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leden
2010-08-24, 08:55 PM
Hello to everyone out there. I'm looking for help about a character I'm making for a campaign I'll be playing soon.

This character is going to be a warforged warblade. The fun part is that he will have a way to act as thought he was a follower of Kant*, he'll have no feelings and he'll try to help everyone, not out of love but out of duty.
I want him to be able to block and parry opponent's atack, mostly to help my companions.

I need help in both how to stat him, and how to roleplay him, so my first thought was to turn to the playgound! :smallbiggrin:
Any help will be thanked! so... Thanks :smallwink:


*For those of you that don't know who kant is, he was a phylosopher who thought that you were only acting well if you followed your duty.

SurlySeraph
2010-08-24, 10:06 PM
If you take the feat Dutiful Guardian (http://www.realmshelps.org/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Dutiful_Guardian), from Drow of the Underdark, you'll be able to switch places with an ally when an enemy attacks them. Taking Martial Study (Shield Block) will also help. In fact, a level or two in Crusader would probably be a good idea.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-08-24, 10:08 PM
What level? sources available? relevant houserules?

having said that, I think that if you want a bodyguard-esque martial adept, a crusader is your best bet AFAIK, though a White Raven heavy warblade might help.

Tetrasodium
2010-08-24, 10:21 PM
It's very difficult to have -no- emotion, why would you bother helping someone being attacked since you have no interest in who wins and don't care if say... slavery or murder is wrong even if the law says otherwise... one side or the other is going to be subjected to one of them for example, nature can play out it's cards. Go with underdeveloped and not quite nailed down grasp on humanity and you will probably have an easier time IMO, plus you can do or suggest some horrifically evil things and simply ask why not when the paladin in your group scrapes his jaw off the floor :)

Marnath
2010-08-24, 11:08 PM
Like this?
Warforged: We can draw the guards away from the treasury if we set that orphanage two blocks down on fire.

Paladin: wtf, NO! Why would you say something like that?

Warforged: Fine, fine. I'll go burn down the church instead. I bet the screams of the monks will carry farther than the children's anyway, judging on their singing capacity.

Paladin: I've got a better idea. You shut up and we'll send the rogue around back >.<

WeeFreeMen
2010-08-24, 11:20 PM
In my experience, best way to RP completely LN is 1) Acknowledge you Objective 2) By any-means achieve it.

As the above posted, that is an excellent example. It might SEEM chaotic, however, its not Chaotic or Evil until its done. Just be slightly indifferent to the routes that must be taken so long as the objective is achieved.

That being said, this can get slightly annoying but if done well it gets hilarious.

Marnath
2010-08-24, 11:29 PM
Yeah, a big thing about RP'ing warforged is that most are TN. "Warforged were built to fight, not wonder if fighting was right." That's paraphrasing their fluff from the eberron campaign book. I like my warforged to think laterally like that and not understand why burning down an occupied orphanage isn't a good idea, because after all, it would be a perfect way to distract the guards and complete the objective. :smallsmile:

TaintedLight
2010-08-24, 11:32 PM
Moral Imperative: Acquire treasure to defend The Wizard. He is weak of body.

Marnath
2010-08-24, 11:46 PM
If you have to send the warforged party member on alone to do something critical but are in a hurry and can't take time to explain what you want, it's a bad idea to say "improvise." Trust me. :smallwink:

Coidzor
2010-08-24, 11:47 PM
So a bit of a mirror of this. (http://dresdencodak.com/2009/01/27/advanced-dungeons-and-discourse/)

Though a battlecry of "Categorical Imperative: MURDER," does seem like 'twould be nifty.

Frosty
2010-08-24, 11:50 PM
Why do I get a Robocop vibe here?

Tetrasodium
2010-08-24, 11:52 PM
Warforged are also good for picking up some completely bizarre behavior since their upbringing was essentially:

- learn to fight for less time than most sentient races spend learning to walk -> ok...
- fight in a war for a while -> ok...
- oh wait your free have fun -> uhh.. what? why? what the heck am I supposed to do now? wtf is this name crap people keep asking about? religion? a soul?

Plus they can put ranks in a craft skill and max the crap out of it while actually benefiting from it beyond the RP potential or crafting your own equipment (assuming you pick one that can repair warforged). Sculpting is a good one since you can justifiably use it for whittling wood into creatures and such while the fleshbags are sleeping without the whole need for an anvil/furnace/etc :). Give them to kids, stick carved birds in trees, whittle creatures you fought and find someone to teach you about it's weaknesses or how to defend against it later if you think it might show up again, "has anyone seen *this* man?.. we are looking for them", etc :).

Marnath
2010-08-24, 11:52 PM
So a bit of a mirror of this. (http://dresdencodak.com/2009/01/27/advanced-dungeons-and-discourse/)

Though a battlecry of "Categorical Imperative: MURDER," does seem like 'twould be nifty.

Maybe i'm just sleep deprived, but that comic seems completely incomprehensible right now. I don't get it..

*Edit Carving critters and NPC's to show people to get info would totally be awesome. I'd give you a decent gather information bonus for rp'ing like that.

Tetrasodium
2010-08-24, 11:54 PM
Moral Imperative: Acquire treasure to defend The Wizard. He is weak of body.

The wizard can -heal- the warforged with repair spells... warforged tend to have few complaints about defending arcane casters, especially since they don't heal on their own naturally ;)

nooblade
2010-08-25, 12:06 AM
Kant though, his philosophy (the Categorical Imperative) wasn't just devotion to duty. It was very near to the "Golden Rule", that is, only treat others as they would want to be treated. Well, except not for masochists, treat them the way they would want to be treated if they weren't masochists. Or actually, I'm not sure about that, the terminology was confusing, and Kantian philosophy wasn't quite the same as the Golden Rule. Let me refresh my memory with a Wikipedia article...

So, the Categorical Imperative, if I'm remembering it correctly isn't so concerned with cause and effect or chains of reactions. Also, it's not perfect at all, in fact it fails utterly whenever you have to choose between two things, but this is perfect for a magical robot which isn't made for thinking power. But anyway. Unlike the Utilitarian ideas, you don't do anything for the greater good, or the ends justify the means, none of that, not ever. "Duty" is another confusing buzz-word that has an unconventional meaning. But if a thing isn't good, you just don't do it.

There is stipulation for an object like a building, those things have a "price", they can be replaced. But a person, for example, has a special quality according to Kant. "Dignity" means that something is "price"-less and can't be exchanged, ever. I'm not sure what else has "dignity". Therefore, you can't burn either an orphanage or a church, because the monks and the children in either all have protection due to "dignity". You have to consider everything that has "dignity" individually, trying to save each one. Even if they all would die unless you had to sacrifice one, the Categorical Imperative would stipulate that you can't make any sacrifices just because the action is morally bad and therefore the result is worthless, no matter what that result actually is. The important part is what you "feel" (the thing coming from your conscience) as you carry out an action, that's what sets the value of the result (certainly not the "feel" of the result, or how satisfied you are, no hindsight required).

Hence, "Let justice be done, though the world perish." Have fun! :smallbiggrin:


Dresden Kodak is silly. I had figured that link would show up eventually. "Good for its own sake," is another motto-type-thing of the Categorical Imperative, since you don't expect to be rewarded for the things you do. Hence you see the dark Kantian eating the zombie because eating slain enemies just feels like an evil thing to do.


Edit: So, for the warforged in particular, LN will work great. Some of the things which are "duty" to you won't be "good" by the laws of DnD universes, such as not sacrificing a unique thing for any reason, ever, or trying to save evil NPCs from your party. You might say that your magical intelligence has the concept of "dignity" for sentient beings built-in. There's a limited "conscience" to tell you what a dutiful action is without actually having to take time to consider the future. Alternatively, the "conscience" is another modular brain-part that considers the future, and then assigns duty to you.

For roleplaying, you don't have to worry about following the rules perfectly if you can assign errors to your magic brain or whatever warforged have. And if you really don't want to save everything, then you can pull an Asimov and add a "Zeroth Law" to the system, a reasonable exception, except I think it should depend more on "feelings" or "conscience" than on the results you expect.

mobdrazhar
2010-08-25, 12:16 AM
Like this?
Warforged: We can draw the guards away from the treasury if we set that orphanage two blocks down on fire.

Paladin: wtf, NO! Why would you say something like that?

Warforged: Fine, fine. I'll go burn down the church instead. I bet the screams of the monks will carry farther than the children's anyway, judging on their singing capacity.

Paladin: I've got a better idea. You shut up and we'll send the rogue around back >.<

can i please sig this?

TaintedLight
2010-08-25, 12:18 AM
The wizard can -heal- the warforged with repair spells... warforged tend to have few complaints about defending arcane casters, especially since they don't heal on their own naturally ;)

I kid sir, I kid :smallbiggrin:.

Marnath
2010-08-25, 12:20 AM
can i please sig this?

Go for it, assuming it's not too big to fit in a sig. :smallsmile:

mobdrazhar
2010-08-25, 12:26 AM
Go for it, assuming it's not too big to fit in a sig. :smallsmile:

nope... double checked the forum rules and it fits :smallbiggrin:

AslanCross
2010-08-25, 02:41 AM
Now thanks to you, I want to make a Dark Kantian. (http://dresdencodak.com/2009/01/27/advanced-dungeons-and-discourse/)

"Categorical Imperative....MURDER!" totally sounds like something a warforged would say.

EDIT: Ninja'd, apparently.

Coidzor
2010-08-25, 02:58 AM
Now thanks to you, I want to make a Dark Kantian. (http://dresdencodak.com/2009/01/27/advanced-dungeons-and-discourse/)

"Categorical Imperative....MURDER!" totally sounds like something a warforged would say.

EDIT: Ninja'd, apparently.

Is ok, I'll probably never get to play it in an Evil Campaign. :smallfrown:

Morph Bark
2010-09-06, 08:00 AM
Funny enough, there is this homebrew class (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Kantian_Paladin_(3.5e_Class)) one of my co-players used in our last campaign. He always plays Paladins or Paladin-like characters. It's like he follows the Categorical Imperative by heart. It's almost crazy.

Since you're playing a Warblade though, Paladin levels of any sort will prolly not really fit in with that. If you rolled real good at character creation though, it might be fun to try throw in a bit of Crusader, netting some more maneuvers.

Urpriest
2010-09-06, 10:57 AM
The central problem with playing an actually Kantian character is that you can't kill people. You'd need to modify the code somewhat, or be some sort of horrendous Warblade/Apostle of Peace build.