Character Classes

INCARNATE

Incarnum is a tool you can use to manipulate the physical manifestations of moral and ethical forces and wield them in righteous pursuit of an ideal. Whether you are holy and righteous or corrupt and evil, you literally come to embody one cause or alignment, adding the distilled essence of good, evil, law, or chaos into your soulmelds. You embody the alignment ideal that you hold most dear (good, evil, law, or chaos): not only its principles and tenets, but also its underlying nature. Incarnates of different alignments have different methods of fighting and different strengths in combat - good incarnates emphasize protection and resistance, while chaotic incarnates use speed to best their foes. Lawful incarnates favor skill and accuracy in melee combat, while evil incarnates strive to do the most damage possible to their foes. These principles carry through your abilities, including the physical changes you undergo as you meld more and more incarnum to your soul. MAKING AN INCARNATE As an incarnate, you can expect to serve both a melee role and a supporting role by aiding other characters with your aligned aura and your soulmelds. In certain situations you are as strong a fighter as a paladin, though you suffer more when out of your element. Constitution is perhaps your most important ability score, since it determines the maximum number of soulmelds you can shape at one time (as well as the duration of your incarnum radiance). If your soulmeld selection focuses on melee combat, a high Strength score is important; if you use your soulmelds directly against foes, a high Wisdom score increases the save DCs against those abilities. Races inclined to alignment extremes make the best incarnates. The heirs of the mishtai - rilkans and skarns - are by far the most common incarnates, producing mostly chaotic and lawful incarnates, respectively. Dusklings become chaotic (or occasionally evil) incarnates. Dwarves produce lawful incarnates, while elf incarnates embody their good nature. Half-orcs might grow to be chaotic incarnates. Among humans, evil incarnates are more common than good. The planetouched races produce a great number of incarnates. The most common savage humanoid incarnates are evil kobolds and evil orcs. Incarnates hold to one alignment extreme. As an incarnate, you must choose one alignment component: good, evil, law, or chaos. This alignment component defines you and serves as your guiding principle. For incarnates, though, this is more than just belief, because incarnates channel souls that contain the very essence of this alignment component. Because their devotion to one ideal is so great, an incarnate can only pick one extreme alignment component (good, evil, law, or chaos) and must be neutral in regards to the other alignment component. This means that the only possible alignments for incarnates are neutral good, neutral evil, lawful neutral, or chaotic neutral. PLAYING AN INCARNATE As an incarnate, alignment is all-important to you. The most compelling reasons to adventure spring directly from it. Good incarnates adventure to fight evil, to protect innocents from harm, to hunt fugitives, or to right an injustice. Chaotic incarnates are drawn to oppose tyranny, champion freedom, and fight against the restrictions of law. Evil incarnates actively seek to spread destruction, seize whatever they can reach and keep, and slaughter those who are weaker than they. Lawful incarnates seek to expand their power within established frameworks, spreading the wisdom and order inherent to law. A great many incarnates devote themselves to deities they consider exemplars of their alignment. Good incarnates gravitate to Pelor, evil to Nerull, lawful to St. Cuthbert, and chaotic to Olidammara. Nonhuman incarnates sometimes follow their racial deities as well. Other incarnates believe that alignment is a higher power than any deity and revere their alignment above all else. Such incarnates are friendly toward followers of deities who share their alignment, but only as long as they continue to uphold the precepts of the alignment. Incarnates are often on very good terms with clerics of the same alignment and cooperate with them extensively. Lawful and good incarnates also frequently work with paladins. In general, you are happy to work with any character who shares your alignment, and tolerate characters whose alignment is close to yours. Lawful and chaotic incarnates find it difficult, if not impossible to work together, even if their motives are both genuinely benign, which is not always the case. How you engage in combat is almost directly a function of your alignment. Your soulmelds and your incarnum radiance ability emphasize certain approaches to combat that vary by your alignment. If you're good, you'll have a better Armor Class to stand up to melee attacks; if you're chaotic, you'll have more mobility to move in and out of melee range. If you're lawful, you'll hit more often in melee, and if you're evil, you'll deal more damage with each hit. Your incarnum radiance means that your allies can benefit if they're the same alignment as you are and share a similar approach to combat. You can't always pick your adventuring companions, but you have concrete rewards to offer allies who adopt your alignment. Most incarnates were strongly inclined toward a specific alignment before their first encounter with incarnum. You might have had a fierce sense of justice and good as a child, perhaps even considered the call of a paladin until you discovered that incarnum could transform good into a tangible force that you could hold in your hands. You might have discovered incarnum by accidental experimentation, or another incarnate might have trained you. Perhaps you were admitted into an order of incarnates, or learned under the tutelage of a lone hermit, one of only a handful of incarnates in the world. Your meldshaping ability offers myriad opportunities for customizing your particular abilities, since so many soulmelds are available to you and each one can significantly shape your capabilities. Your alignment determines which soulmelds are available; you cannot shape a soulmeld with an alignment descriptor opposed to your own. These soulmelds encourage your combat abilities in a certain direction dependant on your alignment, so you should try to select feats that complement that combat style. If you're good, Combat Expertise fits your combat idiom. If you're chaotic, Dodge and related feats fit well. For the evil incarnate, Power Attack is a natural choice, while lawful incarnates favor Weapon Focus and other feats that grant a bonus on attack rolls. INCARNATES IN THE WORLD Incarnates fill a wide variety of roles in the world, but are united by one common theme: whatever causes they adopt, they exemplify the principles of their alignment. In their actions and their capabilities, they add another concrete dimension to alignment in the D&D world. The kinds of activities that appeal to incarnates depend largely on their alignment. Good incarnates spend their time helping others in large or small ways, while evil incarnates are interested in helping themselves - and hurting others along the way. Lawful incarnates work to promote order and gravitate toward ordered cities in lawful societies, while chaotic incarnates promote freedom and even anarchy, preferring small communities or even solitary lifestyles. Incarnates of each alignment have particular exemplars and heroes they hold up as the ideals of their kind. Revered by evil incarnates and reviled by good ones (as well as a significant number of law and chaos incarnates), Murthien the Soul-Render is a legendary figure of evil, known for storming the Bastion of Unborn Souls at the head of a legion of necrocarnum zombies in an attempt to steal the energy of preincarnate souls for his own wicked ends. Some accounts relate that Murthien began his career as a good incarnate, but in a spectacular fall became an evil incarnate whose wickedness was unmatched. Davi the Trickster is a near-mythological chaos incarnate who figures prominently in rilkan romances. Phanallashtam the Lawbringer, a law incarnate of ancient times, is commonly recognized as the author of one of the first and most important early legal codes. N!doka the North Star is a good incarnate of more recent memory, whose fame as a champion of good and a fierce opponent of evil has spread far from her remote homeland. It is possible that incarnum is a relatively new discovery in your campaign world. In that case, these notable incarnates might be modern figures, or their stories might originate on another plane or world where incarnum is more common. The size and importance of incarnate organizations depends largely on the role incarnum itself plays in your campaign. If the use of incarnum is a recent development, there might not yet be any organizations in place to support those few individuals who experiment with its capabilities. Even if incarnum has been around for a long time, it might be a tradition passed from mentor to pupil in a small but unbroken line from the ancient past. If incarnates do gather into organizations in your campaign, their nature - as with all things involving incarnates - depends on their alignment. Few, if any, organizations exist that draw their membership from all four alignments of incarnate. Rather, incarnates of each alignment group with others who share their outlook, avoiding or actively opposing incarnates of other alignments. Law incarnates are the most likely to form associations. Even if their overall numbers are few in the world, scattered law incarnates find ways to join forces to contribute to the advancement of law and order. Both evil and chaos incarnates are more likely to work independently, while good incarnates lie between these two extremes. More often than they form organizations of their own, incarnates join other organizations that share their alignment and overall goals. Incarnates affiliate themselves with churches that share their alignment; some join knightly orders, arcane colleges, and even guilds of thieves or assassins in order to advance their causes. People who have strong feelings about alignment have strong feelings about incarnates - being friendly or helpful toward incarnates who share their alignment and unfriendly or hostile to those who oppose it. This category includes clerics and other devoutly religious followers of deities with nonneutral alignments, paladins and blackguards, soulborns, and members of races and other creatures with well-defined alignment tendencies. The majority of humans and halflings, at least, tend toward neutral alignments largely by virtue of simply not feeling strongly enough about alignment to take sides. These people are indifferent toward incarnates as well - although some have unfriendly feelings toward anyone who champions an alignment extreme. INCARNATE LORE Characters with Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (the planes) can research incarnates to learn more about them. Bardic knowledge reveals the same information. DC 10: Incarnates embody the principles of the four alignments - chaos, evil, good, and law. They draw magical power from a mysterious soul-energy called incarnum. DC 15: Incarnates take this soul-energy and shape it into objects almost like magic items. Their strengths and powers depend on their alignment: chaos incarnates move quickly and use ranged attacks, lawful ones hit hard in melee. Evil incarnates will rip you to shreds, while good ones focus on protection. DC 20: Incarnates shape incarnum into soulmelds. Though the soulmelds themselves are relatively stable and long lasting, incarnates can quickly shift power among their different soulmelds. Their soulmelds grow more powerful when bound to the power centers of the body, which they call chakras. DC 30: Information about notable incarnates, drawn from the section above. INCARNATES IN THE GAME The incarnate class is the backbone of the new rules system presented in Magic of Incarnum. Incarnum Campaigns presents extensive advice about how to work incarnum into an ongoing or new campaign, and that advice applies directly to the incarnate class. A player with an incarnate character will be happiest if the other members of the party have a similar alignment, if he has ample opportunity to use his soulmelds and incarnum radiance, and if he at least occasionally encounters NPC opponents and monsters that wield incarnum or use incarnum-related magic items. In other words, while it is certainly possible for a player to make and play an incarnate while no one else at the gaming table even owns a copy of this book, the most satisfying play experience comes from a campaign where incarnum makes a more extensive appearance. It could be possible to create a variant meldshaping class based on the incarnate but without the incarnate's rigid focus on alignment. By deleting alignment-focused abilities (aura, detect opposition) and removing restrictions on shaping soulmelds that do not match the character's alignment, then replacing the incarnate radiance ability with a different class feature, you would create a more generalized meldshaper. An encounter with an NPC incarnate, friend or foe, could be an adventuring party's first brush with the magic of incarnum. If this is the case, the DM should be sure to play up the strange and mysterious nature of the power this character wields. Describe the character's soulmelds carefully, choosing evocative adjectives based on the tone you want to set for the encounter - they might seem "ghostly," "radiant," or "ethereal," for example, depending on whether you want the incarnate to seem sinister, exalted, or mysterious.

Alignment: Neutral good, neutral evil, lawful neutral, or chaotic neutral.

Hit Die: d6.

Class Skills

The incarnate's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge(arcana) (Int), Knowledge(religion) (Int), Knowledge(the planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Table: The Incarnate

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the incarnate.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You are proficient with all simple weapons, light armor, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields).

Meldshaping: An incarnate's primary ability is shaping incarnum soulmelds, which are drawn from the incarnate soulmeld list. You know and can shape any soulmeld from this list (but see Aligned Soulmelds, below).

The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against an incarnate soulmeld is 10 + number of points of essentia invested in the soulmeld + your Wisdom modifier. Your meldshaper level is equal to your incarnate level.

An incarnate can shape only a certain number of soulmelds per day. Your base daily allotment is given on Table: The Incarnate. The maximum number of soulmelds that you can have shaped simultaneously is equal to your Constitution score minus 10 or the number of soulmelds allowed for your level, whichever is lower. At 1st level, you can shape two soulmelds at a time (assuming you have a Constitution score of at least 12). As you advance in level, you can shape an increasing number of soulmelds.

At 1st level, you also gain access to your personal pool of essentia, which can be invested into your soulmelds to increase their power. Your essentia pool's size is shown on Table: The Incarnate. Your character level, as noted on Table: Essentia Capacity, determines the maximum quantity of essentia that you can invest in any single soulmeld. As a swift action, you can reallocate your essentia investments in your soulmelds every round (see Essentia).

An incarnate does not study or prepare soulmelds in advance, but must have a good night's rest and must meditate for 1 hour to shape his soulmelds for the day (see Shaping Soulmelds).

Aligned Soulmelds: You cannot shape soulmelds with an alignment descriptor that does not match your own. For example, if you are a good incarnate, you cannot shape soulmelds with the chaotic, lawful, or evil descriptors.

Chakra Binds: Beginning at 2nd level, you can bind your soulmelds to your chakras, granting you new powers based on the soulmeld and the chakra chosen. Binding a soulmeld to a chakra closes the body slot associated with that chakra (see Chakras), so that you cannot also benefit from a magic item worn on the body slot associated with that chakra.

The number of chakra binds that you can have active at any one time depends on your level (see the Chakra Binds column on Table: The Incarnate). At 2nd level, you can bind a soulmeld to your crown chakra. Beginning at 4th level, you can bind soulmelds to your feet or hands chakras. At 9th level, you can bind soulmelds to your arms, brow, or shoulders chakras. At 14th level, you can bind soulmelds to your throat or waist chakras. At 16th level, you can bind a soulmeld to your heart chakra, and at 19th level you can bind a soulmeld to your soul chakra.

For more information on chakra binds, see Chakra Binds.

Aura (Ex): You have a particularly powerful aura corresponding to your alignment (see the detect evil spell). The power of your aura is equal to your incarnate level, just like the aura of a cleric.

Similarly, your soulmelds always radiate good, evil, law, or chaos (according to your alignment) as though they were aligned magic items with a caster level equal to your class level.

Detect Opposition (Sp): At will, you can attempt to detect the presence of creatures whose alignment is opposite your own. This ability works like the detect evil spell, except that it detects the specific alignment opposed to your own. For example, a good incarnate can detect evil, while a chaotic incarnate can detect law.

Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (Ex): Incarnates are specially gifted in their ability to invest essentia into soulmelds. At 3rd level and again at 15th level, the essentia capacity of your soulmelds increases by 1, superseding the number on Table: Essentia Capacity. This only applies to soulmelds, not to feats, class features, or other abilities that allow essentia investment.

Incarnum Radiance (Su): As an incarnate, you fuse incarnum with your very soul. You can tap into your incarnum-fused soul to activate a visible radiant aura of power, granting you an increase in a particular area of prowess. You can activate this ability as a free action once per day at 3rd level, twice per day at 8th level, and one additional time per day for every five levels gained thereafter (3/day at 13th level and 4/day at 18th). This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to 3 + your Constitution modifier (minimum 1 round).

Good: Your body shines with silvery light. You gain a +1 bonus to AC; this bonus improves by 1 for every five levels gained (+2 at 5th level, +3 at 10th, +4 at 15th, and +5 at 20th level).

Evil: An ash-gray aura surrounds you. You gain a +2 bonus on melee damage rolls; this bonus improves by 2 for every five levels gained (+4 at 5th level, +6 at 10th, +8 at 15th, and +10 at 20th level).

Lawful: You glow with a blood-red corona. You gain a +1 bonus on melee attack rolls; this bonus improves by 1 for every five levels gained (+2 at 5th level, +3 at 10th, +4 at 15th, and +5 at 20th level).

Chaotic: A faint green nimbus surrounds your body. You gain a 10-foot increase to your base land speed. This is considered a bonus. This increase improves by 10 feet for every five levels gained (+20 at 5th level, +30 at 10th, +40 at 15th, and +50 at 20th level).

Rapid Meldshaping (Su): As your ability to channel incarnum into soulmelds increases, you learn to shape a small number of soulmelds instantly. Starting at 5th level, once per day you can unshape one of your existing soulmelds and immediately shape another soulmeld. This process requires a full-round action and provokes attacks of opportunity. The soulmeld that you shape cannot be bound to a chakra, even if the soulmeld that you unshape was bound to a chakra.

You can use this ability twice per day at 11th level and three times per day at 17th.

Share Incarnum Radiance (Su): As you gain control over your powers of incarnum, you learn to share the effect of your incarnum radiance with nearby allies who share at least some of your morals or ethics. Beginning at 7th level, when you activate your incarnum radiance (see above) you can choose for its benefit to also affect all allies within 30 feet of you. Any ally who moves more than 30 feet from you loses the benefit until he returns within range.

If you share your incarnum radiance with allies in this fashion, you become fatigued at the end of the power's duration (this fatigue fades in 10 minutes). You must make this choice at the time the radiance is activated.

Allies who do not share your alignment cause cannot gain the benefit of your incarnum radiance. For example, a good incarnate's incarnum radiance benefit cannot be shared with allies who are not good.

Beginning at 17th level, sharing your incarnum radiance with allies does not fatigue you.

Perfect Meldshaper (Su): At 20th level, you gain the ability to flood your body with incarnum for a brief period of time. As a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, you can increase the amount of essentia invested in each of the incarnate soulmelds that you currently have shaped to the maximum essentia capacity of that soulmeld. This total will be greater than the amount of essentia normally available to you. This ability lasts for a number of rounds equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier. During this duration, you can't reallocate essentia from your incarnate soulmelds. You can use this ability once per day.

True Incarnation (Su): When you reach 20th level, the process of merging incarnum with your flesh is complete, and you are transformed into a new type of creature. You gain the outsider type, as well as the alignment subtype corresponding to your incarnate cause. Both your natural and weapon attacks are henceforth treated as having the alignment of that subtype for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

EX-INCARNATES

If you change alignment, you lose most of your class abilities, unless your new alignment is compatible with the incarnate class. If it is not, you lose your aura, detect opposition, incarnate radiance, and meldshaping abilities. You may not progress any further in levels as an incarnate. You regain all your abilities and advancement potential if you return to your previous alignment and receive an atonement spell. If your alignment shift still qualifies you for the class - a fall from neutral good to neutral evil, for example - you retain your incarnate levels and your class features change to match your new alignment.

INCARNATE VARIANTS

Aasimar Incarnate

An aasimar incarnate sees himself as a representative of his celestial forebears and a defender of his mortal kin. More martially minded that most incarnates, an aasimar who takes up this mantle is a stalwart champion of the weak and downtrodden. He embodies good as much as any creature (short of an angel) can, which manifests itself in his method of shaping and wielding incarnum.

Hit Die: d8.

Requirements

To take an aasimar incarnate substitution level, a character must be a neutral good aasimar about to take his 1st, 3rd, or 7th level of incarnate.

Class Skills

Aasimar incarnate substitution levels grant the same class skills as the standard incarnate class, plus Diplomacy.

Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier (or four times this number as a beginning character).

Table: Aasimar Incarnate Racial Substitution Levels

Class Features

All of the following are features of the aasimar incarnate racial substitution levels.

Martial Weapon: An aasimar incarnate trains for combat more rigorously than a traditional incarnate. At 1st level, he can select any martial melee weapon and gain the Martial Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus feats with that weapon. Aasimar incarnates tend to select the warhammer (since this is the weapon created by the good incarnum weapon soulmeld).

This benefit does not replace any incarnate class feature.

Incarnum Radiance (Su): An aasimar incarnate recognizes that strong defense is not the only tool required against the forces of evil - one must be able to strike true against the foes of good. In addition to the normal effect of the incarnum radiance, while it is active the incarnate's natural and weapon attacks are treated as good-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. If he has the incarnate weapon soulmeld shaped, that weapon deals an extra 1d6 points of damage to creatures with the evil subtype while the incarnum radiance is active.

An aasimar incarnate cannot grant his allies this additional benefit with the share incarnum radiance class feature.

This benefit augments, but does not replace, the standard incarnate's incarnum radiance class feature.

Share Incarnum Radiance (Su): An aasimar incarnate, despite his strong dedication to good, recognizes that not all creatures have the moral fortitude to stand strongly against evil. Whenever he chooses to share the effect of his incarnum radiance with nearby allies, he can grant its benefit to any nonevil ally (rather than just any good ally). He must make this choice at the time the radiance is activated.

An aasimar incarnate cannot share the good alignment of his attacks (see Incarnum Radiance, above) with allies.

This benefit augments, but does not replace, the standard incarnate's share incarnum radiance class feature.

Gnome Incarnate

A gnome incarnate is a righteous and cunning servant of the cause of good. Often dedicated to Garl Glittergold, the god of gnomes, a gnome incarnate is a living testament to the traditions of the race. His link to the souls of gnomes past, present, and future gives the gnome incarnate a special place of honor among their people, which he holds quite sacred.

Hit Die: d6.

Requirements

To take a gnome incarnate substitution level, a character must be a neutral good gnome about to take his 1st, 2nd, or 7th level of incarnate.

Class Skills

Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier (or four times this number as a beginning character).

Table: Gnome Incarnate Racial Substitution Levels

Class Features

All of the following are features of the gnome incarnate racial substitution levels.

Racial Defense (Su): A gnome incarnate serves on the front line of defense for his village or town. He relies on the knowledge of the souls within him to guide him in battling his people's most dangerous foes. A gnome incarnate gains an insight bonus on damage rolls made against kobolds, goblinoids, and giants equal to one-half the number of soulmelds he has shaped. If at least one other gnome ally is within 30 feet and visible to the incarnate, this insight bonus instead equals the number of soulmelds shaped.

This benefit replaces the standard incarnate's detect opposition class feature gained at 1st level.

Detect Thoughts (Sp): A gnome incarnate recognizes that foreknowledge of an enemy's plans makes the best tool for battle. As long as a soulmeld is bound to his crown chakra, he can use detect thoughts once per day. The save DC is equal to 12 + his Cha modifier, and his caster level is equal to his meldshaper level.

This benefit does not replace any class feature.

Share Incarnum Radiance (Su): A gnome incarnate can share some of his race's natural talents with his allies. Whenever he shares his incarnum radiance with allies, his allies gain a +4 dodge bonus to AC against giants, in addition to the normal benefit of the incarnum radiance. If the creature already has a racial trait that grants a dodge bonus to AC against giants (such as a dwarf or gnome), this bonus does not stack with that benefit - only the better bonus applies.

This benefit augments, but does not replace, the standard incarnate's share incarnum radiance class feature.

Tiefling Incarnate

Whereas most tieflings feel trapped between their mortal and fiendish heritages, the tiefling incarnate has no problem in balancing these two parts of herself. Indeed, she embraces both her mortal soul and her infernal blood. Despite being a native outsider, she forges a strong bond with her mortal heritage, as represented by her use of incarnum. At the same time, her fiendish nature is well displayed by her incarnumfueled abilities.

Hit Die: d6.

Requirements

To take a tiefling incarnate substitution level, a character must be a neutral evil tiefling about to take her 1st, 3rd, or 7th level of incarnate.

Class Skills

Tiefling incarnate substitution levels grant the same class skills as the standard incarnate class, plus Bluff and Hide.

Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier (or four times this number as a beginning character).

Table: Tiefling Incarnate Racial Substitution Levels

Class Features

All of the following are features of the tiefling incarnate racial substitution levels.

See in Darkness (Su): A tiefling incarnate's natural tendency toward living in shadow manifests itself as an uncanny ability to see through such gloom. If she has a shaped soulmeld that occupies her brow chakra, she can see normally in magical darkness, such as that created by a darkness spell.

This benefit does not replace any incarnate class feature.

Incarnum Radiance (Su): A tiefling incarnate's incarnum radiance class feature functions normally, with one addition. As long as the tiefling is not within an area of bright illumination (that is, as long as she is in darkness or shadowy illumination), she gains concealment (20% miss chance), even against creatures able to see normally in such conditions.

This benefit augments, but does not replace, a standard incarnate's incarnum radiance class feature.

Telepathy (Su): A tiefling incarnate can mingle the soul energy of mortals with her fiendish mind to grant her the ability to communicate telepathically with any other creature within 100 feet that has a language. This ability only functions as long as a tiefling incarnate has a soulmeld bound to her crown chakra.

This benefit replaces a standard incarnate's share incarnum radiance class feature gained at 7th level.