Totemist/Incarnate?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I have a Dragonborn Warforged Barbarian 1 / Totemist 2, just hit level up. And I can't say I'm thrilled about how the only useful things I have to look forward to for the next 3 levels are +1 essentia and +1 meld until the big payoff at level 6 where you get +1 essentia and an actual chakra bind to use the new options you got at level 5 (plus the typical level 6 gift bag of +1 BAB and all saves).

I've been looking more at Incarnate, and I'm starting to think I'd be better off going into that, possibly for 6-7 levels even. More essentia, a big upfront boost in melds, more out of combat options (I'm doing pretty good at combat already), and...even for combat it has crystal helm for force attacks (damage reduction is my biggest nemesis). BAB takes a big hit, but I only use natural attacks, no power attack, and already have multiattack, so my to hit bonus should still be good. I wouldn't be able to benefit from the lawful/evil melee goodies due to how my character's ended up, sadly.

Is this actually a good combo? I'll be way behind on getting feet and hand chakras... I looked at prestige classes and none that I qualify for really appeal to me, if it matters. Not sure what I'd do after Barb 1 / Totemist 2 / Incarnate 6-7 if the game actually went that far, probably go into Warblade or something, maybe go back to Totemist.

[Troacctid]

Sure, it's not that uncommon for Totemists to multiclass into Incarnate and vice versa. The two classes have natural synergy due to the shared essentia pool.

[malonkey1]

Actually, I think maybe you may want to go into Totem Rager. It lets you continue with your Incarnum stuff, while keeping your Rage progression pretty good.

[Red Fel]

Even a single level dip into Incarnate is valuable, because it unlocks all Incarnate soulmelds. Note, however, that you can only bind Incarnate soulmelds to chakras opened up through Incarnate levels, so an Incarnate dip shouldn't be used for the binds, but even just having the soulmelds is a huge advantage. Alternatively, switching over from Totemist and making Incarnate your focus is also an option; yes, BAB will suffer, but your meldshaping progression will be excellent.

As an aside, have you considered going Warblade? Punishing Stance, Stormguard Warrior, plus your natural weapons (using Draconic soulmelds, naturally) leads to some massive damage every other round. Use Totemist as an augmentation to your Warblade abilities, keep focused on natural weapons, and simply shred faces.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hmm, if I can't bind totemist stuff on the incarnate side, that's pretty annoyingly limiting. Crystal Helm is the only crown bind actually useful at all, and that's assuming the "force effects = no DR" interpretation flies with the DM. It's bad enough the levels don't stack for unlocking new chakras.

Not interested in Totem Rager, it seems just plain worse than Totemist progression, even the dead levels. Plus it requires feats I don't want at all.

I had been avoiding ToB because it's what I usually end up doing to play an effective melee character, plus we had ToB PCs already (they've died or players left now, though). Really wanted to try Incarnum, but the level ups just don't seem that good. Fighter w/ splat books might even be better...

[Red Fel]

Hmm, if I can't bind totemist stuff on the incarnate side, that's pretty annoyingly limiting. Crystal Helm is the only crown bind actually useful at all, and that's assuming the "force effects = no DR" interpretation flies with the DM. It's bad enough the levels don't stack for unlocking new chakras.

Well, be clear on what it means. On page 20 of MoI, under "Multiclass Meldshapers," it notes that while you have a common essentia pool, your meldshaping level is distinct by class, and your binds are limited by class. So, under their illustration, if your Incarnate levels let you bind to the Crown, and your Totemist levels do not, then you can't bind Totemist melds to your Crown.


Not interested in Totem Rager, it seems just plain worse than Totemist progression, even the dead levels. Plus it requires feats I don't want at all.

It was designed to theurge Totemist and Barbarian. I'm not convinced it succeeded, either.


I had been avoiding ToB because it's what I usually end up doing to play an effective melee character, plus we had ToB PCs already (they've died or players left now, though). Really wanted to try Incarnum, but the level ups just don't seem that good. Fighter w/ splat books might even be better...

ToB tends to be recommended to play an effective melee character, because it works. That said, it's not mandatory. The challenge with playing incarnum classes is that they sacrifice raw power and specific class features for the versatility of meldshaping. You're right, the level-ups don't give you much in the way of new abilities; for the most part, you're just getting more use out of the same. It's why incarnum classes make great dips - they're very front-loaded in terms of abilities, since chief among their abilities is the meld list, and you get that at level 1. The other thing to remember, specifically with respect to natural weapon soulmelds, is that unlike normal natural weapons, they don't scale with your character; they scale with essentia investment. In other words, in order to keep their damage output relevant, you basically have to stay in a meldshaper-progression class.

One of my favorite recommendations for melee-oriented meldshapers is the Ironsoul Forgemaster (handbook in my sig), but that won't work for you because (1) IFs miss out on class features if they use natural weapons instead of manufactured ones, and (2) Dragonborn Warforged, awesome though it may be, is not remotely a Dwarf.

Your two best options are basically either: Treat Totemist as a dip, and focus on Barbarian. That gives you the raw, brutal power of Barbarian, with the added versatility and damage augmentation of the Totemist. In particular, I'd suggest looking at Frostrager and/or Fist of the Forest. Treat Barbarian as a dip, and focus on Totemist. Just ride Totemist until the end. Barbarian gives you the basics needed for raw, brutal power, which you can augment with feats like Extra Rage. Totemist gives you versatility and natural weapons, and by staying with Totemist longer, you can make those soulmelds even more powerful and versatile.
That's what I see, anyway.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You may wish to consider PsyWar. Classic 'king of smack' build involves binding gollian arms for extra claw attacks, then using Claws of the Beast and other claw-buffing powers to augment your ability to rip opponents a new one.

[StreamOfTheSky]

It sounds like Incarnate's not that good a choice based on all the other recommendations. I'm going to have to ask my DM about sharing chakra bind locations. Multiclassing already sets me back several levels on unlocking them as it is, and the Open Chakra feats and spells make no divisions between melds of different classes. I find it od and honestly unfair that someone w/ actual meldshaper levels has a harder time mixing different class melds into the same location than someone w/o the Incarnum class levels that's picking them up by feats.

[Chronos]

Quoth Red Fel:

The other thing to remember, specifically with respect to natural weapon soulmelds, is that unlike normal natural weapons, they don't scale with your character; they scale with essentia investment. In other words, in order to keep their damage output relevant, you basically have to stay in a meldshaper-progression class.
Well, you have to have some way of gaining more essentia, at least. But capacity doesn't depend on class levels, beyond a couple of one-point boosts, one of which you already have, and one of which won't be until a level you'll probably never reach anyway.

The other issue with totemist natural weapons is that most of them don't work like normal natural weapons, in that you can't combine them with other attacks. Girallon Arms still works, but it makes the class feel like it exists just for that one soulmeld.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah, I've tried to find another one to bind, but none of the others really can even be justified. I don't even think Girallon Arms is that amazing. It's certainly a quality bind, but the damage really isn't that high and compared to say...the Girallon Arms *spell*, it comes up quite short. The other natural attack binds are just...really, really bad. Just about anything that gives you more than one doesn't work at all with full attacking and other naturals. Except for pairs of hand claws, but there's a million ways to get dual hand claws in the game, they restrict weapon/shield use if you want to use them, so they're not the greatest to start with.

And yes, the essentia capacity is low and goes up by sheer HD, so I figured getting (more than totemist, in fact) essentia from Incarnate would cover me. I think going into Incarnate for the long haul makes more sense. Also, DM said bind unlocks applying to all classes is fine.

[Chronos]

Well, Manticore Belt is also decent, if you want ranged. But it's a lot more dependent on essentia than others, since that determines both the number of spines and the damage per spine. How good it is also depends on your table's interpretation of the Sneak Attack volley rules.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Between Adamantine Body reducing the need and Dragonborn's -2, let's just say my dex is pretty terrible for a manticore build. :smallwink:

I did have a feat for Dissolving Spittle as my ranged option, since it's touch and only requires a meld, not a bind. Going Incarnate means I can retrain that feat.

[Red Fel]

I did have a feat for Dissolving Spittle as my ranged option, since it's touch and only requires a meld, not a bind. Going Incarnate means I can retrain that feat.

Frankly, I find an Incarnate dip superior to Shape Soulmeld on most days. Worth the dip almost for that alone. Just keep in mind your limitation: Incarnate 1 only lets you shape two Incarnate soulmelds at a time, no binds. Still, there's a lot that you can do with two extra soulmelds and access to the entire Incarnate arsenal; certainly more than Shape Soulmeld gets you. So it's not a reliable basis for power, but it's almost universally a helpful augment to whatever you're trying to do.

[Troacctid]

Dissolving Spittle is subject to spell resistance, so having a meldshaper level of half your character level is definitely an advantage over having a meldshaper level of 1.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Dissolving Spittle is subject to spell resistance, so having a meldshaper level of half your character level is definitely an advantage over having a meldshaper level of 1.

I didn't know it was subject to SR...

Acid almost never is, and I thought melds were all Ex or Su, due to no mention of needing to "meld defensively" or the like. Though re-reading, they do seem to do a good job avoiding the Ex/Su/Sp ability question entirely. I can't find it at least.

EDIT: How come I don't at least get half my other HD beyond the meldshaper class to my ML, like how ToB works? Looks like monsters w/ no class levels get full HD as ML and people w/ no meldshaper class levels use half their HD. So why can't I add half my non-Incarnate and half my non-Totemist levels to Incarnate and Totemist ML's respectively, at a bare minimum? I know the answer is "because it says so," I mean...what is the rationale for all of this? The more I delve into this book, the more poorly thought out it appears.

[Troacctid]

Soulmelds are (Su), but subject to spell resistance due to soulmeld-magic transparency, page 52.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Soulmelds are (Su), but subject to spell resistance due to soulmeld-magic transparency, page 52.

That doesn't even make sense. So when I hit someone w/ a claw from girallon arms, I have to check SR? Or is it only certain "offensive" melds? If only certain ones, how do I know which? Dissolving Spittle certainly doesn't specify that it is stopped by SR in its description, for example. Would all Totemist melds be not subject to SR since Totemist is based on magical beasts and as far as I know, they only have Ex and Su abilities?

[Troacctid]

I know, right? Who knows what they were thinking? It's quite a silly rule. I ignore it in my games.

[SinsI]

Note, however, that you can only bind Incarnate soulmelds to chakras opened up through Incarnate levels, so an Incarnate dip shouldn't be used for the binds, but even just having the soulmelds is a huge advantage.

Why? Class description says "open chakra", not "open chakra for Incarnate soulmelds only".
If a chakra is open, you can bind any soulmeld you have to it. There are even "open chakra" feats - what are you supposed to bind to them, nothing?
How many times are you going to open the same chakra?

Idiocy on page 20 should be ignored.

[Troacctid]

The Open Chakra feats have specific language saying that you can bind any of your soulmelds to them. Similarly, the Shape Soulmeld feat has specific language saying that it can be bound to any chakra you have available for it.

[Chronos]

Right, that's the correct interpretation of the rules. But I think SinsI was asking what the rationale behind the rules was. Why should melds and chakras gained from classes be more limited than those gained from feats? Would it break anything, fluff-wise or power-wise, to houserule away the restriction? To which I think the answers are "No good reason, and go ahead and houserule it".

[Troacctid]

It makes sense to me. A multiclass Wizard/Sorcerer can't cast Wizard spells from his Sorcerer slots. Same principle.

I mean, it wouldn't break anything to change it, but you could say that for the spellcasting example too. Doesn't mean the rule is nonsense.

[SinsI]

It leaves far too much to interpretation - i.e. does it grant extra binds or not?

It gets even more confusing if you start to consider prestige classes: necrocarnate has those "Chakra binds", but no soulmelds are marked as "necrocarnate" at all - you only gain extra meldshaper level in "previous meldshaper class". Also note that there is NO mention of "if you have more than one previous class" that you can find in similar situations for casters - so what if you have several "previous meldshaper classes"?

If necrocarnate's "Chakra binds" only work on "necrocarnate's soulmelds", its "chakra binds" shouldn't work at all (necrocarnum descriptor doesn't make it "necrocarnate's soulmeld")...


The Open Chakra feats have specific language saying that you can bind any of your soulmelds to them. Similarly, the Shape Soulmeld feat has specific language saying that it can be bound to any chakra you have available for it.

And Chakra Bind class abilities don't have any specific language that prevents you from binding some of your soulmelds to them - as long as it is "yours" you should be able to do it. That means that only soulmelds that have specific class binding restrictions can't be bound to them - and AFAIK no soulmelds actually have any of those restrictions. So page 20 never applies.

Also, language of "Open Chakra" spells says that they work "just as if he had the ability to form a chakra from a feat or class feature". This means that class feature must work exactly the same as feat.

[StreamOfTheSky]

So, to summarize various things I've learned...

- Soulmelds are Su, yet allow for SR because reasons, but no one knows which ones allow for SR and which do not.
- Chakra Bind locations gained from class may or may not be only for those class's melds, even though every other source of getting them the "inferior way" have no such restriction.
- The best meldshapers are actually monsters with no class levels, as racial HD give full ML progression and you can then cherry pick the best ones from each list freely.
- The 2nd best meldshapers are those with class levels in anything but MoI classes, as they can do as above, except half ML progression.
- Actual MoI classes are the worst at using melds, either limited to their own class or forced to split levels instead of get any sort of out-of-class advancement like everyone else does if they wish to pick from multiple class lists.

Combined with the horrible save DCs making save-based binds/melds utterly worthless and the swift action required to do the thing the system expects you to every round as if you have no other uses for them...this book has got to be one of the worst written of all 3.5 WotC rulebooks. I knew going in it was written confusingly, but didn't expect all this. Are there any other idiocies or failures of basic logic or game balance I should know about?

[Troacctid]

- The best meldshapers are actually monsters with no class levels, as racial HD give full ML progression and you can then cherry pick the best ones from each list freely.
- The 2nd best meldshapers are those with class levels in anything but MoI classes, as they can do as above, except half ML progression.
- Actual MoI classes are the worst at using melds, either limited to their own class or forced to split levels instead of get any sort of out-of-class advancement like everyone else does if they wish to pick from multiple class lists.

You're wrong about these.

1. The only monster that that rule applies to is the Totem Giant, and its meldshaping is roughly equivalent to that of a 2nd level Totemist. So monsters without class levels tend to be pretty poor meldshapers.
2. Half ML is definitely worse than full ML.
3. Meldshaping classes have by far the widest pools of available soulmelds, the largest pools of essentia, and the most chakra binds. The only class that might be able to compete is Chameleon, and that's only if the DM allows "I'll take Shape Soulmeld, shape this meld, then switch out the feat tomorrow for a different Shape Soulmeld until I have all ten slots filled" shenanigans, which they shouldn't.

It's actually pretty rare to need off-class soulmelds anyway. In most cases, you already have enough good soulmelds on your own list that you're happy to shape and invest essentia in. If you're taking an Incarnate dip, it's usually so you can get two additional soulmelds shaped, not so you can improve your Totemist melds. And those melds are typically things like Airstep Sandals that don't care about meldshaper levels.

Most of the time, my Incarnates end up having too many soulmelds to choose from already. Crystal Helm on your head, Airstep Sandals/Cerulean Sandals/Impulse Boots competing for your feet bind, Lucky Dice or Theft Gloves on your hands, Astral Vambraces or Bluesteel Bracers on your arms, various skill-boosters competing for the brow slot, Dissolving Spittle on your throat, Vitality Belt on your waist, Strongheart Vest for your heart, and Keeneye Lenses/Planar Chasuble/Fellmist Robe for the soul. I might take Shape Soulmeld if I want a Blink Shirt (unbound) at low levels or a Phase Cloak shoulder bind at high levels. Out of all of my top picks, only Dissolving Spittle and Lightning Gauntlets would be affected by spell resistance, and only Cerulean Sandals and Vitality Belt care about meldshaper level. (And zero of them offer a saving throw, so you can chuck that Wis right out the window.)

So really, while you might initially think meldshaper level is a big deal, once you actually go down the list of soulmelds you'd be shaping, it usually turns out to be totally irrelevant.