect plus an appropriate metamagic feat of +1/+2 level equivalent.
Greater could be the minor effect (or even enhanced to both CL & DC), the major effect, and another metamagic feat, or something like the spell does not leave your memory (but the reagent was consumed).

So... you have a knowledge roll to determine if there is a suitable reagent(s), and then a harvesting roll for the quality of the reagent(s). DC's can be tweaked for rarity of creature, or difficulty of harvesting, etc. with circumstance bonuses.

 

[GreatLemur]

The way I've been envisioning the mechanic, there'd just be a general rule that reagents can be applied to spells with effects or descriptors similar to the powers and type of the creatures from which they were harvested. So creatures with the fire subtype are useful for spells with the fire descriptor, etc. I'd probably keep the actual effects of reagents simple and static, like granting +1 caster level, or maybe a free 1-spell-level metamagic feat (not sure if the caster would have to have the feat or not . . . maybe yes, but using the reagent for that would require a spellcraft check?).

Anyway, recognizing the potential of a monster carcass could be a Knowledge (arcana) roll, with the DC based either on the critter's CR, or type, or something else. Succeeding once would mean not having to roll for that kind of creature again. Actually cutting out the heart or whatever would require a Craft (reagent harvesting) roll--not necessarily by the same character--against a DC of something like 15 + CR (maybe modified by creature type and size), which would consume some resources in the form of specimin jars and whatnot (and no taking 20 allowed). Because I like variable levels of success, maybe the amount by which you exceed the DC could determine how long the preserved bits will stay potent, or even how many uses' worth you can get.

Components taken from tougher creatures would, naturally, be useful for more powerful spells (maybe max spell level = CR / 2). And maybe more powerful reagents would have greater effects with weaker spells (like +1 caster level per 2 CR over spell level?), but I'm not sure about the balance on that, especially when PCs could potentially harvest bits from creatures defeated by powerful NPCs.

I think I'd mostly limit reagent harvesting to magical creatures, but maybe having a wolf skin could help someone polymorph into a wolf, or an orgre heart would be handy when casting bull's strength. Then there's the question of non-corpse-related reagents, like gems and herbs and such, but I'm still thinking about that stuff.