[Any] Post/Discuss your Soulknife Fixes

[Person_Man]

It seems like there's a Soulknife fix every week on this board.

It's a hugely desirably concept - play a Jedi/Psylocke/Kensai. But it was very, very poorly executed.

Just about everyone and their brother has come up with a fix, including me. So I thought it would be helpful to create a compilation thread, where everyone could list out their gripes with the class, and post their proposed fixes. It's also an opportunity to pimp your personal Soulknife homebrew work (you know you've done at least one).

I'll do my best to compile them, and come up witha meta-fix, taking the best ideas from the communities (and giving credit wherever credit is due). Thanks.

UPDATE: Here is a list of Soulknives:

• RAW 3.5 Soulknife
• 3.0 Soulknife
• WotC Psychic Assassin
• WotC Psychic Rogue
• WotC Soulbow
• Person Man's Jedi Soulknife
• Xallace's Incarnum Soulknife
• RS14 Psychic Warrior Soulknife
• AstralFire's Eldrtich Blade
• PId6's Psionic Soulknife
• Yue Ryong's Heart Shaper - Tome of Battle Soulknife
• Eldan's Soulknife/Ninja Ghostknife
• lesser_minion's skirmisher Soulknife
• Fax's Mindthief

It is generally agreed upon that the Soulknife should:

• Be more powerful.
• Do cool Soulknife like things early in it's progression.
• Do more/better/different things with their Mind Blade.
• Economy of actions. Psychic Strike should be Swift or Immediate.

I'll continue to update as people post.

[AstralFire]

My biggest issue with most of the Soulknife fixes is that they tend towards 'play a Jedi' or 'play a Psywarrior'. They lose all of the flavor of the original PrC, where the emphasis was on literally cutting someone's soul.

[Lord_Gareth]

Aaah...you know that soulknives are a base class, right?

[AstralFire]

Aaah...you know that soulknives are a base class, right?

...Yes.

They were also a PrC, a psychic assassin in the 3.0 PsiHB.

I like Jedi very much, but I feel no soulknife fix is complete if it leaves off Knife to the Soul or at least a mechanic like it, hopefully an improved version.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Aaah...you know that soulknives are a base class, right?

Indeed.

That said, a Soulknife fix is something that I haven't done yet. Maybe I'll take a shot at it, and, in defference to Astral_Fire, focus on the "cutting the soul" aspect of the class.

[AstralFire]

That would be appreciated. I try to limit the number of things I'm homebrewing at one time.

[Lord_Gareth]

...Yes.

They were also a PrC, a psychic assassin in the 3.0 PsiHB.

Didn't know that part ^_^

Djinn and I once worked briefly on a soulknife...not fix, but replacement. Quicksilver Dancers, we called 'em. Perhaps I'll pick the class back up ^_^

[Person_Man]

Here's the 3.5 Psychic Assassin PrC, for what it's worth.

I too had completely forgotten about the 3.0 Soulknife. I'm afb right now. Does anyone remember it's class abilities, and if they were better/worse/different then the 3.5 Soulknife?

[AstralFire]

http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/...nicclasses.rtf

It didn't win any awards for power, but there were a few specific abuses it could do. I don't remember much of them, though, my idea of 'optimized' was 20d6 damage at level 20 back in 3.0.

[Lord_Gareth]

Personally, I see that the problem that any soulknife fix really has to overcome is economy of actions; soulknives take too long to do the cool stuff. I've seen some fairly effective builds, relatively speaking, but they're still ponderous and kinda clumsy.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Personally, I see that the problem that any soulknife fix really has to overcome is economy of actions; soulknives take too long to do the cool stuff. I've seen some fairly effective builds, relatively speaking, but they're still ponderous and kinda clumsy.

Something else I aim to fix. Perhaps a Warlock/Tome of Battle style of Weapon "Forms" or similiar. One stance-type thing selects the shape or function of the weapon, and another selectable at-will or refreshable mechanic determines the effect once it's landed. Maybe as you level up you can apply stronger enhancements. For example (and this is just off the top of my head, and therefore subject to change or removal)...

Mental Form: Chain of Thought (minimum level 5th)
Benefit: Your Mindblade gains a reach of 10 feet (you may still strike adjacent opponents), and you gain a +4 bonus to all Trip attempts. Your Mindblade gains a +1 Enhancement bonus, and an additional +1 enhancement bonus at 4th level and every 4 levels after that.

Offensive Thought: Mindrender (minimum level 15th)
[i]Benefit:[/b] Your Mindblade deals 1 point of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma damage on a successful attack. On a roll of a natural 20, your target must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your Soulknife level + your Charisma modifier) or have their Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma drop to 0. This is a mind-effecting ability.

[Xallace]

So, uh, I believe this is relevant. Kinda old, I haven't looked it over in a while.

[RS14]

Mine is here. Fleshed out in the comments; perhaps I will go back and edit the original post later.

I too had noticed the weekly soulknife fix. One of the problems in my mind is that most DMs are reluctant to allow homebrew classes. If nothing else, they're not found in the normal resources used. Thus my fix is meant to be more houserule than homebrew--something trivial to implement with existing sources.

[Faleldir]

Let them shape their mind blades into any mundane object, like what everyone wrongly thinks Green Lantern's power is. A Concentration check determines size and complexity.

Let them deliver Commands, and later Suggestions, with a mind blade attack. As a bonus, the victim feels no pain from the blade and immediately forgets it was attacked.

[Gralamin]

My Fix got eaten by a thread purge awhile back. I have it on my computer, but basically:

1) Expand the number of enhancements possible
2) Expand the number of Mindblade forms possible
3) Enhance psychic strike a bit: Make it a bit stronger, make it take less actions at higher levels.
4) Make the mind Blade enhancement bonus depend on the player (IE: You could have a +1 Lots Of Stuff Mindblade instead of a +5)
5) Give them a way of overcoming Damage Reduction.
6) At high levels, allow Psychic strike damage to be traded away at the beginning of the day for some benefits (Flight, Mettle, Evasion).

In addition, I've considered adding some Invocation-like abilities. They wouldn't get many, but basically have some at-will psionic power type things, with some augmenting ability.

[Mr.Moron]

I'm feeling bored. I'll give it a go and see what I can do.

[AstralFire]

Hnmph. Not a fix, but a class I wrote up two years ago that runs parallel to it:
http://www.theanteheroes.com/Ashbane/EldritchBlade.pdf

[PId6]

Well mine's in sig. I liked the original flavor so I focused on the idea of being able to shape your mind blade however you like. Eventually, you can turn your mind blade into any weapon you want, make it out of any material, and even change its enchantments on the fly as a swift action.

Personally, I see that the problem that any soulknife fix really has to overcome is economy of actions; soulknives take too long to do the cool stuff. I've seen some fairly effective builds, relatively speaking, but they're still ponderous and kinda clumsy.

I definitely see that problem. Being able to Psychic Strike and Knife to the Soul is cool, but having to spend a move action to do it is not. Hence, I've made many actions swift to alleviate that.

[Iferus]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=911277

That's a martial variant. I think ToB is actually a nice way to go with a soulblade.

[elliott20]

though to be fair, ToB is a nice way to go for just about ANY melee class... unless you hate ToB

[Eldan]

The Ghostknife, my self-made attempt to merge Soulknife and Complete Adventurer Ninja.

[Person_Man]

Wow, lot's of interesting work out there. I've begun to synergize them together into a single class. I'll post it (maybe on a separate thread, so as not to hyjack this one) when it's done, giving everyone credit.

Also, what do people think about full BAB for the Soulknife? In some ways, I think that every melee class should have full BAB, so that they can use Power Attack effectively and get Weapon Finesse at first level if they want to. On the other hand, if you give them 3/4 BAB, then they can get a ton of extra abilities without being overpowered (Psychic Warrior, Totemist, Swordsage).

Thoughts?

[Xallace]

I think you can get away with Full BAB and a bunch of abilities; we'd have to see what the class looks like as a whole.

[lesser_minion]

Here's my attempt:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104047

I'm not in favour of handing out full BAB to soulknives, but I dislike full BAB in general (I practically houserule fighters to have 3/4 in my own games...)

[Person_Man]

Here's my attempt:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104047

Updated to the list. Thanks.

I'm not in favour of handing out full BAB to soulknives, but I dislike full BAB in general (I practically houserule fighters to have 3/4 in my own games...)

Wait, what? I completely understand not giving soulknives full BAB, especially if you power them up in some big way. But why shouldn't Fighters and the like have full BAB? It's the only real advantage they have over other classes.

[lesser_minion]

I just think the numbers start getting too big once full BAB comes into play, and I don't think the combat system really needs three tiers of basic fighting ability.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I just think the numbers start getting too big once full BAB comes into play, and I don't think the combat system really needs three tiers of basic fighting ability.

Aside from the fact that a +5 difference doesn't contribute all that much to making the numbers too big, why would you reduce fighters instead of increase the 3/4 folks? The system is predicated on the assumption that people who mostly fight have full BAB, people who cast have half, and people who do a little bit of casting or a little bit of fighting have 3/4. It would make sense to boost all noncasters to full and nerf all casters to 1/2, so the rogue goes up and the cleric goes down.

[zarakstan]

I think I might make a soul knife fix that follows Astral Fire's reminiscence of the psychic assassin who literally cut up your soul.

I think the blade would strike as a touch attack, deal minimal damage, but you could invest in abilities that caused it to have various debuffing affects on the victim of your blade.

[lesser_minion]

Aside from the fact that a +5 difference doesn't contribute all that much to making the numbers too big, why would you reduce fighters instead of increase the 3/4 folks? The system is predicated on the assumption that people who mostly fight have full BAB, people who cast have half, and people who do a little bit of casting or a little bit of fighting have 3/4. It would make sense to boost all noncasters to full and nerf all casters to 1/2, so the rogue goes up and the cleric goes down.

OK:

- The 3.5 combat system has the bizarre feature that the most skilled combatants move around less (neglecting any form of charger). If you can only get one effective bonus attack out of standing still, it becomes a lot less tempting to do so.

- The reduction would not be exclusive to the fighter.

- I'm also working on the assumption that fighters would be better had WotC made the design decision not to have three tiers of BAB. As I said, I'd rather the system be "competent vs. good" than "crap vs. competent vs. good". In a sensible game world, a wizard should be able to plink away with a crossbow once in a while

- I'm not sure I really like the idea of differences in fighting ability between classes being represented as differences in the rate of BAB growth anyway. +1/+3/+5 at 1st level would be a lot better as three-tier systems go.

[AstralFire]

OK:

- The 3.5 combat system has the bizarre feature that the most skilled combatants move around less (neglecting any form of charger). If you can only get one effective bonus attack out of standing still, it becomes a lot less tempting to do so.

Pounce or martial strikes which work on standards should be the way to go here, I would say, not weakening the class further.

- I'm not sure I really like the idea of differences in fighting ability between classes being represented as differences in the rate of BAB growth anyway. +1/+3/+5 at 1st level would be a lot better as three-tier systems go.

This is agreed.