Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Torln 12-12-06, 04:31 AM	Hi I'm currently underway in a campaign featuring several vampire lords. My previouos character Psion/Kineticist (lvl3) was swarmmed under and torn apart by a good few tens of vamp spawn's not pretty. Of the survivors we have a lvl4 Elan Psion/Telepath a lvl4 Halfling Rogue who has a mean streak with shooting things in the posterior, a 4lvl Human Druid (who's just lost his badger to the undead feeding frenzy), and a 4lvl Elven Ranger. As of yet we do not know what has happened to our two knights. So recently deceased 4lvl Human Cleric (tempremental turn ability, piromaniac and bit aethistic may be returning) 4lvl Human Sorceror, myself and a 3lvl Paladin. Well anywho I questions are this. I wish to rejoin buut this time as an incarnum wielding adventurer. (Once more 3lvl) I'm leaning toward Azure Incarnate. Of course then the question is what next for my character build - skills, feats, soulmelds. Unfortunately equipment wise we are only set up using the starting package. I tend to typically play sorcerors and kinetiscists, though am always getting sucked into melee. Stat numbers as follows 18.13.16.18,11, 12 Please Help
Torln 12-13-06, 12:15 PM	Okay innocuos Bump please help!!!!!
Carwyn_Nhung 12-13-06, 09:26 PM	Well as this is character development I will go story first: Azurins are radicals, and Azurin incarnates particularly. So you need to have a cause if some kind, remember that your character lives faster than almost any other race and dies younger too. Don't worry about this in game terns as it’s only about 6 years less than some of the other races, but it should remind you of their ethos. Now as incarnates are described as being "super law" or "super good" they can have the paladin issue, but rather than simply being a Incarnate of good, law or evil, it may be more interesting to you to find some ideology that you think you can devote all your characters actions to. You could still keep the alignment restriction and powers; just make them about something different. Remember that incarnum is basically the ability to generate your own magic items, only ones whose power can vary and which can be swapped like clerics spells (I imagine you know this, but I wanted to be sure). This means that you are always loaded up with a load of amulets, of which bluesteel bracers and crystal helm are some of the most straightforward. The bracers give you lightning reflexes and a bonus to weapon damage, while the helm will give you +2 to saves against charms and a bonus to armour. Another 'classic' for combat is the incarnate weapon, as you can get an un-sunderable returning +2 chaotic battleaxe, which is fairly nice. It's also good to compensate for your lack of weapon proficiencies, as are the other weapon soulmelds. To be honest I have never liked incarnate as a class, more from a design point than anything else, as even though the totemist flicks about from one battlefield role to another, it has really tight thematics to all its abilities. What I tend to like incarnate for adding pure soulmelding ability to a class with good existing thematics, particularly those that are meant to be flexible. The perfect example of this would be the monk: As an Azurin Monk 1/Incarnate 2 would be quite interesting, as he would be always in little armour, so the soulmelds would be more obvious. You could also merge the class details somehow so that this soulmelding is part of his art. The thing is though, an incarnate can do quite well just from a single level in any of these classes, and that’s probably the way I would go: Get one level in a class that fits the kind of things you want from him, like a rogue, ranger, druid, barbarian, marshal, warlock, scout or basically any class that is good as a dip yet fits with incarnum then fill up on incarnate levels. I didn’t include the cleric because I want to here, as the cleric is in many ways a perfect fit for a soulmelder: Who better to meddle with soul energy than the gods? Also you can use the Azurin racial substitution levels to replace turn-undead with something much cooler. In fact, I have considered replacing all turning abilities in my campaign with something similar, as the idea of a divine infusion of soul energy to boost your blessings (soulmelds through feats, or in your case soulmelds from incarnate levels), is much cooler than a blast of life energy that does nothing but harm undead. And it also allows undead to feel more scary and unstoppable. I could say more, but every idea I have I find is already mentioned in these two threads: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=574633 and http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=530815 About the Ability scores, you want to get at least 16 in Con, so you probably want to go something like Str 13 Dex 18 Con 18 Int 12 Wis 16 Cha 11 perhaps using weapon finesse to get the most out of those 18s. You don't get heavy armour anyway, so all of your dex bonus can add onto your armour. But then this assumes you don't dip, as in the cleric version you would probably put the 13 into Cha, but not improve it after that. In most other dips that I can think of Int and Cha stay low because you can just replicate them with melds, whereas all the others have real relevance. Hope this helped.
Torln 12-14-06, 11:05 AM	Well I am straight incarnum (for now) with N/G azurin, scale mail, and a hvy steel shield. Our cleric has come back as vampire spawn, while we have a rogue, telepath, paladin, two knights, a bard, and ranger. I chose 18 Str 13 Dex 16 Con 18 Int 12 Wis 11 Cha
Torln 12-20-06, 10:01 AM	Anymore takers