Cool Gestalt Concept: Incarnate Warrior

[Human Paragon 3]

Here's a cool and unique gestalt combo: One side Warrior (Unearthed Arcana, like a fighter but can pick any feats, not just fighter feats, lose:heavy armor) the other side Incarnate (MoI). I think the two classes balance eachother quite well. The Incarnate gets some really cool abilities and amazing versatility but has crappy BAB and HD, balanced nicely by the warrior. Suddenly all those mele sould melds are worth something. The Warrior's incredible amount of feats allows the player to really explore the incarnate feats (like Shape Soulmeld) not to mention fill out any other weaknesses the incarnate has. Unlike the Warrior/Arcane Caster or Warrior/Psion, most of the Incarnate's abilities do not require a standard action to activate, they are always-on item type abilities that can be discharged or re-aranged as a free action (unless I misunderstand). The warrior's lack of heavy armor is not much of a problem with soulmelds in place because you'll likely create items that take up the chest slot anyway.

Vow of Poverty might even be an option here, since it goes along with the inner-strength vibe and the incarnate can create items that bypass VoPs major drawbacks (mobility and msic. special powers).

Any thoughts on how to pimp this build out/what soulmelds and feats to take?

[Sinfire Titan]

The Incarnate actually all ready was a melee class without Gestalt. They can get higher Attack/Damage/Armor Class than any other non-casting class in the game, which is really impressive considering their 1/2 BAB offsets their power a tad.

A way around it is Incarnate 16/Cleric 1/Kensei 3, grabbing the Skilled weapon quality from Kensei and applying it to your Incarnate Weapon. Massive attack bonuses for doing this, almost never misses (even with the third attack). An easier way is to just designate the IW as a Legacy Item, which may be more effective in the long run.

VoP is actually a hindrance, even for Incarnates. Its a great way to get started with the class if you've never used the MoI before, but LN Incarnate actually comes out ahead. VoP Incarnate is good if you can get into Apostle of Peace and Sapphire Heirarch (which you can't do due to alignment restrictions, which is why they were put there).

Lawful Neutral actually is the best alignment for Incarnate Tanks. Glass cannons prefer NE/CN, while Skill Monkey builds want NG/CN for various reasons.

But the best Gestalt Incarnate tank build is one of the following: Crusader/Incarnate, Druid/Incarnate, Cleric/Incarnate, or Warblade/Incarnate. Any alignment works for those 4, but LN gets the best Attack bonuses (almost never misses), and Druid/Incarnate actually works with VoP even at 20th (due to Wild Shape being amazing anyway).

Trust me on this. I wrote the Incarnum Handbook. Read through it to get a good idea on how to build an Incarnate character.


PS: Totemists kick ass.

[ArmorArmadillo]

As much as this does sound cool, the problem is that, although this is a strong concept if you aren't breaking the game wide open, you're not playing a balanced gestalt character.

[Ecalsneerg]

Many DMs also wouldn't allow it, as the 'generic' UA classes are meant to be used as stand-alones, not with other classes with actual flavour.