# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  Soulknife's bonus action attack

## Morrison

My understanding is that the Soulknife is generally considered one of the better Rogue subclasses out there, especially for ranged combat, but I feel like I'm definitely missing something in the rules.

It says after you make an attack, you can use your bonus action to get a second attack, at a slightly smaller damage die.  The only drawback I see people talking about is that this means you're technically unarmed for the rest of the round, and can't make Opportunity Attacks, but if I'm fighting at range, that's not going to be too big of a problem.  However, I haven't seen anyone address what seems to me to be a much bigger problem.

A rogue (especially a ranged one) usually already needs their bonus action every turn to hide with Cunning Action.  Attacking from hiding is the most reliable way that I know of to get advantage on your attacks.  Also, Sneak Attack can only be applied once per turn, so the bonus action attack would just be doing 1d4+Dex.  Unless I'm missing something, class feature lets me give up one of the main advantages of a rogue for a shot at doing a frankly negligible amount of damage.

What am I missing?

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## MrStabby

> My understanding is that the Soulknife is generally considered one of the better Rogue subclasses out there, especially for ranged combat, but I feel like I'm definitely missing something in the rules.
> 
> It says after you make an attack, you can use your bonus action to get a second attack, at a slightly smaller damage die.  The only drawback I see people talking about is that this means you're technically unarmed for the rest of the round, and can't make Opportunity Attacks, but if I'm fighting at range, that's not going to be too big of a problem.  However, I haven't seen anyone address what seems to me to be a much bigger problem.
> 
> A rogue (especially a ranged one) usually already needs their bonus action every turn to hide with Cunning Action.  Attacking from hiding is the most reliable way that I know of to get advantage on your attacks.  Also, Sneak Attack can only be applied once per turn, so the bonus action attack would just be doing 1d4+Dex.  Unless I'm missing something, class feature lets me give up one of the main advantages of a rogue for a shot at doing a frankly negligible amount of damage.
> 
> What am I missing?


One thing you are missing... is missing.

If your first attack misses, then a second attack can still apply full sneak attack damage.

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## Psyren

> My understanding is that the Soulknife is generally considered one of the better Rogue subclasses out there, especially for ranged combat, but I feel like I'm definitely missing something in the rules.
> 
> It says after you make an attack, you can use your bonus action to get a second attack, at a slightly smaller damage die.  The only drawback I see people talking about is that this means you're technically unarmed for the rest of the round, and can't make Opportunity Attacks, but if I'm fighting at range, that's not going to be too big of a problem.  However, I haven't seen anyone address what seems to me to be a much bigger problem.
> 
> A rogue (especially a ranged one) usually already needs their bonus action every turn to hide with Cunning Action.  Attacking from hiding is the most reliable way that I know of to get advantage on your attacks.  Also, Sneak Attack can only be applied once per turn, so the bonus action attack would just be doing 1d4+Dex.  Unless I'm missing something, class feature lets me give up one of the main advantages of a rogue for a shot at doing a frankly negligible amount of damage.
> 
> What am I missing?


Several things:

1) As the aptly-named MrStabby mentioned, two attacks per round gives rogues double the chances to land at least one hit, which is a larger and larger DPR increase for them the harder their enemy is to hit with that first attack. The fact that the second attack gets Dex to damage (without needing TWF fighting style) is icing on the cake.

2) The most reliable way to get sneak attack isn't advantage or even hiding, rather it's having an ally in melee range of your target. This gets you sneak attack even when hiding is impractical or your advantage has been negated in some way.

3) You can make opportunity attacks just fine as a soulknife - just not with your psychic blades. Soulknives still have all the same proficiencies as regular rogues, meaning you can just keep a dagger handy. As written, you can draw it/pick it up as an object interaction at the end of your turn so it is wielded and ready for OAs, and drop it on the ground as a nonaction at the start of your turn (or after you move, if needed) so you can do the Soulknife attack sequence.

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## Skrum

Yeah, what Stabby said. Once you get to 5ish (maybe 7), the majority of a rogue's damage comes from sneak attack. Landing a hit, any hit, is what matters to them so they can get in their SA damage. 

Mathematically, attacking twice is the same as attacking once with advantage (in terms of likelihood to hit). So they can use their bonus action to TWF and attack twice, or use their bonus action and give up their movement to get adv. on their attack. In terms of pure damage TWF is slightly superior, but Steady Aim works at range. Really, it just gives you options.

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## Unoriginal

> My understanding is that the Soulknife is generally considered one of the better Rogue subclasses out there


Never seen anyone argue this. Decent, sure, but I've never seen anyone say it was one of the better subclasses.




> I haven't seen anyone address what seems to me to be a much bigger problem.
> 
> A rogue (especially a ranged one) usually already needs their bonus action every turn to hide with Cunning Action.


That is not my experience. 




> Attacking from hiding is the most reliable way that I know of to get advantage on your attacks.


You don't need advantages every turn, even as a Rogue. 

How reliable hiding is is also hugely variable depending on tables and adventures. 




> Also, Sneak Attack can only be applied once per turn, so the bonus action attack would just be doing 1d4+Dex.


If the first attack miss, the bonus action attack is a second chance to get the Sneak Attack damages.

Having more than one attack is a big thing for Rogues for this very reason.

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## Psyren

> Never seen anyone argue this. Decent, sure, but I've never seen anyone say it was one of the better subclasses.


I've routinely seen it listed as one of the best, generally only second to Arcane Trickster. RPGBot, Treantmonk, Dungeon Dudes, Urge etc all put it way up there both in utility and sheer damage. (Agreed on the rest though.)

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## Gignere

> Never seen anyone argue this. Decent, sure, but I've never seen anyone say it was one of the better subclasses.


Its definitely top 3, and only less damage then the Phantom and Arcane Trickster. Pure skills it is probably the best of the rogue given their psi knack, however I would still give the edge in pure utility to the arcane trickster.

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## RogueJK

> Attacking from hiding is the most reliable way that I know of to get advantage on your attacks.


That may have been true pre-Tasha's, but now Steady Aim is a thing, and that's a significantly more reliable way to get Advantage than Cunning Action Hide.  It doesn't rely on there being suitable terrain or objects within your movement range in order to break line of sight, nor does it require making a successful Stealth check.  Steady Aim is just automatic Advantage, at the cost of your Bonus Action and Movement.


But as pointed out by other posters, generating Advantage via Bonus Action Cunning Action Hide or Steady Aim isn't always needed, since you may have Advantage from another source or you may have an adjacent ally to trigger your Sneak Attack. 

And even when you don't have Advantage from another source but you do have an adjacent ally to trigger Sneak Attack, making a single attack with Advantage isn't always optimal.  Attacking once with Advantage gets you a binary outcome from your two d20s rolled: Hit or Miss.  But attacking twice without Advantage gets you one of four outcomes from your two d20 rolls: Miss/Miss, Hit/Hit, Miss/Hit, or Hit/Miss.  In the former, half of the potential outcomes involve you landing your Sneak Attack damage, but in the latter, 3/4ths of the potential outcomes involve you landing your Sneak Attack.  (Similar to one of the reasons why the True Strike cantrip is a waste of time, using two Actions to make one attack with Advantage vs. making two Attacks with those same two Actions.)


Plus, it's not like you're locked into just doing the exact same Bonus Action every turn.  You can switch it up on the fly: One turn you might BA Steady Aim and then Attack with Advantage, because you need that Advantage to trigger your Sneak Attack.  The next turn you might have Advantage from some other source, make a first Attack that misses, and then use your BA offhand psychic blade to make a second attack that lands your Sneak Attack.  The following turn, you might have an adjacent ally, make a regular Attack that hits and lands your Sneak Attack, and then Cunning Action Hide in order to avoid being targeted and set up Advantage for the subsequent turn.  Etc.

Offhand Psychic Blade is just another tool in your Bonus Action tool belt, alongside Cunning Action and Steady Aim.  The trick comes with knowing when it's best to use which tool.

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## Damon_Tor

They pull ahead at 9th level. The bonus attack isn't why, but rather their ability to turn misses into hits.

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## Sherlockpwns

Im more offended by the d4+dex is negligible statement. Its a whole 2 less damage than a long sword as a bonus attack that required no feats or level dips. Sure 4-10 damage isnt earth shattering but its a nice way to do a little extra work. 

The best thing about it in general is you dont have to use it though. Hit your primary attack? Now you can dash or hide or whatever.

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## Psyren

> Im more offended by the d4+dex is negligible statement. Its a whole 2 less damage than a long sword as a bonus attack that required no feats or level dips. Sure 4-10 damage isnt earth shattering but its a nice way to do a little extra work. 
> 
> The best thing about it in general is you dont have to use it though. Hit your primary attack? Now you can dash or hide or whatever.


Indeed, and that works in reverse too. Don't need to dash/hide/etc? You might as well get that second swing in.

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## Chaos Jackal

It's an option to deal extra damage and/or cover a miss without having to stay still the way Steady Aim forces you to.

Compared to a melee rogue accessing the same option with two weapons, you get the perks of being at range, meaning you're less likely to need to Disengage with Cunning Action and can thus use it more often, and it's stronger to boot, as you get to add Dex to damage, something regular two-weapon fighting doesn't allow.

Compared to a ranged rogue with Crossbow Expert, while you don't have all the perks of the feat, you still get a full-blown bonus action attack without using an ASI.

Further down the line but not too late, they also get a feature to negate misses, which isn't shabby for a class that relies so much on single hits.

Are any of the above or a combination thereof particularly huge? Not really, but there's one more thing to add to this. Rogue subclasses are generally pretty bad, held back by lackluster features, campaign- or DM-specific niches, or even both. Scout is so underwhelming it's not even funny, Assassin is a "win moar" archetype that becomes nearly featureless in combat without surprise and largely replicates things you could've probably done with an ability check out of it, Mastermind and Inquisitive barely function in a typical D&D game and the types of games they would work better in aren't even that well-supported by the system in the first place, Thief is extremely niche (stuff like Healer and Fast Hands healer kits or other mundane item shenanigans are cool, but not exactly awe-inspiring) until lv17 or until lv13 (still pretty late or even out of reach for many campaigns) but only if the DM is generous with magic items...

Soulknife doesn't exactly face the harshest competition in order to be in the upper half of rogue subclasses and from the remaining three, Swashbuckler is very obviously geared towards melee combat. So Soulknife is effectively default top three for a ranged rogue, solely due to having functional, widely applicable combat features that work with ranged attacks, because most other subclasses just don't have any. Add to that an array of utility features that are also widely applicable and better than that of the average rogue, namely telepathy, teleportation and invisibility, alongside a catch-all skill boost in Psi-Bolstered Knack that, while not always applicable, generally trumps the largely situational and specific skill boosts of other rogue subclasses and you've got yourself one of the strongest rogues available, even without having any top-tier features otherwise.

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## Morrison

Okay, so I should think of the bonus action attack as an occasional feature to use when I can get advantage from another source, rather than a once-a-turn extra attack.  That makes a bit more sense.

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## Keravath

I think there is one more aspect that you might be missing. 

Not only is the Soulknife bonus action attack good for d4+dex ... it is a bonus action RANGED attack if they throw the knife with a range of 60'.

Other rogues could throw a dagger as a bonus action but it has less range and doesn't include the dex modifier.

Edit: I forgot that two weapon fighting could be used with thrown daggers so the soulknife bonus action attack wasn't as unique as I was thinking initially.

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## Psyren

> Okay, so I should think of the bonus action attack as an occasional feature to use when I can get advantage from another source, rather than a once-a-turn extra attack.  That makes a bit more sense.


To reiterate, since I'm not totally sure it's sinking in, you don't need advantage to get sneak attack. An ally being within 5ft of your target enables sneak attack even if you don't have advantage. The second attack thus remains useful, especially since without advantage your chances of that first attack missing are generally higher.




> Edit: I forgot that two weapon fighting could be used with thrown daggers so the soulknife bonus action attack wasn't as unique as I was thinking initially.


It's still quite helpful because getting TWF thrown weapons that count as magic can be a pain in this game. The Soulknife's psychic blades deal Psychic damage, which is a fairly reliable damage type.

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## Damon_Tor

> It's still quite helpful because getting TWF thrown weapons that count as magic can be a pain in this game. The Soulknife's psychic blades deal Psychic damage, which is a fairly reliable damage type.


Eh, immunity to psychic damage is quite common, and near ubiquitous among an entire class of creatures (constructs). If your DM likes sprinkling his dungeons with living armor and golems and such you will definitely notice the problem.

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## Psyren

> Eh, immunity to psychic damage is quite common, and near ubiquitous among an entire class of creatures (constructs). If your DM likes sprinkling his dungeons with living armor and golems and such you will definitely notice the problem.


At which point you get downgraded all the way to "no worse off in this matchup than any other rogue." Pack backup weapons, you're still proficient.

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## Damon_Tor

> At which point "no worse off in this matchup than any other rogue." Pack backup weapons, you're still proficient.


You're no worse off than a rogue with no subclass at all, true. But even scouts and masterminds and assassins and such can use their class features against constructs, even if you have a low opinion of those features.

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## Psyren

> You're no worse off than a rogue with no subclass at all, true. But even scouts and masterminds and assassins and such can use their class features against constructs, even if you have a low opinion of those features.


Soulknives have features they can use against constructs too. Bonus action teleportation, Psi-bolstered checks like Stealth / Athletics / Acrobatics, and hour-long invisibility all have uses even when the blades themselves don't. You're not a subclassless rogue in those fights, that's just silly.

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## Damon_Tor

> Soulknives have features they can use against constructs too. Bonus action teleportation, Psi-bolstered checks like Stealth / Athletics / Acrobatics, and hour-long invisibility all have uses even when the blades themselves don't. You're not a subclassless rogue in those fights, that's just silly.


Teleportation and invisibility aside: as I said, the subclass pulls ahead at 9th level, my criticisms are mostly limited to 3rd-8th level.

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## Psyren

> Teleportation and invisibility aside: as I said, the subclass pulls ahead at 9th level, my criticisms are mostly limited to 3rd-8th level.


Eh, there aren't many constructs in that range anyway. And even if you run into one, PBK still has uses there, particularly for Cunning Action Hide during combat. So even in that niche situation, it's better than having no subclass.

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## OvisCaedo

Assassin kind of has no subclass features in a fight any time they don't win initiative. And while they are, indeed, likely to have good dex... it's still a d20 roll. I think you're probably going to see more fights where the Assassin is effectively subclassless than the Soulknife. I suppose if most fights have a large number of enemies you're pretty likely to beat at least ONE of them, though.

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## Damon_Tor

> Eh, there aren't many constructs in that range anyway. And even if you run into one, PBK still has uses there, particularly for Cunning Action Hide during combat. So even in that niche situation, it's better than having no subclass.


As far as I can tell PBK doesn't actually work for stealth checks at all. PBK only triggers on a failed check, and you don't fail stealth checks, you set a DC for searchers to make opposed rolls against. That said, 5e stealth rules are barely functional, and almost every table seems to play by some heavily houseruled variant thereof, so this may or may not work fine at yours. It probably works fine in 1D&D though: 1D&D sets a minimum DC of 15 to become hidden, making failure of your initial check possible.

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## Psyren

I'd say the relative nothingburger of potentially running into Construct Boogaloo between levels 3-8 still leaves Soulknife as one of the best rogue subclasses in the game in that range. So I stand by my statement in #6.

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## Damon_Tor

> I'd say the relative nothingburger of potentially running into Construct Boogaloo between levels 3-8 still leaves Soulknife as one of the best rogue subclasses in the game in that range. So I stand by my statement in #6.


It's definitely the best skill monkey, and for a lot of players that's what they really want out of a rogue. But the thread was specifically asking about their bonus action attack.

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## Psyren

> It's definitely the best skill monkey, and for a lot of players that's what they really want out of a rogue. But the thread was specifically asking about their bonus action attack.


I'm aware - and again, I'm comfortable saying in 90% of combats in that range that's going to be a useful feature.

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## MrStabby

> I'm aware - and again, I'm comfortable saying in 90% of combats in that range that's going to be a useful feature.


I do think it's a relevant point, not just because constructs exist, but because they are one of the few creature types that makes sense in some circumstances - the forever forgotten dungeon for example.  This means that the rogue can't just select a different enemy in that encounter.

Something like an undead might be accompanied by the necromancer that created it for example.  Or a humanoid might be accompanied by a guard dog - but the places where you need to send a golem/construct probably make a lot of other creature types unlikely to be faced.

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## elyktsorb

I've never really considered Soulknife to be all that great.  It seems fine, but it doesn't interest me.

I played a thief rogue about two years ago, got him to lvl 14 (he was also 2 levels of sorcerer so lvl 16) And I primarily dealt damage by standing in the back, using steady aim, and firing a light crossbow.  A weapon that is a die bigger than the psychic blade, 2 bigger than the 1d4 blade.  And it outranges the blade by 20ft as well as being able to shoot 320ft (which outranges the blade by 260ft) with disadvantage, that I can cancel at will basically.  (or you know, just have sharpshooter and always shoot at 320ft with advantage)

The 1d4 bonus action attack is an additional option, but having the ability to already use my bonus action to hide and use my bonus action to just get advantage at the cost of my speed, means I don't really feel like I need a 3rd option to get better odds of landing my attack.  Especially as hiding and steady aim both operate with a d8 damage die for two d20 rolls as opposed to a 6 and a d4, which isn't a lot but it adds up, especially if you crit.  Sure, you can use the 2nd attack as an extra 1d4 if you already hit with the first blade.


Ultimately I don't see the Soulknife bonus action attack being all that big of a deal.  

Most Rogue subclasses, aside from arcane trickster which just gets spells which are amazing, or Assassin, which I think is just awful outside of hitting harder in specific circumstances you have almost no control over, need to really lean into what they get to be quite useful.

I can't speak for all of them, but I stretched the Thief's fast hands as much as possible.  Manacles are fun when you can put them on with a bonus action, and being able to disarm 2 traps in a single turn is pretty neat, if also very niche.  Also the only Rogue subclass that can apply poison and attack in the same turn without needing a feat to do so.

The fact that the knife has a hard range of 60ft is the biggest downside imo.

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## Unoriginal

> Okay, so I should think of the bonus action attack as an occasional feature to use when I can get advantage from another source, rather than a once-a-turn extra attack.  That makes a bit more sense.


You do not need advantage from any source.

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## gorfnab

> The only drawback I see people talking about is that this means you're technically unarmed for the rest of the round, and can't make Opportunity Attacks, but if I'm fighting at range, that's not going to be too big of a problem.


You can spend an ASI on the feat Fighting Initiate and choose Thrown Weapon Fighting for the Fighting Style. This allows you to draw a dagger as part of the Opportunity Attack when needed and boosts your damage when you throw your Psychic Blades.

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## 5eNeedsDarksun

> You can spend an ASI on the feat Fighting Initiate and choose Thrown Weapon Fighting. This allows you to draw a dagger as part of the Opportunity Attack when needed and boosts your damage when you throw your Psychic Blades.


Honestly this is an area where RAW is really hard on thrown weapons.  The fact you can draw, knock, pull, and shoot as many arrows as you have attacks, but can't do the same as a knife thrower (without a feat tax) is goofy and pigeon holes characters into the same few martial builds.  I'd be having a chat with my DM and allowing additional object interactions conditional on them being used for attacks.

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## Psyren

> Honestly this is an area where RAW is really hard on thrown weapons.  The fact you can draw, knock, pull, and shoot as many arrows as you have attacks, but can't do the same as a knife thrower (without a feat tax) is goofy and pigeon holes characters into the same few martial builds.  I'd be having a chat with my DM and allowing additional object interactions conditional on them being used for attacks.


You can also show them the OneDnD playtest rules; they are changing it so you can draw a weapon every time you attack, no feat or style needed. Since the devs clearly agree that the current rules are silly that might get your DM on board more easily.

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