Martial Adepts and Incarnum

[Tokuhara]

I'm playing an Azurin Swordsage 5, going for the Reshar build w/ legacy champion and flaws. I have all of the required feats, but I need one feat still. I don't know what Incarnum feats are "good." I mean, Soulsight looked good to me, since I get Blindsense 1/day for 10ft, but I bet it's not as good as many would assume. I'm just dabbling into Incarnum, perhaps 1-2 feats over the total 20 levels. With an incarnum feat, I'll have 2 essentia I can pump into a feat

[Keld Denar]

Shape Soulmeld (Blink Shirt). 10' teleports all day long. Sure, it takes your standard action, so its not a HUGE combat option, although it is useful for getting out of grapples or force cages or webs or similar sticky situations.

[Tokuhara]

Shape Soulmeld (Blink Shirt). 10' teleports all day long. Sure, it takes your standard action, so its not a HUGE combat option, although it is useful for getting out of grapples or force cages or webs or similar sticky situations.

My DM doesn't understand Incarnum, but I may pick this up next feat I get. Is soulsight as good as I think it is?

[faceroll]

There's a Diamond Mind stance called Hearing the Air that gives you Blindsense 30' all day. Level 3, I believe.

Do swordsages get Diamond Mind?

[Tokuhara]

There's a Diamond Mind stance called Hearing the Air that gives you Blindsense 30' all day. Level 3, I believe.

Do swordsages get Diamond Mind?

I will, seeing as how I'm going to have IL 17 in all styles

[Tokuhara]

With Shape Soulmeld and Soulsight, I'll still need one feat (not including my Martial Study feat), so any further ideas?

[AmberVael]

My DM doesn't understand Incarnum, but I may pick this up next feat I get. Is soulsight as good as I think it is?

No. Soulsight is horrendous. Not only is it just 1/day, but it takes a move action, AND it has some limitations. You can do way better than Soulsight. Definitely go for the Diamond Mind stance instead.

[testpatternmih]

What about Lightning Gauntlets? Can you initiate strikes with them?

If so, doing touch attacks with strikes like GIS, Healing Strikes, or anything where you want the effect more than the extra weapon damage.

[Darrin]

Shape Soulmeld (Blink Shirt). 10' teleports all day long. Sure, it takes your standard action, so its not a HUGE combat option, although it is useful for getting out of grapples or force cages or webs or similar sticky situations.

As a swordsage, can't he already Shadow Jaunt/Step/Blink all day?

As far as soulmelds go, if you're doing anything with Diamond Mind or using a lot of Concentration checks, I'd pick up Vitality Belt first (+4 morale bonus on Concentration checks).

I'd also be trying to work out how to add Thunderstep Boots (sonic damage + save vs. stun + Pouncing Charge) or Manticore Belt (flyby attack + standard action strikes? yes please!), although neither of those is all that effective with only 1 point of essentia.

If you're looking for something like lifesense, Landshark Boots bound to your feet chakra gives you a limited tremorsense 10' + 5'/essentia as a move action, and you can use that at will, but Hearing the Air doesn't cost any feats.

[tyckspoon]

No. Soulsight is horrendous. Not only is it just 1/day, but it takes a move action, AND it has some limitations. You can do way better than Soulsight. Definitely go for the Diamond Mind stance instead.

I.. don't think it's once/day. You can assign essentia to it 1/day, sure, but that's standard for Incarnum feats- you assign the essentia to them, and then it remains invested for the rest of the day. Which has to be mentioned, because the standard for soulmelds is that you can move the essentia around. The feat then goes on to say 'as long as essentia is invested you can activate this ability as a move action'. So.. it's at-will, as long as you can spare a move action. It's still pretty bad.

[Cog]

Tyckspoon is correct.

[AmberVael]

The wording on that one always confused me. I understand the idea of 1/day investment in incarnum feats (though it is kind of a weird restriction given the system), but the sticky party for me was how they phrased the rest of it. Always seemed to me like you'd invest it, it would last for a round, then fade away.

Should have been obvious that it didn't work like that.

All that said, yeah, it's still bad. Don't spend your move actions to gain limited blindsense.

[Tokuhara]

So what 3 should I pick so I can have sufficient Essentia

[Keld Denar]

Well, if you take Shape Soulmeld (a feat that doesn't give you ANY bonus essentia), you could take Bonus Essentia which gives you +1 essentia, and +1 more essentia if you can shape soulmelds. Since the Shape Soulmeld feat gives you that, it gives you +2 essentia for 2 feats. You'll only have one place to put them, but then again, once you assign Essentia to a feat, you can't move it anyway, if you were gonna use one like Cobalt Powah.

[Draz74]

The feat Keld is thinking of is called Bonus Essentia, not Extra Essentia, IIRC.

[Hyfigh]

I think the Shedu Crown can give you Telepathy, though I think you actually need to bind it. This opens up Mindsight for many what would otherwise be mundane characters. It's a handy feat to have, and better (IMO) that blindsight...

[true_shinken]

I am a fan of Cobalt Expertise.

[MeeposFire]

It may not work for you but you could decide to undergo the process of becoming dragonborn and that can give you blindsense or just take draconic feats and draconic senses eventually gives you blind sense. Takes a number of feats so it may not be possible for you.

[Drglenn]

Shape Soulmeld for Rageclaws (or the other one that does the same, can't remember it's name offhand) seems pretty cool. Being active at negative HP and able to invest Essentia to increase the range of negative HP you can be at before you die.

[Vangor]

Shape Soulmeld (Strongheart Vest) is my favorite soulmeld depending on how often your DM attempts ability damage against you. With an Azurin, you can reduce any ability damage by 2, and with bonus essentia this is reduced by 4. No limit on the amount of times this can occur in a day, all attributes, any source, and multiple occurrences get their own reductions (such as poison initial and secondary damage). I love attribute reducers which are not permanent.

[Darth Stabber]

shape soulmeld options
Planar ward - Blocks mental control (like prot evil), and invested essentia adds to saving throws against outsider SU and SLA. If you rule that meld that are not changed each day are never unshaped than this = immunity to mind control.
Thunderstep Boots - adds sonic damage to charge attacks 1d4+1d4/essentia. If you gain the ability to bind it to you feet, it's effects are stunning (sorry couldn't resist)
Strongheart vest - been covered already, but still ability dr is hard to come by, and lots of dms enjoy messing up your stats (which can in theory turn off feat, and through feats turn off your neat prc abilities).
Necrocarnum Weapon - If you are evil this one is really nice. Evil aligns your weapon and essentia = bonus damage and bonus to confirm crits. Great fun if you are an evil tiger claw user.
Vitality Belt - if you use diamond mind save replacers, this gives you a +4 to saves. Honestly, this soulmeld makes combat casting and skill focus concentration useless (though you still need 13 con). The waist bind grabs you immunity to con drain and damage.
Impulse Boots - uncanny dodge, as a feet. Essentia gives bonus to reflex saves, bind to feet gives evasion.
Lightning gauntlets - 1d6+1d6/essentia lightning damage on a touch, not as great as it may seem, but if bound to your hands, you get to add that to one of your attacks each round, so not terrible if you can bind it.

[Darth Stabber]

Other incarnum feat options
Midnight dodge - if you absolutely need the feat dodge for your build, use this instead. You get an essentia, and you need never actually use the dodge part.

Cobalt power - nice little bonus to a lot of things meleers are inclined to do.

Cobalt charge - if you charge a lot, it might be worth it.

Honestly your best bet is to pick up shape soulmeld and ignore any of the other incarnum feats. If you were a spellcaster/psion I could argue otherwise, but the only incarnum feat I have ever taken on a nonspellcaster, nonincarnum class was midnight dodge, and that was only because I needed dodge for dread commando, so I thought I might as well make my shins glow.