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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tzarevitch" data-source="post: 1600940" data-attributes="member: 1792">Modern units DO have very high logisitical needs, medieval tech level units much less so. You are assuming a very 19th-21st century level of logistics. You are really just providing food and water and experts to provide equipment replacement and maintenance. The costs of paying groups of these specialists even for an entire year is not very high compared to the tens of thousands of gold it takes to construct even ONE of the cheapest of golems in the MM, and warforged are in many ways (durability not being one of them) more advanced than anything short of an epic golem. (10,000gp is the material cost to make a flesh golem, the cheapest golem I can find in the MM SRD and the flesh golem is not even intelligent or capable of learning new skills or employing tactics.) Also the fact that according to the book, it is now nearly impossible to make more warforged, implies that the process is not at all easy or cheap. SOMETHING about the process is very difficult to do otherwise more people would do it. I do however agree with your basic argument to a point that warforged do have lower logistical needs. They do still however require specialists (blacksmiths, carpenters etc.) for equipment repairs, and replacement equipment and those are actually the bulk of the logistical costs for an army. The only thing you are saving is food and water. Remember, you are not serving your troops smoked caviar. Cheese, bread, meat jerkey and water in bulk don't cost all that much compared to skilled craftsmen's salaries, replacement iron, wood and stone as well as portable forges, new tools, etc..In fact, the warforged don't save all that much logistically and I argue that what you are saving certainly isn't worth what you are paying.  This is true, however if you are paying 10,000gp to construct each one compared to maybe 10gp per year for regular infantry troops, I argue that that the warforged does not provide a 1000% improvement or even close. Even in the setting, the Kaarnathi skeletons and zombies are better in every way than the warforged and they are cheaper, faster and easier to make. They also are intelligent and subservient AND have all of the undead immunities, making them rather tough opponents. Yes the setting does use industrial magic, but we are not talking Henry Ford's assembly line here. From the descriptions in the book it seemed to require specialists to construct them; House Cannith on one hand and national governments on the other. In over 30 years of production of the modern (intelligent) version only a couple of nations ever fielded an "army" of these and most only had a token number. With populations of about 2 million souls I am assuming that the entire professional army of a kingdom in peacetime is no more than 50,000 (approx 1 in 40 of the population). In wartime it can probably swell to 200,000 by adding in local militias, conscripted toops and peasant levies. This total probably can't be sustained for long as 1 in 10 of the population under arms is going to shred your economy. There is no way that warforged production can match those numbers with the minimal production facilities listed and there is no way they hope to match the cost of human reproduction to a national government (free).  I disagree. If you spent 10,000gp per warforged (assuming base manufacturing cost of a flesh golem as a comparision) and fielded a legion of 1,000 of them that is 10 million gp before you even equip them. That is a huge chunk of a national economy, far more than 1,000 people is worth to a nation which has a population of a couple of million people. Note also that is possible more than all the commoners in the kingdom are paying in taxes for an entire year. No nation can possibly afford to sustain such losses. 1,000 peasant levies or regular infantry however, that is another story. It costs the government nothing to make more. Human nature takes care of that on its own. Assuming rural family sizes of 6-10 children or so and assuming that they have children at about 15-18 or so you can take the loss of 1000 troops without too much problem especially with a base population in the millions. This also doesn't take into account mercenaries from other areas that you can hire in the short term or creatures that you can summon or undead you can raise to significantly supplement your troops, all for far less than a single unit of warforged will probably cost.  In the short term a nation of 2 million couldn't keep loosing 1000 batches of its population on a regular basis, but in the long term that isn't that much. A nasty plague or a drought can wipe out that many by freak accident.You are again assuming a very modern value on human life. This goes hand in hand with modern democracies. The United States for example has historically been very wealthy and has placed a high value on the life of its citizenry to the point where it would spend lavish sums of money on equipment to keep casualties low. World War II was a very good example of this. Part of the reason the US did this is that it had the cash to pay the cost and paying the cash was cheaper politically than explaining to large numbers of voters that their beloved children are dead. A better Eberon analogy would be Tsarist Russia and later the U.S.S.R. where the government is an autocracy of some sort and it was cheaper to loose population than to loose expensive equipment. Polulation grows back after all, and they don't vote. (They CAN rebel however so you don't wan't to loose too many.)  Look at the basic warforged. They are not created with any inherent knowledge. They learn as people do. The difference is that they have no "childhood" per say. I agree with the point about limited logistical needs to a point (see my argument above). Something that probably costs tens of thousands of gp per unit to make and has a relatively low production rate is never expendable except in the direst of need. Certainly not in the large scale. You'll bankrupt yourself long before you win. Tzarevitch</blockquote>

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