Loot Command

In some games, enemies don't inexplicably turn into Video Game Items upon death. Therefore, players will need a way to get those valuable drops (commonly Essence Drop or Organ Drops, though other things may also apply here) from fallen enemies. Enter the "Loot" command. This command allows players to extract those goodies from their enemies' corpses. This command can take many forms, and may or may not involve Applied Phlebotinum. For example, if the players' enemies are sand monsters, there's a weapon that absorbs sand that can be used to absorb their essence upon dazing them. Sometimes though, the move is as simple as walking up to a dead enemy and carving up it's guts with an ordinary knife.

There are a few type of drops that count under here (but not limited to)

• Magic: You can extract spell charges.
• Powers: you can steal someone's superpower.
• Organs: You can extract their organs from their body.
• Essence Drop: Absorb the enemy's Red orbs, souls, or their physical body.
• Money and other valuables: That is, if the enemy has it.

Things that don't count (because they are a separate mechanic to this):

• Mana: Mana Drain (Unless said drain only works upon the enemy's death)
• Hit Points: Life Drain (ditto)

Guaranteed Item Drop Move: This is when you can make the opponents drop only one certain kind of item when they tend to drop varying kinds of items. This sometimes overlap with the Loot Command, but some other times, this can exist as an equipment, or a normal move.

Tends to avert Impossible Item Drop (though not always), unless there is an In-Universe justification for it. On occasion, some certain rare items cannot be obtained any other way but from using this. Also, sometimes Random Drops system exists alongside this command:

• You can only get items through the loot command, and what you looted can be random.
• You can get items automatically, but the loot command will give you a more specific ^note i.e some rare items are only obtainable through this command/less random result.

Subtrope to Robbing the Dead, which also covers narrative usage of this trope. If you're getting items to "drop" from live opponents without killing them, that's Video Game Stealing.

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Examples:

Action RPG

• This is a staple in Monster Hunter, you can walk up to a dead monster before it vanishes to carve up its guts for crafting materials. In Monster Hunter: World you can chop a tail off a live beastie and carve that while the rest is still alive and angry.
• This is the function of the "Devour" move in God Eater Burst:
  • Basically you transform your Living Weapon into a mouth which you then use to literally "eat" the monsters you fight. If you do it while they're still alive, you will enter a sort of Super Mode and gain one or more shots of whatever the monster's special attack is. If you do it when they're dead, you extract materials from the monsters.
  • Some Monsters have non-body parts among their materials, like generators. Justified though as the monsters are Horde of Alien Locusts The Worm That Walks. The Golden Gboro Gboro, which is an alligator-fish thing, contains nothing but non-body part materials.
• In Toukiden, the "purification ritual" your characters do on fallen enemies (or their limbs) turns their body/limb into Essence Drop which your character then absorbs.

• In the original Dungeon Siege, after finishing a battle, you can press a button to order your party members to automatically look for and pick up the loot that dropped from enemies (since doing so manually would be waay too tedious).

Action Adventure

• In Ōkami, defeated enemies only drop Demon Fangs if you finish them with a specific Brush Technique.

Beat Em Up

• In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Raiden can slice open enemy cyborgs and robot in mid-combat, in order to get their spines in order to heal himself. Also certain enemy cyborgs have data located in their left hand, which you have to hack off before you kill them.
• Onimusha series:
  • In all the games, enemies drop different colored souls that you can absorb to replenish your health, magic power, and Oni Awakening. Enemies drop souls when they are killed, but the player must activate his/her Oni Gauntlet to absorb them.
  • In the third game, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, there's also an item, that allows the player to draw souls from enemies with regular attacks (Ako's Yellow Haori) and another one, that allows the player to absorb souls directly from living enemies with the Oni Gauntlet (Ako's Green Haori).
• Altered Beast (2005) gives your character many different animal forms to fit whatever goal you wish to accomplish in combat, and when you're stuck in human form, you're next-to helpless against the monsters you fight against...except for the fact that you can jab your fist right inside them and drain their life force. This move is still something of an emergency move, as its range is very short and you are still very vulnerable to attack, not to mention that you don't get the most health from it.

First Person Shooter

• Borderlands: Loot in the form of guns, shields, ammo, health kits, mods and other shiny doodads drop on the ground from kills and are found in chests and other places such as a reward for rounds in Mad Moxxi's Thunderdome. Mashing the pick-up button in the ensuing multiplayer Loot Drama race is critical.

Fighting Game

• In Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, the only way to take AP from your opponent without an item or stage-hazard is to get them in a throw. This amount scales upward depending on how much AP they're currently carrying.

MMORPG

• In Vindictus, occasionally a monster's corpse will flash an icon that says "Finish!" Attacking the corpse again drops an 'Evil Core' containing one loot item for each player.

Platformer

• In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Prince's "Dagger of Time" is used for the Finishing Move stab you can use on your knocked-down enemies to replenish your Sands. There is also an optional mid-combo Finishing Move that allows you to do the same thing while they're still practically "healthy".
• In Tomb Raider (2013), The "Scavenge" mechanic is this. You can walk up to dead animals and Lara will grab a knife from her Hyperspace Arsenal and carve up the poor thing for vaguely defined "Scavenged Items". Doing it on humans is Robbing the Dead instead as she gets their ammunition instead of their guts.
• Implied Trope in Mega Man 8 and Mega Man & Bass: After Mega Man (or Bass) defeats a boss (who'll dissipate into energy circles), he will absorb spheres of energy into him and then his coloring changes, reflecting the fact that he has absorbed the boss's weapon.
• In Mega Man Zero 4, the Z-Knuckle lets you rob unique weapons from the mooks, such as busters, shields or stabbing weapons.

Roguelike

• Dicey Dungeons: The Finders Keepers move in the challenge of the same name requires some investment, but enables the Thief to steal a piece of equipment after defeating his opponent. Only works once per fight.

Role Playing Game

• The Elder Scrolls
  • Throughout the series, nearly all characters (be they humanoid NPCs, animals, magical creatures, Mecha-Mooks, etc.) have a searchable inventory that the player can loot after said character has been killed. Their corpse can also be used as a storage container, though this is risky as most corpses will disappear after enough in-game time has passed (usually 3 days).
  • Soul Trapping enemies to capture their souls for use in creating/recharging enchanted items typically requires casting the "Soul Trap" spell on the enemy before it is killed, along with having an appropriate empty soul gem in your inventory.
• The Bethesda era Fallout games (Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4) borrow the "searchable inventory" aspect of their Elder Scrolls sister series described above. Everything from radioactive houseflies to massive super mutants have such an inventory.
• In Final Fantasy VIII the Draw command allows party members to extract spell charges from enemies.
  • the same game also gives you Quetzocotl's Card command which will convert one of your enemies into a playing card for the Card Battle Game.
• In Final Fantasy X, the "Extract X"^note Where "X" is a noun related to a type of stat. abilities (which can all be learned early on and found on weapons) can be used to guarantee an enemy drops the relevant sphere (which are used to unlock stat bonuses on the sphere grid).
• Final Fantasy XII gives you the Poach command which allows the player to instantly defeat an enemy with low health and collect a more rare piece of loot, usually as an alternate way of getting the enemy's monograph drop, by doing so.
• Final Fantasy Tactics A2 gives you the Trophy Hunt ability as an exclusive skill for Vaan's Sky Pirate job, when used to defeat an enemy it guarantees you a drop of rank 4 loot. There's also the Hunter class's Hunting command, which deals low damage but gives you a second item drop if it KOs an enemy. The Alchemist class also gains the Transmute ability, which converts the target into an item.
• In Mega Man Battle Network games (especially those that have the Navi Customizer system - starting in the third game), you can equip a program that will guarantee you getting a battle chip after every battle (normally it's either Zenny or chip). A similar program also exists for Zenny-only drops.
• Dragon Age: Origins: Most enemies bodies are searchable to find money or items. To save on memory their bodies will fade and be replaced by a sack after a short time.

Stealth Based Game

• Metal Gear Solid
  • You could ^shake by pushing the drag button repeatedly an unconscious/dead enemy and sometime gain ammo or rations.
• AssassinsCreed
  • Assassin's Creed III introduced a hunting and skinning mechanic to the series which was justified as the main character is a Native American hunter. Hunting gains you animal pelts, meat, and/or bone which can be used in crafting or as Shop Fodder. In fact, if you don't skin after killing an animal, you risk desychronization.
  • Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag used the same hunting and skinning mechanics with a bit less justification as the main character is a British pirate. On the other hand, the whale/shark fishing fit the theme well.
  • Assassin's Creed Rogue does this too, being set in the same setting as Assassin's Creed III (though taking place before it), and justified in that one of the main character's tutors is Native American.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons
  • Some monsters are noted as having treasure stored in their bodies that can be removed by cutting them open. One example is the roper, which has a gizzard-like internal organ that holds 3-18 platinum pieces and has a 35% chance of holding 5-20 gems.
  • Other monsters have body parts that can be used as material components in spellcasting or to make magic items. For example, many 1st Edition potions require a monster part to create, such as the tongue of a devil or harpy for a Philter of Persuasiveness.
• Hackmaster. The Hacklopedia of Beasts series described monsters for use in the game. Each monster had a entry called "Yield", which listed all of the monster's body parts that had any value or use. Enterprising PCs could often gain as much from removing and selling/using the parts as they could from the monster's treasure.
• Heritage Games/Fantasy Games Unlimited's Swordbearer. Spell casting is powered by "nodes". Spirit magic uses spirit nodes, which can be found in living creatures. At the end of combat a Spirit magic user would spend some time extracting nodes from the bodies of opponents for purposes of future spell casting.

Wide Open Sandbox

• In State of Decay, the Loot Command is essential to survival. As you traverse the world, picking up supplies from abandoned campsites, businesses and homes becomes a tactical, logistical and important part of the game. The Loot Command has an option to speed up the search but the downside is that the player makes more noise and could thereby attract zombies in the vicinity. Because the game is heavily weighted in favour of stealth rather than action, looting quickly is a risky action.

Non-Video Game

• I Woke Up As a Dungeon, Now What?: Normally, when you kill a dungeon monster it dissolves back into mana, leaving behind only whatever loot the dungeon system decides it Randomly Drops. Harvesters, however, have the ability to spend a bit of their own mana to make the monster's corpse fully real, allowing them to harvest additional materials beyond what the planet would normally grant.

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