I've noticed there aren't any incarnum allowing games around. Is this because there is something  broken with it or what?

If you're referring to "Magic of Incarnum" for Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) 3.5 - realize that many DMs don't allow a whole lot of supplements; just too many unnecessary variables.  That being said; there ARE quite a few games which allow a huge variety of supplements and 'splat books' to be used.

You will see this frequently with Gestalt games where power level really isn't an issue anyway.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:33, Thu 26 Mar 2015.

Nothing really 'overpowered' about incarnum, at least in my opinion. But I can see why few people play with it.

One issue is the editing of the book. The way it's written can make it difficult to understand the system it introduces. And the effort involved in finding the various rules and options can be greater than the payoff when you make and play an incarnum character. (I built an incarnate for a one-shot once. I spent a longer time building the character than playing it.)

In addition, overall incarnum is a very passive system. It offers a variety of manipulable bonuses to various stats, but very few new actions for you to take. As a result, it seems less effective than a splashier system like Pact Magic (Tome of Magic) or Martial Adepts (Tome of Battle). Oddly, that works in its favor in Gestalt campaigns, as combining an incarnum class with just about anything works well. They improve your character's capabilities, but don't compete for your actions in combat.

Incarnum DOES, however, compete for your magic item slots. Unless you take a feat for each one, filling a chakra with a soulmeld means you can't have a magic item in the corresponding slot. Which leaves you with the conundrum of having to weigh your class features against equipment, something few other characters ever have to do. Usually, equipment improves class features, or vice versa. Incarnum is one of the few times class features replace equipment, and that usually ends up being lack-luster. See psionic's Soulknife. (When equipment replaces class features, on the other hand, you know the equipment is broken.)

Also, there's too much blue in incarnum. There are other colors you know, WotC! Frankly, I'd not see it as being out of line to allow each person to have their own color of incarnum. Not that it differs in any other way. Like the IME (Individual Magic Effect) from Goblins (the webcomic).

I almost died of laughter at this!  This is too true, really really - too true; and I remember years ago this was my biggest turn-off from the book.

In regards to the splat book issue -

Often, people use the Complete Series; some use a few others like psionics and some of the optional stuff from Unearthed Arcana; but things like Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic aren't usually added to games unless it's a game specifically made to use that book; because they change the way the rules work quite a bit.

I think Jsalt has this pretty well summed up. However, another problem is that magic of incarnum seems relatively obscure. By comparison (last time I checked) there was a lot of hate for psionics, but a lot of people thought they knew what it was (they were usually super wrong, but there was still awareness of it as a thing).

I think Magic of Incarnum got 1 book and...no supplements? It certainly wasn't included in the srd files (while psionics was, as well as deities and demigods and some other things).

To be fair, tome of battle also only had the one book, but each of the three classes in there was flashier. It was the 'weeaboo fightin magics' book.

And there's also the equipment thing. While I appreciate classes that rely on their own inherent capabilities more than gear, a lot of dnd classes have a lot of gear, and high level stuff seems to be made with the expectation that you have fancy gear. It's not as much of a problem if you can codzilla up before a fight...but I haven't ever been in a fight in dnd where buffing could reliably take up more than a round or two.

In any case, I expect that locking out equipment slots would leave a bad taste in a lot of players (and power gamers) mouths. And while I personally had a lot of fun with my soulknife, sometimes it was annoying that I couldn't really use some of the weapons we found during that campaign (because soulknife only gets simple weapon prof and soulknife prof, but not martial). Of course, the trade off to not being able to wield one of the artifact swords we found was that the character was already the yusuke urameshi of the setting.

The difference is that locking out a weapon slot isn't so bad when, at level 1, you get a weapon that counts as magic on a hit. And in a low magic campaign, your scaling psychic sword may well outpace any weapons the party encounters. So maybe incarnum would work better for a low magic campaign...but then you'd have to get the dm to allow you to play it at all.

I think it boils down to the same reasons you don't see Tome of Magic or Psionics allowed in a lot of games. All three make substantial changes to the way things work, which means additional work for DMs. Also, adding in completely new magic systems can lead to unintentional brokenness when combined with the existing magic systems. Some things, like, say, the Warlock from Complete Arcane, merely expand existing magic systems. Invocations and eldritch blast are the warlock's bag, but they're still spell-like abilities, and follow all the rules for such. Likewise, a Wu Jen may have some freaky abilities, but they still follow the same spellcasting rules as other characters. A Binder from ToM, any Psionics, and Incarnum don't follow those rules, but their own set of rules. For instance, do Psionics bypass Spell Resistance? Do spells bypass Psionic Resistance? What happens when you combine an Incarnum character with the Vow of Poverty feat? And so on. More questions means more work for the DM, which means more headaches.

So most people err on the side of no, especially if they're not familiar with the additional rules.

Um, not really. From the in-game point of view, yes the alternate magic types look different, but in a game mechanics point of view? They really aren't all that different.

The answers to your psionic questions is very easy, and found here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psio...nicAndMagicalEffects



Similarly, all the things you've mentioned? While they have different rules for using them (ie, no spell slots used), they all end up being pretty much the same. Binder are noted as gaining Supernatural abilities, which follows the exact same rules supernatural abilites from the core books follow (ie, they don't act as spells and thus ignore SR and can't be dispelled). Shadowcaster's mysteries are considered spell-like (or eventually supernatural abilities) and thus follow the same rules as spells and supernatural abilities. Truenamer's utterances... will rarely work, making them a waste of time (interesting concept, but they rushed that section out the door, and you can tell).

Incarnum + Vow of Poverty isn't all that insane since you still can't stack multiple bonuses of the same type, and guess what many soulmelds and VoP have in common? And while incarnum users do have an issue with equipment, they still do have uses for their allocated wealth that VoP doesn't cover. The vow only really covers basic defenses and a little offense, and gives bonus exalted feats. Of which there are few, and most are very small bonuses for very specific situations.

Really, it is only hard if you don't have access to the book for reference. That I understand. But give WotC this one: they do actually think of SOME issues before publishing a book! Not all of them, of course... the definition of the 'ally' for example, which is different in Miniatures Handbook and Tome of Battle.