Warforged ECL 0???? Yeah right!!!!

[I'm A Banana]

I'd say that having your companions dropping like flies around you right as you're going to face a threat you thought you were prepared for is pretty horrifying. Unless the party is on antagonistic terms, being immune to something yourself doesn't make it not a factor.

Again, that's extremely subjective to play style and character choice. Which is not good race design, IMHO -- they should be broad and generic and adaptable. And furthermore, it highlights the exceptional status of the warforged -- they have to be horrified in a different way because the tried and true methods of scaring players for 30 years suddenly doesn't work for one character. Not just that it works less -- it purely, completely, and unavoidably *does*not*work.* That's a binary system, that's idiot savant race design, and both of those limit the environments the warforged can be playable in.

Another example: Say you're a Mystic Theurge, and thus have a really good Will save. The party is facing a monster that can grab control of people's minds. Now you are, pragmatically, immune, because your Will save is so much higher than normal. However, if the tank gets controlled, that's very bad for you. I don't think you'll be scoffing off the monster anytime soon.

You're not really pragmatically immune, though. You're not thinking from the player's perspective, where there is quite a vast gulf between immunity and high resistance. In the former case, you risk it every time because you cannot be hurt. In the latter case, you risk it maybe more than usual, because you CAN be hurt, and there's no real way of knowing if that thing can hurt you or not. You can trust your ability, but you can only trust it so far, and you won't know what's too far until it's too late.

The luck factor is pyschologically huge for a player -- if there's even a 5% chance of failure, it's a chance. And that chance is flexible -- a difference in the DC, a difference in the CR of the creature, a difference in the EL of the encounter, possible earlier encounters that weaken your Will saves.....you won't be scoffing at the monster because you know that there is a chance that you'll be just as helpless as the tank. Though you're not so easy to subdue, it is possible, and that possibility creates fear, in a very real psychological way. It might not be a lot, but it's there....immunity destroys that fear.

As for "missing out". This could be true, but, assuming the players know what type of campaign its going to be (which is highly recommended), then they're only going to miss out on stuff they wanted to miss out on. Depending on the type of campaign, any character could miss out - like a berserker in a political-type game, or a social-manuevering bard in a wilderness exploration campaign. If someone decides to play one anyway, then that's the kind of experience they were going for.

But if the warforged had better mechanics, they could be a lot of fun in EtCR, or in a more general horror campaign...the nature of the soul and of humanity is a horror theme at least as old as Frankenstien's Monster and the Werewolf, and the warforged are well-poised to take advantage of this theme....except that their idiot savant design makes them inappropriate as PC's for any campaign involving a lot of undead.

They could also be fun in a jungle campaign. Being icons of industry vs. the green hell of nature is something that can be very close to the heart of any jungle. However, because of the idiot savant design, they're inappropriate as PC's for any campaign involving a lot of poisonous things or diseases.

I'd love to see them in a nautical campaign. Combining pirates and robots would be something of an internet nerd's dream come true. Unfortunately, they're not very appropriate for PC's in a campaign that involves a lot of seafaring because they don't need to fear the abyss below.

As it sits right now, those opportunities for fun role-playing are missed by the RAW because of the lame binary mechanics of the race. I do believe my ONLY reason for disliking the warforged are those lame binary mechanics. It's easy enough to change them, but that doesn't really excuse them from beign designed that way in the first place, and I don't intend to forgive the designers for not doing what we pay them to do.

 

[Nightfall]

*is just glad no one (so far) has wanted to play a warforged in any of his games* But eh, I prefer Iron born if it came down to it.

 

[IceFractal]

But really, is fear the only basis for fun roleplaying? You seem to be saying that they're unsuited for any situation where their immunities would actually be useful. I think they'd work very well in a horror campaign, with a slight reflavoring as a type of "Frankenstein's monster" . I mean, Paladins are immune to fear, specifically, but that doesn't mean they don't work in horror games.

And as a side note - their lack of breathing doesn't make the ocean any less dangerous for them. Note that with their unremovable armor they're going to have a very hard time swimming, and if they sink to the bottom they're basically dead, whether they breath or not (crushing pressure, extreme cold, and deep-sea monsters are a lethal combination).

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think warforged are very good at the small number of things they are really designed for, adequete for a few uses and sub-optimal for a number of things.

One thing that I haven't seen brought up very much is that they don't need to sleep.

It's too bad they don't have any lowlight or darkvision or they'd be great for nightwatch.

For any game that involves doing things other than dungeon crawling and killing people, increasing your daily output %50 or so is of considerable value. If I'm a professor and I need to find some graduate students to assist in my research, you'd better believe I'm hiring any warforged I can find as long as they aren't complete cretins.

I could see disgruntled humans, half orcs and whatnot complaining that warforged fighters are taking their jobs as caravan guards, bodyguards and city watchmen. How can you compete with something that is just about as effective at fighting (if not moreso), probably don't require their employers to put out for equipping them with decent armor, and don't eat and never sleep?

like I mentioned before, I can see them being enslaved into mining work real easy. The social ramifications are a big part of the Warforged, not just in that they are tireless workers that could easily replace 2-3 humans in the same job, but also their general eeriness and "built for war" nature. From a warforged standpoint, it's fun that they're trying to find their path, but it also includes the idea that there will be NO more 'forged made.

You can't get a warforged sentry drunk. You can't wait for them to get sleepy towards the end of their shift. You can't poison their food or water. It's never actually described, but I expect they don't have to go to the bathroom, either. If you had garrison a border crossing or fort, why would you ever hire a human if there were warforged available?

The same goes for undead of course. Karrnathi zombies and skeletons are unsleeping warriors as well, but of course not PC's as written. Same with Karrn undead horses vs the Valenar horses.

 

[Remathilis]

I mean, Paladins are immune to fear, specifically, but that doesn't mean they don't work in horror games.

True, and lets not forget:

Paladins are immune to all Fear Spells and effects at 2nd level, and Disease at 3rd.
Druids are immune to all Poisons at 9th.
Monks are immune to Disease at 5th, Poisons at 11th, and eating, drinking and sleep at 20th.
Elves and Half-Elves are Immune to Sleep spells and effects.

And those are just RAW base classes and races. Would you consider paladins a bad fit for a horror game because they can moon a mummy without fear of its two nastiest attacks? Or that Monks are a poor fit in a jungle setting because after 5th level they don't worry about malaria?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Very ineffectively on a forum. A forum search can search posts by a single user. Searching for Hellcow will give you hundreds of hits, many of which he isn't participating in.

To each their own, but a search for...

Warforged ECL+0 site:enworld.org

brings up this thread as the second item. Works for me.

DS

 

[I'm A Banana]

But really, is fear the only basis for fun roleplaying? You seem to be saying that they're unsuited for any situation where their immunities would actually be useful. I think they'd work very well in a horror campaign, with a slight reflavoring as a type of "Frankenstein's monster" . I mean, Paladins are immune to fear, specifically, but that doesn't mean they don't work in horror games.

In horror-flavored games, fear is a significant component of fun roleplaying. I'm saying they'd be unsuited for any campaign that had a majority of encounters where their immunities would overshadow the other races. Which means for a lot of land-based pulp adventure campaigns, they're pretty okay, since poison, disease, undead, and drowning are only one minor possible part. But when poison, disease, undead, and drowning are a major part, their ability comes into play very often, and thus they become too powerful for the campaign.

First of all, let me say that a lot of people would say that paladin's don't really work well in horror games. Second, let me re-iterate the point that I was specifically referring to the *player's* fear of failure, not the character's. A paladin may never run screaming from combat, but if his player has a furrowed brow and a cold sweat on his palms as the negative levels pile up and he risks succumbing to the very corruption he fights, he's having the fun a horror game promises. A warforged character will not feel that creeping darkness in his soul, despite being an inhuman construct of science gone mad. Frankenstien's Monster was scary because of what science wrought, and because the monster was all too human, just subtly different. Warforged are not subtly different, they're pretty much alien. Which makes them good enemies, but fairly poor protagonists.

And as a side note - their lack of breathing doesn't make the ocean any less dangerous for them. Note that with their unremovable armor they're going to have a very hard time swimming, and if they sink to the bottom they're basically dead, whether they breath or not (crushing pressure, extreme cold, and deep-sea monsters are a lethal combination).

....assuming you are willing to sidetrack the game to deal with a character who cannot drown falling into the water to effectively reach the same end as "you drown," yes, that approach will be fine. I'd rather get on with the game, but to ignore the warforged's ability to live in the water would be pretty unfair. Deep-sea monsters probably wouldn't have a whole lot of interest in the warforged except for setting up residence in their chassis, since they don't have meat to eat.

But this speculation just proves the point about warforged exceptionality. No one wonders what happens to the Shifter who falls into the ocean and fails his Swim checks. He drowns. The exceptional nature of the warforged is something that no other PC race has to deal with, and this makes their immunities and vulnerabilities rather poorly designed, IMHO.

 

[shilsen]

But this speculation just proves the point about warforged exceptionality. No one wonders what happens to the Shifter who falls into the ocean and fails his Swim checks. He drowns. The exceptional nature of the warforged is something that no other PC race has to deal with, and this makes their immunities and vulnerabilities rather poorly designed, IMHO.

A lot of what you say sounds reasonable in theory, but the fact of the matter is that there are lots of DMs like myself with warforged PCs in groups that consistly predominantly of non-warforged, who are being able to have campaigns of very varied tones, themes and types, without the presence of a warforged negatively affecting the game in any way whatsoever. Just one more place where practice beats theory.

 

[I'm A Banana]

A lot of what you say sounds reasonable in theory, but the fact of the matter is that there are lots of DMs like myself with warforged PCs in groups that consistly predominantly of non-warforged, who are being able to have campaigns of very varied tones, themes and types, without the presence of a warforged negatively affecting the game in any way whatsoever. Just one more place where practice beats theory.

In a campaign of varied tones, it's not a huge problem -- there's enough variety to balance things out. But if a campaign uses a tone to develop a theme and a structure, it is a problem. With adventures being designed like storytelling, many campaigns use tone to develop a theme and structure. Check out the rules for disease in Nyambe, or the way the undead plague spreads in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, or how Heroes of Horror develops fear that can peirce the heart of even paladins.

That's what is limiting about them. I can't use them in pretty much any situation because of that. Elves have a less-severe version of the same problem, and I hold it against them, too, but no other race has the number of problems that the Warforged do, and they have that problem purely because of the idiot savant method of design.

What I say doesn't just sound sensible, it *is.* Not everyone is going to have a problem with the warforged, but they can cause significant problems because of their design in a lot of campaigns. Maybe it's only 30% of campaigns, maybe only 10%, but it's a lot more than the elf, and it's still more than the halflings, dwarves, gnomes, half-orcs, half-elves and humans.

 

[Nightfall]

Paladins should be immune to fear. Cause let's face it, a chicken paladin is a silly paladin.