Augmented

Artificer Subclass — Campaign homebrew for Heretics of the Old Gods

Overview

Most Wrenches build things that sit outside their body. An Augmented builds things that don’t — replacing pieces of themselves with arcanotech grafted directly into living tissue. It’s permanent. It’s visible. And in a city that treats bodies as disposable and labor as fuel, choosing to remake your own body on your own terms is a statement, whatever else it is.

The work is genuinely dangerous. This isn’t a bonus that arrives when you level up — it’s elective surgery you perform on yourself, in a back room, with tools and nerve, and it can go wrong in ways that put you on the floor making death saves. An Augmented accepts that. It’s the cost of becoming something the flesh alone couldn’t.

Augmented Spells

You always have the following spells prepared once you reach the levels shown. They don’t count against the number of spells you know.

Artificer Level	Spells
3rd	longstrider, false life
5th	enlarge/reduce, see invisibility
9th	freedom of movement, haste
13th	fabricate, greater invisibility
17th	steel wind strike, skill empowerment

Features

3rd Level: Surgeon’s Proficiency

You gain proficiency with the Healer’s Kit and one skill of your choice from Medicine or Arcana. Additionally, your installed grafts collectively serve as a spellcasting focus for your Artificer spells.

3rd Level: Grafts

You augment your body with grafts, each occupying one of four region types — Arm, Head, Legs, or Core. You may install duplicate regions; each is a separate graft.

Your capacity — the number of grafts you can have installed at once — is 1 at 3rd level, 2 at 5th, 3 at 9th, and 4 at 15th. When you choose this subclass at 3rd level, you install your first graft for free, with no roll required. Every graft after the first is installed through the Installation procedure below, and you can attempt no more than one installation per character level you gain.

Graft Options

• Arm (Battlefist). An integrated arcanotech limb. It functions as a normal hand, can make an unarmed strike dealing 1d8 force damage (magical; uses Strength or Intelligence, your choice), and can house one integrated one-handed weapon or tool you’re proficient with, deployed or retracted as a bonus action. Integrated items can’t be disarmed or dropped.
• Head (Sensor Array). Choose Perception, Investigation, or Insight; you gain proficiency in it, or expertise if you’re already proficient. You also gain darkvision 60 ft. (or +30 ft. to existing darkvision).
• Legs (Servo Limbs). Your speed increases by 10 feet, your jump distance and height double, and difficult terrain made of loose ground, rubble, or debris costs you no extra movement.
• Core (Reinforced Chassis). Your Constitution score increases by 1, to a maximum of 20 — you can benefit from this a maximum of two times across your career, a hard limit regardless of how many Core grafts you install. Additionally, while you wear no armor, your base AC becomes 13 + your Dexterity modifier.

3rd Level: Installation

Installing a graft is a downtime procedure requiring roughly an hour, tinker’s or smith’s tools, and a safe place to work. Roll 3d6 + your proficiency bonus against the difficulty:

• Base difficulty 14. Modifiers:
  • +2 for a Head graft;
  • +2 for a Core graft;
  • −1 for each graft you’ve already installed beyond the first.
• If a creature with Medicine proficiency assists, add one bonus die sized by their Medicine bonus:
  • +4 or less → d4;
  • +5–6 → d6;
  • +7–8 → d8;
  • +9–10 → d10.

Compare the total:

• 21+ — Complete success. Installs cleanly.
• 16–20 — Mixed success. Installs with a lasting complication — a reduced benefit, a fragile component prone to breaking, or a vulnerability to a specific damage type or substance — worked out with your DM. One later downtime session can repair it to clean function.
• 15 or below — Complete failure. The graft fails, can’t be reattempted until your next downtime opportunity, and the procedure goes badly wrong (see below).

Graft Failure Rules

On a Complete Failure, track the amount you missed 16 by — a worse botch is harder to recover from.

Arm or Legs failure: An artery is cut. You drop to 0 hit points and begin death saving throws. A creature with Medicine proficiency can stabilize you with a Medicine check at DC 10 + the amount you missed 16 by (a healing spell bypasses the check). Alternatively, at the DM’s discretion, the limb is lost; regenerate or comparable magic can restore it, but no mundane means can.

Head failure: Your head or spinal cord is severely damaged. You drop to 0 and begin death saves; assistance must be magical and you have seconds. A healing spell stabilizes you but leaves you unconscious 1d4 + 2 days. If you die with body and head in the same space, revivify or true resurrection restores you (unconscious 1d4 + 2 days). Before you wake, roll d100 against 20 + the amount you missed 16 by; roll under and you retain lasting damage (paralysis, lost mobility, lost vision, lost cognition — DM’s discretion), curable by regenerate, greater restoration, or higher-level restorative magic but not by mundane means.

Core failure: Your circulatory system can no longer reach your extremities. You drop to 0 and begin death saves. A creature with Medicine proficiency can stabilize you at DC 12 + the amount you missed 16 by (a healing spell bypasses the check). Healing leaves you unconscious 1d4 + 2 days.

5th Level: Overcharge

As a bonus action, push one installed graft past its limits for 1 minute:

• Battlefist: unarmed strikes deal 2d8 instead of 1d8.
• Head: your darkvision becomes truesight out to 30 feet.
• Legs: gain +15 feet of speed and immunity to being knocked prone.
• Core: gain temporary hit points equal to twice your Artificer level.

You can Overcharge a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum once) per long rest. Each time an Overcharge ends, you gain one level of exhaustion.

Your graft capacity increases to 2.

9th Level: Refined Integration

Your body has adapted. When you make an Installation roll, roll 4d6 and keep the highest three. Additionally, once per long rest when an Overcharge ends, you can choose not to take the level of exhaustion.

Your graft capacity increases to 3.

15th Level: Ascendant Frame

The fragilities of flesh have started to fall away. You gain resistance to poison damage, immunity to disease and the poisoned condition, and you no longer need to eat, drink, or breathe.

Additionally, your graft capacity increases to 4, and you can Overcharge two installed grafts with a single bonus action (still one use; the exhaustion cost, if incurred, is one level total).