necrocarnate's necrocarnum soulshield duration?

[Venger]

necrocarnate's necrocarnum soulshield gives a profane bonus to saves 1/2 class level times/day. However, there is no listed duration.

since I know there was no errata published to MoI, does anyone have an answer to this? was it answered by a designer like with hexblade or shadowcaster's fixes? any "official" answer is at least good as a starting point since at least it'll provide a baseline. If none exists, what is a reasonable duration for this ability to last?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

necrocarnate's necrocarnum soulshield gives a profane bonus to saves 1/2 class level times/day. However, there is no listed duration.

since I know there was no errata published to MoI, does anyone have an answer to this? was it answered by a designer like with hexblade or shadowcaster's fixes? any "official" answer is at least good as a starting point since at least it'll provide a baseline. If none exists, what is a reasonable duration for this ability to last?

Yea, I made a mention about that when I was doing my guide on Meldshaping (see sig). If it didn't have a times/day limitation, I'd just go ahead and list it along with the other class abilities that can be invested in and say 'as long as you've got essentia invested in it'.

Honestly, I'd probably just call it 'duration: encounter'. Sure, you could probably give it a duration of Rounds/level or even Minutes/level, but in reality, it probably boils down to 'this lasts for one encounter unless things have gone VERY wrong, in which case you probably have more important things to worry about'.

[Venger]

Yea, I made a mention about that when I was doing my guide on Meldshaping (see sig). If it didn't have a times/day limitation, I'd just go ahead and list it along with the other class abilities that can be invested in and say 'as long as you've got essentia invested in it'.

Honestly, I'd probably just call it 'duration: encounter'. Sure, you could probably give it a duration of Rounds/level or even Minutes/level, but in reality, it probably boils down to 'this lasts for one encounter unless things have gone VERY wrong, in which case you probably have more important things to worry about'.

I noticed. I've been rereading your incarnum guide for the sixth or seventh time for how to incarnate and looked everywhere I could think of for an answer as well. I don't think I understand what you mean about investing essentia in soulshield. It doesn't say anything about that. am I missing something? or are you suggesting a different version of the ability?

encounter seems reasonable. unless you allow chicken-infested chicanery, necrocarnates aren't going to be breaking any games

[The Viscount]

I'd allow up to a minute. That's one for the dysfunctional rules thread. Oh wizards. When will they learn to add durations?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I noticed. I've been rereading your incarnum guide for the sixth or seventh time for how to incarnate and looked everywhere I could think of for an answer as well. I don't think I understand what you mean about investing essentia in soulshield. It doesn't say anything about that. am I missing something? or are you suggesting a different version of the ability?I was confusing it with Witchborn Binder's 'invest essentia into saves' ability which is similarly typo'd without a duration.


encounter seems reasonable. unless you allow chicken-infested chicanery, necrocarnates aren't going to be breaking any games

Even with Chicken Infested, there's a limit to how much essentia each soulmeld can hold, so there's no infinite cheese. Basically, I assume that any Necrocarnate will cap all of their melds after the first encounter anyways.

[Piggy Knowles]

Yeah, cheese with a Necrocarnate is really pretty low on the cheese scale. Even if you maxed out all of your soulmelds and spent all your feats on Incarnum feats that were similarly maxed out, you'd... be pretty solid, but not game-breaking.

I'd just let soulshield stay on indefinitely, honestly. It's not that big of a buff. At most it's a +6 bonus, which is pretty nice, but that would require shaping every necrocarnum soulmeld, which is kind of a suboptimal use of soulmelds. Realistically I couldn't see having more three shaped on any non-niche build.

Necrocarnates are a lot of fun, don't get me wrong. They have a ton of flavor. They're pretty much the only "dual-advancing" option for a meldshaper, if you want to go that route. And they can be great as a dip on builds that splash incarnum but don't stay in long enough to get a lot of essentia, like Ashardalon Reborn (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/29098007/). But it's certainly not going to break anyone's game if you let them have access to necrocarnum soulshield all day long.