Eberron question - How autonomous were the Warforged before the end of the war?

[Clistenes]

I have a couple questions about the Warforged.

First, how expensive was to make them?

I get that a soldier that doesn't need to be fed or paid justifies a huge investment (a first-level soldier has to be paid 2 silver pieces per day), and even poor meals would cost 1sp per day (common meals would cost 2 sp).

So each human soldier who is fed common meals (to keep him happy) could cost 146 gp per year. Of course, the king could draft soldier for free and feed them poor meals in time of war, and each soldier would cost him 36,5 gp per year.

Now, a Warforged can go on forever so long as he isn't killed, without losing dexterity, strength or constitution due to age, but during a war, you aren't making long term plans, you want to put as many soldiers on the field so fast as you are able...I'm not sure the Warforged would be a practical option under those circunstances, unless they are dirt cheap.

Second question: How tightly controlled were the Warforged during the war?

I know I wouldn't feel comfortable arming, training and putting on the field an army of mechanical soldiers if I knew somebody could subvert their will and make them turn against me (think of somebody like the Lord of Blades starting his rebellion during the war).

So, did House Cannith use to have some way to keep the Warfoged under control?

Third question: Do you think that Warforged could get the Sacred Guardian template from Dragonlance's Bestiary?

[Prime32]

Warforged weren't just a substitute for normal soldiers. They could run non-stop without tiring, had no need for supply lines, could travel through inhospitable terrain (like along riverbeds to avoid detection), were immune to many standard anti-army spells, and on top of that were much faster to train (generally entering the world with 3 levels in a PC class, compared to conscripts being lv1 commoners). They were supersoldiers.

[Clistenes]

Warforged weren't just a substitute for normal soldiers. They could run non-stop without tiring, had no need for supply lines, could travel through inhospitable terrain (like along riverbeds to avoid detection), were immune to many standard anti-army spells, and on top of that were much faster to train (generally entering the world with 3 levels in a PC class, compared to conscripts being lv1 commoners). They were supersoldiers.

But do we know how expensive were they to create?

And there is still the control issue. I have a hard time accepting that House Cannith was churning uncontrolled constructs like crazy.

[Lightlawbliss]

But do we know how expensive were they to create?

And there is still the control issue. I have a hard time accepting that House Cannith was churning uncontrolled constructs like crazy.

I would guess they were as controllable as humans, maybe more so because they were literally made to do this. Low wis and cha would also make them easier to control.

Think about it this way: How would you feel about doing everything your parents told you to do if you knew from birth that you and everyone you know was born to do just that. And at the same time, you also know that your parents are better at interacting with other then you likely could ever be.

and cost: I would wager they were cheaper then raising a kid to fighting age.

[Kelb_Panthera]

question 1:

Unknown. Cheap compared to other constructs but that's not saying much.

question 2:

As tightly as any other rank and file soldiers. Remember they were "born" and raised to be soldiers and knew nothing else until the war was over. They'd be much more prone to simply accepting that as the natural order of things than any natural race of people.

question 3:

I'm not familiar with the template. You'd have to adapt the warforged to Krynn and how that adaption and the template's fluff interact would be a large factor in determining your answer, assuming that there's no mechanical issue.

[Zweisteine]

The cost to make a single other would be extremely high. During the WR, though, they were mass-produced, and this would have eem much cheaper. Before the war, they could not be made, and after doing so is illegal, do the price is mostly moot. I'd say that if you owned a powered creation forge, you would only have to pay for the materials. It would cost about 5,000 gp, maybe, but compared to full plate armor, that's still cheap. The problem is that of they cost much more, nobody would be able to afford them.

I'd guess that they were controlled as tightly as any other soldiers. The Forge of War might have more useful information about that type of thing.

[Clistenes]

I would guess they were as controllable as humans, maybe more so because they were literally made to do this. Low wis and cha would also make them easier to control.

Think about it this way: How would you feel about doing everything your parents told you to do if you knew from birth that you and everyone you know was born to do just that. And at the same time, you also know that your parents are better at interacting with other then you likely could ever be.

and cost: I would wager they were cheaper then raising a kid to fighting age.

question 1:
As tightly as any other rank and file soldiers. Remember they were "born" and raised to be soldiers and knew nothing else until the war was over. They'd be much more prone to simply accepting that as the natural order of things than any natural race of people.

I dunno. The warforged don't show any lingering loyalty to House Cannith, to Breland or to the memory of Cyre, so their loyalty wasn't particularly strong.

I wonder of House Cannith did have some sort of control device that was lost when Cyre was destroyed, and now lays somewhere in the Mournlands, waiting for the Lord of Blades to find it.

[Lightlawbliss]

I dunno. The warforged don't show any lingering loyalty to House Cannith, to Breland or to the memory of Cyre, so their loyalty wasn't particularly strong.

I wonder of House Cannith did have some sort of control device that was lost when Cyre was destroyed, and now lays somewhere in the Mournlands, waiting for the Lord of Blades to find it.

think about it this way: how strong would YOUR loyalty be if you found out your life had been a lie?


and that second part would make for a lovely plot hook.

[DJroboninja]

I always imagined the Warforged as being children - they just came into this world and were told "now do everything this general says". Then suddenly, the war was over and they were set free. Imagine a school bus of children getting dropped off in rural Kansas being told "you're free! Go live your life!"

Some of them probably thought it sounded like a sweet gig, but most of them were just set adrift.

As for the cost to create, I imagine the price of each creation forge being astronomical, but the individual materials (some rocks, some wood, a soldiers soul torn from Dollurh, some metal) were all cheap as hell. That way, the more they made, the cheaper they were per unit, to the point that it was cost effective.

[DJroboninja]

I wonder of House Cannith did have some sort of control device that was lost when Cyre was destroyed, and now lays somewhere in the Mournlands, waiting for the Lord of Blades to find it.

Ummmm, yoink! Too awesome not to steal.

[Afgncaap5]

The other difficult with the question of how difficult it is to make Warforged comes up against the twin cost-cutters of the artifact level Forges that the were made with, and Eberron's handy cost-cutting Eberron Shards. I did the math once, and while a magical crane in one setting (four masterwork chains, a masterwork lock, and a rock with a permanent Levitate spell on it) might cost thousands and thousands of gold, in Eberron you could build such a device for a little less than 500 gold.

So, while the Warforged were likely cheap to manufacture in the Eberron setting, Eberron also has a lot of cost-cutting rules that don't necessarily exist elsewhere.

[Kol Korran]

None of these questions is explicitly answered anywhere, even in the Forge Of War or Races of Eberron which mostly deal with this, but here are my thoughts at least.


I have a couple questions about the Warforged.

First, how expensive was to make them?
This questions bothered me as well, since I wanted to run a game in the Last War era. Butthere is no official answer. However, The warforged became more and more common. By the end of the war most of Cyre's armies were made of warforged, and that means a good number. Other countries used them as well, With Aundair comign second, Breland not too far behind and even Karrnath and Thrane sporting a good number.

So this leads me to think they became quite cheap, and similar to the upkeep of a "flesh" soldier. They made perfect soldiers, for reasons explained in previous posts. They were becoming to BE the war, in many ways.

I'd imagine a normal warforged would cost about 100-200gp tops. including basic equipment. I don't know how much mithral and adamantium warforged would have cost, but I imagine that they would cost much more, and be of higher quality- House Cannith would put those plating only on warforged of good and above quality.



Second question: How tightly controlled were the Warforged during the war?

I was a soldier for four years. You don't need any kind of device to control soldiers, especially people who have NO OTHER EXPERIENCE other than war and obeience since "birth". Much of Cannith indoctrination (House Deneith was part of this as well if I remember) was making warforged loyal and receptive to orders. Considering that many armies in the world invest a whole lot in making their soldiers obedient (Think of nearly any kind of movie where there is a "drill sergeant" or "basic training") I would imagine this is the case here as well. In fact, warforged often had less reason to dount their command than the "flesh" soldiers. They had nothing else in their lives that clashed with the war effort- they had no family ties other than the "comrades" in their platoon, they didn't know the former history of Galifar, or had ties in other nations, they didn't have any "normal" life to aspire to.

All they did was war. All they were was war. War was everything, and in a war you stick with side you're on. Even in real world situation, occasions where a unit deserted and turned to the other side were sooooo rare, it's quite safe to assume things didn't go this way.

It's important to note that Cannith sold their soldiers to ALL of the five nations, not just to Cyre, and warforged battled warforged on many fronts. And that was ok with them, just like humans killing humans on many fronts. Some I'd believe had compunctions, but less than the "Flesh" races I'd believe- They lived knowing their lives are transitory, and but a tool for a never ending war. They lived with the knowledge they might die soon. In fact House Cannith ingrained that knowledge and fear as a driving force in them (There is some sort of an article on that, forgot where it was)


Third question: Do you think that Warforged could get the Sacred Guardian template from Dragonlance's Bestiary?
I don't know of this, good luck to you. But my rule of thumb is that anything can happen with DM suitable in game reasoning. As long as it's cool enough! :smallwink:

[phlidwsn]

Take a look at post #19 in this thread (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3123141) for Keith Baker's (aka Hellcow) thoughts on Warforged creation and costs.

[Blackhawk748]

I just looked at Sacred Guardian and it calls for a Non-Intelligent construct, otherwise the Warforged qualifies, so just pretend that you didnt see that and youll be fine lol

[Clistenes]

I just looked at Sacred Guardian and it calls for a Non-Intelligent construct, otherwise the Warforged qualifies, so just pretend that you didnt see that and youll be fine lol


Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +4, Dex +4, Wis +4, Cha +4. If the construct has no Intelligence, it gains an Intelligence of 10; otherwise, it receives a +2 increase to current Intelligence score.

That means that the template can be added to an intelligent Construct. My doubts are more about the "Living" subtype. I'm not sure how that interacts with the template.

[Blackhawk748]

As far as i know warforged, and their sub sets, are the only one with the (living) subtype, and it did say that it must be applied to an unintelligent construct, which it then makes intelligent so thats really easy to ignore.

Honestly it should work, and it would be really cool

[Clistenes]

As far as i know warforged, and their sub sets, are the only one with the (living) subtype, and it did say that it must be applied to an unintelligent construct, which it then makes intelligent so thats really easy to ignore.

Honestly it should work, and it would be really cool

Holy Mecha War!. Kill all infidels!

[GoatBoy]

1. The Forge of War specifies that Warforged cost 5,000-6,000gp per unit. Keith Baker has said that he disagrees with some of the material published in this book, but he didn't specify anything regarding Warforged. Still, I think that the cost would be exactly what serves the DM's desire for purposes of the campaign.

2. Before the end of the war, the Warforged were simply property. Boranel promised them autonomy after the war ended, which had the dual purpose of keeping the Warforged loyal to him until that happened, and attracting Warforged from other nations who hadn't been given such a promise. As such, the Warforged creators assumed that they were unquestionably loyal and didn't build in any kind of hard control measures, which would have prevented them from defecting to another army.

[Clistenes]

1. The Forge of War specifies that Warforged cost 5,000-6,000gp per unit. Keith Baker has said that he disagrees with some of the material published in this book, but he didn't specify anything regarding Warforged. Still, I think that the cost would be exactly what serves the DM's desire for purposes of the campaign.

2. Before the end of the war, the Warforged were simply property. Boranel promised them autonomy after the war ended, which had the dual purpose of keeping the Warforged loyal to him until that happened, and attracting Warforged from other nations who hadn't been given such a promise. As such, the Warforged creators assumed that they were unquestionably loyal and didn't build in any kind of hard control measures, which would have prevented them from defecting to another army.

That's expensive...a million gold pieces would get you only 200 warforged.

That means that for the same price than a CR 11 Stone Golem, you get 18 warforged, and for the same price than a CR 13 Iron Golem, you get 30 warforged.

On the other hand, for the price of a single warforged you could hire a 12th level knight for 5 years 8 months and 14 days.

I guess that the greatest advantage of using warforged was that (unlike the golems) they would become stronger the more they fought (without demanding a wage).

Still, raising an army of warforged should be beyond the means of any kingdom.

[tyckspoon]

That's expensive...a million gold pieces would get you only 200 warforged.

I guess that the greatest advantage of using warforged was that (unlike the golems) they would become stronger the more they fought (without demanding a wage).


The main advantage of Warforged would be that there's *more of them*. Also, they're individually intelligent. A single Golem makes a better siege engine, but a squad of Warforged make better soldiers. You can't use a Golem to scout for enemies or patrol an occupied area or set a siege or man checkpoints or any of the other things you might want to actually use a military force for - the immediate applications of a Golem are basically 'smash that', 'move that heavy thing', and 'stand here and detain or kill anybody who doesn't say the password.' Anything more complicated needs close supervision.

Also, keep in mind that Eberron is supposed to be a setting where there's a lot of wealth (relative to 'standard' D&D) but not a lot of levels. Warforged are relatively easy to get ahold of; all you need is enough wealth and influence to acquire some, whether by force, favor, or gold. Golems require high-level casters to exist. There aren't a lot of those in Eberron. Nor are 12th level anythings just hanging out in taverns waiting for a job offer.

(And compared to raising a human army, Warforged come into existence almost battle-ready. At a pinch, you put them through basic training and throw them into combat with their standard-issue Composite Plating and Slams to fight. Comparatively, a mortal army could be raised a lot cheaper.. but when you lose that army, it takes *decades* to recover the expended manpower, and your nation loses out on a lot of future strength by sacrificing those bodies to fight.)

[GoatBoy]

That's expensive...a million gold pieces would get you only 200 warforged.

That means that for the same price than a CR 11 Stone Golem, you get 18 warforged, and for the same price than a CR 13 Iron Golem, you get 30 warforged.

On the other hand, for the price of a single warforged you could hire a 12th level knight for 5 years 8 months and 14 days.

I guess that the greatest advantage of using warforged was that (unlike the golems) they would become stronger the more they fought (without demanding a wage).

Still, raising an army of warforged should be beyond the means of any kingdom.

Yeah, I thought that seemed a bit pricey too. But look at how much it costs to outfit a modern soldier in high-tech gear. Plus, even if they aren't heads and shoulders above regular soldiers in terms of effectiveness, Warforged don't need food, they probably didn't get paid, and I'm sure that their survival rate was much higher than human soldiers since they weren't subject to starvation, disease, or other types of harm which probably cost more lives than actual battle. As a long-term investment, that price might have been worth it.

Also, after a thousand years of peace, the treasuries of the Five Nations were probably overflowing. All of the surviving nations ended the war with empty treasuries and massive debt. So money was no object.

Oh, and it's stated that the greatest advantage of Warforged above golems is that they could think for themselves. Golems won't do anything without direct orders.

Of course, we can't expect complete and total social and economic realism from a fantasy world, can we?

[Blackhawk748]

it says 5k-6k per unit, emphasis mine. Could this mean for a unit ie, a squad so about 10? or did they forget to employ all the cost reducers that Eberron has?

[tyckspoon]

it says 5k-6k per unit, emphasis mine. Could this mean for a unit ie, a squad so about 10? or did they forget to employ all the cost reducers that Eberron has?

No, Forge of War is fairly clear that the cost is per single Warforged, although it's possible economies of scale might have bought it down some more if they were doing a particularly large production run. That price probably *is* assuming a variety of cost-reducing techniques.. compared to the price of a Shield Guardian or various Golems, 5k for a battle-capable construct is a really good price. An *intelligent* battle-capable construct, no less.

[Afgncaap5]

Yeah. One of the subtle benefits of a Warforged that doesn't factor in to calculations easily is the fact that it can gain health and capabilities through practice and personal experience, just like a regular human. I mean, sure, a level 1 Warforged Fighter isn't that great when compared to an Iron Golem. But when you consider that that Fighter can be brought back from the (almost) dead by simply repairing them, and that it has the ability to become a level 5 Fighter, or a level 10 Fighter, well... the costs start to balance out. And that's not even getting into the Warforged who took up magic.

[137beth]

Also, keep in mind that the first (modern, non-Xen'drik) warforged were made 30 years before the end of the war. At that point, the war had been going on for 70 years, and no one had any reason to expect that it would end in the near future right up until the Mourning. Even if
the price of a single warforged you could hire a 12th level knight for 5 years 8 months and 14 days.,
that's still a very short timespan compared to how long the warforged were expected to last.
And of course, since a warforged could potentially have a much longer career than a human (who eventually retires due to aging penalties), they would have a lot more chances to level up.
Now, the last few warforged created might not have been the best investment financially, but there is no way House Cannith could have predicted that--they certainly had no reason to expect that a 100-year-old war with no substantial signs of progress and no nation apparently nearing the point of surrender would end in the near future.

[Slipperychicken]

I imagine warforged would have played some important roles, like constantly harassing enemy meatbags with guerilla/hit-and-run without getting tired themselves. Eventually, they'd stage a "real" battle once the meatbags were properly haggard and demoralized.



I was a soldier for four years. You don't need any kind of device to control soldiers, especially people who have NO OTHER EXPERIENCE other than war and obeience since "birth".

I didn't even think about it that way. When socializing warforged into the army, they don't have any previous ties to conflict with their loyalty to the army. This combined with a vastly simplified supply chain (since they don't need to eat, drink, rest, or worry about disease) and other benefits means they should have much better morale than their meatbag counterparts.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That's expensive...a million gold pieces would get you only 200 warforged.

That means that for the same price than a CR 11 Stone Golem, you get 18 warforged, and for the same price than a CR 13 Iron Golem, you get 30 warforged.

On the other hand, for the price of a single warforged you could hire a 12th level knight for 5 years 8 months and 14 days.

I guess that the greatest advantage of using warforged was that (unlike the golems) they would become stronger the more they fought (without demanding a wage).

Still, raising an army of warforged should be beyond the means of any kingdom.

You're grossly underestimating the amount of money governments have to throw around.

I recently did a ballpark calculation for how much gold a -small- city might have to spend on various public works. After accounting reasonable taxes and public employees it came to about 750,000gp a year and that's just for a lone city of 8500 people.

Let's say the crown of Aundair takes 15% of that. Calculating 15% of 750,000 extrapolated over 2 million, the population of Aundair, makes 26,470,588.24gp per year in the Crown's coffers.

26 million gold pieces a year.

I don't think a couple hundred warforged a year is even a little problematic, especially given the extremely low upkeep costs.

[Grayson01]

I have a couple questions about the Warforged.

First, how expensive was to make them?

I get that a soldier that doesn't need to be fed or paid justifies a huge investment (a first-level soldier has to be paid 2 silver pieces per day), and even poor meals would cost 1sp per day (common meals would cost 2 sp).

So each human soldier who is fed common meals (to keep him happy) could cost 146 gp per year. Of course, the king could draft soldier for free and feed them poor meals in time of war, and each soldier would cost him 36,5 gp per year.

Now, a Warforged can go on forever so long as he isn't killed, without losing dexterity, strength or constitution due to age, but during a war, you aren't making long term plans, you want to put as many soldiers on the field so fast as you are able...I'm not sure the Warforged would be a practical option under those circunstances, unless they are dirt cheap.

Second question: How tightly controlled were the Warforged during the war?

I know I wouldn't feel comfortable arming, training and putting on the field an army of mechanical soldiers if I knew somebody could subvert their will and make them turn against me (think of somebody like the Lord of Blades starting his rebellion during the war).

So, did House Cannith use to have some way to keep the Warfoged under control?

Third question: Do you think that Warforged could get the Sacred Guardian template from Dragonlance's Bestiary?

You are also forgetting cost benfits of going on even when injured, easier cheaper healing, Wounds not efficting Moral, Deaths of a Warforged not effecting Moral, The fact that they were so much hardier then conscripted soldiers, and from what I have read on them extraimly loyal (as apposed to a conscript) those are just a few of the benefits of having Warforged Soldiers that cost can't really be messured but can not be over looked.

[Cwymbran-San]

Concerning the control problem, i found a pasage in Races Of Eberron. It says that the first thing warforged learn was that to live is to experience things and death means the end of this experience.

So, the main motivational factor for the Cannith trainers of said warforged was fear, the same fear that real-world organisations use to control real-life humans since the beginning of civilisation.

So they were basically taught: obey or die. Fits in pretty well with most soldiers training. They teach you the same thing: if you think for yourself instead of following orders, you are most likely going to die since you do not know everything about the situation you are in.

[unseenmage]

Even if Warforged were more expensive than Golems they become worth the cost for two reasons: Skills and Feats.

That Eberron is in the throes of a potential Warforged uprising now the War's over aside, Skills and Feats make the costs negligible.

Compare to the +8,000gp (IIRC) per Construct needed to make intelligent Golems via Augmented Intelligence from Dragon. And that can only be done at creation.

Awaken Construct is sort of an option except that it explicitly gives free will and as a level 9 spell with an xp component is much more expensive than the proposed prices for Warforged.


I'm kinda curious though how Warforged creation costs compare to the infamous Shadesteel Golem creation costs. Especially with cost reducers taken into account.

[Petrocorus]

.... compare to the infamous Shadesteel Golem creation costs. .....

Where are those from?

[unseenmage]

Where are those from?

Shadesteel Golems are from MM3.

Shadesteel Golems are also said to be one of the cheapest Golems for what you get from them. Both as excellent minions and as excellent places to store one's consciousness via mindswitching shenanigans.

[Big Fau]

That's expensive...a million gold pieces would get you only 200 warforged.

That means that for the same price than a CR 11 Stone Golem, you get 18 warforged, and for the same price than a CR 13 Iron Golem, you get 30 warforged.

On the other hand, for the price of a single warforged you could hire a 12th level knight for 5 years 8 months and 14 days.

I guess that the greatest advantage of using warforged was that (unlike the golems) they would become stronger the more they fought (without demanding a wage).

Still, raising an army of warforged should be beyond the means of any kingdom.

1: While they would be weaker than the relevant golems, they have the advantage of being a living creature capable of leveling up.

2: The price, as Blackhawk pointed out, is per unit. Somewhere in the Eberron fluff it's stated that creating an individual Warforged was expensive, but that the cost was reduced significantly when mass-production picked up. This was never given a proper measurement, but it's reasonable to assume that the price in Forge of War is a baseline for a group of Warforged.

3: I've done the math before, and it takes 2 months for a party of 4 to go from 1st level to 20th level, assuming they successfully overcome 4 level-appropriate encounters each day and are awarded full XP/WBL. That 12th level Knight? He'd be quickly outpaced by a single squad of Warforged with the right classes, even if they were all 1st level when they popped out of the forge. Hirelings don't gain XP:


Unlike cohorts, hirelings do not make decisions. They do as they’re told (at least in theory). Thus, even if they go on an adventure with the PCs, they gain no experience and do not affect any calculations involving the party level.

4: You are basing that assumption on the text in the DMG, right? That text accounts for a medieval township, not an industrial-age kingdom the size of the Five Nations. Moreover, you said "Raising". House Cannith took care of that part, the nations just had to buy the Warforged on the market. They were getting trained soldiers (between 1st and 3rd level) for 30 years (taking into account Kelb Panthera's calculations, this means there's legions of Warforged).

[Fouredged Sword]

Another note, after 70 years of war, all available war fighting population resources had already been committed. Yes, you could raise a levy of soldiers for cheaper, but you had to balance that VS taking farmers away from their fields, and after 70 years of war, that was a hard call. Your army would be battered and torn apart for FIVE GENERATIONS! The general who is retiring has never known a day the war was not being fought. People where having children with the understanding that they had to breed more to account for the population that would be sent to war... FOR FIVE GENERATIONS! You hit the maximum sustainable birth rate two generations into this craziness.

The logistics of suddenly being able to expand your warfighting population in 8 months rather than 12 years (the earliest age one would send a child into combat, if you where desperate) must have seemed like a godsend. Even if it cost 10-20 times the cost of raising and training a soldier, it would be worth the cost.

Add to that the reduction is supply chain required to support a warforged unit, and each warforged expanded your fighting front by the equivalent of 4 or more men (2 shifts of fighting due to no sleep and 2 men to move supplies to the front who are no longer needed.)