Prosthetics

Referenced from Player Reference — Rests, Wear & Wounds §8, Massive Wounds. Only relevant if a wound went untreated past its ten-day clock and became permanent.

These are ordinary equipment, bought with gold, not treasure the characters find lying around. This is to avoid the decision to leave a character impaired entirely in the GM’s hands.

A prosthetic makes a permanent wound milder; it doesn’t erase it. Each one leaves a small lasting drawback and adds a small upside. Only magic can restore the limb completely (such as a magical prosthetic, Hand of Vecna (j/k), or a spell like regenerate or better).

Available

Item	Cost	Weight
Prosthetic (arm or hand)	125 gp	4 lb.
Prosthetic (leg or foot)	75 gp	8 lb.
Hook hand	15 gp	1 lb.

Usually metal, custom made to replace whatever portion of the limb was lost. A good smith or chirurgeon can fit one in a settlement of reasonable size; expect about two weeks of fittings, adjustments and getting used to it.

Arm or Hand

Replaces the Arm or Hand wound’s penalties with these:

• It can hold or brace one item or thing: a shield, a lantern, a strapped-on item, a rope you’re climbing.
• It can’t wield a weapon or do fine work. You can’t attack with it, and it can’t be the second hand on a two-handed weapon, a versatile weapon or a bow. Tools that need two skilled hands, such as thieves’ tools, smith’s tools or a musical instrument, are used one-handed, with disadvantage.
• You can’t gain advantage or expertise dice on Sleight of Hand checks made with it.
• Upside: used defensively, it gives a +1 bonus to AC, as though you were wielding a light shield. This doesn’t stack with a real shield, and it can’t hold anything else while you use it this way.

If losing two-handed weapon use would gut a character’s concept and build, the player and the GM can work something out…

Leg or Foot

Replaces the Leg or Foot wound’s penalties with these:

• Your speed is reduced by 5 feet. You no longer need a cane or crutch.
• Disadvantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks to keep your balance.
• You can’t gain advantage or expertise dice on saving throws to avoid being knocked prone while standing on it.
• Upsides: you take half damage from caltrops, spikes, and damaging difficult terrain. Depending on how it’s built, it can conceal one Tiny item (DC 15 Investigation or Perception to notice).

Again, if this destroys your character concept, we can discuss how to make it right for your character. (…)

Hook Hand

A common and considerably cheaper-looking option. It has all the drawbacks of an arm or hand prosthetic, with a different upside:

• The hook is a weapon you’re never without unless you removed it at night and forgot to put it back on. It counts as a light, simple melee weapon dealing 1d4 piercing damage, the same as a dagger, and can’t be disarmed.
• It can’t be used defensively for the +1 AC.

Eyes

There is no prosthetic for an eye. A glass eye is cosmetic: it looks right, but the disadvantage on sight-based Perception and ranged attacks stays. (Unless, of course, it isn’t an ordinary glass eye.) Once the wound is permanent, restoring the sight itself requires regenerate or better.

Sources

Prices, weights and the upsides come from A5E’s prosthetics in the Level Up: Adventurer’s Guide equipment chapter. A5E lists weights as “varies.” A5E’s engineering rules put building a prosthetic hand or leg at about two weeks of skilled work, and that wait is kept here. The drawbacks are house rules (November 2026): A5E’s versions were nearly cosmetic, which made a prosthetic close to an upgrade. The hook was cut from 1d6 to 1d4.

Official 5E is gentler still. Eberron: Rising from the Last War has a Prosthetic Limb, a common magic item that works exactly like the limb it replaces. The 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide lingering injuries say only that a peg leg or other prosthesis removes the need for a cane after losing a leg. Regenerate regrows limbs outright.

Giffyglyph’s Darker Dungeons has its own take, not used here: prosthetics as magic items by rarity, with mundane ones being pure flavour (a False Leg with a secret compartment, a Glass Eye) and the interesting versions Rare — an Arm of Living Bark that extends your reach 5 feet once per short rest, a Foot of Cloud Walking that doubles your jump distance. Those are good items and worth stealing as treasure later. They’re just the wrong way to handle the baseline, for the reason at the top of this page.