How To Play A Soulknife Rogue in Dungeons & Dragons 5e 

I like this Mission Impossible idea. Soulknife infiltrates the fancy ball, Bard plays in the band, Fighter replaces a guard, and Wizard stays in the van and casts Arcane Eye into the building, all of them coordinating with the psychic connection.

One of the really cool things about the psychic blades you didn't touch on is that it leaves no mark on its target if it deals damage.

Fun fact, as a dm running Mind Flayers as a primary antagonist, they frustratingly have no resistance to psychic damage. So, no worries as a soul knife.

In my current campaign, I'm playing a soulknife who began manifesting his powers after his "imaginary friend" (actually a flumph) gave him a dagger. Only my character can see this dagger, so to everyone else he's just running around and pretending to stab the enemies, but they actually take damage from it. When he first demonstrated this ability, the party's wizard didn't believe there was a dagger and held out his hand for me to stab. Dealt over 3/4 of his health in one hit, and he slammed his head on the table due to psychic shock, it was a great little moment

I definitely wasn't expecting to see this subclass being more for skills than the reason to take it, being Psylocke.

I'm playing a soul knife rn. I wanted a kind of eerie feel to it, so she's a changeling with the Haunted One background. Multiclassing into Echo knight so I can summon a psychic/necromantic thing to fight for me. It works really well thematically, especially bc we're playing curse of strahd

Something to point out, the soulknife DOES NOT SPECIFY what weapon your psychic blade appears as. It does not have to be a dagger. I'm playing a tiefling soulknife that has a Noctis-like fighting style, throwing ethereal longswords, battleaxes, and occassionally daggers, and then teleport away like Noctis's warp. Aesthetic, but an important aesthetic for me.

Ever since I saw the subclass, I’ve always had an idea for a Tabaxi Soulknife who makes huge purple psionic claws as their weapons which I’ve always thought was super cool.

I played a halfling soulknife once, he was a fraudster, specialising in forged papers. Boldfacedly entering a castle in disguise to cook the books of a rival faction while in contact with the team on the outside was pretty cool ;)

One thing I like about the Soulknife Rogue is you’re not locked into any specific stat. While the Dungeon Dudes chose Charisma to become a very influential face character, you can choose intelligence and and have a character with unchallenged wit, or Wisdom for incredible foresight. Heck, you can even choose strength since RAW you can choose to use your strength stat when using your psychic daggers.

Tabaxi Soulknife is honestly amazing - you have a climbing speed in addition to your teleportation, you start out with two proficiencies same as the half elf (although they are fixed and not free choice, but which rogue doesn't want perception and stealth proficiency?), and feline agility pairs extremely well in tandem with steady aim from tasha's

I'm really surprised you guys didn't mention the ridiculous synergy between skulker and psychic blades. Psychic blades vanish immediately after they hit or miss a target, and they don't leave a mark if they hit. Skulker makes misses with ranged weapon attacks not reveal your location while you're hidden. I played a gith that used that combo. One time the party needed to liberate a city from some dwarves. I got onto a rooftop and started sending out psychic blades. A guard gets hit with a psychic blade and neither him or his buddy know what hit him. Next turn he's dead, and his buddy is trying to figure out what happened to him. 6 seconds later, he drops too. I solo'd an encounter by doing that (with the permission of my party, ofc) This subclass is probably offers the best assasin in D&D. The face stuff is cool and would work well in a more social campaign, but you totally overlooked how powerful the soulknife can be in combat. Would also make for a good villain. Maybe as a disguised killer in a murder mystery, or a legendary assassin targetting someone the party needs to protect.

One of my favorite characters right now is a Soul Knife Rogue/Whispers Bard multiclass. He’s a lot of fun.

I had a player start as a goblin soulknife. We were far too deep into the campaign until he told us he was actually a mind goblin.... we all took a bit of psychic damage in real life after that one.

I’m glad that you guys are doing a brief rundown on the abilities before going into the build. I usually forget what half the class is by the time I get to watch the videos so it’s very helpful

The "back-up weapon" contingency requirement applies to, pretty much, any character imo. Re: Booming Blade. It has a range of 5 feet but ,to my mind, melee isn't the combat style of the Soulknife. They're sitting back with the casters attacking from up to 60 feet away. Re: Reaction attacks. That psychic blade relies on an attack action is very important and potentially impacts a source of a second sneak attack (on the opponent's turn). I would say though that, if you're 50-60 from the front lines, you may not be getting many AoO in any case.

14:20 - If you choose custom lineage or variant human, you could take the Skilled feat for three skill proficiencies on top of the one from your race. If you then take Skill Expert (and/or Prodigy on a human) later, that is up to a dozen skills you're proficient in and up to half of those (or five and thieves' tools) you have expertise in.

Psi-Bolstered Knack is essentially like having a Level 6 Eloquence bard in your pocket, love it

Perfect timing on this video! Gearing up to start a new campaign and wanted to try a soulknife rogue but hadn't played a rogue since a 3.5e campaign nearly a decade ago and the psychic abilities are a whole new ballgame; thanks for the advice!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I love playing my soul knife paired with the skulker feat.

With Tasha's, a wood or high elf might be a better idea. You get less skills, but you can swap out the weapons for tool proficiencies.

Lizardfolk also gives you two skill proficiencies, and lots of other good stuff. I made a Firbolg Soulknife for my brother as a hilarious, huge, but sneaky character.

this video is amazing, I've never looked at the soul knife that way, now I want to play it asap, thanks dudes!

This is a very cool take on this subclass! I'm currently playing a Reborn Soulknife and I'm definitely playing it with the knife throwing style. Worked with the DM to take Sharpshooter and the damage has been really fun to play around with!

Well done! I also honed in on skills when building my soulknife. I built a very similar Soulknife but went Variant Human to pick up Skilled at lvl1 and start all the skills feats ahead of time.

Cool video. Kelly's take reminds me of a genre we don't see much in D&D - the team caper/heist like Leverage or Donald Westlake novels. It would be cool to see some adventures or more how-to guides for pulling that sort of thing off. Honestly, so many rogue subclasses would work in this genre but I don't thin we see a lot of content geared towards it.

Your guys' content is always so good. Huge congrats to you living the dream!

Literally just leveled my rouge to a soulknife last night, great timing. keep up the great work.

I always forget to use "psi-bolstered knack" in my game, and so I never run out of Psionic Energy dice 😅

By far my favorite build I've done so far in 5th edition is my Soulknife Rogue / Lore Bard. Simply put, he doesn't fail skill checks, ever, and has every great utility needed for when skills won't work to solve a problem... Pure enjoyment for a skill monkey lover like me.

shockingly enough, Psychic as a Resistance or an Immunity is surprisingly rare Out of the 733 monsters published in the Monster Manual, Mordenkainen's tome of Foes, and Volo's Guide to Monsters, there are 4 that are resistant, and 18 that are immune. In other words, out of the most common books that are accessible to the average DM, barring homebrew, only 3% of all monsters can be resistant or immune to that damage that you're doing. With that in mind, this is legitimately an incredible class for making sure you're always capable of dealing damage as there are very few monsters (shockingly enough, mind flayers and their ilk possess no resistances or immunities to psychic damage) that can properly compete against it. The only thing that is even fewer creatures are resistant or immune to is Force damage. It is about as good as it gets in terms of damage types.

Amazing. I have been playing a Changeling Soulknife for a few months now in a horror campaign similar to Ravenloft and what you were talking about on how to build is pretty much what I did. I maxed Cha and took all Cha based skills, also took the Actor feat in order to augment my racial shapeshift ability

My first soul knife was a half elf and I agree, starting with 8 skills and expertise with 2 is awesome.

Another couple of ways to augment this is to multiclass into either way of shadow monk for the stealth superiority or hexblade for more of that charisma based rogue, pick up the alert feat for a even more advantageous skill pool.

I would love for you gentlemen to do this with the subclasses that you ranked lowest to show how to play around some of their issues. I especially hope you do whispers bard. Mostly because I think you guys are too hung up on playing it like a bard rather than more of a bardlike arcane trickster. I have been playing this class for 2 years and when I started playing it as more like an arcane trickster/bard multiclass and speced appropriately it became a real monster.

What good timing, I just recently decided to spec my rogue / hexblade warlock multiclass into soul knife, so this is a great video for me right now

I've been looking forward to you gentlemen tackling this particular subclass.. But the actual reason I'm making this post is to comment on the Excellent shirt that Kelly is wearing 🥰👍

I’ve thought about the Soulknife and a cool popped into my head: Fighting Initiate for Dueling or Thrown Weapon Fighting and a quick dip into fighter for the other fighting style can add +4 to damage when you throw your psychic blades. Plus if you take the Battlemaster Maneuver Quick Toss (through the subclass or Martial Adept) you can use the Quick Toss to attack with your Bonus Action and then hold your Action to attack on another turn and get sneak attack twice in one round.

I love your attention to detail in every video. I am currently playing a SoulKnife Rogue as a Changling with Glamoured studded leather. I am able to impersonate people and get where I want to go. I am enjoying this character very much. I have recently taken blood hunter as a sub class and that is going very well with my character.

Playing a Tabaxi Soulknife in ROTFM right now, this is perfect because I’m a Rogue noob…picked Soulknife only because it’s not an Arcane Trickster or Swashbuckler 🤷🏼‍♂️

Just started a Campaign as a soul knife, so this is a pleasant and welcomed upload.

Ooohhh, would love to play this subclass as a pulp noire psychometric gumshoe. Maybe play a shifter or changeling who morphs into the victim from time to time . It would be something to ask the DM (having the crimes come to life around the character is extra work) but if the DM views their campaign world as "their character", it'd be the perfect way for them to have the spotlight.

Really cool race idea with this character is kalashtar: you get advantage on wisdom saving throws, which again compliments the character style, and another mind link option, making it possible to connect even more people telepathically. The main point is it really fits the whole mind daggers and control vibe of a rouge. It‘s super cool to play!!

Love the way yall took the character! Im currently playing a level 11 Shadow Monk (6) Soul knife rogue (5) and I completely took the Battlefield control/teleporty commando route. Soul knives count as monk weapons, and he also carries a shortsword that gains 2d8 psychic damage on a command word. Took the telekinetic and mobile feats which is complete cheese w/ all the teleport abilities. Between ki points and psionic dice I always feel like I can keep adventuring. It feels incredibly powerful and my only issue is not knowing which levels to take next (definitely not monk)

Great commentary. Thanks guys 👍

This is essentially what my wife did for her character, another rogue but with the Scout subclass. The campaign has reached max level after many years of play, and is now a questions of what can't she roll less than 20 on. It's scary impressive lol

I played a soulknife goblin in eberron, I was part of the shaarat'kesh it was so cool, I had sharpshooter and a sniper rifle with a range of 3,000 feet, the psionic abilities played really well into the uul dhakaan (dream world empire of the goblins) god I learned so much about goblins, the goblin language, and goblin history for that campaign, made it to level 8, got (almost) TPK'd because one of the players misread the dust of coughing and choking, my character was the only one to survive because of a Nat 20 on a death saving throw. The DM said that I'd we ever go back to eberron and make it to level 8 that I can play her again but I don't think that will happen 😭

I'm playing a soul knife now and I adore the skills and psionic abilities. I'm playing mine as an infiltration specialist and investigator with high wisdom rather than charisma and using the empathic feat to better read people and it's so fun

I have a Tabaxi Soulknife Rogue. It allows me to go around without any weapons (if I choose) because I can always rely on my claws. Plus my climbing skills offset the need for a higher Athletic skill proficiency. I love your insights. Great work.

Before even watching i just recently started playing a stout halfling soulknife and im loving it

I was so excited to see this! I’m currently playing a Soul Knife Rogue in a Homebrew system that takes place in an offshoot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (diverging from the timeline in between Endgame and Far From Home) where a few of the “snapped” individuals that return after Endgame manifest super powers due to the lingering energy from the infinity stones, and am having a blast! We have the added feature of a “focus” skill that determines how potent our manifested abilities are, and were given options to select our own superpowers to start off with at level one. I selected a primary ability to teleport through reflective surfaces and a secondary power that allows me to use Cataptromancy (the ability to see into the future with reflective surfaces) which basically served as a Psi-bolstered Knack before I gained it at level three. Earlier in the campaign my character was struggling to deal consistent damage, and I thought to combat the idea by adding a tertiary superpower that allows me to manifest psychic blades, like Kaecilius does in Dr. Strange, but I didn’t have enough points to make it work, even though my DM loved the idea. (And this idea later expanded into becoming an in-lore explanation for my character’s abilities, with their origin extending from an innate connection with the mirror dimension) When we approached level three we were allowed to select an archetype for our characters, and scrolling through I found the Soul-Knife archetype and my jaw dropped to the floor. I insisted for weeks that my DM knew that this was a roguish archetype all along, but he was very upfront about being a new DM and said he had no idea that it existed, even though we both came up with the psychic blades concept simultaneously. My character adopted the class, and it’s been an awesome ride ever since! I basically never fail a save that I desperately need to succeed on, and also get to act as a face for the party in key scenarios. We are continuing with the campaign soon, after a brief hiatus for me to run a short campaign of my own, and I’ve been curious how I plan to level this character for the rest of the campaign, and then this video came up! He is the most fulfilling character I’ve ever played, and there is no doubt that the Soul-Knife archetype is a big part of that!

Love this subclass, especially the psychic blades that are the focused totality of your psychic powers! :)

Kenkus are a strong choice for this subclass as well, especially if you want to focus on skills. You can do all of the things that you mentioned _and_ give yourself advantage on skill checks a few times per day.

personally if i was a soulknife i would take the feats of actor and eldricht adept (mask of many faces) disguise yourself, get inside the enemy fortress, use steady aim to gain advantage and then you can use sneak attack against any creature within 60 feet of you, then, teleport away or become invisible and leave the scene, if you fail a stealth or deception check you can just use the Psi-Bolstered Knack to almost turn it into a sucess. you would be pretty much the spy from TF2.

Thanks! I recently switched my rogue's subclass to soulknife, so tis is nice!

Thank you for making these videos, Dudes :D Good stuff!

Really intresting take on this class guys, I love it.

I played a Soulknife in an Eberron game as a Mark of Detection half-elf, with 5 levels of Fey Wanderer Ranger. His skills were INSANE. Mark of Detection gives you +1d4 for Insight and Investigation rolls, you get the racial feats from being a half-elf, plus some investigatory spells like Detect Poison and See Invisibility. The 5 levels of Ranger gives you another Expertise from Canny (plus 2 more languages), an extra attack, and a Fighting style that will let you take the Thrown Weapon fighting style. Thrown Weapon will also let you draw a non-psychic dagger to take opportunity attacks on your foes. Plus, with Fey Wanderer, you can add your Wis to all Charisma checks, so you can boost Wis and dump Cha and still have great numbers on your Cha skills.

A friend and I were talking about soulknife characters and the drawback of not being able to upgrade their psionic daggers, but we had an idea that you could use something as a conduit for your psionic abilities and by upgrading or enchanting that conduit you could add bonuses to the psionic daggers. Like some gloves with runes on them that help focus your psionic energy and shape the blades, think Roy Mustang from full metal alchemist.

I was thinking about playing a Damphir soulknife rogue where I could feed from the psionic energy I drain from my ennemies; great opportunities for roleplay and thematicly on point

I made a soul knife/ aberrant mind sorc. They were an assassin who wore plane clothes (mage armor), and didn't carry any weapons. She had special arcanist gloves which acted as a spell focus. I loved her.

dropping a 2 level dip on a Knowledge Domain cleric will help a lot for this character, casting the cantrip guidance on tap or using a Channel Divinity: Knowledge of the Ages helps with the diverse skill monkey. its only a first level spell but command can help you get a hostile NPC to "listen" long enough to get those crazy deception checks into play even after swords have been drawn.

I've been personally wanted to play as a: Skeleton Rogue (Phantom) w/ Gathered Whispers Dark Gift.

Ive been playing a Tabaxi Soulknife Rogue for over a year now, and its been a blast. (btw Tabaxis also get two skill proficiencies in Perception and Stealth)

I think the Half-Elf is the way to go but I am intrigued by the High-Elf as well. Having Prestidigitation on this build could be very interesting.

Insightful as always gents. That was dope

I made an palid elf soulknife that I modeled after a dark souls playstyle. I took revanent blade at lvl 4 and started using a greatsword. Once I have teleportation and homing strike, i will pick up 5 levels of oath of vengeance paladin for extra attack, great weapon fighting style (maybe also great weapon fighter feat too idk yet) and start praising the sun. I plan to max out on rogue until the campaign finishes. Hopefully it works out like i hope and won't flop.

I'm adding thus feature to my gloomstalker ranger.... thinking that will help with the CoS campaign. I'm always going off ahead to scout the area, but only thing I'm missing is communication to an ally while ahead of the group. It's going to be so cool to be able to do infiltration quests during this group.

The feat Fighting Initiate (Thrown Weapon Fighting) solves the issue of not having a weapon at hand for opportunity attacks and it also adds 2 damage to psychic blades when thrown. I'm currently in a campaign playing a Drow gestalt Soulknife//Psi Warrior. The Drow High Magic feat combined with the psionic abilities of both classes has made for an interesting psychic gish build. Fighting Style/Initiate (Dueling) is also nice for added melee damage and the Rogue (Steady Aim) feature is nice to have as well. My DM made a Psi Crystal for my character that works basically like a Rod of the Pack Keeper/Wand of the War Mage but for psychic abilities and attacks with psychic blades.

This is great. I am playing a multi classed lvl 1rogue/ lvl 6 lore bard played as a charlatan con-man. My whole goal is to make a secret agent type character. I was going to go 5th lvl assassin but after seeing this I will be going 5th lvl soul blade/15th lore bard. My party is heavy on physical damage dealing and not so much on magic, charisma or stealth.

A fear like Shadow touched (choosing disguise self) and the actor feat could also be a fun combo for going undercover and infiltration!

Man, how tf you guys know exactly what I'm looking for and then upload it 😂 I was planning on my next charcter being a soul knife and boom, here's this video

I love this subclass. Im playing one as a Draconian Dragonborn in a all dragon born reverse hobbit campaign. It’s an awesome subclass.

A feat that's really good for this subclass is the mobile feat. This allows you to attack with your psychic blade to disengage which still frees you up to throw a psychic blade as a bonus action. Also +10 movement is really good for a rouge being that they are a squishy marshal. This also allows your scouting to be faster as well.

It's worth noting along with picking up an extra skill with Variant Human and Custom Lineage, the extra feat at level 1 is a great place to pick up a feat like Skill Expert to get two racial feats, plus an extra expertise AND a +1 ASI. (The soulknife I built took Telekinesis at level 1 though.)

Soulknives, like Monks, can really benefit from a custom magic item to increase their offense. Some sort of psychic augmentation thingy, crystals are classic choices, that can act like a magic weapon powering up their psychic blades, change the damage type for those rare monsters resistant/immune to psychic, apply a fun debuff or status effect X times a day, maybe a standard + to help if they're having trouble with accuracy

re: Race choices for an infiltrator: Consider Changling and you get two skill proficiencies and the ability to Shapeshift.

Thank you. I just realized I've been playing my soulknife wrong because I can't read and thought that the Teleport feature was an action. It being a bonus action changes the game a bit.

I have to say I’m currently playing a soul knife rouge and picked a tabaxi as my race it has been a super fun build a built in climb speed for infiltration missions though windows or scaling up the side of a castle wall with ropes for the rest of the party is amazing plus doubling/tripling my movement speed in a single turn in emergencies is clutch add in a high charisma and it’s been fantastic plus having claws as a nice built in weapon so no extra daggers / melee weapons needed also getting proficiently in stealth and perception is a great race bonus and allows me to pick other abilities from the rouges proficiency table instead

I'm playing one right now. I'm lvl5 and I've never expended all my psionic energy dice :O

I'm playing a damage oriented Soulknife which is also a lot of fun. I've gone Variant Human and picked up the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style with my feat, this gives us a nice damage bonus right of the bat. After three levels of Rogue we are multiclassing into Ranger. The Gloom Stalker is best for damage probably, but the Fey Wanderer gives us great options for being the Face of the party. We take 5 levels of Rogue for Extra Attack, the Dueling Fighting Style (this does RAW combo with the TWF style) and some useful spells as well as a Dex boost. Now we have three attacks with a +8 damage modifier one each of those. Plus the normal Psychic Blade damage, Sneak Attack, Ranger damage bonuses, etc.

I have a concept character that uses the UA Plasmoid race plus Magic Initiate for an even better infiltrator and assassin. They can squeeze through 1" spaces and can use Mage Armor, therefore they can be captured and stripped naked, and still be able to slip out and assassinate the prison warden, which was the plan all along. Beyond that you can build however you want, but I'd suggest a background that lets you use dead drops for the rest of your gear when you really need to maximize your minimalism.

I'm trying a Soulknife Rogue with a Warforged race. Thx for some ideas. This is gonna be fun.

Im planning on taking a 3 lvl dip into rogue as a Horizon Walker ranger, and this is definitely gonna be the subclass i take

My Soul Knife is a Hexblood, which gave me 2 additional skill proficiencies.

Doomstalker ranger/soul knife would be an outstanding multclass. Would love to play it.

This gives me an awesome idea for a kinda combat medic ninja by taking medicine as a skill and the medic feat

Can yall do genie warlock next please?! Thanks for all the work yall do in creating these videos!

I suggest a multiclass with a spellcaster that can get mage hand and then telekinetic for feat, this way you can simulate an arcane trickster but with the cool Soul Knives.

I went fighter as my other class for soul knife I love the interplay between the knife and dueling since to summon the second knife u need a free hand so it’s just free damage that and fighter just fits my characters development

I think another race, which would be great for the skill-monkey would be the somewaht newly added Harengon as he gets proficiency in perception and initiative. This would mean your lowest initiative roll as a level 11 souldknife rogue with an 18 in Dex would be a 10+3+4+1 = 18 and the highest would be 20+3+4+10 = 37 and your average roll would be 11+3+4+6= 24. You not only will be able to sneak into every where and lie your way out of everything in case you have to fight you will go first and can decide to fight or run away.

Changeling would work very well for this build. They also gain to skill proficiencys, and they are the perfect infiltrator or deceiver.

4:13 outside of the phb, a lot of player races have 2 proficiencies. A few in MotM, a few in the setting books, etc.. Also Tasha's rules would let you change any skill proficiencies from any race into any others.

Something to consider about the melee spell cantrips, they all require a weapon worth at least 1 silver to cast. I always called this type of build the "Spotlight Hog" build as no one's skill is better than yours except maybe the lore skills as the character usually doesn't have great Intelligence although that isn't always the case. That said I played your example in a one-shot as a halfling soulknife during a winter festival ball whose royalty was under an assassination attempt. It was a lot of fun, the only issue was the clunky psychic blade interactions where they disappear. That DM just ruled they only vanish if I threw them.

“I love it when a plan comes together” - James/Jane Bond, Soulknife

Between the telepathy and the knives the soul knife is the perfect infliltrator and diplomat. Always armed, able to communicate silently to any(basically) party member in the area and able to boost hide and deception

Always great content guys! I know I'm not in a position to ask anything, but I'd kill for some Dragonborn related content, even more so with the Fizban revisions now out

Playing in Eberron as a Changling Soulknife with a Spy (espionage in The Last War) background. All the Psionic Power abilities as a skill monkey is crazy powerful combined with my Shapechanger racial. Plus I can Stealth scout ahead while still staying in contact with the party thanks to Psychic Whispers.

The newer lineages also get two skills. Dhampir gets spider climb to offset the low athletics score a little, and the Reborn has the feature Knowledge from a Past Life: "When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 immediately after seeing the number on the d20 and add the number on the d6 to the check." a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus per long rest. I think that's what I would go for over half elf, personally.

This is just straight perfect timing as I'm starting a soul knife rogue in like, a week. lol