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Warforged have a lot of cool, useful abilities that would be nice to have for creatures that aren't strictly "warforged". But one thing I've never been a fan of is their Integrated Protection. In a system where full plate armor can be custom-fitted to fire giants and minotaurs, the fact that the moderately-bulky warforged is straight up unable to wear armor without integrating it into themselves seems silly.

But, if a homebrew race based on the E:RftLW warforged were to drop this ability, should they have some other sort of penalty to make up for how easy it is to now don/doff armors, or should they gain a bonus of some kind to make up for how easy it is for their armor to be removed (and possibly the removal of the +1 AC bonus?), or are the positives and negatives of Integrated Protection equal enough that the entire ability (or perhaps only the "you must integrate armor to wear it" restriction) could be removed, and the race would still be balanced without any further changes?

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The +1 AC bonus is the only important part and is obviously a benefit

The most significant part of the Integrated Protection feature is the +1 bonus to AC. A flat, stackable AC bonus is a quite powerful racial feature; it will always apply to your AC (unlike most other racial AC features that are overriden by armour) and your AC is extremely important in gameplay, since it matters every time you're targeted by an attack, and that will happen very frequently. The Detect Balance spreadsheet (a popular fan resource for those evaluating homebrew race balance) assigns a score of 8 points to a +1 AC bonus trait, which it considers to be "an unusually powerful feature", equivalent to a +2 ASI or advantage on a commonly used roll.

However, the other lines of the Integrated Protection trait are basically what are known as a "ribbon" in the commonly used design parlance. They are mostly irrelevant, since it will almost never matter how quickly you can put your armour on (especially for Warforged, who also don't really ever need to take their armour off once they're wearing it), and it would be extremely rare that someone tries to remove your armour against your will. These qualities might become relevant in some extremely specific circumstances, but the overwhelming majority of the time they simply don't matter. Thus they have almost no effect on gameplay, and can be removed without really affecting balance; they're a "ribbon" in the sense that they're basically just there for decoration.

If you were to just drop the armour-don/doffing mechanics from the trait and leave it as a flat +1 AC bonus, there would be no practical impact on the Warforged's balance (though it does make it a little less interesting as a race). However, if you remove the whole trait including the AC bonus, you should replace it with some other benefit to make up for it, since that AC bonus is very good.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything does have an optional rule about resting which suggests that if you sleep in medium or heavy armour as part of a long rest that should reduce the rest's effectiveness; if you use this optional rule, then the question of how quickly one can don and doff armour might be more significant in gameplay. However, an eight-hour long rest requires only six hours of sleep, leaving an hour on either side available to doff and don the armour (the trait specifically notes that Warforged can rest while doing this), so it usually would not matter.

Moreover, the optional rule specifically states that sleeping in armour is an issue, but warforged do not sleep; as per their Sentry's Rest feature, they can just stand conscious but inactive for six hours, so the rule strictly doesn't apply to them anyway. This optional rule does slightly improve the relative benefit of the Sentry's Rest trait, since it means the warforged can always be happily wearing their armour if their resting party is ambushed - on top of being awake and able to respond immediately. However, this is the case regardless of whether or not you are using the Integrated Protection rules, and has no impact on the balance of that trait.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I once played a game where the DM would insist everyone doff their armour at night (or have a chance of suffering exhaustion from uncomfortable sleeping in plate mail). Depending on the game, the time taken to Don or doff armour or some flavour to say your warforged is equally comfortable in armour could be much more than ribbon. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 9:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ @nick012000 fair point. Even if using that rule I don't think it matters much - I have added to my answer accordingly. \$\endgroup\$
    – Carcer
    Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 10:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ Wouldn't a much more relevant when using the optional rule be that you'll be wearing armor when ambushed while the rest of the party isn't? That would make it a decent benefit. \$\endgroup\$
    – Erik
    Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 10:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Carcer You're actually right, the XGtE variant rule for sleeping in armor applies to "a long rest during which you slept in medium or heavy armor". RAW this doesn't affect warforged at all since they don't sleep. (I guess this means that RAW it also doesn't affect elves, interestingly.) \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 11:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Erik yeah, this was what I meant as the benefit - the reason no one wanted to sleep without armour was because a night raid would then catch you with a much lower AC. Normally those rules aren't in place so it isn't an issue and everyone sleeps in armour without any repercussions \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 20:53

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