Thought Experiment: Maximum Soulknife

[icefractal]

So, one of the players in my campaign is making a new character, and wants to play a soulknife. Looking at the class, I noticed it was a bit lacking, and went about boosting it, improving the mindblade itself a bit and adding some manifesting.

In the process though, I had an odd thought. What if you only improved the Mindblade? How powerful a mindblade would be needed to support a class by itself? So, here's the thought experiment. Take this hypothetical class:

d10 HD, full BAB, 4+Int skills, Good Reflex and Will
Class Feature - Mind Arsenal:
* Can be manifested or changed as a free action, once per round.
* Includes a set of armor, and either a two handed weapon, weapon + shield, or two weapons.
* Each part has an enchantment bonus equal to Level/3, and special abilities (any +# weapon/armor abilities) with a total of +X, where X depends on class level.
* You're proficient with anything you make, ranged weapons produce ammunition automatically, no giving the arsenal to other people, etc.


Give that, and considering the level 10-15 range primarily:
1) What's the top tier this class could reach? (keeping in mind that the amount of special abilities does not have to cap at +10. If giving them +20 worth of abilities at 10th level is what it takes, then sure. But within reason, not +1000 or something).
2) Does allowing non +X abilities and/or special weapons/armor (but only off the existing lists, not arbitrary ones), change the tier? I would think yes, because Luckblades.
3) Does allowing non +X abilities (as above), but not ones with limited charges, change the tier?

I'll do a bit of dumpster diving myself and post some results later, but I'm curious what people can come up with.

[Kennisiou]

I feel like you're not really doing much but giving them some very minor discounts on gear, effectively, which is not very useful. I feel like it would be at best low tier 4, but probably mid to high t5.

One of my favorite Soul Knife "fixes" is taking the Soul Knife class and the Lurk (http://dndtools.eu/classes/lurk/) class and gestalting them together and giving it trapfinding and +2 skill points a level. It fixes a lot of the Soul Knife's problems (lack of out of combat utility is made up for with Lurk powers, Lurk class skills, and gaining trapfinding and +2 skill points/level), as well as a lot of the Lurk's problems (full BaB and better hit dice makes the Lurk a whole lot better at meleeing, which its class features seem to make it want to do), all while keeping the flavor pretty similar and giving a lot of interesting options in combat. You get a sneaky psionic assassin who doesn't even appear to have a weapon until it needs one.

[Drelua]

Have you seen the Pathfinder Soulknife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife)? You seem to be doing some of the same things to fix the class, which is pretty solid in PF. There's some interesting blade skills, my favourite being Focused Offense for Wisdom instead of Strength for attack and damage, and some good archetypes. It's probably my favourite class in PF, which is a shame since none of my regular groups allow third party material. :smallfrown:

[icefractal]

I was starting from the PF soulknife. It's definitely an improvement on the base one, but still not really up to par, especially in a campaign with above-average WBL.


In terms of weapon abilities, right off the bat, I found these:
Dimension Anchor 1/day (Binding)
Curse people (Cursespewing)
Spread disease (Diseased)
Rust things (Rusting)
Make people silent (Silent Strike)
Make a smoke cloud (Smoking)
Suggestion 1/day (Commanding)
Shoot through walls (Phasing)
Make daylight (Radiant)
Dismiss outsiders (Dismisser)
Dust storms 3/day (Duststorm)

Versatile? Kind of. Not sure if that's enough to break Tier 4 though. If we allow non +N abilities, there's a lot more utility stuff, especially in armor.

[Irk]

The best thing I've seen with soulknife is gestalting it with soulborn as one class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156441).

[icefractal]

I feel like you're not really doing much but giving them some very minor discounts on gear, effectively, which is not very useful. I feel like it would be at best low tier 4, but probably mid to high t5.Missed this before. The main difference is being able to change abilities as a free action, allowing you instant access to whatever strange abilities you can dumpster dive for.

Now is that enough to reach Tier 3? I'm not sure. I know that conversely, the ability to do that with any type of magic item would be Tier 1. So it depends on how much you can get out of arms and armor.

Of course, I don't think this is really how you'd want to design a class, it's based on dumpster-diving to the maximum. More of a thought experiment.

[Seerow]

You might be interested in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16069797)

[Gemini476]

You know what could be fun? If the MAXIMUM SOULKNIFE could change what her soulknife/armor/etc., and has little-to-no limits on what kind of weaponry they can create. Basically the psionic version of that old stereotype of the Fighter with a golfbag filled with different weapons.

Need to stop something from getting past you? Go full tripper with a Spiked Chain. Enemy too far away and trying to kite you? Form a bow and shoot them and/or go full Unlimited Blade Works and fire an infinite rain of swords on it (sounds like a capstone ability to me!) Enemy immune to fire? Skip Flaming. Fighting a Troll? Why hello there, Flaming.

Really, having the Soulknife go from "can create one magical weapon" to "can create and swap around an entire magical armory" seems like a good buff. It also lets you get some use out of some of the obscurer enchantments and more situational weapons/armor/shields, and having more variety and options is always nice.

It'll probably just put it into Tier 4, though, since weapons just aren't different enough in 3.5. Maybe if you actually make it a psionic class and give it a few powers. I dunno.

[strider24seven]

DSP Soulknife (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/soulknife)
Or use the Dark Sun PrC version of Soulknife.