"if you enjoy creating characters more than you do playing, welcome home." **opens spreadsheet of characters i've never played** **single tear** I'm.. home...
My DM has made my year though. We're doing an ALL-FOR-ONE. Everyone creates same class. Played for a few sessions. We all create another class. Alternate sessions. All create a third. Rotate sessions. All stories are converging. All classes are level synced. DM cranks encounter difficulty up really pushing the limits. Surviving (or new) characters are chosen for the epic end game 15-20. We're currently levels 9, second class.
I discovered this channel only about a month ago, and now I'm here less than 10 minutes after a new video drops. I like to think that speaks for the quality of these videos.
The same thing happened to me! I found this channel and within a couple of weeks I had watched 70+ build videos as well as 25+ episodes of their campaign... I might have a problem but its a problem I enjoy!
The rogue in the game I'm running took this focus, and I'll second how awesome the communication angle is. A few sessions back, the party were infiltrating the hideout of a baddie, and she was scouting ahead. She found the villain's inner sanctum, found the hostage, and "radio'd" back to the party what she'd found. She proceeded to spend another psi die to change up who she was talking to to loop in the hostage, told her that she was there to rescue her, to stay quiet when she arrived, snuck in, and extracted the hostage, while the rest of the party stormed the front to create a distraction. That's the sort of power that doesn't ping on people's power charts but was essential to solving that problem.
these sorts of situations were also the reason i took the less praised telepathic feat for some of my builds over the usual telekinetic/feytouched/shadow touched/resilient/skill expert half-feats for caster types to round out my odd abiity score.
I wish he would provide some visual overview of the end result like this, so we could see how many levels of each class a build contains. Rather than having them loosely placed throughout the video.
When you said “ it’s like Gambit” I was sold. Flinging laser daggers at people while force pushing objects at the same time and bamphfing from one spot to the other ….amazing. It’s like night crawler and gambit became Jedi. So cool
That line "if you enjoy creating characters for d&d almost as much as you enjoy playing the game itself... welcome home." That got me. Subscribed immediately
Best part about the psychic blades is they leave no marks and wounds. So you can kill someone with invisible blades and then they just look like they had a heart attack.
Always nice to see a great use of something not Custom Lineage x) also your kids seem quite heavily optimized... You got thrashed in that encounter man.
I love the way you blend all the various aspects of being a tabletop roleplay gamer; the concept matters, the build matters, you weigh things fairly considering the pros and cons narratively and mechanically, and consider all the options and going in-depth with each of them to see what's honestly going to work "best" for the character you have in mind. It scratches the particular spot of my mind that sees options as ever branching paths and loves the crunch of optimization and the creative endeavour of working within limitations while still ringing turn with some thematically appropriate & interestingly subversive.
Me at the start: He's going Elven Accuracy, isn't he? Also me: *surprised Pikachu face* Psi Warrior is definitely Jedi. The only thing I think of with "Psi-Powered Leap" is the reactor fight from Star Wars ep 1. Totally Force jumping. Merch? Dice for the dice goblins! Character sheets for the Character Throne!
28:50 If you don't mind giving up your reaction for the turn, action surge does let you get two sneak attacks in: Use the second attack action to hold action to throw a dagger (by RAW this has to be a real dagger I think, as the psychic blades feature is poorly written), then throw the dagger any time before your next turn. Only really relevant from levels 5-7 though, after extra attack it becomes not worth it.
You're probably better off usimg something like Sentinel to trigger your reaction to get a 2nd sneak attack off since it's repeatable from round to round.
@@GaryBoyles342 once per TURN not per round. You can sneak attack again on an opponent's turn using your reaction if you can trigger it with an opportunity attack, etc.
I discovered this channel only about a week ago but I am in love. This series is so fun and inspires me to make more unique builds like these almost every day. It's a pleasant treat every time. But I gotta tell you that the cherry on top of this whole thing was when I saw you were wearing a Trogdor shirt. I know I can't prove it to you but I also happen to be wearing my Trogdor shirt on the day I'm watching this. That moment when you started singing "Burninating the countryside!!" was the highlight of my day. Thank you.
All of the builds I’ve watched so far have been really damn cool, but oh my god this is the build that I have most wanted to play of all of them. The psionic theme just pulls me in, and I’ve been wanting to play a fighter rogue for a long time. Thanks Colby!
When you mentioned wanting a higher level damage bump on psychic blades, I realized - apart from ruling that you can attack with psychic blades whenever you would make a weapon attack (rather than requiring the full Attack action), if they just did damage equal to your psionic energy die it would fix nearly all the issues people have with this feature. Sure you don’t get a hit bonus, but as a pure rogue you’re doing 1d12 with these things, that’s not something rogues get to do often.
Loved this build, so my cup of tea. One immediate thought though; you could cut the Fighter dip to 3 levels, drop the Wizard entirely and take Ranger levels instead thus gaining spellcasting, an extra fighting style and an extra skill. Gloomstalker sits so well on the Rogue chassis I don't think I could resist. You'd need to roll for stats though and roll well. My last set of numbers would make you swoon; 11, 13. 14. 17, 18, 18. Witnessed by my soon to be DM for his first game. He's not happy whereas I am utterly thrilled. my first time as a player in 5E and I get God tier attributes.
Would be nice, I just worry that you're just delaying extra attack *forever* :). Still, on this character Extra attack isn't adding as much as it does for other builds, so definitely worth considering.
I was waiting for a soul knife build! Been here since the very start of the channel with your hexblade PAMlock build, and it is amazing to see how far this has come. Hope you are doing well, take care!
I had to pause the video because your family is so precious. Your content makes me smile and helps me relax during some stressful stuff so thank you for being on TH-cam. ❤
@@shadow-fayeExactly. Dueling FS just says you have to be wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no weapon in the other hand...nothing about needing to make a melee attack with that weapon to get the +2 to damage. And all weapons that are throwable (except for one...) are melee weapons despite making ranged attacks; Thrown is just a property of weapons, not a class like melee or ranged. As for the exception...it's funny because a similar thing works with the Dart, the one thrown weapon that is a ranged weapon. Dueling doesn't work because it's not melee, but you know what does? Archery. So with a similar setup, you can have a Bullseye-esque character who, instead of a +4 to damage the melee thrown weapon example gets, you get a +2 both to hit and to damage instead.
Ahhhh so satisfying. I’m rolling through my second watch of it already. I love the psionics and I love the idea of playing a rogue Jedi. Also!! I think what would be a cool idea that I think you’d get a lot of views for would be a video series where you give us your favorite items for either certain classes or certain character roles. Or adding that as an aside near the end of the videos what your top 3-5 items you’d like for that specific character if you could get them.
i dont usually comment but i discovered your channel i wanna say a week or 2 ago and man has it been great i like to sleep with a video in the background and your voice is actually perfect for that. i usually sit at my desk for a little at the start then lie down thinking about the concepts you talk about imagining their appearance and such and its so incredibly fun thanks for the content and for giving me some fun and good rest that i dont always get due to my brain being all over the place at night
I'll always be a diehard Bladesinger advocate, but I've been dying for you to drop this video. I'm so excited! Thanks as always for the amount of time and effort you put into these videos Colby!
A fun idea I've had recently would be soulknife rogue multiclassed with echo knight flavored as a psychic projection allowing you to channel psychic power through it, the idea would allow you to be hidden while the projection fights for you if you want to stay safe or would allow you to do some opportunity attack shenanigans by giving an enemy the option of leaving the echo's range and procking an opportunity attack or wasting its attacks on the echo if you decide to go higher levels into echo knight it would allow you to have a great source of scouting without the chance of much danger and it can be in the air in case your 60ft range psychic blades can't reach to get a flying creature
Oh my god! I came to this video to see a cool Soulknife Rogue, and found that we thought pretty much the same build (well, very similar, not the same) on one of my favorite Characters i have created (but not played 😢). My distribution was a bit different: Rogue 9 (Soulknife Obv) + Wizard 6 (Bladesinger) + Fighter 3 (Psi Knight). Leaving 2 Levels to customize depending on how the campaign moves along. My concept focused more on the "Soul" part of the Soulknife, creating blades out of Shadows of other people to kill them (thats how they are manifested) and using Wizard levels for the Extra AC in Bladesinger + Mage Armor (20 AC on a Rogue is CRAZY) and one of your favorite spells Shadow Blade. Faerie Fire is not something i had considered before and really changes my perspective on the thing my build could do (I had just planned to use my Familiar to give advantage for the Sneak Attack). My Character Concept stemmed from the Child of a Magus Killer Assassin who served as a Living Spellbook for his father as the spells were Tattooed on his skin, and his tongue got cut (thus, only speaking through the Soulknife 's Telepathic Speech). The magic of turning him into a living Spellbook means he got in contact with his own soul and developed his Soul-based Powers, being able to hit the "soul" of the opponent (so constructs do not have soul, i cannot hit), leaving no visible injuries.
Race: Gith Theme: Space Pirate sailing the astral sea. This is more or less one of the very first "martial" characters I started to theory craft over a year ago before I even knew about your channel. I like this idea so much.
Just wanted to say great game tonight with Chris, Kelly and Monty. Definitely entertaining to watch you guys putting your creations through an adventure so we can see how your tweaks actually work in real game play. Need to make that a regular thing, kudos to all you guys for putting it together. As a follower of all 3 channels and new to DMing, it is greatly appreciated.
Been following the channel, on here(Yt), and Spotify for a few months now. This channel has made me aware, as a new TTRPG enthusiast, that I have had an itch not fully realized until finding things/communities that specialize in conceptualizing. Thanks for the quality, wholesome, and we'll thought content. Major thumbs up for integrity of edits, reviewing content, links, and timestamps. I look forward to more content as well as supporting these thought provoking character designs/optimizations.
I made a Soul Knife Rogue/Eloquence Bard Changling. You are the ultimate assassin. No blood, no evidence of you ever being there, you can change into your kill or someone who should be present for quick get away, Jack of all trades and no less than a 10 on a roll for Deception and Persuasion. Plus everything else they get from Soul Knife Rouge. It's beautiful. One of my players is going to test it out whoever we start a new game or if her current one dies
Great video! LOVE IT! I just finished putting together three soul knife builds when you put out this video. I took a similar route with levels in psi warrior, but delayed fighter levels until after level 9 rogue. When I compared the DPR with the Treantmonk baseline I found that the delay did better DPR because of the increased accuracy of homing strikes and increased sneak attack damage than taking fighter levels early. But I'm guessing you already knew this since you mentioned in your video that you had wanted to get to homing strikes earlier, but focused on showcasing the psionic ability of the character at lower levels. In case anyone else is interested, here are the other two builds: I made a pure rogue changeling spy with actor feat and the figthing initiate feat to get the thrown weapon fighting style. The DPR is only slightly lower for that build than the one with the psi warrrior levels. And instead of intelligence, I focused on Charisma. The last build focused on Wisdom with Ranger (Gloomstalker) levels. Gloomstalker synergizes with any rogue build. And spellcasting adds to the character's damage and utility. At first I thought it was odd that the soulknife's features didn't use any mental stats. But after making three different builds with three different mental stats, I am convinced it's good design because it expands the multiclass options for the soulknife.
"And burnination has forsaken the countryside, only one guy will remain. My money's on Trogdor!" 😆 The Trogdor reference brings back lots of memories, man I loved Strong Bad emails! Also the build was great, thematically at the top of the list of builds you've done.
So, one thing I love to do on rogue characters is pick up the blooming blade cantrip, and get access to find familiar. The reason for this is that a familiar can give you the help action to get advantage on your attacks allowing you to get sneak attack easily. With booming blade you get extra damage, damage versatility, and crowd control for free with zero draw backs the booming blade spell doesn't even create a massive sound like the knock or thunder wave spell.
This is so weird that over the holidays made a level 15 character that was so similar to this, I had 9 levels of soul knife and 6 of psi warrior. I went with custome liniage and took the gift of the gem dragon feat for some extra telekinetic reaction and story for why the character had psionics. But other than that I did a very similar thing with thrown weapon fighting and dueling from a feat. Missed your videos over the holidays and glad to have you back
as the DM in my games i allow soulknifes to attune to daggers and those the "template" of hte psychic blade (like the hex weapon of hexblade warlocks) and use the extra attack with a psychic blade
I'm running a yuan -ti Soulknife Rouge. Karya does massive damage (usually) in combat and is very useful to her party , not to mention a lot of fun to play!
One fun thing about thrown weapon fighting style that I like, is it lets you make an opportunity attack against enemies even if you don’t have a weapon in your hand, since you can pull out the dagger as part of the attack. It’s a cool feature on a rogue who will always love a good opportunity attack for sneak attack.
I would definitely take the catapult spell as a wizard to lean into the telekinetic aspect of this character. Fair damage for a first level spell, but also lets you throw distant objects closer to you or allies, including disarmed enemy weapons. The objects can even be magical. :)
This is a good opportunity to talk about the utility possibility of action surge. There will be times when you need an extra dash or dodge action in order to get your attacks off, and there will be times when you need to use an object such as a key in a puzzle or a magic item such as cape of the mountebank. A lot of cool combo moves become possible when you don't need action surge for a nova round.
I have watched this video at least once a day for awhile now. I really love this build idea. Psionics was always a favorite part of the lore. Rogue was my first ever character and this is such a well done combo
I think an interesting solution would be the ability to designate a magic weapon as your soul blade, kind of like the warlocks pact of the blade. I'm not sure how powerful it would be but I think it sounds pretty cool.
This is definitely a conversation to have w/your DM. Personally I'd allow it or else provide custom items that buff the psychic blades to imitate magic weapons.
Hi Colby. I sort of worked around this build and got some improvements I'll share here. Get the kobold race, go rogue 3, ranger (BM) 5, fighter 3 and back to rogue til the end. Take the beast of the sky, which has flyby and make it give yourself adv on every attack. Rangers get HM anyways, so you don't need the mark of finding race. You also don't need to waste a feat on the fighting style because you get one from ranger, which can be either dueling or thrown weapon fighting. You get Hunters mark and the effects of faerie fire. And there you have it. Sustained dpr with room for an "emergency" nova round.
I know I'm a year late seeing this, but I was genuinely thinking about this multiclass last night, and here I am today, finding Colby's build on it... Sir, you genuinely are an amazing resource and I love all of your videos.
Great build, with great flavor. Maybe somebody already suggested it, but you could also go Fairy as your race. 1 free fairy fire per day, and… flight! Love the idea of throwing psychic blades from above the battlefield. Btw, best wiches to you and your family.
although flavor and roleplay wise, paladin will always be my favorite class, my heart has a soft spot for rogues, which was the first class I played in an official dnd campaign. Something about the class makes you really consider what your options are, as you're effectiveness is based upon the state of the battlefield more so than any other class. You make plans more, trying to orchestrate an unfolding situation into a state that you can best take advantage of. You see if you can spend your turn doing more than just adding to dps. Where others might be blinded by their spellbook or their divine prayers, you have to make do with cunning and daring-do to shift the tide of battle. Precise use of ball bearings, alchemists fire, bottles of grease, or even standard ropework make you interact with the system in ways that many classes simply don't, because they don't have to. Such a blast to play.
Funnily enough this is exactly the character concept I'm currently playing (from level 1, currently level 2) and you may or may not be surprised to hear how much endless idle agonising over when to take levels in which I've been going through XD
I see how mechanically evocation makes sense. And that war magic or bladesinger make sense. But thematically this is the one build where divination is an absolute must in my mind. The powers of your mind have expanded so vastly that you can actually see the future. Your mind has surmounted the constraints of not only space but time itself (yeah chronurgy does not exist)
I think I really like this. I am going to be playing in a 1 shot at level 12 and have been scouring your builds. Very exciting, take a cool idea and concept and them make it my own!
I'm doing a Swashbuckler Rogue with levels of Draconic Sorcerer in an upcoming campaign, I too would love to see a big rogue + caster build on this channel
@@johannesstephanusroos4969 it's not a typo, I used knave intentionally, like a pirate. Like Davey Jones or even Jack Sparrow essentially, cut a deal for power on the high seas.
When I decided to build a knife-throwing rogue, I of course heavily considered a Soulknife, but eventually settled on a Fighter 1/Phantom Rogue X. Phantom's class features require you to be within 30 ft of the target, which is a synergistic limitation for the short range of thrown daggers.
Thank you for doing the Psion build man I really appreciate it. The flexibility here with the Psionic dice is REALLY good and stacking the two fighting styles was a nice touch too cause extra dice can be nice but extra flat damage almost always feels better.
playing a soulknife 4 atm, passed 2 DC 25 thieves tools checks in a row (arcane locks) without expertise (but did have guidance) soulknifes dont fail skill checks ever. i was debating what i could multiclass into but i didnt want to delay things, this has helped a bunch, thanks
I think my favorite Soul Knife multiclass is with Beast Barbarian, because combined with the claws and bonus action attack, you get a pretty ridiculous number of decently strong attacks from someone with no weapon required. Plus, reminds me of Raziel from Soul Reaver with all the psychic-swords and beastlike claws, just make'em a Dhampir and no one would tell the difference!
Hey Colby, I watched your old support Bard video recently and I came up with a very different but very effective parallel support Lore Bard!! I really think you'll like it and it comes online at level 3. Class composition is Divine Soul Sorcerer 1 / Peace Domain Cleric 1 / Lore Bard X, in that order. The whole idea of this build is to throw tons of d4 bonuses or penalties across the battlefield. Typically this is achieved through some combination of Bless/Bane, Emboldening Bond, Guidance, Resistance, Ceremony, etc. I believe that this build can grant a +3d4 bonus to an ally if you use Ceremony on top of Bless (or the relevant cantrips) and Emboldening Bond. This character is very much not focused on damage; it will have a few damaging spells, but most will be buff/debuff/control. Even the cantrips will be intended for d4 penalties (mind sliver and vicious mockery) rather than damage, though you could pick up fire bold and toll the dead for sure - God knows you'll have enough cantrip slots for them! Also, a word on Sanctuary. As a Divine Soul, you get Cleric spells as a Sorcerer. Which means that you can get Sanctuary cast with your primary ability score for a higher Wisdom save. And since you won't need to be attacking regularly, one Sanctuary will last you a good, long time while you sit back and play support. Or while you sit forward and play support, if you really want to. My particular build has only 10 AC, but is harder to hit than most Paladins at very high levels. If you consider an ancient red dragon, for example, it has a whopping +17 bonus to attack rolls, but only a +9 to wisdom saves. So, it still has about a 50% chance of even being able to attack this character while Sanctuary is active without burning a legendary resistance (which would be totally fine by me, let the Monk stun it that much earlier!) Then stack on top of that Bane, and the odds are actually _in your favor_ against getting hit by an _ancient red dragon_ which is ABSURD! Compared to an AC 23 Paladin (concentrating on Shield of Faith with the defense fighting style), this build will be hit about 30% less often. But Calvin, what about saving throw attacks? Yes, this build still vulnerable to those... But that's where Bless + Favor of the Gods comes into play. An easy +3d4 to a save is always welcome in a pinch. Then all the usual shenanigans with Lore bards getting their pick of all the best spells in the game, as you discussed in your video... Probably minus Goodberry, but you could make it work of you still want it 😉
nice way to be sturdy via sanctuary. however, my bet is the DM just avoids you and kills your party members instead. your buffs will delay it but sanctuary will make you pretty much useless after you cast aside it aside from supporting/healing. cant bane post sanctuary either.
@@TheRobversion1 hmm, well, this build wasn't made to serve as a tank or distraction, so I would consider it a win if my party is keeping the enemies engaged away from me. This character is much better suited to sitting on the sidelines casting Vicious Mockery or Mind Sliver each round than hiding behind Sanctuary without using those cantrips. It's a good defensive option that persists longer than, say, Shield, if it is needed, but ideally it won't be needed all the time.
I feel like it's worth noting that as much as the bonus action says "when you make an attack, you can make a second attack as a bonus action", it doesn't say that your second attack has to be your final attack. You can attack, then move, then attack as part of the attack action, I don't see why you can't take your attackaction1, attackba, attackaction2. It's silly phrasing, but as far as I know there's nothing saying you can't say that's how it mechanically happened, even if rolling wise, just for the sake of concision you rolled your two action-attacks together, and your bonus action separately.
I think this build is (of course) perfectly optimised. But a 3 levels whispers bard dip would give a bonus to damage, access to the faerie fire spell, leaving room for more race options. Even more increased utility, support features and of course it would be SUPER on theme
Love the build (soulknife is probably my favorite subclass in the game). I think a fun alternative to psi knight would be a swarmkeeper, since you get fairy fire, along with extra attack and some telekinetic like features. Also it could have a really cool "hive mind" kinda theme
Flavour your swarm as Swirling Psy energy swirling around you. Gets you your fighting style, and you can choose to go fighter or ranger 5 for extra attack. Adding piercing to an attack, or pushing the target, or moving yourself for a bonus action free disengage.... gotta love the Swarmkeeper
You could have taken the 'Shadowblade" spell as it has the same property's as your psionic blades. This would allow you to deal 2d8 + all the bonuses. However it requires concentration meaning no faier fire. However this requires you to take an additional Wizard level
Interesting idea. Unfortunately you’d have to also sacrifice your bonus action psionic blade attack to recall the thrown shadow blade, but numbers wise the shadow blade still wins
@@michaellavy3269 Right... this was the main reason I avoided my favorite spell in the game :). Both concentration *and* Bonus Action when we're already using our Action to throw a psychic blade felt like it belonged on a different character. I *did* make use of throwing a shadow blade here though... th-cam.com/video/10FsqSXwJwU/w-d-xo.html
Great to see you back and love the build. I was hoping Kalashtar if you're gonna use Eberron ;) you know, for max psionic theme goodness, but yeah Mark of Finding is great.
Lot of redundancies with a Kalashtar. Soulknives receive the telepathic communication at 3rd, and Psi Warriors nab Psychic Resistance at 10th. That's 2 out of 4 racial traits redundant, leaving advantage on Wisdom Saves and the No Sleep feature. None of these features are eligible to be replaced with Customised Origin ala Tasha's without DM fiat. Soulknife's telepathic communication is an improvement over the Kalashtar's version, even if it is resource dependent, both in range and number of targets. The psychic resistance is less of an issue if you follow this specific build, since you never reach Psi Warrior's 10th level feature.
Happy new year DNDO team! I recently theoried a tabaxi rogue/bard that uses the psychic knife features from soulknife and one of the features from bard of valor/swords (I forget which subclass atm) The soulknife rogue is badass because, if I read it correctly, it sounds a lot like you can be unarmed but, as you attack, your blade appears in one hand and then, for your bonus action, you can use your offhand attack while your first blade disappears and a second blade appears in your second hand. This means you can benefit from from the dueling fight style because you never have more than 1 weapon! I might be wrong, but that's how I interpret it. This gives me a cool vision of a cat-like rogue that can almost dance across a battlefield, hence the tabaxi racial choice
I gave my soulknife player an amulet made out of pure psychic energy. So the chain, the amulet everything is just shimmering blue psychic energy no metal or anything. When worn this first gave her psychic blades a +1 to hit and damag, later I let her find something she could use to further tweak the thing to a +2, and finally giving her resistance to psychic damage. I don’t think it was overpowered considering the magic shit the others got. And it was beyond cool
Just discovered your channel, good job your are doing pretty good optimization wise but here some tip I can share with you: with Action surge, you ready action to attack on the next creature turn. voila 2 sneak attack per round but still just one per turn hunter mark is not just one combat. if you keep concentrating on the spell between combat, you can keep it active for a full hour. This have been confirm during hte play test, when people where talking about bringing a bag of ladybug and target a ladybug with huntermark/Hex to keep the spell active until the next fight, then simply squash that ladybug as a free action and bonus action your hunter mark/hex to a new target. The game Dev came quickly to clarifie that you could keep concentration on the spell even if no available target existed to avoid every warlock and ranger having to carry a bag of ladybug lol So when exporing a dungeon (usually untill the next short rest). Let's assume you are doing 10 rounds combat (1 minute) and take 5 minute to clear the room (do your perception check, look for trap, secret door, hidden treasure and opening the door to the next room) This mean hunter mark could be up for clearing 10 room in your dungeon each contianing a minute long fight. Usually the warlock, monk, fighter (and other short rest bases character start complaning about "needing" a short rest after 2 or 3 fights in order to restore their ressources) so hunter mark can easily last 2-3 fights untill the short rest (and be available during half? 3/4? of the short rest if the group get ambushed) One of my favorite scouting character is a shadow monk/rogue assassin. I have 2 different builds for that character and I was curious on how you would build one. (by the way this is a forgotten realm Adventure league legal character) The character need to be a great scout (so good stealth, good perception, good mobility) and able to do hit and run tactic. My strategy with this build is running in combat with surprise (between expertise to stealth, pass without trace I often don'T even need to roll the dice and I already beaten most guard passive perception), abuse the auto crit build from the rogue assassin kill one or 2 targets if possible and shadow step out of combat back in the safety of shadow, rinse and repeat, targeting on any mesanger trying to escape to alert other rooms until the party join in and cleans the left over. My first build was a rogue/monk/warlock in order to get devil sight and abuse Hex and/or darkness but that concept was quickly getting MAD so took half elf just to comply with the stat requirement. The warlock also allowed my to use a staff of spellpower as my monk weapon... so I could shoot fireball or wall of force and the Great old one telepathic featre assure I could talk with my party My second build I made I replaced the warlock with fighter (with tasha blindsight fighting style) and took half orc (with Tasha able to change strenght bonus into dex bonus and con bonus into Wisdom bonus) So I was able to drop my charisma, I was no longer torned between Hex or Darkness, and I still had my blindsight (only at 10ft range, but for a monk it's good enought) and actions urge during a surprise round (as explain earlier) give me 2 auto crit sneak attack. The lost of option to wield a wizard staff and telepathy does sadden me a bit. So I would be curious to know how you would build a scout around the unlimited monk shadow step needed that can have a nice burst damage and still be able to help the party once they join the fight. I did think about the new Psy blade rogue with teleportation psy dagger, but he can only teleport a limited amount of time per day. The concept is not to be a one men army, and solo the adventure. I'm perfectly fine that I need the party to take on bigger group of ennemy and specially the BBEG at the end of the dungeon. But taking care of small patrol and lonely guard to open the way for the party to walk undetected in the dungeon... that my goal. In combat my goal is making sure that no one escape the fight in order to sound an alarm or just escape our grasp. Since it's an adventure league character I cannot count of my friendly wizard friend to be their to cast buff spell on me on every fight (sometime no wizard show up, sometime the wizard got a best friend and use all his spell on that friend, and sometime that wizard have no idea how to play and beleive his Gandalf swinging a sword complaining that the paladin ruining the game by bursting on the ennemies)
i like the assassin as well. it's a breath of fresh air to see a person in the comments incorporating surprise into their playstyle/core strategy and touting the assassin which i feel is quite underrated/get alot of undeserved hate. personally, i dont just rely on stealth for surprise generation as i like to generate it for all combats. i use a combination of stealth, illusions (eldritch adept: misty visions-one of the best surprise generators in the game and better than devil sight + darkness for ranged attackers), invisibility (gloomstalker, spell) and distractions (minor illusion, thaumaturgy, etc).
Two things: 1. Im trying out lotusden halfling since they can cast entangle starting at 3rd lvl. 2. I'd suggest taking martial adept for quick toss, which let's you make a thrown weapon attack as a bonus action
My dm is letting just pool all the psionic die together because it is cool smiles Also I love this build, but im forgoing the wizard levels for just more levels in rogue, I am using variant human instead and I just like getting some more of my soulknife abilities over casting i feel like it fits the character im making better The variant of this im doing gets thrown weapon fighting style from its human feat and dueling fighting style from its first level dip in fighter so from there I only had to take fighter to level 5 and could focus on rogue the rest of the way and get more out of sneak attack and psionics, idk what that does damage wise but I just didn't feel like I needed the help getting advantage from faerie fire to justify the spellcasting investment of my race and 2 wizard levels while also being able to be a more skillful rogue, not to knack on your build just letting others know my variant
So, A little tip if you want damage over everything else. Take a level in hexblade and go aasimar lol. It’s a free 20 damage at level 20 and +6 per attack. So with 11 in psi knight, 1 in hexblade, 8 in soul knife with hexblades curse, necrotic shroud, telekinetic strike, and the hex spell active you would be doing 3d6 +1d4 +1d10 +4d6 +4d6 +72 damage per round. That averages at 73 dpr against a 22 ac, 94 against 18, 113 against a 10 ac. Now I realize that it’s not all to reliable to hit things with this build. So! 11 chronurgy wiz 9 soul knife. Store haste with arcane ambiance and give it to your familiar, have your familiar cast haste on you, cast tensers transformation on yourself, use necrotic shroud, then do damage. 2 attacks from tensers, 1 from haste, one as a ba, for 3d6 +5d6 +1d4 +8d12 +48. Yes this build has fighting initiate for thrown weapon fighting. Now… 130 damage… on an ac of 22. You can do this for 10 rounds and still have psi dice to spare.
"if you enjoy creating characters more than you do playing, welcome home."
**opens spreadsheet of characters i've never played**
**single tear**
I'm.. home...
Yay!
My DM has made my year though. We're doing an ALL-FOR-ONE. Everyone creates same class. Played for a few sessions. We all create another class. Alternate sessions. All create a third. Rotate sessions. All stories are converging. All classes are level synced. DM cranks encounter difficulty up really pushing the limits. Surviving (or new) characters are chosen for the epic end game 15-20. We're currently levels 9, second class.
@@DnDDeepDive me, who started dming only to put my party against my optimised builds: *muahahahaha*
Excel...lets play line 237...character is...hmmm...half-orc archeologist duskblade. Thank God for Solo mods and conversion guides.
@@Spendleton now that sounds like a great meta romp!
Colby being viciously assaulted by his own family for suggesting a use for Silvery Barbs has got to be the cutest thing I've seen this year so far
I mean if the implication there is that silvery bard banners are an adorable swarm, well I've been called much worse, so I can accept that.
True dat
I discovered this channel only about a month ago, and now I'm here less than 10 minutes after a new video drops. I like to think that speaks for the quality of these videos.
Ha ha! Thanks and welcome :)
Welcome to the family!
As Colby says: "Welcome home!" 😊
The same thing happened to me! I found this channel and within a couple of weeks I had watched 70+ build videos as well as 25+ episodes of their campaign... I might have a problem but its a problem I enjoy!
Completely agreed, kind of the same
Its always fun to remember that, RAW, you can add your prof bonus to the soulknife second attack as it does not count as an off hand attack.
Pro tip: you can action surge to ready an attack at lower levels, then use that attack on a later turn to get sneak attack again
The rogue in the game I'm running took this focus, and I'll second how awesome the communication angle is. A few sessions back, the party were infiltrating the hideout of a baddie, and she was scouting ahead. She found the villain's inner sanctum, found the hostage, and "radio'd" back to the party what she'd found. She proceeded to spend another psi die to change up who she was talking to to loop in the hostage, told her that she was there to rescue her, to stay quiet when she arrived, snuck in, and extracted the hostage, while the rest of the party stormed the front to create a distraction.
That's the sort of power that doesn't ping on people's power charts but was essential to solving that problem.
Awesome!
these sorts of situations were also the reason i took the less praised telepathic feat for some of my builds over the usual telekinetic/feytouched/shadow touched/resilient/skill expert half-feats for caster types to round out my odd abiity score.
Level 1:(see above) [rogue 1 & race]
Level 2:(see above) [rogue 2]
Level 3:(@15:22) [rogue 3 & subclass]
Level 4:(@28:00) [fighter 1 & fighting-style]
Level 5:(@28:41) [fighter 2]
Level 6:(@29:20) [fighter 3 & subclass]
Level 7:(see above) [fighter 4 & ASI]
Level 8:(@38:12) [fighter 5]
Level 9:(@39:30) [wizard 1]
Level 10:(see above) [wizard 2 & subclass]
Level 11:(@50:11) [rogue 4 & ASI]
Level 12:(@50:35) [fighter 6 & ASI]
Level 13:(@52:14) [rogue 5]
Level 14:(see above) [rogue 6]
Level 15:(@53:42) [rogue 7]
Level 16:(@54:07) [rogue 8 & ASI]
Level 17:(@54:32) [rogue 9]
I wish he would provide some visual overview of the end result like this, so we could see how many levels of each class a build contains. Rather than having them loosely placed throughout the video.
@@paralysekid 7 mo late but for 2 dollars a month you got written stuff
king behavior
When you said “ it’s like Gambit” I was sold. Flinging laser daggers at people while force pushing objects at the same time and bamphfing from one spot to the other ….amazing. It’s like night crawler and gambit became Jedi. So cool
That line "if you enjoy creating characters for d&d almost as much as you enjoy playing the game itself... welcome home."
That got me. Subscribed immediately
Yay! Welcome!
Best part about the psychic blades is they leave no marks and wounds. So you can kill someone with invisible blades and then they just look like they had a heart attack.
Always nice to see a great use of something not Custom Lineage x) also your kids seem quite heavily optimized... You got thrashed in that encounter man.
They are ruthless.
I love the way you blend all the various aspects of being a tabletop roleplay gamer; the concept matters, the build matters, you weigh things fairly considering the pros and cons narratively and mechanically, and consider all the options and going in-depth with each of them to see what's honestly going to work "best" for the character you have in mind. It scratches the particular spot of my mind that sees options as ever branching paths and loves the crunch of optimization and the creative endeavour of working within limitations while still ringing turn with some thematically appropriate & interestingly subversive.
Me at the start: He's going Elven Accuracy, isn't he? Also me: *surprised Pikachu face*
Psi Warrior is definitely Jedi. The only thing I think of with "Psi-Powered Leap" is the reactor fight from Star Wars ep 1. Totally Force jumping.
Merch? Dice for the dice goblins! Character sheets for the Character Throne!
28:50 If you don't mind giving up your reaction for the turn, action surge does let you get two sneak attacks in:
Use the second attack action to hold action to throw a dagger (by RAW this has to be a real dagger I think, as the psychic blades feature is poorly written), then throw the dagger any time before your next turn.
Only really relevant from levels 5-7 though, after extra attack it becomes not worth it.
You're probably better off usimg something like Sentinel to trigger your reaction to get a 2nd sneak attack off since it's repeatable from round to round.
@@exqueue3813 No room in this build for the sentinel feat though. Feats aren't free.
In most rogue builds I would agree with you though.
I thought one could only do a single sneak attack per turn?
@@GaryBoyles342 once per TURN not per round. You can sneak attack again on an opponent's turn using your reaction if you can trigger it with an opportunity attack, etc.
@@exqueue3813 he holds his action to throw the dagger when say the monster moves….thus trigging the characters reaction
I discovered this channel only about a week ago but I am in love. This series is so fun and inspires me to make more unique builds like these almost every day. It's a pleasant treat every time.
But I gotta tell you that the cherry on top of this whole thing was when I saw you were wearing a Trogdor shirt. I know I can't prove it to you but I also happen to be wearing my Trogdor shirt on the day I'm watching this. That moment when you started singing "Burninating the countryside!!" was the highlight of my day. Thank you.
Ha ha! Yes! Glad you found us :). Welcome!
All of the builds I’ve watched so far have been really damn cool, but oh my god this is the build that I have most wanted to play of all of them. The psionic theme just pulls me in, and I’ve been wanting to play a fighter rogue for a long time. Thanks Colby!
YW! Glad you enjoyed :)
When you mentioned wanting a higher level damage bump on psychic blades, I realized - apart from ruling that you can attack with psychic blades whenever you would make a weapon attack (rather than requiring the full Attack action), if they just did damage equal to your psionic energy die it would fix nearly all the issues people have with this feature. Sure you don’t get a hit bonus, but as a pure rogue you’re doing 1d12 with these things, that’s not something rogues get to do often.
I was one of the people that requested this kind of a build. So glad to see you actually delivered! :)
Rogues are my favorite playstyle in every game that has them. Seeing a new D&D rogue build on this channel is like a Christmas present.
Loved this build, so my cup of tea. One immediate thought though; you could cut the Fighter dip to 3 levels, drop the Wizard entirely and take Ranger levels instead thus gaining spellcasting, an extra fighting style and an extra skill. Gloomstalker sits so well on the Rogue chassis I don't think I could resist. You'd need to roll for stats though and roll well. My last set of numbers would make you swoon; 11, 13. 14. 17, 18, 18. Witnessed by my soon to be DM for his first game. He's not happy whereas I am utterly thrilled. my first time as a player in 5E and I get God tier attributes.
Would be nice, I just worry that you're just delaying extra attack *forever* :). Still, on this character Extra attack isn't adding as much as it does for other builds, so definitely worth considering.
I was waiting for a soul knife build! Been here since the very start of the channel with your hexblade PAMlock build, and it is amazing to see how far this has come.
Hope you are doing well, take care!
I had to pause the video because your family is so precious. Your content makes me smile and helps me relax during some stressful stuff so thank you for being on TH-cam. ❤
I just realized the other day I could combine Dueling and Thrown Weapon Fighting. Great minds!
how so?
@@Sparksythrown weapons are usually melee and youre only holding one at a time
@@shadow-fayeExactly. Dueling FS just says you have to be wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no weapon in the other hand...nothing about needing to make a melee attack with that weapon to get the +2 to damage. And all weapons that are throwable (except for one...) are melee weapons despite making ranged attacks; Thrown is just a property of weapons, not a class like melee or ranged.
As for the exception...it's funny because a similar thing works with the Dart, the one thrown weapon that is a ranged weapon. Dueling doesn't work because it's not melee, but you know what does? Archery. So with a similar setup, you can have a Bullseye-esque character who, instead of a +4 to damage the melee thrown weapon example gets, you get a +2 both to hit and to damage instead.
Ahhhh so satisfying. I’m rolling through my second watch of it already. I love the psionics and I love the idea of playing a rogue Jedi.
Also!! I think what would be a cool idea that I think you’d get a lot of views for would be a video series where you give us your favorite items for either certain classes or certain character roles. Or adding that as an aside near the end of the videos what your top 3-5 items you’d like for that specific character if you could get them.
i dont usually comment but i discovered your channel i wanna say a week or 2 ago and man has it been great i like to sleep with a video in the background and your voice is actually perfect for that. i usually sit at my desk for a little at the start then lie down thinking about the concepts you talk about imagining their appearance and such and its so incredibly fun thanks for the content and for giving me some fun and good rest that i dont always get due to my brain being all over the place at night
I love this build!
First thing that popped into my head was....
"With MIND BULLETS!'
I'll always be a diehard Bladesinger advocate, but I've been dying for you to drop this video. I'm so excited! Thanks as always for the amount of time and effort you put into these videos Colby!
A fun idea I've had recently would be soulknife rogue multiclassed with echo knight flavored as a psychic projection allowing you to channel psychic power through it, the idea would allow you to be hidden while the projection fights for you if you want to stay safe or would allow you to do some opportunity attack shenanigans by giving an enemy the option of leaving the echo's range and procking an opportunity attack or wasting its attacks on the echo if you decide to go higher levels into echo knight it would allow you to have a great source of scouting without the chance of much danger and it can be in the air in case your 60ft range psychic blades can't reach to get a flying creature
Literally been theorycrafting this class combo for the past 3 months myself (love the psi concept) So glad you made a video about it!
THIS! This was the build that I as looking for. Bravo! Well done!
Like a tonic for the nerves. 💕 This is a wonderful way to break the holiday fast.
The silvery barb gags was HILARIOUS. Beautiful family
Ha ha thanks!
This really helps my psi rogue character build. I've had the concept for a while but haven't really nailed the details
Oh my god! I came to this video to see a cool Soulknife Rogue, and found that we thought pretty much the same build (well, very similar, not the same) on one of my favorite Characters i have created (but not played 😢).
My distribution was a bit different: Rogue 9 (Soulknife Obv) + Wizard 6 (Bladesinger) + Fighter 3 (Psi Knight). Leaving 2 Levels to customize depending on how the campaign moves along.
My concept focused more on the "Soul" part of the Soulknife, creating blades out of Shadows of other people to kill them (thats how they are manifested) and using Wizard levels for the Extra AC in Bladesinger + Mage Armor (20 AC on a Rogue is CRAZY) and one of your favorite spells Shadow Blade.
Faerie Fire is not something i had considered before and really changes my perspective on the thing my build could do (I had just planned to use my Familiar to give advantage for the Sneak Attack).
My Character Concept stemmed from the Child of a Magus Killer Assassin who served as a Living Spellbook for his father as the spells were Tattooed on his skin, and his tongue got cut (thus, only speaking through the Soulknife 's Telepathic Speech). The magic of turning him into a living Spellbook means he got in contact with his own soul and developed his Soul-based Powers, being able to hit the "soul" of the opponent (so constructs do not have soul, i cannot hit), leaving no visible injuries.
Race: Gith
Theme: Space Pirate sailing the astral sea.
This is more or less one of the very first "martial" characters I started to theory craft over a year ago before I even knew about your channel. I like this idea so much.
Just wanted to say great game tonight with Chris, Kelly and Monty. Definitely entertaining to watch you guys putting your creations through an adventure so we can see how your tweaks actually work in real game play. Need to make that a regular thing, kudos to all you guys for putting it together. As a follower of all 3 channels and new to DMing, it is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Been following the channel, on here(Yt), and Spotify for a few months now.
This channel has made me aware, as a new TTRPG enthusiast, that I have had an itch not fully realized until finding things/communities that specialize in conceptualizing.
Thanks for the quality, wholesome, and we'll thought content.
Major thumbs up for integrity of edits, reviewing content, links, and timestamps. I look forward to more content as well as supporting these thought provoking character designs/optimizations.
Btw, Really enjoyed Beastmaster V2. Stayed true to the theme while being very viable
Thanks for the kind words!
Still one of my favorites channels on youtube, Thank you buddy ^^ !!!
Oh man - I have a soul knife build in the works too. Always cool to see how we both handle similar options.
I made a Soul Knife Rogue/Eloquence Bard Changling.
You are the ultimate assassin.
No blood, no evidence of you ever being there, you can change into your kill or someone who should be present for quick get away, Jack of all trades and no less than a 10 on a roll for Deception and Persuasion. Plus everything else they get from Soul Knife Rouge. It's beautiful. One of my players is going to test it out whoever we start a new game or if her current one dies
Colby, your voice is so soothing. Thank you for giving me fun and peace during these crazy times!!
Thanks!
@@DnDDeepDive I still say that you could be an actor. I know that am totally failing as your agent. 😔
@@alanschaub147 Ha ha!
@@alanschaub147 he is. Colby is Anthony Starr in real life. Colby Polson is just another character he plays. ;)
Never seen half orc art with such fabulous boots and generous cake
Great video! LOVE IT! I just finished putting together three soul knife builds when you put out this video. I took a similar route with levels in psi warrior, but delayed fighter levels until after level 9 rogue. When I compared the DPR with the Treantmonk baseline I found that the delay did better DPR because of the increased accuracy of homing strikes and increased sneak attack damage than taking fighter levels early. But I'm guessing you already knew this since you mentioned in your video that you had wanted to get to homing strikes earlier, but focused on showcasing the psionic ability of the character at lower levels.
In case anyone else is interested, here are the other two builds:
I made a pure rogue changeling spy with actor feat and the figthing initiate feat to get the thrown weapon fighting style. The DPR is only slightly lower for that build than the one with the psi warrrior levels. And instead of intelligence, I focused on Charisma.
The last build focused on Wisdom with Ranger (Gloomstalker) levels. Gloomstalker synergizes with any rogue build. And spellcasting adds to the character's damage and utility.
At first I thought it was odd that the soulknife's features didn't use any mental stats. But after making three different builds with three different mental stats, I am convinced it's good design because it expands the multiclass options for the soulknife.
"And burnination has forsaken the countryside, only one guy will remain. My money's on Trogdor!" 😆 The Trogdor reference brings back lots of memories, man I loved Strong Bad emails! Also the build was great, thematically at the top of the list of builds you've done.
Your description of the PC having daggers all over the body, throwing lots of knives, reminded me of Danny Trejo's character in "Desperado".
So, one thing I love to do on rogue characters is pick up the blooming blade cantrip, and get access to find familiar. The reason for this is that a familiar can give you the help action to get advantage on your attacks allowing you to get sneak attack easily. With booming blade you get extra damage, damage versatility, and crowd control for free with zero draw backs the booming blade spell doesn't even create a massive sound like the knock or thunder wave spell.
Every week I watch your builds, and every week I have the urge to immediately go play it. Why am I like this?
Ha ha, you and me both!
This is so weird that over the holidays made a level 15 character that was so similar to this, I had 9 levels of soul knife and 6 of psi warrior. I went with custome liniage and took the gift of the gem dragon feat for some extra telekinetic reaction and story for why the character had psionics. But other than that I did a very similar thing with thrown weapon fighting and dueling from a feat. Missed your videos over the holidays and glad to have you back
as the DM in my games i allow soulknifes to attune to daggers and those the "template" of hte psychic blade (like the hex weapon of hexblade warlocks)
and use the extra attack with a psychic blade
I'm running a yuan -ti Soulknife Rouge. Karya does massive damage (usually) in combat and is very useful to her party , not to mention a lot of fun to play!
One fun thing about thrown weapon fighting style that I like, is it lets you make an opportunity attack against enemies even if you don’t have a weapon in your hand, since you can pull out the dagger as part of the attack.
It’s a cool feature on a rogue who will always love a good opportunity attack for sneak attack.
I would definitely take the catapult spell as a wizard to lean into the telekinetic aspect of this character. Fair damage for a first level spell, but also lets you throw distant objects closer to you or allies, including disarmed enemy weapons. The objects can even be magical. :)
Happy New Year thanks for being a highlight of my week for a while
This is a good opportunity to talk about the utility possibility of action surge. There will be times when you need an extra dash or dodge action in order to get your attacks off, and there will be times when you need to use an object such as a key in a puzzle or a magic item such as cape of the mountebank. A lot of cool combo moves become possible when you don't need action surge for a nova round.
I have watched this video at least once a day for awhile now. I really love this build idea. Psionics was always a favorite part of the lore. Rogue was my first ever character and this is such a well done combo
I think an interesting solution would be the ability to designate a magic weapon as your soul blade, kind of like the warlocks pact of the blade. I'm not sure how powerful it would be but I think it sounds pretty cool.
This is definitely a conversation to have w/your DM. Personally I'd allow it or else provide custom items that buff the psychic blades to imitate magic weapons.
Hi Colby. I sort of worked around this build and got some improvements I'll share here.
Get the kobold race, go rogue 3, ranger (BM) 5, fighter 3 and back to rogue til the end.
Take the beast of the sky, which has flyby and make it give yourself adv on every attack. Rangers get HM anyways, so you don't need the mark of finding race. You also don't need to waste a feat on the fighting style because you get one from ranger, which can be either dueling or thrown weapon fighting.
You get Hunters mark and the effects of faerie fire.
And there you have it. Sustained dpr with room for an "emergency" nova round.
I know I'm a year late seeing this, but I was genuinely thinking about this multiclass last night, and here I am today, finding Colby's build on it... Sir, you genuinely are an amazing resource and I love all of your videos.
Cheers!
Another awesome video! you are really feeding my dnd character creation addiction!
Great build, with great flavor. Maybe somebody already suggested it, but you could also go Fairy as your race. 1 free fairy fire per day, and… flight! Love the idea of throwing psychic blades from above the battlefield.
Btw, best wiches to you and your family.
although flavor and roleplay wise, paladin will always be my favorite class, my heart has a soft spot for rogues, which was the first class I played in an official dnd campaign. Something about the class makes you really consider what your options are, as you're effectiveness is based upon the state of the battlefield more so than any other class. You make plans more, trying to orchestrate an unfolding situation into a state that you can best take advantage of. You see if you can spend your turn doing more than just adding to dps. Where others might be blinded by their spellbook or their divine prayers, you have to make do with cunning and daring-do to shift the tide of battle. Precise use of ball bearings, alchemists fire, bottles of grease, or even standard ropework make you interact with the system in ways that many classes simply don't, because they don't have to. Such a blast to play.
Funnily enough this is exactly the character concept I'm currently playing (from level 1, currently level 2) and you may or may not be surprised to hear how much endless idle agonising over when to take levels in which I've been going through XD
I see how mechanically evocation makes sense. And that war magic or bladesinger make sense. But thematically this is the one build where divination is an absolute must in my mind. The powers of your mind have expanded so vastly that you can actually see the future. Your mind has surmounted the constraints of not only space but time itself (yeah chronurgy does not exist)
It's neat how many different build directions are possible around the core mechanic, since it's not bound to INT.
Love this concept! Reminds me a bit of a build I sent you back in the beginning. X-Com rocks too!
So glad I watched this video. I wasn’t aware that you could add the modifier to the second soul knife blade!
I think I really like this. I am going to be playing in a 1 shot at level 12 and have been scouring your builds. Very exciting, take a cool idea and concept and them make it my own!
Glad you enjoyed! Let me know how it goes :).
3:21 You see Freeza, you aren’t dealing with your average psionic warrior anymore.
Im interested in seeing his take on an Eldritch Knave. Swashbuckler rogue with some kind of warlock. Hexblade if you wanted to go stereotypical nuke.
A rogue with mask of many faces is incredibly dangerous
I'm doing a Swashbuckler Rogue with levels of Draconic Sorcerer in an upcoming campaign, I too would love to see a big rogue + caster build on this channel
@@crystalzest2748 there is the assasserer, assassin rogue with sorcerer burst damage build
That's the first time I've seen someone spell Rogue correctly, while messing up the spelling of Knight, lol
@@johannesstephanusroos4969 it's not a typo, I used knave intentionally, like a pirate.
Like Davey Jones or even Jack Sparrow essentially, cut a deal for power on the high seas.
44:49 LOL, so cute. Happy new year!
When I decided to build a knife-throwing rogue, I of course heavily considered a Soulknife, but eventually settled on a Fighter 1/Phantom Rogue X. Phantom's class features require you to be within 30 ft of the target, which is a synergistic limitation for the short range of thrown daggers.
You got me with X-Com Games.
Thank you for doing the Psion build man I really appreciate it. The flexibility here with the Psionic dice is REALLY good and stacking the two fighting styles was a nice touch too cause extra dice can be nice but extra flat damage almost always feels better.
Amazing art by Randall!!
Happy New Year Colby! Another excellent video and fantastic rampaging hoard scenes 😄
At 31:54 when you mentioned Luke Skywalkering your light sabre I immediately thought this character needs a Sunblade .
playing a soulknife 4 atm, passed 2 DC 25 thieves tools checks in a row (arcane locks) without expertise (but did have guidance) soulknifes dont fail skill checks ever.
i was debating what i could multiclass into but i didnt want to delay things, this has helped a bunch, thanks
Was just trying to theory craft a build like this the other day! Perfect timing
To the point of merch: Would LOVE longsleeves with the logo going down the sleeves!
The cool factor is indeed through the roof with this build!
I think my favorite Soul Knife multiclass is with Beast Barbarian, because combined with the claws and bonus action attack, you get a pretty ridiculous number of decently strong attacks from someone with no weapon required. Plus, reminds me of Raziel from Soul Reaver with all the psychic-swords and beastlike claws, just make'em a Dhampir and no one would tell the difference!
Nice, my Protoss Zealot build is Beast Barb and Psi Warrior. Damage mitigation due to Rage and psionic shields, tons of claw attacks
Was just trying to make this work the other day and was struggling! Can't wait for this video
i'd love to see the best 4 man party per dmg report comprised of Colby's builds
Fantastic build, and the comedy was great too.
Hey Colby, I watched your old support Bard video recently and I came up with a very different but very effective parallel support Lore Bard!! I really think you'll like it and it comes online at level 3.
Class composition is Divine Soul Sorcerer 1 / Peace Domain Cleric 1 / Lore Bard X, in that order. The whole idea of this build is to throw tons of d4 bonuses or penalties across the battlefield. Typically this is achieved through some combination of Bless/Bane, Emboldening Bond, Guidance, Resistance, Ceremony, etc. I believe that this build can grant a +3d4 bonus to an ally if you use Ceremony on top of Bless (or the relevant cantrips) and Emboldening Bond.
This character is very much not focused on damage; it will have a few damaging spells, but most will be buff/debuff/control. Even the cantrips will be intended for d4 penalties (mind sliver and vicious mockery) rather than damage, though you could pick up fire bold and toll the dead for sure - God knows you'll have enough cantrip slots for them!
Also, a word on Sanctuary. As a Divine Soul, you get Cleric spells as a Sorcerer. Which means that you can get Sanctuary cast with your primary ability score for a higher Wisdom save. And since you won't need to be attacking regularly, one Sanctuary will last you a good, long time while you sit back and play support. Or while you sit forward and play support, if you really want to. My particular build has only 10 AC, but is harder to hit than most Paladins at very high levels. If you consider an ancient red dragon, for example, it has a whopping +17 bonus to attack rolls, but only a +9 to wisdom saves. So, it still has about a 50% chance of even being able to attack this character while Sanctuary is active without burning a legendary resistance (which would be totally fine by me, let the Monk stun it that much earlier!) Then stack on top of that Bane, and the odds are actually _in your favor_ against getting hit by an _ancient red dragon_ which is ABSURD! Compared to an AC 23 Paladin (concentrating on Shield of Faith with the defense fighting style), this build will be hit about 30% less often.
But Calvin, what about saving throw attacks? Yes, this build still vulnerable to those... But that's where Bless + Favor of the Gods comes into play. An easy +3d4 to a save is always welcome in a pinch.
Then all the usual shenanigans with Lore bards getting their pick of all the best spells in the game, as you discussed in your video... Probably minus Goodberry, but you could make it work of you still want it 😉
nice way to be sturdy via sanctuary. however, my bet is the DM just avoids you and kills your party members instead. your buffs will delay it but sanctuary will make you pretty much useless after you cast aside it aside from supporting/healing. cant bane post sanctuary either.
@@TheRobversion1 hmm, well, this build wasn't made to serve as a tank or distraction, so I would consider it a win if my party is keeping the enemies engaged away from me. This character is much better suited to sitting on the sidelines casting Vicious Mockery or Mind Sliver each round than hiding behind Sanctuary without using those cantrips. It's a good defensive option that persists longer than, say, Shield, if it is needed, but ideally it won't be needed all the time.
I feel like it's worth noting that as much as the bonus action says "when you make an attack, you can make a second attack as a bonus action", it doesn't say that your second attack has to be your final attack. You can attack, then move, then attack as part of the attack action, I don't see why you can't take your attackaction1, attackba, attackaction2. It's silly phrasing, but as far as I know there's nothing saying you can't say that's how it mechanically happened, even if rolling wise, just for the sake of concision you rolled your two action-attacks together, and your bonus action separately.
If they're all the same kind of attack, what does it matter which ones come from your action and which is your bonus action?
@@shinybugg9156 yeah, exactly
Loving this. I made a similar build to this previously without the wizard levels. Love the flavor and feel of the build.
I think this build is (of course) perfectly optimised. But a 3 levels whispers bard dip would give a bonus to damage, access to the faerie fire spell, leaving room for more race options. Even more increased utility, support features and of course it would be SUPER on theme
Love the build (soulknife is probably my favorite subclass in the game). I think a fun alternative to psi knight would be a swarmkeeper, since you get fairy fire, along with extra attack and some telekinetic like features. Also it could have a really cool "hive mind" kinda theme
Flavour your swarm as Swirling Psy energy swirling around you. Gets you your fighting style, and you can choose to go fighter or ranger 5 for extra attack.
Adding piercing to an attack, or pushing the target, or moving yourself for a bonus action free disengage.... gotta love the Swarmkeeper
@29:16 love the sound effects Colby
You could have taken the 'Shadowblade" spell as it has the same property's as your psionic blades. This would allow you to deal 2d8 + all the bonuses. However it requires concentration meaning no faier fire. However this requires you to take an additional Wizard level
Interesting idea. Unfortunately you’d have to also sacrifice your bonus action psionic blade attack to recall the thrown shadow blade, but numbers wise the shadow blade still wins
@@michaellavy3269 Right... this was the main reason I avoided my favorite spell in the game :). Both concentration *and* Bonus Action when we're already using our Action to throw a psychic blade felt like it belonged on a different character. I *did* make use of throwing a shadow blade here though... th-cam.com/video/10FsqSXwJwU/w-d-xo.html
Great to see you back and love the build. I was hoping Kalashtar if you're gonna use Eberron ;) you know, for max psionic theme goodness, but yeah Mark of Finding is great.
Lot of redundancies with a Kalashtar. Soulknives receive the telepathic communication at 3rd, and Psi Warriors nab Psychic Resistance at 10th. That's 2 out of 4 racial traits redundant, leaving advantage on Wisdom Saves and the No Sleep feature. None of these features are eligible to be replaced with Customised Origin ala Tasha's without DM fiat. Soulknife's telepathic communication is an improvement over the Kalashtar's version, even if it is resource dependent, both in range and number of targets. The psychic resistance is less of an issue if you follow this specific build, since you never reach Psi Warrior's 10th level feature.
I would love for those videos to be sound only on Spotify or something like that.
Colby has such a soothing voice.
What I also quite like about this build is the dueling fighting style, it means you don't lose too much if you get stuck in melee
Happy new year DNDO team!
I recently theoried a tabaxi rogue/bard that uses the psychic knife features from soulknife and one of the features from bard of valor/swords (I forget which subclass atm)
The soulknife rogue is badass because, if I read it correctly, it sounds a lot like you can be unarmed but, as you attack, your blade appears in one hand and then, for your bonus action, you can use your offhand attack while your first blade disappears and a second blade appears in your second hand. This means you can benefit from from the dueling fight style because you never have more than 1 weapon!
I might be wrong, but that's how I interpret it.
This gives me a cool vision of a cat-like rogue that can almost dance across a battlefield, hence the tabaxi racial choice
most likely swords as valor bards are inferior for a striker type.
@@TheRobversion1 Turns out I was very wrong, its got a 3 level dip into bard of whispers
Metamagic careful spell would work, allowing you to skip out on wizard so long as you got faerie fire somewhere else
I gave my soulknife player an amulet made out of pure psychic energy. So the chain, the amulet everything is just shimmering blue psychic energy no metal or anything. When worn this first gave her psychic blades a +1 to hit and damag, later I let her find something she could use to further tweak the thing to a +2, and finally giving her resistance to psychic damage. I don’t think it was overpowered considering the magic shit the others got. And it was beyond cool
Just discovered your channel, good job your are doing pretty good optimization wise but here some tip I can share with you:
with Action surge, you ready action to attack on the next creature turn. voila 2 sneak attack per round but still just one per turn
hunter mark is not just one combat. if you keep concentrating on the spell between combat, you can keep it active for a full hour. This have been confirm during hte play test, when people where talking about bringing a bag of ladybug and target a ladybug with huntermark/Hex to keep the spell active until the next fight, then simply squash that ladybug as a free action and bonus action your hunter mark/hex to a new target. The game Dev came quickly to clarifie that you could keep concentration on the spell even if no available target existed to avoid every warlock and ranger having to carry a bag of ladybug lol
So when exporing a dungeon (usually untill the next short rest). Let's assume you are doing 10 rounds combat (1 minute) and take 5 minute to clear the room (do your perception check, look for trap, secret door, hidden treasure and opening the door to the next room) This mean hunter mark could be up for clearing 10 room in your dungeon each contianing a minute long fight. Usually the warlock, monk, fighter (and other short rest bases character start complaning about "needing" a short rest after 2 or 3 fights in order to restore their ressources) so hunter mark can easily last 2-3 fights untill the short rest (and be available during half? 3/4? of the short rest if the group get ambushed)
One of my favorite scouting character is a shadow monk/rogue assassin. I have 2 different builds for that character and I was curious on how you would build one. (by the way this is a forgotten realm Adventure league legal character)
The character need to be a great scout (so good stealth, good perception, good mobility) and able to do hit and run tactic. My strategy with this build is running in combat with surprise (between expertise to stealth, pass without trace I often don'T even need to roll the dice and I already beaten most guard passive perception), abuse the auto crit build from the rogue assassin kill one or 2 targets if possible and shadow step out of combat back in the safety of shadow, rinse and repeat, targeting on any mesanger trying to escape to alert other rooms until the party join in and cleans the left over.
My first build was a rogue/monk/warlock in order to get devil sight and abuse Hex and/or darkness but that concept was quickly getting MAD so took half elf just to comply with the stat requirement. The warlock also allowed my to use a staff of spellpower as my monk weapon... so I could shoot fireball or wall of force and the Great old one telepathic featre assure I could talk with my party
My second build I made I replaced the warlock with fighter (with tasha blindsight fighting style) and took half orc (with Tasha able to change strenght bonus into dex bonus and con bonus into Wisdom bonus) So I was able to drop my charisma, I was no longer torned between Hex or Darkness, and I still had my blindsight (only at 10ft range, but for a monk it's good enought) and actions urge during a surprise round (as explain earlier) give me 2 auto crit sneak attack. The lost of option to wield a wizard staff and telepathy does sadden me a bit.
So I would be curious to know how you would build a scout around the unlimited monk shadow step needed that can have a nice burst damage and still be able to help the party once they join the fight.
I did think about the new Psy blade rogue with teleportation psy dagger, but he can only teleport a limited amount of time per day.
The concept is not to be a one men army, and solo the adventure. I'm perfectly fine that I need the party to take on bigger group of ennemy and specially the BBEG at the end of the dungeon. But taking care of small patrol and lonely guard to open the way for the party to walk undetected in the dungeon... that my goal. In combat my goal is making sure that no one escape the fight in order to sound an alarm or just escape our grasp.
Since it's an adventure league character I cannot count of my friendly wizard friend to be their to cast buff spell on me on every fight (sometime no wizard show up, sometime the wizard got a best friend and use all his spell on that friend, and sometime that wizard have no idea how to play and beleive his Gandalf swinging a sword complaining that the paladin ruining the game by bursting on the ennemies)
i like the assassin as well. it's a breath of fresh air to see a person in the comments incorporating surprise into their playstyle/core strategy and touting the assassin which i feel is quite underrated/get alot of undeserved hate.
personally, i dont just rely on stealth for surprise generation as i like to generate it for all combats. i use a combination of stealth, illusions (eldritch adept: misty visions-one of the best surprise generators in the game and better than devil sight + darkness for ranged attackers), invisibility (gloomstalker, spell) and distractions (minor illusion, thaumaturgy, etc).
Two things:
1. Im trying out lotusden halfling since they can cast entangle starting at 3rd lvl.
2. I'd suggest taking martial adept for quick toss, which let's you make a thrown weapon attack as a bonus action
My dm is letting just pool all the psionic die together because it is cool smiles
Also I love this build, but im forgoing the wizard levels for just more levels in rogue, I am using variant human instead and I just like getting some more of my soulknife abilities over casting i feel like it fits the character im making better
The variant of this im doing gets thrown weapon fighting style from its human feat and dueling fighting style from its first level dip in fighter so from there I only had to take fighter to level 5 and could focus on rogue the rest of the way and get more out of sneak attack and psionics, idk what that does damage wise but I just didn't feel like I needed the help getting advantage from faerie fire to justify the spellcasting investment of my race and 2 wizard levels while also being able to be a more skillful rogue, not to knack on your build just letting others know my variant
So, A little tip if you want damage over everything else. Take a level in hexblade and go aasimar lol. It’s a free 20 damage at level 20 and +6 per attack. So with 11 in psi knight, 1 in hexblade, 8 in soul knife with hexblades curse, necrotic shroud, telekinetic strike, and the hex spell active you would be doing 3d6 +1d4 +1d10 +4d6 +4d6 +72 damage per round. That averages at 73 dpr against a 22 ac, 94 against 18, 113 against a 10 ac. Now I realize that it’s not all to reliable to hit things with this build. So! 11 chronurgy wiz 9 soul knife. Store haste with arcane ambiance and give it to your familiar, have your familiar cast haste on you, cast tensers transformation on yourself, use necrotic shroud, then do damage. 2 attacks from tensers, 1 from haste, one as a ba, for 3d6 +5d6 +1d4 +8d12 +48. Yes this build has fighting initiate for thrown weapon fighting. Now… 130 damage… on an ac of 22. You can do this for 10 rounds and still have psi dice to spare.