Warforged Fist of the Forset

[schreier]

I was looking at a Fist of the Forest for Warforged, and noticed that the limitations seemed to be completely irrelevant for a Warforged.

Fist of the Forest says:
"Primal Living (Ex): To maintain your bestial powers, you must live like a wild animal. You must sleep in natural environments, never inside buildings, unless forced by circumstances. Furthermore, you cannot purchase food—you must obtain it by hunting, gathering, begging, or stealing. Some fists of the forest even give up speech, the use of fire and tools, and all possessions, but such extremes are not required. In any month in which you buy food or voluntarily sleep indoors more than three times, all your fist of the forest class features cease to function until you have spent thirty consecutive days living like an animal once more, or until a fellow Guardian of the Green casts atonement on you."

A warforged does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but he can still benefit from the effects of consumable spells and magic items such as heroes’ feast and potions.

So, if the Guardians of the Green approve a Warforged, would Primal Living have zero impact? RAW I would think so - I could see expanding the sleep restriction to include the warforged required rest to memorize spells, but otherwise Warforged would have no issues? I guess the sleep thing would also apply to elves meditation time potentially?

[Nifft]

FotF: "You must sleep in natural environments, never inside buildings (...)"

Warforged: "No problem."

FotF: "You must sleep (...)"

Warforged: "D'oh!"

[The Viscount]

I'd agree with your interpretation that a warforged could enter the class while essentially sidestepping the prereqs. The existence of landforged walker means there's precedent for warforged linking with the land as well, so they should be accepted.

[Gullintanni]

FotF: "You must sleep in natural environments, never inside buildings (...)"

Warforged: "No problem."

FotF: "You must sleep (...)"

Warforged: "D'oh!"

Even if that were the correct logical inference from the text, the resolution to that is for the Warfist of the Forest to simply sleep once in the forest, and then never sleep again.

Warforged neatly sidestep the fluff restrictions for Fist of the Forest. Good catch.

[Falontani]

the biggest issue for them would be tools; as they can't heal naturally they normally need to roll craft checks to repair themselves

[Arael666]

the biggest issue for them would be tools; as they can't heal naturally they normally need to roll craft checks to repair themselves

[...]Some fists of the forest even give up speech, the use of fire and tools, and all possessions, but such extremes are not required.[...]

[Zombulian]

the biggest issue for them would be tools; as they can't heal naturally they normally need to roll craft checks to repair themselves

I guess the answer is to be a Warlock or DFA with the Spellfire Wielder feat.

[Zaq]

the biggest issue for them would be tools; as they can't heal naturally they normally need to roll craft checks to repair themselves

As Arael pointed out, this isn't truly necessary.

That said, can't you just eat the -2 for having improvised tools or no tools? You're generally taking 10 anyway (the way Craft checks work in practice, that -2 determines degree of success rather than likelihood of success), and the idea of a "feral" or "uncivilized" warforged patching themselves up with mud and twigs is actually pretty compelling fluff if you ask me.

[Uncle Pine]

I may be wrong, but doesn't a warforged's composite plating disqualify it from gaining benefits from effects that require it to be unarmored unless it takes the Unarmored Body feat? This has no bearing on Primal Living (which you can completely sidestep as a warforged), but if true it would prevent you from getting your Con bonus to AC as a Fist of the Forest.

[Arael666]

I may be wrong, but doesn't a warforged's composite plating disqualify it from gaining benefits from effects that require it to be unarmored unless it takes the Unarmored Body feat? This has no bearing on Primal Living (which you can completely sidestep as a warforged), but if true it would prevent you from getting your Con bonus to AC as a Fist of the Forest.

I don't think that would be the case, since the description of composite plating states, among other things that "This plating is not natural armor and does not stack with other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor)"

[lylsyly]

The complexity of 3.5 and the games ability to duplicate virtually any concept you can dream up never ceases to amaze me. As does the creativity of it's players.

Myself, it would never even occur to me to apply a nature themed Anything to Warforged. I guess my antique mind just isn't that flexible anymore ;D

[Uncle Pine]

I don't think that would be the case, since the description of composite plating states, among other things that "This plating is not natural armor and does not stack with other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor)"

I wasn't thinking about that, but rather that

AC Bonus (Ex): While unarmored, you gain a bonus to your Armor Class equal to your Constitution bonus (if any). See the monk class feature (PH40).
And the fact that

Composite plating also provides a warforged with a 5% arcane spell failure chance, similar to the penalty for wearing light armor. Any class ability that allows a warforged to ignore the arcane spell failure chance for light armor lets him ignore this penalty as well.

I seem to remember a contention about base warforged needing to take Unarmored Body to benefit from stuff that required them to not be wearing armor, but upon closer inspection I think that's not the case as the section about warforged monks in ECS only talks about special interactions with wholeness of body. That is, unless I'm missing some weird erratas or blurb in Magic/Races of Eberron or the likes.

[CozJa]

I wasn't thinking about that, but rather that

And the fact that


I seem to remember a contention about base warforged needing to take Unarmored Body to benefit from stuff that required them to not be wearing armor, but upon closer inspection I think that's not the case as the section about warforged monks in ECS only talks about special interactions with wholeness of body. That is, unless I'm missing some weird erratas or blurb in Magic/Races of Eberron or the likes.

Can't access it now since I'm on Phone, but I'm pretty sure you are right: Somewhere in the place describing warforged plating it is explained that it doesn't count as armor for things like monks abilities. I'll try to look at it when I'm home... Assuming nobody else does it

[Arael666]

I wasn't thinking about that, but rather that

And the fact that


I seem to remember a contention about base warforged needing to take Unarmored Body to benefit from stuff that required them to not be wearing armor, but upon closer inspection I think that's not the case as the section about warforged monks in ECS only talks about special interactions with wholeness of body. That is, unless I'm missing some weird erratas or blurb in Magic/Races of Eberron or the likes.

It doesn't matter if it give armor bonus, spell failure and armor check penalty, the ability itself states it is not real armor, so it is not armor.

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't think that would be the case, since the description of composite plating states, among other things that "This plating is not natural armor and does not stack with other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor)"

This quote doesn't mean what you think it means, because armor and natural armor are two totally different things.

[Nifft]

Fist of the Forest says:
"Primal Living (Ex): To maintain your bestial powers, you must live like a wild animal. You must sleep in natural environments, never inside buildings, unless forced by circumstances. Furthermore, you cannot purchase food—you must obtain it by hunting, gathering, begging, or stealing.

So, more seriously:

- You must live like a wild animal. Animals do eat & sleep.

- You must sleep (occasionally, there's nothing about sleeping every night). Warforged don't need to eat or sleep, but they are explicitly permitted to "eat" magic potions for mechanical benefits, so presumably they can also recreationally eat non-magical food & drink.

- If we assume they can recreationally eat non-magical food & drink, then we note that that the language for "not needing to eat or drink" is exactly congruent to the language for "not needing to sleep", so presumably a Warforged can choose to sleep (but has no biological need to do so).

- Animals do breathe, but there's nothing about breathing in specific in the class. So presumably "live like a wild animal" doesn't mind if you skip that.

Thus a Warforged might be able to "live like an animal" within the rules, but it would require some DM cooperation.



Regarding food, you "must obtain it by hunting, gathering, begging, or stealing" -- but nothing about eating it, just that you MUST obtain it.

So the Warfist of the Forestforge hunts & steals food, and then leaves it on the party's doorstep.

This PC is basically a robot who becomes a cat.

[CozJa]

Ok, here's a snippet from Races of Eberron, page 22: "Monk: Monk is a good class choice for a warforged character. Monks do not normally wear armor, so the armor bonus inherent to the race is a great advantage. You can choose to increase that advantage with Adamantine Body or Mithral Body, but both of those feats cause you to take penalties to skills important to most monks."

That, plus the fact that the description from Eberron Campaign Setting goes out of its way to differentiate between the Composite Plating and an armor, confirm that Warforged Monks don't need the feat unarmored body. Honestly, I believe the problem stems from the feat's name: if it was called Unplated Body, we'd never had any doubt.

[Falontani]

Honestly, I believe the problem stems from the feat's name: if it was called Unplated Body, we'd never had any doubt.

That feat wasn't even in the Eberron Campaign Setting book. Meaning if the case was that you couldn't be a warforged monk without armor until Races of Eberron was released, nearly a year later. I believe you are most likely correct CozJa

[Andor13]

The complexity of 3.5 and the games ability to duplicate virtually any concept you can dream up never ceases to amaze me. As does the creativity of it's players.

Myself, it would never even occur to me to apply a nature themed Anything to Warforged. I guess my antique mind just isn't that flexible anymore ;D

I made a Warforged Totemist once, refluffing the melds as clockwork shapeshifting ala transformers. Then I said it was enameled in brown and rust colors and was named "Autumn", one of a set of four seasonal themed warforged made as a gift.

[Zombulian]

I made a Warforged Totemist once, refluffing the melds as clockwork shapeshifting ala transformers. Then I said it was enameled in brown and rust colors and was named "Autumn", one of a set of four seasonal themed warforged made as a gift.

I made a Warforged Totemist as well. Actually one of the first characters I ever made. I like the interaction of Incarnum fluff with WF.
It was also a *Dragonborn* Warforged, so that lead to some interesting mental images (since Dragonborn has you keep the Living Construct subtype). I had it written in his backstory that instead of going through the usual metamorphosis he had found a priest of Bahamut who helped him install wooden + leather wings and a mechanical dragon tail.

[Fouredged Sword]

I at one point made a battlefist focused Monk2 / battle sorcerer warforged who punched things with a collosal fist due to beaststrike and GMW.

He came from the town of Rockem.

He was a rockem sockem robot.

I named him Blue. I regret nothing.

[death390]

I at one point made a battlefist focused Monk2 / battle sorcerer warforged who punched things with a collosal fist due to beaststrike and GMW.

He came from the town of Rockem.

He was a rockem sockem robot.

I named him Blue. I regret nothing.

this is where we need +1 buttons like reddit. can i use the base idea for a character? i would love to make a tag team duo around this idea.

[lylsyly]

That one deserves a +5 button. Outstanding!

[Fouredged Sword]

Anyone who wants to use him feel free. I did an E6 version as Monk 2 / Battle Sorcerer 2 / fighter 2. Relies on getting an eternal wand of greater minghty wallop, but can sneak in the +5 bab just in time for beast strike at level 6.

Taked the focused attack monk acf. It more or less replaces your full attack with "crit on demand" as a full attack.

And then get karmeic strike with epic feats.

The full 20 version is much the same, but fighter isn't needed. Monk 2 / battle sorcerer 18 works just fine. Not a full gish, but options like abjurant champion are nice filler to pump bab.