Soulbow Madness

[The Viscount]

I was recently looking at Soulbow and some peculiarities of it started nagging at me so I'm going to bring them all up at once in the hopes someone has any insight.

1. In discussing soulbow's +X Mind Arrow, we see the following text: "Likewise, these enhancement bonuses also improve your soulknife base attack bonus." This is confusing enough on its own, since that's not how enhancement bonuses to attack and damage work, but if you refer to soulknife you will see that its own text says nothing of the sort. How is one to resolve this? Dismiss it since it refers to text that doesn't exist, or accept it as some insane retroactive +3 to BA? Was this a thing in the 3.0 soulknife?

2. The interaction of soulknife and soulbow levels was never fully clear for me. When determining +x to attack and damage you just add the numbers together, and both classes gain the benefit. Enhancement properties become murky. It states that the abilities don't stack, but that could mean several things. Does it simply mean that if you have a +1 ability from soulknife and a +1 ability from soulbow you have to choose them separately, and can't get a +2 bonus of your choice, or choose 2 +1s from soulknife? Or does it instead mean that when you choose say, keen for soulknife, that it only applies to the mind blade, and not to mind arrows? I know that in my game I would allow soulknife abilities, once chosen separately, to apply to mind arrows, but does anyone have insight to what the rule is trying to say?

3. The choice of enhancement abilities that soulbow gives are very strange. A full 6 of its abilities are on the soulknife list already, perhaps suggesting you can't use bring over soulknife benefits? Returning is on the list of options, despite doing literally nothing, since arrows dissipate at the end of the round. More concerning we have psibane, wounding, dislocator, and lucky. The first one bestows a negative level to a psionic creature wielding it. While your period of "wielding" the arrow is questionable and brief, it would probably be present for long enough to penalize you when you fire, and that can't be intended. Wounding is melee only, and there's only a mild advantage for an archer having it from a lot of attacks, but it goes to demonstrates the bizarre disregard from the rules. Dislocator has a 3/day limit, but the question here is since you're applying it to the arrow rather than the bow firing it, does it refresh every time? Lucky has the double problem of being melee only and being something with a powerful 1/day limit, so (as has been discussed elsewhere) does this mean you can reroll every missed attack? This obviously shouldn't be the application, but what would the rules be?

4. Unlike a thrown mind blade, the mind arrow takes 1 round to dissipate. Does this mean that the foe you attack could theoretically fire your own arrow back at you with a bow? Do they keep the properties? Do they still apply your wisdom?

5. Just a little one here, but speed says that it doesn't stack with similar benefits like haste? Is there any rule about how it would interact with Rapid Shot? Is it a no-go because that's another means of extra attacks, or is it kosher because Rapid Shot isn't "free"?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Soulbow (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060403a&page=2) for reference.

1. It's likely just a typo, so realistically it should just be ignored. RAW, it can't be added to your attack rolls multiple times, so it's still a net +X to hit, but if that bonus puts you over the +6 or +11 or +16 threshold you get another iterative attack, but only when using that weapon.

2. Mind Arrow Enhancement only adds those abilities to your mind arrows, and Mind Blade Enhancement only adds those abilities to your mind blade. They don't stack or otherwise affect each other in any way.

3. They probably just copied and pasted the Soulknife list of available abilities, and then added a few ranged-specific abilities on top of those. It wasn't proofread very well, just like most of Complete Psionic, but the list given is what you're able to pick from. Yes, some of them are much worse or much better than others, some are so bad that you would never pick them. Yes, it's often ruled that Lucky applies to each mind arrow separately and so every shot you make that initially misses has one reroll available. It's up to your DM whether to allow it to work that way, or rule that it's a 1/day ability shared by all mind arrows.

4. From PHB Weapon Categories, Ammunition: "Generally speaking, ammunition that hits its target is destroyed or rendered useless, while normal ammunition that misses has a 50% chance of being destroyed or lost." From DMG Magic Weapons, Magic Ammunition and Breakage: "When a magic arrow, crossbow bolt, shuriken, or sling bullet misses its target, there is a 50% chance it breaks or otherwise is rendered useless. A magic arrow, bolt, bullet, or shuriken that hits is destroyed." It's entirely up to your DM how to rule that, but since it's not actually fired from a bow, you could probably choose to make your mind arrows lack a nock so they couldn't be fired from a standard bow.

5. Rapid Shot works with Haste, as do most other extra-attack abilities that have a cost such as the -2 penalty to hit with all attacks. Abilities that grant an extra attack but don't stack with Haste will say so (and they're pretty much always magical), and those abilities won't stack with other abilities that specifically don't stack with haste. If an ability doesn't say that it won't stack with haste, then it will stack with haste and it will stack with any other ability that says it doesn't stack with haste. You can also use two-weapon fighting with mind arrows to get even more attacks.

[The Viscount]

But if it's a typo, what was it supposed to say?