Why are Warforged so bad?

[ThirdWizard]

*gasp* I'll pretend you didn't say that!

*covers ears* lalalalalalala

 

[Pants]

I mean really. Wasn't the crux of that argument that these creatures don't sufficiently challenge a warforged?

From what I read, the crux of one of the arguments was that having a Warforged in the party forces the DM to change his DMing style. The other one was about it's Level Adjustement.

Personally, I don't see the Warforged forcing anyone to change their DMing style to such a degree that environmental challenges, diseases, or poisons become obsolete. Sure, in a vacuum without other characters, possibly. However, having a Paladin in a group means that diseases and fear effects are less effective and having a druid in the group means poisons will be less of a threat.

Then again, I think having a Changeling in the party will force the DM to change his play style more. The Warforged immunities and benefits are so situational that I really think they cannot be studied without seeing them in play first. Meanwhile, the Changeling could potentially allow players to spoil entire plots with judicious use of his Minor Change ability.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Meanwhile, the Changeling could potentially allow players to spoil entire plots with judicious use of his Minor Change ability.

Philosophically, plots cannot be spoiled, only changed.

 

[Pants]

Philosophically, plots cannot be spoiled, only changed.

Well, the Changleing has the potential to change many plots and/or DMing styles.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Looking back I can't think of any recent adventures they would have disrupted. That actually bothers me. I need a healthy dose of intrigue injected soon.

 

[Vurt]

By the time parties are facing these things, they are kind of expected to survive. The immunity (in this case, ESPECIALLY to energy drain) reduces the challenge significantly. Does it eliminate the challenge? Nope.

A nightcrawler!?! Are you reading the same CR 18 beastie I am?

What level 15+ party is worried about a few negative levels while swallowed? I'd be more worried about the 35 average damage per round, the fact that I would need to inflict another 35 hp of damage to its gizzard with a light weapon to escape, and that if I do, with it's Improved Grab and insane grapple modifier, it could just swallow me again and I'd be right back to square one!

If you removed energy drain from its long litany of abilities, would you seriously reduce the nightcrawler's CR significantly? IMHO, the energy drain ability in this case is gravy, it's not the main course.

My point is simply that I think this is a particularly bad example of "things warforged aren't particularly worried about." Your argument would be better served by focusing on lower level critters with energy drain than simply grepping everything in Monster Manual with that ability as evidence to their poor balance.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Vurt]

From what I read, the crux of one of the arguments was that having a Warforged in the party forces the DM to change his DMing style. The other one was about it's Level Adjustement.

In my game, I was actually kind of relieved for a bit when one player decided to play a warforged character. It meant that much less chance of a challenging encounter turning into a TPK because everyone becomes debilitated by a stinking cloud spell. It was especially ironic that the warforged tank subsequently got nuked by a scorching ray critical hit sneak attack. (Having 25% fortifications means that 75% of them still get through!)

His replacement character, a warforged psion didn't last long either. Something about outright dying to a sea hag's evil eye ability. Sure, what should have been a couple of easy saves were botched, but then, that's the nature of the game.

Being immune to energy drain is cool and all, but having a high armor class also makes you pretty much immune to it. Maybe if you had to DM for a party of all warforged you'd have an issue with it, but then I think it'd also be pretty fun to DM the same all-warforged party in a heavy undead campaign. Let them have their bennies, there's more to making undead a challenge than energy drain.

As for LA +1, yeah I could see it. But I'm also pretty sure that very few people would actually want to play them at LA +1. Which is unfortunate, because I agree that role-play wise, they're one of the cooler races to come out of WotC's imagination of late. But then, maybe I'm just an existentialist at heart.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Felon]

But to someone who's "against androids" it's a significant distinction. I mean, just becuase they can't imagine the concept as different, doesn't mean it's not different. There are people who don't think that there should be much magic in fantasy games either.

Well, you just hit upon my main dislike of warforged. I don't object to a player wanting to try his hand at playing a construct. After all, I've allowed a trumpet archon, a rakshasa, an ogre mage, and some other weirdos into the party. What I dislike is the idea of them as being so common that they're just another race. A town guard doesn't see a warforged and think "good lord, what's that thing walking towards me?", instead they just shout mean names at it and tell it not to use the front entrance 'cause that's for decent flesh and blood folks.

It's not my fault if some people can't grasp the difference. Sure, people will get confused. They'll try to make AI viruses to 'infect' the construct. And there's one difference. A construct is not actually programmed. There's no brain or hardware or software. There's just a rock, and a stick of wood, and this crystal dragonshard.

You are continuing to split hairs. It's like debating the difference Star Wars' hyperspace drives and Star Trek warp engines, which hardcore fanboys will tell you are based on radically different principles but when you break it down they are the same damn thing. By this logic you espouse, we shouldn't think of Eberron's lightning rails as magical bullet trains even though even Keith Baker himself has referred to them as such.

 

[Glyfair]

That would be because almost noone ever wants to play an LA+1 anything unless its obviously overpowered (read: origional half-ogre). Is that a good reason to make them LA +0? Maybe in Eberron, I don't know. But, I don't think it is in a generic Greyhawk campaign.

I suspect this is a misinterpretation of things that have been said about the warforged design. It was pointed out that one of the goals was that no core races in Eberron would have a level adjustment.

That doesn't mean the designers decided to take the warforged they had designed and made it LA +0. It means they took the warforged and tweaked the design so it would be a LA +0 rather than a more powerful version that was LA +1. (I vaguely recall comments that one design had balanced stat bonuses, for example).

Looks to me like Eberron has upped the power of possible player races, and the game is balanced with that in mind. Is that a fair assumption of the design of Eberron?

I don't believe so. Changelings are very powerful for a specific character type (the spy type rogue). Kalashtar aren't partically powerful at all. Shifters don't seem particularly powerful, either.

Obviously, there is a lot of debate about the warforged. Based on my experiences, I think the balance depends on your campaign. If it's very important to you that you can threaten the entire party with things that the warforged can ignore (that other races can't ignore), then certainly they'll be too powerful for you. On the other hand, I find their weaknesses balance out their strengths.

As one example, look at the warforged scout race. I don't know anyone who would consider it anything but very weak. It's the same as a warforged, but size small with all the things that go with it. It also has horrible stat modifiers (+2 Dex, -2 Str, -2 Wis, -2 Cha). I've never seen anyone really argue that it's anything but on the weak end of a character race.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'll cede the Nightcrawler since it's not really a major point. I still think -1 level/round is *dang* mighty, and avoiding that is a significant power, but by the time the warforged is level 18 most PC's who want to avoid that can find some way to do so. And I didn't just cite every creature, I cited the creatures which would use those forms of attack as major elements in their strategy. A nightcrawler would swallow as much as possible, because swallowing will reduce the ability of the other creatures to hurt it significantly. It may try to debilitate before swallowing, especially with spell-like abilities. Thus, warforged effectively counter the monster's main approach to dealing with enemies.

That doesn't mean the designers decided to take the warforged they had designed and made it LA +0. It means they took the warforged and tweaked the design so it would be a LA +0 rather than a more powerful version that was LA +1. (I vaguely recall comments that one design had balanced stat bonuses, for example).

Psst: The stats are balanced (take a look at creating races chapter in the DMG)

They are too weak for LA +1. But LA +1 wasn't an option for the team, so they tweaked the higher-level version, giving it weaknesses or removing abilities, until it was down to LA +0. Personally, I'd much rather see a full powered version at LA +1, OR a serious ground-up reexamination of the LA system, but I don't see that happening until version 3.75 at least. It would require re-writing the monster advancement rules so that an HD for any monster is pretty close to equal to a level for any character, thus requiring no dramatic adjustment: HD = level. But anyway, that's speculation.

As it sits, the game is stuck with an LA rule (for now... ) that sucks, so the designers wanted no LA's in the basic setting.

However, as the warforged sit now, they bear little "family resemblances" to the other LA +0, no HD races, and have a lot more in common with low-range LA kinds of creatures: nonhumanoid, strange physiology, special needs, powerful passive abilities....

An LA +1 is pretty inappropriate unless you give them stuff to compensate (ditch the half healing, maybe give them back a few more immunities). But to be honest, that doesn't solve the problem of LA itself.