Rogue Subclasses - Tasha's

 So, we come to the conclusion of the Rogue subclasses. What I find really interesting is how some of the subclasses have almost purely RP and social-encounter-based abilities. While D&D is meant to be built on three pillars of play - social, exploration, and combat - most of the explicit mechanics of the game are really focused on the latter of the three, but with Assassins and Masterminds there's a lot of stuff to be done before you roll initiative.

The subclasses out of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything both share a distinct quality - they're spooky as hell. Let's take a look at them.

The Phantom:

The life of the Rogue is one that is always flirting with death, but usually in more of a metaphorical sense. The Phantom, however, has discovered a mystical connection to death and the dead, gaining grim powers tied to negative energy or the Shadowfell, or the undead.

At 3rd level, you get Whispers of the Dead. When you finish a short or long rest, you can choose one skill or tool with which you lack proficiency and gain it, as a ghostly presence shares their knowledge with you. You lose this when you choose a different proficiency with this feature. So, that makes you pretty damn versatile, and of course, past level 10, you're going to never be rolling below a 10 on that.

Also at 3rd level, you get Wails from the Grave. When you deal Sneak Attack damage to a creature on your turn, you can also target a second creature within 30 feet of the first. You roll half your Sneak Attack dice (rounded up) and the second creature takes necrotic damage equal to the roll's total as deathly wailing is heard around them. You can use this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain them when you finish a long rest. So, this is pretty cool - you get some decent cleave damage. Better yet, if you're facing one easy-to-hit foe and another that's got really heavy armor, you can strike the lighter-armored creature and then get the heavily-armored one without having to make a roll, which is pretty nice. Any ability for a Rogue to damage multiple targets per turn is a pretty cool addition.

At 9th level, you get Tokens of the Departed. When a creature you can see within 30 feet of you dies, you can use a reaction and open your free hand, where a Tiny trinket will appear - a Soul Trinket. (You can roll on the Trinkets table in the Player's Handbook, or better yet, the Gothic Trinkets table in Curse of Strahd or Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft to determine what it looks like.) You can have a number of these equal to your proficiency bonus, and can't create them if you're at your max.

You can use them in the following ways:

If you have a soul trinket on you, you have advantage on death saving throws and Constitution saving throws. When you deal Sneak Attack damage, you can destroy one of these trinkets that's on your person to use Wails of the Grave without expending a use of the feature. Finally, as an action, you can destroy one of your soul trinkets (whether it's on you or not,) to ask the spirit associated with the trinket  one question. The spirit appears before you and answers in a language it knew in life. It is under no obligations to be truthful to you, and it will answer as concisely as possible, eager to be free. The spirit only knows what it knew in life.

So, the imagery and flavor of this is so, so cool. While I could imagine eventually getting lazy about actually rolling for the appearance, the idea of this Rogue just carrying around all these odd trinkets is a really cool image. I like the idea of playing a Rogue who carefully labels each of them in case they need to consult with specific people who have died in their presence. Also, while you'll probably mostly be getting these off of foes you slay, you could also have the Rogue spend time working at a hospital or somewhere people die, and stock up on trinkets that way. The flavor here is very strong.

At 13, you get Ghost Walk. As a bonus action, you can assume a spectral form. You have a flying speed of 10 feet and you can hover. Attacks against you are at disadvantage. You can also move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, taking 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside one. You can stay in this form for 10 minutes or until you end it as a bonus action. You can use this once per long rest, or destroy a soul trinket to use it again before then. Let's see: you can walk through walls? You can hover? Attacks against you are at disadvantage? This is great for infiltration and, frankly, combat as well. (While your flying speed is 10 feet, you can still run as normal.)

Finally, at 17, you get Death's Friend. When you use Wails from the Grave, you can deal the necrotic damage to both the first and second creature. So, you know, your damage on the primary target approximately goes up by 50%. Additionally, at the end of a long rest, a soul trinket appears in your hand if you don't have any soul trinkets, as the spirits of the dead are drawn to you. While I think a Phantom Rogue will have plenty of opportunities to stock up on soul trinkets, this ensures you'll have at least one to use per day, which is nice.

I really like this subclass a lot. It drips with gothic flavor (and would be an excellent choice for a Ravenloft campaign,) and is also pretty powerful.

The Soulknife:

The Soulknife is one of Tasha's three psionic-based subclasses (together with the Psi Warrior Fighter and Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, which we've touched on in earlier posts.) Soulknives serve as lethal, silent agents that use their psionic abilities not only to enhance their abilities, but also to summon psionic blades that disappear after they're used, leaving no visible wounds. The very existence of these could make for a really cool murder mystery in any D&D world, but even better is the prospect of playing one.

At level 3, you get Psionic Power. You have a number of Psionic Energy dice equal to twice your proficiency bonus, each of which is a d6. Some of your abilities expend these dice, while others might simply have you roll one without expending it. You regain any expended dice on a long rest, and as a bonus action you can regain one as well, though you can only do this once per short or long rest (a nice thing to have in a pinch.)

At 5th level, the dice become d8s, at 11 d10s, and at level 17, they become d12s.

You can use the dice for the following powers:

Psi-Bolstered Knack: When you fail an ability check for a skill or tool with which you have proficiency, you can roll a Psionic Energy die and add the number to the check, potentially turning it into a success. You only expend the die if this succeeds. This is very cool, and man, as if Rogues weren't reliable enough already at their chosen skills. In fact, this might be kind of redundant, but the fact that you only have to use it if you fail, and you only lose a die if you succeed makes this a wonderfully "safe" ability to use.

Psychic Whispers: As an action, you can choose one or more creatures you can see, up to a number equal to your proficiency bonus. You roll a Psionic Energy die and, for a number of hours equal to the number rolled, you can speak telepathically with them and them with you, as long as you're within 1 mile of one another. Creatures can only speak this way if they can speak a language, and any creature can end the connection at any time. You do not need to be able to speak the same language to communicate. The first time you use this per long rest, you don't expend any dice, but each subsequent time requires you to expend a die. Telepathic communication is really useful for a party's scout, and being able to set up a kind of communication network of sorts is also very useful if the whole party is sneaking in.

Also at 3, you get Psychic Blades. As part of the attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make your attack with that blade. It's a magic simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties, with a normal range of 60 feet and no long range. On a hit, it deals 1d6 psychic damage plus the ability modifier used to attack (likely Dex.) The blade immediately vanishes after it hits or misses its target, and leaves no mark if it damages the target. Also, after you attack with the blade, you can manifest a second psychic blade in your other hand as a bonus action if the hand is free, and you can attack with it as well, though this one's damage is 1d4 instead of 1d6. So, a Soulknife can never truly be disarmed, and you have a perfect weapon for sneaky kills. It's a finesse weapon, so you'll get your sneak attack bonus on it, and it's psychic damage, which few things can resist (though it won't be great against things like Golems, so you might want to keep a spare +1 weapon around in case.) Like a lot of "built-in" weapons to subclasses, you do have the slight downside of being unable to really "upgrade" it like going from a normal weapon to a +1 to a +2, etc. Still, I love how creepy it is that it leaves no wounds or scars.

At level 9, you get Soul Blades, which gives you new ways to spend your Psionic Energy dice.

Homing Strikes: If you miss an attack with your Psychic Blades, you can roll a Psi die and add the number to the attack, expending the die only if the attack now hits. Hitting is good. Hitting more often is more good.

Psychic Teleportation: As a bonus action, you can manifest a Psychic Blade and expend a Psionic Energy die and roll it, and then throw the blade at an unoccupied space you can see. You can teleport up to a number of feet away equal to 10 times the number rolled, and then the blade vanishes. This could be super useful, and being able to teleport a minimum of 10 feet away is definitely useful (for getting away from bad guys, for example,) but it'll be heartbreaking if you need to get across a 20-foot chasm and you roll a 1 on the die (though I don't think you have to teleport, it just means that'll be wasted.)

At 13, you get Psychic Veil. As an action, you can magically become invisible along with everything you're wearing and carrying for 1 hour, or until you dismiss the effect (no action required.) It also ends early right after you deal damage to a creature or force it to make a saving throw. You can use this once for free per long rest, though you can also spend a Psionic Energy die to use it again. Invisibility on a Rogue is naturally pretty good. I especially like that it's described as creating a veil of psychic static to mask yourself. I like to think that the image people have projected onto their retinas still contains your image, but they're psychologically incapable of registering that you're there (which is actually similar to some creatures that I have in my own fiction.)

At 17, you get Rend Mind. When you use your Psychic Blades to deal Sneak Attack damage, you can force the target to make a Wisdom save with a DC based on your Dex modifier. If the target fails, they're stunned for 1 minute, though they can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of their turns and end it on a success. You can use this once free per long rest, or you can expend three Psionic Energy dice to do it again. As anyone who's played with a Monk can tell you, stunning foes is really, really good - not only granting advantage to attacks but also robbing them of their turns. So this is a very potent ability.

As I said before, the reliance on the built-in weapons for the subclass means that you won't really be able to upgrade with magic items as much, but Rogues' reliance on Sneak Attack damage means they care a little less about a +1 weapon anyway. Overall this has a ton of cool flavor, useful abilities, and is just generally very good.

So, we come to the end of the Rogues. Rogues have a wild range of subclasses in both feel and mechanics. I think the subclasses generally get more conceptually ambitious as they go on, but many of them really carry a lot of flavor that is demonstrated through the mechanics, which is kind of the whole idea behind RPGs in the first place. It might be because I'm drawn to the shiny and new, but I really like the ones out of Tasha's. But I think I could see playing just about every one of these and having fun.