Winter Stalker

The rogues known as winter stalkers combine deadly precision with elemental ice magic. This archetype was originally created by a group of assassins who served a lord in frigid lands. These assassins sought to have minds as cold as their blades and to leave the murder scenes clean by freezing the blood of their victims as they struck.

[A subclass for Rogue 2024 that had to be published as Rogue 2014 due to a bug in D&D Beyond.]

Level 3: Frost Touched

Starting at 3rd level, ice magic flows through your body. You gain the following benefits:

Freezing Touch. As a Bonus Action, you can touch and freeze a portion of water that fits into a 5-foot cube, provided it contains no creatures. The water remains frozen for up to 1 hour.

Cold Resistance. You have Resistance to Cold damage.

Cold Weapons. When you deal damage with your Sneak Attack, you can convert it into Cold damage.

Level 3: Weaponized Ice

Also starting at 3rd level, you can cast Armor of Agathys or Ice Knife without material components and without expending a spell slot a number of times equal to your Dexterity modifier, regaining all expended uses at the end of a Long Rest. You can also cast these spells with any spell slots you have. Dexterity is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

In addition, you can apply your Sneak Attack to the damage of the Ice Knife spell's attack roll, provided you meet the same requirements imposed on the use of Sneak Attack in attacks with Finesse weapons and Ranged weapons.

Level 9: Strengthened Cold

At 9th level, you enhance your control over ice magic. You gain the following benefits.

Potent Ice. Your Rogue features and spells ignore Resistance to Cold damage.

Recovery. At the end of a Short Rest, you regain one expended use of the spells from the Weaponized Ice feature.

Enhancement. When you cast Armor of Agathys or Ice Knife by expending uses of the Weaponized Ice feature, they are cast as 2nd-level spells. The spell level when casting in this way increases by 1 again at 13th level (3rd level) and 17th level (4th level). Additionally, the radius of the ice explosion from the Ice Knife spell increases to 10 feet when cast in this way.

Level 13: Cunning Freezing

At 13th level, you learn how to rapidly freeze your opponents. The following effect is now among the options for your Cunning Strike.

Freeze (Cost: 3d6). The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or gain the Restrained condition until the start of your next turn. If the attack was a Critical Hit, a target that fails the saving throw gains the Paralyzed condition instead of Restrained, for the same duration.

Level 17: Herald of Winter

At 17th level, you gain the ability to channel the devastating power of blizzards in a controlled manner. You can cast the Investiture of Ice spell without expending a spell slot, with the following modifications:

• For the duration of the spell, the area within a 10-foot Emanation that originates from you is Heavily Obscured to all creatures other than you.
• On the turn you cast this spell, you can create its cone of freezing wind as a Bonus Action.

Dexterity is your spellcasting ability for this spell, and once you have cast it in this way, you cannot do so again until you complete a Long Rest.