Why are Warforged so bad?

[ARandomGod]

Post dopplganger. Don't worry, I've slain it.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You sure it wasn't a changeling?

 

[I'm A Banana]

You're completely right there. When I'm playing a warforged, and I'm getting down on HP's, I completely have no fear that the resources of that heal spell will ever run out.

Thing is, if the adventure is designed so that the bad guys' main method of depleating your HP is poison or suffocation or starvation or environmental damage or whatever, those aren't valid tactics against a warforged. They can't even get lucky. They can't even get a REALLY POWERFUL poison. Nothing. No blowgun will ever work. The warforged can run into a nest of scorpions without a sweat, or walk through a plague zone nonplused. Even the dwarf barbarian with a +10 Fort save is going to be a little affraid it's something his save can't overcome.

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.

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.

Elves are Immune to Sleep Effects.

(a) Warforged are immune to sleep effects and then some...
(b) How many monsters in the MM have Sleep effects? How many sleep effects exist in the game? How many monsters have poison? Disease? Energy drain? How many rely on those instead of high-damage attacks to threaten the party? Not that I'm happy with that particular immunity entirely, but this is like saying "well, he's got a +1, so a +5 should be okay,too!"

And to ghouls' paralizing touch.
Monks and mages are immune to rust monsters.

(a) Elves aren't immune to the paralyzing touch. Warforged are, though.
(b) How many monsters in the MM are rust monsters? How many rust attacks exist in the game?

Things that threaten with poison and energy drain (especially) are archetypal adventuring challenges. Heck, they're what the typical necromancer or assassin uses against his enemies. They come with undead and stealthy monsters quite often. Druids allying with poisonous vermin or snakes or platypi are relatively *common* ideas. Certainly there are other things I could do, but I don't like something as inoccuous and easily solved as a race dictating what I as a DM can and cannot do with my story. With the exception of the warforged (and most LA races, which is ANOTHER thing they share in common), a race choice is 90% cosmetic for the character. They get some skill bonuses, they get some ability bonuses, but even a good choice (dwarven barbarian) isn't a gigantic cut above his peers, and even a bad choice (dwarven sorcerer) isn't a gigantic blow below his peers. The Warforged shares this continuum of not outshining or especially sucking, except in certain specific iconic adventuring scenarios, where regardless of class, they will outshine everyone else.

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.

• Nix the Living Construct thing. Replace it with Humanoid (Clockwork) or whatever. This makes them vulnerable to various BLANK person spells without the enemy having to do special preparation against a different type.
• Nix immunities. Because they are mechanical, they should be better against these things than normal folks; replace the immunities with a +4 save bonus to the things listed instead. Their phsyiology is constructed, but it's very similar to humanoid -- viens that pump oil can still pump venom, gears that generate energy can still get tired, their life force is still something undead can feed on. Keep, for nostalgia and the elf, the immunity to being naseous and the immunity to sleep effects. Makes them fine in swarms, but they have other problems with swarms (like the things not needing to confront their usually-high AC's to hurt them).
• Ditch the half-healing schtick. They're run by positive energy just like any other being. Also (along with some of the other things) removes the need for there to be an artificer in a party with a warforged.
• I don't like leaving the special vulnerabilities to certain spells, but we'll keep 'em in because (a) new tactics can be fun, (b) only specialized enemies will be able to fight against them in this manner, and (c) it is mostly balanced out by the next thing...
• Retain their inability to bleed. This is helpful, but not nessecarily life-saving, in the same way that the vulnerabilities are awkward, but not really condemning.
• They require an energy source. They don't need to eat normal food (I'd allow them to eat rocks, nuts, bolts, metal pipes, whatever), but they need to eat something, and they still require air to make the energy. Let them keep the sleeplessness. It treads on the elves a little bit, but nothing else the warforged does treads on the elves at all, so no big deal.
• They can heal damage naturally, but only do so if they "power down" e.g. sleep. They don't HAVE to sleep, but they have the option if they want to let their inner repair systems take over. They can still heal hp with Craft checks, too.
• They can keep the rest.

And they'll *still* step on the dwarves a little bit, but there's enough differences to make it roughly equal out in the end.

Keep the *exact same* background story, if you like. I wouldn't, but I think the Warforged are set to turn into the next Drow, so perhaps I'm over-sensitive to things that give drama queens the chance to strut their stuff too much. The background is part of the reason that they're so big of an attention hog, but that's something that every DM has to deal with, and it doesn't make them annoying to play mechanically, just with certain kinds of players It's more of a gripe that Eberron is going to be *defined* by stuff for, of, and about the Warforged more than it will for any other race. IMHO, that's a bad thing, but that's by no means an objective truth -- I just don't like it when one PC race is at the center of attention to the exclusion of others. But there's no doubting that warforged are trendy now, and for good reason. They do have lots of story potential...I just don't value story potential in a PC race.

Whatever their background story, the mechanics for their race as it is makes them awkward, clunky, and problematic. These aren't problems per se, because people will live with being awkward, clunky, and problematic to play a cool race, which the warforged certainly are. They are problems for me (and some others) because I'd rather not have to look up warforged immunities every time I go make an adventure and prepare a backup plan if my original one doesn't challenge this one PC enough.

I don't think that robo-PC's are a bad idea as a race, but I do think they were done in a fashion that makes them abberant and grating here. The problems were so easy to solve, I think part of the reason they didn't was because they felt that the Warforged should be dramatically different from any other race out there. I disagree.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

(a) Warforged are immune to sleep effects and then some...
(b) How many monsters in the MM have Sleep effects? How many sleep effects exist in the game? How many monsters have poison? Disease? Energy drain? How many rely on those instead of high-damage attacks to threaten the party? Not that I'm happy with that particular immunity entirely, but this is like saying "well, he's got a +1, so a +5 should be okay,too!"

You said that no Core race has the a flat out immunity. Elves DO. Yes, Warforged have more than that, but it doesn't break things. This isn't a single character based game.

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.

 

[Andor]

The warforged can run into a nest of scorpions without a sweat, or walk through a plague zone nonplused.

So can the druid (scorpions) or paladin(plague zone). Or the cleric can do both with a couple of spells.

Do you allow these classes? If so why do you boggle at a race that has abilities already encompassed by core classes?

What's that you say? The whole party could be warforged? Awesome! They'll get hired for jobs based on the fact that they have immunities. Even if they don't happen to have the right one.

Warforged fighter: "Help meee..."
Employer: "What happened to you? I thought you warforged couldn't be drained by undead?"
Warforged fighter: "Shadows don't drain energy, they drain strength..."
Employer: "Huh?"
Warforged fighter: "Could you move my eyelids? I don't have the strength to blink."

 

[I'm A Banana]

You said that no Core race has the a flat out immunity. Elves DO. Yes, Warforged have more than that, but it doesn't break things. This isn't a single character based game.

Actually, I said:

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.

I've never run a game in whicih a Sleep spell made or broke an encounter. Perhaps I'm abberant?

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.

The problem is that he's not fearing for his own life and limb. There's no motive like a low motive, and building action is making the players have an emotional reaction. If the entire campaign is made up largely of encounters like this, the Warforged player won't feel as much action, adventure, excitement, and tension as the rest, unless the encounters are specifically geared for him. The player will be bored (or at least anyone I've played with will be...I'm sure those who just get joy from playing a nigh-invincible robot would be having the time of their lives), not all the time, but more so than the rest. And the reason that it's different with clerics is because clerics have to spend a finite rescource to alleviate the pain. This spending of a rescource can create drama when the rescource gets low, or special challenges resist this rescource. Magic is far from a panacea, otherwise we'd say Magic Missile allows you to overcome any monster because it deals hp damage, and every monster hp. A spell that does something is not the same as immunity from that effect. The warforged, in these cases, is entirely immune to the dramatic situation. Could the mission still fail? Sure, but either way, he's living to see the next day. To have a player feel that way for most of a campaign just isn't something that would be fun for any of my players. To make special exceptions for one PC just isn't something that would be fun for me as a DM.

So can the druid (scorpions) or paladin(plague zone). Or the cleric can do both with a couple of spells.

Do you allow these classes? If so why do you boggle at a race that has abilities already encompassed by core classes?

Because gaining levels in a class is an expendature of rescources (time and XP, most prominently, but often much more than just that, such as equipment and skill and feat choices, and also "levels" themselves since a campaing usually only has so many to work with), whereas selecting your race is not. You get your race for free (if they're LA +0), just choosing between options. Like feats or spells, this means that all options present at a given level should be roughly similar on the scale. No other race has powers near the Warforged. This isn't to say they're too powerful, this is to say they're too different. This makes them clunky, like a spell that has the statistics of a weapon. It's the reason the main advice for creating new things in the game is "compare it with what's already there."

They aren't horrible mostrosities of poor design, but they're clunky and awkward when they could *not* be, and I think that choice was intentional. The designers thought about doing it some other way, but decided that Warforged should be dramatically different from other PC races. This is both an advantage (they feel weird to play, they're weird in the world!) and a disadgadvantage (they're so weird it's hard to fit them into typical adventures). In this case, I feel that the designers made the wrong choice, and that going with a more streamlined, more common sense design would have been better and more fun to play. For me, the clunkiness means that they don't get added. Too much trouble, too little benefit.

Or would you argue that Warforged work in pretty much the same way that every other race works?

 

[Soel]

They aren't horrible mostrosities of poor design, but they're clunky and awkward when they could *not* be, and I think that choice was intentional. The designers thought about doing it some other way, but decided that Warforged should be dramatically different from other PC races. This is both an advantage (they feel weird to play, they're weird in the world!) and a disadgadvantage (they're so weird it's hard to fit them into typical adventures). In this case, I feel that the designers made the wrong choice, and that going with a more streamlined, more common sense design would have been better and more fun to play. For me, the clunkiness means that they don't get added. Too much trouble, too little benefit.

Great summation. I tend to fall on the side of "not thought out enough."

 

[Felon]

And the reason that it's different with clerics is because clerics have to spend a finite rescource to alleviate the pain. This spending of a rescource can create drama when the rescource gets low, or special challenges resist this rescource. Magic is far from a panacea, otherwise we'd say Magic Missile allows you to overcome any monster because it deals hp damage, and every monster hp.

Bravo. This is a very well-thought-out post, which is more than can be said for most of the folks trying to diffuse your position. I've been reading that half-baked "clerics can remove poison and paralysis, so I guess you wanna get rid of them, huh?" straw-man line for several pages in this thread and I think I was about to have a conniption. Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing out that there is big difference between actively allocating a resource (in this case, a spell), and flat-out immunity. The level of obtuseness required to blot out that obvious distinction must be pretty painful.

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".

 

[Wild Gazebo]

I believe those straw-men were in refence to the DM's difficulty asigning obstacles, not the power relations involved in conflict and balance. The idea being if a DM finds it difficult to accomidate one PCs immunity to certain adventure paths...that DM doesn't play with magic very often. And, Kamikaze Midget, that really was a good summation of what Wizards could have easily done to introduce warforged a lot more elegantly. But, as is, I have absolutely no difficulty GMing warforged characters. In fact, I rather enjoy having one character able to accomidate an obstacle better that others...it leads to all sorts of bizzare schemes that make GMing so evil-ly fun.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Um. Kamakazi, I think you're prejudices are showing. I was going to debunk each of your examples fairly thouroughly but I think Saeviomagy did an ok job...except I think most warriors could cut their armor off before they die...but still, the point stands.

I was looking at the table for half or full plate and seeing 1d4+1 minutes to remove the stuff, and I think you get 2 rounds per point of constitution to hold your breath for.

So I think there's a pretty good chance of the warrior simply dying because he fell in the water...