Necrocarnate Fix

[emoplato]

As people who are familiar with this class either you play it broke or you don't play it at all. I upped the necromantic and dark feel to the class so please give a critique. I think it might be overpowered for Incarnum as I was trying to scale its necromancy to the classic casters.

Necrocarnate​

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Incarnum has many aspects and energies tied to it. Many users focus on alignment striving to be champions of their ideals. Others draw from aspects of nature and history protecting what they may hold most dear. Either way these forms merely borrow energy that is already there completely ignoring the core of Incarnum, souls. Many revile Necrocarnates for focusing in such an art, fearing the implications and backlash of direct manipulation of souls. Necrocarnates view it one way or another as a source of new power.
Prerequisites
Alignment: Any Evil
Feats: Necrocarnum Acolyte
Skills: Knowledge(Arcana) 5 ranks, Knowledge(Religion) 10 ranks, Spellcraft 5 ranks
Meldshaping: Ability to shape to shape three soulmelds and bind to crown, hands, and feat chakras
Class Features
Hit die: d6
BAB: poor
Fortitude: poor
Reflex: poor
Will: good
Skills: (2+int. mod.) Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge(Arcana), Knowledge(Planes), Knowledge(Religion), Profession, Spellcraft
Special Abilities

L1 Harvest Soul(Su): When a Necrocarnate has found a dead body you may employ one of two maneuvers to extract its soul. If a creature has just died and within 100 feet a Necrocarnate may take an immediate action to capture the soul and hold it in a free hand. As a part of the swift action to reallocate essentia, you may convert it to temporary essentia equal to ½ its HD(minimum 1) for one round. If it has died within one hour per necrocarnate level you may take a full round action to store a soul within your body in which she may convert it to essentia or use it for certain necrocarnum secrets. A necrocarnate may store a number souls equal to ½ her class level(minimum 1).
Meldshaping(Su): At every level a Necrocarnate’s level stacks with one other meldshaper class for number of levels, soulmelds, binds, and essentia but not class features.
Necrocarnum Secret(Su): At level one and every even level after that a Necrocarnate can research new abilities of Necrocarnum. Every time you select a secret you permanently sacrifice one point of essentia from your pool to the abyss of Necrocarnum. Secrets may only be selected once unless they say otherwise. All DC’s are based off of the Necrocarnate.

L2 Chakra Binds(arms, shoulders, brow), Necrocarnum Secret

L3 Horde of Necrocarnum(Ex): Your Necrocarnum circlet may now reanimate and control as many Necrocarnum zombies as long as the total hit die equals your meldshaper level. As such each zombie has their essentia pool increased by how much is invested in the circlet. Corpse crafter feats may now be applied to your zombies.

L4 Midnight Rebuke(Su): You gain the ability to rebuke undead having your effective cleric level equal your Necrocarnate level+2x per point of essentia invested. Any other rebuking levels stack for purposes of strength of undead you may control. You may use this 3+char. mod. times per day. Necrocarnum Secret

L5 Manipulator of Souls(Ex): You may instead use your charisma modifier instead of your wisdom modifier on save DC’s on all effects with the necrocarnum descriptor. Also your undead may use their wisdom score instead of constitution to qualify for feats described in the Magic of Incarnum p34.

L6 Necrocarnum secret

L7 Lord of Necrocarnum(Ex): You may increase the amount of HD of zombies by 50%. Your necrocarnum zombies also heal from Necrocarnum energy. The same restrictions apply as mentioned in Horde Expansion.
Chakra binds(throat, waist)

L8 Expand Necrocarnum Capacity(Ex): You may invest one more point of essentia in your necrocarnum soulmelds. Necrocarnum Secret

L9 Chakra binds(heart)

L10 Necrocarnum Apotheosis(Su): You permanently gain the benefit of Necrocarnum Shroud soul bind and are immune to aging. A change in your soul happens. Your soul cannot be contained by any magical or supernatural means, as such you are immune to possession and magic jar like effects. Necrocarnum Secret

Secrets Table
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Improved Harvest Soul(Su): When you convert a soul to essentia they last for one more round. You may select this ability up to three times.

Profane Might(Ex): Your Necrocarnum Zombies gain a new option to invest essentia. They get a profane bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to essentia allocated.

Soul shield(Su): Instead of ripping a soul for essentia you may use it to protect yourself or one of allies from harmful effects. If you have successfully saved against an effect but still allows for half damage or lesser effect you may expend a soul you have stored to be unaffected. Alternatively if you failed a save you expend a soul to reroll the result, you must take result of the second roll. This may only be used once per round.

Necrocarnum Expansion(Ex): Your zombies may invest one more point of essentia in all of its abilities. This ability may be selected three times.

Horde Expansion(Ex): In order to select this you must of the Horde of Necrocarnum ability. The amount of HD of zombies you may animate is increased by 1/3. You cannot have a single Necrocarnum zombie that is 50% more than your meldshaper level round down. You may select this ability up to three times.

Necrocarnum Fortification(Ex): You must be a 6 level Necrocarnate and have Necrocarnate expansion secret to select this ability. In order to use this ability you must imbue one point of essentia from your pool per five hit die(round down) into an active zombie. The zombie must be adjacent to you and requires ten minutes to complete. These points of essentia are not added to the zombie’s pool. When completed the hit die are all considered maximized. You may remove the essentia as per the second option of Harvest Soul, as such when they are dead.

Font of Necrocarnum(Ex): All save DC’s associated with necrocarnum and this class are increased by 1. Also any effect that deals pure necrocarnum energy deals an additional 1d8 of damage. You may select this ability up to three times.

Payment of the Void(Ex): You no longer suffer damage due to resurrecting zombies from your circlet.

Resurrect ability(Su): You must have the Manipulator of Souls feature and Necrocarnum Insight secret in order to take this. You may imbue essentia in a zombie for them to regain the use of a single extraordinary or supernatural ability. The process is similar to Necrocarnum fortification except you pay one per ability. You may select this ability three times, each time allows the zombies to regain another one, however they may only have one per ten hit die they possess, round normally.

Necrocarnum Insight(Ex): You must have the Horde of Necrocarnum feature. Your Necrocarnum zombies gain one skill point per hit die and may treat two cross class skills as class skills. You may select this ability up to three times.

Soul curse(Su): You must have the Manipulator of Souls feature and Font of Necrocarnum secret to select this. You may sacrifice a soul in order to bestow a debilitating effect within 60 feet. As a standard action you may sacrifice a stored soul to give -1 penalty to attack, saves, skills, ability checks, and AC per 5 HD of soul sacrificed(maximum -5). A successful will save (10+1/2+cha. mod) negates. This ability lasts for rounds equal to your Necrocarnate level, multiple uses do not stack.

Soul Vigor(Su) You must have the Soul Shield secret. You may sacrifice a soul to stave away death as an immediate action. You or a designated ally gain the benefit of the Die Hard feat and you may still live even under -10 equal to the HD of the soul sacrificed. This ability lasts three rounds, multiple uses do not stack.

Reaping Harvest(Su) You must have the Improved Harvest Soul and Font of Necrocarnum secrets to gain use of this. Instead of waiting for a creature to die you may reap their soul in a weakened or dying state. As such you have permanent Deathwatch. As an immediate action of the first option of Harvest Soul you may use this now whenever someone is reduced to 0 hit points or rolls death from massive damage. The victim must make a fortitude save, you can only use this once on an opponent on massive damage. You may try again when they are at 0 or below hit points. If they succeed they continue to live if not they die instantly and can only be raised by a necrocarnum circlet, true resurrection, or miracle.

Forsaken(Su): to be determined

Energy Resistance(Ex): Necrocarnum zombies gain a new essentia receptacle. For every point of essentia invested they gain 4 points of energy resistance of your choice. You may change the kind during any swift action to reallocate essentia.

Rift of Necrocarnum(Su): You must have the Font of Necrocarnum and Necrocarnum Expansion secrets to select this ability. As a standard action you may sacrifice a soul to create an area of malevolent darkness within one hundred feet. The area of this ability has a radius of 5 feet per 2 HD of soul sacrificed. When ever a creature enters this field they take 2d8 points of necrocarnum damage. They also must succeed on a reflex save or be trapped within the area. They continue to make a reflex save once per round until they leave the area. The field must encompass a creature to trap it. If they fail they cannot move past the boundaries by any means, this otherwise functions as dimensional lock. You and your undead are not affected by this ability(your undead do not heal from it at L7). This ability last for rounds equal to half of your Necrocarnate level or you may end as a free action.

 

[emoplato]

Nobody?

 

[nogray]

I'll give it a shot.

Prerequisites
Alignment: Any Evil
Feats: Necrocarnum Acolyte
Skills: Knowledge(Arcana) 5 ranks, Knowledge(Religion) 10 ranks, Spellcraft 5 ranks
Meldshaping: Ability to shape to shape three soulmelds and bind to crown, hands, and feat chakras

I suppose reversing the K(Religion) and Spellcraft required ranks makes some sense to play up the undead aspects of K(Religion). This keeps the minimum level 7 before entering the class. Not much of a balance change, if any. It does make it less likely that a totemist will qualify. (Easy in the default, not in your set-up.)

The level for your class only goes to 10, so you get your last features sooner, and you will have the option to return to incarnate (or whatever) at the latter levels. This, of course, needs some analysis.

L1 Harvest Soul(Su): When a Necrocarnate has found a dead body you may employ one of two maneuvers to extract its soul. If a creature has just died and within 100 feet a Necrocarnate may take an immediate action to capture the soul and hold it in a free hand. As a part of the swift action to reallocate essentia, you may convert it to temporary essentia equal to ½ its HD(minimum 1) for one round. If it has died within one hour per necrocarnate level you may take a full round action to store a soul within your body in which she may convert it to essentia or use it for certain necrocarnum secrets. A necrocarnate may store a number souls equal to ½ her class level(minimum 1).

This is a pretty big change from the Harvest Soul ability in the book. Yours seems to be a quick power-up (with one round duration), whereas the default ability is a longer power-up that takes longer to enact. I am inclined to think that yours is a considerably better ability, though how significant remains to be seen.

Meldshaping(Su): At every level a Necrocarnate’s level stacks with one other meldshaper class for levels, soulmelds, binds, and essentia but not class features.

You seem to be giving the binds twice. Once from this meldshaping benefit, and again from your level 2 and 9 features, below. That seems to be a bit redundant. The fact that you continue to gain essentia contributes to potential balance issues, especially with the easily-enhanced essentia total given by easy soul harvesting.

Necrocarnum Secret(Su): At level one and every even level after that a Necrocarnate can research new abilities of Necrocarnum. Every time you select a secret you permanently sacrifice one point of essentia from your pool to the abyss of Necrocarnum. Secrets may only be selected once unless they say otherwise. All DC’s are based off of the Necrocarnate.

So, six secrets, meaning six points of essentia off the standard incarnate. You will regularly be boosting that by half the hit dice of each enemy as it falls. (Little should go to waste, as the souls can be stored if you don't really need the essentia right then.)

L2 Chakra Binds(arms, shoulders, brow), Necrocarnum Secret

L3 Horde of Necrocarnum(Ex): Your Necrocarnum circlet may now reanimate and control as many Necrocarnum zombies as long as the total hit die equals your meldshaper level. As such each zombie has their essentia pool increased by how much is invested in the circlet. Corpse crafter feats may now be applied to your zombies.

Okay, the first big versatility power-up. Since each zombie has its own capacity and its own enhancement to that capacity, that is an area for delicate balance, too. Is one zombie with 12 hit dice better or worse than two with six each? The Profane Might and other secrets boost that considerable. The Horde one plays a key role, as does the class feature with the same effect. I like the inclusion of the corpsecrafter, but I think that should be the default, anyway.

L4 Midnight Rebuke(Su): You gain the ability to rebuke undead having your effective cleric level equal your Necrocarnate level+2x per point of essentia invested. Any other rebuking levels stack for purposes of strength of undead you may control. You may use this 3+char. mod. times per day. Necrocarnum Secret

Rebuke also potentially means command, right? Your command level is going to be varying (based on how much essentia you invest in this ability), meaning you can't command to your highest capacity or you'll have undead go uncontrolled when you shift essentia away from this ability. There is also no mention of whether this essential is invested like the feats (so once per day) or like a soulmeld (swift actions). Confusing ability. Maybe just make it full meldshaper level and leave no essentia component to this ability.

L5 Manipulator of Souls(Ex): You may instead use your charisma modifier instead of your wisdom modifier on save DC’s on all effects with the necrocarnum descriptor. Also your necrocarnum effects may apply to Undead or Incarnum abilities with origins there of regardless of immunities.

I'm really not a big fan of changing ability score emphasis midway through a class. Also, you make no mention of totemists, who use Constitution and not Wisdom by default. The second part is really unclear. I am not sure what you are going for.

L7 Lord of Necrocarnum(Ex): You may increase the amount of HD of zombies by 50%. Your necrocarnum zombies also heal from Necrocarnum energy. The same restrictions apply as mentioned in Horde Expansion.
Chakra binds(throat, waist)

This is considerably more potent than any of the necrocarnate's abiities. You are saying you can have, as a 14th level character, up to 21 hit dice in zombies, and you could have (if you could find the corpse) a single 21-hit-dice zombie. That is more than most cleric-based animators, if I am not mistaken. (How, exactly, this interacts with the horde secret should be explained. I would assume it is like all other 3e stacking. At level 18, for example, the 1/3 would be +6 hit dice, this would be +9 hit dice, so a level 18 necrocarnate with one "horde" would have 33 hit dice available, and the biggest would be 27 hit dice.

The healing feature seems dependent on the necrocarnum touch soulmeld (and maybe some of the other secrets/class abilities?). Is it too much to let you heal your undead at will? Maybe, but I think one of the Dread Necromancer abilities is similar, so perhaps not. It is powerful, though.

L10 Necrocarnum Apotheosis(Su): You permanently gain the benefit of Necrocarnum Shroud soul bind and are immune to aging. A change in your soul happens. Your soul cannot be contained by any magical or supernatural means, as such you are immune to possession and magic jar like effects. Necrocarnum Secret

Not too bad for a capstone ability, but it rather negates the desire to have any necrocarnum soulmeld bound to your soul chakra. Also, you have the ability granted by a chakra-bind to your soul two levels before an incarnate could do so, and three levels before the default necrocarnate would.

And now, on to the real review, the Secrets. Whooo-boy. That is a lot to go over. Let's see....some are good, some are way overpowered, and some are really confusing.

Improved Harvest Soul(Su): When you convert a soul to essentia they last for one more round. You may select this ability up to three times.

Can't say too much against this. It seems pretty good, making it more predictable with the amount of essentia that the necrocarnate will have available. I can't see someone not taking this at least once, though maybe not more than once. Then again, you are already starting with a larger essentia pool than standard.

Profane Might(Ex): Your Necrocarnum Zombies gain a new option to invest essentia. They get a profane bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to essentia allocated.

Borderline overpowered, I think, given the hit dice available to you. Your zombies will be way better than cleric-necromancer zombies. Bonuses to attack rolls and damage rolls should be more expensive than to AC and saves. Perhaps 1/2 the invested essentia? I might be off in this, though.

Soul shield(Su): Instead of ripping a soul for essentia you may use it to protect yourself from harmful effects. If you have successfully saved against an effect but still allows for half damage or lesser effect you may expend a soul you have stored to be unaffected. Alternatively if you failed a save you expend a soul to reroll the result, you must take result of the second roll. This may only be used once per round.

Not much to see here. Kind of a combination Evasion/Mettle, but based on using up a stored soul.

Necrocarnum Expansion(Ex): Your zombies may invest one more point of essentia in all of its abilities. This ability may be selected three times.

This increases the power of the zombies considerably. Especially with multiple selections, the interaction among this, the larger number of zombies, and the other receptacles, you have a multiplicative set of increases going on here that may synergize too potently.

Horde Expansion(Ex): In order to select this you must of the Horde of Necrocarnum ability. The amount of HD of zombies you may animate is increased by 1/3. You cannot have a single Necrocarnum zombie that is 50% more than your meldshaper level round down. You may select this ability up to three times.

The only notes I might suggest is that you lower the top hit dice for a single zombie to your meldshaper level and maybe be explicit on how this interacts with the level. (I mentioned this above.)

Rend Soul(Su): You must have Improved Harvest Soul to select this. Instead of ripping a soul for essentia you may use it expand your Incarnum abilities. When you expend a soul during the swift action for reallocation this expands the essentia capacity for all receptacles by one if it is equal to or lower than your hit die. If it is greater than your hit die they are expanded by two. This lasts for three rounds, multiple uses do not stack.

This seems powerful, as it could lead to really high essentia caps in a lot of receptacles. I'd have to crunch a lot more numbers to see just how it measures up.

Necrocarnum Fortification(Ex): You must be a 6 level Necrocarnate and have Necrocarnate expansion secret to select this ability. In order to use this ability you must imbue one point of essentia from your pool per five hit die(round down) into an active zombie. The zombie must be adjacent to you and requires ten minutes to complete. These points of essentia are not added to the zombie’s pool. When completed the hit die are all considered maximized. You may remove the essentia as per the second option of Harvest Soul.

Maximizing hit dice? After you already know what you rolled? That seems a bit much, especially with the high variability of a d12. Also, the removal of the invested essentia is an unnecessary complication. I'd suggest making it a more permanent investment of incarnum. (That is, there is no recovering it until the zombie is dropped or the next day.)

Font of Necrocarnum(Ex): All save DC’s associated with necrocarnum and this class are increased by 2. Also any effect that deals pure necrocarnum energy deals an additional 1d8 of damage. You may select this ability up to three times.

This is another potent ability. You can necrocarnum touch for at least 7d8 with no real effort. The last ability also seems to become 20d6+3d8 if you fully max this ability. With taking it three times, you can get +6 to the save DC, so that is pretty extreme.

Payment of the Void(Ex): You no longer suffer damage due to resurrecting zombies from your circlet.

While powerful, this is actually something that I rather like. I'm not sure as to the purpose for the damage taken for animating a necrocarnum zombie, anyway.

Resurrect ability(Su): You must have the Manipulator of Souls feature and Horde Expansion secret in order to take this. You may imbue one point of essentia in a zombie for them to regain the use of a single extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural ability. The process is similar to Necrocarnum fortification except you pay one per ability up to the total hit die divided by five(minimum one) round down. So a Necrocarnum Zombie with 20 HD can have up to four abilities awakened.

Umm ... no. Just too open-ended and potentially easy to abuse, especially with the low cost. I don't think I'd let this one go for 10 essentia per ability. Every monster you fight that has any special ability, you can turn that against following monsters. Really, no. It's the same level of power as a Gate or Shapechange spell (well, almost as bad).

Necrocarnum Insight(Ex): You must have the Horde of Necrocarnum feature. Your Necrocarnum zombies gain one skill point per hit die and may treat two cross class skills as class skills. You may select this ability up to three times.

No problem, here. A little skill goes a long way towards making the necrocarnum zombies more interesting.

Soul curse(Su): You must have the Manipulator of Souls feature and Font of Necrocarnum secret to select this. You may sacrifice a soul in order to bestow a debilitating effect to any attack. If the carrier effect allows a save the effect behaves as the save says. When successful it bestows -1 to attack, saves, skill checks, ability checks, and damage rolls for every 5 HD of the creature’s soul round down(maximum -6). This ability lasts for ½ necrocarnate level rounds round down, multiple uses do not stack.

I'm not sure of the action economy involved with making this part of "any attack." I'd prefer that it be a little more potent (say, a -1 per three or four hit dice of the soul used), but a separate standard action of its own. It is also unclear if there is a save for this power when used on, for example, a normal attack that doesn't involve a save. There should be.

I'll note that this secret compares favorably (meaning it is better than) the Hexblade's curse ability. That indicates that it is too powerful, to me. (This one secret is better than a major feature of the whole hexblade class.)

Necrocarnum link(Su): You must have the Lord of Necrocarnum feature in order to select this. You must imbue a captured soul into one of your zombies, but still counts as one of your captured souls. The process is similar to Necrocarnum Fortification. You may discharge it for other soul abilities, but only if the zombie is adjacent to you and it ends the effect. Once imbued you may invest into a zombie’s pool as if it were a necrocarnum soulmeld and they may invest it normally. Additionally you may share the full benefits of one of your soulmelds and your beneficial soul effects. These benefits apply when able to direct a zombie. If the zombie dies the soul is lost.

I could be misreading, here, but I think this one is too powerful. You are giving up one soul held for sharing some of the best, most powerful stuff you have here. (One soulmeld, all of your "soul effects," and giving the zombie even more essentia to spend? Way too much.)

Soul Vigor(Su) You must have the Soul Shield secret. You may sacrifice a soul to stave away death as an immediate action. You gain the benefit of the Die Hard feat and you may still live even under -10 equal to the HD of the soul sacrificed. This ability lasts three rounds, multiple uses do not stack.

Pretty good, though the wording is a bit unclear. It took a couple read-throughs, but I think I have the gist of it.

Reaping Harvest(Su) You must have the Improved Harvest Soul and Font of Necrocarnum secrets to gain use of this. Instead of waiting for a creature to die you may reap their soul in a weakened or dying state. As such you have permanent Deathwatch except the range is equal to your sight. As an immediate action of the first option of Harvest Soul you may use this now whenever someone is reduced -1 hit points or rolls death from massive damage. The victim must make a will or fortitude save(your choice), they receive +2 bonus to the roll if it is the latter option. If they succeed they continue to live if not they die instantly and can only be raised by a necrocarnum circlet, true resurrection, or miracle.

Too powerful by a fair margin. (1) Don't change the deathwatch range. (2) Pick a save (Fort fits the ability; it is an attack on life force), don't let the necrocarnate choose. (3) Triggering on massive damage is too easy, past a certain level. I'd just make it a daily (or X/day) ability. (4) Action cost: Make it a standard action. An immediate to force a second save or die (to go with the massive damage save or die) when they are already taking damage is just too much. (5) Not really an objection, but no save DC is given.

Forsaken(Su): You must have the Lord of Necrocarnum feature and Font of Necrocarnum secret. You may twist aspects of a soul of a captured soul until it has characteristics of the Lost. Upon doing this you must complete the same ritual as with Necrocarnate Fortification except you can do it on yourself as well. You may only have one soul active this at a time. As such it counts as one of your stored souls. You gain four new options from which either to debuff your enemies and/or buff your own. If it is applied to you the range equals your Necrocarnum circlet, if it is a zombie it is their base threat range. You may activate them as a move action and lasts one round per necrocarnate level in which the soul is expended.

Aura of Despair: Upon entering the field the victims suffer a -2 to attacks, saves, skill, and ability checks, multiple auras do not stack. This is a mind-affecting ability.

Veil of Misery: When a victim gets struck by an attack while in this field they must make a will save(10+1/2 HD+ cha. mod) or be affected by the last option of bestow curse. If they succeed they act normally and are not affected by the same field. If they leave the field they may immediately make another save and may continue to do so at each round outside the field. If they succeed in this manner they do not gain immunity. This is a mind-affecting ability

Mantle of Hatred: All in this field except for the point of emanation always must make saves against any transmutation or conjuration spells. They also do not gain any bonuses from outside effects. They cannot gain the benefit of flanking. This is a mind-affecting ability

Hood of Fury: The user gains the benefit of the Fury ability of the Lost and any creature struck while in the field must make a will save or be affected as the rage spell. The difference though is the victim must always try to directly attack something. If they succeed on the save they are immune. This is a mind-affecting ability.

Too complicated, I think, for regular use. May be too powerful, too. You don't have the same abilities of the Lost, so that adds to the confusion. As it reads, there are four abilities that have little to do with the Lost in their functions or purposes. As to specifics, let's see...

Range: Just say "30ft" for you and "threatened area" for your zombies.
Immunity: You can include a blanket statement of "if you make the save, you are immune ...."
DC: Set this per meldshaper level, not based on soul. (It is too often the case that characters kill things of much higher hit dice than their own level, and it also means more predictable save DCs.

Despair: You need to have a save, I think.
Misery: I don't like referencing another ability, so just state the 50% loss of action. Your leave and save and no immunity is too complicated (especially since I didn't see a general statement of immunity on successful saves in the first place).
Hatred: I really don't understand what you were shooting for with the first sentence. Clarify?
Fury (should be Wrath): Could be interesting.

Energy Resistance(Ex): Necrocarnum zombies gain a new essentia receptacle. For every point of essentia invested they gain 4 points of energy resistance to fire, cold, electricity, acid, and sonic.

Pick a type when you invest the essentia, not all energy types. Otherwise, this is good.

Flood of Necrocarnum(Su): They must have selected the Font of Necrocarnum and Necrocarnum Expansion secrets. As a full-round action you may expend a soul to emit a burst of Necrocarnum centered around you equal to 5 feet per 2 HD of soul sacrificed round down. This bursts deals 1d6 per meldshaper level you possess reflex half(10+1/2 HD+ cha. mod).

Too potent without a daily limit, in my opinion. As it is, it reminds me of the old Diablo 2 corpse explosion chain. Kill one thing, cast CE on it, which kills one or more others, allowing continued CE castings.

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I hope that helps with some insights. I think you overshot the power level a bit. I'm also interested in why you think the Necrocarnate is broken, as I haven't yet played one or ran one as an NPC.

 

[emoplato]

I'll give it a shot.



I suppose reversing the K(Religion) and Spellcraft required ranks makes some sense to play up the undead aspects of K(Religion). This keeps the minimum level 7 before entering the class. Not much of a balance change, if any. It does make it less likely that a totemist will qualify. (Easy in the default, not in your set-up.)

The level for your class only goes to 10, so you get your last features sooner, and you will have the option to return to incarnate (or whatever) at the latter levels. This, of course, needs some analysis.



This is a pretty big change from the Harvest Soul ability in the book. Yours seems to be a quick power-up (with one round duration), whereas the default ability is a longer power-up that takes longer to enact. I am inclined to think that yours is a considerably better ability, though how significant remains to be seen.



You seem to be giving the binds twice. Once from this meldshaping benefit, and again from your level 2 and 9 features, below. That seems to be a bit redundant. The fact that you continue to gain essentia contributes to potential balance issues, especially with the easily-enhanced essentia total given by easy soul harvesting.



So, six secrets, meaning six points of essentia off the standard incarnate. You will regularly be boosting that by half the hit dice of each enemy as it falls. (Little should go to waste, as the souls can be stored if you don't really need the essentia right then.)



Okay, the first big versatility power-up. Since each zombie has its own capacity and its own enhancement to that capacity, that is an area for delicate balance, too. Is one zombie with 12 hit dice better or worse than two with six each? The Profane Might and other secrets boost that considerable. The Horde one plays a key role, as does the class feature with the same effect. I like the inclusion of the corpsecrafter, but I think that should be the default, anyway.

 

[emoplato]

I'll give it a shot.



I suppose reversing the K(Religion) and Spellcraft required ranks makes some sense to play up the undead aspects of K(Religion). This keeps the minimum level 7 before entering the class. Not much of a balance change, if any. It does make it less likely that a totemist will qualify. (Easy in the default, not in your set-up.)

The level for your class only goes to 10, so you get your last features sooner, and you will have the option to return to incarnate (or whatever) at the latter levels. This, of course, needs some analysis.



This is a pretty big change from the Harvest Soul ability in the book. Yours seems to be a quick power-up (with one round duration), whereas the default ability is a longer power-up that takes longer to enact. I am inclined to think that yours is a considerably better ability, though how significant remains to be seen.



You seem to be giving the binds twice. Once from this meldshaping benefit, and again from your level 2 and 9 features, below. That seems to be a bit redundant. The fact that you continue to gain essentia contributes to potential balance issues, especially with the easily-enhanced essentia total given by easy soul harvesting.



So, six secrets, meaning six points of essentia off the standard incarnate. You will regularly be boosting that by half the hit dice of each enemy as it falls. (Little should go to waste, as the souls can be stored if you don't really need the essentia right then.)



Okay, the first big versatility power-up. Since each zombie has its own capacity and its own enhancement to that capacity, that is an area for delicate balance, too. Is one zombie with 12 hit dice better or worse than two with six each? The Profane Might and other secrets boost that considerable. The Horde one plays a key role, as does the class feature with the same effect. I like the inclusion of the corpsecrafter, but I think that should be the default, anyway.



Rebuke also potentially means command, right? Your command level is going to be varying (based on how much essentia you invest in this ability), meaning you can't command to your highest capacity or you'll have undead go uncontrolled when you shift essentia away from this ability. There is also no mention of whether this essential is invested like the feats (so once per day) or like a soulmeld (swift actions). Confusing ability. Maybe just make it full meldshaper level and leave no essentia component to this ability.



I'm really not a big fan of changing ability score emphasis midway through a class. Also, you make no mention of totemists, who use Constitution and not Wisdom by default. The second part is really unclear. I am not sure what you are going for.



This is considerably more potent than any of the necrocarnate's abiities. You are saying you can have, as a 14th level character, up to 21 hit dice in zombies, and you could have (if you could find the corpse) a single 21-hit-dice zombie. That is more than most cleric-based animators, if I am not mistaken. (How, exactly, this interacts with the horde secret should be explained. I would assume it is like all other 3e stacking. At level 18, for example, the 1/3 would be +6 hit dice, this would be +9 hit dice, so a level 18 necrocarnate with one "horde" would have 33 hit dice available, and the biggest would be 27 hit dice.

The healing feature seems dependent on the necrocarnum touch soulmeld (and maybe some of the other secrets/class abilities?). Is it too much to let you heal your undead at will? Maybe, but I think one of the Dread Necromancer abilities is similar, so perhaps not. It is powerful, though.



Not too bad for a capstone ability, but it rather negates the desire to have any necrocarnum soulmeld bound to your soul chakra. Also, you have the ability granted by a chakra-bind to your soul two levels before an incarnate could do so, and three levels before the default necrocarnate would.

And now, on to the real review, the Secrets. Whooo-boy. That is a lot to go over. Let's see....some are good, some are way overpowered, and some are really confusing.



Can't say too much against this. It seems pretty good, making it more predictable with the amount of essentia that the necrocarnate will have available. I can't see someone not taking this at least once, though maybe not more than once. Then again, you are already starting with a larger essentia pool than standard.



Borderline overpowered, I think, given the hit dice available to you. Your zombies will be way better than cleric-necromancer zombies. Bonuses to attack rolls and damage rolls should be more expensive than to AC and saves. Perhaps 1/2 the invested essentia? I might be off in this, though.



Not much to see here. Kind of a combination Evasion/Mettle, but based on using up a stored soul.



This increases the power of the zombies considerably. Especially with multiple selections, the interaction among this, the larger number of zombies, and the other receptacles, you have a multiplicative set of increases going on here that may synergize too potently.



The only notes I might suggest is that you lower the top hit dice for a single zombie to your meldshaper level and maybe be explicit on how this interacts with the level. (I mentioned this above.)



This seems powerful, as it could lead to really high essentia caps in a lot of receptacles. I'd have to crunch a lot more numbers to see just how it measures up.



Maximizing hit dice? After you already know what you rolled? That seems a bit much, especially with the high variability of a d12. Also, the removal of the invested essentia is an unnecessary complication. I'd suggest making it a more permanent investment of incarnum. (That is, there is no recovering it until the zombie is dropped or the next day.)



This is another potent ability. You can necrocarnum touch for at least 7d8 with no real effort. The last ability also seems to become 20d6+3d8 if you fully max this ability. With taking it three times, you can get +6 to the save DC, so that is pretty extreme.



While powerful, this is actually something that I rather like. I'm not sure as to the purpose for the damage taken for animating a necrocarnum zombie, anyway.



Umm ... no. Just too open-ended and potentially easy to abuse, especially with the low cost. I don't think I'd let this one go for 10 essentia per ability. Every monster you fight that has any special ability, you can turn that against following monsters. Really, no. It's the same level of power as a Gate or Shapechange spell (well, almost as bad).



No problem, here. A little skill goes a long way towards making the necrocarnum zombies more interesting.



I'm not sure of the action economy involved with making this part of "any attack." I'd prefer that it be a little more potent (say, a -1 per three or four hit dice of the soul used), but a separate standard action of its own. It is also unclear if there is a save for this power when used on, for example, a normal attack that doesn't involve a save. There should be.

I'll note that this secret compares favorably (meaning it is better than) the Hexblade's curse ability. That indicates that it is too powerful, to me. (This one secret is better than a major feature of the whole hexblade class.)



I could be misreading, here, but I think this one is too powerful. You are giving up one soul held for sharing some of the best, most powerful stuff you have here. (One soulmeld, all of your "soul effects," and giving the zombie even more essentia to spend? Way too much.)



Pretty good, though the wording is a bit unclear. It took a couple read-throughs, but I think I have the gist of it.



Too powerful by a fair margin. (1) Don't change the deathwatch range. (2) Pick a save (Fort fits the ability; it is an attack on life force), don't let the necrocarnate choose. (3) Triggering on massive damage is too easy, past a certain level. I'd just make it a daily (or X/day) ability. (4) Action cost: Make it a standard action. An immediate to force a second save or die (to go with the massive damage save or die) when they are already taking damage is just too much. (5) Not really an objection, but no save DC is given.



Too complicated, I think, for regular use. May be too powerful, too. You don't have the same abilities of the Lost, so that adds to the confusion. As it reads, there are four abilities that have little to do with the Lost in their functions or purposes. As to specifics, let's see...

Range: Just say "30ft" for you and "threatened area" for your zombies.
Immunity: You can include a blanket statement of "if you make the save, you are immune ...."
DC: Set this per meldshaper level, not based on soul. (It is too often the case that characters kill things of much higher hit dice than their own level, and it also means more predictable save DCs.

Despair: You need to have a save, I think.
Misery: I don't like referencing another ability, so just state the 50% loss of action. Your leave and save and no immunity is too complicated (especially since I didn't see a general statement of immunity on successful saves in the first place).
Hatred: I really don't understand what you were shooting for with the first sentence. Clarify?
Fury (should be Wrath): Could be interesting.



Pick a type when you invest the essentia, not all energy types. Otherwise, this is good.



Too potent without a daily limit, in my opinion. As it is, it reminds me of the old Diablo 2 corpse explosion chain. Kill one thing, cast CE on it, which kills one or more others, allowing continued CE castings.

---------------------

I hope that helps with some insights. I think you overshot the power level a bit. I'm also interested in why you think the Necrocarnate is broken, as I haven't yet played one or ran one as an NPC.

Ack, the forum ruined my edit well I guess I'll try to start where I left off.

Manipulator of Souls, you are correct in that I intended for this to be a Incarnate entry. Totemists had the Totem Rager while the others allowed both. It also really doesn't make much sense to either as it is more of back drop character. Incarnates base wise don't really have many save effects worth having so wisdom should only be average. As a result for flavor and stave MAD I gave charisma. The other sentence was to try to distinguish it as a different force to where its effects wouldn't be consider like other necromantic effects bypassing immunities from those sources. I think though it could be left out and change some other things to achieve balance. It is also a stepping stone feature for secrets as you noticed many have prerequisites to keep away power dipping.

Font and Flood of Necrocarnum, the first as you saw was intended to be another stepping stone. I did forget the bonus from the feat so I do think the DC can be shaved down to 1. The Necrocarnum touch optimization doesn't really bother me as base wise it isn't much. If you optimize it, that requires another feat(expand soulmeld capacity 1), an expensive glove(1), 5 secrets(3 fonts, rend soul, and imp. soul harvest), and it as an arm bind for a ranged touch attack 30 feet. It would do 13d8 damage only to living beings, that provokes, allows spell-resistance, and a fort. save. It is handy, but still a bit underwhelming at L16. As for the flood I'm going to replace with a control-type ability and leave blasting to the touch.

Soul Curse, hmm forget about the Hexblade when making this. I'll change it to what you said, will save.

Reaping Harvest, 1. Ah the base spell was bigger than I thought I'll take that. 2. Well, I do understand that but it is also ripping someone's soul out, but no other effect does that so okay a fort. it is.
3. Well I don't want it to be a standard save or die. It sort of renders the Deathwatch ability mute. It also seems a bit overpowered for at will. I know it is strange to say but this ability is an extention of the first option of the Harvest soul ability so having a command save or die at any condition of the opponent. Also seeing it steals the precious swift action of meldshapers to reallocate things doing it once a round on certain times seems pretty good to me. Instead maybe one can only use it once on an opponent from massive damage and can only do it again when they hit 0? However please give a different idea.

Zombie essentia abilities, I'll take the advice on the energy resistance so they change the type once a round. As I said before for some reason they put more lag on increasing base essentia capacity on them so a possible +8 attack and damage(30 HD zombie) as well a bit of speed or defense seems pretty reasonable for taking up 2/3 your secrets. I know there can be more zombies but they wouldn't be nearly as skilled or hardy.

Please post back If I am missing something and/or you have more suggestions.

 

[emoplato]

I'll give it a shot.



I suppose reversing the K(Religion) and Spellcraft required ranks makes some sense to play up the undead aspects of K(Religion). This keeps the minimum level 7 before entering the class. Not much of a balance change, if any. It does make it less likely that a totemist will qualify. (Easy in the default, not in your set-up.)

The level for your class only goes to 10, so you get your last features sooner, and you will have the option to return to incarnate (or whatever) at the latter levels. This, of course, needs some analysis.



This is a pretty big change from the Harvest Soul ability in the book. Yours seems to be a quick power-up (with one round duration), whereas the default ability is a longer power-up that takes longer to enact. I am inclined to think that yours is a considerably better ability, though how significant remains to be seen.



You seem to be giving the binds twice. Once from this meldshaping benefit, and again from your level 2 and 9 features, below. That seems to be a bit redundant. The fact that you continue to gain essentia contributes to potential balance issues, especially with the easily-enhanced essentia total given by easy soul harvesting.



So, six secrets, meaning six points of essentia off the standard incarnate. You will regularly be boosting that by half the hit dice of each enemy as it falls. (Little should go to waste, as the souls can be stored if you don't really need the essentia right then.)



Okay, the first big versatility power-up. Since each zombie has its own capacity and its own enhancement to that capacity, that is an area for delicate balance, too. Is one zombie with 12 hit dice better or worse than two with six each? The Profane Might and other secrets boost that considerable. The Horde one plays a key role, as does the class feature with the same effect. I like the inclusion of the corpsecrafter, but I think that should be the default, anyway.



Rebuke also potentially means command, right? Your command level is going to be varying (based on how much essentia you invest in this ability), meaning you can't command to your highest capacity or you'll have undead go uncontrolled when you shift essentia away from this ability. There is also no mention of whether this essential is invested like the feats (so once per day) or like a soulmeld (swift actions). Confusing ability. Maybe just make it full meldshaper level and leave no essentia component to this ability.



I'm really not a big fan of changing ability score emphasis midway through a class. Also, you make no mention of totemists, who use Constitution and not Wisdom by default. The second part is really unclear. I am not sure what you are going for.



This is considerably more potent than any of the necrocarnate's abiities. You are saying you can have, as a 14th level character, up to 21 hit dice in zombies, and you could have (if you could find the corpse) a single 21-hit-dice zombie. That is more than most cleric-based animators, if I am not mistaken. (How, exactly, this interacts with the horde secret should be explained. I would assume it is like all other 3e stacking. At level 18, for example, the 1/3 would be +6 hit dice, this would be +9 hit dice, so a level 18 necrocarnate with one "horde" would have 33 hit dice available, and the biggest would be 27 hit dice.

The healing feature seems dependent on the necrocarnum touch soulmeld (and maybe some of the other secrets/class abilities?). Is it too much to let you heal your undead at will? Maybe, but I think one of the Dread Necromancer abilities is similar, so perhaps not. It is powerful, though.



Not too bad for a capstone ability, but it rather negates the desire to have any necrocarnum soulmeld bound to your soul chakra. Also, you have the ability granted by a chakra-bind to your soul two levels before an incarnate could do so, and three levels before the default necrocarnate would.

And now, on to the real review, the Secrets. Whooo-boy. That is a lot to go over. Let's see....some are good, some are way overpowered, and some are really confusing.



Can't say too much against this. It seems pretty good, making it more predictable with the amount of essentia that the necrocarnate will have available. I can't see someone not taking this at least once, though maybe not more than once. Then again, you are already starting with a larger essentia pool than standard.



Borderline overpowered, I think, given the hit dice available to you. Your zombies will be way better than cleric-necromancer zombies. Bonuses to attack rolls and damage rolls should be more expensive than to AC and saves. Perhaps 1/2 the invested essentia? I might be off in this, though.



Not much to see here. Kind of a combination Evasion/Mettle, but based on using up a stored soul.



This increases the power of the zombies considerably. Especially with multiple selections, the interaction among this, the larger number of zombies, and the other receptacles, you have a multiplicative set of increases going on here that may synergize too potently.



The only notes I might suggest is that you lower the top hit dice for a single zombie to your meldshaper level and maybe be explicit on how this interacts with the level. (I mentioned this above.)



This seems powerful, as it could lead to really high essentia caps in a lot of receptacles. I'd have to crunch a lot more numbers to see just how it measures up.



Maximizing hit dice? After you already know what you rolled? That seems a bit much, especially with the high variability of a d12. Also, the removal of the invested essentia is an unnecessary complication. I'd suggest making it a more permanent investment of incarnum. (That is, there is no recovering it until the zombie is dropped or the next day.)



This is another potent ability. You can necrocarnum touch for at least 7d8 with no real effort. The last ability also seems to become 20d6+3d8 if you fully max this ability. With taking it three times, you can get +6 to the save DC, so that is pretty extreme.



While powerful, this is actually something that I rather like. I'm not sure as to the purpose for the damage taken for animating a necrocarnum zombie, anyway.



Umm ... no. Just too open-ended and potentially easy to abuse, especially with the low cost. I don't think I'd let this one go for 10 essentia per ability. Every monster you fight that has any special ability, you can turn that against following monsters. Really, no. It's the same level of power as a Gate or Shapechange spell (well, almost as bad).



No problem, here. A little skill goes a long way towards making the necrocarnum zombies more interesting.



I'm not sure of the action economy involved with making this part of "any attack." I'd prefer that it be a little more potent (say, a -1 per three or four hit dice of the soul used), but a separate standard action of its own. It is also unclear if there is a save for this power when used on, for example, a normal attack that doesn't involve a save. There should be.

I'll note that this secret compares favorably (meaning it is better than) the Hexblade's curse ability. That indicates that it is too powerful, to me. (This one secret is better than a major feature of the whole hexblade class.)



I could be misreading, here, but I think this one is too powerful. You are giving up one soul held for sharing some of the best, most powerful stuff you have here. (One soulmeld, all of your "soul effects," and giving the zombie even more essentia to spend? Way too much.)



Pretty good, though the wording is a bit unclear. It took a couple read-throughs, but I think I have the gist of it.



Too powerful by a fair margin. (1) Don't change the deathwatch range. (2) Pick a save (Fort fits the ability; it is an attack on life force), don't let the necrocarnate choose. (3) Triggering on massive damage is too easy, past a certain level. I'd just make it a daily (or X/day) ability. (4) Action cost: Make it a standard action. An immediate to force a second save or die (to go with the massive damage save or die) when they are already taking damage is just too much. (5) Not really an objection, but no save DC is given.



Too complicated, I think, for regular use. May be too powerful, too. You don't have the same abilities of the Lost, so that adds to the confusion. As it reads, there are four abilities that have little to do with the Lost in their functions or purposes. As to specifics, let's see...

Range: Just say "30ft" for you and "threatened area" for your zombies.
Immunity: You can include a blanket statement of "if you make the save, you are immune ...."
DC: Set this per meldshaper level, not based on soul. (It is too often the case that characters kill things of much higher hit dice than their own level, and it also means more predictable save DCs.

Despair: You need to have a save, I think.
Misery: I don't like referencing another ability, so just state the 50% loss of action. Your leave and save and no immunity is too complicated (especially since I didn't see a general statement of immunity on successful saves in the first place).
Hatred: I really don't understand what you were shooting for with the first sentence. Clarify?
Fury (should be Wrath): Could be interesting.



Pick a type when you invest the essentia, not all energy types. Otherwise, this is good.



Too potent without a daily limit, in my opinion. As it is, it reminds me of the old Diablo 2 corpse explosion chain. Kill one thing, cast CE on it, which kills one or more others, allowing continued CE castings.

---------------------

I hope that helps with some insights. I think you overshot the power level a bit. I'm also interested in why you think the Necrocarnate is broken, as I haven't yet played one or ran one as an NPC.

Okay, I made some changes like I said I would. I got rid of rend soul not because it was broken, but it really didn't fit thematically to what it was doing. I left the Forsaken open because I would really like to do something with it as it has some real dark and appropriate flavor of torturing souls. I mentioned an incorporeal option, do you think this would be good or should it be something else?

 

[emoplato]

Anybody else?

 

[emoplato]

Necro-bump Has anyone actually tried this in play?