Goodman Games

Laughingcarp is right about warforged, they dont need to eat/drink, but they can. This allows them to take advantage of consumable items like Heroes Feast and potions. To power a steam engine they would drink the water normally, but it would be used by the steam enigine. Thus preventing the warforged from having to be a contortionist to fill the tank on his back. Alternately, the DM could rule that the warforged has a funnel apparatus in his chest area or other convenient location the warforged can use to fill the engine. Of course, this is Eberron, so if you can find/buy the appropriate Khyber Shard you could always pay a gnome to bind a water elemental into it to be implanted in the initial surgery...or would that be "after market upgrade"?

The mists of Ravenloft sound like they are designed to help the DM create Eberron-like adventures (or perhaps it is the other way around, given the publication dates). Eberron adventures are supposed to be about the encounter at the end, not the travel. Which is strange given the fact that in the first published modules every time the party boards any means of transportation it gets attacked.

I like Mythfish's take on a Ravenloftian gear forest. It sounds like it might work best in an old abandoned mech, but a haunted mech that runs on spirit power rather than the original source would be a really cool setting. Can you say "13 Ghosts"?

If the Lord of Blades were to find blueprints in Xen'drik that almost implies that they would be on a giant-sized scale. What if the assumptions of scholars are wrong and the "giants" of Xen'drik were actually mechs? Perhaps the cyclopean ruins are mech hangars designed to keep the tropical rains from rusting the mechs too quickly and to provided sheltered repair and construction areas? It would be little wonder that the dragons believed they were too powerful and had to be destroyed.

To disable a city-mech from the inside I would either use the stalker rules and make them examine it to determine how to best disable it (disable device check), or use the critical damage charts since they are inside and bypassing the hardness of the armored exterior entirely ("smash it!"). If the mech is mapped out with complete floor plans (has anyone actually done this and if so where can I find it?), then I would have a couple of areas designated as being critical to the functioning of the mech and make it clear they needed to get to those areas, which would be heavily guarded (in a level appropriate manner). The godforged wouldn't have coglings, but warforged scouts (MM III) would fill that niche quite nicely.

And, yes, the Lord of Blades is a tough opponent so I would expect the party level to be fairly high. A bag of rust and magnet bombs is a good idea for a non-spellcaster. Spellcasters will want to load up on rusting grasp, rust ray, and metal melt to be sure. Sounds like it will be a fun adventure. Care to share what level the party will be, Banatine? I'm just curious.

Well, I'm off to continue working on my evil plan for complete world domination. TTFN!

To be honest, i've never thought about it. The scenario was just the first thing i thought up when trying to incorporate dragonmech into D&D in general. I had baught the ebberon book just before and became greatly interested in the potential surrounding the Lord of Blades.

To me, mechs fit perfectly in the ebberon world. They could be a byproduct from the development of the warforged titan. i can see them being used to defend khorvair from the massive necromechs that have recently been sighted coming from the mournlands.

It's only natural that the lord of blades would see these mechs and decide to create one the likes of which no-one has ever seen (or ever will). I think Godforged woulld be magically animated, possibly even with Lord of Blades assimilated with it. He probably beleive that he himself is the Godforged and desired a new body to demonstrate his supremacy as a construct

I could totally see the Lord of Blades glomming on to this technology. I don't think I would assimilate him into the city-mech, but I would definitely make it look exactly like him. Assimilating him would take out the inevitable duel with him in a capstone to the adventure.

I might actually run the adventure as more of a "tons of steel are being imported or hijacked into the Mournlands. What's going on?" type adventure hook. Perhaps the PCs are Cyrean refugees working for their government to discover what new threat may be brewing in the Mournlands. In that scenario I might have them stop an important shipment that contains the "key" piece to finish the mech. Failure means the mech is completed and they have to find another way to stop it before it ruins New Cyre. Perhaps they would have the opportunity to steal the plans and Cyre becomes the first Eberron Mechdom. Perhaps all out war between the Lord of Blades and the new Mechdom of Cyre launches the Age of Walkers in Eberron.

There are a lot of ways to play it, so have fun with it!

I think warforged technology combined with airship/land rail technology would be a quantum leap in mech technology and produce some truly impressive mechs. Animated mechs made of Darkwood and Mithril or Adamantine could be constructed in the same manner as warforged titans. Add steam guns and buzzsaws and now we're cooking with bear grease!

I can picture Valenar elves with Rodwalkers, Darguun raiding other kingdoms for their mechs, Carrion Tribe barbarians with powered armor to fend off the demon menace, and shifters learning how to make their mechs dance and fight like no one has ever seen before.

With Eberrons "magic as technology" style, I think you will be able to integrate mechs quite easily. With the Lord of Blades' ego, I would go with the biggest city-mech there is. LOL

After doing some research (read: Borrowing a friend's Eberron book), the idea of a Warforged steamborg is interesting. They can eat and drink, but are their bodies even water-saturated like those of normal creatures? They might indeed have to carry around an actual resevoir. What's more, they mention Warforged as being able to integrate weapons into themselves.

Does their construct nature allow them to be more effective steamborgs? They've already got a predisposition of altering themselves, so it might be interesting to give them some extras in that direction. Or racial levels.

Any suggestions before I grab a notebook and start scribbling?

I can see the Lord of Blades organising parties to steal some materials from surrounding nations, but i don't think it would be entirely neccessary. He could easily scavange what he needed from the wrecked cities of Cyre (which might even explain why Eston is so heavily damaged compared to Metrol, as the Lord of Blades stripped the place bare for materials. He could then use the Lightning Rails to transport the stuff.)

Also, as an aside, How well do you think warforged can build mechs? I would personally rule that they build with the efficiency of constructs, but without the '25% only' clause considering the fact the they are sentient. Using that logic, 500 warforged could construct an Animated City Mech F in less than a year! (Meaning the PCs would have to work pretty fast to uncover what was going on!)

That would be an interesting way of doing it. Having the PCs investigate a mysterious warforged who is buying tons of mechanical components and paying with Cyrean coins. They would have to attempt to track him through the mournland to find out what he was up to.

While most people assume warforged, as living constructs, would be able to work 24 hours/day, (I believe) it was decided they could only work on any given task for 8 hours in a given day, just like the fleshbags. This was due to people trying to build magic items in 1/3 the time and such. I'll double check. But I still think they deserve a bonus for the whole not getting tired part. Maybe bump their numbers up by one, starting at 9 hours for unskilled?

True, they can normally only work 8 hours a day on any given task. But most of the warforged involved in the construction would be fanatical followers of the lord of blades. In a case like this, i would make an exception. Constructs provide 30 hours in a day because they work at an incredible pace, and never tire which allows them to keep that incredible pace indefinately. Warforged could do the same, and don't forget that fanaticism and faith are capable of making people do incredible things (and for people who never want or need rest, even more incredible things!)

I CLAIM THIS LOOPHOLE.

Mech creation and assembly involves a variety of tasks, including transporting the materials, crafting/forging the parts, and, Dotrak knows, assembly. LOTS of assembly.

Which means..

You can keep a lot of warforged working twenty-four hours a day, as long as you have at least three different-enough tasks to keep them interested. You may even have more tasks then that, if you think about making armor and stuff. As long as you have a large enough group that you divide up to do separates tasks and you rotate them regularly, you end up with 24-hour-a-day labor and, importantly, each Warforged gets enough variety that he won't have gone crazy by the end of construction.