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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4954433" data-attributes="member: 54707">I think I get ya now. You're defining uncanny in an entirely game-oriented quantitative way. That wasn't what I was driving at myself, but I see your point.In cases like that I'd just leave it up to the DM to define what he or she thinks best (as far as numbers wise, and as far as what actually qualifies as uncanny) according to the requirements of their milieu, setting, world, etc. Just as right now its up to DMs to decide how much treasure to give, or how many and what kinds of monsters (and how they act) to pit the characters up against. I mean I can suggest Beneficial effects, and Curses, and whatnot, and I did, but those are just suggestions. A DM could invent their own system, or modify what I suggested, etc. I'm not laying down you must do it this way markers, just suggestions about how to change things around so monsters are far more dangerous, and have far greater impact overall as monsters, on a setting or a game. As for our game I've never run into monster taxidermy as Ed suggested, because, well, the remains of monsters are far too damagers for that kinda thing in my setting. If the remains of monsters trigger curses that can affect entire areas, or people groups, or can have malignant and life-long effects upon characters then most characters (and nations) wanna stay away from trade in monster corpses. You wanna destroy those remains. Even evil guys don't wanna necessarily risk suffering diseases and loss of abilities from being splattered in the blood of a monster, or having a monster eye relic make them go eventually blind. (Yes, the invisible - while it lives - Third Eye of a Beholder - just as an example - will let someone who places it on their head see many things that were previously impossible to see, but over time it makes you go physically blind, and also slowly drives you made with pain and paranoia.) That's why they are monsters, they possess and promise to others unique potential and power, but exact malignant and far higher costs in other ways. The danger to characters comes in when in the course of killing them you become vulnerable to the dangers their blood, corpses, and remains expose you too. You become warped, or tainted (I'm not just using that term in a gaming sense), or reduced in capability, though sometimes in trade you may gain an ability no one else possesses, such as the ability to accurately foresee the future whenever you wish, or becoming invulnerable to fire. You might gain the ability to understand the languages of animals, but every time a person speaks to you you hear what they say only as a lie. You might, for instance, in killing a troll get covered in its gore, and thereafter find you are immune to iron blades, but wounds now take twice as long to heal, often becoming infected, fire does far more damage to you than before, and every night you suffer exhausting and horrific nightmares. Those are just examples of how things like that are potentially dangerous and exact costs. Just possibilities. I'm not trying to limit the imaginations of whoever is running the game, just spur them on to other possibilities.Now if you had a setting where monsters and the remains of monsters transferred to the possessor only benefits, or several benefits with only mild malignant effects, then yeah, I can see an underground or black market developing, maybe even an open market, on monster remains. That's not what I'm suggesting at all, I'm starting out from myth where monster blood and remains are generally dangerous - very, very dangerous. Part of their overall monstrousness.In my setting, usually only mild benefits with far more malignant effects follow from too much exposure to the blood and death-throes of uncanny monsters. The more powerful the monster, the worse it is. So characters develop new methods of killing, to try and mitigate these effects or to kill at a distance if possible. Monsters also use the fact that they know they have malignant effects to their advantage, as a defense mechanism, and as an escape method. Powerful and intelligent monsters in my setting would rarely fight to the death, there's just nothing in it for them to do that. And nothing in it for the characters to rush in, chop up a dragon, get sprayed by their blood and gore, and pinned down with its death curse. Rather, you'd wanna avoid that with cleverness and craft if you could. But other people could work it different, according to the needs of their setting or game.Now I have had characters use monster remains as a weapon against other monsters, and occasionally against evil NPCs. And I've had evil NPCs use monster remains against characters, as a weapon. Most of the time players and characters don't wanna screw with the dangers, but sometimes remains like that can be a powerful weapon or even just a scare tactic. And over time in my setting monster remains can lose potency, and of course they can be destroyed. Curses on an entire area can be broken by killing a monster as well - that is monsters can inflict not just death curses, but curse an area or a people just by being around them. So sometimes you can break curses by killing monsters as well. But as I said these are just possibilities of how to play it. I'd leave stuff like that up to the DM and to the particular demands of the individual setting. I'm sure people could come up with a lot different ideas than mine, like this one Nifft did:I'm pretty sure I would have never approached the problem with an idea like that. Maybe, but I doubt it.But to reiterate, I wouldn't tell the individual DM exactly what constitutes an uncanny or powerful monster, or how exactly to work the "monster is really dangerous" problem. I'd leave that up to them to define.  Me personally I wouldn't be interested in inflicting a set in stone mechanic when I don't know how their setting functions. Maybe think of it more as "try this new kinda wing design" (actually it is a very ancient wing design, I didn't invent it) but fit it to your aircraft as you need, or it works best.Well, I gotta new case to work. Probably be gone a few days. Maybe a week or so. Might can respond when I can, maybe this weekend.Flesh it out (get it? flesh it out?) among yourselves guys. Maybe instead I should say bloody yourselves up.In any case see ya later. I gotta bug in a few.</blockquote>

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