Sorry, we'll have to amputate your arms. Oh, and your legs too.

[Mal Malenkirk]

Last session a PC got caught in an infernal machine and sent down the assembly chain. Both his arms and both his legs were chopped off and replaced by mechanical equivalent.

Hey, these things happen when you are fighting a demented gnome gadgeteer.

Still, these limbs are more than a little magical in nature and I ruled that they were taking the item slots reserved for rings, bracers and boots.

The PC is currently an 11th level dwarf rogue and at the time of his dismemberment he was the proud owner of a ring of blinking, a ring of protection and boots of elven kind.

He is quite worried about the outcome of the operation, to say the least. Most people dislike unnecessary surgery! But I like the idea of having a partially mechanized PC. I decided that no 15th level cleric were available on this high tech nightmare of an island and that regeneration was currently unavailable.

Now I need to make the replacement limbs attractive enough to keep the PC from jumping at the first opportunity to regrow his lost limbs. A slight XP penalty for the spell might help but now I need to design advantage that justify the loss of 3 magic item slots without being overpowering and that will be useful for the next 4-5 levels at least.

Here is what I got so far;

The fact that the limbs function at all is an extraordinary ability. But without magic the movements become choppy and lose their lifelike smoothness. A lot of the abilities of the limbs cease to function. Also, the limbs feed on the PC natural electricity and starts inflicting 1D6 of damage every minute after 10 minutes of operation in a magicaly suppresed enviroment.

In an anti-magic shell the speed of the PC are reduced to 10 feet, effective dex is lowered by 8 points and there is a -4 penalty to all attack rolls. Su abilities cease to work.

But under normal circumstances;

overall

+4 enhancement bonus to STR (su)

The ability to make one feat of strenght/day. The PC adds an enhancement bonus to STR equal to his character level (doesn't stack with the standard +4) for purpose of breaking things or lifting stuff for a number of rounds equal to 1+CON bonus. (su)

+10 to climbing thanks to retractable claws and other similar gadget both in arms and legs. It doesn't stack with climbing gear bonus (ex)

The PC takes half the normal subdual damage that comes from any sources except normal attacks. That means he can force walk for twice as long as normal or better resist extreme heat, for example. (ex)

Resistance (fire) 10 (ex)

Legs

+10 to speed (su)

+10 to jump skill, doesn't stack with jump spell (su)

If the PC willingly jumps down from a higher ground, he can ignore 10 feet when figuring the damage. This stacks with all other standard techniques you can use to reduce fall damage. (ex)

Tiny compartment; there is a hidden compartment in the left thigh that allows the PC to hide a tiny sized object. Search DC 28. (ex)

Arms

Integreted masterwork mechanical thieves tool; +4 to disable device & open lock, search DC 28 (ex)

Integreted hand crossbow. It has an autoloading 5 bolt cartridge. It allows for iterative attacks. It takes 10 minute to load.(ex)

Weapon Lock mechanism. Any weapon with a guard can be locked as per the locking gautlets rules as a free action.(ex)

Flame thrower; The left arm contain enough fuel for one blast. It takes 10 minute to reload and require the equivalent of 10 alchemical fire.(su)

Reflex save for 1/2
DC = 1/2 PC's HD + 10 + his CON
It creates a cone of fire 15 feet long and causes 4D6 of damage

Comments? Advice? Would you want that? Would you get rid of it at the first occasion in favor for the possibility of getting back those 3 magic item slots?

 

[Alejandro]

As a DM, I would examine the Dragonstar setting for ideas and/or ask for the half-machine template recently posted in Dungeon magazine (I don't know if it's OGC, though).

As a player, I'd need to think about how my character would react if this should happen.

In any case, I'd talk this situation over to find out why this is happening rather than what the bonuses are.

 

[Xahn'Tyr]

So this machine was set up to build dwarf-sized limbs? Seems like a gnome would have either made a machine to make gnome sized, or human sized, appendages. In either case, that is going to be one funny looking dwarf coming out the other end!

The benefits that you list seem quite a bit better than the items he gave up, but the disfigurment carries it's own psycological cost I suppose. Maybe you should toss a charisma penalty in there somewhere?

If you are really concerned about the PC liking the setup, perhaps you should make the special equipment modular; in that it can be swapped out, or upgraded, by someone with the appropriate skills (a gnome artificer I would guess). That way if he doesn't like the flamethrower, maybe one day he can find someone to swap in a grappling crossbow or some such. Just the potential for such change might be enough to make the PC stick with it for a while.

 

[Henry]

In my opinion...

Regarding all the magical disfiunction:

-All the things you mentioned don't happen to an Iron Golem in an Anti-magic field. WHy would they happen to this PC. If I were the PC, I would be trying to get my real limbs back at first opportunity - regardless of the costs.

If you want him to keep them, I would remove the whole antimagic field penalty, and tone down some of the extra powers. However, I would address the insanity thing, as it does take a lot of psychological adjustment to get used to prosthetics.

 

[Umbran]

10 minute reload times? That's really slow. You can keep the thing from being reloaded on a combat timescale by saying it as a one minute (10 combat round) reload time. It seems odd that it takes 2 entire minutes per bolt, or one entire minute per vial of alchemist's fire.

 

[bret]

As a player, I don't think I would choose to keep the limbs. This is especially true if I found out how totally useless I would become in an Anti-Magic field.


Some things to think about:

• If he has retractable claws, why no claw damage listing? Base it on Spiked Guantlets or something.
• The idea of a grapnel seems interesting. Maybe make it so he can 'shoot' one of his hands out to a distance and still control the hand. You would have to decide the length of cable available and how tough it is to cut.
• Make it clear what skill it takes to repair or improve the gadgets. I can go to any church for healing, but now if I break an arm what do I do?
• Rather than giving a bonus to Jump, how about giving the 'Leap of Clouds' ability that a Monk gets. I don't see why you forbit the use of Jump spell with the limbs anyways.
• Most rogues would rather have a bonus to Dex than Str. Would the inventer really have optimized for power over fine motor control?
• How do the limbs work? Is it a magical or technological system that allows them to respond to the character's nervous system.
• Some sort of ability to ignore pain in the limbs could be an interesting twist. 'I've shut down the pain recepters for now.'

It would depend very heavily on the type of character I was playing, but none of the equipment you listed makes up for a loss in AC caused by no longer being able to wear a ring of protection. The loss of the ring of blinking is also a huge loss for a rogue, since it was a constant sneak attack ability.

 

[Vaxalon]

Sounds like your DM is trying to run the "Machinations of Kambranex" adventure without benefit of the actual publication.

Pick up the latest Dungeon magazine, and check out the "half machine" template at the end of Dungeon (just before Polyhedron) and that has all the information you need about this procedure.

 

[Zad]

He is quite worried about the outcome of the operation, to say the least. Most people dislike unnecessary surgery! But I like the idea of having a partially mechanized PC. I decided that no 15th level cleric were available on this high tech nightmare of an island and that regeneration was currently unavailable.

Now I need to make the replacement limbs attractive enough to keep the PC from jumping at the first opportunity to regrow his lost limbs. A slight XP penalty for the spell might help but now I need to design advantage that justify the loss of 3 magic item slots without being overpowering and that will be useful for the next 4-5 levels at least.

The thing I find a little odd about this is that it seems like you're trying to strong arm him into being the character you want him to be, rather than what the player wants him to be. If the player wants to go back to being flesh, it seems a little unfair to just simply deny any possibility of regrowing them via regeneration.

On the other hand if the player is open to the idea, and just wants to see if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, then that's fine and good story. It's just that the way you wrote that, it looks like you want him to be mechanized and you're going to cut off any means for him to go back to being flesh because that's the way you want things. And that just doesn't seem kosher.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Last Dungeon/Polyhedron magazine had a Half Machine Template... I highly suggest you look for some ideas there. I didnt read it very well so I dont know how useful it would be too you... take a look at it.

PS... your making him into a machine was very heavy handed no ? And I thought my DMs could overdo stuff....

 

[Vaxalon]

I have no qualms about doing stuff like this, once in a while... it's the old "fate worse than death" thing... but I always offer a way out, sooner or later.

DnD has always been full of nasty DM tricks to change a character against the player's will, but there have been ways out.

Gender change, alignment change, polymorphs and other curses... is being made into a werewolf heavyhanded? How about being turned into a rat? How about being killed?

In the end, by adventuring, the PC risks not only death, but also a whole passel of nasty curses. As long as there's a way out the other side, that the PC can work towards, it's not heavy-handed DMing, it's a plot hook.