Soulknives and Automatic Bonuses

[digiman619]

Soulknives are cool because they have their magic weapon (and maybe armor, depending on the archetype) built into the class. That said, what happens to a soulknife in an adventure that has Automatic Bonuses (so that they'd be balanced w/o tons of loot)?

[Extra Anchovies]

Mind Blades are weapons, so they are valid weapon attunement targets. The direct enhancement bonuses from class levels wouldn't stack with those from weapon attunement, but a 20th-level Soulknife could apply their +5 weapon attunement to a +1 mind blade +8's worth of special abilities and get a +5 enhancement bonus to attack and damage and +8 worth of special abilities. In a non-ABP game, Soulknives can't do much with the magic weapons they find lying around in treasure hoards, so ABP buffs Soulknives starting at level 9, when Weapon Attunement hits +2.

It's not a large buff (+1/2/3/4 to hit/damage at levels 9/14/15/17), so letting Mind Blade/Weapon Attunement interactions function as written probably won't cause any trouble, but YMMV.

[Eldaran]

For ABP I let bonuses from class abilities, such as for Soulknives or Magus Arcane Pool to stack up to 1.5xABP value, seems to work out well.

[Sayt]

Anchovies has the best of it, IIRC.

The other option that occurs to me, is to give the equivalent GP value in Crystaline hilts/gloves/etc.

[AoiEMT]

I am playing a soulknife in a game with the Automatic Bonuses at the moment.

We changed the progression to start at 4th and go up by one every 4 levels to a maximum of +5 at 20th. These can only be used for special abilities but you don't have to eat up attunement for special abilities.

For example at 8th level you can attune your mindblade for +1 and have +2 worth of abilities on it.

In exchange for that reduction in progression my GM gave me more powers know and powerpoints as a gifted blade.

Other options could be a few bonus feats.