Zardnaar
Legend
That's what they're good for. Sorcerers also better social skills though.
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D&D (2024) Ranged Builds Thread
- Thread starter FrogReaver
- Start date
That's what they're good for. Sorcerers also better social skills though.
mellored
Legend
Lacks Push and your stuck with Vex, which won't stack with many other things.
Bonus action attack is a little better than Steady Aim, but not significant.
But at least you can add Trip at level 5.
Seems ok. Not bad, not great.
Not really better than an Assasin with a longbow.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
How is the assassin getting longbow proficiency?
mellored
Legend
Dip fighter 1 for archery style.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
Anyways, here's how I envision the soul knife playing.
Turn 1. You use steady aim so you get advantage to land sneak attack on an enemy (allies and enemies likely not yet engaged). At level 9 you have homing strikes just in case you miss. Low chance of mattering but adds a good bit of accuracy to this attack. (Only uses a dice if it turns a miss into a hit). Trip the enemy if you can and it makes sense to.
Turn 2. Since you hit the enemy last round with vex you have advantage. So you attack with your first attack. Homing strike just in case it misses, then bonus action attack with your 2nd attack, homing strike in case it misses. Assuming this enemy dies this round.
Turn 3. Enemies and allies are most likely engaged, pick any engaged enemy and attack it without advantage. Use homing strike to help you hit. If you hit, great you have started your advantage loop - if not try again with your bonus action attack.
Turn 4. Essentially the same thing as turn 3.
I think you can see how on almost every round I achieve much higher accuracy than the Assassin does and this doesn't actually use psychic dice very quickly since you only expend them when you miss and they turn that miss into a hit. Couple that high accuracy with the bonus action damage and I think you actually end up quite a bit higher in damage than the assassin or even true strike rogue variants. Not to mention psychic dice can also double as an excellent out of combat skills resource.
*Wanted to add - it's also possible you are hiding when combat starts and get advantage on your first attack without needing steady aim. Or for an ally/enemy to win initiative and engage each other allowing you to jump straight to the turn 3 loop. Or an ally uses an ability that grants advantage (there's many in 2024). Alert feat also can work wonders here.
Turn 1. You use steady aim so you get advantage to land sneak attack on an enemy (allies and enemies likely not yet engaged). At level 9 you have homing strikes just in case you miss. Low chance of mattering but adds a good bit of accuracy to this attack. (Only uses a dice if it turns a miss into a hit). Trip the enemy if you can and it makes sense to.
Turn 2. Since you hit the enemy last round with vex you have advantage. So you attack with your first attack. Homing strike just in case it misses, then bonus action attack with your 2nd attack, homing strike in case it misses. Assuming this enemy dies this round.
Turn 3. Enemies and allies are most likely engaged, pick any engaged enemy and attack it without advantage. Use homing strike to help you hit. If you hit, great you have started your advantage loop - if not try again with your bonus action attack.
Turn 4. Essentially the same thing as turn 3.
I think you can see how on almost every round I achieve much higher accuracy than the Assassin does and this doesn't actually use psychic dice very quickly since you only expend them when you miss and they turn that miss into a hit. Couple that high accuracy with the bonus action damage and I think you actually end up quite a bit higher in damage than the assassin or even true strike rogue variants. Not to mention psychic dice can also double as an excellent out of combat skills resource.
*Wanted to add - it's also possible you are hiding when combat starts and get advantage on your first attack without needing steady aim. Or for an ally/enemy to win initiative and engage each other allowing you to jump straight to the turn 3 loop. Or an ally uses an ability that grants advantage (there's many in 2024). Alert feat also can work wonders here.
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FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
I still don't think you are making up the damage or accuracy. Even with archery, great weapon master, longbow (or heavy crossbow since it's available on the fighter dip as well).
mellored
Legend
Well I haven't done the math...
But what about Truestrike?
Soul Knife can't use it, but Assassin can pick it up as a background.
Zardnaar
Legend
Turs rogue into mediocre archer vs bad.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
To put Soul Knife Homing Strikes in Perspective. For a single attack that you have advantage, it means you go from 84% advantage chance to hit to a 96.5% chance to hit and a 12.5% chance of expending the dice.
*Note these numbers are for the d10 version.
For non-advantage attacks it would take you from 60% chance to hit to 86% chance to hit and a 26% chance of expending a die.
40 attacks (20 rounds of attacking twice) at the 26% use rate would mean 10.4 dice on average used. You should mostly be able to keep this up all day. Especially since most of your attacks are going to be at the lower 12.5% use rate.
*Note these numbers are for the d10 version.
For non-advantage attacks it would take you from 60% chance to hit to 86% chance to hit and a 26% chance of expending a die.
40 attacks (20 rounds of attacking twice) at the 26% use rate would mean 10.4 dice on average used. You should mostly be able to keep this up all day. Especially since most of your attacks are going to be at the lower 12.5% use rate.
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FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
The issue is that you cannot get sharpshooter, max cha/int/wis for true struke and GWM till level 13 at the earliest (13 instead of 12 due to the single level fighter dip). Which of those things are you giving up before that?
Dex based Rogues can because Sharpshooter pulls double duty raising their dex to 18 and giving them a feat they want.
