Gods, I have been waiting for this book for quite a while, and keeping my mouth shut as much of the development has gone on before my eyes (mostly because I am not a good judge of balance). But Ael's arguments have annoyed me to such a degree that I feel I have to speak out.
First off, I will assume that Ael and the others who talk so much about the Gold discrepancy of the Soul Knife are looking at the class from within a vacuum of ONLY itself, not as it would apply to an actual campaign. And on paper, they may have a SLIGHT point. But as a GM for many years, I have NEVER had huge amounts of gold disable my game for ONE simple reason, I DO NOT ALLOW IT. Just because you have all this EXTRA gold, doesn't mean there is anything you can spend it on.
The argument about all the "wonderful toys" that the SK gets to spend money on becomes completely and totally MOOT without a Magic-Mart. If you can't walk down aisle five and grab that ring of uberness, those boots of superior everything, or even a simple Ball Cap that relays the scores of your favorite Goblin Slagball Team, then what you got is a big pile of shiny (and ultimately mostly useless in the adventure) money. True, if your SK likes to live the high life, and spend it on whiskey and whores, then he may even become more popular with NPCs than even the Bard.
Ok, so there is no Magic-Mart, but what about Crafting items. First off, the SK is NOT a crafter, so again, his money does him no good. Second, he then has to FIND a crafter, which a GOOD GM (who is having issues will Mr SK Moneybags) can make scarce and far between. But even after tracking down the ever elusive crafter, it still takes time for the SKs uber-nifty device of doom and invulnerability to be created. Add in any number of production issues (needing to find a scroll for that ONE special spell required that the crafter doesn't know, a dwarven labor union dispute holding up raw materials, getting eaten by a dragon, etc), there is then the problem of delivery. Unless the SK decided to hang around the crafter's abode, which will sollve the Gold discrepancy another way, as the rest of the party keeps adventuring (you know, find monsters, kill them, and take there stuff) while he turns his mindblade into funny shapes to cast shadow puppets on the wall in boredom.
Long and short of it is that the Gold argument is fine theoretically, but in practice, just does not hold water. Wealth does NOT equal equivalent magic items, no more so than Bill Gates being able to own a FULLY armed M1 Battle Tank. Can he afford it, sure...but it is not legal for him to do so.
Just so you know, I do NOT run a low magic campaign, and do have potions and scrolls available in most cities, with the equivalent of "magic pawn shops" around to trade in all those +1 weapons and the like (or for that matter, buy +1 weapons and other lower level magic items), but, like a pawn shop, rarely will there be any kind of real find or expensive magic items. AND, like many of you, I thought the first Soul Knife Beta was very broken and hated it to such a degree that it made me actually have second thoughts about buying a Dreamscarred Press product (I own almost all of them).
skippy (who loves to eat power gamers for breakfast, because once you figure out "trick" [and almost ALL munchkin builds are one trick ponies], you break them, you kill them, and you make them roll up a new character...repeat until power gamer has learned or has left your game for something more compatible to him)
