Soulknife - what to pick.

[Grifthin]

Hey all - we are going to be allowing psionics in our dnd group for the first time. I'm going to be the test monkey and thus have decided to play a soul knife. The string of modules will take us from level 1 - 20. Books allowed are Dmg classes, Complete Adventurer, Complete warrior and Expanded psionics and PHB 1 & 2.

What are good skills for a Soulknife ? What are good feats. So far I don't know if we have a cleric, so I was thinking that the rapid healing feat (regain double hit points from resting, no need to rest - rapid metabolism ?) and something like weapon finesse/power attack. My character ended up with 16 str and 18 dex so from a AC/Attack point of view I'm not badly off. All the rest of my stats ended up between 12-14.

Also - what are good +1 abilities for the mindblade itself. Thanks in advance.

[Anonanimal]

The Soulknife is one of the worst classes in the game, and can't stand up to the fighter. All of its class abilities center around a subpar magical weapon that can't be disarmed and you don't have to pay for. That's pretty much it.

I would suggest going with a Psychic Warrior instead. There's even an ACF that gives the Psychic Warrior a mindblade.

EDIT: The ACF can be found here.

[deuxhero]

Unarmed Swordsage Soul bound weapon Psychic warrior.

[SaintRidley]

If you're going to go with Soulknife, you might as well use the pile of dreck that is Complete Psionic to go Soulbow.

[deuxhero]

If you're going to go with Soulknife, you might as well use the pile of dreck that is Complete Psionic to go Soulbow.

Or take advantage of the fact that the only half decent thing from it is free as an excerpt

[BobVosh]

If you're going to go with Soulknife, you might as well use the pile of dreck that is Complete Psionic to go Soulbow.

CP isn't completely worthless. There is a lot of nice archery feats...for some reason.

[Grifthin]

I don't have complete psionic. And I'm already going to play Soul knife - what I want to know is what I can pick to atleast make the class interesting to play. It's premade modules anyways - so I don't think it will go to badly, our party is 1 person to large, so even if my character ends up under performing it wont' be a train smash.

[Talbot]

I'm playing one right now. I highly recommend taking Flaws for two extra Feats. My current setup has Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, and Reshape Mindblade (Dwarven Warpike). It makes a wonderful tripping build because, with your disposable weapon, you can drop it to avoid counter-trip attempts with no major problems.

General rule for Soul Knife- pick one thing to specialize in (Soulbow, tripping, Undead Killing, whatever). The trap is trying to force a very limited class to do more than one thing.

[Zincorium]

Alright, assuming you have no intention of playing anything else (which I have to second the recommendation to do), you should do the following:

1. Attempt to get your DM to approve Soulbow and work towards that.

2. Exotic weapon master (complete warrior) for one level and take the uncanny blow trick. Use it with your bastard sword soulblade to deal x2 strength bonus. Not compatible with 1.

3. Psionic focus is required do do your knife to the soul schtick later on (which can actually take out some foes fairly quickly), so get Psionic Meditation as soon as you qualify.

4. DO NOT take combat expertise- you can't afford the penalties to attack and suffer a significant and irreparable penalty to all trip or disarm attempts. Power attack is a maybe. Again, you can't afford a significant penalty to attack, and the bonus you get isn't going to be very important. Weapon finesse is likewise hard to justify, given that you can't take it until 3rd level and it'll be a +1 to attack unless you get higher boosts to dexterity than strength.

5. Get used to being outclassed. It's trivial for a barbarian to deal out and take more damage than you can- and it's not as though you can do anything he can't.

[nekomata2]

If you have access to it, consider the 3.0 Soulknife PrC....its soooo much better.

On a side note, the Soulknife is hardly a good class to show off psionics.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There's a couple of ACF's in the same link that gave ACF's for the PsiWar

Hidden Talent is a 1st level ACF, and basically nets you a free 1st level Power. Not too bad.

More importantly, you can sacrifice the completely worthless Psionic Strike abilities for Feats, which lets you function fairly well.

Soulbow is also a very strong class which I cannot suggest too strongly.

[SaintRidley]

CP isn't completely worthless. There is a lot of nice archery feats...for some reason.

I suppose.

My experience with it was poorly thought out and contradictory fluff, unimplemented rules, completely broken (overpowered) rules, completely broken (underpowered) rules, and just a general feel that the people writing the book were trying to sabotage the whole idea of Psionics.


Being a mind flayer illithid squid thingy fan, the heritage feats made me set the book down and consider just never touching it again. Half-mind flayers illithids squid thingies in the Fiend Folio nearly did that until I saw the fluff about them coming from experiments in ceremorphosis that were more successful than most but not as successful as those that actually give rise to real mind flayers illithids squid thingies. The heritage feats.... There is no justification for those.

[Tavar]

Actually, given the fluff from the lord's of madness, since the mindflayer's are from the future, the heritage feats represent the ancestors of the mindflayers.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

On a side note, the Soulknife is hardly a good class to show off psionics.

This is, well, pretty true, to be honest. If you want to do a test of the actual psionic power point system, I would recommend following the link deuxhero provided and play a psychic warrior instead. The alternate class feature provides you with the main schtick of a soulknife plus actual powers to use.

Just remember that you can't spend more power points than your manifester level on a given power, and you should be fine. Unless the rest of the group is horridly unoptimized, you shouldn't have any glaring issues.

[NEO|Phyte]

More importantly, you can sacrifice the completely worthless Psionic Strike abilities for Feats, which lets you function fairly well.

Psychic Strike isn't COMPLETELY worthless, if you get Knife to the Soul, you can basically 1shot any Animal, because lol 2 int. Plus assorted low-mental critters, and casters tend to not appreciate losing their casting stat, though a suitably paranoid caster will be proof against this one way or another.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Psychic Strike isn't COMPLETELY worthless, if you get Knife to the Soul, you can basically 1shot any Animal, because lol 2 int. Plus assorted low-mental critters, and casters tend to not appreciate losing their casting stat, though a suitably paranoid caster will be proof against this one way or another.

And once you hit about 13th level, when it becomes available, the number of creatures immune to mind-affecting, and thus Knife to the Soul, increases. Soon, it won't work on anything worth working on.

[Pluto]

If you want to make the most of the Soulknife class, your best bets are:

Soulknife 6/Soulbow X
(Soulbow's completely free, just print it and use it if you want to focus on thrown Mind Blades.)

Soulknife 6/Warmind X
This may be your best bet for melee. It's certainly one of the easiest. Use the Soulblade 2-handed, supplement your abilities with nifty Warmind Powers and the Power Attack feat.

Soulknife 6/Samurai 1/Kensai X
Seriously. Samurai. It has the skills needed to qualify for Kensai and gives a bit of versatility to your build if you ever need to fight one-handed (not necessarily a common occurance, but every fighter occasionally finds himself dangling one-handed from a balcony, slashing desperately at the grasping skeleton hordes below). Marshal could be a better option, depending on your Charisma.

Soulknife 6/Psychic Warrior X
Like Warmind, but with feats instead of nifty class features. If you're going the Psychic Warrior/Soulknife route, you're probably better off just manifesting the Call Weaponry power with a straight-class PsyWar: you'll have more PP, better Soulknife abilities via powers like Camoflague and Concealing Amprpha and Metamorphosis and a better choice of weapons than Shortsword/Bastard Sword. Still, Psychic Warrior makes everything better.

Soulknife 1/Swordsage X or Soulknife 6/Swordsage X
Start with a Swordsage level for the extra skills, then take either 1 level Swordsage (if you intend to use standard action maneuvers as a source of damage and effects) or 6 levels Soulknife (if you intend to use two-weapon fighting). Either way, this builds upon the Soulknife's skills and armor style while able to ignore some of the deficiencies of the soulknife class (weak damage, weak skill points, lack of supporting class abilities).

The Soulknife is presumably a scout class. Its skill list doesn't really support anything else. So put points in Spot, Listen, Hide and Move Silently for sneakery. Tumble and Autohypnosis are just generally useful skills and each deserves a few ranks. And at that point you pretty much reach the end of your powers list. So, yeah.

For feats, pretend you're a Fighter, just without a reach weapon, base attack or heavy armor. If you can retrain it at level 4, you'll probably want Psionic Weapon at low levels. The extra couple damage dice are often enough to push a level 1-3 enemy past 0. Later on, the feat's rubbish. Power Attack is a good choice once you can shape your Mind Blade. Robilar's Gambit is always a nifty choice. The Combat Brute, Shock Trooper and Elusive Target tactical feats from Complete Warrior are always worthwhile. If you go into a manifesting class, Extend Power is very useful, as can be Overchannel.

edit:
Books allowed

[Grifthin]

If your playing a psion with a intelligence of 18. your level is 2. How many poewr points would one have ?

[Pluto]

If your playing a psion with a intelligence of 18. your level is 2. How many poewr points would one have ?

If you add the level-based PP from the Psion table on EPH p.20 to the PP from the ability table on p. 18, you should get 10 points. Plus any from race or feats.

[Grifthin]

Why is the soulbow considered such a good fit for the soulknife ? What makes it a good class?

Also At level 10 a soulknife's weapon is treated as a +2 weapon. Does this mean that he has a +2 weapon with 2 special abilites (+1 each) or a single +2 Ability. OR does it just stay a regular weapon but with 2 ablities.

So in summary I want to know is it a +2 weapon or a mundane weapon with 2 special abilities. or both.

[Pluto]

Why is the soulbow considered such a good fit for the soulknife ? What makes it a good class.

It's not such a good class, but unlike a Soulknife, it actually has class abilities that support its role. Between its Bonus feats, the way it replaces Strength as a damage source with a more useful stat, its access to useful enhancements like Bane and its the unique class features (Phase Arrow, Close Combat Shot), the Soulbow is designed to bring some punch to a fight.

Soulknife, on the other hand, is very much like a Bard without the spells or the songs. Weaker, even, in that its skill list is lacking and its weapon selection is more constrained.

Soulknife's class abilities that focus on melee combat preclude and are less efficient than full attacks. Charging and releasing a Psychic Strike produces less damage than a full attack. The Whirlwind Attack analogue spreads damage out between many targets. In D&D 3.5, damage doesn't matter unless it drops a target below 0 HP. That means spreading damage around is meaningless: even after several rounds of whirlwind attacks, the monsters can still eat your face and the villains are still alive to turn you into a newt.

The Ranged combat mode of the Mind Blade, implied by the Throw Mind Blade and Free Shaping class features, is terrible. A Soulknife can throw a Mindblade a short distance once per round, total. Maybe twice. That isn't how ranged combat works. To deal significant damage, get Rapid Shot and Haste, stand far out of reach and full attack with as many d20 rolls as you can manage.

The Soulknife's signature class ability is terribly lackluster. The Mind Blade essentially turns into a +5 weapon by level 20 (enhancement bonuses don't count; the friendly party mage's Greater Magic Weapon provides those for free). The actual effects of the weapon are miniscule, definitely lacking as a defining class feature.

edit:

Also At level 10 a soulknife's weapon is treated as a +2 weapon. Does this mean that he has a +2 weapon with 2 special abilites (+1 each) or a single +2 Ability. OR does it just stay a regular weapon but with 2 ablities.

So in summary I want to know is it a +2 weapon or a mundane weapon with 2 special abilities. or both.

The Soulknife has two abilities that you should track seperately.

One is "+# Mindblade," advancing at levels 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20. This is the enhancement bonus of the Mindblade.

The other is "Mindblade Enhancement +#." This is the non-numeric effect of the Mindblade. It advances at levels 6, 10, 14 and 18. It can be used for effects like Psychokinetic, Sundering and Viscious.

So at level 10, you have the +2 Mindblade and Mindblade +2 enhancement abilities. They are seperate, but they mean that your Mindblade could work like a +2 Wounding Bastard Sword or two +1 Lucky Psychokinetic shortswords or whatever.

[Grifthin]

Thanks for the explanation.

[FMArthur]

I really think you should read the Soulbound Weapon alternate class feature for Psychic Warriors. It literally replaces the entire Soulknife class within a more interesting warrior class, retaining any and all flavor you think Soulknife might offer. You've got to understand: "has a weapon" is not a real class feature. You wind up worse off than an NPC Warrior because (surprise) he also has a weapon, and better BAB to use it with.

I get the impression that you're not considering Soulbound Weapon psychic warrior as an option because it's not what you wanted to play, which is a soulknife. This is true in name only. It really does just beat up the Soulknife and take all of its things, and is not any stronger than regular Psychic Warrior for it.

[mabriss lethe]

there are feats out there that mitigate the problems with the class, but really, it's like putting a bunch of bandaids on a missing limb. About the only readily accessible way, by RAW, you can really get enough feats to put it together properly is to abandon soulknife as early as possible and use psychic warrior. Outside of raw, talk to your DM. bring the flaws of the class to light, see if he won't tack on some of those feats as bonus feats for the class. (among other quick fixes.)

Mind Cleave, Mind empowerment, Swift Mind strike.

From the sound of it, it seems your stuck with the class for now. See if he'll allow Practiced Mindblade from one of the Dragon mag issues (forget which) It acts just like the practiced caster/manifester feats from other sources. (boosts effective mindblade enhancement progression by +4, capped by your hit dice) if so, dump soulknife no later than 6th level and switch to psychic warrior. You've got a few feats to spare, and practiced mindblade and manifester feats can give you (afb, so this may be off) something like 17th or 18th level mindblade and manifesting abilities. Your PP will have a good chunk removed, but math-wise, it's roughly the same number of points you'd have used to enhance a weapon with psywar powers over the course of a normal adventuring day, so you're not really losing anything, just prepaying for it.

[AslanCross]

An alternative that improves the Soulknife is found in Races of Eberron. The Kalashtar has racial substitute levels for Soulknife and also has a good PrC: The Atavist. Races of Eberron was designed for the adaptation of the Eberron races in other settings, so it shouldn't be such a stretch for DMs.

EDIT: However, I do agree that Soulknife isn't a good testbed class for introducing psionics. Psion or Psychic Warrior gives you a better feel for the system, as the Soulknife is...not really psionic. It's the only class of the four that doesn't actually manifest. Kinda sad.

[Starbuck_II]

Actually, given the fluff from the lord's of madness, since the mindflayer's are from the future, the heritage feats represent the ancestors of the mindflayers.

Glad that is catching on.
I approve of this reasoning.

[mohdri]

Thank you all (especially the OP) for this thread. I was going to start my own thread about Soulknives, but now I don't need to. It also makes me feel justified in the houseruled/homebrew changes I made for my game's Soulknife.

Soulbound Weapon ACF for Psychic Warriors is nice, though it does have a few drawbacks that a Soulknife's Mindblade does not have.

[Mongoose87]

Thank you all (especially the OP) for this thread. I was going to start my own thread about Soulknives, but now I don't need to. It also makes me feel justified in the houseruled/homebrew changes I made for my game's Soulknife.

Soulbound Weapon ACF for Psychic Warriors is nice, though it does have a few drawbacks that a Soulknife's Mindblade does not have.

But, the fact that it's not the only class feature kinda makes up for that.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Thank you all (especially the OP) for this thread. I was going to start my own thread about Soulknives, but now I don't need to. It also makes me feel justified in the houseruled/homebrew changes I made for my game's Soulknife.

Soulbound Weapon ACF for Psychic Warriors is nice, though it does have a few drawbacks that a Soulknife's Mindblade does not have.

If "not being able to use it in a null psionics/antimagic field is the drawback, that's hardly a drawback outside of what a normal psychic warrior suffers, or most all classes, really.

On a side note, be sure your DM is using the "Psionics is the same" default rule, otherwise there may be a few unexpected issues.

[tyckspoon]

But, the fact that it's not the only class feature kinda makes up for that.

It also has at least one major advantage over the standard Mindblade- when you augment it with weapon enhancements, you're not restricted to the Soulknive's limited list for choices. If you want to make your Soulbound Weapon Holy or Bane (whatever you just ran into), you can do that.