[Material] The Doctor is IN

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Surgical Steel
A special process using metallurgy and alchemical solutions produces surgical steel, a slightly tougher material that doesn't tarnish. Items made of surgical steel have a 20% chance of ignoring corrosion spells and abilities, such as a rust monster's Rust attack, or acid. Items made of surgical steel are considered Masterwork, and have a corresponding higher price.

Surgical Steel has 30 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 11.


Surgeon's Kit (150 gp)
This kit includes everything one needs to perform surgery, or dissect/vivisect a large variety of creatures. Amongst clamps, tweezers, rasps, trocars, retractors, and forceps it includes fours scalpels in Adamantine, Alchemical Silver, Cold Iron and Surgical Steel.
You gain a +4 bonus to heal checks that requires the removal of items, such as caltrops, a creature's bite, or parasites.
A surgeon's kit weighs 6 lbs.


Surgical Steel Body [Warforged]
Your body has been crafted with a layer of surgical steel that is resistant to corrosion and hard enough to turn away most cuts.
Prerequisite: Warforged.
Benefit: Your armor bonus is increased to +4, and you are considered to be wearing light armor. You now have a +4 maximum Dexterity bonus to AC, a -2 skill penalty on all skill checks that armor check penalties apply to (Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, Swim, and Tumble), and an arcane spell failure chance of 25%.
You have a 20% chance of ignoring corrosion spells and abilities, such as Rusting Grasp or acid. You also gain resistance to slashing 5.

[Morph Bark]

Would the Surgeon's Kit give bonuses to some skills (or specific uses of skills)?


Hmmm... how different from stainless steel is surgical steel anyway? A warforged with that feat being called as having a surgical steel body just makes me think of warforged made entirely of scalpels.

Even their eyes.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Would the Surgeon's Kit give bonuses to some skills (or specific uses of skills)?

Well, thinking it'd help in some instances of Heal, like removing items stuck within, getting rid of those pesky parasites, etc. But it'd be a case by case usefulness.

Hmmm... how different from stainless steel is surgical steel anyway?

"Surgical stainless steel is a specific type of stainless steel, used in medical applications. The chromium gives the metal its scratch-resistance and corrosion resistance. The nickel provides a smooth and polished finish. The molybdenum gives greater hardness, and helps maintaining a cutting edge."

"The word 'surgical' refers to the fact that these types of steel are well-suited for making surgical instruments: they are easy to clean and sterilize, strong and corrosion-resistant."

A warforged with that feat being called as having a surgical steel body just makes me think of warforged made entirely of scalpels.

Even their eyes.

HERE COMES THE SCISSOR-MAN!

Well, it was inspired by a Warforged NPC I made for my Monstrumologist I'm entering in the PrC competition.

Good ole Doc Buckshot

[Morph Bark]

Well, thinking it'd help in some instances of Heal, like removing items stuck within, getting rid of those pesky parasites, etc. But it'd be a case by case usefulness.

Noted. I bet it'd be helpful in grafting processes!

HERE COMES THE SCISSOR-MAN!

Edward Scissorhands would have nothing on him.

Well, it was inspired by a Warforged NPC I made for my Monstrumologist I'm entering in the PrC competition.

Good ole Doc Buckshot

Yeah, I saw that in the contest chat thread. NPCs make such classes more interesting, actually. If you hadn't had them, I would be much less intruiged and wanting to read into the Monstrumologist.

I'm actually thinking of entering, but the contest's current title theme "darkness" would either make me create an Even Darker and Edgier PrC version of what I am creating for the base class challenge or a Magic Missile-abuser. And the latter seems too humourous for this current contest.

[Jokasti]

Surgical Steel, crunching, doesn't seem that useful to me, unless you're going into a known Rust Monster and Co. area. That said, the fluff is pretty good.

Surgical kit is a good idea, maybe gives a bonus to extracting valuable organs and bones and stuff from bodies?

Surgical Steel Warforged sounds cool, and could always use the "trust me, I'm a doctor" line.

How much more would it cost to make something out of surgical steel? I'm not too familiar with warforged rules, would that cost more as well?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Surgical Steel, crunching, doesn't seem that useful to me, unless you're going into a known Rust Monster and Co. area. That said, the fluff is pretty good.

Well, that and the extra point of hardness makes it slightly less sunderable than standard weapons.

Surgical kit is a good idea, maybe gives a bonus to extracting valuable organs and bones and stuff from bodies?

That'd make sense.

How much more would it cost to make something out of surgical steel? I'm not too familiar with warforged rules, would that cost more as well?

"Items made of surgical steel are considered Masterwork, and have a corresponding higher price."

So just add the price of whatever you make by the addition of masterwork.

"You can’t add the masterwork quality to a weapon after it is created; it must be crafted as a masterwork weapon (see the Craft skill). The masterwork quality adds 300 gp to the cost of a normal weapon (or 6 gp to the cost of a single unit of ammunition). Adding the masterwork quality to a double weapon costs twice the normal increase (+600 gp)."

"Just as with weapons, you can purchase or craft masterwork versions of armor or shields. Such a well-made item functions like the normal version, except that its armor check penalty is lessened by 1.
A masterwork suit of armor or shield costs an extra 150 gp over and above the normal cost for that type of armor or shield."

You can't really make warforged in general to my knowledge, but then I'm not all to knowledgable on Eberron.

[unosarta]

Well, that and the extra point of hardness makes it slightly less sunderable than standard weapons.

I... this gives me the image of a "Doctor" wielding a giant scalpel that he uses to dismember his opponents, and who also is a warforged with scalpels for hands.

Is a scalpel actually statted out as a weapon? I imagine that it would be a high critical hit range, high modifier, low damage light one handed weapon. As a large weapon, it would probably be the same statistics as a scythe.

...I need to go make this character.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Is a scalpel actually statted out as a weapon?

It's in the Book of Vile Darkness somewhere.

[unosarta]

It's in the Book of Vile Darkness somewhere.

It would be.

Now for the background...

[LOTRfan]

Yep. Right in the "Torture Devices" section.

[arguskos]

Even their eyes.

Oh, Dan McNinja, you win at everything forever.

Also, on topic, meh. I'm honestly not that impressed. It just doesn't seem useful enough as a material for people to really need/want to use it. I'm all for verisimilitude, and in that respect, it's great, but no one is ever going to need such a material really. Amusing warforged thing though, I like that one.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

[
Also, on topic, meh. I'm honestly not that impressed. It just doesn't seem useful enough as a material for people to really need/want to use it. I'm all for verisimilitude, and in that respect, it's great, but no one is ever going to need such a material really.

Fighting oozes? Maybe I should specify acid is corrosion.

[arguskos]

Fighting oozes? Maybe I should specify acid is corrosion.

Acid=corrosion works using RL logic, but not entirely with D&D logic. If surgical steel gives acid resistant properties (perhaps acid resistance 5 or something), that makes it FAR more relevant.

Also, how often do oozes come up? Or sundering? Or RUST MONSTERS? These are a very minor and uncommon subset of critters in D&D. A fairly expensive material (relatively speaking, obviously) that is only mildly better against a small subset of things than normal steel doesn't exactly blow my socks off here.

Course, that's not cause the quality of the work is bad, but more because the situation in question is rare.

[unosarta]

Also, on topic, meh. I'm honestly not that impressed. It just doesn't seem useful enough as a material for people to really need/want to use it. I'm all for verisimilitude, and in that respect, it's great, but no one is ever going to need such a material really. Amusing warforged thing though, I like that one.

I expect that it wouldn't necessarily be that useful because most Dungeon Masters specifically do not throw rust monsters, or because there isn't a rule that really accounts for the oxidization of weapons and armor, because although it does try to add realism, it simply isn't viable, and it feels like the Dungeon Master is cheating the players out of things that he or she gave them. This is consequently why a lot of players cry foul when Dungeon Masters have rust monsters, because they assume that a rust monster is simply a way for the Dungeon Master to "stick it to the players."

This is partially the fault of the system for such a reliance on equipment, and partially players who simply do not wish for their equipment to be destroyed. Of course, this doesn't necessarily apply to all players, or all DMs, but it seems like that would be a common thread of player thinking when they encounter rust monsters, or when the Dungeon Master uses Sunder.

Acid=corrosion works using RL logic, but not entirely with D&D logic. If surgical steel gives acid resistant properties (perhaps acid resistance 5 or something), that makes it FAR more relevant.

Also, how often do oozes come up? Or sundering? Or RUST MONSTERS? These are a very minor and uncommon subset of critters in D&D. A fairly expensive material (relatively speaking, obviously) that is only mildly better against a small subset of things than normal steel doesn't exactly blow my socks off here.

Course, that's not cause the quality of the work is bad, but more because the situation in question is rare.

Allowing for the players to have the opportunity to have this substance allows for the Dungeon Masters to make the choice of allowing oozes and rust monsters, rather than simply not using them because of how a lot of players react to such monsters.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Acid=corrosion works using RL logic, but not entirely with D&D logic. If surgical steel gives acid resistant properties (perhaps acid resistance 5 or something), that makes it FAR more relevant.

Naw, not resistance, just a sort of 20% miss-chance sort of deal.

Also, how often do oozes come up? Or sundering?

...every campaign I've ever run?

Examples:
Grey Oozes in the tundra in my A Dying Ember campaign was a great encounter (it was eating one of their favorite sled dogs too! IT MUST DIE!)

Albino black pudding in Shades of Delusion, in a quasi-dream realm where the maker of the current scape was putting all his 'dirty thoughts'.

Anyone who goes up against my Xenoxera PrC (everything he summons has ooze type).

Have me on Rust Monsters though. Boooring.

[arguskos]

Allowing for the players to have the opportunity to have this substance allows for the Dungeon Masters to make the choice of allowing oozes and rust monsters, rather than simply not using them because of how a lot of players react to such monsters.

...except that it wouldn't fix the underlying issue. That is, the issue that most players react... poorly, when you go "LOLOLSUNDER", as though their adventurer's are entitled to keeping their stuff under all circumstances. I'd rather see someone address the issue of player entitlement than a minor gear buff.

Of course, the buff is nice, but it doesn't solve the issue.

@VT: Meh. That works, I guess. Still not convinced this would ever see much play, but it's great for verisimilitude.

[unosarta]

...except that it wouldn't fix the underlying issue. That is, the issue that most players react... poorly, when you go "LOLOLSUNDER", as though their adventurer's are entitled to keeping their stuff under all circumstances. I'd rather see someone address the issue of player entitlement than a minor gear buff.

Of course, the buff is nice, but it doesn't solve the issue.

But, I mean, the players cannot really argue against the DM on that point, if he offered for their weapons and armor (although armor isn't as much of a big deal, since it cannot be sundered anyway) to be remade in Surgical Steel.

But yeah, a lot of the problems lay with the system and the players.