Adamantine Mind Blade Gauntlets=Swiss Army Soulknife?

[Kip the Bold]

Hey, just though I'd see if I could get some input on this one:

I was flipping through the Magic Item Compendium the other day looking to see if I could find any cool items that I might want to buy for my soulknife PC. Adamantine Mind Blade Gauntlets (pg. 68) seemed unimpressive when I first read it, but on a closer look I think they might border on ridiculously powerful for such an inexpensive item. The gauntlets essentially let you swap out a +1 equivalent enhancement bonus property on a soulknife's mind blade in exchange for treating it as an adamantine weapon. No big deal, right? Well, if I'm reading the description correctly, it lets you choose whether to use the adamantine property or any other +1 property from the soulknife's list of abilities each time he materializes his mind blade. Considering that it normally takes 8 hours to switch out an ability, this seems really powerful.

I could easily see the argument that the soulknife can simply choose between whatever ability he already has on his mind blade and adamantine, and he can't change to another one from the list. No problem, right? But what happens if, say, he has a +2 ability on his weapon, such as collison? Does he get to choose a +1 equivalent power when he uses the gauntlet so the enhancement bonus adds up to +2, or does he not get the full use of his +2 ability? Does he get to choose a +1 ability to use in addition to the adamantine property? I would really like to be able to switch from vicious to keen to defending to ghost touch (from Illumine Soul PrC)as the situation calls for it. This would be a great item if it let you swap out abilities like that at will, but I think it probably might be a little too great for the price

I brought this up at my game tonight to my DM, because I was trying to head off some potential trouble before I actually go out and try to get this item in game. My DM suggested throwing this question up on the boards (also put this up on the WoTC boards) to see what you guys think about it. The wording on this magic item is a bit on the vague side of things, and I'm curious to see if this has come up in anyone else's game. I don't think it's too big a deal to give the already weak-ish soulknife a little more flexibility, but I'm not sure about this item.

Thanks in advance for your input!

 

[Nifft]

The 8 hours thing always seemed silly to me.

Just remove the 1/day enhancements (like Lucky) and switching quickly isn't broken at all. I mean, you don't get Bane or anything similar where switching would be really beneficial.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Kip the Bold]

The 8 hours thing always seemed silly to me.

Just remove the 1/day enhancements (like Lucky) and switching quickly isn't broken at all. I mean, you don't get Bane or anything similar where switching would be really beneficial.

Cheers, -- N

I agree, the eight hour thing is pretty silly, especially if you start comparing it to Bo9S characters who can switch out all their abilities in 5 minutes, or a round with a feat.

I think Lucky would be fine if it was just once per day, period- not every time you add that power.

The really nasty one to be able to add or remove at will is vicious. As far as I can tell, you can't normally turn vicious off, which is why I haven't used it yet- there are many situations where that 1d6 points of damage is a big deal, and if I were able to use bladewind in just the right spot it would be practically like fireballing myself.

 

[Nifft]

I think Lucky would be fine if it was just once per day, period- not every time you add that power.

Honestly it would be fine if Lucky were just a 1/day class ability -- the Soulknife is hardly stuffed with power as it is.

Anyway. As long as you keep the energy and bane abilities off the special ability list, it'd be fine to allow switching with an action cost -- 5 minutes, or a full-round action (with a feat).

Cheers, -- N

 

[Claudius Gaius]

Given that a lot of magic items are particularly designed to compensate for weak points - such as every kind of spell storing item compensating for limited spell slots - why not?