Soulbow questions continued

[justiceforall]

Quite some time back I created a thread asking about the hows and such of making a Soulbow (original thread can be found here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?570897-Soulbow-and-other-classes-interaction-question). I eventually did make the character and have currently gotten him to the lofty heights of level 4 - not quite to Soulbow yet but on the way.

I asked a few more Soulbow based interactions questions in the RAW thread but a few of them didn't get answers. Those are pretty curly ones so I thought I'd post here asking for thoughts instead.

A) The Soulbow rules state that the enhancement bonus for Mind Arrows adds to the Soulknife's "base attack". How does this function RAW?
B) Can a Soulbow who later becomes a Kensai choose Mind Arrow to enhance as their Signature Weapon?
C) Are there any other ways to increase the enhancement bonus of the Mind Arrow besides more levels of classes that increase the ability? Is there any magic items, spells, etc that would increase it?
D) Can a character legally qualify for Mindbender just by taking the Aberrant DragonMark feat (at lvl 10 when your caster level meets the minimum)? This is a possible pathway to gain Mindsight.
E) The RAW thread stated it was legal to use TWF with Mind Arrows; if you do so do you get 1/2 WIS damage on the "offhand arrows"? I would guess no due to the wording, but might as well ask.

[MisterKaws]

a)Every attack bonus adds to your base for determining your total attack bonus.
b)The arrows? No, but the bow itself, which also just happens to have no enhancements...
c)Mau-Jehe can fuse with the mind blade, and as such, the mind arrows. Also, the various mind blade gloves from MIC.
d)It's an SLA, so sure, you can.
e)By RAW, you'd get the full wisdom bonus, since it doesn't say it adds wisdom instead of strength.

[Zaq]

b)The arrows? No, but the bow itself, which also just happens to have no enhancements...


I’m not 100% convinced there is in fact a “bow.” I know about the “as if fired from a longbow” clause, but that doesn’t mean that there’s actually a longbow that can be enhanced.

[MisterKaws]

I’m not 100% convinced there is in fact a “bow.” I know about the “as if fired from a longbow” clause, but that doesn’t mean that there’s actually a longbow that can be enhanced.

Yes, it's a by-the-book case of ambiguous rule lawyering. That being said, it's a pretty common stunt for Soulbow TO, with Mau-Jehe being somewhat more restricted because of some missing lines in the description of the special abilities for Mind Arrows: they don't mention it stacks with Mind Blade special abilities, unlike the Enhancement bonus which explicitly states it. But that can also be interpreted as simply specifying the stacking because enhancement bonuses normally don't stack.

In any case, the argument is selecting your brain as the weapon to be enhanced by Kensai.

[jdizzlean]

kensai and soulbow is a dm level discussion, it's different at every table. so if you want to persue that to make it your signature weapon, have that discussion now. a lot of things that theoretically work here on the boards, would never fly at your average table top game.

[MisterKaws]

kensai and soulbow is a dm level discussion, it's different at every table. so if you want to persue that to make it your signature weapon, have that discussion now. a lot of things that theoretically work here on the boards, would never fly at your average table top game.

Very true. Even something as simple as using a feat combo that doesn't even break the power balance, but looks kinda cool, might not fly with a DM, simply because they don't want to.

An example of that would be the Arseplomancer, which is quite strong, but requires you to spend a whole minute crawling into someone's butt, so not that overpowered because of the minimum time required. However, it is one of the silliest things you can do with optimization, so I don't think any serious DM would let it pass unless it is the comedy sort of game. I had one of those once, but I digress.

This is a personal recommendation of mine, but you should look into a custom item of Brilliant Aura(Brilliant Blade won't do) with one or two charges per day, to get yourself some more accuracy if you can't give your weapons Brilliant Energy via Kensai.

[MeeposFire]

Back in the day on the WotC boards there was a bit of an argument about your question "A".

Some would argue much like Misterkaws that it is just as odd reference to the fact that all attack bonuses stack with your BAB to make up your total attack bonus.

That being said a number of other people would argue that this wording is never used anywhere else in essentially anything including the soulknife in general. For example the soulknife gets enhancement bonuses but does not use that wording anywhere. I do not think that wording is used anywhere else in 3.5 and since this is a fairly late PRC these people would argue that potentially this wording was done oddly on purpose to say that this one instance of enhancement bonus actually modifies your BAB directly which is not how anything else works so if you had a BAB of +5 and the soulbow gave you +1 enhancement bonus from its ability then you would modify your BAB to +6 when using your soulbow which means you would get two attacks at +6/+1.

Those people would argue that this is RAW but it is one of those "RAW reading that leads to unique and odd rules interactions" so keep that in mind.

RAI is debatable. Saying it does not actually modify your BAB could be RAI but there is no actual record stating this rather those who believe this base this on the idea that nothing else modifies BAB like this so the written rules are not meant to imply this or that the rule is a typo (it should just say attack bonus not base attack bonus for example). The other side would say the fact that nothing else in the game is written in this way implies that this is a unique situation and so RAI would be to read it as modifying your BAB.

Honestly this is the sort of thing you really should just ask your DM to see what they want to do.

If you want to ask about balance clearly having it add to your base attack bonus is more powerful but on the other hand it is not really on the whole that powerful. Many people would say that soulknife should have full BAB anyway so having this really just puts you closer to that and even with full BAB soul knife is not considered strong so that would make this better but not that powerful.

It is a weird rule to be sure. You really have to wonder why they wrote that rule when we already had the wording used in the soul knife class that does not use this.

[justiceforall]

Thanks for the replies. In general I am only concerned with RAW, as my GM in this particular game is not super rules focused and is happy for his players to sort out specifics. I am however super RAW focused - especially when dealing with super weak rules (like Soulknife/Soulbow) and am prepared to use things that obviously aren't RAI to improve the odds so long as I'm not also breaking the game by doing so.

Some further questions/discussion:

- My hunch is that I can't use Kensai on Mind Arrow, for the same reason that the "Lucky" enhancement when activated by the Soulbow class applies to every shot? Ie: The Mind Arrow is functionally ammunition and not a weapon?

- If my character gets to the lofty heights of a +2 enhancement on his Mind Arrows, does that also translate to +2 effective BAB? What happens if I later get a fourth level of Soulknife and it gives a further +1 which then stacks with the Mind Arrow?

- I don't have access to Weapons of Legacy at the moment, can someone give me a summary of what it does? (beyond binding with/replacing a Mind Blade).

- I only found the gloves that give adamantium as an option on the mind blade. It doesn't even just grant adamantium quality? Seems pretty bad for the price? Are there any others I missed?

- General design question: how important given the average monsters later in the game would it be to have Sense Weakness feat on a Soulbow? Since I can't enhance the arrows (easily), it would seem that feats like that or things that align your attacks would become important? I'm kind of interested since my current statline can't get access to that feat due to INT10 so if I wanted to get it I would have to plan ahead

- Can you pick up Woodland Archer as a bonus feat via Soulbow?

[MisterKaws]

- My hunch is that I can't use Kensai on Mind Arrow, for the same reason that the "Lucky" enhancement when activated by the Soulbow class applies to every shot? Ie: The Mind Arrow is functionally ammunition and not a weapon?


Yes. Also why some defend having the brain count as the bow and selecting that for kensai entry.


- I don't have access to Weapons of Legacy at the moment, can someone give me a summary of what it does? (beyond binding with/replacing a Mind Blade).


If you take Mau-Jehe and enter Legacy Champion(it advances 8/10 levels to any class), you basically have a level-appropriate weapon which can, for all purposes, merge with your Mind Blade(and thus your Mind Arrow), except maybe for the enhancement bonus.


- I only found the gloves that give adamantium as an option on the mind blade. It doesn't even just grant adamantium quality? Seems pretty bad for the price? Are there any others I missed?


There's also the Mind Blade Gauntlets, which give +1,+2 or +3 special abilities to your Mind Blade.


- General design question: how important given the average monsters later in the game would it be to have Sense Weakness feat on a Soulbow? Since I can't enhance the arrows (easily), it would seem that feats like that or things that align your attacks would become important? I'm kind of interested since my current statline can't get access to that feat due to INT10 so if I wanted to get it I would have to plan ahead


Most monsters later have DR, so if you can, it's decently important to have ways to overcome it if you can. It's actually one of the benefits Neutral characters have, since they have ways to use spells and items of all alignments, and thus can find ways to overcome all DRs.


- Can you pick up Woodland Archer as a bonus feat via Soulbow?

That's up to your DM, but it does improve archery, so probably yes.

If I missed some error, you'll have to excuse me. I wrote this wall of text in a 6'' phone.