swordsage soul meld

[Nosta]

so a friend of mind wants to do a swordsage and wants to pair it with a soulmeld class but is not sure what one to pick. can you people help me help Him

FIY he wants to to an unarmed sword sage with vow of poverty

[Flickerdart]

Totemist is pretty much the only way to go here - the various melee-oriented soulmelds will greatly help a swordsage. Check out the feat Beast Claws - your unarmed attacks will get bonus damage equal to your claw damage, and totemists get claws out of the wazoo. Use melds like Wormtail Belt to compensate for your low AC, or Manticore Belt to get some ranged action going.

Incarnate melds don't overlap with what swordsage is good at as much. Soulborn are awful.

[AmberVael]

There are three base meldshaper classes to choose from!

Incarnate.
Pros:

• Gets the most meldshaping stuff. Lots of essentia, lots of capacity. All the chakras.
• Gets some sweet sweet bonuses to combat abilities through the Incarnate Weapon and Avatar soulmelds. Also, vitality belt I love you marry meeee.
• Can get all the skill bonuses.

Cons:

• Soulmelds generally don't have very diverse effects.

Totemist
Pros:

• Is a freaking combat monster. Literally.
• Gets some of the coolest and most interesting soulmeld abilities (Flight! Teleporting! Detect Magic!)
• Gets a pretty good meldshaping progression, though not as good as incarnate.

Cons:

• No soul chakra. Much sad.
• Main attack bonuses come from natural attacks, which don't work as well with most strikes.

Soulborn
Cons:

• Is Soulborn.
• Is terrible.
• Go home Soulborn. No one likes you.

I'm going to disagree with Flickerdart and say that Incarnate is quite a viable option, and has a number of things to offer that Totemist doesn't. Its more passive bonuses won't add as much variety, but they also mesh more readily with the active capabilities of an initiator class. Incarnate Weapon and Incarnate Avatar can really help ramp up your combat stats, and vitality belt is frankly amazing all through your levels. It has melds that can help with your skills (making you an exceptional scout to even letting you take over the rogue's place in the party), and just generally some useful stuff. In fact, I might prefer Incarnate here. Strikes and natural attacks just don't mesh as well as I wish they might, and totemist reaaally draws a lot of its power from natural attacks.

Totemist can still be great though, if you build right (either going for minimal natural attack melds, or focusing strongly on boosts and other non-strike maneuvers). They also have stuff that can help make up for that lack of diverse magic items, and a few things that are just hilarious. Heart of Fire, mainly. Making people's weapons melt makes me giggle.

[Greenish]

Incarnate doesn't get all the chakras. No one gets all the chakras.

[AmberVael]

Incarnate doesn't get all the chakras. No one gets all the chakras.

The totem chakra doesn't... quite count, if you ask me. Its more a special feature of the totemist class than an actual chakra. But point taken.

[Greenish]

By that logic, soul chakra shouldn't count either, as it is more of a special feature of incarnate.

[AmberVael]

By that logic, soul chakra shouldn't count either, as it is more of a special feature of incarnate.

Totemist is the only class that gets the Totem chakra. It is specifically described as a unique chakra in the class description.

By contrast, the Soul chakra is used by Incarnate, the Incarnum Blade, the Necrocarnate. It can also be obtained by the epic feat Open Soul Chakra.
In short, Soul Chakra is not unique. It is hard to get, not exclusive like the Totem chakra.

[Greenish]

Huh, should've paid more attention to the less interesting meldshaping (or almost meldshaping, as the case may be) PrCs.

[Tommy2255]

Huh, should've paid more attention to the less interesting meldshaping (or almost meldshaping, as the case may be) PrCs.

It's not just the PRCs, everyone has a Soul Chakra. Even Oozes. In fact, they have only soul and heart. It's just that not everyone has opened their chakra. That's the real reason Totem Chakra doesn't count. Incarnates can open every chakra they have, they just can't open the ones that aren't there.

[Chronos]

If you go with the variant armed version of the fistsage, instead of the default unarmed fistsage, then you could use an Incarnate Weapon for anything you'd use a normal weapon for. I know that the armed variant is usually regarded as not very good, but it might be the best choice here.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Totemist is pretty much the only way to go here - the various melee-oriented soulmelds will greatly help a swordsage. Check out the feat Beast Claws - your unarmed attacks will get bonus damage equal to your claw damage, and totemists get claws out of the wazoo. Use melds like Wormtail Belt to compensate for your low AC, or Manticore Belt to get some ranged action going..

Beast Claws is a spell. Are you thinking of Beast Strike from Dragon 355?

[Flickerdart]

Beast Claws is a spell. Are you thinking of Beast Strike from Dragon 355?

That's the one, thanks.