noob at psionics please help

[Tedium]

rying to make a Soulknife. Im a noob at psionics and guessing
ok guys I am a bit new here and I need some help. I am fixing to join into a High psionic's game and I'm trying to make a character I have wanted to make for a very long time.
Keeping in mind I have never dealt with psionics before the only thing I want to keep is the race and being Human. With this character I am taking the Soul knife class and was going to augment it with some of ErrantX's new psionic work from :http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...nted-Soulknife this thread.

Currently I am doing the Soul knife with the Augmented Blade archetype and I get to use the High psionic's option of gifted blade as bonus.

So what I have so far is :
Stats: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 14, int 12, Wis 18, Cha 10. Race is Human and non-negotiable. At lvl 5 currently and have not allotted the 4th lvl Stat bonus yet.
Feats: (Class) Wild Talent, (Class) Psicrystal affinity, 1 lvl Psicrystal Containment, (Bonus)Weapon Focus (Mind Blade, 3rd lvl Swift Imbuement,5th lvl Psionic Body
As for Blade Skills I have chosen Powerful Strikes, from http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unl...e/blade-skills.
and Psychokinetic Blast from http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...nted-Soulknife.


I am trying to get into the Primarch Prestige class but am considering others. Psychic strike, and manifesting is necessary (unless given a good reason otherwise.) I would like to mix in Martial maneuvers from P.O.W but not absolutely necessary. Any help is appreciated. and thank you in advance.

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't have any help for you, since this seems to be for Pathfinder which I do not play, except to tell you that all of your links are broken.

[PersonMan]

If you're using Point Buy you should reduce one of your 18s to a 17, that'll free up points for an increase of 1-2 in a lower stat. Use your level 4 point to increase it back to the 18 you have now.

Any ideas on the 'feel' of the character? If you're trying to do something specific, it can be easier to give advice. Or are you going mechanics first, then making a character to fit them?

[Darrin]

rying to make a Soulknife.

Well, there's your problem right there!

(I have no idea if PF fixed Soulknife. Did they... please gawd tell me they did?)

(Looking at it now... I guess they tried.)

[Nyaa]

Things d20pfsrd developers should have done themselves:

Say you want to link a blade skill, but don't want people to scroll all the way down to it, or use on-page search.

Right click on blade skill name (on blue background), select "Inspect Element" or something similar, depending on your browser.

In page inspector that opens, you should see a string with

<a name="TOC-Powerful-Strikes"/>

highlighted. Copy name attribute, that is "TOC-Powerful-Strikes" (without quotes).

Now locate your browser's address bar, it is usually on top of window, below tabs. There should be "http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/blade-skills" there now. Append hash (#, shift+3 on most keyboard layouts) to it. Paste name attribute after it. Address bar content should now look like "http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/blade-skills#TOC-Powerful-Strikes".

Use that link on a forum. When anyone visit that link, their browser will automagically scroll the page to the intended blade skill for them.

Well, there's your problem right there!

(I have no idea if PF fixed Soulknife. Did they... please gawd tell me they did?)

(Looking at it now... I guess they tried.)

Yes they did. Though "they" are Dreamscarred Press, not Paizo. "They" are even trying to upgrade it to T3 or at least make it more varied right now.

[Tedium]

I will fix the links when I can my apologies.I did this on my new tablet and not used to it as of yet. This was not point buy this was rolled. Out of character he is strong willed and doesn't like bullies or slavers which he comes from being one. He is normally calm until you mess with something he cares about. And then he will drop "the bomb" so to speak. That's why I like the soulknife and psychic strik BC that doesn't have to be used immediately.

[Sagetim]

So....what the hell is the primarch prestige class? I'm not seeing it on the pathfinder wiki, and it doesn't show up on a search. Until I can see that class, I'm not going to be able to offer a whole lot of useful advice.

I can ask some questions though:

Why do you have 18 wisdom? Is it useful in some way? I know it's good for soulbows, lets them pew pew with one stat for both to hit and damage (if you have zen archery) but that's 3.5...Soulbow kind of got phased out in pathfinder in favor of having a blade skill that lets you go pew pew as part of the normal soulknife stuff.

Where is your first level human bonus feat? I see some that are listed as class feats, and the bonus feat for first level soulknife, and your first level feat are spent...but where's the human bonus feat at 1?

On getting reacquainted with Gifted Blade, I see why you have a decent wisdom stat. But I don't see why it's 18. Do you really badly need more power points than AC? An 18 dex and 14 wisdom would net you a better ac, better init, and so on, while not particularly impacting your powers...because a quick look over shows that most of the powers you could pick either don't have a saving throw (like dissolving weapon, for example) or are buffs/self use powers (such as body adjustment).

As a soulknife, your role is melee (or, if you're using the right blade skills/archetype, ranged). It's not to be a primary caster/manifester. So, I may be missing something here but...why 18 wisdom?

As an example: I made a soulknife in a 3.5 game and had him start with 18 str, 14 dex, etc etc 17 wisdom etc. The reason was because I knew I had to have him in melee for the early levels of his build, and it would take time to get high enough level (and encounter the prestige class) before he could take soulbow levels. That's where the 18 str served very well. When he finally hit soulbow, the 17 wisdom was 19 wisdom (level 4 +1, level 8 +1), and I think he had a periapt of wisdom ready to go as well for another +2. One of his earliest feats was zen archery, which up until that point meant he could use zen archery to throw his mindblade pretty well, and had a very respectable will save. So, if you have a reason to have your wisdom that high (such as a later build reason/benefit) then that's fine...it's just not apparent to me here.

A Concern: A GM might interpret adding the gifted blade archetype as including it's trade offs as well. Double check with your GM that free is free, and that you aren't trading out your psychic strike for the gifted blade abilities.

On manuevers: Because of the rule blurb for high psionics games, Awakened Blade would advance your mindblade and powers at every level that it advances powers. So if you wanted to mix in maneuvers, one way to do so would be to pick up martial training 1 and 2 (or whatever they're called). That should get you the 2nd levels maneuvers needed, a stance, etc. You would need to pick up offensive precognition and defensive precognition as powers known though. If you just want some maneuvers though, you can take the feats as you level up to get access to some.

Oh, I found Primarch. It's in the beta document. I can see why you might want to stick with 18 wisdom (for the dc's on the abilities that the prestige class grants). So I'll change my question from 'why 18 wisdom' to 'would you rather have 18 dex or 18 wisdom'? AC is nice to have, and you'll be fighting without the primarch abilities for a while.

[ErrantX]

Let me help this discussion out.

Soulknife base class as done by Dreamscarred Press

Blade Skills for the Soulknife

Psionics Augmented: Soulknife playtest done by Dreamscarred Press.

If it's not on D20PFSRD then it's in this playtest documentation.

-X

[Tedium]

Thank you Errant. I hadn't really picked one as of yet. There is a new blade skill called Focused offense and Focus defense that can be used to add wisdome to ac and to hit and damage.

[Doc_Maynot]

If it's not on D20PFSRD then it's in this playtest documentation.
-X

Just a minor note, there are also several items in Ultimate Psionics not in the pfsrd. Including a Soulknife archetype focused on natural weapons and a few blade skills.

[Sagetim]

Thank you Errant. I hadn't really picked one as of yet. There is a new blade skill called Focused offense and Focus defense that can be used to add wisdome to ac and to hit and damage.

Well, if you can use wisdom to add to your to and and damage, then do you need 18 strength for anything? Also, did you spend your +2 to any stat for being human already?

[Tedium]

Well with current build as above its for attacking until I can get those or depending how the game goes carrying capacity. And yes the gifted blade is free with none of the setbacks. I did the plus two for human into strength for the time being

[Sagetim]

Well, you get your next blade skill at 6, right? I would go for 20 starting wisdom and pick up the blade skill that adds to hit and damage for wisdom instead of strength. You'll still be a rather strong guy with 16 strength, and there will be a noticeable benefit from having the blade skill as opposed to another one. You'll need to pick up fire/ice/lightning/telekinetic blade at level 8 (the minimum for those blade skills) if you want to get into primarch asap.

As for the blade skills you've already picked: Psychokinetic Blast doesn't seem that great...Psychokinetic Grenade on the other hand (which lists no prerequisites and synergizes with your later pick of fire/ice/lightning/thunder blade) seems like a solid choice because of the damage it deals. Lets look at the difference at level 20, assuming you have soulknife 10/primarch 10. That's 4d8 psychic strike damage from levels, +1d8 from powerful strikes for 5d8 damage. With Psychokinetic Blast, you would deal 5d8 damage on a hit with it with a will save dc of 10+1/2soulknife level+wis mod. I'm going to assume that primarch levels count for that dc, so that would be a will save dc of 25 or better for half damage. By comparison, the grenade is going to deal 5d8+25 damage in a 10 foot burst as splash damage. As far as I can tell, the dc for half damage is only going to be a ref 15 for a saving throw against splash damage. It may be missing if this dc is supposed to scale with levels. Even so, you can slap another 1d10 elemental damage on top of that using fireblade (or what have you). So you wind up having

5d8 with a will save for half dc 25+
vs
5d8+1d10+25 with a ref save for half dc 15(?)

At lower level the grenade will serve you better, because it adds the enhancement bonus of your mind blade to each damage die it deals, and if you want blast later on, primarch lets you swap out your blade skills. I can't remember if you traded out throw mind blade or not with your archetype, but if you still have it, it might be worth having the grenade for the short run (and if it's dc gets errata'd so that it scales, all the better).

If I were running this character though, I'd start with 14 str, 16 dex etc etc 20 wis etc and the blade skill or whatever it is that gives wisdom to ac and the one that gives wisdom to hit and damage. Then I'd probably invest my starting money into bracers of armor rather than actual armor, since I assume the wisdom to ac thing requires wearing no armor (if it lets you wear light armor, then mithral chain shirt is number 1).



Also, thanks for the links X.

[ErrantX]

Also, thanks for the links X.

Just trying to help out someone interested in DSP's Psionics.

-X