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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Incarnum What Should it Do (Design theory discussion)



Zaydos
2014-09-12, 09:28 PM
I have made... let us leave it at many things. Some seem passingly popular, some to my knowledge pretty much ignored. What I have never done is made a class that really used Incarnum (or Shadowcasting) and looking at Incarnum I always have to wonder what it is supposed to do, and what a new incarnum class should do.

Totemist is a natural weapons specialist.

Soulborn we do not speak of.

Incarnate is a skill monkey? Pseudo-caster? I don't grok Incarnate that I'm certain of.

I intend to make an Incarnum using class, complete with at least 25 new soulmelds. I intend to make it with roots in the Far Realm and aberrations. My current idea involves giving it a totem conduit chakra, which represents the hole in their souls leading to the Far Realm, a chakra hungry for essentia with some special rules for investing essentia into it and with chakra binds that include daily abilities. This is how I intend to make it different than Totemist/Incarnate.

So what am I asking? Many things. What makes you like Incarnum? What about the classes attract you? How different should a new meldshaping class be? What niches do you wish they could cover? What is it you believe Incarnum does well, and what do you think could still use work? What is some good music to go to when designing stuff for a meldshaper (currently going to the Akira soundtrack because Far Realm)? What are some things that must be grokked about incarnum before making a meldshaping class (my attempts at playing meldshapers have always been short-lived)? What are some things about making a meldshaping class you'd like help with?

Just to Browse
2014-09-12, 10:43 PM
Incarnum in theory is awesome because you dedicate a large amount of a character's power to a floating investable resource that can be allocated to a variety of skills. This allows for characters to be flexible without having all their options available at once and prevents over-specialization (which is a problem in CharOp).

Incarnum in reality is another power multiplier that lets you jack up your character's stats to new heights and bork the game. While the number of soulmelds allows for some flexibility, over-specialization is still encouraged and doesn't really go away. In addition, slot-specific soulmelds encourages dumpster diving for magic items more.

If you want to continue the trend of MoI without making infinite power loops or whatnot, start by thinking up a few strong builds you want to see, and writing the class/melds to foster that (Ex: Girallon Arms). If you want to go against the grain and do what MoI was supposed to do, you should focus your time on thinking up level-appropriate melds that provide minor baseline powers but scale amazingly when bound/invested (Ex: Blink Shirt).

Amnoriath
2014-09-12, 11:48 PM
As someone who has made a couple of Incarnum homebrew what we want is something to smooth out the staged growth pattern of a typical incarnum base class. While the system itself offers great versatility and bonuses as well as a tuning aspect at reasonable cost without wrecking the game it is laden with feat taxes. Its power in relation to other classes is very peculiar, low levels they are quite powerful, at level 2 the Totemist can even make the big Barbarian whimper in damage while having far more options like different kinds of movement, save or sucks..etc. While essentia capacity grows it usually only gives bonuses so the real steps in power is where you can finally chose what you want in binds. All in all they level out once they have their double chakra feat. While some of the soul chakras are quite good they are often just extensions of what it was already doing or a butt load of immunities if it is good.
As for specifics make sure they have high level offensive binds so many of the high level binds are defensive in nature sometimes making them harder to grow offensively. Also give it a mechanic so that it isn't so dependent off the chakra or essentia capacity feats.

Zaydos
2014-09-13, 01:35 AM
Another question that comes to mind is would it be better to go with Save DCs off of Constitution like a totemist, or a mental stat like an Incarnate? I mean Totemist's is stronger, but Incarnate's has the advantage of shaping out the fluff a little more and by being a little weaker letting a designer play with a little bit stronger save or X powers.


Incarnum in theory is awesome because you dedicate a large amount of a character's power to a floating investable resource that can be allocated to a variety of skills. This allows for characters to be flexible without having all their options available at once and prevents over-specialization (which is a problem in CharOp).

Incarnum in reality is another power multiplier that lets you jack up your character's stats to new heights and bork the game. While the number of soulmelds allows for some flexibility, over-specialization is still encouraged and doesn't really go away. In addition, slot-specific soulmelds encourages dumpster diving for magic items more.

If you want to continue the trend of MoI without making infinite power loops or whatnot, start by thinking up a few strong builds you want to see, and writing the class/melds to foster that (Ex: Girallon Arms). If you want to go against the grain and do what MoI was supposed to do, you should focus your time on thinking up level-appropriate melds that provide minor baseline powers but scale amazingly when bound/invested (Ex: Blink Shirt).

Thanks. I'll probably try for a mix of the two to accommodate for different play styles, but I do think there need to be more Blink Shirt style "this is interesting" abilities and less "big numbers".


As someone who has made a couple of Incarnum homebrew what we want is something to smooth out the staged growth pattern of a typical incarnum base class. While the system itself offers great versatility and bonuses as well as a tuning aspect at reasonable cost without wrecking the game it is laden with feat taxes. Its power in relation to other classes is very peculiar, low levels they are quite powerful, at level 2 the Totemist can even make the big Barbarian whimper in damage while having far more options like different kinds of movement, save or sucks..etc. While essentia capacity grows it usually only gives bonuses so the real steps in power is where you can finally chose what you want in binds. All in all they level out once they have their double chakra feat. While some of the soul chakras are quite good they are often just extensions of what it was already doing or a butt load of immunities if it is good.
As for specifics make sure they have high level offensive binds so many of the high level binds are defensive in nature sometimes making them harder to grow offensively. Also give it a mechanic so that it isn't so dependent off the chakra or essentia capacity feats.

Yeah that's something I'd noticed with Totemist, at 2nd level you have 3 Essentia capacity with feat and totem and totem binds tend to make it worth it to put 3 essentia in them. At Lv 6 this becomes 4, then 5 at Lv 12, 6 at Lv 15, 7 at Lv 18, and then 14 with the capstone; Incarnum Focus adds a +1 sometime in there (25k though might mean its post Lv 12 idk). I'm not really sure how to fix this problem, or the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat tax.

I'll keep it in mind with high level offensive binds (I've got a few save or sucks but mostly it's their equivalent of the Totem chakra that gets the offense at the moment), and because I was already going with a bit of Far Realm transformation I have an ability that lets them shape multiple melds in the same slot (not sure how problematic that tends to be) eventually (Lv 12) upgrading to allow for 1 slot to share 2 binds or a bind an item, and then (Lv 20) letting them bind 2 chakra binds to each chakra (and incidentally allowing them to breath through their skin and move the location of their eyeballs).

Just to Browse
2014-09-13, 03:51 AM
A few more things:
You probably shouldn't have two soulmelds with good synergy binds in shoulders and heart unless once of them provides a resistance bonus to saves.
Please please please don't scale saves off essentia invested unless you plan on seriously rebooting essentia investment.
Keep in mind that soulmelds can be taken for their baseline abilities with a single feat. If a soulmeld doesn't feel appropriate as a feat, it's probably too strong!

Stat-based DCs are basically tied to how you want to gate the character. A ranged guy is not expected to put his biggest stats in Str/Con or Dex/Con like a melee character, so making save DCs tied to a mental stat is fine since he's got points to burn, while melee characters or hulking hurlers may need two or all three of those to function properly so putting their DCs on a mental stat is like a trap option (like the Incarnate!).

sirpercival
2014-09-13, 06:13 AM
Note that the Warpsoul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13759647#post13759647) exists - of course I wouldn't and can't forbid you from doing your own take on the theme, but I thought I'd point it out so you can (a) look for separate design space, and (b) pillage ideas & inspiration. (I also have a list of more aberrant soulmelds that I haven't gotten around to making yet.)

If you're interested, on minmaxboards a discussion has started up about making a class & soulmelds for a variety of different creature types, given that Magical Beast (Totemist), Aberration (Warpsoul), Plant (Green Man), and Outsider (a fixed Incarnate, probably) already exist. Oh yeah, and Dragon once the Base Class contest is done. We're waiting for a subforum to explore the idea more fully, but you're welcome to join us!

Milo v3
2014-09-13, 07:35 AM
This thread's responses are going to be interesting to me since I just started work on a Extraordinary Incarnum/Akasha system, and an Akasha class based around turning yourself into a mix between Divine Vehicle and Robot.


What makes you like Incarnum?
Being able to have non-vancian magic, that has rather mutable easily unique flavour, and that it isn't just videogamey mana points and more similar to those old mech games or FTL.


What about the classes attract you?
Totemist pulls me in since it lets me make my character a monster, and I like all of the veilshapers because of their flavour except for the vizier.


How different should a new meldshaping class be?
As different as you want. In my opinion, since the flavour is Soul stuff that means you can have it do anything related to any creatures that existed. I mean, PF's meldshaping had a veil called Hand Cannon....


What niches do you wish they could cover?
I haven't really seen as stealth meld/veilshaper or a ranged based one.


What is it you believe Incarnum does well, and what do you think could still use work?
I think it can give a decent amount of options from just first level, and the feat access really makes the system useable for any character. But, the whole binding a slot screwing with magic items just is stupid, and I'm glad DSP removed it.

Amnoriath
2014-09-13, 10:04 AM
I'm not really sure how to fix this problem, or the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat tax.

I'll keep it in mind with high level offensive binds (I've got a few save or sucks but mostly it's their equivalent of the Totem chakra that gets the offense at the moment), and because I was already going with a bit of Far Realm transformation I have an ability that lets them shape multiple melds in the same slot (not sure how problematic that tends to be) eventually (Lv 12) upgrading to allow for 1 slot to share 2 binds or a bind an item, and then (Lv 20) letting them bind 2 chakra binds to each chakra (and incidentally allowing them to breath through their skin and move the location of their eyeballs).

Well rather than try to make a bunch double chakra like abilities I think you can have a couple of class mechanics that could really tie into the Far Realm/aberrant flavor. One of which allows over time a certain amount of binds to become part of your body incurring some penalties to social skills, disguise, and maybe some other minor alterations depending on the soulmeld. This way items will still function. The later on you can put non-corresponding binds to other places on your body in which you have room for but incurring a greater penalty because it is more noticeable as well as changing your anatomy more.

Additionally switching out soulmelds haven't been done that well. While the full-round action for the Incarnate is decent for utility it is crap for battle and Totemist's while can change your bind array more doesn't actually bring in a new soulmeld. With this I could see flavor of your character being spiritually linked with the Far Realm so on top of his active ones he could have an array of dormant ones in the Far Realm. Over time it becomes easier to change and you can add more to this back up stock. As for expanding essentia either I would tie to it a temporary madness like ability being able to add 3 too only aberrant melds or if you want simplicity just give them the Incarnate progression except for only its soulmelds.

I know I am making lots of suggestions to say what I would like done but this way not only do you bring somethings very new to the table in Incarnum but you also let the others have their mechanical specialties.

Zaydos
2014-09-13, 12:50 PM
A few more things:
You probably shouldn't have two soulmelds with good synergy binds in shoulders and heart unless once of them provides a resistance bonus to saves.
Please please please don't scale saves off essentia invested unless you plan on seriously rebooting essentia investment.
Keep in mind that soulmelds can be taken for their baseline abilities with a single feat. If a soulmeld doesn't feel appropriate as a feat, it's probably too strong!

Stat-based DCs are basically tied to how you want to gate the character. A ranged guy is not expected to put his biggest stats in Str/Con or Dex/Con like a melee character, so making save DCs tied to a mental stat is fine since he's got points to burn, while melee characters or hulking hurlers may need two or all three of those to function properly so putting their DCs on a mental stat is like a trap option (like the Incarnate!).

Why with those two slots in particular? I forget that some DMs don't let you throw Resistance bonus to saves on items willy-nilly (I have always considered it to be too close to essential and started house ruling that it could be added at no additional cost to items of any slot even before MiC came out). And yeah gonna keep in mind that any meld's baseline ability is just one feat... the harder one to remember is how relatively easy it is to pick them up as binds (either by being a... Incarnate and taking Shape Soulmeld or Open X Chakra); that said it's one of the things that attracted me to making an incarnum using class in the first place.


Note that the Warpsoul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13759647#post13759647) exists - of course I wouldn't and can't forbid you from doing your own take on the theme, but I thought I'd point it out so you can (a) look for separate design space, and (b) pillage ideas & inspiration. (I also have a list of more aberrant soulmelds that I haven't gotten around to making yet.)

If you're interested, on minmaxboards a discussion has started up about making a class & soulmelds for a variety of different creature types, given that Magical Beast (Totemist), Aberration (Warpsoul), Plant (Green Man), and Outsider (a fixed Incarnate, probably) already exist. Oh yeah, and Dragon once the Base Class contest is done. We're waiting for a subforum to explore the idea more fully, but you're welcome to join us!

Yeah I remember when Warpsoul was first posted, I decided to wait to get this off the backburner at the time and then... well just never could get the motivation to bring it off again. Surprisingly (since it started as "we should have an aberration totemist") only 2 of the 13 Soulmelds I've got mostly working right now are based off of aberrations (the others are either metaphysical void mixed with space, spacetime shenanigans, or Great Old One). That said there will be more aberration ones later (it started with a list of core aberrations + thought eater) and the original plans called for 3 different beholder-kin based ones (where as currently the Gauth one ate the Beholder one). I'll probably look it over at some point.


-snip-

Thanks you've given me some to think about, and I'll probably think more about stealthy melds, though most seem to be going towards debuff, ranged abilities (too many mind-affecting, though). I should possibly check out FTL at some point.


Well rather than try to make a bunch double chakra like abilities I think you can have a couple of class mechanics that could really tie into the Far Realm/aberrant flavor. One of which allows over time a certain amount of binds to become part of your body incurring some penalties to social skills, disguise, and maybe some other minor alterations depending on the soulmeld. This way items will still function. The later on you can put non-corresponding binds to other places on your body in which you have room for but incurring a greater penalty because it is more noticeable as well as changing your anatomy more.

Additionally switching out soulmelds haven't been done that well. While the full-round action for the Incarnate is decent for utility it is crap for battle and Totemist's while can change your bind array more doesn't actually bring in a new soulmeld. With this I could see flavor of your character being spiritually linked with the Far Realm so on top of his active ones he could have an array of dormant ones in the Far Realm. Over time it becomes easier to change and you can add more to this back up stock. As for expanding essentia either I would tie to it a temporary madness like ability being able to add 3 too only aberrant melds or if you want simplicity just give them the Incarnate progression except for only its soulmelds.

I know I am making lots of suggestions to say what I would like done but this way not only do you bring somethings very new to the table in Incarnum but you also let the others have their mechanical specialties.

Currently for capacity I have Totemist like progression in your "Conduit" (the living link between your soul and the Far Realm) with the ability to expand it to a number of other soulmelds each day by taking a corresponding penalty to your Wisdom. I'm probably going to avoid a disguise penalty, because I always like the "they can look like normal people" horror aspect when they can suppress their inhumanity, even gaining the ability to look like other people (currently at 4th level you can change your appearance gradually over a week, at 12th you can change it around like a ~13th level druid or a changeling [they're mechanically identical as far as I can tell, both being non-illusion Disguise Self effects which don't affect your gear], and at 20th level you can move the location of organs). I do think I'll tweak the weird binds thing a bit and make it so that at 12th various chakras of the same or higher grade are interchangeable (you could get a brow chakra bind from your shoulders slot) just to give that feeling of total alieness).

And yeah a large part of making this thread is that I don't understand completely what an incarnates specialty is past low levels and don't want to step on too many toes.

Realms of Chaos
2014-09-13, 02:42 PM
I have a bit of an opinion on what Incarnum was supposed to be, though I'm not sure what use it will be.

In my head, incarnum is literally as simple as a secondary set of scaling, modular magical items.

-Each soulmeld is theoretically about the size of a feat (especially as a feat can gain any of them) but they can be swapped out each day.
-Each soulmeld scales a bit through the use of essentia, which allows for round-by-round modularity.
-Each soullmeld is made further modular through the scaling bonuses you can gain by using stronger and stronger chakras.

The soulborn and incarnate represent this line of thinking to a T, with the soulmelds they gain resembling what actual magic items would grant but having no particular focus in what their soulmelds do (much as a ring of protection +5 or cloak of blending lacks focus). They gain the same generic deenses and skill bonuses that magic items give out because "that's-what-magic-items-do".

The totemist received more combat-focused magic items and ended up being decent because all of those natural attacks build up. If the writer realized that the totemist was getting too many attacks and fixed that issue, this class would probably suck. As the totemist feels a bit like it's successful almost "accidentally", I would be hesitant to label it as a "success" of the incarnum system.

If you want to expand incarnum outwards, I would consider thinking about new types of magic items to expand upon. One thing that Incarnum has never really dived into are "tools" like crystal balls, hammerspheres, or immovable rods (the stuff that, as you put it, gives something other than numbers). If you want to capture the madness and volatility of the far realms, perhaps play around with the mechanic of unshaping soulmelds to activate effects, perhaps gaining new soulmelds when you do so.

Also, don't be afraid to re-use pre-existing soulmelds. Just as we don't need five different variations of Cloaks of Resistance, we probably don't need four variants of the blink shirt.

Amnoriath
2014-09-13, 07:18 PM
[S]

Currently for capacity I have Totemist like progression in your "Conduit" (the living link between your soul and the Far Realm) with the ability to expand it to a number of other soulmelds each day by taking a corresponding penalty to your Wisdom. I'm probably going to avoid a disguise penalty, because I always like the "they can look like normal people" horror aspect when they can suppress their inhumanity, even gaining the ability to look like other people (currently at 4th level you can change your appearance gradually over a week, at 12th you can change it around like a ~13th level druid or a changeling [they're mechanically identical as far as I can tell, both being non-illusion Disguise Self effects which don't affect your gear], and at 20th level you can move the location of organs). I do think I'll tweak the weird binds thing a bit and make it so that at 12th various chakras of the same or higher grade are interchangeable (you could get a brow chakra bind from your shoulders slot) just to give that feeling of total alieness).

And yeah a large part of making this thread is that I don't understand completely what an incarnates specialty is past low levels and don't want to step on too many toes.

1. I wouldn't give them more soulmelds to have out because even if they don't have the essentia any good soulmeld still has base effect in itself as well as the bind. Remember the soulmeld and bind progressions of the Totemist and Incarnate are almost equal in number. I wouldn't even do it with constitution, most good aberrant classes laugh at wisdom.

2. "(you could get a brow chakra bind from your shoulders slot) just to give that feeling of total alieness)."
Well, that is what I suggested.

3. The Incarnate's specialty is broad bonuses, utility, and immunities/defense. The bonuses a lawful incarnate can get for melee attacks is immense and even more so with the evil for damage. They also get bonuses for almost every skill their use allowing to dable in all sorts while actually have some of the best health, immunites in the game outside of persist and power loop tricks.

Zaydos
2014-09-16, 01:39 PM
Progress update: I need to translate it into a readable format and make an illithid soulmeld because I have Elder Brain and Intellect Devourer and Illithid is the classic Lovecraftian D&D monster so it needs to be included even if I didn't get to some of my favorite aberrations (rust monster and carrion crawler) other than that it has an acceptable amount (~30) of soulmelds.


I have a bit of an opinion on what Incarnum was supposed to be, though I'm not sure what use it will be.

In my head, incarnum is literally as simple as a secondary set of scaling, modular magical items.

-Each soulmeld is theoretically about the size of a feat (especially as a feat can gain any of them) but they can be swapped out each day.
-Each soulmeld scales a bit through the use of essentia, which allows for round-by-round modularity.
-Each soullmeld is made further modular through the scaling bonuses you can gain by using stronger and stronger chakras.

The soulborn and incarnate represent this line of thinking to a T, with the soulmelds they gain resembling what actual magic items would grant but having no particular focus in what their soulmelds do (much as a ring of protection +5 or cloak of blending lacks focus). They gain the same generic deenses and skill bonuses that magic items give out because "that's-what-magic-items-do".

The totemist received more combat-focused magic items and ended up being decent because all of those natural attacks build up. If the writer realized that the totemist was getting too many attacks and fixed that issue, this class would probably suck. As the totemist feels a bit like it's successful almost "accidentally", I would be hesitant to label it as a "success" of the incarnum system.

Yeah I can kind of agree that totemist feels like it was only accidentally a success and weirdly different from incarnate; not that I think this ended up as a bad thing (greater variety and shows the robustness of the system).


If you want to expand incarnum outwards, I would consider thinking about new types of magic items to expand upon. One thing that Incarnum has never really dived into are "tools" like crystal balls, hammerspheres, or immovable rods (the stuff that, as you put it, gives something other than numbers). If you want to capture the madness and volatility of the far realms, perhaps play around with the mechanic of unshaping soulmelds to activate effects, perhaps gaining new soulmelds when you do so.

Also, don't be afraid to re-use pre-existing soulmelds. Just as we don't need five different variations of Cloaks of Resistance, we probably don't need four variants of the blink shirt.

Was already working on some scrying ones, double checking what hammerspheres are I think I have the starts of an idea for a new soulmeld, and immovable rods the closest I got to is making short duration walls/floors/ceilings/floating-gravity defiant platforms of force... I do need to note that they can sustain weight even if floating mysteriously in thin air.

Did decide to take your advice and try to work in some unshape effects, but they are striking me as hard to balance and design where they are worth using but I've been making them as binds and possibly it'd be better to make them as a simple shape effect... hmm... will have to try one out, but I like the idea of gaining new soulmelds and since one of the recurring suggestions is change up your soulmelds during the day I might just end up going with a class feature that unshapes a meld for a temporary power up and then shapes a new one a randomly determined number of minutes later.

And I might have made 4 variants of blink shirt :smallredface: Ok one is move action teleportation (at 9th+ level), one is battlefield control by teleportation, one is X/day full blown teleport, and one is shadow jumping but teleportation is one thing I made too many effects for, and to some extent with soulmelds fluff matters enough that even if I were just copying it I'd need to refluff a fair bit.


1. I wouldn't give them more soulmelds to have out because even if they don't have the essentia any good soulmeld still has base effect in itself as well as the bind. Remember the soulmeld and bind progressions of the Totemist and Incarnate are almost equal in number. I wouldn't even do it with constitution, most good aberrant classes laugh at wisdom.

2. "(you could get a brow chakra bind from your shoulders slot) just to give that feeling of total alieness)."
Well, that is what I suggested.

3. The Incarnate's specialty is broad bonuses, utility, and immunities/defense. The bonuses a lawful incarnate can get for melee attacks is immense and even more so with the evil for damage. They also get bonuses for almost every skill their use allowing to dable in all sorts while actually have some of the best health, immunites in the game outside of persist and power loop tricks.

1. Soulmeld capacity as in essentia capacity, not going to give them more melds shaped than Incarnates though if I did Con penalty would be a self limiting way to do it (as you can't have more shaped regardless of class and level than Con - 10).

2. I thought you were suggesting making them an innate part, so you had a few which were permanently bound which also gave you a penalty to disguise checks.

3. Thanks.

Amnoriath
2014-09-16, 02:10 PM
1. Soulmeld capacity as in essentia capacity, not going to give them more melds shaped than Incarnates though if I did Con penalty would be a self limiting way to do it (as you can't have more shaped regardless of class and level than Con - 10).

2. I thought you were suggesting making them an innate part, so you had a few which were permanently bound which also gave you a penalty to disguise checks.

3. Thanks.

1. Yes, the point just enforces why I don't like it. As for essentia expansion not only has it been done as I said a typical aberrant build often rejects wisdom anyway especially when purposely delving into the madness of the Far Realm. It begs the question is that a decently high level character with this is it much of a sacrifice? Well, the truth is if you do the soulmelds well with aberrant flavor it won't matter much at all.
2. I suggested both as the other two decent meldshapers have a couple unique mechanics aside from their soulmelds. The Conduit as it is either sounds like incrementally being like an Incarnate with a bit of Totemist or just being a better Totemist. I didn't actually say permanently, only that it would be a bodily change so you could avoid a couple of feats while fitting the Far Realm flavor.

Realms of Chaos
2014-09-16, 06:50 PM
And I might have made 4 variants of blink shirt :smallredface:

Considering that I was just joking and that I chose that one at random, I find this to be freaking hilarious. On a more serious note, however... isn't this what chakra binds are for... like, exactly what they're for?

Couldn't you have a single soulmeld called Rift Gauntlets or something like that that grants a 5-foot step as a swift action (essentia added to AC against attacks of opportunity) and have the binds deal with tactical/battlefield/long-range/planar teleportation? Or something like that?