So a player in my Skull and Shackles game lost his arm in the grindylow fight that happened during the storm. I've flavored this as the grindylow spear piercing major arteries/muscles in the shoulder and thus making his arm useless. Now that he's gotten the Man's Promise free of it's former captains, Captain Franciose Genet wants to know how he can get his arm working again.
Now I've talked to him about the simple "Pay for a Regenerate" option, but we both feel that's kind of... lame. Who can come up with an excellent alternate way?
I've thought of a couple of them so far:
Find, Craft or Buy a Replacement: In which case, how to price it or flavor it? Give me some good ideas. Where to insert a find of it into the campaign? What additional enchantments/abilities should it have (or have the option to have)?
Make the Old Arm Move Magically: Not sure how I would do this... perhaps another magical item that allows him to move the arm? In which case, many of the previous questions issues come up again (how to price it/where to put it/how to flavor it). Have some form of spirit/devil/outer entity offer him his arm back (Perhaps with terrible caveat)?
Suggestions are welcome and appreciated!
|
So a player in my Skull and Shackles game lost his arm in the grindylow fight that happened during the storm. I've flavored this as the grindylow spear piercing major arteries/muscles in the shoulder and thus making his arm useless. Now that he's gotten the Man's Promise free of it's former captains, Captain Franciose Genet wants to know how he can get his arm working again.
Now I've talked to him about the simple "Pay for a Regenerate" option, but we both feel that's kind of... lame. Who can come up with an excellent alternate way?
I've thought of a couple of them so far:
Find, Craft or Buy a Replacement: In which case, how to price it or flavor it? Give me some good ideas. Where to insert a find of it into the campaign? What additional enchantments/abilities should it have (or have the option to have)?
Make the Old Arm Move Magically: Not sure how I would do this... perhaps another magical item that allows him to move the arm? In which case, many of the previous questions issues come up again (how to price it/where to put it/how to flavor it). Have some form of spirit/devil/outer entity offer him his arm back (Perhaps with terrible caveat)?
Suggestions are welcome and appreciated!
Maybe he could go to a witch doctor and have the arm reanimated -- as UNDEAD!
Anytime he's healed with positive energy, the arm is numbed by it. He takes -2 to strength or dex when using that arm, and -2 to attacks with that arm, for a number of rounds equal to the hitpoints he's healed for (or half as many rounds, if you wanna be nice).
Also, he can control it normally when he's awake, but when he goes to sleep it animates with a mind of its own. He'll have to keep it locked in a sling if he doesn't want it to go Dr Strangelove on him!
In D&D 3.0, there was a magic item called the Arm of Nyr(sp) It was a magical replacement for a severed arm. Just remove the useless limb and attach the magical arm. Gives +2 to str for that arm.
Well, Paizo did publish rules for exactly this sort of thing. Check this out: Building and Modifying Constructs
Scoll down to "Construct Limb". Of course, you'll have to adjust fluff a bit since you're actually missing the limb, but it should give you a good guideline for what you're looking for.
I did find the Construct limb but... 27000 gold is hella steep for a 4th level character. I suppose we'll see. Might have to look up that Arm of Nyr.
I did find the Construct limb but... 27000 gold is hella steep for a 4th level character. I suppose we'll see. Might have to look up that Arm of Nyr.
Well, it's the baseline cost you should probably expect given its the most similar thing to what you want. You just might have to play armless for a couple levels. Of course, finding someone who can craft it for you will cut that cost in half.
Well it's not me, it's a player of mine, and this seems like an interesting thing he's trying so I'm trying to help him out. After speaking to him he seems to want a skeletal arm, which just screams "made a bad deal" to me, and I think I'll be following that angle. Should allow me to play up the Norgorber angle I know is later in the AP.
Ok it is in Defenders of the Faith
12800 gold
+2 STR + Dex
+2 AC
It is aligned to good, but it shouldn't be too hard to make an arm that doesn't have special bonuses. Just have it act like a normal arm.
Doesn't massive damage have to cause at least 50 points of damage?
It's not massive damage, I'm applying a houserule allowing characters to take a scar to keep themselves alive when they would otherwise die. Essentially when a character would fall unconscious from being under 0 health they may take a scar to stay standing. This scar will keep them from dying for the duration of the encounter, though they will still fall unconscious should they take any further damage, unless they take another scar. So far my players have done so 3 times.
Benoit Genet the Duelist and now First Mate took a nasty knife scar across the chest when he was attacked in the bilges by Slippery Syl. It bought him enough time for his older brother to get there and save him with his monkish skills.
Renoit Genet the Monk and now Bosun lost a finger in the fight against Plugg. The Genet brothers dug several pit traps and arranged other traps in the jungle for the pirates against them and chose to lure the crew into them with the promise of a golden city found deep in the swamp. Most of them died to the traps, but Plugg and Scourge were made of sterner stuff and managed to fight. Renoit lost the ring finger of his left hand to Plugg's Cutlass.
And Francios Genet saw his beloved "Barefoot" Samms Toppin being dragged over the edge of the Man's Promise during the storm by grindylows from his position in the rigging. Enraged, he tried to accelerated climb down to a point where he could jump, but a botched climb led to a nasty fall into a group of grindylows. Here the rogue drew Cutlass and began to attack, but lost an arm to the little creatures' spears. He later was dragged into the trees by the jungle chokers and dropped onto a branch which gave him a nasty scar on his neck.
I like this houserule. It's allowed the Genet brothers to have quite the dramatic moments without dying.
If the final effect, no matter the look, is a arm that functions like a regular arm I'd just go with the cost of regenerating his current disabled arm.
It doesn't really matter if it's made of stone, coral, bone or spliced together out of sail and wood; it works like a normal arm in all respects.
If you want to add effects to the arm however you can adjust the price by looking at appropriate wondrous items or even alchemical items and factoring them into the price! The cost of Regenerate seems to be about 900 gp (easily obtainable once they start plundering ships). I don't really see any gamebreaking effect from this being the cost of him gaining any type of 'counts as regular arm'.
Lets imagine I want a new arm made of animate bone (not necessarily bones from his hand, perhaps sahuagin bones, just for flavor?) that allow him to manipulate items from afar using his ghostly powers! Just add the cost of a 'Hand of the Mage' wondrous item to the price of the arm and voila, creepy telekinesis mage hand thing! (For 1350 gp! Not bad!)
You can do the same with 'one off' or 'needs to recharge' style powers using potions or alchemical items. Rotting coral arm with the same rules as 'Smelling Salts' anyone?
As long as the other players aren't tempted to lop off their own limbs for some obvious benefit that surpasses a purchasable item with the same powers (You don't need to lose an arm to get smelling salts 'ya know) then everyone is happy and the character has a cool feature without it being gamebreaking!
Lets imagine I want a new arm made of animate bone (not necessarily bones from his hand, perhaps sahuagin bones, just for flavor?) that allow him to manipulate items from afar using his ghostly powers! Just add the cost of a 'Hand of the Mage' wondrous item to the price of the arm and voila, creepy telekinesis mage hand thing! (For 1350 gp! Not bad!)
How about a non-physical arm? That is, make the "arm" a magical item that produces a permanent illusion of a ghostly arm. If you add your mage hand idea to that, you could still manipulate objects with it. That would probably be a pretty cheap replacement (as you point out) without giving the player any serious bonuses and pretty awesome fluff besides. The Hand of the Mage would be a good baseline. You could offset the cost of the illusion by the fact that the range of the mage hand spell would be limited to where the ghostly image of the hand can actually reach.
I'm definitely going to use this for an NPC somewhere down the line in the AP.
How about a non-physical arm?
Seems totally fair and flavorful! =D