Harvesting Rules
Harvesting Monsters, Beasts, and Other Creatures
This section covers the rules about how to harvest components from creatures along with what components can be harvested from each creature.
The Basic Steps of the Creature Harvesting Process
The Senario
Examples of the step as they may appear in game will be shown in the green boxes like the one just below this.
The party has just killed an aboleth and Gruf the barbarian and Mizzard the Wizard wish to harvest the aberration.
Step 1: Description
Once a creature dies the DM uses that creatures type to check the Harvest Tables at the end of this section to determine which components the players can harvest.
Example: In our example an aboleth is an aberration so consulting the Aberration Harvest Table we decide that the aberration has the following components that can be harvested: 3 eyes, 5 tenticles, 50 phials of mucus, 50 phials of blood, a pouch of teeth, its brain, and its hide. Because the abolet is a CR 10 a robust essence can be harvested from it (See Essence Harvest Table at the end of the section).
DM: In addition to the many phials’ worth of blood and mucus, you could harvest three eyes, five tentacles, a pouch-worth of teeth, and, of course, its rubbery hide. Because this creature is particularly potent, you can also try to extract its essence though it is a difficult process.
Some monsters may have special components that can be harvested because they are "boss monsters" so be sure to check with the DM when facing down a particularly nasty monster
Step 2: Harvest List
After getting the description the harvesters then quickly decide what they want to harvest and in what order. The order is known as the harvest list.
Example: The party chooses to harvest the following components in the listed order: 3 eyes, a pouch of teeth, the hide, and then the essence.
Girf: I want the eyes and all the teeth! Mizzard:Very well Gurf, but let's not forget the hide we came here for! And we'll need the essence to be able to make a more powerful weapon for you. We'll take a pouch of teeth, the three eyes, the hide, and then the essence, in that order.
Step 3: Harvest DCs
After the list has been made it is time to calculate the harvest DCs. Write out the chosen components in the order the party wishes to harvest them and sequentially add each component DC to the total of all components that come before it in the list. The DC represents how difficult a component is to harvest before it spoils.
Example Table:
| Component | Component DC | Harvest DC |
|---|---|---|
| Pouch of Teeth | 10 | 10 (10) |
| Eye (1) | 5 | 15 (10+5) |
| Eye (2) | 5 | 20 (10+5+5) |
| Eye (3) | 5 | 25 (10+5+5+5) |
| Hide | 20 | 45 (10+5+5+5+20) |
| Robust Essence | 30 | 75 (10+5+5+5+20+30) |
Step 4: Harvesting Check
The Harvesting check is the summed total of two ability checks: Assessment and Carving. A single creature can choose to make both checks; if it does so, it makes these checks with disadvantage. With all Harvesting checks, the skill used for the check depends on the type of creature the characters are attempting to harvest.
Creature Types and Associated Skills Table
Show Table| Creature Type | Harvest Skill |
|---|---|
| Aberration | Arcana |
| Beast | Survival |
| Celestial | Religion |
| Construct | Investigation |
| Dragon | Survival |
| Elemental | Arcana |
| Fey | Arcana |
| Fiend | Religion |
| Giant | Medicine |
| Humanoid | Medicine |
| Monstrosity | Survival |
| Ooze | Nature |
| Plant | Nature |
| Undead | Medicine |
Assessment vs Carving Harvesters
Assessment: To correctly assess how best to
extract and store creature components, a character
must make an Intelligence-based skill check. The applicable skill check depends on the type of creature, as shown in the Creature Types and Associated Skills table (by the DM). A creature attempting this Assessment check is known as the assessing harvester.
Carving: Skill with a knife is the proven method of harvesting components. A creature attempting to harvest a corpse makes a Dexterity-based skill check. The applicable skill depends on the type of creature, as shown in the Creature Types and Associated Skills table (by the DM). A creature attempting this Carving check is known as the carving harvester.
- Ritual Carving: For some creature types, magical rituals can be performed instead of getting elbow-deep in grisly viscera. When making a Carving check to harvest an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, or fiend, a carving harvester with a spellcasting ability can make the Carving check using their spellcasting ability instead of their Dexterity.
Improving the Harvesting Odds
Spells and Buffs: For a spell or magical effect to have any influence on the outcome of harvesting, it must affect a harvester for the entire duration of the Harvesting check (see Creature Size and Harvest Time table at the end of the section). For this reason, spells with a duration of 1 minute, like bless and guidance, never confer their bonus to the result of the check. A spell-like enhance ability, which lasts 1 hour, could confer its advantage to a Harvesting check so long as the spell begins before the check starts and does not end until after the check is completed.
Helpers: Creatures not involved in assessment or carving can help! The number of creatures that can help depends on the size of the creature being harvested (see table below). If a helper has proficiency in the skill associated with the monster’s type, the helper adds its proficiency bonus to the Harvesting check’s result. If the helper doesn’t have this proficiency, it adds half its proficiency bonus rounded down, instead. Helpers must help for the entire duration of the harvesting procedure to add this bonus and are considered assessing harvesters for the purposes of Failing With Conciquences. This takes the place of the Help action.
| Creature Size | Maximum Number of Helpers |
|---|---|
| Tiny | 0 |
| Small | 1 |
| Medium | 2 |
| Large | 4 |
| Huge | 6 |
| Gargantuan | 10 |
Summary
Assessment check = 1d20 + Intelligence modifier +
proficiency bonus (if applicable)
Carving check = 1d20 + Dexterity modifier* +
proficiency bonus (if applicable)
- *or Spellcasting ability modifier if it can be ritually carved.
Harvesting check = Assessment check result +
Carving check result
Example:
GM: Okay. Mizzard, as the assessing harvester, you need to make an Intelligence (Arcana) check and Gurf, as the carving harvester, you need to make a Dexterity (Arcana) check. Mizzard: Okay… that’s a 12 plus 5. 17! Gurf: What’s Dexterity (Arcana)? It’s not on my sheet. GM: Make a Dexterity check—roll a d20 and add your Dexterity modifier—then add your proficiency bonus if you’re proficient in Arcana. Gurf: Okay that’s a… 16. My Dex gives me plus 4, but I’m not proficient. 20! GM: Great; 17 plus 20 — that’s a total of 37.
Step 5: Loot
Compare the result of the Harvesting check to the harvest list you made in step 3. If the Harvesting check’s result met or exceeded the Harvest DC for a component, that component is successfully harvested.
Example:The result of Gurf and Mizzard's harvesting check is a 37 which means everything except the hide and the essence are acquired.
GM: The three eyes come out, plop plop plop, as do the teeth. Unfortunately, the hide is too tough and you can’t harvest it before its magic seeps away and it becomes a mundane bit of fat. You never even get started on the essence. Gurf: Yay! Teef and eyez! Mizzard: Blast—I wanted that hide...
Duration and Degradation
Duration
Harvesting a creature takes a set duration based on the size of the creature (see harvest time in the table below).
| Creature Size | Harvest Time |
|---|---|
| Tiny | 5 minutes |
| Small | 10 minutes |
| Medium | 15 minutes |
| Large | 30 minutes |
| Huge | 2 hours |
| Gargantuan | 12 hours |
Degredation
For balance and to keep the game flowing the adventurers have only a short period of time, post-mortem, to harvest components. Spells like gentle repost do not prevent this degradation as it is less the physical items spoiling but rather the magic fading from the creature(s).
For harvesting to yield magical components, a harvester must begin harvesting a corpse within 1 minute of the creature’s death and, once it has begun harvesting, not cease harvesting the corpse for the duration of the check. As the shortest harvest time of any creature is 5 minutes, a character only has time to harvest one creature after a battle before the other creatures have degraded.
Results and Rewards
Component Types
Component names are comprised of the creature type (e.g. beast) and the creature part (e.g. horn). A rhino, demon, and minotaur all have horns, but these are known as beast horn, fiend horn, and monstrosity horn, respectively, and are each used to craft different things.
Harvesting Metatags
When using metatags, you record the name of each component you harvest. For example, without metatags, a horn from a rhinoceros and a horn from a goat are both known as beast horns. In this case, these are two different horns: a beast (rhinoceros) horn, and a beast (goat) horn.
Crafting Metatags
In crafting recipes, metatags specify a detail about the creature that bore the component in parentheses at the end of the component’s name. This detail could be its name (e.g. Animated), size (e.g. Large), subcategory (e.g. shapechanger), or something else. If the correct metatag is used in a crafting recipe, players are rewarded with advantage on the check to craft the item. For example, without metatags, any dragon’s eye can be used to craft a ring of poison resistance. With metatags, an adventurer can craft the ring with the eye of any dragon, but has advantage on the check(s) if they use the eye of a green dragon.
Comments