Homebrew Cyborg Species Details

Cyborgs are Humanoids with an extraordinary biological tolerance for invasive mechanical augmentation. Their bodies don't naturally begin with bionic components, but their physiology can accept artificial replacements, weapons, mobility systems, sensory equipment, and other augmentations with a degree of integration that would normally be impossible.

A Cyborg's greatest strength isn't any single machine. It is the ability to continually redesign the body carrying it.

Cyborg Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Creature Type. You are a Humanoid.

Size. You are Medium.

Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Alignment. Cyborgs possess no inherent tendency toward any particular alignment.

Life Span. Becoming a Cyborg doesn't inherently alter your natural life span. Your normal aging is determined by your origin and setting, although individual augmentations can affect it at the DM's discretion.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.

Visionaire

Each unique, functional augment installed in your body increases your AC by 1, to a maximum bonus of +2 AC from this trait.

An augment whose structural integrity has been compromised doesn't grant this AC bonus until it is repaired.

Installing multiple copies of the same augment or otherwise replicating the same function doesn't allow you to exceed this maximum.

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Pay to Win

Contrary to what the name might suggest, your body initially contains no bionic augmentations.

Instead, your physiology possesses an exceptional ability to accept and incorporate foreign mechanical structures without suffering conventional biological rejection, allowing sufficiently skilled creatures to integrate highly specialized machinery directly into your body.

Throughout this race, an individual installed mechanical system is referred to as an augment, while augmentation refers to the general process of modifying your body.

Augment Capacity

Your body is divided into four major augmentation sections:

• Head

• Torso

• Arms (2 slots)

• Legs (2 slots)

Each section can support only one augment at a time, regardless of the augment's physical complexity or number of individual components.

An augment's permanent physical structure can't exceed the overall dimensions of the body section containing it.

Temporary deployment, unfolding components, extending weapons, telescoping mechanisms, projected structures, and similar temporary expansions aren't restricted by this limitation.

A Single Purpose

Every augment must be designed around one clear primary purpose.

Examples include attacking, healing, flight, climbing, detecting creatures, breaking objects, producing light, purifying water, or another similarly defined function.

An augment can't be designed to perform several unrelated primary functions simultaneously.

Its mechanisms for deployment, concealment, retraction, storage, stabilization, and physical integration don't count as additional purposes.

Designing an Augment

Before an augment can be installed, its intended design must first be planned.

The creature designing the augment makes an Intelligence check against a DC determined by the DM according to the complexity of the proposed augmentation.

On a success, the design is viable.

On a failure, the design isn't yet viable. Once you attempt this check, you can't attempt it again until you finish a Short or Long Rest.

Constructing the augment then requires 1,000 gp worth of appropriate materials.

During the design process, determine the following with the DM:

• the body section in which the augment will be installed;

• its single primary purpose;

• the ability score most relevant to its function, if applicable;

• any damage type it produces;

• its deployment and concealment method;

• its physical limitations; and

• the tool required to repair it, if any.

The DM has final authority over whether a proposed augment can reasonably perform its intended function.

Installation

Once a viable design and the necessary materials are available, you can perform the installation yourself or allow another creature to perform it.

Installing an augment requires at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted work and must be performed outside combat.

The first time a particular augment is installed, the installer makes two consecutive Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) checks.

The second check has a higher DC than the first. Both DCs are determined by the DM according to the complexity, invasiveness, and precision required by the installation.

The augmentation process is completed after both checks are resolved.

If both checks succeed, the augment functions as designed.

If one or both checks fail, the augment can still be installed. However, the quality of the final result is affected by the degree of failure. The DM determines how the completed augment differs from its original design.

A minor failure might result in imperfect concealment, cumbersome deployment, uncomfortable positioning, slower mechanical movement, or cosmetic irregularities. A more substantial failure can impose correspondingly greater imperfections.

The results of the installation checks therefore determine the quality of the augment's integration, concealment, deployment, and construction, rather than simply determining whether the augment exists at all.

No matter how invasive, gruesome, or physically destructive the installation appears, installing an augment deals no damage to you. Your body accepts and adapts to the installed machinery immediately as part of the process.

Removing and Swapping Augments

You can remove an installed augment only outside combat.

Removing an augment requires at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted work.

The first time a particular augment is removed after being installed, the creature performing the removal makes two consecutive Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) checks using the same general procedure as its installation. The second check has a higher DC than the first, and both DCs are determined by the DM according to the complexity and delicacy of the removal.

If both checks succeed, the augment is removed intact.

If one or both checks fail, the augment is still removed, but the DM determines whether its integrity is compromised according to the severity of the failure.

A removed augment whose integrity remains intact can be installed again later.

Once a particular augment has been successfully installed and properly removed at least once, your body and the augment are considered fully adapted to one another.

From that point onward, removing or reinstalling that same augment requires 30 minutes of uninterrupted work but no ability checks.

You can therefore freely swap previously adapted augments in and out of compatible augmentation sections, provided each swap is performed outside combat and the augment's integrity hasn't been compromised.

A damaged augment must be repaired before it can be installed again.

Removing an augment normally causes you no damage.

Biofuel

Your augmentations are powered directly by the energy produced by your body.

Calories, stored chemical energy, and normal biological processes are converted into bioenergy, which supplies an augment with whatever power its design requires.

This bioenergy substitutes for ordinary fuel, ammunition, electrical charge, propellant, or similar consumable resources required by the augment's operation.

Unless otherwise stated, each augment can use its primary active function a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and it regains all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Each augment tracks its uses separately.

Passive structural properties, such as a replacement limb functioning as an ordinary limb, don't consume uses.

Deploying, retracting, or concealing an augment doesn't consume a use unless doing so directly activates its primary function.

Augment Save DC

If an augment requires a saving throw, use one of your class feature save DCs, chosen when the augment is designed.

If you have more than one class feature save DC, choose which one the augment uses when it is installed.

If you don't have a class feature save DC, use the following:

Augment Save DC = 8 + your Proficiency Bonus + the augment's relevant ability modifier

The relevant ability is chosen when the augment is designed and must reasonably correspond to its function.

Lasting Effects

Exceptional construction can cause an augment to produce a secondary effect that persists after its primary function resolves.

Whenever the natural d20 result of an installation or upgrade check is 18, 19, or 20, you can choose to give that augment one appropriate Lasting Effect, subject to the DM's approval.

Examples include:

• causing a creature to burn;

• inflicting a concussion;

• producing lingering radiation;

• contaminating an area;

• creating Difficult Terrain; or

• producing another persistent consequence appropriate to the augment.

An augment can possess only one Lasting Effect.

Gaining one is optional.

If an augment doesn't yet possess a Lasting Effect, each future upgrade check provides another opportunity to gain one.

If a Lasting Effect requires a saving throw, it uses the augment's normal save DC.

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Augment Integrity

Your augments can withstand ordinary impacts and bodily trauma, but sufficiently severe damage can compromise their integration.

Whenever you take damage equal to or greater than half your Hit Point maximum from a single instance of damage, you must make a Constitution saving throw.

The DC is determined by the DM according to the nature and severity of the damage.

On a failed save, one augment affected by the impact becomes damaged. The DM determines which augment is affected based on the source of the damage, the point of impact, and the circumstances.

For example, a devastating blow to your torso would most reasonably threaten a Torso augment, while a destructive impact centered on one of your arms could compromise your Arms augment.

This rule can be triggered by attacks, environmental hazards, collisions, explosions, or any other source capable of dealing the required amount of damage in a single instance.

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Repairing an Augment

An augment can have its integrity compromised by physical damage, excessive mechanical stress, System Failure, a failed environmental stress check, an improper removal, or another circumstance determined by the DM.

While damaged, an augment:

• can't use its primary function; and

• doesn't contribute to your AC through Visionaire.

It remains damaged until successfully repaired.

You can attempt to repair an augment only outside combat.

Repairing one requires 250 gp worth of materials that are identical, similar, or reasonably substitutable for the materials used to construct the augment.

You then make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check with Advantage against a DC determined by the DM according to the severity of the damage.

On a success, the augment is fully repaired.

On a failure, the materials are expended and the augment remains damaged.

Repair Tools

When an augment is installed, choose one tool from the Official Tool Appendix that is appropriate for its construction.

The DM determines whether that tool is actually required for a particular repair.

The DM can also approve an improvised substitute when appropriate.

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Mobility Augments

An augment whose primary purpose is movement must obey the following limitations.

Flight

A flight augment can grant you a Fly Speed of up to 20 feet.

Once activated, you can remain airborne for up to 1 minute.

At the end of that duration, you must land and remain in contact with the ground or another stable supporting surface for at least 6 seconds before you can activate the flight augment again.

If you remain suspended in approximately the same position rather than using the augment for meaningful aerial movement, the augment can instead maintain you in the air for up to 5 minutes before the same 6-second grounded period is required.

Swimming, Climbing, and Burrowing

An augment designed to improve a Swimming Speed, Climb Speed, Burrow Speed, or comparable specialized movement mode can increase that movement speed by no more than 15 feet beyond its normal value.

If the augment creates a movement mode you don't normally possess, the DM determines the resulting movement speed, subject to the same general limitation.

Terrestrial Mobility

An augment designed to improve your ordinary terrestrial movement can increase your walking Speed by no more than 10 feet.

If the augment physically transforms part of your body into a mobile configuration, such as wheels, tracks, articulated running limbs, or another vehicle-like system, the transformation can remain active for up to 1 minute per use.

Enhanced Jumping

A mobility augment can double the distance of one jump.

Each enhanced jump expends one use of that augment.

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Environmental Augments

An environmental augment modifies objects, terrain, materials, or other aspects of the surrounding environment.

Examples include breaking doors, cutting through walls, purifying water, constructing objects, excavating terrain, or manipulating physical materials.

Augment Check

When you use an environmental augment for a task whose outcome is uncertain, make an Augment Check:

1d20 + your Proficiency Bonus

You make this roll with Advantage.

The DC is determined by the DM according to the difficulty of the task.

Using an environmental augment for such a task normally requires an Action.

An Augment Check can't allow an augment to exceed the physical limits established when it was designed.

For example, an augment designed to break ordinary doors doesn't gain the ability to demolish a fortress wall merely because the result of its Augment Check is exceptionally high.

Structural Backlash

If an environmental augment attempts to destroy or forcibly alter something through direct physical contact and the Augment Check fails, you must make a Constitution saving throw.

The DC is determined by the DM according to the mechanical stress imposed on the augment.

On a failed save, the augment becomes damaged and must be repaired before it can function again.

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Attack Augments

An attack augment is an augment whose primary purpose is directly harming another creature.

Examples include machine guns, integrated blades, radioactive fists, concealed cannons, chemical launchers, or a fart-fueled flamethrower that someone inexplicably decided was worth installing.

Augment Attack

When an attack augment is designed, choose one ability score appropriate to the augment's construction and method of operation.

For example, Strength could govern a hydraulic fist, Dexterity a wrist-mounted firearm, Intelligence a calculated targeting system, or Wisdom a sensory-guided weapon.

The DM must approve the chosen ability.

You use that ability modifier for the augment's attack and damage rolls.

Unless its design states otherwise, you can make one attack with an attack augment as a Bonus Action.

Augment Attack Roll:
1d20 + your Proficiency Bonus + the augment's relevant ability modifier

On a hit, an attack augment deals:

1d6 + the augment's relevant ability modifier damage

The damage type is chosen when the augment is designed and must appropriately reflect its function.

For example, a blade could deal Slashing damage, a firearm Piercing damage, a plasma system Radiant damage, or a flamethrower Fire damage.

If an attack augment uses a saving throw instead of an attack roll, it uses your Augment Save DC.

Upgrading Attack Damage

You can permanently improve an attack augment's damage.

Each upgrade requires at least 500 gp worth of appropriate materials, 30 minutes of uninterrupted work, and must be performed outside combat.

After incorporating those materials, make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check against a DC determined by the DM.

On a success, increase the augment's base damage by 1d6.

An attack augment can deal a maximum of:

5d6 + its relevant ability modifier damage

On a failed upgrade check:

• the invested materials are lost;

• the newly added components are rendered unusable; and

• the original augment remains unharmed.

Each upgrade check can also qualify the augment for a Lasting Effect if its natural d20 result is 18, 19, or 20.

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Utility Augments

A utility augment performs a function that doesn't primarily deal damage or provide enhanced movement.

Examples include mirrors, telescopic lenses, illumination systems, concealed storage, harmless firework launchers, detection equipment, filtration systems, or a replenishing deodorant dispenser of deeply questionable necessity.

Unless a utility augment is passive, activating its primary function normally requires an Action.

When a utility augment produces an effect at range, its maximum range is 60 feet.

A utility augment can't directly deal damage or provide enhanced movement unless it was instead designed under the appropriate augment category.

Prosthetic Replacement

You can construct an augment whose sole purpose is to perfectly replace a missing body part.

A prosthetic replacement functions as the lost body part for all ordinary purposes but provides no additional mechanical benefit by itself.

A purely functional prosthetic replacement doesn't occupy the augmentation slot of the body section it replaces.

For example, if your arm is replaced by a purely functional prosthetic arm, you can later install a separate Arms augment into that prosthetic under the normal installation rules.

Any additional augment installed into the prosthesis must be designed, constructed, and installed normally.

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Healing Augments

A healing augment restores Hit Points to you or another creature.

Activating one normally requires an Action and expends one use of that augment.

Choose yourself or another creature within the augment's designed range, which can't exceed 60 feet.

Make an Augment Check against a DC determined by the DM.

Unlike an environmental Augment Check, you don't have Advantage on this roll.

On a success, the target regains:

1d6 + your Intelligence modifier Hit Points

On a failure, no Hit Points are restored, but the use is still expended.

Upgrading Healing

You can permanently improve a healing augment using the same general process used to upgrade an attack augment.

Each upgrade requires at least 500 gp worth of appropriate materials, 30 minutes of uninterrupted work, and must be performed outside combat.

After incorporating those materials, make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check against a DC determined by the DM.

On a success, increase the healing by 1d6.

A healing augment can restore a maximum of:

5d6 + your Intelligence modifier Hit Points

On a failed upgrade check, the invested materials are lost, but the original augment remains unharmed.

Each upgrade check can also qualify the augment for a Lasting Effect if its natural d20 result is 18, 19, or 20.

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System Failure

Once per Combat

Your body contains one final emergency protocol capable of sacrificing an installed augment to violently restart your biological systems.

When you are reduced to 0 Hit Points but not killed outright, you can activate System Failure immediately, without taking an action.

Choose one functional augment currently installed in your body.

The chosen augment is fried beyond repair, immediately detaches from your body, and ceases functioning.

Its removal deals no additional damage to you.

You automatically succeed on one death saving throw and immediately regain 1 Hit Point.

For a brief period, your body enters an extreme overdrive state.

Until the end of your next turn, you gain the following benefits:

• You gain Temporary Hit Points equal to 10 times your total character level.

• You have Advantage on all attack rolls.

• Each of your ability modifiers is treated as 3 higher than normal for all purposes.

Any Temporary Hit Points remaining from System Failure disappear at the end of your next turn.

When these enhancements end, you gain 1 level of Exhaustion.

Once you use System Failure, you can't use it again during the same combat.

You can't use System Failure unless you have at least one functional augment available to sacrifice.

The destroyed augment no longer occupies its former augmentation section. You can install another augment into that section normally.

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Official Tool Appendix

The following tools can serve as the designated repair tool for an augment when appropriate.

Artisan's Tools

• Alchemist's Supplies

• Brewer's Supplies

• Calligrapher's Supplies

• Carpenter's Tools

• Cartographer's Tools

• Cobbler's Tools

• Cook's Utensils

• Glassblower's Tools

• Jeweler's Tools

• Leatherworker's Tools

• Mason's Tools

• Painter's Supplies

• Potter's Tools

• Smith's Tools

• Tinker's Tools

• Weaver's Tools

• Woodcarver's Tools

The DM can determine that a particular tool is unsuitable for repairing a particular augment even if you are proficient with it.

Cyborg Traits

A highly adaptable Humanoid who designs, installs, swaps, and upgrades biofuel-powered augments to enhance defense, movement, utility, healing, and combat capabilities.