It's funny how no decent Soulknife builds existed anywhere, and then you and Bilbron come out with 2 within minutes of each other. Great minds think alike!
Its worth remembering that for a significant portion of the game, it isn't actually a guarantee that you'll get a magic weapon, especially if a GM mostly runs out-of-the-box modules or the group is particularly large. Also worth noting that the Psychic Blades do have some situational utility advantages - you don't need to conceal them, they can't be damaged or otherwise taken from you, and it doesn't leave a mess.
This comment is over a year old, but I wanted to add to this. I am currently running a James Bond type soulknife. Infiltrating high ranking political figures parties, where they do not allow weapons. But his weapon is Psionic Blades. Political Espionage. He has a Glamour set of Leather Armor, and is literally wearing a suit. I love it. Super fun to RP.
I am playing a Tabaxi Soulknife right now in a campaign that goes all the way to level 20 - I think this, out of all the PC’s I’ve ever played, is my favorite. I am going to take one level of Fighter for the Duelist fighting style, that’s it. I already have Thrown Weapons Master so the Duelist will max out the damage for every Psi Blade I throw…that’s an extra +4 on top of the usual DEX and Proficiency for every single attack ever. That’s huge IMO.
I think a Changeling Soulknife would be especially sneaky. You have telepathy with your party members, psychic blades that don't leave marks on your targets, and the ability to change your physical appearance at will? Thats a true assassin right there.
At level 3, it's like 90-95% Bladesinger with mobile I really like the idea of, you can wade into melee and attack, then run away, increased move speed to 50ft is nice for that it let's you tank a bit of damage to help out, and easily back off and just be a wizard with hypnotic pattern concentrated on whenever you like, I love the idea of being wherever is most impactful in a given situation, I think soul knife really speaks to that good in every situation build, its good, with the crazy ability to attempt nigh impossible feats just because
I think people focus overly much on the psi-blades and overlook a few things: 1. A Soul Knife can wield other weapons as well (as you rightly point out.) 2. To me, the SK's tastiest ability isn't his ability to make like Psylocke. It's one of the most reliable and long-lasting telepathy abilities in the game--which is a HUGE advantage for a scout. 3. The skill boost is also super-useful.. It's hard for a rogue with Expertise to blow a Stealth check, and when they do, they generally fail it by a few points--meaning an at-need ability to boost that skill check can render it almost impossible to blow the roll. Overall, I think the SK is the best dedicated scout in the game currently.
Thing is, I totally agree with you that the utility the Soulknife brings is amazing, and I love the subclass for it. But I can see why some people might be disappointed as they imagined a specific fantasy for the Soulknife that doesn't end up working, even if the subclass as a whole is still great. I think it's similar to the pre-Tasha's Bladesinger. It was a perfectly useful subclass that greatly improves the defenses of any Wizard, but many people were rightly disappointed that it didn't fulfill the gish-fantasy people associate with Bladesingers. This feels similar. It's not that the subclass is weak or anything, it just doesn't quite deliver in the ways many people who love the theme were hoping for.
@@predwin1998 people wanted to tear enemies apart with their psych blades and sneak attack. Heck, even multiclassing doesn’t help much because this class doesn’t benefit from extra attack. At best it works for stunning strike/monk weapons if you’re multiclassing into monk
I actually felt that way about a lot of Tasha's content, including the Artificer class. The mechanics often don't have very much to do with the theme. Features like Fey Wanderer Dreadful Strikes or Genie patron Genie's wrath seem especially flaccid, even if they're reasonably powerful. Armourers touching a suit of armour and making it magical is mechanically convenient, but definitely doesn't feel like it fits the theme, where I'm imagining an Artificer spending hours (if not weeks) to create a magical suit, just as one example. Lots of stuff like that
Halflings in particular should expect to crit just slightly more often when they have advantage since you also increase the number of 1’s they get to re-roll and those re-rolls could always be a crit.
The one thing I dislike about the Psychic Teleportation ability is that as written it would appear to not be able to get you out of wall of force/forcecage which is one of the main draws for a teleport on a martial character.
I like how versatile the non-combat applications are in this build, as well as how well this build would work in an austere magical item campaign. It would be funny to have two of the above soul knives in a party as a tag team, using their psi bolstered knacks in conjunction with the grappler feat to take turns restraining baddies while the other shanks them with psi blades >
One thing I don't think you mentioned (it's pretty minor), but I'm playing a Soul Knife right now (just hit level 11 and let me tell you its amazing). But anyway, you can also replenish one Psionic die as a bonus action (and this ability recharges every short rest), so on a long adventuring day, you're likely to get at LEAST two more die uses. So at 3rd level you have a minimum of 5 dice, at 5th, 7, etc... Granted, I've only run out of these dice once in the whole campaign, but the bonus action dice has come up a few times.
I'm playing a Rogue in a party that has an Order Cleric, and we're currently level 2, 100 xp or so away from level 3. I was always aiming towards Soulknife for this character, a Glasya Tiefling, but was a little on the fence because of the Psychic Blades not allowing out of turn attacks; which were much more common, because the Order Cleric has a crush on my rogue and gives her the free attack every time he casts Bless. XD In this particular instance, things are a bit more on the fence, because the DM has allowed psychic blades to be conjured on opportunity attacks after a brief discussion. I don't think it would have any negative bearing on the game, since I was already going to be doing the drop/pick up thing with my Shortbow and the damage would have no real difference anyway. Since I had reliable reaction attacks coming in even at range.
Yeah, if I had an ally providing reaction attacks, normally that would push me towards a different subclass of rogue, but if your DM is allowing psychic blades on reaction attacks, you should do well, and I agree, it's not going to break anything.
I don't see how that COULD break anything, because you can't exactly use a Bonus Action to attack again with the Psychic Blades. It's really just making a subclass feature work when it always should work.
@@TreantmonksTemple When I started playing my Soul Knife rogue the DM was sticking with RAW. After 2 combat encounters of me saying, "I drop my short sword" and "I pick up my short sword" every round the DM changed his mind and started allowing me to attack with my psychic blades as a reaction. I think the players appreciated it too. It was quite annoying for everyone involved.
@@brannenpfister2579 thrown weapon fighting doesn't do anything for attacks of opportunity, or the wording on psychic blades that doesn't allow you to do so. It lets you draw a weapon in the same attack action, but your psychic blades only work when you specifically take the attack action, RAW. Your attack action is different than an attack of opportunity/attack granted on someone else's turn that requires your reaction. The problem is that RAW wording about needing to use your attack action to activate them.
you can also switch hands for the weapon instead of dropping it. this works well with having a bow too, in case you need to melee someone with your soul knife. attack with the hand that normally draws arrows, swap bow to that same hand, bonus action attack with now-free hand.
44:30 this is the first time I realized you can shove or grapple a creature while invisible without breaking invisibility for this kind of feature. Forcing falling damage isn't dealing damage. And it's not RAW to allow a saving throw after pushing a creature off a cliff.
Grapple and shove are categorized as a special melee attack and are a part of the attack action. If you count them for the barbarian to keep up rage with them, then you should count them for canceling invisibility.
@@DvirPick they have different wording so are unrelated. "Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked Unconscious or if Your Turn ends and you haven't attacked a Hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then." Doesn't say you have to deal damage, whereas the invisibility effect listed at the timestamp states damage or saving throws breaks it. So you could be a raging barbarian and invisible, and shove attack while invisible and continue raging.
I like the gunner feat on the soul knife. It allows you to attack from range with action and bonus action against W/e target your group is focusing on. even if another enemy gets in your face to distract you and impose disadvantage on your ranged attacks, you ignore them and deliver your damage from 60ft away. The knives have twice the normal range of a hand crossbow when compared to crossbow expert. Gunner is also a half feat, so it potentially increases your dexterity modifier for an increase to accuracy and base damage. And on top of all that, maybe your DM will give you some type of gun if you dedicate a feat to it. Hope it’s a scattergun.
In terms of Multi class. I’m kind of interested in Multi-classing Echo Knight with Soul Knife. To sort of further enhance the Soul Knife’s ability to project their mind by allowing them to create a double. For the perfect assassin. Allowing you to get those Risky reaction attacks in without actually risking yourself. Though I must admit I like the idea more for theming than design Synergy. The assassin who is seen chatting with their party mingling. While their echo lurks in the back room having assassinated a threat to the king.
I love this idea. I had the same idea but I'm gunning for level 9 first then I'll multiclass. The idea of my little owl summoning spectral feathers and attacking. Then now summoning just another whole owl to smack people is great.
I would also recommend the Dhampir lineage for anyone who wants darkvision, a 35ft. movement speed, two free skills, a vampiric bite for healing or advantage on bite attacks when at low health, and the spider climb ability for walking/climbing upside down hands free, attacking with psychic blades out of reach.
Some other feats to choose would be thrown weapons, and dueling. Each add two damage to each attack, and they stack. If both attacks hit, that an extra 8hp per round.
Sharpshooter works too. With homing strikes boosting your to hit bonus it helps a lot and makes the bonus action attack a lot better if you have advantage and homing strikes you are more then likely going to hit. That's 20 more damage.
I love this video, I’m playing a Soulknife / warlock in a level 5 campaign rn, and this video highly emphasizes the best part of Soulknife, skill checks. I took variant human and picked up skilled, and did my warlock invocations I took beguiling (prof in persuasion and deception) and it’s SILLY how fun it is to turn dropped rolls into successes in so many different skills. Also telepathic communication is wonderful to have in a party where communication in different nearby locations is key. Thank you for this video, been enjoying your content greatly.
If your movement proves to be an issue for you, another good feat selection at level 4 would be Squat Nimbleness. You can still boost that Dexterity and still get that Athletics proficiency, but you would also get your movement speed from 25 to 30, which is huge. EDIT: Basically you’re trading Expertise in a skill for +5 Movement.
Probably would've picked up mobile feat much sooner (maybe lvl 4). The soul knife being a thrown melee weapon makes the build an excellent switcher between melee/range. We can't guarantee staying at out of melee as the range is only 60ft, much shorter than something like a longbow, so there're reasonable odds that an enemy (particularly a faster one might dash towards you). Naturally ranged is our preference for purposes of self-preservation, so being able to get that free disengage and reliably increase our action economy by never needing to use cunning action for disengage for me makes the most sense throughout the character's career. Also neat trick with mobile halfling of being able to pass through an enemy space (multiple if you attack on the bonus action too), getting the free disengage as you go if you make an attack against them. This is very useful if you're cornered or need to make your way to a creature on the backlines etc. Also mobile dash feature applies for passing through enemy space (which is considered difficult terrain). Very likely to come up in narrow dungeon corridors. Then again I tend to weight feats much more strongly than ASIs or resilient as a feat will usually define the feel of a character and their fighting style much more then these and overall increases the fun-factor of the character for the length of the character's lifetime much better.
SUPERB guide. You can get thrown weapon fighting as a feat now. And RAW it works with soulblades. This solves oportunity attack. Because the style states "you can draw a weapon with the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon" (It just needs to have the thrown property, it does not need to be ranged). Then you can use that infamous free draw/stow action to sheathe the weapon, fast draw style AoO.
@@Duranous. i wasn’t even thinking about opportunity attacks tbh, specially since those don’t seem to work with psy blades Just thinking of ways to brutally hurt people with the knives (with the added bonus of tanking much better)
@@Booklat1 Oh, whoops I thought this was a response to another comments since I saw it through the notification system. Yeah, they don't work. For the sake of clarity my other comment was about how opportunity attacks for rogues were overrated because they are normally rare. I'll just delete my other comment because it was very random and not relevant.
I was thinking that with a soul blade rogue + battle master fighter build it would be fun to reskin your maneuvers as like psychic compulsions or telekinetic force (depending on the maneuver) rather than regular weapon mastery. Maybe throw in the telekinetic feat too at some point.
I am currently making one for a future campaign right now. Though not sure if I want skill expert or just skilled. Edit... Nope skill expert is better due to the ASI
@@Cough75 100% on board with that. Despite the name, I read those features largely the same that Chris did... skill monkey max. Instead of trying to be good at everything, I like the idea of being really exceptional at a few things. I like your idea of Skill Expert even better than his idea of Bountiful Luck or Lucky.
@@ChristnThms But Chris did take Skill Expert at level 4. If you really want to press the skill monkey you could take Skilled as well instead of Bountiful Luck or Lucky, but Skill Expert is already included in this build. Skilled can still be a great addition (after Skill Expert) if you don't care much for the other later feats since as a high level Soulknife you will have Reliable Talent + Psionic Knack to turn any proficient skill into a rather good skill, but simultaniously there's diminishing returns as you'll probably already have proficiency in whatever skills you ranked top 7 for this character.
There is a good post out there showing how the homing strikes more than make up for the hit bonus of a magic weapon and let ypu sneak attack by hitting. A magic weapon doesn't invalidate a class, especially if you want bonus action attack and re-throwable build. This subclass fills a gap for rogues and it actually frees you up for a lot of flexibility.
And conversely, in the scenario where you find that +3 Shortbow of Uberness, you’re still free to use it just as well as any other rogue and save the psionic blades for when you’re stuck in melee, or deprived of the bow, or out of arrows, or for some reason can’t use it. Your psionic dice do all kinds of stuff other than benefiting attack rolls.
An interesting thing that I noticed is that the blades are stated to not leave any physical damage on the target of the attack. This can be incorporated into a number of assassination-focused builds, as if the guards don't know how the person was killed, what could lead them to the PCs?
This was more or less about how I played my SK and I had an absolute blast doing so. I found out very quickly that playing the range game made me far stronger than trying to get in close. The massive amount of skills was also highly beneficial and made my character a huge boon in a party full of novice players
I'm running a campaign and I told the Rogue Soul Knife that he can just imbue his magical weapon with the powers of the soul knife so it count's as his main hand soul knife blade.
In a recent 3rd level campaign, our Soul Knife Rogue was the only party member who could do reliable damage to a pack of wererats we ended up fighting, and I think that early level reliable damage type is really useful, even if other rogues can do more damage with magic weapons.
@@Fairburne69 Depends on the rogue. There are definitely rogues who could deal more damage, but also ones who wouldn't. But as Treantmonk says, DPR isn't really a great or accurate tool anyway.
I think people often overlook utility aspects when it comes to rogue in favor of doing stupid amounts of damage. I watched this video because I am starting a campaign that will likely involve a decent amount of infiltration/deception quests. Many of the players are playing front liners or ranged fighter types so I, naturally, settled on a bard/rogue multi class to fill that social/utility gap. I haven’t played in a couple years so I’m not up to date with the most recent subclasses and I will likely only dip 3 levels into rogue. Soul blade was one of the ones that stuck out to me for two reasons. First that one mile range telepathy is stupid good if I am doing some solo recon, second was specifically FOR the soul knife. If I’m running an infiltration using disguises and persuasion/deception, I may not want or be able to bring a physical weapon with me. Psychic blades are PERFECT for that kind of mission, not to mention if you end up getting captured you always have access to a weapon. Soul knife really seems like a great option for a 3 level dip.
This video is helping me decide between Res. CON feat vs taking it in WIS. for my own character. I previously was debating between that or taking it to have prof in CHA and WIS saves.
I had an idea for a multiclass build, Chris - tell me what you think! Hexblood, and then go Rogue 3/Artificer Armorer (Infiltrator) 5. Then full on Rogue to level 20, probably. But the key is to get to that eighth character level. Go Dex primary, and then pump CON and INT. Slap on a breastplate. By my calculations, you can pop on your racial Hex spell (and recast with artificer spell slots), use your first attack action attack to blast with your lightning launcher, then attack with your psychic blade and use your bonus action for a second psychic blade attack. 3 attacks per round without using resources, and you’re doing an extra 6d6 damage if they all hit (2d6 sneak attack plus the bonus d6 for the lightning launcher plus 3d6 necrotic for three hits with Hex). Pretty solid damage all told. plus attacks alone are doing 2d6+d4+(3xDEX). A level 8 soulknife single class hexblood’s gonna do the extra 6d6 too (4d6 sneak attack plus 2d6 Hex if both attacks hit), but they’ll miss the extra base d6 from the lightning launcher as well as the third dip into your dex mod. Also there’s the advantage to stealth from the armor and the increased walking speed, which I imagine would be good for kiting while you’re pulling a PsyArtificer version of Vax’ildan on your enemies. Eerie token on your homunculus servant seems promising too - now you have a longer-range familiar than the wizard does
I have sort of come around on the soulknife. Mechanically speaking at least. Still not very hyped on the psychic blades, but this subclass is great for skills. I have also realized most rogue subclasses actually don't give that much. Still I think it is sad a soul-KNIFE is often better of using a magical weapon than their psychic blades.
Fwiw... "This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties. It has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range, and on a hit, it deals psychic damage equal to 1d6 plus the ability modifier you used for the attack roll. The blade vanishes immediately after it hits or misses its target, and it leaves no mark on its target if it deals damage." It says the blade does d6+ability modifier. NOT the attack. At my table I will assume this allows the psi blade to compete head to head with Booming/Greenflame Blade. Instead of forcing rogues to take a caster dip or blow a feat to get the Cantrip, the Psi blade will get the usual to-hit modifier, and add the usual damage modifier to the d6+modifier of the blade. Otherwise the Psi blades are almost dumb to use outside of niche situations. So Assassins get crit and double crit bonuses, Scouts get the movement bonuses and ranger-like skills, Swashbucklers get the sneak attack perk and anti-opportunity movement, Psi Blades get a built in BB-lite that's usable at range.
If you don’t want to do a straight rogue build, I’ve been using my favorite rogue, Cassius, 9 Soul Knife/6 Whispers Bard/5 Psi-Warrior Fighter. Has the Fighting Initiate Feat for Thrown Weapon Fighting, and took Dueling for 1st Level Fighter for a +4 bonus to his Psychic Blades, since, according to Jeremy Crawford, Dueling does work on thrown weapons, and you’ll still get the +2 bonus from Dueling on the Psychic Blades since they’re Melee Weapons. In combat he’s definitely a more Burst Damage build, but outside of Combat he’s more infiltration, mainly with the Whisper Bard’s Mantle of Shadows mixed with the Actor feat. He’s been killin’ it, and he’s a lot of fun. He’s definitely M.A.D. with having to focus on Dex, Wis (for scouting), Cha (for information gathering/interrogating/passing himself off as somebody else), and Int (for the additional Psionic Strike damage from Fighter). He does pretty consistent damage, at least 30 if both of his psychic blades hit. Since our DM ruled it that since he has 2 attacks with 5 Fighter he throws two of the “larger” psychic blades and one “smaller” blade as a bonus action. Fun family to play, I’m also playing one of Cassius’ relatives in a Golden Vault game, where he’s going to have some points into Armorer Artificer, where he’ll use his psychic energy to power his suit, I told the Dm that I’ll gladly take however much damage, lose however many hit dice and gain however many points of exhaustion just for that to work, since I figured transferring innate abilities to a power source can be rather taxing on the body.
I wanted to try out soul knife and I also wanted to try out wild magic barbarian... 9 now have a level 9 chara ter that is wild surge barbarian 3, soul knife 6... I keep seeming to roll up the teleport ability every rage, which is amazing as a rogue and halving the damage you already had resistance to if the enemy makes a big hit is great fun
Haven’t watched the entire video yet, but you can take the feat “fighter adept” to get “thrown weapon fighting” to add +2 damage to all of your thrown attacks, including your psychic blades! It also helps with the imagery of being able to opportunity attack with a sheathed dagger on your leg, since the feat lets you draw a weapon as a part of the opportunity attack. Then on your next turn sheathing it is no problem. It’s not a particularly powerful option, but I like the flavor of it. It helps imagine the character being much more fluent in combat which I like, and it basically is the dueling fighting style for you, which is already one of the best! If only we could use archery FS instead x)
I think soul knife was awesome for a concept but I feel like the level 3 feature as soon as you get a magic item it pretty much makes it obsolete now if you were able to convert any one handed weapon into a soul knife weapon I feel like that could have been really good and would made the soul knife feature scale way better in higher levels.
I have the same issue with the Shadow Blade spell. Magic weapon is usually a dpr bump and magical damage is rarely resisted so the psychic damage isn’t that great either.
@@Samuel_Kabel Except Peerless Skill can be applied to any ability check (initiative, dispel magic, counterspell, telekinesis action....) Psi-powered knack is great at lower levels but kind of hits diminishing returns on a rogue. How often are you failing skill checks as a rogue after level six (expertise in four areas of your choice)? Or after reliable talent at level 11? Especially when you factor in help from a party of other characters at level 6, or level 11... And the flip side of your other point is true as well - Rary's Telepathic Bond + Tongues will render one of your features largely (not entirely, but largely) redundant. In general, telepathy was fairly rare and precious when the only sourcebook was the PHB, but it is now only uncommon. My overall impression of soul knife is that it provides "fixes" for problems that the rogue already has good solutions for, and the soul knife's fixes do not stack well with those existing solutions - so you are not really adding power to existing strategies. Add in the fact that it has a number of frankly awkward / clunky mechanics (one of the last things I would ever want to have any variance is movement / teleportation range) and I have to say, I'm not very enthusiastic about this subclass. Which is a shame, because I quite like the flavor. Oh well.
I think we should look at the subclass as a whole, rather than simply by the numbers for DPR, then we can see one of the strengths of it: utility. Yes, all these little things aren't exactly very flashy. The psi-bolstered knack helps quite a bit out of combat, letting you potentially making stealth or other skill fails into successes. Psychic whispers is a great way to help scout out a place and tell your party who's where to help set up an ambush, which Psychic veil helps with by giving you a free casting of Invisibility to boost your stealthy capabilities. Psychic blades, while not the best option to use for a weapon, lets you be armed even when you have no weapons on you. And they can serve as decent thrown weapons, which you can eventually use for teleporting across gaps that are normally aren't crossable without flight or a really long jump. And it's even more useful when you *can't* get access to a flight spell, potentially allowing you to clear 200 feet in one throw. All in all, this is less a "I deal psychic damage and nobody except a few specific enemies can resist it" and more of a "I'm your guy if you need to scout a place out before assaulting it, or to do a risky infiltration mission" sort of a subclass, adding onto the rogues capabilities without sacrificing more than an action you probably would've used anyways to do what you want to do. And it helps free up your ASIs to focus on either bolstering your character's stats, or by letting them pick feats that will let them do new things, or get better at what they can do already.
Psychic blades are usually better then a regular magical weapon because of homing strikes. Your hit more often making up for the +3 damage. I think a lot of people don't realize you can't use that ability with magical weapons. I don't know if this is you but its food for thought.
The only multiclass options as a 1-lvl dip at 20 are Artificer (no), Fighter (eh), and Wizard (yes). A fighting style (superior technique), Second Wind, and a d10 hit die isn't enough to choose Fighter. With Wizard, I'd recommend Booming Blade (for a melee option with a magic weapon), Minor Illusion and Mage Hand (psionic theme) cantrips. For 1 level spells, we get 2 (+1 arcane recovery) slots, 3 prepared, and 6 spells known. I'd recommend Silvery Barbs and Shield (great reaction spells), Silent Image (situational utility, can combine with Minor Illusion for sound), Detect Magic, Comprehend Language (Does this work with Psychic Whispers? I think so), and Identify.
I prefer lightfoot halfling for subrace. Against a medium+ foe you can step under them and hide in their six (can hide without lowlight, but only vs them) and is great way to keep up with melee sneak attack with advantage. Uses same resource as steady Aim get advantage attack, but you could have moved earlier in round. Also, if you started attack sequence from shadows and do the “big people blind spot dance” after your attack, you will end hidden from target so aren’t on their list of melee targets which is a second benefit. (I love the flavor of this, reminds me of our pet “ninja” dog that follows you everywhere and as you turn to look at them always knows which way to walk around you to stay hidden. You only find that they are there if you take a sudden step backwards and hear a “Yelp!” of surprise as they sidestep.)
My favorite way to run this is a changeling with 4 lvls in bard. I take eldrich adept with mask of many faces and actor as my fun feats. Lore bard gives you 3 more skills and is like taking a feat in itself. Oh and psi bolstered knack/jack of all trades/reliable talent just synergize extremely well if yoyr dm runs it like that, i hope they would considering its a 13 lvl investment.
If you were going to dip a multiclass, I think undead warlock would go well here. Soulknives almost never miss, making the fear effect reliable and your double knife attack let's you split up fear and sneak attack, frightening the strongest foe, and killing a lesser one with SA. The fear immunity also greatly helps rogues, who don't get sneak attack at all if they're disadvantaged.
I like to build rogue as a hybrid melee-ranged approach with sometimes BB+disengage and sometimes ranged+hide or steady aim. Soul knife kinda fits into this but with weaker melee (no BB) and better ranged. I like to get a bow and a sword, and get the benefit of both, since it won't require more than 1 object interaction per turn. Eventually hope for magic weapons. Or go artificer2 with returning weapon on a dagger and the familiar tattoo and you have everything covered.
@@chopcooey just remember each time you take a feat or a weapon the soulknife doesn't need the Soulknife gets something else. As a tier 1 uncommon magical weapon/item you may want a +1 weapon like hand crossbow or rapier. The Soulknife gets a luckstone or boots of elven kind. Later on you may want a +2 weapon the soulknife is happy to give it to you and grab the ring of protection or +1 studded leather. Do you need the crossbow expert feat to get a bonus attack similar to the psychic blades? The Soulknife doesn't and can boost their dex to 18 or 20 or grab another feat like mobile or alert. My Soulknife grabbed the telekinetic feat which is a lot of fun and seemed fitting for a psychic rogue.
So...pretty sure on a ranged rogue, steady aim with Elven Accuracy is going to be better than using two attacks. (Unless we have crossbow expert and sharpshooter). You note several times how close steady aim is to just being better than two attacks with normal advantage--well if normal advantage is basically the same damage, I would expect elven accuracy advantage to be comfortably more damage. With this knowledge I think we can do better with a ranged rogue by going an elf with a longbow for Elven Accuracy, and either taking a one level dip for Archery fighting style, or picking it up from a feat. On soulknife specifically, because homing strikes are so good (better than battlemaster precision attacks) I would also be looking to pick up Sharpshooter as well. (Crossbow expert might be worth considering depending on party...with steady aim being our planned bonus action it depends how often the party can give us advantage, if we have a party member that likes throwing around something like faerie fire, yeah, I'd probably grab crossbow expert. If not, don't waste the feat just steady aim).
Homing Strikes only works when attacking with your Psi Blades though, so you can't use it with a Longbow. I would personally still consider Soulknife as a subclass for the amazing utility it brings in skill checks and telepathy, but it won't do much for your damage output when using a weapon. However, the same can be said for several other Rogue subclasses, so it's not a huge strike against Soulknife.
@@predwin1998 Yes, homing strikes would be nice at level 3, but is a lot less impressive at level 9. Rogue really suffers from the fact that their second feature comes so late. But just because other rogue subclasses tend to be lackluster, I don't think we can let soul knife off the hook. I also think the utility that soul knife brings will hit steep diminishing returns as you level up.
@@nathansmith9597 I think other subclasses being mediocre *can be* (not necesarily is) a valid reason for letting Soulknife off the hook. That's because some classes like Paladin draw a lot of their strength from the base class and relatively little from their subclasses, while others like the Artificer has a relatively weak chassis that depends on good subclass features to fill it up. Rogue definately falls under the former and depends on Sneak attack to deal their damage while subclasses bring utility or new tactics while generally offering little to no direct boost in straight damage output. Since this seems a common and probably intended habit for the Rogue subclasses, I think we can forgive Soulknife for essentially upholding that tradition by not offering much damage. It's utility is about as potent and versatile as you can get without spellcasting. That said, I do think Soulknife failed in 1 aspect: upholding the fantasy of a melee psi-blade master assassin that many fans of the concept seem to have expected from it.
if you are hasted as a soulknife, you can still use a readyed action attack while having a hand free. Just use darts. Alternatively having a +1 sling can work.
My ideal Soulknife starts with 6 levels of Ranger. Then you have thrown weapon fighting, extra attack, hunters mark, potentially an extra 1d6/1d8 per turn, full climb/swim speed. You are trading 3d6 from sneak attack for 4d6 from hunter's mark plus class ability from Hunter or Swarm. You're also getting +6 from the fighting style. Add in the Mobile feet and you have one of the most mobile characters in the game
I took 4 levels of Aberrant Mind Sorcerer for Tasha's Mind Whip, Phantasmal Force, Booming Blade, Cloud of Daggers, etc. and the Telekinetic feat for Mage Hand shenanigans. May not be optimal damage, but Rogues are supplemental anyway, and this way I can be as useful as possible in as many situations in AND out of combat as I can think of.
One nice thing about Psychic Veil's wording of [damage or saving throw] means that it won't be broken by Athletics checks to grapple or shove/prone, with should theoretically give you advantage on all grapple checks for an hour unless the enemy has some blindsight equivalent. Would be especially keen if one has Extra Attack, but that's assuming a very high level...
@@Samuel_Kabel Per PHB RAW grappling is a special attack + invisibility grants advantage on attacks = advantage on grapple check "An invisible creature [...] Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage." Grappling When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to ***make a special melee attack***, a grapple. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."
@@Sigourney-Cleaver Yes, but it doesn't use an attack roll. Grapple: When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them. The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach. Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check, a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). You succeed automatically if the target is incapacitated. If you succeed, you subject the target to the grappled condition (see the appendix). The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no action required).
Nice build, i prefer the arcane tricksters but this works nice. With any rogue, if there is no wizard i would grab ritual caster. As a rogue, i'm expected to scout and explore, and i want a familiar, detect magic, comprehend languages, water breathing and phantom steed for those roles.
Wanna hear something dumb? Jeremy Crawford · Apr 13, 2018 "A class feature doesn't stack with itself. In fact, nothing in the game that has the same name stacks. #DnD" Psychic Blades 3rd-level Soulknife feature Psychic Blades When you join the College of Whispers at 3rd level, you gain the ability to make your weapon attacks magically toxic to a creature's mind.
@@elliotbryant3459 At one point a couple years ago, Jeremy Crawford got asked about Jack of All Trades + Reliable Talent and if they worked together. He explained that they did in fact work together. He later clarified that he meant you can have both together, using Reliable Talent on skills you are proficient in and Jack-of-All-Trades on skills you aren't proficient in. However, his poor wording in his first reply had many people confused as he strongly implied that Jack-of-All-Trades was considered "using your proficiency bonus" for the purposes of any features that require you to be proficient such as Reliable Talent.
If your goal is to use steady aim to ensure sneak attack, wouldn't elf be better than halfling? That way you can take the elf feat that gives you three rolls if you have advantage, to try and maximize that possibility of a crit?
Generally steady aim will be a backup for when we wouldn't otherwise get sneak attack, otherwise we'll attack twice instead, giving us the possibility of the extra hit.
I don’t know if you go over this but I believe if you take skulker since soul blades don’t cause marks they cannot tell where you are once thrown and with the ranger being 60, that’s pretty good for a stealthy sniper
@@blairbrook1336 using a rapier to take advantage of booming blade. dex+rapier+booming blade+sneak attk. at 3rd when you get it, prolly 4+4+(4 if they move)+ 3+3. so around 18dmg in a turn if you don't use a way to weaponize your bonus action. crossbow expert, or two weapon fighting are clear choices. one level dip into fighter for the fighting style. or go archery route with crossbow expert and sharpshooter and archery fighting style. which will do a clear amount more of dmg. either way a second attk if you miss is a nice plus since you only ever get one. plus the versatility of mage hand legerdemain. and all the great things rouges get in the base class. mobile feat works exceedingly well for a melee build. class is just good lol
If you can convince your DM to let you take Sharpshooter, oh boy does this class see a boost in power. Beg your DMs kiddos. Tell them that longbows do more and you MIGHT see success
Been tinkering with a Psi Warrior /Soul Knife multiclass and while the dies can't be used across class I've found so far that they do similar enough things that I can get a similar effect
Thus far, the main advantage of playing a soul knife is not directly related to combat, but the psi-blades are kinda nifty for aesthetic reasons. I've not had any issues with skill failure at this point. Damage output is still kind of a problem, but i can usually use skills to avoid combat, so I'm not too worried about it.
Almost all of the constructs in Rime of the Frostmaiden take full damage from psychic damage, including the SPOILERS
flesh golem, the snow golem the chardalyn dragon AND the living spells. I believe there are some animated battleaxes that have immunity to psychic. Not as many constructs as you think have full immunity to psychic damage. It basically only does if it has no mind, and a lot of constructs have minds.
was hoping for more talk on the soulknife. I'm wondering if a whispers bard dip would work well with the soulknife both thematically and make the soulknife even better at skills get some spells for utility as well as an extra skill, 2 extra expertise and jack of all trades (don't think this would make psi die apply all skill checks but wouls help round out the character. bardic inspiration would fit as psi die you give to others and being able to add psychic blades to psychic blades would help sure up some of the sneak attack you'd miss on those levels
Thanks a lot for the guide! Could you please tell what is the benefit of using Steady Aim instead of hiding as a bonus action? Both seem to give you advantage but with Steady Aim we can't move? P.S. I think I've got the answer after listening to the video till the end :D
Unfortunately the light crossbow strat wouldn’t work that well with a halfling sense they are a small race, so they have disadvantage with heavy weapons. Which the light crossbow dispite it’s name is.
This isn't really related but I do wanna note that I feel like any reasonably generous DM will let you charge from hiding for advantage on your first melee attack? Or maybe I'm wrong and that's not common practice in 5e like it is in Pathfinder. In Pathfinder, stealth breaks when you end your movement in the open, when someone's perception beats your stealth check, when you make an attack, or when you cast a spell with a verbal component. You may notice this does _not_ include it ending when you come out from cover or darkness. Additionally, a FAQ clarified that A) while you're unnoticed by a target, you get the exact same benefits against them as you would if you were invisible, and B) the opponent _is_ considered to be unaware of you until after the attack resolves. (The Invisibility spell behaves the same way in Pathfinder; the invisibility breaks as soon as you attack, but you retain the bonuses from invisibility until after the first attack resolves because your sudden appearance gives them no time to react.)
A bit late. But i feel that a good way to optimise a ranged rogue is to take the elven accuracy and ritual caster feats and the find familliar ritual. Then you have your familliar give you advantage and shoot ennemies with a shortbow with triple advantage. Beyond that...Be an arcane trickster i guess. So you can haste yourself. Maybe take 2 levels in fighter for action surge so you can haste yourself in turn one. And use readyed actions to make out of turn sneak attacks with your bow. Make sure to have proeficiency in arcana so you can make potions of speed
Teleport is better then bonus action disengage at its worst. Example 1: Bonus action disengage move 25ft (halfling) or Example 2: Bonus action teleport 10ft then move 25ft. Of course this is a worse case example. I would prefer if it had a minimum distance of 20ft or something but its still very useful when needed. Obviously homing strikes is the big get here, the teleport is just icing on the cake.
As a still learning dm, at the risk of breaking the class and making things harder for me. I would allow both attacks to be made with the psychic knives at around level 6 or 9, be it range or melee using just the attack action . Damage on the second one would still be 1d4+dex mod until around 11 or 12, then id bump it up to 1d6. I would also allow them to do AoO with them for 1d6+dex. Lastly , I would keep an eye on the party if everyone has a +1 or magical weapon (Same for +2 and+3), i might give the psi blades the same effect of a + weapon to offset their damage, psi blades dontlook really improve other tban a few features. I havent had the opportunity to see the Soulknife in action so my ideas may not be a good one, this is just a thought. Also great video :> I dunno when ill ever get to give it a try. Lol
I'm running a soulknife/ echo knight build. Currently 3/3, but planning on picking up extra attack and then going all in on the soulknife. At level 8, my character should be able to make 7 attacks once per short rest. And the echo means you always have an ally next to the target.
Unfortunately the echo is an object not a creature. It can deliver your sneak even on its reaction (assuming sneak criteria is met i.e. advantage or an ally w/in 5 ft) but doesn't count unfortunately as an ally for your delivered attacks. But echoknight and rogue is amazing particularly with blindfight and obscurement. Additionally you will need to be carrying a weapon for the echoknight reaction attack as you can't manifest a soul knife for purposes of attack of opportunity reaction attack. So in one hand you will need a weapon.
I’ve never been a fan of rogues in combat. The damage is whatever, but the survivability is terrible! And most rogue builds you find assume you’ll be an arcane trickster using a familiar, booming blade, and sometimes even haste in melee, without realizing that a rogue with 0 hp has 0 dpr. The reason why I’d take rogue is for skirmishing, mobility, and the amazing skills. This is the most playable rogue that I’ve seen thus far.
My next character will be a Lizardfolk Soulknife and this guide help me so much thanks. Also I've been talking with my dm to let my reflavour the throwing psychic to doing it like a spit from Reptile from Mortal Kombat
@@Booklat1 yeah would be fun that way too but is just reflavouring the psychic blades to spitting on the enemies and the psychic dmg is from the gross feeling that they feel for that
This is probably a lil silly, but I play Soul Knife by making them throw their Psi Blades, exclusively, using the Dueling and Thrown Weapon Fighting Styles, which stack, for a +4 damage. I don't really punch numbers but do you think this would be a good way to up the damage, even if you lose a Sneak Attack die? Get 1 level in the Fighter class to get the Dueling fighting style, later on get the Fighting Initiate feat and chose Thrown Weapon Fighting. Now you've got +4 damage every single time you hit, which helps quite a bit if you don't have magic items, you also attack twice every turn. By being a thrower you'll be out of melee, so you'd need less Con and could focus more on other Ability Scores. If you want more levels in Fighter, then get to 3 and chose Psi Warrior for Psionic Strike (which kind of makes up for the lose of 1 SA die but only for a single attack, though you do add your Int mod) or Telekinetic Movement and Protective Field if you want to be a bit more helpful towards your party.
Built a vuman fighter, grabbed fighting initiate so I could stack thrown weapon fighting and dueling. bought a bunch of daggers. From level 2 onward he's a rogue/soul knife. level 1 throwing a dagger for a d4+7 is pretty hilarious.
I am using a changling soul knife and I am already pretty dangerous to my foes. Once I reach level 4, I will be getting the Skill Expert feat so I can gain expertise in Athletics aka my shoving check. Guards beware because your long time friend might be a changling that is has incredible knack for shoving people off walls or stabbing you in the back without you noticing then play it off as you taking a nap.
lol the character's name sounds like my name! haha in any case, another issue i also have with soulknife is it doesn't do well with multiclassing into classes with extra attack like fighters and maximizing action surge. it's stuck in the mud as being a one-2 hit wonder which makes it fall behind in burst dmg compared to other rogue builds without the benefit of maximizing that one-hit with booming blade. plus they don't work well with the best dmg boosters like sharpshooter and gwm. imo psi bolstered knack is the best feature of the soul knife. it's good if you want to make a grappling rogue. psychic blades as it is, is bad.
How are psi blades bad? You're dealing more damage than almost any other class, or combinations of classes, before level 5, and you're not reliant upon any equipment or item. After level 5, if built correctly, you're never falling below baseline damage, while having a character that almost never fails a saving throw or relevant ability check. "Not being the best" at dealing damage isn't the same thing as "being bad".
@@elliotbryant3459 Yeah I know, that's why TM prioritized feats that augmented proficiencies and saving throws. Are you incapable of recognizing hyperbole or do you just enjoy coming off as an insufferable know it all? Your comment has no bearing on the crux of this comment, which is whether or not psi blades are bad.
@@mattdespard6576 Chill out dude. -Not everyone is going to be utilizing Treantmonk's patented Soul Knife Build. Rob critiques the subclass and you made a baseless statement about the subclass's survivability mechanics -and then try to gaslight me for correcting your false statements which you try to pass off as as 'hyperbole'.
I haven't played one yet and haven't gone past level 4 with them, but I was really hoping that there would be a cool progression of damage for the soul knives themselves that would make them a great option at almost any level as your sole damage dealer, i know the sneak attack can do a decent job of getting damage in but i think it could have been cool to have the blades increase the die damage it does at certain levels
level 20 1 level dip into wizard, to pick up a bunch of stuff that could be fun, shield, find familiar, even jump, detect magic, you don't usually need a familiar because you are one, but you also cannot fly, and who knows maybe you need like, to jump a stupid gap between buildings or something, unlike with regular invisibility, this one doesn't end if you cast a spell such as detect magic, shield or jump, and your base strength isn't too great, heck you could take the cantrips booming blade, Prestidigitation and mending, you can't really use booming blade unless you have a magic weapon, you're not in melee no but if you are attacked now you have a thing as you run with mobile, mending and Prestidigitation is amazing for retirement because you never need a change of clothes, always clean and no holes or into fighter then take archery fighting style to get +2 to all ranged attacks, because tarrasques have a high AC idk, or the armoured for just +1 AC, you could take a level in ranger for canny, giving you even more expertise and languages, and an insignificant damage bonus a level in barbarian would be possible if maybe you rolled for stats and have higher strength for athletics, then you could also rage to just say no to physical damage because it isn't a spell and uncanny dodge only works once per round, problem here is it does take the bonus action, but if you action procked sneak attack you're fine, you could do a 1 level dip into cleric if you want healing word, which hey, now you could heal the actual cleric when they drop, shield of faith for giving you or whoever the tank is more AC, you're proficient in con saves so you're fine I always prefer wizard because tbh it's more like a retirement plan than a multiclass, either retire, fight goblins the rest of your life, or go back to the squire and chill, most halflings prefer the latter
The problem is that how most DMs play Stealth you can't add you Psionic Energy Dice to Stealth (or at least not easily). Because you are usually not told whether you succeeded or failed a stealth check. One time I got a DM to agree to roll potential Psionic Dice on Stealth and he would tell me wehther I get the Dice back or not when the question whether I could use it and needed it was resolved.
I plsy a barb unarmed grappler build with this and think it fits perfect. I get boosts for skill checks, summonable weapons for backstabs and manuevrability.
Would taking one of the Elf races and the Elven Accuracy feat be a good option? What would the damage changes look like with the added d20 from the feat while having advantage with Stealth and/or Steady Aim?
I know i'm maybe nitpicking, but couldn't you be able to get duellist or throwing weapont fighting style from the feat or one level of fighter (maybe both) to get a +2 (or +4) on every attack with your main hand (because your second hand is always empty before you need to attack with it) it makes it effectively appliying the +2 of duellist on every attack you make, and turn it to +4 if you throw the second psychic blade. Furthermore, since your first hand is empty after attacking, the +4 when you throw the second dagger is applicable too.
I would like to reflavour dropping and picking up my dagger for opportunity attacks as holding my blade up in the air with telekinesis, tossing two psychic blades, then it floating down back into my hand.
Rob Berry. I see his family knew what he was going to be doing with his life. Growing berries, like the rest of his family. Just a young man with a passion for tomes on mystical powers. But Rob's life was thrown off its hinges when the plantation was razed by the savage tyrant "Lord" Darius Cresto and his merry band of murderers. Rob was bitter, everything stolen from him. The Bastard Lord would pay for what he took, so Rob took his knowledge of psionics and learned the ways of the Rogue, so that the tyrant will one day fall to his psychic blade.
My biggest issue with soul blade is that it takes your bonus action, which most rogues use to leverage sneak attack. If you're not hiding every round, your chance of landing a sneak attack is going to be decreased significantly. - The Innkeeper
In cases where you don't have an ally next to an enemy, you are best to use steady aim, if you do, you are best to attack twice. If you do use steady aim, you can still use your soul blades, but you can only attack once.
Not sure, but am I understanding it correct, to make the 2nd attack with psychic blade your offhand need to be free. Well if I remember right, your main hand by RAW can be either hand in every turn, and the offhand is just the other than your choice. So if you hold your rapier or other one-handed weapon in your offhand when you make the attack, then you use interact with object to move it to the other hand, and then the bonus action action, wouldn't that work similar to drop and pick-up every round?
FYI you say that with expertise you`re as good as the Barbarian on atheltics.. Barbarian can get same expertise too using skill expert feat as well. Regardless, I used this on my shield master, fighter, which enlarged managed to knock prone a huge dragon. So this is now out of my bucket list.
It's funny how no decent Soulknife builds existed anywhere, and then you and Bilbron come out with 2 within minutes of each other. Great minds think alike!
mi Soulknife naym iz Slytherin Kidd ,, makes sense not decent , us slys r scallywags like squashluckiers .. /\i utilize mi Steady /\im w/ a Kumite untaunt ( Bloodsport grimmace ) // Schiz Twitch // 8ipolar Çollar Stellar 6aiting //instinctive theraputic neck crack // gait w8 balancing // Basic Yoga Crow & Lazy Phoenix Stances etc//\\..
Its worth remembering that for a significant portion of the game, it isn't actually a guarantee that you'll get a magic weapon, especially if a GM mostly runs out-of-the-box modules or the group is particularly large. Also worth noting that the Psychic Blades do have some situational utility advantages - you don't need to conceal them, they can't be damaged or otherwise taken from you, and it doesn't leave a mess.
This comment is over a year old, but I wanted to add to this. I am currently running a James Bond type soulknife. Infiltrating high ranking political figures parties, where they do not allow weapons. But his weapon is Psionic Blades. Political Espionage. He has a Glamour set of Leather Armor, and is literally wearing a suit. I love it. Super fun to RP.
@@jacobgoad4503 I feel like this is where soul knife thrives
I am playing a Tabaxi Soulknife right now in a campaign that goes all the way to level 20 - I think this, out of all the PC’s I’ve ever played, is my favorite.
I am going to take one level of Fighter for the Duelist fighting style, that’s it.
I already have Thrown Weapons Master so the Duelist will max out the damage for every Psi Blade I throw…that’s an extra +4 on top of the usual DEX and Proficiency for every single attack ever.
That’s huge IMO.
@@ninjasquirrels You don't add proficiency to damage.
Soul Knifers getting a double dose of advice today: Treantmonk and Bilbron both releasing build videos today 😀
Not planned, but cool.
Perfect, I needed that!
I think a Changeling Soulknife would be especially sneaky. You have telepathy with your party members, psychic blades that don't leave marks on your targets, and the ability to change your physical appearance at will? Thats a true assassin right there.
It's a lot like bladesinger. Just because you can wade into melee and dominate without getting hit 80 percent of the time, doesn't mean you should.
At level 3, it's like 90-95%
Bladesinger with mobile I really like the idea of, you can wade into melee and attack, then run away, increased move speed to 50ft is nice for that
it let's you tank a bit of damage to help out, and easily back off and just be a wizard with hypnotic pattern concentrated on whenever you like, I love the idea of being wherever is most impactful in a given situation,
I think soul knife really speaks to that good in every situation build, its good, with the crazy ability to attempt nigh impossible feats just because
I think people focus overly much on the psi-blades and overlook a few things:
1. A Soul Knife can wield other weapons as well (as you rightly point out.)
2. To me, the SK's tastiest ability isn't his ability to make like Psylocke. It's one of the most reliable and long-lasting telepathy abilities in the game--which is a HUGE advantage for a scout.
3. The skill boost is also super-useful.. It's hard for a rogue with Expertise to blow a Stealth check, and when they do, they generally fail it by a few points--meaning an at-need ability to boost that skill check can render it almost impossible to blow the roll.
Overall, I think the SK is the best dedicated scout in the game currently.
Thing is, I totally agree with you that the utility the Soulknife brings is amazing, and I love the subclass for it. But I can see why some people might be disappointed as they imagined a specific fantasy for the Soulknife that doesn't end up working, even if the subclass as a whole is still great.
I think it's similar to the pre-Tasha's Bladesinger. It was a perfectly useful subclass that greatly improves the defenses of any Wizard, but many people were rightly disappointed that it didn't fulfill the gish-fantasy people associate with Bladesingers.
This feels similar. It's not that the subclass is weak or anything, it just doesn't quite deliver in the ways many people who love the theme were hoping for.
@@predwin1998 people wanted to tear enemies apart with their psych blades and sneak attack.
Heck, even multiclassing doesn’t help much because this class doesn’t benefit from extra attack. At best it works for stunning strike/monk weapons if you’re multiclassing into monk
@@Booklat1 Exactly! Soulknife is very good at what it does, but what it does isn't what many people wanted it to do.
I actually felt that way about a lot of Tasha's content, including the Artificer class. The mechanics often don't have very much to do with the theme. Features like Fey Wanderer Dreadful Strikes or Genie patron Genie's wrath seem especially flaccid, even if they're reasonably powerful. Armourers touching a suit of armour and making it magical is mechanically convenient, but definitely doesn't feel like it fits the theme, where I'm imagining an Artificer spending hours (if not weeks) to create a magical suit, just as one example. Lots of stuff like that
Personally it’s my favourite Rogue subclass.
Halflings in particular should expect to crit just slightly more often when they have advantage since you also increase the number of 1’s they get to re-roll and those re-rolls could always be a crit.
Crit rates:
Nat20 crit:
No advantage, no lucky = 5%
Advantage, no lucky = 9.75%
No advantage, lucky = 5.25%
Advantage, lucky = 10.2125%
Elven Accuracy = 14.2625%
19-20 crit:
No advantage, no lucky = 10%
Advantage, no lucky = 19%
No advantage, lucky = 10.5%
Advantage, lucky = 19.875%
Elven Accuracy = 27.1%
The one thing I dislike about the Psychic Teleportation ability is that as written it would appear to not be able to get you out of wall of force/forcecage which is one of the main draws for a teleport on a martial character.
I like how versatile the non-combat applications are in this build, as well as how well this build would work in an austere magical item campaign. It would be funny to have two of the above soul knives in a party as a tag team, using their psi bolstered knacks in conjunction with the grappler feat to take turns restraining baddies while the other shanks them with psi blades >
One thing I don't think you mentioned (it's pretty minor), but I'm playing a Soul Knife right now (just hit level 11 and let me tell you its amazing). But anyway, you can also replenish one Psionic die as a bonus action (and this ability recharges every short rest), so on a long adventuring day, you're likely to get at LEAST two more die uses. So at 3rd level you have a minimum of 5 dice, at 5th, 7, etc... Granted, I've only run out of these dice once in the whole campaign, but the bonus action dice has come up a few times.
I'm playing a Rogue in a party that has an Order Cleric, and we're currently level 2, 100 xp or so away from level 3. I was always aiming towards Soulknife for this character, a Glasya Tiefling, but was a little on the fence because of the Psychic Blades not allowing out of turn attacks; which were much more common, because the Order Cleric has a crush on my rogue and gives her the free attack every time he casts Bless. XD
In this particular instance, things are a bit more on the fence, because the DM has allowed psychic blades to be conjured on opportunity attacks after a brief discussion. I don't think it would have any negative bearing on the game, since I was already going to be doing the drop/pick up thing with my Shortbow and the damage would have no real difference anyway. Since I had reliable reaction attacks coming in even at range.
Yeah, if I had an ally providing reaction attacks, normally that would push me towards a different subclass of rogue, but if your DM is allowing psychic blades on reaction attacks, you should do well, and I agree, it's not going to break anything.
I don't see how that COULD break anything, because you can't exactly use a Bonus Action to attack again with the Psychic Blades. It's really just making a subclass feature work when it always should work.
@@TreantmonksTemple When I started playing my Soul Knife rogue the DM was sticking with RAW. After 2 combat encounters of me saying, "I drop my short sword" and "I pick up my short sword" every round the DM changed his mind and started allowing me to attack with my psychic blades as a reaction. I think the players appreciated it too. It was quite annoying for everyone involved.
Just take the feat Fighting Adept and choose Thrown Weapon Style. Problem solved, my friend!
@@brannenpfister2579 thrown weapon fighting doesn't do anything for attacks of opportunity, or the wording on psychic blades that doesn't allow you to do so. It lets you draw a weapon in the same attack action, but your psychic blades only work when you specifically take the attack action, RAW. Your attack action is different than an attack of opportunity/attack granted on someone else's turn that requires your reaction. The problem is that RAW wording about needing to use your attack action to activate them.
"His name is Robb Berry" i absolutely lost it.
you can also switch hands for the weapon instead of dropping it. this works well with having a bow too, in case you need to melee someone with your soul knife. attack with the hand that normally draws arrows, swap bow to that same hand, bonus action attack with now-free hand.
This would probably still use your interaction, wouldn't it?
44:30 this is the first time I realized you can shove or grapple a creature while invisible without breaking invisibility for this kind of feature.
Forcing falling damage isn't dealing damage. And it's not RAW to allow a saving throw after pushing a creature off a cliff.
Grapple and shove are categorized as a special melee attack and are a part of the attack action. If you count them for the barbarian to keep up rage with them, then you should count them for canceling invisibility.
@@DvirPick they have different wording so are unrelated.
"Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked Unconscious or if Your Turn ends and you haven't attacked a Hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then."
Doesn't say you have to deal damage, whereas the invisibility effect listed at the timestamp states damage or saving throws breaks it.
So you could be a raging barbarian and invisible, and shove attack while invisible and continue raging.
@@kbeazy_3050 sorry I assumed it was the same as the invisibility spell, which breaks when you attack or cast a spell.
I like the gunner feat on the soul knife. It allows you to attack from range with action and bonus action against W/e target your group is focusing on. even if another enemy gets in your face to distract you and impose disadvantage on your ranged attacks, you ignore them and deliver your damage from 60ft away.
The knives have twice the normal range of a hand crossbow when compared to crossbow expert.
Gunner is also a half feat, so it potentially increases your dexterity modifier for an increase to accuracy and base damage.
And on top of all that, maybe your DM will give you some type of gun if you dedicate a feat to it. Hope it’s a scattergun.
In terms of Multi class. I’m kind of interested in Multi-classing Echo Knight with Soul Knife. To sort of further enhance the Soul Knife’s ability to project their mind by allowing them to create a double. For the perfect assassin. Allowing you to get those Risky reaction attacks in without actually risking yourself.
Though I must admit I like the idea more for theming than design Synergy. The assassin who is seen chatting with their party mingling. While their echo lurks in the back room having assassinated a threat to the king.
I love this idea.
I had the same idea but I'm gunning for level 9 first then I'll multiclass.
The idea of my little owl summoning spectral feathers and attacking.
Then now summoning just another whole owl to smack people is great.
I call this the "Echo Knife"
I would also recommend the Dhampir lineage for anyone who wants darkvision, a 35ft. movement speed, two free skills, a vampiric bite for healing or advantage on bite attacks when at low health, and the spider climb ability for walking/climbing upside down hands free, attacking with psychic blades out of reach.
Starting playing a rogue Soulknife in a month, at level 3. I’m excited!!
Some other feats to choose would be thrown weapons, and dueling. Each add two damage to each attack, and they stack. If both attacks hit, that an extra 8hp per round.
Sharpshooter works too. With homing strikes boosting your to hit bonus it helps a lot and makes the bonus action attack a lot better if you have advantage and homing strikes you are more then likely going to hit. That's 20 more damage.
@@Fairburne69 sharpshooter unfortunately doesn’t work with thrown weapons.
The ignore cover part does, but not extra damage.
I love this video, I’m playing a Soulknife / warlock in a level 5 campaign rn, and this video highly emphasizes the best part of Soulknife, skill checks. I took variant human and picked up skilled, and did my warlock invocations I took beguiling (prof in persuasion and deception) and it’s SILLY how fun it is to turn dropped rolls into successes in so many different skills. Also telepathic communication is wonderful to have in a party where communication in different nearby locations is key. Thank you for this video, been enjoying your content greatly.
If your movement proves to be an issue for you, another good feat selection at level 4 would be Squat Nimbleness. You can still boost that Dexterity and still get that Athletics proficiency, but you would also get your movement speed from 25 to 30, which is huge.
EDIT: Basically you’re trading Expertise in a skill for +5 Movement.
And advantage on not being grappled.
Probably would've picked up mobile feat much sooner (maybe lvl 4). The soul knife being a thrown melee weapon makes the build an excellent switcher between melee/range. We can't guarantee staying at out of melee as the range is only 60ft, much shorter than something like a longbow, so there're reasonable odds that an enemy (particularly a faster one might dash towards you). Naturally ranged is our preference for purposes of self-preservation, so being able to get that free disengage and reliably increase our action economy by never needing to use cunning action for disengage for me makes the most sense throughout the character's career. Also neat trick with mobile halfling of being able to pass through an enemy space (multiple if you attack on the bonus action too), getting the free disengage as you go if you make an attack against them. This is very useful if you're cornered or need to make your way to a creature on the backlines etc. Also mobile dash feature applies for passing through enemy space (which is considered difficult terrain). Very likely to come up in narrow dungeon corridors.
Then again I tend to weight feats much more strongly than ASIs or resilient as a feat will usually define the feel of a character and their fighting style much more then these and overall increases the fun-factor of the character for the length of the character's lifetime much better.
SUPERB guide. You can get thrown weapon fighting as a feat now. And RAW it works with soulblades. This solves oportunity attack. Because the style states "you can draw a weapon with the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon" (It just needs to have the thrown property, it does not need to be ranged). Then you can use that infamous free draw/stow action to sheathe the weapon, fast draw style AoO.
I feel compelled to make a strength soulknife battle master so I can chuck soul knifes at people with so much brute strength they fall over.
Roguexbarbarian multiclass, get enough lvls of barbarian for bear totem and reckless attack.
Pick kalashtar as your race.
@@Duranous. i wasn’t even thinking about opportunity attacks tbh, specially since those don’t seem to work with psy blades
Just thinking of ways to brutally hurt people with the knives (with the added bonus of tanking much better)
@@Booklat1 Oh, whoops I thought this was a response to another comments since I saw it through the notification system. Yeah, they don't work. For the sake of clarity my other comment was about how opportunity attacks for rogues were overrated because they are normally rare.
I'll just delete my other comment because it was very random and not relevant.
I was thinking that with a soul blade rogue + battle master fighter build it would be fun to reskin your maneuvers as like psychic compulsions or telekinetic force (depending on the maneuver) rather than regular weapon mastery. Maybe throw in the telekinetic feat too at some point.
A Kobold Soulknife... rolling 4 d20s to attack each round. His hit% is awesome.
That’s my plan for the next time I’m able to play a new character.
I am currently making one for a future campaign right now. Though not sure if I want skill expert or just skilled. Edit... Nope skill expert is better due to the ASI
@@Cough75 100% on board with that. Despite the name, I read those features largely the same that Chris did... skill monkey max. Instead of trying to be good at everything, I like the idea of being really exceptional at a few things. I like your idea of Skill Expert even better than his idea of Bountiful Luck or Lucky.
@@ChristnThms But Chris did take Skill Expert at level 4. If you really want to press the skill monkey you could take Skilled as well instead of Bountiful Luck or Lucky, but Skill Expert is already included in this build.
Skilled can still be a great addition (after Skill Expert) if you don't care much for the other later feats since as a high level Soulknife you will have Reliable Talent + Psionic Knack to turn any proficient skill into a rather good skill, but simultaniously there's diminishing returns as you'll probably already have proficiency in whatever skills you ranked top 7 for this character.
There is a good post out there showing how the homing strikes more than make up for the hit bonus of a magic weapon and let ypu sneak attack by hitting. A magic weapon doesn't invalidate a class, especially if you want bonus action attack and re-throwable build.
This subclass fills a gap for rogues and it actually frees you up for a lot of flexibility.
And conversely, in the scenario where you find that +3 Shortbow of Uberness, you’re still free to use it just as well as any other rogue and save the psionic blades for when you’re stuck in melee, or deprived of the bow, or out of arrows, or for some reason can’t use it. Your psionic dice do all kinds of stuff other than benefiting attack rolls.
An interesting thing that I noticed is that the blades are stated to not leave any physical damage on the target of the attack. This can be incorporated into a number of assassination-focused builds, as if the guards don't know how the person was killed, what could lead them to the PCs?
Oh yes. A soul knife changeling with glamour weave. Later on a multiclass into whispers bard
should be noted that if the PCs become well known this will not work
I have bountiful luck feat on halfling bard and I never regretted it. Love that it made it into the video
This was more or less about how I played my SK and I had an absolute blast doing so. I found out very quickly that playing the range game made me far stronger than trying to get in close. The massive amount of skills was also highly beneficial and made my character a huge boon in a party full of novice players
I'm running a campaign and I told the Rogue Soul Knife that he can just imbue his magical weapon with the powers of the soul knife so it count's as his main hand soul knife blade.
These psychic dice really cause some complicated math. Thanks for doing it so we don't have to!
In a recent 3rd level campaign, our Soul Knife Rogue was the only party member who could do reliable damage to a pack of wererats we ended up fighting, and I think that early level reliable damage type is really useful, even if other rogues can do more damage with magic weapons.
Are they doing more damage if they miss more often? Or get fewer attacks?
@@Fairburne69 Depends on the rogue. There are definitely rogues who could deal more damage, but also ones who wouldn't. But as Treantmonk says, DPR isn't really a great or accurate tool anyway.
@@tomgymer7719 Agreed D&D is much more then dps.
I think people often overlook utility aspects when it comes to rogue in favor of doing stupid amounts of damage. I watched this video because I am starting a campaign that will likely involve a decent amount of infiltration/deception quests. Many of the players are playing front liners or ranged fighter types so I, naturally, settled on a bard/rogue multi class to fill that social/utility gap. I haven’t played in a couple years so I’m not up to date with the most recent subclasses and I will likely only dip 3 levels into rogue. Soul blade was one of the ones that stuck out to me for two reasons. First that one mile range telepathy is stupid good if I am doing some solo recon, second was specifically FOR the soul knife. If I’m running an infiltration using disguises and persuasion/deception, I may not want or be able to bring a physical weapon with me. Psychic blades are PERFECT for that kind of mission, not to mention if you end up getting captured you always have access to a weapon. Soul knife really seems like a great option for a 3 level dip.
This video is helping me decide between Res. CON feat vs taking it in WIS. for my own character. I previously was debating between that or taking it to have prof in CHA and WIS saves.
I had an idea for a multiclass build, Chris - tell me what you think! Hexblood, and then go Rogue 3/Artificer Armorer (Infiltrator) 5. Then full on Rogue to level 20, probably. But the key is to get to that eighth character level. Go Dex primary, and then pump CON and INT. Slap on a breastplate. By my calculations, you can pop on your racial Hex spell (and recast with artificer spell slots), use your first attack action attack to blast with your lightning launcher, then attack with your psychic blade and use your bonus action for a second psychic blade attack. 3 attacks per round without using resources, and you’re doing an extra 6d6 damage if they all hit (2d6 sneak attack plus the bonus d6 for the lightning launcher plus 3d6 necrotic for three hits with Hex). Pretty solid damage all told. plus attacks alone are doing 2d6+d4+(3xDEX). A level 8 soulknife single class hexblood’s gonna do the extra 6d6 too (4d6 sneak attack plus 2d6 Hex if both attacks hit), but they’ll miss the extra base d6 from the lightning launcher as well as the third dip into your dex mod. Also there’s the advantage to stealth from the armor and the increased walking speed, which I imagine would be good for kiting while you’re pulling a PsyArtificer version of Vax’ildan on your enemies.
Eerie token on your homunculus servant seems promising too - now you have a longer-range familiar than the wizard does
I love that you share my Bountiful Luck guilty pleasure.
I have sort of come around on the soulknife. Mechanically speaking at least. Still not very hyped on the psychic blades, but this subclass is great for skills. I have also realized most rogue subclasses actually don't give that much. Still I think it is sad a soul-KNIFE is often better of using a magical weapon than their psychic blades.
You can't use homing strikes with a magical weapon when you get that skill so I would disagree.
Fwiw... "This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties. It has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range, and on a hit, it deals psychic damage equal to 1d6 plus the ability modifier you used for the attack roll. The blade vanishes immediately after it hits or misses its target, and it leaves no mark on its target if it deals damage."
It says the blade does d6+ability modifier. NOT the attack. At my table I will assume this allows the psi blade to compete head to head with Booming/Greenflame Blade. Instead of forcing rogues to take a caster dip or blow a feat to get the Cantrip, the Psi blade will get the usual to-hit modifier, and add the usual damage modifier to the d6+modifier of the blade.
Otherwise the Psi blades are almost dumb to use outside of niche situations.
So Assassins get crit and double crit bonuses, Scouts get the movement bonuses and ranger-like skills, Swashbucklers get the sneak attack perk and anti-opportunity movement, Psi Blades get a built in BB-lite that's usable at range.
If you don’t want to do a straight rogue build, I’ve been using my favorite rogue, Cassius, 9 Soul Knife/6 Whispers Bard/5 Psi-Warrior Fighter. Has the Fighting Initiate Feat for Thrown Weapon Fighting, and took Dueling for 1st Level Fighter for a +4 bonus to his Psychic Blades, since, according to Jeremy Crawford, Dueling does work on thrown weapons, and you’ll still get the +2 bonus from Dueling on the Psychic Blades since they’re Melee Weapons. In combat he’s definitely a more Burst Damage build, but outside of Combat he’s more infiltration, mainly with the Whisper Bard’s Mantle of Shadows mixed with the Actor feat. He’s been killin’ it, and he’s a lot of fun. He’s definitely M.A.D. with having to focus on Dex, Wis (for scouting), Cha (for information gathering/interrogating/passing himself off as somebody else), and Int (for the additional Psionic Strike damage from Fighter). He does pretty consistent damage, at least 30 if both of his psychic blades hit. Since our DM ruled it that since he has 2 attacks with 5 Fighter he throws two of the “larger” psychic blades and one “smaller” blade as a bonus action.
Fun family to play, I’m also playing one of Cassius’ relatives in a Golden Vault game, where he’s going to have some points into Armorer Artificer, where he’ll use his psychic energy to power his suit, I told the Dm that I’ll gladly take however much damage, lose however many hit dice and gain however many points of exhaustion just for that to work, since I figured transferring innate abilities to a power source can be rather taxing on the body.
I wanted to try out soul knife and I also wanted to try out wild magic barbarian... 9 now have a level 9 chara ter that is wild surge barbarian 3, soul knife 6... I keep seeming to roll up the teleport ability every rage, which is amazing as a rogue and halving the damage you already had resistance to if the enemy makes a big hit is great fun
Haven’t watched the entire video yet, but you can take the feat “fighter adept” to get “thrown weapon fighting” to add +2 damage to all of your thrown attacks, including your psychic blades! It also helps with the imagery of being able to opportunity attack with a sheathed dagger on your leg, since the feat lets you draw a weapon as a part of the opportunity attack. Then on your next turn sheathing it is no problem.
It’s not a particularly powerful option, but I like the flavor of it. It helps imagine the character being much more fluent in combat which I like, and it basically is the dueling fighting style for you, which is already one of the best! If only we could use archery FS instead x)
I don't get why people thought soul knife was bad, but great explainer for playing it.
I think soul knife was awesome for a concept but I feel like the level 3 feature as soon as you get a magic item it pretty much makes it obsolete now if you were able to convert any one handed weapon into a soul knife weapon I feel like that could have been really good and would made the soul knife feature scale way better in higher levels.
I agree, I mean that's basically what the hexblade warlock does, I don't see why soulknife can't.
Rary's Telepathic Bond + Tongues. A magic weapon doesn't replace that. (Also basically the Lore Bard's Peerless Skill.)
I have the same issue with the Shadow Blade spell. Magic weapon is usually a dpr bump and magical damage is rarely resisted so the psychic damage isn’t that great either.
@@seanjardine3128 Yeah, but if your DM ever puts a Bear Totem Barbarian against you, you'll really mess 'em up! :D
@@Samuel_Kabel Except Peerless Skill can be applied to any ability check (initiative, dispel magic, counterspell, telekinesis action....)
Psi-powered knack is great at lower levels but kind of hits diminishing returns on a rogue. How often are you failing skill checks as a rogue after level six (expertise in four areas of your choice)? Or after reliable talent at level 11? Especially when you factor in help from a party of other characters at level 6, or level 11...
And the flip side of your other point is true as well - Rary's Telepathic Bond + Tongues will render one of your features largely (not entirely, but largely) redundant. In general, telepathy was fairly rare and precious when the only sourcebook was the PHB, but it is now only uncommon.
My overall impression of soul knife is that it provides "fixes" for problems that the rogue already has good solutions for, and the soul knife's fixes do not stack well with those existing solutions - so you are not really adding power to existing strategies.
Add in the fact that it has a number of frankly awkward / clunky mechanics (one of the last things I would ever want to have any variance is movement / teleportation range) and I have to say, I'm not very enthusiastic about this subclass. Which is a shame, because I quite like the flavor. Oh well.
I think we should look at the subclass as a whole, rather than simply by the numbers for DPR, then we can see one of the strengths of it: utility.
Yes, all these little things aren't exactly very flashy. The psi-bolstered knack helps quite a bit out of combat, letting you potentially making stealth or other skill fails into successes. Psychic whispers is a great way to help scout out a place and tell your party who's where to help set up an ambush, which Psychic veil helps with by giving you a free casting of Invisibility to boost your stealthy capabilities. Psychic blades, while not the best option to use for a weapon, lets you be armed even when you have no weapons on you. And they can serve as decent thrown weapons, which you can eventually use for teleporting across gaps that are normally aren't crossable without flight or a really long jump. And it's even more useful when you *can't* get access to a flight spell, potentially allowing you to clear 200 feet in one throw.
All in all, this is less a "I deal psychic damage and nobody except a few specific enemies can resist it" and more of a "I'm your guy if you need to scout a place out before assaulting it, or to do a risky infiltration mission" sort of a subclass, adding onto the rogues capabilities without sacrificing more than an action you probably would've used anyways to do what you want to do. And it helps free up your ASIs to focus on either bolstering your character's stats, or by letting them pick feats that will let them do new things, or get better at what they can do already.
Psychic blades are usually better then a regular magical weapon because of homing strikes. Your hit more often making up for the +3 damage. I think a lot of people don't realize you can't use that ability with magical weapons. I don't know if this is you but its food for thought.
For the one level dip, I'd say twilight cleric. Dark vision, advantage on initiative and a few utility spells
The only multiclass options as a 1-lvl dip at 20 are Artificer (no), Fighter (eh), and Wizard (yes). A fighting style (superior technique), Second Wind, and a d10 hit die isn't enough to choose Fighter. With Wizard, I'd recommend Booming Blade (for a melee option with a magic weapon), Minor Illusion and Mage Hand (psionic theme) cantrips. For 1 level spells, we get 2 (+1 arcane recovery) slots, 3 prepared, and 6 spells known. I'd recommend Silvery Barbs and Shield (great reaction spells), Silent Image (situational utility, can combine with Minor Illusion for sound), Detect Magic, Comprehend Language (Does this work with Psychic Whispers? I think so), and Identify.
I prefer lightfoot halfling for subrace. Against a medium+ foe you can step under them and hide in their six (can hide without lowlight, but only vs them) and is great way to keep up with melee sneak attack with advantage. Uses same resource as steady Aim get advantage attack, but you could have moved earlier in round. Also, if you started attack sequence from shadows and do the “big people blind spot dance” after your attack, you will end hidden from target so aren’t on their list of melee targets which is a second benefit.
(I love the flavor of this, reminds me of our pet “ninja” dog that follows you everywhere and as you turn to look at them always knows which way to walk around you to stay hidden. You only find that they are there if you take a sudden step backwards and hear a “Yelp!” of surprise as they sidestep.)
My favorite way to run this is a changeling with 4 lvls in bard. I take eldrich adept with mask of many faces and actor as my fun feats. Lore bard gives you 3 more skills and is like taking a feat in itself. Oh and psi bolstered knack/jack of all trades/reliable talent just synergize extremely well if yoyr dm runs it like that, i hope they would considering its a 13 lvl investment.
If you were going to dip a multiclass, I think undead warlock would go well here. Soulknives almost never miss, making the fear effect reliable and your double knife attack let's you split up fear and sneak attack, frightening the strongest foe, and killing a lesser one with SA. The fear immunity also greatly helps rogues, who don't get sneak attack at all if they're disadvantaged.
I like to build rogue as a hybrid melee-ranged approach with sometimes BB+disengage and sometimes ranged+hide or steady aim. Soul knife kinda fits into this but with weaker melee (no BB) and better ranged. I like to get a bow and a sword, and get the benefit of both, since it won't require more than 1 object interaction per turn. Eventually hope for magic weapons. Or go artificer2 with returning weapon on a dagger and the familiar tattoo and you have everything covered.
Remember no homing strikes when using a magical weapon.
@@Fairburne69 yeah, i was not talking about soul knife, but more like doing similar thing without the subclass
@@chopcooey just remember each time you take a feat or a weapon the soulknife doesn't need the Soulknife gets something else.
As a tier 1 uncommon magical weapon/item you may want a +1 weapon like hand crossbow or rapier. The Soulknife gets a luckstone or boots of elven kind. Later on you may want a +2 weapon the soulknife is happy to give it to you and grab the ring of protection or +1 studded leather. Do you need the crossbow expert feat to get a bonus attack similar to the psychic blades? The Soulknife doesn't and can boost their dex to 18 or 20 or grab another feat like mobile or alert. My Soulknife grabbed the telekinetic feat which is a lot of fun and seemed fitting for a psychic rogue.
So...pretty sure on a ranged rogue, steady aim with Elven Accuracy is going to be better than using two attacks. (Unless we have crossbow expert and sharpshooter). You note several times how close steady aim is to just being better than two attacks with normal advantage--well if normal advantage is basically the same damage, I would expect elven accuracy advantage to be comfortably more damage.
With this knowledge I think we can do better with a ranged rogue by going an elf with a longbow for Elven Accuracy, and either taking a one level dip for Archery fighting style, or picking it up from a feat. On soulknife specifically, because homing strikes are so good (better than battlemaster precision attacks) I would also be looking to pick up Sharpshooter as well.
(Crossbow expert might be worth considering depending on party...with steady aim being our planned bonus action it depends how often the party can give us advantage, if we have a party member that likes throwing around something like faerie fire, yeah, I'd probably grab crossbow expert. If not, don't waste the feat just steady aim).
Homing Strikes only works when attacking with your Psi Blades though, so you can't use it with a Longbow. I would personally still consider Soulknife as a subclass for the amazing utility it brings in skill checks and telepathy, but it won't do much for your damage output when using a weapon. However, the same can be said for several other Rogue subclasses, so it's not a huge strike against Soulknife.
@@predwin1998 Yes, homing strikes would be nice at level 3, but is a lot less impressive at level 9. Rogue really suffers from the fact that their second feature comes so late. But just because other rogue subclasses tend to be lackluster, I don't think we can let soul knife off the hook.
I also think the utility that soul knife brings will hit steep diminishing returns as you level up.
@@predwin1998 Ah, ok, I misread homing strikes and assumed they worked on all weapons, my mistake.
@@nathansmith9597 I think other subclasses being mediocre *can be* (not necesarily is) a valid reason for letting Soulknife off the hook. That's because some classes like Paladin draw a lot of their strength from the base class and relatively little from their subclasses, while others like the Artificer has a relatively weak chassis that depends on good subclass features to fill it up.
Rogue definately falls under the former and depends on Sneak attack to deal their damage while subclasses bring utility or new tactics while generally offering little to no direct boost in straight damage output.
Since this seems a common and probably intended habit for the Rogue subclasses, I think we can forgive Soulknife for essentially upholding that tradition by not offering much damage.
It's utility is about as potent and versatile as you can get without spellcasting.
That said, I do think Soulknife failed in 1 aspect: upholding the fantasy of a melee psi-blade master assassin that many fans of the concept seem to have expected from it.
@@predwin1998 Fair points
if you are hasted as a soulknife, you can still use a readyed action attack while having a hand free. Just use darts. Alternatively having a +1 sling can work.
My ideal Soulknife starts with 6 levels of Ranger. Then you have thrown weapon fighting, extra attack, hunters mark, potentially an extra 1d6/1d8 per turn, full climb/swim speed.
You are trading 3d6 from sneak attack for 4d6 from hunter's mark plus class ability from Hunter or Swarm. You're also getting +6 from the fighting style. Add in the Mobile feet and you have one of the most mobile characters in the game
I took 4 levels of Aberrant Mind Sorcerer for Tasha's Mind Whip, Phantasmal Force, Booming Blade, Cloud of Daggers, etc. and the Telekinetic feat for Mage Hand shenanigans.
May not be optimal damage, but Rogues are supplemental anyway, and this way I can be as useful as possible in as many situations in AND out of combat as I can think of.
My Rogue is level 2. Planning to go soul knife.
One nice thing about Psychic Veil's wording of [damage or saving throw] means that it won't be broken by Athletics checks to grapple or shove/prone, with should theoretically give you advantage on all grapple checks for an hour unless the enemy has some blindsight equivalent. Would be especially keen if one has Extra Attack, but that's assuming a very high level...
Being unseen doesn't give you advantage on any checks.
@@Samuel_Kabel Per PHB RAW grappling is a special attack + invisibility grants advantage on attacks = advantage on grapple check
"An invisible creature [...]
Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage."
Grappling
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to ***make a special melee attack***, a grapple. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."
@@Sigourney-Cleaver Yes, but it doesn't use an attack roll.
Grapple:
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them. The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach.
Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check, a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). You succeed automatically if the target is incapacitated. If you succeed, you subject the target to the grappled condition (see the appendix). The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no action required).
Nice build, i prefer the arcane tricksters but this works nice. With any rogue, if there is no wizard i would grab ritual caster. As a rogue, i'm expected to scout and explore, and i want a familiar, detect magic, comprehend languages, water breathing and phantom steed for those roles.
Yes! Why do I not see this everywhere? Ritual Caster on a rouge seems a given, but I never see it.
Rob Berry is prehaps the greatest Rogue name I've seen.
I usually like having charisma on my rouges lol.
Grab jack of all from bard (get whisper for a nice synergy).
Apply psionic knack on all rolls.
Wanna hear something dumb?
Jeremy Crawford
·
Apr 13, 2018
"A class feature doesn't stack with itself. In fact, nothing in the game that has the same name stacks. #DnD"
Psychic Blades
3rd-level Soulknife feature
Psychic Blades
When you join the College of Whispers at 3rd level, you gain the ability to make your weapon attacks magically toxic to a creature's mind.
psionic knack only applies to proficient skill checks while jack of all trades only applies to unproficient skill checks
@@elliotbryant3459 At one point a couple years ago, Jeremy Crawford got asked about Jack of All Trades + Reliable Talent and if they worked together. He explained that they did in fact work together.
He later clarified that he meant you can have both together, using Reliable Talent on skills you are proficient in and Jack-of-All-Trades on skills you aren't proficient in. However, his poor wording in his first reply had many people confused as he strongly implied that Jack-of-All-Trades was considered "using your proficiency bonus" for the purposes of any features that require you to be proficient such as Reliable Talent.
@@predwin1998 Ya, huge miscommunications is one of the potential consequences of purposely giving vague short answers, lol
If your goal is to use steady aim to ensure sneak attack, wouldn't elf be better than halfling? That way you can take the elf feat that gives you three rolls if you have advantage, to try and maximize that possibility of a crit?
Generally steady aim will be a backup for when we wouldn't otherwise get sneak attack, otherwise we'll attack twice instead, giving us the possibility of the extra hit.
I don’t know if you go over this but I believe if you take skulker since soul blades don’t cause marks they cannot tell where you are once thrown and with the ranger being 60, that’s pretty good for a stealthy sniper
arcane trickster is just so good that it makes all other classes seem inadequate
Is it though really ?
@@blairbrook1336 compared to other rouge archetypes? absolutely
@@kshea4231 small example of damage? For arcane trickster?
@@blairbrook1336 using a rapier to take advantage of booming blade. dex+rapier+booming blade+sneak attk. at 3rd when you get it, prolly 4+4+(4 if they move)+ 3+3. so around 18dmg in a turn if you don't use a way to weaponize your bonus action. crossbow expert, or two weapon fighting are clear choices.
one level dip into fighter for the fighting style. or go archery route with crossbow expert and sharpshooter and archery fighting style. which will do a clear amount more of dmg. either way a second attk if you miss is a nice plus since you only ever get one. plus the versatility of mage hand legerdemain. and all the great things rouges get in the base class. mobile feat works exceedingly well for a melee build. class is just good lol
If you can convince your DM to let you take Sharpshooter, oh boy does this class see a boost in power.
Beg your DMs kiddos. Tell them that longbows do more and you MIGHT see success
Been tinkering with a Psi Warrior /Soul Knife multiclass and while the dies can't be used across class I've found so far that they do similar enough things that I can get a similar effect
Thus far, the main advantage of playing a soul knife is not directly related to combat, but the psi-blades are kinda nifty for aesthetic reasons.
I've not had any issues with skill failure at this point. Damage output is still kind of a problem, but i can usually use skills to avoid combat, so I'm not too worried about it.
Almost all of the constructs in Rime of the Frostmaiden take full damage from psychic damage, including the SPOILERS
flesh golem, the snow golem the chardalyn dragon AND the living spells. I believe there are some animated battleaxes that have immunity to psychic.
Not as many constructs as you think have full immunity to psychic damage. It basically only does if it has no mind, and a lot of constructs have minds.
was hoping for more talk on the soulknife.
I'm wondering if a whispers bard dip would work well with the soulknife both thematically and make the soulknife even better at skills
get some spells for utility
as well as an extra skill, 2 extra expertise and jack of all trades (don't think this would make psi die apply all skill checks but wouls help round out the character.
bardic inspiration would fit as psi die you give to others
and being able to add psychic blades to psychic blades would help sure up some of the sneak attack you'd miss on those levels
A level of Wizard would really help this build. Booming Blade, Shield, Absorb Elements and Find Familiar are great for any Rogue.
Booming blade doesn't work with psychic blades so I'd prefer being a swashbuckler rogue or arcane trickster if I wanted to use it.
Thanks a lot for the guide! Could you please tell what is the benefit of using Steady Aim instead of hiding as a bonus action? Both seem to give you advantage but with Steady Aim we can't move?
P.S. I think I've got the answer after listening to the video till the end :D
Unfortunately the light crossbow strat wouldn’t work that well with a halfling sense they are a small race, so they have disadvantage with heavy weapons. Which the light crossbow dispite it’s name is.
This isn't really related but I do wanna note that I feel like any reasonably generous DM will let you charge from hiding for advantage on your first melee attack? Or maybe I'm wrong and that's not common practice in 5e like it is in Pathfinder. In Pathfinder, stealth breaks when you end your movement in the open, when someone's perception beats your stealth check, when you make an attack, or when you cast a spell with a verbal component. You may notice this does _not_ include it ending when you come out from cover or darkness. Additionally, a FAQ clarified that A) while you're unnoticed by a target, you get the exact same benefits against them as you would if you were invisible, and B) the opponent _is_ considered to be unaware of you until after the attack resolves. (The Invisibility spell behaves the same way in Pathfinder; the invisibility breaks as soon as you attack, but you retain the bonuses from invisibility until after the first attack resolves because your sudden appearance gives them no time to react.)
A bit late. But i feel that a good way to optimise a ranged rogue is to take the elven accuracy and ritual caster feats and the find familliar ritual.
Then you have your familliar give you advantage and shoot ennemies with a shortbow with triple advantage.
Beyond that...Be an arcane trickster i guess. So you can haste yourself. Maybe take 2 levels in fighter for action surge so you can haste yourself in turn one.
And use readyed actions to make out of turn sneak attacks with your bow.
Make sure to have proeficiency in arcana so you can make potions of speed
Teleport is better then bonus action disengage at its worst.
Example 1: Bonus action disengage move 25ft (halfling) or
Example 2: Bonus action teleport 10ft then move 25ft.
Of course this is a worse case example. I would prefer if it had a minimum distance of 20ft or something but its still very useful when needed. Obviously homing strikes is the big get here, the teleport is just icing on the cake.
As a still learning dm, at the risk of breaking the class and making things harder for me. I would allow both attacks to be made with the psychic knives at around level 6 or 9, be it range or melee using just the attack action . Damage on the second one would still be 1d4+dex mod until around 11 or 12, then id bump it up to 1d6.
I would also allow them to do AoO with them for 1d6+dex.
Lastly , I would keep an eye on the party if everyone has a +1 or magical weapon (Same for +2 and+3), i might give the psi blades the same effect of a + weapon to offset their damage, psi blades dontlook really improve other tban a few features. I havent had the opportunity to see the Soulknife in action so my ideas may not be a good one, this is just a thought.
Also great video :> I dunno when ill ever get to give it a try. Lol
The only issues that I have with this build is the absence of darkvision; especially with a ranged character.
Im hoping to play a Dhampir Soulknife soon
I'm running a soulknife/ echo knight build. Currently 3/3, but planning on picking up extra attack and then going all in on the soulknife. At level 8, my character should be able to make 7 attacks once per short rest. And the echo means you always have an ally next to the target.
Unfortunately the echo is an object not a creature. It can deliver your sneak even on its reaction (assuming sneak criteria is met i.e. advantage or an ally w/in 5 ft) but doesn't count unfortunately as an ally for your delivered attacks. But echoknight and rogue is amazing particularly with blindfight and obscurement.
Additionally you will need to be carrying a weapon for the echoknight reaction attack as you can't manifest a soul knife for purposes of attack of opportunity reaction attack. So in one hand you will need a weapon.
echo doesn't count as a creature it only counts as an object. the best way to think of it is as a portal that you can attack through.
I like to think of echo like a flaming sphere spell - it's an effect that you can move around, but it is not a creature.
I’ve never been a fan of rogues in combat. The damage is whatever, but the survivability is terrible! And most rogue builds you find assume you’ll be an arcane trickster using a familiar, booming blade, and sometimes even haste in melee, without realizing that a rogue with 0 hp has 0 dpr.
The reason why I’d take rogue is for skirmishing, mobility, and the amazing skills. This is the most playable rogue that I’ve seen thus far.
Swashbucklers and scouts are good for that too tbh
My next character will be a Lizardfolk Soulknife and this guide help me so much thanks. Also I've been talking with my dm to let my reflavour the throwing psychic to doing it like a spit from Reptile from Mortal Kombat
A good option to build that spitting acid thing is simic hybrid from ravnica. Since their spit scales with your con it makes for funny barbarians
@@Booklat1 yeah would be fun that way too but is just reflavouring the psychic blades to spitting on the enemies and the psychic dmg is from the gross feeling that they feel for that
@@MarkusLinkans HAHA i see
I’d take psychic from that too
Hello
Treantmonk are you exited for the DND themed Magic the Gathering set? It should have tons of cool art for you videos!
This is probably a lil silly, but I play Soul Knife by making them throw their Psi Blades, exclusively, using the Dueling and Thrown Weapon Fighting Styles, which stack, for a +4 damage.
I don't really punch numbers but do you think this would be a good way to up the damage, even if you lose a Sneak Attack die?
Get 1 level in the Fighter class to get the Dueling fighting style, later on get the Fighting Initiate feat and chose Thrown Weapon Fighting. Now you've got +4 damage every single time you hit, which helps quite a bit if you don't have magic items, you also attack twice every turn.
By being a thrower you'll be out of melee, so you'd need less Con and could focus more on other Ability Scores. If you want more levels in Fighter, then get to 3 and chose Psi Warrior for Psionic Strike (which kind of makes up for the lose of 1 SA die but only for a single attack, though you do add your Int mod) or Telekinetic Movement and Protective Field if you want to be a bit more helpful towards your party.
Yes. Been wanting to try this
Built a vuman fighter, grabbed fighting initiate so I could stack thrown weapon fighting and dueling. bought a bunch of daggers. From level 2 onward he's a rogue/soul knife.
level 1 throwing a dagger for a d4+7 is pretty hilarious.
I am using a changling soul knife and I am already pretty dangerous to my foes. Once I reach level 4, I will be getting the Skill Expert feat so I can gain expertise in Athletics aka my shoving check. Guards beware because your long time friend might be a changling that is has incredible knack for shoving people off walls or stabbing you in the back without you noticing then play it off as you taking a nap.
lol the character's name sounds like my name! haha
in any case, another issue i also have with soulknife is it doesn't do well with multiclassing into classes with extra attack like fighters and maximizing action surge. it's stuck in the mud as being a one-2 hit wonder which makes it fall behind in burst dmg compared to other rogue builds without the benefit of maximizing that one-hit with booming blade.
plus they don't work well with the best dmg boosters like sharpshooter and gwm.
imo psi bolstered knack is the best feature of the soul knife. it's good if you want to make a grappling rogue. psychic blades as it is, is bad.
How are psi blades bad? You're dealing more damage than almost any other class, or combinations of classes, before level 5, and you're not reliant upon any equipment or item. After level 5, if built correctly, you're never falling below baseline damage, while having a character that almost never fails a saving throw or relevant ability check. "Not being the best" at dealing damage isn't the same thing as "being bad".
@@mattdespard6576 Psi powered knack doesn't apply to any saving throw rolls or to skills you lack proficiency with.
@@elliotbryant3459 Yeah I know, that's why TM prioritized feats that augmented proficiencies and saving throws. Are you incapable of recognizing hyperbole or do you just enjoy coming off as an insufferable know it all? Your comment has no bearing on the crux of this comment, which is whether or not psi blades are bad.
@@mattdespard6576 Chill out dude. -Not everyone is going to be utilizing Treantmonk's patented Soul Knife Build. Rob critiques the subclass and you made a baseless statement about the subclass's survivability mechanics -and then try to gaslight me for correcting your false statements which you try to pass off as as 'hyperbole'.
@@elliotbryant3459I see the answer to my original question is "both".
I haven't played one yet and haven't gone past level 4 with them, but I was really hoping that there would be a cool progression of damage for the soul knives themselves that would make them a great option at almost any level as your sole damage dealer, i know the sneak attack can do a decent job of getting damage in but i think it could have been cool to have the blades increase the die damage it does at certain levels
level 20 1 level dip into wizard, to pick up a bunch of stuff that could be fun, shield, find familiar, even jump, detect magic, you don't usually need a familiar because you are one, but you also cannot fly, and who knows maybe you need like, to jump a stupid gap between buildings or something, unlike with regular invisibility, this one doesn't end if you cast a spell such as detect magic, shield or jump, and your base strength isn't too great, heck you could take the cantrips booming blade, Prestidigitation and mending, you can't really use booming blade unless you have a magic weapon, you're not in melee no but if you are attacked now you have a thing as you run with mobile, mending and Prestidigitation is amazing for retirement because you never need a change of clothes, always clean and no holes
or into fighter then take archery fighting style to get +2 to all ranged attacks, because tarrasques have a high AC idk, or the armoured for just +1 AC, you could take a level in ranger for canny, giving you even more expertise and languages, and an insignificant damage bonus
a level in barbarian would be possible if maybe you rolled for stats and have higher strength for athletics, then you could also rage to just say no to physical damage because it isn't a spell and uncanny dodge only works once per round, problem here is it does take the bonus action, but if you action procked sneak attack you're fine,
you could do a 1 level dip into cleric if you want healing word, which hey, now you could heal the actual cleric when they drop, shield of faith for giving you or whoever the tank is more AC, you're proficient in con saves so you're fine
I always prefer wizard because tbh it's more like a retirement plan than a multiclass, either retire, fight goblins the rest of your life, or go back to the squire and chill, most halflings prefer the latter
You do such great work
I love hexblade/soulknife builds.
The problem is that how most DMs play Stealth you can't add you Psionic Energy Dice to Stealth (or at least not easily). Because you are usually not told whether you succeeded or failed a stealth check. One time I got a DM to agree to roll potential Psionic Dice on Stealth and he would tell me wehther I get the Dice back or not when the question whether I could use it and needed it was resolved.
Think this should be a monk subclass.
I plsy a barb unarmed grappler build with this and think it fits perfect. I get boosts for skill checks, summonable weapons for backstabs and manuevrability.
Would taking one of the Elf races and the Elven Accuracy feat be a good option? What would the damage changes look like with the added d20 from the feat while having advantage with Stealth and/or Steady Aim?
I know i'm maybe nitpicking, but couldn't you be able to get duellist or throwing weapont fighting style from the feat or one level of fighter (maybe both) to get a +2 (or +4) on every attack with your main hand (because your second hand is always empty before you need to attack with it) it makes it effectively appliying the +2 of duellist on every attack you make, and turn it to +4 if you throw the second psychic blade. Furthermore, since your first hand is empty after attacking, the +4 when you throw the second dagger is applicable too.
I would like to reflavour dropping and picking up my dagger for opportunity attacks as holding my blade up in the air with telekinesis, tossing two psychic blades, then it floating down back into my hand.
Rob Berry. I see his family knew what he was going to be doing with his life.
Growing berries, like the rest of his family. Just a young man with a passion for tomes on mystical powers. But Rob's life was thrown off its hinges when the plantation was razed by the savage tyrant "Lord" Darius Cresto and his merry band of murderers. Rob was bitter, everything stolen from him. The Bastard Lord would pay for what he took, so Rob took his knowledge of psionics and learned the ways of the Rogue, so that the tyrant will one day fall to his psychic blade.
My biggest issue with soul blade is that it takes your bonus action, which most rogues use to leverage sneak attack.
If you're not hiding every round, your chance of landing a sneak attack is going to be decreased significantly.
- The Innkeeper
In cases where you don't have an ally next to an enemy, you are best to use steady aim, if you do, you are best to attack twice. If you do use steady aim, you can still use your soul blades, but you can only attack once.
Not sure, but am I understanding it correct, to make the 2nd attack with psychic blade your offhand need to be free. Well if I remember right, your main hand by RAW can be either hand in every turn, and the offhand is just the other than your choice. So if you hold your rapier or other one-handed weapon in your offhand when you make the attack, then you use interact with object to move it to the other hand, and then the bonus action action, wouldn't that work similar to drop and pick-up every round?
It would work RAW, but good luck getting your DM to agree! lol
@@Samuel_Kabel since I often end up as a DM, it wouldn't be that hard...lol... but yearh, not all dm's would agree..
FYI you say that with expertise you`re as good as the Barbarian on atheltics.. Barbarian can get same expertise too using skill expert feat as well. Regardless, I used this on my shield master, fighter, which enlarged managed to knock prone a huge dragon. So this is now out of my bucket list.