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Xuldarinar
2014-04-16, 02:33 PM
PALADIN ARCHETYPE: MIND BLADE TEMPLAR

Blade of Mind and Faith: At 1st level, a mind blade templar acquires wild talent as a bonus feat. At 2nd level, a mind blade templar acquires the Form Mind Blade and Shape Mind Blade class features. When a mind blade templar acquires 3rd level, and any other level they would acquire a mercy, they instead acquire a blade skill. Finally, a mind blade templar can only choose to form a divine bond with their mind blade. This bond is not broken when the mind blade is unshaped or itself broken, as the bond itself lies within the mind of the mind blade templar rather than actually residing within the blade.
This replaces the paladin's Lay on Hands, Mercy and Channel Positive energy class features, and augments the Divine bond class feature.





Just a concept I had. In a campaign I will be taking part in, someone wants to play a paladin soul knife, and since multi-classing will be disallowed I thought I'd brew this up for him. The DM is fine with me bringing brew to the table, and even cleared the notion. I just need it to work, and work well. Any and all input would be of great help.


For information on the pathfinder soulknife: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife

T.G. Oskar
2014-04-18, 04:13 PM
Format is everything, I'd say.

As it stands, it's really complex to see what's gained and what's lost. How much, exactly, is the player willing to sacrifice Paladin class features to gain Soulknife class features? I can see the Mind Blade and Blade Skills, which almost entirely collapses the Soulknife class, but the Paladin still gets its spells, making it obviously better.

Let's focus at first with what you already have, and what you replace, in each level:
At 1st level, you gain Wild Talent (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/wild-talent), while you lose nothing.
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to form and shape a mind blade, while you lose Lay on Hands
At 3rd level, you gain a blade skill, but you lose a mercy (which is no longer available). This also applies to subsequent Mercies.
At 4th level, you gain nothing, but you lose Channel Positive Energy as you lack Lay on Hands.
At 5th level, when you get your Divine Bond, you force a bond with the mind blade.

Using the archetype format, and giving it a slightly more original name (harkening to one of 3.5's PrCs), this would look as follows:

ILLUMINE CRUSADER
Paladins are gifted with divine power to heal the noble and punish the wicked. However, some forsake some of their divine power to augment their innate psionic potential. By sacrificing the ability to heal, an Illumine crusader manifests its psionic power as a holy weapon. Illumine crusaders have the following class features:
Wild Talent: The Illumine crusader gains Wild Talent as a bonus feat. This provides her with the power necessary to eventually manifest her mind blade (see below). A character who is already psionic gains the Psionic Talent feat instead.
Illumine Blade: At 2nd level, the Illumine crusader harnesses her psionic power to create a blade of psionic energy empowered by the divine. As a move action, an Illumine crusader can form a semi-solid weapon composed of both psionic and divine energy distilled from her own mind and the force of her faith. This ability behaves exactly as per the Form Mind Blade class feature of the Soulknife class, except as follows: the Illumine crusader's blade takes the form of specific weapons, rather than a fixed set of characteristics. An Illumine crusader may give her Illumine blade the form of her deity's favored weapon (with all traits and properties), or the form and properties of one light, one-handed or two-handed melee or thrown weapon per point of Charisma bonus (if any). The Illumine crusader's blade sheds light as a torch, which cannot be diminished. This ability replaces lay on hands.
Since you're replacing a limited resource with an infinite resource, you need to establish a limit on the ability itself. The natural limitation to make the ability a bit more balanced would be to restrict the weapon to the character's deity's favored weapon, but that's not always the best. Hence, they get additional choices based on their Charisma modifier, which should be enough to let them have a wide variety. Having the mind blade act as a weapon, rather than acting as the facsimile of a weapon which always has the same stats gives it some uniqueness.
Blade Skill: At 3rd level, the Illumine crusader learns techniques and abilities to use with her Illumine blade. She gains the ability to choose a single blade skill from the Soulknife class, with some exceptions. The Illumine crusader may not choose any blade skill that requires the psychic strike class feature (which she lacks). Furthermore, if she chooses the Emulate Melee Weapon or Emulate Ranged Weapon blade skills, she merely adds the chosen skill to the repertoire of forms her Illumine blade may take. At 6th level, and every three class levels afterwards (9th, 12th, etc.), an Illumine crusader gains another blade skil. This ability replaces mercy.
Focused Spellcasting: At 4th level, the Illumine crusader gains the ability to cast a small amount of divine spells, but with a more focused approach. The Illumine crusader loses the ability to cast all spells of the conjuration [healing] school (such as cure light wounds). Instead, she gains the following spells:
1st--enlarge person, 2nd--spiritual weapon, 3rd--searing light, 4th--holy smite, order's wrath
The paladin may not use spell-trigger or spell completion items related to the spells she loses, but she can use those from the spells she gains.
Furthermore, the Illumine crusader may spend her psionic focus as a swift action when casting a spell to automatically succeed on the concentration check (if necessary). This ability replaces channel positive energy.
This is to allow replacing Channel Positive Energy for something, but also to hammer on the flavor of the archetype. This is an archetype that uses divine power and psionics to be a holy warrior, but at the expense of its healing powers. Thus, they lose the ability to cast all healing spells, and in exchange they get spells from the Cleric who just happen to fit the new worldview of the archetype. It's your call if you wish to keep it, but keep in mind that otherwise you'd have to delay Wild Talent to 4th level, or add something else to replace Channel Positive Energy.
Divine Bond: At 5th level, the Illumine crusader must make a divine bond with her mind blade. This ability otherwise functions as the paladin ability to bond with a weapon, except that it only applies to her mind blade.
Illumine Champion: At 20th level, the Illumine crusader's mind and blade becomes a conduit for the power of her god. Her DR increases to 10/evil. Whenever she uses smite evil and successfully strikes an evil outsider, the outsider is also subject to a banishment, using her paladin level as the caster level (her mind blade and holy symbol automatically count as objects that the subject hates). After the banishment effect and the damage from the attack is resolved, the smite immediately ends. Furthermore, she no longer requires a Will save to maintain her Illumine blade in a dead magic zone or null psionics field, though her divine bond with the mind blade is suppressed for as long as she remains in the area. This ability replaces holy champion.
This replaces the bit from Holy Champion relevant to LoH and Channel Positive Energy with half of the Soulknife's capstone. Not entirely happy with the Banishment effect, but it's there.

--

With the format out of the way, there's a few things I have to mention:
First, you virtually have the entire Soulknife class pegged into the Archetype. You lose some flexibility with the "Illumine" blade, but you otherwise get many blade skills and the important parts of the Soulknife class. This would make the Illumine champion strictly better than the Soulknife, if you look at it.
Thinking about adding Autohypnosis to the class list? Or Knowledge (psionics)? Remember that some archetypes add extra class skills.
I took the liberty of adding and expanding stuff within the format, which you're free to leave. However, I'm kinda worried about having a class with near-full blade skills (6 instead of 10) and retaining its spells. While my 3.5 'brewer side says "keep them!" (specifically since Paladin spellcasting isn't actually so bad, though 3.5 spells blow it out of the water), I have to respect the PF paradigm which often demands some extreme choices. Thus, the most natural shift would be to nuke spells from orbit. This is the biggest judgment call you have to make, though. Consider very carefully what you think is most balanced, and what you think your DM will agree at.

Xuldarinar
2014-04-18, 05:17 PM
-snip-

Let me start off by saying, I agree entirely that format is everything. It helps break things down and while usually I am far better with it.. even going to great lengths to be within a solid format.. this is a case I did not and it suffered for it.


Wild Talent: Tacked on but in this case appears as a must.

Illumine blade: I like what you did with that. It limits it without it being too restricting.

Blade skill: Certainly far clearer than what I had previously, and places limitations as appropriate.

Focused Spellcasting: Not an idea that would have occurred to me, and I think it fits quite well.

Illumine Champion: While I don't know if that will ever become relevant at the table, I think it looks good for what it is.

Skill suggestions; Those would be rather suitable, and I don't think anything would need to be taken away to argue those being added, but that is just me.

All in all, it is certainly better than the job I did. Keep in mind, mine was very roughly thrown together as an idea to assist someone in a campaign I will be partaking in. Why? He desires to play a paladin and a soul knife as the same character. I think this does the job of it quite well and when everything is finished being refined I will show it to the DM. Its difficult for me, a bit, to brew something that I wouldn't play, but rather would have for someone else to play.