Sunday, September 2, 2012

DnD Next Playtest: Warforging Ahead

Today's Weekly 4e Homebrew article has been interrupted due to large amounts of DnD Next radiation.

Yo dawg. I heard you like playtests.
Lord in Heaven, help me. One of my closest friends is also my right hand man when it comes to roleplaying. I bounce ideas off of him and he comes up with interesting character concepts. There is only one problem...he HATES classic fantasy races. He finds the combination of dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans to be a bore. He finds it less classical and more generic. He tends to play the weird races like Warforged or Changelings, and less used classes like ninjas.

Consider this article (and any that follow it until the game's official release) an attempt to appease his lame arguments about a game still in the playtest phase. I'm not planning on releasing any more at this time.

Warforged

The warforged are a race of artificial beings created during an ancient war. Meant to simply be another form of animated creature, the creatures somehow gained sentience.

Traits

As a warforged, you gain the following traits:

Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Construct Immunity: You gain a +3 to checks and/or saves made to resist poison.
Construct Recharge: You do not sleep and instead enter a state of inactivity for 4 hours to gain the benefits of an extended rest. While in this state, you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
Living Construct: You are a living construct. You do not need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. You never make Constitution checks to resist the effect of starvation, thirst, or suffocation. All other conditions and effects affect you normally.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common.
Subrace: Choose a subrace. The two available are Mechanical and Mystical.

Mechanical

Some warforged are constructed with mechanical joints and gears, powered by a magical core that contains the "soul" of the warforged. They are stronger and heartier than their more magically created brothers.
Ability Score Adjustment: Your starting Constitution score increases by 1.
Robotic Accuracy: Three times per day, you may reroll any attack, check, or save made with the Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution abilities. If you have advantage or disadvantage on the roll, you may only reroll one of the die. You must take the result of the reroll.

Mystical

Warforged created via magical means, almost golem-like, are more in tune with the arcanical powers that created them. These warforged are more likely to be spell casters than their clockwork siblings.
Ability Score Adjustment: Your starting Intelligence score increases by 1.
Arcane Accuracy: Three times per day, you may reroll any attack, check, or save made with the Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma abilities. If you have advantage or disadvantage on the roll, you may only reroll one of the die. You must take the result of the reroll.

Designer Notes: If the final product is as smooth and easy to play with as this playtest, I will be a VERY happy homebrewer.

The Warforged race was created for use in the current iteration of the DnD Next Playtest by Wizards of the Coast.

3 comments:

  1. The Accuracy features seem a bit powerful... I'd reduce them to once per day, with score bumps going up to +2, since I hate that only Humans get the +2s! :D
    Anyway, I'm with you about D&D Next and home-brewing: seems like fun times are ahead!

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  2. I'm big into Eberron and loving the playtest, my players have asked for warforged. This looks good.

    How has this worked?

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    1. It's worked all right, thus far. The character hasn't done too much, as it suffers from a depression of Marvin-like proportions, but nothing none of its features have broken the game.

      I'm looking to put together an errata article up soon. Keep an eye out.

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