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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2703017" data-attributes="member: 1129">Magic of IncarnumWritten by James Wyatt, Richard Baker, Frank Brunner and Stephen SchubertPublished by Wizards of the Coast<a href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd" target="_blank">www.wizards.com/dnd</a>ISBN: 0-7869-3701-7224 full color pages$34.95Magic of Incarnum brings a new type of magic to the D&D game. It’s not familiar like psionics, and it doesn’t use a spell or slot system. It’s unlike previous books I’ve seen before like the Psychic’s Handbook from Green Ronin, or the Warlock from the Complete Arcane.The book uses the standard two-column layout and borders common to the D&D core books line. The art ranges tremendously. The illustrations by Mark Poole have some great colors and some good style to them, but the characters are in such awkward positions that the art looks bad as if the artist couldn’t take into account how the limbs or positions should be. The figures look stiff. ON the other hand, we have other old favorites like Wayne Reynolds, Ron Spencer, Wayne England, and one of my favorites, David Griffith. Their styles alongside others, gives the overall book a solid appearance. David Griffith’s contribution here, are the illustrations that break the chapters up and he does a fine job of providing a peak at the upcoming bits in the chapter. Incarnum is like the Expanded Psionic’s Handbook in that it’s part Player’s Handbook, part Dungeon Master’s Guide, and part Monster Manual.It starts off with four new races, none of which have a ECL modifier. We have the near human azurin, a race created when an unborn human is infused with incarnum, They’re similar to humans in appearance, have the extra feat at first level, no extra skills, and have an essentia pool and a favored class of soulborn.The rilkan and skarn are both products of the mishtai, an enigmatic race. The former are the bards and entertainers of the world, always seeking out that next story or to be part of that next adventure. The latter are a haughty race that thinks they’ve achieved the martial perfection that the they feel that mishtai were seeking to perfect. Lastly, the fey duskling, an unusual race in that they’re blue-gray skinned fey with some initial essentia and a favored class of totemist. Speaking of totemist and soulborn, they are two of the three new core classes introduced here. The classes use something called an essentia pool which is a point based system but it is unlike psionics. Characters can invest essentia, but can only invest so much based on their level per investment. For example, a 6th level character can invest up to two points of essentia while a 20th level one can invest four points.The classes use a method called meldshaping. Meldshaping involves soulmelds, essentia, and chakrabinds. The soulmelds are similar to spells or special effects that the character can surround himself with and invest essentia. The chakrabind grant even more benefits to that soulmeld. Chakras take up slots, and if bound to that slot, closes it off to a magic item because you’re actually crafting soulmelds to that portion of your body.Chakras include crown, feet, hands, arms, brow, shoulders, throat, waist, heart, and soul. Not all classes get all chakrabinds.The classes here follow some of the newer material WoTC has been throwing out. This includes different starting ages for the classes based on its difficulty. It also includes details that usually appear in Prestige Classes such as NPC Reactions, lore with ranks from DC 10 to DC 30, how to use the class in the game and adapt it, as well as how they work in the world. This includes details on daily life, notables, and organizations, as well as NPC reactions. Some might feel this is padding. Because Incarnum is so different than anything else, I think it’s a useful tool that GM’s can use to mold the material into the campaign.The first class, the incarnate, is the core class of mastering soulmelds. The classes here are alignment based. The incarnates for example, much hold to one alignment, good, evil, law or chaos. They start off with two, one essentia and no chakrabinds, eventually moving up to nine soulmelds, twenty essentia, and five chakrabinds.They gain other abilities as they advance in level. One of the bad things though, is that they have d6 hit dice and poor base attack bonus. While they have a good fort save and will save, their low hit dice combined with their low base attack, makes them suspect in terms of game balance because unlike psionics or spells, the incarnate doesn’t get the big flashy powers that effect numerous enemies with one sweep. Most of their abilities focus on the shelf, either making them harder to hit, making them hit harder, or some variation. If they had d8 hit dice and medium bab, they would at least look better on paper and after I play test some, I’ll share my findings on the old En World message boards.Easier to judge is the soulborn. This is in essence a fighter variant that has some small meldshaping ability, not getting their first soulmeld to fourth level, and their first chakrabind at 8th level. Their high hit dice, base attack, and high fortitude save make them a good meat shield in the paladin and ranger back up character. The fact that they also get bonus incarnum feats and a smite opposition ability. Yes, they too have alignment requirements in that they can only be lawful good, chaotic good, lawful evil, or chaotic evil. It makes them perfect for heroes or villains in a campaign.While it seems to be a good solid class, the totemist actually interests me more. With fair hit dice, d8, medium bab, good fort and ref saves, the totemist looks like the incarnate should’ve. In addition, they have souldmelds and essentia, but they also get a totem chakrabind. This allows them to mimic various beasts’ powers and fits in well with other natural variants like a shaman, barbarian, ranger, or druid.The book doesn’t go into a lot about skills, notes how spellcraft can be used to identify soulmelds and how concentration is still a needed skill to shape a soulmeld if you’re under threat of taking damage.The feats are where the blue madness starts. I say that because the feats are heavily colored if you will by poor wording in their names. A lot of azure, cerulean, colbalt, midnight, and sapphire used here. It’s good to keep the material separated and everything but reads a little poorly.One of the best things about this book is that it allows incarnum to be used in parts. One way it does this is through feats. Almost every class has some type of incarnum feat that they can take. For example, if you’re a rogue and want a little something extra that you can do, Indigo Strike adds a damage bonus when making a sneak attack (and also includes skirmish and sudden strike). The damage bonus is equal to twice the amount of invested essentia and it provides the user with one point of essentia. Many of the feats in their vein provide essentia points.A surprising feature of the book, is racial substitution levels. And it’s not just the standard levels that you’d expect. For example, it starts with aasimar incarnate levels, and includes azurin clerics, duskling barbarians, dwarf soulborns, gnome incarnates, hafling totemists, rilkan rogues, skarn monks, and tiefling incarnates. Each one has three levels they can take. This was something I would’ve loved to have seen in the Expanded Psionic’s Handbook and I’d be highly surprised if we don’t see something like that in the Complete Psion in April ’06. Like spells, the soulmelds take up a nice chunk of change. Soulmelds are broken up by classes, with incarnates having the most, followed by totemists and then soulborn. The bad thing is I don’t think we have enough options here. One of the problems is that incarnates, those with the most soulmelds, have an alignment restriction. See, they cannot shape soulmelds with an alignment descriptor that does not match their own. Good incarnates cannot shape chaotic, lawful, or evil descriptors. Thankfully it’s not a huge issue but it does cut into your options.Soulmelds are listed class, with Chakra, for example, crown, soulmeld name, for example, crystal helm, and basic effect, in this case, +2 on Will saves against charm and compulsion. In looking at the soulmelds, they include name, descriptors, classes, Chakra, saving throw, descriptive text, including investment of essentia, chakrabind, and other meld information.For example, continuing to use the crystal helm, it have a descriptor of force, is on the incarnate and soulborn class list, uses the crown Chakra, and has no saving throw. It starts with descriptive text in italics, similar to how a monster is described, and details it’s use. In this case, the +2 bonus. If you invest essential into it, you get a deflection bonus on Armor Class equal to the number of points invested. If you bind it, your melee attacks gain the force descriptor so you can strike those incorporeal foes. Simple enough right? It’s a little more complex because like a cleric, they know all soulmelds on their list. They can also change them on a daily basis. It’s a bit more paperwork too as you have to keep in mind if the soulmeld is bound to a Chakra, and if you have a magic item in that slot, or if you have the feat, double bind, that allows you to have a magic item and a Chakra or two chakras. After that, we get a chapter on magic. This is another example of the authors taking a lot of the current D&D products into stock as we have a few PrC spells here for assassins and blackguards, as well as material for hexblades, and warlock invocations, and psionic/wilder powers. Some of these are conjuration spells for midnight constructs, others to detect incarnum or to disrupt essentia investment. Others like incarnum bladestorm do Wisdom damage on a round by round basis and can be invested with essentia to drain more Wisdom. Magic items can be bound to Chakras as well and we have a listing of common magic item chakra binds. For example, a staff can be bound to the hands and provide a +1 insight bonus to caster level of spells cast by item, or a weapon can give a +1 insight bonus on melee damage rolls. In addition, a new weapon special ability, soulbound weapon, allows you to gain extra power if bound to a chakra, the benefits depending on where it’s bound. For example, if bound to the arms, it’s a +2 insight bonus to confirm critical hits. I think they did miss a chance to put some specific weapons here, and the fact that there are no artifacts is also a missed opportunity.For prestige classes, we have the following; incandescent champion, incarnum blade, ironsoul forgemaster, necrocarnate, sapphire hierarch, soulcaster, spinemeld warrior, totem ranger, umbral disciple, and witchborn binder. The prestige class format should be familiar to readers of WoTC products. It includes a quick quote, some reasoning of the class, how to become that class in terms of best class progression, entry requi8rements, class features, how best to play the class, including tips on combat, and advancement, as well as how the PrC fits into the world. Included there is information on daily life, notables, organizations, NPC reactions, lore, how to use them in the game, adaptation, and encounters. Some of these classes can be entered without being one of the core classes here. For example, the incandescent champion requires a bab +6, 4 ranks of concentration, and an essentia pool of 1. Easy enough to get with one of the new feats here. It’s a ten level good alignmend warrior type class that uses incarnum to augment their medium bab with things like fast healing or incandescent ray, a ranged touch attack that inflicts 1d8 points per essentia point invested. Thankfully they gain essentia quickly.The Incarnum blade is even simpler as they just need a +5 bab and 2 ranks of concentration. These warriors use chakra binds for their blademeld and gain access to different chakras as they gain in levels and can use their blademeld for different effects. It’s also a short 5 level class so you can enter and finish it quickly. Some of these melds are fairly simple like arms chakra giving you a +4 insight bonus to confirm a critical threat while others like the soul chakra give you weapon an alignment to overcome damage reduction and to inflict extra damage against those of opposed alignment. The example used is good, dealing extra 1d6 points of damage to creatures with the evil subtype. While I’m not normally too fond of the various NPC examples, this time I found myself actually using one of them. The Necrocarnate pillages the soul stuff of incarnum for their own purpose. The NPC here, Igalla Pallasi, not only has full game stats, but also a mapped out lair. I snapped that up and used her as the villain necromancer hinted at in Fane of the Drow who pillaged the tombs of the queen in that adventure. The sapphire hierarch, the cleric/incarnum user, and the soulcaster, both look like PrCs I’d love to try as they continue to advance in their primary class as well as meldshaping class in terms of number of soulmelds they can shape, the number of chakras they can bind, and their essentia pool. They do not gain new tiers of chakra binds at the same rate though so there are some limitations but it does look like some fantastic potential.Once you’ve gotten all the player options out of the way, it’s time for the GM to have some tools. This includes new monsters. It starts off with the incarnum subtype, which in essence provides nothing and is just identifiers for spells and effects that target incarnum users.The monsters include write-ups for all the races. At first, I wasn’t thrilled with this because it includes multiple write-ups. For example, the azurin has a sample warrior, cleric, and soulborn. It comes into focus though when looking at potential encounters that use those write ups. Other things include a incarnum dragon, complete with lair, totem giants, incarnum golems, midnight constructs, and soulfused constructs among others. It’s a nice selection of material and includes a few templates and more importantly, a few mapped areas that the GM can quickly throw into his own campaign for ease of use.While brief, chapter eight, incarnum campaigns, bears repeated readings. One of the problems with new material such as incarnum is that the GM now has to explain where it’s come from and why it wasn’t there beforehand. This rarely comes up in actual game play though unless you have an annoying player. How many new spells, magic items, or other PrCs crop up every month? Introducing something like incarnum can be as easy or as hard as the GM wants to make it.Having said that, the book provides some great campaign ideas. My favorite is the last mishtai. It gives the campaign a reason for why all of these things are happening all of a sudden that feels like a snowball falling from a mountain and becoming a huge avalanche by the time it reaches it’s conclusion. It starts off with skarns looking for the last mishtai. Other elements are suggested that make sense, such as the use of stray incarnum, using the lost template to showcase the strange magics being brought into play, having rilkans who want to be the heroes of any search for the mishtai come into play, as well as those merchants looking to make money off the search.With the newfound pool of incarnum in one spot, it attracts others like dusklings, and as more incarnum is used, newborns are born as azurins. All of these elements lend themselves slowly but surely to a campaign where the players themselves may never partake of the material in this book, but are surrounded by it and get to experience it for the first time as if they were strangers in a strange land.Other useful bits in this chapter include incarnum locations, including some that can be used as one-shot bits like the midnight grove that leaches life force and spawns midnight constructs from it, or the ever-famous bastion of souls. One nice touch here is that they include an option that can benefit from the Planar Touchstone feat.For those looking to give the players patrons and long lasting campaign guidance, the Pentifex Order is included. They act as a perfect tool to get players fighting against the lost or hunting down minions of the dragon Ashardalon, in addition to various necrocarnates.The appendix covers epic-level meldshapers, including increased essentia capacity, epic feats, and advancement for the core classes. Also included is an essentia tracker that can be copied, as well as a Magic of Incarnum character sheet, with it’s own essentia tracker and spot for chakras and body slots. In looking at the range of material accommodated in the book, there are only a few spots that might’ve been a little more polished. For example, how about an incarnum weapon of legacy? How about some vile and exalted feats? Considering that psionics was covered in several areas, including feats and powers, and that hexblades weren’t forgotten though, it’s a very minor complaint.Magic of Incarnum is not for everyone. I’ve heard issues on the old message boards with the flavor text, as well as concerns over the utility of soulmelds. For me, I can tell right away that I’ll be using several of the pregenerated PrCs in my own campaign, because I love the idea of the Warriors Eternal, as well as the maps for the “evil” NPCs included, as well as the locations included, and the various feats that can be used in part without using the book as a whole.If you want something other than spell slots or power points, Magic of Incarnum is for you.</blockquote>

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