Dark Moments in Character Building: Armonica the Warforged Bard

Armonica the Warforged Bard says Hello!

Warforged are a race specific to Eberron, the setting for Turbine’s Dungeons and Dragons Online. Constructs built with one purpose in mind; the waging of war. Their creators were a little too clever for their own good, and in their pursuit of building walking weapons that would be able to make good decisions without direction, they accidentally managed to imbue them with sentience. For a while this wasn’t too much of a problem, as the Warforged were happy to do what they were told, which mostly involved hitting whoever they were told to.

The problem with sentience is that eventually you start wonder exactly why you’re hitting these people, and why you have to do what the shouty person tells you anyway. As the outside world realised that Warforged were indeed people, rather than simple machines, the public became uncomfortable on a number of grounds. As a result, at the end of the war, Warforged were given the same rights as any other sentient being, most importantly “self-ownership”. At the same time, the House Cannith creation forges which produced them were destroyed.

That leaves today’s Warforged in an odd position. There will never be any more of them (unless rumours of surviving forges are to be believed), but they do not age, and are fairly robust. Having known little more than war for their short lives, and having not been taught anything beyond what was of use to their masters, they are now sent out into the world, possessed with an insatiable curiosity, and a desire to become more than they have been.

So it was that Armonica the Warforged arrived on the continent of Xen’drik. Wandering for a time, seeking purpose, until one day he happened upon a musician playing in Stormreach’s marketplace. So taken with the beauty of the song was he that he decided, there and then, that he was going to be a bard, making music for all to hear!

Warforged, on the whole, are not very good musicians. Their stat modifiers are +2 Constitution, -2 Wisdom, and -2 Charisma, leaving them weak in the very stat that a Bard needs most, charisma. Nevertheless, what they lack in natural talent they make up for in enthusiasm, and before too long Armonica was playing bass lute in a local band.

He only knows three chords so far, but he plays them well.

In DDO the great strength of the Warforged is their immunities. Poison, disease, energy draining, sleep, exhaustion, nausea, and paralysis simply do not affect them. Neither do they need to breathe, so have no fear of water. They also have enhancements and feats that will increase their damage resistance. The main downside (apart from Rust Monsters) to avoiding so many of adventuring’s nuisances is that healing spells do not affect them as strongly. Starting out, a heal will only fix 50% of what it would on a fully organic being, though there are enhancements that a Warforged can take to raise that amount. There is also a line of wizardly repair spells, mirroring the clerical cures, that do have a full affect on them, which makes a Warforged wizard or sorcerer quite an interesting proposition.

Unfortunately, their difficulty to heal has made them somewhat unpopular with the more closed-minded of Eberron’s flesh-based population. This is not really fair, as while an individual heal does fix them less than otherwise, they also require less fixing in the first place. Happily, as a bard Armonica has some healing spells, so it tends not to be an issue.

Warforged are not one of the basic races available under the Free to Play scheme, costing 595 Turbine Points at normal prices. They’re so “Eberonny” though that I could not resist splashing out, especially as I was used to having them available to me as a subscriber in Europe.

He’s actually Rogue 1, Fighter 1, Bard 1 at the moment, but the majority of his levels going forward will be bard. I find it difficult to create a character that doesn’t have the ability to deal with at least some of the traps and locks that will present themselves. The level of fighter was to unlock a wide range of weaponry, and also for the free feat, which I took glee in spending on the Exotic Weapon Proficiency of Great Crossbow, which could just as easily be called a small ballista.

He’s the only character I’ve gotten into Massively’s OnedAwesome guild so far. If you see him, give him a wave, and remember to be kind to your Warforged colleagues, as they’re the ones who’ll be dragging your life crystals back to the shrine when you all get cloudkilled.

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