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So we all know and love the Possessed Hand feats... Hand's Detachment even giving us the option to have our own hand as our own Familiar. Although, is it even "our own hand" anymore? I don't feel the need to really explain or quote these feats, as I do believe we are all relatively familiar with them.
Anyways, what if you were already in possession of the Maniac Hand cursed item before getting the Possessed Hand feats? Or came into possession of the cursed item after already having the feats? I actually do not care about the mechanical order of operations necessary to pull this off, so long as it is possible for both to be the same hand.
With Hand's Detachment, we essentially have a Crawling Hand as a Familiar with a few unique abilities AND all these unique abilities would then be able to be used by the Maniac Hand...
So what would be the best way to combine these? I'm thinking a bad guy with a sign that says bad guy... someone completely comfortable slaying the people the Maniac Hand wants to slay. What's a good class with access to a Familiar that cound take advantage of the Possessed Hand feats? What'a a good race for such a character?
For referrence:
Maniac Hand
Source Occult Adventures pg. 266
Aura strong necromancy CL 13th
Slot none (replaces hand); Weight 2 lbs.
Description
This dried and withered hand ends in a jagged stump. When it is touched against the arm stump of a humanoid who has lost a hand, the maniac hand bonds instantly and returns to a lifelike appearance. It shrinks or grows to match the size of its new owner, and transforms itself to match the hand lost, becoming either a right or left hand. After merging, an uneven scar and unhealthy hue identify it as alien to its new owner.
Attacks made with a maniac hand receive a +2 competence bonus on attack and damage rolls. In addition, when making a full attack, the wielder can accept a –2 penalty to AC in order to make one extra attack with the hand using the wielder’s full base attack bonus. This benefit is not cumulative with similar effects, such as a haste spell. For the purposes of these bonuses, any weapon held in the maniac hand or in both hands qualifies, and the hand itself can deal damage as a slam attack appropriate to the wielder’s size (1d4 for a Medium creature).
A maniac hand has an insidious will that slowly usurps control from the owner. It has Intelligence 8, Wisdom 12, and Charisma 10. Incapable of communication and bereft of rational thought, a maniac hand knows only an insatiable urge to destroy. When first attached, a maniac hand has an Ego score of 5. At least once each day, when presented with an opportunity to murder a friend or innocent without being witnessed, the maniac hand attempts to assert control using the rules for items against characters (Core Rulebook 535). If it succeeds, the hand takes control of its owner until it can commit the murder or 5 minutes pass, whichever comes first. The owner remembers nothing of the crime save a blinding rage, and the hand’s Ego score returns to 5. If the hand fails to assert control, the owner feels a momentary surge of anger, but can’t identify the source. Each day that passes without the hand’s murderous impulse killing a creature of Intelligence 3 or higher, its Ego score increases by 1. If its Ego score increases above 20, the hand no longer cares for caution, and attempts murder regardless of the chance of getting caught.
A maniac hand that’s denied the death of friends or innocents for more than 30 days turns against its owner. If in a position to sabotage the owner, such as by letting go of a rope, it attempts to assert control. It can assert control while the owner sleeps, strangling its host or seizing a weapon to deliver a coup de grace. The hand attempts such an act at most once per day. An owner willing to slaughter innocents can keep the hand satisfied by finding an innocent victim and voluntarily relinquishing control to the hand.
If the owner tries to rid herself of the maniac hand by destroying or amputating it, the hand resists to the best of its ability. It makes attacks and one-handed grapple attempts with its owner’s own Strength and Dexterity scores, augmented by the hand’s bonuses. The hand has an AC equal to its owner’s touch AC, except with a +4 size bonus that stacks with its owner’s size modifier. Its owner loses her Dexterity bonus against the hand’s attacks, but the hand retains its Dexterity bonus against its owner. The hand’s hp is equal to 1/4 that of its owner.
Successfully casting remove curse on a maniac hand prevents it from resisting amputation for 1 hour.
Construction
Requirements hand of glory, hand of the mage, hand of stoneUE; Cost —
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First thing first. If we are doing possessed hand and manic hand, why not also use a countenanced carbuncle?
Now you can say that your countenanced carbuncle (a symbiotic organism) is your manic hand. While also saying that your other hand is possessed by some evil entity.
Bonus points if you wear handwraps, wear all black with red accents, make certain poses, and like to describe how "your hand burns with the demon trying to take control but don't worry these seals (handwraps) have it sealed".
I vaguely remembered those Countenanced Carbuncle feats... but just kind of assumed they were the same thing as Possessed Hand... passed it off as a commom word/name change between AoN and D20PFSRD. The feats do have different origins, though. Having two oddly intelligent hands is hilarious, and I think whichever hand can benefit from Hand's Detachment should probably be the sentient/evil Maniac Hand. That gives it [the Maniac Hand] the most freedom to do its evil bidding.
Either hand could be the Maniac Hand, but it appears that only our Possessed Hand can benefit from Hand's Detachment and be a Familiar. The Carbuncle hand then has opportunity to save our life, should the Maniac Hand turn on us... possibly by swallowing the detached Maniac Hand into an extradimensional space. Lol.
Upon taking a closer look, the Countenanced Carbuncle is pretty particular about that hand NOT being removed from the body... so it looks like only the Possessed Hand could be the Maniac Hand, after all. The best part about using the Possessed Hand as the Maniac Hand is that the spirit regenerates your missing hand in 2d4 days if the hand is destroyed. Normally, the Maniac Hand can only resist your attempts to destroy or remove it.
You would probably already have the Maniac Hand, and then you attract a ghost, spirit, or outsider with personal motivations to possess your [Maniac] hand. This usually involves some sort of mutually beneficial pact or agreement, right? So you can only imagine which sort of ghost/spirit/outsider would have personal motivations to inhabit/possess and already sentient hand. At this point, it is far more likely that the ghost/spirit/outsider shares motivations with Maniac Hand's intelligence.
They... the intelligent Maniac Hand and the ghost/spirit/outsider possessing it... probably make willing abettors/co-conspirators, and encourage/facilitate eachothers' motivations in an evil feedback loop. Being capable of detachment, and not in a parasitic/symbiotic relationship with their host like the Carbuncle, the Possessed Maniac Hand is willing to turn on its host... probably with hopes/thoughts of striking out on their own someday. Lol.
The Possessed Hand feat chain consists of three feats. The Countenanced Carbuncle feat chain has six feats. Both have a feat called Hand's Autonomy, that do the exact same thing, but are actually different feats/from different origins. We could probably get away with only one Hand's Autonomy feat, counting for both feat chains... reducing the number of feats from 9 to 8. That's rough. Especially considering we still haven't done literally anything to take advantage of the feats' benefits. Lol.