An incantation is a one-time supernatural effect that can be used indefinitely and is always available to
you.
You can channel magic as many times as you like in a single day, but each time you channel an incantation, you lose a little of your mental focus, you exhaust a small portion of your personal power or energy, or you simply come closer to ‘overloading’ your pool of magic without letting the energy seep away first. In other words, there is a limit to how often you can channel magic in a given period of time without needing to rest or perform a specific action that allows you to immediately recover your ability to channel magic. As a result, you must wait for a while if you have reached your limit to how many incantations you can channel per minute.
READYING INCANTATIONS
You do not need to ready your incantations ahead of time. Every incantation you know is always available to you. However, you need to be mentally and physically prepared to be able to channel your incantations. This preparation can be done in the form of prayer, practice, or simply drawing subtle amounts of magic from your sphere to open up the flow of magic. Therefore, you must ready yourself to channel magic.
To ready yourself to channel magic, you need a brief period of practice, exercise, meditation, or prayer. The exact nature of this preparation differs from channeler to channeler, but each characters needs 5 minutes of preparation time. You do not
need to be well rested to ready yourself to channel magic, but you do need to be able to move and speak without restraint. As long as you are not physically disturbed during your exercise or meditation, you successfully prepare yourself to channel magic, and you can channel incantations during that day.
CHANNELING INCANTATIONS
To channel an incantation, you must have at least one hand free and you must be able to speak. Because of the intricate gestures needed to channel an incantation, you incur a failure chance when you wear armor as if you were casting an arcane spell (see the Player’s Handbook ). An incantation might require an immediate, swift, move, standard, or full-round action to channel. The process of channeling an incantation is similar to that of casting a spell or manifesting a power, although there are some key differences (see below). You can always channel an incantation, provided that you haven’t reached your limit of incantations you can channel each minute.
Channeling Limit: A channeler has a limit to how many incantations he can channel per minute. He may not channel more incantations than his base channeling ability modifier during each minute. (Your base channeling ability modifier meaning the modifier of that ability before you add temporary bonuses, such as that from a magic item.)
Channeling Check: Every incantation must be channeled with a successful channeling check. This means that you roll a d20, add your channeler level and your channeling ability modifier. If the result equals or exceeds the Difficulty Class of
the incantation, you successfully channel the incantation. If you fail the check by 4 or less, the incantation fails. If you fail the check by more than 5, you take ability burn to your channeling ability score equal to the number by which you failed the check – 5.
If a description says that a channeler is treated as if he failed his channeling check under certain circumstances, this means that the channeler essentially fails the channeling check by 1, unless noted otherwise. For example, if you don’t spend a swift action to concentrate on an incantation with a duration of aura and a DC of 10, you are effectively treated as if you had a 9 as your channeling check result. This does not affect previous rounds in which that incantation was active.
CONCENTRATION
Like with spells or powers, you need to concentrate to channel an incantation; therefore, channeling an incantation provokes attacks of opportunity. If something interrupts your concentration while you’re channeling an incantation, you must make a Concentration check or fail the channeling check. The more distracting the interruption and the higher the Difficulty Class of the incantation you are trying to channel, the higher the Concentration DC is. (More powerful incantations require more mental effort.) If you fail the check, you fail to channel the incantation just as if you had failed the channeling check.
The Concentration DC for channeling an incantation while distracted or endangered is similar to that for casting
a spell or manifesting a spell under those conditions. However, instead of using spell or power level, an incantation uses one-half its DC to determine its Concentration DC. (See the Player’s Handbook or the Expanded Psionics Handbook for
more details.)
If you fail the Concentration check to channel an incantation while distracted or endangered, you lose the incantation as if you had failed the channeling check. You are considered to have used its channeling time for the purpose of determining what actions remain available to you on your turn.
CHANNELER LEVEL
Some incantations have variable effects (such as duration) that depend on channeler level. Your channeling modifier and maximum channeling DC are affected by your channeler level, although few other effects depend on channeler level and your channeling ability score. This difference in effect is a balance and game play issue. Since you can use incantations repeatedly, they tend to scale poorly. As you attain higher levels, you tend to channel incantations with higher DCs. Many incantations however, remain useful even if they aren't enhanced and therefore have a lower Difficulty Class. How much you can enhance an incantation, however, depends on your channeler level and your channeling ability score (see Enhance, below).
Your channeler level equals your total levels in the classes that provide access to incantations. If you lack any channeler levels, you cannot channel incantations.
Selecting Incantations: Unlike spells, incantations are not organized by level. Instead, they are organized by Difficulty Class. Incantations with higher Difficulty Classes are more powerful than those with a lower Difficulty Class, and therefore more difficult to channel. As you gain levels, you have the option to select more powerful incanta -tions. Your channeler level determines the maxi -mum Difficulty Class of an incantation that you can select. You cannot select an incantation with a
Difficulty Class that exceeds your channeling abil -ity modifier + 1.5 x your channeler level, to a mini -mum of 5 and a maximum of 40.
RESOLVING AN INCANTATION
Once you have chosen an incantation to channel, you must resolve its effects.
Attacks: Many incantations include an attack of some kind. All offensive combat actions, even those that don’t damage opponents, are considered attacks. All incantations that opponents can resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or otherwise hamper subjects are considered attacks. As a rule of thumb, an incantation that directly and negatively affects an unwilling subject is an attack.
Bonus Types: Some incantations grant bonuses to ability scores or Armor Class, on attacks or damage, on saves, or on a number of other variables. Each bonus has a type that indicates why or how it is granted. With the exception of dodge bonuses, two bonuses of the same type generally don’t stack.If an incantation does not identify the type of bonus conferred, its effects stack with all other effects modifying the same characteristic or attribute. Untyped bonuses always stack.
Actions during an Incantation: The Channeling Time line of an incantation provides the action required to channel that incantation.
Some incantations have a duration of ‘Aura’. These incantations bestow the channeler with a continuous effect, but he must expend a swift action each round to concentrate on the aura. Once a channeler doesn’t spend a swift action to maintain the aura, it immediately ends at the end of his turn.
INCANTATIONS AND MAGIC
In general, incantations are transparent to magic and psionics. Because channeling magic is different than manipulating the mystical energies that make magic, it is nearly impossible to affect one with the other. However, there are a few cases where incantations interact with spells or powers.
Supernatural Abilities: Incantations are never spells or spell-like abilities (although their effects might resemble certain spells or spell-like abilities). An incantation is always a supernatural ability. Thus, incantations fail to work in an antimagic field or a dead magic zone. An incantation can’t be dispelled or counterspelled, but channeling an incantation does provoke attacks of opportunity.
Detecting Incantations: Most incantations don’t create persistent or long-lasting magical effects (although they might create mundane material, which isn’t magical on its own), and the results are obvious to any observer. However, identifying a specific incantation requires the Spellcraft skill.
Multiple Effects: Incantations usually work as described in Chapter 4, no matter how many other powers, spells, or magical effects happen to be operating in the same area or on the same object. Whenever an incantation has a specific effect on other incantations, powers, or spells, its description explains the effect.
Stacking Effects: Incantations that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and other attributes do not stack. Regardless, a bonus gained by an incantation never stacks with itself, even if it is an unnamed or dodge bonus.
