Character Design: The 6 million gp man!

[Three_Haligonians]

...can someone explain this?

Hey all, great ideas!

One thing we found when looking through the Dragon Magazines, is an article on body modifications [Issue 359]. No feats required, just time spent and a heal check made to implant various items into the body.

It sounds good, but if you read the descriptions, there doesn't seem to be many benefits to doing so for some of them. For example, a character can embed armour into their bodies - it costs 300gp per point of AC bonus granted and with each point comes a certain amount of Max Dex, armour check penalty and arcane spell failure. The armour can be made from special materials, made magical, and all the other armour modification out there can apply as well.

My question is, what benefit would there be from doing this? Why would a character spend 300 gp per point of AC on armour they couldn't take off unless it did something special? Doing this means the character is considered to be wearing armour so they can't wear extra "on top" and technically speaking, unless they have a way to sleep in armour, they are always going to be fatigued.. that ain't good!

So, what benefits do you see such a modification granting? or should be granting?

J from Three Haligonians

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hey all, great ideas!

One thing we found when looking through the Dragon Magazines, is an article on body modifications [Issue 359]. No feats required, just time spent and a heal check made to implant various items into the body.

It sounds good, but if you read the descriptions, there doesn't seem to be many benefits to doing so for some of them. For example, a character can embed armour into their bodies - it costs 300gp per point of AC bonus granted and with each point comes a certain amount of Max Dex, armour check penalty and arcane spell failure. The armour can be made from special materials, made magical, and all the other armour modification out there can apply as well.

My question is, what benefit would there be from doing this? Why would a character spend 300 gp per point of AC on armour they couldn't take off unless it did something special? Doing this means the character is considered to be wearing armour so they can't wear extra "on top" and technically speaking, unless they have a way to sleep in armour, they are always going to be fatigued.. that ain't good!

So, what benefits do you see such a modification granting? or should be granting?

J from Three Haligonians

Sounds pretty cheap (consider what an enhancement bonus normally costs). The Endurance feat might come in handy to compensate the fatigue (read: negate) from sleeping in armor.
Also keep in mind that a player now could wear a magical vestment (not that our 6 Mio gp man would want that).

For "fair" pricing (if this is a concern): Slotless magical items cost twice as much as slotted.

For other ideas: I think Monte Cooks Chaositech book also contains a lot of items that seem very technical. (But are also very "cthullish". I don't know how much that is integrated in the rules, though)