Your opinion about Magic of Incarnum [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

AmberVael

2017-02-04, 09:03 PM

More fun in theory than in practice, and fairly low power.

The reason its more fun in theory than in practice is twofold. First, incarnum doesn't open up many options. Most melds are "add essentia to stat." There are a handful of exceptions to this, and most of those are passive. Unlike a spellcaster, initiator, or warlock, you don't get unique choices. You can probably just attack or use a skill. Maybe you get lucky and get a minor spell-like ability, but probably only one or two.
But the second bit is that even manipulating your stats with essentia doesn't come up like you'd think it would. The trouble is, there's generally an optimal stat placement for any broad scenario. If you're in combat, you want all your essentia in these two soulmelds. If you're being talky, you want them in these two soulmelds. Etc. And the end result is that its not really much different than just getting a flat bonus to all those things all the time, which isn't terribly interesting.

I dunno. I like a lot of the concepts in incarnum, but I find myself increasingly disinterested in ever using it.

(Also the fluff is stupid).

JoshuaZ

2017-02-04, 09:04 PM

Very interesting mechanics which are very easy to learn. Ties into most existing core subsystems (psionics, arcane magic, divine magic) in nice way.

Serious issues: There's poor balance (mainly leaning to the too weak side). Soulborn is terribly underpowered. The fluff is really not compatible with many settings and feels weird - where are the souls coming from? Why? Are they parts of souls? The obsession with shades of blue is just weird. The system as written is unnecessarily tied up strongly with alignments which makes both the Soulborn and Incarnate hard to use and makes a lot of what would otherwise interesting builds not RAW legal. The alignment fits badly with the blue everywhere since there's already a tendency for blue specific to be law associated. Also, so much blue! Also, a serious lack of support (which is a problem for most of the splat books) which has been addressed partially by some very good homebrew with the Midnight Occultist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?157493-Midnight-Occultist-3-5-Binder-Meldshaper-PrC-(PEACH)) and the Martial Soul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?101416-The-Martial-Soul-ToB-Incarnum-PrC) are both really nice examples.

Note that Dreamscarred made the Akashic system for Pathfinder which deals with most of these issues. Same essential mechanics, but better balanced. Ties in well to various stuff. None of that weird soul focus, and none of the blue obsession, and much less alignment restrictive. The fluff has a vaguely Indian Subcontinent/Near East flavor but it is much weaker than the soul thing. None of that alignment stuff. All easily back portable to 3.5 in a straightforward way.

Flickerdart

2017-02-04, 09:11 PM

ayvango

2017-02-04, 09:24 PM

I dislike it. Incarnum breaks consistency with classical magic system. Moreover it is poorly balanced. It is a whole new world. It may be fun to play Incarnum only company, but we have never mixed in classical setting adventures. The same holds for Tome of Magic and true-naming.

Psionics are generally nice as conception, but its powers should be thrown away and psionic spell book should be filled with classic spells. Some level adjustment for spells may be needed. I see psionics as another magic source just like divine or arcane. Most spells from divine and arcane interacts with each other well and they was designed to play along with each other. Many spells exists in both divine and arcane spell list but in different levels. There are universal rules for spellcasting, metamagic, counterspelling, magic item creating, that works identically on arcane and divine. Psionics should be put here as third options with common rules. It's ok to keep mana point casting system instead of slots, that makes psionics special, but does not break the game. Like the Spirit Shaman unique spellcasting system.

But translating psionics to classical spells requires ton of work, none from our group have time to do it. So we have just banned psionics. After some house-ruling it is capable for including in big world. Incarnum with Tome of Magic are out of question.

EisenKreutzer

2017-02-04, 09:47 PM

To me, it's one of the most interesting systems in 3.5.
Together with psionics, the only magic system I'm really a fan of in that edition.

The Akashic Mysteries revision of MoI is really well done, and I think it's my favourite DSP product to date. As a Pathfinder only kind of guy, the game feels really incomplete to me without Akashic Mysteries, Path of War and Psionics.

Doctor Awkward

2017-02-04, 10:12 PM

Personal opinion?
One of my favorite 3.5 subsystems. Highly recommend including it in games whenever you can.

Objective opinion?

The Bad:

-Very poor organization. For example, one of the most important aspects of meldshaping, the concept of the essentia pool and the hard limit on receptacle investment that's based on HD, is placed at the beginning of the chapter that introduces the base classes instead of the next chapter which has every other mechanical rule for how soulmelds work. Until you really get the system down you'll be flipping back and forth between different sections of the book a lot when creating characters.

-Incarnum also plays just fine with other D&D mechanics. A meldshaper will fit in with any party of non-meldshapers. What most folks mistake for lack of meshing is just that meldshapers are very self-contained. Your meldshaping ability is tied directly into your levels in your meldshaping class. As a result, there's very little reason to dip out of it, much like how it's almost always a bad idea for a primary spellcaster to give up spellcasting levels. Since this book was so close to the end of the 3.5 line, there's virtually no meldshaping support outside of it. (unlike Tome of Battle, where initiator classes were basically designed to be dipped).

-The Feats chapter. By far this is the most disappointing section of the book. Most of them reference other systems (psionics, magic, wildshaping), with very little to choose from that specifically benefits meldshapers. It's this part more than any other that makes it feel like the designers were afraid that the system couldn't stand up on its own without showing plenty of love to the rest of D&D. The most poorly thought out aspect of the book is introduced here in the Undead Meldshaper feat, which allows an undead to join the Incarnum party by substituting Wisdom for Constitution to determe soulmeld effects. However, they forgot to address the fact that this precludes you from taking any other meldshaping feat, since they all require a Con score. The Necrocarnate prestige class is just bad too.

-The system mechanics are cool, but the classes can leave a lot to be desired. The problem of meldshaping advancement is compounded by the somewhat awkward chassis that you are expected to work with. Totemist plays a lot like a wild-shaped focused druid, just without the high levels of cheese. Incarnate can be made to function in almost any role in the party, but is also very easy to screw up if you are new to meldshaping. The Soulborn is even weaker than the incarnate, and as printed has virtually no role to fill in an optimized party. All of them will feel underpowered without significant optimization, especially with the likes of Tome of Battle at the same table.

The Good:

-The system is about as difficult to learn as psionics (I will draw a line here between the rule regarding power augments and manifester levels and the rule about essentia investing and HD). It is a lot of fun to work with once you get the basics down.

-While dipping out of Incarnum is usually bad, dipping into it can provide an incredible boost to a great many characters. Even if it's just opening up the book far enough to take the feat Shape Soulmeld: Blink Shirt.

-Perhaps most importantly: it doesn't suck. The authors set out to create something completely different from anything else in D&D, and in that respect they succeeded. It's a perfect fit into lower-powered groups that shy away from Eberron on account of Artificer shenanigans or Forgotten Realms due to Incantatrix silliness.

-Soulcaster and Sapphire Heirarch are both incredibly powerful options for wizards and clerics, though a common (and probably justified) complaint here is that they don't really need the help. Ironforge Soulmaster is a ton of fun, and so is Totem Rager. Perhaps the biggest disappointment that a lot of people have is that you will get into Incarnum for the prestige classes more than you will the base classes.

Kelb_Panthera

2017-02-04, 11:28 PM

I'm a fan. Though truth to tell; there's not much in this game I actually dislike.

Incarnates make for a -very- intriguing skillful character since he can shift his skills around like no other class. As a matter of personal preference, I lean toward a law incarnate.

Totemists are virtually unparalleled in being a savage in melee. If you like the idea of ripping an enemy a new one with tooth-and-claw, this is where it's at. Combine with totem rager for real blood-bath.

Soulborn fills a rather narrow niche in giving a warrior chassis with only a toe in on the whole incarnum thing. An obvious filler for getting into some of the books incarnum PrC's without having to worry about a bunch of extra mechanical baggage. As with most simple classes, it sits toward the bottom of the game's overall power-curve.

As others have mentioned, however, the book suffers from horrific organization. I hope you're good with working with reference material because you -will- be going back and forth for a while 'till you've got it down.

Cosi

2017-02-05, 01:06 AM

I'm not really a fan.

The core mechanic is good, but the book makes it way too complicated. It should be "you have X essentia and you can ready Y soulmelds" and then you put essentia in soulmelds. Instead you have to park each soulmeld in a chakra, which you can then bind (if you've unlocked the appropriate chakra slot, unless you've maxed out your daily binds), which unlocks new powers which may or may not scale with investment in the soulmeld. Also, soulmelds sometimes have largely random restrictions on uses per day.

The classes are all various degrees of underpowered. The Incarnate gets bonuses to skills that are "very large", but other than that has trouble contributing at mid to high levels. The Soulborn is a Paladin, and Paladins suck. The Totemist is a maybe passable chassis for a "blender" type melee character. The PrCs are mostly all stupid. Did you know that there is a race of people called the Skarn who train elite Spinemeld Warriors and you don't care? Did you know that the Spinemeld Warrior has four pages of this book dedicated to explaining what it is and you, again, don't care?

There's very little in this book that you really care about. The characters it lets you make under perform, and unlike Tome of Battle they aren't even better than previous versions of their concepts, because before this book no one had "soul magic" as a concept.

Seerow

2017-02-05, 02:06 AM

Neat concept, really terrible editing and organization.

This in a nutshell. I love the concept of Incarnum. In practice, the abilities are all over the board, ranging from "pretty cool" to "utter trash". The actual organization of the rules is a mess, so anyone trying to learn them for the first time tends to get totally overwhelmed, with most players just giving up without quite wrapping their heads around it. Even once you do get it, the system itself in play tends to be pretty static. The one incarnum character I played I very rarely found myself changing essentia mid-combat and frequently found myself wishing I had access to just more stuff to actually play with.

Uncle Pine

2017-02-05, 03:17 AM

It's interesting, but every time I open the book and try to memorize once and for all how it works I get headaches. We've only had a single incarnum character ever and he fortunately died reasonably quickly, so this gap in my rules knowledge was never much relevant. :smallredface:

noce

2017-02-05, 04:54 AM

Overall, it's good and fun. Many nice and new options.

Specifically, Soulborn and a good chunk of PrCs are below average. You have to learn the system to understand which classes work.

Honorable mention: Umbral Disciple. It's an incarnum themed roguish PrC, and it's really good and easy to enter as a non shaper.
Unfortunately, it's generally underrated.

Vaz

2017-02-05, 06:52 AM

To everyone who is struggling to understand how it works;

An Incarnum Character is one who has or or more 'reservoirs' or 'receptacle' of Essentia. These reservoirs come in several forms; usually feats, magic items, or most recognisably, Soulmelds.

Soulmelds are unique to Incarnum, and require shaping during a Meditation session similar to when a Spellcaster prepares spells. You can 'Shape' a number up to the value listed in the class table. These 'Shaped' Soulmelds give bonuses for being 'Shaped', but also give you one of the aforementioned reservoirs.

Outside of the limit of how many you can Shape, there is no limit as to what exactly you can Shape; each class has a list of Soulmelds available to them, and taking a single level gives access to them all for you to choose to Shape during meditation.

For example, an Incarnate may shape 2 soulmelds at first level, but has access to melds A-F from the list (generic name to represent their list), in the same way that a Cleric has access to all of their spell list when choosing which to prepare.

In addition to this 'Shaping' of the Soulmeld, you may 'Bind' any of them to your 'Chakras', which you unlock at various points, either by class or feat and are similarly limited like how you have a maximum number of Shaped Soulmelds. Soulmelds have a list of what Chakras they can be bound to, and provide a certain number of benefits.

Each of these Chakras are the same as the Magic Item locations you can equip, and so you can only bind one Soulmeld to a certain Chakra, in the same way you cannot wear more than one helmet.

This is where Essentia comes in. Your Essentia 'Pool' (different from your Reservoir) is given by adding up the amount granted by class levels, feats, magic items etc. You can reallocate your Essentia as you see fit by spending a swift action.

For example, you may have a theoretical Soulmeld granting you +4 Climb checks while shaped, with a further +2 per point of Essentia invested within, and another granting +4 to Diplomacy checks with again +2 per essentia invested.

While you are climbing a mountain, you can choose to put all of your Essentia (say your pool is 4) into the Climbing Soulmeld, giving you +8 in addition to the +4. Your climb checks recieve a +4 to the check. When you get to the top of the mountain, you can choose to invest those essentia into Diplomacy so you can talk with the Monk Hermit who lives at the top.

To make it easy, scan the image in the back of MoI, or make your own Vitruvian man similarly labelled. Then, bring some shot glasses to represent the number of your available reservoirs, and either some drink, or small edible, depending on table.

Yogurt Raisins, Pistachios, M&M's, etc all work. When using drink, you'll need to be careful to not spill it, not get too drunk and not drink them accidentally, and you also need to mark off your maximum capacity of invested essentia, usually in quarters as the max is typically 4.

When you reallocate your essentia, you can eat/drinknthe relevant glasses and refill them as appropriate.

Alternatively, you can use dried beans, spare dice etc, but that is not as fun as eating confectionary/savouries or getting smashed on booze while playing it.

It is confusing, and isn't helped by its poor layout, editing and balance, but is so much fun.

Even at 20th level, when you as an Incarnate go for Perfect Meldshaper (all Soulmelds currecntly shaped become fully invested for 3+Wis rounds 1/day) means you can have up to 9 Soulmelds (from class features) giving you 6 times the bonus gained from each invested essentia for maybe a minute.

It is not overpowering, especially on a 3/4 BAB class, but is still good fun. It might not be ToB powered style, but it allows melee to do things other than combat.

Krazzman

2017-02-05, 08:50 AM

I have played a Totemist. I would play an Incarnate. I really hate how crappy the third class is.

Personally I enjoyed every second of playing my Totemist. He was one of my most fun to play characters so far. It fit awesomely in our Powerlevel and Tier (somewhere around low 3 to 5).

I do believe though that it came out far too late and has some problems due to feats that are exactly like other but with just an incarnum modifier added on it (if I recall correctly).

Zombimode

2017-02-05, 09:12 AM

I do believe though that it came out far too late and has some problems due to feats that are exactly like other but with just an incarnum modifier added on it (if I recall correctly).

Are you thinking of Midnight Dodge? It is MoI Dodge replacement, just like the one in Tome of Battle.
This is the only instance of an Incarnum feat that copies another feat that I know of. And why should this be a problem?

Personally, I like Incarnum. From my play experience though, I can second the observation that it plays more static than anticipated.

In order to test the system, I played a Saphire Hierarch. In retrorespect I should have not chickened out like this. Instead I should have gone full Incarnate to really get to know the system. I've missed out on chakra bindings almost completely.

Incarnum is actually also quite easy to incorporate into existing settings. While it adds some new fluff, the core idea that you can tap into souls to gain abilities and knowledge is a fantasy staple (pretty much all ancestor-related abilities function on a similar basis).

Compare the effort needed to incorporate Incarnum to Binding into any world that is not Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms or derives its mythology from those settings. You simply can't add Binding to Eberron without rewriting every Vestige.
Incarnum on the other hand can just be thrown into Xendrik. One particular interesting idea I've seen was to link the original construction of the Warforged to Incarnum.

Vaz

2017-02-05, 10:26 AM

My introduction to it was our DM giving us a pseudo gestalt. We were all 8th level characters, and we discovered a plot to unleash a magical bomb; we weren't able to stop the plot, and what ended as a railroaded TPK ("everyone roll an evasion, will and fortitude save, for each one you fail, you take 10d8 points of force damage") resulted in us being bound with the power of incarnum. We were shocked when he then told us our mew XP scores, thinking we were dead for over half an hour as we drank outside to braintrust what to play next and cursing stupid DM.

Rather than rewriting our characters, we got to "gestalt" on our level up (everyone dinged) and we got to choose a class from MoI, and got bonus feats at the Incarnum level up (X11/MoI3, X14/MoI6 etc) that had to be from MoI, and could obviously take Incarnum feats whenever we levelled up anyway.

As it was gestalt, we got to have some fun, the Sorcerer enjoying his new D10 Hit Dice and full BAB, plus ability to Smite a bit more eventually turning him into a Power Attacking Gish, and the Rogue enjoying his ability to just get insane checks.

We actually had this be the way we got access to Binding when we got the DM Tome of Magic for Xmas, although we kinda saw it coming that time.

OldTrees1

2017-02-05, 11:06 AM

The Good
MoI has a good idea:
If you want magic items to preform the role of class features here are some magic items as class features.

MoI has a good mechanical architecture:
You have a per item essentia cap from your level and gain more than enough essentia (This design allows horizontal improvement as well as vertical improvement)
Your soulmelds are placed at item slots and you cannot put two in the same slot.

The Bad
MoI classes are low on class feature value
Ignoring Soulborn(addressing Soulborn would be addressing a strawman), we have the Incarnate and the Totemist. In the first 5 levels Incarnates and Totemists get 4 melds & 1 bind. That means each of those would need to be worth of level's worth of class features. Unfortunately I do not feel like the melds and bind effects made available meet that level of value.

Pleh

2017-02-05, 11:28 AM

I like the fluff and the adjustable metric to the magic. It's a nice mechanic to ready your features and then allocate points through the day to suit your needs.

Honestly, I really don't mind setting magic power a few notches down. Personal preference, I think the casters are too strong. Not that Soulborn ever needed to happen.

But to remind everyone, I think that the idea behind MoI is to replace the magic system, not be balanced with it.

JoshuaZ

2017-02-05, 11:43 AM

But to remind everyone, I think that the idea behind MoI is to replace the magic system, not be balanced with it.

I don't think this is the case; they don't say that in the book and the fact that much of the material interacts with the standard magic systems suggests that they intended it to be used with the other systems.

Korahir

2017-02-05, 11:58 AM

May second favourite subsystem. I like that it is easy to learn and I frequently use it in builds to fuel either skills or get my hands on unusual abilities. I don't use the actual classes to often though.

Krazzman

2017-02-05, 12:01 PM

Are you thinking of Midnight Dodge? It is MoI Dodge replacement, just like the one in Tome of Battle.
This is the only instance of an Incarnum feat that copies another feat that I know of. And why should this be a problem?

This might be it, if I don't mess things up in remembering it was basically dodge + the added benefits of getting you +1 essentia as well as being able to invest essentia in it. Which I found odd but seriously better than vanilla dodge which is just rubbish most of the time (except when you get it for free).

Zaq

2017-02-05, 12:24 PM

It's easily one of my favorite subsystems, and I've used it to good effect a few times.

The Incarnate is a character class that takes some finesse to play well, since it's easy for them to get stuck in "it's very nice, but what does it do?" hell. In particular, they tend to have difficulty contributing to combat after the first few levels unless you go with some really niche tricks (that tend to take more build resources than other things you might want to do on an Incarnate). They're front-loaded enough that you can easily combine them with other things, but they're not so front-loaded that you're always making a bad choice playing them straight (though I admit I've never seen one in truly late-game play). Overall, though, I love the diversity of options that Incarnate melds bring to the table. They make phenomenal skillmonkeys, they're very good at protecting themselves (lots of soulmelds offer interesting immunities or defenses that aren't usually readily available at low levels), and they have enough access to weird stuff that a player who's good at creative problem solving can have a lot of tools to have fun with. Definitely a class that shines more outside of combat, though. Also, playing one well takes a lot of prep work, since their strength comes from their flexibility, so you have to really know your meld options inside and out to be able to pick what you're going to need for a given day. (Rapid Meldshaping helps a lot, though.)

The Totemist is also really well done overall. They do have a few more trap options than the Incarnate does, since there's a lot of interesting utility melds that clamor for the Totem bind but that won't let you fill your primary combat niche if that's the only thing in your Totem slot. So they look like they have more flexibility than they really do. That said, if they stick to their primary role of mauling faces, they're pretty darn good at that overall, and they can eventually afford to have some general purpose utility melds alongside their combat melds, though that does take a few levels. By mid levels or so, I view a Totemist as being kind of similar to a Swift Hunter—they contribute a good pile of damage in combat if they're allowed to work they way they want to work, and while they won't be solving out-of-combat problems the way a Bard or a Cleric can, they have enough tricks that they aren't like the bored Fighter who's just wasting time until they get to start being violent again.

The Soulborn is a waste of time from start to finish. As has been noted elsewhere, a Commoner spending feats on Shape Soulmeld and Open X Chakra gets chakra binds faster than the Soulborn does from class levels, and that's terrible. (Yes, the Soulborn can take those feats too, and it's an overstatement to say that that Common is "better at incarnum" than the Soulborn is, but the fact remains that they're fundamentally not an incarnum-using class.) They have a small number of unique melds that are interesting when they're poached by a class that actually knows how to use incarnum, but other than that, they're basically garbage. (Well, okay, I've seen a really cheesy build that abuses the poor wording of the CE Soulborn's Incarnum Defense feature in a way that actually made me laugh, but that doesn't mean I want to play one.)

The book has a reputation for being badly organized. I'm not going to claim that it's organized well, but I think that people are harsher on it than is strictly necessary. (I find it much better organized than Weapons of Legacy, for instance, and it's far better organized than a lot of non-D&D RPG books are.) It could definitely be improved, but it's really not as bad as its reputation.

The book's offerings to characters who aren't primarily concerned with incarnum are mixed. Many of the PrCs have some fatal flaws in one form or another, though a few are passable. The majority of the feats that let you invest essentia in them are traps, since the whole point of having essentia is that you can easily move it around, and if you have enough essentia to invest in the feat to get a nontrivial bonus, you have enough essentia that you probably care about it not being locked in place. That said, Shape Soulmeld is an absolute goldmine of a feat (easily one of the most interesting feats in the game), and a brief dip in Incarnate or Totemist can add a nice splash of utility if you know what you're doing.

Overall, I like it a lot. It's flexible, it's different, it's reasonably balanced (minus the trap options, but at least there's basically nothing completely OP), and there's enough variety in it that not every incarnum user feels exactly the same.

Cosi

2017-02-05, 12:41 PM

I don't think this is the case; they don't say that in the book and the fact that much of the material interacts with the standard magic systems suggests that they intended it to be used with the other systems.

Yeah, there are literally two prestige classes that advance casting in the book. I mean, WotC is pretty incompetent, but I don't think they're that incompetent.

Of course, the book is also missing replacements for various utility abilities (in particular healing stuff) that divine casters provide so the party can keep adventuring after fighting a Medusa or something. But I totally believe WotC is that incompetent, so whatever.

Particle_Man

2017-02-05, 03:02 PM

I like the fluff. I could see this being introduced into a setting as the "first ever" magic, before all other magic came to exist. That could also explain it being outclassed by the more standard wizard, cleric or sorcerer. It might be interesting to have a game where incarnates and totemists are the only magical classes.

I have heard os someone combining the features of soulborn and soulknife to make a pretty decent class, FWIW.

I too thought that the "lock essentia in this feat for 24 hours" was a bad plan. At least Midnight Metamagic allows the essentia to be freed up after the spell is cast.

For flavour, I really like the Sapphire Hierarch. Hard to beat the cargo cult that worships the huge talking oracular blue rock that fell from the sky. And Lawful being the focus, you almost literally have Blue vs. Orange morality. ;)

Mechanics-wise, I could see it needed another pass or two but I could work with it.

Segev

2017-02-05, 03:09 PM

I have always wanted to restructure it and Psionics to be the same power source, using Essentia and Power Points as the same conceptual thing, so you can invest psionic power into stuff (soulmelds) for boosts, but then expend them entirely for bigger, one-off or short-duration effects (psionic powers). Balancing this has proven challenging when I've attempted it, however.

Troacctid

2017-02-05, 03:12 PM

This might be it, if I don't mess things up in remembering it was basically dodge + the added benefits of getting you +1 essentia as well as being able to invest essentia in it. Which I found odd but seriously better than vanilla dodge which is just rubbish most of the time (except when you get it for free).
Well, it's not strictly better, since it does stop working in dead magic zones and it's vulnerable to essentia drain.

The Viscount

2017-02-05, 03:35 PM

It's a very good subsystem, and overall pretty well done.

Like ToB while there is very little use for one of the base classes to leave, there's much to be gained by dipping into Incarnum, especially with Shape Soulmeld and Open X Chakra. Like with Binder I think they were overcautious in the power of always-on abilities. Not being able to wear items when you bind soulmelds (unless you want to waste feats) is horrendous and uncalled for. At least you still get rings? There is very little support for the book due to how late it came out, the only expansion being a single Mind's Eye article (though it does have a few things worth using).
Overall it's a fun system that's well worth learning.

As for my quibbles with the system:
There's no reason Incarnate should be poor BA when Totemist is average.
Soulborn is terrible, and it hurts doubly because they have access to some good unique melds.
Overall the classes are calling for more essentia and more binds.
The Lammasu Mantle grants a breath weapon, when this is not a quality Lammasus have (it's accidentally going off of the Half-Dragon Lammasu)
Incarnates of different alignments are unbalanced. Good Incarnates have 2 unique melds, Evil Incarnates have 7 unique melds, several of which offer powers that cannot be duplicated with other melds, and Lawful and Chaotic Incarnates get shafted and have 0 unique melds.

Knitifine

2017-02-05, 11:28 PM

Magic of Incarnum is one of my favorite magic systems. I really enjoy the flavor, and while many of the looks are a little bit on the goofy side, that can be adjusted to suit the campaign. I would say that Magic of Incarnum's biggest failings are based around the system that it's in. Alignment restrictions and how player wealth is handled contribute to it not feeling as great as it could. If you enjoy the system I would recommend Akashic Mysteries by Dreamscarred Press (but fair warning the editing has some glaring flaws in some places) for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. I've actually been working on updating the MoI classes to be on par with the Akashic Mysteries ones, since their flavor doesn't overlap much and I think it makes for an interesting replacement to divine vs arcane magic.

weckar

2017-02-06, 02:06 AM

I really like Incarnum exactly because it is very passive (but can become quite active with essentia shuffling). I think it is a very nice gateway system for people who fear playing any form of mages because of the bookkeeping. I find it hard to reconsile it with the Binder, however, as they effectively seem to have the same schtick.

Kelb_Panthera

2017-02-06, 02:21 AM

I find it hard to reconsile it with the Binder, however, as they effectively seem to have the same schtick.

That's not hard. Incarnum is only -part- of the soul, not the whole thing.

From what I can tell, incarnum is the part of the soul that interacts with positive energy and binds it to the flesh.

Vestiges bind themselves to the consciousness of the soul (and are also made by that part being separated from the rest prematurely) so that they can experience reality vicariously.

CasualViking

2017-02-06, 03:08 AM

They then go on to explain this in the most poorly organized rulebook ever. But don't let this deter you, incarnum is super cool. It doesn't get the love it deserves because it doesn't fit into how most people imagine fantasy to be AKA it's not ripped off from Tolkien.

Or, it gets the hate it deserves for being really poorly implemented.

AmberVael

2017-02-06, 08:52 AM

It doesn't get the love it deserves because it doesn't fit into how most people imagine fantasy to be AKA it's not ripped off from Tolkien.

I don't think you're giving fluff objections enough credit here. For example, the fluff of the totemist is that it channels the proto-souls of the universe and turns them into bird hats. It is ridiculous.

I feel like incarnum's fluff could have easily been much better than it is. One very simple change could have been that you're not making magic items. For totemist again, instead of a magic blink dog shirt or a bird mask, why not just make everything more like girallon arms? Just have the character take on the traits of the entities rather than shape them into items. The item bit is this weird middle step that doesn't particularly make sense with the fluff, especially when you're the only one wearing them. Or maybe you could use incarnate and discard the weird blue soul stuff fluff in favor of the magic items. Instead of channeling proto souls and forging them into codpieces, how about the incarnate projects into the afterlife and borrows legendary artifacts from dead heroes, then brings echoes of them back?

There are many single concepts in incarnum's fluff I don't mind. Okay, sure, there is proto soul stuff. Okay, sure, you're making weird magic item things. Okay, sure, you're calling on the powers of the strange and wondrous beasts of the setting. But when you're channeling proto-soul stuff to pour the powers of a landshark into a nice pair of boots, you lose me. Its putting it all together that makes it silly.

ExLibrisMortis

2017-02-06, 09:19 AM

You know how in [that one sci-fi show you like] they say "all power to shields!" whenever they want to use their shields to resolve a problem? That's basically Incarnum, if your shields, weapons, etc systems were formed out of souls using your mind. Even if you're a non-incarnum class, you can pick up some of this stuff with feats!

They then go on to explain this in the most poorly organized rulebook ever. But don't let this deter you, incarnum is super cool. It doesn't get the love it deserves because it doesn't fit into how most people imagine fantasy to be AKA it's not ripped off from Tolkien.
This.

Incarnum is balanced fine, at a slightly lower power level than ToB (but with much more out-of-combat utility). It's a system that works well in multiclassing, because a small dip can provide a PrC requirement (Impulse Boots), linking element in a combo (Therapeutic Mantle, see my signature), or a solid immunity (Planar Ward). I'll agree that a pure incarnum user doesn't have a lot of multiclassing options, as bonus essentia capacity and chakra binds don't scale with meldshaping-progressing PrCs, but that's not too problematic (and, if needed, can be houseruled).

@AmberVael: I tend to think of incarnum as the echoes of dead/unborn souls in the platonic realm, similar to how a Conjuration (summoning) spell conjures a monster from said realm. The actual soul doesn't come into it; it's just about the ideas they had. Maybe that's a fluff adjustment that makes incarnum more palatable :smalltongue:.

danzibr

2017-02-06, 10:14 AM

I love Totemist.

Psyren

2017-02-06, 10:18 AM

I don't think you're giving fluff objections enough credit here. For example, the fluff of the totemist is that it channels the proto-souls of the universe and turns them into bird hats. It is ridiculous.

But channeling those primitive souls into claws, fangs, tentacles and wings isn't? Are you saying magical beasts like Pegasi don't have souls?

Anything can be ridiculous if you write it in a ridiculous way.

AmberVael

2017-02-06, 11:00 AM

But channeling those primitive souls into claws, fangs, tentacles and wings isn't? Are you saying magical beasts like Pegasi don't have souls?

Anything can be ridiculous if you write it in a ridiculous way.

I'm saying directly channeling the spirits of entities to gain their traits directly makes far more sense to me than channeling vague spirit stuff to make magical items that mimic the traits of a specific class of entities. And has better aesthetics.

I don't even know where you got the "pegasi don't have souls" bit from.

Morphic tide

2017-02-06, 11:02 AM

Well, it's a great idea crippled by lack of support and a kinda bad design goal. It seems to have focused heavily on passives, which makes it bland to play. Like, you could totally have an Incarnum based caster-type class. Just balance the spells against other, well-received at-wills and how those scale, mixed with a little bit of how Psionics scales for the Essentia. Also, moar Incarnum replacement feats. I'd love to be able to make a functional Fighter that replaced all of their normal feats with Incarnum equivalents, being able to change their focus on the fly, but peaking a little lower than the normal version. It'd do wonders for the Fighter's versatility if they had an Incarnum version of their feat sinks that lets them get one feat for the full function, but then opting them into more Incarnum combat feats to keep their scaling intact.

Heck, a great opportunity to save book space, naming and balancing attempts was largely ignored: The ability to have a Soulmeld do different things based on where it's Bound. That way, you can have abilities that would be blatantly overpowered if they could be used at the same time become impossible to do at the same time because they are on the same Soulmeld. Like, you could have a damage booster and an attack multiplier on the same Soulmeld. You can mix this with level locking better, similar effects by way of the chakra bind. For example, one Soulmeld could provide more damage for each attack when bound to a Least chakra, but provide additional attacks if on a Lesser or Greater chakra.

Cosi

2017-02-06, 11:08 AM

Heck, a great opportunity to save book space, naming and balancing attempts was largely ignored: The ability to have a Soulmeld do different things based on where it's Bound. That way, you can have abilities that would be blatantly overpowered if they could be used at the same time become impossible to do at the same time because they are on the same Soulmeld. Like, you could have a damage booster and an attack multiplier on the same Soulmeld. You can mix this with level locking better, similar effects by way of the chakra bind. For example, one Soulmeld could provide more damage for each attack when bound to a Least chakra, but provide additional attacks if on a Lesser or Greater chakra.

I don't like this plan, because it requires you to use the chakra thing the book does, and that's just way more complexity than you actually need. The basic system of Incarnum requires two things: essentia (or energy, or whatever) and soulmelds (or contraptions, or whatever). The thing where you have to park your soulmelds in chakras, then you unlock the ability to use a limited number of binds to power them up if you've unlocked the right chakra is, frankly, not getting nearly enough to justify its complexity. Soulmelds should just give a scaling bonus, then unlock extra abilities if you pump in enough juice.

Also, "soul magic" is just a bad choice for this kind of set up. Why was this not a technology book? Having a limited pool of energy you pump into a variety of different devices seems like what the Artificer ought to be doing.

Psyren

2017-02-06, 11:08 AM

I'm saying directly channeling the spirits of entities to gain their traits directly makes far more sense to me than channeling vague spirit stuff to make magical items that mimic the traits of a specific class of entities. And has better aesthetics.

I don't even know where you got the "pegasi don't have souls" bit from.

Making it work like items is an affordance; it helps players and DMs learning the system to grok how soulmelds function when they occupy "slots." It also assists with balance when the player needs a tradeoff (or feat) when a magic item and bound soulmeld would otherwise be in the same slot.

The Pegasi statement was a response to your fluff objection - channeling the soul of a pegasus lets you use its wings, which makes sense. It is not a "bird hat" (with all the silliness that implies) by any stretch of the imagination.

Mystral

2017-02-06, 11:13 AM

Inspired by the thread about ToB.

I read through it twice and didn't understand it, so I wrote it off as unimportant. Never seen it in action, never missed it, either.

Segev

2017-02-06, 11:16 AM

In terms of using it as written, it is my go-to for a Changeling going into Chameleon. A mix of Incarnate and Totemist in the first 5 levels gives a large variety of soulmelds, which can be mixed and matched to achieve a number of different skill and power foci on any given day. This complements the Chameleon's "I'm this class today!" design.

AmberVael

2017-02-06, 11:23 AM

Making it work like items is an affordance; it helps players and DMs learning the system to grok how soulmelds function when they occupy "slots." It also assists with balance when the player needs a tradeoff (or feat) when a magic item and bound soulmeld would otherwise be in the same slot.

The Pegasi statement was a response to your fluff objection - channeling the soul of a pegasus lets you use its wings, which makes sense. It is not a "bird hat" (with all the silliness that implies) by any stretch of the imagination.

Its not just the mechanics of "working like items" though, it is absolutely fluff. For instance, while you don't turn the soul of a pegasus into a bird hat, you do turn it into a feather cloak. Thats why its called the Pegasus Cloak instead of say, Pegasus Wings.

And the bird hat and all the silliness it implies is an actual soulmeld, the Great Raptor's Mask.

EisenKreutzer

2017-02-06, 11:26 AM

I've never found the Incarnum fluff silly.

Psyren

2017-02-06, 11:41 AM

Its not just the mechanics of "working like items" though, it is absolutely fluff. For instance, while you don't turn the soul of a pegasus into a bird hat, you do turn it into a feather cloak. Thats why its called the Pegasus Cloak instead of say, Pegasus Wings.

Which is intentional - you can't actually use it to fly until it is bound. (Not that flying cloaks are all that weird a concept in Dungeons & Dragons anyway.)

And the bird hat and all the silliness it implies is an actual soulmeld, the Great Raptor's Mask.

First, masks are not hats, they simply go in a similar location. Second, so what? Tribal shamans wearing masks to access various abilities is hardly a new concept either, nor a silly one for that matter.

Morphic tide

2017-02-06, 12:01 PM

I don't like this plan, because it requires you to use the chakra thing the book does, and that's just way more complexity than you actually need. The basic system of Incarnum requires two things: essentia (or energy, or whatever) and soulmelds (or contraptions, or whatever). The thing where you have to park your soulmelds in chakras, then you unlock the ability to use a limited number of binds to power them up if you've unlocked the right chakra is, frankly, not getting nearly enough to justify its complexity. Soulmelds should just give a scaling bonus, then unlock extra abilities if you pump in enough juice.

Well, it's kinda a way to hold the best obvious combos out of reach, as well as let you have one soulmeld for several related effects. And "pumping in enough juice for extra abilities" is what Psionics does, all that having Chakras be cared about like this does is save book space and give you more decisions. It's adding only one more question: Where do I bind this today? This is in addition to the three existing questions: What do I shape, how much do I invest in each and which do I bind? Still less than most Casters deal with.

You can make it work very well, especially if you have stuff that would be OP as hell if you could use them at the same time. Like having one that deals extra Force damage on natural attack based on Essentia invested if bound to one chakra or gives extra natural attacks if bound to another, higher level one. Or you can do interesting things like having Soulmelds that have class-locked effects requiring them to be bound to the class's exclusive Chakra. Again, saved book space. Very important thing to save book space.

AmberVael

2017-02-06, 12:25 PM

Second, so what? Tribal shamans wearing masks to access various abilities is hardly a new concept either, nor a silly one for that matter.

Wearing masks to access powers isn't a silly concept. It makes sense. But Incarnum does it backwards, and thats why its so silly.

Masks are a symbol, a way to embody and act as something you're not. By making the mask and wearing it, you channel something else, perhaps even become or are possessed by that something else.

But with Incarnum, the soulmeld is the result of the process. The mask hasn't let you channel something else, you channeled something else and made a mask of it. So I ask, why a mask. Why a pair of boots. If you can call on and channel something else, just embody it directly. Call on the power of pegasus and borrow its wings. Call on the power of the girallon and tear stuff up with its claws. I don't see the reason in calling on the power of a manticore so you can turn it into a belt.

So oddly, if incarnum was about taking focus items and imbuing them with power, I'd be okay with that too. Its the making of items with your power that seems like such an odd and unnecessary step to me, at least since they're not really items that you can take off and pass around.

JoshuaZ

2017-02-06, 12:27 PM

Wearing masks to access powers isn't a silly concept. It makes sense. But Incarnum does it backwards, and thats why its so silly.

Masks are a symbol, a way to embody and act as something you're not. By making the mask and wearing it, you channel something else, perhaps even become or are possessed by that something else.

But with Incarnum, the soulmeld is the result of the process. The mask hasn't let you channel something else, you channeled something else and made a mask of it. So I ask, why a mask. Why a pair of boots. If you can call on and channel something else, just embody it directly. Call on the power of pegasus and borrow its wings. Call on the power of the girallon and tear stuff up with its claws. I don't see the reason in calling on the power of a manticore so you can turn it into a belt.

So oddly, if incarnum was about taking focus items and imbuing them with power, I'd be okay with that too. Its the making of items with your power that seems like such an odd and unnecessary step to me, at least since they're not really items that you can take off and pass around.

So in some contexts the symbol gives power and in other contexts the symbol is power and in other contexts the power creates a symbolic representation of itself. The map and the territory are all bound up together. That seems in a magic context to be fine.

Psyren

2017-02-06, 12:27 PM

I think shaping the soul energy into a mask is definitely powerful/symbolic and not at all silly.

Regardless, we're arguing preferences at this point, and if you refluff it at your table I doubt I'll notice anyway.

Cosi

2017-02-06, 12:39 PM

Well, it's kinda a way to hold the best obvious combos out of reach, as well as let you have one soulmeld for several related effects.

But is this really a concern? It doesn't seem to be a real problem with casters (most caster optimization is just "cast spells that are good" not "voltron these two otherwise balanced spells into winning the game"), and they're the top end of PC classes. This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Also, insofar as this might be a problem, I do not at all trust a playtest team to find the broken combos and make them incompatible. Far better to just not write broken synergies to begin with.

And "pumping in enough juice for extra abilities" is what Psionics does, all that having Chakras be cared about like this does is save book space and give you more decisions. It's adding only one more question: Where do I bind this today? This is in addition to the three existing questions: What do I shape, how much do I invest in each and which do I bind? Still less than most Casters deal with.

The chakra bind system adds three extra layers:

1. You have to pick a chakra for everything.
2. You have to decide what to bind.
3. You have to decide where to bind it.

I don't see any real advantage to adding those layers. It's less than casting, but only if you compare picking all your spells to picking one meld. The ideal system has two steps: "what do I prepare" (which happens 1/day, and for most characters probably once ever) and "where do I put energy" (which happens 1/round).

You can make it work very well, especially if you have stuff that would be OP as hell if you could use them at the same time. Like having one that deals extra Force damage on natural attack based on Essentia invested if bound to one chakra or gives extra natural attacks if bound to another, higher level one.

I don't think "make a bunch of attacks that each do a lot of damage" is "OP as hell". That's like playing a Swift Hunter, Bardblade, Rogue, or Gish.

Very important thing to save book space.

Doing this to save book space is missing the low hanging fruit. This book is full of stuff you do not care about. There are four pages of information about Spinemeld Warriors. Have you ever played a Spinemeld Warrior, or even seen a Spinemeld Warrior in a game? I would venture to say that the answer is no. If you want to save space, the very obvious place to start is cutting chaff like that from the book.

EisenKreutzer

2017-02-06, 12:41 PM

"Don't write broken synergies" is practically impossible. The more books and mechanics get added, the more difficult it gets to keep everything else in mind when designing new mechanics and features.

Troacctid

2017-02-06, 12:44 PM

Hey, don't knock the fluff. There's a ton of great fluff in the book. I've used a ton of it in my campaigns. It's interesting and it really helps incorporate the new crunch into a campaign world. It's the main reason why MoI is such a great book for DMs.

Cosi

2017-02-06, 12:44 PM

"Don't write broken synergies" is practically impossible. The more books and mechanics get added, the more difficult it gets to keep everything else in mind when designing new mechanics and features.

What synergy is there that is better than just casting planar binding a bunch of times?

Yes, you can make powerful synergies, but they're basically never going to break the game. Look at casters. They have more abilities than anyone else, and the majority of caster cheese is just "cast this spell that is broken".

EisenKreutzer

2017-02-06, 12:46 PM

Can't argue with that.

Morphic tide

2017-02-06, 12:55 PM

But is this really a concern? It doesn't seem to be a real problem with casters (most caster optimization is just "cast spells that are good" not "voltron these two otherwise balanced spells into winning the game"), and they're the top end of PC classes. This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Also, insofar as this might be a problem, I do not at all trust a playtest team to find the broken combos and make them incompatible. Far better to just not write broken synergies to begin with.
But being able to make abilities that would be broken synergies if you could have both opens up a lot of design space. Like adding level-appropriate damage to every attack you make and then making an ability that gives the same level-appropriate damage by giving you extra attacks. On their own, they are fine. Combined, they are a nightmare to make work. Incarnum actually already has a check against this breaking, with Essentia investment limits, but you can never have too many checks on breaking things that shouldn't be broken.

The chakra bind system adds three extra layers:

1. You have to pick a chakra for everything.
2. You have to decide what to bind.
3. You have to decide where to bind it.

I don't see any real advantage to adding those layers. It's less than casting, but only if you compare picking all your spells to picking one meld. The ideal system has two steps: "what do I prepare" (which happens 1/day, and for most characters probably once ever) and "where do I put energy" (which happens 1/round).
The advantage is granularity, combination management and book space saved. Also the ability to give class-exclusive functions. It makes it so that you can keep the class restrained in a way that is hard to break.

I don't think "make a bunch of attacks that each do a lot of damage" is "OP as hell". That's like playing a Swift Hunter, Bardblade, Rogue, or Gish.
When you can also have multiple types of rider effect on each attack, or have AoEs, or have some almost arbitrary number of other potential effects that make damage more powerful, it gets broken. Ultimately, the chakra bind part of Incarnum is an impressive tool to keep things under control. If you clearly defined what each chakra could do as guidelines, with clear examples of the valid exceptions, then you can keep the combination explosion under wraps in a way that allows for the use of extremely varied abilities.

Doing this to save book space is missing the low hanging fruit. This book is full of stuff you do not care about. There are four pages of information about Spinemeld Warriors. Have you ever played a Spinemeld Warrior, or even seen a Spinemeld Warrior in a game? I would venture to say that the answer is no. If you want to save space, the very obvious place to start is cutting chaff like that from the book.
Hey, the liability of wasted book space on horrible nonsense just makes procedural bookkeeping efficiency more important so that horrible ideas don't wreck the book's options as much.

Troacctid

2017-02-06, 12:58 PM

Hey, the liability of wasted book space on horrible nonsense just makes procedural bookkeeping efficiency more important so that horrible ideas don't wreck the book's options as much.
Hey, c'mon, I just said not to knock the fluff!

Kelb_Panthera

2017-02-06, 01:03 PM

Morphic tide

2017-02-06, 01:23 PM

Hey, c'mon, I just said not to knock the fluff!

I'm not knocking on the fluff, I'm knocking on the tendency to have classes, spells and other things that are utterly worthless for actually playing the game. You want highly varied fluff? AFCs, replacement levels and class variants ought to have more than enough mechanical groundwork to make those niche roles inside existing classes. Heck, a bunch of PRCs that only advance one class can easily be turned into replacement levels and AFCs. Having so many PRCs is just wasted book space. Like, how much would Planar Shepherd lose if it was made into Druid replacement levels with the same requirements?

Pazio does great, there, because instead of making piles of classes that differ only slightly from existing classes, they make archetypes that grant the abilities wanted to the closest class, saving a class table and limiting overpowered combinations. Dreamscarred Press keeps this up, having archetypes for some of there things to give them to the existing classes to save book space from making a half-dozen gish and theurge classes and PRCs for this new subsystem. When something needs a complete, but fitting, overhaul, Pazio rarely makes a PRC, instead they make an alternate class or hybrid class.

AmberVael

2017-02-06, 01:35 PM

Segev

2017-02-06, 01:47 PM

It is actually not uncommon for characters - particularly in comic books, but in numerous visual media - who have "animal inspired" powers have the invocation of that animal involve a supernatural outline of it superimposed on them in some fashion. The most obvious, to me, is the Super Friends character whose superpower was to say "Attribute of the Animal" and have the animal's outline zoom into him before he exhibited it. For example, "Strength of the Ox!" or "Speed of the Puma!"

Zombimode

2017-02-06, 02:36 PM

I actually really like the connection of Soulmelds and magic items. While this is not directly stated, it can certainly interpreted that magic items work because they sit on chakras. This neatly answers the questions why you can only make use of a limited number of magic items: you can only gain the benefits of one magic belt because you only have one chakra in your waist-area. The benefits of the item are imparted via this chakra. Once this "slot" is filled with one belt, there is no way that a second belt could take effect.

We already know that your item slot correspond to certain themes of effects. The face deals with senses, waist and torso with physical feats and resiliance and so on. Thats why specific soulmelds bind to the specific chakras. Getting Boots or a Belt is then just pragmatic: what else would you wear on your feet chakra if not boots or shoes or somesuch?

AmberVael

2017-02-06, 03:11 PM

Afgncaap5

2017-02-06, 03:19 PM

I love Incarnum, and I love it a lot. But I've never used it. Why? Because I always wind up DMing 3.5 games and no one wants to learn a magic system other than Vancian casting at my table. :-P

I have two primary issues with it, though:

1) There's not enough. I might be able to overlook some of the more problematic, buggy, or un-fun soulmelds if I had other options to turn to. As it is, though, with the number of options as presented, a lot of the shapers can wind up looking very similar, which is a shame for a sort of magic that's supposed to be about variety and customization.

2) Related to the first option, a lot of the best soulmelds are meant for certain alignments, and those can restrict options taken by the classes. If you're playing a stalwart champion of virtue you might discover that a really nifty combat meld is restricted to those of evil alignments (worse, it may be restricted to evil for reasons that aren't entirely clear from the flavor text.) Again, if there were just more soulmelds to choose from this probably wouldn't be an issue but, alas, it is.

3) Incarnum has a bad case of The Luck Feat problem; you can get some really interesting things going if you invest the entirety of your character concept to meldshaping, but the effect is almost nullified entirely if you just dip into it. I've seen it suggested in this conversation that tables might adopt the houserule of allowing half-shaper levels from non-shaper hit dice like in Tome of Battle, and this sounds like a really good idea to me, but as written you'll be in a weird situation. [Speaking as someone who *did* once make an all-luck-all-the-time Sorcerer, you can have a lot of fun by complete dedication to a single mechanic, but it can be tricky.]

Troacctid

2017-02-06, 03:26 PM

I love Incarnum, and I love it a lot. But I've never used it. Why? Because I always wind up DMing 3.5 games and no one wants to learn a magic system other than Vancian casting at my table. :-P
There's a ton of great material in the book for DMs. Quest hooks, organizations, magical locations, monsters, encounters...you can easily incorporate it into your setting even if none of your players are interested in the classes. I do it all the time. Personally, I'm a big fan of Lost Sites, and I like to include the various organizations like the Last Watch and the Pentifex Order as quest-givers and potential patrons.

Segev

2017-02-06, 03:33 PM

Yeah. I'm not sure why Magic of Incarnum couldn't have gone with that. I mean, they did with Girallon arms and a couple of others...

They did, really. Yes, the non-Totemist ones aren't animal-parts, but they're manifestations of the symbols of what they do. If anything, the failure is in not always aligning the visual symbol well with the powers it grants.

Cosi

2017-02-06, 04:07 PM

But being able to make abilities that would be broken synergies if you could have both opens up a lot of design space. Like adding level-appropriate damage to every attack you make and then making an ability that gives the same level-appropriate damage by giving you extra attacks. On their own, they are fine. Combined, they are a nightmare to make work.

Having "add level appropriate damage to every attack" on a soulmeld breaks if I take Two Weapon Fighting or am a Thri-Keen. Also if any other soulmeld can get me extra attacks. Or if my friendly local caster has haste.

The advantage is granularity, combination management and book space saved. Also the ability to give class-exclusive functions. It makes it so that you can keep the class restrained in a way that is hard to break.

You can save more book space by making abilities shorter, I think. There is a lot of wasted space you could cut before you had to start tweaking how things work.

You can class constrain abilities by having class lists.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Bad fluff.
Bad fluff who?
BLARGABLAH BLUE SOUL BIRD HELM.

Magic of Incarnum's fluff is dumb. It's extra dumb when you account for the presence of things like Spinemeld Warriors. I also have no idea why they picked "blue souls" as their fluff for the "allocate tokens" resource managment system. That says Gadgeteer to me way before it says Soul Magic.

Segev

2017-02-06, 04:23 PM

Magic of Incarnum's fluff is dumb. It's extra dumb when you account for the presence of things like Spinemeld Warriors.While I agree with you on Spinemeld Warriors, I have to say that this is purely subjective. Stating it like an objective fact undermines your credibility on the subject as a whole.

I also have no idea why they picked "blue souls" as their fluff for the "allocate tokens" resource managment system. That says Gadgeteer to me way before it says Soul Magic.So re-fluff it as gadgets. It'd probably be pretty easy.

Morphic tide

2017-02-06, 05:06 PM

Having "add level appropriate damage to every attack" on a soulmeld breaks if I take Two Weapon Fighting or am a Thri-Keen. Also if any other soulmeld can get me extra attacks. Or if my friendly local caster has haste.
When I say "add level appropriate damage to every attack," I'm talking accounting for the very simple things like TWF and Haste. And not much past that. Also, those other soulmelds with extra attacks will be taking up slots with other useful abilities, often ones like being able to hit and survive being hit properly. It's kinda the point of using Chakras for balancing. For Totemist, each set of Chakras could have a different limb-type theme, or a type of thing to be done. Really, just codifying the stuff each chakra lets you do would make balancing by chakra bind restrictions much easier.

You can save more book space by making abilities shorter, I think. There is a lot of wasted space you could cut before you had to start tweaking how things work.

You can class constrain abilities by having class lists
Well, one has to allow room for fluff, and a block of errata at the end of the book for badly-worded abilities goes a long way towards making things more playable. And what if a passive or lower-tier ability is well-fitting and much-needed by two classes? What if the fluff fits both quite well? Why not have the class specific abilities be different, mechanically similar things attacked to the same soulmeld?

To explain better, say you have a class that's covered in rider effects and shatters the game once you go past Thri-Keen, TWF and Haste because they were only rated for the stress test of those three things. You give this class extra damage per hit to keep them balanced. Then say you have another class with a focus on being able to use available attacks for non-attack things, or is covered in action sinks that prevent them from attacking most of the time, but the fluff is close enough that the same soulmeld makes sense and the soulmeld's mechanics work for both classes, perhaps by having it give something to do with your attacks that helps both. Boosted to-hit, a stat bonus, it doesn't matter what. Now, here, extra damage for each hit doesn't work nearly as well because the class already has multiple things that give extra attacks and abilities that treat attacks as a resource but they are badly starved of Essentia keeping up with all their abilities, so you have this helpful thing that improves their effectiveness at lower levels allow them to concentrate Essentia by getting extra attacks on a soulmeld that gives them other needed things.

The rider effect monster that pumps damage boosts and effects that go off on hits and on failed saves breaks with more attacks than a reasonable practical optimization, while the utility class that trades attacks for abilities and is designed to be Essentia starved if they try to be versatile without reinvesting, thereby screwing their action economy with a round they are unable to do things, can be given extra attacks without difficulty because it's letting them have more abilities available at a time, either by reducing Essentia starvation or by letting them shape more utility soulmelds without breaking their action economy.

The fact that this is a bizarre and contrived situation is kind of the point, because being able to make such a setup work out that way is a big point in favor of the setup. As for balancing multiclasses of the rider effect monster and the attacks-as-actions utility class, you balance that with chakra bind starvation, having the extra attacks of the utility class consume the chakras of the most important soulmelds of the rider effect monster. Again, the chakra binds save the balance.

Rerednaw

2017-02-06, 06:37 PM

Inspired by the thread about ToB.

Pros:
Interesting fluff.
Interesting and distinctly different concept and system.
Some enhancements to existing classes.
Introduces new classes.

Cons:
Apocryphal writing and editing.
Extremely difficult to read and follow.
In dire need of a detailed FAQ or re-write.
New classes are on core rogue-level of power and (in)effectiveness.

Quite frankly for this kind of modular power/ability system, they should have gone with something more like GURPS or Hero System as a basis.

Aegis013

2017-02-06, 07:30 PM

*Ideas*

I like the cut of your jib. I'd love to see a well balanced version of this that still has tons of sweet passives but also has some good actives. The biggest issue I had with DreamScarred Press's version which I'm not going to attempt to spell from memory was that it lacked the passive parts of the system that I like so much to mix and match with other things. Admittedly, I only looked through it briefly since it's unlikely Pathfinder material will be allowed if I play a character in my group due to familiarity issues. It may be there at this point, but I haven't gone back to look.

Incarnum usually doesn't mesh well with other stuff, but in some cases it really can (or gestalt it's just pretty great with an active class). I'd like to see it still able to occupy that very passive niche, as well as have some decent new combat options which I think is one of its current shortcomings.

On the fluff, it's weird, it's interesting, and you may hate or love it. That's OK. That's true of the majority of the side sub-systems. Personally, I like to refluff it, but I appreciate it for what it is as written as well.

Getsugaru

2017-02-06, 11:50 PM

Magic of Incarnum is my favorite and best-understood system. I remember when I was building my first character for 3.5 (which was admittedly my first proper experience with D&D) and the group I was playing with suggested I take a look at what I now affectionately refer to as "The Book of Blue". I was designing a Lizardfolk Barbarian at the time (my table plays with a houserule which allows you to give up the HD for a lizardfolk as well as playing with LA buyoff) and found the Totemist to be a perfect fit for the design I was working on. At the beginning of our first session, I was playing a somewhat-optimized Half-Dragon Viletooth Lizardfolk Barbarian 1/Totemist 2 (we started at level 6 and as it was my first time, the DM said I could ignore the Lizardfolk's LA) who specialized in melee. I was getting off eight natural attacks per round. Eight. Six of which were primary claw attacks. And I was having a blast. Not long after that first session I had read the entire book front-to-back and had a complete grasp on the two base classes and the several prestige classes...

...what? There are three base classes? Oh! You mean the Soulborn! Yeah, that thing is almost as bad as the Truenamer; A commoner can be better at incarnum just using feats. I wouldn't touch the Soulborn with a ten-foot pole.

But as I was saying. I fell in love with incarnum and learned everything I could about it. It is the book I know best. And while it does have some flaws (most of them because of being a book with some poor editing), I still subscribe to the belief that it is a wonderful system that can be used well in almost every party you can think of (even evil ones!). Heck, it is one of the only subsystems that can work effectively without magic items, in turn making it one of the few systems that can make use of Vow of Poverty full-stop, without being a druid.

I have always wanted to restructure it and Psionics to be the same power source, using Essentia and Power Points as the same conceptual thing, so you can invest psionic power into stuff (soulmelds) for boosts, but then expend them entirely for bigger, one-off or short-duration effects (psionic powers). Balancing this has proven challenging when I've attempted it, however.
In a way you already can do that: Psicarnum Infusion. By expending your psionic focus, you treat any one incarnum receptacle (be it a soulmeld, an item, a class feature, a feat...) as if it had the maximum possible essentia you could invest into it until the beginning of your next turn. Heck, it's the best way to use incarnum feats because you're not actually investing essentia into them and therefore get around their "once a day/essentia locked in" issue.

That's not hard. Incarnum is only -part- of the soul, not the whole thing.

From what I can tell, incarnum is the part of the soul that interacts with positive energy and binds it to the flesh.

Vestiges bind themselves to the consciousness of the soul (and are also made by that part being separated from the rest prematurely) so that they can experience reality vicariously.
Another important distinction is that where binders use souls that have been abandoned by the system for whatever reason and are therefore treated as neither alive nor dead. Incarnum, on the other hand, utilizes souls that are in the system: souls of the living, souls of the dead, and souls that have yet to be born.

Also, Incarnum does not generically use positive energy; if it did, the feat that enables Undead to use incarnum would also switch the energy. Souls are neither positive energy nor negative energy natively.

Afgncaap5

2017-02-06, 11:52 PM

There's a ton of great material in the book for DMs. Quest hooks, organizations, magical locations, monsters, encounters...you can easily incorporate it into your setting even if none of your players are interested in the classes. I do it all the time. Personally, I'm a big fan of Lost Sites, and I like to include the various organizations like the Last Watch and the Pentifex Order as quest-givers and potential patrons.

I've put in a few, though most of what I've done comes in the form of introducing NPCs with weird abilities. In a campaign I'm running in Eberron right now, one person wanted to be a member of House Tharashk and to get a "family sword" since his character collects swords, so I decided he had to earn it from the family's "Keeper of Antiquities", and decided that since the player wanted the relic to be made of Syberis shards I just ruled that Incarnum was something that Syberis shards could enhance or direct. Haven't had time to do more than a single encounter, but now that you mention the Lost Sites portion I'm remembering a few that might be good waypoints in a few upcoming story lines.

-Edit

Actually, looking at them now, I think I was thinking of something from another book when I was thinking of Lost Sites. I may well use a Lost Site as it's written here in the Shadow Marches (indeed, it seems about perfect for that sort of location, both in flavor and mechanically). I'm guessing what I was remembering must be from one of the Completes or something.

Segev

2017-02-07, 11:49 AM

In a way you already can do that: Psicarnum Infusion. By expending your psionic focus, you treat any one incarnum receptacle (be it a soulmeld, an item, a class feature, a feat...) as if it had the maximum possible essentia you could invest into it until the beginning of your next turn. Heck, it's the best way to use incarnum feats because you're not actually investing essentia into them and therefore get around their "once a day/essentia locked in" issue.

I can't believe I missed that. I always thought that feat and the various essentia-lock feats useless, and never thought to use them together. Good catch (or I'm just amazingly dense at times).

Cosi

2017-02-07, 12:22 PM

While I agree with you on Spinemeld Warriors, I have to say that this is purely subjective. Stating it like an objective fact undermines your credibility on the subject as a whole.

There's a lot of stuff that seems pretty clearly dumb to me. The races are a generic human subrace that has synergy with the magic system, two races of forehead people, and a race of fey with no traits I can remember. The "blue souls" magic fluff reads like someone rolled it on a chart. The PrCs contain a lot of Spinemeld Warrior level PrCs (though to be fair, so do most books).

So re-fluff it as gadgets. It'd probably be pretty easy.

You could, it would take some work though (it's not clear to me why gadgets would have the same chakra constraints the book does). But mostly I just don't find the mechanics worth converting.

When I say "add level appropriate damage to every attack," I'm talking accounting for the very simple things like TWF and Haste. And not much past that.

I don't like that. If you assume people will have X extra attacks already, you risk problems if you missed something and you force every combat Incarnate to buy up the assumed synergy with whatever their primary meld is (so if you use the +damage meld, you have to invest permanent resources in extra attacks). This limits the value of being able to shape new melds. Sure, you could prep the +attacks meld, but you won't have the damage boosts it assumes you do, and will therefore suck.

Well, one has to allow room for fluff, and a block of errata at the end of the book for badly-worded abilities goes a long way towards making things more playable. And what if a passive or lower-tier ability is well-fitting and much-needed by two classes? What if the fluff fits both quite well? Why not have the class specific abilities be different, mechanically similar things attacked to the same soulmeld?

I think soulmelds should be tightly themed enough that if the passive is appropriate, the higher level abilities should be appropriate as well. Maybe you have the azure armbands of alacrity, which grant a bunch of speed related bonuses. If the move speed bonus fits both Soulborn and Incarnate thematically, the extra attacks probably do as well.

Segev

2017-02-07, 12:35 PM

There's a lot of stuff that seems pretty clearly dumb to me. The races are a generic human subrace that has synergy with the magic system, two races of forehead people, and a race of fey with no traits I can remember. The "blue souls" magic fluff reads like someone rolled it on a chart. The PrCs contain a lot of Spinemeld Warrior level PrCs (though to be fair, so do most books).The races are lackluster. "Blue soul magic" feels no more rolled on a chart than any other form of magic and fluff, though, so I think you're letting your subjective dislike get in the way.

You could, it would take some work though (it's not clear to me why gadgets would have the same chakra constraints the book does). But mostly I just don't find the mechanics worth converting.See, the mechanics are actually interesting. You may not like them, but they work. They certainly are not objectively bad. If you thought gadgets were a better use, more power to you. Use 'em. If you don't like the mechanics, that's fine, too. But that really is just your opinion; you've offered no objective support for them being bad mechanics.

Morphic tide

2017-02-07, 12:59 PM

*snip*

Okay, you don't quite get what I'm saying: Effects that work for one class might not work for another class that has compatible, even complimentary, fluff. That's the thing. A Soulmeld that fits equally well for two classes fluff-wise can have one ability from the set it can give be perfectly fine for one of the classes and utterly broken, either worthless or too powerful, for the other. A Soulmeld that boosts the available versatility of a class by consolidating two or three absolutely necessary effects into one Soulmeld can end up broken for another class because one of those effects reacts badly with the class's exclusive Soulmelds, but the others fulfil the same needed or fluff-appropriate role.

Let's use the much more valuable extra actions, an effect that belongs at high levels anyways, as an example: They work great for a skillmonkey class that has a lot of abilities that need to use standard actions which are used frequently, and it can have other effects that help with some of those abilities. But the particular fluff and other effects work almost as well, if not better, for another, more combat focused, class that has a lot of attacks already and has abilities balanced by the assumption that you can only use two or three of them in one turn. So, instead of extra actions, they get easier to balance extra attacks which give similar mechanical power to the extra actions of the skillmonkey. Let's say the skillmonkey also uses a bunch of rider effects and has a few other ways to get extra actions, making extra attacks even more powerful for them than extra actions are because those get multiplied instead of added. Both have a lot of use for the abilities given, but there other Soulmelds make the nature of the top ability needed different.

One class could be built for Charisma synergy, another for Wisdom synergy. One can need more attacks, the other more actions. One could have a class that needs durability, but another linked class that needs damage. That's what I'm getting at.