The Gaming Den

I didn't have a problem with those things.

But the [Law] subtype? Anyway, it's a pretty good Warforged.

Check my previous post, you posted while I was editing it.

So I see.

Okay, you win. Your Warforged rocks.

So, anyone have any comments on my version of the Shifter? I feel like it's edging up on being too complicated, but I can't see a way to get around that.

Shifter looks pretty sweet - I like it. I haven't really looked over the abilities enough to say for certain how powerful they make it, but I can't see them making it a "Holy shit, overpowered!" race, more "You can customise this to be a fantastic choice for whatever class you're going for" (see: Human Bonus Feat, or The Right Elf For The Right Job).

Warforged... they were never underpowered to begin with, really. They performed as well as anyone else at fighty activities (that is, shit, because fighty classes sucked, but the Tome fixes that), and there was a casting class they were pretty reasonable at. The armour feats were a huge waste, but just fixing feats could fix them.

Anyway, I'm biased - I dislike Warforged, so the easy thing is for me to just tell players "This game has no Warforged. No, I don't care. Go suck your dick."

Qualifying for all Monster/Fiend/Your Mum feats is a bit weird: robots don't usually produce poisons or carry disease. I mean, those fucks are lucky they get a Con score at all, let alone Con-dependant abilities and a frigging bonus to it. I get that the idea is to craft extra limbs, or wings, or a drill-arm, or to put a furnace inside it with one of those weird flamethrower things they used to have. But there are too many abilities that don't really fit.

All the broken things I can figure out about Shifter are things pretty much inherent to casters. I mean, you could take +2 Wis as a racial modifier and then pick up a trait which gives you further wisdom when shifted. Then you could pick up the other physical scores. And go to town as a cleric or, maybe, a Tome Monk.

Still, I was trying for "You can be awesome at a lot of stuff", so it's nice to hear that I got it right.

I like the Warforged because it's a bit more sane than the original, but your point about Customize stands. I still like the idea, though.

For Shfiter, I'd give them a floating +2 to physicals, they can shift to be hard or fast or strong. Not sure what else I'd give them, but that's there.

For Forged, I'd say none of that +2 to the two stats any melee cares about followed by -2 Cha.

Give them a -2 to something that matters at least.

Well, the -2 could go to Dex for the Warforged, and I could even justify it as being a peculiarity of their construction. But I'd like some kind of mental penalty in there, and Cha got selected by eliminating Int and Wisdom. Int is not penalized because it's a robot man. Robots in fiction tend to be smart and good at processing. Wisdom stayed because in Eberron they're presented as ideal watchmen and it's dumb to have a sentry who has a Wisdom penalty. However, robots tend to have a, for want of a better word, robotic personality. Therefore, Cha makes sense to me.

And I'm resisting tinkering with the Shifter further. I like the idea of different shifters having different bonuses/penalties; it helps cement that genetic lottery I wrote about. I'm also fine with the Shifter feat providing some further enhancement/customization. But being able to swap the bonuses around to what would be immediately useful, while cool, isn't that appealing for the Shifter.

I made some Tome feats for shifters and warforged (and also dragonmarked dudes, but those aren't really complete) here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49763). After my (admittedly little) work, none of my players chose to be shifters or warforged, so I can't say if they're totally ready, but the general consensus was that they seemed to be solid.

They might require a slight revision with the new race writeups, though.