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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7501327" data-attributes="member: 6801228">See I disagree, because I find tracking this sort of stuff to be aggravating and generally useless. Now, before I get into why, I will say to the OP, it's a really cool idea and I hope everyone has a blast with it. It just isn't for me. And that's because a lot of these components are either pointlessly ubiquitous, or so specific as to be ridiculous. For example, random page flip into PHB... the Resistance Cantrip has a component of "A miniature Cloak", not a piece of cloth, not a cloak for a child, this sounds like someone has to have found a pixie sized, fully stiched cloak. For a cantrip that no one really uses anyways. Where do you get something like that? How much would a tailor charge to make one since a normal sized cloak isn't listed? It would easily be a couple silver, which isn't a lot but why are we bothering? Or what about something like Hex requiring a petrified eye of a newt. How would you ever aquire that? Cast petrify (a 6th level spell requiring lime [I assume the caustic chemical not the fruit] water and earth) on a newt and then chiseling out if eyeball? Chromatic Orb is one that constantly annoys me, because players like to take it at first level, but it requires a diamond worth 50 gold. No 1st level character is capable of affording that, so if I didn't hand wave it away then when my sorcerer got excited to cast their spell for the first time I'd have to tell them, "oh sorry, you aren't rich enough to cast that spell you picked" and that isn't fun for anyone. Then you get the something like Barkskin "a handful of oak bark". Here you have two options, either the party finds an oak tree because they are common enough in the area, they have the item, and then they must remember they have it and mark it on their sheet constantly when remaking sheets. Or, you are in an area where oaks don't grow, and I'm not even talking desert or tundra, a lot of plants have very specific biomes and if you don't want to just handwave it then you need to determine if this setting would support oak trees that the party could find. Then, after they have it.... it doesn't matter. It's just a gotta check "I cast barkskin" "Wait do you have Oak Bark on you" "Yes" "Is it on your character sheet". Is going to get old. Same with a lot of those, Yew Leaves for Detect Poison, Sumac leaves for Flameblade, wychwood for Dancing Lights, Licorice root for Haste (I don't even know what that is). Do all these grow in the same environments, how hard are they to actually find? Also you get stuff like Banishment which requires "An item distasteful to the target". Which is going to be... what? We had a game where our cleric banished a Giant Ape so we could get into the tower it was guarding and fight it through the doorway. We didn't expect to fight a Giant Ape, so we didn't grab "something distasteful to this Giant Ape" and even if we did know, how are we supposed to know what to get? If they need to have the material component first, does just getting it for one creature work, what is distasteful to Bjorn the City Watchmen that the Cleric Banished so he wouldn't get hurt, do you know? It becomes a mess. And the end result is either nothing changes from normal, because players either pick spells with easy components that they can quickly find and then use their focuses throughout, or you have spellcasters unable to cast their spells. Also, if you are targeting focuses.... shouldn't you also target component pouches? It'd be even better for the enemy since then the caster might not be able to cast any spell at all. Not sure how much fun it is for the player though, especially if you don't do similar by trying to disarm fighters and break arrow quivers for archers. Though, picking up most weapons is a non-action once per turn so in the end disarming them alone doesn't do anything, you also got to steal the stuff and then you are mostly rolling athletics checks to wrestle over their weapons and items instead of actually damaging each other, which just drags things out. I personally just don't see the value in it for the occassional "Oh, the wizard goes to the graveyard to get more grave dirt for that spell. That's a cool character scene."</blockquote>

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