Incarnum, is it worth it?

[Infernum]

Ive been looking over the alternate magic systems as of late and have come to my conclusions on some of the systems like Binders, Shadowcasters and True Namers. (In my opinion they all are kinda crappy, but that is not what im here to talk about.)

But im kinda on the fence on Incarnum, im not sure about it. From what Ive read, they are kinda neat and have a lot of little special finicky powers and abilities, but im not sure it has enough on its own to really be a class that would be useful or even exist since they don't seem that powerful besides having lots of little abilities.

I am curious if someone can give me some insight into how these run in games and how useful they end up being or if they die as fast as i think they might.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Incarnum actually does pretty well at hitting things and skill monkeying. Just ignore the all of the Soulborn class. Their soulmelds are nice, just not with the class itself.


As for the Tome of Magic, Binders are amazing, Shadowcasters are so-so, and don't really bother with the Truenamer's crunch.

[Keld Denar]

MoI is similar to ToB in that its literally insertable ANYWHERE. Seriously. Dip a level, spare a feat, learn a spell (or better, a power), or take it 1 - 20, you're options are never limited. Its fun, diverse, and brings an interesting mechanic to the table, once you've read it through 4-5 times.

Take that for what you will.

[Kyeudo]

From what I've seen of Incarnum, it rocks. The Arena sees a fair number of Incarnum-users (one of mine, a Totemist, was the first to break level 3), and they pack a lot of versatility and power into each match when used well.

If you want to give Truenaming a second chance, have a look at the fix in my sig. Most of what is wrong with truenaming doesn't take much work to get back on track.

[For Valor]

Use:

Soulborn--No
Incarnte--Sure
Totemist--Yes

Binder--Yes. Try and get the Summon Monster vestige
Shadowcaster--Sure
Truenamer--No

[lsfreak]

Binder and MoI (if you ignore the soulborn) are tied for "single best thing to come out of 3.5e" (followed closely by ToB).

Incarnum is complicated your first time through, but very flavorful and works - and works well - mechanically, and without being broken. And as said, it's one of those things that works great whether you take a single feat, or take a whole class.

[Aharon]

Actually, Truenamers aren't half as bad as most people think. They have access to some awesome utterances, and an ability no other class can reproduce - Rebuild Item. This can be used with potion-tiles, an alternative to normal tiles described in Complete Arcane. The Laws governing Truespeak aren't as hard as most posters think, as you can heighten your utterances to lessen the impact. Mortalbane in conjunction with the damage dealing utterances is awesome. The only hard part is getting your checks high enough, but that can be dealt with if you optimize thoroughly. I imagine playing from 1 is tedious, but if you start in the mid-level range (specifically, if you start having access to Rebuild Item), they are between Tier 3 and Tier 4.
You have to do lots of book-dipping to find useful potions to rebuild, though.

[Catch]

Since it's been mentioned a couple times, I thought I'd point out that Person_Man made a neat little Soulborn fix here, and it's worth a look.

[senrath]

Actually, Truenamers aren't half as bad as most people think. They have access to some awesome utterances, and an ability no other class can reproduce - Rebuild Item. This can be used with potion-tiles, an alternative to normal tiles described in Complete Arcane. The Laws governing Truespeak aren't as hard as most posters think, as you can heighten your utterances to lessen the impact. Mortalbane in conjunction with the damage dealing utterances is awesome. The only hard part is getting your checks high enough, but that can be dealt with if you optimize thoroughly. I imagine playing from 1 is tedious, but if you start in the mid-level range (specifically, if you start having access to Rebuild Item), they are between Tier 3 and Tier 4.
You have to do lots of book-dipping to find useful potions to rebuild, though.

If you absolutely need specific items to be able to be at all functional, I think that qualifies as "bad".

[lesser_minion]

Actually, Truenamers aren't half as bad as most people think. They have access to some awesome utterances, and an ability no other class can reproduce - Rebuild Item. This can be used with potion-tiles, an alternative to normal tiles described in Complete Arcane. The Laws governing Truespeak aren't as hard as most posters think, as you can heighten your utterances to lessen the impact. Mortalbane in conjunction with the damage dealing utterances is awesome. The only hard part is getting your checks high enough, but that can be dealt with if you optimize thoroughly.

The reason the truenamer is so despised it doesn't have a tier is because sucks if you don't optimise through the nose, and it rips the game a new one if you do.

Most classes don't mandate that the player optimise them to all hell and back.

If you absolutely need specific items to be able to be at all functional, I think that qualifies as "bad".

Like stat boosters, which everyone absolutely needs?

[Keld Denar]

Truenamers need Item Familiar to function...

Druids need Natural Spell

Fighter/Barbs need Power Attack

Everyone gets a feat tax...except those durned wizards!

[senrath]

Like stat boosters, which everyone absolutely needs?

You don't need stat boosters. They're nice, but not essential. Good luck functioning as a Truenamer without every Truenaming boosting item you can get your hands on (all of the printed ones, plus a custom one or two).

[lesser_minion]

Truenamers need Item Familiar to function...

Yeah... eeeew.

Druids need Natural Spell

Not really. It's a cute bonus on top of an already overpowered platform (Casters with some vestige of a limiting factor? How preposterous!).

Fighter/Barbs need Power Attack

There are a few alternatives. See also Combat Expertise/Improved Trip.

Everyone gets a feat tax...except those durned wizards!

Well, metamagic can constitute a feat tax, and it's needed a bit more than druids need natural spell.

[Aharon]

@lesser minion
The impression I usually get is that people forget an optimized truenamer is able to assist a party.

@magic item dependency
Assuming magic mart, you can totally build a Truenamer without Item Familiar (though he will be far stronger having it.):

At 12th level, for example, you can have a Truespeak modifier of
15 ranks +7 int +2 Heroism +10 racial +10 enhancement +12 circumstance +2 competence +1 illiterate (+35 unnamed)= 59(94)

The 35 unnamed are from Universal Aptitude, if you play in Eberron or in a campaign where Eberron sources are allowed. If that is the case, you can get a Tile of Metamagic Item (Persistent Spell), which can be applied to wands and scepters of Universal Aptitude, as it doesn't modify the Spell Slot (Complete Arcane states that metamagic feats that don't modify the spell slots can be applied to spell-like abilities, Utterances can be stored in spell trigger items despite being spell-likes, and not spells.

[Person_Man]

Incarnate: Very strong defenses and good mobility. OK Skill Monkeys, which becomes excellent if you dip one level into any Skill Monkey class and take Able Learner. A few good Save or Suck effects. A small but interesting number of combos.

Totemist: Very strong offense and mobility, with decent defense.

Soulborn: Made of suck unless you use a homebrew fix, which Catch was nice enough to link to. With the fix they're basically an Incarnum Gish that specializes in Smite.

Binder: Large number of Save or Lose effects and weird but awesome combos. Strong mental defenses (Slippery Mind, Mind Blank). Excellent party faces and scouts.

Truenamer: Garbage. I've seen several good homebrew re-writes though.

Shadowcaster: Basically full casters with very limited spell lists and spells per day. Basically just needs heavy PrC use to be playable.

[AstralFire]

Incarnum is fully functional, but I find it mechanically boring for some reason. Different strokes.

[DragoonWraith]

Actually, Truenamers aren't half as bad as most people think. They have access to some awesome utterances, and an ability no other class can reproduce - Rebuild Item. This can be used with potion-tiles, an alternative to normal tiles described in Complete Arcane. The Laws governing Truespeak aren't as hard as most posters think, as you can heighten your utterances to lessen the impact. Mortalbane in conjunction with the damage dealing utterances is awesome. The only hard part is getting your checks high enough, but that can be dealt with if you optimize thoroughly. I imagine playing from 1 is tedious, but if you start in the mid-level range (specifically, if you start having access to Rebuild Item), they are between Tier 3 and Tier 4.
You have to do lots of book-dipping to find useful potions to rebuild, though.

That's not that powerful an ability, that's an extremely tenuous rules interpretation, and regardless such a dependence by default makes Truenamers awful. You've been preaching this same message in several threads, and no one agrees with you. You're welcome to your opinion, but the evangelization is getting annoying. You're starting to sound like Giacomo.

[AmberVael]

I just want to put out there that an Incarnate's capabilities and role are not necessarily obvious. When you see a 1/2 BAB, d6 HD class with a kind of magical mechanic to them, you really don't think "Oh, this is a combat class."

It can do other things (it IS pretty good at skilling), but generally the builds I see take advantage of its attack power.


I personally like Incarnum, but find it best works in a Gestalt environment, or as a splash or multi-classed character. It has a number of nifty things to it, but a great number of them are passive, or are best when spammed... so it can get a little tedious at times.
Still, you can do some great things with it.

[Gametime]

If memory serves, there are a few Utterances that are worthwhile; there's a slow analogue with no save, for example, and some kind of immobilization effect that (again) offers no save. Zaq's writeup calls out the utterances that are really worth using.

The problem with truenamers is that they're meant to have spells with a chance of failure, just like normal spellcasters, but instead of offering saving throws they require a skill check instead. The designers clearly realized that skill checks are easy to pump, because they made the DCs absurd, but with enough focus you can hit them regularly. Once you do, there are very few limiting factors on your ability to debuff enemies, although all your debuffs will be short-term and you don't have a huge selection.

Truenamers also lack a lot of basic utility; their fly equivalent only lasts for 5 rounds, for instance, and there are a lot of utterances that are just worthless.

Truenamers aren't unplayable, but playing one makes you realize there isn't enough interesting crunch behind the obviously-awful scaling DC to make them worth the effort.

[Fax Celestis]

Soulborn: Made of suck unless you use a homebrew fix, which Catch was nice enough to link to. With the fix they're basically an Incarnum Gish that specializes in Smite.

My favorite Soulborn fix is to gestalt it with Soulknife in a nongestalt environment.

[AmberVael]

My favorite Soulborn fix is to gestalt it with Soulknife in a nongestalt environment.

That sounds like a lot of fun, actually. It would be nice to have an incarnum mechanic for the Soulknife weapon, but it's probably better without it (so as not to tie up more essentia).

[Fax Celestis]

That sounds like a lot of fun, actually. It would be nice to have an incarnum mechanic for the Soulknife weapon, but it's probably better without it (so as not to tie up more essentia).

There's the Psycarnum Blade feat. :P

[valadil]

I've heard good things about the system in theory, but never actually talked to anyone who played it. If you do buy a copy, make sure your DM is okay with it or be willing to DM it yourself.

[Maerok]

Amazon was selling Magic of Incarnum for $5 a while back. Why not pick it up?

[Optimystik]

Since we have all the (remaining ) Incarnum fans in one thread, could someone explain the joke in the 3rd panel of this comic?

I would think there'd have to be some soulmeld available at 18 that could help Redcloak out, whether via telepathy or torture.

Note - before this comic, I had no idea Incarnum even existed - now I am among it's staunchest supporters

[Gametime]

Since we have all the (remaining ) Incarnum fans in one thread, could someone explain the joke in the 3rd panel of this comic?

I would think there'd have to be some soulmeld available at 18 that could help Redcloak out, whether via telepathy or torture.

Note - before this comic, I had no idea Incarnum even existed - now I am among it's staunchest supporters

I think it's a tongue-in-cheek reference to Incarnum being useless, although it might just represent Redcloaks unwillingness to bother learning the Incarnum rules.

[Optimystik]

I think it's a tongue-in-cheek reference to Incarnum being useless, although it might just represent Redcloaks unwillingness to bother learning the Incarnum rules.

That's what I thought at first, but these boards convinced me Incarnum is far from useless... and Rich is a pretty smart guy/decent optimizer, he would have had to know that Incarnum isn't bad. But at the same time, for Redcloak to dismiss the Incarnum user out of hand like he did, he would have to have some idea of what Incarnum is. So that joke confuses me to this day.

I think it was just because incarnum is a rare and unusual form of magic, even moreso than psionics. As such, it's less likely that O'Chul has a counter for it.

So then why didn't he call for the Incarnum user? Asking only for the 8-ball and cookies implies he wanted nothing to do with Incarnum. And I would think an 18th-level anything would be handy.

EDIT: Ninja-leeted!

[DragoonWraith]

For the record, I definitely support Incarnum in all ways. The only book ever published for 3.5 that was better than Magic of Incarnum was Tome of Battle.

And the only reason I believe ToB was better is simply because ToB was far more necessary; the system desperately needed what it had to offer, while MoI was just a ridiculously cool and elegantly designed (if inelegantly explained) addition that the system could live without, though it would be much worse off.

[Infernum]

OK, thanks for all the input on Incarnum, I have come to my own conclusions on it, but the input did make a strong case for it. I believe that Totemists are very cool and workable, Incarnates are ok and more useful as a splash class, no reason to take them any higher than a few levels, and Soulborns are awful unless you tweak them(not really worth it though). (Though all this is just my opinion, for what thats worth) They can have a place in a setting I am working on, just as psionics and Archivists (although i am tweaking this class because it is way to powerful, even near broken if you allow certain things.) I thank everyone for their input on Incarnum and shall return with questions on other topics later.

HOWEVER,

I am surprised at how often something else happens on the GITP forums though, i made mention of my personal opinion on the classes front he Tome of Magic and then stated that that was not what i was here to ask about or discuss, and yet those classes are discussed almost as much as the topic i wanting to learn about. Although i could have just as easily left out my opinion on them and continued forward. But from what ive seen, when ever someone makes mention of their opinion on a class then segue into what they are wanting to discuss people jump to that classes defense or try and prove that person wrong. I am curious why people feel the need to do this. In some cases i understand, since people are looking for people to argue with them, but when its stated that the opinion stated of a class is not what is meant to be discussed, that generally means that that isnt what the OP wants to hear about.

[Person_Man]

My favorite Soulborn fix is to gestalt it with Soulknife in a nongestalt environment.

Definitely a good idea - Soulknife + full BAB and armor + minor incarnum and Smite abilities would definitely improve it. But without a rewrite, it would still be a Tier 4ish class.

The RAW Mindblade is weaker then what you can afford with standard WBL and can't be enchanted. So using it saves you a little gp, but usually puts you at a disadvantage. And the RAW Soulborn only gets 10 points of essentia, 5 soulmelds, and 3 chakra binds, with no access to Heart or Soul slots and no expanded essentia capacity.

But give me a bit and I could combine my homebrew Soulborn with my homebrew Soulknife for a workable Tier 3 class.