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View Full Version : Mind Blade as a feat?



starwoof
2010-02-03, 07:34 PM
I was talking with some of my friends and one of them mentioned a prestige class that he wanted to go into and we started joking about the prerequisites. I mentioned that you could go into from soulknife, as a joke, and we all laughed because excluding the mind blade, all of it's class abilities are feats.

Which got me thinking... would Mind Blade and Mind Blade Enhancement be too powerful as a single feat that you can take at first level?

Drolyt
2010-02-03, 07:42 PM
Not at all. To elaborate, it saves you some GP if you weren't going to be able to get a weapon any better than mind blade, but other than that what does it really do? It also denies you weapon enchantments, some of which are neat.

Cataphract
2010-02-03, 07:46 PM
Well, there is Ancestral Weapon from Book of Exalted Deeds, one of my favourite feats.

You could add another feat and make it behave like one e.g. being a soul weapon and called as needed. An Incarnum feat would be nice.

//You got me thinking. I think I'll get to work on it.

Cataphract
2010-02-03, 08:12 PM
Soul Blade
Your capacity to shape incarnum has yielded you the profound ability to create a weapon of pure soul energy, shaped and infused by your own soul.
Prerequisites: Con 13, essentia pool 1
Benefit: As a move action, you may create a longsword created of pure soul energy. It is treated as a plain longsword for any and all purposes, but it is considered magical for purposes of overcoming DR, and it can be improved as you grow in power.
In order to improve your Soul Blade, you must first of all have the necessary prerequisites to improve it to the category you want (including fulfilling intermediate categories' prerequisites), but you don't need to do it at +1 increments (e.g. you can make it a flaming burst weapon as long as you have at least the prerequisites for the +3 total enhancement). After you choose what properties you want it to gain, you must spend one day for each 100 XP in the cost, and of course spend the necessary amount of XP as indicated in the following table (if your longsword already has an enhancement, calculate the difference; e.g. to get it from +1 to +3 would require a total of 320 XP and thus three days).

{table="head"]Enhancement|XP Cost|Prerequisites
+1|40| Character level 3rd,
+2|160|
+3|360| Character level 6th,
+4|640|
+5|1000| Character level 9th,
+6|1440|
+7|1960| Character level 12th,
+8|2560|
+9|3240| Character level 15th,
+10|4000|
[/table]

At any time you may forsake one of the abilities the weapon has by spending half the XP and half the time you would need to gain the ability.

Also, you have to invest essentia in order to access the full potential of your weapon; for every point of essentia invested, the weapon has available double that amount as its enhancement bonus and the abilities it has available as you see fit (e.g. if two points of essentia were invested in a holy flaming soulblade +2, it can either be a holy flaming soulblade +1, a holy soulblade +2 or a flaming soulblade +2, any combination that totals +4) . Once the amount of essentia invested is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours.

You gain 1 point of essentia.

Drolyt
2010-02-03, 08:16 PM
Soul Blade
Your capacity to shape incarnum has yielded you the profound ability to create a weapon of pure soul energy, shaped and infused by your own soul.
Prerequisites: Con 13, essentia pool 1
Benefit: As a move action, you may create a longsword created of pure soul energy. It is treated as a plain longsword for any and all purposes, but it is considered magical for purposes of overcoming DR, and it can be improved as you grow in power.
In order to improve your Soul Blade, you must first of all have the necessary prerequisites to improve it to the necessary category, but you still go through it one step at a time(e.g. you can make it a flaming burst weapon as long as you have at least the prerequisites for the +3 total enhancement, and then you pass through the +2 step first as far as XP cost, amount of time and prerequisites are concerned). After you choose what properties you want it to gain, you must spend a number of days equal to 1/10th of the XP cost (round down) spent, and of course spend the necessary amount of XP as indicated in the following table. These costs are cumulative; in the previous example if your longsword was +1 and you wanted to give it flaming burst, you would have to pay both the +2 and the +3 costs, and fullfill the prerequisites of all the intermediate stages.

{table="head"]Enhancement|XP Cost|Prerequisites
+1|40| Character level 3rd,
+2|150|
+3|350| Character level 6th,
+4|700|
+5|1000| Character level 9th,
+6|1500|
+7|2000| Character level 12th,
+8|2600|
+9|3200| Character level 15th,
+10|4000|
[/table]

At any time you may forsake one of the abilities the weapon has by spending half the XP and half the time you would need to gain the ability.

Also, you have to invest essentia in order to access the full potential of your weapon; for every point of essentia invested, the weapon has available double that amount as its enhancement bonus and the abilities it has available as you see fit (e.g. if two points of essentia were invested in a holy flaming soulblade +2, it can either be a holy flaming soulblade +1, a holy soulblade +2 or a flaming soulblade +2, any combination that totals +4) . Once the amount of essentia invested is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours.

You gain 1 point of essentia.

I don't know anything about essentia, but remove all those references and it is good. The xp cost might be unnecessary though. A GP sacrifice might be more reasonable, although if you fall behind in xp the automatic xp correction system will catch you up soon enough.

Cataphract
2010-02-03, 08:24 PM
I don't know anything about essentia, but remove all those references and it is good. The xp cost might be unnecessary though. A GP sacrifice might be more reasonable, although if you fall behind in xp the automatic xp correction system will catch you up soon enough.

Ninja'ed! I wrote up a better version of it while you were wearing that black pajama :smalltongue:

Essentia is in Magic of Incarnum. In any case, you can always just remove that if you don't feel like playing with it, and it's good to go (though it does make the kensai redundant. Then again, who cares about that stupid class?)

The xp cost is more fluff because A)It's a part of you- bribe yourself for what? You're supposed to create it out of your very soul and B)I hate using gp for anything short of buying mundane stuff or materials/ingredients.

And a mechanical reason: You get a weapon of your choice at any time you want that can't be removed (I should add the mind blade crap about hardness etc atsome point) the way you want it. Even crafters have to pay XP, why not you?

What I'd like to flesh out more fully, though, is prerequisites for each ability. I don't think anybody should get access to everything, on the contrary...

Melayl
2010-02-03, 08:30 PM
Check out the folks at Dreamscarred Press. They've done alot of work on mindblade-as-feats (they've an entire book, I believe), and their stuff is rather well regarded.

Cataphract
2010-02-03, 08:39 PM
Check out the folks at Dreamscarred Press. They've done alot of work on mindblade-as-feats (they've an entire book, I believe), and their stuff is rather well regarded.

Really? :smallconfused:

I love the idea of a mindblade ever since D&D stole bioweapon from Alternity's awesome psionics system, but I always thought making a whole class out of it is a bit wonky, to say the least. Not to mention it doesn't allow other players access to it.

Care to share a link or at least a book name?
//Never mind I found them, too bad I don't have a prepaid card...

Tinydwarfman
2010-02-03, 09:45 PM
Doesn't this already exist in a psionic book? Can't remember, but I'm pretty sure i've seen it before

Drolyt
2010-02-03, 09:58 PM
Doesn't this already exist in a psionic book? Can't remember, but I'm pretty sure i've seen it before

I don't remember it. Any idea what book it was?

hiryuu
2010-02-03, 10:07 PM
There used to be a website that made it into a lovely feat tree with lots of options, but Dreamscarred Press published it as a book a while back, and now I can't find the site.

Drolyt
2010-02-03, 10:08 PM
There used to be a website that made it into a lovely feat tree with lots of options, but Dreamscarred Press published it as a book a while back, and now I can't find the site.

Any idea what the site was called? If it's not online anymore it might be archived.

hiryuu
2010-02-03, 10:10 PM
Any idea what the site was called? If it's not online anymore it might be archived.

That's why I'm looking for it, I don't remember what it was called; I know the original post that linked to it was "Soulknife Class as Feats," which I can find reference to, but the links are all dead threads at Wizards.

Vaynor
2010-02-03, 10:27 PM
There used to be a website that made it into a lovely feat tree with lots of options, but Dreamscarred Press published it as a book a while back, and now I can't find the site.

Here (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/index.php) is their site, I'm not sure which of their psionics books it's in though, they have a few.

Edit: I believe this (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/Store/product/pid=8.html) is the one you're looking for.

Drolyt
2010-02-03, 10:30 PM
Here (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/index.php) is their site, I'm not sure which of their psionics books it's in though, they have a few.

Edit: I believe this (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/Store/product/pid=8.html) is the one you're looking for.

Pretty cheap, and a PDF. I'm sorely tempted.

Mulletmanalive
2010-02-03, 11:49 PM
I actually did this, but then, i actually made the mind blade do what the class made out it did from day one.

Not a hugely helpful contribution, but i didn't have any issues with it, it being a feat that just give the character another option [not a hugely powerful one either, depending on how you regulate your magic items]

hiryuu
2010-02-04, 12:25 AM
Here (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/index.php) is their site, I'm not sure which of their psionics books it's in though, they have a few.

Edit: I believe this (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/Store/product/pid=8.html) is the one you're looking for.

It wasn't the Dreamscarred Press site I was looking for, but the original Soulknife Class as Feats site.

Vaynor
2010-02-04, 12:38 AM
It wasn't the Dreamscarred Press site I was looking for, but the original Soulknife Class as Feats site.

I did a bit of googling and this (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872658/The_Soulknife_Handbook?post_id=338466530#338466530 ) is what I got. There's a link there for a feat tree variant to the soulknife but I'm not sure if it's the one you want.

DaTedinator
2010-02-04, 02:51 AM
Is this (http://toosigma.com/rpg/workshop/feats/mindblade_feats.php) what you were looking for?

Drolyt
2010-02-04, 10:07 AM
Is this (http://toosigma.com/rpg/workshop/feats/mindblade_feats.php) what you were looking for?

That's cool, but it's a lot of feats. It would work better if they could be taken as fighter bonus feats. I believe they can be taken by the Psychic Warrior as bonus feats though, since they are Psionic.

Cataphract
2010-02-04, 12:38 PM
It's great as an E6 variant, though...

Vaynor
2010-02-04, 03:45 PM
That's cool, but it's a lot of feats. It would work better if they could be taken as fighter bonus feats. I believe they can be taken by the Psychic Warrior as bonus feats though, since they are Psionic.

I'm pretty sure the link I posted has exactly what the OP was referring to.

Drolyt
2010-02-04, 05:57 PM
I'm pretty sure the link I posted has exactly what the OP was referring to.

Oh, yes I suppose it does. I was just commenting on how easily you could use up all your feats on them, especially since they aren't fighter bonus feats.

Vaynor
2010-02-04, 06:23 PM
Oh, yes I suppose it does. I was just commenting on how easily you could use up all your feats on them, especially since they aren't fighter bonus feats.

Well it's only one feat for the mindblade, additional feats only to improve it.

Here they are:


Manifest Mindblade
Prereqs: The ability to gain Psionic Focus
Benefit: While psionically focused you can manifest a Mindblade as a free action, a weapon of psychic energies, that operates in all practical respects as any melee weapon you are proficient with. At 3rd level your Mind Blade gains a +1 enhancement bonus, and this bonus continues to increase by +1 every four levels thereafter. Your Mindblade does not function within antimagic/psionic fields.

Persistent Mindblade
Prereqs: Manifest Mindblade
Benefit: You can manifest your Mindblade even without gaining Psionic Focus and your Mindblade operates even within Antimagic/psionic fields. Whenever you miss with an attack with your Mindblade you deal half the damage you would have dealt with the attack anyway (including only damage from the weapon and your ability modifier).

Enchanted Mindblade
Prereqs: Persistent Mindblade
Benefit: When you gain psionic focus you can imbue your Mindblade with pseudo-magical enhancements which last as long as you maintain your psionic focus. The maximum value of the enhancements you can bestow upon your Mindblade is equal to 1/4 your character level. These enhancements cease to function within antimagic/psionic fields.

Persistent Enchanted Mindblade
Prereqs: Enchanted Mindblade
Benefit: The enhancements you bestow on your Mindblade upon gaining psionic focus persist even after you lose or expend your psionic focus, within antimagic/psionic fields, and can't be dispelled or suppressed by any effects. If your Mindblade is already enhanced when you gain psionic focus you can choose to lose any enhancements it has to gain new ones. Whenever you miss with an attack with your Mindblade you deal half the damage you would have dealt with the attack anyway (including any bonus damage to the roll from any source).

Book Wyrm
2010-02-05, 12:42 AM
I think people might be thinking of the Soulbound Warrior ACF for the Psychic Warrior. It basically replicates the mind blade ability, with the added bonus of being a Psychic Warrior (a class that doesn't suck). link (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a)

starwoof
2010-02-05, 12:47 AM
I'm pretty sure the link I posted has exactly what the OP was referring to.

Yes, that is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the help, y'all.:smallbiggrin:

Cataphract
2010-02-05, 07:10 AM
I think people might be thinking of the Soulbound Warrior ACF for the Psychic Warrior. It basically replicates the mind blade ability, with the added bonus of being a Psychic Warrior (a class that doesn't suck). link (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a)

Actually it kinda sucks because you have to summon it every time, it lasts 1 min/level, and it costs a lot to be effective.