Monster Harvesting: Difference between revisions
S54 rulings — Guidance once per group harvest, Tempered Soul on harvest checks; add Yuan-ti Anathema profile link |
Creature harvest profiles section: replace the hand-kept 7-page list with the standing statement that every Bestiary dossier carries a Harvest Profile (bestiary-wide retroactive backfill completed today); live Cargo index unchanged |
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{{Lore|type=Crafting Knowledge}} | {{Lore|type=Crafting Knowledge}} | ||
== Monster Harvesting == | == Monster Harvesting == | ||
A slain monster is a mobile treasury of crafting materials. A steady hand and the right tools can turn scale, gland, fang, ichor, and bone into arms, armor, alchemy, and arcana. | A slain monster is a mobile treasury of crafting materials. A steady hand and the right tools can turn scale, gland, fang, ichor, and bone into arms, armor, alchemy, and arcana.<ref name="s51">Unveiled at the table in [[Session 51 - The Red Gold Reckoning (2026-06-28)|Session 51]].</ref> | ||
'' | === The carcass comes first === | ||
Every creature's components '''exist on the body before anyone rolls'''. When a new kind of creature is slain, its '''manifest''' is generated first — the full list of what the carcass holds — and only then are harvest checks matched against it. | |||
A manifest is built like this: | |||
* The creature's '''CR sets the rarity ceiling''' (table below). The manifest holds components at the ceiling rarity '''and every rarity below it''', so there is always a spread — the low-end materials the party will keep needing are always present. | |||
* The '''number of components at each rarity''' is fixed by the slot table below. The counts are '''cumulative''': a Very Rare-ceiling carcass holds 3 Very Rare, 4 Rare, 5 Uncommon, and 6 Common components (18 in all). | |||
* One component at the ceiling rarity is the '''signature''' — the creature's most evocative part, the single greatest prize on the body. | |||
* The same material can appear at several grades as separate entries (loose Scale Shards at Common, a full Scale Coat at the top — see the [[Dragon Turtle#Harvest Profile|Dragon Turtle]]'s shell). | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
! Rarity !! Components at this rarity | |||
|- | |||
| Artifact || 1 | |||
|- | |||
| Legendary || 2 | |||
|- | |||
| Very Rare || 3 | |||
|- | |||
| Rare || 4 | |||
|- | |||
| Uncommon || 5 | |||
|- | |||
| Common || 6 | |||
|} | |||
'''Example:''' a Rare-ceiling creature (CR 5–9) holds 4 Rare + 5 Uncommon + 6 Common = 15 components. A Legendary-ceiling creature (CR 15–19) holds 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 20. An Artifact-ceiling creature (CR 20+) holds all 21. | |||
=== Rarity ceiling by CR === | |||
CR sets only what the body can hold, never the DC. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
! CR !! Rarity ceiling !! Total components | |||
|- | |||
| 0–½ || Common || 6 | |||
|- | |||
| 1–4 || Uncommon || 11 | |||
|- | |||
| 5–9 || Rare || 15 | |||
|- | |||
| 10–14 || Very Rare || 18 | |||
|- | |||
| 15–19 || Legendary || 20 | |||
|- | |||
| 20+ || Artifact || 21 | |||
|} | |||
=== Harvesting a carcass === | === Harvesting a carcass === | ||
After a fight, each character may make '''one harvest check''': pick a single [[#Tools and what they collect|tool]] you are proficient with, roll '''d20 + that tool's bonus''', and claim | After a fight, each character may make '''one harvest check''': pick a single [[#Tools and what they collect|tool]] you are proficient with, roll '''d20 + that tool's bonus''', and find the highest rarity on the ladder your total meets. '''You claim everything in that tool's column at that rarity and every rarity below it.''' Proficiency in a fitting knowledge or handling skill (Nature or Arcana to know the beast, Medicine or Survival to work the body — the DM's call) grants Advantage. | ||
A tool only produces if the carcass actually holds materials in that column — Calligrapher's Supplies pull nothing from a dumb beast. Choose the tool that fits the body in front of you, not just your highest bonus. | A tool only produces if the carcass's manifest actually holds materials in that column — Calligrapher's Supplies pull nothing from a dumb beast. Choose the tool that fits the body in front of you, not just your highest bonus. | ||
Where two harvesters share a column, the higher roll takes the signature or the best single piece. | |||
'''Scraps are automatic.''' Even a failed or low roll yields the base salvage — meat, fat, blood, hide-scrap — at no DC. Nobody walks away empty-handed. | '''Scraps are automatic.''' Even a failed or low roll yields the base salvage — meat, fat, blood, hide-scrap — at no DC. Nobody walks away empty-handed. | ||
''' | '''Margin yields quantity.''' For each '''non-signature''' component you recover, you extract '''one additional unit for every full 5 points''' your total exceeds that component's DC — beat it by 5 for one extra, by 10 for two, and so on. The '''signature''' component does not scale this way: it yields '''at most one additional unit, and only on a margin of 10 or more'''. | ||
''' | '''Beyond the ceiling — natural 20 only.'''<ref name="s53">Introduced in [[Session 53 - The Battle of Nuts Deep (2026-08-09)|Session 53]], first invoked on [[Karma]]'s nat 20 over a CR 3 wyrmling.</ref> A '''natural 20''' on a harvest check can pull one component '''one rarity level above the creature's ceiling''' — something in the body that, by rights, should not be there, flavored to the harvester's tool column. Above-ceiling components are not part of the manifest's slot counts. | ||
'''Boosting the check.'''<ref name="s54">Ruled at the table in [[Session 54 - Serpents at Boareskyr Bridge (2026-08-30)|Session 54]].</ref> '''Guidance may be cast once per group harvest''' — including by the caster on their own check. '''[[Tempered Soul]] may be spent on a harvest check''' like any other d20 test. | |||
=== The harvest ladder === | === The harvest ladder === | ||
Rarity sets the difficulty; the monster's CR sets only what is available to find. | Rarity sets the difficulty; the monster's CR sets only what is available to find. | ||
{| class="wikitable" | {| class="wikitable" | ||
! Rarity !! Harvest DC !! Craft Value (CV) | ! Rarity !! Harvest DC !! Craft Value (CV, per unit) | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Scraps || 0 || 1 | | Scraps || 0 || 1 | ||
| Line 35: | Line 82: | ||
| Artifact || 30 || 64 | | Artifact || 30 || 64 | ||
|} | |} | ||
=== Tools and what they collect === | === Tools and what they collect === | ||
| Line 93: | Line 110: | ||
| Tinker's Tools || Cores, gears, animating crystals || Construct & clockwork parts | | Tinker's Tools || Cores, gears, animating crystals || Construct & clockwork parts | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Thieves' Tools || Generalist fine work — pick from the small-Smith's, Calligrapher's, Jeweler's, or Tinker's columns for that check || As the chosen column | | Thieves' Tools || Generalist fine work — pick from the small-Smith's, Calligrapher's, Jeweler's, or Tinker's columns for that check<ref name="s53" /><ref name="s54" /> || As the chosen column | ||
|- | |- | ||
| ''None (Scavenge)'' || Swallowed loot, gizzard contents || Coins, gear, oddments — anyone may attempt | | ''None (Scavenge)'' || Swallowed loot, gizzard contents || Coins, gear, oddments — anyone may attempt | ||
|} | |} | ||
''Niche defaults:'' Weaver's → silk & web cordage; Glassblower's → crystalline organs & lenses; Painter's → pigment glands; Brewer's → fermentable organs; Mason's or Potter's → shell & calcified plating; Cartographer's overlaps Navigator's. | ''Niche defaults:'' Weaver's → silk & web cordage; Glassblower's → crystalline organs & lenses; Painter's → pigment glands; Brewer's → fermentable organs; Mason's or Potter's → shell & calcified plating; Cartographer's overlaps Navigator's. | ||
=== Crafting with what you harvest === | === Crafting with what you harvest === | ||
Harvested parts are spent as '''Craft Value''' against item thresholds — see [[Crafting via Commission or Bastion#Component Crafting Economy|the component crafting economy]] for how a primary component sets an item's effect and rarity cap, and how secondary parts are added to reach a tier. The party's banked components, their effects, and what each can build are tracked on the [[Harvested Materials]] ledger. | Harvested parts are spent as '''Craft Value''' against item thresholds — see [[Crafting via Commission or Bastion#Component Crafting Economy|the component crafting economy]] for how a primary component sets an item's effect and rarity cap, and how secondary parts are added to reach a tier. The designs the party already knows are collected in the [[Crafting Patterns|pattern book]]; the party's banked components, their effects, and what each can build are tracked on the [[Harvested Materials]] ledger. | ||
=== The harvest database === | |||
The harvest system is backed by four [[Special:CargoTables|Cargo database tables]], filled in automatically by the templates on each page — nothing is tallied by hand: | |||
* '''HarvestComponents''' — every component known to exist on a carcass; one row per [[Template:Harvest Component]] call in a creature's Harvest Profile. Each component carries '''standard effect tags''' from the fixed vocabulary in [[Template:Harvest Effect Values]] (105 <code>Category: Subtype</code> tags — Damage, Resistance, Ward, Afflict, Boost, Skill, Sense, Move, Restore, Utility) alongside its free-prose effect. | |||
* '''HarvestLog''' — every harvest event (who rolled what, units recovered with margin bonuses, recovered / left / eaten / spent); one row per [[Template:Harvest Log Entry]] call in a creature's Harvest Record. | |||
* '''Patterns''' — the [[Crafting Patterns|pattern book]]; one row per [[Template:Crafting Pattern]] call, with the effect tags each design accepts as its primary. | |||
* ''DMHarvest'' — the DM's side of the ledger, stored only from the DM namespace. | |||
'''Players: use [[Find Components]]''' — a multiselect search over the effect tags, rarity, and item type, showing banked quantities. The [[Harvested Materials]] ledger is a live query summing the log against the component definitions, so it updates itself whenever a creature page changes. Ad-hoc questions can be asked anywhere with <code>#cargo_query</code>, and [[Special:Drilldown]] offers a click-through browser. For example, everything tagged as poison-damage stock: | |||
<pre> | |||
{{#cargo_query:tables=HarvestComponents | |||
|fields=creature,component,rarity,effect | |||
|where=effects HOLDS 'Damage: Poison' | |||
|order by=cv DESC}} | |||
</pre> | |||
=== Creature harvest profiles === | === Creature harvest profiles === | ||
'''Every creature dossier in the [[Bestiary]] carries a Harvest Profile''' — the full carcass manifest for that kind. For creatures the company slew before the harvest-craft was learned, and for the few it has faced but not felled, the manifest is the Harpers' compilation of what such a body holds, ready against the next carcass. A creature's page also carries a '''Harvest Record''' wherever the company has actually worked a carcass of that kind (the fullest worked examples: [[Arauthator#Harvest Record|Arauthator]], [[Peryton#Harvest Record|Peryton]], [[Blue Dragon Wyrmling#Harvest Record|Blue Dragon Wyrmling]]). Search all components by effect: [[Find Components]]. | |||
Live index from the database (updates itself as profiles are added): | |||
{{#cargo_query:tables=HarvestComponents | |||
|fields=creature=Creature,COUNT(*)=Known components | |||
|where=_pageName<>'Harvested Materials' | |||
|group by=creature | |||
|order by=creature | |||
|format=table | |||
|limit=100 | |||
}} | |||
== References == | |||
<references /> | |||
[[Category:Crafting]] [[Category:Lore]] [[Category:House Rules]] | [[Category:Crafting]] [[Category:Lore]] [[Category:House Rules]] | ||
Latest revision as of 19:58, 17 September 2026
Monster Harvesting
Description and context.
Origin
Where it came from or who created it.
Contents
Include the full text or excerpt.
Interpretation
Theories, importance, or player insights.
Monster Harvesting
A slain monster is a mobile treasury of crafting materials. A steady hand and the right tools can turn scale, gland, fang, ichor, and bone into arms, armor, alchemy, and arcana.[1]
The carcass comes first
Every creature's components exist on the body before anyone rolls. When a new kind of creature is slain, its manifest is generated first — the full list of what the carcass holds — and only then are harvest checks matched against it.
A manifest is built like this:
- The creature's CR sets the rarity ceiling (table below). The manifest holds components at the ceiling rarity and every rarity below it, so there is always a spread — the low-end materials the party will keep needing are always present.
- The number of components at each rarity is fixed by the slot table below. The counts are cumulative: a Very Rare-ceiling carcass holds 3 Very Rare, 4 Rare, 5 Uncommon, and 6 Common components (18 in all).
- One component at the ceiling rarity is the signature — the creature's most evocative part, the single greatest prize on the body.
- The same material can appear at several grades as separate entries (loose Scale Shards at Common, a full Scale Coat at the top — see the Dragon Turtle's shell).
| Rarity | Components at this rarity |
|---|---|
| Artifact | 1 |
| Legendary | 2 |
| Very Rare | 3 |
| Rare | 4 |
| Uncommon | 5 |
| Common | 6 |
Example: a Rare-ceiling creature (CR 5–9) holds 4 Rare + 5 Uncommon + 6 Common = 15 components. A Legendary-ceiling creature (CR 15–19) holds 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 20. An Artifact-ceiling creature (CR 20+) holds all 21.
Rarity ceiling by CR
CR sets only what the body can hold, never the DC.
| CR | Rarity ceiling | Total components |
|---|---|---|
| 0–½ | Common | 6 |
| 1–4 | Uncommon | 11 |
| 5–9 | Rare | 15 |
| 10–14 | Very Rare | 18 |
| 15–19 | Legendary | 20 |
| 20+ | Artifact | 21 |
Harvesting a carcass
After a fight, each character may make one harvest check: pick a single tool you are proficient with, roll d20 + that tool's bonus, and find the highest rarity on the ladder your total meets. You claim everything in that tool's column at that rarity and every rarity below it. Proficiency in a fitting knowledge or handling skill (Nature or Arcana to know the beast, Medicine or Survival to work the body — the DM's call) grants Advantage.
A tool only produces if the carcass's manifest actually holds materials in that column — Calligrapher's Supplies pull nothing from a dumb beast. Choose the tool that fits the body in front of you, not just your highest bonus.
Where two harvesters share a column, the higher roll takes the signature or the best single piece.
Scraps are automatic. Even a failed or low roll yields the base salvage — meat, fat, blood, hide-scrap — at no DC. Nobody walks away empty-handed.
Margin yields quantity. For each non-signature component you recover, you extract one additional unit for every full 5 points your total exceeds that component's DC — beat it by 5 for one extra, by 10 for two, and so on. The signature component does not scale this way: it yields at most one additional unit, and only on a margin of 10 or more.
Beyond the ceiling — natural 20 only.[2] A natural 20 on a harvest check can pull one component one rarity level above the creature's ceiling — something in the body that, by rights, should not be there, flavored to the harvester's tool column. Above-ceiling components are not part of the manifest's slot counts.
Boosting the check.[3] Guidance may be cast once per group harvest — including by the caster on their own check. Tempered Soul may be spent on a harvest check like any other d20 test.
The harvest ladder
Rarity sets the difficulty; the monster's CR sets only what is available to find.
| Rarity | Harvest DC | Craft Value (CV, per unit) |
|---|---|---|
| Scraps | 0 | 1 |
| Common | 5 | 2 |
| Uncommon | 10 | 4 |
| Rare | 15 | 8 |
| Very Rare | 20 | 16 |
| Legendary | 25 | 32 |
| Artifact | 30 | 64 |
Tools and what they collect
The tool decides the category you can extract and what it feeds into. This is why a lower bonus in the right tool beats a higher bonus in the wrong one — the wrong column simply has nothing to give.
| Tool | Collects | Feeds into |
|---|---|---|
| Alchemist's Supplies | Glands, blood, bile, ichor, organs, essences | Potions, oils, acids, bombs |
| Herbalism Kit | Spores, saps, antitoxin glands, medicinal organs | Healing draughts, antitoxins, salves |
| Poisoner's Kit | Venom sacs, stingers, toxic glands | Poisons, paralytics, contact toxins |
| Smith's Tools | Scales, plates, horn, claws, fangs, chitin, hard bone | Weapons, shields, heavy & medium armor |
| Leatherworker's Tools | Hide, membrane, pelt, sinew | Light armor, cloaks, straps, tents |
| Woodcarver's Tools | Bone, ivory, antler, beak (fine work) | Hafts, foci, wands, ammunition |
| Calligrapher's Supplies | Ink sacs, chromatophore fluid, sigil-blood, psychic residue | Magical inks, scrolls, glyph & sigil reagents |
| Navigator's Tools | Eyes & lenses, weather organs, swim bladders, lateral lines, wing-tendons | Optics, weather & travel instruments, sea & sky gear |
| Jeweler's Tools | Gemlike eyes, crystalline growths, gizzard pearls | Gem-foci, ornaments, luckstones |
| Cook's Utensils | Flesh, fat, marrow, organs | Rations, tallow, exotic cuisine |
| Tinker's Tools | Cores, gears, animating crystals | Construct & clockwork parts |
| Thieves' Tools | Generalist fine work — pick from the small-Smith's, Calligrapher's, Jeweler's, or Tinker's columns for that check[2][3] | As the chosen column |
| None (Scavenge) | Swallowed loot, gizzard contents | Coins, gear, oddments — anyone may attempt |
Niche defaults: Weaver's → silk & web cordage; Glassblower's → crystalline organs & lenses; Painter's → pigment glands; Brewer's → fermentable organs; Mason's or Potter's → shell & calcified plating; Cartographer's overlaps Navigator's.
Crafting with what you harvest
Harvested parts are spent as Craft Value against item thresholds — see the component crafting economy for how a primary component sets an item's effect and rarity cap, and how secondary parts are added to reach a tier. The designs the party already knows are collected in the pattern book; the party's banked components, their effects, and what each can build are tracked on the Harvested Materials ledger.
The harvest database
The harvest system is backed by four Cargo database tables, filled in automatically by the templates on each page — nothing is tallied by hand:
- HarvestComponents — every component known to exist on a carcass; one row per Template:Harvest Component call in a creature's Harvest Profile. Each component carries standard effect tags from the fixed vocabulary in Template:Harvest Effect Values (105
Category: Subtypetags — Damage, Resistance, Ward, Afflict, Boost, Skill, Sense, Move, Restore, Utility) alongside its free-prose effect. - HarvestLog — every harvest event (who rolled what, units recovered with margin bonuses, recovered / left / eaten / spent); one row per Template:Harvest Log Entry call in a creature's Harvest Record.
- Patterns — the pattern book; one row per Template:Crafting Pattern call, with the effect tags each design accepts as its primary.
- DMHarvest — the DM's side of the ledger, stored only from the DM namespace.
Players: use Find Components — a multiselect search over the effect tags, rarity, and item type, showing banked quantities. The Harvested Materials ledger is a live query summing the log against the component definitions, so it updates itself whenever a creature page changes. Ad-hoc questions can be asked anywhere with #cargo_query, and Special:Drilldown offers a click-through browser. For example, everything tagged as poison-damage stock:
{{#cargo_query:tables=HarvestComponents
|fields=creature,component,rarity,effect
|where=effects HOLDS 'Damage: Poison'
|order by=cv DESC}}
Creature harvest profiles
Every creature dossier in the Bestiary carries a Harvest Profile — the full carcass manifest for that kind. For creatures the company slew before the harvest-craft was learned, and for the few it has faced but not felled, the manifest is the Harpers' compilation of what such a body holds, ready against the next carcass. A creature's page also carries a Harvest Record wherever the company has actually worked a carcass of that kind (the fullest worked examples: Arauthator, Peryton, Blue Dragon Wyrmling). Search all components by effect: Find Components.
Live index from the database (updates itself as profiles are added):
| Creature | Known components |
|---|---|
| Aboleth | 18 |
| Adult White Dragon | 18 |
| Arauthator | 23 |
| Bearded Devil | 11 |
| Black Dragon | 18 |
| Blue Dragon | 20 |
| Blue Dragon Wyrmling | 13 |
| Bugbear | 11 |
| Cloaker | 15 |
| Dragon Turtle | 22 |
| Duergar | 11 |
| Flameskull | 11 |
| Frost Giant | 15 |
| Gelatinous Cube | 11 |
| Ghoul | 11 |
| Giant Crab | 6 |
| Giant Spider | 11 |
| Giant Toad | 11 |
| Goblin | 6 |
| Green Dragon | 20 |
| Guard Drake | 11 |
| Hobgoblin | 6 |
| Hook Horror | 11 |
| Horned Devil | 18 |
| Hydra | 15 |
| Ice Elemental | 15 |
| Ice Troll | 15 |
| Kobold | 6 |
| Merrow | 11 |
| Mimic | 11 |
| Mind Gobbler | 20 |
| Owlbear | 11 |
| Peryton | 11 |
| Red Dragon | 20 |
| Rust Monster | 6 |
| Scrag | 15 |
| Sea Hag | 11 |
| Skeleton | 6 |
| Stirge | 6 |
| Stone Giant | 15 |
| Troll | 15 |
| Umber Hulk | 15 |
| Yuan-ti Anathema | 20 |
| Zombie | 6 |
References
- ↑ Unveiled at the table in Session 51.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Introduced in Session 53, first invoked on Karma's nat 20 over a CR 3 wyrmling.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ruled at the table in Session 54.