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Incarnum in Pathfinder
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<blockquote data-quote="Chronologist" data-source="post: 5388807" data-attributes="member: 81796"><p>Okay, that's a lot of comments, thanks very much. I'll try to address all of them.</p><p></p><p>Sorry about missing Trap the Soul and Twin Zombie Master, actually, I've forgotten what Trap the Soul does (maybe makes it hard to resurrect characters the Necrocarnate killed?). Twin Zombie Master I think is the same as the Necrocarnate prestige class ability.</p><p></p><p>About Necrocarnates and Essentia from classes, I'd say... keep the two pools separate, make a distinction between Essentia and Necrosentia capacity (tentative name). Essentia and Necrosentia are like oil and water, with Soulmelds as the container. You can fill a Soulmeld with one or the other, but never both, they're just incompatible.</p><p></p><p>You make a good point, sometimes a Necrocarnate might want to "power up" outside of battle. How about these feats:</p><p></p><p>Drain Self</p><p>Prerequisites: Essentia Drain ability</p><p>Benefit: You can use your own lifeforce to temporarily gain Necrosentia. Doing so is a free action that costs you a number of hit points equal to the Necrosentia you gain. Essentia gained in this way fades in 1 round (but lasts long enough for a complex action, such as picking a lock or a diplomacy check). You cannot exceed your maximum limit of Necrosentia with this ability.</p><p></p><p>Drain Ally</p><p>PRerequisite: Drain Self, 3rd level</p><p>Benefit: You can drain an ally of his or her lifeforce to gain temporary Necrosentia. This is a standard action that requires you to touch the subject, and the subject must be willing to aid you in this way. The ally takes 1d3 damage per point of Necrosentia you gain. Essentia gained in this manner lasts for 1 minute. You cannot exceed your maximum Necrosentia limit with this ability.</p><p></p><p>Extended Drain</p><p>Prerequisite: Drain Self, 5rd level</p><p>Benefit: Whenever you drain yourself or an ally, multiply the duration of the Necrosentia by 10 (so, 1 minute for yourself, 10 minutes for an ally.</p><p></p><p>These feat allow for limited "powering up" outside of battle. Draining yourself would last long enough for a Diplomacy check, for example, while draining an ally would last long enough to get you through a fight, of from point A to point B.</p><p></p><p>I agree, the Necrocarnate should get unique Soulmelds from the Incarnate. They should probably have access to, say, one Necrocarnum soulmeld per chakra point (adding more where needed), and limited access to other soulmelds. I was thinking either having them know 1 per level of Necrocarnate (plus knowing all the Necrocarnum melds).</p><p></p><p>Yes, the Necrocarnate should have Necrocarnum Acolyte at 1st level. I forgot that you needed that feat to shape Necrocarnum melds. Sorry.</p><p></p><p>For multiclassing, I actually had a rather interesting idea. </p><p></p><p>Maximum Essentia capacity is 1/2 meldshaper level + 1/4 non-meldshaper levels (rounded up).</p><p></p><p>So, a level 5 Incarnate has a capacity of 3, a level 8 fighter has a capacity of 2, and an Incarnate 5 / Fighter 8 has a capacity of 5 (while an Incarnate 13 would have a capacity of 7, and a Fighter 13 would have a capacity of 4). This means that characters with Incarnum feats are still going to be capped at 5 essentia, while Incarnum classes have a cap of 10. I think this, plus maybe one or two other modifications, would work out pretty well. This also means that an Incarnate that takes levels in Rogue will have better stealthing skill over time, but her Soulmelds won't be extraordinarily beneficial. Plus, she'd have less sneak attack and rogue talents, a good trade-off but definitely a hard decision to make.</p><p></p><p>About things I "haven't taken into account"</p><p>1. I propose that all bonuses to Essentia Capacity are removed competely (and that the Soulborn use the non-meldshaper table for essentia cap). This makes it a lot easier to do the math, and the linear progression is more or less stable. The alternative is to make the max essentia cap 1 + 1/3 ML + 1/6 non-ML, round down. That makes the Incarnate max out at 9 after the two bumps, and non-meldshapers use the original tablw from the book.</p><p>2. By about the same the time you hit high enough levels to use Dissolving Spittle, Warlocks have Chain Eldritch Blast. I think the Chain Blast is better, personally. On the other hand, i also think that bind is too strong for an attack power, and I'd replace it with something more balanced (target is Sickened, maybe).</p><p></p><p>I guess our approaches differ, then. Personally, I feel that if you need to carefully select your feats and melds in advance in order to keep up with the Fighter of the group, that means that's not your role in combat. Incarnates are like Warlocks: Controller types with moderate Blasting ability, with Skill and Support abilities as the situation requires. They are not Tanks, Strikers, or Healers, and trying to play them as one is the wrong approach. Now, if you want to multiclass with Fighter and use that shiny new Incarnum Weapon and Spellward Shirt, then that's a different matter, but in my opinion (and it really is just my opinion here), Incarnates are not designed to be melee fighters, in the same way that Bards were not designed to be healers. Sure, they can do it in a pinch, but they'll never be as good as the dedicated class, and it'll likely cause them to "burn out" of HP, spells, etc. much faster.</p><p></p><p>Thanks for the complements, I'm just kinda throwing ideas out here and seeing what you like. I like the idea of using other classes' melds, though it'd have to be Evil ones, or variants thereof. On the other hand, despite Necrocarnum being, well, an abomination of nature, I was hoping to include some moral lee-way into the class, letting use Necrocarnum as long as they are non-good. I can totally see a LN Necrocarnate who binds the souls of lawbreakers and villains in order to enact vengeance. Not good by any stretch of the imagination, simply willing to use whatever dark arts are necessary to keep the peace. Not evil either, he has no desire for dominance or destruction, only the keeping of the laws of the realm.</p><p></p><p>Thanks for all your comments, I think a lot of your ideas are really good, and I look forward to more of them!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Chronologist, post: 5388807, member: 81796"] Okay, that's a lot of comments, thanks very much. I'll try to address all of them. Sorry about missing Trap the Soul and Twin Zombie Master, actually, I've forgotten what Trap the Soul does (maybe makes it hard to resurrect characters the Necrocarnate killed?). Twin Zombie Master I think is the same as the Necrocarnate prestige class ability. About Necrocarnates and Essentia from classes, I'd say... keep the two pools separate, make a distinction between Essentia and Necrosentia capacity (tentative name). Essentia and Necrosentia are like oil and water, with Soulmelds as the container. You can fill a Soulmeld with one or the other, but never both, they're just incompatible. You make a good point, sometimes a Necrocarnate might want to "power up" outside of battle. How about these feats: Drain Self Prerequisites: Essentia Drain ability Benefit: You can use your own lifeforce to temporarily gain Necrosentia. Doing so is a free action that costs you a number of hit points equal to the Necrosentia you gain. Essentia gained in this way fades in 1 round (but lasts long enough for a complex action, such as picking a lock or a diplomacy check). You cannot exceed your maximum limit of Necrosentia with this ability. Drain Ally PRerequisite: Drain Self, 3rd level Benefit: You can drain an ally of his or her lifeforce to gain temporary Necrosentia. This is a standard action that requires you to touch the subject, and the subject must be willing to aid you in this way. The ally takes 1d3 damage per point of Necrosentia you gain. Essentia gained in this manner lasts for 1 minute. You cannot exceed your maximum Necrosentia limit with this ability. Extended Drain Prerequisite: Drain Self, 5rd level Benefit: Whenever you drain yourself or an ally, multiply the duration of the Necrosentia by 10 (so, 1 minute for yourself, 10 minutes for an ally. These feat allow for limited "powering up" outside of battle. Draining yourself would last long enough for a Diplomacy check, for example, while draining an ally would last long enough to get you through a fight, of from point A to point B. I agree, the Necrocarnate should get unique Soulmelds from the Incarnate. They should probably have access to, say, one Necrocarnum soulmeld per chakra point (adding more where needed), and limited access to other soulmelds. I was thinking either having them know 1 per level of Necrocarnate (plus knowing all the Necrocarnum melds). Yes, the Necrocarnate should have Necrocarnum Acolyte at 1st level. I forgot that you needed that feat to shape Necrocarnum melds. Sorry. For multiclassing, I actually had a rather interesting idea. Maximum Essentia capacity is 1/2 meldshaper level + 1/4 non-meldshaper levels (rounded up). So, a level 5 Incarnate has a capacity of 3, a level 8 fighter has a capacity of 2, and an Incarnate 5 / Fighter 8 has a capacity of 5 (while an Incarnate 13 would have a capacity of 7, and a Fighter 13 would have a capacity of 4). This means that characters with Incarnum feats are still going to be capped at 5 essentia, while Incarnum classes have a cap of 10. I think this, plus maybe one or two other modifications, would work out pretty well. This also means that an Incarnate that takes levels in Rogue will have better stealthing skill over time, but her Soulmelds won't be extraordinarily beneficial. Plus, she'd have less sneak attack and rogue talents, a good trade-off but definitely a hard decision to make. About things I "haven't taken into account" 1. I propose that all bonuses to Essentia Capacity are removed competely (and that the Soulborn use the non-meldshaper table for essentia cap). This makes it a lot easier to do the math, and the linear progression is more or less stable. The alternative is to make the max essentia cap 1 + 1/3 ML + 1/6 non-ML, round down. That makes the Incarnate max out at 9 after the two bumps, and non-meldshapers use the original tablw from the book. 2. By about the same the time you hit high enough levels to use Dissolving Spittle, Warlocks have Chain Eldritch Blast. I think the Chain Blast is better, personally. On the other hand, i also think that bind is too strong for an attack power, and I'd replace it with something more balanced (target is Sickened, maybe). I guess our approaches differ, then. Personally, I feel that if you need to carefully select your feats and melds in advance in order to keep up with the Fighter of the group, that means that's not your role in combat. Incarnates are like Warlocks: Controller types with moderate Blasting ability, with Skill and Support abilities as the situation requires. They are not Tanks, Strikers, or Healers, and trying to play them as one is the wrong approach. Now, if you want to multiclass with Fighter and use that shiny new Incarnum Weapon and Spellward Shirt, then that's a different matter, but in my opinion (and it really is just my opinion here), Incarnates are not designed to be melee fighters, in the same way that Bards were not designed to be healers. Sure, they can do it in a pinch, but they'll never be as good as the dedicated class, and it'll likely cause them to "burn out" of HP, spells, etc. much faster. Thanks for the complements, I'm just kinda throwing ideas out here and seeing what you like. I like the idea of using other classes' melds, though it'd have to be Evil ones, or variants thereof. On the other hand, despite Necrocarnum being, well, an abomination of nature, I was hoping to include some moral lee-way into the class, letting use Necrocarnum as long as they are non-good. I can totally see a LN Necrocarnate who binds the souls of lawbreakers and villains in order to enact vengeance. Not good by any stretch of the imagination, simply willing to use whatever dark arts are necessary to keep the peace. Not evil either, he has no desire for dominance or destruction, only the keeping of the laws of the realm. Thanks for all your comments, I think a lot of your ideas are really good, and I look forward to more of them! [/QUOTE]
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