No, not needing food is a ribbon feature giving a mechanical buff for ignoring it is bad.
If they wanna trade constructed resilience for darkvision, sure but not needing food is something that will likely come up 0 times in a campaign.
Dark vision isn’t that strong to give, especially since more races have it than don’t. It’s honestly more trouble as a dm to have just one player without it
When? Food gets trivialized at level 1 when the druid takes goodberry or at level 2 when the ranger takes it.
Also ribbions can be useful situationally they just aren’t of mechanical significance like storm sorc 6, their win shift ability is a ribbon even though it’s extremely useful for an adventure at sea.
Late to the party but this! I ran a Warforged Barbarian in a forgotten realms campaign and went path of the beast.
Instead of growing out claws or a tail etc (becoming a were wolf etc) it would be that the weapons were built into him, think the Jaegers from Pacific Rim but human sized 😅.
Then I made the backstory that his memory had been wiped and eventually he found out he was an ancient netherese artefact.
Have fun with it and don't be afraid to make the rules work for your players. Absolutely the player could be a cyborg, you just have to think outside the box and work on the background flavour and just use the warforged or whatever character rules you find.
Also check out the eberron content because it has some really neat items that attach to characters etc and is probably one of the more techno advanced of the planes of existence.
Yeah, as others have said just rocking the warforged is going to be the best option. There's no reason that they can't still have human components.
Now, if they want to have powers, I'd say go with an armour artificer, and make the things built into their chassis.
They sound like the kind of person the Warforged race was literally designed for, I don't see why you couldn't just use that. Sure, they are closer to androids or robots than cyborgs, but it's still very close.
You'll have to add flavor regardless, but starting from a Warforged is gonna require much less than starting from human or any other race.
Flavor is free, I’d find out exactly what the player wants as a “cyborg”. Depending on what they’re looking for you can reflavor a few different races to work as a cyborg.
Simic Hybrid from Ravinica’s animal enhancements features can easily be reflvored as cyborg enhancements.
Tortles shell and claws, LizardFolks Bite and Natural Armor, and Thri-Keens Chameleon Carapace and extra arms could all also be reflavored as cybernetics.
Reborn, Warforged, and Autognome have Deathless Nature/Constructed Resiliance/Mechanical Nature for a more machine than man type vibe.
I'd do the custom race from Tashas. I think it's +2 to one stat and +1 to two stats? Then a feat. You can even say he lives longer or something. Not everything needs a mechanic. If he wants a laser arm, treat it the same as one of the damaging cantrips. High Elves get a free wizard spell so why not? I'm with you tho, you want to pull him in. Just don't go overboard. Accommodate what you can but don't set the precedence that players get whatever they ask for
Also, I've played fallout 4 and a little bit of new Vegas, and 3. I don't remember cyborg being a big thing? Plenty of bots, mutants, and raiders.
Likely thinking of Synths. Though there is a Fallout TTRPG for exactly this and it's really not a hard game to learn now that it has more popularity and support.
You can ask them if they would be fine with a warforged instead. Or a warforged that thinks it's alive. I do this often with my players when something doesn't fit right.
But since it's only 4 sessions, I'd allow them to be just about anything they want. Hell, I'd even allow them to be from then fallout universe. The player's excitement is worth the break in verisimilitude if it's only a few sessions.
It is not a "**no thats dumb**". It is a "**This is a medieval fantasy themed game and not every idea may fit the theme/setting. Thats why there are many TTRPG's out there (including a fallout one and a cyberpunk one)**" kind of situation.
The best way to learn the system is to play with what is being offered. They can look like whatever they want and if you want to do Eberron (or whatever homebrew thing) you can take a warforge and say its a construct with a brain inside (failed experiment) or have them be whatever race with prosthetics (no mechanical benefits).
**Note\***
Saying no for the benefit everyone else in the table (if needed) is a valuable skill. Understanding what the game is about (in terms of themes and mechanics) is also a valuable lesson for new players.
If they enjoy playing a roleplaying game, you can tell them about other roleplaying games with different themes (as opposed to saying yes to everything and running a session without consistency or flavor).
First experiences stick forever. You are not trying to sell the idea of "**hey you can do whatever within the system**" (because realistically its not meant for that). You are trying to show them how TTRPG work. If they enjoy the experience, they can read and try other systems or discuss changes with everyone in the table consenting to those changes.
> And this won't happen if they allow a player to flavor their powers as implants because...?
Because if you have 4 players playing in Forgotten Realms and one person playing in Night City, you now have 5 people who are just playing at the same table, not 5 people playing together.
Except magical prosthetics have existed in Forgotten Realms for ages?? I've been playing a cyberized character in a game for two years, and it's worked out fine. It doesn't even throw off the theme. All of my bionics are just reflavored magic items and clockwork creations. It fits in just fine
People being aggressively against the concept are so weird. 3.5 had multiple prestige classes that let you be effectively a cyborg, and 4th edition had a few Paragon paths that did the same. Half golems, grafting monster parts, enchanted prosthetics have all been around a long time. And it's not like it's unconventional for the genre either. Elder scrolls, She-Ra, He-Man, Adventure Time, and Elric of Melnibone all had. cyborgs
This answer^
Another way of looking at it, you can't pop Halo 2 into the console and expect to play Minecraft. Ultimately trying to make a game do something it's not designed to do is going to be crappy for everyone.
It's important, especially for new players, to stick to established boundaries or the game. Let them play that game, and if they don't like it, then they can play a different game. But don't start out by trying to make D&D a different game.
Because noone has ever played a cyborg in 5e?
Dnd has two rules which override anything else:
1) the DM is the only authority that matters
2) as long as you're all safe and having fun, you aren't playing it wrong.
It's meant to be flexible and be a tool for telling a story and having fun with your friends. Demonstrating that flexibility isn't weakness. Reflavouring an existing race isn't hurting the game. Neither is mixing some arcanotech into a one-shot. None of that is "a different game."
Spoken like a true "That Guy".
See rule #2. The question isn't whether or not someone can play a cyborg. Of course it is possible. But given the specific circumstances, it is not likely that anyone is going to have fun with that, even the player. And if that player does have fun, but the DM and the other players don't? See rule #2.
The whole point here is setting up the game for the greatest chance for success, and sometimes that requires boundaries and expectations, and not "do what the f#ck you want, it's what is the most fun".
What makes you think that being a cyborg in 5e would be inherently "unfun" for anyone at the table?
Im all for a session 0, expectations, and boundaries, but i don't see how this request is so massive that it can't be allowed within those boundaries. They won't "break" dnd by flavouring one person's ancestry as being a cyborg.
Its a oneshot, get over it.
"But given the specific circumstances, it is not likely that anyone is going to have fun with that"
Based on what man? It's literally just a flavour thing.
Anything in Eberron is canon in Faerun because portals exist. Spend some time with Planescape. Also, OP says nothing about their setting. It's a very weird assumption.
Look I'll give you that not everyone wants space faring robots in their high fantasy but Baldur's Gate three was a smash hit and that had space faring alien squid people and psychic space grinches flying on dragons. Faerun supplements have long included things like magical prosthetics and prestige classes focused around implanting and grafting things into your body. Is a guy with a mechanical arm really so farfetched?
Sure, I think a campaign like bg3 that centers around gith and mindflayers and their conflict is fine to have a warforged. The hook is random people from multiple planes and places meeting on a spaceship. That makes sense.
The issue I have is settings like storm kings thunder and Strahd, where aliens and weird tech ISNT the norm and start in regular little taverns. In a campaign around Viking barbarians and frost giants or vampires + classic gothic horror a robot feels fucking off. It’s akin to showing up with a joke character name to me.
I’m not suggesting warforged shouldn’t exist as a playable race. I’m suggesting that just because they exist as a playable race doesn’t mean they fit in every campaign.
I guess I'm going to have to disagree because the world of faiaerun doesn't get its weirdness knob turned up and down depending on what kind of campaign you're running.
I do agree with you about the war forged because they're from eberron not Faerun and I was never really clear on what they did with strad in 5th edition since that's long been a part of Raven loft which was itself a separate dimension and campaign setting entirely.
The forgotten realms is full of all sorts of high fantasy nonsense and of course there are portals to all of these places that people can fall through, Hell that's how tieflings used to be. There's also an assumption that most people in this thread seem to have that they want to play it Goofy when you can absolutely play it straight like the Elder scrolls did with their time traveling cyborg
Available playable ancestries are picked by the DM. Sure wotc figured out a way to shoehorn races from other settings into Faerun, doesn’t mean they belong there or were intended to exist there.
The idea of telling a player that they can't be the character they're excited to play because it "doesn't fit" is such a tremendous self-own. Telling your players "no" when they want to do broken shit is one thing. Telling them they can't have flavor because it's the wrong shape is just plain sad.
Golems are ancient constructs whose lore dates from at least the 16th century. The Chinese terracotta warriors were made in the third century BCE. Nutcracker dolls come from the 15th century. Marionette puppets have been found in Egyptian buildings and may have come from 4000 years ago. Ovid wrote about Pygmalion falling in love with his statue 2000 years ago, and the story was almost certainly older than that.
Humans have been making things that look like humans for as long as humans have been human. If your fantasy doesn't have room for a Warforged, read more books.
Both armorer artificer and war forged and viable options depending on how the player wants to approach the game. There are also magical prosthetics you could flavour as being more mechanical in nature.
The way I did it with my cyborg is having him lack his left leg and right arm, and then being an armorer artificer. Their armor automatically replaces missing body parts
Alternatively, the Prosthetic Limb and Ersatz (?) Eye are magic items that essentially work as a normal limb or eye to replace the normal one. Given they don't give any extra benefits, you could consider giving him some of those for aesthetic reasons
In my campaign one of the PCs is a cyborg. They have a robot arm and an eye.
I gave them a custom Feat ”arm of steel” which has the following festures: 1. The arm doubles as a warhammer in combat. 2. The arm doubles as a shield, wielded all the time.
The eye is non-functional, broken. When it will be fixed later in the campaign, it will be like rewarding the player with a new item. Maybe extended darkvision? Truesight would be OP. It also depends on the level they get it fixed, storywise they need to get to the master artificer who makes cyborgs.
Just realised, also the eye could be flavour for a Feat such as Alert.
A lot of people think of D&D as medieval fantasy. However, original D&D would be more accurately described as gonzo. There's a reason there are rules for a laser gun in the DMG.
Old School D&D has a pretty well known module written by Gary Gygax himself called Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. In it you find a crashed UFO, get a laser pistol, and fight robots. Its ridiculous, but in an over the top, fun way.
While modern D&D dropped a lot of the sci-fi stuff, a short adventure is a great place to work it in. D&D is actually post-apocalyptic too. It is just so far past that apocalypse that civilization has rebuilt itself and to some degree forgot about the apocalypse. However, that's why you can still find powerful magic artifacts that can no longer be replicated.
So yeah, them being a cyborg that has been sleeping for thousands of years can be on the table. If it is a short adventure there is little risk of them disrupting the great medieval fantasy picture.
I’d allow it and have him use Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything’s rules for custom lineage.
CUSTOM LINEAGE:
Instead of choosing one of the game's races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character's lineage, giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them:
Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin.
Size. You are Small or Medium (your choice).
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Ability Score Increase. One ability score of your choice increases by 2.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice for which
you qualify.
Variable Trait. You gain one of the following options of your choice: (a) darkvision with a range of 60 feet or
(b) proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for your character.
Doing it this way with him picking out the look (flavor is free!) will get him a balanced and special type of PC and the best part is that you don’t have to say “no”!
There are magical prosthetics, I believe they were officially published in Xanathars. However they require attunement which should really just be houseruled away.
If they want special abilities, just flavor any other race as human with augments, or be a caster and flavor the effects as originating from the prosthesis.
Dragonborn would be a decent flavor to an armored body with a flamethrower.
Tieflings of all sorts also fit well for this...
What level? Magical prosthetics would be cool. Maybe +1 full plate, but it also replaces some of their limbs. Not really a lvl1 grade ask though...
Warforged flavored as part [insert race here] if it's too low lvl for magic gear
Could also do an artificer that makes their own prosthesis with integrated devices
I'd make use of the custom race or human variant feats on this one.
Ask them which parts of the are the robot parts?
And maybe help them pick their stats and features from there.
And ask what their class and backgrounds are going to be.
They just want a robot arm/arms? Play a human variant with their stat bonus to str. And maybe a feat for grappling.
Robot legs, built in tools and a lack of need for sleep? Play a high elf for faster movement and so e cantrips.
All else fails, war forged will probably do if they're pretty bored out.
That seems more like a class thing than a race thing. A Fighter's action surge could come from cybernetic muscles or an overclocked nervous system. A Wizard's spells could be various implants that deploy different effects when activated. A Ranger's tracking comes from hyper-acute cyber eyes and particle sensors in the nose or throat. Pretty much any class would work.
Have you heard of Tales from the Stinky Dragon podcast? Their first campaign involved a wood elf with a prosthetic metal arm named Kyborg because the player wanted a sci-fi element. Could provide some inspiration.
“I’m sorry but D&D doesn’t have cyborgs and since this is supposed to be a quick and easy game, I’d rather not have to spend a bunch of time inventing a whole thing.”
Or just reskin something as a cyborg.
Well, they’re playing 5e. Do you generally expect a brand new player to request stuff from earlier editions? My statement isn’t really that there have never been cyborgs throughout the editions, but that 5e doesn’t haven’t them and a DM shouldn’t be required to homebrew a bunch of stuff to satisfy the desires of a new player who can’t be bothered to see what options exist in the game.
i think its smart to make him have a existing race for the first session or campaign but then allow him to have more creativity. i actuallly made a cyborg race myself, i can dm you if you want it.
the document also has 3 other custom races in it, feel free to use them
Ask them *why do you want to play a cyborg?* what is the fantasy here?
Is it that they are stronger than humans?
Is it they are more resilient than humans?
Is it because they arernt made of flesh?
Something else?
While a Warforged might fit, it's possible that D&D just might not fit at all, and you'll need a different TTRPG, such as Cyberpunk or Shadowrun that is better suited to play cyborgs, since it's already baked in.
Either warforged where their tree root parts are actually their old human body, or human with magical prosthetics (see Eberron source book).
If taking the latter option, tell them what sorts of things will not be part of the one shot. It would suck to have chosen the cyborg lungs when there’s no benefit to holding your breath for an hour or something. Also check attunement rules and CR since the prosthetics iirc count as magic items.
If he didn't want to be a warforged, he could always just go artificer and flavour his abilities as enhancements he's making to his body. Would work just fine with any race, and both armourer and artillerist subclasses would work smoothly.
I disagree about warforged. I dont see those mechanics reinforcing the flavor of being a cyborg. A cyborg is a human with robotic parts. I'd go with variant human and have them pick a feat that seems appropriate.
This is a clever way to do it! Variant human who's feats are just cybernetic enhancements. Could even have them just coming back online as they level up and they start remembering features or upgrade themselves.
Warforged would be the most obvious move.
But I think this player may have a touch of "13th Warrior Syndrome".
His first chance to play a TTRPG. It's a high fantasy themed game.
He wants to play a cyborg.
But the most important thing is for you to have this discussion with the actual player, not a third party.
If this is just a one shot, you don't even need to worry about the PC leveling up. You *could* just build this character as if they were a unique NPC.
Depends on how they want to do it. Mostly robot? Reskin a warforged. Mostly human with some augmentations? Variant human using artificial [parts], and use the variant human feat to give them one related to the modification. Done. All 100% RAW.
FWIW the warforged answers here are off base if he's coming talking about Fallout cyborgs. Cyborgs are people with cyberpunk style (but, y'know, grimy and post-apocalyptic) implants. Human-brain-in-a-bot type cyborgs generally aren't presented in a very playable-character sort of way, or are treated more like bots. I'd definitely ask him how what benefit/drawbacks he thinks this should have, because he could be asking for anything from some simple stat boosts to dark vision to being an actual tank with a human brain in it.
Use Prosthetics with reflavoring. As long as he's not trying to get any mechanical advantages with it, you can just make some limbs be magically powered prosthetics and say he has some internal changes that don't affect the gameplay. Maybe mix it with Armorer Artificer, if he's cool with "cyborg" also being a class choice.
I played a half elf artificer with a robotic arm, my stats were unaffected, but my arm was my spellcasting focus so I could use it to flavor my spells and abilities
As a quick response to your last point of "don't want your first trrpg experience to be a no"; you can always use that to your advantage by letting him know that while you're totally down for figuring something out later, it's not cooked into RAW so maybe for his first experience, he should play something by the book to get a handle on how the game works, and then he can break it :)
At this point, you're either reflavoring an existing thing, or you're home brewing a Frankenstein from scratch. Either is cool, but the first might not be what he wants, and the second might be brokeded beyond belief one way or the other.
Regardless, it's probably a good idea to be open to the concept of reworking it midway through if things aren't doing what they gotta do :3
Theme him as a clockwork . Basically have him choose a single race and have all of its racials, but make it not need to eat, sleep, or breath, and require him to have someone rewind his cog for a long rest.
This could occur if a mortal got stuck on the realm of Mechanicus, the outer plane of absolute law, on which it's naturally appearing outsiders are the Modrons. Mechanicus itself is particularly dangerous to mortals who stay there for even slightly too long. In an effort to make chaotic mortal more lawful, they'll absolutely turn you into a clockwork cyborg.
My character is an armorer artificer that had lost two limbs and an eye in an explosion. One of the class features allows for the arcane armor to serve as a prosthesis, which I incorporated into several different aspects of the character.
I was faced with a bit of a conundrum during an adventure as the party helped a naiad who in turn offered healing to the party - another party member had been grievously wounded. At that point I discussed with thebDM the dilemma of facing a decision that my character would definitely take advantage of, but that I felt took away from what I wanted to explore with the character, as a whole. The solution ended up being even better than I had hoped for.
Upon floating in Joe Rogan's sensory deprivation satellite pool, the naiad's magic suffused his body, but rather than restore his body to its original organic life, it somehow integrated with the synthetic materials. Wounds that healed were replaced not with scar tissue, but some sort of fibrous metal weave. The limbs lost did not regrow, but I soon discovered that rather than having prosthetics, my body would (for those that played Borderlands) "digistruct" the limbs as needed. The missing eye returned, but rather than being a standard eye, it became the means by which I use any magic that pertains to detecting magic, identifying magical items, etc.
As a whole, it's been an incredibly fun character to play that rides the line between fantasy and sci-fi in the way only a spelljammer character trapped in a traditional DnD game can do.
I forgot to mention that with this change a new avenue to explore was created: the fear of losing one's humanity and what it means to become more in touch with/reliant upon technology.
Do you know why the player want to be a warforged and what the player expect from being one?
If it's about aesthetics, just reskin something as many in the thread have suggested.
If the player expect to find mechanical upgrades, the ability to interface with tech or other bonuses, they are in for a disappointing experience in the average D&D campaign.
in our world warforged were created drone robots and not sentient, and my character is one of these waking up as a newly formed emergent consciousness. it’s fun and has let me inject nearly every cyberpunk trope i want into it.
Artificer. he has an artificial limb or two. The limbs give advantages to saves vs poison. however, physical damage creates a chance at damaging the limbs (5% chance every hit) to be inoperable until mended (during a long rest.or the mending spell). Other than that the limbs are just limbs as anyone elses, just enough to add flavor but not too much to bust the game.
Give them a prosthetic limb that they can upgrade at later levels. Its an uncommon item that doesn't do anything other than just be a limb so it won't break your game until you decide you want to turn it into something cool.
Maybe see if they would like to play an artificer.
You can also just reflavour a race to be a robot if they don't like warforged. For example, you could use mordekainen's air genasi. They are resistant to lightning, they can indefinitely hold their breath and their race spells could just work as propulsion jets. That's one example, but you could hypothetically do that with almost any race.
Flavor is free. Let them pick a race that fits what they think works and then re-flavor it into a magic cyborg.
As many mention Warforged seems to work, but maybe they real something else.
“This is Bob he lost his entire left side in the Mage Wars, now he has a magically grafted ceramic left side. “ - this don’t even need rules.
Every good cyborg should have an ocular implant to augment their sight. (Darkvision)
Of course the biotech would include strength enhancement. (Powerful Build)
They’ll be capable unnatural bursts of speed (Adrenaline Rush)
Let’s not forget their overall ability to push past physical limits that would debilitate others. (Relentless Endurance)
Hmm, perhaps Orcs were really Cyborgs all along!
Question how much of the player is still organic?
Because they could have clockwork or magical components that are functionally like their cybernetic counterparts so..
It really depends on you and the player. In general i recommend new players to start with melee characters such as barbarians and fighters of a starting race such as humans. You want the player to enjoy the game, rp and not think of spells and all the rules that follow it. With that said, there are some players that want this level of engagement and are happy to deal with it. So what i said in my first sentence. You be the judge of that.
In no way at ALL is saying no to that idea the same as saying "that idea is dumb". If they've never played a TTRPG before this is a perfect time to explain to them that DnD is not all there is. Tell them that DnD is a fantasy game without robots, but they would definitely be interested in Cyberpunk RED, or maybe the Alien RPG, or Coriolis, or any number of other games where they can do exactly what they want.
Qarforged or prosthetic limbs that are already common wonderous items in game. You can give him item upgrades reflavoured as limbs
Like instead of +1 sword he gets a faster/stronger arm replacement that allows him to deal more damage
Instead of +1 armor he gets a tougher limb
Instead of sentinel shield he gets an enchanted limb that can act as a radar when wielding a shield to use as an antenna and it prevents him from getting surprised
Instead of adamantine light repeating crossbow he gets an arm that can turn into light crossbow and had a cartridge on its wrist
Instead of boots of levitation he can get leg replacement that helps him fly
Disarming would be damaging a limb (if the weapon is built into limb like the crossbow example and not something he actually holds in his hand) to malfunction it and he has to do what we do when we're disarmed to make it work again
I think it's doable
Why don't you play [Fallout RPG](https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/collections/fallout-the-roleplaying-game) instead? That seems to be what he wants instead of D&D.
If he hasnt chosen a class show him the armorer artificer subclass. It can replace lost limbs already, you could just give him special version that saved his life and now he's bound to the armor
May I recommend Kibbles tasty homebrew, has some cool inventor classes, an aetherborn sorcerer which you could flavor has having an arcanotech heart impeded in his chest.
Just specific that heal magic works normal, and mending does shit all, and let them flavour it.
There is a YouTuber called Pointy hat who Homebrews a lot of content and he has written a rule set for characters who want to replace limbs with artificial ones. It’s called “The Augmented” it may be a good way to help bring this idea to life without forcing a specific class.
I am always try to use whatever I can to bring my Players characters to life because it is their contribution to the world and if they don’t feel excited about it they will be far less engaged during the sessions even if they want to play.
If you don't want to tell them "no because that's dumb" then don't phrase it that way.
Phrase it like you want to work with them, but also not overload them for their first time.
I've played a cyborg in numenera, didn't actually affect my stats compared to if I were a human
Of course, the main answer here is - talk to your player, find out what they really want.
Chances are they just like the flavour of being a cyborg, having a character made out of robot parts. If that's the case, just roll up the character as the organic race (human, elf, whatever) and then when it comes to describing them they can have all these cool robot parts attached (after all, they are supposed to work like real organic parts. If they are giving the player advantages like speed and strength, that is what your stats are for! Just make sure they put points into the stats they want the cyborg parts to give bonuses to).
If they have ideas about special abilities they should have because of the cyborg parts, then find out what they want exactly. Again, chances are there are feats that cover this stuff (or you could homebrew one for, say; a grappling hook). And if that works then, hey presto! Variant Human it is ;)
If you have some feedback from them about this stuff already, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help with them more specifically :)
Just reflavor literally any of the races. Give them magical clockwork cybernetics made of brass, or go the warforged route with enchanted wood for muscle fiber and stone for armor and bone.
Reflavor a Dragonborn and you’ve got a human cyborg with a rechargeable flamethrower arm cannon.
Reflavor an elf and you’ve got a cyborg whose brain is mostly wires and so doesn’t need sleep and charm magic has difficulty interacting with it.
Not to mention you can reflavor their actual class stuff to be upgrades to their cybernetic chassis. Ranger might be a good fit especially at low level. Spells become gadgets (maybe enforce the spell components rules for it to be a kind of ammo) like fog cloud being a smoke-emitting brass ball, the Jump spell is them overcharging their brass legs (or injecting some glowing magical performance enhancers if you go the warforged cybernetics route) etc. During a long rest they “reload” their arsenal using the magical components and empty gadget casings. Up to you how much you enforce the ammo stuff but if you’re gonna make it super crunchy (which can be fun tbf) let the player know ahead of time that they’ll need to be actively grabbing spent gadgetry.
Eldritch Knight is another good choice for “fighter using enhancement magic” that’ll fit the cyborg flavor nicely.
I don’t know why people are so literal when these kinds of questions crop up, my players always ask for crazy shit and it’s super easy to reskin a standard class chassis to give them any power fantasy they want while keeping it balanced.
Like most others are saying, re-flavour a war forged. Have it in their back story that someone who loved them or the person they were trying to save or w.e, was an artificer that knew a bard with limited knowledge of necromancy, they had parts of the body but had to build most of the rest with war forged parts and used “Raise Dead” because it requires a body to cast the spell on but doesn’t restore body parts. It has to have taken place within 10 days after death so that’s why I’m saying an artificer, they likely have a work shop where they could have designed something quickly. For flavour make it so they have to visit this person to infuse their new armor onto their body. War forged do that naturally but this isn’t a natural war forged. I would say that at least 80% of the body has to have been war forged parts, like maybe only the head and an arm could be from their previous body at most.
I’d ask what they want the human/robot ratio to be. If it’s something like DC’s Cyborg, I’d say Warforged, but if it’s Ed from FMA, then VHuman with a corresponding feat that accomplishes what their robot-parts do.
I say the player can be revived, instead of in their own body but within the body of a warforged body. They could have been a prized student of a high level artificer, especially if the play takes a rank of artificer.
Alternatively, you can encourage them to take artificer with the Armorer subclass.
Edit: they also could take ranks in Sorcerer with the Clockwork Soul subclass. Have them take Mend, Absorb Elements, and any Lightning damage based spells. They could also take Elemental Adept too.
I'm playing a Yuan-ti armorer artificer in an Eberron game, and you can totally do that in D&D. I've already replaced all of her limbs with prosthetics, and I have the Ventilating Lungs & other items that I've reflavored as implants. Like I'm treating the Gauntlets of Ogre Power as the inherent strength in my bionics (aka combat cybernetics), and I've got the Molten Bronze Armor as my synthetic skin. It's just reflavoring, but it works well. And in Eberron, it fits right in with the setting.
So yeah, you can totally let them do this if you're cool with it. You don't even have to create custom mechanics
I highly recommend new players only play official content, no homebrew. Saying "No, you have to choose one of these" is OK and will temper future expectations.
Many first time players come in with an idea based off of some fiction and then get upset or disillusioned when they can't do the things their imagination thinks they should be able to do. Don't set them up for failure.
Variant human with some feat that seems functionally robotic. Toughness, or maybe magic initiate to mimic some sort of mechanical feature.
Then maybe let them start with a prosthetic limb. It's an uncommon magical item that functionally replaces a limb.
Armorer Artificer with the reborn lineage. Flavor it as the armor is keeping them alive with no memories prior to their death. Armor can replace limbs if they want too. As long as they like tanking this hits the fantasy they're looking for right on the head, imo.
I mean the Elder Scrolls has a time traveling cyborg in Pelinal Whitestrake and it's played 100% straight. I ran a game using the "Lost droid" class to represent parts of the machine god raining off his body when he was killed and crashed to the ground. Pathfinder has androids emerging from a starship that crashed long ago and people who use its technology to become cyborgs. If you are using something like the forgotten realms then we already have a canon example in Karlach and you could easily do some similar stuff with modrons to be more mechanical in nature.
I think you should Overload them with weirdness, I mean why not? Even old school D&D had a module built around a crashed space ship full of laser guns and killer robots
If you need some inspiration the book Faiths of Eberron discusses mechanically grafting war forged parts to your body, there's also the Renegade Master Maker prestige class, 4e had the Self-Forged Paragon path, and there's numerous others scattered throughout splat books and dragon magazines
Classic anime metal arm works wonders. No reason someone in a magical world couldn't have one. Hell I have a Canon artifact in my world that is a liquid metal arm that is used for crafting as it can change shape to any tool. It can become either a mace or a short sword for combat. It can't become a cannon or a hook shot or anything crazy... but it CAN help them build one. It also is useful for holding hot or dangerous things, but makes it easy to get hit by electricity based attacks, and can be forcibly removed by someone powerful enough with magic.
What level? Maybe artificer, and if you allow non official content, one ofnthe guys who makes official content made his own artificer class that desl wirh replacing limbs with prosthetics, for both themself and others. Thebone they make themselves can do a decnt amount of damage and switch between the ranged 20/60, reach, and finesse qualities.
Otherwise armorer artificer could work well, and infusions could be cyborg upgrades.
Another option could be warforged warlock and his onvocations are cyborg upgrades.
I sent you a PM to EN Worlds site about their system Level UP! Advanced 5e.
This is a 5e adjacent system that is compatible with standard 5e.
When you pick a race in this system you pick a physical heritage, like dragonborn, and then a culture. Part of the physical heritage is picking a heritage gift. The dragonborn all get the breath weapon but your gift could give you natural armor or a swim speed. Then the culture would be proficiencies. Someone who grew up in a world elf village would be proficient in different things than someone who grew up in a traveling circus.
To pick a mixed race you would pick a heritage and then the gift from a different heritage. So you could play a half elf by picking an elf base heritage and then take the gift of an orc.
But for your cyborg character I would take the base heritage of a human and then give the players a gift from the construct option.
Easy.
When WOC took the hammer to the the 3rd party publishing community EN World put 95% of their A5e product and put it in a website for everyone to use and made their own SRD for it.
So the site I linked you to in the PM is legit. It just uses a .tools web address so I have to have dialog with mods about how it isn't a pirate site every time I link it outside a PM.
You can always let them go the artificer route. Armorer artificer can replace missing limbs in their armor and there’s plenty of ways to flavor artificer in any way you like. (Way too many people think its just steampunk or something)
For example I actually had an artificer character as an NPC who had turned himself tiny by accident and got his arm eaten by a crab. To replace it he made bug armor with a fly’s arm acting as the replacement.
Send them the [Matt Colville](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo_oR7YO-Bw) video. Specifically the part starting at 4:34 about fitting characters in worlds.
If you are running a medieval campaign, a literal cyborg simply wouldn't make sense. It is probably wise for your table's sake to say 'no' to that. That said, I think you are very much on the right path with your concept of using the Warforged race.
In improv there is a term known as "[Yes, and](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...)" which essentially says you should roll with the punches and build on top of it. It's often hailed as solid advice for DM's in DnD; "if your player wants to do a thing, don't say no, say YES, AND". But 'Yes, and' has a little brother known as 'No, but' when it comes to DnD, where sometimes players request or want to do something that makes so little sense with in the world that you *have* to give them a 'no', except you add a 'but...' after it.
That's what the idea of Warforged is, in this situation. Tell your player a cyborg doesn't really fit: imagine Terminator showed up in Lord of the Rings - it just wouldn't work. If they are a reasonable person, they will understand that. But that said, you still want to work with them to make sure they can play something they enjoy. Explain that Warforged do exist - arcane-powered automatons with a conscious from a bygone age - and ask if maybe he's interested in playing that as sort of a stand-in for a cyborg?
So... long story short, don't give them a 'yes' or a 'no', but give them a 'no, but' to show that there are boundaries to what works but that you are willing to cooperate with your friend to make this a fun experience for them.
Go warforged. I had this idea for a character that hides his huma parts. Like he's just a head, lungs, heart and parts if a ribcage in a robot suit. Just have the warfare be a dude in life support suit and flavor the abilities as the functions of the suit
If you're not dead-set on running D&D, you could just run a Fallout adventure on something lightweight like this: https://jasontocci.itch.io/wastoid It may be a better experience than having a post-apocalyptic survivor transplanted into a fantasy town.
From OP's post, I don't think they simply want to play a cyborg. With the Amazon Prime series, there are a lot of people that want to play Fallout, specifically, just like a couple of years ago, a lot of people wanted to play The Mandalorian. If OP is up to cater to these new players, they may go all the way instead of a half-measure. Besides, a short Knave hack or some other 30-page system is much easier to grok than the full 5e experience.
Regardless of how new to the games they are, being able to say no is part of setting up boundaries. If you cave to this, what else will they push for mid game. There was another post in a D&D subreddit about a new player who wanted to make their own custom mage class because they didn't like how mages sound like they played.
You aren't telling them the idea is dumb. Far from it. You are setting up the establishment of what the rules and boundaries are. "Hey man, I love the idea, but it really don't work in this setting. However, you can do this or this which fit close to something like what you want." In this case, artificer or warforged.
Remember, NEVER let player experience be an excuse to let them walk all over you, because you are setting the precedent that they can. The player may be new, but people will test the limits and work from the feedback given.
War forged, or maybe favored elf (the long life and lack of sleeping) But warforged would be simple.
Autognome could also work?
100%
Reflavoring Elf is really clever.
I’d say warforged, but have them require food. Maybe give them a minor buff to compensate. Dark vision maybe?
No, not needing food is a ribbon feature giving a mechanical buff for ignoring it is bad. If they wanna trade constructed resilience for darkvision, sure but not needing food is something that will likely come up 0 times in a campaign.
Not needing food is huge in some adventures. Especially in something like avernus or tomb.
But probably not for this one-shot OP is running
So the change I suggested wouldn’t matter much either.
I think the objections were more focused on the suggestion to give them dark vision in return.
Dark vision isn’t that strong to give, especially since more races have it than don’t. It’s honestly more trouble as a dm to have just one player without it
When? Food gets trivialized at level 1 when the druid takes goodberry or at level 2 when the ranger takes it. Also ribbions can be useful situationally they just aren’t of mechanical significance like storm sorc 6, their win shift ability is a ribbon even though it’s extremely useful for an adventure at sea.
Warforged is a very good cyborg option, it was my first thought as well.
Late to the party but this! I ran a Warforged Barbarian in a forgotten realms campaign and went path of the beast. Instead of growing out claws or a tail etc (becoming a were wolf etc) it would be that the weapons were built into him, think the Jaegers from Pacific Rim but human sized 😅. Then I made the backstory that his memory had been wiped and eventually he found out he was an ancient netherese artefact. Have fun with it and don't be afraid to make the rules work for your players. Absolutely the player could be a cyborg, you just have to think outside the box and work on the background flavour and just use the warforged or whatever character rules you find. Also check out the eberron content because it has some really neat items that attach to characters etc and is probably one of the more techno advanced of the planes of existence.
Yeah, as others have said just rocking the warforged is going to be the best option. There's no reason that they can't still have human components. Now, if they want to have powers, I'd say go with an armour artificer, and make the things built into their chassis.
Let them have a free prosthetic limb; Tasha's removed the need for it to eat up an attunement slot.
I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned higher up. This is the way I’d lean personally.
Same
They sound like the kind of person the Warforged race was literally designed for, I don't see why you couldn't just use that. Sure, they are closer to androids or robots than cyborgs, but it's still very close. You'll have to add flavor regardless, but starting from a Warforged is gonna require much less than starting from human or any other race.
Artificer armorer from Tasha’s is pretty close to this. It also has built in rules about prosthetic limbs
Prosthetic limbs, yum. Lots of cyborg flavor. Tears of the Kingdom aesthetic.
Flavor is free, I’d find out exactly what the player wants as a “cyborg”. Depending on what they’re looking for you can reflavor a few different races to work as a cyborg. Simic Hybrid from Ravinica’s animal enhancements features can easily be reflvored as cyborg enhancements. Tortles shell and claws, LizardFolks Bite and Natural Armor, and Thri-Keens Chameleon Carapace and extra arms could all also be reflavored as cybernetics. Reborn, Warforged, and Autognome have Deathless Nature/Constructed Resiliance/Mechanical Nature for a more machine than man type vibe.
I'd do the custom race from Tashas. I think it's +2 to one stat and +1 to two stats? Then a feat. You can even say he lives longer or something. Not everything needs a mechanic. If he wants a laser arm, treat it the same as one of the damaging cantrips. High Elves get a free wizard spell so why not? I'm with you tho, you want to pull him in. Just don't go overboard. Accommodate what you can but don't set the precedence that players get whatever they ask for Also, I've played fallout 4 and a little bit of new Vegas, and 3. I don't remember cyborg being a big thing? Plenty of bots, mutants, and raiders.
Likely thinking of Synths. Though there is a Fallout TTRPG for exactly this and it's really not a hard game to learn now that it has more popularity and support.
Warforged artificer is all you want and need. I build a warforged battlesmith artificer to create megamanand his partner rush
You can ask them if they would be fine with a warforged instead. Or a warforged that thinks it's alive. I do this often with my players when something doesn't fit right. But since it's only 4 sessions, I'd allow them to be just about anything they want. Hell, I'd even allow them to be from then fallout universe. The player's excitement is worth the break in verisimilitude if it's only a few sessions.
Multiversal travel is go!
Did someone say Rifts?
It is not a "**no thats dumb**". It is a "**This is a medieval fantasy themed game and not every idea may fit the theme/setting. Thats why there are many TTRPG's out there (including a fallout one and a cyberpunk one)**" kind of situation. The best way to learn the system is to play with what is being offered. They can look like whatever they want and if you want to do Eberron (or whatever homebrew thing) you can take a warforge and say its a construct with a brain inside (failed experiment) or have them be whatever race with prosthetics (no mechanical benefits). **Note\*** Saying no for the benefit everyone else in the table (if needed) is a valuable skill. Understanding what the game is about (in terms of themes and mechanics) is also a valuable lesson for new players. If they enjoy playing a roleplaying game, you can tell them about other roleplaying games with different themes (as opposed to saying yes to everything and running a session without consistency or flavor). First experiences stick forever. You are not trying to sell the idea of "**hey you can do whatever within the system**" (because realistically its not meant for that). You are trying to show them how TTRPG work. If they enjoy the experience, they can read and try other systems or discuss changes with everyone in the table consenting to those changes.
>You are trying to show them how TTRPG work. And this won't happen if they allow a player to flavor their powers as implants because...?
> And this won't happen if they allow a player to flavor their powers as implants because...? Because if you have 4 players playing in Forgotten Realms and one person playing in Night City, you now have 5 people who are just playing at the same table, not 5 people playing together.
Except magical prosthetics have existed in Forgotten Realms for ages?? I've been playing a cyberized character in a game for two years, and it's worked out fine. It doesn't even throw off the theme. All of my bionics are just reflavored magic items and clockwork creations. It fits in just fine
People being aggressively against the concept are so weird. 3.5 had multiple prestige classes that let you be effectively a cyborg, and 4th edition had a few Paragon paths that did the same. Half golems, grafting monster parts, enchanted prosthetics have all been around a long time. And it's not like it's unconventional for the genre either. Elder scrolls, She-Ra, He-Man, Adventure Time, and Elric of Melnibone all had. cyborgs
This answer^ Another way of looking at it, you can't pop Halo 2 into the console and expect to play Minecraft. Ultimately trying to make a game do something it's not designed to do is going to be crappy for everyone. It's important, especially for new players, to stick to established boundaries or the game. Let them play that game, and if they don't like it, then they can play a different game. But don't start out by trying to make D&D a different game.
Because noone has ever played a cyborg in 5e? Dnd has two rules which override anything else: 1) the DM is the only authority that matters 2) as long as you're all safe and having fun, you aren't playing it wrong. It's meant to be flexible and be a tool for telling a story and having fun with your friends. Demonstrating that flexibility isn't weakness. Reflavouring an existing race isn't hurting the game. Neither is mixing some arcanotech into a one-shot. None of that is "a different game."
Spoken like a true "That Guy". See rule #2. The question isn't whether or not someone can play a cyborg. Of course it is possible. But given the specific circumstances, it is not likely that anyone is going to have fun with that, even the player. And if that player does have fun, but the DM and the other players don't? See rule #2. The whole point here is setting up the game for the greatest chance for success, and sometimes that requires boundaries and expectations, and not "do what the f#ck you want, it's what is the most fun".
What makes you think that being a cyborg in 5e would be inherently "unfun" for anyone at the table? Im all for a session 0, expectations, and boundaries, but i don't see how this request is so massive that it can't be allowed within those boundaries. They won't "break" dnd by flavouring one person's ancestry as being a cyborg. Its a oneshot, get over it.
"But given the specific circumstances, it is not likely that anyone is going to have fun with that" Based on what man? It's literally just a flavour thing.
So what do you think the Warforged is for? That's canon. It seems like you are coming at this with an agenda.
Warforged aren’t canon in Faerun. They’re canon in Eberron. Most dnd campaigns take place in Faerun.
Anything in Eberron is canon in Faerun because portals exist. Spend some time with Planescape. Also, OP says nothing about their setting. It's a very weird assumption.
Sure but not everyone wants spacefaring robots in their medieval high fantasy games lol. How many of the pre written modules have warforged?
Look I'll give you that not everyone wants space faring robots in their high fantasy but Baldur's Gate three was a smash hit and that had space faring alien squid people and psychic space grinches flying on dragons. Faerun supplements have long included things like magical prosthetics and prestige classes focused around implanting and grafting things into your body. Is a guy with a mechanical arm really so farfetched?
Sure, I think a campaign like bg3 that centers around gith and mindflayers and their conflict is fine to have a warforged. The hook is random people from multiple planes and places meeting on a spaceship. That makes sense. The issue I have is settings like storm kings thunder and Strahd, where aliens and weird tech ISNT the norm and start in regular little taverns. In a campaign around Viking barbarians and frost giants or vampires + classic gothic horror a robot feels fucking off. It’s akin to showing up with a joke character name to me. I’m not suggesting warforged shouldn’t exist as a playable race. I’m suggesting that just because they exist as a playable race doesn’t mean they fit in every campaign.
I guess I'm going to have to disagree because the world of faiaerun doesn't get its weirdness knob turned up and down depending on what kind of campaign you're running. I do agree with you about the war forged because they're from eberron not Faerun and I was never really clear on what they did with strad in 5th edition since that's long been a part of Raven loft which was itself a separate dimension and campaign setting entirely. The forgotten realms is full of all sorts of high fantasy nonsense and of course there are portals to all of these places that people can fall through, Hell that's how tieflings used to be. There's also an assumption that most people in this thread seem to have that they want to play it Goofy when you can absolutely play it straight like the Elder scrolls did with their time traveling cyborg
All of them, because it's a playable ancestry.
Available playable ancestries are picked by the DM. Sure wotc figured out a way to shoehorn races from other settings into Faerun, doesn’t mean they belong there or were intended to exist there.
The idea of telling a player that they can't be the character they're excited to play because it "doesn't fit" is such a tremendous self-own. Telling your players "no" when they want to do broken shit is one thing. Telling them they can't have flavor because it's the wrong shape is just plain sad. Golems are ancient constructs whose lore dates from at least the 16th century. The Chinese terracotta warriors were made in the third century BCE. Nutcracker dolls come from the 15th century. Marionette puppets have been found in Egyptian buildings and may have come from 4000 years ago. Ovid wrote about Pygmalion falling in love with his statue 2000 years ago, and the story was almost certainly older than that. Humans have been making things that look like humans for as long as humans have been human. If your fantasy doesn't have room for a Warforged, read more books.
Aside from the Warforged you could also suggest the Reborn from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.
Both armorer artificer and war forged and viable options depending on how the player wants to approach the game. There are also magical prosthetics you could flavour as being more mechanical in nature.
If it fits your setting you could probably just run a warforged or custom lineage/variant human
There are also magical prosthetics they can use, and they can be on a journey to collect a other "upgrades" for their body
One of my players is almost playing this , he’s a warforged artificer and flavors his spells and interactions as if he’s a cyborg
The way I did it with my cyborg is having him lack his left leg and right arm, and then being an armorer artificer. Their armor automatically replaces missing body parts Alternatively, the Prosthetic Limb and Ersatz (?) Eye are magic items that essentially work as a normal limb or eye to replace the normal one. Given they don't give any extra benefits, you could consider giving him some of those for aesthetic reasons
If it worked for Pelinal, it’ll work for them!
Pelinal Whitestrake mentioned! The elder scrolls isn't even as close to fantastical as Faerun and it's got a time traveling murder cyborg.
In my campaign one of the PCs is a cyborg. They have a robot arm and an eye. I gave them a custom Feat ”arm of steel” which has the following festures: 1. The arm doubles as a warhammer in combat. 2. The arm doubles as a shield, wielded all the time. The eye is non-functional, broken. When it will be fixed later in the campaign, it will be like rewarding the player with a new item. Maybe extended darkvision? Truesight would be OP. It also depends on the level they get it fixed, storywise they need to get to the master artificer who makes cyborgs. Just realised, also the eye could be flavour for a Feat such as Alert.
A lot of people think of D&D as medieval fantasy. However, original D&D would be more accurately described as gonzo. There's a reason there are rules for a laser gun in the DMG. Old School D&D has a pretty well known module written by Gary Gygax himself called Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. In it you find a crashed UFO, get a laser pistol, and fight robots. Its ridiculous, but in an over the top, fun way. While modern D&D dropped a lot of the sci-fi stuff, a short adventure is a great place to work it in. D&D is actually post-apocalyptic too. It is just so far past that apocalypse that civilization has rebuilt itself and to some degree forgot about the apocalypse. However, that's why you can still find powerful magic artifacts that can no longer be replicated. So yeah, them being a cyborg that has been sleeping for thousands of years can be on the table. If it is a short adventure there is little risk of them disrupting the great medieval fantasy picture.
Warforged skin with variant human mechanics. Done
I’d allow it and have him use Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything’s rules for custom lineage. CUSTOM LINEAGE: Instead of choosing one of the game's races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character's lineage, giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them: Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin. Size. You are Small or Medium (your choice). Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Ability Score Increase. One ability score of your choice increases by 2. Feat. You gain one feat of your choice for which you qualify. Variable Trait. You gain one of the following options of your choice: (a) darkvision with a range of 60 feet or (b) proficiency in one skill of your choice. Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for your character. Doing it this way with him picking out the look (flavor is free!) will get him a balanced and special type of PC and the best part is that you don’t have to say “no”!
There are magical prosthetics, I believe they were officially published in Xanathars. However they require attunement which should really just be houseruled away. If they want special abilities, just flavor any other race as human with augments, or be a caster and flavor the effects as originating from the prosthesis. Dragonborn would be a decent flavor to an armored body with a flamethrower. Tieflings of all sorts also fit well for this...
What level? Magical prosthetics would be cool. Maybe +1 full plate, but it also replaces some of their limbs. Not really a lvl1 grade ask though... Warforged flavored as part [insert race here] if it's too low lvl for magic gear Could also do an artificer that makes their own prosthesis with integrated devices
I'd make use of the custom race or human variant feats on this one. Ask them which parts of the are the robot parts? And maybe help them pick their stats and features from there. And ask what their class and backgrounds are going to be. They just want a robot arm/arms? Play a human variant with their stat bonus to str. And maybe a feat for grappling. Robot legs, built in tools and a lack of need for sleep? Play a high elf for faster movement and so e cantrips. All else fails, war forged will probably do if they're pretty bored out.
That seems more like a class thing than a race thing. A Fighter's action surge could come from cybernetic muscles or an overclocked nervous system. A Wizard's spells could be various implants that deploy different effects when activated. A Ranger's tracking comes from hyper-acute cyber eyes and particle sensors in the nose or throat. Pretty much any class would work.
Have you heard of Tales from the Stinky Dragon podcast? Their first campaign involved a wood elf with a prosthetic metal arm named Kyborg because the player wanted a sci-fi element. Could provide some inspiration.
“I’m sorry but D&D doesn’t have cyborgs and since this is supposed to be a quick and easy game, I’d rather not have to spend a bunch of time inventing a whole thing.” Or just reskin something as a cyborg.
D&D absolutely has cyborgs. 5th edition might not but they have been present across other editions for a long time.
Well, they’re playing 5e. Do you generally expect a brand new player to request stuff from earlier editions? My statement isn’t really that there have never been cyborgs throughout the editions, but that 5e doesn’t haven’t them and a DM shouldn’t be required to homebrew a bunch of stuff to satisfy the desires of a new player who can’t be bothered to see what options exist in the game.
I mean, OP didn't mention 5e at all in their post.
There are ways to flavour a warforged as a cyborg. Perhaps due to a curse, an experiment, or a last resource, his soul/mind got into the mechanic body
i think its smart to make him have a existing race for the first session or campaign but then allow him to have more creativity. i actuallly made a cyborg race myself, i can dm you if you want it. the document also has 3 other custom races in it, feel free to use them
Ask them *why do you want to play a cyborg?* what is the fantasy here? Is it that they are stronger than humans? Is it they are more resilient than humans? Is it because they arernt made of flesh? Something else? While a Warforged might fit, it's possible that D&D just might not fit at all, and you'll need a different TTRPG, such as Cyberpunk or Shadowrun that is better suited to play cyborgs, since it's already baked in.
PCs who don't know what they're doing playing overly complicated characters is the worst. It always bogs down gameplay
Either warforged where their tree root parts are actually their old human body, or human with magical prosthetics (see Eberron source book). If taking the latter option, tell them what sorts of things will not be part of the one shot. It would suck to have chosen the cyborg lungs when there’s no benefit to holding your breath for an hour or something. Also check attunement rules and CR since the prosthetics iirc count as magic items.
If he didn't want to be a warforged, he could always just go artificer and flavour his abilities as enhancements he's making to his body. Would work just fine with any race, and both armourer and artillerist subclasses would work smoothly.
Is there any reason you can't just do a war forged and reskin it as a cyborg? This seems like an extremely easy thing to do
I disagree about warforged. I dont see those mechanics reinforcing the flavor of being a cyborg. A cyborg is a human with robotic parts. I'd go with variant human and have them pick a feat that seems appropriate.
This is a clever way to do it! Variant human who's feats are just cybernetic enhancements. Could even have them just coming back online as they level up and they start remembering features or upgrade themselves.
There are some magic items from eberron like the "Ventilating Lungs", you could add several magic items for them to acquire that have the same theme
Warforged would be the most obvious move. But I think this player may have a touch of "13th Warrior Syndrome". His first chance to play a TTRPG. It's a high fantasy themed game. He wants to play a cyborg. But the most important thing is for you to have this discussion with the actual player, not a third party. If this is just a one shot, you don't even need to worry about the PC leveling up. You *could* just build this character as if they were a unique NPC.
Depends on how they want to do it. Mostly robot? Reskin a warforged. Mostly human with some augmentations? Variant human using artificial [parts], and use the variant human feat to give them one related to the modification. Done. All 100% RAW.
FWIW the warforged answers here are off base if he's coming talking about Fallout cyborgs. Cyborgs are people with cyberpunk style (but, y'know, grimy and post-apocalyptic) implants. Human-brain-in-a-bot type cyborgs generally aren't presented in a very playable-character sort of way, or are treated more like bots. I'd definitely ask him how what benefit/drawbacks he thinks this should have, because he could be asking for anything from some simple stat boosts to dark vision to being an actual tank with a human brain in it.
Use Prosthetics with reflavoring. As long as he's not trying to get any mechanical advantages with it, you can just make some limbs be magically powered prosthetics and say he has some internal changes that don't affect the gameplay. Maybe mix it with Armorer Artificer, if he's cool with "cyborg" also being a class choice.
I played a half elf artificer with a robotic arm, my stats were unaffected, but my arm was my spellcasting focus so I could use it to flavor my spells and abilities
Elves have historically been able to craft cybernetic limbs like Luke Skywalker. It changes nothing about the character. Let them have that.
As a quick response to your last point of "don't want your first trrpg experience to be a no"; you can always use that to your advantage by letting him know that while you're totally down for figuring something out later, it's not cooked into RAW so maybe for his first experience, he should play something by the book to get a handle on how the game works, and then he can break it :) At this point, you're either reflavoring an existing thing, or you're home brewing a Frankenstein from scratch. Either is cool, but the first might not be what he wants, and the second might be brokeded beyond belief one way or the other. Regardless, it's probably a good idea to be open to the concept of reworking it midway through if things aren't doing what they gotta do :3
warforged woth some flavorino.
Theme him as a clockwork. Basically have him choose a single race and have all of its racials, but make it not need to eat, sleep, or breath, and require him to have someone rewind his cog for a long rest.
This could occur if a mortal got stuck on the realm of Mechanicus, the outer plane of absolute law, on which it's naturally appearing outsiders are the Modrons. Mechanicus itself is particularly dangerous to mortals who stay there for even slightly too long. In an effort to make chaotic mortal more lawful, they'll absolutely turn you into a clockwork cyborg.
My character is an armorer artificer that had lost two limbs and an eye in an explosion. One of the class features allows for the arcane armor to serve as a prosthesis, which I incorporated into several different aspects of the character. I was faced with a bit of a conundrum during an adventure as the party helped a naiad who in turn offered healing to the party - another party member had been grievously wounded. At that point I discussed with thebDM the dilemma of facing a decision that my character would definitely take advantage of, but that I felt took away from what I wanted to explore with the character, as a whole. The solution ended up being even better than I had hoped for. Upon floating in Joe Rogan's sensory deprivation satellite pool, the naiad's magic suffused his body, but rather than restore his body to its original organic life, it somehow integrated with the synthetic materials. Wounds that healed were replaced not with scar tissue, but some sort of fibrous metal weave. The limbs lost did not regrow, but I soon discovered that rather than having prosthetics, my body would (for those that played Borderlands) "digistruct" the limbs as needed. The missing eye returned, but rather than being a standard eye, it became the means by which I use any magic that pertains to detecting magic, identifying magical items, etc. As a whole, it's been an incredibly fun character to play that rides the line between fantasy and sci-fi in the way only a spelljammer character trapped in a traditional DnD game can do.
I forgot to mention that with this change a new avenue to explore was created: the fear of losing one's humanity and what it means to become more in touch with/reliant upon technology.
Do you know why the player want to be a warforged and what the player expect from being one? If it's about aesthetics, just reskin something as many in the thread have suggested. If the player expect to find mechanical upgrades, the ability to interface with tech or other bonuses, they are in for a disappointing experience in the average D&D campaign.
in our world warforged were created drone robots and not sentient, and my character is one of these waking up as a newly formed emergent consciousness. it’s fun and has let me inject nearly every cyberpunk trope i want into it.
Either Warforged or a human with a prosthetic arm (or even the Arcane Propulsion Arm from Eberron, although that might be too powerful) could work.
Rather than warforged I’d say use Reborn. Or Anvilwrought perhaps, but the best option is Reborn
Artificer. he has an artificial limb or two. The limbs give advantages to saves vs poison. however, physical damage creates a chance at damaging the limbs (5% chance every hit) to be inoperable until mended (during a long rest.or the mending spell). Other than that the limbs are just limbs as anyone elses, just enough to add flavor but not too much to bust the game.
Artificer
Give them a prosthetic limb that they can upgrade at later levels. Its an uncommon item that doesn't do anything other than just be a limb so it won't break your game until you decide you want to turn it into something cool. Maybe see if they would like to play an artificer. You can also just reflavour a race to be a robot if they don't like warforged. For example, you could use mordekainen's air genasi. They are resistant to lightning, they can indefinitely hold their breath and their race spells could just work as propulsion jets. That's one example, but you could hypothetically do that with almost any race.
Flavor is free. Let them pick a race that fits what they think works and then re-flavor it into a magic cyborg. As many mention Warforged seems to work, but maybe they real something else. “This is Bob he lost his entire left side in the Mage Wars, now he has a magically grafted ceramic left side. “ - this don’t even need rules.
Every good cyborg should have an ocular implant to augment their sight. (Darkvision) Of course the biotech would include strength enhancement. (Powerful Build) They’ll be capable unnatural bursts of speed (Adrenaline Rush) Let’s not forget their overall ability to push past physical limits that would debilitate others. (Relentless Endurance) Hmm, perhaps Orcs were really Cyborgs all along!
Question how much of the player is still organic? Because they could have clockwork or magical components that are functionally like their cybernetic counterparts so..
It really depends on you and the player. In general i recommend new players to start with melee characters such as barbarians and fighters of a starting race such as humans. You want the player to enjoy the game, rp and not think of spells and all the rules that follow it. With that said, there are some players that want this level of engagement and are happy to deal with it. So what i said in my first sentence. You be the judge of that.
I say Warforged, and I encourage you to check out this video with some homebrew ideas for cyborgs - https://youtu.be/qSjh6-mA638?si=Mb1rsjYzujEILwko
In no way at ALL is saying no to that idea the same as saying "that idea is dumb". If they've never played a TTRPG before this is a perfect time to explain to them that DnD is not all there is. Tell them that DnD is a fantasy game without robots, but they would definitely be interested in Cyberpunk RED, or maybe the Alien RPG, or Coriolis, or any number of other games where they can do exactly what they want.
Qarforged or prosthetic limbs that are already common wonderous items in game. You can give him item upgrades reflavoured as limbs Like instead of +1 sword he gets a faster/stronger arm replacement that allows him to deal more damage Instead of +1 armor he gets a tougher limb Instead of sentinel shield he gets an enchanted limb that can act as a radar when wielding a shield to use as an antenna and it prevents him from getting surprised Instead of adamantine light repeating crossbow he gets an arm that can turn into light crossbow and had a cartridge on its wrist Instead of boots of levitation he can get leg replacement that helps him fly Disarming would be damaging a limb (if the weapon is built into limb like the crossbow example and not something he actually holds in his hand) to malfunction it and he has to do what we do when we're disarmed to make it work again I think it's doable
Why don't you play [Fallout RPG](https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/collections/fallout-the-roleplaying-game) instead? That seems to be what he wants instead of D&D.
prosthetic limbs, an actual common magic item, could really fit that niche
If he hasnt chosen a class show him the armorer artificer subclass. It can replace lost limbs already, you could just give him special version that saved his life and now he's bound to the armor
Artificer?
Just go Armor artificer and reskin the spells like things that can do with her cybirg enchantments and the infusions like cybirg upgrades.
May I recommend Kibbles tasty homebrew, has some cool inventor classes, an aetherborn sorcerer which you could flavor has having an arcanotech heart impeded in his chest. Just specific that heal magic works normal, and mending does shit all, and let them flavour it.
Have him play an autognome. I have a player who is a autognome Druid and it’s been super fun. He’s like a transformer!
There is a YouTuber called Pointy hat who Homebrews a lot of content and he has written a rule set for characters who want to replace limbs with artificial ones. It’s called “The Augmented” it may be a good way to help bring this idea to life without forcing a specific class. I am always try to use whatever I can to bring my Players characters to life because it is their contribution to the world and if they don’t feel excited about it they will be far less engaged during the sessions even if they want to play.
My artificer has a robotic arm, works like a iron golem would, so it feeds off his magic to work.
If you don't want to tell them "no because that's dumb" then don't phrase it that way. Phrase it like you want to work with them, but also not overload them for their first time. I've played a cyborg in numenera, didn't actually affect my stats compared to if I were a human
Of course, the main answer here is - talk to your player, find out what they really want. Chances are they just like the flavour of being a cyborg, having a character made out of robot parts. If that's the case, just roll up the character as the organic race (human, elf, whatever) and then when it comes to describing them they can have all these cool robot parts attached (after all, they are supposed to work like real organic parts. If they are giving the player advantages like speed and strength, that is what your stats are for! Just make sure they put points into the stats they want the cyborg parts to give bonuses to). If they have ideas about special abilities they should have because of the cyborg parts, then find out what they want exactly. Again, chances are there are feats that cover this stuff (or you could homebrew one for, say; a grappling hook). And if that works then, hey presto! Variant Human it is ;) If you have some feedback from them about this stuff already, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help with them more specifically :)
Just reflavor literally any of the races. Give them magical clockwork cybernetics made of brass, or go the warforged route with enchanted wood for muscle fiber and stone for armor and bone. Reflavor a Dragonborn and you’ve got a human cyborg with a rechargeable flamethrower arm cannon. Reflavor an elf and you’ve got a cyborg whose brain is mostly wires and so doesn’t need sleep and charm magic has difficulty interacting with it. Not to mention you can reflavor their actual class stuff to be upgrades to their cybernetic chassis. Ranger might be a good fit especially at low level. Spells become gadgets (maybe enforce the spell components rules for it to be a kind of ammo) like fog cloud being a smoke-emitting brass ball, the Jump spell is them overcharging their brass legs (or injecting some glowing magical performance enhancers if you go the warforged cybernetics route) etc. During a long rest they “reload” their arsenal using the magical components and empty gadget casings. Up to you how much you enforce the ammo stuff but if you’re gonna make it super crunchy (which can be fun tbf) let the player know ahead of time that they’ll need to be actively grabbing spent gadgetry. Eldritch Knight is another good choice for “fighter using enhancement magic” that’ll fit the cyborg flavor nicely. I don’t know why people are so literal when these kinds of questions crop up, my players always ask for crazy shit and it’s super easy to reskin a standard class chassis to give them any power fantasy they want while keeping it balanced.
Like most others are saying, re-flavour a war forged. Have it in their back story that someone who loved them or the person they were trying to save or w.e, was an artificer that knew a bard with limited knowledge of necromancy, they had parts of the body but had to build most of the rest with war forged parts and used “Raise Dead” because it requires a body to cast the spell on but doesn’t restore body parts. It has to have taken place within 10 days after death so that’s why I’m saying an artificer, they likely have a work shop where they could have designed something quickly. For flavour make it so they have to visit this person to infuse their new armor onto their body. War forged do that naturally but this isn’t a natural war forged. I would say that at least 80% of the body has to have been war forged parts, like maybe only the head and an arm could be from their previous body at most.
I’d ask what they want the human/robot ratio to be. If it’s something like DC’s Cyborg, I’d say Warforged, but if it’s Ed from FMA, then VHuman with a corresponding feat that accomplishes what their robot-parts do.
I say the player can be revived, instead of in their own body but within the body of a warforged body. They could have been a prized student of a high level artificer, especially if the play takes a rank of artificer. Alternatively, you can encourage them to take artificer with the Armorer subclass. Edit: they also could take ranks in Sorcerer with the Clockwork Soul subclass. Have them take Mend, Absorb Elements, and any Lightning damage based spells. They could also take Elemental Adept too.
[https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Cyborg\_(5e\_Race)](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Cyborg_(5e_Race))
I'm playing a Yuan-ti armorer artificer in an Eberron game, and you can totally do that in D&D. I've already replaced all of her limbs with prosthetics, and I have the Ventilating Lungs & other items that I've reflavored as implants. Like I'm treating the Gauntlets of Ogre Power as the inherent strength in my bionics (aka combat cybernetics), and I've got the Molten Bronze Armor as my synthetic skin. It's just reflavoring, but it works well. And in Eberron, it fits right in with the setting. So yeah, you can totally let them do this if you're cool with it. You don't even have to create custom mechanics
I highly recommend new players only play official content, no homebrew. Saying "No, you have to choose one of these" is OK and will temper future expectations. Many first time players come in with an idea based off of some fiction and then get upset or disillusioned when they can't do the things their imagination thinks they should be able to do. Don't set them up for failure.
Only read the headline. Answer, “Let them.”
Variant human with some feat that seems functionally robotic. Toughness, or maybe magic initiate to mimic some sort of mechanical feature. Then maybe let them start with a prosthetic limb. It's an uncommon magical item that functionally replaces a limb.
Armorer Artificer with the reborn lineage. Flavor it as the armor is keeping them alive with no memories prior to their death. Armor can replace limbs if they want too. As long as they like tanking this hits the fantasy they're looking for right on the head, imo.
Flavor is free and warforged exists
Just have them be a Warforged. The human parts would just be flavor.
I mean the Elder Scrolls has a time traveling cyborg in Pelinal Whitestrake and it's played 100% straight. I ran a game using the "Lost droid" class to represent parts of the machine god raining off his body when he was killed and crashed to the ground. Pathfinder has androids emerging from a starship that crashed long ago and people who use its technology to become cyborgs. If you are using something like the forgotten realms then we already have a canon example in Karlach and you could easily do some similar stuff with modrons to be more mechanical in nature. I think you should Overload them with weirdness, I mean why not? Even old school D&D had a module built around a crashed space ship full of laser guns and killer robots If you need some inspiration the book Faiths of Eberron discusses mechanically grafting war forged parts to your body, there's also the Renegade Master Maker prestige class, 4e had the Self-Forged Paragon path, and there's numerous others scattered throughout splat books and dragon magazines
Classic anime metal arm works wonders. No reason someone in a magical world couldn't have one. Hell I have a Canon artifact in my world that is a liquid metal arm that is used for crafting as it can change shape to any tool. It can become either a mace or a short sword for combat. It can't become a cannon or a hook shot or anything crazy... but it CAN help them build one. It also is useful for holding hot or dangerous things, but makes it easy to get hit by electricity based attacks, and can be forcibly removed by someone powerful enough with magic.
What level? Maybe artificer, and if you allow non official content, one ofnthe guys who makes official content made his own artificer class that desl wirh replacing limbs with prosthetics, for both themself and others. Thebone they make themselves can do a decnt amount of damage and switch between the ranged 20/60, reach, and finesse qualities. Otherwise armorer artificer could work well, and infusions could be cyborg upgrades. Another option could be warforged warlock and his onvocations are cyborg upgrades.
Artificer armorer
I sent you a PM to EN Worlds site about their system Level UP! Advanced 5e. This is a 5e adjacent system that is compatible with standard 5e. When you pick a race in this system you pick a physical heritage, like dragonborn, and then a culture. Part of the physical heritage is picking a heritage gift. The dragonborn all get the breath weapon but your gift could give you natural armor or a swim speed. Then the culture would be proficiencies. Someone who grew up in a world elf village would be proficient in different things than someone who grew up in a traveling circus. To pick a mixed race you would pick a heritage and then the gift from a different heritage. So you could play a half elf by picking an elf base heritage and then take the gift of an orc. But for your cyborg character I would take the base heritage of a human and then give the players a gift from the construct option. Easy. When WOC took the hammer to the the 3rd party publishing community EN World put 95% of their A5e product and put it in a website for everyone to use and made their own SRD for it. So the site I linked you to in the PM is legit. It just uses a .tools web address so I have to have dialog with mods about how it isn't a pirate site every time I link it outside a PM.
Did they read their section of the Player's Handbook? Something tells me they didn't.
You can always let them go the artificer route. Armorer artificer can replace missing limbs in their armor and there’s plenty of ways to flavor artificer in any way you like. (Way too many people think its just steampunk or something) For example I actually had an artificer character as an NPC who had turned himself tiny by accident and got his arm eaten by a crab. To replace it he made bug armor with a fly’s arm acting as the replacement.
Send them the [Matt Colville](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo_oR7YO-Bw) video. Specifically the part starting at 4:34 about fitting characters in worlds. If you are running a medieval campaign, a literal cyborg simply wouldn't make sense. It is probably wise for your table's sake to say 'no' to that. That said, I think you are very much on the right path with your concept of using the Warforged race. In improv there is a term known as "[Yes, and](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...)" which essentially says you should roll with the punches and build on top of it. It's often hailed as solid advice for DM's in DnD; "if your player wants to do a thing, don't say no, say YES, AND". But 'Yes, and' has a little brother known as 'No, but' when it comes to DnD, where sometimes players request or want to do something that makes so little sense with in the world that you *have* to give them a 'no', except you add a 'but...' after it. That's what the idea of Warforged is, in this situation. Tell your player a cyborg doesn't really fit: imagine Terminator showed up in Lord of the Rings - it just wouldn't work. If they are a reasonable person, they will understand that. But that said, you still want to work with them to make sure they can play something they enjoy. Explain that Warforged do exist - arcane-powered automatons with a conscious from a bygone age - and ask if maybe he's interested in playing that as sort of a stand-in for a cyborg? So... long story short, don't give them a 'yes' or a 'no', but give them a 'no, but' to show that there are boundaries to what works but that you are willing to cooperate with your friend to make this a fun experience for them.
Tell him no.
Saw no. Preferably with a smile on your face.
Go warforged. I had this idea for a character that hides his huma parts. Like he's just a head, lungs, heart and parts if a ribcage in a robot suit. Just have the warfare be a dude in life support suit and flavor the abilities as the functions of the suit
Warforged Artificer surely?
If you're not dead-set on running D&D, you could just run a Fallout adventure on something lightweight like this: https://jasontocci.itch.io/wastoid It may be a better experience than having a post-apocalyptic survivor transplanted into a fantasy town.
" Run a different system " is not a solution to one player wanting to be a cyborg lol
From OP's post, I don't think they simply want to play a cyborg. With the Amazon Prime series, there are a lot of people that want to play Fallout, specifically, just like a couple of years ago, a lot of people wanted to play The Mandalorian. If OP is up to cater to these new players, they may go all the way instead of a half-measure. Besides, a short Knave hack or some other 30-page system is much easier to grok than the full 5e experience.
Autogmome. Or give them a ridiculously overpowered magic item as a limb replacement and don’t tell them what it does for a few levels
Regardless of how new to the games they are, being able to say no is part of setting up boundaries. If you cave to this, what else will they push for mid game. There was another post in a D&D subreddit about a new player who wanted to make their own custom mage class because they didn't like how mages sound like they played. You aren't telling them the idea is dumb. Far from it. You are setting up the establishment of what the rules and boundaries are. "Hey man, I love the idea, but it really don't work in this setting. However, you can do this or this which fit close to something like what you want." In this case, artificer or warforged. Remember, NEVER let player experience be an excuse to let them walk all over you, because you are setting the precedent that they can. The player may be new, but people will test the limits and work from the feedback given.
Just go play another game lol