So it seems like they have very similar features. Warforged has integrated armor, while Reborn Constructs can finish a long rest in 4 hours, instead of 8. So which would ultimately be better? I haven't done detail study on both, but if someone was looking to make a robot inspired character which would you choose?
It depends on what you want to do ultimately. The biggest thing I think you're missing is your forgetting half of the Reborn when you're talking a Reborn Construct. Key to concept is that there was someone who was once alive in Reborn, so more Robocop or maybe Ghosts in the Shell than "robot." That is it's soul, and possibly aspects of its form, came from a humanoid that existed prior. It's an interesting concept to play out "robotically" or in something like Altered Carbon. So if you want a "robot" that experiences "echoes" of a past life as something "truly alive" go that route.
Warforged sees more the place for something that was 100% built, its soul is either a process of encoding or maybe accident ("Johnny 5 is alive!").
Of course these are the lore/narrative side of the races/lineages. I could see either as valid options for the concept, I guess it's up to you to decide whether it's strictly programmed or lives with echoes. As written there is a distinct difference in the way they are constructed so for me it's not as ambivalent a consideration, but dependent on what I was trying to accomplish as a player. If you're talking mechanical features, do you like what the Warforged offer or do you want the Reborn's "past life" trait and how would that be explained in your robot character (you could do the encoded past memory download or simply resin it as some sort of AI optimization routine it gets to use).
One last distinction from pop robotics: Schwarzenegger's Terminator: Warforged. Mackenzie Davis as Grace Harper: Reborn, but I could see someone decided to use Warforged for her instead.
Now I'm liking the idea of a "sky net" entity invading a D&D world with Warforged.
I don't think either is a good fit for a robot-inspired character, to be honest the interesting part about them is that they're not. That said, if you want to reflavor one of them a bit to get more of an advanced AI/automaton feel the Reborn has Knowledge From a Past Life, which really hammers down the Frankenstein's Monster stitched-together nature of its creation; Warforged don't have anything like that, so they're probably a better fit for what you're looking for. I mean, you could go for something like vestigial remnants from erased programming or something for the Reborn, but that seems like a massively larger stretch.
Well honestly most robotic characters you can think of are more Tin-Man like. More people with metal skin. What is possible with machines and A.I reality. is nothing compared to what sci-fi can present. Robots in sci-fi are sentient beings despite what ever programming or protocols they may have. Robots in reality can not think for themselves or feel emotion.
Risen are more Frankenstein Monster (construct) and Zombies (undead).
Warforged are more sapient, free willed golems.
As I consider golems to be the fantasy equivalent of the science fiction robots, I'd definitely consider a warforged a better match for the robot concept.
Maybe I am reading to much of the word Construct when looking at the Reborn UA. But yet you would forgive me when the word Construct has been used as a monster class with monsters made of metal looking like robots.
Maybe I am reading to much of the word Construct when looking at the Reborn UA. But yet you would forgive me when the word Construct has been used as a monster class with monsters made of metal looking like robots.
Sure. But, in the case of the Risen, Construct actually a reference to a Flesh Golem, aka Frankenstein's Monster. The Risen are really meant to primarily be zombies, and flesh golems are added in as well, given the thematic similarities between the two.
You can always refluff, but by default, metal robots really aren't a great fit for a Gothic Horror lineage.
I fear this conversation seems to be insisting on genre straightjackets which I don't think are necessary, especially since the genres don't really wear them. I mean a sentient mechanism contending against a society that doesn't accept its personhood is a common science fiction trope. As for Reborn through technological means, there's a whole trope in science fiction that can trace its ancestry to at least Lovecraft's placement of human brains in extraterrestrial boxes, that trope being called "the ghost in the machine."
Yes, in Eberron Warforge are constructs of various materials that possess souls. Frankly, when I see Warforged played by streamer/influencers, they more often than not cop "robot" mannerisms. So there's precedence in practice. The Reborn are a bit new, but maybe you all don't know the story of Robocop? Cop gets brutally murdered, but is reborn as a cybernetic being that recovers more of its original humanity than it's megacorp creators thought possible. How is that _not_ Reborn? Altered Carbon is definitely Reborn, and the process for those who get resleeved, especially unwillingly is presented as pretty horrific. Cyberpunk alone plays with gothic tropes all the time. Why else would Gibson's first set of novels culminate in an AI eerily toiling away at constructing Cornell Boxes possibly in conversation with intelligences beyond the solar system?
Let's reread the Reborn description and I'll liberally highlight emphasis that seems to be missed in the naysaying:
Death isn’t always the end. The reborn exemplify this, being individuals who have died yet, somehow, still live. Some reborn exhibit the scars of fatal fates, their ashen flesh, missing limbs, or bloodless veins making it clear that they’ve been touched by death. Other reborn are marvels of magic or science, being stitched together from disparate beings or bearing mysterious minds in manufactured bodies. Whatever their origins, reborn know a new life and seek experiences and answers all their own.
How do robots or cyborgs not fit in this conceit? The coolest thing about the Gothlines (tm, Midnightplat 2021), especially the Reborn is that it's very open as to "how" the particularly PCs manifestation of the lineage came to be.
Jiracorp, go make yourself a Terminator and I'll show you where in the DMG you can find a phase plasma rifle.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The description of the Reborn is more "flesh golem" than "robot."
Your bias toward what is and isn't Gothic may read it that way; but there is no "more" flesh to the description there there is room for wire and metal, wax, feather stuffing, etc. Show me how the Reborn biases toward "flesh" and I'll show you it being balanced with "and" other materials. There's nothing in the text of the Reborn, which is incredibly open in its conception, that would limit say an "uploaded" consciousness into a mechanical vessel (that conceit being an operating device in many a horrific tale).
It's funny, the Gotlhlines (tm, MIdnightlplat 2021) and the Fey UA both seem designed to trigger opportunities to further ones imagination, and it sees folks really push back with very conservative constraints or insistence on parameters to lock in narrative concepts with no real game mechanic importance.
Golem isn't more "flesh golem" than any other "device" or vessel perpetuating the life of something or someone that otherwise would or should be dead.
I just don't get the "you can't" and "but not really" in this thread. None of you are allowed in my 5e adaptation of Videodrome.
The description of the Reborn is more "flesh golem" than "robot."
I don't know that the flesh part is that front and center, but as indicated by the name Reborn it's definitely very much about having been a living creature before. Warforged leave that open - maybe they're reincarnated souls too, maybe their metaphysical being is forged along with their physical one, maybe it's something else. If Jiracorp626 is willing to reflavour sufficiently either could work regardless, but the canon feel of the Reborn is definitely a a step or two further away.
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Brainstorming cybernetic, robotic, and "cyberpunkic" beings in fiction that could easily be conceived as or supported by the Reborn UA in one way or another:
Sleeves in Altered Carbon (not robotic, but some heavy duty computer power is involved in the transfer).
The higher tier Cylons in the most recent Battlestar Galactica, especially the Final Five (these are interesting in that they were arguably never organically human, but pass along a human like intellect and personality into perpetual iterations of itself).
Agent Smith when he takes over Bane's body is an interesting sort of inversion of the concept behind The Reborn.
Robocop
Darth Vader as Palpatine intended
The Iron Man of the Black Sabbath song of the same name, "Is he alive or dead" is even in the lyrics. Supposedly this song was instrumental in conceiving the Marvel comics antihero Deathlok
Replicants in Bladerunner, especially Deckard (yes they were never alive, but have that feeling of had a life and are sort of haunted by the some of the dissociative ramifications, so would be another sort of inversion tweak to the concept)
Lots of characters in the Ghost in the Shell universe
The end of Picard
David Brin's Kiln People
Whatever the main character becomes at the end of Videodrome
Etc. All of these conceits could be contained with the Reborn lineage with no difficulty. Especially if we lean against what I think is an assumption that the Reborn necessarily knows who or what they were prior to Reborn. "Who was I?" makes for an awesome character arc.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm curious why people say "reborn are more of a stitched together flesh kind of thing." The official text for the reborn includes the phrase "mysterious minds in manufactured bodies" and they speak of them being made by science. As for the original question, if you were born a machine, I'd say Warforged. If you were a living being that is now in a mechanical body, Reborn.
I'm not sure why the distinction between the two is persistently unclear to some players. It's pretty clear cut if you read through both race/lineages write ups.
So the physical construction of a Warforged and Reborn could be similar/identical in a given game world. Warforged honestly strike me more as "biomechanics" in design, but that's a digression. Anyway the actual difference between Warforged and Reborn constructs is that a Warforged has a "soul" (arguably, at least a sentience); but the Reborn has a "soul" that is bound to a previous life. That's why there's a "re" in front of the "born." And it has its memories of past life feature, which Warforged don't. So yeah, maybe a similar material nature, if you wanted to in your game world, but the metaphysical natures are very different.
To put it another way, the first conscious thoughts of a Warforged is probably something along the lines of "I'm alive." A Reborn's first moments probably have that recognition of being alive, but dampered/bothered by a sense of connection and loss to its past. That's what makes it a gothic lineage.
Science fiction analogy. Androids in Alien = warforged. Robocop = Reborn. Not a controlling analogy because the physical manifestation of both actually give DMs wide lattitude with their players in world building to determine what they look like. And could have variety. I could picture brain in a jar attached to some sort of construction Reborn, scarecrow stuffed reborn, etc. All in the same game.
Basically, this is how I think of the differences between Warforged and Reborn (some of this is building on what others in this thread have said).
Warforged are completely artificial, both physically and mentally. If any part of their body was alive before, it was some of the plant-matter that makes up some of their inner-workings. Their skeletons are made of metal, their muscles are root-like fibers, their body flows with blood-like alchemical mixtures, and their minds are synthetic and magical. Their synthetic nature is what makes armor very effective for them, as it can literally become a part of their body.
Reborn can be partially artificial, but at their root, they are natural/living. Frankenstein's Monster was created through science (in the story), but its body was made up of stitched-together body parts that were alive in the first place. It couldn't (and Reborn can't) exist without being made up of previously living flesh, even though a Warforged can. Even if a Reborn is made up of mostly synthetic materials, their soul/mind had to come from another living creature.
As simple as I can put it, Warforged were never living creatures before becoming alive. Reborn, however, had a major part of them be alive before they were "Reborn".
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Physically, Frankenstein's monster seems more akin to a Reborn. Metaphysically, Frankenstein's monster is more like a Warforged. The monster is an artificially created body brought to life. Just that, not brought back to life. If a Warforged's soul is somehow one that existed previously and bound to the body in the forge, it's been metaphysically scrubbed clean first - it's completely fresh, without connection to a past life.
The defining characteristic of being Reborn is just that: did not pass start, did not go through the big cleanser in the sky, presumably didn't even die (given the final version of the lineage is just humanoid, not undead or construct), before ending up - being reborn - in a new body. And that body can be anything as long as it fits the few descriptive requirements of the lineage (small or medium humanoid); could be a stitched-together corpse, but also an animated stick puppet or suit of armor à la Full Metal Alchemist, or something grown in a pod, or some other creature's body taken over, or possibly even the Reborn's own body from its past life, preserved after the soul being ripped out until it was shunted back in.
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So it seems like they have very similar features. Warforged has integrated armor, while Reborn Constructs can finish a long rest in 4 hours, instead of 8. So which would ultimately be better? I haven't done detail study on both, but if someone was looking to make a robot inspired character which would you choose?
It depends on what you want to do ultimately. The biggest thing I think you're missing is your forgetting half of the Reborn when you're talking a Reborn Construct. Key to concept is that there was someone who was once alive in Reborn, so more Robocop or maybe Ghosts in the Shell than "robot." That is it's soul, and possibly aspects of its form, came from a humanoid that existed prior. It's an interesting concept to play out "robotically" or in something like Altered Carbon. So if you want a "robot" that experiences "echoes" of a past life as something "truly alive" go that route.
Warforged sees more the place for something that was 100% built, its soul is either a process of encoding or maybe accident ("Johnny 5 is alive!").
Of course these are the lore/narrative side of the races/lineages. I could see either as valid options for the concept, I guess it's up to you to decide whether it's strictly programmed or lives with echoes. As written there is a distinct difference in the way they are constructed so for me it's not as ambivalent a consideration, but dependent on what I was trying to accomplish as a player. If you're talking mechanical features, do you like what the Warforged offer or do you want the Reborn's "past life" trait and how would that be explained in your robot character (you could do the encoded past memory download or simply resin it as some sort of AI optimization routine it gets to use).
One last distinction from pop robotics: Schwarzenegger's Terminator: Warforged. Mackenzie Davis as Grace Harper: Reborn, but I could see someone decided to use Warforged for her instead.
Now I'm liking the idea of a "sky net" entity invading a D&D world with Warforged.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't think either is a good fit for a robot-inspired character, to be honest the interesting part about them is that they're not. That said, if you want to reflavor one of them a bit to get more of an advanced AI/automaton feel the Reborn has Knowledge From a Past Life, which really hammers down the Frankenstein's Monster stitched-together nature of its creation; Warforged don't have anything like that, so they're probably a better fit for what you're looking for. I mean, you could go for something like vestigial remnants from erased programming or something for the Reborn, but that seems like a massively larger stretch.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Well honestly most robotic characters you can think of are more Tin-Man like. More people with metal skin. What is possible with machines and A.I reality. is nothing compared to what sci-fi can present. Robots in sci-fi are sentient beings despite what ever programming or protocols they may have. Robots in reality can not think for themselves or feel emotion.
Risen are more Frankenstein Monster (construct) and Zombies (undead).
Warforged are more sapient, free willed golems.
As I consider golems to be the fantasy equivalent of the science fiction robots, I'd definitely consider a warforged a better match for the robot concept.
Maybe I am reading to much of the word Construct when looking at the Reborn UA. But yet you would forgive me when the word Construct has been used as a monster class with monsters made of metal looking like robots.
Sure. But, in the case of the Risen, Construct actually a reference to a Flesh Golem, aka Frankenstein's Monster. The Risen are really meant to primarily be zombies, and flesh golems are added in as well, given the thematic similarities between the two.
You can always refluff, but by default, metal robots really aren't a great fit for a Gothic Horror lineage.
I fear this conversation seems to be insisting on genre straightjackets which I don't think are necessary, especially since the genres don't really wear them. I mean a sentient mechanism contending against a society that doesn't accept its personhood is a common science fiction trope. As for Reborn through technological means, there's a whole trope in science fiction that can trace its ancestry to at least Lovecraft's placement of human brains in extraterrestrial boxes, that trope being called "the ghost in the machine."
Yes, in Eberron Warforge are constructs of various materials that possess souls. Frankly, when I see Warforged played by streamer/influencers, they more often than not cop "robot" mannerisms. So there's precedence in practice. The Reborn are a bit new, but maybe you all don't know the story of Robocop? Cop gets brutally murdered, but is reborn as a cybernetic being that recovers more of its original humanity than it's megacorp creators thought possible. How is that _not_ Reborn? Altered Carbon is definitely Reborn, and the process for those who get resleeved, especially unwillingly is presented as pretty horrific. Cyberpunk alone plays with gothic tropes all the time. Why else would Gibson's first set of novels culminate in an AI eerily toiling away at constructing Cornell Boxes possibly in conversation with intelligences beyond the solar system?
Let's reread the Reborn description and I'll liberally highlight emphasis that seems to be missed in the naysaying:
How do robots or cyborgs not fit in this conceit? The coolest thing about the Gothlines (tm, Midnightplat 2021), especially the Reborn is that it's very open as to "how" the particularly PCs manifestation of the lineage came to be.
Jiracorp, go make yourself a Terminator and I'll show you where in the DMG you can find a phase plasma rifle.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The description of the Reborn is more "flesh golem" than "robot."
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Your bias toward what is and isn't Gothic may read it that way; but there is no "more" flesh to the description there there is room for wire and metal, wax, feather stuffing, etc. Show me how the Reborn biases toward "flesh" and I'll show you it being balanced with "and" other materials. There's nothing in the text of the Reborn, which is incredibly open in its conception, that would limit say an "uploaded" consciousness into a mechanical vessel (that conceit being an operating device in many a horrific tale).
It's funny, the Gotlhlines (tm, MIdnightlplat 2021) and the Fey UA both seem designed to trigger opportunities to further ones imagination, and it sees folks really push back with very conservative constraints or insistence on parameters to lock in narrative concepts with no real game mechanic importance.
Golem isn't more "flesh golem" than any other "device" or vessel perpetuating the life of something or someone that otherwise would or should be dead.
I just don't get the "you can't" and "but not really" in this thread. None of you are allowed in my 5e adaptation of Videodrome.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't know that the flesh part is that front and center, but as indicated by the name Reborn it's definitely very much about having been a living creature before. Warforged leave that open - maybe they're reincarnated souls too, maybe their metaphysical being is forged along with their physical one, maybe it's something else. If Jiracorp626 is willing to reflavour sufficiently either could work regardless, but the canon feel of the Reborn is definitely a a step or two further away.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Brainstorming cybernetic, robotic, and "cyberpunkic" beings in fiction that could easily be conceived as or supported by the Reborn UA in one way or another:
Etc. All of these conceits could be contained with the Reborn lineage with no difficulty. Especially if we lean against what I think is an assumption that the Reborn necessarily knows who or what they were prior to Reborn. "Who was I?" makes for an awesome character arc.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I'm curious why people say "reborn are more of a stitched together flesh kind of thing." The official text for the reborn includes the phrase "mysterious minds in manufactured bodies" and they speak of them being made by science. As for the original question, if you were born a machine, I'd say Warforged. If you were a living being that is now in a mechanical body, Reborn.
"The official text for the reborn includes the phrase "mysterious minds in manufactured bodies" and they speak of them being made by science. "
Frankenstein's monster was manufactured, and made via science. It's pretty much right from Mary Shelly's book.
Ravenloft afaik has Frankenstein monsters, and I've never heard of golems there.
I'm not sure why the distinction between the two is persistently unclear to some players. It's pretty clear cut if you read through both race/lineages write ups.
So the physical construction of a Warforged and Reborn could be similar/identical in a given game world. Warforged honestly strike me more as "biomechanics" in design, but that's a digression. Anyway the actual difference between Warforged and Reborn constructs is that a Warforged has a "soul" (arguably, at least a sentience); but the Reborn has a "soul" that is bound to a previous life. That's why there's a "re" in front of the "born." And it has its memories of past life feature, which Warforged don't. So yeah, maybe a similar material nature, if you wanted to in your game world, but the metaphysical natures are very different.
To put it another way, the first conscious thoughts of a Warforged is probably something along the lines of "I'm alive." A Reborn's first moments probably have that recognition of being alive, but dampered/bothered by a sense of connection and loss to its past. That's what makes it a gothic lineage.
Science fiction analogy. Androids in Alien = warforged. Robocop = Reborn. Not a controlling analogy because the physical manifestation of both actually give DMs wide lattitude with their players in world building to determine what they look like. And could have variety. I could picture brain in a jar attached to some sort of construction Reborn, scarecrow stuffed reborn, etc. All in the same game.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This. Also, Reborn are humanoid, not constructs.
There's one in
Curse of Strahd.
It's a flesh golem.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Basically, this is how I think of the differences between Warforged and Reborn (some of this is building on what others in this thread have said).
Warforged are completely artificial, both physically and mentally. If any part of their body was alive before, it was some of the plant-matter that makes up some of their inner-workings. Their skeletons are made of metal, their muscles are root-like fibers, their body flows with blood-like alchemical mixtures, and their minds are synthetic and magical. Their synthetic nature is what makes armor very effective for them, as it can literally become a part of their body.
Reborn can be partially artificial, but at their root, they are natural/living. Frankenstein's Monster was created through science (in the story), but its body was made up of stitched-together body parts that were alive in the first place. It couldn't (and Reborn can't) exist without being made up of previously living flesh, even though a Warforged can. Even if a Reborn is made up of mostly synthetic materials, their soul/mind had to come from another living creature.
As simple as I can put it, Warforged were never living creatures before becoming alive. Reborn, however, had a major part of them be alive before they were "Reborn".
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Physically, Frankenstein's monster seems more akin to a Reborn. Metaphysically, Frankenstein's monster is more like a Warforged. The monster is an artificially created body brought to life. Just that, not brought back to life. If a Warforged's soul is somehow one that existed previously and bound to the body in the forge, it's been metaphysically scrubbed clean first - it's completely fresh, without connection to a past life.
The defining characteristic of being Reborn is just that: did not pass start, did not go through the big cleanser in the sky, presumably didn't even die (given the final version of the lineage is just humanoid, not undead or construct), before ending up - being reborn - in a new body. And that body can be anything as long as it fits the few descriptive requirements of the lineage (small or medium humanoid); could be a stitched-together corpse, but also an animated stick puppet or suit of armor à la Full Metal Alchemist, or something grown in a pod, or some other creature's body taken over, or possibly even the Reborn's own body from its past life, preserved after the soul being ripped out until it was shunted back in.
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what if the reborn is a warforged like the plot point is that some one is dyeing that cant be "fix" so what you do?
give them a new body how ever the only intact body available is a warforged one.
That's not a Warforged character. That's a Reborn character in a warforged-type body.
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