Why are Warforged so bad?

Marshall · Apr 10, 2005

So I finally picked up Eberron, thinking that it had some cool ideas in it(Boy was I wrong).
As I'm reading the Warforged, I get to the living construct description...As far as I can tell, these guys are Humanoids that dont eat/sleep/breathe(oh boy :\ ) and are immune to poison(eh), paralysis(what Hold x?) and energy drain(nice when you need it).

For this they have penalty stats, dont heal, only get 1/2 effect from healing magic and are vulnerable to object spells.

Oh yeah, and they come with a suit of Leather of Light Fort that they cant take off...so they get 25% crit reduction but cant wear armors or robes.

OTOT, they get a whole slew of racial feats that are as much penalty as they are bonus...

Adamantine Body is counted as Heavy Armor for movement.
Mithril Body gives the benefits and resrictions of wearing Mithril Chain Mail.
Improved Fortification bumps your Light Fort to 100% but at the cost of Healing magic working at all.

From what I've heard, Races of Eb has even more feats that penalize the WF for taking them, yet their only benefit is to remove a restirction from the race.

Is it me, or are Warforged just a trap to sucker in those that think the Half-Orc doenst have enough flavor?

Crothian · Apr 10, 2005

It's just you. Ya, they have some neat pnealities and interesting bonuses, but it is the best playible construct race I've seen. It is actually one of the better races I've seen come from Wizards in quite a while; much better the the other new races in the setting and those Races of books.

the Jester · Apr 10, 2005

I love the warforged so much that I put them in my homebrew (albeit with a somewhat different backstory- they're brand new, being manufactured for the current big war).

Sammael · Apr 10, 2005

the Jester said:
I love the warforged so much that I put them in my homebrew (albeit with a somewhat different backstory- they're brand new, being manufactured for the current big war).

Ditto for my FR game.

Hodgie · Apr 10, 2005

Going to have to back the other kids. Adamantine Full Plate at 1st level (albeit for a feat) is not a penalty... and really is a gift that keeps on giving for levels to come. Granted I've not seen them played into levels where you could purchase adamantine full plate, but at low levels that proves _very_, if not overly, powerful.

Marshall · Apr 10, 2005

The idea is cool. I get that. What about the mechanics fo the race make them playable to you?

Ankh-Morpork Guard · Apr 10, 2005

the Jester said:
I love the warforged so much that I put them in my homebrew (albeit with a somewhat different backstory- they're brand new, being manufactured for the current big war).

I've got Warforged, Changelings, and Shifters inserted into my homebrew. All great races, and though I'm not a huge fan of Warforged, they're an interesting change of place. Changelings are the best, though.

Mouseferatu · Apr 10, 2005

I'm going to have to bookmark this thread, so I can point it out to people--and I've spoken to several--who feel that the warforged are too powerful.

Rule of Thumb: If a roughly equal number of people complain about X being underpowered and X being overpowered, X is probably pretty well balanced.

Andor · Apr 10, 2005

It's a package deal...

If you were to look at the warforged in a void, then yeah, they're probably not the best race you could pick.

However if you look at them in the context of their setting they look a lot better. There are numerous cool items that only work for them, plot points centered on them. Most importantly there is the artificer class. A warforged backed up by an artificer or a warforged who is himself an artificer could not care less about clerical healing, and has access to a whole bunch of buffing.