AnotQuiteSimpleSoul
Explorer
Ok I think I'm finally getting to the point where I think I grok enough of the 5e system to start home brewing, and I want to try converting some of my favorite things from 3.5. First up Incarnum.
Now Incarnum had a really good idea mechanically, and the lore was if not great it had at least interesting kernels in there.
That said there were some serious problems from a playability stand point:
1.) It got complicated, fast. I blame mostly chakra bindings for this. I can sort of see what the intent was, but generally speaking it's just a big honking mess. So first rule: No chakra bindings... not a s a base class feature anyway, it might be a good idea in a more limited path/sub-class kind of deal, but I'm not going to recreate the mess that was picking out your soul-melds and then assigning their chakra binds, and working all of that around your magic items. This also means we can just skip the problematic magic item interactions and let them use whatever items they manage to find since 5e generally doesn't have the same expectations about magic items as 3e did.
2.) The incarnate class: Honestly Speaking I think they could have skipped the incarnate as a class, and possibly the soulborn as well, instead they should have grabbed some of the Prestige classes and promoted them to full classes. See the issue with the incarnate is that it's basically designed to be a class that's the best at using incarnum, the problem is that incarnum generally works through buffing, or adding smaller powers and buffing those powers. The incarnate doesn't have enough focus either from it's melds or from it's class skeleton. The totemist has a more limited selection of melds that make it's job fairly obvious, and the soulborn has a martial class skeleton that the melds can be stacked on and selected around. The incarnate while very versatile, and certainly useful, just doesn't end up having much identity or recognition on it's own. My favorite incarnate character was a changeling that took the Chameleon prestige class, the synergy was simply amazing, I could use soul melds to fake the magic items and additional powers that the Chameleon's rotating class features couldn't fill in for. While I'm not opposed to characters that embrace the PrC to that degree the problem is that with incarnates it seemed to happen all the time, to the point that everyone that did use it used it as a launchpad rather than as part of the character's core concept. There just isn't much to the Incarnate's core concept beyond 'use incarnum' and 'champion alignment'.
Now with all that said we have some options. 5e really plays up the use of class paths such as the battle master vs. champion vs. eldritch knight. So in theory the incarnate could be made as a versatile base class with a set of paths that give it a more defined role and purpose, especially if we start those at level 1 instead of 3.
In this case having the incarnate as the base class with soul born, necrocarnate, and Incandescent champion as the class paths would be workable, soul-born adds martial features and focuses the class towards self buffing, necrocarnate has undead minions and does some group buffing (maybe a little de-buff on the side), Incandescent champion is the party buffer and back liner with a few area control and blasty tricks.
The trick is that I feel like that puts an awful lot of pressure on the paths to carry the class, and doesn't really address the issue of the Incarnate itself as having a very weak class identity.
So the next solution that presents itself is to merge the incarnate with one of the Prestige classes to create the core class. This means we need to use a PrC that isn't tied too tightly with one specific application of incarnum (good bye incarnum blade, so long necrocarnate, have a nice flight spine meld warrior), and not a hybrid class (witch born binder, totem rager, soul caster, and sapphire hierarch all just got nixed). This leaves the iron soul forge master, the umbral disciple, and the incandescent champion, honestly speaking any of these would be perfect, Iron soul would be fairly cleric-y, umbral slips us towards monk or argue type base class, and incandescent champion drags the class towards a more sorcerer-warlock type of direction.
Given that the incarnate was meant to be the 'primary caster', Incandescent champion seems like the proper pick.
And yes, I know the incandescent champion was meant to be a warrior-type, but aside from incandescent strike most of it's powers really play into being a bit of a caster.
Incarnate
There is power in souls, any necromancer, devil, or deity can tell you that. What most don't realize is that tapping that power is well within a mortal's means. Souls flow constantly between the planes, and can be diverted temporarily by those with the will and the knowledge to do so. These diverted souls can be used to provide a flow of power that is nigh inexhaustible as new souls flow in to replace those that move on.
An Incarnate shapes this flow of power into incorporeal constructs called soul melds. These melds grant potent magical abilities to their wearers, and can be further enhanced by investing them with essentia, motes of a person's own soul trained and shaped to interact with the constant current of souls an incarnate manipulates.
Incarnate
Hit Dice: 1d6 per Incarnate level
HP at 1st: 6 + con mod
HP at higher levels: (4 or 1d6) + con mod
Proficiencies
Armor: Light, Medium, Shields
Weapons: Simple
Tools: None
Saving throws: Wisdom, and Charisma
Skills: Choose 2 from Arcane, History, Religion, insight, and perception
Soulmelds: The flow of souls can be shaped into temporary objects called soul melds, these objects rest over their creators' bodies and clothing, do not fall off and are not actually physical objects unless otherwise stated in their descriptions. If an Incarnate's soul meld would grant an ability that requires a save the DC is 8 + the creator's proficiency bonus + the creator's Wisdom modifier. An Incarnate learns three soul melds at level 1, and one additional meld every odd Incarnate level there after.
An incarnate may have 2 soul melds shaped simultaneously at level 1, an additional soul meld shaped at level 4, and another soul meld shaped at every 4 incarnate levels thereafter (8, 12, 16, 20). Soul melds once shaped last until unshaped by their creators. Shaping a soul meld requires 10 minutes, unshaping a meld requires only 1 minute. Some melds may prevent themselves from being unshaped under various conditions.
Essentia: An incarnate has an amount of essentia equal to 1 + it's incarnate level at level 1. At levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 of incarnate it gains an additional point of essentia to a maximum of 6 + it's incarnate level. Essentia can be placed in soul melds and other abilities to enhance their effects, essentia remains where it's invested until it's assigned elsewhere, moving essentia from one meld/ability to another is a free action, as is moving essentia to or from the unassigned pool, but moving essentia to or from more than one place in a turn requires a bonus action, if you take the bonus action you can rearrange your essentia freely. Unassigned essentia in the pool has no effect, if a meld is unshaped the essentia in it (if any) returns to the pool. Some abilities/melds may lock essentia into place longer, if so it will be mentioned in the description. A meld that locks essentia cannot be unshaped until that essentia is no longer locked, or until the shaper of the meld takes a long rest. No ability or meld may hold a number of essentia greater than the character's proficiency bonus.
Ok this is about as far as I've got it for now, not very impressive I know.
The big problem is what is the best way to work the meld-features interactions? Original Incarnate made the features mostly about buffing the melds and that didn't seem to help with the class's issues in regards to establishing itself.
The alternate approach is to make the melds interact with the Incarnate's native abilities, so instead of melds doing things directly they modify the outputs of basic abilities, for example say incandescent strike basically becomes a touch range damage cantrip type things, then soul melds would instead of granting cantrip type powers simply modify your incandescent strike ability. However that runs into the issue of what happens when you try to stack all of your melds on a given ability.
A third approach might be to limit the melds to supporting features, while the class's other features do the heavy lifting. Basically the class would primarily rely on unique powers that the melds don't directly interfere with.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Did someone already make an interesting 5e incarnate?
Now Incarnum had a really good idea mechanically, and the lore was if not great it had at least interesting kernels in there.
That said there were some serious problems from a playability stand point:
1.) It got complicated, fast. I blame mostly chakra bindings for this. I can sort of see what the intent was, but generally speaking it's just a big honking mess. So first rule: No chakra bindings... not a s a base class feature anyway, it might be a good idea in a more limited path/sub-class kind of deal, but I'm not going to recreate the mess that was picking out your soul-melds and then assigning their chakra binds, and working all of that around your magic items. This also means we can just skip the problematic magic item interactions and let them use whatever items they manage to find since 5e generally doesn't have the same expectations about magic items as 3e did.
2.) The incarnate class: Honestly Speaking I think they could have skipped the incarnate as a class, and possibly the soulborn as well, instead they should have grabbed some of the Prestige classes and promoted them to full classes. See the issue with the incarnate is that it's basically designed to be a class that's the best at using incarnum, the problem is that incarnum generally works through buffing, or adding smaller powers and buffing those powers. The incarnate doesn't have enough focus either from it's melds or from it's class skeleton. The totemist has a more limited selection of melds that make it's job fairly obvious, and the soulborn has a martial class skeleton that the melds can be stacked on and selected around. The incarnate while very versatile, and certainly useful, just doesn't end up having much identity or recognition on it's own. My favorite incarnate character was a changeling that took the Chameleon prestige class, the synergy was simply amazing, I could use soul melds to fake the magic items and additional powers that the Chameleon's rotating class features couldn't fill in for. While I'm not opposed to characters that embrace the PrC to that degree the problem is that with incarnates it seemed to happen all the time, to the point that everyone that did use it used it as a launchpad rather than as part of the character's core concept. There just isn't much to the Incarnate's core concept beyond 'use incarnum' and 'champion alignment'.
Now with all that said we have some options. 5e really plays up the use of class paths such as the battle master vs. champion vs. eldritch knight. So in theory the incarnate could be made as a versatile base class with a set of paths that give it a more defined role and purpose, especially if we start those at level 1 instead of 3.
In this case having the incarnate as the base class with soul born, necrocarnate, and Incandescent champion as the class paths would be workable, soul-born adds martial features and focuses the class towards self buffing, necrocarnate has undead minions and does some group buffing (maybe a little de-buff on the side), Incandescent champion is the party buffer and back liner with a few area control and blasty tricks.
The trick is that I feel like that puts an awful lot of pressure on the paths to carry the class, and doesn't really address the issue of the Incarnate itself as having a very weak class identity.
So the next solution that presents itself is to merge the incarnate with one of the Prestige classes to create the core class. This means we need to use a PrC that isn't tied too tightly with one specific application of incarnum (good bye incarnum blade, so long necrocarnate, have a nice flight spine meld warrior), and not a hybrid class (witch born binder, totem rager, soul caster, and sapphire hierarch all just got nixed). This leaves the iron soul forge master, the umbral disciple, and the incandescent champion, honestly speaking any of these would be perfect, Iron soul would be fairly cleric-y, umbral slips us towards monk or argue type base class, and incandescent champion drags the class towards a more sorcerer-warlock type of direction.
Given that the incarnate was meant to be the 'primary caster', Incandescent champion seems like the proper pick.
And yes, I know the incandescent champion was meant to be a warrior-type, but aside from incandescent strike most of it's powers really play into being a bit of a caster.
Incarnate
There is power in souls, any necromancer, devil, or deity can tell you that. What most don't realize is that tapping that power is well within a mortal's means. Souls flow constantly between the planes, and can be diverted temporarily by those with the will and the knowledge to do so. These diverted souls can be used to provide a flow of power that is nigh inexhaustible as new souls flow in to replace those that move on.
An Incarnate shapes this flow of power into incorporeal constructs called soul melds. These melds grant potent magical abilities to their wearers, and can be further enhanced by investing them with essentia, motes of a person's own soul trained and shaped to interact with the constant current of souls an incarnate manipulates.
Incarnate
Hit Dice: 1d6 per Incarnate level
HP at 1st: 6 + con mod
HP at higher levels: (4 or 1d6) + con mod
Proficiencies
Armor: Light, Medium, Shields
Weapons: Simple
Tools: None
Saving throws: Wisdom, and Charisma
Skills: Choose 2 from Arcane, History, Religion, insight, and perception
Soulmelds: The flow of souls can be shaped into temporary objects called soul melds, these objects rest over their creators' bodies and clothing, do not fall off and are not actually physical objects unless otherwise stated in their descriptions. If an Incarnate's soul meld would grant an ability that requires a save the DC is 8 + the creator's proficiency bonus + the creator's Wisdom modifier. An Incarnate learns three soul melds at level 1, and one additional meld every odd Incarnate level there after.
An incarnate may have 2 soul melds shaped simultaneously at level 1, an additional soul meld shaped at level 4, and another soul meld shaped at every 4 incarnate levels thereafter (8, 12, 16, 20). Soul melds once shaped last until unshaped by their creators. Shaping a soul meld requires 10 minutes, unshaping a meld requires only 1 minute. Some melds may prevent themselves from being unshaped under various conditions.
Essentia: An incarnate has an amount of essentia equal to 1 + it's incarnate level at level 1. At levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 of incarnate it gains an additional point of essentia to a maximum of 6 + it's incarnate level. Essentia can be placed in soul melds and other abilities to enhance their effects, essentia remains where it's invested until it's assigned elsewhere, moving essentia from one meld/ability to another is a free action, as is moving essentia to or from the unassigned pool, but moving essentia to or from more than one place in a turn requires a bonus action, if you take the bonus action you can rearrange your essentia freely. Unassigned essentia in the pool has no effect, if a meld is unshaped the essentia in it (if any) returns to the pool. Some abilities/melds may lock essentia into place longer, if so it will be mentioned in the description. A meld that locks essentia cannot be unshaped until that essentia is no longer locked, or until the shaper of the meld takes a long rest. No ability or meld may hold a number of essentia greater than the character's proficiency bonus.
Ok this is about as far as I've got it for now, not very impressive I know.
The big problem is what is the best way to work the meld-features interactions? Original Incarnate made the features mostly about buffing the melds and that didn't seem to help with the class's issues in regards to establishing itself.
The alternate approach is to make the melds interact with the Incarnate's native abilities, so instead of melds doing things directly they modify the outputs of basic abilities, for example say incandescent strike basically becomes a touch range damage cantrip type things, then soul melds would instead of granting cantrip type powers simply modify your incandescent strike ability. However that runs into the issue of what happens when you try to stack all of your melds on a given ability.
A third approach might be to limit the melds to supporting features, while the class's other features do the heavy lifting. Basically the class would primarily rely on unique powers that the melds don't directly interfere with.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Did someone already make an interesting 5e incarnate?
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