Assisted a friend. Has extra attack from Multiclassing. So the solution was this: manifest blades start of attack action, throw main blade using Sharpshooter (SS) to avoid cover bonus, since still in attack round, manifest new blade while throwing off blade as a "ranged weapon attack" (as per description in feature) using -5/+10, and since still in Attack Action, manifest blade in off hand and throw main blade for extra attack, using SS, and your last act in Attack Round is to manifest blade back in main hand. Since it clearly says "Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade", so when in your Attack Action and have a free hand, you manifest a blade in it.
When the DM reads the exact wording it supports all of this, but he keeps reading online stuff that doesn't follow the wording of the feature and he is confused. Why don't some of the online forums read the wording of the feature?
• Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged weapon attack rolls. NOT APPLICABLE, the psychic blade doesn't have a long range.
• Your ranged weapon attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover. APPLICABLE
• Before you make an attack with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage. NOT APPLICABLE, psychic blade is not a ranged weapon.
psychic blade : “This magic blade is a simple MELEE weapon with the finesse and thrown properties.” “It has a normal range of 60 feet and NO LONG range,..”
you can also only manifest 2 blades on a turn, which immediately disappear after being used to attack. ONE with action, regardless of extra attack, and SECOND with bonus action(and only with bonus action).
”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.”
the bonus action blade cant be the second blade if another blade is somehow manifested and used during the action.
a DM might allow a third blade to be summoned to finish off using the extra attack feature if they allow the bonus action attack to interrupt the partially used attack action. Seems like a great ruling since theres been investment with the multi-classing.
sharpshooter not RAW but if everyone at the table is cool with it working, then why change the home play?
-Has extra attack from MultiClassing. Cool. 2 attacks per turn.
-So the solution was this: manifest blades start of attack action, Already losing a little bit here. You manifest ONE blade as part of the attack action, assuming your hand is free for it.
-throw main blade using Sharpshooter (SS) to avoid cover bonus, Sure. First two points of Sharpshooter apply to ranged attacks.
-since still in attack round, manifest new blade while throwing off blade... Can only manifest the off-hand blade for the attack, this is attack 2 (off-hand) as described.
-...while throwing off blade as a "ranged weapon attack" (as per description in feature) using -5/+10 No. Sharpshooter doesn't allow daggers to be used for the bonus damage effect, because they aren't ranged weapons.
-and since still in Attack Action, manifest blade in off hand and throw main blade for extra attack, using SS, Again, same as before. Now you're talking about Extra Attack, so the earlier point has to be attack 2.
-and your last act in Attack Round is to manifest blade back in main hand. Since it clearly says "Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade", so when in your Attack Action and have a free hand, you manifest a blade in it. No. The manifest is a one-time trigger per attack action, not something you can just keep doing while in your Attack action.
First of all, the way this all reads is confusing. If there's info we're missing here, let us know. Second, you're misreading the Psychic Blades property. It doesn't interact well at all with Extra Attack, something I ran into on a character of mine. (Thankfully she was a Monk multiclass and wasn't useless for the melee attacks she then had to make.)
The short answer is that you are misreading the features and they don't work as you suggest in terms of Rules As Written. Many DMs would likely houserule it but talk to your DM.
1) Psychic blades:
"Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade. This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties. It has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range, and on a hit, it deals psychic damage equal to 1d6 plus the ability modifier you used for the attack roll. The blade vanishes immediately after it hits or misses its target, and it leaves no mark on its target if it deals damage.
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. The damage die of this bonus attack is 1d4, instead of 1d6."
You can manifest ONE blade when you take the ATTACK action (not make an attack). After you make an attack with the blade in the attack action you can attack with a second psychic blade using the OTHER hand as a bonus action. The blade disappears immediately after the attacks.
That is ALL you can do. Additional attacks during the attack action do NOT manifest another blade. It only manifests one blade in the attack action in one hand and a possible second blade as a bonus action attack in the other hand. And yes ... this sucks for a soulknife with the extra attack feature.
In addition, there is no blade manifested during the round for use in opportunity attacks since another does NOT manifest at the end of the Attack action or bonus action attack either. The blade only manifests for the first attack in the attack action and for the attack as a bonus action and immediately disappears afterward.
Soulknife rogues need to always have regular weapons available for multiple attacks using the extra attack feature or for use with opportunity attacks.
My personal opinion is that this is not how it should work so I house rule it that a blade can manifest whenever the soulknife can make an attack (extra attack, opportunity attack etc) for my table but RAW, this is how it works.
On top of that, the soulknife runs into object interaction problems when trying to pull out and throw the normal weapon in addition to the psychic blade because they then do not have an object interaction left to pull out another weapon for opportunity attacks. The features of the class are just poorly written unless all of these issues were intended which seems unlikely.
Bottom line is ONE attack with a psychic blade and ONE bonus action attack with a psychic blade in the OTHER hand on each turn. Any additional attacks require a regular weapon.
2) Sharpshooter (as pointed out) is the other aspect that is being used incorrectly. Some of the features of Sharpshooter only work with ranged weapons (psychic blade is NOT a ranged weapon even if it can be thrown) or with ranged weapon attacks (which a thrown psychic blade IS considered to be).
"You have mastered ranged weapons and can make shots that others find impossible. You gain the following benefits:
Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged weapon attack rolls.
Your ranged weapon attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover.
Before you make an attack with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage."
Psychic Blade: " This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties. "
"Thrown. If a weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon to make a ranged attack. If the weapon is a melee weapon, you use the same ability modifier for that attack roll and damage roll that you would use for a melee attack with the weapon."
A psychic blade is a melee weapon with the thrown property as a result the -5/+10 feature of sharpshooter can not be applied to a psychic blade or any other melee weapon with the thrown property - it can only be applied to ranged weapons. Due to the nature of psychic blades the ONLY aspect of the sharpshooter feat that is useful is the ability to ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover when making the attack roll. None of the other features are useful for attacks with a psychic blade.
Sharpshooter is generally not a good choice of feat for a Soulknife rogue that plans to rely on psychic blades.
Assisted a friend. Has extra attack from Multiclassing. So the solution was this: manifest blades start of attack action, throw main blade using Sharpshooter (SS) to avoid cover bonus, since still in attack round, manifest new blade while throwing off blade as a "ranged weapon attack" (as per description in feature) using -5/+10, and since still in Attack Action, manifest blade in off hand and throw main blade for extra attack, using SS, and your last act in Attack Round is to manifest blade back in main hand. Since it clearly says "Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade", so when in your Attack Action and have a free hand, you manifest a blade in it.
When the DM reads the exact wording it supports all of this, but he keeps reading online stuff that doesn't follow the wording of the feature and he is confused. Why don't some of the online forums read the wording of the feature?
sharp shooter
• Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged weapon attack rolls. NOT APPLICABLE, the psychic blade doesn't have a long range.
• Your ranged weapon attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover. APPLICABLE
• Before you make an attack with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage. NOT APPLICABLE, psychic blade is not a ranged weapon.
psychic blade : “This magic blade is a simple MELEE weapon with the finesse and thrown properties.” “It has a normal range of 60 feet and NO LONG range,..”
you can also only manifest 2 blades on a turn, which immediately disappear after being used to attack. ONE with action, regardless of extra attack, and SECOND with bonus action(and only with bonus action).
”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.”
the bonus action blade cant be the second blade if another blade is somehow manifested and used during the action.
a DM might allow a third blade to be summoned to finish off using the extra attack feature if they allow the bonus action attack to interrupt the partially used attack action. Seems like a great ruling since theres been investment with the multi-classing.
sharpshooter not RAW but if everyone at the table is cool with it working, then why change the home play?
Okay, let's see if I can even parse this.
-Has extra attack from MultiClassing.
Cool. 2 attacks per turn.
-So the solution was this: manifest blades start of attack action,
Already losing a little bit here. You manifest ONE blade as part of the attack action, assuming your hand is free for it.
-throw main blade using Sharpshooter (SS) to avoid cover bonus,
Sure. First two points of Sharpshooter apply to ranged attacks.
-since still in attack round, manifest new blade while throwing off blade...
Can only manifest the off-hand blade for the attack, this is attack 2 (off-hand) as described.
-...while throwing off blade as a "ranged weapon attack" (as per description in feature) using -5/+10
No. Sharpshooter doesn't allow daggers to be used for the bonus damage effect, because they aren't ranged weapons.
-and since still in Attack Action, manifest blade in off hand and throw main blade for extra attack, using SS,
Again, same as before. Now you're talking about Extra Attack, so the earlier point has to be attack 2.
-and your last act in Attack Round is to manifest blade back in main hand. Since it clearly says "Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade", so when in your Attack Action and have a free hand, you manifest a blade in it.
No. The manifest is a one-time trigger per attack action, not something you can just keep doing while in your Attack action.
First of all, the way this all reads is confusing. If there's info we're missing here, let us know. Second, you're misreading the Psychic Blades property. It doesn't interact well at all with Extra Attack, something I ran into on a character of mine. (Thankfully she was a Monk multiclass and wasn't useless for the melee attacks she then had to make.)
The short answer is that you are misreading the features and they don't work as you suggest in terms of Rules As Written. Many DMs would likely houserule it but talk to your DM.
1) Psychic blades:
"Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade. This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties. It has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range, and on a hit, it deals psychic damage equal to 1d6 plus the ability modifier you used for the attack roll. The blade vanishes immediately after it hits or misses its target, and it leaves no mark on its target if it deals damage.
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. The damage die of this bonus attack is 1d4, instead of 1d6."
You can manifest ONE blade when you take the ATTACK action (not make an attack). After you make an attack with the blade in the attack action you can attack with a second psychic blade using the OTHER hand as a bonus action. The blade disappears immediately after the attacks.
That is ALL you can do. Additional attacks during the attack action do NOT manifest another blade. It only manifests one blade in the attack action in one hand and a possible second blade as a bonus action attack in the other hand. And yes ... this sucks for a soulknife with the extra attack feature.
In addition, there is no blade manifested during the round for use in opportunity attacks since another does NOT manifest at the end of the Attack action or bonus action attack either. The blade only manifests for the first attack in the attack action and for the attack as a bonus action and immediately disappears afterward.
Soulknife rogues need to always have regular weapons available for multiple attacks using the extra attack feature or for use with opportunity attacks.
My personal opinion is that this is not how it should work so I house rule it that a blade can manifest whenever the soulknife can make an attack (extra attack, opportunity attack etc) for my table but RAW, this is how it works.
On top of that, the soulknife runs into object interaction problems when trying to pull out and throw the normal weapon in addition to the psychic blade because they then do not have an object interaction left to pull out another weapon for opportunity attacks. The features of the class are just poorly written unless all of these issues were intended which seems unlikely.
Bottom line is ONE attack with a psychic blade and ONE bonus action attack with a psychic blade in the OTHER hand on each turn. Any additional attacks require a regular weapon.
2) Sharpshooter (as pointed out) is the other aspect that is being used incorrectly. Some of the features of Sharpshooter only work with ranged weapons (psychic blade is NOT a ranged weapon even if it can be thrown) or with ranged weapon attacks (which a thrown psychic blade IS considered to be).
"You have mastered ranged weapons and can make shots that others find impossible. You gain the following benefits:
Psychic Blade: " This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties. "
"Thrown. If a weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon to make a ranged attack. If the weapon is a melee weapon, you use the same ability modifier for that attack roll and damage roll that you would use for a melee attack with the weapon."
A psychic blade is a melee weapon with the thrown property as a result the -5/+10 feature of sharpshooter can not be applied to a psychic blade or any other melee weapon with the thrown property - it can only be applied to ranged weapons. Due to the nature of psychic blades the ONLY aspect of the sharpshooter feat that is useful is the ability to ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover when making the attack roll. None of the other features are useful for attacks with a psychic blade.
Sharpshooter is generally not a good choice of feat for a Soulknife rogue that plans to rely on psychic blades.