The Enlightened Blade

Many soulknives find that achieving psionic focus makes them feel centered. A select few can harness that feeling to give them greater control on the battlefield and in daily life. As they progress, they gain abilities that draw from their core, putting the soul into soulknife.

An enlightened blade relies on her psionic focus, and requires a stronger, deeper bond between her mind and body than most psionic characters. She must maintain full ranks in Autohypnosis (Wis) in order to advance her class abilities. In addition, an enlightened blade must meditate for one hour each day, similar to a wizard or a cleric preparing their spells. This meditation may take the form of any focused activity she finds centering—exercise, preparing spells, focused concentration, communing with nature or a deity, etc.—and she may use this time to reassign the abilities she has added to her mind blade. At 4th level, and every four levels thereafter, the time required for meditation is reduced by 15 minutes, until she eventually no longer needs to meditate at 16th level.

When she reaches 16th level, she is considered to be on the verge of enlightenment. She no longer needs to meditate, and any abilities that reset or recharge upon completion of her meditation are instead reset or recharged when she awakes each morning and instinctively gains psionic focus.

If she ever has fewer ranks in Autohypnosis than she has levels in the soulknife class, she may advance only her mind blade enhancement and her manifesting. All other soulknife class abilities above the level that matches her Autohypnosis ranks are unusable until she takes more ranks. Base attack bonus, saves, hit points, skill points, and the like continue to accrue as normal.

If she fails to meditate, she temporarily loses access to all soulknife abilities that require her to maintain her psionic focus. This does not prevent her from gaining or using focus normally, nor does it affect abilities for which she's taken the Persistent Focus feat, blade skills, or feats for which she meets the prerequisites naturally. She may expend her focus as a free action to enable a single use of one of her "locked" abilities. She regains access to all of these abilities as soon as she completes a meditation.

Class Skills

An enlightened blade adds Disable Device (Dex), Escape Artist (Dex), and Sleight of Hand (Dex) to her list of class skills, and removes Intimidate (Cha) and Profession (Wis).

This alters the soulknife's class skills.

Zen Preparation

At character creation, an enlightened blade chooses two of her base save bonuses to follow the good progression, and one to follow the poor progression.

This alters the soulknife's base save progressions.

Mind War

An enlightened blade gains Deep Focus as a bonus feat and Focused Offense as a bonus blade skill at 1st level. When selecting other feats, she may substitute Wisdom in place of Strength or Dexterity for feat prerequisites (but not their effects).

This replaces the bonus feat normally gained at 1st level.

Monk Abilities

An enightened blade has access to several of the monk's class abilities. If she also has class levels in monk, her monk and soulknife levels stack when determining her total unarmored speed bonus, her AC bonus, and the number of attacks she may make in a flurry. She treats her mind blade as a monk weapon in all of its forms.

Mind Blade Kata (Su)

An enlightened blade who is unarmored and unencumbered adds her Wisdom bonus (if any) to her AC and her CMD. In addition, a enlightened blade gains a +1 bonus to AC and CMD at 4th level. This bonus increases by 1 for every four soulknife levels thereafter, up to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

Beginning at 3rd level, an enlightened blade gains an enhancement bonus to her land speed equal to that of a monk of her level. If she has class levels in monk, her monk and soulknife levels stack when determining the bonus to her speed.

The bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the enlightened blade is flat-footed. She loses all of the AC and speed bonuses when she is immobilized or helpless, when she wears any armor, when she carries a shield, or when she carries a medium or heavy load.

This ability replaces all armor and shield proficiencies normally gained by a soulknife.

Flurry of Blades

Starting at 4th level, as long as she maintains her psionic focus, an enlightened blade can perform a flurry of blades as a full attack. This works identically to the Flurry of Blows monk ability, but may only be used with her mind blades. If she has class levels in monk, her monk and soulknife levels stack when determining the number of attacks she may make when using either flurry ability.

If not specified by the GM, the soulknife must choose whether to follow the normal monk's flurry ability, or to use that of the unchained monk. If the soulknife also has (or later gains) class levels in monk, her flurry must match that of the monk version she chose. Once this decision is made, it may not be changed unless forced to when gaining a level of monk.

This ability replaces the soulknife's proficiency with simple weapons.

Shallow Pool

The enlightened blade has access to a small ki pool. She gains a number of ki points equal to her Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). Unless an ability says otherwise, spending a ki point is a swift action. These ki points replenish once each day, at the end of her meditation. As long as she has at least 1 point in her ki pool, she gains a +2 bonus on Autohypnosis skill checks. This bonus increases to +3 when she reaches 4th level, and by an additional +1 every four soulknife levels thereafter.

This ability replaces the soulknife's Throw Mind Blade class ability: all range increments for her mind blade in all of its forms are reduced to 0 feet, and she may not throw her mind blade unless those range increments are increased by other means (such as the Enhanced Range blade skill).

Adaptive Form

An enlightened blade learns how to adapt herself to any particular situation. When she finishes her meditation each morning, she may select any one blade skill whose requirements she meets and be treated as having that blade skill. The effect of the blade skill selected lasts until she finishes meditating the following morning, at which time she may choose to keep her current blade skill or replace it with a different one.

She gains a second adaptive blade skill at 10th level, and a third at 20th.

This replaces the blade skills normally gained at 1st, 10th, and 20th level.

Blade Skills

An enlightened blade has access to a few more blade skills than a standard soulknife.

Deep Pool: The enlightened blade adds half her soulknife level to the number of ki points her ki pool may hold. By spending 1 point from her ki pool as a swift action, she can make one additional attack at her highest attack bonus when using her flurry of blades. This bonus attack stacks with all bonus attacks gained from flurry of blades, as well as those from haste and similar effects. She must have access to a ki pool in order to select this blade skill.

Empowered Fist: The enlightened blade gains the empowered strikes class feature (see Deadly Fist archetype), as well as Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. Her empowered strikes are treated as another form of her mind blade—they gain the abilities and enhancement bonus of the soulknife’s mind blade, and she may select their own enhancements (such as distance or flaming) as if they were an additional configuration. She may now also take deadly fist specific blade skills. Her regular (non-empowered) unarmed strikes do not gain the monk's improved unarmed damage.

Focused Ki: As a free action, the enlightened blade may expend her psionic focus to gain one temporary ki point. If she is maintaining multiple foci, she may gain one temporary ki point per focus expended. These ki points are not added to her ki pool, and last for one minute or until used, whichever is shorter. She must have access to a ki pool in order to select this blade skill.

Ki Focus: As a free action, when psionically focused, the enlightened blade can spend 1 point from her ki pool instead of expending her focus when she would otherwise do so. This doesn't allow her to maintain focus while unconscious. She must have access to a ki pool in order to select this blade skill.

Unchained Power: The enlightened blade selects a ki power from the unchained monk's list of ki powers, as long as she meets its prerequisites. Her souknife levels stack with her monk levels (if any) for the purpose of meeting prerequistes, substitute FLurry of Blades whenever Flurry of Blows is mentioned, and any reference to unarmed strikes is instead applied to her mind blade. She must have access to a ki pool in order to select this blade skill. This blade skill may be selected multiple times.

Zen and the Art of Self-Maintenance

An enlightened blade gains Psionic Meditation as a bonus feat at 4th level. In addition, she gains any one blade skill that requires access to a ki pool as a bonus blade skill.

At 8th level, she gains any one blade skill that requires access to a ki pool as a bonus blade skill.

At 12th level, she gains any one blade skill that requires access to a ki pool as a bonus blade skill.

At 16th level, she reduces the time required for attaining psionic focus to a swift action, which no longer provokes attacks of opportunity. In addition, she gains any one blade skill that requires access to a ki pool as a bonus blade skill.

This replaces the blade skills normally gained at 4th and 16th level.

Enlightenment

At 20th level, an enlightened blade is always considered to be psionically focused, though she may still only expend her focus if she is actually maintaining it. In addition, she regains all psionic foci (like those from Deep Focus and/or Psicrystal Containment) anytime she meditates to gain psionic focus.

This adds to the Mind Blade Mastery ability normally gained at 20th level.