Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Bigshot23 09-01-05, 10:11 AM	Our group is starting a new campaign. Its my turn in the hotseat with the group and I thought it would be different to try out Eberron. With the Warforged are they over-balanced? It seems like the entire group wants to play one. I can understand the fighter, but the druid, the psion, and possibly the barbarian. That only leaves one PC as a human artificer. I'm using premade modules and I'm concerned that with all the immunities and DR that they will walk over all the encounters and traps. The other large issue is the Admantite Armor Feat which gives armor a 10th level character could afford at level 1. Is this true of most Eberron groups or do they somehow balance out. Please post comments of your campaigns and does your group feel that worforged are so powerful why wouldn't you take it as a race. Thanks in advance.
Cloud Divider 09-01-05, 10:44 AM	Generally my experience is that they're not particularly overbalanced vs. the others. I've got a single Mithril WF (Rgr2/Bbn1/Ftr1) among a Kalashtar (Psion4) and two humans (Pal 4, Art 4). Also note, I'm using 28-29pt builds, so that helps mitigate some issues (everyone has strengths and weaknesses). There's some fairly major role-playing downsides, the biggest one is roughly analogous to the CP2020 "Full Borg" issue: Warforged (should) draw fire like nobody's business in combat. Even though we've got a decked-out Paladin in the party, pretty much everyone focuses fire on the WF (he's a big, obvious threat). He's ended up closer to death more than anyone else at this point. The immunity to fatigue sort of makes the WF Barbarian a pretty good synergy, but it's not been overpowering, either. I also run a pretty social-heavy game (though there's still plenty of combat - but it's framed in a social/political/intrigue context), so those downsides (social outsiders, poor CHA, etc) come up regularly. The armor is a mixed blessing - the upside is that it's very good equipment right off the bat; on the downside, they can't get rid of it (so they're always slow, in the case of adamantine WF). And just like Cyberpunk 2020, there's some pretty effective countermeasures - Eberron's version of the Barrett-Arasaka Light 20 anti-cyborg rifle, a crossbow loaded with (relatively inexpensive) Warforged-bane bolts is pretty ugly. And it's very, very easy for an Artificer to Augment his crossbow into a WF-bane (1st level Personal Augmentation?). I've not had to bring that up, however. But yeah, when a fight comes up, Soldier 42 is brutally effective.
DarkWarriorKarg 09-01-05, 11:01 AM	None in my group, not even the token powergamer, bothered to take a warforged. My PCs consist of: kalashtar Psion Halfling uberhealer (Cleric of boldrei + dragonmark, took healing & feast domains...) Human Paladin (Token powergamer) Human artificer Human Rogue/Swashbuckler I never asked them "Why no warforged"... it never came up. The artificer might eventually pick up Leadership & a WF cohort, though...
N-|) 09-01-05, 11:03 AM	You might have to tweak a few things in the modules but other then that it should be fine. It could actually add some really great roleplaying ideas to have three warforged in your group. I would pick up races of eberron and have your players read the warforged chapter.
ChronosCrow 09-01-05, 11:21 AM	Many people have had this fear. But no, I feel they are just fine. If someone is going to mook a character then, yeah sure it'll be a bit unbalanced. But you can do that with just about any race if you make the right kind of decisions. I've a warforged in my PC's party, but he's just fine. Really the only thing I've got that seems unbalanced is a half ogre, the mutha is a combat machine.
Bigshot23 09-01-05, 11:41 AM	Thanks for the replies: I can understand why the barbarian and fighter would want this class as there rp ability at gathering information wouldn't be that good and its free armor at level 1. But the one player who wants to play a psion would rather take Warforged over Kalashtar, which seems strange that there is a race somewhat geared towards psions, but the player sees all the immunities and free armor and in his eyes it outweighs the bonus power points. The druid as well likes all the immunities. I have one last player who isn't thinking about playing a Warforged, his class is Artificer. He wants to play a human for the Dragon mark for repairing contructs. There is some of the group who thinks he should drop the human race and go with a Warforged Artificer as all the bonuses they get. We went through the faqs and Keith mentions that a Warforged Psion would be extremly rare, when I mentioned that to the player wanting that character he also pointed out the Keith mentions that any new race should be able to play any class. Seems like a bit of a contradiction to me, anyways. Maybe this character will be somewhat segregated in the world, not one of the non-construct races and somewhat of an outsider with the warforged itself.
Nurgan_the_drunked 09-01-05, 12:10 PM	We went through the faqs and Keith mentions that a Warforged Psion would be extremly rare, when I mentioned that to the player wanting that character he also pointed out the Keith mentions that any new race should be able to play any class. Seems like a bit of a contradiction to me, anyways. Maybe this character will be somewhat segregated in the world, not one of the non-construct races and somewhat of an outsider with the warforged itself. "Very rare" isn't the same as "non-existant". The fact that there are only a handful of them in the world doesn't stop him playing one of that handful. It's also possible that the players are just tempted by 'forged because they're so different to anything playable before, rather than specifically trying to min-max. And after realising that most of them wanted 'forged, perhaps they realised there was a simple, quick way to get party cohesion (the remains of a group of warforged from the last war, with their "repairman"). However I do suggest you have a look through the module and replace some of the things they're immune to. I'd also say you should leave some. There's no point being immune to something if it never shows up, letting you laugh at it failing to affect you.
Nightshade 09-01-05, 12:22 PM	Thanks for the replies: I can understand why the barbarian and fighter would want this class as there rp ability at gathering information wouldn't be that good and its free armor at level 1. But the one player who wants to play a psion would rather take Warforged over Kalashtar, which seems strange that there is a race somewhat geared towards psions, but the player sees all the immunities and free armor and in his eyes it outweighs the bonus power points. The druid as well likes all the immunities. I have one last player who isn't thinking about playing a Warforged, his class is Artificer. He wants to play a human for the Dragon mark for repairing contructs. There is some of the group who thinks he should drop the human race and go with a Warforged Artificer as all the bonuses they get. We went through the faqs and Keith mentions that a Warforged Psion would be extremly rare, when I mentioned that to the player wanting that character he also pointed out the Keith mentions that any new race should be able to play any class. Seems like a bit of a contradiction to me, anyways. Maybe this character will be somewhat segregated in the world, not one of the non-construct races and somewhat of an outsider with the warforged itself. I recently ran a campaign with 3 Warforged with Adamantine Body feat and two humans (an artificer and a druid). It was extremely difficult to balance their enemies. They walked through Forgotten Forge like it was nothing until the BBEG and I had to throw in a spellcasting WF bad guy to aid him against the PC's. My experience is that it is not bad if the WF do not all choose the Adamantine Body feat. Mithral feat lacks the DR. The DR 2/adamantine and their immunities make WF invulnerable to many low level baddies. Beafing up the enemies makes it difficult for the non-warforged to survive. They will die much more easily. It becomes either the combat is boring or the group is on the verge of getting half their number killed. This makes the DM's job really difficult. You can make the game more of a social one which puts WF at a disadvantage. Or you could rule that only one of the PC's can take adamantine body. But it's annoying to be so controlling in character creation. It's a tough question. Simply encourage the players to create much more balanced characters. Attack their weaknesses if they don't. As to the Psion WF, I ruled that since psionics are so incredibly rare in Khorvaire, no WF can start as a Psionic character. Think about it. The Treaty of Thronehold has banned creation of WF. The only WF that exist are pre-Treaty or made by the secret Cannith Forge in Sharn. All WF are created and trained by House Cannith (except for the LoB's possible Forge but I didn't offer this as an option for the players because it might contradict elements of my campaign). Few of the Cannith makers know of psionics, fewer still can actually use them. The training programs for WF focus(ed) on fighting and other things that Khorvaire actually knows about (wizard, artificer, cleric, etc.). Who is going to train the WF when they emerge from the Forge to be a psion. Merrith d'Cannith will not reveal his secret practices to outsiders and expose himself to a death sentence just to train a WF in an interesting new power. So, I ruled that no Warforged may begin as a Level 1 Psionic class. But I also ruled that psionics may be latent within them. Their adventures or a Kalashtar (or Inspired) teacher may bring forth their psionic powers. Thus, a WF psionic may only exist as a multi-class character.
poeticyde 09-01-05, 12:54 PM	Another option is to tweak the modules a little. I run a game that has 6 main characters, so the original modules were a bit underpowered. I tweaked them a bit, and they ran great. If you have a party of warforged, change some of the beasts in the modules to rust monsters. Make one of the Horrid Rat encounters into a rust monster...though don't discount the effect of Horrid Rat acid. It messed our warforged up pretty good, even with the DR.