Helping a Stubborn PC [Eberron 3.5]

[LichPrinceAlim]

I know, but this ISN'T me. My buddy wants to run a Soulknife/Fighter and be "Mr. Melee." However, he wants ME to design it (first campaign, and his parents gave him the psionics trio). He said he won't play if he's not a soulknife BC. I considered Warblade/Soulknife just to stave his agression, but then I had a weird epiphany:

Race: Chosen (Psychic Human from SoS)
Classes: Soulknife 5/Fighter5/Iaijutsu Master 10/
Feats: Skill Focus: Iaijutsu Focus, Weapon Focus Tree for both mindblade and for Bastard Sword, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword

I think this could somehow help stave his rabid screeching

[Starbuck_II]

I know, but this ISN'T me. My buddy wants to run a Soulknife/Fighter and be "Mr. Melee." However, he wants ME to design it (first campaign, and his parents gave him the psionics trio). He said he won't play if he's not a soulknife BC. I considered Warblade/Soulknife just to stave his agression, but then I had a weird epiphany:

Race: Chosen (Psychic Human from SoS)
Classes: Soulknife 5/Fighter5/Iaijutsu Master 10/
Feats: Skill Focus: Iaijutsu Focus, Weapon Focus Tree for both mindblade and for Bastard Sword, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword

I think this could somehow help stave his rabid screeching

Needs more Bloodline (in UA from SRD).

Assuming no Bloodline:
Fighter 5: Why would anyone take an odd Fighter level?
Wouldn't Soulknife 6, Fighter 4 be smarter? That extra Soulknife level gives a concrete ability but not Fighter.

[LichPrinceAlim]

Needs more Bloodline (in UA from SRD).

Assuming no Bloodline:
Fighter 5: Why would anyone take an odd Fighter level?
Wouldn't Soulknife 6, Fighter 4 be smarter? That extra Soulknife level gives a concrete ability but not Fighter.

1. DM banned Bloodline classes.

2. Then Fighter 4. I just wanted him to exit Soulknife AFTER the ability to shape it as a katana-esq blade

[Mongoose87]

I recommend Soulknife 1/Wizard and PRCs19.

[Starbuck_II]

Required Feats: Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword, Quick Draw, Improved Initiative
Reccommended: Skill Focus: Iaijutsu Focus

Does Weapon Focus: Mindblade count as Weapon Focus: Form it is in? Because then you don't need Weapon Focus: Katana for Prc.

[LichPrinceAlim]

Soulknife's "quick draw mock" covers it for the Prereqs

and as for Weapon Focus, Mind Blade counts as Both a katana and as a Mind Blade (ie: its a "unique" bastard sword)

[Wings of Peace]

Build him the character as a Psychic Warrior who uses Soulbound Weapon and just tell him it's a Soulknife.

[LichPrinceAlim]

Build him the character as a Psychic Warrior who uses Soulbound Weapon and just tell him it's a Soulknife.

He said SPECIFICALLY against that ACF

[Wings of Peace]

Can he shape his Mindblade into a Gnome Quickrazor at the least?

[AslanCross]

Wow, he's pretty stubborn. Since you're in Eberron, you can suggest a Kalashtar Soulknife/Warblade/Atavist, since the Atavist and Kalashtar Soulknife substitution levels in Races of Eberron can make the Soulknife slightly more playable. If I'm not mistaken, Kalashtar Soulknife Lv 1 gives an alternative feature to Wild Talent as a bonus feat, because Kalashtar are naturally psionic and don't need it.

I'm AFB right now so I can't suggest any immediate builds, but really---Fighter 4 isn't really worth it if you're only going to get the Weapon Focus tree. Fighter 4 will get you 3 extra feats. Warblade 4 will stack with Soulknife for initiator level AND get more maneuvers.

Stick to Diamond Mind maneuvers for flavor. Those I suggest are:
-Moment of Perfect Mind: a must for any warblade who doesn't want to get charmed, dominated or otherwise Save-or-Sucked.
-Emerald Razor: Great at offsetting the BAB problem. (I also love renaming this maneuver to 'Will Knife'; cookie to those that get the reference.)
-Insightful Strike: For when the mind blade just isn't doing enough damage.

Supplement with the Tiger Claw maneuvers for the leaping.

[JoshuaZ]

He said SPECIFICALLY against that ACF

Did he give a reason? His request seems oddly narrow.

[AslanCross]

Ok, I have my Races of Eberron book with me.

I'd go with Kalashtar Soulknife 5/Warblade 5*/Atavist 10*.
*You can switch these; in fact I'd recommend that if the player wants to be more aggressive.

Kalashtar Soulknife 5: Take the 1st and 3rd racial substitution levels. Psychic strike is superfluous since you have martial maneuvers anyway. Purifying Strike might help a charmed or dominated ally. Soulknife 5 gets the Bastard Sword mind blade shape.

Warblade 5: Diamond Mind is your friend, but you can also benefit from Iron Heart.

Atavist only advances the Soulknife's Mind Blade bonus to attack and damage, so it's ok to sacrifice this for more Warblade levels. I would at least get up to Atavist 5, though, since you can get reach boost with Spiritual Focus.

If the campaign is quori-heavy, you could still go Warblade 8/Atavist 7.

Feats:
1 Soulblade Warrior (probably the bread and butter of any Kalashtar Soulknife)
1B Weapon Focus (Mind Blade)
3 Spiritual Force (psionic equivalent of the Divine Might feat: Cha to damage); either that or Psionic Weapon.
6 Speed of Thought

Most of your offense will come from your maneuvers, so you can focus on Psionic Feats. The Path of Shadows -> Dancing with Shadows tree isn't much use to a Soulknife, but you might want to look into it.

It's not a horribly optimal build, but it can still get things done.

[LichPrinceAlim]

1. He doesn't want to "screw with psionics," plus the DM banned any class that "openly uses power points"

2. I thought more for a visual of the Ronin who IS his weapon. He'd be sitting @ the tavern when some punks decide to mug him. Next thing they know, the leader's head is the new main course on a silver plate.

[JoshuaZ]

1. He doesn't want to "screw with psionics," plus the DM banned any class that "openly uses power points"

He banned that in an Eberron campaign? Why?

Ok. I guess just soul knife would be fine. Would a psychic warrior who just buffed himself count as openly using powerpoints?

[LichPrinceAlim]

He banned that in an Eberron campaign? Why?

Ok. I guess just soul knife would be fine. Would a psychic warrior who just buffed himself count as openly using powerpoints?

The DM barely understands the system, and thus disallows it for PC usage. Trust me: if it wasn't for that noise, I'd be a Wilder/Metamind/Arch Psion!

and yes. basically, for now, psionics in the form of manifesting is banned.

[Dusk Eclipse]

He banned that in an Eberron campaign? Why?

Ok. I guess just soul knife would be fine. Would a psychic warrior who just buffed himself count as openly using powerpoints?

I'd say yes, considering all Psywar buffs NEED PP expenditure

Though I agree that banning psionics in an Eberron campaing is a ver WEIRD thing, I mean AFAIK Eberron and Darksun are the only campaing setting where Psionics is something common (well as common it can be in a magi-tech society like eberron as for Dark Sun, I am not familiar with it)

[Sinfire Titan]

I'd say yes, considering all Psywar buffs NEED PP expenditure

Though I agree that banning psionics in an Eberron campaing is a ver WEIRD thing, I mean AFAIK Eberron and Darksun are the only campaing setting where Psionics is something common (well as common it can be in a magi-tech society like eberron as for Dark Sun, I am not familiar with it)

In Dark Sun, everyone and their Grandmother is Psionic. Everyone gets a free Wild Talent feat IIRC. You are right though, it makes no sense to ban Psionics in a campaign where an entire continent is devoted to Psionic creatures. And two planes of existence.


Talk to your DM, find out why they are banned.

[LichPrinceAlim]

In Dark Sun, everyone and their Grandmother is Psionic. Everyone gets a free Wild Talent feat IIRC. You are right though, it makes no sense to ban Psionics in a campaign where an entire continent is devoted to Psionic creatures. And two planes of existence.


Talk to your DM, find out why they are banned.

He has two major reasonings:

1. He barely comprehends the Power Point system (he never plays RPG video games)

2. With what he gathered, he claims Psionics is easy to break and is overpowered and too complex for his players (one of which is his twelve-year old brother)

[Flaming Nun]

As per the player, I say screw him. If he won't play if he can't play something the DM has banned, then he shouldn't play. That simple.

Granted, I'm jaded. One of the guys in my local group NEVER builds his own character - partially because we've switched to a homebrew GURPS system, but he's had literally years to learn how to do it, plus we made a self calculating excel character sheet: how hard can it possibly be?

The important part, however, is that kind of player is the kind of guy who forgets to take bonus languages at character creation, and then "Oops - I have to choose a language" as soon as you encounter a script that the party can't read.

[LichPrinceAlim]

As per the player, I say screw him. If he won't play if he can't play something the DM has banned, then he shouldn't play. That simple.

Granted, I'm jaded. One of the guys in my local group NEVER builds his own character - partially because we've switched to a homebrew GURPS system, but he's had literally years to learn how to do it, plus we made a self calculating excel character sheet: how hard can it possibly be?

The important part, however, is that kind of player is the kind of guy who forgets to take bonus languages at character creation, and then "Oops - I have to choose a language" as soon as you encounter a script that the party can't read.

But we'd be short one set of hands. Trust me, my Dm's got a bad habit of putting us in TPK territory and letting us use our wits just to survive.

For instance: Last meeting (note, EVERYONE died, but not by his hand), we were in Hell facing a Half-Red dragon balor in a volcano. We all failed the checks to determine precisely what dragon he was. So I, the Ghoul Monk lept up on him like a spider monkey hopped up on Mt. Dew and kicked him into the mouth of the volcano. He survived, and I, in a last ditch move, punched the mountain as hard as i could. Needless to say, a Nat. 20 caused an eruption, killing the Balor and all of us along with him...

[JoshuaZ]

He has two major reasonings:

1. He barely comprehends the Power Point system (he never plays RPG video games)

2. With what he gathered, he claims Psionics is easy to break and is overpowered and too complex for his players (one of which is his twelve-year old brother)

So he doesn't understand the system but is convinced that it is broken?

Grr. Power points are really simple and psionics are far more balanced than arcane magic.

The rules are simple: You get a certain number of points daily. You spend them to use powers. You can spend more on certain powers to make them better. You can't pay more power points than your manifesting level. There's nothing here more complicated than subtraction. If a 12 year old can't do subtraction there's a more serious problem here.

[Flaming Nun]

Needless to say, a Nat. 20 caused an eruption, killing the Balor and all of us along with him...

Wait - so you are powerful enough to punch a mountain and make it explode...but not so much so as to avoid some lava raining on you?

[Anxe]

The best build for a Soulknife is to go into Pyrokineticist. That's only if your DM lets the two ability sets stack though.

[DragoonWraith]

A DM decided to make an off-the-cuff houseruling on the effects of a PC getting a nat-20 and made it kill the entire party?

Seriously?

[JoshuaZ]

A DM decided to make an off-the-cuff houseruling on the effects of a PC getting a nat-20 and made it kill the entire party?

Seriously?

Yeah. I'm going echo being appalled at that. And why the heck should punching a volcano cause it to erupt? That doesn't even make sense. A natural 20 should be an unusually lucky hit. Even if someone really strong punches a volcano repeatedly, they aren't going to make it erupt. And certainly not 1 every 20 punches causing an eruption. And to then do something like that that would cause the party to die? I'm liking this DM less and less the more I heard about the person.

[Sanguine]

Yeah. I'm going echo being appalled at that. And why the heck should punching a volcano cause it to erupt? That doesn't even make sense. A natural 20 should be an unusually lucky hit. Even if someone really strong punches a volcano repeatedly, they aren't going to make it erupt. And certainly not 1 every 20 punches causing an eruption. And to then do something like that that would cause the party to die? I'm liking this DM less and less the more I heard about the person.

Not to mention even if all of these decisions were logical(which they aren't) a Monk's Evasion should have saved his ass unless he had an abysmal reflex.

[absolmorph]

But we'd be short one set of hands. Trust me, my Dm's got a bad habit of putting us in TPK territory and letting us use our wits just to survive.

For instance: Last meeting (note, EVERYONE died, but not by his hand), we were in Hell facing a Half-Red dragon balor in a volcano. We all failed the checks to determine precisely what dragon he was. So I, the Ghoul Monk lept up on him like a spider monkey hopped up on Mt. Dew and kicked him into the mouth of the volcano. He survived, and I, in a last ditch move, punched the mountain as hard as i could. Needless to say, a Nat. 20 caused an eruption, killing the Balor and all of us along with him...

That IS dying by his hand.
He made your Nat 20 SUPER EFFECTIVE to the point that it killed you all. How is that NOT all on him?

[deuxhero]

Go psywarrior with the spiritual weapon mind's eye ACF.

[Mongoose87]

Go psywarrior with the spiritual weapon mind's eye ACF.

Read the thread.

[deuxhero]

The 3.0 soulknife prestige class!