Mad Marduk's page

I agree with you Mushu; Hellbroth certainly seems to be in place to get his mud-hole stomped in. This is Pathfinder though, and the way I see it, if all roads lead to violent encounters, then you're only getting a fraction of your money's worth out of the game. I know it seems like an unlikely option when first reading about Hellbroth that the PC's will elicit him for cybernetic enhancement, however it's written into the AP, so even Tim Hitchcock considered it as one potential, if not unlikely possibility.

And back to my original point: this is Pathfinder. There are so many possible ways to turn even the most hostile of creatures into allies simply using spells and class abilities and such, even if only for a short time. One successful charm person and the not-so-good Doc Hellbroth would be all too happy to help the party out with cybernetic enhancements. Heck, he might even be willing to discount the installation for his friends; he has been making money on the side selling refined, strange fluids to someone in the Palace of Fallen Stars. "What's that you say PC's? You'd like to hear all about that as well. And why not? We're all friends here." Not to mention he has a spectacularly low chance of saving against this type of effect (even including his racial bonus vs. enchantments) for a character of his level, and 13 hours should certainly be enough time to get your surgery on.

That being said, I've always found the developments resulting from RPing to be the most rewarding. A clever and stubborn enough player will find a way to finagle just about anything though.

There's always Doc Hellbroth in book 5 (pages 13-14), or have we all forgotten him so quickly? He's already setup with all the necessary feats and a cybernetics lab, so assuming your PCs don't just kick in his door and murder him, they could get any number of implants done at the Red Reaver in Starfall. My player's are pretty big on taking "stand-out" NPCs alive after combat to get information and try to force their enemies to work for them as best as possible. Heck, the text flat out says that if the PCs aren't immediately hostile and don't approach him in a group, that he is annoyed, but thinks they are there for cybernetic enhancement. If you don't want your PCs to simply kill Doc Hellbroth and take over the lab to start manufacturing their own cybernetic implants, then maybe you should just consider taking the technological crafting feats out of your game; then it wouldn't matter if they find a workshop or not, they too dumb to use irt.