Regenerate most likely is another hold over from earlier editions, where limb removal was more common.
It is. In 1e (and 2e) you had the sword of sharpness (which couold remove limbs on a natural 20), creatures like the bunyip, slicer beetle, and green slime (where amputation was a possible cure). The claws of a tarasque also acted like swords of sharpness, so fighting the big T could result in limb loss.
3e remove the limb loss and relegated green slime to a hazard that rarely sees use. I am all for monsters like the bunyip and slicer beetle returning to remove limbs. At the same time, I plan to house rule the spell to provide actual regeneration instead of simple healing.
I played in a game once where the town beset by a mummy used amputation to stop mummy rot before it killed the victim.
And that was several sessions after we (as a party) decided that the sorcerer's arm needed to come off for his own good.
New Combat Maneuver: Sunder Limb
You may attempt to remove a limb of you opponent as part of an attack action or in place of a melee attack. Only weapons that cause slashing damage (such as a long sword or axe) may be used against the opponent. this maneuver may only be used against opponents of your size catagory or smaller.
If you do not have the Improved Sunder feat, or similar ability, attempting to sunder a limb provokes an attack of opportunity.
If your attack is successful, you deal damage normaly. A limb is treated to have a hardness equal to the any armor rating you have due to either natural armor or armor worn (these values stack). If the damage delt in a single attack exceeds your Constitution score, the limb is severed if a Fortitude save is faled (DC 10+Dmg dealt).
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Voi-la... a need for Regeneration. :oP
I played in a game once where the town beset by a mummy used amputation to stop mummy rot before it killed the victim.
And that was several sessions after we (as a party) decided that the sorcerer's arm needed to come off for his own good.
Ah yes, that has happened a few times as well....and the rogue got caught stealing once and could not talk his way out of it. I really can not say how many times that spell has come up
I myself dislike the ideal of healing spells regrowing limbs, Seems to me limb regrowth is much harder then plan heal. But I also think raise dead and the like are to easy as well.
We at 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming have material in 2 upcoming books dealing with this. Luven Lightfinger's Gear & Treasure Shop features a number of prosthetic limbs for when someone winds up missing something important. Strategist and Tacticians will feature rules for limb loss in combat. While there may be no specific RAW material saying "This will cause you to lose a limb", the fact is, tangle with enough monsters and someone's going to come out "short-handed", as it were.
Sorry, no RAW reason for it. It must be removed from all books, so please purchase a new Marks-A-Lot brand marker in Black and completely darken or redact all text pertaining to the spell. This is the only way to handle spells like these, or younger &/or Noob gamers will get confused and not be able to play.
BTW, I think a choose at time of casting dual use would be good, one as written and one granting fast heal. I miss the days were a fighter could get all trolly and pop right back up after getting a beat down and start swinging again.
Well, sunder is about breaking things.
A limb would have 20% of character HP, Character's size and hardness of worn armour. Even the Broken condition would work nicely...
I sometimes contemplate grafting GURPS hit location rules onto D&D. There are good hit location rules in some of the advanced options which are surprisingly usable in D&D.
At one point I took the same rules in the attempt to make 'better' armor rules and discovered I had just re-invented AC with a bit more detail. Doh.
So I just shrugged and went back to using AC.
(The biggest problem with hit location/armor as DR rules is that power attack becomes overpowered again)
Well, what I meant was having the attacker roll the CMB normally (along with the AoO) and lending the limb the DR of the armour worn over it to give it some extra durability.