Soulknife/Ancestral Guardian Barbarian "Cowardly Tank" build - thoughts?

[ZRN]

I've been playing with a build I want to try out soon - the character concept is basically a nervous little guy with much braver ancestors who "help" him survive in combat.

Mechanically, it's a (ghostwise) halfling Soulknife with a barbarian dip to get Ancestral Guardians.

My current plan is to go rogue1/barbarian3/rogueX - establish the character as a rogue who gets supernatural boosts from his ancestors (first just rage, then ancestral guardians, and then the psionic stuff from soulknife). He'll run into combat, toss a psychic knife at the scariest guy around, and then duck behind a table while his ancestors keep the bad guy distracted.

Mechanically, my thinking is that Soulknife is probably the best at rogue-ish stuff in the game with their psionic knack ability, so this guy can do top-notch standard rogue stuff (lockpicking, stealth runs, etc), but by sort of "evasion-tanking" big threats, he'll hopefully be more impactful and dynamic in combat than a straight rogue just plunking mediocre sneak attack damage every round.

(FWIW my DM has already agreed to ignore the poor wording on Soulknife and let me make multiple attacks per round and reaction attacks with the soul blades, so I don't have to carry around a backup dagger.)

My questions:

1. I rolled 17/16/15/12/9/8 for stats, and we're doing Tasha style racial stats (free floating +2 and +1). We also get an extra free feat at 1st level. I'm thinking starting with Skill Expert (+1 Str) to get Str 18 / Dex 18 / Con 16 / Int 9 / Wis 12 / Cha 8. Am I crazy for thinking (with these lucky rolls at least) it's worth maintaining both a high Str and Dex so I can use Reckless Attack with my psychic daggers?

2. Any other feat suggestions?

3. I'm debating between taking barbarian to 5 or keeping it at 3; do you think Extra Attack would be worth giving up a couple levels of rogue, given that my second attack would typically only do like 1d4+5 damage? (I'll probably have expertise in athletics so maybe I could get some mileage out of grappling?)

[Bobthewizard]

This looks like it could be fun. It would be better with a classic tank in the party. Then you do your sneak attack damage and enemies get disadvantage to attack the tank.

As far as the extra attack, the benefit isn't the small amount of damage if both hit, but the extra chance to land your sneak attack. Generally, I don't think it's worth giving up 5 levels of rogue, but if you are already going to barbarian 3, then getting the ASI at 4 and extra attack at 5 is probably worth it at some point.

[Sherlockpwns]

Assuming you can get sneak damage, 2 levels of barbarian is giving up 1d6 (3.5) to gain 1d4+5 (7 if raging, so potentially 9.5). That’s a lot of extra damage but then you are also throwing real knives.

Also I am assuming you are throwing with str and not dex.

However rogues level progress abilities are so good that I’d wait a long time before taking it at all. Maybe instead of level 10 rogue, delaying reliable talent and the ASI… but at this point you are level 13 so how much further are you going? Anyway I’d say barbarian 3 is probably fine imo.

Either way it sounds like a fun character from the combat side. As others stated, you’ll still want someone tanking in melee, not only for the sneak dmg but to reduce the dmg they take or force extra opportunity attacks as the enemy has to move towards you.