Best Feats for Phantom Rogue 5e
by Prince Phantom
The Phantom sticks out from the crowd of Rogue subclasses by being an archetype whose later features are much better than their early ones. At level 3, it will frequently feel like your entire subclass is an extra skill proficiency and 4d6 total extra damage spread throughout the day. This doesn’t get much better until 9th level, which makes this a very hard subclass to recommend for a normal campaign.
If you plan to start around 9th level or higher, this is one of the best Rogue subclasses, but I know that isn’t most tables (but maybe you should change that, high level play is fun). This makes feat selection really important, as we need good ones in the early levels to make up for our lacking subclass abilities.
Best Feats for Phantom Rogue 5e
Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter (ASAP): I really recommend picking up Crossbow Expert at level 1 through a race because you need the power bump to be relevant in early levels as a Rogue. Early level Rogue is just really rough. You don’t do much damage, your defense sucks harder than any other class, you have no spells, and your skill checks aren’t even crazy and reliable yet. This plus Sharpshooter at level 4 will keep our damage relevant, and help us stay away from enemies, improving our survivability. Wielding a hand crossbow also leaves a hand free to grab the tokens once we reach level 9.
Fighting Initiate: Archery (Lv 8): If you’re unwilling to take one level of Fighter to grab this (and I can see why as you may want to rush level 9), this is a decent way to pick Archery up. Either way you grab it, I recommend you get it at some point, as a +2 to all our attacks is twice as good as increasing our Dexterity.
Magic Initiate (Lv 8): Now your first thought might be Find Familiar, and if that’s true, then good, you understand how optimization works. I will say however, there is an argument for a spell like Bless or other concentration spells. This is because at 9th level we get advantage on concentration checks. Find Familiar is still probably the best pick, but if your party already has a familiar and you don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, this could be a great opportunity to branch out and explore other possibilities.
Mobile (Lv 10): Normally I don’t think this feat is particularly worth it, but to gain a soul token from our 9th level ability, the creature needs to die within 30ft of us. The extra movement speed helps with this along with our ability to escape melee more easily. It all comes together to form a relatively effective skirmisher, and keeping ourselves out of melee is very important. This is because we want to be using our reactions to make soul tokens, not have to use it on uncanny dodge.
Ritual Caster (Lv 10): I’m a big fan of this feat for all Rogues because of the massive amount of potential options that it presents, especially if you have easy access to ritual spells to copy down. Even if you don’t, work with your DM to include scrolls of ritual spells as loot along the course of your campaign. This provides a cool alternative way for your character to gain power without leveling up or gaining magic items. Also, a Phantom Rogue on a Phantom Steed is just too perfect.
Lucky/Tough (Lv 12): Both are decent defensive feats that help our survivability. We’re actually decent at the 3 important saving throws (Proficient in Dex, advantage on Con, Slippery Mind gives proficiency in Wis), so we won’t need to use Lucky for saves as much as most would, but having it as insurance is still very nice. Rogues are also really squishy and uncanny dodge only gets worse as monsters have more and more attacks, so the extra HP from Tough is also really helpful.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
