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

[Kurotowa]

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.

Like I said, if your group's play style uses a lot of what the warforged are immune to, then they will stand out as problamatic. If your game's spice tends more towards social conflicts for spice instead of poison and disease, then the equation shifts a lot. The groups I play in, we usually have IC forwarning when things like sea trips or vampires are coming, and we grab the right spells and gear so that everyone can handle them. The warforged advantage isn't much. Meanwhile they bring to the table social stigma, questions of identity and purpose, plus a list of mysterious racial plot hooks as long as my arm.

Remathilis has a good point, I think. Warforged are an Eberron race and work best in the pulp adventure style of games that Eberron is best suited for. Throwing them into Ravenloft is probably not a good idea.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Meanwhile they bring to the table social stigma, questions of identity and purpose, plus a list of mysterious racial plot hooks as long as my arm.

They can have that without the idiot savant mechanics, though. Those things are pretty independant of each other. If the warforged recieved full healing and resistances instead of immunities, they could still bring all that to the table.

And, well, half-elves and half-orcs have been bringing those same questions to the game since they were introduced. As have drow-as-PC's.

Remathilis has a good point, I think. Warforged are an Eberron race and work best in the pulp adventure style of games that Eberron is best suited for. Throwing them into Ravenloft is probably not a good idea.

See, I think that's a problem. EtCR is otherwise completely compatible with Eberron, but if you've got a warforged character, it's a problem. This is evidence that the race isn't well-designed, from my perspective -- anything that limits my potential fun for mechanical reasons isn't well-designed.

 

[IceFractal]

I'm not seeing how Warforged make all these challenges "invalid" unless the entire party is Warforged. Starving in the desert? Sure, the Warforged doesn't starve, but getting food is still just as vital unless he wants to be in a party of corpses. Aquatic campaign? Sure, you could go dive into the water ... alone, and then probably get pwned by a shark or whatnot. Poison? Disease? Still means a search for healing, unless the Warforged wants to be a short-lived "army of one".

And if the entire party is Warforged, that opens up a lot of interesting stuff you can throw at them, because they all have the same weaknesses, and you know what those are.

I don't see it as being any different than, say, having an Elf in the party. Sleep-based traps won't work on the party anymore, but nobody whines about Elves. You just pick a challenge that will work.

 

[Cabral]

IceFractal, your post reminds me of old 2000AD (with Starlord!) comics when they ran Hammerstein's War memoirs.

So, if the warforged jumps into the well to pull the lever at the bottom because he doesn't need to breath, how does he get back up? Seeing as he doesn't need to breath, the likelyhood of taking swim ranks is kinda low ...

 

[Henry]

Misstype. I meant "scroll"...


Sorry for my confusion. I was under the impression (from Henry's post) that the warforged cure spells weren't on the wizard's list.

My apologies -- I missed the "WF" in the initial post, and was thinking he was using a wand of cure light wounds. I still believe that the Warforged is good as-is, but can understand the consternation he might cause a DM used to poison, drowning, etc. affecting everyone equally. The WF almost acts like he has a necklace of adaptation -- but the question is, how much does the average adventurer value those kinds of immunity? Not as much as Energy resistance, or damage resistance, or fast healing or regeneration, in my expeirence.

 

[Desdichado]

In our Eberron game, if anything the Warforged player and DM agreed that the 'forged were probably crocked a little too much in the name of balance. So yeah. The exact opposite if your experience there, Gundark.

 

[Vocenoctum]

See, I think that's a problem. EtCR is otherwise completely compatible with Eberron, but if you've got a warforged character, it's a problem. This is evidence that the race isn't well-designed, from my perspective -- anything that limits my potential fun for mechanical reasons isn't well-designed.

Well, for myself I can also immune plenty of circumstances of Core Only parties that were completely unbalanced to run through EtCR also. That's what the DM is for, to determine the suitability of elements in their games. I've used Warforged before, and I've also banned them before. (I didn't allow them in AoW, partly due to not wanting to figure out what effect warforged workers would have in a mining community. I allowed them in a ravenloft game as Soulforged, more like Karrnathi Zombies in being former heroes embodied in living construct forms.)

By the same token, I've allowed and banned lots of the different races, the DM is the decider of what kind of campaign he's running. If I was running a campaign where starvation was a constant threat, I wouldn't allow warforged. If I was running an undead heavy game, I wouldn't worry as much about it, since the undead rarely all attack every PC. A TPK and a TPK-1 are not a big difference for me, especially since I can just overcome the warforged in other ways.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not seeing how Warforged make all these challenges "invalid" unless the entire party is Warforged. Starving in the desert? Sure, the Warforged doesn't starve, but getting food is still just as vital unless he wants to be in a party of corpses. Aquatic campaign? Sure, you could go dive into the water ... alone, and then probably get pwned by a shark or whatnot. Poison? Disease? Still means a search for healing, unless the Warforged wants to be a short-lived "army of one".

The idea is that the whole party -- each individual character -- feels the fear, the horror, the creeping doom, the logistical problems. If one character, if one player, doesn't need to worry about, say, some poisonous spider lurking in his armor in the morning after sleeping in a thick jungle, or a disease getting ahold of him while he explores the dank sewers, he is missing out. Not to mention that, soon after other characters have to deal with that stuff, there's a good chance that the entire party *does* become warforged, simply to gain a better chance of survival.

I don't see it as being any different than, say, having an Elf in the party. Sleep-based traps won't work on the party anymore, but nobody whines about Elves. You just pick a challenge that will work.

Well, I'd rather elves didn't have sleep immunity, either. But it comes up more rarely because it's one narrow immunity instead of several very broad immunities.

By the same token, I've allowed and banned lots of the different races, the DM is the decider of what kind of campaign he's running. If I was running a campaign where starvation was a constant threat, I wouldn't allow warforged. If I was running an undead heavy game, I wouldn't worry as much about it, since the undead rarely all attack every PC. A TPK and a TPK-1 are not a big difference for me, especially since I can just overcome the warforged in other ways.

Well, if warforged weren't designed in such a binary fashion, they'd be able to be in more campaigns, and thus be a better-designed race. The best design for races allows them to be played in as many different kinds of adventures as possible, with certain methods that are successful, since campaigns often consist of many different kinds of adventures that the same party is supposed to run through. Idiot savant design is okay for monsters (though they should still have some deapth), but it's lousy for PC's because of that.

They force an exception to the rule, and that's not cool.

 

[IceFractal]

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.

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.


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.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A few things I noticed about the Warforged and its effect on the game:

- Food. Food is usually only a problem at low levels, and it is always a group problem, not hinging on a single character. If it really becomes a problem, chances are high that you are in some kind of outdoor enviroment, and want a Ranger or Druid with a lot of Survival ranks anyway, who happens to be able to support you, too.

- Poisons. Most the time, poisoned traps are a problem for the Rogue in the group. He scouts, and accidently triggers them - if he actually fails to detect and disable them. Unless the Warforged is also the group Rogue, no real problem.
There are some monsters that deal poison damage, but there aren't that many. Even in this case, the typical person to actually suffer from them are melee fighters, who have a good fortitude save, and thus a fair chance to ignore the effects, too.
At higher levels (read: Once Heroes Feast becomes available), poison is simply a non-issue. The Warforged doesn't need to eat the Feast for the poison immunity, but a single casting will supply all party members anyway, so no difference to the standard group.

- Breathing. There aren't many situations in which breathing becomes a problem. Some of them are related to poisonous gases, and lead us back to the immunity to poison. The main issue is certainly the problem of water.

There are two water scenarios in my experience: Water has a kind of blockade to reach a certain area, and Water as part of a combat encouter. The former is a problem for the whole party, and a single casting of Water Breathing is usually the best way to solve it - which can easily affect the whole party, so the warforged doesn't change the situation much.

Water as part of a combat encounter is another matter. The best solution would be Water Walk, unless you also have to fight underwater. Breathing and swimming are both the problem in this scenario, meaning that the Warforged still needs ranks in swim to be able to contribute effectively in combat, unless his opponents happen to stay at the ground of the water...

- Level Drain and Ability Damage/Drain
These are certainly the most interesting and useful immunities. But mostly because these effects are really nasty and, in my view (that you might not share) very unfair effects. Still, the cheapest way to reduce someones ability scores are Touch of Idiocy and Ray of Enfeeblement, which, if I am not mistaken, cause an enhancement penalty, not ability damage...
Level Drain is certainly a different matter, but Vampires and other drainers can still provide a challenge to the party and the Warforged, because they will try to ignore and evade him in favour of his living (and tasty) companions...

On top of that, Warforged suffer penalties to Wisdom and Charisma. Charisma is certainly not really that important for most 'forged, but Wisdom means a penalty to many effects that the Warforged unfortunately is not immune to, and especially the melee oriented Warforged will suffer even more, as his will saves will never be great...