Soaring Blade vs. Psychic Armory: Which is the better floating weapon user?

[digiman619]

Simple question: Everyone has seen an anime, comic or movie that uses the concept of mentally controlled floating weapons. So the question is (as the title asks) which archetype fulfills the character concept better? Drop Dead Studios' Soaring Blade (an Armorist archetype from The Telkekinetic's Handbook using their Spheres of Power system), or Dreamscarred Press' Psychic Armory (a Soulknife archetype from Psionics Augmented: Soulknives using their revamped psionics system)?

[AoiEMT]

Well I've never heard about the Soaring Blade, but I'm currently playing a psychic armory and I can say it is pretty fantastic.

It synchronizes really well with either WarSoul or Gifted Soul since it can be pretty much SAD on Wisdom.

Currently I have them flavored as small armed versions of me that I control like a squad of soldiers but you can flavor the look as anything and just be a damage storm!

[AmberVael]

While conceptually the two are similar, mechanically they have some major differences. My understanding of Psychic Armory is that it is a ranged attacker, just throwing the blades it generates with its panoply. Its blade skills tweak this a bit, but its core mechanic is throwing.

Since Psychic Armory was already in playtesting when I was writing Soaring Blade, I decided to move it in a different direction, specifically by playing to the advantages that the Telekinesis sphere already has - namely, some battlefield control elements. Soaring Blade actively places new threats on the battlefield, creating weapons can threaten areas as well as make attacks against enemies. In addition, the Soaring Blade has the potential for neat tricks like catching ranged attacks out of the air and wrenching weapons away from enemies since its basic function is actually just telekinesis.

I'd say the advantage of Psychic Armory is that it starts off with a ton of weapons from the very beginning, and is adept at flinging them all over the place, while Soaring Blade has greater finesse and control with a smaller number of weapons. So I guess the question is, what are you looking for? I've heard a lot of people compare Psychic Armory to Gilgamesh from Fate - I'd probably say Soaring Blade is Kreia. (http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/4/4c/Kreia_KotORCG.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090601053448)

[Gallowglass]

Just to add another log to the fire:

I've played a Magus using this Magus Arcana: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/magus-arcana/rite-publishing---magus-arcana/animate-weapon-su
Realizing this is 3rd party (so are both of the classes you state I think), this arcana does a remarkable job of doing what you are looking for. It costs one pool point to animate the weapon for level rounds, so you usually have enough pool points to use it for all encounters for the day.

It has one remarkably poor "Rules as Written" flub that has to be fixed to keep it from being vastly overpowered, but otherwise, it was tremendous fun to have a prototypical rapier-wielding slender magus lugging a Maul around on his back, then flinging it into the air on round one and doubling his action economy of attacks for most of the combat.