Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the Attack with that blade.This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties.
Opportunity Attack says:
You can make an opportunity Attack when a Hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity Attack, you use your Reaction to make one melee Attack against the provoking creature.
As far as I can determine, an Opportunity Attack allows you to make an attack, but you are not taking the Attack action. Psychic Blade specifies that the blades only manifest when you take the Attack action. It would seem that an opportunity attack with a psychic blade is impossible.
However, the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style says
You can draw a weapon that has the thrown property as part of the attack you make with this weapon.
Can a Soulknife draw,, or "manifest", a psychic blade in order to make a opportunity attack?
No. Notice that the knives only appear when you take the Attack Action. Opportunity attacks are not the Attack Action, therefore they don't meet the criteria for making the knives appear. The psychic knives are not sheathed anywhere, they don't exist, so they cannot be drawn.
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Ophidimancer, I believe, is right in terms of RAW. Others do rule differently. Manifesting the psychic blade is not described as the equivalent of drawing a weapon, and since they're manifested with a thought, it's possible to rule the psychic blade is actually always "ready at hand" so could be available for OAs. Of course that logic would also allow for BA uses in two handed fighting if the Rogue has both hands free. More DMs would have a big problem with that. FWIW I don't have a big dog in the debate. As a DM I think there's a certain flair for using psychic blades as an OA, but I haven't run a Soul Knife in my games so can't tell you how that call works out over a campaign.
Somewhere there is a quite lengthy thread rehashing all of this.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It is a very poorly thought out subclass. It might make sense in a setting with very strong forensics, where you might want an untraceable murder weapon, but that requires a campaign where such things matter.
Other than that, no opportunity attacks, no extra attack(s) at all (if one has one by multiclassing) without drawing a conventional weapon for that...
I hesitate to call Soul Knife "Poorly thought out" as a subclass, since overall it's actually quite a good subclass. I think it just gets a little clunky with using the psychic blades as your primary weapon... they almost work better as an emergency option for moments where you either find yourself unarmed or if you're in a situation where you need to not leave evidence of how someone died. The biggest problem with them is basically the OA situation this thread details... in order to get the most use out of the psychic blades, you need both hands free... but the blades can only manifest on your turn. So now you've either got to juggle stowing and drawing a dagger just in case, or just accept that you're not going to get any good OAs. You also might find yourself with a magic weapon at some point that's more useful than the psychic blades... there's no way to improve the blades beyond just your sneak attack getting better as you level up.
I think there was likely some concern about whether the psychic blades would be too powerful... I think they were designed the way they were to prevent multiclassing shenanigans, since even if you do manage to get Extra Attack somehow the blade will still vanish after a single use. A 60 foot range single-handed thrown weapon is potentially pretty potent, although I don't personally think it's so amazing that it has to be held down by as many restrictions as the psychic blades have.
I definitely feel that, more often than not, WoTC leans toward "overly conservative" in their design... I think partly because homebrew and houserules tend to favor the player, so it makes the game more balanced to lean in the opposite direction. I think they've probably also seen that any time they go for something more powerful it quickly gets abused by the min-maxers and tends to stagnate the game, since many players are often drawn to the "best" class, or spell, or whatever, and you end up with every other Warlock being a Hexblade, or every theoretical melee character taking a 3-level dip into Ranger to pick up Gloomstalker for the special attack.
It is a very poorly thought out subclass. It might make sense in a setting with very strong forensics, where you might want an untraceable murder weapon, but that requires a campaign where such things matter.
Other than that, no opportunity attacks, no extra attack(s) at all (if one has one by multiclassing) without drawing a conventional weapon for that...
I hesitate to call Soul Knife "Poorly thought out" as a subclass, since overall it's actually quite a good subclass. I think it just gets a little clunky with using the psychic blades as your primary weapon... they almost work better as an emergency option for moments where you either find yourself unarmed or if you're in a situation where you need to not leave evidence of how someone died. The biggest problem with them is basically the OA situation this thread details... in order to get the most use out of the psychic blades, you need both hands free... but the blades can only manifest on your turn. So now you've either got to juggle stowing and drawing a dagger just in case, or just accept that you're not going to get any good OAs. You also might find yourself with a magic weapon at some point that's more useful than the psychic blades... there's no way to improve the blades beyond just your sneak attack getting better as you level up.
I think there was likely some concern about whether the psychic blades would be too powerful... I think they were designed the way they were to prevent multiclassing shenanigans, since even if you do manage to get Extra Attack somehow the blade will still vanish after a single use. A 60 foot range single-handed thrown weapon is potentially pretty potent, although I don't personally think it's so amazing that it has to be held down by as many restrictions as the psychic blades have.
Keep in mind that I consider much of 5e to be overly conservative. Not sure what, exactly, would have been broken by the blades only disappearing after an attack in which they are released or after otherwise being dropped or set down.
My guess is they didn't want the rogue to just supply the world with psychic knives, but just limiting it to max two in existence could have handled that, too.
If anything this would make it seem more well thought out than not. The fact that they considered different ways to abuse it and put in restrictions to proactively restrain the power of the class shows forethought. It may not be the direction you agree with, but that doesn't make it poorly thought out.
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So the answer is that a Soulknife can never use psychic blades for an OA since the blades don't linger after you attack with them. The thrown fighting style has no effect on the situation.
So the answer is that a Soulknife can never use psychic blades for an OA since the blades don't linger after you attack with them. The thrown fighting style has no effect on the situation.
The only way I can think of to have a psychic blade for an OA is to take the Attack Action, manifest the blades, but to neither hit nor miss with it. That way it would not disappear and would be available for an OA. If a DM allows you to use them to make a Grapple or Shove attempt, that might work because those neither hit nor miss. But no, the Thrown Weapon fighting style has no affect.
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I think the soul knife is poorly thought out for several reasons.
reason 1 would be the arbitrary limitation restricting the use of the psychic blade to the attack action.
the 2nd is the limitation created by classifying the blade as magical and psychic damage. The damage type itself is enough to let the blade bypass resistance and immunity from mundane weapons. Saying it’s magical does nothing but hinder it from working in anti magic areas, where a rogue should be able to do well in.
the soul knife has 4 features that are magical, which I don’t agree should be the case from a mechanical standpoint.
Contrasting this with the psi warrior, the only magical thing the warrior has is its 18th level feature of actually casting a spell.
I don’t think Psionic abilities focused around martial character classes should described as being magic. Just spellcasting if there is access to it.
I played a Soulknife and ran into the problem with the OA as well.
Granted I did have some weapons (because constructs) available, but the restriction didn't really impact play much for me. The main reason is that I played the Soulknife as ranged, never getting closer than 10 feet from a target, and I was frequently farther from that.
Personally as a DM, I would just allow the OA with the blades at 1d4 attack damage; Its not unbalancing. Especially since, even if you attacked and BA attacked with the blades, you can easily draw a dagger as part of the move and have it handy, dropping next round, attack, BA attack, and draw another. Worst thing is a pile of daggers on the floor. It's not that big of a deal. But, this isn't RAW, its homebrew rule.
I think the soul knife is poorly thought out for several reasons.
reason 1 would be the arbitrary limitation restricting the use of the psychic blade to the attack action.
the 2nd is the limitation created by classifying the blade as magical and psychic damage. The damage type itself is enough to let the blade bypass resistance and immunity from mundane weapons. Saying it’s magical does nothing but hinder it from working in anti magic areas, where a rogue should be able to do well in.
the soul knife has 4 features that are magical, which I don’t agree should be the case from a mechanical standpoint.
Contrasting this with the psi warrior, the only magical thing the warrior has is its 18th level feature of actually casting a spell.
I don’t think Psionic abilities focused around martial character classes should described as being magic. Just spellcasting if there is access to it.
Do those reasons indicate it was poorly thought out? Or does it simply indicate you disagree with the design?
OK, but keep in mind, my position is that the examples provided may not be an example of the subclass being poorly thought-out (which I will shorthand as poor design). My argument is not to defend those examples specifically. I don't know a lot about the rigors of the design process at WotC, but I can say that this subclass in particular started as Unearthed Arcana, which means it had some degree of thought given to it when initially presented. And then, based on the feedback from users, it went through some degree revision afterwards, taking into account however much survey and playtest feedback. Since the final design differs from the unearthed arcana entry, we can surmise that at least one design revision occurred. This makes me think it was thought out in quite a bit of detail, regardless of whether one likes those details. To say it was poorly thought out would require some degree of insight into the development of the subclass and I don't see that in this thread.
I don't feel like this was the response you are looking for, but maybe it was?
That's your prerogative, but you are telling me that your definition of "well thought out" is subjective, and I'm not qualified to tell you your subjective opinion is correct or incorrect. It's something that largely falls outside the scope of this subforum.
The blades are; the sneak attack that comes with it, may not be. :)
But the "design issue" here is this constant debate if Psionics are/should be considered magical abilities and the inconsistent labeling of them. Anitmagic field is one, and soul cage has another long thread and the psychic teleportation. Can you counterspell it if you see it?
Psychic Veil states you magically become invisible. That's clear RAW. Psychic Teleportation does not say this which leads a lot people to make a decision:
All psionics are considered magical. (based on the anecdotes)
All psionics that aren't labeled magical, are not magical. (based on perceptions that psionics aren't magic because mind powers)
Since there isn't a clear rule that defines Psionic powers beyond (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/scag/welcome-to-the-realms#SupernaturalPowersandPsionics) which really doesn't help. The various interpretations it makes judging a mess. I get why some rules were stated, like the psychic veil one, because of balance. But the inconsistency (perceived or real) is a design problem because it gets away from a goal to streamline D&D. Any time the rules lawyers are summoned, it slows things to a crawl.
The blades are; the sneak attack that comes with it, may not be. :)
But the "design issue" here is this constant debate if Psionics are/should be considered magical abilities and the inconsistent labeling of them. Anitmagic field is one, and soul cage has another long thread and the psychic teleportation. Can you counterspell it if you see it?
Counterspell never, ever works on non-spell magic. This has absolutely nothing to do with Psionics - you could assume all Psionics are magical and that would have no interaction whatsoever with Counterspell. Likewise, there's no interaction with Counterspell if no Psionics are magical. It's almost completely irrelevant to the design issues in Soulknives whether or not their various abilities are magical, partially because antimagic field is hardly very common. The core design issues stem around how the psychic blades don't interact properly with the rules the rest of the game has to interacting with weapons, so a Soulknife trying to outperform daggers (let alone other real weapons) with their Psychic Blades is often in for a bad time.
Psychic Veil states you magically become invisible. That's clear RAW. Psychic Teleportation does not say this which leads a lot people to make a decision:
All psionics are considered magical. (based on the anecdotes)
All psionics that aren't labeled magical, are not magical. (based on perceptions that psionics aren't magic because mind powers)
Only the second one there is consistent with the RAW; the former violates it.
Psionics is a tag. As a practical matter, WOTC has never actually assigned this tag to any monsters (or their traits) that I know of, but the tag does explicitly lack rules beyond existing as a tag, so assigning rules to it is intrinsically invalid, just like assigning rules to type.
The various interpretations it makes judging a mess. I get why some rules were stated, like the psychic veil one, because of balance. But the inconsistency (perceived or real) is a design problem because it gets away from a goal to streamline D&D. Any time the rules lawyers are summoned, it slows things to a crawl.
It's a significantly bigger design problem that elemental weapon can't be cast on your psychic blades. To put this another way, Psychic Blades are a step forward from the disaster that is a Way of the Sun Soul Monk's Radiant Sun Bolt, but it's not enough steps forward to fix the underlying design flaws.
By comparison, this fixes it:
You have 2 psychic blades, each of which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient that has the light, finesse, and reach properties, but its reach property adds 55 feet to your reach, rather than 5. It deals 1d4 psychic damage on a hit.
The blades are; the sneak attack that comes with it, may not be. :)
But the "design issue" here is this constant debate if Psionics are/should be considered magical abilities and the inconsistent labeling of them. Anitmagic field is one, and soul cage has another long thread and the psychic teleportation. Can you counterspell it if you see it?
Counterspell never, ever works on non-spell magic. This has absolutely nothing to do with Psionics - you could assume all Psionics are magical and that would have no interaction whatsoever with Counterspell. Likewise, there's no interaction with Counterspell if no Psionics are magical. It's almost completely irrelevant to the design issues in Soulknives whether or not their various abilities are magical, partially because antimagic field is hardly very common. The core design issues stem around how the psychic blades don't interact properly with the rules the rest of the game has to interacting with weapons, so a Soulknife trying to outperform daggers (let alone other real weapons) with their Psychic Blades is often in for a bad time.
Psychic Veil states you magically become invisible. That's clear RAW. Psychic Teleportation does not say this which leads a lot people to make a decision:
All psionics are considered magical. (based on the anecdotes)
All psionics that aren't labeled magical, are not magical. (based on perceptions that psionics aren't magic because mind powers)
Only the second one there is consistent with the RAW; the former violates it.
Psionics is a tag. As a practical matter, WOTC has never actually assigned this tag to any monsters (or their traits) that I know of, but the tag does explicitly lack rules beyond existing as a tag, so assigning rules to it is intrinsically invalid, just like assigning rules to type.
The various interpretations it makes judging a mess. I get why some rules were stated, like the psychic veil one, because of balance. But the inconsistency (perceived or real) is a design problem because it gets away from a goal to streamline D&D. Any time the rules lawyers are summoned, it slows things to a crawl.
It's a significantly bigger design problem that elemental weapon can't be cast on your psychic blades. To put this another way, Psychic Blades are a step forward from the disaster that is a Way of the Sun Soul Monk's Radiant Sun Bolt, but it's not enough steps forward to fix the underlying design flaws.
By comparison, this fixes it:
You have 2 psychic blades, each of which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient that has the light, finesse, and reach properties, but its reach property adds 55 feet to your reach, rather than 5. It deals 1d4 psychic damage on a hit.
I think you missed my point. But first, I don't disagree at all with the mechanical analysis that you wrote on what is wrong with Soulknife. And I am firmly in the camp of "Psionics aren't magic."
My point is that because as written there are cases of ambiguity if Psionics are/aren't magical. You are coming from a perspective that they are clearly not unless otherwise specified. And that is a very valid perspective. But, I have seen other DM's judge it differently. That made the Counterspell valid question at some tables because it isn't clear. Same with Forcecage (I don't want to look at that thread again.)
That is a different type of design problem. It doesn't mean its the only one. (And I do really like your fixes :) )
My point is that because as written there are cases of ambiguity if Psionics are/aren't magical. You are coming from a perspective that they are clearly not unless otherwise specified. And that is a very valid perspective. But, I have seen other DM's judge it differently. That made the Counterspell valid question at some tables because it isn't clear. Same with Forcecage (I don't want to look at that thread again.)
Counterspell only counters spells. It doesn't have any effect on things that are magic, but are not spells. The question of whether psionics are magic are not have no relevance to this.
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My point is that because as written there are cases of ambiguity if Psionics are/aren't magical. You are coming from a perspective that they are clearly not unless otherwise specified. And that is a very valid perspective. But, I have seen other DM's judge it differently. That made the Counterspell valid question at some tables because it isn't clear. Same with Forcecage (I don't want to look at that thread again.)
Counterspell only counters spells. It doesn't have any effect on things that are magic, but are not spells. The question of whether psionics are magic are not have no relevance to this.
Last time.
The point isn't about Counterspell being valid (it isn't). It was the observation that some tables were arguing the point, simply because of the "are Psionic magic?" It's not relevant for he observation that it isn't a valid target for a host of other reasons. One table spent 20 mins on the point, which ground things to halt, before we could get to the next point that even it were, the case wasn't even a spell.
Observation. Nothing changes the observation on what happened, and the why.
Hmm ... I'm finding your writing to be somewhat unclear. I think people are complicating things unnecessarily by giving psionics some kind of special exceptions that it does not.
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So the answer is that a Soulknife can never use psychic blades for an OA since the blades don't linger after you attack with them. The thrown fighting style has no effect on the situation.
The only way I can think of to have a psychic blade for an OA is to take the Attack Action, manifest the blades, but to neither hit nor miss with it. That way it would not disappear and would be available for an OA. If a DM allows you to use them to make a Grapple or Shove attempt, that might work because those neither hit nor miss. But no, the Thrown Weapon fighting style has no affect.
That's a pretty sneaky solution, but I don't think I would let someone grapple or shove and also claim they are attacking with the psychic blade.
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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The Psychic Blade ability says:
Opportunity Attack says:
As far as I can determine, an Opportunity Attack allows you to make an attack, but you are not taking the Attack action. Psychic Blade specifies that the blades only manifest when you take the Attack action. It would seem that an opportunity attack with a psychic blade is impossible.
However, the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style says
Can a Soulknife draw,, or "manifest", a psychic blade in order to make a opportunity attack?
No. Notice that the knives only appear when you take the Attack Action. Opportunity attacks are not the Attack Action, therefore they don't meet the criteria for making the knives appear. The psychic knives are not sheathed anywhere, they don't exist, so they cannot be drawn.
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Ophidimancer, I believe, is right in terms of RAW. Others do rule differently. Manifesting the psychic blade is not described as the equivalent of drawing a weapon, and since they're manifested with a thought, it's possible to rule the psychic blade is actually always "ready at hand" so could be available for OAs. Of course that logic would also allow for BA uses in two handed fighting if the Rogue has both hands free. More DMs would have a big problem with that. FWIW I don't have a big dog in the debate. As a DM I think there's a certain flair for using psychic blades as an OA, but I haven't run a Soul Knife in my games so can't tell you how that call works out over a campaign.
Somewhere there is a quite lengthy thread rehashing all of this.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I hesitate to call Soul Knife "Poorly thought out" as a subclass, since overall it's actually quite a good subclass. I think it just gets a little clunky with using the psychic blades as your primary weapon... they almost work better as an emergency option for moments where you either find yourself unarmed or if you're in a situation where you need to not leave evidence of how someone died. The biggest problem with them is basically the OA situation this thread details... in order to get the most use out of the psychic blades, you need both hands free... but the blades can only manifest on your turn. So now you've either got to juggle stowing and drawing a dagger just in case, or just accept that you're not going to get any good OAs. You also might find yourself with a magic weapon at some point that's more useful than the psychic blades... there's no way to improve the blades beyond just your sneak attack getting better as you level up.
I think there was likely some concern about whether the psychic blades would be too powerful... I think they were designed the way they were to prevent multiclassing shenanigans, since even if you do manage to get Extra Attack somehow the blade will still vanish after a single use. A 60 foot range single-handed thrown weapon is potentially pretty potent, although I don't personally think it's so amazing that it has to be held down by as many restrictions as the psychic blades have.
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I definitely feel that, more often than not, WoTC leans toward "overly conservative" in their design... I think partly because homebrew and houserules tend to favor the player, so it makes the game more balanced to lean in the opposite direction. I think they've probably also seen that any time they go for something more powerful it quickly gets abused by the min-maxers and tends to stagnate the game, since many players are often drawn to the "best" class, or spell, or whatever, and you end up with every other Warlock being a Hexblade, or every theoretical melee character taking a 3-level dip into Ranger to pick up Gloomstalker for the special attack.
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If anything this would make it seem more well thought out than not. The fact that they considered different ways to abuse it and put in restrictions to proactively restrain the power of the class shows forethought. It may not be the direction you agree with, but that doesn't make it poorly thought out.
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So the answer is that a Soulknife can never use psychic blades for an OA since the blades don't linger after you attack with them. The thrown fighting style has no effect on the situation.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
The only way I can think of to have a psychic blade for an OA is to take the Attack Action, manifest the blades, but to neither hit nor miss with it. That way it would not disappear and would be available for an OA. If a DM allows you to use them to make a Grapple or Shove attempt, that might work because those neither hit nor miss. But no, the Thrown Weapon fighting style has no affect.
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I think the soul knife is poorly thought out for several reasons.
reason 1 would be the arbitrary limitation restricting the use of the psychic blade to the attack action.
the 2nd is the limitation created by classifying the blade as magical and psychic damage. The damage type itself is enough to let the blade bypass resistance and immunity from mundane weapons. Saying it’s magical does nothing but hinder it from working in anti magic areas, where a rogue should be able to do well in.
the soul knife has 4 features that are magical, which I don’t agree should be the case from a mechanical standpoint.
Contrasting this with the psi warrior, the only magical thing the warrior has is its 18th level feature of actually casting a spell.
I don’t think Psionic abilities focused around martial character classes should described as being magic. Just spellcasting if there is access to it.
I played a Soulknife and ran into the problem with the OA as well.
Granted I did have some weapons (because constructs) available, but the restriction didn't really impact play much for me. The main reason is that I played the Soulknife as ranged, never getting closer than 10 feet from a target, and I was frequently farther from that.
Personally as a DM, I would just allow the OA with the blades at 1d4 attack damage; Its not unbalancing. Especially since, even if you attacked and BA attacked with the blades, you can easily draw a dagger as part of the move and have it handy, dropping next round, attack, BA attack, and draw another. Worst thing is a pile of daggers on the floor. It's not that big of a deal. But, this isn't RAW, its homebrew rule.
Do those reasons indicate it was poorly thought out? Or does it simply indicate you disagree with the design?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
OK, but keep in mind, my position is that the examples provided may not be an example of the subclass being poorly thought-out (which I will shorthand as poor design). My argument is not to defend those examples specifically. I don't know a lot about the rigors of the design process at WotC, but I can say that this subclass in particular started as Unearthed Arcana, which means it had some degree of thought given to it when initially presented. And then, based on the feedback from users, it went through some degree revision afterwards, taking into account however much survey and playtest feedback. Since the final design differs from the unearthed arcana entry, we can surmise that at least one design revision occurred. This makes me think it was thought out in quite a bit of detail, regardless of whether one likes those details. To say it was poorly thought out would require some degree of insight into the development of the subclass and I don't see that in this thread.
I don't feel like this was the response you are looking for, but maybe it was?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
That's your prerogative, but you are telling me that your definition of "well thought out" is subjective, and I'm not qualified to tell you your subjective opinion is correct or incorrect. It's something that largely falls outside the scope of this subforum.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
The blades are; the sneak attack that comes with it, may not be. :)
But the "design issue" here is this constant debate if Psionics are/should be considered magical abilities and the inconsistent labeling of them. Anitmagic field is one, and soul cage has another long thread and the psychic teleportation. Can you counterspell it if you see it?
Psychic Veil states you magically become invisible. That's clear RAW. Psychic Teleportation does not say this which leads a lot people to make a decision:
Since there isn't a clear rule that defines Psionic powers beyond (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/scag/welcome-to-the-realms#SupernaturalPowersandPsionics) which really doesn't help. The various interpretations it makes judging a mess. I get why some rules were stated, like the psychic veil one, because of balance. But the inconsistency (perceived or real) is a design problem because it gets away from a goal to streamline D&D. Any time the rules lawyers are summoned, it slows things to a crawl.
Counterspell never, ever works on non-spell magic. This has absolutely nothing to do with Psionics - you could assume all Psionics are magical and that would have no interaction whatsoever with Counterspell. Likewise, there's no interaction with Counterspell if no Psionics are magical. It's almost completely irrelevant to the design issues in Soulknives whether or not their various abilities are magical, partially because antimagic field is hardly very common. The core design issues stem around how the psychic blades don't interact properly with the rules the rest of the game has to interacting with weapons, so a Soulknife trying to outperform daggers (let alone other real weapons) with their Psychic Blades is often in for a bad time.
Only the second one there is consistent with the RAW; the former violates it.
Psionics is a tag. As a practical matter, WOTC has never actually assigned this tag to any monsters (or their traits) that I know of, but the tag does explicitly lack rules beyond existing as a tag, so assigning rules to it is intrinsically invalid, just like assigning rules to type.
It's a significantly bigger design problem that elemental weapon can't be cast on your psychic blades. To put this another way, Psychic Blades are a step forward from the disaster that is a Way of the Sun Soul Monk's Radiant Sun Bolt, but it's not enough steps forward to fix the underlying design flaws.
By comparison, this fixes it:
You have 2 psychic blades, each of which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient that has the light, finesse, and reach properties, but its reach property adds 55 feet to your reach, rather than 5. It deals 1d4 psychic damage on a hit.
I think you missed my point. But first, I don't disagree at all with the mechanical analysis that you wrote on what is wrong with Soulknife. And I am firmly in the camp of "Psionics aren't magic."
My point is that because as written there are cases of ambiguity if Psionics are/aren't magical. You are coming from a perspective that they are clearly not unless otherwise specified. And that is a very valid perspective. But, I have seen other DM's judge it differently. That made the Counterspell valid question at some tables because it isn't clear. Same with Forcecage (I don't want to look at that thread again.)
That is a different type of design problem. It doesn't mean its the only one. (And I do really like your fixes :) )
Counterspell only counters spells. It doesn't have any effect on things that are magic, but are not spells. The question of whether psionics are magic are not have no relevance to this.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Last time.
The point isn't about Counterspell being valid (it isn't). It was the observation that some tables were arguing the point, simply because of the "are Psionic magic?" It's not relevant for he observation that it isn't a valid target for a host of other reasons. One table spent 20 mins on the point, which ground things to halt, before we could get to the next point that even it were, the case wasn't even a spell.
Observation. Nothing changes the observation on what happened, and the why.
Hmm ... I'm finding your writing to be somewhat unclear. I think people are complicating things unnecessarily by giving psionics some kind of special exceptions that it does not.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That's a pretty sneaky solution, but I don't think I would let someone grapple or shove and also claim they are attacking with the psychic blade.
"Not all those who wander are lost"