Warforged (by DracoDruid)

Warforged Racial Traits
+2 Strength, +2 Intelligence , –2 Dexterity , –4 Charisma : Warforged were build as intelligent – and obedient – tools of war, but their strong frame is somewhat bulky and they suffer from a lack of personality.

Sentient Construct: Warforged are humanoids with the sentient construct subtype. Therefore, they can be affected by spells and effects that target both humanoids and constructs.

Medium: Warforged are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.

Slow and Steady: Warforged have a base speed of 20 feet, but their speed is never reduced by armor or encumbrance.

 Darkvision : Warforged can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

Artificial Body: Warforged bodies – unlike normal humanoid bodies – are made from metal, wood, crystals and stone. Therefore, warforged are immune to the conditions of bleeding, disease , nausea , poison , and sickened and have immunity to necromantic or death effects that require or target a living body (e.g. energy drain ), but are still subject to effects that target a living creature's spirit or soul.

However, the unusual physical construction of warforged makes them vulnerable to certain spells and effects that normally don't affect living creatures. A warforged is affected by  repel wood  and  repel metal or stone  and takes damage from  heat metal  and  chill metal as if wearing metal armor. The iron in a warforged body makes him vulnerable to  rusting grasp  or a rust monster's touch (both causing only half damage). Spells such as  stone to flesh ,  stone shape ,  warp wood , and  wood shape  affect objects only and thus cannot be used on the stone and wood parts of a warforged.

Composite Plating: The sturdy materials used to build a warforged provide a +2 armor bonus. This is not natural armor and does not stack with other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor). A warforged can wear additional armor (or robes) as usual, but doing so worsens the armor check penalty of any armor worn by an additional –1.

However, there exists a special type of armor especially designed for warforged. These so-called platings are always of masterwork quality and must be specially grafted onto the warforged (see below).

Any plating is treated as armor of equivalent type (e.g. a warforged with heavy plating is treated as wearing heavy armor) and occupies the same space on the body as a suit of armor or a robe, thus a warforged cannot wear additional armor or magic robes.

In addition, these platings can be made from special materials and can be enchanted just as normal armor can be.

Grafting or removing a plating requires a DC 20 Craft (armorsmith) skill check and 1 hour of work.

Deadly Fists: Warforged unarmed strikes inflict 1d4 points of lethal damage. A warforged can take a –4 penalty to his attack rolls to deal non-lethal damage instead. A warforged with the Improved Unarmed Strike feat does not suffer this penalty.

High Maintenance: Warforged cannot heal lethal damage, neither naturally nor by divine magic (negative conditions still can) and do not benefit from the Heal skill. However, warforged can be healed by arcane magic (see the repair damage spells) and repaired by certain Craft skills (as described in the ECS).

New to the Game: Warforged suffer a –2 racial penalty to Sense Motive skill checks.

Self-Sustained: Warforged do not eat, drink or breathe. Therefore, they are immune to the effects of starvation, suffocation and thirst. On the other hand, warforged have no sense of smell or taste, and they cannot benefit from the effects of consumable spells or magic items, such as  heroes' feast . A warforged can still use oils and potions as long as they don’t heal hit points by divine magic or mimic consumable spells.

Sink like a Rock: Warforged suffer a –4 penalty on Swim skill checks. Warforged do not have significant air pockets in their artificial bodies, and they lack buoyancy as a result. Since Warforged do not breathe, they will not drown and could just walk on the ground. However, warforged can still be crushed by deep sea pressure.

Stability: Warforged receive a +2 racial bonus to their Combat Maneuver Defense when resisting a bull rush, overrun or trip attempt while standing on the ground.

Tireless Soldier: Warforged do not sleep and are immune to the conditions of fatigue, exhaustion and to magical sleep and dream effects. They automatically succeed on any Constitution check to continue running or a forced march. In order to replenish their daily spells and abilities, a warforged still has to rest for 8 hours (this includes easy, unstressed walking with no more than a light load). However, a warforged barbarian is still fatigued after ending a rage and cannot enter a new rage until this condition is lifted as usual.

Undying: A warforged responds slightly differently from other living creatures when reduced to 0 hit points. A warforged with 0 hit points is disabled, just like any living creature. He can only take a single move action or standard action in each round, but strenuous activity does not risk further injury. However, when his hit point total is negative, but not equal to or greater than his Constitution score, a warforged is inert (instead of dying). He is unconscious and helpless, and he cannot perform any actions. However, an inert warforged does not lose additional hit points (unless more damage is dealt to him). A warforged, whose negative hit point total drops to or below his Constitution score, dies like any living creature. Finally, warforged do not age and are immune to aging effects or spells.

Unnatural: Warforged suffer a –4 racial penalty on Handle Animal skill checks and Wild Empathy checks.

Starting Languages: Warforged begin play speaking Common.

Alternate Racial Traits
The following racial traits replace existing warforged racial traits. Consult your GM before selecting any of these new options.

Nimble Build: Some Warforged were build for roles which require agility and dexterity over raw strength. Warforged with this racial trait neither receive a bonus to their Strength nor suffer a penalty to their Dexterity. Warforged with this trait may not choose heavy plating.

Design Commentary
I chose to drop the living construct subtype because it required the warforged to be a construct instead of a humanoid like every other (player) race. Because of this, Keith Baker/WotC had to write a bunch of "unlike other constructs..." abilities which were simply a clutter and a headache. This way, it is much easier to compare the warforged to the other races, but as you can see, it's still a bunch of abilities.

In addition, making the warforged both humanoids and constructs makes them somewhat less overpowered since now they can be affected by spells that only target humanoids too (like charm person ) and which wouldn't affect living constructs.

With all their conditional immunities warforged tend to be overpowered for a race without any level adjustments. I therefore added several penalties to make life for a warforged just a little harder.

Some might think that completely removing the ability to heal hit points by divine magic is too much, I want to add that they can be healed by the new (arcane) repair damage spells, which can be cast by both artificers and wizards/sorcerers. The healer role is therefore simply shifted from divine to arcane casters.