Replacing Lost Limbs With Magical Prosthetics in Pathfinder

Being an adventurer is dangerous. Between ravenous undead, hack-happy goblins, exploding evocation, and easily-tripped traps, no one gets out without a few scars. Not all adventurers get off so lightly, though. Some of them lose fingers, hands, legs, or eyes. Sometimes they decide to take the hint, and get cushy jobs as town guards or militia captains. Sometimes, though, they grin, and head right back into the storm, looking for riches, renown, and revenge, in no particular order.

Is what's in that chest really worth your life?

Some adventurers will gladly trade their gold, or their services, for powerful spellcasters to regrow their missing limbs. Others, though, will seek out alternative replacements. Replacements which, in many cases, are far deadlier than the limb that was lost in the first place.

How Do You Lose A Limb in Pathfinder?

Well there are a few ways, actually.

The most common way to lose a limb, mechanically, is to be the unfortunate victim of a debilitating blow on a Called Shot (assuming, of course, that these variant rules are in play), or under the Scars and Wounds rules (which are also optional). Most of the common ways people lose limbs, though, are due entirely to judgment calls on the DM, and obscure, extremely powerful, abilities. For example, if a character is turned to stone, and falls over, the DM might rule that a hand broke off, or an arm shattered. If someone was dragged away by a troll and not rescued soon enough, then perhaps they lost a leg to their captor's appetite. And, in rare circumstances, the PC might sever the limb on their own as a way to escape a trap.

What I'm saying is, if your character loses a limb, it's typically because your table agreed to play in Hardcore mode, rather than because of any rules found in the Core Rulebook.

A Normal Prosthesis (For The Low-Level Adventurer)

High-level adventurers are made of stern stuff, hardened by years of battle and trials, and possessing abilities far beyond those of average men and women. Low-level adventurers, by contrast, tend to be made of wet tissue paper, apt to get knocked unconscious if an owlbear so much as sneezes in their general direction. While your DM, and the dice, may be kind, chances are good you'll need a prosthetic limb long before you can afford the good stuff.

Masterwork stuff ain't bad, though.

You see that image? That's the iron hand of Gotz Von Berlichingen, a German sellsword and all-around badass who needed something to punch people with after he lost his right arm to a cannonball. The hand allowed him to wield a sword, hold his reins, grasp a goblet, and probably gave him a slam attack, too. Given the ratchet and spring mechanics of the hand, it would probably be considered a masterwork item.

So what options do you have as an adventurer who lacks a castle, and a small fortune made from fighting other people's battles? Well, you have the option of the hook hand (Pirates of the Inner Sea), or the peg leg trait (Skull and Shackles), which are both functional, though the latter is a creation requirement. You could get masterwork items, and enchant them, if you so desire. A transformative hook hand that could alter itself into other weapons might seem like an unnecessary expense, but ask yourself just how great it would be in the right circumstances.

Also, if you're a wizard, you might want to invest in a wizard hook, which can fulfill somatic components, and bolster the power of your touch spells.

Magical Prosthetics (For The Discerning/Crazy Badass)

In a world of magic, it's completely possible to regrow a lost limb, if you have the gold, and you can seek out a powerful practitioner of the mystical arts. You could even preemptively invest in a Trollblood Elixir, which allows you to re-attach severed limbs which are still relatively intact. No word on if you could use this to steal other people's limbs or not, though. Of course, if you're already missing something, you could find a replacement that is superior to your former limb. Stronger, tougher, and better able to hold up to the rigors of your adventuring life.

I have always wanted to crush a man's skull with one hand...

If you're that kind of adventurer, then you have a couple of options available to you.

The two most common, found in Dark Markets, are the clockwork prosthesis, and necrografts. Both of these options are permanent additions to a character's body, and both of them will do Con damage, and require a DC 18 Fortitude save in order to make sure the graft takes. Once the limb is in place, you have a handy piece of enchanted augmentation. Clockwork limbs can be enchanted with additional powers, and it's been rumored that many of them have the capacity to transform into weapons, should the owner need them to. Necrografts grant powers of their own, but they also make it more difficult for you to benefit from morale bonuses, and they reduce magical healing for the host. This makes them a difficult option, but it should be noted that not all necrograft recipients are willing ones.

If you want something that's functional, but not overly ostentatious, you could even invest in a Demon Talon, which simply replaces your hand with a demon's hand. Of course, just how under your command the scaly, gnarled limb is remains to be seen.

There is another option, as well. Something less permanent, and a little more customizable for heroes who want something very special. Page 115 of Ultimate Magic lists a modification that can be put on Small or Tiny constructs called Construct Limb. This allows you to pull the construct over your arm, and control its actions as part of your own. A construct limb uses all the special attacks of the construct, so if you make it out of something like an Iron Cobra, you could put a poison attack into it. What isn't said, however, is whether a construct limb can be used to replace missing pieces of an adventurer. However, if you're missing a hand and a lower arm, wouldn't you take the opportunity to replace it with a steel cobra, sectioned off into shimmering fingers, that provides you the bonuses of a heavy steel shield? Especially since you can, technically, use any sort of animated item or construct of the proper size, modified in this way.

Well, that's it for this week's Crunch topic! If you liked it, leave a comment, and share it with your friends! If you want to make sure you keep up-to-date on all my posts, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you're looking for some sweet swag, then visit my Patreon page, and become a patron! I'll send you two ebooks, no strings attached, as long as you make a pledge of any size before 2016.

Feats Reforged IV From TPK Games is Now Available!

Third party content is one of those things you need to evaluate on a piece-by-piece basis. Some of it, like the Midgard setting from Kobold Press, can be a lot of fun. Some of it, which I shan't name, introduces unbalanced classes and abilities that can destroy the sense of challenge, confuse DMs, and overall lead to an unsatisfactory playing experience. One of the more popular series from TPK Games has been Feats Reforged, which I talked about over at Crit Confirm in the article Feats Reforged: An Interesting Way to Make Feats Scale With Character Level. If you don't feel like clicking away, the idea behind the series is to add a new ability to a feat every 7 levels or so after you meet the prerequisites in order to keep up with player characters as they grow in power.

Feats Reforged IV: The Magic Feats is now available. And if you're wondering why you should care, it's because I'm the one who wrote most of it.

You know you're curious.

If you're a fan of the work I did for Paizo's Blood of the Moon and Bastards of Golarion, or if you just enjoy the content from my Crunch section and you've wanted to see me create mechanics instead of just working within the established canon, then this book won't let you down. It contains all of the feats from Ultimate Magic, and they've been juiced up to keep your spellcasters rolling hard until you hit the end of the campaign.

So, if you've been looking for a way to boost your magic users, this book may be just what you're looking for. Don't take my word for it, though, go have a look for yourself!


A game designer's work is never done. If you'd like to help keep Improved Initiative going, and get some sweet swag in the deal, the stop by The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron today! Also, to keep up on all my latest updates, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter as well.

How To Power Up Your Pathfinder Characters With The Eldritch Heritage Feats

One of the biggest differences between Pathfinder's sorcerers and those found in previous editions of Dungeons and Dragons was the idea of bloodline. In Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 and 3.5 sorcerers were assumed to be descended from an obscure magical lineage, which was most often draconic in nature, that allowed them to use magic spontaneously. Pathfinder decided to take that core concept and supercharge it, which is why we have dozens of different sources for where sorcerers' magic comes from. In addition to a specific heredity, though, sorcerers also gained bonus feats, bonus spells, bonus skills, and thematically appropriate bloodline powers around levels 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, and 20.

Mileage may vary.

What didn't change with sorcerers, though, is that they still have low hit points, and they still can't wear armor. This makes some bloodline powers, like the draconic bloodline's claws or the boreal bloodline's ability to give weapons the frost property for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your sorcerer level, thematically appropriate but practically useless.

Unless, that is, you decide to give them to a more martially-inclined class.

Eldritch Heritage

The eldritch heritage feats (eldritch heritage, improved eldritch heritage, and greater eldritch heritage, on pages 149 and 152 of Ultimate Magic respectively) allow any character, regardless of class to gain bloodline powers. If you take all three feats (which will require playing till at least 17th level), then you can gain up to the 15th level powers from any single bloodline.

So what good does that do me?

So you get a minor feature of the sorcerer class, big deal, right? Well, as with any other mechanical trick you need to look at all your options in order to come up with a long-term goal that will make your character more effective.

For example, let's say you wanted to utilize the most basic power of the serpentine bloodline (Advanced Player's Guide 139). This power gives you fangs that you can use as a natural weapon to deal 1d4 points of damage, and to deliver a poison which does constitution damage, and whose save is equal to 10 + 1/2 your sorcerer level + your constitution modifier. The fangs are eventually considered magical for overcoming DR, and your poison grows more potent the more levels you gain. This kind of ability isn't that big of a deal for a sorcerer, but what if you gave that ability to a barbarian with the brutal pugilist archetype, who also had abilities like Raging Grapple? Perhaps a wrestler from Sargava whose ropy muscles are ideal for wrapping around enemies before sinking his fangs into their necks, quickly draining their constitutions and leaving them unable to continue the fight?

There are dozens of combinations of class and powers you can create to boost your mechanical performance, as well as adding intriguing elements to your character's backstory. For example, a Kellid fighter with an eldritch heritage from the nanite bloodline (Pathfinder Player Companion: People of The River) gains powerful bonuses from the nanotechnology living inside of him, but did that same heritage get him cast out from his tribe for bearing the mark of the machines? A druid with the verdant bloodline gains a useful ability to disarm or trip enemies using a 15-foot vine, bonuses against sleep and poison, along with being treated as if they're wearing a ring of sustenance, which would give the character an otherworldliness as she snacks on fresh air and sunlight. A philosophical assassin who comes from the starsoul bloodline would be able to use gas weapons without risking harm to himself, or he could exist in a void such as the space inside a bag of holding without problem (which would allow companions, or even bestial familiars, to carry the assassin past human guards to infiltrate a target's home base).

Cautions and Costs

Nothing comes for free, and the eldritch heritage feats are no exception. They require you to take skill focus in the skill associated with a bloodline, and they have a steadily increasing charisma requirement that can be problematic for some class combinations. So you need to keep in mind that the bigger the power you want from the bloodline, the higher your charisma will have to be, and the more feat slots you'll need to take up.

All right, let's break this down...

Put another way, if you want to get the most bang for your buck out of these feats you should look for low-power ones that will naturally grow with your character level (the serpentine bloodline's poison is a perfect example of a power you get with one feat, but which keeps growing as your character level advances), or to combine them with classes that get other benefits from having a high charisma.

For example, a paladin with infernal heritage is both intriguing as hell (so to speak), and it provides a nice dovetail. Paladins gain a huge number of benefits from having a high charisma, and the infernal heritage provides the paladin with a debuff touch attack, poison and fire resistance, and if you make it all the way to 17th level, you can gain the ability to call down hellfire or to grow devil wings and fly. So if you're going to be using your charisma (swashbucklers, Mysterious Stranger gunslingers, oracles, bards, and any other dashing character classes... including sorcerers who want more bloodline powers), then you're already on the right path.

Half-elves are also a swanky choice, as you get that free skill focus feat out of the deal.

These feats won't be ideal for all classes/builds, and they won't be ideal for every campaign. For example, you might take rakshasa heritage to increase your bluff, but if most of your game is spent slogging through zombie fights then you aren't going to find that silver tongue very useful. If you take a fire heritage, but find yourself fighting demons at the Worldwound, then you're going to have an impossible time making those powers punch through your opponent's resistances.

Now that you've had your warnings, go forth, and create terrible combinations where your character's parents are more than just a convenient reason to adventure in the name of revenge!

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