The Silver-Tongued Shadow: A Soulknife Rogue Build for 5e
I typically rate the Rogue pretty low in terms of power, mostly due to their low damage and durability. The Soulknife subclass thereby sits in a strange place. It’s a good subclass, even great! But it doesn’t actually improve either of those two weaknesses. Instead, it grants an interesting (though not necessarily optimal for damage) option for attacking, and a whole slew of amazing utility features. These are far more than ribbons, we’re talking features that are actually equivalent to the power of good spells in some cases.
Even still, what kind of character does that leave you with? I submit that optimizing this subclass for damage is a fool’s errand, as simply picking a different subclass plus a few feats will outclass anything I can come up with. No, instead we will optimize for something much more novel: avoiding combats entirely. Now of course, in most campaigns you will not be able to sneak around or talk your way out of every fight.
Sometimes a pre-programmed Iron Golem gets the drop on you and will follow his directive to kill any intruders without exception. That’s not all the time though, and has become less common as of late. Thanks to the prevalence of roleplay-first campaigns like Critical Role, many tables favor playing games where talking is often an option. Wotc themselves even released a campaign module that advertises the ability to play through it without ever fighting anything; Wild Beyond the Witchlight. This build will aim to be perfect for that style of play, giving you plenty to do even if initiative is never rolled.
Race: Changeling
The Changeling offers no mechanical benefits for fighting. What it does offer is the single most defining roleplay feature of any race in 5e. The ability to change your physical appearance at will is as powerful as you are creative. I can’t predict exactly how this will be useful for you, but I can expect it to be a game changer when you need it. Notably, this doesn’t change your clothes, so stealing an outfit or keeping a wardrobe on hand is necessary.
We do also get two skill proficiencies from a good list of options, so we’ll grab Persuasion and Insight. Both are great social skills that will help us talk down difficult situations.
Ability Scores:
8/16/14/10/14/14
(8 Str, 14+2 Dex, 14 Con, 10 Int, 13+1 Wis, 14 Cha)
(+2 to Wis and +1 to Wis from race)
Dump Strength, 16 Dexterity for skills and for our attacks if needed, 14 Constitution for more HP, 10 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom for skills, and 14 Charisma for skills and a multiclass.
Background:
Anything you like, just make sure to grab Perception and Stealth as your two skills. Remember, custom backgrounds are an intended rule, and you can set your two skill from your background to be whatever you want.
Level 1-2: Rogue
Skills:
Deception, Intimidation, Investigation, Sleight of Hand
We’ll keep a running tally of all skills and expertises we have, as while we won’t be grabbing all of them, we will grab all the important ones. So far we have the ones listed above, along with Perception, Stealth, Persuasion and Insight. We’ve already covered the vast majority of important skills.
We’ve got the four core conversational skills (Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Insight) both observational skills (Perception, Investigation), and the two classic Rogue skills (Stealth and Sleight of Hand). These skills alone will be enough to carry us through the whole game, but we will grab a few more along the way.
Expertise: Perception and Persuasion
Most Rogues would go for Stealth and Thieve’s Tools for their expertise, but this is honestly a big waste. The DC for stealthing past something is that creature’s Passive Perception, which is very rarely above 15, and not until very late levels. Rolling a 30 to stealth might feel nice, but a 16 would have done the exact same thing. Same for thieves tools checks. To be fair, lockpick checks can have some very high DCs, especially in the late game, but we will have plenty of ways to buff those checks as we level up.
Sneak Attack
For these first two levels, avoid combat where possible. That’s just good advice for low level DND no matter what you are playing. If combat does come up, use a light crossbow and stay at as much range as possible. You can hide as a bonus action at level 2 to get your sneak attack online, or just have an ally stand next to your target. Keep a rapier on hand just incase someone gets too close.
Cunning Action
Laugh at the Monk player who has to pay a Ki point to only do two of these options.
Level 3: Soulknife Rogue
We get our subclass, and the main basis of our build.
The psychic knives are an interesting side-grade to normal weapons. The free bonus action attack and the fact that it doesn’t work with Sharpshooter means we aren’t desperate for any major combat feats. The trade off is, of course, that our damage will never be great. Them no leaving any physical mark on your victim could also help with assassinations and the like. Hey, I never said that by avoiding combat we were playing as a pacifist! Sometimes the best way to avoid conflict is to stealthily remove the leader and slink away into the shadows.
The bigger gain for us at this level is the ability to buff ability checks with a fairly large pool of dice. They aren’t even expended unless they change the outcome of the roll! You’ll be using this feature constantly out of combat, and you’ll find yourself almost never failing ability checks already.
We also get Steady Aim at this level, which is fine for when combat is unavoidable and we can’t get sneak attack through any other means.
Level 4-6: Soulknife Rogue 3, Wildfire Druid 3
Spells:
Cantrips: Guidance, Druidcraft
1st: Absorb Elements, Goodberry, Entangle, *Burning Hands, *Cure Wounds
2nd: Pass without Trace, Augury, *Flaming Sphere, *Scorching Ray
Spells marked with * are automatically prepared by our subclass.
We take these Druid levels primarily for Pass Without Trace, as its ability to let your entire party effectively stealth is unparalleled. You’re likely to spend much of your time in dangerous areas concentrating on this spell, and you’ll just skip many fights thanks to it. The other spells help with our durability, and Entangle is a great “oh crap” button when you need to shut down a group of foes. Guidance offers even more buffs to our and our ally’s ability checks. Augury is a weird pick for sure, but using divination magic to avoid combat is a tried and true strategy at heavy roleplay tables. We likely won’t get much use out of our subclass spells, but that’s okay.
Wildfire Spirit
This companion is the big reason why I wanted to go Wildfire. Its stats aren’t super impressive at first glance, but the real meat is the unlimited teleportation with the ability to bring friends along. This is an extremely useful ability both in and out of combat, giving you a level of movement freedom that even full spellcasters can’t compete with. You can easily use this to maneuver your whole party around a dangerous area, or just to do simple infiltration.
Other Druid bonuses:
Do note our ability to wear medium armor and hold a shield. Definitely pick up a shield, and you might want to put on medium armor as our Dex is only 16. It will depend on what kinds of medium armor are available to you and what magic items you’ve acquired, so play it by ear. Either way, the shield will at least give us +2 AC, which is really nice to have in these mid-tier levels.
We do get Wildshape, though we’ll likely only use it for scouting and hiding. Still helpful for avoiding danger, so I’m happy to have it as another tool on our belt.
Level 7-9: Soulknife Rogue 3, Wildfire Druid 3, Eloquence Bard 3
Spells:
Cantrips: Minor Illusion, Mage Hand
1st: Charm Person, Disguise Self, Silvery Barbs
2nd: Invisibility, Suggestion
Our spell save DC won’t be as great as a normal Bard, but Silvery Barbs and Unsettling Words should easily make up the difference when we really need a Charm Person or Suggestion to land. We can also use Silvery Barbs to help our ally’s spells land. Spells like these are catered to avoiding fights.
It will definitely take a creative player to make the most of them, but in the right hands you can go far with just these options. Also note that we have 3rd level spell slots at this point, though no 3rd level spells. That’s fine, because things like Suggestion and Invisibility are perfect upcast options.
Skills:
Jack of All Trades:
This gives us half our proficiency bonus to the few skills in which we aren’t proficient. Do note that this also grants a small bump to our initiative bonus. This is why I’m not super concerned with grabbing the rest of the more niche skills. If they do come up, we will still be decent at them.
Expertise:
Deception and Insight
Survival is the last important skill for us to pick up, and it might help you avoid an area where monsters are. The two Expertises should help us in conversations, especially when you consider our subclass…
Subclass: Eloquence
This subclass is notorious for basically granting the Rogue’s reliable talent to Persuasion and Deception checks. This means that currently the lowest we could roll on one of those checks is 18. It is my contractual obligation to remind you that skill checks are not mind control. Your attempt to deceive or persuade must still be somewhat reasonable, no matter how big of a number you roll.
The other feature, Unsettling Words, is a decent way to ensure your spells stick, but I wouldn’t be relying on Bard spells with our 14 Charisma much anyway. I’d recommend you save your Bardic Inspiration for aiding your allies.
Level 10-11: Soulknife Rogue 3, Wildfire Druid 3, Eloquence Bard 5
Spells:
Cantrip: Friends
3rd: Hypnotic Pattern, Dispel Magic
Hypnotic Pattern is an easy to use control spell that auto-wins many encounters. It’s still good to have a powerful option like this for when you can’t avoid a fight. Dispel Magic is useful both in and out of combat, but if your campaign is light on magic using foes, feel free to swap this out.
Friends is normally a terrible spell for avoiding a fight, but there’s a fun combo where you talk to them disguised as someone else (either through your race or Disguise Self), then walk out of sight before the spell ends and return to your normal self. Now they are angry at a person who doesn’t exist!
Font of Inspiration
I really wanted two more Bard levels to get our Bardic Inspiration back on a short rest. This lets you be much more liberal with your inspiration and just feels nice all around.
Feat:
Spells: Unseen Servant, Detect Magic
This is a fantastic option to boost our out of combat utility. Find Familiar would be a normally great option here, but as a Druid we can have a familiar whenever we want if needed. I picked what I thought were the two best starting options, but the ability to add more ritual spells to your book means you can really pick your favorites here. Stealing the best rituals from the Wizard list is amazing, but make sure you’ll actually come across spell books and scrolls. Talk to your DM before grabbing this. If they say you won’t get more spells, maybe look elsewhere.
Where to go from here:
Past this point, you can take the build in many directions. I’d personally caution against trying this general playstyle at high levels though. High level DND quickly becomes fighting demons and gods that you just can’t avoid a fight with. I’d say this build and playstyle is probably strongest below level 10, so it’s perfect for most campaigns as people rarely reach high levels. If you do go higher, taking more Bard levels and pumping our Charisma is an easy option, granting us more good control spells so we can still be useful in combat.
Final Thoughts:
Optimizing for something that isn’t combat is extremely nebulous and difficult to evaluate. I have no math to show you why this build is good, and it’s extremely table dependent. A group running Dungeon of the Mad Mage would have no use for a character like this, whereas in another group playing Wild Beyond the Witchlight you would shine. Talk to your table before playing something like this and make sure that this style of play is something that everyone is on board with. If it is, I believe you will have both an extremely fun and effective time at your table.
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