gabrion
2011-10-10, 08:43 PM
Totem Chanter
http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb404/gabrion/watermagic.png
"We are music, I've just figured out what that means." ~Glara, Totem Chanter
The totem chanter embodies the primal music of nature. Like the bard, she can inspire through performance, and like the totemist, she can shape natural forces into soulmelds granting her bestial powers. For the totem chanter these abilities feed upon each other, incarnum lending itself not only to enhancing the totem chanter, but also inspiring those around her. While the totem chanter forsakes further bardic spellcasting, her soulmelding offers a powerful alternative.
Entry Requirements
Base Attack Bonus: +3
Skills: Perform 8 ranks, Survival 8 ranks
Feat: Cobalt Inspiration* (see new feat below)
Special: Ability to bind soulmelds to totem chakra, bardic music class feature
Hit Die: d6
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Meldshaping
1st|+0|+0|+2|+2| Totem chant, bardic Knowledge, animal companion|-
2nd|+1|+0|+3|+3|Primal Inspiration|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
3rd|+2|+1|+3|+3|Share Soulmeld| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
4th|+3|+1|+4|+4|Primal Inspiration| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
5th|+3|+1|+4|+4|Share Soulmeld (improved)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
6th|+4|+2|+5|+5|Primal Inspiration|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
7th|+5|+2|+5|+5|Modulation| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
8th|+6|+2|+6|+6|Primal Inspiration|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
9th|+6|+3|+6|+6|| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
10th|+7|+3|+7|+7| Soul Chord|+1 level of existing meldshaping class [/table]
Class skills (6+Int Modifier per level): Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (all skills, taken individually), Listen, Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Spot, Survival, Swim, Use Magic Device
Armor and Weapon Proficiencies: You gain no new proficiencies with weapons, armor, or shields.
Meldshaping: At each totem chanter level except 1st 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 the meldshaping class to which you belonged prior to gaining the totem chanter level. If you had more than one meldshaping class before becoming a totem chanter, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining your essentia pool, meldshaper level, and the number of soulmelds and chakra binds available.
Each level that advances your meldshaping also progresses the chakras you have open to binding at the same rate as the meldshaping class to which you add it. If you later take levels in that class this benefit is retained and you progress by adding your total levels in that class + meldshaper levels from totem chanter that were applied to it for purposes of opening new chakras. For instance, a Bard 2/Totemist 4 is able to bind to the crown, feet, and hands chakras at Totem Chanter level 2. If she continues as a totem chanter, the arms, brow, and shoulders chakras will be open to her at totem chanter level 7. If at that point she returns to the totemist class, the throat and waist chakras will be open to her after five levels of totemist.
Totem Chant (Su): You can enhance the power of your inspire courage by channeling the rhythm of life that runs through all creatures. The essentia capacity of your Cobalt Inspiration feat increases by 1.
Furthermore, as long as a soulmeld occupies your totem chakra, you gain a number of extra essentia points equal to one-half your totem chanter level (minimum 1) while your inspire courage is active. At your option, you can invest some or all of this extra essentia into your Cobalt Inspiration feat as a free action. (This option is an exception to the normal rule that essentia can be invested in an incarnum feat only once every 24 hours.) You must make this decision when you begin your inspire courage, and you cannot shift any essentia away from Cobalt Inspiration while your inspire courage is active. You can invest any remaining extra essentia in other feats, soulmelds, or class abilities as normal. When your inspire courage ends, you lose this extra essentia, and all your essentia investments return to what they were initially.
Bardic Knowledge (Ex): At 1st level, you add your totem chanter levels to your bardic knowledge checks, so your bardic knowledge checks have a bonus equal to your bard level + your totem chanter level + your Int modifier.
Animal Companion (Ex): At 1st level, your strong connection to nature allows you to gain an animal companion. This ability functions as the druid ability of the same name, except your level for determining the advancement of your companion and what companions are available to you is equal to twice your totem chanter level.
Primal Inspiration (Ex): The incarnum infusing your inspire courage can create additional effects. At 2nd level, you learn your first primal inspiration, chosen from the list below. At 4th, 6th, and 8th level you learn another primal inspiration from the list.
While your inspire courage effect is active it can be modified by any one primal inspiration you know. This choice must be made when you start the effect and continues as long as your inspire courage does.
Each primal inspiration has a corresponding soul chord boost that is active only if your inspire courage has been modified by that primal inspiration and only while soul chord is active.
Primal Inspirations:
Nature’s Cure
Your inspire courage channels incarnum to slowly mend the wounds of those it effects. While your inspire courage is active, it provides fast healing to allies equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: Any healing effect on your allies (including fast healing from primal healing) has twice the effect it normally would.
Uncertainty of the Wild
Wisps of incarnum swirl around your enemies, distracting them. While your inspire courage is active, all enemies within 60 feet of you take a penalty to ranged and melee attacks equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: Enemies affected can only make one melee or ranged attack per round (including attacks of opportunity).
Borrowed Genius
Incarnum is channeled into the minds of your allies, increasing their focus when casting spells. While your inspire courage is active, it provides allies a bonus to concentration checks to cast spells equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat and a bonus to the difficulty class of any spell they cast equal to ½ that amount (minimum 1). Soul Chord Boost: Allies have a chance to retain any spell they cast (as though they hadn’t cast it at all) equal to 10% x essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat.
Incarnum Shield
A thin veil of incarnum swirls around your allies, deflecting some of the damage they would normally suffer. While your inspire courage is active, it provides allies DR X/-, where X is equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: A protective shield of incarnum around each of your allies prevents the next 10 x essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat points of damage they would receive from any source.
Fog of Souls
Incarnum clouds the minds of enemy spellcasters, disrupting their focus. While your inspire courage is active, any enemies within 60 feet of you have a chance to fail when casting spells. The failure chance is 5% x the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: the failure chance is 10% x the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat and any caster disrupted by this effect is dazed for one round.
Primal Boost
The raw incarnum channeled by your performance is enough to infuse your allies with boosted essentia. While your inspire courage is active, it provides bonus essentia points to your allies equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Unlike other primal inspirations, you gain no benefit from primal boost, or its soul chord boost. Soul Chord Boost: The essentia capacity of all your allies’ essentia receptacles is increase by 2.
Primal Sprint
Incarnum infuses your allies’ bodies, pushing them to new levels of speed. While your inspire courage is active, it provides a speed bonus to all types of movement for allies equal to 5 feet x the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration and grants allies use of the spring attack feat (even if they don't qualify for it). Soul Chord Boost: Allies affected gain the effect of a Freedom of Movement spell.
Elemental Havoc
Incarnum manifested as elemental spirits makes your enemies more vulnerable to attacks. While your inspire courage is active, enemies within 60 feet of you take extra damage from elemental attacks. This extra damage is equal to 10% x essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: Elemental damage taken by enemies is repeated the next round (including the extra damage from this effect). Repeated elemental damage takes place even if the enemies moves out of range of this effect.
Share Soulmeld: At 3rd level your bond with your animal companion is strong enough that your use of incarnum also affects it. You gain the Share Soulmeld feat. At 5th level your animal companion no longer has to be within 5 feet of you to benefit from this feat.
Modulation: You haven't forgotten that variation can be the key to an inspiring performance. At 7th level, once per round while your inspire courage is active, you can change which of your known primal inspirations is affecting it. Modifying your inspire courage in this way is a free action, but the decision to do so must be made at the beginning of your turn. Modulation cannot be used while Soul Chord is active. Activating modulation uses one of the totem chanter's daily uses of bardic music.
Soul Chord (Su): You see clearly now how music can channel the power of souls. At 10th level you can expend a use of bardic music once per day as a free action to play a resonating chord that pushes your allies (and yourself) to new levels. For 5 rounds you and your allies treat all essentia receptacles as full (this is an exception to the normal rule that essentia can be invested in an incarnum feat only once every 24 hours). The duration of Soul Chord cannot be extended in any way. Soul Chord must be activated while you are already using inspire courage and in confers extra benefits based on the primal inspiration used with that performance. Requires 18 ranks in a perform skill.
Commentary:
-First off, I obviously took the framework from totem rager and reworked it for this class. As far as the specifics...
-Requirements: Lower BAB than Rager as it isn’t built on a full BAB class. Skills changed to reflect bard base. Feat requirement is the same, as is the need to have a specific class ability.
-Crunch Stuff:
Lower HD than totem rager reflects the weaker nature of a bard background than barbarian.
BAB same
Ref and Will high saves fits with part bard better than Fort and Ref.
More skill points and more class skills reflecting bardic slant
-Totem Chant: Extra essentia works the same as totem rage. Only big difference is that unlike cobalt rage, cobalt inspiration is a feat that benefits the whole party.
-Bardic Knowledge: Why not…
-Thrill of the Song: Stolen from Seeker of the Song (Complete Arcane) to fill in slots where barbarian abilities were enhanced by totem rager. Alternative would be to add new types of music at these levels. Thoughts?
-Chakra Binds: Added a totally new mechanic here. Meldshaper levels effectively add to base class levels for purposes of opening chakra binds. Honestly I think this makes a lot more sense than the mechanics used for most PrCs in MoI. Meldshaping is a system as a whole and it doesn't make a lot of sense (which a few exceptions) to separate opening chakras from the rest of the system for any given meldshaping class. As written in MoI it forces silly decisions on players - take 4 levels of totemist and miss out on any open chakras (other than totem) for another 4 levels, or take the 5th level and obviate an important feature of the PrC?
-Extended Song: Works pretty much the same as the rage extension from totem rager.
-Primal Inspirations: Recent Addition. Removed Thrill of the Song and Extended Song in favor of this mechanic. Those others were okish, but really just filling up lines so it looked like the PrC got something cool. This new mechanic is super cool. Powerful too - to the point I'm not sure its balanced (both generally and in terms of the different inspirations compared to one another). The Soul Chord Boosts are VERY good, but keep in mind they open up at character level 17 - when those pesky full casters ascend to god-hood.
-Soul Chord: Could have stuck with the enhanced totem chakra bind from totem rager, but since a bard is all about enhancing friendlies, I came up with a new capstone altogether. It’s powerful. Really powerful. That said 1) it won’t be in play till at least 16th level and 2) Only 5 rounds once per day. For a group of incarnum users this is nova level stuff. Also potential abuses with feats (midnight metamagic?), but good luck getting your totem chanter to "waste" this capstone during daily prep just so the incarnum based persistent spell junkies can get their fix (plus it's so deep in a non-spellcasting prc that self-based abuse is unlikely). An alternative I thought of was to have Soul Chord allow all allies to treat every soulmeld they have shaped as being bound (to any of its chakras) for the same duration, even binding them over items if applicable. Already bound soulmelds would be unaffected. This is much more of a versatility increase than a total power boost as each player’s essentia pool would be unaffected.
-------------------------------------
*New Feat
Cobalt Inspiration
You can channel incarnum to enhance your inspire courage ability. When you do so, any instrument used during the performance (or your mouth if singing) gives off a blue glow.
Prerequisites: Con 13, inspire courage class feature
Benefit: Once per day you can invest essentia into this feat. While your inspire courage is active, the bonus it confers is increase by 1 for each point of essentia invested. Once the amount of essentia is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours. If an exception modifies the essentia invested in this feat, the benefit of inspire courage is adjusted appropriately, even if it is already active. Each meldshaper level you gain grants you an addition use of inspire courage each day. You gain 1 point of essentia.
Special: This feat replaces the class-based progression inspire courage would normally gain past its initial +1 bonus. Inspire courage may still benefit from other sources that increase its effectiveness.
Commentary:
-Referenced Initiate of Milil (Champions of Valor 31) and Song of the White Raven (Tome of Battle 32) when writing this feat. This feat does not mirror them, but has similarities.
-As an essentia receptacle, offers up to a +4 bonus to inspire courage. Initially may seem strictly better than inspire courage’s normal progression, but remember it requires a feat. Replace this with Song of the Heart for a normal bard for comparison. Plus it requires investment of much coveted essentia.
-The “special” section was added after some mental wargaming to prevent standard bards with an essentia pool from using this to effectively double their inspire courage with one feat.
http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb404/gabrion/watermagic.png
"We are music, I've just figured out what that means." ~Glara, Totem Chanter
The totem chanter embodies the primal music of nature. Like the bard, she can inspire through performance, and like the totemist, she can shape natural forces into soulmelds granting her bestial powers. For the totem chanter these abilities feed upon each other, incarnum lending itself not only to enhancing the totem chanter, but also inspiring those around her. While the totem chanter forsakes further bardic spellcasting, her soulmelding offers a powerful alternative.
Entry Requirements
Base Attack Bonus: +3
Skills: Perform 8 ranks, Survival 8 ranks
Feat: Cobalt Inspiration* (see new feat below)
Special: Ability to bind soulmelds to totem chakra, bardic music class feature
Hit Die: d6
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Meldshaping
1st|+0|+0|+2|+2| Totem chant, bardic Knowledge, animal companion|-
2nd|+1|+0|+3|+3|Primal Inspiration|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
3rd|+2|+1|+3|+3|Share Soulmeld| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
4th|+3|+1|+4|+4|Primal Inspiration| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
5th|+3|+1|+4|+4|Share Soulmeld (improved)|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
6th|+4|+2|+5|+5|Primal Inspiration|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
7th|+5|+2|+5|+5|Modulation| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
8th|+6|+2|+6|+6|Primal Inspiration|+1 level of existing meldshaping class
9th|+6|+3|+6|+6|| +1 level of existing meldshaping class
10th|+7|+3|+7|+7| Soul Chord|+1 level of existing meldshaping class [/table]
Class skills (6+Int Modifier per level): Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (all skills, taken individually), Listen, Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Spot, Survival, Swim, Use Magic Device
Armor and Weapon Proficiencies: You gain no new proficiencies with weapons, armor, or shields.
Meldshaping: At each totem chanter level except 1st 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 the meldshaping class to which you belonged prior to gaining the totem chanter level. If you had more than one meldshaping class before becoming a totem chanter, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining your essentia pool, meldshaper level, and the number of soulmelds and chakra binds available.
Each level that advances your meldshaping also progresses the chakras you have open to binding at the same rate as the meldshaping class to which you add it. If you later take levels in that class this benefit is retained and you progress by adding your total levels in that class + meldshaper levels from totem chanter that were applied to it for purposes of opening new chakras. For instance, a Bard 2/Totemist 4 is able to bind to the crown, feet, and hands chakras at Totem Chanter level 2. If she continues as a totem chanter, the arms, brow, and shoulders chakras will be open to her at totem chanter level 7. If at that point she returns to the totemist class, the throat and waist chakras will be open to her after five levels of totemist.
Totem Chant (Su): You can enhance the power of your inspire courage by channeling the rhythm of life that runs through all creatures. The essentia capacity of your Cobalt Inspiration feat increases by 1.
Furthermore, as long as a soulmeld occupies your totem chakra, you gain a number of extra essentia points equal to one-half your totem chanter level (minimum 1) while your inspire courage is active. At your option, you can invest some or all of this extra essentia into your Cobalt Inspiration feat as a free action. (This option is an exception to the normal rule that essentia can be invested in an incarnum feat only once every 24 hours.) You must make this decision when you begin your inspire courage, and you cannot shift any essentia away from Cobalt Inspiration while your inspire courage is active. You can invest any remaining extra essentia in other feats, soulmelds, or class abilities as normal. When your inspire courage ends, you lose this extra essentia, and all your essentia investments return to what they were initially.
Bardic Knowledge (Ex): At 1st level, you add your totem chanter levels to your bardic knowledge checks, so your bardic knowledge checks have a bonus equal to your bard level + your totem chanter level + your Int modifier.
Animal Companion (Ex): At 1st level, your strong connection to nature allows you to gain an animal companion. This ability functions as the druid ability of the same name, except your level for determining the advancement of your companion and what companions are available to you is equal to twice your totem chanter level.
Primal Inspiration (Ex): The incarnum infusing your inspire courage can create additional effects. At 2nd level, you learn your first primal inspiration, chosen from the list below. At 4th, 6th, and 8th level you learn another primal inspiration from the list.
While your inspire courage effect is active it can be modified by any one primal inspiration you know. This choice must be made when you start the effect and continues as long as your inspire courage does.
Each primal inspiration has a corresponding soul chord boost that is active only if your inspire courage has been modified by that primal inspiration and only while soul chord is active.
Primal Inspirations:
Nature’s Cure
Your inspire courage channels incarnum to slowly mend the wounds of those it effects. While your inspire courage is active, it provides fast healing to allies equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: Any healing effect on your allies (including fast healing from primal healing) has twice the effect it normally would.
Uncertainty of the Wild
Wisps of incarnum swirl around your enemies, distracting them. While your inspire courage is active, all enemies within 60 feet of you take a penalty to ranged and melee attacks equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: Enemies affected can only make one melee or ranged attack per round (including attacks of opportunity).
Borrowed Genius
Incarnum is channeled into the minds of your allies, increasing their focus when casting spells. While your inspire courage is active, it provides allies a bonus to concentration checks to cast spells equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat and a bonus to the difficulty class of any spell they cast equal to ½ that amount (minimum 1). Soul Chord Boost: Allies have a chance to retain any spell they cast (as though they hadn’t cast it at all) equal to 10% x essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat.
Incarnum Shield
A thin veil of incarnum swirls around your allies, deflecting some of the damage they would normally suffer. While your inspire courage is active, it provides allies DR X/-, where X is equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: A protective shield of incarnum around each of your allies prevents the next 10 x essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat points of damage they would receive from any source.
Fog of Souls
Incarnum clouds the minds of enemy spellcasters, disrupting their focus. While your inspire courage is active, any enemies within 60 feet of you have a chance to fail when casting spells. The failure chance is 5% x the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: the failure chance is 10% x the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat and any caster disrupted by this effect is dazed for one round.
Primal Boost
The raw incarnum channeled by your performance is enough to infuse your allies with boosted essentia. While your inspire courage is active, it provides bonus essentia points to your allies equal to the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Unlike other primal inspirations, you gain no benefit from primal boost, or its soul chord boost. Soul Chord Boost: The essentia capacity of all your allies’ essentia receptacles is increase by 2.
Primal Sprint
Incarnum infuses your allies’ bodies, pushing them to new levels of speed. While your inspire courage is active, it provides a speed bonus to all types of movement for allies equal to 5 feet x the essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration and grants allies use of the spring attack feat (even if they don't qualify for it). Soul Chord Boost: Allies affected gain the effect of a Freedom of Movement spell.
Elemental Havoc
Incarnum manifested as elemental spirits makes your enemies more vulnerable to attacks. While your inspire courage is active, enemies within 60 feet of you take extra damage from elemental attacks. This extra damage is equal to 10% x essentia invested in your Cobalt Inspiration feat. Soul Chord Boost: Elemental damage taken by enemies is repeated the next round (including the extra damage from this effect). Repeated elemental damage takes place even if the enemies moves out of range of this effect.
Share Soulmeld: At 3rd level your bond with your animal companion is strong enough that your use of incarnum also affects it. You gain the Share Soulmeld feat. At 5th level your animal companion no longer has to be within 5 feet of you to benefit from this feat.
Modulation: You haven't forgotten that variation can be the key to an inspiring performance. At 7th level, once per round while your inspire courage is active, you can change which of your known primal inspirations is affecting it. Modifying your inspire courage in this way is a free action, but the decision to do so must be made at the beginning of your turn. Modulation cannot be used while Soul Chord is active. Activating modulation uses one of the totem chanter's daily uses of bardic music.
Soul Chord (Su): You see clearly now how music can channel the power of souls. At 10th level you can expend a use of bardic music once per day as a free action to play a resonating chord that pushes your allies (and yourself) to new levels. For 5 rounds you and your allies treat all essentia receptacles as full (this is an exception to the normal rule that essentia can be invested in an incarnum feat only once every 24 hours). The duration of Soul Chord cannot be extended in any way. Soul Chord must be activated while you are already using inspire courage and in confers extra benefits based on the primal inspiration used with that performance. Requires 18 ranks in a perform skill.
Commentary:
-First off, I obviously took the framework from totem rager and reworked it for this class. As far as the specifics...
-Requirements: Lower BAB than Rager as it isn’t built on a full BAB class. Skills changed to reflect bard base. Feat requirement is the same, as is the need to have a specific class ability.
-Crunch Stuff:
Lower HD than totem rager reflects the weaker nature of a bard background than barbarian.
BAB same
Ref and Will high saves fits with part bard better than Fort and Ref.
More skill points and more class skills reflecting bardic slant
-Totem Chant: Extra essentia works the same as totem rage. Only big difference is that unlike cobalt rage, cobalt inspiration is a feat that benefits the whole party.
-Bardic Knowledge: Why not…
-Thrill of the Song: Stolen from Seeker of the Song (Complete Arcane) to fill in slots where barbarian abilities were enhanced by totem rager. Alternative would be to add new types of music at these levels. Thoughts?
-Chakra Binds: Added a totally new mechanic here. Meldshaper levels effectively add to base class levels for purposes of opening chakra binds. Honestly I think this makes a lot more sense than the mechanics used for most PrCs in MoI. Meldshaping is a system as a whole and it doesn't make a lot of sense (which a few exceptions) to separate opening chakras from the rest of the system for any given meldshaping class. As written in MoI it forces silly decisions on players - take 4 levels of totemist and miss out on any open chakras (other than totem) for another 4 levels, or take the 5th level and obviate an important feature of the PrC?
-Extended Song: Works pretty much the same as the rage extension from totem rager.
-Primal Inspirations: Recent Addition. Removed Thrill of the Song and Extended Song in favor of this mechanic. Those others were okish, but really just filling up lines so it looked like the PrC got something cool. This new mechanic is super cool. Powerful too - to the point I'm not sure its balanced (both generally and in terms of the different inspirations compared to one another). The Soul Chord Boosts are VERY good, but keep in mind they open up at character level 17 - when those pesky full casters ascend to god-hood.
-Soul Chord: Could have stuck with the enhanced totem chakra bind from totem rager, but since a bard is all about enhancing friendlies, I came up with a new capstone altogether. It’s powerful. Really powerful. That said 1) it won’t be in play till at least 16th level and 2) Only 5 rounds once per day. For a group of incarnum users this is nova level stuff. Also potential abuses with feats (midnight metamagic?), but good luck getting your totem chanter to "waste" this capstone during daily prep just so the incarnum based persistent spell junkies can get their fix (plus it's so deep in a non-spellcasting prc that self-based abuse is unlikely). An alternative I thought of was to have Soul Chord allow all allies to treat every soulmeld they have shaped as being bound (to any of its chakras) for the same duration, even binding them over items if applicable. Already bound soulmelds would be unaffected. This is much more of a versatility increase than a total power boost as each player’s essentia pool would be unaffected.
-------------------------------------
*New Feat
Cobalt Inspiration
You can channel incarnum to enhance your inspire courage ability. When you do so, any instrument used during the performance (or your mouth if singing) gives off a blue glow.
Prerequisites: Con 13, inspire courage class feature
Benefit: Once per day you can invest essentia into this feat. While your inspire courage is active, the bonus it confers is increase by 1 for each point of essentia invested. Once the amount of essentia is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours. If an exception modifies the essentia invested in this feat, the benefit of inspire courage is adjusted appropriately, even if it is already active. Each meldshaper level you gain grants you an addition use of inspire courage each day. You gain 1 point of essentia.
Special: This feat replaces the class-based progression inspire courage would normally gain past its initial +1 bonus. Inspire courage may still benefit from other sources that increase its effectiveness.
Commentary:
-Referenced Initiate of Milil (Champions of Valor 31) and Song of the White Raven (Tome of Battle 32) when writing this feat. This feat does not mirror them, but has similarities.
-As an essentia receptacle, offers up to a +4 bonus to inspire courage. Initially may seem strictly better than inspire courage’s normal progression, but remember it requires a feat. Replace this with Song of the Heart for a normal bard for comparison. Plus it requires investment of much coveted essentia.
-The “special” section was added after some mental wargaming to prevent standard bards with an essentia pool from using this to effectively double their inspire courage with one feat.