Warforged: Like them or loathe them?

[KarinsDad]

Put it this way, I don't see Warforged as any more dissimilar than Tolkienesque elves, Howardesque barbarians, and Kwai-Chan Cain-esque martial artists, which all fit nicely into 'traditional' D&D.

Sure they are. If it is not Howard or Tolkien or Caine, it's not true DND. Note: Caine was super popular when the first DND books came out, so it is not surprising that his martial arts crept into AD&D. I wouldn't be surprised if he is yanked back out again for 4E core.

The heck with that Baker stuff. Who the heck ever heard of him and his androids, trains, planes, speedboats, submarines, subterrestrials, etc. pre-3.5?

DND as a modern world where magic merely replaces technology just doesn't fly for core. IMO. Sure, one can migrate it to any concept and time period that one wants, but core DND is basically magical medieval fantasy and should stay that way, not other significantly divergent time periods.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

"Clash of the Titans"

Who of the what?

 

[Deset Gled]

IMO, the core book should offer as much variety as possible.

I think that, in the core books, "variety" needs to heavily tempered with "simplicity", and that is where the Warforged fail. Warforged are entirely different from all of the other base races in terms of how they interact with spells, effects, equipment, breeding etc. They are simply too skewed off of the baseline to be considered on the baseline of races.

There are other instances where hyper-specialization in core mechanics has failed. For example, the weapons restrictions of Druids in 3.0, which were revised in 3.5. Or attack mechanics of monks in 3.x, which have caused nothing but problems. We need to rely on the core books to set precedent in mechanics, and Warforged require too many customized mechanics to belong there. YMMV.

 

[Mallus]

Who of the what?

You know "Short Circuit" but not "Clash of the Titans"?!

Feel shame now.

 

[BryonD]

My point that you quoted was that there is a precedent in D&D for having a mishamsh of different fantasy elements that don't have a lot to with each other...

Can you explain how bits from Tolkien, Howard, and "Kung Fu" fit neatly together? Other than the fact that the got shoveled together into something we now recognize as "D&D-esque fantasy"?

Vastly more consistent exposure to each of the various pieces.

If you take a picture of an elf, Conan, a D&D monk, and a warforged and start asking people on the street which ones they would expect to find in a D&D game the warforged will get left out by far the most often. No question the monk would also get set aside frequently. But as an EXPECTED element, the warforged would not pass the test very well at all.

Would you prefer the term 'fantasy robot'?

Nope.

If you are asking what I like then construct or golem (with or without sentience) are both perfectly fine.
If you are asking what I see warforged as then "poorly designed fantasy androids" is the answer.

But neither of these points is relevant to whether or not the addition of warforged to the 1st PH would be a good thing for D&D.

 

[Wormwood]

Who of the what?

:facepalm:

 

[BryonD]

You're forgetting "Clash of the Titans"... wait, was that only the owl... I swear I remember a steam-powered man made of bronze.

You know, requiring memory of a specific movie is a bad sign for your case of mainstream.

And yeah, the warfoged don't quite catch the whole Bubo thing.

 

[Mallus]

Note: Caine was super popular when the first DND books came out, so it is not surprising that his martial arts crept into AD&D

Hmmmm, one could say the same about anime now. So they wouldn't yank Caine, they'd just make him into Naruto...

Who the heck ever heard of him and his androids, trains, planes, speedboats, submarines, subterrestrials, etc. pre-3.5?

You know, one of the most memorable battles in my current campaign featured a monk armed with a cannon blowing himself to flinders while standing on top of a magic submarine...

Eventually you'll be able to read about it out Story Hour... we've some catching up to do.

DND as a modern world where magic merely replaces technology just doesn't fly for core.

Really? In a game where two of original character classes mapped to field medic and artillery piece?

Sure, one can migrate it to any concept and time period that one wants, but core DND is basically magical medieval fantasy...

Sure, a magical mediaval fantasy full of heavily armored knights, Bronze Age swordsman, Bruce Lee knocks-offs, weird monsters drawn from every culture on Earth, not to mention Planetary Romance beasties borrowed from the pulps. And robots. Real live killer robots --well, if we're including Blackmoor and/or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks....

 

[BryonD]

And robots. Real live killer robots --well, if we're including Blackmoor....

Ah, so we agree that it doesn't need to be in the core......

 

[Mallus]

Ah, so we agree that it doesn't need to be in the core......

Wasn't Blackmoor something like supplement 2 or 3 for OD&D?? I fully support moving killer robots, at least of the Warforged variety into core. That would be progress.