[3.5] Incarnate, Am I missing something ?

[zagan]

Recently, I have seen a number of thread about Incarnum, in one of them Sinfire Titan (and perhaps someone else) said that a lawfull incarnate could have a +50 bonus to attack roll. In trying to find how I look into my copy of MoI and I can't figure out how. Knowing that Sinfire has way more experience than me he's probably right.

So far I have that:

Lawfull Skarn Incarnate 20:
Stat (with 32 pb): (I min max as much a possible here, I probably wouldn't use that array in game)
Base: Str: 16 Dex: 12 Con: 18 Int: 10 Wis: 8 Cha: 8
Racial mod: Str: 18 Dex: 10 Con: 18 Int: 10 Wis: 8 Cha: 8
After Level up: Str: 22 Dex: 10 Con: 19 Int: 10 Wis: 8 Cha: 8
+ 5 Str from tome: Str: 27 Dex: 10 Con: 19 Int: 10 Wis: 8 Cha: 8
+6 Str from Belt of giant strenght: Str: 33 Dex: 10 Con: 19 Int: 10 Wis: 8 Cha: 8
Total Str mod: +10

Incarnate radiance = +5 (unamed bonus)
Soulmeld:
Crow: Soul spark familiar for flanking ?
Feet:
Hands: Lucky dice +1 luck bonus to att and damage roll.
Arms: Incarnate weapon ? +4 enchantment bonus but no other weapon.
Brow:
Shoulders:
Throat:
Waist: Necrocarnum shroud +1 profane bonus when a creature take damage
Heart:
Soul: Incarnate avatar +5 insight bonus to att roll
We have a lot of open slot for soulmeld, the bloodwar gautlet could help but they have the evil descriptor but not the necrocarnum one.
Feats:
1st: Expanded Soulmeld
Capacity
3rd: Necrocarnum acolyte
6th: Split chakra: Waist
I couldn't find other feat to take to incrase attack roll except perhaps weapon focus, as a melee build power attack would also be necessery but it's not the point here.

Total attack bonus:
+10 Bab +10 Str mod +5 Incarnate radiance +5 incarnate avatar +4 incarnate weapon +1 Lucky dice +1 Necrocarnum shroud = 36
We could perhaps add a +2 for flanking with the soulspark for 38.
The bonus from the Necrocarnum shroud depend on damage to other creature, but in a fight can be pretty much assumed.
We're still pretty far from +50 and our weapon does't have any special property.

So could someone explain to me what I'm missing ?

[Person_Man]

There are several different methods of increasing the essentia capacity of a soulmeld. Also, don't forget that Incarnates have easily boosted access to UMD. So Divine Power for full BAB and magical buffs are easy to come by at high levels. Give me some time to re-read Magic of Incarnum, and I can probably get it higher then +50.

[Sinfire Titan]

Necrocarnum Shroud is also fairly useless to anyone. Here, let me show you the right math:


Lawful Incarnum Radiance: +5 Untyped
Lawful Incarnate Avatar (with Expanded Soulmeld Capacity and Incarnum Focus: Soul): +8 Insight
Incarnate Weapon (Expanded Soulmeld Capacity+Incarnum Focus: Arms): +8 Enhancement
Dragonborn Water Orc with Str 18 base (+4 Race+5 from levels+6 enhancement+5 Inherent): 34 Strength (+12)
Animal Devotion: +8 Sacred to Strength (+4)
Base Attack Bonus: +10

47 total. You can easily get 5 more points from feats and other soulmelds. Or you can shape the Mage's Spectacles and UMD wands of Divine Power and such for more bonuses.


Soulsparks can't flank, no melee reach.

[Tavar]

I think that you're forgetting the fact that your soulmelds all have +2 capacity due to levels. That adds at least 4. Oh, and you can't use Necrocarnum unless you're evil.

[zagan]

Ok thanks, now I understand thing better, I was missing the expand souldmeld from the class itself.
Where's Incarnum focus from ? I can't find that feat in the book.

Tavar: The feat necrocarnum acolyte allow incarnate or soulborn from any alignement to use necrocarnum soulmeld.

[Glimbur]

Incarnum Focus is an item property. If you happen to be in a monty haul type game you can just put it on every item you own by the stacking rules from the MiC and not worry about taking Split Chakra. That's pretty pricey though.

[Sinfire Titan]

Ok thanks, now I understand thing better, I was missing the expand souldmeld from the class itself.
Where's Incarnum focus from ? I can't find that feat in the book.

Tavar: The feat necrocarnum acolyte allow incarnate or soulborn from any alignement to use necrocarnum soulmeld.

Magic Item Compendium. 15K, +1 Essentia Capacity, doesn't count against Chakra slot.

Incarnum Focus is an item property. If you happen to be in a monty haul type game you can just put it on every item you own by the stacking rules from the MiC and not worry about taking Split Chakra. That's pretty pricey though.

What does Monty Haul have to do with this? This is optimization, not random treasure generation.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Because putting it on every item you own, regardless of optimization or whether it even occupies an item slot, is an extravagant waste that can only be done if you're in a Monty-Haul game with massive amounts of treasure?

[Sinfire Titan]

Because putting it on every item you own, regardless of optimization or whether it even occupies an item slot, is an extravagant waste that can only be done if you're in a Monty-Haul game with massive amounts of treasure?

In my experience, you only need one for every instance of the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat you take. Any more than that is wasteful. Furthermore, using the MiC's rules on combining items it costs you next to nothing to fuse the Incarnum Focus with another item. Aside from the price of the two items, you don't need to spend anything.

Incarnates and Totemists get a lot of mileage out of the standard WBL. Its not unreasonable, and it doesn't require DM Fiat. It just needs the WBL chart as recommended by the MiC, PH2, and DMG. Remember that the Incarnate and Totemist have little need for magic weapons or armor (they can use them, but they don't need them) which frees up 300K. A single Incarnum Focus requires 15K. 10 of them (one for every Chakra slot) costs 150K. That's overkill 90% of the time.

[zagan]

I didn't know about that enchantement, you're right it's really usefull.

Thank you all for the help, now when building an incarnate, I'll know what to use.

[Person_Man]

Also keep in mind that you can't use a magic item in the same slot as a soulmeld. So that limits your ability to use Incarnum Focus and other magic items.

As a side note, I'd say that one of the biggest annoyances of Incarnum is the complexity of essentia capacity, charkra binds, and Incarnum feats. They should have just came up with a simple formula (Hit Die divided by 3, minimum 1), and a long list of soulmelds, with each soulmeld having a single chakra bind corresponding to one of 9ish slots (crown, brow, hands, arms, feet, throat, shoulders, waist, heart) with each slot corresponding to a magic item slot (with heart covering the armor/body/shirt/vestment slot). With no feats or class abilities that modified them or created alternate rules for handling them. Incarnum is such a great idea - why did they have to make it so fiddly?

[Sinfire Titan]

Also keep in mind that you can't use a magic item in the same slot as a soulmeld. So that limits your ability to use Incarnum Focus and other magic items.

As a side note, I'd say that one of the biggest annoyances of Incarnum is the complexity of essentia capacity, charkra binds, and Incarnum feats. They should have just came up with a simple formula (Hit Die divided by 3, minimum 1), and a long list of soulmelds, with each soulmeld having a single chakra bind corresponding to one of 9ish slots (crown, brow, hands, arms, feet, throat, shoulders, waist, heart) with each slot corresponding to a magic item slot (with heart covering the armor/body/shirt/vestment slot). With no feats or class abilities that modified them or created alternate rules for handling them. Incarnum is such a great idea - why did they have to make it so fiddly?

Incarnum is like a computer: Tough to learn but user-friendly once you understand it. Most of the time.

[Blackfang108]

Also keep in mind that you can't use a magic item in the same slot as a soulmeld. So that limits your ability to use Incarnum Focus and other magic items.

Um...

Incarnum Focus SPECIFICALLY STATES that it does not close off a chakra from binds. Flat out.
MoI p114

[Sinfire Titan]

Um...

Incarnum Focus SPECIFICALLY STATES that it does not close off a chakra from binds. Flat out.
MoI p114

This trait was kept in the MiC's errata.

[Person_Man]

Um...

Incarnum Focus SPECIFICALLY STATES that it does not close off a chakra from binds. Flat out.
MoI p114

Really? Flips through MIC. You are correct. Apparently you can buy an Incarnate Focus item for every chakra slot, and it doesn't block your ability to bind a soulmeld to that slot. I apologize for posting erroneous information. But it's a really odd item. Essentially, an Incarnate or Totemist will need/want to buy 9 or 10 of these - one for each slot they can use. The Totemist is also slightly screwed, in that the Totem chakra doesn't have a body slot, and thus can't use this item.

So basically, I'd like to repeat my previous criticism. It's a great and very creative system - it's just way too fiddly.

[Sinfire Titan]

Really? Flips through MIC. You are correct. Apparently you can buy an Incarnate Focus item for every chakra slot, and it doesn't block your ability to bind a soulmeld to that slot. I apologize for posting erroneous information. But it's a really odd item. Essentially, an Incarnate or Totemist will need/want to buy 9 or 10 of these - one for each slot they can use. The Totemist is also slightly screwed, in that the Totem chakra doesn't have a body slot, and thus can't use this item.

So basically, I'd like to repeat my previous criticism. It's a great and very creative system - it's just way too fiddly.

...Nooooo. Only 2, maybe 3 tops.

I say it again, 10 of those is overkill. You only need them for your primary offense or most commonly used slot. If you are an Incarnate who focuses on melee combat, you'll likely need one for the Arms and one for the Soul (Incarnate Weapon and Avatar, respectively). You can afford lower essentia capacity in others. An Incarnate focused on Use Magic Device will want one for the Brow, and possibly one for the Incarnate Avatar (Neutral Good is the best alignment for UMD, as your AC will cover you if the party can't keep the enemies away from you). Chaotic Incarnates will want one for the Hands chakra, to make better use of the Sighting Gloves.


Totemists have no need of an Incarnum Focus on their Totem. By default, whatever they bind to their Totem also occupies another chakra slot, thus allowing that slot to bear the Incarnum Focus.