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I just started DMing STAP in Eberron, and one of my players is a warforged fighter with the adimantine body feat. Does anybody have any advice on swimming warforged. He wieghs 450lbs. and has no ranks in swim and a -12 armor penalty. So far he's just been walking along the bottom of the harbor (he can't drown) and climbing up pylons, anchor chains, and what not. But what happens when we get out into deeper water and he goes overboard? The first couple of swim checks he made were in the negatives, now he's just stopped making them. What about damage from high pressure at extream deapths? What about salt-water corrosion? I've lived around salt-water boats my whole life and know first hand the corrosive powers of salt-water (adamantine probably has some kind of corrosion resistance, but iron and steel don't). I need advice on how to adjucate these situations
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He should probably have to conduct some PMCS when the other PCs are recuperating. Is one of the PCs an artificer? If so, he or she could make small repairs and improvements along the way in the combat against corrosion and pressure damage. In Keith Baker's novels, the warforged occasionally find themselves walking the bottom of the river, so the Head Cheese addresses it in the same way as your group.
Warforged are susceptible to pressure like any living creature, but you might want to let them use their resistance to critical hits against the pressure, simply because they are more solid than other humanoids.
For corrosion, you might want to have it affect them as a modified subdual damage that they aren't immune to. If they don't get regular maintenance, then every day of untreated exposure to the salt does 1d3 or 1d6 damage that can only be healed by repair. It shouldn't be too much of a problem considering their inability to sleep.
As for falling overboard, it sounds like someone needs a tether, or a live vest, or to get their body enchanted with the bouyancy armor enhancement. You might even let them use the new armor crystals from Magic Item Compendium by attaching them to their chest. the one that deals with swiming and waterbreathign is ridiculously cheap compared to what it gives you.
I think your response was very reasonably. If I were one of the PCs, I would immediately think of a crazy floatation device this fellow would have to wear while in deep water to insure he doesn't sink. If I were not the one playing the Warforged, it probably would even look a bit silly.
Another option is to make sure the guy is always tied to the boat. So, yeah, he can fall over, but you just drag him back up when you get back around to it.
Sean Mahoney
I have images of a warforged out on a pirate ship, tethered to the deck, all the while wearing a ducky floatie around his waist and carrying a swim noodle...add in a bathing cap with plastic flowers on it...
Oh I gotta start drawing again...
Based on the ingenuity shown by alot of the warforged components they've published, it wouldn't suprise me if an enterprizing artificer made up warforged swimfins that took up foot and hand/arm slots.
what is the profession of the warforged in question?
Fighter is always difficult when skills are needed, as they lack the points to spend to begin with, coupled with what they need to spend on is probably not on their list.
Perhaps you can create a variant of the featherfall tokens from Sharn, that activate a few minutes of waterwalk or swim when someone falls overboard. That would be beneficial to more than just the warforged anchor in question, and might make a pretty penny selling to the less nautically inclined nobles in Sasserine ;)
