For Pattern Blade, I would specify that it modifies the Disrupt Pattern damage based on the active type as usual. I read it that way, but the wording could be read the other way.
What about Marvels with the Focused Offense blade skill? Perhaps let them add 1 point of strength bonus per class level to her wisdom score for the purpose of mind blade attacking.
One of the characters in our Eberron game would be great for the panoply of blades. She's mixing psywarr (Meditant) and has the Focused Offense blade skill. Her image is that she doesn't actually wield the mind blade (though the gestures she uses occupy her hands). Sadly, this GM doesn't want to use playtest material.
New PrC up, the Primarch. Not hot on the name, personally. But check it out, let me know what you think of it. Name suggestions are appreciate as well. Turned out a bit different than I intended but hey, that's how it works!
-X
Some of the stuff in here might be useful for a play-by-post that I know of.Sounds cool, what sort of stuff are you thinking of using if you don't mind me asking?
-X
No problem (Sorry about the delay in answering though); definitely a toss up between Psychic Toolkit and Stealth Armaments, since they fit the character I have in mind, plus there is just the one level in the Soulknife (Armored Blade, Cutthroat) class that the character has at the moment.
Chris,
Thoughts on something to allow a multi-armed soulknife the ability to manifest more than 2 blades? Either a blade skill or a feat?
While I'm not opposed to that, I'm curious what races have multiple limbs that are considered non-super powered, viable PC races?
-X
A human with 5 levels of Aegis/ levels in metaforge? Starting at level 5 a character can have three functional arms from their astral suit and a level 5 equivalent mindblade.
The Metafoge is what originally made me wish that a soulknife could split their weapons more than once.
Seems feasible. I'd say weapons for hands three and onward would have to be light weapon equivalents though.
-X
Maybe use Mind Daggers as a prereq and the other hands have to use a mind dagger?
Also, link, so I don't have to go to the first page everytime.
Edit: On the Primarch, The 4th level Ice Psychic Awakening is worse than the Fire and Storm ones and it's a worse form of what he gains at 7th level anyway.
Singularity of War has some wonky wording. For a Fire path Primarch does it means he can throw an Energy Ball as a free action when manifesting his mind blade? It's great for Flame and Storm but useless for Ice and Metal.
And it says that 'his second awakening improves its potency as well by gaining the following technique based on upon the primarch’s psychic epiphany.' He does gain a new option but that doesn't improve his second awakening power it just grant another power.
And the Singularity of War of the Metal path doesn't specify an action. Is it an attack action, a swift action a free action? If it's an attack action can I use it to substitute my last iterative attack? Can I use it in place of an AoO? If I use it to hit at range what is the range? First increment range as if I was throwing the blade, first range for my soulbolt, some other range?
Finally is the Primarch supposed to be the PrC that was based around Blade Skills? It kinda gets sidetracked by all the elemental stuff.
I don't know, it is probably just me, but again... a customisable weapon may not be worth a class's main ability in some people's minds.
Giving out 4 weapons is plain out overpowered, even at 2 blade-skills above and beyond the normal. It makes wealth by level a joke and puts crafting feats feats to shame.
A 3+ armed soulblade should probably be an archetype that doesn't play well with most others quite frankly.
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I don't know, it is probably just me, but again... a customisable weapon may not be worth a class's main ability in some people's minds.
Giving out 4 weapons is plain out overpowered, even at 2 blade-skills above and beyond the normal. It makes wealth by level a joke and puts crafting feats feats to shame.
A 3+ armed soulblade should probably be an archetype that doesn't play well with most others quite frankly.
I personally see nothing overpowered about it. It does mean that a multi-armed soulknife will spend less on weaponry than, say, a multi-armed psychic warrior... but the soulknife is going to be using that extra cash anyway to cover for all the stuff that he just can't do, while the psychic warrior can pick up offensive precognition to enhance the attacks of all his weapons at once and then still has 19 other powers he can take.
I personally see nothing overpowered about it. It does mean that a multi-armed soulknife will spend less on weaponry than, say, a multi-armed psychic warrior... but the soulknife is going to be using that extra cash anyway to cover for all the stuff that he just can't do, while the psychic warrior can pick up offensive precognition to enhance the attacks of all his weapons at once and then still has 19 other powers he can take.I don't know, it is probably just me, but again... a customisable weapon may not be worth a class's main ability in some people's minds.
Giving out 4 weapons is plain out overpowered, even at 2 blade-skills above and beyond the normal. It makes wealth by level a joke and puts crafting feats feats to shame.
A 3+ armed soulblade should probably be an archetype that doesn't play well with most others quite frankly.
If making one race the absolute best choice with no close runner ups for a class... It is very much a significant issue.
Options are good. Options that are so much better than any other for an instance aren't. They are overpowered, broken, and/or don't really leave an option due to being so good you can't pass them up.
I'm not saying don't do it. I am saying do it right.
I'd like to see a blade skill that allows for custom weapons, instead of just emulating existing ones.
I just realized that the "transformative" special ability will likely cover this idea.
New PrC up, the Primarch. Not hot on the name, personally. But check it out, let me know what you think of it. Name suggestions are appreciate as well. Turned out a bit different than I intended but hey, that's how it works!
-X
Primarch seems fine by me, though you can make it more specific with something like Primarch Blade. Overblade might be another suggestion but that does sound a bit silly though.
Will the Ghost Step blade skill be affected by AOOs?
Will it be handled like the power Dimension Slide?
Dimension Slide:" Movement caused by the use of dimension slide does not provoke attacks of opportunity."
Can the user of Ghost Step take his normal actions after Ghost Stepping? ie..swift action Ghost Step and then Full Attack
I ask the previous question because the Cleave Space blade skill specifically states that "Unlike fold space, the manifestation of this ability does not end her turn." I understand that verbiage is there to differentiate Cleave Space from the power Fold Space, but Ghost Step does not address this. And it may be a good idea to clarify whether further actions are available after using Ghost step.
Cleave Space allows the user to act normally after use and it appears that Ghost Step does as well.
If so, these Blade Skills should count as Dimensional Agility for the purpose of taking further feats in the Dimensional Agility feat tree.
As written, these Blade Skills already give the Dimensional Agility feats ability to act normally after using a dimension door effect. Making the character take the Dimensional Agility feat will not provide them with any benefit from taking the feat and therefore will simply be a feat tax to access the rest of the DA feat tree.
Dimensional Agility
Teleportation does not faze you.
Prerequisites: Ability to use the abundant step class feature or cast dimension door.
Benefit: After using abundant step or casting dimension door, you can take any actions you still have remaining on your turn. You also gain a +4 bonus on Concentration checks when casting teleportation spells.
Updated Primarch - check it out! Fixed a few things with it.
-X
Next up...
Will the Ghost Step blade skill be affected by AOOs?
Will it be handled like the power Dimension Slide?
Dimension Slide:" Movement caused by the use of dimension slide does not provoke attacks of opportunity."
It's not dimension slide but at the same time this opens multiple cans of worms where I am damned if I do, damned if I don't because of how badly designed Dimension Door ended up being because of that "immediately ends your turn" nonsense attached to it.
Can the user of Ghost Step take his normal actions after Ghost Stepping? ie..swift action Ghost Step and then Full Attack
I ask the previous question because the Cleave Space blade skill specifically states that "Unlike fold space, the manifestation of this ability does not end her turn." I understand that verbiage is there to differentiate Cleave Space from the power Fold Space, but Ghost Step does not address this. And it may be a good idea to clarify whether further actions are available after using Ghost step.
See above and blow.
Cleave Space allows the user to act normally after use and it appears that Ghost Step does as well.
If so, these Blade Skills should count as Dimensional Agility for the purpose of taking further feats in the Dimensional Agility feat tree.
As written, these Blade Skills already give the Dimensional Agility feats ability to act normally after using a dimension door effect. Making the character take the Dimensional Agility feat will not provide them with any benefit from taking the feat and therefore will simply be a feat tax to access the rest of the DA feat tree.
As written, Dimension Door makes the Dimensional Agility feat line necessary tax for someone who plans on Dimension Door-ing and actually doing something about it afterwards. Either Dimensional Agility is a feat tax to Ghost Step to do it without AoO or you have to take it for no reason at all to get the higher level feats. OR I give you the feat and then you're getting a two-fer with a blade skill. See? It's kind of... meh.
-X
As a random toss out to stir some interests - what sort of feats or ideas for feats would you like to see that could use the Wild Talent/Psionic Talent feat as a basis for existing?
-X
There are several psionic feats that accomplish roughly the same thing (and a wider variety of effects) already.
Aligned attack, Deep attack, Ghost attack, Psionic fist and Psionic weapon. Unless you are just looking for straight up power upgrades on all attacks, which is something each class can do individually with class abilities or powers as needed.
"As written, Dimension Door makes the Dimensional Agility feat line necessary tax for someone who plans on Dimension Door-ing and actually doing something about it afterwards. Either Dimensional Agility is a feat tax to Ghost Step to do it without AoO or you have to take it for no reason at all to get the higher level feats. OR I give you the feat and then you're getting a two-fer with a blade skill. See? It's kind of... meh."-X
None of the feats in the DA feat tree address AOOs. Nor does the DDoor spell.
Keep in mind that the Blade Rush Blade Skill which avoids AOOs and gains a move as a swift action has Combat Slide as a prereq. If you give Ghost Step the ability to avoid AOOs with swift action activation it will be clearly superior to Blade Rush.
DAgility gives the ability to act after a DDoor. But DDoor is a standard action so you are left with the ability to take a move action. Which is meaningless. Because you would have just DDoored to your desired location.
If you change the movement from a standard action to a move or a swift then it alters how this blade skill will interact with the DA feat tree, making portions of the tree obsolete. Maybe the easiest solution is to alter the blade skills as follows:
using the following two abilities as your target for Ghost Blade and Cleave Space rather than DDoor or Fold Space
The arcanist can expend 1 point from her arcane reservoir to create a dimensional crack that she can step through to reach another location. This ability is used as part of a move action or withdraw action, allowing her to move up to 10 feet per arcanist level to any location she can see. This counts as 5 feet of movement. She can only use this ability once per round. She does not provoke attacks of opportunity when moving in this way, but any other movement she attempts as part of her move action provokes as normal.
&
Associated School: Conjuration.
Replacement Power: The following school power replaces the acid dart power of the conjuration school.
Shift (Su): At 1st level, you can teleport to a nearby space as a swift action as if using dimension door. This movement does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You must be able to see the space that you are moving into. You cannot take other creatures with you when you use this ability (except for familiars). You can move 5 feet for every two wizard levels you possess (minimum 5 feet). You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.
Ghost Blade=AOO free teleport as a move action 10ft/level. Cannot act normally after teleport without the DAgility feat. This Blade Skill counts as DDoor for the purposes of satisfying the prereqs of the DAgility feat
This will make Ghost Blade only useful for non-combat movement or retreating from melee with provoking AOOs, unless they also have DAgility.
Make Dimensional Agility a pre-req for Cleave Space
Cleave Space=AOO free teleport as a swift action 10ft/level. By spending a greater amount of time on this action you can increase the range of the AOO free teleport. Move action= 25ft/level and Standard action= 400+40ft/level. After all types of action swift move or standard the Soulknife may act normally. Cleave Space counts as Dimensional Assault for taking further feats in the Dimensional Agility feat tree. Prereqs Ghost Step and Dimensional Agility
IF Ghost Blade does not have DAgility as a feat tax it will be clearly better than Blade rush.
Comparing Blade Rush (prereq combat slide) vs Ghost Blade with DAgility:
Rush is swift action, but needs a clear line to target
Ghost is move action, but does not need clear line. More tactical options
Cleave Space counts as Dimensional Assault with this version because it would not add any abilities and would be a pure feat tax. The DAssault ability to charge will certainly be ignored in favor of a swift action teleport and full attack.
There are a lot of ways to work this out, but I think what I am proposing is a pretty good solution. What do you think of this solution X?
new blade skill
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I've been looking at the Primarch, and here are my thoughts:
I really love seeing a prestige class focused on the blade itself. It's something I haven't seen done in Pathfinder before, and I really like it. As much as I love the concept, I think this one needs some work. It has a few hiccups, and feels a bit weaker than going full Soulknife (Archetyped) or taking Marvel and Ashen Blade.
It feels like it requires too much skill point investment to get into. 3 skills is most of a Soulknife's skill points unless they are human or an int boosting race.
I love the inclusion of support for Telekinetic Edge with the Metal Epiphany and Awakening.
Reformative Blade skills is strong and really reflects the flavor of the prestige class. You will forge your weapon to be the best it can possibly be. In any situation. A+ here.
Psychic Awakening is where some problems start to show up. The Secondary benefit of Ice doesn't actually exist since the Ice Blade blade skill already grants the ability to have your mind blade deal entirely cold damage. I think replacing this ability with expending your psionic focus for a Psi-like ability manifesting of Energy Stun would work out as a nice replacement and make sure it does not step on the Storm and Flame awakenings toes.
The 7th level awakenings is when the rest of the problems show up. fire Blade and Ice Blade already grant the choice of dealing fully fire or cold damage as a non-action. Storm is definitely a buff though, since Thunder Blade only allowed half its damage.
Singularity of War's text implies that it requires an action to active the Psychic Awakenings. The way I read the Awakenings though, access to them is automatic when you manifest. The actual abilities granted are very cool however! They could be a little stronger though, especially Storm's, which is only does electricity damage to large creatures, as they can fly normally through the wind.
Thanks for the feedback, WabbitHuntr. I have no designs to make Ghost Step or Cleave space ineffective in combat because that would be contrary to the role of the soulknife but I see you do have merit in stating how overly effective the abilities are at present. Changes have been made.
Also thanks to you Adam B. 135, for the feedback on Primarch - fixed it.
Updated the doc file. Alterations to Cleave Space and Ghost Step, new blade skill Blade Rush Frenzy, makes fixes to Primarch not actually working and now it does actually work and a new PrC - the Battle Telepath. I hate the name of it. Help me with this.
Thanks for the feedback thus far! I'm moving on to psionic powers and items next and upkeeping the rest of course.
-X
I now really want to build a Battle Telepath villain that is surrounded by his collective at all times. Each member is dressed exactly the same and sounds the same (either via magic or making some sort of living construct that can be added to the collective). That way, the party can be highly confused when they all manifest mindblades and fight like each other. Also really like the Blade Rush Frenzy skill, similar to the Greater Blade Dash spell that I am quite fond of.
Battle Telepath:
On Bladed Collective in the first paragraph, I think this "As part of a standard action that the the battle telepath used to make an attack, he may manifest his mind blade as if his position were the same as an ally’s position within his collective." could be reworded as this: "As a standard action the battle telepath may manifest a mind blade in the square of an ally in his collecive and attack as if he were standing in that position. This mind blade disspates after the attack." I think it's more clear on the effect.
On Collective Skill, Improved Lend Blade Skill means you can lend all your Blade Skills at once? It sort of implies you can lend any one blade skill you know instead of the one you chose for Lend Blade Skill, but Lend Blade Skill doesn't say you have to choose one Blade Skill and can only lend that one. Also, can you lend different Blade Skill to different members of the collective?
I agree this and Primarch need better names, but I really can't think of them. Primarch makes me think of WH40K, which has nothing to do with the PrC. And Battle Telepath makes me think of telepathic attacks, not of mind blades.
Also the Primarch is much better now.
Well, we have been seeing "blade" a lot. Why change? United Blade. Unity Blade.
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Made some updates again. Some changes to battle telepath, new blade skill for deadly fist folks, updated language on psychic armory that made it not actually work (thank you ICN!) and planning out some more adjustments to battle telepath.
Needing new name suggestions for Battle Telepath and I'm down to rename Primarch too. I like the other two. =3
-X
If the point of the Battle Telepath is to link up with others via the collective...maybe something along the lines of the Legion Blade?
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Made some updates again. Some changes to battle telepath, new blade skill for deadly fist folks, updated language on psychic armory that made it not actually work (thank you ICN!) and planning out some more adjustments to battle telepath.
Needing new name suggestions for Battle Telepath and I'm down to rename Primarch too. I like the other two. =3
-X
I am glad you are sticking with Marvel. I'd riot in the street if you didn't! It will be fun playing a Deadly Fist going into Marvel. You are basically a super hero at that point.
Also I like how the Primarch is looking. Thank you for the speedy response.
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Perhaps not strictly to speak to this class, but I'd love to see a psychic class of some sort which has powers it can't properly control at first. Basically the powers seem to scale more quickly than reasonable but come with a spotty chance to fizzle if you use the ones outside of your comfort zone. (You can use spell levels 1 higher than normal with a 50% chance to fail, you can use spells two levels higher but only a 10% chance to succeed, things like that)
This would be a neat mechanic that I don't see anywhere else, though the ability to do more than normal for your level at a cost is quite present in the kineticist burn mechanics. I feel that if you looked at the nature of that class and changed the function of the drawback to a failure chance, possibly with a temporary backlash included, it would be reasonably different and offer a neat way to play.
"Alright, time to go big or go home! Have some of THIS!" *nothing happens* "I'm ****ed".
People hate misfires on the guns, most will not be interested in a class based around not working as a "feature" unfortunately. And if the abilities scale better than "normal" you can bet someone will figure out how to break it to take advantage of it.
Wilder has a mechanic that may fit your needs.
Updates to battle telepath Strategos based on your feedback. Re-arranged a few class features, added some new collective skills, etc.
-X
Thanks for the feedback, WabbitHuntr. I have no designs to make Ghost Step or Cleave space ineffective in combat because that would be contrary to the role of the soulknife but I see you do have merit in stating how overly effective the abilities are at present. Changes have been made.-x
I definitely was not advocating making Ghost Step or Cleave space ineffective in combat. It was just overly effective for the cost.
Does Ghost Step allow normal actions after use? I assume that it does allow further actions because Cleave Space specifies that "the manifestation of this ability ends her turn" and Ghost Step does not. Adding verbiage to Ghost Step clearing this up is probably a good idea. It seems like most abilities of this type specify whether or not further actions are allowed.
Also clarifying its interaction with AOOs would probably be good.
Based on the assumption that Ghost Step is allowing further actions:
I think it would be a good idea to break Ghost Step into 2 parts. GS1=move action. GS2=swift action. GS is basically a dimensional version of Pounce.
Pounce requires Barbarian 10 and 2 feat equivalents.
Beast Totem, Greater (Su)
Prerequisite: Barbarian 10, beast totem rage power
Benefit: While raging, the barbarian gains the pounce special ability, allowing her to make a full attack at the end of a charge. In addition, the damage from her claws increases to 1d8 (1d6 if Small) and the claws deal x 3 damage on a critical hit.
SO instead of 2 feat equivalents the Soulknife gets it for 1 feat equivalent. The range of this ability is much greater with much more utility for the SK (100+10/lvl) vs limited by the barbarian movement speed.
When comparing this with the DAgility feat line the disparity becomes more pronounced. In order to full attack with the DAgility tree it requires 3 feats and the ability to DDoor and this ability is limited to twice the characters speed. The SK gets full attacking DDoor ability at a greater range for one feat equivalent.
Admittedly, the DAgility feat tree needs improving but still...
I think requiring 2 feat equivalents for a Dimensional Full attack is not unreasonable.
So to keep the SK effective in combat, rather than requiring DAgility as I mentioned in my previous post.....Split GS into 2 blade skills. The first as a move action and GS2 as a swift action which would allow for a full attack.
As currently written I can't see any SK that I ever create not taking Ghost Step. It is that overwhelmingly good! Splitting it into 2 Blade Skills make it more reasonable.
I'm currently playing a Deadly Fist Warsoul and would love to have Ghost Step for this character once it is released. But he is the only psionic character in the party and if he gets Dimensional Pounce for just one feat, I will probably get some strange looks from the DM.
BTW: Glad you liked my Blade Rush Frenzy idea
longtime psionics lover ever since I saw it as an afterthought at the back of the 1rst ed players handbook
Updated the doc for stuff with some blade skills and some wording clean ups. Posted power list for new powers (working on these, quite tedious and busy at work today but should get these done soon) as well as a few psionic items.
Enjoy!
-X
Psionic power descriptions are up!
And that... is that. Book is complete. I'm looking for balance concerns, obvious grammar/spelling issues, and other weirdness with the rules. If there are other submissions as far as blade skills, powers, or items (small stuff) then post em, but I'm calling this one finished! You guys are great for all the help you've provided so far, cannot thank you enough, and I hope this is something we can all be proud of!
-X
Akashic Blade not going through then?
Akashic Blade not going through then?
Combination of the book being bigger than intended so there wasn't room for all I wanted to do, and not getting a satisfactory start on it. If there is more Akashic stuff down the line I might write it up for it but not this time.
-X
Alright, just checking. Was really looking forward to it is all.
Did some basic edits to the document to clear up wording weirdness. Added the psychokinetic armor blade skill and tweaked Distill Panoply some. Changed some of the Primarch's abilities to be a bit more... potent? Added updated whitelists for enhancement stuff for soulknives and their archetypes. Added a blurb about war souls to the end of the prestige class section.
-X
Things look good from here :)
All caught up on fixes from the thread(s). New wording on brutal surge feat, some rules tweaks with some of the traits, new augmented blade blade skill, and some wording changes on swirling panoply. Added cyclonic to the weapon list at the bottom.
-X
Editing updates:
Fixing wording for a lot of things to improve grammar flow.
Archetypes-
Augmented Blade - Added Improved Psicrystal Augment blade skill and clarified the crystal warrior/augmented blade sidebar some more.
Brutality Blade - added side bar about crystalline hilts, and cleaned up wording on the rage blade. Added Blade Geyser skill.
Psychic Armory - updated panoply drive's wording to match swirling panoply. Distill panoply wording updated.
Feats-
Brutal Surge is more open to other manifesting classes
Mind Sniper simply treats mind blades as a favored weapons instead of being so specific.
Traits-
Cleaned up wording on several of the traits that grant 0th level talents.
Prestige Classes-
Mostly just some wording clean ups in the core psionic prestige class sections. From what I saw, the wording in the other prestige classes looked tight and I didn't catch any errors.
Powers and Items-
Altered price of skin of the blade to make it more costly vs how good it is.
Whitelists-
Added cyclonic to the whitelist
---
Looking pretty much done to me. What do you think?
-X
Question on Telekinetic Athleticism: It gives all the effects of both feats, any reason why it doesn't just grant those two feats?
There are Blades Skills for getting Soulbolt, Mind Armament and even the Soulblade if you don't have it, but there is none to get the full Mind Shield from the shield achetype or Empowered Strike from Deadly Fist. Is that an oversight or on purpose?
And I guess that is it for me. Everything looks good and those are my last doubts.
Question on Telekinetic Athleticism: It gives all the effects of both feats, any reason why it doesn't just grant those two feats?
I think it is to keep people from spending one feat: Extra Bladeskill to gain 2 Feats, and then retraining the two feats gained into 2 Extra Bladeskill. It also keeps potential future versions of Dark Chaos Shuffle shenanigans from occurring.
There are Blades Skills for getting Soulbolt, Mind Armament and even the Soulblade if you don't have it, but there is none to get the full Mind Shield from the shield achetype or Empowered Strike from Deadly Fist. Is that an oversight or on purpose?
I dont think its an oversight, nor do I think it was directly on purpose. I think that the majority of players who want to fight with fists are already going to take the Deadly Fist archetype. As for enchanting a Mind Shield, already we are looking at a heavy investment of bladeskills (which is far more than most soulknives would spend).
Question on Telekinetic Athleticism: It gives all the effects of both feats, any reason why it doesn't just grant those two feats?I think it is to keep people from spending one feat: Extra Bladeskill to gain 2 Feats, and then retraining the two feats gained into 2 Extra Bladeskill. It also keeps potential future versions of Dark Chaos Shuffle shenanigans from occurring.
I would prefer getting the feats myself. It helps feats like psionic body feel less taxxy.
Grovestrider pretty much answered how I would, VM mercenario. Exactly those reasons for the feats, and the archetype works with most of the original archetypes except the ones it doesn't make sense to. I'm find with allowing armor, because that can be fluffed, but the shield I was okay to leave be.
I understand Adam, but it is what it is. I don't want to see people retaining it - I'm having the same issue with a few things in PoW:E under similar issues.
-X
I really don't see how soulknifes are the weakest PC class. I rate them pretty highly compared to most martials, especially with the new blade skills presented in this book. Augmented blade is especially potent since they can use their psicrystal trick on any weapon they want and at any time. soulknifes already have good saves, amazing mobility, and the option to always have the weapon for any job.
What is it you find weak about them?
2) Money (often significant sums of) not spent on a weapon opens up purchasing of other utility items you normally couldn't afford. Because you have to buy a weapon. There are crystal hilts which allow you to get other Enhancement abilities if you absolutely need something that isn't on the SK list through whatever avenue.
3) Any martial pre POW is weeping in the corner. Redesigning everything to match is just promoting Rocket Tag or introducing a Power Tidal Wave/whatever term you want to use for upping the power level of the class by leaps and bounds for the sake of "matching something better" that is out there.
If you want to play an initiator, play an initiator. There is absolutely no reason to go readjusting every other class to meet that "point". It is a horrible design philosophy. The only place that it is even a remotely "OK" idea is in MMO's and even within a completely limited and restricted field that they have control over, they often fail at doing it and have to constantly rejig everything as time goes on.
If we are comparing non-PoW martials to PoW martials it implies PoW is available. There is initiating archetype for Soulknife in PoW.
Per this book, it's compatible with Gifted Blade.
Warsoul, Gifted Blade Soulknife 5 qualifies for Awakened Blade, which is not limited in maneuvers level and have actual class features (that might or might not be more powerful than entire other classes).
Warsoul and Gifted Blade are compatible with Psychic Armory, which is Wis-SAD ranged martial that can have AoE attacks and isn't afraid of melee either.
Then you have Fighter's Blade feat from UPsi and a trait from this book that increase effective mindblade level by 4 and 2 respectively, allowing up to 6 levels of dips...
I believe that even without PoW and Psychic Armory, that Soulknifes built with this book should match up to most martials. Augmented Blade in particular is Soulknife+, as it essentially trades 1 blade skill for extra numbers, the ability to change up their weapon for anything they find, and the ability to use special ammunition/special materials in weapons. That last part is a big deal for a Gifted Blade if they want to spend 1000 gold on the Deep Crystal special material for their weapon. All of the dimensional blade skills are great, there is a skill for a very large number of power points, and many other useful blade skills.
It looks like the latest Pathfinder companion: Weapon Master came up with a system to create custom weapons.
Might want to look into having the soulknife be able to custom generate weapons on the fly. :D