How to stop PCs from exploiting dragon corpses.

[thirdkingdom]

So, in a adventure I'm running, at the end, is a young dragon boss fight. The people I play with are all smart, and given enough time, I'm sure that they could harvest these super durable dragon scales and turn them into armor. How do I stop this?

Er, why would you want to stop them from doing this?

[Quertus]

Almost everything I'd say has been said.

Most everyone has asked why you'd try to stop this. Even in 2e D&D, where Dragon hide armor was arguably the pinnacle of defensive materials, this young dragon's scales wouldn't upset game balance. If it was a serious problem, I'd say Final Strike, or ask if they have the skills (but Gentle Repose is one of my favorite spells...).

That brings up an alternative that hasn't been mentioned: the dragon might serve better as an undead than as armor.

However, if the players feel arbitrarily limited, expect them to remove those limitations on the next dragon. Yes, the next one. Expect them right subdue it, cast regeneration, and keep skinning it over and over until they've wallpapered their cattle in dragon hide, and are using it as toilet paper. Heck, they might not be satisfied until they've turned Tiamat into a tea cozie.

But, more importantly,

In 2E AD&D, armor made from dragon hide weighed about 30 lbs (for human-sized suits), was flexible, had no innate magical properties from the dragon it came from, cost about 5 grand to make, and provided an AC four points worse than the dragon it came from.

Where did that rule live?

[GreatWyrmGold]

So, in a adventure I'm running, at the end, is a young dragon boss fight. The people I play with are all smart, and given enough time, I'm sure that they could harvest these super durable dragon scales and turn them into armor. How do I stop this?

The simplest answer would be to include the corpse of the dragon in the calculated horde size. (E.g, chop out 5,000 gp of gems to account for a 5,000 gp suit of dragonmail.)
Or you could just have them fight something other than dragons with harvestable hides. There are plenty of possibilities—smaller (younger) dragons, dracoliches, dragon ghosts, exotic dragons, dragons maddened by reptilian mange, anything that isn't a dragon...

Let the dragon kill the PC's.
Then the dragon can make an armor out of them.
Problem solved.

I know someone who tried that. (Friend of a friend. Well, acquaintance of a friend, really.) He was the insane kind of CE, in case you couldn't guess. He got himself killed before making more than an elvenhide helm (which, incidentally, didn't do much to stop the mace which smashed open his skull).

I encourage it. (And I'll use the opportunity to link to one of my favorite villains).

I'm not sure where he gets all of those sickening ideas. (Some of them are just silly. If dragon liver cured colds, we wouldn't have rhinoviruses, now would we? And how does he intend to harvest tears from the dragon if he's harvested its fat and blood and nose?) I swear, next thing you know he'd talk about cutting off our horns for use as aphrodasiacs.

[Blue Duke]

I second any opinion that is more then just 'make it go away'. arbitrarily taking away something that -should- be a reward for finishing a fight takes away a lot of the fun. if they can properly gather the materials its not going to be cheap to get dragon hide/dragon bone stuff made and it wont be QUICK, make sure they know both those things rather then just saying 'aaaaaand the corpse melts'.

[Anderlith]

Just go with the downtime activities section. Reduce the cost but keep the time limit.

[Mutazoia]

What weapons are your PC's using to kill the dragon? A young dragon won't have a whole lot of surface area to begin with. After being hacked, slashed, perforated with arrows, and blasted with magical energies various and sundry, there may not be enough intact scales to make anything useful.

[thirdkingdom]

What weapons are your PC's using to kill the dragon? A young dragon won't have a whole lot of surface area to begin with. After being hacked, slashed, perforated with arrows, and blasted with magical energies various and sundry, there may not be enough intact scales to make anything useful.

It's for a game called Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS, which is a retroclone of the old D&D Basic/Expert sets), but there's a supplement coming out soon called Lairs and Encounters that spends a fair amount of space dealing with exactly these questions: how much are the body parts of various monsters worth, how long does it take to harvest them, what sort of expertise is needed to harvest them and how does combat damage affect the value.

[Lord Torath]

But, more importantly,
<Snip summary of 2E AD&D rule on dragonhide armor>
Where did that rule live?

Page 63 of the Monstrous Manual, 1st Printing, under Dragon, General, 2nd Column:

Dragon Hide: Dragon skin is prized by armorers with the skill to turn it into shields and armor, valuable because of its appearance and the protection it affords. Dragon armor grants its wearer an Armor Class of 4 less than the Armor Class of the dragon it was taken from, for a minimum Armor Class of 8. For example, armor from a juvenile brass dragon (AC 0) grants its wearer AC 4. Dragon armor is supple and non-bulky, weighing only 25 pounds.

The scales of gem dragons take on properties of actual gems; they are faceted and reflect light. They are slightly more brittle than those of other dragons, so armor made from them requires repair more often.

Dragon armor affords no extra protection, such as resistance to fire or cold, although the armor can be enchanted to provide such protection. A dragon's resistance to certain elements is based on its total makeup, not just its skin. Plain dragon armor is expensive to make, costing 1,000 - 10,000 gp, based on the workmanship and protection the armor affords. Dragon skin armor can be enchanted, just as other forms of armor can, to a maximum of +5.

Dragon shields also offer no additional protection. They are made of stretched hide over a wooden frame. Such shields weigh 3 pounds (if small) or 8 pounds (if large) and cost 20-120 or 30-180 gold pieces.

Looks like I was off a bit on the weight. As an interesting side note, there are no rules for how often your armor needs to be repaired, so the bit about gem dragonhide armor needing more repair is kind of meaningless.

Also, 2E dragons got huge. An adult white dragon has a body 41-50 feet long with a 36-45 foot tail, and an adult red dragon had a body 80-99 feet long and a tail 68-87 feet long. A white great wyrm (oldest age category) was 95-104 feet in the body, and 85-94 feet in the tail, while a red was 174-183 feet and 162-171 feet in the body and tail respectively. And the Red Great Wyrm had an AC of -11 (equivalent to 31, I believe, in later editions), so you could get a LOT of really good armor from one. A radiant dragon could get up to 1400 feet long with an AC of -7.

[Quertus]

Page 63 of the Monstrous Manual, 1st Printing, under Dragon, General, 2nd Column:

Thanks!

while a red was 174-183 feet and 162-171 feet in the body and tail respectively. And the Red Great Wyrm had an AC of -11 (equivalent to 31, I believe, in later editions), so you could get a LOT of really good armor from one.

Get it enchanted up to +5, and we're talking 22 points of armor bonus to AC for the entire party town.

[Lord Torath]

Get it enchanted up to +5, and we're talking 22 points of armor bonus to AC for the entire party town.

And maybe you can throw in another +5 vs missiles.

Also, they are supposed to have a wingspan equal to their body length.

[shadow_archmagi]

In theory, you can just take away the inner fat layer with a pincer or a small knife and put the pelt into salt, leaving the rest of the elaboration to when you have the needed material or have more skins to work on. In practice, unless the PCs walk around with, I don't know, 50 kg of salt, there is no way they could carry around that stuff for various days and keep it workable, it's, like, 20-50% of the pelt weight in salt. Gentle repose or similar could do the trick, however, if they think about it. Option 2 is keeping it frozen. Option 3 is somehow simply taking the water out of the pelt (a drying spell?).

The best thing is just to make the stats of the dragonloot acceptable for the power level of your campaign. After all, it is a young dragon.

I mean, *my* PCs carry a dragon's weight in salt everywhere, but that's because I'm running ACKS and that's just a general consequence of the system.

Thank you for the feedback. The reason that I was worried about this is that I overestimated the properties of dragonscale armor. Maybe I'll say that the scales aren't hard enough to make armor, and there isn't that much, but you can make a masterwork shield that's immune to acid (its a young black dragon) out of the hide and some of the scales. Or boots.

Acid-proof boots all around seems reasonable to me. Make sure to throw a room full of ankle-deep acid into the next dungeon. Also, make sure to include an acid-spitting monster, and to say "yes" when the party monk asks to kick its spit back.

It's for a game called Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS, which is a retroclone of the old D&D Basic/Expert sets), but there's a supplement coming out soon called Lairs and Encounters that spends a fair amount of space dealing with exactly these questions: how much are the body parts of various monsters worth, how long does it take to harvest them, what sort of expertise is needed to harvest them and how does combat damage affect the value.

OH HEY THERE. FANCY SEEING YOU ON THESE BOARDS. #ACKS4LYFE

[thirdkingdom]

OH HEY THERE. FANCY SEEING YOU ON THESE BOARDS. #ACKS4LYFE

Hey yourself! I've done a quick search of the Autarch boards, but it seems like no one has addressed making dragonhide armor; obviously, it's pretty easy to extrapolate using the hide as a precious component to making magical armor, but there doesn't seem to be any discussion about using the hide to create masterwork or quality armor.

[Corsair14]

Actually armor damage is not meaningless. I actually make my characters repair their armor in between adventures at a gp per AC for light and medium and 2gp per ac for heavy. If no one has actually blacksmithing or leatherworking skills they have to find a smith who can do it that charges double. Failure to do so drops the AC by a point for each fight after the adventure. If ac ever drops to zero it is destroyed. I do armored martial arts full contact, armor breaks a lot in fights and even the best armor needs new rivets and straps which cost money.

[Whyrocknodie]

I'd just say the resulting scales counted as leather. Nothing terribly special about it, except the colour.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Actually armor damage is not meaningless. I actually make my characters repair their armor in between adventures at a gp per AC for light and medium and 2gp per ac for heavy. If no one has actually blacksmithing or leatherworking skills they have to find a smith who can do it that charges double. Failure to do so drops the AC by a point for each fight after the adventure. If ac ever drops to zero it is destroyed. I do armored martial arts full contact, armor breaks a lot in fights and even the best armor needs new rivets and straps which cost money.

That's what is known as a "house rule," which is not in the rulebooks. For anyone who plays without such a house rule, rules on armor repair taking longer or not as long are meaningless—and those who do houserule it can add more houserules about it themselves.

[LibraryOgre]

That's what is known as a "house rule," which is not in the rulebooks. For anyone who plays without such a house rule, rules on armor repair taking longer or not as long are meaningless—and those who do houserule it can add more houserules about it themselves.

Complete Fighter's Handbook did have some explicit rules about armor damage, and was contemporary to the Monstrous Manual and its talk of armor damage.

[Telok]

Well there is one pretty good option.

How would a powerful elven wizard react to seeing a bunch of orc adventurers walking into town wearing elf-baby armor?

[Tiktik Ironclaw]

Yeah, this does seem like a non-issue in terms of wealth. As for moral compunction, I'd rather not open this can of wyrms, but your PCs will essentially be killing a child. And taking its skin. Peaceful negotiations, anybody?

[Lord Torath]

Complete Fighter's Handbook did have some explicit rules about armor damage, and was contemporary to the Monstrous Manual and its talk of armor damage.

Huh. I've got that book, and I don't remember seeing rules for armor damage. Guess I'll have to give it another look. Thanks for pointing that out!

[Vinyadan]

Another option for solving the problem is "exploding dragons": in this setting, all dragons see their bodily remains violently disappear in a gust of their element the moment they die. The same happens if you cut away a piece of a living dragon to that piece.

[LibraryOgre]

Huh. I've got that book, and I don't remember seeing rules for armor damage. Guess I'll have to give it another look. Thanks for pointing that out!

Page 112, according to the TOC.

[Pugwampy]

Who cares if they build an acid immune shield .

How many acid spitters are going to be tossed their way during your campaign ?

[Kish]

Eat 'em.

Oh, the question isn't how dragons can stop them exploiting dragon corpses?

[Segev]

Yeah, dragonscale armor is nice but not great on its own.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'm gonna have to come down on the side of "What's wrong with the PCs going all Monster Hunter?"

Because honestly, it sounds kinda awesome. Well. Moral compunctions involved in killing a sapient being and skinning it aside.

[Segev]

I'm gonna have to come down on the side of "What's wrong with the PCs going all Monster Hunter?"

Because honestly, it sounds kinda awesome. Well. Moral compunctions involved in killing a sapient being and skinning it aside.

[Quertus]

I'm gonna have to come down on the side of "What's wrong with the PCs going all Monster Hunter?"

Because honestly, it sounds kinda awesome. Well. Moral compunctions involved in killing a sapient being and skinning it aside.

Yeah, the last time I brought up that my evil character had moral issues with all this murdering of sentient beings that the "good" party was doing, I got kicked from the group. So it's probably best to just ignore the horrible moral implications in D&D.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Yeah, the last time I brought up that my evil character had moral issues with all this murdering of sentient beings that the "good" party was doing, I got kicked from the group.

Ah, the morals of a D&D party. I frequently end up playing neutral characters who futilely try to keep the rest of the party under control.
Then I cut the pretense of neutrality and played a paladin. I found it a bit more satisfying to have an excuse for being the party's moral center which didn't paint the rest of the party as being deeply unheroic.

[Max_Killjoy]

For some reason every time I see this thread in the list view, I have to read the title twice, because I keep reading it as "How to stop PCs from exploding dragon corpses."

[Inevitability]

For some reason every time I see this thread in the list view, I have to read the title twice, because I keep reading it as "How to stop PCs from exploding dragon corpses."

The solution is the same: have the dragon explode upon death.