Soulbow again

[Cerlis]

for awhile i was thinking of making a assassins creed-esc Soulbow. Pretty much loved the idea of a agile weapons master jumping over rooftops, being skilled at melee and archery, and should he ever be disarmed...captured or his bow sundered...well he wasnt left handed anyways.

i guess thats not important. just looking over soulbow stuff recently (i did a modest search on soulbow just now, only thing promising was an 8ish post thread).

I accumilated thoughts and thought that a Soulknife 2/swordsage(or warblade)X/SoulbowX/Order of the bow initiate X would be interesting.

Ideally this character would Have Ranged sunder (was thinking that depending on the dm i could have it so when i get mind arrows i can opt to permanently manifest a different kinda arrow. Kinda like asking the dm if instead of your default being a short sword, its a mace with the same damage, just different damage type), the psionic shot line (probably including fell shot, since i probably wouldnt progress soulbow) , the feat that allows you to get psi focus as a move action.

mostly to accomplish two things; FLavor wise i'd like to expand on the idea of a soulknife seeing his mind as a perfect weapon. This would be a smart character (high wisdom, and High int if i went warblade instead of swordsage) who is a tactile fighter and sees his mind as the ultimate weapon. Against mooks he chooses to disarm them, or rather obliterate their weapons to in his minds castrate them. in actual challenging fights of course he applies his lethal force to the person not the weapon. but (unless of course the weapon is useful) he usually after a battle he almost ceremoniously "executes" his enemy weapon (if at all. fun thing is for a caster that might involve obliterating their skull). even if i didnt get different arrows the Psionic shot series is straight up extra damage. So i'd deal my 1d8(or 2d6 with that one stance i think) +wis+enhancement+2-4d6 damage to their weapon in one move. not enough to take down a big bad evil guy, and dont know how that stacks against magic weapons but definately enough to get rid of any nonmagical ones on the field.

Further, i never hear anyone rave about OotBI but i realize its little precision shot ability is a standard action. with that one feat i'd be able to charge my focus for Psionic shot everyturn. thus whatever i get from OotBI+the 4d6. Further for enemies hard to hit, i could sub the bonus dice for using fellshot. not as good damage as say maybe a rogue/OotBI i guess but i'd think it would be nice.

Swordsage would be nice to get that high wis to AC and wide range of maneuvers. my only issue is that between Soulknife, soulbow, and swordsage, if i only take one or two levels of each i might as well have a casters BAB. Warblade would seem more martial, give me some better armor, and its extra abilities use Int which supports the "intelligent fighter" fluff of the character.

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so looking for thoughts? I dont expect this type of character to go well in a high optimized game, but unless im missing something i think in med to low it would be pretty good an interesting.

[GodGoblin]

Funnily enough I have just been looking into playing a character just like this!

I was thinking along the lines of including Warblade then going into Bloodstorm blade, It only needs a 1level dip of Warblade and the rest can be Soulknife/Bow.

In a Gestalt game I would probably use Scout as well to make it a more free running, asassins creed type.

Also ask your DM if you can use the Pathfinder Soulknife. Its much better but still within the reason power level of the normal persons game :smallsmile:

[Cerlis]

Well i found out Fell shot requires both my psionic focus and is a full attack action, so cant combine it with psionic shot or the OotBI's ability. but i'm still loving this idea.

A dramatic song came on at the right time and i had this image of my character getting up from the corpse of a friend, to face one of those nearly defeated villians whos giving that "It doesnt matter if i die, i've destroyed the one thing you love" speech, and him slowly walking to him pinning him to the ground with his arrows (ranged pin) and then eating away at his very mind with the Knife of the soul ability (you will remember the characters personal vendetta with proving his mind the most lethal weapon). Shooting him again over and over reducing his charisma to 1 then his wisdom, without touching his int (theoretically this means he would his thinking mind would be fully functional but since his perception(wisdom) and affect on the world(charisma) is almost gone he'd be in his own mind unaware of his surroundings, not knowing why his mind is shutting down) to make him fully aware of his slow death but not knowing why its happening. Then finishing him off. That combined with the theoretical ability that fellshot gives me to attack anyone that i know about no matter if i can see them or not or if they have cover makes for a badass character.

ANYWAYS.

I had a question and i just made myself forget it, but it was concerning RAW (its good to know what the most strict DM will probably rule). There are multiple lines SUGGESTING that the Mind arrow is the same thing as the mind blade. I was wondering if anyone can see definate reason why there might be some discrepency. My idea is that if there is nothing in there except Suggestions that they are the same, and the one line about mind arrow ability ehancement not stacking with mindblade.....that if you had an ehancement ability for your mindblade that could be put on both a ranged and melee weapon, but got the ehancement from your mindblade feature, it would still apply to mind arrow. They do not stack, thus they apply individually. you use whichever is higher. Thus I can just gain the ability and call it quits on the soulbow so long as I pick abilities that can apply to both melee and ranged.

[Psyren]

"Same" in what way? There are very key differences between a mind blade and mind arrow.

Psionic Shot is not as good as it sounds for Soulbow. You're usually better off with iterative attacks, especially if your projectiles have a nasty enchantment on them in addition to doing damage. Psionic Shot is more for when you wouldn't get them anyway, e.g. with a ray spell or Eldritch Blast.

[Talionis]

Zen Archery might help be less MAD if you decided to go Swordsage with high wisdom, you could use that wisdom to help over your bad BAB.

[Cerlis]

Thats a good point Psyren, expessially since i'd get wisdom to damage. But the flaw of psionic shot is merely recharging in the middle of combat. so the question is would that first round where i'm already focused and can throw in 2d6 or 4d6 of extra damage for "free" be worth it

And by the "Same" i SUPPOSE i mean (not really sure) i'm confused as if its a seperate ability, or an alternate option for an ability you already have. Is it a seperate ability like a Mystic theurges Familiar and animal companion are different, or is Mind arrow basically an extra option simular to "Shape Mindblade"you can turn your mindblade into a bastard sword but its still "Your mindblade"

but for the purposes of things (such as maybe weapon focus, and the Mind blade ehancements) does mind arrow count as a mind blade.

Will Weapon focus mind blade be worthless when i'm fireing arrows, and if i get +2 enhancement to my mindblade and +1to my mind arrow, and since those ehancements dont stack, does that mean i'd be able to make it a Flaming Burst (a +2enhancement) in both versions of my attack.
wording like "The two bonuses dont stack" inferse that the mind arrow gets the mind blades enhancment bonus, but it just doesnt stack so you'd use the better of the two. but it could just be bad writing,So i'm wondering what it is RAW.