[3.5] Build Help for Incarnate/Sorcerer Dragonwrought Kobold

[Nautilust]

My GM okayed me playing a Dragonwrought Kobold using the Loredrake Archetype. So I'm going to play a Sorceror 2/Incarnate 2. Then I'm going to go into the Soulcaster PrC.

What feats should I pick up? Other than Dragonwrought at 1st level? And Incarnum Spellshaping to meet prerequisites.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Do the Draconic Rite of Passage in Races of the Dragon p43, pick a spell that's going to be useful for a long time like Benign Transposition or Nerveskitter. Take Draconic Reservoir (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a) to be able to use that spell 3/day, and to be able to do the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage at that same link at 6th level. This gives you another +1 level of Sorcerer spellcasting ability.

Midnight Metamagic can be decent, depending on what you use it with. For example, you can use it with Sculpt Spell and invest only one point of essentia into spells to make them affect differently shaped area depending on your needs, which often results in a spell affecting a much larger area than it was otherwise capable of.

If you're getting any metamagic feats, consider Invisible Spell in Cityscape and Rapid Metamagic in CM. Practical Metamagic in RotD can also be useful.

If you want to break the game, get an Elvencraft Composite Longbow (RotW) that's masterwork three times and has three wand chambers, get Ancestral Relic (BoED), and make that your relic. It counts as both a quarterstaff and a composite longbow, and with Ancestral Relic you can freely designate what magical properties it has up to what you've invested or the limit for your level. When the party would sell junk loot for half value, buy that loot from the party for that price, and you'll get a portion of that back when the cash is split. Sacrifice the full value of that loot into your relic to upgrade it. You can make the staff portion a custom Runestaff (MIC p224) which will allow you to get around your limited number of spells known. You can make the three weapon portions +1 Defending and put Greater Magic Weapon on all three each day, and put all of those bonuses toward your AC since Defending stacks with all other bonuses including other Defending bonuses.

[Nautilust]

How are you getting the bow masterwork three times?

[Fouredged Sword]

An elvencraft bow is both a quarter staff and a longbow. A quaterstaff is a double weapon, so you can masterwork both ends. This means you can masterwork a elvencraft bow 3 times. This is really useful because you have three points to attach enchantments to, a bow and both ends of the staff.

[ottdmk]

First off, congratulations on having such a permissive GM. I'd never allow the Kobold/Loredrake combo. I'm of the school of "if the penalty doesn't apply, you don't get the benefit either." Be that as it may...

If you're starting off at 4th (Sorcerer 2/Incarnate 2) your first two feats are selected already: Dragonwrought & Incarnum Spellshaping. So that's easy enough.

Once you're in Soulcaster... well, Essentia is always a consideration. By 14th level (Sorcerer 2/Incarnate 2/Soulcaster 10) you'll have 13 points of Essentia, an Essentia Capacity of 3, and tons of places to put it. (Incarnum Spellshaping, the Spellcaster pre-req, gives you 1 pt of Essentia.) You might want to consider Bonus Essentia, but as your build is pretty Feat-starved 2 Essentia points may or may not be worth it to you.

Midnight Metamagic can be fun, but the amount of help it can give you with Metamagic Feats is severely limited. Soultouched Spellcasting is another decent Incarnum Feat. It helps out with DIspel checks and CL checks vs spell resistance.

As you may have a familiar, Share Soulmeld has some possibilities. Imagine your raven with a ranged touch attack doing 5d6 for example... (that would be the Dissolving Spittle Soulmeld with 4 pts of Essentia invested. Sure, you'd be Character Level 18 at that point, but it's still fun! :smallbiggrin:

Other than that, well, you won't open the Greater Chakras (Throat, Waist) so that might interest you around 18th level (Open Greater Chakra feat).

[Nifft]

My GM okayed me playing a Dragonwrought Kobold using the Loredrake Archetype. So I'm going to play a Sorceror 2/Incarnate 2. Then I'm going to go into the Soulcaster PrC.

What feats should I pick up? Other than Dragonwrought at 1st level? And Incarnum Spellshaping to meet prerequisites.

IIRC one of the broken things about Dragonwrought Kobolds was their "Venerable-for-free" +3 to Int / Wis / Cha... if you're avoiding that, good for you.

For your Rite of Draconic Passage, the best spell might be identify, since it's a SLA which removes the expensive material component.

Do you have Flaws, or are your feat slots limited to core (1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18)?

One build with Flaws might go something like...

Level 1: Sorcerer 1 (ACF: Dragonblood Sorcerer from Races of the Dragon)
* L1 Feat: Dragonwrought Kobold
* Flaw (___): Incarnum Spellshaping
* Flaw (___): Obtain Familiar
+ ACF Bonus Feat: Draconic Heritage (___)

Level 2: Incarnate 1

Level 3: Incarnate 2
* L3 Feat: Share Soulmeld

Level 4: Sorcerer 2

Level 5: Soul Caster 1

[Nautilust]

Well, my GM did some more research and it's looking like he's going to take it away from me :smallfrown:

[Nifft]

Well, my GM did some more research and it's looking like he's going to take it away from me :smallfrown:

Aww, that's too bad.

I'd personally allow Loredrake without Venerable, and the cost is being a Kobold with your horrible Kobold stats.

If you can't use Kobold tricks to make Sorcerer playable, then my advice is to ignore Sorcerer and be a Wizard instead. Intelligence has better synergy with skill-monkey Incarnate, anyway.


EDIT: As an aside, you'd need 5 total levels anyway to get the skill prereq for Soulcaster (" Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8 ranks ").

[Nautilust]

How about just shifting the idea to Psion/Incarnate/Soul Manifester? What race would I want one that gives essentia or one that gives power points? Feats? I hear telepath is the best discipline but might be out if the GM is so worried about me overpowering the rest of the group. So psychokinesis will probably be what i end up going with. This build is MAD, relying on INT, CON, and to a lesser extent WIS. So I'll have to try to balance.

So i'm thinking STR 10/DEX 12/CON 15/INT 17/WIS 14/CHA 10 for initial Ability Scores (With Ability Increase from Level 4). Either Azurin for an extra feat and a point of essentia. Or Xeph for +2 DEX/-2 STR (STR 08/DEX 14/CON 15/INT 17/WIS 14/CHA 10), an innate +1 to saving throws against powers, spells, and spell like abilities (Not that great, but better than no bonus), and a power point, plus the ability to run away really fast.

[Nautilust]

I went with the Azurin. As I thought my GM only approved of Psychokinesis. Levels are Kineticist 2/Incarnate 2.
For Feats I went.
1st: Azure Talent
Extra: Psicrystal Affinity
Extra: Psycarnum Crystal
3rd: Psycarnum Infusion


How long does it take to pull a specific weapon out of a bag of holding? Could I say use it as a scabard for a bunch of spears?

[Nifft]

I went with the Azurin. As I thought my GM only approved of Psychokinesis. Levels are Kineticist 2/Incarnate 2.
For Feats I went.
1st: Azure Talent
Extra: Psicrystal Affinity
Extra: Psycarnum Crystal
3rd: Psycarnum Infusion Your DM is weirdly controlling but whatever.

How do you determine your ability scores? Is it point-buy or rolled or a fixed array?


Do NOT take Psycarnum Crystal, it's total garbage. You get +1 Essentia for every feat. Putting a special condition on the +1 Essentia makes it worse than any other [Incarnum] feat. Look at what you'd get for Midnight Dodge, or Azure Toughness, for example: qualify as if you had a different feat (might be useful eventually) and +1 Essentia with no conditions. Don't pay the same price for something with worse conditions.

Or wait for Bonus Essentia and get +2 Essentia instead of +1 for the same feat cost.


Be aware that Psycarnum Infusion + Azure Talent interaction rules are not entirely clear -- you might be able to use the points as if they were bonus PP, but some DMs find creative ways to restrict Azure Talent power points so you can't endlessly manifest.

IMHO the balanced way to play it is:
- You do get bonus power points, but since the pool is small, you basically get a more flexible [Reserve] feat which allows you to manifest powers but not at your full level; and
- The power [i]bestow power does not exist, so you can't recharge your real power points from the free bonus points.


How long does it take to pull a specific weapon out of a bag of holding? Could I say use it as a scabard for a bunch of spears? You want a Heward's Handy Haversack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#handyHaversack), which has smaller total capacity but which find the right item for you quickly.

Or an Ehlonna's Efficient Quiver (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#efficientQuiver), which is custom-tailored to ammo and throwing spears.

Digging an item out of a Bag of Holding is no easier than digging it out of a very large mundane bag -- not something you should expect to do as a free action in combat.

-- -- --

Another fun way to go is to be a tank. As an Incanate, you get access to armor, and armor doesn't hinder Psionics so wear armor as heavy as you can get.

You have a PsiCrystal. You need two powers: vigor and share pain. Manifest vigor on yourself and your crystal, then manifest share pain, halving damage to yourself and giving the other half to your crystal. The bonus HP from vigor now count double -- you get 10 HP of damage negation per PP spent on vigor.

== == ==

You can't take Soul Manifester until character level 6 (because you need 8 skill ranks to qualify and you can't have that until you are already character level 5), so you'll probably want to be Psion 3 / Incarnate 2 before taking Soul Manifester 1.

Thus an alternate build might go like...

Level 1: Kineticist 1
- L1 Feat: Azure Talent
- Azurin Bonus Feat: Psycarnum Infusion
- Psion Bonus Feat: Psicrystal Affinity

Level 3: Kineticist 3
- L3 Feat: Expanded Knowledge (pick one: psi charm, psi minor creation, astral construct)

Level 4: Incarnate 1

Result: Azurin Kineticist 3 / Incarnate 1, then take Incarnate 2 as your next level, and Soul Manifester 1 after that.

[Nautilust]

I know right! He's afraid of me being more powerful than the group. I say they should have put more effort into making their characters.

We determine by an array given to us by the GM it's 16/15/14/12/10/10.

EDIT: Personally i'd rather play a telepath. But kineticist is cool too.

I'm using a Breastplate and Heavy Shield at the moment. If I could buy a Mithral Full Plate that would be great, but that will have to wait.

[Nautilust]

Might switch to Xeph to be better at throwing. Is there a way to increase spear range?

[Nifft]

Might switch to Xeph to be better at throwing. Is there a way to increase spear range?

Don't throw spears.

Spit acid with the Dissolving Spittle soulmeld.

[Nautilust]

Isn't that Totemist? I need to be able to switch between melee and combat quickly. So my combat plan is Kineticist powers->Spear->Shortspear

Plus you get to look all spartan and stuff

[Nifft]

Isn't that Totemist? I need to be able to switch between melee and combat quickly. So my combat plan is Kineticist powers->Spear->Shortspear

Plus you get to look all spartan and stuff

No, go read up on your class features: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217064-Soulmeld-List-by-Class-and-Slot

http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=580.0

[Nautilust]

I was planning on using silvertongue mask in that slot. I somehow missed that soulmeld though.

EDIT:I'm thinking of the wrong character. I'll keep this meld in mind

[ottdmk]

To toot my own horn for a moment, you might find my Incarnate Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?536967-Incarnate-Handbook-2017) useful, particularly the Meldshaping section (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22407826&postcount=7).

[Nautilust]

This build was declined.