Post/Author/DateTime	Post
turalisj 02-14-07, 10:27 PM	How would you go about to torture a warforged? Can they feel pain? I'd like to know, because I'm currently running a game with a pair of warforged, and plan on having the party captured and tortured at some point in the game.
UnderworldLord 02-14-07, 10:35 PM	According to the novels, it doesn't really seem like they can. At least thats what I get. Source books don't say much more, IMO. Just do whatever you feel necessarily.
Kreistor2 02-14-07, 11:23 PM	Much as people like to think that something that doesn't feel pain is a good thing, those rare humans that suffer neurological problems that eliminate pain have proven otherwise. Pain is what tells us that something is wrong with our bodies. If you don't feel pain, you can literally bleed to death from a small cut that you keep reopening, because you don't know not to move the arm that was cut. You don't know it was cut, you couldn't feel the pain, the blood leaking on your back, and you die. Pain is a necessary part of healthy life. Pain response causes our spine to jerk our hands away from sharp objects, saving them from damage that would have occured while our brains thought about removing them from danger. Pain tells us to escape. Pain is necessary.
turalisj 02-14-07, 11:26 PM	That's all well and good Kreistor..... But that doesn't answer if a warforged can feel part's of it's body being taken off with acid.
Anguirus23 02-14-07, 11:42 PM	I got the impression from City of Towers that Pierce, at least, could feel when and where he was damaged, but it wasn't a crippling or even paricularly distracting sensation. Which makes perfect sense, for a being that is artificial and, at least in part, designed. I'm sure that you could find a sensation to torment warforged (simply because they do have sensory input...look at "Chinese Water Torture"), but it wouldn't be nearly as straightforward as toturing a human.
ArcTan 02-15-07, 12:03 AM	Much as people like to think that something that doesn't feel pain is a good thing, those rare humans that suffer neurological problems that eliminate pain have proven otherwise. Pain is what tells us that something is wrong with our bodies. If you don't feel pain, you can literally bleed to death from a small cut that you keep reopening, because you don't know not to move the arm that was cut. You don't know it was cut, you couldn't feel the pain, the blood leaking on your back, and you die. Pain is a necessary part of healthy life. Pain response causes our spine to jerk our hands away from sharp objects, saving them from damage that would have occured while our brains thought about removing them from danger. Pain tells us to escape. Pain is necessary. The ability to sense damage to our bodies is necessary. Whether it takes the all-consuming, intense sensation we call "pain" to do so is another question. It may well be that a more detached, less intense awareness of damage is less adaptive in the long run -- that it means warforged are more likely to take risks, more likely to ignore problems, more likely to harm themselves -- but, after all, warforged weren't designed for the long run. In the short run of an individual's life, there are plenty of times where pain's propensity to turn off your ability to think rationally or even to commit to an action actually *decreases* your chance of survival.
DyloniusFunk 02-15-07, 12:57 AM	How would you go about to torture a warforged? Can they feel pain? I'd like to know, because I'm currently running a game with a pair of warforged, and plan on having the party captured and tortured at some point in the game. The rules for Warforged are pretty cuty and dry for the most part. If it dosen't say that it is immune to something in the ECS, then assume it can be affected. As Living Contrsucts there are things that don't affect a Warforged, such as the need to sleep. These are all laid out in it's entry in the ECS. For stuff not mentioned assume it can be affected by it.
JulesCARV 02-15-07, 01:14 AM	Certainly, there's nothing that I know of to suggest that warforged are immune to Symbol of Pain or Inflict Pain. The exceptions are juggernauts, who quite likely don't feel pain, and are, in fact, immune to mind-affecting and necromancy effects, which is what Symbol of Pain and Inflict Pain are.
Kreistor2 02-15-07, 01:26 AM	That's all well and good Kreistor..... But that doesn't answer if a warforged can feel part's of it's body being taken off with acid. Ah, true, I failed to answer the actual question, didn't I? Unless otherwise stated in a race's description, anything a human does the new race does. So, yes, by the RAW, Warforged do feel pain, since the entry does not specify that they do not. The ability to sense damage to our bodies is necessary. Whether it takes the all-consuming, intense sensation we call "pain" to do so is another question. All consuming? Very few types of pain are that debilitating. Pain itself has been overcome, and training can help deal with it. The SAS are very proud of several of their men that were captured during GW1 by the Iraqis and withstood six days of torture without revealing anything before being retrieved. In general, pain is proportional to how much damage we have suffered. It is, in the end, a survival trait. If you are hurt, the more hurt you are, the less you should do. So, pain debilitating you proportionally to the damage is a very good thing. Warforged, being as easy to repair as they are, should not avoid this feature. Some think that a good combatant is one that fights to the death, but the Japanese in WW2 proved that does not win wars. Fighting and surviving in a protracted war is the best goal, and given the Last War was 100 years, protracted is an understatement for the war the Warforged were built for. A damaged Warforged is more likely to be destroyed. An injured warforged is more easily repaired than an injured human -- a major injury can be repaired by a talented smith in one night, putting the warforged back on the line the next day. A damaged human takes a week or more. A Warforged with a strong pain sense getting him off the line and to the smiths ensures he is there to fight the next day. A Warforged with no pain sense can choose to ignore the pain and fight on, risking the loss of the costly investment made by the nation that created him. For a protracted war you want a unit with a sense of survival, not suicidal berserkers that fight until they die.
Salla 02-15-07, 02:11 AM	I'd break it down like this: 1. Pain is all in the mind. 2. Therefore, pain is a mind-affecting effect. 3. Warforged are not immune to mind-affecting effects (barring Juggernaut levels). 4. Therefore, Warforged feel pain.
thebestideaieverhad 02-15-07, 07:04 AM	I'd break it down like this: 1. Pain is all in the mind. 2. Therefore, pain is a mind-affecting effect. 3. Warforged are not immune to mind-affecting effects (barring Juggernaut levels). 4. Therefore, Warforged feel pain. haha such a beautifully simple explanation... it definitely makes perfect sense now
iKitten 02-15-07, 07:46 AM	You don't just have to physically torture someone to torture them. You can substitute something or someone they care for easily.
UnderworldLord 02-15-07, 08:41 AM	I'm still going with that they main not feel pain, so much as 'disablement' or other similar properties. Remember, the warfored cannot bleed to death. Literally. But, they can sense when damaged, and know when its too much. I'm sure evven a juggernaught senses when its damaged. However, magic is magic. Thus, if symbol of pain causes pain, then the warforged will feel actual pain most likely. This may lead particularly masochistic warforged, or servants or the mockery, to use similar such spells to induce pain upon themselves, in order to feel a 'fleshy' experience. As aforementioned though, sensory input is all you need to torment though. And I'm sure the sensation of damage to a warforged is unpleasant. Severe disablement might immobilize a warforged with the fear that it might die.
GreenWarlock 02-15-07, 08:58 AM	Another thing that hasn't been considered yet, don't torture the flesh torture the soul. Or at least the magic animating the warforged. Think about it instead of disolving the limb or cutting off and ear(if you, of course, can find it first) start picking away at the magical enchantment keeping a warforged alive, slowly methodically have an artificer remove control of random fingers make that artificer put the weave back wrong so they are now left handed, hell what would happen if you start messing with their head pattern, would they suddenly loose memories? If anything will truly cause pain to any form of construct it will be having their life forc tweaked, both on a physical level of pain if you so choose...and on the mental level of your life being completely and utterly in the hands of the artificer.
UnderworldLord 02-15-07, 10:22 AM	Now that is quite a horrendous idea. I love it.
UnkemptSage 02-15-07, 11:50 AM	I can't recall if warforged are immune to death from massive damage or not. Anybody remember? I don't have my books with me. Anyway, from what I remember of the description for death from massive damage is that if anything takes more than 50 points of damage in a single blow, that creature has a chance of dying from the severe pain of that strike. If warforged are not immune to death from massive damage, I'd say it's pretty much a surefire bet that they can feel pain. If they are immune, that doesn't necessarily mean they can't feel pain, but it sure means they know how to endure it.
Edymnion 02-15-07, 11:58 AM	I can't recall if warforged are immune to death from massive damage or not. Anybody remember?No, WF are not immune to DfMD.
Nuclear_Buddha 02-15-07, 01:11 PM	Why does torture have to involve pain? Why not just bury the 'forged for a while? He'll be going stir-crazy right quick. Or, if there's more time available, knock them out. Since they don't sleep, it's likely that prolonged unconsciousness is kind of disturbing. "You won't talk? Well, we've given you any number of chances to help us, and you've declined them all. It seems you are set on being useless to us. You leave us no choice but to... render you inert. Oh, have no fear, we might bring you back on the off chance you'll be more useful to us later. But how much later? One moment, it will be daylight, and the next, when you're repaired, the moons will be out. But how long will it have been? A day? A week? Months? Perhaps even years, long enough for those fleshy 'friends' you've been protecting to have forgotten all about you. The world will have moved on, and left you to gather dust, all because you refused to be useful... Guards, bring the hammers."
UnkemptSage 02-15-07, 01:22 PM	I was actually thinking of suggesting rendering them inert. I was looking at Races of Eberron yesterday and it described the idea of death being incredibly disturbing to the warforged. Since they don't sleep, they have no concept of being unaware...
turalisj 02-15-07, 01:40 PM	Don't look at RoE. It's not Eberron-Kosher. So what I'm getting it that, yes, warforged can feel apin. They can even feel something deeper than that, the idea of being forgotten. I thank everyone for thier input, and Nuclear_Buddha seems to have the best idea. Of course, you can do the same thing to someone in Dnd by using flesh to stone/crystallize.
GreenWarlock 02-15-07, 02:25 PM	Damn you Buddha! everytime I come up with a great idea someone just has to make another one that is better!:P Not really angry just had to capitalize on the novelty of being able to yell "Damn you Buddha!"
Nuclear_Buddha 02-15-07, 03:08 PM	It's okay, Green. Let it all out. Glad to be of some service.
UnkemptSage 02-15-07, 03:23 PM	Don't look at RoE. It's not Eberron-Kosher. I see a lot of people say that, but it really does have some great information on role-playing that I find really interesting. You might not like some of the rules presented in it, but they do give some interesting insights into the Eberron-specific races.
Just another user 02-15-07, 05:11 PM	warforged are not immune to non-lethal damage, IIRC warforged can be Stunned if you use that rule they can be Clobbered and of course they are subject to critical hits Add to that that IMHO resistance to pain in D&D is covered by HP (which for WF are higher than usual) and that's why I believe that warforged do effectively feel pain.
The_Robot 02-15-07, 06:57 PM	i like Warlock's idea of torturing a WF. as far as feeling pain goes...what is it the Governator says in T2 when John Conner asks him if the bullet wounds hurt? something along the lines of, "i feel a sensation that can be recognized as pain." i'd go with something like that. they feel "pain" but not like we do...they know where they are hurt and to what degree the damage is, but i would be inclined to say that it doesn't affect them the same way. however they do still have a CON score, and as it has been said, "if it doesn't say they ARE immune to something then they ARE NOT immune to it." to me that says, yes they feel some amount of pain. just go with what Warlock said. losing the ability to control your body would suck.
UnderworldLord 02-15-07, 07:15 PM	You people are sadistic. This is great.
UnkemptSage 02-15-07, 10:41 PM	i like Warlock's idea of torturing a WF. as far as feeling pain goes...what is it the Governator says in T2 when John Conner asks him if the bullet wounds hurt? something along the lines of, "i feel a sensation that can be recognized as pain." i'd go with something like that. they feel "pain" but not like we do...they know where they are hurt and to what degree the damage is, but i would be inclined to say that it doesn't affect them the same way. however they do still have a CON score, and as it has been said, "if it doesn't say they ARE immune to something then they ARE NOT immune to it." to me that says, yes they feel some amount of pain. just go with what Warlock said. losing the ability to control your body would suck. Out of curiosity, how would you explain a warforged dying of massive damage?
GreenWarlock 02-15-07, 11:00 PM	Same way I would in a human, the Inability to function. When a warforged takes massive damage it's plate is bent to hell it's wood fibers are shredded and it's body is just too mangled and disrupted for the magic to stay active in it driving the warforged inert.
Anguirus23 02-15-07, 11:19 PM	The SAS are very proud of several of their men that were captured during GW1 by the Iraqis and withstood six days of torture without revealing anything before being retrieved. That is impressive, but most likely has more to do with the fact that torture is actually a terrible method of getting information. It is simply a mean-spirited way to "get back" at your enemy, that is easily accepted by people because they have bought the myth that it is actually useful. And if you want to "break" someone, the NKVD discovered years ago that sleep deprivation is the most efficient and effective method. RoE does suggest that a warforged deprived of sensation and experience (i.e. buried) goes mad.
Kreistor2 02-15-07, 11:41 PM	That is impressive, but most likely has more to do with the fact that torture is actually a terrible method of getting information. It is simply a mean-spirited way to "get back" at your enemy, that is easily accepted by people because they have bought the myth that it is actually useful. True info or not, they didn't talk at all. And despite the leftist rhetoric, torture can get information. If you've never seen "Are you tough enough?", it's a BBC program where SAS instructors put normal folk through a version of SAS training (it's actually very weakened compared to the real thing), and one thing they do put the participants through is a toned down version of SAS anti-torture training. They break. Oh, yes, they do. They reveal what they weren't supposed to, and they know it was just a challenge. It is remarkable just what kind of tricks good torturers can do to break you, and most do not involve actual pain. Sleep deprivation was in fact a part of it, but there is so much more you can do to confuse the mind. The SAS were able to hold out because they had been trained for exactly this situation.
Edymnion 02-16-07, 08:35 AM	I see a lot of people say that, but it really does have some great information on role-playing that I find really interesting. You might not like some of the rules presented in it, but they do give some interesting insights into the Eberron-specific races.Actually, most people that have problems with RoE (like myself), like the rules in it just fine. Its a great book for crunch. What we find innacurate if not flat out wrong is the flavor and "roleplaying insights". Honestly, if you wanna know how the races are *SUPPOSED* to be, read the dragonshards or the racial entries in PGtE. RoE racial fluff is just flat out bad.
ArcTan 02-16-07, 11:13 AM	All consuming? Very few types of pain are that debilitating. Pain itself has been overcome, and training can help deal with it. The SAS are very proud of several of their men that were captured during GW1 by the Iraqis and withstood six days of torture without revealing anything before being retrieved. Yes, but wouldn't it be useful to have someone with the built-in ability to keep pain in perspective rather than having to train it into someone? In general, pain is proportional to how much damage we have suffered. It is, in the end, a survival trait. If you are hurt, the more hurt you are, the less you should do. So, pain debilitating you proportionally to the damage is a very good thing. This is true under normal circumstances, when you're surrounded by people who might help you and give you aid. In a war when you're surrounded by potential enemies, this can be a very bad thing. Warforged, being as easy to repair as they are, should not avoid this feature. Some think that a good combatant is one that fights to the death, but the Japanese in WW2 proved that does not win wars. Fighting and surviving in a protracted war is the best goal, and given the Last War was 100 years, protracted is an understatement for the war the Warforged were built for. A damaged Warforged is more likely to be destroyed. An injured warforged is more easily repaired than an injured human -- a major injury can be repaired by a talented smith in one night, putting the warforged back on the line the next day. A damaged human takes a week or more. A Warforged with a strong pain sense getting him off the line and to the smiths ensures he is there to fight the next day. A Warforged with no pain sense can choose to ignore the pain and fight on, risking the loss of the costly investment made by the nation that created him. For a protracted war you want a unit with a sense of survival, not suicidal berserkers that fight until they die. That's just it, though -- warforged, being easier to repair than humans are to heal, *benefit* from pain taking over their bodies to a decreased amount. A soldier with a major wound in his leg has a body telling him he shouldn't try to walk at all or risk doing more damage to his leg, despite the fact that his *mind* knows that if he's caught here he'll be killed while if he gets back to base he has a chance of survival even if his leg gets amputated. A warforged has a higher chance of saving the leg either way -- thus shouldn't have that built-in "Stay put and wait for help" signal at all. That's exactly the problem -- pain is *not* a fine-tuned, logical response to damage. Like all other automatic responses it is haphazard and sloppy and outside of the environment in which it evolved is frequently more likely to harm than help. We have every incentive to try to improve on the way it works.
ArcTan 02-16-07, 11:14 AM	I'd break it down like this: 1. Pain is all in the mind. 2. Therefore, pain is a mind-affecting effect. 3. Warforged are not immune to mind-affecting effects (barring Juggernaut levels). 4. Therefore, Warforged feel pain. Well, not exactly sound logic. Causing pain to another being is just a matter of doing HP damage or nonlethal damage to them, and mind blank doesn't protect against it. Note that I never said warforged are literally immune to pain or pain-causing effects, just that they probably experience it differently from humans, as per the novels.
ArcTan 02-16-07, 11:19 AM	I can't recall if warforged are immune to death from massive damage or not. Anybody remember? I don't have my books with me. Anyway, from what I remember of the description for death from massive damage is that if anything takes more than 50 points of damage in a single blow, that creature has a chance of dying from the severe pain of that strike. If warforged are not immune to death from massive damage, I'd say it's pretty much a surefire bet that they can feel pain. If they are immune, that doesn't necessarily mean they can't feel pain, but it sure means they know how to endure it. Massive damage has nothing to do with feeling pain and everything to do with the physical effect of the body being unable to adjust to "shock". It's a function of being vulnerable to critical hits (i.e. having specific biological physical systems), *not* of being vulnerable to pain. Being immune to nonlethal damage and similar effects is the only real criterion for being immune to pain. Warforged aren't immune to nonlethal itself -- you can wear a warforged down with damage to its senses -- but they are immune to the similar effects, the stunning and paralysis, which tells me that they don't feel pain as immediately or all-consumingly as humans do. (Note that a Monk's Stunning Fist feature is based on real-life martial arts that focus primarily on inflicting sudden damage to nerve clusters in the body, causing people to freeze up and be unable to respond. Note that being able to do this is definitely a bug in humans' pain perception system, not a feature.)
Kreistor2 02-16-07, 11:58 AM	Massive Damage: If you ever sustain a single attack deals 50 points of damage or more and it doesn’t kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take 50 points of damage or more from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt 50 or more points of damage itself, the massive damage rule does not apply. Arctan, the massive damage says nothing of the sort. It does not explain a medical reason for the effect, and leaves that open to interpretation and explanation by the DM. Your interpretation as "shock" is your opinion, and only as valid as UnkemptSage's interpretation that it is due to pain.
Kreistor2 02-16-07, 12:18 PM	Yes, but wouldn't it be useful to have someone with the built-in ability to keep pain in perspective rather than having to train it into someone? It's suicidal to give the injured party choice in the matter. Pain is not an accident, if you believe in evolution (or creation, actually, but let's leave that one alone): it has been biologically developed over millenia. If pain as choice were a survival trait, it would have developed. It didn't. That suggets that anyone with that choice will make a stupid choice at some point and get themselves killed before breeding, making the lack of automatic pain responses a poor design choice. No, I do not believe "putting pain in perspective" is a good idea for a soldier. It may have taken the west a long time to figure out that "stand or die" is really stupid, but we didn't have as much evidence as Eberron had. 100 years of war is 16 times longer than WW2. This is true under normal circumstances, when you're surrounded by people who might help you and give you aid. In a war when you're surrounded by potential enemies, this can be a very bad thing. Really? Fighting gets you killed. When damaged, you fight poorly. By fighting when damaged, you are less likely to succeed in killing others, but must be killed yourself. This prevents the enemy from capturing you and using you as a trade to get one of their soldiers back. It is better for the warforged to not fight and trust to the enemy's mercy. If you're playing middle ages, most people on the battlefield wanted prisoners that they could ransom. A ransomed prisoner got you a soldier back. So the enemy normally would capture a soldier any time that was a possibility. That goes for common men, not just nobility, BTW. The winners would ransom back the company mascot if they could, since it was profit for the adventure. That's just it, though -- warforged, being easier to repair than humans are to heal, *benefit* from pain taking over their bodies to a decreased amount. A soldier with a major wound in his leg has a body telling him he shouldn't try to walk at all or risk doing more damage to his leg, despite the fact that his *mind* knows that if he's caught here he'll be killed while if he gets back to base he has a chance of survival even if his leg gets amputated. A warforged has a higher chance of saving the leg either way -- thus shouldn't have that built-in "Stay put and wait for help" signal at all. That is only one interpretation of pain. Pain that severe means the leg is so damaged it can't be used without further damage. This is where DnD HP and reality break down. There are no mechanics for being "hurt in the leg and unable to walk, but alive and conscious". You are either okay, disabled, dying, uncoscious, or dead. What we are talking about is outside the rules. Your presumption is that the warforged can get back to base without further damage, because there are no rules for the warforged to take further damage when his leg is hurt. The game does not actually have rules for humans in that situation either. I contend that a warforge with that kind of damage would cause himself permanent loss of limb if he attempted to return to base in the same way that a human would, because unless otherwise stated, a warforged and human are the same. So, your warforged, ignoring the pain and trying to get back to base, would lose the limb permanently and be useless anyway. He would be better waiting for help, from either side. And note again that I do not agree with your contention that surrender equates to death, and in a middle ages campaign I more strongly disagree with it than a modern campaign. Soldiers know what happens when they murder their enemy captures -- they will be murdered if captured as well. They resist such orders, knowing that an enemy that has no hope of surrender will fight to the death rather than be murdered, and that means they have to fight to the death. that just isn't desirable to the soldier.
UnkemptSage 02-16-07, 02:00 PM	Actually, most people that have problems with RoE (like myself), like the rules in it just fine. Its a great book for crunch. What we find innacurate if not flat out wrong is the flavor and "roleplaying insights". Honestly, if you wanna know how the races are *SUPPOSED* to be, read the dragonshards or the racial entries in PGtE. RoE racial fluff is just flat out bad. I was actually reading some of the Dragonshards, and found nothing that conflicted with anything I've read in RoE. It just seems like a "more information" sort of thing. In fact, "The Warforged, Part Two" even referenced RoE for more information. But anyway, back on topic. When I was reading the Dragonshard on warforged, I came across this little tidbit: The warforged possess the same five senses that human beings do: sight, smell, hearing, touch, and even taste. They do not perceive the world in precisely the same way as humans do, and many of these senses are fairly dull in comparison to those of creatures of flesh and blood. But a warforged can smell smoke in the air and can gauge the extent of an injury by the pain that it feels. Many warforged value the magical component known as the tracker mask because it expands their sense of smell, allowing them to experience the world in a new way. But a warforged can still smell strong odors without the mask. That right there would give credence to the argument that warforged do, in fact, feel pain, even if it is somewhat reduced. Sort of a middle ground, it looks like.
ArcTan 02-16-07, 04:35 PM	Arctan, the massive damage says nothing of the sort. It does not explain a medical reason for the effect, and leaves that open to interpretation and explanation by the DM. Your interpretation as "shock" is your opinion, and only as valid as UnkemptSage's interpretation that it is due to pain. Okay, but the only entities that are immune to death by massive damage, by default, are entities that lack living systems altogether (Undead and Constructs). If Massive Damage were a pain effect, one would expect to be able to overcome it by means of some kind of "painkiller" effect, but no such effect exists. Most of the time causing pain without causing damage at the same time increases *nonlethal* damage, not damage. (Note that symbol of pain doesn't actually bring the character any closer to death.) I'm just saying I see no valid reason for Massive Damage to be related to pain. The pain from a really bad wound may knock you out faster, but it doesn't *kill* you. In any case, if we agree-to-disagree here it means that Massive Damage is just as inconclusive about whether warforged feel pain as critical hits are. It doesn't prove anything.
ArcTan 02-16-07, 04:56 PM	It's suicidal to give the injured party choice in the matter. Pain is not an accident, if you believe in evolution (or creation, actually, but let's leave that one alone): it has been biologically developed over millenia. If pain as choice were a survival trait, it would have developed. It didn't. That suggets that anyone with that choice will make a stupid choice at some point and get themselves killed before breeding, making the lack of automatic pain responses a poor design choice. *sigh* Evolutionary biology doesn't prove that everything that exists in the body is a good idea. There are things there that are maladaptive. Or are you going to propose a good evolutionary reason to continue to have the appendix, or wisdom teeth, or the propensity to develop cancer? No, I do not believe "putting pain in perspective" is a good idea for a soldier. It may have taken the west a long time to figure out that "stand or die" is really stupid, but we didn't have as much evidence as Eberron had. 100 years of war is 16 times longer than WW2. Okay. In what situation is "lie on the ground, clutching your wound and screaming uncontrollably" a good idea? *Not* a situation when you've just been shot by a sniper and the sniper is now snooping around to confirm his kill, I'll tell you that. Really? Fighting gets you killed. When damaged, you fight poorly. By fighting when damaged, you are less likely to succeed in killing others, but must be killed yourself. This prevents the enemy from capturing you and using you as a trade to get one of their soldiers back. It is better for the warforged to not fight and trust to the enemy's mercy. This is presuming that pain always does work as a rational, probabilistic indicator of how likely you are to be killed when fighting. It doesn't. You feel the same pain, and the same impulse to lie there helplessly screaming your lungs out, regardless of whether you're surrounded by friendlies who are ready to rescue you, or surrounded by enemies who want to capture you and torture you for information, or surrounded by hungry predators who want to kill you and eat you immediately and have no concept of "mercy", or surrounded by nobody at all. If your pain response -- or your fatigue response, or your fear response, or whatever -- automatically made you do whatever was most beneficial in a combat scenario, 90% of the psychological training they give you in the military would be unnecessary. If you're playing middle ages, most people on the battlefield wanted prisoners that they could ransom. A ransomed prisoner got you a soldier back. So the enemy normally would capture a soldier any time that was a possibility. That goes for common men, not just nobility, BTW. The winners would ransom back the company mascot if they could, since it was profit for the adventure. Yes. However, one should have a rational understanding of whether or not ransom or prisoner exchange is likely before one makes the decision to surrender. One should not give in to one's biological response to freeze up and start screaming in pain or going into shock without thinking. Unfortunately, biology often doesn't give you a choice. Are you assuming that the pain response always serves to act as a sort of caution, preventing people from taking foolish risks they would always take otherwise? This is demonstrably untrue. People in pain simply become more foolish, less rational. Pain can make a soldier become violent and turn and fight when there's no need to just as easily as it can make him turn coward. This is, frankly, because rational thought evolved later than the set of hindbrain responses that make the brain work like a simple machine, and the two systems are not perfectly integrated. That is only one interpretation of pain. Pain that severe means the leg is so damaged it can't be used without further damage. This is where DnD HP and reality break down. There are no mechanics for being "hurt in the leg and unable to walk, but alive and conscious". You are either okay, disabled, dying, uncoscious, or dead. What we are talking about is outside the rules. Okay. We're talking about flavor, as we always have been. I'm saying that it's an interesting and realistic flavor for warforged to feel pain in a different way from human beings -- because warforged did *not* evolve the way human beings did, because warforged's nervous systems do *not* work the way human beings' do, and because, if the artificers did have some degree of control over the warforged, it would be entirely to their advantage to make them this way. (Remember that warforged were not intended to be long-term citizens of the empire but disposable cannon fodder. They weren't so cheap as to be completely disposable, but the point of having the Creaton Forges in the first place is that that does, in fact, make them a hell of a lot cheaper than true constructs.) Your presumption is that the warforged can get back to base without further damage, because there are no rules for the warforged to take further damage when his leg is hurt. The game does not actually have rules for humans in that situation either. I contend that a warforge with that kind of damage would cause himself permanent loss of limb if he attempted to return to base in the same way that a human would, because unless otherwise stated, a warforged and human are the same. Okay. And sometimes permanent loss of limb is acceptable compared to being shot and killed immediately if found by the enemy. It is also, often, acceptable compared to starving to death because you're all alone with no chance of rescue. So, your warforged, ignoring the pain and trying to get back to base, would lose the limb permanently and be useless anyway. He would be better waiting for help, from either side. 1) The side that purchased him from House Cannith would not be better off, if this warforged could potentially be turned or tortured for info or whatever. Remember that warforged, unlike humans, did not evolve to survive and reproduce -- they were constructed to be *tools*, and one of the things we do with our tools is treat them as more disposable than ourselves. 2) This is one hypothetical scenario. It really isn't difficult to construct a scenario in which the warforged has to walk on the injured leg or else simply *die*, or at least be lost forever with no hope of recovery. This is *more true* for the warforged than for the human because, as previously noted, warforged bodies are more durable and modular and easier to fix -- the warforged has *more* incentive in *more* situations to ignore short-term damage in service to long-term goals. And note again that I do not agree with your contention that surrender equates to death, and in a middle ages campaign I more strongly disagree with it than a modern campaign. Soldiers know what happens when they murder their enemy captures -- they will be murdered if captured as well. They resist such orders, knowing that an enemy that has no hope of surrender will fight to the death rather than be murdered, and that means they have to fight to the death. that just isn't desirable to the soldier. Evolution doesn't know crap about medieval warfare, or modern warfare, or anything at all. Evolution is a big dumb hammer that tries to solve problems with the minimal amount of effort, and often makes mistakes. The human brain and human mind are a recent evolutionary experiment that is still struggling to integrate itself and hence has a lot of wrinkles. Mental illness, suicide, sociopathy -- all results of the rational mind and the animal brain not quite fitting together the way we'd like to imagine they do. Your pain response will make you do irrational things regardless of what the situation is. Someone suffering from excruciating pain may mindlessly attack an enemy without pausing to assess the situation or attempt to negotiate. He may linger, paralyzed with pain or with shock, in the wilderness when running a few hundred yards would get him a warm bed and medical treatment -- and he may *die* as a result of this. Someone without the capacity to ignore pain may collapse at the first blow in a fight he might've been able to win if he'd ignored the initial shock of pain -- a fight that may result in his *death*, I again reiterate. The pain doesn't know whether you're facing an honorable enemy who will negotiate for your life or a psychopath bent on revenge who fully intends to torture you to death (or, the most likely scenario in "the wild", a hungry predator who just wants food and will bite and tear your flesh to get it without the capacity to think in terms of long-term reciprocal altruism). The pain isn't intelligent; it can't make that decision, even though that decision may be a *vital* one. You have to make that decision, and to do that you have to overcome pain. All you need to do is open up a book of stories of people in survival situations who did stupid things because they lost the capacity for clear thinking when pushed to the edge to see that our bodies often betray us. The reason the military needs to train you to withstand pain and deal with it and manage it is that we're often terribly poor at this to start out with. Saying the best way to survive danger is to listen to pain and do exactly what it tells you to do is like saying the best way to negotiate a sexual situation is to listen to arousal and do exactly what it tells you to do. It's not a winning choice -- that's why we evolved rational minds capable of resisting or negating our instinctive reactions, and why we with our rational minds came to therefore do so much better than our animal cousins who aren't capable of doing anything but listening to the pain.
Just another user 02-16-07, 05:57 PM	It's suicidal to give the injured party choice in the matter. Pain is not an accident, if you believe in evolution (or creation, actually, but let's leave that one alone): it has been biologically developed over millenia. If pain as choice were a survival trait, it would have developed. It didn't. That suggets that anyone with that choice will make a stupid choice at some point and get themselves killed before breeding, making the lack of automatic pain responses a poor design choice. This is particolary true for children, of course warforged are never really a children, I suppose the praticality for a warforged to be able ot ignore pain depend on how much self conscious are when freshly activated. It is a new warforged prone to keep an hand over an open flame just to see what happen (like a pain-free child would probably do) or it is already smart enough to know that it is a bad idea. Arctan, WF are not immune to stunning. Personally, I think WF feel pain, maybe in a different way from humans, but with the same intensity. Saying that they don't because it is not convenient for them to feel pain don't make sense, if Cannith could do a wf exactly in the way they wanted/more convenient they would come all with some kind of automatic self repair mechanism (i.e. natural healing) but they don't.
ArcTan 02-16-07, 07:39 PM	Arctan, WF are not immune to stunning. Huh. You're right. I feel silly -- I had associated stunning with paralysis, but they're immune to the latter but not the former. This does take a lot of the steam out of my argument. Personally, I think WF feel pain, maybe in a different way from humans, but with the same intensity. Saying that they don't because it is not convenient for them to feel pain don't make sense, if Cannith could do a wf exactly in the way they wanted/more convenient they would come all with some kind of automatic self repair mechanism (i.e. natural healing) but they don't. Granted. I am trying to fit some of the flavor of the novels in with the setting, but it's true that it is looking like leaving the warforged ability to feel pain as standard is the simpler solution.
Kreistor2 02-16-07, 10:06 PM	it's true that it is looking like leaving the warforged ability to feel pain as standard is the simpler solution. Okay, I'm done then. I do suggest one thing: I think you don't know what Shock is. I suggest you crack open an encyclopedia and look up what it really is. It's not caused by pain. It is a symptom of a particular state of the body which precludes movement. You trooper in pain and shock 100 ' from help? He's not going anywhere, even without the pain. Shock is a symptom of the fact his body cannot provide the nutrients and oxygen needed to sustain life. Like I said, look it up if you don't trust me. Shock on Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_%28medical%29)
yrogerg 02-19-07, 11:29 PM	Okay, I'm done then. I do suggest one thing: I think you don't know what Shock is. I suggest you crack open an encyclopedia and look up what it really is. It's not caused by pain. It is a symptom of a particular state of the body which precludes movement. You trooper in pain and shock 100 ' from help? He's not going anywhere, even without the pain. Shock is a symptom of the fact his body cannot provide the nutrients and oxygen needed to sustain life. Like I said, look it up if you don't trust me. Shock on Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_%28medical%29) I actually had assumed he *might* know what hypoperfusion is, but that he recognized that 'shock' is a highly colloquial term that means something very different in many situations, and assumed that since he was talking about neurology and psychology as it pertains to pain management rather than circulatory decompensation in response low blood pressure, the specifics of his meaning would be inferred. Note that you only linked to one -of many- definitions of "shock". After all, to be completely fair, even if we just look at biology, heat shock is very different from insulin shock is very different from septic shock is very different from anaphalaxis is very different from hypoperfusion. Yet, all of them have the word "shock" applied to them. And all of them are *extremely* different from the "system shock" that is Massive Damage is supposed to represent.
TheOneRonin 02-20-07, 11:13 AM	No, I do not believe "putting pain in perspective" is a good idea for a soldier. It may have taken the west a long time to figure out that "stand or die" is really stupid, but we didn't have as much evidence as Eberron had. 100 years of war is 16 times longer than WW2. I disagree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_years_war
Edymnion 02-20-07, 12:54 PM	*sigh* Evolutionary biology doesn't prove that everything that exists in the body is a good idea. There are things there that are maladaptive. Or are you going to propose a good evolutionary reason to continue to have the appendix, or wisdom teeth, or the propensity to develop cancer?Just a nitpick here. The appendix is a functional part of the immune system that plays an active role in your health. It is the fact that your body can compensate for it's loss without appreciable reduction in capability is what gave rise to the mistaken idea that it was vestigal. And wisdom teeth are only "vestigal" in the modern era when we have near perfect dentistry that allows us to keep all of our original teeth. Even as little as a hundred years ago, people that lost molars would benefit from having their wisdom teeth erupt, as it would restore a measure of their chewing ability. And to cap it off, cancer is nothing but the body's own repair system that has suffered damage and can't shut itself off. Modern biology has found that there is very little if anything in the human body that doesn't serve a useful purpose. About the only thing we have that doesn't have a purpose is an actual vestigal nictating membrane (or in laymen's terms, a second pair of eyelids meant to close to protect the eye while in water while still allowing you to see through them) that has shrunk down to being just that little piece of pink tissue at the corners of our eyes. Anything in the body that serves no use is typically removed by nature, as it still costs bodily resources to maintain, which could be put to better use in other areas.
Cifer 02-20-07, 01:13 PM	@TheOneRonin Damn you... more than one page with noone mentioning it and you snipe it away right in front of my posting nose. Basically, I agree with ArcTan: 99% of evolution, including a good deal of instincts and reflexes, was done before humans ever got the idea that roasting a tiger might be a better idea than eating it raw. Thus, if we suppose a soldier knows that there are times when it's better to listen to pain, it is always better for him to be able to control when he gives in to it. Further, ArcTan correctly explained the psychology behind the commanders of the WF: When a WF furthers your goals better by dieing, then that's what he damn well should do! In case of your living soldiers, you might have problems with your conscience or with the populace who needs to be assured that the loss of their beloved sons and daughters was neccessary, but noone cares for the metal boys, not during the war. About the "picking at it only makes it worse", there is something very interesting with WF: When he is disabled, he cannot become worse by strenuous activity. It'll take him days to return to his camp because of being unable to use double-move actions (unless he repairs himself, which is what he probably will do), but it will always be better for him than just lying there. About pain, I prefer the view presented by Pierce: There is a signal telling the WF that slowing down and reconsidering one's actions might be a good idea and that he can only take so-much more of it, but the ultimate decision of what to do always remains within the WF's hands. We were never talking about people who don't notice pain at all, merely about those that can choose to ignore it, which, as has been said, is what military training boils down to. I also prefer using different explanations for the conditions of warforged: While they have a certain amount of internal damage control (lifewood roots shutting themselves off to avoid "bleeding" of the internal fluids), massive damage is just too much for it. Critical hits are simply important bits (the pieces where the armor is joined to the substructure, the "sinews" or whatever) being hit. Being stunned results from sensory overload and the resulting disorientation,... Finally, to come back to the question of the OP: I'd say magical pain would induce the same thing humans feel, while other pain is muted. Thus, other methods of torture would be more practical.
TheOneRonin 02-20-07, 02:43 PM	@TheOneRonin Damn you... more than one page with noone mentioning it and you snipe it away right in front of my posting nose. Heh...I just hit this thread for the first time today. I read the part about WWII being the point of reference for long running wars and was like "WTF???" I just couldn't let it slide. ;-)
Vharuck 02-20-07, 07:18 PM	Pain is our body's way of saying "this is bad." Much like fear. We avoid fear like we avoid pain. The wound isn't what debilitates us; the strength of our body's message is. Warforged bodies feel pain and will avoid it, so torturing them is reasonable.
Cifer 02-20-07, 07:40 PM	Heh...I just hit this thread for the first time today. I read the part about WWII being the point of reference for long running wars and was like "WTF???" To go for some prejudices, I find it funny that when talking about wars, it seems to be American belief that besides the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afghanistan/Iraq and possibly the crusades there were about no noteworthy ones...
yrogerg 02-20-07, 10:33 PM	Just a nitpick here. The appendix is a functional part of the immune system that plays an active role in your health. It is the fact that your body can compensate for it's loss without appreciable reduction in capability is what gave rise to the mistaken idea that it was vestigal. Source? I've never heard this before, and Wikipedia and a couple more minutes of research indicates that the appendix is largely regarded as having no functional purpose in humans -to the point that some laparotomy patients have been discovered to lack appendices, with no discernible loss of function. And wisdom teeth are only "vestigal" in the modern era when we have near perfect dentistry that allows us to keep all of our original teeth. Even as little as a hundred years ago, people that lost molars would benefit from having their wisdom teeth erupt, as it would restore a measure of their chewing ability. I'm not going to dispute this. This is a plausable theory, and I'm sure there are more. Thing is, this the sort of thing that becomes a very speculative exercise very quickly. And to cap it off, cancer is nothing but the body's own repair system that has suffered damage and can't shut itself off. It is? I thought it was largely a failure of apoptosis, the main purpose of which is to prevent cancer. And honestly, that's not even the difference between a benign tumor (even benign growths can keep growing in a self-contained manner: most of these are only problematic when they become big enough to interfere significantly with nearby organs) and a malignant, invasive cancer. If anything, cancer is due to a *failure* of the immune response in weeding out malignant cells. Modern biology has found that there is very little if anything in the human body that doesn't serve a useful purpose. About the only thing we have that doesn't have a purpose is an actual vestigal nictating membrane (or in laymen's terms, a second pair of eyelids meant to close to protect the eye while in water while still allowing you to see through them) that has shrunk down to being just that little piece of pink tissue at the corners of our eyes. Anything in the body that serves no use is typically removed by nature, as it still costs bodily resources to maintain, which could be put to better use in other areas. Photosensitive sneeze reflexes? Dermic ridges in humans? Handedness? Male nipples? The human spine and pelvic girdle's irritating tendency to fail later in life? Red hair? The process of sexual selection overall (which is itself an out-of-control and wasteful artifact of normal selection)? The thing is, natural selection's a blind process, a reactive process, and a gradual process. As you yourself point out, it still takes a great deal of time for selective forces to act, and barring an actual selective force at work (such as a situation of serious energetic scarcity), evolution is very bad at paring down wasteful features. And as Arctan mentioned, humans' cranial capacity is a relatively recent development, and it still has lots of bugs that haven't been worked out (not only mental illness, but also a vastly increased risk of birth complications, as well as severe strain on the body's structural supports (hips and spine) due to the combination of upright walk and major top-loading.
ArcTan 02-21-07, 01:21 PM	Pain is our body's way of saying "this is bad." Much like fear. We avoid fear like we avoid pain. The wound isn't what debilitates us; the strength of our body's message is. Warforged bodies feel pain and will avoid it, so torturing them is reasonable. I'm not going to try to argue that WF necessarily have a completely different neurological response to pain than humans do. But it makes a lot of sense that WF come out of the box with a lot of the training that allows soldiers to deal with pain better than civilians do. The simple, untrained animal response to pain is often a bad thing, or we wouldn't need military training at all. That doesn't make the pain response itself bad, but it means that if you want to take full advantage of being an intelligent, rational being you need to be able to put the pain in perspective and deal with it. I would actually regard part of pain management as being represented by something as simple as a hit die. The more levels you have (i.e. the more experience you have with combat and with danger) the more whacks it takes to put you down. Part of this is sheer physical hardiness, maybe, but a lot more of it comes down to skill *and* the ability to keep on going when wounded. So a 20th-level Wizard has more HP than a Commoner because, even being a non-front-line combatant, he's seen enough combat to be able to steel himself against serious blows and keep going (his Concentration skill check also represents this). A Fighter gets hit more often and so learns this faster and better than the Wizard, with his d10 HD. A Barbarian has the biggest HD of all thanks to living his whole life without the comforts of civilization and having to deal with pain on a frequent basis. But remember what Keith said about the standard warforged NPC? Almost all warforged come out with two Fighter levels, standard, which means that a blow that wound incapacitate an average human soldier (level-1 Warrior) with pain (10 points of nonlethal damage) a warforged can absorb and keep on going. I would attribute some of this to training, but some also to the nature of the warforged, who were built to be warriors to begin with.
Cifer 02-21-07, 02:04 PM	Almost all warforged come out with two Fighter levels, standard, which means that a blow that wound incapacitate an average human soldier (level-1 Warrior) with pain (10 points of nonlethal damage) a warforged can absorb and keep on going. Actually, if you read the thread on Riedra vs. Khorvaire, Keith also mentions that the majority of the regiments fielded by the five nations consist of Commoner 1 characters - peasants drafted from their fields and given a rudimentary training. If you compare that to a WF fighter 2, they are beginning to look really good.
Grummush_Rogue 02-21-07, 05:41 PM	3 words. Heat. Metal. Spell.:schemes: :schemes: :schemes:
UnderworldLord 02-21-07, 05:46 PM	or chill, or rust. Maybe even if the warforged didn't feel pain, I imagine it'd blow for you're armor to turn to slag, or become so frail it can be chipped off with a tiny hammer. There are plenty of possibilities beyond you're average torture. Get creative. ow if were discussing if they can produce liquid pain... thats a different matter completely worthy of this discussion.
DarkSamuraiKyo 02-22-07, 09:35 AM	Torturing Warforged and no idea how well let's look at similar races from other sources the only ones I can think of are the Terminators and the Transformers. The Terminators felt no pain of anykind they did however have the ability to determine amount of damage and where the damage was but they were unaffected as pain would go they slowed done due to critical injuries such as key parts being turn to slag but for the most part they kept coming. In the case of the Transformers they felt pain to a degree but like the Terminator it didn't slow them down (unless acid base damage) they kept fighting or moving however in the Transformers their are flaws that could be use to torture them one is that the Autobots fought for freedom and peace they would not strike a hapless foe nor will they strike if a innocent bystander is in the way of their foe the Decepticons are not as flawed but still able to be tortured how I really don't know it wasn't shown in none of the seasons nor mention in the books or comics Basically what I'm getting at is that it no matter what books you read no matter what you think of pain the Warforged are machines to really Torture them you will have to know how the player have them what flaws they have (like do they have a sense of honor? or do they hate all "flesh creatures"?) then exploit it it isn't torture in the normal sense but to a Warforged it is (if it is taught honor it will be tortued knowing the fact whether it chose to give the information in exchange for saving a innocent bystander or to remain undyingly loyal to its cause someone dies after awhile it will choose to save the one. For one who hates the other races to be defeated by one is torture to it)
ArcTan 02-22-07, 03:36 PM	Torturing Warforged and no idea how well let's look at similar races from other sources the only ones I can think of are the Terminators and the Transformers. Er, you know that's less than useless, right? Because those "sources" aren't made by anyone affiliated with WotC, and WotC didn't stat up the WF to be at all similar to those races? The main reason "Warforged aren't robots" became a mantra on these boards was to prevent facile arguments based on assuming WF have exactly the same characteristics as some robot-like thing from some random other SF or fantasy milieu -- because there are really enough of those that you could find one that could do anything, if you looked hard enough. I don't think that WF are immune to pain in the sense some people are saying. I do think that they have a greater control over the way they sense pain than an ordinary human does -- this would only be logical to assume for a race that was at all "made for war" to a greater degree than an ordinary human, and is born out by flavor in books
DarkSamuraiKyo 02-22-07, 04:23 PM	Er, you know that's less than useless, right? Because those "sources" aren't made by anyone affiliated with WotC, and WotC didn't stat up the WF to be at all similar to those races? The main reason "Warforged aren't robots" became a mantra on these boards was to prevent facile arguments based on assuming WF have exactly the same characteristics as some robot-like thing from some random other SF or fantasy milieu -- because there are really enough of those that you could find one that could do anything, if you looked hard enough. I don't think that WF are immune to pain in the sense some people are saying. I do think that they have a greater control over the way they sense pain than an ordinary human does -- this would only be logical to assume for a race that was at all "made for war" to a greater degree than an ordinary human, and is born out by flavor in books Yes I know they weren't made by WotC but my point was based on how these "outside sources" dealt with pain and for your information WotC made Races of Eberron Yet many bash it and say it's useless so tell me if ROE is useless but was made by WotC then WHAT are you suppose to look at for ways to torture Warforged Well? Aslo their are threads here that have people make refence to the Transformers just to let you know. Now I do agree with you about the Warforged able to feel pain that's what I was trying to point out by using the Terminator and the Transformers they are similar enough to the Warforged all three are made from materials that aren't able to "Feel" anything. For us humans the reasons we are so easily affected is that not only do our brains "detect" the pain but our skin and blood cells feel it as well do to being design to do so why after we feel enough pain we start to slow down movements or start to retreat from whatever is causing us pain or in the case of Torture do whoever is torturing us wants us to do. Now back to the Warforged yes they have all five senses we humans have but they are "duller" then ours its hard to feel the surface of a table if you "skin" is Adamantine now is it with this they do feel pain but its like the Terminator and Transformers in that the Warforged "Brain" goes 75% damage to leg or something to that degree so using pain as way to torture a Warforged won't work they don't react to it as WE would which I was trying to point out to torture a Warforged one must use its "Flaws" against it if you are one of those people who go "ROE is stupid and shouldn't be used" because throwing that out is throwing out one of the most effective methods of torturing a Warforged they are afraid of being rendered inert because the world continues on without them not caring what happens to them and they have no input what so ever.
ArcTan 02-22-07, 05:26 PM	Yes I know they weren't made by WotC but my point was based on how these "outside sources" dealt with pain and for your information WotC made Races of Eberron Yet many bash it and say it's useless so tell me if ROE is useless but was made by WotC then WHAT are you suppose to look at for ways to torture Warforged Well? Well, if there's no clear consensus on it, you could just make things up. The thing being that just making something up doesn't actually get more "canonical" or more valid because you can compare it to some random other work of fiction. FWIW, I think that regardless of how WF feel pain, physical damage is a fine means of torture -- even if the pain isn't as intense as a human might experience it, all WF with a sense of self-preservation will fear permanent damage to their bodies. Yes, you could also use psychological torture of various kinds, but this will be *even less* effective on your average WF than a human, at least in a Last War context, because most WF have almost no experiences or history or friends outside of their training for war, and there will be little they care about that you could exploit. WF were uniformly trained to be obedient, unquestioning soldiers who served their superiors, and didn't have the opportunity to develop random cultural artifacts like a sense of abstract honor or a sense of racial pride until after Thronehold. (Neither of these would *at all* be the kind of thing House Cannith would want a warforged to develop, especially the racial pride.) Aslo their are threads here that have people make refence to the Transformers just to let you know. Sure. People reference all kinds of things. Usually as a joke. The Transformers are so different from warforged not only in the whole concept of the setting but also in the whole concept of what they are that I don't see what valid insight you could gain from it. (Maybe if the warforged have millions of years to evolve into a bizarre hivemind "technorganic" consciousness on their own planet filled with nothing but warforged.) Now I do agree with you about the Warforged able to feel pain that's what I was trying to point out by using the Terminator and the Transformers they are similar enough to the Warforged all three are made from materials that aren't able to "Feel" anything. For us humans the reasons we are so easily affected is that not only do our brains "detect" the pain but our skin and blood cells feel it as well do to being design to do so why after we feel enough pain we start to slow down movements or start to retreat from whatever is causing us pain or in the case of Torture do whoever is torturing us wants us to do. Er, this is not actually true. Skin and blood don't feel anything. Only nerves are capable of sensation. The important thing about nerves is that they are designed to sense damage and respond to it. Though you could argue the philosophical point, there's nothing magic about biology that gives it the power to feel pain -- pain is just the sensation of damage and the response to it, which can be programmed into artificial sensors just as easily as it's felt by our natural sensors -- and natural tissue that lacks sensors will be just as dull to pain as artificial tissue. My argument about warforged being less sensitive to pain has to do with the fact that humans, unlike the blind forces of evolution, could exert more direct control over how WF experience pain and would find their WF slaves more useful if they were less sensitive to it. Now back to the Warforged yes they have all five senses we humans have but they are "duller" then ours its hard to feel the surface of a table if you "skin" is Adamantine now is it with this they do feel pain but its like the Terminator and Transformers in that the Warforged "Brain" goes 75% damage to leg or something to that degree so using pain as way to torture a Warforged won't work they don't react to it as WE would which I was trying to point out to torture a Warforged one must use its "Flaws" against it if you are one of those people who go "ROE is stupid and shouldn't be used" because throwing that out is throwing out one of the most effective methods of torturing a Warforged they are afraid of being rendered inert because the world continues on without them not caring what happens to them and they have no input what so ever. You might want to learn to use periods a little more often than that, if you want people to read all the way through your posts. But yes, I imagine an adamantine shell might be less sensitive to sensation than skin would be, though this isn't necessarily true -- it's all down to the nature and sensitivity of the sensors you put in it. (Skin is more easily damaged than adamantine, but if you put pain sensors that are highly sensitive and widely distributed in the adamantine they'll feel pain very easily and quickly, while if you numb the skin the skin will feel no pain even as it's getting ripped and burned.) In any case, what RoE was talking about was something that warforged fear, being rendered inert, sure -- but this is just a version of humans' fear of being rendered unconscious or dead. It is a bit of evidence that WF might be less fearful of direct damage and more fearful of long-term consequences than humans, but not clear evidence either way.
Anguirus23 02-24-07, 02:28 AM	They break. Oh, yes, they do. They reveal what they weren't supposed to, and they know it was just a challenge. Sorry for the late reply. Of course people "crack" and say all kinds of stuff under torture. But it is inherently unreliable, because you will say whatever it takes to get the torture to stop. If you don't know the answer to the question (ostensibly why you torture in the first place) then you cannot trust the info you get. John McCain's experience in Hanoi is a good example of this. He gave them names of football players that did them no good at all, and they were none the wiser. Only a fool trusts information derived from torture. Call it "leftist propaganda" if you will, but it's really just elementary logic. Of course, it might just work on a warforged who's not creative enough to lie. But you still have to devise a method for getting to a creature who's simply not as sensitive as a human, according to all the fluff. (Although the laughably low-level Power Word Pain would be an elegant solution in "wide magic" Eberron.)
yrogerg 02-24-07, 11:26 AM	Sorry for the late reply. Of course people "crack" and say all kinds of stuff under torture. But it is inherently unreliable, because you will say whatever it takes to get the torture to stop. If you don't know the answer to the question (ostensibly why you torture in the first place) then you cannot trust the info you get. John McCain's experience in Hanoi is a good example of this. He gave them names of football players that did them no good at all, and they were none the wiser. Only a fool trusts information derived from torture. Call it "leftist propaganda" if you will, but it's really just elementary logic. Of course, it might just work on a warforged who's not creative enough to lie. But you still have to devise a method for getting to a creature who's simply not as sensitive as a human, according to all the fluff. (Although the laughably low-level Power Word Pain would be an elegant solution in "wide magic" Eberron.) All true. It's worth noting, however, that because of that, many of the most effective torture methods don't rely on pain, and instead play off peoples' natural fear of drowing, or the euphoria that follows near-hypothermia, or a number of similar things. And at the very least, most of *these* would be woefully ineffective on a Warforged: why would a WF be afraid of drowing? Or be bothered by sleep deprivation? Or starvation? Honestly, I think regardles of how they feel pain, Warforged would be notably more difficult to crack with conventional torture. Also, there are presumably cases in intellegence-gathering, where lies are useful, too: they let you know how much the enemy thinks you know, and if they're wrong, they're still letting valuable information slip.
ArcTan 02-24-07, 11:27 AM	Of course, it might just work on a warforged who's not creative enough to lie. But you still have to devise a method for getting to a creature who's simply not as sensitive as a human, according to all the fluff. (Although the laughably low-level Power Word Pain would be an elegant solution in "wide magic" Eberron.) Not to mention, physiological considerations aside, that you're dealing with someone with training far, far more ingrained than that of even the most dedicated human soldier, who's been taught since his birth to regard himself as a tool of war and defeat for his side to be equivalent to his own death. In order to make the choice to send your side to defeat in order to preserve your own life, you need to be able to see your own life independently of your side's military success -- you need to have a life back home you desperately want to get back to when the war is over. Warforged were not made to have this basic sense of self-preservation. They *develop* it, yes -- gaining a personal fear of death is the first step most Warforged take toward gaining an independent identity, according to Keith Baker's Dragonshard. But this is something that takes time for them and is intentionally opposed by all their training, not something that they've taken for granted since childhood as most humans do.
Anguirus23 02-24-07, 01:19 PM	who's been taught since his birth to regard himself as a tool of war and defeat for his side to be equivalent to his own death. Really? I thought that many warforged had a somewhat flexible idea of what their "side" was during the war, and that captured ones typically switched their allegiance? Seems to me that most warforged that have lived any length of time in the real world has the self-preservation thing down. A very new or very dedicated warforged would be a tough nut to crack, true, but the typical "2nd level fighter" warforged didn't strike me as fanatically devoted.
turalisj 02-24-07, 06:46 PM	*quietly starts to sneak away*
NerdNumber1 02-25-07, 12:50 PM	Non-pain, psychological tortures would be the cruelest torture. Start a cycle of deactivation and reactivation, but make sure nothing is the same when they wake up. The only imputs they get are what you give them. Try different outfits, use illusions to make them lose all sense of what's real, take the form of their friends to damage them, and your own form to repair them. Sometimes they will wake up in a swirlling chaos, sometimes in a forge, sometimes on a battle field. Make them think millenia have passed when only a few minutes have. Modify their very body while they rest. Do this until they cannot tell friend from foe, up from down, and reality from illusion.
ArcTan 02-26-07, 04:25 PM	Really? I thought that many warforged had a somewhat flexible idea of what their "side" was during the war, and that captured ones typically switched their allegiance? If Warforged had a reputation for doing this, it would make them far less appealing as soldiers.
Cromag 02-28-07, 01:43 AM	I just treat it like the terminator since he was an intelligent self aware construct. They recognize damage and even have reflexes built in to flinch at pain as a way to maintain the self. However they have the option to ignore it and not feel any degree of suffering from it if they make the conscious decision.
Crashy75 03-01-07, 01:35 AM	I imagine that the warforged would know if his body was damaged but would not actually 'feel' pain in the same way that a biological would. Like Arnie in Terminator.
ORC_Paradox 03-01-07, 03:29 AM	Lock a Warforged in a room with a Kender. That will do the trick, one way or another. I agree though, that they would know they are damaged, but wouldn't "feel" the pain. They were designed for war. It would be useless if they were damaged in combat and fell to the ground screaming in pain.