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Waker
2013-05-01, 07:08 PM
Among the servants of the gods, demon princes, elemental lords and the other rulers of the cosmos, few are as prized as the exarchs. Soldiers whose bodies have been imbued with incarnum and given purpose through their cause, they range across the planes acting as champions, mediators and warlords. Unlike a meldshaper, the exarch prefers to bathe the battlefield with the flow of incarnum.

Class Skills: The exarch's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis) Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Arcana, Nobility, Religion, The Planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Speak Language (N/A), Spellcraft (Int) Swim (Str).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Alignment: Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Neutral, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil
Hit Die: D10
Exarch
\n\n\tLevel\n\tBase Attack Bonus\n\tFort Save\n\tRef Save\n\tWill Save\n\tSpecial\Auras Known\n\tEssentia\n\tActive Auras
\n\n\n\t1st\n\t
+1\n\t
+2\n\t
+0\n\t
+2\n\tAura, Champion's Aura (Minor), Detect Opposition, Smite Opposition 1/day\n\t1\n\t1\n\t1
[/TD]\n\n\n\t2nd\n\t
+2\n\t
+3\n\t
+0\n\t
+3\n\tChampions Shield, Sapphire Soul1\n\t1\n\t\1
[/TD]\n\n\n\t3rd\n\t
+3\n\t
+3\n\t
+1\n\t
+3\n\tFoe-bane\n\t2\n\t2\n\t\1
[/TD]\n\n\n\t4th\n\t
+4\n\t
+4\n\t
+1\n\t
+4\n\tBonus Feat, Planar Tolerance2\n\t3\n\t\1
[/TD]\n\n\n\t5th\n\t
+5\n\t
+4\n\t
+1\n\t
+4\n\tSmite Opposition 2/day3\n\t4\n\t\1
[/TD]\n\n\n\t6th\n\t
+6,+1\n\t
+5\n\t
+2\n\t
+5\n\tChampion's Aura (Major)3\n\t4\n\t\1
[/TD]\n\n\n\t7th\n\t
+7,+2\n\t
+5\n\t
+2\n\t
+5\n\tChampion's Rampart 1/day4\n\t5\n\t\2
[/TD]\n\n\n\t8th\n\t
+8,+3\n\t
+6\n\t
+2\n\t
+6\n\tBonus Feat, Greater Champion's Aura4\n\t6\n\t\2
[/TD]\n\n\n\t9th\n\t
+9,+4\n\t
+6\n\t
+3\n\t
+6\n\t5\n\t7\n\t\2
[/TD]\n\n\n\t10th\n\t
+10,+5\n\t
+7\n\t
+3\n\t
+7\n\tSmite Opposition 3/day5\n\t7\n\t\2
[/TD]\n\n\n\t11th\n\t
+11,+6,+1\n\t
+7\n\t
+3\n\t
+7\n\t6\n\t8\n\t\2
[/TD]\n\n\n\t12th\n\t
+12,+7,+2\n\t
+8\n\t
+4\n\t
+8\n\tBonus Feat6\n\t9\n\t\2
[/TD]\n\n\n\t13th\n\t
+13,+8,+3\n\t
+8\n\t
+4\n\t
+8\n\tChampion's Aura (Grand)7\n\t10\n\t\3
[/TD]\n\n\n\t14th\n\t
+14,+9,+4\n\t
+9\n\t
+4\n\t
+9\n\t7\n\t10\n\t\3
[/TD]\n\n\n\t15th\n\t
+15,+10,+5\n\t
+9\n\t
+5\n\t
+9\n\tSmite Opposition 4/day8\n\t11\n\t\3
[/TD]\n\n\n\t16th\n\t
+16,+11,+6,+1\n\t
+10\n\t
+5\n\t
+10\n\tBonus Feat, Greater Champion's Aura8\n\t12\n\t\3
[/TD]\n\n\n\t17th\n\t
+17,+12,+7,+2\n\t
+10\n\t
+5\n\t
+10\n\tChampion's Rampart 2/day9\n\t13\n\t\3
[/TD]\n\n\n\t18th\n\t
+18,+13,+8,+3\n\t
+11\n\t
+6\n\t
+11\n\t9\n\t13\n\t\3
[/TD]\n\n\n\t19th\n\t
+19,+14,+9,+4\n\t
+11\n\t
+6\n\t
+11\n\t10\n\t14\n\t\4
[/TD]\n\n\n\t20th\n\t
+20,+15,+10,+5\n\t
+12\n\t
+6\n\t
+12\n\tBonus Feat, Smite Opposition 5/day10\n\t15\n\t\4\n\n


Class Features
All of the following area class features of the exarch.
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A exarch is proficient with all simple and martial weapons. An exarch is proficient with all armor (heavy, medium and light) and shields (including tower shields).
Aura: As a exarch, you have a particularly powerful aura corresponding to your alignment (see the detect evil spell for details). The type of bonuses and penalties that an exarch grant are dependent upon their alignment. A Lawful Good or Chaotic Good exarch effects are Sacred, while a Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil exarch's are Profane. A neutral exarch decides to use sacred or profane at level 1.
Smite Opposition (Su):Once per day you can channel the power of your incarnum-fueled convictions to attempt to smite a foe with a melee or ranged attack within 60ft. You add your Charisma bonus (if any) to your attack roll and deal 1 extra point of damage per exarch level. These bonuses apply only against creatures whose alignment opposes at least one component of yours—a lawful good exarch smites chaotic and evil foes (any creature whose alignment includes either chaos or evil), while a chaotic good exarch smites lawful and evil foes. A neutral exarch can smite any creature with an alignment of Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil. If you accidentally smite a creature of the wrong alignment, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.
At 5th level and every five levels thereafter, you can smite opposition one additional time per day to a maximum of five times per day at 20th level.
Detect Opposition (Sp): At will, you can attempt to detect the presence of creatures whose alignment is opposite your own. This ability works like the detect evil spell, except that it detects any alignments opposed to your own. For example, a lawful good exarch can detect chaotic/evil, while a chaotic good exarch can detect law/evil. A neutral exarch detects creatures that have any alignment other than neutral.
Champion's Aura (Su): Unlike most meldshapers whose abilities turn inward, an exarch's most powerful tool bathes the battlefield with his spiritual energies. The exarch has access to two types of auras: Allied and Opposition. Allied auras can only affect allied characters, while opposition auras can only affect those the exarch has deemed an enemy.
The power of an exarch's aura is subject to the amount of essentia invested in it. An aura without essentia invested in it provides no benefit. Projecting an aura is a swift action, during which time you may also invest essentia as part of the action. The aura remains in effect until the exarch uses a free action to dismiss it or activates another aura. An exarch can have an aura active continually; thus, an aura can be in effect at the start of a combat encounter even before the exarch takes his first turn. Unless otherwise noted, an exarch's aura affects all allies (including himself) or enemies within 60 feet . An ally must share at least one alignment component with the exarch, while an enemy must oppose at least one component of the exarch's alignment. In the case of neutral exarchs, Opposition Auras can only affect enemies who possess a Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil or Chaotic evil alignment. An exarch's aura is dismissed if he is dazed, unconscious, stunned or paralyzed.
An exarch begins play knowing one aura of his choice. As his exarch level increases, he gains access to new auras as detailed in the Aura List at the bottom of this post.
All bonuses granted by an exarch's auras are sacred or profane bonuses that do not stack with each other.
At 7th level, the exarch gains the ability to activate a second aura. This requires another swift action and essentia investment as normal. The second aura must be different than the the first with the exception of Mentor or Resistance (though a different skill or energy type must be chosen as applies). The exarch can activate a third aura at level 13 and a fourth at level 19.
Champions Shield (Su): The conviction of an exarch hardens not only their mind, but their very body. Starting at 2nd level, an exarch gains damage reduction equal to half their level rounded down. This damage reduction is overcome by both of it's opposed alignment components. Thus a level 5 exarch would have DR 2/Chaotic and Evil. A neutral exarch instead gains DR 1/- for every two levels.
In addition an exarch's devotion to their cause grants them the strength to stand against their foes. Against spells that possess a descriptor opposes to one of their alignment components they gain a +1 sacred or profane bonus on AC and saves. This benefit also applies to the spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities of any creature who possess an opposed alignment subtype. A neutral exarch receives this benefit against any spell with an alignment descriptor or against the abilities of a creature with an alignment subtype.
An exarch can invest essentia to increase the effectiveness of both powers. For each essentia invested, the exarch's DR increases by 1 as well as their ac and saves against magical effects. A neutral exarch investing essentia in this ability does not increase the granted DR.
Sapphire Soul (Su): Incarnum flow through the body of all things both living and dead. An exarch can repair the damaged flows within a body or flood it with a destructive flow. At-will as a standard action, an exarch can make a touch attack against a target and heal or damage it for 1d8 (per essentia invested)+(exarch level). This energy is neither positive nor negative, but rather incarnum and thus affects living and undead targets equally. A creature can halve the effect by making a successful Will save (DC=10+1/2 exarch level+Cha mod). As constructs are neither living nor undead, this ability has no effect on them, nor does it work on inanimate objects. Sapphire Soul can be used on Living Constructs.
Foe-bane: In the hands of an exarch even the most humble weapon becomes a divine instrument of their will. At 3rd level any natural weapons, unarmed strikes or manufactured weapon wielded by an exarch becomes infused with the traits of their alignment for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Thus the weapons of a Lawful Good exarch are treated as both lawful and good for the purposes of DR. Should an exarch wield a weapon with an alignment enchantment (Anarchic, Axiomatic, Evil, Good) that matches their own, the damage dealt against opposed creatures is +3d6 rather than +2d6. A neutral exarch does not imbue their weapons with any alignment qualities. Ranged weapons imbue their ammunition with this trait when fired.
In addition, the exarch gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Intimidate, Listen, Sense Motive and Spot checks per essentia invested against creatures whose possess at least one opposing alignment.
Bonus Feats: At 4th level and every four levels thereafter, the exarch gains a bonus feat. He must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including ability score and base attack bonus minimums. The bonus feats are drawn from this list: Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Extra Aura*, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Mounted Combat, Point Blank Shot, Power Attack, Powerful Aura*, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus as well as any feat with the Incarnum tag .
* refers to two feats listed in the next post.
Planar Tolerance (Su): The path of an exarch is long and winding, taking him to the most exotic of locales. When the exarch would be subjected to a negative planar trait based on alignment, he may ignore any traits derived from his opposed alignment components. Thus a Lawful Good exarch would suffer no ill effects on a plane with Chaotic or Evil traits. A neutral exarch is unaffected by any alignment-based planar traits. This ability does not extend to planar traits not associated with alignment.
Champion's Rampart (Su): At level 7, the exarch learns to project a special aura once per day. All allies within 60ft of the exarch who share at least one alignment component with him gain the benefits of Champion's Shield. Any changes in the essentia investment for this ability immediately take effect on the DR and the bonus to ac and saves for allies. He may project this aura for 1 + Charisma Modifier rounds (minimum 1 round). This ability does not count towards his limit on active auras.
At level 17, the exarch may use Champion's Bulwark twice per day.
Greater Aura: At level 8, the essentia limit on all of your Champion's Auras is increased by 1.
At level 16, the essentia limit is increased by an additional 1.

Allied
Armored- +2 bonus to AC per essentia invested
Destruction- +2 bonus on damage rolls per essentia invested
Freedom- +1 bonus to initiative and movement speed X5 per essentia invested
Guidance-+1 to ranged attack rolls and +2 bonus on ranged attack damage per essentia invested
Mastery- +3 bonus on disarm, feint, trip, bull rush, and sunder checks used by or against allies per essentia invested
Mentor- At time of activation, choose a skill in which you have at least one rank. Affected allies gain a +2 bonus per invested essentia. This does not allow allies to make skill checks untrained. Alternatively the Exarch can grant knowledge of one language they know to their allies for the duration of the aura.
Recovery- Fast Healing 1 per essentia invested
Reactive- +2 bonus to reflex saves per essentia invested
Resistance- Choose an energy type during activation Resistance to chosen energy type equal to 5 × invested essentia.
Retribution- Enemies striking affected allies with melee attacks are damaged by an amount equal to invested essentia.
Stamina- +2 bonus to fortitude saves per essentia invested
Surety- +1 bonus on melee attack rolls per essentia invested
Temperance- +2 bonus to will saves per essentia invested

Opposition
Disorientation- -1 penalty to attack rolls per essentia invested
Dissonance- Enemies take a -2 to all skill checks per essentia invested.
Dominance- -1 penalty to Will per essentia invested
Malaise- -1 penalty to Fortitude per essentia invested
Torpor- -1 penalty to Reflex per essentia invested
Wrath- -2 penalty to AC per essentia invested
Minor
Major
Grand

Ex-Exarchs

If you change alignment, you lose most of your class abilities unless your new alignment is compatible with the exarch class. If it is not, you lose your aura, champion's aura, champion's shield, detect opposition, smite opposition, foe-bane, and planar tolerance abilities. You may not progress any further in levels as a exarch. You regain all your abilities and advancement potential if you return to your previous alignment. If your alignment shift still qualifies you for the class—a change from lawful evil to lawful good, for example—you retain your exarch levels and your class features change to match your new alignment.

Waker
2013-05-01, 07:09 PM
Character Level
Essentia Capacity


1-5
1


6-11
2


12-17
3


18-20
4


Extra Aura
Prerequisite- Champion's Aura
Benefit- You add another aura to your list known.
Special- This feat may be taken multiple times.

Powerful Aura
Prerequisite- Champion's Aura
Benefit- At the start of the day choose one of your auras. This aura receives a bonus as though it already had one essentia invested in it. This does not interfere with your ability to invest further essentia into it, effectively granting this aura one free essentia point and raising the essentia limit on it.


Include phrasing to allow the feats to be taken by Exarchs, Marshals and Dragon Shamans. Possibly Divine Minds as well.

Waker
2013-05-01, 07:15 PM
Well, this is somewhat unplanned. While reading some random posts I got thinking about the Soulborn, though not for too long as I didn't want to hurt myself. Now, while I may have already made a martial incarnum class that poaches stuff from the Soulborn (my Meister, give it a peek, even if I still haven't finished it) I wanted to work on something a bit closer to the flavor that the Soulborn was going for, mainly a Paladin who uses Incarnum. So here it the rough outline I've got for it. I'll try to update it when I can.

Anyways, the class will have different immunities based on it's alignment and the power to share that immunity with party members, detecting and smiting enemies with different alignments, creating a creature composed of Incarnum to serve as a mount or backup fighter, as well as some healing mojo.

Waker
2017-06-18, 05:43 PM
It has been a long time since I initially started this little project, but I am in the habit of beginning something and then forgetting about it until I trip over it while rummaging in the garbage for something else.
Anyways ladies and gents, behold the Exarch! One of my projects designed to supplant the Soulborn as an incarnum-fueled melee combatant. Originally this class was intended to use soulmelds, but those got slapped onto a different project of mine (the Meister, which I promise I'll finish eventually). If I wasn't gonna use soulmelds, what else could I give it? Incarnum Defense was a terrible class feature, but it helped spark an idea. Auras! So I plagiarized drew inspiration from re-reading the Marshal class for the hundredth time. I tossed the Soulborn, Marshal and a touch of Paladin and Dragon Shaman into a blender, set it to puree and set the result before you.
Despite being an alignment heavy class, I tried to avoid differentiating between the alignments as much as possible. It sounds weird I know. Looking at the Incarnate, Soulborn and the variant Paladins from UA showed me that there can be some major imbalances when applied. The only exception that I made was for the Neutral Exarch since they would have to follow slightly different rules.
Now mechanically I'm aiming for something in the T4 or low T3 range. The class has enough muscle to be a good warrior-type (full BAB, Smite, feats), buffing and debuffing (auras), an acceptable skill selection lets them act as faces or scholar-types, or healers (Sapphire Soul, Recovery Aura). Give it a look see and tell me what you think.

Morphic tide
2017-06-19, 08:19 PM
As-is, the only serious incentive to take more than three levels is the Auras. Per-day Smite effects are garbage for most situations unless they get crazy bonuses stacked up on them. Fixing this situation of dip-proneness is really simple. Make the effects rely on class level more. The class has too many effects at low levels without fast enough class-based scaling at higher levels to really make sure that people will do more than snag 3 levels of it as an Incarnate or Totemist for a nice boost from an Aura and unlimited healing. Foe Bane is actually so situational and weak that the reason for going three levels is the second available Aura to pick from.

The overall mechanics require the character to be either True Neutral or be in a party where everyone shares an alignment with them, which is horrible. The bonus feat list is similarly gimped by being a specific one. There's nothing wrong with "Fighter Bonus Feats and Incarnum Feats." Particularly given that Fighter Bonus Feats covers all the ones you've listed and them a bundle more useful ones. As is, it's firmly mid-low t3 due to the infinite healing and the versatility of Auras, when they are applicable.

The class also has issues with clarity of effects. Do Auras have their Essentia investment cap with the normal Soulmeld/Feat cap, then go up from there with Greater Champion's Aura, or do they start at zero or one available for Investment, then get boosted by Greater Champion's Aura? I'd just roll the investment cap into the ability description, removing Greater Champion's Aura from the class table as a result and making the Auras fully based on the class. I'll give you a reworded version that rolls Greater Champion's Aura in under the assumption that the intent is to cap at 6 Essentia invested:

Champion's Aura (Su): Unlike most meldshapers whose abilities turn inward, an exarch's most powerful tool bathes the battlefield with his spiritual energies. The exarch has access to two types of auras: Allied and Opposition. Allied auras can only affect allied characters who share at least one component of the Exarch's alignment, while opposition auras can only affect those the exarch has deemed an enemy that have an alignment which opposes at least one component of the Exarch's alignment. Neutral Exarchs treat creatures that are Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil as being of opposed alignment for this ability.
The power of an exarch's aura is subject to the amount of essentia invested in it. An Exarch may invest one Essentia in their Auras at first level, and one additional Essentia for every four levels in the class they have. An aura without essentia invested in it provides no benefit. Activating an aura is a swift action, during which time you may also invest essentia as part of the action. The aura remains in effect until the exarch uses a free action to dismiss it or activates another aura, or is Dazed, Unconscious, Stunned or Paralysed. An exarch can have an aura active continually; thus, an aura can be in effect at the start of a combat encounter even before the exarch takes his first turn. Unless otherwise noted, an Exarch's auras effect all valid targets within 60 ft.
An exarch begins play knowing one aura of his choice from the Exarch aura list at the bottom of this post. At 3rd level, and every 2 levels afterwords, he learns one additional Aura drawn from the Exarch aura list at the bottom of this post.
All bonuses and penalties caused by an exarch's auras are sacred if they are Good aligned or profane if they are Evil aligned. A Neutral Exarch's auras provide Moral bonuses and penalties.
At 7th level and every 6 levels after, the exarch gains the ability to activate an additional aura. This requires a swift action and essentia investment as normal. The additional auras must be different than previously active auras with the exception of auras that have him make choices on activation, such as Mentor or Resistance, though he must make different choices for the new activation.

---

Sacred and Profane bonuses are already non-stacking as part of their basic rules, so you don't need to mention that if the bonuses are already typed as Sacred or Profane. I went with Moral rather than Insight for Neutral so that it doesn't overlap with other Incarnum classes and instead overlaps with Marshal, Bard and Divine Mind, thereby making a Neutral Exarch compete for the slot of those classes which actually have similar roles unless the party builds around eachother to avoid wasted bonuses, which has it's own problem of rigid formations. You also didn't define when it's sacred and when it's profane, so I went with alignment. I'm pretty sure this is a much clearer wording overall, and keeps almost exactly the same mechanics as far as I can tell. Also gives a bit more reason for undefined Epic Exarch levels being taken by having a lot more be defined by level, rather than being on a table that ends at 20.

A mechanical issue I have with the class is that you can easily have a build that's incapable of investing all of it's Essentia at quite a few levels. The class has to take feats to invest Essentia in, and most of them won't solve the issue before level 6 because they can only have one Essentia in them, but also grant one Essentia to use for this. So from level 2-5 the class can't actually have all its Essentia invested. To solve this issue, I'd prefer to have more things to invest Essentia into. Perhaps have Smite Opposition give a damage bonus based on Con and invested Essentia rather than class level, or have Sapphire Soul be multiplied by invested Essentia with a class level based cap on investment to make it better over time, so long as you stick to the class.

Waker
2017-06-19, 09:18 PM
As-is, the only serious incentive to take more than three levels is the Auras. Per-day Smite effects are garbage for most situations unless they get crazy bonuses stacked up on them. Fixing this situation of dip-proneness is really simple. Make the effects rely on class level more. The class has too many effects at low levels without fast enough class-based scaling at higher levels to really make sure that people will do more than snag 3 levels of it as an Incarnate or Totemist for a nice boost from an Aura and unlimited healing. Foe Bane is actually so situational and weak that the reason for going three levels is the second available Aura to pick from.
Auras are probably the biggest reason to take the class, so that's no surprise. Champion's Shield also provides some incentive, even if it isn't as strong. What's wrong with Smite? It's a boost to damage and hit, nothing fancy. Foe-bane isn't mean to be huge, more as a little bonus than a huge benefit.


The overall mechanics require the character to be either True Neutral or be in a party where everyone shares an alignment with them, which is horrible.
How do you figure that being Neutral is a requirement?
LG|LN|LE
NG|N|NE
CG|CN|CE
A non-neutral exarch can share his aura with 5 total alignments on this chart. A neutral exarch can share their alignment with 5 total alignments on this chart. You're just as likely to affect allies. I will admit that it does require a bit more coordination with party members during character creation, but a typical party isn't likely to have radically different alignments, at least in my experience.


The class also has issues with clarity of effects. Do Auras have their Essentia investment cap with the normal Soulmeld/Feat cap, then go up from there with Greater Champion's Aura, or do they start at zero or one available for Investment, then get boosted by Greater Champion's Aura? I'd just roll the investment cap into the ability description, removing Greater Champion's Aura from the class table as a result and making the Auras fully based on the class. I'll give you a reworded version that rolls Greater Champion's Aura in under the assumption that the intent is to cap at 6 Essentia invested
They follow the normal rules for the essentia capacity on pg19. So Greater Aura raises the cap to 6.


Sacred and Profane bonuses are already non-stacking as part of their basic rules, so you don't need to mention that if the bonuses are already typed as Sacred or Profane. I went with Moral rather than Insight for Neutral so that it doesn't overlap with other Incarnum classes and instead overlaps with Marshal, Bard and Divine Mind, thereby making a Neutral Exarch compete for the slot of those classes which actually have similar roles unless the party builds around eachother to avoid wasted bonuses, which has it's own problem of rigid formations.
I restated the non-stacking aspect since they did so with the Marshal aura description. Just wanted to keep in line with how other classes are written, even if that does lead to redundancy.

All bonuses granted by a marshal's auras are circumstance bonuses that do not stack with each other.
And as for what neutral exarch's use, I put that in the Aura description.

Aura: As a exarch, you have a particularly powerful aura corresponding to your alignment (see the detect evil spell for details). The type of bonuses and penalties that an exarch grant are dependent upon their alignment. A Lawful Good or Chaotic Good exarch effects are Sacred, while a Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil exarch's are Profane. A neutral exarch decides to use sacred or profane at level 1.


A mechanical issue I have with the class is that you can easily have a build that's incapable of investing all of it's Essentia at quite a few levels. The class has to take feats to invest Essentia in, and most of them won't solve the issue before level 6 because they can only have one Essentia in them, but also grant one Essentia to use for this. So from level 2-5 the class can't actually have all its Essentia invested. To solve this issue, I'd prefer to have more things to invest Essentia into. Perhaps have Smite Opposition give a damage bonus based on Con and invested Essentia rather than class level, or have Sapphire Soul be multiplied by invested Essentia with a class level based cap on investment to make it better over time, so long as you stick to the class.
Your observation on the inability to invest all the essentia is something I missed. Hmm, I'll have to ponder that. I might tweak the essentia acquisition as you level.

Thanks for the feedback.

Nifft
2017-06-19, 10:28 PM
Yeah I was trying to figure out what you were supposed to do with your 2nd point of Essentia at level 3.

Meldshapers generally have multiple soulmelds, and usually one of these has +1 capacity, so if a Meldshaper takes an [Incarnum] feat at level 1 or 3, that character can generally use the extra point of Essentia on class features.

The other thing I'd suggest is that an aura is not a replacement for spellcasting, since spellcasting can replicate a lot of aura effects and do so much more. So IMHO you can't get away with a paucity of class features.

I would suggest making this a PrC for Incarnates & Totemists.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-06-20, 08:35 AM
It's an interesting idea, but honestly it seems... dull. You've got two things (Recovery aura and Champion's Shield) that are kind of too strong for their level, but all your other auras are pretty bland. Most of the auras are either uninspiring attack/save boosts or kinda situational, and you don't get enough to make the situational ones worth taking. So you'll turn on your Wrath aura (which, practically speaking, is twice as good as Surety) and power attack away. You'll be... effective, I guess? It's a pretty big AC penalty you can turn into damage, anyway. But you'll be doing the same thing every turn.

At the very least, I'd suggest giving more auras so that you can make at least a few choices in a fight. That, and make more noncombat ones like Mentor and make them worth taking. If you were to go farther, I'd like to see the auras do actually interesting things. Maybe take a page from the rest of Incarnum-- you know all your auras, but every day you pick a few to have greater effects once bound... maybe ones that you have to activate. So Surety, say, might grant the +e to attack when projected, but if it's Attuned you also can... I dunno, let's say that as a swift action on your turn you can shift your allies around like they're taking 5ft steps, up to 5ft total movement/essentia invested. You know-- "minor passive bonus and significant active ability."

Waker
2017-06-20, 10:40 AM
It's an interesting idea, but honestly it seems... dull. You've got two things (Recovery aura and Champion's Shield) that are kind of too strong for their level, but all your other auras are pretty bland. Most of the auras are either uninspiring attack/save boosts or kinda situational, and you don't get enough to make the situational ones worth taking. So you'll turn on your Wrath aura (which, practically speaking, is twice as good as Surety) and power attack away. You'll be... effective, I guess? It's a pretty big AC penalty you can turn into damage, anyway. But you'll be doing the same thing every turn.
The auras are rather simplistic, I wanted something that would be easily raised with essentia investment. Having Wrath at -2 was a mistake, meant to change that to -1, but its what happens when you rewrite a class's features so many times.


At the very least, I'd suggest giving more auras so that you can make at least a few choices in a fight. That, and make more noncombat ones like Mentor and make them worth taking. If you were to go farther, I'd like to see the auras do actually interesting things. Maybe take a page from the rest of Incarnum-- you know all your auras, but every day you pick a few to have greater effects once bound... maybe ones that you have to activate. So Surety, say, might grant the +e to attack when projected, but if it's Attuned you also can... I dunno, let's say that as a swift action on your turn you can shift your allies around like they're taking 5ft steps, up to 5ft total movement/essentia invested. You know-- "minor passive bonus and significant active ability."
I'd be fine with adding more non-combat auras, just gotta think of 'em. I definitely wanna avoid giving all the auras at level one. As much as I like how multiclass friendly Incarnum is, I wanna encourage people to stay in the class a bit more.
I still need to think of a good capstone ability too.
I suppose one thing I could elaborate on is one of my other goals with the class. I love Incarnum and I think it's a nifty system. Even though I think it has rather simple mechanics once you got a hold on it, I know a number of people who get kinda spooked out when they look at it. Part of this is the trepidation people get when looking at anything new, part is the fact that the book could have used better editing. Regardless I wanted something easy that could act as sort of a Incarnum training wheels class. So even though I could have included melds and chakras, I just went with essentia mixed with class features that use them so people could get eased into the process.

Morphic tide
2017-06-20, 04:25 PM
Well, for a capstone a "limit break" of sorts seems good to me. Possibly as a "surge aura" or something, having an extra effect attached to it that you can choose to go with a temporary uncapping of Essentia investment, maximum investment to all active Auras and/or activating all auras.

Maybe have the "surge auras" just be other class features converted into an Aura, like having Foebane and/or Smite Opposition apply to all attacks made against valid enemies for the duration.

As for being a "training class," you can copy one of the Incarnum PRCs and add the ability to bind Auras to Chakras, with generalized extra effects based on which Chakra is bound. Just simple stuff like boosting range, relaxing the Alignment restriction for that Aura and maybe using it as a Smite boost, like applying its effect as if capped on Essentia invested and then boosted further. Self-range but boosted cap or automatic investment?

A solution to Smite Opposition's core Smite-based scaling issues issues might be to let it be adding/improving/mimicking the Alignment enhancements to the weapon for the attack or round, getting better over time. Then Foebane can be shifted to a later on ability because it's a de-facto Smite boost. Or just roll Foebane into Smite by having Foebane's current effect be part of the Smite progression. Distancing from Paladin is a good thing, here.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-06-20, 08:08 PM
The auras are rather simplistic, I wanted something that would be easily raised with essentia investment. Having Wrath at -2 was a mistake, meant to change that to -1, but its what happens when you rewrite a class's features so many times.

I'd be fine with adding more non-combat auras, just gotta think of 'em. I definitely wanna avoid giving all the auras at level one. As much as I like how multiclass friendly Incarnum is, I wanna encourage people to stay in the class a bit more.
If that's the case, you need to level-gate 'em. Because as-is, you sort of have the Marshal problem: take a quick dip to grab the aura or two you care about, then switch to something more interesting.

Also, I suggest doing something like what the Divine Mind does: automatically grant a combat-aura and a utility-aura at level 1, alongside one of your choice. That adds multiple elements of choice into the class from the get-go-- both character building (as your key bases are already taken) and in-game (as you start out with choices). Which admittedly won't help with the dipping, but I think the overall improvement is worth it.

(For utility-based, I suggest maybe a generic "+e to skill and ability checks" aura, with perhaps one or two more powerful "+2e to this subset" things)


I suppose one thing I could elaborate on is one of my other goals with the class. I love Incarnum and I think it's a nifty system. Even though I think it has rather simple mechanics once you got a hold on it, I know a number of people who get kinda spooked out when they look at it. Part of this is the trepidation people get when looking at anything new, part is the fact that the book could have used better editing. Regardless I wanted something easy that could act as sort of a Incarnum training wheels class. So even though I could have included melds and chakras, I just went with essentia mixed with class features that use them so people could get eased into the process.
It's not much of a training wheel, though. You project your aura, and you dump all your essentia into it at the same time. Boom, done. I guess it sort of gets you to understand essentia capacity, but even with two auras, you're pretty easily filling both at once. I think a bind-type system coming in at later levels would help with all aspects, though-- it would provide incentive to stick with the class, it would make the class more interesting, and it would continue to get people thinking properly about how meldshaping works.

Waker
2017-06-21, 05:07 PM
Hmm, I suppose I'll apply a grading scale to the auras and begin separating what I have between the groups. For now I think I'll say starting auras are Minor, at 6th level they gain access to Major auras and at 13th they get the highest tier of Grand. Still will need to think of a few more auras to fill in the gaps.
I would like to add something to level 3. An essentia skill, preferably non-combat.

Foe-Bane
The exarch gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Intimidate, Listen, Sense Motive and Spot checks per essentia invested against creatures whose possess at least one opposing alignment.

Possible aura
Defending- Whenever an ally takes damage, 1 point of damage per essentia invested in instead dealt to the exarch. Damage from all allies is taken simultaneously, after which damage reduction or energy resistance is applied.

Waker
2017-06-22, 12:11 PM
Made a few tweaks to the class.
-Removed the inherent 1d8 for Sapphire Soul. The ability only works with essentia investment now.
-Added a bonus to a handful of skills for Foe-bane, similar to Favored Enemy.
-Added the ability Champion's Rampart, which allows the exarch to add the benefits of his Champion's Shield for his allies.