Thinking about including Incarnum...

[atemu1234]

Should I? Is Incarnum any good?

[PsyBomb]

Should I? Is Incarnum any good?

I personally love the system. Takes a little bit of getting used to, and probably some houseruling if someone is determined to play a Soulborn (they are notoriously underpowered), but it adds a lot of depth and variety.

...then again, my avatar is an Azurin. You could say I'm a bit biased

[Glimbur]

It's interesting. It can be added as flavor/variety to most characters, and people that focus on it (apart from Soulborns) can contribute to a party of reasonable power level.

I like the ability of meldshapers to pick their class features every day. And I like that you can do a little Incarnum or a lot of Incarnum; it is dip friendly.

[Pluto!]

I'm all for including everything, and Incarnum is very much a thing. Plus a somewhat interesting system to play with to boot - it's very friendly to multiclassing and makes a ton of neat abilities available to just about any character with a 1-2 level dip. It's pretty well balanced; the hiccups on that front tend to be on the weak end (Soulborn, most of the PrCs, a lot of the feats), and the high-power stuff mostly comes from its interactions with other systems (Incarnum and Psionics get very friendly with one another) or from a slightly front-loaded power progression (level 1 incarnum users can throw more dice and do some cooler tricks than most other classes, but that normalizes pretty quickly).

It's not my favorite book because of its notorious jargon and editing, because the fluff continually strikes me as really stupid (Incarnum users can channel the power of the souls of the living, the dead and the yet-to-be-born, but that power can only be used to make blue ghost-pants) and because there's minimal mechanical customization/differentiation between characters within the classes. Those reasons are mostly a matter of personal taste or of reading the "soulmeld" section twice to get a confident grasp on how exactly the system works, so YMMV. It's definitely popular on these boards.

[Red Fel]

Incarnum is a very nuanced system, with sadly little support due to its arrival late in 3.5's lifetime.

Unlike other systems, such as maneuvers or invocations, Incarnum is a much more passive system; that is, while other systems usually involve active or activated or offensive abilities, much of Incarnum is about providing passive buffs or all-day boosts. Other aspects of Incarnum are about giving you a particular type of power, such as at-will Dimension Door or a claw, bite or tail attack. The big advantage of Incarnum, however, is its versatility - once you take an Incarnum class, you have access to all of that class' Soulmelds, and can switch them out on a daily basis.

The big sacrifice, unfortunately, is that Soulmelds, when bound, clash with magic items, and thus are generally preferred by characters who don't use as many slots - such as light-armor melees, casters, and the like - or by those willing to invest in Incarnum Focus items.

Basically, if you're thinking about including it in your campaign as a DM, do it. It's great fun and great fluff, it allows you to make unexpectedly tougher NPCs without increasing their carried loot, and it adds an exciting new ingredient to the pot. If you're thinking about doing it as a player, consider a one- or two-level dip in Incarnate or Totemist just to get a feel for it. Even a dip can make a character feel new and different, and give them a host of new toys to play with. If you like that taste, your next character can go full-blown Incarnate.

Short version? Yes.

[Virdish]

Really I would day yes and I would house rule that they don't take up magic item slots. The classes shouldn't be punished for using their class features

[Kuulvheysoon]

Incarnates/Totemists are some of the classes that are least impacted by the VoP, so there's also niche interest there.

[Coidzor]

Yes, just make sure you read it, read (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217064-Soulmeld-List-by-Class-and-Slot)the (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=580.0)guides (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=583.0)for it, and then read it again, so I'd set aside a bit of time on consecutive weekends for reading it and then reviewing it, largely due to the editing.

Alternatively, read (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=576.0)the (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?215723-Incarnum-and-YOU-a-reference-guide)guides (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?287304-danzibr-s-Totemist-Handbook), then read it thoroughly.

Edit1: Don't be afraid to ask (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2638.0)questions (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?215693-Incarnum-for-dummies), either. :smallsmile:

Edit2: There are certain tweaks and houserules that could be recommended, but on the whole it works.

[Chronos]

Mechanically, it's great for dips, and an Incarnate with some reasonable build choices is one of very few first-level characters that doesn't suck. But it doesn't keep up well with level. Almost anything a 20th-level incarnate does well, you can do even better with some other build that has one level of Incarnate and 19 of something else, and there's no reason to stay in Totemist past level 9, and very little reason to stay past level 2.

Flavorwise, I'm not a fan. My personal rule of thumb for a base class is that I should be able to find at least three separate characters from fiction, history, or myth who are best represented by that class. For most classes, that's easy: A ranger could be Natty Bumppo, Simo Hayha, or Steve Irwin; a rogue could be Fahfrd, Bilbo Baggins, or Sherlock Holmes, and so on, but I have a really hard time thinking of any character who would be an incarnate.

[Metahuman1]

If you have Tome of Battle, Expanded Psionic Handbook and Magic Item Compendium (Maybe Complete Psionic for the Ardent or Tome of Magic for the Binder. YMMV on these two vs each other and Incarnum), then yeah, it's a good next addition.

If you don't have Tome of Battle, Expanded Psionic Handbook and Magic Item Compendium, get those three first, this one can wait.

Might look at Tome of Magic and Complete Psionic after that, but I can't say in my experiance there stright up better for game play.

I'd also recommend the Dragon Books, but the problem is to get best effect form a player stand point, you REALLY want all three, and I can't recommend that vs. one self contained book. (They sadly broke feats and a and template, and a class that really stands to benefit from them up into three books in the dragon books.)

[NoACWarrior]

I always wanted to play Incarnum in a campaign, but never got the chance to.
Its an interesting system, with a lot of passive buffs than active ones. While some soulmelds get you alternate attacks or other offensive abilities, the defensive and skill buffing soulmelds are numerous. Unless you have a totemist charger, don't expect Incarnum to break your game more than a t3 caster can. That said, Incarnum is great for buff stacking (grapple a terrasque, 3/4 diplomancer) and offering some interesting immunities (can't be flanked, mind shielding).

But the above said, there are other benifits to incarnum / soulmelds. Your PCs can get any one soulmeld use with a single feat. You'll still need to come up with essentia, but you probably had your PCs take azurin, with the feat substitutions which have +1 essentia attached. The feat for soulmeld is a pretty poor usage of a needed feat by most classes and roles, but is a nice way to get the PCs used to soulmelds and Incarnum based magic. Heck, you can even make a custom magic item granting your PCs the shape soulmeld feat so that your PCs can change their soulmeld choice by taking off the item and then putting it back on (still abiding by the "prepare once per day" rule), but this would have to be a house rule as there are no ready rules for feat emulation.

[Coidzor]

It's... I'd say the second most multiclass friendly subsystem after Tome of Battle, but covers a bit more than ToB multiclassing. A great "passive" end of a gestalt as well.

[Ssalarn]

As someone who loved Incarnum enough to reimagine the system and work with Dreamscarred Press to write a revamped version for Pathfinder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?325776-DSP-PF-Magic-of-Incarna-Playtest-Open), you should totally use Incarnum.

AS mentioned by others it's a very gestalt friendly system, with lots of cool little perks and combos that can be used in conjunction with almost any class. While it's actually a little bit on the lower end of the power spectrum as far as the 3 base classes go (particularly the Soulborn), it provides a strong and consistent subsystem that rewards system mastery while allowing even newer players to play a magical character that actually feels consistently magical. As a general rule of thumb, you're not going to have your low level Incarnate burning up his small selection of magic and being reduced to running around firing a very non-magical crossbow or sling.

There were definitely a few issues with the system (like your class abilities blocking you from using your loot), but there's also a lot fo really cool stuff there.

[Zweisteine]

It's a great system, but isn't all that powerful, and not having magic item slots can be hard.
It's ideal for gestalt, because it can support so many types of character, and is almost entirely passive, which makes it perfect. A Rogue//Incarnate, for example, has all good saves, and soulmelds to boost the skills even higher. A barbarian or druid//Totemist is full of flavor, and not so bad. A paladin//soulborn is the worst non-truenamer you will ever play.


If you want an interesting (but not particularly powerful) character, a Totemist with Vow of Poverty can be pretty cool.

[Rubik]

Incarnum works really well with both ToB and psionics.

I love taking two levels of totemist to complement my levels in psion; the Psionic Open Chakra power, when augmented, allows you to bind soulmelds to slots several levels before anyone else in the game can, which makes binding the phase cloak to one's shoulders all sorts of awesome. (Seriously, best soulmeld in the book.)

[Roadie]

(Incarnum users can channel the power of the souls of the living, the dead and the yet-to-be-born, but that power can only be used to make blue ghost-pants)

You mean azure, cerulean, cobalt, indigo, or midnight ghost-pants.

[NoACWarrior]

It's a great system, but isn't all that powerful, and not having magic item slots can be hard.
It's ideal for gestalt, because it can support so many types of character, and is almost entirely passive, which makes it perfect. A Rogue//Incarnate, for example, has all good saves, and soulmelds to boost the skills even higher. A barbarian or druid//Totemist is full of flavor, and not so bad. A paladin//soulborn is the worst non-truenamer you will ever play.


If you want an interesting (but not particularly powerful) character, a Totemist with Vow of Poverty can be pretty cool.

I agree on the lack of power, there are simply not as many tricks you can do unlike psionics and ToB. As for slots, soulmelds only shut off slots when they are bound to that particular chakra slot. Binding soulmelds grant additional powers ranging from changing the action cost, to granting orders of magnitude better abilities (albiet with a small normal and nominal buff effect) which make the soulmeld worth it to bind. You can only bind to a few chakras, and theres a feat to allow dual magic item to chakra use (but not as efficient as building a character with alternate slot magic items instead).

I also thought about a totemist with VoP who becomes a grappler extraordinaire or becomes a massive charger. While both are not as effective as "properly" built grapplers or chargers (being off the mark by about 10-33%) without both the magic items and the feat support, it makes for something that VoP can actually help with (barring the specific magical immunities you need to trivialize encounters). This by no means is a support vote of VoP, I would NEVER play VoP unless the party wealth was pretty much zero, it was a survival campaign, the DM wouldn't try to make my character break the vows, and monsters didn't have perfect battlefield capacity.

[Coidzor]

You mean azure, cerulean, cobalt, indigo, or midnight ghost-pants.

Fixed tha-waitaminute...