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[RoboEmperor]

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[Crichton]

How are you getting around the 'Once per day' wording in Azure Talent? Seems like a pretty firm limitation, upon my first reading of it.

[Piggy Knowles]

Psycarnum Infusion specifically bypassed that limit by letting you treat an incarnum feat as maxed out for a round, at the cost of your psionic focus.

[Crichton]

Psycarnum Infusion specifically bypassed that limit by letting you treat an incarnum feat as maxed out for a round, at the cost of your psionic focus.

It does? Where does it say that? It lets you get the benefit of an Incarnum feat without actually investing real essentia into it, but that doesn't say anything about bypassing an X/Day limitation in the wording of the Incarnum feat itself. Once per day means just that, doesn't it?

I mean, I'd love to be wrong, as I love psionics and recharging PP is always one of the biggest limitations. Not so sure here, unless I'm missing something else?


Edit: I'm largely trying to pick this apart, devil's advocate style, so that if any such issues come up when discussing it with my DM, I'm already prepared. That said, if this one can't be overcome, this looks like it doesn't work.

[Crichton]

What limitation? It says you can only invest essentia in Azure Talent once per 24 hours. Psycarnum Infusion does 0 investing. There is no X/Day limitation in the wording.

Ok, I can how that could work, potentially. PI does say 'treated as if it had essentia invested in it,' though, which seems pretty equivalent to using AT the normal way, to me, which would trigger the 'once per day' limit. Tough to sell that to most DMs. I genuinely hope yours is more amenable to such things than mine.


Next question: PI says "as if it had essentia invested in it equal to its maximum essentia capacity" but AT doesn't have a max essentia. So you either get infinite bonus PP, or just the 2? Not saying this one breaks the combo, just that it's very much an undefined spot in it.

[Piggy Knowles]

The X/day limitation is on investing essentia into the feat. Psycarnum Infusion isn't investing essentia, but rather temporarily treating the feat as full. I don't think there should be any issues on that front.

(If you're specifically looking to pick holes in this tactic, another common complaint is that bonus PP isn't explicitly called out to be used first in the way that, say, bonus HP is, so some people have argued that at the end of the round when it drops back to zero, you lose PP equal to what you gained. I've seen no support for this in the rules, but the lack of support for MoI means there aren't really examples clarifying things in either direction.)

Re: Azure Talent's cap, incarnum feats are called out in MoI to have the same essentia cap as soulmelds, which if I recall correctly is listed at the beginning of the chapter that details the three incarnum base classes.

As for the build itself...

It slows down your lowest level progression a bit due to the lack of bonus feats (though going azurin over warforged would mean you still have your core trick online at the same time), but you might want to consider ardent with the creation mantle. Unfortunately no access to web content means you can't use the excellent Dominant Ideal ACF, which would be perfect here (the power point reduction is nice, but the real gravy comes from the fact that you don't need to expend your focus when applying a metapsionic feat to your dominant ideal mantle powers, allowing you to retain that focus for things like Psycarnum Infusion). However, it still offers some very nice benefits, such as immediate access to UMD via the magic mantle, and while ardents suffer with powers known when compared to a psion, they do get access to a unique selection of powers (including basically everything you need here) without having to rely on Expanded Knowledge.

[Piggy Knowles]

Yeah, ardents definitely suffer in the powers known department and are overall a worse class than the psion, but a build like yours might feel the pinch a bit less, since you're heavily focused on a single power. You'd miss out on reality revision (though bend reality is available), but gain some things that a shaper typically wouldn't have access to, such as time regression and metafaculty. As for psychic reformation, it can be nabbed via EK. You also get a few unique augments that are exclusive to ardents, such as the ability to get a third reroll with fate of one or to analyze multiple targets with a single use of psionic analyze dweomer, and some other minor bonuses from your mantles (UMD as a class skill, daily skill boosts, the ability to delay damage, etc.). And since you're not as concerned with having as many power points as possible, ardents are much more multi-class friendly, since their power selection is based off of manifester level rather than class level and so you can dart out of ardent for a few levels without losing access to your highest level powers.

[Crichton]

There's a bunch of rules in Magic of Incarnum that you need to be made aware of. One is "Essentia Capacity", which is the maximum amount of essentia you can invest in one thing. For non Magic of Incarnum classes, you have 1 capacity levels 1-5, 2 capacity levels 6-11, 3 capacity 12-17, and 4 capacity 18-20. So at level 1 the maximum essentia you can invest in Azure Talent is 1.


Re: Azure Talent's cap, incarnum feats are called out in MoI to have the same essentia cap as soulmelds, which if I recall correctly is listed at the beginning of the chapter that details the three incarnum base classes.

Yes indeed, I was misremembering 'essentia capacity' as referring to 'essentia pool'




I think your confusion comes from your lack of familiarity with Magic of Incarnum. I just very recently learned it and it was quite complicated and confusing. In any case, let me try to help you understand
1. You can only invest essentia into Azure Talent once per 24 hours
2. Once invested, you cannot add to or remove the invested essentia for 24 hours. This way if you invest 2 Essentia in AT, you have 4 power points, and you cannot remove essentia from AT to allocate elsewhere or add essentia to AT to get more power points until the 24 hours is over.
3. PI sets AT's essentia to 1. Then sets it to 0 1 round later. PI does not invest, add, or remove essentia. The once per 24 hour thing has no relevance here.
Hope this clears it up for you.


The X/day limitation is on investing essentia into the feat. Psycarnum Infusion isn't investing essentia, but rather temporarily treating the feat as full. I don't think there should be any issues on that front.


When it comes to rules discussions, when a feature says 'treat X as Y' and doesn't add any other qualifiers to that, then for all rules-purposes related to the feature in question, X is actually Y. So when PI says the incarnum feat 'is treated as if it had essentia invested in it' then for all rules purposes, AT does have essentia invested in it.

I don't see any way to claim that the reason the 1/day AT limit doesn't apply is because it doesn't actually have essentia invested in it. It doesn't say it 'temporarily treats it as full,' it says it 'is treated as if it had essentia invested in it.'



The only RAW-lawyering way I can see to bypass the 'Once per day, you can...' wording in AT is to make the claim that you aren't actually the one investing the essentia, PI is, so maybe that limit doesn't apply? That might get you around the limit, but it's not the same as saying PI doesn't actually invest essentia. Either way, still seems like pretty shaky ground to me. If we're going to that level of RAW-lawyering, then the DM can go there too, and it's just as RAW-valid to claim that PI is your feat, so you really are the one investing the essentia, regardless of whether that essentia came from your actual essentia pool or not, or whether it ends this round instead of the end of the 24 hour period. The RAW blade cuts both ways.




As an aside, I respect you and your contributions to the forums here a lot, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your comments regarding my familiarity or lack thereof about MoI are meant in the kindest possible way, but I have to say it sure feels like you're making those comments as a way to discount the arguments I'm presenting without giving them full consideration. For the record, while I can't claim to be intimately knowledgeable about every single one of its ins and outs, I am familiar with it, and even so, that's not really relevant to whether AT has essentia invested in it or not. 'Treat X as Y' wording is clear, regardless of what X and Y are.

[Piggy Knowles]

When it comes to rules discussions, when a feature says 'treat X as Y' and doesn't add any other qualifiers to that, then for all rules-purposes related to the feature in question, X is actually Y. So when PI says the incarnum feat 'is treated as if it had essentia invested in it' then for all rules purposes, AT does have essentia invested in it.

I don't see any way to claim that the reason the 1/day AT limit doesn't apply is because it doesn't actually have essentia invested in it. It doesn't say it 'temporarily treats it as full,' it says it 'is treated as if it had essentia invested

My counterpoint to this argument is basically the same thing you quoted: to me it's clear that you aren't investing the incarnum feat in any way, but rather that one of your incarnum feats "is treated as if it had essentia invested in it equal to its maximum essentia capacity." The difference may sound minor but I personally think it's significant. Basically I see the breakdown as such:

1. Once per day, you invest essentia into Azure Talent.
-->1a. You gain bonus power points equal to the invested essentia.
-->1b. This essentia amount can't be changed and remains invested for 24 hours.

2. You expend your psionic focus with Psycarnum Infusion, choosing Azure Talent.
-->2a. Until the start of your next turn, Azure Talent is treated as if the amount of essentia you invested in step 1 is equal to its maximum essentia capacity.

You're not breaking the restriction in 1b by using Psycarnum Infusion, since all you're doing is treating the incarnum receptacle (in this case Azure Talent) as though it had been fully invested. And honestly I can't see how Psycarnum Infusion would work with incarnum feats at all otherwise, since if it didn't let you temporarily bypass the 1/day restriction, you could never use it on any feat that had essentia invested into it. But it's a poorly worded feat in a book full of similarly poorly worded abilities, and most of my argument hinges on the difference between "investing" and "treating XXX as though it had essentia invested in it," which is fiddly at best, so I can see why you'd argue the point and don't think it's unreasonable to rule otherwise.

And while I don't know if your last paragraph is directed to me or Robo, for the record I don't think it's wrong for you to argue about how Psycarnum Infusion works regardless of your level of familiarity with MoI. It's a hotly contested feat that has a bunch of weird interactions that tend to shunt you into rules-gray territories like this. It's an argument I've seen come up many times over the years, and I'm no more an expert than anyone else. Don't treat what I'm saying as anything other than my own take on how Psycarnum Infusion functions based on my reading of the feat. I apologize if I came off as dismissive in any of my posts.

[Crichton]

My counterpoint to this argument is basically the same thing you quoted: to me it's clear that you aren't investing the incarnum feat in any way, but rather that one of your incarnum feats "is treated as if it had essentia invested in it equal to its maximum essentia capacity." The difference may sound minor but I personally think it's significant. Basically I see the breakdown as such:

1. Once per day, you invest essentia into Azure Talent.
-->1a. You gain bonus power points equal to the invested essentia.
-->1b. This essentia amount can't be changed and remains invested for 24 hours.

2. You expend your psionic focus with Psycarnum Infusion, choosing Azure Talent.
-->2a. Until the start of your next turn, Azure Talent is treated as if the amount of essentia you invested in step 1 is equal to its maximum essentia capacity.

You're not breaking the restriction in 1b by using Psycarnum Infusion, since all you're doing is treating the incarnum receptacle (in this case Azure Talent) as though it had been fully invested. And honestly I can't see how Psycarnum Infusion would work with incarnum feats at all otherwise, since if it didn't let you temporarily bypass the 1/day restriction, you could never use it on any feat that had essentia invested into it. But it's a poorly worded feat in a book full of similarly poorly worded abilities, and most of my argument hinges on the difference between "investing" and "treating XXX as though it had essentia invested in it," which is fiddly at best, so I can see why you'd argue the point and don't think it's unreasonable to rule otherwise.

And while I don't know if your last paragraph is directed to me or Robo, for the record I don't think it's wrong for you to argue about how Psycarnum Infusion works regardless of your level of familiarity with MoI. It's a hotly contested feat that has a bunch of weird interactions that tend to shunt you into rules-gray territories like this. It's an argument I've seen come up many times over the years, and I'm no more an expert than anyone else. Don't treat what I'm saying as anything other than my own take on how Psycarnum Infusion functions based on my reading of the feat. I apologize if I came off as dismissive in any of my posts.



I'm following your logic, and as you say, it's a matter of ambiguous wording. I can see it going either way and still being considered RAW.


And no worries. Both of you are folks I respect and appreciate here on the forums, displaying depth of knowledge, reason and logic in arguments and considerations, and kindness in tone and dealing with others. :)

[Psyren]

This is one of several infinite PP shenanigans in the game; I got credited for it in the GitP tricks handbook, but that stuff has been floating around since the old 336 days; Earth Power and putting dirt in your shoes, using the XPH torc instead of the MiC one, Wild Surge etc.

Ultimately the core problem* is Bestow Power itself being able to provide more PP than are spent on it, thus creating an infinity engine - a problem that was fixed in the PF version's nerf. But there are other tricks that can yield similar results too, like abusing Metaconcert or Affinity Field.

*or feature depending on your viewpoint

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Please don't double post/bump threads.