"She Chose Down?" Helping Hands!

[Hanuman]

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Video Introduction

Helping Hands

<Medium> <Human, Undead Augmented>
Hit Dice: 1D12
Initiative:+0
Speed: 0'(0 squares)
Armor Class: (15), 10 touch, 15 flat-footed
Base Attack/Grapple:
Attack: Slam +2 1d6
Full Attack: Slam +2 1d6
Space/Reach: Amalgam or 5' / 5' Reach
Special Attacks: Improved Grab Attack
Special Qualities: DR5/-, Amalgam, Hidden, Immovable, Improved Grab, Many Arms
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +0
Abilities Str 14, Dex -, Con -, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14
Skills: +4 Racial Listen/Spot (Or Perception)
Feats: None
Environment: Dungeons
Organization: Single 1, Line 2-10, Mass 8-1000
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: None
Alignment: CN
Advancement: -
Level Adjustment: -

Helping hands consist of 1d4+4 hands and their bodies in turn, but only ever leave their hands and arms exposed. Helping Hands can speak common despite not having actual mouths, they instead animate their faces with hand-puppets.

Found sticking out of walls, ceilings, holes, floors, ect. They follow the first command stated to them (between the actions of dragging, holding or letting go of their commander) until it's completed before accepting new orders.

Combat

Helping hands do not prefer not to fight at all, they are created specifically as an eternal part of a dungeon and will comply with the wishes of their interactions as long as it is the choice of dragging, grapple or release of grapple, otherwise they try to resolve things socially.

SQ:
Amalgam – a contiguous line of Helping Hands are treated as a single
creature or multiple creatures, whichever is to their benefit. For
example, in order to Turn Helping Hands, a Cleric would have to
affect the total HD of all contiguous sections. On the other hand,
a Disintegrate would only affect one 5’ section.
In addition, all sections can act independently, but may
communicate telepathically with each other.

Hidden – unless a creature is adjacent to the Helping Hands, an effect
analogous to Disguise Self makes it look like a normal wall.

Immovable – Helping Hands cannot be moved, bull rushed, overrun,
tripped, Tumbled through, etc., though it may be scaled with a
Climb check vs. DC 20 (and lots of Attacks of Opportunity).

Improved Grab – if the Helping Hands hits with a Natural Attack, it
may start a Grapple Check as a Free Action without provoking an
Attack of Opportunity, this natural attack then does no damage. If successful the opponent is not pulled into the Helping Hands' square, but is instead held within the opponents original square at arms-length.

Many Arms – +4 Circumstance bonus on Grapple checks

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Lore

Helping Hands were inventing by the Goblin King Jereth as an undead fixture in his labyrinth dungeon, purely for his own amusement.



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Feel free to make changes, improvements and additions and I'll add em in. =]

[Debihuman]

Is this 3.5 or Pathfinder?

This struck me as an Intelligent Construct rather than Undead or Aberration. It should have a lot more hit dice. I'd consider it to be Gargantuan in size (she falls at least 20 feet).

It should have a Dexterity ability since it can move its hands and catch falling objects. You might want to give it skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, Spot and Listen.

Here are the changes I would make:

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Helping Hands
Gargantuan Construct
Hit Dice: 15d10+60 ( 142 hp)
Initiative:+9 (+4 Improved Initiative)
Speed: 0 ft. (Immobile)
Armor Class: 13 (-4 size, +2 Dex + 5 Natural) Touch 8, Flat-footed 11
Base Attack/Grapple: +11/+33 (+4 improved grapple, +4 many arms)
Attack: Slam +9 melee (2d8+2 nonlethal)
Full Attack: 4 slams +9 melee (2d8+2 nonlethal)*
Space/Reach: 20 ft./20 ft.
Special Attacks: Improved Grab
Special Qualities: Amalgam, Darkvision 60 ft., DR 5/-, Hidden, Immovable, Low-light Vision, Many Arms, Nonlethal Damage, Construct Traits
Saves: Fort +5, Reflex +7. Will +5
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 15, Con -, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14
Skills: Bluff +11, Diplomacy +11 , Spot +11 Listen +11
Feats: Alertness, Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike
Environment: Any Underground
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 10
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always chaotic neutral
Advancement: -
Level Adjustment: -

*This is for every 5 feet of wall. Only 4 hands may attack while the rest are holding its victim(s) aloft. Normally, the hands do nonlethal damage, but they can do lethal damage.

Helping hands are a stone construct usually built as a 20-foot deep pit trap, consisting of stone walls with 4d4+4 animated stone hands per 5 foot section that catch any victim that happens to fall.

Caught victims are taunted for one round and then interrogated. Every victim caught by the helping hands is asked "Up or Down?" Once a victim gives an answer, the victim is either tossed up and out of the pit or dropped down to the bottom.

Helping hands use their hands to form mouths and can speak Common.

Combat

Helping hands prefer not to fight at all. They are created specifically as an internal part of a dungeon and will usually comply with the wishes of anyone who happens to fall into their grasp.

They will always begin by catching a falling a victim. They will spend one round teasing their captive before asking which direction the captive wishes to take. If the captive wishes to go up, the helping hands will throw the victim out of its tube and the victim will land 5 feet from the hole. If the victim wishes to go down, the helping hands will drop the victim so that she only falls 5 feet from the floor and takes no falling damage. Hostile or attacking victims are dropped from maximum heights and take normal falling damage.

When making a slam attack, helping hands normally do nonlethal damage to their victims unless a victim is hostile or attacking.

Amalgam (Ex): A contiguous line of helping hands are treated as a single creature or multiple creatures, whichever is to its benefit. For example, a disintegrate spell would only affect one 5-foot section. All sections can act independently, but may communicate telepathically and orally with each other.

Hidden (Ex): Unless a creature falls into the helping hands' pit, it looks just like a normal wall. It take a DC 25 Spot check to anything unusual about the walls.

Immovable (Ex): Helping hands cannot be moved, bull rushed, overrun, tripped, tumbled through, etc. However, it may be scaled with a Climb check (DC 20) though the hands may grapple and drop anyone who attempts to climb out of its pit.

Improved Grab (Ex): If the helping hands hit with its slam, it may start a Grapple Check as a Free Action without provoking an Attack of Opportunity. This attack causes no damage. If successful, the opponent is not pulled into the helping hands' square, but is instead held aloft at arms-length.

Many Arms (Ex): Due to having many arms, helping hands has +4 Circumstance bonus to Grapple checks, to Disarm opponents, and to Grab Items. They automatically catch anyone who falls into their reach without having to make a Dexterity check. They can catch 4 creatures of Large or Medium size or 8 creatures of Small or smaller size.

Nonlethal Damage (Ex): Helping hands do not take a -4 penalty to its attack roll when dealing non-lethal damage with their slam attacks.

Debby

[Hanuman]

I've smooshed together a human with a Living Wall template and made it quaint and useful instead mean and terrifying.

I figured it would be better to make it medium and have the DM add as many as needed, as they all count as the same creature if they all connect.
They could be 4 for a box or 6 for a hex I guess, for the pit drop it could just be 4 or 6 of these for every 5' down.

Using this, you don't need to have a tube, you could have them sticking out of the ceiling, have a few just to talk to, or have some on the floor to carry you or something bigger.

I like your changes though, admittedly I'm not that good at making homebrew, let alone making it quickly.

[DracoDei]

You need to break down the AC.

I would look up my Devotion Bower in my extended signature and use the "Immobility" feature.

I agree that Undead is odd, but I can't think of anything that REALLY fits them. I agree that construct could work. Sorta a modified clay golem as far as texture and materials (rather than intelligence) maybe?

I want to see a few hundred square feet of these knitting socks.

[Debihuman]

Like I said, you had a good start there. It doesn't have to be mean and terrifying. You'll note it doesn't have to do lethal damage the way I have it and in fact, it does not have to do any damage at all. However, it should be able to disarm opponents and grab their weapons.

The major problem with my version of the helping hands, is that it makes it less of a monster and more of a plot device. Monsters actually make lousy plot items. I had this same problem with my version of the weeping angel.

It doesn't make them bad monsters, it's just harder to fit them in. Neither of these would be "wandering monsters." that you could just plunk down randomly. That said, I really think Helping Hands in dungeon would be awesome.

I don't see how (or really why) you would interact with one on the ceiling. Helping hands on the floor would just be stepped on. Of course, they could entangle you but wouldn't do much more than that. Having helping hands reach out of the floor, grab your ankles and yell, "Gotcha!" could be a fun surprise to inflict on a group of PCs. On the floor, helping hands would be more a nuisance than a real threat.

Debby

[DracoDei]

I could see an artificer or engineering type using a wall full of them as a combination of peg-board for holding tools and the robot arm from the first Iron Man movie (although hopefully not as much of a screw-up). They never get tired, and maybe are capable of holding COMPETELY still, which is a good thing when trying to weld two oddly shaped pieces of metal together (just give them leather gloves and tongs).

[willpell]

It could be multiple creatures, plus if it's fixed in place and not able to move, it might have a non-square shape that enables it to be much smaller but have all its mass arranged in a tube (I think the swarm template allows you to shape your area so that you're not all in a square, something might be adapted from that). Also, IMO it makes no sense outside of Goblin Logic for it to be able to speak by moving its hands; you might as well just say that it has a magically generated voice and chooses to do the hand-puppet thing as an affectation of sorts.

(Also the thread title has me thinking of Motley Crue....)