Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Shei-Nad Dec 08, 2014 22:36:30	Hey. I was looking forward to testing out the new 5e D&D in Eberron, but still no news of when (or if) the setting will be released for 5e. I looked around for conversions, and found Keith Baker's suggestions for some elements, including the warforged. He states that he isn't satisfied with the composite plating aspect of his warforged conversion, and I have to agree. I didn't like the 4e "crab" version either. However, I think there may be a simple workaround that problem, which I'll expose here. Also, the rest of the racial traits might need tweaking, which is why I'd like your feedback. So, here goes. WARFORGED TRAITS. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2. Size. Medium. Speed. 30 feet. Living Construct. You can be affected by spells which normally do not affect constructs, and can be targeted by spells which normally only affect constructs, although you do gain advantage on saves against both types of spells. However, you also have resistance against healing spells which normally do not affect constructs, and receive only half the normal amount of hit points cured by such magic. You cannot benefit from the Medicine skill or a healing kit, but you can be treated in the same way with smith’s or tinker’s tools. This does not require the expenditure of any materials, and you can be stabilized with an Intelligence (smith's or tinker's tools) check against a DC of 10. Regeneration Cycle. You do not sleep, but you do suffer from exhaustion normally as you spend energy on different tasks, and you must remain inactive, although fully conscious, for 1 hour to gain the benefits of a short rest and for 4 hours to gain the benefits of a long rest. You can regain hit points and spend hit dice normally to regenerate during those periods of rest. Construct Resistance. You have advantage on saves against poison and have resistance against poison damage. You are also immune to disease and magic can’t put you to sleep. Finally, you do not breathe and are immune to effects related to breathing, choking or drowning, although this also means you have no sense of smell and automatically fail all Wisdom (Perception) check based on scent. Self-Sufficient. You do need to eat or drink, although you can do so if you wish and may benefit from any magical effects related to food or drink, such as potions No Buoyancy. While you cannot drown, you cannot swim and automatically fail all Strength (Athletics) tests made to swim. You may make Strength (Athletics) tests normally to wade through turbulent or swift, but shallow, water. Self-Stabilizing. You gain advantage on death saving throws. Composite Plating. You have a bonded suit of armor, depending on your subtype. This armor cannot be removed or replaced normally (although a magewright can modify or replace your composite plating given enough time and the necessary materials) nor can you don another suit of armor on top of it. You gain proficiency with light armor, but note that you do not automatically gain proficiency with medium or heavy armor, ans suffer associated penalties if you do not gain those proficiencies through your class or by other means. If your class or background provides you with armor as equipment, you may take any one martial weapon or a shield instead. Languages. Common. Subrace. You must choose one of these three subraces of Warforged. WARFORGED SCOUT Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1. Fleet of Foot. Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet. Composite Plating. Your composite plating counts as light armor and grants you a +2 bonus to your AC.   WARFORGED SOLDIER Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1. Composite Plating. Your composite plating counts as medium armor and grants you a +4 bonus to your AC. You may add a maximum Dexterity bonus of +2 to your AC and you have disadvantage on Stealth checks.   WARFORGED JUGGERNAUT Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2. Composite Plating. Your composite plating counts as heavy armor and grants you a +6 bonus to your AC. You cannot add a your Dexterity bonus to your AC, you have disadvantage on Stealth checks and your base walking speed is reduced to 20 feet. ----------------------------------------------------- There. Before you tell me what you think, let me explain some of my choices. Living Construct. I noticed that cure and heal spells specificially state they do not affect constructs. It seems necessary to clarifiy that they do, but I used this opportunity, and the resistance mechanic, to reinstate the idea that these spells only work half as well on warforged. Or course, the corresponding repair spells will have to be back in place (as will the artificer class). Note that without this distinction, repair spells become obsolete, unless they cure more hp than regular cure spells. However, if that were the case, the warforged would gain a significant advantage, having regular cure work on him just as fine as any other race AND having another type of cure spell work ONLY for him and BETTER than regular cure spells! That's why I think this feature should remain in 5e Eberron. Also, having cure spells, which are far more common, work half as well on warforged is a drawback which can compensate for some of his other advantages. Finally, I included the idea of using artisan tools instead of Medicine of a Healing kit, making those even more useful in an Eberron Campaign. Regeneration Cycle. Pretty much the same thing suggested by Keith Baker, and similar to the elves, except warforged do stay conscious. Since the rest mechanic is much more important in 5e than in 3e, it seems important that warforged should have to rest. Also, they are not immune to exhaustion, which is a more complete mechanic in 5e than before. I think this works with the fluff anyway since mechanical or magical beings could still spend energy and need time to recharge when exerting themselves.   Construct Resistance. I agree with Keith Baker and most of the 3e resistances have to go. The warforged was immune to a lot of stuff, and that could be a major advantage in the right situation. As M. Baker, I've kept the immunity to sleep and disease (which seems inextricably biological), and gave it the poison resistance of dwarves and halflings, the idea being that some poisons can still affect the living part of warforged. I thought about making the warforged immune only to non-magical diseases, but I'm not sure that's a necessary or useful distinction in 5e. The other effects can very well be justified in affecting a warforged by targeting it's life force or magical essence. The breathing part I'm not so sure. It does seem like a warforged wouldn't breathe (indeed, M. Baker says so in his conversion) but that does present some other immunities to breathing related effects (choking, drowning, poison gas, stinking clouds...), It should also mean that a warforged has no sense of smell, so I added this feature in. It does seem to add more unnecessary complexity though (5e philosophy does streamline) and I think a breathing warforge could be made to work with the fluff. It might be magically enduced for cooling purposes or to facilitate the circulation of magical essence. In the same way, the warforged could be magically gifted with a sense of smell. What do you guys think? Self-Sufficient. As 3e and Keith Baker's conversion. Seems simple enough.   No Buoyancy. I added that in there when thinking about the drawbacks of heavy composite plating. Seems to me a warforged would find it hard to swim. Since it can't drown (if it doesn't need to breathe), this might lead to funny situations where a warforged would have to walk and climb his war out of water he fell in. Of course, in the middle of the ocean, that's another story... Again, I'm not sure this added detail is necessary. I couldn't find references to warforged and swimming in other material, and nothing is said about armor affecting swimming checks in 5e (nothing prevents the DM from ruling it does, however). Anyways, the fluff could support the Idea of warforged having magical buoyancy in the event of immersion in water. I'd go for that if the warforged now needed to breathe air.   Composite Plating. Now this is the fun part. I didn't like the idea of being able to change suits of plating for warforged, or at least, not as simply as donning armor, even if it took an hour to do so. Seems to me only modifications and enhancements by artificiers should be able to do that. Now, I think Keith Baker is right that giving level 1 warforged wizards a heavy armor and proficiency with it from the start is a bit OP, as the mountain dwarves don't even grant such a bonus, and it does thread on their territory. That said, I realised nothing forces you to give them this proficiency. Indeed, it seems to me a warforged juggernaut wouldn't have been built to become a bard! He was built to be a fighter, or maybe a paladin. If he takes one of those classes, he'll have the proficiency he needs. If not, and he decides to be a bard instead, he still can do so, but he'll have important penalties until he gains the necessary proficiency through multiclassing and/or feats.   Now, I know this means a Warforged Juggernaut can't really be a single class Wizard since he'd have to take two feats to gain heavy armor proficiency and that would take him to level 8 at least. However, he can easily be a Fighter 1/ Wizard X character. Also, I think the artificer should have light and medium armor proficiencies, and so warforged soldiers could be artificers from the start. That said, I didn't want to completely forbid the possibility of a warforged wizard, and so I gave the light armor proficiency to all warforged, so that the scout warforged gets to be a wizard at first level. With a +2 armor bonus, it doesn't seem too exagerated. Also, mountain dwarves can have wizards in medium armor from the start, and that also means their racial trait is still better on the proficiency aspect than the warforged.   As for the armor bonus, you'll notice I brought them down from +5/+8 to +4/+6. The reasonning is fairly simple: AC is a bit lower in 5e and better armor is way more pricey and unavailable to other 1st level races. If you look at the medium armor table, getting a +5 bonus is out of reach for starting characters. Same thing for heavy armor and +7 or +8 bonuses. However, at +4 and +6, you get an armor bonus that the average human of the appropriate class would get anyway as his starting equipment. And the human can remove his armor (to sneak or swim unhindered, for example). He can also more easily upgrade his armor than the warforged. On the whole, I think that this really doesn't make the armored warforged OP. Subraces. I kept the scout idea and bonus from Keith Baker, but I'm not so sure about the small size. Seems even a small warforged would be massive enough, much like the dwarf is still medium. Even then, a warforge scout could still be tall and lighter. A speed of 35 ft. also seems to fit better with a taller warforged. As for the juggernaut, you'll notice the +2 to Strength. The idea is not only to differenciate it with the soldier, but I was looking at the mountain dwarf and realised that they put the +2 Strength there because if you play a dwarf with a class that already has medium armor (which seems likely), you'd have no subrace bonus except his ability increase. Since classes that have heavy amor (fighters and paladins) start out with chainmail (the same bonuses and penalties as for a +6 composite plating), you'd get nothing from your plating that the average human fighter wouldn't get too. While the same thing could be said of the medium warforged character, that one has more starting options open to him classwise than the juggernaut, and he doesn't automatically drop down to a speed of 20 ft., so I think that's fair.   ----------------   So, any thoughts? Would love to get your feedback and ideas.
#2 dafrca Dec 09, 2014 22:19:52	Hello Shei-Nad;   Overall Ilike very much what you have done here. It feels right for the Warforged as I understand them. Couple of opinions:   - Is there any way to structure some of the advantages to shift over levels? So that there is a sense of the warforged getting better as they level?    - Scout as a small, I would leave the scout as a small. It would fit the figure released and would fit the "role" of being the one they want to sneak around.    - The ability to change out various composite plating might be a great place to look at levels???     Just some opinions. Bottom line, I like where you are going with this.
#3 Vaelorn Dec 20, 2014 6:49:15	Yes, this is nice work! I especially like your reasoning on the resistances, lack of a sense of smell etc.   I like the idea of "no bouyancy" but I don't think it's stated anywhere that warforged are made entirely of metal or are especially heavy - I seem to recall that they have various wooden parts and other materials. Perhaps they should just have disadvantage on Swim checks? (which might mean their best way out of the water is to deliberately sink and walk out!).
#4 Ogiwan Dec 21, 2014 6:02:43	dafrca wrote:
#5 Beoric Dec 21, 2014 16:50:15	The warforged scout in the 3.5 MM3 is small.
#6 dafrca Dec 21, 2014 19:18:56	Ogiwan wrote: