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

[Destil]

Two things:
A) Total repair (i.e. construct heal): look it up. It's an Artifactor only 6th level infusion, artifactors don't get their 6th level infusions until 14th level. Clerics get heal at 11th. Even at high levels the warforged is a healing sink.

B) Have we forgotten what you get for being a dwarf?
EWP: Dwarf Waraxe
+2 to all saves vs magic
+2 to saves vs poison
Not slowed by heavy armor
+4 vs Trip and Bull Rush
And some other misc things that won't factor into combat.

The warforged are giving up 2 points of Wis (-1 to will saves, net difference of -3 vs the dwarf vs most effects. The main weakness of fighter types). They need to take a feat to get armor at 1st level, while the dwarf can buy or find a suit of adamantine full plate (with better DR to boot, the warforged needs 2 feats to keep up with the loot he can't use).


All in all warforged are pretty balanced vs. dwarves, though as KM has mentioned it's an 'extreme' sort of balance that may not sit well with some players.

Now, if dwarves are balanced is a whole other issue....

 

[FireLance]

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.

Possibly this calls for situational LA, like how Savage Species suggested that races with a swim speed should have LA +1 in aquatic campaigns (IIRC). So, in campaigns where disease, poison, energy drain, and lack of air and food play a more significant role, warforged could be LA +1.

 

[IceFractal]

I still doubt that having situational advantages makes them badly designed. In the afformentioned horror campaign, a Cleric would kick ass, and a Rogue would probably be somewhat useless. And in a jungle campaign, a Druid would be living the good life, while a Wizard would have trouble keeping their spellbook dry, much less finding any sources to scribe from.

This isn't bad design, it's simply that a campaign geared around a particular theme will favor characters who excel in that setting.

 

[shilsen]

What I say doesn't just sound sensible, it *is.*

As this thread indicates, not to everybody it isn't. You were better off with the IMHO qualifiers.

IMNSHO, of course

 

[Wolfwood2]

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.

To be clear, this isn't a problem with level adjustment but with having a playable race with these immunites at all. If they were LA +1, that wouldn't solve any of the problems you say they'll cause.

Those immunities are what makes it worthwhile to have warforged as a race at all, though. Not from a mechanical perspective, but from a "what do they offer that can't already be done with another race" perspective. The whole point of playing a warforged is to play a construct; something fundamentally different from a biological being. A warforged doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, doesn't have so many of the weaknesses of flesh (though they couldn't manage 'no mind affecting' at a LA +0). And that's what ultimately makes them cool enticing to players looking for something different.

Sure you could give them resistance bonuses instead of immunities, but that just results in another bland mush of a race destined for the trashheap of D&D obscurity.

 

[Knight Otu]

I've only played a warforged in a short-lived pbp game so far, so my experience is a bit lacking, but...

I was playing a wizard with the mithral body feat, spells chosen to minimize the impact of arcane spell failure. It was built to eventually become an eldritch knight type character, and I took fighter as the second level. Even before that, it was rather effective. It dropped in the first fight (against another warforged), but held its own against other dangers, including a bout where it had to defend against the party's raging shifter barbarian. I'm not sure if warforged are overpowered as a standard race, or merely powerful, but they definitely are powerful.

 

[I'm A Banana]

To be clear, this isn't a problem with level adjustment but with having a playable race with these immunites at all. If they were LA +1, that wouldn't solve any of the problems you say they'll cause.

Very true, which is why I wouldn't advocate making them LA +1. I'm not a huge fan of LA to begin with, so I'd rather see them broadly balanced at LA 0.

Those immunities are what makes it worthwhile to have warforged as a race at all, though. Not from a mechanical perspective, but from a "what do they offer that can't already be done with another race" perspective. The whole point of playing a warforged is to play a construct; something fundamentally different from a biological being. A warforged doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, doesn't have so many of the weaknesses of flesh (though they couldn't manage 'no mind affecting' at a LA +0). And that's what ultimately makes them cool enticing to players looking for something different.

I'm going from anecdotal evidence here, but it seems the appeal of the warforged has everything to do with their flavor and very little to do with their mechanics. When I hear people tell me why warforged are so cool, I get a lot of roleplaying opportunities, a lot of character descriptions, not much in the way of builds or of simply being different from everyone. People can be different and exotic without being binary.

I would argue that being fundamentally different from a biological being (mechanically) is something that a PC race is unable to do without becoming muddied in the tangles of a game that is designed for living, breathing, mortal characters. It's like suddenly wanting to play a quadruped or an ooze or a vermin...the game isn't well-designed for critters who can't wield weapons, speak langauges, wear armor, or have a soul.

Construct-PC's don't need to be as difficult as the warforged are. The descision to play up their wierd nature in immunity mechanics instead of in flavor text and well-chosen resistances is a poor one because it makes them more limited as a PC race. And as a PC race, they shouldn't be limited...they're the basic building block of a character.

The warforged should be mechanically similar to the mortal beings around them, because if they're not, they become left out of some of the fun and danger of being a mortal being. It'd be like playing Achilles alongside your Achaen grunts. Achilles was fun for the anger and bloody combat, but he couldn't understand a broad swath of what it meant to be human. And since all the players are human, and all stories ultimately share the human element, I don't see what is gained by removing it when you can keep it and still capture the feel of a not-quite-human creature.

I mean, Frankenstein's Monster was a villain (though a very sympathetic one). It'd be like playing *as* Dracula, instead of as those fighting Dracula. And while that could be fun, the game isn't built to accomodate such gameplay, and so it ends up breaking at certain points. With the Warforged, it breaks and falls apart in certain campaign scenarios. That's possibly an acceptable margin of error for most, but it isn't for me.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I'm going from anecdotal evidence here, but it seems the appeal of the warforged has everything to do with their flavor and very little to do with their mechanics. When I hear people tell me why warforged are so cool, I get a lot of roleplaying opportunities, a lot of character descriptions, not much in the way of builds or of simply being different from everyone. People can be different and exotic without being binary.

I would argue that being fundamentally different from a biological being (mechanically) is something that a PC race is unable to do without becoming muddied in the tangles of a game that is designed for living, breathing, mortal characters. It's like suddenly wanting to play a quadruped or an ooze or a vermin...the game isn't well-designed for critters who can't wield weapons, speak langauges, wear armor, or have a soul.

I think it does cause problems, but that the warforged are about as good a job you can do without just making them funny-looking living, breathing mortal creatures. (I think they could have gotten away with dropping the immunity to level drain.)

Yes there could be problems with some campaigns, but it's important to note that the warforged weren't offered as a race for general campaigns. They were introduced as part of the Eberron campaign setting, in a world designed with magic and social structures to take at least some of their eccentricities into account.

I think campaign-specific setting stuff deserves a little more leway not to have to try to accomodate every possible game.

Construct-PC's don't need to be as difficult as the warforged are. The descision to play up their wierd nature in immunity mechanics instead of in flavor text and well-chosen resistances is a poor one because it makes them more limited as a PC race. And as a PC race, they shouldn't be limited...they're the basic building block of a character.

As a non-core PC race? I think it's better to be ambitious and try to find a way to give players a real construct race to play instead of watering it down.

The warforged should be mechanically similar to the mortal beings around them, because if they're not, they become left out of some of the fun and danger of being a mortal being. It'd be like playing Achilles alongside your Achaen grunts. Achilles was fun for the anger and bloody combat, but he couldn't understand a broad swath of what it meant to be human. And since all the players are human, and all stories ultimately share the human element, I don't see what is gained by removing it when you can keep it and still capture the feel of a not-quite-human creature.

I think you're being a little disingenious here by framing it as a problem for the players. "Left out of some of the fun and danger of being a mortal being" indeed. If that's bothering a player, they can just not play a warforged. We've already concluded it's not an issue of relative power levels among players, so it's no skin off somebody else's nose if one player wants to not exterience the broad swathe of humanity or whatever.

Bottom line for me is that immunities have an appeal that mere resistance bonuses to saves can never have.

I mean, Frankenstein's Monster was a villain (though a very sympathetic one). It'd be like playing *as* Dracula, instead of as those fighting Dracula. And while that could be fun, the game isn't built to accomodate such gameplay, and so it ends up breaking at certain points. With the Warforged, it breaks and falls apart in certain campaign scenarios. That's possibly an acceptable margin of error for most, but it isn't for me.

Warforged represent an effort to rewrite the game to accomodate such gameplay. It still causes some problems, but not ones that can't be worked through.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think it does cause problems, but that the warforged are about as good a job you can do without just making them funny-looking living, breathing mortal creatures. (I think they could have gotten away with dropping the immunity to level drain.)

Are elves nigh-immortal wizard-warriors who live aloof in the forest? Or are they just funny-looking humans?

In other words, where this particular versimilitude breaking point is varies greatly, and depends much more on the flavor than on the mechanics.

Yes there could be problems with some campaigns, but it's important to note that the warforged weren't offered as a race for general campaigns. They were introduced as part of the Eberron campaign setting, in a world designed with magic and social structures to take at least some of their eccentricities into account.

Yes, but even there, they have problems. They will loose out on some of the jungle-diving fun of being scared of scorpions in their bedroll while exploring Xen'drik. They will loose out on some of the horror-flick fun of being corrupted by creeping negative energy. Unless Eberron is an inappropriate setting for some things (such as EtCR), the warforged are the only component of the setting that *is* inapprorpiate. And the only reason they are is because of the idiot savant design.

As a non-core PC race? I think it's better to be ambitious and try to find a way to give players a real construct race to play instead of watering it down.

That's okay, but then go whole hog and don't try to pretend it's balanced like the other races. Give them no healing, give them DR, give them construct HD, and give them an LA to match. Or have them take "racial levels." Or 101 options other than giving us a race that's incompatible with a pretty big swath of adventure themes.

Don't give me something that can't breathe and will never die of old age and tell me that I can use it like I do the gnome or the changeling, because the warforged ain't in the same category as anything else out there.

I also don't think that half-healing and a swath of immunities are nessecary or sufficient for evoking the feel of a constructed, unnatural character. Succumbing to things like rust and woodrot, and having some sort of positive-energy source bound for the animating properties (so that they can benefit from healing), and requirng an intake valve are all very construct-things that don't demand the immunities they have (and being subtly different from the way bio-life works would play into gaining their resistances against these forces). This doesn't even mention the feats that add parts and the PrC that turns you into a weapon of destruction, both of which I think are good ideas for the race.

I think you're being a little disingenious here by framing it as a problem for the players. "Left out of some of the fun and danger of being a mortal being" indeed. If that's bothering a player, they can just not play a warforged. We've already concluded it's not an issue of relative power levels among players, so it's no skin off somebody else's nose if one player wants to not exterience the broad swathe of humanity or whatever.

It's a problem for everyone at the table. It's like the classic example of someone who wants to play "Farty McCrablegs the Gnome with the Magical Toupee" in an ostensibly gritty game of survival. Yes, you can turn Farty into a gritty, hard-bitten character, and the rest of the party still has to endure the harsh realities of the world. But Farty (and his player) are out of synch with what the game is *about*. The warforged, because of their idiot savant mechanics, are picture-perfect Farties for horror games or tropical games or nautical games. And these games shouldn't be out of the picture, even in Eberron.

Bottom line for me is that immunities have an appeal that mere resistance bonuses to saves can never have.

Okay, but don't pretend you're equal to the elf sorcerer. Get the immunities you need, be immune to crits, and take your LA, and don't make up rules to gimp yourself because you think your immunties are too powerful. Don't half-arse it.

Warforged represent an effort to rewrite the game to accomodate such gameplay. It still causes some problems, but not ones that can't be worked through.

I don't have time to fix other people's problems for free. There are better ways to spend my time. For instance: pointing out why I think this is a problem, and hoping that enough people are listening to avoid introducing a fire-subtype ooze-person as a PC race.

 

[IanB]

I think the fact that you have to stand around for X days not adventuring every time you want to get your "armor" enchanted is a really annoying drawback, personally. No commissioning something while you go on an adventure, no relying on the homunculous helper to make stuff while you're gone, etc. Depending on the amount of downtime your games allow, it could even be a fatal problem, if other characters are getting upgrades through found equipment and you're still sitting around with your basic +8 armor bonus.