Customer Reviews

Magic of Incarnum (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When it comes to supplement books to the Dungeon & Dragons game, players and Dungeon Masters alike must learn to pick and choose their battles. I say this because while many D&D books can prove to be quite viable in introducing new material into the game (e.g., new spells, character feats and options, monsters, and adventures), others can be a tad redundant and perhaps even useless to a given campaign. Luckily, Magic of Incarnum--released back in the September of 2005--is of the former eventually and not of the latter, as the idea it introduces into the core D&D game is one that neither TSR, Inc., nor Wizards of the Coast had ever tried before until this past year.

See, Incarnum is the soul energy that manifests itself within living beings. Anyone and everyone who either lives in the present, has ever lived in the past, and will soon be born in the future has a touch of this substance within them, although certain beings are more blessed by and intuitive about it than others are. The human-born azurin, for instance--one of the four races introduced in Magic of Incarnum--are especially aware of that which composes their very essence and utilize it in their careers as adventurers, aiming to either right the wrongs of the material world or subjugate the masses to their will to fulfill more malignant objectives. Similarly, there are the wild, gray-skinned dusklings, whose ties to incarnum blesses them with an innate knowledge about it and the knack for manipulating the energy of their spirits in an effort to mimic the powers of mystic beasts via the Totemist Character Class. The final two races presented in this manual--namely, the rilkans and the skarns--are offshoots of an ancient reptilian race called the mishtai that, when they existed, aimed at attaining "perfection of form" via a philosophy that espouses both physical and mental discipline and development as well as the use of incarnum. Unfortunately, the mishtai failed in this well-meaning yet lofty goal of theirs and eventually became extinct, hence spawning these two peoples and the bitterness they have toward one another as the result of the polar opposition of their general personalities (the nimble rilkans being friendly, outgoing, and daring and the skarns being studious, strictly disciplined, and somewhat scornful of those races they think are beneath them).

More important than the new races, however, are the three Character Classes this book introduces, all of which allow participants to utilize incarnum to aid them in their adventures within their home realm. The aforementioned Totemist, for instance, uses incarnum to forge different artifacts of magical power called Soul Melds that enable her to mimic the properties of the many magical beasts that populate the typical D&D world, from unicorns and blink dogs to manticores and chimera. The Soulborn, in contrast, uses his inner soul energy to bolster his martial prowess and smite those who oppose his moral philosophy, which can be noble or wicked in nature. Finally, the incarnate--the book's focal Character Class--is the very embodiment of law, chaos, good, or evil for her people and is the most adept of the three Classes in using incarnum to form Soul Melds that bolster her fighting skill, rend her foes asunder, or aid her and her fellow adventurers in various other ways. There are also plenty of Prestige Classes for PCs to attain once they reach higher levels, such as the noble Incandescent Champion, the arcane Soulcaster, the mage-hunting Witchborn Binder, and the sinister Necrocarnate. Throw in fifteen keen new monsters, numerous spells and psionic powers for magic- and psionics-wielding PCs (including the Incarnum domain for clerics), a full list of Soul Melds for incarnum-wielding characters, numerous additional feats for PCs and NPCs alike, and three campaign adventures centered around the presence of incarnum, and you've got one impressive book.

To summarize, while there exists the occasional Dungeons & Dragon supplement that just doesn't live up to its potential, there also exists that one manual that proves its worth within every page. Such is what Magic of Incarnum is in its success to provide D&D players with a new take on their favorite pencil-and-paper role-playing game. Indeed, it's the one book by Wizards of the Coast that gets one thinking in more ways than one, which is precisely what an RPG supplement is supposed to do. If you can find this manual, grab it. It's worth every penny!

Magic of Incarnum brings you a new magic system to add to your D&D 3.5 game. When I opened the book, I felt the same excitement I felt when I opened the Expanded Psionic Handbook and Weapons of Legacy. The book introduces something entirely new into your campaign, which requires a great deal of work on the part of the DM and also an above average effort on the side of the Players. Magic of Incarnum brings a new color into your campaign, but it is up to you to decide if you like this color or not.

Just as in the case of psionics, it is not enough to let players create incarnum using characters, as if you only do this, you will quickly discover that incarnum users are much too powerful. Just as any other kind of magic or psionics would be unbalanced if only the players had access to it, Magic of Incarnum should be introduced into all levels of gameplay (like background motivations, monsters, locations, NPCs, etc.) If you integrate incarnum magic completely into your game, you will find that it is balanced.

With that said, those who are prepared to make the effort will find everything they need to do it in this book. The book describes the system how incarnum works, introduces new races, classes, PRCs, skills and feats, spells, monsters and adventure ideas. The book also has several small maps to be inserted into any campaign.

This book is fantastic! Incarnum can be dropped into any setting easily with no changes. In fact, WoTC layed the groundwork for this system way back in Bastion of Souls. Basically, incarnum is "creation-energy". You draw upon the essence of the universe that is responsible for life - and the power of souls past. You don't draw power from others like a leech, you know how to use the stuff of the universe to create enhancements on yourself.

Incarnum is based around flexibility. Each day you get to decide upon your enhancments for the day, and moment to moment you decide how powerful any one enhancement is. This magic system ain't easy. Anyone expecting to pick a list of spells to throw will be disappointed. Anyone looking to use a techie class to help fill holes in a party with some fun variation will be rewarded.

For example, my party was going into a heavy combat zone, so my character built himself up to handle front line fighting. He had a xd6 electricity touch attack, and a xd6 fire based shield. Every time he scrapped with an opponent, the opponent took touch damage and then fire damage if they hit back. He cleared his way through a group of goblin worg riders while the cleric kept him standing. The next session was more exploratory so he wore a get up that removed all conceleament benefits so the party couldn't be surprised by shadow dwellers. The third session he took up the range attacker spot. He was doing 4d6 ranged touch attack damage with acidic spit, and a magically enhanced armor class.

Final example: I played the totemist with shark pounce and a blink dog shirt. He would pounce for massive damage, next round he would strike and blink away 10', and then next round pounce, repeat ad infinitum.

Incarnum requries knowing the rules well and manipulating the different abilities for max collaborative benefit. It can be tricky and functions differently than every other class in the game. It also has a learning curve as you explore and understand how it all really works together. An excellent way to add spice and variation to any campaign.

I was excited when I first read Magic of Incarnum (hereafter MoI) and two months later I still am. Incarnum as a form of "magic" has some very interesting and inspiring ideas. In 20+ years of gaming I don't think that I have ever seen a product quite like this one.

The basic concept of "soulmelds" powered by "Incarnum" seems very fresh to me and the execution of the idea is an inspirational one. The authors set out to create something new to DnD and I think that they succeeded admirably.

Incarnum as defined by MoI is essentially the energy of souls born and yet to be born. Individual living beings can tap into this power and gain pools of "essentia" that they can use to power feats or even solid incarnum creations called "Soulmelds." Soulmelds function like virtual magic items. They are "shaped" on a "chakra" point that is roughly analogous to an item slot. For a more potent effect the soulmeld can be "bound" to the chakra and actually prevents a real item from being used there.

The base classes are all interesting and all have some degree of ability to shape Soulmelds. The Incarnate is the soulmeld specialist can easily fill the role of trapfinder or skill monkey and give it a totally different feel than a rogue would have. The Soulborn is a minor soulmeld user much like a Paladin or Ranger & can fill much the same roles in a party. The Totemist is a flavorful class that can be a natural weapon damage dealer (think wildshaped druid) or something of a blaster though most wizards will be better at the latter. The Totemist Soulmelds are some of the most powerful and interesting in the book.

The Prestige Classes (hereafter PrCs) are exciting as well ranging from the good Incandescent Champion to the vile Necrocarnate and from the combative Totem Rager to the sneaky Unbral Disciple. I didn't see a single one that I would consider unuseable either in flavor or mechanic.

Many of these PrCs actually seem designed for non- MoI classes as do many of the feats in the book. Rogues, Wizards, Clerics, Fighters, Soulknives, and more can all benefit from material in this book without taking a single level in one of the new base classes.

The book is not perfect however. I found the new races less than inspiring. Maybe I've watched too much Star Trek but I'm well past the point where "looks human except for the scales around the neck" and such really seems novel or even needed.

The authors also made a poor decision in formatting the Soulmeld tables on pages 54-58 the way they did. Unlike many of the spell lists you cannot look at these tables and really understand what a given soulmeld does. I have seen several reviews elsewhere where folks were turned off by seeing that the "power of souls" grants a mere +2 to a skill or +1 to AC. If you just look at these tables I can easily see how folks would say "That's it?" You actually need to read the soulmeld descriptions to see what exactly you can do with it.

There are also some minor problems with the power scaling. Since a MoI class starts with access to all soulmelds the two basic factors governing how "powerful" he is are what chakra points he can bind soulmelds to and how much essentia he can power souldmelds or feats with.

Essentia investment is not very granular and thus it is possible to get a very strong effect at low levels with the right classes or feats ... and correspondingly difficult to have the effects scale well at higher levels for some classes and alignments.

The idea behind the chakra binding mechanism seems to be that more potent abilities will get unlocked at higher levels thus keeping them out of the hands of low level characters and giving high level ones a reason to keep advancing in a class that opens chakra binding points. They did a really good job of this with the Totemist. However the vast majority of the Incarnate soulmelds don't gain that much by binding them. In too many cases an Incarnate character will be better off with an item and an unbound soulmeld than he would be binding the soulmeld and taking up that item slot.

Still these imperfections were not enough to dim my liking of the book. I gave it 5 stars out of 5 simply because it is the one DnD book that I keep coming back to since my purchase nearly two months ago. Literally hardly a day has not gone by where I have not opened the book and thought about things I could do with it ... ranging from building a particular character to thinking about how I can work it into a new game world.

I realized, based on many reviews, that the flavor of MoI is very hit or miss ... but in my case they hit a home run!

Magic of Incarnum has a lot to offer: new races, new classes, and a new magic system. It's a fun book to read, with artwork that ranges from amateurish to sublime, and the magic system itself is intriguing and innovative, like the psionics system as expressed in the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Frankly, it's a breath of fresh air, a diversion from the Vancian spellcasting system that has been a part of D&D for 3.5 editions.

Unfortunately, Magic of Incarnum reads as if it were unfinished, as if the author's creativity dwindled after he developed the magic system. MoI seems to have been padded with useless information and bland ideas and rushed to the presses. Worse, MoI is plagued by what I consider to be bad design decisions: 1) classes are needlessly restricted by alignment; 2) classes are, generally, weak mirror images of those in the PHB; 3) the races are hideously bland: blue humans, spiky humans, scaled humans, blue-skinned halflings; 4) the classes are unbalanced (one flavor of incarnate can gain +14 attack bonus over another).

I just can't find a compelling reason to use Incarnum in my campaign. Arcane, divine, and psionic spells and powers just do more. MoI earned a place on my bookshelf with Ghostwalk--another book that I enjoy reading but don't actually use. I believe that incarnum could be interesting and useful if the system were re-designed: if WotC ever produces a "Expanded Incarnum Handbook," I'll definitely buy it.

Like the vast majority of books Wizards has offered us this year, this book is pretty formulaic. We get a new magic system, some new classes, new prestige classes, new feats and some new monsters. I do like the theme of this new magic system. I find it to be along the same lines as the Warlock found in Complete Arcane, but its different enough that I'm sure players would enjoy it. As a book its useful, but only if you plan on embracing Incarnum in your campaign. If you only plan to dabble, I don't think it'll work. Again a good book, but its not as good as some books like Heroes of Battle, for me the standout Wizards book of 2005.

The Magic of Incarnum (hereby referred to as MoI) is a really fun magic variant which can be applied to any v3.5 D&D game. It features incarnum, which are basically pseudo-permanent magic items which can be switched on a daily basis for different items. This may seem overpowered at first, but players play a dear price to make these items decent, in class levels specifically. The book itself features 3 base classes, a dozen prestige classes for those base classes, and feats, most of which are only as necessary as their effects (incarnum using classes in the book don't NEED them, they're recommended though).

Also, this book has the totemist, also known as the "build your own magical beast" class because of its incarnum selection. Definitely a good purchase.

I rather enjoy the idea here. I'm not quite sure how to use it since I've not gotten past the play testing and theorycraft end of things right now. but from what I've seen so far it feels abit like psionic and magics love child. I recommend the product for any advanced dmer who's fed up with the innate imbalance of spells per day. (I've got my own spell casting system that works.. ) I'm not sure where this falls in my systems scheme of things yet, I'm still testing it against the 'default' rules. Once I have a better of idea of how things fall in mine I will comment then about its balance.

but so far so good. the only thing I -don't- like here, is that it seems abit ripoff ish of the force. which is ok.. but does it all have to glow blue? *L*

I found the Magic of Incarnum full of interesting alternatives to a purely magic based RPG. While I dont think incarnum should be a replacement for magic in any game, some of the feats, monsters, and prestige classes could give your character a little something extra next time you game.

I love the system, a novel new twist on the idea of Final Fantasy VII idea of magical power coming from the Lifestream of all living things (here called Incarnum.) By tapping into that flood of living soulstuff, characters can draw upon the experiences of great warriors of old (Soulborn), Gain righteous power by tapping into the faith of those upholding their alignment back through the generations (Incarnates), or channel the characteristics of certain kinds of magical beasts through a bond to their shamanistic souls (Totemists). These energies are used to form what are called soulmelds, bindings of soul-power to the bodies chakra points creating effects similar in function to magic items. It is a really fun idea.

The book has an appealing cover and is full of beautiful art inside, as well as a slew of new signature characters, which is always fun. The new and races and classes are interesting, though it's a bit disappointing that there's such a tiny number of new classes. The four new races are useful though, whether you use Incarnum or not, well most of them. The rilkans, for example are a humanoid race with colorful crystalline scales covering their necks, forearms and shins--wanderlusting hedonists and artists who crave adventure and seek life in journeys rather than destinations. Fun stuff. The book is also full of cool monsters, magic items and exotic locations--such as the Temple of the Sapphire Eidolon, home of a huge orb of living crystal composed of petrified Incarnum, protected by a monastic society known as the Sapphire Hierarchs on a mission to return a world they see as fractured and fallen back to oneness. The picture of the Sapphire Heirarch, Sister Tara in the book is just amazing looking--beautiful but alien too.

The biggest frustration, back with 3.5 was what to do with all of this stuff. It felt like it needed some grounding in the campaign settings, some good solid examples of how it ties in. For example, with psionics there have always been psionic creatures in D&D that provided nice tie-ins for the new mechanics--Mind Flayers, Coatls, Thi-Kreen. It would have been nice to have a history of Incarnum in the different settings and races that have always been Incarnum users, unbeknownst to everyone. Unfortunately there isn't. You're left pretty much on your own how to drop something this hefty and potentially setting-smashing, into long running campaigns.

Dark Sun seems a natural place for it--since magic running off life force has been an unexplained, unexplored staple of the world forever and Incarnum magic fits that rugged primal setting so nicely.

Maybe the easiest answer is to switch to Fourth Edition where the core Middle-World setting is much more loose and accomodating, where what's over the next hill is far less certain and there's a lot more room for unexpected mysteries and suprises.

However you use it, it's a great book. I just wish they'd done a little more work to make it a natural part of their fantasy worlds.