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Incarnum in Pathfinder
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<blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 5388740" data-attributes="member: 29746"><p>You don't actually have Harvest of Souls listed on the class table; you have "Trap the Soul" and it (along with "Twin Zombie Master") is not explained among the class features below.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, that was pointed out as an "infinite engine" build possibility ages ago on the Wizards optimization boards, actually. I'd make a link to the thread, but it doesn't apply at all to your version so it's rather pointless. The original Necrocarnate had not limit to the amount of essentia that could be drained- that's the problem in essence. Your version corrects that.</p><p></p><p>And actually, the idea that a base-class Necrocarnate has no essentia of its own is a very interesting one; on the surface I like it. However, there are two problems which arise, of which you addressed one in your class feature description and left the other unaddressed: one, what happens when the character gains essentia from other sources (such as Incarnum feats), which you answered; two, what happens if the character gains levels in other meldshaping classes which grant essentia? For instance, what if the character becomes a Necrocarnate 1/Incarnate (Evil) 1? Can the essentia from Incarnate be spent on Necrocarnate soulmelds, and can the "Necro-essentia" drained using Necrocarnate be used to power Incarnate melds? If not, why not? If so, why, and how does it work? Do the essentia form a single pool?</p><p></p><p></p><p>Not all adventures depend that much upon combat, you know. What if the Necrocarnate is just trying to power a Silvertongue Mask for a day of shopping in the city, for example? My Incarnate test character has done that several times, during the campaign he's in; wouldn't a Necrocarnate cause problems for the party by needing to kill stuff and drain its life every time he wants to go shopping?</p><p></p><p></p><p>The combination of Incarnate with Warlock is a good way to go, I think, for a Necrocarnate base class. I certainly agree with that idea. Plus, the fact that it's a <strong>touch</strong> attack makes it more difficult to use than the Eldritch Blast. Perhaps the Necrocarnate base class needs a soulmeld that can grant a ranged attack to suck essentia: and this gets to my primary criticism of the class. Namely, as a base class, it should have its own soulmeld list, which is separate (though can certainly take various soulmelds from) the other meldshaper base classes. Shouldn't there be soulmelds which are Necrocarnate-only, if it is a real base class? Not all of them need even be Necrocarnum melds, in fact; some could be regular soulmelds that just happen to be unique to the Necrocarnate (and allow other meldshapers to get them via the Shape Soulmeld feat and without taking Necrocarnum Acolyte first).</p><p></p><p>But actually, that reminds me of another criticism I had. This is the <strong>Necrocarnate,</strong> for entropy's sake; why doesn't it get Necrocarnum Acolyte as a bonus feat at <strong>1st</strong> level, instead of 3rd? SHouldn't it have the ability to shape Necrocarnum soulmelds from the start? And if not, why then should Evil Necrocarnates be allowed to get in on the fun early? By the RAW, Evil Necrocarnates would be able to shape Necrocarnum right from the start, and would find the Acolyte bonus feat a useless class feature. This sort of ties in to my criticism above, about the soulmeld list: perhaps it would be better to not mention alignment at all, in the Necrocarnate's meldshaping, and just make sure that the only soulmelds with alignment descriptors which show up on their class list have the [Evil] descriptor? Personally, I'm okay with forcing a Necrocarnate to pay a feat tax in order to use, say, Armguards of Disruption. Or maybe it just gets written in that a Necrocarnate can't use any soulmelds with the [Good] descriptor, no ifs ands or buts- but it doesn't care about other alignments.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That's fine for you, but those who play characters who <strong>do</strong> branch out will find that soulmelds offer them plenty of power in the meantime. Plus, your idea above fails to take multiclassing into account. Why should an Incarnate/Rogue not be taken into account in class balance thinking?</p><p></p><p></p><p>You're failing to take into account two very important things there: (1), the fact that Incarnates aren't limited to the base essentia cap, because they have Expanded Essentia Capacity for all soulmelds starting at level 3; (2), Dissolving Spittle (which is the closest comparison one can make between Incarnate and Warlock) allows the Incarnate <em>a second damage roll</em> once you Bind it to the Throat Chakra. That kicks up the damage considerably, even if it takes an extra round to get it. A 20th-level Incarnate, without even taking the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat, can deal 14d6 damage (spread into two rounds of 7d6 damage each) via Spittle. That's not bad at all, and actually even <strong>beats</strong> the Warlock for raw damage output (though the Warlock can get other advantages which outweigh that via specific Invocations). Frankly, Necrocarnum Touch doesn't even enter the picture for most builds that really want to focus on blasting.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That's not how they're designed, though. That was my point; if your concept of the Incarnate differs from the <em>Magic of Incarnum</em> version, that's fine, but you'll need to do a radical redesign in that case. The Incarnate <em>as laid out</em> in the original rules is simply not a great blaster, and if you play one you have to accept that and move on. Utility is really the Incarnate's bread and butter.</p><p></p><p>Besides which, if you read that thread I linked to in my last post, you'll see that the Incarnate actually <strong>can</strong> keep up pretty decently even with a Fighter under 3.5 rules (though not necessarily under Pathfinder, they'd be pretty close) for melee combat, if properly built. It's all in the selection of soulmelds and feats, not to mention careful use of Incarnum Radiance.</p><p></p><p></p><p>You couldn't, actually. An Evil Incarnate is still missing the class feature of the touch attack (even the Necrocarnum Touch soulmeld doesn't keep up), and the Essentia Drain which IMO is the key class feature of your base-class Necrocarnate. Pull some well-chosen soulmelds from other meldshaper base classes into your Necrocarnate, and perhaps make a few unique ones that no other meldshaping class gets (without the feat), and it should look pretty unique and cool. You've got a great base there, it just needs a little more to make it really stand out.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="paradox42, post: 5388740, member: 29746"] You don't actually have Harvest of Souls listed on the class table; you have "Trap the Soul" and it (along with "Twin Zombie Master") is not explained among the class features below. Yes, that was pointed out as an "infinite engine" build possibility ages ago on the Wizards optimization boards, actually. I'd make a link to the thread, but it doesn't apply at all to your version so it's rather pointless. The original Necrocarnate had not limit to the amount of essentia that could be drained- that's the problem in essence. Your version corrects that. And actually, the idea that a base-class Necrocarnate has no essentia of its own is a very interesting one; on the surface I like it. However, there are two problems which arise, of which you addressed one in your class feature description and left the other unaddressed: one, what happens when the character gains essentia from other sources (such as Incarnum feats), which you answered; two, what happens if the character gains levels in other meldshaping classes which grant essentia? For instance, what if the character becomes a Necrocarnate 1/Incarnate (Evil) 1? Can the essentia from Incarnate be spent on Necrocarnate soulmelds, and can the "Necro-essentia" drained using Necrocarnate be used to power Incarnate melds? If not, why not? If so, why, and how does it work? Do the essentia form a single pool? Not all adventures depend that much upon combat, you know. What if the Necrocarnate is just trying to power a Silvertongue Mask for a day of shopping in the city, for example? My Incarnate test character has done that several times, during the campaign he's in; wouldn't a Necrocarnate cause problems for the party by needing to kill stuff and drain its life every time he wants to go shopping? The combination of Incarnate with Warlock is a good way to go, I think, for a Necrocarnate base class. I certainly agree with that idea. Plus, the fact that it's a [B]touch[/B] attack makes it more difficult to use than the Eldritch Blast. Perhaps the Necrocarnate base class needs a soulmeld that can grant a ranged attack to suck essentia: and this gets to my primary criticism of the class. Namely, as a base class, it should have its own soulmeld list, which is separate (though can certainly take various soulmelds from) the other meldshaper base classes. Shouldn't there be soulmelds which are Necrocarnate-only, if it is a real base class? Not all of them need even be Necrocarnum melds, in fact; some could be regular soulmelds that just happen to be unique to the Necrocarnate (and allow other meldshapers to get them via the Shape Soulmeld feat and without taking Necrocarnum Acolyte first). But actually, that reminds me of another criticism I had. This is the [B]Necrocarnate,[/B] for entropy's sake; why doesn't it get Necrocarnum Acolyte as a bonus feat at [B]1st[/B] level, instead of 3rd? SHouldn't it have the ability to shape Necrocarnum soulmelds from the start? And if not, why then should Evil Necrocarnates be allowed to get in on the fun early? By the RAW, Evil Necrocarnates would be able to shape Necrocarnum right from the start, and would find the Acolyte bonus feat a useless class feature. This sort of ties in to my criticism above, about the soulmeld list: perhaps it would be better to not mention alignment at all, in the Necrocarnate's meldshaping, and just make sure that the only soulmelds with alignment descriptors which show up on their class list have the [Evil] descriptor? Personally, I'm okay with forcing a Necrocarnate to pay a feat tax in order to use, say, Armguards of Disruption. Or maybe it just gets written in that a Necrocarnate can't use any soulmelds with the [Good] descriptor, no ifs ands or buts- but it doesn't care about other alignments. That's fine for you, but those who play characters who [B]do[/B] branch out will find that soulmelds offer them plenty of power in the meantime. Plus, your idea above fails to take multiclassing into account. Why should an Incarnate/Rogue not be taken into account in class balance thinking? You're failing to take into account two very important things there: (1), the fact that Incarnates aren't limited to the base essentia cap, because they have Expanded Essentia Capacity for all soulmelds starting at level 3; (2), Dissolving Spittle (which is the closest comparison one can make between Incarnate and Warlock) allows the Incarnate [I]a second damage roll[/I] once you Bind it to the Throat Chakra. That kicks up the damage considerably, even if it takes an extra round to get it. A 20th-level Incarnate, without even taking the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat, can deal 14d6 damage (spread into two rounds of 7d6 damage each) via Spittle. That's not bad at all, and actually even [B]beats[/B] the Warlock for raw damage output (though the Warlock can get other advantages which outweigh that via specific Invocations). Frankly, Necrocarnum Touch doesn't even enter the picture for most builds that really want to focus on blasting. That's not how they're designed, though. That was my point; if your concept of the Incarnate differs from the [I]Magic of Incarnum[/I] version, that's fine, but you'll need to do a radical redesign in that case. The Incarnate [I]as laid out[/I] in the original rules is simply not a great blaster, and if you play one you have to accept that and move on. Utility is really the Incarnate's bread and butter. Besides which, if you read that thread I linked to in my last post, you'll see that the Incarnate actually [B]can[/B] keep up pretty decently even with a Fighter under 3.5 rules (though not necessarily under Pathfinder, they'd be pretty close) for melee combat, if properly built. It's all in the selection of soulmelds and feats, not to mention careful use of Incarnum Radiance. You couldn't, actually. An Evil Incarnate is still missing the class feature of the touch attack (even the Necrocarnum Touch soulmeld doesn't keep up), and the Essentia Drain which IMO is the key class feature of your base-class Necrocarnate. Pull some well-chosen soulmelds from other meldshaper base classes into your Necrocarnate, and perhaps make a few unique ones that no other meldshaping class gets (without the feat), and it should look pretty unique and cool. You've got a great base there, it just needs a little more to make it really stand out. [/QUOTE]
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