Soul Knife - What is the point?

[Malkur]

I've always wondered, and now that my group has disbanded and I've been invited to another; in which I want to play a Psionic class.

What is the point to the Soul Knife class? It really isn't all that useful, at least not what from what I see.

What do you think its usefulness is? Am I missing some key amazing ability?

Or is just a novel idea, cool for roleplay, but bad for everything else?

 

[Icyshadowlord]

Well, from what I have heard, the Soulknife is on the weaker end of all classes. Basically the main weaknesses are the Medium BAB (which should be higher), its seeming lack of proper Psionics, and the limited enhancing possibilites of the Mindblade.

Most people say that it is only useful if you exclusive level up the Soulknife class, and it ends up being weaker than all the others by the end of the level-up process. Kinda like the Monk, who has all his cool stuff that he gained by leveling, only to see the rest of the party having magic items that to all that and more, AND THEY DO IT BETTER!!

It's cool for RP (that is, flavor-wise pretty cool in other words) but in regards to the actual stats, it is NOT a good choice.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

From a powergaming standpoint, Soulknives ARE on the weaker side of base classes. There are some things out there that alleviate this to a certain extent: Dragon #341 has some of the best Mindblade feats out there- similar to but more efficiently and intelligently drafted than the ones in CompPsi. Bruce Cordell's Hyperconscious includes an awesome PrCl that combines elements of the Soulknife & PsyWar, as well as a revision of the class that he prefers to his original.

From a RP standpoint, Soulknives ooze cool. They can't be disarmed- very useful for assassins or those who are frequently in areas where weapons are not allowed. Like few martial classes out there, their innate class abilities allow them to affect powerful opponents.

 

[Malkur]

As I figured.

I just wanted to make a Soul Knife/Incarnum Blade, for the purpose of 'I combine my mind with my soul to create awesome'.

No clue, just sounded cool.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[the Jester]

With the right feats, soulknives are cool. I had a player who was obsessed with them for a while.

It would be very easy to build a totally sucky one, though.

 

[Dandu]

Two levels of Soulknife are good because it can get you into the Soulbow prestige class. Other than that, it's subpar.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another thing- Soulknives do open up certain psionic PrCls and Feats at fairly low levels.

The Kineticist, for example is the Pyro PrCl from the XPH with other energy types: The Mind's Eye: Variant Pyrokineticist Prestige Class (v.3.5)

A Soulknife/Kineticist means you're never disarmed in melee or in ranged combat. That has its advantages.

 

[Dandu]

I think the disadvantages of being a Soulknive/Kineticist more than makes up for the advantages.

 

[Empirate]

So you're primary melee, with a medium BAB, and forced into a sucky weapon (i.e., not two-handed), and can't even choose your own magical upgrades to that weapon (or the level you buy them), and your class features don't even make you really good with that weapon compared to, I don't know, a simple, straight Rogue with two Shortswords? Who can also do other stuff you can't?

Really, there's no point at all, except for Soulbow builds.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'm not sure what it'd take to make Soulknife playable. The Hidden Talent variant at level 1, for starters. Full BAB, a faster enhancement progression and special abilities progression (and a vastly expanded list to choose from) such that it EASILY reaches a net +10 by level 20 if not higher, remove the level 17 ability and just let them draw a weapon as much as they want with Free Draw so throwing builds are viable, drastically increase the psychic strike damage to make it worth using...

I'm not sure if all that would be enough, honestly...