Piggy Knowles
2019-01-26, 06:32 PM
New jobs for most of the group has meant not a lot of time for showcases, but we've been promising our take on incarnum for a while, so here it is!
INTRODUCTION
With more than a decade and a half of toying around with 3.5, I’ve accumulated a lot of spare builds and ideas. While I don’t have an active game going right now, I still like to pop open my builds folder and try to refine things. Recently I decided to make a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these builds into full write-ups, and reached out to some friends in the CO community who might be interested in doing the same. In the spirit of Tempest Stormwind’s Weekly Optimization Showcase (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?), I thought I’d showcase the end results here.
The goal is (usually) not to show off any fancy new TO trick, but to showcase effective, playable builds and spur discussion. While each of us has a different build philosophy, in general the intent is to create something that can be played in most groups from level 1 to level 20. Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger and WhamBamSam, with a couple of other folks hopefully on their way. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product. I’ll list the build’s main author whenever I showcase a particular build.
Buffsader (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559259-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Buffsader) (PK, ToB/Gish/Party Support)
The Utility Belt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560988-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-Utility-Belt) (PK, Psionics/Stealth/Utility)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless War Mind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569004-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Eternal-Sunshine-of-the-Spotless-War-Mind) (PK, ToB/Psionics/Melee Damage)
Venger is the inspiration behind this showcase’s build, and actually played this character in a campaign I ran a while back. I’ve made some tweaks here and there, but the credit largely goes to him for this one.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/431937476010180610/538809038855471153/unknown.png
The Melding Pot
I got a hole in my soul. I got them necrocarnum blues.
BACKGROUND
I always like the chance to get behind the DM screen, perhaps even more than playing. Mostly I game IRL, but I did run a fun PbP for about a year that I really enjoyed. Several of the players were common names around here (including Venger, OMG PONIES and the Viscount), and the party is one I like to think of as the T3 party: all six players independently decided to go with solid T3ish classes, including a factotum, an incarnate, a swordsage, a binder, a warlock and a duskblade.
Venger’s incarnate was definitely one of the more notable characters. He played the decidedly sinister Mr. Crowley, a silverbrow human incarnate with a heavy necrocarnum focus, and he did a great job at showing just how effective and flexible incarnates can be in the early game. As the game progressed Venger decided to increase his flexibility even further by branching out of incarnate a bit to pick up a pair of levels in totemist. This gave him access to almost every soulmeld in the game, although things like meldshaper level and soulmeld/chakra slots provided a big limiting factor in how much he could dedicate to these totemist melds.
Unfortunately the campaign ended before we got too much further, but as we were looking at options for Mr. Crowley down the road, we noticed something very interesting: the necrocarnate prestige class advances meldshaper level and provides new soulmeld and chakra slots indiscriminately, rather than only advancing a single meldshaping class like the other incarnum prestige classes. While necrocarnate is largely known for its ability to harvest essentia, we realized that it could also essentially act as a dual-progression class, advancing abilities for both incarnate and totemist.
The current build evolved from this basic idea. Though we deviated a bit from Mr. Crowley’s original build in an effort to come up with the ideal version of the build, it all begins there...
THE BASICS
Race: Silverbrow human. As always, the human bonus feat is huge, while silverbrow gives you access to the excellent draconic soulmelds
Build Stub: Incarnate 4/Druid 1/Totemist 2/Necrocarnate 13
ACFs: Swift and deadly hunter druid, urban companion, voice of the city
Alignment: Neutral evil. Welcome to the deep end of the alignment pool, bud.
BUILD BREAKDOWN
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Incarnate 1
Hidden Talent (psionic minor creation), Psycarnum Infusion
Aura, detect good
This feat opening might feel a bit familiar after our last showcase. Psycarnum Infusion is a great way to extend your limited essentia pool by allowing you to expend your psionic focus to temporarily max out a single soulmeld or feat or item. Considering the number of soulmelds you’ll eventually get, this will be an incredibly important down the road.
Psionic minor creation is the classic Hidden Talent choice for a reason: it’s incredibly flexible, effective at almost every level, and doesn’t require augmentation to stay useful. As you’re going evil anyhow, go ahead and train up on poisonmaking. Having a brace of poisoned crossbow bolts is basically never going to go amiss, especially since you can use your soulmelds to mitigate any ability score damage from accidentally poisoning yourself.
2nd
Incarnate 2
Chakra bind (crown)
This is one of the best levels for any incarnate that doesn’t mind mucking about with the darker arts. With the necrocarnum crown’s chakra bind you have the ability to animate an incarnum zombie. While their HD is restricted by your meldshaper level, even a 2 HD disposable incarnum zombie is a great tool in these levels.
3rd
Druid 1
Share Soulmeld, TrackB
Favored enemy, voice of the city, urban companion, AC bonus, nature sense
Whew, that’s a lot of alternate class features. Let’s go through them all. Swift and deadly hunter is basically something for nothing: you lose the armor proficiencies you weren’t using and the wild shape you weren’t ever going to pick up for a free feat (Track, which can actually be pretty useful once you get totemist melds) and Wis to AC when unarmored. It’s not essential to the build but the flavor is decent and it certainly doesn’t hurt. Voice of the city is actually quite handy: you’ll get wild empathy from your totemist levels anyhow, and being able to communicate with others that you don’t share a language works well alongside your diplomancy soulmelds.
The real draw here, though, is the urban companion. This is an improved familiar in place of the usual animal companion. While a wolf or riding dog might still be passable at level 3, you’re going to get way more mileage out of an urban companion over the long run. See, at this same level you are picking up Share Soulmeld, which allows any of your soulmelds to also affect your familiar as long as they remain within five feet of you. Suddenly you’ve doubled the effectiveness of most of your melds. Go for a raven for its ability to speak, and you can have your urban companion activating magic items or using diplomacy right alongside you.
What does this actually mean in practice? Well, it depends on what you’re set up to do that day. From a skill perspective, it means your familiar will almost always be able to successfully aid you in any skill checks, since they’ll share both your boosts and skill ranks and shouldn’t have trouble making the aid DC. Offensively it gives you a second set of actions with all of your boosts and buffs. Right off the bat it means doing things like sharing dissolving spittle so that you’re chucking out a pair of touch attacks every round, which combines well with the druid lockdown spells like entangle.
4th
Incarnate 3
Expanded soulmeld capacity +1, incarnum radiance 1/day]
Incarnum radiance is a minor boost that probably won’t come into play much, but expanded soulmeld capacity is huge.
5th
Incarnate 4
Chakra binds (feet, hands)
At this level you’re still probably going to get more mileage out of your necrocarnum crown bind than most of what feet and hands give you, but there are a lot of excellent options if you’re in a situation where getting followed around by a zombie isn’t exactly appropriate.
6th
Totemist 1
Necrocarnum Acolyte
Wild empathy
Incarnate is great, especially in the low levels, but it’s time for you to expand your options a bit. With one level you get access to dozens of new soulmelds, though you can only shape two of them at a time. The draconic totemist melds are especially worthwhile, because many of them have stronger than usual effects even without binding them. Note that there is nothing stopping you from sharing draconic melds with your urban companion.
Necro Acolyte is steaming hot filler. It does next to nothing for a necrocarnate, since they have to be evil anyhow, and yet it's a requirement to become a necrocarnate. Sigh... at least it gives you a small boost to your necrocarnum meld DCs, if you ever decide to use any of the debuffing melds.
7th
Totemist 2
Totem chakra bind (+1 capacity)
The totem chakra is the sole unique chakra that an incarnate will never have access to, and gives a ton of unique abilities. You’ve got a bevy of natural attacks, some great utility options like scent and move-action teleportation, several ranged attacks and debuffs and even some weird options like the disenchanter mask’s ability to suppress magical items with a touch.
8th
Necrocarnate 1
Harvest soul (1 minute), improved meldshaper level
And here you are with necrocarnate. Countless threads have been written about harvest soul, but I actually want you to pay particular attention to the second ability you get at this level: improved meldshaper level. Note that this should apply to any meldshaping class you possess, not just incarnate, meaning every level you take in necrocarnate will improve the meldshaper level of both your incarnate and totemist melds. This shores up a common flaw in multiclass meldshapers: namely that while a small dip into another meldshaping class gives you access to all of its soulmelds, your meldshaper level is based on class level and will never improve. Essentially necrocarnate acts as a theurge class for totemist and incarnate.
As for harvest soul, certainly it can be abused… but if you’re in the kind of campaign where you’re allowed to boil anthills for unlimited essentia, it means you probably are also in the kind of campaign where having every soulmeld maxed out won’t actually be that broken. In a more typical game, think of it as a way to incrementally increase your power as the adventuring day progresses. Remember that the essentia you harvest lasts 24 hours, meaning anything you harvest toward the end of the adventuring day should stay with you until well into the next. Also remember that you have up until one hour per necrocarnate level after death to harvest their soulstuff, so if your party doesn't mind you lugging corpses around (hey, what else are incarnum zombies good for?), you can spread things around to get the maximum possible returns. And on days following downtime, well, you still have seven essentia and the ability to expend your psionic focus to max out any single soulmeld, which should do plenty for getting the day rolling.
9th
Necrocarnate 2
Bonus Essentia
Necrocarnum soulshield
Ah, Magic of Incarnum and your poor editing. This is basically just a passive boost to your saves based on the number of necrocarnum melds you have shaped. Nothing fancy but it’s profane, which should stack with most other boosts, and there’s a good chance you’ll have at least one or two necrocarnum melds shaped. Except… the ability has a limit on daily uses, but doesn’t list a duration. From the way it’s described, it sounds like it should be a passive, always-on ability (and that certainly wouldn’t be broken), but the fact that they limit it to being used a number of times equal to half your class level calls that into question. Ask your DM; it’s a nice but fairly inconsequential boost in the grand scheme of things.
Bonus Essentia brings your pre-harvest essentia total up to 9 before items.
10th
Necrocarnate 3
Chakra binds (arms, brow, shoulders)
Time to start collecting binds. Note that despite all the multiclassing, you’re only a level behind a single-classed incarnate or totemist in terms of when you get access to these binds. As with improved meldshaper level, these binds apply to any class, fixing the other issue with multiclass meldshapers. Ordinarily you cannot use your incarnate chakra binds to bind totemist soulmelds or vice versa, but these binds are not class restricted and therefore apply to both your incarnate and your totemist melds.
There are a lot of good options in the arms, brows and shoulders binds. There’s a ton of utility to be found at these levels: heavy fortification, immunity to energy drain, functional immunity to arrows, darkvision, see invisibililty, miss chance and flight are all options. However, my absolute two favorites are the phase cloak and shadow mantle.
The phase cloak might be, for its level, the single most powerful chakra bind. This turns you ethereal any time you move at least 5’ in a round. Ethereal movement is incredibly hard to stop, is not blocked by most physical barriers, can be in any direction, makes you invisible and makes you flat-out immune to many attacks. Once you stop, you are no longer ethereal, but even so this is incredibly useful. Phase through walls, use it as a limited form of flight, avoid AoOs, ignore the vast majority of battlefield control… this one bind does quite a lot.
Shadow mantle is less gamebreakingly good, but more than makes up the difference in flavor. You become surrounded by thick magical darkness that blocks all sight… except that you have blindsight within the field. You need to invest essentia into it (its size is based on the amount of essentia you invest), but it’s still a very cool way to move about in style. I wouldn’t exactly call it stealthy—after all, people are bound to notice the big impenetrable cloud of darkness—but it lets you avoid prying eyes and if you feel like getting up close and personal, it’s a nice debuff against anything that relies on sight.
11th
Necrocarnate 4
Extra chakra bind, extra soulmeld
An extra soulmeld and an extra chakra bind both come online here, unrestricted by class.
12th
Necrocarnate 5
Psionic Meditation
Essentia trap
You know how I said that the necrocarnate is best used as a way to incrementally increase your power throughout the day? Essentia trap is a perfect example of this. As foes fall in combat you can immediately invest their essence into your soulmelds. This doesn’t prevent you from later using harvest essentia after the battle is done, by the by; you can use essentia trap for a quick boost to get you through the rest of combat and then harvest essentia after everything is getting cleaned up.
And since we’re talking about temporary boosts, Psionic Meditation comes online here as a way to use Psycarnum Infusion multiple times in combat. Between your starting essentia, essentia trap and Psycarnum Infusion, you should now have plenty of stamina independent of the essentia you harvested in the day before.
13th
Necrocarnate 6
Necrocarnum zombie master (half damage)
Even at this level, your necrocarnum circlet’s crown bind is still a great ability, and this halves the damage you’ll be taking from it.
14th
Necrocarnate 7
Extra soulmeld
An extra soulmeld from either list is always nice.
15th
Necrocarnate 8
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity
Chakra binds (throat, waist), extra chakra bind
And we’ve hit another major power bump. ESC is my go-to “filler” feat in any incarnum-based build; the ability to break the cap on essentia is huge. But we’re in this for the binds, right?
There’s a lot to talk about at these levels, even if there are no outright gamebreakers. Some especially good ones include the silvertongue mask (suggestion at will… while it’s a low level spell, the ability to use it at will has a lot of potential), strongheart vest (goodbye energy damage and energy drain) and my favorite, the manticore belt (flight + Flyby Attack is fantastic for just about anyone, and puts poor Spring Attack to shame).
16th
Necrocarnate 9
Expanded necrocarnum meld capacity
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity but just for necrocarnum melds? Sure, why not, especially since it stacks with the feat and the incarnate ability.
17th
Necrocarnate 10
Extra soulmeld, harvest soul (full-round action)
An extra soulmeld from either list is gravy. Harvest soul’s action reduction is nice (you can now feasibly use it mid-combat if you need to), but not really essential, since you have essentia trap for a mid-combat boost. Still, it makes post-combat wrap up that much easier.
18th
Necrocarnate 11
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity
Chakra bind (heart)
You can never take ESC too many times. It’s like Font of Inspiration: a little sprinkle is nice, but if you have the feats to take it for every single soulmeld, do it.
As for the heart chakra… oof, this is hard to pick. Very few heart chakra bounds are bad on the incarnate side. Necrocarnum vestments is probably the safest choice for the big blanket immunities (stunning and death effects are not uncommon at these levels, so you NEED an immunity to these in some way). Totemists have slightly disappointing heart binds for the most part, though the dragon mantle’s fast healing can be nice.
19th
Necrocarnate 12
Extra chakra bind
An extra chakra bind to go along with the new binds you have access to. Always nice.
20th
Necrocarnate 13
Chakra bind (soul), extra soulmeld, necrocarnum zombie master (2 zombies)
And to cap it all off, you get three extremely useful class features. A pair of 13 HD zombie goons with improved essentia use isn’t gamebreaking but costs you very little at this level, and is always nice, as is the extra soulmeld.
The soul chakra binds, though… now that’s a capstone. This is basically the trademark ability of the incarnate that you now have access to. Permanent true seeing, even more scaling miss chances, the ability to dish out negative levels as a touch attack not good enough for you? How about gate? It’s restricted to once a week, but even with such a restriction, this means you’re playing with the big boys.
You also get a neat little option that’s more or less unique to you. The threefold mask of the chimera has a soul bind that ordinary totemists can’t access, since they don’t get soul binds pre-epic. You, however, have access to both the totemist’s soulmeld list and a floating soul bind, meaning you can use it on the threefold mask to get an extra standard action every round. Yeah, read that again: every single round, an extra standard action. It’s paired with a penalty to AC and attack rolls, which you can either ignore (lots of good things to do that don’t involve attack rolls, after all) or eliminate entirely by investing some essentia. Oh, and you share this with your familiar, so you and your familiar can collectively take four standard actions a round (not to mention the actions of your zombies). It’s not quite as good as the planar chasuble’s ability to gate in allies, but since that’s only an option once a week, it’s a pretty good filler for the rest of the time.
Constitution is your best friend here; you’ll need a high Constitution to be able to shape all of the soulmelds you have access to, and it drives the saving throws of your totemist melds (plus, you know, it keeps you alive). Wisdom also won’t go amiss, as it drives your incarnate meld saving throws and also boosts your AC if you are unarmored. Beyond that? Well, it’s up to you. You can become quite a passable melee combatant or ranged combatant as well despite the low BAB, so some Strength or Dex won’t go amiss. Basically, focus on Con and spread a little bit everywhere else you can. Your raw ability scores will be eclipsed by the bonuses you get from your melds, so don't stress too much about anything beyond keeping that Con score high.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 14/Dex 12/Con 16/Int 10/Wis 12/Cha 10
32-point buy: Str 14/Dex 14/Con 16/Int 10/Wis 12/Cha 12
Very few requirements here. Necrocarnate will require you to hit 5 ranks each in knowledge (arcana) and (religion) and 10 ranks in spellcraft, but beyond that, it’s up to you. Craft is probably not a bad idea to go alongside Hidden Talent. You don’t have a ton of skill points to play with, but mostly your skills are boosted by soulmelds rather than investing ranks, so there’s not a lot of pressure here.
An essentia helm would be an incredibly wise investment, giving you additional ways to top off essentia when you don't have a ready supply of fresh corpses. Incarnum focii are similarly handy, increasing your essentia capacity and providing a defense against dispels for vital soulmelds. Wands and other spell trigger devices are a great choice as well, especially since your raven familiar should be able to assist in activating these, effectively doubling your actions.
BUILD SUMMARY
Here’s what you end up with: full access to every single totemist and incarnate soulmeld, including the draconic soulmelds, and the complete set of chakra binds, including both the totem bind and the soul bind. (You do, however, miss the hands, feet and crown binds for your totemist levels... but those are mostly outclassed by your totem bind regardless.) Your meldshaper level is 17 for incarnate melds and 15 for totemist melds. You have the ability to share all of these melds with your raven familiar. You can shape 11 soulmelds and bind 5, putting you ahead of the standard incarnate or totemist. While your base essentia is only 9 before items, you have the ability to max out the essentia of any soulmeld by expending your psionic focus (which you can regain as a move action). And any time a foe falls in combat, your essentia increases. Oh, and you get a pair of essentia zombie goons to follow you around and soak up attacks.
There is such a wide range of possible options with this build that it’s a bit difficult to showcase. Spend one day being a skillmonkey to rival any rogue, then spend another as a defensive behemoth with a bevy of immunities. Want to do some damage? Try going the full totemist face-ripper route, boosting damage even further with your necrocarnum melds—while your BAB is pitiful, natural attacks don’t require a high BAB to make a ton of attacks. Even better, polymorph your familiar into something a bit more intimidating and share all the melds with it so you can double-team your opponents. Debuffs, ranged damage, diplomancy? You can do it all.
VARIANTS
The level of druid can be replaced with anything that grants a familiar or animal companion with the share spells ability. A wizard with the combat wizard ACF will net you a free fighter feat and is probably the best alternative option. If you have access to flaws, moving Psionic Meditation earlier will never hurt, nor will more iterations of Expanded Soulmeld Capacity. If your DM is amenable, you can also make a Good-aligned version of this build by using the proposed vivicarnate class referenced in the necrocarnate description.
As for other possible tweaks, there are a few options. One or both instances of Expanded Soulmeld Capacity can be replaced with various incarnum feats (Double Chakra and Split Chakra are particularly handy) or general feats like Darkstalker, Power Attack or Martial Study. If you really want to be a completist and get every possible meld, Shape Soulmeld can let you pick up the fearsome mask, gloves of the poisoned soul, mauling gauntlets, soulspeaker circlet or thunderstep boots off the soulborn list (though obviously you don't have enough feats to nab all of them).
***
And that’s that! As always, we love to hear feedback, so hit us up with any questions or comments in the replies. No news on when the next showcase will go up, but if you have any suggestions, let us know that too.
INTRODUCTION
With more than a decade and a half of toying around with 3.5, I’ve accumulated a lot of spare builds and ideas. While I don’t have an active game going right now, I still like to pop open my builds folder and try to refine things. Recently I decided to make a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these builds into full write-ups, and reached out to some friends in the CO community who might be interested in doing the same. In the spirit of Tempest Stormwind’s Weekly Optimization Showcase (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?), I thought I’d showcase the end results here.
The goal is (usually) not to show off any fancy new TO trick, but to showcase effective, playable builds and spur discussion. While each of us has a different build philosophy, in general the intent is to create something that can be played in most groups from level 1 to level 20. Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger and WhamBamSam, with a couple of other folks hopefully on their way. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product. I’ll list the build’s main author whenever I showcase a particular build.
Buffsader (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559259-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Buffsader) (PK, ToB/Gish/Party Support)
The Utility Belt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560988-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-Utility-Belt) (PK, Psionics/Stealth/Utility)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless War Mind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569004-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Eternal-Sunshine-of-the-Spotless-War-Mind) (PK, ToB/Psionics/Melee Damage)
Venger is the inspiration behind this showcase’s build, and actually played this character in a campaign I ran a while back. I’ve made some tweaks here and there, but the credit largely goes to him for this one.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/431937476010180610/538809038855471153/unknown.png
The Melding Pot
I got a hole in my soul. I got them necrocarnum blues.
BACKGROUND
I always like the chance to get behind the DM screen, perhaps even more than playing. Mostly I game IRL, but I did run a fun PbP for about a year that I really enjoyed. Several of the players were common names around here (including Venger, OMG PONIES and the Viscount), and the party is one I like to think of as the T3 party: all six players independently decided to go with solid T3ish classes, including a factotum, an incarnate, a swordsage, a binder, a warlock and a duskblade.
Venger’s incarnate was definitely one of the more notable characters. He played the decidedly sinister Mr. Crowley, a silverbrow human incarnate with a heavy necrocarnum focus, and he did a great job at showing just how effective and flexible incarnates can be in the early game. As the game progressed Venger decided to increase his flexibility even further by branching out of incarnate a bit to pick up a pair of levels in totemist. This gave him access to almost every soulmeld in the game, although things like meldshaper level and soulmeld/chakra slots provided a big limiting factor in how much he could dedicate to these totemist melds.
Unfortunately the campaign ended before we got too much further, but as we were looking at options for Mr. Crowley down the road, we noticed something very interesting: the necrocarnate prestige class advances meldshaper level and provides new soulmeld and chakra slots indiscriminately, rather than only advancing a single meldshaping class like the other incarnum prestige classes. While necrocarnate is largely known for its ability to harvest essentia, we realized that it could also essentially act as a dual-progression class, advancing abilities for both incarnate and totemist.
The current build evolved from this basic idea. Though we deviated a bit from Mr. Crowley’s original build in an effort to come up with the ideal version of the build, it all begins there...
THE BASICS
Race: Silverbrow human. As always, the human bonus feat is huge, while silverbrow gives you access to the excellent draconic soulmelds
Build Stub: Incarnate 4/Druid 1/Totemist 2/Necrocarnate 13
ACFs: Swift and deadly hunter druid, urban companion, voice of the city
Alignment: Neutral evil. Welcome to the deep end of the alignment pool, bud.
BUILD BREAKDOWN
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Incarnate 1
Hidden Talent (psionic minor creation), Psycarnum Infusion
Aura, detect good
This feat opening might feel a bit familiar after our last showcase. Psycarnum Infusion is a great way to extend your limited essentia pool by allowing you to expend your psionic focus to temporarily max out a single soulmeld or feat or item. Considering the number of soulmelds you’ll eventually get, this will be an incredibly important down the road.
Psionic minor creation is the classic Hidden Talent choice for a reason: it’s incredibly flexible, effective at almost every level, and doesn’t require augmentation to stay useful. As you’re going evil anyhow, go ahead and train up on poisonmaking. Having a brace of poisoned crossbow bolts is basically never going to go amiss, especially since you can use your soulmelds to mitigate any ability score damage from accidentally poisoning yourself.
2nd
Incarnate 2
Chakra bind (crown)
This is one of the best levels for any incarnate that doesn’t mind mucking about with the darker arts. With the necrocarnum crown’s chakra bind you have the ability to animate an incarnum zombie. While their HD is restricted by your meldshaper level, even a 2 HD disposable incarnum zombie is a great tool in these levels.
3rd
Druid 1
Share Soulmeld, TrackB
Favored enemy, voice of the city, urban companion, AC bonus, nature sense
Whew, that’s a lot of alternate class features. Let’s go through them all. Swift and deadly hunter is basically something for nothing: you lose the armor proficiencies you weren’t using and the wild shape you weren’t ever going to pick up for a free feat (Track, which can actually be pretty useful once you get totemist melds) and Wis to AC when unarmored. It’s not essential to the build but the flavor is decent and it certainly doesn’t hurt. Voice of the city is actually quite handy: you’ll get wild empathy from your totemist levels anyhow, and being able to communicate with others that you don’t share a language works well alongside your diplomancy soulmelds.
The real draw here, though, is the urban companion. This is an improved familiar in place of the usual animal companion. While a wolf or riding dog might still be passable at level 3, you’re going to get way more mileage out of an urban companion over the long run. See, at this same level you are picking up Share Soulmeld, which allows any of your soulmelds to also affect your familiar as long as they remain within five feet of you. Suddenly you’ve doubled the effectiveness of most of your melds. Go for a raven for its ability to speak, and you can have your urban companion activating magic items or using diplomacy right alongside you.
What does this actually mean in practice? Well, it depends on what you’re set up to do that day. From a skill perspective, it means your familiar will almost always be able to successfully aid you in any skill checks, since they’ll share both your boosts and skill ranks and shouldn’t have trouble making the aid DC. Offensively it gives you a second set of actions with all of your boosts and buffs. Right off the bat it means doing things like sharing dissolving spittle so that you’re chucking out a pair of touch attacks every round, which combines well with the druid lockdown spells like entangle.
4th
Incarnate 3
Expanded soulmeld capacity +1, incarnum radiance 1/day]
Incarnum radiance is a minor boost that probably won’t come into play much, but expanded soulmeld capacity is huge.
5th
Incarnate 4
Chakra binds (feet, hands)
At this level you’re still probably going to get more mileage out of your necrocarnum crown bind than most of what feet and hands give you, but there are a lot of excellent options if you’re in a situation where getting followed around by a zombie isn’t exactly appropriate.
6th
Totemist 1
Necrocarnum Acolyte
Wild empathy
Incarnate is great, especially in the low levels, but it’s time for you to expand your options a bit. With one level you get access to dozens of new soulmelds, though you can only shape two of them at a time. The draconic totemist melds are especially worthwhile, because many of them have stronger than usual effects even without binding them. Note that there is nothing stopping you from sharing draconic melds with your urban companion.
Necro Acolyte is steaming hot filler. It does next to nothing for a necrocarnate, since they have to be evil anyhow, and yet it's a requirement to become a necrocarnate. Sigh... at least it gives you a small boost to your necrocarnum meld DCs, if you ever decide to use any of the debuffing melds.
7th
Totemist 2
Totem chakra bind (+1 capacity)
The totem chakra is the sole unique chakra that an incarnate will never have access to, and gives a ton of unique abilities. You’ve got a bevy of natural attacks, some great utility options like scent and move-action teleportation, several ranged attacks and debuffs and even some weird options like the disenchanter mask’s ability to suppress magical items with a touch.
8th
Necrocarnate 1
Harvest soul (1 minute), improved meldshaper level
And here you are with necrocarnate. Countless threads have been written about harvest soul, but I actually want you to pay particular attention to the second ability you get at this level: improved meldshaper level. Note that this should apply to any meldshaping class you possess, not just incarnate, meaning every level you take in necrocarnate will improve the meldshaper level of both your incarnate and totemist melds. This shores up a common flaw in multiclass meldshapers: namely that while a small dip into another meldshaping class gives you access to all of its soulmelds, your meldshaper level is based on class level and will never improve. Essentially necrocarnate acts as a theurge class for totemist and incarnate.
As for harvest soul, certainly it can be abused… but if you’re in the kind of campaign where you’re allowed to boil anthills for unlimited essentia, it means you probably are also in the kind of campaign where having every soulmeld maxed out won’t actually be that broken. In a more typical game, think of it as a way to incrementally increase your power as the adventuring day progresses. Remember that the essentia you harvest lasts 24 hours, meaning anything you harvest toward the end of the adventuring day should stay with you until well into the next. Also remember that you have up until one hour per necrocarnate level after death to harvest their soulstuff, so if your party doesn't mind you lugging corpses around (hey, what else are incarnum zombies good for?), you can spread things around to get the maximum possible returns. And on days following downtime, well, you still have seven essentia and the ability to expend your psionic focus to max out any single soulmeld, which should do plenty for getting the day rolling.
9th
Necrocarnate 2
Bonus Essentia
Necrocarnum soulshield
Ah, Magic of Incarnum and your poor editing. This is basically just a passive boost to your saves based on the number of necrocarnum melds you have shaped. Nothing fancy but it’s profane, which should stack with most other boosts, and there’s a good chance you’ll have at least one or two necrocarnum melds shaped. Except… the ability has a limit on daily uses, but doesn’t list a duration. From the way it’s described, it sounds like it should be a passive, always-on ability (and that certainly wouldn’t be broken), but the fact that they limit it to being used a number of times equal to half your class level calls that into question. Ask your DM; it’s a nice but fairly inconsequential boost in the grand scheme of things.
Bonus Essentia brings your pre-harvest essentia total up to 9 before items.
10th
Necrocarnate 3
Chakra binds (arms, brow, shoulders)
Time to start collecting binds. Note that despite all the multiclassing, you’re only a level behind a single-classed incarnate or totemist in terms of when you get access to these binds. As with improved meldshaper level, these binds apply to any class, fixing the other issue with multiclass meldshapers. Ordinarily you cannot use your incarnate chakra binds to bind totemist soulmelds or vice versa, but these binds are not class restricted and therefore apply to both your incarnate and your totemist melds.
There are a lot of good options in the arms, brows and shoulders binds. There’s a ton of utility to be found at these levels: heavy fortification, immunity to energy drain, functional immunity to arrows, darkvision, see invisibililty, miss chance and flight are all options. However, my absolute two favorites are the phase cloak and shadow mantle.
The phase cloak might be, for its level, the single most powerful chakra bind. This turns you ethereal any time you move at least 5’ in a round. Ethereal movement is incredibly hard to stop, is not blocked by most physical barriers, can be in any direction, makes you invisible and makes you flat-out immune to many attacks. Once you stop, you are no longer ethereal, but even so this is incredibly useful. Phase through walls, use it as a limited form of flight, avoid AoOs, ignore the vast majority of battlefield control… this one bind does quite a lot.
Shadow mantle is less gamebreakingly good, but more than makes up the difference in flavor. You become surrounded by thick magical darkness that blocks all sight… except that you have blindsight within the field. You need to invest essentia into it (its size is based on the amount of essentia you invest), but it’s still a very cool way to move about in style. I wouldn’t exactly call it stealthy—after all, people are bound to notice the big impenetrable cloud of darkness—but it lets you avoid prying eyes and if you feel like getting up close and personal, it’s a nice debuff against anything that relies on sight.
11th
Necrocarnate 4
Extra chakra bind, extra soulmeld
An extra soulmeld and an extra chakra bind both come online here, unrestricted by class.
12th
Necrocarnate 5
Psionic Meditation
Essentia trap
You know how I said that the necrocarnate is best used as a way to incrementally increase your power throughout the day? Essentia trap is a perfect example of this. As foes fall in combat you can immediately invest their essence into your soulmelds. This doesn’t prevent you from later using harvest essentia after the battle is done, by the by; you can use essentia trap for a quick boost to get you through the rest of combat and then harvest essentia after everything is getting cleaned up.
And since we’re talking about temporary boosts, Psionic Meditation comes online here as a way to use Psycarnum Infusion multiple times in combat. Between your starting essentia, essentia trap and Psycarnum Infusion, you should now have plenty of stamina independent of the essentia you harvested in the day before.
13th
Necrocarnate 6
Necrocarnum zombie master (half damage)
Even at this level, your necrocarnum circlet’s crown bind is still a great ability, and this halves the damage you’ll be taking from it.
14th
Necrocarnate 7
Extra soulmeld
An extra soulmeld from either list is always nice.
15th
Necrocarnate 8
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity
Chakra binds (throat, waist), extra chakra bind
And we’ve hit another major power bump. ESC is my go-to “filler” feat in any incarnum-based build; the ability to break the cap on essentia is huge. But we’re in this for the binds, right?
There’s a lot to talk about at these levels, even if there are no outright gamebreakers. Some especially good ones include the silvertongue mask (suggestion at will… while it’s a low level spell, the ability to use it at will has a lot of potential), strongheart vest (goodbye energy damage and energy drain) and my favorite, the manticore belt (flight + Flyby Attack is fantastic for just about anyone, and puts poor Spring Attack to shame).
16th
Necrocarnate 9
Expanded necrocarnum meld capacity
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity but just for necrocarnum melds? Sure, why not, especially since it stacks with the feat and the incarnate ability.
17th
Necrocarnate 10
Extra soulmeld, harvest soul (full-round action)
An extra soulmeld from either list is gravy. Harvest soul’s action reduction is nice (you can now feasibly use it mid-combat if you need to), but not really essential, since you have essentia trap for a mid-combat boost. Still, it makes post-combat wrap up that much easier.
18th
Necrocarnate 11
Expanded Soulmeld Capacity
Chakra bind (heart)
You can never take ESC too many times. It’s like Font of Inspiration: a little sprinkle is nice, but if you have the feats to take it for every single soulmeld, do it.
As for the heart chakra… oof, this is hard to pick. Very few heart chakra bounds are bad on the incarnate side. Necrocarnum vestments is probably the safest choice for the big blanket immunities (stunning and death effects are not uncommon at these levels, so you NEED an immunity to these in some way). Totemists have slightly disappointing heart binds for the most part, though the dragon mantle’s fast healing can be nice.
19th
Necrocarnate 12
Extra chakra bind
An extra chakra bind to go along with the new binds you have access to. Always nice.
20th
Necrocarnate 13
Chakra bind (soul), extra soulmeld, necrocarnum zombie master (2 zombies)
And to cap it all off, you get three extremely useful class features. A pair of 13 HD zombie goons with improved essentia use isn’t gamebreaking but costs you very little at this level, and is always nice, as is the extra soulmeld.
The soul chakra binds, though… now that’s a capstone. This is basically the trademark ability of the incarnate that you now have access to. Permanent true seeing, even more scaling miss chances, the ability to dish out negative levels as a touch attack not good enough for you? How about gate? It’s restricted to once a week, but even with such a restriction, this means you’re playing with the big boys.
You also get a neat little option that’s more or less unique to you. The threefold mask of the chimera has a soul bind that ordinary totemists can’t access, since they don’t get soul binds pre-epic. You, however, have access to both the totemist’s soulmeld list and a floating soul bind, meaning you can use it on the threefold mask to get an extra standard action every round. Yeah, read that again: every single round, an extra standard action. It’s paired with a penalty to AC and attack rolls, which you can either ignore (lots of good things to do that don’t involve attack rolls, after all) or eliminate entirely by investing some essentia. Oh, and you share this with your familiar, so you and your familiar can collectively take four standard actions a round (not to mention the actions of your zombies). It’s not quite as good as the planar chasuble’s ability to gate in allies, but since that’s only an option once a week, it’s a pretty good filler for the rest of the time.
Constitution is your best friend here; you’ll need a high Constitution to be able to shape all of the soulmelds you have access to, and it drives the saving throws of your totemist melds (plus, you know, it keeps you alive). Wisdom also won’t go amiss, as it drives your incarnate meld saving throws and also boosts your AC if you are unarmored. Beyond that? Well, it’s up to you. You can become quite a passable melee combatant or ranged combatant as well despite the low BAB, so some Strength or Dex won’t go amiss. Basically, focus on Con and spread a little bit everywhere else you can. Your raw ability scores will be eclipsed by the bonuses you get from your melds, so don't stress too much about anything beyond keeping that Con score high.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 14/Dex 12/Con 16/Int 10/Wis 12/Cha 10
32-point buy: Str 14/Dex 14/Con 16/Int 10/Wis 12/Cha 12
Very few requirements here. Necrocarnate will require you to hit 5 ranks each in knowledge (arcana) and (religion) and 10 ranks in spellcraft, but beyond that, it’s up to you. Craft is probably not a bad idea to go alongside Hidden Talent. You don’t have a ton of skill points to play with, but mostly your skills are boosted by soulmelds rather than investing ranks, so there’s not a lot of pressure here.
An essentia helm would be an incredibly wise investment, giving you additional ways to top off essentia when you don't have a ready supply of fresh corpses. Incarnum focii are similarly handy, increasing your essentia capacity and providing a defense against dispels for vital soulmelds. Wands and other spell trigger devices are a great choice as well, especially since your raven familiar should be able to assist in activating these, effectively doubling your actions.
BUILD SUMMARY
Here’s what you end up with: full access to every single totemist and incarnate soulmeld, including the draconic soulmelds, and the complete set of chakra binds, including both the totem bind and the soul bind. (You do, however, miss the hands, feet and crown binds for your totemist levels... but those are mostly outclassed by your totem bind regardless.) Your meldshaper level is 17 for incarnate melds and 15 for totemist melds. You have the ability to share all of these melds with your raven familiar. You can shape 11 soulmelds and bind 5, putting you ahead of the standard incarnate or totemist. While your base essentia is only 9 before items, you have the ability to max out the essentia of any soulmeld by expending your psionic focus (which you can regain as a move action). And any time a foe falls in combat, your essentia increases. Oh, and you get a pair of essentia zombie goons to follow you around and soak up attacks.
There is such a wide range of possible options with this build that it’s a bit difficult to showcase. Spend one day being a skillmonkey to rival any rogue, then spend another as a defensive behemoth with a bevy of immunities. Want to do some damage? Try going the full totemist face-ripper route, boosting damage even further with your necrocarnum melds—while your BAB is pitiful, natural attacks don’t require a high BAB to make a ton of attacks. Even better, polymorph your familiar into something a bit more intimidating and share all the melds with it so you can double-team your opponents. Debuffs, ranged damage, diplomancy? You can do it all.
VARIANTS
The level of druid can be replaced with anything that grants a familiar or animal companion with the share spells ability. A wizard with the combat wizard ACF will net you a free fighter feat and is probably the best alternative option. If you have access to flaws, moving Psionic Meditation earlier will never hurt, nor will more iterations of Expanded Soulmeld Capacity. If your DM is amenable, you can also make a Good-aligned version of this build by using the proposed vivicarnate class referenced in the necrocarnate description.
As for other possible tweaks, there are a few options. One or both instances of Expanded Soulmeld Capacity can be replaced with various incarnum feats (Double Chakra and Split Chakra are particularly handy) or general feats like Darkstalker, Power Attack or Martial Study. If you really want to be a completist and get every possible meld, Shape Soulmeld can let you pick up the fearsome mask, gloves of the poisoned soul, mauling gauntlets, soulspeaker circlet or thunderstep boots off the soulborn list (though obviously you don't have enough feats to nab all of them).
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And that’s that! As always, we love to hear feedback, so hit us up with any questions or comments in the replies. No news on when the next showcase will go up, but if you have any suggestions, let us know that too.