Why are you looking forward (or not looking forward) to Eberron?

[Stone Dog]

Wow, that was some fascinating, insightful stuff. Thanks for going into that. I had noticed that the warforged seemed somewhat...odd, in that respect, though I hadn't really reviewed them too closely.

I wonder if the warforged are a concept that was somewhat hamstrung by the need to not vary too far from the rules? That is to say, in an effort to hang close to the core, could they have effectively self-censored the warforged's design (and thereby watered it down, some)?

I agree with both points there. They really didn't want any races other than ECL0 in Eberron, so the 'forged recieved some alterations to make them fit.

The only thing I can't agree with mearls on is the discussion of a warforged ranger wearing chain on page 89? According to the web article with Eberron art that is a wizard (although granted there was a thumbnail with this guy stating him as a ranger in an earlier Dragon) and that is certainly not chain. Looks like some sort of mantle (with a design woven in, not links of chain( and a hat which is perfectly fine under the rules.
Everything else is excelent thinking and even if I don't think it is needed in my game, I would certainly enjoy hearing about how such ideas turn out!

The armor issue is one that is a touch on the odd side though, I will readily agree. I am thinking of ways to push around it myself, but with the 'forged able to enchant their own bodies as if they were armor and full use of other protective gear I don't think this is as big of a problem as it seems.

I am not sure about the divine caster failure. They are already saddled with -2 to wisdom and charisma and we have no idea how active the gods are in Eberron, how their personalities work or anything else. Aside from the Silver Flame which doesn't seem picky at all so long as you are against fiends and necromancers and things like that.

Anyway, I have to cut this short, but I did want to get a few coppers in before I headed out.

 

[~Johnny~]

It's interesting, back in 2E I never thought twice about racial class restrictions, and now I regard them as anathema.

When looking at the Warforged, though, I think it's a case of trying to introduce a new race with mechanics that really support the race's role in the world. Unlike dwarves, elves and humans, this is our first exposure to the warforged, and mechanics like arcane spell failure can actually help support a race's flavor. This is the game's chance to establish warforged, and no matter how you'd like to view a race of sentient constructs, the designers have created a backstory where warforged were created as a tireless army.

I'm not sure how much comfort this will be to WizarDru, but we've gotten hints that there will be a feat to reduce arcane spell failure (for all characters, not just warforged) in the Eberron sourcebook. Then it becomes an even trade: mages are "buying" 2 AC with a feat.

I honestly don't see a warforged wizard as more "gimped" than a dwarf sorceror or a half-orc wizard. I agree with Stone Dog that the Wis and Cha penalties are enough to make the path to high-level cleric an arduous one. Like most other races, the warforged are more suited for some classes than others.

I think using actual armor rather than natural armor is a bit metagamey -- in the same way that it's weird that you can use two rings on each hand -- but I think it's a crucial balancing point to keep the race at ECL 0. I applaud that, because I've never had any interest in bothering with an ECL 1 or higher race. In general, I've been very happy with the way they've presented warforged.

That's a good thing, because they're a big part of the setting. (Hey, they're right on the cover.) But they're not what draws me in. What draws me in is the depth and backstory, the chance to play "generic" D&D that's a more flavorful kind of vanilla.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I'm not sure how much comfort this will be to WizarDru, but we've gotten hints that there will be a feat to reduce arcane spell failure (for all characters, not just warforged) in the Eberron sourcebook.

I hope so. This always seemed like such an obvious "fit' for a feat, but as far as I know, such a feat has never been in an official product.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I hope so. This always seemed like such an obvious "fit' for a feat, but as far as I know, such a feat has never been in an official product.

IMC we call it "armour proficiency"

Based on the observation that clerics have all armour proficiency and can cast in all armour, bards have light armour proficiency and can cast in light armour, wizards/sorcerers have no armour proficiency and have arcane failure chance in all armour. So we rule that if you have proficiency in armour, you can ignore the arcane failure chance. A wizard might decide to use a feat to pick up light armour prof and cast away in a chain shirt. He equally might decide to take a level of fighter and then clank around casting in full plate.

Naturally I know that there are reasons (IMO artificial) why divine casters don't get penalties while arcane casters do, but this seemed to be a neat solution to the problem, and it has worked very well for us so far.

Cheers

 

[mearls]

I wonder if the warforged are a concept that was somewhat hamstrung by the need to not vary too far from the rules? That is to say, in an effort to hang close to the core, could they have effectively self-censored the warforged's design (and thereby watered it down, some)?

That's a cogent observation. I think they were really worried about making a construct character race fit into the existing structure of what they thought makes a construct a construct.

In this case, they let the rules define what a construct was: immunities to a bunch of different effects, the business with healing, and so on. I think that seriously weakened the design. There's a lot of design energy wasted on patching up a concept (the construct monster type) applied to something it isn't suited to handle (a PC race).

IME, a better design path is to start with the overall effect you want to achieve, and design from there. I wouldn't worry about fitting them in with other constructs in the system. The point of RPG design is to produce cool, fun stuff, not stuff that's consistent.* It's more important that the warforged be as cool as possible rather than utterly consistent with how the system defines a construct. There are so many design problems you can avoid simply by ignoring them.

*Consistency helps, but we play games to have fun, not to admire their regularity and smooth, cross-subsystem integration. A good design is consistent. A great one knows when to kick consistency to the curb in the interest of making a rule more fun, interesting, or compelling.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Furthermore, it leads to a bit of dissonance between Eberron as depicted in the art previews, and Eberron as depicted in the rules. It would be as if dwarves were always drawn as tall as humans, with long, slender legs, and then the rules said they had a 20 ft. speed because they were short and had stumpy legs.

(poking fun at PHB not at you)

It would be as if dwarves were drawn with arms the size of mens thighs, but they only had the same strength as men; or as if halflings were drawn the size of 2-year old children but were nearly as strong as men; or as if half-orcs were drawn with four times the muscle bulk of men when their average STR is still only 12...

Oh, but thats what they did, isn't it?

(I think those PHB racial drawings are Lockwoods worst hour. How could he draw things which fell so far from the descriptions?!?)

Cheers

 

[jasamcarl]

That's a cogent observation. I think they were really worried about making a construct character race fit into the existing structure of what they thought makes a construct a construct.

In this case, they let the rules define what a construct was: immunities to a bunch of different effects, the business with healing, and so on. I think that seriously weakened the design. There's a lot of design energy wasted on patching up a concept (the construct monster type) applied to something it isn't suited to handle (a PC race).

IME, a better design path is to start with the overall effect you want to achieve, and design from there. I wouldn't worry about fitting them in with other constructs in the system. The point of RPG design is to produce cool, fun stuff, not stuff that's consistent.* It's more important that the warforged be as cool as possible rather than utterly consistent with how the system defines a construct. There are so many design problems you can avoid simply by ignoring them.

*Consistency helps, but we play games to have fun, not to admire their regularity and smooth, cross-subsystem integration. A good design is consistent. A great one knows when to kick consistency to the curb in the interest of making a rule more fun, interesting, or compelling.

Eh, I think that emulating construct traits was a secondary consideration. As you noted, most of the immunities are passive and probably didn't have that much of an impact on balance. And, as you also noted, they intentionally diverged from phb constructs when it came to armor vs. natural armor.

I'm think they did infact put gameplay first, in that they only wanted to evoke the idea of playing a construct and also simply wanted to create a signature race that forced players to take certain things into consideration and thus create a unique experience. If this was done by making the stock warforged more proficient in martial classes, so be it, (though its hardly the only one. you noted that half-orcs, dwarves and whatnot could take measures to make them competent casters. true, but they would still never max the way elves, humans and such do. and warforged are likely only to need to take a feat.) Those considerations come in the form of warforged feats, which will likely allow a pc to be tweaked in rather untraditional ways, with a prereq being the warforged race. This is a very flexible option, and produces flavor more through a carrot as oppossed to 1e/2es stick.

So I think its balanced and flexible and I really don't see the difference between this race and just about any other.

 

[~Johnny~]

I hope so. This always seemed like such an obvious "fit' for a feat, but as far as I know, such a feat has never been in an official product.

To be more specific, the Artificer class description in Dragon 316 mentions that they can take "Reduce Spell Failure" feat. That sure sounds to me like it would reduce arcane spell failure by maybe 5 or 10 percent. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Artificers aren't subject to arcane spell failure! Is there anotehr type of spell failure I'm just not thinking of?

 

[Stone Dog]

Well Johnny, there is a "Reduce Spell Failure" feat in the bonus feats list, but I can't see where it says that augmentations are or are not subject to arcane spell failure. I'd imagine they are, but only because of the presence of the feat.

If anyone is interested though and doesn't have that article, here are all the feats listed there.

Attune Magic Weapon, Exceptional Artisan, Extra Ring (!), Magical Artisan, Maximize Magic Weapon, Reduce Spell Failure and Wand Mastery.

There are also these listed in a sidebar. Action Boost (D8s for action dice instead of D6s), Dragon Rage (+2natural armor and energy resistance +10 according to dragon totem while raging), Flensing Strike (Cause intense pain with a full action while using kama's to attack) and haunting melody (unnerve enemies with bardic music).

Lots of good stuff!

 

[~Johnny~]

Well Johnny, there is a "Reduce Spell Failure" feat in the bonus feats list, but I can't see where it says that augmentations are or are not subject to arcane spell failure. I'd imagine they are, but only because of the presence of the feat.

I guess I assumed that they didn't, because "augmentations" weren't referred to as "spells" and I didn't see a reason to omit such a standard detail. If they have spell failure, though, I assume it's only when wearing medium or heavier armor.