knife to the soul multiplied on a crit?

[thorian]

The Soulknife's "Knife to the Soul" ability does ability damage when the Soulknife strikes an opponent and has imbued his blade with Psychic Strike. Is the ability damage multiplied on a critical hit?

Knife to the Soul (Su): Beginning at 13th level, when a soulknife executes a psychic strike, he can choose to substitute Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma damage (his choice) for extra dice of damage. For each die of extra damage he gives up, he deals 1 point of damage to the ability score he chooses. A soulknife can combine extra dice of damage and ability damage in any combination.
The soulknife decides which ability score his psychic strike damages and the division of ability damage and extra dice of damage when he imbues his mind blade with the psychic strike energy.

 

[Kalanyr]

Hmmm, by default I believe it would be since its not extra dice of damage and undead who drain things get it multiplied on a crit. On the other hand it comes from trading in dice so you could argue the other way.

 

[rkanodia]

This is kind of unrelated, but does anyone else see the soulknife as being a terribly underpowered class? They're a one-trick pony, and their one trick isn't even that great. Sure, they end up with a +9 weapon that can't be taken away from them.. but they're down five points of BAB from a real melee class, and, unlike the psychic warrior, they have no powers to compensate for it. And, since their mindblade's powers are all tied to class level, going cross-class to pick up feats or class abilities appears doomed to failure. The list of powers that they can choose for their weapon is underwhelming; god help the soulknife that has to go up against alignment or material damage reduction. I like the psychic strike ability but it seems like it will see less and less use as the character gets more attacks - a neato thing to having waiting for your first attack, not something to use in combat, except against the aforementioned DR opponents.

The only real use I can see for these guys is as low-level assassins. A third-level soulknife with Str 14 and Psionic Weapon could do:
1d6 (mind blade) + 2 (str) + 1d8 (psychic strike) + 2d6 (psionic weapon) = 17 points of damage on average with his opening attack. On the other hand, a rogue from a race with psi points (or wild talent) could also use psionic weapon and open with:
1d6 (short sword) + 2 (str) + 2d6 (sneak attack) + 2d6 (psionic weapon) = 19.5 average damage.

Has anyone played a soulknife over many levels? Is there something I'm missing?

And by the way, I agree that knife to the soul damage should be multiplied. Quoth the SRD:

If an attack that causes ability damage scores a critical hit, it deals twice the indicated amount of damage

 

[thorian]

Usually non-variable components of damage are multiplied on a crit, but the ability comes from trading in damage dice. That is what made me wonder if it should be treated like psychic strike damage (which is not multiplied) or something like marrowcrushing (which is multiplied).

 

[Camarath]

Since the ability allows you substitute one point ability damage for one extra dice of damage with a psychic strike I believe you would be limited by the number of extra dice of damage you would have on a given hit. This mean that because your extra dice are not multiplied on a critical hit you would not be able to substitute more ability damage on a critical hit than on a non-critical hit.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

This is kind of unrelated, but does anyone else see the soulknife as being a terribly underpowered class?

(...)

The only real use I can see for these guys is as low-level assassins. A third-level soulknife with Str 14 and Psionic Weapon could do:
1d6 (mind blade) + 2 (str) + 1d8 (psychic strike) + 2d6 (psionic weapon) = 17 points of damage on average with his opening attack. On the other hand, a rogue from a race with psi points (or wild talent) could also use psionic weapon and open with:
1d6 (short sword) + 2 (str) + 2d6 (sneak attack) + 2d6 (psionic weapon) = 19.5 average damage.

Has anyone played a soulknife over many levels? Is there something I'm missing?

And by the way, I agree that knife to the soul damage should be multiplied. Quoth the SRD:

We just got a new player who plays a soulknive, and he had some pretty hefty hits! It's too soon to say anything, but I think the class is not that bad.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

There's a player in my current group and campaign who is playing a ... Soulknife 3?

Currently, she seems to be having a bit of trouble - but that's likely because all of our enemies, so far, have been skeletal undead, against which Soulknives are pretty much borked.

Luckily, my Weapon Finessing rapier and light mace wielder is having fewer problems.