What is Magic of Incarnium and is it balanced?

[NecroDancer]

So i read the article about the totemist class on WoTC's website and it seemed pretty awesome but i'm still in the dark on most of it. I was wondering if the playground could give me some bare bone answers to these questions?

1. What is the fluff behind the new system of magic?

2. Is this book "balanced" (not horribly broken enough to warrant an instant ban by a DM)?

3. On a basic scale of 1-10 how would you rate this book?

[torrasque666]

ok in order:

1. The fluff is that you shape incarnum, which is basically what souls are made out of, into pseudo-magical items.

2. I'd say its balanced. Incarnate and Totemist are a solid T3 class and the Soulborn.... no one could see someone playing a soulborn and say its overpowered. In any way.

3. I'd say its a solid 7.

[ZeroGear]

To answer your questions:

1) Incarnum is the magic of soul energy made manifest. The idea is that you use the power of souls to 'create' magic items (melds) on your body, investing points from a soul 'pool' to increase the abilities they give.

2) Balance wise, it depends. On the one hand it is extremely flexible because you can change your meld point investments on a round-by-round basis. For example, if you have a meld on your feet that boosts your speed, you can invest points to boost the distance you can go, then shift them into the meld on your arms to boost attack rolls once you're close to an enemy. Granted, those points have to stay invested until your next turn, but you get the idea. It can get to downright neurotic levels of micromanagement at times, so there's that. On the other hand, this is balanced by the fact that melds share the same slots as magical items, so if you want to want to have a pair of bracers then you forfeit the slot you would use for an arm meld (granted, some feats circumvent this, but you're burning a feat slot to do so).
On the whole, it can be as powerful as some of the spell caster builds out there, but that's usually due to the same insane levels of minmaxing that lunatics are capable of.

3) On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a solid 8. The flavor is neat and the mechanics are interesting. Plus, there are additions for other classes in the book. It's an intriguing system, even if it can be a little complicated. On the whole, the book's worth a read at the very least.

[Waker]

1. What is the fluff behind the new system of magic?
Incarnum is basically the raw material that makes up souls. Meldshapers are those who take incarnum and shape it into soulmelds, their version of spells.


2. Is this book "balanced" (not horribly broken enough to warrant an instant ban by a DM)?
Incarnum is fairly balanced. Totemist is probably the best class to play for a beginner. Soulborn are fairly simple too, but tend to be rather underwhelming. Incarnates are probably the most versatile, but require the most effort to get full mileage out of it.


3. On a basic scale of 1-10 how would you rate this book?
MoI is my favorite subsystem in 3.5. It's got a lot of cool ideas, but like many other WotC works, it suffers from poor editing. For a breakdown on how incarnum works, read this guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?215723-Incarnum-and-YOU-a-reference-guide) by Shneeky.

[NomGarret]

I'll just echo the chorus here. It's my favorite 3.5 subsystem, even if the implimentation was sometimes overcautious. This is to say it's not overpowered, nor is there any particular class/feat/soulmeld to worry about.

The typical joke is that the fluff is 'blue,' and the color does get mentioned a lot. From a play perspective, think of your character like a starship. Every round you get to shout "full power to shields!" "Power to thrusters!" You just move the power around without worrying about expending it.

[Fouredged Sword]

Incarnum characters cast their magic not in the form of spells, but rather form psudo real magic items that exist only for them and can be changed out daily. Incarnates mimic more traditional magic items (swords, gauntlets, cloaks) and get a wide range of buffs to skills and combat. Totemists mimic magical creatures and kill things with natural weapons. Soulborns try to be paladins with incarnum, but just suck.

These magic items have two levels of reality. They can be formed, shaped into ghostly outlines, that grant the basic power of each meld. In addition they can also be bound, turning them real and physical. In both cases they only exist for the meldshaper. All meldshapes occupy a magic item slot. Formed melds cannot occupy the same slot as another meld. Bound melds also prevent you from using a magic item in that slot. There are feats that let you cheat on this.

On top of this you have essence. Essence allows you to supercharge a soulmeld. You can move it around as a swift action. You can put essence in offensive melds, or defensive melds, or mobility melds, or utility melds. It allows you to be very flexible in the moment, but has the problem of never allowing you to do everything at once.

All in all, the system is a little micromanagy. Works best with meld cards and tokens to track essence. No class is particularly overpowered, with a solid tier 3 (except soulborn) tendency. Ironsoul Forgemaster is especially fun as a dwarf incarnate.

[Pex]

I don't think you get enough Essentia for your level, but that is subjective. I've never played with it, so I can't be more definitive. However, I will standby the thought that some of the feats are worthless. Spending a feat to get only one Essentia point is a rip off. Any feat that allows you to do something only once per day I think is a rip off. It's nothing new that there exists "worthless" feats, but I expect more from a specialized sourcebook.

[Fouredged Sword]

I don't think you get enough Essentia for your level, but that is subjective. I've never played with it, so I can't be more definitive. However, I will standby the thought that some of the feats are worthless. Spending a feat to get only one Essentia point is a rip off. Any feat that allows you to do something only once per day I think is a rip off. It's nothing new that there exists "worthless" feats, but I expect more from a specialized sourcebook.

You never get as much essence as you WANT, but you get all the essence you NEED. You do not hit the point of "I put everything in everything" at any point, short of cheese, but you can max out a meld or two. The whole point is to only have enough to juggle your various abilities without ever having enough that you just set it and forget it.

This is why a lot of people mention the micromanagement side of these classes as a potential downside. IF you like that sort of thing and maybe have physical aids to help you keep track of it all it can be a lot of fun and very flexible. If you hate micromanaging things and try to keep it all in your head you are going to have a bad time.

[noce]

1. Let me add to what other people said. Do not think about using souls as an evil thing.
It's more like Phlogiston or the Genkidama sphere: Incarnum is everywhere and in every thing, and you know how to use it.

2. The book is weirdly balanced. Anyway most DMs, after reading the book, would say it's fine, the problem is that many don't want to learn another system, expecially since it's not trivial to keep track of essentia every round, given that reallocating it is a swift action.
- The soulborn is the most unbalanced class of the three in the book. It's just too weak, don't use it and forget it even exists.
- The incarnate is the most difficult to rate, balance wise. It can hit easily and deal good damage per hit, but he will attack once per round until lvl 11, and twice from 12 to 20, so in order to deal good damage with it you usually have to optimize attacks per round in other ways (twf, natural weapons...). This basically means that you can optimize an incarnate to a good degree, but if you do not optimize it the class is too unfocused (good skills with a day advance, that's it).
- The totemist is the most abusable, even as a dip. Two levels is what you need to get nice things, then you can multiclass, prestige class, or stay pure. It's less versatile than incarnate but medium bab and lots of natural attacks grant you effectiveness. It's hard to screw up as a totemist.
- Some prestige classes are very good, some other are a big "avoid it like plague", so again, not easy to rate.
- The fact that certain spells provide you access to chakras makes the book generally unbalanced for phb classes, because it provides incarnum options to clerics and wizards, but the same is not true for fighters or monks.

3. I would rate it as a 7.
The soulmeld list is just badly written, they should have split soulmelds from different lists.
Feats could have been better, for example the saves ones could count as Great Fort, etc in order to qualify for prestige classes, and I dislike the fact you can't remove essentia from feats.
Also, Incarnum greatly varies in efficacy based on how much item shopping you can do in a campaign. If you have very limited access to magic items, then incarnate and totemist are exceptionally strong.

[Red Fel]

As much as I love the flavor and feel of Incarnum, and would recommend it at any table, it suffers two substantial flaws.

First: Bad editing. Much like Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum had some really bad editing, to the point that you end up looking in entirely separate sections in order to piece together some of the basic, fundamental rules. Imagine if XPH kept the rules for Manifester Level in one chapter, but the "You cannot spend more than your Manifester Level in PP on a given power" in an entirely different chapter - it's kind of like that. While this can be remedied by carefully studying the entire book, it makes it less convenient for quick reference purposes.

Second: Low power. Soulmelds, as Fouredged Sword mentions, are more like pseudo-magic items than spells. With relatively few exceptions, they don't so much perform actions for your character; rather, they give you buffs (stats, movement speed, skills) or special abilities (a ranged touch attack here, miss chance there, maybe Nondetection or limited flight). As such, Meldshaping classes generally (1) aren't going to be as offensively powerful as, say, an Ubercharger, and (2) aren't going to be as game-breakingly versatile as a Wizard or Sorcerer. They are versatile, yes; a Meldshaper automatically knows every Soulmeld on his class list (although he can't shape them all at once), can change his setup from one day to the next, and can augment individual Soulmelds as needed. However, he will never be quite as destructive or overwhelmingly powerful as other more dedicated classes.

This last point is not a bad thing, mind you. Not everyone needs to have a spell for every situation, or be able to instantly reduce an enemy to a fine red paste. And when it comes to non-combat challenges, Meldshapers have a lot of advantages - maneuverability and skills chief among them - which let them contribute in fun and interesting ways. But it's important to keep this in mind.

Really, the most optimized uses for a Meldshaper class are (1) in a Vow of Poverty build, where Soulmelds can be a literal poor man's substitute for magic items, or (2) as a dip, where Meldshaping can be used to augment many other builds.

Short version? It's versatile, but not overwhelmingly powerful; it requires tedious bookkeeping, but not nearly as much as a Wizard goes through (the list of Soulmelds is extremely finite); it's great for dips or unusual builds.

[Cosi]

1. What is the fluff behind the new system of magic?

You make stuff out of souls. For no reason, that stuff is blue.


2. Is this book "balanced" (not horribly broken enough to warrant an instant ban by a DM)?

Yes, but that's a stupid definition of balanced. There's only one book that warrants that -- the Epic Level Handbook.


3. On a basic scale of 1-10 how would you rate this book?

The mechanics are too complicated. The core mechanic of "you have a fixed number of points, you can put them into various piles to get scaling bonuses" is good, but there are three or so levels of complexity added on top of that for no reason. The thing where you put melds in chakra's and some of them are "attuned" or "bound" or whatever is a totally unnecessary. Did you know that you have both a "crown" chakra and a "brow" chakra? That's stupid.

The classes are pretty unbalanced. The Soulborn is a Paladin clone (and therefore sucks). The Incarnate has the ability to get bonuses to skill checks that are "pretty big" and very little else. The Totemist is a passable blender, probably on par with things like the Warblade and the Binder.

The prestige classes are a fine set of examples of the problems of late-period 3e PrC design.

Did you know that "Spinemeld Warrior" is a thing you can be? Of course you didn't, because no one has ever played or cared about Spinemeld Warriors. Despite this, more than five pages are dedicated to explaining the Spinemeld Warrior, including their "organization" and "adaptations". There's an entire paragraph about how a guy you don't care about in a place you've never heard of duels people because his wife has affairs with them.

There's a crappy theurge for arcane casters who want to use incarnum. It's actually not terrible, because I'm pretty sure you can get in off of a one level dip or no levels and a lot of feats. But there's another class that is specifically for law-aligned Clerics who pick up some incarnum. That gets about six pages. Compare that to Complete Warrior where a prestige class for any kind of warrior who is interested in taking up arcane magic takes just over a page and a half.

There's a prestige class for Fighters with incarnum and also a totally separate prestige class for Paladins with incarnum. There's a prestige class for dwarf smiths who use incarnum, which is a character concept played exclusively because the Ironsoul Forgemaster exists. There's a prestige class that exists solely to give evil Incarnates extra powers, because apparently the people who were writing this book forgot that you can do that by giving Incarnates powers with the [Evil] tag. The Umbral Disciple continues in the long tradition of giving Monks things that suck. At 4th level you get no abilities, but in exchange at 10th level you get to ... increase your reach during your turn, at 15th level.

IIRC Totem Rager is an okay choice if you happen to be playing a Totemist. You get some bonuses while raging that make you a modestly better blender in combat.

[Necroticplague]

So i read the article about the totemist class on WoTC's website and it seemed pretty awesome but i'm still in the dark on most of it. I was wondering if the playground could give me some bare bone answers to these questions?

1. What is the fluff behind the new system of magic?

2. Is this book "balanced" (not horribly broken enough to warrant an instant ban by a DM)?

3. On a basic scale of 1-10 how would you rate this book?

1. You take raw soul-stuff (incarnum), and bind it to certain parts of your body (chakras) in a form (meldshapes) that functions a bit like magic items, possibly empowered by your own inner reserves of energy (essentia).
2. Depends on what you use as a 'balancing point'. It's leagues above the monk, battledancer, roughly on par with the warblade and crusader, and cripplingly useless compare to the archivist and erudite. Overall, I consider it balanced.
3. 7.5. Mechanics are interesting and fun, two of the three classes are pretty balanced (one, the soulborn, really sucks), has much less blatantly abusable material than some others, and anyone can get in on the fun a little, thanks to the feats.
Downsides: Book suffers from some poor organization issues that can impeded understanding, meldshapes are listed by alphabetical order instead of any useful order, one of the soulmelds is open to abuse

[Necroticplague]

Did you know that you have both a "crown" chakra and a "brow" chakra? That's stupid.

Er, that's because the normal rules have a Head magic item slot, and a Lens magic slot. Just as you can wear a magic hat and pair of magic glasses, so to can you shape a crown and a mask.

[Fouredged Sword]

One day I am going to run a game with little or no magic items and a new alignment axis for civilized / neutral / natural. Civilized characters will be a class feature gestalt with incarnate. Natural charters will be a class feature gestalt with totemist. Neutral characters will be class feature gestalted with my homebrew Avatar class (an incarnum class focused on aspects of humanoids, very limited soulmelds and essence (one per attribute), but powerful effects.)

The idea of a world without many magic items (mostly scrolls, potions, ect. None of the "fundamental" items), where heroes fight monsters with the power of their souls manifest.

This will require me to finish my homebrew avatar class first.

[Cosi]

Er, that's because the normal rules have a Head magic item slot, and a Lens magic slot. Just as you can wear a magic hat and pair of magic glasses, so to can you shape a crown and a mask.

First, that is also dumb. Though as you point out, that is qualitatively less dumb because your head and your eyes are different things

Second, masks don't go on your "brow" they go on your "face". That is literally and exactly where you put a mask, and if they meant for the chakra to be "mask place", they should have called it the face chakra.

[Fouredged Sword]

Brow is for all items that go on your forehead and under. Head is for items that go on your hairline or above.

Yes, it is a silly distinction. It is also an old traditional DnD distinction.

[Necroticplague]

Second, masks don't go on your "brow" they go on your "face". That is literally and exactly where you put a mask, and if they meant for the chakra to be "mask place", they should have called it the face chakra. The relevant point is that that magic item slot (and thus, chakra spot) for goggles, glasses, monocles, masks are all the same. Incarnates shape eagle-eye goggles, totemists shape threefold masks of chimera, and they do it to this slot. Naming it brow might have been slightly pretentious, but no more so than calling the head slot chakra the crown chakra (despite also covering various headbands, mantles, cowls, and helmets). It's just a reference to the original mythology they nixed the idea of chakras from.

[SangoProduction]

I like the subsystem of Incarnum. However, I've never gotten any inspiration for a character using it, outside of some uber NA totemist build (which isn't a character, but a build). I mean, half of the entire point of the less-freeform RPGs is to provide a basic framework of a character with in-built fluff.

The classes also have a couple of neat abilities, but they had very little breadth and depth of powers, even before considering power levels. Even psionics and core got a nice load of bits and bobs that you could mess around with... this felt a bit anemic comparatively.

In summation: It's a cool idea that deserved support, and maybe an extra month in the oven, but never got it.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Incarnum is really nice to work with, because--like Tome of Battle--it integrates well with other builds, and a few levels offers a fair bit of utility already. It's definitely in the "subsystems to keep" category, but it's one of the books that benefits from an unofficial tutorial.

[Fouredged Sword]

I do like the dip of incarnate on a rogue into the incarunum roguish class. Tons of fun, able to get silly good at rogue skills with actual ranks+soulmelds.

[lord_khaine]

I do belive the Incarnum book is generally considderet the worst edited official 3.5 book ever.

[Cosi]

I do belive the Incarnum book is generally considderet the worst edited official 3.5 book ever.

I dunno. I guess it depends on what you assume editors were supposed to do. Also, on what you mean by worst. I can't think of anything in Magic of Incarnum as pointlessly WTF-inducing as Tome of Magic's reference to the "penalties for concealment", a thing that does not in fact exist.

[Psyren]

I do belive the Incarnum book is generally considderet the worst edited official 3.5 book ever.

I'd say ToM gets that honor personally (for literally everything after the Binder chapter), though MoI is a close second.


I like the subsystem of Incarnum. However, I've never gotten any inspiration for a character using it, outside of some uber NA totemist build (which isn't a character, but a build). I mean, half of the entire point of the less-freeform RPGs is to provide a basic framework of a character with in-built fluff.

One of my favorite incarnum characters was a Warforged Totemist who was a gestalt consciousness (think Ermac from MK) comprised of the souls of various magical beasts who had lost their home to deforestation caused by the Big Bad. They animated one of the abandoned Warforged shells left over from his army. Basically, think Treebeard meets Bastion, and referring to himself in first person plural all the time.

[Lans]

I fee like tier wise the totemist is a low 3, incarnate is a high 4, an soulborn is core paladin

[Mendicant]

First, that is also dumb. Though as you point out, that is qualitatively less dumb because your head and your eyes are different things

Second, masks don't go on your "brow" they go on your "face". That is literally and exactly where you put a mask, and if they meant for the chakra to be "mask place", they should have called it the face chakra.

The brow chakra (also called the third-eye chakra) is an actual thing in the source material that the idea of chakras is being drawn from. The difference between a crown and a brow (which is already present in the two words) never confused me, and my first exposure to this book was the TGD rant. Also, "face chakra" sounds dumb.

[Psyren]

I fee like tier wise the totemist is a low 3, incarnate is a high 4, an soulborn is core paladin

I'd say it's slightly worse - core paladin at least gets a mount you can ride or flank with.

[ottdmk]

I really, really like Magic of Incarnum. The fluff is a lot of fun, the system is pretty straightforward once you get used to it, and overall it works really well for me. But then, I'm the guy with an irrational liking of Soulborns (see .sig) , so take what I say with a grain of salt. :smallbiggrin:

[Pex]

Incarnum is really nice to work with, because--like Tome of Battle--it integrates well with other builds, and a few levels offers a fair bit of utility already. It's definitely in the "subsystems to keep" category, but it's one of the books that benefits from an unofficial tutorial.

It's been a while so I don't remember the fine details, but there was a nasty combo I discovered for a crusader who uses incarnum. There's a strike that does some dice of damage, 6d8 I think. You can voluntarily take Con damage. For each point of Con damage you take you add 2d8 damage. There's a soul meld that restores your Con if you take Con damage.

[ExLibrisMortis]

It's been a while so I don't remember the fine details, but there was a nasty combo I discovered for a crusader who uses incarnum. There's a strike that does some dice of damage, 6d8 I think. You can voluntarily take Con damage. For each point of Con damage you take you add 2d8 damage. There's a soul meld that restores your Con if you take Con damage.
Strongheart Vest reduces ability damage you take, and the Vitality Belt makes you outright immune to constitution damage and drain, but I don't think any melds restore ability damage. At least, not the MoI ones I checked.

The combo still works, and it a character with Martial Spirit + Therapeutic Mantle nicely flows into it at higher levels. The strike in question is greater divine surge, which is an 8th-level maneuver, and the maximum con damage you can take is equal to your IL (so at least 15). You'd be looking at +15 to hit and +36d8 damage (162 avg.) at the level you get it, which makes the Vitality Belt a really attractive option. Good fun on a crusader 16/incarnate 4 build.

[Psyren]

The combo still works,

Not everyone agrees with this though - some say that if you prevent ability damage (as opposed to healing it) that it never happened, and so any benefits you'd have gotten if you took the damage don't trigger either.

[Necroticplague]

Not everyone agrees with this though - some say that if you prevent ability damage (as opposed to healing it) that it never happened, and so any benefits you'd have gotten if you took the damage don't trigger either.

For each similar sbility, it depends on wording. In this case, immunity definitely stops the benefits. You didn't take any damage, so you plug zero into the formula. Makes for a pretty bad maneuver. Neberius binds are much better for these kinds of purposes.

[Blackhawk748]

I don't think you get enough Essentia for your level, but that is subjective. I've never played with it, so I can't be more definitive. However, I will standby the thought that some of the feats are worthless. Spending a feat to get only one Essentia point is a rip off. Any feat that allows you to do something only once per day I think is a rip off. It's nothing new that there exists "worthless" feats, but I expect more from a specialized sourcebook.

This is my biggest gripe, the Incarnum FEats should be treated like Soulmelds and forcing people to lock their Essentia into it makes them not want to take the feats.

[AnimeTheCat]

This is my biggest gripe, the Incarnum FEats should be treated like Soulmelds and forcing people to lock their Essentia into it makes them not want to take the feats.

The feats do pretty much all grant a point of essentia though so if you like the feat and it works without investing essentia, you can get plenty of essentia.

[Blackhawk748]

The feats do pretty much all grant a point of essentia though so if you like the feat and it works without investing essentia, you can get plenty of essentia.

There is that, but a bunch of them dont do a whole hell of a lot without Essentia

[Godskook]

1. What is the fluff behind the new system of magic?

Soul-stuff magic. The "essence" of things.


2. Is this book "balanced" (not horribly broken enough to warrant an instant ban by a DM)?

Mostly, yeah.

Soulborns are roughly Paladin-tier, Incarnates/Totemists are mostly tier 3-4?

Your only real challenge is that anyone who "gets" MoI is going to be a high-end optimizer, but repeat after me: "this player was going to try breaking my game with anything. Thank god he's not using tier 1-2"

Do note, that MoI requires some adjudication, and as such, is not "ready to play", imho. Most notably, imho, Open X Chakra feats should grant chakra binds with the feats.


3. On a basic scale of 1-10 how would you rate this book?

Originality of mechanics: 10

Originality of fluff in D&D: 10

Approachability: 0

Usability by familiar users: 8

Book organization: 5

Cool things for non-tier 1-2: 10

[Pex]

Strongheart Vest reduces ability damage you take, and the Vitality Belt makes you outright immune to constitution damage and drain, but I don't think any melds restore ability damage. At least, not the MoI ones I checked.

The combo still works, and it a character with Martial Spirit + Therapeutic Mantle nicely flows into it at higher levels. The strike in question is greater divine surge, which is an 8th-level maneuver, and the maximum con damage you can take is equal to your IL (so at least 15). You'd be looking at +15 to hit and +36d8 damage (162 avg.) at the level you get it, which makes the Vitality Belt a really attractive option. Good fun on a crusader 16/incarnate 4 build.

That's the combo I meant.

[Lans]

I'd say it's slightly worse - core paladin at least gets a mount you can ride or flank with.

Well the soulborn can get soulborn familier and a zombie, so I kind of think thats a wash

[Troacctid]

Well the soulborn can get soulborn familier and a zombie, so I kind of think thats a wash
Paladin mount is definitely stronger.

[Lans]

Paladin mount is definitely stronger.

Maybe, the soulborn can grab an ogre, give it a long tripping weapon and have it try tripping people, if used as a mount the zombie has more speed, it can grab a flying mount at level 8, not sure when a core paladin can grab one. The thing really holding it back is its half meldshaper level

Edit The paladin can get a hippogrif at level 6, the soulborn can get one at level 6 with a feat, paladins is stronger, soulborns is faster

[Forrestfire]

Per the DMG, paladins have the ability to get stronger and stronger creatures as mounts at higher levels; not just the ones listed (CR = level - 3 for nonflying mounts level - 4 for flyers).

[Feantar]

Incarnum would feel excelent in a semi primitive setting - or some kind of post-apocalyptic after the mage war setting. In general, if Wizards/Clerics aren't a thing, societies are more rural and magical creatures are more dominant, Incarnum "feels" right, as it is a more primitive kind of magic. Think a bit after the bronze age collapse in historical terms. There have been heroes in the past (who wore/wielded the items whose* simulacra you shape by soulstuff) but their equipment and levels of power are not reachable currently.

Additionally, it makes really nice gestalt combos.

PS: If you want something setting specific, in FR incarnum has a pretty important if usually overlooked position; It is what Arcanist Karsus had discovered and called "heavy magic" - in a sense magic that affects the world but does not expend itself in doing so (the soulstuff of incarnum is never expended, just shaped).

*Whos or whose? Confused.

[Red Fel]

*Whos or whose? Confused.

Whose. Whos isn't a word (unless this is one of those Doctor Who specials with multiple Doctors), and who's is the contraction of "who is." Whose is the possessive for which you're looking.

But yeah. As I mention in my extremely on topic handbook about an awesome Incarnum PrC (shameless plug and link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?344798-Soul-and-Steel-A-Guide-to-the-Ironsoul-Forgemaster-%28WIP-PEACH%29)), the Soulborn is the Paladin of MoI. Even if you debate which class is inferior in a vacuum, however, I'd argue that the Soulborn is still worse than the Paladin overall, because Paladins have additional support in other books, whereas the Soulborn is pretty much just what you get in MoI. Aside from a few web expansions, Incarnum has pretty much nothing else beyond the one book. Whereas a Paladin can PrC into some reasonably solid classes, or take some decent ACFs or spells, the Soulborn is just the Soulborn. It has barely any soulmeld progression to speak of, relying more heavily on its poor class features than the Incarnate or Totemist. And while it does have a few uses (such as taking a CE Soulborn 2 dip to become immune to STR penalties), on the whole it's just a hideous waste, far moreso than the Paladin.

Which says a lot.

[Bonzai]

1. What is the fluff behind the new system of magic?

As others have said, essentia is soul energy bound and shaped by meld shapers into constructs that grant abilities. Totemists shape more nature oriented soul energy while incarnates/Soulborn are more wide ranging and oddly alignment based. IMHO, there was a lot more that could have been fleshed out fluff wise in this department.

2. Is this book "balanced" (not horribly broken enough to warrant an instant ban by a DM)?

It is probably the most self balancing magic system wizards have ever produced. There are a couple combos that combine with psionics that equate to infinite power points, but other than those, they are pretty mid tier.

3. On a basic scale of 1-10 how would you rate this book?

8. The main thing that this book suffers from is a lack of further support. It's a fun system on it's own, and is incredibly easy to dip into.

[ExLibrisMortis]

For each similar sbility, it depends on wording. In this case, immunity definitely stops the benefits. You didn't take any damage, so you plug zero into the formula. Makes for a pretty bad maneuver. Neberius binds are much better for these kinds of purposes.
Right, the wording on this type of ability is inconsistent as hell, and probably doesn't work here. I could see a way to make it work (along the lines of "you take damage, but you're immune to its effects, so your con score isn't changed"*), but it'd require splitting so many hairs that you're better off asking for a houserule (which I would allow, since we're talking about a combo that works at level 15 at the earliest, and it's a single attack as a full-round action). I feel that Naberius doesn't really work for the maneuver, it's not powerful enough to make an impact on 10+ con damage. At best, you'd get one strike per fight, towards the end of a fight, which is what you'd get with lesser restoration on call anyhow. I don't think many people could afford to lose >100 max hp at the start of a fight, which is what you need to use the strike twice.


*Various rules suggest that damage is tracked separately from hp/ability scores. For example, the rules on gaining/losing max hp suggest you track damage taken and subtract it from your maximum hp to determine your current hp. In such a system, you could argue that your con damage tally keeps increasing, but the subtraction never happens (it would definitely make it very dangerous to disable the Vitality Belt, which is an interesting side effect). As I said, a LOT of hairs were split in the making of this argument.

[NomGarret]

One point of fluff that really grabbed me when I first read the book involves the Totemist. It's built as a response to the presence of magical beasts in the world. Unlike most other primal, nature-oriented classes that invoke the strengths of various creatures, the Totemist feels at home in a D&D setting. Why would our tribe revere the hunting prowess of panthers when we can take after displacer beasts? Sure, wolves are awesome, but if I'm modeling myself after apex canines, I'm probably picking blink dogs or winter wolves if given the chance. If I'm trying to become the biggest, strongest creature around, why settle for mimicking bears when I can mimic the friggin terrasque?

There are a couple of houserules I've used over the years to soften the overcautious elements they designed in. The first is that binding soulmelds doesn't interfere with magic items. The second is that Incarnum Feats don't lock in your essentia. AFB at the moment, but there may be one or two where I left that restriction on. This makes them moderately more useful, but mostly gives Soulborns (the class most likely to take any number of them) something interesting to play with.

[ottdmk]

The feats do pretty much all grant a point of essentia though so if you like the feat and it works without investing essentia, you can get plenty of essentia.There is that, but a bunch of them dont do a whole hell of a lot without EssentiaActually, none of the Incarnum Feats will do anything for you without investing Essentia.

The Incarnum Feats basically serve three basic purposes (in declining order of importance):

1) They're an important part of the Soulborn progression. Soulborn get three of these feats as Bonus Feats (two if you use all three Dwarf or Elf RSLs). The Feats themselves have some useful aspects and the three points of Essentia they grant are absolutely essential (pun intended) to a Soulborn at higher levels.

2) The Essentia they grant can be a way in to Incarnum-based prestige classes (such as the ever-popular Umbral Disciple.)

3) They can allow non-Incarnum characters to take some Incarnum-flavour in a heavily Incarnum-based campaign.

Shameless plug: I think Soulborn are fun, despite their tier, so see the Handbook link in my .sig. :smallbiggrin:

[Telonius]

My take on Incarnum from a couple years ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18661715&postcount=7):


Bad points:
It suffers from "Let's put the most important tables in the least logical places" syndrome.
Bad editing generally.
Kind of hard to figure out how it works the first time you read it.
Soulborn is very much underwhelming.
Undead Meldshaper should really, really have an extra clause allowing a stat other than Con (I'd go with Charisma) to count for Incarnum prerequisites.

Kinda meh points:
Prestige classes are kind of so-so.
You can look forward to lots of rules debates if your Warlock's player ever sees the words "Strongheart Vest" and "Hellfire" in the same sentence.
Lots of nice feats, but it always seems like I never have room in a build to actually use them.
Chakra fluff; some people love it, some people hate it. It is what it is.

Good points:
Very, very dippable.
Once you understand the mechanic, it can result in some extremely versatile characters.
Totemist is awesome.
You will learn about 10 new synonyms for "blue."

The most powerful thing in the book I can think of offhand is Midnight Metamagic. It's powerful for the same reasons any other metamagic reducer is powerful. (I think there's a similar Psionic thing too, though less powerful and might actually be in Mind's Eye).

[Fouredged Sword]

Worth noting there IS a web enhancement for psionic meldshapers and soulmelds with psionic themes. Asteral Vembrances are worth noting as a easy way to make an VERY hard to kill 1st level character with a single feat. DR 4/magic is very powerful at 1st level. Especially on something tanky like a barbarian.

[ottdmk]

Worth noting there IS a web enhancement for psionic meldshapers and soulmelds with psionic themes. Asteral Vembrances are worth noting as a easy way to make an VERY hard to kill 1st level character with a single feat. DR 4/magic is very powerful at 1st level. Especially on something tanky like a barbarian.Not quite the case, unless you're playing an Azurin or a Duskling. Without an Essentia Pool to invest in the meld, Astral Vambraces only gives you DR 2/Magic. Still nice, mind you, but not an overwhelming advantage. Without racial Essentia getting the DR 4/Magic would cost you two feats unless the character is a Meldshaper.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, I still like it as a feat though. It can later be upgraded for all the time, but slow, perfect flight with a bind feat even on non-meldshapers. Very handy.

[ottdmk]

Yeah, I still like it as a feat though. It can later be upgraded for all the time, but slow, perfect flight with a bind feat even on non-meldshapers. Very handy.Sorry for nitpicking, but Incarnum is a passion of mine (see the .sig :smallbiggrin: ). The Flight granted by Astral Vambraces is slow (20') with average maneuverability, not perfect.

Still though, being able to bind Astral Vambraces is bizarrely flexible, with a total of 12 different bind effects to choose from (this on top of the normal DR X/Magic benefit.)

[Troacctid]

I think he means the Airstep Sandals, which let you fly with perfect maneuverability when bound to your feet. However, they don't actually grant a fly speed—they just upgrade any fly speed you already have. (They do let you fly some distance as a move action, but that's not the same as having a fly speed, and you have to land at the end of it.)

[Rijan_Sai]

I think he means the Airstep Sandals, which let you fly with perfect maneuverability when bound to your feet. However, they don't actually grant a fly speed—they just upgrade any fly speed you already have. (They do let you fly some distance as a move action, but that's not the same as having a fly speed, and you have to land at the end of it.)

Actually, I believe they are referring to the Fly(Ex) ability from Astral Construct menu A, (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/astralConstruct.htm) that you can select from Astral Vambraces' arm bind. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a)

[ottdmk]

I think he means the Airstep Sandals, which let you fly with perfect maneuverability when bound to your feet. However, they don't actually grant a fly speed—they just upgrade any fly speed you already have. (They do let you fly some distance as a move action, but that's not the same as having a fly speed, and you have to land at the end of it.)The editing effort on Magic of Incarnum is mocked in these parts, and as far as I can see, for good reason. However, given that the base effect of Aristep Sandals is to let you fly with good maneuverability (with limitations) it makes more sense to me that the Chakra Bind effect of flight with perfect maneuverability is meant to apply to the flight granted by the base effect, not other sources of flight. Just an opinion.

In any case, it doesn't matter as the previous person & I were discussing flight by means of Astral Vambraces.