A severing creature has developed, either naturally or through artificial augmentation, pincers of tremendous sharpness and strength capable of slicing the limbs right off a foe.

CREATING A SEVERING CREATURE

"Severing" is an inherited or acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature that possesses scorpion-like pincer or claws (referred to hereafter as the base creature). A severing creature uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type: The creature's type and size remain unchanged.

Special Attacks: A severing creature retains all the base creature's special attacks and gains those described below.

Augmented Critical (Ex): A severing creature's pincer attack threatens a critical hit on a natural attack roll of 19-20. On a successful critical hit with a pincer attack, it deals triple damage.

Sever Limb (Ex): On a successfully confirmed critical hit with its pincer, the severing creature severs a limb (randomly determined, below) from a creature of its own size or smaller. Creatures larger than the severing creature have limbs too thick for it to sever.

A severed arm or tentacle removes the ability to make an attack or take an action using that appendage. A severed leg reduces speed by half and causes the victim to fall prone (although it may stand and hobble about on following rounds). Balance checks suffer a -10 penalty for bipeds and -5 penalty for quadropeds with severed legs. The anatomy of some creatures prevents this ability from taking effect (such as oozes).

A foe immune to critical hits may still suffer a severing attack, although the damage is not tripled for the critical. For example, an undead creature may lose an arm but not suffer the critical hit damage. In this situation, confirm the critical threat normally, but do not apply the extra damage. A living victim of a severing attack suffers 2 hit points of damage every round thereafter due to loss of blood or other vitae. The damage continues until a cure spell of any level is applied, or the victim receives a successful application of a DC 20 Heal check. A creature normally immune to critical hits does not suffer this additional damage.

Bipedal Foe (roll 1d4)		Quadruped Foe (roll 1d4)
1	Right Leg	1	Right Front Leg
2	Right Arm	2	Right Rear Leg
3	Left Leg	3	Left Front Leg
4	Left Arm	4	Left Rear Leg

Tauric Foe (roll 1d6)		Four-Armed Foe (roll 1d6)
1	Right Front Leg	1	Right Leg
2	Right Rear Leg	2	Right Upper Arm
3	Left Front Leg	3	Left Leg
4	Left Rear Leg	4	Left Upper Arm
5	Right Arm	5	Right Lower Arm
6	Left Arm	6	Left Lower Arm

Abilities: Str +2.

Challenge Rating: Same as base creature +2.

Source: Charles W. Plemons III.

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