My shortlist for my next characters are now Bladesinger Wizard and Soulknife Rogue. A while back I wrote a thread discussing my lukewarm opinion toward the Soulknife, mainly because I felt when magic weapons arise, the Psychic Blades become far less useful. I also felt the bonus action attack option competes heavily with the Rogue's already giant list of bonus action options. These two criticisms remain true, but I still think it's a very good ability at higher levels of play. It's obviously amazing during tier 1 levels.
First, it's worth noting this literally, mechanically the same as getting Crossbow Expert for free. Bonus action attack: Check. Being within 5 feet does not impose disadvantage: Check (just stab instead of throw). No loading property: Check. But it's even better because Psychic damage is far less resisted than non-magical piercing. This is especially good for the Rogue, who is relegated to only one attack.
Second, the DPR does scale, which I missed before.
Soul Blades
9th-level Soulknife feature
Your Psychic Blades are now an expression of your psi-suffused soul, giving you these powers that use your Psionic Energy dice:
Homing Strikes. If you make an attack roll with your Psychic Blades and miss the target, you can roll one Psionic Energy die and add the number rolled to the attack roll. If this causes the attack to hit, you expend the Psionic Energy die.
At level 9 this does come a bit late for me. By level 9 there's a good chance you have an interesting and powerful bow, rapier or dagger. But make no mistake, this is a DPR buff, and it's a big one. It's essentially having several uses of Battle Master's Precision Attack maneuver.
With all this in mind, let's address the downsides.
Competing for your bonus action: The wide use of your bonus action (Disengage, Dash, Steady Aim, etc.) is does devalue it some, and there's no getting around that. But having a bonus action attack option is still value added. It is something else useful you can do with your bonus action. The way I would work it is this:
Does Sneak Attack apply to your attack?
If No: then forego your bonus action attack and instead either hide (if the situation allows) or use Steady Aim (a bonus action), granting advantage on the attack and applying sneak attack damage. You're still rolling two dice to hit, and now you can apply Sneak Attack damage. Keep in mind, if you do this you cannot move on your turn. This is situation dependent.
If Yes: then forego Steady Aim and do both your main action and bonus action attack. Attacking twice is always better than attack once with advantage. Same chance to hit overall, plus a chance to hit twice. This also will not cost you your movement, just a bonus action.
There may come times when you can neither apply Stead Aim nor attack with your bonus action - mainly if you need to do something like disengage to get out of danger. But I suspect that most of the time you can use one or the other.
In Summary: Psychic Blades are definitively a damage buff, and in my opinion they're the equivalent of getting a very good magic weapon right at level three. And again, receiving a significant buff at level 9.
Next:
Psi-Bolstered Knack.When your nonpsionic training fails you, your psionic power can help: if you fail an ability check using a skill or tool with which you have proficiency, you can roll one Psionic Energy die and add the number rolled to the check, potentially turning failure into success. You expend the die only if the roll succeeds.
This really, really turns you into one hell of a skill monkey! I love that the dice are not spent unless it turns a failure into a success. I built a level 1 Tabaxi Rogue with NINE proficiencies (including Thieves Tools). Even if you have a 0 in an ability score, add your Psyonic Energy Dice to any proficiency and you're really freaking good at almost everything!
Psychic Whispers:
Basically, the tongues spell but telepathic to a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus, within a mile, for a number of hours equal to the number rolled on your dice.
At level 9 you get a bunch of uses of teleportation! At this point it's getting a bit long, but I've covered most of the main points. The Soulknife Rogue is really great.
I've been playing a Soulknife for a few months and I really do like it for a lot of these reasons. The biggest downside I've run into is fighting creatures who are immune to psychic damage. I was much less useful in the last fight against a golem who was immune to psychic and resistant to non-magical melee damage.
I've been playing a Soulknife for a few months and I really do like it for a lot of these reasons. The biggest downside I've run into is fighting creatures who are immune to psychic damage. I was much less useful in the last fight against a golem who was immune to psychic and resistant to non-magical melee damage.
Yeah, I would say picking up a magic bow and/or dagger is still a must. Resistance to psychic is probably the main reason, but also, if I have a +1 or better short bow, and I'm using Steady Aim, there's no reason not to use the bow instead of psychic blades.
My shortlist for my next characters are now Bladesinger Wizard and Soulknife Rogue.
Don't know if you may have seen me gushing about this elsewhere, but these two actually combine really well.
A Bladesinger6/Soulknife3 wielding a magic scimitar can use their action to Booming Blade and then make a soulknife attack, swap the scimitar to the other hand, and make a bonus action attack with the other soulknife. Any of the three can deliver sneak attack, two of the three can be ranged, you solve soulknife's OA issue by always having a real weapon, you solve dual-wielding bladesinger's issue with needing a hand free for some spells, the synergy just goes on and on. Comes online fairly late, but its a pretty fun build. Plus both possible name combos are great in a silly way - the funky soulsinger or the ultimate edgelord bladeknife.
My shortlist for my next characters are now Bladesinger Wizard and Soulknife Rogue.
Don't know if you may have seen me gushing about this elsewhere, but these two actually combine really well.
A Bladesinger6/Soulknife3 wielding a magic scimitar can use their action to Booming Blade and then make a soulknife attack, swap the scimitar to the other hand, and make a bonus action attack with the other soulknife. Any of the three can deliver sneak attack, two of the three can be ranged, you solve soulknife's OA issue by always having a real weapon, you solve dual-wielding bladesinger's issue with needing a hand free for some spells, the synergy just goes on and on. Comes online fairly late, but its a pretty fun build. Plus both possible name combos are great in a silly way - the funky soulsinger or the ultimate edgelord bladeknife.
I would need to look up if you can use the psychic blade bonus attack after booming blade. I know it does not count for extra attack, like on an Eldritch Knight. You still took a spell action, even though the melee attack is part of the spell.
"Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade."
But even without that, this is really strong. You also get all of the other benefits from Bladesinging, like adding your Intelligence modifier to your AC. shield, booming blade, green flame blade, absorb elements....
You gain a bonus to your AC equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).
Your walking speed increases by 10 feet.
You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks.
You gain a bonus to any Constitution saving throw you make to maintain your concentration on a spell. The bonus equals your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).
I don't think I'd ever play rogue again, outside of a level or two dip for expertise/cunning action if I want that extra mobility, but if anything does tempt me into playing another one it'll be soul knife I think.
I don't think I'd ever play rogue again, outside of a level or two dip for expertise/cunning action if I want that extra mobility, but if anything does tempt me into playing another one it'll be soul knife I think.
Out of curiosity, what has made you not want to play a Rogue?
I'm currently playing a level 10 Soulknife and am honestly blown away by how fun it is. I picked up the subclass originally for the great mid range attacks with the psychic blades having a range of 60 ft., which seems to be a perfect space for dungeon crawling as the rooms we've encountered rarely exceed that range plus my movement. As far as I could see one of the few complaints people have is not having a weapon in the Soulknife's hands at the end of their turns to capitalize on potential extra sneak attacks. Personally since I planned on doing a majority of my attacks throwing the psychic blades I picked up the fighting initiate (thrown weapon fighting) feat. Both my GM and I agreed the feat should allow my character to pull a dagger and strike a melee attack in an attack of opportunity or when permitted by our fighter's commander's strike. Overall the subclass has been loads of fun, it's good to see others enjoy it as well.
While not intrinsic to the class and stackable on magic weapons, it's also quite possible to give soulknife psychic blades a damage boost to keep them inline with a base magic weapons. Dueling and Thrown Weapon fighting styles both come to mind. Combined with homing attacks is more than a match for a +2 magic weapon (but obviously falls short to a +2 magic weapon that also has a fighting style to support it).
That’s interesting with the weapon swap on the psychic blade bonus action attack. It doesn’t have the word “immediately” so you’re free to swap the weapon and make your other hand free at any point after the initial attack, yet also before the end of the turn.
I like that it also keeps the weapon in your hand at the end of the turn to possibly make use of an opportunity attack, which solves one of the soul knifes weaknesses in my opinion.
Soulknife is a ton of fun. I chose my stats through standard array and went with a Variant Human alongside the criminal/spy background, taking points in charisma and dexterity and planning out my chosen skills to get proficiency in every charisma and dexterity skill.
Thanks to the Variant Human's level 1 feat I took fighting initiate, giving me the throwing weapon fighting style. At level 4 I took double dexterity ASI, giving me +4 DEX modifier. At level 5 my damage output looked something like this, assuming you have advantage or your melee friends are close to the enemy:
First attack (sneak attack): 4d6+6, Second Attack: 1d4+6
That's a damage range (on two successful hits) of 17-40. Every. Single. Turn. I'm sure there are ways you could beef this up, this is just what I threw together for a quick one-off while our normal DM was absent, and I was easily in the running for the highest damage output in the party. This is just the combat applications, I'm sure the use of the other psionic abilities could be used to great effect outside of battle as well.
My shortlist for my next characters are now Bladesinger Wizard and Soulknife Rogue.
Don't know if you may have seen me gushing about this elsewhere, but these two actually combine really well.
A Bladesinger6/Soulknife3 wielding a magic scimitar can use their action to Booming Blade and then make a soulknife attack, swap the scimitar to the other hand, and make a bonus action attack with the other soulknife. Any of the three can deliver sneak attack, two of the three can be ranged, you solve soulknife's OA issue by always having a real weapon, you solve dual-wielding bladesinger's issue with needing a hand free for some spells, the synergy just goes on and on. Comes online fairly late, but its a pretty fun build. Plus both possible name combos are great in a silly way - the funky soulsinger or the ultimate edgelord bladeknife.
I'm afraid that's not what the rules say: "After you attack with the blade, you can make a melee or ranged weapon attack with a second psychic blade as a bonus action on the same turn, provided your other hand is free to create it." So you need to use the attack action with a psychic blade to qualify for the bonus attack.
This also means you cannot get round the problem of your scimitar getting in the way: if it is in your off hand when you make the first psychic attack, that hand isn't free, so you do not qualify for the bonus attack.
My shortlist for my next characters are now Bladesinger Wizard and Soulknife Rogue.
Don't know if you may have seen me gushing about this elsewhere, but these two actually combine really well.
A Bladesinger6/Soulknife3 wielding a magic scimitar can use their action to Booming Blade and then make a soulknife attack, swap the scimitar to the other hand, and make a bonus action attack with the other soulknife. Any of the three can deliver sneak attack, two of the three can be ranged, you solve soulknife's OA issue by always having a real weapon, you solve dual-wielding bladesinger's issue with needing a hand free for some spells, the synergy just goes on and on. Comes online fairly late, but its a pretty fun build. Plus both possible name combos are great in a silly way - the funky soulsinger or the ultimate edgelord bladeknife.
I'm afraid that's not what the rules say: "After you attack with the blade, you can make a melee or ranged weapon attack with a second psychic blade as a bonus action on the same turn, provided your other hand is free to create it." So you need to use the attack action with a psychic blade to qualify for the bonus attack.
This also means you cannot get round the problem of your scimitar getting in the way: if it is in your off hand when you make the first psychic attack, that hand isn't free, so you do not qualify for the bonus attack.
You can Booming Blade with your scimitar, then make a regular psychic blade attack (both as part of the same attack action) with your free hand, then swap the scimitar to your other hand, then psychic blade as a bonus action. To be explicit:
Scimitar is in Hand A:
BB with Scimitar
Psychic Blade with Hand B
Swap Scimitar to Hand B
Psychic Blade with Hand A as Bonus Action
Same thing with the letters swapped if you start with the Scimitar in Hand B.
My shortlist for my next characters are now Bladesinger Wizard and Soulknife Rogue. A while back I wrote a thread discussing my lukewarm opinion toward the Soulknife, mainly because I felt when magic weapons arise, the Psychic Blades become far less useful. I also felt the bonus action attack option competes heavily with the Rogue's already giant list of bonus action options. These two criticisms remain true, but I still think it's a very good ability at higher levels of play. It's obviously amazing during tier 1 levels.
First, it's worth noting this literally, mechanically the same as getting Crossbow Expert for free. Bonus action attack: Check. Being within 5 feet does not impose disadvantage: Check (just stab instead of throw). No loading property: Check. But it's even better because Psychic damage is far less resisted than non-magical piercing. This is especially good for the Rogue, who is relegated to only one attack.
Second, the DPR does scale, which I missed before.
Soul Blades
9th-level Soulknife feature
Your Psychic Blades are now an expression of your psi-suffused soul, giving you these powers that use your Psionic Energy dice:
Homing Strikes. If you make an attack roll with your Psychic Blades and miss the target, you can roll one Psionic Energy die and add the number rolled to the attack roll. If this causes the attack to hit, you expend the Psionic Energy die.
At level 9 this does come a bit late for me. By level 9 there's a good chance you have an interesting and powerful bow, rapier or dagger. But make no mistake, this is a DPR buff, and it's a big one. It's essentially having several uses of Battle Master's Precision Attack maneuver.
With all this in mind, let's address the downsides.
Competing for your bonus action: The wide use of your bonus action (Disengage, Dash, Steady Aim, etc.) is does devalue it some, and there's no getting around that. But having a bonus action attack option is still value added. It is something else useful you can do with your bonus action. The way I would work it is this:
Does Sneak Attack apply to your attack?
If No: then forego your bonus action attack and instead either hide (if the situation allows) or use Steady Aim (a bonus action), granting advantage on the attack and applying sneak attack damage. You're still rolling two dice to hit, and now you can apply Sneak Attack damage. Keep in mind, if you do this you cannot move on your turn. This is situation dependent.
If Yes: then forego Steady Aim and do both your main action and bonus action attack. Attacking twice is always better than attack once with advantage. Same chance to hit overall, plus a chance to hit twice. This also will not cost you your movement, just a bonus action.
There may come times when you can neither apply Stead Aim nor attack with your bonus action - mainly if you need to do something like disengage to get out of danger. But I suspect that most of the time you can use one or the other.
In Summary: Psychic Blades are definitively a damage buff, and in my opinion they're the equivalent of getting a very good magic weapon right at level three. And again, receiving a significant buff at level 9.
Next:
Psi-Bolstered Knack. When your nonpsionic training fails you, your psionic power can help: if you fail an ability check using a skill or tool with which you have proficiency, you can roll one Psionic Energy die and add the number rolled to the check, potentially turning failure into success. You expend the die only if the roll succeeds.
This really, really turns you into one hell of a skill monkey! I love that the dice are not spent unless it turns a failure into a success. I built a level 1 Tabaxi Rogue with NINE proficiencies (including Thieves Tools). Even if you have a 0 in an ability score, add your Psyonic Energy Dice to any proficiency and you're really freaking good at almost everything!
Psychic Whispers:
Basically, the tongues spell but telepathic to a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus, within a mile, for a number of hours equal to the number rolled on your dice.
At level 9 you get a bunch of uses of teleportation! At this point it's getting a bit long, but I've covered most of the main points. The Soulknife Rogue is really great.
I've been playing a Soulknife for a few months and I really do like it for a lot of these reasons. The biggest downside I've run into is fighting creatures who are immune to psychic damage. I was much less useful in the last fight against a golem who was immune to psychic and resistant to non-magical melee damage.
Yeah, I would say picking up a magic bow and/or dagger is still a must. Resistance to psychic is probably the main reason, but also, if I have a +1 or better short bow, and I'm using Steady Aim, there's no reason not to use the bow instead of psychic blades.
Don't know if you may have seen me gushing about this elsewhere, but these two actually combine really well.
A Bladesinger6/Soulknife3 wielding a magic scimitar can use their action to Booming Blade and then make a soulknife attack, swap the scimitar to the other hand, and make a bonus action attack with the other soulknife. Any of the three can deliver sneak attack, two of the three can be ranged, you solve soulknife's OA issue by always having a real weapon, you solve dual-wielding bladesinger's issue with needing a hand free for some spells, the synergy just goes on and on. Comes online fairly late, but its a pretty fun build. Plus both possible name combos are great in a silly way - the funky soulsinger or the ultimate edgelord bladeknife.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I would need to look up if you can use the psychic blade bonus attack after booming blade. I know it does not count for extra attack, like on an Eldritch Knight. You still took a spell action, even though the melee attack is part of the spell.
"Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade."
But even without that, this is really strong. You also get all of the other benefits from Bladesinging, like adding your Intelligence modifier to your AC. shield, booming blade, green flame blade, absorb elements....
I don't think I'd ever play rogue again, outside of a level or two dip for expertise/cunning action if I want that extra mobility, but if anything does tempt me into playing another one it'll be soul knife I think.
Out of curiosity, what has made you not want to play a Rogue?
I'm currently playing a level 10 Soulknife and am honestly blown away by how fun it is. I picked up the subclass originally for the great mid range attacks with the psychic blades having a range of 60 ft., which seems to be a perfect space for dungeon crawling as the rooms we've encountered rarely exceed that range plus my movement. As far as I could see one of the few complaints people have is not having a weapon in the Soulknife's hands at the end of their turns to capitalize on potential extra sneak attacks. Personally since I planned on doing a majority of my attacks throwing the psychic blades I picked up the fighting initiate (thrown weapon fighting) feat. Both my GM and I agreed the feat should allow my character to pull a dagger and strike a melee attack in an attack of opportunity or when permitted by our fighter's commander's strike. Overall the subclass has been loads of fun, it's good to see others enjoy it as well.
While not intrinsic to the class and stackable on magic weapons, it's also quite possible to give soulknife psychic blades a damage boost to keep them inline with a base magic weapons. Dueling and Thrown Weapon fighting styles both come to mind. Combined with homing attacks is more than a match for a +2 magic weapon (but obviously falls short to a +2 magic weapon that also has a fighting style to support it).
That’s interesting with the weapon swap on the psychic blade bonus action attack. It doesn’t have the word “immediately” so you’re free to swap the weapon and make your other hand free at any point after the initial attack, yet also before the end of the turn.
I like that it also keeps the weapon in your hand at the end of the turn to possibly make use of an opportunity attack, which solves one of the soul knifes weaknesses in my opinion.
Soulknife is a ton of fun. I chose my stats through standard array and went with a Variant Human alongside the criminal/spy background, taking points in charisma and dexterity and planning out my chosen skills to get proficiency in every charisma and dexterity skill.
Thanks to the Variant Human's level 1 feat I took fighting initiate, giving me the throwing weapon fighting style. At level 4 I took double dexterity ASI, giving me +4 DEX modifier. At level 5 my damage output looked something like this, assuming you have advantage or your melee friends are close to the enemy:
First attack (sneak attack): 4d6+6, Second Attack: 1d4+6
That's a damage range (on two successful hits) of 17-40. Every. Single. Turn. I'm sure there are ways you could beef this up, this is just what I threw together for a quick one-off while our normal DM was absent, and I was easily in the running for the highest damage output in the party. This is just the combat applications, I'm sure the use of the other psionic abilities could be used to great effect outside of battle as well.
I'm afraid that's not what the rules say: "After you attack with the blade, you can make a melee or ranged weapon attack with a second psychic blade as a bonus action on the same turn, provided your other hand is free to create it." So you need to use the attack action with a psychic blade to qualify for the bonus attack.
This also means you cannot get round the problem of your scimitar getting in the way: if it is in your off hand when you make the first psychic attack, that hand isn't free, so you do not qualify for the bonus attack.
You can Booming Blade with your scimitar, then make a regular psychic blade attack (both as part of the same attack action) with your free hand, then swap the scimitar to your other hand, then psychic blade as a bonus action. To be explicit: