Pathfinder 1E Incarnum in Pathfinder

Sorry about the Legs chakra problem... I own Magic of Incarnum, but I also have Insomnia 2 days out of 5, so if I don't seem to make any sense... yeah, that's why.

Yes, Necrocarnates should have Intimidate.

I don't mind if the two pools mix, or if you mix the essentia from the two classes, it's just fluff.

Trap the Soul should probably start off being removed by Remove Curse, then higher level stuff later.

I guess I'm wrong about them being Controllers, though I think if there were a couple of Soulmelds that let them do that, they'd be better. I'm thinking of making the Midnight soulmelds mostly crowd control.

The Kick attack of Necrocarnum boots was just a tentative idea make while sleep deprived, maybe it should be something like feather fall, combined with not setting off ground-based traps. It could even give evasion or something, but only to traps... or maybe a bonus to CMB against attacks of opportunity. All just ideas.

Midnight Cloak was worded wrong, it should be that after the Invisibility wears off, it takes 1 minute to recharge. I'd be fine with 1 minute per ML total per day (divided as you choose into 1 minute increments), at which point it unbinds.

Here's another idea for a Midnight Meld:

Midnight Gloves
Chakra: Hands
Binds: Hands, Arms
These bark blue gloves appear around your hands, making it easier to grab onto surfaces. You also have a vague sense of confidence while you have this soulmeld bound. You gain a +2 bonus to your CMB for grapple checks and CMD against disamr and sunder attempts. For each point of essentia, this bonus increases by 2.
Hand Chakra Bind: The gloves allow you to grab enemies from afar with a large blue hand made of essentia. This works like a normal Grapple manuever except that the maximum range is 5 feet + 5 feet per point of essentia invested in this meld, and activating this ability is a full-round action.
Arms: As the Hands chakra ability, except you may instead grapple a number of enemies within range equal to the Chakra you invest in this ability.

I know it's probably way too strong, but I think it lest the Necrocarnate be a Controller type when needed, immobilizing enemies at a distance.

Chronologist said:

Sorry about the Legs chakra problem... I own Magic of Incarnum, but I also have Insomnia 2 days out of 5, so if I don't seem to make any sense... yeah, that's why.

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Sorry about coming off like an ass myself- I answered that at work and since it's the start of our busy season I got a lot more stupid mistakes to fix than usual. Translation, I wasn't in the best (or most patient) of moods. Bygones?

Chronologist said:

I don't mind if the two pools mix, or if you mix the essentia from the two classes, it's just fluff.

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Well, one reason I keep harping on this is because I really like the idea; I think some really interesting things could be done with it if it does follow slightly different rules. Sort of like the Shadow Weave and the basic Weave in Forgotten Realms, I suppose. But then again, those didn't really use different rules in the end, so perhaps it is best to just say for game purposes that they form one pool like any other multiclass meldshaper gets.

Chronologist said:

Trap the Soul should probably start off being removed by Remove Curse, then higher level stuff later.

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Ooo, good catch! Limited Wish is too strong, true. And I noticed after making that post that your Deathless capstone ability actually includes a Trap-the-Soul-like ability, so maybe that's where the full Wish comes in to the picture. It already is mentioned in the ability, so perhaps just say it extends the Trap the Soul ability to its final level, or something. Cross-reference them, in other words.

Chronologist said:

I guess I'm wrong about them being Controllers, though I think if there were a couple of Soulmelds that let them do that, they'd be better. I'm thinking of making the Midnight soulmelds mostly crowd control.

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So some of these new soulmelds would be shared with Incarnate, and perhaps Soulborn, then? Not at all a bad thought, of course. There's also the idea that, since you've invented this new category (whether or not there are new rules regarding it), you can combine it with the Necrocarnum category to make something like, say, a Midnight Necrocarnum Crown. Or Cloak. Or Armor. Or Whatever.

No, I don't have any specific idea what it does, but it's an idea.

Chronologist said:

The Kick attack of Necrocarnum boots was just a tentative idea make while sleep deprived, maybe it should be something like feather fall, combined with not setting off ground-based traps. It could even give evasion or something, but only to traps... or maybe a bonus to CMB against attacks of opportunity. All just ideas.

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AOOs usually don't allow combat maneuvers, so a bonus to CMD wouldn't really do much in that case. But bonuses against traps could work well- especially since the limited utility of the bonus means that it could legitimately offer a bonus to several things at once, or a larger bonus than most melds give, to make up for the fact that it's limited.

Another idea is that, since this is Necrocarnum, maybe the Boots actually let the wearer move like (some) Undead can- for example, by giving a Fly speed? Just like all those Incorporeal Undead floating around draining peoples' levels?

Chronologist said:

Midnight Cloak was worded wrong, it should be that after the Invisibility wears off, it takes 1 minute to recharge. I'd be fine with 1 minute per ML total per day (divided as you choose into 1 minute increments), at which point it unbinds.

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Oooh, with that new wording the ability actually becomes okay I think. A limited version that doesn't have the long down time could also work; both shouldn't be part of it of course but either could be good.

Chronologist said:

Here's another idea for a Midnight Meld:

Midnight Gloves
Chakra: Hands
Binds: Hands, Arms
These bark blue gloves appear around your hands, making it easier to grab onto surfaces. You also have a vague sense of confidence while you have this soulmeld bound. You gain a +2 bonus to your CMB for grapple checks and CMD against disamr and sunder attempts. For each point of essentia, this bonus increases by 2.
Hand Chakra Bind: The gloves allow you to grab enemies from afar with a large blue hand made of essentia. This works like a normal Grapple manuever except that the maximum range is 5 feet + 5 feet per point of essentia invested in this meld, and activating this ability is a full-round action.
Arms: As the Hands chakra ability, except you may instead grapple a number of enemies within range equal to the Chakra you invest in this ability.

I know it's probably way too strong, but I think it lest the Necrocarnate be a Controller type when needed, immobilizing enemies at a distance.

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That is a really unique ability for Incarnum to grant- and Grappling at a distance is just plain rare and hard to get, period. It's like a Hand spell, right? Oh, and I think with the Arms bind you meant to say "a number equal to the essentia you invest" rather than Chakra.

The first Hand spell that offers Grapple capability is Grasping Hand,which is 7th level (no caster below 13th could get it without buying a scroll, so that's a lower bound on when a meldshaper should get something similar), so that definitely is too strong for a Hands Chakra Bind. It could work for Arms if it has limited duration, maybe.

Perhaps just offer the distance-Grapple-single-enemy as the Arms Bind; its extremely limited range and the requirement of a full-round action to use it are big handicaps from the spell version. If you then still want a Hands Bind for this, how about something like, the meld now offers the bonus to CMB on Disarm and Sunder as well as Grapple, and the bonus to CMD vs. Grapple as well as Disarm and Sunder?

One thing one should think about when creating any soulmeld, particularly a new category of meld, is: where does the power come from? Your Midnight melds are flavorful, but what powers them? How is that power source different from the power sources for other soulmelds? Answering those questions can often suggest new ideas for melds which you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

Right now I don't know what to do with Necrossentia and Essentia, at this point and for playtesting I'd just let them add together. That, or disallow Necrocarnates from taking levels in other Incarnum base classes (maybe normal essentia can't be accessed by people who tap into Necrossentia, and vice versa).

Grappling at a distance is hard to get, but I figure it's better than just getting something like Evard's Black Tentacles. I'll revise it when i have time.

Sorry, I'm kinda on a tight schedule today, I'll post more later.

Now that I have a minute, here are some ideas for Midnight soulmelds and their effects. I'm going to focus on Midnight representing Manipulation, Control, and (strengely enough) neutrality.

Crown - Detect illusions, create illusions
Brow - Read thoughts?
Waist - ?
Shoulders - (done) move gracefully, turn invisible
Arms -
Hands - (done) grab people easier, hold them from afar
Feet - ?
Soul - ?
Throat - command at will, then suggestion
Heart - ignore effects that depend on alignment

Still thinking up effects, but it's good start. Any ideas?

Chronologist said:

Now that I have a minute, here are some ideas for Midnight soulmelds and their effects. I'm going to focus on Midnight representing Manipulation, Control, and (strengely enough) neutrality.

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Actually, just for my own world I had a valid reason to introduce a True Neutral Incarnate; one of the more powerful gods is TN and is specifically the god of Balance above all else. So True Neutral really is strongly represented in my setting, and it makes sense that there would be enough soul energy there to allow Incarnum use. I don't have the list of effects for their Incarnum Radiance available to me at the moment, so I can't post them here- but if there's interest I'll make a new post later detailing my ideas on the topic.

So is that your answer to what actually powers the Midnight melds? (And incidentally, you might also consider the term "Twilight" for them, since if the idea is that they're "in between" then you could also go with "between day and night" for flavor. We'll ignore the mass-market vampire reference.) True Neutral alignment? If so, then perhaps it does deserve special rules as a category- perhaps Incarnates of other alignments should need a special "Acolyte of Balance" (or something) feat to access them. Necrocarnate, not caring so much about alignment, and anyway basing its power on stealing soul power and using them unwillingly rather than on working in concert with them as regular Incarnum users do, would be able to use the Midnight/Twilight melds without difficulty.

Chronologist said:

Crown - Detect illusions, create illusions
Brow - Read thoughts?
Waist - ?
Shoulders - (done) move gracefully, turn invisible
Arms -
Hands - (done) grab people easier, hold them from afar
Feet - ?
Soul - ?
Throat - command at will, then suggestion
Heart - ignore effects that depend on alignment

Still thinking up effects, but it's good start. Any ideas?

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Brow is the slot for Eyes and Goggles, so with your restrictions it makes sense to put more powerful illusion-detection effects there as well as reading thoughts and emotions. And memories, perhaps. Look to add powers from psionics of levels 0-5 or thereabouts, as well as magic.

Waist is the slot for Belts, which typically grant self-empowerment effects (there's a reason all the physical-ability boosters are Belts in PF). The only effect which is coming to my mind is some sort of vampiric stealing of strength or the like, which would be a pretty damned powerful effect obviously.

Arms is similar to Hands, but being a higher Chakra allows more powerful/higher-level effects. Come up with more effects to give to Hands, and put the higher-powered ones into Arms instead I'd say.

Hands might allow telekinesis effects in general, since you're looking at manipulation. One possibility, how about something allowing use of certain skills at a distance like the Ranged Legerdemain (sp?) class feature of Arcane Tricksters?

Feet nearly always grant efects dealing with movement. Cerulean Sandals allow Dimension Door, so perhaps a Midnight Feet bind could allow that effect that swaps positions of two allies? The wearer of the suggested meld can swap locations with an ally within X feet based on essentia, with a limit based on (ML) before it unshapes?

Soul is the armor slot, but the melds in MoI don't really stick to a pattern regarding it other than that the effects it grants are really strong for Incarnum. An example is that the only Chakra Bind power allowing use of a 9th-level spell is the Bind given to Planar Chasuble, granting a 1/week Gate. So, similar notions should work for Midnight melds if you want to give one a Soul bind- save the biggest guns for this.

I like the idea of True Neutral Incarnates, though personally I've never liked the idea of the Incarnate's extreme devotion to a single axis of the alignment scale. Perhaps if a Neutral Incarnate ability was developed, Incarnates could be of any alignment, but had to select one Incarnum Radiance ability that matched their alignment, therefore giving two options to every Incarnate. So, a LG could have the Law or Good radiance (chosen at character creation), while a CN could have the Chaos or Neutral radiance.

Neutral Radiance... neutrality in part relates to being impartial, or at least reactive in a sense. Maybe it could be something like this:
Small bonus over time: 1 point of damage reduction per point of bonus.
First option: Sanctuary effect in a radius. As long as it's active, any enemy that attacks you (or allies for share radiance) makes a Will save or takes 1d6 damage. Maybe higher damage at higher levels.
Second option: ?
Third option: ?

I'm starting to think that there should be set of soulmelds for each alignement. What if you took the alignment-based soulmelds from the book, filled in the gaps with more soulmelds restricted to that alignment, then restricted those sets to a particular kind of Incarnate? So you'd have:

Evil: Necrocarnum melds
Good: Holy melds
Law: Axiom melds
Chaos: Anarchy melds
Neutral: Twilight melds

Here are two feats:

Dual Soul
Prerequisite: Incarnate level 1 or higher
Benefit: You are attuned to both aspects of your alignment. When you select this feat, you gain access to the exclusive soulmelds of both your alignment qualifiers. For example, a Lawful Neutral incarnate would be able to shape both Axiom and Twilight soulmelds. A True Neutral Incarnate may not select this feat.
Normal: Normally, Incarnates select one aspect of their alignement and can only shape the soulmelds associated with that alignment.

Dual Radiance
Prerequisites: Incarnum Radiance, Dual Soul
Benefit: You are even more attuned to the two aspects of your alignment. When you use your Incarnum Radiance class feature, you may choose to gain the benefits of any radiance associated with your alignment. You may only have one of the benefits at any time, though you may change it as normal. A True Neutral incarnate may not select this feat.
Normal: An incarnate of 3rd level selects the same kind of radiance as her favored alignment aspect for selecting melds.

I think this could really work. Plus, it opens up the Incarnate to 5 more possible alignments. It also means that Necrocarnum is available to NE, LE, and CE only. Any thoughts?

The trouble with trying to make new types of soulmelds to match Necrocarnum is that not all soulmelds with the [Evil] descriptor are Necrocarnum; several (such as Bloodwar Gauntlets) are perfectly standard soulmelds that just happen to be Evil. Necrocarnum is Evil because of how the soulmelds are shaped and powered, not because it links to evil-aligned souls. This means that in order to come up with new soulmeld types for each of the four alignment poles, you have to come up with a way in which each of those types is different from standard soulmelds, and all the other types as well. It's not just a matter of slapping on an alignment descriptor and calling it a day; that's not enough. The extra steps have to be taken in order to justify it. The details are everything.

Part of the point of Incarnates is that the power they use- the power of actual souls- is often strongly aligned. The souls won't be attracted to, nor give powers to, people who don't share some of the beliefs that are an integral part of their being. It's not like magic where you have a conscious entity (gods) deciding whether your faith warrants miracles, or you study forces of nature long and hard and learn to unlock them in special ways to produce useful effects (as Arcane casters do). Incarnates work with a power that is not only alive in its own right, but also partly conscious; the souls (in other words) do what they want, and if what they want happens to help the Incarnate, well... that's just a fringe benefit for the Incarnate. This is why Incarnates have to be strongly aligned, and why alignment is so critical to them. Alignment isn't that big a deal in some settings, true; in such settings it makes sense to open up the Incarnate as a class for other alignments. In most settings, though, alignment is a strong enough force in its own right that it makes perfect sense for Incarnates to be restricted. Honestly, the restrictions don't usually mean too much as far as soulmelds go, since the vast majority of soulmelds have no alignment descriptors at all.

As for the Incarnate of Balance, as I was calling it, it took me some digging to find my notes on it- part of the reason I hadn't posted it before now is that it's incomplete. The Incarnum Radiance is the most important thing to get, IMO; after that it's a matter of deciding whether certain melds should have a special [Balance] descriptor which would be like the alignment descriptors for the other four. In other words, none of the other four Incarnate types would be able to access soulmelds carrying the [Balance] descriptor, and the True Neutral Incarnates wouldn't be able to use any of the melds carrying any of the four standard alignment descriptors. Certainly, the Incarnate Avatar and Incarnate Weapon soulmelds need versions for Balance, unless we fudge it a bit and say that Incarnates of Balance can pick one of the four to use each day or something, but that (to me) feels like it's giving too much to the Incarnates of Balance. After all, if they can use all four (even if only one at a time), why play any of the original four types of Incarnate?

But, the Radiance powers I came up with for the Incarnate of Balance were:

• Aura of Stability: +1 to CMD and CMB, bonus incrases every 5th level just like the others do. This applies to all combat maneuvers equally, but not to regular attacks.
• Reflection of Opposition: The Radiance acts like a Protection From [Alignment] spell while active; the Incarnate selects which of the four it protects from each round it is activated. So you could do Evil one round, and then switch to Good the next, if you want to.
• Curse of Instability: The obvious -1 to an enemy's CMB and CMD, increasing at appropriate levels.
• Talent for Coordination: The skill that gets the bonus here is Acrobatics. Incarnates of Balance should be performing feats of circus-like daring with the greatest of ease while under the effects of this; that's the idea.
• Gift of... I have no idea. Here was where I ran out of creative juice. Anybody have suggestions?

The Incarnate Avatar for Balance would look like a Rilmani of course, though I don't know what it does exactly; the weapon I'd suggest should be a trident- or perhaps a morningstar or mace.

When it comes to aligned Incarnates, I guess I;ll just do my own homebrew then. I admit that Necrocarnum is different... perhaps there can be a set of evil soulmelds only for evil characters, and Necrocarnum melds could be reserved for the Necrocarnate.

I like the abilities of the Balance incarnate, though I think the CMB and CMD bonuses should be higher than just +1. I don't like Talent of Co-ordination, maybe if instead it drastically increased the benefits from Aid Another, that would be better. Balance skill and Balance alignment are very different. I have no idea what other skill could be increased, though.

How about this for the last ability:

GIft of Negation: At 18th levels a Balance incarnate can surpass any kind of morality-based defense. While this ability is active, alignment-based abilities (such as certain kinds of damage reduction and spells with the Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos descriptors) cease to function as though in an Antimagic Field that emanates 10 feet around the Incarnate. In addition, all the Incarnate's abilities bypass alignment-based damage reduction, though enhancement bonuses and materials still apply.

It's strong, but it really pushes the concept of neutrality.

Incarnate Avatar would indeed look like a Rilmani. Weapons the Rilmani tend to use are apparently:
Mage
Halberd
Shortsword and Shuriken
Greatsword

I'd make the Incarnate Avatar an Auromach Rilmani, giving the character a Greatsword, and make the Soul Chakra Bind benefit the following (taken from http://www.enworld.org/forum/homebrews/10060-rilmani-champions-neutrality-conversion.html), written by Shade from this site. It looks good to me.

Aura (Su): As a free action, an aurumach can create a golden halo surrounding himself in a 15-foot radius. This energy automatically assumes a form that exploits an enemy's vulnerabilities: acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic, positive energy or negative energy. Any hostile creature entering this area suffers 2d12 points of damage from the aurumach's aura. The aura also functions as a globe of invulnerability and stops missile attacks of any kind.

Chronologist said:

I like the abilities of the Balance incarnate, though I think the CMB and CMD bonuses should be higher than just +1. I don't like Talent of Co-ordination, maybe if instead it drastically increased the benefits from Aid Another, that would be better. Balance skill and Balance alignment are very different. I have no idea what other skill could be increased, though.

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A very interesting idea; I assume you mean that the Incarnate would grant a bonus of, say, +13 to the character he's helping with Aid Another, rather than the standard +2? I like it at first pass, however, it opens up some potentially huge system holes. One trouble I can foresee with that is that it would greatly complicate skill resolution for certain skills, since other characters using them don't necessarily take only 1 round the way the Incarnate using a Talent ability is supposed to. Also, it would let the Incarnate help with attack rolls and CMB, and that strikes me as too good compared to the other Talents.

Chronologist said:

GIft of Negation: At 18th levels a Balance incarnate can surpass any kind of morality-based defense. While this ability is active, alignment-based abilities (such as certain kinds of damage reduction and spells with the Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos descriptors) cease to function as though in an Antimagic Field that emanates 10 feet around the Incarnate. In addition, all the Incarnate's abilities bypass alignment-based damage reduction, though enhancement bonuses and materials still apply.

It's strong, but it really pushes the concept of neutrality.

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...Damn, I can't believe I didn't think of that! You're right, that's obviously perfect- though I think it should be just that the character himself is protected as if by Anti-Magic Field, rather than giving an emanation. This is important, because part of the idea with Incarnum Radiance is that the Incarnate can Share it (and anybody who it is Shared with gets the same benefit as the Incarnate himself). So IMO it's best to keep abilities to Personal range. But really, being able to just ignore alignment-based DR and alignment-based effects (including Magic Circles, not to mention Holy Word and Holy Aura to use specifically Good examples) could be very powerful. Thanks!

Perhaps another word than Negation, too, but I can load up thesaurus.com and check it out later.

EDIT: Three common synonyms for Negation are Cancellation, Neutralization (a wonderful choice for irony alone!), and Nullification. Several others such as Annulment, Abrogation, or Reversal could work as well. My favorite is Neutralization, I think, purely for the pun value.

Chronologist said:

Incarnate Avatar would indeed look like a Rilmani. Weapons the Rilmani tend to use are apparently:
Mage
Halberd
Shortsword and Shuriken
Greatsword

I'd make the Incarnate Avatar an Auromach Rilmani, giving the character a Greatsword, and make the Soul Chakra Bind benefit the following (taken from http://www.enworld.org/forum/homebrews/10060-rilmani-champions-neutrality-conversion.html), written by Shade from this site. It looks good to me.

Aura (Su): As a free action, an aurumach can create a golden halo surrounding himself in a 15-foot radius. This energy automatically assumes a form that exploits an enemy's vulnerabilities: acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic, positive energy or negative energy. Any hostile creature entering this area suffers 2d12 points of damage from the aurumach's aura. The aura also functions as a globe of invulnerability and stops missile attacks of any kind.

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Weapon doesn't work actually- if you look at the original four weapon choices you'll notice that all of them are one-handed melee weapons which deal 1d6 (S) or 1d8 (M) damage; all four are also specifically Martial, though since the Incarnate is assumed to be proficient that doesn't matter as much. That was why I suggested Trident, since it too is a one-handed martial melee weapon dealing 1d6/1d8; however, since Rilmani use Maces, I think Mace is the better option now. Mace is a Simple weapon rather than Martial, but it balances out with the other four otherwise.

Also, I think that Aura ability is too strong compared to the other four versions of Avatar, particularly since it deals damage and none of them do; however, having it just function as a Globe of Invulnerability and stopping missile attacks (or providing DR against them) could work.

Increasing Aid Another could get very broken, very fast, yes... but if it was limited to skill-checks only, and 1/2 the benefit of the other bonuses, that would probably be balanced (heh. balance).

I'm glad you like the idea of the Gift of Negation, there's just one problem though. A Neutral Incarnate's going to be TN, so most of the alignment-based stuff doesn't work on him anyway. That's why it's a radius of effect, so that the Devil's Blasphemy doesn't hit your Paladin buddy. Maybe if it was limited so you couldn't share it, that would be fairly balanced, I think. That, or if you share it, it affects your allies and you, but there's no radius of effect.

By the way, I vote for Gift of Neutralization to be the new name. God I love puns (I took 3 ranks in Craft (pun) last level ).

The Mace is already pretty much the best simple weapon in the game... maybe a 1d8 damage Morningstar would be nice too... it doesn't have the critical benefits of something like a Longsword (19-20) or a Longbow (x3), but it can do piercing or bludgeoning... which is perfect for overcoming damage reduction. Huh, I wonder if there could be some way to have the Incarnum Weapon be a certain material type... maybe if you bound it to your arms chakra, you could have it overcome damage reduction as though it was any material... that would be cool. Or maybe they already thought of that's and I''m too tired to think.

Chaos gives speed, Good and Evil give flight, Law gives a whole bunch of immunities... almost feels like Neutral should have a whole bunch of immunities too. Maybe immunity to charm and mind-affecting, to represent the unshakeable neutrality of the Auromach (which I believe are kind of Stupid Neutral too). I dunno, mix and match I guess. At the very worst, they could use a Globe of Invulnerability.