Ignoring Sage Advise Re: The Soulknife (aproved)

Patlin · Sep 15, 2006

The following was originally posted in an adventure thread:

Patlin said:
Last night I got my copy of Dragon magazine, which contained some sage advice about soulknives. Specifically, it says that rather than remaining a particular shape until changed, soulknives always manifest their mindblades as shortswords until you use the action to shape them. For a soulknife specialized in throwing his mindblade, this is very disheartening. He manifests a new mindblade after every single attack. The class allready pretty much sucks, and I was playing it as an experiment, but that's got to be the last straw. This will almost certainly be Banion's last adventure.

Someone said:
That´s ridiculous. That condems the class to use a full round action each time they draw their weapons. It´s utterly devastating for ranged soulknives, but also for close combat ones: what are they going to do, have the blade always turned on, or else fight with a short sword instead of the alternate shapes? The class only possible strong niche is as scout/first round striker, and this interpretation nullifies it.

In any game I DM I won´t be certainly using that

SlagMortar said:
That is silly and makes no sense.

As I stated above, I'm pretty disgusted by this ruling. Since I don't seem to be the only one to see it that way, I thought I'd take it to a larger audience and propose the following house rule:

A soulknife who uses the shape mindblade ability to alter his mindblade will maifest his mindblade in the chosen shape until and unless he uses the shape mindblade ability again to change the shape chosen.

Knight Otu · Sep 15, 2006

More of a ruling than a house rule, I think. Might be interesting to put sundering the blade as a condition that forces reshaping, but eh. The way you have it is easy to use.

Yes.

El Jefe · Sep 15, 2006

Sage Advice is not SRD (yet). YES

Rystil Arden · Sep 15, 2006

I'm not a judge, but I agree completely. Sage Advice (and by extension the FAQ) has put out some stupid and flat-out wrong things in their day. This one is more an example of interpretation choice, but while possibly valid, the interpretation is a ridiculous nerf for a class that isn't already overpowered. It is tantamount to Sage Advice telling you (if you assume for a minute this was a possible interpretation through some loophole) that a character, even a Fighter, gets at most one feat per level, and so at level 6, 12, and 18, the Fighter bonus feat class ability does nothing.

Manzanita · Sep 15, 2006

I'lll go with it too. Yes. Good call, Patlin.

Bront · Sep 16, 2006

Actualy, we don't nead this. I believe that a Mind Blade, once thrown, reapears in the hand of the mindblade, and can be thrown as any of the weapon types.

Or at least that's how we played it in our home campaign.

After reading the thrown power again, the blade can be thrown in any shape (even a short sword), but it disipates.

I'd offer this alternitive rule instead, that is slightly different than the one Patlin suggested.

A Mindblade that has been thrown and is then immediately manifested again durring the Soulblade's next action is, in fact, the Mindblade he threw, as if it had returned to him. A Soulblade may choose to instead manifest a new Mindblade, as per the normal rules.

This means that it also retains any enchantments cast on it, and works much like a returning power. BUT it means that he may still have to shape the blade once per combat.

Oddly enough, the Multiple throw power seems useless since you can't manifest more than one blade a round unless it is reworded to note that it's an exception to the manifesting 1 blade per round rule.

Otherwise, I have no problem realy with Patlin's proposal, other than the impact of not having to shape it once per combat (which stoped the insanity in my home campaign. The Soulblade there was perhaps the most devistating fighter type I've ever had to deal with.)

Patlin · Sep 16, 2006

What made the soulknife in your campaign that potent? Perhaps I'm using mine wrong.

Any character with greater magic weapon or metaphysical weapon and a blade with a few enhancements upon it would seem to trump the soulknife as far as I can see.

Bront · Sep 16, 2006

Kalashtar, with Psionic Weapon, and he used the Psionic Strike regularly. At 10th level, he could do a good 100+ points of damage in a round, hit regularly, and was a tank (AC 26, 28 if he didn't move)

Patlin · Sep 16, 2006

Psionic weapon and the soulknife class feature that charges the blade are difficult to use together consistently. They both require (at minimum) move actions to make ready, and will normally only both be available on the first round of combat. You could use either (but not both) each round if you only made single attacks.

Still, 4d6 + 5d8 maxes out at 64 and only averages to 36.5... and that would be way past level 10! How did he get damage numbers like that?

Velmont · Sep 16, 2006

Patlin said:
Still, 4d6 + 5d8 maxes out at 64 and only averages to 36.5... and that would be way past level 10! How did he get damage numbers like that?

100 seems high, but you forgot:

Bastard Mind Blade: 1d10
Mind Blade Enhancement: +5
Psychokinetic Mind Blade: +1d4
Mind Blade of Collision: +5
Strength damage: +9 (At level 20, let's say he has 22 Str, weapon held 2 handed)

On the first round, a full attack would allow to do, if all hit:
(1d10+9+5+1d4+5)x3 +4d6 +5d8 = 163 Maximum damage (Average: 117)
On the next rounds:
(1d10+9+5+1d4+5)x3 = 99 Maximum damage (Average: 81)

Ignoring Sage Advise Re: The Soulknife (aproved)

Patlin

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Knight Otu

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El Jefe

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Rystil Arden

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Manzanita

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Bront

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Patlin

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Bront

The man with the probe

Patlin

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Velmont

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