Warforged Barbarian

nute · Jun 20, 2004

Interesting note for Warforged barbarians in Eberron. Warforged are immune to fatigue - does this mean they do not suffer the penalties for coming out of a barbarian rage?

Wormwood · Jun 20, 2004

Correct-a-mundo.

CalrinAlshaw · Jun 20, 2004

Ok, normally to get to exhausted, you need to get fatigued first, does this mean they never get tired at all? They can run/swim etc. indefinately?

Calrin Alshaw

marketingman · Jun 20, 2004

I am sorry I see barbarian has a state of develop,emt brought about by culture and exposure to elements. How can that be infused into an animated object?

Wrforged Barbain I guess it is not rage against the machine but rage with the machine,

Hellcow · Jun 20, 2004

marketingman said:
I am sorry I see barbarian has a state of develop,emt brought about by culture and exposure to elements. How can that be infused into an animated object?

Since a warforged is created with at least one level of skills intact, I see warforged barbarians as being created as skirmisher units. They are tough and fast; I see rage as a sort of built-in overdrive allowing the warforged to shut down its higher consciousness to enhance its physical attributes for a short period. As for illiteracy, well, what do you need literate soldiers for anyway?

In any case, there's a vast cultural difference between a human barbarian and a warforged barbarian. The human derives his skills from culture and experience; the warforged was designed to mimic these skills.

Sejs · Jun 20, 2004

As for illiteracy, well, what do you need literate soldiers for anyway?

Um.. to communicate with command? Send and recieve orders, that sorta thing? Heck, to read a map?

Heh, literate soldiers are a good thing. Particularly the ones that have to operate independant of the bulk of an army.

Hellcow · Jun 20, 2004

Sejs said:
Um.. to communicate with command? Send and recieve orders, that sorta thing? Heck, to read a map?

Yeah, I'll give you that. I was being silly.

Personally, I see most warforged as coming off the forge with two levels, so the skirmisher would probably be a barbarian/ranger or barbarian/fighter... that way you could pick up your literacy by taking the other class as the "base" class. This allows far more military specializations and helps to justify the use of warforged (making them significantly better than 1st-level human warriors), but does raise the question of why your PC warforged starts at 1st-level if most of his counterparts are 2nd. There are certainly ways around this; among other things, as a PC you get action points and the ability to advance in level more quickly than NPCs generally do in Eberron, so you can easily be an experimental model. I'm personally a fan of saying that the 1st-level warforged is recovering from the effects of the war -- "Pierce just hasn't been quite right since the Mourning" -- with the idea that once you reach 2nd level you're back on your feet, but that's an idea many people have trouble with. After all, whoever heard of a construct with post-traumatic stress disorder?

Umbran · Jun 20, 2004

Sejs said:
Heh, literate soldiers are a good thing. Particularly the ones that have to operate independant of the bulk of an army.

Mankind got along with illiterate soldiers for millennia. Written orders and commands are only more papers for the enemy to capture and learn from

mearls · Jun 20, 2004

I'm making up some PCs for the sample adventure that comes with the Eberron book, and the warforged barbarian I created was dredged out of a swamp by scavengers, tossed into a junk pile, re-activated, and stumbled into the forest, where he ended up literally being raised by wolves for a few years. I don't have specific geographical locations for all this to happen (haven't gotten that far in the book yet) but that's the basic concept. He's a feral robot.

I imagine that communities of warforged that spring up in wastelands would develop into barbarians. They might even seize on this as a reaction against the society that created them and forced them into battle. By destroying civilization, they think they can put a permanent end to war.

Also, the reavers from Firefly inspired me to cobble together some notes on malfunctioning, psychopathic warforged barbarian tribes that want to become human by wearing humanoid skin, bone talismans, and other nasty little accessories.

haiiro · Jun 20, 2004

mearls said:
Also, the reavers from Firefly inspired me to cobble together some notes on malfunctioning, psychopathic warforged barbarian tribes that want to become human by wearing humanoid skin, bone talismans, and other nasty little accessories.

It's comments like this that make me picture you as some kind of fiendish idea-generator, fueled by, say, a small sun or other limitless power source. Big levers and globes that go "Bzzzzt" might also be involved.

It's also one of the reasons I tend to buy books with your name on them, so hopefully you won't take that the wrong way.