Rathwellin the Bard

Hmm. Well it wouldn't be for every game but I bet that one could modify the sorcerer class itself & replace it with a Sorcerer-Bard of some sort. Still not very pratical. Oh, well.

I've been playing IWD2 these days and I really like how Bards turned out there. It got me thinking though. Is it possible to give BGII Bards sorcerer like spellcasting?

Ironic that you mention this. I'm playing IWD2 for the first time right now. I just used Mordenkainen's Sword ingame for the first time last night. That was pretty cool! I realized yesterday that Ranger would be the perfect class to make a soulknife kit ... if not for the alignment and hardcoded falling restrictions. It's a sneaky fighting class. All one would have to do is disable the spellcasting and replace that with the Soulknife. Too bad about the engine limits.

Then I misunderstood. Sorry.

There are literally dozens of good & cool melee weapons in the game. There are some decent launchers. There are only a *handful* of good thrown weapons. I fail to see how making the Mind Blade ... the signature ability of this kit ... more like the most numerous good weapons in the game would make them more 'unique'.

Well it's cool for one. True to the PnP version for another. But most of all making it a ranged weapon has the possiblity of eliminating cheese ... or creating bugs. If the Mind Blade is a ranged weapon then the engine will prohibit you from dual wielding it with another weapon. That could be good if you don't want a Mind Blade + Blem setup. It could be bad if you want dual wielding Mind Blade short swords. In PnP the 3.5 Soulknife can only throw the Mind Blade once per round until 17th level. After that he can make a full BAB throwing attack. Maybe the 'throw Mind Blade' should be an innate ablity rather than just making the weapon ranged.

Chickenbu*t! Sorry, but couldn't resist. Anyway.... The PnP Mind Blade occupies an uncomfortable middle ground somewhere between being an actual psychic power and a supernatural ability to create a real weapon. I have seen actual debates about whether or not the PnP Mind Blade has mass for instance. It's possible to argue that the PnP Mind Blade is in some ways a 'real' weapon and thus you throw it like real weapon ... i.e. the range doesn't increase with level. I can see how you could make a theoretical argument about the range increasing as well though. Bottom line for me is that I like the single range thrown concept better. YMMV. I am highly interested in seeing how this rework of the kit shakes out though. I'm already starting to think about what kind of Soulknife PC I would like to play....

That's the way it works in PnP 3.5....

Thanks & yep! I like your smoothed out level changes. My suggestion for the Psychic Strike was modled on the Kensai's Kai & Blade's Offensive Spin abilities. I think that your +1d8 of damage works ... but I will note that the 3.5 version gets +4d8 damage at high levels, though that's probably a bit much for BGII. I like that suggestion a lot.

I see the logic in your fighter suggestion. The 3.5 Soulknife is an odd hybrid fighter/thief. The Psychic Strike acts like an alternative sneak attack (backstab) and the Soulknife has Hide & Move Silently as class skills. However he lacks any sort of trap disabling ability. He has medium BAB (like a rogue or cleric) and can only use ‘simple’ weapons and light armor without spending feats. Yeah, he plays more like a skirmisher fighter than a rogue and has d10 HP, but in terns of translating this to BGII his armor and weapon restrictions would probably look more like a thief or bard than a fighter. My thinking is that as a fighter kit the Soulknife would have stinky thief THACO but balance that out by getting multiple attacks per round. As a thief kit he would have sneaky skills instead of extra attacks. My suggestion would be to keep this a thief kit like this: Advantages: - Add +1 to THACO every 10 levels. - Can achieve Mastery in short swords and long swords - Can max out all weapon fighting styles (i.e. three stars in Two Weapon Fighting, two stars in Single Weapon Style, etc.) - Manifests a Mind Blade at will. This is treated as a Short Sword with an enchantment of +1 at level 4, +2 at level 8 and so on to a maximum of +6 at 24th level. - At level 5 a Long Sword or pair or Shortswords can be manifested instead. - Psychic Strike useable once per every 5 levels. This ability infuses the mind blade with incredible power causing all strikes to inflict maximum damage for 1 turn. - Mind Blade gains the following special powers at a levels 6, 14, 22, & 30. * Can be thrown like a returning weapon (level 6) * Does an extra 1d3 magic damage (level 14) * Adds 1 extra attack per round (level 22) * Dispel Magic per the Holy Avenger or Staff of the Magi (level 30) - A 'knife to the soul' HLA which does serious damage. Disadvantages: - Cannot set traps - Only gets 15 skill points per level - No Backstab - May only dual class to Fighter

The 3.5 XPH Soulknife basically uses his weapon all the time. I think that the BGII Soulknife should be the same. IMO the weapon should be coded as a real undroppable weapon that permanently occupies the character's first primary hand weapon slot. The Mind Blade should improve by level as you mention. At 5th level the Mind Blade should gain different 'modes' like the Firetooth Dagger or Throwing Axe (ie melee or thrown mode). It also needs some sort of special ability (or abilities) that make it 'competitive' with enchanted weapons of a given level. I.E. the Soulknife should 'want' to use his Mind Blade more that he would want to use another weapon in most circumstances. One suggestion would be to give the Mind Blade or Soulknife a few 'spell like abilities' that could be accessed via the Item or Special Ability buttons. These could be touch spells that cause a bit of elemental damage or an effect like Hold, stun, or confusion if the blade hits. As an alternative to making the Mind Blade having melee or thrown forms create a 'Knife to the Soul' attack that is useable a few times per day at range and has some nasty effect (either a lot of damage, stat drain damage, etc.).

OK this is cool. I'm a huge Soulknife fan. However I have to ask what the point would be in playing with this Kit in BGII? You sacrifice skill points and traps and all you get is a normal enchanted weapon? A vanilla thief wielding the Firetooth Dagger would be far more deadly than this guy. I think that the Soulknife blade needs to have some more umph. Maybe it could cause confusion, grant an extra attack, be throwable, or something more than just being a +x weapon. I also suggest giving the Soulknife some sort of resistance to psionics. That could be MR, limited free action, or something else. However it makes sense to me that he should be able to have a slight advantage vs the Illithids over a non-psi character.

Both are good changes though I would suggest making the Dragon Scale and Anheg armors useable by F/D characters as well. That always seemed like a reasonable thing to me.

I like this idea a lot!

As for the new PC, there are some online spellchecking sites that aren't bad at all.