Strong Incarnate Builds?

[Yorae]

Looking for some good example incarnate builds - especially melee-oriented and/or any that also use psionics for midnight augmentation, psionic open chakra, etc, but really just any incarnate builds in general.

I've ready Sinfire Titan's guides, but there weren't actually any full builds in there other than a NG VoP incarnate -- there were others listed like they should have been there, but apparently they never got fleshed out.

[Zaq]

When you say "Good Incarnate," do you mean "good" as in "strong and useful," or "good" as in "NEUTRAL GOOD AND OPPOSED TO EVIL"?

[Yorae]

I mean good as in "strong and useful."

The actual alignment would probably be Lawful Neutral, since that seems to be the melee alignment for Incarnates, as it gives bonuses to attack. Evil gives damage bonuses in melee, so that may work as well. DM is flexible about changing which type of Incarnate gets which bonuses, as long as they are consistent (i.e., I could play a good character and use the lawful bonuses or the evil bonuses instead, but not mix-and-match).

Edit: Changed thread title to be less ambiguous.

[Big Fau]

The actual Incarnate handbook (not the general Incarnum handbook), also written by Sinfire, has an Archery build up.

[Yorae]

The actual Incarnate handbook (not the general Incarnum handbook), also written by Sinfire, has an Archery build up.

Right, that was the CN build I mentioned above.

Edit: So, I didn't actually mention that in the OP. Oops - thought I did. Looking for melee, though. =p

[Z3ro]

Posting a build of Incarnum is kind of pointless; the next day, you could switch up all your soulmelds and be a completely different archetype. If you're looking for a strong melee character, just go with the melee souldmelds. Incarnate weapon, bluesteel bracers, incarnate avatar, maybe crystal helm for AC boost. Pick up the obvious feats (Expand soulmeld capacity, bonus essentia), have a high con, and go to town.

[Yorae]

Posting a build of Incarnum is kind of pointless; the next day, you could switch up all your soulmelds and be a completely different archetype. If you're looking for a strong melee character, just go with the melee souldmelds. Incarnate weapon, bluesteel bracers, incarnate avatar, maybe crystal helm for AC boost. Pick up the obvious feats (Expand soulmeld capacity, bonus essentia), have a high con, and go to town.

Is that why I can't find any builds for them anywhere? Because they are so flexible? Not sure if that's a positive or a negative... seems like not being able to plan around doing specific things would make them unfocused and weak, though the general consensus seems to be that they aren't weak at all.

[Amphetryon]

Is that why I can't find any builds for them anywhere? Because they are so flexible? Not sure if that's a positive or a negative... seems like not being able to plan around doing specific things would make them unfocused and weak, though the general consensus seems to be that they aren't weak at all.

They aren't weak, or unfocused, on any given day. They can simply choose to change their focus based on anticipated challenges. Obviously, if they anticipate things that don't come to pass, they'll be somewhat less useful for that day.

Incarnates need to use feats to increase essentia and flexibility, and rely on their soulmelds to be their primary power source, whereas most other melee types need to rely on feats and equipment (and friendly spellcasters) for their power sources.

[kestrel404]

Is that why I can't find any builds for them anywhere? Because they are so flexible? Not sure if that's a positive or a negative... seems like not being able to plan around doing specific things would make them unfocused and weak, though the general consensus seems to be that they aren't weak at all.

That's kind of like saying that wizards are weak because their only real class feature is spellcasting, that they could have just any old spells memorized.

The thing that I really love about incarnum builds is that level of flexibility. So much so that I most often take a 2 level dip of Totemist whenever I make an incarnate.

It sounds like you want a Soul Manifester/Melee incarnate build. I've got a build for that handy - give me a bit and I'll post a modification.

[Yorae]

That's kind of like saying that wizards are weak because their only real class feature is spellcasting, that they could have just any old spells memorized.

The thing that I really love about incarnum builds is that level of flexibility. So much so that I most often take a 2 level dip of Totemist whenever I make an incarnate.

It sounds like you want a Soul Manifester/Melee incarnate build. I've got a build for that handy - give me a bit and I'll post a modification.

I see your point -- and that sounds like precisely the kind of thing that I'm looking for! Looking forward to seeing it. =)

[kestrel404]

And here's my favorite Soul Manifester build, with a slant towards making it a good melee figher.

Race: Dragonborn (heart) Mongrelfolk
Alignment: Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good
Attributes (before modifiers): Wis > Str > Int > Con > Dex > Cha (If your Int score is less than 12 after the -2 racial mod, you'll need to get more skill points from somewhere to make it into uncanny trickster. For point buy, scores of 16/8/14/14/16/8 work just fine)
Class: Ardent 1/Incarnate 1/Ardent +1/Totemist 2/Soul Manifester 10/Uncanny Trickster 3/Incarnate +1/Ardent +1
Note: Soul Manifester goes towards increasing Incarnate meldshaping. Uncanny Trickster class feature advancement goes towards increasing Soul Manifester levels. This means that you end up with Totemist 2/Incarnate 14 meldshaping and Ardent 15 (+4 ML) manifesting. Remember that as an Ardent you can choose any power that you're capable of manifesting (except for your first level) - so you can choose a 2nd level power at level 3, thus qualifying for Soul Manifester.

Feats: Azure Talent, Practiced Manifester, Psycarnum Infusion, Psycrystal Affinity, Psycristal Containment, Midnight Augmentation, Expanded Knowledge* or Extend Power

Mantles: The top three contenders here are probably Conflict, Freedom and Guardian. Given your massive con score, you're going to be tanking. The above three mantles make for a good mix of buffs, debuffs, utility and attack powers that should keep you useful while you soak up enemy attention. If you want a bit more in the way of attack power, Time and Creation both offer some very nice options.

Powers: Your power points are going to be a bit scarce, and your available powers even more so until you hit level 10. Fortunately, you'll have a lot of different soulmelds to fall back on, and your dragonborn breath weapon will give you and at-will ranged/area attack that's very nice. If the GM allows Ardent mantle power substitution, try to convince them that Bestow Power belongs in the guardian mantle - otherwise you'll need to spend a feat to pick it up. At 18th level, you'll be able to regenerate power points (at a rate of 1 per 3 rounds of activity, since you'll need to expend two psionic foci and use Bestow Power to do it) using the Psycarnum Infusion -> Midnight Augmentation -> Bestow Power loop (spending 5 pp to gain 6) to do it, but this will allow you to adventure all day without need to rest and recover. If you don't think you'll reach 18th level, feel free to choose different feats from 9th level on (psycarnum infusion is just too good to pass up, so keep that at least).

Soulmelds: You've got a lot to work with, considdering that by 6th level you'll have 6 soulmelds to work with (3 totemist and 3 incarnate). By 20th level, you'll have 10! soulmelds available (as opposed to a full incarnate, who usually only gets 9) and 5 chakra binds (to anything but heart or soul). I'm not going to go into detail on what's good here and what's not. There are guides for that.

Skill Tricks: To get into Uncanny Trickster, you'll need 4 skill tricks, and you'll get 3 more from the class. Actually making it into this PrC is a bit tough, but your one saving grace is that Totemist gets Spot, Listen and Ride as class skills. With Heal 5 from Ardent for Healing Hands, Collector of Stories from Know(Psi), Swift Concentration and Listen to This, you can make it into the class with only a few ranks in cross-class skills, plus the mandatory 8 skill points spent on skill tricks. Once you make it into uncanny trickster, you'll be getting 8+int skill point per level, with pretty much all the skills needed to get more skill tricks as class skills, so you can just choose 3 new skill tricks you like. I'd go with some mobility tricks, since the build is a bit lacking there.

That's all I've got. Hope that helps!

[Vandicus]

How strong a build are we talking here? The Necrocarnate PRC with essentia powered feats like Healing Soul and Azure Toughness is so powerful that a player should only use it if they decide to restrain themselves, but its also convenient in that its easily adjusted to party power levels without an overly complicated build.

[Big Fau]

Do remember that the above build only gets a ML of 2 on Totemist soulmelds, making them extremely vulnerable to being suppressed by Dispel Magic and its ilk. Ditching those levels would open up more Ardent for more Manifesting, or more Incarnate for better meldshaping (since the Ardent's ability to manifest powers can be increased without taking Ardent levels).


How strong a build are we talking here? The Necrocarnate PRC with essentia powered feats like Healing Soul and Azure Toughness is so powerful that a player should only use it if they decide to restrain themselves, but its also convenient in that its easily adjusted to party power levels without an overly complicated build.


The Necrocarnate is a terrible PrC whose only true purpose is Infinite HP/Essentia. It's strictly inferior to straight-Incarnate otherwise, and Totem Rager is a better choice for the Totemist.

[Yorae]

Kestrel's Build


Cool, thanks for the info!

Any neat tricks you can pull of with Psycarnum Infusion and/or Midnight Augmentation?

I suppose Tap Mantle could be useful here too. I do wonder if, for a melee character, Psychic Warrior couldn't replace Ardent (and drop Totemist)? You'd get into Soul Manifester a little later, since you can't use the neat Ardent trick ML trick to get 2nd level powers with two levels of the class, though.

[Vandicus]

The Necrocarnate is a terrible PrC whose only true purpose is Infinite HP/Essentia. It's strictly inferior to straight-Incarnate otherwise, and Totem Rager is a better choice for the Totemist.

Infinite HP/Essentia, NI saves, Cobolt charge for massive damage without any multiclassing, other forms of damage if multiclassing is used. Just like the Incantatrix is a terrible PRC whose only true purpose is powerful metamagic. The Necrocarnate does get its most relevant ability with a 1st level dip, although going for the crazy cheese is only possible within a functional amount of in game time with most of its levels.

[kestrel404]

Do remember that the above build only gets a ML of 2 on Totemist soulmelds, making them extremely vulnerable to being suppressed by Dispel Magic and its ilk. Ditching those levels would open up more Ardent for more Manifesting, or more Incarnate for better meldshaping (since the Ardent's ability to manifest powers can be increased without taking Ardent levels).

Indeed. However, I'm not suggesting using the totemist soulmelds as primary combat soulmelds - this isn't a natural attack build. Instead they should be used as supplementary, for things like Blink Shirt (at will teleportation for mobility), TMotC (for flanking immunity), etc. Basically, you choose your incarnate soulmelds, and maybe something that you really want bound to your totem chakra, and your totemist soulmelds are there to fill up the chakra that you weren't using anyway. As I said, I take that dip for versatility - a more focused build would use more incarnate or ardent levels (plus, without the totemist dip it's a LOT harder to get into uncanny trickster).


Any neat tricks you can pull of with Psycarnum Infusion and/or Midnight Augmentation?

Tons. They combo beautifully. Psycarnum Infusion is basically: Expend Psionic focus for +n essence when you really need it, with n scaling as you go up level. If you're going to be powering your totem chakra that round, always choose that one since you'll get more out of the deal.
Once you've got 2 foci to expend, taking the Midnight Augmentation feat is essentially: Get get a free point of essentia (always invest 0 into the feat at the start of the day) and N free augmentation PP towards all out-of-combat buffs. It's less useful in combat, since you'll probably want to expend those 2 psionic foci more carefully, and saving the PP probably isn't worth it.


I suppose Tap Mantle could be useful here too. I do wonder if, for a melee character, Psychic Warrior couldn't replace Ardent (and drop Totemist)? You'd get into Soul Manifester a little later, since you can't use the neat Ardent trick ML trick to get 2nd level powers with two levels of the class, though.

Psychic Warrior combos really well with Totemist because they're both natural weapon oriented. If you're going that route, go straight totemist. If you decide you want Incarnate or Soulborn soulmelds, you should have a few spare feats you can use to pick them up, and then they'll count as totemist feats for ML.

[Yorae]

Tons. They combo beautifully. Psycarnum Infusion is basically: Expend Psionic focus for +n essence when you really need it, with n scaling as you go up level. If you're going to be powering your totem chakra that round, always choose that one since you'll get more out of the deal.
Once you've got 2 foci to expend, taking the Midnight Augmentation feat is essentially: Get get a free point of essentia (always invest 0 into the feat at the start of the day) and N free augmentation PP towards all out-of-combat buffs. It's less useful in combat, since you'll probably want to expend those 2 psionic foci more carefully, and saving the PP probably isn't worth it.


All out of combat buffs? Do you get around the "once per day" limitation somehow?

[Big Fau]

Infinite HP/Essentia, NI saves, Cobolt charge for massive damage without any multiclassing, other forms of damage if multiclassing is used. Just like the Incantatrix is a terrible PRC whose only true purpose is powerful metamagic. The Necrocarnate does get its most relevant ability with a 1st level dip, although going for the crazy cheese is only possible within a functional amount of in game time with most of its levels.

NI Saves? From what? Necrocarnum Soulshield is usable 6/day, and only provides a bonus equal to the number of Necrocarnum Soulmelds you have shaped (which will be a maximum of +6).

And you still cannot bypass the limitations on investing essentia into a feat or soulmeld, so Cobalt Charge doesn't help. Never mind that you can't invest essentia extracted by your class features unless you extract them prior to even shaping your soulmelds.

Ahem:


Logical Entry: Incarnate 7

Cons: You need a full minute's worth of actions to use the Harvest Essentia ability until 17th level. The Necrocarnum Soulshield requires a Standard action to use, and is usable 6 times/day. It also has no listed duration. They could have just given it normal meldshaping advancement, instead of wasting text space spelling everything out. You end up losing a Soulmeld/day, and need to kill something with HD to even get Essentia. Oh, and you can only get 6 Essentia unless you drop something, and that essentia lasts until the end of your next turn. You don't get access to the Soul or Heart chakra until around 17th and 20th levels. You don't get the 2nd Expanded Soulmeld Capacity ability until 16th level, a level after the Incarnate.

The problem is that they have no essentia beyond their first few drops without killing something and taking a full minute to extract it. Until they get the Full Round action version, they are more or less strictly inferior to Incarnate levels. It draws attention, and if the DM doesn't allow you to kill off followers or easy-kill enemies, you can easily expect to lose out on essentia during the first encounter each day.

The Necrocarnum Zombie trick also works just fine with normal Incarnate levels. Necrocarnate only gives you a 2nd Zombie. The Necrocarnum Zombie isn't that powerful (capped at 20 HD, so incredibly vulnerable to Turn/Rebuke). -Sinfire Titan

Pros: You get an extra Necrocarnum Zombie. -Sinfire Titan

So unless you boil anthills every day, you have no Essentia until you kill something (extremely difficult to do when you are heavily restricted).

[kestrel404]

All out of combat buffs? Do you get around the "once per day" limitation somehow?

Hmm, on re-reading midnight augmentation, it appears I'm wrong - you can still only choose 1 power per day, even if you can still use Psycarnum Infusion to fill it at will (the 'you may not alter the amount of essentia invested' text applies to all incarnum feats, and is explicitly ignored by the Psycarnum Infusion's ability to max out the essentia invested in feats). So I guess you have to choose one thing per day. Ah well, Psycarnum infusion is still awesome.

[Vandicus]

NI Saves? From what? Necrocarnum Soulshield is usable 6/day, and only provides a bonus equal to the number of Necrocarnum Soulmelds you have shaped (which will be a maximum of +6).

And you still cannot bypass the limitations on investing essentia into a feat or soulmeld, so Cobalt Charge doesn't help. Never mind that you can't invest essentia extracted by your class features unless you extract them prior to even shaping your soulmelds.

Ahem:



So unless you boil anthills every day, you have no Essentia until you kill something (extremely difficult to do when you are heavily restricted).

I was referring to the Cerulean saves, but I wasn't aware that there was a general essentia restriction on feats(I assume that's what you're referring to as cobolt charge doesn't have an individual limit), in which case it is a lot weaker than I thought. I'm AFB and had believed there was only a limit on essentia invested into soulmelds, not feats.

[Yorae]

Hmm, on re-reading midnight augmentation, it appears I'm wrong - you can still only choose 1 power per day, even if you can still use Psycarnum Infusion to fill it at will (the 'you may not alter the amount of essentia invested' text applies to all incarnum feats, and is explicitly ignored by the Psycarnum Infusion's ability to max out the essentia invested in feats). So I guess you have to choose one thing per day. Ah well, Psycarnum infusion is still awesome.

Ah, that makes sense -- I was thinking that you'd be unable to use infusion later. I guess you'd Midnight Augment something with a high augment cost and spend 0 essentia on it, then later infuse it whenever you need to augment that power. Still pretty nice.



So unless you boil anthills every day, you have no Essentia until you kill something (extremely difficult to do when you are heavily restricted).


This gave me the hilarious image of a stereotypical-looking evil PC standing over an anthill with a magnifying glass, harvesting unsuspecting insectile souls.


I was referring to the Cerulean saves, but I wasn't aware that there was a general essentia restriction on feats(I assume that's what you're referring to as cobolt charge doesn't have an individual limit), in which case it is a lot weaker than I thought. I'm AFB and had believed there was only a limit on essentia invested into soulmelds, not feats.

You would only be able to invest 4 essentia into it a 16th level+, unless I'm mistaken (the feats work the same as soulmelds for investing purposes, right?). +1, if you take the improved capacity feat.

[kestrel404]

Ah, that makes sense -- I was thinking that you'd be unable to use infusion later. I guess you'd Midnight Augment something with a high augment cost and spend 0 essentia on it, then later infuse it whenever you need to augment that power. Still pretty nice.

The main point is still to use midnight augmentation on bestow power - the only reason you need to do it through Psycarnum Infusion at all is because the amount of essentia infused is limited to being equal to the level of the power. If you've got 2 flaws to play with, you can get this trick up and running at 12th level (take all the feats involved, plus Improved Capacity to get 4 essentia into a feat at 12th level instead of 3).

But if you're not worried about the infinite essentia trick (it's a part of most of my soul manifester builds, just because), then feel free to ignore all the feats involved except psycarnum infusion (that one's worth it all on its own).

[Big Fau]

I was referring to the Cerulean saves, but I wasn't aware that there was a general essentia restriction on feats(I assume that's what you're referring to as cobolt charge doesn't have an individual limit), in which case it is a lot weaker than I thought. I'm AFB and had believed there was only a limit on essentia invested into soulmelds, not feats.

The restriction on feats is the same as the restriction on Soulmelds: Max 4 unless otherwise stated (the maximum pre-Epic is 6, and only for Cobalt Rage).

[Yorae]

The main point is still to use midnight augmentation on bestow power - the only reason you need to do it through Psycarnum Infusion at all is because the amount of essentia infused is limited to being equal to the level of the power. If you've got 2 flaws to play with, you can get this trick up and running at 12th level (take all the feats involved, plus Improved Capacity to get 4 essentia into a feat at 12th level instead of 3).

But if you're not worried about the infinite essentia trick (it's a part of most of my soul manifester builds, just because), then feel free to ignore all the feats involved except psycarnum infusion (that one's worth it all on its own).

Infinite Essentia? How do you manage that?
I knew you could do infinite PP with the bestow power / midnight augmentation / psycarnum infusion trick, but I didn't realize you could get more essentia too.

[Big Fau]

Infinite Essentia? How do you manage that?
I knew you could do infinite PP with the bestow power / midnight augmentation / psycarnum infusion trick, but I didn't realize you could get more essentia too.

Essentia Helm/Psycarnum Infusion. Its a glitch in the wording of those two, and results in you adding essentia to your essentia pool permanently.

[Yorae]

Essentia Helm/Psycarnum Infusion. Its a glitch in the wording of those two, and results in you adding essentia to your essentia pool permanently.

!!

I might be able to get the recharging my PP pool loop by my DM, but I think if I did that, she'd probably hit me. =p

Edit: Maybe I can take some power attack stuff and utilize infusion with cobalt power. Seems like that might be pretty decent.

I net Psionic Open Chakra turns out to be pretty handy too, though I that might have to be an Expanded Knowledge. =(

[kestrel404]

Actually, that was a typo. I meant infinite PP. Nice to know about the Essentia Helm, but yeah, some things are just too cheesy.

[Yorae]

I would love to be able to make an "Incarnum" mantle to use with Ardent... there's not one that exists already, is there?

[Big Fau]

I would love to be able to make an "Incarnum" mantle to use with Ardent... there's not one that exists already, is there?

Nope. I recall someone over at BG creating one, but I can't remember who it was (hint: ask Lycanthromancer).