Incarnate Construct Warforged

[GimpLemons]

So, I've been reading over the Savage Species Material and the Race of Eberron Book, and been thinking of ways to pump Warforged Int up to make a good Artificer...and I realized that its not really as broken as I thought it was...

Applying Incarnate Construct to your Warforged PC assumes your character has existed before you took control of it. Under this assumption, he's atleast been level 1 for a while, which means before the template is applied, you've chosen your first level feat.

You have to REROLL your Int/Con, and stick with whatever it gives you, in other words, if you roll four ones, you are stuck with it, any sane DM would apply the template as it explains how to.

You LOSE any feats you had gained prior to the change, which means not only do you lose that +2 Nat armor, but you lose ANY Warforged Armor feat you had chosen.

You also lose that 25% crit resistance as well.

Even after applying some Templates the thought of losing my first level feat, rerolling possibly horrible int/con scores, and losing all of the defensive abilities that make warforged so tanky bothers me.

Can anyone confirm all this? or disprove it?

Edit: Scratch the rerolling stats, just realized they had to be non-abilities.

but it still states that Incarnate Constructs "has no feats when it becomes
a living creature..."

[Zombulian]

To be fair, I'm fine with "spending" a feat to have Phrenic.
Otherwise, this is why we use effigies instead of warforged!

[Agent 451]

You LOSE any feats you had gained prior to the change, which means not only do you lose that +2 Nat armor, but you lose ANY Warforged Armor feat you had chosen.

Sorry, but why do you lose the +2 AC? If you haven't taken either the Mithral Body or Adamantine Body feats, then you just have the +2 AC from being a warforged, which (at least in ECS) is explicitly not Natural Armor. Not only that, but Incarnate Construct doesn't completely remove Natural Armor AC, it allows for a maximum of +3 AC to remain after acquiring the template.

Edit: Ah, I see, MMIII lists the composite plating as being EX, so it falls under the Special Qualities bit of the Incarnate Construct template.

[tyckspoon]

Sorry, but why do you lose the +2 AC? If you haven't taken either the Mithral Body or Adamantine Body feats, then you just have the +2 AC from being a warforged, which (at least in ECS) is explicitly not Natural Armor. Not only that, but Incarnate Construct doesn't completely remove Natural Armor AC, it allows for a maximum of +3 AC to remain after acquiring the template.

Composite Plating is a special quality of being a Warforged, so Incarnate Construct removes it.

@thread subject:
Yeah, Incarnate Construct is just kind of weird. Negative LA is a huge flashing 'Do Something Neat With Me!' sign to anybody with an optimization bent, but the template itself kills almost all the interesting traits you might acquire with that LA. There's maybe 2 or 3 templates I can think of off-hand that really work well with Incarnate Construct, and all you really get in the end is a boosted Strength score.

[GimpLemons]

"Special Qualities: The base creature loses all its special
qualities."

Kind of destroys all possible fun things you can do with it, I just realized its just a way to buff the crap out of your ability scores.

[GimpLemons]

To be fair, I'm fine with "spending" a feat to have Phrenic.
Otherwise, this is why we use effigies instead of warforged!
But doesn't the IC template have to be applied after Phrenic for it to end up being LA+0? which means you lose all the phrenic abilities except for the ability score increases?

[Karnith]

But doesn't the IC template have to be applied after Phrenic for it to end up being LA+0?
Yes, although it must be applied afterwards anyway because it is an acquired template, while Phrenic is an inherited one. Per the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#addingMoreThanOneTemplate):

In theory, there’s no limit to the number of templates you can add to a creature. To add more than one template, just apply each template one at a time. Always apply inherited templates before applying acquired templates. Whenever you add multiple templates, pay attention to the creature’s type—you may add a template that makes the creature ineligible for other templates you might want to add.

[Spuddles]

The psionic abilities are attacks and not qualities, are they not?

Does incarnate lose special attacks, too?

[Karnith]

Does incarnate lose special attacks, too?
Yep. Per Savage Species:

Special Attacks: The base creature loses all its special attacks.
Special Qualities: The base creature loses all its special qualities.

Applying the Incarnate Construct template also loses you your natural attacks, sets a maximum on your natural armor bonus, and gives you a fixed speed based on your size.