Enlightened Blade

The Basics

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 if she has levels in a spellcasting class, 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 to a minimum of 0.

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

When she takes her first level of soulknife, an enlightened blade chooses two of her base save bonuses to follow the good progression, and one to follow the poor progression. Once chosen, this cannot be changed through any means short of a Wish, Miracle, or GM permission.

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).

If she has a psicrystal, or later gains a psicrystal, she may replace Deep Focus with Psicrystal Containment. She may reverse (or restore) this choice each morning, at the end of her meditation.

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

Table: Monk Bonuses by Level
Level	AC Bonus	Fast Movement
1st	+0	+0 ft.
2nd	+0	+0 ft.
3rd	+0	+10 ft.
4th	+1	+10 ft.
5th	+1	+10 ft.
6th	+1	+20 ft.
7th	+1	+20 ft.
8th	+2	+20 ft.
9th	+2	+30 ft.
10th	+2	+30 ft.
11th	+2	+30 ft.
12th	+3	+40 ft.
13th	+3	+40 ft.
14th	+3	+40 ft.
15th	+3	+50 ft.
16th	+4	+50 ft.
17th	+4	+50 ft.
18th	+4	+60 ft.
19th	+4	+60 ft.
20th	+5	+60 ft.

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.

Unbladed Arts

Before she is trained to use her mind blade, an enlightened blade is trained in unarmed, hand-to-hand martial arts. This develops the discipline needed to remain centered in stressful situations.

At 1st level, an enlightened blade gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. An enlightened blade’s attacks can be with mind blades, fists, elbows, knees, and feet. This means that an enlightened blade can make unarmed strikes with her hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for an enlightened blade striking unarmed or with a mind blade. An enlightened blade can apply her full Strength bonus to damage rolls for all attacks with a mind blade and for all unarmed strikes. An enlightened blade’s unarmed strikes deal lethal damage, although she can choose to deal nonlethal damage with no penalty on her attack roll. She can make this choice while grappling as well. In addition, she gains the bonus to AC from her Deflecting Blade ability even if she has no mind blades active, though she cannot add any benefit from a defending weapon ability without an active mind blade.

An enlightened blade's unarmed strikes do not gain the monk's improved unarmed damage, nor do they gain any other automatic benefits normally attributed to a monk's unarmed strike.

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

Defensive Kata (Su)

An enlightened blade who is unarmored and unencumbered adds her Wisdom bonus (if any) to her AC and her CMD. In addition, an 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 proficiencies normally gained by a soulknife.

Flurry of Blades

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, and advances with her soulknife level at the same rate, but she may only use mind blades and unarmed strikes in a flurry. If she has class levels in monk, both flurry abilities are combined and her monk and soulknife levels stack when determining the number of attacks she may make.

If not specified by the GM, the enlightened blade must choose whether to follow the normal monk's flurry ability, or to use that of the unchained monk. If she 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 all shield proficiencies normally gained by a soulknife, and may not be used while equipped with a shield.

Shallow Pool

The enlightened blade has access to a ki pool. She gains a number of ki points equal to 1/2 her soulknife level plus her Wisdom modifier. 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 concentration checks. If she is also psionically focused, the bonus increases to +3. At 10th level, these values are doubled.

In addition, she gains two ki powers from the list below.

This ability replaces the soulknife's Throw Mind Blade class ability. She may not throw her mind blade in any form, nor may she take the Soulbow blade skill or launch mind arrows.

Zen and the Art of Self-Maintenance

An enlightened blade gains Psionic Meditation as a bonus feat at 4th level. In addition, at 4th level and every four levels thereafter, she may select one ki power from the list below.

At 16th level, she reduces the time required for attaining psionic focus to a swift action, which no longer provokes attacks of opportunity.

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

Adaptive Form

At 6th level, 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 renew her current blade skill or replace it with a different one. She gains a second adaptive blade skill at 14th level.

This replaces the blade skills normally gained at 6th and 14th level.

Blade Skills

An enlightened blade has access to a few more blade skills than a standard soulknife. Whenever she gains a new blade skill, she may choose to select from these skills instead of from the standard list.

Deeper Pool: The enlightened blade gains the Extra Ki feat. In addition, she gains one ki power from the list below. She must be at least 8th level in order to select this blade skill. She may select this blade skill multiple times.

Empowered Fist: The enlightened blade gains the empowered strikes class feature (see Deadly Fist archetype), and her unarmed strikes increase in damage to match those of a first-level monk of her size. If she has levels in the monk class, she instead adds 1 to her monk level when determining her unarmed damage. 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.

Focused Ki: As a free action, the enlightened blade may expend her psionic focus to gain one temporary ki point. If she is maintaining (and expends) 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.

Wider Pool: The enlightened blade may select two ki powers from the list below. She may take this blade skill multiple times.

Zen Reactions: The soulknife gains the Combat Reflexes feat. As long as she is psionically focused, she may choose to use her Wisdom bonus instead of Dexterity to determine the number of additional attacks of opportunity she may make.

These extra blade skills replace all blade skills on the standard list that require the soulknife to be able to throw her mind blade or launch a mind arrow. An enlightened blade may not select from among those blade skills.

Ki Powers

When the enlightened blade gains a ki power, she selects from the following list. Unless otherwise noted, an enlightened blade cannot select an individual ki power more than once.

Ki Focus: The enlightened blade can spend 1 point from her ki pool as a free action instead of expending her focus when she would otherwise do so. This doesn't allow her to maintain focus while unconscious, or any other time when she would be forced to lose her focus.
Ki Strike: By spending 1 point from her ki pool as a swift action, the enlightened blade 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.
Ki Throw: By spending 1 or more points from her ki pool as part of an attack, the enlightened blade can throw her mind blade using its normal range increment as if she had the Throw Mind Blade class ability. For each additional ki point spent after the first, she may apply the effects of the Enhanced Range blade skill.
Unchained Ki: 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, she may substitute Flurry of Blades whenever Flurry of Blows is mentioned, and any reference to unarmed strikes or monk weapons is instead applied to her mind blade. This ki power may be selected multiple times. Each time, she must select a different ki power from the list unless specifically allowed in the selected power's description.

Martial 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. Feats and other abilities for which she's taken the Persistent Focus feat remain usable even in places where psionics are prohibited, like in a null psionics field. 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.