Incarnum and Alignment

[Suddo]

Unfortunately I haven't messed much with Incarnum but I love it a lot from a mechanical stand point but the one things that bothers me is the stupid alignment straight jacket they wear.

My question is simple: Does removing the alignment straight jacket do any harm? If yes then how; If no then should I be aware of anything that might be broken?

Edit: Alignment straight jacket is the concept that the character loses power from changing alignment. This is most obvious with Paladins but Incarnum unfortunately got stuck with one too.

[Pilo]

Well the soulborn is kind of the incarnate paladin, it loses power if its alignment changes. For roleplay and fluff reasons, this loss is normal.

For the incarnate, not having a neutral alignment composant is a big improvement. Many soulmelds and powers it has, have effect if it is good, bad, chaotic or loyal. A non-neutral incarnate will be far more powerful than a regular one because of the powers stacking.

[Waddacku]

Incarnates are as straightjacketed as Soulborn. They can't have extreme alignments, and they can't be true neutral. Only NG, NE, CN, or LN.

[Aldgar]

The incarnates gain their power from representing their alignment.

E.g. the reason why a LN incarnate can do his soulmeld stuff is because The Power of Law(TM) is powering his abilities.

As such, if you remove that power source by changing alignment, and do not reconnect to a different power source(The power of Good, the power of Evil, the power of chaos respectively) by having a mixed or indifferent alignment, you lose your powers.


The entire concept of Incarnates is:
"YES, Alignment is objective, absolute and not about opinion. This class is Alignment MANIFEST(or incarnate = made flesh)"

[Person_Man]

The Incarnate's Incarnum Radiance class ability is based on alignment, as are a few soulmelds. And non-Evil Incarnates can't use the Necrocarnum soulmelds without spending a Feat, and there are a couple of other alignment restricted soulmelds out there. So if you opened it up to any alignment (by allowing the PC to choose what bonuses were provided, and allowing them to shape any soulmeld) then it would make the class slightly more powerful and versatile. But not that big of a deal.

[VGLordR2]

On the end of page 24 in MoI, there is a little paragraph that mentions removing the alignment restriction and all alignment-based abilities. It recommends replacing them with some other class feature.

[Answerer]

Incarnum is possibly the most justified and well-executed use of alignment as a mechanic in all of D&D. That said, it's not going to break anything if you tell Incarnates that they can just take the bonuses of the mechanical alignment of their choice, regardless of their actual alignment.

[Piggy Knowles]

With abilities that have an impact based on your alignment (Incarnum Radiance, Incarnate Weapon, etc.), would characters be able to choose the effect they get each time?

In other words, I'm a lawful good incarnate. I shape the Incarnate Avatar soulmeld and bind it to my Soul chakra. Can I choose one day to get the flight effect of a good incarnate, and another day to get the bevy of immunities that a lawful incarnate would get? Or would I need to still choose a "sponsor" alignment on character creation, to decide the effects of Incarnum Radiance/Incarnate Weapon/Incarnate Avatar?

If it's the latter option, it wouldn't really make any difference. The only major boon is that LE and CE incarnates could still focus on their lawful or chaotic side, but save a feat on Necrocarnum soulmelds. If it's the former option, it would add a little bit more flexibility to an already flexible class (although again, wouldn't really break the game or provide that much of a power boost).

[Suddo]

Basically I was thinking of saying that you can only have Melds of similar alignments (if any have one) so you can't have evil and good melds on at the same time but that the next day you can choose different alignment.
I just hate RP elements effecting mechanical elements.

[willpell]

I've been experimenting with less alignment-restricted versions. The Incarnate still has to Incarnate something, but it doesn't have to be one of four broad categories. Unfortunately much homebrew was required.

My fixed Soulborn, called the Exemplar (a name I didn't realize was already in use, I'm continuing to use it for now), is given extra class skills for each of his alignments, so he's not required to be a "corner" alignment but is noticeably stronger if he is one. I think this is better than having an LG incarnum-paladin suddenly become non-good and lose her powers, whereas if she actually became evil she would gain new powers. Even being TN is an option, you just don't get anything that every other Exemplar doesn't have, but it might be worth it not to have to put up with a behavioral code.

[Answerer]

I've been wanting to come up with a version of the Incarnate that gets a Domain at first level, and is that Domain Incarnate, with Incarnum Radiance and Incarnum Avatar bonuses based on the Domain.

[Salanmander]

This is a minor flavor point, but if you do, I would recommend changing the class name of Incarnates. Because when listing class of characters, it goes like this (fair warning: fourth-wall-shattering dialogue):

"What are you?"

"Rogue. And you?"

"CHAOS INCARNATE!"

"Oh, so I imagine you're basically chaotic chaotic, trying to sew randomness and dementia wherever you go?"

"Actually no, I'm a chaotic good freedom fighter trying to overthrow the opressive government."

":smallconfused:"

[willpell]

One, per RAW, Incarnates can't be Chaotic Good, those are Soulborn. And two, I don't think most classes are actually supposed to identify themselves in-setting, especially not the Rogue.

"Hey, you in the cloak with the daggers? What's your profession?"

"Paladin of honor my good sir."

@ Answerer: Awesome idea. Not sure how well it'd work with a domain like Sun though....