Houserules for Magic of Incarnum - Brainstorming & Discussion

[Nifft]

Magic of Incarnum has always struck me as cool, but depressingly under-powered.

Someone somewhere suggested treating Meldshaper Level like Initiator Level and thereby give half-level increases for multiclass characters. (That also seems to solve the issue of Meldshaper Level for Feat-granted Soulmelds.)

But it seems like that is not quite enough. The Incarnum user also needs a way to buff save DCs and damage totals -- which could be accomplished by raising the Essentia ceiling.

I tried to merge these ideas, and came up with this:


Meldshaper Level (per class): Levels in that class + PrC levels that increase that class + 1/2 all other levels

Essentia Ceiling: 1/2 Meldshaper level (rounded down), or 1, whichever is higher

For example, the Essentia ceiling for a pure Meldshaper vs. a pure non-Meldshaper would look like this:

Level	Meldshaper	Other
1	1	1
2	1	1
3	1	1
4	2	1
5	2	1
6	3	1
7	3	1
8	4	2
9	4	2
10	5	2
11	5	2
12	6	3
13	6	3
14	7	3
15	7	3
16	8	4
17	8	4
18	9	4
19	9	4
20	10	5

... obviously with multi-classing there'd be plenty of variation in between. Like, a Soulcaster might end up with 2 Totemist levels + 10 Soulcaster levels + 8 other levels => ML 16, Essentia ceiling 8.


So, my questions are:

1/ What would this break?

2/ What MoI houserules have you tried in your game? How'd they work?

[Garryl]

I also wound up using initiator level-style scaling for Power of Cybernetics, which was my take on a sci-fi Incarnum. I doubt I'm the first to do that. I also had activator (meldshaper) level be a single value across an entire character, rather than be for each class, which neatly deals with the question of which number to use for non-class meldshaping abilities.

The good news about Incarnum's DCs is that they do get within 1 point of what you'd expect, assuming you're optimizing them with the standards. 4 essentia base + 2 from your class + 1 from the essentia capacity feat + 1 from an Incarnum Focus item means you get 8 essentia on your best soulmeld for a DC of 18 + Con, same as an 8th-level spell, except based on Constitution instead of Int, Wis, or Cha. Being Con-based means you get a lot of built-in benefits, and it's a bit easier to boost than most of the mental stats (although Soro's shown me that they're all a lot easier to improve than I think). This still has a few problems. You are actually spending a fair bit for that, even if it's also giving you strong benefits you'd want regardless. You don't have anywhere to go from there (possibly Ability Focus on your preferred soulmeld if that works, but otherwise there's no Spell Focus equivalent).

In regards to the effectiveness of the melds and their effects, that's a bit of a strange space. Some of them are really good. Numerical bonuses, at least, tend to be fine as-is. Damage for an essentia-optimized soulmeld can be rather high for the first few levels, although by 4th- or 5th-level they're just competing with (and eventually losing to) a Warlock, which is a terrible place to be. Adding an extra 6 essentia capacity over 20 levels will bring the damage up to semi-reasonable levels (although still dramatically weaker than spell-based blasting at mid-high levels). However, it does pump the numerical bonuses rather heavily, which may push thing further towards the edge of the d20 than you want.

Finally, any change to global essentia capacity likely necessitates a change to global essentia levels. You may need to adjust how much essentia each class and monster gets by levels, and you may need to rebalance the various feats, items, races, and other things grant.

For the numbers on essentia capacity, you may wish to round up instead of down. It makes for a smoother progression at low levels for non-meldshapers, who actually get nerfed in your version at level 7 where they'd normally improve to a capacity of 2. It also changes the progression for meldshapers to match Wizard spell levels.

[Nifft]

I also wound up using initiator level-style scaling for Power of Cybernetics, which was my take on a sci-fi Incarnum. I doubt I'm the first to do that. I also had activator (meldshaper) level be a single value across an entire character, rather than be for each class, which neatly deals with the question of which number to use for non-class meldshaping abilities.

I like that idea.

How would it work with multi-classing between two different Meldshaper classes?

Maneuvers do track specific Initiator levels if you multi-class between Maneuver using classes.

The good news about Incarnum's DCs is that they do get within 1 point of what you'd expect, assuming you're optimizing them with the standards. 4 essentia base + 2 from your class + 1 from the essentia capacity feat + 1 from an Incarnum Focus item means you get 8 essentia on your best soulmeld for a DC of 18 + Con, same as an 8th-level spell, except based on Constitution instead of Int, Wis, or Cha. Being Con-based means you get a lot of built-in benefits, and it's a bit easier to boost than most of the mental stats (although Soro's shown me that they're all a lot easier to improve than I think). This still has a few problems. You are actually spending a fair bit for that, even if it's also giving you strong benefits you'd want regardless. You don't have anywhere to go from there (possibly Ability Focus on your preferred soulmeld if that works, but otherwise there's no Spell Focus equivalent).

Yeah. The issue that I have here is that the meldshaper has to optimize just to meet the DC that a spellcaster would get for free... and a spellcaster could also optimize, at which point the meldshaper is back to square one.

In my ideal world, a naïve player building a meldshaper and a naïve player building a spellcaster would both have viable characters.

In regards to the effectiveness of the melds and their effects, that's a bit of a strange space. Some of them are really good. Numerical bonuses, at least, tend to be fine as-is. Damage for an essentia-optimized soulmeld can be rather high for the first few levels, although by 4th- or 5th-level they're just competing with (and eventually losing to) a Warlock, which is a terrible place to be. Adding an extra 6 essentia capacity over 20 levels will bring the damage up to semi-reasonable levels (although still dramatically weaker than spell-based blasting at mid-high levels). However, it does pump the numerical bonuses rather heavily, which may push thing further towards the edge of the d20 than you want.

Great points.

Yeah, when I looked at damage values, I was comparing with both Warlock and Dragonfire Adept. For my homebrew rule, the values that I was seeing for the Totemist breath attacks were comparable to an un-optimized Dragonfire Adept, but below those of an optimized Dragonfire Adept, which is about where I'd want them to be.

Finally, any change to global essentia capacity likely necessitates a change to global essentia levels. You may need to adjust how much essentia each class and monster gets by levels, and you may need to rebalance the various feats, items, races, and other things grant.

I was thinking of NOT doing that, and just letting a character allocate 12 out of 20 essentia to a single soulmeld.

Needing to make interesting round-by-round decisions -- including totally evacuating most soulmelds each round -- seems like a pretty good space for these classes. I like forcing interesting decisions on the players.

For the numbers on essentia capacity, you may wish to round up instead of down. It makes for a smoother progression at low levels for non-meldshapers, who actually get nerfed in your version at level 7 where they'd normally improve to a capacity of 2. It also changes the progression for meldshapers to match Wizard spell levels.

Mmmm... the way I was looking at it, the level 2 capacity bonus that both classes get would fill this gap.

(There's a 3rd class?!?)

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Not bad. The main "problems" are the essentia ceiling and the chart-based chakra openings, which you can't advance via PrCs.

[Nifft]

Not bad. The main "problems" are the essentia ceiling and the chart-based chakra openings, which you can't advance via PrCs.

Thanks!

Maybe for the chakra openings, have the Open ___ Chakra feats open all the relevant chakras.

So there would be:

Open Least Chakra (crown, hands, feet): 6th level minimum
Open Lesser Chakra (arms, brow, shoulders): 12th level minimum and open crown, hands, and feet chakras
Open Greater Chakra (waist, throat): 15th level and both of the above
Open Heart Chakra: 18th level and all of the above
Open Soul Chakra: 21st level and all of the above

That would put the feats at least one level higher than an Incarnate or Totemist would need to gain access to each chakra natively.

[Dr_emperor]

If you do that with the feats wouldn't it be better if they auto upgrade.  Maybe I'm weird, but I don't like it when the order of taking your feats changes their effect so much.

[Nifft]

If you do that with the feats wouldn't it be better if they auto upgrade.  Maybe I'm weird, but I don't like it when the order of taking your feats changes their effect so much.

Maybe I said it poorly.

Here's what I meant:

You CANNOT take the feat which opens your waist & throat UNTIL AFTER you have opened all of your least chakras (feet, hands, crown) AND all of your lesser chakras (arms, shoulders, brow).

There's no effect change. You just can't take it until you qualify, and you can only qualify by opening all lower chakras. Whether you open them from a feat or a class is irrelevant.

[Nifft]

Brainstorming fixes for Soulcaster:

Arcane Investment

You get eight new places to invest essentia, which each represent a school of magic. You can invest points in one or more school as part of a normal Swift essentia reallocation action. Each point raises the caster level and save DC of spells you cast from that school. Essentia investment is more limited than usual: you can only invest up to 1 point when you get this class feature, then 2 points at 5th level, and finally 3 points at 10th level.

There is no silly once-per-24-hours limitation.

- - -

Magical Distillation - this is crap, throw it away.

Instead, how about a nice feat:

Draconic Soulpower [Draconic, Incarnum]
Prerequisite: Draconic Heritage, Sorcerer level 1st

When you cast an Arcane spell, you gain a number of temporary Essentia points equal to the number of Draconic feats you possess. These points last for one minute. Casting again before the minute passes refreshes the duration of these bonus points.

You gain one point of Essentia.

- - -

... plus the current chakra binding boosts, and that's basically it.

The capstone would be getting a caster level higher by 1 than would otherwise be allowed at your HD, or 3 higher if you also buy Practiced Spellcaster. That's okay, but nothing to write home about.

I feel like it needs something more.

Ideas?