Soulborn Reborn

[emoplato]

Well honestly the totemist and the incarnate already have the constant capacity boost thing so if you wanna keep being different from them I'd advise the more dramatic temp boost.

The constant capacity increase for feats on the other hand would be simpler, it's a trade off and your decision.

As for the meld-attribute matching thing, i'd drop it. If you have an idea for a meld, or notice a lack of melds for a certain body slot that corresponds to chakras you're gonna open, make a new meld. Otherwise give them access to the whole class list. (in fact what you might wanna consider is going back through the master list and adding melds that correspond to potential future builds like inspiring, mystic/aware, and cunning [cha, wis, and int respectively]) Let the class features and feat choice focus the build. I mean even the mighty hercules had to show speed once in a while.

Well I was planning on making new melds anyways. Actually the mauling gauntlets are only a Soulborn thing already. I was just sort of demonstrating the problem of the book Soulborn by example, currently a lawful incarnate would get more mileage out of the meld than its original owner. This additional scaling bonuses to melds dependent on Soulborn level I believe makes it so others can't just take it by feat or dip and make it better than the Soulborn actually ever could.
Well I am sort of leaning towards the permanent one, yes the other two do have permanent increases that but it is for a different set of abilities. I mean if you look at many of the PrC's with essentia abilities of their own can only invest up to 4, the umbral disciple's concealment can't even hit its own maximum it puts for itself. Also there could be the opposite problem in which this Soulborn could hijack other soulmelds and be able squeeze more out of one for the certain time(vitality belt badness).