I'm just coming off of my weekly session and something occurred during the game that bothered me. My PC (high level cleric) was disintegrated and the rogue made a comment about how he thought about taking my PC's soul for his Tokens of the Departed phantom rogue ability. I don't remember why it didn't happen and in the moment it was laughed off, but I'm incredibly uncomfortable with the idea that a temporary party member would take another party member's soul for their own gain with no consequences. How would you rule this as a DM? I know it's an innate phantom rogue ability but it feels like an incredibly evil use of this ability in this context. Am I just reading into this too much? Thoughts?
The feature isn't stealing your soul. It's snatching a sliver of essence, like the soul-equivalent of cutting off a bit of your hair. I'd rule that it has no effect on your character's transition to your final reward.
I’m not sure why, but it’s flavored as the full soul in my game - I’m hoping this is just a miscommunication but it still felt really weird to me that the PC would jump to immediately claiming another PC’s soul
That sort of rogue will take the departing sliver of lifeforce from any dying creature nearby. There's no real reason to distinguish between a PC and an NPC.
I’m not sure why, but it’s flavored as the full soul in my game - I’m hoping this is just a miscommunication but it still felt really weird to me that the PC would jump to immediately claiming another PC’s soul
1. your character is still dead yes?
2. Has there been any talks of anyone trying to find a way to revive them? or...
3. Did you make/have to make a new character?
4. Did anyone ask what the motivation would be of claiming the soul? Maybe its no different than the people that take their dead pet to a taxidermist after it dies.
You know your your team mate better, so there may be more behind this question on your end than is visible here. But I'll try to look at it a little more dispassionate as I might try when I DM.
A Phantom Rogue is not necessarily going to *be* someone everyone is comfortable around. If you think about that and what it would be like to have in your life if any of this were real... I'm pretty sure most of us would be uncomfortable with it. The same could probably be said for many varieties of Warlock... Fathomless, Fiend, Hexblade, Undead, etc. Bards have the Whispers College, Clerics the Blood, Death, & Grave domains, Druids can be a part of the Blighted or Spores Circle, Monks have Long Death & Shadow, Paladin has Oathbreaker & Conquest, Sorcerer Aberrant Mind, Shadow, and even evil aligned Divine Souls, and Wizard the Necromancer & now Blood Magic.
I don't feel like listing them all out, but many of the subclasses have disturbing or macabre features in them outside of those.
Does that make the player or the character innately evil?
No. You can think of an archetypal character like John Constantine, yes.. there are dark elements there. And being around that darkness can take a toll. but there's still the a core part that can be focused on doing good, with the power of and despite that struggle against the darkness. You even see this with things in D&D's past like the Impure Prince subclass from 3.5e where you had Rangers in Eberron that started using Daelkyr magic to fight the Daelkyr.
So it's a relatively common trope, and can be fun to play with. Especially in a game where it's not real, some people like to explore a darker side where they *never* would do so in real life because they don't actually want to hurt anyone for real. Some people do that watching movies and picturing themselves in the story. It happens in D&D too.
So... I guess as a DM I'd be looking at it and thinking... your character decided to work with a Phantom Rogue. They had to know it was a possibility that if they died, that Rogue could snatch a bit of their soul too... especially after watching that Rogue do it to so many others.
Yes... as a player OOC, there's a difference. OOC, players should cooperate and ensure respectful interactions between them. If you as a player would not be comfortable with a slice of their soul being taken by the Rogue... the individual playing the Rogue shouldn't do it.
But... there can be charged dynamics between players at time, and as a *long* time DM, I've seen things get heated now and then as real world emotions come into play. Character death can always complicate that and it is often an emotional moment. And if the two of you hadn't gotten along as players before that... that would complicate it even more.
The truth is... you both should have discussed it beforehand, as players, and had your characters make a pact before hand in mutual respect on how you'd like to handle it, especially if you were close and team mates. It wouldn't have taken much for your character to watch him do this to your enemies and just say... damn man... when it's my time... don't do it to me if I go first. And then offer something to him if his time comes first.
That's how I'd want to see it played as a DM.
Now... if that hadn't happened... AND the two of you as players were mature about it... I'd let the Rogue do it. But I'd watch what happens after to determine how I'd run with it in game.
If the Rogue took that part of your soul so they could save a part of you from utter disintegration so that *maybe* they could save you and have a slice of *something* left to bring to a cleric to cast Raise Dead on rather than having to get a 9th level True Resurrection or Wish to bring you back... and it was *intended* to be helpful as one player respecting the other enough to want try to save their life... that's the type of thing I'd be happy to run with.
If they weren't mature & took it to be a pain in the ass and torture your prior character or actively did evil things with it? That I wouldn't be happy with and there would be negative consequences for doing that the Rogue would face. And it would most definitely be something I address directly with the Rogue's player outside the game.
If you weren't mature about it... OR it was just something that was too emotional given what just happened for it to feel respectful to you regardless of the intent... then I'd probably have to do something on the fly to stop it. There are ways to force a choice between what reactions you might want to actually take. If say the Rogue hadn't taken their reaction yet, and they were seeming like they were going to do this not to be helpful but to be a pain in the ass...
I'd probably make it pretty clear that if they blow their reaction on it, they won't have one left, and maybe showcase something they might want to save it for... to say not die themselves this same turn.
Give them a choice between... do I choose this and maybe die, or do I hold on to that reaction and maybe don't because I have this other reaction that might save me...
And then let them make their choice.
But if they genuinely were intending it to be helpful and maybe help *save* your character to help bring them back despite the real severity of a Disintegration spell... I'd be looking at that and be impressed with their ingenuity and I'd probably want to reward it, and use it as basis to not make what happened to your character quite as permanent.
So it really depends on the intent, especially if neither of you discussed it beforehand, or on whether the two of you had any challenging history that act might aggravate.
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Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
I’m not sure why, but it’s flavored as the full soul in my game - I’m hoping this is just a miscommunication but it still felt really weird to me that the PC would jump to immediately claiming another PC’s soul
So RAW no where does it say it takes you soul. Why your Dm is ruling that way might be flavor or some homebrew rule ORRRR they didn't read it fully. But even in the skill description is says twice its only a fragment of the essence not the soul itself. Now the player maybe also just saying that to get a rise out of you......?? But unless the Dm is doing something odd or didn't look at the ability the Rogue only has a piece not the whole thing. Worst case bring it up to the Dm and ask?
Tokens of the Departed
9th-level Phantom feature
When a life ends in your presence, you’re able to snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction when a creature you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. The DM determines the trinket’s form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player’s Handbook to generate it.
When a life ends in your presence, you’re able to snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction when a creature you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. The DM determines the trinket’s form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player’s Handbook to generate it.
I'm in love with this feature. However, I worry that that kind of rogue will steal the last bit of lifeforce from any close dying creature.
When a life ends in your presence, you’re able to snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction when a creature you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. The DM determines the trinket’s form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player’s Handbook to generate it.
I'm in love with this feature. However, I worry that that kind of rogue will steal the last bit of lifeforce from any close dying creature.
I mean, that's kinda the idea. But you can only have a number of tokens equal to your PB at a time, so it's not like they can stockpile them by the dozen.
When a life ends in your presence, you’re able to snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction when a creature you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. The DM determines the trinket’s form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player’s Handbook to generate it.
I'm in love with this feature. However, I worry that that kind of rogue will steal the last bit of lifeforce from any close dying creature.
It's more or less it's intended function up to the token limit, and if I disallowed that as a DM I'd be stripping the player of their agency and choice of subclass features in their build.
And in fact... if they did something with a Wizard or Warlock multiclass where they were able to summon Familiars... I'd be hard pressed not to allow them to summon the familiar in a Ritual cast, kill it, take the token, and do it again to replenish them during a short rest. By the time you hit level 10 (Wizard) or 12 (Warlock), that's not going to be unbalanced, and as a DM, I control if and when short rests become available.
Rogue isn't the most powerful class out there. Rogues get some of the least frequent subclass features. They only pick them up at level 3 and then need to wait until level 9. Many other classes are getting their 3rd subclass feature by level 9 or 10.
There's no way I could in good conscience penalize a player for going 9 levels deep into a class and subclass like the Rogue to get Tokens of the Departed in their build and not grant them full access to the feature.
They don't have a ton of wonderful subclasses mechanically speaking if you look at character optimization exercises. It's been over 20 years since I got the teenage power gamer out of me, and I don't design characters when I'm not a DM to be that, just pick a concept and then think through some synergetic combinations for play to ensure decent performance and use of action economy, but not necessarily for min/max statistical outcome. So, these are things I enjoy thinking through for my own characters, but it gives me insight into builds when I'm DMing too. Granted, my DM style is permissive in most cases unless it's going to be extremely game breaking. I allow all official books and things in them as potential options for players, with reflavoring when they're not campaign setting appropriate. And I maintain balance in things like items, etc. But unless it was a critical end boss and army type things the players were facing at the end of an adventure where it's more for the story and less about the power itself... I'm not going to allow a player to cast Simulacrum, and then have that Simulacrum use it's slot to cast it again and chain that into an army... and play the Simulacrums. They'd go into DM control and be a background to what's going on for the player characters themselves story wise. And it'd only happen once. But there aren't many things I restrict, I just sort out ways to handle and deal with it as the DM so the players can have fun, but I don't allow them to break.
But I think through things like comparative power levels. It'd be highly unlikely a Phantom Rogue would be performing significantly over the power levels of other players in the party by the time they get Tokens of the Departed.
But... even just from a thematic character development perspective... 9 levels are a huge commitment. That would be a player who really *wanted* to be that kind of Rogue character. They're not doing anything cheesy. Many campaigns don't even get that high in level. Most don't get too much higher. So they might be playing for the entire adventure... and then have this come in like a capstone feature that's going to be what they're using as you get close to the end of everything.
And even if the adventure went higher or even went to level 20... 9 levels in one class necessarily means there are many other multi-class options out there across class/subclass that are going to be entirely closed off from them that they sacrificed in lost opportunity cost to invest that heavily in one.
So... I'd be letting them take a token from any viable option within the RAW rules for the feature.
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Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
So let me get this straight: you're cool with the rogue using it on others, but the moment you're the target of the ability, you complain about it? That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?
Also, your character is dead, soul or not doesn't really matter anymore at that point, at least by becoming a token for the rogue you can be useful to the party one last time. You should be happy about that.
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Hi folks,
I'm just coming off of my weekly session and something occurred during the game that bothered me. My PC (high level cleric) was disintegrated and the rogue made a comment about how he thought about taking my PC's soul for his Tokens of the Departed phantom rogue ability. I don't remember why it didn't happen and in the moment it was laughed off, but I'm incredibly uncomfortable with the idea that a temporary party member would take another party member's soul for their own gain with no consequences. How would you rule this as a DM? I know it's an innate phantom rogue ability but it feels like an incredibly evil use of this ability in this context. Am I just reading into this too much? Thoughts?
The feature isn't stealing your soul. It's snatching a sliver of essence, like the soul-equivalent of cutting off a bit of your hair. I'd rule that it has no effect on your character's transition to your final reward.
I’m not sure why, but it’s flavored as the full soul in my game - I’m hoping this is just a miscommunication but it still felt really weird to me that the PC would jump to immediately claiming another PC’s soul
That sort of rogue will take the departing sliver of lifeforce from any dying creature nearby. There's no real reason to distinguish between a PC and an NPC.
1. your character is still dead yes?
2. Has there been any talks of anyone trying to find a way to revive them? or...
3. Did you make/have to make a new character?
4. Did anyone ask what the motivation would be of claiming the soul? Maybe its no different than the people that take their dead pet to a taxidermist after it dies.
Blank
You know your your team mate better, so there may be more behind this question on your end than is visible here. But I'll try to look at it a little more dispassionate as I might try when I DM.
A Phantom Rogue is not necessarily going to *be* someone everyone is comfortable around. If you think about that and what it would be like to have in your life if any of this were real... I'm pretty sure most of us would be uncomfortable with it. The same could probably be said for many varieties of Warlock... Fathomless, Fiend, Hexblade, Undead, etc. Bards have the Whispers College, Clerics the Blood, Death, & Grave domains, Druids can be a part of the Blighted or Spores Circle, Monks have Long Death & Shadow, Paladin has Oathbreaker & Conquest, Sorcerer Aberrant Mind, Shadow, and even evil aligned Divine Souls, and Wizard the Necromancer & now Blood Magic.
I don't feel like listing them all out, but many of the subclasses have disturbing or macabre features in them outside of those.
Does that make the player or the character innately evil?
No. You can think of an archetypal character like John Constantine, yes.. there are dark elements there. And being around that darkness can take a toll. but there's still the a core part that can be focused on doing good, with the power of and despite that struggle against the darkness. You even see this with things in D&D's past like the Impure Prince subclass from 3.5e where you had Rangers in Eberron that started using Daelkyr magic to fight the Daelkyr.
So it's a relatively common trope, and can be fun to play with. Especially in a game where it's not real, some people like to explore a darker side where they *never* would do so in real life because they don't actually want to hurt anyone for real. Some people do that watching movies and picturing themselves in the story. It happens in D&D too.
So... I guess as a DM I'd be looking at it and thinking... your character decided to work with a Phantom Rogue. They had to know it was a possibility that if they died, that Rogue could snatch a bit of their soul too... especially after watching that Rogue do it to so many others.
Yes... as a player OOC, there's a difference. OOC, players should cooperate and ensure respectful interactions between them. If you as a player would not be comfortable with a slice of their soul being taken by the Rogue... the individual playing the Rogue shouldn't do it.
But... there can be charged dynamics between players at time, and as a *long* time DM, I've seen things get heated now and then as real world emotions come into play. Character death can always complicate that and it is often an emotional moment. And if the two of you hadn't gotten along as players before that... that would complicate it even more.
The truth is... you both should have discussed it beforehand, as players, and had your characters make a pact before hand in mutual respect on how you'd like to handle it, especially if you were close and team mates. It wouldn't have taken much for your character to watch him do this to your enemies and just say... damn man... when it's my time... don't do it to me if I go first. And then offer something to him if his time comes first.
That's how I'd want to see it played as a DM.
Now... if that hadn't happened... AND the two of you as players were mature about it... I'd let the Rogue do it. But I'd watch what happens after to determine how I'd run with it in game.
If the Rogue took that part of your soul so they could save a part of you from utter disintegration so that *maybe* they could save you and have a slice of *something* left to bring to a cleric to cast Raise Dead on rather than having to get a 9th level True Resurrection or Wish to bring you back... and it was *intended* to be helpful as one player respecting the other enough to want try to save their life... that's the type of thing I'd be happy to run with.
If they weren't mature & took it to be a pain in the ass and torture your prior character or actively did evil things with it? That I wouldn't be happy with and there would be negative consequences for doing that the Rogue would face. And it would most definitely be something I address directly with the Rogue's player outside the game.
If you weren't mature about it... OR it was just something that was too emotional given what just happened for it to feel respectful to you regardless of the intent... then I'd probably have to do something on the fly to stop it. There are ways to force a choice between what reactions you might want to actually take. If say the Rogue hadn't taken their reaction yet, and they were seeming like they were going to do this not to be helpful but to be a pain in the ass...
I'd probably make it pretty clear that if they blow their reaction on it, they won't have one left, and maybe showcase something they might want to save it for... to say not die themselves this same turn.
Give them a choice between... do I choose this and maybe die, or do I hold on to that reaction and maybe don't because I have this other reaction that might save me...
And then let them make their choice.
But if they genuinely were intending it to be helpful and maybe help *save* your character to help bring them back despite the real severity of a Disintegration spell... I'd be looking at that and be impressed with their ingenuity and I'd probably want to reward it, and use it as basis to not make what happened to your character quite as permanent.
So it really depends on the intent, especially if neither of you discussed it beforehand, or on whether the two of you had any challenging history that act might aggravate.
Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
So RAW no where does it say it takes you soul. Why your Dm is ruling that way might be flavor or some homebrew rule ORRRR they didn't read it fully. But even in the skill description is says twice its only a fragment of the essence not the soul itself. Now the player maybe also just saying that to get a rise out of you......?? But unless the Dm is doing something odd or didn't look at the ability the Rogue only has a piece not the whole thing. Worst case bring it up to the Dm and ask?
Tokens of the Departed
9th-level Phantom feature
When a life ends in your presence, you’re able to snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction when a creature you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. The DM determines the trinket’s form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player’s Handbook to generate it.
I'm in love with this feature. However, I worry that that kind of rogue will steal the last bit of lifeforce from any close dying creature.
I mean, that's kinda the idea. But you can only have a number of tokens equal to your PB at a time, so it's not like they can stockpile them by the dozen.
It's more or less it's intended function up to the token limit, and if I disallowed that as a DM I'd be stripping the player of their agency and choice of subclass features in their build.
And in fact... if they did something with a Wizard or Warlock multiclass where they were able to summon Familiars... I'd be hard pressed not to allow them to summon the familiar in a Ritual cast, kill it, take the token, and do it again to replenish them during a short rest. By the time you hit level 10 (Wizard) or 12 (Warlock), that's not going to be unbalanced, and as a DM, I control if and when short rests become available.
Rogue isn't the most powerful class out there. Rogues get some of the least frequent subclass features. They only pick them up at level 3 and then need to wait until level 9. Many other classes are getting their 3rd subclass feature by level 9 or 10.
There's no way I could in good conscience penalize a player for going 9 levels deep into a class and subclass like the Rogue to get Tokens of the Departed in their build and not grant them full access to the feature.
They don't have a ton of wonderful subclasses mechanically speaking if you look at character optimization exercises. It's been over 20 years since I got the teenage power gamer out of me, and I don't design characters when I'm not a DM to be that, just pick a concept and then think through some synergetic combinations for play to ensure decent performance and use of action economy, but not necessarily for min/max statistical outcome. So, these are things I enjoy thinking through for my own characters, but it gives me insight into builds when I'm DMing too. Granted, my DM style is permissive in most cases unless it's going to be extremely game breaking. I allow all official books and things in them as potential options for players, with reflavoring when they're not campaign setting appropriate. And I maintain balance in things like items, etc. But unless it was a critical end boss and army type things the players were facing at the end of an adventure where it's more for the story and less about the power itself... I'm not going to allow a player to cast Simulacrum, and then have that Simulacrum use it's slot to cast it again and chain that into an army... and play the Simulacrums. They'd go into DM control and be a background to what's going on for the player characters themselves story wise. And it'd only happen once. But there aren't many things I restrict, I just sort out ways to handle and deal with it as the DM so the players can have fun, but I don't allow them to break.
But I think through things like comparative power levels. It'd be highly unlikely a Phantom Rogue would be performing significantly over the power levels of other players in the party by the time they get Tokens of the Departed.
But... even just from a thematic character development perspective... 9 levels are a huge commitment. That would be a player who really *wanted* to be that kind of Rogue character. They're not doing anything cheesy. Many campaigns don't even get that high in level. Most don't get too much higher. So they might be playing for the entire adventure... and then have this come in like a capstone feature that's going to be what they're using as you get close to the end of everything.
And even if the adventure went higher or even went to level 20... 9 levels in one class necessarily means there are many other multi-class options out there across class/subclass that are going to be entirely closed off from them that they sacrificed in lost opportunity cost to invest that heavily in one.
So... I'd be letting them take a token from any viable option within the RAW rules for the feature.
Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
So let me get this straight: you're cool with the rogue using it on others, but the moment you're the target of the ability, you complain about it? That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?
Also, your character is dead, soul or not doesn't really matter anymore at that point, at least by becoming a token for the rogue you can be useful to the party one last time. You should be happy about that.