Warforged - I've seen them in play, and they are balanced/too weak/too strong.

[Flyspeck23]

There's a huge thread on warforged being too weak or too strong here.

So here's a poll, taking your in-play experience into account.

It might've been a good idea to ask if you're playing an Eberron game, or if you're using the warforged in your homebrew, because that might make a difference (are the repair spells or the artificer class in, and so on), but there are already too many options in the poll...

 

[Ahrimon]

10+ sessions

I've DM'd Warforged in an Eberron campaign from lvl 3 to 7. I can't say the warforged stood out as anything more than a normal character. In fact the Shifter Ranger is more of a combat machine than the Barb1/F6 Warforged.

I haven't had many encounters focused on poison/disease, but so far they don't stand out from the crowd.

I've been playing a warforged from lvl 3 to 5 for the last 3 games of our newest campaign in the WLD. Disease has come up twice. Water once, but we went around anyway. The biggest impact was when we went up against a bunch of trogladytes and I didn't have to worry about the stench. I haven't seen anything game breaking from a players point of view, but I could be biased since it's my character. That's why I mentioned it last.

Ahrimon

 

[MetalBard]

I ran a quick Eberron one-shot focused around a war-forged character. The character wasn't maxed out... it was actually a rogue, so from my point of view, it wasn't unbalanced. None of the immunities came up since it was more of a city intrigue sort of game.

 

[Desdichado]

I've DM'd Warforged in an Eberron campaign from lvl 3 to 7. I can't say the warforged stood out as anything more than a normal character. In fact the Shifter Ranger is more of a combat machine than the Barb1/F6 Warforged.

That was my experience too. I was playing the shifter ranger/barbarian, and I had the longtooth shifter trait. When I Raged and Shifted, I could kick the warforgeds fighter's shiny hiney from Sharn to Dharguul and back with no problem.

Of course, after raging, I was fatigued, so I had to kick his butt fast if I wanted too. We certainly didn't think the warforged was too strong, though. Although he did pull his weight as a frontline fighter quite well.

 

[Henry]

I DM'ed a player playing a warforged Fighter from level 1 to level 10, and at no point did he outshine the party, nor was he underchallenged. The only time he did present a problem was due to a misruling of mine about falling damage (he purposely dropped on a human and crushed them once for far too much damage) but otherwise, he was different enough to be fun for the group, but did not dominate play.

 

[Dracomeander]

Our group has been running an Eberron game for a while now. Started at first level and now everyone is fifteenth level effectively.

The warforged fighter took full levels of juggernaut and still does not outshine anyone else in the group. The half-orc barbarian is the undisputed combat trog with the shifter druid and the warforged both contributing about equally to the melee.

The warforged's immunity just came up recently as the barbarian has just died twice in the latest adventure. Once from a death knight wielding twin wounding swords and once from a 1 rolled on a death effect save, but even with that the warforged was not dominating the combat and has a hard time keeping ahead of the damage curve.

The biggest problem the warforged has had has been trying to keep himself in good repair. Even after he recruited a rogue/artificer for a cohort, my psion/elocator spent an expanded knowledge feat on psionic repair damage to make sure he could get fully repaired between encounters.

So far the warforged has been an asset to the party and helped us in many ways but has not been an unbalanced solution to any adventure. Also, between his charisma and his juggernaut penalties, he almost becomes a hinderance in social situations.

 

[Wombat]

I don't run Eberron, but I do own the book (due to odd situations).

I'm just not fond of having a living, learning machine in a fantasy game (or, for that matter, in most sci fi games). Just a personal thing.

But, no, I have not seen them in action yet.

 

[shilsen]

Have been running two Eberron campaigns, one 12 sessions old and one 4 sessions old. The first has a PC warforged (adamantine body) Ftr5/Juggernaut3 and the second has a warforged (mithral body) Ftr2/Scout2. In neither case has the warforged character outshone anyone in the group.

 

[ackron]

I have a warforged in my current campaign that started at level one, and is now at level nine. In my estimation, warforged are about on par with dwarves for quailty, which is to say they are as good as the strongest PC race, at least in a fighting class.

In the early levels they are perhaps still better, but in my campaign his poor AC has really hurt him as he has leveled up. On the other hand, there have been a lot of rogue NPCs in this campaign, and the warforged is almost totally immune to them (with DR 3/adamantine and imporoved fortification, he is immune to sneak attack, and they have real problems damaging him since most of the rogues have low str).

 

[Argonel]

So far the penalties have seemed to balance with the bonuses in the eberron game I've been running. The reduced healing has been been an effective hinderance as has having a primary watchstander that doesn't have improved vision or a decent spot/listen check. In compensation he was allowed to really sine when the party encountered some carrion crawlers. It has required tailoring some encounters a littel differently but it has worked fine.