A skipper forgoes the psionic weapons typical of a soulknife and focuses that power exclusively into cutting through the fabric of reality, granting them a mastery of teleportation called “skipping.” Using this ability, they can teleport around foes to dodge their attacks, maneuver impossible battlefield strategies, and make powerful inertial attacks. The skipper is an exceptionally mobile warrior, launching into melee as a front-line combatant before safely skipping away. Since heavier armor interferes with her teleportation, defense can be a weak point for skippers.
| Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special | Skip Distance | Psionic Manifesting | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power Points | Powers Known | Max Level | |||||||
| 1st | +1 | +0 | +2 | +2 | Bonus feat, skip | 10 ft. | 1 | – | – |
| 2nd | +2 | +0 | +3 | +3 | Blade skill | 15 ft. | 2 | – | – |
| 3rd | +3 | +1 | +3 | +3 | Psychic strike +1d8 | 15 ft. | 3 | – | – |
| 4th | +4 | +1 | +4 | +4 | Blade skill | 20 ft. | 4 | 1 | 1st |
| 5th | +5 | +1 | +4 | +4 | Inertial strike | 20 ft. | 6 | 1 | 1st |
| 6th | +6/+1 | +2 | +5 | +5 | Blade skill | 25 ft. | 8 | 2 | 1st |
| 7th | +7/+2 | +2 | +5 | +5 | Psychic strike +2d8 | 25 ft. | 10 | 2 | 1st |
| 8th | +8/+3 | +2 | +6 | +6 | Blade skill | 30 ft. | 12 | 3 | 2nd |
| 9th | +9/+4 | +3 | +6 | +6 | Bonus Feat | 30 ft. | 15 | 3 | 2nd |
| 10th | +10/+5 | +3 | +7 | +7 | Blade skill | 35 ft. | 18 | 4 | 2nd |
| 11th | +11/+6/+1 | +3 | +7 | +7 | Psychic strike +3d8 | 35 ft. | 21 | 4 | 2nd |
| 12th | +12/+7/+2 | +4 | +8 | +8 | Blade skill | 40 ft. | 24 | 5 | 3rd |
| 13th | +13/+8/+3 | +4 | +8 | +8 | Bonus Feat | 40 ft. | 29 | 5 | 3rd |
| 14th | +14/+9/+4 | +4 | +9 | +9 | Blade skill | 45 ft. | 34 | 6 | 3rd |
| 15th | +15/+10/+5 | +5 | +9 | +9 | Psychic strike +4d8 | 45 ft. | 39 | 6 | 3rd |
| 16th | +16/+12/+6/+1 | +5 | +10 | +10 | Blade skill | 50 ft. | 44 | 7 | 4th |
| 17th | +17/+12/+7/+2 | +5 | +10 | +10 | Bonus Feat | 50 ft. | 50 | 7 | 4th |
| 18th | +18/+13/+8/+3 | +6 | +11 | +11 | Blade skill | 55 ft. | 56 | 8 | 4th |
| 19th | +19/+14/+9/+4 | +6 | +11 | +11 | Psychic strike +5d8 | 55 ft. | 62 | 8 | 4th |
| 20th | +20/+15/+10/+5 | +6 | +12 | +12 | Blade skill, skip mastery | 60 ft. | 68 | 9 | 4th |
Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level): Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, Profession, Psi Lore, and Stealth
Class Features
A Skipper does not gain the Form Mind Blade, Shape Mind Blade, Mind Blade Enhancement, Free Draw, Rapid Reshape, and Mind Blade Mastery class features.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
As a skipper, you gain proficiency with one weapon group of your choice but lose proficiency with mind blades, which you are unable to form. You also lose proficiency with medium armor.
Bonus Feat
A skipper cannot choose Weapon Focus (mind blade) as a bonus feat. The other options for the 1st-level bonus feat do not change.
In addition, you can select any Combat Feat or Psionic Feat as a bonus feat at levels 9, 13, and 17. You must meet the prerequisites for the chosen feat.
Skip
As long as you maintain your psionic focus, you can teleport to a nearby space within your line of sight as a move action. You can only skip once per turn.
The maximum distance you may teleport with skip at 1st level is 10 feet, increasing by 5 feet at each even-numbered level. Skipping does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
When you skip, your destination must be an open, supported surface, or the ability fails to activate. You cannot skip into an unsupported location or any location that contains a creature or object. In addition, you may not skip while wearing medium or heavy armor or while carrying a heavy load. You cannot take other creatures with you when you skip, except for your psicrystal, if any.
Blade Skills
Lacking a mind blade limits your options with blade skills. You cannot select any blade skill which modifies, enhances, or otherwise requires a mind blade. However, you gain access to a few blade skills unique to skippers.
Psychic Strike
You are able to imbue your psychic strike into any melee weapon you wield. This ability otherwise functions as normal for a soulknife.
Inertial Strike
At 5th level, You learns to harness the displaced inertia from teleporting into your psychic strike. Whenever you skip at least 20 feet, you may immediately charge your psychic strike as a free action.
Skip Mastery
At 20th level, you become a master of teleportative attacks. When you skip, all attacks you make until the end of your turn are charged with a psychic strike.
Skipper Blade Skills
Existing Soulknife Blade Skills
The following soulknife blade skills are available to a skipper and can be used with any weapon the skipper wields.
- Level 2: Combat Slide, Disrupting Strike, Focused Offense, Furious Charge, Telekinetic Athleticism
- Level 4: Focused Defense, Ghost Step, Psicrystal Bond, Psionic Training, Psychokinetic Blast, Vampiric Blade
- Level 6: Blade Rush, Psychic Platform
- Level 8: Blade Rush Frenzy, Improved Furious Charge
- Level 10: Gruesome Riposte, Trade Blows
- Level 12: Exploding Critical, Knife to the Soul
- Level 16: Devastating Blade
New Skipper Blade Skills
Minimum Level: 2nd
Augment Skip
By spending power points, the skipper can augment her skip ability to travel further. For every 2 power points spent, she adds an additional 5 feet to her skip. A skipper’s manifester level (and thus maximum number of power points she can spend) is equal to her skipper class level for the purposes of this ability.
Defensive Skip
Rather than use her skip ability to teleport on her own turn, the skipper can use a move action to charge her skip defensively. After charging her defensive skip, as long as she maintains her psionic focus, she can cause a single attack made against her to suffer a 50% miss chance. If unused, her defensive skip charge expires at the beginning of her next turn. A skipper can’t use this ability on any turn she has already used skip.
Focused Evasion
The skipper can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with her skip ability. While maintaining psionic focus, if the skipper makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the skipper is wearing light or no armor. A helpless skipper does not gain the benefit of evasion.
Minimum Level: 4th
Defensive Strike
If a skipper successfully uses her defensive skip ability to dodge an attack, she may use inertial strike ability to charge her psychic strike as if she skipped. The skipper must have the Defensive Skip skill to select this skill.
Springing Skip
When skipping, a skipper may manifest briefly to make a single attack before finishing her teleport. This functions as a Spring Attack and only counts as a single teleportation. The skipper must have the Spring Attack feat to select this skip.
Minimum Level: 8th
Armored Skip
The skipper gains proficiency with medium armor and can still use her skip ability while wearing medium armor, but not heavy armor.
Dispelling Skip
With this skill, a skipper is capable of channeling her psychic strike damage into disruptive anti-psionic energy. As a standard action, a skipper can expend her psionic focus to make an attack after skipping. If it hits, it deals weapon damage as normal, and the target is affected with a targeted dispel psionics power as a psi-like ability, with a manifester level equal to her class level. The skipper does not apply the expended psychic strike’s damage to her attack.
Improved Defensive Skip
The charged skip from defensive skip causes the chosen attack to automatically miss. The skipper must have the Defensive Skip skill to select this skill.
Psychokinetic Skip
After skipping, a skipper can release her charged psychic strike into a burst of energy around herself as a swift action. This blast deals her full psychic strike damage to all adjacent creatures. The skipper must have the Psychokinetic Blast skill to select this skill.
Quicken Skip
Once per encounter, the skipper may use her skip ability as a swift action.
Minimum Level: 10th
Fold Space
As a standard action, the skipper can expend her psionic focus and skip further than her eyes can see, teleporting as if she had manifested the fold space power with a manifester level equal to her skipper level. Just as with the fold space power, the use of this ability ends the skipper’s turn. At 16th level, the skipper can use this ability as a move action.
This skill meets the prerequisites for and functions with Dimensional Agility and feats that require it as a prerequisite.
Improved Armored Skip
The skipper gains proficiency with heavy armor and can still use her skip ability while wearing heavy armor. The skipper must have the Armored Skip skill to select this skill.
Improved Defensive Strike
If the skipper activates her Defensive Skip ability to dodge an attack, she may charge her psychic strike whether or not the attack misses. A skipper must possess the Defensive Skip and Defensive Strike skills to select this skill.
Improved Focused Evasion
This ability works like evasion, except that while the skipper still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, she henceforth takes only half damage on a failed save while she maintains psionic focus. A helpless skipper does not gain the benefit of improved evasion. The skipper must have the Focused Evasion skill to select this skipping skill.
Reaper’s Skip
A skipper with this ability automatically recharges her psychic strike ability if she reduces an enemy’s hit points to below 0 with a melee attack made after skipping that turn.
Minimum Level: 16th
Improved Quicken Skip
In addition to the once per encounter use of Quicken Skip, the skipper can use her skip ability as a swift action an additional number of times per day equal to her Wisdom modifier. The skipper can still use Quicken Step once per encounter even after using all of her daily uses of this ability. The skipper must have the Quicken Skip skill to select this skill.