Adapting 3.0 Soulknife to 3.5, without XPH

[NineThePuma]

So, I've recently taken a liking to some aspects of 3.0 Psionics, but especially the Soulknife. I'm curious to know how I might adapt this up to 3.5, especially the Prerequisites, without falling for the same mistake that WotC made in the shift to 3.5 (Base-classifying it).

[averagejoe]

Honestly? I don't think it would be terrible to make it a feat (possibly two, depends on your table really) along the lines of Ancestral Relic from BoED or the Ancestral Daishao ability of the OE samurai. I'm not too familiar with 3.0 psionics, and I don't have access to that book, but if all the PrC offers is the soulknife progression, I don't think I'd ever take it. I mean, it basically is ancestral relic, with the added bonus that you can never lose your weapon. If you want to make people get soulknife stuff with class levels, you pretty much need to give them more class features than just a magical weapon.

[NineThePuma]

My bad, should have included the 3.0 soulknife in my OP for reference. I got it off the 3.0 SRD, so I'm pretty sure it's OGC and postable. (I'd link but I haven't found it hosted online anywhere.)

SOULKINFE

Hit Die: d6.

Requirements
To qualify to become a soulknife, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +3.
Move Silently: 3 ranks.
Base Power Points/Day: 9+ (not including bonus power points).
Knowledge (psionics): 3 ranks.

Class Skills
The soulknife’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Hide (Dex), Knowledge (psionics) (Int), Move Silently (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), and Tumble (Dex).

Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Table: The Soulknife
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|PP|0|1|2|3
1st|+0|+0|+2|+0|Mind-blade, sneak attack +1d6|+3|—|—|—|—
2nd|+1|+0|+3|+0|Imbed power, throw mind-blade|+5|—|—|—|—
3rd|+2|+1 |+3|+1|Sneak attack +2d6|+5|—|—|—|—
4th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Imbed psionic attack|+5|1|—|—|—
5th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Sneak attack +3d6|+7|2|—|—|—
6th|+4|+2|+5|+2|Sever life, free draw|+7|2|1|—|—
7th|+5|+2 |+5|+2|Sneak attack +4d6|+7|2|2|—|—
8th|+6|+2 |+6|+2|Upgrade|+9|2|2|1|—
9th|+6|+3 |+6|+3|Sneak attack +5d6|+9|2|2|2|—
10th|+7|+3|+7|+3|Knife to the soul|+9|2|2|2|1[/table]

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the soulknife prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Soulknives are proficient with light armor but not with shields.

Power Points: Soulknives gain power points per day as shown on Table: The Soulknife. These power points are added to the character’s previous total. Soulknives gain bonus power points based on the key ability score for their primary ability. If the character previously could not gain bonus power points for high ability scores (as is the case for psychic warriors), he now chooses a primary discipline and can gain bonus power points based on the related ability score (see Table: Psion Bonus Power Points).

Powers Discovered: Soulknives discover powers as shown on Table: The Soulknife. Powers are chosen from the psion power list. The powers are added to the character’s previous total powers known. Psionic attack and defense modes are discovered as though the character were a psychic warrior of the same level as the prestige class (characters do not forget previously discovered attack and defense modes).

Mind-Blade: As a move-equivalent action, the soulknife creates a semisolid blade 1 foot in length composed of psychic energy (distilled from his or her own mind). As long as he or she holds the blade, it is identical in all ways (except visually) to a short sword and deals 1d6 piercing damage. The blade can be broken; however, the soulknife can simply create another on his or her next move-equivalent action. The moment the soulknife relinquishes his or her grip on the blade, it dissipates. The soulknife may take Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization (if of the appropriate class), or Weapon Finesse in conjunction with the mind-blade. The mind-blade can be used as long as the soulknife’s power point reserve is 1 or more.
When the soulknife reaches 2nd level, the mind-blade gains a +1 enhancement bonus; at 4th level, +2; at 6th level, +3; at 8th level, +4; and at 10th level, +5. The enhancement bonus applies to each mind-blade created, including those that are thrown, upgraded, and imbedded (see below).
Even where psionics does not normally function (such as within a null psionics field), the soulknife can try to sustain the mind-blade by making a Fortitude save against the DC set by the creator of the effect. Even on a successful save, the soulknife must roll again next round to keep the mind-blade in existence. Creating a mind-blade is a supernatural ability.

Sneak Attack: A soulknife can make sneak attacks exactly like a rogue, but only with his or her mind-blade. Any time the soulknife’s target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC, the mind-blade attack deals +1d6 points of damage. This extra damage increases by +1d6 every other level (+2d6 at 3rd level, +3d6 at 5th level, and so on). The soulknife benefits from this extraordinary ability as long as his or her power point reserve is 1 or more.

Imbed Power: At 2nd level, the soulknife can imbed any one psionic power (but no psionic attack modes) of 3rd level or lower that he knows in his mind-blade. This spell-like ability requires a move-equivalent action, and the soulknife must pay the cost of the power to imbed it. The imbedded power automatically affects the next target that the soulknife successfully attacks with the mind-blade, with no saving throw allowed. Even if the power normally affects an area or is a ray, it affects only the target. The power is discharged and “flushes” the mind-blade, which can then hold another power. A mind-blade can never have more than one power imbedded at a time.

Throw Mind-Blade: At 2nd level, the soulknife can throw his or hermind-blade as a ranged weapon with a range increment of 30 feet. Whether or not the attack hits, a thrown mind-blade then dissipates. The soulknife can make a sneak attack with a thrown mind-blade (within 30 feet), and can use the blade in conjunction with other special abilities (such as imbedding a power in it). The soulknife can use this supernatural ability as long as his or her power point reserve is 1 or more.

Imbed Psionic Attack: At 4th level, the soulknife can imbed any one psionic attack mode that he or her knows in the mind-blade. This spell-like ability requires a move-equivalent action, and the soulknife must pay the cost of the attack mode to imbed it. The imbedded attack automatically affects the next target that the soulknife successfully attacks with the mind-blade. The target cannot raise a psionic defense mode and must make its Will save as if flat-footed (treat nonpsionic defenders as having raised thought shield instead of their standard nonpsionic buffer). An imbedded mind blast affects only the target. The attack is discharged and “flushes” the mind-blade, which can then hold another attack mode. A mind-blade can never have more than one attack mode or power imbedded at a time.

Sever Life: When a soulknife reaches 6th level, he or she can use imbedded psionic attacks to strike at the target’s life force. A successful attack with a mind-blade so imbedded overrides the specific ability damage normally dealt and instead deals temporary Constitution damage. The soulknife can use this supernatural ability at will as long as his or her power point reserve is 11 or more.

Free Draw: At 6th level, a soulknife can materialize his or her mind-blade as a free action instead of a move-equivalent action. The soulknife can use this extraordinary ability as long as his or her power point reserve is 13 or more.

Upgrade: On reaching 8th level, the soulknife achieves greater control over his or her mind’s power. His or her mind-blade’s base characteristics are now those of a longsword, so that it deals 1d8 slashing damage. The soulknife can use the upgraded mind-blade as long as his or her power point reserve is 7 or more.

Knife to the Soul: At 10th level, the soulknife becomes expert at attacking an opponent’s life energy. The knife to the soul ability resembles the sever life ability (see above), except half of the Constitution ability damage he or she deals is permanent. The soulknife can use this supernatural ability at will as long as his or her power point reserve is 17 or more.As can be seen, the Mind Blade is only part of it.

[TheGeckoKing]

How about compressing the Soulknife into a 5 level PrC that contains all the main things (Mind Blade, Throw Mind Blade, Knife to the Soul, Free Draw and 3.5's Bladewind for example) and scale the class abilities off your manifester level. Add 4/5 manifester progression, and you're set.

[Psyren]

You mean a PrC Soulknife? Just crack open Hyperconscious for that, and check out the Plangent.

[TheGeckoKing]

You mean a PrC Soulknife? Just crack open Hyperconscious for that, and check out the Plangent.

Yeah, but the Plangent looks rubbish. I mean, it has EWP as a prerequisite that is useless (because you're going to be using your glowy psychic sword), a +2 Shortsword you can't enchant at 13th level (or higher, if you entered as a PsyWar), and handful of tricks that are so-so and are easily replicated with the powers and feats that you didn't give up if you didn't enter the class. And I have to give up two manifester levels for the privilage? No thanks.

[Manateee]

The 3.0 Soulknife had an awesome framework. Making it into a feat would miss that, which is a bit of a downer.

On the other hand, comparing it to the other classes makes me think the PP advancement is only supposed to be the equivalent of 1 casting / 2 levels.

If I were writing the class as something interesting that players might want to actually use, I'd say 8 or 9/10 Manifesting, losing ML at levels 1 and 6 (if 8/10).

EDIT:
The PP requirement is handled by Psion 5 or Psychic Warrior 6. I'd probably call that either access to 3rd level powers (which would be a bit harsher on the PWar) or ML 5 (if you want to be a bit more lenient).

[gkathellar]

I'm not familiar with the 3.0 soulknife, but if it's a PrC that progresses manifesting I'd say just use the Psychic Warrior variant that gives you an enhanced metaphysical weapon ... it was in one of the Mind's Eye articles. Otherwise, I can't offer much.

[NineThePuma]

The 3.0 Soulknife had an awesome framework. Making it into a feat would miss that, which is a bit of a downer.

On the other hand, comparing it to the other classes makes me think the PP advancement is only supposed to be the equivalent of 1 casting / 2 levels.

If I were writing the class as something interesting that players might want to actually use, I'd say 8 or 9/10 Manifesting, losing ML at levels 1 and 6 (if 8/10).

EDIT:
The PP requirement is handled by Psion 5 or Psychic Warrior 6. I'd probably call that either access to 3rd level powers (which would be a bit harsher on the PWar) or ML 5 (if you want to be a bit more lenient).
What if I drop that requirement to "Must have the Psionic Subtype) and picked up a skill requirement of Concentration: 8 ranks, thereby allowing entry at level 6?


I'm not familiar with the 3.0 soulknife, but if it's a PrC that progresses manifesting I'd say just use the Psychic Warrior variant that gives you an enhanced metaphysical weapon ... it was in one of the Mind's Eye articles. Otherwise, I can't offer much.
That PsyWar variant misses out on a lot of things. You can't, for example, create a blade and throw it in a single turn. The manifesting time is too long to make it usable in combat. Where as everyone else is spending maybe a standard action buff and moving to melee, you have to deal with a 1 round manifesting time just to equip yourself for battle. That renders you largely useless.


You mean a PrC Soulknife? Just crack open Hyperconscious for that, and check out the Plangent.
TheGeckoKing basically handled my response quite well. It is nothing good, and I argue that it is a downgrade from the 3.5 Soulknife.


How about compressing the Soulknife into a 5 level PrC that contains all the main things (Mind Blade, Throw Mind Blade, Knife to the Soul, Free Draw and 3.5's Bladewind for example) and scale the class abilities off your manifester level. Add 4/5 manifester progression, and you're set.
That sounds surprisingly solid.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Linked power and/or Quicken power say hi!
:smalltongue:

[NineThePuma]

Both of which have problems. Quicken power doesn't come online til level 7, and you're blowing almost half your base power points just to have a weapon equipped. If you have more than 2 combats a round, that becomes useless. Linked Power looks much better, but due to poor wording, it doubles the cost of whatever you're manifesting and then adds the cost of what you're buffing yourself with on top of it, which means that the earliest you can use it is 3rd, and augmenting your buffs is going to be really damn hard.

[FMArthur]

I still say make Mind Blade a bunch of feats, but maybe you could have a short prestige class that gives them to you in a compressed format. The thing is that the class's whole raison d'etre is just having a mentally crafted weapon at your beck and call... and you should be allowed to do that on a much wider variety of classes and styles as opposed to just making it its own style. The thing that grants the sword shouldn't also dictate how you use it.

It's really not that complex or amazing for a feat. Here, let me compile pretty much all distinctive Soulknife features from both classes into a small group of feats (the last is so you can take Power Storing if you want, a weapon special ability that replicates what the PrC would grant you, but more flexible in case you don't care about that):

{table]
Mind Blade Prerequisites: psionic power points Benefit: As a move action, you can generate a blade of psychic energy into your hand. It acts as a short sword appropriate for your size, except that it has a 30ft throwing range, hardness and hitpoints of 10 and is always a magic weapon. You can designate "Mind Blade" for feats and abilities where you would select a type of weapon, treating it as its own type. If you have the Quick Draw feat, it can also apply to generating a Mind Blade. You may only attempt to generate a Mind Blade once per round and doing so causes any previously active Mind Blade to dissipate. At fourth level and every four levels thereafter, its enhancement bonus improves by 1. At sixth level, it is enhanced with a weapon special ability of your choice of up to +1 value. Every four levels thereafter, this value is improved by 1. You can mix and match multiple weapon abilities as long as their total does not exceed this number. It takes one hour of quiet concentration to change the Mind Blade's enhancements.
2Psychic Strike Prerequisites: Mind Blade, character level 3 Benefit: As a move action, you can imbue your Mind Blade with your own force of will to make it deadlier. The next successful attack by your Mind Blade deals an extra 1d8 damage, plus another 1d8 for every four levels after 3rd.
2Knife to the Soul Prerequisites: Psychic Strike Benefit: Whenever you deliver a Psychic Strike, you can forgo some of your Psychic Strike damage to deal 1 point of ability damage to your target for each die that you lower it by. You can choose any ability score to deliver the damage to.
2Shape Mind Blade Prerequisites: Mind Blade, character level 5th Benefit: As a full-round action, you can shape your Mind Blade into any light or one-handed melee weapon you are proficient with. It has all the usual Mind Blade benefits as well, only having a different weapon from the short sword as its base. You can instead produce two identical light weapons this way to wield separately, but their enhancement bonuses are reduced by 1. In this case, reforming your Mind Blade generates both weapons as a pair regardless of their separate statuses.
2Improve Mind Blade Prerequisites: Mind Blade, character level 2 Benefit: Your total allowed weapon special ability enhancement bonus for your Mind Blade increases by 1.| [/table]



Okay maybe I got a little carried away there. But now you have five decent feats out of one generic and boring class to put onto a real class to use however your character would actually want to use the weapon. If you make a character who cares about the weapon to the exclusion of other pursuits, make a 5-level prestige class that grants a Mind Blade-improving feat at every level. There are other soulknife feats like the ones in Dragon Magazine that they can pick from, and weapon-specific feats you could also let them choose. Then get out of the class and get on with your life, pretty much.

[NineThePuma]

... That has nothing from the 3.0 Soulknife, and doesn't help that much, FMA. Good feats though, I might jack the Psychic Strike feat.

Also, Knife to the Soul is a useless feat there, cause Psychic Strike offers its benefit already.

[TheGeckoKing]

Snazzy Feats


Good idea, but the one problem I have with the feat option is that they have the same problems as the heritage feats, i.e. that's 5 out of the 7 feats a player gets before epic, and most manifesting classes would prefer to take a PrC than feats because they don't really have class abilities beyond manifesting anyway.

[FMArthur]

... That has nothing from the 3.0 Soulknife, and doesn't help that much, FMA. Good feats though, I might jack the Psychic Strike feat.

Also, Knife to the Soul is a useless feat there, cause Psychic Strike offers its benefit already.
All the 3.0 Soulknife has over it is Sneak Attack and smashing yourself in the face over psychic attack and defense modes. Ability damage to any stat is the main point of those, and wasting time with saves and extra rolls as well. I've got ability damage covered. It's just simplified and less arduous this way than to roll all the way through. The power-storing is a weapon special ability you can get out of the last feat, but I just decided to give a generic +1 you can do what you want with instead. It also has weapon special ability enhancement bonuses that the 3.0 version lacks completely - you would have to address that if you do adapt the class and hope to replace the base class. Sneak Attack is from tons of other classes.

Whoops on the Psychic Strike there.


Good idea, but the one problem I have with the feat option is that they have the same problems as the heritage feats, i.e. that's 5 out of the 7 feats a player gets before epic, and most manifesting classes would prefer to take a PrC than feats because they don't really have class abilities beyond manifesting anyway.

The point is mostly that you can take one feat and have it improve in any class you take, and if you want to invest more you can without hampering your actual class's progression. That's why at the end I just suggested having a generic 5-level class that grants soulknife bonus feats for the truly weapon-obsessed. Everybody wins.

[NineThePuma]

"Imbed Power" counts as nothing?

EDIT: CURSE YOU EDIT NINJAS! Totally missed Spell Storing. :smallredface:

[FMArthur]

"Imbed Power" counts as nothing?

Sure doesn't. I'll mention for the third time now that Imbed Power is subsumed by the +1 weapon enhancement Power Storing that you could pick up with the last feat. That was its whole reason for inclusion, I just wanted to make it more flexible so I did it this way.

[NineThePuma]

I call shenanigans with those edits, bro.

But, yeah, that's a nifty magic weapon ability I didn't know about.

[TheGeckoKing]

The point is mostly that you can take one feat and have it improve in any class you take, and if you want to invest more you can without hampering your actual class's progression.

I still think it should need more of an investment than one feat. Both Ancestral Relic and OA Samurai, which are the closest thing to compare to, still need you to pay for the weapon's enhancements, while this thing gives you the weapon totally free.

[NineThePuma]

Power Storing is, on second look, not as awesome as Imbed Power. Which is unfortunate, because Imbed Power is really really strong.