Eberron = power creep or just pushing the envelope?

[Felon]

Yeah immunity is always good, but other than energy drain and air I'm thinking so what. Really how often is there disease in the game at all, I mean sure occasionally some one might cast contagian but other than that??. And poison while immunity to it is potent its rare enough that I don't care much.

Disease-carrying monsters are easily as common as energy-draining ones. Granted though, the incubation periods typically take too long to set in and are too easy to cure to be meaningful.

Poisonous monsters, OTOH, are pretty darn common, and being poisoned is pretty debilitating.

And immunity to paralysis is pretty major too. A paralyzing effect sets you up for a coup de grace, after all. And among other things it means never having to worry about hold person.

 

[Avatar of the North]

PARALYSIS
Some monsters and spells have the supernatural or spell-like ability to paralyze their victims, immobilizing them through magical means. (Paralysis from toxins is discussed in the Poison section below.)
A paralyzed character cannot move, speak, or take any physical action. He is rooted to the spot, frozen and helpless. Not even friends can move his limbs. He may take purely mental actions, such as casting a spell with no components.
A winged creature flying in the air at the time that it becomes paralyzed cannot flap its wings and falls. A swimmer can’t swim and may drown.


Held: Immobile as aresult of a spell or magical enchantment (such as hold person). Held characters are helpless and can't perform any physical action. Such characters continue to breath normall, however, and can take purely mental actions

As you can see Held and paralysis are different conditions. Many mosters while immune to paralysis can very easily be hit with a hold monster

 

[Theseus]

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'm A Banana]

With the ready availability of curing magic and potion, people don't heal naturally really very often at all -- you only rest if the spellcasters need it, not because you're too wounded to continue. A wand of Cure Light Wounds, with 50 CLW's, pretty much alleviates the hit-point need to rest, period.

As for the rest of this:

Yeah immunity is always good, but other than energy drain and air I'm thinking so what. Really how often is there disease in the game at all, I mean sure occasionally some one might cast contagian but other than that??. And poison while immunity to it is potent its rare enough that I don't care much. Fatigue, exaustion, food, drink I could care less. I don't have many PCs working at the coal mines so fatige and exaustion only come up when I throw a maroon at them who is stupid enough to cast those lame spells in 3.5 that cause it. And no eating, on no he saves 5gp a week. Paralysis is potent but elves are immune to the most frequent sort I'm used to seeing which is the ghouls touch and it hasn't broken anything.

No need to breathe on its surface isn't a big deal and probaly isn't but there may be some creative uses with it and underwater dealings that may throw things off. But hey a 3rd level spell lets the whole party breathe underwater so its probaly not a big deal.

Energy drain though is one of the big pains in the butt at all levels past like 5 so immunity to that would be strong, but I'm not so sure its game breaking.

This very strongly depends on the DM and their take on the campaign, and their use of certain enemies. For instance:
1 - in a plot based on a siege, disease could be very obnoxious -- all it takes is one person who doesn't get the Cure Disease spell, and the whole city is crawling with it again. Consider also plots based around dumping grounds, traveling through sewers, etc. While all the rest of the PC's are bedridden with diseases, the warforged calls them all pansies and saves the world on his own; he's the only one who's not hurting from this. Admittedly, your average dwarf doesn't easily succumb to disease either, but having a bonus to a save or an ability score is a world apart from having outright immunity (in addition, disease has gotten a poor rap in general IMHO, so I've ratcheted up the disease problems IMC -- like the Nyambe idea of having diseases with SR)

2 - Poison is pretty huge...there's a lot of monsters with it (especially natural monsters), and a lot of enemies like to use it (especially roguish enemies), and it remains dangerous into the high levels (no one likes seeing their CON drop...). It's a great equalizer, and it remains a potent DM tool to threaten the party....but not so much anymore...a Warforged can't be threatened with poison at all. Again, a dwarf might not have a lot of troubles with poison either, but I'd rather give the Warforged a +x bonus than give them outright immunity anyday.

3 - Fatigue and exhaustion come up frequently IMC, because enemies know that one night of sleep = all your spells back, so if they can stop the PC's from resting, they can stop the PC's from casting spells, and thus can weaken one of their greatest weapons. If you don't get a full night of sleep, you gain fatigue, you gain exhaustion. In addition, the fact that these two conditions *stack* makes them savage for anything without a good Fort save, and dangerous even for them. Sure, Warforged robo-men should not fatigue easily, but they should still fatigue. Think of all the adventures in which the heroes are run ragged by the enemy, breathing down their necks at every turn....with a warforged, that suspense is gone...they can keep it up alllll day.

4 - Food and Drink come into play with the nickel-and-diming of the PC rescources which is very popular, especially at low levels. Though IMHO, this is not a very big deal, either, it's still a power, and it gets more onerous because they included a lot more....for Warforged, it just requires a slight adjustment interminology...food & drink become the energy that they need to power on...it hurts my verisimilitude more than anything....*everything* needs a power source, ne?

5 - Paralysis hurts a DM who likes to handicap their low-Fort-save-PC's. Since I don't know of any mundane effects that cause paralysis, this is pretty much a magic-only region, and I see no reason that they should be immune to paralysis...and it removes another potent 'even-high-levels-are-threatened-by-it' weapon from the enemy's arsenal.

6 - a 3rd level spell is a big deal if every critter does it. Unless you don't think it's a big problem giving gnomes the ability to cast fireball whenever they want? No breath means no suffocation, means no slow death or inhaled poisons or underwater challenges or choking or anything...

7 - Energy drain basically means that any DM who wants to use Undead as the main adversaries is SOL against the Warforged. They can't threaten his most powerful asset like they can threaten everyone else's.

So you see that these are subjective; not everyone has the same campaigns, and it'd be better, I think, if the Warforged were *good* against those threats, but I see no reason to make them completely immune to them....they could traipse through a field of poisonous underwater undead vipers for 100 years and never be worse for the wear.....that just doesn't make *sense* to me.

 

[Berandor]

Keep in mind that Warforged can be healed by Fortification or Cure spells. But they don't heal naturally.

Ever.

That makes the Warforged in the party a natural "cure" sink that will subtract necessary healing resources from the other characters in the party..

Banshee

So its balance is that it makes other characters weaker by having them expend spells out of their normal allotment?

 

[PoisonElf]

I can't see how power balance of a class, race, or even monster, can be judged without having thoroughly understood the whole setting. I am not saying that anyone is bashing anything here, it's just that 'too much power' or 'too little power' is only definable in comparison to surroundings. There is no universal balance.

Take for example good old darksun. It was called munchkinland back then. Well, those incredible for 2e 20s in stats were crucial. And even so, PCs dropped like flies. Because the setting was extremely harsh, powerful adversaries, frequent encounters, unforgiving NPCs.

Eberron may (I have no idea, saying just may) be one of those settings. Perhaps the warforged seem overpowered and will barely be able to survive in a typical campaign.

 

[Knight Otu]

Note, I'm also going by Dragon #318. If someone with the ECS can weigh with info whether some things have changed, that would be good.

effectively always wearing leather armor, effectively with the magical light fortification power

With 5% arcane spell failure. Not much, but it is there. Also, constructs would normally be immune to critical hits. And since it is wearing that armor, it cannot wear other armor or magical robes.

does not heal naturally, but automatically stabilizes, can be healed by both arcanists and divine casters

Except that spells from the healing subschool have only half effect on warforged. And at -1 to -9 hp, they're still helpless and unconcious, and cannot act.

immmune to poison (monk 11th level power)
immmune to paralysis (??)
immmune to disease (monk 5th)
immmune to energy drain (10th level power of undead hunter PrC)
does not eat, breath or sleep; immmune to fatigue, exhuastion (??)
natural attack 1d4

Yep, that is a load of immunities, but still far less than less than normal constructs get. It is not immune to mind-affecting effects, death effects, necromancy effects, non-lethal damage, critical hits, ability damage and ability drain.

Furthermore for a single 1st level feat they also can receive a permenent 16,500 gp item (adamanitine full plate complete with DR2) at no cost.
[I know what my psion warforged's first feat is going to be.]

Along with being considered wearing heavy armor (speed 20), a Max Dex bonus to AC of +1, a -5 armor check penalty and an arcane spell failure of 35%. You're stuck with the armor choice you have to make at first level forever.

while not healing naturally is irritating, natural healing actually appears rarely infrequently in most high magic D&D games. I assume that super-high-magic Eberron that it's even less necessary. Especially since arcane casters and psions can heal Warforged as well.

The highest level friendly cleric is level 18, and is confined to a single temple complex, or something like that. Outside, she is an 11 year old child with the power of a 3rd level cleric.
The only higher level potential ally is a 20th level druid. And he is a tree. Not a treant, a tree.

I'm not saying that they are not powerful. I'm still debating whether they are overpowered or not myself, but these are a few things that have to be kept in mind.

 

[Deadguy]

So you see that these are subjective; not everyone has the same campaigns, and it'd be better, I think, if the Warforged were *good* against those threats, but I see no reason to make them completely immune to them....they could traipse through a field of poisonous underwater undead vipers for 100 years and never be worse for the wear.....that just doesn't make *sense* to me.

They're advanced Golems, for Pete's sake! What else would you expect? Actually, I suspect that over time we'll find a range of 'problems' cropping up which only affect the Warforged - basically to reinject the same problems that they are currently immune to. Specific attacks that 'damage' them to create problems like 'fatigue'. Just a hunch mind - but it's something for the Artificers to play with...

By the way, note that they only heal the full amount from repair spells. From cure type magics they only regain half hit-points. And if they go down the path of the adamantine skin, with its full immunity to criticals, then they lose the power to heal except by repair spells. I think this is going to hurt them in the party - they need specialist magic, and magic that can't just be spontaneously cast by the party cleric. I'd be very scared as the Adamantine-Warforged Fighter in the party, knowing I had to depend on someone else for any healing at all!. As swings-and-roundabouts go, it's a nasty one...

 

[Bagpuss]

I suppose it depends on what the rest of the campaign world is like, if say there was a serious limit on healing magics then not healing naturally would be a major drawback. If these Dragonmarks can umberpowerful, then not getting them is a bigger drawback, etc.

If they are permently attached to heavy full plate armour then they could be in serious trouble if the boat they are on sinks. So what if they don't need to breath, they will still get crushed by the pressure when they sink in the deep ocean.

 

[Gez]

And even if they resist pressure, they can still have to walk by foot for possibly several miles on the bottom of the ocean, facing ixitxachitl, octopus trees, megalodons, and other hostile weirdnesses of the depth, before reaching the coast and being back to the surface. (Can they rust?) All that while their brothers-in-arms believe them lost and continue on their trip to another continent.