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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 2732035" data-attributes="member: 151">Magic of Incarnum is another of Wizards of the Coasts' 'option' books.  It is an odd duck, to be sure.  In many ways, it is similar to the Expanded Psionics Handbook.  The book consists of several sections, consisting of player options, campaign options, customs monsters and roleplaying suggestions and locations.  However, exactly what Incarnum IS requires some explanation.The opening chapter describes Incarnum as Soul Energy.  The book also takes great pains to describe how it is not a consumed resource and some other language which is essentially there to make it clear that its use is not inherently evil.  The chapter then discusses some terminology and core concepts of Incarnum...and this is one of the book's weaknesses.  The language here is somewhat unclear and may require reading two or three times to fully abosrb the ideas being put forward.  In brief summary, the system works like this: Incarnum is the power of souls, both born and unborn.  Incarnum has two distinct ways of being tapped: Essentia and Soulmelds.  Essentia is basically a resource (measured in points, not unlike Psionics) that powers various feats, abilities and even Soulmelds.  Soulmelds are the physical manifestation of soul energy into virtual objects that you attach to body locations called Chakras (which are the functional equivalent of magic item slots).  Now here's the thing that makes Incarnum different from simply psionics, an alternate magic system or alternate magic item system: it is never consumed.  Because of this, your Incarnum (if you posses the ability to wield it) is movable from essentia powered ability to essentia powered ability....granting you flexibility the other systems don't provide.  For example, you may enter battle with your essentia devoted to making you move faster...but as soon as you get there, you realize you need to empower your defenses, and move your essentia to power that ability for the moment.  This provides amazing flexibilty which is the cornerstone of Incarnum.Still with me?  Now the next chapter features new races.  There are several new races put forth, of varying interest levels.  The Azurin are basically humans how were born with the ability to tap into Incarnum, for various reasons.  They sacrifice normal human flexibility for the power to wield Incarnum....they also are polarized to one of the four non-neutral alignments, being a race given to extremes.  This is a theme that is associated with several aspects of the Incarnum system.  Some may find it very irritating, most likely on the same par as with their opinion of the D&D alignment system in general.  It is fairly easy to discard these restrictions, if so desired.  Other races include the dusklings, a Fey race that can use Essentia to make themselves slightly faster and two 'Star Trek' alien races.  By this I mean a pair of races that are essentially humans with minor cosmetic differences...namely arm-blade extensions and scales.  Both races are not terribly exciting, but they also aren't poorly executed.  Classes follow, of course, introducing three new core classes: the Incarnate, the Soulborn  and the Totemist.  Each class is a specialist at a particular aspect of Incarnum, as you might expect.  One gets more essentia and access to abilities and feats to maximize their use, while another gets access to more soulmelds and another gets more benefit from the soulmelds he uses.  In general, all three classes offer some interesting possiblities; the totemist, for example, gains powers from his soulmelds not unlike a tribal shaman...he binds a  soulmeld from an animal spirit and gains it's powers.  All of them are well developed and their roles in a game are laid out.Successive chapters introduce the requisite new feats, spells, monsters and prestige classes to enhance a game.  Of note here is that support is provided for artificers and warlocks, a welcome addition to support previous books without taking a large amount of space.  A nice point about the prestige classes is that besides being well developed using WotC's new prestige class format (first appearing in the Races Of... series), but that the entry point for several is noticably low...allowing a fighter, for example to enter a prestige class to allow him to create his own soulblade with new found Incarnum abilities.The all important list of Incarnum soulmelds follows and are somewhat predictable at points, but entirely useful and serviceable.  Some are quite fun and others just feel like classic magic items or spells in a new context.  These are necessary, however, to give the incarnum users any chance of staying in the same power-level as other classes.  In general, some feel moderately under-powered...but the knowledge that they can be used much more than say spells, and that their power level can be altered by moving essentia around and specific feats brings that expectation back up.  They should be somewhat less powerful at their base, because of how they can be modified later.A large section of the book goes into ways to use Incarnum in a campaign.  While some might view this as needless fluff, I thought it was a good use of space.  Suggestions are made for an Incarnum campaign or how to integrate it simply for one adventure.  This kind of material is often overlooked, and in my opinion proves very useful.  Earlier I mentioned there being a few weaknesses in the book.  The unclear language at the beginning was the first.  This is suprising, given the normal clarity of WotC's work, but it's worth going through.  I think this mostly suffers from too little discussion on the matter...a couple of extra pages of detail probably would have made things clearer.  The second weakness is the insistence that all Incarnum is colored blue, and that virtually every Incarnum effect be blue and that every feat, spell or whatsit have a blue word in it's name.  This gets old.  FAST.  It's purely cosmetic, but comes off as cheesy.  Finally, the enforcement of the alignment issues seems somewhat under-exposed, as if they forgot what they were up to when they specified it.  I think they had a germ of an idea, but it feels somewhat forced.  Luckily, this is easily ignored, if desired.Overall, I'd highly recommend Magic of Incarnum.  It's a creative and different system that feels different from the existing options of magic items, spells and psionics and approaches the effects from a different angle.  It may not appeal to everyone, but it's an interesting options for anyone's game.</blockquote>

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