Gathering & Recovery

Gathering & Recovery explains how characters find, harvest, salvage, and preserve materials used in Eldareth's crafting system.

The D&D 2024 exploration, tool, and foraging rules remain the foundation. Additional procedures are used when individually tracked Special Materials need more detail.

A material does not require a check simply because it is valuable, magical, or unusual. If it is present, accessible, stable, and straightforward to collect, it can normally be recovered without one.

How Recovery Works

Recovery depends on the material and the condition of its source.

A plant might be gathered directly, while a mineral may need to be extracted from surrounding stone. Creature materials can require careful removal, and some magical substances must be stabilized before they can be transported.

When relevant, a material entry can establish its own rules for Recovery, Yield, required equipment, ability checks, stabilization, storage, or Special Handling.

Specific material rules take precedence over the general guidance here.

Occurrence, Yield, and Recovery

Some materials separate acquisition into three questions.

Occurrence or Formation

Does the material exist?

A visible plant, horn, crystal, or machine part does not normally need an occurrence roll. Other materials may form only under particular circumstances or may have a chance of appearing when their source is destroyed or altered.

If a material does not form, a later Recovery check cannot create it.

Yield

How much usable material is present?

Yield depends on the source. A large healthy patch, intact carcass, substantial deposit, or well-preserved site may provide more than a damaged or limited source.

A successful check cannot produce more material than was physically available.

Recovery

Can the material be obtained in usable condition?

A Recovery check is used only when the process is meaningfully uncertain.

This can happen because the material is delicate, contaminated, unstable, difficult to reach, damaged, dangerous to extract, or dependent on specialist equipment.

Tools and Equipment

Ordinary equipment is often enough for straightforward gathering and salvage.

Knives, shears, saws, hammers, chisels, jars, baskets, rope, padded containers, and similar gear can all be useful depending on the material.

Tool proficiency becomes important when the task requires technical skill rather than simple access.

An Herbalism Kit might be used to preserve delicate botanical material. Leatherworker's Tools can help prepare a valuable Hide, while Jeweler's Tools may be needed to remove a fragile crystal without damaging it.

Using ordinary equipment does not automatically require a related tool proficiency. A character can cut a plant with a knife or collect a loose crystal without specialized training.

Some materials require equipment or containment beyond ordinary adventuring gear. Their individual entries explain when this applies.

Foraging

Eldareth distinguishes between finding food and water and searching for tracked crafting materials.

Subsistence Foraging

Subsistence Foraging uses the normal D&D 2024 wilderness procedure.

Each participating character can make a Wisdom (Survival) check against the terrain's Foraging DC to search for food and water.

Special Material Foraging

Special Material Foraging is used when searching a region for tracked plants, fungi, and similar natural materials listed on its foraging table.

The party chooses one lead Special Material forager for each attempt. That character makes the Wisdom (Survival) check.

Another character can assist when the normal requirements for Help are met, but additional characters do not each generate another Special Material result.

Use the terrain's Foraging DC unless the regional table or current location establishes another difficulty.

Travel Pace

Travel pace affects Special Material Foraging performed while moving.

At a Slow Pace, the lead forager has Advantage.

At a Normal Pace, the check is made normally.

At a Fast Pace, the lead forager has Disadvantage.

A dedicated search performed while stationary is not affected by travel pace.

Combining Foraging

A character can search for subsistence and Special Materials during the same period.

When the same character performs both activities, one Wisdom (Survival) roll can resolve both searches. If the two searches use different DCs, compare the same roll against each DC separately.

Other party members can still make their own Subsistence Foraging checks.

Resolving a Special Material Search

On a successful Special Material Foraging check, roll once on the region's foraging table.

The table determines what is found.

An ordinary success finds 1 Tracked Quantity.

If the Survival check succeeds by 5 or more, Common and Uncommon results provide 2 Tracked Quantities instead.

Rare and Exceptional results still provide 1 Tracked Quantity unless a regional or material-specific rule says otherwise.

A high Survival result can improve the quantity found. It does not allow the character to choose a rarer material.

Foraging Attempts

A party can normally make up to two Special Material Foraging attempts each day.

During a normal travel day, this can include one attempt while traveling and one dedicated search lasting about 2 hours.

A stationary party can instead make up to two dedicated searches, each taking about 2 hours.

This limit applies to broad regional searching. It does not prevent characters from harvesting a known plant patch, recovering a creature material, extracting a discovered mineral, or salvaging a Component encountered during the same day.

Targeted Searches

Regional Special Material Foraging is normally random.

A character cannot simply name a Rare material and replace the regional table with a harder Survival check.

A targeted search becomes possible when the character has specific information that gives them a meaningful place to look. This might come from research, directions, a previously discovered source, environmental signs, or information from someone familiar with the material.

The clue, location, or material determines how the targeted search is resolved.

Plants and Fungi

Most healthy and accessible botanical materials can be gathered directly.

A check may be appropriate when the useful part is difficult to identify, easily damaged, contaminated, or dependent on careful preparation.

Herbalism Kit proficiency can matter when identification, preservation, or specialist handling is important.

Individual flora entries describe any special harvesting or storage requirements.

Creature Salvage

Creature-derived materials can include Hide, Bone, Plating, Fiber, venom, glands, secretions, and other established resources.

A creature provides a Special Material only when that material has been established for the creature, encounter, or location.

Recovery follows the physical source. A loose tooth or scale may simply be collected, while preserving a Hide, extracting venom, or removing a delicate organ can require suitable tools or a check.

A creature's game statistics do not automatically become qualities of its harvested materials.

Minerals and Crystals

Loose and stable mineral material can normally be collected without a check.

Extraction becomes more involved when a specimen must be removed from surrounding stone, preserved as a coherent piece, or protected from damage during removal.

Mining equipment, Mason's Tools, Jeweler's Tools, or other specialist equipment may be relevant depending on the material.

Unusual minerals such as Galarium can establish additional recovery or assessment rules.

Construct and Device Salvage

Constructs, machines, and engineered devices can contain usable materials or Components when those parts survive intact.

Accessible parts can often be removed normally. Technical dismantling may require Tinker's Tools, Smith's Tools, Jeweler's Tools, or other appropriate equipment.

Destroying a device does not automatically recover the materials originally used to build it. What can be salvaged depends on what remains physically usable.

Magical, Elemental, and Planar Materials

Unusual magical materials follow the rules established by their individual entries.

Some remain as stable physical substances and can simply be collected. Others may form only under particular circumstances, remain unstable for a short time, or require stabilization before they can be stored safely.

There is no single recovery procedure for every magical, elemental, or planar material.

Identification and Appraisal

Recovering a material does not always reveal everything about it.

Identification determines what the material is.

Appraisal determines its approximate Value.

More detailed analysis may be needed to determine Properties, Affinities, condition, or other technical information.

The appropriate method depends on the material and the information being sought.

Collection and Storage

Most stable materials can be stored and transported using appropriate ordinary containers.

Plants may need to be dried or wrapped, liquids sealed in bottles or jars, fragile crystals placed in padded cases, and fibers protected from contamination or moisture.

Some materials require stabilization, containment, or other Special Handling. These requirements are given in their individual entries.

Poor storage can damage or destroy a material when its entry establishes that preservation matters.

Finding Material Entries

The Materials section of the Crafter's Compendium contains the resources characters can gather and use.

Regional Flora & Forage articles cover natural materials associated with particular environments. Special Materials of Eldareth covers creature-derived, elemental, magical, manufactured, and other unusual resources.

Crafting with Special Materials explains how these resources interact with Recipes, while Special Recipes & Formulae provides the exact requirements for established crafting projects.