Magic of Incarnum dip

[Mike Miller]

I have a player who is trying to figure out what to do with his character. I am letting him rework it and they are currently level 4. He wants to take chameleon all the way through its 10 levels, but he isn't sure what to do before then. One thing he was considering was a level in Incarnate or Totemist. He plans to be a bit of a gish with his floating chameleon feat and spells.

I am somewhat familiar with MoI, but not enough to guide him. Is a one or two level dip in a MoI class worthwhile for this character concept? Any input is appreciated.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'd suggest three levels of factotum for all the skills and Brain Over Brawn, two levels of totemist for the totem chakra, then go incarnate until he qualifies for chameleon (or 2 levels, whichever comes last). There are spells to unlock more chakra binds when he needs 'em, and he has ultimate versatility with changing up his entire build from day to day almost from the get-go. Focus on Int and Con, mainly, with enough Wis for some divine casting when needed.

[Nifft]

I have a player who is trying to figure out what to do with his character. I am letting him rework it and they are currently level 4. He wants to take chameleon all the way through its 10 levels, but he isn't sure what to do before then. One thing he was considering was a level in Incarnate or Totemist. He plans to be a bit of a gish with his floating chameleon feat and spells.

I am somewhat familiar with MoI, but not enough to guide him. Is a one or two level dip in a MoI class worthwhile for this character concept? Any input is appreciated.

2 levels in Totemist gives access to the Totem slot (which nothing else gives); one level of Incarnate gives access to all Incarnate melds. These play nice with each other: the PC could take 2 levels of any skilled class (for access to Bluff & Disguise, and UMD, and etc.), two levels of Totemist, and one level of Incarnate. I personally recommend Rogue 1 and Cloistered Cleric 1 for those two skillful levels.

The Chameleon's floating bonus feat can open a chakra; it's up to you as a DM to decide if the meld stays bound when that feat goes away. There are also spells which allow temporary chakra-opening, and I think those last forever (so long as the meld stays bound), so letting the floating bonus feat work in the cheesier way isn't all that bad.

Anyway, yes: two levels of either class can add significant flexibility which will remain relevant into high levels. With Totemist, getting more attacks presumably means you're doing some kind of weird Gish, and that's cool; or you're just teleporting around all day; or you're throwing tail spikes and conserving your spells. With Incarnate, getting a skill bonus for Diplomacy / Sense Motive / etc. might be very significant since you've got actual ranks in those skills and spells to boost you even farther.

[SLOTHRPG95]

At mid-to-higher levels, Incarnate gets significantly more Essentia than Totemist (and hence is more flexible), but as just a dip that's not really a consideration. Either way though, a minimum of a two-level dip is advisable. If your player is aiming for a gish and wants to take more than two levels, Totemist has a less-bad BAB progression, and for whatever it's worth also larger hit dice (but not by much).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Silverbrow Human Binder 1/Totemist 2/Incarnate 2/Chameleon 10.

Grab Able Learner and Improved Binding at 1st, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity at 3rd, and Bonus Essentia at 6th. Binder gets you Bluff as a class skill, and your race gets you Disguise. Rebuild your entire character every morning. Want to be an archer? Bind Leraje and shape Manticore Belt. Want to melee? Dahlver-Nar and Girallon Arms. Skills? Hello Naberius and, like, the entire Incarnate list.

[Zaq]

Silverbrow Human Binder 1/Totemist 2/Incarnate 2/Chameleon 10.

Grab Able Learner and Improved Binding at 1st, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity at 3rd, and Bonus Essentia at 6th. Binder gets you Bluff as a class skill, and your race gets you Disguise. Rebuild your entire character every morning. Want to be an archer? Bind Leraje and shape Manticore Belt. Want to melee? Dahlver-Nar and Girallon Arms. Skills? Hello Naberius and, like, the entire Incarnate list.

I’ve played a character very similar to this. I can confirm that the build is super fun. It does have a couple downsides—it’s MAD as a Monk with ranks in Craft (Haberdashery), and you need to do some homework before the game starts to make “cheat sheets” of abilities so that the human being at the table playing D&D [i.e., you] doesn’t spend longer picking daily abilities than the character spends each morning actually preparing their stuff. But it’s still super fun and you should totally try it out.

[Nifft]

Silverbrow Human Binder 1/Totemist 2/Incarnate 2/Chameleon 10.

Grab Able Learner and Improved Binding at 1st, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity at 3rd, and Bonus Essentia at 6th. Binder gets you Bluff as a class skill, and your race gets you Disguise. Rebuild your entire character every morning. Want to be an archer? Bind Leraje and shape Manticore Belt. Want to melee? Dahlver-Nar and Girallon Arms. Skills? Hello Naberius and, like, the entire Incarnate list.

Those three classes are great together, but instead of Binder 1 / Incarnate 2 I'd suggest:
- Binder 2 / Incarnate 1 / Totemist 2 (in any order); or
- Rogue 1 / Binder 1 / Incarnate 1 / Totemist 2 (starting with Rogue, then any order).

Binder 2 gives you the ability to hide your vestige-sign, which is nice if you're actually putting your required Disguise ranks to use, plus a floating pact bonus (stuff like +5 hp, energy resist 5, DR 1/--, or +2 initiative), and Incarnate 2 only gives you one open chakra (which can be replicated during downtime with a feat at Chameleon 2). The floating pact bonus is another option for the daily rebuild.

Rogue 1 gives you Sneak Attack, and a hellaciously bodacious bounty of skill points at level 1 -- which seem to include most of the skills that a Chameleon would want. Oh plus Trapfinding, unless you're a Changeling and you trade that away for something so much better.

IMHO either of those are superior to what you'd get at Incarnate 2.

[Mike Miller]

Thanks for all the input, it has been helpful (and fast)!

[The Viscount]

Silverbrow Human Binder 1/Totemist 2/Incarnate 2/Chameleon 10.

Grab Able Learner and Improved Binding at 1st, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity at 3rd, and Bonus Essentia at 6th. Binder gets you Bluff as a class skill, and your race gets you Disguise. Rebuild your entire character every morning. Want to be an archer? Bind Leraje and shape Manticore Belt. Want to melee? Dahlver-Nar and Girallon Arms. Skills? Hello Naberius and, like, the entire Incarnate list.

This also has the benefit of giving access to the draconic soulmelds from races of the dragon, two of which give natural attacks as the shaped effect.

[Segev]

My personal favorite entry to Chameleon is Incarnate 3/Totemist 2. The sheer number of chakra binds available and the way this lets them tailor their skill loadout to complement their faux persona today is ideal, to me.

[RaiKirah]

This also has the benefit of giving access to the draconic soulmelds from races of the dragon, two of which give natural attacks as the shaped effect.

Though beware; Dragon Tail is actually a trap as it explicitly can only be used as a standard action with nothing else. It cannot be used as a secondary attack nor can you full attack with it (and thus can't use your other natural attacks as secondaries)

[Zaq]

Those three classes are great together, but instead of Binder 1 / Incarnate 2 I'd suggest:
- Binder 2 / Incarnate 1 / Totemist 2 (in any order); or
- Rogue 1 / Binder 1 / Incarnate 1 / Totemist 2 (starting with Rogue, then any order).

Binder 2 gives you the ability to hide your vestige-sign, which is nice if you're actually putting your required Disguise ranks to use, plus a floating pact bonus (stuff like +5 hp, energy resist 5, DR 1/--, or +2 initiative), and Incarnate 2 only gives you one open chakra (which can be replicated during downtime with a feat at Chameleon 2). The floating pact bonus is another option for the daily rebuild.

Rogue 1 gives you Sneak Attack, and a hellaciously bodacious bounty of skill points at level 1 -- which seem to include most of the skills that a Chameleon would want. Oh plus Trapfinding, unless you're a Changeling and you trade that away for something so much better.

IMHO either of those are superior to what you'd get at Incarnate 2.

Yeah, I think my build was something like Binder 2 / Incarnate 3 / Chameleon X. Incarnate 2 has a little bit going for it, but I think Incarnate 3 is a more natural breakpoint. (The downside is that my version didn’t have Totemist stuff, but there’s only so many levels to play with before you start having to make some decisions, you know?)

[Nifft]

My personal favorite entry to Chameleon is Incarnate 3/Totemist 2. The sheer number of chakra binds available and the way this lets them tailor their skill loadout to complement their faux persona today is ideal, to me.

How did you get Bluff as a class skill?


Yeah, I think my build was something like Binder 2 / Incarnate 3 / Chameleon X. Incarnate 2 has a little bit going for it, but I think Incarnate 3 is a more natural breakpoint. (The downside is that my version didn’t have Totemist stuff, but there’s only so many levels to play with before you start having to make some decisions, you know?)

Incarnate 3 looks like a great breakpoint, yeah.

I personally favor Totemists so that's maybe just my bias creeping in.

[Segev]

How did you get Bluff as a class skill?


There are feats for that. Failing that, taking a level of rogue or similar does work. I'm not sure which of the two classes I'dreplace a level of. Probably Incarnate; I don't recall whether level 3 was a breakpoint for anything in that one.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Those three classes are great together, but instead of Binder 1 / Incarnate 2 I'd suggest:
- Binder 2 / Incarnate 1 / Totemist 2 (in any order); or
- Rogue 1 / Binder 1 / Incarnate 1 / Totemist 2 (starting with Rogue, then any order).

Binder 2 gives you the ability to hide your vestige-sign, which is nice if you're actually putting your required Disguise ranks to use, plus a floating pact bonus (stuff like +5 hp, energy resist 5, DR 1/--, or +2 initiative), and Incarnate 2 only gives you one open chakra (which can be replicated during downtime with a feat at Chameleon 2). The floating pact bonus is another option for the daily rebuild.

Rogue 1 gives you Sneak Attack, and a hellaciously bodacious bounty of skill points at level 1 -- which seem to include most of the skills that a Chameleon would want. Oh plus Trapfinding, unless you're a Changeling and you trade that away for something so much better.

IMHO either of those are superior to what you'd get at Incarnate 2.
Rogue's a good alternative to Binder if you don't want quite as much rebuilding, but I'd argue Incarnate 2 is better than Binder 2. Yes, you can get another meld shaped/chakra opened with your floating feat... but why not both? You'll always want more melds, more binds, more essentia, and the returns are much greater than the piddly little pact bonuses.


Yeah, I think my build was something like Binder 2 / Incarnate 3 / Chameleon X. Incarnate 2 has a little bit going for it, but I think Incarnate 3 is a more natural breakpoint. (The downside is that my version didn’t have Totemist stuff, but there’s only so many levels to play with before you start having to make some decisions, you know?)
Incarnate 3 is more natural, but I think the Totemist bit is more important-- Chameleon needs some sort of offensive toy to play with, at least for a few levels until your spellcasting catches up, and Totemist has great offensive toys.

[Nifft]

Rogue's a good alternative to Binder if you don't want quite as much rebuilding, but I'd argue Incarnate 2 is better than Binder 2. Yes, you can get another meld shaped/chakra opened with your floating feat... but why not both? You'll always want more melds, more binds, more essentia, and the returns are much greater than the piddly little pact bonuses. Sure but the primary benefit was Suppress Sign (so you can use your required Disguise ranks), not the pact bonus.

The pact bonus is a nice little bonus, not the main draw -- but having resist 5 fire (or cold / acid / sonic / etc.) isn't bad even at mid-levels, and DR 1/-- can be quite significant at levels 2-5. At high levels the +2 Insight to Initiative is probably optimal.

Finally, I guess having an EBL of 2 might occasionally be useful. (Amon's breath weapon? Meh.) Not often though.


But you're not wrong about the potential utility of more binds & melds, especially at level 6+ when you can invest more. Though then you may want to spend feats to get more Essentia.



Incarnate 3 is more natural, but I think the Totemist bit is more important-- Chameleon needs some sort of offensive toy to play with, at least for a few levels until your spellcasting catches up, and Totemist has great offensive toys. Agree that Incarnate 3 is a very natural breakpoint for a UMD or Diplomancer.

But if I have to choose between Incarnate & Totemist, I'll take Totemist 2 almost every time. It's not just about melee -- I like teleporting more than walking on water; I like breath weapons and sonic rays more than trapfinding and acid spittle; plus for melee, if I even want to be in melee, I'll usually prefer gaining claws and tentacles over invoking a glowing longsword.

--- --- ---

Hmm, looking at Totemist 2 / Binder 3 now... with Improved Binding, you get access to Andromalius for +2d6 Sneak Attack, Paimon for Dex +4 / dance of death / whirlwind attack, or Focalor for Aura of Sadness (which is a decent melee debuff, assuming you have something else nasty to do to an adjacent target).

I think a Totemist 2 with +2d6 Sneak Attack can be quite terrifying at level 5 especially if your Totem binds aren't your only attacks, and then the next level you're a Chameleon and you have spells too.


Finally, to further muddy the waters, consider Barbarian 2 / Totemist 3 as a prefix, with Barbarian ACFs Lion Spirit Totem + Wolf Totem (sacrificing Fast Move -> Pounce and Uncanny Dodge -> Improved Trip). You need to pay a feat tax to get access to Bluff, but you avoid paying the feat tax prereq for Improved Trip (and you also get Improved Trip) so overall it may be a net gain, and you also get a nice starting HD and Pounce as compensation.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hmm, looking at Totemist 2 / Binder 3 now... with Improved Binding, you get access to Andromalius for +2d6 Sneak Attack, Paimon for Dex +4 / dance of death / whirlwind attack, or Focalor for Aura of Sadness (which is a decent melee debuff, assuming you have something else nasty to do to an adjacent target).

I think a Totemist 2 with +2d6 Sneak Attack can be quite terrifying at level 5 especially if your Totem binds aren't your only attacks, and then the next level you're a Chameleon and you have spells too.
The would be pretty sweet, yeah. It pains me not to take at least a one-level dip in the other MoI class*, but you can use your floating bonus feat for Shape Soulmeld to pick up any meld you particularly want off their list.


Finally, to further muddy the waters, consider Barbarian 2 / Totemist 3 as a prefix, with Barbarian ACFs Lion Spirit Totem + Wolf Totem (sacrificing Fast Move -> Pounce and Uncanny Dodge -> Improved Trip). You need to pay a feat tax to get access to Bluff, but you avoid paying the feat tax prereq for Improved Trip (and you also get Improved Trip) so overall it may be a net gain, and you also get a nice starting HD and Pounce as compensation.
If you want to focus on melee, that's a hella fierce entry.

*Soulborn, as usual, doesn't count.