Material Components
The last time we visited Forgemistress’s smithy we talked a bit about special materials and special items. It’s one thing to say that you want your magical whatsits to feel unique and flavorful, but it’s another thing to actually put in the work. Believe me, I know what a pain it can be coming up with the secret history of every +1 apple corer that the party comes across, especially if you’re in a long-running campaign or happen to be the Monty Haul type of GM. However, there is an excellent source of inspiration already in the game, and chances are that your players just murdered it.
If there are any Monster Hunter fans out there, you already know how rewarding it is to carve bits and pieces off of your fallen enemies and turn them into gear. Even Mario gets in on the act from time to time, but all too often in tabletop we’ll gloss over the cool visuals, looking instead at the killer stats that the items provide. Slow down though. Take a minute and look at the opportunity bleeding out on the floor in front of you. Make the monster the treasure.
Maybe that dead troll has an overactive regeneration factor, and its skin keeps trying to seep into PCs’ open wounds. How about turning it into an amulet of natural armor? Was that bulette super durable? Chances are his corpse would make some excellent bulette plate armor. That stuff leaking out of the dead dragon’s gizzard? That’s naturally occurring elixir of dragon breath. Somebody get a bottle! And if all else fails, you can always use the same resource I did to write this comic: the old 3.5 metamagic components table is great for inspiration.
THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!
I do some of this in my games, but maybe not as much as I should. But that’s probably because I actually want to avoid the whole Monty Haul thing (which I may or may not be avoiding anyway) and adding MORE magical swag than my players are already getting.
One thing I do love doing with creative magical stuff is to just tell the players to name some kind of object and maybe give me some other random word and use those as inspiration for whatever they’re getting. It’s a good way of being creative for me since it provides much needed direction but also tends to get results you’re just never going to see in a DMG.
“Name some kind of object and maybe give me some other random word.”
Magic item Mad Libs? Well that’s ridiculously intriguing. I’m going to need an example. How about… “bird cage” and “quarrelsome.”
Hmmmmm. A small bird cage that you can hold in your hand that you can use as an action once per day on any creature within sight. That creature must make a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw at the start of each of their turns until it passes a total of three times or until it becomes unconscious. On any turn it failed the saving throw the creature uses its action to make a melee attack against a randomly determined creature within its reach. If there is no creature within its reach, the creature does nothing this turn.
Also it can be used as part of any other action to conjure up to 10 crossbow bolts each day and if there is a bird inside it will swear at you in celestial if the air is unsafe to breath.
In my home game the players came across a bunch of graffiti written in Abyssal. Of course there were demons, and subsequently a battle. After they beat the room’s defenders the party decided to scrawl the nastiest, foulest, most vulgar possible victory graffiti in Celestial. The only problem is that after a linguistics check, the best the language could produce was, “You are all very naughty,” followed by a super passive aggressive, “Gods bless!”
Hehe, sounds about right.
The players in my current game (including me) have used this idea well. In fact, this is how my character got to have the highest amount of pure cash in the entire kingdom. We’d kill a dragon and sell the meat and hide for gold. It ended up getting to the point that the GM would have the store owner say “Sorry, we don’t need anymore dragon meat. Our storerooms are overflowing.” As for my character, she has less equipment than most of the others since she focuses on a single weapon and hasn’t enhanced her backup beyond getting it made of a special material for DR purposes. Unlike most of the other characters that have several weapons that they regularly switch out and so need to spend more to get them all enhanced.
Grilled Dragon Rib Eye Steak with Arugula, Crispy Sweet Onions, Gorgonzola, Red Bliss Potatoes, and Oven Dried Tomato Vinaigrette: MARKET PRICE
Would you like Elven wine or Dwarven ale with that?
Both? Both is good.
A glass of elven wine, a tankard of dwarven ale, and a pillow to fall onto coming right up.
Yeah the first time the party in my last game killed a dragon, they cut its pitiful carcass up into sellable and usable parts, too. The dwarf paladin did very much enjoy his dragonscale armour, and I believe he dolled up his steed with the poor beastie’s horns, too…
I would have such mixed feelings as a goodly dragon interacting with that party….
If you can find the old Hackmaster 4E Hacklopedia of Beasts, they’re quite nice for a bunch of notes on useful and/or Bad Idea parts from monsters- whether it’s as simple as being edible or other more potent things. Like if they taste like chicken.
Suddenly I’m more interested in trying Hackmaster. 🙂