Why are Warforged so bad?

[Belen]

The Warforged not being harmed by the poison/etc isn't an issue. Sure, he's fine...but what about the whole party? If they're all dead, he's next on the list and you don't need just poison. Besides, Poison is easy to get rid of with low level Cleric spells, so its sure isn't that much of an obstacle. Maybe we should remove Clerics since they make it pointless.

Clerics have to be 7th level before they can cure poison. Poison is one of the stables of a low level game, ime. Warforged are immune to poision plus a host of other effects that normally plague a low level party.

 

[Belen]

The warforged, for free, get the immunities and benefits that allow them to wade through certain encoutners without feeling the threat of their own hides. No other race in the game gets that. The rest exist on a continuum that make some better, and some worse, but that do not *preclude* any. This is what is wrong with them.

And they still co-opt the dwarf's schtick.

Bingo. And I will not even go into some of the min/max warforged combos I've seen.

 

[Gez]

Ghouls are a staple of low-level games and elves are immune to their paralysis. Plus a lot of other effects (magical sleep, dream and nightmare spells) that normally plague a low-level party.

 

[Desdichado]

Bah! Being in a dark place is a staple of low level fantasy, but dwarves and half-orcs are immune to that.

I think this whole line of reasoning is fallacious. It's been very conveniently forgotten that warforged, while immune to a few minor problems, are vulnerable to many others that most, if not all, other characters are not.

 

[ARandomGod]

That's really the thing -- I as a DM need to take special account of the Warforged above and beyond what I had to do before the Warforged. I have to make sure that there is a threat in there for the warforged specially. It's not that it's impossible, it's that that means that this one member of the party is basically hogging my DM's attention. And he gets to do that for free.

This is, of course, true. A GM doesn't have to remove these threats altogether, however, as long as it's not something that the warforged can do completely alone.

The warforged have their own special vulnerability: Artificer spells. Which, again, is a note that the warforged basically require a game mechanic all their own (the Artificer) to even be subject to the things that normal PC's fear without it.

I was under the impression that those were new arcane spells, not just restricted to artificers...

(a) Elves aren't immune to the paralyzing touch. Warforged are, though.

And, apparently, paralysing mind effects too. A little odd, but as far as I can see still true.

Just so I'm not entirely ripping on the poor things, here's how they should be "fixed" IMHO, so that they don't push my particular buttons. This is just taking the material from the book and making it palatable, not trying to design a "PC race that is created, not born" from the ground up, mind you.

You could, of course, keep the Living Construct thing and simply redefine Living Construct the way you think is best. That particular thing is simply a matter of semantics.

If nothing else, I think that they should keep the 'no food no drink no air' part. They could even require a period of downtime to recharge... then no stepping on the elves sleeplessness (as if they couldn't share that) and they get their own schtick. Say that they're powered by 'magic'. They can exist for a period of time in an antimagic field, but they can't 'sleep' or recharge in that field. I'd personally probably keep the sleeplessness and immunity to fatigue. I mean, they're built that way for a reason, the perfect warrior. Doesn't sleep/eat/drink/dream. But they screwed up on the dream bit by giving them too much independant thought.


And, of course, if you're going to nerf them that much, you should either give them an extra feat to be spent on Armored Body (Choose special material and armor type, you've got that armor forever) or just making them all stick with composit until they buy armor upgrades, similiar but different to everyone else needing to buy armor if they want it.

That total absense of first level feats if you ever want any real armor is a real hurt.

I was once in a party (lowish level) with a warforged, and there was a spot the party really wan't supposed to be able to get past, guarded by mummies. The warforged attacked while everyone else spent every turn either performing 'aid another' for the warforged, or using wands/spells of cure light wounds/repair minor damage. He was the only one who could really hurt them, and the only one completely unafraid of mummy rot. So point taken there.

On the other hand, we still didn't get past it. We killed one of the two, but the other managed to threaten the other members enough that we had to back away. He couldn't have taken them out alone.

 

[ARandomGod]

Warforged are for folks who like things that are different for the sake of being different. "Screw the mechanics of it all, I want Data in this D&D party".

This is one arguement that makes me think people who are making said arguement don't really understand what's going on. Living constructs has long been a staple of fantasy. It's not Data. There's not computer or AI running the thing. It's just a rock. There's no brain inside, just a rock! They're animated by a spirit, by magic, by something making them ALIVE. Data's main point is that he was never and never will be alive. Warforged are instead something that's come alive almost unexpectedly. Are there similiarites? Sure. Does Eberron have the Lightning Rail? Yes. Does Eberron have extensive electric lights lighting up the city? No. Do they have extensive mage lights? Yes. Do they have computers running machines? No. They have constructs that have become alive. Computers are smart, people. These constructs are almost never smart.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If nothing else, I think that they should keep the 'no food no drink no air' part. They could even require a period of downtime to recharge... then no stepping on the elves sleeplessness (as if they couldn't share that) and they get their own schtick. Say that they're powered by 'magic'. They can exist for a period of time in an antimagic field, but they can't 'sleep' or recharge in that field. I'd personally probably keep the sleeplessness and immunity to fatigue. I mean, they're built that way for a reason, the perfect warrior. Doesn't sleep/eat/drink/dream. But they screwed up on the dream bit by giving them too much independant thought.


And, of course, if you're going to nerf them that much, you should either give them an extra feat to be spent on Armored Body (Choose special material and armor type, you've got that armor forever) or just making them all stick with composit until they buy armor upgrades, similiar but different to everyone else needing to buy armor if they want it.

If you were playing in my game, I could maybe be talked into doing that, though I'd be reluctant to just hand out a feat (that's the Human's main bennie) and maybe just upgrade their basic armor to something a bit better...they should require *some* energy source, even if it's rediculously easy to attain (sunlight, blood, stone, air, alcohol...), and they should have to breathe or make emissions or something (the bonus to Con and Fort saves will help them to hold their breaths and go without energy sources for longer than most other creatures, though).

I was under the impression that those were new arcane spells, not just restricted to artificers...

Aye, you're right. Though this doesn't remove the fact that Warforged require an entire suite of spells to deal with on the same level as normal PCs

Ghouls are a staple of low-level games and elves are immune to their paralysis. Plus a lot of other effects (magical sleep, dream and nightmare spells) that normally plague a low-level party.

(a) There's quite a bit more than a handful of monsters at CR 1 and below that aren't ghouls and that don't rely on sleep attacks. In fact, I can't think of one CR 1 monster offhand that uses sleep attacks at all....
(b) Again, elves aren't immune to the paralysing touch.

Bah! Being in a dark place is a staple of low level fantasy, but dwarves and half-orcs are immune to that.

I think this whole line of reasoning is fallacious. It's been very conveniently forgotten that warforged, while immune to a few minor problems, are vulnerable to many others that most, if not all, other characters are not.

(a) Dwarves and half-orcs aren't immune to darkness, they just do better in it than others at close ranges. Immunity to darkness is blindsense out to normal visibility ranges, and yeah, I'd have a bit of a problem introducing THAT to a 1st level party for free, too. If the warforged were just better than others at holding their breath, going without food and water, resisting disease and poison and pralysis and level drain, I wouldn't have much of a problem. But they're not just better than other races at avoiding those obstacles -- they effectively remove those obstacles from the game for a warforged character. And for free, at 1st level.

(b) The vulnerability is part of why they're clunky. Just like a high LA race, they're really good when they're doing what they were designed to do, but when they confront something that they're weak against, they fall to peices quickly. This lack of being well-rounded (overspecialization) is the main problem with LA, the main problem with "character point" systems, and the warforged is traipsing down the same path. It's a lesser offender, to be sure, because at early levels the difference is less noticable, and, for the warforged, the difference becomes less noticable (in general) as the party increases in level. But it's still on the same "paper tiger" continuum in a way that no other LA +0 race is. They are abberant. I think this was an intentional choice for the designers, but I think it was a short-sighted choice, because, for free, it precludes certain challenges from being a challenge for this character.

Again, I'm not saying they're too powerful per se. I'm saying they're too different.

 

[Klaus]

Regarding elves immunity to ghoul's paralysis, here's the SRD entry for the ghoul:

"Paralysis (Ex): Those hit by a ghoul’s bite or claw attack must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. Elves have immunity to this paralysis. The save DC is Charisma-based."

So yes, elves are immune to ghoul paralysis. Wonder if 'elf blood' makes half-elves immune as well.

 

[Pants]

Warforged are for folks who like things that are different for the sake of being different. "Screw the mechanics of it all, I want Data in this D&D party".

I think this can be said for any race that isn't in the PHB, whether it is from the FRCS, Races of Faerun, Arcana Unearthed, etc. etc.

 

[Gez]

Elves ARE immune to ghoul paralysis, as Klaus shown. Even in the D&D Miniatures game it is stated for the Ghouls that their paralysis doesn't affect elves.

As for CR 1 creatures with a sleep attack, you could have nearly any 1st-level wizard or sorcerer opponent. Like a kobold sorcerer. Never had a Kobold ambush where a kobold sorcerer cast sleep and then color spray at the party, while the rest of the kobold teams hurl their javelins and rain crossbow bolts on the adventurers?

Regarding elves immunity to ghoul's paralysis, here's the SRD entry for the ghoul:

"Paralysis (Ex): Those hit by a ghoul’s bite or claw attack must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. Elves have immunity to this paralysis. The save DC is Charisma-based."

So yes, elves are immune to ghoul paralysis. Wonder if 'elf blood' makes half-elves immune as well.

I'd say yes.