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

[Mark CMG]

I don't know...they just seem that they are too good. Comments?

Would you feel better off as a dwarf than a warforged? If so . . .

 

[Tarek]

Dungeons and Dragons Online chose to 'nerf' warforged. Turbine gave Warforged characters "resistances" (+4 to saves) instead of "immunities."

As a result, very very few people played warforged. Further, in actual play, Warforged turned out to be less powerful than an equivalent build from another race due to this.

Turbine eventually gave warforged back their immunities, and now Warforged are roughly equal to other races.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't know...they just seem that they are too good. Comments? Has anyone tinkered with the race? The thing is I really like the WF and want to include them in future campaigns. And I don't like the idea of a +1 LA

It's a touchy area of design. To look at it with some nuance, I'm going to say I don't like them, and I don't like them because they are unbalanced and exceptional at LA 0, I believe.

I have very specific meanings for this. The lack of balance applies to the whole Immunities/Healing dichotomy, which is really just two extreme forms of power and nerf. I vastly, vastly, VASTLY prefer my PC races at EL 0 to not be so extreme. In fact, I'd say I love my D&D game to be not so rock-paper-scissors as this. Warforged on the one hand are way too powerful in a good number of situations (poison gas, the sea, rescource-depletion), and on the other are way too weak in a good number of situations (no artificer, wizard, or bard willing to play medic).

This means that they require a lot of special consideration. You have to build at least two characters for every warforged (one warforged, and one warforged-healer), which puts a strain on the party as a whole (that warforged healer can no longer charm or blast with their magic). You have to keep the Warforged in mind in adventures, to avoid poisonous snakes and scorpions, to ensure that there is no tension between rescource and goal, and to avoid suffocation, strangulation, constricting, drowning, or various clouds and gasses of doom. They are the only race at LA 0 that demands this sort of special consideration.

By WotC's own rules from Savage Species, they shouldn't be LA 0. Someone once gave a breakdown of what it would cost any other character to gain a warforged abilities in GP, and it came out VERY pricy.

Now, being unbalanced and exceptional are not always going to be game-breakers, and there's a lot of campaigns where the lack of balance and the exceptional needs will be addressed without a second thought.

I would infinately prefer warforged to gain full healing, and to have resistances instead of immunities. This would destroy the exception and make the balance less extreme, both of which I feel are admirable goals for the design of an EL 0 PC race, because an EL 0 PC race should be adaptable, general, and very similar to other, existing PC races. I would much rather have a race that allows the character to be thrown in with an existing party without having to consider their special needs.

Warforged are the autistic kids of the EL 0 races. They're the idiot savants. And this makes them difficult to deal with. And thus, IMHO, they are rather poorly designed on an extreme edge rather than comfortably situated like an EL 0 PC race should be.

A comparison would be allowing the (fire) subtype at EL 0. The balance is extreme because cold is twice as deadly while fire is not deadly at all. They could jump into a volcano's caldera and emerge from a lava flow a few days later without problems, but the moment they tred on a mountain peak, they'd be nearly worthless. This would, IMHO, be poor design for a creature intedned as a PC race.

Though, like the (fire) subtype, I have no real issue with warforged as a CR 1 monster.

Level Drain? Again, unless your campaign features a lot of undead, the cleric or the druid is going to use a second level spell to end that problem. Whoopee. So the PC's suffer a couple of penalties - how often have you ever seen a PC killed by level drain?

I would never, ever allow a warforged character in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and I'd seriously consider banning them from any horror game or game with a signifigant horror undertone (including a lot of what people consider "dark" fantasy). I would also remove them from classic Tolkeinish settings, or real-myth style settings. I probably wouldn't allow one in a maritime or aquatic campaign, either, including polynesian, carribean, piratical or age-of-exploration style campaigns. I probably wouldn't include them in most tropical or jungle campaigns, where disease and poisonous beasts are half the fun. I wouldn't let them tramp down into Nyambe, and I'd even worry putting them in Xen'drik.

They would be the only land-walking EL 0 creature that I know of that I would consider doing all that with. The fact that they are so exceptional is not good design, IMHO.

There's a significant number of campaigns where the warforged are useless.

 

[Victim]

And for the record, I don't think warforged are too strong. What the are is differently strong. They have immunities and abilities outside those normally seen, and if thrown into a standard adventure they can do some unexpected things. This is only a problem if the DM doesn't put the same consideration into planning for the warforged abilities as he would the Wizard's spell list of the Fighter's feats. The Fighter has Great Cleave? Don't expect that minion mob to last long. The Wizard is packing Suggestion? Watch for her to try and recruit one of the enemy lieutenants. The warforged is immune to energy drain? Then grappling the vampire while the party takes free shots should be planned for.

Isn't something that forces significant changes powerful by definition? The fact that warforged require so much special consideration IS the problem. It's not like there is no room for immunities to poison and such in DnD, just look at Hero's Feast, Deathward, etc. Other methods of getting those sorts of immunities aren't so permanment or cheap. In many ways the warforged's abilities are very dispropotionate. And in a game that bases so many things on level, disproprotionate things are some of the most problematic.

If you gave a race a +2 to all of its stats, it would still be better than normal, but it wouldn't require fundamental changes in the adventure design, just slightly tougher foes.

I'd also add that immunity to negative levels is far bigger than resisting the special attacks of a few monsters. Enervation and its kin are often staple attack spells because they ignore saves, evasion, mettle, resistances, etc.

And the warforged healer can easily charm or blast with magic. Artificers are very powerful and versatile.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

Honestly, I've GM'd a game with a Warforged, and played in another where another player PC'd one. I didn't really notice that they were that more powerful than the other characters. Mind you, we played low levels both times (< 6 levels), and in neither adventure did Undead feature prominently, but I didn't think Warforged overshadowed anyone. Besides, we had to spend money on wands to heal said warforged, etc, etc, etc.

OTOH, I understand Midget's breakdown of why it's not a ECL 0 race. I wouldn't object to giving them a LA 1, but in practice I haven't seen how they are terribly more powerful than the other races, and thus IMC are still ECL 0.

 

[Kurotowa]

Isn't something that forces significant changes powerful by definition? The fact that warforged require so much special consideration IS the problem. It's not like there is no room for immunities to poison and such in DnD, just look at Hero's Feast, Deathward, etc. Other methods of getting those sorts of immunities aren't so permanment or cheap. In many ways the warforged's abilities are very dispropotionate. And in a game that bases so many things on level, disproprotionate things are some of the most problematic.

As I see it there are two questions. Do the warforged have significant disadvantages to balance their advantages? Are the handful of warforged immunities enough to seriously imbalance the game? In my experience the answers are Yes and No. Warforged are a specialized race with as many unique hinderances as abilities, and I've never been in a campaign where their immunities were more than a minor feature.

Other people may have other experiences. If a DM's style depends heavily on negative conditions, then a warforged might be especially problamatic. Though maybe it's just me, but I see a lot of people talking about how their actual play experience was that warforged weren't unbalanced, and the people on the other side of the debate throwing around a lot of theory.

It reminds me of the huge arguements over the Warlock when it first came out. People were up in arms about how completely broken and overpowered the class was because it never ran out of spells. Until the class got some play time and everyone realised that it was actually on the weak side. With new material that work in a different way it's often hard to judge their effects on paper alone. Warlocks, warforged, and Warblades have all caused a huge stir because they're not just a variation on what came before (ie Scout, kalashtar, Warmage) but do something new that people aren't prepared for. I can't help but think that once the surprise wears off it'll be clear they're really not that big a deal.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

and the people on the other side of the debate throwing around a lot of theory.

Not me! I played one and it was beautiful at LA +1. Immunity to both energy draining and poison saved my bacon (the second was also positive, in that it let me take on three iron golems in a brutal trap room), and I think I avoided a Hold Monster spell too, but my memory on that one is just slightly unclear.

At lower levels, I was a player in a campaign with a warforged artificer. It was overpowered at 1st-level due to incredible physical defenses. (Good thing it wasn't a psion!) The immunities didn't come up much at such low level - Enervation isn't a 1st-level spell, last time I checked. At 7th-level (when everyone else was 8th) it wasn't easy to tell if it was balanced or not because artificers seem unbalanced, but that was our first campaign with artificers in it. (The player was not using the "blastificer" and kept forgetting to use their action points, either, and yet the class still seemed overpowered.) Being immune to ghasts was quite helpful for them.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Do the warforged have significant disadvantages to balance their advantages? Are the handful of warforged immunities enough to seriously imbalance the game? In my experience the answers are Yes and No.

Those aren't the two questions, though. At least, they aren't the two questions I ask.

Yes, the warforged have significant disadvantages to balance their advantages. That's pretty self-evident. The question is really: are idiot savants suuch as this good LA 0 PC race design? And I'd say "no," because it forces the special considerations I've talked about.

Likewise, the question really isn't about the warforged immunities imbalancing the game. It's about the warforged weaknesses and immunities hogging the design spotlight, so to speak. The fact that the wizard/bard/artificer is needed to care for them, that they put a burden on *other* people's rescources while being themselves blissfully free of the common dangers of being a mortal being. The question is: does this idiot savant design make the warforged as a race excluded from some of the basic types of adventures that no other PC race is? And the answer is "Yes."

It reminds me of the huge arguements over the Warlock when it first came out. People were up in arms about how completely broken and overpowered the class was because it never ran out of spells. Until the class got some play time and everyone realised that it was actually on the weak side. With new material that work in a different way it's often hard to judge their effects on paper alone. Warlocks, warforged, and Warblades have all caused a huge stir because they're not just a variation on what came before (ie Scout, kalashtar, Warmage) but do something new that people aren't prepared for. I can't help but think that once the surprise wears off it'll be clear they're really not that big a deal.

Not realy. I had no doubts that the Warlock was balanced, that the Psion is okay, that the Mystic Theurge ain't that great. The Warblade still seems like an obvious choice to play instead of a fighter in any campaign allowing them (though that seems to be part of their intention), though.

With the warforged, it's not a matter of surprise or inability to change or just how it looks -- it's the fundamental ability of the warforged to be inappropriate for a large selection of games that Eberron doesn't otherwise discourage. Like I said above, imagine a warforged tromping around the lands of Barovia in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and you can see why idiot savant design limits itself. Being immune to energy drain and zombie plague and the like will destroy the horrific feel for that character, who must be specially considered.

My argument isn't that they're too POWERFUL for LA +0. It's that they're too unbalanced to be a PC race. However, if they were given full healing and resistances instead of immunities, they'd be well suited.

 

[Remathilis]

Warlocks, warforged, and Warblades have all caused a huge stir because they're not just a variation on what came before (ie Scout, kalashtar, Warmage) but do something new that people aren't prepared for. I can't help but think that once the surprise wears off it'll be clear they're really not that big a deal.

Rule number one: be wary of ANYTHING with "war" in the name of it.

And yes, Warforged are "niche" creatures; I wouldn't use them in anything but Eberron (same with artificers, kalashtar, & shifters) but in Eberron (home to easy low-level magic, action points, etc) they seem to work fine. All their vaunted immunities actually act as a double-edged sword; some people think they are invincible to all traps and get crushed by 4d6 points of stone falling on them.

I'll also say this: they are a bit front loaded. All those immunities aren't so special when the monk is immune to disease, the druid immune to poison, and the cleric has near-constant deathward on. Then the WF still needs to deal with 1/2 healing (or an artificer cohort) to survive.

And as for LA+1 races: do you think they are as powerful as the Goliath, Aasimar, Tiefling, or Duergar Dwarf? If yes, then they could be LA +1. If you'd rather play ANY of those first, I'd say the WF is LA 0

 

[Victim]

Other people may have other experiences. If a DM's style depends heavily on negative conditions, then a warforged might be especially problamatic. Though maybe it's just me, but I see a lot of people talking about how their actual play experience was that warforged weren't unbalanced, and the people on the other side of the debate throwing around a lot of theory.

My dislike of the warforged stems from play experience; I thought they were fine until I ran some games with warforged characters. The ability shrug off pretty much everything except raw damage is both powerful and BORING. Warforged characters can render irrelevant many of the situations and complications that can be used to spice up the game. If it's not damage, it's not a problem.

I don't believe that powerful advantages and disadvantages cancel each other cleanly.