3.5 No Pathfinder -- Mostly Incarnate -- What do you dip to increase offense 4 career

[Talionis]

Incarnates are an interesting class, but can be a little light on offense, I was wondering what are some options for someone that wants to dip a level or two in order to have a high meld shaper level and the feel of an incarnate, but be more participatory on offense.

1. Two level dip in an initiator (Crusader, Swordsage, or Warblade), can be spread out over your career to pick up maneuvers and stances that are higher than first level, that along with having two or three of the initiator wonderful items that allow you to add a maneuver to your maneuvers know will allow you to have the highest initiator level maneuvers you can. You're still way behind an initiator, but it can give you more powerful single attacks that mesh well with your low BAB only giving you a single attack per turn and your attack buffs that only add damage to your first attack per turn.

2. Totemist 2: Opens your Totem chakra where most of the offensive powers for a Totemist have to be. It would be nice if you could just add the Shape Soulmeld feat, but without the Totem chakra open to be bound the offensive choices are fairly limited. With two levels of Totemist you open up lots of options for attacks and the feat at ninth level will let you shape two totem chakras. Not to mention you know almost all the available soulmelds, add some more binds and a little more essentia. This will take care of the attack damage and stay on theme as a character focused on Soulmelds. -- I never noticed it before but Necrocarnate can advance Totemist and Incarnate Meldshaper levels at the same time (Thanks The Viscount)

3. Binder 1 with the Improved Binding feat can bind second level Vestiges, I'm not an expert here, but there might be some options here for a one level dip that doesn't care about your binder level... I didn't see a great one... Maybe someone can show me some options here.

4. Wizard 3 into Soulcaster or Cleric 3 into Sapphire Heirarch. Spells are good, but it takes a pretty good dip to get into the prestige classes. Soulcaster also gets a familiar which opens Share Soulmeld feat that can be awesome for an Incarnate. Melds like Necrocarnum Circlet gets you a second Zombie and twice the Acid Spitting can be useful on offense. Cleric will lose a lot of spell slots opening chakras and it doesn't get a familiar.
Also it stinks to lose caster levels once you max out the prestige class...

5. Chameleon 2: might take a little longer to get into for an incarnate, but the floating feat can be very flexible, and it's great for crafting. An interesting option would be to then go into Ironsoul Forgemaster (Might require Changeling or racial work arounds), you would have access to zero-second levels spells from every class for crafting purposes . But you would have a caster level through the roof. It mixes with Use Magical device well as well because everything is on your class spell list.

6. Ardent or Psion 2 into Soul Manifester: (Thanks to Psyren) Psion or Ardent would be my choice - not only do Incarnum and Psionics mix together beautifully (Azure Talent Feat & Psycarnum Infusion Feat), a Soul Manifester can also unlock every chakra except Heart and Soul. The fluff is dynamite too.

From a purely crunch perspective the combination performs excellently at all levels. Dissolving Spittle + Expanded Soulmeld Capacity gives you a powerful 3d6 ranged touch attack at level 1, which Psionic Shot lets you boost to 5d6 at level 2, one-shotting most foes you'll come across.

Azurin Incarnate 1 (Point Blank Shot, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity) = 3d6 spit
Azurin Incarnate 1/Psion 1 (Psionic Shot) = 3d6 spit, or 5d6 spit with 1-round cooldown


7. Thief/Scout/Psychic Thief/Lurk (thanks Zaq): Thief naturally is good for an incarnate because the added first level of skill points is very nice to be able to use in conjunction with the bonuses you'll receive from soulmelds, but the Craven feat adds a lot of damage to even a little bit of Sneak Attack Dice. Three levels of Umbral Disciple would add some more sneak attack and make it fairly easy to setup Sneak Attaclks every round (unfortunately Umbral Disciple like so many of the MoI Prestige Classes doesn't advance meldshaper level). Scout's skirmish (I'm pretty sure can't add the Craven feat to) but Incarnates could make good scouts. Both Lurk and Psychic Thief could add some of the good combos from a psionics and incarnum from above. Maybe with Wild Talent to pick up a Power worth using.

8. No Dip (thank you MisterKaws): Law Incarnates can often afford to power attack for full, especially with a Skilled weapon, and Good incarnates can use Shock Trooper's Heedless Charge, while still remaining nearly untouchable, so I see no problem here.

I'd love more options... The biggest complaint I see is that Incarnates can't do offense well, especially if they aren't Evil. So I thought it might be helpful to think of dip options... Please help give ideas and flesh out ideas.

[MisterKaws]

Law Incarnates can often afford to power attack for full, especially with a Skilled weapon, and Good incarnates can use Shock Trooper's Heedless Charge, while still remaining nearly untouchable, so I see no problem here.

[Psyren]

Psion or Ardent would be my choice - not only do Incarnum and Psionics mix together beautifully, a Soul Manifester can also unlock every chakra except Heart and Soul. The fluff is dynamite too.

From a purely crunch perspective the combination performs excellently at all levels. Dissolving Spittle + Expanded Soulmeld Capacity gives you a powerful 3d6 ranged touch attack at level 1, which Psionic Shot lets you boost to 5d6 at level 2, one-shotting most foes you'll come across.

Azurin Incarnate 1 (Point Blank Shot, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity) = 3d6 spit
Azurin Incarnate 1/Psion 1 (Psionic Shot) = 3d6 spit, or 5d6 spit with 1-round cooldown

[Segev]

Soulcaster would definitely put you over the top, as any full-casting progression added to your Incarnate chassis will put you up around Tier 1.

I am a fan of Totemist 2, because you wind up with SO MANY soulmelds at a low level when you multiclass Totemist and Incarnate. Less return on the investment as you level up, though, in that regard, so I wouldn't go beyond 2 levels. Still, you're right about the Totem chakra being nice to have available.

A "be a different person each day" build I want to try sometime is a Changeling Incarnate/Totemist->Chameleon, using soulmelds and the Chameleon class to fake powers, skills, etc. for whatever persona he's pretending to be today.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Totemist, no questions asked. Not only are you doubling up on melds known, not only are you still gaining essentia, you get the best offensive melds in the game. As natural weapons, your lack of iterative attacks won't be an issue. Landshark Boots alone should take care of most of your offensive melee needs.

[Talionis]

I updated the main post. Thank you so much for the ideas. I may have sold the no dip a little too low and I definitely forgot about Psionics since I don't play them much, but it definitely has some awesome synergy and they don't have to be utterly broken.

Any other ideas?

[Zaq]

What level are you starting at, and what is the rest of the party doing? Just as importantly, what are your stats?

At low levels, as has been mentioned, Incarnates can easily take care of themselves by means of the Lightning Gauntlets and/or the Dissolving Spittle. Those become less effective at mid-high levels (though at the mid-level range, they're still noticeable—way below MVP levels of damage, but if you really don't want to invest a lot into your offensive options, they do give you a native option that makes you a little bit not totally irrelevant), of course, but that's why I'm curious what level you're at.

Binder and Chameleon do combine nicely with Incarnate (one of my favorite characters I ever played was a Binder/Incarnate/Chameleon—tons of bookkeeping, but it was a blast to totally reinvent my powers every day), but again, any offense you get from those dips is likely to fade away past mid levels. They're good options for versatility, but they won't make you a damage monster.

Whether it makes sense to dip Totemist or a ToB class depends on your stats. Incarnates, of course, have poor BAB, so you're starting at a disadvantage as far as to-hit goes (Law Incarnates can make up some of the slack, but not everyone wants to be Lawful, and I always found the Incarnate Avatar to be a pretty boring meld overall); accordingly, you need to have pretty good STR to want to even try to make weapon attacks (manufactured weapon/Incarnate Weapon or natural weapons, doesn't matter). If you've got enough STR to actually matter, then yeah, a couple well-timed dips in Warblade or another initiator class can do wonders for your offensive capabilities. That said, if your STR is nothing to write home about, even having maneuvers won't make you great at offense. (Be wary of taking too many swift or immediate maneuvers, since those interfere with reallocating essentia.) Totemist is okay, but I find that it's best to go all or nothing with it. Not the only way to play, of course, but that's my opinion.

An unusual option might be a dip in Rogue, if you've got a good set of flanking partners and/or a reliable method of denying the enemy their DEX. 1d6 Sneak Attack isn't going to matter in the long run by itself, but if you take the Craven feat, you add your level to your Sneak Attack damage, and that's completely independent on what classes you take.

If you're Evil, you can always use the Necrocarnum Circlet to make a nice beefy zombie do the dirty work for you.

Overall, most offensive options in this game tend to want you to keep investing in them, so there's only so much good you're going to get out of a brief dip or two. Nothing you get from dipping is going to stay relevant forever without something else backing it up. The question really becomes just how much of a benefit you need right now and how long you expect to need that benefit. Incarnates are at their best out of combat, of course, so if you're just looking for something to do in combat so that you're not totally irrelevant until you get to shine out of combat, that'll be easier than if you're trying to turn an Incarnate into a primary striker, you know?

[The Viscount]

I would not say that Evil Incarnate isn't good at offense. Firstly, they gain access to 6 exclusive melds (bloodwar gauntlets and the necrocarnum melds) whereas Good has only 2 (lammasu mantle and armguards of disruption) and lawful and chaotic have none. As mentioned, the necrocarnum circlet has an effect that can't be duplicated or even imitated by any other meld. The necrocarnum vestments are also quite useful because they stack with the vitality belt for more health. Bloodwar gauntlets boost melee attack rolls just like the lawful incarnate avatar, but give you the first +1 for free. Evil incarnate also has a +2 bonus on melee damage rolls as opposed to every other alignments +1 to stats, both for incarnate aura and for incarnate avatar. One might see values in lawful over evil, but evil is certainly not bad at offense.

I'm going to emphasize the utility of Crusader for an Incarnate. Access to healing lets you play all sorts of games with your temporary hitpoints from vitality belt since any time you are hit, you can shift essentia out so you are below your max hp, then receive healing from whatever you use, then put the essentia back in ad it's almost like they're real hp. Delayed damage pool adds to the intricacy but I'm sure you can use it to reap reward. This is a time when I would weigh my options for lawful vs evil incarnate, if you're taking enough levels of crusader to get access to the aura of x stances, then lawful may be the better choice for perfect order, but in really any other circumstance I would still go with evil.

As for a totemist dip, after 2 levels there you can actually pull off an incarnate/totemist theurge using Necrocarnate. Venger knows the exact details, but it gets you almost every bind for both classes.

[Talionis]

Oh, I will wholly agree that with at low levels Incarnate is really fairly strong with Incarnum. Lightning Gauntlets can add enough damage to keep you on par with a Rogue. Its in the mid to late levels that Incarnate seems to fall greatly behind most other characters in Tier 3 for damage. Yes it can do a lot of the things Fighters can do by eating up a lot of its feats and not be too far behind...

I guess I'm just looking for sources of offense that you can grab in just a dip, but still have most of the same feel of an incarnate. There aren't a lot of Theurge classes for Incarnum.


Is there a Druid option that would help. Its hard for Druid to qualifty for Sapphire Heirarch without fiat or adaption. Druid would get an animal companion for Share Soulmeld, but I'm not thinking it would be better than some of the things we've already presented.

Thief isn't an option I had considered. I guess the Craven feat does add some pretty good damage. Thief is good for just the added first level spells. I've often thought about Psychic Thief or Lurk in that spot.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Is there a Druid option that would help. Its hard for Druid to qualifty for Sapphire Heirarch without fiat or adaption. Druid would get an animal companion for Share Soulmeld, but I'm not thinking it would be better than some of the things we've already presented.
More specifically, Druid can get a psuedo-familiar with the Urban Companion ACF (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a). It's like a familiar in that it primarily scales with character level, not class, but better-- it has 3/4 your HP instead of half, and you don't lose anything if/when it dies. Grab that, grab a normal companion with Wild Cohort (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a), shape a Soulpark, dip for a normal familiar... if you work at it you can chuck five globs of acid a round-- at tenth level, that's easily 5d6 each. 25d6/round as standard actions ain't so shabby. By 20th that's five shots of around 9d6 each, repeating a turn later. 90d6 is respectable damage, and your friends shouldn't be too vulnerable, since they'll be sharing all your defensive melds.

(EDIT: Druid can dip Contemplative pretty easily if he really wants to hop into Hierarch)

[Troacctid]

Grab that, grab a normal companion with Wild Cohort (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a), shape a Soulpark, dip for a normal familiar... if you work at it you can chuck five globs of acid a round-- at tenth level, that's easily 5d6 each. 25d6/round as standard actions ain't so shabby. By 20th that's five shots of around 9d6 each, repeating a turn later. 90d6 is respectable damage, and your friends shouldn't be too vulnerable, since they'll be sharing all your defensive melds.

You can't share soulmelds with a soulspark, since despite the soulmeld having "familiar" in its name, they're not actually a familiar, mount, or animal companion. You can technically share soulmelds with a wild cohort if they're your mount, since the feat lets you share with any mount, even a mundane one--but they don't count as an animal companion and you can't share spells with them, so you will need some other way of qualifying for the feat.