Soulknives and DR?? How?

[Zad]

We're looking at starting an Eberron campaign soon and I was kicking around some character ideas. And I got started looking at the Soulknife class.

And in analyzing it, it seems groovy. It has some ups and downs, and that's ok. And it has a definite place in Eberron. But then it hit me...

What happens when they fight a creature with DR?

By "DR" I mean material based. The knives are considered magic. But what about silver? Cold iron? Adamantine? Near as I can tell, they're just plain hosed. A regular weapon wielder can just carry an extra weapon. But to use that, the soulknife has to basically set aside most of their class benefits and probably feats as well.

I did a look-through for feats or magic items that could help but didn't see anything. Sure there's a feat for bypassing a material DR, but that's an epic feat. Even if you made it a regular psionic feat for the mind blade only, that's eating up a lot of feats.

So anyone out there know something I missed? How do these poor critters manage?

Thanks!

 

[Nifft]

The Soulknife is hosed in a number of ways. It's not hosed in raw power -- the skill list is good, the bonus 1/day abilities are nice, esepcially in combination with Action Points, the knife itself isn't underpowered -- but it's a very inflexible class.

The standard answer to overcoming DR is: psychic strike. All those d8s of brain-burning goodness will penetrate the DR of any critter that's not immune to mind-affecting effects. For your unfriendly neighborhood Dracolich? I'd say tumble yourself behind the Paladin... or ask him nicely to cast bless weapon on your blade.

-- N

PS: I've got a variant Soulknife which you guys might be interested in. It won't solve this problem, but it does solve some other problems, especially in terms of flexibility.

 

[Zad]

If *you* have a variant, I'm interested Nifft Mostly I was wondering if I was missing something.

Dravot and I are tossing around some ideas on mitigating it but I'm open to ideas.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You have a couple options.

1st, it's treated as magic to begin with, as you mention.

2nd, you get Psychic Strike. At up to +5d8 of extra damage against non-mindless opponents, this can help you overcome DR.

3rd, you can enhance your Mind Blade. At early levels, Psychokinetic provides 1d4 bonus damage that is not subject to DR, and at later levels Psychokinetic Burst becomes available.

4th, any spell that can be cast upon a weapon can be cast on a Mindblade.

 

[Nail]

Like Touch of Adamantine, etc.

 

[Nifft]

If *you* have a variant, I'm interested Nifft Mostly I was wondering if I was missing something.

The basic idea behind the Core SK seems to be: you get a free weapon that can't be taken from you, but it's got built-in limitations.

DR is one of those limitations. Same thing happens to Monks, of course.

IMHO the 3.5e SK is very similar to the 3.0e Monk in terms of power (reasonable) vs. flexibility (very low).


My variant involves moving the base Mind Blade ability into a Feat, most of the rest of the Mind Blade abilities (shape, throw, quick manifest, etc.) into Feats, and adding a Soulknife PrC that's like a specialized Kensai (for Mind Blade enhancements).

The upshot: you could be a Psychic Warrior, Psychic Ninja or Psion (or even Wilder) who is also a Soulknife, and then you could focus on your Mind Blade as much or as little as you'd like.

It's currently in a batch out for publication, so I'll see if I can get you a TOP SECRET copy for playtest purpose.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Jdvn1]

Like Touch of Adamantine, etc.

I don't know where that's from, but I have seen one for Cold Iron.

I recommend, though, the Sense Weakness feat from the Draconomicon. Two pretty low (and useful) prereq's, and you get by 5 points of all DRs. And hardness.

Awesome feat.

 

[FireLance]

Another possibility is to separate the ability to create the mind blade from the ability to enhance it, and allow the soulknife to enhance any weapon. See the Blade of Pure Thought (link in sig) for further details.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I'd add the metalline enhancement to the SK list of can-be-added-to-mindblade abilities.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Can you tell me where the variant Soulknive will appear in?