Fun fact, as a dm running Mind Flayers as a primary antagonist, they frustratingly have no resistance to psychic damage. So, no worries as a soul knife.
It actually used to be the case that psychics were in some ways more vulnerable to psionics than everyone else. Other people were 'closed' by default, where you had to use active mental defenses. When they went off, they were good, but you actually had to spend effort other characters had by default.
Yeah was gonna say your biggest threat as a soul knife is actually constructs, that as a creature type pretty much all have immunity to psychic damage!
I like this Mission Impossible idea. Soulknife infiltrates the fancy ball, Bard plays in the band, Fighter replaces a guard, and Wizard stays in the van and casts Arcane Eye into the building, all of them coordinating with the psychic connection.
That might also be one of the rare occasions in which a DMPC could work, by having a Soul Knife join the party for the infiltration as their "In" that gets them access to their cover, points out important NPCs during the opening, then notices something off... and gets lured into a trap and killed; with the party being witness to the entire process, through their mind link. If the DMPC is built similar to the example in the video the party will hate him for being so OP in the current situation or think he's incredibly cool, either of which should reinforce the "these guys were able to take HIM out?!?" reaction. So now the party is where they want to be, in theory the plan didn't really change, but the stakes for sure went up. Now they know for sure that they are expected, and by a competent opponent to boot.
Yeah also that they are melee or thrown up to 60ft witch is cool. I threw my dagger from stealth at a guy that was being questioned by Captain of the guard and he just seemingly started screaming right after that I just pop out of somwhere and say "Someone could say that he told a gut wrenching lie" :D
In my current campaign, I'm playing a soulknife who began manifesting his powers after his "imaginary friend" (actually a flumph) gave him a dagger. Only my character can see this dagger, so to everyone else he's just running around and pretending to stab the enemies, but they actually take damage from it. When he first demonstrated this ability, the party's wizard didn't believe there was a dagger and held out his hand for me to stab. Dealt over 3/4 of his health in one hit, and he slammed his head on the table due to psychic shock, it was a great little moment
My soulknife rogue also has an imaginary friend, but that's because he's insane. Because he's also psychic, the people around him are forced to share in his insanity. Specifically, he has vivid hallucinations, and sometimes the people nearby can also see his hallucinations. (Explained in the game rules with the Minor Illusion cantrip from his High Elf race) Then once he hit Level 3, he discovered that he can even kill with his hallucinations. When it comes right down to it, a psychic blade is just an imaginary knife that makes people believe they're taking damage. Even more fun, anyone linked to him through psychic whispers can hold a conversation with his imaginary friend. After all, why shouldn't someone telepathically connected to him be able to hear the voices in his head? By the way, Minor Illusion is an amazing spell on a Level 13+ soulknife rogue. You can cast it without breaking invisibility, and it has no verbal component so no one even knows you're casting it. They just see or hear what you want them to, without any way of knowing where it's coming from.
The soulknife I’m playing in a game got his powers from mindflayer experiments done on him. I used the dhamphir linage and there’s a lot of body horror involved. He shares an ilithids hunger for brain fluids and needs to eat at least once a month. He also never shows his teeth or opens his mouth fully in public preferring to communicate telepathically. His teeth are black metallic and powerful enough to crack skulls. He can split his jaw open when he feeds. He looks mostly human aside from his purple tinged skin and yellow eyes. Despite his nature he isn’t evil and is neutral at most. He has the sage background and uses his rogue skills to gather artifacts and information. He’s somewhat of an archeologist.
Something to point out, the soulknife DOES NOT SPECIFY what weapon your psychic blade appears as. It does not have to be a dagger. I'm playing a tiefling soulknife that has a Noctis-like fighting style, throwing ethereal longswords, battleaxes, and occassionally daggers, and then teleport away like Noctis's warp. Aesthetic, but an important aesthetic for me.
But if we're going from a DM perspective I would say that because of the abilities the psychic blades employ I would say it has to be a weapon that has the "Thrown" property.
@@transientanus I would still disagree, I think the fact that it is psychic and weightless would mean that anything you create is weightless. Psychic energy doesn't have mass, after all. All a DM perspective really would mean (imo) is RAW, which, granted, states it is a "simple melee weapon with finesse and thrown properties". So, simple weapons could be dagger, javelin, halberd, greataxe, sickle. Oddly despite the number of times it states "psychic blades" there are very few bladed weapons in the simple weapon category.
I'm playing a soul knife rn. I wanted a kind of eerie feel to it, so she's a changeling with the Haunted One background. Multiclassing into Echo knight so I can summon a psychic/necromantic thing to fight for me. It works really well thematically, especially bc we're playing curse of strahd
You can. Just have to split with Kensai -monk 3 for no armor, long sword and speed and you got it. Maybe add a telekinesis in there but it is very do-able.
I’m playing a Soul-Knife rogue in a MCU inspired Homebrew campaign and was worried that my character would be perceived as too similar to Psylocke (even though the X-Men haven’t been introduced in the MCU yet) but the skill monkey aspect of the archetype mixed with stealth really sets it apart!
Psylocke seems to be the go to here for Soul Knife. With the teleportation, and dagger tossing, Nightcrawler or Blink come to mind as well, maybe more so.
Ever since I saw the subclass, I’ve always had an idea for a Tabaxi Soulknife who makes huge purple psionic claws as their weapons which I’ve always thought was super cool.
I'm really surprised you guys didn't mention the ridiculous synergy between skulker and psychic blades. Psychic blades vanish immediately after they hit or miss a target, and they don't leave a mark if they hit. Skulker makes misses with ranged weapon attacks not reveal your location while you're hidden. I played a gith that used that combo. One time the party needed to liberate a city from some dwarves. I got onto a rooftop and started sending out psychic blades. A guard gets hit with a psychic blade and neither him or his buddy know what hit him. Next turn he's dead, and his buddy is trying to figure out what happened to him. 6 seconds later, he drops too. I solo'd an encounter by doing that (with the permission of my party, ofc) This subclass is probably offers the best assasin in D&D. The face stuff is cool and would work well in a more social campaign, but you totally overlooked how powerful the soulknife can be in combat. Would also make for a good villain. Maybe as a disguised killer in a murder mystery, or a legendary assassin targetting someone the party needs to protect.
I did actually use a Soulknife as the disguised killer in a murder mystery! It worked really well (along with having a City Watch Cleric cast Speak with Dead, which makes it unusable for 10 days on the same target :P). Having the characters literally have no clue as to what killed the victim made every other clue that much more important.
i do think it’s funny how “the best assassin” is set here in contrast to “the face stuff”. assassins *are* face people, being able to lie your way in and out of situations is one of the primary aspects of a good assassin
14:20 - If you choose custom lineage or variant human, you could take the Skilled feat for three skill proficiencies on top of the one from your race. If you then take Skill Expert (and/or Prodigy on a human) later, that is up to a dozen skills you're proficient in and up to half of those (or five and thieves' tools) you have expertise in.
Tabaxi Soulknife is honestly amazing - you have a climbing speed in addition to your teleportation, you start out with two proficiencies same as the half elf (although they are fixed and not free choice, but which rogue doesn't want perception and stealth proficiency?), and feline agility pairs extremely well in tandem with steady aim from tasha's
Currently playing a dhampir soul knife, their climbing speed utilizes the spider climb spell rules and your hands remain free. Meaning I usually end up on the ceiling flinging daggers safely from a distance
i just made this and its a semi-speed build as well. its a homebrew subrace named the plains and it boosts my base movement to 35. double that with feline agility to get 70 as the base speed for that round, then use dash to go 140. all at lvl 2
I am currently working on something like that. Tabaxi Souknife, but multiclassed with Way of shadows monk. MAkes for a really fun hit and disappear ninja backstabber. Great fun!
I played a halfling soulknife once, he was a fraudster, specialising in forged papers. Boldfacedly entering a castle in disguise to cook the books of a rival faction while in contact with the team on the outside was pretty cool ;)
I had a player start as a goblin soulknife. We were far too deep into the campaign until he told us he was actually a mind goblin.... we all took a bit of psychic damage in real life after that one.
One thing I like about the Soulknife Rogue is you’re not locked into any specific stat. While the Dungeon Dudes chose Charisma to become a very influential face character, you can choose intelligence and and have a character with unchallenged wit, or Wisdom for incredible foresight. Heck, you can even choose strength since RAW you can choose to use your strength stat when using your psychic daggers.
I’m glad that you guys are doing a brief rundown on the abilities before going into the build. I usually forget what half the class is by the time I get to watch the videos so it’s very helpful
The "back-up weapon" contingency requirement applies to, pretty much, any character imo. Re: Booming Blade. It has a range of 5 feet but ,to my mind, melee isn't the combat style of the Soulknife. They're sitting back with the casters attacking from up to 60 feet away. Re: Reaction attacks. That psychic blade relies on an attack action is very important and potentially impacts a source of a second sneak attack (on the opponent's turn). I would say though that, if you're 50-60 from the front lines, you may not be getting many AoO in any case.
I agree, Psychic Blades enables you to be a reliable knife thrower with its great range and infinite ammo. Going melee should be a last resort, cuz other wise you're not taking advantage of the blades entirely.
multiclassing into eldritch knight takes care of the opportunity attacks, need of magic items, and proficiency in any weapons, and u can still walk in with no weapons, and come out with 4, none of which can be found or confiscated
This is a very cool take on this subclass! I'm currently playing a Reborn Soulknife and I'm definitely playing it with the knife throwing style. Worked with the DM to take Sharpshooter and the damage has been really fun to play around with!
That's the route I'm going. Only level 4 right now, but the plan is to take Fighting Initiate: Archery and Sharpshooter, and then by the time I hit level 9 have access to pretty reliable +10 bonus on every hit :-D
Lizardfolk also gives you two skill proficiencies, and lots of other good stuff. I made a Firbolg Soulknife for my brother as a hilarious, huge, but sneaky character.
A bulky character that is sneaky can be a real thing My little brother is like, how do i put it nicely, stout Yet he never makes much noise in his steps when walking normally lol So he is like an accidental master of sneaking to my blindspot and scare the pants off of me
By far my favorite build I've done so far in 5th edition is my Soulknife Rogue / Lore Bard. Simply put, he doesn't fail skill checks, ever, and has every great utility needed for when skills won't work to solve a problem... Pure enjoyment for a skill monkey lover like me.
Perfect timing on this video! Gearing up to start a new campaign and wanted to try a soulknife rogue but hadn't played a rogue since a 3.5e campaign nearly a decade ago and the psychic abilities are a whole new ballgame; thanks for the advice!
Another couple of ways to augment this is to multiclass into either way of shadow monk for the stealth superiority or hexblade for more of that charisma based rogue, pick up the alert feat for a even more advantageous skill pool.
this is true, however, you don't need to use the psychic blades unless you're in a pinch or out of spell slots and you can use the blades to teleport instead of attacking, which is why shadow blade is a bit more useful for damage while the psychic blades are more of a niche compared to the rest of the class abilities soulknife has to offer, another good reason to heed the advice of carrying another weapon on hand, which could be cool if you were to dual wield your pact weapon and a psychic knife for teleportation purposes. Besides sneak attack kind of covers for the damage loss, especially if the enemy doesn't know where the attack came from.
My Soul-Knife rogue is approaching level four and I want to take a feat for them, and the alert feat is one of the strongest contenders for my pick. But, I’m still debating between Alert, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, and the Skill Master feats. In your experience have you found that the Alert feat has a lot of practical use in game?
@@thaddelicious852 I think it depends on your dm, if they like ambushes and traps, the alert feat gives you major advantage because you can relay information telepathically, fey touched is a strong chouce and so is shadow touched, but shadow touched on soul-knife is a bit more niche, considering there are other choices that are better, fey touched gives another form of mobility which is pretty good so I'd think that from experience, I'd try either fey-touched or alert, unless you want to be more sneaky, where skulker is also a decent choice. So its up to mobility, sneaky attacks or never being surprised.
As for use in game, it ends up being really useful for saving your allies from being surprised, and an added initiative bonus, and never taking attacks with advantage from invisible enemies, and considering you don't get surprised, it can be very useful for enemies like rogues and assassins. It's a great general pick but it can be niche depending on the campaign. I'd say depending on your playstyle (considering my playstyle was rather a bit too reckless) it can save you quite a few times
I would love for you gentlemen to do this with the subclasses that you ranked lowest to show how to play around some of their issues. I especially hope you do whispers bard. Mostly because I think you guys are too hung up on playing it like a bard rather than more of a bardlike arcane trickster. I have been playing this class for 2 years and when I started playing it as more like an arcane trickster/bard multiclass and speced appropriately it became a real monster.
I definitely second this, tell me how you're building those not so great subclasses to make use of them to their greatest effect, and show that even the worst things can be good and fun
I've been looking forward to you gentlemen tackling this particular subclass.. But the actual reason I'm making this post is to comment on the Excellent shirt that Kelly is wearing 🥰👍
I'm playing a soul knife now and I adore the skills and psionic abilities. I'm playing mine as an infiltration specialist and investigator with high wisdom rather than charisma and using the empathic feat to better read people and it's so fun
I was so excited to see this! I’m currently playing a Soul Knife Rogue in a Homebrew system that takes place in an offshoot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (diverging from the timeline in between Endgame and Far From Home) where a few of the “snapped” individuals that return after Endgame manifest super powers due to the lingering energy from the infinity stones, and am having a blast! We have the added feature of a “focus” skill that determines how potent our manifested abilities are, and were given options to select our own superpowers to start off with at level one. I selected a primary ability to teleport through reflective surfaces and a secondary power that allows me to use Cataptromancy (the ability to see into the future with reflective surfaces) which basically served as a Psi-bolstered Knack before I gained it at level three. Earlier in the campaign my character was struggling to deal consistent damage, and I thought to combat the idea by adding a tertiary superpower that allows me to manifest psychic blades, like Kaecilius does in Dr. Strange, but I didn’t have enough points to make it work, even though my DM loved the idea. (And this idea later expanded into becoming an in-lore explanation for my character’s abilities, with their origin extending from an innate connection with the mirror dimension) When we approached level three we were allowed to select an archetype for our characters, and scrolling through I found the Soul-Knife archetype and my jaw dropped to the floor. I insisted for weeks that my DM knew that this was a roguish archetype all along, but he was very upfront about being a new DM and said he had no idea that it existed, even though we both came up with the psychic blades concept simultaneously. My character adopted the class, and it’s been an awesome ride ever since! I basically never fail a save that I desperately need to succeed on, and also get to act as a face for the party in key scenarios. We are continuing with the campaign soon, after a brief hiatus for me to run a short campaign of my own, and I’ve been curious how I plan to level this character for the rest of the campaign, and then this video came up! He is the most fulfilling character I’ve ever played, and there is no doubt that the Soul-Knife archetype is a big part of that!
Honestly your game sounds a lot like the direction I thought they were going to take post endgame, explaining that when Thanos destroyed the stones the energy spread throughout the universe eventually coalescing into living creatures giving them powers and turning them into mutants
I’ve thought about the Soulknife and a cool popped into my head: Fighting Initiate for Dueling or Thrown Weapon Fighting and a quick dip into fighter for the other fighting style can add +4 to damage when you throw your psychic blades. Plus if you take the Battlemaster Maneuver Quick Toss (through the subclass or Martial Adept) you can use the Quick Toss to attack with your Bonus Action and then hold your Action to attack on another turn and get sneak attack twice in one round.
@@ninjasquirrels It is… But Dueling says “When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapon”, so to me the idea that you’re going to throw that weapon (making it not act like a melee weapon) and then also throw another weapon (making it not act like your only weapon) runs super counter to RAI.
Starting with Fighting Initiate feat on a VHuman or Custom Lineage is kinda, for a wide range of characters. A lot of builds don’t really get off the ground early, so you could easily start with Two Weapon Fighting to get good bonus action attacks (or Archery maybe), then swap it to Thrown Weapon once you get level 4 and your ASI. Using that feature of Fighting Initiate to have a strong start with a different style than you’d end up with seems handy. For a second fighting style, if I were to multiclass, I don’t think it’d be fighter. I get that there can be ways to hold actions, but I think I’d go for Swords Bard or even Gloomstalker Ranger. I think the utility is going to add a lot overall.
You wouldn't get +4, only either +2 because the psionic blades are either a melée or thrown weapon, and never both because once you throw it, it's no longer a melée weapon. Seems like a heavy investment just for a BA attack.
Cool video. Kelly's take reminds me of a genre we don't see much in D&D - the team caper/heist like Leverage or Donald Westlake novels. It would be cool to see some adventures or more how-to guides for pulling that sort of thing off. Honestly, so many rogue subclasses would work in this genre but I don't thin we see a lot of content geared towards it.
I love your attention to detail in every video. I am currently playing a SoulKnife Rogue as a Changling with Glamoured studded leather. I am able to impersonate people and get where I want to go. I am enjoying this character very much. I have recently taken blood hunter as a sub class and that is going very well with my character.
I played a Soulknife in an Eberron game as a Mark of Detection half-elf, with 5 levels of Fey Wanderer Ranger. His skills were INSANE. Mark of Detection gives you +1d4 for Insight and Investigation rolls, you get the racial feats from being a half-elf, plus some investigatory spells like Detect Poison and See Invisibility. The 5 levels of Ranger gives you another Expertise from Canny (plus 2 more languages), an extra attack, and a Fighting style that will let you take the Thrown Weapon fighting style. Thrown Weapon will also let you draw a non-psychic dagger to take opportunity attacks on your foes. Plus, with Fey Wanderer, you can add your Wis to all Charisma checks, so you can boost Wis and dump Cha and still have great numbers on your Cha skills.
Amazing. I have been playing a Changeling Soulknife for a few months now in a horror campaign similar to Ravenloft and what you were talking about on how to build is pretty much what I did. I maxed Cha and took all Cha based skills, also took the Actor feat in order to augment my racial shapeshift ability
shockingly enough, Psychic as a Resistance or an Immunity is surprisingly rare Out of the 733 monsters published in the Monster Manual, Mordenkainen's tome of Foes, and Volo's Guide to Monsters, there are 4 that are resistant, and 18 that are immune. In other words, out of the most common books that are accessible to the average DM, barring homebrew, only 3% of all monsters can be resistant or immune to that damage that you're doing. With that in mind, this is legitimately an incredible class for making sure you're always capable of dealing damage as there are very few monsters (shockingly enough, mind flayers and their ilk possess no resistances or immunities to psychic damage) that can properly compete against it. The only thing that is even fewer creatures are resistant or immune to is Force damage. It is about as good as it gets in terms of damage types.
This is essentially what my wife did for her character, another rogue but with the Scout subclass. The campaign has reached max level after many years of play, and is now a questions of what can't she roll less than 20 on. It's scary impressive lol
Ooohhh, would love to play this subclass as a pulp noire psychometric gumshoe. Maybe play a shifter or changeling who morphs into the victim from time to time . It would be something to ask the DM (having the crimes come to life around the character is extra work) but if the DM views their campaign world as "their character", it'd be the perfect way for them to have the spotlight.
I have a Tabaxi Soulknife Rogue. It allows me to go around without any weapons (if I choose) because I can always rely on my claws. Plus my climbing skills offset the need for a higher Athletic skill proficiency. I love your insights. Great work.
Love the way yall took the character! Im currently playing a level 11 Shadow Monk (6) Soul knife rogue (5) and I completely took the Battlefield control/teleporty commando route. Soul knives count as monk weapons, and he also carries a shortsword that gains 2d8 psychic damage on a command word. Took the telekinetic and mobile feats which is complete cheese w/ all the teleport abilities. Between ki points and psionic dice I always feel like I can keep adventuring. It feels incredibly powerful and my only issue is not knowing which levels to take next (definitely not monk)
I played a soulknife goblin in eberron, I was part of the shaarat'kesh it was so cool, I had sharpshooter and a sniper rifle with a range of 3,000 feet, the psionic abilities played really well into the uul dhakaan (dream world empire of the goblins) god I learned so much about goblins, the goblin language, and goblin history for that campaign, made it to level 8, got (almost) TPK'd because one of the players misread the dust of coughing and choking, my character was the only one to survive because of a Nat 20 on a death saving throw. The DM said that I'd we ever go back to eberron and make it to level 8 that I can play her again but I don't think that will happen 😭
Well done! I also honed in on skills when building my soulknife. I built a very similar Soulknife but went Variant Human to pick up Skilled at lvl1 and start all the skills feats ahead of time.
This is great. I am playing a multi classed lvl 1rogue/ lvl 6 lore bard played as a charlatan con-man. My whole goal is to make a secret agent type character. I was going to go 5th lvl assassin but after seeing this I will be going 5th lvl soul blade/15th lore bard. My party is heavy on physical damage dealing and not so much on magic, charisma or stealth.
Playing a Tabaxi Soulknife in ROTFM right now, this is perfect because I’m a Rogue noob…picked Soulknife only because it’s not an Arcane Trickster or Swashbuckler 🤷🏼♂️
Just started our campaign and have the same build. Feline Agility is VERY helpful on a squishy rogue. One of the worst feelings is when you miss an attack as a rogue, luckily bonus action attack with Psychic Blades provides another chance to deal sneak damage.
Thrown Weapon Master + Duelist is VERY handy as it will add another +4 to each Psy Blade and, it will let you Sneak Attack with a Dagger or Shortsword as a reaction if possible. With a Dagger + Thrown Weapon Master you can draw AND attack as your Attack Action…putting it back as a “free interaction” will leave both hands empty for the Psy Blades next Round. I recommend 2 levels of Fighter for the Fighting Style (so you don’t have burn an ASI) and Action Surge for a total of THREE possible Sneak Attack for one Round.
Really cool race idea with this character is kalashtar: you get advantage on wisdom saving throws, which again compliments the character style, and another mind link option, making it possible to connect even more people telepathically. The main point is it really fits the whole mind daggers and control vibe of a rouge. It‘s super cool to play!!
personally if i was a soulknife i would take the feats of actor and eldricht adept (mask of many faces) disguise yourself, get inside the enemy fortress, use steady aim to gain advantage and then you can use sneak attack against any creature within 60 feet of you, then, teleport away or become invisible and leave the scene, if you fail a stealth or deception check you can just use the Psi-Bolstered Knack to almost turn it into a sucess. you would be pretty much the spy from TF2.
@@ARatherDapperTapir ho, thats a god one too! altough its only eberron specific and you cannot change your clothes but it saves you a feat so its a good option.
A feat that's really good for this subclass is the mobile feat. This allows you to attack with your psychic blade to disengage which still frees you up to throw a psychic blade as a bonus action. Also +10 movement is really good for a rouge being that they are a squishy marshal. This also allows your scouting to be faster as well.
Making a soulknife myself now. Chosed sharpshooter feat to use phychic blades from as far as I want, as they have no max distance. This will become even funnier with a spyglass Rules lawying bs: it was confirmed on twitter that the sharpshooter affects all ranged attacks by first two bonuses, even throwing. And in rules for combat it says "If a ranged attack, such as one made with a spell, has a single range, you can’t attack a target beyond this range". That "has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range" really imo says that range is 60/- and you can try to attack anyone within site. If this wasn't the case, the ruling would be just "they have a range of 60 feet"
Man, how tf you guys know exactly what I'm looking for and then upload it 😂 I was planning on my next charcter being a soul knife and boom, here's this video
I'm adding thus feature to my gloomstalker ranger.... thinking that will help with the CoS campaign. I'm always going off ahead to scout the area, but only thing I'm missing is communication to an ally while ahead of the group. It's going to be so cool to be able to do infiltration quests during this group.
dropping a 2 level dip on a Knowledge Domain cleric will help a lot for this character, casting the cantrip guidance on tap or using a Channel Divinity: Knowledge of the Ages helps with the diverse skill monkey. its only a first level spell but command can help you get a hostile NPC to "listen" long enough to get those crazy deception checks into play even after swords have been drawn.
I'm playing a damage oriented Soulknife which is also a lot of fun. I've gone Variant Human and picked up the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style with my feat, this gives us a nice damage bonus right of the bat. After three levels of Rogue we are multiclassing into Ranger. The Gloom Stalker is best for damage probably, but the Fey Wanderer gives us great options for being the Face of the party. We take 5 levels of Rogue for Extra Attack, the Dueling Fighting Style (this does RAW combo with the TWF style) and some useful spells as well as a Dex boost. Now we have three attacks with a +8 damage modifier one each of those. Plus the normal Psychic Blade damage, Sneak Attack, Ranger damage bonuses, etc.
Kenkus are a strong choice for this subclass as well, especially if you want to focus on skills. You can do all of the things that you mentioned _and_ give yourself advantage on skill checks a few times per day.
I made a soul knife/ aberrant mind sorc. They were an assassin who wore plane clothes (mage armor), and didn't carry any weapons. She had special arcanist gloves which acted as a spell focus. I loved her.
Using this subclass as the now-backbone for my Skill Monkey Mutt (half-elf, 4 bard, 1 cleric, 3 homebrew warlock, 4 rogue). Every skill is proficient, and 8 skills have expertise. My wisdom had to be higher for the Lore Cleric buy-in, so charisma tool a hit; but the party's Bard is filling in nicely. The concept of no-weapons on-hand was a good roleplay appeal, and the psi-bolstered knack cemented it for me, with every conceivable skill check benefitting from those sweet, precious dice
Thank you. I just realized I've been playing my soulknife wrong because I can't read and thought that the Teleport feature was an action. It being a bonus action changes the game a bit.
Played a level 20 one shot using a 9 Psi Rogue / 11 Hunter ranger and my god was it fun. The Psi Rogue abilities are absolutely insane for roleplaying a psychic assassin
A friend and I were talking about soulknife characters and the drawback of not being able to upgrade their psionic daggers, but we had an idea that you could use something as a conduit for your psionic abilities and by upgrading or enchanting that conduit you could add bonuses to the psionic daggers. Like some gloves with runes on them that help focus your psionic energy and shape the blades, think Roy Mustang from full metal alchemist.
So i decided to play a soul knife before this video came out. I like your idea of the Bond aesthetic, but i wish you had gone over some potentials for a damage build. For instance Im playing a Girthzerai Soul Knife with 3 levels in Battlemaster Fighter to start. By taking the Unarmed Fighting Style you mitigate the issue with the Psychic Blades disappearing after the Attack Action, so you can take a 1d8 reaction punch. Then taking the Martial Adept feat you get a total of 5 Maneuvers to use. Precision Strike combined with Homing blades means you cant miss even against most titan-class enemies. And using Feint on a bonus action also guarantees advantage and thus Sneak Attack in a fight. Also in a pinch you can use the psychic veil with an action surge so your next turn becomes just as deadly.
I think another race, which would be great for the skill-monkey would be the somewaht newly added Harengon as he gets proficiency in perception and initiative. This would mean your lowest initiative roll as a level 11 souldknife rogue with an 18 in Dex would be a 10+3+4+1 = 18 and the highest would be 20+3+4+10 = 37 and your average roll would be 11+3+4+6= 24. You not only will be able to sneak into every where and lie your way out of everything in case you have to fight you will go first and can decide to fight or run away.
For anyone looking for some backstory inspiration for a soulknife, in Dota 2 there is a character called Templar Assasin that is pretty much a soulknife. She manipulates her "psionic veil" to become elusive and deal more damage, gets Invisibility, attacks with "psionic blades" that pierce both skin and mind that give her extra range and damage, she can place traps that give vision/slow/silence people (she can also teleport to them), in between some other stuff. _Lanaya, the Templar Assassin, came to her calling by a path of curious inquiry. Possessed of a scientific bent, she spent her early years engaged in meticulous study of nature's laws--peering into grimoires of magic and alchemy, recreating experiments from charred fragments of the Violet Archives, and memorizing observations of the Keen recordkeepers. Already quiet and secretive by nature, the difficulty of acquiring these objects further reinforced her skills of stealth. Had she been less retiring, she might have become notorious among the guilds as a thief-scholar. Instead her investigations led her into far more obscure corners._ _As she devoted her furtive talents to unlocking the secrets of the universe, she instead unlocked a secret door that exists in nature itself: the entryway to the most Hidden Temple. The intelligences that waited beyond that portal, proved to be expecting her, and whatever mysteries they revealed in the moment of their discovery was nothing compared to the answers they held out to Lanaya should she continue in their service. She swore to protect the mysteries, but more to the point, in service to the Hidden Temple she satisfies her endless craving for understanding. In the eyes of each foe she expunges, a bit more of the mystery is revealed._
The newer lineages also get two skills. Dhampir gets spider climb to offset the low athletics score a little, and the Reborn has the feature Knowledge from a Past Life: "When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 immediately after seeing the number on the d20 and add the number on the d6 to the check." a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus per long rest. I think that's what I would go for over half elf, personally.
Ive been playing a Tabaxi Soulknife Rogue for over a year now, and its been a blast. (btw Tabaxis also get two skill proficiencies in Perception and Stealth)
I feel this would be a big question for the DM, but would the psychic abilities be prevented from anti-magic zones or found from a magic-detective? Because that can also impact on how bold the rogue may get with their infiltration tactics.
i think it tells exactly what it works on Magic Psionics are not Magic like trying to play Warhammer 40k Demons in a Warhammer Fantasy battle, its close but the rules dont match up so it fails to work you can then have the villains have things like Blanks which in 40k are people immune to Psykers or Null-Rods that are like an anti magic zone but as an item and specifically for Psykers, those 2 things though should only start to pop up when the antagonist has realised they are being messed up by a psionic just like how DMs will have NPC casters that are there to counterspell mages
According to one of Mike Mearls' twitter posts, you can tell when an item is magic by if it says "magic" somewhere in the description. And the Psychic Blades feature says, "this magic blade" in the description, so it would count as a magic ability.
I was thinking about playing a Damphir soulknife rogue where I could feed from the psionic energy I drain from my ennemies; great opportunities for roleplay and thematicly on point
These "How to build X class" videos are helpful for ideas even for enemies to throw at players or use in small casual games. Your build feels like The Thinker from DC. The cool calculated schemer who can get violent if needed.
The feat Fighting Initiate (Thrown Weapon Fighting) solves the issue of not having a weapon at hand for opportunity attacks and it also adds 2 damage to psychic blades when thrown. I'm currently in a campaign playing a Drow gestalt Soulknife//Psi Warrior. The Drow High Magic feat combined with the psionic abilities of both classes has made for an interesting psychic gish build. Fighting Style/Initiate (Dueling) is also nice for added melee damage and the Rogue (Steady Aim) feature is nice to have as well. My DM made a Psi Crystal for my character that works basically like a Rod of the Pack Keeper/Wand of the War Mage but for psychic abilities and attacks with psychic blades.
My current character is a Soulknife rogue. I started out making her a skill monkey before I was thinking about subclass. I went with Tabaxi because they get stealth and perception, two skills I want anyway, they have plus 2 dexterity and 1 charisma, and having feline agility is so good for a rogue. I also picked up the mobile feat so I can stab an enemy then run away without provoking opportunity attacks.
Psychic whispers - Instead of connecting with your party, use it to connect to Guards or others to 'whisper' in their heads like Professor X and Wolverine. "Pssst... Over here..." leading them away from the door they are guarding so you can sneak in. Or Scaring your 'mark' in a crowd causing panic or just making them look bad in front of their peers, giving you an advantage to sneak away, or 'present' yourself and 'save face' or what have you.
Been wanting to play one of these for a long time. My idea of a Soulknife rogue was actually based off Roman Torchwick from RWBY in terms of personality: a sardonic, arrogant con-man and thief who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room and makes sure everyone knows it whether they want to or not. The fact that he can back up everything he says makes it all the more infuriating when he rubs it in their faces walking away with the prize. I was considering going the skill-monkey route with him like you guys mentioned, being the one talking to others and coordinating the plans while everyone has a role. Was considering giving him both Telekinetic for souped-up Mage Hand and either Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster for Find Familiar and a few other goodies (Ritual Caster is one of my favorite feats, it's like a mini progression tree for your character). The fact that he has these psionic powers is what gets him caught by the authorities and forced to work with our party in exchange for a reduced sentence. Always liked the "criminal playing for the good guys" trope.
A little late to the party here, but I’d take it in a different direction. I’d choose either Owlin or Gem Dragonborn. With the Owlin, you get flying and proficiency in stealth, so you can fly around the battlefield tossing soul blades and swoop in from stealth as your opening. With the gem Dragonborn, you can still get a more limited version of flight, along with a breath weapon to back up your psychic blades. You could either double down on psychic damage(and get psychic resistance) with Emerald, or go with Amethyst and have access to two of the least resisted damage types in the game. Combine these with feats like Telekinetic and Skulker and you have an amazing infiltrator/assassin type.
Between the telepathy and the knives the soul knife is the perfect infliltrator and diplomat. Always armed, able to communicate silently to any(basically) party member in the area and able to boost hide and deception
For a more combat focused soulknife consider 5 levels of Beast barbarian. At level 8 (soul knife 3, beast 5) you will be making 4 attacks per round. One attack with the soul blade, extra attack with the claws, which allow for 2 attacks, then bonus attack with the soul blade. You would only be able to get sneak attack chance on the psi blades as the claws aren't finesse weapons, but all your attacks will be at advantage with reckless so you are basically guaranteed to get you sneak attack damage every turn. This would be a strength based build so not quite as good at rogue stuff like stealth and thieves tools, but with psi empowered knack you should be covered
I created a build that is 3 levels of soulknife rogue and 17 levels of whispers bard. I made it with the idea of "how stealthy can I make a character" with a big psychic flavor. I used the shadow marked elf to take advantage of the extra d4 on stealth checks and to add pass without trace to my spell list. I also took the spells nondetection and mind blank to make the character nearly invisible to magic as well as the naked eye. by level 20 I can get 51 on a max stealth roll and be almost completely immune to divination and charm magics used to detect my characters presence.
I have in a campaign a Kalashtar Soulknife Rogue [to complete the package you know] I had 2 back up weapons, one melee and one ranged (we were working in a campaign with black powder so I was allowed to have a one handed flintlock pistol). And then I went ham on the Skill Expert and Skilled Feat instead of ASI. I am currently the weaker one in combat besides never having to worry about resistances at the moment. I have such a free range on movement and out of combat skills to rely on that he is still a core player. As well as one time having to assassinate someone and we decided to have only my character do damage while we had a Fighter/Paladin with Protection and Interception fighting styles (He switched weapons from time to time) So the target had no marks on him to lead it back to us. It was beautiful.
I made an palid elf soulknife that I modeled after a dark souls playstyle. I took revanent blade at lvl 4 and started using a greatsword. Once I have teleportation and homing strike, i will pick up 5 levels of oath of vengeance paladin for extra attack, great weapon fighting style (maybe also great weapon fighter feat too idk yet) and start praising the sun. I plan to max out on rogue until the campaign finishes. Hopefully it works out like i hope and won't flop.
I have a multiclass idea of a SoulKnife with a Beast Barbarian. When you attack with the claws you can get 2 hits and use the psy blade on the Extra attack plus bonus action attack means 4 attacks a round. With reckless its all at advantage to.
This is my concept too... plus it let's you play the intimidation non sneaky joke rogue... not only do you get an extra attack and weaponized bonus... you can pretty reliably do fun things that make little sense... walk past a guard "you don't see me" intimidation check... yelling sneak attack as you reckless right In front of a target... if you can get a homebrew siege ability you pick locks by attacking doors
I am a soulknife in my current Eberron game, a human already possessed by a carrionette, trying desperately to hold onto the body they stole so they can solve a mystery. They are built with mobility as the focus, avoiding attacks, getting to priority targets and skirmishing to allow our party to fight on multiple fronts when the dm inevitably surrounds us. My skills were shored up with a dark pact, which made sense with the trading bodies theme. I plan on eventually combining the soulknife's teleporting abilities with the echoknight, to be almost impossible to pin down.
I'm personally running a Halfling Soulknife Rogue luck build that mirrors this skill monkey setup pretty closely, but also took Actor as my first feat. Since Psychic Whispers only requires line of sight to establish, I've been having fun either mimicking the person's voice in their own head to pass myself off as their inner monologue, or another person's voice to set up auditory hallucinations. Make it sound like someone near by but out of sight insults their mother or simply calls their name. Great for distractions, interrogation, bar fights, unwitting minions stuff like that. Fun fact: Sneak Attack just needs someone hostile to your target that isn't incapacitated be adjacent to them, their affiliation to you is irrelevant. Also playing them in a way to hide from the party that they have psionics, playing it off as good old Halfling luck.
Fun fact, as a dm running Mind Flayers as a primary antagonist, they frustratingly have no resistance to psychic damage. So, no worries as a soul knife.
Ya I was really confused about that
It actually used to be the case that psychics were in some ways more vulnerable to psionics than everyone else. Other people were 'closed' by default, where you had to use active mental defenses. When they went off, they were good, but you actually had to spend effort other characters had by default.
I found it kinda silly even before the Soul Knife that they don't and houseruled that Mind Flayers and Intellect Devourers resist Psychic damage
Yeah was gonna say your biggest threat as a soul knife is actually constructs, that as a creature type pretty much all have immunity to psychic damage!
I feel just because one has psychic abilities doesn't make then immune to their effects
I like this Mission Impossible idea. Soulknife infiltrates the fancy ball, Bard plays in the band, Fighter replaces a guard, and Wizard stays in the van and casts Arcane Eye into the building, all of them coordinating with the psychic connection.
This is some funny shit. I am reminded of the end of the movie, "True Lies."
That might also be one of the rare occasions in which a DMPC could work, by having a Soul Knife join the party for the infiltration as their "In" that gets them access to their cover, points out important NPCs during the opening, then notices something off... and gets lured into a trap and killed; with the party being witness to the entire process, through their mind link.
If the DMPC is built similar to the example in the video the party will hate him for being so OP in the current situation or think he's incredibly cool, either of which should reinforce the "these guys were able to take HIM out?!?" reaction.
So now the party is where they want to be, in theory the plan didn't really change, but the stakes for sure went up. Now they know for sure that they are expected, and by a competent opponent to boot.
One of the really cool things about the psychic blades you didn't touch on is that it leaves no mark on its target if it deals damage.
Yeah also that they are melee or thrown up to 60ft witch is cool. I threw my dagger from stealth at a guy that was being questioned by Captain of the guard and he just seemingly started screaming right after that I just pop out of somwhere and say "Someone could say that he told a gut wrenching lie" :D
@@Vahlsten did you your dm groan and give you inspiration?
@@pjwashere2640 Unfortunately no. He was kinda being tired of our countless shenannigans at that point anyways :D
Leave them completely stammered how they got that headache
In my current campaign, I'm playing a soulknife who began manifesting his powers after his "imaginary friend" (actually a flumph) gave him a dagger. Only my character can see this dagger, so to everyone else he's just running around and pretending to stab the enemies, but they actually take damage from it.
When he first demonstrated this ability, the party's wizard didn't believe there was a dagger and held out his hand for me to stab. Dealt over 3/4 of his health in one hit, and he slammed his head on the table due to psychic shock, it was a great little moment
Really cool concept
My soulknife rogue also has an imaginary friend, but that's because he's insane. Because he's also psychic, the people around him are forced to share in his insanity. Specifically, he has vivid hallucinations, and sometimes the people nearby can also see his hallucinations. (Explained in the game rules with the Minor Illusion cantrip from his High Elf race) Then once he hit Level 3, he discovered that he can even kill with his hallucinations. When it comes right down to it, a psychic blade is just an imaginary knife that makes people believe they're taking damage.
Even more fun, anyone linked to him through psychic whispers can hold a conversation with his imaginary friend. After all, why shouldn't someone telepathically connected to him be able to hear the voices in his head?
By the way, Minor Illusion is an amazing spell on a Level 13+ soulknife rogue. You can cast it without breaking invisibility, and it has no verbal component so no one even knows you're casting it. They just see or hear what you want them to, without any way of knowing where it's coming from.
That's is fricken hilarious! you win the flavor award
That is so creative!
The soulknife I’m playing in a game got his powers from mindflayer experiments done on him. I used the dhamphir linage and there’s a lot of body horror involved. He shares an ilithids hunger for brain fluids and needs to eat at least once a month.
He also never shows his teeth or opens his mouth fully in public preferring to communicate telepathically.
His teeth are black metallic and powerful enough to crack skulls. He can split his jaw open when he feeds. He looks mostly human aside from his purple tinged skin and yellow eyes.
Despite his nature he isn’t evil and is neutral at most. He has the sage background and uses his rogue skills to gather artifacts and information. He’s somewhat of an archeologist.
Something to point out, the soulknife DOES NOT SPECIFY what weapon your psychic blade appears as. It does not have to be a dagger. I'm playing a tiefling soulknife that has a Noctis-like fighting style, throwing ethereal longswords, battleaxes, and occassionally daggers, and then teleport away like Noctis's warp. Aesthetic, but an important aesthetic for me.
love it. Betsy Braddock has changed up to using Psychic broadsword (longsword) and psychic shield.
I've had it in my head of a psychic polearm, like a spear, to mimic Polearm Master. Even down to how much damage it deals on a BA hit
All of mine are penises. Getting hit in the face with a dick often demoralizes enemies. It was the same for my Hexblade Warlock.
But if we're going from a DM perspective I would say that because of the abilities the psychic blades employ I would say it has to be a weapon that has the "Thrown" property.
@@transientanus I would still disagree, I think the fact that it is psychic and weightless would mean that anything you create is weightless. Psychic energy doesn't have mass, after all. All a DM perspective really would mean (imo) is RAW, which, granted, states it is a "simple melee weapon with finesse and thrown properties". So, simple weapons could be dagger, javelin, halberd, greataxe, sickle. Oddly despite the number of times it states "psychic blades" there are very few bladed weapons in the simple weapon category.
I'm playing a soul knife rn. I wanted a kind of eerie feel to it, so she's a changeling with the Haunted One background. Multiclassing into Echo knight so I can summon a psychic/necromantic thing to fight for me. It works really well thematically, especially bc we're playing curse of strahd
I definitely wasn't expecting to see this subclass being more for skills than the reason to take it, being Psylocke.
You can. Just have to split with Kensai -monk 3 for no armor, long sword and speed and you got it. Maybe add a telekinesis in there but it is very do-able.
I’m playing a Soul-Knife rogue in a MCU inspired Homebrew campaign and was worried that my character would be perceived as too similar to Psylocke (even though the X-Men haven’t been introduced in the MCU yet) but the skill monkey aspect of the archetype mixed with stealth really sets it apart!
Psylocke seems to be the go to here for Soul Knife. With the teleportation, and dagger tossing, Nightcrawler or Blink come to mind as well, maybe more so.
I feel like since you can also throw the blades, you can end up with something that feels more similar to Gambit.
Ever since I saw the subclass, I’ve always had an idea for a Tabaxi Soulknife who makes huge purple psionic claws as their weapons which I’ve always thought was super cool.
that would be epic
Means you can use your claws for AoO too
Had a similar thought too but with leonin
Turning your Tabaxi into a psychic monk almost. That's sick as hell
I'm really surprised you guys didn't mention the ridiculous synergy between skulker and psychic blades.
Psychic blades vanish immediately after they hit or miss a target, and they don't leave a mark if they hit. Skulker makes misses with ranged weapon attacks not reveal your location while you're hidden.
I played a gith that used that combo. One time the party needed to liberate a city from some dwarves. I got onto a rooftop and started sending out psychic blades. A guard gets hit with a psychic blade and neither him or his buddy know what hit him. Next turn he's dead, and his buddy is trying to figure out what happened to him. 6 seconds later, he drops too. I solo'd an encounter by doing that (with the permission of my party, ofc)
This subclass is probably offers the best assasin in D&D. The face stuff is cool and would work well in a more social campaign, but you totally overlooked how powerful the soulknife can be in combat.
Would also make for a good villain. Maybe as a disguised killer in a murder mystery, or a legendary assassin targetting someone the party needs to protect.
I did actually use a Soulknife as the disguised killer in a murder mystery! It worked really well (along with having a City Watch Cleric cast Speak with Dead, which makes it unusable for 10 days on the same target :P). Having the characters literally have no clue as to what killed the victim made every other clue that much more important.
i do think it’s funny how “the best assassin” is set here in contrast to “the face stuff”. assassins *are* face people, being able to lie your way in and out of situations is one of the primary aspects of a good assassin
I ran a dhampir soulknife once. Really fun to walk on walls and ceilings and get the drop on your enemies 😅
Wait wouldn’t the hit reveal you? Since it hit.
@@trilam1779 ehhhh no because of one of the feats
14:20 - If you choose custom lineage or variant human, you could take the Skilled feat for three skill proficiencies on top of the one from your race. If you then take Skill Expert (and/or Prodigy on a human) later, that is up to a dozen skills you're proficient in and up to half of those (or five and thieves' tools) you have expertise in.
sounds like a very expressive, but better jack of all trades
expensive
Tabaxi Soulknife is honestly amazing - you have a climbing speed in addition to your teleportation, you start out with two proficiencies same as the half elf (although they are fixed and not free choice, but which rogue doesn't want perception and stealth proficiency?), and feline agility pairs extremely well in tandem with steady aim from tasha's
Currently playing a dhampir soul knife, their climbing speed utilizes the spider climb spell rules and your hands remain free. Meaning I usually end up on the ceiling flinging daggers safely from a distance
i just made this and its a semi-speed build as well. its a homebrew subrace named the plains and it boosts my base movement to 35. double that with feline agility to get 70 as the base speed for that round, then use dash to go 140. all at lvl 2
I am currently working on something like that. Tabaxi Souknife, but multiclassed with Way of shadows monk. MAkes for a really fun hit and disappear ninja backstabber. Great fun!
I played a halfling soulknife once, he was a fraudster, specialising in forged papers. Boldfacedly entering a castle in disguise to cook the books of a rival faction while in contact with the team on the outside was pretty cool ;)
One of my favorite characters right now is a Soul Knife Rogue/Whispers Bard multiclass. He’s a lot of fun.
I had a player start as a goblin soulknife. We were far too deep into the campaign until he told us he was actually a mind goblin.... we all took a bit of psychic damage in real life after that one.
What’s a mind goblin
I remember those. Least the 3.5 version. Blue and a bit more intelligent than the norm?
@@archergaming5414 Mind Goblin Deez Nuts?
Sorry, not sorry.
@@cyanide7270 get out
@@cyanide7270 Okay that's amazing
One thing I like about the Soulknife Rogue is you’re not locked into any specific stat. While the Dungeon Dudes chose Charisma to become a very influential face character, you can choose intelligence and and have a character with unchallenged wit, or Wisdom for incredible foresight. Heck, you can even choose strength since RAW you can choose to use your strength stat when using your psychic daggers.
I’m glad that you guys are doing a brief rundown on the abilities before going into the build. I usually forget what half the class is by the time I get to watch the videos so it’s very helpful
The "back-up weapon" contingency requirement applies to, pretty much, any character imo.
Re: Booming Blade. It has a range of 5 feet but ,to my mind, melee isn't the combat style of the Soulknife. They're sitting back with the casters attacking from up to 60 feet away.
Re: Reaction attacks. That psychic blade relies on an attack action is very important and potentially impacts a source of a second sneak attack (on the opponent's turn). I would say though that, if you're 50-60 from the front lines, you may not be getting many AoO in any case.
I agree, Psychic Blades enables you to be a reliable knife thrower with its great range and infinite ammo. Going melee should be a last resort, cuz other wise you're not taking advantage of the blades entirely.
multiclassing into eldritch knight takes care of the opportunity attacks, need of magic items, and proficiency in any weapons, and u can still walk in with no weapons, and come out with 4, none of which can be found or confiscated
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I love playing my soul knife paired with the skulker feat.
This is a very cool take on this subclass! I'm currently playing a Reborn Soulknife and I'm definitely playing it with the knife throwing style. Worked with the DM to take Sharpshooter and the damage has been really fun to play around with!
That's the route I'm going. Only level 4 right now, but the plan is to take Fighting Initiate: Archery and Sharpshooter, and then by the time I hit level 9 have access to pretty reliable +10 bonus on every hit :-D
With Tasha's, a wood or high elf might be a better idea. You get less skills, but you can swap out the weapons for tool proficiencies.
Lizardfolk also gives you two skill proficiencies, and lots of other good stuff.
I made a Firbolg Soulknife for my brother as a hilarious, huge, but sneaky character.
There is also the lineages from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.
A bulky character that is sneaky can be a real thing
My little brother is like, how do i put it nicely, stout
Yet he never makes much noise in his steps when walking normally lol
So he is like an accidental master of sneaking to my blindspot and scare the pants off of me
By far my favorite build I've done so far in 5th edition is my Soulknife Rogue / Lore Bard. Simply put, he doesn't fail skill checks, ever, and has every great utility needed for when skills won't work to solve a problem... Pure enjoyment for a skill monkey lover like me.
What's your build like? Are you more Rogue or Bard? That was a combination I came up with too, but unsure how to handle it.
Perfect timing on this video! Gearing up to start a new campaign and wanted to try a soulknife rogue but hadn't played a rogue since a 3.5e campaign nearly a decade ago and the psychic abilities are a whole new ballgame; thanks for the advice!
Psi-Bolstered Knack is essentially like having a Level 6 Eloquence bard in your pocket, love it
Another couple of ways to augment this is to multiclass into either way of shadow monk for the stealth superiority or hexblade for more of that charisma based rogue, pick up the alert feat for a even more advantageous skill pool.
The downside of a hexblade dip is if you use the psychic daggers to attack, you can't attack with charisma as you only create the blades as you attack
this is true, however, you don't need to use the psychic blades unless you're in a pinch or out of spell slots and you can use the blades to teleport instead of attacking, which is why shadow blade is a bit more useful for damage while the psychic blades are more of a niche compared to the rest of the class abilities soulknife has to offer, another good reason to heed the advice of carrying another weapon on hand, which could be cool if you were to dual wield your pact weapon and a psychic knife for teleportation purposes. Besides sneak attack kind of covers for the damage loss, especially if the enemy doesn't know where the attack came from.
My Soul-Knife rogue is approaching level four and I want to take a feat for them, and the alert feat is one of the strongest contenders for my pick. But, I’m still debating between Alert, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, and the Skill Master feats. In your experience have you found that the Alert feat has a lot of practical use in game?
@@thaddelicious852 I think it depends on your dm, if they like ambushes and traps, the alert feat gives you major advantage because you can relay information telepathically, fey touched is a strong chouce and so is shadow touched, but shadow touched on soul-knife is a bit more niche, considering there are other choices that are better, fey touched gives another form of mobility which is pretty good so I'd think that from experience, I'd try either fey-touched or alert, unless you want to be more sneaky, where skulker is also a decent choice.
So its up to mobility, sneaky attacks or never being surprised.
As for use in game, it ends up being really useful for saving your allies from being surprised, and an added initiative bonus, and never taking attacks with advantage from invisible enemies, and considering you don't get surprised, it can be very useful for enemies like rogues and assassins.
It's a great general pick but it can be niche depending on the campaign. I'd say depending on your playstyle (considering my playstyle was rather a bit too reckless) it can save you quite a few times
My first soul knife was a half elf and I agree, starting with 8 skills and expertise with 2 is awesome.
I would love for you gentlemen to do this with the subclasses that you ranked lowest to show how to play around some of their issues. I especially hope you do whispers bard. Mostly because I think you guys are too hung up on playing it like a bard rather than more of a bardlike arcane trickster. I have been playing this class for 2 years and when I started playing it as more like an arcane trickster/bard multiclass and speced appropriately it became a real monster.
I definitely second this, tell me how you're building those not so great subclasses to make use of them to their greatest effect, and show that even the worst things can be good and fun
I've been looking forward to you gentlemen tackling this particular subclass.. But the actual reason I'm making this post is to comment on the Excellent shirt that Kelly is wearing 🥰👍
Love this subclass, especially the psychic blades that are the focused totality of your psychic powers! :)
Personally always thought the blades were the least of the subclass
I lost count of how many issues of X-Men Psylocke said that bloody line.. 🤣😂🤣
I'm playing a soul knife now and I adore the skills and psionic abilities. I'm playing mine as an infiltration specialist and investigator with high wisdom rather than charisma and using the empathic feat to better read people and it's so fun
I'm here for the picnic abilities
I was so excited to see this! I’m currently playing a Soul Knife Rogue in a Homebrew system that takes place in an offshoot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (diverging from the timeline in between Endgame and Far From Home) where a few of the “snapped” individuals that return after Endgame manifest super powers due to the lingering energy from the infinity stones, and am having a blast! We have the added feature of a “focus” skill that determines how potent our manifested abilities are, and were given options to select our own superpowers to start off with at level one. I selected a primary ability to teleport through reflective surfaces and a secondary power that allows me to use Cataptromancy (the ability to see into the future with reflective surfaces) which basically served as a Psi-bolstered Knack before I gained it at level three. Earlier in the campaign my character was struggling to deal consistent damage, and I thought to combat the idea by adding a tertiary superpower that allows me to manifest psychic blades, like Kaecilius does in Dr. Strange, but I didn’t have enough points to make it work, even though my DM loved the idea. (And this idea later expanded into becoming an in-lore explanation for my character’s abilities, with their origin extending from an innate connection with the mirror dimension) When we approached level three we were allowed to select an archetype for our characters, and scrolling through I found the Soul-Knife archetype and my jaw dropped to the floor. I insisted for weeks that my DM knew that this was a roguish archetype all along, but he was very upfront about being a new DM and said he had no idea that it existed, even though we both came up with the psychic blades concept simultaneously. My character adopted the class, and it’s been an awesome ride ever since! I basically never fail a save that I desperately need to succeed on, and also get to act as a face for the party in key scenarios. We are continuing with the campaign soon, after a brief hiatus for me to run a short campaign of my own, and I’ve been curious how I plan to level this character for the rest of the campaign, and then this video came up! He is the most fulfilling character I’ve ever played, and there is no doubt that the Soul-Knife archetype is a big part of that!
Honestly your game sounds a lot like the direction I thought they were going to take post endgame, explaining that when Thanos destroyed the stones the energy spread throughout the universe eventually coalescing into living creatures giving them powers and turning them into mutants
I’ve thought about the Soulknife and a cool popped into my head: Fighting Initiate for Dueling or Thrown Weapon Fighting and a quick dip into fighter for the other fighting style can add +4 to damage when you throw your psychic blades. Plus if you take the Battlemaster Maneuver Quick Toss (through the subclass or Martial Adept) you can use the Quick Toss to attack with your Bonus Action and then hold your Action to attack on another turn and get sneak attack twice in one round.
Is that RAW?
If that is RAW, wouldn't that also just function with any rogue with two daggers??? I don't see the need for it to be a soul knife
@@ninjasquirrels It is…
But Dueling says “When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapon”, so to me the idea that you’re going to throw that weapon (making it not act like a melee weapon) and then also throw another weapon (making it not act like your only weapon) runs super counter to RAI.
Starting with Fighting Initiate feat on a VHuman or Custom Lineage is kinda, for a wide range of characters. A lot of builds don’t really get off the ground early, so you could easily start with Two Weapon Fighting to get good bonus action attacks (or Archery maybe), then swap it to Thrown Weapon once you get level 4 and your ASI. Using that feature of Fighting Initiate to have a strong start with a different style than you’d end up with seems handy.
For a second fighting style, if I were to multiclass, I don’t think it’d be fighter. I get that there can be ways to hold actions, but I think I’d go for Swords Bard or even Gloomstalker Ranger. I think the utility is going to add a lot overall.
You wouldn't get +4, only either +2 because the psionic blades are either a melée or thrown weapon, and never both because once you throw it, it's no longer a melée weapon. Seems like a heavy investment just for a BA attack.
Cool video. Kelly's take reminds me of a genre we don't see much in D&D - the team caper/heist like Leverage or Donald Westlake novels. It would be cool to see some adventures or more how-to guides for pulling that sort of thing off. Honestly, so many rogue subclasses would work in this genre but I don't thin we see a lot of content geared towards it.
this video is amazing, I've never looked at the soul knife that way, now I want to play it asap, thanks dudes!
I love your attention to detail in every video. I am currently playing a SoulKnife Rogue as a Changling with Glamoured studded leather. I am able to impersonate people and get where I want to go. I am enjoying this character very much. I have recently taken blood hunter as a sub class and that is going very well with my character.
I played a Soulknife in an Eberron game as a Mark of Detection half-elf, with 5 levels of Fey Wanderer Ranger. His skills were INSANE. Mark of Detection gives you +1d4 for Insight and Investigation rolls, you get the racial feats from being a half-elf, plus some investigatory spells like Detect Poison and See Invisibility.
The 5 levels of Ranger gives you another Expertise from Canny (plus 2 more languages), an extra attack, and a Fighting style that will let you take the Thrown Weapon fighting style. Thrown Weapon will also let you draw a non-psychic dagger to take opportunity attacks on your foes. Plus, with Fey Wanderer, you can add your Wis to all Charisma checks, so you can boost Wis and dump Cha and still have great numbers on your Cha skills.
Amazing. I have been playing a Changeling Soulknife for a few months now in a horror campaign similar to Ravenloft and what you were talking about on how to build is pretty much what I did. I maxed Cha and took all Cha based skills, also took the Actor feat in order to augment my racial shapeshift ability
shockingly enough, Psychic as a Resistance or an Immunity is surprisingly rare
Out of the 733 monsters published in the Monster Manual, Mordenkainen's tome of Foes, and Volo's Guide to Monsters, there are 4 that are resistant, and 18 that are immune.
In other words, out of the most common books that are accessible to the average DM, barring homebrew, only 3% of all monsters can be resistant or immune to that damage that you're doing.
With that in mind, this is legitimately an incredible class for making sure you're always capable of dealing damage as there are very few monsters (shockingly enough, mind flayers and their ilk possess no resistances or immunities to psychic damage) that can properly compete against it. The only thing that is even fewer creatures are resistant or immune to is Force damage. It is about as good as it gets in terms of damage types.
Before even watching i just recently started playing a stout halfling soulknife and im loving it
This is essentially what my wife did for her character, another rogue but with the Scout subclass. The campaign has reached max level after many years of play, and is now a questions of what can't she roll less than 20 on. It's scary impressive lol
Just started a Campaign as a soul knife, so this is a pleasant and welcomed upload.
Ooohhh, would love to play this subclass as a pulp noire psychometric gumshoe. Maybe play a shifter or changeling who morphs into the victim from time to time . It would be something to ask the DM (having the crimes come to life around the character is extra work) but if the DM views their campaign world as "their character", it'd be the perfect way for them to have the spotlight.
I have a Tabaxi Soulknife Rogue. It allows me to go around without any weapons (if I choose) because I can always rely on my claws. Plus my climbing skills offset the need for a higher Athletic skill proficiency. I love your insights. Great work.
Love the way yall took the character!
Im currently playing a level 11 Shadow Monk (6) Soul knife rogue (5) and I completely took the Battlefield control/teleporty commando route. Soul knives count as monk weapons, and he also carries a shortsword that gains 2d8 psychic damage on a command word. Took the telekinetic and mobile feats which is complete cheese w/ all the teleport abilities.
Between ki points and psionic dice I always feel like I can keep adventuring. It feels incredibly powerful and my only issue is not knowing which levels to take next (definitely not monk)
I played a soulknife goblin in eberron, I was part of the shaarat'kesh it was so cool, I had sharpshooter and a sniper rifle with a range of 3,000 feet, the psionic abilities played really well into the uul dhakaan (dream world empire of the goblins) god I learned so much about goblins, the goblin language, and goblin history for that campaign, made it to level 8, got (almost) TPK'd because one of the players misread the dust of coughing and choking, my character was the only one to survive because of a Nat 20 on a death saving throw. The DM said that I'd we ever go back to eberron and make it to level 8 that I can play her again but I don't think that will happen 😭
Ta muut, taarka'nu.
@@Thehighwayman429 raat shan gath'kal dor, ruuska'te
Literally just leveled my rouge to a soulknife last night, great timing. keep up the great work.
Well done! I also honed in on skills when building my soulknife. I built a very similar Soulknife but went Variant Human to pick up Skilled at lvl1 and start all the skills feats ahead of time.
This is great. I am playing a multi classed lvl 1rogue/ lvl 6 lore bard played as a charlatan con-man. My whole goal is to make a secret agent type character. I was going to go 5th lvl assassin but after seeing this I will be going 5th lvl soul blade/15th lore bard. My party is heavy on physical damage dealing and not so much on magic, charisma or stealth.
Playing a Tabaxi Soulknife in ROTFM right now, this is perfect because I’m a Rogue noob…picked Soulknife only because it’s not an Arcane Trickster or Swashbuckler 🤷🏼♂️
I'm starting with the race/class/campaign this weekend. I'm stoked!
I've made a Tabaxi Soulknife Rogue who took the skilled and observant feats and is basically Sherlock Holmes if he were a psychic cat person.
Just started our campaign and have the same build. Feline Agility is VERY helpful on a squishy rogue.
One of the worst feelings is when you miss an attack as a rogue, luckily bonus action attack with Psychic Blades provides another chance to deal sneak damage.
Thrown Weapon Master + Duelist is VERY handy as it will add another +4 to each Psy Blade and, it will let you Sneak Attack with a Dagger or Shortsword as a reaction if possible. With a Dagger + Thrown Weapon Master you can draw AND attack as your Attack Action…putting it back as a “free interaction” will leave both hands empty for the Psy Blades next Round.
I recommend 2 levels of Fighter for the Fighting Style (so you don’t have burn an ASI) and Action Surge for a total of THREE possible Sneak Attack for one Round.
Really cool race idea with this character is kalashtar: you get advantage on wisdom saving throws, which again compliments the character style, and another mind link option, making it possible to connect even more people telepathically. The main point is it really fits the whole mind daggers and control vibe of a rouge. It‘s super cool to play!!
I always forget to use "psi-bolstered knack" in my game, and so I never run out of Psionic Energy dice 😅
personally if i was a soulknife i would take the feats of actor and eldricht adept (mask of many faces) disguise yourself, get inside the enemy fortress, use steady aim to gain advantage and then you can use sneak attack against any creature within 60 feet of you, then, teleport away or become invisible and leave the scene, if you fail a stealth or deception check you can just use the Psi-Bolstered Knack to almost turn it into a sucess. you would be pretty much the spy from TF2.
Changeling. Nuf said.
@@ARatherDapperTapir ho, thats a god one too! altough its only eberron specific and you cannot change your clothes but it saves you a feat so its a good option.
A feat that's really good for this subclass is the mobile feat. This allows you to attack with your psychic blade to disengage which still frees you up to throw a psychic blade as a bonus action. Also +10 movement is really good for a rouge being that they are a squishy marshal. This also allows your scouting to be faster as well.
I'm planning a soul Knife harengon build to almost have Mobile built in - sorta, although you can get away safely more often w/ mobile
I love this subclass. Im playing one as a Draconian Dragonborn in a all dragon born reverse hobbit campaign. It’s an awesome subclass.
When you say a "reverse hobbit campaign" all I can think is, "Oh Gods, Bilbo got the Founding Titan" o.o
What good timing, I just recently decided to spec my rogue / hexblade warlock multiclass into soul knife, so this is a great video for me right now
Your guys' content is always so good. Huge congrats to you living the dream!
Making a soulknife myself now. Chosed sharpshooter feat to use phychic blades from as far as I want, as they have no max distance. This will become even funnier with a spyglass
Rules lawying bs: it was confirmed on twitter that the sharpshooter affects all ranged attacks by first two bonuses, even throwing. And in rules for combat it says "If a ranged attack, such as one made with a spell, has a single range, you can’t attack a target beyond this range". That "has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range" really imo says that range is 60/- and you can try to attack anyone within site. If this wasn't the case, the ruling would be just "they have a range of 60 feet"
Great commentary. Thanks guys 👍
Man, how tf you guys know exactly what I'm looking for and then upload it 😂 I was planning on my next charcter being a soul knife and boom, here's this video
Thanks! I recently switched my rogue's subclass to soulknife, so tis is nice!
I'm adding thus feature to my gloomstalker ranger.... thinking that will help with the CoS campaign. I'm always going off ahead to scout the area, but only thing I'm missing is communication to an ally while ahead of the group. It's going to be so cool to be able to do infiltration quests during this group.
dropping a 2 level dip on a Knowledge Domain cleric will help a lot for this character,
casting the cantrip guidance on tap or using a Channel Divinity: Knowledge of the Ages helps with the diverse skill monkey.
its only a first level spell but command can help you get a hostile NPC to "listen" long enough to get those crazy deception checks into play even after swords have been drawn.
I'm playing a damage oriented Soulknife which is also a lot of fun. I've gone Variant Human and picked up the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style with my feat, this gives us a nice damage bonus right of the bat. After three levels of Rogue we are multiclassing into Ranger. The Gloom Stalker is best for damage probably, but the Fey Wanderer gives us great options for being the Face of the party. We take 5 levels of Rogue for Extra Attack, the Dueling Fighting Style (this does RAW combo with the TWF style) and some useful spells as well as a Dex boost. Now we have three attacks with a +8 damage modifier one each of those. Plus the normal Psychic Blade damage, Sneak Attack, Ranger damage bonuses, etc.
Kenkus are a strong choice for this subclass as well, especially if you want to focus on skills. You can do all of the things that you mentioned _and_ give yourself advantage on skill checks a few times per day.
I made a soul knife/ aberrant mind sorc. They were an assassin who wore plane clothes (mage armor), and didn't carry any weapons. She had special arcanist gloves which acted as a spell focus. I loved her.
I've been personally wanted to play as a:
Skeleton Rogue (Phantom) w/ Gathered Whispers Dark Gift.
“I love it when a plan comes together” - James/Jane Bond, Soulknife
More like Colonel John/Jane "Hannibal" Smith, Soulknife and leader of the A-team.
Using this subclass as the now-backbone for my Skill Monkey Mutt (half-elf, 4 bard, 1 cleric, 3 homebrew warlock, 4 rogue). Every skill is proficient, and 8 skills have expertise. My wisdom had to be higher for the Lore Cleric buy-in, so charisma tool a hit; but the party's Bard is filling in nicely. The concept of no-weapons on-hand was a good roleplay appeal, and the psi-bolstered knack cemented it for me, with every conceivable skill check benefitting from those sweet, precious dice
Treeantmonk has shown a really powerful pure Soul Knife build
Thank you. I just realized I've been playing my soulknife wrong because I can't read and thought that the Teleport feature was an action. It being a bonus action changes the game a bit.
Played a level 20 one shot using a 9 Psi Rogue / 11 Hunter ranger and my god was it fun.
The Psi Rogue abilities are absolutely insane for roleplaying a psychic assassin
Im planning on taking a 3 lvl dip into rogue as a Horizon Walker ranger, and this is definitely gonna be the subclass i take
re: Race choices for an infiltrator: Consider Changling and you get two skill proficiencies and the ability to Shapeshift.
I would definitely do this if I knew that there would be significant opportunities for infiltration. I might even take Actor to really seal it.
A friend and I were talking about soulknife characters and the drawback of not being able to upgrade their psionic daggers, but we had an idea that you could use something as a conduit for your psionic abilities and by upgrading or enchanting that conduit you could add bonuses to the psionic daggers.
Like some gloves with runes on them that help focus your psionic energy and shape the blades, think Roy Mustang from full metal alchemist.
So i decided to play a soul knife before this video came out. I like your idea of the Bond aesthetic, but i wish you had gone over some potentials for a damage build. For instance Im playing a Girthzerai Soul Knife with 3 levels in Battlemaster Fighter to start. By taking the Unarmed Fighting Style you mitigate the issue with the Psychic Blades disappearing after the Attack Action, so you can take a 1d8 reaction punch. Then taking the Martial Adept feat you get a total of 5 Maneuvers to use. Precision Strike combined with Homing blades means you cant miss even against most titan-class enemies. And using Feint on a bonus action also guarantees advantage and thus Sneak Attack in a fight. Also in a pinch you can use the psychic veil with an action surge so your next turn becomes just as deadly.
I think another race, which would be great for the skill-monkey would be the somewaht newly added Harengon as he gets proficiency in perception and initiative. This would mean your lowest initiative roll as a level 11 souldknife rogue with an 18 in Dex would be a 10+3+4+1 = 18 and the highest would be 20+3+4+10 = 37 and your average roll would be 11+3+4+6= 24. You not only will be able to sneak into every where and lie your way out of everything in case you have to fight you will go first and can decide to fight or run away.
This will be my choice
For anyone looking for some backstory inspiration for a soulknife, in Dota 2 there is a character called Templar Assasin that is pretty much a soulknife.
She manipulates her "psionic veil" to become elusive and deal more damage, gets Invisibility, attacks with "psionic blades" that pierce both skin and mind that give her extra range and damage, she can place traps that give vision/slow/silence people (she can also teleport to them), in between some other stuff.
_Lanaya, the Templar Assassin, came to her calling by a path of curious inquiry. Possessed of a scientific bent, she spent her early years engaged in meticulous study of nature's laws--peering into grimoires of magic and alchemy, recreating experiments from charred fragments of the Violet Archives, and memorizing observations of the Keen recordkeepers. Already quiet and secretive by nature, the difficulty of acquiring these objects further reinforced her skills of stealth. Had she been less retiring, she might have become notorious among the guilds as a thief-scholar. Instead her investigations led her into far more obscure corners._
_As she devoted her furtive talents to unlocking the secrets of the universe, she instead unlocked a secret door that exists in nature itself: the entryway to the most Hidden Temple. The intelligences that waited beyond that portal, proved to be expecting her, and whatever mysteries they revealed in the moment of their discovery was nothing compared to the answers they held out to Lanaya should she continue in their service. She swore to protect the mysteries, but more to the point, in service to the Hidden Temple she satisfies her endless craving for understanding. In the eyes of each foe she expunges, a bit more of the mystery is revealed._
Changeling would work very well for this build. They also gain to skill proficiencys, and they are the perfect infiltrator or deceiver.
The newer lineages also get two skills. Dhampir gets spider climb to offset the low athletics score a little, and the Reborn has the feature Knowledge from a Past Life: "When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 immediately after seeing the number on the d20 and add the number on the d6 to the check." a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus per long rest. I think that's what I would go for over half elf, personally.
Ive been playing a Tabaxi Soulknife Rogue for over a year now, and its been a blast. (btw Tabaxis also get two skill proficiencies in Perception and Stealth)
I feel this would be a big question for the DM, but would the psychic abilities be prevented from anti-magic zones or found from a magic-detective? Because that can also impact on how bold the rogue may get with their infiltration tactics.
i think it tells exactly what it works on
Magic
Psionics are not Magic like trying to play Warhammer 40k Demons in a Warhammer Fantasy battle, its close but the rules dont match up so it fails to work
you can then have the villains have things like Blanks which in 40k are people immune to Psykers or Null-Rods that are like an anti magic zone but as an item and specifically for Psykers, those 2 things though should only start to pop up when the antagonist has realised they are being messed up by a psionic just like how DMs will have NPC casters that are there to counterspell mages
According to one of Mike Mearls' twitter posts, you can tell when an item is magic by if it says "magic" somewhere in the description. And the Psychic Blades feature says, "this magic blade" in the description, so it would count as a magic ability.
I was thinking about playing a Damphir soulknife rogue where I could feed from the psionic energy I drain from my ennemies; great opportunities for roleplay and thematicly on point
I think the Half-Elf is the way to go but I am intrigued by the High-Elf as well. Having Prestidigitation on this build could be very interesting.
These "How to build X class" videos are helpful for ideas even for enemies to throw at players or use in small casual games.
Your build feels like The Thinker from DC. The cool calculated schemer who can get violent if needed.
The feat Fighting Initiate (Thrown Weapon Fighting) solves the issue of not having a weapon at hand for opportunity attacks and it also adds 2 damage to psychic blades when thrown. I'm currently in a campaign playing a Drow gestalt Soulknife//Psi Warrior. The Drow High Magic feat combined with the psionic abilities of both classes has made for an interesting psychic gish build. Fighting Style/Initiate (Dueling) is also nice for added melee damage and the Rogue (Steady Aim) feature is nice to have as well. My DM made a Psi Crystal for my character that works basically like a Rod of the Pack Keeper/Wand of the War Mage but for psychic abilities and attacks with psychic blades.
My current character is a Soulknife rogue. I started out making her a skill monkey before I was thinking about subclass. I went with Tabaxi because they get stealth and perception, two skills I want anyway, they have plus 2 dexterity and 1 charisma, and having feline agility is so good for a rogue. I also picked up the mobile feat so I can stab an enemy then run away without provoking opportunity attacks.
Psychic whispers - Instead of connecting with your party, use it to connect to Guards or others to 'whisper' in their heads like Professor X and Wolverine. "Pssst... Over here..." leading them away from the door they are guarding so you can sneak in. Or Scaring your 'mark' in a crowd causing panic or just making them look bad in front of their peers, giving you an advantage to sneak away, or 'present' yourself and 'save face' or what have you.
Been wanting to play one of these for a long time. My idea of a Soulknife rogue was actually based off Roman Torchwick from RWBY in terms of personality: a sardonic, arrogant con-man and thief who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room and makes sure everyone knows it whether they want to or not. The fact that he can back up everything he says makes it all the more infuriating when he rubs it in their faces walking away with the prize.
I was considering going the skill-monkey route with him like you guys mentioned, being the one talking to others and coordinating the plans while everyone has a role. Was considering giving him both Telekinetic for souped-up Mage Hand and either Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster for Find Familiar and a few other goodies (Ritual Caster is one of my favorite feats, it's like a mini progression tree for your character). The fact that he has these psionic powers is what gets him caught by the authorities and forced to work with our party in exchange for a reduced sentence. Always liked the "criminal playing for the good guys" trope.
If I wanted to lean into the whole "I can do anything" vibe with this character, I'd be tempted to squeeze in Ritual Caster on them.
A little late to the party here, but I’d take it in a different direction. I’d choose either Owlin or Gem Dragonborn. With the Owlin, you get flying and proficiency in stealth, so you can fly around the battlefield tossing soul blades and swoop in from stealth as your opening. With the gem Dragonborn, you can still get a more limited version of flight, along with a breath weapon to back up your psychic blades. You could either double down on psychic damage(and get psychic resistance) with Emerald, or go with Amethyst and have access to two of the least resisted damage types in the game. Combine these with feats like Telekinetic and Skulker and you have an amazing infiltrator/assassin type.
I'm playing one right now. I'm lvl5 and I've never expended all my psionic energy dice :O
Between the telepathy and the knives the soul knife is the perfect infliltrator and diplomat. Always armed, able to communicate silently to any(basically) party member in the area and able to boost hide and deception
They just borderline made part of the character I was going for, damn near did all the work for me😂
For a more combat focused soulknife consider 5 levels of Beast barbarian. At level 8 (soul knife 3, beast 5) you will be making 4 attacks per round. One attack with the soul blade, extra attack with the claws, which allow for 2 attacks, then bonus attack with the soul blade. You would only be able to get sneak attack chance on the psi blades as the claws aren't finesse weapons, but all your attacks will be at advantage with reckless so you are basically guaranteed to get you sneak attack damage every turn.
This would be a strength based build so not quite as good at rogue stuff like stealth and thieves tools, but with psi empowered knack you should be covered
I created a build that is 3 levels of soulknife rogue and 17 levels of whispers bard. I made it with the idea of "how stealthy can I make a character" with a big psychic flavor. I used the shadow marked elf to take advantage of the extra d4 on stealth checks and to add pass without trace to my spell list. I also took the spells nondetection and mind blank to make the character nearly invisible to magic as well as the naked eye. by level 20 I can get 51 on a max stealth roll and be almost completely immune to divination and charm magics used to detect my characters presence.
I have in a campaign a Kalashtar Soulknife Rogue [to complete the package you know] I had 2 back up weapons, one melee and one ranged (we were working in a campaign with black powder so I was allowed to have a one handed flintlock pistol). And then I went ham on the Skill Expert and Skilled Feat instead of ASI. I am currently the weaker one in combat besides never having to worry about resistances at the moment. I have such a free range on movement and out of combat skills to rely on that he is still a core player.
As well as one time having to assassinate someone and we decided to have only my character do damage while we had a Fighter/Paladin with Protection and Interception fighting styles (He switched weapons from time to time) So the target had no marks on him to lead it back to us.
It was beautiful.
I made an palid elf soulknife that I modeled after a dark souls playstyle. I took revanent blade at lvl 4 and started using a greatsword. Once I have teleportation and homing strike, i will pick up 5 levels of oath of vengeance paladin for extra attack, great weapon fighting style (maybe also great weapon fighter feat too idk yet) and start praising the sun. I plan to max out on rogue until the campaign finishes. Hopefully it works out like i hope and won't flop.
I have a multiclass idea of a SoulKnife with a Beast Barbarian. When you attack with the claws you can get 2 hits and use the psy blade on the Extra attack plus bonus action attack means 4 attacks a round. With reckless its all at advantage to.
This is my concept too... plus it let's you play the intimidation non sneaky joke rogue... not only do you get an extra attack and weaponized bonus... you can pretty reliably do fun things that make little sense... walk past a guard "you don't see me" intimidation check... yelling sneak attack as you reckless right In front of a target... if you can get a homebrew siege ability you pick locks by attacking doors
I am a soulknife in my current Eberron game, a human already possessed by a carrionette, trying desperately to hold onto the body they stole so they can solve a mystery. They are built with mobility as the focus, avoiding attacks, getting to priority targets and skirmishing to allow our party to fight on multiple fronts when the dm inevitably surrounds us. My skills were shored up with a dark pact, which made sense with the trading bodies theme. I plan on eventually combining the soulknife's teleporting abilities with the echoknight, to be almost impossible to pin down.
I'm personally running a Halfling Soulknife Rogue luck build that mirrors this skill monkey setup pretty closely, but also took Actor as my first feat. Since Psychic Whispers only requires line of sight to establish, I've been having fun either mimicking the person's voice in their own head to pass myself off as their inner monologue, or another person's voice to set up auditory hallucinations. Make it sound like someone near by but out of sight insults their mother or simply calls their name. Great for distractions, interrogation, bar fights, unwitting minions stuff like that. Fun fact: Sneak Attack just needs someone hostile to your target that isn't incapacitated be adjacent to them, their affiliation to you is irrelevant. Also playing them in a way to hide from the party that they have psionics, playing it off as good old Halfling luck.