Living Eberron - Gauging Interest Level

[Knight Otu]

Well, this game is barely in the planning stages (and I'd like to see the poll numbers increase a bit, anyway), so nothing is really set in stone yet. There are a number of people who would help with the organization, it seems, so I'm not necessarily in charge if it happens.

 

[Knight Otu]

Canon Decision: Should Warforged emerge from the Creation Forges fully trained (but not necessarily as intended*), or should they need to be trained?

*I used this for the background of the warforged wizard/fighter I played in Kajamba Lion's game. It was intended to basically become an eldritch knight, but since that was a new, unknown procedure for House Cannith, the result was "botched" in that it was only a wizard.

 

[Shayuri]

Perhaps a 'newborn' warforged does require training, but there's a method of uploading the information very quickly? I could just see this rack of drawers near the Forge, where tabula rasa warforged get wheeled in with a little label that says, "Fighter," or "Wizard." Some gnome fishes into the drawer, plucks out a little docent thingie, eyes it, tosses it back...get another one and plugs it in. Ten seconds later...the monk Warforged knows kung-fu.

But of course, it only works on 'unprogrammed' warforged. A way to get them combat ready, in a hurry.

Or something.

 

[Bront]

I think they are noted as being impressionable very early, so they need some training, but take to it quickly (within weeks). Languages need to be taught however, (Note, it is intentional that a Warforged does not have any bonus languages. They don't get any for a high intellegence at creation.)

 

[drothgery]

2) Where would the "base" be? Sharn? Stormreach? Possibly two bases, one in Sharn, one in Stormreach? (Base meaning the city/tavern where the adventurers start out. In Living Enworld, it is currently a tavern called the Red Dragon Inn, in the city of Orussus.)

Flamekeep .

More seriously, I've only even looked over at LEW recently (as a consequence of this thread), and then not much, but if there is a "base", it should definitely be in Khorvaire, and within the Five Nations. That's the most developed part of the setting.

4) What about subraces? Disallow all except the "powerful" subraces (drow, svirfneblin, duergar), meaning that they would not exist?

Sounds good to me. If neither the ECS nor Races of Eberron turned the Valenar into Wood Elves, mechanically speaking, I think we can leave it be there.

 

[stonegod]

Re: Warforged: I'm not sure what impact the training would have either way, considering all characters will be starting at least level 1. Am I missing something here?

Re: Races: Are we also considering the goblinoid races (and kobolds)? These "monster" races play an important role in Eberron, and make sense as far as PCs go.

Re: Group places: If we do not have a 'single meeting place' like the Inn in LEW, one could imagine using something like Advertisements in the Korrenberg Chronicles (I think I saw this somewhere in the Players Guide or somesuch).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Since goblinoids are important in Eberron and Warforged are about 500% more powerful than Hobgoblins, we may want to think about making Hobgoblins LA +0 for our Living Eberron world.

 

[Knight Otu]

Re: Warforged: I'm not sure what impact the training would have either way, considering all characters will be starting at least level 1. Am I missing something here?

It's a background thing. If warforged are trained, a background as I posted it* would at least be less likely, or maybe fully impossible. If they emerge fully trained, other potential backgrounds are made impossible.

*I'll repeat the full background in the sblock, maybe that'll make it clearer.
[sblock=Background for Flawed]I am flawed - those were its first thoughts. Strange thoughts to have. As it stepped out of the forge, it saw a few things lying nearby. A book. Taking a closer look, it turned out to be a spellbook. The creature was supposed to be able to use it. As it sat down to study the book, it came to the conclusion that it was capable to use the book as intended.

It looked further, and its eyes rested on another object. A sword. The creature was supposed to be able to use it. But picking it up, the creature could not see itself using it. Flawed. As it registered a training dummy, it decided to test its skill with the sword - and failed miserable. The training dummy was animated, and easily deflected all attacks. Frustrated, the warforged threw away the sword, and tried to destroy it. It was stopped by two Cannith artificers, who had watched the first steps of the warforged.

As it stood there, listening to the discussion of the two artificers, it wondered what would happen to it. It was created for a task that it could not perform. The Last War. Not that it understood why it was called “Last”, while it still happened. Then it noticed that the discussion came to what to do with it, and one of the artificers, Jhaeren d’Cannith, decided to take it with him to Sharn. The warforged had a hard time understanding some things Jhaeren said - when referring to Sharn, he once said that it was a “three-headed extraplanar creature”, and when the warforged corrected him that it was a city, he said it was a “joke”. Whatever a “joke” might be, the warforged did not understand. And it also did not understand what he meant with “If you think you know what you’re doing...” when it decided that its name should be Flawed.

In Sharn, Flawed learned that Jhaeren thought that there was a chance for it to become what it was meant to be, by training in the arts of combat. But no matter how much it tried, Flawed could not use a sword, or a similar weapon. It managed some success with an axe, but nothing significant. Jhaeren still was convinced of Flawed’s potential, but did not have the time to teach it. Hardly one year after coming out of the forge, Jhaeren left Flawed for a longer journey to Cyre - only a few days before the Mourning. Presumably, the artificer died in Cyre.

Ever since, Flawed has attempted to unleash the potential Jhaeren had seen in it, and taking a few jobs when it became necessary. It has yet to find if the potential actually exists.[/sblock]

Re: Races: Are we also considering the goblinoid races (and kobolds)? These "monster" races play an important role in Eberron, and make sense as far as PCs go.

So far I see no reason to exclude them.

 

[Bront]

Since goblinoids are important in Eberron and Warforged are about 500% more powerful than Hobgoblins, we may want to think about making Hobgoblins LA +0 for our Living Eberron world.

I agree on that one. They're about even with Dwarves in my opinion anyway.

And KO, I think that perhaps it's possable to do either way. I have a favorite warforged idea of mine that involves the forged washing up on the shore somewhere and being trained by some excentric gnome artifacer (though it's possable he had training before hand, he doesn't remember). He's an interesting "gnomeforged", and quite entertaining, so I think leaving it open where some are and some aren't may work, or that they are impressionable and trained easily, which is what I feel the books say, works well too.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I agree on that one. They're about even with Dwarves in my opinion anyway.

The hobgoblins are probably barely superior to Dwarves, but they are leagues behind Warforged, who are blatantly more powerful than everything else at low levels (for combat classes of course, not Wizards. Although they are awesome Psions also), particularly with the ridiculous Adamantine Armour feat. It has been admitted that Warforged are overpowered for LA +0, but they are given the lower LA because of their importance to the setting's flavour. I agree with this, and so Warforged are always LA +0 in my Eberron games, but if I even allow them to be ported to other settings, they are LA +1. I think Hobgoblins should be LA +0 in Eberron too because they are also important. Tieflings are inferior to Warforged as well, but they should remain at LA +1 because they aren't really Eberron fixtures