Extra Action #3: Playing Warforged

Created as soldiers for a war that spelled the end of an age, Warforged are artificial beings that display a human level of intelligence and self-awareness. Warforged sentience developed as a side effect of their creators’ desire to have fully functional, adaptive battlefield units. With no great war to fight, no ancient legacy to claim, and only the vestiges of a culture developed within the past century, Warforged are an emergent people. Integrated into the societies of peoples more numerous than they, Warforged are famed for their endurance and focus, in labor as well as combat.

Welcome to Extra Action #3: Playing Warforged. Straight out of Eberron, this article's got everything you need to stick a warforged right into your game: racial traits, feats, and even a paragon path. If you were a fan of Eberron or feel that your game is missing walking, talking hunks of metal, look no further. So, let's get right to it!

Most of the racial traits, the first section of the article, are pretty straightforward: +2s to Strength and Constitution (as befits a walking metal construct) and various Living Construct features. For those of you prone to failing saving throws, you'll be interested to see that the warforged gains a +2 bonus to saving throws to ongoing damage. And that's not all. Get this: a +10 bonus to death saving throws. That's right; you can't die unless you get kicked while you're down. Nice. They also receive the Warforged Resolve racial power, an encounter healing power that grants 3+half-level temporary hit points and grants a saving throw. Useful, especially for a tank (see what I did there? Tank?)

The physical and "Playing a Warforged" sections are not too crazy, either. The description is nothing out of the ordinary, providing Warforged with a valid "Bloodied" state (they have pipes running through their body to lubricate them) and explaining their physical variation. Each Warforged has a rune on its forehead called a "ghulra", which is akin to a living being's fingerprint. In addition, many Warforged modify themselves to account for varying appearances. Their psyches are equally different: different Warforged may develop a sexed personality (though most don't), be curious about the whys of life, and have deep or shallow emotional ranges. The standard warforged is described as having a straightforward emotional range (though Chris Sims is quick to note that it doesn't make them overly different from other races, which seems to be an overarching theme in Wizards' products). This section ends with the names, which are amusing and interesting: they range from very mechanical-sounding names such as "Null" and "Three", while the more adventurous include "Zealot", "Graven", and even "Mark". I'd definitely name my mechanical companion Mark.

The next section becomes a little crunchier: feats. Sadly, there are only six feats spanning all three tiers (though only one each for paragon and epic). As I'm sure you're aware, there have been more feats released, which is good, because none of these are particularly good (the powers granted by the two higher-level feats are nice, but in most cases, an epic or paragon utility would be more useful.) The only one I'd consider is the "Improved Warforged Resolve" feat, which grants an extra 5 temporary hit points with your racial power. Not bad, but nothing great here either.

Flipping back over to the fluffy side of the pillow for a moment, we get some insight into how warforged might fit into our campaigns. I suspect that if you're ready to allow a warforged character into your game, then you might have an idea about where they might go, but this is pretty helpful nonetheless. There's a base story for those of you using the Points of Light setting from Wizards or if you're willing to cut and paste this into your campaign: it involves a king building them to be utopian servants, then his son takes over and has different ideas for them, employing them in an empire-consuming war. I like this story a lot, actually: it provides a lot of interesting adventure hooks, and some cool ideas for where Warforged PCs could come from. There are also a host of other ideas in case this one doesn't float your boat (your PC is the result of a Frankenstein-like experiment, etc.) Whatever your story preference, there's something here for you.

Back to the crunchy side for Paragon Paths! There are two, more than we usually see for races. The Warforged Juggernaut is yummy for Charge-barians, and for a lot of weapon-focused characters. There are a lot of goodies for charging and bonuses to endurance: one class feature grants +1d6 when you charge. Yes please. The Warforged Lifeseeker is more focused towards the healer/Warforged seeking life. This path is very flavorful: a Warforged searching for the spark of life inside themselves. The features and powers are nice, granting little bonuses for your leader Warforged to healing and social skills, but nothing game-changing. I might take this, but more for the flavor than the content.

The end of the article focuses on magic items, mostly on how the Warforged uses them. I love the concept of a Warforged smithing all of its equipment into itself (there's even an option to attach thieves' tools!). It also grants a few small benefits, like you being able to use the hand with a shield attached freely. There are also some given magic items. The Warsoul Weapon is cool, I guess, but I don't really understand why this guy needs initiative... I guess if you want your hulking piece of metal to be quick, then this is for you. Another cool on is the Shoulderbow, which pops up from your shoulder and shoots at your will. I assume you can hold weapons in your hands as well, but sadly, it takes a free action to fire the bow. Otherwise it might be a little broken, especially for rogues... The final messenger certainly is cool, although I can't see it being useful on a regular basis.

Overall, a solid article! There are a couple blips in the quality here and there, and some odd references, but overall, another good one. That makes three of three! If you'd like to check out the article for yourself, you can find it here.

Keep This! Most of it! The article was pretty good throughout, and it fits the Warforged nicely.
Retrain This! More feats please.
Leave This! Only the origin story, if it doesn't suit you.

Tune in next time (hopefully quicker than this one was) for Extra Action #4: The Ashen Covenant!

Have your own feedback on the article? Want to share your own Warforged PC? Post a comment!