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Warforged

There are a few [feats] that help you customize your character and make it more appropriate for certain classes (after all, a fighter who can't wear armor and only has a +2 AC bonus is at a slight disadvantage...).

There are certainly many more customization options beyond feats, but I'm sure these will be revealed in time. As for not healing naturally, the balance to this is that they can be healed through use of craft skills, and a warforged can even repair itself... and given that they don't sleep, if you don't mind the noise it can stay up through the night smoothing out the dents.

There's a lot more to the warforged than what you get at first level (be it feats or racial abilities). The ability to actually place armor enchantments directly on a warforged is one example of this, but there are other things that will let you evolve a warforged character in significant ways at higher levels. To obliquely mention two, I'll just say "warforged juggernaut" and suggest that people take a close look at the warforged wizard on the WAR cover from the last Gearing up for Eberron article. What's going on with his right arm?

Of course, while the campaign setting book will go into more detail, it will still only scratch the surface of the issues that could be explored. I'm sure more will be done with warforged and warforged culture, be it in sourcebooks, novels, or among players & DMs.

As a side note, the warforged have gone through about half a dozen overhauls over the last two years. They have been playtested to Baator and back again. They did begin as full constructs, and it had a lot of issues. Game balance was certainly a factor in the decisions, but it was also a question of trying to make sure that the characters were fun to play (and frankly if one character is extremely unbalanced, that is going to affect whether it's fun to play, at least for everyone else...). I'm quite happy with the current version of the warforged, and I ran a warforged character the one chance I had to play in an Eberron game. The first level feats provide you with a fair amount of versatility in initial character concept, and in the long term there are ways to embrace your construct heritage, if that's what appeals to you. And hey, if you're going to hang with the Lord of Blades, it better be what appeals to you.

Warforged have souls. They are sentient creatures. Why shouldn't mind-affecting spells affect them?

Warforged are not just made of metal. They receive a reduced benefit from healing spells... from a game balance perspective, if they could not benefit at all from healing magic, it would really become impossible to have a warforged character in a party unless there was an artificer along as well, which is a drag if no one in a group wants to play an artificer. Even the half benefit from healing is a fairly serious limitation, though the Craft system helps offset it.

They may use Craft in place of Heal, but the mechanics of this process are completely different. It's not just "make all the same checks as if you were using Heal, but use your Craft ranks instead."

Speaking of which, they cannot wear armor on top of the +2 bonus. Why? The same reason you can't say "My fighter is going to wear a breastplate, and then put a suit of plate mail on top of that." Effectively, a warforged IS a suit of armor. The starting feat determines what type of armor it is. They aren't designed for it and they aren't as flexible as organic creatures to begin with. If you want the benefit of heavy plate, get the Adamantine Plating feat (+8 AC, DR 2/adamantine). It's possible that supplimentary plating could be added in the future (which is to say, it's not something you'll see now, but might be explored in a warforged sourcebook) but the warforged is basically a living suit of armor, and wearing more armor on top just won't work very well.

There may be a way for a warforged to become immune to mind-affecting effects, which would solve the problem of fear and confusion...

In general, however, warforged are built to be combatants, and they are certainly best suited to being fighters. You can take any class, but it's true that clerics, sorcerers, et al suffer from the stat penalties -- just like half-orcs make poor wizards, sorcerers, or bards. But it can still be interesting to play a half-orc bard, if you're more concerning with story than stats -- it depends on your style of campaign.

It's true, if you're any type of fighter you really do need to take an armor feat. Of course, in exchange for that penalty you gain immunity to poison, disease, paralysis, nausea, sleep, fatigue, and exhaustion. You don't need to eat, sleep, or breathe. If you get a Craft skill, you can heal yourself. You get light fortification. You have the potential to have +8 AC and DR 2 at first level -- and in my opinion, I'd say DR 2/adamantine alone is worth the expenditure of a feat for a low-level fighter.

So sure, you basically have to expend a feat. But having played a warforged fighter, I think it's well worth the sacrifice. And I actually DM'd a warforged barbarian, who seemed to have a fine time with his choice -- immunity to paralysis can certainly be useful when you're charging headlong into a pack of ghouls.

As for the armor issue, the point again is that the body of a warforged has far more in common with a breastplate than a chain shirt. It's formed of large sections of inflexible material. Like I said, if you want to house-rule it in your campaign, go for it -- but the current rules make sense to me. From a mechanics standpoint, don't forget that the warforged can BE enchanted; your fighter may have +3 platemail, but I have +3 adamantine plating & light fortification to boot. And bear in mind that you haven't seen any new magic items yet. Just because the warforged can't wear armor doesn't mean that you may not be able to acquire treasures that can improve your defense or other abilities... and that's all I'll say about that.

In regards to warforged barbarians, bear in mind that warforged are immune to fatigue! This means that you can rage without fear of the penalty at the end, assuming combat lasts that long. Hence my seeing it as less of an emotional rage and more of a temporary alchemical boost.

The use of a Craft skill for healing purposes takes hours, and its effiency is directly tied to your skill check. It helps to offset the healing penalty, but in the middle of a heated battle, it's no use. And that really is the big drawback of the warforged -- if you have a group with no artificer and only one healer (as I currently do), it does make life challenging for the warforged fighter.

I think of cure spells as first and foremost restoring the motive force and willpower of the warforged, allowing it to soldier on in spite of physical damage (terminator style). Cure spells won't fix dents or scratches, but they will give the character the strength to fight on in spite of those dents. As I see it, a warforged could be at full hp and still look fairly beat up -- you're just going to have to demolish him before he finally gives up the ghost.

A warforged paladin or monk gains the full benefit from [lay on hands and wholeness of body]. A warforged paladin can in fact use its lay on hands to repair other constructs in addition to living creatures. Of course, that -2 Cha will hurt.

[Most Warforged were "made" with PC classes, giving them an advantage over the 1st-level warriors who made up the bulk of most Last War armies.] I would also be inclined to make all warforged elite NPCs, with maximum hit points at first level and the elite ability array.

A quick comparison between the elite warforged and the standard soldier:

Warforged Ftr2; CR 2; Medium humanoid (living construct); HD 2d10+6; hp 21; Init +1; Spd 20 ft; AC 21 (+1 Dex, +2 heavy steel shield, +8 Adamantine Body); Base Atk +2; Grap +4; Atk +4 melee (1d8+2, longsword); Full Atk +4 melee (1d8+2, longsword); SQ Damage reduction 2/adamantine, warforged traits; AL N; SV Fort +6, Ref +1, Will +0; Str 15, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 6.
Skills and Feats: Craft (armorsmith) +5, Intimidate +3; Adamantine Body, Cleave, Power Attack.

Human War1; CR 1/2; Medium humanoid (human); HD 1d8+1; hp 8; Init +0; Spd 20 ft; AC 16 (+2 heavy steel shield, +4 scale mail); Base Atk +1; Grap +2; Atk +2 melee (1d8+1, longsword); Full Atk +2 melee (1d8+1, longsword); AL N; SV Fort +3, Ref +0, Will +0; Str 13, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 8.
Skills and Feats: Craft (armorsmith) +1, Intimidate +4, Ride +3; Power Attack, Toughness.

With warforged using PC classes, you then get barbarians as skirmish troops, rangers as scouts, and so on. This assumes a 2nd-level warforged, but personally I have no problem with the idea that many warforged are 2nd-level or higher; there aren't that many of them, and they have always been an elite force as opposed to the bulk of the armies (1st-level warforged are thus experimental or economy models). However, I would still make high-level warforged just as rare as high-level humans; the PC warforged still has greater potential than most.

You could also say "As long as we're looking at 2nd-level fighters, why not look at a human fighter?" Certainly. But 2nd-level+ fighters (say, Valenar mercenaries) would also be a valuable and rare commodity. A kingdom would want all that it could get, and if it can make more, great. If you do the math, you'll see that the warforged can clobber a batch of the warriors, and even repair itself between battles. The arms race is the scenario I see: Cyre commissions the first warforged troop, and after seeing them in action the other nations say "Sign us up for a piece of that!"

Having the new races all be LA 0 was a conscious decision, and one I stand by. Many people have already said that they will start PCs off above first level to begin with. My point was that if the typical warforged soldier is 2nd-level, if you play a 1st-level warforged PC it is up to YOU to decide why you're 1st-level. You may be an experimental scout or "economy model". If you're not a fighter, it's easy to say that you're experimental in nature. You can use the war damage approach -- you were caught in the event that destroyed Cyre, and while you survived, it had an adverse affect that you are still recovering from. The choice is up to you; the fact is that you start out slightly inferior to the typical warforged. But they do not have the potential for advancement you do, just like all PCs.

A DM who wants the warforged to be powerful can make them higher level. But once you give them a level adjustment, you've taken an option away from the group; a warforged no longer has a place in a level 1 party. You can change them if you want to in your campaign; overall, I stand by what we have done with the race. There is no reason that the typical warforged has to be level 1, and by raising the level of the standard warforged soldier you address the question of their effectiveness on the battlefield.

And indeed, with the exception of small, elite units I would not expect to see an army comprised entirely of warforged. An individual warforged may not be a tank (that would be a warforged titan or jugernaut), but I would see it as being the equivalent of heavy cavalry: expensive, elite, and serving a specific function. And as I and others have pointed out, nations are willing to spend a great deal of money when it comes to getting a slight edge in battle. Setting the $5 million dollar toilet seats aside, look at the cost of some of our modern military equipment. How many soldiers could you outfit for the cost of one cruise missile? Yes, the missile serves an entirely different purpose on the battlefield than the foot soldier -- but so does the warforged soldier. Likewise, even if I could equip 20 soldiers for the price of one warforged, it may be that I have the gold and I don't have the 20 soldiers *to* equip, or that I would prefer not to send my people to their deaths if I can send an "unliving" creature in their place. Both thoughts reflect on Cyre, the nation that commissioned the first warforged -- although with warforged having souls, the second point would eventually be called into question.

The warforged -- the PC race -- first appeared 30 years ago, though variants of the warforged like the warforged titan were around before that.

The CSB does not present special options for warforged monks, but it's true that Diamond Body and Purity of Body are redundant for a warofrged character. I'll try to address this in the future.

I believe that is coming out in April '05.

Dungeons and Dragons for Dummies

No, seriously ...

The fact that they cant be healed unless its crafting seems that they will be very gimped in DDO , i mean why would they want you in a party when they could have someone who will actaully last lol. How do they upgrade themselves through equipment? It seems in DDO that a human with extremely good armor would be far superior to the extra AC feat that warforge get. I really wanted to play as this race in DDO as my main but it seems like they will have alot of problems , especially if they cant equip any type or armor to upgrade there AC.