A Soulknife Build

[Darg]

I wanted to try my hand at building a Soulknife for 3.5e. I know, it's not a very intuitive or obviously powerful class, but it is one that has several unique qualities that appeal to me. This build relies on RAW interpretations to function to it's full potential: Mind Blade enhancement bonuses are class features, Mind Blade is not a magic weapon, Kensai turning their Signature Weapon into a magic weapon, Illumine Soul's Psychic Strike is a separate ability with the same name and function as the ability from Soulknife that stacks bonus damage (2d8 from SK and 3d8 from IS becomes 5d8 and 5d8), an attack is a single hit even if there are multiple sources of damage, and cleave mimics the attack that triggered it.

Human

Str 15, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 8

Level -> Class -> Feat -> Ability Score

1 -| Soulknife 1 ```| Two-Weapon Fighting, Combat Expertise, Weapon Focus (Mind Blade)
2 -| Soulknife 2 ```|
3 -| Soulknife 3 ```| Mind Cleave
4 -| Soulknife 4 ```| Dex +1
5 -| Soulknife 5 ```|
6 -| Illumine Soul 1 | Mind Strike
7 -| Soulknife 6 ```| Speed of Thought
8 -| Fighter 1 `````| Power Attack, Dex +1
9 -| Fighter 2 `````| Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Dual Strike
10 | Soulknife 7 ```|
11 | Kensai 1 `````|
12 | Soulknife 8* ``| Psionic Meditation, Str +1
13 | Soulknife 9* ``| Greater Weapon Focus (Mind Blade)
14 | Soulknife 10* `|
15 | Soulknife 11* `| Mind Empowerment
16 | Illumine Soul 2 | Str +1
17 | Illumine Soul 3 |
18 | Illumine Soul 4 | Cleave
19 | Soulknife 12 ``|
20 | Soulknife 13 ``| Str +1

* In an extremely undead heavy campaign I would probably take these levels as Illumine Soul. You can expend your psionic focus during any standard action to unleash Positive Energy flare for additional weakening to fuel your cleave and you get your extra Psychic Strike die a level earlier.



The premise of this build is that I interpret Mind Blade as a single weapon even when Shape Mind Blade is used to split it in two. Should that not fly, there are double weapon feats available to compensate, but would require a Psychic warrior level at CL 12. Dual Strike allows you to make a single attack roll as a standard action to hit the target with both weapons in your hands at a -4 penalty (you don't add the two weapon penalty to this roll). As the damage is done at the same time, both would recieve the benefits of Mind Cleave and Mind Empowerment. Extra attacks aren't specifically defined and therefore I interpret it as an "extra attack of what came before." Cleave gives you an extra attack delivered by the same weapon that felled the creature. The Dual Strike came before and therefore gets a single extra attack with both weapons. Both mindblades are the same weapon and they both felled the creature simultaneously.

Mind Cleave, Mind Empowerment, and Mind Strike are excellent as they double dip with both Psychic Strike class features thanks to the stacking Illumine Soul adds. Mind Cleave recharges both features, Mind empowerment adds +2d8 per blade, and Mind Strike adds 4d8 per blade and with Psionic Meditation you can expend your focus as Mind Cleave imbues your blades to benefit again.

Kensai's Signature Weapon class feature allows you to turn your Mind Blade into a magic weapon. This means you can further enhance it as a magic weapon. As the Soulknife's enhancement bonus to damage and hit and special abilities are class features and not a function of it being turned into a magic weapon, both enhancement types stack as long as they don't step on each others toes.

So at level 20 one would be able to open with a total of 28d8 of Psychic Strike damage in a Dual Strike. Upon felling the creature, you can expend your focus to load up with Mind Strike to cleave for another 32d8 with Mind Empowerment. You also have a bonus value of 13 and a +4 to hit and damage.

What do you guys think? Anywhere that it can be improved? The goal is pretty much front load as much damage as I could while making it more sustainable and as mobile as I could. All while refraining from dragon or 3rd party as much as possible. I thought about abusing Improved Trip, but Psychic Strike specifically says that it can only damage once per imbue. I thought that was pushing it. Am also only using a light focus on Hide and Move Silently and spreading around the skills after getting Prc requirements.

[The Viscount]

I confess a certain fondness for Soulknife myself.

Are you saying that you're treating Psychic Strike from Illumine Soul as both a separate class feature and a class feature that stacks damage for both? So you are charging each of your two blades with 2 psychic strikes (one soulknife, one illumine soul) for psychic strikes when "fully loaded"? The rules do not support this. It just advances psychic strike, like when prestige classes give you sneak attack.

I'm not sure why you're wary about your mind blade being a magic weapon. With only 1 level of Kensai and 17 effective soulknife levels, you're at +4 mind blade, with +5 worth of enhancements. Even if you're counting the +1 from undead bane towards your overall cap, you're still at +10. What problem would you see if the mind blade was a magic weapon?

What do you mean when you say you have a "bonus value of 13"? Do you mean an effective +13 worth of weapon enhancements? If so, can you show your math?

I'd be willing to give you that you can use cleave and dual strike together. The wording's a little vague and soulknife needs the help.

Depending on the encounter, you might be better off converting all this psychic strike damage with Knife to the Soul and targeting a monster's low stat.

Ultimately it suffers from 2 large problems.
1 is the problem common to many cleave builds: Once you fell the first opponent, the next opponent needs to be adjacent to you. The sample routine uses your move, which means you're planning to start your turn next to 2 enemies. Soulknife is kind of squishy for something like this.

2 is the problem with psychic strike builds: If your enemy is a construct or, more commonly, immune to mind affecting effects, then you don't have any of this bonus damage.

[Darg]

I confess a certain fondness for Soulknife myself.

Are you saying that you're treating Psychic Strike from Illumine Soul as both a separate class feature and a class feature that stacks damage for both? So you are charging each of your two blades with 2 psychic strikes (one soulknife, one illumine soul) for psychic strikes when "fully loaded"? The rules do not support this. It just advances psychic strike, like when prestige classes give you sneak attack.

I am and it's because of the wording. Nothing in the description implies that they are the same ability.


Psychic Strike (Su): This ability functions like the soulknife ability of the same name. The extra damage dealt increases by 1d8 points at 1st and 4th levels. The bonuses on damage stack with psychic strike bonuses from your soulknife class levels.

There is no "same name" rule that I hear there is for other rulesets. The ability is a separate source and because it says it functions like the soulknife ability it includes the level progression which is in the soulknife's description. The line about stacking damage is also similar to other instances of stacking damage from different abilities. The meaning I got from this is that the Illumine Soul's Psychic strike is based on the soulknife's levels the same as the soulknife. With how different sources of magic stack, by RAW one should be able to spend a move action for each feature to imbue your Mind Blade separately. With the damage stacking clause it adds the damage of one to the other. The reason it functions differently than something like sneak attack is that the Psychic strikes are separate actions and separate magical effects. Magical effects stack already unless the rules say they don't and stacking the damage would require that the damage is added to each of the effects. In a very similar way to how Ethereal Defiler stacks its Tainted Energy ability damage with Eldritch Blast damage: "However, the damage dealt by the warlock’s eldritch blast class feature stacks with that dealt by the ethereal defiler’s tainted energy ability." They add the die together for both abilities so they both do the same damage. Psychic Strike is unique in that the effect isn't discharged immediately which allows you to benefit from both abilities.


I'm not sure why you're wary about your mind blade being a magic weapon. With only 1 level of Kensai and 17 effective soulknife levels, you're at +4 mind blade, with +5 worth of enhancements. Even if you're counting the +1 from undead bane towards your overall cap, you're still at +10. What problem would you see if the mind blade was a magic weapon?

What do you mean when you say you have a "bonus value of 13"? Do you mean an effective +13 worth of weapon enhancements? If so, can you show your math?

The reason that the Mind Blade not being a magic weapon is important is for stacking benefits. Say you have 10 levels of kensai and 10 levels of soulknife. You enhance your Mind Blade as your Signature Weapon up to +10 with only special abilities and no enhancement bonus to attack and damage. You would still be able to have Magic Weapon cast on it to give an enhancement bonus to damage. It's the same concept, but with your soulknife's class features. The reason I only took one level of kensai is that 1 level can make your Mindblade a magic weapon, allowing it to be enhanced normally like any other magic weapon using WBL. With 17 levels of soulknife Mind Blade and Mind Blade Enhancement progression you get a base +4 enhancement bonus to attack and damage with +3 to allocate to special abilities on the soulknife list. +10 magic weapon enhancement limit added to the +4 and +3 from soulknife gives a total of +17 possible on your mindblade at all times. However, unlike the supernatural magic of Signature weapon, any normal magical enhancement can be suppressed.


I'd be willing to give you that you can use cleave and dual strike together. The wording's a little vague and soulknife needs the help.

Depending on the encounter, you might be better off converting all this psychic strike damage with Knife to the Soul and targeting a monster's low stat.

I wish I could do that. The issue is that Knife to the Soul comes so late. I barely fit it into the build at level 20 and was sorely tempted to take a couple psychic warrior levels for 19 & 20 for the feats. The thing that really limits the build from straying much is that ITWF requires +6 BaB which means I have to use fighter levels to get the BaB and feats instead of psychic warrior.


Ultimately it suffers from 2 large problems.
1 is the problem common to many cleave builds: Once you fell the first opponent, the next opponent needs to be adjacent to you. The sample routine uses your move, which means you're planning to start your turn next to 2 enemies. Soulknife is kind of squishy for something like this.

2 is the problem with psychic strike builds: If your enemy is a construct or, more commonly, immune to mind affecting effects, then you don't have any of this bonus damage.

1) I agree that cleave is fairly niche, but if they are adjacent to me then I could in theory blow two to three creatures up at once. If I took a couple flaws I could see myself going the shock trooper route and a level dip into barbarian for pounce and make use of Bladewind instead. I could still have cleave at 18 with that too. I also though about simply using combat reflexes instead of grabbing power attack, but thought against it. Soulknife for better or worse is feat starved just like everyone else.

2) With Illumine Soul at level 6 so that Psychic Strike can affect any undead immune or mindless, I figured other mindless creatures could be brought down with teamwork. With all that WBL I've been saving since level 1 I figured that the extra damage I could enhance my blade with would make up for missing out on Psychic Strike otherwise. It's also not like every enemy is going to be immune to the ability and I would have ITWF.

Assuming that Psychic Strike from Illumine Soul works the way I mentioned, would you have any suggestions for the first level fighter feat and the level 18 one? Or, maybe you know another standard action that does something similar to Dual Strike?

Also if you have suggestions for building it without that assumption I'm all ears, even for more roleplay optimization.

[The Viscount]

I'd be careful with the enchantments. Not every DM is likely to agree that the soulknife abilities don't count towards your +10 max, or that you can use WBL to enchant your mind blade with additional stuff like normal weapons, given the existence of items like the mind blade gauntlets from MIC.

For other options, I'm a big fan of the expanded class ACFs (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a) they give. The bonus feats are incredibly broadly worded, and Hidden Talent is a straight upgrade. I like to use it for dimension hop. Coupled with Kalashtar, you have enough pp to use that to move about the battlefield as a swift and still have your full attack, as a pounce alternative. I'd skip the racial sub levels, though.

[mabriss lethe]

Kalashtar+Hidden Power is good for soulknives for a couple of nonintuitive reasons.

-Kalashtar's PLA gives you a caster level as a wilder I believe, which fulfills the criteria for Hidden Power to be tied to your racial Manifester level. In addition, once you can manifest a power and have a pp reserve, you qualify to gain bonus PP based on your ML/manifesting stat. It's not a game breaker, but it is enough to give you a bit of bootstrap manifesting and enough pp to knock out a power or two per encounter. With the Kalashtar Mindlink feat, you boost your ML up to your full HD. If you want to push the whole bootstrap manifester thing as far as you can go, dipping into the Illithid Heritage feat tree for Legacy and Greater Legacy can net you a fairly useful suite of powers and some decent suplimentary abilities or bonuses. That said, taking that route as far as it can, you might as well play a soulbound weapon PsyWar. It gets the job done a lot more compactly.

[daremetoidareyo]

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23300907&postcount=73

I did a big write up about the hidden talent soulknife in the spoiler at the bottom of this entry

[Darg]

Kalashtar+Hidden Power is good for soulknives for a couple of nonintuitive reasons.

-Kalashtar's PLA gives you a caster level as a wilder I believe, which fulfills the criteria for Hidden Power to be tied to your racial Manifester level. In addition, once you can manifest a power and have a pp reserve, you qualify to gain bonus PP based on your ML/manifesting stat. It's not a game breaker, but it is enough to give you a bit of bootstrap manifesting and enough pp to knock out a power or two per encounter. With the Kalashtar Mindlink feat, you boost your ML up to your full HD. If you want to push the whole bootstrap manifester thing as far as you can go, dipping into the Illithid Heritage feat tree for Legacy and Greater Legacy can net you a fairly useful suite of powers and some decent suplimentary abilities or bonuses. That said, taking that route as far as it can, you might as well play a soulbound weapon PsyWar. It gets the job done a lot more compactly.

I do like Hidden Talent and I thought about Kalashtar for the Soul Blade Warrior feat, but I'm not really interested in the racial substitution levels (not required) so the only real benefits are the level 1 free draw and the +2 to the Mind Blade Enhancement feature level. After level 5 I felt it would be a waste of 2 possible feats. I think hidden talent is best when used sparingly as you can only get first level powers and Psionic talent grants increasing amounts of pp instead of a power for more augmenting instead (combined with a 2 level dip in chameleon gives you a daily growing supply of pp).


https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23300907&postcount=73

I did a big write up about the hidden talent soulknife in the spoiler at the bottom of this entry

I like what you did, although that alchemy blade correlation is genius even if a stretch. One thing I would like to point out is that if you have the intent to throw Mind Blades, you don't even have to hold them to keep them around. Although not at all related to your post, but it did remind me that everyone seems to think free draw has a once per round limit when it actually doesn't. Hence Multiple Throw is redundent, unless you take the text/table mess up as gospel as the text never got errata'ed. Meaning that it allows you to mimic your main hand attacks with your off hand attacks. Oh, your main hand has 10 attacks? Well so does your off hand.

Also, I think I might have taken for granted that manifester level = psionic class level considering you did a whole write up about it


I'd be careful with the enchantments. Not every DM is likely to agree that the soulknife abilities don't count towards your +10 max, or that you can use WBL to enchant your mind blade with additional stuff like normal weapons, given the existence of items like the mind blade gauntlets from MIC.

For other options, I'm a big fan of the expanded class ACFs (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a) they give. The bonus feats are incredibly broadly worded, and Hidden Talent is a straight upgrade. I like to use it for dimension hop. Coupled with Kalashtar, you have enough pp to use that to move about the battlefield as a swift and still have your full attack, as a pounce alternative. I'd skip the racial sub levels, though.

It's a Soulknife, I doubt many DMs would run into an issue letting the poor tier 5 boost their capability using RAW legal means. If you aren't boosting Psychic Strike I could definitely see getting rid of it in favor of more powers from Hidden Talent/more pp from Psionic Talent.