Should Warforged be Prevented from Becoming Pale Masters?

[Zachski]

I am aware of that. Read the last 2 lines you quoted.

Uh... you DO realize Eberron has existed long before DDO has existed, right?

I do believe the first Sorc you meet is a WF,
and Undead traits is not UNDEAD.

DDO lore is not PnP DnD lore.

Actually, in this case, it is. It's Eberron lore. Eberron is a setting for PnP DnD.

Now, DDO's mechanics are only based off of PnP DnD's mechanics.

[unbongwah]

WF should not be allowed to become PMs.

And paladins shouldn't serve evil gods, yet drow & WF pallies can be servants of Vulkoor & Lord of Blades, respectively. What's your point? That Turbine has taken liberties with PnP Eberron lore? Wow, that's a shocker...

[Zachski]

And paladins shouldn't serve evil gods, yet drow & WF pallies can be servants of Vulkoor & Lord of Blades, respectively. What's your point? That Turbine has taken liberties with PnP Eberron lore? Wow, that's a shocker...

Actually, doesn't Eberron lack an alignment restriction on worshiping deities? As in, you could be Lawful Good and worship an evil deity.

[MartinusWyllt]

This doesn't work for you?

[AZgreentea]

From DDOwiki.com
http://ddowiki.com/page/Pale_Master_enhancements

Pale master I:
"You are a devoted student of the necromantic arts."

Zombie form:
"You shroud yourself with negative energy and assume many traits of a zombie." (emphasis mine)

It doesn't say you become undead; you assume many of their traits. There is no reason NOT to let warforged be Pale Masters, and arbitrarily implementing limits on options within the game based on a highly debatable interpretation of DnD cannon is silly.

You are a devoted student of the necromantic arts. You gain 5 hit points as your flesh toughens, deal 25% additional damage with negative energy spells, and have a 3% chance for negative energy spells to generate a critical result for 1.5 times the normal damage amount.

What flesh? WF are made of stone, metal, and wood. How can stone, metal, and wood take on the traits of a zombie, or any undead creature?

One of the great things about D&D is that there is a difference between the races. In other MMO's, when you play a different race, you get a different image and different starting stats and thats it. In D&D, and DDO there is a difference between a Human and a Halfling. There are race specific enhancements, why shouldnt there be race specific restrictions? We have some with Halflings and their weight limit.

[RudeIota]

I've never really got the whole "OMG Undead are super evil" thing.

Not sure about the whole immoral thing, but it is D&D rules that Pale Masters cannot be Good (anything else is okay).

But yeah, D&D does have that whole "OMOMG Undead are super evil" thing going on and while I think you could argue most undead-related things as being evil in some way, there are certainly non-evil aspects to raising, manipulation and otherwise becoming undead.

[aristarchus1000]

I've always interpretted the rule on WF to mean that they can't be turned into undead, like become a ghost because they got killed in some distressing situation, etc, or get turned into a vampire flunky after they die.

I think Palemaster Pre is different. You are really using magic to temporary obtain undead traits, and use negative energy to your benefit. That's how it has always made sense to me.

[Tuney]

Aren't there like 2 differnt GOOD aligned Undead in DDO right now. The Undying Mummies in that one horrable horrable quest and The Doomsphere!

[Bodic]

long story short normally good can be evil normally evil can be good
you dont have to be alignment x to be a follower of deity x.

Define Eberron long before DDO less than 5 years is not long before 20 years is long before.

DDO is not PnP DnD

Your Eberron lore is PnP DnD

[Zorack00]

No, any reason dealing with flavor is invalid.

[dkyle]

What flesh? WF are made of stone, metal, and wood. How can stone, metal, and wood take on the traits of a zombie, or any undead creature?

It becomes cracked, rotted or tattered, or perhaps even takes on some flesh-like characteristics? All flavor is mutable.

One of the great things about D&D is that there is a difference between the races. In other MMO's, when you play a different race, you get a different image and different starting stats and thats it. In D&D, and DDO there is a difference between a Human and a Halfling. There are race specific enhancements, why shouldnt there be race specific restrictions? We have some with Halflings and their weight limit.

The differences in races and classes is certainly a strength of DDO.

But the lack of arbitrary race-class permitted combos is also a great strength. Most MMOs (WoW, LotRO, etc.) have a set list of combos, based entirely on what "flavor" the designers think makes sense. But DDO allows us to mix-and-match as we see fit, making combos the Devs might not have anticipated.

We do have some race specific restrictions, but most of them barely matter (I mean, weight limit, seriously?).

Race restrictions are good, if and only if, they provide some interesting gameplay mechanics that would be untenable without them.

For example, Elves getting Arcane Archer allows Elves to have a much needed bonus for an otherwise rather sub-optimal race. The race restriction allows that to be a bona-fide benefit to that race. Without that restriction, non-Ranger AA would probably all be Human or Half-orc.

I don't see a compelling gameplay reason to make PM fleshy-only. Yes, non-WF Wizards especially benefit from PM, but since WF themselves benefit so little from PM, there's little reason to make PM not available to them. The race restriction is unnecessary, and would only serve to limit gameplay options for no good reason.

[AZgreentea]

No, any reason dealing with flavor is invalid.

So, halflings should be treated as the other races for the purpose of their size bonus to AC and their ability to carry weight? What about race specific prestige enhancements, or the inherit immunities/skills of some races?

**DKYLE - EDIT
I can see those arguments about mutable flavor. One of the things that really struck me when I first started playing DDO was the fact that Halfling was the only race with an actual restriction on it, and they dont even have ALL of their restrictions (weapon size limits). It almost seemed like the devs started to stay true to the race restriction aspect of D&D, but gave up without removing things.

Other than lore, I dont see a reason to restrict PM from WF. Now that I think about it, an Eberron novel about a WF lich (perhaps in the Mournlands?) would be an interesting read.

[Vyrn]

Pale Masters don't become undead. They take on undead traits.

And in any event, consistent and coherent game design should trump lore minutiae anyway. Silly race/class restrictions don't belong in DDO. WF Pale Master is already fairly sub-optimal.

This. Flavor is great and all, just not when it interferes with game design, like now.

[dkyle]

So, halflings should be treated as the other races for the purpose of their size bonus to AC and their ability to carry weight? What about race specific prestige enhancements, or the inherit immunities/skills of some races?

A bonus to AC is just a bonus among many, a weight penalty (as meaningless as it is) just another penalty, all perfectly valid ways of designing a race. The point is that flavor should not determine mechanics, not that sound mechanics can't reflect a desired flavor. There are an infinite number of possible well designed races; there's nothing wrong with picking a dozen that reflect certain notions of flavor.

Same for race specific prestige enhancements, inherent immunities/skills etc. They're all just part of the race mechanics. Components of race mechanics that reflect certain desired flavors.

If you don't want WF to be PMs, give reasons why the limitation would make DDO a better game. Why a WF race that can't be a PM is a better game design than a WF race that can be.

[Phidius]

What flesh? WF are made of stone, metal, and wood. How can stone, metal, and wood take on the traits of a zombie, or any undead creature? ...

One way is to put on a Docent of Blood

... There are race specific enhancements, why shouldnt there be race specific restrictions? We have some with Halflings and their weight limit.

You mean like how WF get less benefit from healing spells?

[MartinusWyllt]

Magic changing wood into flesh?

Why that has no precedent!

[Zachski]

Wood is an organic component. It makes sense then, that wood would double as "flesh" for the purposes of being a Pale Master.

Ever seen a dead tree? Now imagine a dead tree that keeps on living. Undead tree.

In either case, Eberron has established certain rules that break D&D concepts. Ranging from Drow to alignment restrictions on what deity you can worship, etc. This was not invented by DDO, so attributing it to DDO is flawed.

I'm actually amazed that more than a couple of posters on these forums seem to think of Eberron as being invented by DDO :-/

Not to mention that the "differences between the races" argument is a little silly.

Let me put it this way... if your "major differences between the races" relies on them being stereotypes, then you've got a bad race set up. The fact that the different races have different native cultures is good, and the fact that there's a central culture that all races can subscribe to is also good, and more realistic.

And before someone says "This is a fantasy game, what do you care about realism?"

Suspension of disbelief. I can believe that, in this world, wizards can cast spells with incantations and gesture, the purple-skinned people can exist, and that dragons can produce offspring with the humanoid species. I cannot believe, however, that each drow that is born will grow up to be either a moustache twirling villain or a cackling destructive banshee just because they were born drow and for no other reason.

On the other hand, I can also believe that if an elf were to turn evil, that their skin would turn purple and that they become drow, as it does in Pathfinder. This is acceptable. I don't know if this is the case in other PnP settings, but judging by Drizzt stu'Gary, I'm pretty sure it's not the case in Forgotten Realms.

[Asketes]

this is a video game, not a complex set of pnp rules and lore.

I don't see you building the 9 paladin 1 cleric cuz it's awesome! (though it was when the cap was 10)

[bigolbear]

let me start by saying that i have a warforge pale master and my reason for taking this prestige rather than archmage was infact the lore you mention. My character has spent a great deal of time investigating the nature of the warforge soul - you can soul trap a warforge btw, but you cant soul trap a golem or other construct.

ok on the surface the op has a valid question, however...

1. The treaty you mentioned was recorded by the flesh races, the warforge in the mournlands have a very different opinion - they belive that warforge do indeed have souls - and that there is no memory of afterlife as yet for warforge because they are a new race awaiting the formation of their own god - whom the lord of blades is an avatar.

2. The pale master prestige allows the mage to assume some traits of undead for a limited time using magic in pen and paper shroud of undeath is a lvl 8 spell. They are not undead, atleast not yet - that would require a phylactery most likely and has not been done by any warforge to date that we know of - my character is working on this - one day i can hope i guess.

3. The original warforge were created by the quori long before the dragon marked houses appeared, they were to be vessels to provide form to a idea. House cannith rebuilt and used ancient manufactories - this is a closely guarded secret and would not have been mentioned at the treaty.

4. The recent batch of warforge do not have quori inside them but a soul is necesary for life - the void is being filled by something, but no one knows what - yet.

5. many warforge are created with crystals and especialy dragon shards in side them - this is more than sufficient explanation for warforge sorcerers - the draconic elemental energy is coming from syberis, eberon or khyber. An alternative explanation is that said energy is coming from whatever 'soul' they may have.

6. It has been speculated by many scholars in eberon that the warfoge share a collective soul.


proofs of experimantation.
As i said i have spent time investigation the nature of the warforge soul, in turbines vision of ebberon the folowing hold ture, can be proven both by experiment and evidence.

1. warforge have souls - uniquely diferent to any other creature on eberon and seperate from each other.
2. undead have souls - uniquely diferent from the soul of the original form, ie a human soul is diferent to a zombie human soul.
3. aberations such as vulkoor have souls that are diferent to both scorpion souls and drow souls.
4. constructs that cannot be healed by divine magic, positive or negative energy do not have souls, and cannot be raised.

the conclusions i came to was:
1. the warforge soul is mesureable. each warforge has a seperate soul.
2. The form and function of the body determine the type of energy associated with a soul. A body must be 'alive' to have a soul.
3. The definition of 'alive' is that divine energy must work on it.
4. If divine energy works on a body then the associated soul must be present or semi present in another plane - ie it must have an afterlife.

the logical but unfortunatly unproveable conclusion is that the warforge of the mournlands are infact correct, warforge cannot remember passing over because the plane to which they would pass is still not fully formed - the god to whom warforge will pay reverence has not yet awoken.


And finaly:
As much as i enjoy the lore associated with eberon remember that ddo is a game, If warforge had been barred from taking pale master from the get go that would have been acceptable - however at this stage what you are asking for would out right runin many peoples characters.

To the people being so adamant that warforge should not be allowed to be pale masters im rather getting the impresssion that you are jelous of some in game skill that was applied, my suggestion is go have your fun and let other people have theirs - pale master on a warforge is far from optimal and I can assure you that any player doing well with this combo is going to do equaly as well with a different or with no prestige.

[Zachski]

this is a video game, not a complex set of pnp rules and lore.

I don't see you building the 9 paladin 1 cleric cuz it's awesome! (though it was when the cap was 10)

There are people who max-min the pen and paper game as well. They're the kinds that prove how god-like Wizards can be :P

On the other hand, there's also people in this game who roll a 9 paladin 1 cleric because it's awesome. Most of those people do not visit the forums.