Incarnum Experiences

G'day!

I've just got home from DMing the first session in my new campaign, a campaign greatly influenced by Magic of Incarnum (and other releases by Wizards).

There is both a 1st level (NG) Incarnate and a 1st level Totemist amongst the PCs, and the enemies I set against them included some NE Incarnates, Necrocarnum Zombies, and Lost.
The adventure went *very* well. It was tough, it was fun. Here's a few notes about what I saw:

NG Incarnate 1:
Dissolving Spittle was the primary soulmeld being used here: a ranged touch attack dealing 3d6 acid damage. We had expressed concern before the session that this was too much, and it would overshadow the other PCs.

As it turned out, it was very difficult for Greg's PC to hit things with this attack. As soon as the enemies closed into melee, there was a -8 to hit them (cover+melee). Yes, Greg's PC tried to avoid the cover penalty, but even on the expansive Fantastic Location maps (see below), this wasn't always possible without losing several turns just to manuevering.

However, the acid spittle was decisive against the Necrocarnum Zombies, which few of the other PCs really were effective against. (The group lacks any big damage fighters).

NG Totemist 1:
First level totemists don't have access to their Totem Chakra Bind, so their offensive options are severely limited. Daniel chose to maximise his AC - it spent much of the session about 19 or so - not bad for studded leather + shield!

There's little doubt that at 1st level, the Incarnate outshines the Totemist. At 2nd level, the Totemist greatly improves, so we'll see what happens next session.

Lost:
Lost are Humans (or other humanoids) that have had their emotions fixed to an extreme by a stray strand of corrupted incarnum, I used two of the four types of lost: Rage and Despair.
Both were extremely evocative for the PCs. (This would have worked even better if the Lost had been NPCs that the PCs had known beforehand). However, their solid blue eyes and unnatural behaviour was unsettling.

The Lost commoner (rage) wasn't that effective in combat (not surprisingly!), but the Lost mine guard (despair) proved more interesting. Three PCs fell victim to its despairing gaze and became shaken for 7 rounds!

Necrocarnum Zombies:
They're fast, have a good AC, have DR 5/slashing & magic, and they have fewer hp than regular Zombies. They managed to freak out my players. :)

Poor Dave was playing a halfling druid (1d4-2 damage) and quickly found that neither he or his wolf (1d6+1 damage) could do much to affect them. However, due to his manuevering, he ended up next to the place where they entered the battle. As I mentioned, the PCs were lacking big damage characters. Thankfully, the Incarnate was able to save the day.

NE Incarnates 2:
If you want to scare the PCs, Necrocarnate soulmelds are the way to go. Necrocarnate Circlet is the primary one, and it allows a NE Incarnate to raise a Necrocarnum Zombie from a nearby corpse as a full round action. They can only raise one at a time and they lose hp when doing so, but with two Incarnates facing the 6 first level PCs, that was enough.

The mine was also full of corpses (human and goblin), so there was always another for these villains to use.

Once the PCs eventually closed to melee, they had to deal with the other two soulmelds that were active: Bloodwar Gauntlets and Incarnate Avatar (evil). Both were giving a bonus to the villains' melee damage rolls. So, 1d8+7 damage! Luckily, the AC of the PCs was sufficient to protect them - although the totemist was knocked down before the villains were finally dealt with.

Fantastic Locations - Mithral Mines (from Fane of the Drow):
Mike Mearls recently noted his changing approach to writing and running adventures. In my own case, the battlemat has been becoming more and more part of my games, although primarily it has been used for published adventures.

With this session, I got back into the groove of writing my own material. However, I really wanted to set it around the Fantastic Locations maps and see how it went. I used two: the Mithral Mines and the Drow Outpost (the latter from Dragon Magazine #337).

I really urge people to try running adventures this way. It opens up new ways of having fun with D&D. I can certainly say that my PCs really enjoyed it. You don't have to use the maps for the entire adventure, but the bigger set pieces benefit from it.

What the maps allow me to do - in addition to have manuevering and terrain being more important - is have the encounters consist of waves of enemies. The dungeon is much less static in feel. Consider the traditional 10'x10' room: you kill the orc, search the room, and take the pie. Then you move to the next room. Having the encounter area larger with the connections to the rest of the dungeon obvious means that the monsters in the next area move in reaction to the PCs actions in the first room.

In the Mithral Mines, the PCs first encounter the Lost mine guard (see above). The sound of dealing with him alerted the Blue and his 8 goblin cohorts further away in the mines: they split up and moved to intercept from two directions. As the PCs realised they were coming and manuevered to stop the pincer movement, they came in sight of two Incarnum Zombies who then attacked as well!

It was no longer a case the two groups just meeting in the middle of a room and meleeing. Things got a lot more complicated, and interesting. (Complicated simply from the situation, not from the point of view of resolving it, which was quite easy).

Fantastic Locations: Drow Outpost (from Dragon Magazine #337):
I love this map. It so wants to be part of D1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth. With the actual outpost being the base of the NE Incarnates, and there being goblins and guard dogs... wow!

To make things more interesting, I added a camouflaged pit in the main path towards the centre of the map. A goblin placed itself on the other side of the pit and threw javelins at the party. When the wolf-riding halfling druid charged it, the druid was very surprised...

This really changed the battle. Suddenly the only healer in the party was down, and the pit made a barrier that split the party (as some remained behind to help the halfling, and the others moved to engage the remaining goblins). When the guard dogs attacked and felled two more PCs... eep!

There is a school of thought that has D&D combat being less cinematic when maps and miniatures are used. Such was not the case for this battle! Indeed, the battle was made more cinematic by the clearly defined terrain and movement options - the best bit of was the halfling's wolf, having been dragged out of the pit by the bard, doing a leaping charge over the pit to save the other PCs from the guard dogs and necrocarnum zombies...

Perhaps the most surprising thing about all of this is that no PC died! The combats were extremely tough. Each PC came out of the session with 1,025 XP, having not rested at any point through it. Three PCs ended the final battle at negative hit points (two at -8!), but it was exciting and memorable.

The battles on the final map were pretty much constant - there were really three waves of enemies. 19 rounds of combat passed. (Dead at the end were 6 goblins, 3 riding dogs, 2 NE incarnates and 3-4 human necrocarnum zombies). The PCs fought themselves from one side of the map to the other, and retrieved a strange magical (necrocarnum?) stone that the villains had in their possession...

Party Composition:
Just for interest:
* NG Azurin Incarnate 1 (AC 18, hp 9)
* NG Azurin Totemist 1 (AC 19, hp 11)
* NG Human Bard 1 (AC 15, hp 6)
* NG Halfling Druid 1 (AC 18, hp 10)
* NG Dwarf Soulknife 1 (AC 20, hp 13)
* CG Elf Scout 1 (AC 16, hp 9)

The Totemist, Soulknife and Scout were all unconscious, but stable, by the end of the session.
I hope you find this illuminating. I plan to run a more urban/wilderness adventure next session, in two weeks.