Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DarkWarriorKarg 06-19-07, 12:03 PM	Well, Thanks to FoW, we now know the wartime purchase price of a warforged... A dozen warforged for the price of a shield guardian... 10000 gp per warforged.
CannibalSmith 06-19-07, 01:15 PM	One human regular costs: 5 sp/day rations = 178 gp/year For 10 grand a warforged: has one more hit point doesn't eat or sleep (Ignored all other expenses as they are the same for both: weapons, supplies, etc.) Seems to me they're not worth it. For the cost of about 8 of them you can get a Juggernout from MM2! Six attacks a round, Fast Healing 5, Wall of Force at will!
Revvecor 06-19-07, 01:36 PM	In times of war, the cost of soldiers is immaterial. The only thing that matters is having more soldiers to take the place of those whom have fallen. In the case of warforged you had a (theoretical) unlimited supply of replaceable (second class) soldiers that will do what they are told to do regardless of any ethical issues that may arrive. These seemed to be perfect soldiers. In the case of Karnnath they raised there dead and added an alchemical solution to them making super soldiers that there citizens could respect and honor. The number of undead soldiers is limited merely by the speed to which there living soldiers die. The only time that money enters into the equation is after the war is over. Then there deters will begin asking for there due. This would lead to high taxes. Which in turn lead to the warforged being viewed as owing a dept to the country, thus they were in some cases turned into indentured servients.
Darakhoranon 06-19-07, 01:45 PM	CannibalSmith, just where has your Juggernaught-Supplier his factory that´s making those things by the dozen? A Juggernaught probably would be better than 8 warforged (at least under certain circumstances...), true , but that doesn´t mean that you´ll get one every time you want one - "mass-produced" warforged, on the other hand... And concerning the human regulars: Sure, they may be cheaper, but then, THEY have to eat (talk about supply lines), THEY want to get paid, THEY have to sleep every so often, THEY might be needed - or at least would be helpful - during planting season/harvest time, THEIR deaths wouldn´t sit very well with the populace back home... The warforged, on the other hand, neither eat nor sleep (cuts down on running expenses AND the need for stable supply lines), they don´t get paid (after all, they are PROPERTY - at least until someone signs a certain treaty...), nobody really cares about their "deaths" (apart from your treasurer maybe), they aren´t needed for anything beside fighting (since they were MADE for exactly that and nothing else), they are especially trained... So, provided you have the necessary money, buying an army of warforged is the "best" thing you can do. Less trouble than with "regular" troops (at least in theory), you can get quite a few of them (in contrast to powerful but RARE juggernaughts), and replacing your losses is relatively easy.
Nived 06-19-07, 01:49 PM	intangible costs. Humanoid Life. After 100 years of war and seeing the body count rise people were more than happy to have 'souless golems' do the fighting for them. Troop numbers. If you're Aundair and you just lost half your country to revolution and you are staring at Karrnath, Breland, and Thrane who have larger forces than you "Cost per soldier" doesn't matter, getting enough soldiers to not be wiped out IS important. Supply lines. In times of war the most vulnerable part of an invading force is their supply lines, bringing in food, shelter etc... Warforged could go deep into enemy territory without need to worry about supply lines.
CannibalSmith 06-19-07, 02:24 PM	CannibalSmith, just where has your Juggernaught-Supplier his factory that´s making those things by the dozen? Juggernauts are not needed by the dozen. That's my point. One awesome monster can butcher an infinite amount of 1st level warriors. And concerning the human regulars. My point is that human soldiers are so cheap compared to warforged that it's cost effective to put up with their flaws.
Nived 06-19-07, 02:30 PM	Until the other side in the conflict swells their troop numbers with undead, or these golems. They needed more troops and there just weren't enough 'regular soldiers' to be had. It was either pay out the rear for these golems or be overrun by a much larger army.
Antioch 06-19-07, 03:18 PM	I had thought that a big schema was used to produce them, basically for free.
Amaril 06-19-07, 04:11 PM	You're forgetting some important factors regarding the advantages of warforged. They come with armor and sometimes weapons. They require less time for training and are more advanced at their roles (some models built for specific roles). They don't need to sleep, eat, or rest. They and can fight or move continuously. They don't need supplies to cater to eating, sleeping, or resting. Repairing a warforged is easier and cheaper than regenerating a flesh, and blood creature. They can non-magically repair each other and themselves during downtime. Seriously injured warforged didn't need to be hospitalized (thinking outside of game mechanics) They were an unlimited resource.
Meloncov 06-19-07, 04:43 PM	The "eight warforged for a shield guardian" comparisons are inaccurate because during the war the market would drive the price of constructs up alot. Five nations that want expendable warriors plus a very limited number of wizards capable of making constructs leads to arbitrarily high prices.
Shady314 06-19-07, 04:50 PM	Totally agree. Just expanding a bit. You're forgetting some important factors regarding the advantages of warforged. They come with armor. Not just any armor. Most would have had the Adm. Body. That's amazing against some 1st lvl human warrrior. Absolutely amazing. They require less time for training and are more advanced at their roles (some models built for specific roles). Just got FoW so this might have been changed canonically or not mentioned I don't know but KB has said most warforged after training were lvl. 2 fighters. And at least lvl 1 and after some real combat lvl. 2. Any levels gained afterwards might have been NPC classes but that's just gravy on top. I personally follow this. Most members of the army are 1st to second level commoners with the really good ones being lvl 1-2 warriors. Then there's the sprinkling of truly exception that are PC classes ... liked the warforged. A whole unit of PC classed warforged completely outshines any regular unit. It may not be a racial rule but I imagine most warforged had a high primary stat in whatever class they were built to be. Since most were fighters that'd be Strength. Then a high Constitution from being warforged means they could easily have been 16 in both Strength and Con. Compare to an average human that'd be kickass with 14. Most would have been 10-12 in those. Compare this second level warforged fighter with 16 Str and Con, power attack, cleave and adm. body probably has a heavy or tower shield to boot to a second level human warrior. The warrior would be lucky to have the same stats, no way he has the same armor, probably the same shield and weapon... and that's the best most humans get! Comparable feats but the commoners around him are dropping like flies as the warforged fighters are dropping most with a single strike from power attack then following it up with a free attack from cleave. They don't need to sleep, eat, or rest. They and can fight or move continuously. They don't need supplies to cater to eating, sleeping, or resting. This cannot be overstated enough. To not have to worry about supply lines or even supplies in general. AND to not have to rely on them living off the land. Scorched Earth policy vs. Warforged = Almost totally useless. Elements? Also almost no effect on Warforged. A siege? HA! You can't starve out a warforged unit. They can outpace any regular army which is a godsend when maneuvering your forces. it's often very important to be the first to get somewhere. When you need to cross a bridge for example, it's awesome if because you don't have to stop you could start farther and still beat an army there to defend it/take it, or cross it without being chokepointed at the bridge entrance by a defending force. Fighting for your life in a melee is exhausting even after just a few minutes. And some battles could last hours or even days. When your forces can maneuver around the battlefield continously without getting tired and then fight non-stop again without tiring you can often simply outlast your opponents. They charge you pull back and let them give chase. Let them run for awhile before you engage in combat. What's the rush to engage? You could stand there all day and night facing off whereas they need to eventually engage or just fall down asleep and exhausted. The warforged have a wonderful gift for making all combat be on their terms. Repairing a warforged is easier and cheaper than regenerating a flesh, and blood creature. They can non-magically repair each other and themselves during downtime. Absolutely. There are more blacksmiths and people that can learn a bit of smithing than there are medics and doctors. Plus if you patch up a warforged it's good to go. Others have to recuperate from little things like broken bones or blood loss. That could be weeks even months. Not warforged. Seriously injured warforged didn't need to be hospitalized (thinking outside of game mechanics) Forget that! Seriously injurged warforged could just be left lying on the ground till you get around to fixing them! A human is reduced to -6 hitpoints and he is laying on the ground about to die. Probably does die. Then you have to deal with that. If he stabilizes that's even worse (from a having to deal with perspective). You have to get his ass hauled away from the fighting back to the doctors that you need to have traveling with you. If you save his life the wounds mean he's probably never going to be able to fight again. Now you need to ship him back home. A warforged just goes to sleep and when the fightings over you restore him and you've got your super amazing fighter again just like that! If he is reduced so much he actually dies you can leave his body there and no one cares and you'd probably also pick it apart for parts to repair other warforged. Even in death a warforged is more useful than a corpse. Unless it's a Karnath corpse perhaps. :) They were an unlimited resource. Yes. Humans replace at a 9 months rate. Then about 17 years to train and grow enough to actually be able to fight. Whereas if you have the gold Cannith could probably get you a fighter better than you could ever hope for from 95% of humans in days? Even if it took months that's better than years. @ Cannibal Smith: Perhaps the 5N do not own the MM2? ;) Or more likely the creation forges could not produce Juggernauts. I think it's safe to assume the forges were offsetting any XP costs in making them Warforged. That leaves it up to individual artificers and wizards with the ability to constuct a Juggernaut. How many of those do you think there are? Even if every single one was making them how long until they didn't have enough XP? How long does it take to make a Juggernaut?
Amaril 06-19-07, 04:57 PM	It may not be a racial rule but I imagine most warforged had a high primary stat in whatever class they were built to be. Since most were fighters that'd be Strength. Then a high Constitution from being warforged means they could easily have been 16 in both Strength and Con. Compare to an average human that'd be kickass with 14. Most would have been 10-12 in those. Compare this second level warforged fighter with 16 Str and Con, power attack, cleave and adm. body probably has a heavy or tower shield to boot to a second level human warrior. The warrior would be lucky to have the same stats, no way he has the same armor, probably the same shield and weapon... and that's the best most humans get! Comparable feats but the commoners around him are dropping like flies as the warforged fighters are dropping most with a single strike from power attack then following it up with a free attack from cleave. Don't forget about special purpose warforged chargers, scouts, raptors, and whatever else might exist, too.
Shady314 06-19-07, 05:09 PM	Don't forget about special purpose warforged chargers, scouts, raptors, and whatever else might exist, too. Good point! Whatever a nation needed they could get from Cannith provided they had the gold. When supplies start to run low in a War it's pretty easy and awesome when you can just buy some mercenaries and have exactly what you need. How long does it take to train a decent and capable cavalry? How long to find enough men with enough skill at ride and horses? If you're desperately short on scouts just buy a few off Cannith and have them instantly. Pay Cannith and in a few months at most you can have a force of cavalry that outshines 95% of every other cavalry. Need a scout? Why go with one that needs to stop eat? Warforged can scout 24/7. While you're army is resting they're scouting hours ahead and back by daybreak. The list goes on. It just occurred to me that until the Treaty warforged were property which means they were also buying a soldier for life. And since warforged probably live forever... For 10,000 gold you just got 8 fighters that will fight for you till the day you die and then your children will have them until they die etc.
Rechan 06-19-07, 05:19 PM	Also, aren't most warforged given PC classes, as opposed to level 1 warrior that make up your standard footsoldier?
Shady314 06-19-07, 05:21 PM	Also, aren't most warforged given PC classes, as opposed to level 1 warrior that make up your standard footsoldier? I know my post was long so you probably skipped it but yeah I went into depth on that. :)
Amaril 06-19-07, 05:22 PM	Also, aren't most warforged given PC classes, as opposed to level 1 warrior that make up your standard footsoldier? Yes. Not just any armor. Most would have had the Adm. Body. That's amazing against some 1st lvl human warrrior. Absolutely amazing. Just got FoW so this might have been changed canonically or not mentioned I don't know but KB has said most warforged after training were lvl. 2 fighters. And at least lvl 1 and after some real combat lvl. 2. Any levels gained afterwards might have been NPC classes but that's just gravy on top. I personally follow this.
Rechan 06-19-07, 05:46 PM	Not sure if this was mentioned also, but: When Warforged are reduced to 0 HP, they go inert. They don't die. Meaning that after the battle, you can walk across the field and start reviving your "dead" soldiers. Unless you need them up and running in the middle of a fight, your medics' role becomes post-battle. This not only lets you continue to use and reuse your soldiers, but also keep your medics (read: artificers) alive longer. Of course, if a hit takes a WF from 5 hp to -10 he's dead, Jim. But given that a standard 1st level warrior human swinging a sword isn't going to do 10+ HP unless he crits or rolls real good with a bastard sword and has a hefty STR, I think the WF is a better investment long term for the revive ability.
CannibalSmith 06-19-07, 11:03 PM	Just got FoW so this might have been changed canonically or not mentioned I don't know but KB has said most warforged after training were lvl. 2 fighters. And at least lvl 1 and after some real combat lvl. 2. What? And where did the low-level thing of Eberron go? Fighting for your life in a melee is exhausting even after just a few minutes. [..] They charge you pull back and let them give chase. Let them run for awhile before you engage in combat. What's the rush to engage? You could stand there all day and night facing off whereas they need to eventually engage or just fall down asleep and exhausted. The warforged have a wonderful gift for making all combat be on their terms. This piece is actually convincing.
Lord_Madrigan 06-20-07, 01:50 AM	You're forgetting some important factors regarding the advantages of warforged. They come with armor and sometimes weapons. They require less time for training and are more advanced at their roles (some models built for specific roles). They don't need to sleep, eat, or rest. They and can fight or move continuously. They don't need supplies to cater to eating, sleeping, or resting. Repairing a warforged is easier and cheaper than regenerating a flesh, and blood creature. They can non-magically repair each other and themselves during downtime. Seriously injured warforged didn't need to be hospitalized (thinking outside of game mechanics) They were an unlimited resource. Lets not forget that you average living soldier has other problems. They are subject to fear of death They may have moral objections to certain missions. Warforged have no fear of death that we know of. Warforged tend not to object to that order to burn the village and kill everyone in it. Warforged are a better choice for Suicide missions than living soldiers for Political reasons as well as the reasons stated above.
Nived 06-20-07, 02:03 AM	Warforged will have a much much much much much much better survivability than regular soldiers for two key reasons. One has been mentioned. When a Warforged falls in into negative hp he automatically stabalizes while normal soldiers will likely bleed to death in under a minute. This means they can be repaired after the battle. The other is... Warforged are immune to the greatest killer in warfare. Disease. Until the late 20th century a soldier was just as likely to die from disease and infection as they were from an enemy combatant. Now granted the core rules for D&D don't account for a sword wound becoming infected... but the D&D rules are designed to be used by the heroes, and heroes don't die from infection. When talking about historical fluff I believe even with Jorasco healers a substantial loss of life would occur from disease and infection. Warforged on the otherhand are immune. This would dramatically increase the "Bang for your buck" of warforged in comparrison to regular troops.
rampant 06-20-07, 02:07 AM	Lets not forget the various immunities, normal soldiers are susceptible to poison, and disease runs rampant in a tight area like a military outpost. Also a warforged unit has little trouble crossing a stream or even a swift river since they can just walk along the bottom, holding each other down if necessary. They don't need tents, blankets, or cook fires cutting down on the crap they have to carry, allowing the extra space to extra weapons, repair gear, and ammo. In addition since they don't need cookfires their numbers and prescence are much easier to hide. They can lay in ambush positions for days if necessary. Additionally they are much more difficult to torture then normal troops, meaning they can carry messages with sensitive content with reduced risk of the enemy being able to get the info, even if they can catch a tireless messanger without the need to eat. 'FORGED ROCK!
Bluebrush 06-20-07, 02:45 AM	What? And where did the low-level thing of Eberron go?Level 2 isn't low level? Part of the point of buying a warforged is that you're getting a highly skilled soldier in addition to all the other jazz. It's also another thing that makes them scary to all the average people.
Shady314 06-20-07, 04:15 AM	Not sure if this was mentioned also, but: When Warforged are reduced to 0 HP, they go inert. They don't die. Meaning that after the battle, you can walk across the field and start reviving your "dead" soldiers. Unless you need them up and running in the middle of a fight, your medics' role becomes post-battle. This not only lets you continue to use and reuse your soldiers, but also keep your medics (read: artificers) alive longer. Of course, if a hit takes a WF from 5 hp to -10 he's dead, Jim. But given that a standard 1st level warrior human swinging a sword isn't going to do 10+ HP unless he crits or rolls real good with a bastard sword and has a hefty STR, I think the WF is a better investment long term for the revive ability. You know it's not THAT long. Maybe you should just skim my post real quick. ;)
Archangel62 06-20-07, 08:25 AM	According to Races of Eberron all warforged have PC levels, most in Fighter (2) or in Artificer. What makes the warforged so effective is as follows. Equipping: The warforged can come with heavy armor out of the box, and damage reduction besides. Not to mention that they have a slam attack naturally so they are going to be baseline tougher than your average soldier. Supply Lines: As mentioned before, you don't need to get food to a warforged, but there are other advantages too. They don't need mail service, they don't need a USO equivalent, in short they are a fairly easy to maintain army. Sanitation: This is a big one, poorly covered latrines can lead to a whole mess of diseases, not to mention problems with food spoilage and the dangers of the vermin that will come to call a battlefield home. I had a relative in the first world war and he told me that one of the worst things was the rats, they weren't afraid of people, they would steal rations, and they spread disease wherever they went. Morale: Warforged don't have that fear of death that others do. Also, long protracted battles are less likely to have the same grinding affect that they do on the common races. Also important is that the warforged aren't going to desert if they hear that their hometown was invaded or get a Dear John letter or any of a dozen things that can destroy the will of soldiers to fight. It's also good for morale at home, your fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters and mothers aren't dying on the battlefield, instead these constructs are. People are willing to do a lot to remain happy and comfortable, and if the coin meant a happy populace and capable soldiers at the same time it appears to be money well spent. Triage: As mentioned before, warforged auto-stabilize, they can lay indefinitely until the time is right and the truth of the matter is that warforged are also easier to repair. Bad injuries won't cause them to bleed out, instead they just wait inert to be reactivated. Training: According to the books they can be trained to effective combat level inside a few months, 2nd level fighter with that much speed they are essentially elite mercs, only they are tougher, last longer, and are more likely to remain loyal. Loyalty: You can't bribe a warforged, can't hold the family hostage, can't hold some dark secret hostage, and they're immune to most of the low level mind affecting spells by dint of being living constructs. Deny enemies: A big thing is that in warfare you can salvage the enemy for weapons, armor, and other useful gear. The warforged deny their enemy gear and in many cases weapons as well. Those attachments can only be used by other warforged, which is also a brilliant marketing strategy for Cannith. "Sir, we swept the battlefield, we have over 200 armblades, I think maybe we should send a request for warforged so we can actually use them." Industrial survival: This is a homefront thing but fairly small nations have the unique problem of needing to keep the country fed and running while off at war. This wasn't even like the early wars of the 20th century where the army was all male, in the Last War all races, genders, and creeds fought alongside and against each other. The problem is that warm bodies sometimes had trained minds in them, minds that could develop weapons or heal bodies, or keep the nation working. Warforged however were built entirely for war and there is a certain appeal to the idea of an entire class of slave-soldiers who only give to an economy and never take from it. Endurance: Arguably the biggest one here, the warforged could march all day and night, never needing to eat or sleep. The don't need to make camps, don't need to stop and rest on a march, they can make it to a battlefield faster than their organic counterparts and they are generally more resilient and thus longer lasting. Disease can't fell them, age won't make them infirm, severe injuries either kill them or just put them into suspended animation until later, in short you have the dreadnought of soldiers.
Blizzard_Bobsan 06-20-07, 08:32 AM	Endurance: Arguably the biggest one here, the warforged could march all day and night, never needing to eat or sleep. The don't need to make camps, don't need to stop and rest on a march, they can make it to a battlefield faster than their organic counterparts Excellent post, just a minor nitpick - actually, the warforged still take subdual damage from a forced march, as the other races do.
Amaril 06-20-07, 08:44 AM	Excellent post, just a minor nitpick - actually, the warforged still take subdual damage from a forced march, as the other races do. Seeing as the nonlethal damage is direclty caused by lack of rest and sleep, I would say they ignore that nonlethal damange. Additionally, they are immune to the effects of a force march, namely fatigue. Forced March In a day of normal walking, a character walks for 8 hours. The rest of the daylight time is spent making and breaking camp, resting, and eating. A character can walk for more than 8 hours in a day by making a forced march. For each hour of marching beyond 8 hours, a Constitution check (DC 10, +2 per extra hour) is required. If the check fails, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from a forced march becomes fatigued. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue. It’s possible for a character to march into unconsciousness by pushing himself too hard. PS - I do acknowledge that warforged are subject to non-lethal damage, but I have a hard time justifying that warforged are subject to the effects of a forced march.
Edymnion 06-20-07, 09:22 AM	Seeing as the nonlethal damage is direclty caused by lack of rest and sleep, I would say they ignore that nonlethal damange. Additionally, they are immune to the effects of a force march, namely fatigue.Actually, read what you quoted. The nonlethal damage is a result of the forced march, while the fatigue is a result of the nonlethal damage, not the other way around. WF joints will overheat (or whatever explination you want to give) and need a cooldown period just like everybody else. Its just that you can have one march with little complaint until they litterally fall over deactivated from nonlethal damage. Of course, there are the WF feats that make them immune to nonlethal damage, which if taken would mean they could force march forever without worrying about it.
Amaril 06-20-07, 09:40 AM	Actually, read what you quoted. The nonlethal damage is a result of the forced march, while the fatigue is a result of the nonlethal damage, not the other way around. WF joints will overheat (or whatever explination you want to give) and need a cooldown period just like everybody else. Its just that you can have one march with little complaint until they litterally fall over deactivated from nonlethal damage. Of course, there are the WF feats that make them immune to nonlethal damage, which if taken would mean they could force march forever without worrying about it. I realized that after I posted, but warforged don't have servo motors or engines that overheat; they have an infrastructure composed of organic and metallic materials. Still, they don't require any rest, which is the only reason why forced marches are dangerous. The Constitution check for nonlethal damage is directly caused by that lack of rest. As such, they should never be subjected to the threat of the nonlethal damage to begin with.
Blizzard_Bobsan 06-20-07, 09:44 AM	This has been discussed several times on this board, the official word is that the warforged are subject to nonlethal damage. How long can a warforged run? How long can it hustle? How long can it make a forced march? A warforged can’t run any longer than a normal character (Player’s Handbook, page 144). A warforged suffers all the effects of hustling (Player’s Handbook, page 164) except for the fatigue (since warforged are by definition immune to fatigue). Unless the warforged has access to healing, eventually it can hustle itself to negative hit points. The same is true of a warforged making a forced march. While it can’t become fatigued, it still suffers the nonlethal damage caused by a failed Constitution check.
Amaril 06-20-07, 09:48 AM	To be honest, the "official word" in the FAQ means nothing to me. I take it with a grain of salt. There have been numerous mistakes made in that document and by the sage whose answers end up in the "official" FAQ. I think this is one of those things that can be houseruled, and I don't think that it denies the overall justification for the cost of warforged soldiers.
Blizzard_Bobsan 06-20-07, 09:51 AM	If you want your warforged battalions travelling overland faster than any cavalry, you are welcome to houserule this. Personally, I am quite happy with the official ruling . Btw -this is not some Sage error, the creators of the setting are supporting the statement and AFAIK it was initially made by Keith Baker in the first month after the setting's release (but I may be in the wrong here, this was a long time ago).
Bentley Mirrorshade 06-20-07, 10:47 AM	White Blade --Deneith mercenary, 2nd level fighter 6sp/day .........................2016sp/Eberron year --Rations 5sp/day..................................... ...........................1680sp/year --Mug of ale 4cp at least every two weeks to keep up morale.......96cp/year --Jorasco heal check 3 sp, 21sp to heal total 14 hp of a mercenary, 2sp a day lodging during treatment, 14sp for a week, let's say three times a year, that's ..........................105 sp/year. --Full plate armor................................... ..............................1500gp. --Bedroll................................. ........................................ ...1sp/2 years. --Sanitation and lodging related expenditures 1cp/day.................336cp/year. --Additional payment for especially risky endeavours, bonuses.......336sp/year. Total 1918,7gp/year, 5681,33gp/10 years. Note that the wage is based on today's prices, wartime mercenaries may have been a lot more expensive.
DarkWarriorKarg 06-20-07, 12:30 PM	Just recall that you are basing these calculations on fantasy economics that have no relation whatsoever to real-world economics. Everything is always the same base price. And that's a good thing. I didn't sign up to play D20 Accounting...
Shady314 06-20-07, 04:12 PM	Excellent post, just a minor nitpick - actually, the warforged still take subdual damage from a forced march, as the other races do. Honestly even the rules for forced marching in DnD are stupid. You can only walk for 8 hours in a day before you start rolling for non-lethal damage. If you just walk at a steady pace over fairly even terrain (obviously it changes uphill) you can walk longer than 8 hours if you take rest stops here and there and especially for a soldier in an army used to marching around and in decent shape. It starts to make sense for soldiers considering the fact they're probably walking around carrying a medium to heavy load what with chainmail, shields and weapons, rations etc. but for a warforged their armor is just their body and so is not encumberance, they will mostly carry no supplies which leaves just their weapons and shields if they don't have a two handed one so with their typical strength scores they'll probably be carrying a light load. So yes I'd let warforged walk all day (depending on terrain) at a steady regular pace without taking the non-lethal damage. Houserule yes but hardly outrageous. The "oh you don't get fatigued but you take the non-lethal damage" makes zero sense from a realism and a play perspective. Of course it's the muscle fatigue that wears a person out. I'd let elves travel longer too with their only 4 hours necessary meditation vs. 8 hours sleep for other races. Just another way the Warforged and Valenar rock. Even if you don't houserule it warforged have their con bonus which means on average they'll be able to force march longer than the other races.
Amaril 06-20-07, 04:53 PM	As an aside, Forge of War discusses how some nations instituted required military service of able-bodied citizens, but those citizens could pay for a substitute to take his or her place. For the cost of a warforged, an entire family (all children from a single mother) could become exempt from compulsory service, which lowered the cost of using warforged even more. Also, the OP had it wrong. A warforged did not cost 10,000gp. 10,000gp was the minimum cost of a single warforged, but when mass produced at a rate of 12 at a time, the price was dropped to about 5,000-6,000 gp.
CannibalSmith 06-21-07, 12:21 AM	Warforged come in twelve-packs. :) But if that's true, then they become really viable.
The Fireballed Mage 06-21-07, 12:24 AM	Warforged come in twelve-packs. :) And Cannith probably had a return/recycle policy. :D
Darakhoranon 06-21-07, 08:32 AM	Juggernauts are not needed by the dozen. That's my point. One awesome monster can butcher an infinite amount of 1st level warriors. My point is that human soldiers are so cheap compared to warforged that it's cost effective to put up with their flaws. 1. But if you have ONE "awesome monster" and your enemy has ONE, you´re back to being even. And as soon as you try to get a numerical advantage, you run into the trouble with "where did your awesome monsters come from?" Apart from that, a juggernaught IS a "monster" - but if I unleash my "monster" on your troops, you´ll do the same to mine, won´t you? So we have the good old "mutually assured destruction" - which takes all the "monsters" out of the equation, since neither one of us will use them. 2. I think this point has already been discussed to death. Sure, a human soldier is cheaper than a warforged - in the SHORT run. In the long run, however, the additional costs for human soldiers add up. Throw in the tactical/psychological/logistical advantages of warforged, and you´re better of buying as many of them as you can get.
Amaril 06-21-07, 08:46 AM	Not to mention that if you insist that warforged are simply impractical and shouldn't have been considered, you're unraveling a significant thread in the setting. In other words, don't over analyze it, just play and have fun. :)
okaynowa 06-21-07, 10:16 AM	As an aside, Forge of War discusses how some nations instituted required military service of able-bodied citizens, but those citizens could pay for a substitute to take his or her place. For the cost of a warforged, an entire family (all children from a single mother) could become exempt from compulsory service, which lowered the cost of using warforged even more.I suddenly have this image in my head of propaganda posters depicting a smiling Cyran family standing around a warforged, with a banner that reads, "What have YOU given to the fight?" Kind of like the old "buy war bonds" cartoons. Granted, at those rates a warforged would still be a major investment for a wealthy family, but I wonder if guilds or hastily formed chapters might pool their resources for a twelve pack. "This squad purchased by the Joiner's and Carpenter's Guild and proudly presented to His Royal Highness's 5th Heavy Infantry." Nice deal, if one could afford it.
Archangel62 06-21-07, 10:39 AM	I suddenly have this image in my head of propaganda posters depicting a smiling Cyran family standing around a warforged, with a banner that reads, "What have YOU given to the fight?" Kind of like the old "buy war bonds" cartoons. Granted, at those rates a warforged would still be a major investment for a wealthy family, but I wonder if guilds or hastily formed chapters might pool their resources for a twelve pack. "This squad purchased by the Joiner's and Carpenter's Guild and proudly presented to His Royal Highness's 5th Heavy Infantry." Nice deal, if one could afford it. Wow, I actually could imagine that, plus I could also see some communities pooling money to help keep their guys at home or farmers pooling money/food to essentially keep their sons and farmhands back working the fields and use the money to buy soldiers.
Hellcow 06-21-07, 06:10 PM	10000 gp per warforged. Personally, I think this is a little high. It's likely drawn on the issue of "how much is a suit of adamantine platemail", which is a logical basis - but given that you can't actually give the platemail away, that their manufactured through a form of mass production, and so on, I'd have it be lower. I know I've discussed cost on other threads. With that said, one thing to remember on the "How many warforged to the Iron Golem" ratio, is that this doesn't hold much water if you don't actually have a source for iron golems. Once you have the creation forge, you don't need an extraordinarily high level character to operate it. Iron golems do take high level spellcasters. So it simply may not have been an option.
Hellcow 06-21-07, 06:14 PM	In other words, don't over analyze it, just play and have fun. :) Certainly. I don't think it's that big a deal. It's something that should meet the needs of the campaign. Do you want it to be possible to buy warforged? What do YOU think makes sense within the economics of your campaign (as, depending on the DM, a fortune in one game may be trivial in another). 10,000 gp is higher than I'D say, but in my campaign you can't buy warforged, so it doesn't make much difference. I'd personally set it lower, but I think that this is a definite "What do you WANT it to be?" situation.
lugnut71 06-21-07, 08:08 PM	It should also be noted that twelve warforged can do 12 different things at the same time, while one juggernaut can only do one thing at one time.
Edymnion 06-21-07, 09:32 PM	Certainly. I don't think it's that big a deal. It's something that should meet the needs of the campaign. Do you want it to be possible to buy warforged? What do YOU think makes sense within the economics of your campaign (as, depending on the DM, a fortune in one game may be trivial in another). 10,000 gp is higher than I'D say, but in my campaign you can't buy warforged, so it doesn't make much difference. I'd personally set it lower, but I think that this is a definite "What do you WANT it to be?" situation.Well, it is one possible adventuring reason for a WF. Having to pay off the debt that their creation caused.
Splendide 06-21-07, 09:42 PM	I suddenly have this image in my head of propaganda posters depicting a smiling Cyran family standing around a warforged, with a banner that reads, "What have YOU given to the fight?" Kind of like the old "buy war bonds" cartoons. Granted, at those rates a warforged would still be a major investment for a wealthy family, but I wonder if guilds or hastily formed chapters might pool their resources for a twelve pack. "This squad purchased by the Joiner's and Carpenter's Guild and proudly presented to His Royal Highness's 5th Heavy Infantry." Nice deal, if one could afford it.That is an absolutely awesome idea. Also a good source of Warforged names too. They'd probably all be named after carpentry terms, tools or the family paying for them, so that His Royal Highness's Heavy Infantry remembers where they came from.
Hellcow 06-21-07, 09:58 PM	Well, it is one possible adventuring reason for a WF. Having to pay off the debt that their creation caused. Right, which is exactly my point. One Monty Haul DM may throw out gold like candy. Another may count every copper. How difficult do they want this challenge to be? For the former DM, the cost WILL need to be something like 10,000 to make it a challenge. For the latter (especially if we're dealing with, say, 2nd level characters), 1,200 gp may be quite enough for a challenge. My point wasn't "There's never any reason to know the price" - it's that I think it's most useful for the price to serve the needs of your story. But it's just my style of writing, which I know doesn't appeal to a lot of DMs.
Edymnion 06-21-07, 09:58 PM	That is an absolutely awesome idea. Also a good source of Warforged names too. They'd probably all be named after carpentry terms, tools or the family paying for them, so that His Royal Highness's Heavy Infantry remembers where they came from.Could also have WF named for the person who's place they took. "You said to send Bob d'Smith. This WF's name is Bob d'Smith. Our family has fulfilled it's obligation, don't darken our doorstep again."
Hellcow 06-21-07, 10:01 PM	Could also have WF named for the person who's place they took. "You said to send Bob d'Smith. This WF's name is Bob d'Smith. Our family has fulfilled it's obligation, don't darken our doorstep again." I love this idea. And as far as the army is concerned, a warforged soldier (if combat trained) might even be more useful than some noble's son. In any case, i think the idea of warforged named after the people who paid for them - or even the businesses that paid for them is great. "Hey Starbucks, get over there and help out the Burger King."
The Livewire 06-21-07, 10:14 PM	In any case, i think the idea of warforged named after the people who paid for them - or even the businesses that paid for them is great. "Hey Starbucks, get over there and help out the Burger King." That made me laugh out loud. Now I'm picturing Warforged with company logos on them.
Amaril 06-21-07, 11:22 PM	LOL! Phoenix (as in University of), Tropicana, Enron, McAfee, Minute Maid, Chase, and so on...
Splendide 06-22-07, 12:58 AM	The Korranberg Chronicler as a frontline war journalist.
CannibalSmith 06-22-07, 12:15 PM	Not to mention that if you insist that warforged are simply impractical and shouldn't have been considered, you're unraveling a significant thread in the setting. I DESTROY WORLDS!
noheat 06-22-07, 01:01 PM	Another thing to think about with the cost of a warforge vs a common soldier is that the nations that buy the warforge might not to have to pay the price in full at the time of purchase. Like buying a car they could be making payments over many years. Most common soldiers won't stick around long for an IOU. Also I'm sure that Cannith would take payments in other forms not just in gold. Land, materials, trading rights... So during the time of war maybe the 10000gp value isn't all that unrealistic in this fantasy setting.
Nived 06-22-07, 04:03 PM	Also political favors, looking the other way for some less than legal operations of Cannith's.
Cifer 06-22-07, 04:12 PM	Land, materials, trading rights... I'd guess that especially the first part was quite prevalent as soon as countries ran out of money. Remember, DMed houses are not allowed to own land aside from their enclaves - now I'd say during the last war some enclaves were massively enlarged and other people, who just happened to be on good standing with the houses, were granted land which they managed with no ties whatsoever to the houses.
rampant 06-22-07, 04:15 PM	Warforged charger with the golden arches pprinted on its and back plate, whenever it smashes something big it says : "Do you want fries with that?"
Amaril 06-22-07, 04:16 PM	So I do have one slight problem with the buy-out option for not having to enlist. That basically means that most able-bodied PCs would either have to be a veteran or wealthy. I say most because there's always the exception of someone who evaded or lucked out. Alternatively, the PC could be from one of the few implied nations that did not use such methods of enlistment.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:01 PM	One human regular costs: 5 sp/day rations = 178 gp/year For 10 grand a warforged: has one more hit point doesn't eat or sleep (Ignored all other expenses as they are the same for both: weapons, supplies, etc.) Seems to me they're not worth it. For the cost of about 8 of them you can get a Juggernout from MM2! Six attacks a round, Fast Healing 5, Wall of Force at will! You're assuming that hte Juggernaut from MM2 even exists in Eberron. Also, what are you running, some kind of brutal slave state? Soldiers cost a lot more than their rations. You have to pay them a salary, and generally pay them one commensurate with their skill. You have to give them shelter, and that means more than just a roof, it means beds and latrine facilities and crap. They want entertainment and reading material and changes of clothing. They demand medical care if injured. It all adds up after a while. The average human conscript is just going to be a damn Commoner 1, with a veteran conscript being a Commoner 1/Warrior 1. The best career soldiers will be generally Warrior 2's. Compare this with Warforged, who come from House Cannith as Fighter 2's, and the cost seems far more reasonable. You don't need to spend any money *at all* on basic training, indoctrination, creature comforts -- they come out as perfectly psychologically malleable super-soldiers with none of the issues and resentments that human soldiers have when you don't treat them well enough. They're more than worth it.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:05 PM	Juggernauts are not needed by the dozen. That's my point. One awesome monster can butcher an infinite amount of 1st level warriors. Any such Construct in Eberron would likely be a one-of-a-kind one-time creation of a single master artisan. One reason WF were used rather than Golems is that WF can be reliably mass-produced. Golems can't. My point is that human soldiers are so cheap compared to warforged that it's cost effective to put up with their flaws. What, because you calculated how much they cost in *rations*? You do realize soldiers get *wages*, right? Wages that add up and increase as the soldier gains skill and experience and rises through the ranks? No human will fight like a Warforged does for the Warforged's single one-shot purchase price. And yes, your average Warforged Fighter 2 can individually take on any number of crappy Commoner 1 Human conscripts whose two first-level feats are probably Skill Focus (Profession (agriculture)) and Athletic.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:09 PM	I realized that after I posted, but warforged don't have servo motors or engines that overheat; they have an infrastructure composed of organic and metallic materials. Any work done by any kind of mechanism generates heat. Second Law of Thermodynamics. Still, they don't require any rest, which is the only reason why forced marches are dangerous. The Constitution check for nonlethal damage is directly caused by that lack of rest. As such, they should never be subjected to the threat of the nonlethal damage to begin with. We're not talking about "should be", we're talking about what is, and Warforged by RAW are not immune to any kind of nonlethal damage, including forced march nonlethal damage. Warforged don't have to *sleep* the way humans do, but that doesn't mean they never need rest. The idea of something that never needs any kind of rest at all is logically impossible. Warforged Fighters having to stop on the march once in a while to keep themselves from wearing out is no different from Warforged Wizards still needing 8 hours' mental rest every night to prepare spells. They're still far more effective on forced marches than humans -- nonlethal damage without fatigue means that they'll keep on being every bit as effective in combat throughout a forced march until they finally collapse, without the slow degradation in ability humans experience.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:12 PM	Well, it is one possible adventuring reason for a WF. Having to pay off the debt that their creation caused. A form of indenture like this is probably why a lot of Warforged still function as slaves, more or less, despite being granted personhood by the Treaty of Thronehold (this mostly being true in still-heavily-militarized Karrnath). Transforming outright chattel slavery ("I own you") into indenture ("I own you until you pay off this debt you owe me") is a time-honored tradition for keeping newly-freed slaves down all through history.
Amaril 06-22-07, 05:13 PM	As living constructs, warforged do not consume energy, thus they should not need to rest. And now you're saying warforged need to cool down after an amount of activity? Can you cite that?
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:15 PM	So I do have one slight problem with the buy-out option for not having to enlist. That basically means that most able-bodied PCs would either have to be a veteran or wealthy. I say most because there's always the exception of someone who evaded or lucked out. Alternatively, the PC could be from one of the few implied nations that did not use such methods of enlistment. You could also just have been too young at the time (you can still be a young teenager as a level-1 PC at campaign start). Or technically been drafted but never saw any real action. Etc. If we were playing in a real-world campaign setting that took place in America a few years after World War II, every conceivable character would've been *affected* by the war and *involved* with the war in some way, but that doesn't mean everyone was actually a soldier in D-Day.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:16 PM	As living constructs, warforged do not consume energy, thus they should not need to rest. And now you're saying warforged need to cool down after an amount of activity? Can you cite that? Warforged still have the same limits on how much they can Craft per day, how long they need to rest to prepare spells per day, and so on as everyone else. They also take nonlethal damage from forced marches, which is a form of fatigue. (They are immune to the D&D condition known as "fatigue", but that's different -- it just means they're designed so their performance doesn't noticeably degrade as they get "tired".) All the sources indicate Warforged can't just keep on going forever without stopping any more than anyone else can. They're *better* at going on a long time without stopping, but it's not unlimited.
Amaril 06-22-07, 05:17 PM	If we were playing in a real-world campaign setting that took place in America a few years after World War II, every conceivable character would've been *affected* by the war and *involved* with the war in some way, but that doesn't mean everyone was actually a soldier in D-Day. That's apples and oranges. World War II didn't have a required enlistment of all able-bodied civilians, and if it did, most of such individuals who existed just two years after that war would have been veterans.
Amaril 06-22-07, 05:23 PM	Warforged still have the same limits on how much they can Craft per day, how long they need to rest to prepare spells per day, and so on as everyone else. They also take nonlethal damage from forced marches, which is a form of fatigue. (They are immune to the D&D condition known as "fatigue", but that's different -- it just means they're designed so their performance doesn't noticeably degrade as they get "tired".) All the sources indicate Warforged can't just keep on going forever without stopping any more than anyone else can. They're *better* at going on a long time without stopping, but it's not unlimited. I think you're missing my point. Warforged could not have been taken into consideration when the rules for a forced march were created. I think the RAW assumed that any living creature doing a forced march would be subject to a Con check for burning up so much energy without rest, and thus would eventually become fatigued as a result. Warforged are living constructs. They don't consume food and they don't recharge automatically, thus they cannot conceivable become "worn out" from exerting too much energy if they do not consume energy to replenish it. You can fill in as many blanks as you want to justify warforged not being able to handle a forced march without nonlethal damage, but in my campaign, they can handle it.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:27 PM	I think you're missing my point. Warforged could not have been taken into consideration when the rules for a forced march were created. However, the Warforged rules could and *did* take into consideration the rules for forced march. They could've said Warforged were immune to the nonlethal damage from a forced march, but they didn't. They explicitly said Warforged were fully vulnerable to all forms of nonlethal damage. I think the RAW assumed that any living creature doing a forced march would be subject to a Con check for burning up so much energy without rest, and thus would eventually become fatigued as a result. Warforged are living constructs. They don't consume food and they don't recharge automatically, thus they cannot conceivable become "worn out" from exerting too much energy if they do not consume energy to replenish it. It doesn't matter where you think Warforged get their energy from. The physical act of walking generates heat in the joints from friction. The physical impact of feet hitting the ground over and over causes damage to the body. A machine may have self-repairing mechanisms to heal this damage, but it'll always be more difficult for those mechanisms to work while the damage is being done. It makes perfect sense that you can't just keep a Warforged walking continuously, any more than you can keep on driving a car continuously (however big your gas tank is). You can fill in as many blanks as you want to justify warforged not being able to handle a forced march without nonlethal damage, but in my campaign, they can handle it. Then it becomes inconceivable that WF wouldn't simply *replace* all other kinds of troops outright in a war.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 05:29 PM	That's apples and oranges. World War II didn't have a required enlistment of all able-bodied civilians, and if it did, most of such individuals who existed just two years after that war would have been veterans. You can still have been too young. A 14-year-old is considered a young adult for game purposes, after all. And you can also easily have been in the war but never seen serious action, if you were young enough to be drafted but not old enough to have been on active duty for more than a year or so. And who said "all able-bodied civilians" were *all* enlisted at the same time? This would've been impossible, no matter how desperate conditions were on the front -- you can't have a war without a civilian economy fueling it.
Kinger 06-22-07, 05:31 PM	Is it too late for more corporate sponsorship jokes? A warforged charger, functioning as a living siege weapon, bursts through the wall of a crowded enemy fortress. The construct is bright red, the scarlet of tropical fruit, and in the dust cloud its imposing form is still readily apparant as it spreads its arms and bellows its imposing warcry: "OH YEAH!!!" ... That was probably a bit too verbose to imply the Warforged was the Kool-Aid guy, but whatever. And on a more serious note, I too like the idea of a fridgemate of warforged being purchased by a noble family or community in return for keeping their able-bodied ones home. Great way to assuage guilt. :)
Amaril 06-22-07, 05:54 PM	Again, warforged are made out of organic matter as well as metal and stone. They are also not automobiles which consume energy and are not organic, and warforged do not self heal, which makes resting, something flesh-based creatures do to repair and refuel cells and tissue, a moot activity. They are also known to have fluid in their bodies. Let's do the math: no need to consume energy fluid provides lubrication and cooling stone and metal dissipate heat As such, walking for an additional eight hours is no different than walking the first eight in my book. In regards to the description of warforged racial traits in the game rules, have you considered the possibility of an oversight or omission? It happens very frequently in D&D books.
Amaril 06-22-07, 05:55 PM	You can still have been too young. A 14-year-old is considered a young adult for game purposes, after all. And you can also easily have been in the war but never seen serious action, if you were young enough to be drafted but not old enough to have been on active duty for more than a year or so. And who said "all able-bodied civilians" were *all* enlisted at the same time? This would've been impossible, no matter how desperate conditions were on the front -- you can't have a war without a civilian economy fueling it. I said "most" in all of my posts on this topic. I also said there are exceptions of course.
The Dreaming Duck 06-22-07, 06:07 PM	Ignored all other expenses as they are the same for both: weapons, supplies, etc. I'm sure someone has already said this, but how do you figure this? Do you send your soldiers into battle naked? Personally, I'd make the price lower. But I can imagine the exact reason for this price: adamantine armor. A warforged with the Adamantine Body feat has +8 AC with DR 2. This is actually the DR benefit one would get from medium adamantine armor, despite the AC bonus of heavy armor. And how much is medium adamantine armor? Why, 10,000 gp. Since this is ADDED to the cost of the armor, the warforged is 10,000 gp as opposed to 11,500 gp for a suit of "medium" adamantine full plate. So sure, you've got the immunity to disease, no need to sleep, no need for transporting food, the ability to repair themselves using Craft skills, and for that matter immunity to a number of spells or alchemical effects that might be deployed against them. You've got the prior statement that the typical warforged is a 2nd-level fighter as opposed to a normal commoner or warrior (which also means that the warforged has even MORE hit points, not just the +1 from Con, because it's using a superior class). But all that aside, if you purchase armor for your soldiers that matches that of the adamantine warforged, the warforged is now LESS expensive than the soldier. Easier to salvage, but that of course works both ways, if it's your opponent who gets the gear from your fallen soldiers. If the FoW section specifically states that this does NOT include adamantine warforged, I apologize for wasting everyone's time. Otherwise, it seems like a clear, solid, rules-based reason for the price: it is the price of a suit of medium adamantine armor. More than I'd like, but I completely see how they derived it. To play Devil's advocate, because the warforged needs to spend a feat on his armor, the human warrior has two more feats; on the other hand, if the human is a warrior and the warforged IS a second level fighter... there's those two feats right back, as fighter bonus feats!
ArcTan 06-22-07, 06:16 PM	Again, warforged are made out of organic matter as well as metal and stone. They are also not automobiles which consume energy and are not organic, and warforged do not self heal, which makes resting, something flesh-based creatures do to repair and refuel cells and tissue, a moot activity. They are also known to have fluid in their bodies. Let's do the math: no need to consume energy fluid provides lubrication and cooling stone and metal dissipate heat As such, walking for an additional eight hours is no different than walking the first eight in my book. In regards to the description of warforged racial traits in the game rules, have you considered the possibility of an oversight or omission? It happens very frequently in D&D books. I've considered it, but since it doesn't actually seem to be an obvious omission, and all later statements from folks who worked on the book support the idea of Warforged taking nonlethal damage, I see no reason to change it. It's also very bad for game balance and world balance to assume this to be the case, which is the really important thing, and which trumps other concerns.
Amaril 06-22-07, 06:37 PM	You're misunderstanding me. I'm not against warforged taking nonlethal damage; I'm against a forced march applying nonlethal damage to a warforged specifically. Basically, my argument is against the rules for forced march as written, and I don't think that's unbalancing at all.
Alex_ 06-22-07, 07:24 PM	Warforged are classified as living constructs. The term has no equivelent in reality. D&D's definitions of living and construct don't even really accurately reflect prevailing real world descriptions/observations living or construct things. Warforged, as living constructs, have some (but not all) traits of living things and some elements of constructs, as they are recognized and observed in the D&D universes, not our own. Just like a Warforged can receive magical healing, but only half of it, and receive damage from critical hits and sneak attacks only a percentage of the time, so can they take subdual damage, yet be immune to fatigue. The first is a trait possessed by living things, the second is one possessed by constructs, as are traditionally defined in D&D. They COULD have ruled that Warforged have to eat, and that they're immune to death and mind-affecting abilities. That too would have been a combination of Living and Construct traits. It is not something based on a real world understanding of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, or any such field. D&D contradicts such things on a regular basis. It is something based on a general concept/design goal, modified by playability/game balance.
Bentley Mirrorshade 06-22-07, 07:57 PM	When compared to the cost of a Deneith White Blade, 5000-6000gp for a mass-ordered warforged seems very reasonable. Even when they are composite plated instead of adamantine it's not that bad.
Alex_ 06-22-07, 08:32 PM	Back on the topic of Warforged price. Rarely does one pay the individual price of an item when ordering in bulk. So although a Warforged may cost 10,000 GP alone, if you're buying dozens, if not hundreds, you're more likely going to agree on some sort of deal that results in you paying less per unit. Something rarer, however, would never get produced in enough numbers to offset the cost of purchasing them in bulk the way Warforged could.
Amaril 06-22-07, 10:01 PM	Just to wrap up the conversation regarding forced marches and warforged, I will concede on one argument. The nature of having a Constitution score does imply that warforged are susceptible to certain types of strenuous circumstances, and as such could be subject to nonlethal damage from such circumstances. It could be argued that a forced march would be one of those circumstances given the inherent nature of a Constitution score. That is the only argument that I think could justify the nonlethal damage from a forced march.
Euangelion 06-22-07, 11:12 PM	I can't remember if this was in an official source or something Hellcow wrote on these boards, but I recall that it was said that very few standard warforged actually had the Adamantine Body feat. Thus for mass production value vs. humanoid soldier discussions, it would probably be better to stick with the standard body. Also, it would make a lot of sense to me that standard warforged would be the cheapest, followed by ones with the Unarmored Body feat (simply due to low production numbers, and Cannith figuring that if someone wanted one for some reason, it had to be a good - as in willing to pay extra money - reason), then ones with the Ironwood Body feat (though Darkwood Body still makes more sense to me), then Mithral Body, then Adamantine Body. Any other homegrown body feat (Flametouched Iron Body, Byeshk Body, etc.) would have to fit some where in-between. Keep in mind also that Cannith alone set the price, and it wouldn't necessarily be directly tied to how much a regular soldier would cost. The cost would simply be the most someone would be willing to pay for them. I wonder, though, if Cannith had different prices for different customers, despite the whole neutrality thing. Maybe a lower price for Cyre, at least.
Sarlax 06-22-07, 11:42 PM	2. I think this point has already been discussed to death. Sure, a human soldier is cheaper than a warforged - in the SHORT run. In the long run, however, the additional costs for human soldiers add up. Throw in the tactical/psychological/logistical advantages of warforged, and you´re better of buying as many of them as you can get. Not to pick on anyone, but I think this sums up the essence of the debate: warforged are better soldiers and humans are cheaper soldiers. Which should you get? Let me pose a different problem: Expert soldiers in the real world are expensive. It costs a lot of money to get a Ranger, a SEAL, etc. But National Guard troops are cheap and plentiful. What kind should you have? Both, of course. No nation is choosing between warforged and humans. They're using warforged as elite soldiers tasked with unique missions. ECS 248 notwithstanding, you probably didn't have many battles involving thousands of warforged at a time (if FoW says otherwise, well... ack). Still, warforged are really expensive. A lot cheaper than another creature that has all the same advantages: awakened skeletons! They are intelligent, have almost no force of personality (good for obeying orders), immune to almost everything, etc. They cost only 25 GP each. Dextrous, natural weapons, natural armor, damage reduction. They regain the weapon and armor proficiencies they had while alive. And if you bonus human feats to be extraordinary racial abilities, then they get that too. Warforged have a minor advantage over skeletons: they're smarter (average 10.5 vs. 7.5, generated as 1d6+4), but that's not a big deal, since they can be lead by smarter undead that don't cost any money to make (Summon Undead to get a ghoul, which then infects someone before it disappears), or specialty undead like the Karnnathi skeletons. Now, if the primary justification behind warforged is that they're immune to so many war ailments (fatigue, disease, etc.), consider the price differential. You can get 1 warforged or about 400 intelligent skeletons. Sure, the skeletons are effectively first-level warriors in skill, but I'd rather have ~400 warriors at level 1 than 1 fighter at level 2. I say about ~400 because the undead would cost 25 each for Animate Dead and a little more for Awaken Undead. Awaken Undead requires 250 XP, but it awakens all with in a circle with a radius of 25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels. At the lowest caster level - 9th for an artificer, using his +2 bonus to make an item using a 6th level spell - that's a circle 90 ft. across, or about 6400 sq. ft. You can cram hundreds of skeletons into that space and they won't complain. Because you can awaken so many undead at once, the XP and GP costs per soldier of the effect are really very low. In the end, it seems, warforged just aren't worth the money.
Nived 06-23-07, 12:07 AM	No nation is choosing between warforged and humans. They're using warforged as elite soldiers tasked with unique missions. ECS 248 notwithstanding, you probably didn't have many battles involving thousands of warforged at a time (if FoW says otherwise, well... ack). That doesn't make Wayne Renyolds rendition (pretty much of ECS page 248) of the undead army slamming into the warforged army (inside cover of FoW) any less cool looking.
Alex_ 06-23-07, 12:16 AM	Only Karrnath would use Skeletons. Also, it doesn't require ust 25 GP, but rather, a Black Onyx Gem equal to 25 GP per HD of the Undead you want to create. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are if you don't have enough of the proper kind of gems. There's no telling how rare/common they are in Eberron. Stone, wood, and the other material ingredients for warforged were easier to come by. The most expensive part was the Creation Forge, but you only really need one to make a bunch of Warforged. You just add the ingredients, and they kind of "grow" out of it.
CannibalSmith 06-23-07, 12:19 AM	You're assuming that hte Juggernaut from MM2 even exists in Eberron. Yes, I do. If it's in D&D, it's in Eberron, right? Edit: I'm wrong, they don't exist in Eberron. Any such Construct in Eberron would likely be a one-of-a-kind one-time creation of a single master artisan. A nation would have resources to have more than a few of them built. Take Aundair for instance. They have Arcanix. Lots of mid level mages. At the beginning of the war Aundair could commision them to build magical war machines. Over the next decades Arcanix then would train specialists (Craft Construct feat) and develop, for example, the Juggernaut. It costs 70k gp, 70 days to build, and 2000 xp. I think they'd be able to make at least a dozen a year. Edit: "The creator must be level 18." Okay, forget the juggernouts. *checks the Iron Golem* Level 16. Okay, I concede. What, because you calculated how much they cost in *rations*? You do realize soldiers get *wages*, right? Only if they have rights. Which they don't. Cause it's monarchy. And they want to defend their homeland don't they? Second Law of Thermodynamics. Doesn't exist in D&D. The cost would simply be the most someone would be willing to pay for them. I'm interested in the production cost more than anything else. How much time, effort, and materials go into one. Any pricing can then be derived from that. Not to pick on anyone, but I think this sums up the essence of the debate: warforged are better soldiers and humans are cheaper soldiers. Which should you get? Fair enough. In the end, it seems, warforged just aren't worth the money. :clap: Stone, wood, and the other material ingredients for warforged were easier to come by. Each warforged requires a dragonshard (don't remember which one). Are dragonshards more rare than black onyx?
Alex_ 06-23-07, 12:48 AM	Yes, I do. If it's in D&D, it's in Eberron, right? That only applies to the core rules, not necessarily everything else. The ECS specifically states the DMG, PHB, and MM. You can incorporate stuff from other books, but they are not assumed to exist in Eberron. Only if they have rights. Which they don't. Cause it's monarchy. And they want to defend their homeland don't they? The idea of paying professional soldiers for their services is old as dirt, and the idea of paying them money has been around as far back as the 1400's and earlier, at least in Western European history. The commoners, serfs, and unprofessional soldiers were the guys that did it "for free" under orders from a higher authority. The conscripts. But these weren't the guys Warforged were "replacing". Warforged were elite troops- the kind you would usually pay with a steady wage, or promises of land and political power if they fought for you. I'm interested in the production cost more than anything else. How much time, effort, and materials go into one. Any pricing can then be derived from that. The creation forge is the initial investment. After that comes the cost of gathering materials, putting them into forge, and watching the Warforged come out. Once it's up and running, it's actually quite cheap and simple to produce them. Each warforged requires a dragonshard (don't remember which one). No they don't.
ArcTan 06-23-07, 01:01 AM	I can't remember if this was in an official source or something Hellcow wrote on these boards, but I recall that it was said that very few standard warforged actually had the Adamantine Body feat. Thus for mass production value vs. humanoid soldier discussions, it would probably be better to stick with the standard body. Actually, I recall the opposite. Mithral Body and Adamantine Body are valuable enough that most of the Warforged produced were produced with those feats, since that makes them directly useful for the two most basic functions they were made for -- light and heavy infantry. The "standard" Composite Body is strictly inferior to Mithral and Adamantine Body for nearly any war-based task, and was used for "unfinished" Warforged when the resources weren't available to give them proper plating, or when there wasn't time to do so. Don't ask me where I read this, but I remember Hellcow saying something like this. Also, it would make a lot of sense to me that standard warforged would be the cheapest, followed by ones with the Unarmored Body feat (simply due to low production numbers, and Cannith figuring that if someone wanted one for some reason, it had to be a good - as in willing to pay extra money - reason), then ones with the Ironwood Body feat (though Darkwood Body still makes more sense to me), then Mithral Body, then Adamantine Body. Any other homegrown body feat (Flametouched Iron Body, Byeshk Body, etc.) would have to fit some where in-between. Keep in mind also that Cannith alone set the price, and it wouldn't necessarily be directly tied to how much a regular soldier would cost. The cost would simply be the most someone would be willing to pay for them. I wonder, though, if Cannith had different prices for different customers, despite the whole neutrality thing. Maybe a lower price for Cyre, at least. Probably each production run was negotiated on a separate contract, like with real-life military contractors. The ebb and flow of wartime conditions meant that the cost of getting Warforged shipped out would've changed per customer.
ArcTan 06-23-07, 01:12 AM	Not to pick on anyone, but I think this sums up the essence of the debate: warforged are better soldiers and humans are cheaper soldiers. Which should you get? Let me pose a different problem: Expert soldiers in the real world are expensive. It costs a lot of money to get a Ranger, a SEAL, etc. But National Guard troops are cheap and plentiful. What kind should you have? Both, of course. No nation is choosing between warforged and humans. They're using warforged as elite soldiers tasked with unique missions. ECS 248 notwithstanding, you probably didn't have many battles involving thousands of warforged at a time (if FoW says otherwise, well... ack). Still, warforged are really expensive. A lot cheaper than another creature that has all the same advantages: awakened skeletons! They are intelligent, have almost no force of personality (good for obeying orders), immune to almost everything, etc. They cost only 25 GP each. Dextrous, natural weapons, natural armor, damage reduction. They regain the weapon and armor proficiencies they had while alive. And if you bonus human feats to be extraordinary racial abilities, then they get that too. Er, ordinary Skeletons cost 25 GP *per hit die*. And I don't know of anyone who actually does consider the Human bonus feat to be an (Ex) racial capability. As far as awaken undead, Hellcow says he doesn't consider any of those specialty Necromantic spells to be known by default in Eberron (this is in the Libris Mortis Eberron Expanded). Those things are deeply held secrets of the Blood of Vol and/or the Qalbarin. Why do you think Karrnath is using their expensive Karrnathi-Undead production process rather than simply casting this spell over and over? Well, there are other reasons besides that. One is that it's a 6th-level Cleric spell and 7th-level Wizard spell with an XP cost, so there will only be a small handful of people who can cast it, and they can't do it very long. (NPCs don't get to go on "adventures" and have a limitless fountain of XP flow their way for completing an endless series of contrived "quests" that fall into their laps. XP is soul energy. XP is rare. Only the special Chosen Ones who have Action Points get to regenerate it through the course of their lives.) So no, Awakened Undead are not going to be common. Judging by the resource investment required to have a mage capable of casting it a few times, they're probably going to be only slightly more common than Golems. Warforged have a minor advantage over skeletons: they're smarter (average 10.5 vs. 7.5, generated as 1d6+4), but that's not a big deal, since they can be lead by smarter undead that don't cost any money to make (Summon Undead to get a ghoul, which then infects someone before it disappears), or specialty undead like the Karnnathi skeletons. Having completely mindless troops who can't take *any* initiative during combat is actually a huge liability. It makes it a lot easier to neutralize a unit by shooting the officer. It means the officer needs to go beyond being just competent to being a damned *genius* when the sh!t hits the fan in melee. As far as the summon undead thing, you do realize that Ghouls can't be trusted, right? The whole Always Chaotic Evil nature and insatiable hunger for human flesh? Perhaps a Ghoul could be trusted when embedded in the Lawful Evil religion of the Blood of Vol as a revered spiritual icon who sits around being ritually fed all the time. Not on the field of battle. No way are you going to be turning your men into things like that. Karrnathi Undead are used in preference to things like Ghouls and Wights precisely because they're bred for obedience and loyalty, something that's in short supply among the natural intelligent Undead. Also, of course, summon undead is a spell from Heroes of Horror and doesn't exist by default in Eberron. (If it does exist in Eberron, it is a "secret" spell that is not known to the public at large that a PC must discover before she can use it.) Now, if the primary justification behind warforged is that they're immune to so many war ailments (fatigue, disease, etc.), consider the price differential. You can get 1 warforged or about 400 intelligent skeletons. Sure, the skeletons are effectively first-level warriors in skill, but I'd rather have ~400 warriors at level 1 than 1 fighter at level 2. I say about ~400 because the undead would cost 25 each for Animate Dead and a little more for Awaken Undead. Awaken Undead requires 250 XP, but it awakens all with in a circle with a radius of 25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels. At the lowest caster level - 9th for an artificer, using his +2 bonus to make an item using a 6th level spell - that's a circle 90 ft. across, or about 6400 sq. ft. You can cram hundreds of skeletons into that space and they won't complain. Because you can awaken so many undead at once, the XP and GP costs per soldier of the effect are really very low. This is PC thinking, and assumes lots of resources -- XP as a renewable resource, class levels by default -- that a nation simply won't have in reliable supply. In the end, it seems, warforged just aren't worth the money. There's a reason that most fantasy worlds in D&D don't field armies of nothing but 1st-level Skeletons. It's a bad idea for all kinds of reasons. Even Karrnath doesn't do it -- unless the Undead have been improved by their secret alchemical process, they're way *too* docile and way *too* stupid to make effective troops, not in the hustle and bustle of quasi-modern squad-based warfare (which is what D&D miniatures fighting in the style of the D&D Minis Handbook and D&D Heroes of Battle basically is).
ArcTan 06-23-07, 01:19 AM	Yes, I do. If it's in D&D, it's in Eberron, right? Edit: I'm wrong, they don't exist in Eberron. Indeed. A nation would have resources to have more than a few of them built. Take Aundair for instance. They have Arcanix. Lots of mid level mages. At the beginning of the war Aundair could commision them to build magical war machines. Over the next decades Arcanix then would train specialists (Craft Construct feat) and develop, for example, the Juggernaut. It costs 70k gp, 70 days to build, and 2000 xp. I think they'd be able to make at least a dozen a year. Edit: "The creator must be level 18." Okay, forget the juggernouts. *checks the Iron Golem* Level 16. Okay, I concede. The whole point of Warforged even existing in the first place was that House Cannith was commissioned by the old King of Galifar to see if there was a way to build war machines on a practical, country-sized level -- because Golems weren't. Not by a long shot. Only if they have rights. Which they don't. Cause it's monarchy. And they want to defend their homeland don't they? As others have pointed out, this is crap. At the very least, you have to pay your soldiers enough to replace the income they would've had at their farms or trades while they were fighting for you, or they all become paupers when they get back, their families starve, and the economy collapses. The only way wages can be no greater than the cost of room and board is if that's not any more than they were making at their civilian jobs, which implies a very early medieval-type economy -- *nothing* like the world we see in books like Sharn: City of Towers or Five Nations, in which the middle class is definitely in evidence, robust and growing. We're talking a Renaissance-or-later-style culture. Doesn't exist in D&D. *shrug* Maybe not as a general scientific principle, but the idea that even non-living mechanisms wear out of you use them too much should. I'm interested in the production cost more than anything else. How much time, effort, and materials go into one. Any pricing can then be derived from that. We won't ever know that. The actual process of how you make a Warforged is a Big Secret (in in-character terms, because House Cannith wanted to keep its monopoly; in out-of-character terms, because some things in the setting are supposed to be a mystery to all players). Fair enough. :clap: Each warforged requires a dragonshard (don't remember which one). Are dragonshards more rare than black onyx? No, they don't.
Sarlax 06-23-07, 02:12 AM	Only Karrnath would use Skeletons. Also, it doesn't require ust 25 GP, but rather, a Black Onyx Gem equal to 25 GP per HD of the Undead you want to create. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are if you don't have enough of the proper kind of gems. There's no telling how rare/common they are in Eberron. Actually, there's a very easy way: onyx is common enough in Eberron that it costs 25 GP to animate the corpse of a level one humanoid. Really, that's just how the D&D economy works. The price of a good in D&D already accounts for how rare it is, how difficult it is to acquire, produce, and ship, etc. Unless the ECS or other official book says otherwise, onyx is common enough in Eberron that most human bodies cost only 25 GP to animate.
Hellcow 06-23-07, 02:22 AM	I can't remember if this was in an official source or something Hellcow wrote on these boards, but I recall that it was said that very few standard warforged actually had the Adamantine Body feat. Thus for mass production value vs. humanoid soldier discussions, it would probably be better to stick with the standard body. I'd have to disagree. A composite body warforged is worse off than a human in studded leather and furthermore can't be upgraded. In addition, one of the points in the Warforged dragonshard is that producing adamantine warforged uses a process similar to creation (and that the metal degrades if the lifeforce of the warforged is extinguished), so this is not a question of finding a source for mass quantities of adamantine ore. A composite body warforged makes perfect sense for domestic tasks. But In my opinion, the best-selling warforged was a 2nd-level fighter with Adamantine Body specializing in close combat (with, say, Power Attack and Cleave). Mithril Body warforged would be used as scouts and skirmishers, and weren't UNcommon. Composite warforged might exist in support roles, but on the battlefield would be the least common of the three options available in the ECS (with the other body feats being very rare). Note that in the adventure "Steel Shadows" in Dungeon #115, the warforged involved in the confrontation with the foundry staff are fighters with the Adamantine Body feat, and there's nothing suggesting these guys are especially unusual. If you count the total number of warforged whose body types are mentioned in the adventure, more than half are adamantine. I also agree that once you assume that the standard warforged fighter has the Adamantine Body feat, the 10,000 gp price tag makes sense from a pure design perspective. It's slightly less than buying a suit of AC 8 medium adamantine armor, and has the drawback that a) you can't switch it around between people and b) if the warforged dies, the armor is simply lost - it cannot be salvaged. In exchange, you get a elite-quality soldier with the various immunities and other advantages. I'd reduce the price precisely because they aren't making the armor in the same way that you WOULD make a suit of adamantine armor, so the cost should be lower... but from a pure "Thing A costs thing much, so equivalent thing B should cost about the same" it does make sense. There's also the question of psychology. As I have always depicted the warforged, in the begining they did not question their role. They were made for battle. It makes sense to them. It feels natural. So warforged essentially WANT to fight. Hence, you're not just paying for a suit of armor, you're getting a skilled soldier with no interest in politics or religion, with no family to worry about, a soldier who simply wants to fight. Yes, the warforged are sentient, intelligent beings, not robots - and over time many have come to question their role. But during the war, few did - because they were doing what came naturally.
ArcTan 06-23-07, 02:32 AM	Actually, there's a very easy way: onyx is common enough in Eberron that it costs 25 GP to animate the corpse of a level one humanoid. Really, that's just how the D&D economy works. The price of a good in D&D already accounts for how rare it is, how difficult it is to acquire, produce, and ship, etc. Unless the ECS or other official book says otherwise, onyx is common enough in Eberron that most human bodies cost only 25 GP to animate. ...To keep this in perspective, 25 GP is roughly the equivalent of $1,000 today, although it's not an exact conversion. Again, that's not the point. We know it's not that hard to get Skeletons. However, getting *Awakened* Skeletons will be pretty damn hard, because awaken undead is not a commonly available spell that any 11th-level Cleric can pray for -- and 11th-level Clerics are not commonly available themselves, and they do not have an unlimited amount of XP. (Artificers aren't a solution -- mid-level Artificers are rare, and *they* can't just whip out a scroll of any spell from any splatbook either.) Unawakened Skeletons have a whole passel of problems. That's why Karrnath has their secret hush-hush method of getting Karrnathi Skeletons in the first place -- and that's secret, hush-hush, possibly limited only to Karrns, and expensive.
Hellcow 06-23-07, 02:46 AM	That's why Karrnath has their secret hush-hush method of getting Karrnathi Skeletons in the first place -- and that's secret, hush-hush, possibly limited only to Karrns, and expensive. If you mean "it's possible that an Aundairian necromancer could learn to make skeletons of similar abilities from the skeletons of dead Aundairian soldiers", I completely agree. It might not be easy, but I would assume that it's possible for the techniques to be adapted to other nations... that at the core it's "animate the corpses of your best soldiers as superior skeletons who will continue to fight for you." At the least, I think Erandis has a similar technique used on the members of the Emerald Claw; the real question is if she can suddenly shift the allegiance of the Karrnathi undead, which would be a Very Bad Thing. Otherwise, there's no "possibly" about it. Page 292-292 of the ECS are quite clear. In the description of each creature, it states "Karrnathi (skeletons/zombies) are created from the remains of elite Karrnathi soldiers slain in battle." There's a lot of factors packed in there. First, they've got to be Karrns. Second, not only do they have to be soldiers, they have to be elite soldiers - at least 2nd-level warriors, in my opinion. Third, they have to be slain in battle. Essentially, you're picking up on a lot of residual resonance in the body: Karrn patriotism, martial skill, and the deserve to rise and finish the fight. You can't just kill a bunch of peasants and make Karrnathi undead out of them. And because they need to be made from elite troops, by the time you've got the bodies you need, the nation has already suffered a loss. A Karrnathi undead is certainly better than a 2nd-level warrior - but the warrior is still a son or daughter of Karrnath, with unknown potential and family out there; the skeleton is just bones. It will fight to the bitter end, but if you can avoid losing any of your soldiers in the first place, all the better. So while I haven't been following the discussion, I'd certainly imagine that most of the "raising the enemy dead" would be mindless undead. If there's something in Forge of War that contradicts what I've said, I simply haven't encountered it yet; the "elite warrior slain in battle" interpretation is certainly the intention of the ECS.
CannibalSmith 06-23-07, 02:57 AM	I imagine that the medals of Karrnathi army are magical. Or the ceremony of attaining elite-dom contains some inconspicuous ritual. The drinks could be spiced with magical essences. The congratulations speech might contain a power word or two. And elites because the subject must have enough HD. :)
Sarlax 06-23-07, 03:04 AM	Er, ordinary Skeletons cost 25 GP *per hit die*. *Sigh.* Thanks, I suppose. SRD (skeleton template): Drop any Hit Dice gained from class levels (to a minimum of 1). Pretty much any human(oid) corpse you animate will make a 1 HD skeleton, which means pretty much any humanoid skeleton costs 25 GP. I figured the humanoid basis was a reasonable assumption, given that's the type of corpse the nations would have most access to that would make decent skeletons and that I'd brought up the matter of human bonus feats. I apologize if it seemed I was talking of other types of creatures. And I don't know of anyone who actually does consider the Human bonus feat to be an (Ex) racial capability. Thus the "if." It's not a position with which I agree, but there are plenty of people who argue that all traits possessed by a race are either extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural. In any case, it's just small bonus and doesn't have much bearing on the merits of skeleton soldiers over all. As far as awaken undead, Hellcow says he doesn't consider any of those specialty Necromantic spells to be known by default in Eberron (this is in the Libris Mortis Eberron Expanded). Those things are deeply held secrets of the Blood of Vol and/or the Qalbarin. Why do you think Karrnath is using their expensive Karrnathi-Undead production process rather than simply casting this spell over and over? Well, that's not really stated in either Part 1 (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebee/20060130a) or Part 2 (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebee/20060220a) or the LM Eberron Expanded. He only describes options and models. These aren't Dragonmark articles that represent official campaign details. However, even if you do assume that these spells aren't widely available, no problem: any caster can just invent in a few months by using the Spell Research rules. Also, expensive? It might be the case, but I don't recall any source indicating that Karnnathi undead were pricey to make. Well, there are other reasons besides that. One is that it's a 6th-level Cleric spell and 7th-level Wizard spell with an XP cost, so there will only be a small handful of people who can cast it, Again, artificers. They can do it at 9th-level. According to the Demographics (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040712a) Dragonshard, most large cities and almost every metropolis will have an artificer or two of this level. and they can't do it very long. (NPCs don't get to go on "adventures" and have a limitless fountain of XP flow their way for completing an endless series of contrived "quests" that fall into their laps. Of course not, but the setting assumes they get it *somehow*. How else do you get career artificers and magewrights? Most creators in Cannith are always off on wacky adventures to refuel their XP, so magic item makers get their crafting XP in other ways. If they can get XP to make magic swords, staves, and airships, they can get the XP to cast Awaken Undead. In short order, they'll be making things like a Rod of the Dead to simplify the creation process - in much the same way Cannith made creation forges to ease the making of constructs. So no, Awakened Undead are not going to be common. Judging by the resource investment required to have a mage capable of casting it a few times, they're probably going to be only slightly more common than Golems. Really, only slightly? The flesh golem costs 11,000 GP to produce and that creature is bound to go berserk on you eventually. Anyway, the resources aren't that great. It's a simple matter to produce the necessary scrolls/rods/wondrous items to replicate these two spells. Having completely mindless troops who can't take *any* initiative during combat is actually a huge liability. It makes it a lot easier to neutralize a unit by shooting the officer. They're not completely mindless. Again, they have Int 5-10. They are perfectly capable of taking action without being prompted to do so. I brought up the more intelligent undead just to demonstrate that if you want a squad leader with Intelligence greater than 10 (which 1/6 awakened human skeletons have anyway), it's very easy to get. As far as the summon undead thing, you do realize that Ghouls can't be trusted, right? The whole Always Chaotic Evil nature and insatiable hunger for human flesh? And that is why the good people at WoTC gave us Rebuke Undead. Ghoul commanders are nice but not necessary (since awakened skeletons can handle things on their own), but if you want a ghoul to boss your skeletons around, you can keep him on a short leash with rebuking. Granted, this requires a cleric - or an artificer making the right magic items. Also, of course, summon undead is a spell from Heroes of Horror and doesn't exist by default in Eberron. (If it does exist in Eberron, it is a "secret" spell that is not known to the public at large that a PC must discover before she can use it.) Anything official on it specifically being a secret? I understand that many people on the boards take exclusion of non-core material as their default position, but I'm not familiar with any particular official sourcebook or article that mandates default exclusion. Remember, all the ghoul talk is really tangential to the main point (that awakened skeletons are a much better option that 10K warforged). The ghoul boss is optional. Fully a 6th of the skeletons you make will have normal human intelligence, so you don't need the smarter undead boss. These can be the commanders. In fact, they're so cheap that you can just use the smartest 6th as soldiers and use the rest for labor.
Cifer 06-23-07, 03:24 AM	Again, artificers. They can do it at 9th-level. According to the Demographics Dragonshard, most large cities and almost every metropolis will have an artificer or two of this level. Call me a diviner, but I've got a specific feeling about who will pay this one artificer per major city to work for them and not use any Make Undead Smarter spells. Hint: They're a hut, only bigger. Anything official on it specifically being a secret? I understand that many people on the boards take exclusion of non-core material as their default position, but I'm not familiar with any particular official sourcebook or article that mandates default exclusion. He's neither official nor an article in that regard, but there would be a Mr Keith Baker who does exactly that - I'm sure you've heard of him. Further, at least I have the feeling that the non-core spells have to accomodate the setting, not the other way round, meaning if you find a first-level spell that would solve half the conflicts in the setting it certainly won't be known.
Alex_ 06-23-07, 03:38 AM	Actually, there's a very easy way: onyx is common enough in Eberron that it costs 25 GP to animate the corpse of a level one humanoid. Really, that's just how the D&D economy works. The price of a good in D&D already accounts for how rare it is, how difficult it is to acquire, produce, and ship, etc. Unless the ECS or other official book says otherwise, onyx is common enough in Eberron that most human bodies cost only 25 GP to animate. The prices are for game balance, not a direct representative of how common or easy to acquire something is. Take for instance the Xen'drik boomerang. An exotic weapon made and used almost exclusively by the reclusive and xenophobic dark elves of Xen'drik. It only costs 20gp. I could buy 5 of those for every 4 onyx gems you could get a hold of. If we took things further, I could have double the number of them for every Heavy Crossbow you could find, or 3+ for every composite longbow out there. Price is not directly proportional to availability. Onyx gems can be cheap, yet rare. And in a time of desperation, when you're trying to get a hold of every single one you can find, their value is sure to skyrocket. Karrnath did raise some Undead, and of all the 5 nations, relied least on Warforged, but they couldn't create enough to overwhelm the other nations. Hmmm that gets me thinking... Would artificially inflated prices contribute to the power of an Onyx Gem as used for summoning skeletons?
ArcTan 06-23-07, 03:42 AM	Well, that's not really stated in either Part 1 (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebee/20060130a) or Part 2 (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebee/20060220a) or the LM Eberron Expanded. He only describes options and models. These aren't Dragonmark articles that represent official campaign details. However, even if you do assume that these spells aren't widely available, no problem: any caster can just invent in a few months by using the Spell Research rules. Er, yes it is. If it's a super-secret spell that took the Qalbarin necromancers of old millennia to stumble upon and that's locked away in their secret tomes, *no*, you cannot just "happen to discover it" by making a research check. It's always up to the DM, of course, but the default should be that random splatbook stuff does *not* exist in Eberron, given the far-ranging effects most random splatbook stuff has on a setting that was often conceived before the splatbook was created, or by designers who weren't familiar with the splatbook. (If everything in Libris Mortis existed in Eberron by default, the nature of Undeath would be greatly different from the assumptions the designers made when they wrote the ECS and a lot of the flavor of things like Karrnath and the BoV would had to change. So we assume it *doesn't*.) Also, expensive? It might be the case, but I don't recall any source indicating that Karnnathi undead were pricey to make. They're expensive enough to only exist in somewhat limited numbers, rather than sweepingly replacing all standard living troops and Warforged. Again, artificers. They can do it at 9th-level. According to the Demographics (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040712a) Dragonshard, most large cities and almost every metropolis will have an artificer or two of this level. Just because they're high enough level doesn't mean they know the spell. Of course not, but the setting assumes they get it *somehow*. How else do you get career artificers and magewrights? Most creators in Cannith are always off on wacky adventures to refuel their XP, so magic item makers get their crafting XP in other ways. If they can get XP to make magic swords, staves, and airships, they can get the XP to cast Awaken Undead. The usual assumption I've seen is that creation XP recharges at a constant rate in order to allow you to make a constant rate of "ordinary" magic items for your level (the mechanic of "item level" in Magic Item Compendium may help for this). XP-costing spells by definition add a cost over and above this. I don't think you can blithely assume that they'll always have "enough" XP to do whatever you want (or else Mordain the Fleshweaver can just spam the wish spell and rule the world). In short order, they'll be making things like a Rod of the Dead to simplify the creation process - in much the same way Cannith made creation forges to ease the making of constructs. It's not necessarily *possible* to create a "Rod of the Dead" to facilitate this process. The point of Warforged is that you *can* have a Creation Forge that mass-produces Warforged but not one that mass-produces Iron Golems -- or else they would've just churned out tons of the infinitely more crazy-powerful Iron Golems in the first place and never stumbled upon the secret of making Warforged at all. Again, the assumption should never be that something is possible. Occam's Razor always dictates that the simplest assumption to make when something looks like it might be incredibly useful but no one's using it is that it's not actually possible, not that everyone's just incredibly stupid. What reason do we have to believe that a Rod of the Dead like you describe is possible? No more reason than we do to believe that you could trivially invent a Rod of Kill Everybody and Ascend to Godhood. Really, only slightly? The flesh golem costs 11,000 GP to produce and that creature is bound to go berserk on you eventually. Anyway, the resources aren't that great. It's a simple matter to produce the necessary scrolls/rods/wondrous items to replicate these two spells. Well, we know Flesh Golems exist because they're Core. Again, we have no actual reason to believe that if awaken undead exists it's a known spell. (Even if you take a very broad meaning of "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron", that just means it has a *place* in Eberron, not that it's common and everywhere in Eberron. The place for Libris Mortis spells in Eberron is in locked tomes scattered somewhere in lost Qalbarin tomes.) They're not completely mindless. Again, they have Int 5-10. They are perfectly capable of taking action without being prompted to do so. I brought up the more intelligent undead just to demonstrate that if you want a squad leader with Intelligence greater than 10 (which 1/6 awakened human skeletons have anyway), it's very easy to get. I'm talking about regular Skeletons, not the dodgy Awakened Skeletons that probably don't exist in Eberron. And that is why the good people at WoTC gave us Rebuke Undead. Ghoul commanders are nice but not necessary (since awakened skeletons can handle things on their own), but if you want a ghoul to boss your skeletons around, you can keep him on a short leash with rebuking. Granted, this requires a cleric - or an artificer making the right magic items. No, it mostly requires a Cleric (I can't think of any magic item that gives you the class ability to channel negative energy). It requires a relatively powerful Cleric who's confident he can control all those Undead at once and who's not worried about what happens if he gets picked off. Anything official on it specifically being a secret? I understand that many people on the boards take exclusion of non-core material as their default position, but I'm not familiar with any particular official sourcebook or article that mandates default exclusion. Eberron Expanded is written by the creator of the setting and taken as pretty damn official by most members of these boards. Even if you don't, "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron" is one of the most complained-about sentences because it's taken wildly out of context. If you actually read the whole Intro to the ECS, it clearly says that it intends you to assume only that the DMG, PHB, MM and XPH apply to Eberron. Anything else *can be made to fit* in Eberron but isn't supposed to be there by default. As Keith Baker pointed out, Eberron was actually written *without* knowledge of what existed in certain splatbooks like the BoVD and BoED, much of the Complete series, and so on, and trying to shoehorn that material in without being very careful about it will lead to serious consistency problems in the setting. (Most obviously, nothing in Eberron is actually compatible with the way Deities and Demigods says the gods work. Manual of the Planes doesn't apply directly to Eberron at all since none of those planes exist in Eberron. Etc.) The *general rule* for sourcebooks is that a non-core sourcebook shouldn't be considered to be part of a setting or a campaign unless it's specifically included. Inclusion by default rather than exclusion by default leads to all kinds of crap -- in the long run it leads to Pun-Pun, after all. Remember, all the ghoul talk is really tangential to the main point (that awakened skeletons are a much better option that 10K warforged). The ghoul boss is optional. Fully a 6th of the skeletons you make will have normal human intelligence, so you don't need the smarter undead boss. These can be the commanders. In fact, they're so cheap that you can just use the smartest 6th as soldiers and use the rest for labor. Well, Awakened Undead probably don't exist in Eberron, and if they do they don't exist in large numbers. The closest comparison, a Karrnathi Undead, is intentionally not quite as good as an Awakened Undead -- and the fact that it's used this much pretty much proves there aren't Awakened Undead in huge numbers. You can still, however, see the big differences between Karrnathi Undead and a Warforged -- Karrnathi Undead will never give you the super-elite troops that Warforged can be.
ArcTan 06-23-07, 03:46 AM	The prices are for game balance, not a direct representative of how common or easy to acquire something is. Take for instance the Xen'drik boomerang. An exotic weapon made and used almost exclusively by the reclusive and xenophobic dark elves of Xen'drik. It only costs 20gp. I could buy 5 of those for every 4 onyx gems you could get a hold of. If we took things further, I could have double the number of them for every Heavy Crossbow you could find, or 3+ for every composite longbow out there. Price is not directly proportional to availability. Onyx gems can be cheap, yet rare. Well, yeah. Price is tied to a lot of things -- it doesn't instantaneously respond to the iron law of supply and demand. It would be a lot harder for me to get a copy of the seventh Harry Potter book than to get every copy of The Secret (trendy self-help book) in the bookstore. However, every copy of The Secret in the bookstore, combined, will cost a lot more than one copy of the seventh Harry Potter book. It's just that The Secret is *there* and the Harry Potter book isn't.
The White Sorcerer 06-23-07, 03:49 AM	Personally, I think this is a little high. It's likely drawn on the issue of "how much is a suit of adamantine platemail", which is a logical basis - but given that you can't actually give the platemail away, that their manufactured through a form of mass production, and so on, I'd have it be lower. Did you, perhaps, miss this post? Also, the OP had it wrong. A warforged did not cost 10,000gp. 10,000gp was the minimum cost of a single warforged, but when mass produced at a rate of 12 at a time, the price was dropped to about 5,000-6,000 gp.
CannibalSmith 06-23-07, 05:05 AM	No, they (the warforged) don't [need shards]. You are correct and I was in error.
Euangelion 06-23-07, 08:28 AM	I'd have to disagree... Thanks for the clarification! If there's not a difference in price between a basic warforged and one with the Adamantine Body feat (or at least not a very big one), then by all means most would have that feat. Thinking about the economics of the Last War, I recall House Kundarak kept the budgets of several nations afloat with massive loans. An amusing scenario in my mind would be the sight of a Kundarak repo man taking possession of squads of warforged after a loan in defaulted...Of course, the Treaty of Thronehold would make this impossible.
Sarlax 06-23-07, 11:29 AM	Some remarks rearranged to facilitate discussion. Er, yes it is. If it's a super-secret spell that took the Qalbarin necromancers of old millennia to stumble upon and that's locked away in their secret tomes, *no*, you cannot just "happen to discover it" by making a research check. Please find for me actual quoted text that says they officiallly they aren't available in the setting. Here's the debate 'history' on that point: A: Those things are deeply held secrets of the Blood of Vol and/or the Qalbarin (referring to Eberron Expanded). S: Well, that's not really stated in either Part 1 or Part 2 or the LM Eberron Expanded. He only describes options and models. These aren't Dragonmark articles that represent official campaign details. A: Er, yes it is. You're trying make official statements about the status of the setting on the basis of articles that only describe optional ways to implement material. Eberron Expanded is written by the creator of the setting and taken as pretty damn official by most members of these boards. It's "officially" optional. I respect his opinions, especially when it comes to clarifying design intent or for getting ideas on ways to develop the world, but the setting isn't Keithworld, it's Eberron, and it belongs to other designers and gamers as much as it belong to Keith Baker. The decisions he makes for his own campaign don't apply to the whole setting. Just because they're high enough level doesn't mean they know the spell. This is pretty much the essence of your reply, that "The spell probably isn't known/can't be known/etc," the justification of which is that it changes your own perception of Eberron. While that's fine for one's own game, it doesn't make a very good basis for declaring that a setting which is designed to accommodate should actually exclude things like the core rules (for spell research) or other supplements. I don't think you can blithely assume that they'll always have "enough" XP to do whatever you want ... I don't. You may review what I wrote. I only assume that that if they can refresh XP for the purpose of crafting magic items that they can do the same for spells. Consider this: Awaken Undead uses up 250 XP, which is the amount of XP you'd expend in making an item which costs 6,250 GP. That puts it on par with the XP cost for other regularly made magic items, such as Eternal Wands , Channeling Rods, or Dragonmark Foci. Again, the assumption should never be that something is possible. We ought to scratch the Eldritch Machine entry from the ECS, then. The whole point of magic is that it makes things possible. The only thing way in which Awaken Undead differs from core spells is that it has implications for the setting you dislike. Even if you don't, "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron" is one of the most complained-about sentences because it's taken wildly out of context. If you actually read the whole Intro to the ECS, it clearly says that it intends you to assume only that the DMG, PHB, MM and XPH apply to Eberron. If you actually actually read the whole Introduction, you've find that it's only claimed that everything from the PHB, MM, and DMG has a place in Eberron. The XPH is mentioned in point 10, and even then it is only "strongly recommended." Anything else *can be made to fit* in Eberron but isn't supposed to be there by default. As Keith Baker pointed out, Eberron was actually written *without* knowledge of what existed in certain splatbooks like the BoVD and BoED, much of the Complete series, and so on ... The deathless type is right out of BED, possession is from BVD. Other options like action points are from Unearth Arcana and d20 Modern, symbionts are from the Fiend Folio, etc. Eberron was designed by several people, many of whom clearly had a broad knowledge of what existed outside of the core material. The closest comparison, a Karrnathi Undead, is intentionally not quite as good as an Awakened Undead ... Wait, I thought you just said Eberron was written without knowledge of supplemental books. How can the Karrnathi undead be intentionally inferior to the Awaken Undead effect if their creator wasn't aware of the spell?
Bentley Mirrorshade 06-23-07, 01:35 PM	I don't own any of the aforementioned supplements and my knowledge of awaken and summon undead spells is based solely on this thread. That said, I feel that giving this kind of options to the armies of all 5N just makes hell of a lot of problems in the setting. Karrnath would no longer be special, it would completely ruin the whole flavour of the warfare. BoV would become a lot less creepy for the common folk when necromantic practices pop up in every arcane or military institution. Thrane would have to fight everyone all the time due to the usage of undead, use of warforged and genuine Karrnathi Undead becomes questionable, etc. It is easier just to say that these practices are obscure and not widely known, as suggested by ArcTan. It's "officially" optional. I respect his opinions, especially when it comes to clarifying design intent or for getting ideas on ways to develop the world, but the setting isn't Keithworld, it's Eberron, and it belongs to other designers and gamers as much as it belong to Keith Baker. The decisions he makes for his own campaign don't apply to the whole setting. You are absolutely correct and I believe Keith himself would say just the same thing. But, let's face it, his ideas are pretty darn BRILLIANT and I'm yet to see ONE unofficial ruling by Keith that I don't totally agree with. That doesn't automatically make anyone others' ideas invalid of course, but what you suggest would have some *serious* impact on the setting and then it would be far from the official version anyway. Even when I don't believe cramming every possible variant rule or supplemental stuff into Eberron is a good idea, I understand you want to use the material you own, I would certainly do the same thing! Making various alternations in the setting is fine, when it works for your campaign, even great, but don't expect to get any general consensus (with ArcTan or others) on things that would cause fundamental changes in the setting. Naturally, there were and will be dozens of supplements whose authors don't go into great lenghts to make everything compatible with every possible aspect of every other book, setting etc. There are the core rules, and everything else is on the individual discretion of a particulural DM. If you believe that wide use of these spells and practices would enhance your Eberron experience, I'm only happy. It's just that I don't feel like throwing out an integral part of the setting (warforged) out of the window just because there is a better, cheaper variant in an optional sourcebook somewhere. Moreover, seeing the cost of a mass-produced, mass-ordered warforged being quite balanced with the costs of maintaing a Deneith mercenary of comparable skill (see my calculations (which were really not to be taken entirely serious to begin with, but prove to be a nice guideline)), it would't end with the warforged... Why bother with hobgoblins, Valenar, magebred gorillas or anything when there is a relatively cheap and reliable source of undead forces? I don't feel that the aforementioned necromantic options fit in with the use you want for them, that is, a source of troops for peoples of 5N or a part of their warfare repertoire. I think there are much more, much better applications - for example, awaken or summon undead could be the reason why Erandis d'Vol (via exploiting old Quabalrin lore or creating the spells herself) is capable of fielding massive undead armies in her campaign to conquer nations of Khorvaire. A nice application of an optional material that makes sense, sounds fun and does not break any precedents, not cost of warforged in FoW, not anything. Anyway, these are my thoughts, thanks for reading and have a nice day,
ArcTan 06-23-07, 02:02 PM	Some remarks rearranged to facilitate discussion. Please find for me actual quoted text that says they officiallly they aren't available in the setting. Here's the debate 'history' on that point: A: Those things are deeply held secrets of the Blood of Vol and/or the Qalbarin (referring to Eberron Expanded). S: Well, that's not really stated in either Part 1 or Part 2 or the LM Eberron Expanded. He only describes options and models. These aren't Dragonmark articles that represent official campaign details. A: Er, yes it is. Please show me where it says Eberron Expanded is any more or any less official than Dragonshard (not "Dragonmark") articles. If anything, the *only* reason they would be less official than Dragonshards is that the material they *reference* is less official -- i.e. the stuff in Eberron Expanded: Libris Mortis is only true for your game if you allow Libris Mortis, *which you don't have to*. Otherwise, they're Web articles by the creator of the setting. They're all at the same level of official-ness, both by the judgment of most boards members and by WotC's own statement on "canon". You're trying make official statements about the status of the setting on the basis of articles that only describe optional ways to implement material. It's "officially" optional. I respect his opinions, especially when it comes to clarifying design intent or for getting ideas on ways to develop the world, but the setting isn't Keithworld, it's Eberron, and it belongs to other designers and gamers as much as it belong to Keith Baker. The decisions he makes for his own campaign don't apply to the whole setting. *shrug* Similarly, your decision to *include* Libris Mortis don't apply to the whole setting. This is pretty much the essence of your reply, that "The spell probably isn't known/can't be known/etc," the justification of which is that it changes your own perception of Eberron. While that's fine for one's own game, it doesn't make a very good basis for declaring that a setting which is designed to accommodate should actually exclude things like the core rules (for spell research) or other supplements. It's designed to accomodate, not automatically include. The core rules for spell research are *not* rules that allow spells to automatically exist, after all. I can tell my DM that I want to research a level 1 spell that makes me immortal and immune to all damage. He will respond "No", and my research check will fail, unless he is an idiot. It's pretty obvious that a *lot* of stuff from other supplements can't be true in Eberron. Deities & Demigods can't be true in Eberron. Manual of the Planes can't be true in Eberron. Where are you getting the idea that "If it's in a supplement, that means it exists"? I don't. You may review what I wrote. I only assume that that if they can refresh XP for the purpose of crafting magic items that they can do the same for spells. Consider this: Awaken Undead uses up 250 XP, which is the amount of XP you'd expend in making an item which costs 6,250 GP. That puts it on par with the XP cost for other regularly made magic items, such as Eternal Wands , Channeling Rods, or Dragonmark Foci. ...Which you probably can't make that often, for that reason. If it costs 250 XP, it means that a low-level Magewright might be able to make one or two of them in his entire life. A mid-level NPC Artificer (i.e. the best of the best), one or two a year. We ought to scratch the Eldritch Machine entry from the ECS, then. The point of Eldritch Machines is that they are rare, they crop up once in a blue moon, they have very strict restrictions on how they work and the DM has absolute control over how they're made and how they're destroyed. It's like spell research. Spell research makes it *possible* for awaken undead or the 1st-level spell make me invulnerable to all damage forever to exist. It doesn't mean that they *do* exist. Someday, somewhere, someone *might* build an eldritch machine that allows him to Awaken Undead as long as he sacrifices a virgin to it every month and never looks in mirrors. That doesn't mean it's happened. The whole point of magic is that it makes things possible. *Specific* things. The only thing way in which Awaken Undead differs from core spells is that it has implications for the setting you dislike. Implications for the setting which *change the setting*. I mean, we know as a fact that people *don't* use Awakened Undead everywhere, because the Karrns do, in fact, use Karrnathi Undead, because we see no reference to Awakened Undead, because Warforged *weren't* displaced by Awakened Undead and therefore your little scenario didn't happen. What are you trying to prove with your little scenario? "Everyone in Eberron's an idiot and I'm smarter than them"? Or "The Eberron designers are wrong and in the 'real' Eberron Awakened Undead are military staples"? All I think it proves is that the setting's assumptions are different from your own. If you actually actually read the whole Introduction, you've find that it's only claimed that everything from the PHB, MM, and DMG has a place in Eberron. The XPH is mentioned in point 10, and even then it is only "strongly recommended." Sure, but Eberron gives no easy way to convert most Psionic monsters to a non-Psionic form, so the XPH is in that sense "necessary" to make use of most of the setting. The deathless type is right out of BED, possession is from BVD. Other options like action points are from Unearth Arcana and d20 Modern, symbionts are from the Fiend Folio, etc. Eberron was designed by several people, many of whom clearly had a broad knowledge of what existed outside of the core material. Sure, but Keith Baker himself said that he didn't include various stuff from Complete Warrior or Complete Arcane because he wasn't familiar with those books. No one can know everything. Eberron *specifically includes* certain things from other books, but that doesn't mean it includes *everything* from those books. The existence of Deathless doesn't imply the existence of the Vow of Poverty, for instance. In fact, the way Deathless are included actually specifically *doesn't* include BoED -- instead of telling you "Use the Deathless Type as described in the Book of Exalted Deeds", it gives you a completely written-out description of Deathless so you *don't need* the BoED to play them. It doesn't do that with, for example, the Wizard class or the Psion class. Wait, I thought you just said Eberron was written without knowledge of supplemental books. How can the Karrnathi undead be intentionally inferior to the Awaken Undead effect if their creator wasn't aware of the spell? They're intentionally not as powerful as Awakened Undead. If he wanted Undead that powerful to exist in the setting, he could've made them up, whether or not he knew about Libris Mortis having already done so.
Sarlax 06-23-07, 02:13 PM	It's just that I don't feel like throwing out an integral part of the setting (warforged) out of the window just because there is a better, cheaper variant in an optional sourcebook somewhere. This gets right to the heart of the matter. I don't advocate throwing out the warforged. I'm arguing they are too expensive. I brought up the awakened skeletons to demonstrate that the game supports a much cheaper alternative to warforged priced in the many thousands of GP. Even 5,000 GP a head when buying bulk is remarkably expensive. There are plenty of reasons to not use undead, such as their vulnerability to turning, creep factor, and (if you consider this the case) their inherent evil. But if you're a king with enemies at the gates, you'll probably take hundreds of warriors over 1 fighter. My conclusion isn't that there should have been undead legions all across the continent but that 5-10K for warforged is an unrealistic price.
Sarlax 06-23-07, 02:44 PM	Please show me where it says Eberron Expanded is any more or any less official than Dragonshard (not "Dragonmark") articles. You got it. You can simply read the text of the first LM Eberron Expanded: ""The decision to add material is always up to you as DM..."Suppose Erandis d'Vol possesses a few of the secrets described in Libris Mortis ..." "Alternatively, the introduction of much of this material could be ..." "The possibilities are infinite, but the options outlined below are good places to start." "Here are a few ideas ..." It's clear that this stuff is entirely optional. The article says nothing definitive about the material in the setting. It's designed to accomodate, not automatically include. Taking the attitude many people have about other supplements, Eberron's worse at this than Forgotten Realms. If Eberron is really only designed to accept core rules, so what? FR was doing that for years. FR also has plenty of room to expand, as evidenced by the many sourcebooks in the line that use material from other sources. By taking the default position that a new option isn't available in Eberron until proven otherwise (preferably only from the setting creator, apparently), you make the setting less capable of fulfilling the "If it's D&D, it's in Eberron" promise. The core rules for spell research are *not* rules that allow spells to automatically exist, after all. Of course. If however the effect is possible within the game rules, there's nothing about the nature of magic that should exclude it across settings. What is different about the magic in Eberron that Awaken Undead is an impossible spell? Well, nothing really. Even if you assume that the spell doesn't exist at a particular moment, what about the nature of magic in the world prevents it from being researched in the normal fashion? Where are you getting the idea that "If it's in a supplement, that means it exists"? I don't take that position, but I can refer you to Player's Guide to Eberron, which pretty much does take that position. Refer to page 15: "Since the rule of thumb is 'If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron,' characters of all of these new clases exist in Eberron." Again, this isn't my position, but it is the position of this official Eberron book. We can have a shouting match about how that's an "obvious mistake," "violates the spirit of the setting," or whatever one likes, but the setting seems to take an expansive position when it comes to options in the D&D game. ...Which you probably can't make that often, for that reason. If it costs 250 XP, it means that a low-level Magewright might be able to make one or two of them in his entire life. A mid-level NPC Artificer (i.e. the best of the best), one or two a year. Okie dokie, if that's how fast the replenishment works for your world (meaning that a low level magewright has a pretty strict cap on how much he can make in his life), that's fine, but it has implications across the setting for the magic item supply. What are you trying to prove with your little scenario? "Everyone in Eberron's an idiot and I'm smarter than them"? Or "The Eberron designers are wrong and in the 'real' Eberron Awakened Undead are military staples"? All I think it proves is that the setting's assumptions are different from your own. What's with the tone? There's no reason not to stay civil here. Disagreement, whether with some aspects of setting design or with other board members, doesn't mean one disrespects the game designers, nor does it necessitate that one must start throwing insults about to defend a position. Anyhow, the goal of my "little scenario" is that the rules permit for a much cheaper variant to warforged at the price they're listed as having. I chose to demonstrate that with awakened skeletons, but you can do it other ways. Take kobolds (or goblins, or whatever small guy you like. They're extremely cheap, make good ranged warriors, have good AC, and reproduce as fast as rats. Given a century of warfare, someone would have used them. Darguun is only one case. The point is that if warforged cost ~6000 GP or more a piece not many people would have bought them. They are too expensive given alternatives. Sure, but Keith Baker himself said that he didn't include various stuff from Complete Warrior or Complete Arcane ... In fact, the way Deathless are included actually specifically *doesn't* include BoED I believe you missed my point, which is that Eberron already accepts material beyond the core rules, which demonstrates that Eberron is designed to accomodate by default, not to exclude by default. Again, I'm saying accomodate, not that it automatically includes everything - but you can refer to the Player's Guide to Eberron for a different take on that.
Hellcow 06-23-07, 03:17 PM	Just a few quick points... Yes, I missed the post of warforged price dropping when bought en masse. All the better. And I agree with Cifer's point that those high level artificers you find in a city are likely to be employed by dragonmarked houses and not available for independent contracts. There's certainly a few independents out there, and they could also work for some other major organization. The demographics tells you WHO'S in the city; it doesn't tell you what they're doing there, or how they attained that level. In my mind, the typical high-level artificer will likely be a Cannith scion, a Zil shipwright, an Aundairian military engineer, or something similar - someone who has learned his trade through his association with his organization, and who has a high-powered, high-paying job because of it. Taking Sharn, for example, there is a 9th-level artificer there... Merrix d'Cannith. But it's not exactly an easy task to hire Merrix to work on your personal project. There are a few true independents scattered around the world - people like adventurers. Karrnath could have been developing a battaleon of military engineers. But the key is that just because a city HAS a character of level X doesn't mean they'll work for you. One of the common principles of Eberron, for example, is that most clerics don't sell divine spellcasting services. Anyhow, demographics is a start; as a DM, you'll need to decide the story behind the numbers. And finally, the point about obscure spells, and "if this spell exists, do I have access to it?" ArcTan has essentially covered my view here. In creating Eberron, we were working off of a basic principle: what if magic was treated as a science? What if it was incorporated into society and developed over time as the other sciences have on our world? This is reflected in a few central assumptions of the setting. The first is that innovation is difficult. You can't simply mak any magic item you want or any spell you want. The reason House Sivis has a monopoly on the communications network - using what amoungs to a telegraph, not instant communication - is because no one's managed to developed a network of sending stones yet. By straight SRD, nothing prevents you from just making a sending stone. Look at the suggested values, make a use-based item, pow. But the point is that in Eberron, that's the difference between a cell phone and a telegraph - and it's NOT something you can just do because you want to. Magic is driven by scientific principles, and improving on what already exists is a challenge. It can be done, but it's hard. Hence my suggestion to introduce new spells and magic items as part of that - as a story rather than simply "this non-core book has this spell, so all wizards now have it." Instead, this spell may be something the Cul'sir giants developed in the final days of Xen'drik, something that can be discovered in a spellshard the size of a boulder. It could be the latest amazing breakthrough in Arcanix, and both the King's Citadel and House Cannith are determined to steal this discovery. It can be a secret the line of Vol has carried down from the Age of the Qabalrin, now passed to their allies. But it's significant. It's not something anyone can do because they want to. Cleric spells are a different matter, because they aren't science. But given the degree to which the major religions ARE spread across the world and history (the Silver Flame has the shulassakar, the Ghaash'kala, the Khaleshite crusaders, and any number of serpent cults; the Sovereign Host appears all over the place) I say that different spells reflect the different paths these societies have taken. A divine spell is a prayer and invocation. My point is that the Shulaasakar have rituals for invoking the Silver Flame that are completely different from those used by the priests of Flamekeep, and which produce different results. A priest of the Silver Flame can LEARN these rituals from the shulassakar and they'll work fine; they are drawing on the same force. But without that inspiration, he only has the rituals developed by his society. This makes encountering clerics of other cultures far more interesting and again drives adventuring; if I go to Sarlona, I may be able to learn forgotten rituals that will enhance my repetoire. One can certainly challenge whether my opinions are official, but this is one of the fundamental pillars of the setting: the Dragonmarked houses have the power that they do because normal people haven't been able to develop magic items to duplicate the powers THEY provide with dragonshard focus items... and that it's easier to create something that channels a dragonmark power than to create something entirely unique. With all of this said, two final points. First, PCs ARE remarkable people. My point is that society doesn't advance quickly. The magewrights of the Twelve and Arcanix work slowly. On the other hand, a PC wizard or artificer MAY be able to make an amazing breakthrough and develop a new spell or magic item, because that's what the PCs are about. They are the main characters of the story, and if the DM wants to let the artificer be the great inventor of the age, no problem. Innovation is hard, but there are genuises who can make it look easy. Which brings us to the final point: it's always up to the DM. The DM should NEVER feel that he has to let the player create a particular item just because she can calculate a cost for it. Likewise, if he WANTS to say that spells from obscure third-party sources are commonplace, it's his game. But for me, it's always a matter of considering the impact the spell would have on the setting. Taking the issue at hand - and I haven't read it closely - if the point is "The use of a particular spell not from the core books would mean that Karrnath should never use warforged," I'd say that if none of the setting books have suggested that Karrnath uses this spell, if they DO suggest that Karrnath uses warforged, then that's a clear indication that Karrnath doesn't have that spell... not yet, at least. And that's where the adventure comes in. The Order of the Emerald Claw finds references to the spell in crumbling Qabalrin scrolls and send a team to the Ring of Storms to find the process. If they do obtain it, it will revolutionize their use of undead when the war inevitably begins again. Can the adventurers stop them?!?
Hellcow 06-23-07, 04:02 PM	One other thing I'll point out, since it comes up time and again. 1. If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron. A monster or spell or magic item from the core rulebooks might feature a twist or two to account for Eberron's tone and attitude, but otherwise everything in the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual has a place somewhere in Eberron. The key word phrase is "It has a place in Eberron." Even the PGtE says that - "Since the rule of thumb is 'If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron,' characters of all of these new clases exist in Eberron." There's a world of difference between "there's a place for it in Eberron" and "it exists in the Five Nations." Taking unusual necromantic magic, there's a place for it in Eberron - namely, the lost cities of the Qabalrin, the devotees of Katashka, or perhaps a terrible secret discovered by Erandis d'Vol. Is there a place for ninjas in Eberron? Sure; they might be Shaarat'khesh goblins or Riedran assassins. With all of the fallen civilizations, planar incursions, myriad cultures, and places like Mourning, Khyber, and Xen'drik, there's a place for anything in D&D in Eberron... but that doesn't make it commonplace, and doesn't mean it can be found on Khorvaire. Sarlax is correct: Eberron Expanded is intended to be optional... precisely because the sourcebooks it covers are optional. It's suggesting how you COULD incorporate material from the Libris Mortis. But if you as DM decide that you don't WANT to use the Libris Mortis, you can choose to ignore it. The military of Karrnath isn't predicated on the existence of a spell from Libris Mortis, because as a DM you may not want to use it. Eberron Expanded says "If you've got the book and are wondering where that 'place in Eberron' might be, here's what I'd do." (As a side note, as I'm traveling I took the quote above from the "Gearing Up For Eberron" preview. There's a chance it changed, so I'm not promising the whole thing is word for word from the ECS, though I know that key first sentence is. However, it is the original version of that quote... and it's worth noting that not only does it specifically call out the core books, it also points out that spells may have to be changed to fit the setting.)
ArcTan 06-23-07, 05:02 PM	You got it. You can simply read the text of the first LM Eberron Expanded: ""The decision to add material is always up to you as DM..."Suppose Erandis d'Vol possesses a few of the secrets described in Libris Mortis ..." "Alternatively, the introduction of much of this material could be ..." "The possibilities are infinite, but the options outlined below are good places to start." "Here are a few ideas ..." It's clear that this stuff is entirely optional. The article says nothing definitive about the material in the setting. Like I said, that's because including Libris Mortis itself at all is optional. Taking the attitude many people have about other supplements, Eberron's worse at this than Forgotten Realms. If Eberron is really only designed to accept core rules, so what? FR was doing that for years. FR also has plenty of room to expand, as evidenced by the many sourcebooks in the line that use material from other sources. By taking the default position that a new option isn't available in Eberron until proven otherwise (preferably only from the setting creator, apparently), you make the setting less capable of fulfilling the "If it's D&D, it's in Eberron" promise. "If it's in D&D, it *has a place* in Eberron". Different. You always *can* put something in Eberron if you really want to. That doesn't mean it's in Eberron *by default*. Specifically, the place it has in Eberron may be and probably is quite different from the place it has in the core setting. I never said awaken undead was impossible in Eberron. I do say that it does not exist as a commonly known spell in Khorvaire. Of course. If however the effect is possible within the game rules, there's nothing about the nature of magic that should exclude it across settings. Sure there is. Knowing a spell is a big deal. You can't just metagame it and say "The spell's in a supplement, therefore attempts to research it should succeed". The whole point of research is that it's tricky, and that there's a *reason* the spell wasn't discovered thousands of years ago if you're trying to discover it today. What is different about the magic in Eberron that Awaken Undead is an impossible spell? Well, nothing really. Even if you assume that the spell doesn't exist at a particular moment, what about the nature of magic in the world prevents it from being researched in the normal fashion? What about the nature of electricity in the world prevents me from suddenly inventing a steam-powered dynamo if I live in the Middle Ages? Nothing about the way the laws of physics work, just that the *knowledge* isn't there. I don't take that position, but I can refer you to Player's Guide to Eberron, which pretty much does take that position. Refer to page 15: "Since the rule of thumb is 'If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron,' characters of all of these new clases exist in Eberron." Again, this isn't my position, but it is the position of this official Eberron book. We can have a shouting match about how that's an "obvious mistake," "violates the spirit of the setting," or whatever one likes, but the setting seems to take an expansive position when it comes to options in the D&D game. Having a place doesn't mean existing by default. In fact, if your position were the default position, the Eberron Expanded articles would be flat-out *wrong* rather than "merely options". If awaken undead is supposed to be something anyone can pray for and receive, then making it a quest to retrieve the spell from an ancient Qalbarin tome becomes kind of stupid. Okie dokie, if that's how fast the replenishment works for your world (meaning that a low level magewright has a pretty strict cap on how much he can make in his life), that's fine, but it has implications across the setting for the magic item supply. Well, yes. It can be upped thanks to the undefined powers Dragonmarks have and groups of crafters working together have as NPCs, but there is a reason the world isn't flooded with +5 weapons, eldritch machines up the wazoo, and people flying to other worlds in spelljamming helms. What's with the tone? There's no reason not to stay civil here. Disagreement, whether with some aspects of setting design or with other board members, doesn't mean one disrespects the game designers, nor does it necessitate that one must start throwing insults about to defend a position. Anyhow, the goal of my "little scenario" is that the rules permit for a much cheaper variant to warforged at the price they're listed as having. I chose to demonstrate that with awakened skeletons, but you can do it other ways. Take kobolds (or goblins, or whatever small guy you like. They're extremely cheap, make good ranged warriors, have good AC, and reproduce as fast as rats. Given a century of warfare, someone would have used them. Darguun is only one case. But they're not the *rules*. They're your *imaginary* rules that claim that Libris Mortis' non-core spells automatically exist in Eberron, when most DMs wouldn't automatically allow those spells by default anywhere. Again, if the rule is that all rules exist by default, then obviously the easiest thing for Karrnath to do is beg Pun-Pun to save them (because he exists). The point is that if warforged cost ~6000 GP or more a piece not many people would have bought them. They are too expensive given alternatives. Alternatives which don't exist, like Awakened Undead. I believe you missed my point, which is that Eberron already accepts material beyond the core rules, which demonstrates that Eberron is designed to accomodate by default, not to exclude by default. "Accomodate" is not the same thing as "have everywhere for common use". If you told me that outright *banning* Libris Mortis material completely and saying it doesn't exist *at all* was outside the spirit of "It has a place in Eberron", fine. However, nothing says -- and quite a bit opposes -- the idea that having a "place" means "being in common use by the civilized races". Psionics most certainly has a place in Eberron, and that place is *not* as a commonly used form of magic in the Five Nations. Why should a far less core idea like Awakened Undead therefore be any more common? I *would* accomodate awaken undead in a campaign. It would be a dark secret long lost with the fall of the Qalbarin. It would *not* be something the Five Nations could just up and use, because that would *contradict* the established setting material. Again, I'm saying accomodate, not that it automatically includes everything - but you can refer to the Player's Guide to Eberron for a different take on that. PGtE says various classes *exist* in Eberron, but many of them don't exist in Khorvaire and are only the provenance of obscure groups scattered across the world. "A place in Eberron", again, doesn't mean "a major place in the history of the Five Nations".
gensuke626 06-23-07, 05:24 PM	@Hellcow-There's also a 10th Level Artificer in Sharn, Tarya d'Cannith. She'd be more likely to perform any task for a group of PCs (most likely if they help her with her studies into dragon's blood) but the chances are still incredibly slim.
Hellcow 06-23-07, 07:06 PM	@Hellcow-There's also a 10th Level Artificer in Sharn, Tarya d'Cannith. She'd be more likely to perform any task for a group of PCs (most likely if they help her with her studies into dragon's blood) but the chances are still incredibly slim. I know, Gensuke (I did write the book, after all...). I wasn't trying to list all the artificers in Sharn; I was using Merrix as an example. Tarya is of course still a member of House Cannith, and not necessarily going to sign up to create sentient undead armies - even assuming you allow her to emulate the spell. Now that I'm home and have the book in hand, I'll again look to that quote. 1. If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron. A monster or spell or magic item from the core rulebooks might feature a twist or two to account for Eberron's tone and attitude, but otherwise everything in the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual has a place somewhere in Eberron. Lots and lots of things to deal with here. First, as mentioned, "there's a place for it" - that doesn't mean you can find it everywhere you look. The point is that Eberron was designed to have many flexible areas, foremost among these Xen'drik, Khyber, and the Mourning. Most people don't like abeil, but you do and want to use them. No problem. They have a lost city in Xen'drik. Or they have been created by the Mourning and are now spreading out to threaten Khorvaire. There's a place for them - but it's a place that accounts for the fact that they have had absolutely no impact on the history of the world. Second, "might feature a twist or two to account for Eberron's tone and attitude." Key point: yes, you can fit almost anything into the setting. But you should change what you're adding to fit the setting, if necessary. If adding a particular spell completely undermines the existence of the dragonmarked houses, it's assumed that you as DM will come up with a reason this HASN'T occured - either limiting the use of that spell, suggesting that it's only just been discovered, or otherwise taking into account the setting as it stands. Third, "but otherwise everything in the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual has a place somewhere in Eberron." The promise really only applies to the core books. Personally, I think that Eberron is flexible enough that you CAN add almost anything. I often use warlocks. But that initial statement doesn't innately promise that, for example, the gods from Deities and Demigods fit in the setting. It's about core D&D - with the collary that because it's been designed to accept core D&D rules, it will also work with most other things. One example of this is the quori and the various spells in The Book of Vile Darkness. Spells like impotent possessor have a HUGE impact on the Inspired. And the Inspired, quite simply, were not designed with those spells in mind. The people who made the warshaper PrC never expected there to be an LA +0 shapeshifter race, and the warshaper PprC isn't designed with those things in mind. The setting is designed for and balanced against the core books - the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. Odds are GOOD you can find a place for other material, but it's always optional and you should carefully consider the impact on the setting. If impotent possessor IS a spell any wizard can learn, then over the course of fifteen hundred years the Inspired will have needed to find a defense against it, because their entire existence is predicated on possession and they aren't dummies (and they're really had fifteen thousand years when you consider the time difference). So in the case of awaken undead, it's something that's never been mentioned as being used in warfare. It's something that would significantly weaken the impact of the Karrnathi undead. I definitely think it has a place in Eberron - but that place is as something new (and/or terribly old). If Erandis recovers this knowledge and her agents are the only necromancers who can perform this spell, then suddenly the Emerald Claw has an edge that makes fighting them different and a tempting offer to make to Karrn warlords who might turn on Kaius. Even as a non-core spell, it has a place - but you'll want to give it a 'twist or two' to fit into the setting and avoid upsetting established history.
gensuke626 06-23-07, 08:10 PM	@Hellcow- I know you know. :D I was trying to make the point that there are Cannith in city who would probably more likely to help the PCs do such a thing (Admittedly I see it as 1 in a million vs a snowball's chance on Fernia). Also, I claim temporary insanity for aiming the post at you instead of just typing my thoughts out. Sorry if I came across as anything other than..umm...a quiet fanboy with a book? Anyhow...Anyhow... @everyone - Anyone else think we should start up a Hellcow Quote Archieve? I mean, that way when someone says: "If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron." we can just Copypasta Hellcow's wonderful responses such as the very clear explanation of that statement.
Archangel62 06-24-07, 09:48 AM	@everyone - Anyone else think we should start up a Hellcow Quote Archieve? I mean, that way when someone says: "If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron." we can just Copypasta Hellcow's wonderful responses such as the very clear explanation of that statement. I can see it now, "And now a quoting from the book of Hellcow."
(Psi)SeveredHead 06-24-07, 10:35 AM	Juggernauts are not needed by the dozen. That's my point. One awesome monster can butcher an infinite amount of 1st level warriors. My point is that human soldiers are so cheap compared to warforged that it's cost effective to put up with their flaws. That's just making the Juggernaut the target of a whole lot of knights. Most soldiers are going to be 1st or 2nd level warriors, but knights (who would probably be slightly higher level) would be the elites of the battlefield, as far as melee is concerned. Or you could just take out the Jugger with a well-placed spell.
gensuke626 06-24-07, 05:05 PM	I can see it now, "And now a quoting from the book of Hellcow." And, Yea, Did Hellcow pronounce that "Though there is a place for it within the reach of my world, it may not be found everywhere." And the Masters of Dungeons did take this knowledge upon themselves, and grow wiser. Amen. But in all seriousness, I think it's a good idea...maybe someone could scour the forums and collect all of Hellcow's best quotes and put them up in a Sticky somewhere. I'd do it but I don't have the search function or the time right now...
Edymnion 06-24-07, 09:57 PM	...To keep this in perspective, 25 GP is roughly the equivalent of $1,000 today, although it's not an exact conversion.Honestly, its not even close. I've gone through the PHB, and while I'll say up front that there is no "correct" equivolancy, the bulk of the PHB goods, services, and food work out to be 1 sp = $1 US. So, 25 gp is $250, no $1,000.
Bentley Mirrorshade 06-25-07, 06:50 PM	Take kobolds (or goblins, or whatever small guy you like. They're extremely cheap, make good ranged warriors, have good AC, and reproduce as fast as rats. Given a century of warfare, someone would have used them. Darguun is only one case. Take 5 goblins, a rough CR equivalent of warforged fighter 2 5 x 2sp (2 poor meals), that's 1gp a day to feed them, 336gp/E.year, 5040gp/15years But these are trivial calculations and don't say all that much really, not considering *millions* of variables, for example; laughable morale of such soldiers... If the listed cost of warforged still bugs you, in order to work out any reasonable conclusion, you have to ask the REAL question: What is the average survivability of a warforged on a battlefield?
DarkWarriorKarg 06-26-07, 09:57 AM	What is the average survivability of a warforged on a battlefield? Much longer than those 5 goblins he'll run into... and over.
The Dreaming Duck 06-26-07, 11:19 AM	Much longer than those 5 goblins he'll run into... and over. Seriously. If you go with Hellcow's assertion that the typical warforged is a 2nd-level fighter with Power Attack, Adamantine Body, and Cleave? Let's look at the rest of the picture. As a character with a PC class, I'd say there's a good chance you could use the elite array and max HP at 1st level. In which case you'd have something like: STR 15, DEX 13, CON 16, INT 10, WIS 10, CHA 6; HP 22; AC 19 Go with a greatsword and you've got BAB +4, 2d6+3 damage (average 10). If we're playing it safe, go with a heavy shield and longsword - AC 21, BAB +4, average damage 6.5. If you go with the basic array and average hit points, you still get: STR 14, DEX 11, CON 14, INT 8, WIS 7, CHA 6; HP 15, AC 18 Combat damage stays the same. Now you get that typical goblin (from the MM): STR 11, DEX 13, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 9, CHA 6; HP 5; AC 15 BAB +2, 1d6 damage with morningstar. Either way, the warforged has a 50% chance of hitting his opponent, and if he hits his opponent, it goes down (if he's using the greatsword, it drops on a minimum roll), allowing him to cleave. Meanwhile, the goblin only has a 25% (dropped to 15% if the warforged has a shield) chance of hitting his target, and when he hits, typically only inflicts 1.5 points of damage (yes, you can't inflict .5 damage, but on two hits they'll average 3 points). So it's going to take 10 hits to bring down the average warforged, 15 to bring down one with the elite array (and against the elite array you only have a 20% chance of hitting - 10% with a shield). The goblins may have flanking on their side because of numbers, but that also means they're in easy cleave range. So unless you're outfitting the goblins with plate armor, which throws cost out the window, it's going to take 150 attacks for the goblins to take down the elite-array warforged with the shield. One on one, this means the warforged takes out 75 goblins in the same time. Obviously they won't fight one on one. The point of the goblins having numbers is that they can swarm, make multiple attacks each round, and possibly get flanking. On the other hand, as long as you have more than one warforged, they'll be covering their own lines - and an attack of opportunity gives a 50% chance to kill the goblin who tries to flank. So sure, the odds of actually killing 75 goblins are low... but five? Certainly. Obviously, assuming average damage is unsafe. A goblin could always get a critical hit (though warforged fortification comes into play) and do a mighty 10 points of damage; three such maximum-damage critical hits in a row would even bring down the elite warforged. But by the odds? My squad of 10 warforged will mop up your 50 goblins. On top of THAT, when the warforged drops to negative hit points, it immediately stabilizes. Unless the goblins take the time to completely destroy it, it can be salvaged - so better chance of survival on the battlefield even in defeat. And if it's got a Craft skill (certainly easy for the elite, with Int 10; still possible for the average) it can repair itself when it gets back to base. So yes, I'll take the warforged over 5 goblins... heck, I'll take him over 10 goblins, especially when you add in the other aspects.
Euangelion 06-26-07, 01:04 PM	That's some scary stuff, DD. It might even be enough to revive that old "warforged should be a +1 LA race" argument.
The Dreaming Duck 06-26-07, 01:20 PM	That's some scary stuff, DD. It might even be enough to revive that old "warforged should be a +1 LA race" argument. Well, one of the major factors is "the warforged is a 2nd-level fighter facing 1st-level warriors". This is born out by the fluff, and the thing is that THIS is why you buy warforged - it's not just that you get a guy who doesn't eat or sleep, it's that you buy an elite soldier - someone more skilled than those typical goblins. Also, the thing is that the warforged really shine at low levels. This sort of situation - fighting a group of 1st-level warriors or commoners - is exactly where the warforged is at its peak. Other low-level characters will have trouble matching its high AC or DR. Low hit points of the enemies mean a good chance for a one-hit drop allowing cleave, while the warforged's DR and Con bonus make a big difference when dealing with low-damage foes. When you bring in a Valenar warband - 4th level characters - the dynamic changes. Even if you match 4th-level warforged against them, it's just not as big a differences. DR 2 is always good, but no longer the difference between life and death, because we all have more hit points. Higher level characters are more likely to have better armor of their own. A lot of those warforged advantages fade. But when you're talking about a group of 1st-level commoners and warriors, supposedly the typical soldiers of the Five Nations? That squad of 10 "typical" warforged will be a terror. And if they all have Craft (armorer or weaponsmith) and can thus repair one another and maintain their weapons? Again, very self-sufficient. So it's all a question of if you want to find an answer or not. If you think the typical warforged is a 1st-level warrior with composite plating, there's no reason anyone would buy them, especially at that price. However, if you go with Hellcow's assertion that the typical warforged is a 2nd-level Adamantine fighter, considerably more skilled than the typical levy - that price tag suddenly seems more reasonable.
Archangel62 06-26-07, 04:50 PM	After reading Forge of War I also realize another reason. Every nation but Breland was dealing with problems of food supplies. The fact is that an army travels on its stomach. Now, if you remove the need of food for the army that means that your people are less likely to starve during the war, which is necessary to maintaining morale, to say nothing of avoiding open revolts.
Cutlass 06-26-07, 05:35 PM	This is a response to a much earlier posting about warforged coming in 12 packs. That would imply that somewhere there should be a bunch of seriously heavy duty "plastic" thingies that would have been used to hold them all together :) On warforged and forced marching, the rules as handed down by WOTC really don't make that much sense IMHO. I simply use the house rule that has already been suggested. As long as a warforged is moving at a walking pace as adjusted for encumbrance it can walk indefinitely. Even without the house rule warforged still have a significant advantage over flesh and blood types in terms of forced marches. Once a flesh and blood character takes nonlethal damage from a forced march they are considered to be "fatigued" (PHB 164). A fatigued character can neither run nor charge and takes a -2 penalty to strength and dexterity (PHB 308). Thus you could take a unit of warforged, march them until they had all suffered some nonlethal damage from forced marching, and then throw them immediately into battle with no real degradation in their ability to fight. A unit of flesh and blood soldiers on the other hand would be at a significant disadvantage if they had to fight under those conditions.
maollelujah 06-27-07, 08:53 AM	If you go with the basic array and average hit points, you still get: STR 14, DEX 11, CON 14, INT 8, WIS 7, CHA 6; HP 15, AC 18 Combat damage stays the same. Now you get that typical goblin (from the MM): STR 11, DEX 13, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 9, CHA 6; HP 5; AC 15 BAB +2, 1d6 damage with morningstar. The problem with your analogy is that you are using a typical (MM) goblin vs. and elite 'Fluffed' warforged, then making the goblins stupid. Why would the goblins even consider fighting in melee, when they are better taking ranged attacks and staying out of the range of the warforged? And I am sure that Goblins have never considered themselves shock troops. Then once the goblins disable the warforged they take them back to base, the warforged is repaired and now fights for the otherside. The real problem with the 'War' is that it seems to be portrayed as mass battles when in reality it should be raids, ambushes with a major battle once every 5-10 years.
Soltares 06-27-07, 10:19 AM	The comparison seems to have gone a bit wonky. It's like 'a Warforged is too expensive compared to a Human soldier.' 'Oh, but if we assume that all Warforged are also 2nd level Fighters, and we also assume that they all have Adamantine Body as their initial feat, they suddenly seem like a good investment!' 'Is that how it works? In that case, my Human soldier is also a 1st level Barbarian Half-Dragon, and starts with a +2 Flamethrower, so nyah-nyah!' I guess if we keep raising the bar, it's gonna remain a pointless comparison. My PC Warforged doesn't get to start with 2 free levels of Fighter, so I'm not sure it's appropriate to be comparing a level 1 Commoner with a pointed stick to a 2nd level Fighter, when the issue is whether or not the Warforged, by itself, without being enhanced by 'free' levels or optional feats, is worth the investment...
DarkWarriorKarg 06-27-07, 12:36 PM	The comparison seems to have gone a bit wonky. It's like 'a Warforged is too expensive compared to a Human soldier.' 'Oh, but if we assume that all Warforged are also 2nd level Fighters, and we also assume that they all have Adamantine Body as their initial feat, they suddenly seem like a good investment!' 'Is that how it works? In that case, my Human soldier is also a 1st level Barbarian Half-Dragon, and starts with a +2 Flamethrower, so nyah-nyah!' I guess if we keep raising the bar, it's gonna remain a pointless comparison. My PC Warforged doesn't get to start with 2 free levels of Fighter, so I'm not sure it's appropriate to be comparing a level 1 Commoner with a pointed stick to a 2nd level Fighter, when the issue is whether or not the Warforged, by itself, without being enhanced by 'free' levels or optional feats, is worth the investment... Actually, it's quite an appropriate comparison in this context. Rules and fairness don't really have anything to do with it, nor are we comparing PC vs NPC The Adamantine body feat isn't optional. It's in the ECS. Oh, you mean the WF gets to choose? No.. the player gets to choose during character creation, not the warforged itself, which comes out of its creation forge with the adamantine body. Crunch? You choose. Fluff? You don't. You order a "set" of wf from Cannith You receive 12 2nd level fighters w/ adamantine body, pretty much standard.
Hellcow 06-27-07, 12:38 PM	I'm not sure it's appropriate to be comparing a level 1 Commoner with a pointed stick to a 2nd level Fighter, when the issue is whether or not the Warforged, by itself, without being enhanced by 'free' levels or optional feats, is worth the investment... In this case, it’s not wonky at all, Soltares. Because if we're looking at a warforged that doesn't have the free levels or optional feats, we're not looking at the typical warforged sold in the Last War - the warforged that people paid between 5K-10K for. The cost of a 1st-level composite body warforged commoner is another story, and I don't see a lot of people buying them. Dreaming Duck is simply extrapolating on what I have said. As designer of the setting, I am saying that the typical soldier of the Five Nations was a 1st-level commoner or warrior. The typical warforged was a 2nd-level PC class character. The most popular “model” – which is to say, the warforged you’ll find most often – is the adamantine fighter. So I’m saying that when you consider the price of the warforged, you need to consider what you’re getting: a second level character using PC classes. This is born out with the Iron Watch in Stormreach, “Steel Shadows”, and a number of other places. What makes the warforged worth the expense isn’t simply that they don’t eat or sleep. It’s that they are far more skilled than the typical human or goblin troops you can hire… and furthermore, that you can purchase warforged with the specific skill set you’re looking for. Goblins may not be shock troops by nature, but I assume that Dreaming Duck was basing his assumption on the idea that the troops were being hired for the same purpose (since the issue was “Am I better off buying warforged or five goblins”). If you’re looking for skirmishers, you could purchase warforged rangers, barbarians (mithril to get fast movement), or scouts. If you want missile troops, get warforged fighters with Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot. Or just outfit those adamantine melee warforged with greatswords and longbows. They use the bows until they reach their foes, then turn to the swords. Against the goblins, they still have the advantage of higher AC, higher hit points, DR, and larger weapons (so more damage). And yes, I do typically give 2nd-level PC-class warforged the elite array and maximum hit points at first level. In comparing the warforged to normal troops and considering that high cost, you HAVE to consider the “fluffing”, because it’s precisely why the warforged are worth the gold. It’s a fundamental aspect of the role the warforged play in the setting. People WOULDN’T spend massive amounts of gold just to buy a guy who doesn’t sleep, but who’s otherwise no better than Militia Joe. But the warforged ARE better than Militia Joe. They DO have adamantine armor. They DO have high hit points and remarkable skills. And all of that needs to be taken into account when considering that 10K base price tag. If one wants to compare the cost of the warforged to the cost of OTHER elite troops – of taarka’khesh goblin rangers, for example, or a Valenar warband – that’s fine, and that’s a different story. But you won’t get the taarka’khesh for the simple cost of food, assuming you can convince them to work for you at all. And the Valenar are one of the most expensive mercenary forces in Khorvaire, because they’re worth the price (provided you have the time for their tactics). So it’s not remotely wonky to say “The warforged is a fighter with adamantine armor”; it’s wonky not to, because that’s what the high price is based on. If you can give your human soldiers better gear, do it – just consider the price of that gear. The point is that you CAN’T just buy a 2nd-level human fighter because you want to; no one is cranking them out. With the warforged, they were doing just that. As for the issue of “inert warforged switching sides”, I’ve stated my opinions on this on the “Are Warforged Cheap” thread. It is a piece of Races of Eberron that I take exception to, and it’s certainly not something I use in anything I do.
gensuke626 06-27-07, 10:42 PM	Give me 6 kobolds (About half a cr lower than the Warforged fighter) and I shall show you a warforged or two who can't fight for 45 minutes...all I need is 2 for advanced scouts, and 4 to dig a very very very deep hole and make a trap pit...Goblins? Peh! Give me Kobolds any day! Anyhow...I think we've generally gotten to the bottom of the idea behind this thread....still I have to say... @maollelujah- Really? You saw it as a series of mass battles? Granted I'm not done reading the whole of the history chapter yet (Homework is bad for me...Bleh :weep: ) The battles I've read up to so far sound like the size of battles you'd see in games of Warhammer Fantasy...with army sizes capping out at maybe 300 men with the exception of some over the more important battles (Which would be more like a Warmaster battle...upwards of 1000 troops or more). In short, it sounds to me like skirmishes and not fully pitched battles.
ArcTan 06-28-07, 12:41 AM	The problem with your analogy is that you are using a typical (MM) goblin vs. and elite 'Fluffed' warforged, then making the goblins stupid. Why would the goblins even consider fighting in melee, when they are better taking ranged attacks and staying out of the range of the warforged? And I am sure that Goblins have never considered themselves shock troops. The point about the Goblins being unable to hit except on a nat 20 and unable to do much damage when they do still holds, though. And this is the point -- we're told that when it comes to comparing "Warforged" with "Goblins", the Goblins are average MM Goblins while Warforged nearly all started out as level 2 Fighters with elite stats. Just like Valenar Elves aren't scary because the Elf race is scary but because Valenar Elves are all 4th-level Fighters. Then once the goblins disable the warforged they take them back to base, the warforged is repaired and now fights for the otherside. Actually, Hellcow has clarified that in his vision, Warforged are *harder* to turn than ordinary troops, because once purchased they're indoctrinated to fight for your side and only your side at a very basic level ("My purpose is to kill Karrns"). Unlike ordinary troops, there's no way to bribe a Warforged or reason with a Warforged, and "re-converting" them means both undoing all their previous conditioning and reconditioning them again, which is actually likely to be a time-consuming and difficult process. In Hellcow's world, enemy Warforged are usually summarily put to death. I don't necessarily agree with this -- I can see the fluff being interesting either way, but it does make sense that House Cannith wouldn't purposely sell troops that you knew would be easily turned. The real problem with the 'War' is that it seems to be portrayed as mass battles when in reality it should be raids, ambushes with a major battle once every 5-10 years. Depends on the situation, just as in real life. Even if there is only a major battle once every 5-10 years, those are the battles everyone remembers that determine the terms of future treaties.
ArcTan 06-28-07, 12:44 AM	The comparison seems to have gone a bit wonky. It's like 'a Warforged is too expensive compared to a Human soldier.' 'Oh, but if we assume that all Warforged are also 2nd level Fighters, and we also assume that they all have Adamantine Body as their initial feat, they suddenly seem like a good investment!' ...But we *do*, because that's what the fluff *says*. Just like we assume Valenar Elves are all 4th-level Fighters, because that's also what the fluff says. The fluff says what we'd expect from a typical D&D setting for Human soldiers -- that most of them are 1st-level Warriors or Commoners. It does give examples of highly elite Human units, who probably would be much more valuable than a Warforged in a fight -- but would also be harder to get even for a higher price (because they take more total time to train and field). I guess if we keep raising the bar, it's gonna remain a pointless comparison. My PC Warforged doesn't get to start with 2 free levels of Fighter, so I'm not sure it's appropriate to be comparing a level 1 Commoner with a pointed stick to a 2nd level Fighter, when the issue is whether or not the Warforged, by itself, without being enhanced by 'free' levels or optional feats, is worth the investment... If your PC Warforged isn't a 2nd-level Fighter, he's an exceptional character with a non-standard backstory that needs explaining. Of course 1st-level Composite Armor Warforged aren't worth the investment. We've all admitted that. We've also pointed out that in the only context it matters -- the actual written history of the Last War -- it's irrelevant, because Warforged *were* all level-2 Fighters. Are we supposed to also decide whether Valenar mercenaries were worth hiring based on the statistics of the Elf class, rather than the fact that the Valenar were 4th-level Fighters?
Hellcow 06-28-07, 02:02 AM	In Hellcow's world, enemy Warforged are usually summarily put to death. Actually, they aren't. The thing about a warforged is that it automatically stabilizes... and then never recovers without outside assistance. Once it's down, it's no threat to you. Unless you are worried about an enemy artificer on the field repairing the warforged (same question as if you're worried about a cleric healing unconscious soldiers) once it's down it's not a threat. After the battle? They're inert. Absolutely no threat. You can stack them in a room like cordwood. Unlike human prisoners, there's no need to feed them. There's no danger of revolt or escape. They take up very little space. No need for restraints. And so on. As I said elsewhere, I do see people specializing in turning warforged. It's a time consuming process, but hey, what's the rush? Take them one at a time. Take the time you need. Every time you fix one, send him out on the battlefield and pull the next one out of the storage room. Meanwhile, what do you do with the rest? You ransom them, just like you would any other valuable enemy resource. They become a bargaining chip. I've got fifty Cyran warforged. What will you give me for them, Queen Dannel? I'll trade them for my captured prince and his retinue. Again, unlike other prisoners, the care and maintainance is minimal and there's no risk of escape; they are the ideal prisoners of war. So you COULD summarily execute them, but it's a waste of a perfectly good bargaining chip; and as long as you're holding them, have a single warforged expert at your prisoner of war camp who can spend time seeing if they can be turned. So, in my opinion it's no trivial thing to turn a warforged, though it's possible. But they have value as prisoners and are extremely convenient bargaining chips. So they wouldn't be summarily destroyed OR turned in mass numbers - they'd be occasionally turned or kept inert until they could be ransomed or used as part of a deal.
Hellcow 06-28-07, 02:10 AM	If your PC Warforged isn't a 2nd-level Fighter, he's an exceptional character with a non-standard backstory that needs explaining. In regards to "But my warforged is a 1st level fighter, shouldn't I get an extra level?" True, he is unusually below par in that case. However, the thing of it is that he has action points, which other warforged don't; depending what system you use, his ability scores may be better that the elite array; and odds are that he won't stay 1st level for more than 2 adventures, and that before you know it he'll be 4th level, then 8th, then 12th - far superior to the mass of warforged out there who never rise above 3rd or 4th level. Likewise, if you're a warforged wizard, that is an unusual thing, and yes, that is worth explaining. Were you trained as a wizard? Did you go through some accident, lose your fighter knowledge, and choose to become a wizard? Were you sold as an armorer (as reflected by your Craft skill) but discovered magical talents on your own? The common warforged was a 2nd-level fighter, but if "common" means, say, 50%, that leaves a lot of room for variation. Player characters aren't typical in any way. You could play an adamantine warforged fighter with Power Attack, take Cleave at 2nd level, and be as classic as they come. But as a PC you're still going to advance quicker and you're going to have action points. You're still a hero; you may start slow, but within two adventures you'll be on par, and within four, you'll be ahead of the game.
Bentley Mirrorshade 06-28-07, 08:33 AM	The real problem with the 'War' is that it seems to be portrayed as mass battles when in reality it should be raids, ambushes with a major battle once every 5-10 years. All the better. That means you have to actually pay and feed your troops for those 5-10 years (as opposed to getting rid of them and the need to support them in future), meanwhile the WF is just sitting there between battles, without the threat of getting killed in large-scale engagemnents (getting a WF pays off after longer periods of time, replacing them is pricey). In such periods of small skirmishes, buying a WF becomes really great bargain. Plus, in time, he may even gain levels, becoming 3,4th level fighter without any increase in cost. I reckon, getting the 3rd level Deneith mercenary is a lot more expensive than getting his lower level buddy.
Soltares 06-28-07, 09:10 AM	Hellcow In this case, it’s not wonky at all, Soltares. My point, which was obscured by my lack of communications skills, is that comparing a 2nd level Fighter, with a specific feat, to a 1st level Commoner or Warrior *regardless of LA+0 race* isn't a valid comparison. Of course, he should be better! If he's not, somebody's got some 'splainin' to do. :) A more valid line of comparison would be, is the 2nd level Warforged Fighter worth 10,000 gp over a 2nd level Human Fighter. As for the whole 'come out of the Forge 2nd level, and PCs who aren't 2nd level Fighters, or take other classes are some sort of exceptions' thing, I certainly wasn't thinking that was the case. I assumed that Cannith had them go through the fantasy version of basic training or something before selling them. I think the ability to produce effectively unlimited 2nd level Fighters, and pre-select their Feats for them, regardless of race and skipping the necessity of training them, seems like it would be worth *any* amount of gold. If they develop a Forge capable of creating unlimited 2nd level Wizards or Clerics or (shudder) Artificers, House Cannith is going to be unstoppable! Hmm, if the Forging grants Fighter levels / training via some sort of magical 'programming' (which is an interesting notion), I wonder if Cannith could just let them 'bake' a little longer and pump them out at 4th level? Or 12th. Or 20th... Imagine if that were the Warforged version of 'training.' The Warforged gets enough XP to level up, and instead of going to practice his sword kata with the grizzled old mentor, he returns to the Forge and 'upgrades' to a new level! That actually sounds kind of neat!
Cifer 06-28-07, 02:00 PM	Unless you are worried about an enemy artificer on the field repairing the warforged (same question as if you're worried about a cleric healing unconscious soldiers) once it's down it's not a threat. I'd assume artificers (and magewrights and wizards and sorcerers and all the others with repair spells) to be more numerous than clerics. For clerics, you still have to make a religious fanatic take an interest in what is essentially a political struggle. Artificers and their kind only need to be paid. A more valid line of comparison would be, is the 2nd level Warforged Fighter worth 10,000 gp over a 2nd level Human Fighter. And the problem with this line of comparison is that you don't get 2nd level human fighters for any kind of money - at least not in the numbers you could have warforged. Hmm, if the Forging grants Fighter levels / training via some sort of magical 'programming' (which is an interesting notion), I wonder if Cannith could just let them 'bake' a little longer and pump them out at 4th level? Or 12th. Or 20th... That's highly improbable. The creation forges were still a bit of a black box ("I put that into it and get a warforged out of it - but I don't know what happens in the mean time") to the whole house and operated on not truly understood principles. Further, warforged are trained up to fighter2, but the training is highly accelerated since warforged are pretty good learners during their first one or two years of lifetime. I think the ability to produce effectively unlimited 2nd level Fighters, and pre-select their Feats for them, regardless of race and skipping the necessity of training them, seems like it would be worth *any* amount of gold. If they develop a Forge capable of creating unlimited 2nd level Wizards or Clerics or (shudder) Artificers, House Cannith is going to be unstoppable! If the war had gone on, I'd foresee Cannith, possibly Lyrandar and maybe a third house teaming up and ending it on their own. Until Cyre was blown up, Cannith was the real winner of the war.
Hellcow 06-28-07, 02:42 PM	I'd assume artificers (and magewrights and wizards and sorcerers and all the others with repair spells) to be more numerous than clerics. Well, a few points here. Artificers simply aren't numerous period, like any PC class character. This is equally true of clerics, but of course, just as you brought up magewrights, we're as likely to be talking about adepts as we are clerics. Second, are your wizards and sorcerers going to be charged up with repair spells? Consider that both wizards and sorcerers are fairly rare individuals. They're also fragile and best kept off the front lines. Are you going to want them out on the field looking for warforged to repair? Are you going to have your wizard memorize repair before the big battle, or look to things like color spray, flaming sphere,fireball, and other spells that can have a dramatic effect on multiple enemy targets? (In a setting where most of your opponents are first level, color spray is pretty swell, though the short range sucks) The sorcerer doesn't have to prepare, but is still giving up a spell slot. I think the idea of a form of sorcerer dedicated to warforged support makes sense (possibly trained by Cannith), but they still won't be commonplace. Magewrights are a good point, but looking at the spell list I don't actually see any of the true repair spells on it... you could have a 6th-level magewright with the Extra Spell feat, but by 6th level they won't be that common either. Frankly, I think most warforged soldiers will be repaired after the battle using Craft skill. Important forces may have artificers, repair-based sorcerers, or Cannith heirs, but they aren't commonplace; the small warforged patrol will probably rely on Craft. But you are correct: Clerics aren't common either, and in most forces (Thrane as the exception) arcane casters - especially magewrights - would outnumber divine casters.
Bluebrush 06-28-07, 03:46 PM	Magewrights are a good point, but looking at the spell list I don't actually see any of the true repair spells on it... you could have a 6th-level magewright with the Extra Spell feat, but by 6th level they won't be that common either.Just as a note for consideration, Eternal Wands (usable by all arcane casters) could help here, as could regular wands for sorcerers and wizards. Though as a counterpoint, each wand likely comes with an opportunity cost. Would the army rather give it's units several eternal wands of repair light damage or would they want to supply a mage with one fireball wand for long range attacks? It depends on the unit composition and the percieved value of the warforged.
Hellcow 06-28-07, 04:39 PM	Just as a note for consideration, Eternal Wands (usable by all arcane casters) could help here, as could regular wands for sorcerers and wizards. Certainly. And the magewright with the fireball wand is the typical artillerist. The Dreaming Dark mentions siege staves; I don't think these ended up making it into Forge of War, but the point is magical artillery with more charges than the two-use eternal wand (though with less mobility). Would the army rather give it's units several eternal wands of repair light damage or would they want to supply a mage with one fireball wand for long range attacks? It depends on the unit composition and the percieved value of the warforged. Indeed. The main issue is the the value of instant repair (versus Craft after the battle). In a small warforged commando force intended to stay in constant motion, that sort of support would be vital. In a larger force with a few warforged, it's probably more useful to devote your magic resources to agressive force. Again, if you're dealing with largely 1st-level characters, a single fireball will take out a significant number of enemy soldiers at large range.
gensuke626 06-28-07, 04:44 PM	Actually, Hellcow has clarified that in his vision, Warforged are *harder* to turn than ordinary troops, because once purchased they're indoctrinated to fight for your side and only your side at a very basic level ("My purpose is to kill Karrns"). Unlike ordinary troops, there's no way to bribe a Warforged or reason with a Warforged, and "re-converting" them means both undoing all their previous conditioning and reconditioning them again, which is actually likely to be a time-consuming and difficult process. I thought Hellcow said that Converting a Warforged to fight for your side is easier than converting normal humans in certain situations. I mean, I remember something about the Forged being taught that they fight for the army of (insert army here) and they usually define themselves by saying "My purpose is to fight (insert name of enemy army)" But wasn't it said somewhere that you could get a forged to trade sides if you play off the forged's insecurities? Sort of like, if the forged was abused by Cyran "Comrades" then if he is revived by Karrnathi troops and treated with respect (And maybe some Brainwashing) he could be swayed into fighting his "Old Oppressors". Similarly, I think it was mentioned that a Warforged could trade sides if someone basically maintained the warforged's role, like, if a Cyran Forged drops in battle, and an Brelish recon force snags him and revives him, they could convince the forged to fight for them instead of Cyre if they basically told him that he's still be fighting Karrns (Possibly with a greater chance of success if the Brelish troops treat the forged in question better than his old Cyran masters.) Basically, Humans remain loyal because of national pride, Warforged remain loyal because of comeraderie or because they live to "Fight the (Insert enemy)"
gensuke626 06-28-07, 04:46 PM	Certainly. And the magewright with the fireball wand is the typical artillerist. The Dreaming Dark mentions siege staves; I don't think these ended up making it into Forge of War, but the point is magical artillery with more charges than the two-use eternal wand (though with less mobility). They mention eternal staves in the Forge of War when the book discusses ideas for what is in the Cannith Cache. Is this the same as the siege staff?
Soltares 06-28-07, 04:53 PM	So it's looking like Adepts with Cure Light Wounds will be more commonplace than Magewrights with Repair Light Wounds. In any event, I would imagine that the vast majority of wounded soldiers are going to, at best, receive the Heal skill or the Craft (whatever) skill, in place of magical healing. Given the expense, a particularly efficiency-minded officer might wish to prioritize these sorts of matters, ordering a damaged Warforged to be hauled off the battlefield (in some sort of wagon, or slung over a horse, if he's too heavy for a pair of men to hoist) to receive magical repair ASAP, but it's unlikely that the people doing the work (primarily humans) will be all too thrilled with the idea of the expensive machines getting the higher priority 'triage' over their own flesh and blood fellows. Morale will be a consideration, and the smarter officers will keep that sort of thing quiet, or designate surviving Warforged to handle the recovery of the wounded 'fleshies' first, knowing that the damaged Warforged are not going to bleed to death or suffer some sort of opportunistic infection if they spend an extra hour lying on the battlefield. That could be an interesting scenario. A hastily-assembled 'repair' camp has a dozen or so inert Warforged being patched up, and your party is sent to try and foil that, because your side is already stretched thinly to handle the current forces, let alone having to defeat the dozen Warforged they already defeated by the skin of their teeth the first time. A nasty sort of job, attacking the 'hospital' to make sure that the fallen Warforged don't re-enter the fray...
Hellcow 06-28-07, 05:16 PM	They mention eternal staves in the Forge of War when the book discusses ideas for what is in the Cannith Cache. Is this the same as the siege staff? I'd have to see. In The Dreaming Dark, siege staves are magical siege engines; think of a staff made with the trunk of a tree. Extended range and area, but at the expense of portability. So it's possible that's what they meant - I know I discussed it briefly with one of the authors - but it may have just fallen through the cracks.
ArcTan 06-28-07, 05:31 PM	Hellcow My point, which was obscured by my lack of communications skills, is that comparing a 2nd level Fighter, with a specific feat, to a 1st level Commoner or Warrior *regardless of LA+0 race* isn't a valid comparison. Of course, he should be better! If he's not, somebody's got some 'splainin' to do. :) A more valid line of comparison would be, is the 2nd level Warforged Fighter worth 10,000 gp over a 2nd level Human Fighter. Well, a 2nd-level Warforged Fighter generally costs you 5,000-6,000 GP, not 10,000. And once you're talking about 2nd-level Human Fighters, you're talking about people you *can't* just order in bulk and put wherever you want. These will be the elite soldiers who are in short supply, need special training, get paid a lot, have special demands, maybe demand noble titles or land grants, etc. I would say that the actual cost of Warforged vs. elite Human soldiers of similar ability would probably end up being about the same, with Warforged being more affordable in the long run -- but Warforged were far more plentiful and easily available, which is the important part. As for the whole 'come out of the Forge 2nd level, and PCs who aren't 2nd level Fighters, or take other classes are some sort of exceptions' thing, I certainly wasn't thinking that was the case. I assumed that Cannith had them go through the fantasy version of basic training or something before selling them. They don't come out of the *Forge* 2nd-level. They come out of House Cannith 2nd-level. They have no class abilities at all when they first come out of the Forge, but they learn extremely quickly, and House Cannith has very good reasons not to let any Warforged get released into the world untrained (who knows what crazy ideas they might pick up). I think the ability to produce effectively unlimited 2nd level Fighters, and pre-select their Feats for them, regardless of race and skipping the necessity of training them, seems like it would be worth *any* amount of gold. If they develop a Forge capable of creating unlimited 2nd level Wizards or Clerics or (shudder) Artificers, House Cannith is going to be unstoppable! Not skipping the necessity of training, but certainly *compressing* it. A 2nd-level Human Fighter is going to have to have been training for at least 2 or 3 years and seeing real combat for much of that time to have honed his skills. A standard 2nd-level Warforged Fighter probably isn't even that old when he gets sold -- he's probably seeing his first birthday by the time he ships out for the first time, already an elite soldier. This is why the Creation Forge technology is going to be so incredibly tempting even despite the huge legal ban on its use, and probably why Warforged were used for so long despite the moral dilemmas with doing so that were probably obvious to everyone by the end of the War. Hmm, if the Forging grants Fighter levels / training via some sort of magical 'programming' (which is an interesting notion), I wonder if Cannith could just let them 'bake' a little longer and pump them out at 4th level? Or 12th. Or 20th... Imagine if that were the Warforged version of 'training.' The Warforged gets enough XP to level up, and instead of going to practice his sword kata with the grizzled old mentor, he returns to the Forge and 'upgrades' to a new level! That actually sounds kind of neat! Nah. Warforged go through boot camp like everyone else -- they just have much hungrier, more adaptable minds when they first come out, like children. But KB's Dragonshard says this doesn't last long, and by the time they reach mental "maturity" and are ready to be shipped out, their minds are far less flexible. They're still capable of learning, but in the same slow, methodical way as human adults, and with the same large natural variation in intellectual aptitude.
ArcTan 06-28-07, 05:33 PM	In regards to "But my warforged is a 1st level fighter, shouldn't I get an extra level?" True, he is unusually below par in that case. However, the thing of it is that he has action points, which other warforged don't; depending what system you use, his ability scores may be better that the elite array; and odds are that he won't stay 1st level for more than 2 adventures, and that before you know it he'll be 4th level, then 8th, then 12th - far superior to the mass of warforged out there who never rise above 3rd or 4th level. This fits the somewhat hackneyed but fun "Damaged, discarded Warforged who comes back to show everyone his defect was actually a powerful gift" storyline very well.
Hellcow 06-28-07, 05:43 PM	This fits the somewhat hackneyed but fun "Damaged, discarded Warforged who comes back to show everyone his defect was actually a powerful gift" storyline very well. Ah yes... the timeless classic "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Warforged".
ArcTan 06-28-07, 07:57 PM	Everyone laughed until that red nose started firing eldritch blasts.
Manyfist 06-28-07, 09:39 PM	Everyone laughed until that red nose started firing eldritch blasts. That was a great one.
Archangel62 06-29-07, 12:18 AM	Everyone laughed until that red nose started firing eldritch blasts. Or managed to heal themselves and allies with strikes. I'm sorry, I love the Warforged Crusader, durable, long lasting, self healing, and devastating in numbers of 4 or greater.
Soltares 06-29-07, 07:38 AM	I just noticed that there is one NPC class able to use Repair Light Wounds, a religious Adept (ECS 256) could select the Warforged Domain (FoE). I imagine that the choice would have been unheard of before Warforged began to appear in numbers, but towards the end of the war, these sorts of Adepts would likely have been in hot demand. Arctan Nah. Warforged go through boot camp like everyone else -- they just have much hungrier, more adaptable minds when they first come out, like children. Ah, I was misinterpreting Hellcow's statement above that a Warforged who was not a 2nd level Fighter was 'uncommon' in some way, which led me to the, obviously incorrect conclusion, that the 2nd level Fighter Warforged was the 'default state.' But KB's Dragonshard says this doesn't last long, and by the time they reach mental "maturity" and are ready to be shipped out, their minds are far less flexible. They're still capable of learning, but in the same slow, methodical way as human adults, and with the same large natural variation in intellectual aptitude. Which, in itself, suggests an interesting adventure hook. Or several, actually. 1) 'Liberate' newly-crafted 'Forged from some source *before* they can be indoctrinated by the Lord of Blades, House Cannith, whatever. A scenario for those running a war-time storyline. 2) I could see certain people being assigned to 'train' these new Warforged, leading 'classes' where a dozen or more Warforged step, parry, strike, retreat, all in mechanical unison. The non-Forged trainers would work in shifts, due to fatigue limits, each running drills for a few hours, and then resting while their relief continues to drill the tireless soldiers-to-be. One of these retired trainers could have gone back to her magical studies after her job training Warforged ended with the official end of Warforged production. This ambitious half-elf grew intrigued by the malleable memories of her charges, and figured that if it took grand and mysterious magic to create such a malleable mind from whole cloth, it might be more possible for someone of her limited magical talents to transform or modify an already extant mind to enter this 'fast-training' state... Her first line of research into this matter, on a lazy young Aristocrat who was convinced by his smooth-talking lover that she could 'turn him into a seasoned Fighter with years of experience in only a month' without him having to go through all the hard work, ended up amnesiac and damaged in mind. She was forced to flee, with a scroll of Teleport she had secured long ago for such a use (this would not be the first time this unscrupulous half-elven Fighter / Wizard (Enchanter) had been forced to leave abruptly, ahead of a headsman's axe...). Five years later, a village far away notes the disappearance of several townsfolk, and the 'crazy old woman' in the house on the hill is confronted, whereupon they discover that she has dozens of men in her basement, all glassy-eyed and moving through combat-drills. Step, strike, parry, retreat. Her 'recruits' handily strike down the peasants, members of their own families in some cases, and she again pulls up stakes and moves, before word gets out of her location. A year later, a dozen peasants in mismatched armor and motley weaponry are escorting a robed woman through Q'barra, and some bandits mistake them for 'easy pickings.' A week later, at a secure compound, surviving bandits can be seen in the front of a building, step, strike, parry, retreat... [Caria Delmar, 1/2 Elven Fighter 2 / Wizard (specialist Enchanter) 7, has developed a magical process that forces this 'malleable' state upon the mind of a living person, who must be helpless or willing during the hour long procedure. At the end of the state, the subject suffers 2 points of Charisma drain, 2 points of Wisdom drain, loses all memories of their former life (save for fragmentary flashes, usually only in dreams) and is able to be trained quickly, like a newly crafted Warforged. This technique allows the new-minded person to re-train up to 2 levels of pre-existing classes into levels of Fighter, allowing Caria to 'transform' Commoners and Warriors and Experts into skilled Fighters, and cause them to respend their Feat & Skill choices appropriately. She can 'erase' their old lives in only a day, but it takes 4-6 months / level to retrain them as 2nd level Fighters. She's building an army of experienced and competent Fighters out of peasants and brigands and anyone she catches snooping on her activities...]
Hellcow 06-29-07, 11:07 AM	I just noticed that there is one NPC class able to use Repair Light Wounds, a religious Adept (ECS 256) could select the Warforged Domain (FoE). I imagine that the choice would have been unheard of before Warforged began to appear in numbers, but towards the end of the war, these sorts of Adepts would likely have been in hot demand. Personally, I'd see it as being too small a group to create a market. The Warforged domain is the domain of priests who believe in the divinity of the Warforged - followers of the Lord of Blades and the Becoming God. While a religious adept can select a domain without being part of a formal faith, it's still based on the concept that HE has a faith and believes in it - and if that faith gives him the Warforged domain, it's about worshipping the concept of the warforged, something that seems unlikely to appear about many flesh-and-blood folk. You might find it among the WARFORGED, but somehow I doubt an warforged adept is going to announce to his human comrades "Hey! I came up with a faith based around warforged divinity, and now I can repair my comrades." He WOULD repair his comrades - but I think he'd keep it to himself (and them). Somehow, I just don't see most human commanders being thrilled to discover that their warforged soldiers are developing new religions and have magic powers to show for it. As has been noted, adepts and clerics aren't normal people. By and large - Jorasco adepts excepted - you can't just hire a divine spellcaster. If they believe your cause aligns with their beliefs, they'll serve. But it's not really like you'd post a want ad: "Adept with Warforged domain. 200 gp/day OBO. No Karrns."
Soltares 06-29-07, 11:42 AM	Hellcow The Warforged domain is the domain of priests who believe in the divinity of the Warforged - followers of the Lord of Blades and the Becoming God. While a religious adept can select a domain without being part of a formal faith, it's still based on the concept that HE has a faith and believes in it Miscommunication, again, on my part. I thought we were talking about the War days, when the Becoming God and Lord of Blades didn't exist yet, at least not as figures of devotion. Obviously, Onatar, of the Sovereign Host, would be the only source of the newfangled Warforged Domain, at this time, and that's what I was referring to, not time-travellers worshipping a Becoming God that hadn't yet 'become,' or the Lord of Blades back when he was the 'Deputy in Charge of Pointy Objects.' :) [And I agree, a non-Warforged worshipping either entity would be quite rare, possibly a Renegade Mastermaker sort of individual, who wants to 'escape the flesh' and become a warforged-like entity themselves.] I didn't mean to imply that Adepts of Onatar with the Warforged Domain would travel in great packs either, hence my notion that such a person would be in hot demand once his existence was known. Adepts are definitely less common than Commoners (although more common than Clerics or other PCs, I imagine), and one who has devoted himself to the god of smithcraft, *and* has chosen to dedicate himself to the newfangled (at the time) Warforged Domain would be a rare creature indeed! Anywho, my communication skills suck on this topic, so I'm outta here. :)
DarkWarriorKarg 06-29-07, 11:45 AM	Just a point here: Warforged domain is also available for devotees of Onatar/Sovereign host. But I concurr... too small a group to be significant.
Hellcow 06-29-07, 11:54 AM	Anywho, my communication skills suck on this topic, so I'm outta here. No no no! This is entirely MY mistake, based on not refering to Faiths of Eberron. If the domain is available to Onatar adepts, then you're right. It would still probably be a VERY small group, but they could exist; I'd see, for example, a few Cannith heirs who believe that in creating life their house HAS touched the divine, and who dedicate their efforts to sustaining and preserving the warforged. Most of the warforged repair specialists in armies are already Cannith mercs, so this would be a subset of that. So: there are certainly adepts of Onatar. If adepts of Onatar can have the warforged domain, that implies that some of them do. So your comment is perfectly logical. With that said, I'm not crazy about Onatar HAVING the warforged domain. It's such a recent thing, and furthermore, Onatar is a god of creation and most normal people CAN'T create warforged. However, I could see the case that a warforged cleric of Onatar bases his faith around his own created nature, or a House Cannith group hold looks to the creation of the warforged as proof that Onatar has blessed their house. So I suppose I'm OK with it, but I wouldn't see the typical adept of Onatar (non-warforged, no ties to Cannith or the Lord of Blades) as having it.
Soltares 06-29-07, 01:17 PM	Cool, thanks for the clarification! With that said, I'm not crazy about Onatar HAVING the warforged domain. As a power-gaming player, I'm all a-flutter about the idea of the Warforged Domain allowing one to Command Constructs (an enemy Artificer's Homonculi, rival Warforged, Maug, if the DM is crazy enough to let me find one, etc), but as a DM, I'm not so fond of it, not just for balance reasons, but for thematic reasons, as I don't like the idea of a Cleric potentially being able to Rebuke/Command members of a PC race. OTOH, I could see it being a scary story option for a Warforged priest of the Lord of Blades, to 'force conversion' with the Warforged Domain and command the obedience of other Warforged. It might actually add to the 'am I a person?' theme of self-exploration going on with the Warforged community for them to know that their will can be usurped in this fashion. Does this 'prove' that they are inherently lesser than humans, dwarves, elves, etc? Or could it be argued that, since the Elven Ancestors are also vulnerable to energy channeling (if not actual Commanding), that is purely a mechanical effect that doesn't 'prove' anything about their nature as a species, any more than a human's ability to be Charmed or Dominated 'proves' anything about their free will or sentience? Philosophical debates on the topic would likely be all the rage among followers of the Becoming God, and human priests of Onatar, torn between recognizing Warforged as people, or classifying them as 'overly clever tools,' like Homonculi.
DarkWarriorKarg 06-29-07, 01:50 PM	Cool, thanks for the clarification! As a power-gaming player, I'm all a-flutter about the idea of the Warforged Domain allowing one to Command Constructs (an enemy Artificer's Homonculi, rival Warforged, Maug, if the DM is crazy enough to let me find one, etc), but as a DM, I'm not so fond of it, not just for balance reasons, but for thematic reasons, as I don't like the idea of a Cleric potentially being able to Rebuke/Command members of a PC race. OTOH, I could see it being a scary story option for a Warforged priest of the Lord of Blades, to 'force conversion' with the Warforged Domain and command the obedience of other Warforged. I plan on springing that at some point on a WF PC in my game... maybe have the freinds around her go seemingly insane... New holy symbols for the warforged domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SegaControllers.jpg)
The Dreaming Duck 07-03-07, 01:24 PM	I posted this on another thread, but in case someone references this later... I finally took out Forge of War myself and read the section in question, and I find that I disagree with the basic assertions made - a warforged is 10,000 gp or 5,000 gp with discount, a shield guardian is 10,000 gp, etc. Let's look at the actual quotes. The techniques perfected by House Cannith resulted in a process for creating warforged soldiers that was remarkably cost-effective - at least when compared to golems or shield guardians, which cost a minimum of 10,000 gp to create. What this DOESN'T say is "A shield guardian costs 10,000 gp to create." We know how much a shield guardian costs to create - 65,000 gp and 4,500 XP. It's right there in the Monster Manual. What it DOES say is that when creating "golems or shield guardians" - and "golem" is a broad category, NOT a specific creature - the cheapest option is 10,000 gp. Shield guardians are chucked in as an example. It's just saying that the cheapest GOLEM is 10,000 gp. That would, in fact, be the flesh golem, which costs 10,500 gp + 780 xp. As a side note, it's never been stated that it costs XP to produce warforged. Since they are created through the forge and in mass numbers, this makes some sense - and would play a huge role in the ability to produce large numbers of warforged when it's impossible to produce an equal number of golems. If the artificers are out of XP, no golems for you - but you can still make warforged. So, the cheapest golem is 10,000 gp... and has a tendency to go berserk in combat, so you can see how it's not a great choice in an army. Warforged are "remarkably cost-effective" by comparison, implying that even the single warforged costs less than 10,000 gp - enough less to be "remarkable". With a functioning and well-maintained creation forge, a Cannith artificer can create a dozen warforged for a cost comparable to that of a single shield guardian. That cost? 65,000. Thus, according to this example, warforged are 5,416 gp. Slight problem here, but we'll come to it. Compared to the cost of feeding, armoring, and bunking a human soldier, spending between 5,000 and 6,000 gold pieces on a tireless, armor-plated soldier that needs no food and is immune to disease seemed like a very reasonable investment. There's the price tag. Apparently, if you're buying a warforged, it costs "between 5,000 and 6,000 gold pieces". This doesn't quite jibe with saying that the Cannith artificer can produce a dozen at the same cost as a shield guardian, because that would put the PRODUCTION cost at between 5,000-6000 gp. I'm guessing the designer got the 65,000 gp figure in his head and then forgot it was production cost and not market price. There's no way to know for sure, because no numbers are given. But this is a clear statement of how much people had to pay, and it's what I'll use. Not 10,000 gp, which is the minimum production cost of a golem: 5,000-6,000 gp for the customer, which is remarkably cost-effective compared to the standard market price of 20,000 gp for the flesh golem (though if you like soldiers made of dead guys who have a tendancy to go berserk and maybe kill their own comrades, go for it). Also, one of the key features? You're getting an armor-plated soldier. Again, backing up the "they have adamantine body" claim, since composite plating is like wearing leather armor, and you can't put other armor on top of it. If it's a selling point, you can assume it's the good stuff. So. The customer is paying 5,000 - 6,000 gp. But wait, there's more! Nevertheless, warforged costs were great... The house offered early discounts and reduced prices for large orders... They've given us the price the customer is considering: 5,000 - 6,000 gp. Thus, discounts and reduced prices are ON THAT PRICE. In other words, it's not 10,000 gp or 5,000 gp in bulk; it's 5,000 gp for an individual, and less than that in bulk. Again, when you factor in the armor value, I see the point here. But running down the facts: 10,000 gp is the least expensive golem - and the warforged are called out as being "remarkably cost-effective" in comparison. The price the customer is considering - when he compares it to the cost of his soldiers - is "5,000 - 6,000 gold pieces". The house offered "early discounts and reduced prices for large orders." So bought in bulk, the warforged were actually less expensive than 5,000 gp. While Forge of War doesn't back up Hellcow's preference that the average warforged was a second-level fighter, it does specifically note that "Even the rawest warforged deployed in battle is a trained fighter rather than a mere warrior, which helped justify the expense of a construct soldier." So there we do have the clear "PC classes are rare and all warforged used them" statement. If you prefer Hellcow's assertion that the typical one was 2nd-level, just play off the "the rawest warforged" statement and say that most were trained further. If you forced one into battle right away, you get a 1st-level fighter; if you take advantage of the chrysalis period described in the dragonshard, you can get a 2nd-level character before it runs out. In any case, as I read the section, 5K-6K is the base price that's then further scaled down for a bulk order - not 10K scaled down to 5K. Looking to the original post, aside from the fact that warforged are considered cost effective next to the 10,000 gp golem, the fact that it clearly states "5K-6K is a good investment when looking at the care and feeding of a soldier" - not 10K - I'm giving that precedence over the shield guardian observation, and reading that as you could sell a dozen warforged for the same price as making a shield guardian.
ArcTan 07-03-07, 01:45 PM	I just noticed that there is one NPC class able to use Repair Light Wounds, a religious Adept (ECS 256) could select the Warforged Domain (FoE). I imagine that the choice would have been unheard of before Warforged began to appear in numbers, but towards the end of the war, these sorts of Adepts would likely have been in hot demand. You get the Warforged domain for worshipping or revering the idea of the Warforged as the favored race destined to inherit the world. The domain almost certainly did not exist before the end of the Last War. Arctan Ah, I was misinterpreting Hellcow's statement above that a Warforged who was not a 2nd level Fighter was 'uncommon' in some way, which led me to the, obviously incorrect conclusion, that the 2nd level Fighter Warforged was the 'default state.'[/quote] It's the default state for a Warforged you meet out on the street. It's not the default state for a Warforged when he's first created. Valenar Elves aren't born squalling and kicking from their mother's wombs with 4 Fighter levels. Hell, for that matter, ordinary Human infants probably don't have any class abilities at all, not even Commoner 1. D&D simply skips childhood and infancy and says that a level 1 character is a young adult. It's just that most "young adult" Warforged are ones who have received the training to be Fighter 2 rather than the ordinary lives that lead most Human young adults to be Commoner 1. Which, in itself, suggests an interesting adventure hook. Or several, actually. 1) 'Liberate' newly-crafted 'Forged from some source *before* they can be indoctrinated by the Lord of Blades, House Cannith, whatever. A scenario for those running a war-time storyline. The Lord of Blades doesn't exist in a wartime storyline, or at least he is not yet known as a major force. If your campaign posits the theory that LoBster already existed during the final days of the Last War and was already planning some kind of rebellion or coup, then yes, having him intervene in the training process and stealing some newborn Warforged to re-indoctrinate in his Warforged supremacy theories would make sense. What makes even more sense is the theory put forward in KB's Dragonshard that the LoBster was a Warforged who was assigned to help run one of these Warforged training camps and came to his beliefs by personally training and raising newborn Warforged. 2) I could see certain people being assigned to 'train' these new Warforged, leading 'classes' where a dozen or more Warforged step, parry, strike, retreat, all in mechanical unison. The non-Forged trainers would work in shifts, due to fatigue limits, each running drills for a few hours, and then resting while their relief continues to drill the tireless soldiers-to-be. One of these retired trainers could have gone back to her magical studies after her job training Warforged ended with the official end of Warforged production. This ambitious half-elf grew intrigued by the malleable memories of her charges, and figured that if it took grand and mysterious magic to create such a malleable mind from whole cloth, it might be more possible for someone of her limited magical talents to transform or modify an already extant mind to enter this 'fast-training' state... Her first line of research into this matter, on a lazy young Aristocrat who was convinced by his smooth-talking lover that she could 'turn him into a seasoned Fighter with years of experience in only a month' without him having to go through all the hard work, ended up amnesiac and damaged in mind. She was forced to flee, with a scroll of Teleport she had secured long ago for such a use (this would not be the first time this unscrupulous half-elven Fighter / Wizard (Enchanter) had been forced to leave abruptly, ahead of a headsman's axe...). Five years later, a village far away notes the disappearance of several townsfolk, and the 'crazy old woman' in the house on the hill is confronted, whereupon they discover that she has dozens of men in her basement, all glassy-eyed and moving through combat-drills. Step, strike, parry, retreat. Her 'recruits' handily strike down the peasants, members of their own families in some cases, and she again pulls up stakes and moves, before word gets out of her location. A year later, a dozen peasants in mismatched armor and motley weaponry are escorting a robed woman through Q'barra, and some bandits mistake them for 'easy pickings.' A week later, at a secure compound, surviving bandits can be seen in the front of a building, step, strike, parry, retreat... [Caria Delmar, 1/2 Elven Fighter 2 / Wizard (specialist Enchanter) 7, has developed a magical process that forces this 'malleable' state upon the mind of a living person, who must be helpless or willing during the hour long procedure. At the end of the state, the subject suffers 2 points of Charisma drain, 2 points of Wisdom drain, loses all memories of their former life (save for fragmentary flashes, usually only in dreams) and is able to be trained quickly, like a newly crafted Warforged. This technique allows the new-minded person to re-train up to 2 levels of pre-existing classes into levels of Fighter, allowing Caria to 'transform' Commoners and Warriors and Experts into skilled Fighters, and cause them to respend their Feat & Skill choices appropriately. She can 'erase' their old lives in only a day, but it takes 4-6 months / level to retrain them as 2nd level Fighters. She's building an army of experienced and competent Fighters out of peasants and brigands and anyone she catches snooping on her activities...] It's cute. The "malleable" state isn't supposed to be that mysterious, though -- it's the Warforged equivalent of childhood and adolescence, when we know people are far more receptive to learning new things (especially languages). It's a cute way to incorporate the idea of a Rebuild Quest into Eberron, though.
ArcTan 07-03-07, 01:47 PM	Hellcow Miscommunication, again, on my part. I thought we were talking about the War days, when the Becoming God and Lord of Blades didn't exist yet, at least not as figures of devotion. Obviously, Onatar, of the Sovereign Host, would be the only source of the newfangled Warforged Domain, at this time, and that's what I was referring to, not time-travellers worshipping a Becoming God that hadn't yet 'become,' or the Lord of Blades back when he was the 'Deputy in Charge of Pointy Objects.' :) Well, the point of the Becoming God is that he hasn't yet become. That's why he's Becom*ing*. I would still maintain that Onatar did *not* have access to the Warforged domain until after the war, when philosophizing about the nature of the Warforged became more common.
Euangelion 07-03-07, 02:59 PM	I would still maintain that Onatar did *not* have access to the Warforged domain until after the war, when philosophizing about the nature of the Warforged became more common. I agree, but it could also be said that Onatar did not have the Warforged domain until the warforged started philosophizing about the nature of Onatar!
Cutlass 07-04-07, 09:08 PM	[Takes time out to don asbestos underwear & fire resistant proximity suit. :) ] Ahem. One could also argue that the warforged domain always existed and was always within Onatar's purview. It's just that he had essentialy let it go dormant for an extended period of time because until the "modern" (re)creation of warforged there was no need for it. Once it became needed again, he "energized" it again.
CannibalSmith 07-04-07, 11:30 PM	The quori-forged were neither sentient nor living.
Hellcow 07-05-07, 01:09 AM	The quori-forged were neither sentient nor living. Nor were they the only warforged-like constructs created during the Age of Giants. It seems that at least one - possibly more - of the giant cultures were inspired by the quorforged to create their own constructs. Hence, the existence of warforged components and artifacts designed by giants as well as quori. Whether these giant-built constructs were identical to true warforged is another question, but the fact that the quorforged were not true warforged doesn't rule out the existence of a closer missing link from the later conflict.