The big question now is what is Soulknife replacing. My money is on either Swashbuckler or Assassin, I don't see them getting rid of Thief or Arcane Trickster... but I could be wrong.
The big question now is what is Soulknife replacing. My money is on either Swashbuckler or Assassin, I don't see them getting rid of Thief or Arcane Trickster... but I could be wrong.
My bet would be on assassin, it's a class with some fundamental problems (specifically, assassination adventures tend to be solitary, which doesn't work well with a party-oriented game, and most DMs don't want to run assassination adventures anyway, so you wind up being "the assassin who never assassinates").
The big question now is what is Soulknife replacing. My money is on either Swashbuckler or Assassin, I don't see them getting rid of Thief or Arcane Trickster... but I could be wrong.
My bet would be on assassin, it's a class with some fundamental problems (specifically, assassination adventures tend to be solitary, which doesn't work well with a party-oriented game, and most DMs don't want to run assassination adventures anyway, so you wind up being "the assassin who never assassinates").
huh! but assassin is so many people's go-to for whatever reason. thief is incredibly iconic but as often as i see people call it underpowered i would sooner expect assassin (and swashbuckler) to hang in there.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
The big question now is what is Soulknife replacing. My money is on either Swashbuckler or Assassin, I don't see them getting rid of Thief or Arcane Trickster... but I could be wrong.
My bet would be on assassin, it's a class with some fundamental problems (specifically, assassination adventures tend to be solitary, which doesn't work well with a party-oriented game, and most DMs don't want to run assassination adventures anyway, so you wind up being "the assassin who never assassinates").
They retuned the class to be better at just getting the first blow in. Granted, still not necessarily full "assassin" vibes, but it's better. The biggest thing with Thief in the UA is you're not getting a really noteworthy ability until 9th level; the 3rd level stuff is all pretty situational.
They retuned the class to be better at just getting the first blow in. Granted, still not necessarily full "assassin" vibes, but it's better. The biggest thing with Thief in the UA is you're not getting a really noteworthy ability until 9th level; the 3rd level stuff is all pretty situational.
Fast Hand (Sleight of Hand) is pretty much flavor text, I can count the number of times I've wanted to pick someone's pocket in combat on the fingers of zero hands, but Fast Hands (Use an Object) just requires you to be using consumables or use-activated magic item (number one usage is probably healing potions, but there are a fair number of rechargable items, such as a wand of magic missiles, that are really good as a bonus action).
The consumables aren't much good as they stand, and using magic items is dependent on getting hold of appropriate magic items, which is not really within the player's purview. Could easily be a dud for a good stretch.
Sadness about brawler. Like, it could have been a good subclass if they got it to work right instead of trying to do two mutually exclusive things at the same time. And honestly surprised they didn't go with Rune Knight, given that goliath are in as a new species.
And, yeah, if they're bringing in Soul Knife, my bet is on Assassin. While the alpha-strike feature at level 3 is decent, the level 9 feature literally does nothing - if you have a Disguise kit and you're rolling Charisma (Decption), you automatically get advantage. That's what combining tools and skills does now. "You can mimic someone's voice" - that's literally what the Deception check is for in the first place. Level 13 has the opposite problem - the always-use-poison- ability means that you never NOT use poison. Might as well say "deal 1d6 extra damage." It effectively makes it so that poison is too good of an ability and makes all other choices bad in comparison. Which removes the entire point of having Cunning Strike. Level 17, Death Strike? Its a Con save. Monsters at this level are VERY good at Con saves. Chances are, they'll make the save, and you'll very rarely see this ability proc. Bad ability. 3 out of 4 abilities needed to be reworked.
Maybe.... If Thief is weak with early levels, and Assassin really only had a good early level, why not merge those two? Okay, I doubt it'll happen, but its fun to imagine.
I was pretty surprised by the inclusion of Psi Warrior and Soulknife, to be honest. Brawler didn't need to be there, but I would rather they had updated Banneret to be functional, or something like that. In any event, Psi Warrior is around, and it will fill a gap on the Fighter's roster of subclasses.
Soulknife is far more surprising. The 4 subclasses posed felt like iconic 'jobs' for what people imagine when they think of a fantasy Rogue. If anything, the least essential subclass here is probably Arcane Trickster in terms of representing the archetype of the Rogue in the wider fantasy context (ie. beyond D&D). I would have liked to see Mastermind or Inquisitor get a touch up instead, but I know I'll be in the minority there. Whatever way you look at it - and regardless of whether you like the subclass or not - I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that Soulknife is a more avant-garde identity for the class.
One observation I had is that many class' subclass roster seems to be including subclasses from Tasha's. Now the Rogue has a Tasha's subclass in there as well. Interesting, given that Tasha subclasses don't need the TLC quite as much as their predecessors. I'm 80% keen for this new PhB, but this does seem to continue a trend for the inclusion of certain redundancies that will oblige us to buy further supplements. We don't need an updated Soulknife right now, but we could use an updated Assassin. If Assassin is getting the axe (maybe not, but that's the popular theory from what I've read so far), I would consider that a disservice, and lacking any other understanding of the team's reasoning, I'm inclined to believe it's part of a longer term marketing strategy.
Banneret would have been cool, but for some reason the devs seem happy at leaving that kind of thing as part of Battlemaster than trying to perfect it as its own thing.
And, yeah, the three most iconic variations of Rogue are the Thief, the Assassin (sometimes ninja instead), and the Pirate (swashbuckler). Arcane Trickster is a bit of an outlier, since its a wizard/rogue hybrid subclass. You won't see me arguing that I don't want an assassin archetype.
The fundamental problem with Assassin, however? The original subclass was just bad and the new one wasn't much better. The assassin subclass was flavorful and iconic but... badly designed for what D&D wants to do - epic fights and exploring dungeons. The current design (infiltration, one-hit-one-kill) was irredeemable and needed to go back to the drawing board. And that's why many of us think its going to go.
I'm going to go on a limb and say Swashbuckler is getting axed. Not that there's anything wrong with any of the other arguments, it's just a suspicion.
Also, I know this is only going to get me burned once again for hoping this, but maybe they're including Psi Knight and Soulknife because they're planning to take another crack at a Psion class?
Also, I know this is only going to get me burned once again for hoping this, but maybe they're including Psi Knight and Soulknife because they're planning to take another crack at a Psion class?
Pretty sure they consider the aberrant sorcerer (which will be in the PHB) to be the 5e equivalent of the psion.
I disagree, but I'm not going to relitigate that here. All I'm saying is, it's a possible reason why they're including the two psionic subclasses over the other options available.
Now that said, I'm a little surprised they went with the psionic subclasses for Fighter and Rogue. I'd have thought they'd keep Rogue subclasses as is and used Rune Knight for Fighter.
I disagree, but I'm not going to relitigate that here. All I'm saying is, it's a possible reason why they're including the two psionic subclasses over the other options available.
The stated reason in the video is "to give the aberrant mind sorcerer company".
Many of the fantasy novels,I read have magic tied to rogues or steath. Similarly to a ranger. (Brent weeks books, trudi canavan books, ryia chronicles and more)Also as an anecdote, I have seen more Arcane tricksters than other types at my tables, 9 private campaigns and ran adventures league in a store with 1-3 tables every week for 3.5 years.
As for thief, I loved fast hands in its original version in combination with the healer feat. It was almost as good as mercy monk before that came out.
Also I am kind of sick of the "general appeal fallacy" or "the best option the only option fallacy" not all classes/subclasses should appeal to the largest audience but rather a breadth of options should exist. The 80-20 rule is a good natural principle for people. It's OK for situational abilities in a game of engineered situations. Having something that almost always works is better than always works. And things that only sometimes work but feel great when they do .. is good gameplay.
There's actually another option we're not considering - what if they're getting rid of Thief, by rolling its features (bonus-action legerdemain/item use, use magic device, climbing/jumping and double-actions in T4) into the base rogue? That... would be pretty interesting.
I disagree, but I'm not going to relitigate that here. All I'm saying is, it's a possible reason why they're including the two psionic subclasses over the other options available.
The stated reason in the video is "to give the aberrant mind sorcerer company".
Many of the fantasy novels,I read have magic tied to rogues or steath. Similarly to a ranger. (Brent weeks books, trudi canavan books, ryia chronicles and more)Also as an anecdote, I have seen more Arcane tricksters than other types at my tables, 9 private campaigns and ran adventures league in a store with 1-3 tables every week for 3.5 years.
As for thief, I loved fast hands in its original version in combination with the healer feat. It was almost as good as mercy monk before that came out.
Also I am kind of sick of the "general appeal fallacy" or "the best option the only option fallacy" not all classes/subclasses should appeal to the largest audience but rather a breadth of options should exist. The 80-20 rule is a good natural principle for people. It's OK for situational abilities in a game of engineered situations. Having something that almost always works is better than always works. And things that only sometimes work but feel great when they do .. is good gameplay.
I'm fine with niche options too, but this is Core we're talking about. This isn't the book for them to experiment or cater to narrow tastes; that's what splats are for. For instance, a subclass like Battlerager that is race-locked and only has a single playstyle wouldn't belong in the PHB, but that's not the same as saying it has no place in the game.
There's actually another option we're not considering - what if they're getting rid of Thief, by rolling its features (bonus-action legerdemain/item use, use magic device, climbing/jumping and double-actions in T4) into the base rogue? That... would be pretty interesting.
I disagree, but I'm not going to relitigate that here. All I'm saying is, it's a possible reason why they're including the two psionic subclasses over the other options available.
The stated reason in the video is "to give the aberrant mind sorcerer company".
Many of the fantasy novels,I read have magic tied to rogues or steath. Similarly to a ranger. (Brent weeks books, trudi canavan books, ryia chronicles and more)Also as an anecdote, I have seen more Arcane tricksters than other types at my tables, 9 private campaigns and ran adventures league in a store with 1-3 tables every week for 3.5 years.
As for thief, I loved fast hands in its original version in combination with the healer feat. It was almost as good as mercy monk before that came out.
Also I am kind of sick of the "general appeal fallacy" or "the best option the only option fallacy" not all classes/subclasses should appeal to the largest audience but rather a breadth of options should exist. The 80-20 rule is a good natural principle for people. It's OK for situational abilities in a game of engineered situations. Having something that almost always works is better than always works. And things that only sometimes work but feel great when they do .. is good gameplay.
I'm fine with niche options too, but this is Core we're talking about. This isn't the book for them to experiment or cater to narrow tastes; that's what splats are for. For instance, a subclass like Battlerager that is race-locked and only has a single playstyle wouldn't belong in the PHB, but that's not the same as saying it has no place in the game.
I was mostly suggesting AT isn't niche. The dark powers rogue is more common than I felt people in this thread were presenting. soul knife may cover some of that concept not all. There might be a better Mc option though instead of AT its hard to predict as gamplay synergies are really getting mixed up (Probably both good and bad.)
I almost agree with the concept of fast hands like benefits for the base class but I don't know if every rogue wants part of thier power budget spent on objects, tools etc.
I mean, in that scenario I'd be assuming the Thief features would be added to the base rogue without removing anything, so no budgetary concerns. It's not like any of them relate to damage.
As for removing AT, I just don't see them leaving EK as the only 1/3 caster in the book... but it's not impossible.
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Psi warrior, at 10:25 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6FqFFPASw8
Also soulknife at 11:00.
Ha, called it. 😎
The big question now is what is Soulknife replacing. My money is on either Swashbuckler or Assassin, I don't see them getting rid of Thief or Arcane Trickster... but I could be wrong.
My bet would be on assassin, it's a class with some fundamental problems (specifically, assassination adventures tend to be solitary, which doesn't work well with a party-oriented game, and most DMs don't want to run assassination adventures anyway, so you wind up being "the assassin who never assassinates").
huh! but assassin is so many people's go-to for whatever reason. thief is incredibly iconic but as often as i see people call it underpowered i would sooner expect assassin (and swashbuckler) to hang in there.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
They retuned the class to be better at just getting the first blow in. Granted, still not necessarily full "assassin" vibes, but it's better. The biggest thing with Thief in the UA is you're not getting a really noteworthy ability until 9th level; the 3rd level stuff is all pretty situational.
Fast Hand (Sleight of Hand) is pretty much flavor text, I can count the number of times I've wanted to pick someone's pocket in combat on the fingers of zero hands, but Fast Hands (Use an Object) just requires you to be using consumables or use-activated magic item (number one usage is probably healing potions, but there are a fair number of rechargable items, such as a wand of magic missiles, that are really good as a bonus action).
The consumables aren't much good as they stand, and using magic items is dependent on getting hold of appropriate magic items, which is not really within the player's purview. Could easily be a dud for a good stretch.
Sadness about brawler. Like, it could have been a good subclass if they got it to work right instead of trying to do two mutually exclusive things at the same time. And honestly surprised they didn't go with Rune Knight, given that goliath are in as a new species.
And, yeah, if they're bringing in Soul Knife, my bet is on Assassin. While the alpha-strike feature at level 3 is decent, the level 9 feature literally does nothing - if you have a Disguise kit and you're rolling Charisma (Decption), you automatically get advantage. That's what combining tools and skills does now. "You can mimic someone's voice" - that's literally what the Deception check is for in the first place. Level 13 has the opposite problem - the always-use-poison- ability means that you never NOT use poison. Might as well say "deal 1d6 extra damage." It effectively makes it so that poison is too good of an ability and makes all other choices bad in comparison. Which removes the entire point of having Cunning Strike. Level 17, Death Strike? Its a Con save. Monsters at this level are VERY good at Con saves. Chances are, they'll make the save, and you'll very rarely see this ability proc. Bad ability. 3 out of 4 abilities needed to be reworked.
Maybe.... If Thief is weak with early levels, and Assassin really only had a good early level, why not merge those two? Okay, I doubt it'll happen, but its fun to imagine.
I was pretty surprised by the inclusion of Psi Warrior and Soulknife, to be honest. Brawler didn't need to be there, but I would rather they had updated Banneret to be functional, or something like that. In any event, Psi Warrior is around, and it will fill a gap on the Fighter's roster of subclasses.
Soulknife is far more surprising. The 4 subclasses posed felt like iconic 'jobs' for what people imagine when they think of a fantasy Rogue. If anything, the least essential subclass here is probably Arcane Trickster in terms of representing the archetype of the Rogue in the wider fantasy context (ie. beyond D&D). I would have liked to see Mastermind or Inquisitor get a touch up instead, but I know I'll be in the minority there. Whatever way you look at it - and regardless of whether you like the subclass or not - I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that Soulknife is a more avant-garde identity for the class.
One observation I had is that many class' subclass roster seems to be including subclasses from Tasha's. Now the Rogue has a Tasha's subclass in there as well. Interesting, given that Tasha subclasses don't need the TLC quite as much as their predecessors. I'm 80% keen for this new PhB, but this does seem to continue a trend for the inclusion of certain redundancies that will oblige us to buy further supplements. We don't need an updated Soulknife right now, but we could use an updated Assassin. If Assassin is getting the axe (maybe not, but that's the popular theory from what I've read so far), I would consider that a disservice, and lacking any other understanding of the team's reasoning, I'm inclined to believe it's part of a longer term marketing strategy.
Banneret would have been cool, but for some reason the devs seem happy at leaving that kind of thing as part of Battlemaster than trying to perfect it as its own thing.
And, yeah, the three most iconic variations of Rogue are the Thief, the Assassin (sometimes ninja instead), and the Pirate (swashbuckler). Arcane Trickster is a bit of an outlier, since its a wizard/rogue hybrid subclass. You won't see me arguing that I don't want an assassin archetype.
The fundamental problem with Assassin, however? The original subclass was just bad and the new one wasn't much better. The assassin subclass was flavorful and iconic but... badly designed for what D&D wants to do - epic fights and exploring dungeons. The current design (infiltration, one-hit-one-kill) was irredeemable and needed to go back to the drawing board. And that's why many of us think its going to go.
I'm going to go on a limb and say Swashbuckler is getting axed. Not that there's anything wrong with any of the other arguments, it's just a suspicion.
Also, I know this is only going to get me burned once again for hoping this, but maybe they're including Psi Knight and Soulknife because they're planning to take another crack at a Psion class?
Pretty sure they consider the aberrant sorcerer (which will be in the PHB) to be the 5e equivalent of the psion.
I disagree, but I'm not going to relitigate that here. All I'm saying is, it's a possible reason why they're including the two psionic subclasses over the other options available.
Now that said, I'm a little surprised they went with the psionic subclasses for Fighter and Rogue. I'd have thought they'd keep Rogue subclasses as is and used Rune Knight for Fighter.
The stated reason in the video is "to give the aberrant mind sorcerer company".
And I understand that logic, not disagreeing with it. I'm just a little surprised by it is all.
Many of the fantasy novels,I read have magic tied to rogues or steath. Similarly to a ranger. (Brent weeks books, trudi canavan books, ryia chronicles and more)Also as an anecdote, I have seen more Arcane tricksters than other types at my tables, 9 private campaigns and ran adventures league in a store with 1-3 tables every week for 3.5 years.
As for thief, I loved fast hands in its original version in combination with the healer feat. It was almost as good as mercy monk before that came out.
Also I am kind of sick of the "general appeal fallacy" or "the best option the only option fallacy" not all classes/subclasses should appeal to the largest audience but rather a breadth of options should exist. The 80-20 rule is a good natural principle for people. It's OK for situational abilities in a game of engineered situations. Having something that almost always works is better than always works. And things that only sometimes work but feel great when they do .. is good gameplay.
Also GOOLock, which is psionic now.
I'm fine with niche options too, but this is Core we're talking about. This isn't the book for them to experiment or cater to narrow tastes; that's what splats are for. For instance, a subclass like Battlerager that is race-locked and only has a single playstyle wouldn't belong in the PHB, but that's not the same as saying it has no place in the game.
I was mostly suggesting AT isn't niche. The dark powers rogue is more common than I felt people in this thread were presenting. soul knife may cover some of that concept not all. There might be a better Mc option though instead of AT its hard to predict as gamplay synergies are really getting mixed up (Probably both good and bad.)
I almost agree with the concept of fast hands like benefits for the base class but I don't know if every rogue wants part of thier power budget spent on objects, tools etc.
I mean, in that scenario I'd be assuming the Thief features would be added to the base rogue without removing anything, so no budgetary concerns. It's not like any of them relate to damage.
As for removing AT, I just don't see them leaving EK as the only 1/3 caster in the book... but it's not impossible.