Incarnum

[Das Platyvark]

I just got Magic of Incarnum, and was surprised at how bad the classes seem. For instance, The Incarnate. d6 hit die, poor base attack bonus. Must be a caster. And yet he seems to have next to no decent abilities, unless he's evil. Similarly for the soulborn, though minus the evil=better. Am I missing something, or is the whole system just horrible?

[Veyr]

The system as a whole is excellent, actually.

Don't let the Incarnate's BAB and HD fool you: the dude is a tank and can get very high to-hit.

And the Totemist is an excellent Build-A-Monster workshop, and can get truly silly numbers of natural attacks.

Both also have lots of nifty little versatile options like teleporting, an at-will zombie, etc. etc. Both can get lots of skill bonuses, too.

The Soulborn, though, that one's awful.

[Lateral]

Totemists are great for natural attack builds, and their 3/4 BAB matters less with natural attacks since the secondaries are all at -5.

Incarnates are skillmonkeys, mostly, and they're pretty good at it. They can also make good tanks if you pump them right, though.

There is no such thing as a soulborn. The class you think you see there? That's your mind warping around part of the book. Pay it no heed. Okay, more seriously; Soulborn just suck. No ifs, ands, or buts.

[Jude_H]

I just got Magic of Incarnum, and was surprised at how bad the classes seem. For instance, The Incarnate. d6 hit die, poor base attack bonus. Must be a caster. And yet he seems to have next to no decent abilities, unless he's evil. Similarly for the soulborn, though minus the evil=better. Am I missing something, or is the whole system just horrible?
Incarnate can get some really big bonuses to certain things. Lawful Incarnates can get really high attacks, Evil Incarnates can get really high bonus damage, the other two get speed and AC, which nobody cares about. See this (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870566/Incarnate_by_the_numbers) thread for details. At low levels, Dissolving Spittle tears things up. At higher levels, attack soulmelds make it a decent close combatant and Vitality belt gives it some survivability.

Totemist is a damage and grappling machine. It has a lot of utility options, can make a lot of attacks at once and can get some pretty good bonus damage happening.

Soulborn blows chunks.

Edit:
That's not to say the system isn't horrible for all its bookkeeping/daily ability revisions/bonus type-tracking, just that characters who use it aren't necessarily horrible.

[MeeposFire]

Incarnates are the most deceptive class in the game I must admit though they are stronger than you think. Honestly they should have medium BAB though just to make their role more obvious and to make it easier on non lawful incarnates.

[Glimbur]

My favorite part about Incarnum is how it can be added to anything. Your tripping focused fighter has an extra feat? Sphinx Claws or Mauling Gauntlets can help you trip better. Taking too much ranged damage, especially ranged sneak attacks? Fellmist Robe provides convenient concealment. Energy resistance? There's a meld for that.

[Zaq]

That's not to say the system isn't horrible for all its bookkeeping/daily ability revisions/bonus type-tracking, just that characters who use it aren't necessarily horrible.

Incarnum is tons easier to keep track of than any prepared caster (and a few spontaneous casters, too). Just make cards to represent your melds, use beads or paperclips or something to represent essentia, and go from there.

Anyway, incarnum's probably my favorite sub-system in 3.5. You can do a hell of a lot with it. Every so often you'll run into a weird deficiency you just can't quite overcome without some effort, but the same can be said of anyone who's not a full caster. It does occasionally require some creativity to get the most use out of every meld every day, but in my mind, that's a feature, not a bug.

Also, Incarnates are incredibly hard to kill if you choose your melds carefully. Just make sure you don't hit Dwarven Defender Syndrome.

The ability to reinvent yourself every day with so little effort, though . . . it's beautiful, really.