Monster Harvesting
Monster Harvesting
Description and context.
Origin
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Interpretation
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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.
This system was unveiled in full at the table in Session 51.
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 claim every component in that tool's column whose rarity you meet on the ladder below. 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.
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.
Natural 20 — beyond the ceiling. (Rule added in Session 53.) A natural 20 on a harvest check can harvest a component one rarity level higher than the monster's CR ceiling would normally support — the harvester finds something in the body that, by rights, should not be there. First invoked on Karma's natural 20 (29 Herbalism) over a CR 3 blue dragon wyrmling, pulling a Rare component from an Uncommon-capped carcass.
Boosting the check. (Rulings from Session 54.) 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; in S54, with a long rest imminent, the whole party was allowed to spend on the same carcass. (Supersedes the narrower per-roll Guidance allowances noted in the S53 record.)
The harvest ladder
Rarity sets the difficulty; the monster's CR sets only what is available to find.
| Rarity | Harvest DC | Craft Value (CV) |
|---|---|---|
| Scraps | 0 | 1 |
| Common | 5 | 2 |
| Uncommon | 10 | 4 |
| Rare | 15 | 8 |
| Very Rare | 20 | 16 |
| Legendary | 25 | 32 |
| Artifact | 30 | 64 |
What a monster yields (by CR)
CR sets the rarity ceiling (the best a body can hold) and the number of component slots, never the DC.
| CR | Rarity ceiling | Component slots |
|---|---|---|
| 0–½ | Common | 2–3 |
| 1–4 | Uncommon | 3–5 |
| 5–9 | Rare | 5–7 |
| 10–14 | Very Rare | 7–10 |
| 15–19 | Legendary | 9–12 |
| 20+ | Artifact | 12+ |
Every notable monster has one signature component — its most evocative part — set at the creature's ceiling rarity, the single greatest prize on the body. A natural 20 is the one way past the ceiling.
Scaling components (CR 9+)
On creatures of CR 9 and up, a structural or signature part may exist in several grades at once; the highest band your roll clears is the version you recover.
- roll 5–9 → Common
- 10–14 → Uncommon
- 15–19 → Rare
- 20–24 → Very Rare
- 25–29 → Legendary
Below CR 9, components are single-rarity: you clear their DC or you don't. Where two harvesters share a column, the higher roll takes the signature or best grade; plentiful parts (blood, bile, meat) duplicate freely, signatures do not.
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 | 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. (Thieves' Tools as a generalist column: DM ruling sketched at the table in S53, exercised again in S54 — treat as standing.)
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 party's banked components, their effects, and what each can build are tracked on the Harvested Materials ledger.
Creature harvest profiles
- Arauthator — ancient white dragon, CR 20
- Dragon Turtle — CR 17
- Yuan-ti Anathema — CR 12
- Hydra — CR 8
- Blue Dragon Wyrmling — CR 3
- Ice Spider Queen — CR 2