A Knightblade's Guide to Poaching

One of the most useful abilities to develop in Final Fantasy Tactics is the Secret Hunt skill, a support ability of the Thief. When a monster is slain by a character with Secret Hunt, the character skins it and keeps its hide for trading purposes in Fur Shops.

Fur Shops can only be found in the Trade cities, namely Dorter, Warjilis, and Zarghidas. There, a fur trader will judge the quality of your hides, and offer special items at discounted rates in exchange. There is a 'going rate' for each kind of hide-- an item that will commonly be on offer when you bring one in. However, there is also a 'rare' item that will be offered in exchange for particularly high-quality hides. Some of these items cannot be acquired any other way.

Fur Shops do not appear in the Trade Cities until Chapter 3, though that shouldn't stop you from poaching monsters in Chapter 1. The hides will remain with you until you exchange them for items. Note that you'll be kicked out of the store, no matter how many hides you've collected, if you don't have a character with Secret Hunt active when you walk into the Fur Shop.

Farming is a common practice while trying to collect items. You simply invite a monster into your party, allow it to breed, and poach its offspring. This is an efficient way to find the items you need, particularly in the case of rare monster types like Wild Boars. In fact, the Wildbow can only be bred- you'll never meet one in the wild.

Owing to the importance of zodiac signs in this game, it should be noted that they may have an effect on whether or not you receive the rare item or the common one when you poach. I have not been able to disprove this. It could be that the relative signs of the poacher and monster have an effect, or the 'month' that the monster is poached in, etc. Note that the game correctly assigns astrological signs to monsters 'born' into your party, based on the date of their hatching.

It is important to note that only a fatal 'attack' (that is, any use of the Attack command that results in the death of the monster) will trigger a Poach. Dedicated hunters should avoid counter abilities such as Counter Tackle, Damage Split, or Hamedo. Magic attacks and special attacks such as Agrias' Holy Sword will not trigger a Poach.