necromantic warrior class (incarnum)

[LairdMaon]

Hi, I'm new to homebrewing so please bear with me.

I'm working on a base class. The concept is a melee class that uses undead-tainted incarnum to improve it's combat ability. A selection of, not yet designed, soulmelds would grant special abilities and/or qualities of certain undead creatures. A class feature acquired early on would allow touch attacks and abilities to be channeled through melee weapons in a fashion similar, if not identical to, the duskblade's arcane channeling. A mid-level feature would be named Signature Soulmeld and would allow the capacity of one soulmeld to increase by a value equal to the constitution modifier of the character.

I welcome any thoughts, any questions, and any criticisms so long as they are constructive in some way.

[Amechra]

Signature Soulmeld is not a good idea, because there are methods of filling any Soulmeld to capacity; if you're willing to spend your Swift action each round, you can keep one Soulmeld full around the clock without investing any Essentia into it.

Otherwise, it sounds like it'll be pretty neat; I hope you'll post it once you've put enough work into it.

[LairdMaon]

I feel like a should recall that swift action method... But it's just not coming to me.
The fact that it exists is reason enough to remove the signature soulmeld idea.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

[Amechra]

I misremembered; it's a move action:

Psycarnum Infusion lets you fill an Essentia receptacle to capacity.
Psionic Meditation allows you to become psionically focused as a move action instead of a full-round action.

However, if you want to be cheesy about it, dip Psion to become Psionic and pick up the hovering crystal rock; Psicrystals have the same number of HD that you do, and can take feats. If you can pick your Psicrystal's feats, just give it Wild Talent and Psionic Meditation; if not, well... Psionic Reformations are surprisingly cheap.

Then take Psicrystal Containment, so that you can spend your Psicrystal's psionic focus.

Ta-da!

---

High-power hijinx aside... Signature Soulmeld is still a bad idea; if you still want them to improve a Soulmeld, it's traditional to give it a few small bumps to save DC, Essentia Capacity, or meldshaper level.

[LairdMaon]

I'm thinking of using a modified version of the soulborn soulmeld list. Just more available to be actually used.

I like Apparition Ribbon, Strongheart Vest and Crystal Helm.
I still need to weed through that list and see which ones to keep and which ones to replace.

I do know I want full BAB for this class. Proficient with simple and martial weapons. Up to medium armor.

Soulmelds would include defenses in the forms of undead mimicking damage reductions, immunities and resistances.

Possibly give Tomb Tainted Soul as a bonus feat within the first three levels.

[Amechra]

They should totally get Necrocarnum Acolyte as a bonus feat along with Tomb-Tainted Soul.

[LairdMaon]

Thus opening them up to necrocarnum as well, I dig it!

Bonus coolness: Better Essentia pool than Necrocarnate! No 'gotta kill to have essentia' limitation.

Still not sure when to open chakras. I can't allow this class to follow the soulborn progression on that issue.

I gotta say, I'm greatly enjoying this!

[LairdMaon]

Any thoughts on a class feature, introduced at the same time as the first chakra bind becomes available, that states that as long as the character has at least one (undead) soulmeld bound to a chakra all of his/her hit dice are effectively maxed out.

The flavor would be that the character is tapping into the vitality of the undead creatures used in that soulmeld.

Could be balanced by making the class hit die d8 or d10.

[LairdMaon]

Potential class name:

Gravesoul Warrior

Any other ideas are welcome