Homebrew “magic” version of Soulknife

Question

So it seems the Soulknife, though its ability to conjure energy blades at will sounds cool, actually sucks. Also, my DM (and possibly many other DM's) aren't particularly fond of Psionic rules. In response, I was considering making a homebrew variant of the Soulknife where its abilities are based in innate magic instead of Psionics (as well as possibly some new abilities that could make it suck less), but first I was wondering if anyone knew of any pre-existing variants like this, or suggestions from more experienced players on why exactly the Soulknife sucks and what could possibly be done about it.

A couple ideas I was considering:

-make its blade enhancement cap at level 10 on 20th level.

-eliminate some of its rather nitpicky restrictions, i.e. making the attack boost take a concentration check as a swift action and make it affect more creature types (limiting it to living things sounds good enough)

-possibly give it the ability to merge its soulblade with a normal weapon to enhance it, possibly reworking the class around this mechanic.

Alternately: make an Incarnum variant of this class that has fewer Soulmelds than some but can invest Incarnum into its blade to add enhancements, possibly allowing bonuses totaling over 10 at high levels and full incarnum.

Answer 1

Response to your Incarnum-related thoughts.

It could work, but it won’t be easy

Incarnum is a fairly obvious system to use and a good idea.

But you would have to work out Essentia, Bind, and Chakra progressions, and figure out a Soulmeld list. The Incarnate’s list is mostly for skill-monkeying, but most of your eventual list will probably come from it. The Soulborn list has one gem (Thunderstep Boots) but mostly overlaps with the Incarnate. The Totemist list is probably not overly relevant as most of it is themed on natural attacks, which won’t work in conjunction with the Mind Blade very well.

Essentia, Bind, and Chakra progressions will probably be based on the Incarnate or Totemist, probably with some slight downward tweaking. Weapons usually use the Hands chakra, which usually comes later, so that will be awkward. Don’t base anything on the Soulborn as it is atrocious.

Worth noting: the Incandescent Champion and Ironsoul Forgemaster prestige classes both have similar themes. The Incandescent Champion is pretty poor, and the Ironsoul Forgemaster is dwarf-only. Still, you might be able to steal ideas.

This solution is similar to a fairly popular one I’ve seen, but don’t like

Some have suggested that a solution to the weaknesses of both Soulknife and Soulborn is to simply combine the two classes à la the Gestalt rules from Unearthed Arcana in a non-Gestalt game (or treat them as one side in a Gestalt game). This shores up a lot of numbers, which is nice, but ultimately neither class has much going for it.

Basically, taking a bunch of near-useless class features and adding in another group of near-useless class features just means you have more near-useless class features; at no point to actually inject something really useful. The Soulborn//Soulknife still has a magic sword (yawn), the craptastic Psychic Strike, and Meldshaping them comes online absurdly late and remains extremely limited throughout the class’s career. I’m neither impressed nor convinced that this combination actually solves anything.

Answer 2

Separate from my response to your ideas:

My own suggestion

OK, so Soulknives are lightly-armored, highly-mobile strikers with a Wisdom focus and something of a “secret order” and “highly disciplined” flavor. Trained in special arts and lore, etc. etc. It’s pretty much the Psionic version of the Monk.

Actually, let’s call a spade a spade and a Jedi a Jedi. That’s what they are.

Well, anyway, I do know a class that’s highly-mobile, an effective striker with a bit of pseudo-magic tricks up its sleeve: the Swordsage from Tome of Battle. I recommend simply using a Swordsage and swapping Stone Dragon for the homebrew Sleeping Goddess discipline. Sleeping Goddess includes a number of boosts that create Mind Blade-like weapons, and the Swordsage is, itself, a great class.

If you really don’t want to have anything that’s even vaguely Psionic, trading a Swordsage’s Discipline Focus class features for a Mind Blade, as a Soulknife of its level, also seems reasonable. I would definitely add the Discipline special ability from Tome of Battle to the list of things a Soulsage (I just made that up) can take, though, and maybe even give a couple of them for free.

Answer 3

Doing this separately from my own suggestion:

Response to your thoughts

1. Another +1-equivalent isn’t even remotely enough. Sure, toss it in there, but it will not make much difference.

2. I assume you’re referring to Psychic Strike with this; having it as a swift action and making it apply to more creatures would make it better, yes, but so long as it’s only applying to one attack it’s barely worth remembering to use. If it applies to all attacks, it seems a fair bit better than Sneak Attack (especially if it continues to use d8s), but then Rogues get other things, so eh. You’ll still have a class that cannot do anything but deal damage, and there are much better classes for that.

3. This is a nice idea, and worth doing with whatever avenue you pursue, but ultimately it’s still not going to make the class much good. The best sword in the world does not make a good class if that’s all it has.

Basically, what it comes down to is this: If all you’re going to do is damage, you are extremely shallow as a combatant. Giving the Soulknife mobility, debuffs, crowd control, something, would help. So would giving it things to do outside combat, which is sorely lacks.

And your competition in the realm of “dealing maximum damage” is absurdly stiff. An ubercharger can one-shot just about anything that has an HP score and that he can reach. That doesn’t make him a good character; it actually makes him incredibly boring to play because he either cannot do anything because his trick doesn’t work (frequent), or he destroys everything because it does (less often, but just as boring).

Answer 4

The 3.5 Soulknife is not really salvageable. The Soulbound Weapon Psychic Warrior is usually recommended as a replacement.

The Pathfinder Soulknife is touted as being better, you may be able to backport it into a 3.5 game. Here's a handbook for it.

Here's a (2009) list of suggested Soulknife fixes, both WotC and homebrew. A cool homebrew solution that's more recent than the list is Person_Man's War Soul.