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View Full Version : 3.P: PF Soulknife + 3.5 MMIII Sand Blaster = ???



MaxiDuRaritry
2020-01-20, 01:34 AM
The 3.5 Monster Manual III (p58) has the sand (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444154-MM3-Sand-Blaster-Exotic-Weapon-Optimization) blaster (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?415149-Sand-Blaster-MM3), an exotic ranged weapon that uses 10' AoEs with Ref saves instead of attack rolls that has all sorts of neat tricks it can do.

The PF soulknife soulbolt archetype has access to the Emulate Ranged Weapon blade skill, quoted as the following:


Emulate Ranged Weapon
The soulknife can form her mind bolt to replicate any single ranged weapon (except firearms), chosen at the time she takes this blade skill. The soulknife is proficient with her mind bolt in this form and it functions in all ways as the chosen weapon. This blade skill may be taken multiple times; each time, it allows the soulknife to form her mind bolt to replicate a different ranged weapon (except firearms). The soulknife must have the ability to form a mind bolt to select this blade skill.

If you're in a PF game that allows 3.5 material (or vice versa), you can take the sand blaster as your ranged weapon of choice.

How does this work, exactly, and how can we optimize it?

Does the mind bolt simply act like the spray of a sand blaster without the actual sand blaster, so you fire a spray of energy particles out of your hand or by spewing it from your mouth? Does it merely create a tube you can launch actual sand projectiles from but don't get the ammo? (The latter doesn't seem likely, given that soulbolt soulknives create ammo, not launchers, by default.)

And what properties does it have that a normal sand blaster does not that we can take advantage of? I know there's a blade skill that doubles the projectile's range, which stacks with all the other ways to boost a ranged weapon. This is great for extending the AoE even farther.

I admit, I'm hoping you can fire AoEs from your palm-strikes as an attack action because of the amazing visual it represents. Granted, you'd lose out on stacking launcher enhancements with ammo enhancements, but I'm sure there's gotta be some benefit here you wouldn't get otherwise. At the very least, fewer resources would be needed due to not needing to take Rapid Reload. You also get infinite magical sand-ammo without having to worry about carrying capacity. That's doable with a morphing Hank's Bow, however, so it's not exactly a huge thing in most campaigns.

Anyone have any ideas, here?

Powerdork
2020-01-20, 02:34 AM
It's not directly comparable, but I'd like to draw a parallel to the fantastic living legend archetype's archmage role and its signature blade skill, High Wizard's Fury.


High Wizard’s Fury (Su): As a standard action, the living legend can expend his psionic focus to detonate his mind blade, scattering it as a cone of fragmented mental energy. This cone has a range of 5 feet per 2 living legend levels and deals 1d6 points of piercing and slashing damage per living legend level to each creature caught within its area. A successful Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 the living legend’s class level + the living legend’s Intelligence modifier) halves the damage. Damage from this ability is subject to damage reduction, although it counts as an attack with the living legend’s mind blade for the purposes of overcoming it.
If the living legend’s active role is the archmage, he can choose to deal damage of his active energy type instead (in which case it is not subject to damage reduction, but is affected by energy resistance and immunity as normal).