What balances the Warforged?

[Slaved]

So make up a reason.

I did. There was a nasty typo created which then the writer who made it was blackmailed into saying it was true. This blackmail was likely in the form of photos of his younger days and he is now married to a Presbyterian.

 

[Solarious]

Solarious: You mean the same short term infiltrations where they spend hours underwater and days without food water or sleep, then kill another warforged to become disguied as it?

... no, I'm talking about the cases where a Warforged infiltrates the location invisiblly, scouts and observes guard rotation, takes advantage of no-sleep to impersonate another Warforged, uses that disguise to walk past the Latern of Revealing without being questioned, grabs the MacGuffin, escapes via a Coward's Pearl (one use Dimension Door/Obscuring Mist wonderous item), and walks under a river to avoid being seen easily.

Really? I had once culled a large number of questions and answers from those threads and he had mentioned warforged as costing around 20,000 gp during the War. He may have modified that later, but I doubt he'd drop it as low as 500+. Of course, that's just a suggestion from Keith's end.

It may have been 500 or 1500... I don't remember which exactly. But I did read each of those 150 page+ threads, and I'm fairly certain 500gp came up at one point. Of course, he might have been talking about another model with less potential: Warrior 5 Warforged 'drones' (once used in one of his excellent adventures in Dungeon) are a decided improvement over Warrior 2 fleshie veterans.

The point is, Warforged didn't cost too much, or countries would have gone bankrupt just buying them, and there is a significant population of Warforged running about. They might as well have bought Stone or Iron golems as siege weapons instead.

 

[Notmousse]

Ok, so your warforged infiltrator scouts and observes the guard rotation in 40 minutes? Otherwise he's burning multiple castings of (extended) invisibility, or using a magic item that grants invisibility all day.

And how does not sleeping help anyone impersonate warforged? Ok, they're the same race so that much is going for them (assuming said encampment has any to begin with), but with the Cha penalty it's still going to limit their ability to impersonate someone else.

Walking under a river... are you serious? A potion of water breathing (or a reed) accomplishes the same thing. Heck, a dwarf fighter could do the same thing by virtue of their high con and holding their breath for a couple minutes.

 

[Solarious]

I believe we're thinking on two different tracks here. I didn't say Warforged make exceptional infiltrators, just that they aren't poor infiltrators. Yes, they have weaknesses, but they also have unique strengths to bring to bear also.

First, Invisibility doesn't need to be on all the time, just getting over the wall or through the gates when they open. Competent infiltrators will have many ranks of Hide and will find good places to hide: Warforged have no trouble with that, mechanically. Light is typically not an infiltrator's friend, regardless of race, so naturally you'll try to strike during the night, when the sun isn't glaring at you from above.

Pertaining to not sleeping and walking under a river, I speak specificly of walking all night underwater without comming up. Potions of water breathing only help so much in this case, especially when you consider what happens when you open up a bottle underwater... and not being restrained by sleep cycles, you can walk all night without a problem, except for a bit of nonlethal damage you'll eventually occur, which can be easily solved with a UMDed Wand of Repair Light Damage.

Oh, and reeds don't help either when you're at the bottom of a river, rather than the shallows. And what can I say, people are suspicious of reeds that move, after all.

 

[Goldmoon]

What balances out a Warforged? Warp wood and a rust monster?

 

[kk14]

Does Heat Metal hurt them at all?

What would rusting grasp do to one?

(Sorry don't got my books here)

 

[Particle_Man]

Vulnerable to heat/chill metal, repel metal/stone/wood, rusting grasp (2d6 R14+ability mod ½), rust monsters (2d6 R17 ½).

Not affected by stone/wood shape, warp wood, stone to flesh (since they affect objects, not creatures).