[3.5] Grafts, why did they get the shaft?

[Alleine]

I don't get it. They seemed kinda unstable right out of the box, what with the downsides of having to find the right creatures to give you half of them, and fiendish grafts making you slowly become evil over time. Not to mention the lack of explanation as to how half of them actually work. Even the fleshwarper PrC has problems with making grafts more available to the group.

So what does WotC do? Institute penalties for getting grafts. Want a cool ability not from an item? Now you lose some of that health you kinda need to stay alive. Now you can only have one type of graft. Now it takes a whole new feat for each type of graft. The fleshwarper PrC is effectively useless in the face of the new grafting rules.

Anyone have an idea why this happened? Were grafts really so overpowered that you needed to lose so much to get them?

[Draken]

I doubt grafts have ever been any stronger than any other magic item, save for the fact that they did not take any slot.

And of course, arm grafts... Never did they say you had to actually exchange an arm for one of these (or in any other for that matter I suppose), except in the case of the Pale Master, but that is more of a class feature.

Undead grafts from LM have no penalties that I recall, fetch yourself a pair of zombie/ghoul/wight arms and go to town to multiweapon fight!

Dragon grafts did get shafted, however. And the fleshwarper, cool as he might be, has a serious problem in being arcane and having that insidious 10 ranks in Heal as a disguised prerequisite. Thus forcing the character to multiclass as a [person with Heal as a class skill, likely a divine caster, wisely, a human paragon].

[krossbow]

I perfer the half golem graft; Find someone able to create guns in the universe, have a wizard enchant the gun to be similiar enough to a metal golemn to work, and then pop that bay on your right arm.

[sonofzeal]

I've posted a lot about this already in other threads, so here's the recap...

New-Style Grafts are verifiably different than Old-Style Grafts. They share the same name and same flavour, but all the rules are incompatibly different. For example, New-Style Grafts all occupy an item slot, and you can only have one graft for each slot (but you can wear an item on top of it). But Old-Style grafts don't have item slots listed, and for many of them, appropriate item slots just don't exist. There's also the matter you mention of Fleshwarper, which works well with Old-Style and not at all with New-Style.

Conclusion: Old-Style Grafts and New-Style Grafts should be considered totally separate things. New-Style Graft rules apply to New-Style Grafts, and you get the added benefit of synergy between grafts of the same type. Old-Style Grafts meanwhile should continue acting the way they always have, and are subject to none of the new limitations.

[Kris Strife]

And why no rules on creating grafts not in the books?

[Alleine]

I just dislike the idea that I'll have to run a bunch of stuff past my DM in order to make a fleshwarper really viable. Things like getting heal as a class skill so I don't have to multi-class. I really like a lot of the new grafts, they're cool minus the penalties and some of the fluff, but it just seems so stupid that grafts were basically beaten up and left in a ditch.

I also find it extremely interesting that there are no rules for applying grafts outside of the Demonic Graft machine in the BoVD.

[sonofzeal]

I just dislike the idea that I'll have to run a bunch of stuff past my DM in order to make a fleshwarper really viable. Things like getting heal as a class skill so I don't have to multi-class. I really like a lot of the new grafts, they're cool minus the penalties and some of the fluff, but it just seems so stupid that grafts were basically beaten up and left in a ditch.

I also find it extremely interesting that there are no rules for applying grafts outside of the Demonic Graft machine in the BoVD.
Yeah, it does suck. FYI, my Fleshwarper used a houseruled Artificer entry, and that worked pretty well for me. I'm treating all grafts as Old-Style for this too, which helps a lot. Elemental Grafts (Magic of Eberron) are hands-down my favorite type of graft, followed by Undead and Illithid.

[Fizban]

For example, New-Style Grafts all occupy an item slot, and you can only have one graft for each slot (but you can wear an item on top of it).
Not quite, they don't overlap with item slots at all. They basically use new "graft slots", some of which happen to line up with item slots.

The thing about grafts is that most of them are priced at double what a slotted magic item would cost, aka the exact same price as an unslotted item. However the new grafts have extra penalties that I can only assume are meant to justify that the unslotted item can't be lost either, though I would think that the difficulty in retrieving and selling them would more than make up for it: a magic item is a fairly liquid asset, but you can't just walk into a bazzar and sell your arm to a guy.

Therefore, I propose simply discarding the penalties from the new grafts, and while you're at it, get rid of the one "type" limit. Now go and rework the prices in the fiend folio (the demonic feathered wings must have been price off the wings of flying typo, 10k for permanent flight?) and you're good to go. You can keep the "graft slots" because although imposing slot limits on unslotted items is uncool, replacement grafts should have that little bit of common sense. Grafts that actually give extra limbs should be re-priced accordingly.

[mostlyharmful]

Therefore, I propose simply discarding the penalties from the new grafts, and while you're at it, get rid of the one "type" limit. Now go and rework the prices in the fiend folio.

As is often the case, nice idea with half assed thought on workability and playtesting to the point of needing a complete homebrew refit.

Grafts advantage that it's hard to lose them or have them stolen is not a particularly important one in 3.5 when so much of player power is linked to wealth and items, if your DM is one that's likely to strip his players naked on a regular basis then it massively affects what the players can do, to the point that most DMs have an unwritten rule of no-messing-with-the-stuff. It certainly isn't worth a doubling of cost, a hit to hp and session of beg the DM to get them.

Beyound recommending halving the prices and throwing out the other costs of grafts and coming up with a ground up system for applying them I'd advise keeping the 'only one sort' rule if for nothing else than flavour.

[VelvetThunder]

I don't get it. They seemed kinda unstable right out of the box, what with the downsides of having to find the right creatures to give you half of them, and fiendish grafts making you slowly become evil over time. Not to mention the lack of explanation as to how half of them actually work. Even the fleshwarper PrC has problems with making grafts more available to the group.

So what does WotC do? Institute penalties for getting grafts. Want a cool ability not from an item? Now you lose some of that health you kinda need to stay alive. Now you can only have one type of graft. Now it takes a whole new feat for each type of graft. The fleshwarper PrC is effectively useless in the face of the new grafting rules.

Anyone have an idea why this happened? Were grafts really so overpowered that you needed to lose so much to get them?

I agree with you 100% Grafts have always gotten the shaft. It's such a cool idea though to get body upgrades and Arm cannons and All that stuff... Then after they go and tempt you with all their goodies.. they tell you that it's almost impossible to get and that you'd have to ruin your character build if you actually did try to go for them. If it were my campaign I'd have a Graft shop in town, and take away the one type of graft limit. Just pay the man the rough price.. give or take due to Haggle and BAM he Implants you with a new spine.

Now as for the HP loss.. well I think that should stay. You have to have some downside... or everybody in the world would be going around with Zombie arms and Fish hearts.

[mostlyharmful]

You have to have some downside... or everybody in the world would be going around with Zombie arms and Fish hearts.

Everyone that could afford them, was prepared to live with an undead abomination hanging off themselves (or to put up with never getting rid of that fishy smell) and the inevitable, repititious conversations you'd have to have with every branch of law enforcement you ever met.

'Yes officer it is my arm...... no, I paid for it in all good faith..... here's the signed letter from the high priest of Shiney McShineyGod to confirm... yes I keep it in my wallet at all times..... can I come into the city now?':smallsigh:

[sonofzeal]

Not quite, they don't overlap with item slots at all. They basically use new "graft slots", some of which happen to line up with item slots.
I was under the impression that the two sets were analogous, like the chakra system, but I could be wrong on that.


The thing about grafts is that most of them are priced at double what a slotted magic item would cost, aka the exact same price as an unslotted item. However the new grafts have extra penalties that I can only assume are meant to justify that the unslotted item can't be lost either, though I would think that the difficulty in retrieving and selling them would more than make up for it: a magic item is a fairly liquid asset, but you can't just walk into a bazzar and sell your arm to a guy.
Can I see your math there? My experience with them is that the boost in price is because, in general, they provide untyped bonuses that stack with everything (see Stony Plating and Gleaming Scales), and there's plenty more that provide quite a lot of benefit for a very reasonable price (Buffetting Fist, Tremor Graft). Not losing them is one thing, but bypassing the whole exponential price curve is very good.

That said, yes, a lot are total ripoffs. The wise grafter must sort the wheat from the chaff.

[Alleine]

I have to agree with mostlyharmful, there's enough of a penalty from some of those grafts that not everyone would want them. So there's a church of Pelor in town? You have a new zombie arm? You just became prime suspect number 1. Not to mention fiendish grafts are inherently evil, and lots of grafts are far more expensive than most people could afford.

I never really noticed what Draken mentioned though, the multiple arm/mulitweapon fighting thing. It is completely possible, just like abuse with the Warshaper growing tons of attacks. It is far less practical to go the graft route though.

[Chronos]

The other benefit to grafts is that they're considered nonmagical, so (for some of them, at least) you can hide from Detect Magic, and they function in an antimagic area. If most of your class abilities are also nonmagical, and you have some means of producing antimagic (UMD it from a scroll, say), that can be a nice benefit.

[VelvetThunder]

Everyone that could afford them, was prepared to live with an undead abomination hanging off themselves (or to put up with never getting rid of that fishy smell) and the inevitable, repititious conversations you'd have to have with every branch of law enforcement you ever met.

'Yes officer it is my arm...... no, I paid for it in all good faith..... here's the signed letter from the high priest of Shiney McShineyGod to confirm... yes I keep it in my wallet at all times..... can I come into the city now?':smallsigh:

Fair enough. I didn't think of that side of it. Smell aside though... That's what fullplate is for. haha

[Fizban]

I was under the impression that the two sets were analogous, like the chakra system, but I could be wrong on that.


Can I see your math there? My experience with them is that the boost in price is because, in general, they provide untyped bonuses that stack with everything (see Stony Plating and Gleaming Scales), and there's plenty more that provide quite a lot of benefit for a very reasonable price (Buffetting Fist, Tremor Graft). Not losing them is one thing, but bypassing the whole exponential price curve is very good.

That said, yes, a lot are total ripoffs. The wise grafter must sort the wheat from the chaff.

Good point. I've based my assumption mostly on the newer books- Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, and Races of the Dragon. They all have similar prices, about twice what you'd pay for a normal magic item with the same bonus, except RoD also has the bogus penalties. In particular I look at the straight bonuses and the flight because they're pretty formulaic. I had forgotten how they're untyped as well though, that would explain why the silithar grafts were so expensive: I'd forgotten the extra multiplier. Thank for reminding me.

So, untyped bonuses are usually at x4 price for untyped and unslotted, new abilities like flight are x2 for unslotted, and they overlooked the fact that natural armor stacks with enhancement to natural armor. In any case, I'd say double is more than enough for both the unslotting and untyping: as has been said above, magic items are already assumed to be part of your character, and if you're reducing your total wealth to have it be cool without actually being any better, you're fine. I also think that grafts are just about the one thing about a character that you just can't hide or refluff. Class doesn't have to mean anything in game, magic items can be unobtrusive and anything big will be in extradimensional storage, but there is no way you're sneaking extra tentacles, wings, or mismatched limbs past someone without a full body disguise and/or more magic.

[sonofzeal]

I still don't see how it adds up. Take Stony Plating (Magic of Eberron, Elemental graft). Exerpt:


Effect: Your natural armor bonus to AC improves by 1.
Creatures without natural armor have an effective natural
armor bonus of +0. Because the graft improves your natural
armor, effects that provide an enhancement bonus to natural
armor (such as a barkskin spell) stack with stony plating.

Price: 2,800 gp, and 4 hp.

....so they were well aware that it stacked. By the general rules, one would figure the price would be 2000 gp (for an Ammy of NA+1), x4 (for untyped), x2 (for unslotted) = 16,000 gp. But in actual fact it's nowhere near that, and a pretty good bargain to boot. It also doesn't mess up your appearance too much, unless you're on the Plane of Air or somesuch. I mean you'll look pebbly, but not monstrous. This is the exception though; I agree a lot of the others are really overpriced. But there are easily quantifiable ones that work out to very good bargains for most characters.

[tyckspoon]

....so they were well aware that it stacked. By the general rules, one would figure the price would be 2000 gp (for an Ammy of NA+1), x4 (for untyped), x2 (for unslotted) = 16,000 gp. But in actual fact it's nowhere near that, and a pretty good bargain to boot. It also doesn't mess up your appearance too much, unless you're on the Plane of Air or somesuch. I mean you'll look pebbly, but not monstrous. This is the exception though; I agree a lot of the others are really overpriced. But there are easily quantifiable ones that work out to very good bargains for most characters.

Uh. Natural Armor *is* a bonus type. It's one of the relatively normal types, too, so there isn't any extra cost associated with it. Your base value would be 2,000 x2 for slotless. That leaves just 1,200 GP to be ad-hoc'd away for the HP hit and any social drawbacks you may experience, which seems like a pretty fair price to me.

[Fizban]

I should probably admit that I haven't actually examined any of the Eberron graft prices. They're too wrapped up in the penalties and type restrictions, and most of them have cumulative benefits, I just don't feel like dealing with it. My first casual glance said they weren't too far out of line for grafts aside from the new restrictions and that's pretty much all the attention I payed to them. I like the elemental and plant grafts quite a bit actually, but it's too much of a niche to try and work into most other ideas.

[Khanderas]

If fiendish grafts are evil.
Does that make angelic grafts good ? Afterall you got to kill, or atleast seriously maim, a being of the upper planes.
("Im a good guy... see... halo... made it myself...")


I perfer the half golem graft; Find someone able to create guns in the universe, have a wizard enchant the gun to be similiar enough to a metal golemn to work, and then pop that bay on your right arm.And name her Samus ?

[VirOath]

If fiendish grafts are evil.
Does that make angelic grafts good ? Afterall you got to kill, or atleast seriously maim, a being of the upper planes.
("Im a good guy... see... halo... made it myself...")


Yes, and no.


Fiendish grafts are evil because you are taking a being composed of supernatural evil and making part of him a part of you. It's like replacing your heart with a rock filled with negative energy, or why Vampires are ALWAYS evil. Supernaturally imposed alignments.

Now an Angelic graft would be the opposite. But remember that killing an angel, like any other good creature, is not an evil act. It is the reasons behind it. And there are other ways to get it aside from killing them, and Angels can regenerate and regrow from natural and magical means for them.

Angelic grafts would force your alignment toward good, because you have made one a part of you.

[sonofzeal]

Uh. Natural Armor *is* a bonus type. It's one of the relatively normal types, too, so there isn't any extra cost associated with it. Your base value would be 2,000 x2 for slotless. That leaves just 1,200 GP to be ad-hoc'd away for the HP hit and any social drawbacks you may experience, which seems like a pretty fair price to me.
Well... sorta. I mean, this explicitly stacks with every other source of natural armor ever. That's pretty "untyped" if you ask me.

[Sinfire Titan]

I don't get it. They seemed kinda unstable right out of the box, what with the downsides of having to find the right creatures to give you half of them, and fiendish grafts making you slowly become evil over time. Not to mention the lack of explanation as to how half of them actually work. Even the fleshwarper PrC has problems with making grafts more available to the group.

So what does WotC do? Institute penalties for getting grafts. Want a cool ability not from an item? Now you lose some of that health you kinda need to stay alive. Now you can only have one type of graft. Now it takes a whole new feat for each type of graft. The fleshwarper PrC is effectively useless in the face of the new grafting rules.

Anyone have an idea why this happened? Were grafts really so overpowered that you needed to lose so much to get them?

That's only if you want to make your own grafts. Just buying them in a high-level, average WBL campaign doesn't require the feats. And some of the grafts are actually worth it. Examples include the Buffeting Wings, one of the Construct grafts from The Last War (the one that grants you immunity to Mind Affecting abilities), Healing Blood, Third Eye (for the antimagic field that doesn't screw you over), Long Arm (the Will save is absurdly easy to pass, just use Martial Study and max out Concentration), and the Weapon Graft.