Why are Warforged so bad?

[ARandomGod]

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Are they TANKS? Isnt this what they are designed for? Then why do they suck at it? They have to spend FEATS to get sub-par armor. Is this really a race that is designed to be shock troops?
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Yea, that's what they were designed for. Shock troops, of course, shock troops aren't supposed to get more than a few levels, are they?

On the other hand, somebody had to 'pay' for that adamantine or mithral armor. With real cash.

Which leads to another question, how much is that mithral or adamantine worth if you pry it off the downed warforges cold, dead body?

 

[bbarrington]

Which leads to another question, how much is that mithral or adamantine worth if you pry it off the downed warforges cold, dead body?

Yeah, I need to know because ARandomGod was ripping the adamantine off of everything in our game tonight... Not to mention the doors, etc.

 

[ARandomGod]

The arguments for warforged being LA+0 instead of LA+1 at this point have just gotten out right bad. They range from "they can still die" to "+8 armor bonus with light foritification and DR 2/adamantine is bad."

Please make some decent points so that I can feel it is worth my time to explain my side.

But neither of those was my point. You're either ignoring my point or deliberately misinterpreting it there. ^_^

+8 armor and DR2 is good.

The cost to purchase a feat is more than the cost to purchase AC+8 and DR3.

Anywho. I agree that they're strong, especially at the lower levels. At mid levels they've lost their edge, and at high levels they're definitly behind. Mostly I think that with all that they've got going for them, and against them, a logical player would only take them as a ECL+1 race un a game where he knew the level was going to be low throught the majority of the game... Then again, of course, in a game where you're not going to level about 3 or 6, ANY +ECL character is going to look pretty good, isn't it?

I think that if they were LA +1, nobody would ever want to play them. No. bo. dy. Ever.

While in the main I agree with you, I have to point out that your statement of absolutes is clearly wrong. Now, if you KNEW that you were going to be playing in a game where you'd spend a year playing levels one through nine, you weren't going to get more than 5000 or so gold for your character in the entire game, you WERE going to be scrabbling for food, desperate for sleep, not have access to magical healing anyhow... and then you were going to retire the game, you'd probably be tempted to get warforged even at ECL+1, wouldn't you?

On the other hand, if you were going to be playing a game that doesn't suck*... that's a different story altogether, of course.

Yeah, I need to know because ARandomGod was ripping the adamantine off of everything in our game tonight... Not to mention the doors, etc.

It's true. What? Were we supposed to just leave that valuable metal sitting there? Seriously I wonder about that. There is a section stating how much special materials cost to buy..l. but how much is used in the making of a warforged? Game designers should think about this sort of thing. You've got to expect that players will do stuff like this. I'm GMing a group that anytime a stone barrier gets in their way (so far) they've just broken through it. The first time took three days, but they sat there and excavated. The second time took only 11 minutes, during which time the noise attracted pretty much everybody in the area (breaking into a guarded dungeon)... turning what should have been a lightly challenging series of encounters into a near unbeatable (well, they certainly didn't beat it, so perhaps completely unbeatable) encounter. But when the rules are written to allow you to break through stone, sometimes players are going to break through stone. ^_^ But that's how the module was written,

*IMO, of course.

 

[Marshall]

Yea, that's what they were designed for. Shock troops, of course, shock troops aren't supposed to get more than a few levels, are they?

So it has a decent option at low levels. Interestingly, when most of the rest of its immunities are worthless.

On the other hand, somebody had to 'pay' for that adamantine or mithral armor. With real cash.

Which leads to another question, how much is that mithral or adamantine worth if you pry it off the downed warforges cold, dead body?

Heh. Read thru the adventure at the back of the ECS. When I got to the Foundry section, I thought "Screw the cog thingy, I'm taking those DOORS!"

 

[Saeviomagy]

Who has more to fear from a Nightcrawler, a Warforged or a dwarf? The dwarf is vulnerable to ALL those attacks. A warforged is just not immune to the normal "hitting things" "energy damage" and "insta-kill" attacks.

They are immune to contagion, poison, and energry drain, which are all significant risks of facing the Nightcrawler (especially, in this case, energy drain).

Would the focus on energy drain be because:

by 12th level every single member of every adventuring party is probably immune to poison

And frankly - if you were running this creature, would you honestly spend a round casting contagion??

So - we're down to energy drain. And frankly - you're 18th level and you're bemoaning 100gp??

For that matter... I'm not seeing how this thing's major danger is energy drain ANYWAY. I mean really - what sort of 18th level party is going to remain toe-to-toe with this thing??

Honestly - a heroes feast and a ring of free movement (and who's going to say they're not all-round great things without specially targeting an encounter...) will more-or-less make this thing a cakewalk outside of it's spells. And no - contagion is not going to be one of the spells it throws, no matter it's foes.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Eh, No. Clerics are designed with healing in mind. Hence, the extra spells/day and, biggie here, spontaneous Cures. Unless the WIZ has some way to spontaneously switch to Repair spells the role of "Warforged Healer" is a much, much, MUCH larger drain on his resources than the role of "Rest of Party" healer is on a CLR.

Wands, Staves, Scrolls. Sorcerers can cast without preparation if need be. Say the wizard is casting heals on the warforged ranger in the back, who isn't getting hit that much anyway. The cleric has that many more spells to go around.

And in a party where the Arcanes are acting as healers they ARE NOT going to be competent Arcane Casters.

To me, that's like saying clerics arn't competent when forced to heal. Clerics can do awesome things when not having to heal constantly, but noone ever says that they should just not heal so that they can do other things.

But neither of those was my point. You're either ignoring my point or deliberately misinterpreting it there. ^_^

+8 armor and DR2 is good.

The cost to purchase a feat is more than the cost to purchase AC+8 and DR3.

For a fighter, I think its worth a feat. What if you count in the light fortification that doesn't count toward armor maximum bonuses? I'm wondering if you offered a feat at 1st level equivalent to Adamantine Body (+8 AC DR 2/adamantine, +1 max Dex, -ACP +ASF) for anyone who wanted to take it, would your players do so? Fighter PCs?

Anywho. I agree that they're strong, especially at the lower levels. At mid levels they've lost their edge, and at high levels they're definitly behind.

Humans have +1 feat and one extra skill that they can max. At high levels, that isn't much. Usually what its good for is taking PrCs early or qualifying for chains early, but at higher levels, you're going to have those anyway. So, who's ahead here? The guy who is immune to poison, disease, and negative levels, etc, or the guy who has an extra feat and skill? I don't know about you, but poison, disease, and negative levels come up a lot at high levels in my games.

It's true. What? Were we supposed to just leave that valuable metal sitting there? Seriously I wonder about that. There is a section stating how much special materials cost to buy..l. but how much is used in the making of a warforged? Game designers should think about this sort of thing. You've got to expect that players will do stuff like this.

IMO what they should have done instead of make the armor feats is to just make it so that warforged have to spend extra for armor to have it attached to them and pay something to have it removed.

 

[ThirdWizard]

by 12th level every single member of every adventuring party is probably immune to poison

What's doing this?

So - we're down to energy drain. And frankly - you're 18th level and you're bemoaning 100gp??

What are you referring to that costs 100 gp?

 

[Felon]

Would the focus on energy drain be because:

by 12th level every single member of every adventuring party is probably immune to poison

Well, that would be a huge, highly-questionable assumption.

And frankly - if you were running this creature, would you honestly spend a round casting contagion??

No. That's a much more reasonable assumption.

So - we're down to energy drain. And frankly - you're 18th level and you're bemoaning 100gp??

Energy drain is one of the more rude effects around. Of course, if you keep assuming a party has every conceivable resource for dealing with every conceivable problem (e.g. every character's immune to poison, every character has a ring of freedom of movement), then nothing's ever going to be any kind of threat. It's a very long limb you're going out on, even for high level parties.

For that matter... I'm not seeing how this thing's major danger is energy drain ANYWAY. I mean really - what sort of 18th level party is going to remain toe-to-toe with this thing??

One that's in close quarters. Another safe assumption is that a DM's not going to stage an encounter with a nightcrawler in a football-field sized arena open to the sky.

At any rate, any hypothetical scenario can be rendered moot if people decide to focus on deconstructing it and forget the reason it was provided in the first place. Are immunity to energy drain, poison, and disease very handy to have in this scenario? Yes to the first two, no to the last.

 

[Geoff Watson]

What's doing this?

Heroes Feast; what most high-level groups have for breakfast.

Geoff.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Sure, short guy with weird ears, big menacing metal thing--pretty much the same thing. Now I see the light.

/sarcasm

Well if you're sufficiently obtuse, you can stand by this ill-considered attempt at an analogy between a race that largely resembles humans and one that very much does not, assert that a town guardsman would find them equally monstrous, and call the difference hair-splitting, but I'd say you very nicely serve to underscore just how a race magical robots are grossly out-of-place amongst the standard +0LA races.

I'll try to ignore any rude comments...

My point was: warforged is first and foremost an Eberron race. There, they're pretty common, and most people will either have seen them or at least heard of them.
In what way is that a problem of the warforged as a player race? If anything, it's a problem of the setting. As I've said in my previous post (the part that wasn't quoted by you): if you dislike the idea of the warforged being common, change it.

And I can't see the relevance of the warforged being at +0 LA to that regard, as your comments have nothing to do with rules or balance.

So yes, I call that hair-splitting.

Btw, I pity your elves if they're only humans with pointy ears.