Help with Grafts!

[Pazu]

After reading the description of the fleshwarper (from Lords of Madness), I have become interested in the concept of grafts. Unfortunately, the main source of information on grafts seems to be the Fiend Folio, which I have recently discovered is out of print (according to the nice guy at my FLGS).

I do have the FF on order from Amazon, but I won't be getting it for about two months!

So, would some kind soul be willing to whet my appetite for information and provide some brief descriptions or examples of a few grafts from the FF?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[takasi]

You should also check out Magic of Eberron. It has a new race that gets free upgradable grafts and the book includes a number of grafts and their cost.

 

[blargney the second]

A fair number of the grafts in Lords of Madness are 3.5 updates to the ones in Fiend Folio (a 3.0 manual). The rest in FF are grafts of various aberrations and outsiders, for the most part.

Here's a list of all the graft sources I know of:
Lords of Madness has aberration grafts
Libris Mortis has undead grafts
Races of the Dragon has draconic grafts
Eberron Campaign Setting has symbionts
Faiths of Eberron has construct grafts
Magic of Eberron has deathless, elemental, and plant grafts

Have I missed any?


Edit: is this for a PC or the DM? Grafts particularly rock for the DM: you can upgrade your monsters without infusing the PCs with massive quantities of wealth afterwards, which is occasionally necessary to rebalance the spreadsheets.

 

[takasi]

Sorry, I was thinking of Symbiots. There are several grafts in MoE though.

Some of the abilities are a little strange. Take Healing Nodules for example. You grow spores on your body that can be plucked and eaten as a cure serious wounds potion. You can grow 24 of these every day, and it only costs 21000 gp (and -2 fort and 6hp). So in two days time you've made your money back.

And what's worse is that there are no rules for who long these nodules last after they are picked off.

You may think that's just one off one, but the very next graft is Darkwood Flesh. It has a strange ability that (at least I think) can be easily exploited. It grants you light fort, for 25% miss on crits and sneak attacks. However, it also gives you fast healing 3 for a number of rounds equal to the damage received. What makes it wonky is that it specifically says that this stacks with multiple sneak attacks. So if you can find a friend you can sneak attack you during battle for very little damage then you can go hog wild. For extra cheese, try giving the burrow ability to a low level toadie rogue and have him attack you from underground, giving him concealment. Not sure if this is possible by RAW, anyone?

 

[Pazu]

A fair number of the grafts in Lords of Madness are 3.5 updates to the ones in Fiend Folio (a 3.0 manual). The rest in FF are grafts of various aberrations and outsiders, for the most part.

I remember someone mentioning beholder and yuan-ti grafts; were there others?

One reason I'm curious is that although the fleshwarper gains Graft Mastery with up to five different graft types over 10 levels, Lords of Madness only describes three: aboleth, illithid, and silthilar. Silthilar grafts look tailor-made for character buffing; on the other hand, aboleth grafts seem useless if you spend most of your life out of water, while illithid grafts have that pesky -4 to Will saves side effect.

So I was wondering if the other graft types were similar in terms of utility.

Here's a list of all the graft sources I know of:
Lords of Madness has aberration grafts
Libris Mortis has undead grafts
Races of the Dragon has draconic grafts
Eberron Campaign Setting has symbionts
Faiths of Eberron has construct grafts
Magic of Eberron has deathless, elemental, and plant grafts

Have I missed any?

Egads, that's a lot of sources to look at. I don't suppose there's a summary list somewhere online...?

Edit: is this for a PC or the DM? Grafts particularly rock for the DM: you can upgrade your monsters without infusing the PCs with massive quantities of wealth afterwards, which is occasionally necessary to rebalance the spreadsheets.

Well, it was mostly for a character concept that may or may not ever see the light of day; basically a Gedankenexperiment, but I needed more data!

Thanks for the help!

 

[Pazu]

Sorry, I was thinking of Symbiots. There are several grafts in MoE though.

Some of the abilities are a little strange. Take Healing Nodules for example. You grow spores on your body that can be plucked and eaten as a cure serious wounds potion. You can grow 24 of these every day, and it only costs 21000 gp (and -2 fort and 6hp). So in two days time you've made your money back.

Kind of reminds me of Swamp Thing. Bizarre.

You may think that's just one off one, but the very next graft is Darkwood Flesh. It has a strange ability that (at least I think) can be easily exploited. It grants you light fort, for 25% miss on crits and sneak attacks. However, it also gives you fast healing 3 for a number of rounds equal to the damage received. What makes it wonky is that it specifically says that this stacks with multiple sneak attacks. So if you can find a friend you can sneak attack you during battle for very little damage then you can go hog wild. For extra cheese, try giving the burrow ability to a low level toadie rogue and have him attack you from underground, giving him concealment. Not sure if this is possible by RAW, anyone?

This is...also bizarre. Plant grafts, I assume?

 

[atomn]

So I was wondering if the other graft types were similar in terms of utility.

Egads, that's a lot of sources to look at. I don't suppose there's a summary list somewhere online...?

Well, it was mostly for a character concept that may or may not ever see the light of day; basically a Gedankenexperiment, but I needed more data!

I can't remember the mechanics but the Fiend Folio has fiendish outsider grafts that can only be applied to a Neutral or Evil character and have some mechanic that causes the character to have to make a Will save or commit an evil act. Basically if you weren't playing a character who would be willing to do evil things they are pretty useless grafts.

Also, the draconic grafts and all of the grafts in Magic of Eberron have a requirement that the character can only take one type of graft. So if you take Draconic grafts (RoDr) you can't also have elemental grafts (MoEb). Once I read a comment that said the restriction only applied to those specific grafts, so one character could have draconic grafts as well as undead grafts, aboleth grafts, behonder grafts.

There's also a Dragon Magazine with pirate grafts but I've never read it, so I don't know if it works with the Fleshwarper.

I've never seen an online summary but it would be nice.

What is a Gedankenexperiment?

 

[Pazu]

I can't remember the mechanics but the Fiend Folio has fiendish outsider grafts that can only be applied to a Neutral or Evil character and have some mechanic that causes the character to have to make a Will save or commit an evil act. Basically if you weren't playing a character who would be willing to do evil things they are pretty useless grafts.

Hmm. What I find interesting is that, of the grafts I've read about, the ones with annoying side effects often don't seem to provide a commensurate benefit in exchange. Do most grafts have these accompanying drawbacks?

Also, the draconic grafts and all of the grafts in Magic of Eberron have a requirement that the character can only take one type of graft. So if you take Draconic grafts (RoDr) you can't also have elemental grafts (MoEb). Once I read a comment that said the restriction only applied to those specific grafts, so one character could have draconic grafts as well as undead grafts, aboleth grafts, behonder grafts.

I'm finding it hard to even picture elemental grafts.

What is a Gedankenexperiment?

IIRC, it's a term that's usually translated as "thought experiment".

 

[atomn]

Hmm. What I find interesting is that, of the grafts I've read about, the ones with annoying side effects often don't seem to provide a commensurate benefit in exchange. Do most grafts have these accompanying drawbacks?

To me the only ones that seemed overall to have bad drawbacks are the fiendish ones (because I overwhelmingly play in non-Evil games) and the ilithid ones (because of the -4 Will save). The rest in general don't seem to have significant, if any, drawbacks.

I'm finding it hard to even picture elemental grafts.

I think they're more like mixing the essence of the elemental instead of a replacement body part of an elemental. Otherwise it would be crazy to picture an elemental graft!

Also, I think the FF has Maug and Yuan-ti grafts. If I remember correctly neither type had any significant drawbacks but they didn't seem very impressive either.

 

[Pazu]

I think they're more like mixing the essence of the elemental instead of a replacement body part of an elemental. Otherwise it would be crazy to picture an elemental graft!

Sort of like an ongoing heart of <element> spell, then? I suppose that makes a bit more sense.

Also, I think the FF has Maug and Yuan-ti grafts. If I remember correctly neither type had any significant drawbacks but they didn't seem very impressive either.

What is a Maug?