# Why are Warforged so bad?



## Marshall (Apr 10, 2005)

So I finally picked up Eberron, thinking that it had some cool ideas in it(Boy was I wrong). 
As I'm reading the Warforged, I get to the living construct description...As far as I can tell, these guys are Humanoids that dont eat/sleep/breathe(oh boy   :\ ) and are immune to poison(eh), paralysis(what _Hold x_?) and energy drain(nice when you need it).

For this they have penalty stats, dont heal, only get 1/2 effect from healing magic and are vulnerable to object spells. 

Oh yeah, and they come with a suit of _Leather of Light Fort_ that they cant take off...so they get 25% crit reduction but cant wear armors or robes.

OTOT, they get a whole slew of racial feats that are as much penalty as they are bonus...

Adamantine Body is counted as Heavy Armor for movement.
Mithril Body gives the benefits and resrictions of wearing Mithril Chain Mail.
Improved Fortification bumps your Light Fort to 100% but at the cost of Healing magic working at all.

From what I've heard, Races of Eb has even more feats that penalize the WF for taking them, yet their only benefit is to remove a restirction from the race.

Is it me, or are Warforged just a trap to sucker in those that think the Half-Orc doenst have enough flavor?


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## Crothian (Apr 10, 2005)

It's just you.  Ya, they have some neat pnealities and interesting bonuses, but it is the best playible construct race I've seen.  It is actually one of the better races I've seen come from Wizards in quite a while; much better the the other new races in the setting and those Races of books.


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## the Jester (Apr 10, 2005)

I love the warforged so much that I put them in my homebrew (albeit with a somewhat different backstory- they're brand new, being manufactured for the current big war).


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## Sammael (Apr 10, 2005)

the Jester said:
			
		

> I love the warforged so much that I put them in my homebrew (albeit with a somewhat different backstory- they're brand new, being manufactured for the current big war).



Ditto for my FR game.


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## Hodgie (Apr 10, 2005)

Going to have to back the other kids.  Adamantine Full Plate at 1st level (albeit for a feat) is not a penalty... and really is a gift that keeps on giving for levels to come.  Granted I've not seen them played into levels where you could purchase adamantine full plate, but at low levels that proves _very_, if not overly, powerful.


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## Marshall (Apr 10, 2005)

The idea is cool. I get that. What about the mechanics fo the race make them playable to you?


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 10, 2005)

the Jester said:
			
		

> I love the warforged so much that I put them in my homebrew (albeit with a somewhat different backstory- they're brand new, being manufactured for the current big war).



 I've got Warforged, Changelings, and Shifters inserted into my homebrew. All great races, and though I'm not a huge fan of Warforged, they're an interesting change of place. Changelings are the best, though.


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## Mouseferatu (Apr 10, 2005)

I'm going to have to bookmark this thread, so I can point it out to people--and I've spoken to _several_--who feel that the warforged are too powerful.

Rule of Thumb: If a roughly equal number of people complain about X being underpowered and X being overpowered, X is probably pretty well balanced.


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## Andor (Apr 10, 2005)

*It's a package deal...*

If you were to look at the warforged in a void, then yeah, they're probably not the best race you could pick. 

However if you look at them in the context of their setting they look a lot better. There are numerous cool items that only work for them, plot points centered on them. Most importantly there is the artificer class. A warforged backed up by an artificer or a warforged who is himself an artificer could not care less about clerical healing, and has access to a whole bunch of buffing.


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## Quasqueton (Apr 10, 2005)

Constructs with Constitution? Makes. No. Sense.

Quasqueton


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## Crothian (Apr 10, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Constructs with Constitution? Makes. No. Sense.
> 
> Quasqueton




If we start judging the game on what makes sense, soon we will have no game left.   :\


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 10, 2005)

Andor said:
			
		

> If you were to look at the warforged in a void, then yeah, they're probably not the best race you could pick.
> 
> However if you look at them in the context of their setting they look a lot better. There are numerous cool items that only work for them, plot points centered on them. Most importantly there is the artificer class. A warforged backed up by an artificer or a warforged who is himself an artificer could not care less about clerical healing, and has access to a whole bunch of buffing.




That's worth repeating: warforged without any artificers (or at least without the repair spells) are weak. With them they're ok.


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## Remathilis (Apr 10, 2005)

I love them. 

Make sure you allow Artificer as a class though, one without the other is pretty pointless.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 10, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Constructs with Constitution? Makes. No. Sense.
> 
> Quasqueton




If Chewbacca is a wookie, then you must acquit!


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## Remathilis (Apr 10, 2005)

Dr. Awkward said:
			
		

> If Chewbacca is a wookie, then you must acquit!




Actually, if Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit.

I love that episode. God Rest Johnny Cochrain.


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## Ibram (Apr 10, 2005)

I just cant seem to "get" the idea of playing a construct.  I know it makes sense in the Ebberon setting, but its just to strange (almost silly) for a campaign I'd run.


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## Hand of Evil (Apr 10, 2005)

I don't have a problem with them but now Drow are creeping into the setting and I think I can say it may have 'jumped the shark'.


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## Gez (Apr 10, 2005)

*Emphatically dittoes what Tracy said.*

IMC, the warforged have the extraplanar subtype. They, along with modrons, maugs, inevitables, and keepers (which are all at various thresholds of "mechanicism"), all come from the same planet, which kinda double as a clockwork world of all-controlling Law.

I'll have to get the players in trouble with them. When they get cornered by a bunch of keepers, start to win the fight, and then the remaining keepers summon a pair of warforged titans... It would be a great fight scene.


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## TroyXavier (Apr 10, 2005)

I love Warforged.  They're quite fun.  Shifters are fun too.  Can't wait to get Races of Eberron and get some more goodies.


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## Kesh (Apr 10, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> I don't have a problem with them but now Drow are creeping into the setting and I think I can say it may have 'jumped the shark'.



 Creeping? From what I understand, they were always there. They just aren't major players, and are mostly restricted to a continent that doesn't get detailed.

Not to mention there are different Drow: the Umbragen (shadow elves), the scorpion worshippers, and the "extinct" ones in the Ring of Storms (detailed in the latest Dungeon).


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## RithTheAwakener (Apr 10, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Constructs with Constitution? Makes. No. Sense.
> 
> Quasqueton




well they are called _Living_ Constructs...


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## Emirikol (Apr 10, 2005)

*Sentient Warforged Scout*

The warforged are 'bad' because they're so integral to the fabric of Eberron play.  They are one of seven things that makes Eberron unique from other worlds.

...plus the Warforged Scout is cool too (from the RPGA player rewards cards and MMIII):
"They Send Tanix for diversion.  I am the surgical strike."  - Servine IV, warforged scout
Not all warfoged fit all purposes, and the smaller, more nimble warforged scouts were built for skirmish and stealth, to compliment to the larger models' strength and stamina.  Though either less common or less seen than the larger warforged, they are subject to Treaty of Thornhold, which granted warforged their freedom through most of Khorvaire.

BENEFIT:  You are a warforged scout.  Warforged scouts possess the following racial traits:
*  +2 Dexterity, -2 strength, -2 wisdom, -2 charisma.
*  Small size, +1 bonus to AC, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, -4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits 3/4 those of Medium characters
*  A warforges scout's base land speed is 20 feet
*  Special qualities (see Eberron Campaign Setting)
*  Automatic languages:  Common.  Bonus languages:  none.
*  Favored class:  Rogue

More information on the warforged scout can be found in Monster Manual III and MARK OF HEROES, SET 2, CARD 1 OF 10 "SENTIENT SCOUT"

It reminds me of the AT-ST from star warts.


..


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## Rauol_Duke (Apr 10, 2005)

Emirikol said:
			
		

> It reminds me of the AT-ST from star warts.
> 
> 
> ..




...star warts... I had those once.  Got a shot.  Cleared 'em right up.


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## Felon (Apr 10, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Constructs with Constitution? Makes. No. Sense.




The only sense it seems that is necessary is Keith Baker's notion that magical androids are a neat idea for a PC race. Warforged are the hump you have to get over to accept the Eberron setting. Once you have PC robots in your fantasy, everything else about the spellpunk setting becomes easier to swallow.


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## Gez (Apr 10, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Creeping? From what I understand, they were always there. They just aren't major players, and are mostly restricted to a continent that doesn't get detailed.




Yeah, but they get more and more attention. It is in that way they are creeping. The more attention they get, the more "look it, they are cool" articles devoted to them they have, and the more they will creep in Khorvaire, where they are not supposed to be, until the whole continent gets renamed Drizztaire.

I think we know more about the drow (NPC race from Xen'drik, the place where adventurers go once they're high-level enough) than about, say, the Talenta halflings (PC race from Khorvaire, the places where all adventures start and a majority of them stay throughout the campaign). So of course, the drow are "cooler" than the halflings, and you will have more PC drow even-if-they're-not-supposed-to-be-there than you will have PC halflings. QED.



			
				Kesh said:
			
		

> Not to mention there are different Drow: the Umbragen (shadow elves), the scorpion worshippers, and the "extinct" ones in the Ring of Storms (detailed in the latest Dungeon).




See? The defense rests.


Three drow cultures, two of which are very interesting, and the last one of which has still not shown to the world how cool it is (with elemental binders that are, from birth, much much better than even the most experienced Zil shipwright, notably).

I hate drow. The moment they're allowed to exist in a setting, they'll hog all the spotlight until they've blotted the sun out, having sucked all its energy just to shine more than the other races. (This is why drow are often allied to mindflayers. Mindflayers know drow work naturally toward their ends.)

Now that Eberron has started to heavily focus on the drow, it has jumped the shark. Now we will have drow stuff in every Eberron product, be it a sourcebook, and adventure, or a magazine article. Don't complain later, you were warned!


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## Hand of Evil (Apr 11, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Creeping? From what I understand, they were always there. They just aren't major players, and are mostly restricted to a continent that doesn't get detailed.
> 
> Not to mention there are different Drow: the Umbragen (shadow elves), the scorpion worshippers, and the "extinct" ones in the Ring of Storms (detailed in the latest Dungeon).



Yes, always there in Xen'drik, in Dungeon, in Dragon and in RoE...creeping by demand...   I think you can even find quotes from Hellcow  (K. Baker) that the were never to be a playable race (I will search on that).


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2005)

Marshall said:
			
		

> So I finally picked up Eberron, thinking that it had some cool ideas in it (Boy was I wrong).



See, that's the problem. The Eberron Campaign Setting really isn't a stand alone crucnch book. It's not just a big book of subraces, feats, and PrCs that can be used in any setting. Most of what's in there assumes that your either playing in Eberron or something close to it. WotC can't advertise this because they need people to belive that it's all modular, but it's not as modular as, say, The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

I love Eberron, but I picked up the book thinking I'd have another book the FRCS, and I was disapointed in that area. Fortunitly, I loved the setting and got to run a game there. 



			
				Felon said:
			
		

> spellpunk



I'm going to steal this word. I'm going to use it and pretend Eberron always been called "spellpunk."


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## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> See, that's the problem. The Eberron Campaign Setting really isn't a stand alone crucnch book. It's not just a big book of subraces, feats, and PrCs that can be used in any setting. Most of what's in there assumes that your either playing in Eberron or something close to it. WotC can't advertise this because they need people to belive that it's all modular, but it's not as modular as, say, The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.




Well, I use it as an idea mine, and my world is definitely different (see above for the planar warforged, for example).

I just won't mine anything related to drow. My setting is clean and pristine, untouched by the foul drowtaint.


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## Hand of Evil (Apr 11, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> Yes, always there in Xen'drik, in Dungeon, in Dragon and in RoE...creeping by demand...   I think you can even find quotes from Hellcow  (K. Baker) that the were never to be a playable race (I will search on that).



Here is that link:http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=1612820&postcount=28

While kind of a mis-quote and not an issue, everyone has their on way of gaming.


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## Dave Turner (Apr 11, 2005)

The original poster is not wrong.  Mike Mearls' Ironborn from "The Book of Iron Might" are the warforged done right.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 11, 2005)

For the life of me, I cannot tell why warforged are not LA +1 or +2. 

Pros:
+2 Con
Built in armor (can be enhanced)
25% negation to sneak attacks and criticals
immune to poison, sleep, paralysys, disease, nausia, fatigue, exhaustion, and energy drain
immune to "_person_" spells
auto-stablize, doesn't take damage from exertion at 0 hp
doesn't eat, sleep, or breathe, but can if it wants to

Cons:
-2 Wis
-2 Cha
cannot heal damage naturally
_cure _spells are 1/2 effectiveness

Inability to heal is almost a non-issue (except in the case of ability damage, but then still almost a non-issue). Biggest con, is 1/2 on heals. But, I can't see that equalling out all the other stuff.


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## Crothian (Apr 11, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Inability to heal is almost a non-issue (except in the case of ability damage, but then still almost a non-issue). Biggest con, is 1/2 on heals. But, I can't see that equalling out all the other stuff.




I disagree.  Magical healing can be very hard to find at times.  I don't think that it should be assumed a warforged will always beable to magically heal.  By saying it is a none issue, you are saying that magical healing will always be availible to them.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 11, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> I disagree. Magical healing can be very hard to find at times. I don't think that it should be assumed a warforged will always beable to magically heal. By saying it is a none issue, you are saying that magical healing will always be availible to them.




Past level 5 I have never seen a party of PCs sit around waiting for their wounds to heal. And, if the party has noone who can heal... then that makes 1/2 healing a non-issue.


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## Crothian (Apr 11, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Past level 5 I have never seen a party of PCs sit around waiting for their wounds to heal. And, if the party has noone who can heal... then that makes 1/2 healing a non-issue.




Good point, so should they blaance the race knowing at low levels the ability can be deadly if a Warforged has no magically healing?  Or do they balance the race thinking that at the mid to high levels imagic trumps the weakness?  That's an interestign game design question.


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## Victim (Apr 11, 2005)

The lack of natural healing is pretty much a non issue without even considering magical stuff.  Warforged don't need to sleep, so they can repair themselves while the party rests.  Basically, the idea seems to be that Warforged heal _differently_.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 11, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> Good point, so should they blaance the race knowing at low levels the ability can be deadly if a Warforged has no magically healing? Or do they balance the race thinking that at the mid to high levels imagic trumps the weakness? That's an interestign game design question.




Of that, I'm not sure.

Warforged arn't "overpowered" in the normal sense, I suppose. They're just immune to many things that plague normal adventurers. There are just so many things they're immune to or bypass. Barbarian warforged don't get fatigued after a rage, and none of them are subject to the fatigue/exhaustion spells. They can stay on watch all night. They can swim, but don't need to breathe. You can't cast _charm person_ or _dominate person_ on them. They can't bleed to death (which is helpful at low levels, and at high levels won't come up). And a bunch of other little things that add up to make one really really good character.

I compare to LA +1 races, and they just look better to me. Especially with the construct cures, which appear in the Complete Arcane as well.


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## Testament (Apr 11, 2005)

You left out the two-edged nature of the built in armour.  It's not that great, unless you burn your first level feat to change your forging.  Loss of the "robe" magic item slot is also a nuisance, and the fact that you can be target by object spells is also a sting.

I personally see them as LA +0.5


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## Von Ether (Apr 11, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> Now that Eberron has started to heavily focus on the drow, it has jumped the shark. Now we will have drow stuff in every Eberron product, be it a sourcebook, and adventure, or a magazine article. Don't complain later, you were warned!




I'm also lucky that everyone in my group agrees with me and no one want to play a drow--  but be strong. Grab the knife and start cutting like I did. Drow do not exist in my Eberron.  

I replaced them with something more pulpy ... talking apes with spellware. 

No, really I did.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> Well, I use it as an idea mine, and my world is definitely different (see above for the planar warforged, for example).
> 
> I just won't mine anything related to drow. My setting is clean and pristine, untouched by the foul drowtaint.



 What's wrong with Drow? Yeah, there overused, but they make fine bad guys. Ok, you have to divorce them from the whole "Dominatrix Spider Worshipers" thing, and D-what's-what's-his-name from that other campign setting sets a bad example, oh, and there's a lot of conraditory material out there, and....

Ok, so it seems I've answered my own question.


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## Andor (Apr 11, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> I'm going to steal this word. I'm going to use it and pretend Eberron always been called "spellpunk."




Well, I think you could play Eberron as 'spellpunk', especially in Sharn, it more designed to be 'spellnoir'. Take a look at the suggested viewing/reading list in the front of the book. 

Punk is not a word that springs to mind when I think of The Name of the Rose, or The Maltese Falcon.... Wow... I just pictured Peter Lorre as a Goblin Henchman.... That is so going in a game.


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## Pants (Apr 11, 2005)

Dave Turner said:
			
		

> The original poster is not wrong.  Mike Mearls' Ironborn from "The Book of Iron Might" are the warforged done right.



Well... we have one person who says they're underpowered and another who says their overpowered... Which is right?

I personally, don't have a problem with them, balance-wise.


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## wingsandsword (Apr 11, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> The only sense it seems that is necessary is Keith Baker's notion that magical androids are a neat idea for a PC race. Warforged are the hump you have to get over to accept the Eberron setting. Once you have PC robots in your fantasy, everything else about the spellpunk setting becomes easier to swallow.




Thus if you can't accept Warforged you never really can like Eberron, which is pretty much where I stand.

They never need to sleep, so it's pretty dang hard to ambush a party at low levels at night, as they're always on-watch and never tired.  They don't need to eat or drink, which removes, again at low levels some plotting and planning for wilderness adventures.  Not needing to breathe?  It might not come up often, but it sure can short-circuit some adventures involving watery obstacles.  They are never unarmored, so even if surprised at home they are always ready for battle.  Not to mention that they are a type other than Humanoid.

From a mechanical standpoint, Warforged give bonuses that are very, very big at 1st level (nonhumanoid type, no need to sleep/breath/eat/drink, no fatigue, fortification), and may be greatly lesser at higher levels.  They shouldn't be ECL +0.  If you look at the designer interviews, they say outright that they intentionally made the new races +0 so that they could be used in any game, marketing trumped game design here.

From a flavor standpoint, Warforged are on the list of why I can't stand Eberron.  Robotic PC's don't belong in fantasy as far as I'm concerned, they are so far from what I consider "D&D" that I might as well be playing Star Wars and just play a Droid PC (Sharn is D&D Coruscant, and both are derived from old 30's and 40's serials).  As *Marshall* said, if you want to play an antisocial combat machine at ECL +0, Half Orc is there for you.  Want a different take on it?  Instead of half-breeds of Human and Orc, maybe they are the result of selective breeding and magical augmentation of humans to create a warrior race, but the "antisocial combat machine" niche is already filled in core rules at ECL +0.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 11, 2005)

They won't break a game, but they're better than your average cup o' dwarf, they hog the spotlight, and they require awkward work-around mechanics to be scribed into the rules themselves. They are exceptions to the rules, and that's part of their appeal but also part of their problem.

They preclude certain types of campaigns. In a campaign focusing on poisonous jungle snakes as adversaries (the Yuan-ti) or focued on spreading plagues, or focused on marine adventures, or focused on environmental dangers and the risk of starvation, they are *grossly* overpowered. They are immune to the campaign's main threat. Effectively, this precludes these types of campaigns for Eberron, at least on any significant scale. 

Add in the fact that everyone wants to be one and that they *require* certain class abilities to function and that they are the best thing for drama queens since Drow, and they're just too much trouble for too little benefit.

Are android-people cool? Absolutely. But they're the kind of cool that works great in fiction but not so well in a game format (read: they make better NPC's). Either that, or they should be changed from Living Constructs to Constructed Humanoids, thus grounding their rules in a more inherently vulnerable type, which the game is already structured to handle. We don't need to give them 1/2 healing. We should take away their various immunities and make them more firmly like the humanoids. OR, we should restructure the game from the ground up and make monster types less mighty with immunities. Guess which one I'm more a fan of Eberron doing? 

They're not going to shatter the game world at all. But any game that takes them into account has to make SPECIAL COMPENSATIONS for them all over the place. Can't do this, have to do that, invincible here, pathetically vulnerable there...all so that no one will play dwarves IMC again? Pheh. 

They're a cool idea, but to quote Jurassic Park: "they were so busy thinking about whether or not they _could_, they didn't stop to think about whether or not they _should_!"


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## Crothian (Apr 11, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> They never need to sleep, so it's pretty dang hard to ambush a party at low levels at night, as they're always on-watch and never tired.




They don't get spot bonuses, elves are what ruin a night ambush.  They are only down 4 hours and have the spot racial bonus.


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## mearls (Apr 11, 2005)

IME, warforged work out pretty well. I've played a warforged barbarian and had a warforged artificer in a campaign that went from 3rd to 10th level.

Warforged do get lots of cool toys, but those abilities are passive in nature. A warforged fighter might be immune to poison gas, but the rest of the party still suffers its effects. A 1st-level warforged can get DR, but he does so at the cost of a feat. A non-warforged fighter, particularly a human or half-orc, has superior offensive abilities.

The real key, I think, is that warforged make it a bit harder on the DM. There are a lot of story elements that you have to worry about if a warforged is in the game. For instance, water stops being an effective barrier - the warforged can just walk through it. I've been thinking about this issue a lot. I think there are a number of mechanics that make it harder for a DM to create a fun story, and that's something that gets overlooked in design.

As I mentioned above, I didn't have any problems with the warforged as a DM. The artificer was more durable than the typical spellcaster, and since he didn't need to sleep he could spend a lot of time working on creating items. The Wisdom penalty turned out to be a big deal, owing to the malevolent AI that ended up infecting and controlling the warforged.

As a player, it was fun soaking up poisoned attacks, or wading through water, or staying up all night to guard the rest of the party. OTOH, there were times when I wished I had an extra feat or two to help me in a fight. In particular, the build I was going for (barbarian wielding two component weapons, battlefist and the sword arm one) was a bit harder to make. A human or half-orc two-weapon fighting barbarian with the same build could dish out more damage and hit more often, but I think my character's superior AC and warforged abilities balanced that. Overall, I felt like it was a fair trade.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 11, 2005)

> I think there are a number of mechanics that make it harder for a DM to create a fun story, and that's something that gets overlooked in design.




Here is my main gripe with them in a nutshell. This, and they tread on dwarven toes too much ("I've got a +4 to saves vs. poison!" "Awww, isn't that cute, you have to save...")


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 11, 2005)

Now, I'm not a very big fan of warforged to begin with--mostly because of the infeasibility story-wise--but most of the arguments fore and against seem awfully weak.  Most arguments stem upon some conceived notion upon how a DM prepares a challenge for a party.  I hardly think one or two PCs with immunities or hinderences ruin an adventure path or obstacle. 

As well, I have never considered them robots--or even similar to robots.  I consider them golems whose paths have crossed with the spark of life rather than animation.  In fact, when the term 'steam punk' or 'higher technology' get applied to Eberron I wonder...I wonder what book they are reading.  

I don't think warforged are the pinnacle to understanding, liking, or playing Eberron I think they are just a different choice...that don't realy add much or detract much.  They become just another of the many factions that make up the mossaic of the Eberron game world.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2005)

I've DMed a warforged at low levels. The player was behined and was playing a lvl 1 warforged fighter (not anti-social, for what it's worth) and the rest of the party was lvl 2. The warforged preformed exactly the way I'd expect a level 1 fighter to preform in a lvl 2 party. Nor did I find that I had to do extra work to take him into account. 

I've also DMed LA +1 characters at high levels and, I have to tell you, I haven't DMed an LA +1 race that didn't get screwed at high levels. 

Hmmmm.... spellnoir. I like the sound of that!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Apr 11, 2005)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I'm going to have to bookmark this thread, so I can point it out to people--and I've spoken to _several_--who feel that the warforged are too powerful.
> 
> Rule of Thumb: If a roughly equal number of people complain about X being underpowered and X being overpowered, X is probably pretty well balanced.



You could be an MMORPG designer.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 11, 2005)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> You could be an MMORPG designer.




lol, no no. In an MMORPG the people who don't play it think its overpowered and the people who do think its underpowered. Unless you're a necromancer. Then everyone knows it's overpowered. 


Personally, I like the warforged as a concept. I'm even stealing ideas from them for Modrons IMC.


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## Glyfair (Apr 11, 2005)

Wild Gazebo said:
			
		

> As well, I have never considered them robots--or even similar to robots.  I consider them golems whose paths have crossed with the spark of life rather than animation.  In fact, when the term 'steam punk' or 'higher technology' get applied to Eberron I wonder...I wonder what book they are reading.




I'll wager a large percentage with this opinion haven't read the book.  A large percentage of the rest gathered their opinion from the advance information, formed their view, and never got past it.  Others are just mixing terms up (someone once described it well as "magic as industry" rather than "magic as technology").

Personally, I like the story elements warforged can bring to a setting.  A recently referenced an excellent _Dungeon_ adventure, "Steel Shadows," that focuses on warforged.  Much of the feel of this adventure deals with the prejudices that people in the campaign world have towards warforged.  This is a running theme in Eberron (some of the other races have to deal with it, especially changelings and shifters).


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## BastionPress_Creech (Apr 11, 2005)

If you think the warforged are underpowered, take a look at what one of the players in my epic campaign has for a character that I posted in this thread...

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2148432&postcount=51


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 11, 2005)

> Most arguments stem upon some conceived notion upon how a DM prepares a challenge for a party. I hardly think one or two PCs with immunities or hinderences ruin an adventure path or obstacle.




It can, and quite easily. You have to take the Warforged into account, you can't just throw them into anything and expect them to work as well as any other race. They're a special exception to rules. They have to sit at the forefront of your mind. 

Fer'instance, consider an adventure on a sailing ship that is raided by pirates, where a big fight is to take place on the rigging of the ship, with Balance checks and Trip attempts and Bull Rushes -- big, epic, ship-top battle, everyone's affraid of falling into the water below...

Well, except the Warforged. Knock him into the briney deep? "*sigh* I walk back to shore and wait for them to pick me up." Or at best "I'm making a few swim checks, but this armor check penalty and weight problem means that I can't actually make any of them, so I guess I'm sinking to the bottom of the ocean where, uhm, maybe I'll die of pressure?"

Suddenly, the entire adventure is derailed while you deal with what happens to the warforged at the bottom of the ocean. One character, one player, cannot enjoy the dynamic ship-based adventure like everyone else. Knock anyone else into the water, and it's a sign of tension, of building drama. The fighter has to take off his armor. The wizard has to make those difficult Swim checks. Maybe they both have to deal with swimming pirates. Goodness gracious me, will they survive? With the Warforged, you better have a back-up plan for when he's just taking a stroll among the coral!

Or consider an adventure into the steamy jungles where Yuan-ti assassins lurk, their poisoned blades piercing deep into the viens of those whose empire they wish to dominate. The entire party is on edge. The cleric has prepared a battery of anti-poison spells. The dwarf takes point. They are struck! Oh noes! Crits and Con damage and Secondary Damage Oh My! Can the dwarf keep rolling lucky? What happens if the cleric runs out of spells? Aiee! Stay away from the sorcerer!

vs. having the Warforged in the game...suddenly, you've got someone who faces virtually no danger from this combat whatsoever. Again, you have a bored player who just walks around and tries to hit things as well as possible. What strategy? What needs he to fear from these assasssins? He's immune to their poison, he's got protection from their crits, he's got DR, so blowdarts are no danger...he's a walking hulk! He's powerful! And you went and had this cult be the main enemy for the adventure, planned out most of the encounters with these guys, and this one character is going to breeze through it like nothing.

Or consider a party of limited players. One person wants to play a warforged. Who gets stuck with Artificer Duty? Who's destiny is it to spend his time not calling down destruction from heaven, ripping apart space-time, becoming one with the shadows, or flashing blades as fast as light, but as the healer and gold-suck-pocket. What if there's only three party members?

Having Warforged changes the way you need to play and think about the game in a way that Shifters and Changelings (for instance) do not. 

If half the people are saying he's too weak and half the people are saying he's too powerful, that's not a sign that he's well balanced. That's a sign that he's extreme, he's a violation, he raises red flags on both sides. In some circumstances he's unstopable. In others, he's helpless. This isn't good game design. This is "flaws and benefits" all over again. This is the same problem that afflicts most high LA monster races, but at a lower level so it's less noticable. It's Paper Tiger Syndrome, but when the difference between the mightiest and the weakest members of the party is something like 8 hp, it's not game-breaking. And you can take it into account.

I don't want to have to derail my game for an underwater adventure just because the warforged tripped and fell off the rig, nor do I care to fudge the tactics of the enemy and have them not try the smartest tactic for the situation.



> A recently referenced an excellent Dungeon adventure, "Steel Shadows," that focuses on warforged. Much of the feel of this adventure deals with the prejudices that people in the campaign world have towards warforged. This is a running theme in Eberron (some of the other races have to deal with it, especially changelings and shifters).




And here's my other problem: they hog the spotlight. To a certain extent it's expected, but where's the adventure that focueses on the prejudices that people in the campaign world have to gnomes? Or goblins? Or flumphs?

Nope, it's warforged, because golem-men are the new pink.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 11, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Fer'instance, consider an adventure on a sailing ship that is raided by pirates, where a big fight is to take place on the rigging of the ship, with Balance checks and Trip attempts and Bull Rushes -- big, epic, ship-top battle, everyone's affraid of falling into the water below...
> 
> Well, except the Warforged. Knock him into the briney deep? "*sigh* I walk back to shore and wait for them to pick me up." Or at best "I'm making a few swim checks, but this armor check penalty and weight problem means that I can't actually make any of them, so I guess I'm sinking to the bottom of the ocean where, uhm, maybe I'll die of pressure?"
> 
> Suddenly, the entire adventure is derailed while you deal with what happens to the warforged at the bottom of the ocean.



Then you, as a dm, should spend about 5 seconds thinking about consequences.

Regardless who falls into the water, they're probably out of the combat. If it's the fighter (or cleric...), they're probably dead - they simply can't get out of their armour fast enough. If it's the mage, then chances are he's making a new character if he doesn't want to play as a glorified peasant thanks to the death of his spellbook. If it's the warforged... at least he's not dead or permanently stuffed.


> Or consider an adventure into the steamy jungles where Yuan-ti assassins lurk, their poisoned blades piercing deep into the viens of those whose empire they wish to dominate. The entire party is on edge. The cleric has prepared a battery of anti-poison spells. The dwarf takes point. They are struck! Oh noes! Crits and Con damage and Secondary Damage Oh My! Can the dwarf keep rolling lucky? What happens if the cleric runs out of spells? Aiee! Stay away from the sorcerer!



Wow. Your players are morons. Delay poison:second level cleric(and bard, and druid) spell. Makes all this a bit pointless, doesn't it?


> vs. having the Warforged in the game...suddenly, you've got someone who faces virtually no danger from this combat whatsoever.



Someone with a fort save of +10 or so doesn't really have anything to fear either (unless you're using implausably expensive poisons - and why not just use things that target the forged in that case?), and in my experience that's pretty common.


> Or consider a party of limited players. One person wants to play a warforged. Who gets stuck with Artificer Duty? Who's destiny is it to spend his time not calling down destruction from heaven, ripping apart space-time, becoming one with the shadows, or flashing blades as fast as light, but as the healer and gold-suck-pocket. What if there's only three party members?



Noone gets artificer duty, and the warforged doesn't heal unless he picks up the skills or spells to do it himself. As long as he knows that up front, then he's going to take care of it himself.

And frankly, if you think that an artificer is a healer and gold-suck-pocket and nothing else, then you've really not even looked at the ECS...


> Having Warforged changes the way you need to play and think about the game in a way that Shifters and Changelings (for instance) do not.



Changelings? Those guys that can impersonate basically anyone? Someone who's immune to a couple of attack forms is more complex than the guy who derails the adventure by going off and infiltrating the bad-guy's place on his own? Yeah, right.


> I don't want to have to derail my game for an underwater adventure just because the warforged tripped and fell off the rig, nor do I care to fudge the tactics of the enemy and have them not try the smartest tactic for the situation.



Which, and I'll say this again, will happen to the heavily armoured tank as well, except you just KILLED him... Which is a little bit more of a downer, and certainly a lot less fun than having to rescue the warforged from the bottom of the sea.


> And here's my other problem: they hog the spotlight. To a certain extent it's expected, but where's the adventure that focueses on the prejudices that people in the campaign world have to gnomes? Or goblins? Or flumphs?



Eberron? Goblins are a semi-slave race. Virtually all of the "people look down on warforged" can be applied to goblins too. Gnomes have a bunch of plot hooks they can make use of - it just happens that opression isn't one of them. Flumphs - how about the fact that anyone who meets you pisses themselves laughing...


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## Andor (Apr 11, 2005)

What, exactly, can a Warforged do, or be immune to that a midlevel Druid cannot?

A warforges immunities are unique to him only untill about 5th-7th level. At what level are these Yuan-ti attacking the party? At what level are the PCs fighting ships full of pirates without flight or shapeshifting? And the warforged immunities benefit him only. There is no dramatic tension if only 5 out of 6 PCs risk drowning? Death by poison? Asphyxiation? "Don't worry, Bob can drag all our corpses around for 3 weeks untill he finds a cleric to res us."

Do warforged change the equation? Yes, a little, at low levels. Do the reshaped the face of the game? No. Do they invalidate dwarves? What a bizzare idea. Do you have to like them? Of course not. But let's not have hysterics. 

If you had to play a solo character in DnD I doubt you could do better than to play a Warforged Artificer. But any Cleric or Druid is at least his equal.


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 11, 2005)

Um.  Kamakazi, I think you're prejudices are showing.  I was going to debunk each of your examples fairly thouroughly but I think Saeviomagy did an ok job...except I think most warriors could cut their armor off before they die...but still, the point stands.

I don't consider individual situations as derailments...and hardly consider a trap bypassed by one member of a party as a sucessful evasion.  But...that's just me.


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## Bran Blackbyrd (Apr 11, 2005)

Well, rules aside, it's easy enough to change what warforged are all about. A neat twist would be that warforged actually have human(oid) souls bound to them. The group that created the warforged needed soldiers and weren't too picky about where to get them.
They discovered that binding a soul to a construct body created a ready-made warrior and that being bound to the construct prevented the soul from remembering who it once was. It wasn't that the warforged gained sentience over time, it was that in order to make the warforged perform more autonomously, their creators had to 'relax' the magicks which chained the soul to the body.
Discovery of this fact could raise some serious questions about the people that did it, and about how people treat warforged. Now they aren't just a smarter golem, they have human(oid) souls and the rights that come with it. This could lead to some interesting situations as certain warforged begin to have flashbacks to their life before being bound to their new body.
Maybe nobody knows about any of this until the party's warforged starts having strange flashbacks... Maybe he'll try and track down his living family members. Perhaps there are agents out there that will try to stop him.

Maybe in your campaign world it could just be a given that warforged are people whose souls are bound to constructs. It was good enough for Full Metal Alchemist...

I played, briefly, in a game where a player's 3rd or 4th level warforged got overwhelmed and incapacitated by a group of mind-controlled commoners. Commoners! He was outraged. I told him that the problem was, he was looking at the warforged like a walking, talking, steam locomotive; when in reality, they're more like walking, talking, metal-covered grandfather clocks.


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## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

A few things people tend to forget: warforged have immunities compared to humanoids, yes, but they also have vulnerabilities.

Or should I complain about the humanoid's immunity to rust attacks? (Go on, sick a rust dragon on a party. Everyone will quiver in fear at the sight on that equipment destroyer+dragon combo, but the one who'll faint at this mere sight will be the warforged.)

Or maybe the humanoids' immunity to spells that specifically affect constructs, such as _disable construct_ (beside, IMC, there are spells that existed before warforged where published that allow to take control of a construct and operate it like a puppet).

And the warforged must "waste" special feats just in order to take levels in some classes, most notably druid and monk.


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## Klaus (Apr 11, 2005)

Warforged also make prime targets for Heat/Chill Metal.

As soon as you allow a Living Construct race in your campaign, you need to include stuff like the Repair spells, Disable Construct and other things. As well you should. If you have a half-orc with Orc Blood, but no "orc" items, what good is "Orc Blood"? Oh, yeah, none! 

My first knee-jerk reaction to warforged was to dislike 'em. Eventually I warmed up to them and now I think they're mighty cool.

As for the sailing combat or the poison expedition:
- Anyone who gets on a ship and doesn't consider ways of keeping from drowining is just asking to sink. In this case, the warforged character (who, mind you, may as well be a 2nd-level rogue with Mithril Body and a measly -4 on Swim checks before Str is counted) can still paddle the surface while trying to throw a grappling hook to the ship.

- The warforged doesn't have to worry about being poisoned, but if his companions die, he'll die as well. And so what is a viper can't poison him? A constrictor snake can still crush the timber from his innards. And hey, you have a race who is partly metal. Have him rust (treat as a disease).

And finally, Libris Mortis has a new type of poison, the necrotoxin, that affects undead. It isn't too hard to come up with a liquid dispel potion that affects constructs like poison.


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## Henry (Apr 11, 2005)

"Spellpunk" is also not a word when I think of Doc Savage, Raiders OTLA, or The Shadow - which is a genre I used in my games. 

As for Warforged, We had one from 1st to 10th level in our Eberron game, and had no problems with its presence. As a DM, i in fact had even more fun, because I had a party member I could rip up, break, tear, fold, spindle, and multilate for dramatic purposes, and the party put him back together each time.


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## Soel (Apr 11, 2005)

I do not think that the Warforged are overpowered. I just think they were not thought out enough.

As written, the "race" has no thing to drive them. Their only function is one that is outdated.  They have no real culture. They have nothing to strive for. They seem all too much like robots, with mortal masks on. I suppose some interesting things could be done along these lines (tortured angsty things,) but they just seem far too one dimensional to me.

The fact that they are made of wood/metal precedes the fact that they are "alive." This shouldn't be...


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## Frostmarrow (Apr 11, 2005)

What's a warforged supposed to do at the bottom of the ocean?

-Say hello to Rust Monster!!!


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## Henry (Apr 11, 2005)

Soel said:
			
		

> ...I just think they were not thought out enough.
> 
> As written, the "race" has no thing to drive them. Their only function is one that is outdated.  They have no real culture. They have nothing to strive for. They seem all too much like robots, with mortal masks on. I suppose some interesting things could be done along these lines (tortured angsty things,) but they just seem far too one dimensional to me.
> 
> The fact that they are made of wood/metal precedes the fact that they are "alive." This shouldn't be...




Those two things are part of what I like about them. They ARE "outdated", and the Eberron Setting makes note of this. In fact, various hate groupsare growing in the setting which protest their very existance, and deny that they have a right to. How does someone who people keep telling they are a mistake, an aberration, continue to survive? How do they go on? The answers to this are what make them interesting. And being made of metal and wood shouldn't exclude living - not in a world where elementals are commonplace, and undead exist as sentient, though technically unalive, creatures.

They are rather "soul vessels" cobled together by a barely understood magic, and no one has yet satisfactorily answered the question of where do these souls COME from? Perhaps they are the souls of long-dead giants, stolen from some unknown plane... perhaps they are souls taken from Dolurrh and according to various religions denied their rightful reward thusly... One could make a heck of a saga on how an individual Warforged feels about all this!

Mechanically as I noted I don't have a problem with them, and in a setting where magic is commonplace and the fantastic takes all sorts of odd forms, they fit right in. I don't know if they'd fit the default feel of, say, Faerun or Krynn, but in Eberron with the clash of Pulp, Noir, Dystopia, and D&D Metaphysics, they feel right at home.


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## Hand of Evil (Apr 11, 2005)

Before I said I did not have an issue with them but I do think there are a number of misconceptions with them from non-Eberron gamers (and some ECS gamers)  , mostly dealing with the material they are made and its interaction with the game world, many seem them as metal but that is not completely true, silver and iron are there but stone, obsidian, darkwood, and organic material are also there, no percentages have been given but yet they are perceived as being armor plated.


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## Desdichado (Apr 11, 2005)

Wild Gazebo said:
			
		

> As well, I have never considered them robots--or even similar to robots.  I consider them golems whose paths have crossed with the spark of life rather than animation.  In fact, when the term 'steam punk' or 'higher technology' get applied to Eberron I wonder...I wonder what book they are reading.



Quite right.  I _think_ that's what a lot of people who have categorically dismissed Eberron believe about it without actually having learned more.  Is that fine?  Yeah, I suppose so.  Chances are that Eberron as it _actually is_ (as opposed to what they think it is) won't appeal to them much more anyway.

But personally, I have an aversion to attempting to speak authoritatively on subjects about which I'm actually ignorant.  I'm always a it surprised when other folks don't share that aversion, as it seems common sense to me.

That doesn't stop me from offering hesitant or guarded opinions on things about which I know very little, but I draw the line at making authorative statements about things I don't know squat.


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## Von Ether (Apr 11, 2005)

*And 3.0 Druids were spotlight hogs too!!!!*

Some of this warforged "demands extra attention from the DM" reminds me of my 3.0 druid and my GM who always said I was whinning.

* He'd roll his eyes during low level games when I mentioned my best spell at the time, Entagle, was useless in the dungeons. (for some reason we never faced outdoor ambushes at the time.)
* My animal companions were always running away from any undead or demonic encounter because "real animals would do the the same."
* I was a munchkin for suggesting that I might need a Dire animal compainion at higher levels ... until _Call of the Wild_ came out and suggested the same ... and added Legendary critters on top of that. 
* My druid class was so "broken" when I used Wind Walk that the GM shut down the game. (Evidently when the spell let us be the ambushers, not the ambushees, the game was too much for the GM.)

Long story short, the GM just wanted to run adventures as is, without taking the party's unique mix into account ... something very basic to good rpging. Lesson learned from the player end, I don't see the warforged being any different. 

Currently I'm running an Eb game and I am COUNTING on the warforge's immunities to kick in for couple of encounters. To be frank, I am having a harder time trying to fit undead encounters into the flavor of my combats so the paladin has more to do. (I want to focus on a bio/magic game with dalkeyr rather than undead with the Emerald Claw.)

As an aside, I see most of my combats as "encounters," not plots. I learned a long time ago not to leave plot point hinge on a combat unless it’s against the villain’s lieutenants or the final villain himself. At that point, it’s a win/win for me. If the guy goes down, that’s what’s expected. If the party fails, then we have either a reoccurring villain, a death trap scene or adventure hooks for new PCs (“He killed my brother!”). Mostly because trying to make d20 PCs go unconscious or imprison DnD players mostly ends up badly in the games I’ve played.


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## The_Universe (Apr 11, 2005)

Rather than delve into the merits of the setting...

I like Warforged (and incidentally Changelings, as well - but not Shifters).  I have introduced them into my homebrew campaign with a slightly modified backstory (several others have done the same, it would seem).  I think the questionable nature of how they came to exist is really the interesting thing about them - it makes for some interesting character drama.

Anyway, I like them, and have found that their varying advantages and disadvantages tend to balance out over the long run.


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## Belen (Apr 11, 2005)

mearls said:
			
		

> Warforged do get lots of cool toys, but those abilities are passive in nature. A warforged fighter might be immune to poison gas, but the rest of the party still suffers its effects. A 1st-level warforged can get DR, but he does so at the cost of a feat. A non-warforged fighter, particularly a human or half-orc, has superior offensive abilities.




Does anyone know a human fighter that would not take a fear at first level that granted them DR or Mithral armor?  I certainly have not met the player would would choose a different feat if given the chance.

As for water being an obstacle for Warforged, there is a simple solution.  Just say they rust.  

In any event, Warforged keep me from playing in Eberron.  Throwing mundane pitfalls like poison, hunger, water etc can be really fun for the DM and the players.  The warforged cannot be challenged in that way.  Thus, what may be fun for the rest of the party, is no fun at all for the warforged player.

Not to mention that warforged characters cannot appreciate a beatiful woman etc.  I hate races that limit the number of plots you can use or races that MUST have a similar backstory.  This is why I do not allow Half-orcs in my games.  I get tired of the same ol' mother was raped by an orc yada yada yada backstory.  I have a race that is similiar to half-orc (but better balanced).  Thus, they do not constrain the player or DM.

The warforge impose a style of play on both the GM and player.  I find it funny that the same people who detest GMs who railroad do not see the warforge in the same light, but maybe that is because the race railroad's the GM for a change.


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## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> In any event, Warforged keep me from playing in Eberron. Throwing mundane pitfalls like poison, hunger, water etc can be really fun for the DM and the players. The warforged cannot be challenged in that way. Thus, what may be fun for the rest of the party, is no fun at all for the warforged player.




You mean that just because the warforged player will not need food, he won't help the other foraging for food? He'll just sit there on its shiny metal butts and laugh at the others?

If finding food is the challenge, it's a challenge for the whole team. Even those who do not need food directly still need to help find it, because they need the other party members to survive, and this survival requires food.

It's like saying you can never challenge adventurers in a modern setting with a gasolin plot. "I have my characters lost in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and they need to get out of there. Their vehicle has run out of oil. But since none of the character feeds on oil, finding fuel for their bus isn't a challenge. Yeah, that completely makes sense."



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Not to mention that warforged characters cannot appreciate a beatiful woman etc.




They can't? They won't feel the hormonal urge to have sex with said beautiful woman, but who is to say they can't appreciate beauty? Who is to say they can't feel platonic love and genuine friendship?

To me, what you say is as nonsensical as saying that human characters cannot appreciate a beautiful landscape or artwork. Surely, a human won't feel the hormonal urge to have sex with a landscape or setting sun. Barring a few insane weirdoes (you learn far too much on the Internet), that human won't either lust after a painting either. And most humans are able to love their pets without their id entertaining bestial thoughts.




			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> I hate races that limit the number of plots you can use or races that MUST have a similar backstory.  This is why I do not allow Half-orcs in my games.  I get tired of the same ol' mother was raped by an orc yada yada yada backstory.  I have a race that is similiar to half-orc (but better balanced).  Thus, they do not constrain the player or DM.




Good thing this isn't the case with warforged. They can have been built during the war and fought there. Or they can have been created more recently in one of the clandestine creation forges. As each are owned by people with different motivations, they can have a variety of backstories right there. But there's more! They can have been rebuild by a lone artificer from scraps of other dismantled warforged, without any memory of the head's previous life. They can have been awakened from a Xen'drik crypt, where they were built long ago and never activated, ignoring totally when and why precisely they were built, and why they haven't been activated up to now.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> The warforge impose a style of play on both the GM and player.  I find it funny that the same people who detest GMs who railroad do not see the warforge in the same light, but maybe that is because the race railroad's the GM for a change.




It only imposes a style of play if all players have warforged characters. You want to play your shipwrecked Robinsons starvation plot? Well, the warforged won't need food or water. The other characters still will. And if the warforged cares about his comrades (read the "why shouldn't they feel genuine friendship?" point above), food will be one of his concerns. Or are they required to be selfish? Guess my LG warforged healer (the Healer class from the Mini HB) is not supposed to exist, then.


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 11, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> The warforge impose a style of play on both the GM and player. I find it funny that the same people who detest GMs who railroad do not see the warforge in the same light, but maybe that is because the race railroad's the GM for a change.




Any race, and any class - and any character background, for that matter - is railroading the GM, at least if the GM is taking each party member's strength, weakness and personal motivation into account.
Why should warforged be any worse?


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## BryonD (Apr 11, 2005)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I'm going to have to bookmark this thread, so I can point it out to people--and I've spoken to _several_--who feel that the warforged are too powerful.
> 
> Rule of Thumb: If a roughly equal number of people complain about X being underpowered and X being overpowered, X is probably pretty well balanced.




True statement, but I don't believe you have met the threshold yet.  You just need about 25 to 50 more saying it is to weak for X to be the same on both sides of the equation.


I think a different reliable rule of thumb is at work here:
No matter how strong you design something, SOMEBODY will complain that it is to weak.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 11, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It can, and quite easily. You have to take the Warforged into account, you can't just throw them into anything and expect them to work as well as any other race. They're a special exception to rules. They have to sit at the forefront of your mind.
> 
> Fer'instance, consider an adventure on a sailing ship that is raided by pirates, where a big fight is to take place on the rigging of the ship, with Balance checks and Trip attempts and Bull Rushes -- big, epic, ship-top battle, everyone's affraid of falling into the water below...
> 
> ...




Does this ship not have an anchor?  Drop anchor, and let the warforged climb up.


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## Storminator (Apr 11, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> It only imposes a style of play if all players have warforged characters.




I would love to play a game with ALL warforged, precisely because you can use a completely new style of play. 

You can do the underwater adventures without worrying about a Dispel Magic causing a TPK. You can have players invade the poison gas tunnels of the volcano. Maybe the WF party is specifically sent to destroy the Yuan-ti cults, only to find out what's truly behind the snakefolk...

There's a lot of game there if you ask me.

I have a WF cleric in my Eberron game, and he's a rock. Adamantine body and the Healing domain? Very dependable. Certainly not destroying everyone elses fun.

PS


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## EricNoah (Apr 11, 2005)

I'm the artificer on an artificer/warforged tag team.  The warforged character, a monk, has a very "pinocchio" view of the world, and it is fun to watch her react to human niceties or react literally to figures of speech.  Sure, it's kind of "obvious" but so are most of the cliches of fantasy.  

She started out without a name and was searching for just the right one.  In the first adventure, we eventually dubbed her "Missy" because she kept using Flury of Blows and missing a lot.  

It's a fun character concept and one I would love to try playing sometime.


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## Belen (Apr 11, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> If finding food is the challenge, it's a challenge for the whole team. Even those who do not need food directly still need to help find it, because they need the other party members to survive, and this survival requires food.




It's not a challenge for the warforged.  Certain plots are useful because they are personal to everyone.  Everyone else may die because of hunger, but the warforged guy will just be lonely.  It's not personal or a need to the warforged player.  The player may want to keep the party alive, but as long as his character is not threatened, then the urgency is not there.  IME, players have the most fun when threats are personal to their character.  If the game is not affecting them, then they have less stake in the outcome.



			
				Gez said:
			
		

> They can't? They won't feel the hormonal urge to have sex with said beautiful woman.




Exactly, they do not want to have sex.  They do not want to procreate.  They may even be immortal, like Data.  No one yet knows if they can even die of old age.  And appreciating a beautiful woman is in large part because you are hormonally attracted to them.  How does a warforged even know what a beautiful woman looks like?!  They don't.  At most, she could be a piece of art, but nothing more.  There goes another plot device.  I guess I will have to start making sexy tractors with mithral gears.


----------



## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 11, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> It's not a challenge for the warforged.  Certain plots are useful because they are personal to everyone.  Everyone else may die because of hunger, but the warforged guy will just be lonely.  It's not personal or a need to the warforged player.  The player may want to keep the party alive, but as long as his character is not threatened, then the urgency is not there.  IME, players have the most fun when threats are personal to their character.  If the game is not affecting them, then they have less stake in the outcome.
> 
> Exactly, they do not want to have sex.  They do not want to procreate.  They may even be immortal, like Data.  No one yet knows if they can even die of old age.  And appreciating a beautiful woman is in large part because you are hormonally attracted to them.  How does a warforged even know what a beautiful woman looks like?!  They don't.  At most, she could be a piece of art, but nothing more.  There goes another plot device.  I guess I will have to start making sexy tractors with mithral gears.




I'm really not getting where you're coming from with this.  Warforged have unique traits and predilictions, therefore they're bad?  So, you want all character races to be pretty much the same then?  That sounds boring...

And I fail to see how having one member of the party who isn't into girls ruins the campaign.  How about if one of the characters is queer?  Or a woman?  Or a dwarf?  I know no self-respecting dwarf is going to get all loopy-eyed over some skinny human woman.  Oh noes!  A plot device has been dwarfed to death!  The campaign is over!

Really, a warforged provides *more* plot devices, rather than less.  I think you're grasping at straws here, even if some of the others who don't like the race have good arguments for their side.


----------



## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> It's not a challenge for the warforged.  Certain plots are useful because they are personal to everyone.  Everyone else may die because of hunger, but the warforged guy will just be lonely.  It's not personal or a need to the warforged player.  The player may want to keep the party alive, but as long as his character is not threatened, then the urgency is not there.  IME, players have the most fun when threats are personal to their character.  If the game is not affecting them, then they have less stake in the outcome.




Yeah, of course. Just like when you crash your starship on some alien, inhospitable planet, it's not a challenge to repair it. If you can't succeed on repairing it, then he's not threatened, just marrooned there.   




			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Exactly, they do not want to have sex.  They do not want to procreate.




That they don't want to have sex doesn't mean they don't want to procreate. To the contrary. Otherwise, why 



Spoiler



would the Lord of Blade operate a clandestine creation forge


?



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> They may even be immortal, like Data.  No one yet knows if they can even die of old age.




This, in itself, is interesting. You could have an overconfident warforged thinking he's immortal, and thus a god. And you could have a hypochondriac warforged, afraid that he's going to fall apart and stop functionning any day now.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> And appreciating a beautiful woman is in large part because you are hormonally attracted to them.  How does a warforged even know what a beautiful woman looks like?!  They don't.  At most, she could be a piece of art, but nothing more.




How does a human even know what a beautiful horse looks like?! Well, they do. I wonder why. Does that mean that all humans are in a large part hormonally attracted to horses?   



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> There goes another plot device.  I guess I will have to start making sexy tractors with mithral gears.




Don't be silly.


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## Hand of Evil (Apr 11, 2005)

With brings up how people play their Warforged, which I see as the following:

1...Robot: Tool with brain but no emotions 
2...Data: Tool with brain but knows of emotions and trys to understand them
3...Pinocchio: Wants to be 
4...Tinman: Everything in place just appearance 

I am sure there are others


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## EricNoah (Apr 11, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> With brings up how people play their Warforged, which I see as the following:
> 
> 1...Robot: Tool with brain but no emotions
> 2...Data: Tool with brain but knows of emotions and trys to understand them
> ...




5...Bender: essentially a rude/low-morals human but with just enough robot excuses to make him still likeable.


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## The_Universe (Apr 11, 2005)

EricNoah said:
			
		

> 5...Bender: essentially a rude/low-morals human but with just enough robot excuses to make him still likeable.



 YOINK!  

Bender is totally making an appearance as Warforged NPC!


----------



## Belen (Apr 11, 2005)

Dr. Awkward said:
			
		

> Really, a warforged provides *more* plot devices, rather than less.  I think you're grasping at straws here, even if some of the others who don't like the race have good arguments for their side.




Well, you are free to have your own opinions.  Note that I have never said that anyone else should not feel free to use them.  Instead, I have given a reason that I will not use Eberron, although I may eventually steal some stuff for my own homebrew.  Of course, the main reason I cannot play Eberron is the freakin halfling dino-riders.  If only they had called them dragons.  They could have been so much cooler as different types of dragons or dragon-kin.

I have played Eberron.  The session was even fun, but not something that I would find enjoyable for more than a one-shot and definitely not a world that I'd want to run.

We can just agree to disagree on whether the Warforged provide decent plot devices.  Mechanically, they are fairly powerful and their mechanics force a style of play.  Period.


----------



## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 11, 2005)

The_Universe said:
			
		

> YOINK!
> 
> Bender is totally making an appearance as Warforged NPC!



 YOINK #2!

I cannot believe I didn't think of Bender as a Warforged.


----------



## Hand of Evil (Apr 11, 2005)

EricNoah said:
			
		

> 5...Bender: essentially a rude/low-morals human but with just enough robot excuses to make him still likeable.



Can't believe I forgot Bender!   :\


----------



## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Mechanically, they are fairly powerful and their mechanics force a style of play.  Period.




False and false. Period.


----------



## Henry (Apr 11, 2005)

EricNoah said:
			
		

> 5...Bender: essentially a rude/low-morals human but with just enough robot excuses to make him still likeable.




How about #6: The Megalomaniacal Nihilist

In my Eberron Campaign, the main villain was a suicidal / homicidal warforged. He was psionic, and created to be a killer of Kalashtar. When the Last War ended, he had lost faith in his reason for being, and totally hit rock bottom religiously and philosophically. He later fell in with the Children of Winter (a bunch of nihilistic Druids), and decided that the best end was an end for not just himself, but for the whole, lying, cheating, stinking world that filled him with purpose and then ripped it away from him, in the hope that something better would be born in the hereafter.

Classic end of the world plot, but with a very unusual villain at its head.


----------



## Von Ether (Apr 11, 2005)

I'm happy to agree to disagree, but I'd like to tackle these for anyone who does get stuck with a "what do I do now" when it comes to WF ... like those pesky druids.







			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Throwing mundane pitfalls like poison, hunger, water etc can be really fun for the DM and the players.  The warforged cannot be challenged in that way.  Thus, what may be fun for the rest of the party, is no fun at all for the warforged player.




It can affect a warforged greatly. Such dangers might kill off his backup. Then there is the idea of being eternally in statis (broken down) in the middle of nowhere. In fact, this is a perfect example of how ROE helped out. You find out that while WF may not fear "dying" they aren't really crazy about the idea of suddenly waking up at someone else's mercy and discovering they let their friends die. In additon to that, who ever repaired them is going to think they are the WF's "owner." And sometimes, falling into the middle of the ocean with no land marks to get you to shore effectvely makes you "dead" for game purposes.

From what I read, warforged can form deep bonds of friendship. Most are not crazy to have lost friends, flesh or metal, during the war. Now add a sense of helplessness and guilt, there's some tension for ya! If your players can't roleplay tension because their PC are not in personal danger .... I've started to ramble, on to the next.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Not to mention that warforged characters cannot appreciate a beatiful woman etc.



 Check out the Reforged. These guys would all be about trying to understand new emotions and ties.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> I hate races that limit the number of plots you can use or races that MUST have a similar backstory.  This is why I do not allow Half-orcs in my games.  I get tired of the same ol' mother was raped by an orc yada yada yada backstory.  I have a race that is similiar to half-orc (but better balanced).  Thus, they do not constrain the player or DM.



 Then you'll love half-orcs in Eberron, they breed true. The orcs in Eb are more noble, honorable tribal compared to minions of evil.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> The warforge impose a style of play on both the GM and player.  I find it funny that the same people who detest GMs who railroad do not see the warforge in the same light, but maybe that is because the race railroad's the GM for a change.




Trust me, I've had several players try to railroad me with their PC concepts. Rich royalty and prototype psychic teenagers have done much more to derail my games at low-levels that WF have so far. In fact the WF scout in our group has been more useful thanks to his special abilites as compared to be a hinderance.


----------



## Desdichado (Apr 11, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Mechanically, they are fairly powerful and their mechanics force a style of play.  Period.



You state that so authoritatively, yet both of those are _extremely_ debatable.  I, at least, disagree with both of them.


----------



## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

Hey, as an example, here's my WF character.

Fairly powerful? I don't think so, despite the overtly generous character creation rules (pool of 87 points to spread between abilities, resulting in an average of 14.5, one free Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat) I've been given. Forcing a style of play where challenges have to specifically affect the warforged as well because he wouldn't care about the welfare of his buddies? Are you kidding me?

"Vitalis", Warforged Healer

*Hit Dice:* 4d8+8 (40 hp)
*Initiative:* +2
*Speed:* 30 ft. (6 squares)
*Armor Class:* 15 (+2 Dex, +3 warforged armor), touch 12, flat-footed 13.
*BAB/Grapple:* +2/+1
*Attack:* +4 Whip (1d3-1 nonlethal, reach 15 ft.) or +4 Slam (1d4-1 bludgeoning)
*Special Attacks:* --
*Special Abilities:* Warforged traits, healer class abilities.[sblock]
Warforged Traits
No loss of hit point for strenuous actions when disabled. Can be raised and resurrected. Do not need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. Does not heal damage naturally. Hit point damage cured by spells from the Healing subschool and by supernatural abilities are halved.
_Immunities (Ex):_ Vitalis is immune to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, sickness, and energy drain.
_Vulnerabilities (Ex):_ Vitalis is not immune to mind-affecting effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, stunning, ability damage, ability drain, death effects, and necromantic effects. Vitalis can be affected by spells affecting constructs, and by spells affecting living creatures. Vitalis suffers from _rusting grasp_ and a rust monster's touch attack (Reflex half, DC 17 for the rust monster and 14+casting ability score for the spell).
_Plating:_ Vitalis is effectively wearing armor for spells like _chill metal_, _heat metal_ and _repel metal or stone_, and his repelled by _repel wood_. This armor provides it with a +2 armor bonus and the light fortification (Ex) ability (25% chance of ignoring critical hits or sneak attacks and suffering only normal damage instead).
_Natural Weapon:_ Vitalis can slam with its fists for 1d4 points of damage.
Healer Class Abilities
_Healing Hands (Ex):_ Whenever Vitalis casts a spell that cures hit point damage, it adds its Charisma modifier (+3) to the amount of damage healed. This bonus only applies to spell of the healing subschool that it casts as a healer.
_Skill Focus (Ex):_ As a class ability, Vitalis gained Skill Focus: Heal as a bonus feat.
_Cleanse (Su):_ Once per day each, Vitalis can _remove paralysis_ and _remove disease_ as spell-like ability.
[/sblock]
*Saves:* Fortitude +4+2=6; Reflex +1+2=3; Will +4+3=7.
*Ability Scores:* Strength 8 (-1); Dexterity 14 (+2); Constitution 14 (+2); Intelligence 16 (+3); Wisdom 17 (+3); Charisma 16 (+3)
*Skills:*

Concentration (Con) 7+2=9
Diplomacy (Cha) 5+3+2=10
Handle Animal (Cha) 5+3=8
Heal (Wis) 7+3+3=13
Knowledge: Nature (Int) 4+3+2=9
Knowledge: Religion (Int) 4+3=7
Sense Motive (Wis) 5+3=8
Spellcraft (Int) 7+3=10
Survival (Wis) 5+3=8 (+2 aboveground)
*Feats:*

Augment Healing (_Conjuration (Healing) spells cure 2 additional hit points per spell level._)
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Whip (_Is proficient with the whip._)
Skill Focus: Heal (_+3 bonus on Heal checks._)
Weapon Finesse (_Can use Dex bonus instead of Str penalty for attack rolls with light weapons and whips._)
*Alignment:* Lawful Good
*Spells:*

Orisons (5/day)[sblock]
_Create water_[sblock]
Conjuration (Creation) [Water]
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) 
*Effect:* Up to 2 gallons of water/level 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* None 
*Spell Resistance:* No

This spell generates wholesome, drinkable water, just like clean rain water. Water can be created in an area as small as will actually contain the liquid, or in an area three times as large—possibly creating a downpour or filling many small receptacles.
_Note:_ Conjuration spells can’t create substances or objects within a creature. Water weighs about 8 pounds per gallon. One cubic foot of water contains roughly 8 gallons and weighs about 60 pounds.[/sblock]
_Cure minor wounds_ ○○ (touch, +5 hp)[sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will half (harmless); see text
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless); see text

When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1 point of damage +3 points (Healing Hand class ability) +1 point (Augment Healing).
Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply spell resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage.[/sblock]
_Deathwatch_[sblock]
Necromancy
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* 30 ft. 
*Area:* Cone-shaped emanation 
*Duration:* 10 min./level 
*Saving Throw:* None 
*Spell Resistance:* No

You can determine the condition of creatures near death within the spell’s range. You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragile (alive and wounded, with 3 or fewer hit points left), fighting off death (alive with 4 or more hit points), undead, or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct).
_Deathwatch_ sees through any spell or ability that allows creatures to feign death.[/sblock]
_Detect magic_ ○[sblock]
Divination
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* 60 ft. 
*Area:* Cone-shaped emanation 
*Duration:* Concentration, up to 1 min./level (D) 
*Saving Throw:* None 
*Spell Resistance:* No

You detect magical auras. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.
_1st Round:_ Presence or absence of magical auras.
_2nd Round:_ Number of different magical auras and the power of the most potent aura.
_3rd Round:_ The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Spellcraft skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura; DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + half caster level for a nonspell effect.)
Magical areas, multiple types of magic, or strong local magical emanations may distort or conceal weaker auras.
_Aura Strength:_ An aura’s power depends on a spell’s functioning spell level or an item’s caster level. If an aura falls into more than one category, detect magic indicates the stronger of the two.
Faint aura for a spell level of 3 or lower, or a magic item with a caster level of 5 or lower. A faint aura lingers for 1d6 rounds. Moderate aura for a spell level between 4 and 6, and a magic item with a caster level between 6 and 11. A moderate aura lingers for 1d6 minutes. Strong aura for a spell level 7 and 9, and a magic item with a caster level between 12 and 20. A strong aura lingers for 1d6x10 minutes. Overwhelming aura for spell level 10, epic spells, deity-level spells, artifacts, and epic magic items (caster level 21 and above). An overwhelming aura lingers for 1d6 days.
Outsiders and elementals are not magical in themselves, but if they are summoned, the conjuration spell registers.
Each round, you can turn to detect magic in a new area. The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.
_Detect magic_ can be made permanent with a _permanency_ spell.[/sblock]
_Detect poison_[sblock]
Divination
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) 
*Target* or *Area:* One creature, one object, or a 5-ft. cube
*Duration:* Instantaneous
*Saving Throw:* None
*Spell Resistance:* No

You determine whether a creature, object, or area has been poisoned or is poisonous. You can determine the exact type of poison with a DC 20 Wisdom check. A character with the Craft (alchemy) skill may try a DC 20 Craft (alchemy) check if the Wisdom check fails, or may try the Craft (alchemy) check prior to the Wisdom check.
The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.[/sblock]
_Light_[sblock]
Evocation [Light]
*Components:* V, DF 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Object touched 
*Duration:* 10 min./level (D) 
*Saving Throw:* None 
*Spell Resistance:* No

This spell causes an object to glow like a torch, shedding bright light in a 20-foot radius (and dim light for an additional 20 feet) from the point you touch. The effect is immobile, but it can be cast on a movable object. _Light_ taken into an area of magical darkness does not function.
A _light_ spell (one with the light descriptor) counters and dispels a _darkness_ spell (one with the darkness descriptor) of an equal or lower level.[/sblock]
_Mending_ ○[sblock]
Transmutation
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* 10 ft. 
*Target:* One object of up to 1 lb. 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (harmless, object) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless, object)

_Mending_ repairs small breaks or tears in objects (but not warps, such as might be caused by a warp wood spell). It will weld broken metallic objects such as a ring, a chain link, a medallion, or a slender dagger, providing but one break exists.

Ceramic or wooden objects with multiple breaks can be invisibly rejoined to be as strong as new. A hole in a leather sack or a wineskin is completely healed over by mending. The spell can repair a magic item, but the item’s magical abilities are not restored. The spell cannot mend broken magic rods, staffs, or wands, nor does it affect creatures (including constructs).[/sblock]
_Purify food and drink_ ○[sblock]
Transmutation
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* 10 ft. 
*Target:* 1 cu. ft./level of contaminated food and water
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (object) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (object)

This spell makes spoiled, rotten, poisonous, or otherwise contaminated food and water pure and suitable for eating and drinking. This spell does not prevent subsequent natural decay or spoilage. _Unholy water_ and similar food and drink of significance is spoiled by purify food and drink, but the spell has no effect on creatures of any type nor upon magic potions.
_Note:_ Water weighs about 8 pounds per gallon. One cubic foot of water contains roughly 8 gallons and weighs about 60 pounds. In the metric system, it's so much simple there wouldn't be a need for such a note, as one liter of water weighs precisely 1 kg and occupies 1 cubic decimeter (1 cubic meter of water is 1000 liters, for a weight of 1 tonne.) Nyah! [/sblock]
_Read magic_[sblock]
Divination
*Components:* V, S, F 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Personal 
*Target:* You 
*Duration:* 10 min./level

By means of _read magic_, you can decipher magical inscriptions on objects —- books, scrolls, weapons, and the like -— that would otherwise be unintelligible. This deciphering does not normally invoke the magic contained in the writing, although it may do so in the case of a cursed scroll. Furthermore, once the spell is cast and you have read the magical inscription, you are thereafter able to read that particular writing without recourse to the use of _read magic_. You can read at the rate of one page (250 words) per minute. The spell allows you to identify a _glyph of warding_ with a DC 13 Spellcraft check, a _greater glyph of warding_ with a DC 16 Spellcraft check, or any _symbol_ spell with a Spellcraft check (DC 10 + spell level).
_Read magic_ can be made permanent with a _permanency_ spell.
_Focus:_ A clear crystal or mineral prism.[/sblock]
[/sblock]
First Level (4+1/day)[sblock]
_Bless water_[sblock]
Transmutation [Good]
*Components:* V, S, M 
*Casting Time:* 1 minute 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Flask of water touched 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (object) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (object)

This transmutation imbues a flask (1 pint) of water with positive energy, turning it into _holy water_.
_Material Component:_ 5 pounds of powdered silver (worth 25 gp).[/sblock]
_Cure light wounds_ ○○ (touch, 1d8+9 hp)[sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will half (harmless); see text 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless); see text

When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +5), +3 points (Healing Hands class ability), +2 points (Augment Healing feat).
Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply spell resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage.[/sblock]
_Goodberry_ ○[sblock]
Transmutation
*Components:* V, S, DF 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Targets:* 2d4 fresh berries touched 
*Duration:* One day/level 
*Saving Throw:* None 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes

Casting _goodberry_ upon a handful of freshly picked berries makes 2d4 of them magical. You (as well as any other druid or healer of 3rd or higher level) can immediately discern which berries are affected. Each transmuted berry provides nourishment as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature. The berry also cures 1 point of damage when eaten, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period.[/sblock]
_Protection from evil_ ○[sblock]
Abjuration [Good]
*Components:* V, S, DF 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* 1 min./level (D) 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (harmless) 
*Spell Resistance:* No; see text

This spell wards a creature from attacks by evil creatures, from mental control, and from summoned creatures. It creates a magical barrier around the subject at a distance of 1 foot. The barrier moves with the subject and has three major effects.
The subject gains a +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus on saves. Both these bonuses apply against attacks made or effects created by evil creatures.
The barrier blocks any attempt to possess the warded creature (by a magic jar attack, for example) or to exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment (charm) effects and enchantment (compulsion) effects that grant the caster ongoing control over the subject, such as dominate person). The protection does not prevent such effects from targeting the protected creature, but it suppresses the effect for the duration of the protection from evil effect. If the protection from evil effect ends before the effect granting mental control does, the would-be controller would then be able to mentally command the controlled creature. Likewise, the barrier keeps out a possessing life force but does not expel one if it is in place before the spell is cast. This second effect works regardless of alignment.
The spell prevents bodily contact by summoned creatures. This causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature. Good summoned creatures are immune to this effect. The protection against contact by summoned creatures ends if the warded creature makes an attack against or tries to force the barrier against the blocked creature. Spell resistance can allow a creature to overcome this protection and touch the warded creature.
[/sblock]
_Remove fear_[sblock]
Abjuration
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) 
*Targets:* One creature plus one additional creature per four levels, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart 
*Duration:* 10 minutes; see text 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (harmless) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless)

You instill courage in the subject, granting it a +4 morale bonus against fear effects for 10 minutes. If the subject is under the influence of a fear effect when receiving the spell, that effect is suppressed for the duration of the spell.
_Remove fear_ counters and dispels _cause fear_.[/sblock]
_Remove paralysis_ [sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) 
*Targets:* Up to four creatures, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (harmless) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless)

You can free one or more creatures from the effects of any temporary paralysis or related magic, including a ghoul’s touch or a _slow_ spell. If the spell is cast on one creature, the paralysis is negated. If cast on two creatures, each receives another save with a +4 resistance bonus against the effect that afflicts it. If cast on three or four creatures, each receives another save with a +2 resistance bonus.
The spell does not restore ability scores reduced by penalties, damage, or drain.[/sblock]
_Sanctuary_ ○[sblock]
Abjuration
*Components:* V, S, DF 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* 1 round/level 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates 
*Spell Resistance:* No

Any opponent attempting to strike or otherwise directly attack the warded creature, even with a targeted spell, must attempt a Will save. If the save succeeds, the opponent can attack normally and is unaffected by that casting of the spell. If the save fails, the opponent can’t follow through with the attack, that part of its action is lost, and it can’t directly attack the warded creature for the duration of the spell. Those not attempting to attack the subject remain unaffected. This spell does not prevent the warded creature from being attacked or affected by area or effect spells. The subject cannot attack without breaking the spell but may use nonattack spells or otherwise act.[/sblock]
_Speak with animals_[sblock]
Divination
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Personal 
*Target:* You *Duration:* 1 min./level

You can comprehend and communicate with animals. You are able to ask questions of and receive answers from animals, although the spell doesn’t make them any more friendly or cooperative than normal. Furthermore, wary and cunning animals are likely to be terse and evasive, while the more stupid ones make inane comments. If an animal is friendly toward you, it may do some favor or service for you.[/sblock]
[/sblock]
Second Level (4+1/day)[sblock]
_Calm emotions_ ○[sblock]
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
*Components:* V, S, DF 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level) 
*Area:* Creatures in a 20-ft.-radius spread 
*Duration:* Concentration, up to 1 round/level (D) 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes

This spell calms agitated creatures. You have no control over the affected creatures, but calm emotions can stop raging creatures from fighting or joyous ones from reveling. Creatures so affected cannot take violent actions (although they can defend themselves) or do anything destructive. Any aggressive action against or damage dealt to a calmed creature immediately breaks the spell on all calmed creatures.
This spell automatically suppresses (but does not dispel) any morale bonuses granted by spells such as _bless_, _good hope_, and _rage_, as well as negating a bard’s ability to inspire courage or a barbarian’s rage ability. It also suppresses any fear effects and removes the confused condition from all targets. While the spell lasts, a suppressed spell or effect has no effect. When the _calm emotions_ spell ends, the original spell or effect takes hold of the creature again, provided that its duration has not expired in the meantime.[/sblock]
_Cure moderate wounds_ ○○ (touch 2d8+11 hp)[sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will half (harmless); see text 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless); see text

When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 2d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +10), +3 points (Healing Hands class ability), +4 points (Augment Healing feat).
Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply spell resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage.[/sblock]
_Delay poison_ ○[sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S, DF 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* 1 hour/level 
*Saving Throw:* Fortitude negates (harmless) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless)

The subject becomes temporarily immune to poison. Any poison in its system or any poison to which it is exposed during the spell’s duration does not affect the subject until the spell’s duration has expired. _Delay poison_ does not cure any damage that poison may have already done.[/sblock]
_Gentle repose_[sblock]
Necromancy
*Components:* V, S, DF 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Corpse touched 
*Duration:* One day/level 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (object) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (object)

You preserve the remains of a dead creature so that they do not decay. Doing so effectively extends the time limit on raising that creature from the dead (see _raise dead_). Days spent under the influence of this spell don’t count against the time limit. Additionally, this spell makes transporting a fallen comrade more pleasant.
The spell also works on severed body parts and the like.[/sblock]
_Remove blindness/deafness_[sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Fortitude negates (harmless) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless)

_Remove blindness/deafness_ cures blindness or deafness (your choice), whether the effect is normal or magical in nature. The spell does not restore ears or eyes that have been lost, but it repairs them if they are damaged.
_Remove blindness/deafness_ counters and dispels blindness/deafness.[/sblock]
_Remove disease_[sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 1 standard action 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Fortitude negates (harmless) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless)

_Remove disease_ cures all diseases that the subject is suffering from. The spell also kills parasites, including green slime and others. Certain special diseases may not be countered by this spell or may be countered only by a caster of a certain level or higher.
_Note:_ Since the spell’s duration is instantaneous, it does not prevent reinfection after a new exposure to the same disease at a later date.[/sblock]
_Lesser restoration_ ○[sblock]
Conjuration (Healing)
*Components:* V, S 
*Casting Time:* 3 rounds 
*Range:* Touch 
*Target:* Creature touched 
*Duration:* Instantaneous 
*Saving Throw:* Will negates (harmless) 
*Spell Resistance:* Yes (harmless)

_Lesser restoration_ dispels any magical effects reducing one of the subject’s ability scores or cures 1d4 points of temporary ability damage to one of the subject’s ability scores. It also eliminates any fatigue suffered by the character, and improves an exhausted condition to fatigued. It does not restore permanent ability drain.[/sblock]
[/sblock]
○: Prepared uses of the spell (deleted as they are cast).
*Spell-Like Abilities:* _Remove disease_ ○, _remove paralysis_ ○.
○: Remaining uses of the SLA (deleted as they are cast).
*Equipment:* (Worth 5400 gp)
[sblock]
Holy silver symbol. 25 gp
Heward's Handy Haversack. 2000 gp
Whip. 1 gp
Eternal Wand of Repair Light Damage (2/day, 1d8+1). 820 gp
Pearl of Power, 1st-Level Spell. 1000 gp
Tanglefoot bags, x4. 200 gp
Healer's Kit ○○○○○ ○○○○○. 50 gp
Bullseye lantern. 12 gp
Oil flask, x10. 1 gp
Flint & Steel. 1 gp
Hourglass. 25 gp
Everburning torch. 110 gp
Signal whistle. 0.8 gp
Sewing needle. 0.5 gp
Canvas, 2 sq. yd. (for making bandages). 0.2 gp
200 ft. silk rope. 40 gp
Soap 1 lb. 0.5
Spare Change:
10 platinum dragons.
10 gold galifars.
20 silver sovereigns.
100 copper crowns.

Everything is kept in the _handy haversack_, except for the holy symbol (worn as a necklace, as is so often the case), and the _eternal wand_. Retrieving anything from the _handy haversack_ being a free action, it's the best placement possible.
1000 gp were spent to enchant Vitalis' plating as +1 armor.[/sblock]


----------



## Henry (Apr 11, 2005)

I have to interrupt a minute to say, Gez, that's the MOST innovative and useful use of the SBLOCK feature here that I've ever seen. Awesome work!


----------



## Hand of Evil (Apr 11, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> I have to interrupt a minute to say, Gez, that's the MOST innovative and useful use of the SBLOCK feature here that I've ever seen. Awesome work!



Have to agree


----------



## Von Ether (Apr 11, 2005)

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> Have to agree




Ditto


----------



## jgbrowning (Apr 11, 2005)

Me too!

joe b.


----------



## Quasqueton (Apr 11, 2005)

My problem with the warforged, as I alluded to earlier in this thread, is the fact that these animated pieces of wood and metal have a Constitution score. Interestingly, though, everything that score means is taken out of the equation with their immunities and such. They are not "living", really. They are sentient, yes, but not alive.

I'm fine with the concept of the warforged, and can see no problem with having one in a D&D campaign. But when the designers give them a Con score, my brain derails and crashes. Does not compute.

Quasqueton


----------



## Desdichado (Apr 11, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> I'm fine with the concept of the warforged, and can see no problem with having one in a D&D campaign. But when the designers give them a Con score, my brain derails and crashes. Does not compute.



I'm not sure why.  Con is just an arbitrary ruling by the structure of the game, really; an ability score that grants a certain bonus to hit points, Fortitude saving throws and certain skills.  Without a CON score, constructs _must_ have a d12 hit dice and no con modifier to anything.  This would make warforged taking levels in a class cause similar derailment and crashing.  Either way, its an attempt to get around something that wasn't originally intended by the rules.  Personally, I think the idea of warforged being somewhere between a construct and a "regular" creature, including having a CON score, seems like the best compromise solution, at least until the rules are substantially revised away from something that resembles D&D with its traditional ability scores.


----------



## Pseudonym (Apr 11, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> This is why I do not allow Half-orcs in my games. I get tired of the same ol' mother was raped by an orc yada yada yada backstory.




Every time I have deviated from that I've gotten weird looks or resistance.  I had a half-orc character who's parents were former adventurers.  His mother died and was reincarnated as an orc.  The DM told me that it was to improbable.  I didn't last long with that group.

The other time I had a half-ogre, with the backstory starting with "Mom was an ogre, dad was a freak."  That one was fun.


----------



## Ysgarran (Apr 11, 2005)

In my new campaign, roughly based on Eberron, all the players were scared away by the healing requirement of the warforged.  They all thought it was a pretty cool idea but none of them wanted to deal with the reduced healing prospects.

OTOH, we do have a changling and a shifter in the party.

later,
Ysgarran.


----------



## Desdichado (Apr 11, 2005)

Ysgarran said:
			
		

> OTOH, we do have a changling and a shifter in the party.



In my Eberron game (of five players) we have two humans, a warforged fighter, a kalashtar rogue/psion and a shifter ranger/barbarian (me).  The player of the warforged fighter and the GM, looking over the rules, decided before play that they thought the warforged was _underpowered_ if anything, but not by much.  As a slight compensation, they gave him darkvision 60'.  Through a few sessions of play, I think they've decided that he didn't really need it, but that he's still not overpowered with it either.


----------



## Wild Gazebo (Apr 11, 2005)

Quasqueton, I think I know where you are coming from.  The first time I read about the warforged I got a bad taste in my mouth.  I hate the way it is so obviously juryrigged into a PC race.  Why not just add a level adjustment?  Why compromise a good idea for the sake of a couple of levels?  I feel it should have been a full-blown construct with no Con score...but I have come to accept the race, as is, and have absolutley no problems DMing or playing it.  What I do have a problem with is the cost and reason behind there creation--I've changed some basic buildingblocks of their history to suit my predjudices.


----------



## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2005)

> Why not just add a level adjustment?



Because all level adjustments, LA +1 in particular, suck.



> Why compromise a good idea for the sake of a couple of levels?



If I had to guess, and I do, I'd say it was because most people don't like level adjustments. I like to start my games at level one. Races with level adjustmets would be unavailable at those level, and I prfer to have all playable races available at 1st level. Level adjustments are a great game mechaic, but they cause persistent problems for PCs because, it a way, they are always behind. I've DM many PCs with LA adjustmets and the only ones that worked were the +1 adjustments that I ignored.



> I feel it should have been a full-blown construct with no Con score



See, I don't have a problem with that. Of course, I don't understand why constructs don't have a Con score in the first place. By my way of thinking, constructs should have a _bonus_ to their Con. This dosen't bother me enought to re-design every construct in the MM, though.


----------



## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> <praise>




Thanks! Took a bit of time, but having a nicely organized char-sheet is worth it.


----------



## Wild Gazebo (Apr 11, 2005)

Fanboy, my initial response to the warforged was not one of practical gamability, it was one of getting a feel for the race.  I imediately felt there was a great deal of compromise involved including this race--which turned me off slightly.  As I've said, I've come to accept the race, as is, but it is hard to shake intitial impressions regardless of how sound any arguments might be.  As for the Con score...I actually agree that PCs should have a con score...but constructs should not...I probably would have made a similar compromise if I had created the race.  Con represents a players health related to biological function and fitness...contructs are magically animated to allow inert material to mimic life.  I understand your feeling about increased Con but I feel that was dealt with by increased HD:  d12s for constructs.  Warforged are living constructs, both animated and living, encompassing a hybrid of the spark of life and animation.


----------



## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2005)

Wild Gazebo, I understand why you're first impressions were negative. What I was trying to respond to was the more general idea I see ocationaly, that the warforged should have a level adjustment. It dosen't come-up often, but when it does, it's usually from the stand-point that it makes more sense for House Cannith to make constructs that have a level adjustment.

The problem for me is that a slew of new races with level adustments would have turned me off to Eberron. We have a campaign setting like that already, it's called Forgotten Realms. Also, the lack of subraces with was a real boon also. I looked at Races of Eberron the other day and was happy to find that while they listed Elves for other locations in seperate entries, they all have the same racial traits.

I don't think we disagree with the con score issue. I just wanted to say that it makes no sense to me that constructs don't have one.


----------



## Klaus (Apr 11, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> My problem with the warforged, as I alluded to earlier in this thread, is the fact that these animated pieces of wood and metal have a Constitution score. Interestingly, though, everything that score means is taken out of the equation with their immunities and such. They are not "living", really. They are sentient, yes, but not alive.
> 
> I'm fine with the concept of the warforged, and can see no problem with having one in a D&D campaign. But when the designers give them a Con score, my brain derails and crashes. Does not compute.
> 
> Quasqueton



 You mean like a treant, who is an animated piece of wood?

Or like an earth elemental, an animated piece of rock?

Or a lantern archon, who is nothing but light?

Warforged *do* have an internal anatomy, held together by magic. They can partake in heroes' feasts, drink potions and sample wine (there is even a warforged bar in Sharn... they just can't get drunk!). Warforged still feel pain, and the loss of a limb can be as traumatic for them as for anyone else (you can restore hit points with the Craft skill, but it takes Regeneration to make up new limbs, just like humans).

As for emotions: Pierce, the warforged scout/fighter in the novel City of Towers, has a deep connection with his friend Lei, bordering on devotion, maybe love. And it is the hardest goodbye for Lei would be Pierce's, not the others'.


----------



## jgbrowning (Apr 11, 2005)

Klaus said:
			
		

> Warforged *do* have an internal anatomy, held together by magic. They can partake in heroes' feasts, drink potions and sample wine (there is even a warforged bar in Sharn... they just can't get drunk!). Warforged still feel pain, and the loss of a limb can be as traumatic for them as for anyone else (you can restore hit points with the Craft skill, but it takes Regeneration to make up new limbs, just like humans).
> 
> As for emotions: Pierce, the warforged scout/fighter in the novel City of Towers, has a deep connection with his friend Lei, bordering on devotion, maybe love. And it is the hardest goodbye for Lei would be Pierce's, not the others'.




Why not just make a new type for them then as opposed to hijacking [construct] and then basically picking and choosing based upon game-balance what parts of [construct] are applicable? That's my only beef. They should have them be [Souled Construct] or some such.

joe b.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 11, 2005)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> Why not just make a new type for them then as opposed to hijacking [construct] and then basically picking and choosing based upon game-balance what parts of [construct] are applicable? That's my only beef. They should have them be [Souled Construct] or some such.




You mean like Outsider (Native) ?


----------



## jgbrowning (Apr 11, 2005)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
			
		

> You mean like Outsider (Native) ?





Naw, they could do exactly what they want by making a new type. If they chose Outsider (native) they'd have to alter things to suit what they want. The idea of the Warforged is pretty cool and can be boadened out enough to make a pretty good type IMHO.

joe b.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 11, 2005)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> Naw, they could do exactly what they want by making a new type. If they chose Outsider (native) they'd have to alter things to suit what they want.




Sorry, you misunderstood because I wasn't clear enough.

You mentioned that you didn't like the way the ECS handled Warforged because they took an established creature type (Construct), added a new subtype (Living), and picked and chose the features / traits of the original type to fit what they wanted the Warforged to be.

I brought up Outsider (Native) to draw a parallel: an established creature type (Outsider), that had a new subtype added to it in 3.5 (Native), which picked and chose the features / traits of the original type to fit what they wanted the 20th-level Monk, Tiefling, Aasimar, and Genasi to be.

I didn't see a hue and cry over the latter.  I wonder why, all of a sudden, there's the former.


----------



## Gez (Apr 11, 2005)

They could either make them Construct (Living) or Humanoid (Clockwork*). Neither are entirely satisfying. I think I prefer the living subtype myself, especially as it opens a can of delicious tasty worms: a living dead subtype for undead who still have most trappings of life, for example (I'm thinking of vampires).


* For lack of a better term.


PS: Patryn, the Native subtype for outsider appeared before 3.5. Exactly like for living constructs, it first appeared in a campaign setting, to accomodate the needs of new player races: in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.


----------



## Spatula (Apr 12, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> My problem with the warforged, as I alluded to earlier in this thread, is the fact that these animated pieces of wood and metal have a Constitution score. Interestingly, though, everything that score means is taken out of the equation with their immunities and such. They are not "living", really. They are sentient, yes, but not alive.



Explain elementals, please.  Animated unliving matter with Constitution scores and similar immunities to the warforged.


----------



## frankthedm (Apr 12, 2005)

1. They can have thier bodies enchanted and thus have unstealable magic items.

2. Immunity to disease and poison is a BIG thing in my opinion. Even more so with energy drain. 

3. they have thier own healing magic and on top of that, the healing magic for other creatures at 1/2 rate.


I also dislike the Native outsider BS. That which is Not or No Longer natural, should be vulnerable to being forcibly ejected from the material world. 50% feind? 50% bodymass Gone With The Banishment. At one with Nirvana? _Dismisal_ is your front row seat!.


----------



## Spatula (Apr 12, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> PS: Patryn, the Native subtype for outsider appeared before 3.5. Exactly like for living constructs, it first appeared in a campaign setting, to accomodate the needs of new player races: in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.



It first appeared in the 3.0 FRCS, as I recall.  And it was also needed as a game mechanic for monks and other transformational classes ("So wait, I hit 20th level and now I can't be raised?  And that's supposed to be a benefit?!?").  It seemed clunky to me then (they're like outsiders, but not really!), and it still does, as do the living construct and deathless types from Eberron (is the deathless type *really* necessary?).

But, eh, it's not a big deal.  Just a quibble over design principles.  The end result would be the same if they had created a new type for these exceptions, or shoe-horned them in to a different type (constructed humanoid, etc.), or whatever.


----------



## Felon (Apr 12, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> "Spellpunk" is also not a word when I think of Doc Savage, Raiders OTLA, or The Shadow - which is a genre I used in my games.




I don't get your point. Are you trying to draw parallels between those works of fiction and Eberron? Their similarities are tangential at best. I'm aware that Keith Baker used those works to pitch Eberron to WotC, but the fact is they are very distinct from Eb in that they have a very minimal amount of magic in them. This is why the shadow's powers scare people. This is why the nazis receive a very big surprise when they open the ark.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 12, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> PS: Patryn, the Native subtype for outsider appeared before 3.5. Exactly like for living constructs, it first appeared in a campaign setting, to accomodate the needs of new player races: in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.




Right.  It wasn't *Core* until 3.5, however.


----------



## fanboy2000 (Apr 12, 2005)

If there is ever a d20 Oz* game, they should use the  Humanoid (Clockwork) type (subtype). It just fits so well.

*Oz as in _Wizard of Oz_, not as in Australia. If Austrialia has clockwork humanoids though, I'd love to here it. 

Spellpunk, Spellnoir,  Humanoid (Clockwork), this thread is becoming useful.


----------



## Wild Gazebo (Apr 12, 2005)

You know, I'm not sure about the mechanics but I always thought elementals where a type of planar emination or transigence.  A being birthed from the elemental nature of an inner plane.  I never thought of them as animated.  As well, I consider treants and shambling mounds to be living breathing creatures not animated plants.  I consider a construct a magically animated object with minor intelligence--but not really possessing a sense of self beyond the recognision of apendages--a glutton for commands.  Hence the living construct subtype for warforged...a step beyond construct.


----------



## ThirdWizard (Apr 12, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> What I was trying to respond to was the more general idea I see ocationaly, that the warforged should have a level adjustment. It dosen't come-up often, but when it does, it's usually from the stand-point that it makes more sense for House Cannith to make constructs that have a level adjustment.




I have no idea who House Cannith is, and my only exposure to warforged is through the MMIII, but I think they should be LA+1 purely based on mechanical reasons.



> The problem for me is that a slew of new races with level adustments would have turned me off to Eberron. We have a campaign setting like that already, it's called Forgotten Realms.




I would call that basing rules mechanics on politics. People don't want to play LA+1 races, so make them LA+0. Mechanically, they are stronger than dwarves, the height of LA+0. I would say they are stronger than some of the weaker LA+1 races. LA+1 isn't so bad really. If the construct healing spells had never been made, then _maybe _I could see LA+0, but as it stands, I can't.


----------



## Staffan (Apr 12, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> I have no idea who House Cannith is,



In Eberron, there are a number of Dragonmarked Houses, each made up by a very extended family (more like a clan) and employees, who have virtual control over certain economic areas through various guilds, aided by magical powers provided by their dragonmarks. House Cannith is one of these houses, and they have the Mark of Making, controlling most industries in Khorvaire.



> Mechanically, they are stronger than dwarves, the height of LA+0.



I'm not so sure they are stronger than dwarves. Sure, they're outright immune to certain spells, but dwarves get +2 to saves versus all of them. Warforged have to spend a feat to get decent armor, and can't remove it if they're in a situation where it's a hindrance (e.g. climbing). Warforged don't heal naturally (although they can repair themselves - but that requires the Craft skill, which gives them less skill points to use for other things) and only get half benefit from most healing (and most wizards feel they have better things to do with their spells than heal the warforged). They have no special vision unlike dwarves (unlike regular constructs, living constructs specifically do not get darkvision), and have a Wisdom penalty - so despite not sleeping, they don't make particularly good guards, and they're even more vulnerable to mind-affecting magic that isn't humanoid-only. They are also especially vulnerable to certain magics (rusting grasp and heat/chill metal come to mind).


----------



## Mouseferatu (Apr 12, 2005)

I simply don't understand how people can just dismiss the healing issue.

Warforged don't heal naturally. Period.

They gain only half benefit from magical healing. I've had numerous games where the cleric just about ran out of healing spells, and that was in a group where everyone benefited equally, and not all of them needed healing in that particular encounter. If someone in the group had needed double the spells, they'd have been out a long time ago.

And that's it, unless the party happens to have an artificer. If the party _does_ have an artificer, you're still assuming he'll have the infusions left to do the healing. And even if he does, that means there's something else he's not using his abilites on.

I've played warforged before. The healing issue _definitely_ came into play--especially in the game where the guy playing the artificer couldn't make it.

Do warforged require a DM to take their presence into account? Sure. So do elves, and (IME) to no greater an extent.

Warforged are potent, no argument. But I just don't buy the argument that they should be ECL +1. I've seen them in practice.


----------



## Von Ether (Apr 12, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> If there is ever a d20 Oz* game, they should use the  Humanoid (Clockwork) type (subtype). It just fits so well.
> 
> *Oz as in _Wizard of Oz_, not as in Australia. If Austrialia has clockwork humanoids though, I'd love to here it.
> 
> Spellpunk, Spellnoir,  Humanoid (Clockwork), this thread is becoming useful.



 ... Then check out Green Ronin's Advanced Beastiary. Beyond the template Clockwork Creature there is ...

Lifespark construct (combine the two for a Warforged-type PC)
Warmachine
Creature Swarm, Elemental-Infused and othes.


----------



## ARandomGod (Apr 12, 2005)

Bran Blackbyrd said:
			
		

> ...They discovered that binding a soul to a construct body created a ready-made warrior and that being bound to the construct prevented the soul from remembering who it once was. It wasn't that the warforged gained sentience over time, it was that in order to make the warforged perform more autonomously, their creators had to 'relax' the magicks which chained the soul to the body.




I'm playing a character right now that has as one of his main goals in life to become a warforged. Of course, he plans on continuing to remember himself, and he'd settle for undead. Religion: Blood of Vol. But, you know, that's not the sweetest religion. What if we could make people into warforged instead of vampires and liches?

Of coures, he also plans to take the Heir to Syberys PrC. Boy is he going to be dissapointed if he gets that class first and THEN manages to become warforged, neh?



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Does anyone know a human fighter that would not take a fear at first level that granted them DR or Mithral armor?  I certainly have not met the player would would choose a different feat if given the chance.




Hey. 
Pleased to meetcha.
Personally, I'd much rather wait and be able to BUY the armor that I want, and have a feat open than be forced to waste a feat on what other people could pick up for mere gold, and for suboptimal (for my character) armor at that! Now, if the feat were Armored Body:
 1) chose a special material 2) then chose an armor type... 
That at least would make more sense. Although I'd still rather they not had this all or nothing armor, and instead they had made exchangable chassis for the race.

If I were a human fighter there's no way I'd be shortsighted enough to take a feat that basically let's me start out with a paltry (if relatively large for first level characters) sum of gold instead of a real, honest feat.



			
				Gez said:
			
		

> They can't? They won't feel the hormonal urge to have sex with said beautiful woman, but who is to say they can't appreciate beauty? Who is to say they can't feel platonic love and genuine friendship?




Indeed, who's to say that they aren't much, much better at such feelings than their hormonally challenged fully biological brethern?



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Exactly, they do not want to have sex.  They do not want to procreate.  They may even be immortal, like Data.  No one yet knows if they can even die of old age.




Are you sure they don't? Damn. There goes on of my warforged prime drives. 
Hell with that. I still say MY warforged indeed does want to procreate. In fact, I believe that 



Spoiler



there's a whole colony in the mournlands with procreation as nearly a prime desire


.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> And appreciating a beautiful woman is in large part because you are hormonally attracted to them.  How does a warforged even know what a beautiful woman looks like?!  They don't.  At most, she could be a piece of art, but nothing more.  There goes another plot device.  I guess I will have to start making sexy tractors with mithral gears.




And there you are my hormonally challenged fellow. You cannot truely appreciate the beauty the way I can, you're mind is too clouded with the impure taint of your lust. Of course you can't truely concieve of real beauty! How could you possibly, when the only value you see in another is that person's reproductive capacity, their potential to partially and temporarily sate your animalistic lusts? Still, though I pity you (and truely I do), I still count you as a friend. Even as flawed by this as you are, you have your own, unique beauty.


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## megamania (Apr 12, 2005)

Pseudonym said:
			
		

> Every time I have deviated from that I've gotten weird looks or resistance.  I had a half-orc character who's parents were former adventurers.  His mother died and was reincarnated as an orc.  The DM told me that it was to improbable.  I didn't last long with that group.
> 
> The other time I had a half-ogre, with the backstory starting with "Mom was an ogre, dad was a freak."  That one was fun.




Sounds like you would fit in with my players well enough.  If it can be explained- it can happen.  (NPC Villians also of course  )


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## Kesh (Apr 12, 2005)

Couple points:

1) I didn't even know there _was_ an SBLOCK feature here. Nifty! 

2) About the "warforged overboard!" bit, folks forgot something: If you're far out to sea, there's that little problem of _crush depth_. Warforged drops too far, the pressure will simply crunch his body to junk. And warforged probably don't float too well, so...


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## Ds Da Man (Apr 12, 2005)

Everybody keeps worrying about "balance". The warforged aren't very much over-powered. I know if my bad guys seen a warforged walking tank, a human, an elf, a halfling, who do you think would be the first target? His new name would be "automated target".


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 12, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> I would call that basing rules mechanics on politics.



And I would call it basing rules on what people want to play. Funny how re-wording a sentance will put things into a much clearer perspective.  

Searously though, I've DMed warforged, they're LA +0 based purely on they game play. Reading a monster entry only gives you half the picture. 

Advanced Beastiary, Green Ronin, got it.

Oh, and on the topic of Warforged emotions, the Tin Woodsman had the greatest compassion in _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_.


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## Infernal Teddy (Apr 12, 2005)

Soel said:
			
		

> As written, the "race" has no thing to drive them. Their only function is one that is outdated. They have no real culture. They have nothing to strive for. They seem all too much like robots, with mortal masks on. I suppose some interesting things could be done along these lines (tortured angsty things,) but they just seem far too one dimensional to me.




Actually, this is what drove the one Warforged Character I played. He was a Warforged Soulknife, and had been designed as a "Secret weapon". But with the war over, he had to find a new purpose in life. We had quite a good bit of role playing as he tried to get to grip with his "humanity" if you will. Best moment was when he "decided" he'd fallen in love with the Halfling fighter...

"Touch her but once, and I will lay waste to you, your little army, and anyone who puts himself in my path" (Spoken to the Lord of Blades. The Character died, but gave the rest of the group enough time to save the Halfling, and get her to safety)


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 12, 2005)

Just a sidenote: AFAIK the designers decided to make warforged a LA+0 race before actually designing the race, not the other way round.




			
				Infernal Teddy said:
			
		

> "Touch her but once, and I will lay waste to you, your little army, and anyone who puts himself in my path" (Spoken to the Lord of Blades. The Character died, but gave the rest of the group enough time to save the Halfling, and get her to safety)




Famous last words. Almost up to par to Tyler Durden's "What's that smell?" 
And maybe if the party's opponent hadn't been the LoB the bluff _might've_ worked...


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## Staffan (Apr 12, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> And warforged probably don't float too well, so...



Well, much of the warforged is made out of wood. They don't have any inherent Swim penalty, other than the -3 or -8 they might get for having mithral/adamantine body (note that unlike armor check penalties, these penalties aren't doubled for swimming).


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## ARandomGod (Apr 12, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Couple points:
> 
> 1) I didn't even know there _was_ an SBLOCK feature here. Nifty!
> 
> 2) About the "warforged overboard!" bit, folks forgot something: If you're far out to sea, there's that little problem of _crush depth_. Warforged drops too far, the pressure will simply crunch his body to junk. And warforged probably don't float too well, so...




Where in the core books is that depth spelled out?

Not asking about real world. Of course I know that's what would happen in a nonmagical environment. But since the gameworld definitely is not using real world physics, I was wondering if they indeed had incorporated this one? Or would it instead be a GM using (fallatious) OOC knowledge?



			
				Ds Da Man said:
			
		

> Everybody keeps worrying about "balance". The warforged aren't very much over-powered. I know if my bad guys seen a warforged walking tank, a human, an elf, a halfling, who do you think would be the first target? His new name would be "automated target".




My bad guys differ when I'm playing the GM, so I can't answer that. But I can say that if my PC's saw that, they'd target the elf, unless we were playing really low levels. Gotta take down the mage first!



			
				Staffan said:
			
		

> Well, much of the warforged is made out of wood. They don't have any inherent Swim penalty, other than the -3 or -8 they might get for having mithral/adamantine body (note that unlike armor check penalties, these penalties aren't doubled for swimming).




Interesting. I did not notice that. And, of course, that means that they inherently float better than humans, doesn't it?


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 12, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Where in the core books is that depth spelled out?
> 
> Not asking about real world. Of course I know that's what would happen in a nonmagical environment. But since the gameworld definitely is not using real world physics, I was wondering if they indeed had incorporated this one? Or would it instead be a GM using (fallatious) OOC knowledge?




I don't think it made it into the SRD.  However, I do believe it was in the 3.0 Dragon issue which suggested the majority of the rules which made it into the 3.5 DMG.


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## cmanos (Apr 12, 2005)

Quit yer whinin.  If you don't like the book, put it up on half.,com for sale.  I'm sure someone else would love it.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 12, 2005)

> Where in the core books is that depth spelled out?



DMG 3.5 page 6 under the heading "Adjudicating."


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## KB9JMQ (Apr 12, 2005)

I have no problem with the warforged. They seem just fine in my game.
I did give them darkvision though. Just seemed like something a war machine would have.
I have two people playing warforged and one artificer.
Both Warforged are frontline tanks but if the artificer looks like she is in trouble saving her is the main priority.


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## Hawklord (Apr 12, 2005)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I simply don't understand how people can just dismiss the healing issue.
> 
> Warforged don't heal naturally. Period.




Got to agree with Mouseferatu here.

Having just played a warforged this was one of the biggest pains - especially when you run out of _oil of repair_ and subsequently have a big knock-on effect on the rest of the party in that you soak up a disproportionate share of the party's healing capability.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 12, 2005)

> It seemed clunky to me then (they're like outsiders, but not really!), and it still does, as do the living construct and deathless types from Eberron (is the deathless type really necessary?).




BIG TIME agreement here. Why make an Outsider or Construct or Undead type that works just like humanoids when you can make a Humanoid type that picks and chooses the limited thinigs you can get from Outsiders or Constructs or Undead? Humanoid (Good) for Aasimar, Humanoid (Clockwork) for Warforged, Humanoid (Risen) for Undead. The Deathless subtype does nearly the same thing...when the game is built from the ground up assuming that things are going to be humanoids, this is a much easier transition to accomodate. 

The Warforged are not too powerful. They are, however, annoying.   Because that +10 Fort save and that Delay Poison and that suit of armor all represent something for the player sthat have them: they spent rescources to get it.

The Warforged does not have to spend any rescources to get their immunities. They're just BETTER at it. They have to spend extra rescources for other things (healing, armor, etc.), but this doens't make them any easier to integrate when you're challenging certain things that they can do.

Eventually, that cleric will run out of spells. Eventually, that sinking fighter will have to make a choice. A Warforged, however, does not run out of immunity and does not have to make a choice. When a campaign is focused on whittling down the PC's rescources to the point where the players are feeling the tension of the encuonter, the warforged will miss the entire point of it, because he will never feel the tension. That +10 Fort save may be great, but that 5% chance of failure keeps the sweat on the brow, and not every poison has the same DC. The Warforged have no fear. And that changes how you have to arrange the game. You have to accomodate the Warforged in ways that you don't have to accomodate normal air-breathing, poisonable humanoids. In order to evoke the sense of danger you want the PC's to be feeling, you need to constantly be reminded of the fact that the warforged player just isn't in any danger. Yes, there is still the risk of failure, but when the goal is to fear for their lives, failure is a pale substitute. Warforged are immortal. They can always try again. 

The warforged, for free, get the immunities and benefits that allow them to wade through certain encoutners without feeling the threat of their own hides. No other race in the game gets that. The rest exist on a continuum that make some better, and some worse, but that do not *preclude* any. This is what is wrong with them.

And they still co-opt the dwarf's schtick.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 12, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The warforged, for free, get the immunities and benefits that allow them to wade through certain encoutners without feeling the threat of their own hides. No other race in the game gets that. The rest exist on a continuum that make some better, and some worse, but that do not *preclude* any. This is what is wrong with them.




Elves are Immune to Sleep Effects.


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## Gez (Apr 12, 2005)

And to ghouls' paralizing touch.


Monks and mages are immune to rust monsters.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 12, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> Monks and mages are immune to rust monsters.




Which is, of course, horribly broken.


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## kigmatzomat (Apr 12, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> Monks and mages are immune to rust monsters.




Someone's never destroyed _Boccob's Blessed Book_ or a set of steel _Bracers of Armor._ 

Lots of stuff is made of metal.  Mwa-ha-ha!


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 12, 2005)

kigmatzomat said:
			
		

> Someone's never destroyed _Boccob's Blessed Book_ or a set of steel _Bracers of Armor._
> 
> Lots of stuff is made of metal.  Mwa-ha-ha!



 But Bracers of Armor isn't a Monk.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 13, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> DMG 3.5 page 6 under the heading "Adjudicating."




Oh yea. Of course, there I have to cross reference the PhB under "You're GM is being a git, and makin' stuff up just to spite you because he don't like you. So get out of there and play with a real GM, or kiss his butt, stop using your own imagination, and just write up a character he likes, then let him run it as an NPC... there's no real point in you running it after all, it's HIS character."




			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The Warforged are not too powerful. They are, however, annoying.   Because that +10 Fort save and that Delay Poison and that suit of armor all represent something for the player sthat have them: they spent rescources to get it.
> 
> The Warforged does not have to spend any rescources to get their immunities. They're just BETTER at it. They have to spend extra rescources for other things (healing, armor, etc.), but this doens't make them any easier to integrate when you're challenging certain things that they can do.
> 
> Eventually, that cleric will run out of spells. Eventually, that sinking fighter will have to make a choice. A Warforged, however, does not run out of immunity and does not have to make a choice. When a campaign is focused on whittling down the PC's rescources to the point where the players are feeling the tension of the encuonter, the warforged will miss the entire point of it, because he will never feel the tension. That +10 Fort save may be great, but that 5% chance of failure keeps the sweat on the brow, and not every poison has the same DC. The Warforged have no fear. And that changes how you have to arrange the game. You have to accomodate the Warforged in ways that you don't have to accomodate normal air-breathing, poisonable humanoids. In order to evoke the sense of danger you want the PC's to be feeling, you need to constantly be reminded of the fact that the warforged player just isn't in any danger. Yes, there is still the risk of failure, but when the goal is to fear for their lives, failure is a pale substitute. Warforged are immortal. They can always try again.




You're completely right there. When I'm playing a warforged, and I'm getting down on HP's, I completely have no fear that the resources of that heal spell will ever run out. I mean, so it takes twice as many, I've got an unlimited number of clerical cohorts, right? And so what if that spell would work better on the non-warfoged, I'm still going to get my fair share, twice that of anyone else, right?

Right?

D@mn, I think that cleric ran off.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 13, 2005)

Post dopplganger. Don't worry, I've slain it.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 13, 2005)

You sure it wasn't a changeling?


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 13, 2005)

> You're completely right there. When I'm playing a warforged, and I'm getting down on HP's, I completely have no fear that the resources of that heal spell will ever run out.




Thing is, if the adventure is designed so that the bad guys' main method of depleating your HP is poison or suffocation or starvation or environmental damage or whatever, those aren't valid tactics against a warforged. They can't even get lucky. They can't even get a REALLY POWERFUL poison. Nothing. No blowgun will ever work. The warforged can run into a nest of scorpions without a sweat, or walk through a plague zone nonplused. Even the dwarf barbarian with a +10 Fort save is going to be a little affraid it's something his save can't overcome.

That's really the thing -- I as a DM need to take special account of the Warforged above and beyond what I had to do before the Warforged. I have to make sure that there is a threat in there for the warforged specially. It's not that it's impossible, it's that that means that this one member of the party is basically hogging my DM's attention. And he gets to do that for free. 

The warforged have their own special vulnerability: Artificer spells. Which, again, is a note that the warforged basically require a game mechanic all their own (the Artificer) to even be subject to the things that normal PC's fear without it. 



> Elves are Immune to Sleep Effects.




(a) Warforged are immune to sleep effects and then some...
(b) How many monsters in the MM have Sleep effects? How many sleep effects exist in the game? How many monsters have poison? Disease? Energy drain? How many rely on those instead of high-damage attacks to threaten the party? Not that I'm happy with that particular immunity entirely, but this is like saying "well, he's got a +1, so a +5 should be okay,too!"



> And to ghouls' paralizing touch.
> Monks and mages are immune to rust monsters.




(a) Elves aren't immune to the paralyzing touch. Warforged are, though.
(b) How many monsters in the MM are rust monsters? How many rust attacks exist in the game? 

Things that threaten with poison and energy drain (especially) are archetypal adventuring challenges. Heck, they're what the typical necromancer or assassin uses against his enemies. They come with undead and stealthy monsters quite often. Druids allying with poisonous vermin or snakes or platypi are relatively *common* ideas. Certainly there are other things I could do, but I don't like something as inoccuous and easily solved as a race dictating what I as a DM can and cannot do with my story. With the exception of the warforged (and most LA races, which is ANOTHER thing they share in common), a race choice is 90% cosmetic for the character. They get some skill bonuses, they get some ability bonuses, but even a good choice (dwarven barbarian) isn't a gigantic cut above his peers, and even a bad choice (dwarven sorcerer) isn't a gigantic blow below his peers. The Warforged shares this continuum of not outshining or especially sucking, except in certain specific iconic adventuring scenarios, where regardless of class, they will outshine everyone else. 

Just so I'm not entirely ripping on the poor things, here's how they should be "fixed" IMHO, so that they don't push my particular buttons. This is just taking the material from the book and making it palatable, not trying to design a "PC race that is created, not born" from the ground up, mind you. 


Nix the Living Construct thing. Replace it with Humanoid (Clockwork) or whatever. This makes them vulnerable to various BLANK person spells without the enemy having to do special preparation against a different type.
Nix immunities. Because they are mechanical, they should be better against these things than normal folks; replace the immunities with a +4 save bonus to the things listed instead. Their phsyiology is constructed, but it's very similar to humanoid -- viens that pump oil can still pump venom, gears that generate energy can still get tired, their life force is still something undead can feed on. Keep, for nostalgia and the elf, the immunity to being naseous and the immunity to sleep effects. Makes them fine in swarms, but they have other problems with swarms (like the things not needing to confront their usually-high AC's to hurt them).
Ditch the half-healing schtick. They're run by positive energy just like any other being. Also (along with some of the other things) removes the need for there to be an artificer in a party with a warforged. 
I don't like leaving the special vulnerabilities to certain spells, but we'll keep 'em in because (a) new tactics can be fun, (b) only specialized enemies will be able to fight against them in this manner, and (c) it is mostly balanced out by the next thing...
Retain their inability to bleed. This is helpful, but not nessecarily life-saving, in the same way that the vulnerabilities are awkward, but not really condemning. 
They require an energy source. They don't need to eat normal food (I'd allow them to eat rocks, nuts, bolts, metal pipes, whatever), but they need to eat something, and they still require air to make the energy. Let them keep the sleeplessness. It treads on the elves a little bit, but nothing else the warforged does treads on the elves at all, so no big deal.
They can heal damage naturally, but only do so if they "power down" e.g. sleep. They don't HAVE to sleep, but they have the option if they want to let their inner repair systems take over. They can still heal hp with Craft checks, too.
They can keep the rest.

And they'll *still* step on the dwarves a little bit, but there's enough differences to make it roughly equal out in the end.

Keep the *exact same* background story, if you like. I wouldn't, but I think the Warforged are set to turn into the next Drow, so perhaps I'm over-sensitive to things that give drama queens the chance to strut their stuff too much. The background is part of the reason that they're so big of an attention hog, but that's something that every DM has to deal with, and it doesn't make them annoying to play mechanically, just with certain kinds of players   It's more of a gripe that Eberron is going to be *defined* by stuff for, of, and about the Warforged more than it will for any other race. IMHO, that's a bad thing, but that's by no means an objective truth -- I just don't like it when one PC race is at the center of attention to the exclusion of others. But there's no doubting that warforged are trendy now, and for good reason. They do have lots of story potential...I just don't value story potential in a PC race. 

Whatever their background story, the mechanics for their race as it is makes them awkward, clunky, and problematic. These aren't problems per se, because people will live with being awkward, clunky, and problematic to play a cool race, which the warforged certainly are. They are problems for me (and some others) because I'd rather not have to look up warforged immunities every time I go make an adventure and prepare a backup plan if my original one doesn't challenge this one PC enough. 

I don't think that robo-PC's are a bad idea as a race, but I do think they were done in a fashion that makes them abberant and grating here. The problems were so easy to solve, I think part of the reason they didn't was because they felt that the Warforged should be dramatically different from any other race out there. I disagree.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> (a) Warforged are immune to sleep effects and then some...
> (b) How many monsters in the MM have Sleep effects? How many sleep effects exist in the game? How many monsters have poison? Disease? Energy drain? How many rely on those instead of high-damage attacks to threaten the party? Not that I'm happy with that particular immunity entirely, but this is like saying "well, he's got a +1, so a +5 should be okay,too!"




You said that no Core race has the a flat out immunity. Elves DO. Yes, Warforged have more than that, but it doesn't break things. This isn't a single character based game.

The Warforged not being harmed by the poison/etc isn't an issue. Sure, he's fine...but what about the whole party? If they're all dead, he's next on the list and you don't need just poison. Besides, Poison is easy to get rid of with low level Cleric spells, so its sure isn't that much of an obstacle. Maybe we should remove Clerics since they make it pointless.


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## Andor (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The warforged can run into a nest of scorpions without a sweat, or walk through a plague zone nonplused.




So can the druid (scorpions) or paladin(plague zone). Or the cleric can do both with a couple of spells.

Do you allow these classes? If so why do you boggle at a race that has abilities already encompassed by core classes? 

What's that you say? The whole party could be warforged? Awesome! They'll get hired for jobs _based_ on the fact that they have immunities. Even if they don't happen to have the right one.

Warforged fighter: "Help meee..."
Employer: "What happened to you? I thought you warforged couldn't be drained by undead?"
Warforged fighter: "Shadows don't drain energy, they drain strength..."
Employer: "Huh?"
Warforged fighter: "Could you move my eyelids? I don't have the strength to blink."


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 13, 2005)

> You said that no Core race has the a flat out immunity. Elves DO. Yes, Warforged have more than that, but it doesn't break things. This isn't a single character based game.




Actually, I said:



> The warforged, for free, get the immunities and benefits that allow them to wade through certain encoutners without feeling the threat of their own hides. No other race in the game gets that.




I've never run a game in whicih a Sleep spell made or broke an encounter. Perhaps I'm abberant? 



> Sure, he's fine...but what about the whole party? If they're all dead, he's next on the list and you don't need just poison. Besides, Poison is easy to get rid of with low level Cleric spells, so its sure isn't that much of an obstacle. Maybe we should remove Clerics since they make it pointless.




The problem is that he's not fearing for his own life and limb. There's no motive like a low motive, and building action is making the players have an emotional reaction. If the entire campaign is made up largely of encounters like this, the Warforged player won't feel as much action, adventure, excitement, and tension as the rest, unless the encounters are specifically geared for him. The player will be bored (or at least anyone I've played with will be...I'm sure those who just get joy from playing a nigh-invincible robot would be having the time of their lives), not all the time, but more so than the rest. And the reason that it's different with clerics is because clerics have to spend a finite rescource to alleviate the pain. This spending of a rescource can create drama when the rescource gets low, or special challenges resist this rescource. Magic is far from a panacea, otherwise we'd say Magic Missile allows you to overcome any monster because it deals hp damage, and every monster hp. A spell that does something is not the same as immunity from that effect. The warforged, in these cases, is entirely immune to the dramatic situation. Could the mission still fail? Sure, but either way, he's living to see the next day. To have a player feel that way for most of a campaign just isn't something that would be fun for any of my players. To make special exceptions for one PC just isn't something that would be fun for me as a DM. 



> So can the druid (scorpions) or paladin(plague zone). Or the cleric can do both with a couple of spells.
> 
> Do you allow these classes? If so why do you boggle at a race that has abilities already encompassed by core classes?




Because gaining levels in a class is an expendature of rescources (time and XP, most prominently, but often much more than just that, such as equipment and skill and feat choices, and also "levels" themselves since a campaing usually only has so many to work with), whereas selecting your race is not. You get your race for free (if they're LA +0), just choosing between options. Like feats or spells, this means that all options present at a given level should be roughly similar on the scale. No other race has powers near the Warforged. This isn't to say they're too powerful, this is to say they're too different. This makes them clunky, like a spell that has the statistics of a weapon. It's the reason the main advice for creating new things in the game is "compare it with what's already there."  

They aren't horrible mostrosities of poor design, but they're clunky and awkward when they could *not* be, and I think that choice was intentional. The designers thought about doing it some other way, but decided that Warforged should be dramatically different from other PC races. This is both an advantage (they feel weird to play, they're weird in the world!) and a disadgadvantage (they're so weird it's hard to fit them into typical adventures). In this case, I feel that the designers made the wrong choice, and that going with a more streamlined, more common sense design would have been better and more fun to play. For me, the clunkiness means that they don't get added. Too much trouble, too little benefit.

Or would you argue that Warforged work in pretty much the same way that every other race works?


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## Soel (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> They aren't horrible mostrosities of poor design, but they're clunky and awkward when they could *not* be, and I think that choice was intentional. The designers thought about doing it some other way, but decided that Warforged should be dramatically different from other PC races. This is both an advantage (they feel weird to play, they're weird in the world!) and a disadgadvantage (they're so weird it's hard to fit them into typical adventures). In this case, I feel that the designers made the wrong choice, and that going with a more streamlined, more common sense design would have been better and more fun to play. For me, the clunkiness means that they don't get added. Too much trouble, too little benefit.




Great summation. I tend to fall on the side of "not thought out enough."


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## Felon (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And the reason that it's different with clerics is because clerics have to spend a finite rescource to alleviate the pain. This spending of a rescource can create drama when the rescource gets low, or special challenges resist this rescource. Magic is far from a panacea, otherwise we'd say Magic Missile allows you to overcome any monster because it deals hp damage, and every monster hp.




Bravo. This is a very well-thought-out post, which is more than can be said for most of the folks trying to diffuse your position. I've been reading that half-baked "clerics can remove poison and paralysis, so I guess you wanna get rid of them, huh?" straw-man line for several pages in this thread and I think I was about to have a conniption. Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing out that there is big difference between actively allocating a resource (in this case, a spell), and flat-out immunity. The level of obtuseness required to blot out that obvious distinction must be pretty painful. 

Warforged are for folks who like things that are different for the sake of being different. "Screw the mechanics of it all, I want Data in this D&D party".


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 13, 2005)

I believe those straw-men were in refence to the DM's difficulty asigning obstacles, not the power relations involved in conflict and balance.  The idea being if a DM finds it difficult to accomidate one PCs immunity to certain adventure paths...that DM doesn't play with magic very often.  And, Kamikaze Midget, that really was a good summation of what Wizards could have easily done to introduce warforged a lot more elegantly.  But, as is, I have absolutely no difficulty GMing warforged characters.  In fact, I rather enjoy having one character able to accomidate an obstacle better that others...it leads to all sorts of bizzare schemes that make GMing so evil-ly fun.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 13, 2005)

Wild Gazebo said:
			
		

> Um.  Kamakazi, I think you're prejudices are showing.  I was going to debunk each of your examples fairly thouroughly but I think Saeviomagy did an ok job...except I think most warriors could cut their armor off before they die...but still, the point stands.



I was looking at the table for half or full plate and seeing 1d4+1 minutes to remove the stuff, and I think you get 2 rounds per point of constitution to hold your breath for.

So I think there's a pretty good chance of the warrior simply dying because he fell in the water...


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## Brennin Magalus (Apr 13, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Bravo. This is a very well-thought-out post, which is more than can be said for most of the folks trying to diffuse your position. I've been reading that half-baked "clerics can remove poison and paralysis, so I guess you wanna get rid of them, huh?" straw-man line for several pages in this thread and I think I was about to have a conniption. Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing out that there is big difference between actively allocating a resource (in this case, a spell), and flat-out immunity. The level of obtuseness required to blot out that obvious distinction must be pretty painful.




At the risk of sending you into a deserved apoplectic fit, your facile dismissal of the objections others raised and a dime would not get me a gumball from a gumball machine. The fact that an expenditure of resources is involved does not address KM's original criticism that running a warforged requires more work because the DM must remain cognizant of his immunities, which rules out certain types of games. Others rightfully pointed out that certain classes either have inherent, persistent immunities (e.g., the paladin) or can achieve temporary immunities via spells. These classes would also forestall certain games according to his rational.



> Warforged are for folks who like things that are different for the sake of being different. "Screw the mechanics of it all, I want Data in this D&D party".




No, but you are welcome to add that bit of nonsense to the stockpile you are already sitting on.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 13, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> My problem with the warforged, as I alluded to earlier in this thread, is the fact that these animated pieces of wood and metal have a Constitution score. Interestingly, though, everything that score means is taken out of the equation with their immunities and such. They are not "living", really. They are sentient, yes, but not alive.
> 
> I'm fine with the concept of the warforged, and can see no problem with having one in a D&D campaign. But when the designers give them a Con score, my brain derails and crashes. Does not compute.
> 
> Quasqueton



See - I'm from the other direction. I don't see why the constitution score should be the difference between living and unliving. Constructs and undead NOT having a con score produce so many problems it's not funny... screwed up hitpoints, skills, saves etc. Just giving everything a con score and saying "constructs and undead are immune to X, Y and Z" would in my book be a far better way of handling things...


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And they still co-opt the dwarf's schtick.



They're short and gruff? I never saw that in the ECS. Is that an ROE thing?


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 13, 2005)

> I believe those straw-men were in refence to the DM's difficulty asigning obstacles, not the power relations involved in conflict and balance. The idea being if a DM finds it difficult to accomidate one PCs immunity to certain adventure paths...that DM doesn't play with magic very often.




See, poison remains a valid obstacle for a cleric with Neutralize Poison in a way that it isn't a valid obstacle for a Warforged character. The cleric, the fighter, the wizard, the rogue will all feel this poison differently. The wizard and Rogue have a low Fort save. But the wizard knows alchemy and the rogue knows poisons. The cleric might not risk succumbing to it himself much, but he's got double-duty on healing, both with cure spells and with antivenom. Plus, he has to watch out for those bigger guys with the more virulent poison that could still get him. The fighter isn't too worried about most of the poison he's me melee with, but he's being peppered with darts from the sidelines which might have poisons of differing DC's. Nobody is being hurt much in the hp department, because the assassins are depending upon their poison to do the work.

One obstacle, poison, challenges all characters of all classes. In different ways, but it does it's job as a risk.

That risk is entirely negated for the warforged. They face very little challenge from the poison. His rescources remain intact. Heck, if I wanted to be a mean DM, I'd say they get less XP from the encounter because they never had much at risk. And this isn't due to power level or balance (except in a very general way about how they relate to campaign composition) it's purely do to what, IMHO, is a bad design descision. I think WotC WANTED the Warforged to stand out in sharp relief from the rest of the world. And because of that, their actual playability suffered. This was an acceptable loss for them, but it isn't for me.

Magic removes some risk, but it creates a risk in the process: the risk of running out of magic. This means that a different challenge later cannot be addressed. An LA +0 race is a freebie. A LA +0 race with an Immunity removes some risk, without spending anything. For elves, it's a minor thing -- the risk doesn't occur often enough to matter. For the Warforged, it's a lot broader. Any warforged going against a typical necromancer or assassin kind of challenge of the right CR will win because he is immune to the major attack forms, and he spends nothing to be so. One could argue he spends 1/2 healing, but the typical necromancer or assassin kinds of challenges don't worry about attacking hp, they worry about attacking levels, Fort saves, and powers of observation and magic.

Using magic to remove a risk in itself creates a new risk. An immunity creates no new risk. At least, not at LA +0 it does. And I think the warforged have enough immunities (and side benefits) to be worth some sort of price as they stand now. I do think the only reason they AREN'T LA +1 is because there was pressure on them from above to make all the races LA +0, since the level adjustment mechanic hasn't gotten the warmest reception...



> And, Kamikaze Midget, that really was a good summation of what Wizards could have easily done to introduce warforged a lot more elegantly. But, as is, I have absolutely no difficulty GMing warforged characters. In fact, I rather enjoy having one character able to accomidate an obstacle better that others...it leads to all sorts of bizzare schemes that make GMing so evil-ly fun.




Fair enough, and more power too you.    But, for my milage, if I wanted a construct in the party, I'd bloody put a construct in the party, and not half-gimp it and declare it good enough to let them eat cake. Bizzare schemes are loads of fun, but I'm a bigger fan of semi-phenomenal, nearly-cosmic powers than I am of outright immunity....sort of a "bravery isn't bravery if there is no risk," kinda thing.


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## Ds Da Man (Apr 13, 2005)

So what KM is saying is that he don't like 'em, more power to him also. If the DM don't like it, git rid of it.


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 13, 2005)

"I was looking at the table for half or full plate and seeing 1d4+1 minutes to remove the stuff, and I think you get 2 rounds per point of constitution to hold your breath for.

So I think there's a pretty good chance of the warrior simply dying because he fell in the water..."


Didn't there used to be a rule for cutting the straps of the armor to save time?   What happened to that?  I might allow d4+1 rounds if straps are being cut...hell you at least half the time when you're donning hastily.  I'm not sure where I remember this from...3.0???  

Don't forget the couple of rounds you could pull off your saving throws for...I think DC:10 +1 per each other round.

Oh, and for D&D crushing depth is as follows:  d6 damage for every 100'/minute.

Now I'm going to have to look all over for that bloody rule before it drives me crazy...which is a distict possibilty.

Kamikaze Midget, I can't get this scenario out of my head.  That warforge thrashing around a dense jungle desparately trying to find the natives with the poison blowdarts...all the while his adventuring buddies are pinned under-fire yelling conflicting directions to him to 'go North...no South..behind the tree...no the TREE.'  All the while he's yelling at them to stop hiding and fight some of these pesky jungle people who are 'too bloody quick and hard to see...they're every where...quit HIDING.'

Oh, by the way I recently had my PC's discover how hard it is to rescue a warforged from a quicksand trap.  Heheheheheh.  Of course there where several kobolds shooting arrows at them as well.  MWAhahahahahhahah.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2005)

ECS page 23 said:
			
		

> Immunity to poison, sleep effectss, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, effects that cause the sickened condition, and energy drain.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> A warforge does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe



The various immunities warforged get don't bother me for a few reasons. One is that D&D assumes variety. A party of four PCs of the same race and class is more vulnerable than one of different races and classes. CRs and ELs are all based on that assumtion. Making a save from a one time effect as the same end result as being immune to it. One of the things I've leard from DMing that the CR and EL system assumes that one of the party survives. A rust monster's CR, for example, takes into account that one or two of the party members isn't depending on his or her equipment. Being made out metal. 

The second thing is that many of the things they are immune to are status conditions. Status conditions are great for adding flavor to an encounter, but I wouldn't design a whole campaign around it. For one thing, status conditions get to be about as boring as straight combat. I wouldn't design a campaign where the only thing the PCs fought was Orc fighters; I wouldn't design a campaign where the only threat was being poisoned, or level drained, or put to sleep, or etc.... I would, most certantly, design an adventure where that was the primary threat, but even without warforged I wouldn't stake all the tension it. 

I think this is why, even with all the immunites, warforged are LA+0, with the varity of challenges to overcome in the game, the status conditions warforged are immune to make a small number of what actually sees play. Obviously, campaigns differ. 

When it comes to eating, breathing, and sleeping the challenges that target thouse areas also make-up a small number of the number of what PCs actually spend game time on. I personaly don't spend a lot of game time on basic wilderness survival. I run a norse campaign where a couple of the PCs have ranks in survival and usually handle it with a skill chaeck and few words about what they got if they were sucessful. That's the most I've delt with food. I can't, off the top of my head, think of instance where breathing came into play on land. There's the spell Miasma, but I banned that spell when I first saw it because I think it's horribly broken. I even think the Complete Divine version is broken. Breating presents a few problems, from a rules standpoint. Because every PC race listed in the PHB has to breath, no save can keep you from suffocating under the right conditions. If you design a trap where the party is is going to suffocate if the rogue doesn't  disable it, the party will die if the rogue fails. In most other traps not designed by the troll Gimtooth, a failure doesn't mean a TPK. While there is drama associated with that kind of situation, but from a game mechaincs standpoint, it's just one skill check that needs to be made in a certian amount of time. Not very dramatic for the players. 



> I have to cross reference the PhB under "You're GM is being a git, and makin' stuff up just to spite you because he don't like you. So get out of there and play with a real GM, or kiss his butt, stop using your own imagination, and just write up a character he likes, then let him run it as an NPC... there's no real point in you running it after all, it's HIS character."



If your running sea encounters, you need to add rules to the game. I wouldn't add crush depth, but it's just as valid house rule as any. Adding house rules, which is partly what the section I refered to was about, is a natural part of the game. In fact, I think every gaming group runs into situations that aren't covered in the core rules, and thouse DMs adjudicate the situations as desired all the time. Adding crush depth to make the fear of falling into the ocean more real for the warforged is one way to handle the situation. 

Also, adding house rules has nothing to do with controling a character and running it like an NPC. I'm not even sure why you brought it up.

Edit: Well, I learned something new today. DMG page 304


> Very deep water is not only generaly pitch black, posing a navigation hazard, but worse, it deals water pressure damage of 1d6 points per minute for every 100 feet the character is below the surface. A successul Fortitude save (DC 15, +1 for each previous check) means the diver takes no damage in that minute.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 13, 2005)

> The fact that an expenditure of resources is involved does not address KM's original criticism that running a warforged requires more work because the DM must remain cognizant of his immunities, which rules out certain types of games. Others rightfully pointed out that certain classes either have inherent, persistent immunities (e.g., the paladin) or can achieve temporary immunities via spells. These classes would also forestall certain games according to his rational.




And they do. But the price to pay for having these immunities is very specific and certainly costly. It's a real investment of time and effort to acquire these abilities. A paladin would, indeed be powerful in a campaign centered around a plague. A druid would be a very wise choice for a campaign revolving around snakes. But the Warforged have all of this and then some. Their immunities are broad enough to preclude or reduce a challenge from a rather significant portion of encounters. This is pretty much a direct result of their type. And no matter the immunity, they still have to breathe and eat and sleep once in a while -- they share universal weaknesses that the warforged shatter.



> So what KM is saying is that he don't like 'em, more power to him also. If the DM don't like it, git rid of it.




Exactly. Warforged are okay for people who can overlook or even encourage the clunkiness, who don't mind keeping them in mind. But maybe I'm too much perfectionist or have too much of a designer's mind to overlook it.   

And as for stepping on dwarf schtick, it's because they occupy the same slot the dwarves do as "the race that's really good at being a tough, heavy warrior type."



> That warforge thrashing around a dense jungle desparately trying to find the natives with the poison blowdarts...all the while his adventuring buddies are pinned under-fire yelling conflicting directions to him to 'go North...no South..behind the tree...no the TREE.' All the while he's yelling at them to stop hiding and fight some of these pesky jungle people who are 'too bloody quick and hard to see...they're every where...quit HIDING.'




Hehehehee, nice....I feel bad for the people who've gotta hide, though.


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## Ds Da Man (Apr 13, 2005)

Although I do kinda hate the teen angst thing they got going on. You know, the whole "we just got our souls, and must find ourselves" routine. Take out the whiny new race thing, make 'em to be thinking tools again, and then they may be fun!


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2005)

> Any warforged going against a typical necromancer or assassin kind of challenge of the right CR will win because he is immune to the major attack forms, and he spends nothing to be so. One could argue he spends 1/2 healing, but the typical necromancer or assassin kinds of challenges don't worry about attacking hp, they worry about attacking levels, Fort saves, and powers of observation and magic.



The Living Construct subtype spicificly mentions that, unlike other constructs if is subject to effects requiring a fort save, ability damage, ability drain, and death effects or necromancy effects. Not only does it list the major attacks of a necromancer, it lists necromancy itself. The major attacks of an assassin is not poison, it is the death attack. Assassins can choose to use their death attack to either paralyze or kill. Warforged aren't immune to death. 

Also, living constructs arn't immune to mind-influencing effects. Also, it should be noted that living constructs are also affected by spells that target constructs. So there is some trade-off in the kinds of spells they are effected by.


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## Belen (Apr 13, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> The Warforged not being harmed by the poison/etc isn't an issue. Sure, he's fine...but what about the whole party? If they're all dead, he's next on the list and you don't need just poison. Besides, Poison is easy to get rid of with low level Cleric spells, so its sure isn't that much of an obstacle. Maybe we should remove Clerics since they make it pointless.




Clerics have to be 7th level before they can cure poison.  Poison is one of the stables of a low level game, ime.  Warforged are immune to poision plus a host of other effects that normally plague a low level party.


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## Belen (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The warforged, for free, get the immunities and benefits that allow them to wade through certain encoutners without feeling the threat of their own hides. No other race in the game gets that. The rest exist on a continuum that make some better, and some worse, but that do not *preclude* any. This is what is wrong with them.
> 
> And they still co-opt the dwarf's schtick.




Bingo.  And I will not even go into some of the min/max warforged combos I've seen.


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## Gez (Apr 13, 2005)

Ghouls are a staple of low-level games and elves are immune to their paralysis. Plus a lot of other effects (magical sleep, _dream_ and _nightmare_ spells) that normally plague a low-level party.


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## Desdichado (Apr 13, 2005)

Bah!  Being in a dark place is a staple of low level fantasy, but dwarves and half-orcs are immune to that.

I think this whole line of reasoning is fallacious.  It's been very conveniently forgotten that warforged, while immune to a few minor problems, are vulnerable to many others that most, if not all, other characters are not.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> That's really the thing -- I as a DM need to take special account of the Warforged above and beyond what I had to do before the Warforged. I have to make sure that there is a threat in there for the warforged specially. It's not that it's impossible, it's that that means that this one member of the party is basically hogging my DM's attention. And he gets to do that for free.




This is, of course, true. A GM doesn't have to remove these threats altogether, however, as long as it's not something that the warforged can do completely alone.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The warforged have their own special vulnerability: Artificer spells. Which, again, is a note that the warforged basically require a game mechanic all their own (the Artificer) to even be subject to the things that normal PC's fear without it.




I was under the impression that those were new arcane spells, not just restricted to artificers...



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> (a) Elves aren't immune to the paralyzing touch. Warforged are, though.




And, apparently, paralysing mind effects too. A little odd, but as far as I can see still true. 



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Just so I'm not entirely ripping on the poor things, here's how they should be "fixed" IMHO, so that they don't push my particular buttons. This is just taking the material from the book and making it palatable, not trying to design a "PC race that is created, not born" from the ground up, mind you.




You could, of course, keep the Living Construct thing and simply redefine Living Construct the way you think is best. That particular thing is simply a matter of semantics.

If nothing else, I think that they should keep the 'no food no drink no air' part. They could even require a period of downtime to recharge... then no stepping on the elves sleeplessness (as if they couldn't share that) and they get their own schtick. Say that they're powered by 'magic'. They can exist for a period of time in an antimagic field, but they can't 'sleep' or recharge in that field. I'd personally probably keep the sleeplessness and immunity to fatigue. I mean, they're built that way for a reason, the perfect warrior. Doesn't sleep/eat/drink/dream. But they screwed up on the dream bit by giving them too much independant thought.


And, of course, if you're going to nerf them that much, you should either give them an extra feat to be spent on Armored Body (Choose special material and armor type, you've got that armor forever) or just making them all stick with composit until they buy armor upgrades, similiar but different to everyone else needing to buy armor if they want it.

That total absense of first level feats if you ever want any real armor is a real hurt.

I was once in a party (lowish level) with a warforged, and there was a spot the party really wan't supposed to be able to get past, guarded by mummies. The warforged attacked while everyone else spent every turn either performing 'aid another' for the warforged, or using wands/spells of cure light wounds/repair minor damage. He was the only one who could really hurt them, and the only one completely unafraid of mummy rot. So point taken there.

On the other hand, we still didn't get past it. We killed one of the two, but the other managed to threaten the other members enough that we had to back away. He couldn't have taken them out alone.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 13, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Warforged are for folks who like things that are different for the sake of being different. "Screw the mechanics of it all, I want Data in this D&D party".




This is one arguement that makes me think people who are making said arguement don't really understand what's going on. Living constructs has long been a staple of fantasy. It's not Data. There's not computer or AI running the thing. It's just a rock. There's no brain inside, just a rock! They're animated by a spirit, by magic, by something making them ALIVE. Data's main point is that he was never and never will be alive. Warforged are instead something that's come alive almost unexpectedly. Are there similiarites? Sure. Does Eberron have the Lightning Rail? Yes. Does Eberron have extensive electric lights lighting up the city? No. Do they have extensive mage lights? Yes. Do they have computers running machines? No. They have constructs that have become alive. Computers are smart, people. These constructs are almost never smart.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 13, 2005)

> If nothing else, I think that they should keep the 'no food no drink no air' part. They could even require a period of downtime to recharge... then no stepping on the elves sleeplessness (as if they couldn't share that) and they get their own schtick. Say that they're powered by 'magic'. They can exist for a period of time in an antimagic field, but they can't 'sleep' or recharge in that field. I'd personally probably keep the sleeplessness and immunity to fatigue. I mean, they're built that way for a reason, the perfect warrior. Doesn't sleep/eat/drink/dream. But they screwed up on the dream bit by giving them too much independant thought.
> 
> 
> And, of course, if you're going to nerf them that much, you should either give them an extra feat to be spent on Armored Body (Choose special material and armor type, you've got that armor forever) or just making them all stick with composit until they buy armor upgrades, similiar but different to everyone else needing to buy armor if they want it.




If you were playing in my game, I could maybe be talked into doing that, though I'd be reluctant to just hand out a feat (that's the Human's main bennie) and maybe just upgrade their basic armor to something a bit better...they should require *some* energy source, even if it's rediculously easy to attain (sunlight, blood, stone, air, alcohol...), and they should have to breathe or make emissions or something (the bonus to Con and Fort saves will help them to hold their breaths and go without energy sources for longer than most other creatures, though).



> I was under the impression that those were new arcane spells, not just restricted to artificers...




Aye, you're right. Though this doesn't remove the fact that Warforged require an entire suite of spells to deal with on the same level as normal PCs   



> Ghouls are a staple of low-level games and elves are immune to their paralysis. Plus a lot of other effects (magical sleep, dream and nightmare spells) that normally plague a low-level party.




(a) There's quite a bit more than a handful of monsters at CR 1 and below that aren't ghouls and that don't rely on sleep attacks. In fact, I can't think of one CR 1 monster offhand that uses sleep attacks at all....
(b) Again, elves aren't immune to the paralysing touch.



> Bah! Being in a dark place is a staple of low level fantasy, but dwarves and half-orcs are immune to that.
> 
> I think this whole line of reasoning is fallacious. It's been very conveniently forgotten that warforged, while immune to a few minor problems, are vulnerable to many others that most, if not all, other characters are not.




(a) Dwarves and half-orcs aren't immune to darkness, they just do better in it than others at close ranges. Immunity to darkness is blindsense out to normal visibility ranges, and yeah, I'd have a bit of a problem introducing THAT to a 1st level party for free, too.   If the warforged were just better than others at holding their breath, going without food and water, resisting disease and poison and pralysis and level drain, I wouldn't have much of a problem. But they're not just better than other races at avoiding those obstacles -- they effectively remove those obstacles from the game for a warforged character. And for free, at 1st level. 

(b) The vulnerability is part of why they're clunky. Just like a high LA race, they're really good when they're doing what they were designed to do, but when they confront something that they're weak against, they fall to peices quickly. This lack of being well-rounded (overspecialization) is the main problem with LA, the main problem with "character point" systems, and the warforged is traipsing down the same path. It's a lesser offender, to be sure, because at early levels the difference is less noticable, and, for the warforged, the difference becomes less noticable (in general) as the party increases in level. But it's still on the same "paper tiger" continuum in a way that no other LA +0 race is. They are abberant. I think this was an intentional choice for the designers, but I think it was a short-sighted choice, because, for free, it precludes certain challenges from being a challenge for this character.  

Again, I'm not saying they're too powerful per se. I'm saying they're too different.


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## Klaus (Apr 13, 2005)

Regarding elves immunity to ghoul's paralysis, here's the SRD entry for the ghoul:

"Paralysis (Ex): Those hit by a ghoul’s bite or claw attack must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. Elves have immunity to this paralysis. The save DC is Charisma-based."

So yes, elves are immune to ghoul paralysis. Wonder if 'elf blood' makes half-elves immune as well.


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## Pants (Apr 13, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Warforged are for folks who like things that are different for the sake of being different. "Screw the mechanics of it all, I want Data in this D&D party".



I think this can be said for any race that isn't in the PHB, whether it is from the FRCS, Races of Faerun, Arcana Unearthed, etc. etc.


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## Gez (Apr 13, 2005)

Elves *ARE* immune to ghoul paralysis, as Klaus shown. Even in the D&D Miniatures game it is stated for the Ghouls that their paralysis doesn't affect elves.

As for CR 1 creatures with a sleep attack, you could have nearly any 1st-level wizard or sorcerer opponent. Like a kobold sorcerer. Never had a Kobold ambush where a kobold sorcerer cast _sleep_ and then _color spray_ at the party, while the rest of the kobold teams hurl their javelins and rain crossbow bolts on the adventurers?



			
				Klaus said:
			
		

> Regarding elves immunity to ghoul's paralysis, here's the SRD entry for the ghoul:
> 
> "Paralysis (Ex): Those hit by a ghoul’s bite or claw attack must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. Elves have immunity to this paralysis. The save DC is Charisma-based."
> 
> So yes, elves are immune to ghoul paralysis. Wonder if 'elf blood' makes half-elves immune as well.




I'd say yes.


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## Hand of Evil (Apr 13, 2005)

I think one of the other problems is that Warforged have not been around long enough to have spells/monsters to address them.  Elfs, dwarfs, humans, all have been around forever and the game has exploited them in lower levels, in time you will see the same with Warforged.  

Crap, look a swarm of dire termites...


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## Storm Raven (Apr 13, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Again, I'm not saying they're too powerful per se. I'm saying they're too different.




I'm thinking that "different is bad" isn't a very strong argument.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 13, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> The Living Construct subtype spicificly mentions that, unlike other constructs if is subject to effects requiring a fort save, ability damage, ability drain, and death effects or necromancy effects. Not only does it list the major attacks of a necromancer, it lists necromancy itself. The major attacks of an assassin is not poison, it is the death attack. Assassins can choose to use their death attack to either paralyze or kill. Warforged aren't immune to death.
> 
> Also, living constructs arn't immune to mind-influencing effects. Also, it should be noted that living constructs are also affected by spells that target constructs. So there is some trade-off in the kinds of spells they are effected by.




They're immune to _envervation_ & _energy drain_. They're immune to energy draining effects of many undead (wights for example). They're immune to _ray of exhaustion_, _contagion_, and _waves of fatigue_. They're immune to more spells. And, this is just one of the benefits that a warforged gets.

They have 25% immunity to death attacks from assassins as well as sneak attack damage. They have feats that can up this.

 Enhanced saves, I could see. First level characters immune to entire lines of spells? Come on...


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 13, 2005)

As for arguments that say druids get immunity to poison, that's like saying barbarians get DR 2/- or monks get Improved Evasion, so it's perfectly fine for a 1st level warforged to get it. Those are mid level abilities. That means in a mid level game, they are fine. And, that's just one of the warforged immunities. I could see a +4 save versus poison and disease as being LA+0 abilities, but when you start giving complete immunity to wide ranging effects, these are abilities that take mid level characters' resources to achieve, if they even can.


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## Seeten (Apr 13, 2005)

Dont see where this is a big deal, personally. Dont even mind them stepping on dwarves. In fact, I am sick of dwarves and their surly beards, hard drinking, tunnels under attack from below.  Bleh.

Step on Dwarves more. It'd be more polite to remove dwarves first, then put in a replacement, but hell, just step on em. Its more humiliating that way.


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## Seeten (Apr 13, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> As for arguments that say druids get immunity to poison, that's like saying barbarians get DR 2/- or monks get Improved Evasion, so it's perfectly fine for a 1st level warforged to get it. Those are mid level abilities. That means in a mid level game, they are fine. And, that's just one of the warforged immunities. I could see a +4 save versus poison and disease as being LA+0 abilities, but when you start giving complete immunity to wide ranging effects, these are abilities that take mid level characters' resources to achieve, if they even can.




Dr 1/Admantine is equivalent to Power Attack to you, I suppose?  What about Cleave? I think a warrior with Chain Mail, Power Attack and Cleave is more powerful than one with Adamantine Body, and Improved Damage Reduction. Just because something is not attainable for someone else, does NOT make it better.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 13, 2005)

Seeten said:
			
		

> Dr 1/Admantine is equivalent to Power Attack to you, I suppose? What about Cleave? I think a warrior with Chain Mail, Power Attack and Cleave is more powerful than one with Adamantine Body, and Improved Damage Reduction. Just because something is not attainable for someone else, does NOT make it better.




DR 1/adamantine isn't equivalent to Power Attack. I don't see how those are related. The damage reduction is attained from adamantine armor, correct? Then it is equivalent to basically something of equal cost. I would say that giving out DR 1/Adamantine to a level 1 character is a fairly powerful ability, one that should probably not be available until at least 7th level, I would say.

EDIT: It just occured to me that you arn't describing class abilities, you might be describing feats from Eberron? If they're feats, they're fairly weak for feats. For class abilities, or other such abilities however (from magical items?) they are fairly potent. However, my beef is not with possible Eberron feats. A warforged can take Power Attack, Cleave, and such just like anyone else. 

As for the last part about something not being attainable... they arn't attainable for a reason. First level druids don't get immunity to poison, ninth level druids do. Elevenths level monks do, as they gain immunity to non-magical disease at level five. Seventh level clerics can make people immune to poison for a time in exchange for their highest spell slot. So, this tells me that outright immunity to poison is considered fairly powerful.


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## Seeten (Apr 13, 2005)

They are both a first level feat. The Human fighter takes Power Attack and Cleave.

The Warforged fighter takes Adamantine Body. They are completely related, and I dont think the human fighter gets the worst of it, frankly.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 13, 2005)

Okay, so the warforged takes Weapon Focus. I see nothing preventing a warforged from taking good feats...


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2005)

Necromancy Spells Warforged are not immune to:

Causes Fear
Chill Touch
Ray of Enfeeblement (a personal favorite of mine)
Blindness/Deathness
False Life (another favorite)
Scare
Spectral Hand (of course, all this really does is deliver touch attacks)
Vampiric Touch
Bestow Curse
Fear
Symbol of Pain (if triggered, the warforged are not immune to it's effects)
Circle of Death
Symbol of Fear
Finger of Death
Symobl of Weakness
Clone (like false life, not really an attack spell)
Symbol of Death
Astral Projection
Soul Bind
Wail of the Banshee

There are 41 Necromancy Spells
8 of those either target, control, create, or otherwise deal with undead and wouldn't target most PCs anyways, leaving 33 spells that target PCs, some of them beneficial. Warforged are affected by 20 of thouse, or about 60%. Also, warforged gain the benifits of all the helpful necromacy spells. So if there's a necromancer in the party, Warforged get to benefit from any helpful spells the necromancer may cast.

Of course, this is just one school. The perennial favorite, evocation, is still 100% effective. And then there's my personal favorite, enchantment. 

A 25% chance of failure for Sneek attacks and crits isn't immunity. The main argument is that they are immune to to many things right out of the gate, but the main attack of assassins isn't one of them. However, there is that feat you mentioned.The feat, Improved Fortification, grants immunity to sneak attacks and critacal hits at the expence of all healings spells from the healing subschool. 

Oh, and for whatever it's worth: Warforged are immmune to most of the effects of Eybite. If they have more than 10 HD, they are immune to it completely.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 13, 2005)

So because they arn't immune to all the necromancy spells its okay for them to be immune to a bunch of them? Note that those controling undead abilities won't be as potent if you choose undead that deal neagtive levels. They're also immune to some other spells outside the necromancy school.

Evocation 100% effective? Sure. Evocation isn't the best school, though.

What about a warforged ranger who specializes in bows? Isn't hit with hp damage as often, can be easily cured by wizards/sorcerers who are in the back with him (or via _spectral hand_), and are immune to pesky spells like _hold monster_ as well as all that discussed. Or rogues. They don't have to worry about a lot of traps (status effect ones) and don't normally wear heavier than leather armor anyway.


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## Seeten (Apr 13, 2005)

Weapon focus: Some weapon, so they get a +1 to hit, at the cost of NEVER, EVER, being able to wear decent armor? Boy, a fighter in leather armor, thats a good character. Yeah, really viable warrior there.


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## Marshall (Apr 13, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> They're immune to _envervation_ & _energy drain_. They're immune to energy draining effects of many undead (wights for example). They're immune to _ray of exhaustion_, _contagion_, and _waves of fatigue_. They're immune to more spells. And, this is just one of the benefits that a warforged gets.




OTOH, they are _vulnerable_ to _Heat/Chill Metal_, the anti-construct line of spells, and rust attacks. There might be an advantage here, but its actually pretty small.



> They have 25% immunity to death attacks from assassins as well as sneak attack damage. They have feats that can up this.




They come with a suit of (essentially)_Padded +1 Light Fort_ armor that they cant take off. Not only does that introduce ASF and other penalties, but it permanently uses up the armor/robe slot so it can only be improved by feats.



> Enhanced saves, I could see. First level characters immune to entire lines of spells? Come on...




Does it really matter that a 1st level character is immune to a 4th level spell?
Immunity to the fatigue line is kinda nice, but only about equal to the elven immunity to the sleep line. That they get it piled on top of the immunity to the sleep line is a plus.
In all honesty, I've seen poison(s) used once since 3e came out. I dont see it as a big advantage. Especially since by the time that you should be facing poisons, the DCs are so low that a bonus CON race is nearly immune anyway.


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## Storm Raven (Apr 13, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Okay, so the warforged takes Weapon Focus. I see nothing preventing a warforged from taking good feats...




Its all about opportunity cost. For every "good feat" the warforged take, they must forego one of the "super-powerful" feat options that people keep talking about like Adamantine Body. If you take one, then you've used that feat slot, and can't take the other. A human fighter can spend one feat and have Weapon Focus _and_ with the application of some cash, adamantine armor. A Warforged can have one or the other with that feat slot.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2005)

> So because they arn't immune to all the necromancy spells its okay for them to be immune to a bunch of them?



Yes. The claim was that warforged were immune to a necromancer's major attack forms. Ability drain is a major necromancy attack form, warfroged aren't immune to it. Sneek attacks are major attack forms of assassins, warforged aren't immune them. Warforged can, as early as 6th level, become immune to sneek attacks, but then they become immune to healing spells. 

There are 13 necromancy spells that affect other PHB PCs, but don't affect warforged. Warforged are harmed by an additional 5 spells that PHB PCs aren't. That's a trade off about 8 spells the warforged are ahead by. But then you throw in all the healing spells, and well, the trade-off becomes a bit strange then. 

Also, sense we're talking about the low-level campaigns, warforged are susceptible to all four 1st level necromancy spells. 



> Evocation isn't the best school



True, I rather like the joys of enchantment, or illusion. Nothing says rat basterd DM like mind-control and mis-direction. 



> What about a warforged ranger who specializes in bows? Isn't hit with hp damage as often, can be easily cured by wizards/sorcerers who are in the back with him (or via spectral hand), and are immune to pesky spells like hold monster as well as all that discussed. Or rogues. They don't have to worry about a lot of traps (status effect ones) and don't normally wear heavier than leather armor anyway.



Ok, so the warforged specializes in bows. I've seen this build before, but it was a half-elf 3.0 ranger. It's a good build with many races, not just warforged. You did hit on something though. It would require a Wiz/Sor to heal him. While easy, this requires an expenditure of limited resources. One of the arguments against warforged is that their immunities don't require the expediture of limited resources. Healing spells, of any stripe, are a limited resource.

To answer the title of this thread, the problem with warforged is that they have a long list of racial abilities. Some are immunities, some arn't. This makes it difficult to gague how powerful a warforged is without running one yourself, or DMing one in a long term campaign.


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## Arnwyn (Apr 13, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Where in the core books is that depth spelled out?



You don't know the 'core' books very well if you need to ask that question.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2005)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> You don't know the 'core' books very well if you need to ask that question.



He he, I didn't know the real answer to that untill I read it last night.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 13, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Yes. The claim was that warforged were immune to a necromancer's major attack forms. Ability drain is a major necromancy attack form, warfroged aren't immune to it. Sneek attacks are major attack forms of assassins, warforged aren't immune them. Warforged can, as early as 6th level, become immune to sneek attacks, but then they become immune to healing spells.




Ah, well I would never claim that. 
I was merely pointing out that there are attack forms in necromancy that a warforged would be immune to, making it more difficult for the necromancer to take on the warforged than, say, a human. I think I run counter to a lot of people here, in that I see a fair amount of level drain being used when dealing with necromancers (arcan or divine). YMMV

For the record, I see type non-humanoid as worth around LA +.5 by itself. Warforged, for example, can be polymorphed into Construct type monsters. When he's a golem, things kind of look different.



> It would require a Wiz/Sor to heal him. While easy, this requires an expenditure of limited resources. One of the arguments against warforged is that their immunities don't require the expediture of limited resources. Healing spells, of any stripe, are a limited resource.




At the same time, though, that's saving the cleric resources that would have gone to the character otherwise. Plus its easier for the wizard to heal the character in this particular case. Actually, at low levels its easier for the wizard/sorcerer to heal utilizing _spectral hand_, which can also be used for an offensive spell afterward.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2005)

Ugh, polymorph. That's spell has several threads dedicated to it for good reason.

Moving away from the immunites, we've gone as far as we can go with that, another problem is campaign design. As Kamikaze Midget, an all undead or all poison campaign is out. When you use Warforged as a playable race in Eberron, all the support material is written for you. What extra work is needed is done by campaign designers. When you take warforged out of Eberron, and put it in a campaign setting that only uses rules from the three core books, warforged don't fit so neatly. Also, if your already running a well designed and thought-out campaign, warforged might be over or under powered depending on the campaign you run. 

Any well designed campaign is going to have to take into account the changes the DM makes to the standered setting. Kamikaze Midget's argument falls appart when you realize that warforged are only annoying to DMs who wouldn't include them anyways. Some of the things he would change altter the feel and flavor of warforged to me. Requiring an energy source makes them into robots. You can argue that they're robots anyways, but powering them by magic adds more flavor to the game and distances them from the robot shtick. Ditto for breathing and such. Removing the construct type and replaceing it with humanoid also distances the flavor of warforged for me. 

My point is this: the argument against warforged simply isn't a straight game mechanical one, it's one based on the DMs choice of campaign. Eberron is takes warforged into account and does it well. Other campaigns don't. I find it interesting that one person who said they mined ECS for ideas and included warforged in their game, altered their flavor radically.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 13, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Its all about opportunity cost. For every "good feat" the warforged take, they must forego one of the "super-powerful" feat options that people keep talking about like Adamantine Body. If you take one, then you've used that feat slot, and can't take the other. A human fighter can spend one feat and have Weapon Focus _and_ with the application of some cash, adamantine armor. A Warforged can have one or the other with that feat slot.





See, I personally think that Adamantine body is actually a horrible thing, and one of the main disadvantages of the class.  They HAVE to take this feat at first level, or they can never get 'good' armor. And worse yet, there are only two types of armor that they can get (other than their base), both of which would require their only first level feat. If you're playing a fighter (or other character that will get armor), you can expect to get that later. Is it true that so many people really *would* permanently lose their first level feat to permanently get adamantine full plate that they can sleep in (and must sleep in, and can never take off?) I mean, unless you're playing a game wherein you'll never see that kind of equipment, what you've done is give up something good now but will get better and better as time goes on (being one step further up the feat chain) for something that's great now, but will get less and less good as time goes on. Seriously. Adamantine is +15,000 gold, and full plate is 1,500 gold. Are you really saying that a feat is worth only 16,500 gold pieces? Can I buy an extra one from you at level 10 for that price? Because I don't know a single character who wouldn't. 

And it's not even the 'best' armor for all occasions. However it IS the only one offered. I'm playing in a game now where my character has taken that feat. Sure, it's pretty good at low levels, but we rarely play long in the low levels... we like to quickly go up to level 6 or so before starting to slow down... I'm hoping that eventually my GM will let me do something to alter the composition of that armor to mithril full plate instead of adamantine, because that would be so much better for my particular character. It'll probably cost around a limited wish (at least that's what I'd charge)

I think it's so very odd that people seem to think that's a good feat, because IMO it's the biggest drawback of the race.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2005)

Warforged can buy better armor. The composit plating can be enchanted just like regular armor, wich is the same as buying better armor.


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## Gez (Apr 13, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> As Kamikaze Midget, an all undead or all poison campaign is out.




Erm...


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## Mad Mac (Apr 13, 2005)

> Warforged can buy better armor. The composit plating can be enchanted just like regular armor, wich is the same as buying better armor.




 Uhh..they can buy better *leather* armor, which is utter crud for most classes. Robes are out. Wearing armor you find while adventuring is out. Unless you want to blow your 1st level feat and spend the rest of your life equipped with substandard adamantine plate armor, sucking up that +1 Dx cap, -6 armor check penalty, and reduced speed for the rest of your normal lifespan. Oh, unless you're the dexterous type, in which case you can invest one feat to get the mithral armor, and waste more feats if you want to raise the dex cap. A sweet deal it isn't.


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## Gez (Apr 14, 2005)

You can even invest a feat to _lose_ this "benefit". Yup, being free to buy and wear a normal armor like everyone else costs you one feat (and you don't keep light fortification and natural armor, of course), your first level feat.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 14, 2005)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> Uhh..they can buy better *leather* armor, which is utter crud for most classes. Robes are out. Wearing armor you find while adventuring is out. Unless you want to blow your 1st level feat and spend the rest of your life equipped with substandard adamantine plate armor, sucking up that +1 Dx cap, -6 armor check penalty, and reduced speed for the rest of your normal lifespan. Oh, unless you're the dexterous type, in which case you can invest one feat to get the mithral armor, and waste more feats if you want to raise the dex cap. A sweet deal it isn't.



 Re-read the part that you quoted. The *Composit Plating already on a warforged* can be enchanted. You can take either Adamantine Body or Mithral Body and still have the armor thats on you enchanted. Really. I'm not making this up. You can read it for yourself on page 23 of ECS or page 191 of MMIII. 

You can be a warforged and buy a better AC at higher levels.

Oh, and Gez, just for that I'm sending Drow to your home just to taunt you.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Warforged can buy better armor. The composit plating can be enchanted just like regular armor, wich is the same as buying better armor.




As Mad Mac stated, it most certainly is not the same. 

There's no way you can enchant your effectively leather armor to be +13 AC and DR2.

Which is +5 Adamantine Full Plate.

And, as far as I can tell, there's no way you can make your adamantine body armor into mithril armor (although I think maybe a limited wish would do it). Some people might prefer the higher dex bonus and better move (especially barbarians) that comes with Mithril full plate instead of Adamantine full plate.


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## Gez (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Re-read the part that you quoted. The *Composit Plating already on a warforged* can be enchanted.




And that composite plating is, roughly the equivalent of a suit of _+1 leather armor of light fortification_. So it's already a +2-worth of bonus.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Oh, and Gez, just for that I'm sending Drow to your home just to taunt you.




Bring it on! I'm not afraid of these -2 Con wimps. Just arriving at my home will have them exhausted.


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## Gez (Apr 14, 2005)

But seriously. People who whine they can't use undead against warforged seem to miss something. I imagine them playing a warforged character, meeting a nightwalker, and boasting pridefully: "HAH! You can't hurt me, you puny undead, I'm a warforged! I'm immune! Weeeee!"


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## IcyCool (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Re-read the part that you quoted. The *Composit Plating already on a warforged* can be enchanted. You can take either Adamantine Body or Mithral Body and still have the armor thats on you enchanted. Really. I'm not making this up. You can read it for yourself on page 23 of ECS or page 191 of MMIII.
> 
> You can be a warforged and buy a better AC at higher levels.
> 
> Oh, and Gez, just for that I'm sending Drow to your home just to taunt you.




Maybe you missed it.  A warforged starts out with what amounts to +0 leather armor of light fortification.  Yes, this armor can be enchanted (up to a total AC enhancement bonus of +5, making the total AC benefit of this armor +7).  That's it.  Said warforged *cannot* get better armor.  Now take a human fighter with leather armor.  He buys +5 full plate rather than getting his leather armor enchanted to be +5 leather armor of light fortification.  The human fighters total AC bonus from his armor?  +13.  And the human fighter can swap out his current armor for different armor.  The warforged can *never* do this.  Now, if the warforged spends his 1st level feat, he can up his armor to be a reduced power Adamantine Full Plate (gives DR 1/- rather than DR 3/-) or the equivalent of Mithral Breastplate.  If he does either of these he can't change it later.

Is that more clear?


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Ugh, polymorph. That's spell has several threads dedicated to it for good reason.




'Twas why I hadn't brought it up until now. I wouldn't want to base my position on a arguably unbalanced spell.  Suffice to say, it is a concern, just like it is with Planetouched characters (who are LA+1).



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Moving away from the immunites, we've gone as far as we can go with that, another problem is campaign design. As Kamikaze Midget, an all undead or all poison campaign is out. When you use Warforged as a playable race in Eberron, all the support material is written for you. What extra work is needed is done by campaign designers. When you take warforged out of Eberron, and put it in a campaign setting that only uses rules from the three core books, warforged don't fit so neatly. Also, if your already running a well designed and thought-out campaign, warforged might be over or under powered depending on the campaign you run.




Perhaps that's the problem. I don't run Eberron. All my knowlege of warforged is from the MMIII, so that's the context I'm taking it in. I run a Planescape game, which admittedly is far from hack and slash, since I stay true to the flavor of the setting. But, I'm still looking at the warforged from the context of adding it to a (mostly) Core game.

I did find the feats in that book, I hadn't look at them before. It lists Adamantine Body, Improved Fortification, Mithral Body, and Mithral Fluidity. I actually do think Adamantine Body is a good feat. Especially for a 1st level Fighter warforged, who could take both Adamantine Body and another feat at 1st level. 

Really, Fighters get so many feats that it won't really matter to him. The pure barbarian is the one who will have to agonize over Mithral Body and Power Attack or some other feat at 1st level. Rogues, Rangers, and other lightly armored characters won't bother with either of these.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Any well designed campaign is going to have to take into account the changes the DM makes to the standered setting.




Absolutely. I could run a fine game with warforged, and I'm sure it wouldn't be derailed at all. In fact, I've decided to steal a lot of the warforged ideas and put them to use in making my own homebrewed modrons, which I think are kind of close, except part flesh part construct. I just think that they deserve a Level Adjustment because of the very wide variety of abilities they posess. It has nothing to do with me disliking the race at all.  I like it!



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> My point is this: the argument against warforged simply isn't a straight game mechanical one, it's one based on the DMs choice of campaign. Eberron is takes warforged into account and does it well. Other campaigns don't. I find it interesting that one person who said they mined ECS for ideas and included warforged in their game, altered their flavor radically.




I wish I had access to the ECS so I could see how they interact with the world. Unfortunately, my wallet won't permit such purchases when I have no interest in the setting beyond curiosity. 



			
				IcyCool said:
			
		

> Maybe you missed it. A warforged starts out with what amounts to +0 leather armor of light fortification. Yes, this armor can be enchanted (up to a total AC enhancement bonus of +5, making the total AC benefit of this armor +7). That's it. Said warforged *cannot* get better armor. Now take a human fighter with leather armor. He buys +5 full plate rather than getting his leather armor enchanted to be +5 leather armor of light fortification. The human fighters total AC bonus from his armor? +13. And the human fighter can swap out his current armor for different armor. The warforged can *never* do this. Now, if the warforged spends his 1st level feat, he can up his armor to be a reduced power Adamantine Full Plate (gives DR 1/- rather than DR 3/-) or the equivalent of Mithral Breastplate. If he does either of these he can't change it later.




Actually the feat gives +6 more armor bonus (for a total of +8) and DR 2/Adamantine, while lowering max dex bonus to +1 and giving a -5 ACP and lowering max speed to 20 feet. All at first level! For a warforged fighter this is one out of five feets he gets by fourth level!

A rogue or ranger won't even want to do this.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 14, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> As Mad Mac stated, it most certainly is not the same.
> 
> There's no way you can enchant your effectively leather armor to be +13 AC and DR2.
> 
> ...




Hrm... Correction. 
Normal adamantine full plate gives DR 3/-, of course, not DR2/-. So it's full plate of inferior adamantine.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 14, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Hrm... Correction.
> Normal adamantine full plate gives DR 3/-, of course, not DR2/-. So it's full plate of inferior adamantine.




Mithral Body gives you +5 armor bonus with max dex of +5, -2 ACP, ASF 15%, and counts as light armor.

Adamantine Body gives you +5 armor bonus with max dex of +1, -5 ACP, ASF 35%, counts as heavy armor, and gives DR 2/adamantine.

So yes, full plate of inferior adamantine... but not by much. Especially considering you are never caught without it. And you can get it at first level for a feat, which is really great for fighters who, as I said, get tons of feats.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 14, 2005)

IcyCool said:
			
		

> Maybe you missed it.  A warforged starts out with what amounts to +0 leather armor of light fortification.  Yes, this armor can be enchanted (up to a total AC enhancement bonus of +5, making the total AC benefit of this armor +7).  That's it. Said warforged _cannot_ get better armor.



But said warforged can buy a higher AC. 

+7 is a respectible armor bonus depending on the class and how the player chooses to fight. Forgoing Adamantine Body means they can have an decent dex bonus. Enter Gloves of Dexterity, and they're better than an armor bonus because they add to your touch AC, and helps you hit with a ranged weapon. Oh, and if you have weapon finesse then it can add to your attack with a light weapon. Of course, if all you want to do is be harder to hit, you can't go wrong with a cloak of displacment. 

Oh, and then there's the small matter of shields. Really, do you _want me_ to go into detail about the diffrent shields and shield bonuses warforged have acess to? 

Let's see, a warforged with composit plating can enhancet up to +5 for a total of +7, then we have Gloves of Dexterity +2 for a plus +1 to AC, then we have his actual DEX modifier +2 is good for a figher (might be a little high), and the shield could be heavy steel for +2 and enchant it up to +5 (now I'm getting rediculous).
+7 (armor) + 3 (total dex mod) + 7 (shield) = +17 

And this is without maxing the gloves (+6 to dex, adding 3 to the mod, it go up to +20) or even having a high dex (a warforged with an 18 dex and +6 gloves of dexterity gives a plus +7 to AC all buy itself.) 

It seems to me that ARandomGod made a poor feat selection for his character type. (I do it all the time.) And now thinks the feat is bad period. 

If you want to buy an AC bonus for your warforged, you can. 

However, I'm curious, ARandomGod, what do you want for your character? You mentioned Mithral Full-Plate, why? Do you want the higher dex bonus? Increased mobility? Maybe there's another way to work this out within the rules as written.


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## Ds Da Man (Apr 14, 2005)

Hey, aren't all the rulebooks really just guides to give DMs more stuff to put into their games? Or would Whizzers of the Coast send their field investigators out to bust unruly DMs not adhering to their strict set of game-balancing rules? 
Don't like the Adamantine Body feat? Gid rid of it! Make it so that stupid walking calculator has to go to an armourer, and pay like every other Joe Schmoe!
 Make it a progressive feat scale, having to take Oak Body, Copper Body (walking lightning rod), Silver Body, Gold Body, then Adamantine Body!
 YOUR IMAGINATION IS THE LIMIT!!!!!


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## IcyCool (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Let's see, a warforged with composit plating can enhancet up to +5 for a total of +7, then we have Gloves of Dexterity +2 for a plus +1 to AC, then we have his actual DEX modifier +2 is good for a figher (might be a little high), and the shield could be heavy steel for +2 and enchant it up to +5 (now I'm getting rediculous).
> +7 (armor) + 3 (total dex mod) + 7 (shield) = +17
> 
> And this is without maxing the gloves (+6 to dex, adding 3 to the mod, it go up to +20) or even having a high dex (a warforged with an 18 dex and +6 gloves of dexterity gives a plus +7 to AC all buy itself.)




So, let's put a fighter in the same gear, except instead of +5 leather of light fortification, let's buy the cheaper +5 full plate.

+13 for the armor, +1 for the gloves, +2 for the Dex, +7 for the shield = +23.

That's *six full points* of AC better than the warforged.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> If you want to buy an AC bonus for your warforged, you can.




No one has said that you couldn't.  What was said is that one of the Warforged limitations is their armor choice.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 14, 2005)

For the price of a feat, the warforged can have better armor than the fighter for cheaper, though.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 14, 2005)

IcyCool said:
			
		

> No one has said that you couldn't. What was said is that one of the Warforged limitations is their armor choice.



Here's an idea, why don't we go back to the origanal message to see what was said.



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> there are only two types of armor that they can get (other than their base), both of which would require their only first level feat



ARandomGod stated that warforged could only have three kinds of armor, and that two took up a feat. If you continue to read his post (#190), you see that he says that warforged can't buy better armor. 

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point of armor to increase your armor class? So the main reason someone would want to buy armor is to increase their AC? So when someone claims that they can't buy better armor and is talking about trying physicaly alter it the armor that is built into their character, I'm going to infer that what they realy want is higher AC.

Now you can hide behind the actual text of the message, but I honestly belive that ARandomGod is saying that warforged can't improve their AC beyond the warforged feats. Read this quote and tell me he's not talking about AC:


			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> I mean, unless you're playing a game wherein you'll never see that kind of equipment, what you've done is give up something good now but will get better and better as time goes on (being one step further up the feat chain) for something that's great now, but will get less and less good as time goes on.



 There it is. He's implyed that a warforged's AC _will not go up and that you cannot purchace more AC._ Again, you can hide behind the actual text, but why else would a character want to by armor if not to increase his AC?

Oh and about that +6 diffrence. Composit Plating is +2, Adamantine Body is +8. As ThirdWizard said, it's only the price of a feat. One feat in a class that gets 18. (11 bonus feats plus 7 regular feats.)


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## Felon (Apr 14, 2005)

Ds Da Man said:
			
		

> Don't like the Adamantine Body feat? Gid rid of it! Make it so that stupid walking calculator has to go to an armourer, and pay like every other Joe Schmoe!
> Make it a progressive feat scale, having to take Oak Body, Copper Body (walking lightning rod), Silver Body, Gold Body, then Adamantine Body!
> YOUR IMAGINATION IS THE LIMIT!!!!!




It's one limit. Another, more substantial limit, is what the group(s) you game with is going to agree upon as acceptable without bickering. Personally, as a player I don't like to sell my DM off of bad rules that are canon in favor of a house rule, and as a DM I don't like the converse situation of players dissatisfied with bad canon that I don't feel like house-ruling. It's a lot more convenient to have good source material up front than it is to make lots of half-assed, off-the-cuff, improvised rules. YMMV.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2005)

Point taken about the elves, but that in no way hurts the argument because of the aforementioned "not a lot of obstacles in the core rules exist that they have immunity to; a lot of obstacles in the core rules exist that the warforged have immunity to" case. The Warforged are a much grosser offender in quality and quanity than even the elf.   



> I'm thinking that "different is bad" isn't a very strong argument.




Oh but it is! A DM of basic skill level has it within his power to run a fun adventure for a great wyrm red dragon, a stone golem, an ice elemental half-vamire rogue, a dwarven wizard, a human paladin, and an intelligent gelatinous cube who has the ability to cast cleric spells *somehow*. Most DM's are perfectly *able* to run an adventure with these characters, and do it in a way that's fun and richly engaging for all involved. Hell, I half expect someone who reads this post to go out and do just that.  Balance and power are all ultimately campaign-specific ANYWAY. 

But most DM's don't really want to be bothered with taking into account all those dramatic differences in the party, and if they do it once, they generally don't want to have it as repeat themes in their ongoing game. It's just not fun for most DM's to constantly keep in mind the wild and wacky powers of this kind of party, while still introducing challenges where the paladin and wizard can feel useful. Or at least, if this point was wrong, I imagine I'd be reading less about humans and halflings on these boards and more about wraiths and dragons. The Core Rules keep everything humanoid for a reason, after all. And the game is set up with that in mind. The Warforged break this sucker wide open.

You have, on a drastically smaller scale, the same thing. They don't work like the other races in the game. Some DM's (such as myself) don't really want to be bothered with taking into account the dramatic difference of this ONE character, or this ONE race. From a design standpoint, on this note, the are a *failure* for some in a way that could have been avoided while retaining their unique flavor and fun concept with a few simple adjustements. As far as I can tell, the designers noted that there was this easier way to do it, but decided not to go with it because they felt the warforged should feel totally different but still be basically playable. They succeeded on this goal, but I think it was the wrong goal. I don't know why the warforged deserve to be drastically different. And I certainly don't want them muscling in and making me accomodate their difference just because they have a cool idea attatched to wonky mechanics. 

In a game where all the players are supposed to be "separate but equal", at least in terms of overcoming challenges, a dramatic difference of any one feature is, in effect, an inequality. The warforged are not equal to any other race. This difference is bad for MANY reasons, but most importantly for me, it's bad because I have to spend a few minutes thinking about what the Warforged character could do because he's a Warforged in a way I don't have to think about what the halfling can do because he's a halfling. Elves do share that thought-hogging process, but when it's three spells in the game or one attack from one monster, that's not a major time-consumer. The broad, sweeping immunities and non-living-ness of the Warforged, however, ARE. 

Different is bad. Different requires special thought, special consideration, special preparation, special attention. They hog the spotlight and demand to be paid attention to because they're so dramatically different.

For comparison:
* Elves are immune to Sleep, Deep Slumber, Dream, and Nightmare spells, and to a ghoul's paralysis. If I have an elf in the party, I should be taking these into account. Annoying, but not that big of a list.
* Warforged are immune to all those. Furthermore, they are immune bleeding, starvation and thirst, suffocation, disease, nausea, sickness, normal fatigue and exhaustion, and drowning; alter self (and the various spells built off of it) can turn them into golems; they are immune to charm person, hold person, hold monster, poison (the spell), touch of fatigue, ghoul touch (the spell), ray of exhaustion, reduce person, contagion, enervation, mass reduce person, waves of fatigue, dominate person, part of the eyebite spell, flesh to stone, mass hold person, waves of exhaustion, mass hold monster, and energy drain; they are immune to a defining or prominent damage form from any creature using poison on a weapon, especially if said weapon only deals damage to deliver the poison (daggers, blowdarts, shuriken...); they are immune to a defining or prominent damage form from aranea, athaches, basilisks, beholders, belkers, carrion crawlers, chuuls, cloakers, cockatrices, bebeliths, hezrous, quasits, succubi, bone devils, imps, devourers, dire rats, doppelgangers (since they can't mimic a warforged), driders, drow, ettercaps, formian warriors, formian myrmarchs, violet fungus, gorgons, homunculus, all lycanthropes (especially wererats), medusa, mohrgs, mummies, all nagas, night hags, night crawlers, otyughs, phase spiders, pseudodragons, rasts, red slaad (one would think a robot body can't incubate eggs...), blue slaad, spectres, spider eaters, stirges (debatably; it's said they suck blood, so one would think a robot wouldn't be a target), all swarms to a certain degree, but especially bat, centipede, hellwasp, rat, and spider swarms, troglodytes, wights, wyvrens, most yuan-ti, all vipers, giant bees, giant wasps, all monstrous centipedes, all monstrous scorpions, all monstrous spiders, and probably a few more that I missed. If I have a Warforged in the party, I should be taking these all into account. This is not acceptable to me. That's a BIG part of the game that the warforged just waltz through.

It was acceptable to the designers because they figured there were other ways to challenge the character, and that these still pose a challenge for the party as an entire unit. But if the major story arc involves yuan-ti and a nest of spiders and drow, well...the Warforged character will probably feel especially powerful when compared to all these guys who have to keep saving. Or if it involves a necromancer-king with an army of basilisks and spectres at his beck and call, the Warforged will again feel mighty indeed, in compairison to others. Stirges used to spend the rescources of the entire party. Now, one guy is immune. All characters used to fear getting inhaled by a Belker. Now, one member doesn't. Mummies and lycanthropes struck terror into the PC's because they could die or loose humanity from a powerful supernatural disease. Now at least one character doesn't have to fear that.

In exchange, he can fear rust monsters and well-prepared druids.

Yeah, this seems totally on par....


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Oh and about that +6 diffrence. Composit Plating is +2, Adamantine Body is +8. As ThirdWizard said, it's only the price of a feat. One feat in a class that gets 18. (11 bonus feats plus 7 regular feats.)



By the time the character has 18 feats, his adamantine body will look pale in comparison.
It's at the low levels the warforged with that feat is probably better than other fighters. Later on, it doesn't matter that much, so it's kind of unfair to say that it cost him only one of 18 feats.




			
				Felon said:
			
		

> It's one limit. Another, more substantial limit, is what the group(s) you game with is going to agree upon as acceptable without bickering. Personally, as a player I don't like to sell my DM off of bad rules that are canon in favor of a house rule, and as a DM I don't like the converse situation of players dissatisfied with bad canon that I don't feel like house-ruling. It's a lot more convenient to good source material than it is to make lots of half-assed, off-the-cuff, improvised rules. YMMV.



Indeed.


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## Felon (Apr 14, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> This is one arguement that makes me think people who are making said arguement don't really understand what's going on. Living constructs has long been a staple of fantasy. It's not Data. There's not computer or AI running the thing. It's just a rock. There's no brain inside, just a rock! They're animated by a spirit, by magic, by something making them ALIVE....




Understand, that distinction that looms large for to you is just hair-splitting to others. It looks like an android, walks like an android, has the immunities of an android, has the angst of an android....

Whether or not it's magic or microchips, it's six or a half-dozen unless the distinction is palpable in some way and not just a mcguffin for bridging genres.



			
				Brennin Magalus said:
			
		

> At the risk of sending you into a deserved apoplectic fit, your facile dismissal of the objections others raised and a dime would not get me a gumball from a gumball machine.




Well, it was sufficient to rile at least one pedant, and I suppose that makes it all worthwhile. Just from a quick lookup of your own recent posts, it would seem that the ratio of constructive commentaries to "facile dismissals" of others' opinions leans markedly towards the latter side of the scales, Mr. Pot. 



> Others rightfully pointed out that certain classes either have inherent, persistent immunities (e.g., the paladin) or can achieve temporary immunities via spells.




Immunities gained from either class or racial features are quite rare, and in fact the paladin's immunity to disease and fear is actually a notable exception that proves that rule. Naturally, over time immunites become very common, but KM's objections pertained specifically to lower level characters. And of coourse, achieving temporary immunities via spells goes back to the challenge-affecting difference between passive immunity and actively consuming resources.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 14, 2005)

Flyspeck23 said:
			
		

> It's at the low levels the warforged with that feat is probably better than other fighters. Later on, it doesn't matter that much, so it's kind of unfair to say that it cost him only one of 18 feats.



I've seen warforged at lower levels, their about equal. They don't hit quite as often, but their great for soaking up attacks. 

It's perfetly fair to say that Adamantine Body is only one of 18 feats. At 2nd level a warforge fighter has 3 feats, that's 200% more than any other class but monk. Lots of feats, even thouse in the PHB, aren't useful at higher levels. The damage reduction granted by Adamantine Body will be useless at higher levels, but don't tell me an aditional +6 to AC isn't.


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## Ds Da Man (Apr 14, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> It's one limit. Another, more substantial limit, is what the group(s) you game with is going to agree upon as acceptable without bickering. Personally, as a player I don't like to sell my DM off of bad rules that are canon in favor of a house rule, and as a DM I don't like the converse situation of players dissatisfied with bad canon that I don't feel like house-ruling. It's a lot more convenient to have good source material up front than it is to make lots of half-assed, off-the-cuff, improvised rules. YMMV.




But is really that off you feel that allowing this race would wreak havoc on your game? Come on, it's not really that bad, unless all your plots are around poisoning or gas attacks. And I don't know about your group, but ours bicker over crap all the time. With new game books coming out all the time, it gets more and more ridiculous. 
 I know you don't like the WF, so don't allow it! If you do want it, allow it. Stop whining and crying about balance all the time and just enjoy D&D for what it was meant to be, an imaginative game, based on fictional characters, that fight fantastic monsters, and spawns creativity from its players!


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 14, 2005)

> But if the major story arc involves yuan-ti and a nest of spiders and drow, well...the Warforged character will probably feel especially powerful when compared to all these guys who have to keep saving.



You know, I understand exatly what your talking about. If I only had one shtick as a DM, I'd be upset with a race that was immune to it too.


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> I've seen warforged at lower levels, their about equal. They don't hit quite as often, but their great for soaking up attacks.
> 
> It's perfetly fair to say that Adamantine Body is only one of 18 feats. At 2nd level a warforge fighter has 3 feats, that's 200% more than any other class but monk. Lots of feats, even thouse in the PHB, aren't useful at higher levels. The damage reduction granted by Adamantine Body will be useless at higher levels, but don't tell me an aditional +6 to AC isn't.




Oh no, I won't. And I think warforged and their feats are pretty much balanced. I just wanted to point out that adamantine body can't be considered too good just because it's only one of 18 feats.


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 14, 2005)

Ds Da Man said:
			
		

> I know you don't like the WF, so don't allow it! If you do want it, allow it. Stop whining and crying about balance all the time and just enjoy D&D for what it was meant to be, an imaginative game, based on fictional characters, that fight fantastic monsters, and spawns creativity from its players!




So in your opinion there's no need to argue about balance?

If any single race or class was IMO considerably better than the others, to a point where that class or race would dominate the party, I sure would like to talk about it, if only to see if my POV would be verified or not.


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## Storm Raven (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> It's perfetly fair to say that Adamantine Body is only one of 18 feats. At 2nd level a warforge fighter has 3 feats, that's 200% more than any other class but monk. Lots of feats, even thouse in the PHB, aren't useful at higher levels. The damage reduction granted by Adamantine Body will be useless at higher levels, but don't tell me an aditional +6 to AC isn't.




Of course it isn't an additional +6 AC, its +6 to AC instead of wearing armor. At higher levels, just about everty fighter will be able to easily afford better aqrmor than the warforged, for a very modest investment of their total wealth.


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## Storm Raven (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Different is bad. Different requires special thought, special consideration, special preparation, special attention. They hog the spotlight and demand to be paid attention to because they're so dramatically different.




Sorry, that's still a very inconvincing argument. If your DM skills are so feeble that "different is bad" is an insurmountably tough challenge for you, then maybe you shouldn't be behind the screen. The warforged have some immunities that make them impervious to some attacks and tactics, but their nature is readily apparent to everyone. Intelliegent enemies should have a grab bag of attacks designed to exploit their weaknesses.

Heck, the biggest vulnerability to the warforged is that except for a handful of times, their AC is outstripped by most "tank" types of other races. Hit them with damage dealing creatures, that's easy.


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## IcyCool (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Now you can hide behind the actual text of the message, but I honestly belive that ARandomGod is saying that warforged can't improve their AC beyond the warforged feats.




Well, if you honestly believe that, then nothing I'm going to say will convince you, and only ARandomGod can correct your assumption.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Oh and about that +6 diffrence. Composit Plating is +2, Adamantine Body is +8. As ThirdWizard said, it's only the price of a feat. One feat in a class that gets 18. (11 bonus feats plus 7 regular feats.)




So, for the price of a feat, the warforged fighter gets to have armor that is worse than what a fighter of any other race could have purchased.  And without the feat, the warforged fighter is really getting hosed.

I'm pointing out that it is a disadvantage of the Warforged.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 14, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Mithral Body gives you +5 armor bonus with max dex of +5, -2 ACP, ASF 15%, and counts as light armor.
> 
> Adamantine Body gives you +5 armor bonus with max dex of +1, -5 ACP, ASF 35%, counts as heavy armor, and gives DR 2/adamantine.
> 
> So yes, full plate of inferior adamantine... but not by much. Especially considering you are never caught without it. And you can get it at first level for a feat, which is really great for fighters who, as I said, get tons of feats.




The main (only?) advantage of adamantine armor is it's DR. Heavy armors get 3, meduim get two... I'd say that the special materials 'cost' should be considered to be only 10,000 like that of medium armors. 

Still, it IS a lot of gold to give out at first level. But come medium levels and you're sure wishing you'd paid in gold for it. 

It's nice that you can sleep in it (well, you don't sleep, but same thing), and that's almost worth a feat (like endurance), but your first level feat? 

Maybe a fighter feels the bite less, even they feel it, and any nonfighter feels the hit pretty hard. AND it's restrictive. It can't be any type of armor. I'd personally want mithril full plate. 

But better yet, IMO, would be for it to not cost a feat, and for them not to come with armors, but to be able to buy better armors later on like more normal characters. Along with the ability to take said armor off... you could make the time to take off the armor much, much higher, like 8 hours.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> But said warforged can buy a higher AC.




That's never been in debate. It's also irrelevant to my point. He can't buy _better armor_. Anyone can buy better AC. Anyone can make the armor they have better by enchanting it. Anyone ELSE can also buy better armor. 



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> +7 is a respectible armor bonus depending on the class and how the player chooses to fight.




Sure. Depending on circumstances. So what you're saying is that anyone with the exact perfect class and choice of play can be fine, while everyone else is screwed to varying degrees? That's my point too, you know. ~_^



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Forgoing Adamantine Body means they can have an decent dex bonus. Enter Gloves of Dexterity, and they're better than an armor bonus because they add to your touch AC, and helps you hit with a ranged weapon. Oh, and if you have weapon finesse then it can add to your attack with a light weapon. Of course, if all you want to do is be harder to hit, you can't go wrong with a cloak of displacment.
> 
> Oh, and then there's the small matter of shields. Really, do you _want me_ to go into detail about the diffrent shields and shield bonuses warforged have acess to?




I don't understand... are you implying that other races don't have acess to these items? If not, then why are you pointint out that the warforged does have acess to them?



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> It seems to me that ARandomGod made a poor feat selection for his character type. (I do it all the time.) And now thinks the feat is bad period.




Actually I  think I made the best choice _from the options available to me_ for the character, considering his planned carrerr path, the point buy stat distribution he has, etc. On the other hand, I also think that it was a large liability for the race to have the expenditure of a feat be its only method of getting full plate _ever_.

On the other hand, mostly I'm pointing this (limited options, limited viability) out as an additional balance cost. I'm pretty sure the game designers intended this to be a part of the cost (if they didn't, I think they considered very poorly). It's a big cost, and it should be factored in any discussion of the races balance. 

I DO think that it's a bad feat, in that I think that it's not worth the price of a feat in general. But, since I consider it a cost of playing the warforged, I don't consider it bad from that perspective (well, I really think it could have been designed more flexibly without taking away from it's cost). 



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> However, I'm curious, ARandomGod, what do you want for your character? You mentioned Mithral Full-Plate, why? Do you want the higher dex bonus? Increased mobility? Maybe there's another way to work this out within the rules as written.




Higher dex would be nice later, for those gloves of dex that you meantioned. Mostly for the higher mobility, he'll have levels of Barb so he'd get +10 speed in medium armor. My character is going high strength Barb2/fighter2/sorc/Dragon Disciple.
I think that there's an enchantment in Arms and Equipment that might make it better (lighter) armor... at least I've heard rumors. I don't know anything about the cost nor do I know if I could talk the GM of that campaign into allowing something from A&E.

He's only got a 28 point buy, so the higher dex doesn't mean *much* ... and compared to the Mithril Body feat, It would just cost more to get less AC going that route, although it would give a better reflex save, of course. 

I think that it might be within the power of a limited wish, as it would be effectively lowering the gold piece value of existing equipment (altering the adamantine to mithril), as opposed to creating an item or increasing the value of an item. However, it would be increasing the value to the character, so a full wish might be needed... (But would it be worth the cost?)

Some other way to work it out would be great, but I can't think of any. 



			
				ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> For the price of a feat, the warforged can have better armor than the fighter for cheaper, though.




Of course, but how much would you pay for a feat? I believe it *starts* at 10K, and goes up from there. AND that uses a magic item slot. So the warforged can get a jump on the non warforged cashwise, but in the end he'll discover he's really just bought the shaft. Which, IMO, is what was meant. The race is supposed to be better at lower levels, and worse at highter levels.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Now you can hide behind the actual text of the message, but I honestly belive that ARandomGod is saying that warforged can't improve their AC beyond the warforged feats. Read this quote and tell me he's not talking about AC:





Naw, I'm just saying you can't get better armor. For some, Mithril full plate is better armor than Adamantine full plate. 

I know and knew that you can enhance the existing armor... and that there are other ways to get armor class improvement (Luck bonus, insight bonus, deflection bonus, shield bonus, natural armor bonus, etcetera). But you're stuck with one of those three armor choices. That's what I think is bad. You also have to pay a feat, to essentially start out at first level with no feat selection, if you want to ever wear better than leather armor. That part I see as a racial cost. But I think that for the feat you have to spend there should be more flexibility... you should be able to select specail material, then select armor type. Perhaps limit the materials you can select, if you want to keep druids out of the race. 



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> There it is. He's implyed that a warforged's AC _will not go up and that you cannot purchace more AC._ Again, you can hide behind the actual text, but why else would a character want to by armor if not to increase his AC?




In that I just meant that unless you're in a campaign where you'll never get adamantine armor, or mithril armors... a campaign where you'll never have access to any special materials to enchant, or perhaps won't have access to the gold needed to purchase those materials. There I was mainly stating that unless you're playing in a game where a first level feat that says essentially "you gain 12000 gold" is a good feat, then this feat isn't really very good, value wise. 



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Oh and about that +6 diffrence. Composit Plating is +2, Adamantine Body is +8. As ThirdWizard said, it's only the price of a feat. One feat in a class that gets 18. (11 bonus feats plus 7 regular feats.)




Well, it's the price of a _general_ feat, which can make a difference even to a fighter... and stating that it's only 1/18th of your total feats is implying that every warforged who'd want to take that feat is a fighter. Unfortunately this is a race, and not a class issue. Even if their 'favored' class is fighter, I've never seen anyone play a fighter warforged (Beyond two levels). To be fair, I haven't seen a lot of warforged played yet, so far only 5. But none of them has taken fighter beyond two levels. 

And, another main point I was making, is the effective cost/benifit of the feat. By the time you've gotten 18 feats, you'd really much rather have bought the armor in gold than spent a feat. Feats cost more than 2/3 adamantine full plate.



			
				Felon said:
			
		

> Understand, that distinction that looms large for to you is just hair-splitting to others. It looks like an android, walks like an android, has the immunities of an android, has the angst of an android....
> 
> Whether or not it's magic or microchips, it's six or a half-dozen unless the distinction is palpable in some way and not just a mcguffin for bridging genres.




But to someone who's "against androids" it's a significant distinction. I mean, just becuase they can't imagine the concept as different, doesn't mean it's not different. There are people who don't think that there should be much magic in fantasy games either. 

And it doesn't have the angst of an android... angst (emotions) are reserved for constructs imbued with a soul. Souls are very, very palpable. It's not my fault if some people can't grasp the difference. Sure, people will get confused. They'll try to make AI viruses to 'infect' the construct. And there's one difference. A construct is not actually programmed. There's no brain or hardware or software. There's just a rock, and a stick of wood, and this crystal dragonshard.

Heck, I've seen pure magic written as science fiction. People can do anything. Doesn't really stop that this effect is very different than robotics and programming.


			
				Felon said:
			
		

> It's one limit. Another, more substantial limit, is what the group(s) you game with is going to agree upon as acceptable without bickering.




Ah yes, indeed that IS the main limit, isn't it?


----------



## ARandomGod (Apr 14, 2005)

IcyCool said:
			
		

> Well, if you honestly believe that, then nothing I'm going to say will convince you, and only ARandomGod can correct your assumption.




Done, although it sounds like it was an honest miscommunication.



			
				IcyCool said:
			
		

> So, for the price of a feat, the warforged fighter gets to have armor that is worse than what a fighter of any other race could have purchased.  And without the feat, the warforged fighter is really getting hosed.
> 
> I'm pointing out that it is a disadvantage of the Warforged.




Yup. That's really the reason I pointed it out. I still additionally think that
1) For the cost of a feat, they really could have made the armor type more flexible (Although admittedly they did pick the two most popular armor types)
2) Later, in another book, they'll print something that does #1, in order to make real people pay real cash for it.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2005)

> Sorry, that's still a very inconvincing argument. If your DM skills are so feeble that "different is bad" is an insurmountably tough challenge for you, then maybe you shouldn't be behind the screen. The warforged have some immunities that make them impervious to some attacks and tactics, but their nature is readily apparent to everyone. Intelliegent enemies should have a grab bag of attacks designed to exploit their weaknesses.




Again, I never accused the warforged of being unplayable. Just awkward. I never said that the immunities were an insurmountably tough challenge. But they *are* something different enough to have to take into account. And there's a HUGE difference between not being able to play with something and not wanting to. Note:



> A DM of basic skill level has it within his power to run a fun adventure for a great wyrm red dragon, a stone golem, an ice elemental half-vamire rogue, a dwarven wizard, a human paladin, and an intelligent gelatinous cube who has the ability to cast cleric spells somehow....But most DM's don't really want to be bothered with taking into account all those dramatic differences in the party, and if they do it once, they generally don't want to have it as repeat themes in their ongoing game.




If something is going to be different, it better have a dang good justification for that. The Warforged are different, and they have *no* good justification for that. They could be the same and not suffer. 

Why are they different? Why do they need to be? Why does the fact that I want races LA +0 in my game to generally work the same way suddenly mean that I'm an incompetent DM?

They are different basically for the sake of being different, and that is bad, not just for my games, but for the games of MANY DM's out there. It's not bad for yours? Fine. But that doesn't make the Warforged any less wierd.


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## Storm Raven (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Again, I never accused the warforged of being unplayable. Just awkward. I never said that the immunities were an insurmountably tough challenge. But they *are* something different enough to have to take into account. And there's a HUGE difference between not being able to play with something and not wanting to. Note:




Of course, that's just a fancy way of saying "different is bad", which is silly. Different is not bad. If different were bad, then why would you play a game with a half dozen base PC races and hundreds of monsters? You are just saying _this_ different is bad, because it makes me think about what I am doing.



> If something is going to be different, it better have a dang good justification for that. The Warforged are different, and they have *no* good justification for that. They could be the same and not suffer.




What is the "justification" for elves being different? For dwarves? For halflings? And so on. You just don't like them because they are unfamiliar, which is a mighty unconvincing argument. So some of your tried and true tactics don't work against them, maybe you should get some new tactics. It sounds to me like you have fallen into a rut, using the same things over and over again to the point where you can't concieve of a campaign where they might not be universally effective.



> Why are they different? Why do they need to be? Why does the fact that I want races LA +0 in my game to generally work the same way suddenly mean that I'm an incompetent DM?




Because LA +0 can mean a lot of things. And the incompetence is in being unable to adapt.



> They are different basically for the sake of being different, and that is bad, not just for my games, but for the games of MANY DM's out there. It's not bad for yours? Fine. But that doesn't make the Warforged any less wierd.




They aren't bad, they are different. Saying "different is bad" over and over again doesn't make it any more of convincing argument. It just makes you sound silly.


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## Storm Raven (Apr 14, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Warforged can buy better armor. The composit plating can be enchanted just like regular armor, wich is the same as buying better armor.




Only if by "just the same as" you mean "costs enormously more than", since a human can buy a suit of mundane full plate for far less than a warfogred can get magical enhancments to his composite plating.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2005)

> What is the "justification" for elves being different? For dwarves? For halflings? And so on. You just don't like them because they are unfamiliar, which is a mighty unconvincing argument.




They're not different. They are the same. They are humanoids. They have no broad immunities (four spells and one monster's attack doesn't make an immunity broad). They heal naturally. They breathe, they eat, they age, they die. They get sick, they have babies, they have a culture. 

Warforged are quite clearly quite aberrant, I'm giving the designers credit and saying that this was intentional, and they are intentionally abberant in a way that makes the job of being a DM more difficult. I'm not about to make my job more difficult for the sake of a race that loses nothing when it's still simple. I don't call you narrowminded, incompetent, and unable to adapt just because you won't allow great wyrm red dragon samurai into a normal party, why do I get accused of such things because I won't allow things that don't eat, breathe, age, die, have broad immunities, and have no cost associated with that into the party? What's so sacred and special about the Warforged that makes their aberration acceptable? Put simply, *why should I?* And why do you feel the need to cast aspersions and deride my skill because I don't? I mean, seriously, did I hurt your feelings or something?   

Warforged are wierd as their mechanics stand now. There's no good reason for me *too* accept them and their wierdness, so I don't. In as much as game design exists to get the new mechanics to be used, the Warforged is an utter failure for me because they're just too wierd for me to accept at LA +0. 

Unless you think that people who don't accept great wyrm red dragon samurai in their games are "incompetent" and have an in ability to adapt? In which case, I think you've just called the vast  majority of this board incompetent.


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## Storm Raven (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> They're not different. They are the same. They are humanoids. They have no broad immunities (four spells and one monster's attack doesn't make an immunity broad). They heal naturally. They breathe, they eat, they age, they die. They get sick, they have babies, they have a culture.




And yet, they are all wildly different from one another. Some can see in the dark. Some can't. Some are resistant to magic, some aren't. They have different sizes. The differences between most of the standard PC races are a large as the difference between them and a warforged. You just think the warforged are radically different because they are new.



> _Warforged are quite clearly quite aberrant, I'm giving the designers credit and saying that this was intentional, and they are intentionally abberant in a way that makes the job of being a DM more difficult. I'm not about to make my job more difficult for the sake of a race that loses nothing when it's still simple. I don't call you narrowminded, incompetent, and unable to adapt just because you won't allow great wyrm red dragon samurai into a normal party,_




Except I would, if the party was of sufficient level that the LA didn't make him over the party norm.



> _why do I get accused of such things because I won't allow things that don't eat, breathe, age, die, have broad immunities, and have no cost associated with that into the party? What's so sacred and special about the Warforged that makes their aberration acceptable? Put simply, *why should I?* And why do you feel the need to cast aspersions and deride my skill because I don't? I mean, seriously, did I hurt your feelings or something?   _





You get accused of it because that's what your argument boils down to. Basically your argument is "different means I have to be flexible in challenging the party, and that's bad". I'm only reducing your argument to its essentials. I haven't called you anything that you haven't called yourself through your arguments. And if you are too inflexible to respond to anything that is unusual, then your DMing skill are pretty feeble.



> _Warforged are wierd as their mechanics stand now. There's no good reason for me *too* accept them and their wierdness, so I don't. In as much as game design exists to get the new mechanics to be used, the Warforged is an utter failure for me because they're just too wierd for me to accept at LA +0._





LA isn't a wierdness scale. You are measuring the wrong thing with LA, and that's your problem. LA is a power scale. And when you balance out their advantages and drawbacks, they come out to an LA +0. Wierdness doesn't enter into the picture.



> _Unless you think that people who don't accept great wyrm red dragon samurai in their games are "incompetent" and have an in ability to adapt? In which case, I think you've just called the vast  majority of this board incompetent._





I think you are inflexible and incompetent because you can't adapt to the relativley minor challenges posed by an LA +0 race. I'd allow a great red wyrm red dragon samurai, at an appropriate level for the party, but that's a different kettle of fish, because it's _not_ an LA +0 race. That you can't figure out the difference there just indicates that you aren't really thinking through your arguments, rather than just spluttering objections.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 14, 2005)

I think a lot of people are forgetting the light fortification part.



			
				Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Of course it isn't an additional +6 AC, its +6 to AC instead of wearing armor. At higher levels, just about everty fighter will be able to easily afford better aqrmor than the warforged, for a very modest investment of their total wealth.




Completely the opposite of that.

So the warforged gets for a feat: full plate with DR 2/adamantine of light foritification as opposed to full plate with DR 3/adamantine. The light fortification is essentially _free_ of the +10 limit on armor, so he can enhance his armor up higher than the equivalent figher. Advantage warforged.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> You know, I understand exatly what your talking about. If I only had one shtick as a DM, I'd be upset with a race that was immune to it too.




I don't think that's fair. I've never run a campaign like that, and if I wanted to, it would suck to have a warforged in the party. Not saying I would allow it or disallow it, but in that circumstance, I would rather not have it be an option. I'm sure my players are nice enough to not play one if I ask nicely, though. Actually they agree that it should be LA +1, so... 



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> It's nice that you can sleep in it (well, you don't sleep, but same thing), and that's almost worth a feat (like endurance), but your first level feat?




A barbarian in my current game took Endurance at first level...



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Maybe a fighter feels the bite less, even they feel it, and any nonfighter feels the hit pretty hard. AND it's restrictive. It can't be any type of armor. I'd personally want mithril full plate.




Technically, if they really want it, you can get the Adamantine Body and make it "mithral." Another feat lowers the ACP and gives a higher dex boost available. I don't think its worth a feat, personally, but it is still an option for those who really want it.



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> But better yet, IMO, would be for it to not cost a feat, and for them not to come with armors, but to be able to buy better armors later on like more normal characters. Along with the ability to take said armor off... you could make the time to take off the armor much, much higher, like 8 hours.




Great, so a house rule might pull them back in line. Enough that I think it would be LA +0 instead? Probably not.



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Sure. Depending on circumstances. So what you're saying is that anyone with the exact perfect class and choice of play can be fine, while everyone else is screwed to varying degrees? That's my point too, you know. ~_^




Balance should be maintained on what can be done under best case scenarios. That's why I think they should be LA+1 after all. A barbarian warforged is at a disadvantage. Well, so its a barbarian halfling or elf. They should be balanced off of what they do best, not what they do least well. You can't say "most groups won't powergame this race" and decide that its okay.



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> But to someone who's "against androids" it's a significant distinction. I mean, just becuase they can't imagine the concept as different, doesn't mean it's not different. There are people who don't think that there should be much magic in fantasy games either.




From what I've heard of them, I like to think of them like Kurt Russell in the movie Soldier.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2005)

> And yet, they are all wildly different from one another. Some can see in the dark. Some can't. Some are resistant to magic, some aren't. They have different sizes. The differences between most of the standard PC races are a large as the difference between them and a warforged. You just think the warforged are radically different because they are new.




Actually, they're quite old. If I was gonna be angry about new things, I'd be griping about catfolk. Notice I'm not? Perhaps you'd like to reassess the straw man you've set up?

The differences between warforged and other races is IMMENSE, much more so than the difference between a halfling and a half-orc. Just take a look at the immunities post above to see how much *more* needs to be thought about with the Warforged that doesn't need to be considered withuot them. No other PC race in the game at the same LA has their breadth of powers, immunities, and vulnerabilities. This quanity and quality makes them different.



> Except I would, if the party was of sufficient level that the LA didn't make him over the party norm.




.....why be that narrowminded and uncreative? Certainly any DM worth his salt can challenge creatures of vastly differing abilities and talents? Those who don't are obviously just scared of change! Having a powerful party member creates adventure opportunities and abilities that are so much fun and so many interesting role-playing opportunities are present!



> LA isn't a wierdness scale. You are measuring the wrong thing with LA, and that's your problem. LA is a power scale. And when you balance out their advantages and drawbacks, they come out to an LA +0. Wierdness doesn't enter into the picture.




Actually, that's a dangerously narrow definition power and balance. Balance doesn't come from giving them a +10 to attack rolls but a -10 to AC. That's horribly unbalanced. Suddenly they're paper tigers. They can hit anything, but cannot avoid getting hit. This means that they are drastically wierd and will have to be taken into account when designing adventures: they have to be challenged but not killed, and that requires a deftness and attention that isn't nessecary. It's not a choice of strength and weakness, it's a force on the hand of the DM to pay attention. And to a certain degree, that's exactly what the Warforged do. 

When the game is set up to challenge creatures of basic human-like function, creating a race that is not (one that is wierd) makes them inordinately powerful simply because the game isn't built from the ground up to challenge them. You can re-build the game, but, again *why should I?*



> I think you are inflexible and incompetent because you can't adapt to the relativley minor challenges posed by an LA +0 race. I'd allow a great red wyrm red dragon samurai, at an appropriate level for the party, but that's a different kettle of fish, because it's not an LA +0 race. That you can't figure out the difference there just indicates that you aren't really thinking through your arguments, rather than just spluttering objections.




Won't =/= Can't. In your race to insult me, you deftly made quite a nice handful of assumptions about who I am and what I'm capable of. You missed. Calm down, jump off your high horse, and try not to address me as if I was some lesser form of human for disagreeing with you, kay?

It's not a different kettle of fish. I'm sure we could get a million and one suggestions for how to allow that into a party that is 1st level and still have a dynamic and fun game where everyone can contribute. The red dragon is just going to have special attention.

That's the same situation, just a worse offender: a creature that is drastically different than the rest of the party, e.g.: weird. Too wierd for most DMs to really bother allowing into a level one party without thinking about quite a bit. Warforged require less thought, but they're not as wierd. "Power" is just another form of wierdness.


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## Belen (Apr 14, 2005)

KM: You have convinced me.  If I ever run in Eberron.  Warforged will have the humanoid type.  That is WAY too many spells and monsters to have a defacto immunity too.


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## Belen (Apr 14, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> I think you are inflexible and incompetent because you can't adapt to the relativley minor challenges posed by an LA +0 race. I'd allow a great red wyrm red dragon samurai, at an appropriate level for the party, but that's a different kettle of fish, because it's _not_ an LA +0 race. That you can't figure out the difference there just indicates that you aren't really thinking through your arguments, rather than just spluttering objections.




If warforged immunities are "minor" for you, then I have some land in Florida with only minor problems.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2005)

> KM: You have convinced me. If I ever run in Eberron. Warforged will have the humanoid type. That is WAY too many spells and monsters to have a defacto immunity too.




The biggest offender is their immunity to poison, but disease, paralysis, and level drain also make up a lot (more than I expected with disease, actually). And yeah, the idea of Warforged using Alter Self to turn into golems is not a pretty picture either.   

I'm glad I've convinced you a bit. Hope you have fun. Hope the player who wants to be a warforged doesn't hate me.


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## Arnwyn (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And why do you feel the need to cast aspersions and deride my skill because I don't? I mean, seriously, did I hurt your feelings or something?



Nah, it's just Storm Raven. Look at the guy's other 1552 posts.


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## Seeten (Apr 14, 2005)

You know, I am all in agreement that this race wouldnt work in Midnight's desperate need to eat, and gather supplies. They dont need to eat. It'd mulch a big part of the atmosphere.

Honestly, though, no adventuring party I have EVER been with has ever had this as a recurring theme. My Necromancer is about to become a Lich and have a list of immunities far longer than the Warforged list, and yet, no one is complaining about that...a 5th level spell, "Kiss of the Vampire" turns me into a vampire now with all their immunities for an extended time frame, and no one is saying I ruin all encounters, or poison or hunger are worthless. (They are, but so?)

I dunno, I dont really get the objection.  They dont eat. Ok, my response is so what?  You want to challenge a party with a barbarian or druid or ranger with hunger? It just seems silly.  Yes, they dont eat, but you can just take a couple of liber mortis feats and be immune to eating, sleeping, light fort and fatigue. So I guess if these things are so all fired dangerous and thought provoking, WOTC shouldnt have made the Tomb-Tainted Soul line of feats.  My Necromancer has the feat chain, and my DM isnt the sort who actually pays attention to anything, and none of them has ever been useful anyway, so obviously it isnt something most people take much into account, because it doesnt appear broadly useful.

It'd have to be a pretty grim, pretty low level game for the things we are discussing to matter at all, and I cant imagine PC's with DMG style wealth levels to ever "go hungry".

I enjoy hearing the objections, though, I just dont really get them.  When I looked at the race, my first thought was underpowered compared to humans.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 14, 2005)

Seeten said:
			
		

> My Necromancer is about to become a Lich and have a list of immunities far longer than the Warforged list, and yet, no one is complaining about that...




Lich have an LA +4. Warforged have an LA +0. That's a very large difference.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I'm glad I've convinced you a bit. Hope you have fun. Hope the player who wants to be a warforged doesn't hate me.




Don't worry - there won't be any.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The biggest offender is their immunity to poison, but disease, paralysis, and level drain also make up a lot (more than I expected with disease, actually). And yeah, the idea of Warforged using Alter Self to turn into golems is not a pretty picture either.
> 
> I'm glad I've convinced you a bit. Hope you have fun. Hope the player who wants to be a warforged doesn't hate me.



 Well, you haven't convinced me. 

Of course, I can see where you're coming from. I've seen Warforged in action, from both sides of the screen(though haven't played one, I prefer Changelings), and they haven't been a problem at all. The LA +0 is fine, and it really doesn't need to be changed from my experience.


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## Belen (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I'm glad I've convinced you a bit. Hope you have fun. Hope the player who wants to be a warforged doesn't hate me.




None of my players want to play in Eberron.  I think a few are interested in Arcana Evolved and I really like Midnight, but no one seems to be a fan of Eberron.

Actually, it looks like everyone wants a pirate or sea voyage campaign next, but we'll see.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 14, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> So what you're saying is that anyone with the exact perfect class and choice of play can be fine, while everyone else is screwed to varying degrees? That's my point too, you know. ~_^



Well, it depends. There is no way I would play a warforged wizard and take any of the body feats at 1st. What I am saying is that Admanitne Body isn't a nessesary as you think it is. There are trade-offs. Both of the body feats take away flexability, something you seem to value a great deal. The reason many people tought it as a good feat, is because those people understand the loss of flexability and don't mind it. 



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> My character is going high strength Barb2/fighter2/sorc/Dragon Disciple.



Now we're getting somewhere.

I think you got the wrong feat. Personaly, I would have taken toughness before I would take Adamantine Body. I doubt I would have taken Mithral Body with that class list. You gave up flexability, something I think you value already, and proceded to build a character that requires the upmost flexability. On top of that, you have 3 leves in two diffrent arcane spellcasting classes, and a 35% Arcane spell failure rate. The flexability loss isn't that great do dedicated fighters, barbarians, and clerics. Heck, clearics benifite the most from Adamantine Body. Monks, Druids, and any arcane spellcaster simply don't benefit from the feat.


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## Argonel (Apr 14, 2005)

I don't ahve a lot to contribute, but I thought I'd point out a red herring.  A warforged could theoretically turn themselves into a golem with Alter self except for 2 points.  First there aren't any golems with less than 5 HD which is the upper limit of the Alter self spell. Second you wouldn't gain any of the special attacks or special qualities of the golem and may lose some of the special qualities of being warforged depending on DM ruling.  

In summary it may be technically possible ot turn into a golem or at least a construct with alter self there would be little if any benefit to it.  From what I've seen from my players the 1 warforged in the party is reasonably balanced.  Yes he has a number of immunities but that doesn't make him invulnerable.  It isn't necessarily that beneficial to have someone on watch all night when they don't have good spot and listen scores and don't have lowlight vision or darkvision.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 14, 2005)

Argonel said:
			
		

> In summary it may be technically possible ot turn into a golem or at least a construct with alter self there would be little if any benefit to it.




That's why you use _Polymorph_.


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## Ace (Apr 14, 2005)

Flyspeck23 said:
			
		

> By the time the character has 18 feats, his adamantine body will look pale in comparison.
> It's at the low levels the warforged with that feat is probably better than other fighters. Later on, it doesn't matter that much, so it's kind of unfair to say that it cost him only one of 18 feats.
> 
> 
> ...




yes very true. 

One thing though Ebberon is a fundamentally low level setting. There are very few if any High Level NPC's and I think most adventuring parties aren't expected to hit levels above maybe 12 anyway 

Looked at fromt eh terms of of the world they were designed for Warforged are on teh strong side 

If the AC is an issue (because your group plays a lot of 15+ lvl games)  just come up with a feat OR 3 to add AC

a fighter (which most Warforged are) usually has plenty  of feats anyway

JMO but a warforged fighter with a magic light shield, a level or 2  of barbarian and the rest fighter  who has  whirling frenzy, 2 weapons feats (including 2 wpn defense) and a decent Dex sounds like a killing machine (pun intended) to me -- even in a higher than Ebberon standard level game YMMV


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## ARandomGod (Apr 14, 2005)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
			
		

> Don't worry - there won't be any.




Man, I have to agree with this. Sure, they do indeed have a list of immunities a mile long. I still had to look long and hard to find something, ANYthing that I'd be willing to play as one of that race. Their list of suck (or occasional mediocrity) is just that long too. 

As for anyone who really thinks that there *might* be a problem, I say this. Forget for the moment all your concerns, other than a warning to the player considering the race that you might have to make him change characters later, and play it as written, and don't alter your game really... and see what happens. Personally I'm completely in support of the faction that thinks that if it's going to ruin their game they should make house rules to prevent it... on the other hand, I'm also for substantial playtesting to see what *really* needs and doesn't need altering before mucking about with altering the class, race, or rule. 

Don't forget that Mystic Theurge was also initially considered awesomely overpowered. 



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Well, it depends. There is no way I would play a warforged wizard and take any of the body feats at 1st. What I am saying is that Admanitne Body isn't a nessesary as you think it is. There are trade-offs. Both of the body feats take away flexability, something you seem to value a great deal. The reason many people tought it as a good feat, is because those people understand the loss of flexability and don't mind it.




I don't mind it, I consider it a cost however... and I'm surprised at the shortsightedness of other people who seem to think it's a good feat. Which is the main reason I brought it up. I think that it's a racial penalty feat instead... Everyone is all overawed at the potential to get 2/3 adamantine plate at first level, whereas I'm looking at the loss of a feat by the time I could have bought that plate.



			
				fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Now we're getting somewhere.
> 
> I think you got the wrong feat. Personaly, I would have taken toughness before I would take Adamantine Body. I doubt I would have taken Mithral Body with that class list. You gave up flexability, something I think you value already, and proceded to build a character that requires the upmost flexability. On top of that, you have 3 leves in two diffrent arcane spellcasting classes, and a 35% Arcane spell failure rate. The flexability loss isn't that great do dedicated fighters, barbarians, and clerics. Heck, clearics benifite the most from Adamantine Body. Monks, Druids, and any arcane spellcaster simply don't benefit from the feat.




Plain toughness or improved toughness? ~_^

Personally, I wouldn't take Mithral body with almost any class list, the boost in AC isn't worth the feat. You get what, +3 to AC along with a list of penalties? Sometimes worth it but you're more likely to find a feat that's better... not always however. A feat that's effectively +3 to AC with no drawbacks (for those who don't really use skills anyway) is a pretty good feat. It's still a cost however, and a big one. Any othe race could have just bought that armor for much, much cheaper than a feat.

All I'm really losing is some speed... OK, fine, I'm losing a full 20 feet of speed. But I'm gaining 6 AC that I'd never be able to get any other way (because for every enchantment that could boost a character with other armor's AC by one, there's an identical enchantment that can boost this guy's armor that +1). 

Anyhow, I'm only taking one level of an arcane casting class, Sorc 1. Two levels of fighter for the feats and two levels of Barb, for the rage and for the uncanny dodge (it's only one more level, what else should I consider, fighter 3? Fighter three is a stupid level). 
Then I'm going all out Dragon Disciple. Which is NOT an arcane casting class. And the 35% spell failure... well, that's only going to affect my cantrips anyhow (other than Light). My two first level spells will be Benign Transposition (MiniHB) and True Strike. Neither of those will be affected by the potential spell failure, and both of them will be effective and useful for the entire life of the character. Would I prefer Mithril Full Plate to Adamantine Full plate? Sure. But Adamantine is good too.

Plus, and I'm going to be honest here, I wanted to play a Warforged character with Adamantine body. I started with that main concept, and worked a character up around it.
Would this character do better without the adamantine body feat? 
Well... with the Mithril one it would be only 1 AC less in the long run (after the purchase of +6 to dex item)... and it would be 20 feet faster. So I suppose that would be a better feat for him. Without any feat it would be 4 AC down (after getting items of +6 to dex), and would also be up one feat... No, Barb2/fighter2/Sorc1/DragonDisciple10 would be best in the long run with Mithril Body most likely. However, what I didn't meantion above is that I also have some plans to go from there into the Warforged Juggernaught. That requires the Adamantine Body feat. 

More my comments about the feat stem from the fact that I spent a very long time with the starting concept of 1) Warforged 2) Adamantine body... and I considered a lot of different options as to what would make an interesting 20 level character with that base... and I came up with a lot of frustration. It's a pretty horrible base, and the price of your only first level feat is very, very high when looked at from the viewpoint of a 20th level character (or a 15th level character). 

On the other hand, I think that the flexibility loss is pretty great to barbarians, who lose 20 feet of movement (from light armor), or at least the extra 10 that they could have gotten if there were a medium armor choice available. 

Monks.. Heck, I think Monks benifit the very most. Not from the feat, but from the race. The obviously wouldn't take the feat, but without it they're suddenly allowed to wear leather armor. This is something a monk of any other race cannot do.

On the gripping hand, an arcane caster class with no spell failure (well, in any spell he can cast above cantrip level) benifits just fine from the feat. 



			
				Ace said:
			
		

> One thing though Ebberon is a fundamentally low level setting. There are very few if any High Level NPC's and I think most adventuring parties aren't expected to hit levels above maybe 12 anyway
> 
> Looked at fromt eh terms of of the world they were designed for Warforged are on teh strong side




Yea, I've got to admit that looking at them from the point of view of a character who ends his career at level 12, they're pretty good.



			
				Ace said:
			
		

> If the AC is an issue (because your group plays a lot of 15+ lvl games)  just come up with a feat OR 3 to add AC




Spending further feats really just amplifies the original problem, as far as I can see. But coming up with alternate ways to change your armor, like spells or crafting mechanics (and gold in the form of special materials/labor) would do the trick nicely.



			
				Ace said:
			
		

> a fighter (which most Warforged are) usually has plenty  of feats anyway
> 
> JMO but a warforged fighter with a magic light shield, a level or 2  of barbarian and the rest fighter  who has  whirling frenzy, 2 weapons feats (including 2 wpn defense) and a decent Dex sounds like a killing machine (pun intended) to me -- even in a higher than Ebberon standard level game YMMV




Definitely, a warforged fighter is awesome until around level 6. Which is why they were 'built'. The masses of armies aren't generally higher than level 6 or so anyhow. 

However, while the class is definitely designed around a fighter base, as I said above, I've never seen anyone feel like sticking to fighter who's had a warforged... at least not more than the customary 2 level dip, which almost any non-casting class is going to be tempted to do.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 14, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Personally, I wouldn't take Mithral body with almost any class list, the boost in AC isn't worth the feat. You get what, +3 to AC along with a list of penalties? Sometimes worth it but you're more likely to find a feat that's better... not always however. A feat that's effectively +3 to AC with no drawbacks (for those who don't really use skills anyway) is a pretty good feat. It's still a cost however, and a big one. Any othe race could have just bought that armor for much, much cheaper than a feat.



You forgot the +5 Max Dex bonus. Dex is important because it improves your touch AC, wheareas your armor bonus dosen't. Actually, you get fewer penalties. That's the trade-off a lower AC with fewer armor check penalties, lower arcane spell failure and the chance to takmithral fluidity to increase the max dex bonus and the reduce the armor check penalties. 

I built a warforged fighter with Mithral Body becaue I had a dex bonus of +3. With Mithral Body I have an AC of 20 at 1st level, with Adamantane Body, I'd have an AC of 21. The one point diffrence allows me to keep my speed, and have my Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, etc.. at only a net -1. 

On a related note, I forgoed the both body feats with my warforged scout. He's a first level Urban Ranger, he's got an AC 18 at 1st level. He's not a front liner, so I'm not to woried about him getting hit.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2005)

> Sure, they do indeed have a list of immunities a mile long. I still had to look long and hard to find something, ANYthing that I'd be willing to play as one of that race. Their list of suck (or occasional mediocrity) is just that long too.




True, and that's part of the issue. A +10 to attack rolls but a -10 to AC is not good game balance, and it makes things unplayable and awkward in certain ways. Sure, the Warforged are more like a +5/-5, which is why they're still playable and fair and not overpowered, but for the first few levels especially, that matters.

Take a look at some of the high LA critters out there. Lists of immunities, protections, spell-like abilities a mile long, but if you play out of the mold of the monster, your list of suck and mediocrity is at least that long. The warforged have the same issue, but no LA because it's on a drastically smaller scale.



> I'm also for substantial playtesting to see what *really* needs and doesn't need altering before mucking about with altering the class, race, or rule.
> 
> Don't forget that Mystic Theurge was also initially considered awesomely overpowered.




The thing with the Warforged is that if they're properly taken into account, they are completely okay for most parties and most campaigns. That's why I'm not out there crying for their utter abolition or anything.   But something can be a poor design choice (IMHO) and still be completely playable, because it makes the game more awkward, but it doesn't  violate that enough to doom a campaign. I'm not saying they can't be challenged, I'm saying they can't be challenged with certain common risks. This encourages a kind of "rock-paper-scissors" gameplay that no other race does, and it's not the kind of gameplay I generally like to see, because I love the gray areas that have their own unique appeal. The Warforged don't have much gray area, mechancially speaking.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> But something can be a poor design choice (IMHO) and still be completely playable, because it makes the game more awkward, but it doesn't  violate that enough to doom a campaign.




Ahh, but the games I've played in involving Warforged are not at all made awkward. No more so than Elves make the game awkward. Sure, they've got immunities that other PC races don't, but that really has not made ANY of the games I've played/run with Warforged at all "awkward". 

I believe its definitely something one should playtest multiple times BEFORE judging. Sure, its not screaming about the Mystic Theurge being overpowered(which I never believed in the first place, anyway...), but you ARE making a judgement with little basis beyond the read of the rules. They may read awkward, but until you play using them(more than once, too), you really can't accurately judge it.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2005)

> Ahh, but the games I've played in involving Warforged are not at all made awkward. No more so than Elves make the game awkward. Sure, they've got immunities that other PC races don't, but that really has not made ANY of the games I've played/run with Warforged at all "awkward".




It's because they're only awkward in a few circumstances. A lot more than an elf, but still not most of them by any stretch of the imagination. 

And I would have had them in my campaign, but since it was a nautical-themed setting with a focus on yuan-ti, poisonous snake, spiders, and drow....well, I figured they'd be inappropriate.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It's because they're only awkward in a few circumstances. A lot more than an elf, but still not most of them by any stretch of the imagination.
> 
> And I would have had them in my campaign, but since it was a nautical-themed setting with a focus on yuan-ti, poisonous snake, spiders, and drow....well, I figured they'd be inappropriate.



 Oh, come on! Doesn't the image of a Warforged Fighter standing on the bottom of the ocean with the bodies of his drowned companions floating around him seem even slightly humourous? I can just see him down there, with one thought as he tries to figure out how to swim back up.

"Well...this sucks."


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## Pants (Apr 14, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And I would have had them in my campaign, but since it was a nautical-themed setting with a focus on yuan-ti, poisonous snake, spiders, and drow....well, I figured they'd be inappropriate.



Just because a Warforged is immune to poison doesn't mean some Drow Reavers or Yuanti can't hack him to bits with a large weapon.

What good is that immunity to poison when your companions are dead and you're the only one left to fight the remaining drow force?

"Whoo, your poison can't hurt me!"

*thud, thud, thud*

"Ow, damn arrows"

*boom*

"HP low... fricken fireballs..."

*thud, thud, thud... clank*


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## Gez (Apr 14, 2005)

Pants said:
			
		

> Just because a Warforged is immune to poison doesn't mean some Drow Reavers or Yuanti can't hack him to bits with a large weapon.




Yeah, that's what amused me when I saw KM wrote that warforged were immune to "defining or prominent damage form" of Nightcrawlers. They're immune to being swallowed whole by a giant undead worm?

Oh, sure, the Nightcrawler has several special attacks that aren't appropriate for a warforged. _Contagion_ spell, poison, energy drain... But that won't help him against _finger of death_, _cone of cold_, swallow whole, or against bite +29 melee (4d6+21/19–20) and sting +24 melee (2d8+11/19–20).


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## ARandomGod (Apr 15, 2005)

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> You forgot the +5 Max Dex bonus. Dex is important because it improves your touch AC, wheareas your armor bonus dosen't. Actually, you get fewer penalties. That's the trade-off a lower AC with fewer armor check penalties, lower arcane spell failure and the chance to takmithral fluidity to increase the max dex bonus and the reduce the armor check penalties.
> 
> I built a warforged fighter with Mithral Body becaue I had a dex bonus of +3. With Mithral Body I have an AC of 20 at 1st level, with Adamantane Body, I'd have an AC of 21. The one point diffrence allows me to keep my speed, and have my Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, etc.. at only a net -1.
> 
> On a related note, I forgoed the both body feats with my warforged scout. He's a first level Urban Ranger, he's got an AC 18 at 1st level. He's not a front liner, so I'm not to woried about him getting hit.




I was meaning that, in general, I would be more likely to take either adamantine or nothing, because if you're (well, if I're) playing a character who really wants that dex bonus, he also does not want the skills penalty... and because in general I'd rather the feat than the additional +3 AC for that class type. However, once you've already given up on the dex bonus, +8 is a very good feat.

And, all that aside, it's still more expensive than buying the armor is for a different race.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 15, 2005)

> Yeah, that's what amused me when I saw KM wrote that warforged were immune to "defining or prominent damage form" of Nightcrawlers. They're immune to being swallowed whole by a giant undead worm?
> 
> Oh, sure, the Nightcrawler has several special attacks that aren't appropriate for a warforged. Contagion spell, poison, energy drain... But that won't help him against finger of death, cone of cold, swallow whole, or against bite +29 melee (4d6+21/19–20) and sting +24 melee (2d8+11/19–20).




Who has more to fear from a Nightcrawler, a Warforged or a dwarf? The dwarf is vulnerable to ALL those attacks. A warforged is just not immune to the normal "hitting things" "energy damage" and "insta-kill" attacks. 

They are immune to contagion, poison, and energry drain, which are all significant risks of facing the Nightcrawler (especially, in this case, energy drain).


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## Ds Da Man (Apr 15, 2005)

Flyspeck23 said:
			
		

> So in your opinion there's no need to argue about balance?
> 
> If any single race or class was IMO considerably better than the others, to a point where that class or race would dominate the party, I sure would like to talk about it, if only to see if my POV would be verified or not.



 Actually, I must say I come here for the arguments, so I should have said, "start whining about balance, and give more arguments!"  
 Seriously though, the WF were created simply to add flavor. They weren't created simply for the sake of balance, though they really seem fairly balanced. The campaigns I played in were a lot more hack-n-slash, and less intrigue (i.e. poisons, etc.), so they really wouldn't be that great for our campaigns, since they only get 1/2 healing.

PS: You guys/gals are a great bunch, and I wish I could sit in on some of your sessions to see how they go, and maybe learn something.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 15, 2005)

> Seriously though, the WF were created simply to add flavor. They weren't created simply for the sake of balance, though they really seem fairly balanced. The campaigns I played in were a lot more hack-n-slash, and less intrigue (i.e. poisons, etc.), so they really wouldn't be that great for our campaigns, since they only get 1/2 healing.




And there's another type of campaign the warforged aren't suited for, this time because they don't heal for crap. 

+10/-10 Syndrome.


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## Ds Da Man (Apr 15, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And there's another type of campaign the warforged aren't suited for, this time because they don't heal for crap.
> 
> +10/-10 Syndrome.




I hate to say it, but "AGREED"!


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## FireLance (Apr 15, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Oh, come on! Doesn't the image of a Warforged Fighter standing on the bottom of the ocean with the bodies of his drowned companions floating around him seem even slightly humourous? I can just see him down there, with one thought as he tries to figure out how to swim back up.
> 
> "Well...this sucks."




I wonder if TonyM could be persuaded to do the artwork on that.


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## Marshall (Apr 15, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> True, and that's part of the issue. A +10 to attack rolls but a -10 to AC is not good game balance, and it makes things unplayable and awkward in certain ways. Sure, the Warforged are more like a +5/-5, which is why they're still playable and fair and not overpowered, but for the first few levels especially, that matters.




But Warforged are, essentially, +10 to AC/-Healing, feats and versatility. They are an exclusively defensive, at least physically, race.



> Take a look at some of the high LA critters out there. Lists of immunities, protections, spell-like abilities a mile long, but if you play out of the mold of the monster, your list of suck and mediocrity is at least that long. The warforged have the same issue, but no LA because it's on a drastically smaller scale.




What are the Warforged good at? Whats their schtick? Do they even have a mold(no pun intended) to break out of?

Are they Arcane casters? Built-in ASF.
Are they skill monkeys? You have a choice of AC or severe skill penalties, pick one.
Are they light FTRs/Archers? CON bonus instead of DEX, but they arent suckage here.
Are they TANKS? Isnt this what they are designed for? _Then why do they *suck* at it?_ They have to spend FEATS to get sub-par armor. Is this really a race that is designed to be shock troops?

Whats left? Clerics and Paladins? Is that really the niche they are supposed to occupy?


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## FireLance (Apr 15, 2005)

Marshall said:
			
		

> Whats left? Clerics and Paladins? Is that really the niche they are supposed to occupy?



With penalties to Wisdom and Charisma? A religious warforged is a great character concept, but sub-optimal mechanically. 

A warforged could make a decent artificer, although he will have a net -1 to Use Magic Device checks compared to artificers of most other races.

Adamantine Body isn't sub-par for a tank, at least at low to mid levels. Fighter is probably one of the best overall choices for a warforged. A warforged Barbarian with Adamantine Body would have both good offense and defence. He doesn't get the speed boost, but he doesn't get fatigued after his rage either - a fair trade-off in my view.

A warforged psion would also do fairly well mechanically - armor does not interfere with his psionic abilities and Intelligence is his key mental stat.


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## Vurt (Apr 15, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Who has more to fear from a Nightcrawler, a Warforged or a dwarf? The dwarf is vulnerable to ALL those attacks. A warforged is just not immune to the normal "hitting things" "energy damage" and "insta-kill" attacks.
> 
> They are immune to contagion, poison, and energry drain, which are all significant risks of facing the Nightcrawler (especially, in this case, energy drain).




Isn't that the difference between "OMG I'm gonna die!" and "OMFG I'm gonna die!!!"  

I mean really.  Wasn't the crux of that argument that these creatures don't sufficiently challenge a warforged?

Cheers,
Vu "channeling Hong" rt


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## Mokona (Apr 15, 2005)

"I think this was an intentional choice for the designers [to make warforged feel different from other player races], but I think it was a short-sighted choice..."

It would be best if we stopped guessing about the private motivations of someone other than ourselves.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 15, 2005)

> Are they Arcane casters? Built-in ASF.
> Are they skill monkeys? You have a choice of AC or severe skill penalties, pick one.
> Are they light FTRs/Archers? CON bonus instead of DEX, but they arent suckage here.
> Are they TANKS? Isnt this what they are designed for? Then why do they suck at it? They have to spend FEATS to get sub-par armor. Is this really a race that is designed to be shock troops?




(1) ASF is low. I don't have my books with me, but with a 90% chance of success, it still works well. Furthermore, isn't there a feat to help offset ASF? Even if there's not, they can still make handy arcane casters. They won't match gnomes or elves, but arcane casting isn't their thing.
In this vien, they also make very good artificers and good psions. 
(2) They make pretty good skill monkeys, especially if they focus on non-social skills (nothing Charisma or Wisdom based as a major emphasis). No worse than any other race, and a shade better than some because they will be useful "front line" skill monkeys, what with extra hp and their immunities. Intelligence, Strength, or Dexterity based skills they all do fine a.
(3) They definately don't suck at tanking. Tanking isn't measured by AC entirely. More hp, light fortification, a wide range of immunities, feats that give them DR...they make quite perfect non-skill-focused barbarians, and as fighters they benefit from a truckload of feats that makes spending one on DR easy, and they benefit from not having to spend as much gold on supplies as normal fighters, leaving them open to spend it on other ways to improve their AC or statistics.



> Isn't that the difference between "OMG I'm gonna die!" and "OMFG I'm gonna die!!!"
> 
> I mean really. Wasn't the crux of that argument that these creatures don't sufficiently challenge a warforged?




By the time parties are facing these things, they are kind of expected to survive. The immunity (in this case, ESPECIALLY to energy drain) reduces the challenge significantly. Does it eliminate the challenge? Nope.



> "I think this was an intentional choice for the designers [to make warforged feel different from other player races], but I think it was a short-sighted choice..."
> 
> It would be best if we stopped guessing about the private motivations of someone other than ourselves.




Well, we have a fairly objective fact: the warforged work in a way that is quite a bit different than any other Core or Eberron race. The mere fact of being nonhumanoid and not having the basic internal workings of normal living metabolism are pretty clear in this. They are an exception to some of the rules that exist for every other race.

Then we have a question: "why did the people at WotC make it like this?"

We have two responses to that question: they wanted it like this, or they made a mistake and didn't want it like this. 

Given the amount of hype and energy behind Eberron, I'm willing to give the designers the benefit of the doubt and say that they wanted the warforged to be different. They accomplished that goal.

If they wanted the warforged to be the same, they failed in that goal. I don't think they would've let the warforged out without meeting their goal, so I don't think this was their goal. 

Fair enough to say, then? I mean, these guys are talented and paid designers...certainly they knew the warforged came in as an exception to the ususal rules. If they didn't want it that way, why is it that way?


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

The arguments for warforged being LA+0 instead of LA+1 at this point have just gotten out right bad. They range from "they can still die" to "+8 armor bonus with light foritification and DR 2/adamantine is bad."

Please make some decent points so that I can feel it is worth my time to explain my side.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 15, 2005)

Wait ... Which one's your side?


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

I think they should be LA +1.

Or do you just want to argue?


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 15, 2005)

And the argument 'cause I have to think to put them in my game' is better?  Or do you like the 'clunky' argument?  How about the different argument?  Or, they have immunities?  Or, well a bonus and a hinderance don't cancel each other out.  I've seen just very poor arguments on BOTH sides.  I've never met anybody who has actually had problems with warforged in a game.  Only people who don't like them on paper.  And, admittedly I don't like them on paper much.  But, I really don't think they are a +1 race...I think they should be...but I would get ride of some of their half traits.  KM's build is a good compromise and a bit more elegant than what Wizards released.  But, again, I've seen no sound aguments for them being too powerful...nor any evidence.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

In a nutshell:

 Pros:
 Built in armor (can be enhanced)
-- they can never lose their armor, they can never be caught without their armor
 25% negation to sneak attacks, criticals and death attacks
-- free armor of light foritification
 immune to poison, sleep, paralysys, disease, nausia, fatigue, exhaustion, and energy drain
--a long list of immunities
Construct type
--immune to "_person_" spells, can polymorph into constructs
auto-stablize, doesn't take damage from exertion at 0 hp
--a good boost but nothing much at higher levels
 doesn't eat, sleep, or breathe, but can if it wants to
--basically it can swim and never drown (they don't sink like people keep saying), and they don't need to eat or sleep either, both good

 Cons:
--they make bad clerics and sub-par paladins
 cannot heal damage naturally
--non issue
_cure _spells are 1/2 effectiveness
--pretty bad but not as bad as people are making it out to be, assuming you have an arcane caster able to cast the cure spells. With a wand of _specral hand_, they're even better. A drawback, but an upplayed one [EDIT]The warforged says "Hey wizard, you're part healer now, and hey cleric, you now have some more time to do other things besides heal than you had before."[/EDIT]

They actually make very good rogues and rangers. A warforged ranger in the back peppering with arrows, or stealthy rogue will go pretty far. They don't want the armor feats, and wouldn't wear much better armor than leather anyway. A ranger will get Endurance for free and then can take Diehard, so they can act until they're at -10 without any bleeding to worry about.

I prefer to balance based on what could be potentially abused rather than the idea that most groups won't play the warforged to their best ability, which they won't. But, still when designing material, it is best to look at it from every possible angle to determine what a smart player/group could do rather than what most people will do with it.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 15, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> _cure _spells are 1/2 effectiveness
> --pretty bad but not as bad as people are making it out to be, assuming you have an arcane caster able to cast the cure spells. With a wand of _specral hand_, they're even better. A drawback, but an upplayed one.




Its much more of an issue than you're making it out to be. From what I've seen, the Arcane caster would rather use blasting type spells than heal. That's for the Cleric to do.

Really, you're still just listing down the stats and making a decision based on that. You canNOT do that when determining the balance of something. It just doesn't work.

Now, I may have missed something here, but I seem to be noticing that those more 'against' Warforged as they are haven't actually see them in play, while those 'for' them, HAVE. That means much, much more than is being credited to. Again, in MULITPLE games that I've both run and played in with DIFFERENT groups, Warforged are not in any way deserving of a LA +1.

Yes, they looked that way before I saw them in action. But with four different groups, and six different Warforged among them all with different players, I've seen otherwise. Dismiss anecdotal evidence all you'd like, but this sounds far too much like the whole Mystic Theurge argument before people actually saw them in play.


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## Gez (Apr 15, 2005)

I think that if they were LA +1, nobody would ever want to play them. No. bo. dy. Ever.

Therefore, they are well placed by being at LA +0.

Sure, they have a package of immunities and vulnerabilities that are different from the usual humanoid's. And this was the intent, they open a way to play something really different without being penalized for it.

I should point out that if you're out to look for abuses and munchkinism, you'll find far more of them for changelings and shifters than for warforged. 
► Having the shapechanger subtype, they are quasi-immune to _baleful polymorph_ (they can revert to their natural form as a standard action).
► They can qualify for the Warshaper prestige class as soon as level 4, and thus become Warshapers at level 5 (no other race can).
► They are always proficient with all simple weapons (something druids, monks, and wizards would otherwise not have), and with shields if they are proficient with any armor (something rogues would otherwise not have).

*Shapechanger Subtype:* A shapechanger has the supernatural ability to assume one or more alternate forms. Many magical effects allow some kind of shape shifting, and not every creature that can change shapes has the shapechanger subtype.
_Traits:_ A shapechanger possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).
Proficient with its natural weapons, with simple weapons, and with any weapons mentioned in the creature’s description.
Proficient with any armor mentioned in the creature’s description, as well as all lighter forms. If no form of armor is mentioned, the shapechanger is not proficient with armor. A shapechanger is proficient with shields if it is proficient with any type of armor.

And I've spared you the "they've all Improved Unarmed Strike, since they are proficient with their natural weapons."


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Its much more of an issue than you're making it out to be. From what I've seen, the Arcane caster would rather use blasting type spells than heal. That's for the Cleric to do.




Nothing in the game says the cleric has to heal. The arcane caster wants to blast instead of heal? Fine, he can go do that somewhere else with the clerics who want to be party tanks. Really, if they split up the healing duties, then they should both be fairly happy.

This is why I see warforged ranged users as better than warforged meleers. It's dangerous for arcane casters to go near melee (thus having to use _spectral hand_ or that ranged touch feat). An archery based warforged is much closer to the healing that it will need. A melee based warforged is better off backing off when things get rough to be healed by the wizard, which means they'll want a secondary front-liner there, or they'll have to put up with 1/2 healing.



> Really, you're still just listing down the stats and making a decision based on that. You canNOT do that when determining the balance of something. It just doesn't work.




I do think it does work. Because most people won't utilize warforged to their best ability. They'll play a barbarian warforged or a fighter warforged in a party where the arcane caster refuses to be healer and everyone accepts that as fine.



> Dismiss anecdotal evidence all you'd like, but this sounds far too much like the whole Mystic Theurge argument before people actually saw them in play.




Ahh the wonderful MT. My main issue with them still stands. They're horribly generic. Like the eldritch knight - ugh. Warforged on the other hand, I love thematically. Like I said in an earlier post, they remind me of Kurt Russell's character in _Soldier_. Great movie.

I have this little powergamer inside me that I have to supress. Years of video games, I guess. And it really wants to play a warforged. 21 AC with DR and light fortification at first level? Immunity to level drain and poison? I just have to convince the wizard to help heal me? Sign me up! It sounds much better to me than a dwarf.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

Gez said:
			
		

> I think that if they were LA +1, nobody would ever want to play them. No. bo. dy. Ever.
> 
> Therefore, they are well placed by being at LA +0.




That would be because almost noone ever wants to play an LA+1 anything unless its obviously overpowered (read: origional half-ogre). Is that a good reason to make them LA +0? Maybe in Eberron, I don't know. But, I don't think it is in a generic Greyhawk campaign.



> I should point out that if you're out to look for abuses and munchkinism, you'll find far more of them for changelings and shifters than for warforged.




Well bring on that thread! 

Looks to me like Eberron has upped the power of possible player races, and the game is balanced with that in mind. Is that a fair assumption of the design of Eberron?


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 15, 2005)

I'm afraid I can't argue with anyone who thinks Soldier is a good movie.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

*gasp* I'll pretend you didn't say that! 

*covers ears* lalalalalalala


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## Pants (Apr 15, 2005)

Vurt said:
			
		

> I mean really.  Wasn't the crux of that argument that these creatures don't sufficiently challenge a warforged?



From what I read, the crux of one of the arguments was that having a Warforged in the party forces the DM to change his DMing style.  The other one was about it's Level Adjustement. 

Personally, I don't see the Warforged forcing anyone to change their DMing style to such a degree that environmental challenges, diseases, or poisons become obsolete.  Sure, in a vacuum without other characters, possibly.  However, having a Paladin in a group means that diseases and fear effects are less effective and having a druid in the group means poisons will be less of a threat.  

Then again, I think having a Changeling in the party will force the DM to change his play style more.  The Warforged immunities and benefits are so situational that I really think they cannot be studied without seeing them in play first.  Meanwhile, the Changeling could potentially allow players to spoil entire plots with judicious use of his Minor Change ability.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

Pants said:
			
		

> Meanwhile, the Changeling could potentially allow players to spoil entire plots with judicious use of his Minor Change ability.




Philosophically, plots cannot be spoiled, only changed.


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## Pants (Apr 15, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Philosophically, plots cannot be spoiled, only changed.



Well, the Changleing has the potential to change many plots and/or DMing styles.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 15, 2005)

Looking back I can't think of any recent adventures they would have disrupted. That actually bothers me. I need a healthy dose of intrigue injected soon.


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## Vurt (Apr 16, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> By the time parties are facing these things, they are kind of expected to survive. The immunity (in this case, ESPECIALLY to energy drain) reduces the challenge significantly. Does it eliminate the challenge? Nope.




A nightcrawler!?!  Are you reading the same CR 18 beastie I am? 

What level 15+ party is worried about a few negative levels while swallowed?  I'd be more worried about the 35 average damage per round, the fact that I would need to inflict another 35 hp of damage to its gizzard with a light weapon to escape, and that if I do, with it's Improved Grab and insane grapple modifier, it could just swallow me again and I'd be right back to square one!

If you removed energy drain from its long litany of abilities, would you seriously reduce the nightcrawler's CR significantly?  IMHO, the energy drain ability in this case is gravy, it's not the main course.

My point is simply that I think this is a particularly bad example of "things warforged aren't particularly worried about."  Your argument would be better served by focusing on lower level critters with energy drain than simply grepping everything in Monster Manual with that ability as evidence to their poor balance.

Cheers,
Vurt


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## Vurt (Apr 16, 2005)

Pants said:
			
		

> From what I read, the crux of one of the arguments was that having a Warforged in the party forces the DM to change his DMing style. The other one was about it's Level Adjustement.




In my game, I was actually kind of relieved for a bit when one player decided to play a warforged character.  It meant that much less chance of a challenging encounter turning into a TPK because everyone becomes debilitated by a stinking cloud spell.  It was especially ironic that the warforged tank subsequently got nuked by a scorching ray critical hit sneak attack.  (Having 25% fortifications means that 75% of them still get through!)

His replacement character, a warforged psion didn't last long either.  Something about outright dying to a sea hag's evil eye ability.  Sure, what should have been a couple of easy saves were botched, but then, that's the nature of the game.

Being immune to energy drain is cool and all, but having a high armor class also makes you pretty much immune to it.  Maybe if you had to DM for a party of all warforged you'd have an issue with it, but then I think it'd also be pretty fun to DM the same all-warforged party in a heavy undead campaign.  Let them have their bennies, there's more to making undead a challenge than energy drain.

As for LA +1, yeah I could see it.  But I'm also pretty sure that very few people would actually want to play them at LA +1.  Which is unfortunate, because I agree that role-play wise, they're one of the cooler races to come out of WotC's imagination of late.  But then, maybe I'm just an existentialist at heart.

Cheers,
Vurt


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## Felon (Apr 16, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> But to someone who's "against androids" it's a significant distinction. I mean, just becuase they can't imagine the concept as different, doesn't mean it's not different. There are people who don't think that there should be much magic in fantasy games either.




Well, you just hit upon my main dislike of warforged. I don't object to a player wanting to try his hand at playing a construct. After all, I've allowed a trumpet archon, a rakshasa, an ogre mage, and some other weirdos into the party. What I dislike is the idea of them as being so common that they're just another race. A town guard doesn't see a warforged and think "good lord, what's that thing walking towards me?", instead they just shout mean names at it and tell it not to use the front entrance 'cause that's for decent flesh and blood folks. 



> It's not my fault if some people can't grasp the difference. Sure, people will get confused. They'll try to make AI viruses to 'infect' the construct. And there's one difference. A construct is not actually programmed. There's no brain or hardware or software. There's just a rock, and a stick of wood, and this crystal dragonshard.




You are continuing to split hairs. It's like debating the difference Star Wars' hyperspace drives and Star Trek warp engines, which hardcore fanboys will tell you are based on radically different principles but when you break it down they are the same damn thing. By this logic you espouse, we shouldn't think of Eberron's lightning rails as magical bullet trains even though even Keith Baker himself has referred to them as such.


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## Glyfair (Apr 16, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> That would be because almost noone ever wants to play an LA+1 anything unless its obviously overpowered (read: origional half-ogre). Is that a good reason to make them LA +0? Maybe in Eberron, I don't know. But, I don't think it is in a generic Greyhawk campaign.




I suspect this is a misinterpretation of things that have been said about the warforged design.  It was pointed out that one of the goals was that no core races in Eberron would have a level adjustment. 

That doesn't mean the designers decided to take the warforged they had designed and made it LA +0.  It means they took the warforged and tweaked the design so it would be a LA +0 rather than a _more powerful version_ that was LA +1.  (I vaguely recall comments that one design had balanced stat bonuses, for example).




> Looks to me like Eberron has upped the power of possible player races, and the game is balanced with that in mind. Is that a fair assumption of the design of Eberron?




I don't believe so.  Changelings are very powerful for a specific character type (the spy type rogue).  Kalashtar aren't partically powerful at all.  Shifters don't seem particularly powerful, either.  

Obviously, there is a lot of debate about the warforged.  Based on my experiences, I think the balance depends on your campaign.  If it's very important to you that you can threaten the entire party with things that the warforged can ignore (that other races can't ignore), then certainly they'll be too powerful for you.  On the other hand, I find their weaknesses balance out their strengths.  

As one example, look at the warforged scout race.  I don't know anyone who would consider it anything but very weak.  It's the same as a warforged, but size small with all the things that go with it.  It also has horrible stat modifiers (+2 Dex, -2 Str, -2 Wis, -2 Cha).  I've never seen anyone really argue that it's anything but on the weak end of a character race.


----------



## I'm A Banana (Apr 16, 2005)

I'll cede the Nightcrawler since it's not really a major point.   I still think -1 level/round is *dang* mighty, and avoiding that is a significant power, but by the time the warforged is level 18 most PC's who want to avoid that can find some way to do so. And I didn't just cite every creature, I cited the creatures which would use those forms of attack as major elements in their strategy. A nightcrawler would swallow as much as possible, because swallowing will reduce the ability of the other creatures to hurt it significantly. It may try to debilitate before swallowing, especially with spell-like abilities. Thus, warforged effectively counter the monster's main approach to dealing with enemies.



> That doesn't mean the designers decided to take the warforged they had designed and made it LA +0. It means they took the warforged and tweaked the design so it would be a LA +0 rather than a more powerful version that was LA +1. (I vaguely recall comments that one design had balanced stat bonuses, for example).




Psst: The stats are balanced (take a look at creating races chapter in the DMG)

They are too weak for LA +1. But LA +1 wasn't an option for the team, so they tweaked the higher-level version, giving it weaknesses or removing abilities, until it was down to LA +0. Personally, I'd much rather see a full powered version at LA +1, OR a serious ground-up reexamination of the LA system, but I don't see that happening until version 3.75 at least.  It would require re-writing the monster advancement rules so that an HD for any monster is pretty close to equal to a level for any character, thus requiring no dramatic adjustment: HD = level. But anyway, that's speculation.

As it sits, the game is stuck with an LA rule (for now...  ) that sucks, so the designers wanted no LA's in the basic setting. 

However, as the warforged sit now, they bear little "family resemblances" to the other LA +0, no HD races, and have a lot more in common with low-range LA kinds of creatures: nonhumanoid, strange physiology, special needs, powerful passive abilities....

An LA +1 is pretty inappropriate unless you give them stuff to compensate (ditch the half healing, maybe give them back a few more immunities). But to be honest, that doesn't solve the problem of LA itself.


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 16, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Well, you just hit upon my main dislike of warforged. I don't object to a player wanting to try his hand at playing a construct. After all, I've allowed a trumpet archon, a rakshasa, an ogre mage, and some other weirdos into the party. What I dislike is the idea of them as being so common that they're just another race. A town guard doesn't see a warforged and think "good lord, what's that thing walking towards me?", instead they just shout mean names at it and tell it not to use the front entrance 'cause that's for decent flesh and blood folks.




So you don't like elves either, because the town guard wouldn't think "Whoa, an elf! I've never ever seen an elf before. Marvellous!", or no peasant would say: "I want to see elves, Frodo." 

Looks to me like you're pretty good at splitting hairs yourself  

In Eberron, warforged are common - but not as common as the core player races, mind you. So there might well be folks who've never seen a warforged before (although they'll have heard of them, sure).
If you're including warforged in your homebrew, nothing would stop you to make them as uncommon as you like - heck, you could even declare the single warforged PC to be _unique_.




> Psst: The stats are balanced (take a look at creating races chapter in the DMG)



Isn't that what Glyfair said?


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## Staffan (Apr 16, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Psst: The stats are balanced (take a look at creating races chapter in the DMG)



No, they're not. A bonus to Con is balanced by a penalty to any stat other than Strength. In exchange for their Con bonus, warforged have penalties to *two* stats.


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## Marshall (Apr 16, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Nothing in the game says the cleric has to heal. The arcane caster wants to blast instead of heal? Fine, he can go do that somewhere else with the clerics who want to be party tanks. Really, if they split up the healing duties, then they should both be fairly happy.




Eh, No. Clerics are designed with healing in mind. Hence, the extra spells/day and, biggie here, spontaneous _Cures_. Unless the WIZ has some way to spontaneously switch to _Repair_ spells the role of "Warforged Healer" is a much, much, MUCH larger drain on his resources than the role of "Rest of Party" healer is on a CLR.

Basically, anytime the Warforged gets damaged its going to cost the party _at least_ a day of downtime for the WF to make his craft check(would a sane DM actually let you do this overnight? While on watch? With the rest of the party trying to sleep?), the WIZ to prepare and cast a slate of "Repairs" and then rest to refresh his adventure list, and/or the CLR having to get back the extra spells he cast to heal the 'forged. 
That a huge inconvenience to the party, the DM and the *story*.



> I do think it does work. Because most people won't utilize warforged to their best ability. They'll play a barbarian warforged or a fighter warforged in a party where the arcane caster refuses to be healer and everyone accepts that as fine.




And in a party where the Arcanes are acting as healers they ARE NOT going to be competent Arcane Casters.


----------



## Felon (Apr 16, 2005)

Flyspeck23 said:
			
		

> So you don't like elves either, because the town guard wouldn't think "Whoa, an elf! I've never ever seen an elf before. Marvellous!", or no peasant would say: "I want to see elves, Frodo."




Yeah, those pointed ears pretty much makes elves as every bit as inhuman as a warforged, right? 



> Looks to me like you're pretty good at splitting hairs yourself




Sure, short guy with weird ears, big menacing metal thing--pretty much the same thing. Now I see the light. 

/sarcasm

Well if you're sufficiently obtuse, you can stand by this ill-considered attempt at an analogy between a race that largely resembles humans and one that very much does not, assert that a town guardsman would find them equally monstrous, and call the difference hair-splitting, but I'd say you very nicely serve to underscore just how a race magical robots are grossly out-of-place amongst the standard +0LA races.


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## Felon (Apr 16, 2005)

Marshall said:
			
		

> Basically, anytime the Warforged gets damaged its going to cost the party _at least_ a day of downtime for the WF to make his craft check(would a sane DM actually let you do this overnight? While on watch? With the rest of the party trying to sleep?), the WIZ to prepare and cast a slate of "Repairs" and then rest to refresh his adventure list, and/or the CLR having to get back the extra spells he cast to heal the 'forged.
> That a huge inconvenience to the party, the DM and the *story*.




Well, the easiest way for a warforged to handle out-of-combat healing is to do it the same way that everyone does: with a 1st-level wand of for 750 gp. That's 50 castings of _repair lights_, which should tide the robot over.

It's in-combat healing that I suspect makes things rough for a warforged.


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## Glyfair (Apr 16, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Psst: The stats are balanced (take a look at creating races chapter in the DMG)




Depends on what definition of "balanced" you use (and the DMG version for balanced stats is certainly controversial, at least).  I was referring to the original version having as many penalties as bonuses.  IIRC, they had a strength bonus (it's been a while since I heard this and I could be wrong).

My point being, it seems a lot of people complaining about the LA issue seem to believe the designers designed the race, had an LA +1 (or more) race, had to have an LA +0 race, so pronounced it an LA +0 race.  Instead, the designers took what they had and reduced some abilities and maybe added some drawbacks to come up with an LA +0 race.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 17, 2005)

> THE STATS AREN'T BALANCED! THE STATS AREN'T BALANCED!




ALL RIGHT ALREADY!    I'll cede this point.


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 17, 2005)

I think warforged look pretty with pink ribbons on thier heads.  And nobody with pink ribbons could possibly be LA +1.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 17, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> ALL RIGHT ALREADY!    I'll cede this point.



 Ha ha, you loooose!!


----------



## I'm A Banana (Apr 17, 2005)

> I think warforged look pretty with pink ribbons on thier heads. And nobody with pink ribbons could possibly be LA +1.




My purdy ol' Tiefling says otherwise.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 18, 2005)

Marshall said:
			
		

> ...
> Are they TANKS? Isnt this what they are designed for? _Then why do they *suck* at it?_ They have to spend FEATS to get sub-par armor. Is this really a race that is designed to be shock troops?
> ...




Yea, that's what they were designed for. Shock troops, of course, shock troops aren't supposed to get more than a few levels, are they?

On the other hand, somebody had to 'pay' for that adamantine or mithral armor. With real cash. 

Which leads to another question, how much is that mithral or adamantine worth if you pry it off the downed warforges cold, dead body?


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## bbarrington (Apr 18, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Which leads to another question, how much is that mithral or adamantine worth if you pry it off the downed warforges cold, dead body?




Yeah, I need to know because ARandomGod was ripping the adamantine off of everything in our game tonight...    Not to mention the doors, etc.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 18, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> The arguments for warforged being LA+0 instead of LA+1 at this point have just gotten out right bad. They range from "they can still die" to "+8 armor bonus with light foritification and DR 2/adamantine is bad."
> 
> Please make some decent points so that I can feel it is worth my time to explain my side.




But neither of those was my point. You're either ignoring my point or deliberately misinterpreting it there. ^_^

+8 armor and DR2 is good. 

The cost to purchase a feat is more than the cost to purchase AC+8 and DR3.

Anywho. I agree that they're strong, especially at the lower levels. At mid levels they've lost their edge, and at high levels they're definitly behind. Mostly I think that with all that they've got going for them, and against them, a logical player would only take them as a ECL+1 race un a game where he knew the level was going to be low throught the majority of the game... Then again, of course, in a game where you're not going to level about 3 or 6, ANY +ECL character is going to look pretty good, isn't it?



			
				Gez said:
			
		

> I think that if they were LA +1, nobody would ever want to play them. No. bo. dy. Ever.




While in the main I agree with you, I have to point out that your statement of absolutes is clearly wrong. Now, if you KNEW that you were going to be playing in a game where you'd spend a year playing levels one through nine, you weren't going to get more than 5000 or so gold for your character in the entire game, you WERE going to be scrabbling for food, desperate for sleep, not have access to magical healing anyhow... and then you were going to retire the game, you'd probably be tempted to get warforged even at ECL+1, wouldn't you?

On the other hand, if you were going to be playing a game that doesn't suck*... that's a different story altogether, of course. 



			
				bbarrington said:
			
		

> Yeah, I need to know because ARandomGod was ripping the adamantine off of everything in our game tonight...    Not to mention the doors, etc.




It's true. What? Were we supposed to just leave that valuable metal sitting there? Seriously I wonder about that. There is a section stating how much special materials cost to buy..l. but how much is used in the making of a warforged? Game designers should think about this sort of thing. You've got to expect that players will do stuff like this. I'm GMing a group that anytime a stone barrier gets in their way (so far) they've just broken through it. The first time took three days, but they sat there and excavated. The second time took only 11 minutes, during which time the noise attracted pretty much everybody in the area (breaking into a guarded dungeon)... turning what should have been a lightly challenging series of encounters into a near unbeatable (well, they certainly didn't beat it, so perhaps completely unbeatable) encounter. But when the rules are written to allow you to break through stone, sometimes players are going to break through stone. ^_^ But that's how the module was written, 

*IMO, of course.


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## Marshall (Apr 18, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Yea, that's what they were designed for. Shock troops, of course, shock troops aren't supposed to get more than a few levels, are they?




So it has a decent option at low levels. Interestingly, when most of the rest of its immunities are worthless.



> On the other hand, somebody had to 'pay' for that adamantine or mithral armor. With real cash.
> 
> Which leads to another question, how much is that mithral or adamantine worth if you pry it off the downed warforges cold, dead body?




Heh. Read thru the adventure at the back of the ECS. When I got to the Foundry section, I thought "Screw the cog thingy, I'm taking those DOORS!"


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 18, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Who has more to fear from a Nightcrawler, a Warforged or a dwarf? The dwarf is vulnerable to ALL those attacks. A warforged is just not immune to the normal "hitting things" "energy damage" and "insta-kill" attacks.
> 
> They are immune to contagion, poison, and energry drain, which are all significant risks of facing the Nightcrawler (especially, in this case, energy drain).




Would the focus on energy drain be because:

by 12th level every single member of every adventuring party is probably immune to poison

And frankly - if you were running this creature, would you honestly spend a round casting contagion??

So - we're down to energy drain. And frankly - you're 18th level and you're bemoaning 100gp??

For that matter... I'm not seeing how this thing's major danger is energy drain ANYWAY. I mean really - what sort of 18th level party is going to remain toe-to-toe with this thing??

Honestly - a heroes feast and a ring of free movement (and who's going to say they're not all-round great things without specially targeting an encounter...) will more-or-less make this thing a cakewalk outside of it's spells. And no - contagion is not going to be one of the spells it throws, no matter it's foes.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 18, 2005)

Marshall said:
			
		

> Eh, No. Clerics are designed with healing in mind. Hence, the extra spells/day and, biggie here, spontaneous _Cures_. Unless the WIZ has some way to spontaneously switch to _Repair_ spells the role of "Warforged Healer" is a much, much, MUCH larger drain on his resources than the role of "Rest of Party" healer is on a CLR.




Wands, Staves, Scrolls. Sorcerers can cast without preparation if need be. Say the wizard is casting heals on the warforged ranger in the back, who isn't getting hit that much anyway. The cleric has that many more spells to go around.



			
				Marshall said:
			
		

> And in a party where the Arcanes are acting as healers they ARE NOT going to be competent Arcane Casters.




To me, that's like saying clerics arn't competent when forced to heal. Clerics can do awesome things when not having to heal constantly, but noone ever says that they should just not heal so that they can do other things.



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> But neither of those was my point. You're either ignoring my point or deliberately misinterpreting it there. ^_^
> 
> +8 armor and DR2 is good.
> 
> The cost to purchase a feat is more than the cost to purchase AC+8 and DR3.




For a fighter, I think its worth a feat. What if you count in the light fortification that doesn't count toward armor maximum bonuses? I'm wondering if you offered a feat at 1st level equivalent to Adamantine Body (+8 AC DR 2/adamantine, +1 max Dex, -ACP +ASF) for anyone who wanted to take it, would your players do so? Fighter PCs?



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Anywho. I agree that they're strong, especially at the lower levels. At mid levels they've lost their edge, and at high levels they're definitly behind.




Humans have +1 feat and one extra skill that they can max. At high levels, that isn't much. Usually what its good for is taking PrCs early or qualifying for chains early, but at higher levels, you're going to have those anyway. So, who's ahead here? The guy who is immune to poison, disease, and negative levels, etc, or the guy who has an extra feat and skill? I don't know about you, but poison, disease, and negative levels come up a lot at high levels in my games.



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> It's true. What? Were we supposed to just leave that valuable metal sitting there? Seriously I wonder about that. There is a section stating how much special materials cost to buy..l. but how much is used in the making of a warforged? Game designers should think about this sort of thing. You've got to expect that players will do stuff like this.




IMO what they should have done instead of make the armor feats is to just make it so that warforged have to spend extra for armor to have it attached to them and pay something to have it removed.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 18, 2005)

Saeviomagy said:
			
		

> by 12th level every single member of every adventuring party is probably immune to poison




What's doing this?



> So - we're down to energy drain. And frankly - you're 18th level and you're bemoaning 100gp??




What are you referring to that costs 100 gp?


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## Felon (Apr 18, 2005)

Saeviomagy said:
			
		

> Would the focus on energy drain be because:
> 
> by 12th level every single member of every adventuring party is probably immune to poison




Well, that would be a huge, highly-questionable assumption.



> And frankly - if you were running this creature, would you honestly spend a round casting contagion??




No. That's a much more reasonable assumption.



> So - we're down to energy drain. And frankly - you're 18th level and you're bemoaning 100gp??




Energy drain is one of the more rude effects around. Of course, if you keep assuming a party has every conceivable resource for dealing with every conceivable problem (e.g. every character's immune to poison, every character has a ring of freedom of movement), then nothing's ever going to be any kind of threat. It's a very long limb you're going out on, even for high level parties. 



> For that matter... I'm not seeing how this thing's major danger is energy drain ANYWAY. I mean really - what sort of 18th level party is going to remain toe-to-toe with this thing??




One that's in close quarters. Another safe assumption is that a DM's not going to stage an encounter with a nightcrawler in a football-field sized arena open to the sky.

At any rate, any hypothetical scenario can be rendered moot if people decide to focus on deconstructing it and forget the reason it was provided in the first place. Are immunity to energy drain, poison, and disease very handy to have in this scenario? Yes to the first two, no to the last.


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## Geoff Watson (Apr 18, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> What's doing this?




Heroes Feast; what most high-level groups have for breakfast.

Geoff.


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## Flyspeck23 (Apr 18, 2005)

=Felon said:
			
		

> Sure, short guy with weird ears, big menacing metal thing--pretty much the same thing. Now I see the light.
> 
> /sarcasm
> 
> Well if you're sufficiently obtuse, you can stand by this ill-considered attempt at an analogy between a race that largely resembles humans and one that very much does not, assert that a town guardsman would find them equally monstrous, and call the difference hair-splitting, but I'd say you very nicely serve to underscore just how a race magical robots are grossly out-of-place amongst the standard +0LA races.




I'll try to ignore any rude comments...

My point was: warforged is first and foremost an Eberron race. There, they're pretty common, and most people will either have seen them or at least heard of them.
In what way is that a problem of the warforged as a player race? If anything, it's a problem of the setting. As I've said in my previous post (the part that wasn't quoted by you): if you dislike the idea of the warforged being common, change it.

And I can't see the relevance of the warforged being at +0 LA to that regard, as your comments have nothing to do with rules or balance.

So yes, I call that hair-splitting.

Btw, I pity your elves if they're only humans with pointy ears.


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## Numion (Apr 18, 2005)

Wow. I never realized that poison is such an important part of some people campaigns .. whole campaigns centered around poison   

Just wow. 

For whats it worth, I do use poison in my campaigns, but no plot hinges on it. Clerics are immune to it anyway past certain level.


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## Klaus (Apr 18, 2005)

I answered the "how much would adamantine sell for" in another thread. The short answer would be "not much, actually".


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## Belen (Apr 18, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> Wow. I never realized that poison is such an important part of some people campaigns .. whole campaigns centered around poison
> 
> Just wow.
> 
> For whats it worth, I do use poison in my campaigns, but no plot hinges on it. Clerics are immune to it anyway past certain level.




Really?  Where does it say that clerics are immune to poison?  I thought they had to have the spell selected for the day in order to cast it.  IMO, very few clerics ever keep that spell memorized.  Instead, they wait for the next day in order to relieve the effects of poison.

I have never seen a player keep delay poison, neutralize poison, remove curse etc in their spell lists, just in case.


----------



## Storm Raven (Apr 18, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> I have never seen a player keep delay poison, neutralize poison, remove curse etc in their spell lists, just in case.




The ironic thing is the more often you use poison as a plot point in a game, the less effective it is. If you use it all the time, the party casters who are able to, stock up on anti-poison magic, and nullify the threat easily. If you use poison very rarely, then they don't, so it is more dangerous when it does pop up. DMs worried about the warforged spoiling poison based plots are probably using posion way too much.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 18, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> For a fighter, I think its worth a feat. What if you count in the light fortification that doesn't count toward armor maximum bonuses? I'm wondering if you offered a feat at 1st level equivalent to Adamantine Body (+8 AC DR 2/adamantine, +1 max Dex, -ACP +ASF) for anyone who wanted to take it, would your players do so? Fighter PCs?




I think it depends a lot on whether or not we were planning on getting above level six or so. 

Don't forget, on the side of 'this is pretty good' the warforged ability to sleep in said armor. Well, or to never sleep and so make that particular point moot. Nobody in my campaigns has ever bothered to get light fortification... I did see someone get full fortification once, for a specific adventure. Overall players in my game wouldn't take the feat. But I can see games where people would.



			
				ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Humans have +1 feat and one extra skill that they can max. At high levels, that isn't much. Usually what its good for is taking PrCs early or qualifying for chains early, but at higher levels, you're going to have those anyway. So, who's ahead here? The guy who is immune to poison, disease, and negative levels, etc, or the guy who has an extra feat and skill? I don't know about you, but poison, disease, and negative levels come up a lot at high levels in my games.




See, another difference in philosophy. I think that the human xtra feat is great all the way through, as is that extra skill... if you're playing a character who cares about skills at all (If nothing else, that's two points of intelligence you don't have to buy to meet what you want). You're right, noncasters in my games don't really notice poison by mid levels. Just casters and the occasional full rogue might care. Disease almost never comes up, whether I'm GMing or someone else is, or we're running a module. It's pretty awesome against mummys, but... Negative levels, that happens more frequently, and is indeed a pain. So does nausea, paralysis, etcetra. (Which they're also immune to). 



			
				ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> IMO what they should have done instead of make the armor feats is to just make it so that warforged have to spend extra for armor to have it attached to them and pay something to have it removed.




Here we totally agree. Although apparently because you think the feat is too good and I think that it's a specific cost that the game designers built in. Of course, since I think that it's a liability, I'd say that change would boost the overall power of the warforged. 



			
				Klaus said:
			
		

> I answered the "how much would adamantine sell for" in another thread. The short answer would be "not much, actually".




I think I started that thread. New thread for a tangential topic, get more and better responses. I haven't really looked yet today to see what people are thinking. Overall, however, I think that it really *should* sell for around what you could get if you'd conquered a person wearing actual armor. Heck, at low levels characters are bringing back normal leather armor... they defeat a guy wearing what's nearly adamantine full plate and they can't even recover the amount of a MW medium armor? Still, it'll be interesting to see what everyone else thinks.

Edit: I completely agree that the author didn't intend for the feat to be sellable. But you KNOW that it is, somehow.


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## Belen (Apr 18, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> The ironic thing is the more often you use poison as a plot point in a game, the less effective it is. If you use it all the time, the party casters who are able to, stock up on anti-poison magic, and nullify the threat easily. If you use poison very rarely, then they don't, so it is more dangerous when it does pop up. DMs worried about the warforged spoiling poison based plots are probably using posion way too much.




Not at all.  I think the point is that Warforge nullify poison period and at low levels where poison is most effective.  Then they also nullify a whole range of other aspects of the game.

The arguments I have seen in favor of the warforged revolve around his lack of good healing, which is a weak argument.  PCs expect to be in combat and know they will need healing.  I doubt someone would play a warforged in a game without a cleric or artificer.  All the "he doesn't heal normally" comments are missing the issue.  Combat is a part of the game.  I have not yet met a player who will not make sure that they have access to some type of healing.  Poison, disease etc are usually great to enhance the plot of a game because they are not standard, so the warforged directly and negatively impact a GM via railroading.


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## Numion (Apr 18, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Really?  Where does it say that clerics are immune to poison?  I thought they had to have the spell selected for the day in order to cast it.  IMO, very few clerics ever keep that spell memorized.  Instead, they wait for the next day in order to relieve the effects of poison.
> 
> I have never seen a player keep delay poison, neutralize poison, remove curse etc in their spell lists, just in case.




Well, I've DMed my share of clerics (campaigns from 1st to 12th, 16th and 20+ levels), and in _my_ experience all clerics pack delay poison. Since it lasts for hour / level, its always on when they delve in to dungeon or other situations where they usually face poison. Neutralize poison is rarely prepared, but missing the saves back at the campsite is not a big deal, ever since somebody got the bright idea of packing a wand of lesser restoration.

This has _effectively_ lead to clerics being immune to poison. At least in my 60+ levels I've never seen a cleric succumb to poison at a critical moment. YMMV. 

At least I don't recall running an adventure where significant portion of it required PCs being susceptible to poison. And if there had been such, well, it's all the more reason for the cleric to pack even more delay poisons.


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## Storm Raven (Apr 18, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> The arguments I have seen in favor of the warforged revolve around his lack of good healing, which is a weak argument.  PCs expect to be in combat and know they will need healing.  I doubt someone would play a warforged in a game without a cleric or artificer.  All the "he doesn't heal normally" comments are missing the issue.  Combat is a part of the game.  I have not yet met a player who will not make sure that they have access to some type of healing.




And for a warforged, that magical healing is more speacialized and usually less effective than the healing available to other characters. They benefit from _cure_ spells and magical items at half the rate other characters do, eating up resources out of proportion to the norm. The _repair_ spells are useless to anyone else, and are arcane spells to boot, using up spell slots probably better used for offensive punch. They don't just have the "no natural healing" limitation, they also have the "harder to magically heal" problem as well.



> _Poison, disease etc are usually great to enhance the plot of a game because they are not standard, so the warforged directly and negatively impact a GM via railroading._





So, elves negatively impact that GM via railroading because they are immune to sleep and ghoul paralysis? I don't buy it. Disease and poison are generally a minor part of most low-level games, a minor nuisance at best, and if the best you can come up with is poison and disease, you're being too limited. Hitting melee types of any race with Fortitude saves (like saves against poison or disease) is usually not worth much of your time. Will saves are the way to challenge most warforged (actually most combat types in general), and they are generally as vulnerable to those as anyone else.


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## Numion (Apr 18, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Poison, disease etc are usually great to enhance the plot of a game because they are not standard, so the warforged directly and negatively impact a GM via railroading.




I've yet to seen an adventure where PCs should be susceptible to poison for the plot to work. And I've got a stack of pre-fab adventures and Dungeon magazines. So how big a deal can it be?

Disease is a more important thing, because a DM could easily railroad PCs clear of some area by saying there's plague there, but aren't Paladins already immune?


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## Numion (Apr 18, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> So, elves negatively impact that GM via railroading because they are immune to sleep and ghoul paralysis? I don't buy it. Disease and poison are generally a minor part of most low-level games, a minor nuisance at best, and if the best you can come up with is poison and disease, you're being too limited. Hitting melee types of any race with Fortitude saves (like saves against poison or disease) is usually not worth much of your time. Will saves are the way to challenge most warforged (actually most combat types in general), and they are generally as vulnerable to those as anyone else.




Exactly. I'm not saying that the immunities are a non-issue either, but they are minor factors in my games, and I just have hard time imagining a D&D game where friggin' POISON, DISEASE and STARVATION are the defining elements .. YMMV, of course  :\ 

Of the around 100 PCs I've witnessed in my 3e career I'd say maybe 2 died of poison (I remember on was a barbarian dwarf who 'cant fail a fort save'), maybe 30+ on instakill spells and 60+ on HP depletion and some change on other possible ways. Zero starved to death, zero died of disease.


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## Victim (Apr 18, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Not at all.  I think the point is that Warforge nullify poison period and at low levels where poison is most effective.  Then they also nullify a whole range of other aspects of the game.
> 
> The arguments I have seen in favor of the warforged revolve around his lack of good healing, which is a weak argument.  PCs expect to be in combat and know they will need healing.  I doubt someone would play a warforged in a game without a cleric or artificer.  All the "he doesn't heal normally" comments are missing the issue.  Combat is a part of the game.  I have not yet met a player who will not make sure that they have access to some type of healing.  Poison, disease etc are usually great to enhance the plot of a game because they are not standard, so the warforged directly and negatively impact a GM via railroading.




It's not that the character won't have access to some type of healing.  It's that A) he burns up cure charges at twice the normal rate out of combat or needs a special item that doesn't heal everybody else, and B) those major heals in combat are far less effective for him.  In tough fights, he's going to need heals - and since time is a major issue in fights, those heals need to be big.  With a warforged, they aren't going to be.


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## Numion (Apr 18, 2005)

Victim said:
			
		

> It's not that the character won't have access to some type of healing.  It's that A) he burns up cure charges at twice the normal rate out of combat or needs a special item that doesn't heal everybody else, and B) those major heals in combat are far less effective for him.  In tough fights, he's going to need heals - and since time is a major issue in fights, those heals need to be big.  With a warforged, they aren't going to be.




Yeah, I've noticed that even in normal use the cures lack 'oomph' to be worth it in middle of combat most of the time - its usually tactically more advantageous for the cleric to spend the round smiting the enemy rather than healing companions (due to 3e's nature of monsters dishing out much more damage than a cleric can heal, and cleric usually being able to dish out massive amounts himself). Incidentally, we don't play medic-clerics in our group, but rather of the 'smite thee infidels' variety 

That is doubly true in the case of warforged. He's bound to be in more difficult spots than others. Another natural effect of this is that he'll eat the cure wands at double the rate others are. The true disadvantage of this depends on whether the group has a policy of party owned wands of cure lights, or if everyone is required to buy their own wands.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 18, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Nobody in my campaigns has ever bothered to get light fortification... I did see someone get full fortification once, for a specific adventure. Overall players in my game wouldn't take the feat. But I can see games where people would.




Foritification is very potent in my games mainly because of the number of classed humanoids I use, namely for sneak attack and death attack. I had to up the cost of fortification because of the potency that my games give it due to this. I will concede that looking back at it, it isn't nearly as powerful in a game in which most encounters center around monsters with a 20/x2 critial on their attacks and have no sneak attacks. This ability made my jaw drop when I first read it because of the way our games are run.



			
				ARandomGod said:
			
		

> Here we totally agree. Although apparently because you think the feat is too good and I think that it's a specific cost that the game designers built in. Of course, since I think that it's a liability, I'd say that change would boost the overall power of the warforged.




The irony is not lost on me. 
Part of the power of the ability is giving the warforged better odds at surviving until those high levels. This will depend on the lethality of one's game, I'm sure.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 18, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Foritification is very potent in my games mainly because of the number of classed humanoids I use, namely for sneak attack and death attack. I had to up the cost of fortification because of the potency that my games give it due to this. I will concede that looking back at it, it isn't nearly as powerful in a game in which most encounters center around monsters with a 20/x2 critial on their attacks and have no sneak attacks. This ability made my jaw drop when I first read it because of the way our games are run.




Yes... it is a pretty well known fact in my campaigns as well that a group of low level rogues can easily take out a group of humanoids (suseptible to sneak) of much higher level. That sneak attack is nassty. Still I've never seen anyone get that on armor unless they pay for the full fortification. Which the forged can only get at the cost of yet another feat. 




			
				ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> The irony is not lost on me.
> Part of the power of the ability is giving the warforged better odds at surviving until those high levels. This will depend on the lethality of one's game, I'm sure.




I have to admit... playing a warforged level one, the race is at least one effective level higher than others, if played to it's strength. But that dissipates soon, and then inverts at higher levels. So that by level ten the class is effectively ECL -1. Since I rarely play in games that don't go to at least level 15, and I like to plan on them going to 20, the race is definitly subpar. However in a game where you aren't going to get above level six, the warforged is just awesomely good. And a "level one" warforged is easily equal to a well buffed level two character.


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## MerricB (Apr 19, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> I have to admit... playing a warforged level one, the race is at least one effective level higher than others, if played to it's strength. But that dissipates soon, and then inverts at higher levels. So that by level ten the class is effectively ECL -1. Since I rarely play in games that don't go to at least level 15, and I like to plan on them going to 20, the race is definitly subpar. However in a game where you aren't going to get above level six, the warforged is just awesomely good. And a "level one" warforged is easily equal to a well buffed level two character.




Well, it depends. I just ran a Eberron adventure for my group, which had two half-orcs (cleric and barbarian); and played in another that had three warforged (fighter, barbarian, wizard).

The Warforged basically had better defense than offense; the Half-Orcs had better offense than defense. The Half-Orcs were more effective at actually taking down the enemy. Much more effective.

Cheers!


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## ARandomGod (Apr 19, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Well, it depends. I just ran a Eberron adventure for my group, which had two half-orcs (cleric and barbarian); and played in another that had three warforged (fighter, barbarian, wizard).
> 
> The Warforged basically had better defense than offense; the Half-Orcs had better offense than defense. The Half-Orcs were more effective at actually taking down the enemy. Much more effective.
> 
> Cheers!




And defense quickly becomes less effective... the game in general encourages offense over defense, mechanics wise. 

On the other hand, that adamantine body with a 12 dex and a tower shield made for on almost completely unhitable character. Sure, the character also didn't hit as often as the other characters, but he didn't go down either. 

PS, clearly, at lower levels, half-orcs are ECL+1 too!

O_O


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## MerricB (Apr 19, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> And defense quickly becomes less effective... the game in general encourages offense over defense, mechanics wise.




Indeed. Interestingly, although the adamantine defense become less effective as the warforged goes up in levels, the Con bonus gets more effective (through hit points). Probably not quite enough to make up for everything, but useful.



> PS, clearly, at lower levels, half-orcs are ECL+1 too!






I hear a lot of talk about how half-orcs are underpowered... but they're very popular around here.

Cheers!


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 19, 2005)

> For whats it worth, I do use poison in my campaigns, but no plot hinges on it. Clerics are immune to it anyway past certain level.




Not for FREE they ain't.

Introduce poison into even a high level game, and it sucks up PC rescources. The higher the level, the more varied and plentiful these rescources, but they are not infinite. Except, of course, the resources of the Warforged, who are immune to it and a host of other illnesses WITH NO COST.

Spells, magical items, feats, class levels -- all these things require the spending of rescources. Spending a rescource creates drama and tension, especially when that rescource begins to run low (as even in a campaign focused on poison, poison-protection items will begin to run low). Choosing your race (at LA +0) is different because you are not spending a limited rescource. You're not spending magic, gold, experience, or feat slots. This creates no tension, this creates no drama. It removes it. Entirely.

For what goal? To have the Warforged mesh closely with the Construct RAW? Pheh. I'd trade a theoretically infinite number of moster rules to have a race that worked well as a race instead of a race that works like nothing else out there, when you're making the monster into a character. 

This is why no food and water and disease immunity and a host of other things are OK as class abilities (though still not ideal), but not so OK as racial abilities UNLESS THAT RACE HAS A COST. 

Healing and specific vulnerabilities are not a cost. They don't cost the warforged anything. The character becomes immune to a broad base of powers at no cost. Elves offend, but as is evidenced by my list above, sleep and ghouls come into play on average a lot less often than disease, poison, and energy drain. 

It's akin to pointing to one character and going "everybody make a save except you," over and over again over the course of a campaign. And to handicap their healing as an awkward reach-around to backhandedly balance them is just exacerbating the problem that the immunities present in the first place: the need to give special attention to the Warforged that no other race demands to that degree.



> I have to admit... playing a warforged level one, the race is at least one effective level higher than others, if played to it's strength. But that dissipates soon, and then inverts at higher levels. So that by level ten the class is effectively ECL -1. Since I rarely play in games that don't go to at least level 15, and I like to plan on them going to 20, the race is definitly subpar. However in a game where you aren't going to get above level six, the warforged is just awesomely good. And a "level one" warforged is easily equal to a well buffed level two character.




I'll agree with this insight 110%. The warforged should have a minor cost for this -- maybe no quadruple skill points at LV1? Maybe no feat at LV1? And in exchange they should get back their full healing and not be so obnoxious to run.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Apr 19, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Healing and specific vulnerabilities are not a cost. They don't cost the warforged anything.




Again, I've seen Warforged in play multiple times. It sure as hell is a cost. In fact, its MUCH MUCH more of a cost than casting a spell to resist poison, because of the fact that it takes TWICE as much to heal the Warforged.

So, instead of a 1 for 1 with poison resisting, its 2 for 1 with trying to heal a Warforged. That is a serious cost being downplayed far too much here. How do I know its serious? Well, I'll say it again...I've SEEN it happen in games. Games. Plural. Different groups with very different play styles, but it was the major problem they had, having to 'waste' spells on the Warforged or just let him go in a weak state.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 19, 2005)

> Different groups with very different play styles, but it was the major problem they had, having to 'waste' spells on the Warforged or just let him go in a weak state.




CLARIFICATIONL: It's not a cost for the warforged, it's a cost for everyone else in the party. The other examples are all costs for individual players: XP, GP, Class Levels, Feats...all are paid for by you for you. Half healing displaces the cost of the warforged onto the rest of the party.


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## Vurt (Apr 19, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> CLARIFICATIONL: It's not a cost for the warforged, it's a cost for everyone else in the party. The other examples are all costs for individual players: XP, GP, Class Levels, Feats...all are paid for by you for you. Half healing displaces the cost of the warforged onto the rest of the party.




I don't know. It seems like a cost to me if I had a warforged character and had to worry about whether it would go down all the time because the party healer couldn't patch it up sufficiently in combat to survive the next blow.

Oh wait, I forgot, playing a warforged DECREASES tension.  My bad.

What's the general frequency of tough combat encounters to poisonings and the threat of starvation again?

Hmmm...

Cheers,
Vurt


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 19, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Energy drain is one of the more rude effects around. Of course, if you keep assuming a party has every conceivable resource for dealing with every conceivable problem (e.g. every character's immune to poison, every character has a ring of freedom of movement), then nothing's ever going to be any kind of threat. It's a very long limb you're going out on, even for high level parties.



We're talking about an 18TH LEVEL CHARACTER who has FOCUSSED ON MELEE.

If you want to talk about high threat critters with limited tactics, then you have to assume that the party ARE NOT STUPID.


> One that's in close quarters. Another safe assumption is that a DM's not going to stage an encounter with a nightcrawler in a football-field sized arena open to the sky.



Here comes another assumption: At 18th level, if the party don't want to fight it, they won't fight it. An 18th level party have so many options for NOT being in a combat that's unfavourable that it simply should not happen.

The only possible exceptions are a party where there are no high level casters, and where noone is taking appropriate gear and feats to make up for that. I'd say that's going to require just a tad more adjustment for the average DM than a single PC that's immune to a few things.

The above means that either
a) The creature ambushed the party (in which case its CR is considerably higher, and it was being supported by something with considerable resources - otherwise a high level party is just NOT going to be ambushed by something like this, and even if they are, the ambush will basically be over as soon as they get their stuff together and back out).

or 

b) The party know about it and decided to fight. Which means that either the situation is favourable to them (ie - NOT close quarters), OR they have enough stuff prepared that it's special abilities are basically moot. This creature is not set up so that it can harry high level characters - it simply doesn't have the mobility or social skills to be anything other than a goon.

or

c) The party are incompetent.

or

d) The DM is cheating.

I think that we can all agree that C and D are not scenarios that we need to reasonably consider.


> At any rate, any hypothetical scenario can be rendered moot if people decide to focus on deconstructing it and forget the reason it was provided in the first place. Are immunity to energy drain, poison, and disease very handy to have in this scenario? Yes to the first two, no to the last.



100gp is the price to undo a failed level drain save.
A FAILED save.
That means that the party didn't go "wait, maybe we should get rid of the negative levels BEFORE they take effect!", they decided to wait for 24 hours, deliberately NOT get restoration when the cleric had to rest, and THEN cast the spell after someone failed a save.

And that's IF your high level players decided to fight the thing on it's own terms without adequate protection against its attack forms.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 19, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> I have to admit... playing a warforged level one, the race is at least one effective level higher than others, if played to it's strength.




It's actually not uncommon for players in my games to die 4-6 times by level 10, getting raised depending on wealth and whether or not the body is retreavable. Present game excluded, because one person has been sucking up all the deaths... (but what great deaths they have been - thank you 3.5 xp rules!) Thus, expecting a character you make at game start to make even level 10 is a fairly large assumption. Anything that helps that is well worth it, as when a character dies, you lose any contacts/patrons you might have had, special abilities, inherent bonuses, etc, and you have to start with a mostly standard character.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 19, 2005)

> I don't know. It seems like a cost to me if I had a warforged character and had to worry about whether it would go down all the time because the party healer couldn't patch it up sufficiently in combat to survive the next blow.
> 
> Oh wait, I forgot, playing a warforged DECREASES tension. My bad.




In certain circumstnaces, playing a warforged does decrease tension at no cost.

In other circumstances, playing a warforged dramatically increases tension without control.

Similarly, a giving a race a +10 bonus to all Will saving throws does decrease tension at no cost.

In other circumstnaces, giving that race a -10 penalty to all attack rolls will dramatically increase tension without control.

Y'see the problem yet?


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## Felon (Apr 19, 2005)

Saeviomagy said:
			
		

> We're talking about an 18TH LEVEL CHARACTER who has FOCUSSED ON MELEE.




Sure you're not crossing threads here? I didn't see where KM specified a given level or class. Either a warforged or dwarf could just as easily be, for instance, a wizard. So there's one huge assumption pulled out of thin air. 

Yet another one is that, given the vast array of magic items to select from, every single melee character's going to elect be outfitted with virtually identical gear. Or is that every "competent" character? You have total faith in this generalization? 



> Here comes another assumption: At 18th level, if the party don't want to fight it, they won't fight it. An 18th level party have so many options for NOT being in a combat that's unfavourable that it simply should not happen.




The bottom line here is that you're found a conveniently general way of sandbagging the entire example as it relates to the actual topic (warforged immunities), and not only this one but any other thread that comes along about a race or potentiall broken class design.



> a) The creature ambushed the party (in which case its CR is considerably higher, and it was being supported by something with considerable resources - otherwise a high level party is just NOT going to be ambushed by something like this, and even if they are, the ambush will basically be over as soon as they get their stuff together and back out).




Why does an ambush necessarily warrant a higher CR? Why is a high level party necessarily aware that a nightcrawler is about to come bursting out from under their feet at any given instant? Why won't they have expended resources towards other priorities or used them up in other encounters?

And besides, so what if the nightcrawler in this example is supporting some other opponent of the PC's, or has its CR boosted through ambush (whatever that means)? How does that nullify using it in an example to demonstrate how handy the warforged immunities are? 



> I think that we can all agree that C and D are not scenarios that we need to reasonably consider.




Can't see how any of them warrant consideration seeing as how you've done exactly what I said you were doing: you got so focused on deconstructing this particular scenario with a few broad sweeps of the hand to the extent that it no longer has anything to do with warforged and its immunites. 

So we're basically left with only the option of coming up with another monster, which you'll then in turn blithely dismiss by stating it can only be encountered in one of two or three conceivable scenarios and assert is rendered moot by the unlimited resources that any high-level level party will have at their disposal (assuming they're not incompetent, naturally).



> 100gp is the price to undo a failed level drain save.
> A FAILED save.
> That means that the party didn't go "wait, maybe we should get rid of the negative levels BEFORE they take effect!", they decided to wait for 24 hours, deliberately NOT get restoration when the cleric had to rest, and THEN cast the spell after someone failed a save.




All very true--at 18th level, there are scant few irrevocable conditions. And for that matter, a party is supposed to be able to dispatch a creature with CR equal to their average party level with relative ease. But in the meantime, the character still got bonked with all the penalties associated with the energy drain for at least the duration of that fight. 



> And that's IF your high level players decided to fight the thing on it's own terms without adequate protection against its attack forms.




And the trick of DM'ing high-level parties is getting them to bleed out enough resources that they do get into situations where they'rre not at peak form, so it doesn't become a simple matter of handing the players a Monster Manual and telling them just to pick whatever monsters they want to fight that night. And if they choose to fight some CR 18 "goon" monsters, I guess we can just skip the fights because they'll all be lead-pipe cinches, and move on to awarding treasurre and XP.


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## ThirdWizard (Apr 19, 2005)

Saeviomagy said:
			
		

> 100gp is the price to undo a failed level drain save.
> A FAILED save.
> That means that the party didn't go "wait, maybe we should get rid of the negative levels BEFORE they take effect!", they decided to wait for 24 hours, deliberately NOT get restoration when the cleric had to rest, and THEN cast the spell after someone failed a save.
> 
> And that's IF your high level players decided to fight the thing on it's own terms without adequate protection against its attack forms.




And, by the way, the main problem with negative levels is that they will stack with each other, and you're stuck with them until they're gone. -1 to just about everything and 5 less hp per negative level for the encounter(s) for the day is the detriment, not losing permanent levels.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 19, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Sure you're not crossing threads here? I didn't see where KM specified a given level or class. Either a warforged or dwarf could just as easily be, for instance, a wizard. So there's one huge assumption pulled out of thin air.



Energy drain, disease and poison are all, fundamentally, boosters to a melee combatant monster.

There are situations where some other creature type will make use of them, but fundamentally you're talking melee.


> The bottom line here is that you're found a conveniently general way of sandbagging the entire example as it relates to the actual topic (warforged immunities), and not only this one but any other thread that comes along about a race or potentiall broken class design.



Sure - it's a general argument that if you're saying "These immunities are too good", you can point out "but everyone has those immunities/those immunities are of limited value". In this case, I'm responding to a monster someone else brought up, no doubt because it has a high CR and the warforged is immune to a few of it's attacks. The point is that by the time anyone is fighting one of these things, it's not all that serious a threat anyway, so saying that it isn't a serious threat to a warforged is basically saying warforged are just like anyone else.


> Why does an ambush necessarily warrant a higher CR? Why is a high level party necessarily aware that a nightcrawler is about to come bursting out from under their feet at any given instant? Why won't they have expended resources towards other priorities or used them up in other encounters?



Because it costs them a negligable amount of resources to say "what will we meet today?" High level parties tend not to have random encounters, sleep in places that are assailable or run into situations blindly. It's just one of those things about high level play, that goes hand in hand with pit traps no longer being a viable method of damaging them.


> So we're basically left with only the option of coming up with another monster, which you'll then in turn blithely dismiss by stating it can only be encountered in one of two or three conceivable scenarios and assert is rendered moot by the unlimited resources that any high-level level party will have at their disposal (assuming they're not incompetent, naturally).



My whole point is that at high levels, immunities are widely available, usually effective and normally in place. Racially gained immunities at high level are generally a lot less valuable, unless they're immunities to the sorts of things that high levels hinge on.

Immunities to poison, sleep, disease and energy drain are good at low level, and far, far less useful at high level.

As a contrary example: an immunity to detection spells would be ludicrously powerful at high levels, but near useless at low levels.


> All very true--at 18th level, there are scant few irrevocable conditions. And for that matter, a party is supposed to be able to dispatch a creature with CR equal to their average party level with relative ease. But in the meantime, the character still got bonked with all the penalties associated with the energy drain for at least the duration of that fight.



In that case, there's a lot of other, similar effects that will do the same to a warforged, and level-draining undead are hardly the most populous (or fearsome) monster type. You're far more likely to meet something else that you're not immune to.

Unless the DM has decided that level-draining undead are the core of his campaign... and in that case there's more than one archetype that he has to take into account, because they're being marginilized.


> And the trick of DM'ing high-level parties is getting them to bleed out enough resources that they do get into situations where they'rre not at peak form, so it doesn't become a simple matter of handing the players a Monster Manual and telling them just to pick whatever monsters they want to fight that night. And if they choose to fight some CR 18 "goon" monsters, I guess we can just skip the fights because they'll all be lead-pipe cinches, and move on to awarding treasurre and XP.




Actually, from what I've seen in story hours, the trick seems to be to spring things on them that they're not expecting, use innovative  and unusual tactics, build your bad guys with the same "lets get the hell out of here" tricks that you expect your players to use if they're confronted with something they can't handle, divide and conquer the party, and never expect a simple brute monster to really do much at all.

And most importantly of all - expect repetition to result in very quick and simple fights.


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## FireLance (Apr 19, 2005)

You know, I'm starting to get the feeling that for some people, DMing a party with a warforged must be like DMing for the Justice League. After all, isn't Superman the ultimate +10/-10 character? He's incredibly strong, he can fly, he's got heat vision, x-ray vision, DR 50/- or something, a list of immunities a mile long, and scads of hit points to boot. However, drop some kryptonite in front of him and he's practically useless.

Of course, there is the argument that these are completely different forms of entertainment. A scriptwriter can dictate events in a cartoon to a far greater extent than a non-railroading DM can get away with in a role-playing game. Still, the scriptwriter and the DM operate under similar constraints. Superman will laugh off certain threats, and there is no tension for the viewer if he faces them. That does not mean that these threats cannot be used; they just have to be used in a way that makes his immunity meaningless - by threatening the other members of the Justice League, for example.

The relationship bewteen immunity and a reduction in tension in an RPG is not all that simple or clear-cut. Who experiences a lack of tension? The player of the character who is immune? What if it is clear that he won't survive if the other characters are dead? Does the party send characters to face the threats they are immune to? This to me is simply good tactics. If good tactics reduce the tension in a game to an unacceptable level, why not improvise? Increase the tension again by introducing new challenges, perhaps different ones. If the elf and warforged are engaging ghouls in melee combat while the rest of the party hangs back and uses missile weapons, have some more ghouls arrive on the scene. Or maybe the sound of combat attracts a ghoul sorcerer who starts targeting the melee combatants with magic missiles.

Does this mean more work for the DM? Perhaps, but not for me. You see, when I plan adventures, I don't do so for generic party X. I plan adventures for the specific combination of races, classes and equipment that make up the PC party. I take note of their strengths and weaknesses and plan some challenges that allow them to show off their strengths and others that capitalize on their weaknesses. I'm sure scriptwriters do the same. After all, isn't it strange how often kryptonite shows up in Superman stories?


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## Numion (Apr 19, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> CLARIFICATIONL: It's not a cost for the warforged, it's a cost for everyone else in the party. The other examples are all costs for individual players: XP, GP, Class Levels, Feats...all are paid for by you for you. Half healing displaces the cost of the warforged onto the rest of the party.




It depends on the party. In some of our parties everyone bought their own healing. That would probably be the rule and not exception if someone played a warforged.


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## Numion (Apr 19, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> In certain circumstnaces, playing a warforged does decrease tension at no cost.
> 
> In other circumstances, playing a warforged dramatically increases tension without control.
> 
> ...




This term 'control' you use sure sounds important, but I dont infer the meaning from your posts. 

Saying that giving a race +10 will saves is decreases tension at no cost only makes sense, wait for it, if there is no cost. Warforged does have costs attached - including, but not limited to, the halved effectiveness of healing. Thats the cost. Or is the elves DEX +2 modifier a decrease of tension at no cost because the elf is harder to hit? 

Giving a race -1 or -10 to hit doesn't increase tension without control. There still is control whether that race is played with a class that needs no 'to-hit', like evoker (control on players part), or if it only encounters RP encounters (control on DMs part).


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## Vurt (Apr 19, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> In certain circumstnaces, playing a warforged does decrease tension at no cost.
> 
> In other circumstances, playing a warforged dramatically increases tension without control.
> 
> ...




Maybe.  

But you're handwaving the "circumstances" away without really considering their frequency.  An elf is immune to ghoul paralysis, but it's not really a problem because the situation is relatively rare.  In some circumstances, playing an elf does decrease tension at no cost.  But that doesn't mean the elf is "bad".

Similarly, by your other argument, if a race has a +10 bonus to Will saves and a -10 penalty to attack, immaterial of whether or not it's a playable mix, you can't say there is no cost.

The warforged race is a package.  Deconstructing it line-by-line and comparing it with other races misses the point.  One could easily look at a half-orc's darkvision, compare it to a human's lack in that regard, and say the half-orc is poorly balanced.  But that is not the case.  (Or that's not the reason for the case, if you're so inclined.)

"In certain circumstances, playing a *race* does decrease tension at no cost" is a true statement, immaterial of race, because one can always find the circumstances to fit the statement.  It scans well, but it doesn't tell me anything in particular.  And I haven't even asked "how much tension?" yet.

OK, how about I put it in different terms.  In some circumstances the player of a warforged character is going to shine, because he will have the ability to be bold and stride purposefully forth to smite down the wight that has the rest of the party cowering behind him.  

And in other circumstances he's going to wish he had a mommy to run crying home to when he's down to his last 10 hp, the hobgoblin barbarian in front of him just entered rage and raised his greataxe menacingly over his head, and the party cleric just ran out of cure moderate wounds.

In the first case, I don't see the reduction in tension as a bad thing.  Just as the average adventuring party doesn't live in fear of commoners, the warforged isn't going to live in fear of energy-draining undead.  That's not to say energy-draining undead can't still smack him silly in the usual fashion.  In the second case, well, as an evil RBDM I can only cackle maniacally.  

Still, how often each case comes up is totally at the discretion of the DM.

Where tension is variable, I think in both cases the drama is increased for the better.  Both situations can be fun for both the DM and the players.  And that's why I don't see the warforged race as written as being much of a problem in play.

Cheers,
Vurt


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## frankthedm (Apr 19, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> Disease is a more important thing, because a DM could easily railroad PCs clear of some area by saying there's plague there, but aren't Paladins already immune?




The paladin is immune, Yes. A benifit of a class with enough RP baggage to be unplayable in some gaming groups. However the other PCs are not and the remove disease ability Paladins have is recharged weekly. The Paladin won't usually force the rest of the party into the situation where he runs out of remove disease while traveling through plauge riddled lands. 

Besides, If the DM wants to railroad the party, The Paladin is usually the Conductor CHOO-CHOO!


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## Seeten (Apr 19, 2005)

I hear a lot of, "But the group wont always have a Paladin" arguments.

The group wont always have a Warforged, either.

But nobody is crusading against Paladins DUE to immunity to disease. (Terrible RP based on lawful stupid alignment, yes)

Lets be real: I have played D&D for over 25 years, and I have been level drained exactly twice. I have never, ever been diseased, and I have been poisoned a handful of times, usually to have it neutralized or antidoted moments after. As far as benefits go, these ones are weak, and not often used, at least as big game breakers.

Any plot that can survive a Paladin can survive a Warforged, as far as I can see, their immunities seem pretty similar(high fort save, reallly high, subbing for poison immunity here)


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## ARandomGod (Apr 19, 2005)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I'll agree with this insight 110%. The warforged should have a minor cost for this -- maybe no quadruple skill points at LV1? Maybe no feat at LV1? And in exchange they should get back their full healing and not be so obnoxious to run.




Ha! 
I love that... because actually that's what they do pay. They get no feat at first level. Well, all with the exception of some builds that don't want a body X feat. 

My first level warforged was great at first level. He had adamantine body and a tower shield... DR2 AC24... he was awesome. But he didn't have a feat, he just had armor (as it was necessary to give up that feat to get that armor).



			
				ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> It's actually not uncommon for players in my games to die 4-6 times by level 10, getting raised depending on wealth and whether or not the body is retreavable. Present game excluded, because one person has been sucking up all the deaths... (but what great deaths they have been - thank you 3.5 xp rules!) Thus, expecting a character you make at game start to make even level 10 is a fairly large assumption. Anything that helps that is well worth it, as when a character dies, you lose any contacts/patrons you might have had, special abilities, inherent bonuses, etc, and you have to start with a mostly standard character.




But the way 3.x is written you practically HAVE to plan your character to level 20 (or beyond, if you go there), or it'll eventually suck, becuase if you didn't plan from level one, you won't be able to get what you would want at level X (PrC's, feats, etcetera). You can't just go along. And, of course, we like to keep continuity, and if you're raised you're still playing the same character, so it's not to large an assumption that you'd make it to ten. And if you're just going to be switching characters out anyhow the entire conversation seems nearly completely moot to me...


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## ARandomGod (Apr 19, 2005)

Seeten said:
			
		

> I hear a lot of, "But the group wont always have a Paladin" arguments.
> 
> The group wont always have a Warforged, either.
> 
> ...




Yea. Apparently, however, some games you can't get to level two without being drained three levels, and you're constantly throwing up more than you can eat, that is if you have enough strength to get to eat due to the poisoning you had last night. And, in those games, you betcha the warforged would be considered Uber.

heheheh


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## Numion (Apr 19, 2005)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> The paladin is immune, Yes. A benifit of a class with enough RP baggage to be unplayable in some gaming groups. However the other PCs are not and the remove disease ability Paladins have is recharged weekly. The Paladin won't usually force the rest of the party into the situation where he runs out of remove disease while traveling through plauge riddled lands.




Ditto for the Warforged. He cant force the group either. A game with all-forged group doing missions that assume the immunities would be cool though, just IMO.

It seems that people are evaluating the Warforged based on the condition that his immunities are in play already, while ignoring the frequency at which those situations arise. If poison, disease and starvation were as common as people here implicitly suggest, the meat PCs wouldn't stand a chance. Or at least, the game wouldn't be to my liking, but thats really just my preference and irrelevant to the argument.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 20, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> A game with all-forged group doing missions that assume the immunities would be cool though, just IMO.




I'd love to see an all warforged group. It could be very interesting. 
Now if only they'd made the warforged scout an actual playable race, instead of the weakling horror that it is now.


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## Seeten (Apr 20, 2005)

I wouldnt play a Warforged. Too weak. I'd be happy to play a changeling in Eberron, mayyyyybe a shifter, with convincing, but def a changeling, but I wouldnt touch a warforged with a 10 foot pole. -2 wis and -2cha? No thanks.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 20, 2005)

Seeten said:
			
		

> I wouldnt play a Warforged. Too weak. I'd be happy to play a changeling in Eberron, mayyyyybe a shifter, with convincing, but def a changeling, but I wouldnt touch a warforged with a 10 foot pole. -2 wis and -2cha? No thanks.




I hear tell that a properly played shifter can really beat someone down hard and fast.

But I agree... it would be difficult to come up with enough different and interesting warforged character concepts to make an entire party. They're definitely a little 'below' what I'd personally want.

Still... a warforged barbarian would be interesting, taking all DR feats... and warforged monks are better than normal monks (not that "normal" monks are good at all... this almost brings them up to par). And warforged make nice artificers... If you stuck to those basic three concepts it could make a full party.


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## ARandomGod (Apr 22, 2005)

ARandomGod said:
			
		

> I hear tell that a properly played shifter can really beat someone down hard and fast.
> 
> But I agree... it would be difficult to come up with enough different and interesting warforged character concepts to make an entire party. They're definitely a little 'below' what I'd personally want.
> 
> Still... a warforged barbarian would be interesting, taking all DR feats... and warforged monks are better than normal monks (not that "normal" monks are good at all... this almost brings them up to par). And warforged make nice artificers... If you stuck to those basic three concepts it could make a full party.





I wonder what other concepts would be *decent*


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## Wild Gazebo (Apr 22, 2005)

Warforged commoner.  Oooooh, 15th lvl warforged commoner/15th lvl warrior, oh yeah, that's the stuff.  Raised a poor farmer but learned the way of the force...er...sword.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 22, 2005)

How can you tell if a thread has run it's course? See above.


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## Belen (Apr 26, 2005)

Funny enough, the "Reforged" PrC in Races of Eberron gives Warforged back their nat. and magical healing.  I guess they decided that their were too many "restrictions."


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## Epametheus (Apr 26, 2005)

It's interesting that the thread is largely people who've never had a warforged in their game vs. people who have.

Much of what KM's concerned about become non-issues once one is actually at the table and playing.


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## Henry (Apr 26, 2005)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Funny enough, the "Reforged" PrC in Races of Eberron gives Warforged back their nat. and magical healing.  I guess they decided that their were too many "restrictions."




On the other hand, the Warforged had to take prerequisites and two levels of a prestige class just to get that, whereas he could have been taking other feats, skills, and two levels of something cooler.


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## ryanmoser (Mar 12, 2017)

You've gotta be shitting me. Ignoring the interesting flavor, they've can get free adamantine armor-with damage reduction-for just a feat. And while they don't get all the benefits from healing, they can just use mending spells instead. Warforged artificers are amazing; they can ing enchant themselves. What the hell is your problem with the warforged? You understated all of their benefits and overstated all of their penalties. It seems more likely that you wanted to whine and be annoyed about something.


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## Blue (Mar 12, 2017)

Unholy thread necromancy, Batman.  Bringing back a post almost 12 years old just to rant at the OP.

Though it is the poster's first post, maybe they didn't notice the date.


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

ryanmoser said:


> You've gotta be shitting me. Ignoring the interesting flavor, they've can get free adamantine armor-with damage reduction-for just a feat. And while they don't get all the benefits from healing, they can just use mending spells instead. Warforged artificers are amazing; they can ing enchant themselves. What the hell is your problem with the warforged? You understated all of their benefits and overstated all of their penalties. It seems more likely that you wanted to whine and be annoyed about something.




Not appropriate language for this site. Please knock off the profanity.


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## ryanmoser (Mar 12, 2017)

Oh-I didn't think to check the date. :l Yeah I'm new here. Sorry bout that. 12 years, hotdamn, this thread was made when I was ing six. Weird to think about


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## Illithidbix (Mar 13, 2017)

ryanmoser said:


> Oh-I didn't think to check the date. :l Yeah I'm new here. Sorry bout that. 12 years, hotdamn, this thread was made when I was ing six. Weird to think about




A few of us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw2sex1mJNI


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## Morrus (Mar 13, 2017)

ryanmoser said:


> Oh-I didn't think to check the date. :l Yeah I'm new here. Sorry bout that. 12 years, hotdamn, this thread was made when I was ing six. Weird to think about




I asked you to drop the profanity. Please review the rules you agreed to literally just yesterday.


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## rounser (Mar 20, 2017)

Warforged, to me, are just a dumb, tasteless idea.  Fantasy robots who aren't golems.  The idea is a non-starter.

I don't like Eberron either, and am glad it has set off into the sunset.  I understand that it won the setting competition because it echoed ideas put forward by a lot of other competitors, so WOTC thought it would be popular.  Big mistake.  A lot of people trying to be original in fantasy come up with the same bad ideas.  

Stray too far from mythology in fantasy and you pay the price.  

(It has something to do with our souls, if you even believe such things exist, thus the extreme popularity of the fantasy genre.  People with souls like fantasy _without exception_, which is probably good news for you if you're reading this, because it means you'll come back.  After death, you'll spend approximately three unhappy years spent in a quantum state called Summerland, and bam, you're back in another body, possessing a foetus by merging with a conciousness similar to that of your soul, which is a mindless artificial conciousness process as old as the universe itself and that deals solely in tendencies and emotions.  Yes, D&D actually has a very strong connection with the occult.  The D&D occult scare back in the 80s was actually far from baseless.)

Campaign setting-wise, I believe everyone should play Thunder Rift.  It has everything D&D needs in a microcosm small enough to detail and get to know, and sticks to the rich vein of Tolkienesque mythology.


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## Jhaelen (Mar 20, 2017)

Oh, how I love the ignore-list feature!

It allows me to stay calm and in a positive mindset, regardless of how many disagreeable, opiniated, and just plain _wrong_ posts are added to topics that interest me.
Much better than feeling pressured into joining a discussion that simply cannot end well.


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## Gradine (Mar 20, 2017)

I have a theory that this thread was created for the sole purpose of determining exactly how many times and how many different ways it needs to be explained that Warforged are in no way, shape or form robots and anyone who treats them as such understands neither them nor Eberron, as a campaign setting.

We apparently still have not determined the answer to that question.


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## Mad_Jack (Mar 21, 2017)

Gradine said:


> We apparently still have not determined the answer to that question.




 Of course we have - the answer is "one more".


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## Mikehold09 (Mar 21, 2017)

I have to interrupt a minute to say, Gez, that's the MOST innovative and useful use of the SBLOCK feature here that I've ever seen. Awesome work!


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