Optimizing the Soulknife [Archive] - Wizards Community

Optimizing the Soulknife [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Water_To_Fire
07-07-07, 06:09 PM I am interested in the Soulknife class, mostly for the flavor. Anyway, I generally agree that the class is kind of weak. I don't think I'll be able to convince my DM to use an alternative version, so any tips on various choices would be helpful.

My character will probably be a main damage dealer or an archer (I would probably take the Soulbow PrC in this case). The game is in Eberron, but I'm not impressed with the Kalashtar, which is the only race noted for Soulknife-itude. I am interested in any feats, pieces of equipment, or other options that could help my character be as powerful as possible.

All advice (except for that telling me to play something else...) is greatly appreciated.
Greatbear
07-07-07, 06:15 PM Check out the variant soulknife in Untapped Potential from Dreamscarred Press.

Dreamscarred has also just come out with a pamphlet all about the soulknife.
Sarlax
07-07-07, 06:33 PM Dragon 341 has a number of solid feats. Highlights include Adamantine Mind Blade (treat as adamantine), Mind Daggers (create more than 1 per round, each new blade has its enhancement bonus lowered by 1, useful for throwers), Practiced Mind Blade (+4 effective soulknife levels for mindblade purposes, good for multiclassing), and Reshape Mindblade (your mindblade can take the form of any 1 melee weapon with which you are proficient, try spiked chain).

Only multiclass a little bit if you do. It's going to be rough playing a primary damage-dealer as a soulknife so dipping should focus on combat options. Ranger and rogue are nice blends for the stealth/mobility angle of the soulknife. Fighter is good for a level or two to pick up some melee feats and armor proficiency (but don't go heavier than medium or you lose Speed of Thought).

The Psycarnum Blade feat in Magic of Incarnum allows you to deal an extra 1d6 damage (per invested essentia, you'll have at least 1) when you expend your psionic focus. This meshes nicely with Psychic Strike.

Usually you don't want to multiclass out of the soulknife for long because you fall behind in your primary class ability, but the Kensai from Complete Warrior is a great choice if your GM isn't a jerk. Each level of the class allows you to enhance a single weapon (mindblades are legal targets of the ability) with a +1 effective modifier. Thus, a soulknife 6/kensai 4 has a +5 mindblade, with +1 from the soulknife and +4 from the kensai.

Kensai is a little tricky to get into. You need some ranks in Concentration, Diplomacy, and Ride, as well as Weapon Focus. That's a tall order for a soulknife, so you'll want to multiclass. You could go Rogue1/Ranger1 then soulknife for a bit. A faster and more flavorful path, however, is to take one level of paladin. Paladins have each of those skills as a class skill and rounds out your saves nicely. Additionally, the kensai is required to swear an oath to a particular lord or an ideal, making the paladin a natural fit for it.
WackyOne
07-07-07, 06:40 PM I feel your pain, for the SK's flavour is quite nice - but the mechanics aren't!
So long I've seen it used to minimize the stats needed (as a soulbow), using wisdom for... everything: ranged to hit (Zen Archery), ac (monk level), damage (standard for the soulbow) and initiative (halfling feat from RotW); while still getting a bit of mileage out of greater manyshot with some skirmish (scout level + halfling monk sub level + improved skirmish).

But... have you tried cross-posting in the Character Optimization board? Their rules-fu is much stronger than mine ;)
QuarianRex
07-07-07, 09:04 PM I've been tossing around some Soulknife ideas myself.

I just finished some impulse buying at DriveThruRPG and picked up Universal Monk. Best $3.85 I've ever spent. It breaks down the monk bonuses into a number of categories that you can select from but seems incredibly balanced. I know that this doesn't have anything to do with the Soulknife but stay with me.

One of the interesting options is to increase the damage done with monk weapons instead of (or along with) unarmed damage. Combine this with the ability to select what are considered to be monk weapons and I thought that this could make a beautiful Soulknife.

PrC into Knight Meditant from Untapped Potential, progressing both Soulknife mindblade bonuses and monk weapon damage, and/or throw in Tashalatora and there is some interesting potential.

Just some of the things that I'm currently mulling over.
Water_To_Fire
07-07-07, 09:12 PM Thank you all. Luckily, I have access to all of those resources except for Untapped Potential (which I will look into), and these are all interesting ideas. A paladin soulknife would be very fun to play, and the wisdom for everything sounds very efficient. Thanks again for the ideas.

Of course, this doesn't mean stop posting. The more the better.
Bacris
07-07-07, 10:59 PM Thank you all. Luckily, I have access to all of those resources except for Untapped Potential (which I will look into), and these are all interesting ideas. A paladin soulknife would be very fun to play, and the wisdom for everything sounds very efficient. Thanks again for the ideas.

Of course, this doesn't mean stop posting. The more the better.

The soulknife variant in Untapped Potential is actually BlaineTog's fix with some minor changes - the original BlaineTog fix should be available on these forums :) So you don't absolutely need Untapped Potential to use its soulknife variant :)

The other item Greatbear mentioned is High Psionics: Soulknives, which offers 4 variant options for the Soulknife: power instead of finesse, dual-wielding, ranged focus, and then a defensive, armor-based option instead of blade-based.

I haven't really looked at how the ranged variant works with the soulbow, since, well, the soulbow can't be referenced in non-WotC products :)

BTW, what level will your character start? 1st?

And what sources does your DM allow? All of the above is non-WotC, and I can think of a few other 3rd party publishers that may have some material, but I'd have to dig around and if it's not allowed anyway, no point spending the time :)
runestar
07-07-07, 11:07 PM Wotc released a web enhancement which allows soulknives to swap out psychic strike for bonus feats. I would snap that up.
Water_To_Fire
07-08-07, 11:37 AM We're on the tail end of t RHoD, and will probably start a new campaign after it. That is what this character is for. I don't know for sure what level it will start at, but it shouldn't really matter. The campaign will probably only go till level 12 or so, so things that aren't useful until high levels are out.

I don't know about my DM's policy on non-WotC products, but I expect him to be biased as I think he works for WotC. If it's reasonable, however, he will probably allow it.

Also, if I have two abilities that allow me to get an effect if I expend my focus, I only get one effect each time, right? Just clarifying.
QuarianRex
07-08-07, 11:44 AM Also, if I have two abilities that allow me to get an effect if I expend my focus, I only get one effect each time, right? Just clarifying.

Correct, one focus expenditure, one ability.
TheKeyofE
07-08-07, 06:32 PM Biggest problem I had trying to optimize a soulknife (ignoring the fact that they're UP to begin with) was lack of feats. I wanted to take the Psionic Weapon/Deep Impact feat tree, but I didn't have enough feats for that and psionic meditation. I looked at the variant that replaces psychic strike with bonus feats, but I wanted to keep psychic strike so that left me with few options.

You can check out the Soulknife Build Guide & Compendium (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=372176). It might give you some ideas.
Water_To_Fire
07-08-07, 07:38 PM Ah, thank you for the linky. I had forgotten to inquire about it.

Also, I've just ordered Races of Eberron, which I've heard has good soulknife treats.
NickResonance
07-08-07, 09:02 PM One thing you might want to consider is the War Mind PrC from the XPH. You get access to some tasty abilities, as well as a few psychic warrior powers, at the expense of soulknife class features. That can be mitigated in part by Practiced Mind Blade which Sarlax mentioned. (I'll add that your effective soulknife level can't exceed your actual number of soulknife levels.) Also, since you're getting Races of Eberron, there's the Atavist PrC (which is kalashtar only). They also get some nice abilities AND levels in Atavist stack with soulknife levels for determing the enhancement bonus and which enchantments you can slap onto your mind blade. I've actually be contemplating working out a build for soulknife 12/war mind 4/atavist 4, but haven't gotten started on it yet.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Water_To_Fire 07-07-07, 06:09 PM	I am interested in the Soulknife class, mostly for the flavor. Anyway, I generally agree that the class is kind of weak. I don't think I'll be able to convince my DM to use an alternative version, so any tips on various choices would be helpful. My character will probably be a main damage dealer or an archer (I would probably take the Soulbow PrC in this case). The game is in Eberron, but I'm not impressed with the Kalashtar, which is the only race noted for Soulknife-itude. I am interested in any feats, pieces of equipment, or other options that could help my character be as powerful as possible. All advice (except for that telling me to play something else...) is greatly appreciated.
Greatbear 07-07-07, 06:15 PM	Check out the variant soulknife in Untapped Potential from Dreamscarred Press. Dreamscarred has also just come out with a pamphlet all about the soulknife.
Sarlax 07-07-07, 06:33 PM	Dragon 341 has a number of solid feats. Highlights include Adamantine Mind Blade (treat as adamantine), Mind Daggers (create more than 1 per round, each new blade has its enhancement bonus lowered by 1, useful for throwers), Practiced Mind Blade (+4 effective soulknife levels for mindblade purposes, good for multiclassing), and Reshape Mindblade (your mindblade can take the form of any 1 melee weapon with which you are proficient, try spiked chain). Only multiclass a little bit if you do. It's going to be rough playing a primary damage-dealer as a soulknife so dipping should focus on combat options. Ranger and rogue are nice blends for the stealth/mobility angle of the soulknife. Fighter is good for a level or two to pick up some melee feats and armor proficiency (but don't go heavier than medium or you lose Speed of Thought). The Psycarnum Blade feat in Magic of Incarnum allows you to deal an extra 1d6 damage (per invested essentia, you'll have at least 1) when you expend your psionic focus. This meshes nicely with Psychic Strike. Usually you don't want to multiclass out of the soulknife for long because you fall behind in your primary class ability, but the Kensai from Complete Warrior is a great choice if your GM isn't a jerk. Each level of the class allows you to enhance a single weapon (mindblades are legal targets of the ability) with a +1 effective modifier. Thus, a soulknife 6/kensai 4 has a +5 mindblade, with +1 from the soulknife and +4 from the kensai. Kensai is a little tricky to get into. You need some ranks in Concentration, Diplomacy, and Ride, as well as Weapon Focus. That's a tall order for a soulknife, so you'll want to multiclass. You could go Rogue1/Ranger1 then soulknife for a bit. A faster and more flavorful path, however, is to take one level of paladin. Paladins have each of those skills as a class skill and rounds out your saves nicely. Additionally, the kensai is required to swear an oath to a particular lord or an ideal, making the paladin a natural fit for it.
WackyOne 07-07-07, 06:40 PM	I feel your pain, for the SK's flavour is quite nice - but the mechanics aren't! So long I've seen it used to minimize the stats needed (as a soulbow), using wisdom for... everything: ranged to hit (Zen Archery), ac (monk level), damage (standard for the soulbow) and initiative (halfling feat from RotW); while still getting a bit of mileage out of greater manyshot with some skirmish (scout level + halfling monk sub level + improved skirmish). But... have you tried cross-posting in the Character Optimization board? Their rules-fu is much stronger than mine ;)
QuarianRex 07-07-07, 09:04 PM	I've been tossing around some Soulknife ideas myself. I just finished some impulse buying at DriveThruRPG and picked up Universal Monk. Best $3.85 I've ever spent. It breaks down the monk bonuses into a number of categories that you can select from but seems incredibly balanced. I know that this doesn't have anything to do with the Soulknife but stay with me. One of the interesting options is to increase the damage done with monk weapons instead of (or along with) unarmed damage. Combine this with the ability to select what are considered to be monk weapons and I thought that this could make a beautiful Soulknife. PrC into Knight Meditant from Untapped Potential, progressing both Soulknife mindblade bonuses and monk weapon damage, and/or throw in Tashalatora and there is some interesting potential. Just some of the things that I'm currently mulling over.
Water_To_Fire 07-07-07, 09:12 PM	Thank you all. Luckily, I have access to all of those resources except for Untapped Potential (which I will look into), and these are all interesting ideas. A paladin soulknife would be very fun to play, and the wisdom for everything sounds very efficient. Thanks again for the ideas. Of course, this doesn't mean stop posting. The more the better.
Bacris 07-07-07, 10:59 PM	Thank you all. Luckily, I have access to all of those resources except for Untapped Potential (which I will look into), and these are all interesting ideas. A paladin soulknife would be very fun to play, and the wisdom for everything sounds very efficient. Thanks again for the ideas. Of course, this doesn't mean stop posting. The more the better. The soulknife variant in Untapped Potential is actually BlaineTog's fix with some minor changes - the original BlaineTog fix should be available on these forums :) So you don't absolutely need Untapped Potential to use its soulknife variant :) The other item Greatbear mentioned is High Psionics: Soulknives, which offers 4 variant options for the Soulknife: power instead of finesse, dual-wielding, ranged focus, and then a defensive, armor-based option instead of blade-based. I haven't really looked at how the ranged variant works with the soulbow, since, well, the soulbow can't be referenced in non-WotC products :) BTW, what level will your character start? 1st? And what sources does your DM allow? All of the above is non-WotC, and I can think of a few other 3rd party publishers that may have some material, but I'd have to dig around and if it's not allowed anyway, no point spending the time :)
runestar 07-07-07, 11:07 PM	Wotc released a web enhancement which allows soulknives to swap out psychic strike for bonus feats. I would snap that up.
Water_To_Fire 07-08-07, 11:37 AM	We're on the tail end of t RHoD, and will probably start a new campaign after it. That is what this character is for. I don't know for sure what level it will start at, but it shouldn't really matter. The campaign will probably only go till level 12 or so, so things that aren't useful until high levels are out. I don't know about my DM's policy on non-WotC products, but I expect him to be biased as I think he works for WotC. If it's reasonable, however, he will probably allow it. Also, if I have two abilities that allow me to get an effect if I expend my focus, I only get one effect each time, right? Just clarifying.
QuarianRex 07-08-07, 11:44 AM	Also, if I have two abilities that allow me to get an effect if I expend my focus, I only get one effect each time, right? Just clarifying. Correct, one focus expenditure, one ability.
TheKeyofE 07-08-07, 06:32 PM	Biggest problem I had trying to optimize a soulknife (ignoring the fact that they're UP to begin with) was lack of feats. I wanted to take the Psionic Weapon/Deep Impact feat tree, but I didn't have enough feats for that and psionic meditation. I looked at the variant that replaces psychic strike with bonus feats, but I wanted to keep psychic strike so that left me with few options. You can check out the Soulknife Build Guide & Compendium (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=372176). It might give you some ideas.
Water_To_Fire 07-08-07, 07:38 PM	Ah, thank you for the linky. I had forgotten to inquire about it. Also, I've just ordered Races of Eberron, which I've heard has good soulknife treats.
NickResonance 07-08-07, 09:02 PM	One thing you might want to consider is the War Mind PrC from the XPH. You get access to some tasty abilities, as well as a few psychic warrior powers, at the expense of soulknife class features. That can be mitigated in part by Practiced Mind Blade which Sarlax mentioned. (I'll add that your effective soulknife level can't exceed your actual number of soulknife levels.) Also, since you're getting Races of Eberron, there's the Atavist PrC (which is kalashtar only). They also get some nice abilities AND levels in Atavist stack with soulknife levels for determing the enhancement bonus and which enchantments you can slap onto your mind blade. I've actually be contemplating working out a build for soulknife 12/war mind 4/atavist 4, but haven't gotten started on it yet.