warforged woes

[Wraithy]

My group starts an eberron campaign next session.

background info.
my character:
warforged scout (16str, 14dex, 14con, 14int, 6wis, 8cha), I use a longspear, and three regular spears, 1st feat mithril body, I have ranks in craft(sculpture) and craft(weaponsmithing), aswell as the generic scout skills.
Pysical description: 6ft 9inches tall, I have a scratched and dented mithral body covered in camoflage paint, thinner than normal warforged. instead of the normal warforged face I have a carved wooden mask with a hole for my glowing green left eye
my group:
gnoll ranger, kua-toa bard, psionad ardent, catfolk ranger, changeling warlock
My story: (skip if it bores you)
I only have a few memories of my first life, the only ones I have are of training, and a time in between my lives where I got my mask from. for that time i was malfunctioning, unable to think, I was severely damaged from a battle I did not remember, during that time my origional plating was still there, I wandered purposlessly through countless lands, viewing my body through a thick window, sometimes going to sleep in a desert and waking up in a city, then losing conciousness again and waking up knee deep in a bog. during those times I died and was born, the only time I remember having controll back then was when I made my face, my mask, I carved it to cover the wreckage of my first face, and the chunk where my eye used to be, I blacked out again once it was finished, and the between times continued endlessly, nothing to do, nothing to do. when I next saw my reflection the mask was fixed, the first me had coloured it, I liked it, It had a nice look to it.
This time I blacked out for the longest, in fact, this time when I woke up my current life began. I woke up in the lab of an artificer, the mask was still there, good.
our story:
the group are all students at Dendy Candlelight's Adventurous Academy situated in the city of Sharn, where we have studied for four years under the artificer who restored me

I'm excited about playing this warforged, but I'm afraid that I'll fall into the trap of making my character a mindless robot, does anyone have any ideas for suitable quirks/habits/personality traits that will stop me from falling into that trap?

EDIT: since noone has spotted the NWN reference, the reward has been raised from 500xp to 500,000xp. thats 500,000xp for spotting the NWN reference.

[CrazedGoblin]

*to the tune of teenage mutant ninja turtles*

Teenage mutant ninja warforged
Teenage mutant ninja warforged

Warforged in Mithral
Warforged power!









you know it to be true wraithy hehe:smallbiggrin:

[Sulecrist]

I've had two Warforged characters. Neither was from Eberron; one was in WLD and was a 'chosen hero of the gods' that had lost his body and had his consciousness placed in a Warforged construct a la 40k Dreadnaught. He had really bad amnesia, and was getting his old abilities back little by little (he was a Crusader) so often he didn't know what was going to happen before it did. In retrospect, he ended up as a combination of Batman and Jason Bourne, though at the time I was just playing up the conflict between his faith in his deity and his fear of the unknown.

The second was a freed Indiana-Jones adventurer. He found that he enjoyed the exhileration of violence and pursued a career that let him have plenty of it. He's sort of a daredevil, but really he wants anything that'll let him experience something new, preferably one that gets his adrenaline (or psyber-fluid or whatever) up.

[BRC]

A quirk you could have is exessivly literal thinking, inability to "get" figures of speech. I could picture a warforged thinking like a golem from discworld.

[Jalil]

Inability to use the personal Pronoun. Never say 'I' or 'Me', etc, instead, use your name excessively. If you have the skill point to sack, take Thorass(or the Ebberon equivalent) to represent your long years of slumber. That's what I did for my 'Forged.

[Wraithy]

my character allready uses the vocabulary mentioned for warforged in races of eberron, coupled with these speech patterns it could prove quite interesting.
Reckage advises Reckage's comrades not to rush south untill Reckage has rushed north!

[Citizen Joe]

Do not understand 'personal space'

When people are talking to you, move up close to them and stare at them unrelentingly.

Pretend to eat in order to fit in with the other fleshbags.

Better yet, if someone talks while they are eating, ask them "Are you going to finish that?" And point at their food.

[CrazedGoblin]

Do not understand 'personal space'

When people are talking to you, move up close to them and stare at them unrelentingly.

Pretend to eat in order to fit in with the other fleshbags.

Better yet, if someone talks while they are eating, ask them "Are you going to finish that?" And point at their food.

if he does that i think my Kua-Toa might stick to him hehe :smalltongue:

[Wraithy]

Do not understand 'personal space'

When people are talking to you, move up close to them and stare at them unrelentingly.

Pretend to eat in order to fit in with the other fleshbags.

Better yet, if someone talks while they are eating, ask them "Are you going to finish that?" And point at their food.

the gnoll in our party has decided to eat the corpses of our dead enemies, finger food to a whole new meaning.
sadly my character has no mouth, so I'd have to rub food across the front of my mask, perhaps I will.

[Citizen Joe]

Get various mouth and nose pieces to attach to your face ala Mr. Potatohead to represent your 'emotions'

[tarbrush]

I'm in a game with a warforged at the moment who despises fleshies cause he thinks that the whole 'organs' business is gross. He hates being touched by themand washes himself a lot. Very funny.

[Wraithy]

yeah, I should probably make something about my character obsessive compulsive

[ForzaFiori]

make him feal sorry for those who arn't warforged, since they're so frail and squishy.

[R4ph]

I'm in a game with a warforged at the moment who despises fleshies cause he thinks that the whole 'organs' business is gross. He hates being touched by themand washes himself a lot. Very funny.
"Qualification: It’s just that,you have all these squishy parts master! And all that water! How the constant sloshing doesn’t drive you mad, I have no idea."

[dyslexicfaser]

make him feal sorry for those who arn't warforged, since they're so frail and squishy.

Or else give him a superiority complex: he's BETTER than the squishies, and proud of it. A racist Warforged.

[slexlollar89]

i played 3 warorged: Kogg, the favored soul (he was NG of Pelor and tried to convert a construct to "see the light"), Mudd the Druid (his entire body was wooden and natural rubers, and acted as a giant holy symbol), and MegaMegaMan the warlock (he had a canon for his left arm and could climb walls).

Kogg hated people because they werent as tough or good at fighting as he was, and thought his god was the only god (seriously, he wasnt pompous or crazy, and the cleric of Nyrul had to explain the truth to him)

Mudd didnt understand the difference between constructs, other Forged, and the environment (he tried to animate a peasants house to be a clay golem, but couldnt and got very upset)

MegaMegaMan frequently tried to convince evryone to have a canon grafted onto their arms, and made use of his invocations all the time (he would walk on the ceiling instead of the floor, or always hover inches above the floor)

they all had distinc traits, and Mudd was almost childlike in his attitudes, because he had never been outside his druid coven.

mybe you could try something like that?

[Nasrudith]

I can think of several quirks.

1.Make him have absolutely no problem with blood and guts but be disgusted by seeing internal mechanical workings of complex devices such as a clock.
2.Have him write a log or diary on himself and once he runs out usable room on himself he will clean off the oldest entries and start a new one there.
3. Keeps himself obsessively maintained and cleaned and he is annoyed at his battle scarred appearance. He does things like repaint his camouflage every night.

[TSGames]

Or else give him a superiority complex: he's BETTER than the squishies, and proud of it. A racist Warforged.

I'm playing one right now, and it's a lot of fun. His background includes having been forced to work as a trash compactor.

[Sulecrist]

Inability to use the personal Pronoun. Never say 'I' or 'Me', etc, instead, use your name excessively. If you have the skill point to sack, take Thorass(or the Ebberon equivalent) to represent your long years of slumber. That's what I did for my 'Forged.

Ooh, to develop. Instead of going with the idiot approach, play him up like he's still used to being one of many. Have him say We a lot and never, ever call himself by name. If he has a rank that's even better. "We are Sergeant", or whatever.

[leperkhaun]

One of the players in my group played a warforged. Besides the "normal" warforged traits, this characters big deal was trying to understand the concept of good/evil. Law/chaos was easy to understand for that character.

Superiors made rules, subordinates followed said rules (given his background as a created solider it was easy for him to do that). What was difficult for him was the WHY part. "I should not kill that person because the law says not too" however he had no concept of killing someone as being an evil act (his mentality from his solider days was, thats the enemy, I kill the enemy).

He was donates to charities, not because he wanted to, or because he thought it was a good thing, but because he saw the rest of the party do it.

This lead to some tight spots, but since the player was a good player it did not degenerate into a mindless killing robocop. As the campgin went on, and the character interacted outside of a military "you are a killing machine" environment he started to develop his own code of ethics and honor.

He took "good" people as an example and started to develop this code. Has his code developed and became more complex he started to make good/evil judgment calls based on his code. By the end of it the character had realized the differences between "good" and "evil" much the same way as others did.

Now granted alot of how this was portrayed was through RP, and the warforged became more and more a person and less and less a construct.

[AtomicKitKat]

Hexadecimal Masks! (http://www.c4vct.com/kym/slachash/icons/)

:smallfurious: :smallfrown: :smalleek: :smallcool: :smallyuk: :smallconfused: :smallwink: :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue: :smallannoyed: :smallsmile: :smallamused: :smallsigh: :smallredface: :smallmad:

[Icewalker]

Personally I dislike the idea of warforged being hugely naive towards the rest of the world (ie trying to eat, etc.). I think it may be more interesting and more accurate for your character if you have him as a bit of a recluse. As a warforged, you don't need to sleep, so you will always be alone on watch, which is another thing which kind of fits.

I suggest that he takes up woodcarving as well, and treasures some creations more than seems normal, and others he barely cares for at all. Some things he makes he just feels for, with the mask being the strongest connection.

[BardicDuelist]

Have you ever played Knights of the Old Republic?
HK-47 for the win.

Notable traits you can hijak:
Assassin droid (you can have been created solely for the purposes of killing creatures, but you don't remember this. When you enter combat, you find yourself very adept at mobile offense, hence skirmish).

Calls all organic creatures "meat-bags" at all times.

Enjoys killing meatbags.

States what kind of sentence he is saying before he says it (ex. "Statement: Would you like this meatbag killed, or should I just let him scream some more?).

Hates diplomacy.

Not all of these may be useful or pertinent to your character, but I hope they help.

[Arlanthe]

I rolled a warfoged once in the interest of poking around with every character. Personally, I don't like thier flavor, and never liked the flavor of Eberron. (I hope they don't end up in 4E).

Maybe that makes my opinion moot, maybe not. But rather than focusing on the "meatbag" thing that everyone does, maybe you can make you character some kind of cultural icon, ambassador, or emissary.

[Skjaldbakka]

warforged rock star anyone?

We are here for the purpose of rock!

[Wraithy]

the reward has been raised! (see bottom of 1st post)

[Arbitrarity]

NWN... Valen! It's Valen, isn't it! (I.e. Tiefling with a heavy flail, HoTU, second act)

Oh, you messed up the scout's height. It's a small being.

[Inane-Fedaykin]

It does sound very similar to Valen's time in the Blood War, even if it's not what you were referencing he deserves partial xp.

[Wraithy]

sorry Inane-Fedaykin, but don't worry, there are unlimited guesses.

hint: "melee weapon trials"

P.S. the reference is to the neverwinter nights computer game.

[CrazedGoblin]

sorry Inane-Fedaykin, but don't worry, there are unlimited guesses.

hint: "melee weapon trials"

P.S. the reference is to the neverwinter nights computer game.

DENDY!!!!!!!!

[Telonius]

Tips on playing a warforged:
1. Watch Star Trek: TNG and Voyager.
2. Pay attention to Data and 7 of 9. (No, higher. There you go.)
3. Profit.

More seriously, you can make your Warforged anything from Gort to Optimus Prime, or anything in between. What angle of robotics do you want to explore? The consciousness, what it means to be human, the lack of rights? It's really up to you where you go with it.

For crunch factors, I strongly, strongly encourage you to have either an Artificer or a Wizard with Repair spells in your party. Warforged only get half the benefit from healing spells as any other character, and this can quickly become very expensive for a cleric or druid. (Though I notice you don't have those, either ... has your group talked about that?)

[Wraithy]

we have an archivist, they can do healing spells. but later on I'll probably take that feat which makes me immune to criticals and healing. so I'll just try not to get hit too badly, I'm allready using polearms to help with that, but otherwise I'll just have to find another way to heal myself. we've allready gotten really into our characters, so no-one is going to change classes.
as I said before, not getting hit is my strategy, mithral body should help. I think I have 17 AC at the moment (lvl1), it should help a bit, and later on it will increase from skirmish.

[TSGames]

we have an archivist, they can do healing spells. but later on I'll probably take that feat which makes me immune to criticals and healing. so I'll just try not to get hit too badly, I'm allready using polearms to help with that, but otherwise I'll just have to find another way to heal myself. we've allready gotten really into our characters, so no-one is going to change classes.
as I said before, not getting hit is my strategy, mithral body should help. I think I have 17 AC at the moment (lvl1), it should help a bit, and later on it will increase from skirmish.

Yeah...I'm playing a Warforged Juggernaut at level 8. He effectively has an AC of 8 most of the time...Thank you "Shock Trooper"

[bosssmiley]

Has no-one mentioned Bender from "Futurama" yet? Probably the ultimate cynical, war-weary Warforged archetype. :smallbiggrin:

[Ashtar]

The reference is probably to the adventurer's academy, where the tutorial of NWN takes place.

[Wraithy]

The reference is probably to the adventurer's academy, where the tutorial of NWN takes place.

very close, but not quite there

[TSGames]

Has no-one mentioned Bender from "Futurama" yet? Probably the ultimate cynical, war-weary Warforged archetype. :smallbiggrin:

"Forget you guys! I'm gonna have my own party with black jack, and beer, and hookers. In fact, forget the black jack and the beer!"

[slexlollar89]

you might want to play up the memory lapses, like he might realize he loses his memory, so he uses it as an excuse to do bad/good things, and then convineintly forget them. or you could make him constantly question wheather or not thing are real, or just his imagination, or even somebody elses thoughts etc... you could do a lot with this guy.

also, the mask idea is awesome!

[Beleriphon]

Keep in mind that warforged don't eat, breath or sleep. Right there you have something to work with. Imagine how you would react when people sleep, what must it be like to not be fully aware of your surroundings for a third of each day. What happens if the warforged is knocked unconscious? What would his reaction be if it had never happened before?

The other thing to keep in mind is that any personality traits are fine for warforged, they aren't robots. That said they are very different than the other races in Eberron, so you might want to play to those differences.

[bosssmiley]

Keep in mind that warforged don't eat, breath or sleep. Right there you have something to work with. Imagine how you would react when people sleep, what must it be like to not be fully aware of your surroundings for a third of each day. What happens if the warforged is knocked unconscious? What would his reaction be if it had never happened before?

Xkcd (http://xkcd.com/203/) - would understand Warforged and make them feel at home.

Errr. You do know that this type of question (warforged and unconsciousness, fear of death, sleep and views thereon) is given literally *pages* in "Races of Eberron", right? Great chapter in an otherwise mediocre book.

[Wraithy]

After discussing things with my group, I will use deadly force on anyone or anything that threatens to deactivate me (even empty threats), he NEVER wants to go through that again, it is the only situation in which he forgoes logical thought (ie: this person is an unarmed commoner.
the rest of the party will know about this allready of course, our last campaign had way too many PVP deaths (4 or 5).

[comicshorse]

War-forged are ratehr regarded as second-class citizens in Eberon. The character could be an activist seeking greater rights for war-forged. Organizing protests at their mistreatment, forming orginazations to protect them, giving speeches on their rights.
In our group we have a war-forged cleric who, is very much into this all his spare time and money are ploughed into these sorts of groups. Also he spends a lot of time ( along with the rest of the P.C.s) combatting the Lord of Blades minions who he feels stir ip hatred and fear of War-forged.

[TheThan]

Dunno, but the only warforged I’m interested in is a warforged urban druid (dragon magazine, variant). Basically I get to transform into common everyday items… you got it, a Transformer!

“Autobots, transform and roll out!”

[horseboy]

After discussing things with my group, I will use deadly force on anyone or anything that threatens to deactivate me (even empty threats), he NEVER wants to go through that again, it is the only situation in which he forgoes logical thought (ie: this person is an unarmed commoner.
the rest of the party will know about this allready of course, our last campaign had way too many PVP deaths (4 or 5).

All the while shouting: "NO DISASSEMBLE!" ?

[PhallicWarrior]

I do believe an issue of Dragon had a random Warforged traits generator with a section for personality traits.


I only remember three of the possibilities: only refer to self in third person, imitate all humanoid activities (bathing, eating, etc.) and stare intently and members of other races with the intent of wierding them out. (I do this to everyone in real life, heh.)

[Xuincherguixe]

yeah, I should probably make something about my character obsessive compulsive


Do not understand 'personal space'

When people are talking to you, move up close to them and stare at them unrelentingly.

Pretend to eat in order to fit in with the other fleshbags.

Better yet, if someone talks while they are eating, ask them "Are you going to finish that?" And point at their food.


A quirk you could have is exessivly literal thinking, inability to "get" figures of speech. I could picture a warforged thinking like a golem from discworld.


Congratulations. You have just made an Autistic Warforged.

Come to think of it, that actually sounds like a lot of fun.

[Toric]

Congratulations. You have just made an Autistic Warforged.

Come to think of it, that actually sounds like a lot of fun.

I hope you realize you are going to some dark nether-realm full of pain and sorrow upon death for that statement. And that upon your arrival, the nether-realm's ruler is going to present you with a Win badge for it.

Perhaps this memory-lapsing could extend to information about the world. Have your character be wary of some foreign race or culture (Talentan halflings or Khalashtar for example) because you should know something about them but you don't know anything. Require the concept of teleportation to be explained to you. Be visibly disturbed by an encounter with a creature that you as a player have seen hundreds of times.

Other than that, you can always show confusion and profound thinking about meatbag experiences social behaviors and aesthetics. What makes certain parts of females attractive to males? What is this "smell" thing that everyone keeps talking about? Why in the world are those starving peasants not killing and eating the rats that run around everywhere?
Or you could just dismiss them all as crazies that you'll never understand.

[Xuincherguixe]

I hope you realize you are going to some dark nether-realm full of pain and sorrow upon death for that statement. And that upon your arrival, the nether-realm's ruler is going to present you with a Win badge for it.

Eh, it's less bad than it sounds. I'm on the Autistic Spectrum myself.

[Toric]

Oh, okay. You're still getting a win badge. :smallsmile: