They apparently wear armor now as well. Im wondering if there will still be an Adamantine Body feat coming up in the june Dragon. What does a nake warforged look like now?
They apparently wear armor now as well. Im wondering if there will still be an Adamantine Body feat coming up in the june Dragon. What does a nake warforged look like now?
From what I understood, they don't "wear" the armor, not like a human, just they can attach new things. Therefore improving their armor later, or if an enemy is killed, the human fighter can take it and use it like full plate.
From what I understood, they don't "wear" the armor, not like a human, just they can attach new things. Therefore improving their armor later, or if an enemy is killed, the human fighter can take it and use it like full plate.
No, their composite plating is gone entirely. They get nothing, and use armor as equipment like everybody else.
Er, um...did I miss a clear post or screen shot of the warforged? Can anyone direct me? All I've seen so far is that overly blurry one from the MM no one can make out.
Amazon.com and Buy.com broke the street date and shipped.
Er, um...did I miss a clear post or screen shot of the warforged? Can anyone direct me? All I've seen so far is that overly blurry one from the MM no one can make out.
There is also the Warforged captain talked about in this thread.
Amazon.com and Buy.com broke the street date and shipped.
Again? Didn't Wizards add a week delay to them because they did this before?
Again? Didn't Wizards add a week delay to them because they did this before?
Dunno, doesn't really matter though.
Warforged are officially nerfed.
They don't need to eat, breathe, sleep, etc, but they don't get immunity to any effects that depend on these. Which basically means its a non-ability. They don't have composite plating, they wear normal armor just like everybody else.
Basically, they simply are nothing like the 3e Warforged. To the point if you just saw the racial entry information without the name, you would not recognize them.
Shifters didn't fare much better.
But back on topic, im really hoping warforged are getting some serious racial feats (i hear they are supposed to get a write up in the june Dragon) that give them back some of their uniqueness. As it stands, they dont really have much that ties them to their old incarnations.
I mean seriously, i dont have to breathe but im not immune to effects that involve breathing? So i dont have to breathe but i can still drown? What? Im made of fibers and metal but im not immune to poison?
I mean seriously, i dont have to breathe but im not immune to effects that involve breathing? So i dont have to breathe but i can still drown?
Apparently.
And Warforged have to trance like an elf now too.
4e Warforged are literally complete different beings. Pretty much everything that made them what they are, mechanically, has been removed. Its like whoever wrote the entry not only had no clue as to what the Warforged were supposed to be, but didn't even have access to an ECS to see what they were.
I mean, there is pretty much nothing here that is even remotely close.
- They still go Inert.
- They are still incredibly tough.
- They are still living constructs.
It seems that they decided to focus on the living construct portion of the warforged.
Basically, they simply are nothing like the 3e Warforged. To the point if you just saw the racial entry information without the name, you would not recognize them.
You could say pretty much the same thing for almost all of the races.
With that said, the lack of racial feats is critical... not to mention the possibility of racial paragon paths, component items, and on and on. The equivalent would be seeing the 3.5 warforged without knowing about the existence of Adamantine Body, the Warforged Juggernaut PrC, docents, or any of that. This is not to say that all issues will be resolved by any means - simply that it's certainly possible that things that we think of as core warforged features will instead be addressed by racial feats or other mechanics. The upcoming DDI article will surely address some of these - and the 4E Eberron books may do more.
But I'd certainly like to hear what people have to say on this issue, and I'm sure that other designers will be listening.
Edymnion, you missed a lot of things they kept while search of what went missing.
* They still go Inert.
* They are still incredibly tough.
* They are still living constructs.
It seems that they decided to focus on the living construct portion of the warforged.
The inert below 0 factor is cool, but its really the only thing that ties them to the 3E version. Now it seems that dwarves are apparently better at resisting poison! lol
I do encourage everyone to share their thoughts on this issue, now or later, because there's a key point here: these are not Eberron's warforged. These are warforged in the 4E Monster Manual. Warforged will certainly be dealt with in more detail in the 4E Eberron books, which means that if people are upset with the direction that's been taken with them, it's always possible they will be changed.
Well, i suppose that is a possibility. I kinda figured the basic racial write up would be the same and thus it would be somewhat safe to base the eberron racial write-up on the core one. Im sure the living construct type details wont be something that will get redone for eberron though.
The whole "you dont need to eat, sleep or breathe but that doesnt render you immune to any effect" clause needs some re-wording IMO, and its part of the living construct subtype, not warforged in particular. They dont need to eat but isnt sarvation an "effect"? Drowning an "effect" of needing to breathe? Are they vulnerable to sleep spells now even though they dont sleep? They are going to need major re-fluffing.
With that said, the lack of racial feats is critical... not to mention the possibility of racial paragon paths, component items, and on and on.
I still do have a measure of hope that warforged will look a little more recognizable mechanics-wise once the article comes out in June. There are some things though, such as the 4-hour extended rest, that i dont see changing simply because the 4E system necessitates them, unfortunately.
I can't wait for that article, thanks Keith. I have always loved the Warforged as they are in Eberron. What I would really like to see is more on the "Woeforged", and maybe some more templates that can be applied to the living contruct subtype, or whatever the 4e equivalent is. Always felt they were shafted a bit because of the type limitations.
Oh yes! I need to remember to look up templates tomarrow in the DMG. Now warforged are natural humanoids, just like humans, so im sure there will be some wacky combos there. Vampire perhaps?
I can't wait for that article, thanks Keith.
Bear in mind that it's not my article; I'm just saying that it will surely offer more options.
I have always loved the Warforged as they are in Eberron.
Which is the key issue here. If you love the warforged as they are and end up disliking the new interpretation, it would be extremely valuable if you would take a moment to explain exactly what troubles you. If you feel that some important aspect has been lost, the more clearly you clarify exactly what that missing piece is, the greater the chance it will be restored in the 4E ECS.
And conversely, if you LIKE the changes - or like some things and dislike others - I'd like to hear from you as well. At least some of the changes that have been made are a response to complaints I've seen about the warforged in the past.
Again, I'll say more on the matter when everything is out in the open, but I do want to hear from as many Eberron players (or fans of the novels) as possible.
Definitely rolling one up...if/when I do get around to buying 4e in the future...
I did not have the oppurtunity to GM warforged characters until a month ago when I started a new Eberron campaign. Their power was driven home in my eyes when they bascially two manned an enhanced mummy after laughing off the poison traps by just running into them to trigger it so the "fleshies" didn't die. Oh, and they're immune to the sickened condition on top of that. Awesome. If I play 3.X again, the warforged would be a +1 level adjusted race.
It's not surprising the were nerfed, and frankly, it's well deserved.
I did not have the oppurtunity to GM warforged characters until a month ago when I started a new Eberron campaign. Their power was driven home in my eyes when they bascially two manned an enhanced mummy after laughing off the poison traps by just running into them to trigger it so the "fleshies" didn't die. Oh, and they're immune to the sickened condition on top of that. Awesome. If I play 3.X again, the warforged would be a +1 level adjusted race.
Wait, so you basically did one encounter which heavily featured the exact things they were immune to, and you were surprised that the WF walked all over it? Have you tried playtesting elves by running them through an adventure filled with sleep spells yet?
I understand 4E is powered down from what 3.X was
Powered down? Oh uh uh, as a whole everybody has been powered up. The Eladerin have teleport as a racial ability for crying out loud.
Iknow this is slightly off topic (put still somehow connected) I've just looked at the 4th Ed MM list on these forums and saw Shifters and Warforged but no Changelings, when will we know about them or do we have to wait till next year? Keith can you help with this?
Changelings = Doppelgangers
Seems like warforged are pretty simple, and while they've been powered down in some ways (no immunities any more), in others they are better (auto-stabilise is much more powerful now that it's so difficult to die by damage alone). Their racial power (warforged resolve, grants temp HP) is pretty good, but I get the feeling a more thematic power could have been chosen. I'm not sure what, though.
My impression of the warforged is that they need racial feats. Without them, they just feel like bare bones that just resemble the race. With a bit more crunch behind them, I think they'll turn out fine.
Warforged as presented in ECS were well above the power level of all other standard PC races. I have no problem with them being nerfed down to match the other races.
I did not have the oppurtunity to GM warforged characters until a month ago when I started a new Eberron campaign. Their power was driven home in my eyes when they bascially two manned an enhanced mummy after laughing off the poison traps by just running into them to trigger it so the "fleshies" didn't die. Oh, and they're immune to the sickened condition on top of that. Awesome. If I play 3.X again, the warforged would be a +1 level adjusted race.
It's not surprising the were nerfed, and frankly, it's well deserved.
They are not any more powerful than dwarves are, and I guess you overlooked the fact that they can only be healed for half of what everyone else gets, and they are affected by many spells that also affect constructs.
?Powered down? Oh uh uh, as a whole everybody has been powered up. The Eladerin have teleport as a racial ability for crying out loud.
It depends on what level they get it, and many spells that are normally early spells are not gotten until later. The rituals replacing common spells is also a powerdown. Healing surges seems to bring power up but I dont know exactly how that works yet.
I have (surprise) strong feelings about the warforged, but I'm going to wait until the books are officially out before I present my thoughts on the matter. I do encourage everyone to share their thoughts on this issue, now or later, because there's a key point here: these are not Eberron's warforged. These are warforged in the 4E Monster Manual. Warforged will certainly be dealt with in more detail in the 4E Eberron books, which means that if people are upset with the direction that's been taken with them, it's always possible they will be changed.
With that said, the lack of racial feats is critical... not to mention the possibility of racial paragon paths, component items, and on and on. The equivalent would be seeing the 3.5 warforged without knowing about the existence of Adamantine Body, the Warforged Juggernaut PrC, docents, or any of that. This is not to say that all issues will be resolved by any means - simply that it's certainly possible that things that we think of as core warforged features will instead be addressed by racial feats or other mechanics. The upcoming DDI article will surely address some of these - and the 4E Eberron books may do more.
But I'd certainly like to hear what people have to say on this issue, and I'm sure that other designers will be listening.
This is about all I needed to hear, thanks Keith.
I do see now why the Changeling was not included in the MM, as the Doppelganger now really looks like changeling from Eberron.
there must be aspects of warforged that warrant their creation by House Cannith for the Last War. If they're so nerfed that they're no better, or even worse, than other humaniods, then there's no point in their existence.
Especially keep in mind the concept of minions. With only 1 hp, what makes them better soldiers than a 1 hp human conscript minion, who can wield standard martial weapons at no penalty in 4ed? That's the critical question. If it doesn't have a sufficient answer via the standard 4ed version of warforged, it needs to be addressed for Eberron, because of their vital role in the setting. If they do have an advantage, then they're good to go with just some tweaking for a distinct Eberron feel. Time will tell.
For me the critical issue with the new version of warforged will be this: there must be aspects of warforged that warrant their creation by House Cannith for the Last War. If they're so nerfed that they're no better, or even worse, than other humaniods, then there's no point in their existence.
Especially keep in mind the concept of minions.
The fact that they have warforged resilience already makes them better than minions, which is what I presume most peasant levies and conscripts would be. It nicely reflects the 3.5 idea that all warforged were created with PC class levels, putting them above NPC warriors.
From a non-game-mechanical perspective, one could argue that there's all sorts of advantages (financial and otherwise) to creating a being with no family/history/biological relation to you and sending it off to war.
The fact that they have warforged resilience already makes them better than minions, which is what I presume most peasant levies and conscripts would be. It nicely reflects the 3.5 idea that all warforged were created with PC class levels, putting them above NPC warriors.
From a non-game-mechanical perspective, one could argue that there's all sorts of advantages (financial and otherwise) to creating a being with no family/history/biological relation to you and sending it off to war.
A minion is a minion, and soldiers are the minions of an army. All minions have only 1 hp, no matter what kind of creature they are. They get hit, they die. The trick is hitting them with something that does damage. It's now a lot easier to damage a warforged, so no more warforged units calmly walking through cloud kill while the fleshies keel over dead, or crossing that deep stream simply by walking on the bottom.
While some may argue that not having someone at home to fight for might give them less to fight for, the greatest advantage (which may offset any other limitation!) is that of time. It takes almost twenty years to "grow" a human soldier, after all!
Edit: another issue then is the difference between warforged and undead units. Now undead units are significantly better than warforged, when before it was almost a toss-up.
Especially keep in mind the concept of minions. With only 1 hp, what makes them better soldiers than a 1 hp human conscript minion, who can wield standard martial weapons at no penalty in 4ed? That's the critical question. If it doesn't have a sufficient answer via the standard 4ed version of warforged, it needs to be addressed for Eberron, because of their vital role in the setting. If they do have an advantage, then they're good to go with just some tweaking for a distinct Eberron feel. Time will tell.
The concept of warforged-all-have-PC-classes translates to 4E by saying there should be no 1st level minion warforged.
Your basic warforged might 3rd level soldiers, or 9th level minions, for example. In this case, either they are tougher than your average grunt (for the 3rd level soldier) or much, much more skilled and less likely to be hit (the 9th level minion).
But, beyond that, they are still constructs. They will also continue to be built with the option of full metal plating, partial metal plating or no plating, as deemed by their job in life. It was a houserule I admit, but I always invisioned that the construct underneither was more of a skeletal frame of magic and parts, the armor was attached via clamps and it was replaceable as a result.
The concept of warforged-all-have-PC-classes translates to 4E by saying there should be no 1st level minion warforged.
Your basic warforged might 3rd level soldiers, or 9th level minions, for example. In this case, either they are tougher than your average grunt (for the 3rd level soldier) or much, much more skilled and less likely to be hit (the 9th level minion).
That's certainly a way to do it, but loading an army of a particular kind of creature up with 9 PC class levels just to make them more powerful doesn't seem very Eberronish to me (but maybe it's a 4ed Eberronish thing to do; I don't know.)
Besides, are there even NPC classes in 4ed? I haven't heard, except for Keith to say that the way that wizards are set up there's no longer any need for the magewright NPC class.
A minion is a minion, and soldiers are the minions of an army. All minions have only 1 hp, no matter what kind of creature they are. They get hit, they die.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at. A DM can choose to portray warforged with minion-type stats, sure, but the DM can also decide that warforged units are supposed to be a serious threat, and therefore use the beefier monster rules. Either way, the temporary hit points from warforged resilience seem like they would be an advantage over human soldiers.
That's certainly a way to do it, but loading an army of a particular kind of creature up with 9 PC class levels just to make them more powerful doesn't seem very Eberronish to me (but maybe it's a 4ed Eberronish thing to do; I don't know.)
Yeah, it sounds like you're approaching this from a 3E perspective. Divorce yourself from the concept of monsters/NPCs and PCs following the same rules. A 9th level minion isn't the same as a 9th level PC. He hasn't had to level up that far, and he certainly isn't equivalent to a 9th level PC. You use 4 minions per PC after all. A 9th level minion is roughly equivalent to a standard 1st level monster (both worth 100XP).
Besides, are there even NPC classes in 4ed? I haven't heard, except for Keith to say that the way that wizards are set up there's no longer any need for the magewright NPC class.
No, there aren't any NPC classes from what I've read.
Especially keep in mind the concept of minions. With only 1 hp, what makes them better soldiers than a 1 hp human conscript minion, who can wield standard martial weapons at no penalty in 4ed?
I'm not sure I understand your point here, Euangelion. I think you're asking if a warforged minion is better than a human minion. The point is that the typical warforged wouldn't be a minion, any more than he'd be a commoner in 3E. In 3E, the typical warforged is a level 2 fighter and the typical conscript is a level 1 commoner. In 4E, the typical conscript is a level 1-2 minion (I'd probably use the level two human minion provided in the MM, but you could always make a level one variation), while the typical warforged is a level 4 "soldier" with AC 20, 56 hit points (plus warforged resolve), and substantially better stats, defenses, and chance to hit than the human minions. I just ran a pair of these warforged against an endless horde of the 2nd level human minions in the MM; in an open space where the mob could maximize flanking, the warforged took down 13 of them; in a "300"-style holding-the-ten-by-ten-hallway scenario (in which the minions focused on the warforged one at a time, allowing them to bring one down and eventually flank the other) the two warforged defeated 34 minions.
Beyond that, I'm not sure I understand the statement that minion can wield martial weapons at no penalty; that's a DM call (the standard human "rabble" uses a club), and as a DM I'd give a peasant conscript leather armor, a spear, and no martial proficiency, just like a commoner levy in 3E. And as a minion, he doesn't even have the chance to do full damage with his spear.
So whatever one thinks about the 4E warforged, the simple existence of minions actually makes the warforged a stronger investment for an army - because the typical peasant level is a minion, and the typical warforged is not, any more than he was a commoner in 3E.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at. A DM can choose to portray warforged with minion-type stats, sure, but the DM can also decide that warforged units are supposed to be a serious threat, and therefore use the beefier monster rules. Either way, the temporary hit points from warforged resilience seem like they would be an advantage over human soldiers.
Well, I'm probably getting a little too worked up about stuff that won't really matter that much (like when a few years ago I got worked up about how the magewright NPC class is mangled mechanically in the ECS; nobody cares, and that's the way it should be.) I'd just like to see warforged work on all levels in 4ed as well as they did in 3.5, if not better (without a lot of gyrations, band-aids, or houserules).
The concept of warforged-all-have-PC-classes translates to 4E by saying there should be no 1st level minion warforged.
Right. The default warforged given in the book is a 4th level soldier. No minion version of warforged are given, though you could create one for use against high level PCs if you wanted. Again, making a warforged a soldier is the equivalent of what we've always said: that the warforged off the line was a trained fighter, not a commoner or warrior. That 4th level soldier DOESN'T have all the tricks a PC fighter has; if anything, he's sort of jumping into what used to be the warrior slot, superior to the commoner minion, but weaker than a true fighter of equal level.
But from a running-the-kingdom perspective, what you're dealing with is the ability to easily recruit minions from your peasant levies - or to purchase warforged soldiers. And given that my two warforged just killed 30 peasants, do you really want to sacrifice your subjects to that sort of meat grinder if you have an alternative? Mind you, you undoubtedly also have human soliders, such as those Trolls has developed or the "human guard"; but the point is that these are exceptional, not soldiers you can recruit in droves. Meanwhile, you can buy the warforged - just as it's always been, it's the chance to buy a soldier that is substantially better than your peasant minion.
And don't forget, the fact that warforged auto-stabilize means that they remain easier to recover from the battlefield - while those peasant minions go down hard.
I'd just like to see warforged work on all levels in 4ed as well as they did in 3.5, if not better (without a lot of gyrations, band-aids, or houserules).
The main thing is that the minion soldier is not unlike the first level commoner. The warforged soldier was never intended to be a first level commoner; if you make him that way, he's not necessarily a great investment in 3E. The fact that the typical warforged was a 2nd level fighter was always something that was part of their value - and the MM simply establishes that as part of their flavor.
The main thing is that the minion soldier is not unlike the first level commoner. The warforged soldier was never intended to be a first level commoner; if you make him that way, he's not necessarily a great investment in 3E. The fact that the typical warforged was a 2nd level fighter was always something that was part of their value - and the MM simply establishes that as part of their flavor.
I've always appreciated that even the most basic warforged coming off the assembly line was in game mechanics a fighter 2 and clearly superior to a standard soldier, much less a peasant conscript. Very cool stuff.
My main handicap at the moment is not having the new books in front of me, but I am very excited about the future of Eberron in 4E. I just need to get a better grasp of the whole minion/brute/elite/etc. thing, I guess.
What I really liked about 3.x warforged fluff is specifically what Keith is saying: they come out of the creation forge as highly specialized elite soldiers and are worth more than your average peasant conscript. They are bred to be soldiers (300 being a perfect analogy). If Eberron sticks to this then I'm sure the mechanics will work themselves out. After a SoCal con this last weekend, a very skeptical player in my group is now sold on 4e--if he's okay with the new mechanics as a heavy RPer, then I'm sure I will be too (as a 50/50 role/roll-player).
Mechanically speaking, I like the 3.x living construct template. The immunities and vulnerabilities drawing from both the generic humanoid and the construct templates worked (for me). It is these immunities that make them [warforged] so valuable as a commodity in war, i.e. troops who don't tire, don't crack under pressure, don't get hungry, sleepy, or sick, and who are immune to a lot of the debilitating AoE magic that I imagine was used in the Last War to great effect versus peasant levies.
I also thought Composite Plating was an excellent handicap to overcome typical warforged resilience--unless they specifically took various racial (or other) feats to improve their AC, they couldn't gain additional AC benefits by anything that gives a +N armor bonus. While it put a handicap on certain class choices because of the arcane spell failure chance (along with the painful -2 CHA mod), that made sense--warforged were created to be the heavy-hitting fighters during the Last War. Non-fighter warforged are the exception (proving again how unique and special PCs are supposed to be in Eberron), so they just have to deal with the appropriate penalties.
For 4e I will very likely keep many of the mechanics from 3.x, but there will have to be certain concessions made to fit with the new rules. If warforged can't naturally heal, do/should they get healing surges? How important is it for warforged to now be vulnerable to things they were immune to before? If the old 3.x immunities render too many new 4e mechanics useless, then that would definitely necessitate some changes. But if it's just to take care of a perceived balance issue, I can certainly disregard whatever I want in my games.
One thing we have to keep in mind is that the people who are (or will be) working on 4e Eberron are just as much fans of the setting as the rest of us. I think we should probably wait & see what happens before foretelling the doom of our beloved warforged.
In the end, it is a game designed to be fun. If there are certain things that are not fun for people, they are certainly within their rights to change what they want. The rules are not sacrosanct. That being said, I would still love to see the 4e ruleset for Eberron remain as true as possible to the source material--it would save me a lot of trouble converting things myself.
Cheers for that, I've now calmed down a little...
Especially keep in mind the concept of minions. With only 1 hp, what makes them better soldiers than a 1 hp human conscript minion, who can wield standard martial weapons at no penalty in 4ed? That's the critical question. If it doesn't have a sufficient answer via the standard 4ed version of warforged, it needs to be addressed for Eberron, because of their vital role in the setting. If they do have an advantage, then they're good to go with just some tweaking for a distinct Eberron feel. Time will tell.
Minions don't really exist as individuals. They're a game mechanics simplification to deal with relatively large numbers of relatively weak creatures fighting small groups of adventurers.
If the Lord of the Blades sent 100 Warforged soldiers against my last Khorvaire-based PC and his friends, converted to 4e, then they'd be minions for the purposes of that encounter. They'd be going up against what was a 19th-level 3.5e party of a human Warmage, a human Cleric with a Scout cohort, a Kalashtar Soulkinfe, and a half-orc fighter/barbarian; even the best House Cannith's forges ever put out isn't going to be much more than cannon fodder against them. Heck, some of the builds of the LOBster himself aren't going to last long against them.
If the exact same 100 Warforged went up against Breland's army, then they're not minions. They're facing roughly equivalent opponents.
Which is the key issue here. If you love the warforged as they are and end up disliking the new interpretation, it would be extremely valuable if you would take a moment to explain exactly what troubles you. If you feel that some important aspect has been lost, the more clearly you clarify exactly what that missing piece is, the greater the chance it will be restored in the 4E ECS.
– I dont like how they are vulnerable to poison and the fact that they are more vulnerable to it than dwarves seems a bit silly. The way it is in 4E, my warforged could go to the bar and get beaten in a drinking contest (that would have totally ruined some of the RP situations ive been in with warforged characters). Im starting to see that poison plays a much more important role in 4E so part of me understands why they did this. It doesnt stop it from being pretty annoying from the flavor aspect.
– I dont like how living constructs dont have to breathe but are not immune to effects that involve breathing. Isnt drowning an effect of being submerged? Yet another RP situation i have encountered that would have never existed if we were using 4E.
– They're not immune to sleep? I could understand this, maybe, if the fluff was changed and they need to sleep but that would ruin some of the major RP opportunities that arrise from playing a creature that can never sleep. If they dont sleep, they should be immune to it.
– I dont like that they have no composite plating. It changes the feel of them a bit if they arent these big, metal-plated guys but instead are soft and vulnerable. It was more of a drawback than a boon in 3E so i wouldnt mind if they handled it a bit differently though.
– I think the resolve power is a poor choice for a DM-controlled monster. Effectively, what happens is the warforged drops below half hp and then gets a bunch of hp back. The problem is that the players dont necessarily know this happens so bascially its like the warforged has an extra 14 hp. While other monsters are breathing fire or attacking 2 PCs or whatever cool thing, teh warforged is gaining a benefit that no one is going to notice. I mean, why not just add the extra hp right on to the total from the begining? Why the extra bookkeeping for a power no players will "see" in combat? The power is not bad for PCs, but its kind of bland for NPCs.
– Ultimately, its just that none of the abilities presented would even hint at the race as described in the eberron books. Id like some hint that these guys are made of metal and wood.
Warforged as presented in ECS were well above the power level of all other standard PC races. I have no problem with them being nerfed down to match the other races.
I did not have the oppurtunity to GM warforged characters until a month ago when I started a new Eberron campaign. Their power was driven home in my eyes when they bascially two manned an enhanced mummy after laughing off the poison traps by just running into them to trigger it so the "fleshies" didn't die. Oh, and they're immune to the sickened condition on top of that. Awesome. If I play 3.X again, the warforged would be a +1 level adjusted race.
It's not surprising the were nerfed, and frankly, it's well deserved.
You could have just as easily run the party up against a bunch of casters with construct-affecting spells, spells that effect wood, spells that effect stone, or monsters with such powers. In such cases the warforged is decimated and everyone else is immune. The example given about running elf PCs against a bunch of monster with sleep powers is another good example.
While warforged have immunities to a few things, these things were relatively weak threats. Poison in 3E was joke in most cases, just to give an example, and i dont think ive ever had a character drown. The bonuses were nice but they werent that strong in the grand scheme of things.
Composite plating, on the other hand, was a huge drawback, despite being quite flavorful. It was worthless to pretty much every character other than the monk since everyone could easily wear better armor. The only time warforged really could have been unbalanced was at very low levels. A warforged with Adamantine Body has the highest AC in the game at first level since no one else can affort full-plate but then once the other melee types can buy it the warforged is down a feat and the feature is then a liability. This is even more true once everyone else can afford adamantine full plate in order to get the DR (which they can get for a feat if you use the right splatbooks anyway).
They're is also the fact that they are vulnerable to things that effect metal, wood and stone, while other characters are immune (not to mention the line of spells that specifically effects constructs). Really, it seemed that for every advantage they had there was at least one drawback.
Can the warforged become sick now? IF so then that means I can now have warforged lycanthropes in my campaign!? Warforged weretiger vampire? I hope not. I still don't know much about the new warforged. But I certainly hope that they are at least immune to deceases.
No, no. They are totally vulnerable to disease too. So bring on the vampire and werewolf warforged, because they're now legal by the RAW. I guess this is another gripe then...warforged can now get everything from mummy rot to HIV.
The equipping armor thing is also okay in my book, since I like the idea of Warforged customization. I like the idea of a Warforged being able to rebuild his body armor into something new. Highly customized Warforged have been a part of novels and fan-creations for some time now.
The only thing that bugs me is the trancing thing (the limitation on needed six hours for an extended rest should suffice). Though I admit I still need to see the books themselves to form a complete opinion.
No, their composite plating is gone entirely. They get nothing, and use armor as equipment like everybody else.
It can be assumed that the composite plating base Warforged come with just means that a newly constructed Warforged has some armor already equipped. Honestly, I was never entirely sold on the __-body feats.
The only thing that bugs me is the trancing thing (the limitation on needed six hours for an extended rest should suffice). Though I admit I still need to see the books themselves to form a complete opinion.
It isnt an actual trance. It just says they need 4 hours for an extended rest. Since extended rests dont necessitate sleep, the future fluff could still say tehy dony sleep.
Now that i think about it, puting a warforged to sleep would bring up some interesting questions. Do warforged dream of warforged sheep?
– I dont like how they are vulnerable to poison and the fact that they are more vulnerable to it than dwarves seems a bit silly.
Eh, poison is a full damage type in 4e, similar to 'fire.' Giving a race blanket immunity to that without some feat expendiatures would be broken with a capital B. Whereas dwarves are specifically good at resisting poison effects, warforged are good against all ongoing effects.
And what exactly is the mechanical difference between spending a feat on better armor and just spending a little wealth on a class-appropriate type of armor that can be enhanced later on through rituals? I'd rather spend money on armor than a feat.
Zombies can be put to sleep? Where is that at?
The Zombie excerpt article released on Wednesday. The only listed immunities on the Zombie stat block are to Disease and Poison. Heck, zombies are only resistant to necrotic damage. Immunities have been scaled back across the board.
Some people have theorized that the sleep spell affects the targets animus, shutting down the target, as opposed to just lulling it into a natural sleep. Under that logic, Warforged and Undead would not be immune.
The Zombie excerpt article released on Wednesday. The only listed immunities on the Zombie stat block are to Disease and Poison. Heck, zombies are only resistant to necrotic damage. Immunities have been scaled back across the board.
Some people have theorized that the sleep spell affects the targets animus, shutting down the target, as opposed to just lulling it into a natural sleep. Under that logic, Warforged and Undead would not be immune.
Hopefully sleep only affects living creatures
Eh, poison is a full damage type in 4e, similar to 'fire.' Giving a race blanket immunity to that without some feat expendiatures would be broken with a capital B. Whereas dwarves are specifically good at resisting poison effects, warforged are good against all ongoing effects.
I realize that the importance of poison has been upped in 4E, but i find it thematically lame that a race of flesh and blood is more resistance to poison than a race that doesnt really have "blood" in the first place. I can sort of see why they did what they did, i just think its an unfortunate "4E-ism" that we may have to wait till 5E for them to fix.
And what exactly is the mechanical difference between spending a feat on better armor and just spending a little wealth on a class-appropriate type of armor that can be enhanced later on through rituals? I'd rather spend money on armor than a feat.
I did say that id like them to handle it differently since the mechanics were pretty poor in 3E. Having to spend a feat on something everyone else can buy is an akward mechanic, especially when it makes the race potentially unbalanced for a few levels and then underpowered as the levels advance. What id really like to see is a mechanic that represents the covered in metal "composite plating" concept as a basic racial feature without it being a half-assed, manditory suit of armor. Its true that 3E dropped the ball but 4E just kicked it in front of a moving vehicle.
Wait, so you basically did one encounter which heavily featured the exact things they were immune to, and you were surprised that the WF walked all over it? Have you tried playtesting elves by running them through an adventure filled with sleep spells yet?Powered down? Oh uh uh, as a whole everybody has been powered up. The Eladerin have teleport as a racial ability for crying out loud.
I have yet to get my hands on 4E, so I can't speak to the power level inherent in each race as it stands in the new edition.
I do believe, however, that WF are overpowered even in comparison to dwarves (I agree that dwarves and humans are probably the most OP core races).
Obviously, while my experience with WF is limited, in the three sessions I've run (each session involving 3-5 combats, as it is a dungeon delve at the moment), the warforged have been seriously overpowered in comparison to the rest of the party. Your suggestion is basically, don't use one spell against an elf party, as oppossed to my arguement that you might as well forget using 1/2 the undead creatures in the books if you face a warforged party (ghouls, ghasts, the drowned, mummies, carrion crawlers, I could list more, but that was just off the top of my head, and yes, I know, carrion crawlers are an aberration). Sure, they take damage to spells like warp wood and takes damage from rust monsters, but is that a fair trade for being immune to poison and disease (Monk and Paladin class features mind you)? Not in my eyes.
Further, might I simply point out the Hyperactive Metabolism feat (or whatever it's called, I'm at work and don't have my books handy atm) as a rebuttal of the no natural healing (besides the craft check you can take 10 on and heal for the same thing a "fleshie" would get while sleeping?). It's second wind in 3.X and better than a "fleshies" natural healing. Sure, it's a feat, but literally it's a self heal they can use at any time and triggers automatically if they are inert and targeted with an infusion. If my human PCs had that as a racial feat option, they'd take it every time.
Another simple way to get around the 1/2 healing rule is built into the ECS: repair light damage et al. Give a wand of it to the rogue (or just have a PC take a level of artificer) and you've walked around the one drawback a warforged faces.
They are the ultimate fighters; don't eat, don't sleep, don't breathe, don't fatigue, immune to paralysis, immune to poison (which is scary at low levels), immune to disease, take a feat and gain Plate at first level, then enchant that instead of wearing new armor. Take another feat, and ignore your one racial failing.
In short, the Warcraft needed a nerf IMO (strictly speaking in 3.X). Of course, this is simply my HO, and YMMV. I'm simply hoping they are brought in line with the other races.
edit: Why do I feel I just walked back into a Warcraft nerf X class thread? Ugh. ;p
I have yet to get my hands on 4E, so I can't speak to the power level inherent in each race as it stands in the new edition.
I do believe, however, that WF are overpowered even in comparison to dwarves (I agree that dwarves and humans are probably the most OP core races).
Actually, it's Human and Gnomes. When you'll see a dwarven PrC that equals the Shadowcraft Mage, call me.
Obviously, while my experience with WF is limited, in the three sessions I've run (each session involving 3-5 combats, as it is a dungeon delve at the moment), the warforged have been seriously overpowered in comparison to the rest of the party. Your suggestion is basically, don't use one spell against an elf party, as oppossed to my arguement that you might as well forget using 1/2 the undead creatures in the books if you face a warforged party (ghouls, ghasts, the drowned, mummies, carrion crawlers, I could list more, but that was just off the top of my head, and yes, I know, carrion crawlers are an aberration). Sure, they take damage to spells like warp wood and takes damage from rust monsters, but is that a fair trade for being immune to poison and disease (Monk and Paladin class features mind you)? Not in my eyes.
Disease and poison appears that often in your games? Or rather: Your PCs even realise their existences, with such trivial DCs?
Being immune to disease rarely affect a player's life, unless the DM spams it.
Further, might I simply point out the Hyperactive Metabolism feat (or whatever it's called, I'm at work and don't have my books handy atm) as a rebuttal of the no natural healing (besides the craft check you can take 10 on and heal for the same thing a "fleshie" would get while sleeping?). It's second wind in 3.X and better than a "fleshies" natural healing. Sure, it's a feat, but literally it's a self heal they can use at any time and triggers automatically if they are inert and targeted with an infusion. If my human PCs had that as a racial feat option, they'd take it every time.
Once per day. 5+(*HD) ? This feat is a waste. If a player would ask for it, I'd beat him with a stick until he realise how few feats he gets in his life.
Another simple way to get around the 1/2 healing rule is built into the ECS: repair light damage et al. Give a wand of it to the rogue (or just have a PC take a level of artificer) and you've walked around the one drawback a warforged faces.
So they have to spend more of their resources to accomodate one character? I don't know a bout your players, but mine would make the warforged spend every last penny for such ''fancy healing''.
They are the ultimate fighters; don't eat, don't sleep, don't breathe,
To make those overpowered, you'd have to make rules for sleeping, eating and breathing;
DM: Sorry Fred, you failed your Breathe check! You start chocking as pollen fills your nose!
Fred: Aw, not again!
:P
don't fatigue, immune to paralysis, immune to poison (which is scary at low levels), immune to disease, take a feat and gain Plate at first level, then enchant that instead of wearing new armor. Take another feat, and ignore your one racial failing.
You had to throw another feat to the dump. I'm sorry, but that's not an advantage.
In short, the Warcraft needed a nerf IMO (strictly speaking in 3.X). Of course, this is simply my HO, and YMMV. I'm simply hoping they are brought in line with the other races.
edit: Why do I feel I just walked back into a Warcraft nerf X class thread? Ugh. ;p
People try to avoid mentionning Warcraft on these boards. Oh and you're wrong.
Actually, it's Human and Gnomes. When you'll see a dwarven PrC that equals the Shadowcraft Mage, call me.
3E or 4E? My understanding is Gnomes are pretty scary in 4E, but like I said, I don't own the books yet, since I'm buying them from a FLGS. I own most of the 3.X books (except the race books, minus races of Eberron), so I'm not sure which PrC you're referring to in 3.X.
Disease and poison appears that often in your games? Or rather: Your PCs even realise their existences, with such trivial DCs?
Being immune to disease rarely affect a player's life, unless the DM spams it.
Poisons do yes. And poisons are nasty to the rogues/wizards/sorcs at low levels. Rogue screws up a disable device roll, rogue gets a nasty case of poisons. At low levels, things like Mummy's curses and lycanthorpy are scary. Ever had a character turn into a werewolf because they couldn't get to town in time (or because they botched their survival checks to find belladonna)? Scary. Even given that disease is relatively rare, is it a fair racial ability to equivalate a level 5 pally power and two mid level monk powers?
Once per day. 5+(*HD) ? This feat is a waste. If a player would ask for it, I'd beat him with a stick until he realise how few feats he gets in his life.
Fighters get a feat at first level then every even level plus 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18. I think they can spare it. You're missing the point it could also be used as a second wind for healing when you absolutely must have it. Sure, at 5th level it's 10 hps, but that still saves your cleric/artificer/other healer one action. And if you use it at night, to heal wounds suffered during the day, it more than makes up for no natural healing.
So they have to spend more of their resources to accomodate one character? I don't know a bout your players, but mine would make the warforged spend every last penny for such ''fancy healing''.
Because 750 gold to keep the tank up and active is a bad investment for the party, am I right?
People try to avoid mentionning Warcraft on these boards. Oh and you're wrong.
Have you been to the Warcraft forums? This is exactly like them.
So they have to spend more of their resources to accomodate one character? I don't know a bout your players, but mine would make the warforged spend every last penny for such ''fancy healing''.
To be fair, he did say "give a wand of it to the rogue." The warforged in my group routinely buys those RLD wands and gives them to the guys who can use them in the party.
...a race that doesnt really have "blood" in the first place.
I thought WF did have blood, some sort of black substance (hence the existence of that aforementioned metabolism feat).
What id really like to see is a mechanic that represents the covered in metal "composite plating" concept as a basic racial feature without it being a half-assed, manditory suit of armor.
So...the composite plating would give a bonus to the WF other than boosting AC? Like providing DR?
What's that, riding a giant bat and trying to hit someone on the ground with a spiked chain. Yes, I have the feats for that. Oh, we're fighting a vampire? I'm glad I have spring attack.
The saves for poison and disease are both fortitude, something most fighters won't be worrying about after a few levels. Incidentally the only disease I've ever really seen is mummy rot and you typically know when that one's coming. And drowning isn't much of a worry to a fighter either.
The conclusion to all of this is something that becomes overwhelmingly apparent to anyone who's ever played a fighter before. You don't cast all sorts of damage spells at the fighter. You cast charm person. One mind affecting spell can completely doom a group with a well geared fighter in it if they've been passing the will and wisdom bonus items off to the cleric. And really this solution holds true to warforged.
Also keep in mind that Eberron is a world which has seen warforged and understands them. Poisons and diseases as presented in the core rulebooks are understandably useless against warforged, but what's to keep the people of Khorvaire from coming up with some new poisons or diseases. Extract of rust monster doesn't sound like a poison to anyone but the warforged. Wood rot isn't a disease most adventurers would be scared of unless large segments of their bodies were made of wood. They're highly specialized substances but when you've got a running villain chances are he knows if your group has a warforged member or not. Mostly the solution is encounter design. An encounter designed to take place underwater with heavy threat of drowning will be laughed off by warforged, a giant magnetic rock is an inconvenience for most low level PCs its a potential death trap for a warforged.
3E or 4E? My understanding is Gnomes are pretty scary in 4E, but like I said, I don't own the books yet, since I'm buying them from a FLGS. I own most of the 3.X books (except the race books, minus races of Eberron), so I'm not sure which PrC you're referring to in 3.X.
I see why you don't know it, its in Races of Stone. Basically, you get access to every spell in the game, any time.
EDIT: I didn't find Gnomes to be scary at all. Invisibility for 1 round as an encounter power sucks. Didn't WotC realised that with the Ninja class?
The lack of fluffy badger minions also rubbed me the wrong way.
Poisons do yes. And poisons are nasty to the rogues/wizards/sorcs at low levels. Rogue screws up a disable device roll, rogue gets a nasty case of poisons. At low levels, things like Mummy's curses and lycanthorpy are scary. Ever had a character turn into a werewolf because they couldn't get to town in time (or because they botched their survival checks to find belladonna)? Scary. Even given that disease is relatively rare, is it a fair racial ability to equivalate a level 5 pally power and two mid level monk powers?
You like to use poison, it's perfectly legitimate, but just because the warforged don't care about it makes them overpowered.
Also, you mention the paladin, who gets to heal diseases on a weekly basis. That just says how often its occurs..
Fighters get a feat at first level then every even level plus 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18. I think they can spare it. You're missing the point it could also be used as a second wind for healing when you absolutely must have it. Sure, at 5th level it's 10 hps, but that still saves your cleric/artificer/other healer one action. And if you use it at night, to heal wounds suffered during the day, it more than makes up for no natural healing.
At all but the lowest levels, such petty healing won't ever make a difference.
And if you're relying on natural healing at high level, you're screwed.
Because 750 gold to keep the tank up and active is a bad investment for the party, am I right?
Well, I'm happy your group isn't the greedy bastards I got.:D
Have you been to the Warcraft forums? This is exactly like them.
No, but I'm sure you're right. Geeks are geeks, no mather the origin.
Poisons do yes. And poisons are nasty to the rogues/wizards/sorcs at low levels. Rogue screws up a disable device roll, rogue gets a nasty case of poisons. At low levels, things like Mummy's curses and lycanthorpy are scary. Ever had a character turn into a werewolf because they couldn't get to town in time (or because they botched their survival checks to find belladonna)? Scary. Even given that disease is relatively rare, is it a fair racial ability to equivalate a level 5 pally power and two mid level monk powers?
Most poisons that are cost appropriate for an npc to have are very easy to save against at low levels. If the DC is so high that a player can't roll a 10 and make then it is outside the npc's wealth table. That is not a warforged issue. That is a DM issue.
Mummy Rot is a supernatural disease(curse) which is not the same as a regular disease so warforged by raw are not immune.
Lycnathropy is also a DM issue fpr throwing something at the party they cant cure.
Fighters get a feat at first level then every even level plus 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18. I think they can spare it. You're missing the point it could also be used as a second wind for healing when you absolutely must have it. Sure, at 5th level it's 10 hps, but that still saves your cleric/artificer/other healer one action. And if you use it at night, to heal wounds suffered during the day, it more than makes up for no natural healing.
The fact that a feat can be wasted is a fighter ability not a warforged ability, but considering how most people feel about fighters they are not strong enough to be throwing feats away, especially for something as weak as the feats mentioned above.
Because 750 gold to keep the tank up and active is a bad investment for the party, am I right?
Actually it is. Wands are expensive. At low levels 750 gold is to much to throw away, and at higher levels there should be better options. I would say the warforged could be a caster, but there is that inherited spell failure chance, which can only be gotten rid of with a feat, and casters dont get to many of those.
I thought WF did have blood, some sort of black substance (hence the existence of that aforementioned metabolism feat).
And apparently its now identical enough to "real" blood that poison affects it. At the point where they bleed "real"/"humanoid"/"normal" blood, i dont know why they are even constructs anymore.
So...the composite plating would give a bonus to the WF other than boosting AC? Like providing DR?
Well, something. A minor AC boost that stacks with worn armor? Ill probably try to think of something and post it at some point.
On the other hand, to regain say “Martial Powers”, a Warforged might need to mediate on the philosophies of the Art of War. Not necessarily to continue his/her basic functions, but to regain his inner martial focus and heal wounds.
But this does bring up a question or two:
Q: Do the Eberron Warforged require air of some sort to function?
(A Farm Tractor needs air to run its diesel engines, otherwise it cannot move.)
Q: What do the Eberron Warforged use for physical energy?
(Do they run on dragonshard batteries that need changing every 100 years, or do they absorb sunlight, or do they absorb magical radiation, or do they depend on the Becoming God providing them with Radiant Power from afar, or do they eat rocks/magnets/dirt/air/water, or do they meditate and collect cosmic radiation, or do the Dragons above help them?)
Most poisons that are cost appropriate for an npc to have are very easy to save against at low levels. If the DC is so high that a player can't roll a 10 and make then it is outside the npc's wealth table. That is not a warforged issue. That is a DM issue.
Mummy Rot is a supernatural disease(curse) which is not the same as a regular disease so warforged by raw are not immune.
Lycnathropy is also a DM issue fpr throwing something at the party they cant cure.
Actually, one vial of poison is easily afforded by a 3rd level NPC, even some of the more virulent stuff as presented in the DMG. I use the magic items/equipment, so yes, the PC's tend to lose their "treasure" as the bad guys drink potions, use scrolls, etc. After all, they are fighting for their lives.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on the feat. I think for low levels it is a strong feat, but I would agree for a higher levels it looses it's luster.
Actually it is. Wands are expensive. At low levels 750 gold is to much to throw away, and at higher levels there should be better options. I would say the warforged could be a caster, but there is that inherited spell failure chance, which can only be gotten rid of with a feat, and casters dont get to many of those.
Different party playstyles comes in here. My players/myself when I have a party, think nothing of dropping the cash on a CLW or RLD wand. It frees up the cleric to actually use spells offensively, and allows us to do more than two or three encounters per day (we hate the 15 minute adventure day, and that is probably the main attraction to 4E in my eyes).
As an aside, I hadn't even mentioned that WF were also immune to Energy drain and has Light Fortification built in.
I continue to say, YMMV, but IMO, they are a +1 level adjustment race.
Actually, one vial of poison is easily afforded by a 3rd level NPC, even some of the more virulent stuff as presented in the DMG. I use the magic items/equipment, so yes, the PC's tend to lose their "treasure" as the bad guys drink potions, use scrolls, etc. After all, they are fighting for their lives.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on the feat. I think for low levels it is a strong feat, but I would agree for a higher levels it looses it's luster.
Different party playstyles comes in here. My players/myself when I have a party, think nothing of dropping the cash on a CLW or RLD wand. It frees up the cleric to actually use spells offensively, and allows us to do more than two or three encounters per day (we hate the 15 minute adventure day, and that is probably the main attraction to 4E in my eyes).
As an aside, I hadn't even mentioned that WF were also immune to Energy drain and has Light Fortification built in.
I continue to say, YMMV, but IMO, they are a +1 level adjustment race.
If I can't use a feat forever I don't take it. I see it as inefficient, kind of like how toughness at 1st level is not bad, but if I was knew I was playing past level 3 I would not take it.
I would buy a wand if the price and circumstances were right, but I try not to. Light fortification is not even worth mentioning. Now if it were at least a 50% chance that would be different. Energy drain immunity is nice, but it not something that comes up in every game or in enough battles. Something like the drow's SR is much higher on the list because magic could come up in any battle.
The value of the warforged depends on how the DM runs his games. I use poison and disease, but not a lot of energy drains. I also have no problems making battles that are catered to make a WF wish it was just a human.
The abilities are to situational to grant it a +1 IMHO.
But I'd certainly like to hear what people have to say on this issue, and I'm sure that other designers will be listening.
I think Eberron's warforged do need a few advantages over other living creatures:
- They don't wear armour, they're armour-plated. This is a unique and fun detail of the Third Edition version that should definitely be retained for Fourth, with perhaps a little more thought behind it than the existing slew of "body" feats.
- Likewise, because they are constructed beings, it should still be possible to turn their bodies into enchanted items. You should be able to enchant a warforged's hands as hands-slot items (or as weapons; it would probably be fair to say that you could do one or the other, but not both), its feet as feet-slot items, et cetera.
- They're not as vulnerable to biological attacks as flesh-and-blood creatures. Poison and disease should be less effective against them - not completely useless, since they are partially composed of living tissue and fluids, but definitely less effective. The existing rules for living constructs in Fourth Edition are good, but perhaps warforged in Eberron should have resistance to poison, which still strikes me as "better" than bonuses to saves against poison (answering the complaint vis-a-vis dwarves).
- Along those lines, the difference between Repair spells and Cure spells probably doesn't matter anymore, but it might be interesting if there were small penalties to the amount of healing done to warforged by divine healing powers, and/or a small bonus to the amount done by martial and/or arcane healing powers (assuming we get an arcane leader, eventually). Something like this might reinforce the in-setting question of whether or not warforged really have souls.
- There should still be unique warforged items like docents and components.
- Warforged should still have genderless forms, and not all warforged should "declare" a gender.
- Warforged should definitely be able to "evolve" their forms a la warforged juggernauts and the like, but it's not necessary to bring in every iteration of that concept that we had in Third Edition - don't bring back the Reforged unless you can make them cool.
Other than that, I think the warforged sound kind of cool(er) now. Tactical leaders and such, I would love to see some racial feats come out in the future that really play off their role as in history as having been built for war. Makes me want to play a Waforged Warlord right out of the box.
Warforged
The Warforged is unbalanced -- specifically, it is overpowered compared to other races for filling it's intended role, the front line fighter. The race's stats modifiers increase survivability without making the race more vulnerable. The plethora of immunities remove many of the vulnerabilities a fighter is typically more vulnerable to. The spells the race is more vulnerable to are underpowered and rarely memorized. In short, the race stands head and shoulders above any competition, and is therefore unbalanced and in need of a revamp.
With the lack of Int bonuses on other races, the Warforged's excessively good survivability also makes it a stunningly good choice for any Int-based caster, despite the ASF. ASF can be very easily overcome. Combine that with a Con bonus to overcome Int caster weakness -- low HP -- and you've got one of the most powerful Gish races in 3.5.
The Warforged just gets too much for the few negative trade-offs it makes. It needs the nerfbat.
Shifters
Shifters are harder to judge. The base race is weaker than the others. The Shifter's experiment was in the feats made available to it -- there was so much synergy between these feats, that in the higher levels, a Shifter often had a lot more effective stacking than other races. This meant that in the low levels a Shifter could be weak, but a few levels later, they busted through and went out in front, and stayed there.
This has been a core philosophy of DnD -- Wizards suffered the same concept in 1.0-3.5. The problem is that most campaigns don't go from L1 to L20 -- they go L4-7, or L6-12, or just L3, or L21+. The player either winds up always playing a weak character, never being allowed to play the powerful version, or they always played the powerful version without playing the weak starting character. It looks like 4.0 is trying to fix that problem by flattening the casting, and I applaud DnD's efforts to get to where systems like Champions and GURPS were 25 years ago. Better late than never. I just don't like that people who don't know about the earlier systems think WotC actually deserves credit for inventing these concepts.
Anyway, that type of synergy, though interesting, shouldn't have a place in a system looking to establish a level by level balance.
Changling
I haven't had a problem with the changling -- I did have one in my campaign. It did not feel overpowered or underpowered. Despite a few interesting events where the duplication power truly came into play in social interaction, for combat (which takes 50% or more of game time), the Changling's special abilities are irrelevant and so not overpowered. All the ability did was take the place of Alter Self potions, which just made it a money saver, not a game breaker.
The Warforged is unbalanced -- specifically, it is overpowered compared to other races for filling it's intended role, the front line fighter. The race's stats modifiers increase survivability without making the race more vulnerable. The plethora of immunities remove many of the vulnerabilities a fighter is typically more vulnerable to. The spells the race is more vulnerable to are underpowered and rarely memorized. In short, the race stands head and shoulders above any competition, and is therefore unbalanced and in need of a revamp.
With the lack of Int bonuses on other races, the Warforged's excessively good survivability also makes it a stunningly good choice for any Int-based caster, despite the ASF. ASF can be very easily overcome. Combine that with a Con bonus to overcome Int caster weakness -- low HP -- and you've got one of the most powerful Gish races in 3.5.
The Warforged just gets too much for the few negative trade-offs it makes. It needs the nerfbat.
That con bonus does not make up for the half/healing. The wiz can get the repair series of spells, but those are 4 or 5 spells another race would not have to worry about, certainly not a fair trade for only 2 con.
There is the ASF. Any other race can just cast. A WF has to take a feat to get rid of it.
So at this point we are down one feat, and at about 5 spells.
Everything the WF is immune to the fighter would have most likely made a save for anyway, and since he is in a party if he happens to roll single digits the cleric makes him good again. Now if you had used a rogue that would have been a good example, until it was pointed out that being really good for one class type is not worth an LA. Monsters with bonus to stats, darkvision, and SR should get an LA because those things are always useful.
Being potentially useful and being useful are not the same thing.
This goes for Mr. Wolson too!
these are not Eberron's warforged.
is mindless fippery and ignorant whining.
Yes, the Warforged, as presented in the 4th ed MM, and also the shifters are not right. Also, they aren't the final version that will be in the 4th ed Eberron.
Cause I'm sorry, Shifter shifting with no natural weapons. Warforged with no plating. Gnomes of the magical leprechaun variety. Not working for me. And I don't think they work for Kieth either.
Expect to see him produce 4e Eberron races we can stand, even like. Don't expect the MM Warforged to show up in the campaign book.
So, really, everything in this thread after Hellcow said, and I quote,these are not Eberron's warforged.
is mindless fippery and ignorant whining.
Yes, but the rest of the thread after that quote comes into play when you consider the other half of Keith's post:
But I'd certainly like to hear what people have to say on this issue, and I'm sure that other designers will be listening.
If we really want to see change here then we need to be specific in our likes and dislikes. I still need to comb through the shifter, gnome, and changeling entries, but I can tell you that if WoTC's interpretation of the gnome is anything like their idiotic cartoon promotions then I, for one, will be reverting as much as possible to the 3.5 version. Dragonlance, as much as I love it, really did a lot to ruin our interpretation of gnomes. Eberron tried to correct that, and it looks to me like WoTC is trying to make them the slapstick characters of old once more...
If we really want to see change here then we need to be specific in our likes and dislikes.
Indeed. Of course, I'm primarily interested in hearing people's comments on the specific changes made to the warforged in 4E. Over the last few years, I've heard lots of discussion as to the power level of the warforged and whether they should be changed. And at least some of the changes that have been made are a consequence of the change in core game mechanics. Many of the effects warforged were previously immune to have themselves changed dramatically. So personally, I'm not as interesting in "Should the warforged have been changed at all"; they have been changed, at least those that appear in the MM. Instead, I want to know "Looking at the 4E MM warforged, what changes do you like, what do you dislike, and what elements really don't matter to you one way or the other?" Beyond this, do these things matter most because of their impact on the flavor of the race, or because of the mechanical impact on your game?
- Warforged can be affected by disease, and they are not "immune to fatigue" (which does not, AFAIK, exist as a condition any more). However, they are RESISTANT to disease due to their racial bonus to Endurance (a skill) and Constitution.
- They are not immune to poison, and indeed, are not as gifted at shaking off poison as dwarves are. However, they are resistant to all forms of ongoing damage - including poison, being set on fire, psychic attacks, acid damage, or anything else that can continue to hurt you over time. They don't have blanket immunity to any of these things - but they will generally take less damage from them than their human counterparts.
- Some of the previous warforged traits may be reflected by racial feats.
So on the disease/poison front, I think the idea is that they are, on some level, living creatures and thus can be affected by these things - but that they are not as vulnerable as fully living beings.
Anyhow, please continue the discussion.
Yes, but the rest of the thread after that quote comes into play when you consider the other half of Keith's post:
If we really want to see change here then we need to be specific in our likes and dislikes. I still need to comb through the shifter, gnome, and changeling entries, but I can tell you that if WoTC's interpretation of the gnome is anything like their idiotic cartoon promotions then I, for one, will be reverting as much as possible to the 3.5 version. Dragonlance, as much as I love it, really did a lot to ruin our interpretation of gnomes. Eberron tried to correct that, and it looks to me like WoTC is trying to make them the slapstick characters of old once more...
I perhaps overstated my opinion, but the point was that the mass of posts of "Oh god, warforged are broken," "They've ruined Eberron" "Warforged are totally wrong and nerfed" are crazy and unnecessary at this point.
Here's what I'd like to see.
I'd like the Warforged, when Eberron comes out, to have the composite armor. Something like "+2 AC, can't wear normal armor"
I'd also like to see shifting for Shifters go back to being like it was. Razor claws and longteeth get racial weapons. Add racial options for encounter attacks usable while shifting. Like, If you're a Razor Claw shifter, you can take a feat that lets you make an attack, primary attack with both claws, if both hit, secondary attack for 1d8 damage as you rend. That sort of thing.
On top of that, I completely disagree with the being suceptible to poison idea. If I added arcenic to a can of WD40 would that WD40 suddenly not work when I sprayed it on a bike chain? I respect the idea of the warforged being more "living" than before, but there are some that should bring about a form of sense. I always thought that they should be vulerable to hold spells, for example. And even while I don't like the poison thing, I can see how it would work as well.
The way that is written, though, basically says that a Warforged can drown even though it doesn't breath. Sure, I could buy into crushing depths and air bubbles in the fluids, but that would require a bit more than just breathing as I see it.
The way that is written, though, basically says that a Warforged can drown even though it doesn't breath.
Actually, that's not how I read it - and I think the statement is broad enough that it's going to have to be open to DM interpretation (or clarification in either DDI or the 4ECS). The statement is "You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe, but this doesn't render you immune to any effect."
Now, you COULD say that "starvation" or "drowning" are "effects" - consequences of not getting air or food. But the concept that "You don't have to eat, but you'll starve if you don't" is completely pointless, and I can't imagine that was the designer's intention - why even say it if that's truly what it means? Humans don't have to eat either, as long as they don't mind starving. As I read the statement, "effect" means an actively generated effect. So you may not drown - but you can still suffer from a cloudkill spell. Essentially, the DM should never have to look at a spell and say "Hmm, I don't know if this spell would work if you don't breathe." Unless it's clearly stated that way (and if it does clearly, specifically say "If you don't breathe, you aren't affected by this" I WOULD say warforged are immune), you should assume that any sort of active effect is going to work on warforged just like anyone else.
Essentially, this is the preemptive answer to the "can stirges hurt warforged if warforged don't have blood and the flavor text of the stirges' attack describes it as blood draining?" I wouldn't have a warforged drown in a swimming pool. But if a magical attack has a COLOR description of drowning, I'd let it work - when targeting a warforged, the magic acts in a different manner, but still disrupts the flow of their alchemical fluids (just as the ruling was that a stirge could hurt a warforged). If a rogue has a power called "Choke hold" he can still use it on a warforged - obviously he can't choke something that doesn't breathe, but he's finding another way to acheive the effect.
But when it comes to starvation, drowning, or other things that are purely natural consequences of not breathing or eating? IMO, warforged should be immune to those things, and that's how I'll be running them.
I can tell you that if WoTC's interpretation of the gnome is anything like their idiotic cartoon promotions...
I'll just note that this is an issue of flavor. While the mechanics associated with them are changing, Zil culture will not be dramatically rewritten.
Here's what I'd like to see.
I'd like the Warforged, when Eberron comes out, to have the composite armor. Something like "+2 AC, can't wear normal armor"
I feel that this would be a pretty poor mechanic in 4E since it would totally force any warforged who isnt a wizard to spend a mandatory feat or have less AC than everyone else. A fighter, for example, would be forced to spend a feat just to have the AC of any other fighter and be down a feat for nothing. It was a poor mechanic in 3E and it would be even worse in 4E since its easier for every class to get better armor (and theres no ASF).
I think a flat +1 racial bonus to AC from composite plating that stacks with worn armor would be much simpler and elegant since it would be effective for every class while retaining the flavor of the metal plated warforged. You could still have the "body" racial feats as optional but with 2 important caveats:
- The feats need to not only replicate the AC bonus of perchasable armor, but grant another "special" bonus so that the character isnt blowing a feat on something everyone else just buys eventually anyway. Adamantine Body was unbalanced in 3E not only because it was overpowered at 1st level, but because it swung to being far underpowered at higher levels once every other fighter character could afford adamantine plate and the poor warforged was down a feat for nothing.
- The feat(s) needs to scale up since every other character is able to get masterwork armors that grant more AC than the plain mundane armor thats available at low levels. An epic warforged with a "body" feat needs to be able to match the AC bonus of godplate without spending a ton of feats.
Alternately, you could give them +2 natural armor since NA doesnt stack with worn armor anymore. They get their +2 like before, it useful to certain characters and it doesnt force them to waist a feat to be equal to other charcters
I'd also like to see shifting for Shifters go back to being like it was. Razor claws and longteeth get racial weapons. Add racial options for encounter attacks usable while shifting. Like, If you're a Razor Claw shifter, you can take a feat that lets you make an attack, primary attack with both claws, if both hit, secondary attack for 1d8 damage as you rend. That sort of thing.
I see giving shifters free natural weapons as being problematic since there are classes that require specific weapons to use most of their powers. Fighter shifters would be screwed since none of their weapon-based powers for work and none of a rogue shifter's powers would. It might not be hard to fix the rogue with a set of feats (which is highly problematic since it means the shifter is spending feats to be equal to every other rogue, simply for flavor) but the fighter shifter using claws it automatically out of all those powers that require specifica weapon groups.
Actually, that's not how I read it - and I think the statement is broad enough that it's going to have to be open to DM interpretation (or clarification in either DDI or the 4ECS). The statement is "You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe, but this doesn't render you immune to any effect."
Now, you COULD say that "starvation" or "drowning" are "effects" - consequences of not getting air or food. But the concept that "You don't have to eat, but you'll starve if you don't" is completely pointless, and I can't imagine that was the designer's intention - why even say it if that's truly what it means?
They really need to reword or elaborate on the features of the living construct. It shouldnt be so vague that DM discretion is required every time an "effect" occurs. Drowning isnt an effect but a spell is? Is a psionic manifestation an effect but an exploit not? Its too unclear.
But when it comes to starvation, drowning, or other things that are purely natural consequences of not breathing or eating? IMO, warforged should be immune to those things, and that's how I'll be running them.
The living construct entry really needs some kind of clause that states this since i know for a fact that not all DMs will run them that way.
They really need to reword or elaborate on the features of the living construct. It shouldnt be so vague that DM discretion is required every time an "effect" occurs. Drowning isnt an effect but a spell is? Is a psionic manifestation an effect but an exploit not? Its too unclear.
The living construct entry really needs some kind of clause that states this since i know for a fact that not all DMs will run them that way.
Hopefully one of the core books will have a clear meaning and/or examples of what an effect is so there is no confusion.
I feel that this would be a pretty poor mechanic in 4E since it would totally force any warforged who isnt a wizard to spend a mandatory feat or have less AC than everyone else. A fighter, for example, would be forced to spend a feat just to have the AC of any other fighter and be down a feat for nothing. It was a poor mechanic in 3E and it would be even worse in 4E since its easier for every class to get better armor (and theres no ASF).
I think a flat +1 racial bonus to AC from composite plating that stacks with worn armor would be much simpler and elegant since it would be effective for every class while retaining the flavor of the metal plated warforged. You could still have the "body" racial feats as optional but with 2 important caveats:
- The feats need to not only replicate the AC bonus of perchasable armor, but grant another "special" bonus so that the character isnt blowing a feat on something everyone else just buys eventually anyway. Adamantine Body was unbalanced in 3E not only because it was overpowered at 1st level, but because it swung to being far underpowered at higher levels once every other fighter character could afford adamantine plate and the poor warforged was down a feat for nothing.
- The feat(s) needs to scale up since every other character is able to get masterwork armors that grant more AC than the plain mundane armor thats available at low levels. An epic warforged with a "body" feat needs to be able to match the AC bonus of godplate without spending a ton of feats.
Alternately, you could give them +2 natural armor since NA doesnt stack with worn armor anymore. They get their +2 like before, it useful to certain characters and it doesnt force them to waist a feat to be equal to other charcters
I see giving shifters free natural weapons as being problematic since there are classes that require specific weapons to use most of their powers. Fighter shifters would be screwed since none of their weapon-based powers for work and none of a rogue shifter's powers would. It might not be hard to fix the rogue with a set of feats (which is highly problematic since it means the shifter is spending feats to be equal to every other rogue, simply for flavor) but the fighter shifter using claws it automatically out of all those powers that require specifica weapon groups.
ON Warforged: The +2 AC (as wearing armor) and not able to wear normal armor is exactly the same as the 3.5 version. Racial feats allow the warforged to have higher AC, as a plate wearing warrior.
I feel that this is a core part of the Warforged, and changing it is a bit like removing the Dex bonus from elves. It starts a flavor change the leads to the race just not being what it was.
ON Shifters: Fighters - So, your lvl 13 and lvl 23 encounter powers get a bonus with the right type of weapon. They still work without that weapon. And it's explicitly stated that an unarmed strike counts as a weapon for the purpose of weapon dependent powers. So, a Shifter warrior using his claws as weapons would loose the special weapon type bonus on two powers, and that's it.
As for Rogues, Shifter racial talent that says natural weapons work for sneak attack.
Shifting should still work like it did before. I.E. Shifting as a per encounter power, lasting 3 + Con modifier + (1 per shifter feat) rounds, so taking a feat to get your sneak attack with claws (Pounce?) would be beneficial beyond that.
I feel that this is a core part of the Warforged, and changing it is a bit like removing the Dex bonus from elves. It starts a flavor change the leads to the race just not being what it was.
WF are still different from all races in 4e in that they never unequip their armor (unless it's an unarmored WF wearing a robe). So, to start, you just pick your armor, but without the choice of super-materials. Then later there's a slight change in flavor, as instead of the warforged's body evolving (growing spikes or silver lining), you can absorb superior gear (like how they absorb other items in 3e).
This is mostly a mechanical change (no feat expendiatures to keep up with the power curve), with a slight flavor change (no adamantine at 1st-level, the ability to absorb armor as well as docents).
ON Warforged: The +2 AC (as wearing armor) and not able to wear normal armor is exactly the same as the 3.5 version. Racial feats allow the warforged to have higher AC, as a plate wearing warrior.
I feel that this is a core part of the Warforged, and changing it is a bit like removing the Dex bonus from elves. It starts a flavor change the leads to the race just not being what it was.
The flavor is "they are covered in metal plates" not "they have specific metagame mechanic X". It was a poor mechanic in 3E and would be in 4E for the reasons i mentioned. It isnt necessary to port it over into 4E to support the flavor of an armored creature.
ON Shifters: Fighters - So, your lvl 13 and lvl 23 encounter powers get a bonus with the right type of weapon. They still work without that weapon. And it's explicitly stated that an unarmed strike counts as a weapon for the purpose of weapon dependent powers. So, a Shifter warrior using his claws as weapons would loose the special weapon type bonus on two powers, and that's it.
There are multiple powers that involve specific weapon groups. Using a weapon that fits into no weapon group whatsoever severly gimps the shifter fighter's options.
As for Rogues, Shifter racial talent that says natural weapons work for sneak attack.
And what about all the actual rogue powers that require specific weapons or groups? Calling out all these special cases in a racial description just for the sake of one class seems incredibly clunky and making a special feat means that the shifter is spending a feat to get the same benefit that other rogue's are already getting for free by using regular melee weapons.
Shifting should still work like it did before. I.E. Shifting as a per encounter power, lasting 3 + Con modifier + (1 per shifter feat) rounds, so taking a feat to get your sneak attack with claws (Pounce?) would be beneficial beyond that.
There are no buffs or effects that need to be tracked over a prescribed number of rounds in 4E. You either buffs last for an entire encounter that lasts the whole encounter, which would be overpowered here, or guarantee that its use/activation is somehow limited within the timespan of an encounter (like triggered by the bloodied condition).
Default WF is unarmoured, and the 4e ECS will have various racial body type feats to choose from.
Kreistor2, everything you called for has already been proved wrong. Read the thread back and bring us some new material.
This goes for Mr. Wolson too!
I disagree fundamentally with your position, as I do not believe they have been successfully counter-argued. Especially given the hand waving treatment of my last two points (engery drain and light fortification).
With that said, since Mr. Baker has requested this to be focused more on Warforged in 4E rather than 3.X, I will say nothing else in this thread until I actually have a copy of the material in hand.
And since I won't have that until I buy it from my FLGS, I'll be keeping an eye on the thread, but I'm out for right now.
Now, should we make them a direct feat? Maybe not. Maybe some form of racial feature that presents feats to improve the feature. Say that all warforged start with a choice of the three armors and have certain penalties that come with the choice. Like the obvious such as Adamantine reducing movement and preventing the casting of arcane spells.
Improvement could be presented in +2 swings at certain levels, allowing the player to select an upgrade to the armor choice he made and in some way keep pace.
Even with the changes in their resistances the body feats are something I feel strongly on and want to find a functional way for them to return.
... and preventing the casting of arcane spells.
That'd be a little unfair... since it armour does no such thing to anyone else in 4e.
Why not allow Warforged to shed and regrow their composite plating? Perhaps during any period of extended rest the Warforged could shuffle off its current composite plating and regrow it using the raw materials (metal and residuum) of a standard set of armor.
I suppose we could require proficiency in what ever kind of armor the body feat emulates or else the character takes nonproficiency penalties, but that seems a little odd flavorwise. "Im built with heavy adamantine armor but im not proficient with it!"
Kalanth, you realise it's the same as buying armor, right?
That's the point, sort of. Sure, it's the same concept but at the same time you remove the "my warforged is wearing plate mail" feal and still maintain that "the massive figure made of adamantine" kind of feel. Create some racial feats to enhance the plating in some special way or something. It just seems that there may not be a functional solution to the loss of the body feats in 4e, so a similar but different idea may be the best way to go about it.
Are they always “red” in color?
Multi-colors would be nicer.
Do these eyes blink on and off?
Can these eye colors/intensities be controlled by the Warforged—if they are raging in battle, do the eyes glow more? If they are sneaking about do the eyes stop glowing? Do they adjust to darkness/light by glowing more/less in daylight? Do some Warforged vary muchly from other Warforged in this respect?
Looking at this from an artist point of view:
Realizing that before now, the art could have been done with watercolor/tempera paints then photographed for printing then those prints scanned to be copied unto web pictures, all of which would have caused a considerable loss of color. Now, possibly, the art is done with computer programs, which allows one to adjust for printing/monitor use and will be considerably brighter due to no loss of color strength in the photography process; with talented artists using light sources/shadows to greater effect as more skilled artists are brought into the creation process due to internet access to worldwide talent. Hence, Warforged glowing eyes is an indirect by-product of the superior illumination/coloring of 4E art which should be exaimed closely.
From a fluff point of view, would an inventor creating robots for war make their eyes glow? Is this the best way for the Warforged to see? Soldiers are careful to hide in their foxholes to smoke at night because that little red glow is a bulls-eye for a sniper. But in Eberron, there are not high powered rifles and the glowing eyes could be intimidating at night…
From a game point of view, are these glowing eyes bright enough to give the Warforged a penalty to stealth? If so, what would they gain in return for this? Or as mentioned earlier, can the Warforged control the glowing eye effect? Can the Warforged change eye colors?
A skilled Cannith artificer could have come up with a way to change around the plating, thus allowing an unarmored character to switch to adamantine plate if they wanted to.
When one looks at a tractor, what do you see?
A big metal machine with huge tires
or
thousands of nuts, bolts, and parts each of which can easily be replaced.
When you look at a bull dozer blade, what do you see?
The front part of a huge machine
or
a giant piece of steel that can be wielded, shaped, cut, built up, altered which is attached to the cab of the bulldozer with nuts and bolts and is removable/replacable with some effort.
But what does a Warforged use for energy?
Everything must draw on something for power.
If it is a battery, then a Warforged might be more inclined to rest when everyone else is resting just to length the life of the dragonshard battery.
If it is some other power source, then the Warforged might rest to enhance the recharging process.
Problem 1: Warforged immunities make them more powerful than the other races from level one to level 20. This has created, at least in one of my campaigns, no small amount of animosity between my players.
Problem 2: The uniqueness of living construct (half healing and no natural healing) stopped being fun and became a hassle. My party had to go out of it's way to buy oils and prepare repair spells. While interesting, in the end, all this did was slow the story and the game down. As a DM, finding someone who could repair a damaged warforged player or looking up the Craft skill to see how much hp she repairs, was simply one more thing I'm glad I won't have to distract me.
While some people will want to change certain aspects of the 'forged (many of the problems can be fixed by adding your own Racial Feats), the conclusion that I came to is that the new warforged is balanced with the other player races, and while it excels at fighter, the race would work well with any of the other 7 classes in the PHB. (Great stat bonuses and one of the best racial powers.)
There are multiple powers that involve specific weapon groups. Using a weapon that fits into no weapon group whatsoever severly gimps the shifter fighter's options.
And what about all the actual rogue powers that require specific weapons or groups? Calling out all these special cases in a racial description just for the sake of one class seems incredibly clunky and making a special feat means that the shifter is spending a feat to get the same benefit that other rogue's are already getting for free by using regular melee weapons.
There are no buffs or effects that need to be tracked over a prescribed number of rounds in 4E. You either buffs last for an entire encounter that lasts the whole encounter, which would be overpowered here, or guarantee that its use/activation is somehow limited within the timespan of an encounter (like triggered by the bloodied condition).
Right, Hows this.
Razorclaw shifter.
While shifting they gain claws as natural weapons, that deal 1d4 damage.
Feat - Razorclaw Elite
Your claws deal 1d6 damage and count as Light Blades.
Now a Razorclaw shifter fighter or rogue, with this feat, can use all his powers, with the same level of efficiency as one using any other weapon.
Also, you know, not like we couldn't introduce (on the level 3, 13, & 23 fighter powers) new powers when we get the Eberron guide specific to the races added.
Also, are Warforged gonna get the option to use a slam attack like they do in 3.X?
The Warforged is a creature of soul. "What am I? What is my purpose? Am I a just weapon? Could I be something more?" These are the questions that plague the sleepless, dreamless wanderings of the displaced Warforged's mind; free from the stable, logical, terrible shackles of war.
Warforged are not men. Their lives are not motivating by need. They do not wear armor or clothing, for they require nothing but themselves.
Men need. Men need food, drink, shelter, rest, friendship, security, and protection.
Warforged step from their Creation Forge with all that they will ever require. Enchant their Metal Plating, and they are made stronger, give them a weapon, and they are made stronger, but they have no needs.
They are at all times, ready and waiting for war.
My suggestions for the allowing the Warforged to keep their unique flavor in a manner depicted in the rules are as follows.
My suggestion is to not allow Warforged to wear armor. Instead, the Warforged body would be considered to be wearing the equivalent of cloth armor at creation. They would be able to retain the excellent flavor of their metal plating through the use of low level Rituals. There would be two primary rituals that would help to serve this purpose.
Warforged Body Rituals -
The Strengthen Warforged Body Ritual
The Warforged metal plating is made of a unique and highly mixed alloy, including quantities of Mirthral, Adamantine, Black Iron, and Steel. The 'Strengthen Warforged Body' ritual helps shape and grow the natural plating of a Warforged Character, drawing out the more resilient metals, and shaping the plating to grant vital areas more cover.
This ritual would grant an armor bonus to AC, and have a varying cost that corresponded to the level of armor, essentially, costing the same as purchasing a new suit of armor. In order to gain the full benefit of the ritual without penalty, the character would have to be proficient with the corresponding armor.
I.E.,
Light Warforged Plating
+2 to AC = 25gp (char must be proficient with Leather)
+3 to AC = 30gp (char must be proficient with Hide)
Heavy Warforged Plating
+6 to AC = 40 gp (char must be proficient with Chainmail)
+7 to Ac = 45 gp (char must be proficient with Scale)
+8 to Ac = 50 gp (char must be proficient with Plate)
This would enable The Warforged to retain their flavor, while allowing them to be able to effectively 'wear' equivalent equipment without becoming overpowered. Warforged plating could be enchanted using the Enchant Magic Item ritual as if it were normal armor.
The Warforged Transferrence Ritual
This Ritual would function in a way that is extremely similar to the ‘Resize Armor’ ritual that allows overly large or small armor to be resized for 4E characters. Instead of resizing the armor, the 'Warforged Transferrence' ritual would literally transfer the magical properties onto the warforged's plating. The normal rules for magical armor would still apply.
I.E. The magical properties of "Darkleaf Armor' could be transferred to Light Warforged Plating, but not to Heavy.
Once the Warforged Transferrence ritual has been cast, the original suit of armor is destroyed/mundane. The magical power of the armor can only ever be reclaimed as Residuum using the Disenchant Magic Item ritual.
The Warforged Transference allows more fluidity as far as Treasure Parcels including armor which include armor being as useful for Warforged Characters as they would be for other characters, meanwhile also protecting the economy of 4E.
Warforged Feats -
There are dozens of Warforged Racial Feats that I might recommend, such as;
Battle Born - When rolling Death Saving Throws, A Warforged Character with the Battle Born feat may spend their unspent Second Wind on a roll of 18 or better (instead of just 20)
Body of War - A Warforged Character can treat his natural attack as if the character were using actually using a Mace. The character is considered proficient regarding these attacks.
Construct Tirelessness - With the Construct Tirelessness feat, a Warforged character can perform more strenuous activities during an extended rest than other characters (Such as marching, digging, unloading a wagon, ect). This does not allow the character to be involved in combat without interrupting the extended rest in any way.
Warforged Collision - When executing a bull rush maneuver, a character with the Warforged Collision feat can push his target one extra square.
Warforged Resilience - Whenever a Warforged character uses either their Second Wind, or their racial bolstering ability, Warforged Resolve; their racial bonus to saves against ongoing damage increases from +2 to +5 until the end of the character’s next turn.
I close by asking the designers of 4E Eberron to please take great care in handling the Warforged. They have been a masterpiece, almost the living soul of Eberron, and they deserve care and attention equivalent to the adoration they have earned.
This post is directed towards everyone here, but primarily towards the designers of 4E Eberron.
I've had thoughts along similar lines. I'll post some ideas after D&D Game Day.
Changelings = Doppelgangers
Seems like warforged are pretty simple, and while they've been powered down in some ways (no immunities any more), in others they are better (auto-stabilise is much more powerful now that it's so difficult to die by damage alone). Their racial power (warforged resolve, grants temp HP) is pretty good, but I get the feeling a more thematic power could have been chosen. I'm not sure what, though.
My impression of the warforged is that they need racial feats. Without them, they just feel like bare bones that just resemble the race. With a bit more crunch behind them, I think they'll turn out fine.
That looks like my take on it for now as well.
The changes I've heard about are mostly stuff that makes Warforged easier to pop into "any" campaign. As opposed to being part of the campaign [and thus have the ability to have a suitable number of pages to 'support' them].
Will see. Reading the discussion here though reaffirms my belief in that, [Eberron] Warforged are significantly 'different' than other races that their existance in a party changes game expectations.
Guess I'm going to resign myself to trying a Warforged something come the 9th.
Right, Hows this.
Razorclaw shifter.
While shifting they gain claws as natural weapons, that deal 1d4 damage.
Feat - Razorclaw Elite
Your claws deal 1d6 damage and count as Light Blades.
Its still too little return for too much investment. For the cost of 2 feats your doing the exact same damage with teh exact same powers as any other rogue with 2 short swords who hasnt spent any feats at all. Not to mention the fact that no other class cares about light blades and will thus have no reason to burn 2 feats for nothing anyways. The designers are purposely trying to get away from "trap" choices that look cool/flavorful but actually gimp your character in 4E.
Now a Razorclaw shifter fighter or rogue, with this feat, can use all his powers, with the same level of efficiency as one using any other weapon.
Also, you know, not like we couldn't introduce (on the level 3, 13, & 23 fighter powers) new powers when we get the Eberron guide specific to the races added.
If they are going to give shifters natural weapons, they're going to have to make a bunch of weapon-specific feats for the fighter as well as make them on par with whatever the fighter would normally use (1d6 just doesnt cut it). Its going to take a lot of work to make a natural weapon shifter fighter as viable as a fighter who uses weapons that do anywhere from 1d10 to 2d6 and have special weapon-group-specific powers. Even rangers dual wield 1d10 damage weapons which outclass 1d6 claws without some extra special benefit.
I do remember mention of a barbarian who added a bite attack on after a regular attack. Perhaps they are planning to stick some natural weapon goodness in the next PHB (before eberron comes out?).
The minion rules are an abstraction. They dont really have just one HP, its just that they are meant to hang around long enough to pose a threat and then splatter under some amazing attack. Armies are not made up of minions unless they are attacking someone who was powerful enough to kill them wholesale.
We all know that warforged are made of Organic parts. Wood and leather. In 4e, poison is really really badass because the same substance that messes up a halfling also messes up demons, the tarresque, angels, and almost everything else. Why should thier organic parts be any different.
Wearing armor.. while it was cool that warforged were made with armor on them, it wasnt so cool to throw that +3 full plate on the cleric just because the warforged fighter couldnt climb out of his +1 skin. You cannot make a magic item in this system that is above your level, so you will find your most powerful stuff, and it throws off the balance if you cannot wear the good stuff you find. Mechanically its still the same if the warforged clamp or embed the armor onto thier bodies, or if they just strap it on. Nobody is gonna take it off of them while dont want them to.
Warforged in 3rd edition still could take non-lethal damage from forced marching so its nothing new that warforged must take a break to prevent damage from over-exertion. Cooling thier joints, refiling thier internal lubrication resevoirs, and whatnot for a few hours a day isn't huge.
As Kieth explained, starvation and suffocation are the effects that they are not immune to. That was just poor wording. They have biological processes that can be tampered with through magical or mundane effects. Even humans can be choked do death while still breathing, because of the interuption in thier circulatory systems. Warforged have the benefit of being resistant to these effects however, through thier con bonus, thier endurance bonus, and bonus to resist ongoing effects.
Warforged can now be healed just as well as mortals. Huzzah! I would say that instead of this being stais-quo, I would put the spin on this that someone has gone an extra mile to make warforged that would heal faster.
Warforged are still desireable for military purposes. Here is just one reason...
An army of warforged will always be able to defeat an equal sized army of mortals who are equally skilled and equipped. The fact is that an army marches on its stomach, and an army is only as effective as its supply chain. Warforged armies do not need a supply chain. Warforged do not need to fear a seige. A small unit of 100 mortal soldiers needs 100 gallons of water, and 100lbs of food PER DAY!(assuming they eat only trail rations, which brings up morale issules that we wont get involved in). Simply said, warforged can win wars by not even fighting. The fact that you have warforged means that you are already engaging your enemies in resources warfare no matter how far away you are. And this brings us back to the orignal point. Warforged are desireable for military purposes because your enemies have warforged.
Keith mentioned that these werent eberron warforged. Its fine with me if they are. We all know that when the setting comes out there will be a slew of feats and options for them that will make them even better. I'm looking forward to seeing that. In the meanwhile I'm going to enjoy what we have, and see whats going on in the Realms. Eberron is many months away, so try not to freak out too much. Eberron changed the foundations D&D once, and I have no doubt it will do it again.
Warforged don't really seem that bad off to me. Their autosave effect on a death save means that they are very hard to keep down. Honestly it seems to be a better way of showing that they are hard to kill than before. Getting to -10 hp in 3.5 was a lot easier than getting to -1/2 total hp in 4e. The only way a warforged is going to die is if someone goes out of their way to finish them off. Other races might do more damage or be more defensive, but they have a good chance of dying once they go below zero too.
This makes for a much better and cost effective soldier than any other race. If the enemy doesn't makes sure to finish you off, you still have a soldier. You can alway recover your warforged casualties from a battle, even more so than before. Very Eberron.
The rest of the living construct traits also seem fitting, along with their ability and skill modifiers. The racial power just doesn't seem flavorful though. It works, but it seems like other things would have fit their flavor better. It just doesn't seem to add enough hp to make them harder to kill. Plus other traits work better for that, as I said before. It could be fine too. The only people who have really played a lot with them are the playtesters and even then there are only a few who have. I guess hellcow might have a better idea than anyone else would.
I was expecting something for along the lines of a natural weapon/at-will attack or some sort of resistance buff. Maybe something along the lines of automatically spend a healing surge when dropped to or below 0 once per encounter or spend a healing surge and gain that value in temp hp once per encounter while bloodied. I'm sure that they will come out with feats to make their power better or let them trade out/gain other racial powers.
I'm also sure that there will be rituals based on warforged. Probably something like,
Warforged Body -
A ritual that can be used to incorporate items into a warforged and remove items from a warforged. You can incorporate only one item in a warforged at heroic tier, two items at paragon tier, and three at epic level, with any combination of items that the warforged can use (such as binding two weapons). You can choose to incorporate an armor, a weapon, an impliment, or a neck slot item (basically anything that gives an enhancement bonus). The warforged should gain some sort of minor bonus based on what you incorporated, like +1 to ac for the armor or quick draw for the weapon. The incorporated item is now part of the warforged and is impossible to remove without using the ritual to remove it as long as the warforged is alive. Incorporating a weapon, an impliment, or any other item that is held works like a light shield in regards the use of the hand. When a warforged with an incorporated item is killed, the item can be removed from him without need for the ritual.
A ritual like this should allow a warforged to use anything, but still capture a lot of the flavor. The ritual should also be usable by anyone who can learn it. The ritual could be locked by a feat that let you use a few different rituals related to warforged. Or just lumped in with the rest of them. I like them being locked by a feat personally, one with a bit easier access than the ritual casting feat. Maybe both.
In regards to all the other eberron stuff 4e affects, I'm sure it will be fine. A lot of it fits better for eberron than what eberron was designed to have in 3.5. Rituals are awesome! I'm sure dragon marks will be a variation on rituals, since they are more or less the same idea. Maybe characters with dragon marks don't have to pay the cost, can use the ritual faster by paying a bit more, or gain additional effects from the ritual. Something along those lines.
I hope this is in some way helpful to someone and I hope the warforged end up being just as good or better than before. Hopefully a little easier to adapt to and use as well, since so many people either felt they were a bit of a pain to take care of or way overpowered. I have seen them being put aside as a choice because they were hard to deal with more than once. With some luck and some good design, that could never happen again during 4e.
They had too many immunities. Certainly for an ECL+0 race.
(From a game design standpoint this is close to objective fact).
So I don't mind (and was kind of pleased) that they got toned down. It needed to happen, it's fine, from my standpoint, for them to be affected by poison, or even to retcon it so they have some kind of metabolism.
(I mean.... what's the point of calling them living constructs if they're just like normal constructs.).
What confuses me is that they also a bunch of new, weird resistances they didn't have before. I.e.
However, they are resistant to all forms of ongoing damage - including poison, being set on fire, psychic attacks, acid damage, or anything else that can continue to hurt you over time. They don't have blanket immunity to any of these things - but they will generally take less damage from them than their human counterparts.
And the addition of special healing powers.
Now all warforged will eventually "wake up" (roll a 20 on a death save) after a fight. It may take could dozen rounds to generate that 20, but eventually they'll roll it, spend a healing surge and stand up.
Was that necessary?
It was cooler when they could be broken for years and then repaired.
AND it was less powerful.
Why make them more powerful in a way that contradicts existing fluff?
I don't agree with about half of what ghoststepper said, but I think he really slammed this point on the head.
– I think the resolve power is a poor choice for a DM-controlled monster. Effectively, what happens is the warforged drops below half hp and then gets a bunch of hp back. The problem is that the players dont necessarily know this happens so bascially its like the warforged has an extra 14 hp. While other monsters are breathing fire or attacking 2 PCs or whatever cool thing, teh warforged is gaining a benefit that no one is going to notice. I mean, why not just add the extra hp right on to the total from the begining?
He's completely right.
I'd go further and say: It's a dumb power period.
Aside: Killing them before they trigger it
I realize that, in mechanical terms, there is a small chance that they'll die before they get their extra hit points.
Personally, I think that's pretty uninteresting.
Warforged being "easier to take down if you hit them with 'overwhelming force'" doesn't really match story fluff.
A lot of book keeping for a rare event.
Personally, I think that's pretty uninteresting.
Warforged being "easier to take down if you hit them with 'overwhelming force'" doesn't really match story fluff.
A lot of book keeping for a rare event.
Like making the wizards sleep spell less useful, or making certain monsters (there's a dream hag or something in the MM, I've heard) almost useless against the warforged.
I'm not arguing for, and don't think we need, that sort of power.
Just do what you do for breathing, etc. Say: Warforged do not sleep. However this doesn't prevent any effects.
It's not a mechanic I would run to embrace normally, but if they've already got that then just roll with it and add sleep to the list.
For fluff just add a line somewhere that says "warforged do not normally sleep however certain powerful effects such as arcane spells and the attacks of certain monsters can drive them into a state of unconcious torpor".
Simple easy, not broken, and it "protects the fluff".
(My precious fluff....)
This ritual would grant an armor bonus to AC, and have a varying cost that corresponded to the level of armor, essentially, costing the same as purchasing a new suit of armor. In order to gain the full benefit of the ritual without penalty, the character would have to be proficient with the corresponding armor...
That's a really simple solution-- I like it. Fair, cost-effecient, and it doesn't require serious rule expansion.
It also works on the idea of warforged being better soldiers then fleshies. If you've ever worn armour (I've only ever done leather and chain-mail in sim-combat) you know it begins to smell and rust (in the case of metal) rather quickly, so maintenance is a big pain in the arse. Once again another huge cost-reduction for self-maintaining robots that need fairly minimal maintenance and don't need to take their armour off to sleep. So now we have self-repairing automatons that can out-last sieges due to no food requirments, minimal maintenance and can act in a split second to a suprise assault because they don't have to spend 5 minutes putting on their armour (how putting armour on works in 4e if my memory serves from a quick purusal of one of the books)
Heck I like the idea so much I'm gonna shoe-horn it into my 4e campaign (yay conversion from 3.5e).
Also, their immunity to poison and disease is significant.
I can live without these, mind you; I'm not rattling my sabre, saying I will disown WotC or even the 4e Warforged. Primarily because I think that they are easier to run, and healing is no longer a problem. If Immunities are added, then something will have to balance this out.
I'm sorry though to tell you that your Warforged PC cannot spend hours hanging out in vats of poison, rooms full of poisonous gas, disease infested refuse pits, and playing hide and seek in piles of rotting corpses. You win some, you lose some. Maybe there will be a feat.
You still can't drown a warforged. They don't need to breathe. The aren't immune to spells or effects that duplicate the effects of drowning. I dont expect to see a spell though that causes someone else to begin drowning where they stand. If there was such an effect it would probably have a saving throw or endurance check to end it, and they would have bonuses to resist.
I'm sorry though to tell you that your Warforged PC cannot spend hours hanging out in vats of poison, rooms full of poisonous gas, disease infested refuse pits, and playing hide and seek in piles of rotting corpses. You win some, you lose som. Maybe there will be a feat.
And that feat will be "Carrion Crawler".
Second: I was also kinda disappointed the WF's apparent vulnerability to disease but fortunately this thread mentioned that endurance bonus will help them shake it off and the +2 to saving throws against effects that deal damage will help a lot.
Third: The racial power presented is a bit wonky. Temp HP is always a good thing but it doesn't seem to fit right. I would suggest the power stays the same except give the warforged resist 2 all instead of temp HP. (The power would scale to resist 4 at paragon and resist 6 at epic.)
First: I would like to third the sentiment that Herogoeth's WF armor ritual suggestion is made of win.
4th that. Yoinking that whole post for my games.
Now all warforged will eventually "wake up" (roll a 20 on a death save) after a fight.
Not really. You only stabilize on a 20+ if you have a healing surge left. Even after you stabilize, you're left at 0 hp until you spend another healing surge as either a Second Wind or part of a resting period. Most NPCs will have one healing surge, often used before going down...
Why bother giving them a power that's just "extra hit points". Why waste everyone's time? Give them the toughness feat (or it's equivalent) as a racial power and play through.
The racial power is kinda strange. It seems like they were trying to come up with an ability that thematically fits the 'forged without seeming tacked on. Honestly, there isn't much to a warforged other than their sheer toughness and mechanical wonkiness as a living construct.
I also feel strongly that "Not sleeping" is a pretty minor power and a major part of warforged fluff in Eberron. Chucks of Forge of War become nonsensical if Warforged are sleeping four hours a night.
(Like elves! why?)
I think this actually works well, as long as you add in the other part of eladrin/drow rest - they are completely aware of their surroundings while resting. The book doesn't say they sleep or trance, just that their rest period is only 4 hours long. Add in the awareness, and you may as well say the 'forged spends those hours repairing himself.
Not really. You only stabilize on a 20+ if you have a healing surge left. Even after you stabilize, you're left at 0 hp until you spend another healing surge as either a Second Wind or part of a resting period. Most NPCs will have one healing surge, often used before going down...
yes really...
historically warforged have lain damaged for years or decades only to be found or repaired.
as you point out now, though you seem to miss the implications, every warforged now will pop awake after rolling a twenty and 4 hours...
that makes them more valuable to the kindgoms that own them but the whole Wolverine-esque self healing thing is a radical departure.
I think this actually works well, as long as you add in the other part of eladrin/drow rest - they are completely aware of their surroundings while resting. The book doesn't say they sleep or trance, just that their rest period is only 4 hours long. Add in the awareness, and you may as well say the 'forged spends those hours repairing himself.
I'd have preferred if the dragon article included a line about 'marching' as being included in the rest activities but my obsession with certain trivial bits of fluff borders on the unhealthy.
90% of the fluff (even picked up some popular boards ideas like eyes glowing when emotional) looks good though and they fixed the resolved power AND gave us a fantastic reforged flavored path so my capacity to complain is dwindling
(sorry for the lack of caps not on a proper computer)
every warforged now will pop awake after rolling a twenty and 4 hours...
...
#1. A character needs spend a healing surge to stabilize.
#2. NPCs only have one healing surge, which will probably be used before going down.
#3. Living constructs have the ability to 'Take 10' on saves against death. This won't stabilize them, but makes it so they won't die, either. They are effectively stuck in the dying condition until tended to.
So...a warforged is knocked down to dying, and has no healing surges left. The only option left now is to repeatedly 'Take 10,' unconsciously hoping that eventually someone will find him and fix him up in the future.
Savvy?
#2. NPCs only have one healing surge, which will probably be used before going down.
Good analysis, AG, but I have to disagree on a few points.
What the MM says is: "Monsters, like PCs, have healing surges. However, few monsters have a power that lets them spend a healing surge... Because they rarely come into play, healing surges are not included on a monster's stat block."
Curious about this, I wrote to WotC designer James Wyatt and asked if monsters could use their healing surges to take a second wind. His response:
"Monsters have healing surges so that NPC clerics or warlords can heal them. They don’t ordinarily get a second wind."
So first, the NPC warforged won't be spending his healing surge on second wind.
Second, you have a key passage from the PHB that renders the whole discussion moot:
Monsters and characters controlled by the Dungeon Master usually die when they reach 0 hit points, unless you choose to knock them out.
PCs have the chance to get that burst of energy and leap back to their feet. But as a rule, NPCs do not. You're not supposed to sit there rolling death saves for every fallen monster.
Now, as the DM, you can CHOOSE to say that due to auto-stabilization, warforged do not die unless you make a conscious effort to kill them - and that otherwise they lie inert until found and repaired. And personally, that's what I'll do. But the "Recover on a death save of 20" is meaningless for warforged NPCs, because NPCs never make death saves in the first place.
Still, the game is in your hands as a DM, so you can decide how warforged work outside of combat. So you could say they repair themselves during an Extended Rest, and don't necessarily die when knocked down to 0 hp.
For those that may need a visual example, way back in the day (i'm giving away both my age and level of geekdom here), in an issue of the old Transformers comic, Megatron is ranting and raving insanely that a HUMAN destroyed Optimus Prime when he couldn't, and its drving him mad. He's starting to see Prime everywhere, and one of the Combaticons (the tank, I can't remember the name), reminds Megatron he's dead.
Megs grabs the 'Con, and starts squeezing his throat. Now even at the ripe young age of 8 or 10, I was thinking, HEY he's a machine, he doesn't breathe, what good does that do? Then I flipped the page. As Megatron rants about squeezing the life out of someone, you get to watch the 'Con's head squeeze and fracture and crumble until finally it EXPLODES in Meg's choke-hold, killing him, before his lifeless body gets thrown the the crowd of onlookers
That's pretty much what happens to Warforged in DnD4 I imagine. Diseases,their organics can be infected, just like anything else, they just have different symptons (and cures in a scientific setting, but magic doesn't work that way, thank God), and poison, the real trick is getting them to imbibe it. A Warforged is not obliged to drink a poisoned meal/drink, but a poison spell or magical effect can have a similar effect on them. Warforged don't sleep, but a Sleep spell can still render them unconscious. After all, its not REALLY going to sleep, its a magical compulsion.
The whole point is that Warforged are LIVING constructs, thus they dont' get a laundry list of automatic exemptions. With a little creativity on the part of the player and DM, the Warforged can still be the same
Since they don't eat, breathe, and sleep, they make excellent soldiers, in that they can keep going, making for quick marches, and to win battles by endurance- they don't get tired.
Warforged are meant to be in battle, so they all have some sort of armor covering. Some are made for heavy combat.
If these are too much, give them a big penalty on social encounters, or compensation. The idea of the living construct is really interesting and innovative - more than the same old orcs and dwarves we've been playing for over thirty years now.
Not only that but there are feat chains...i mean really, did Chris Sims not get the memo? Feat chains are out of style in 4E (other than armor profs) since it messes up the retraining mechanic. There are no more "take this lame feat so you can take a good one later" feats in 4E anymore, yet here we have an attempt to put some back in just for the poor old warforged. I dont have to take lame feats to get feats i want for any other race or class, why should a warforged character be a special throwback?
You must have missed two weapon fighting, two weapon defense and two weapon flurry. Feat chains are alive and well.
LOLNow that I've gotten 4e and had a chance to look through the books I've been looking through the threads catching up. This one piqued my intrest. Keith said he wanted everyone to post what they liked/disliked about the new warforged. Just adding my 2 cp.
Personally I love the dragon warforged article. It makes the warforged an awesome but not overpowered race. IMO it works SO much better than the 3.5 race ever did. I'm hoping that nothing changes from this warforged to the Eberron warforged, other than some extra's added on (extra feats, equipment, paragons ect.).
You must have missed two weapon fighting, two weapon defense and two weapon flurry. Feat chains are alive and well.
Warforged as presented in the MM and Dragon, are a fairly decent race, but they don't resemble Warforged, that's the point of contention I think people are making.
A Warforged isn't supposed to strap on armor unless that's what he specifically chose through feats. A Warforged that's vulnerable to gas and drowning?
I agree some of the elements that are presented like poisons they should be immune to, but only normal poisons that affect non-constructs. I'd like to see an Eberron equipment list that includes poisons specifically for Eberron races. It was touched upon a bit by someone else mentioning rust monster extract, something that's lethal to a Warforged, but the only thing it does to the other characters is takes a bit of the veneer and polish off of the Fighters armor standing right next to him.
I haven't read the Monster Manual yet, so I'm not sure how they handle constructs as a whole, but I think they should be aligned with that in some regards. While playing up the Warforged living aspects as well. And really consider how constructs are bad ***. But also how they have some of the living being frailties.
I think a large part of the Warforged presented in both the MM and Dragon articles, failed to capture the essence of a Warforged in 3.x. The lack of feats and poorly worded racial powers, left a lot to be desired.
It's like watching Superman 2, you're used to watching this guy with these crazy powers and abilities, and then all of a sudden he gets rid of his powers to get married, and has his teeth kicked in by a fat truck driver with five o'clock shadow and a few to many missing teeth.
Or to put it more succinctly, I'm used to eating filet mignon, why am I being served slim jims?
As to the immunities, EVERYTHING lost it's blanket immunities just about. Undead are critable and can be put to sleep. It wasn't that the warforged got it's immunities taken away, they just got rid of most of them throughout the game. This is a GOOD thing. Warforged were just too overpowered for a LA+0 race. They now make a non-munchkin race that I see fitting into the setting much better that they did originally.
You got it right though, watching a warforged WAS a lot like watching superman in action. Now they are 'just' like the rest of the races and balanced. It sucks if you are superman, but the rest of us don't feel like sidekicks anymore. And to use you food analogy, warforged were eating filet mignon, while the rest had trail rations. Now they have to eat the same food we all do.
Now I would LOVE to see racial feats for all the MM races, warforged included. As long as I never see an armor feat for them again, I'll be happy.
It's been said multiple times that the armor warforged were made with were alloys, not pure mithral or adamantite. Otherwise it would be alot more costly to create an adamantite-bodied 'forged.
Warforged were overpowered if the GM ran a game that always catered to their strengths and never took advantage of their weaknesses.
Warforged were different in 3rd, and they still are in 4th. They're just different in an alternate way.
elec, I think its harsh to say that body feats "were poorly thought out and just didn't work out well."
It's been said multiple times that the armor warforged were made with were alloys, not pure mithral or adamantite. Otherwise it would be alot more costly to create an adamantite-bodied 'forged.
Warforged were overpowered if the GM ran a game that always catered to their strengths and never took advantage of their weaknesses.
Warforged were different in 3rd, and they still are in 4th. They're just different in an alternate way.
That is in fact not true. By RAW they are made out of those materials. The only time alloys were ever talked about was AFTER people started asking why they couldn't recycle warforged. If you look at the FAQ it states that it isn't a good idea to let PC's get materials from a warforged NOT that it can't be done. I had a LONG talk with Keith on these boards when Eberron came out over this issue.
In Keith's world, as a houserule you couldn't reforge special materials so it wasn't a problem. That rule was never brought over the official setting. Even if they were alloys they'd still be poorly thought out feats. Either the name was wrong or they were walking treasure. Plus the fact that it also gave 1st level characters HUGE AC boosts and DR just didn't work either.
No, Warforged were always overpowered. Sure they had some weaknesses, but their strengths dwarfed those. There healing wasn't much of one. In fact it could be a benefit, letting wizards heal themselves with spells or tools.
The difference I see is that they are a balanced and still a good and interesting race now instead of being an overpowered munchkin race like before.
That is in fact not true. By RAW they are made out of those materials. The only time alloys were ever talked about was AFTER people started asking why they couldn't recycle warforged. If you look at the FAQ it states that it isn't a good idea to let PC's get materials from a warforged NOT that it can't be done. I had a LONG talk with Keith on these boards when Eberron came out over this issue.
In Keith's world, as a houserule you couldn't reforge special materials so it wasn't a problem. That rule was never brought over the official setting. Even if they were alloys they'd still be poorly thought out feats. Either the name was wrong or they were walking treasure. Plus the fact that it also gave 1st level characters HUGE AC boosts and DR just didn't work either.
No, Warforged were always overpowered. Sure they had some weaknesses, but their strengths dwarfed those. There healing wasn't much of one. In fact it could be a benefit, letting wizards heal themselves with spells or tools.
The difference I see is that they are a balanced and still a good and interesting race now instead of being an overpowered munchkin race like before.
I disagree about being balanced. I wouldn't call them an overpowered munchkin race either.
Purely in the context of Roleplaying, if you never slept in the stables as a warforged, or denied entrance in to shops, and stores, and never got denied critical information, your DM is doing it wrong.
You've covered the healing issue, Sure a Warforged Wizard has a benefit, but what about the Fighter or Rogue? Rogue with that penalty to CHA couldn't weild a wand as efficient as the next guy, and really, it's already considered a dumpstat even for some types of rogues.
I'll agree that the immunities were a little over the top in some regards. I can deal with them losing those flat out.
The Armor feats are part of what set the forged apart. Sure it started out nice, but it also cost a feat so you're character was already down a feat, and two racial abilities at character creation, and to get it any better, you'd have to invest heavily in what would normally be character development, it is as much a part of a Warforged character as another characters limbs. By the time you hit mid level, it lost a lot of it's appeal and benefit. The only other benefit were docents, which in my campaigns, were incredibly rare. Can't say what yours were.
And everything I've heard about the materials that went in to a Warforged, they were directly linked to their life force, and if they lost their life, they degrade over time in to unusable components. I can't remember where I read that, it may have just been house ruled in.
I just think from what we've seen in Warforged presented so far, hasn't impressed. All it would take though is a bit more of a refined crunch and clearer wording of their powers. That's what I'm counting on the ECS 4th edition to do.
As we covered healing wasn't really a minus for them, so having it gone isn't an issue for me.
Were we differ was the body feats. They got insane. A warforged druid keeps their feats while wildshaped. Ironwood body gives you +3 AC and a DR in ANIMAL form! Spiked body gives your ANIMAL form armor spikes so you can make all of your normal BAB attacks using them as a weapon THEN attack with the animals natural attacks at a -2 (or -0 with an additional feat)! Improved damage reduction can keep boosting your DR as often as you have a feat. As I said, poorly thought out.
Were we differ was the body feats. They got insane. A warforged druid keeps their feats while wildshaped. Ironwood body gives you +3 AC and a DR in ANIMAL form! Spiked body gives your ANIMAL form armor spikes so you can make all of your normal BAB attacks using them as a weapon THEN attack with the animals natural attacks at a -2 (or -0 with an additional feat)! Improved damage reduction can keep boosting your DR as often as you have a feat. As I said, poorly thought out.
Poorly implemented would be a better word I think.
Better DR was necessary for adamantine body. It starts out at 2/Adamantine where every other suit of full plate adamantine had three. The variables like cold iron inscribed armor and all the rest were what helped set the Warforged apart. Not just in a metagamer sense, but in a character development sense as well. The feats were fairly costly, not so much the case in 4e. But feat chains I see becoming fairly prominent. It's what makes them different from a Dwarf, by being able to have no two Warforged alike it made each experience unique when playing with, or as a Warforged, just like Shifters and Changelings could be enhanced.
I'm opposed to any significant body structure changes, like wings, and fins for swimming, but they are needed to keep the flavor of a Warforged. The components of a Warforged are also some of the benefits of the race. I like the way they're handled in Dragon, with as others have pointed out needing a cost increase. But the body feats, are necessary.
You can now attach magic and NON-magic equipment to your warforged! You can embed retractable weapons and implements, have secret compartments, attach thieves tools, attach a light source to your head! Now a warforged isn't straightjacketed into making a choice at 1st level with a body feat that can't ever be changed.
In 4e, you can switch out feats and powers every level. How would a warforged be able to do that with the old body feats? They wouldn't. There is NOTHING stopping you from playing each warforged differently and unique. (just like you can do the same with EVERY other race) But lets be honest how unique WAS an adamantine body warforged? Not very. In fact they were the average warforged. Now you'll see some REAL uniqueness with the wide variety of non-magic attachments every warforged will truly be unique instead of just seeing yet another adamantine warforged.
Warforged were overpowered if the GM ran a game that always catered to their strengths and never took advantage of their weaknesses.
Since you're still around, figured I'd ask about this. Just what would a WF-appropriate game be like, in terms of challenges (not counting the DM beating the poor player with a "We don't serve their kind!" fluff stick)? Different from the official Eberron modules? And how does a WF-appropriate game work with the rest of the common races?
Sorry, heh. I think you mean an adventure that attacks their weaknesses as well as rebounds off of their strengths?
Since you're still around, figured I'd ask about this. Just what would a WF-appropriate game be like, in terms of challenges (not counting the DM beating the poor player with a "We don't serve their kind!" fluff stick)? Different from the official Eberron modules? And how does a WF-appropriate game work with the rest of the common races?
Honestly, I'd like to know this too. Our group played all the eberron modules and some from dungeon mag. (eberron based ones). We found the warforged overpowered in all of them. The roleplaying minuses were meaningless to balance if the player didn't CARE if he had to stay in the stables (gives him time to fix himself and no one complains about the sound and it's not like he's missing out on a gather info check) or the store (give the money to the bard to haggle a good price).
To be honest we had to do the exact opposite of what igotsmeakabob!! said. We had to tailor adventures to JUST take advantage of the warforged's weaknesses and avoid there strengths exclusively to balance things out. It got silly trying to balance challenge them and not killing everyone else.
My only beefs are as follows: the Dragon article overpowers the warforged per encounter racial ability. I'm going to be sticking with something closer to what is found in the MM. The ability to stop ongoing effects will be relegated to those warforged with the "indomitable" feat. The ability will not both heal AND grant temporary hit points. That seams like it is a little too much.
Also, I am thinking of saying that the warforged has a resistance of 5 to divine healing effects. I like that flavor aspect of warforged, and am sad to have seen it totally disappear.
Also, I am thinking of saying that the warforged has a resistance of 5 to divine healing effects. I like that flavor aspect of warforged, and am sad to have seen it totally disappear.
Undead get normal healing now, so there is nothing like that in the game and it's super deadly to the warforged.
My only beefs are as follows: the Dragon article overpowers the warforged per encounter racial ability. I'm going to be sticking with something closer to what is found in the MM. The ability to stop ongoing effects will be relegated to those warforged with the "indomitable" feat. The ability will not both heal AND grant temporary hit points. That seams like it is a little too much.
I don't know. The saving throw isn't automatically successful (that takes a paragon tier feat), and the regained hit points (and there's not really a lot of those) come into play only if the warforged is bloodied when the power is activated. We'll have to see how it plays out over time, but there's still a lot of guesswork on the player's part as to when to use it, which means many times it won't be able to be used for its full effect.
But I agree with the first part of your post. I think the warforged is shaping up quite well for 4E.
I don't know. The saving throw isn't automatically successful (that takes a paragon tier feat), and the regained hit points (and there's not really a lot of those) come into play only if the warforged is bloodied when the power is activated. We'll have to see how it plays out over time, but there's still a lot of guesswork on the player's part as to when to use it, which means many times it won't be able to be used for its full effect.
But I agree with the first part of your post. I think the warforged is shaping up quite well for 4E.
I'd like a point on this too. The save is only on ongoing damage, not conditions. Not until you get the feat does the save cover those.
I don't see their racial power as any stronger than a dragonborn's attack racial. That one lets a fighter mark 9 (or 25! with the feat) people at a time!
Since you're still around, figured I'd ask about this. Just what would a WF-appropriate game be like, in terms of challenges (not counting the DM beating the poor player with a "We don't serve their kind!" fluff stick)? Different from the official Eberron modules? And how does a WF-appropriate game work with the rest of the common races?
Introduce the LoB. "Kill this human child or die a traitor to your own kind."
Throw in an evil artificer who enjoys tormenting the Warforged as a henchman to the recurring villain.
Bring in Warforged specific traps, or inescapable's with out the other members help. We need to cross this rickety old bridge that spans the chasm. Fighters? Take off your armor and tie your horses here. Warforged? I hope you rented an air ship or at least a scroll of fly.
"Oh what's this shiny on the ground? OH GOD ACID BATHS WITH RUST MONSTERS!"
Or.
"Hey, here's a docent in this chest! Quick put it in and see what it tells us!" "What's that my master? You want me to kill all the elves in the world?" And now when ever he encounters an Elf, has to make a check to see if he draws his weapon on an Elf, and then has to make another check to see if he engages it in combat. And only a powerful ritual can remove it, no matter how hard he tries to pry it from his chest.
Zilargo is now hunting down all Warforged in their lands. Forcing them to register and have an ID number chiseled on their skull and taking ink rubbings of all ghulra when present. Likewise all Artificers need to be registered and all activities given approval by the internal affairs of "The Trust". The gnomes are spooked, and no one knows why.
Create scenarios that dish out damage instead of status effects.
Warforged were capable of being worked with, you just have to make sure they are taken care of.
Warforged were capable of being worked with, you just have to make sure they are taken care of.
I'll be very honest right here: none of those situations strike me as being good to introduce to a game.
From experience, dumping on any specific race like this will annoy the rest of the party and discourage the targeted player, until he either quits or somehow replaces the character with something else. At that point, there'll be an unspoken rule in the group, no PCs of that specific race (though it might actually be spoken out loud if a new player jumps in and shows interest, I've seen it happen).
I don't know. The saving throw isn't automatically successful (that takes a paragon tier feat), and the regained hit points (and there's not really a lot of those) come into play only if the warforged is bloodied when the power is activated. We'll have to see how it plays out over time, but there's still a lot of guesswork on the player's part as to when to use it, which means many times it won't be able to be used for its full effect.
But I agree with the first part of your post. I think the warforged is shaping up quite well for 4E.
There is no guesswork. You wait until you first hit bloodied, and with your next action use the ability. If the ability works as written in the Dragon article, you are suddenly at full hp, and have 1/2 your level hp +3 temporary HP. That means you actually have 1.5 times your normal HP for the rest of the fight. That is hideously overpowered compared to anything any other race can do, especially when you look at the warforged as a complete package. The ability to instantly make a save with that, as well, just puts the power even more over the top. As I said, in my games, I'm pretty sure I am just going to be using the ability as written in the Monster Manual. That, or I will make it heal 1/2 your level in hp, and grant 3 temporary HP... that way it will take the warforged out of the bloodied state and protect him from certain monster special attacks. As for the saving throw, as I said, in my games, that will firmly be the area of the indomitable feat. Perhaps once the Eberron Players Handbook comes out I may change my mind, but right now I believe that that dragon article overpowers the race slightly.
Good point on the reasons why not to impose the healing resistance 5 though. I guess that part of flavor will simply have to be out the window.
Hopefully the artificer will have a healing ability which heals "living constructs" and "constructs" for more than anyone else... that would be another way to get some of that "artificers fix them best" flavor.There is no guesswork. You wait until you first hit bloodied, and with your next action use the ability. If the ability works as written in the Dragon article, you are suddenly at full hp...
Where do you get that? I'm looking at the article right now, and it says that you regain 3 + 1/2 your level in hit points, plus 3 + 1/2 your level in temporary hit points. What's this "full hp" thing? I am totally missing something here?
I'll be very honest right here: none of those situations strike me as being good to introduce to a game.
From experience, dumping on any specific race like this will annoy the rest of the party and discourage the targeted player, until he either quits or somehow replaces the character with something else. At that point, there'll be an unspoken rule in the group, no PCs of that specific race (though it might actually be spoken out loud if a new player jumps in and shows interest, I've seen it happen).
So by introducing ways that make a Warforged seem less like superman and more like a balanced race means they're being picked on? I thought you guys were asking for situations that could fix them? Is introducing a member of the dreaming dark as a villain suddenly picking on the Kalashtar soul knife? Or an Inquisitor of the Silver Flame hunting down your parties shifter picking on them? Or are they adventure hooks, and ideas that make their powers a liability rather then an asset?
Granted some of my examples are a bit extreme. But the point still stands. If it means making the Warforged a part of a group instead of the whole group so be it. It's not to say that a Warforged isn't going to have his moments to shine, but figuring out ways for other characters to feel less like side kicks, and more like superheroes is part of running the game in my opinion.
They're terrified of Rust Monsters. There are spells that affect them that affect no other race.
So you're fighting a couple monsters that can level drain. One of them attacks the 'forged, sees that it doesn't do anything, so it goes and attacks another player.
You fight some xen'drik drow who use poison on their weapons. Hey, oh no, 1/4-1/6 of the party can't be hurt by their poison! But he sure can be hurt by the weapons! Even if he's an adamanite 'forged, he has, what, DR 3/adamantite? Oh no! DR 3! Hey wait, don't barbarians get DR? DR that doesn't even have an /adamantite qualifier?
You're fighting rust monsters, the warforged isn't going to fight in melee.
You planned on luring your PC's into a room to gas them unconcious so that the evil baron could imprison them. All the PC's fall unconcious but the 'forged, but guess what? I bet the baron knows that they have a warforged, so he doesn't send six servants to drag their bodies away, he sends 30 guards. Either the 'forged surrenders or they beat on him until he's inert.
They're in the prison. Can the 'forged chew through the bars? No! Whats the problem? Warforged look alot worse on paper than they are in play.
So by introducing ways that make a Warforged seem less like superman and more like a balanced race means they're being picked on? I thought you guys were asking for situations that could fix them? Is introducing a member of the dreaming dark as a villain suddenly picking on the Kalashtar soul knife? Or an Inquisitor of the Silver Flame hunting down your parties shifter picking on them? Or are they adventure hooks, and ideas that make their powers a liability rather then an asset?
Granted some of my examples are a bit extreme. But the point still stands. If it means making the Warforged a part of a group instead of the whole group so be it. It's not to say that a Warforged isn't going to have his moments to shine, but figuring out ways for other characters to feel less like side kicks, and more like superheroes is part of running the game in my opinion.
LOL I try to challenge all my players, no tailor encounters JUST to get one player. To make a warforged NOT shine you have to do that. You end up with an anti-warforged adventure instead of a normal adventure and the warforged player will notice.
Create scenarios that dish out damage instead of status effects.
Somehow doing this will be bad for someone with build-in adamantine plate? Or do you mean spell damage were everyone gets blown up? More balanced, but you end up killing people that way and that's not real fun.
Zilargo is now hunting down all Warforged in their lands. Forcing them to register and have an ID number chiseled on their skull and taking ink rubbings of all ghulra when present. Likewise all Artificers need to be registered and all activities given approval by the internal affairs of "The Trust". The gnomes are spooked, and no one knows why.
Roleplaying disadvantages do not balance out combat advantages. All this does is make it harder for the whole party, not just the warforged. gratz, you nerfed the party to teach the warforged a leason.
Introduce the LoB. "Kill this human child or die a traitor to your own kind."
Bring in a high level NPC to make you regret your race choice? Seems lame.
Most of your 'solutions' just seem like "lets punish the warforged for picking on overpowered race" instead of fixing the problem. That they were overpowered.
I really never saw the problem with Warforged. So they're immune to poison, disease and level drains. So what? They don't do double the damage every other race does, they don't destroy walls with their eyes, they don't do anything super aside from be immune to a few things.
They're terrified of Rust Monsters. There are spells that affect them that affect no other race.
So you're fighting a couple monsters that can level drain. One of them attacks the 'forged, sees that it doesn't do anything, so it goes and attacks another player.
You fight some xen'drik drow who use poison on their weapons. Hey, oh no, 1/4-1/6 of the party can't be hurt by their poison! But he sure can be hurt by the weapons! Even if he's an adamanite 'forged, he has, what, DR 3/adamantite? Oh no! DR 3! Hey wait, don't barbarians get DR? DR that doesn't even have an /adamantite qualifier?
You're fighting rust monsters, the warforged isn't going to fight in melee.
You planned on luring your PC's into a room to gas them unconscious so that the evil baron could imprison them. All the PC's fall unconscious but the 'forged, but guess what? I bet the baron knows that they have a warforged, so he doesn't send six servants to drag their bodies away, he sends 30 guards. Either the 'forged surrenders or they beat on him until he's inert.
They're in the prison. Can the 'forged chew through the bars? No! Whats the problem? Warforged look alot worse on paper than they are in play.
Well, let's see. They start out with 10,000+gp more equipment, giving them a huge ac and DR. name one other LA +0 race that starts you off with an AC that high or a DR. Now you might say "well it costs a feat". Well, a DR +1 is a feat and a +1 armor is a feat all by themselves. Do the math.
Rustmonsters? One creature has an advantage on them? unless they go to the land of rust monsters, that doesn't seem to be that big of a threat, plus EVERYONE loses out when their metal stuff gets eaten.
And the DR and barbarians? How silly of me to think that a first level character shouldn't have the amount of DR a 10th level barbarian has. My bad.
If DR is so underpowered why does it take a barbarian SO long to get his? And /adamantine? How many time do I give bad guys one of those so they can get +3000gp more when they defeat them and get the weapon.Where do you get that? I'm looking at the article right now, and it says that you regain 3 + 1/2 your level in hit points, plus 3 + 1/2 your level in temporary hit points. What's this "full hp" thing? I am totally missing something here?
I just realized I totally misread the power. I thought it read 3 + 1/2 your hit points, not your level. Thus, its a lot less "broken" then I thought it was. I have to say though, I'm still a little bothered by the fact that the dragon article beefed the base race up by so much more then the PC version of the race found in the MM. Perhaps, however, I will allow both the healing and the temporary hit points in light of my misreading...
I just realized I totally misread the power. I thought it read 3 + 1/2 your hit points, not your level. Thus, its a lot less "broken" then I thought it was. I have to say though, I'm still a little bothered by the fact that the dragon article beefed the base race up by so much more then the PC version of the race found in the MM. Perhaps, however, I will allow both the healing and the temporary hit points in light of my misreading...
Ahhhh... That makes sense then.
Yeah 3+1/2 your hp back would be totally overpowered.I think all the MM races will get a buffed and beefed up when they get the full pc treatment. The MM stats are just to tide you over until the real stuff comes out.
I have to say though, I'm still a little bothered by the fact that the dragon article beefed the base race up by so much more then the PC version of the race found in the MM.
That's just it, though - what's in the MM isn't the "PC version" of the race. Check the paragraph at the start of the appendix (emphasis mine):
In general, these traits and powers are provided to help Dungeon Masters create nonplayer characters (NPCs). This information can also be used as guidelines for creating player character (PC) versions of these creatures, whitin reason. Note that these traits and powers are more in line with monster powers than with player character powers.
These certainly suffice for PCs; I have a shifter, a gnome, and a doppelganger among my campaigns. But they aren't SUPPOSED to be the final PC stats, and I'd expect to see more fully developed shifters and changelings/doppelgangers in 4E Eberron (if not sooner).
Is introducing a member of the dreaming dark as a villain suddenly picking on the Kalashtar soul knife? Or an Inquisitor of the Silver Flame hunting down your parties shifter picking on them? Or are they adventure hooks, and ideas that make their powers a liability rather then an asset?
Adventure hooks, like the above, are fine; they affect the entire party, and require a group effort to overcome. Many of the things you listed in the first post go above and beyond simple adventure hooks and venture into "screwing over a specific race" land.
It seems like the answer I'm getting to a warforged-appropriate campaign is to either have it focus on them, smacking them repeatedly with the thorny end of the fluff stick, and constantly sniping the warforged PC to keep the player from thinking he's invincible...
Adventure hooks, like the above, are fine; they affect the entire party, and require a group effort to overcome. Many of the things you listed in the first post go above and beyond simple adventure hooks and venture into "screwing over a specific race" land.
It seems like the answer I'm getting to a warforged-appropriate campaign is to either have it focus on them, smacking them repeatedly with the thorny end of the fluff stick, and constantly sniping the warforged PC to keep the player from thinking he's invincible...
That's how it looked to me. If we populate the land with super-rust monsters that can cast anti-construct spells we can keep those pesky warforged under control!
what happens to a warforged if it contracts a disease? I am all for balance, but I would like the fluff part of the now-gone immunities to be consistent with the warforged concept.
The same thing happens to them as happens to any other PC. It's just like you can put zombies to sleep or crit them and you can't heal them to death. Things work differently now, it's a whole new system.
No, that's not what I am asking. I meant to ask, really, what happens to the warforged. Say, if the disease would make another humanoid cough, does the warforged cough? If its a fever, does w warforged get a fever?
This'll be one of those area that the DM will have to 'gasp' use a little imagination. I came up with "identifiable phenomena" in about a second, and any other DM should be able to do the same. I really don't see a need to them to print how every disease effects them in a fluff way.
LOL I think it's a likely as them making fluff for all the other races on disease. You know, why not break it down in explain just what happened to just gnomes, then what happens to humans, then drow, dragonborn ect.
Its a bit different, since Warforged are living constructs.
This is one of those thing that I wouldn't mind seeing, but I don't think they'll bother with.LOL I try to challenge all my players, no tailor encounters JUST to get one player. To make a warforged NOT shine you have to do that. You end up with an anti-warforged adventure instead of a normal adventure and the warforged player will notice.
Somehow doing this will be bad for someone with build-in adamantine plate? Or do you mean spell damage were everyone gets blown up? More balanced, but you end up killing people that way and that's not real fun.
Roleplaying disadvantages do not balance out combat advantages. All this does is make it harder for the whole party, not just the warforged. gratz, you nerfed the party to teach the warforged a leason.
Bring in a high level NPC to make you regret your race choice? Seems lame.
Most of your 'solutions' just seem like "lets punish the warforged for picking on overpowered race" instead of fixing the problem. That they were overpowered.
Jesus Christ.
Way to take an extreme to the limit. Really, you should be proud of yourselves.
Incorporating these things in campaigns or one shot adventures is completely feasible. And you do have to make Warforged catered encounters because they're not like any other race. It's like running a campaign in the underdark in Forgotten Realms. How many sunlight spell's or flare traps have you set to throw off any pursuing Drow, or make them susceptible to an ambush? If none then you're doing it wrong. How many times has your party died because that Adamantine Golem kept using cloud kill then clobbered each one of your party members to death because you didn't have windrush, or adamantine weapons? How many different types of ways are there to kill an undead monster? How many different types of undead are there that were immune to standard monster tactics? How many of you tried to kill a troll in the game and didn't have access to fire or acid? I mean I could go on and on about special circumstance monsters.
Each of these scenarios require different approaches, and circumstances. If you as a DM are that inflexible when it comes to dealing with your PC's, then no wonder you sucked at running a campaign with a Warforged and whine about them being too powerful.
Who cares if my rep got out that I like to take the big lugs down a peg. If they were as all powerful as you claim them to be wouldn't they need a little humility? So I make the other players who enjoy their characters as much as I enjoy a Warforged. It's called balance. It's no more punishing a Warforged then it is having an Dwarf get stepped on by a giant--"oops, guess you shouldn't have made that Dwarven Ranger". Or a shifter being chased down by a paladin of the silver flame that the party has to deal with from time to time.
Creating RP hooks like the one about Zilargo, and establishing a base of non-cooperation means that player has no where to go get weapons and equipment repaired, he has to hoof it through jungles and dangerous terrain, he can't be seen by anyone, and basically get's to miss out on a lot of the intrigue stuff that things like a changeling brings to the table.
It's not "punishing" a Warforged player, it's called balancing your party to your adventure.
I'll admit that they were a bit too powerful for a ECL 0 race, but they are hardly gods among men.
*shug* And mammals are different than reptiles.
You really believe that Warforged are as different from mammals as mammals are from reptiles? Or as Warforged are from reptiles? There's different, and then there's different. Degrees of difference. Two are flesh. One is wood, metal and stone, even if some of his body might be somewhat similar to the others in appearance.
As I said, it isn't necessary, a GM can always come up with something, but it'd be nice to have some information to lean it on.
Incorporating these things in campaigns or one shot adventures is completely feasible. And you do have to make Warforged catered encounters because they're not like any other race. It's like running a campaign in the underdark in Forgotten Realms. How many sunlight spell's or flare traps have you set to throw off any pursuing Drow, or make them susceptible to an ambush? If none then you're doing it wrong. How many times has your party died because that Adamantine Golem kept using cloud kill then clobbered each one of your party members to death because you didn't have windrush, or adamantine weapons? How many different types of ways are there to kill an undead monster? How many different types of undead are there that were immune to standard monster tactics? How many of you tried to kill a troll in the game and didn't have access to fire or acid? I mean I could go on and on about special circumstance monsters.
Your whole party isn't drow, or undead, or trolls, or "special circumstance monsters", that's the point. Your not making an encounter to challenge the party, your making one to punish the warforged. It's a different thing. If there is 1 drow in the party, how many flare traps have to go off in a normal dungeon before he figures you have it out JUST for him. If there is 1 undead character, how many cure traps before he figures out you are just trying to make him regret his choice of race?
Each of these scenarios require different approaches, and circumstances. If you as a DM are that inflexible when it comes to dealing with your PC's, then no wonder you sucked at running a campaign with a Warforged and whine about them being too powerful.
No it's not inflexibility, it not wanting to railroad players with unrealistic encounters JUST to make them balanced. The campaign shouldn't be a 'get the warforged' campaign and if it is, your players will figure that out and not play. I guess that solves the problem
Who cares if my rep got out that I like to take the big lugs down a peg. If they were as all powerful as you claim them to be wouldn't they need a little humility? So I make the other players who enjoy their characters as much as I enjoy a Warforged. It's called balance. It's no more punishing a Warforged then it is having a Dwarf get stepped on by a giant--"oops, guess you shouldn't have made that Dwarven Ranger". Or a shifter being chased down by a paladin of the silver flame that the party has to deal with from time to time.
LOL BIG difference. You didn't have to shoehorn those in. You HAVE to with any of the ways suggested. The lord of blades JUST thought today would be a good day to cross three countries JUST to make you think you should have played a gnome instead of a warforged? THAT is just the same as a huge creature (they are just SO unique) falling on a medium creature?
Creating RP hooks like the one about Zilargo, and establishing a base of non-cooperation means that player has no where to go get weapons and equipment repaired, he has to hoof it through jungles and dangerous terrain, he can't be seen by anyone, and basically get's to miss out on a lot of the intrigue stuff that things like a changeling brings to the table.
Yeah, THAT punishes the warforged. The guy that doesn't have to stop for basic supplies because he's immune to eating and drinking. What you're doing here is even worse than above. You punish the whole party because they let a warforged into the group. Gratz! That'll teach them!
It's not "punishing" a Warforged player, it's called balancing your party to your adventure.
I'll admit that they were a bit too powerful for a ECL 0 race, but they are hardly gods among men.
No, it most defiantly is punishing the warforged. If all of a sudden every enemy had elf only affecting poison on their weapons, you'd be punishing the elves. If all of a sudden no one talks to the dwarves, you are punishing them. It would be different if you had a plot reason for doing it, but you do not. In your own words it was to balance them, IE punish them for not having a LA.
You really believe that Warforged are as different from mammals as mammals are from reptiles? Or as Warforged are from reptiles? There's different, and then there's different. Degrees of difference. Two are flesh. One is wood, metal and stone, even if some of his body might be somewhat similar to the others in appearance.
As I said, it isn't necessary, a GM can always come up with something, but it'd be nice to have some information to lean it on.
Why should it matter how different mammals are from reptiles? The fact is they are very different when it comes to diseases in real life. It's rare for one to jump between them. The game isn't going to delve that far into minutia fluff. Lets face it, it's been simplified down to the point that lanterns do not even run on lantern oil in 4e.
I'm thinking a general description for diseases will work. The only other option as I said would be to break it down on how the different races react to the disease. Then we'd need one for all the creature types in the book. Fey, living construct, outsider, ect.
Now don't get me wrong, if for some reason they DID make this information I'd read it and find it interesting. I'd just rather they put out official info for mechanical problems first. There are a lot of loophole and ambiguous text that needs done before more fluff gets put out, especially for something we both agree is necessary.
Your whole party isn't drow, or undead, or trolls, or "special circumstance monsters", that's the point. Your not making an encounter to challenge the party, your making one to punish the warforged. It's a different thing. If there is 1 drow in the party, how many flare traps have to go off in a normal dungeon before he figures you have it out JUST for him. If there is 1 undead character, how many cure traps before he figures out you are just trying to make him regret his choice of race?
No it's not inflexibility, it not wanting to railroad players with unrealistic encounters JUST to make them balanced. The campaign shouldn't be a 'get the warforged' campaign and if it is, your players will figure that out and not play. I guess that solves the problem
LOL BIG difference. You didn't have to shoehorn those in. You HAVE to with any of the ways suggested. The lord of blades JUST thought today would be a good day to cross three countries JUST to make you think you should have played a gnome instead of a warforged? THAT is just the same as a huge creature (they are just SO unique) falling on a medium creature?
Yeah, THAT punishes the warforged. The guy that doesn't have to stop for basic supplies because he's immune to eating and drinking. What you're doing here is even worse than above. You punish the whole party because they let a warforged into the group. Gratz! That'll teach them!
No, it most defiantly is punishing the warforged. If all of a sudden every enemy had elf only affecting poison on their weapons, you'd be punishing the elves. If all of a sudden no one talks to the dwarves, you are punishing them. It would be different if you had a plot reason for doing it, but you do not. In your own words it was to balance them, IE punish them for not having a LA.
So other then trying to paint someone in to a corner and failing miserably at it by the way, you've proven you're an inflexible tool who can't DM a Warforged player properly, it's ok, there's no shame, really. But don't sit there and tell me that Warforged are overpowered when I've just given you several scenarios and situations that proves they aren't. When you can't understand the concept that not every situation is going to make the Warforged Clark Kent. But hey, when you're that intentionally stupid, it's understandable. But using situational encounters (I had to bold and italicize it, so you would read that part, since you lack the reading comprehension of a toddler.) that take advantage of a Warforged's weakness means he's going to reconsider his actions and realize I as a DM can kill him easily. So that when my Warforged Wizard player wants to run head first down a hallway and crash through a door with out knowing what's behind it, or any traps along the way, he'll reconsider it.
Let me know when you stop acting like a **** snot and want a discussion.
So other then trying to paint someone in to a corner and failing miserably at it by the way, you've proven you're an inflexible tool who can't DM a Warforged player properly, it's ok, there's no shame, really. But don't sit there and tell me that Warforged are overpowered when I've just given you several scenarios and situations that proves they aren't. When you can't understand the concept that not every situation is going to make the Warforged Clark Kent. But hey, when you're that intentionally stupid, it's understandable. But using situational encounters (I had to bold and italicize it, so you would read that part, since you lack the reading comprehension of a toddler.) that take advantage of a Warforged's weakness means he's going to reconsider his actions and realize I as a DM can kill him easily. So that when my Warforged Wizard player wants to run head first down a hallway and crash through a door with out knowing what's behind it, or any traps along the way, he'll reconsider it.
Let me know when you stop acting like a **** snot and want a discussion.
Let ME know when you have a non-railroading concept. All the ones you've had up to now have been just that. Get the warforged because he played a warforged. I'm not going to throw something into my game that doesn't make the least bit of sense in my game JUST because I have a warforged playing in it.
Anti-warforged traps/encounters make little sense unless you expect only warforged to come into your lair. Why set them up? It makes more sense to set up an anti-humanoid trap or straight damage. The world isn't like the group going after a troll. The whole world didn't prepare ahead of time to get kill the troll. It's set up with everyone in mind.
Anti-warforged traps/encounters make little sense unless you expect only warforged to come into your lair. Why set them up? It makes more sense to set up an anti-humanoid trap or straight damage. The world isn't like the group going after a troll. The whole world didn't prepare ahead of time to get kill the troll. It's set up with everyone in mind.
So tell me, what is the problem with straight damage? Warforged aren't immune to that. They don't recieve four times the hitpoints other races do. They aren't immune to fire, or cold, or acid. They're immune to disease and poison, so what? Giant spikes don't rely on poison to kill, and plenty of dungeons have these. So a 'forged is immune to one in ten traps. How is he superman? He doesn't demolish monsters with a single flick of his three-fingered hand anymore than a dwarf would with his five. He doesn't take a dragon's breath better than any other PC race. You seem to be stuck on the idea that warforged are super, when they are not at all. You just refuse to acknowledge it.
So tell me, what is the problem with straight damage? Warforged aren't immune to that. They don't recieve four times the hitpoints other races do. They aren't immune to fire, or cold, or acid. They're immune to disease and poison, so what? Giant spikes don't rely on poison to kill, and plenty of dungeons have these. So a 'forged is immune to one in ten traps. How is he superman? He doesn't demolish monsters with a single flick of his three-fingered hand anymore than a dwarf would with his five. He doesn't take a dragon's breath better than any other PC race. You seem to be stuck on the idea that warforged are super, when they are not at all. You just refuse to acknowledge it.
Not JUST immune to disease and poison.
Immune to Poison, Sleep, Paralysis, Disease, Nausea, Fatigue, Exhaustion, Sickening, and Energy Drain, Eating Breathing, crits and sneak attacks (25% of time). No problem, lets go straight damage. Lets look at traps. Most physical one need a to hit, so that goes to the warforged's strengths (AC and DR). So we do a spell trap. That's fine if that's the only type of thing I throw at him, but that's only a small fraction of the traps I can use.
You underestimate the number of creatures that do one of the thing that the warforged is immune to. I could throw just normal animals at him, whoopie!
And even if I DID focus on physical damage monsters, all the mage had to do is cast a few stinking clouds and let the warforged beat up the monster while it can't fight back and the warforged is 100% immune. If your players were the least bit smart, the warforged was a superman, I've seen it. I've tried to deal with it, but the only things I could do were railroading and that doesn't sit well with me. I do not think you can say anything that will disprove what I've experience and seen igotsmeakabob!!.
? It seems that we can't agree, so we'll have to leave it at that. No rarity on a forum discussion, heh.
So AC and DR are strengths of all Warforged.
Are AC and DR strengths of all warforged? 95% of them. Pick up any eberron adventure and look at the warforged in it. Mostly adamantine and one or two mithril bodies. I've personally only ever seen one character NOT pick up adamantine body, and that was so he could get the iron wood (with DR) and spikes for his wildshapes! (don't get me started
)and apparently only warforged
Are they ONLY in warforged? At low levels you bet! Once you get past about level 10 the AC and DR do not matter as much, but the immunities start to really shine then.
It seems that we can't agree, so we'll have to leave it at that. No rarity on a forum discussion, heh.
That's fine. You might have had a totally different experience with them. I for one couldn't be happier about the new warforged. It's a unique and interesting race that's balanced now that they have no immunities or body feats.
Oh, theres one thing we can agree on. With the Dragon article, 4th 'forged have become an acceptable PC race.
I hope to see the same treatment for the other MM PC races.I'm sorry, by WF-appropriate you mean...?
Sorry, heh. I think you mean an adventure that attacks their weaknesses as well as rebounds off of their strengths?
Personally I mean to make the setting a logical place where people know there are warforged around and are prepared to fight them if necessary, expecially if they know they are going to fight one soon, so casters will have some anti construct spells ready in some form and assasins have rust monster juice availlable if necessary and so on. Also, adamantine plated warforged, have you noticed the huge penalty to some skills? just put him in a situation where they have to roll a balance check or a climb check or a swim check. Be creative and think,"if I was a BBEG in Eberron and I'd have to fight a bunch of meddling adventurers and their pesky warforged, what would I do?"
Personally I mean to make the setting a logical place where people know there are warforged around and are prepared to fight them if necessary, expecially if they know they are going to fight one soon, so casters will have some anti construct spells ready in some form and assasins have rust monster juice availlable if necessary and so on. Also, adamantine plated warforged, have you noticed the huge penalty to some skills? just put him in a situation where they have to roll a balance check or a climb check or a swim check. Be creative and think,"if I was a BBEG in Eberron and I'd have to fight a bunch of meddling adventurers and their pesky warforged, what would I do?"
Most times it's the characters that are initiating the adventure, not the other way around (at least that's my experience), so it doesn't make sense that people would have anti-warforged attacks ready. They would have anti-intruder spells. While the straight damage spells work fine on the warforged, almost all of your control spells fail. Warworged aren't common enough that an NPC would pick out spell JUST to deal with them. It's not logical. It would be like all the NPC JUST happen to have anti-outsider spells just because I have a half-fiend in the group. Think about it. Not knowing who your foe would be, would you put in a creature specific spell/item JUST in case over one that had a much broader utility? I wouldn't and so my NPC's do not.
Having skill challenges vs physical skills isn't a big help either. Either the wizard is high enough to have a spell to take care of it or he can't pass it either. So I have something that blocks the whole party. If the wizard can get past it so can the warforged so I don't see that as helpful.
Bottom line, the BBEG doesn't KNOW it's the "meddling adventurers and their pesky warforged". He knows it'll be the "meddling adventurers", with no guaranty that one of them is a warforged. (not everyone has a warforged in their eberron group) If it's a recurring villain, then sure he's use those tactics but the rest of the world wouldn't.
In our campaign we have toyed with treating the poison and disease differently. If a WF gets poisoned or diseased none of the stated effects apply. Instead the WF takes a -2 to all rolls until cured for a certain number of rounds (depending on the strength of the poison/disease). That modifier grows to -4 if untreated for an additional set of rounds. If untreated past that it becomes permanent unless removed by some higher level healing spell. From a biological stand point we imagine a certain amount of the magic/alchemistry that sustains the WF has to be allocated to removing this substance that is attacking the living components of the WF. This should be distinguished from a WF eating food or drinking wine (although this is debatable) that don't "attack" the living components of the WF. This idea is a work in progress. I know that it is an affront to the homogenized damage effects that the game-designers envisioned. However, we are trying to strike that delicate balance of having some effect from poison and disease, while respecting the uniqueness of the WF. Please let me know if any of you have tried a mechanic like this, or how it can be improved?
While that might seem fine at starting levels this quickly becomes a benefit for the warforged the higher level the disease is. Look at moon frenzy (lycanthropes) and mummy rot. -2 is getting off WAY easier than the real effects. I'd say keep the mechanical effects the same and change the fluff effects. I'm not sure how you could balance a system like you are thinking without either over/underpowering the warforged somehow unless there was also some kind of modifier from the level of the disease/poison factored in. Seems like a lot of extra work for not much benefit, but if you want to do it good luck.
While that might seem fine at starting levels this quickly becomes a benefit for the warforged the higher level the disease is. Look at moon frenzy (lycanthropes) and mummy rot. -2 is getting off WAY easier than the real effects. I'd say keep the mechanical effects the same and change the fluff effects. I'm not sure how you could balance a system like you are thinking without either over/underpowering the warforged somehow unless there was also some kind of modifier from the level of the disease/poison factored in. Seems like a lot of extra work for not much benefit, but if you want to do it good luck.
There is the danger of over/underpowering the WF, even at the when analyzing the effect of each disease/poison in relation to the WF. I hope, perhaps naively so, that will all be a wash. However, you raise a good point. Perhaps some mechanic should be in place to adjust for level of the poison/disease. A table perhaps showing poison/disease of lvl 1-10 -2, 11-20 -4, etc. One situation we are trying to avoid is the WF lycanthrope or the undead WF, the existence of which have been debated fevorishly on these boards. (This is not meant to be a comment on that discussion, merely a preference in our campaign.)
There is the danger of over/underpowering the WF, even at the when analyzing the effect of each disease/poison in relation to the WF. I hope, perhaps naively so, that will all be a wash. However, you raise a good point. Perhaps some mechanic should be in place to adjust for level of the poison/disease. A table perhaps showing poison/disease of lvl 1-10 -2, 11-20 -4, etc. One situation we are trying to avoid is the WF lycanthrope or the undead WF, the existence of which have been debated fevorishly on these boards. (This is not meant to be a comment on that discussion, merely a preference in our campaign.)
You do not catch lycanthropy in 4e, you are born with it. All moonfrenzy does is mess with your mind. So there is no problem there.
As far as undead WF, what disease/poison makes someone one of those? The only ways I can see a WF becoming undead is the lich transformation ritual, the vampire blood drain ability, killed by a wraith and the dark gift of the undying ritual. None of those are a disease or poison so I'm not sure how changing how poison/disease will stop them from becoming undead.
You do not catch lycanthropy in 4e, you are born with it. All moonfrenzy does is mess with your mind. So there is no problem there.
As far as undead WF, what disease/poison makes someone one of those? The only ways I can see a WF becoming undead is the lich transformation ritual, the vampire blood drain ability, killed by a wraith and the dark gift of the undying ritual. None of those are a disease or poison so I'm not sure how changing how poison/disease will stop them from becoming undead.
Good to know about the lycanthropy. As for the undead . . . I don't know of anything specifically. I was just trying to avoid an off-topic discussion of "can it exist?", so I lumped it into the comment. Sorry for the confusion.
Good to know about the lycanthropy. As for the undead . . . I don't know of anything specifically. I was just trying to avoid an off-topic discussion of "can it exist?", so I lumped it into the comment. Sorry for the confusion.
No problem, I understand. I just wanted to make sure you didn't think a disease/poison caused either. In 4e, I do not see anything stopping a warforged from being undead so you'll have to bring that houserule over to 4e if you don't want that to happen.
Good luck with the disease/poison houserule for warforged. If you can get it balanced right, it'll be a nice option for people that really do not like warforged getting diseases/poisons. You might want to advance a warforged up through the levels and try diseases/poisons close to the level he is to see how the normal effect stacks up to the penalty you suggest.
OLD;
Racial Traits
Average Height: 6'0"–6'6"
Average Weight: 270–300 lb.
Ability Scores: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common
Skill Bonus: +2 Endurance, +2 Intimidate
Construct: You have the construct keyword, so you are considered to be a construct for effects that relate to that keyword.
Living Construct: As a living construct, you have the following traits.
You gain a +2 bonus to saving throws against ongoing damage.
You can us attached components and embed¬ded components made for warforged (see Equipment, page 32).
You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe, but this doesn’t render you immune to any effect.
Rather than sleep, warforged spend 4 hours refraining from any strenuous activity. You need to spend 4 hours in this state to gain the same benefits other races gain from taking a 6-hour extended rest. While resting in this low-exertion state, you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
When reduced to 0 hit points, you are less likely to die. When you make a death saving throw, you can take the better of your die roll or 10. You still die at the normal negative hit point total.
Warforged Mind: You gain a +1 racial bonus to your Will defense.
Warforged Resolve: You can use warforged resolve as an encounter power.
Replace with
Racial Traits
Average Height: 6'0"–6'6"
Average Weight: 270–300 lb.
Ability Scores: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common
Construct: You have the construct keyword, so you are considered to be a construct for effects that relate to that keyword.
Living Construct: As a living construct, you have the following traits.
You have a resistance 3 all.
You can us attached components and embedded components made for warforged (see Equipment, page 32).
You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe or sleep, but this doesn’t render you immune to any Magical effect.
When reduced to 0 hit points, you are less likely to die. When you make a death saving throw, you can take the better of your die roll or 10. You still die at the normal negative hit point total.
Warforged Resolve: You can use warforged resolve as an encounter power.
Warforged body plate is equal to scale armor and can not be removed but can be enchanted.
With these changes it makes the Warforged the supersoliders they where created to be instead of the marginaly better than humans from the article.
You have a resistance 3 all.
WOW That's just super good. That's 3 damage off every attack, that's insane.I would not aply the restances to continuing damage and restance 3 really only makes a big differance a lower levels, at higher levels the enemy damage increases but the restances stay the same. Also the 3 resist is about the same as the DR/2 from Adamamtite body plate. Mostly it gives a feeling of invunrability with out giving any immunities to anything.
3 resist means that the warforged pretty much just walks through low level minions all by themselves with no fear of getting hurt (only 1 damage maybe). So you have to add more (or make them higher level) to make a threat to the warforged, except that the rest of the party takes FULL damage. Any remotely smart minions will avoid the warforged all together (why attack the guy that's immune to your attacks) and just gang up on everyone else. Just seems like a BAD idea to me. You do know 4e tries to balance out every race and class so no one character steals the show right?
I would not aply the restances to continuing damage and restance 3 really only makes a big differance a lower levels.
First, I think the idea of giving them "Resist All" but then saying that it doesn't apply to continuing damage is just odd. So I'm OK with poison the round it hits me, but then I start taking full poison damage on subsequent rounds? It's creating a new form of resist - "First turn only" resist - and that seems needlessly complicated.
Second, I disagree with the idea that it becomes irrelevant at higher levels - and minions are the key reason. At low levels you're all but immune to minions; even in the teens, you're cutting their damage down by half. Minions are intended to play a role in combat; one of the main purposes of a controller is the ability to handle minions, using AoE attacks. Note that there is no "Invulnerability" armor, nor Adamantine armor in 4E; the only way to get Resist All is through daily powers of magic items like the cloak of resistance, and that defense lasts for a single round.
Third, assuming that I DID agree that it becomes irrelevant at high levels, then it's terrible design to give it to them. With the warforged as is, one of the chief complaints is that they are incredibly good at levels 1-4, and then when your dwarf fighter gets a suit of Adamantine plate, the warforged loses a lot of its cool factor. Resist 3 will clearly be extremely powerful at low levels, because it makes you virtually immune to minions. If you believe that it won't be useful at high levels, you're continuing this trend of overpowering them to start and having them become meh further on. Meanwhile, an ability like Elven Accuracy or Fey Step is entirely level independent. It's ALWAYS going to be useful to teleport, to reroll an attack, or to breathe fire. If you think that the ability will be powerful at low levels and useless at high levels, that's a problem with the basic design.