What I Learned in Eberron

[Len]

Here are some things I learned in the first session of our new Eberron campaign.

1. Warforged aren’t as good fighters as I thought.
They look tough, but in the first combat round of the campaign, a warforged took a swing at me and missed, and then my character downed him with one blow. Pathetic. In another fight, we had one of those first-level swish-fests where no-one can hit for round after round. It is true that a warforged nearly killed our warlock, but that was a lucky shot. And another one knocked my character down, but that’s because he snuck up behind me.

Which brings us to:
2. Warforged are surprisingly sneaky.
You wouldn’t know it, given how big and clanky they are, but warforged are really quite stealthy. Three times they got a surprise round on us, despite my ranger’s relatively good spot check.

My character is new to Sharn, having grown up in the Eldeen Reaches. Clearly the stories she heard about warforged were wrong.

3. It’s a real pain to have all those “civilized” goblins around. My character is annoyed when she can’t just shoot them. (As soon as my DM saw my choice of favoured enemy, he knew what race he’d use for half of the NPCs. Grrr.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It’s a real pain to have all those “civilized” goblins around. My character is annoyed when she can’t just shoot them. (As soon as my DM saw my choice of favoured enemy, he knew what race he’d use for half of the NPCs. Grrr.)

We call that being helpful. MWAH HA HA HA!

 

[Sejs]

3. It’s a real pain to have all those “civilized” goblins around. My character is annoyed when she can’t just shoot them. (As soon as my DM saw my choice of favoured enemy, he knew what race he’d use for half of the NPCs. Grrr.)

On the up side, you're getting a bonus to Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, and Spot against half the NPCs...

So it's not -all- bad.

 

[Len]

But all I really want is to apply the +2 to damage.

 

[DragonLancer]

Here are some things I learned in the first session of our new Eberron campaign.

1. Warforged aren’t as good fighters as I thought.
They look tough, but in the first combat round of the campaign, a warforged took a swing at me and missed, and then my character downed him with one blow. Pathetic. In another fight, we had one of those first-level swish-fests where no-one can hit for round after round. It is true that a warforged nearly killed our warlock, but that was a lucky shot. And another one knocked my character down, but that’s because he snuck up behind me.

I'm playing a warforged Fighter in an Eberron campaign at the moment, and I think they are great. Admittidly, the DM has been running his game more RP based so far but the few fights we've been in, my character has been pretty good (albut one session where my dice hated me!).

He took Adamintine Body as a feat at 1st level, so he has a decent AC for the low levels. I can see, should the game last that long, that he will fall behind on the AC front though with out some magical assistence. I think thats where their weakness lies really.

 

[Len]

I don't really think that warforged are weaklings. It's just that our first encounter with them kind of gave my character the wrong impression.

 

[DragonLancer]

Well, actually, the first one that we had to fight was rather easy to drop and it was one with the Mithral Body feat. We have never fought more than one at a time (though with human allies) so I wonder if they are a bigger threat in numbers.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm in two Eberron campaigns right now.

In one, I'm a shifter rogue. If you want to be a shifter, play a fighter. That way you get enough feats to take all the cool shifter feats, too. Rogues don't get nearly enough feats.

We started with the intro adventure, and our warforged artificer was the only party member capable of taking on the beetle swarm.

In the other, a high-level one shot, I'm a warforged fighter equipped with a +4 warforged. (Err... that is, I count as +4 armor.) In both campaigns warforged have to give up a level, but I don't mind. While I had to give up feat slots to get Adamantium Body and Improved Damage Reduction twice (DR 4/adamantine... yey!) but those are strong feats. More importantly, I'm immune to a lot of things like energy drain, which is virtually worth a level on it's own.

Of course, there is the problem of healing, but despite the repeated smackdowns on us it hasn't really been an issue. When your high level character can easily absorb a 150 foot fall...

Do yourself a favor and, if you're playing a in a campaign with greater than 25 point buy, put those extra stat points into Wisdom! I did it, and took Iron Will, covering up a major warforged weakness.

In that campaign, we ran into many storm giant rangers with favored enemy human. While some giants pounded me, none threw rocks at me.

If you're having trouble playing a warforged due to equipment issues, take a level of artificer and take some wands. You can make yourself up to a +5 warforged all day with the right wand or staff, and a wand of repair x damage will do you wonders, too.

 

[AuraSeer]

Warforged are not innately dangerous to adventurers. They're a +0 LA race after all, so you should expect them to be about equivalent to humans; the threat to your PCs depends on their class levels.

That aside, fear the day you get into an endurance contest with a group of warforged. They're exceptionally useful in long-distance pursuit, trench warfare, and other long-term conflicts. Anyone who can run and fight forever without getting tired, and stand watch forever without needing sleep, has a big advantage over frail meatbags who can't function without rest. (Note that undead have the same advantage, which is why the Karrnathi use them.)

 

[Acid_crash]

I think it would have been a really neat idea if the undead of Karnathi (or any undead) gain intelligence and individuality like the Warforged did. I mean, if the Warforged somehow got some semblance of intelligence and individuality, why not the undead also?