Soulknife build question

[Woodsparrow]

I'm hoping to pop into a game next thursday for the first time in a couple years. They've really only got one martial (battlemaster fighter), everyone else is support, ranged, etc. (fiend/tome lock, light cleric, whispers bard, maybe - seems to be caster type though).

So I'm thinking of doing another martial, and I've never really done a soulknife, but always wanted to.

Is it possible to build or tweak the build to be a bit more front line durable? Bit more AC or survivability, or some feats, HP seems pretty spot on for a middle ground character with OK con.

I was initially looking at taking var human for throwing feat, but DnD beyond doesn't seem to stack it on the thrown psyblades. Maybe dueling feat (also doesn't show to add to damage)? Or Protection? I for sure don't want to do two weapon fighting.

Other idea was a bog standard artificer, either armorer or artillerist.

[Man_Over_Game]

Weird suggestion, but 1 level into Barbarian.

Soulknives actually have low damage that is enhanced well with the damage buff from Barbarian, on top of the fact that a weapon only needs to have finesse to be eligible for Sneak Attack (you can still use STR). You'll get Medium Armor or Unarmored Defense, on top of getting Rage twice a day to halve your damage.

Other than the fact that you'll be stacking STR instead of DEX, and your skills might change, it's basically the same build.

Or you can just pick up the Tough feat.

[Woodsparrow]

Weird suggestion, but 1 level into Barbarian.

Soulknives actually have low damage that is enhanced well with the damage buff from Barbarian, on top of the fact that a weapon only needs to have finesse to be eligible for Sneak Attack (you can still use STR). You'll get Medium Armor or Unarmored Defense, on top of getting Rage twice a day to halve your damage.

Other than the fact that you'll be stacking STR instead of DEX, and your skills might change, it's basically the same build.

Or you can just pick up the Tough feat.

Struggling to really find a good use for the soulknife, honestly. Might as well play a barb and skip the sneak/etc. stuff.

[AvvyR]

Soulknife is pretty frontloaded. 3 levels into Swords Bard can get you quite a bit defensively.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Between Disengage and Uncanny Dodge, Rogues tend to do fine on the frontline, in my experience.

The Moderately Armored feat enables use of medium armor and shields.
Using a shield, will prevent you from being able to use the 1d4 'offhand' attack from Psychic Blades.

Psi-Bolstered Knack, in conjunction with the other skill enhancements the rogue class receives, can make you into a very effective grappler/shover.
The Grappler feat allows you to grab someone, and have advantage on all attacks against your grappled target.

Battlefield control...John Wick style. Psychic Blades leave no wounds, so with a little acting...you can grab/sneak attack and feign ignorance about what happened.
Seems like it could be rather fun.

[Man_Over_Game]

Struggling to really find a good use for the soulknife, honestly. Might as well play a barb and skip the sneak/etc. stuff.
Combine it with Ancestral Guardian. Being able to throw a weapon 60 feet, twice, without a feat, and taunt the thing you hit so it can't fight anything else.

Tanking by running away.

I've always had a thing for Ancestral Guardian builds, but this might be one of the better ones.

[LumenPlacidum]

So, I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out some really good way to build a Soulknife. Why? Because, some of the Soulknife abilities are good! I mean, they're like... really good.

Psi-Bolstered Knack. This ability is amazing! It makes it so that you have a solid way of being a really reliable skill-monkey all from level 3. The ability to add 1d6 to the skills with which you're proficient (or tools) is an awesome boost to skills! The only problem that I can think of is that a lot of the best skills in D&D5e don't aren't actually succeed/fail skills, but rather are skills where whatever you roll achieves a gradient result. You roll Perception to scout your surroundings. You roll a 14. It's not that you don't see anything; it's that you see lots of stuff--but maybe not the hobgoblins that are sneaking up on your group. Did you fail the roll? It depends on your DM. So, the ability is good, but it can be hard to adjudicate in an actual game. The fact that this eventually could go all the way up to +1d12 to make you succeed on THIRTEEN (or more, depending on short rests) rolls per long rest is a huge deal. You're a rogue with expertise. Even if you're talking about a skill in which you don't have a great ability score, at high levels, adding a d12 to the roll is typically better than shifting the appropriate ability score from an 8 to a 20! For skills, this is a huge ability! The uses per day grows with proficiency bonus, which supports multiclassing.

Psychic Whispers. Anyone who downplays the efficacy of having silent psychic comms with your whole team for the entire time that you're tactically doing anything has a DM who is probably too lenient with team communication. You're a rogue! You probably value silence a great deal, and scouting is one of your primary roles. This gives you the ability to communicate your scouting at the safe safe distance of 1 mile. This is like a 5th level Rary's Telepathic Bond spell, which is amazing utility for a 3rd level character.

Soul Blades. At 9th level in Rogue, you get the ability to just say 'No' to missing. Adding a d8 to your attack rolls is such a huge deal! In one more level, you get to add a d10. Even just a +1 to your attack roll corresponds to a significant increase in damage output for most martials. You will have two attacks with your psychic blades if you want them, and let's assume that you have a +4 to your Dexterity (or Strength, I guess--whatever). At level 9, you have a +8 to-hit with the psychic blades. If those are your only two attacks, then the extra d8 has the following effect on your damage output:

AC 12. 6% increase
AC 13. 9% increase
AC 14. 11% increase
AC 15. 14% increase
AC 16. 16% increase
AC 17. 18% increase
AC 18. 20% increase
AC 19. 23% increase
AC 20. 27% increase
AC 21. 31% increase
AC 22. 36% increase
AC 23. 43% increase
AC 24. 53% increase
AC 25. 66% increase
AC 26. 88% increase

Even though most of your "hard" targets are only going to be a 20% to 25% increase in your damage output, that's still a highly substantial increase. For comparison, let's say an archer with a +11 to-hit is attacking an AC 18 target for 1d8+5. The effect of Sharpshooter's trade of attack bonus for damage yields 31% more damage. So against such a target, you get almost as much damage as what people consider to be one of the most effective damage-boosting feats in the game.

Psychic Teleportation.While less important than the three above abilities, having bonus action teleportation when before you didn't have bonus action teleportation is just awesome.



The problem is that everyone is fixated on your psychic blades (unfortunately, soul blades only works with your psychic blades). And, psychic blades is the worst ability you get. What is it, really? It's essentially the dual weapon fighting style, except that it doesn't work for opportunity attacks (pretty important for rogues), and doesn't work if you get Extra Attack through multiclassing. It does benefit from martial arts if you decide to go with Monk, although you'll need to get up to level 11 monk before the martial arts die benefits both of the psychic blades attacks. The psychic blades ability is, as far as I've managed to see, almost totally anathema to trying to improve the soulknife's damage output via being a martial character. You could gain the thrown weapon style and the dueling style, and rage... for a lot of effort to get you +6 damage. And, don't get me wrong--you'll definitely notice that. But, it's just too much effort for too little result. Compared to not using your psychic blades and splashing something that will make it easier for you to make off-turn attacks, like Battlemaster fighter for reaction maneuvers or Bladesinger wizard for haste to be able to ready an off-turn attack.

When your most effective option boils down to ignore the signature ability of the subclass that you choose, then the ability for that subclass is just sub-par. If psychic blades would just persist long enough for you to use them with Extra Attack, then the ability wouldn't be such crap.

It's really unfortunate, because the support abilities you get at level 3 are excellent.

Also, I'm not really saying that a Soulknife is bad! I'm just saying that building one is not open to a whole lot of creativity (unless it's a combination that I just haven't considered yet). You can use the signature ability and use it to some good effect by just staying in Soulknife. If you want to multiclass, it won't be to make your main offense that much more powerful, but rather to go for versatility and more abilities to support your party or your skills.