Soulknife Sunday: compatibility with MiC and expanding access

[mabriss lethe]

I flipped through the MiC today and it got me on a tangent. A good number of the weapon properties available to the Soulknife got reworked to one extent or another. A quick search across the internet didn't yield any discussion about how it changes them up, so I thought I'd do it myself.

Bodyfeeder: It really got the short end of the stick in the revamp. It's still a crit activated ability, but they nerfed both the magnitude of the effect and the duration while keeping it at a +3 pricetag. Not impressive in the slightest. Given the comparison to Mindfeeder below, I'd ask a DM to either lower it to +1 or to use the original version. Otherwise it's of little use.

Mindcrusher: This gets a minor, but incredibly useful upgrade due to wording at the expense of some secondary benefit. The damage it deals to psionic creatures PP reserves remains the same in both versions, however the original does 1d2 wisdom damage to psionic targets that don't have a pp reserve. The MiC version drops the damage to 1 point but opens it up specifically to nonpsionic targets as well. I'd say that's a more than fair trade for the same pricetag, and makes it a somewhat attractive option for a soulknife (especially if they've traded away their access to Psychic Strike and Knife the Soul)

Mindfeeder: This one has one of the biggest overall changes. It gets the same big nerf as Bodyfeeder, BUT its cost is drastically reduced from +3 to +1, which can make it a very attractive option for a soulknife that has access to a few powers. Overall I'd say its a net gain for the class.

Psychokinetic Burst: The MiC reclassifies it as a synergy ability linked to the psychokinetic property. It doesn't really alter anything at all mechanically on either the soulknife end or the weapon itself, but it's worth noting the change in classification.

Soulbreaker: Like PB above, its only change is that the soulbreaker property is now a synergy ability that plays off the Enervating property. Overall it's still a total of a +3, and the mechanics haven't changed. The only real thing of note is that you might be able to use this to allow access to enervating as part of the core list as well, which as a +2 version, could be useful

And that leads us to the next bit, If you wanted to open up access to properties outside of the fixed list, How would you do it??

1. Allow full and immediate access: This is by far the most permissive option and requires the least amount of forethought. The downside, of course, is that while the hassle is minimized in the beginning, It adds another layer of complication during play.

2. Limited Whitelist: basically taking the original list and adding case by case expansions to it.

3. Reward based Whitelist: Here, we would be adding individual properties to the list as the story progressed as a reward or form of loot. There are a couple ways to handle it. Maybe there are books, or some other macguffin a soulknife can study to learn more exotic powers. Maybe they can copy them by closely studying existing magic weapons. Maybe it requires that the soulknife sacrifice or psychically "consume" magic weapons to learn their properties. This is the idea I like the best. It keeps the initial kit trimmed down for ease of reference, but allows the player to feel like the improvements they make are hard won and special. It also lets the DM keep a close eye on the game balance (not that Soulknives are in any danger of breaking the game.)

4. Feat based Whitelist: Brew up a feat that lets a soulknife add more options to their arsenal. I'm not a huge fan of this, but it might look something like adding three levels of abilities to your list per feat, so either three +1s, a +2 and a +1, or a +3. I don't know exactly, but it would need to be a pretty nice boost.

That leads me to another tangent: Missing Links. There are at least a few abilities that absolutely should have gone into the soulknife list but didn't. Ghost touch is the biggest offender here. Just being able to produce a ghost touch weapon when the need arises would be a big boost for them. Morphing would also be a gamechanger for them since it would mean that you didn't have to burn through feats simply to find more appropriate weapons for your playstyle. (and most of those weapon feats are garbage, anyway)