Warforged: MM vs Dragon Magazine

[Dacileva]

...does anyone else want to make a specific Paragon Path for a quad-firing Warforged after reading this? Double Shoulderbows and Double Armbows should be able to give some benefit for the awesome imagery they bring to mind.

At the very least, I want to use one as an NPC or villain, and name him "Barrage".

 

[Vempyre]

At the very least, I want to use one as an NPC or villain, and name him "Barrage".

lol

 

[kitoy]

I really enjoyed this write up and I'm a little sad that there wasn't room for this much detail for all the races in the PHB. There's a whole other thread about how 4E feels like it's missing something. For me, this level of detail; racial feats through epic level, paragon paths, specific racial items and rules; are things that 4E needs to flesh out the bare bones.

If this is what we can expect from Dragon, then it will be well worth it for me. I just want to know when we can expect this level of detail for all the standard races. I'm playing around with high-level character builds and am finding that there aren't enough feats to give them!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It's a very legit point though...

It's pretty bad play on their part to change the rules this early into things. At least wait for the ink to dry on the 4e before putting out pieces of 4.5...

I think you'll find that part of the reason that there won't be a 4.5 is because of the attitude of 4e(reflected by the company stance as well as the people in R&D, and so on). It is much more of an environment of "These are rules for a game. They don't have to be perfect, they have to be good enough. If there are mistakes made or we find problems, we live in the technology age where we can use our website, online tools, the RPGA, and so on to get the changes out to people. And if they don't get the changes and don't go looking for them, it means their game works fine without the changes and they weren't needed."

The version of the Warforged was the version that was good enough for the time they needed to release the MM. This is the version good enough for this article. They might release another book with a different version in the future.

The game designers that I've met have really been the tinkering type. They aren't about creating a ruleset that never changes. They are about adding whatever good ideas come to mind as soon as they do.

 

[Thasmodious]

While I love the writeup, I have to say I am a bit bummed that the first sampling of racial paragon paths we have is with the warforged, in Dragon magazine. Before the elf, dwarf, even dragonborn. I love the idea of making the race a major focus of your character through feats and paragon paths and I want more.

Also, one thing seems a bit confusing. The MM Resolve is quite different from the Dragon version. Yet, the Dragon version would make it owns racial feats obsolete. The power says you gain temp hps, save against ongoing, and, if bloodied, heal a bit. The Immutability feat says it adds to your Resolve power the ability to make an immediate save against an ongoing effect... Something fishy there.

 

[Spatula]

When you take a feat that gives you a racial power it replaces a class power, just like a multiclass feat (for the Warforged at least, I assume it will work the same way for other races)

Ah, right, I was thinking of the stock races only.

Anyway, I like Keith's solution to the problem. Thanks for the blog link, Rechan.

 

[Rechan]

Also, one thing seems a bit confusing. The MM Resolve is quite different from the Dragon version. Yet, the Dragon version would make it owns racial feats obsolete. The power says you gain temp hps, save against ongoing, and, if bloodied, heal a bit. The Immutability feat says it adds to your Resolve power the ability to make an immediate save against an ongoing effect... Something fishy there.

The racial feats we have in the PHB add to the racial ability.

The Hellish Rebuke lets a Tiefling push with their infernal wrath ability. Fiery Rebuke allows the Tief to do 5+1/2 level fire damage in addition to the cha damage for the fierry rebuke. They're add-ons.

Same with the Immutability feat. The regular WF Resolve allows a save vs ongoing damage. But the Immutability allows for another save against ongoing damage or an ongoing status effect.

So let me give you an example. We have a Warforged with the Immutability feat fighting a Primordial naga.

As a minor action, the Primordial Naga uses its Spit Fire attack on a Warforged. He takes ongong 10 damage until save ends. In the same round, it uses its standard action to use Freezing Breath on the warforged. He takes damage and is slowed until save ends.

Our warforged uses his Resolve, uses his free save and ends the fire damage. He then uses his second free save to end the slow effect.

 

[Blackeagle]

Our warforged uses his Resolve, uses his free save and ends the fire damage. He then uses his second free save to end the slow effect.

Yup. If one free save is good, two is better. The interesting thing here is that instead of giving the Warforged a bunch of immunities like they had in third, they've essentially modeled the same thing using these extra saves without making the warforged absolutely immune to any combat effects (avoiding the game balance problems that can come with absolute immunities).

Really, it seems like the Warforged are practically a tutorial on how to design a 4e race (they actually seem a better example than the PHB races). Core abilities that seem to be well balanced, several good racial feats, a couple of nice racial abilities, a couple of paragon paths, and they even throw in some race related items. If you want to make a 4e race, this is the model you should be looking at.

 

[Hussar]

Spend feats, yes; give up something from your class, no, unless I'm forgetting something (entirely possible).

To an extent, yes. I suppose I'm looking for something that is fundamentally different, which warforged (just as an example) were in 3e but now are not. Since I brought up DS, I will throw out thri-kreen as another example. I've been thinking how to portray them as a race in 4e. I do not think that, if DS books get published and if thri-kreen are a playable race therein, that they will really be all that different from any other race, despite being giant bug men with bizarre anatomies. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but what I've seen to date does not fill me with hope. The designers are approaching the issue with a very different perspective than mine.

I think what you'll likely see is that 1st level Thri Kreen are essentially bug men - Guy in a rubber suit. However, at higher levels, when the racial feats kick in a bit more, you'll get more and more specific to the race.

Kinda sorta like how the Savage Species progressions worked, but, this time, based in decent mechanics.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

One thing I wonder about is if WotC has any plans to release a printed “best of compendium” at year end. PDF’s are fine and nice, but if the content, art, and quality stay high I’d want to get some kind of real book to hold and put on the shelf.

yes