Results 1 to 30 of 31
Thread: Why is soulknife weak?
-
2007-07-15, 07:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2005
- Location
- Appalachian Mountains
Why is soulknife weak?
What is it about Soulknife that makes it weak? This isn't a contention of that fact, I am looking for a breakdown, so I can start modifying it, as one of my players wants to play one in a game I will be running this fall. It will be a high-power game, and so I don't want him to be left behind.
Aratos Tell
HP:53/53 AC:19,FlatFooted:16,Touch:13
Active Effects: Speak w/Animals
Spells Prepared: Cure Minor Wounds*4, Flare, Calm Animals, Charm Animal, Cure Light Wounds, Animal Messenger, Flaming Sphere, Lesser Restoration, Hold Animal, Cure Mod. Wounds*2, Speak w/Plants
Megiddo
HP:26/26 PP: 40/40 AC:14,FlatFooted:13,Touch:13
Active Effects:
Spells Prepared: Light*2, Burning Hands*2, Protection f/Evil, Magic Missile, Shocking Grasp, See Invis., Acid Arrow, Scorching Ray*2
-
2007-07-15, 10:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Boston
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Soulknife isn't really weak. It's only weak in a high-magic campaign where everyone has access to boatloads of magical items via magical item stores etc. If magical weapons are rare enough, the soulknife actually becomes a very strong class.
However, since you are in a "high-powered" campaign I take that to mean that magical items will be plentiful.
The main criticism of the soul knife is that his only power is free access to a magical weapon (which most fighters or melee'rs will grab anyway with no problem).
The easiest fix is probably to hook him up with full BAB, though thats not what I did.
Another fix I used is to alter his psychic strike feature into a charge-up class feature. When the soulknife charges his mindblade with a his psychic energy, it can deal damage to anything, not just intelligent enemies. This means he can damage undead, constructs, sunder weapons or other objects etc. I also modified the throw mind blade class feature into a ki-blast feature which was close to identical to the original. The only difference is that you didn't have to extinguish your mindblade to use it, so you could A) make an attack with your mindblade and then ki-blast or vise versa (if you have two attacks per round), and that the rapid shot feat applied to the ki-blast class feature. Otherwise it was the same. The soulknife still adds strength bonus to his damage etc.Last edited by Human Paragon 3; 2007-07-15 at 10:44 AM.
Click the spoiler to see all the great games I design:
Spoiler
Who Beats Who? the hilariously geeky game of hypothetical battles.
Who has two thumbs (up) and a board game coming out from Rio Grande? This guy. Gladiators (Rio Grande)
PIZZA IN SPAAAAACE! Cambridge Games Facotry and Spoiled Flush Games Cosmic Pizza coming soon.
Matrix Solitaire, likely the best Solitaire game you will ever play.
Spoiled Flush Games
Twitter... where I talk about game design and beer.
-
2007-07-15, 10:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Toon Town
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Looking at the soulknife, I'd say that it's main issue is that it's not sure what sort of class it's supposed to be. All it's special abilities are based around combat, but he has an average base attack bonus and can only use light armor. His skill list and skill points aren't enough for him to be a skill monkey, although he has the stealth and perception skills.
Furthermore, although psychic strike augments damage, it can't be used with multiple attacks (like sneak attack can), which restricts its usefulness to only certain situations. Once the soulknife starts getting iterative attacks, or uses two weapons, using psychic strike becomes less attractive. Meaning that even though the die damage increases with level, the ability itself remains only moderately useful, primarily for getting in a strong first shot at the beginning of combat. Past that, it's just kind of meh, especially considering it's already restricted to targets vulnerable to mind influencing effects (in other words, targets which are potentially much easier to deal with using magic).
I'd say either give it full base attack, or increase it's skill points and add some more skills to the class list. Doing one of those will probably give the class something it can be competitive with. More than that may be overdoing it, since the mind blade enhancement ability does provide the soulknife with some versatility and uniqueness, as well as effectively giving him a free magic weapon.
-
2007-07-15, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
- Location
- Vermont
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
You could leave him as is, but make it so he can reassign enhancement bonuses to his blade in three rounds, rather than eight hours. This means that, if he knows he will face a tough foe, he doesn't need to spend all day refocusing, but the time limit will keep him from refocusing in combat against all but the most powerful foes.
Alternatively you could have him reasign values at the begining of the day, and give him other benefits.
Actually, this might work better with increased skill points for a "careful planner" type of character.
-
2007-07-15, 11:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- London, England.
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Soulknife is a terrible class because there's absolutely nothing it can do. Its main ability - access to a magic weapon - can be duplicated by every other class in the game, just by buying one. And since a soulknife only has a medium BAB, it won't even be all that good at using that magic weapon.
As if that wasn't enough, a soulknife's mind blade isn't even all that much stronger than the primary weapon of a fighter of comparable level, and in some cases is actually weaker (a fighter should easily have access to a +5 weapon by level 15 or so, but a soulknife doesn't get one till level 20). So not only is the soulknife's main ability duplicable by every other class, but it isn't even all that good at it.
And finally, the soulknife has virtually no options for customisation. Like the monk, a soulknife gets almost no choices about its abilities - they lock it into a set pattern. This cuts it off from most of the really effective combinations. All in all, the soulknife's a strong candidate for worst class in D&D.
- SaphI'm the author of the Alex Verus series of urban fantasy novels. Fated is the first, and the final book in the series, Risen, is out as of December 2021. For updates, check my blog!
-
2007-07-15, 02:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Let me add a disclaimer to what I'm about to say. The soulknife IS a weak base class, and the DM correcting for that in game does NOT make it a powerful class.
I say this because a lot of these dicussions end with someone saying "But just because you can houserule a boost doesn't make it a good class" and they're absolutely right. By the raw list of classes, the soulknife comes up short, and an in game fix doesn't change that fact.
That said, a good DM CAN (and arguably should) compensate in some way for mechanically weaker classes, without making the 'bigger brother' classes feel bad.
They shouldn't go too far and make it a powerhouse, but bringing their power level up somehow so they don't get left in the dust is just fine.
In my group, our DM hates changeing classes, especially things like BAB and saving throws and such. Sometime's he'll allow a different skill list for a specific flavor or build, but for the most part, he doesn't like changing what a class is.
So how does he 'fix' the soulknife? He gives it cool, but soulknife specific items that bring it more in power step with the rest of the party. It's only come up twice, and never in major campaigns, but the solution seemed to work fairly well. He'd give items that did things such as letting the soulknife add their WIS to damage with their mindblade, or doing things like healing the character a hitpoint every time they dealt a point of damage (one point per hit max). One of the handier items were basically "Ki Batteries", that charged each time the soulknife killed something sentient with the mindblade. He could discharge the energy he had stored up as extra damage, magical damage that bypassed most damage reduction on top of that. Turned him from a tired and sad party hanger on into a proud front liner, and did it in a way that let the rest of us focus on our roles and not feel like we were being neglected or outshined.
-
2007-07-15, 07:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- Washington, DC
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
1) It's a melee class that lacks full BAB. The most reliable sources of melee damage are extra attacks + the Power Attack feat tree, both of which are dependent upon high BAB.
2) The mind blade, the Soulknife's primary class feature, really isn't that impressive. The Kensai, for example, gets one or two (if using fists or a double weapon) +10 weapons over the course of only 10 levels, and its full BAB, and it has other nifty class features. Furthermore, using standard wealth and Greater Magic Weapon from a friendly spellcaster, a PC can usually just buy and then enchant their weapon to be far superior to whatever a Soulknife is using.
3) The Soulknife lacks any of the defensive abilities generally given out to non-caster classes, such as Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Mettle, Divine Grace, etc. So he'll have a much harder time surviving on the battlefield. All of his abilities are offensive, and they're generally mediocre.
-
2007-07-15, 07:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
-
2007-07-15, 07:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- Gainesville
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
If you're looking for a fix look in the 3rd edition psionics handbook where Soul knife was a prestige class that rocked.
-
2007-07-15, 07:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
- Location
- Insignificance Gender: No
-
2007-07-15, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
I dojn't think the Soul Knife is borked because the DM can change things to make it work. Because of Rule 0 there relly can't be a borked class or a overpowerEd one. The DM allows everyOne to play what they want and not veel overshadowed. Besides, most things from suplements arent' well balanced wth things from the PHB. Most of the time my DM has to tone things down so that the casters don't feel Overshadwoed. In my last game the cleric tryed to close into melee and he couldnt hit anything. I was playing the Wizard and He couldnt do much damage to the enemies. Thats why my group has banned the ToB (thats Tome of Battle for the novices ).
-
2007-07-15, 08:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2006
- Location
- Sydney
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
I am the golden shadow. I am the Ninja Chocobo
Avatar by me.
My other avatars.
The rest of my signature.
Spoiler
-
2007-07-15, 08:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2004
- Location
- NY
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Heh... I don't think I've ever disagreed with every single sentence in a post before. All right, here we go.
I dojn't think the Soul Knife is borked because the DM can change things to make it work. Because of Rule 0 there relly can't be a borked class or a overpowerEd one. The DM allows everyOne to play what they want and not veel overshadowed.
I say this because a lot of these dicussions end with someone saying "But just because you can houserule a boost doesn't make it a good class" and they're absolutely right. By the raw list of classes, the soulknife comes up short, and an in game fix doesn't change that fact.
Besides, most things from suplements arent' well balanced wth things from the PHB.
Most of the time my DM has to tone things down so that the casters don't feel Overshadwoed. In my last game the cleric tryed to close into melee and he couldnt hit anything. I was playing the Wizard and He couldnt do much damage to the enemies.
The cleric couldn't hit anything in melee? A cleric has medium BAB, and access to buff spells. As long as his strength score was at least mediocre, he should have been on par with any fighter.
As for being a Wizard who can't do much damage to enemies, that's just how D&D Wizards are. Their damage spells can be useful in specialized situations (A fireball to take out a bunch of low-level mooks, and such) but wizards really shine when it comes to Battlefield Control. Do a search on these boards for "Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards: Being Batman" (just "being batman" should be fine) and you'll see what I mean.
A wizard focused on dealing damage with his spells will almost never be as effective as a fighter focused on dealing damage with his big metal stick. The wizard can, however, make it so the enemies are all paralyzed, or slow, or too weak to hold their weapons, or afraid, or trapped in fog, or being constantly sneak attacked by the invisible rogue, or level drained, or a million other things.
If you're at low level, it's a bit harder for a caster. Still, spells like Sleep and Grease can neutralize groups of enemies so they can be decapitated at leisure.
Thats why my group has banned the ToB (thats Tome of Battle for the novices ).
...oh right, this was a Soul Knife thread. Anyway, Soul Knife (AS WRITTEN, which makes your claims of "it's fine! I can just houserule the bad parts!" kind of irrelevant) is a "weak" class because it does almost nothing other classes can't do. Magic weapons aren't rare in D&D, and the Soul Knife's mindblade isn't any more powerful than the others. There have been some attempts to fix them with houserules (which doesn't mean the soulknife is fine, it just means that we all have a lot of free time on these boards...)- the same Logic Ninja from above made something called blade points, I think, and I've seen others as well- but I don't know how successful they've been.
Heck, you can achieve almost the same effect with a psychic warrior who uses "call weaponry" a lot.
-
2007-07-15, 09:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- Draper, Utah
- Gender
-
2007-07-15, 09:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
-
2007-07-15, 09:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- Draper, Utah
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
-
2007-07-15, 09:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
- Location
- Insignificance Gender: No
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
One, Empower doesn't make you do maximum damage. And that's not the strong suit of being a wizard, either.
Two, you could have a fighter with infinite HP, a wizard about a level higher after a certain point would breeze through killing him.
Three, if the cleric has to heal to prevent death from hit point loss, something is wrong and he isn't fighting anymore.
Four, why is your rogue getting hit again?
You are not optimizing. You are having fun, but not optimizing. Which is a good thing, actually. As long as you have no claims to optimization, at least.
-
2007-07-15, 09:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2005
- Location
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
I gather by high magic You mean default wealth games? Even without ye old magic shoppes you can play with default wealth, by dropping party appropriate equipment (like for instance the Red Hand of Doom adventure advocates).
If magical weapons are rare enough, the soulknife actually becomes a very strong class.Last edited by PinkysBrain; 2007-07-15 at 09:26 PM.
-
2007-07-15, 09:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2004
- Location
- NY
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
-
2007-07-15, 10:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Dayton, Ohio
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Oh, you precious, darling snowflake. I want to scoop you up, and cuddle you, and promise you that everything will always be ok. Also, buy you a pony made of rainbows and giggles.
1) *Our Meleers have tons of HP and don't die!* Which means they have a Con Score. Fantastic.
Trade them in for a Reach-weapon armed fighter with Improved Trip, Karmic Strike, Robilar's Gambit, and Thicket of Blades, and watch an impassible wall of AoO rise up to halt any incoming foe.
Trade them for a Barbarian 1/fighter x and have them focus on Power Attack, and the sacred Charge Multiplier, and watch them Snicker-Snack through anything that looks at them funny.
Trade them in for a Hug-Monster, and watch it flat-out deny action to strategic objectives.
2) *Our cleric's spells ARE good at stopping the rogue from running out of HP.* Which means your Cleric spends a lot of time sitting in the back row "Polishing his wand of Cure Light Wounds" 'eh? That makes Pelor Cry. He cries tears of ultimate destruction of the unworthy, and they deal Holy Splash damage, with a +4 against sentient Undead.
Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful. Permanancy. Divine Metamagic. Extra Turning.
Your Cleric, instead of keeping the Rogue "Topped Off" now wades into combat ahead of the fighter, and proceeds to bludgeon the merciful word of his god straight through his foe's occipital lobe.
3) *AND with Empower my spells do max damage! It means I don't get to throw as many dice*
Forget Empower. You're looking for Enervation. Twin Ray, Quicken, Maximize. Ray of Exhaustion. Chilling touch. Ray of Idiocy. Ray of Enfeeblement. Shut your foes down, and let the big, dumb, door-openers handle the head-count.
4)*but still fun.* Above all else. Yes. Ignore everything I just wrote if you wish. Keep this true. Have fun doing this, it's a game. Enjoy yourself.
-
2007-07-15, 10:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- Seattle, USA
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Even with a full BAB the soulknife wouldn't be that great, their primary class ability is having a free +10 weapon by level 20, then you remember that you spent 20 levels of a class to get something thats worse then a fighter can buy. (remember, a +1 weapon with +9 worth of special abilities and the target of greater magic weapon is better then a net +10 weapon). All of the soulknives other abilities are largely irrelevent.
You could, in theory, make a class that focused on a single weapon you create that would be good, but the class would have to be able to do something with that weapon that couldn't be replicated by other classes that easy."Sometimes, we’re heroes. Sometimes, we shoot other people right in the face for money."
-Shadowrun 4e, Runner's Companion
-
2007-07-15, 10:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- Draper, Utah
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
With a little more control over his mindblade and a some better feat support, Soulknife could easily top fighter, maybe even get up with rogue and psychic warrior, but I don't see the psi haters at WotC giving it to the soulknife.
-
2007-07-15, 11:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Tenochtitlán (aka: Mexico City)
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Seeing this thread gave me a spark of inspiration: Give them some powers, for chrissakes!
See the result and comment here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...00#post2887500-
Is it evil, Evil, Evil or EVIL?
Expanded Alignment Rules (PEACH)
-
Playing a Paladin? Don't fall into the traps of casuistry or excessive rigourism!
Instead of that, read Peregrine's lesson
-
"It's almost like the universe is trying to deliberately force some form of arbitrary equality between those of us who can reshape matter with our thoughts and those who cannot!"
-
2007-07-16, 12:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
- Location
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Since Soulknives have a built in magical weapon, how well does Vow of Poverty stack on top of that?
-
2007-07-16, 12:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Fairfield, CA
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Wiki - Q&A - FB - LIn - Tw
d20r Compilation PDF - last updated 9.11.14
d20r: Spells (I-L) - d20r: Spells (H) - d20r: Spells (G) - d20r: Spells (F) - d20r: Spells (E) - d20r: Spells (D) - d20r: Wizard class
-
2007-07-16, 12:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Vow of Poverty for a soulknife would effectively be like VoP for a monk: a bad idea. There's many threads that detail why this is in the archives.
VoP is best left to the druids.Veryn's Sliver, by Talfrey:Spoiler
Avatar by Abardam.
-
2007-07-16, 12:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Fairfield, CA
- Gender
Wiki - Q&A - FB - LIn - Tw
d20r Compilation PDF - last updated 9.11.14
d20r: Spells (I-L) - d20r: Spells (H) - d20r: Spells (G) - d20r: Spells (F) - d20r: Spells (E) - d20r: Spells (D) - d20r: Wizard class
-
2007-07-16, 05:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Since it is a psionic class consider giving it the limited known powers and power points of a Divine Mind if the PC spends a Feat on Hidden Talent but nothing else from the class. 62 Power Points a day at level 20.
Base the bonus power points on Wisdom
Consider the Psionic Rogue over at Wizards
If the Psi Soul Knife is penalized by 1 skill point a level (25% of skill points) or Intelligence if the Psi Soul Knife is penalized by 2 skill points a level (50% of normal skill points) and cap Psychic Strike at +4D8 and delay it by one level take at 4, 8, 12 and 16.
Give it the powers of a Psionic Rogue (15 known level 1 to 5 powers with 100 PP at level 20). It basically only delays a few feats and costs a Rogue +1D6 Sneak Attack and 2 skill points a level (25% of skill points) compared to a standard Rogue if PRCing. If not PRCing the psionic rogue only loses 2 more sneak attacks and 2 skill points a level if taken to level 20.Last edited by CASTLEMIKE; 2007-07-16 at 06:15 PM.
-
2007-07-16, 05:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- Seattle, USA
- Gender
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Or you could just make a kensai varient that manifests their weapon instead of enchanting an existing weapon.
"Sometimes, we’re heroes. Sometimes, we shoot other people right in the face for money."
-Shadowrun 4e, Runner's Companion
-
2007-07-16, 09:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
Re: Why is soulknife weak?
Search might not find it, but it's right here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500