Mind-blade feats for Soulknife

[Shirt Guy John]

While these are probably overpowered as written, I'd like to throw out a bunch of feats that I thought would add to my enjoyment of the Soulknife prestige class (please, don't flame the class itself, I'm already a devout adherant to the "Soulknife is one of the coolest visual yeah!" school of thought).

These are just some feats that I thought would a.) makes sense, and b.) add to the flavor of each individual Soulknife.

Psionic Initiative [Psionic]
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You can utilize the power of your mind to increase your ability to react to threats.

Requirements(Reqs): Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes

Benefits(Bens): You may increase your initiative check bonus by expending power points. You gain a +1 Insight bonus on the intiative check for each power point that you expend in this way (to a maximum of 1/2 your character level) and then roll for initiative. You may not modify your intiative modifier after you have rolled initiative.

[Notes: While this feat is not a Soulknife-specific feat, it is something that I can definately picture for the psionic classes as a whole. I think the feat is balanced. I just threw on the cap ('cause without it it was probably way too far out) when I was transcribing it to the boards from my notebook, so it should all work out.]

Kinetic Strike [Psionic]
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You can channel added kinetic force into melee attacks.

Reqs: Str 13+, Con 13+, Power Attack, Psionic Weapon

Bens: When you make an attack with a melee weapon (Before you make the attack roll), you may pay 5 power points to add a kinetic effect to the blow. If the attack is successful you deal standard damage plus the target is subject to a free Bull Rush attempt. For this attempt, you use the size catagory of your weapon as your own size, and you cannot choose to move with the target.

[Notes: Another non-soulknife feat, but one that was originally going to be used as the basis for another class. The Con requirement is there because kinetic abilities are tied to Con as their key modifier, and I thought that that association should be preserved. The cost is just a guess, though it's the same as Deep Impact, which I kind of thought of as a comparable feat.]

Forceful Psyche [Psionic]
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You can instill your mind-blade with a more forceful impact.

Reqs: Mind-blade, Mind-blade Enhancement Bonus +2

Bens: Your Mind-blade gains the Impact psionic ability (see Psionics Handbook). You must choose to apply this ability when you generate each Mind-blade. The requisite reserve power points needed to keep the Mind-blade active is increased by +2 while using this feat.

[Notes: I guess my biggest problem is that this feat is better than Weapon Specialization and will apply in more cases. I was thinking of upping the reserve power point increase, but it just seemed like I was giving too big of a penalty... then there's the fact that it would stack with Specialization... quite a big problem really, and is also aplicable to the rest of these feats, to a lesser extent.]

Burning Soul [Psionic]
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You can instill your Mind-blade with the power of flame.

Icy Demeanor [Psionic]
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You can instill your Mind-blade with the power of cold.

Lightning Mind [Psionic]
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You can instill your Mind-blade with the power of electricity.

Reqs(For Each): Mind-blade, Mind-blade Enhancement Bonus +2

Bens(For Each): Your Mind-blade gains the Flaming, Frost, or Shock ability (based on which feat you have chosen) (see DM's Guide). You must choose to apply this ability when you generate each Mind-blade. The requisite reserve power points needed to keep the Mind-blade active is increased by +2 while using this feat.

Explosive Personality [Psionic]
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You can improve the enhancement of your Mind-blade so that it can inflict great damage on a critical hit.

Reqs: Mind-blade, Mind-blade Enhancement Bonus +4, Any one of "Burning Soul", "Icy Demeanor", or "Lightning Mind" (see above).

Bens: You may choose to add the "bursting" version of any of the element-based abilities that you can normally add to your Mind-blade instead of the standard form (ie. Flaming becomes Flaming Burst, Icy becomes Icy Burst, etc.). You must choose to apply this ability when you generate each Mind-blade. The requisite reserve power points needed to keep the Mind-blade active is increased by +4 while using this feat. You cannot have the bursting and non-bursting versions of an ability on the same Mind-blade.

[Notes: Okay, these are the primary feats that I wanted to check out. Still seems like the cost is a bit low for the gain, but again, I don't really want to weaken the feats any more. Oh well, I've got a summary rule down below that might take care of the problem.]

Ghostly Thoughts [Psionic]
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You can manifest your Mind-blades with the ability to affect incorporeal creatures as well as corporeal ones.

Reqs: Mind-blade, Mind-blade Enhancement Bonus +2

Bens: Your Mind-blade gains the Ghost Touch ability (see DM's Guide). You must choose to apply this ability when you generate each Mind-blade. The requisite reserve power points needed to keep the Mind-blade active is increased by +2 while using this feat.

[Notes: Yeah, well, I actually think this one is fine as is, though I've never been know for being right.]

Stacking Mind-Blade Feats (Rule)
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Obviously, these feats could cause some significant power problems with the Mind-Blade and his inherent ability to utilize them repeatedly on expendible throwing weapons, or just by stacking them to his heart's content. However, because it is extremely difficult to maintain a Mind-blade with too many enhancements (And to preserve game balance), the Soulknife can only apply a number of these abilities that would bring the total effective Market Price Modifier of the Mind-blade equal to or below his Soulknife class levels (ie. Zal'ganth a 6th level Soulknife can apply up to 3 modifiers worth of abilities to his Mind-blade, bringing it to a maximum total of +6 market modifier). If the Soulknife would like to add more abilities than the limit would allow, he may choose to reduce the Enhancement Bonus of the Mind-blade to make more room for special abilities. The reserve power point increases stack for each ability placed on a Mind-blade. If the Soulknife's power point reserve drops below the total, the ability requiring the highest increase ends first, followed by the next highest, and so on. In the case of multiple abilities that increase the power point requirement by the same amount, the DM determines which abilities end. Even if the Soulknife's reserve power points somehow increase back beyond the requirement, the abilities do not return. He must manifest an entirely new Mind-blade and re-choose the enhancements.

 

[Shirt Guy John]

I feel so ignored...

Any takers? At all? Anywhere? Come on!

And if you were wondering, this is not a *bump* at all.

 

[nameless]

I really like Psionic Initiative. Compared to Deep Impact, I think Kinetic Strike is kind of weak, especially since the guy can only get knocked 1 square back. That means he's still only 5 feet away and will always be able to 5-foot step back to you, and now he can disengage for free.

I think the six elemental feats might be a little too powerful, same with the Forceful Psyche. Psychic Warriors already get Weapon Spec at level 6, since this would stack it's probably too useful. The other feats simply add far more than any other feat would. I just had an idea involving Deep Impact though... let the Soulknife spend a feat to improve his Deep Impacts. Reduce the cost to 3 or 4 pp per hit, and then replace the normal weapon damage with an elemental type. Kind of like manifesting the blade as fire, instead of with fire. Or maybe just replacing the blade's piercing (or slashing) damage with the appropriate element.

And I thought the blades were already ghost touch... but on review they're not. That feat looks alright to me. Ghost Touch is powerful, but only because it's such a keystone for fighting incorporeal stuff. I compare it to see invisibility... it's so useful that it needs to be common to make sense.

 

[Piratecat]

Glad you bumped this; I missed it the first time. Note though, please, that your sig is pushing the "large" limits, and you probably shouldn't show it more than once a thread. Thanks!

I really like psychic initiative. I'm probably drop kinetic strike down to a cost of 3 pp - it's about equivalent to a 2nd lvl power, don't you think?

I think the elemental blade powers need a greater cost, especially if they manifest instantly instead of as a standard action (like a real blade enchantment would.) An extra d6 of elemental damage equals an extra 3.5 pts of avg. damage. That's better than weapon specialization, so should have appropriate requirements.

 

[Essence]

Psionic Initiative has a couple of rules issues. Firstly, if you're flatfooted, you can't spend power points; if you're not flatfooted, you've already established your initiative. If you allow spending pp to up initiative after it's already been set, than you allow spending upping your initiative by up to 1/2 your character level every round.


Just a thought.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Remove the Reserve Power Point requirement-- instead, have the feat give the option for the Soulknife to manifest his mind-blade with that ability, lowering the mind-blade's base enhancement bonus by the Market Price increase of the power.

So, a 10th level Soulknife with Lightning Mind and Forceful Impact can manifest a +5 mind-blade, a +4 shock mind-blade, a +4 impact mind-blade, or even a +3 shocking impact mind-blade.

This also imposes a consistent limit on the mind-blade's power based on Soulknife level.

 

[Shirt Guy John]

Alrighty!

Kinetic Strike did seem a bit weak to me when i was transcribing it, but I figured I should leave it and see if anyone had any proposed fixes. I'd like it to knock back farther, but I don't know how to allow this (allow them to move the opponent half of the maximum distance allowed by the roll, without actually moving alongside them?) I'd like to keep the cost the same, and up power, if I can.

So the general concensus is that the Mind-blade feats (other than ghost touch, which I really do agree with in it's current incarnation) are unbalanced as written? Good, that's what i was thinking. My original idea was to allow each feat to grant an option that could be substituted for it's market price worth of enhancement bonus (nice to see that other people thought the same thing, Korimyr). Would this help? Hinder?

If that isn't an option, I like the idea of a pay-per-attack kinda thing, though those feats get really costly, and almost aren't worth it unless they kick some major ass for their pricing (I'd go along the lines of Psionic Weapon cost (1 pp for a +1 effective enhancement), myself)

Perhaps throw another feat requirement on the mind-blade feats? Would that let me keep the feats as they are?

As for Psionic Initiative, I never realized the implications that that rule had. I think it could just be said that the feat is an exception to the general rule, and it'd work okay. I am completely and religiously opposed to allowing lots of initiative changes each combat duirng combat, other than Refocus, or whatever it is.

Anywho, thanks all, and keep the ideas coming!