OK, so I'm a little strapped for time. My group and I are going to start a pathfinder campaign in the eberron setting, and I was originally doing a shifter barbarian...but we realized that I was doing some stuff that seemed a little outlandish, so my DM and I decided that I should pick something else. So, I decided to go soul knife. He is allowing me, if I wish, to take one level in Spirit Lion Totem barbarian. Other than that,m I would want to go full soul knife and focus on TWF...but I'm not entirely sure how I would build him. We would be using the pathfinder version (located here: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife). I know I would need a high dex score, but I'm not entirely sure where to go from there...any suggestions? For clarification, I don't want you to completely build the character for me. I just want to know the order of importance for the ability scores. Any suggestions are welcome, and appreciated!
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Haven't seen a soulknife in a while, but I always like the class, even when people complained about it being weak in earlier editions.
The class basically builds itself. You want decent Dexterity, but you wanna have points for Strength (Damage) and Constitution (Survivability). I'm not seeing a need for any mental stats, so Int and Charisma don't need to be very high, though you'll want passable Wisdom.
If there are any feats that allow you to regain your psionic focus more quickly, take them. You get access to Psychic Strike as a swift action by expending Psionic Focus, which is essentially free damage every round (or every other round).
There are some really great Blade Skills, such as Wing Clip (movement negation is SWEET), Twin Strike (for obvious reasons), Reaper's Blade (Again, free damage), Trade Blows (Crazy fun if conditions are right), and more. The only difficulty is choosing which abilities will suit your playstyle more.
Don't forget that Soulknives can change their weapon form pretty easily, and that versatility could come in handy. Focus on your style, but don't forget feats like Power Attack, and maybe even point-blank shot for some awesome throwing goodness.
Thank you, Davor. I'm going to be focusing on TWF, as the topic suggests, although I probably will be throwing quite a bit. I COMPLETELY missed the thing about expending psionic focus to charge the psychic strike, so that's a beautiful thing :P.
I as thinking of doing a Tiefling, and the stats as Str: 14, Dex: 22, Con: 14, Int: 10, Wis: 12, Cha: 8. Dex is 22 because 16 base, +2 racial, and +4 from belt of incredible dexterity. Does that sound decent? Or should I try to work some more strength in?
OK, you ideally want a good Dex score, and reasonable strength and constitution; you'll need to boost dexterity with your level-ups to make sure you are able to qualify for the higher feats. Aside from TWF, you will want Double Slice and Weapon Focus (mindblade) if you can.
For blade skills, take your pick but those that enahance two mind blades, allow you to store extra psychic strikes etc. are the best for you.
Since I'm building for a level 8 start, should I put my 2 level 4 ability score increases into Dex (bringing it to 24) or to Str (bring it to 16)?
Also, and I know this is a long shot, but would Vital Strike work with the twin strike blade power?
If I remember correctly there is a +1 enhancement for Agile weapon (or something like that) that lets you use your agility instead of strength for damage. With weapon finesse would let you focus on dex.
Also the feat that is basically power attack for light weapons.
Since I'm building for a level 8 start, should I put my 2 level 4 ability score increases into Dex (bringing it to 24) or to Str (bring it to 16)?
As long as you have a dex over 19 by 11th level, you are fine. Beyond that the points are better off in strength to get your damage up.
As for Vital Strike, don't bother unless you are using the two-handed mindblade, it's not worth it. Concentrate on multiple attacks instead, and up the damage/attack as much as you can. For a killer opening strike you have your psychic strike.
Twin Strike: When making a single standard attack and wielding two mind blades, the soulknife may attack with both of her mind blades at the normal penalties for two-weapon fighting. She may also utilize this ability when making attacks of opportunity, but not for any other special attacks, unless specifically stated otherwise. The soulknife must be at least 8th level to choose this blade skill.
I would assume that vital strike would fall into this category. if not for this caveat, yes I believe it would.
Twin strike: A single standard attack
Vital strike: Vital Strike is an attack action, which is a type of standard action
Twin strike works with exactly these;
Standard attack, charge attack, Aoo, improved furious charge, and extended strike. This is probably even more limited than vital strike.
Also, any reason you want your dex so high? Generally you need the dex high to be able to qualify for twf feats like greater twf (needs 19 dex). If no other reason, I would suggest you leave your dex at 15, put your racial into it so its at 17, then your first 2 level increases go into dex to top it out at 19. then focus the rest into str for your damage and to hit. Or better yet, just focus dex completely, and go with weapon finesse. With such MAD damage, you can suffer dramatically compared to just focusing 1 stat.
@Asad: Just saw the agile property, and I love it, but I have to see with my DM if he'd allow me to use it, as it isn't on the table of properties that the Soul Knife can add, AND its a 3rd party property. He will probably allow me to use it.
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The agile weapon property isn't 3rd party. It's from the Pathfinder Society Guide. Paizo just hasn't put it into any of the core books for some reason. And we did add agile to the list of available properties in Psionics Expanded (the follow-up to Psionics Unleashed that just came out). Psionics Expanded has some very nice options for the soulknife.
Just going to throw is out there but
If you play a Magus Spellblade/Bladbound then you can funtion vary similar to a soul knife.
spellblade allows you make a force dagger that does force damage and gets any enchanments from arcane pool on your main weapon for free.
choose a dagger for your blackblade and then you can dual weild daggers and use the blackblade ability to also do force damage.
the rules specifcally call out that can can two weapon fight with your force athame and your main hand weapon.
might be a option if you wanted to use stuff from paizo.
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I had forgotten about Agile. It'd allow you to focus solely on Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom solely, and since the dual soulknife is considered a light weapon, you could pick up Piranha Strike instead of Power Attack.
If you can, go for a Tiefling variant that has Dex and Con/Wis. I don't have the table in front of me, but you want to pump those up if you got the Agile enchantment route. Should make for some crazy AC, decent damage, and good saves.
I don't see in the Psionics Expanded books where agile was added...which of the books is it in? If I can find it and DM allows me to use it, then my dex will stay this high. Otherwise, some points are gonna come out of dex for use in str
It's in the compilation. Not sure which of the serial releases it's in. The chart is on page 85, and the property itself is on page 207.
Could you point me toward where I could find it? Not saying download pdf, however.
Do you have both Psionics Unleashed (which is in the pfsrd) and Psionics Expanded (a second book). The Psionic Expanded download has several pdfs, the compilation he/she is referring to is probably the largest pdf in the zip file (the actual finished book).
No I don't have Psionics Expanded, but I believe my friend does...but I don't know if he has the full book or not.
Just asked him. He has Unlimited Possibilities, Find the Mark and Mind Over Body
Here's the d20pfsrd link to agile = LINK
I can assure you that it has been added to the list of available enchantments, and the only difference between the psionic and magic versions is that the psionic version requires animal affinity.
I believe you that it's been added to the list, but I need to convince my DM that it has been, which may be a tall order :x. He did say that some 3.5 feats would be usable. If so, I may bring up Improved Weapon Finesse to him. I found it on the 3.5 wiki and it looks good if he would allow it. The small tree needed to get it might make him allow me to use it, and if not, I could always get him to add another pre-requisite onto it.
Unfortunately the updated table may not be in the sub releases they released before the finished book. Dreamscarred Press was constantly tweaking things as they went along and there were things added at the end which weren't in any of the pdfs prior.
Oof...so where might I find the updated table?
The updated table is on page 85 of psionics expanded.
I'll have to check that out...at any rate, my DM approved my usage of the Improved Weapon Finesse feat...trying to work out stats right now. Right now I'm at:
Str: 10, Dex: 22, Con: 14, Int: 12, Wis: 16, Cha: 8
Using base tiefling race, and I have a +4 belt for dex. How does it look?
I would personally still try to get access to Agile, the feat would be much better spent elsewhere. Also the Agile property is "always on" where the feat has a few limitations which will require more book keeping (does work on this, doesn't work on that - type stuff).
I would suggest the feat be spent on the bladeskill full enhancement (so your DW weapons don't take the hit to the enhancement), otherwise you need to wait until 6th level to add a bonus to them.
If your friend doesn't have the Psionics Expanded and you plan on using SK for your career in the campaign, if you can swing the cost of it, I strongly suggest buying the PDF. Dreamscarred Press has always been quality material ever since 3E and the book will give you a host of worthwhile options (Agile for one, Linked Striking for another, more bladeskills, etc).
We're using the version of the Soul Knife from pfsrd, where he gets the +1 enhancement at level 3. I also would get a bladeskill each even level, and the first one I would take would be full enhancement. Also, I tried to get the agile property, but DM said no. We settled on the feat.
I went back and re-did the stats with the Devil-Spawn Tiefling.
Stats would be Str: 10, Dex: 22, Con: 16, Int: 10, Wis: 16, Cha: 8
should I use this one, or the other one? I'm laning toward this one, but not entirely sure.
Read the soulknife again, particularly the part when you create dual weapons under Enhanced Mind Blade, that is the hit I'm talking about. You'll have to be 6th level before you get dual +1 mindblades.
I know...but with the Full Enhancement blade skill, there is no reduction in the enhancement. The soulknife gets one blade skill every two levels. Take full enhancement early on, such as 2nd or 4th level (it doesnt matter, because it's a level 8 start) and you're good to go
I know, as far as your build goes, full enhancement and agile at 5th would have been ideal. By 9th you could have had +1 agile linked striking with dual imbue, full enhancement, powerful strikes and twin strike bladeskills. TWF as a bonus feat, weapon finesse @ 1st, combat slide @ 3rd (extra blade skill), piranha strike OR dual imbue (my choice) @ 5th, furious charge @ 7th, improved furious charge @ 9th.
You could charge, get 2 attacks (or 4 if psychic strike won't effect target and you want to take advantage of linked striking damage) and make a 5' step (if you want after each) have each weapon do +3d8 from psychic strike (charged before combat) + dex + furious charge damage + linked strike damage after initial hit (+2 enhancement & +2d6 damage from second hit on for both weapons). Next round you spend a move action to regain psychic strike (+2d8) for each weapon and twin strike your target (possible linked strike damage if initial target didn't keel over dead from first round) using your psychic strike damage again. Assuming 2 hits you get two 5' steps to set up your next charge or position for next target.
I see where you're coming from, but DM doesn't really want me using the extra blade skill feat. I'll talk to him about it, because...well...yeah. :P. It's a really good strategy, but if I can't use the feat, then I can only get either Twin Strike or Improved Furious Charge, where I would choose Twin Strike, and take Improved Furious Charge at level 10. It just makes more sense to take Twin Strike earlier, because of the psionic focus being expended to get the extra attacks on an Improved Furious Charge. Then again, taking Reaper's Blade at level 10 will make me recharge my psychic strike if I make an enemy fall below 0 hp with my mind blade, so that may be more useful than Improved Furious Charge at level 10. Any thoughts?
I would ask the DM if they would not allow fighters to use their level feats to gain Combat feats? Because that is basically what he/she is doing by not allowing a Soul Knife to take Extra Bladeskill feat with their level feats.
Improved furious charge was mostly there to take advantage of linked striking for targets immune to psychic strike damage. Blow psychic strike for a total of 4 attacks with +2 & +2d6 on 3 of the attacks and keeping the bonus until you drop that creature. I'm not a fan of reapers blade as you won't always be getting the final hit on a creature. Twin strike and combat slide are important, get them ASAP. Not being able to use the extra bladeskill feat hurts horribly though.
I know. I realized that a little bit ago :P. I haven't had the chance to get in contact with my DM about the Extra Blade Skill feat, but will talk to him about it when I see him.
I was going to say all the psionics is third party. If he doesn't like Psionics Expanded I'm surprised he allowed the full bab soulknife in the first place.