The Black Blood Totemist

[tuesdayscoming]

I admittedly know very little about the Magic of Incarnum, aside from that it can add some delicious cheesy dressing to a few builds (psycarnum infusion + midnight metamagic, I'm looking at you).

I've heard good things about the totemist. Specifically, that it gets a metric ton of natural attacks. The first thing that came to my mind was the Black Blood Cultist, whose level 8 ability allows you to deal damage with each and every natural attack every time you succeed on a grapple check.

Seems like a pretty lovely synergy to me, but the question of course is, can the totemist afford to give up so many levels? Just how viable is it to multiclass as an incarnum character? Would Totemist 12/Black Blood Cultist 8 be workable at all?

[Vulaas]

Having only read it and never played it, you will have to take my advice with a few salty grains, unfortunately.

However, it seems like the synergy is there, especially if there is a way for your character to gain Improved Grab, where you can really explode your number attacks per round.

[Keld Denar]

Um, there are some pretty notable break points in Totemist. 2, 8 and 11 are the big ones. What level are you shooting for primarily.

The biggest thing you can do is take Double Chakra Bind and bind Girallon Claws and with Landshark Boots or Lamia Belt to your Totem. This'll get you 4 top claws and 2 bottom claws. Its kinda debatable whether or not multiple soulmelds that give you clawed hands actually give you extra claw attacks, as most of them contain the language that you use the damage from one or the other, whichever is highest. Getting bottom claws, however, circumvents this whole arguement.

Other than that, look into Kraken Mantle. Its worded identical to Constrict, and Constrict is the paramount of any grappling build. If you can squeek in the extra feats, grab Martial Study (Mountain Hammer) and Martial Stance (Crushing Roots of the Mountain) for double constrict.

An idea might also be to splash in a little bit of Spirit Bear Totem Barb (CChampion) which give Improved Grab for free. It also opens up the Totem Rager PrC, and Cobalt Rage is VERY sexy.

[Cog]

The main problem with multiclassing Incarnum classes is that your soulmelds do have effective caster levels versus dispelling, dependent on your meldshaping class level, and with no boosts that I'm aware of. Like magic items, soulmelds are merely suppressed rather than ended, but that's still at least a round where you're not getting use out of them. It becomes a question of your campaign; if you run up against dispels that could knock out you melds frequently, then you want to keep your meldshaper level high, but if it's not something that happens much you're safer. Of course, by giving up shaper levels you're also giving up more essentia and more melds, which are exactly what give you the attacks you're using with Cultist.

I found a Cultist handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870826/Black_Blood_Cultist_Handbook:_A_Grapplers_Manual?p ost_id=338373822#338373822) that mentions Totemist as a strong entry, but it doesn't go into much depth.

[TroubleBrewing]

Consider Skarn as your race. +2 Str bonus and the Reptilian subtype (Which allows for a 1-level dip into Scaled Horror) for +0 LA? Sure, why not.