I was wondering what ideas people had on how to improve/modify the Eberron races: Changeling, Kalashtar, Shifter, and Warforged. I'm also curious to hear if people think they're fine as is. I'm also trying to organize my own thoughts on this in preparation for the survey to come out.
Personally, I think that Shifter is strong, but not too overpowered, while the other three all have a bit too much.
For Changeling, having at-will Alter Self (concentration-free) on top of other features seems too much. I like the Divergent Persona feature, as it seems really strong within the flavor of the race, but not too crazy. I would get rid of the Unsettling Visage feature entirely (it seems out of place), and I'd probably change the Changeling Instincts feature to just be a proficiency in Deception and nothing more.
For Kalashtar, overall I think my main two problems are with Dual Mind and Psychic Glamour. The reaction to gain advantage on a Wisdom save seems to be trying to accomplish the same thing as the Mental Discipline feature flavor-wise, but it just feels unnecessary on top of it. Psychic Glamour just plain giving you advantage on every check of a particular skill, every time you use it, no conditions attached, feels awfully strong. I'd probably just remove Dual Mind and Psychic Glamour myself.
For Warforged, my main beef is with their AC. The proficiency bonus is so ridiculously strong, making AC so high that it feels like it's going against the bounded accuracy design principle of 5e. That being said, I do like the idea of this race which was built for war having an armor that gets better as they get higher in level. My proposed fix would be to replace proficiency bonus in those AC calculations with half of proficiency bonus (rounded down). This changes the bonus range from (+2 to +6) to (+1 to +3), which is much more comparable to normal armor. I think that it could be either (rounded up) or (rounded down), but I think (rounded down) is a better idea since it's so strong already.
So yeah, these are my thoughts on how I would change the Eberron races to make them less overpowered. What do you think?
Keith Baker released an FAQ on a lot of the questions people are having on the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron. It's interesting to read. He seems fine with the Warforged AC being so high because you can't get any other armor benefits like Medium Armor Master or other enchantments, since your whole schtick as a Warforged is just having a crazy high AC. I'm not sure I think that the two aspects balance out, personally.
Personally, I actually thought the warforged armor was a bit on the underwhelming side. It seems to be developed with the idea of completely replacing the ability to wear magical armor. The growing AC is just following the assumed AC progression based on purchasing better armors and finding magical armors. And its just numbers, so its never going to be anything cool or special. Its... a thing to keep pace. I thought the Envoy's Integrated Tool would be good for a Rogue's Thief Tools, but mostly useless for anything else. All in all, I feel like the
Changeling ability to have a Disguise Self at will ability is pretty cool, but its only roughly equivalent to a level 1 spell. And, yes, I'm focusing on Disguise Self over Alter Self, because Alter Self comes with the ability to grow claws, gills, and other useful things, things Changelings cannot do. The racial ability basically sums up to a free Hat of Disguises and two free skills, and a free Expertise tool (probably thief tools). Compare to the half-elf, who also gets two free skills (and not from a restricted list), the same +2 CHA and two flexible stats over one flexible stat, charm resistance (which is the majority of monster mind control powers), Darkvision (making them far more suited to being a scout than changelings can be). Is the tool expertise and innate level 1 spell worth +1 attribute, darkvision and charm resistance? Personally, I say its worth a bit less, given that darkvision is a bit of a higher magic than disguise self, and charm resistance would be huge in the intrigue style games that changelings lend themselves to. The disguise isn't magical, so can slip past Detect Magic security, but that's a very niche situation, imho.
The changeling is specialized for what it does, but I don't believe that there aren't competitive options out there.
The Kalashtar.... advantage on WIS saves, resistance to psychic damage, advantage on one of four social skills, telepathy. Psychic damage is very campaign dependent, but for the sake of argument, we'll put it on par with fire resistance for now. Advantage on WIS saves is alright - worse than a gnome's magic resistance, and arguably on par with an elf's charm resistance. Not sure how I feel about the loss of your reaction for it, but I feel like it kind of hurts. Telepathy is neat, but also redundant for most psychic-based classes (GOO warlock, mystic). Advantage on social stuff is also neat; I'd put it on Insight, given that I've yet to come across a situation I couldn't have advantage on a Persuasion check in a social situation, thanks to someone using the Help Action or creative use of cantrips. Oddly no INT boost for a class that's supposed to favor psychics, though this way we can do a mystic on top of sorcerers, GOO warlocks, and monks as well.
The Kal are very specialized - they've got great resistance to messing with their minds, but I think Telepathy is a bit limited (especially given the limited inclination towards being a scout type class), which, in my opinion, leaves them only the advantage on a single social skill. Compared to tieflings, who get similar attributes, fire resistance (equivalent to the resisting mental stuff), darkvision and three spells, I think we came out roughly equal, depending on your type of game.
All in all, I've felt that the Eberron races have been rather underwhelming. Warforged feel like dwarves with disease immunity and innate armor, and I feel like changelings and kalashtar are genre-bent, specialized variants of half-elves and tieflings, easily comparable.
Which just means that, despite seeming powerful in some games, if you want to make these guys less powerful, all you need to do is vary your games up a bit. Wider variety of antagonists that use more than mental attacks, require more skill checks than just the basic social ones in intrigue scenes (which you should be doing anyways for the non-CHA, non-WIS classes to feel useful).
I love the idea of the warforged since their inception in 3.5. I've always found them to be a bit overpowered, but this version seems to remedy that. The warforged AC bonus seems fine to me. Remember that they can't gain ANY bonus from ANY armor (with the exception of shields). Meaning class features, feats and especially magical armors. And we're not talking about only a +1 or +3 magic armor, ANY bonus is not available for the warforged. armor of invulnerability? Tough, no soup for you. Adamantine armor? Nope. Though this might not mean anything in some campaigns, since Eberron is such a magic-infused setting I think it's quite a big deal. Also note that while you can't benefit from wearing armor, you can be penalized by it. Meaning you can't use most Monk features if you're using Heavy Plating, (if you would find a way to be proficient with heavy armor in order to use that racial ability) among other things.
Looking at all their features: Constitution increase + Warforged resilience + Sentry's Rest are basically the "living construct" subtype they had in 3.5. This is a very elegant way to recapture that feeling without making things too complex. They are humanoids that have these features, period. Great way of doing it while following the 5e philosophy.
Integrated Protection is the warforged key racial feature, basically what Wings are for Aarakocra or what spellcasting is for High Elves. In 3.5 this feature was dressed up in Feats; depending on what Feat you took at lvl 1 determined what kind of warforged you were. Either with adamantine or mithril build or any of the others. In 4th they simply wore armor IIRC, which seemed weird to me. While I do like the way it is done in 5E, I find it a bit weird that they can alter their armor type after every long rest. It makes them more "magical" I guess but it'll take some getting used to. I mean, logic would dictate that if they go unarmored for a while and they want to use Heavy plating for instance, they would have to carry those plates in a bag or something. It's probably more akin to shifting around plates and such, folding things into themselves and, of course, magical enhancements.
Looking at the numbers, the absolute top AC a Warforged character can achieve is 16(heavy plating)+6(prof)+5(shield+3)=27. A non-warforged can achieve 21(plate+3)+5(shield+3)+1(fighter defense fighting style)+1(forge domain and probably some other bonuses that I've forgotten about) which adds up to 28 at least (again, I've probably forgotten features of other classes). Not to mention that you can take the Heavy Armor Master feat that effectively gives you damage reduction 3. That means that if you want to build a character that is based around AC you're still better off as a non-warforged character, because you have more options.
I've seen many people suggesting that it would be better if they used half proficiency modifier, round down, but based on the above I disagree. That would actually make them even less armored than a fleshy, which is not the way warforged should work.
Given all that, I think Warforged are fine. Yes, they have an easier time to achieve a high AC but again, that's their main racial trait.
On to the subraces:
Envoy - I like the story possibilities behind this subrace. You're basically such a deviant from the norm that something is bound to come up in the story your DM is telling, or at least it gives them a hook for your character. That's awesome! Story driven subraces are always the best to my opinion.
The ability to choose ability score increases is phenomenal and works especially well to diversify the subrace. Very cool indeed. Combined with the way they use tools is very unique and flavorful, and the extra proficiencies can be a big deal depending on your class of choice and play style.
Juggernaut - The most common of Warforged (according to the lore). Personally I find it a bit underwhelming; most classes will rarely if never use their unarmed strike and most groups don't factor in carrying capacity so that's just fluff. Personally I'd like more choice between a brute (offensive) and a bulwark (defensive) juggernaut, meaning you'd have STR increased by 1, and then given the option to increase either STR or CON by 1 after that. Maybe a "brute" could have a bonus action slam attack that can be used once per short rest, and a defensive ability for a "bulwark" juggernaut, something like a short rest fueled ability to get resistance to all damage for a single attack. The way it is now just seems a bit boring to me.
Skirmisher - the increase to dexterity is great for players that want a ranged character as a warforged. The walking speed is fluff, like the Wood Elves, and Light Step is absolute garbage if you ask me... While I get it lore-wise, in game it will rarely see use since DnD is a game that centers around group play, not solo play. I think it will rarely, if ever, come up in play.
While I think that the Envoy is by far the most interesting, all of the subraces are perfectly suitable for the game as is. As I said before, the brunt of the Warforged race lies in the Integrated Protection feature. Most of the subrace features are flavor, though some are more commonly occuring flavor than others.
I'd love to see your opinions about my assessment :)
I like the way Integrated Protection works, relying on proficiency, etc. The only thing ai don't like is switching it out on a long rest. It completely goes against the story, for me. Integrated should be chosen at character creation, and remain fixed.
An alternate rule could be, "with 200gp in materials and one week of work, a warforged can change their armor," but not overnight at no cost - it breaks verisimilitude for me.
I like the way Integrated Protection works, relying on proficiency, etc. The only thing ai don't like is switching it out on a long rest. It completely goes against the story, for me. Integrated should be chosen at character creation, and remain fixed.
An alternate rule could be, "with 200gp in materials and one week of work, a warforged can change their armor," but not overnight at no cost - it breaks verisimilitude for me.
Agreed, as I mentioned it's probably because of how the race is presented as a more magical (and more "living") creature. But I think I would do the same or really make it a magical progress
I was wondering what ideas people had on how to improve/modify the Eberron races: Changeling, Kalashtar, Shifter, and Warforged. I'm also curious to hear if people think they're fine as is. I'm also trying to organize my own thoughts on this in preparation for the survey to come out.
Personally, I think that Shifter is strong, but not too overpowered, while the other three all have a bit too much.
For Changeling, having at-will Alter Self (concentration-free) on top of other features seems too much. I like the Divergent Persona feature, as it seems really strong within the flavor of the race, but not too crazy. I would get rid of the Unsettling Visage feature entirely (it seems out of place), and I'd probably change the Changeling Instincts feature to just be a proficiency in Deception and nothing more.
For Kalashtar, overall I think my main two problems are with Dual Mind and Psychic Glamour. The reaction to gain advantage on a Wisdom save seems to be trying to accomplish the same thing as the Mental Discipline feature flavor-wise, but it just feels unnecessary on top of it. Psychic Glamour just plain giving you advantage on every check of a particular skill, every time you use it, no conditions attached, feels awfully strong. I'd probably just remove Dual Mind and Psychic Glamour myself.
For Warforged, my main beef is with their AC. The proficiency bonus is so ridiculously strong, making AC so high that it feels like it's going against the bounded accuracy design principle of 5e. That being said, I do like the idea of this race which was built for war having an armor that gets better as they get higher in level. My proposed fix would be to replace proficiency bonus in those AC calculations with half of proficiency bonus (rounded down). This changes the bonus range from (+2 to +6) to (+1 to +3), which is much more comparable to normal armor. I think that it could be either (rounded up) or (rounded down), but I think (rounded down) is a better idea since it's so strong already.
So yeah, these are my thoughts on how I would change the Eberron races to make them less overpowered. What do you think?
Jazz Jungle Japes is Best Jungle Japes
Keith Baker released an FAQ on a lot of the questions people are having on the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron. It's interesting to read. He seems fine with the Warforged AC being so high because you can't get any other armor benefits like Medium Armor Master or other enchantments, since your whole schtick as a Warforged is just having a crazy high AC. I'm not sure I think that the two aspects balance out, personally.
Jazz Jungle Japes is Best Jungle Japes
I almost spit out my tea when I saw the Warforged AC, this is a nice fix, I think it puts it basically on par with other races.
Personally, I actually thought the warforged armor was a bit on the underwhelming side. It seems to be developed with the idea of completely replacing the ability to wear magical armor. The growing AC is just following the assumed AC progression based on purchasing better armors and finding magical armors. And its just numbers, so its never going to be anything cool or special. Its... a thing to keep pace. I thought the Envoy's Integrated Tool would be good for a Rogue's Thief Tools, but mostly useless for anything else. All in all, I feel like the
Changeling ability to have a Disguise Self at will ability is pretty cool, but its only roughly equivalent to a level 1 spell. And, yes, I'm focusing on Disguise Self over Alter Self, because Alter Self comes with the ability to grow claws, gills, and other useful things, things Changelings cannot do. The racial ability basically sums up to a free Hat of Disguises and two free skills, and a free Expertise tool (probably thief tools). Compare to the half-elf, who also gets two free skills (and not from a restricted list), the same +2 CHA and two flexible stats over one flexible stat, charm resistance (which is the majority of monster mind control powers), Darkvision (making them far more suited to being a scout than changelings can be). Is the tool expertise and innate level 1 spell worth +1 attribute, darkvision and charm resistance? Personally, I say its worth a bit less, given that darkvision is a bit of a higher magic than disguise self, and charm resistance would be huge in the intrigue style games that changelings lend themselves to. The disguise isn't magical, so can slip past Detect Magic security, but that's a very niche situation, imho.
The changeling is specialized for what it does, but I don't believe that there aren't competitive options out there.
The Kalashtar.... advantage on WIS saves, resistance to psychic damage, advantage on one of four social skills, telepathy. Psychic damage is very campaign dependent, but for the sake of argument, we'll put it on par with fire resistance for now. Advantage on WIS saves is alright - worse than a gnome's magic resistance, and arguably on par with an elf's charm resistance. Not sure how I feel about the loss of your reaction for it, but I feel like it kind of hurts. Telepathy is neat, but also redundant for most psychic-based classes (GOO warlock, mystic). Advantage on social stuff is also neat; I'd put it on Insight, given that I've yet to come across a situation I couldn't have advantage on a Persuasion check in a social situation, thanks to someone using the Help Action or creative use of cantrips. Oddly no INT boost for a class that's supposed to favor psychics, though this way we can do a mystic on top of sorcerers, GOO warlocks, and monks as well.
The Kal are very specialized - they've got great resistance to messing with their minds, but I think Telepathy is a bit limited (especially given the limited inclination towards being a scout type class), which, in my opinion, leaves them only the advantage on a single social skill. Compared to tieflings, who get similar attributes, fire resistance (equivalent to the resisting mental stuff), darkvision and three spells, I think we came out roughly equal, depending on your type of game.
All in all, I've felt that the Eberron races have been rather underwhelming. Warforged feel like dwarves with disease immunity and innate armor, and I feel like changelings and kalashtar are genre-bent, specialized variants of half-elves and tieflings, easily comparable.
Which just means that, despite seeming powerful in some games, if you want to make these guys less powerful, all you need to do is vary your games up a bit. Wider variety of antagonists that use more than mental attacks, require more skill checks than just the basic social ones in intrigue scenes (which you should be doing anyways for the non-CHA, non-WIS classes to feel useful).
I love the idea of the warforged since their inception in 3.5. I've always found them to be a bit overpowered, but this version seems to remedy that. The warforged AC bonus seems fine to me. Remember that they can't gain ANY bonus from ANY armor (with the exception of shields). Meaning class features, feats and especially magical armors. And we're not talking about only a +1 or +3 magic armor, ANY bonus is not available for the warforged. armor of invulnerability? Tough, no soup for you. Adamantine armor? Nope. Though this might not mean anything in some campaigns, since Eberron is such a magic-infused setting I think it's quite a big deal. Also note that while you can't benefit from wearing armor, you can be penalized by it. Meaning you can't use most Monk features if you're using Heavy Plating, (if you would find a way to be proficient with heavy armor in order to use that racial ability) among other things.
Looking at all their features:
Constitution increase + Warforged resilience + Sentry's Rest are basically the "living construct" subtype they had in 3.5. This is a very elegant way to recapture that feeling without making things too complex. They are humanoids that have these features, period. Great way of doing it while following the 5e philosophy.
Integrated Protection is the warforged key racial feature, basically what Wings are for Aarakocra or what spellcasting is for High Elves. In 3.5 this feature was dressed up in Feats; depending on what Feat you took at lvl 1 determined what kind of warforged you were. Either with adamantine or mithril build or any of the others. In 4th they simply wore armor IIRC, which seemed weird to me. While I do like the way it is done in 5E, I find it a bit weird that they can alter their armor type after every long rest. It makes them more "magical" I guess but it'll take some getting used to. I mean, logic would dictate that if they go unarmored for a while and they want to use Heavy plating for instance, they would have to carry those plates in a bag or something. It's probably more akin to shifting around plates and such, folding things into themselves and, of course, magical enhancements.
Looking at the numbers, the absolute top AC a Warforged character can achieve is 16(heavy plating)+6(prof)+5(shield+3)=27. A non-warforged can achieve 21(plate+3)+5(shield+3)+1(fighter defense fighting style)+1(forge domain and probably some other bonuses that I've forgotten about) which adds up to 28 at least (again, I've probably forgotten features of other classes). Not to mention that you can take the Heavy Armor Master feat that effectively gives you damage reduction 3. That means that if you want to build a character that is based around AC you're still better off as a non-warforged character, because you have more options.
I've seen many people suggesting that it would be better if they used half proficiency modifier, round down, but based on the above I disagree. That would actually make them even less armored than a fleshy, which is not the way warforged should work.
Given all that, I think Warforged are fine. Yes, they have an easier time to achieve a high AC but again, that's their main racial trait.
On to the subraces:
Envoy - I like the story possibilities behind this subrace. You're basically such a deviant from the norm that something is bound to come up in the story your DM is telling, or at least it gives them a hook for your character. That's awesome! Story driven subraces are always the best to my opinion.
The ability to choose ability score increases is phenomenal and works especially well to diversify the subrace. Very cool indeed. Combined with the way they use tools is very unique and flavorful, and the extra proficiencies can be a big deal depending on your class of choice and play style.
Juggernaut - The most common of Warforged (according to the lore). Personally I find it a bit underwhelming; most classes will rarely if never use their unarmed strike and most groups don't factor in carrying capacity so that's just fluff. Personally I'd like more choice between a brute (offensive) and a bulwark (defensive) juggernaut, meaning you'd have STR increased by 1, and then given the option to increase either STR or CON by 1 after that. Maybe a "brute" could have a bonus action slam attack that can be used once per short rest, and a defensive ability for a "bulwark" juggernaut, something like a short rest fueled ability to get resistance to all damage for a single attack. The way it is now just seems a bit boring to me.
Skirmisher - the increase to dexterity is great for players that want a ranged character as a warforged. The walking speed is fluff, like the Wood Elves, and Light Step is absolute garbage if you ask me... While I get it lore-wise, in game it will rarely see use since DnD is a game that centers around group play, not solo play. I think it will rarely, if ever, come up in play.
While I think that the Envoy is by far the most interesting, all of the subraces are perfectly suitable for the game as is. As I said before, the brunt of the Warforged race lies in the Integrated Protection feature. Most of the subrace features are flavor, though some are more commonly occuring flavor than others.
I'd love to see your opinions about my assessment :)
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
Make sure you fill out the survey to have your thoughts known.
Done, thanks for the link :)
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
I like the way Integrated Protection works, relying on proficiency, etc. The only thing ai don't like is switching it out on a long rest. It completely goes against the story, for me. Integrated should be chosen at character creation, and remain fixed.
An alternate rule could be, "with 200gp in materials and one week of work, a warforged can change their armor," but not overnight at no cost - it breaks verisimilitude for me.
Agreed, as I mentioned it's probably because of how the race is presented as a more magical (and more "living") creature. But I think I would do the same or really make it a magical progress
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature