Individual Graft Review
Before we begin, I'd like to discuss several methods of getting Grafts onto your character. Here are the various options:
- The Wish spell: Worst method by far, even if you have the grafts in front of you. You end up having to pay 5K+twice the XP cost of the item. Only use this method if it's a scroll or ring or staff, or if you want to set yourself a level behind. Or if using the Sacrifice rules from the BoVD...
- Crafting them yourself: This is an OK method, as there are two classes capable of doing this cheaply: The Fleshgrafter PrC and the Artificer base class. Both of those can reduce the costs dramatically, making grafts more widely available for the party. The downside is you need to waste feats in order to make grafts, but in the Artificer's case you can just create an item of Psychic Reformation and get rid of the feat when you finish. Do not do this if you are not able to play one of those classes.
- Paying an NPC to craft them for you: More expensive than crafting them yourself, but it's better to spend GP than levels or XP. Even better: Dominate them, and force them to craft the grafts for free. Odds are they are non-Good anyway.
- Find a Fiend of Corruption: Fiends of Corruption are capable of creating any Fiendish Graft once per month. This is a risky method, but it's not too hard to get a Succubus FoC into a Planar Binding trap and forcing the ability (then use Dismissal to get rid of the fiend).
- The Silithar: From Lords of Madness, we get a CG swarm-like race capable of using the Graft Flesh feat. What's more, they are eager to continue their research on grafting, and may do so for free if you are wiling to let them work on you. This is very much dependent on your DM though.
- Planar Binding a Sibriex: From the FC1, we get a super-grafter: The Sibriex Obyrith. With 15HD, these are perfectly within GPB's abilities, and good god are they powerful bastards. The force a DC24 Will save on you just by being within 60ft, and can attack through a Magic Circle against Evil thanks to their Control Chains ability, and are immune to Mind-Affecting spells/abilities. But they have one massive bonus if you can subdue them: Instant Graft 3/day. They can create ANY Fiendish graft for free, 3/day. Quite a step up from the Fiend of Corruption. It may be possible to use Psychic Reformation to alter what they can create (since they do have the Graft Flesh feat), so talk with your DM.
Now, onto the grafts themselves.
Fiendish[spoiler]Presented in the Fiend Folio, and never reprinted anywhere, these grafts all require a denizen of the Lower Planes as a donor and creator. These grafts have a drawback: Good characters need to make a DC 15 Will save every day or take 1d3 Wis damage (no big deal, easily healed with an Orb of Mental Renewal or Eternal Wand of Lesser Restoration). Non-Good characters must make a DC 15 Will save or perform an Evil act of unspecified nature (so up to the DM).
Regardless, even one Fiendish graft imposes a -6 penalty on Diplomacy checks, even if they aren't aware of the graft. Aside from these, there are no drawbacks to having a Fiendish graft unless you are the party face. These grafts are the easiest to obtain, as outlined above.
- Charming Eye
- Clawed Arm: +4 Untyped bonus to Str, and a 1d6 Claw attack. Just the Str bonus is worth it, the claw attack is just gravy!
- Fast Leg: Extra speed and a nice bonus to Jump/Climb, and it's dirt-cheap.
- Fearsome Eye
- Feathered Wings: EX Flight for 10K. I repeat, EX Flight for 10,000gp. If only the Wing Buffet was a natural attack, I'd never play a character without these.
- Fiendish Ear: Cheap, but a 5% chance of being screwed over for using it is a bit too risky for my taste.
- Fiendish Jaw: 2K for an additional natural weapon. That's an effing steal!
- Fiendish Skin: It's too expensive for a +2 bonus to AC and Darkvision. Poison sucks at this level anyway.
- Flexible Arm: A weak slam, but it's an extra natural attack anyway.
- Grappling Tentacle: 7,000gp cheaper and it deals more damage while providing a +6 bonus on Grapple checks. Forget the Flexible one even exists!
- Long Arm: YOU GET AN ADDITIONAL 5FT OF REACH! I don't want to make that text bigger, but 5K for a natural weapon that has a natural reach is ballistically good. Any melee tank should have it.
- Membranous Wings: Inferior to the feathered wings.
- Springing Leg: +35 to Jump checks is nice and all, but I like my base land speed more than that. Besides, you can get Flight at 10K.
- Stinging Tail: No one cares about the poison, but the 2d4+Str on a natural weapon is really good.
- Strong Leg: This is the single cheapest inherent bonus to Con there is. 8K for a +2 is dirt cheap.
- Trampling Leg: EVen if it were half that price I wouldn't buy this.
- Whip Tail:It's cheaper than the Stinging Tail, but you can't do anything with it. The Daze DC is too low for that price tag anyway. Oddly, I think it would be more expensive if WotC excluded the Daze effect (their logic is fucked up like that).
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Maug[spoiler]Maug grafts are gaudy and actually have no additional costs to the bearer. Only a few have penalties associated with them.
- Locking Hand: Basically a locked gauntlet that stacks with itself and the actual locked gauntlet. And it lets you deal lethal damage while unarmed, but doesn't give the IUS feat.
- Rollers: The speed bonus is huge, the trample damage is decent, but I just can't see a use for them at the level you can afford them (since flight is ubiquitous at that point). They aren't bad though, as long as you never go swimming.
- Shoving Arm: I keep messing up on the name, calling it a Shiving Arm. Which would be a hell of a lot less useful than this thing. Shoving Arms can Bull Rush anything of any size category, and get an extra +5 bonus on the check. For 2,000gp, every Dungeoncrasher should have at least one of these.
- Shudder Plate: Tremorsense out to 15ft, which is insane for it's price tag (8,000gp). Now you can keep watch without needing to worry about anything that lacks Darkstalker. Oh wait, this graft doesn't explicitly grant Tremorsense (likely because it didn't exist when the FF was printed), so this gets around Darkstalker. Ok, so long as it doesn't hover, you can detect it.
- Spike Stones: There really isn't anything bad about these. They aren't labeled as being Constrict-based, but function similarly. And +1d4 damage on natural weapons/unarmed strikes is pretty nice too, especially for 4K.
- Stone Spitter: Low damage, can't be enchanted without enchanting the bullets, but that's to be expected. Really, it's just an arm cannon (well, shoulder cannon).
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Beholder[spoiler]Strangely, Beholder grafts weren't reprinted in the one place you would expect them to be: Lords of Madness. The Fiend Folio remains the only up-to-date source on these grafts. And dear god, hese are
expensive. None of these cost less than 50K, and are very weak for their price tags.
- Crown of Eyes: Darkvision out to 60ft, +4 to Search and Spot checks, and you can't be Flanked. Overpriced for 64,000gp, even with the Flanking part (since you can get that with a feat).
- Eye Stalk: Gives you one, and I do means ONE, of the Beholder's eye beams. It works 3/day, has a Save DC of 18, and requires a Ranged Touch Attack. It couldn't be any more underwhelming for 195,000gp.
- Gazing Eye: This gives you a psuedo-Eye Beam. It can be either Charm Monster, Sleep, Flesh to Stone, or Cause Fear, but they all require you to actively use them and only have a save DC of 16. Again, 195,000gp, so its worthless by the time you can buy it.
- Plated Skin: The only thing on this list that's actually useful. +4 Natural Armor, and it's not typed. 64,000 is very expensive, but that's what you get for an unslotted, EX, untyped +4 bonus to AC.
- Replacement Eye Same exact thing as the Eye Stalk, except it doesn't look as freaky. And it's the SAME PRICE!
- Third Eye: 3/day, you can produce a 50ft Antimagic cone, same way a Beholder can. For 165,000gp, a full 30,000gp cheaper than half this list. Ugh.
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Aboleth[spoiler]These grafts were printed in the Fiend Folio, but they've been updated in Lords of Madness. Aboleth grafts have a massive drawback: They decay 1d4+1 days after being applied to anything that isn't a scum, aboleth, or other aboleth-related creature. These are NOT worth that drawback. But for completion's sake, I will list them here.
- Amphibious Skin: Breath air and water equally, provided you have the Aquatic subtype. The drawback aside, this is replicated completely by a ring in Stormwrack, and it's much cheaper.
- Inksac: Only works under water, and only matters if you really need the concealment. And only lasts 1d4+1 days after being attached to you.
- Mucus Projector: Gives you the Aboleth Slime ability. The only redeeming quality is the save scales, but it's still terrible because of the price and duration.
- Waterjet: Meh. Mobility under water. If it didn't have the 1d4+1 day duration, I'd say this would be useful for a seafaring campaign. But it sucks by nature.
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Illithid[spoiler]Whereas Beholder and Aboleths suck at creating grafts, Mind Flayers are decent at it. Having an Illithid graft imposes a -4 penalty on Will saves against Mind Affecting, spells, SLAs, and against any Psionic power. A steep weakness, but you should be able to compensate anyway. Some of these can be found in Lords of Madness, the rest are located in the Fiend Folio.
- Antennae Graft: Ok, so they did have Tremorsense back in 3.0. And it was dirt cheap! Range of 60ft, and only 20,000gp to boot.
- Burrowing Claws: I think this is the only thing in the entire game that gives you a burrow speed without needing to polymorph you outright. 30,000.
- Climbing Legs: Climb Speed of 15ft. Not bad, but you've probably started encountering flying enemies at the point where you can afford 4,000gp.
- Darksight Eyes: Darkvision out to 60ft for 24,000gp. I'm sure there are cheaper methods for darkvision.
- Goring Horn: A gore attack and Improved Bull Rush for 8,000gp. That's a steal.
- Grasping Mandibles: More expensive than the next best Bite attack source, but 2d6 base damage and Improved Grab, and Constrict, all in one graft is effing powerful. 15,000 well spent.
- Hauling Back: Meh.
- Mind Blast Relay: Worthless to a player unless your party's Wizard is also a Mind Flayer, which should NEVER happen.
- Raking Tentacles: Natural reach at the cost of an arm and 5,000gp. The damage sucks, but who cares when you can trip like a spiked chain?
- Rending Claw: Who wants a x3 Crit Multiplier superclaw for 5,000gp? I do!
- Weapon Graft: This has been mentioned several times, but it's got one major advantage: The weapon becomes both magical and nonmagical at the same time. For an extra 1,000gp and the cost of my arm, I'd love to have a weapon that can't be suppressed while still being able to hit incorporeal enemies because of the enhancement bonus.
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Silthilar[spoiler]The only Graft type introduced in Lords of Madness, Silthilar are aberrations that perform graft-based experiments on willing subjects. They are CG-aligned, and may very well be willing to give you free grafts if you just let them experiment on you. At least if the DM doesn't count them against your WBL later, that is.
- Chitin Plating: This graft provides a bonus to your Natural Armor, but it doesn't stack with existing natural armor (but it does stack with enhancement bonuses, since it isn't one itself). It ranges from +1 to +5, getting exponentially more expensive as it does (+5 is 100K, and not worth the price unless you can get it for free).
- Flexible Spine: Improved Init with a +4 bonus to a few skills is not worth 91,000gp, even if it is slotless.
- Extended Legs: Seriously, who priced these?
- Healing Blood: Ex Fast Healing 2 for 180K. I needn't say how expensive this is, but seriously, that pays for itself over the course of a few days. Bonus points if you can get it free of charge by being a test subject!
- Rudimentary Eyespots: Too expensive.
- Silthilar Bones: +2 untyped bonus to Con, and it's expensive as hell. If you have the gold to spare or can cut the costs, then this is a must-have. But it's way too much cash otherwise.
- Silthilar Heart: This one is capable of saving your life, but as the author of Band Aids for Dummies, I deem this not cost-effective. Again, see if you can get it by being a test subject for best value.
- Silthilar Muscles: See the bones graft above. +2 Str isn't much though.
- Silthilar Tendons: Another +2, this time to Dex. See above.
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Undead[spoiler]Found in Libris Mortis (every undead graft printed in the FF was reprinted in LM), these grafts have no actual drawback, and some of them are incredibly cheap for what they do.
- Bonemail: Rather meh, but +2 Nat Armor is nice for that price. Casters will love it.
- Bodak's Eye: Really not worth the price, especially at 1/day. Very low save DC renders it useless at the level you can afford it.
- Enervating Arm: Who actually buys this for the Negative Level ability? +4 Inherent bonus to Str for 40,000, making it considerably cheaper than the Manual.
- Eye of Flame: A 1/day Fireball SLA (it's explicitly stated to be an SLA) at CL 10 is not worth having, even if it does half divine damage.
- Ghostly Arm: While it isn't much, it's a nice trick.
- Morhg's Tongue: It can paralyze at will, and is a natural weapon. Even at 1/round, the fact that
- Mummified Eye: So not worth it. Never even think about it.
- Mummified Hand: If only for the slam attack. NPCs make the best use of this, but oh well.
- Paralyzing Arm: See Enervating Arm.
- Skeletal Hand: Dirt cheap for an additional attack.
- Undead Skin: I honestly don't like this, but I don't consider it a bad thing (it just doesn't make sense to me that rotten skin is capable of protecting you like this).
- Vampire Fangs: They shin on a grapple build, but you are better off getting Constrict.
- Weakening Arm: See Enervating Arm. I feel this is the best of the three.
- Zombie Arm: It's cheaper than the Enervating Arm, but really not much better. The slam is nice though.
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Yuan-Ti[spoiler]Originally printed in the FF, these grafts were updated to 3.5 play in Serpent Kingdoms (possibly the only good thing that book did to 3.5).
- Added Tail: It's cheap for a swim speed, but the constrict it grants is too minor to matter. Using the Expansion power or the Giant Size spell really is the best way to use it, but you are better off dipping Warblade/Crusader and getting that Stone Dragon Stance if you really want Constrict (or use the Replacement Tail graft).
- Poison Fangs: If you have a bite, this adds a scaling-DC Con poison to it. If not, you have to grapple to make use of it.
- Replacement Tail: You lose out on 10ft of your base land speed, but gain a Climb and Swim speed equal to your original speed. And Constrict. The problem is the price tag puts this into the mid-levels, when Fly speeds are easily obtained.
- Scaly Skin: An untyped _3 bonus to natural armor, but it lacks the normal "If you don't have it, treat your Nat Armor as 0" clause. Combine with other grafts to bypass this.
- Serpent Arm: Gives you a literal snake for an arm. Scaling poison DC is nice, but it's lacking rules on how this affects your grabbing hand...
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