More Uses For Monster Parts

[lokistrife86]

One thing I always found curious is that you collect monster parts throughout the game from each monster you kill, but they're only useful in single quantities for the alchemist quests. Here are a couple basic ideas I had (which I know can be improved upon by the great minds of our community):

The alchemist that ends up in the guild opens up shop once you get back from the Far East. For the cost of some gold and a number of random monster bits, he/she will craft you a potion that grants a temporary benefit in combat. Could either be a random potion, or (like the original quests) you can choose from a list of available potions (maybe a random 3 or 4 from a larger pool). You can visit this alchemist as many times as you'd like, but each time the costs increase (more gold each time, plus even more bits from more dangerous monsters). Plus, word of your heroics has spread, and by supplying the alchemist's guild with a (long) list of needed ingredients (multiples of each one) they either (depending on balance issues) pay you with gold, or supply you with a random unique (ala the merchant in Last Hope).

Another idea...As part of the fortress, a magical forge room is available to become unlocked (or, maybe another quest line becomes available from the Jeweler at the Gates of Morning after the 'Lost Knowledge' quest is completed). Humanoid characters have a chance to drop random recipes throughout the game. In order to impart attributes onto items you have to use items that already have egos attached, and they become disenchanted and overwritten with the new egos. The recipes only give 1 or 2 guaranteed effects depending on the bits used and depending on the item (ex. x amount of fire ant stingers plus y amount of fire wyrm saliva = + z fire damage on melee strike (on weapons), or +z % fire resistance (on armor), etc). If a green item is used, you can only receive a green item in return. If a pink is used, you have a chance to roll a new item up to a pink (more likely to roll a green, than a blue, etc) where the guaranteed ego is granted, and then the remaining egos are filled out randomly. There should be a non-zero chance that the process fails and the weapon and monster bits are destroyed, and there should be a range of possible values to give more randomness/variation to it (more likely the new item will have the bottom of the range than the top). Maybe higher tiered items should be more stable and predictable than lower tiered items (though, by the time you're in the end game phase there's really no lack of Tier 5 items to work with, so that might not end up mattering much). Maybe even have the ability to combine recipes and stack the guaranteed effects, but if you roll a lower item quality than can handle the number of guaranteed egos, the process fails. Maybe a new type of item is also required to craft (some sort of crystalized life energy), and on top of what's needed for the particular recipes, you also need to convert excess monster bits to these crystals. Also, maybe instead of guaranteeing that you're able to harvest bits from each enemy you kill, there's a chance that you're only able to recover 'partial' or 'tattered' or 'ruined' bits which are only useful for turning into crystal.

I'm sure there are many other possibilities as well! If implemented, it's definitely super important to do so in a way that doesn't encourage grinding.