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Deth Muncher
2007-11-30, 04:52 PM
I was going to do this in an Eberron/Ravnica campaign a friend of mine was doing, until he banned me from doing so because I realized that Wildshape + Warforged = Transformer, and instead went to Monk. Either way, how would that work, a warforged druid?

MrNexx
2007-11-30, 04:54 PM
From what I understand, it works like standard, though if you have either Mithril or Adamantine body feats, you cannot use your druid abilities.

Nermy
2007-11-30, 04:59 PM
I'm pretty sure you can't use your druid abilities unless you waste a feat on Unarmored Body or Ironwood Body.

Deth Muncher
2007-11-30, 04:59 PM
Well, yes, but how would it work in game? Could you pray to yourself, since druids have to pray to plants(ish), and you have wooden parts? Woruld it even make sense? Isnt a warforged a profanity of nature anyway?

Seffbasilisk
2007-11-30, 05:00 PM
Or, I believe there's a feat 'Unarmored Body'. 1st level only, takes off the warforged base armor.

MrNexx
2007-11-30, 05:05 PM
I'm pretty sure you can't use your druid abilities unless you waste a feat on Unarmored Body or Ironwood Body.

According to Races of Eberron, page 23, this is not the case.


Well, yes, but how would it work in game? Could you pray to yourself, since druids have to pray to plants(ish), and you have wooden parts? Woruld it even make sense? Isnt a warforged a profanity of nature anyway?

Druids don't pray to plants... they pray to nature, or make pacts with spirits, or some variety thereof. They aren't a profanity of nature... they are magical constructs, in a world where magic is part of nature. In this case, it is something attempting to understand the natural world around it in the most direct way possible.

Deth Muncher
2007-11-30, 05:06 PM
As I recall from the Eberron book, you can be a druid with base armor on, but you cant have armor upgrades, as MrNexx said. And why in the Twelve Gods' names would you take "Unarmoured Body"?

MrNexx
2007-11-30, 05:09 PM
As I recall from the Eberron book, you can be a druid with base armor on, but you cant have armor upgrades, as MrNexx said. And why in the Twelve Gods' names would you take "Unarmoured Body"?

Because their basic armor has an Arcane Spell Failure Chance.

Deth Muncher
2007-11-30, 05:11 PM
Because their basic armor has an Arcane Spell Failure Chance.

Right, but that takes away everything that is Warforged. Without armor you're...some guy made of wood and stone. Woo?

Seffbasilisk
2007-11-30, 05:16 PM
Same guy who's a LIVING CONSTRUCT, who doesn't need to eat/drink/sleep/breathe...is immune to fatigue and exhaustion, can be healed by a wizard (instead of a cleric)

Deth Muncher
2007-11-30, 05:21 PM
Same guy who's a LIVING CONSTRUCT, who doesn't need to eat/drink/sleep/breathe...is immune to fatigue and exhaustion, can be healed by a wizard (instead of a cleric)

Healed...by Wizard? What the heck? Sorry, Im a bit nooby when it comes to warforged, but what is this?

lord_khaine
2007-11-30, 05:23 PM
there is a wizard spell called repair construct, guess what it does?

Deth Muncher
2007-11-30, 05:25 PM
there is a wizard spell called repair construct, guess what it does?

Ach mein Gott in himmel! What the heck? I want an amulet of Repair Construct....

Hyozo
2007-11-30, 05:28 PM
Right, but that takes away everything that is Warforged. Without armor you're...some guy made of wood and stone. Woo?

Some guy made of wood and stone who happens to be wearing a rhino hide, is completely capable of becoming a rhino himself, and doesn't like what you're saying about his people.

Frosty
2007-11-30, 05:38 PM
Immune to Fatigue and exhaustion eh? Barb/Warblade/Frenzied Berserker Warforged here we come?

Shades of Gray
2007-11-30, 05:43 PM
Well I'm currently playing a Warforged Barbarian/ Bear Warrior/ Druid.

I can turn into a bear, then turn into a bear...

also I love using alter self if I'm a warforged wizard. Make yourself any construct, polymorph into Adamantine Golem:smallbiggrin:

Yuki Akuma
2007-11-30, 05:52 PM
Ach mein Gott in himmel! What the heck? I want an amulet of Repair Construct....

...What? There's no such thing. The spells are Repair Light Damage, Repair Medium Damage, and so on... they're Cure spells with no spell resistance (so they can work on golems) and only affect constructs.

Aquaseafoam
2007-11-30, 06:29 PM
Psions can heal Warforged too.

Beleriphon
2007-11-30, 06:30 PM
Psions can heal Warforged too.

So can clerics, although very inefficiently.

freetobeuandme
2008-02-04, 09:46 PM
The only option for a warforged who wants improved armor and the full power of the druid is the Ironwood Body feat presented in Races of Eberron.
This is the same thing as metal except it can't burn or be affected by turn wood spells. Best of both wood and metal

FlyMolo
2008-02-04, 09:58 PM
Hee Hee, Druid+Warforged=Transformers.... hee hee.

Seriously. That's hilarious. Give them an option of "wild"shaping into other constructs or mundane objects...

ladditude
2008-02-04, 10:02 PM
Arcane spell failure doesn't matter since druids cast divine spells. The problem is that druids loose abilities if they wear metal, so a Warforged would need to lack metal, I assume.

freetobeuandme
2008-02-04, 10:08 PM
here are the stats for you:
warforged
+2con
-2wis
-2cha
• Living Construct • Immune to Poison, Sleep, Paralysis, Disease, Nausea, Fatigue, Exhaustion, Sickening, and Energy Drain. • Does not Eat, Sleep, or Breath. • Does not naturally heal. • At 0 hp, is Disabled (as usual). From –1 to –9 hp, is Inert (i.e., Unconscious, but stable) • Conj(healing) spells only heal 1⁄2 hp. • Can be ‘healed’ by a Craft check that takes 8 hours. The Warforged is repaired the check – 15 hp. The following Craft skills can be used: armorsmithing, blacksmithing, gemcutting, & sculpting. A Warforged may repair itself.
ironwood takes a feat
light armor +3 max dex bonus +4 check penalty -3 fort light dam reduction 2/slashing arcane spell failure 5%

Theli
2008-02-04, 10:56 PM
Warforged only have a passing resemblance to robots.

That is all.

Kyeudo
2008-02-04, 11:02 PM
No one has mentioned the Landforged Walker yet? It's a prestige class for Warforged Druids, and a pretty good one too. Just look in Secrets of Xendrik for the full benefits.

These are druids so devoted to nature that plants grow on them!!

Chronicled
2008-02-04, 11:04 PM
I just had a Warforged Druid (Shapeshift variant)/Paladin of Freedom concept shot down by my soon-to-be-DM. Now I have to find another way to smuggle the phrase "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" into a DND campaign. (And just maybe, "Transform, and roll out!")

Aerogoat
2008-02-04, 11:55 PM
I don't play Eberron, so I don't know if there's anything in the books to provide the Wild Shape of a proper Transformer. If not, City Soul (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) would do it for high-level Warforged Druids.

mikeejimbo
2008-02-05, 12:15 AM
I don't play Eberron, so I don't know if there's anything in the books to provide the Wild Shape of a proper Transformer. If not, City Soul (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) would do it for high-level Warforged Druids.

I was just about to mention this. It DOES make them Transformers!

Especially near the power plant. *rimshot*

Ascension
2008-02-05, 12:26 AM
I suddenly have the urge to houserule together an evil warforged druid BBEG with the power to transform into a heavy crossbow... He'll need a scheming lieutenant who favors flight forms as well... :smallbiggrin:

Theli
2008-02-05, 12:35 AM
Ok, ok, ok, ok...repeat after me.

"Warforged are not robots."

Again!

"Warforged are not robots!"

I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

...

Ah, it's enough to drive a man mad... (Mad I say!)

mikeejimbo
2008-02-05, 12:42 AM
Even if they aren't Robots, a Warforged Druid with City-Soul, in a setting were there ARE Robots (Yeah, out of Eberron), would be able to become one. (DM's ruling pending).

Or a transformer. :smalltongue:

Theli
2008-02-05, 01:36 AM
What are you talking about? There are no robots in Eberron.

Seriously, you might have heard that there were. But no, neither the warforged, nor the warforged "titans" qualify as friggen robots. It's just people that like to disparage the setting that say that it does include that element.

Oh no, there are non-biological organisms in our fantasy! How could they put robots in DnD! Those bastards!

...

No. Just like you can have creatures made of stone; or creatures made of wood; or even creatures made of metal... And have NONE of them be robots. You can have creatures made of wood, stone, AND metal, with a friggen soul on the side, that certainly don't qualify for that label. These are the warforged.

There are no robots in Eberron.

Talic
2008-02-05, 02:35 AM
Maybe from the "Beast Wars" series.

Oh, and transformers were living constructs too.

Patashu
2008-02-05, 03:00 AM
How on earth are they not robots, for starters?

Theli
2008-02-05, 03:29 AM
They have a soul.

They can benefit from magical potions and the hero's feast spell.

They are in no way technologically based and, if dissected, crumble into what is essentially magical waste, rather than component parts. (You can not hack up a adamantine-bodied warforged in order to salvage the adamantine. The corpse simply decays into uselessness.)


I have to ask...in what ways ARE they robots, besides the stereotypical attitudes and mannerisms with which some players deem to roleplay them as.



Transformers are wierd, sure enough. There's a spark, or whatever, that powers them. This sort of makes them living... By very fantastical measures of life.

I'm not sure transformers would even qualify as alive according to any stringent scientifically-valid definition of the word. That's not to say that they aren't sentient.

It is possible that transformers could be said to have souls, due to this spark. But I'm not sure how relevant that is given the sci-fi context present within it. (Not that sci-fi can't investigate the nature of a "soul". It's just that having one usually isn't as major a criteria as it would be within classical fantasy.)

In fact, I would actually go so far as to suggest that perhaps not even transformers are robots. (Despite that insidious tagline.) Perhaps given an exceedingly basic understanding of what a robot is, they could pass off as one. But aren't they really just non-biological aliens that can transform into a bunch of fun stuff?

Ahh...dictionary.com help me...

Robot:
1. a machine that resembles a human and does mechanical, routine tasks on command.
2. a person who acts and responds in a mechanical, routine manner, usually subject to another's will; automaton.
3. any machine or mechanical device that operates automatically with humanlike skill.
–adjective
4. operating automatically: a robot train operating between airline terminals.


Machine:

1. an apparatus consisting of interrelated parts with separate functions, used in the performance of some kind of work: a sewing machine.
2. a mechanical apparatus or contrivance; mechanism.
3. Mechanics.
a. a device that transmits or modifies force or motion.
b. Also called simple machine. any of six or more elementary mechanisms, as the lever, wheel and axle, pulley, screw, wedge, and inclined plane.
c. Also called complex machine. a combination of simple machines.
4. Older Use.
a. an automobile or airplane.
b. a typewriter.
5. a bicycle or motorcycle.
6. a vending machine: a cigarette machine.
7. any complex agency or operating system: the machine of government.
8. an organized group of persons that conducts or controls the activities of a political party or organization: He heads the Democratic machine in our city.
9. a person or thing that acts in a mechanical or automatic manner: Routine work had turned her into a machine.
10. any of various contrivances, esp. those formerly used in theater, for producing stage effects
11. some agency, personage, incident or other feature introduced for effect into a literary composition.
–verb (used with object)
12. to make, prepare, or finish with a machine or with machine tools.


Of note:
Let's take definition number one from robot and 1 and 2 from machine... Unfortunately, apparatus almost defines itself by referring to machines...so that's no help. I'd suggest that the magical nature of warforged makes them "non-mechanical" so that the label of robot is simply invalid. Even transformers seem to fail these definitions as much of them assume that the object in question was made for a purpose by human hands.


Sorry if I caused any disillusionment to anyone by claiming that transformers may not be robots. :p

Darkantra
2008-02-05, 04:00 AM
City Soul

The most powerful druids can transform themselves into elementals, representatives of the building blocks of reality itself. A few urban druids, truly taken with the nature and order of the city, prefer more mundane forms.

Class: Druid.

Level: 16th.

Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain the wild shape (elemental) ability, or later improvements to that class feature.

Benefit: At 16th level, the druid can use her wild shape (or city-shape) ability to become a Small, Medium, or Large animated object (MM 13) once per day. These forms are in addition to her normal wild shape uses. In addition to the normal effects of wild shape, she gains all the animated object's extraordinary abilities, as well as many traits of the construct type (low-light vision, darkvision to 60 feet, and immunity to critical hits, poison, disease, paralysis, and stunning).

The precise form must be an object common to the city environment, such as a wagon, a statue, or the like. (Talk to your DM in advance to determine what sorts of forms are available and what are off-limits.)

The druid can assume the form of an animated object twice per day at 18th level, and three times per day at 20th level. At 20th level, she can use this ability to turn into a Huge animated object.

Special: The Natural Spell feat functions with city soul just as it does standard wild shape.


Oh man, oh man, oh man, I'm so doing this the next time I play in Eberron. Skycoach, lightning rail car, mine cart, the possibilities are endless!

kamikasei
2008-02-05, 09:53 AM
I have to ask...in what ways ARE they robots, besides the stereotypical attitudes and mannerisms with which some players deem to roleplay them as.

I think you're being overly particular in your use of the term "robot". Would you regard Data from Star Trek as a robot? He's an android, certainly. While he is self-aware and intelligent and a person, and to the extent that the concept is meaningful I would say he has a "soul", he is clearly a constructed entity with an artificial body. That his body moves according to the intentions of an intelligence rather than a simple program doesn't change that fact.

Golems are robots in much the same way - more so, really, since their programming is simple.

The Major from Ghost in the Shell is not a robot, but a cyborg. However, this distinction is mostly due to the fact that she's not a created AI but a born human with extreme prosthesis. Her body is a robot body, I think that's a fair assertion to make, yet in many ways it is very, very similar to a warforged.

Warforged are robots in the colloquial sense that they are constructed. Their bodies are artificial. They are not injured, they are damaged. They do not heal, they are repaired. They do not eat, or sleep, or breathe, or reproduce. They just are. They have souls and personhood, but they are still robots in pretty much every sense but the perjorative, "can't think for himself" one.

Sure, they're magical. But so are golems. If you consider golems to fall under the heading of "robot", warforged should too. If you don't, you're using a very restricted form of "robot" that rather misses the point.

Theli
2008-02-05, 10:02 AM
I think it boils down to a question of genre conventions. It's possible to describe both golems and warforged without resorting to the, possibly setting-degrading, label of "robots".


The word doesn't have a place in fantasy. And using it to describe warforged, or even golems, is making the suggestion that campaigns that include them are not actually based in fantasy, but are part scifi.


So no, as I may not consider transformers to be robots, golems should not be considered robots either, but instead simply magical constructs which follow somewhat arbitrary rules. (The golem is certainly loyal, but it's its nature that's arbitrary.)

As to the question of Data, its conceivable that anything that would otherwise be called a robot could lose the label once it approaches that level of sentience.

kamikasei
2008-02-05, 10:06 AM
I think it boils down to a question of genre conventions. It's possible to describe both golems and warforged without resorting to the, possibly setting-degrading, label of "robots".

...

As to the question of Data, its conceivable that anything that would otherwise be called a robot could lose the label once it approaches that level of sentience.

I oppose ceding words to those who use them as insults. If a robot is also a person then it is still a robot and should be asserting its pride in the term rather than trying to disavow it because those anti-robotists make it sound bad. I am put in mind of the argument Picard makes at a couple of points in TNG that it may make you uncomfortable to think of Data as a machine, but just remember that we are all equally machines, just made out of different stuff.

Theli
2008-02-05, 10:10 AM
It's less a question of insulting the person/creature than insulting the campaign/setting.

There's a difference. The latter is suggesting that the game world is flawed in its attempt at fantasy. And robots are definitely a scifi trope.

kamikasei
2008-02-05, 10:30 AM
It's less a question of insulting the person/creature than insulting the campaign/setting.

There's a difference. The latter is suggesting that the game world is flawed in its attempt at fantasy. And robots are definitely a scifi trope.

And there's a difference between a detractor complaining "warforged are robots, ewww, you got your sci-fi in my D&D" and people in this thread joking "warforged druid! Robots in disguise!". Just because some use a term as an insult inside or outside the setting shouldn't lead the rest of us to shun the term even in jest.

Theli
2008-02-05, 10:41 AM
If it wasn't for the fact that the setting where warforged are introduced was historically derided for it, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Burley
2008-02-05, 10:41 AM
That whole robo-norobo rant

So, you're saying that, in a made-up/imaginary/fantasy world (be it D&D or Energon), it's not possible for an entire race, who love, hate and have organized religion, to be alive. BUT, it is possible for something to be alive after a Wizard waves his arms around.

I'm sorry, but I get tickled pink when people have these "Your imagination is wrong because my imagination says so!" debates.

Warforged are living beings with souls and feelings and thoughts, but without flesh and bone (usually...ew).
Well, guess what a Transformer is. The exact same thing, but with the ability to change into something else. It's just a Warforged that got down with a Doppleganger.

Theli
2008-02-05, 10:45 AM
So, you're saying that, in a made-up/imaginary/fantasy world (be it D&D or Energon), it's not possible for an entire race, who love, hate and have organized religion, to be alive. BUT, it is possible for something to be alive after a Wizard waves his arms around.

I'm sorry, but I get tickled pink when people have these "Your imagination is wrong because my imagination says so!" debates.

Warforged are living beings with souls and feelings and thoughts, but without flesh and bone (usually...ew).
Well, guess what a Transformer is. The exact same thing, but with the ability to change into something else. It's just a Warforged that got down with a Doppleganger.

I don't follow.

First of all, warforged are not the result of a wizard waving his arms around. They are the creation of eldritch machines which are beyond the ken of even the most advanced current day wizards. These machines can not be created.

Second, I absolutely did not mean to state that transformers couldn't possibly have souls. (Though I do find it kinda humorous that you object to the idea so much.)

Burley
2008-02-05, 10:55 AM
I don't follow.

First of all, warforged are not the result of a wizard waving his arms around. They are the creation of eldritch machines which are being the ken of even the most advanced current day wizards. These machines can not be created.

Second, I absolutely did not mean to state that transformers couldn't possibly have souls. (Though I do find it kinda humorous that you object to the idea so much.)

Okay. Here's where I'm going with this: you stated not too long ago that something would lose it's status as a robot when it gains a certain amount of sentience.
When people started saying "Transformer", you started saying "Robot". You, sir, were the first to say "Robot". You were saying that a Transformer is a robot, but a Transformer (IMO) has just as much sentience, if not more, than Data or a Warforged.
I'd say that a Warforged is a Transformer without the ability to transform. If we know our Transformer history well enough, on their home planet they do not actually transform. They only use that bit of technology to survive on hostile and foreign worlds to fit in or survive.
I'd also have to say that a Transformer and a Warforged are more sentient than Data, for many reasons. While Data is a person, he still has "programed personality" on a personality chip. But, the Transformers and Warforged have souls and free thought...and the ability to use contractions. :smalltongue:

Telonius
2008-02-05, 11:01 AM
Does any god of the Roman or Greek pantheon exist in your D&D world? If so, then robots belong there. Vulcan/Hephaestus made mechanical servants, and Talos could be described as a robot.

Theli
2008-02-05, 11:04 AM
I'm not sure transformers would even qualify as alive according to any stringent scientifically-valid definition of the word. That's not to say that they aren't sentient.

Can you please quote me where I said that transformers were definitively robots and thus lacking sentience? I can't find it.


Ohh, I get it now. The topic was about making warforged into transformers. And then I brought up the whole robot diatribe right... Hmm...

I gotta admit, that's a mistake. I had assumed that everybody else treated warforged as if they were robots, and thus similar to transformers, which I also assumed that everybody assumed that they were robots as well.

Sorry, I guess I didn't really determine till later that transformers probably shouldn't be considered robots. (That damned insidious tagline again...) *shrugs*

Burley
2008-02-05, 11:07 AM
I never said that they lacked sentience, nor did I accuse you of stating that. As a matter of fact, I said that you DID state that they have sentience.
However, you were the first person to say that Warforged are not robots, and you said it in response to people wanting to build Tranformers out of Warforged Druids.
Maybe I am the only person who inferred that your implecation was that a Transformer is a Robot. My bad. Me and my...logic and reading between the lines...silly...

Edit: You ninja'd me. I don't think I've ever seen anybody ninja something aimed at them. Kudos.
Also, I completely agree that a Warforged is not a Robot, and that you don't want to get the settings mixed up. Robots are sci-fi, and Warforged aren't. I concur one-hundred percent. I just wanted to point out that you had turned around on your own logic. I'm sorry...I do that...
I didn't intend to flame you, if you took it as flamming. I'm all about the spirit of fun...and Christmas Past.

daggaz
2008-02-05, 11:13 AM
Transformers are wierd, sure enough. There's a spark, or whatever, that powers them. This sort of makes them living... By very fantastical measures of life.

By that measure, we are equally as wierd. There's a spark, or whatever, that powers us. Otherwise, we are in fact physical machines. Instead of being built out of iron and silicon, we are built of carbon and oxygen. We use electricity (and thats not the spark I was talking about), to move, to think, to feel (physically). From our wetnet neuroprocessors, down to the calcium powered pumps which move powerpack molecules of ATP into our cells, to the ion-driven spring-cords which make up our muscles, we are machines. Awesome machines, but still physically machines.

Its the spark that defines us... and transformers have it as well, in the make-believe world. Id have to say that makes them alive...

For an interesting thought experiment regarding that spark, take bacteria, which by general consesus are considered to be living creatures. You can suck out their genetic material, and the creature ceases to interact. It doesn't grow, reproduce, respond to the environment, use energy, and in time other bacteria will come and dismantle its body for their own use, without it putting up any fight. It is for all intensive purposes, dead.

Then you can artificially recreat new genetic material in a lab, starting with small unliving molecules. Seriously, they can build a whole genome from scratch. Pump that genetic material back into the bacterium, and a cascade of spontaneous chemical chain reactions begin to take place, and the bacterium "comes back to life." Now... the DNA is just a nonliving chemical, albeit an extremely complicated one. And the bacterium's body is just a tiny, yet extrodinarily complex machine. Neither of the two pieces have the "spark," but when you put them together....TADA! Life!

Obviously we are a tad more complex that bacteria, and the "spark" of life isn't necessarily what folks mean when they talk about the soul... but its wierd to think about. And the really freaky part? Every day, millions of viruses are performing this experiment on your body, with your DNA. Ewww.

Anyhow... I think warforged druids that turn into dinosaurs are cool. More Dinobot power to the people! They were, after all, the coolest transformers.

Theli
2008-02-05, 11:22 AM
By that measure, we are equally as wierd. There's a spark, or whatever, that powers us. Otherwise, we are in fact physical machines. Instead of being built out of iron and silicon, we are built of carbon and oxygen. We use electricity (and thats not the spark I was talking about), to move, to think, to feel (physically). From our wetnet neuroprocessors, down to the calcium powered pumps which move powerpack molecules of ATP into our cells, to the ion-driven spring-cords which make up our muscles, we are machines. Awesome machines, but still physically machines.

Philosophically, you have a point. But when I refer to something being "alive", I try to reference scientifically-valid definitions of the word.

We can certainly theorize about what forms life may take. But until we see examples, and ones which do not prove themselves to be too different from conventional forms of life, then the word, as I use it, will have a very strict meaning that imaginary creatures such as the transformers may not necessarily qualify for.


This is all horribly off-topic though. Sorry... I shouldn't have assumed that everybody else assumed that transformers, and by extension warforged, were robots and then lashed out like that.

Burley
2008-02-05, 11:30 AM
Philosophically, you have a point. But when I refer to something being "alive", I try to reference scientifically-valid definitions of the word.
...
This is all horribly off-topic though. Sorry... I shouldn't have assumed that everybody else assumed that transformers, and by extension warforged, were robots and then lashed out like that.

To get back on topic:

Theli, I'm in love with you. :smalltongue:

Seriously, though...If your DM will let you play a Warforged druid, do it! Sure you'll need to use your 1st level feat to change your armor, but that's cool. I've always wanted to play in Eberron, and be a Warforged Wizard. Take off the Armor at first level, and go to town. In my opinion, using a feat at first level to negate the built-in spell failure of a race is worth it. That is usually a class ability, at higher levels. A Warforged Druid would have some drawbacks, since Wisdom and Charisma are somewhat important to a Druid, especially if you're gonna be playing an urban one and create a Transformer (which I hope becomes a running joke on the forum, just so I can say I was there). However, A Warforged Wizard gets all those spells, can heal himself, has a built in +2 Con, which is super useful, since wisdom and charisma are usually a Wizard's dumpstats...and stregth...but...whatever. Anyways, you've got all that Awesome Power and can heal yourself. It's a great idea, if you can explain why your warforged has a 20 for Intelligence...:smallbiggrin:

Rumda
2008-02-05, 11:33 AM
By that measure, we are equally as wierd. There's a spark, or whatever, that powers us. Otherwise, we are in fact physical machines. Instead of being built out of iron and silicon, we are built of carbon and oxygen. We use electricity (and thats not the spark I was talking about), to move, to think, to feel (physically). From our wetnet neuroprocessors, down to the calcium powered pumps which move powerpack molecules of ATP into our cells, to the ion-driven spring-cords which make up our muscles, we are machines. Awesome machines, but still physically machines.

well to be honest the only dividing line between creatures and creations is that one can create newer versions of them selves via internal processes and the other is reliant on external methods of replication, (which following this to its logical conclusion would classify viruses under the latter category), and anyway your arguments are straying in to the murky territory of vitalism which has been long since debunked by the mainstream scientific comunity

daggaz
2008-02-05, 11:33 AM
Nothing philosophical about it. I'm talking about the scientifically valid viewpoint shared by the vast majority of bio-physicists. And as for a scientifically valid definition of life? There is none.. not yet. There are only guidelines..

Rumda
2008-02-05, 11:41 AM
Nothing philosophical about it. I'm talking about the scientifically valid viewpoint shared by the vast majority of bio-physicists. And as for a scientifically valid definition of life? There is none.. not yet. There are only guidelines..
there is a general agreement on what life is according to modern scientific principles, life is:

Carbon-Based
Ordered
Replicate-able
Based on DNA

mostlyharmful
2008-02-05, 01:54 PM
In my opinion Warforged ought to have an easier time becoming druids than any of the biological races, the point being that while life is a part of nature it certainly isn't all of it.

I also don't agree with the -2 Wis, since manuel dexterity and bipedal locomotion are UNBELIEVABLY difficult and complicated while situational awareness, memory function and sensory uptake are all really easy I'd swap it for -2 Dex but that's just me.

Next time I'm in Eb I'm going to use a warforged druid that got nocked unconcious for years and 'bonded' with it's environment.

Devils_Advocate
2008-02-05, 06:22 PM
It's less a question of insulting the person/creature than insulting the campaign/setting.

There's a difference. The latter is suggesting that the game world is flawed in its attempt at fantasy. And robots are definitely a scifi trope.
Well, yes; artificial, intelligent, self-aware humanoid beings that lack the biological needs and drives of humans, were created by humans to do their dirty work, and get treated like crap by a lot of humans are a sci-fi trope in that they appear in a lot of sci-fi stories. But that doesn't mean that they are inherently appropriate only to science fiction and should never appear in a fantasy story.

Why it bothers you so much to use the term "robots" for this trope when it appears in a fantasy setting is beyond me. Sure, to the characters in the setting it makes a big difference whether the man-made slave race runs on electricity or magic, but to a lot of the real-world people reading the story or playing the game, the precise technical details that enable a given story element aren't nearly as important as the story element itself. Heck, even inside the fictional world, the technical details are only likely to make a real difference to the engineers/artificers responsible for making everything work. It's all "black boxes" to everyone else.

Sure, Eberron isn't technically steampunk, because it uses magitech instead of mechanical devices. So what? If someone talks about Eberron being steampunk, she's rather obviously talking about the genre conventions it employs. She's obviously not saying that the specific details haven't been changed, because they clearly have been. So could you maybe just interpret her statements in context instead of demanding that she use different words for things just because they've been transposed into a different setting from the sort in which they normally appear?

Gods.

In conclusion

1) I think that warforged play a very similar role in Eberron to the role that robots play in many sci-fi stories.
2) That is not intended as an insult of anything. You can interpret as an insult if you want, I guess, but personally, I like that Eberron includes the fantasy equivalent of robots.

As to the notion that the term "robot" might be considered derogatory: As a human being, I would not object to anyone calling me an animal, because I am one. If someone said this in a way that was clearly intended as an insult, I would take exception to the collective denigration of animals, not to being classed as one. Some artificial beings would probably feel the same way about being called machines. Others might be less reasonable about it, attributing to the word itself connotations commonly associated with it, even when such connotations are clearly not intended by the speaker. Some people are dorks like that.


Nothing philosophical about it. I'm talking about the scientifically valid viewpoint shared by the vast majority of bio-physicists.
Really, now? OK, then... What is this "spark" to which you refer? What does it do? How would we be different if we didn't have it?

Questions like "What is life?" and "What is consciousness?" are actually semantic questions. Srsly, f'real. The meaning we assign to a word is arbitrary, but you have to pick some meaning for a sentence containing that word to mean anything.

Admiral Squish
2008-02-05, 06:41 PM
there is a general agreement on what life is according to modern scientific principles, life is:

Carbon-Based
Ordered
Replicate-able
Based on DNA


INCORRECT!

The qualifications are, as follows:

1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature.
2. Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
3. Metabolism: Consumption of energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.
5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.
7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

Theli
2008-02-05, 06:45 PM
My only concern is that the setting not be disregarded as if it was scifi with magic.

Some people might *like* scifi with magic. That's great and all. But that's not what the setting was intended to be portrayed as.

It's solely a question of respect, and I have enough respect for the settings originator to pipe up now and again if people portray the setting in such a fashion which may convince fans of fantasy, who are not familiar with it, to disregard it altogether.

Words matter because they help to convince people one way or another. It's the reason why so much effort has been spent in denigrating the word "liberal" so much in that it is now in many parts of the country considered to be the equivalent of the worst kinds of curse words.

But I have no patience in attempting to reclaim a word such as "robot" for this purpose as others may have for other subjects.

Especially not when we have a fully respectable word which already connotes all that warforged are. They are golems. But intelligent and freewilled ones. And they are rumored by setting background to have souls. There is no purpose in bringing up that other label.

So I hope you understand now why, at least to me personally, the label really does matter.

mikeejimbo
2008-02-05, 06:50 PM
Oh DANG, I should not have left this thread alone for so long.

When I said a robot "out of Eberron", I meant "from outside of Eberron, but placed into Eberron", such that there could be BOTH Warforged AND robots, then if the Warforged could wildshape (or city-soul) into robots, they'd be robots (albeit temporarily.)

Admiral Squish
2008-02-05, 06:58 PM
Oh DANG, I should not have left this thread alone for so long.

When I said a robot "out of Eberron", I meant "from outside of Eberron, but placed into Eberron", such that there could be BOTH Warforged AND robots, then if the Warforged could wildshape (or city-soul) into robots, they'd be robots (albeit temporarily.)

...Wouldn't it be simpler just to city-soul into a metal statue and call it a robot?

mikeejimbo
2008-02-05, 07:01 PM
...Wouldn't it be simpler just to city-soul into a metal statue and call it a robot?

But if you did that, we're right back into the debate of the definition of robot.

Admiral Squish
2008-02-05, 07:10 PM
But if you did that, we're right back into the debate of the definition of robot.

The point is you want a human-shaped metal thing that moves. Statue works fine for that.

Devils_Advocate
2008-02-05, 07:15 PM
My only concern is that the setting not be disregarded as if it was scifi with magic.

Some people might *like* scifi with magic. That's great and all. But that's not what the setting was intended to be portrayed as.

It's solely a question of respect, and I have enough respect for the settings originator to pipe up now and again if people portray the setting in such a fashion which may convince fans of fantasy, who are not familiar with it, to disregard it altogether.

Words matter because they help to convince people one way or another. It's the reason why so much effort has been spent in denigrating the word "liberal" so much in that it is now in many parts of the country considered to be the equivalent of the worst kinds of curse words.

But I have no patience in attempting to reclaim a word such as "robot" for this purpose as others may have for other subjects.

Especially not when we have a fully respectable word which already connotes all that warforged are. They are golems. But intelligent and freewilled ones.
You don't see "golem" as having connotations opposite "intelligent and freewilled"?


There is no purpose in bringing up that other label.
It summarizes the basic role they play in the setting. And I'm pretty sure it's usually used when speaking to someone who realizes that Eberron doesn't incorporate electronics. How many people do you imagine are actually under that misapprehension?

Look, Eberron is not a Traditional Fantasy Setting. It's filled with technology (or whatever more generic term you wanna use that also includes magic items) different from what we have in the real world. Granted, it's not strictly more advanced. "Scifi with magic" may be misleading. But Eberron is closer to that than it is to a Traditional Fantasy Setting. Eberron is not really for gamers who want a TFS, and those who like TFSs tend not to care for it. It's more for those who are bored of TFSs, especially those who are sick of the myriad ways in which TFSs make no sense and fail to carry various things to their logical conclusions, or at least believably explain away the consequences one would expect.

Bag_of_Holding
2008-02-05, 07:15 PM
But a warforged doesn't have to be made entirely of metals! I'm thinking of making a warforged character named 'Scarecrow' because his body's made of... wood and straws (magically enhanced), that he looks just like a typical scarecrow. I'm yet to decide on the shape of his gulra though.

Personally, I love the fluff of warforged, and I think they're very cute. :smallredface:

mikeejimbo
2008-02-05, 07:17 PM
The point is you want a human-shaped metal thing that moves. Statue works fine for that.

No, I want a robot, so that I can say Warforged CAN be robots. :smalltongue:

mostlyharmful
2008-02-05, 07:19 PM
But a warforged doesn't have to be made entirely of metals! I'm thinking of making a warforged character named 'Scarecrow' because his body's made of... wood and straws (magically enhanced), that he looks just like a typical scarecrow. I'm yet to decide on the shape of his gulra though.

Personally, I love the fluff of warforged, and I think they're very cute. :smallredface:

Smiling Pumpkin :smallbiggrin:

Benejeseret
2008-02-05, 07:22 PM
No, the transformer is a warforged wizard using Alter Self to become any small to large Construct. Any object can be animated, and any animated object is a construct.....so go nuts.

Bag_of_Holding
2008-02-05, 07:26 PM
No, the transformer is a warforged wizard using Alter Self to become any small to large Construct. Any object can be animated, and any animated object is a construct.....so go nuts.

Does that mean I can actually play Chip from Beauty and the Beast? Yay! :smallbiggrin:

Of course, I'll have to be a warforged scout to become a tiny sized animated object...

Admiral Squish
2008-02-05, 07:33 PM
Does that mean I can actually play Chip from Beauty and the Beast? Yay! :smallbiggrin:

Of course, I'll have to be a warforged scout to become a tiny sized animated object...

Would baleful polymorph be able to turn you into something like that?

Theli
2008-02-05, 07:38 PM
You don't see "golem" as having connotations opposite "intelligent and freewilled"?

No more than "robot".

In fact, LESS than "robot".

Still, that is why it must be further defined, as I have.



It summarizes the basic role they play in the setting.


I would disagree. They are more former tools of war, than robot drones.

Sure, you can have robot drones bred for war. But robots have classically served the servant role within scifi.



And I'm pretty sure it's usually used when speaking to someone who realizes that Eberron doesn't incorporate electronics. How many people do you imagine are actually under that misapprehension?


That's not the point and I have made no indication that I believed such a thing.



Look, Eberron is not a Traditional Fantasy Setting. It's filled with technology (or whatever more generic term you wanna use that also includes magic items) different from what we have in the real world. Granted, it's not strictly more advanced. "Scifi with magic" may be misleading. But Eberron is closer to that than it is to a Traditional Fantasy Setting. Eberron is not really for gamers who want a TFS, and those who like TFSs tend not to care for it. It's more for those who are bored of TFSs, especially those who are sick of the myriad ways in which TFSs make no sense and fail to carry various things to their logical conclusions, or at least believably explain away the consequences one would expect.

I disagree. Eberron is closer to fantasy than scifi. This is precisely why I object to a label which would suggest the opposite.

That Eberron has elements which aren't necessarily present in a so-called "TFS", it doesn't make it any less a fantasy setting. That people cannot comprehend Eberron without making parallels to scifi is the cause of much of my chagrin. There is no need to mention that genre when speaking of this fantasy setting. It in fact has more in common with modern day, or even earlier period, technology than in any futuristic kind. Yet this is lost when people are taught to view it as simply "scifi, with magic".

Steampunk... I don't mind as much...though that has similar issues. (Especially when what most people refer to steampunk would more accurately be referred to as gaslamp fantasy.)

Bag_of_Holding
2008-02-05, 07:38 PM
Would baleful polymorph be able to turn you into something like that?


Well, Baleful Polymorph has to be a small or smaller animal. I guess Polymorph Any Object would work though. Nice :smallamused: