2024 DnD 5e Rogue Subclasses Guide

Introduction

Rogue subclasses are extremely diverse, making big changes in how the Rogue plays by emphasizing different aspects of the Rogue’s capabilities while also offering a novel way to approach those capabilities.

For legacy subclasses, see our 2014 Rogue Subclasses Guide.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Rogue Subclasses

Arcane Trickster (PHB)

The Arcane Trickster brings magic to the Rogue. Adding spellcasting makes the class much more complex to build and play, but it can also make you extremely effective. The simplest way to play the Arcane Trickster is to use the spellcasting for buffs, illusions, and utilities, but that is certainly not the only option.

True Strike offers a uniquely interesting option for the Arcane Trickster. It allows you to make a weapon attack using your Intelligence score, allowing you to focus on your spellcasting ability instead of solely on Dexterity, and it provides a scaling damage boost which will stack with Sneak Attack. Relying on True Strike instead of regular attacks will dramatically improve the effectiveness of your offensive spellcasting at the cost of some AC and effectiveness with skills.

  1. Spellcasting: The Arcane Trickster’s defining feature. When selecting spells, remember that Sneak Attack requires weapon attacks with Finesse weapons or ranged weapons, so you can’t apply it to spell attacks. Instead, you’ll generally rely on spells like Booming Blade, Shadow Blade, and True Strike.
  2. Mage Hand Legerdemain: Controlling the hand as a Bonus Action means that you can pick locks and pick pockets while you’re doing other things like fighting or casting other spells, and, since the hand is invisible, you can send it off to do those things unnoticed while you and your allies are busy hiding, fighting, carousing, or whatever else you do with your day.
  3. Magical Ambush: Since your spell DC likely won’t be as good as that of a dedicated spellcaster, this does a lot to improve the reliability of your offensive spells. I’m still nervous to recommend spells which require saving throws as a go-to option for the Arcane Trickster, but mathematically it makes sense. Disadvantage works out to slightly more than a -3 penalty, so, if your Intelligence is 14 or higher, your spells can be roughly as reliable as those of a Wizard with 20 Intelligence.

    Magical Ambush requires the Invisible condition, but it does not require you to be actually invisible. When you take the Hide action successfully, you gain the Invisible condition. This means that you can use Cunning Action to Hide, then immediately hit an enemy with Magical Ambush.

    Remember that this only works on saves made on the same turn that you cast the spell. Repeated saves like those against Hold Person won’t benefit, and neither will spells which don’t call for a save until the beginning of the target’s turn like Web.

  4. Versatile Trickster: This won’t benefit you directly, but your other melee allies can benefit a great deal.
  5. Spell Thief: The obvious use is to steal spells from enemy spellcasters, but, in a game when you might go several levels without seeing a spellcaster, a better option may be to “steal” spells from your party’s other spellcasters. Unfortunately, this is difficult since they’re unlikely to fail the save and it robs your ally of their known/prepared spell for 8 hours, so while it’s a more reliable source it’s also very difficult and costly.

Assassin (PHB)

Focused almost exclusively on dealing damage, the Assassin leans into the Rogue’s role as a Striker. Their features add some great options to enable you to deal extra damage, but you’re heavily dependent on acting early in initiative order. Against dextrous enemies, you may struggle to benefit from your biggest subclass features.

  1. Assassinate: The Assassin’s signature feature. It’s all about going first and dealing a ton of damage on turn 1.
    • Initiative: Couple with the Rogue’s high Dexterity, you’ll consistently act early in the initiative order, which is crucial for enabling Surprising Strikes.
    • Surprising Strikes: Not a ton of damage at first, but it’s easily accessible and the scaling keeps this relevant throughout your career. Unfortunately, a poor dice roll means that your signature feature could not function.

      Note that this applies during the first full round of combat, so if you can manage a second Sneak Attack in that time, you can apply this a second time, too. This may be very difficult, but if you have a Battle Master in the party who also rolled well on initiative, you might get to deal a big pile of damage.

  2. Assassin’s Tools: Disguise Kits are only situationally useful, and Poisoner’s Kits are borderline useless without the Poisoner feat, which already gives you proficiency in Poisoner’s Kits.
  3. Infiltration Expertise:
    • Masterful Mimicry: Neat, but only situationally useful. This will depend heavily on your own creativity and on your DM’s willingness to play along.
    • Roving Aim: This makes Advantage even easier, ensuring that you’ll be able to use Sneak Attack every time.
  4. Envenom Weapons: Cunning Strike (Poison) is great despite targeting Constitution saves. This outright negates the damage cost to use it, making it even better. The bonus damage from this ignores Resistance to Poison damage, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything about Advantage on saves against poison. Creatures with Resistance to Poison damage almost always have Advantage on saves against poison.
  5. Death Strike: The damage will be excellent when this works, but targeting a Constitution save makes this unreliable. To lean into this, pile as many damage sources as you can into this attack. Basic Poison, buffs, Booming Blade, Piercer, whatever you can get. Make it hurt. Don’t forget that Surprising Strikes applies, too.

    While this may be unreliable due to the save, there’s also no limit on its use, so you can use this in every encounter. However, it suffers from the same issue as Assassinate: If you won’t beat an enemy on initiative, it won’t work at all.

Soulknife (PHB)

The Soulknife is a psionics-based option for the rogue. Your subclass features are fueled from a pool of Psionic Energy dice which work in many ways like the Battle Master Fighter’s pool of Superiority Dice (spend a die to do a thing, and you typically roll the die and add it to the effect in some way). With some exceptions, the Soulknife always gets something for their Psionic Energy Dice, and, if you fail on whatever roll, you often get to keep the die you used, making the Soulknife reliable and satisfying to play.

  1. Psionic Power: The most important part of the subclass. Your pool of Psionic Energy Dice are your defining resource. The die size goes from d6 to d12 over the course of your career, and you get more every few levels. It looks like a big pool, but they mostly recharge on a Long Rest, and between long rests you can recharge just one die per Short Rest.

    If your DM adheres to the Adventuring Day rules described in the DMG, that means you can recharge just two dice per day. Across a full day of adventuring that’s a small pool to work with and you need to be cautious about spending your dice rather than burning through them in the first encounter. The Soulknife’s Psionic Energy Dice are much easier to retain than the Psi Warrior’s because they often aren’t expended if you fail a roll, but you’ll still need to be prudent about when something is worth a die.

    • Psi-Bolstered Knack: This feature is all about being the best skill monkey. If you fail a check you can roll a die even if the chances are incredibly slim that it will make a difference. There’s no waste if you still don’t make it. nearly every other feature like this in the game requires you to gamble the resource on the possibility of success.

      That said, there is the incredibly nebulous definition of “success” with regards to certain skills. If you’re making an Investigation check and you don’t find anything because there was nothing to find, did you succeed or did you fail? This is a conversation to have with your group and deciding the answer is beyond the scope of this article, but I have a suggestion for how to run it: because you choose to roll the Psi-die after you see what you rolled and the results of the initial d20 roll, my suggestion is that the Psi-die is only considered spent if the results are tangibly different after rolling it. This way “you still find nothing” doesn’t consume the die.

    • Psychic Whispers: What if your party always had walkie-talkies? Maybe you’re scouting ahead, maybe your Wizard wants to tell you where the fireball is going to be before they cast it. Rary’s Telepathic Bond is a 5th-level spell, and you’re replicating its effects (mostly) at level 3. Rary’s Telepathic Bond also notably has a 1-hour duration, and you get 1d6 hours (up to 1d12 hours at 17th level). You’re limited to adding 2 allies when you get this (you’re in the group for free), but the number increases with your Proficiency Bonus.

      Don’t forget: you get this once per day for free, so there’s little reason to not use it.

  2. Psychic Blades: This is your primary combat option. You can attack with the blades equally well in melee and at range, and, with a range of 60 feet, your range is much greater than that of a Aogue using daggers, making this one of the best options available if you want to be a ranged rogue. The fact that this deals psychic damage is great, too, since it’s so rarely resisted and easily bypasses common resistances to non-magical weapon damage. Oh, and it’s a d6 damage die instead of the dagger’s d4.

    The Bonus Action attack option is nice, but the comparison to regular two-weapon fighting is a little messy. If you’re using a Nick weapon like a dagger, you can use two-weapon fighting without spending your Bonus Action, leaving it free for Steady Aim or Cunning Action. Psychic Blades’ Bonus Action attack consumes your Bonus Action, but it also applies your ability modifier to damage. You can’t use Psychic Blades with two-weapon fighting because the blades lack the Light property.

    However, this feature does have some drawbacks. The blades only manifest when you take the Attack action or make an Opportunity Attack, which means that you can’t easily benefit from allies using things like a Battle Master Fighter using Commander’s Strike or Order Domain Clerics’ Voice of Authority feature. Remember that Sneak Attack is once per turn, not per round, so you’re giving up a substantial piece of Rogue optimization. The blades also don’t gain attack bonuses like a magic weapon, and you’re locked into a damage type that some things (unintelligent creatures, especially) have unmitigatable resistance or even immunity to. Carry some daggers, even if they’re only as backup weapons.

    You can mitigate the off-turn attack limitations somewhat by drawing and stowing a dagger before or after attacking on alternate turns, but that trades your Free Item Interaction every turn for the ability to make meaningful attacks as a Reaction every other turn at most. That’s a hard trade, not to mention how annoying it is. You could also get Fighting Style (Thrown Weapon) which will allow you to draw a dagger as part of the making the Opportunity Attack, but that may not be worth the cost to do so unless you’re really leaning into the ability to Sneak Attack with your Reaction.

  3. Soul Blades: Two ways to turn your Psychic Energy Dice into solutions to frequent problems. This is also the first time where your psychic dice are consistently useful in combat.
    • Homing Strikes: Use this on the last attack of your turn (maybe you don’t want to attack with both of your Psychic Blades every turn; Cunning Action also exists), provided that you can deal Sneak Attack with that attack. If you miss the attack roll, you can try to turn a near miss into a hit. If you still miss, this costs you nothing. If you do hit, you’re trading your Psionic Energy Die for a Sneak Attack. That’s a very good trade a lot of the time. Even so, you don’t want to use this constantly because it will deplete your psionic dice pool too quickly. Use it when you need it to land that crucial blow.
    • Psychic Teleportation: A Bonus Action short-ranged teleport. Even moving the minimum of 10 feet is enough to get you out of grapples and many area control effects, as well as through many tight openings like arrow slits. However, if you need to cross a large gap you’ll find that the unpredictable range is frustrating. Fortunately, you choose whether or not you want to teleport after you roll the die, so you never need to worry about accidentally teleporting yourself above a pit of acid or something, but you’re committing to spend the die before you roll it. Look for other options if you’re not likely to get as far as you need to go.
  4. Psychic Veil: Invisibility for a full hour, and you get it once per day for free. An hour is a long time, and you can do a lot of things without breaking Invisibility, including things like disarming traps and taking the Help action to help allies in combat. Combined with Psychic Whispers and Expertise, you’re an amazing Scout.

    You can spend a Psionic Energy Die to recharge Psychic Veil, but that’s an easy way to spend your dice very quickly when mundane Stealth checks will often suffice. Save this for when you actually need it.

  5. Rend Mind: Note quite as good as Hold Monster, but about as close as you can get without casting it. Stunned takes the target out of the fight and makes it very easy to kill them. Since the DC is Dexterity-based your DC will match that of spellcasters, and the one-minute duration is nice.

    You get this once per day for free, but spending a quarter of your Psionic Energy Dice to recharge it is very costly, so you need to save this for powerful single foes rather than using this in every encounter. If your target may have Legendary Resistances, hit them with Cunning Strike effects to cut through them before attempting Rend Mind.

Thief (PHB)

The Thief is the iconic Rogue, specializing in moving and acting quickly. They’re a fantastic Scout, but don’t get anything that significantly improves their ability as a Striker. Big parts of the Thief’s features also depend on the availability of magic items and expensive mundane items like Alchemist’s Fire. if those items are unavailable, you may not get a lot of use out of the Thief.

  1. Fast Hands:
    • Sleight of Hand: The wording here is a mess, but the Thief Rogue and only the Thief Rogue can use Sleight of Hand in conjunction with Thieves’ Tools to pick locks and disarm traps. Rogues are also proficient in Thieves’ Tools, so if you’re proficient in Sleight of Hand, you use the higher of the two modifiers and get Advantage on the check. If you have Expertise in Sleight of Hand, you’re nearly unstoppable.

      Also you can pick pockets as a Bonus Action.

    • Use an Object: Check the text of the Utilize action in the Rules Glossary. “When an object requires an action for its use, you take the Utilize action.” This covers caltrops, healer’s kits, dousing a space in oil, and many magic items. This is fantastically versatile.
  2. Second-Story Work:
    • Climber: The next best thing to a fly speed.
    • Jumper: Jumping isn’t always useful in a game with magical flight, but the ability to jump long distances can be helpful for getting past obstacles like pits and difficult terrain.
  3. Supreme Sneak:
    • Stealth Attack: What if your Sneak Attack was also a Stealth Attack? Yeah, the name isn’t fantastic. But the effect allows you to move out of cover, attack, then return to cover without needing to hide again. This allows you to snipe without constantly spending your Bonus Action to Hide again, allowing you to Dash in order to move much greater distances, to use your Bonus Action with Fast Hands, or to do whatever else you like.

      Keep in mind that Cunning Strike only triggers if your Sneak Attack hits. If you miss, you’re exposed and you’ll need to Hide again.

  4. Use Magic Device:
    • Attunement: By this level Attunement has almost certainly become a problem. Adding a 4th attunement items gives you a lot of extra power.
    • Charges: A 1 in 6 chance to matter is not a lot, but if you’re collecting items that run on charges, this can extend their usefulness a bit.
    • Scrolls: Spell scrolls offer a ton of potentially utility. Do not use them offensively. Also, you need to make an Arcana check, so I hope you got proficiency in Arcana somehow since ut
  5. Thief’s Reflexes: Two entire turns is crazy. You can Sneak Attack twice and use Fast Hands to throw two vials of alchemist’s fire, possibly all before enemies get a chance to act if your initiative roll was really good.