I posted this over on the DSP forum as well, but it's somewhat less active over there so I thought I'd get opinions from here too.
How should the soulknife’s blade enhancement progression interact with the automatic bonus progression optional rules? My group may shift to that rule soon, and the mind blade progresses faster than the ABP chart. Any suggestions, or is it fine as-is?
With things like soulknife or class abilities that grant things like deflection bonuses, I have them simply stack with the automatic bonus progression to a maximum of 1.5*highest of the two bonuses.
That would result in a +4 mind blade with a +1 equivalent ability at 9th level, while the rest of the group is using +2 weapons. It would also essentially totally cancel out the lowered enhancements from the armored blade archetype, if used. Hmm. I'm not sure stacking is the way to go, with soulknife.
The soul knife does not get to use magic weapons normally, so I assume that automatic progression would just do nothing for him. Have the GM either drop slightly more treasure, or give the soulknife a bonus feat / blade skill or a +1 enhancement bump at level 10 to compensate.
If it doesn't stack to at least some degree, then they are losing a rather decent portion of their wealth by level to no benefit. Also, 3*1.5 = 4.5 which rounds down to 4. So the maximum bonus that'd be gained is 4. So it'd only be a +4 worth of enhancements, not +5 worth as you describe.
Or just spend a blade skill so that you can change your soul blade to a B, P, or S weapon with a 19-20 crit range.
I would suggest just giving the Soulknife in particular some additional gold.
Soulknives are proficient with weapons other than their soul blades.. get a mace or something when blunt weapons are called for. Or a crossbow for hitting at range.
You can change what your damage type is with mindblades and you can make ranged attacks with them, so that's rather unnecessary.
So then you lose out of one of the benefits of automatic progression... welcome to the same club that the wizard, sorcerer, or empty hands monk live in.
Sorcerer's and Wizards *Shrug* they had larger WBL in general anyway since they had things like crafting and needing less gear. So that actually balances out. As for empty hand monks, I actually allow people to reset their weapon attunement as a swift-action, specifically because of empty hands monk and throwing characters.
So then you lose out of one of the benefits of automatic progression... welcome to the same club that the wizard, sorcerer, or empty hands monk live in.Soulknives are proficient with weapons other than their soul blades.. get a mace or something when blunt weapons are called for. Or a crossbow for hitting at range.You can change what your damage type is with mindblades and you can make ranged attacks with them, so that's rather unnecessary.
What's stopping empty hand monks from selecting their UAS as a weapon for the enhancement progression?
The lack of rules text that says it can be done.What's stopping empty hand monks from selecting their UAS as a weapon for the enhancement progression?
An unarmed strike is always considered a light weapon.The character can attune herself to any one weapon in her possession,What I don't see from a cursory glance of the PFU section is text allowing a monk from using the enhancement progression with both fists, since it explicitly only applies to one weapon at a time. Most GMs would probably house-rule that it could apply to two fists, since that's pretty clearly the RAI. However, by strict RAW, only every other attack in a flurry of blows gets the enhancement boosts.
Reread FOB. You can use one weapon.
Also UC monk Flurry works 100%.
ONE MORE THING
A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.
The character can attune herself to any one weapon in her
possession, and can change that attunement once per day.
Sounds like a "spell or effect that enhance or improve either maufactered weapons or natural weapons" to me.
Soulknife gets a nice crossbow and my armored blade shielded blade gets some nice special abilities on the leather armor he wears underneath the mind armor.
Special abilities count against the attuned enhancement after all.
I think a fair fix would be granting some additional blade skills. An extra one every 4th or 5th level sounds about ok.
I think a fair fix would be granting some additional blade skills. An extra one every 4th or 5th level sounds about ok.
I would accept free buffs. Without them, I would still play a soulknife over a fighter or any other Paizo martial.
One GM I play with is against mixing Unchained and Psionics. I see some wisdom in that. Psionic classes really don't need the new action economy or automatic bonus progression. Psionic classes tend to throw around big 6 bonuses like candy and that mitigates the truth of the big 6 treadmill to some extent.