Blade of Radiance Rogue From Steinhardt’s Guide: D&D 2024 (5.5e) Optimisation Guide

Strike down the enemies of the church with this melee-focused, rogue subclass.

At a glance

Blade of radiance features

Sanctified champion (Lv3) – 3/5

Proficiency with martial weapons for a rogue, combined with your sanctified blade becoming a finesse weapon does 2 important things; it means you can use dexterity for attacks with a wider array of weapons and your sanctified blade now qualifies for sneak attacks. This can open up some better damage options and weapon masteries for you to use.

Medium armor proficiency has a niche period of usefulness. If we discount half plate because it harms your ability to stealth, a breastplate will get you 16AC before you attain that with studded leather. You could probably attain that by level 4 considering that dexterity is your most important ability score, but if you’ve prioritised a feat, for example, or wisdom increases (which becomes important for this subclass) this might help you for a bit longer. Still, it’s not overly impactful on a rogue.

Divine blessings (Lv3) – 4/5

Of these choices, I think rend the blasphemous is one of your better options. It means you’ve got another chance to attempt a sneak attack with extra damage on a hit. The main issue is it conflicts with your heavily burdened bonus action.

Because it requires a melee attack, you’ll need other ways of using hit and run tactics other than using disengage. The speedy feat can help here, but as you can use a lot of other weapons as finesse weapons, you can take a reach weapon. A scythe will work here, as well as a whip. You can also use a glaive, halberd or pike for this. I’d maybe use this on turns when your attacks has missed and you still need to land your sneak attack.

Armor of the faithful is quite good too but is best when isolated in melee. A ranged weapon can easily be diverted to another target, which is fine as it may force attacks against hardier targets but that doesn’t necessarily help the party as a while, just you. On top of this, you already have uncanny dodge which uses your reaction to halve damage. I’d be inclined to just use this when targeted by a melee attack that can’t target anyone else, entirely nullifying the attack.

For divine inspiration, I feel the impact is just lesser as it’s rare these checks are really important.

This is replenished quite regularly and if you can get a decent wisdom, can have a fair number of these. This will distract you from more physical ability scores, but +3 wisdom isn’t too hard to achieve on a rogue.

Righteous armament (Lv9) – 5/5

There are some good options here. Divine retaliation is definitely the best though. Sneak attacks work once per turn, including another creature’s turn. This means an easier possibility of a second sneak attack per round so I’d definitely want to be doing this. Keep in mind that you can’t use this and armor of the faithful at the same time so will need to take the damage aimed at you.

Erupting blades is strong too if you can get a decent number of targets in a line. It won’t deal your weapon’s damage so just be aware that it may not be as damaging per target.

Chains of judgement is decent as a bit of battlefield control but I think it’s the weakest option here. It’s still decent though.

Saintly revelations (Lv13) – 4/5

Some solid protective spells here. They’re only level 1, but remain useful. Shield of faith is a really good go to option and you’ve got little competition for your concentration here. The other 2 I might use more situationally.

For the cantrips, I’d lean towards out of combat options since cantrips won’t work with your sneak attack. Guidance is a great option for you.

Final judgement (Lv17) – 5/5

Boosted weapon damage which you should make sure you have active ahead of every combat. Spirit guardians is excellent and also means near automatic opportunities to use sneak attack since you’re probably making attacks in melee range.

The spells from saintly revelations don’t require concentration at this level so you can have shield of faith and spirit guardians active at the same time. On top of that, as you aren’t using spells slots, you can activate both in the same round of combat.

How good is the blade of radiance subclass?

The blade of radiance relies heavily on being a melee rogue. This is no bad thing as rogues often use melee attacks combined with hit and run tactics. Where the blade of radiance is interesting is that it becomes more like a typical warrior with many more weapons in their arsenal, the ability to make attacks more often and even some medium armor potentially.

It happens to do this all very well with those additional attacks gained through divine points enhanced further when you can wield a glaive for instance. There’s also a fair bit of versatility in combat with the subclass having lots of ways to use their divine points. This makes for a rogue with a very high focus on dealing damage. It also happens to be very good at this with plenty of extra chances to land sneak attacks.

5/5

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Building a blade of radiance rogue

A blade of radiance builds a little differently to a standard rogue (though much remains the same). Your focus should be on melee combat due to your sanctified blade. You’ll also want to build for wisdom too to enhance your divine blessings. Chances are, with more ability scores to improve, this means investing less in feats, but may make you a better scout as a result (as wisdom will help your perception). Dexterity remains your priority with this build though.

As this is a Steinhardt’s Guide subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in Steinhardt’s Guide to the Eldritch Hunt book in my build advice below and shared which work well for this rogue subclass. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my rogue optimisation guide.

Species/race

Largely you’ll want a species that enhances your durability and ability to deal damage with the following your best options from Steinhardt’s Guide:

• Manikin: The lightning resistance grants a bit of resilience but really, you’ll be after advantage on stealth checks from the infiltrator armor. I’d also consider handler or thespian for your service model. Handler will improve stealth and disguises. I’m not sure the embedded weapons do much, but there’s definitely ambiguity over how much this impacts what you’re holding. Thespian is interesting for the potential increased movement you’re granted which can be useful for such a mobile class.
• Scourgebourne: Boosted dexterity saving throws should stack with your dexterity proficiency to make you even better at these. There are lots of monstrous lineages that can work well for a blade of radiance. Aranea will make you great at climbing. Cervus will make you faster and give you bonus action attacks saving your divine points a bit for other things. Vespertilio will give you blindsight and some limited flight, the sacrifice on your longer range perception though may be a bit too much.

Backgrounds

For a blade of radiance rogue, you’ll want to prioritise ability score increases for dexterity first and foremost. Wisdom or constitution are your secondary options. While a few backgrounds work alright for this subclass, only 1 really fits nicely with ability score increases, origin feats and skills, which is the investigator.

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Investigator	Dexterity, intelligence, wisdom	Curious	Insight and investigation	One kind of artisan’s tools

Feats

The following are all good feats for a blade of radiance:

• Curious: Can temporarily gain proficiency in a skill you don’t already have this for. Nice for a class often using skills. Learning resistances, vulnerabilities and immunities of enemies can be handy in combat too.
• Faithful: Charmed and frightened resilience plus you get heroic inspiration when you roll a 1 on a d20 test. You should be making a fair few d20 tests as the party’s main skill user which means more d20 tests to potentially get heroic inspiration on so you’re a decent choice for this.
• Brutalizer: Grab a two handed weapon in one hand and a scimitar or shortsword in the other, now you can make bonus action attacks without using divine points. They won’t be as potent, but great for when you’ve missed with a sneak attack with your main attack and want another chance at landing this.

Weapons

You’ll really want to focus on melee weapons for this build. You will still want ranged weapons for when you need a bit of safety or can’t get into melee range, but the ranged weapons in Steinhardt’s Guide really rely on building into them or making compromises in capabilities.

For that reason, I’d mostly recommend the scythe as a reach weapon. This will be particularly handy for hit and run tactics without being able to use your bonus action for the disengage action (as it may be occupied with other things like making an additional attack). Having said that, the blade of radiance does have other reach weapon options too as they can make attacks with things like a glaive or halberd with their dexterity.

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