D&D 5E The Mystic's Soul Knife: A disappointment

[Xeviat]

Hi everyone. The Soul Knife is one of my player's favorite class. He played one whenever he had the chance in 3E and 3.5E, and we ended up making a power-less psionic class (the Savant) to better do what the Soul Knife did. We missed it in 4th, and now it's coming to 5th.

We were both disappointed in it. It looked cool at a glance, but after mulling it over for a little, it seems lacking. Long story short, They lose 2 disciplines and don't gain anything from their order that's more powerful in comparison to the other order's subclass abilities (and gaining additional options to spend your limited points on feels odd as an ability).

If you haven't seen it, it's here: http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UAMystic3.pdf

Over the other Orders, the Soul Knife gives up 2 disciplines known for their Mind Blades. The Mind blades are 1d8 light, finesse weapons, and you get a bonus action to TWF or Parry. Oh, and they deal psychic damage. That's cool. At 3rd level, you can spend PP to add enhancement bonus to your weapons (no action?). This is better than the Psionic Weapon discipline's Augmented Weapon (no concentration, more bang for your buck), but it is just another thing to spend your points on. Consumptive Blade is a cool Ability. Phantom Blade thematically does the same thing as Psionic Weapon's Etherial Blade (and that has damage on a miss; though who is going to miss an AC 10 attack at 14th level?).

Losing 2 disciplines hurts. That's like 8-10 options gone from your character. Rather than losing 2 disciplines, giving them the same "choose 2 disciplines from your order" and only giving them 2 or three soul knife options would have worked. Or just give them 1 or 2 locked in disciplines so the others can't poach it. Since there's so much overlap between the Soul Knife abilities and Psionic Weapon, roll them together. They need a damage booster anyway. If the Mind Blades themselves were a discipline focus, that would give an automatic limitation on the order; they can't use other psionic focuses while they do their main thing.

My last chief complaint is that I really miss "Throw Mind Blade" and "Shape Mind Blade". If their level 3 Hone the Blade ability was rolled into a discipline, then they could get the choice to add throwing, reach, or two-handed/heavy (and a damage buff) to their blades. Couple it with no action to manifest the blades, and we'd be golden.

 

[ppaladin123]

Not that using the bonus action for TWF also interferes with a lot of the combat disciplines (e.g. celerity).

 

[Xeviat]

Not that using the bonus action for TWF also interferes with a lot of the combat disciplines (e.g. celerity).

Definitely. 5E's general lack of a "free action" really makes things weird. And the Mystic runs into a lot of action economy issues (both from forcing certain choices to maximize damage and from giving too many bonus action effects).

 

[DEFCON 1]

There had been rumored talk that some of the psionic subclasses would actually be off of other classes, rather than only the Mystic. Like the Eldritch Knight is a Fighter with some Wizard stuff attached... the idea at one point was to maybe have a Fighter subclass with psionic stuff attached. If that's still the case, then it's possible the intention is for the Soul Knife to perhaps be a psionic subclass of the Rogue, which would explain a lower-than-others amount of disciplines for it (since they're going to get all the Rogue stuff eventually too.) And by the same token... that could be what'll happen with the Wu Jen-- perhaps after people playtest and comment on it, it'll eventually end up as a psionic subclass of the Wizard, rather than how it was displayed in the playtest document as a spellcasting subclass of the Mystic.

Not saying this is definitely happening, but it could explain the lower amount of stuff for certain subclasses.

 

[Xeviat]

There had been rumored talk that some of the psionic subclasses would actually be off of other classes, rather than only the Mystic. Like the Eldritch Knight is a Fighter with some Wizard stuff attached... the idea at one point was to maybe have a Fighter subclass with psionic stuff attached. If that's still the case, then it's possible the intention is for the Soul Knife to perhaps be a psionic subclass of the Rogue, which would explain a lower-than-others amount of disciplines for it (since they're going to get all the Rogue stuff eventually too.) And by the same token... that could be what'll happen with the Wu Jeno-- perhaps after people playtest and comment on it, it'll eventually end up as a psionic subclass of the Wizard, rather than how it was displayed in the playtest document as a spellcasting subclass of the Mystic.

Not saying this is definitely happening, but it could explain the lower amount of stuff for certain subclasses.

I think I'd be okay with the soul knife being a psionic fighter or rogue. I don't think a psionic wizard could do what the Wu Jen does the same way they do it. The wizard doesn't have room in their progression to gain Psi Points.

 

[Immoralkickass]

If you really want to play the Soul Knife, try this https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedA...ic_handbook_tweaking_the_mystic_and/?sort=new

 

[jgsugden]

The action economy is a problem. However, you need to try it out for a while before final judgment. Try a 6th level, 11th level and 16th level version. Then, try dual classing that 11th and 16th level ones by subbing out 5 levels of mystic for a class with multi-attack (fighter, paladin, ranger, etc...) I know that this version of the class is not built for multi-class considerations, but the final version will be and will be similar.

I built four mystics (Immortal Hobgoblin Polearm, Gnome Wujen, Human Variant Soul Knife, High Elf Awakened) so far and playested them solo in my stock 1, 6, 11 and 16 solo dungeons. They all performed reasonably well.

 

[bganon]

Soulknive 5/Fighter 5 can nova quite nicely. Extra Attack + Action Surge + Maneuvers + Hone the Blade + Augmented Weapon + Lethal Strike + Knock Back.

That said, building out different options I came to the following opinions:

Soulknives don't need so much to be able to learn more disciplines, they need more options. There are barely enough available, the same few are gonna be taken by all Soulknives. So a few new disciplines to cover thrown blades (the Nomad one doesn't work well for this), bladestorm, etc are badly needed.

The Surge of Action option for Celerity is so bad it's basically a trap. Because it eats the bonus action, it has to compete with pumping points into Lethal/Brute Strike, and it's pretty much always going to lose. If you want movement modes, Bestial Form lasts an hour, or Brute Force (which all melee Mystics will take for Knock Back) gives great leaping ability. If you want dodging, Diminution or Nomadic Step are more powerful than the Monk-lite stuff Celerity gives, or Iron Durability might be better in the long run anyway.

Soulknife/Monk multiclassing fluff-wise seems like a thing that should be possible but is amazingly terrible in practice. Tweaks to the knives themselves could fix part of it in the published version, but it'll be difficult to address the bonus action starvation that really hurts the combo.

 

[Ian Michael Renwick]

The Soul Knife’s Blades also benefit from the 1d8 additional damage all the other weapons do as a part of the Mystic base class. At level 14 you are looking at a 3d8 + 5 (DEX) + 3d8 (Bonus Attack) for some decent every hit kind of damage.

Now stack on to of that Hone the Blade: 3d8 + 5 (DEX) + 4 + 3d8 + 4 (Bonus Attack). Now you start investing in things like Brute Force and some of the Nomadic Teleporting abilities... that’s all you really need.

One round of combat could look like this:

Use “free action” to Hone the Blade to +4

Use Bonus Action to “cast” Brutal Strike for 7 Psi: 3d8 + 5 (DEX) + 4 + 7d6, all as Pyschic damage on a hit. Which, if my math serves correctly, is an average of 48 of the least commonly resisted damage type.

As a part of that melee Strike when it hits, I invest another 7 Psi for Knock Back, pushing the creature 70 feet away, and on most battlefields there will be some sort of wall or obstruction in the way, which inflicts another 7d6 Force damage when the target collides with the object... for an average of 28 of another of the least commonly resisted damage types.

For a total of 76 average damage in one turn.

No one can really keep up with the Soul Knife until about level 14. They dominate the battlefield...

 

[Aldarc]

The soul knife has always been a disappointing one-trick pony in play. It really should just be thrown in with the monk as a psionic subclass. Use ki to activate psi-blades and then go to town.