D&D 5E interview with Jeremy Crawford on Eberron: Rising from the Last War

[Charlaquin]

No wonder I somehow blocked the Envoy from memory. Comparing that to the Juggernaut and Scout, why would I ever play any Warforged other than an Envoy?

Well, there’s value in getting a +2 bonus to a primary stat over +1 to a primary and +1 to a secondary. But IMO that’s balanced out by the flexibility of being able to put your two +1s in any two abilities. That alone would probably be decently balanced, but where the juggernaut gets a useless unarmed strike and Powerful Build, and Skirmisher gets +5 foot movement and a useless bonus to travel pace when traveling alone, Envoy gets expertise with a set of tools, a skill proficiency, a tool proficiency, and a language.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think you guys are being a little unkind to Powerful Build. It may be on a number of races, but it's unlikely to be on more than one PC, and it can be pretty dramatic on that one PC, because basically turns them into a humanoid carthorse (assuming high STR), which can be significant, especially in campaigns which lean towards dungeoneering.

The Goliath in the campaign I run very often finds a use for it, even at higher levels.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think you guys are being a little unkind to Powerful Build. It may be on a number of races, but it's unlikely to be on more than one PC, and it can be pretty dramatic on that one PC, because basically turns them into a humanoid carthorse (assuming high STR), which can be significant, especially in campaigns which lean towards dungeoneering.

The Goliath in the campaign I run very often finds a use for it, even at higher levels.

The problem with Powerful Build is that it’s value is highly dependent on the DM. If your DM uses the optional Encumbrance rules, it’s extremely valuable. If they don’t use Encumbrance but do enforce weight maximums, it’s decently useful, about on par with a free bag of holding. If your DM doesn’t bother to track or enforce carry weight, it’s entirely useless.

EDIT: And with a DM like me, who actually enforces container capacity (rare, I know), it’s useless whether they use the Encumbrance rules or not, unless they also allow you to wear multiple backpacks.

 

[Leatherhead]

hich can be significant, especially in campaigns which lean towards dungeoneering.

I guess it might be better in a vacuum like that, also for moving rubble out of the way.

In my games, the adventurers tend to attract "Camp Followers" that handle the porting jobs. Yeah it's risky following them around, but the silver they make is an order of magnitude greater than the copper they would have been stuck with doing dumb labor on a farm or in town.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Trouble finding the source, but on the Eberron Discord somebody mentioned that Warforged would get custom armour attachments in lieu of both normal armour and Integrated Protection. Will see if I can find more info.

EDIT: apparently it's from this Dragon Talk? Haven't watched it to verify though:

Ah thank you.

From what he's saying there and the comments on the Discord, it looks like it just functions very much like 4E's approach, which was that you could buy/find armour that was "Warforged components" (or possibly convert existing armour into such) and then mount it on your Warforged. So basically an attempt to sort of bridge the gap between the 3.5E "Warforged can't wear armour, they are armour!" and well letting Warforged "get loot" like any other PC.

This has the advantage the Warforged will scale to the campaign - rather than being scaled to an imaginary, theoretical campaign - the numbers in WGtE reflected +3 armour eventually being available, but lower numbers would minorly problematic because maybe the Paladin is prancing armour in +3 Full Plate but the Warforged is stuck with what he's got.

The downside is that it's kind of lame and seems a bit silly. I'm sure we'll live with it. I'm not sure the Warforged player will live if they take away his +2 STR though, which I'm somewhat concerned they will.

The problem with Powerful Build is that it’s value is highly dependent on the DM. If your DM uses the optional Encumbrance rules, it’s extremely valuable. If they don’t use Encumbrance but do enforce weight maximums, it’s decently useful, about on par with a free bag of holding. If your DM doesn’t bother to track or enforce carry weight, it’s entirely useless.

Yeah but that can be said of a huge number of racial and class features, so I don't feel like it's entirely legit criticism. I've never met a DM who did not, on occasion, enforce carry weight. With this you can do crazy stuff like carry multiple unconscious/wounded/weak people by yourself.

It's definitely not a top-flight ability unless you're in a game that obsessively tracks weight though.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Str by no means does underperform. Powerful build is indeed useful.
I am not sad to see the integrated armor in this iteration go. I liked the former ability to attach armkr and integrate it into their body. Sounds like the best balanced method.
An auto scaling armor forces the dm to eventually give out +3 armor so the integrated plate armor does not overperform. Any kind of those hardwritten scaling abilities are problematic.
The barbarian is balanced by the fact that dex is rather secondary, the monk is held back by wisdom being secondary.

I hope the envoy with an integrated tool is kept. I love that design.
I hope, that the warforged. Still can chose to use the envoy kit in some way. Even if it is just optional gear.

 

[Salthorae]

That isn't wrong, but that has less to do with the idea of the subraces themselves and more so with the stat restrictions imposed upon them.

The Juggernaut (which is a just your stock dumb bruiser type) is an obvious design for a weapon of war in a world where guns don't exist. Unfortunately, in 5e, STR underperforms, unarmed strikes don't really work unless you are a Monk (and monks don't use STR), and Powerful Build is already on like 5 other races (making it a kind of boring power). In the end they have one good unique combat ability despite being "designed for combat." They could have thrown on some kind of extra weapon damage to help make up the difference.

The Skirmisher, on the other hand, totally outperforms the others in weapon based combat by virtue of having more movement speed and using Dex (which overperforms unless you are using a two-handed melee weapon, and even then it isn't a bad 3rd stat for a Ranger or Barbarian). The third ability of being able to move at normal speed while maintaining stealth for overland travel makes them ideal for weapons. For starters, they should have been small, but even then they would still be relativly high on the totem pole.

Finally, the Envoy just isn't well built for war at all. It does have floating stats, which is more useful for a greater range of classes and subclasses. But other than that, they are all about tool use. Which makes for fun and interesting concept characters, doesn't make for killing machines.

Interesting that we have almost complete opposite views on these subraces.

Could be because I play sneaky/skill type characters even when I'm a spellcaster, so a free Expertise in Thieves' tools (because really what else were you using that ability for?) sounds great to me. You basically are better than a variant human because you get a +2 Con on top of the two +1's and you still get all the construct benefits and you get the prodigy feat with tools that can't be taken or lost.

Yeah but that can be said of a huge number of racial and class features, so I don't feel like it's entirely legit criticism. I've never met a DM who did not, on occasion, enforce carry weight. With this you can do crazy stuff like carry multiple unconscious/wounded/weak people by yourself.

It's definitely not a top-flight ability unless you're in a game that obsessively tracks weight though.

As I pointed out earlier, the Juggernaut is essentially a Mountain Dwarf + it doesn't have to sleep + it has Powerful Build + a 30' move. Sounds great to me.

I don't think Juggernaut is any more or less worthy of being a race/subrace than Goliath or Mountain Dwarf which are it's two main comp's in the racial abilities department.

As for the unarmed strike... they were just keeping it in line with any other race that has natural unarmed strikes for damage purposes. Nothing wrong with that. Unless you're a monk Unarmed striking is not the way to go in combat (by Design as noted by Crawford many times). So that is a nice to have but not critical part of the race.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah but that can be said of a huge number of racial and class features, so I don't feel like it's entirely legit criticism. I've never met a DM who did not, on occasion, enforce carry weight. With this you can do crazy stuff like carry multiple unconscious/wounded/weak people by yourself.

It's definitely not a top-flight ability unless you're in a game that obsessively tracks weight though.

I think you and I are on the same page as far as our evaluation of Powerful Build. It’s a decent ability overall, certainly better than a ribbon, but far from top-notch. I just don’t think it competes with skill proficiency or tool expertise.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think you and I are on the same page as far as our evaluation of Powerful Build. It’s a decent ability overall, certainly better than a ribbon, but far from top-notch. I just don’t think it competes with skill proficiency or tool expertise.

Yeah I mean, I think it's about as good as one skill or tool proficiency in terms of how often it comes up and matters (it's nice that it typically doesn't involve a roll). But Envoys get one of each and a language and expertise in a tool. Which was definitely better.

 

[Salthorae]

Yeah I mean, I think it's about as good as one skill or tool proficiency in terms of how often it comes up and matters (it's nice that it typically doesn't involve a roll). But Envoys get one of each and a language and expertise in a tool. Which was definitely better.

Envoy's get the Prodigy Feat as part of their racial package, which is better than Powerful Build for sure, but not for every character.