How much of a meldshaping class can you get with feats?

[Coidzor]

The idea of building a pseudo-meldshaper out of feats comes up every now and then, especially if feat access is improved through one means or another. Or at least the idea that a commoner can be more of a meldshaper than a Soulborn using only feats...

But I was curious as to how exactly such would stack up after reading over this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222466) about optimizing with in a class feature vacuum without constraints on the feats acquirable.

So, let's say you were stacking up a level 20 character who only spent his feats on furthering himself as a meldshaper versus the standard for the other three classes, how would that compare? Something like 20% of one of the two proper meldshapers and 75% of the Soulborn?

How much is this altered by increasing the number of feats, say by having a Human with a flaw or two and/or switching feats from one feat every three levels to one feat every odd level? Say, baseline 7 versus 10 versus 13?



If anyone's looked at this subject more closely, I'd lose to see what you've come up with in regards to this.

[candycorn]

You're actually gonna be more than 100% of the soulborn. A paladin with feats spent on melds will have more melds than a soulborn, as well as better class features.

That class is so bad, it's scary.

[Coidzor]

You're actually gonna be more than 100% of the soulborn. A paladin with feats spent on melds will have more melds than a soulborn, as well as better class features.

That class is so bad, it's scary.

Wow. Here I'd thought that was just until mid-to-high levels, since they didn't get any until 4th.

[Draz74]

Psionic characters have a big advantage over everybody else in this contest, since they can take advantage of Psycarnum Infusion to get lots of temporary essentia benefits.

[tyckspoon]

You're actually gonna be more than 100% of the soulborn. A paladin with feats spent on melds will have more melds than a soulborn, as well as better class features.

That class is so bad, it's scary.

That's.. not actually true. Yes, you can beat them at low levels, because even when Soulborns get access to their soulmelds they don't get any Essentia (so you take Bonus Essentia and Shape Soulmeld at 1 and 3rd and you have a Soulmeld+Essentia to invest in it, which is more than a Soulborn has at 4th) but as soon as the Soulborn gets access to his Binds you fall behind; every single Bind location takes another feat to unlock, as well as each additional meld you want to be able to shape, as well as any extra Essentia you want to have available to invest in them. You'd need at least 6 feats by level 8 to replicate the Soulborn's available meldshaping- 2 Melds shapeable means 2 Shape Soulmelds, Crown, Feet, and Hands chakras avaialable for binding needs 3 Open Least Chakras (which is gonna need some serious cheese to get, since that feat only becomes available at 6th), and 2 points of Essentia is a single Bonus Essentia, assuming you either are an Incarnum race that starts with a point of essentia or your DM is nice and rules that the Bonus Essentia you took at 1st level upgrades to giving 2 points when you take Shape Soulmeld.

And feat-only just falls behind from there. The Soulborn ends up at 5 total melds at a time (so 5 feats just to match that, and you still don't get to select day by day from the entire Soulborn class list like the actual class does.. 'course, there's probably only 5 worthwhile Soulborn melds anyway), with 8 chakras available for binding and 10 Essentia to devote to them. Those aren't numbers you can match with feats without using infinite and arbitrary feat exploits.

[Emperor Tippy]

Pretty much the whole thing if you are willing to use feat abuse tricks.

Vow of Poverty at level 1, Chaos Shuffle it away at level 20 moving all 12 feats into Meldshaping feats.

Elf for another 4 feats to Chaos Shuffle.
2 feats from flaws.
7 feats from levels.

If your class is fighter 20 that's another 11 (not sure whether you want to allow classes or not).

So either 25 or 36 feats to dump into meldshaping.

To match an Incarnate we need 26 Essentia, 9 Soulmelds, and 5 Chakra Binds.

So 9 copies of Shape Soulmeld.
Then 8 feats for every Chakra Bind except the Heart and Soul Chakras (have to be epic for them).
13 copies of Bonus Essentia for the 26 Essentia points.

That's 30 feats used, leaving us 7 to work with.

---
There, a fighter who is as good a Soulmelder as an Incarnate. :smalltongue:

[candycorn]

True, but when gaining melds by feats, you're not restricted to the soulborn list, either. So the lack of versatility is made up for by more choices when making the initial selection.

Also, while a level 20 Soulborn has access to the Crown, feet, hands, arms, brow, shoulders, throat, and waist binds...

He can actually only bind 3 melds total, and Shape 5. He'll have 10 essentia, granted, but let's see.

Azurin Paladin 20. 2 Flaws. 10 feats.

5 Meld shape feats
3 chakra bind feats

Bonus essentia
1 incarnum feat to increase essentia.

True, you have less selection, but as you said, there's probably only 5 decent melds here, so that selection is somewhat less a big deal than would be thought.

You have less essentia, ok. That's Valid. Less flexibility there.

You have less chakra bind options. That's valid. But again, you're pulling from non-soulborn melds, so you have more options when making the initial selection.

And that's only the incarnum side. That's not even getting into the paladin spells, save boosts, immunities, healing, and the like.

I'd certainly rate it at above 75% the meldshaping power of the soulborn, if for no other reason than it can select Totemist and Incarnate melds too.

[Coidzor]

I'd certainly rate it at above 75% the meldshaping power of the soulborn, if for no other reason than it can select Totemist and Incarnate melds too.

Care to hazard a guess as to how it stacks up with either of the other two?


If your class is fighter 20 that's another 11 (not sure whether you want to allow classes or not).

More interested in the number of feats necessary to totally replicate it and how much of the job a baseline number of feats (probably the 7 or 10 for simplicity or roundedness's sakes depending upon preference) would do than in classes one way or the other. So, as an example of potential feat acquisitions without invoking loops, is cool.

The question here is sort of tenuously connected to one of my other threads where I was querying y'all in regards to problematic feats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222153)(especially in regards to a scheme by which feats would be purchasable) and sort of just a matter of my own curiosity as to the matter, as I've been meaning to learn Incarnum for a while, but have either kept putting it off or had difficulty getting into the text. The idea intrigues me every time I see it though...x.x


To match an Incarnate we need 26 Essentia, 9 Soulmelds, and 5 Chakra Binds.

So 9 copies of Shape Soulmeld.
Then 8 feats for every Chakra Bind except the Heart and Soul Chakras (have to be epic for them).
13 copies of Bonus Essentia for the 26 Essentia points.

That's 30 feats used, leaving us 7 to work with.

Thanks, I really should just go ahead and learn MoI fully. x.x If one weren't able to get quite that many feats, would it be better to go for more soulmelds/binds or more essentia with few binds? Or is there a sort of frame of mind that would best describe which way one would want to go in that regard?


There, a fighter who is as good a Soulmelder as an Incarnate. :smalltongue:

That reminds me, as a sort of tertiary inquiry, do meldshapers get class features other than Totemist's Totem Avatar(IIRC) that lets it dump double essentia into a meld x/day & the unique chakra binds? If so, enough to justify taking the class in an atmosphere where one would have 15-20 feats? (so meldshaper+15ish feats versus otherclass+pseudomeldshaping)

[Godskook]

Minimum feats to replicate a single-day build for a Totemist, Incarnate or Soulborn:

Incarnate: 27
Soulborn: 13
Totemist: 24

This doesn't account for class features that aren't replicatable via feats, like the Totem chakra or the extra capacity, but is a good baseline. We can ignore the extra open-chakra feats cause the classes we're comparing against can't make that many binds.

To account for versatility would require a huge amount of additional shape soulmeld feats, as well as a few open-chakra feats.

[Douglas]

13 copies of Bonus Essentia for the 26 Essentia points.
Unless I'm missing something, Bonus Essentia doesn't have a stacking clause for taking it multiple times.

[Coidzor]

Unless I'm missing something, Bonus Essentia doesn't have a stacking clause for taking it multiple times.

Oh, man, yeah, I can't believe I missed that earlier. Isn't that regarded as one of the bigger tragedies of the subsystem?

[tyckspoon]

Thanks, I really should just go ahead and learn MoI fully. x.x If one weren't able to get quite that many feats, would it be better to go for more soulmelds/binds or more essentia with few binds? Or is there a sort of frame of mind that would best describe which way one would want to go in that regard?


More essentia with a few melds that work well with the rest of your build, I think; it takes a prohibitive number of feats to compete with a meldshaper class's versatility in meld selection, and it's near impossible to get enough essentia to power all the meld's you'd have anyway. But you can pick one or two out of the array of neat things Incarnum can do and do those reasonably well through feats (so Dissolving Spittle, Fellmist Robe, Thunderstep Boots, etc, can be plugged into any build that could use them.)



That reminds me, as a sort of tertiary inquiry, do meldshapers get class features other than Totemist's Totem Avatar(IIRC) that lets it dump double essentia into a meld x/day & the unique chakra binds? If so, enough to justify taking the class in an atmosphere where one would have 15-20 feats? (so meldshaper+15ish feats versus otherclass+pseudomeldshaping)

Nothing terribly noteworthy that's not meldshaping related; the main reason to be a meldshaper instead of devoting tons of feats to it would be getting the full versatility of the Incarnum system. Without being a meldshaper you don't have the whole 'yesterday I was a social skillmonkey, today I'm the tank and tomorrow I think I'll UMD some charges off all these random wands the DM keeps rolling' thing. And you'll never have enough Essentia to charge your melds as much as you'd like even if you change Bonus Essentia to stack.

[Big Fau]

And you'll never have enough Essentia to charge your melds as much as you'd like even if you change Bonus Essentia to stack.

In all honesty, this is fine. Some soulmelds don't need to be maxed out to work properly, and 27 points fits 3 in each Soulmeld an Incarnate can shape by class alone (the extra point could come from being an Azurin). Once you've established what soulmelds should be your priority that encounter, you shift the essentia around to the more important ones.

[Fax Celestis]

Here (http://www.pifro.com/pro/view.php?id=6461) is an example of practical focus of feats on soulmelds. ECL 15. I played this character in one of my wife's campaigns.

[candycorn]

Here (http://www.pifro.com/pro/view.php?id=6461) is an example of practical focus of feats on soulmelds. ECL 15. I played this character in one of my wife's campaigns.

It's not a bad build... You're aware the Phase cloak can't make you ethereal for charges, right?

[Fax Celestis]

It's not a bad build... You're aware the Phase cloak can't make you ethereal for charges, right?

Yeah, that wasn't its main use. Mainly, it was to move through obstacles.

[candycorn]

Yeah, that wasn't its main use. Mainly, it was to move through obstacles.

Well, I must say that it works splendidly for that.

[Coidzor]

Here (http://www.pifro.com/pro/view.php?id=6461) is an example of practical focus of feats on soulmelds. ECL 15. I played this character in one of my wife's campaigns.

Ah, thank you! Interesting to see the non-incarnum material as well. :smallbiggrin:

So it looks like essentia are only essential for specific tricks and many of the moderate/minor ones are just fine without it.

[dextercorvia]

Casters and Manifesters do it better, as usual, since they can spend spell slots/power points instead of feats for their binds.

[Coidzor]

Casters and Manifesters do it better, as usual, since they can spend spell slots/power points instead of feats for their binds.

So a sort of incarnum gish or psigish would be the most abuse of extra incarnum feats barring buckets upon buckets of feats, then? Although the number of chakra bind locations and magic items competing with them seem like they'd be enough of a limiting factor to prevent anything too egregious.

[candycorn]

So a sort of incarnum gish or psigish would be the most abuse of extra incarnum feats barring buckets upon buckets of feats, then? Although the number of chakra bind locations and magic items competing with them seem like they'd be enough of a limiting factor to prevent anything too egregious.

There are feats for that, too.

[Coidzor]

There are feats for that, too.

And MIC item stacking rules, too. Though it seems like it'd be a fairly even tradeoff to get it to work with an item in exchange for more of a feat cost per trick, until one acquires a sufficient amount of feats.

Though I'm now kind of curious how many feats that would really take.

It seems that, with a normal number of feats, it's about 1 to 1 for decidedly minor benefits, 1 minor-to-moderate trick per 2 feats (meld+chakra) and then something like 4 feats for one of the more major tricks (soulmeld+chakra bind+1 or 2 feats for essentia to put into it).

How many tricks out at once does an Incarnate or Totemist usually have?



Incarnate: 27
Soulborn: 13
Totemist: 24

Based upon what Godskook said, and the rough-figuring I did here (and what I can remember gleaning from earlier discussions), that seems like it's 2 major tricks, 3 middling tricks, and 1 minor bonus to equal a Soulborn. For Totemist about 3-4 major(mostly involved with the meatgrindering usually IIRC), 3-4 middling, and 3-4 minor with the ability to make one of those major tricks become super-powered and sometimes one major trick that's majorly pumped up and more minor ones? Incarnate... 4-5 major, 4ish middling, and 2-3 minor, but with the ability to juggle around between which ones are middling and which ones are major?

[Rubik]

Casters and Manifesters do it better, as usual, since they can spend spell slots/power points instead of feats for their binds.Manifesters are the best, bar none, since with casting you actually have to know higher level spells to bind higher level soulmelds, but with psionics you have a single power that augments (and thus, with ML boosts and cost reductions, can bind soulmelds nobody else will get for 10+ levels yet).

My favorite is totemist 2/psion X/manifesting PrC X. Sure you lose 2 manifester levels, but you get tons of long-duration versatility out of them thar soulmelds. Kobolds and dragonborn (preferably warforged) are especially nice, since they get access to the uber-awesome draconic melds.

[term1nally s1ck]

You can crush some of the feat requirements by abusing the floating feat from Chameleon, and that soulmelds remain shaped until you unshape them. Just keep swapping for a new copy of Shape soulmeld, and get one soulmeld per body part.

[Psyren]

My favorite is totemist 2/psion X/manifesting PrC X. Sure you lose 2 manifester levels, but you get tons of long-duration versatility out of them thar soulmelds. Kobolds and dragonborn (preferably warforged) are especially nice, since they get access to the uber-awesome draconic melds.

"Manifesting PrC X" may as well be Soul Manifester (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a) since it's 10/10 psion progression and all you give up are a couple of bonus feats anyway.

(Personally, I prefer Incarnate and Ardent for the Wis and flavor synergy.)