[Dreamscarred Press] Psionics Augmented: Soulknife

[Chimmon]

Now I have the urge to make a character name Cat that wears a different outfit every scene.

[PatTime]

By the way, I'm new to GitP and I've been wanting to play a soulknife for a while. For now I'm just interested in using the base archetypes, but am very curious about the new feats and blade skills in PA:Soulknife. I have several questions about how some of these work.

Improved Mind Armaments - trying to understand the precise benefits. The more I read through the existing literature, the more problems I find with the usage of the words (as nouns or verbs): form, shape, manifest, summon, etc.

(1) Does the following correctly represent the mechanics (assume level 1 Soulknife unless otherwise noted)?

Form action
-consumes a move action
-can form blade and armor in one round, using two sequential move actions, thereby forfeiting a standard action
-with Quick Draw, consumes a free action, but can only form one armament per round in this way
-using Quick Draw, can form a blade as a free action, then use a move action to form armor, leaving a standard action available

Shape action
-consumes a full round
-can change the appearance, damage type, or both
-CANNOT change the light/one-handed/two-handed or light/medium/heavy “shapes” of the mind blade/armor by default.
-with Alter Blade blade skill, you CAN change the light/one-handed/two-handed or light/medium/heavy “shapes” of the mind blade/armor
-with Emulate Melee Weapon, you can shape the mindblade to a shape other than light/one-handed/two-handed
-with Improved Mind Armaments, the mind blade and mind armor can be reshaped simultaneously in a single move action for levels 6-9, and in a single swift action for levels >10

(2) Does a shape action automatically count as a form action too, or do you have to spend both actions in sequence to end up with a mind armament?

(3) If the shape action does both, then the utility of IMA is that you never need to distinguish a form action from a shape action again, and the Quick Draw class feature is obsolete. This seems like such a waste. My logic is that at level 6 you could form blade and armor in the same time you could shape it: one free action (takes no time) to form blade + one move action to form armor vs one move action to shape (and form) both. At level 10, you get both as a swift action and Quick Draw is essentially meaningless.

[ATalsen]

First off, lets start out with the text we need to refer to:

Improved Mind Armaments - (Armored Blade only) The armored blade is capable of shaping her mind blade as well as her mind armor in the same action. She may manifest both as a move action, and starting at 10th level she may manifest both mind blade and mind armor as a swift action. The soulknife must be at least 6th level in order to select this blade skill.

…{removed non-relevant text}
Form Mind Blade (Su)
As a move action, a soulknife can form a semi-solid weapon composed of psychic energy distilled from her own mind.
A soulknife must choose the form of her mind blade at 1st level. She can either form it into a light weapon, a one-handed weapon, or a two-handed weapon. Once chosen, her mind blade stays in this form every time the soulknife forms her mind blade. … If the soulknife's chosen form is a light weapon, she may choose to form two light weapons when forming her mind blade if she so chooses, but she suffers the standard penalties for two-weapon fighting.
Regardless of the weapon form a soulknife has chosen, her mind blade does not have a set damage type. When shaping her weapon and assigning abilities to it, the soulknife chooses whether it will deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. The soulknife may change the damage type of an existing mind blade, or may summon a new mind blade with a different damage type, as a full-round action; otherwise, the mind blade retains the last damage type chosen every time it is summoned.
…
The soulknife chooses the appearance of her mind blade, although its shape must reflect the selections the soulknife has chosen: a bludgeoning mind blade would be blunt, slashing would have an edge, etc.

Shape Mind Blade
The soulknife's mind blade retains the last chosen form every time it is formed until the soulknife reshapes it. If the soulknife chooses to reshape her blade, it requires a full-round action to do so. She may also re-assign the type of damage dealt as part of reshaping her mind blade if she so chooses. …

Quick Draw
A 5th level soulknife may manifest her mind blade as a free action, though she may still only attempt to do so once per round (unless throwing the weapon multiple times using the Multiple Throw blade skill).

…{removed non-relevant text}
Form Mind Armaments
The armored blade can form a mind blade in the same fashion as a standard soulknife, using the normal rules under the Form Mind Blade class feature. In addition, as a separate move action, she may form mind armor. Mind armor can be formed as light, medium, or heavy form. …

Shape Mind Armaments
The armored blade can shape her mind blade and mind armor in the same fashion as a standard soulknife shapes her mind blade. Her mind blade and mind armor must be reshaped separately.
…

Now to try to answer your questions!

Improved Mind Armaments - trying to understand the precise benefits. The more I read through the existing literature, the more problems I find with the usage of the words (as nouns or verbs): form, shape, manifest, summon, etc.

(1) Does the following correctly represent the mechanics (assume level 1 Soulknife unless otherwise noted)?

Form action
-consumes a move action

Improved Mind Armaments lets you summon both weapon and armor using a the same action (aka a single action of the relevant type), so with this feat, one move action gets you both weapon and armor.

Without the feat, yes, it takes a separate move action for each of your weapon and armor, as per the Form Mind Armaments feature.

-can form blade and armor in one round, using two sequential move actions, thereby forfeiting a standard action

Correct without the feat. With the feat, form both in one move action.

-with Quick Draw, consumes a free action, but can only form one armament per round in this way

As I read it, you can still only form the weapon, not the armor as a free action, and yes only once per round.

-using Quick Draw, can form a blade as a free action, then use a move action to form armor, leaving a standard action available

Agreed, with or without the feat once you have Quick Draw you can spend a Move action to get your armor, and a free action getting your weapon – the feat is redundant at this point for this purpose.

Shape action
-consumes a full round
-can change the appearance, damage type, or both

Agreed.

-CANNOT change the light/one-handed/two-handed or light/medium/heavy “shapes” of the mind blade/armor by default.

Ok, I can see where you are reading it like this, but its not my reading.
First off, I see only 2 mechanical ‘portions’ of the mind blade:
a) “Handedness” (i.e, light weapon, a one-handed weapon, or a two-handed weapon)
b) Damage Type (bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing)

I do not consider the ability to “chooses the appearance of her mind blade” to be a mechanical item or anything more than a way to inject flavor into your soulknife. Additionally I don’t read any of the Form Mind Blade / Shape Mind Blade text as specifically allowing the alteration of the appearance portion of the mind blade.

Given that, I read it such that you can use Shape Mind Blade to change both the “Handedness” and Damage Type using a full round action. Specifically it’s the combo of:

“The soulknife may change the damage type of an existing mind blade, or may summon a new mind blade with a different damage type, as a full-round action”

And

“If the soulknife chooses to reshape her blade, it requires a full-round action to do so. She may also re-assign the type of damage dealt as part of reshaping her mind blade if she so chooses.”
Where is says “may also”, that leads me to this conclusion.

If the only 2 things you can change are “Handedness” & Damage Type, and you “may also” change the damage type using Shape Mind Blade, then the word “reshape” must apply to the handedness.

I agree that it is not clear.

-with Alter Blade blade skill, you CAN change the light/one-handed/two-handed or light/medium/heavy “shapes” of the mind blade/armor

Since you can normally (according to my reading) change the shape (handedness / reshape) using a full round action, what this blade skill does is speed that process up – to a move action, or a free action with quick draw. It also gives the option of ‘Sword and dagger’ type two weapon-ing:

“She may change her blade’s form to the light weapon, one-handed weapon, or two-handed weapon forms any time she forms her mind blade. Additionally, the soulknife may choose to form her mind blade into a one-handed weapon and a light weapon instead of two light weapons.”

-with Emulate Melee Weapon, you can shape the mindblade to a shape other than light/one-handed/two-handed
-with Improved Mind Armaments, the mind blade and mind armor can be reshaped simultaneously in a single move action for levels 6-9, and in a single swift action for levels >10

Agreed.

(2) Does a shape action automatically count as a form action too, or do you have to spend both actions in sequence to end up with a mind armament?

I’m not seeing anywhere where the ability to form, or manifest (call into being) either weapon or armor can be combined into the same action as changing their shape/form (“Handedness” and Damage Type) via either Shape Mind Blade or Shape Mind Armaments.

As noted above, the Alter Blade bladeskill lets you change “handedness” each time you form a blade.

So I’d say if you want to both form and revise your items, you need to do those actions separately.

(3) If the shape action does both, then the utility of IMA is that you never need to distinguish a form action from a shape action again, and the Quick Draw class feature is obsolete. This seems like such a waste. My logic is that at level 6 you could form blade and armor in the same time you could shape it: one free action (takes no time) to form blade + one move action to form armor vs one move action to shape (and form) both. At level 10, you get both as a swift action and Quick Draw is essentially meaningless.

[/QUOTE]

As above, I’m not seeing that forming and reshaping combine outside of the "or may summon a new mind blade with a different damage type, as a full-round action" text.

Assuming they do not, then IMA at 10th level lets you burn a swift action to form both weapon and armor – which in some situations is redundant with quick draw’s ability to form the blade as a free action, and in some cases is NOT redundant (combining the two you can Free action form you mind blade, throw it, then Swift action reform it).


Ultimately IMA is really not that useful, since you have to be 6th to take it, and by that time you are Free Actioning your blade and Move Actioning your armor anyway. It *is* a way to get your armor as a swift action at 10th+, which is faster than a move action. And if that was all it was really intended to do, it’s a very campaign-specific feat (do you get jumped while unarmed a lot?), and for those campaigns you would probably be better off taking the new Stealth Armaments skill, where your armor can just look like normal clothing (or even high-society clothing!).

If IMA didn’t require 6th level, then it would find its niche as a 1st thru 5th level bladeskill that helps you equip faster before you get quick draw.

I finds maybe some limited use for Armored Blades that never reach quick draw, but still qualify for higher level bladeskills (via feat or presteige class).

[Tuvarkz]

What's the reasoning behind Psychic Armory not having access to Emulate Melee/Ranged weapons?
Also, if only tangentially related-The Soulbolt's Mind Bolt and Focused Offense, is there any RAI that would make the two work together for the attack rolls as well instead of only modifying the damage part as per RAW?

[PatTime]

ATalsen, thanks for digging in here. After reading through your post I see two major mechanics that I still find difficult to clearly interpret: (1) the “handedness” you referred to, and (2) whether a shape action implicitly includes a form action.

(1). Handedness: can a level 1 soulknife change the “shape” of the blade (light/one-handed/two-handed) as a shape action?

I prefer your interpretation and it was my initial interpretation as well. The descriptions of Form Mind Blade and Shape Mind Blade alone imply this is how it works (by saying “may also” as you pointed out), if not explicitly so. The problem I have is when you read the Alter Blade blade skill.

Alter Blade: “The soulknife gains the ability to shape her mind blade into different weapon forms. She may change her blade’s form to the light weapon, one-handed weapon, or two-handed weapon forms any time she forms her mind blade. Additionally, the soulknife may choose to form her mind blade into a one-handed weapon and a light weapon instead of two light weapons.”

The first sentence is the issue: how can you gain something that you already had? This sentence sounds very clear, and I can only see it meaning that you could not shape the mind blade into different forms prior to having this skill. Also, why call it “Alter Blade” if you could already alter your blade? However, if I interpret it this way, then the second sentence becomes a little mushy: does it take the full round action to formally shape your blade with this skill or can you change the shape with a “form (move) action”? Does shaping with this skill extend to changing the damage type, or limited only to the “handedness”?

I want to believe your interpretation, but in order to do that I’d have to remove the first sentence of Alter Blade. Ideally, I’d then change the blade skill name to “Quick Shaping” or something to that effect. This feels right and makes me think that DSP just missed a few beats when converting language and rules from 3.5e.

(2) Does a Shape action implicitly include a Form action? That is, once you finish reshaping the blade, do you end up with the mindblade in hand? The descriptions don’t explicitly say that it works like this, but they imply that it does:

“The soulknife may change the damage type of an existing mind blade, or may summon a new mind blade with a different damage type, as a full-round action.”

The author uses the word summon, which means to me that it’s right there in your hand with no additional form action required.

As another example, the Improved Mind Armaments blade skill says “capable of shaping her mind blade as well as her mind armor in the same action. She may manifest both as a move action…”. So you’re shaping your mind armaments and it takes a move action for them to manifest. If “manifest” does not mean the same thing as “summon” or “form”, then it’s a really unfortunate word choice.

Going back to the utility of IMA at 10th+, it’s giving you both blade and armor quicker than with the Quick Draw forming route. Additionally, you are also shaping, not merely forming: you can switch from one-handed to two-handed and/or change damage type and go from light armor to heavy and “manifest” all of those in quicker time than it would otherwise take to form them. So, it effectively makes Quick Draw obsolete, AND, depending how you interpret Form and Shape class features and Alter Blade, it makes Alter Blade redundant.

Ultimately, there are too many rules, inconsistent terms, and multiple skills here that apply to a very narrow aspect of game play! Why split hairs here, we know that the Soulknife is designed for uber-readiness, just go for it! Maybe make IMA simply grant simultaneous armament forming, available at level 2 and call it good. That way it stacks with Quick Draw. Maybe or maybe not grant Altered Blade (or what I would call “Quick Shaping”) for free at some point.

[ATalsen]

ATalsen, thanks for digging in here.

No problem, I enjoy digging into rules and really think about how they work.

I love the Soulknife; that said, I do wish that it didn’t take such lawyer-like scrutiny to determine some of their basic abilities… and I’m not entirely certain I have a perfect understanding of it myself, in any case!

After reading through your post I see two major mechanics that I still find difficult to clearly interpret: (1) the “handedness” you referred to, and (2) whether a shape action implicitly includes a form action.

Alter Blade: “The soulknife gains the ability to shape her mind blade into different weapon forms. She may change her blade’s form to the light weapon, one-handed weapon, or two-handed weapon forms any time she forms her mind blade. Additionally, the soulknife may choose to form her mind blade into a one-handed weapon and a light weapon instead of two light weapons.”

The first sentence is the issue: how can you gain something that you already had?

Well, two points about the first sentence:
1) Its probably fluff
2) Its probably a sentence *intended to quickly summarize the entire ability*

DSP, and indeed Paizo and WotC love to include ‘fluff’ in their text, and that fluff is not quite as vetted as the rules portion in some cases. Possibly because its fluff and not intended to *have* a rules impact. So we could just throw out the first sentence as non-rules text.

That said, if we assume it’s a summary instead, it could quite possibly be referring to the addition granted in the final sentence – the NEW ability to shape two soulblades into DIFFERENT forms and wield both.

I can’t tell you if I’m correct about either case.

Heck, maybe the person who wrote Alter Blade interpreted the base abilities to mean that the class cannot change the Handedness, and thought they were granting that ability with the bladeskill.

However, if I interpret it this way, then the second sentence becomes a little mushy: does it take the full round action to formally shape your blade with this skill or can you change the shape with a “form (move) action”?

I think it’s pretty clear that the second sentence allows you to change up the handedness when you form/manifest/create your blade.

Does shaping with this skill extend to changing the damage type, or limited only to the “handedness”?

I think the portion that allows you to shape/manifest the blade and change its handedness doesn’t also include the damage type.

(2) Does a Shape action implicitly include a Form action? That is, once you finish reshaping the blade, do you end up with the mindblade in hand? The descriptions don’t explicitly say that it works like this, but they imply that it does:

“The soulknife may change the damage type of an existing mind blade, or may summon a new mind blade with a different damage type, as a full-round action.”

With this ability, I think you do end up with a blade in hand, but can only change the damage type, not the handedness.

As another example, the Improved Mind Armaments blade skill says “capable of shaping her mind blade as well as her mind armor in the same action. She may manifest both as a move action…”. So you’re shaping your mind armaments and it takes a move action for them to manifest. If “manifest” does not mean the same thing as “summon” or “form”, then it’s a really unfortunate word choice.

I’d say that shaping includes changing handedness for weapon and armor category (light, medium, heavy) for armor, and that you can do both in the same action, but I don’t think using *just* that action also forms/manifests them.

I take the first sentence to be a separate ‘effect’ than the second and that they refer to different things, and cannot and do not combine: You can reshape using the same action from sentence 1, but you can manifest/form both as a (different) move action using sentence 2.

Going back to the utility of IMA at 10th+, it’s giving you both blade and armor quicker than with the Quick Draw forming route.

Yes, assuming you consider a single swift action to be ‘faster’ than a free+move action. I agree, but there are times when you might want to use that swift for something else, and then Free+Move becomes attractive.

Additionally, you are also shaping, not merely forming: you can switch from one-handed to two-handed and/or change damage type and go from light armor to heavy and “manifest” all of those in quicker time than it would otherwise take to form them. So, it effectively makes Quick Draw obsolete, AND, depending how you interpret Form and Shape class features and Alter Blade, it makes Alter Blade redundant.

Since I see IMA sentence 1 and sentence 2 as separate effects that cannot be combined, I would disagree that you can swift action “reshape” the handedness of your blade while also forming it, using IMA.

Ultimately, there are too many rules, inconsistent terms, and multiple skills here that apply to a very narrow aspect of game play!

I totally agree on this!

I see no game-unbalancing potential in letting a soulknife pretty freely change up their weapon handedness and damage type.

Heck, using Path of War Soulknife (War Soul Soulknife Archetype) there’s the Discipline Blade Shapes bladeskill where you can completely trade out weapon type as a move or even swift action.

[pike123]

Well seems like it's been a while since anyone has been active on this thread so I don't know if it's too late to do much constructive feedback, but I thought I'd weigh in for the hell of it anyways.

So I love the soulknife and a lot of the badassery and flavor inherent in the class, and I think the added prcs do a pretty good job filling a lot of the niche's that you could take for a soulknife. There's only three real flaws I have with anything presented:

1.) The Psychic Armory is janky as all hell (can have a veritable maelstrom of swords, but can't attack any more than someone else? Actually, has less attacks than a twf or monk), and the psychic strike seems.... confusing in conjuction with the how it's charged. (Almost seems as if you can just charge all of them in the panopoly with the same action, but that sounds off).
2.) The Marvel PRC is cool, but weird. Rock throwing rules are confusing at best even on most monsters, and is a bit of a highly niche situation. It offers quite a lot of raw power in some senses, but lacks the awing oomph of a true PRC (You don't really feel like you get to do anything super unique beyond the first level abilities). Overall it feels odd that you get superstrength and flight. Wouldn't be anything you'd think twice about in Mutants and Masterminds, but in PF or DnD it's a bit... off.
3.) There isn't really a psychic strike/knife to the soul-based PRC, which I find really disappointing. I know a few people have brought it up over the course of the thread, but I think it bears repeating a little bit because of how intrinsically linked it is with the soulknife's identity.

I'm a firm believer in finding solutions to problems rather than just bitching about them, so here are a few of my own suggestions (besides the psychic strike PRC, because well... please make one?).

The real awesomeness of the psychic armory is the interesting idea of having this halo of weapons around you, but it feels weird that you get wisdom+3 weapons of each type, but don't really benefit from this number. Personally, I think it'd be really interesting as a mechanic to be able to relate the number of blades in your panopoly into some sort of bonus or tangible power. Say increasing the damage dice of your attacks if you consume 2 blades to attack, or letting you resolve you reroll an attack x number of times per day by burning a blade from your panopoly for the day. Additionally, it feels like the swirling panoply/panoply barrage ought to have its damage linked to the number of blades in the panoply instead of your level, or rather in conjunction with your level. Say having your level dictate the size of the dice, and the number of blades dictating the number at a certain ratio (mind daggers for half, 2handers for double).

As for the Marvel... well I have a few ideas I think might actually be worth a shot. See, as a class I feel it's a bit odd because it offers a lot of invisible power, which while good, doesn't feel very good. Personally, I think there's a bit of room to add in unique and flavorful abilities at the expense of a few of the invisible buffs the class receives as part of its kit. Additionally, I really think we need a chart for the rock throwing mechanics, as well as a few more concrete guidelines. I spent about 45 minutes last night trying to figure out the specifics of how it'd work out, and even then I can't say that I ended up anywhere near what was intended.
Continuing on, I love the idea that the Marvel represents, but I think we could take a page from the Primarch and add in a few meaningful choices. Say three-ish per choice, at levels 3, 8, and 10. A few ideas I had for it would be something along the lines of allowing emulation of boulders for use as mindblades (since it's a real bitch to find actual rocks big enough to throw in the middle of combat), the ability to use an awesome blow-type attack that does damage when the target hits something based on the remaining distance it had to travel, at-will telekinesis based on strength, or even a strength based frightful presence ability. All-in-all it feels like the Marvel does things in a very general way, and has very little to do with his or her mindblade, even though it's a prerequisite of the class. As opposed to most prcs which specialize in something, the Marvel as it is currently written feels more like you're generalizing your strengths. I think consolidating the focus on doing badass things by being strong would seriously help the class be a bit more attractive in terms of power and flavor.

Well, I hope my suggestions helped at least on some level. Despite the nature of the post I actually think all of you at DSP are doing a great job, and I am seriously excited for the release of your upcoming projects, but I thought I might see if I could help give a different perspective on a few things and hopefully change things for the better. That's all for me, hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

[Tuvarkz]

Question about the Brutality Blade:
Instantaneous Wrath mentions it can be manifested as a free action alongside the mind blade, but what action is it to manifest it if the mind blade is already there?

[Doomeye56]

Ok been a while since I last posted and just spent the last hour catching up in this topic.

i'm kinda sad to see the discussion Lord_gareth brought up about a dancing weapon option got lost in the crunch.

I think a dancing weapon bladeskill would work well with the Augmented Blade as until they get the split crystal blade skill they are left without their Soulblade when they use the Dacing Weapon.


EDIT: Or just use the Personalized Trick Trait that I did not notice. Doh!

[ATalsen]

Wow, I just bought the PDF for this and I'm really disappointed.

The only portions of the test doc that made it in were the Blade Skills and Archetypes. None of the Feats/Traits, Prestige Classes Augmented section, Psionic Powers and Items or Augmented Enhancement List made it in to the final PDF.

And sadly those were the sections of the doc that I bought it for (since I was looking for things to add to existing PCs, and not building a new PC).

[Forrestfire]

Psionics Augmented: Soulknife is part of a multi-section release, because the size of the project was too big for one PDF. The rest of it is coming.

[ATalsen]

Psionics Augmented: Soulknife is part of a multi-section release, because the size of the project was too big for one PDF. The rest of it is coming.

That's good to know then; guess I'll watch for the remainder to be released.


I know the product description didn't list the sections that weren't there, and there's no good way to put into a product description what is NOT in the product, but I still wish there had been some way of communicating that this publication was going to be divided into sections.

Do you know if each section be its own product purchase?

[Nyaa]

The Psionic Training bladeskill could use a note that you can't pick it with Extra Blade Skill as well as the reverse. Otherwise, the existence of Psionic Body means that the optimal move for a soulknife taking a psionic feat is to take Extra Blade Skill for Psionic Training for the feat they want. This is silly, so it would be better if it wasn't allowed.

While this issue is fixed, getting blade skills with Extra Blade Skill is still optimal for Psionic Body because you can get your feat back with Psionic Training if you were going to use it on psionic feat. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

[ATalsen]

I’m still hoping that the Form Astral Armor power will be published in Soulknives 2, but there’s some big questions that need to be answered for it so that it’s a usable power.

1) You get 5 customization points, but nothing says that they are ‘filled’ with any customizations when the power is manifested. So by default, you may get the points, but until you spend 1 minute per customization selecting them, they don’t really do anything, and as a 1min/lvl buff, I’m assuming this is not the intended case.

“An aegis may choose to leave customization points free when he sets his customization choices, allowing him to customize his suit on the fly. If he does so, setting a customization in this fashion takes one minute of concentration”


2) How do you determine your effective Aegis level for selecting customizations with those extra points?

Your free customizations (“Different astral suit forms grant different free customizations. These free customizations never count against the aegis’s total number of customization points spent on his astral suit.”) are determined by manifester level (“Use your manifester level to determine your aegis level when gaining free customizations from this power.”) but that doesn’t let us know what level, if any, to use for the 5 granted customization points.

If it’s intended to not allow the selection of any customization with Aegis level requirements (i.e. you have an effective Aegis level of 0), then specifying that would make things much clearer.

Otherwise if its just intended to use your manifester level as aegis level just a quick edit to say "Use your manifester level to determine your effective aegis level for use with this power" would work.


3) If you select the new Initiator’s Soul customization it appears that the maneuvers would not start out readied, and would take 10 minutes to ready. Is this intentional, such that getting maneuvers this way is not really an option given the power’s duration? If the maneuvers are supposed to be readied, then this probably needs a note in the power description.



I love the power’s concept as a flexible buff, but not knowing how the bonus 5 customization points were intended to work really prevents it from being a usable power.


Maybe a quick one line to the effect that 'you may select the customizations when you manifest the power or leave them open; if you select them, they are immediately available as are any selections required by those customizations (such as maneuvers selected via Initiators Soul).'

[Knight Magenta]

So I think I am pretty late to the party, but I'll throw my 2cp in.

1. Psychic Fortress is written differently from the other expend panoply for effect blade skills. Does it require you to re-manifest your panoply?
2. It would be cool if the Panoply Drive and similar blade skills applied effects like flaming to the area. Though I suppose that would be hard to make it function for effects like keen.

[PatTime]

The intension of this is to create 2 separate (and concurrently active) configs for the shield, correct?

So a 10th level Shielded Blade Soulknife (+4 enhance, max +3) might have a Mind Shield with both:
Weapon: +2, Holy [+2]
Shield: +1, Moderate Fortification [+3]


If so, potentially add a line that clarifies that intension:

The soulknife retains her enhancement bonus and shield special defensive properties on her mind shield while still gaining weapon-like traits from the Deadly Shield blade skill. Instead of splitting the enhancement bonus, you possess both a weapon configuration and shield configuration for your Mind Shield (which you configure separately, taking 8 hours per configuration, as per the Shape Mind Blade class feature), and both configurations are active concurrently. The soulknife must be at least 6th level and possess the Deadly Shield blade skill in order to select this blade skill.

Been a while since this post and the finalized versions of the Psionics Augmented: Soulknife pdfs are out. I had the same interpretation as ATalsen on Improved Deadly Shield. Do others agree/disagree?

[Sunforger42]

I'm pretty upset that there is no way of dual wielding gauntlets, either with emulate melee weapon due to the single melee weapon limit, or with the augmented blade without taking a -2 penalty to each weapon. Especially with the augmented blade, the split crystal blade skill should include some kind of "-1 for each weapon after the first" clause. Will there be an errata to fix that?