One of the surprising elements of the recent interview about this year's new Player's Handbook is the inclusion of the Soulknife Rogue. While I like that subclass, I also felt that, on a flavor level, the established picks for the Rogue's four subclasses were kind of perfect:
In the last Rogue playtest, the subclasses listed were the Thief, the Assassin, the Arcane Trickster, and the Swashbuckler.
Again, in terms of flavor, these seemed like the perfect options for the class. To my mind, the PHB should represent the most classic examples of character archetypes that fit into the broader archetypes of the classes. And in that case, I think that the death-dealing assassin, the deft thief, and the brazen swashbuckler are all really solid, core facets of the Rogue fantasy. The Arcane Trickster is admittedly a little less traditional, but the notion that Rogues might utilize a bit of magic when they live in a world with as much magic as you find in D&D feels right, and on top of that it's a very popular subclass.
The presence of the Soulknife, though, seems to indicate that one of these four is getting the cut.
Now, granted, maybe they've decided to give every class five subclasses, but I doubt that.
It seems to me the most likely that the Swashbuckler would get cut, as it's the only one not in the 2014 PHB. That being said, I hope it's not.
Instead, I think there's an argument to be made for both the Thief and the Assassin.
The Thief is a solid subclass, but you could make the argument that it's so close to the core of the class fantasy that you could argue that every Rogue could be a Thief of sorts.
The same might be said for the Assassin (though I think you could play a Rogue who really tries to avoid killing). And I think the Assassin also has the downside of having always been, mechanically, a little underwhelming. The 2014 version, for instance, has two of its four subclass features as things that could be handled with simple RP and that I think any character would be able to do at my table. The UA update to the Assassin was certainly better, adding new Cunning Strikes options, for example, but still had a bit of this jankiness.
I think the Arcane Trickster is the only subclass I think is safe from getting cut, and the Swashbuckler is still most likely to be the one dropped.
But if they were willing to cut any PHB subclasses, I wonder what we might see.
Barbarians:
I actually think both the Totem Warrior and Berserker are likely to stay, especially given the fixes made to the Berserker that genuinely make it a pretty good subclass.
Bards:
Here, I think I could imagine seeing the College of Valor cut and replaced with a revised version of the College of Swords. Swords largely felt like an update to the Valor Bard, and one that had more interesting and unique mechanics.
Clerics:
Well, we already know that there are a bunch of cuts, as this is one of the two classes that had more than four subclasses in the 2014 PHB. As of the last UA, the included subclasses were Trickery, Light, Life, and War. I don't think I've actually seen anyone playing a Light Cleric, though I think it's actually a pretty good subclass. So I don't have any obvious cuts here.
Druids:
Again, with Land Druids getting fixed up, I don't see either of the '14 subclasses getting cut.
Fighters:
The Psi Warrior is somewhat of an unexpected choice here. None of the Xanathar's subclasses were likely to make the cut (and the Echo Knight is in that weird psedo-3rd-party space and also maybe too good). But even while the Rune Knight is popular, I really can't see cutting any of the 2014 options - the Battlemaster is beloved, and the changes to the Eldritch Knight are fantastic (though please let us use our weapons as a spellcasting focus!) and the Champion is boring, but they need a simple option.
Monks:
Previously I might have said I'd expect the Four Elements Monk to get the cut, but with the last playtest, they actually put that subclass in a great place, and with the further improvements to the Monk itself, I think we're unlikely to see any unexpected changes here.
Paladins:
The only head-scratcher choice to me in the playtest was the Oath of Glory, which I could imagine seeing booted in favor of something like Conquest or Redemption (I like Oath of the Watchers myself, but I don't know how popular it is). But the three 2014 options are probably safe.
Rangers:
Again, with only two 2014 options, and with the Tasha's era fix to Beast Masters, I think we're probably going to see both of these. I'll be curious to see how the updated Gloomstalker turns out. I still find the Fey Wanderer a surprising choice, but it does work kind of well if we think of the Gloomstalker as the Shadowfell Ranger and the Fey Wanderer as the Feywild one.
Rogues:
Well, we talked about this already.
Sorcerer:
Yeah, the existing ones are staying.
Warlock:
Again, I think that the three 2014 options, especially with the revisions we saw in the UAs to the Archfey and Great Old One, feel great.
Wizard:
Once again this was a class with more subclasses than any other in the PHB, so they had to get some cut down, but I found the inclusion of Illusionists to be a bit surprising - but then, they did mention that they had new rules guidance on illusions, so I doubt it will be cut.
We're still months away from the release of the new PHB, but with everything finalized, WotC seems willing to share some sneak peeks, so I'm curious to see what else they're willing to reveal.
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