Eberron = power creep or just pushing the envelope?

[d4]

Note that Level Adjustment is in addition to HD, because HD count as actual levels. So a 2nd level lizardman fighter has a total ECL of 5: 2 levels of humanoid, 2 levels of fighter and a +1 Level Adjustment.

good point. which would you rather play? a 2nd-level lizardfolk fighter, or a 5th-level warforged fighter? they have the same ECL.

 

[fuindordm]

The thing about the warforged is that their extra powers are all defensive in
nature. I think you can stack a bunch of defensive abilities on a race and
still have it balanced for ECL 0, because whether or not the abilities come into
play is almost entirely up to the DM. Sure, you could get an all-warforged
party going to clear out the disease-ridden swamps of Gorn and capitalizing
on one of their immunities, but in a mixed party all these extras are going to
be handy only once in a while. They don't translate into raw power the way
that the half-orc or hobgoblin +2 to Str does.

(Tangent!)

I'm starting to wonder, actually, what advantages a warforged unit would have
over a human unit in the army.

You never need to feed them, and you don't need to worry about them getting
dysentary. They don't get drunk, drugged, or tired. They can keep fighting all
day if necessary.

But--they get wounded just as easily as a human, need to be repaired by
artificers, and are still subject to almost all the same magic--even fear spells.

I think the main advantage of the basic warforged is independence and mobility.
If you need to get a unit somewhere fast, you can force-march the warforged
all day and all night and they'll be good to go when you get there. You can also
send them off without a supply train, or leave them somewhere for months
just waiting to spring an ambush. That's a pretty cool benefit. It's not that they're
such awesome fighters (I question whether generating an adamantine warforged
is cost-effective compared to an armored knight), but that they can do things that
human units can't.

The more I think about it, the more they sound monkish rather than tankish. And
I never hear anyone complaining about monks being overpowered.

--Ben

 

[Incenjucar]

What I find amusing is that, while the warforged may or may not be balanced in Eberron, they would be seriously unbalancing in Dark Sun -despite- being weaker, since they're immune to half the issues in that world. Of course, everyone would want to rip their armor off...

 

[Robbert Raets]

'Balance is in the hands of the DM'

Player 1: "I'll be a 'Forged Barb!"
Player 2: "And me a 'Forged Artificer!"
Player 3: "Kewl! I'll be a 'heavy metal' Bard. Heh."
Dungeon Master puts on Evil Charm Cloak and Mind Blank Helmet:
"You Homo Sapiens and your Warforged."

 

[d4]

I think the main advantage of the basic warforged is independence and mobility.
If you need to get a unit somewhere fast, you can force-march the warforged
all day and all night and they'll be good to go when you get there. You can also send them off without a supply train, or leave them somewhere for months just waiting to spring an ambush. That's a pretty cool benefit.

they'd make awesome commandoes and scouts. send them deep behind enemy lines and you can leave them there, because the only supply they need is some repair damage wands. just make sure one of your guys is a rogue with UMD or a bard or something, and they're good to go.

 

[Tzarevitch]

A level 1 commoner of an ECL 0 race is CR ½, not CR 1.

I'm not sure the Warforged is really overpowered. Being a construct, it has lots of immunities granted by its very nature. WotC have even been a long way to shaft it, making it a living construct. In effect, inventing a new category of creatures just to remove some construct immunities (mind-affecting effects, critical hits, etc.).

They may be immune to poisons and diseases (which seems normal), but they're vulnerable to, say, corrosion. They should definitely not be immune to rust monsters (and if you see something that says otherwise, don't believe it). In a world with plenty of golems, it would be expected that some people come up with control construct spells that would affect a warforged but not his carbon-based buddies.
And biological diseases could be replaced by artificial diseases to which they would not be immune, but biological people would. Think of computer viruses, an artificial plague designed by saboteurs.

I agree with the overall point you are trying to make, but remember that warforged are NOT true constructs. They actually have very few of the construct benefits and they have a number of unfortunate downsides that constructs don't have making them much weaker than any other construct out there.

Here is a point that no one has mentioned: Watering down the construct ruled for them makes them playable as +0 ECL, but to be honest, the warforged seem so weak that they don't justify the time and expense that must have gone into their creation from a setting point of view.

Allegedly they were created to fight in the Last War. I ask, why bother? Yes they are tireless, yes they don't breathe, but fundamentally they aren't much better than a dwarf or an elf in a fight. Assuming that a warforged cost even as much as a flesh golem to make, the up front investment cost for a legion of these things is astronomical and they are if anything less powerful than a legion of half-orcs which you can get simply by drafting them.

Economics-wise, these things make no sense as listed, as tools of war. They are too weak to justify the expense that had to go into making them. They are no stronger on average than a human (they are however slightly sturdier) and they are even less perceptive. But you have to pay to make them in stead of simply consctipting them for free (minus the cost of food and supplies). You could hire a squad of ogres for far less than what a warforged must cost to make and get so much more fighting capability from them that it is not funny. Other than their low intelligence, undead are cheaper in every way than the warforged and they can be produced in much larger quantities and very quickly.

Basically my point is this: in making the warforged a playable race at +0 ecl, they have created a "race" that is unfit to perform the very tasks (war fighting) for which they were created. To put it better, they are no more fit to fight a war than a human is, yet you are paying to make them. They would have made more sense if WoTC gave them the full set of construct abilities and a +2 ecl or something.

Tzarevitch

 

[apsuman]

I do not own the book of exalted deeds and know practically nothing about ebberon (I currently don't have a game *pout*).

But what abut a Vow of Poverty Warforged character?

VoP character are not allowed to have but one day's food, but warforged do not need any food.

A warforged sorcerer (even if multiclasses) with a vow of proverty. Learn one repair spell and cast it over and over in th all of your spell slots if you have to.


Or am I missing something?

 

[Aaron2]

I'm worried about the pick-your-armor-at-first-level thing being an actual limitation. I'd bet that within the first three supplements there is some nifty magic item, feat, spell, or prestige class that gets around this somehow.


Aaron

 

[Banshee16]

On our last game, I presented my players the warforged "disguised" to my players. They hadn´t heard of it yet, though. When a player died, I offered him the possibility of creating a "Shadow Revenant" (well, I had to think a name quickly! ). I showed him all the benefits and handicaps of playing one. That player was delighted but the rest were a bit pissed off:
-"ECL+0???!! Come on, man, we thought you were a wiser DM"
-"When I die, I´ll be a "Shadow Revenant" too, it´s completely unbalanced but if you say it´s ok...."
Etc,etc..

Even the player who was creating the warforged asked me to consider making some changes to it...

Then I told them that it was really a warforged from the new Eberron CS and our decision was unanimous:

-It was an amateur job, not what you expect from the */sarcasm mode on* top leaders of the D20 industry *sarcasm mode off/*
-If the rest of the book was as poorly balanced it would only prove our theory that most WoTC are only sold because of the layout and the art.

No one bothered about the warforged not being able to heal naturally, not even the munchkin in the group who simply said: "When have we healed naturally? Perhaps one out of fifty times.....? Come on.."

I don't think it's only that they can't heal naturally. They can't be healed by Cure spells either. I *think* that's the limit. Only the repair spell, as they are constructs. That means that clerics can't channel to cast it, and I don't think druids get it at all. I don't have the books here with me though.

I don't know how magic heavy other people's campaigns are, but we don't have that many items...characters have cure potions, but they can often be completely expended after one or two fights.....then the PCs need to rely on spells, and eventually natural healing. It does occur in my games. But I could be an exception.

Banshee

 

[Aaron2]

I don't think it's only that they can't heal naturally. They can't be healed by Cure spells either. I *think* that's the limit. Only the repair spell, as they are constructs. That means that clerics can't channel to cast it, and I don't think druids get it at all. I don't have the books here with me though.

I just realized that the Repair spell isn't in the SRD. Is it in Complete Divine?


Aaron