Soulknife

A soulknife recognizes his own mind as the most beautiful— and the most deadly—thing in all creation. With this understanding and through extended practice, a soulknife learns to forge his mental strength into a shimmering blade of semisolid psychic energy. Each soulknife’s personal blade, referred to as a mind blade, differs in color and shape according to his personality, mental strength, and even mood. Although no two mind blades look alike, all share the same lethal qualities. Because soulknives turn the power of their minds to such weaponry, they are notorious for their violence. 

Adventures: While caution and forethought go into a soulknife’s preparation for adventure, most have a hard time restraining their natural bravado and showmanship. After all, how many adventurers can dispatch opponents with a blade materialized from pure thought? Thus, for many soulknives, adventuring presents an opportunity to do what they love most: Wield the idealized blade wrought of their innermost desires. 

Characteristics: More than any other psionic class, the soulknife fights with psionic power directly in both melee and ranged combat. Strength, combat prowess, and psionic talent allow the soulknife to claim equal footing—at least—with any other combat-oriented class on the field of battle. 

Alignment: Despite their inborn showmanship, soulknives are often lawful, utilizing a disciplined mindset to idealize and materialize their mind blades. Chaotic Aligned soulknives rely on strength of spirit instead of rigid discipline to materialize their mind blades. Characters who are neutral with respect to law and chaos rarely become soulknives.

Background: Many who have the ability and desire to mix the manifestation of psionic power with military might become psychic warriors, but for those with the right mix of talent and skill, the way of the soulknife is more alluring. Soulknives are trained for the most part by older, more experienced soulknives. 

Other Classes: Soulknives are most comfortable with those who have similarly aggressive bents, such as monks, fighters, and paladins. They are less comfortable with psychic warriors (perhaps due to a feeling of competition), spellcasters, psions, and wilders, though a soulknife can discipline himself to manage most any relationship

Abilities: Strength is an ideal ability for a soulknife, augmenting his melee prowess. Dexterity provides better defense and bonuses on ranged attacks, and is useful in the arts of stealth, at which many soulknives excel. Constitution upgrades the soulknife’s toughness

Hit Dice: d10

Class Skills: The soulknife’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (psionics) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Spot (Wis), and Tumble (Dex).  

Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) × 4. Skill Points at Each 

Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier 

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Soulknives are proficient with all simple weapons, with their own mind blades, and with light armor and shields (except tower shields) 

The moment he relinquishes his grip on his blade, it dissipates (unless he intends to throw it; see below). A mind blade is considered a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. A soulknife can use feats such as Power Attack or Combat Expertise in conjunction with the mind blade just as if it were a normal weapon. He can also choose mind blade for feats requiring a specific weapon choice, such as Weapon Specialization. Powers or spells that upgrade weapons can be used on a mind blade. A soulknife’s mind blade improves as the character gains higher levels. At 4th level and every four levels thereafter, the mind blade gains a cumulative +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls (+2 at 8th level, +3 at 12th level, +4 at 16th level, and +5 at 20th level).Even in places where psionic effects do not normally function (such as within a null psionics field), a soulknife can attempt to sustain his mind blade by making a DC 20 Will save. On a successful save, the soulknife maintains his mind blade for a number of rounds equal to his class level before he needs to check again. On an unsuccessful attempt, the mind blade vanishes. As a move action on his turn, the soulknife can attempt a new Will save to rematerialize his mind blade while he remains within the psionics negating effect. 

Weapon Focus (Mind Blade): A soulknife gains Weapon Focus (mind blade) as a bonus feat. 

Wild Talent: A soulknife gains Wild Talent as a bonus feat. (This class feature provides the character with the psionic power he needs to materialize his mind blade, if he has no power points otherwise.) 

Throw Mind Blade (Ex): A soul knife of 2nd level or higher can throw his mind blade as a ranged weapon with a range increment of 30 feet. Whether or not the attack hits, a thrown mind blade then dissipates. A soulknife of 3rd level or higher can make a psychic strike (see below) with a thrown mind blade and can use the blade in conjunction with other special abilities (such as Knife to the Soul; see below). 

Psychic Strike (Su): As a move action, a soulknife of 3rd level or higher can imbue his mind blade with destructive psychic energy. This effect deals an extra 1d8 points of damage to the next living, nonmindless target he successfully hits with a melee attack (or ranged attack, if he is using the throw mind blade ability). Creatures immune to mind-affecting effects are immune to psychic strike damage. (Unlike the rogue’s sneak attack, the psychic strike is not precision damage and can affect creatures otherwise immune to extra damage from critical hits or more than 30 feet away, provided they are living, nonmindless creatures not immune to mind-affecting effects.) A mind blade deals this extra damage only once when this ability is called upon, but a soulknife can imbue his mind blade with psychic energy again by taking another move action. Once a soulknife has prepared his blade for a psychic strike, it holds the extra energy until it is used. Even if the soulknife drops the mind blade (or it otherwise dissipates, such as when it is thrown and misses), it is still imbued with psychic energy when the soulknife next materializes it. At every four levels beyond 3rd (7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th), the extra damage from a soulknife’s psychic strike increases as shown on the table

Free Draw (Su): At 5th level, a soulknife becomes able to materialize his mind blade as a free action instead of a move action. He can make only one attempt to materialize the mind blade per round, however (if, for example, he must make a Will save to materialize it within a null psionics field). 

Shape Mind Blade (Su): At 5th level, a soulknife gains the ability to change the form of his mind blade. As a fullround action, he can change his mind blade to replicate a longsword (damage 1d8 for a Medium weapon wielded as a one-handed weapon) or a bastard sword (damage 1d10 for a Medium weapon, but he must wield it as a two-handed weapon unless he knows the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bastard sword) feat). If a soulknife shapes his mind blade into the form of a bastard sword and wields it two-handed, he adds 1-1/2 times his Strength bonus to his damage rolls, just like when using any other twohanded weapon. Alternatively, a soulknife can split his mind blade into two identical short swords, suitable for fighting with a weapon in each hand. (The normal penalties for fighting with two weapons apply.) However, both mind blades have an enhancement bonus 1 lower than the soulknife would otherwise create with a single mind blade. For example, a 12th-level soulknife normally creates a single +3 mind blade, but he could use this ability to instead materialize two +2 mind blades. 

Mind Blade Enhancement (Su): At 6th level, a soulknife gains the ability to enhance his mind blade. He can add any one of the weapon special abilities on the table below that has an enhancement bonus value of +1. At every four levels beyond 6th (10th, 14th, and 18th), the value of the enhancement a soulknife can add to his weapon improves to +2, +3, and +4, respectively. A soulknife can choose any combination of weapon special abilities that does not exceed the total allowed by the soulknife’s level. For example, an 18th-level soulknife could add two +2 weapon special abilities, or one +1 weapon ability and one +3 weapon ability. The weapon ability or abilities remain the same every time the soulknife materializes his mind blade (unless he decides to reassign its abilities; see below). The ability or abilities apply to any form the mind blade takes, including the use of the shape mind blade or bladewind class abilities.

Defending: A defending weapon allows the wielder to transfer some or all of the sword’s enhancement bonus to his AC as a bonus that stacks with all others. As a free action, the wielder chooses how to allocate the weapon’s enhancement bonus at the start of his turn before using the weapon, and the effect to AC lasts until his next turn.

Keen: This ability doubles the threat range of a weapon. Only piercing or slashing weapons can be keen. (If you roll this property randomly for an inappropriate weapon, reroll.) This benefit doesn’t stack with any other effect that expands the threat range of a weapon (such as the keen edge spell or the Improved Critical feat).

Lucky: A lucky weapon offers a second chance at success. Once per day, the wielder can reroll a failed attack roll (whether a single attack or one in a series of multiple attacks) as a free action. The rerolled attack uses the same bonuses or penalties as the missed roll.

Mighty Cleaving: A mighty cleaving weapon allows a wielder with the Cleave feat to make one additional cleave attempt in a round.

Psychokinetic: Upon command, a psychokinetic weapon glows from the inside with lethal psionic energy. The energy does not harm the hands that hold the weapon. Such a weapon deals an extra 1d4 points of damage on a successful hit. This extra damage is ectoplasmic in nature and is not affected by damage reduction.

Sundering: This kind of weapon allows a wielder to attack opponents’ weapons as if he had the Improved Sunder feat

Vicious: When a vicious weapon strikes an opponent, it creates a flash of disruptive energy that resonates between the opponent and the wielder. This energy deals an extra 2d6 points of damage to the opponent and 1d6 points of damage to the wielder. 

Collision: Collision weapons psionically increase their own mass at the end point of each swing. Such weapons deal an extra 5 points of damage on each successful strike, in addition to the weapon’s enhancement bonus. 

Mindcrusher: Any psionic creature struck in combat by a mindcrusher weapon loses a number of power points equal to half the amount of hit point damage the weapon deals (only the base damage of the weapon contributes to the power point loss; additional damage from high Strength or other sources does not cause additional power point loss). A psionic creature that is out of power points (or has none) must succeed on a DC 17 Will save or take 1d2 points of Wisdom damage.

Psychokinetic Burst: This weapon functions as a psychokinetic weapon that also releases a blast of destructive psionic energy upon scoring a successful critical hit. In addition to the extra damage of the psychokinetic ability (see above), a psychokinetic burst weapon deals an extra 1d6 points of damage on a successful critical hit. If the critical multiplier is ×3, add 2d6 points of extra damage instead, and if the multiplier is ×4, add 3d6 points of extra damage. This extra damage is ectoplasmic in nature and is not affected by damage reduction. 

Suppression: An opponent or object struck by this kind of weapon is subject to a targeted dispel psionics power. The wielder makes a dispel check (1d20 + 5 + manifester level, maximum +15) against a DC of 11 + the manifester level of the power to be dispelled. 

Wounding: A wounding weapon deals 1 point of Constitution damage from blood loss when it hits a creature. A critical hit does not multiply the Constitution damage. Creatures immune to critical hits (such as plants and constructs) are immune to the Constitution damage dealt by this weapon.

Bodyfeeder: All feeder weapons have a special ability that functions only upon scoring a successful critical hit. A bodyfeeder weapon grants its wielder temporary hit points equal to the total damage dealt by a successful critical hit. These temporary hit points last for 10 minutes. Thus, if the wielder of a bodyfeeder weapon successfully scores a critical hit while the wielder still enjoys temporary hit points from a previous critical hit, the wielder gains only the better of the two values: either his current number of temporary hit points, or the new influx of temporary hit points, whichever is higher.

Mindfeeder: All feeder weapons have a special ability that functions only upon scoring a successful critical hit. Once per day, a mindfeeder weapon grants its wielder temporary power points equal to the total lethal damage dealt by a successful critical hit. The wielder must decide to use the mindfeeder ability after successfully confirming a critical hit, but prior to rolling critical hit damage. These temporary power points last for 10 minutes. The wielder may not exceed his natural maximum power points per day using the mindfeeder ability. The wielder gains power points even if the target has none (effectively, its hit point damage is converted to power points). Constructs and undead are not subject to mindfeeder weapons. As with temporary hit points, temporary power points do not stack with each other; they overlap. Thus, if a mindfeeder weapon successfully scores a critical hit while the wielder still enjoys temporary power points from a previous critical hit, the wielder gains only the better of the two values: either her current number of temporary power points, or the new influx of temporary power points, whichever is higher.

Soulbreaker: This weapon has a special ability that functions only upon scoring a successful critical hit. On a successful critical hit, a soulbreaker weapon bestows one negative level on the foe. One day after being struck, if the negative levels have not been purged, the subject must succeed on a DC 18 Fortitude save for each negative level or lose a character level.

Speed of Thought: A soulknife gains Speed of Thought as a bonus feat at 6th level. 

Bladewind (Su): At 9th level, a soulknife gains the ability to momentarily fragment his mind blade into numerous identical blades, each of which strikes at a nearby opponent. As a full attack, when wielding his mind blade, a soulknife can give up his regular attacks and instead fragment his mind blade to make one melee attack at his full base attack bonus against each opponent within reach. Each fragment functions identically to the soulknife’s regular mind blade. (For example, if the mind blade were in the form of a +1 keen bastard sword, due to the soulknife’s mind blade enhancement and shape mind blade abilities, each fragment attacks and deals damage as a +1 keen bastard sword.) When using bladewind, a soulknife forfeits any bonus or extra attacks granted by other feats or abilities (such as the Cleave feat or the haste spell). The mind blade immediately reverts to its previous form after the bladewind attack. 

Greater Weapon Focus (Mind Blade): A soulknife gains Greater Weapon Focus (mind blade) as a bonus feat at 9th level. 

Knife to the Soul (Su): Beginning at 13th level, when a soulknife executes a psychic strike, he can choose to substitute Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma damage (his choice) for extra dice of damage. For each die of extra damage he gives up, he deals 1 point of damage to the ability score he chooses. A soulknife can combine extra dice of damage and ability damage in any combination, so a 19th-level soulknife could choose to strike for 3 points of Charisma damage and an extra 2d6 points of damage. The soulknife decides which ability score his psychic strike damages and the division of ability damage and extra dice of damage when he imbues his mind blade with the psychic strike energy. 

Multiple Throw (Ex): At 17th level and higher, a soulknife can throw a number of mind blades per round equal to the number of melee attacks he could make. Thus, a 17th-level soulknife could throw two mind blades, with a base attack bonus of +12/+7. If he had used shape mind blade to materialize a mind blade for each hand and thus fight with two weapons, he could throw four mind blades in a round.