Soulbow and other classes interaction question

[justiceforall]

Hi playground,

I'm planning a soulknife/soulbow type character, and I have some of the queries about how some of the interactions work:

- Does Strength apply at all to the mind arrows or is it totally replaced by Wisdom?
-
Any feats previously requiring specific weapon choice (such as Weapon Specialization) for your mind blade also apply to your mind arrow, if applicable.
Does Weapon Focus: Mindblade apply to the mind arrows?
- It says in a super long winded fashion that mind blade pluses stacks with the mind arrows pluses. If I take levels of illumine soul or atavist that improve the mind blade through soulknife progression (or the soulblade warrior feat), does that work?
- Can the mind blade enhancements affect a mind arrow?
-
Benefit: In place of the psychic strike class ability, you gain a bonus feat at each level above. You may choose any feat designed for soulknives (such as those in Complete Psionic) or any feat that your mind blade can benefit from, such as Power Attack or Improved Critical
Can the expanded class Soulknife ACF be used to take the feat Zen Archery (since it can be applied to a thrown Mindblade)?

[The Viscount]

Ah soulbow. Super fun, but man I wish they wrote it and soulknife in a clearer fashion.

Strength does not apply to mind arrows.

Weapon Focus would apply to the mind arrow as well.

The attack and damage bonus (+1 mind blade) gained from Illumine Soul or Atavist would apply to the mind blade, so they apply to the mind arrow as well. Illumine soul stacks for both attack and damage bonus and enhancements. Atavist only stacks for attack and damage bonus. Soulblade Warrior only affects the mind blade enhancement class feature (adding properties to the mind blade).

Mind blade enhancement (adding properties) is not well described for soulbow. They say at one point "the special ability provided by this class feature does not stack with the soulknife's mind blade enhancement ability" which could simply mean that you can't take the +1 enhancement from a level 6 mindblade and the +1 enhancement from a level 2 soulbow to choose a +2 enhancement. That being said, due to the fact that they had to explicitly allow you to stack the attack and damage bonuses, not saying anything about enhancement means you most likely cannot use the soulknife's enhancement on a mind arrow.

Zen Archery is indeed legal for mind arrows. That feat and the ACF in general are excellent choices for any soulknife that isn't trying to enter illumine soul.

[justiceforall]

Should have put this up ages ago but thank you very much for the full clear response.

I've started playing the character, will take some time to actually get to level 6 for the Soulbow part but it does look super fun.

[darkela5]

Be sure to dip Shiba protector Oa p.222 for: No Thought (Ex): Shiba protectors add their Wisdom modifier, if positive, to their attack and damage rolls. it is gained on lv1 of the prestige class and now you add wisdom twice to damage and if you have zen archery you add wisdom twice to hit. NICE :smallsmile:

[justiceforall]

Be sure to dip Shiba protector Oa p.222 for: No Thought (Ex): Shiba protectors add their Wisdom modifier, if positive, to their attack and damage rolls. it is gained on lv1 of the prestige class and now you add wisdom twice to damage and if you have zen archery you add wisdom twice to hit. NICE :smallsmile:

Thank you for the suggestion - I looked into it but that requires 3 (bad) feats and a level to access. My group doesn't use flaws and I'm pretty sure if I tried stuff like the Otyugh Hole I'd have rocks fall on my character.

At the moment I was looking at Serenity Paladin as my way of leveraging the Wisdom.


This is a good point to ask about some other things - what are some reasonable ways for a Human Soulbow who is going to spend almost all his time in unlit dungeons to mitigate the problem with being able to see his targets at range?

[Zaq]

Thank you for the suggestion - I looked into it but that requires 3 (bad) feats and a level to access. My group doesn't use flaws and I'm pretty sure if I tried stuff like the Otyugh Hole I'd have rocks fall on my character.

At the moment I was looking at Serenity Paladin as my way of leveraging the Wisdom.


This is a good point to ask about some other things - what are some reasonable ways for a Human Soulbow who is going to spend almost all his time in unlit dungeons to mitigate the problem with being able to see his targets at range?

If you’re not trying to be stealthy yourself, the cheapest method is just to get a big shiny light source. Sunrods are cheap, and a permanent magic item that glows in a reasonably big radius is also relatively cheap. Plus, it keeps grues away!

If you ARE trying to be stealthy or otherwise don’t want an actual light source, you can start looking into sources of darkvision, I guess. Those tend to be a little expensive, though. No-frills Goggles of Night are 12k gp. If you find feats cheaper than gold, I think there’s a soulmeld that gives darkvision when shaped (note: I may be misremembering this and it may require a bind, which would be terrible), but even if you take that, it’s likely pretty limited without essentia. If you have UMD or the ability to use wands and similar items, there’s also the Darkvision spell, and it does exactly what you think it does. Can also be made permanent with Permanency if that’s your thing.

If you feel like partially renouncing humanity and you’re not Evil, you can become a dragonborn and take the Mind/Senses aspect for scaling darkvision. Hella expensive opportunity cost, though, and you’ll lose your human bonus feat (you can lose a trash feat you got as a bonus from another source, but if you don’t have any trash feats, that hurts) and your human bonus skill points. I wouldn’t take this option myself, but it technically exists.

You could also look at sources of blindsight, but you’re an archer who probably wants to be as far away from the front lines as possible, and getting blindsight with more than a 30’ radius is hard and/or expensive.

[Menzath]

This is a good point to ask about some other things - what are some reasonable ways for a Human Soulbow who is going to spend almost all his time in unlit dungeons to mitigate the problem with being able to see his targets at range?

So, it doesn't help with lighting, but rather targeting enemies.
A level dip in mindbender for telepathy and the mindsight feat gives you some fun, especially when your mind arrows can(eventually) go through walls.

goggles of night(12,000gp dmg.), and a similar face mask that gave a few other bonuses(can not remember for the life of me), and if he likes everything being dark see if you can snag a ring of darkhidden(2,00gp MiC.) To be invisible to dark vision.

Also for fun, if you can get levels of earth dreamer after you get phasing arrows, you can use the capstone ability earth glide to fire arrows from inside walls.
But at that point it's a little cheesey.

[justiceforall]

Haha I like the earth dreamer idea. It's annoyingly funny (even if you don't do much damage)

Can one qualify for Mindbender by taking Aberrant Dragonmark to get Charm Person as an SLA?

[justiceforall]

Whilst we are on the mindsight topic - how does it work when it comes to things like walls and such? Do you need line of effect for telepathy? Or does mindsight literally let you see through walls to some amount?

[The Viscount]

Telepathy does not require line of effect, so you can simply sense the creature within the range of your telepathy. Remember that because it's like blindsense, enemies have total concealment against you, so you'll want to throw seeking on as one of your enhancements.
If you have enough levels to get Phase arrow the combination is hilarious.

[justiceforall]

Is Phase Arrow really that good? I get that it can hit through anything, but you are trading a full attack and focus for 1d8+a few points of damage. Seems like style points to the max, but little actual mechanical effect?

[The Viscount]

In regular combat it's not worth sacrificing your full attack for a single phase arrow most of the time. Certain situations might mean that the choice isn't between phase arrow and full attack, but between phase arrow and nothing.

For example, if you have sneak attack or a similar bonus when attacking a flatfooted enemy, shooting them with a phase arrow before combat starts can be a decisive start, and because they won't necessarily see you, you can repeat the trick. It's also effective against characters using tower shields for protection. It's situational, to be sure, but you can find situations where it's worth your while.