Post/Author/DateTime	Post
flamepheonix182 12-18-07, 03:06 AM	I finally picked up this book after hearing so much about it. I was just looking at the variant soulknife and the mindblade enhancement progression seems way too fast to me. I mean by lvl 12 you have a +5 mindblade and by level 20 its +9 mind blade. Doesn't this seem a little overpowered to anyone? or am I missing some drawback or something ( i know he dropped the hit points to d8)
TheKeyofE 12-18-07, 03:48 AM	The variant has the same EQUIVALENT weapon as a standard soulknife. The difference is the standard soulknife has a hard separation between enhancement bonus and special abilities. The variant doesn't have that distinction, and lets you freely switch between the two. Once you hit +5, you have to spend the rest of the bonus on special abilities rather than plus to hit. So you wouldn't have a +9 weapon at 20th, you'd have a +9 EQUIVALENT weapon (+5 bonus, +4 special abilites). But you COULD have a +5 weapon at 12th. However, is it really overpowered? A 12th lvl fighter should have purchased at least a +3 equivalent weapon, maybe a +4. A soulknife tends to be slightly ahead of the expected weapon progression at low to mid levels, but drops to even or slightly behind by 20th. The real advantage of the variant is being able to switch your mind blade around more easily than the standard soulknife. At 12th level, rather than having a set +3 bonus and +2 special abilities, you could have +1 bonus and +4 special abilities or +5 bonus and no special abilites, etc. It makes you more flexible. The flexibility gives you more options (something the XPH soulknife lacked). I don't think the mindblade is overpowered, even though it is slightly better than an average fighter's weapon. But the mindblade is the class' primary class feature; is it too much to ask for it to be at least somewhat decent?
flamepheonix182 12-18-07, 03:55 AM	Thanks. After reading your post and rereading the variant class I realized my error. I didnt realize that untapped potential combined the soulknifes enhancement bonus + special abilites bonus. I was thinking that at level 12 he would have a +5 mind blade and an additional +2 to spend on special abilites for the blade
Bacris 12-18-07, 09:10 AM	I'll add this over to the clarification thread at the DSP forums, too :)
JimProfit 12-18-07, 02:55 PM	I finally picked up this book after hearing so much about it. I was just looking at the variant soulknife and the mindblade enhancement progression seems way too fast to me. I mean by lvl 12 you have a +5 mindblade and by level 20 its +9 mind blade. Doesn't this seem a little overpowered to anyone? or am I missing some drawback or something ( i know he dropped the hit points to d8) When you consider the fact the soulknife royaly sucks, no, i don't think it's unbalanced. A +9 mindblade vs the abilitity to bend space and time to one's will. Somehow I think the +9 mindblade isn't looking all that broken. Is it more raw damage per round? You bet, not a single powerpoint has to be invested. But the psion is doing things to change history by that point. And the wilder could wildsurge a kamemeha wave to blowup the whole planet. By level 20 you aren't playing D&D anymore but DBZ. If you were to compare them to anybody. Wilder=Basic dbz stuff, blast things to dust. Psion=Ginyu Force. He's freezing time, jumping into other people's bodies, crap like that. Soulknife=Trunk's sword against Frieza. If you win innitive good for you. If you don't, you're screwed, cause unlike Trunks you can't blast things to dust.