The Incarnum Magic System is Neat but Remarkably Derivative

[Laman Stahros]

The analogy breaks down with soul melds. A jedi uses a piece of equipment as his chosen weapon, the lightsaber. The Incarnum user binds a soulmeld to his hand chakra, such as the Blademeld prestige class, which is primarily a fighter who can summon a magic sword composed entirely of Incarnum.

I have to post a correction to the above highlighted section. The Incarnum Blade prestige class has an ability called Blademeld that allows the Incarnum Blade to bind incarnum to his sword, enhancing it in a number of ways. The blade is not made of incarnum (I think your thinking of the Soulknife psionic base class), it is just enhanced. Just FYI. Otherwise, I agree with you completely.

 

[Soel]

Centurians, now thats a flash back...

Its a bit more liike Visionaries to me...Especially the Totemist...

 

[Merlion]

Yes and no. Incarnum is more than a magic item system and less than a magic/psionic system. It's solidly in between.

Incarnum is the power source, essentia is the personal capacity to tap that power source and soul melds are the physical manifestation formed from that power source. Essentia use is similar to the force, in that a user of Incarnum taps into their own personal ability to channel it to gain special abilities and effects. Where the Jedi may have a Force Jump, an Incarnum user might be able to channel some of his essentia capacity into his jumping ability, temporarily. The Jedi then decides to use the Force to make him faster...so to does the Incarnum user speed himself up...in fact if he's a duskling, it's a racial ability.

The analogy breaks down with soul melds. A jedi uses a piece of equipment as his chosen weapon, the lightsaber. The Incarnum user binds a soulmeld to his hand chakra, such as the Blademeld prestige class, which is primarily a fighter who can summon a magic sword composed entirely of Incarnum.

Now here's one of the big differences from other systems and, IMHO, a critical difference both mechanically and conceptually: they never run out. Incarnum is not consumed nor is it truly transformed. This sounds minor at first, but actually has some signifcant differences. As an Incarnum user becomes more skilled at creating melds and using his essentia, he gains more options, allowing him to transform his abilities and soulmelds. Unlike traditional spells, soulmelds stay in place until disrupted; a character could summon armor made from Incarnum and then keep it until he choose to dismiss it. In an emergency, he could change the soulmeld to something that might be more appropriate or useful.

Example: An incarnum character wishes to emulate the character of Beet the Vandel Buster from the anime series of the same name. That character can summon one of five weapons (powered by the souls of some powerful warriors) from within himself, to do battle with monsters. During a battle, it becomes clear that his spear is useless against the skeleton he's battling...so he changes the soul-meld into a hammer and resumes the battle. He realizes, however, that he needs more power, so he channels his essentia using a feat to increase his battle prowess...however, to do so, he's going to have to stop using it to increase his speed. He does so, smashing the monster handily. He then switches his essentia to temporarily increase his hit points as more monsters arrive, and so on and so forth.

Incarnum is NOT a replacement for a full-blown magic system. It lacks quite a bit of functionality that the traditional D&D magic system has (which is fine, as long as everyone realizes that some kinds of resources aren't going to be available). It could be a replacement for a traditional magic item system, but that practically requires most characters multiclass into one of the Incarnum classes or races to reap any real benefit (although some of the prestige classes, like the blademeld, don't have such requirements).

In short, I agree that essentia use (on several levels) is similar in style to the use of the Force. But it also is radically different in other areas. Adding in the concept of soulmelds and some of the various abilities, I think that it's more of a superficial resemblance...I tend to think of the Psionics system as much closer to the Force than Incarnum.

My overall point was that to me it just doesnt really seem like anything new, just a new way of getting the same effects. I also agree with whoever it was that started a thread saying he has trouble really connecting to the Incarnum classes because they dont really seem to fit any existing archtypes or anything.

I realize thats not entirely making sense. What I am getting at is that mechanically, its the same stuff we already have, achieved through a concept that overall seems to have very little basis in fantasy. I mean the idea of "soul power" certainlly does...in fact often thats basically what magic is. But the idea of "soul power" as some sort of semi-substance that one uses to basically create magic item type thingies...

I dunno it just seems like WOTC trying to 1) come up with new or new seeming stuff for people to buy and 2) halfheartdly offering alternatives to extreme magic item depedency.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Clever, but not particularly original in concept.

SWEET MOTHER CHRISTMAS, D&D PRODUCED SOMETHING DERIVITIVE?!?!?!?! STOP THE PRESSES! SOMEONE END THE HORROR!


You mean like hobbi...er...halflings? Trolls? Orcs? Angels? Fiends? Goblins? Faries? "Fighting Men" and "Magic Users" and shiny swords?

Derivitive? Really...

ForceUser, if you do change your handle, you should go with Captain Obvious.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I realize thats not entirely making sense. What I am getting at is that mechanically, its the same stuff we already have, achieved through a concept that overall seems to have very little basis in fantasy. I mean the idea of "soul power" certainlly does...in fact often thats basically what magic is. But the idea of "soul power" as some sort of semi-substance that one uses to basically create magic item type thingies...

Well, it creates the same effects, because there are only so many effects to be had. Basically, almost every effect you can think of falls under one of the schools of magic.

Also, psionics creates almost identical effects to spells due to the same reason. It's really the game mechanics behind it and the flavor of it that makes the difference.

A wizard looks through his spellbook, prepares his spell with words of power and waving his hands then channels magic later in the day the same way.

A sorcerer does it the same way, except he channels magic through himself with the gestures and words as a focal point.

A psion taps into the power of his mind to grasp the power there, his eyes glow.

The soulmeld user reaches into the pool of souls that exists all around them, grasps a creature's soul he recognizes, twists it, shapes it, turns it into a helmet that he can wear and attaches it onto his own soul.

Of course the end effect between all of them is the same, they shoot a bolt of acid at someone.

Also, I agree that Visionaries seems to be the closest reference to the way this works, I thought of the same thing when I read it, not exactly the same, but similar. For those who don't know it was a cartoon about people in a world where all techology stopped working and magic suddenly appeared. They had sort of suits of armor that looked a lot like platemail that got possessed by animal totems. This would allow them to transform into their animal totem.

 

[Merlion]

Also, psionics creates almost identical effects to spells due to the same reason. It's really the game mechanics behind it and the flavor of it that makes the difference

Thats one of the reasons I'm not terribly fond of D&D psionics. Its redundant in effect, but doesnt fit regular D&D (or most of its main versions) thematically.

The soulmeld user reaches into the pool of souls that exists all around them, grasps a creature's soul he recognizes, twists it, shapes it, turns it into a helmet that he can wear and attaches it onto his own soul.

Of course the end effect between all of them is the same, they shoot a bolt of acid at someone

But see thats the thing. To me, the "soulmeld" way of creating the effect isnt even different enough to be interesting, since its basically generate your own magic item, rather than buy it.


As you say, when you get down to it, all the effects are basically the same. In fact a fighter's sword swing, a mage's spells, whatever else are all basically just ways to bypass obstacles. Kill monsters, open doors, whatever.

But we want to be able to do that in truly varied ways, both mechanically and thematically. To me this Incarnum stuff seems to do neither for the most part.

As a contrast, Tome of Magic is supposed to include a True Name magic system of some kind, and Shadow Magic and one other that I forget.

To me that seems more interesting. Unearthed Arcana was interesting, because it presented true variants and different ways of doing things. And/or different and new ways to try and express, in game terms, the things we see in movies, books, etc.

Incarnum just doesnt seem to be doing that. And a number of people seem to agree. I mean I know some are enjoying it and thats great, but I would rather see time and energy spent on another book like UA, perhaps a book of magic variants, a book of melee/ranged combat rule variants etc than something like Incarnum which just seems like a "flashy new thing for gamers to spend money on" sort of deal.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

As a contrast, Tome of Magic is supposed to include a True Name magic system of some kind, and Shadow Magic and one other that I forget.

Partially off topic, but I anticipate that this book won't be all that different from the standard system either.

I anticipate that it will be a list of spells that can do things to people if you know their true names along with a couple PrC that give you special abilities that only work when you know someone's true name. Then a second section on shadow magic that will basically be a variant wizard whose spell list is almost all spells that use shadow to accomplish things, get more powerful when there is more shadow around, etc.

I know a lot of people have high hopes for it, but I anticipate that it won't be all that variant either.

 

[Merlion]

I anticipate that it will be a list of spells that can do things to people if you know their true names along with a couple PrC that give you special abilities that only work when you know someone's true name. Then a second section on shadow magic that will basically be a variant wizard whose spell list is almost all spells that use shadow to accomplish things, get more powerful when there is more shadow around, etc

Your very possibly right. Your almost certainlly at least partially right. I'm sure those things will be the main thrust...however WOTC does seem to be making some progress, and we may get a little more real variant content.


However even if it is exactly as you say, I will still probably be more interested in that than I am in what I know of Incarnum. Not only is it nothing remotely new or interesting in mechanics or execution, to me in terms of flavour and concept it doesnt merge well with basic D&D or even most versions of it. Much as I feel about Psionics. It just feels very tacked on, to sell books and to maybe partly passivify those of us who feel magic item dependency is an issue.


D&D in general, and especially lately, likes to just add layer after layer of new stuff that is its own thing and is often seen as being in compeition with "the norm", rather than creating new content that merges with and becomes part of "the norm".

Again Psionics is a good example. Instead of just being "mental magic" that works basically the same way as regular magic, with a feel thats similar overall but with differences of execution and feel to make it unique, it is instead its own seperate system and psionics-users and regular magic users usualy either hate, fear, or compete with each other.


In Arcana Unearthed/Evolved for instance, their are 5 spellcasting classes, and they all have their own views and methods of magic. But is all "magic" and all operates basically the same way, with differences of focus, flavour, view etc based on class.

 

[WizarDru]

D&D in general, and especially lately, likes to just add layer after layer of new stuff that is its own thing and is often seen as being in compeition with "the norm", rather than creating new content that merges with and becomes part of "the norm".

So your contention is that D&D materials, when they diverge from the norm, tend to diverge from the norm? Because I can't really say that anything in the Complete series, "Races of'" series, "Magic of" series, specialty monster tomes or other volumes that really take D&D in some radically different direction either conceptually or mechanically. So if you're referring to the books like Incarnum and Psionics...yes, they are at odds with the norm and treated as such, especially when dropped into an existing game.

As to whether Incarnum models fantasy, that's obviously a personal preference. I've got to admit, I don't see many written works of fantasy that really meshes with D&D except those directly based ON D&D. Incarnum does resemble some series I can recall, both TV, comics, manga and anime. Even Psionics exists in some series, such as the Deryni series, so one man's fish is another man's fowl. I can think of several series where a character has a magic weapon or item that he can suddenly transform in times of need or whose powers work only for him; Incarnum models this concept very nicely IMHO, whether it be Thundercats or King Arthur.

 

[Laman Stahros]

The soulmeld user reaches into the pool of souls that exists all around them, grasps a creature's soul he recognizes, twists it, shapes it, turns it into a helmet that he can wear and attaches it onto his own soul.

The classes in Magic of Incarnum do not directly manipulate souls. They tap the energy generated by souls and use that. Please don't give people the wrong idea about this book. It should work real good for my 'India' setting. Tapping the Akashic Records to power their magic.