new to magic of incarnium

[Devronq]

So I decided to just start to learn the magic of incarnium, I have lots of 3.x experience but never read this at all. I just took a quick read of the classes and was starting to read the soul melds so any advice to give on learning this? I quick skim makes me think there all about equal probably all teir 3 I'm guessing? And any neat or commonly used tricks or advise with this book? Sorry for being vague but I do no nothing other than a bit of reading I just did :p thank you guys :)

[almightycoma]

One thing people talk about is that totemist is one of the easiest ways to get an extra set of arms. you do this by binding girllions arms to your totem chakra.

[Glimbur]

Incarnate shines with a lot of system mastery. It can be very durable in a variety of ways, and it has a few ways to deal damage also. It can be good at UMD, which is nice.

Totemist competes with Druid for the best natural attack user in the game. Of course, Druid is also a full caster, but Totemist is respectable Tier 3 with natural attacks and a variety of other options from soulmelds.

Soulborn... look again at how many soulmelds they get to shape, and how much essentia they have, and when they get Chakra binds open. The intent is to have a half-caster Incarnum class, but they did not add enough Incarnum and they overvalued full BAB. There are a number of fixes around, use one of them.

Probably the most famous Incarnum trick is the Strongheart Vest + Hellfire Warlock combo. The Vest gives, essentially, DR versus ability damage. We can argue about whether or not it works with Hellfire, since you cannot be immune to Con damage to use Hellfire. I don't want to have that argument but we can.

What I like best about Incarnum is that you can take a little or a lot. If the party fighter has problems getting Dominated, you can take Shape Soulmeld: Planar Ward(I think, there is a soulmeld that suppresses domination). If the druid wants to pounce, Shape Soulmeld Sphinx Claws and Open Chakra Hands. Or you can throw in two levels of Totemist to get a more flexible pile of abilities. Or you can take, I dunno, Incarnate into Chameleon to be good at a number of skills. It works as a dip, with a feat, or with a heavier investment. It is not generally the strongest option, but it is interesting.

[Red Fel]

The best advice I can give to anyone interested in the contents of a book is to read it. Thoroughly. No quick skims; read the whole thing. If you're not sure, read it twice.

That said, with regard to your question, the consensus seems to be that Incarnates and Totemists are roughly Tier 3-4, and the sad little Soulborn is a Tier 5. Soulborn is ill-advised in general, unless you particularly need it due to alignment or want it due to flavor. Incarnates make great dips, and as previously mentioned, Totemists have some very useful abilities.

Things to remember, generally, about Soulmelds:
1- Soulmelds can be shaped over slots occupied by magic items, but cannot be bound to those slots (unless you take a feat).
2- Totemists gain a Totem Chakra, which does not correspond to an item slot; you can always bind a soulmeld there.

Apart from that, just look over the book in more detail. Remember that Incarnates and Soulborns are alignment-restricted, and that Totemists are illiterate, and you'll do fine.

[lsfreak]

There's a few handbooks around, might be worth glancing at. Soulborns are bad (Core paladin type bad), totemists are solid T4 and make great chargers and grapplers, plus a bit of other stuff. Incarnates can do a decent amount of stuff: tanking, skillmonkeying, zombiemaking, ranged damage, melee damage, some spellcasting-like stuff, etc. It's partly determined by the alignment you go (and thus the soulmelds you have access to, or the alignment-determined meld effects), but which alignment is which escapes me at the moment except that Chaotic kinda got shafted.

EDIT: Oh, and Incarnum is like, the single most dip-friendly anything in 3.5e.

[Fax Celestis]

And the prestige classes aren't all terrible either, unlike a number of other books. Totem Rager and Ironsoul Forgemaster, in particular, are pretty bomb. I think the only real loser PrC (including the racial sub levels!) is the Witchborn Binder, which tries really hard to be an anti-caster PrC but really ends up spending too much of its five class levels on free money.

[Irk]

a lot of the tricks revolve around psycarnum infusion and things like midnight metamagic and azure talent. Essentially, psycarnum infusion lets you get around the 1/day thing of those feats, granting free metamagic or power points just for expending your psionic focus. Of course, it depends on your incarnum capacity, so you can take a feat to improve that, too

[Pluto!]

The two things that I had to go back and re-skim to understand were that "Shaping" and "Binding" soulmelds are jargon terms that mean different things and that essentia capacity is based on character level, not class or meldshaper levels, which makes the classes very multiclass-friendly.

The latter of those is especially relevant with the Incarnate, which gets a ton of frontloaded abilities that are really distinct and powerful for level 1 characters like at-will flight and teleportation, at-will 3d6 ranged touch attacks and big number boosts to just about anything they want, but which improve pretty marginally with class levels, making splashing Incarnate 2-4 and multiclassing elsewhere into a frequently appealing option.


The other thing that it took a couple few rereads to fully accept is that the Incarnum Blade is just unsalvageable, even with the easy entry and Con-based fear thing.

[Chronos]

Quoth Fax:

And the prestige classes aren't all terrible either, unlike a number of other books. Totem Rager and Ironsoul Forgemaster, in particular, are pretty bomb.
My personal favorite is the Umbral Disciple, which gives Hide in Plain Sight far more cheaply than most other ways of getting it. A one-level dip in Incarnate followed by three levels in Umbral Disciple can be quite useful for any skillmonkey character.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Totemist is a solid T3-- you can brawl with the best of them, and you still have access to a ton of awesome secondary abilities. (Tactical teleports? Telepathy? Blindsight? Breath weapons? Plenty of skill bonuses? Yes please!)

Incarnate is... well, if you know what you're doing, it's T3. If not, it can slip back to T4-- it takes some work to get combat power, beyond the first few levels, but you have an incredible variety of abilities.

The best thing you can do, I'd say, is compile your own list of soulmelds and what they do for you. That'll make it easier to reference in-game, as well as forcing you to study that section in decent detail.

Other tips... essentia investment is based on total character level. You can shape ALL melds on your list straight from level one. Binds are class-specific, but essentia is not, so a Totemist 19/Incarnate 1 can shape any melt in the book, and invest essentia in it to the full extent of their ability, although he can only bind Totemist melds. Double Chakra is required for Totemists.

[Telonius]

One thing that often confuses people straight off - you can shape any of the soulmelds just to start off with. It's not like it's a progression, a la spell levels. The soulmelds become more powerful the more essentia you invest (the maximum number of which - or "essentia capacity" - does increase with level) and whether or not you bind the soulmeld to a chakra. The placement of the Essentia Capacity table is the hardest part. It kind of makes sense where it is (on page 19), but you really need to refer to it often enough that they might have put it next to the list of all the soulmelds.

[Waker]

Magic of Incarnum is not a friendly book for skimming. They really should have rearranged the game rules and other information into a bit more of a coherent setup. Anyways, with that said I'll get into explaining the system. The following rules are the general rules to Incarnum, note that there are always feats, class features or other rules that may specifically overrule them.

Soulmeld- Soulmelds are an odd duck, halfway between an all-day spell buff and an item. Each meld corresponds to a particular body slot, indicated in the melds description. Most melds passively grant a bonus to a skill, attack or grant some kind of ability or immunity. The majority of soulmelds do not concern themselves with meldshaper levels, making them multiclass friendly. It is important to note two things about melds: they do not prevent the use of magic items on the same body slot and will persist until you unshape them.
Chakra- Chakra Binds are an added feature of soulmelds. You can bind a soulmeld to a specific Chakra to gain an additional effect from the meld. Bear in mind that you get the effects of both the standard soulmeld and the Chakra Bind effects. You can only have one soulmeld bound to one Chakra. While a soulmeld is bound to a Chakra, you cannot wear a magic item that corresponds to that body slot.
Essentia- Essentia is a non-consumable energy source for soulmelds. You can invest a number of essentia into a soulmeld to grant it a greater effect. The limit to your essentia capacity is detailed on pg 19 and is determined by total character levels, not class or meldshaper levels. Essentia stays invested in a soulmeld until reinvested elsewhere and you can reinvest any amount of essentia to any amount of soulmelds as a Swift action every round. If a soulmeld bound to a Chakra has two different effects based on essentia investment, you gain the benefits of both when investing essentia into it.

Since other people talked about the classes, I'll leave my explanation at that. If you have any questions, just ask.

[THEChanger]

Other tips... essentia investment is based on total character level. You can shape ALL melds on your list straight from level one. Binds are class-specific, but essentia is not, so a Totemist 19/Incarnate 1 can shape any melt in the book, and invest essentia in it to the full extent of their ability, although he can only bind Totemist melds. Double Chakra is required for Totemists.

Do you have a citation for this? I've been playing around with Incarnum for awhile, and while I've never multi-classed between Incarnum classes, I've not seen anything in the book that would suggest this.

[Waker]

Do you have a citation for this? I've been playing around with Incarnum for awhile, and while I've never multi-classed between Incarnum classes, I've not seen anything in the book that would suggest this.

I'm assuming what he is trying to say is the little tidbit concerning Multiclass Meldshapers on pg 20. It says that while essentia is pooled, class abilities do not apply to melds from the other class. So in the Incarnate/Totemist example he mentioned, he would have all the melds between the two classes, but would be unable to bind Incarnate Soulmelds to the Chakra's unlocked from his Totemist levels.

[THEChanger]

I'm assuming what he is trying to say is the little tidbit concerning Multiclass Meldshapers on pg 20. It says that while essentia is pooled, class abilities do not apply to melds from the other class. So in the Incarnate/Totemist example he mentioned, he would have all the melds between the two classes, but would be unable to bind Incarnate Soulmelds to the Chakra's unlocked from his Totemist levels.

Well, I have no idea how I've gone so long with the book and missed that all this time. Thank you.

[Red Fel]

Do you have a citation for this? I've been playing around with Incarnum for awhile, and while I've never multi-classed between Incarnum classes, I've not seen anything in the book that would suggest this.

Ooh! I've got this one!

Similarly, your chakra binds are limited by class - if your incarnate levels allow you to bind soulmelds to your crown chakra but your totemist levels allow you to bind soulmelds only to your totem chakra, you cannot bind totemist soulmelds to your crown chakra.

Dagnabbit, swordsage'd.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Well, I have no idea how I've gone so long with the book and missed that all this time. Thank you.
The book is rather prone to hiding vital bits of information away in odd places. (Table of essentia capacity/character level, anyone?)

[Waker]

Dagnabbit, swordsage'd.
Were you Swordsage'd? Or were you Umbral Disciple'd?! I shall leave you to think on this.

The book is rather prone to hiding vital bits of information away in odd places. (Table of essentia capacity/character level, anyone?)
This is the single biggest complaint that I have with the book. Interesting mechanics, nice way to give someone "magic" without resorting to spells, multiclass friendly. And they had to do a bad job editing.

[Red Fel]

Were you Swordsage'd? Or were you Umbral Disciple'd?! I shall leave you to think on this.

... +1 point of Essentia to you.


This is the single biggest complaint that I have with the book. Interesting mechanics, nice way to give someone "magic" without resorting to spells, multiclass friendly. And they had to do a bad job editing.

Put another way: Melee Cannot Have Nice Things. If Melee must have nice things, make them hard to use.

Pity, because as others have said, Incarnum really offers wonderful options. But its user-unfriendly interface can be very offputting at a single glance.

[Big Fau]

Something I've heard from fellow players is to bump up the Incarnate's and Totemist's BAB, and there's a few good Soulborn fixes both here and over at BG.

[Harrow]

Let's see, things left to cover...

Umbral disciple gives you concealment along with HipS

Moving essentia around as a swift action means you get to change what you're good at any turn (as long as you have the right soulmelds shaped)

IIRC, maximum soulmelds shaped is your Con score-10 (more important information that is easy to miss)

This article > http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a < contains a prestige class (psion/incarnum theurge) and, more exciting, more soulmelds

[Person_Man]

Even though it's one of the most important parts of the rules, your essentia capacity (the maximum number of essentia points you can invest in a soulmeld) is buried in a bunch of different places throughout the book. It is determined by:


1-5 Hit Dice = 1 point of essentia
6-11 Hit Dice = 2 points of essentia
12-17 Hit Dice = 3 points of essentia
18-20 Hit Dice = 4 points of essentia
+1 to Incarnate soulmelds at Incarnate levels 3 and 15.
+1 to soulmelds bound to your Totem chakra at Totemist levels 2 and 15.
+1 to Necrocarnum soulmelds (a small subset of Incarnate soulmelds) at level 9 (ECL 16).
+1 to one soulmeld with the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity Feat (you can apply it to a different soulmeld of your choice each time you shape them, and you can take the Feat multiple times to apply it to additional soulmelds, but not more then once to the same soulmeld).
+1 to any soulmeld in one slot (other then the Totem chakra) with an Incarnum Focus magic item (which doesn't prevent you from binding a chakra to that slot).


Thus your maximum essentia capacity for anything is 8. (It's impossible to stack Totemist/Incarnate/Necrocarnate bonuses in a way that gives you anything more then +2 to a soulmeld). But it will typically be 1-6, depending on your level and build, or just 1-4ish if you're just dabbling in Incarnum without seriously investing in it.

Keep this in mind when looking at soulmelds. Some soulmelds are useful without any essentia. (Such as most soulmelds which grant a natural attack, or a special ability that doesn't depend on essentia like Uncanny Dodge or Telepathy). Others are only useful if your essentia capacity is keeping pace with your ECL. For example, Spellward Shirt provides Spell Resistance 5 + (4*essentia invested). That's useful for anyone at low levels. But if you're just dabbling in Incarnum, by mid levels that'll be a mostly meaningless level of SR. But if you're an Incarnate who invests heavily in it, it can be 85%ish or more SR, which makes you mostly immune to most magical effects.


Also, as others have mentioned, the RAW Soulborn is complete garbage. Here is a shameless plug for my homebrew fix, the War Soul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156441).

[Dusk Eclipse]

Something I've heard from fellow players is to bump up the Incarnate's and Totemist's BAB, and there's a few good Soulborn fixes both here and over at BG.

Full BAB totemist sound pretty scary, I mean because how natural attack works they don't have as many accuracy issues (and attack per round) other 3/4 BAB classes have, but at least that cuts down a little how much points they can dump into Power attack.

3/4 incarnate would be pretty much the same I guess, They don't get too many souls melds that need attack roles do they (Off-hand I can't remember any other than Dissolving Spittle and Incarnate Weapon)

[Chronos]

Incarnate might not get many soulmelds that require attack rolls, but they tend to rely pretty heavily on the ones they do, since they don't actually get all that many offensive options.

And be careful about that "because of the way that natural attacks work...", because most totemist soulmelds contain specific exceptions to how natural attacks normally work. So far as I know, the most melee attacks per round you can get from a totemist is 6, from Girallon Arms and Lamia Belt.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Something I've heard from fellow players is to bump up the Incarnate's and Totemist's BAB, and there's a few good Soulborn fixes both here and over at BG.
Totemist could go either way, but Incarnate can really use it-- they're not even slightly casters, half their melds involve hitting things with weapons, but they still get 1/2 BAB.

(OK, once you get past low levels, that is. My Incarnate 4 is the scariest thing in the party right now)

[Fax Celestis]

BAB is overrated. Incarnates can melee just fine.

[Big Fau]

BAB is overrated. Incarnates can melee just fine.

I still wish they had more Iteratives. Ranged Incarnates could also use it for prereqs IIRC.

[Devronq]

Hmm thank you guys this is a good start :)

[Bonzai]

Incarnum is probably one of the most flexible and dip friendly systems out there.

Incarnates: Great skill monkeys, tanks, and utility. Can be very similar to a binder.

Totemists: Solid melee, also an interesting skill monkey. They are a pretty unique class.

Soulborn: Picture a core only paladin, minus the mount, and you come close. Decent charger, smiter, and can be very impressive trip attackers. Having played one, I can tell you that my biggest complaint was not a lack of essentia or melds, but not being able to swap a meld out pre-epic. You are basically stuck for the whole day, which exacerbates your limited selection.

Prestige Classes: Come in two flavors, devoted incarnum classes, and incarnum dip classes. Most are decent.

Incarnum to me is all about finding synergy. If you look hard enough you can almost always find something there to help a build or theme. It's probably one of the most balanced magic systems out there.

[Aliek]

Full BAB totemist sound pretty scary, I mean because how natural attack works they don't have as many accuracy issues (and attack per round) other 3/4 BAB classes have, but at least that cuts down a little how much points they can dump into Power attack.


I'm pretty sure young can't power attack with natural weapons

[Fax Celestis]

I'm pretty sure young can't power attack with natural weapons

Yes you can.


Power Attack [General]
Prerequisite
Str 13.

Benefit
On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all melee attack rolls and add the same number to all melee damage rolls. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.

Special
If you attack with a two-handed weapon, or with a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands, instead add twice the number subtracted from your attack rolls. You can’t add the bonus from Power Attack to the damage dealt with a light weapon (except with unarmed strikes or natural weapon attacks), even though the penalty on attack rolls still applies. (Normally, you treat a double weapon as a one-handed weapon and a light weapon. If you choose to use a double weapon like a two-handed weapon, attacking with only one end of it in a round, you treat it as a two-handed weapon.)

A fighter may select Power Attack as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[Chronos]

Quoth Bonzai:

Totemists: Solid melee, also an interesting skill monkey. They are a pretty unique class.
All of the skill bonuses a totemist gets are competence bonuses, which is the same kind of bonus you get from most magic items and spells, and those sources usually give you larger bonuses. Which means that unless you're using Vow of Poverty or the like, the totemist skill bonuses end up not doing anything.

Incarnates, by contrast, mostly get the much rarer (and hence more useful) insight bonus type, and can therefore provide a much bigger boost to your skills (though they're notably lacking Hide and Move Silently). The best skills of all, though, generally come from a combination of Incarnate and more conventional skill-monkey classes like rogue or factotum, so you can get ranks and soulmeld bonuses.

[Coidzor]

These resources might be useful, but it seems everyone's hit upon the main points already.

Incarnum for dummies (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153196)

Incarnum Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=576)

[Kuulvheysoon]

The other thing that it took a couple few rereads to fully accept is that the Incarnum Blade is just unsalvageable, even with the easy entry and Con-based fear thing.

It's not completely unsalvageable - it's got a special little nook in my heart. I'd rather take 5 levels of Incarnum Blade than Soulborn, after all. It's a variety of (small, situational) bonuses.


BAB is overrated. Incarnates can melee just fine.

Win.