Warforged: MM vs Dragon Magazine

[Spatula]

It seems to me that races can diverge quite substantially from the baseline, they just have to do it through racial feats and powers rather than default abilities. They've essentially decided that if you want to play a more powerful race, you're going to have to spend feats or give something from your class up to compensate.

Spend feats, yes; give up something from your class, no, unless I'm forgetting something (entirely possible).

Isn't this exactly what the Warforged racial feats and powers do?

To an extent, yes. I suppose I'm looking for something that is fundamentally different, which warforged (just as an example) were in 3e but now are not. Since I brought up DS, I will throw out thri-kreen as another example. I've been thinking how to portray them as a race in 4e. I do not think that, if DS books get published and if thri-kreen are a playable race therein, that they will really be all that different from any other race, despite being giant bug men with bizarre anatomies. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but what I've seen to date does not fill me with hope. The designers are approaching the issue with a very different perspective than mine.

 

[silentounce]

I miss the "sucking your vital fluids out" thing.

I know one man that is very happy with that particular change.

 

[Rechan]

To an extent, yes. I suppose I'm looking for something that is fundamentally different, which warforged (just as an example) were in 3e but now are not.

I always felt that the difference a race gives is in its fluff. And in the little things, like WF not needing to breathe, eat or drink. That to me is the charm.

 

[Kichwas]

....wow, just can't please some people....

It's a very legit point though...

It's pretty bad play on their part to change the rules this early into things. At least wait for the ink to dry on the 4e before putting out pieces of 4.5...

 

[Rechan]

I know one man that is very happy with that particular change.

But I thought the KARNS were the ruskies!

 

[silentounce]

Just found some more errors. I don't think there is a single 4e product that I've seen that hasn't included something dubious.

In the extra encounters for KotS. The very first one has this, "Allow the players to place their miniatures on the road on the north edge of the tactical map."

Then, on the next page you can clearly see all the monsters are hiding on the NORTHeast side of the wagons. I'm sure they meant either west (the map happens to have west at the top, even though north is very clearly marked) or south at the other end of the road. Yeah, it's a small mistake, but with all the hype, and this is a professional operation after all....

 

[Spatula]

Similarly I thought the Dolgaunt stats were very misjudged. What's this 'waving tentacles aura' sillyness?

It would have made much more sense to give them a couple of standard attacks - one which was reach 2 tentacle (like the displacer beast), possibly giving threatening reach if it is felt justified. The other attack would be a grab which did ongoing 5 damage (the blood drain effect).

I think having the tentacles as an aura is a good idea, although having it immobilize people seems like a bit much. The dolguant only has two tentacles but can conceivably use them to immobilize 8 characters (if surrounded). Not sure how to picture that.

The tentacles were never really effective weapons in 3e since the dolgaunt's grapple bonus wasn't that great for its CR, not to mention their low damage and the low amount of healing the creature got from them. Having them as a distraction that allows their real attacks to connect seems like a decent way to model it. Although having the tentacle as a normal attack with a bloodsucking & healing followup would be neat, too.

 

[J. R. Scherer]

So the MM has been superceded and it isn't even out a day. WotC really knows how to resell you the same stuff.

Ridiculous. The Monster Manual entry is specifically created for making NPCs. The Dragon edition is for players. Nothing is superceded at all.

Anyone else having trouble logging in to D&D Insider right now?

 

[GeorgeFields]

So the MM has been superceded and it isn't even out a day. WotC really knows how to resell you the same stuff.

4.05?

 

[Sashi]

Note that the design concern had nothing to do with balance. They made the change so warforged PCs could wear found armor.

And thus be exactly balanced with the other PC's, who can also wear found armor. You don't have to have a bunch of feats that give them armor plus some special bonus because they were required to use a feat to get armor and start riding the balance train. (Alternately, you could give all PC's armor feats).

Actually I was going for "silly."

"Silly" isn't a logical argument. The idea that you don't owe me $5 is "silly". Have I convinced you? When do I get my $5? Saying something you don't like is "silly" or something you do is "common sense" are both obfuscated ways of saying "you're stupid if you don't agree with me". Just because it's obfuscated doesn't mean you aren't still insulting me for disagreeing with you.

Warforged are walking, talking, thinking, feeling, pieces of metal, stone, fibrous material, tubing, fluids, and heart (Capitan Planet!). None of that is any more or less "silly" than the magics that converted said mass of stuff into a sentient being also softening said stuffs so the sentient being can be as mobile as any other sentient humanoid. Just because a certain fluff explanation doesn't immediately gel with you doesn't mean it's "silly".

<snip snippy armor questions>
The AC progression for characters is no secret. It's been mentioned numerous times over the past year, mainly by the #1 4e rules guy Mike Mearls, that you can do away with magic entirely, or even armor, and the game still works great as long as you translate what are currently equipment-related bonuses into innate bonuses. The applications of that concept to a naturally armored race are fairly obvious, I think.

So yes, the warforged's armor would get better as its level increases, just like any character's innate abilities improve. It's a testament to the quality of the game structure that such a thing is even contemplatible.

The question is not "Will the warforged have a level appropriate AC". As you have said (and we agree on this completely) 4E has made the AC math nice and explicit so this is assured.

The question is "How will you balance requiring a feat to have armor with just being able to put on the latest found magical armor and go?" and the answer is "Not as easily or as seamlessly as just leaving everyone equal on this matter and changing the fluff explanation so I'm more comfortable with it." I don't care about your fluff explanation for why warforged are the way they are (there is a ritual that all warforged know for free that costs nothing to cast that will equip/dequip any armor onto them. If they go down to "cloth" armor they're mostly fibrous material and tubing instead of stone and metal tah dah! Don't like that one, if pressed I can come up with a dozen more), but by default you're messing up balance by changing things from "you're treated equally". For something as fundamental as "AC" or "Attacks" I think it's important to keep things as equal as possible. You can play around more with "Well he gets to breath fire, but you get to plug stuff into your body and control it with your mind."

If you and your twin brother are given $5 is that equal? Inarguably.
If your twin brother is given $5 and you are given $4 and a $1.10 ice cream cone, is that equal? We can argue about this for a decade.

I suppose I'm looking for something that is fundamentally different.

4E is specifically avoiding making mechanics "fundamentally different" for no reason other than it "feels" right. This is enormously upsetting to some people. I understand this. Change can be bad, change can also be good. System mastery can be fun, system mastery can also be alienating. All of this is true. The Thri-Kreen won't be the same 3E "Level Adjustments have kind of screwed me, but if I take exactly the right build I will be the ultimate TWF master and shred things to pieces" race, but it will have some kind of interesting ability that represents "hey I've got a bug face and four arms". Heck, warforged plugging stuff into themselves all the time strikes me as "fundamentally different" from other races in an "OMG Shadowrun" way.