D&D General Warforged? How Long Could One Live For?

[Kurotowa]

Theoretically they're immortal. Last session the players encountered a giant pike. This turned into how old are sharks. 450 million years they're older than trees. See where I'm going with this?

I'm not such a fan of watforged and immortal races. They can be killed but what if a group of them decided to try and survive for a really long time?

From an in-universe perspective, we don't know if warforged age or not. The oldest is only like 30 years old. That's still the prime of their life for many humanoids, and early childhood for others. Maybe the wear will accumulate and they'll break down after 100 years. Maybe after 300 years. Or maybe they really can keep going indefinitely, barring injury and with good maintenance. No one really knows, and the only way to find out is to wait.

It's an interesting open question, and I have an unused PC stashed that's a warforged adherent of the Blood of Vol who is very focused on it. Is he basically like the undead martyrs, an immortal with an artificial soul and synthetic blood who has no divinity within and can only be a guide for others? Or did the Creation Forges have secrets beyond what Cannith knew, that they plucked the spark of a true soul and filled his veins with blood as true as any other, and as an ageless Seeker he's better positioned to fulfill the aspirations of his faith than any other? Or is he as mortal as any other, with an uncertain life span that will sneak up on him with no warning?

If the DM wants to make a declarative ruling, that's fine. But in-character no one knows the answer, and that's great story fodder.

 

[Leatherhead]

The organic bits of Warforged are wood. Which Implies they could theoretically live for 5 thousand years (the age of the oldest living non-colony tree is just shy of this). Which is 6 times longer than Elf, and 4 times longer than a Dragon.

 

[MGibster]

Of course, at the end of the day it only matters based on what kind of story you're trying to tell. Warfarged are too young to have a bunch of experiences under their belt like a Highlander and a lifetime spanning centuries is beyond the scope of most D&D campaigns. It could be that warforged start falling apart around the century mark. Use a tool long enough and hard enough and it'll break.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Warforged may potentially be immortal, but that also goes for vampires, liches, elementals and many outsiders. Being immortal isn't all that special in D&D, the hard part is surviving long enough for immortality to be noticable.

 

[Laurefindel]

My personal take is that warforged could potentially live forever given enough maintenance (which in turn requires knowledge and tools, possibly magical ones that warforged do not necessarily possess), but comes a point where they won’t want to. Some will become « attached » to their scarred members, and if they do not want comfort (they certainly don’t need it), they need other incentives to live. This either bring them as troublemakers (seeking new thrills or methods of entertainment) or duty-bound to a specific task/mission.

TL;DR; their body can probably last longer than their will to live, which may or may not outlast their emotional connections to things/people that are comparatively short-lived.

 

[Oofta]

The organic bits of Warforged are wood. Which Implies they could theoretically live for 5 thousand years (the age of the oldest living non-colony tree is just shy of this). Which is 6 times longer than Elf, and 4 times longer than a Dragon.

While a handful of trees live that long, but some species of willow tree is only live 30. In any case, I don't see how it really matters, it's still magically modified wood.

It's just one of those things that we can't really calculate based on the real world.

 

[Blue]

And even if you can repair a warforged indefinitely you run into the Warforged of Theseus problem. If you've replaced every part of the warforged is it even the same warforged?

Not canon at all, but an interesting worldbuilding is that as Warforged replace parts, they lose bits of themselves. Memories get fainter or disappear, emotional growth and maturity may be undone, personality quirks may disappear. As the parts that held them are replaced, the new parts are blank slates for new learning and growth. So that in 150 years you may have a fully functioning warforged, but it definitely isn't the original one, and doesn't have it's memories nor skills.

 

[Tonguez]

Imagine if Sekolah was a Warforged Shark! She could devour the multiverse!!!

I say that the greatest dangers to Warforged immortality are rust and psychological breakdown - even a Warforged's 'brain' is going to be stretched by that much time, AND if its body is being put into stasis then it is subject to seizure and decay

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How about that "alchemical fluid" that saturates their "cord" muscles? I imagine that's slowly used up, dirtied, or otherwise made less-than-usable for exactly the same reason that cars need oil changes, transmission fluid changes, etc. Stuff just wears over time. Given it's an alchemical fluid, perhaps it loses its alchemical potency. Recharging it could be something that only needs to happen every several years, again like transmission fluid, so it's not a major concern most of the time for PCs. But for a group trying to hole up nigh-indefinitely, this could be a key supply issue, whether they have the ability to make more of it.

Ones that can't get access to it would wear out their physical parts faster and eventually lock up or shut down. Whether they're still conscious after that would have a major impact on their net survival. If they essentially go dormant, then they might be fixable by having effectively gone into suspended animation pending "healing" of their parts. If they're awake and alert, they'd almost certainly go mad eventually from being unable to move or communicate.

 

[Staffan]

My headcanon is extrapolated from their 3e ability to essentially automatically stabilize when at negative hp (if they had brought the ability over to 5e, which they didn't, it would be something like "When at 0 hit points, a Warforged does not need to make death saving throws, but they still accumulate failed death saves if they take damage and they are still subject to death from massive damage").

So basically, a badly damaged warforged shuts down, but does not further deteriorate. This could be extrapolated to shutting down for other purposes. So if they're kept somewhere safe, they could probably be on standby for a very long time. If active, they'd be subject to more wear and tear, and also likely to get into accidents or otherwise get destroyed.