New to DMing Eberron.. some questions/advice needed [Archive] - Wizards Community

New to DMing Eberron.. some questions/advice needed [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
WayneTheGame
09-04-05, 09:25 AM Hello all,

I've finally convinced one of the two groups I play in to let me DM an Eberron game.. this will be the first time in many, MANY years I've DMed anything and the first time DMing 3.5 and Eberron. Already my players have brought up some interesting things which I'm at a loss for explaining aside from "the rules say so".

1) A player wants to know why there are no Warforged with four arms or spiderlike legs or wheels or serpentine lower bodies (I guess he thinks of them like droids??). I said it was to preserve game balance, but another player said "why no variant forms..? Seems like multiple legs/arms isn't that big a deal with that...".

2) Same player wants to know if a female warforged can have a distinctly feminine shape. I know the ECS says they all look asexual and just develop male/female personalities, and I'm certain this question has come up in the past.. what were your rulings?

3) There's a rare chance that they ALL will want to play warforged. As I said this is my first time DMing pretty much; how the heck would I run a game like this?? Maybe some kind of elite force working for a kingdom? I think that takes away half the fun of Eberron, but I don't want to look like I'm railroading them into playing what *I* want them to play.

4) Anything important I should remember when running an Eberron game? I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the published adventures or create my own, but I like the idea of having lots of action when there's action.. do any experienced Eberron DMs have some words of wisdom for a newbie?

Thank you very much for any assistance!

- Wayne
cr0w
09-04-05, 10:08 AM Well, I'm in the same boat as you. I'm putting together an Eberron campaign after getting back into D&D after a 15 year hiatus.

1) A player wants to know why there are no Warforged with four arms or spiderlike legs or wheels or serpentine lower bodies (I guess he thinks of them like droids??). I said it was to preserve game balance, but another player said "why no variant forms..? Seems like multiple legs/arms isn't that big a deal with that...".
In game terms you could present it a number of ways I would think. First, the creators of the warforged would have had to create their intelligence as well as their bodies. If one has no knowledge of using multiple limbs or a serpent body how would they "program" (for lack of a better term) their creation to be able to use them.
Also, maybe state that in order to get the non-human troops to accept warforged into their ranks it was decided to try and create them as human like as possible.

2) Same player wants to know if a female warforged can have a distinctly feminine shape. I know the ECS says they all look asexual and just develop male/female personalities, and I'm certain this question has come up in the past.. what were your rulings?
Depending on the artificer who created the 'forged they may have created them differently. I would think a feminine shaped warforged is completely possible. It would be interesting to have a feminine looking warforged with a male personality. :)

3) There's a rare chance that they ALL will want to play warforged. As I said this is my first time DMing pretty much; how the heck would I run a game like this?? Maybe some kind of elite force working for a kingdom? I think that takes away half the fun of Eberron, but I don't want to look like I'm railroading them into playing what *I* want them to play.
They could be former Cyran soldiers who have grouped together after their unit was destroyed on the day of mourning. I think it would be interesting to run it as if they were typical PCs, but have them have to deal with the likely racism.
Ricohard_Draconis
09-04-05, 12:06 PM well the technology of the creation forge was based on the ancient xen'drik technology and building them was a bit hit and miss so that alternate forms might not have been possible, also remembering there was a war on so experimenting was something that was very slow as most were needed.

Also remind your players that warforged aren't robots they're intellegent sentient beings with thoughts and feelings of their own.

female form warforged are an old gripe around here. personally i can see it going either way.

as a group of warforged you could have them as an A-team esque group left over from the war, now turned soldiers of fortune.
Rake
09-04-05, 12:19 PM Hello all,

I've finally convinced one of the two groups I play in to let me DM an Eberron game.. this will be the first time in many, MANY years I've DMed anything and the first time DMing 3.5 and Eberron. Already my players have brought up some interesting things which I'm at a loss for explaining aside from "the rules say so".

1) A player wants to know why there are no Warforged with four arms or spiderlike legs or wheels or serpentine lower bodies (I guess he thinks of them like droids??). I said it was to preserve game balance, but another player said "why no variant forms..? Seems like multiple legs/arms isn't that big a deal with that...".

2) Same player wants to know if a female warforged can have a distinctly feminine shape. I know the ECS says they all look asexual and just develop male/female personalities, and I'm certain this question has come up in the past.. what were your rulings?

3) There's a rare chance that they ALL will want to play warforged. As I said this is my first time DMing pretty much; how the heck would I run a game like this?? Maybe some kind of elite force working for a kingdom? I think that takes away half the fun of Eberron, but I don't want to look like I'm railroading them into playing what *I* want them to play.

4) Anything important I should remember when running an Eberron game? I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the published adventures or create my own, but I like the idea of having lots of action when there's action.. do any experienced Eberron DMs have some words of wisdom for a newbie?

Thank you very much for any assistance!

- Wayne

1.) There are a few alternate forms, in the Magic Items section of the ECS. At the very least, there's a centauric form.

2.) Unsure what the official answer is, but I know I've seen "fem" warforged done a bunch of times.

3.) Four words: Elite Thranish Strike Force.

4.) I don't like published adventures, but everyone swears by the module in the back of the ECS. It's supposed to be real good for introducing all the assorted new game elements.
ChronosCrow
09-04-05, 01:19 PM 1) The answer is pretty simple. The artificers that made warforges took 100 years to get where they're at now and they still haven't perfected the whole process. In fact it was just getting off the ground, however the Treaty of Thronehold has put a stop to making warforged. Baron Merrix d'Cannith however is still making them with his own forge. He may be creating such said experiments, though outside people would look at such warforged with wonderment. You can make warforged that are different with templates i suppose. The previously stated tauric would work:
http://losstupid.com/Eberron/images/tauricwf.jpg This artwork was made by another person on the boards here (thouhg I've placed it on my website b/c I've misplaced theirs).

Any kind of warforged that is not presented, like say a psionic warforged, can bascially be considered a cusp experiment. They are not large numbers of them, they do exist, but they weren't part of the highly produced prodution modles which were mostly fighers, rangers, a few artificers, few wizards. A socerrer one would be an experiment, along with cleric, paladin (though with the RoE they make great pallys), ect...

And yes, they ARE NOT robots. Try to do your best to head your players off at the pace, but it can sometimes be inevitable.

2) Female personality looking warforged exist from what I've sen in pictures. Like always no game mechanics follow suit b/c Wizards doesn't need to be sued by saying men and women are different.

3) I advise getting the RoE to give yourself some help here. They have a large amount more of warforged related material and insight. What process they went through after birth, what they think usually, how they act, history and great amount of crunch material to boot. Feats, spells, prestige classes, substituion classes and magic items. I'd definetly advise at least one of them being an artificer, it's a natural leap. I'd say there are a number of ways a warforged group could evolve, the previous statments hold pretty true.

A splintered group of a disbanded unit.
A group that sees no difference between the war now and their new life. They feel the need for conflict and to proceed with their previous purpose. Also I'd advise the Lord of Blades to be their ultimate enemy. Probably facing off with him anytime from lvl 14-18. The LoB is rumored to be a warforged that is still waging the Last War. Another is that he is a man in a warforged suit and so on. And rumor and conjecture, but fun. His lieutenants all specialize in a sword and have that name, so "Rapier" is best in rapier usage (a few feats) and he is a high ranking official in the LoB army.

4) I'll give you some great links. The thing about Eberron is that the internet has a great wealth of info on it that's helpful. Not all of it's good, but there are you spots. The WoTC website for Eberron kicks major butt.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=7154397#post7154397
Keith Baker (the creator of Eberron) in all of his infinite wisdom has been a great sport with the system. It's a fluff type system and people always want to know more. Now you can. Want to ask a fluff question like, "why aren't there four armed warforged?" well go ask the Keith man. A huge amount of questions have already been asked, like your first one I'm sure, and are answered by Keith. Don't waste his time with reasking questions.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=287579
Here, MarkB an Eberron poster, has complied all of Keith's questions/answers. There search function does not work for the boards, but you can use the "Find" function in your browser to find certain strings of words. you want fo find questions for warforged, just click Ctrl+F then type in the word warforged and start searching. That's a little help for ya.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebx/articles
This is where all the articles are archived. I highly advise reading all of the "Dragonshards". They have great info on getting to understand thing and there's a 2 parter on warforged. Sharn Inquisitive and Steal this Hook have a number of great plot hooks.

http://breland-ledger.blogspot.com/
From here you can get to 3 different things:

Eberron Journal-This is put together by the fan that knows Eberron almost as well as Keith does. It has great adaptation info that has not been published. Like, if you want the races from the XPH in Eberron how would you do that? And an explanation on how the classes in the "complete" books have appeared in Eberron.

Eberron Bestiary- a fan made site for making Eberron flavored monsters.

Korranberg Chronicler- a fan made paper of an actual news paper in Eberron. It has a bunch of plot hooks and developed ideas for story lines. I make my own too, the Sharn Inquisitive, but I've only two issues of that:
http://losstupid.com/Eberron/SharnI/Issue1/Issue1.pdf
http://losstupid.com/Eberron/SharnI/Issue2/Issue.pdf

Some Eberron board material:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/ec/index.htm
Eberron caldendar tool, it's not perfect.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=275225
Some DM seeds

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=492010
Default How to run the Rakashasa (The Lords of Dust)

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=492173
Default How to run the Awakened Monkey Airship Captain (Cap'n Cheeky)

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=492148
How to run the Daelkyr (Cults of the Dragon Below)

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=489894
Music In Eberron

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=484905
Dragonmarked Cohorts?

http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=6585845
Keith's answer to how much a warforged actually costs at creation

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=488067
Characters owning airships

Information:
-Kalashtar try not to bond with people outside of their race.

-Psionics can exist on Khorvaire, though it is usually taught to another person, very rarely does it spawn on its entire own.

-Warforged parts can not be salvaged for selling.

-Warforged parts can't be salvaged to be used on another warforged.

-I love all of the published books and advise you get them. Also, the novels can help you get a good idea of the world and I advise rewarding XP to players if they read the books.

-It's "Eberron" not "Ebberon"

-Siberys not Seberiyes

-In the ECS on one page is a picture of a guy running from the Sharn police.

-He's cupping a gnome's mouth to keep him quiet. If you look closely at the table in the room there is a FR player's guide on the table.
Monsters are not limited by alignment, so a red dragon may be good.

-Don't let a PC be a half-dragon until much much later in the game. They are have potential for an important part of the "Prophocey"

-Drow live on Xen'drik. They act different, they have diff names. In fact the only similar factors are some game crunch and their look.

-Xen'drik will never be fully mapped, just a few spots in it.

-Some things will never be explainded. What is the Prophocey really? What happened on the Day of Mourning? Will the Mourning spread? Can the 13th Mark come back? Is there a 13th moon?

- A "Baker's" dozen is 13. Through out the entire book there are huge occurances of 12+1. Where the 1 is a misplaced, disregarded, or forgotten element. The amount of recognized by the Treaty of Thronehold. The number of marks. The number of moons.

I think that's good for now, ^_-

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
WayneTheGame 09-04-05, 09:25 AM	Hello all, I've finally convinced one of the two groups I play in to let me DM an Eberron game.. this will be the first time in many, MANY years I've DMed anything and the first time DMing 3.5 and Eberron. Already my players have brought up some interesting things which I'm at a loss for explaining aside from "the rules say so". 1) A player wants to know why there are no Warforged with four arms or spiderlike legs or wheels or serpentine lower bodies (I guess he thinks of them like droids??). I said it was to preserve game balance, but another player said "why no variant forms..? Seems like multiple legs/arms isn't that big a deal with that...". 2) Same player wants to know if a female warforged can have a distinctly feminine shape. I know the ECS says they all look asexual and just develop male/female personalities, and I'm certain this question has come up in the past.. what were your rulings? 3) There's a rare chance that they ALL will want to play warforged. As I said this is my first time DMing pretty much; how the heck would I run a game like this?? Maybe some kind of elite force working for a kingdom? I think that takes away half the fun of Eberron, but I don't want to look like I'm railroading them into playing what I want them to play. 4) Anything important I should remember when running an Eberron game? I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the published adventures or create my own, but I like the idea of having lots of action when there's action.. do any experienced Eberron DMs have some words of wisdom for a newbie? Thank you very much for any assistance! - Wayne
cr0w 09-04-05, 10:08 AM	Well, I'm in the same boat as you. I'm putting together an Eberron campaign after getting back into D&D after a 15 year hiatus. 1) A player wants to know why there are no Warforged with four arms or spiderlike legs or wheels or serpentine lower bodies (I guess he thinks of them like droids??). I said it was to preserve game balance, but another player said "why no variant forms..? Seems like multiple legs/arms isn't that big a deal with that...". In game terms you could present it a number of ways I would think. First, the creators of the warforged would have had to create their intelligence as well as their bodies. If one has no knowledge of using multiple limbs or a serpent body how would they "program" (for lack of a better term) their creation to be able to use them. Also, maybe state that in order to get the non-human troops to accept warforged into their ranks it was decided to try and create them as human like as possible. 2) Same player wants to know if a female warforged can have a distinctly feminine shape. I know the ECS says they all look asexual and just develop male/female personalities, and I'm certain this question has come up in the past.. what were your rulings? Depending on the artificer who created the 'forged they may have created them differently. I would think a feminine shaped warforged is completely possible. It would be interesting to have a feminine looking warforged with a male personality. :) 3) There's a rare chance that they ALL will want to play warforged. As I said this is my first time DMing pretty much; how the heck would I run a game like this?? Maybe some kind of elite force working for a kingdom? I think that takes away half the fun of Eberron, but I don't want to look like I'm railroading them into playing what I want them to play. They could be former Cyran soldiers who have grouped together after their unit was destroyed on the day of mourning. I think it would be interesting to run it as if they were typical PCs, but have them have to deal with the likely racism.
Ricohard_Draconis 09-04-05, 12:06 PM	well the technology of the creation forge was based on the ancient xen'drik technology and building them was a bit hit and miss so that alternate forms might not have been possible, also remembering there was a war on so experimenting was something that was very slow as most were needed. Also remind your players that warforged aren't robots they're intellegent sentient beings with thoughts and feelings of their own. female form warforged are an old gripe around here. personally i can see it going either way. as a group of warforged you could have them as an A-team esque group left over from the war, now turned soldiers of fortune.
Rake 09-04-05, 12:19 PM	Hello all, I've finally convinced one of the two groups I play in to let me DM an Eberron game.. this will be the first time in many, MANY years I've DMed anything and the first time DMing 3.5 and Eberron. Already my players have brought up some interesting things which I'm at a loss for explaining aside from "the rules say so". 1) A player wants to know why there are no Warforged with four arms or spiderlike legs or wheels or serpentine lower bodies (I guess he thinks of them like droids??). I said it was to preserve game balance, but another player said "why no variant forms..? Seems like multiple legs/arms isn't that big a deal with that...". 2) Same player wants to know if a female warforged can have a distinctly feminine shape. I know the ECS says they all look asexual and just develop male/female personalities, and I'm certain this question has come up in the past.. what were your rulings? 3) There's a rare chance that they ALL will want to play warforged. As I said this is my first time DMing pretty much; how the heck would I run a game like this?? Maybe some kind of elite force working for a kingdom? I think that takes away half the fun of Eberron, but I don't want to look like I'm railroading them into playing what I want them to play. 4) Anything important I should remember when running an Eberron game? I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the published adventures or create my own, but I like the idea of having lots of action when there's action.. do any experienced Eberron DMs have some words of wisdom for a newbie? Thank you very much for any assistance! - Wayne 1.) There are a few alternate forms, in the Magic Items section of the ECS. At the very least, there's a centauric form. 2.) Unsure what the official answer is, but I know I've seen "fem" warforged done a bunch of times. 3.) Four words: Elite Thranish Strike Force. 4.) I don't like published adventures, but everyone swears by the module in the back of the ECS. It's supposed to be real good for introducing all the assorted new game elements.
ChronosCrow 09-04-05, 01:19 PM	1) The answer is pretty simple. The artificers that made warforges took 100 years to get where they're at now and they still haven't perfected the whole process. In fact it was just getting off the ground, however the Treaty of Thronehold has put a stop to making warforged. Baron Merrix d'Cannith however is still making them with his own forge. He may be creating such said experiments, though outside people would look at such warforged with wonderment. You can make warforged that are different with templates i suppose. The previously stated tauric would work: http://losstupid.com/Eberron/images/tauricwf.jpg This artwork was made by another person on the boards here (thouhg I've placed it on my website b/c I've misplaced theirs). Any kind of warforged that is not presented, like say a psionic warforged, can bascially be considered a cusp experiment. They are not large numbers of them, they do exist, but they weren't part of the highly produced prodution modles which were mostly fighers, rangers, a few artificers, few wizards. A socerrer one would be an experiment, along with cleric, paladin (though with the RoE they make great pallys), ect... And yes, they ARE NOT robots. Try to do your best to head your players off at the pace, but it can sometimes be inevitable. 2) Female personality looking warforged exist from what I've sen in pictures. Like always no game mechanics follow suit b/c Wizards doesn't need to be sued by saying men and women are different. 3) I advise getting the RoE to give yourself some help here. They have a large amount more of warforged related material and insight. What process they went through after birth, what they think usually, how they act, history and great amount of crunch material to boot. Feats, spells, prestige classes, substituion classes and magic items. I'd definetly advise at least one of them being an artificer, it's a natural leap. I'd say there are a number of ways a warforged group could evolve, the previous statments hold pretty true. A splintered group of a disbanded unit. A group that sees no difference between the war now and their new life. They feel the need for conflict and to proceed with their previous purpose. Also I'd advise the Lord of Blades to be their ultimate enemy. Probably facing off with him anytime from lvl 14-18. The LoB is rumored to be a warforged that is still waging the Last War. Another is that he is a man in a warforged suit and so on. And rumor and conjecture, but fun. His lieutenants all specialize in a sword and have that name, so "Rapier" is best in rapier usage (a few feats) and he is a high ranking official in the LoB army. 4) I'll give you some great links. The thing about Eberron is that the internet has a great wealth of info on it that's helpful. Not all of it's good, but there are you spots. The WoTC website for Eberron kicks major butt. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?p=7154397#post7154397 Keith Baker (the creator of Eberron) in all of his infinite wisdom has been a great sport with the system. It's a fluff type system and people always want to know more. Now you can. Want to ask a fluff question like, "why aren't there four armed warforged?" well go ask the Keith man. A huge amount of questions have already been asked, like your first one I'm sure, and are answered by Keith. Don't waste his time with reasking questions. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=287579 Here, MarkB an Eberron poster, has complied all of Keith's questions/answers. There search function does not work for the boards, but you can use the "Find" function in your browser to find certain strings of words. you want fo find questions for warforged, just click Ctrl+F then type in the word warforged and start searching. That's a little help for ya. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebx/articles This is where all the articles are archived. I highly advise reading all of the "Dragonshards". They have great info on getting to understand thing and there's a 2 parter on warforged. Sharn Inquisitive and Steal this Hook have a number of great plot hooks. http://breland-ledger.blogspot.com/ From here you can get to 3 different things: Eberron Journal-This is put together by the fan that knows Eberron almost as well as Keith does. It has great adaptation info that has not been published. Like, if you want the races from the XPH in Eberron how would you do that? And an explanation on how the classes in the "complete" books have appeared in Eberron. Eberron Bestiary- a fan made site for making Eberron flavored monsters. Korranberg Chronicler- a fan made paper of an actual news paper in Eberron. It has a bunch of plot hooks and developed ideas for story lines. I make my own too, the Sharn Inquisitive, but I've only two issues of that: http://losstupid.com/Eberron/SharnI/Issue1/Issue1.pdf http://losstupid.com/Eberron/SharnI/Issue2/Issue.pdf Some Eberron board material: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/ec/index.htm Eberron caldendar tool, it's not perfect. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=275225 Some DM seeds http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=492010 Default How to run the Rakashasa (The Lords of Dust) http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=492173 Default How to run the Awakened Monkey Airship Captain (Cap'n Cheeky) http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=492148 How to run the Daelkyr (Cults of the Dragon Below) http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=489894 Music In Eberron http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=484905 Dragonmarked Cohorts? http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=6585845 Keith's answer to how much a warforged actually costs at creation http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=488067 Characters owning airships Information: -Kalashtar try not to bond with people outside of their race. -Psionics can exist on Khorvaire, though it is usually taught to another person, very rarely does it spawn on its entire own. -Warforged parts can not be salvaged for selling. -Warforged parts can't be salvaged to be used on another warforged. -I love all of the published books and advise you get them. Also, the novels can help you get a good idea of the world and I advise rewarding XP to players if they read the books. -It's "Eberron" not "Ebberon" -Siberys not Seberiyes -In the ECS on one page is a picture of a guy running from the Sharn police. -He's cupping a gnome's mouth to keep him quiet. If you look closely at the table in the room there is a FR player's guide on the table. Monsters are not limited by alignment, so a red dragon may be good. -Don't let a PC be a half-dragon until much much later in the game. They are have potential for an important part of the "Prophocey" -Drow live on Xen'drik. They act different, they have diff names. In fact the only similar factors are some game crunch and their look. -Xen'drik will never be fully mapped, just a few spots in it. -Some things will never be explainded. What is the Prophocey really? What happened on the Day of Mourning? Will the Mourning spread? Can the 13th Mark come back? Is there a 13th moon? - A "Baker's" dozen is 13. Through out the entire book there are huge occurances of 12+1. Where the 1 is a misplaced, disregarded, or forgotten element. The amount of recognized by the Treaty of Thronehold. The number of marks. The number of moons. I think that's good for now, ^_-