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View Full Version : Thoughts on Incarnum?



Karma Guard
2007-10-06, 05:53 AM
I just got my hands on the Magic of Incarnum book.

It's about a new 'magic' system, like Psionics, based around Incarnum, a blue substance that is the manifestation of soul-stuff. This soul-stuff is in everything that is, was, and (maybe) will be, granting people able to manipulate it the ability to mimic or take on abilities of other people or creatures. You can make stuff from it, and the you can bind it to your Chakras, which make these soulmeld things stronger and grow new abilities in return for not being able to stick anything else on the spot.

It comes with 4 races which are somewhat generic. There's 3 classes; one for Neutral + Alignment Components, one for extreme alignments, and then there's the Totemist, which tends towards True Neutral but doesn't have alignment restrictions. There's a lot of Racial Substitution classes too, which is always nice. I like those.

I like the ideas in it, like the Essentia 'spend points to do this soulmeld and then you can dismiss it and get the points back to respend as you want' and the Chakra's 'tape on this Soulmeld to this one spot and it gets even better automatically' thing, but some of the flavor (IT'S BLUE ALL THE TIME :B. Necrocarnum, period.) leaves something to be desired.

There's also the fact that it seems to have been lost and forgotten to D&D. There doesn't look like there's any other books with Incarnum in it. Are there any Dragon mags with the stuff in there? I think I'd like to read this more.

What are thoughts on the balance of the whole system? It 'feels' more like Psionics than magic, especially with the lack of direct raw damage and how it's based more around improving what you have (or making new things for you to use) than pew pew pew or save/suck things.

An example soulmeld is the 'Mask of the Gorgon', which gives you, at base, a resistance to being knocked over equal to the number of Essentia invested in it. If you bind it to your Crown (or is it Throat :smallconfused: ) Chakra, you can also blow Petrify gas. If you bind it as your Totem (Totemist only!), you also gain the ability to do a wicked Gore attack and I think something else, but I can't remember. A Mask of the Gorgon looks like a silvery mask of the animal that floats just in front of your face.

Soulmelds look like they'd take up a Magic item slot, but they don't. They're associated with spots for Chakras, but they just float close to the appropriate area.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-06, 06:02 AM
They do take up magic item slots if you bind them to your chakra, though. :smallwink:

No bound Airstep Sandals with Boots of Striding and Springing.

And I, for one, lurve Incarnum. I wish they'd release more supplements for it... especially as they said it was going to be a new 'core' component of D&D!

Maybe 4e will have more Incarnum stuff...

Zincorium
2007-10-06, 06:03 AM
Really incarnum's weaknesses are that it:

A. Doesn't already have a place in the vast majority of settings, so any use will either be in a vacuum or someone in the group will have to homebrew the reason it's there.

B. Is pretty self contained, there are already more soulmelds than any one character can collect, there isn't really a need for more. That makes expansions harder to make worthwhile.

C. Low powered (with some exceptions). This isn't a bad thing, but for experienced players, the fluff has to be really good if you're replacing a standard option with an optional one and making a less powerful character thereby.


I like the idea of it, I personally just have a hard time seeing how to make it fit in the games I'm running, same as psionics. As the sole source of magic, it could definitely work, but it's just so very different from the standard methods.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-06, 06:05 AM
Really incarnum's weaknesses are that it:

A. Doesn't already have a place in the vast majority of settings, so any use will either be in a vacuum or someone in the group will have to homebrew the reason it's there.

The book has a few ideas for that. See the "Shattering the Wellspring" adventure, for an example... you could easily say it's been relegated to a specific part of the world (I chose both poles in my world) until someone tried to 'destroy' the Wellspring (the point at which souls leave and enter the world), but simply ended up spreading the power of Incarnum over the entire planet instead of messing up the cosmic balance.

Well, I guess that is messing up the cosmic balance, but it's not really bad until people start using Necrocarnum...

(In my campaign setting, the steampunkish Big Bad tried to harness the Wellspring as a power source.)

Zincorium
2007-10-06, 06:21 AM
Still, it's something that has to be plot-engineered or retrofitted into the setting, and that's always going to have fewer takers than a system where you simply add X to Y, where X is new material and Y is an existing structure or class. An example of the latter is the spell compendium.

Ideally there would be defined empty spaces in campaign settings where any supplements can be socketed in with little effort regardless of how unusual they may be. But until someone figures that out, it requires more work to believably integrate something like incarnum or binders into a setting than to simply not add them in.

Karma Guard
2007-10-06, 03:38 PM
Really incarnum's weaknesses are that it:

A. Doesn't already have a place in the vast majority of settings, so any use will either be in a vacuum or someone in the group will have to homebrew the reason it's there.

B. Is pretty self contained, there are already more soulmelds than any one character can collect, there isn't really a need for more. That makes expansions harder to make worthwhile.

C. Low powered (with some exceptions). This isn't a bad thing, but for experienced players, the fluff has to be really good if you're replacing a standard option with an optional one and making a less powerful character thereby.

I like the idea of it, I personally just have a hard time seeing how to make it fit in the games I'm running, same as psionics. As the sole source of magic, it could definitely work, but it's just so very different from the standard methods.

I could see it sharing with either Magic or Psionics, but not both. If you have all 3 at once, it gets all wonky and confusing and oh god why is everyone blue and purple D: You can fit it into a setting pretty easily with reflavoring it into a magic system used by the so and so tribe from place who bind the magic to themselves. (And if you peel off all the blue. Jeeze, I've never seen the word Azure used so much before in my life.)

A: That is a real bummer, because I like the flavor of using ideals for power. I'm a nerd for that sort of thing. (I also like Unknown Armies for the same reason)

B: That is true. I guess I'm wishing for more variants and options for, like, Totems. Maybe I wanted a Gelatinous Cube Meld. I don't think they even gave a template or other idea for making new Melds, which would have been really nice.

C: This one I don't think is a bad thing either. I kinda want to homebrew up some sort of dedicated monk/barehanded class with these things. It just feels very monk-y to me. I think it's the Chakras.


They do take up magic item slots if you bind them to your chakra, though. :smallwink:

No bound Airstep Sandals with Boots of Striding and Springing.

And I, for one, lurve Incarnum. I wish they'd release more supplements for it... especially as they said it was going to be a new 'core' component of D&D!

Maybe 4e will have more Incarnum stuff...

I kinda skimmed it so :smallcool:

They did say that? Where? That would be cool, if it got polished up and buffed a little.

Fax Celestis
2007-10-06, 03:44 PM
C: This one I don't think is a bad thing either. I kinda want to homebrew up some sort of dedicated monk/barehanded class with these things. It just feels very monk-y to me. I think it's the Chakras.

Here y'go. Also, this too.

Tor the Fallen
2007-10-06, 03:51 PM
The book has a few ideas for that. See the "Shattering the Wellspring" adventure, for an example... you could easily say it's been relegated to a specific part of the world (I chose both poles in my world) until someone tried to 'destroy' the Wellspring (the point at which souls leave and enter the world), but simply ended up spreading the power of Incarnum over the entire planet instead of messing up the cosmic balance.

Well, I guess that is messing up the cosmic balance, but it's not really bad until people start using Necrocarnum...

(In my campaign setting, the steampunkish Big Bad tried to harness the Wellspring as a power source.)

Yeah, I hate when people try to kill the Planet by sucking all the Mako out of it.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-10-06, 04:25 PM
I love incarnum, myself. Probably because I feel like I'm one of a few people that really likes the alignment system. A few people I've talked to don't like the flavor of it in the book, so I redid the fluff of it for my setting.


Incarnum
In the world, good, evil, law and chaos are all very real, substantial forces. Outsiders with these alignments are living proof of that fact. Outsiders and magical beasts are the main source for all the magical essence known as Incarnum. Whenever an outsider dies it's excess soul energy has nowhere to go, flowing through the multiverse as near nothingness until it may reshape itself within its home plane. Some of these souls seek people out, and find mortals which prove to be prime examples of their alignment. They suffuse into their bodies and souls and show them incarnum which lets them use it as they desire. These are soulborns and incarnates.
Whenever a magical beast dies it goes to a plane which matches his own alignment, or the plane of a deity they worship. In some cases they don't wish to find a final resting place and wander the world as a spirit. The shamans known as totemists channel these magical beast spirits into soulmelds.
Is most cases, incarnum finds the soulmelder, they don't find it.

Karma Guard
2007-10-06, 04:31 PM
Here y'go. Also, this too.

I- I think I love you, Fax. Thanks :smallsmile:

Lyinginbedmon
2007-10-06, 05:01 PM
A large part of Magic Physics is based around Incarnum, need I state openly how I feel about it? :smalltongue:

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-06, 05:27 PM
Yeah, I hate when people try to kill the Planet by sucking all the Mako out of it.

You seem to be accusing me of being unoriginal.

I am. Very much so. But what the hell is Mako?

(Other than a rather unimportant character in the third season of Digimon. >.>)

Fax Celestis
2007-10-06, 05:51 PM
You seem to be accusing me of being unoriginal.

I am. Very much so. But what the hell is Mako?

(Other than a rather unimportant character in the third season of Digimon. >.>)

You apparently have not played Final Fantasy 7.

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-06, 05:53 PM
You apparently have not played Final Fantasy 7.

There's a reason for that.

JackMage666
2007-10-06, 06:37 PM
A good thing about Magic of Incarnum, as opposed to things like Sorcerers and Wizards, is it's all self contained. If you want to play with Incarnum, you just need one book. If you want to play a Sorcerer, you need the Player's Handbook, Spell Compendium, Complete Mage, and several other things, just for spells.

Though, on the same coin, that kinda sucks, because it's limitted to what is in the book.

Complete Meldshaper, anyone?

Fax Celestis
2007-10-06, 06:39 PM
Complete Meldshaper, anyone?

Complete Incarnate.

Tor the Fallen
2007-10-08, 04:01 PM
There's a reason for that.

You don't have thumbs!?

Yuki Akuma
2007-10-08, 04:07 PM
You don't have thumbs!?Final Fantasy VII is an overhyped piece of trash.
I had a SNES/N64.

Lord Tataraus
2007-10-08, 05:09 PM
Final Fantasy VII is an overhyped piece of trash.
I had a SNES/N64.

While I don't want to push the subject, I disagree that it is, as you said, trash. Not to sound rude, but I have no interest in why you think so. As for your second statement, I first played it on PC.

On topic:
I don't care too much for Incarnum, mostly because one of my players hyped it so much for about a week after he got the book then never heard about it again. The only class that was any interest to me was the totemist, but I really would need to play one before I can definitely say I like/dislike Incarnum. Though one thing I would change is the color stuff, I'd make it so that each meldshaper produced a different color. And what is Necrocarnum? I just skimmed the book and I don't remember that.

Karma Guard
2007-10-08, 09:12 PM
I don't care too much for Incarnum, mostly because one of my players hyped it so much for about a week after he got the book then never heard about it again. The only class that was any interest to me was the totemist, but I really would need to play one before I can definitely say I like/dislike Incarnum. Though one thing I would change is the color stuff, I'd make it so that each meldshaper produced a different color. And what is Necrocarnum? I just skimmed the book and I don't remember that.

I like the ideas and how it works.

Incarnum's supposed to be ambient soulstuff or your own soulstuff. Necrocarnum is tortured souls made into soulstuff. It's just hilariously over-evil, especially for D&D, that it's silly. OMG I USE THE SOULS OF PEOPLE I TORTURED AND ALSO MADE INTO GOO >:B evilevilevilevil

Jasdoif
2007-10-08, 09:24 PM
But what the hell is Mako?To summarize in case it's necessary, Mako is basically "soulstuff". The big Shinra corporation in Final Fantasy VII employed a process to generate conventional power by extracting it out of Mako. It's a similar process to how a coal power plant produces electricity by burning coal.

Lord Tataraus
2007-10-08, 09:40 PM
I like the ideas and how it works.

Incarnum's supposed to be ambient soulstuff or your own soulstuff. Necrocarnum is tortured souls made into soulstuff. It's just hilariously over-evil, especially for D&D, that it's silly. OMG I USE THE SOULS OF PEOPLE I TORTURED AND ALSO MADE INTO GOO >:B evilevilevilevil

Does Necrocarnum have any mechanical difference? It seems to be too much trouble if you could just use your own of the ambient stuff. I would have ambient incarnum be white (its a mixture of different colored souls) and your personal incarnum to be a specific color, maybe based on alignment like red for NE, yellow-gold for LG, etc.