One armed characters


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Can one armed characters do well in the game?

I was thinking of a one armed mage as an example. Can they cast a spell if they are holding a lantern or staff? the rule states one hand free.

Yes I know some classes have a feature or there is a feat, probably, but what if they were just starting out?


If a physically handicapped character is important to the player

IT SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY MECHANICAL DISADVANTAGE

As for holding things, maybe they have learned a really precise way to move the lantern, leaving a magical inducing light trail behind it.

Maybe they tap the staff on the floor in a particular pattern (Like morse code) to activate the same somatic components.


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Here's what I found:

Strategists and Tacticians, taken from d20PFSRD wrote:

Losing an arm at the elbow (or higher) severely limits what that side of the body can do. With a markedly shorter reach and range, the arm is practically unusable.

A character who has lost an arm incurs the following penalties:

-10 penalty on Climb, Craft, Disable Device, Sleight of Hand, and Use Magic Device skill checks;
-8 penalty on grapple checks;
Must make a caster level check at a -5 penalty to cast spells with somatic components;
Unable to wield weapons two-handed or make two-weapon attacks, and may not wear a shield on the affected arm.
Carrying capacity is not reduced. However, the maximum weight a character can lift over head or off the ground is halved, as shown on Table: Modified Lifting Capacity: Arm (for medium creatures). These penalties do not stack with other penalties for losing limbs.
A character who has lost both arms cannot use any of the listed skills, make attacks, or use objects, without the aid of prosthetics or magic.


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GotAFarmYet? wrote:
Can one armed characters do well in the game?

Yes, but not in every class. An unarmed Monk (no pun intended) for instance gets almost nothing from the second arm (basically only +1 AC from a Scizore). Could even go without both arms and not lose much (like the Armless Master).

A Swashbuckler would only lose the use of a buckler or flair, a bomber Alchemist or Brawler would only lose the use of a shield, and a dedicated full caster or Summoner would only lose the use of a shield/mithral buckler, and rods (Witches would also lose the ability to use two hexing rods at the same time).
Psychic casters don't need hands for their casting making at least the spellcasting side completely unaffected, and polymorphing (e.g. Wild Shape Druid) can simply sidestep the issue for martials.
Most strength-based melees are notably hampered, as two-handing a weapon is a significant increase in damage.
Ranged combat is difficult, as most projectile ranged weapons are out by default. Thrown builds work pretty well (mostly losing the shield/buckler), and Pistol can work at higher levels via Shadowshooting/Shadowcraft.

Some classes, like Magus, are pretty much unplayable. Others, like Bard, require some work (e.g. by using the Speaker of the Palatine Eye archetype).

Overall, there are tons of builds that work at least pretty well.


Please don't turn this into a argument about disabilities.

I actually know someone with one arm and he is very accomplished. He just doesn't do things the same way we normally do, but can do the same things.

His prime example to me was how do you open a door with a bowl full of soup in your hand. Think it through and solve the problem.

So lets not go down that road. please!

Ok, so some class restrictions will apply and there will be skills and feats that cannot be done as well or with penalties. That is fine, I just have to sit down with them and work out the details. That is part of RP as well we don't always get all the choices we want available to us and have to work with what is available.

Thanks for the replies so far but please keep it to roll playing a character. What classes they can do and can't, what penalties it can incur are fine.


If this is intended to simply be a rules discussion, then as far as I know, the only Paizo rules covering one-armed PCs are optional rules in the Skull & Shackles player guide, and any other rulings would be either extrapolations from the general rules about how many hands are required for various actions or house rules to fill in the gaps. While there are several feats and abilities that compensate for, e.g., blindness, there aren't so many that compensate for the loss of a limb without basically replacing the limb (e.g., the constructed pugilist archetype).

There may be third-party supplements that address the situation, and you could certainly implement house rules for it as well. There's no one right way to play this sort of thing, and figuring out the best one for your table is going to be a problem for you and your players--otherwise we're likely to steer the discussion into areas you've already expressed disinterest in exploring.


In real life, when you lose an arm, you are quite handicapped. Over time, you can compensate, maybe to the point that you can do certain things better than before.

I'd handle it the same way ingame, because otherwise it becomes immersion breaking. "We have this party member with only one arm, but appearantly it doesn't matter" is as hard to believe as "they have no way to deal with it, in a world full of magic".


blahpers wrote:

If this is intended to simply be a rules discussion, then as far as I know, the only Paizo rules covering one-armed PCs are optional rules in the Skull & Shackles player guide, and any other rulings would be either extrapolations from the general rules about how many hands are required for various actions or house rules to fill in the gaps. While there are several feats and abilities that compensate for, e.g., blindness, there aren't so many that compensate for the loss of a limb without basically replacing the limb (e.g., the constructed pugilist archetype).

There may be third-party supplements that address the situation, and you could certainly implement house rules for it as well. There's no one right way to play this sort of thing, and figuring out the best one for your table is going to be a problem for you and your players--otherwise we're likely to steer the discussion into areas you've already expressed disinterest in exploring.

Thank will look into it. It doesn't have to be a simple rules discussion, but I think it is better for all as I can see the conflict coming from the above posts and it is not what i wanted to have happened.

It should be is it reasonable to have a one armed character, and what are things in the game that have to be overcome. So far except for 1 post it was pretty reasonable and a good discussion. The issue is the one post started to set people off a bit and I need this to be a open discussion to get information.

Again thanks for the replies for far


Minigiant wrote:

If a physically handicapped character is important to the player

IT SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY MECHANICAL DISADVANTAGE

As for holding things, maybe they have learned a really precise way to move the lantern, leaving a magical inducing light trail behind it.

Maybe they tap the staff on the floor in a particular pattern (Like morse code) to activate the same somatic components.

Like the idea moving the lantern as part of the process or tapping a pattern. We don't play the components that strict, if they are in a pouch at your waist they are automatically taken from there by the spell. Otherwise you get into the argument of well you need to draw the pentagram on the floor and Blah, Blah, Blah. It just is not worth it.


GotAFarmYet? wrote:
We don't play the components that strict, if they are in a pouch at your waist they are automatically taken from there by the spell. Otherwise you get into the argument of well you need to draw the pentagram on the floor and Blah, Blah, Blah. It just is not worth it.

Somatic components are hand movements. Spells don't ask for pentagrams on the floor (except for Planar Binding), but they rules clearly state "you must have at least one hand free to provide a somatic component" CRB pg. 213, and that "you must be able to (...) manipulate the material components or focus (if any)" CRB pg. 206. Can be the same hand, and is done as part of the action to cast the spell.

Not requiring any of that would be a notable boost for casters!

By the way, regarding the lantern: There is an easy and cheap solution! Or, you know, as mentioned, the Light cantrip that's on every spell list containing cantrils/orisons/knacks in the game.


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When someone says that a person with a disability should not have any mechanical disadvantage that is insulting to the person with the disadvantage. When I say tis I am speaking as someone who does have a disability. I have no problem with someone who wants to play a character with a disadvantage, but I would have it the person playing it completely ignored it, and that is what someone who does not suffer any mechanical disadvantage is doing. It trivializes my disability and would piss me off more than just about anything else.

That being said people who have lived their whole life with a disadvantage often have found ways to compensate. If the disability is something they recently gained they will likely have a lot more problems than someone who has had it for a long period of time. There are also mechanical devices that can help with some disabilities. Depending on the nature of the disability some of those may be able to allow the character to do much of what person without the disability can do. Another that that can also help in the game is magic. In some cases that could be a magic item that gives the character the ability to compensate for the disability, or it could be a spell.

In the case of the one armed character there are a couple of things they can do. First depending on how much of the arm is gone they may be able to use the stump for something. If there is any part of the arm left they could simply attach a hook or something similar to it to allow them to use it for limited purposes. This would be enough for them to hold a lantern or something similar that just need to be held and not manipulated. Even if they have nothing left of the arm they could still have hooks attached to their clothes allowing them to attach things they wanted to carry.

If the one armed character is a spell caters that has access to Mage Hand that will allow him to manipulate items that weigh 5lbs or less. Other spells like Prestidigitation and Open/Close could also be useful to a one armed character.


Everyone's understanding of the term "Mechanical Disadvantage" is so different to mine. My statements using that term are written with the understanding that mechanical disadvantage means a mathematical negative.

Examples

One legged having a slower base speed, despite have a good prosthetic.

A blind fighter have a blanket negative to all perception checks.

These two examples are without doubt inappropriate ways to Roleplay a character.

Silence having the same effect as darkness on a blind character is the an appropriate way. And I term things like this as a RP Disadvantage


As for one-armed

Inappropriate:
Negative to Strength, Reduced carry weight, Slower actions for putting on armour

Appropriate:
No TWF build


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I think both sides of the main argument here are trying to defend disabled people, they're just seeing it from different sides.

Talk to the player, see what they want.

There have been a few rules related posts for those interested in actually trying this. As far as I can tell they're mostly optional rules (which is nice).


Mingiest you probably don’t mean to but you are coming off as kind of self-righteous in the worst possible way. Every person with a disability is different, some overcome their disabilities, but not all of them do. Just because a person in the real world who has no legs gets some custom made prosthetic’s that allow him to run like an athlete does not mean everyone with a missing leg does the same thing. Some of them decide to focus on other things and don’t put in the effort to overcome their disability to that extent. Who are you to tell someone how their character works?

If you want to argue that specific penalties may not be appropriate for some disabilities that is not a problem. A blind fighter should not take a penalty on all perception roll, but anything relying on sight is fair game. In all honestly a blind fighter will be taking a penalty on most general perception rolls. Any perception rolls based strictly on sight he will fail. Obviously perception rolls based on hearing or other senses will be at full.

The other thing to consider is not every disability is the same. For example not all people who are “blind” are totally blind. In some cases they are, but in others they can see some shapes, but are still considered legally blind. A character that is totally blind is going to take more severe penalties than a person who is not. How much of a disability a character has should be the determining factor, not some arbitrary decision by you. If a player wants to play someone who has only one leg, and because of that moves a little slower who are you too decided that is wrong?


Minigiant wrote:
Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

So you agree with me that there should be mechanical consequences for disabilities and characters have to work around them with mechanical issues?

Because that is literally what these examples are saying.

A Mechanical Consequence is "You suffer -X to hit because you are fighting with only one arm, and therefore off balance"

A RP Consequence is "You cannot do a TWF build"

Mechanics are any issue that involve rules. Roleplaying is playing a role, the choices and actions of characters. Mechanics determine how these choices interact with the rest of the game.

Sight has rules. Amount of limbs has rules.
Preventing someone from using mechanics like TWF is a mechanical issue. Having mechanics like spells to grant abilities to overcome issues (a Braille cantrip to read stuff) is a mechanical solution to a mechanical issue.

Saying it's only a roleplaying issue with no mechanics involved is tantamount to having a blind character in universe actually be capable of seeing but just pretending they can't.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Well, if the same mechanics tell you that you can fall from 10km and walk away with 100% chance of survival as long as you have more than 120 hp, no magic involved, glossing over disabilities doesn't seem too far of a stretch.


I have never understood why falling damage cap is so low. Maybe a sentence like "If the character should take more than 20d6 from falling she is dead, no save." but it was cut for some reason.


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WagnerSika wrote:
I have never understood why falling damage cap is so low. Maybe a sentence like "If the character should take more than 20d6 from falling she is dead, no save." but it was cut for some reason.

I think its largely because the game simulates action movies not RL. This is why your character's ability to perform tasks/speed isn't affected by how many HP you have left. You can run around and fight just as well at full HP as you can at 1 HP. If it was trying to simulate RL then even taking a single point of damage should impose a penalty on your ability to function, as the pain from your injury is at minimum mildly distracting. Something that's going to get worse the more injured you become.

So, how much are disabled individuals affected when it comes to action movies? Honestly, it depends on the action movie and the type of character. Pathfinder should be no different.


I have acknowledged that the term I used may not have been the most appropriate. People need to move on.

As it is very clear

Mr Charisma wrote:
I think both sides of the main argument here are trying to defend disabled people, they're just seeing it from different sides.

I will amend my initial statement

"No player should be required to suffer negative modifiers from playing a character with a disability"


Minigiant wrote:

I have acknowledged that the term I used may not have been the most appropriate. People need to move on.

As it is very clear

Mr Charisma wrote:
I think both sides of the main argument here are trying to defend disabled people, they're just seeing it from different sides.

I will amend my initial statement

"No player should be required to suffer negative modifiers from playing a character with a disability"

I disagree with this statement as well, because it's basically just your old one.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
LordKailas wrote:
WagnerSika wrote:
I have never understood why falling damage cap is so low. Maybe a sentence like "If the character should take more than 20d6 from falling she is dead, no save." but it was cut for some reason.

I think its largely because the game simulates action movies not RL. This is why your character's ability to perform tasks/speed isn't affected by how many HP you have left. You can run around and fight just as well at full HP as you can at 1 HP. If it was trying to simulate RL then even taking a single point of damage should impose a penalty on your ability to function, as the pain from your injury is at minimum mildly distracting. Something that's going to get worse the more injured you become.

So, how much are disabled individuals affected when it comes to action movies? Honestly, it depends on the action movie and the type of character. Pathfinder should be no different.

Yep, if somebody wants to play Rutger Hauer's character in Blind Fury just ... let them do so without requiring them to pick 13 feats, 2 magic items and 1 archetype. Whenever Pathfinder tries to simulate reality, it falls apart far faster than when it just tries to be a fun game.


Gorbacz wrote:
Yep, if somebody wants to play Rutger Hauer's character in Blind Fury just ... let them do so without requiring them to pick 13 feats, 2 magic items and 1 archetype. Whenever Pathfinder tries to simulate reality, it falls apart far faster than when it just tries to be a fun game.

To be fair, it's only like 3 feats, a trait, and a level in Unarmed Fighter (and accomplishable at 1st or 2nd level). Seems like a fair trade off to make a blind character useable.

Why have spells like Regenerate if we just hand wave all penalties for limb loss?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Orodhen wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Yep, if somebody wants to play Rutger Hauer's character in Blind Fury just ... let them do so without requiring them to pick 13 feats, 2 magic items and 1 archetype. Whenever Pathfinder tries to simulate reality, it falls apart far faster than when it just tries to be a fun game.

To be fair, it's only like 3 feats, a trait, and a level in Unarmed Fighter (and accomplishable at 1st or 2nd level). Seems like a fair trade off to make a blind character useable.

Why have spells like Regenerate if we just hand wave all penalties for limb loss?

Why have spells like regenerate if your damage system is abstract and the only canonical non-optional called shots or crit deck way of getting somebody eye-less is some kooky monster with Pluck Eyes Out (Ex) ability?

No, seriously, it's like somebody wrote that spell in without checking the rest of the ruleset or did it solely because it was a thing in previous editions and people would rile if it wasn't in.


In a Pathfinder point-buy game, you can dump Intelligence and be rewarded with extra enough points to boost your Charisma.

Or you can dump Strength, and be rewarded in the form of extra Dexterity.

This isn't realistic. It doesn't represent the struggles that such people suffer. You don't become charming just because you have a low IQ, and you don't become a graceful acrobat just because you can't lift weights.

In real life, you just have problems, and you have to work around them.

In a game, we can do whatever we want.

Gaining rewards in exchange for taking voluntary drawbacks is a traditional RPG feature. So if I was GM and a player said, "I want to play a wizard with one arm," I might say, "OK, so you won't be able to use a metamagic rod while casting... Maybe we could give you +1 AC and +1 to Reflex saves to represent the way your body is a smaller target?"

Or whatever I thought would make the character more balanced and the game more fun.


LordKailas wrote:
WagnerSika wrote:
I have never understood why falling damage cap is so low. Maybe a sentence like "If the character should take more than 20d6 from falling she is dead, no save." but it was cut for some reason.

I think its largely because the game simulates action movies not RL. This is why your character's ability to perform tasks/speed isn't affected by how many HP you have left. You can run around and fight just as well at full HP as you can at 1 HP. If it was trying to simulate RL then even taking a single point of damage should impose a penalty on your ability to function, as the pain from your injury is at minimum mildly distracting. Something that's going to get worse the more injured you become.

So, how much are disabled individuals affected when it comes to action movies? Honestly, it depends on the action movie and the type of character. Pathfinder should be no different.

if you want it closer to RL, then you can always switch it to terminal velocity speed of a human, or maximum speed of a falling human

Falling:
You accelerate as you fall, every second you fall add 30 to the acceleration until it reaches 180 ft per second. So, the first second you fall 30 feet, at 30 ft/s and a total of 30 feet. The next second will fall 60 feet at 60 ft/s a total of up to 90 feet you can have fallen. The third second you fall 90 feet at 90 ft/s and will have fallen a maximum distance of 180 feet. The damage is still a 1d6 every 10 fallen. Once you hit 180 ft/s of acceleration, 6 seconds, 630 feet and 63d6 and are still falling you have hit the maximum damage you can receive. The height fallen is 30, 90, 180, 300, 450, and 630 for the first 6 seconds, after that divide the remaining distance by 180 to find the time it takes.


Orodhen wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Yep, if somebody wants to play Rutger Hauer's character in Blind Fury just ... let them do so without requiring them to pick 13 feats, 2 magic items and 1 archetype. Whenever Pathfinder tries to simulate reality, it falls apart far faster than when it just tries to be a fun game.

To be fair, it's only like 3 feats, a trait, and a level in Unarmed Fighter (and accomplishable at 1st or 2nd level). Seems like a fair trade off to make a blind character useable.

Why have spells like Regenerate if we just hand wave all penalties for limb loss?

There are situations that can come up in RP to save someones life to amputate a limb. Regenerate is not always a option based on social status, funds, etc. So optional rules were added to the game,but they are optional.

SO now we have is it a change during play that causes it or something from the past. I can see the change causing the effects and having them lowered as time goes on as a option for that situation.

The situation for this player is that it happened long ago, and one goal it to eventually get it possibly regenerated. Using adventuring to raise funds and social status. climbing is not a big issue as we can use examples of how Ice and rock climbing go about it today ropes and a man up top keeping a tension line on you. So mostly I think this will be more manageable then I first thought, especially with spells, feats, etc. So he will have had time to adjust what he was doing to include help for the disability.


GotAFarmYet? wrote:
The situation for this player is that it happened long ago, and one goal it to eventually get it possibly regenerated. Using adventuring to raise funds and social status. climbing is not a big issue as we can use examples of how Ice and rock climbing go about it today ropes and a man up top keeping a tension line on you. So mostly I think this will be more manageable then I first thought, especially with spells, feats, etc. So he will have had time to adjust what he was doing to include help for the disability.

In this case I would look at rules for prosthetics. Some official content can be found for them here. But there is 3rd party content that goes a bit more in-depth that can be found here. Since the character is trying to restore their lost limb and that is their ultimate goal, it seems reasonable that they would try to get some sort of replacement as a temporary solution until they can get the real thing back.


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I’m not trying to be rude, but the idea that it’s unfair to impose a negative modifier to reflect the difficulty an impairment can pose to a person is genuinely mystifying to me.

Losing a leg, for example, is traumatic, and while many individuals learned to compensate for their impairment, for millennia such an injury meant that they couldn’t expect to beat most two-legged opponents in a foot race or fight as part of infantry formations. This was precisely because of the loss of mobility involved, and because the sort of prosthetic that allowed a double amputee to compete at the highest levels is a very recent innovation.

(To be fair, prosthetics of an even higher quality have been a facet of gaming at least since Drow of the Underdark, but even then they were both very rare and very expensive.)


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Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
I’m not trying to be rude, but the idea that it’s unfair to impose a negative modifier to reflect the difficulty an impairment can pose to a person is genuinely mystifying to me.

It depends on the reason the person is playing them.

Eg. You decide your group is going to play a game where the PLAYERS are suddenly transported to Golarion, so everyone stats themselves out as a heroic version of themselves.

If you required your player who's missing a limb to take negatives while everyone else is rolling up barbarians and wizards without a care in the world, then this begins to feel like discrimination.

On the other hand if the player wants to explore the struggles associated with amputation then hand-waving it might seem insulting to those who have to deal with it in real life.

There is no right answerfor this, you're going to have to talk about it with your player to find out why they're playing this and what they're comfortable with.


So far the group can cover for just about all situations, so it has not been a issue yet.

Still spell will fix all the issues but basically need to 3rd level to use it. The Still spell meta-magic rod is a possible solution, once funds accumulate. The spell is still almost the same cost.


GotAFarmYet? wrote:

So far the group can cover for just about all situations, so it has not been a issue yet.

Still spell will fix all the issues but basically need to 3rd level to use it. The Still spell meta-magic rod is a possible solution, once funds accumulate. The spell is still almost the same cost.

Why can't somantic components be completed with their feet. People without arms learn to write with them, so it is not beyond reason to allow it.

Just if they are captured their feet are bound to stop spellcasting


Orodhen wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Yep, if somebody wants to play Rutger Hauer's character in Blind Fury just ... let them do so without requiring them to pick 13 feats, 2 magic items and 1 archetype. Whenever Pathfinder tries to simulate reality, it falls apart far faster than when it just tries to be a fun game.

To be fair, it's only like 3 feats, a trait, and a level in Unarmed Fighter (and accomplishable at 1st or 2nd level). Seems like a fair trade off to make a blind character useable.

Why have spells like Regenerate if we just hand wave all penalties for limb loss?

yknow outside of bonus feats 3 feats is actually almost 1/3 of the total feats a character gets throughout their entire adventuring career and a shade under half the feats they have by the time most campaigns peter out.


Ryan Freire wrote:
Orodhen wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Yep, if somebody wants to play Rutger Hauer's character in Blind Fury just ... let them do so without requiring them to pick 13 feats, 2 magic items and 1 archetype. Whenever Pathfinder tries to simulate reality, it falls apart far faster than when it just tries to be a fun game.

To be fair, it's only like 3 feats, a trait, and a level in Unarmed Fighter (and accomplishable at 1st or 2nd level). Seems like a fair trade off to make a blind character useable.

Why have spells like Regenerate if we just hand wave all penalties for limb loss?

yknow outside of bonus feats 3 feats is actually almost 1/3 of the total feats a character gets throughout their entire adventuring career and a shade under half the feats they have by the time most campaigns peter out.

You can get Blind Fight, Improved Blind Fight, Blinded Blade Style, and Blinded Competence all at level 1. Its really not that big of an investment.


How do you get the 5 perception for blinded blade style at level 1?

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