[Seerow]

Soulknife

Hit Die: d10
Alignment: Any
Abilities: A soulknife's primary abilities are Strength and Intelligence. A soulknife uses Strength in all checks with his mindblade, for attacking and damage, and uses intelligence to determine his armor class, how much damage he can deal with his Psychic Strike, and how many power points he has available.

The soulknife’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (psionics) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).

Skill Points: 4+int mod per level, x4 at first level

Table: The Soulknife

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Powers Known	PP
1st	+1	+2	0	+2	Mindblade, Weapon Focus (Mind Blade), 1st level Powers	1	0
2nd	+2	+3	0	+3	Shape Mind Blade, Throw Mind Blade, Psychic Strike +1d8	2	1
3rd	+3	+3	+1	+3	Mindblade Enhancement +1, Insightful Defense	3	2
4th	+4	+4	+1	+4	+2 Mind Blade, Weapon Specialization (Mind Blade)	3	3
5th	+5	+4	+1	+4	Free Draw, 2nd Level Powers, Psionic Meditation	4	4
6th	+6/+1	+5	+2	+5	Psychic Strike +2d8, Psychic Empowerment	5	5
7th	+7/+2	+5	+2	+5	Flexible Enhancement +1, Bladewind	6	6
8th	+8/+3	+6	+2	+6	+3 Mind Blade, Greater Weapon Focus (Mind Blade)	6	8
9th	+9/+4	+6	+3	+6	Bonus Feat, Heavy Blades	7	10
10th	+10/+5	+7	+3	+7	Psychic Strike +3d8, 3rd Level Powers	8	12
11th	+11/+6/+1	+7	+3	+7	Mindblade Enhancement +2, Improved Psionic Meditation	9	14
12th	+12/+7/+2	+8	+4	+8	+4 Mind Blade, Greater Weapon Specialization (Mind Blade)	9	16
13th	+13/+8/+3	+8	+4	+8	Bonus Feat, Knife to the Soul	10	18
14th	+14/+9/+4	+9	+4	+9	Psychic Strike +4d8, Improved Bladewind	11	20
15th	+15/+10/+5	+9	+5	+9	Flexible Enhancement +2, 4th level Powers	12	23
16th	+16/+11/+6/+1	+10	+5	+10	+5 Mindblade, Empowered Strike	12	26
17th	+17/+12/+7/+2	+10	+5	+10	Bonus Feat	13	29
18th	+18/+13/+8/+3	+11	+6	+11	Psychic Strike +5d8, Weapon Supremacy (Mind Blade)	14	32
19th	+19/+14/+9/+4	+11	+6	+11	Mindblade Enhancement +3	15	35
20th	+20/+15/+10/+5	+12	+6	+12	+6 Mindblade, Bladestorm	15	38

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Soulknives are proficient with all simple weapons and their mindblade, and with light armor.

Mindblade (Su)
As a move action, a soulknife can create a semisolid blade composed of psychic energy distilled from his own mind. The blade is identical in all ways (except visually) to a short sword of a size appropriate for its wielder. For instance, a Medium soulknife materializes a Medium mind blade that he can wield as a light weapon, and the blade deals 1d6 points of damage (crit 19-20/×2). Soulknives who are smaller or larger than Medium create mind blades identical to short swords appropriate for their size, with a corresponding change to the blade’s damage. The wielder of a mind blade gains the usual benefits to his attack roll and damage roll from a high Strength bonus.

The blade can be broken (it has hardness 10 and 10 hit points); however, a soulknife can simply create another on his next move action. The moment he relinquishes his grip on his blade, it dissipates (unless he intends to throw it; see below). A mind blade is considered a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

A soulknife can use feats such as Power Attack or Combat Expertise in conjunction with the mind blade just as if it were a normal weapon. He can also choose mind blade for feats requiring a specific weapon choice, such as Weapon Specialization. Powers or spells that upgrade weapons can be used on a mind blade.

A soulknife’s mind blade improves as the character gains higher levels. A first level Mindblade is effectively a +1 magical weapon. At 4th level and every four levels thereafter, the mind blade gains a cumulative +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls (+2 at 4th level, +3 at 8th level, +4 at 12th level, +5 at 16th level and +6 at 20th level).

Even in places where psionic effects do not normally function (such as within a null psionics field), a soulknife can attempt to sustain his mind blade by making a DC 20 Concentration Check. On a successful save, the soulknife maintains his mind blade for a number of rounds equal to his class level before he needs to check again. On an unsuccessful attempt, the mind blade vanishes. As a move action on his turn, the soulknife can attempt a new Concentration Check to rematerialize his mind blade while he remains within the psionics negating effect.


Weapon Focus (Mindblade) (ex)
A soulknife gains Weapon Focus (mind blade) as a bonus feat.


Power Points
A soulknife’s ability to manifest powers is limited by the power points he has available. His base allotment of power points is given on Table: The SoulKnife. In addition, he receives bonus power points if he has a high Intelligence score, though he only gains half the normal power point bonus from it. (Example: a 20th level soulknife with a +10 int mod receives 50 bonus power points rather than 100). His race may also provide bonus power points, as may certain feats and items. A 1st-level Soulknife gains no power points for his class level, but he gains bonus power points (if he is entitled to any), and can manifest the single power he knows with those power points.

When determining how many power points a SoulKnife gains from a high ability score, consider his manifester level 1/2 of his soulknife level, rounded up. For all other purposes, his manifester level is his full soulknife level, and the effective level for determining bonus points may not be increased in any way.

Unlike most manifesters, the SoulKnife is able to refresh his power points by taking 5 minutes of uninterrupted concentration and meditation. He may do this a number of times per day equal to his intelligence modifier.

Powers Known
A soulknife begins play knowing one soulknife power of your choice. Upon leveling up, the SoulKnife may learn a new power, as indicated by table: The Soulknife. The maximum level of the power he may learn is also indicated by this table.

Choose the powers known from the soulknife power list. (Exception: The feats Expanded Knowledge and Epic Expanded Knowledge do allow a soulknife to learn powers from the lists of other classes.) A soulknife can manifest any power that has a power point cost equal to or lower than his manifestor level.

The total number of powers a soulknife can manifest in a day is limited only by his daily power points.

A soulknife simply knows his powers; they are ingrained in his mind. He does not need to prepare them (in the way that some spellcasters prepare their spells).

The Difficulty Class for saving throws against soulknife powers is 10 + the power’s level + the soulknife’s Intelligence modifier.


Shape Mindblade(Su)
Starting from 2nd level, the soulknife may reshape his Mindblade. Changing the Mindblade's form takes a full round action. The Soulknife may choose the following forms for his Mindblade:

-Bastard Sword (1d10 19-20x2. Treated as having proficiency, usable as one handed weapon)
-Great Sword (2d6 19-20x2)
-Scythe (2d4 x4)
-A longsword+shortsword (1d8/1d6 19-20x2)

While using his mindblade as two weapons, his enhancement bonus is treated as 1 lower than usual. Additionally, the soulknife may choose to internalize his mindblade, increasing his unarmed damage by 1d6, and increasing its the critical hit multiplier by 1. The Soulknife may choose to change his mindblade form as a standard action by spending one power point. Starting at 5th level he may change it as a swift action spending 5 power points.

Psychic Strike(Su)
Starting at 2nd level, the Soulknife is able to empower his mindblade, increasing damage dealt from all attacks with his mindblade by 1d8, plus an additional 1d8 for every 4 Soulknife levels he possesses, while he is Psionically focused and attacking a living, nonmindless target.

Creatures immune to mind-affecting effects are immune to psychic strike damage. (Unlike the rogue’s sneak attack, the psychic strike is not precision damage and can affect creatures otherwise immune to extra damage from critical hits or more than 30 feet away, provided they are living, nonmindless creatures not immune to mind-affecting effects.)

The soulknife may expend his focus to double the bonus damage from his Psychic Strike for one attack.

Throw Mindblade (Ex)
A soulknife of 2nd level or higher can throw his mind blade as a ranged weapon with a range increment of 30 feet.

Whether or not the attack hits, a thrown mind blade then dissipates. A soulknife of 3rd level or higher can make a psychic strike (see below) with a thrown mind blade and can use the blade in conjunction with other special abilities (such as Knife to the Soul; see below).

Insightful Defense
A soulknife at 3rd level uses a combination of his psychic ability and his native intelligence to defend himself. While wearing light or no armor, the Soulknife may use his intelligence modifier in place of his dexterity modifier to determine his armor class, to a maximum of his current soulknife class level.

Mindblade Enhancement (Ex)
At 3rd level, a soulknife gains the ability to enhance his mind blade. He can add any one of the weapon special abilities on the table below that has an enhancement bonus value of +1.

At every 8 levels beyond 3rd (11th, 19th), the value of the enhancement a soulknife can add to his weapon increases by 1. A soulknife can choose any combination of weapon special abilities that does not exceed the total allowed by the soulknife’s level.

The weapon ability or abilities remain the same every time the soulknife materializes his mind blade (unless he decides to reassign its abilities; see below). The ability or abilities apply to any form the mind blade takes, including the use of the shape mind blade or bladewind class abilities.

A soulknife can reassign the ability or abilities he has added to his mind blade. To do so, he must first spend 8 hours in concentration. After that period, the mind blade materializes with the new ability or abilities selected by the soulknife. When selecting new abilities, the Soulknife can also choose to voluntarily reduce the enhancement bonus of his weapon, and use that enhancement bonus instead on extra weapon special abilities. The soulknife must maintain at least a +1 enhancement bonus on his mindblade.

Example: An 8th level soulknife may choose to make his Mindblade a +1 Mindblade with +4 worth of special effects, instead of a +3 Mindblade with a +1 effect.

Spoiler

Weapon Special Ability	Enhancement Value
Bane	+1
Defending	+1
Flaming	+1
Frost	+1
Ghost Touch	+1
Keen	+1
Lucky	+1
Mighty cleaving	+1
Psychokinetic	+1
Shock	+1
Sundering	+1
Vicious	+1
Anarchic*	+2
Axiomatic*	+2
Collision	+2
Disruption	+2
Flaming Burst	+2
Holy*	+2
Icy Burst	+2
Mindcrusher	+2
Psychokinetic burst	+2
Shocking Burst	+2
Suppression	+2
Unholy*	+2
Wounding	+2
Bodyfeeder	+3
Mindfeeder	+3
Soulbreaker	+3
Speed	+3
Brilliant Energy	+4
Vorpal	+5

This table includes only enhancements from the SRD. The GM is encouraged to allow appropriate weapon enhancements from other supplements if they are available in his campaign.

*=Can only create a mindblade with this Enhancement if Alignment matches the enhancement type. For example to create a Holy Mindblade, the character must be Good aligned.

Weapon Specialization (Mindblade)
At 4th level the soulknife gains Weapon Specialization (mind blade) as a bonus feat.

Free Draw (Ex)
At 5th level, a soulknife becomes able to materialize his mind blade as a free action instead of a move action. This also allows the Soulknife to throw an unlimited number of Mindblades per round.

Psionic Meditation
At 5th level, the soulknife gains Psionic Meditation as a bonus feat.

Psychic Empowerment(Su)
At 6th level, the Soulknife may enhance the damage of his Psychic Strike further as a swift action. For every 3 power points the Soulknife spends, he may increase the damage of his Psychic Strike by 1d8 until the beginning of his next turn. The maximum number of dice you may gain in this way on a single attack is capped by your intelligence modifier.

Example: A soulknife with 20 intelligence could at most spend 15 power points to gain +5d8 to his psychic strike until the beginning of his next turn.

If the Soulknife expends his psionic focus to double his Psychic Strike damage on a single attack, the damage gained from this is doubled as well.

Flexible Enhancement(su)
Starting at 7th level, the Soulknife gains a reserve enhancement for his Mindblade which may be changed as a swift action by spending 7 power points. The Soulknife gains a +1 enhancement bonus property chosen from the list of normally available Mindblade Enhancements. At 15th level, the Soulknife may have up to +2 worth of enhancement bonuses that may be quickly changed out in this way.

The Soulknife may alternatively give up +1 of the enhancement bonus to change the form of his mindblade to any martial or exotic weapon of his choice, and be treated as if he has proficiency in it. Changing the Mindblade into a double weapon, or any two weapons simultaneously, has the same restriction as splitting the mindblade into 2 weapons (ie reduce enhancement bonus by 1) .

Bladewind (Su)
At 7th level, a soulknife gains the ability to momentarily fragment his mind blade into numerous identical blades, each of which strikes at a nearby opponent.

As a full attack, when wielding his mind blade, a soulknife can give up his regular attacks and instead fragment his mind blade to make one melee attack at his full base attack bonus against each opponent within reach. Each fragment functions identically to the soulknife’s regular mind blade.

When using bladewind, a soulknife forfeits any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats or abilities (such as the Cleave feat or the haste spell).

The mind blade immediately reverts to its previous form after the bladewind attack.

Greater Weapon Focus(Mindblade)
At 8th level the soulknife gains Greater Weapon Focus (mindblade) as a bonus feat.

Bonus Feat
At 9th level, and every 4 levels thereafter (13th, 17th), the Soulknife gains a bonus Fighter or Psionic feat.

Heavy Blade(Su)
Starting at 9th level, a soulknife treats his mind blade as if it were a two handed weapon for purposes of determining strength bonus damage and power attack bonus damage, even when using a one handed version of his mind blade. Additionally, the Soulknife is able to use power attack even while throwing his mindblade.

Improved Psionic Meditation
At 11th level, the soulknife's focus improves further, he is now able to regain his psionic focus as a swift action.

Greater Weapon Specialization(Mindblade)
At 12th level the soulknife gains Greater Weapon Specialization (mindblade) as a bonus feat.

Knife to the Soul (Su)
Beginning at 13th level, when a soulknife executes a psychic strike, he can choose to substitute Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma damage (his choice) for extra dice of damage. For each die of extra damage he gives up, he deals 1 point of damage to the ability score he chooses. A soulknife can combine extra dice of damage and ability damage in any combination, but cannot convert extra dice from Empowered Strike into ability damage.

The soulknife decides which ability score his psychic strike damages and the division of ability damage and extra dice of damage at the start of his attack action.

Improved Bladewind(Su)
At 14th level, the soulknife's bladewind ability progresses. The soulknife's reach is considered 5 feet further than normal for his bladewind. If the soulknife expends his psionic focus to increase Psychic Strike damage, that bonus damage may be applied to all targets of the Bladewind.

Empowered Strike(Ex)
At 16th level, a Soulknife may spend 5 power points to allow his Psychic Strike to function as a physical effect until the beginning of his next turn. This allows it to function within an antimagic or antipsionic zone, and allows it to deal damage to mindless creatures, and creatures normally immune to psychic damage. The soulknife may spend an additional 5 power points to treat his mindblade as a specific metal for purposes of bypassing DR.

Weapon Supremacy (Mindblade)
At 18th level the soulknife gains Weapon Supremacy (mindblade) as a Bonus Feat

Bladestorm(Su)
A 20th level soulknife's bladewind reaches unprecedented levels. A soulknife who uses his Bladewind ability may spend a standard action and one power point per turn he has sustained the Bladestorm on the following turn to sustain it, rather than spending a full round action to use it again. Additionally, every turn the Bladestorm is maintained, the area affected by it is increased by 5 feet, the maximum radius of the bladestorm is his base reach plus 5 times the Soulknife's intelligence modifier.

Example: A soulknife with a +10 intelligence modifier starts a Bladestorm, with a reach of 10ft. The following turn, he maintains it for 1 power point, and the reach becomes 15ft. The next turn, it costs 2 power points to maintain, and the reach becomes 20ft. The third turn costs 3 points, and has 25ft of reach, the fourth costs 4 points, and 30ft of reach, and so on.

Soulknife Power List

Spoiler

1st level-Biofeedback, Burst, Catfall, Chameleon, Compression, Conceal Thoughts, Distract, Elfsight, Expansion, Force Screen, Metaphysical Weapon, Precognition (Defensive), Precognition (Offensive), Prescience (Offensive), Vigor
2nd level-Body Adjustment, Body Purification, Dimension Swap, Dissolving Weapon, Energy Adaption, Feat Leech, Hustle, Psionic Lion's Charge, Wall Walker
3rd level-Danger Sense, Dimension Slide, Ectoplasmic Form, Escape Detection, Evade Burst, Keen Edge (Psionic), Mental Barrier, Vampiric Blade
4th level-Dimension Door (Psionic), Energy Adaptation, Freedom of Movement (psionic), Immovability, Inertial Barrier, Steadfast Perception, Truevenom Weapon, Weapon of Energy

Design Notes

Spoiler

The soul knife is a class that has always been looked at as pretty far below par for a variety of reasons. The biggest ones being the vast majority of its class features can be replaced by gold, and it's low BAB, and lack of flexibility.

Here, I attempted to fix this, aiming to bring the soulknife up to a tier 2-3 class. It's likely sitting comfortably at tier 3, but it seems like it's stronger than the Psionic Warrior, which may push it up a notch.

The major changes are pretty obvious. The soulknife is a limited manifester now. It draws from a limited version of the Psionic Warrior list, and he gets fewer powers from that limited list, and has about 1/3 as many power points. But the upside is he can recharge all of his power points with a little rest, as opposed to needing a full 8 hours like other manifesters. He can't nova like the others, but he can manifest between 1 and 5 max level powers per encounter, depending on level and intelligence score.

I went with this rather than just a copy of the psiwar power progression, or even using a lower progression, to both make the soulknife feel more unique, and to let it match the endurance of the non-casters, while making it weaker in terms of what it can actually do. Yes, I admit bias against daily limitations on ability usage.

The other big change is Psychic Strike got brought up quite a bit in power level. It can now be applied to every hit, and at high levels you can now get around the immunity to it. Additionally at all levels you can bump up the damage quite a bit, either via power points or expending the psionic focus.

There's lots of other things going on here, but for the most part class features got bumped up a few levels, or expanded. And yes, the Soulknife does get Weapon Supremacy. Sure it's a Fighter's capstone, but no fighter is as focused on his one weapon as a Soulknife is on his mindblade, it only makes sense that the Soulknife is every bit as competent.

So yeah, fire away.