Warforged are the first race I've ever seen without a level adjustment that GMs will flat out refuse to allow in to their games. Personally, I love the metal guys. However, with the increase in over all racial power, do they deserve a little more love? Or are they good enough as is? How do they work with the revamped classes? This is what I'm out to discuss.
With the new racial ability adjustments, I think that, despite their powers as living constructs, warforged score penalties are a little unbalanced compared to the other races. I think that removing the Wisdom penalty would fix this rather nicely. Wisdom is, arguably, a more important score than charisma, but just about every casting class uses charisma in some way now, so it's still a good hit to balance against the constitution bonus. As far as removing the wisdom penalty goes, this allows warforged clerics and druids to be, well, viable. And, for melee classes, it helps improve their will saves a bit. Since they are by nature constructs, but don't have the mind affecting immunity, it's sort more fair for them to NOT have the wisdom penalty.
Barbarian: With the changes to rage, Warforged previous Tireless Rage at level 0 is no longer anywhere near as awesome as it was before. This is actually an excellent fix on the race/ class combination that I think was somewhat inadvertant.
Bard: Nothing particularly good or bad here. If warforged keep the charisma penalty, they are less effective bards. Though, with bards being more melee capable now, this is something that could be fun to see. A character who plays his metal abs? Washboard stomache taken too far?
Cleric: Divine Conduits are always nice to have around. Especially now that the cleric isn't the walking pile of cure spells any more. Clerics have always had a lot of potential in melee, and now they have the potential to main tank for the party. Removing the wisdom penalty ensures that the warforged cleric can still cast some of those later game useful spells. Like Ressurection. Sort of handy to have, is all I'm saying.
Fighter: My question here is if Warforged should benefit from the Armor Training. I say that they should, as long as they are utilizing feated armor. Either Mithril Body, Ironwood Body, or Admantite Body. Composite Plating imposes no max dex bonus or armor check penalty. As such, it's the characters skin. You don't get better at being you. The feat armors are more armorlike (carapace, maybe?), and as such, deserve to benefit from the class ability. As it stands, Mithril Body is still technically worse from the getgo than a Mithril shirt (5 armor/ 5 max dex -2 check penalty (effectively) vs 4 armor/ 6 max dex no check penalty), and Admantite Body is strictly worse than a full plate, since it CAN'T be made if any special materials. I view it as the warforged getting increasingly used to moving about in his armored body. And, don't forget, warfored CAN'T improve their base armor outside of enancement bonuses. Also, Fighter is their favored class. Let's show some favoritism.
Monk: Warforged monks are comedy gold. Officially, in 3.5, warforged composite plating AC stacks with the monk bonuses. Never saw that as game breaking, and see it as less hugetacular now. Still good, but with some of the perks of other races, eh, not the best thing in the whole world.
Paladin: I think the Warforged Paladin Substitution Levels from Races of Eberron fixed this issue pretty good. Not enough sweeping paladin changes to make this one much of an issue with that material around.
Rangers: With the changes to the ranger that make it a class people might actually want to play, a Warforged Ranger would be a fun character. A literally tireless tracker, built to hunt down particular foes. Conceptually, it's pretty cool. He doesn't get quite as much usage out of Survial as other races (hooray for not eating!), but the race class combination is just sort of cool now.
Rogue: Charisma penalty tends to keep warforged rogues in the front lines, or in deep cover. Less diplomacy, more stabby here. At most, they'd take Mithril Body, if they really were hard up to stand next to the fighter, but the check penalty might put that off a bit. Combat race, combat class, good match.
Sorcerer: This one's a little strange. With the Cha penalty, this isn't overly appealing, but some of the bloodlines could make for a very neat character. As a GM, I'd rule carefully which ones a warforged could take. Abyssal, Arcane, Celestial, Destined, Elemental, and Infernal all make some sense. Short answer: parts used to create the warfored are from those planes, or in the case of Destined, he's just meant to be a hero. The ones that don't really fly (Abberant, Draconic, Fey, and Undead), really require a character to be descended from something. Eww. Grandpappy was a zombie. Built in spell failure still hurts. Thank goodness for Combat feats.
Wizard: Probably the better Arcane option for Warforged. Play off the thinking machine aspect for EZRP. With the improved Hit Die, the nifty class features, and the fact that ANYBODY can be a wizard, this is a nice match. The Arcane Bond over the Familiar would be a great path to follow as well. The magical pet would be less appealing for a race that is inherently somewhat of loners. I can see a warfored relating to his things more than to a magical critter.
