Ruleset: Material Gathering

Howdy folks,

Today, we will discuss one of the new systems in our next book - Fiendish Forge.  Since Fiendish Forge is inspired by games such as Monster Hunter, I wanted to include a carving system (what we call material gathering) that was in the same spirit and gave the same amount of enjoyment.  After some experimentation within IO sessions, I feel like I’ve hammered out the system to pre-release for you all!

Introduction

Material gathering can be done in a variety of ways - and this system can also be a precursor for other kinds of material gathering, not just from fallen foes. It’s a ton of fun around the table, turning it into a minigame.

There is no skill check involved with material gathering.  This took a while to hammer to this point, but there are good reasons for this.

• This is a great way to offer rewards to your parties, even if they aren’t going to use the material for gathering.  Each material has a market value you can sell to artisans for, providing a source of gold.
• Limiting material gathering to specific skills creates this “requirement” that players must choose specific skills instead of playing the character they want.
• Skills still have a use - but it provides more of a boon - than have it be a hard requirement.

Material Type

7 types of materials can be gathered: Alchemical, Bone, Cloth, Foodstuff, Gemstone, Leather, Metal.  This is important in crafting, which we will talk about next week.

Material Table

After a harrowing encounter, sometimes the party will have the opportunity to gather materials.  This can be carving from a fallen beast or searching for the treasure of a defeated humanoid (because carving humanoids had a darker twist then intended by default).

Materials can be used for Crafting Projects or sold at market value to artisans who will efficiently utilize the material for their craft.

We will start with an example and then explain how to build your table.

We will build a sample table for a Manticore (CR 3). (See Table 1-1: Manticore Material Gathering in the attached PDF).

You will notice sometimes a limit on how many times they can be gathered - outlined in the table itself.  If a material has already been gathered a number of times equal to the limit stated, and can’t be again, you would go down the result table until you can gather the item.  For example, if someone has already gathered the Manticore Ruby Heart, and the Gathering Table Roll is a 95, the Manticore’s Mane would be gathered instead.  If the Manticore’s Mane were already gathered, you’d instead gather the Manticore Hide.

Simple encounters with minions (1 hit point monsters) may not yield a material gather.  As GM, if you’d like to give your party a chance, roll a 1d20 - and on a roll of 10 or higher, go ahead and allow a roll on the Material Table.

Ultimately, it is up to the GM how much materials and money they want the party to have access to.

To gather a material is as simple as rolling on the table.  As a GM, ask your party, “Who would like to gather from the creature?  No skill is required - so whoever is feeling lucky.”.   Let the party determine who is going to make the roll.  If your party is apprehensive and doesn’t want to speak over anyone, you can also determine it with a d20 roll, and whoever rolls the highest can make a check.  If a roll involves another dice roll to determine how many of one material can be gathered, go ahead and have the player that rolled the d100 also make this check.

Skill Check Support

To add some fun to the gathering process and to give skills more of a use, you can utilize skill checks to offer support to the Gathering Table Roll

A Skill Check Support can only be utilized by someone proficient in the prerequisite skill or tool. Help Actions can only be done by other members who are proficient.  Spells (such as Guidance) can also be used.

Skill Check Support can be done after a Gathering Table Roll. Skill Check Support options can only be utilized once per Gathering Session, no matter success or failure, and do not need to be done by the same person who made the Gathering Table Roll.

For the Manticore, here are 3 options you can utilize as GM. The default DCs for these checks is a creature’s CR + 10 (Maximum 30), with 3 difficulties (-5 to the DC, +0 to the DC, and +5 to the DC).  Since the Manticore has a CR 3, the DCs will be 8, 13, and 18.  A CR 30 creature would have DCs 25, 30, and 35.

Making your own Gathering Material Table

Now that you’ve seen how it works, you can create your own table. Rule of thumb, if you’re having a party make 4 Gathering Table Rolls without any aid, they should have enough material to craft 1-3 items depending on their fortune. Here are some simplified sample tables, but feel free to get creative, such as including limited items, or items that you gather multiple of in one gathering, or add more entries to the table.

What kind of table to use depends on the CR of the creature.

• CR 1-4:  Uncommon Gathering
• CR 5-10: Rare Gathering
• CR 11-16: Very Rare Gathering
• CR 17+: Legendary Gathering

See Tables 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, and 1-5 for examples in the PDF.

Aftermath

As seen here, each material has its classification, as well as rarity.  These categories are essential once we get into the crafting system - which we will review next week.

As with any system, this is a work in progress that will continue to be refined as we work on our next book - Fiendish Forge.

Brett

EDIT: Included a base DC cap (30) to include material gathering from higher CR.