For awhile I've been thinking about the abilities of Warforged, mostly about how fast they can travel. I want to speak with my DM about introducing it to the campaign, but I want some opinions on the matter:
Warforged are build to be soldiers that don't need to eat, drink or sleep and they can theoretically stay alive as long as they receive maintenance. I believe this means that Warforged can keep on traveling as long as their body doesn't fall apart. Further more I think that, because they are tireless, they can travel on their combat speed. Which is 30 ft for Juggernauts and Envoy's and 35 ft for Skirmishes. This comes down to almost 7 mile/h for Juggernauts and Envoy's and almost 8 mile/h for Skirmishes. And taking into account that they don't need to rest Juggernauts and Envoy's would be able to travel almost 164 miles per 24 hours, and Skirmishes almost 191 miles per 24 hours.
I know that there are rules about traveling pace, and that these numbers exceeds those rules BY FAR. But I think it can be fun (at least for a one-shot)
Let me start with: If a DM wants to rule it that way, that is up to them.
A Warforged is indeed a sturdy soldier. But while they may not need to sleep, they can get fatigued. In particular, none of their abilities say they are immune to exhaustion due to a forced march. You can consider it as wear on their joints or overheating for explanation.
Not only can Warforged suffer from exhaustion in general like DxJxC mentioned, in a typical gameplay situation the Warforged player won't be traveling alone. A group is only as fast as its slowest members. Warforged may not need to eat or drink, but the rest of the party does. And since they can get exhausted, they can't dash indefinitely.
I know RAW are for balance purposes but to be honest, the reason regular living beings get exhausted over an 8 hour travel time is mainly because they're thirsty, hungry, or sleepy, things that simply dont apply to warforged (explicit: no need to drink, eat, sleep, or breathe). Clearly they're not invulnerable, since they can take damage and can have inorganic fatigue on joints, etc, so some sort of mechanic for limiting how long they can push themselves would be appropriate, but it would seem to defy common sense to NOT give warforged at the very least as *significant* bonus to a forced march scenario. Given no need to drink, eat, breathe, or sleep, I can easily see their forced march limit being 3 to 4 times longer than regular living beings (make it 24 hours to make it nice and round).
I know RAW are for balance purposes but to be honest, the reason regular living beings get exhausted over an 8 hour travel time is mainly because they're thirsty, hungry, or sleepy, things that simply dont apply to warforged (explicit: no need to drink, eat, sleep, or breathe).
Warforged need to long rest, they just don't sleep in order to do so. They get "sleepy" and so do elves and reborn - by which I mean they get tired in some sense, although none of the three races end up needing sleep, per se.
While there are long-standing problems in D&D with creatures that have only partial solutions to eating, drinking, and breathing, warforged have all three immunities, which is a lot more relevant than immunity to sleep. Immunity to all three mean they have no meaningful metabolism - the primary reason you eat and breathe is so you can intake sugar and oxygen, burn them for energy, and expel the waste. The primary reason you drink is to have water on hand as a medium for this and for thermal regulation. Warforged self-evidently can't run out of energy or the resources they need to regulate their temperature.
Unfortunately, 5E has no generic rules for extending this to other, similar mechanics - for example, an Air Genasi doesn't actually need to breathe (they can function on one lungful of air indefinitely), but they get tired from Dashing at the same rate as anyone else, even though for a human, this is a breathing-based issue (because you run out of oxygen before you run out of sugar on hand in your muscles). This is also long-standing D&D tradition; "alien" races aren't as alien as they could be, because fundamental differences in physiology would often require an entire separate rules pamphlet covering all of the ramifications, and that's just too much.
Clearly they're not invulnerable, since they can take damage and can have inorganic fatigue on joints, etc, so some sort of mechanic for limiting how long they can push themselves would be appropriate, but it would seem to defy common sense to NOT give warforged at the very least as *significant* bonus to a forced march scenario. Given no need to drink, eat, breathe, or sleep, I can easily see their forced march limit being 3 to 4 times longer than regular living beings (make it 24 hours to make it nice and round).
Mechanically, they could have been given advantage on Con saves vs Exhaustion. That's how 5E normally handles situations like this, like how Dwarves can handle more booze than a human can. If you regard this as an oversight, feel free to give Warforged that in your campaign.
I know RAW are for balance purposes but to be honest, the reason regular living beings get exhausted over an 8 hour travel time is mainly because they're thirsty, hungry, or sleepy, things that simply dont apply to warforged (explicit: no need to drink, eat, sleep, or breathe).
Warforged need to long rest, they just don't sleep in order to do so. They get "sleepy" and so do elves and reborn - by which I mean they get tired in some sense, although none of the three races end up needing sleep, per se.
While there are long-standing problems in D&D with creatures that have only partial solutions to eating, drinking, and breathing, warforged have all three immunities, which is a lot more relevant than immunity to sleep. Immunity to all three mean they have no meaningful metabolism - the primary reason you eat and breathe is so you can intake sugar and oxygen, burn them for energy, and expel the waste. The primary reason you drink is to have water on hand as a medium for this and for thermal regulation. Warforged self-evidently can't run out of energy or the resources they need to regulate their temperature.
Unfortunately, 5E has no generic rules for extending this to other, similar mechanics - for example, an Air Genasi doesn't actually need to breathe (they can function on one lungful of air indefinitely), but they get tired from Dashing at the same rate as anyone else, even though for a human, this is a breathing-based issue (because you run out of oxygen before you run out of sugar on hand in your muscles). This is also long-standing D&D tradition; "alien" races aren't as alien as they could be, because fundamental differences in physiology would often require an entire separate rules pamphlet covering all of the ramifications, and that's just too much.
Clearly they're not invulnerable, since they can take damage and can have inorganic fatigue on joints, etc, so some sort of mechanic for limiting how long they can push themselves would be appropriate, but it would seem to defy common sense to NOT give warforged at the very least as *significant* bonus to a forced march scenario. Given no need to drink, eat, breathe, or sleep, I can easily see their forced march limit being 3 to 4 times longer than regular living beings (make it 24 hours to make it nice and round).
Warforged can be made, partially or entirely, from organic material (mainly wood) and as such could be subject to degradation and stress damage. And even simple mechanical tools need regular maintenance to stay functional (IRL, complicated machinery might be mostly or partially dissassembled and reassembled after even a single sustained use). Resting for a warforged could entail a self-repair and maintenance process needed for optimal functionality, even if sleep is not a requirement
Mechanically, they could have been given advantage on Con saves vs Exhaustion. That's how 5E normally handles situations like this, like how Dwarves can handle more booze than a human can. If you regard this as an oversight, feel free to give Warforged that in your campaign.
I think this is a good solution if you are so inclined in your games to give warforged an additional advantage.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
For awhile I've been thinking about the abilities of Warforged, mostly about how fast they can travel. I want to speak with my DM about introducing it to the campaign, but I want some opinions on the matter:
Warforged are build to be soldiers that don't need to eat, drink or sleep and they can theoretically stay alive as long as they receive maintenance. I believe this means that Warforged can keep on traveling as long as their body doesn't fall apart. Further more I think that, because they are tireless, they can travel on their combat speed. Which is 30 ft for Juggernauts and Envoy's and 35 ft for Skirmishes. This comes down to almost 7 mile/h for Juggernauts and Envoy's and almost 8 mile/h for Skirmishes. And taking into account that they don't need to rest Juggernauts and Envoy's would be able to travel almost 164 miles per 24 hours, and Skirmishes almost 191 miles per 24 hours.
I know that there are rules about traveling pace, and that these numbers exceeds those rules BY FAR. But I think it can be fun (at least for a one-shot)
Let me start with: If a DM wants to rule it that way, that is up to them.
A Warforged is indeed a sturdy soldier. But while they may not need to sleep, they can get fatigued. In particular, none of their abilities say they are immune to exhaustion due to a forced march. You can consider it as wear on their joints or overheating for explanation.
Forced March rules: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/adventuring#Speed
Also, your travel estimates assume they are dashing for those 24 hours.
Not only can Warforged suffer from exhaustion in general like DxJxC mentioned, in a typical gameplay situation the Warforged player won't be traveling alone. A group is only as fast as its slowest members. Warforged may not need to eat or drink, but the rest of the party does. And since they can get exhausted, they can't dash indefinitely.
I know RAW are for balance purposes but to be honest, the reason regular living beings get exhausted over an 8 hour travel time is mainly because they're thirsty, hungry, or sleepy, things that simply dont apply to warforged (explicit: no need to drink, eat, sleep, or breathe). Clearly they're not invulnerable, since they can take damage and can have inorganic fatigue on joints, etc, so some sort of mechanic for limiting how long they can push themselves would be appropriate, but it would seem to defy common sense to NOT give warforged at the very least as *significant* bonus to a forced march scenario. Given no need to drink, eat, breathe, or sleep, I can easily see their forced march limit being 3 to 4 times longer than regular living beings (make it 24 hours to make it nice and round).
Warforged need to long rest, they just don't sleep in order to do so. They get "sleepy" and so do elves and reborn - by which I mean they get tired in some sense, although none of the three races end up needing sleep, per se.
While there are long-standing problems in D&D with creatures that have only partial solutions to eating, drinking, and breathing, warforged have all three immunities, which is a lot more relevant than immunity to sleep. Immunity to all three mean they have no meaningful metabolism - the primary reason you eat and breathe is so you can intake sugar and oxygen, burn them for energy, and expel the waste. The primary reason you drink is to have water on hand as a medium for this and for thermal regulation. Warforged self-evidently can't run out of energy or the resources they need to regulate their temperature.
Unfortunately, 5E has no generic rules for extending this to other, similar mechanics - for example, an Air Genasi doesn't actually need to breathe (they can function on one lungful of air indefinitely), but they get tired from Dashing at the same rate as anyone else, even though for a human, this is a breathing-based issue (because you run out of oxygen before you run out of sugar on hand in your muscles). This is also long-standing D&D tradition; "alien" races aren't as alien as they could be, because fundamental differences in physiology would often require an entire separate rules pamphlet covering all of the ramifications, and that's just too much.
Mechanically, they could have been given advantage on Con saves vs Exhaustion. That's how 5E normally handles situations like this, like how Dwarves can handle more booze than a human can. If you regard this as an oversight, feel free to give Warforged that in your campaign.
Warforged can be made, partially or entirely, from organic material (mainly wood) and as such could be subject to degradation and stress damage. And even simple mechanical tools need regular maintenance to stay functional (IRL, complicated machinery might be mostly or partially dissassembled and reassembled after even a single sustained use). Resting for a warforged could entail a self-repair and maintenance process needed for optimal functionality, even if sleep is not a requirement
I think this is a good solution if you are so inclined in your games to give warforged an additional advantage.