Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
I've been playing a Soulknife in a home game for months now -- just hit 7th level. I'm in a party with two monks, so there is plenty of room for comparison.
I'm enjoying my soulknife a lot, although I've taken a slightly different build from DungeonMasterCal. He's a halfling, for one thing, and has a very high dex. Given those two factors, and some dedicated effort early on, he had the best AC in the party, and did everything he could to max that out -- lots of fighting defensively, etc.
His mindblade doesn't do quite so much damage as bigger Soulknives do, but he can pack quite a punch, given psionic weapon and psychic strike.
Now, at 7th level, he can put together a pretty big opening strike in most battles. He'll take that first strike and put everything into it. Including his mindlbade enhancement (psychokinetic weapon) that attack does 1d4+3 (base damage for the mindblade, it's +1 Enhancement, and his +2 str bonus), +1d4 (psychokinetic weapon), +2d6 (psionic weapon) +1d8 (psychic strike). In subsequent rounds he can power up his psychic strike with a move action then strike for 1d4+3+1d4+1d8, which is still not bad.
My little soulknife has some other strengths, too -- he is the most stealthy member of the party. He's picked up cloak and boots of elvenkind, which help, but is hide and move silently bonuses are +21 and +19, or thereabouts. This makes him the best party scout, and unlike a rogue scout he's far more likely to survive the few rounds he'll often spend waiting for the rest of the party to catch up to him if he gets caught out on his own while scouting.
There have been sessions where my soulknife has felt less effective than other characters, but overall I'm pretty happy with him.
I will agree that the SKN doesn't multiclass very well, but IMO very few classes do. Every time I gain a level I am tempted to start adding some levels of rogue -- mix in some sneak attack damage with my other stuff -- but I always come back to my advancement and decide to stay true to SKN.
One of my disappointments is that there are so few PrCs that work with the soulknife. A player in my own home game who is playing a soulknife is about to add the Pyrokineticist PrC, which is an interesting class, but it won't really mix well with her soulknife abiliites until I think 4th level, when she can add her flame to her soulknife. The only other Prc in the XPH that sort of works is Warmind.
All in all, though, I'm enjoying it. It's a fairly narrow class -- it's all about the mindblade and what you can do with it, at least at first glance, but I've managed to keep him effective and fun so far.
-rg
I'm enjoying my soulknife a lot, although I've taken a slightly different build from DungeonMasterCal. He's a halfling, for one thing, and has a very high dex. Given those two factors, and some dedicated effort early on, he had the best AC in the party, and did everything he could to max that out -- lots of fighting defensively, etc.
His mindblade doesn't do quite so much damage as bigger Soulknives do, but he can pack quite a punch, given psionic weapon and psychic strike.
Now, at 7th level, he can put together a pretty big opening strike in most battles. He'll take that first strike and put everything into it. Including his mindlbade enhancement (psychokinetic weapon) that attack does 1d4+3 (base damage for the mindblade, it's +1 Enhancement, and his +2 str bonus), +1d4 (psychokinetic weapon), +2d6 (psionic weapon) +1d8 (psychic strike). In subsequent rounds he can power up his psychic strike with a move action then strike for 1d4+3+1d4+1d8, which is still not bad.
My little soulknife has some other strengths, too -- he is the most stealthy member of the party. He's picked up cloak and boots of elvenkind, which help, but is hide and move silently bonuses are +21 and +19, or thereabouts. This makes him the best party scout, and unlike a rogue scout he's far more likely to survive the few rounds he'll often spend waiting for the rest of the party to catch up to him if he gets caught out on his own while scouting.
There have been sessions where my soulknife has felt less effective than other characters, but overall I'm pretty happy with him.
I will agree that the SKN doesn't multiclass very well, but IMO very few classes do. Every time I gain a level I am tempted to start adding some levels of rogue -- mix in some sneak attack damage with my other stuff -- but I always come back to my advancement and decide to stay true to SKN.
One of my disappointments is that there are so few PrCs that work with the soulknife. A player in my own home game who is playing a soulknife is about to add the Pyrokineticist PrC, which is an interesting class, but it won't really mix well with her soulknife abiliites until I think 4th level, when she can add her flame to her soulknife. The only other Prc in the XPH that sort of works is Warmind.
All in all, though, I'm enjoying it. It's a fairly narrow class -- it's all about the mindblade and what you can do with it, at least at first glance, but I've managed to keep him effective and fun so far.
-rg
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