How to run a Soulknife encounter

[cmanos]

OK, so in the opening scene of my game, the players come upon a body. Wwhile examining it, they are ambushed by the soulknife assassin who killed the body. I haven't built the soulknife yet as I am not sure if I should build it as a brute fighter or a dodgy fighter. Anyone played a soulknife have a handle on how they play out?

Als, does manifesting the thought blade take power points?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Soul Knife..

I just finished reading the EPH last night

IIRC, manifesting the SoulKnife can be done anytime the character still has points of psionic reserve.

As to how to play him.. dont think about the class, think about the character.

Option 1: He is an ambushee assassin type who favors a hidden weapon. He is facing a larger number of opponents, but must face them before they get a chance to assist the recently deceased.
{ perhaps a potion is working through the dead guys system to destroy the memories that stay with the body.. avoid that whole 'speak with dead' problem of getting away with murder ..some reason for him to go into a fight with bad odds.}
In this case, dodgy, crafty fighter who forces a running battle. Give him Spring Attack, Psi Faster movement and Run-up-walls Feat so he can control where the battle goes.

Option 2: He is a +3 EL encounter and thinks he can take the larger numbers of the party. He thinks by killing them and arranging the battle scene he might make the investigators beleive the party killed the dead guy. Power attack/Cleave Brute. First round should be a Deep Striked Power Attack for massive damage on the most dangerous looking PC. Perhaps even an instant KO.

Option 3: He is stupid and beleives he can surprise the party and slay them all, having been caught too close to the body and not having a way to leave unnoticed. He is built more as a Rogue, but spends the first 2 or 3 rounds attempting to deal out max damage as if he was a Brute... and with Sneak Attack, perhaps even looking like a Brute. But then the party starts getting the upper hand and he has to fend for his life before dying horribly

Hope this helps!

 

[cmanos]

I was leaning towards Option 1 myself. But the other options are interesting as well. He is a fanatic after all, so Stupid may work

 

[Klaus]

You don't need to have spare power points to manifest a mind blade, just the ability to have them (Wild Talent bonus feat takes care of that). It doesn't cost any points to manifest a mind blade.

As for Str vs. Dex: The mind blade has the stats of a shortsword (including the finesseability). At higher levels it can be upgraded into a longsword, bastardsword or twin shortswords (statistically speaking... the blade can look like almost anything). So if you go the Dex route and even take Weapon Finesse, you might as well take Two-Weapon Fighting and wield twin mind blades.

Add to that the Cloak Dance feat and you have a character that has a) armor, b) high Dex, c) concealment and d) high hit points (d10). Very defensible!

 

[Someone]

Any combat with a single tank will end pretty quickly, and jusging by what I´ve heard of people that have played them soulknives aren´t tanks. And such a fight isn´t too much exciting either. Place the soulknife in anenvironment where he can make good use of feats like up the walls or spring attack, and give him items -like potions of invisibility- that could give him the time to build his psionic focus and psychic strike.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you want to challenge the party, you really want this to be a running battle, with the Soulknife using hit and run tactics. Otherwise, he'll do some damage and die.

If he can run up walls (for whatever reason) he can run down blind alleys and take to the rooftops.

Perhaps he even has a pre-planned excape route replete with barrels etc. he can dump in the path of his pursuers.

Or caltrops...

 

[Nifft]

Soulknife has one advantage: mobility. He has another great advantage as an NPC: his weapon does not add to the party's treasure hoard.

What level is the party?

-- N

 

[Plane Sailing]

If he is an assassin he can spend time studying for a death attack.

If he is a soulknife he can do so while apparently unarmed, and only manifest the weapon just before he strikes.

The soulknife could appear like an innocent bystander; he knows that wizards (or clerics) are going to make it harder for him to get away, and he wasn't able to destroy the targets jaw so it could finger him via speak with dead - thus he wants to take out any cleric that could reveal him before making his escape.

So as part of the crowd watching the goings on he studies the cleric (or appropriate PC) then suddenly makes his surprise death attack before attempting to run for it.

I'm assuming here that it is a soulknife with one or more levels in the assassin prestige class... might not be what you are after.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

They can deliver very devastating attacks once per battle (or more often, if they charge up between).

Psychic Strike take a move action to reload, but then will stay "charged" until you hit an elegible target. One or more d8's adding to the damage

Then, you can get Psionic Weapon and Greater Psionic Weapon, so one strike will have a possible 4d6 extra damage. With Psionic Meditation, you can get your focus back as a move action. So two move actions will get your damage potential back up.

If you wait a bit, you can turn the thing into a quasi-bastard sword, doing 1d10 + 1,5 dex, elegible for Power Attack Deluxe (1:2 ratio). You might want to combine that with Deep Impact (which lets you make the attack resolve as a touch attack - you need to expand your focus for it, meaning you cannot get the 4d6 from Greater Psionic Weapon, but at high levels, the power attck can make up for it)

For added damage, get collision as a +2 equivalent special ability later.

One strike of that will put most enemies in considerable inconvenience, and after that, you can still keep hacking at him with a "normal" bastard sword-like weapon.

 

[azhrei_fje]

I'm playing a soulknife right now, but I'm higher level than the OP gave as an option.

I find that the move action to "recharge" (I have Psionic Meditation) is no problem, since the BAB only allows a single attack per round anyway. When I gain another level, my BAB goes to +6 and I'll have choices to make.

I use Psychokinetic as the mindblade enhancement (doing the math shows that Keen on my bastard sword mindblade results in the same average damage as Psychokinetic, so I may as well do the damage every round instead of at random).

I use Psychic Strike all the time since it provides +2d8 at my level and it doesn't require focus to be expended. And because it's not "precision damage" (like sneak attack) it will even work against creatures who are immune to critical hits (but as psychic damage, the target must be a living, non-mindless creature).

I don't see why this wouldn't work, but I haven't asked my DM yet: because I have Free Draw, I can create the mindblade as a free action; I could start to shake hands or clap someone on the back and instantly create the mindblade after my hand is grasping theirs or is on their shoulder!

I haven't looked at Deep Impact, but I will have to check it out. I don't like expending psionic focus, though, since I like the extra 10 feet of speed provided by the Speed of Thought bonus feat.

Oh, and taking a lot of ranks in Autohypnosis has been great for me! I use the "memorize" and "willpower" aspects on a pretty regular basis. And I'd think the first would be very useful for an assassin...