Pathfinder 1E Incarnum in Pathfinder
- Thread starter paradox42
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Not really, more like an add-on to the original, since my group found it lacking. More like a monk who grew in an incarnum-using culture. Something like what Dream Scarred Press did with the 3.5 monk in one of their books, they just added psionics to it. I just added essentia to it 
For my oriental campaign, we used the OA shaman with the incarnum domain, re-flavoring it as the "wheel of reincarnation". I also had a Spirit Folk variant who, after reincarnating many times, became infused by the wheel's power. Since I really disliked the Incarnum races, I used this as the only incarnum race in my campaign.
Wheel Spirit Folk
As other spirit folk, but they get 1 essentia point, have the incarnum subtype, and the Racial Knowledge ability of the rilkans, which by the way was the only good and iconic racial ability of the new races.
For my oriental campaign, we used the OA shaman with the incarnum domain, re-flavoring it as the "wheel of reincarnation". I also had a Spirit Folk variant who, after reincarnating many times, became infused by the wheel's power. Since I really disliked the Incarnum races, I used this as the only incarnum race in my campaign.
Wheel Spirit Folk
As other spirit folk, but they get 1 essentia point, have the incarnum subtype, and the Racial Knowledge ability of the rilkans, which by the way was the only good and iconic racial ability of the new races.
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Radiant incarnate playtest
After some consideration and quite a bit of gaming I do like the feel of the incarnate's radiant archetype, that being said there is a couple problems that developed.
Firstly: The Golden Hammer soulmeld can undermine all of the item creation feats, by itself it is oddly balanced against the pathfinder item creation rules to which I initially applauded (since the shape soulmeld feat seemed to be nixed from the update).
While the game I was playing wasn't particularly strict (or balanced... or resembling anything sane) the versatility of this meld became very apparent as I maxed out spellcraft and stacked it with the mage spectacles for about a +20 at level 5, easily enough to craft most items I could afford. I had selected the golden hammer and dragon mantle for my expanded meldshaping feat.
I transferred it to the cleric... and the crafting DC's dropped to through floor.
Then almost every caster took open least chakra and my poor incarnate's soul was sequestered by the party during non-adventuring days, leaving him shivering and twitching in the corner as the began crafting their works of art.
The alchemist went a little crazy, and things may have gotten a little out of hand as the parties total wealth was nearly twice that which is recommended.
I think the paladin might very well be invincible.
While most of this was just in good fun, it did show that this particular soulmeld is far too versatile considering the number of item creation feats out there.
Perhaps change it to one of the craft feats or make it give a craft feat depending on the chakra it's bound to.
Secondly: The class seems to lack aggressiveness. Most of the class abilities are defensive in nature and most of the soulmelds for the class are as well. Which was ok for my psychotic party but it can feel like one wrong soulmeld can eliminate the ability to contribute in combat.
Maybe switching out the incarnum radiance feature instead of the rapid meldshaping for the infused soulmeld features and whatnot instead, or just changing the class to an average attack progression.
After some consideration and quite a bit of gaming I do like the feel of the incarnate's radiant archetype, that being said there is a couple problems that developed.
Firstly: The Golden Hammer soulmeld can undermine all of the item creation feats, by itself it is oddly balanced against the pathfinder item creation rules to which I initially applauded (since the shape soulmeld feat seemed to be nixed from the update).
While the game I was playing wasn't particularly strict (or balanced... or resembling anything sane) the versatility of this meld became very apparent as I maxed out spellcraft and stacked it with the mage spectacles for about a +20 at level 5, easily enough to craft most items I could afford. I had selected the golden hammer and dragon mantle for my expanded meldshaping feat.
I transferred it to the cleric... and the crafting DC's dropped to through floor.
Then almost every caster took open least chakra and my poor incarnate's soul was sequestered by the party during non-adventuring days, leaving him shivering and twitching in the corner as the began crafting their works of art.
The alchemist went a little crazy, and things may have gotten a little out of hand as the parties total wealth was nearly twice that which is recommended.
I think the paladin might very well be invincible.
While most of this was just in good fun, it did show that this particular soulmeld is far too versatile considering the number of item creation feats out there.
Perhaps change it to one of the craft feats or make it give a craft feat depending on the chakra it's bound to.
Secondly: The class seems to lack aggressiveness. Most of the class abilities are defensive in nature and most of the soulmelds for the class are as well. Which was ok for my psychotic party but it can feel like one wrong soulmeld can eliminate the ability to contribute in combat.
Maybe switching out the incarnum radiance feature instead of the rapid meldshaping for the infused soulmeld features and whatnot instead, or just changing the class to an average attack progression.
Thanks for the critique and feedback!
But the problem of combining Golden Hammer with Radiant Incarnate (or Spirit Guide, or most to the point Patternmelder since that's actually a Foundationist that gets the meld without spending a feat) had never occurred to me before! That is indeed a serious issue. Thanks for pointing it out.
The simplest fix, here, I think, is to reword the Golden Hammer so that it becomes clear that the ability to meet feat prerequisites applies to the wearer's own meldshaper level, rather than the meldshaper level of the soulmeld; this would mean that if you give a Golden Hammer to a character who isn't a meldshaper, they have no meldshaper level so that Item Creation feat is useless to them because they don't meet the prereqs.
Alternatively, maybe it is just Too Damned Good to allow access to all the feats, and should be limited to a selection like Arms & Armor, Wondrous Item, and Forge Ring. Or perhaps the meld substitutes meldshaper level for caster/manifester level and just grants you the ability to actually take the Item Creation feats, like it was giving you Master Craftsman and X Craft ranks (where X = your meldshaper level).
Note that the massive skill bonus you achieved is not actually very difficult to get with meldshapers- meldshapers actually make spectacular skill monkeys if properly configured and played. +20 for one specific skill at level 5 is a lot, yes, but believe it or not I've seen higher bonuses.
Your suggestion about average attack progression has been suggested for the Incarnate before, though, and perhaps should in fact be done- Incarnate is, after all, patterned after the Cleric in that it's the "Cleric" of meldshapers to the Totemist "Druid" and the Soulborn "Paladin," and the Cleric has average attack progression- so why not the Incarnate too? It's clear that the original WotC designers wanted Incarnate to be a sort of stand-in for both Cleric and Wizard, with regards to meldshaping, but the actual selection of soulmelds is all Cleric really- hardly anything Wizard-worthy is there to be seen. That was why I had to come up with so many new ones for the Foundationist.
If you can get your GM to change the attack progression (or if you are the GM and want to change it), I say go for it.
Shape Soulmeld actually never got an update, because it didn't really need one as-is. You'll notice that a few other feats exist in MoI which never got updated, like Soultouched Spellcasting; this was intentional. Expanded Meldshaping was intended to be used for serious meldshapers, and especially meldshapers who research their own soulmelds; Shape Soulmeld is more of a dabbler's feat (though the Soulborn can use it to get a critical soulmeld at 1st level, also).
But the problem of combining Golden Hammer with Radiant Incarnate (or Spirit Guide, or most to the point Patternmelder since that's actually a Foundationist that gets the meld without spending a feat) had never occurred to me before! That is indeed a serious issue. Thanks for pointing it out.
The simplest fix, here, I think, is to reword the Golden Hammer so that it becomes clear that the ability to meet feat prerequisites applies to the wearer's own meldshaper level, rather than the meldshaper level of the soulmeld; this would mean that if you give a Golden Hammer to a character who isn't a meldshaper, they have no meldshaper level so that Item Creation feat is useless to them because they don't meet the prereqs.
Alternatively, maybe it is just Too Damned Good to allow access to all the feats, and should be limited to a selection like Arms & Armor, Wondrous Item, and Forge Ring. Or perhaps the meld substitutes meldshaper level for caster/manifester level and just grants you the ability to actually take the Item Creation feats, like it was giving you Master Craftsman and X Craft ranks (where X = your meldshaper level).
Note that the massive skill bonus you achieved is not actually very difficult to get with meldshapers- meldshapers actually make spectacular skill monkeys if properly configured and played. +20 for one specific skill at level 5 is a lot, yes, but believe it or not I've seen higher bonuses.
This is another potential solution, but makes the meld versatile in an entirely different way- the number of Chakras you can use it with. Still, the point is well taken.
Incarnate in general is not a super-aggressive class, actually, and Radiant is intentionally even less so. It was designed to fill more of a "party buffer" role than anything else- that's what the Infused Soulmeld class feature is designed to do in the first place.
Your suggestion about average attack progression has been suggested for the Incarnate before, though, and perhaps should in fact be done- Incarnate is, after all, patterned after the Cleric in that it's the "Cleric" of meldshapers to the Totemist "Druid" and the Soulborn "Paladin," and the Cleric has average attack progression- so why not the Incarnate too? It's clear that the original WotC designers wanted Incarnate to be a sort of stand-in for both Cleric and Wizard, with regards to meldshaping, but the actual selection of soulmelds is all Cleric really- hardly anything Wizard-worthy is there to be seen. That was why I had to come up with so many new ones for the Foundationist.
If you can get your GM to change the attack progression (or if you are the GM and want to change it), I say go for it.
So how was it?
Well we haven't gotten more than 2 sessions in since then because of cancellations for varioes reasons. But basicly, I have the highest stable DPS on team, but our magus can out-spike me. The wizard has waaaaay more utility than me but that's to be expected. Our bard or skald or whatever throws pianos because he can. Definitely the least effective character on team, but that's part by his own choice and his buffs still contribute nicely. All in all, we seem to contribute fairly evenly, though I'm pretty much invisible while scouting because of maxed stealth, an item and a soulmeld.
Thanks for the test and the feedback! What level is the party?
On a side (but related) note, I'm actually running my own game these days, and the party has just attacked a mountain fortress wherein lies a tribe of desert-dwelling people who've been making their living by banditry. Last session the party took care of most of the noncombatant tribe members and mooks, and this coming weekend they go after the leadership who gathered together on the top level to figure out a plan to deal with the intruders. One of the leaders is a 6th-level Totemist using the Monstershaper Archetype, so I'm about to get my own (brief) playtest here. Of course, as an NPC enemy it's more or less intended that he go down in defeat (if not death), but he'll be fighting tooth and claw to avoid that. Should be interesting!
The actual top leader of the tribe is an Azurin Barbarian 8 with a couple of Incarnum feats (including the ridiculously obvious Cobalt Rage), but that's neither here nor there- not a playtest of the Incarnum classes proper.
The first part of the Incarna book is out!
http://paizo.com/products/btpy99rj?Akashic-Mysteries-Vizier
http://paizo.com/products/btpy99rj?Akashic-Mysteries-Vizier
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