Path of the Wrecker

Muscle breaks Steel; Rage defeats Machines; Strength beats Systems; such is the creed of the wrecker. True barbarians learn this creed quickly when set adrift in the so-called civilized world of blinking lights and metal walls. People have lost their way in this universe, trusting their lives to machines and algorithms instead of the reliability of their own might. Setting upon the Path of the Wrecker means tearing down the machines and buildings of the mechanized world and letting your bottomless rage guide you when the universe itself seems upside-down.

Dismantle

By 3rd level, ripping apart machines, piece by piece, comes second nature to you. While you’re raging, you ignore the damage threshold of nonmagical objects. Additionally, you double the rage bonus damage you deal to constructs and living constructs.

Percussive Maintenance

Starting at 6th level, you understand that smashing something usually makes it work better. You can attempt to hack a device that could usually be hacked, such as a door control panel or an arcane terminal, by breaking it. Make a Strength (Athletics) check in place of an Intelligence (Data) check. On a success, you perform one operation on the system of your choice as if you had full access, just as if you successfully hacked the system. The machine breaks immediately after this and can’t be used afterwards without repair, whether or not you succeeded on the check.

Disarm Foe

By 10th level, you’ve become quite skilled in the time- tested tactic of ripping off an enemy’s limb and swinging it at them. You gain proficiency in improvised weapons. When you reduce a humanoid creature to 0 hit points with a melee weapon attack, you can rip off one of its limbs.

Alternatively, you can use your action to attempt to rip a limb off a Large or smaller construct or undead creature within 5 feet of you by making an opposed Strength (Athletics) check against it. A construct or undead that has more than half its hit points automatically succeeds on this check. If you successfully rip off a limb, you can immediately use it to make a melee attack as a bonus action. A creature missing a limb can’t make attacks using a removed limb and has disadvantage on ability checks that involve using their limbs. You can only remove one limb from a creature.

A severed limb is an improvised melee weapon which deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage on a hit. If removed from a Large creature, it deals 1d10 bludgeoning damage instead.

Crush, Smash, Bash

Starting at 14th level, your strikes land with such ferocity that you tear armor and armor plating asunder. While raging, when you deal damage with a melee weapon attack to a construct or a creature wearing armor, you can cause the armor or construct to take a cumulative −1 penalty to the AC it offers, to a maximum penalty of −4 AC. A construct or suit of armor damaged by this ability can be repaired in 1 hour for 100 gp per point of AC penalty taken.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Dark Matter Copyright 2019, Mage Hand Press, LLC; authors Michael Holik, Jaron Mortimer, Benjamin Richardson, Matthew Pennell, Jason Sinclair