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View Full Version : Mmmm......Souls......[Necrocarnate Fix]



TheGeckoKing
2011-04-10, 03:02 PM
Addendum;
Well, here I am, trying to fix the Necrocarnate. We all (should) know of its shortcomings. It progresses meldshaping slower than normal, refuses to give out essentia like a good PRC, and in return gives out a few "meh" abilities. And a super broken ability at level 1. Yeah, someone get the Fix Hammer, 'cause we have a broken nail. So, without any more delay, I give you..........

The Necrocarnate

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu89/Gecko-King/soul_eater_by_tahra-d390b3t.jpg

The souls of the dead, the living and the never-born are just that. Souls. I use them, and they happen to scream when I do. What's your problem? - Az'kazen Rel, a Necrocarnate

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Alignment: Any non-Good
Skills: Knowledge (Arcana) 5 ranks, Knowledge (Religion) 10 ranks
Feat: Necrocarnum Acolyte
Meldshaping: Ability to shape soulmelds, ability to bind soulmelds to the crown, feet, and hands chakras, including being able to bind the Necrocarnum Circlet to your Crown chakra.

Class Skills
The Necrocarnate's class skills are Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (the planes), Profession, Spellcraft, and Use Magical Device.
Skills Points at Each Level: 2 + int

Hit Dice: d6

The Necrocarnate
{table=head]Level|BaB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Meldshaping

1st|
+0|
+2|
+0|
+2|Meldshaping, Chakra Binds, Expanded Necrocarnum Capacity (+1), Harvest Soul (1 minute)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

2nd|
+1|
+3|
+0|
+3|King of the Dead Legion|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

3rd|
+1|
+3|
+1|
+3|Harvest Soul (Full-Round action)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

4th|
+2|
+4|
+1|
+4|Profane Shroud|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

5th|
+2|
+4|
+1|
+4|Expanded Necrocarnum Capacity (+2), Soul Harvest (Reaving Strike)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

6th|
+3|
+5|
+2|
+5|Expanded Legion (150%)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

7th|
+3|
+5|
+2|
+5|Soul Harvest (Aura of Soul-Leeching)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

8th|
+4|
+6|
+2|
+6|Expanded Legion (200%)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

9th|
+4|
+6|
+3|
+6|Soul Harvest (Legion of Collectors)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class

10th|
+5|
+7|
+3|
+7|Defy the Flow of Incarnum|+1 level of existing meldshaping class [/table]

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You gain no new proficiencies with weapons, armor, or shields.

Meldshaping: At each Necrocarnate level, you increase your meldshaper level, the number of soulmelds you can shape, the number of chakra binds you can create and your essentia pool, as if you had gained a level in a meldshaping class to which you belonged prior to gaining levels in Necrocarnate. You do not, however, gain any other abilities of that class. If you had more than one meldshaping class before becoming a Necrocarnate you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining your essentia pool, meldshaper level, and number of soulmelds and chakra binds available.

Chakra Binds: Levels in Necrocarnate stack with levels in the meldshaping class you are progressing with your Meldshaping class feature, to determine what chakras you have available to bind your soulmelds to.

Expanded Necrocarnum Capacity (Su): At 1st level, your understanding of how to utilize Necrocarnum allows you to better master its power. The essentia capacity of each necrocarnum meld you shape increases by 1. This increase stacks with the increase provided by the incarnate’s expanded soulmeld capacity.
At 5th level, your essentia capacity for your necrocarnum melds increased by a further 1, to a maximum of the normal essentia capacity +2.

Harvest Soul (Su): Beginning at 1st level, you can perform a short ritual to capture the soul energy of a newly dead corpse. This ritual requires 1 minute of uninterrupted concentration plus the corpse of a living creature that has been dead for no longer than 1 hour per necrocarnate level you possess. At the end of the ritual, you gain a number of essentia points equal to one-half your necrocarnate level (rounded up). This benefit lasts for 24 hours. No corpse can be used for this purpose more than once. You may not gain more essentia than one half of your normal pool of essentia (rounded up) in this way. If you would gain more essentia than your maximum limit because of this ability, you are instead healed a number of hit points equal to the amount of essential you would of gained. Alternatively, you may gain an equal number of temporary hit points instead.
At 3rd level, you can perform this ritual as a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity.
At 5th level, you automatically harvest the soul of any living being that you personally kill.
At 7th level, all living creatures that die within 100ft of you automatically have their souls harvested, as if you had used this ability on them.
At 9th level, any living creature killed by any of your Necrocarnum Zombies are automatically harvested for their souls.

King of the Dead Legion (Su): At 2nd level, you learn how to share out the Necrocarnum you channel, so that you can have more servants. From now on, you may animate as many Necrocarnum Zombies as you like, as long as their total Hit Dice does not exceed your Meldshaper Level. Also, you may treat the Necrocarnum Zombies you animate as being animated by Animate Dead, in order to apply the benefits of Corpsecrafter feats to your Necrocarnum Zombies.

Profane Shroud (Su): At 4th level, the Necrocarnum you channel leaves a lasting effect, with dark energies protecting you from harm. You gain a Profane bonus to your AC equal to 1/4th of your Necrocarnum levels.

Expanded Legion (Su): At 6th level, the amount of Necrocarnum Zombies you can animate increases to 150% of the normal limit. At 8th level, this increases to 200% of the normal limit.

Defy the Flow of Incarnum (Su): At 10th level, you can spit in the face of the reaper and bring yourself back to life as long as your servants persist.
If you would be killed, as long as you have at least one Necrocarnum Zombie animated at the time of your death (You must both be on the same plane of existance), when you die your conciousness is immediately shifted to the closest Necrocarnum Zomie you control. You gain the Necrocarnum Zombie's physical stats and any (Ex) abilities it might have, but you keep your mental stats and any class levels you might have. However, if your abilities are dependent on equipment (A Wizard's Spellbook, for example), you still need that equipment.
While you are in an undead form, you gain Undead Meldshaper as a bonus feat. Also, for any feat with the [Incarnum] descriptor or a feat that would grant bonus essentia, you may use your Wis score instead of your Con score for the sake of meeting the requirements.


---

Glimbur
2011-04-10, 03:24 PM
A good start. It still doesn't give access to higher tier binds, and without that about all you have is your zombies and the same old soulmelds with a point or two extra essentia capacity. It's tricky making an Incarnum PrC because if you get new tiers at specific levels in the class then you are stuck with either 0 or one PrC in order to keep opening new chakras at the expected rate.

Entry can happen after 2nd level if you burn two feats on Shape Soulmeld and another on Necrocarnum Acolyte (i.e. flaws and such are allowed.) Otherwise entry could happen after 3rd level. The cheapest entry in terms of feats happens after 7th level but you might stick it out in Incarnate until 9th to get the next tier of binds.

I could see a character using this but they would also make heavy use of Dissolving Spittle in order to have things to do in combat. Or UMD, or a few other tricks Incarnum can do. The half BAB hurts, but I can't justify increasing it without changing Incarnate as well which supposedly is ok as is.

TheGeckoKing
2011-04-10, 03:30 PM
Ah, it was supposed to allow access to higher level binds in the Meldshaping part. That's what I get for using copy pasta.
As for the early access, I shall fix that right away as I certainly didn't intend for someone to get in at 2nd.
Thanks for the critique, anyway.

Erik von Nein
2011-04-11, 02:09 AM
Awesome, thanks for posting. I'll look more into it later, but so far I like the expanded amount of Necrocarnate zombies.

EDIT: It's capstone ability most likely will cause you to lose your con score, so does that mean you're required to pick up the feat that lets you use your wis score in place of your con score for determining incarnum-related abilities?

Benly
2011-04-11, 03:44 AM
In addition to the undead meldshaper issue, I have one suggestion: allow harvested souls to be taken as temporary HP instead of healing if the necrocarnate wants to. Having necrocarnum zombies active effectively reduces your max HP, so being able to "fix" it with temp HP (or pay the animation cost out of temp HP in the first place) is a lot more useful to someone with a bunch of necrocarnum zombies than regular healing is.

TheGeckoKing
2011-04-11, 09:09 AM
Awesome, thanks for posting. I'll look more into it later, but so far I like the expanded amount of Necrocarnate zombies.

EDIT: It's capstone ability most likely will cause you to lose your con score, so does that mean you're required to pick up the feat that lets you use your wis score in place of your con score for determining incarnum-related abilities?

Oh. Your right. I can try to fix that, but it'll be a bit crude. Oh well.



In addition to the undead meldshaper issue, I have one suggestion: allow harvested souls to be taken as temporary HP instead of healing if the necrocarnate wants to. Having necrocarnum zombies active effectively reduces your max HP, so being able to "fix" it with temp HP (or pay the animation cost out of temp HP in the first place) is a lot more useful to someone with a bunch of necrocarnum zombies than regular healing is.

Ah, I see what you mean. I guess that works as another option.

Veyr
2011-04-11, 09:39 AM
I think it would be best to have the Essentia from Soul Harvest based on the HD of the creature slain, and that you only get Essentia from highest-HD soul you've used in a given day. That prevents abuse like killing a bunch of random animals to get your Essentia up.

Just say that you gain Essentia and an improvement to your Max HP equal to the HD of the highest-HD creature upon which you've performed the ritual that day, IMO.

Glimbur
2011-04-11, 12:25 PM
Oh. Your right. I can try to fix that, but it'll be a bit crude. Oh well.

I would throw in Undead Meldshaper as a free feat at first level. It costs a not very good feat to enter this class so giving out a niche feat is probably fine.

TheGeckoKing
2011-04-11, 12:32 PM
I think it would be best to have the Essentia from Soul Harvest based on the HD of the creature slain, and that you only get Essentia from highest-HD soul you've used in a given day. That prevents abuse like killing a bunch of random animals to get your Essentia up.

Just say that you gain Essentia and an improvement to your Max HP equal to the HD of the highest-HD creature upon which you've performed the ritual that day, IMO.

I think I prefer it the way it is, to just have a hard cap on how much you can have.


I would throw in Undead Meldshaper as a free feat at first level. It costs a not very good feat to enter this class so giving out a niche feat is probably fine.

Problem is, that means you'd have to be a Necropolitan or something. Anyway, you get the free feat once you've taken the plunge and become undead, so it should be alright.

Benly
2011-04-11, 12:37 PM
Well, as it stands there's nothing stopping a necrocarnate from sacrificing a few squirrels each morning to have his power-up fix for the day. So there's that.

On the other hand, you also don't really have "bag of rats" abuse - temporary HP don't self-stack and the bonus essentia is day-long and capped anyway, so the best you get is that rats are cheap healing. It's potentially handy, but less potent than, say, dread necro/Tomb-Tainted Soul.

Gideon Falcon
2011-04-14, 04:44 PM
Pretty good. I myself, though, thought that it was a very nice touch that they made the original a 13-level prestige class, seeing as it's, well, 13.