Warforged in my 4th ed. Game

Warforged


The warforged are a race of living, sentient constructs, superficially similar to golems. Warforged are composed of a blend of materials: predominantly stone, wood, and some type of metal. They were created to fight in the Age of Souls to fight the Elves, when the Last War ended, they were given their freedom at the Treaty of Thronehold. Though they have free will, whether they have a soul is not known with certainty; they can be resurrected by spells designed to restore human souls to life, but, unlike humans, never remember anything of their experience in the afterlife after such an event.

While they have no biological sex, warforged may adopt a gender role as part of their individual personality. They do not age as the other races do, and it is not known what effects time will have on them. It is generally assumed that, like all living creatures, their bodies must experience degradation over time.

Created as soldiers for a war that spelled the end of an age, warforged are artificial beings that display a human level of intelligence and self-awareness. Warforged sentience developed as a side effect of their
creators’ desire to have fully functional, adaptive battlefield units. With no great war to fight, no ancient legacy to claim, and only the vestiges of a culture developed
within the past century, warforged are an emergent people. Integrated into the societies of peoples more numerous than they, warforged are famed for their endurance and focus, in labor as well as combat.

Physical Qualities
A warforged is a bulky humanoid with a skin of plates made of metal and stone, supported by a skeleton of similar material and a musculature of leathery, woody fiber bundles. An internal network of tubes filled with bloodlike fluid nourishes and lubricates warforged systems. Powerful warforged arms end in two-fingered, thumbed hands, and warforged feet each have two broad toes.
Simple humanlike features—heavy brows, hinged jaws with no teeth, no nose—make up a warforged’s face. Its eyes sometimes glow when it experiences intense emotions, and its forehead and pate bears runic whorls. Each warforged has a unique rune on its forehead, much like humans have distinctive fingerprints. This rune is known as a “ghulra,” a word that means “truth” in Primordial.
Warforged have an obviously artificial and sexless shape. They can’t reproduce themselves like other humanoids. However, their sense of pain seems limited to actual injury, allowing them to modify their own bodies more easily. Such physical modifications allow warforged to be as varied in appearance as other races.

Playing a Warforged
Often limited in experience, used to being occupied with various duties, and built for killing, a warforged has a straightforward emotional range. It likes working, takes pride in doing its assigned tasks well, and dislikes idleness and falling short of a goal. Pain and the threat of death, which a warforged often sees as the equivalent of oblivion, can motivate it to fear. Attachment to comrades and acquaintances can emerge as a gamut of emotions, not the least of which are joy and loyalty. Like any other being, a warforged can be driven to anger when that which it loves or desires is threatened, and it can come to hate those who are the sources of pain, fear, or other negative experiences. A warforged is often, however, a literal-minded being with simple and reserved feelings, along with reactionary passions.
None of this is meant to suggest that all warforged are naïve, emotionally crippled, or lacking in introspection, although all these can be true. If anything, a warforged can be more curious about the whys and wherefores of life and existence than those born in more “natural” ways. A few warforged develop deeply sophisticated observations and philosophies about what they perceive and learn. Others create an endless list of goals and chores to occupy themselves. Still others fall in with beings of a similar mindset, or become enamored of established creeds or religions. Some warforged have even lived long enough to develop a deep personality.
War and military conditioning color warforged behavior. Many warforged have keen insight when it comes to conflict, chain of command, and other elements of war and soldierly life. Further, most warforged are single-minded and efficient with their undertakings, especially in combat.
Issues of gender are unique among warforged. As sexless beings, many warforged never consider issues of gender, and they find such issues among other races curious or even worrisome. Other warforged adopt habits they find admirable or amusing, without considering gender or disregarding any
possible incongruity. A few warforged develop a
personality that is decidedly female or male.

Many warforged mull over the subject of the afterlife. Whether warforged have a soul that endures after death is a mystery. Religious leaders have differing opinions on the topic. Can a being created by humans have a soul?
Warforged Characteristics: Aggressive, alert, brave, curious, forthright, industrious, loyal, methodical, naïve, practical, reserved, simple.

In the past, warforged had names imposed upon them—usually having to do with military rank and position. Most warforged end up with simple names related to their job or abilities. Some warforged accept names or nicknames that their comrades give them, while others search for an ideal name that defines them. Many just take a name common to members of another race, especially those of humans.

Equipipment
Warforged use equipment much as other races do, but every warforged gains some special advantages when using items specifically designed as warforged components. Components can be attached or embedded. A warforged can have only one component, attached or embedded, in each of its arms, back, chest, feet, hands, head, hips, legs, and neck. It can also attach rings. A component doesn’t take up the magic item slot of the same type, unless it is a magic item that goes in that slot. Within the parameters discussed here, what you can and can’t attach or embed is ultimately for your DM to decide.
A nonmagical item can be fashioned as a warforged component for no additional cost. Modifying a magic item this way requires the enchant magic item ritual, but like resizing armor, reshaping the item has no component cost. If you use enchant magic item to resize magic armor, you can alter it to be a component as part of the same ritual—you needn’t use the ritual twice.

Attached Components
Attached components are fastened to your body in such a way that, as long as you’re conscious, they can only be removed if you want them to be. Such an item cannot be taken from you, and you can’t accidentally drop it. You sense if such an item is damaged. Unless otherwise specified, affixing an attached component to you takes the same amount of time as it would for another character to draw and/or ready such an object.
Any item can become a component item or be found as one. Your DM decides if an item he or she places in an adventure is a component item, and you can craft these items as normal. Making an item a component item does not increase its cost or level.

Armor: Attaching the armor to your body partially mitigates the weight of the armor. Attached armor is considered to weigh only three-fourths its normal weight for determining your load.

Shield: With a heavy shield attached to you, your shield hand can hold items as if the shield were light. An attached light shield offers no additional special benefit.
Weapon: One-handed weapons and all crossbows make fine attached components. Such a component covers the weapon hand, so you have to remove the weapon before you can use that hand for another task.
An attached two-handed crossbow still requires two hands to use with maximum accuracy, but the crossbow covers only one hand. However, you can shoot an attached crossbow without using an additional hand to brace the weapon. You take a –2 penalty to attack rolls when doing so.

A two-handed melee weapon can be attached to both hands, but doing so restricts your movement with the weapon, making it less effective. You take a –2 penalty to attack rolls with an attached two-handed melee weapon.

Implement: As long as it remains prominently visible, a holy symbol can be attached to any spot on your body. An orb can be attached in your chest like a jewel, or attached to a hand like a weapon. A rod, staff, or wand can be attached like a weapon. You take no attack roll penalty for using an attached staff as an implement.

Light Source: You can have a slot in your body capable of holding a torch, sunrod, lantern, or other lighting device. Such an attached component provides light while leaving your hands free.
Storage: Your backpack and other storage devices—such as pouches, weapons sheaths, or a quiver—can be attached, making them easier to hang on to and harder to steal.

Tools: Little tools, such as thieves’ tools, can be attached. Retrieving an attached tool is a free action. You can attach a larger tool for use in the same way you’d attach a weapon.

Magic Items: Items for any slot can be attached. Those already detailed follow the more specific rules above. Wondrous items can be attached, especially those that fall into categories described above. Some items are specifically designed to be attached components.

Embedded Components

Embedded components work, except as described here, like attached components. They’re inserted to your body in such a way that they’re almost a part of you. Most equipment isn’t implanted in this way, because the item in question is too big or doing so is more of a hindrance than an advantage.

The major advantage of some embedded components is that they can be hard to distinguish from your body. Those embedded components that don’t need to remain visible can be hidden within your body. Perception checks to locate such items on you take a –5 penalty. Affixing or removing an embedded component requires a standard action that provokes an opportunity attack.

Weapon: A dagger, shortsword, katar, or hand crossbow can be embedded. Up to five shurikens can be embedded in place of one of these items.

A retractable weapon can be embedded to take up space in one arm and hand. Such a weapon springs forth and locks into place as a minor action, and it can be retracted as a minor action. It functions normally with the Quick Draw feat.

Implement: An orb can be embedded and hidden in your chest, or like a weapon. Rods and wands can be embedded and hidden in your arm and still function, leaving your hands free for other tasks. These two implements can instead be embedded like weapons.

Storage: A storage device the size of a belt pouch or katar sheath, or something smaller, can be embedded and hidden. Embedded storage containers can only be opened by you or with your permission while you’re conscious.

Tools: Tools as large as or smaller than a dagger can be embedded and hidden. A kit of such tools counts as one item.

Magic Items: Items that are like jewelry, such as rings, amulets, and similar neck items, as well as can be attached only. Some items are specifically designed to be embedded components. simple circlets
and comparable head items, are the most easily embedded and hidden. Most other items can be attached only. Some items are specifically designed to be embedded components.