Warforged Q's [Archive] - Wizards Community

Warforged Q's [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Audious
02-12-08, 07:12 PM Warforged were built for combat, for the most part, correct?

Wouldn't most Warforged need to have some sort of basic combat-related class, such as rogue, scout, fighter, etc.?

How could you justify a level 6 Warforged Wizard with no levels in anything else?
Edymnion
02-12-08, 08:42 PM Warforged were built for combat, for the most part, correct?Close, but not quite. They were built to be replacements for human troops. They were built to be soldiers.Wouldn't most Warforged need to have some sort of basic combat-related class, such as rogue, scout, fighter, etc.?Yes, hence Warforged having Favored Class: Fighter. As in, they take no penalties when multiclassing as a fighter, because its second nature to them.How could you justify a level 6 Warforged Wizard with no levels in anything else?Because it was originally ordered by Aundair to suppliment their arcane spellcasters in combat?

Remember, Warforged are soldiers, not just melee fighters. Any role you can imagine being required in a magic rich army is a role that was being filled somewhere, somehow, by a Warforged. Why spend years and years training a human wizard for artillery service, when you can buy a WF with the same skill and training in a matter of months?
ArcTan
02-12-08, 09:15 PM A Warforged Wizard, based on the existing fluff, would be pretty rare -- for fairly obvious reasons, Warforged seem to have been rarely trained in magic and when they were it was usually as an Artificer -- but PCs are allowed to be rare and unusual, and experimenting with the different capabilities of Warforged and what you can teach them to do was definitely a big part of what House Cannith was doing all through the war.

Note that to be an *optimized* Wizard, the Warforged would need to have either the default composite plating (no body feat) or the Unarmored Body feat, both of which are stated to be quite uncommon.
AlHazred
02-12-08, 10:36 PM Classes in D&D are more a measure of "what you tend to learn easily" as opposed to "the only things you can do." Another point to be made is that not all warforged emerged as intended; due to the rushed nature of the construction of warforged, "flawed" warforged emerged with unintended abilities -- this is the likely origin for a warforged with "odd" and "ill-starred" abilities, such as warlock warforged, or hexblade warforged.

Just about the only class I can't see a warforged taking levels in is aristocrat, and even then I'm not sure -- you'd need specific administrators for the nobles in the Army, and the aristocrat base class has just about the perfect skill set for those. And being attache to all those nobles would be a great reason to have a lot of Contacts...
OctaviusIII
02-13-08, 03:56 AM I'm sure there are a couple aristocratic warforged, but I'd be surprised if they had Aristocrat levels. Rather, they're probably Experts (probably exceedingly rare) or classy rogues (probably much more common). After all, rogue is mentioned as one of the classes you'd often find among ambassadors and diplomats.
Gurv
02-13-08, 06:30 AM What others have said about warforged being created as soldiers, not just as warriors, is right on the money. In a magical war, spellcasters are just as important as anything else.

Also, note that on the chart for determining age, warforged wizards are likely to be younger than warforged fighters. This is meant to indicate that most of the original warforged created for the Last War were fighters and other melee-types. Later warforged were designed for other purposes, as techniques for making them improved. The youngest warforged (those created right at the end of the war) have also had more opportunity to do what they please instead of being instantly recruited into a wartime role.
RedRider
02-13-08, 01:05 PM Spoilers for DM-Knowledge:
Also, don't forget Merrix d'Cannith is still making warforged in the depths of Sharn. He might be experimenting with making warforged spellcasters for his research.

And the Lord of Blades might be able to recover a creation forge and get it to work. Trying to create more warforged spellcasters would make sense, since his followers are probably all more combat-orientated.
ArcTan
02-13-08, 05:17 PM What others have said about warforged being created as soldiers, not just as warriors, is right on the money. In a magical war, spellcasters are just as important as anything else.

However, the OP is not wrong -- the fluff *does* downplay the existence of any Warforged spellcasters. It says that almost all Warforged who learned magic learned how to be Artificers, for the sake of repairing other Warforged -- there are very, very good reasons why House Cannith was leery about putting magical power in the hands of its slave-soldiers.

A Warforged Wizard would almost certainly be some kind of maverick experiment rather than a standard soldier made for the war. No army is recorded as *ever* having ordered a contingent of Warforged artillery-mages -- it's not clear that anyone even thought that was possible, and it's not the kind of thing they would've felt safe doing.
clayball
02-19-08, 01:14 PM The Warforged that are being illegally manufactured by Merrix d'Cannith could be trained in any class, including wizard.
skrap-san
02-19-08, 01:18 PM I don't have a problem seeing Merrix just placing newborn warforged on the streats to see the effects it has. But I have always seen him as a bit of a crazy scientist type.
ArcTan
02-24-08, 08:26 PM A Merrix WF is a good default for a "generic PC" Warforged, since very few WF that are actually veterans of the Last War will be starting at level 1.
LunarWolfPrime
02-24-08, 08:34 PM A Warforged Wizard, based on the existing fluff, would be pretty rare -- for fairly obvious reasons, Warforged seem to have been rarely trained in magic and when they were it was usually as an Artificer -- but PCs are allowed to be rare and unusual, and experimenting with the different capabilities of Warforged and what you can teach them to do was definitely a big part of what House Cannith was doing all through the war.

Note that to be an *optimized* Wizard, the Warforged would need to have either the default composite plating (no body feat) or the Unarmored Body feat, both of which are stated to be quite uncommon.

yeah but Warforged artificers are not oh and back to the wizard comment just take the mithral plateing.
Edymnion
02-24-08, 09:02 PM However, the OP is not wrong -- the fluff *does* downplay the existence of any Warforged spellcasters. It says that almost all Warforged who learned magic learned how to be Artificers, for the sake of repairing other Warforged -- there are very, very good reasons why House Cannith was leery about putting magical power in the hands of its slave-soldiers.Which of course is contrary to your earlier point. An Artificer can be far more lethal at low levels than a sorcerer or wizard can be. Bane on that crossbow, and he's suddenly outdamaging pretty much everything else of his level.

So, if the problem is "don't give the slaves too much power", Artificer is the *LAST* thing you would be training them as. Far better to train them as Sorcerers and only let them learn non-offensive spells, and then use easy to control wands for combat. The kind they would be required to check in and out, charges tracked, etc.
LunarWolfPrime
02-24-08, 09:06 PM Which of course is contrary to your earlier point. An Artificer can be far more lethal at low levels than a sorcerer or wizard can be. Bane on that crossbow, and he's suddenly outdamaging pretty much everything else of his level.

So, if the problem is "don't give the slaves too much power", Artificer is the *LAST* thing you would be training them as. Far better to train them as Sorcerers and only let them learn non-offensive spells, and then use easy to control wands for combat. The kind they would be required to check in and out, charges tracked, etc.

Do not forget the spellcarved warforged
ArcTan
02-27-08, 01:40 AM Which of course is contrary to your earlier point. An Artificer can be far more lethal at low levels than a sorcerer or wizard can be. Bane on that crossbow, and he's suddenly outdamaging pretty much everything else of his level.

So, if the problem is "don't give the slaves too much power", Artificer is the *LAST* thing you would be training them as. Far better to train them as Sorcerers and only let them learn non-offensive spells, and then use easy to control wands for combat. The kind they would be required to check in and out, charges tracked, etc.

Artificers need components for almost everything they do, including the infusions. Sorcerers don't.

From an in-game in-story perspective, I also never actually got the impression that Sorcerers can control what spells they get. You, the player, get to pick, sure, just like you-the-player get to pick what feats your character has and what race and class she starts out as, but Sorcerers' talents are supposed to be wild and random.

In any case, I'm just giving you the fluff as it was presented in the Dragonshard -- relatively few Warforged have any magic at all, and of those almost all of them are Artificers. This probably has something to do with what they wanted to consciously encourage in Warforged, and something to do with the nature of Warforged themselves.
Edymnion
02-29-08, 09:12 PM Artificers need components for almost everything they do, including the infusions. Sorcerers don't.Sorcerers require material components just like everybody else.From an in-game in-story perspective, I also never actually got the impression that Sorcerers can control what spells they get. You, the player, get to pick, sure, just like you-the-player get to pick what feats your character has and what race and class she starts out as, but Sorcerers' talents are supposed to be wild and random.Sorcerers can research a new spell just like a Wizard can, so they obviously have some degree of control over what they learn. They can also choose to forget how to cast a spell at level up, so they have a degree of control there as well.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Audious 02-12-08, 07:12 PM	Warforged were built for combat, for the most part, correct? Wouldn't most Warforged need to have some sort of basic combat-related class, such as rogue, scout, fighter, etc.? How could you justify a level 6 Warforged Wizard with no levels in anything else?
Edymnion 02-12-08, 08:42 PM	Warforged were built for combat, for the most part, correct?Close, but not quite. They were built to be replacements for human troops. They were built to be soldiers.Wouldn't most Warforged need to have some sort of basic combat-related class, such as rogue, scout, fighter, etc.?Yes, hence Warforged having Favored Class: Fighter. As in, they take no penalties when multiclassing as a fighter, because its second nature to them.How could you justify a level 6 Warforged Wizard with no levels in anything else?Because it was originally ordered by Aundair to suppliment their arcane spellcasters in combat? Remember, Warforged are soldiers, not just melee fighters. Any role you can imagine being required in a magic rich army is a role that was being filled somewhere, somehow, by a Warforged. Why spend years and years training a human wizard for artillery service, when you can buy a WF with the same skill and training in a matter of months?
ArcTan 02-12-08, 09:15 PM	A Warforged Wizard, based on the existing fluff, would be pretty rare -- for fairly obvious reasons, Warforged seem to have been rarely trained in magic and when they were it was usually as an Artificer -- but PCs are allowed to be rare and unusual, and experimenting with the different capabilities of Warforged and what you can teach them to do was definitely a big part of what House Cannith was doing all through the war. Note that to be an optimized Wizard, the Warforged would need to have either the default composite plating (no body feat) or the Unarmored Body feat, both of which are stated to be quite uncommon.
AlHazred 02-12-08, 10:36 PM	Classes in D&D are more a measure of "what you tend to learn easily" as opposed to "the only things you can do." Another point to be made is that not all warforged emerged as intended; due to the rushed nature of the construction of warforged, "flawed" warforged emerged with unintended abilities -- this is the likely origin for a warforged with "odd" and "ill-starred" abilities, such as warlock warforged, or hexblade warforged. Just about the only class I can't see a warforged taking levels in is aristocrat, and even then I'm not sure -- you'd need specific administrators for the nobles in the Army, and the aristocrat base class has just about the perfect skill set for those. And being attache to all those nobles would be a great reason to have a lot of Contacts...
OctaviusIII 02-13-08, 03:56 AM	I'm sure there are a couple aristocratic warforged, but I'd be surprised if they had Aristocrat levels. Rather, they're probably Experts (probably exceedingly rare) or classy rogues (probably much more common). After all, rogue is mentioned as one of the classes you'd often find among ambassadors and diplomats.
Gurv 02-13-08, 06:30 AM	What others have said about warforged being created as soldiers, not just as warriors, is right on the money. In a magical war, spellcasters are just as important as anything else. Also, note that on the chart for determining age, warforged wizards are likely to be younger than warforged fighters. This is meant to indicate that most of the original warforged created for the Last War were fighters and other melee-types. Later warforged were designed for other purposes, as techniques for making them improved. The youngest warforged (those created right at the end of the war) have also had more opportunity to do what they please instead of being instantly recruited into a wartime role.
RedRider 02-13-08, 01:05 PM	Spoilers for DM-Knowledge: Also, don't forget Merrix d'Cannith is still making warforged in the depths of Sharn. He might be experimenting with making warforged spellcasters for his research. And the Lord of Blades might be able to recover a creation forge and get it to work. Trying to create more warforged spellcasters would make sense, since his followers are probably all more combat-orientated.
ArcTan 02-13-08, 05:17 PM	What others have said about warforged being created as soldiers, not just as warriors, is right on the money. In a magical war, spellcasters are just as important as anything else. However, the OP is not wrong -- the fluff does downplay the existence of any Warforged spellcasters. It says that almost all Warforged who learned magic learned how to be Artificers, for the sake of repairing other Warforged -- there are very, very good reasons why House Cannith was leery about putting magical power in the hands of its slave-soldiers. A Warforged Wizard would almost certainly be some kind of maverick experiment rather than a standard soldier made for the war. No army is recorded as ever having ordered a contingent of Warforged artillery-mages -- it's not clear that anyone even thought that was possible, and it's not the kind of thing they would've felt safe doing.
clayball 02-19-08, 01:14 PM	The Warforged that are being illegally manufactured by Merrix d'Cannith could be trained in any class, including wizard.
skrap-san 02-19-08, 01:18 PM	I don't have a problem seeing Merrix just placing newborn warforged on the streats to see the effects it has. But I have always seen him as a bit of a crazy scientist type.
ArcTan 02-24-08, 08:26 PM	A Merrix WF is a good default for a "generic PC" Warforged, since very few WF that are actually veterans of the Last War will be starting at level 1.
LunarWolfPrime 02-24-08, 08:34 PM	A Warforged Wizard, based on the existing fluff, would be pretty rare -- for fairly obvious reasons, Warforged seem to have been rarely trained in magic and when they were it was usually as an Artificer -- but PCs are allowed to be rare and unusual, and experimenting with the different capabilities of Warforged and what you can teach them to do was definitely a big part of what House Cannith was doing all through the war. Note that to be an optimized Wizard, the Warforged would need to have either the default composite plating (no body feat) or the Unarmored Body feat, both of which are stated to be quite uncommon. yeah but Warforged artificers are not oh and back to the wizard comment just take the mithral plateing.
Edymnion 02-24-08, 09:02 PM	However, the OP is not wrong -- the fluff does downplay the existence of any Warforged spellcasters. It says that almost all Warforged who learned magic learned how to be Artificers, for the sake of repairing other Warforged -- there are very, very good reasons why House Cannith was leery about putting magical power in the hands of its slave-soldiers.Which of course is contrary to your earlier point. An Artificer can be far more lethal at low levels than a sorcerer or wizard can be. Bane on that crossbow, and he's suddenly outdamaging pretty much everything else of his level. So, if the problem is "don't give the slaves too much power", Artificer is the LAST thing you would be training them as. Far better to train them as Sorcerers and only let them learn non-offensive spells, and then use easy to control wands for combat. The kind they would be required to check in and out, charges tracked, etc.
LunarWolfPrime 02-24-08, 09:06 PM	Which of course is contrary to your earlier point. An Artificer can be far more lethal at low levels than a sorcerer or wizard can be. Bane on that crossbow, and he's suddenly outdamaging pretty much everything else of his level. So, if the problem is "don't give the slaves too much power", Artificer is the LAST thing you would be training them as. Far better to train them as Sorcerers and only let them learn non-offensive spells, and then use easy to control wands for combat. The kind they would be required to check in and out, charges tracked, etc. Do not forget the spellcarved warforged
ArcTan 02-27-08, 01:40 AM	Which of course is contrary to your earlier point. An Artificer can be far more lethal at low levels than a sorcerer or wizard can be. Bane on that crossbow, and he's suddenly outdamaging pretty much everything else of his level. So, if the problem is "don't give the slaves too much power", Artificer is the LAST thing you would be training them as. Far better to train them as Sorcerers and only let them learn non-offensive spells, and then use easy to control wands for combat. The kind they would be required to check in and out, charges tracked, etc. Artificers need components for almost everything they do, including the infusions. Sorcerers don't. From an in-game in-story perspective, I also never actually got the impression that Sorcerers can control what spells they get. You, the player, get to pick, sure, just like you-the-player get to pick what feats your character has and what race and class she starts out as, but Sorcerers' talents are supposed to be wild and random. In any case, I'm just giving you the fluff as it was presented in the Dragonshard -- relatively few Warforged have any magic at all, and of those almost all of them are Artificers. This probably has something to do with what they wanted to consciously encourage in Warforged, and something to do with the nature of Warforged themselves.
Edymnion 02-29-08, 09:12 PM	Artificers need components for almost everything they do, including the infusions. Sorcerers don't.Sorcerers require material components just like everybody else.From an in-game in-story perspective, I also never actually got the impression that Sorcerers can control what spells they get. You, the player, get to pick, sure, just like you-the-player get to pick what feats your character has and what race and class she starts out as, but Sorcerers' talents are supposed to be wild and random.Sorcerers can research a new spell just like a Wizard can, so they obviously have some degree of control over what they learn. They can also choose to forget how to cast a spell at level up, so they have a degree of control there as well.