The Soulknife: How does it play?

[Kanegrundar]

I played a soulknife in a short-run campaign when the XPH came out. I liked it. It's a bit of a one trick pony, but it was fun to play and, as others have said, can put out some serious damage with the right build. We ended up deciding that they should get the fighter BAB progression. I was thinking of adding some other features to the class, but BlaineTog seems to have read my mind. I may have to give his version a try.

Kane

 

[Klaus]

The soulknife is a very fine class. The Psychokinetic abilities make havok in a weapon (specially if you have Improved Critical) since, being flat numbers and not dice, they get multiplied by critical hits.

a d10 HD and Psionic Body feat mean tons of hp for the soulknife. Add to that the new feats from Races of Eberron, like Shield of Thought (you can manifest a light shield, and you can give it an enhandement bonus by subtracting from your mindblade).

The fact that the Soulknife gets a magic weapon for free totally balances the medium BAB (come one, by 20th level you're just 5 points behind a fighter!). On top of that, he gets free Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus, so his attack with a +5 mindblade at 20th level are at +22/+17/+12 before factoring in Strength bonus.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Here ye be ... these haven't been playtested or anything and I'm concerned about the power level on one or two of them, but overall I think they'll be ok.

I just downloaded you Soulknife feats file, Eric. Looks good. If I find anything off in play, I'll let you know. Thanks!

Kane

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

With the right feats, our soulknife deals out TREMENDOUS damage on the first combat round, and then settles down significantly. Greater Psionic Weapon and Psychic Strike can be devastating, dn the first person who gets in her way in a fight usually pays for it with either death, or a serious reduction in hit points.

I agree. One of the strengths of the class is that you get to cherry pick from the Psionic feats.

I am playing in a party with a Rogue1/Soulknife4 and on Round 1 he throwing d6+1+d8+2d6 damage. (His Str is 12.) That averages to 16 points if he hits. On followup rounds he can do a "full attack" (MEA + attack) of d6+1+d8 damage for an average of 9 per hit.

Over 2-3 rounds, that is all that far behind what you would expect from a run of the mill Fighter.

 

[haiiro]

One tweak I've heard suggested is fighter BAB, but d8 hit die. It's kind of in line with the more sneaky/one-shot damage thing that the SK has going, and if you're worried that fighter BAB is overpowering it's got a built-in balancer.

That said, after a great deal of discussion with one of my players (whose as-yet-unplayed PC is a SK), I opted not to houserule anything until we've seen how it plays.