Homebrew Warforged for 5e - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 AcesEight Jan 28, 2015 23:51:11	So ive never played ebberron or anything with warforged. But they look and sound cool, and in my homebrew campaign setting ive decided that they fit perfectly.Before I so the stats, heres a breif backstory on them. During the first age of the world man had achieve greatness, and the Gods wanted nothing to do with them.So man decided that they were good enough to be gods.They constructed a device that would essentially steal the energy of the celestial plane and make them all gods.What they didnt know was that doing that would kill all the gods and create an apocalypse. With that happening man slowly all started dying out from starvation and etc. In the end only to factions remained, the light and the dark. The dark had corrupted all the dragons turning them evil. The light had to create something to fight the force; the warforged.This happened a long time ago, the apocalypse is over and new gods have came to watch over the world.
#2 AcesEight Jan 28, 2015 23:54:04	WARFORGED Ability Score Increases: You gain +2 to your constitution stat. Age: Warforged do not age but do suffer from memory degradation that starts to happen around 800 years of being active. Alignment: Warforged heavily lean toward Lawful but some who have taken damage can be others. Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Living Construct: Warforged are living construct and does not need to eat, drink, sleep or breathe. Unsleeping Sentinel: Warforged do not sleep and instead enter a sort of stand by mode where they are completely inactive but are fully aware of their surroundings and can notice events such as conversations and the movement of people. In this mode the Warforged only need 4 hours until they are considered fully rested. Warforged Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage. Integrated Armor: When you are not wearing armor, your AC is 12 + your Dexterity modifier, also you can choose to use your Constitution instead of Dexterity for calculating AC. During a short rest, you can bond a suit of armor you are wearing to your body. When you finish that short rest, the armor you are wearing is bonded to you, and it cannot subsequently be removed from your body until you finish another short rest during which time you remove the bonded armor. Self-Stabilizing: You have advantage on Death-Saving Throws. Languages: You speak, read, and write common and primordial. Subrace: Two main subraces of Warforged populate the world: Titans and Dragoons. Choose one of these subraces.
#3 AcesEight Jan 28, 2015 23:53:07	*Titan* Ability Score Increases: You gain +1 to Strength stat. Size: Titans stand between 6 to 7 feet tall and average 275 pounds. Battle-Hardened: Whenever you take piercing, slashing, or bludgeoning damage from non-magical weapons it’s reduced by 2. If you integrate magical armor to your body it will apply to magical as well. Battle Training: You gain proficiency in martial weapons and shield Dragoon Ability Score Increases: You gain +1 to Intelligence stat. Size: Dragoons stand between 5 to 6 feet tall and weigh between 175 pounds. Spell Forged: You gain one cantrip of your choice. They require no spell focus. At third level you can cast Detect Magic once per day. At fifth level you can cast Magic Weapon once per day.
#4 Pandaemonius Jan 29, 2015 16:03:58	Personally, I worry about the balance of this race. This is, I assume, based on Keith Baker's homebrew of the warforged (see here), but this version of them you have posted is a good deal more powerful I think. While game balance can be djusted on the fly my first impression is that these warforged are, provided you want to play a melee combatant or wizard, a bit more optimal than the other races. To be a wizard with a free cantrip, free light armor, the ability to use Dex or Con in determining armor class (and then maximng out Int and Con), immunity to all poison gas since they don't breathe, and advantage on all other poison saves plus resistance to poison if you do happn to take damage from them, no need to sleep or trance, a four hour long rest (though I assume they do need 8 hours rest to recover spells nonetheless, or else that is a powerful advantage), and advantage on Death saving throws? Sure, all races have some good stuff for certain classes, but usually there is at least some drawback or at least a feature of a race that won't be a direct mechanical benefit to a specific class, but that makes the race "gold" for purposes of any wizard class guides. It's definitely all opinion and YMMV, so take the rest of this post with a giant grain of salt. For flavor, I would at least suggest that the free cantrip should be an attack spell from the wizard school. Then one can imagine the armoirs of Dragoons not formally trained as wizards being used as disposable battlefield pistoleers. Also, High Elves, already a very good race for wizards, can take cntrips but only from the wizard school, it shouldn't be that Dragoons can get Eldritch Blast without becoming a Warlock, imo and they shouldn't be able to access divine cantrips. I think if you compare the Dragoons to High Elves, Dragoons are clearly superios for wizards, even accounting for a few judgment calls: Compare: Racial ability: Dex +2/Int +1 vs Con +2/Int +1 . Warforged wins big. This is a wash as Con and Dex are both vital skills for all players of any class, but combine this with the ability to use Con for AC instead of Dex...and that greatly reducedthe importance of Dexterity, so Warforged wins. You get the main benefiot of a high Dex and all the benefits of a high Con, making Constition arguably as important as Intelligence to a Dragoon. I doubt any player would ever choose to rely on Dexterity for AC with this race. Rest Requirenments: Trance vs Unsleeping Sentinel. Warforged wins, though this is a minor benefit. Unsleeping is superior because you are fully aware of yiur surroundings during that period Cantrips: Warforged wins big, One wizard cantrip for the elf vs one cantrip from any school, plus Detect Magic at 3rd level and Magic weapon at 5th level. The Dragoon gets a better selection of cantrips and bonuses at higher levels. Armor Class: Warforged win big. You get a free +2 and elves get nothing, but a free +2 that stacks with Mage Armor and with the preternaturally high Con is epic. Movement Speed: Tied. Age: Tied. Langauages: Elves win, though it's usually a small benefit. Elves get three to the Dragoon's two, a clear win for the elf. Size: Elves win, though only marginally. Smaller and lighter is usually better, though it is a minor benefit. This leaves me to compare the elf's Darkvision, Keen Senses, Fey Ancestry and Elf Weapon Training against the warforged's Living Construct, Warforged Resilience and Self Stabilizing. This is all subjective, but unless I conclude that the elf's four abilities blow away the worforged's three in a landslide, there is no overcoming the big lead the Dragoon has from the above. I think the two sets are probably close to evenly balanced, though. Compare to Forest Gnomes, probably the gold standard of wizard races: Racial ability: Could be argued either way who wins. Int +2 /Dex +1 for the Gnome vs Con +2/Int +1 for the Dragoon. Int +2 is huge, but as mentioned the Dragoon can use his Constitution to confer the principal benefit of Dexterity to himself, plus all the benefits of Con itself. Con and Dex already vied fro being the "second most important" stat for wizards. I would think any Dragoon would try to max out both stats at 20 each even if it had to pass up getting feats to do it. Rest Requirenments: Warforged wins. Unsleeping Sentinel allows the warforged to be fully aware of its surroundings while resting and you can get full hit points back after only 4 hours. Cantrips: Warforged wins big, The elf gets Minor Illusion only, which i a good cantrip, but there is no choice for the player vs the Dragoon getting one cantrip from any school, plus Detect Magic at 3rd level and Magic weapon at 5th level. Armor Class: Warforged win big. You get a free +2 and gnomes get nothing, and a free +2 that stacks with Mage Armor and with the preternaturally high Con remains epic. Movement Speed: Warforged wins. 25 feet vs 30 feet Age: Warforged wins, though this is a tiny benefit Langauges: Tied, at two each. Size: Gnomes win, though it is a highly situational benefit. Smaller and lighter is usually better. This leaves me to compare the elf's Darkvision,Gnome Cunning, and Speak with Small Beasts ability against the warforged's Living Construct, Warforged Resilience and Self Stabilizing. Again, this is all subjective. Darkvision is good, Gnome Cunning iis awesome (+5) and Speak with small beasts is interesting but situational. I would give the clear edge to he Gnome on the strength of Gnome Cunning, but not by a landslide. On balance, then I think the Warforged outclasses his opponent again. I thought Kieth Baker's versions were balanced betetr, though the subraces were unexciting, Perhaps later I will post how I would have tweaked his warforged to mke them more interesting to me, though as this is all subjective, that may be more work than the expected benefit. In short though, I can imagine three subraces: a big, but slow moving tank model, a speedy scout model and a arcane fueled ranged attacker.
#5 AcesEight Jan 29, 2015 17:18:21	thanks for the input. the cantrip thing is a good point and idea, on the con as ac it is extremely powerful and wasnt thinking weather it was balanced or not. maybe give the dr2 to the race and give fighting after unconsciousness for the titans
#6 JamesMusicus Jan 30, 2015 1:55:36	If you want my input, I have a scoring system I've been working on with 2 examples of warforged in the catologue here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-H5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/edit?usp=sharing
#7 AcesEight Jan 30, 2015 20:56:42	very nice i will definently use this, thanks for such a handy resource

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

AcesEight

Jan 28, 2015 23:51:11

So ive never played ebberron or anything with warforged. But they look and sound cool, and in my homebrew campaign setting ive decided that they fit perfectly.Before I so the stats, heres a breif backstory on them.

During the first age of the world man had achieve greatness, and the Gods wanted nothing to do with them.So man decided that they were good enough to be gods.They constructed a device that would essentially steal the energy of the celestial plane and make them all gods.What they didnt know was that doing that would kill all the gods and create an apocalypse.

With that happening man slowly all started dying out from starvation and etc. In the end only to factions remained, the light and the dark. The dark had corrupted all the dragons turning them evil. The light had to create something to fight the force; the warforged.This happened a long time ago, the apocalypse is over and new gods have came to watch over the world.

AcesEight

Jan 28, 2015 23:54:04

WARFORGED

Ability Score Increases: You gain +2 to your constitution stat.

Age: Warforged do not age but do suffer from memory degradation that starts to happen around 800 years of being active.

Alignment: Warforged heavily lean toward Lawful but some who have taken damage can be others.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Living Construct: Warforged are living construct and does not need to eat, drink, sleep or breathe.

Unsleeping Sentinel: Warforged do not sleep and instead enter a sort of stand by mode where they are completely inactive but are fully aware of their surroundings and can notice events such as conversations and the movement of people. In this mode the Warforged only need 4 hours until they are considered fully rested.

Warforged Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.

Integrated Armor: When you are not wearing armor, your AC is 12 + your Dexterity modifier, also you can choose to use your Constitution instead of Dexterity for calculating AC. During a short rest, you can bond a suit of armor you are wearing to your body. When you finish that short rest, the armor you are wearing is bonded to you, and it cannot subsequently be removed from your body until you finish another short rest during which time you remove the bonded armor.

Self-Stabilizing: You have advantage on Death-Saving Throws.

Languages: You speak, read, and write common and primordial.

Subrace: Two main subraces of Warforged populate the world: Titans and Dragoons. Choose one of these subraces.

AcesEight

Jan 28, 2015 23:53:07

Titan

Ability Score Increases: You gain +1 to Strength stat.

Size: Titans stand between 6 to 7 feet tall and average 275 pounds.

Battle-Hardened: Whenever you take piercing, slashing, or bludgeoning damage from non-magical weapons it’s reduced by 2. If you integrate magical armor to your body it will apply to magical as well.

Battle Training: You gain proficiency in martial weapons and shield

Dragoon

Ability Score Increases: You gain +1 to Intelligence stat.

Size: Dragoons stand between 5 to 6 feet tall and weigh between 175 pounds.

Spell Forged: You gain one cantrip of your choice. They require no spell focus. At third level you can cast Detect Magic once per day. At fifth level you can cast Magic Weapon once per day.

Pandaemonius

Jan 29, 2015 16:03:58

Personally, I worry about the balance of this race.

This is, I assume, based on Keith Baker's homebrew of the warforged (see here), but this version of them you have posted is a good deal more powerful I think. While game balance can be djusted on the fly my first impression is that these warforged are, provided you want to play a melee combatant or wizard, a bit more optimal than the other races.

To be a wizard with a free cantrip, free light armor, the ability to use Dex or Con in determining armor class (and then maximng out Int and Con), immunity to all poison gas since they don't breathe, and advantage on all other poison saves plus resistance to poison if you do happn to take damage from them, no need to sleep or trance, a four hour long rest (though I assume they do need 8 hours rest to recover spells nonetheless, or else that is a powerful advantage), and advantage on Death saving throws? Sure, all races have some good stuff for certain classes, but usually there is at least some drawback or at least a feature of a race that won't be a direct mechanical benefit to a specific class, but that makes the race "gold" for purposes of any wizard class guides.

It's definitely all opinion and YMMV, so take the rest of this post with a giant grain of salt.

For flavor, I would at least suggest that the free cantrip should be an attack spell from the wizard school. Then one can imagine the armoirs of Dragoons not formally trained as wizards being used as disposable battlefield pistoleers. Also, High Elves, already a very good race for wizards, can take cntrips but only from the wizard school, it shouldn't be that Dragoons can get Eldritch Blast without becoming a Warlock, imo and they shouldn't be able to access divine cantrips.

I think if you compare the Dragoons to High Elves, Dragoons are clearly superios for wizards, even accounting for a few judgment calls:

Compare:

Racial ability: Dex +2/Int +1 vs Con +2/Int +1 . Warforged wins big. This is a wash as Con and Dex are both vital skills for all players of any class, *but* combine this with the ability to use Con for AC instead of Dex...and that greatly reducedthe importance of Dexterity, so Warforged wins. You get the main benefiot of a high Dex and all the benefits of a high Con, making Constition arguably as important as Intelligence to a Dragoon. I doubt any player would ever choose to rely on Dexterity for AC with this race.
Rest Requirenments: Trance vs Unsleeping Sentinel. Warforged wins, though this is a minor benefit. Unsleeping is superior because you are fully aware of yiur surroundings during that period
Cantrips: Warforged wins big, One wizard cantrip for the elf vs one cantrip from any school, plus Detect Magic at 3rd level and Magic weapon at 5th level. The Dragoon gets a better selection of cantrips and bonuses at higher levels.
Armor Class: Warforged win big. You get a free +2 and elves get nothing, but a free +2 that stacks with Mage Armor and with the preternaturally high Con is epic.
Movement Speed: Tied.
Age: Tied.
Langauages: Elves win, though it's usually a small benefit. Elves get three to the Dragoon's two, a clear win for the elf.
Size: Elves win, though only marginally. Smaller and lighter is usually better, though it is a minor benefit.

This leaves me to compare the elf's Darkvision, Keen Senses, Fey Ancestry and Elf Weapon Training against the warforged's Living Construct, Warforged Resilience and Self Stabilizing. This is all subjective, but unless I conclude that the elf's four abilities blow away the worforged's three in a landslide, there is no overcoming the big lead the Dragoon has from the above. I think the two sets are probably close to evenly balanced, though.

Compare to Forest Gnomes, probably the gold standard of wizard races:

Racial ability: Could be argued either way who wins. Int +2 /Dex +1 for the Gnome vs Con +2/Int +1 for the Dragoon. Int +2 is huge, but as mentioned the Dragoon can use his Constitution to confer the principal benefit of Dexterity to himself, plus all the benefits of Con itself. Con and Dex already vied fro being the "second most important" stat for wizards. I would think any Dragoon would try to max out both stats at 20 each even if it had to pass up getting feats to do it.
Rest Requirenments: Warforged wins. Unsleeping Sentinel allows the warforged to be fully aware of its surroundings while resting and you can get full hit points back after only 4 hours.
Cantrips: Warforged wins big, The elf gets Minor Illusion only, which i a good cantrip, but there is no choice for the player vs the Dragoon getting one cantrip from any school, plus Detect Magic at 3rd level and Magic weapon at 5th level.
Armor Class: Warforged win big. You get a free +2 and gnomes get nothing, and a free +2 that stacks with Mage Armor and with the preternaturally high Con remains epic.
Movement Speed: Warforged wins. 25 feet vs 30 feet
Age: Warforged wins, though this is a tiny benefit
Langauges: Tied, at two each.
Size: Gnomes win, though it is a highly situational benefit. Smaller and lighter is usually better.

This leaves me to compare the elf's Darkvision,Gnome Cunning, and Speak with Small Beasts ability against the warforged's Living Construct, Warforged Resilience and Self Stabilizing. Again, this is all subjective. Darkvision is good, Gnome Cunning iis awesome (+5) and Speak with small beasts is interesting but situational. I would give the clear edge to he Gnome on the strength of Gnome Cunning, but not by a landslide. On balance, then I think the Warforged outclasses his opponent again.

I thought Kieth Baker's versions were balanced betetr, though the subraces were unexciting, Perhaps later I will post how I would have tweaked his warforged to mke them more interesting to me, though as this is all subjective, that may be more work than the expected benefit. In short though, I can imagine three subraces: a big, but slow moving tank model, a speedy scout model and a arcane fueled ranged attacker.

AcesEight

Jan 29, 2015 17:18:21

thanks for the input. the cantrip thing is a good point and idea, on the con as ac it is extremely powerful and wasnt thinking weather it was balanced or not. maybe give the dr2 to the race and give fighting after unconsciousness for the titans

JamesMusicus

Jan 30, 2015 1:55:36

If you want my input, I have a scoring system I've been working on with 2 examples of warforged in the catologue here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-H5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/edit?usp=sharing

AcesEight

Jan 30, 2015 20:56:42

very nice i will definently use this, thanks for such a handy resource