(3.5 Psionics, Eberron) Kick-Butt Soulknife builds?

[awesomessake]

Once again, I'm a newb. Forgive my stupidity and critique honestly and constructively.

First off, I do know about the Soulknife Build Compendium on the Wizards forum, but i can't read anything on there anymore because it hurts my eyes every time i focus on the page. If there are any threads here that will help me out, then please post them by all means, but not to Wizards community (this is one of the reasons i go onto here and not there).

I'm trying to find a cool build for a Kalashtar character who aspires to become an atavist. Her starting level is 3. I'll settle for not suck, hoping for kick-butt. (slanted rhyme! )

(please note that all i have is XPS, ECS, and Magic of Eberron, with some notes i took on Secrets of Sarlona, and Races of Eberron that were checked out from my library which is why i have atavist in the first place, unless there happens to be anything useful in Races of the Dragon, or Draconimicon)

[The Glyphstone]

The best Soulknife build is a Soulbow, which you can find for free online. Or have you already ruled that out?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Step 1: Convince your DM to allow a homebrew feat that gives you the ability to conjure a weapon, and allows you to upgrade that weapon by spending gold, as if it were a normal magical weapon.
Step 2: Play a Swordsage, Warblade, Crusader, Psychic Warrior, or anything but a Soulknife.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!

...alright. It's not the most helpful, but, sadly, it's rather true. The Soulknife is an absolutely terrible class. It's got no real skill other than a weapon...which can be bought. So, in effect, your entire character can be purchased and carried around by another character: one who also has actually useful class features.

I really would recommend my suggestion above.

[Greenish]

I'm trying to find a cool build for a Kalashtar character who aspires to become an atavist. Her starting level is 3. I'll settle for not suck, hoping for kick-butt. (slanted rhyme! )

Traditionally, there are four ways to approach building a strong soulknife:

1. Use a homebrew fix. There are several floating on these forums.
2. Aim for Soulbow.
3. Use a psychic warrior with the Soulbound Weapon ACF.
4. Use an obscure feat from one of the Dragon Magazines to shape your mindblade into unarmed strike, then enter Atavist with a monk/soulknife build to gain double advancement.

I'm not too familiar with the details of #4, and I recommend #3.

[HunterOfJello]

Soulknife and Kick-Butt don't belong in the same sentence.

[The Glyphstone]

Soulknife and Kick-Butt don't belong in the same sentence.

Soulknife can't possibly Kick Butt.

Soulbows and Psychic Warriors, though, are sweet.

[awesomessake]

Soulknife and Kick-Butt don't belong in the same sentence.

I'll remember that....

But i do like the Soulbow PrC. Are there any home brewed variant classes (like Unearthed Arcana) for the SK that'll make it a Soulbow without the PrC?

Oh, and i did find these

This
And This

If the Soulknives are the paladins of the Kalashtar, it's no wonder they're losing.

[Hida Reju]

How about a Dreamscarred Press beta version for pathfinder?

It's the Soulknife you always wish you could play.

[awesomessake]

How about a Dreamscarred Press beta version for pathfinder?

It's the Soulknife you always wish you could play.

That is cool. Is it balanced to a normal D&D class though?

I'm still interested in the Soulbow variant class idea though if anyone else is.

[FMArthur]

I was just building a Soulknife+Monk Atavist today! Here's what I have:

Take both Soulknife ACFs from this article: trade Wild Talent for Hidden Talent (obvious choice, since one is strictly superior) and trade Psychic Strike for bonus feats at the same levels. They can be any Soulknife-specific feat or any feat that benefits combat with a Mind Blade in any way... this is actually going to be better than bonus Fighter feats for the most part, and leaps and bounds better than sucky Psychic Strike.

Take Improved Unarmed Strike, Monastic Training (Soulknife) from ECS and Tashalatora from Secrets of Sarlona as feats. At level 6, take Reshape Mind Blade from Dragon 341 - I know you don't have this, but the feat is really really simple: you need +4 BAB and the ability to shape your mind blade (your 5th level class feature). The feat lets you choose one weapon you are proficient with; you can now shape your mind blade into it.

Choose Unarmed Strike.

Now you have Monk's unarmed damage, Wis to AC, Flurry of Blows on a magical weapon that actually progresses with enhancements and enhancement bonuses. At this point you can go into Atavist, benefitting from both growths on the same weapon just like your Soulknife levels did. Take Practiced Mind Blade from Dragon 341 (it's the Soulknife issue I guess) and your Mind Blade will advance up to four levels past your Soulknife level, in addition to the advancement it already gets from the Atavist class feature (you can't do anything similar with Tashalatora and Atavist due to the way the abilities are worded). It should be noted that if you are not doing Practiced Mind Blade, Atavist gives you basically nothing of value over Soulknife-with-bonus-feats, which is disappointing.

[awesomessake]

Take both Soulknife ACFs from this article: trade Wild Talent for Hidden Talent (obvious choice, since one is strictly superior) and trade Psychic Strike for bonus feats at the same levels. They can be any Soulknife-specific feat or any feat that benefits combat with a Mind Blade in any way... this is actually going to be better than bonus Fighter feats for the most part, and leaps and bounds better than sucky Psychic Strike

Hmm... Not bad. I like it!

Take Improved Unarmed Strike, Monastic Training (Soulknife) from ECS and Tashalatora from Secrets of Sarlona as feats. At level 6, take Reshape Mind Blade from Dragon 341 - I know you don't have this, but the feat is really really simple: you need +4 BAB and the ability to shape your mind blade (your 5th level class feature). The feat lets you choose one weapon you are proficient with; you can now shape your mind blade into it.

Choose Unarmed Strike.

Now you have Monk's unarmed damage, Wis to AC, Flurry of Blows on a magical weapon that actually progresses with enhancements and enhancement bonuses. At this point you can go into Atavist, benefitting from both growths on the same weapon just like your Soulknife levels did. Take Practiced Mind Blade from Dragon 341 (it's the Soulknife issue I guess) and your Mind Blade will advance up to four levels past your Soulknife level, in addition to the advancement it already gets from the Atavist class feature (you can't do anything similar with Tashalatora and Atavist due to the way the abilities are worded). It should be noted that if you are not doing Practiced Mind Blade, Atavist gives you basically nothing of value over Soulknife-with-bonus-feats, which is disappointing.

Okay a question. on the web enhancements i saw this feat.

ORC DOUBLE AXE MIND BLADE [PSIONIC]

When you reshape your mind blade, you can change it into an exotic weapon: an orc double axe.

Prerequisites: Ability to generate a mind blade, shape mind blade class feature.

Benefit: Any time you wish to reshape your mind blade using your shape mind blade class feature, you can add the orc double axe to your shape repertoire. You are proficient with your orc double axe mind blade -- you are treated as if you possess the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (orc double axe mind blade). The weapon is sized appropriately for you and deals damage as an orc double axe.

Could this in principle work for a scimitar? Part of my character concept is for her to bear two scimitars (with Two weapon fighting), and it would be completely awesome to have mind blades shaped like scimitars!

[The Glyphstone]

There is no Scimitar Mind Blade feat. You'd have to get your DM to approve a homebrew one - and you can only have one Mind Blade at a time, unless you're high enough level to get dual shortswords.


If you want to dual-wield summoned scimitars, your best bet is the Psychic Warrior ACF linked above, Soulbound Weapon. Nothing stops you from having two Soulbound Weapons at the same time if you're wielding one in each hand, though it's going to hurt your attack rolls badly without Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting.

[liquid150]

1. Forget about a soulknife.
2. Look at Psychic Warrior class.
3. ???
4. Profit.

[awesomessake]

your best bet is the Psychic Warrior ACF linked above, Soulbound Weapon. Nothing stops you from having two Soulbound Weapons at the same time if you're wielding one in each hand, though it's going to hurt your attack rolls badly without Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting.

I may just do that, only use some feats to give it mind blade manifestation. I can also take the improved unarmed strike feat. And l looked into it, and decided i may use rapiers instead. Then again the idea presented by FMArthur doesn't sound so bad either. Let me think about it.

[The Glyphstone]

It's just that Soulknife is so absolutely gawd-awful as a class, amounting to 20 levels of 'I have a magic weapon'. Any solution to get the flavor of 'summons a weapon from nowhere' without Soulknife levels is a good solution. We're trying to pry you away from it for your own good and fun, because we care.

[FMArthur]

Hmm... Not bad. I like it!



Okay a question. on the web enhancements i saw this feat.



Could this in principle work for a scimitar? Part of my character concept is for her to bear two scimitars (with Two weapon fighting), and it would be completely awesome to have mind blades shaped like scimitars!

Afraid not. Reshape Mind Blade can be taken for any weapon you are proficient with, so you could get one scimitar (or an exotic double scimitar from ECS) but it doesn't work for making two mind blades. On the other hand, the Soulknife class may imply that it is impossible to make two by giving you the ability to split your Mind Blade in the Shape Mind Blade class feature, but nothing is actually stopping you from generating a second Mind Blade without relinquishing your grip on the first.


(And don't listen to them or any of my posts from months ago suggesting the same thing: the Soulbound Weapon Psychic Warrior takes a whole round to call his weapon (as in, you will get it the round after you spend your full-round action calling it)! It will only last 3 rounds at 3rd level! If you boost it with Linked Power and Metapower into an überweapon you will wind up having to wait an additional round for it to show up (that's your 3rd turn of combat)! It's a fun concept that's similar to a Mind Blade, but it's not entirely the same)

[awesomessake]

It's just that Soulknife is so absolutely gawd-awful as a class, amounting to 20 levels of 'I have a magic weapon'. Any solution to get the flavor of 'summons a weapon from nowhere' without Soulknife levels is a good solution. We're trying to pry you away from it for your own good and fun, because we care.

I appreciate that. Yeah for this one I may have to stick with the PW with mind blade feats idea. I'm still interested in the Soulbow variant idea if anyone's interested. I mean honestly, if it would allow you to manifest several different kinds of weapons, like a knife at first level, until 20th level you're shooting sub atomic particle rays out of your hands, than it would be a pretty cool class, but as it stands.....

EDIT: Realized i wrote british profanity, and i'm not british.

[The Glyphstone]

What do you mean by "mind blade feats'? The PsyWar ACF doesn't actually get a mind blade, it just gets free enhancements to its Call Weaponry power that are identical to those a Soulknife gets.

FMArthur does have a point. The PsyWar is a risky idea if you want to walk around looking completely helpless, because it has a slow start - I like to keep a nonmagical backup weapon so I can at least threaten or look dangerous till I bust out my Soulbound blade. It lasts 1 min/level, though, not 1 round/level.

[Hida Reju]

That is cool. Is it balanced to a normal D&D class though?

I'm still interested in the Soulbow variant class idea though if anyone else is.

If you compare anything to a full caster it's balanced. If you compare it to Tome of battle it's balanced. If you compare it to a Psi Warrior it's balanced.

Do you want it to suck more than a fighter?

This variant has everything

Full BAB

Decent skills maybe a bit too decent for a full BAB class but that can be fixed by dropping it back to 4+ INT

Relevant class abilities

Furious charge or IE Pounce for something other than Barbarian

Ability to Shape a virtual "non reach martial weapon" This is done by choosing the option to apply Trip or Disarm bonuses to the weapon when shaping it and getting to choose its damage time between blunt, piercing, and Slashing.

Ability to shape a shield at will if wanted, An option to get Mind Armor at will as well.

Whirlwind attack without the silly feat cost

Spring attack with no feat investment if you have to play keep away.

Short ranged attacks at will with full attack available.

Options to make Psychic Strike not completely suck. Dual Imbue + Mind Blade Repository is very sexy on a two weapon fighter that has wounding on each one.

The most amusing free counter attack ability ever with trade Blows.

I am hoping that once the beta is done on that class they clean the wording up a bit and put a book out for it. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

[The Glyphstone]

If you compare anything to a full caster it's balanced. If you compare it to Tome of battle it's balanced. If you compare it to a Psi Warrior it's balanced.

Do you want it to suck more than a fighter?

This variant has everything

Full BAB

Decent skills maybe a bit too decent for a full BAB class but that can be fixed by dropping it back to 4+ INT

Relevant class abilities

Furious charge or IE Pounce for something other than Barbarian

Ability to Shape a virtual "non reach martial weapon" This is done by choosing the option to apply Trip or Disarm bonuses to the weapon when shaping it and getting to choose its damage time between blunt, piercing, and Slashing.

Ability to shape a shield at will if wanted, An option to get Mind Armor at will as well.

Whirlwind attack without the silly feat cost

Spring attack with no feat investment if you have to play keep away.

Short ranged attacks at will with full attack available.

Options to make Psychic Strike not completely suck. Dual Imbue + Mind Blade Repository is very sexy on a two weapon fighter that has wounding on each one.

The most amusing free counter attack ability ever with trade Blows.

I am hoping that once the beta is done on that class they clean the wording up a bit and put a book out for it. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

You scared me for a second, I thought you were describing the normal Soulknife, not the Pathfinder beta version.

[awesomessake]

@The Glyphstone:

No feats from Wizards, but Dreamscarred press did come out with a list of mind blade feats so that anyone can manifest it. And of course i'm gonna carry around other weapons. I'm not crazy.... Or at least stupid anyway...

@Hida Reju

Yes that class is extremely cool. It's so cool that when i read it my eyes got frostbitten. The thing is, is that my group is playing over the internet, and i need to be able to create the character via generators. I tried using a character sheet on Paint, and it made me want to die. In fact i think i did a little.

[imperialspectre]

Soulbow is a prestige class, not a variant. It's in Complete Psionic, or here.

The Dreamscarred Press soulknife is probably balanced to high Tier 4 or low Tier 3. It benefits from heavy UMD, because UMD ranks are free in Pathfinder and the soulknife has extra money for wands and other items of that sort. I would say it's slightly more powerful than a Rogue. Still weaker than any other psionic class, particularly with the buffs that they received in the DSP pathfinder update.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Actually, I entered a Soulknife/Bard/Pyrokineticist build for an optimization contest and didn't do too badly.

Tummo of the Three Candles

Spiritual Force is a feat that can only be used with soulknives and is the only feat I know of that allows a Charisma attack. Throw in Snowflake Wardance and Armor of the Neverending Hunt and you have a fellow who can do massive damage that a normal sword couldn't.

[Prime32]

What do you mean by "mind blade feats'?

Well, there's these.

[awesomessake]

Soulbow is a prestige class, not a variant. It's in Complete Psionic, or here.

I know. I'm just saying it should be. I'm probably going to post an idea into the Homebrew section and see what happens.

@The Vorpal Tribble

(Not meaning to sound like a kiss-butt, and if i do forgive me)
I used to read your stuff on the wizards forums! have you ever considered making a PDF with all your stuff, or does that go against the OGL somehow?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

considered making a PDF with all your stuff, or does that go against the OGL somehow?

Heyas, welcome to the forums. I left Wizards like a year before they reverted to 4th ed. The place was just becoming agonizing. These forums have at least as many homebrewers and far more commentators on them.

I've been asked that many a time, but been trying to find someone somewhere to do a little illustration. To date have had a total of one piece of artwork done.

[awesomessake]

Heyas, welcome to the forums. I left Wizards like a year before they reverted to 4th ed. The place was just becoming agonizing. These forums have at least as many homebrewers and far more commentators on them.

I've been asked that many a time, but been trying to find someone somewhere to do a little illustration. To date have had a total of one piece of artwork done.

I hear you about 4ed.

As it happens, i do cartoon. Hoping to become a professional someday. I emphasize cartoon though. Human drawing wise my influences are several different manga artists, and animal wise my influences are pretty much disney. As far as everything else I generally try to work from imagination. The problem is i can't get my scanner to work at the moment, but i may be able to fix it. I'll try and show you some of my stuff when i get it to work.

And i can't get my scanner to work, but i should be getting access to one at my Illustrator class when i take it at college.

[true_shinken]

I actually like the Soulknife for it's oddities.
Medium BAB, d10 Hit Dice, Hide and Move Silently as class skills? Man it's weird.
I also love the flavour and if I ever find a day in low tiers, I'd happily play one. Psychic Strike is a fun mechanic to me - somewhat like Megaman's charged shot.

I actually had two Soulknife players - one was an elan Soulknife/Incarnum Blade. She was actually outclassed by the other characters quite a bit (whirling frenzy barbarian, aasimar favored soul, steel dragon sorcerer, human rogue), but managed to be always useful by supporting them in their roles. The character was also fun as hell - she had Nymph's Kiss and a satyr as an ex-boyfriend, and she was always smiling and joyful despite the fact that elans in this world are always drowning in wangst.

The other was a tiefling Soulknife. He was a disaster.
The player focused everything on boosting his Hide check, but he actually had low Move Silently. He wanted to play a black-ops kind of character but he simply didn't have the needed abilities. I eventually allowed him to sell his soul for extra power (ToB feats), but he ended up dead soon afterwards.

[The Glyphstone]

I actually like the Soulknife for it's oddities.
Medium BAB, d10 Hit Dice, Hide and Move Silently as class skills? Man it's weird.
I also love the flavour and if I ever find a day in low tiers, I'd happily play one. Psychic Strike is a fun mechanic to me - somewhat like Megaman's charged shot.

I actually had two Soulknife players - one was an elan Soulknife/Incarnum Blade. She was actually outclassed by the other characters quite a bit (whirling frenzy barbarian, aasimar favored soul, steel dragon sorcerer, human rogue), but managed to be always useful by supporting them in their roles. The character was also fun as hell - she had Nymph's Kiss and a satyr as an ex-boyfriend, and she was always smiling and joyful despite the fact that elans in this world are always drowning in wangst.

The other was a tiefling Soulknife. He was a disaster.
The player focused everything on boosting his Hide check, but he actually had low Move Silently. He wanted to play a black-ops kind of character but he simply didn't have the needed abilities. I eventually allowed him to sell his soul for extra power (ToB feats), but he ended up dead soon afterwards.

It does hang out near the top of the list of 'classes that could have been so awesome', that's for certain.

[Crasical]

Something I've been wondering about: I don't have the Book of Exalted Deeds, but couldn't you combine the vow of Poverty feat with a Soulknife? Seems like it would make 'I have a magic weapon' more appealing, since you won't be picking up actual magical weapons.