Warforged Composite Plating: a drawback?

[Cheiromancer]

I'm trying to fine tune a playable LA+0 undead, based on refluffing the warforged. Most of the work has already been done by Urpriest in the quick and dirtly lvl 1 undead character? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285770) thread, but I wanted to polish it a little. Trade out some of the features of the warforged for ones that have more undead flavor, and so on.

I ran into a problem with the Composite Plating racial feature. To me it looks like +1 Padded armor of Fortification that the character cannot remove. To drop the racial feature you have to take the Unarmored Body feat at 1st level.

To which I say... what? If you have to pay a valuable resource (like your 1st level feat) to get rid of something, it has to be pretty bad. But Composite Plating doesn't seem that bad. Sure you can't take it off, but +1 Padded Armor of Fortification is worth over 4000 gp. Not bad at low levels. And being non-removable can be valuable too - if it can't be removed, it can't be stolen.

Besides, you can get a much better set of armor if you take Mithral Body or Adamantine Body instead. Adamantine Body is about as good as +1 Adamantine Half Plate of Fortification; that's a fantastic value for a low level character! It would be good value even if it were the result of two feats - so either Composite Plating is worth about a feat, and so is Adamantine Body, or else Composite Plating is a negative feat and Adamantine Body is worth three feats.

So I'm confused. Is Composite Plating to be counted as a negative or a positive for the purpose of exchanging it for a more undead themed ability? I am hoping to include damage resistance in the final package. Skeletons and zombies don't heal hit points naturally, so there is already a nice overlap with warforged. 5/slashing for a playable zombie and 5/piercing for a playable skeleton would be nice. If Composite Plating is a positive, I can probably justify it to myself. But not if it is a negative.

I am leaning towards thinking of Composite Plating as being a positive, but then I can't explain Unarmored Body. Maybe there was a typo and this was a flaw, not a feat?

Am I missing something?

[Renen]

It stops you from wearing any magical srmor you might find later on. And at lvl 20, youd rather have that magical robe/armor than this.

[Big Fau]

Mithral and Adamantine are both considered better alternatives to the base Composite because they are more useful at the higher levels. For the most part, outside of Monks, the Composite Plating is a negligible benefit after about 7th or so.

There is an alternative method of removing the Composite Plating: Dragonborn. YMMV, but it's seriously better than spending a feat.

[Squark]

It's for warforged Wizards/Sorcerors (who want robes instead, and no ACF), and for those who don't have easy access to a friendly artificer to enchant their composite plating at higher levels. Remember, Ebberon is a low-mid level setting, with few high level characters, but a LOT of low level artificers around. So, in an Ebberon Campaign, it's child's play for a Warforged to get their Composite Plating enchanted when it needs to be. But for a Warforged in a lower magic setting, where there are fewer artificers and wizards to do the enchanting for you, it's less attractive.


So, Composite plating is sort of a double edged sword, basically.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It stops you from wearing any magical srmor you might find later on. And at lvl 20, youd rather have that magical robe/armor than this.

While this -would- be true, composite plating can be enhanced just like mundane armor at the same costs.

That is to say; you don't have to choose between plating and normal armor because you can get your plating enhanced just like regular armor.

Unarmored body exists, not because composite plating is a draw-back (it's not one in the general sense), but because it can interfere with arcane spellcasting and limits your dex to AC, which -may- be seen as something in need of mitigating for certain builds.

For the most part, however, composite plating doesn't cause any noteable problems. It doesn't count as being armored unless you take one of the feats for -better- plating, so a monk is actually at a significant advantage, it saves about 4k on light fortification, which is just pure benefit, and it offers a chassis on which to apply armor enhancements that cannot be stolen or sundered.

There's really not much room for the idea that it's a drawback.

[Spuddles]

Vanilla composite plating excludes several archetypes- monk, druid, anything dex based, and most anything that wants to cast arcane spells. For virtually every other class, the armor is crappy enough that by around 4th level, you'll wish you had full plate.

So I would definitely consider it a drawback, given that you typically need a feat to get something better.

Does the light fortification even come from the composite plating? I thought that was just a warforged racial trait.


For the most part, however, composite plating doesn't cause any noteable problems. It doesn't count as being armored unless you take one of the feats for -better- plating, so a monk is actually at a significant advantage, it saves about 4k on light fortification, which is just pure benefit, and it offers a chassis on which to apply armor enhancements that cannot be stolen or sundered.

I'm pretty sure that's not the case- warforged always count as armored because they are partially built out of armor. It even says that in the part of their stat block describing the fact that they can't take their armor off.

[Big Fau]

Does the light fortification even come from the composite plating? I thought that was just a warforged racial trait.

I'm pretty sure that's not the case- warforged always count as armored because they are partially built out of armor. It even says that in the part of their stat block describing the fact that they can't take their armor off.

The Light Fort comes from the Living Construct type, not the plating (the OP's just ascribing that trait to the plating for some reason).

A Warforged's composite plating has been ruled to not interfere with Monk class features, but Mithral/Adamantine/Darkwood plating does.

[Phelix-Mu]

I think the whole plating concept is cool, but I'm not sure their implementation of it was that great. I'm personally probably going to re-fluff some kind of Dragonborn template-ish as a form of conversion that warforged can go through to make them more like a living being (should they desire that). I'd reflavor the other stuff too, to match the fluff, but it definitely shouldn't be some kind of feat to remove a racial benefit so you can make a class concept work, IMHO.

[Cheiromancer]

Vanilla composite plating excludes several archetypes- monk, druid, anything dex based, and most anything that wants to cast arcane spells. For virtually every other class, the armor is crappy enough that by around 4th level, you'll wish you had full plate.

So I would definitely consider it a drawback, given that you typically need a feat to get something better.

Does the light fortification even come from the composite plating? I thought that was just a warforged racial trait.


The Light Fort comes from the Living Construct type, not the plating (the OP's just ascribing that trait to the plating for some reason).

A Warforged's composite plating has been ruled to not interfere with Monk class features, but Mithral/Adamantine/Darkwood plating does.

The Unarmored Body feat removes the fortification ability along with the +2 armor bonus, which is why I thought fortification came from the composite plating. In fact, I still think so. :smallwink:

I don't see any dex limitations to the basic composite armor, or any indication that it is incompatible with druids or monks. But I am not an Eberron expert. I admit that 5% ASF could be a problem for an arcane caster.

[Big Fau]

The Unarmored Body feat removes the fortification ability along with the +2 armor bonus, which is why I thought fortification came from the composite plating. In fact, I still think so. :smallwink:

It's listed under a separate bullet in the ECS, not as part of the Composite Plating trait. It isn't affected by any other [—] Body feats other than Unarmored (in fact, a separate feat is required to increase it).


I don't see any dex limitations to the basic composite armor, or any indication that it is incompatible with druids or monks. But I am not an Eberron expert. I admit that 5% ASF could be a problem for an arcane caster.

That 5% can happen at the worst of times, and it really screws with prepared casters (spontaneous ones can just try and recast the lost spell, but prepared casters don't know ahead of time that it is going to happen and may not have backup spells prepared).

One thing I've seen done is for the player to prepare Stilled Alter Self and temporarily bypass the ASF (it's a racial trait as long as he didn't spend a feat on Adamantine/Mithral/Darkwood, thus lost when Alter Self happens). When the spell wears off his buffs are still up and running, allowing him to only worry about combat spells (which can still be problematic, but not nearly as important as getting daily buffs up and running).

Although most players use the Twilight armor enhancement to bypass it entirely.

[Chronos]

Sure, you can magically enhance it, but a separate suit of armor is still better. If you're a sort who wants armor, then a nonmagical fullplate (available around level 2 or 3) will give you more armor than a +5 composite plating, and the disparity just gets worse once you start enchanting the fullplate, too.

[Spuddles]

You also can't get spiked composite plating, which can be pretty clutch for defending armor spikes. And no mithral mechanus gear. You lose out on armor optimization pretty fast if you stick with composite plating.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You also can't get spiked composite plating, which can be pretty clutch for defending armor spikes. And no mithral mechanus gear. You lose out on armor optimization pretty fast if you stick with composite plating.

Which is only a problem if you're trying to optimize AC; something most of the more experienced optimizers recommend against.

On the other hand, outright ignoring AC isn't a good idea either.

IMO, standard composite plating fits pretty well into the middle ground; where you want to be anyway, as far as armor goes.

[Spuddles]

I've always thought that composite plating was armor, but it seems that the actual armor clauses are in the armor feats.


Which is only a problem if you're trying to optimize AC; something most of the more experienced optimizers recommend against.

That opinion gets parroted a lot, anyway. If you play rocket tag and stay out of melee, it's probably good advice. Probably.


IMO, standard composite plating fits pretty well into the middle ground; where you want to be anyway, as far as armor goes.

+2 armor isn't middle ground. It's about doing the same as nothing, except in this case your nothing comes with 5% arcane spell failure. I guess it doesn't really matter if you're a druid or heavily dex-based, and as a monk it's nice in the low levels. +2 AC is mundane leather armor. That's about as far from middle ground as you can go.

[Prime32]

You also can't get spiked composite plating, which can be pretty clutch for defending armor spikes.Unless you're going for Warforged Juggernaut.

[Scow2]

Unless you're going for Warforged Juggernaut.

Which you can't do with Composite Plating.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I've always thought that composite plating was armor, but it seems that the actual armor clauses are in the armor feats.



That opinion gets parroted a lot, anyway. If you play rocket tag and stay out of melee, it's probably good advice. Probably.



+2 armor isn't middle ground. It's about doing the same as nothing, except in this case your nothing comes with 5% arcane spell failure. I guess it doesn't really matter if you're a druid or heavily dex-based, and as a monk it's nice in the low levels. +2 AC is mundane leather armor. That's about as far from middle ground as you can go.

It tops off at +7 after a magic vestments effect or if (for whatever reason) you actually get it enhanced to +5 composite plating vs the 13 of plate under the same effects.

The thing of it is, that's out of 33 -minimum- at level 20 if you want your AC to mean anything at all. You can't realistically expect to hit this without either getting natural armor, a deflection bonus, and at least -some- dexterity or a shield, or you use something cheesy like defending armor spikes or, cheesier still, a defending shuriken.

Also, I was talking about the middle-ground between optimizing AC vs ignoring AC. Not the middle ground between light and heavy armor; that'd be either mithral plating or a breast plate.

[Endarire]

I always read it as, "Wear armor over your body. The AC bonuses don't stack. The highest bonus applies."

[Spuddles]

I always read it as, "Wear armor over your body. The AC bonuses don't stack. The highest bonus applies."

I guess you could get barding made. That x2 multiplier makes anything made with a special material kinda pricey, though.