Warforged and Templates [Archive] - Wizards Community

Warforged and Templates [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Sternenschwinge
12-02-07, 02:35 PM Hi there !

It's my first time playing a Warforged and I am wondering: which templates can be used with a Warforged. :confused:
Can I create a Warforged- Halfdragon for example ?
And if yes, how does the outcome look ?
How about Bloodlines or Paragon- Classes from Unearthed Arcana ?

Thanks in advance,
sternenschwinge.
Xamiel
12-02-07, 02:50 PM Hello,
Admittedly, I am fairly new to the whole Eberron world. However, from what I have read so far, this is what I am getting;

I would have to say that any "template" per se that involves mixing races would be a no for warforged. ie half anything. or were- anything for that matter. ( how would a werewolf bite infect metal?)

<although, imagine that the bite itself were magical and thereby able to create lycanthropy....Hmmm metal werewolf that is only killed by say, tarnished silver???>

Warforged are created as living constructs. My educated guess would be that half-anythings are bred or would involve breeding at some point.

Another option possibly, the rumor of new, malformed warforged appearing in the wastes. Background: created by the Lord of Blades as a follower, or created by the Lord of Blades then realized that you were good and ran away.
Just a thought.
Finally, though difficult to implement and a stat nightmare most likely, implement a new spell of blending where the warforged are able to "absorb" qualities of other races.
ie. half-dragon warforged undergoes transformations such as skin changes to scale mail armor etc.

Just a thought. Hope you find something here you can use.
Sternenschwinge
12-02-07, 03:20 PM Ok, here is what I found so far:

Living Construct Traits

A living construct is built from a combination of organic and inorganic materials, much like any other construct, except that some of the organic material is either living or imbued with life during the creation process. For example, the warforged living constructs from the Eberron Campaign Setting have bundles of rootlike fibers that serve as muscles.

In any case, this fusion of living and nonliving elements makes for a unique creature with characteristics all its own.

Vulnerable Minds: Most living constructs have Intelligence scores. Those that do have organic minds (or the artificial equivalent) are susceptible to mind-affecting magic.

Living, But Tough: A living construct has a Constitution score and at least rudimentary biological processes.

Living constructs don't eat, sleep, or breathe, and most living constructs cannot do any of these things. One could, however, build a living construct that can mimic these activities. The living tissues in a living construct are either self sustaining or capable of drawing nourishment from the environment in some non-intrusive way. In any case, a living construct's need for sustenance is so small it can live indefinitely without breathing or eating.

A living construct may or may not have a nervous system and a circulatory system. If it does, these systems are very hardy and difficult to disrupt. A living construct isn't subject to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, nausea, or sickening. A living construct can use the run action, but doing so will tire it out, as noted on page 144 in the Player's Handbook. A living construct suffers all the normal effects of a forced march (see page 164 in the Player's Handbook).

Run

You can run as a full-round action. (If you do, you do not also get a 5-foot step.) When you run, you can move up to four times your speed in a straight line (or three times your speed if you're in heavy armor). You lose any Dexterity bonus to AC since you can't avoid attacks, unless you have the Run feat (page 99), which allows you to keep your Dexterity bonus to AC when running.

You can run for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score, but after that you must make a DC 10 Constitution check to continue running. You must check again each round in which you continue to run, and the DC of this check increases by 1 for each check you have made. When you fail this check, you must stop running. A character who has run to his limit must rest for 1 minute (10 rounds) before running again. During a rest period, a character can move no faster than a normal move action.

Forced March

In a day of normal walking, a character walks for 8 hours. The rest of the daylight time is spent making and breaking camp, resting, and eating.

A character can walk for more than 8 hours in a day by making a forced march. For each hour of marching beyond 8 hours, a Constitution check (DC 10, +2 per extra hour) is required. If the check fails, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from a forced march becomes fatigued. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue. It's possible for a character to march into unconsciousness by pushing himself too hard.

A living construct has some life process that are subject to failure and the creature is vulnerable to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, death effects, and necromancy effects. The low level of biological activity in a living construct's body leaves it susceptible to effects that require Fortitude saves unless the effect is one that is listed in the previous paragraph.

Since it is alive, a construct can be raised or resurrected if slain.

Thanks to the inorganic elements in a living construct's body and the rudimentary nature of its biological components, a living construct cannot heal damage on its own unless it also has the fast healing special quality. It is possible, however, to repair damage to a living construct through the Craft Construct feat (see Part Two). The various cure wounds spells from the Player's Handbook work on living constructs, but only at half effect; roll the spell's effect as usual, but divide the amount of healing in half, rounded down. The repair damage spells from Complete Arcane have full effect on a living construct. Though the Eberron Campaign Setting describes how a warforged can be repaired by a character with ranks in certain Craft skills, this does not extend to all living constructs."

A living construct's body is subject to premature death if it suffers a massive shock or injury sufficient to disrupt its biological functions. A living construct is subject to the death from massive damage rule (see page 145 in the Player's Handbook). A living construct also has the ability to cling to life when heavily damaged. Most rules for death and dying (see pages 145-146 in the Player's Handbook) apply to living constructs, except as noted here.

A living construct reduced to 0 hit points is disabled and limited to only a single standard or move action each turn. A strenuous activity, however, doesn't deal any damage to the disabled living construct. For example, a warforged wizard with 0 hit points could cast a spell as a standard action. The character could not use a move action during the same turn. Unlike a human wizard, casting the spell while disabled would not damage the warforged wizard.

A living construct with fewer than 0 hit points, but more than -10 hit points is inert. The creature is helpless and unconscious. The living construct, however, is automatically stable. It doesn't lose any more hit points unless something deals the creature more damage.

Constitution, Not Mass: A living construct gains (or loses) hit points based on its Hit Dice and Constitution modifier. A living construct does not gain any bonus hit points due to size.

Standard Senses: Living constructs don't automatically have low-light vision and darkvision with a range of 60 feet (though they could have these abilities; check the creature's description to be sure).

Unless stated otherwise in the creature's description, assume that a living construct can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell at least as well as a human can.

So what if the living tissue is made of Fiendish- remains ?
What energy (magic ?) actually gives live to a living construct and keeps it going ? Does it make any difference if the used magic is evil, good or neutral ? There seem to be very few racial options (if any aside from substitution) for warforged :(
skrap-san
12-02-07, 05:16 PM I would say no to half fiendish/dragon/celestial and lycan and things that would by "logic" require you to be a person made of flesh and blood. But in Eberron there is new ways to do a lot of things, for example fully fiendish templates are added to dragons to indicate the coruption of staying at a evil place for to long (check out Q'barra). So i would say fiendish/celestial is ok. Monsters manual 3 talks of spellwarped creatures, that would work. So templates is not a NO NO in my world, but I would require a decent story for it. All in all it boils down to common sense or logic if you ask me.
Hope that helped.
ArcTan
12-03-07, 12:37 AM Half-Dragon can *mechanically* be added to WF, since WF are "living, corporeal creatures", but since the template is inherited rather than acquired, the process of how the WF got the template requires explanation -- since Dragons cannot produce Half-Dragon offspring through mating, Half-Dragons are probably impossible barring some kind of DM fiat (like using dragon's blood in the creation forge or something like that).

It'd be too tiring to go through every template in existence, so let me clarify that WF *do* count as "living creatures", but *do not* count as "Humanoids", "Monstrous Humanoids", or any Type that isn't the Construct Type. That restricts the templates they can have.

Moreover, inherited templates have to have an *explanation*, and so the concept of a Celestial Warforged doesn't make sense unless you can tell me how and why the Creation Forge making the WF ended up in the Upper Planes.

But it's your campaign, do as you like.

Bloodlines and Paragon Classes are already variant, optional rules, so you're already in DM's choice territory there. It doesn't literally make sense for a WF to have any kind of "bloodline", but if you can come up with some half-baked justification ("Built as a draconic experiment!") to make a Half-Dragon WF, you can justify the bloodline, too.

Writing up a Paragon Class for WF would be difficult -- basically, the Warforged Juggernaut PrC and the Reforged PrC are examples of possible "paragons" of WF-hood, in opposite directions of the nature of a WF.
skrap-san
12-03-07, 01:21 AM it excists a warforged, shifter changeling and kalashtar paragon article out there, i just cant remember where i found it.
Tordak
12-03-07, 11:21 AM You can find many attempts at Eberron races paragon, just type 'Warforged Paragon' in google for example. One I think is nice is this one

http://www.savevsdm.com/pdf/ebbparagon.pdf .

For inherited template, you'll have to find a far fetched explanation, because the 'half' template were design for living creature, and warforged are the construct type, which aren't usually living. They are living as a subtype of construct, which makes them sort of alive but not exactly; they are sentient and have something similar to a metabolism, but are forged, not breeded.

However, I like the lines in the above post. You could say that the organic material used was from an outsider or a dragon, the metal parts were from an outer plane (Mechanus, The City of Dis, any plane in Eberron where you can find the inevitables), and they carried over some of their characteristics, making the warforged a 'half-something'. It's nice and not abusive because it still carries the LA. There are not that many options for warforged, but warforged are already a pretty nice options if you ask me.
Edymnion
12-03-07, 12:43 PM Moreover, inherited templates have to have an *explanation*, and so the concept of a Celestial Warforged doesn't make sense unless you can tell me how and why the Creation Forge making the WF ended up in the Upper Planes.Don't forget that we have examples in the books of creatures gaining an inherited template after they were born. There is a dragon tasked with guarding Khyber's prison that, due to the constant exposure to Khyber's dark energies has gained the Fiendish template.

A Warforged that, say, serves as Jaela's guard (aside from fluffy) might eventually become a Celestial Warforged due to constantly being next to the Silver Flame.

And especially for things like Warforged, an inherited template doesn't mean there was crossbreeding, just that the WF was created with those abilities.

Personally, I don't allow PC Warforged to have templates, but then again, as a rule I don't allow ANY PC to start the game with a template. I do however like to use templated warforged to represent the strange mutated WF being created by LOBster.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sternenschwinge 12-02-07, 02:35 PM	Hi there ! It's my first time playing a Warforged and I am wondering: which templates can be used with a Warforged. :confused: Can I create a Warforged- Halfdragon for example ? And if yes, how does the outcome look ? How about Bloodlines or Paragon- Classes from Unearthed Arcana ? Thanks in advance, sternenschwinge.
Xamiel 12-02-07, 02:50 PM	Hello, Admittedly, I am fairly new to the whole Eberron world. However, from what I have read so far, this is what I am getting; I would have to say that any "template" per se that involves mixing races would be a no for warforged. ie half anything. or were- anything for that matter. ( how would a werewolf bite infect metal?) <although, imagine that the bite itself were magical and thereby able to create lycanthropy....Hmmm metal werewolf that is only killed by say, tarnished silver???> Warforged are created as living constructs. My educated guess would be that half-anythings are bred or would involve breeding at some point. Another option possibly, the rumor of new, malformed warforged appearing in the wastes. Background: created by the Lord of Blades as a follower, or created by the Lord of Blades then realized that you were good and ran away. Just a thought. Finally, though difficult to implement and a stat nightmare most likely, implement a new spell of blending where the warforged are able to "absorb" qualities of other races. ie. half-dragon warforged undergoes transformations such as skin changes to scale mail armor etc. Just a thought. Hope you find something here you can use.
Sternenschwinge 12-02-07, 03:20 PM	Ok, here is what I found so far: Living Construct Traits A living construct is built from a combination of organic and inorganic materials, much like any other construct, except that some of the organic material is either living or imbued with life during the creation process. For example, the warforged living constructs from the Eberron Campaign Setting have bundles of rootlike fibers that serve as muscles. In any case, this fusion of living and nonliving elements makes for a unique creature with characteristics all its own. Vulnerable Minds: Most living constructs have Intelligence scores. Those that do have organic minds (or the artificial equivalent) are susceptible to mind-affecting magic. Living, But Tough: A living construct has a Constitution score and at least rudimentary biological processes. Living constructs don't eat, sleep, or breathe, and most living constructs cannot do any of these things. One could, however, build a living construct that can mimic these activities. The living tissues in a living construct are either self sustaining or capable of drawing nourishment from the environment in some non-intrusive way. In any case, a living construct's need for sustenance is so small it can live indefinitely without breathing or eating. A living construct may or may not have a nervous system and a circulatory system. If it does, these systems are very hardy and difficult to disrupt. A living construct isn't subject to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, nausea, or sickening. A living construct can use the run action, but doing so will tire it out, as noted on page 144 in the Player's Handbook. A living construct suffers all the normal effects of a forced march (see page 164 in the Player's Handbook). Run You can run as a full-round action. (If you do, you do not also get a 5-foot step.) When you run, you can move up to four times your speed in a straight line (or three times your speed if you're in heavy armor). You lose any Dexterity bonus to AC since you can't avoid attacks, unless you have the Run feat (page 99), which allows you to keep your Dexterity bonus to AC when running. You can run for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score, but after that you must make a DC 10 Constitution check to continue running. You must check again each round in which you continue to run, and the DC of this check increases by 1 for each check you have made. When you fail this check, you must stop running. A character who has run to his limit must rest for 1 minute (10 rounds) before running again. During a rest period, a character can move no faster than a normal move action. Forced March In a day of normal walking, a character walks for 8 hours. The rest of the daylight time is spent making and breaking camp, resting, and eating. A character can walk for more than 8 hours in a day by making a forced march. For each hour of marching beyond 8 hours, a Constitution check (DC 10, +2 per extra hour) is required. If the check fails, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from a forced march becomes fatigued. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue. It's possible for a character to march into unconsciousness by pushing himself too hard. A living construct has some life process that are subject to failure and the creature is vulnerable to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, death effects, and necromancy effects. The low level of biological activity in a living construct's body leaves it susceptible to effects that require Fortitude saves unless the effect is one that is listed in the previous paragraph. Since it is alive, a construct can be raised or resurrected if slain. Thanks to the inorganic elements in a living construct's body and the rudimentary nature of its biological components, a living construct cannot heal damage on its own unless it also has the fast healing special quality. It is possible, however, to repair damage to a living construct through the Craft Construct feat (see Part Two). The various cure wounds spells from the Player's Handbook work on living constructs, but only at half effect; roll the spell's effect as usual, but divide the amount of healing in half, rounded down. The repair damage spells from Complete Arcane have full effect on a living construct. Though the Eberron Campaign Setting describes how a warforged can be repaired by a character with ranks in certain Craft skills, this does not extend to all living constructs." A living construct's body is subject to premature death if it suffers a massive shock or injury sufficient to disrupt its biological functions. A living construct is subject to the death from massive damage rule (see page 145 in the Player's Handbook). A living construct also has the ability to cling to life when heavily damaged. Most rules for death and dying (see pages 145-146 in the Player's Handbook) apply to living constructs, except as noted here. A living construct reduced to 0 hit points is disabled and limited to only a single standard or move action each turn. A strenuous activity, however, doesn't deal any damage to the disabled living construct. For example, a warforged wizard with 0 hit points could cast a spell as a standard action. The character could not use a move action during the same turn. Unlike a human wizard, casting the spell while disabled would not damage the warforged wizard. A living construct with fewer than 0 hit points, but more than -10 hit points is inert. The creature is helpless and unconscious. The living construct, however, is automatically stable. It doesn't lose any more hit points unless something deals the creature more damage. Constitution, Not Mass: A living construct gains (or loses) hit points based on its Hit Dice and Constitution modifier. A living construct does not gain any bonus hit points due to size. Standard Senses: Living constructs don't automatically have low-light vision and darkvision with a range of 60 feet (though they could have these abilities; check the creature's description to be sure). Unless stated otherwise in the creature's description, assume that a living construct can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell at least as well as a human can. So what if the living tissue is made of Fiendish- remains ? What energy (magic ?) actually gives live to a living construct and keeps it going ? Does it make any difference if the used magic is evil, good or neutral ? There seem to be very few racial options (if any aside from substitution) for warforged :(
skrap-san 12-02-07, 05:16 PM	I would say no to half fiendish/dragon/celestial and lycan and things that would by "logic" require you to be a person made of flesh and blood. But in Eberron there is new ways to do a lot of things, for example fully fiendish templates are added to dragons to indicate the coruption of staying at a evil place for to long (check out Q'barra). So i would say fiendish/celestial is ok. Monsters manual 3 talks of spellwarped creatures, that would work. So templates is not a NO NO in my world, but I would require a decent story for it. All in all it boils down to common sense or logic if you ask me. Hope that helped.
ArcTan 12-03-07, 12:37 AM	Half-Dragon can mechanically be added to WF, since WF are "living, corporeal creatures", but since the template is inherited rather than acquired, the process of how the WF got the template requires explanation -- since Dragons cannot produce Half-Dragon offspring through mating, Half-Dragons are probably impossible barring some kind of DM fiat (like using dragon's blood in the creation forge or something like that). It'd be too tiring to go through every template in existence, so let me clarify that WF do count as "living creatures", but do not count as "Humanoids", "Monstrous Humanoids", or any Type that isn't the Construct Type. That restricts the templates they can have. Moreover, inherited templates have to have an explanation, and so the concept of a Celestial Warforged doesn't make sense unless you can tell me how and why the Creation Forge making the WF ended up in the Upper Planes. But it's your campaign, do as you like. Bloodlines and Paragon Classes are already variant, optional rules, so you're already in DM's choice territory there. It doesn't literally make sense for a WF to have any kind of "bloodline", but if you can come up with some half-baked justification ("Built as a draconic experiment!") to make a Half-Dragon WF, you can justify the bloodline, too. Writing up a Paragon Class for WF would be difficult -- basically, the Warforged Juggernaut PrC and the Reforged PrC are examples of possible "paragons" of WF-hood, in opposite directions of the nature of a WF.
skrap-san 12-03-07, 01:21 AM	it excists a warforged, shifter changeling and kalashtar paragon article out there, i just cant remember where i found it.
Tordak 12-03-07, 11:21 AM	You can find many attempts at Eberron races paragon, just type 'Warforged Paragon' in google for example. One I think is nice is this one http://www.savevsdm.com/pdf/ebbparagon.pdf . For inherited template, you'll have to find a far fetched explanation, because the 'half' template were design for living creature, and warforged are the construct type, which aren't usually living. They are living as a subtype of construct, which makes them sort of alive but not exactly; they are sentient and have something similar to a metabolism, but are forged, not breeded. However, I like the lines in the above post. You could say that the organic material used was from an outsider or a dragon, the metal parts were from an outer plane (Mechanus, The City of Dis, any plane in Eberron where you can find the inevitables), and they carried over some of their characteristics, making the warforged a 'half-something'. It's nice and not abusive because it still carries the LA. There are not that many options for warforged, but warforged are already a pretty nice options if you ask me.
Edymnion 12-03-07, 12:43 PM	Moreover, inherited templates have to have an explanation, and so the concept of a Celestial Warforged doesn't make sense unless you can tell me how and why the Creation Forge making the WF ended up in the Upper Planes.Don't forget that we have examples in the books of creatures gaining an inherited template after they were born. There is a dragon tasked with guarding Khyber's prison that, due to the constant exposure to Khyber's dark energies has gained the Fiendish template. A Warforged that, say, serves as Jaela's guard (aside from fluffy) might eventually become a Celestial Warforged due to constantly being next to the Silver Flame. And especially for things like Warforged, an inherited template doesn't mean there was crossbreeding, just that the WF was created with those abilities. Personally, I don't allow PC Warforged to have templates, but then again, as a rule I don't allow ANY PC to start the game with a template. I do however like to use templated warforged to represent the strange mutated WF being created by LOBster.