Does the soulbow fix the soulknife or just make it better?

[CyberThread]

Does the soulbow fix the soulknife or just make it better?

Just asking overall, does it just give it a few more tricks, and ranged attacks instead of melee, or does it geniunily make it playable ?

[Juntao112]

It makes the soulknife better. Much, much better.

[Kuulvheysoon]

It makes the soulknife betterplayable. Much, much better.

Hope you don't mind that I fixed that for you.:smallbiggrin:

[CyberThread]

Can you be a lil more exact lol, this forum seems to enjoy it, but not really give anything to do with it, and most the other creations seem the same.

[tyckspoon]

Can you be a lil more exact lol, this forum seems to enjoy it, but not really give anything to do with it, and most the other creations seem the same.

There's not a ton to say about it, really. It makes the Soulknife combat-viable, has a couple of interesting tricks, and has cool imagery, but the class itself is still really straightforward. I think it's mostly that it takes a fighting image that a lot of people find really cool - the mind-weapon warrior - and rescues it from what the Soulknife did to it. It doesn't have to be good, just.. good enough.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mostly, it lets you have a fairly SAD archer-- Mind Arrow gets Wis to damage, and Zen Archery lets you get Wis to attack. It's a decent 3-level dip (2 soulknife, 1 soulbow)

[shaikujin]

Imho, it doesn't fix the Soul Knife's issue with scaling enhancements. The Soulknife trades class features for something that can be done better by WBL.

But does Soulbow makes the Soulknife better? I'd say yes. You get extra ranged options while at the same time still improve the mindblade.


Having said that, this is pertaining to low optimization games only.

If we are looking at cramming the most WSA into a weapon, Soulknife's mindblade is one of the few ways to improve a weapon above +10 worth of WSA pre-epic.

If you include PF's version of Soulknife (Psyren has a nice writeup which got me looking at this class), the feats from Dragon that gives it more utility, the Flowing Blade feat that allows Flurry etc, those are the things that fixes the Soulknife (esp the PF version).

[Telok]

The soulknife is "bad" for three reasons.

1) The mindblade enhancement schedule is less that what you can buy.
2) The weapon enhancements are very very limited.
3) The limited blade shapes and 3/4 BAB prevent crit fishing and Power Attack tactics which are the most common ways to boost your damage over 1d<yawn>+(1.5*Str mod).

Another aggravating factor is that no prestige classes advance the mindblade. Since that's your core class feature it means that every PrC level is like a wizard taking a PrC that doesn't advance spell casting, you'd better get a whole heck of a lot for what you're giving up.

For my personal campaign I "fixed" the three main points. First, by combining the enhancement+ and the special ability+ into a single number and allowing the soulknife to switch any and all of that number to enhancement or special abilities as they see fit. Second, by opening up the special abilities to all printed melee/thrown abilities and allowing the soulknife to change the enhancements and abilities with only 10 minutes of meditation per + that is changed. Third, I gave them full BAB and changed the various alternate mindblade shape feats into one generic "shape mindblade" feat that allows the soulknife to specify a weapon like Weapon Focus does.

In my campaign this kicked the soulknife up to a solid T3 class that competes favorably with Psychic Warriors. It does less massive damage (although Bladewind with Greatreach Bracers gets impressive at times) but can always have the perfect weapon for a threat in half an hour or so.

[Thrawn183]

Another aggravating factor is that no prestige classes advance the mindblade. Since that's your core class feature it means that every PrC level is like a wizard taking a PrC that doesn't advance spell casting, you'd better get a whole heck of a lot for what you're giving up.

What about PrC's that generically progress an existing class' abilities? I'd swear there are a couple that do that.

[TuggyNE]

What about PrC's that generically progress an existing class' abilities? I'd swear there are a couple that do that.

Legacy Champion and one other, but they don't do anything all that special other than that.

In fact, one of them only works if you have a Legacy Weapon, so no dice.

[Frosty]

Use this 3rd party SoulKnife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife) instead :smallwink: Suddenly Soulknife doesn't suck anymore.

[T.G. Oskar]

Well, to be precise, there's five PrCs that advance Soulknife class features. Soulbow is one of them, and the one that works best.

The others are: Illumine Soul (grants certain positive energy benefits), Atavist (Eberron-specific, race-specific [Kalashtar], grants other benefits), Uncanny Trickster (the 2nd and 3rd level abilities advance class features, but it's a 3-level PrC so it's not much of a deviation), and the also mentioned Legacy Champion.

Technically, there IS a way to advance Soulknife and make it worthwhile, and it's one of the pre-made items. Mau-Jehe, a shortsword with some so-so abilities (aside from retaining Psionic Focus for a specific feat you choose), but its "main" ability is that you can turn it into a mind-blade of sorts, allowing you to stack its special abilities (Ghost Touch, Keen) with your existing mind blade, but only chooses the highest enhancement bonus. With that weapon, you can get Legacy Champion and advance in the class. You can, though, replace Legacy abilities, so you might want to replace some of the weaker ones with something better. It's your choice if you want a better Legacy weapon or retain full advancement of Soulknife class features.

Also: DSP worked on the Soulknife before for 3.5 (a variant (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/soulknife), though). Not everyone intends to port stuff from PF into 3.5, even if one's a derivative work of the other. The two classes should be mostly identical, though the first attempt lacks the blade skills.

[shaikujin]

That Legacy Weapon that allows Mindblade WSA to stack is the one I was referring to to get over +10 worth of WSA to a weapon.

Then add item familiar for more WSA.

Then are also other items that adds more abilities to mindblades, like the glove that allows it to be treated as adamantine.

And because you now have a physical weapon, you can add augment crystals to it. And can be made out of special materials. Have wand chambers and the like added to it.

And legacy weapons cannot be disintegrated/destroyed permanently.

And can be dismissed/summoned at will.

Then use the crystal cave location to give it flaming, frost and lightning (or was it something else?).

And the feat that allows it to be split into 2 weapons...

Would the Call Weapon ACF work for this?

Can Kensai be added on top of this?

And the weapon doesn't cost more than 2k (excluding material and MW costs)

[Sith_Happens]

3) The limited blade shapes and 3/4 BAB prevent crit fishing and Power Attack tactics which are the most common ways to boost your damage over 1d<yawn>+(1.5*Str mod).

You can't even get 1.5*STR until 5th level.

[mabriss lethe]

While still an underpowered class, there are a few work-arounds.
- Mind's Eye ACFs: Using both of them will net you a free power and allow you to replace the less-than-stellar psychic strike with feats that somehow improve the mindblade. That's a pretty open selection of feats.

- Adamantine Mindblade Gauntlets: The adamantine property is nice and somewhat useful. It's also secondary to the real reason every soulknife should be packing one. It alters the way you create your mindblade while wearing it. It allows you to swap out +1 worth of special abilities on the fly for the adamantine property, and due to the wording, you can effectively respec your mindblade every time you form it.

[Vhaidara]

I've always been interested in Soulbow, but my only experience with Soulknives was one who prestiged into Kensai. +15 equivalent weapon at level 20, in a low magic world where the gods used +3 weapons.

It really depends on the optimization level of your group. Soulknife is probably one of the best examples of a badass class that can get buried very easily (monk is another one). Soulbow adds to both the badass aspect (do I need to explain this?) and the viability (enhances your ability to fight out of melee).

[lytokk]

the only experience I ever had with soulknifes... soulknives... soul..whatever, was in one game. He took the vow of poverty in order to get better bonuses onto the soulblade. He couldn't hit anything to save his life and ended up leaving the game when my paladin mount killed what he couldn't even hit.

Another one of my players wanted to play a soulbow, and after looking at the class, I just dropped it all down to a single feat, which would allow you to shape your soulblade into any shape, and you could shoot the arrow from a material bow, applying all magical enhancements to every soul arrow. For some reason, he decided to play a ranger instead.

[Pluto!]

I keep hearing good things about the Soulbow, but I have a hard time seeing it in a positive light, even compared to a Targeteer fighter:

Both make offensively SAD vanilla ranged attacks, but the fighter has higher BA, more feats - especially considering Zen Archery as a Soulbow feat tax, it comes online earlier and can stack bow+arrow special abilities; the Soulbow does save some GP and has better skills, but I'm not sure it evens out.

And Fighter, even with variants, isn't exactly setting records for power.

[Deophaun]

I keep hearing good things about the Soulbow, but I have a hard time seeing it in a positive light, even compared to a Targeteer fighter.
It's main tricks are two weapon bow fighting and lucky arrows. Being able to swap out the Bane enhancement also isn't something to be overlooked, but situational due to the 8-hour requirement. If you can manage Shiba Protector, you've also got respectable DPS and probably aren't going to miss anything.

Also, there's a certain coolness to essentially being Zero. If only Warforged didn't take the Wis hit.

The thing that I cannot figure out is the justification for the 3/4 BAB. Someone had a massive brain fart there and confused the mindblade/arrow with a natural attack.

[Grayson01]

Legacy Champion and one other, but they don't do anything all that special other than that.

In fact, one of them only works if you have a Legacy Weapon, so no dice.

The Legacy Weapon is not a complete deal breaker, there is a Legacy Weapon that can become your mindblade. It's Mujah-jhi I think is the name AFB at the moment. So you can pull of the Legacy Champion with that weapon. It adds in Ghost Touch and a few other Special Ablilities.

[tyckspoon]

The thing that I cannot figure out is the justification for the 3/4 BAB. Someone had a massive brain fart there and confused the mindblade/arrow with a natural attack.

Lucky arrows compensates for or beats the difference between 3/4 and 1/1 BAB, depending on level, but I think that was probably accidental rather than designed, as well as being an annoying tax on your potential WSA assignments.

[Flickerdart]

I'm actually quite fond of the 3.0 Soulknife. It's much more flexible and gives manifesting.

[Deophaun]

Lucky arrows compensates for or beats the difference between 3/4 and 1/1 BAB, depending on level, but I think that was probably accidental rather than designed, as well as being an annoying tax on your potential WSA assignments.
Accidental, because the problem is also inherent in the soulknife class, which wouldn't get the same benefit from lucky due to the mindblade not being ammunition.

[Vortenger]

My standard 2cp in any soulknife / soulbow discussion:

1. Atlas.org has a 3.5 100% WoTC approved PrC variant of the Soulknife that grants Throw Mindblade at level 1. As far as I'm concerned, this replaces the base class for most builds since you don't have to set more than 1 level on fire. I like martial monk2 2/ X 2 /Soulknife PrC 1/ Soulbow X for bare bones builds. Very few people seem to be aware of this option.

2. The Blade Manifester PrC in Hyperconscious (also written by Bruce Cordell, seems to be one of the most widely accepted 3rd party books) has the Blade Manifester PrC tucked away in the back. This gives (I bieleve...) 7/10 blade manifesting from soulknife, but also fast tracks psychic warrior powers up to 4th level a la Fist of Zuoken.

I have a Martial Monk 2/ Fighter 2/ Souknife PrC 1/Soulbow 4/ Blade Manifester 10/ Soulbow 1 build I've been waiting to try out for some time now. Grab some Mind Blade Gauntlets or Gloves of the Balanced Hand to taste and ta-daa! A tier 3 archer that isn't a psychic warrior!

[Kuulvheysoon]

Due to the convoluted wording in the enhancement bonus section of the mind arrow, you can arguably apply the enhancement to your Base Attack Bonus, possibly giving you more iterative attacks.

[CyberThread]

My standard 2cp in any soulknife / soulbow discussion:

1. Atlas.org has a 3.5 100% WoTC approved PrC variant of the Soulknife that grants Throw Mindblade at level 1. As far as I'm concerned, this replaces the base class for most builds since you don't have to set more than 1 level on fire. I like martial monk2 2/ X 2 /Soulknife PrC 1/ Soulbow X for bare bones builds. Very few people seem to be aware of this option.


Please back up that statment with proof :P

[Frosty]

Please back up that statment with proof :P

Or use the one I linked, CyberDrag! :smallwink: No work or multiclassing needed to make a competent Soulknife character!

[CyberThread]

except... 3rd party...

[Frosty]

Dreamscarr Press is a very well-respect 3rd party publisher. You should really give it a chance and read the class.

[Vedhin]

Please back up that statment with proof :P

Athas.org has a liscense agreement with WotC that lets it publish offical 3.5 stuff for the Dark Sun setting.

Relevant text:
Official Homepage Requirements

Wizards of the Coast values its intellectual property a great deal, and it also values its customers who make purchase decisions based on their love of the IP. As sales dwindle on certain worlds that we create, we make the decision to no longer produce printed materials for these worlds. As Wizards of the Coast desires to keep previous customers happy with the investment they have made with our products, we allow select websites to take over the duties of providing new materials for retired intellectual properties.

In order to be considered an official website, the site must:

Portray the intellectual property in a manner consistent with its positioning. This information can be found in the Brand Positioning documents. In lieu of these documents, work with the Brand Manager of D&D Worlds on an approved look.
Retain the iconic heroes, locations, magical items, and artifacts. Official sites are not allowed to kill off major PCs, destroy well-known artifacts, and similar activities.
Official sites must have links back to the Wizards of the Coast website that tie to:
Message Boards
Chat Rooms
Mailing Lists
Online Catalog
Online Store
Campaign Worlds
Dragon Magazine
Dungeon Adventures
Player Registry
Books
Official sites must not create their own community sections that duplicate those services and features offered by the Wizards of the Coast website.
Provide new content for fans within the guidelines in sections A and B. While there is a great deal of latitude granted in this regard, official websites should remain in close contact with the Brand Manager of D&D Worlds ([email protected]).
Keep Wizards of the Coast related materials separate from other non-game sections of the website. This means we don’t want to see other business ventures mixed in with our intellectual property, such as pornographic offerings, get-rich-quick schemes, etc.
Conduct its activities in a professional and businesslike manner. This means that all actions on the part of visitors to the website should conform to generally accepted business standards. Sites should never sell visitor information records to other firms for the purpose of marketing, for instance.
Refer players to the Other Worlds section of the Wizards of the Coast page instead of their own URL. While many fans will bookmark your own page anyway, it’s important that fans receive the other information presented at the Other Worlds section.
Make the material available for free. You’re not allowed to charge for access to official products.

We encourage fan sites to begin making updates to their content to bring it in-line with 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons as soon as possible. We will begin phasing out web pages that do not offer 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons content soon after the launch of the new game system in August 2000.

In exchange for providing all of the official new material for an intellectual property, Wizards of the Coast agrees to:

Provide prizes and other support materials at a level established by the D&D Worlds Brand Manager.
Establish a direct link from the Wizards of the Coast web page to the official fan site.
Have only a single source for all official content, that being your site. Other sites that wish to be listed as part of the IP will be directed to the official website.

This agreement will change as business necessities force us to alter the manner in which we do business. Should the intellectual property currently being supported by the official website be brought back into print, the official status of the web site will be removed and Wizards of the Coast will begin creating new content to support the relaunch of the game (or work with the current official site to migrate content over).

Content created on the official website is considered to be derivative work (as it is based on the intellectual property owned by Wizards of the Coast). This means that fan-created add-ons (such as new net books, adventures, etc.) are jointly owned by both Wizards of the Coast and the creator; neither can do anything outside the official website without the permission of the other.

Good Gaming!

Jim Butler, Brand Manager D&D Worlds Wizards of the Coast, Inc.


I seem to remember there being similar sites for other abandoned settings, such as Planescape, Spelljammer, Birthright, Mystara, and Ravenloft.

[Vortenger]

Athas.org has a liscense agreement with WotC that lets it publish offical 3.5 stuff for the Dark Sun setting.
[snip]




All of this. Was at work and didn't double-check myself. Thanks for the correction.

The bits concerning the Soulknife itself are in the Prestige Class Index 1 download available there.

I do hope that qualifies as 'proof' enough? :smallbiggrin:

[Vedhin]

I'm feeling nice, so I dredged up WotC's list of links to the official sites for the various settings.

Behold! (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp)