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

[FireLance]

I ran an Eberron campaign for a group of PCs including a human artificer, a human bard, a human paladin, a longtooth shifter ranger and a warforged fighter (later fighter/barbarian) with Adamantine Body. The warforged made an effective front-liner and I was able to rely on his immunity to paralysis to use some creatures that I would otherwise hesitate to send against a low-level party (some ghouls and a carrion crawler).

The warforged was a strong defensive character, but the shifter was more effective at dealing damage. This was partly because the party's main low-level offensive booster, enlarge person, would not work on warforged.

As a DM, I planned my game around the reasonable (or so I thought) assumption that the warforged's immunities would enable him to keep fighting (and drawing enemy attacks) even if the rest of the party was incapacitated. This did not work out during an encounter with dretches. The warforged was immune to the nausea caused by the dretches' stinking clouds, but failed a save against scare. This created several tense rounds of combat because the rest of the party was nauseated and could only stumble around as the dretches attacked, while the warforged was running away in fear. Eventually, the warforged returned to the fight, the rest of the party recovered from nausea, and together they squished the dretches.

Overall verdict: warforged are balanced.

 

[ARandomGod]

Interesting poll.

 

[Desdichado]

Interesting poll.

And interesting results. It didn't occur to me that the "warforged are too strong" might be such a vocal but tiny, tiny minority.

 

[shilsen]

And interesting results. It didn't occur to me that the "warforged are too strong" might be such a vocal but tiny, tiny minority.

What, you never heard of overcompensation ?

 

[Desdichado]

What, you never heard of overcompensation ?

The concept is foreign to me.

 

[Dagger75]

We had 2 Warforges in the group I was with. I had the Fighter Barbarian, the other was a pure fighter adamantine body. We had 1 cleric and No Artificers. We were a liability to the party. I was rarely at full hitpoints. We bought a wand of repair but it was used up pretty quickly. Had the paralysis this come up once, nice I didn't have to worry about it. The not sleeping or eating is fun, I always took watch.

In the end I think they are pretty balanced.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

And interesting results. It didn't occur to me that the "warforged are too strong" might be such a vocal but tiny, tiny minority.

Agreed. I kind of expected at least a few more, but not such a small number...

 

[KB9JMQ]

I have DMed two warforged in my party for 5 sessions and they have not outshone anyone.
The warmachine in my game are the kalashtar fighter and the 1/2 Orc Druid.

 

[Gez]

I'm playing one right now in a PbP. It has started somewhat recently, so I've only one -- very short -- combat behind, but I don't think my WF will overshadow the others. Maybe in fact even be a bit below the others' efficiency, as I gave him an underpowered class that requires good Wis and Cha (Healer). Here's what I got for going with fun concepts rather than sheer powergaming.

Anyway, I think s/he'll do nicely nonetheless. Sure, s/he'll be a support character rather than the melee star, but I think in the RP department, s/he'll be one of the most interesting characters.

 

[Desdichado]

Agreed. I kind of expected at least a few more, but not such a small number...

I'm also surprised that more than half of the "two strong" camp have little or no experience with the warforged in play.