while I think the inability to use the blades for OAs is an unfortunate oversight and therefore should be homebrewed, I don't think there's any reason allow poisons to work with the blades. It doesn't worth since the blades don't exist for more than a few seconds at a time, and there isn't really any good arguments as to why it'd be logical to allow someone to apply poison to their mindblades.
I feel like a lot of people (including myself at first) see that the Psychic blades don't scale. No +1, +2 etc. However there are some huge advantages that help make up for it.
1. Homing strikes is a great ability that can help you hit more often then a +1 or even +2 weapon.
2. If you want to play a rogue with two weapon fighting you don't need to multiclass into fighter to gain the extra damage on the 2nd attack. You also don't need magical weapons. So when the normal rogue takes 2 weapon fighting they may want two magical weapons fairly early. The soul knife rogue doesn't need them and gets to equip 2 magical items that aren't weapons. Lots of good uncommon magical items out there.
3. Want to use a short bow? That's only 1 magical item difference. Now you just get one attack instead of two. I'd much rather have 2 chances to hit and do damage. And you have disadvantage within 5 ft and no magical weapon for melee attacks should you want to attack.
3. Hand crossbow? Probably want the crossbow expert feat. This is probably the closest thing to the soulknife ability but the soulknife rogue not needing this can take a different feat instead or an asi. And they still don't need to waste a magical item on a weapon.
I guess my point is. Some rogues may want up to 3 magical weapons the Soulknife doesn't need. They don't need to take a feat to get a bonus action attack at range and they don't need two weapon fighting style. For added damage. There is an inherent advantage to the psychic knives that a lot of people will overlook. Last but not least a DM can always home brew an item. Like gloves that help focus the psychic energy and add 2 damage to an attack. Or maybe they can infuse the psychic energy with lightning to do an additional 1d4. I could go on all day but I do believe this subclass is in the top 4 possibly 2nd best after the arcane trickster.
I like the idea of a soul knife taking the gunner feat. It gets the best part of crossbow mastery , at least from a soul knifes perspective, and is also a half feat for dexterity.
psychic blades would be able to be used up to 60ft, which is twice as far as a hand crossbow, against any target that has been prioritized without suffering from disadvantage when within 5ft of an enemy. No worry about ammunition, and you will have a +1 higher attack and damage bonus compared to using a hand crossbow.
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
Yeah I do not understand this one either....I would think the Fighting style would be better?
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Why would you throw it at 5ft?
you wouldn't throw it at the one within 5ft of you. But you may have reason to throw it at somebody else while you have an enemy within 5' of you. That still creates the issue of disadvantage on the throw. Just like it does with a bow.
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Why would you throw it at 5ft?
you wouldn't throw it at the one within 5ft of you. But you may have reason to throw it at somebody else while you have an enemy within 5' of you. That still creates the issue of disadvantage on the throw. Just like it does with a bow.
I guess why wouldn't you just attack the thing next to you?
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Why would you throw it at 5ft?
you wouldn't throw it at the one within 5ft of you. But you may have reason to throw it at somebody else while you have an enemy within 5' of you. That still creates the issue of disadvantage on the throw. Just like it does with a bow.
I guess why wouldn't you just attack the thing next to you?
If you are in melee but you want to throw it at someone you aren’t in melee with.
However, the thrown weapon fighting style and the dueling fighting style Stack as long as you are throwing them. In melee only dueling would apply, there’s also the archery fighting style. all three are better choices.
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Why would you throw it at 5ft?
you wouldn't throw it at the one within 5ft of you. But you may have reason to throw it at somebody else while you have an enemy within 5' of you. That still creates the issue of disadvantage on the throw. Just like it does with a bow.
I guess why wouldn't you just attack the thing next to you?
No allies standing next to it.
You still have a better shot with the thing in front of you
Seeing as how you would need a feat to even attempt the throw without disadvantage and you're a rogue... You can just disengage as a BA.
I can't see a case where this is a good call to take the feat for this purpose only
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Why would you throw it at 5ft?
you wouldn't throw it at the one within 5ft of you. But you may have reason to throw it at somebody else while you have an enemy within 5' of you. That still creates the issue of disadvantage on the throw. Just like it does with a bow.
I guess why wouldn't you just attack the thing next to you?
No allies standing next to it.
You still have a better shot with the thing in front of you
Seeing as how you would need a feat to even attempt the throw without disadvantage and you're a rogue... You can just disengage as a BA.
I can't see a case where this is a good call to take the feat for this purpose only
That other thing could be a mage that needs to be dealt with quickly. A healer attempting to get to and res some large enemy your group just took down. Or even a large enemy that is close to falling that your parties best hope of survival is to down it as fast as possible so your group is committed to dealing as much damage to it as they can by all means necessary that they have left.
But as I said it is something situational and potentially niche. All I was saying is that it was there. Not that it was going to be something to always be used or anything.
Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20. This is the only thing that would help but an ability score increase gets two points into any statistic.
You ignore the loading property of firearms. This does not help the Soulknife.
Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. The Soulknife can use the his Psionic Blades as melee weapons and ranged weapons so this does not help the Soulknife either.
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Why would you throw it at 5ft?
you wouldn't throw it at the one within 5ft of you. But you may have reason to throw it at somebody else while you have an enemy within 5' of you. That still creates the issue of disadvantage on the throw. Just like it does with a bow.
I guess why wouldn't you just attack the thing next to you?
No allies standing next to it.
You still have a better shot with the thing in front of you
Seeing as how you would need a feat to even attempt the throw without disadvantage and you're a rogue... You can just disengage as a BA.
I can't see a case where this is a good call to take the feat for this purpose only
That other thing could be a mage that needs to be dealt with quickly. A healer attempting to get to and res some large enemy your group just took down. Or even a large enemy that is close to falling that your parties best hope of survival is to down it as fast as possible so your group is committed to dealing as much damage to it as they can by all means necessary that they have left.
But as I said it is something situational and potentially niche. All I was saying is that it was there. Not that it was going to be something to always be used or anything.
The reason why being able to attack a different creature at range when another creature is within 5ft of you without imposing disadvantage is because of focus fire.
One of the simplest and most effective strategies a party can adopt is attempting to make sure as much of the damage they deal as possible is focused on a single creature. This improves the odds that that creature, and potentially the next creatures afterward, are dead.
This very simple tactic takes away the actions available to the enemies as quickly as possible.
a rogue that has to use its bonus action to disengage from a creature to attempt to attack a different creature that has been designated the target of the focus fire has a much smaller chance of dealing its sneak attack damage than a rogue who can utilize its action AND bonus action to attack the same target without moving.
like I said, gunner negates the close range disadvantage on ranged attacks and potentially gives an additional modifier to the soul knife. There is redundancy with the soul knife, but gunner is a far better feat to the soul knife than crossbow expert is.
and who knows... maybe you’ll get a badass firearm from your DM if you actually take the feat. Some sort of scattergun would be pretty cool.
Except your psi dice, assuming you are lvl 9, can be used to boost your attack roll. Meaning in the situation where you are focus firing, you could bonus action disengage to move away, then attack but even if you miss you can add your psidice to the attack most likely hitting regardless.
This is the scenario without the gunner feat. So assuming you take Dueling and Thrown weapon fighting all of your attacks would also be +4. Add an ASI and by lvl 10 your attacks would be +9. And this would be the case at least 90% of the time.
So in your opinion, you think taking Gunner to avoid the disadvantage in a scenario that will happen/apply less than 10% of the time is worth not taking other feats or ASI's. IDK about that. You would basically have to be level 18 before I would use an ASI on that for a soulknife my dude. Even then I wouldn't take it.
Gunner feat would conserve those psi die a bit. Same scenario with gunner would let you take the attack action against the same target, figure out if you miss, still possibly hit or miss but with a higher likelihood of landing that attack. Then be able to still disengage if you hit and you prioritize the movement.
gunner is a half feat, so it would round out the odd attack stat to an 18 at level 10 with your same build.
perhaps you’re using custom lineage, in which case you could actually be able to do gunner on top of your proposed build options with level 1 fighter and 9 rogue.
It being a half feat does put it over crossbow expert, so I'll give you that. But I still wouldn't take either. Would rather take an ASI and fix 2 odd stats instead. That all depends though since we usually roll for stats for campaigns and not point buy. Although I think gunner only increases str and dex where only one needs focused and the other can be dumped. So if your main stat isn't 20 already by lvl 10 I would find that odd.
So I made a thread about the Soulknife, not seeing right in front of me there's already a lengthy discussion taking place. I'll summarize:
Psychic Blades is mechanically no different than getting FREE Crossbow Expert right out the gate. Only, better because it's Psychic damage. It does use your bonus action, which is a downside for Rogues, but it is value added and you can still make great use of it. If Sneak Attack applies to your target, use both attacks. You get two chances to hit and get that SA damage, and two attacks are better than one attack with advantage. If sneak attack does NOT apply, the bonus action hide or use Steady Aim to gain advantage. That way you have the same chance to hit, and you can apply sneak attack.
The IS a damage buff, and it's mechanically as good as having a very good magic weapon.
Psi-Bolstered-Knack puts the Bard's Jack of All Trades to shame. Level's 1 through 8, JOAT gives you +1 only to skills for which you are not proficient. The Soulknife? Levels 1 through 4 you get an average of +3.5 to ALL ability checks, proficient or not. Levels Levels 5 through 10 it's +4.5, and so on. At worst, let's say you have 10 Intelligence and no proficiency in Arcana. At level 5, your average roll is 15! You range between good and phenomenal at literally everything!
Soul Knife: mechanically gives you potentially NINE! uses of the Battle Master's Precision Strike, plus one additional per short rest, which is a huge damage buff. But wait! There's more! Unlike Precision Strike, your die is not even spent unless it turns a miss into a hit. Functionally this like having +1d8 (or d10, etc. depending on level) to-hit magic weapon.
Now add invisibility, teleportation, super-long range telepathy with built-in tongues spell, and the ability to stun.
while I think the inability to use the blades for OAs is an unfortunate oversight and therefore should be homebrewed, I don't think there's any reason allow poisons to work with the blades. It doesn't worth since the blades don't exist for more than a few seconds at a time, and there isn't really any good arguments as to why it'd be logical to allow someone to apply poison to their mindblades.
I feel like a lot of people (including myself at first) see that the Psychic blades don't scale. No +1, +2 etc. However there are some huge advantages that help make up for it.
1. Homing strikes is a great ability that can help you hit more often then a +1 or even +2 weapon.
2. If you want to play a rogue with two weapon fighting you don't need to multiclass into fighter to gain the extra damage on the 2nd attack. You also don't need magical weapons. So when the normal rogue takes 2 weapon fighting they may want two magical weapons fairly early. The soul knife rogue doesn't need them and gets to equip 2 magical items that aren't weapons. Lots of good uncommon magical items out there.
3. Want to use a short bow? That's only 1 magical item difference. Now you just get one attack instead of two. I'd much rather have 2 chances to hit and do damage. And you have disadvantage within 5 ft and no magical weapon for melee attacks should you want to attack.
3. Hand crossbow? Probably want the crossbow expert feat. This is probably the closest thing to the soulknife ability but the soulknife rogue not needing this can take a different feat instead or an asi. And they still don't need to waste a magical item on a weapon.
I guess my point is. Some rogues may want up to 3 magical weapons the Soulknife doesn't need. They don't need to take a feat to get a bonus action attack at range and they don't need two weapon fighting style. For added damage. There is an inherent advantage to the psychic knives that a lot of people will overlook. Last but not least a DM can always home brew an item. Like gloves that help focus the psychic energy and add 2 damage to an attack. Or maybe they can infuse the psychic energy with lightning to do an additional 1d4. I could go on all day but I do believe this subclass is in the top 4 possibly 2nd best after the arcane trickster.
I like the idea of a soul knife taking the gunner feat. It gets the best part of crossbow mastery , at least from a soul knifes perspective, and is also a half feat for dexterity.
psychic blades would be able to be used up to 60ft, which is twice as far as a hand crossbow, against any target that has been prioritized without suffering from disadvantage when within 5ft of an enemy. No worry about ammunition, and you will have a +1 higher attack and damage bonus compared to using a hand crossbow.
Gunner Feat:
Yeah I do not understand this one either....I would think the Fighting style would be better?
While a soul knife can be use either in melee or at ranged. When using it at ranged you would suffer disadvantage on the rolls from being within 5 feet of an enemy. Just as all thrown weapon attacks would. It's situational but potentially useful.
Why would you throw it at 5ft?
you wouldn't throw it at the one within 5ft of you. But you may have reason to throw it at somebody else while you have an enemy within 5' of you. That still creates the issue of disadvantage on the throw. Just like it does with a bow.
I guess why wouldn't you just attack the thing next to you?
No allies standing next to it.
If you are in melee but you want to throw it at someone you aren’t in melee with.
However, the thrown weapon fighting style and the dueling fighting style Stack as long as you are throwing them. In melee only dueling would apply, there’s also the archery fighting style. all three are better choices.
so I’d take any and all of those before gunner.
You still have a better shot with the thing in front of you
Seeing as how you would need a feat to even attempt the throw without disadvantage and you're a rogue... You can just disengage as a BA.
I can't see a case where this is a good call to take the feat for this purpose only
That other thing could be a mage that needs to be dealt with quickly. A healer attempting to get to and res some large enemy your group just took down. Or even a large enemy that is close to falling that your parties best hope of survival is to down it as fast as possible so your group is committed to dealing as much damage to it as they can by all means necessary that they have left.
But as I said it is something situational and potentially niche. All I was saying is that it was there. Not that it was going to be something to always be used or anything.
Fair enough!
The reason why being able to attack a different creature at range when another creature is within 5ft of you without imposing disadvantage is because of focus fire.
One of the simplest and most effective strategies a party can adopt is attempting to make sure as much of the damage they deal as possible is focused on a single creature. This improves the odds that that creature, and potentially the next creatures afterward, are dead.
This very simple tactic takes away the actions available to the enemies as quickly as possible.
a rogue that has to use its bonus action to disengage from a creature to attempt to attack a different creature that has been designated the target of the focus fire has a much smaller chance of dealing its sneak attack damage than a rogue who can utilize its action AND bonus action to attack the same target without moving.
like I said, gunner negates the close range disadvantage on ranged attacks and potentially gives an additional modifier to the soul knife. There is redundancy with the soul knife, but gunner is a far better feat to the soul knife than crossbow expert is.
and who knows... maybe you’ll get a badass firearm from your DM if you actually take the feat. Some sort of scattergun would be pretty cool.
Except your psi dice, assuming you are lvl 9, can be used to boost your attack roll. Meaning in the situation where you are focus firing, you could bonus action disengage to move away, then attack but even if you miss you can add your psidice to the attack most likely hitting regardless.
This is the scenario without the gunner feat. So assuming you take Dueling and Thrown weapon fighting all of your attacks would also be +4. Add an ASI and by lvl 10 your attacks would be +9. And this would be the case at least 90% of the time.
So in your opinion, you think taking Gunner to avoid the disadvantage in a scenario that will happen/apply less than 10% of the time is worth not taking other feats or ASI's. IDK about that. You would basically have to be level 18 before I would use an ASI on that for a soulknife my dude. Even then I wouldn't take it.
Gunner feat would conserve those psi die a bit. Same scenario with gunner would let you take the attack action against the same target, figure out if you miss, still possibly hit or miss but with a higher likelihood of landing that attack. Then be able to still disengage if you hit and you prioritize the movement.
gunner is a half feat, so it would round out the odd attack stat to an 18 at level 10 with your same build.
perhaps you’re using custom lineage, in which case you could actually be able to do gunner on top of your proposed build options with level 1 fighter and 9 rogue.
It being a half feat does put it over crossbow expert, so I'll give you that. But I still wouldn't take either. Would rather take an ASI and fix 2 odd stats instead. That all depends though since we usually roll for stats for campaigns and not point buy. Although I think gunner only increases str and dex where only one needs focused and the other can be dumped. So if your main stat isn't 20 already by lvl 10 I would find that odd.
Are there any magic items that might augment the blades to hit, damage, etc? Been looking.
So I made a thread about the Soulknife, not seeing right in front of me there's already a lengthy discussion taking place. I'll summarize:
Psychic Blades is mechanically no different than getting FREE Crossbow Expert right out the gate. Only, better because it's Psychic damage. It does use your bonus action, which is a downside for Rogues, but it is value added and you can still make great use of it. If Sneak Attack applies to your target, use both attacks. You get two chances to hit and get that SA damage, and two attacks are better than one attack with advantage. If sneak attack does NOT apply, the bonus action hide or use Steady Aim to gain advantage. That way you have the same chance to hit, and you can apply sneak attack.
The IS a damage buff, and it's mechanically as good as having a very good magic weapon.
Psi-Bolstered-Knack puts the Bard's Jack of All Trades to shame. Level's 1 through 8, JOAT gives you +1 only to skills for which you are not proficient. The Soulknife? Levels 1 through 4 you get an average of +3.5 to ALL ability checks, proficient or not. Levels Levels 5 through 10 it's +4.5, and so on. At worst, let's say you have 10 Intelligence and no proficiency in Arcana. At level 5, your average roll is 15! You range between good and phenomenal at literally everything!
Soul Knife: mechanically gives you potentially NINE! uses of the Battle Master's Precision Strike, plus one additional per short rest, which is a huge damage buff. But wait! There's more! Unlike Precision Strike, your die is not even spent unless it turns a miss into a hit. Functionally this like having +1d8 (or d10, etc. depending on level) to-hit magic weapon.
Now add invisibility, teleportation, super-long range telepathy with built-in tongues spell, and the ability to stun.
The Soulknife is insanely good.