Captain's Monster Carving

by Captainicus

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Monster Carving

Crafting your own gear is something many players have long been interested in. After all, it is much more exciting to wield your dagger made from the fangs of a giant serpent you've slain yourself than to use the +1 shortsword you've looted from a bandit captain.

The intent of this supplement is to provide a simple, adaptable system that does not require the GM to build loot lists or any extra work - it should be applicable to every monster the party may face. While the GM is ultimately in charge of what items may be possible, this should provide a complete package that players can use to make their own magic items and gear. While Xanathar's Guide to Everything has a simple ruleset to create items during downtime, this is supposed to be more specific as to what or how much you need for an item, with slightly revised costs and times.

Monstrous Materials

Any monster can provide something to the adventurer skilled or crafty enough. In order to turn it into useful materials, you must make one or more Carve Checks. The difficulty to harvest a creature depends on the creature's CR, and the skill used depends on the target part you wish to carve (detailed later in this document):

Carve DC: 10 + the Creature's CR.

Additional factors to your Carve Check may apply depending on the situation you carve in, as suggested by the following table:

Check Modifier Situation
-10 On the pitching deck of a ship during a thunderstorm
-5 On the back of a moving cart, or using improvised, jury rigged tools
+5 Having a workshop with specialized tools, butcher's hooks etc, or following instructions from a detailed bestiary
+10 The help of an extremely skilled specialist and a dedicated workshop, such as helping an archmage disassemble a golem in his private lab

The number of checks and the materials you gain for each is determined by creature size, as listed below. Carving a creature generally takes 1 hour, but particularly difficult tasks, like tiny or gargantuan creatures, may take 4 hours or more, at the DM's discretion.

Monster Size Max Carve Checks Units of Materials per Success
Tiny 1 1/4 unit
Small 1 1/2 unit
Medium 2 1 unit
Large 3 2 units
Huge 4 3 units
Gargantuan 5 4 units

Generally speaking, each specific part can only be attempted to carved once. For example against a large Giant Scorpion, one check could be made to carve parts of its stinger (rewarding two units on a success), one check could be made to carve the venom glands, and one check could be made to gather chitinous plates. The GM may decide to waive this limit depending on the creature.

You may be able to make as many checks as you wish to gather vines from a relatively formless Shambling Mound, for example.

If the Carve Check is a fail, assume the part was broken, or too damaged in fighting to be of use.

Different creature types and different creature parts will require different kinds of skills in order to successfully carve materials. The following table provides an example of skill you will use depending on the creature type, and the table below the ability modifier depending on the part you wish to carve. Note that this uses the Variant: Skills with Different Abilities (PHB pg. 175)

Creature Type Skill Used
Abberation Arcana
Beast* Animal Handling or Nature
Celestial Religion
Construct Arcana
Dragon Arcana
Elemental Arcana
Fey Nature
Fiend Religion
Giant History
Monstrosity Arcana
Ooze Arcana or Nature
Plant Nature
Undead Religion

*The beast creature type encompasses both giant insects and animals. I suggest animal handling for animals, and nature for giant insects.

Part Ability Used
Horns, scales, claws, bones, fangs STR
Fins, feathers, stingers, chitin DEX
Slime, mucus CON
Magic essence, ectoplasm INT or WIS
Blood sample INT
Vital organ, poison gland WIS
Fur, hide STR, DEX, or WIS

So if a player wanted to extract the fiery essence of a Hell Hound, they could make an Intelligence or Wisdom (Religion) check. To carve the fangs they could make a Strength (Religion) check instead.

These listed skills should by no means be considered the only options. Perhaps a Ranger could use his Survival to skin a common beast, or a Cleric of the god of invention who regularly handles golems could use Religion to dismantle a construct.

Part 1 | Gathering Materials

Uses for Materials

Depending on the armor, weapon, or item you wish to craft, you will need a number of units of the same material. Each part also has a value, should you wish to simply sell it, depending on either the creature's CR or how rare it is in the world.

CR Rarity Part Value in GP
3 or less Common CR * 5
4 to 8 Uncommon CR * 15
9 to 12 Rare CR * 40
13 to 18 Very Rare CR * 100
19 to more Legendary CR * 150

The rarity of creatures depends on the world your adventure takes place in. If dinosaurs are particularly commonplace, perhaps a CR 5 dinosaur counts as a common creature, rather than uncommon, and has appropriately reduced value.

Note that these values allow for creatures to be a major source of income for the party, particularly if they fight a many large or huge creatures. For example, a large CR 9 Bone Devil can supply up to 6 units of materials, each worth 360 gp! If you wish for monster carving to only supplement the party income, consider reducing the value of all materials to half or one third of these printed values.

Crafting Equipment

Now that you have gathered yourself some valuable materials, you will need some time to turn them into equipment. In order to craft a magic item, a character generally needs proficiency in one type of artisan's tools, at the GM's discretion. For example, you may need alchemy tools to render some ooze into a potion, or bonecarving tools to turn fangs into arrowheads or scales into scale mail.

The number of materials you need for an item depends on its size of the creature to wear it or its complexity. Consult the table below.

Item Type Unit Cost
Armor or Clothing (small) 2
Armor or Clothing (medium) 3
Armor or Clothing (large) 6
One-Handed Simple Weapon 1
Versatile or Two-Handed Simple Weapon 2
One-Handed Martial Weapon 2
Versatile or Two-Handed Martial Weapon 3
10 units of ammo 1
Consumable 1

Furthermore, items from a sufficiently rare or powerful creature may be strong enough to have an inherent enhancement bonus, functioning as a +1 weapon or armor, depending on the creature's CR.

CR Armor or Shield Weapon
6 or less None None
7 to 10 None +1
11 to 18 +1 +2
19 to 24 +2 +3

At the GM's choice, armor or weapons may receive some kind of benefit depending on the creature they were made from. The scales of a CR 9 Young Blue Dragon may not create +1 Scalemail, but may create Scalemail of Lightning Resistance.

When making armor or weapons, try not to focus on specific makes of each armor or weapon. Perhaps the hard chitin from a giant insect could create breastplates, half plate, splint armor, or plate armor. Perhaps the vines from a Shambling Mound could create a jacket or long coat that functions as a chain shirt or chain mail. Maybe a monstrosity's slime could treat a bowstring or whip. Be creative!

Magic Items

Materials may also serve as ingredients to create magic items. With some time and money for tools, base materials, and experimentation, you can create a magic item from your carved materials. The time and costs to do so depend on the rarity, as in the table below.

CR Magic Item Rarity Cost Time
1 to 3 Common 25gp 1 day
4 to 8 Uncommon 100gp 1 week
9 to 12 Rare 1000gp 5 weeks
13 to 18 Very Rare 10,000gp 10 weeks
19 or more Legendary 50,000gp 50 weeks

The time and cost is halved to create a consumable item like a potion or scroll. For breastplates, half plate, and plate mail, increase the time by one tier and add an extra cost equal to half the item's normal value, eg an extra 325gp for half plate.

As with armor and weapons, be creative! Perhaps the essence of an air elemental or springy ooze could create enchanted boots that function as a Ring of Jumping. Maybe the bones of a terrifying dinosaur could create a headdress or mask that functions as a Wand of Fear.

These cost values are intended to reflect a 'high magic' world in which magic is fairly common, where adventurers can buy magic items at a magic academy or artificer's shop. If magic items are rarer in your adventure, consider increasing the costs and time of an item by one tier (so creating an uncommon item takes 1000gp and 5 weeks).

These time values also reflect a slower adventure that takes years instead of weeks or months. If your adventure is faster, consider greatly reducing the times, or allowing players to make progress during their long rests, or both.

Part 2 | Crafting Items

Final Thoughts

You might think that the DC on carving high CR monsters is quite high. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I assume that the check is made with advantage as two party members help one another. Second, I wanted it to link nicely into a sidequest to acquire allies or build a workshop or find a valuable bestiary to make it easier, so players can feel invested in becoming master monster hunters as they get higher level. Third, and this is a house rule you might want to adapt for yourself. If two characters help to co-operate on a skill check in which at least one of them is proficient, you can use the higher ability modifier of either character. So a barbarian with +4 STR mod can help a druid with proficiency of +3 in nature to make a Strength (Nature) test at +7. Thematically, the druid leads with directions and advice while the barbarian does the heavy lifting and grunt work.

This system is adapted by the house rules and rules I've had personal experience with, iterated and modified. The base system of monster size is adapted from a very old version of the excellent City and Wild supplement, the most recent version of which is available as pay what you want by following the link.

Version History

  • V1, First Release
 

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