Attack your enemies with despair with this debuff-heavy fighter subclass from D&D Beyond Drops.
D&D Beyond is really trying to make itself more appealing and worthwhile with D&D Beyond Drops offering regular new content for players and DMs. It’s just an extra perk to your subscription which I think is great and the options being granted seem to be bigger than expected. That’s especially the case this month with an entire subclass dropping known as the sorrow knight fighter.
The sorrow knight uses grief and despair to draw power from the Shadowfell. This power infects other with misery, depression and other negative emotions to cause an array of debuffs, kind of like the dementors from Harry Potter. The sorrow knight is an expert at whittling away at enemies on a regular basis. It’s like nothing else we’ve had before and also fills the niche of a wisdom fighter which is new to 5.5e too.
You can access the sorrow knight by subscribing to D&D Beyond and gaining access to the D&D Beyond Drops content. Below I’ve analysed the subclass and given advice on how you can optimise your own sorrow knight.
At a glance
- Highly skilled martial warriors
- Inflict negative emotions to cause regular debuffs
- Utilise Shadowfell powers to cause regular damage and greater resilience
4/5 – A debuff specialist that can be causing lots of little debuffs quite regularly to frustrate enemies. It also happens to be a decent damage dealer and have some solid resilience too. Not only this, but the flavour is unique and could be a fun one to play with.
Sorrow Knight features
Despairing strikes (Lv3) – 5/5
On its own, a damage boost to a few weapon attacks per short rest is pretty solid, but the despairing strike options also happen to be quite good. It’s fairly similar to a battle master’s superiority dice. You tend to have slightly fewer despairing strike dice and less choice of effects, but the effects are better.
I love abandoned. It’s hard to gauge power levels as it depends a lot on how your DM plays this, but if you can make sure the party are further from the target than the rest of the enemies, then they might end up directing attacks against your enemies instead of you.
Dread is pretty good too. Use it when an ally wants to blast a nasty spell at the target and it’ll be more likely to work. So you use abandoned when against lots of enemies and dread to help allied spellcasters land a spell.
The only challenge is to be good at this, you’ll need a decent wisdom. That’s not too hard with a fighter, but it probably won’t be your biggest priority either. If you don’t have a high wisdom, you might want to favour dread which doesn’t require a saving throw.
Solemn gaze (Lv3) – 2/5
This is a ribbon feature. Darkvision is often useful. Knowing emotions probably has some roleplay benefits, but those benefits aren’t huge. I think it’s more fun than functional. I do think it would have been better if you could keep this ability secret, but I think you can work with that if you roleplay it well.
Dreaded appearance (Lv7) – 4/5
You end up doing quite a lot with the bonus action you use to activate this. Some healing, teleportation, emanation damage and frighten. Once per rest should mean it’s available once for most major encounters.
Really you want to use this for teleporting into the midst of enemies rather than away from them, though you could use it for that if desperate. You could even teleport away from one group of enemies, into the midst of another bunch.
Although the damage scales, it’s not by loads so the damage remains small. Just be aware that the success of this is also tied to how high your wisdom is.
Unsettled strikes (Lv10) – 4/5
This now gives us some more ways to debuff enemies attacked by our despairing strikes. Apathetic is for preventing certain actions altogether, lost is for making them worse at attacks and easier to hit and weary makes them worse at attacks and more susceptible to effects that require saving throws.
There’s a use case for all of these options and I think they balance out surprisingly well. This doesn’t necessarily increase the magnitude of what you can already do, but it does give you more options for how you debuff enemies.
Grim constitution (Lv15) – 3/5
Psychic damage isn’t hugely common, but necrotic damage can come up a decent bit. This makes for some decent resilience.
The protection from hit point maximum decreases is quite situational as this only comes up occasionally, though it can be problematic after a few such effects when it does occur. The other problem is the DC is already average and subsequent saves will only increase this further meaning even in encounters where this does come up, it’ll usually only work very few times.
Grieving mantle (Lv18) – 5/5
As this is a minute long effect, you might as well activate it in turn 1 for nasty encounters. This sort of forces when you use action surge, but turn 1 is not a bad time to do so. Once you hit this level, you can use this and action surge twice per short rest meaning you should be able to activate it for most major encounters.
The charmed and frightened immunity are useful as 2 of the more common conditions, but with a high wisdom, you do have some resilience to these effects anyway.
Shade form is potentially the more potent aspect of this as you can just make a hit against you cause 0 damage once per round. That’s a really substantial resilience feature. Other attacks will hurt you though, and it will consume your reaction so it’s less good on builds that can make a lot of opportunity attacks like those with the sentinel feat.
How good is the sorrow knight subclass?
I love this concept of a warrior that empowers its attacks through negative emotions and unleashes those on their enemies, subduing them with depression. Even better, this is a mechanically unique subclass with nothing quite like it before. Even the ribbon features offer some interesting quirks.
It’s really a debuff specialist that should be dishing out frustrating, temporary effects really often. It does this quite well. It’s also got some decent resilience going on.
I might have wanted the maximum hit points protection to be a bit more reliable, especially with it being such a situational feature. Maybe you could have the maximum hit points reduced by half (which also wouldn’t require a saving throw). Otherwise, I think the design is really tight, which is hugely promising for a more obscure release coming on D&D Beyond. What a morbidly delightful surprise we’ve had drop in!
4/5
Building a sorrow knight
Sorrow knights can largely be optimised like other fighters. They tend to focus on being frontline melee warriors with the resilience to take a beating and the attacks to deal one out. They can operate as ranged attackers, but most parties don’t have the luxury of a dedicated ranged fighter.
There are a couple of differences to consider though. Despairing strikes won’t work with unarmed attacks so an unarmed build probably isn’t worth taking (though this does feel like a potential oversight). The other is that this is a wisdom-based fighter so we need to buff this up for your features to be effective and it can change some of the skills we take.
Below, I’ve gone through how you can build a well-optimised sorrow knight.
Ability scores
Recommended options
- Strength: To make the most of your melee attacks, strength is your best option, though a dexterity build is viable, especially if you want to play a ranged warrior. However, not only do most parties rely on a fighter to draw away attacks from spellcasters, the sorrow knight also relies on some features where being close to enemies is best, especially dreaded appearance.
- Constitution: You’ll need the resilience from this as a frontline warrior.
- Dexterity: With the need to invest in wisdom, I’d focus purely on strength or dexterity, but not both. Dexterity will give you finesse and ranged weapon capabilities, but strength attacks will hit harder, so I’d recommend strength over dexterity, but a Dex build can work.
- Wisdom: The higher this is, the harder it will be for enemies to resist your debuffs.
Options to avoid
- Intelligence: You can dump this.
- Charisma: Dump this too, you have too many other ability scores to focus on.
| Ability score | Point Buy | Standard Array |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | 15 | 15 |
| Dexterity | 8 | 12 |
| Constitution | 15 | 13 |
| Intelligence | 8 | 8 |
| Wisdom | 15 | 14 |
| Charisma | 8 | 10 |
Skills
Recommended options
- Athletics/acrobatics: If you’ve invested in strength, go with athletics, if you’ve gone for a dexterity build, go for acrobatics.
- Animal handling: Sometimes useful and you have the wisdom to handle this.
- Perception: Really important skill and you have the wisdom to be quite good at this.
- Survival: Can be useful in exploration elements and you have a good enough wisdom here to compensate for the lack of a ranger.
Species/race
There are a couple of things to consider when choosing a species for a sorrow knight:
- Resilience: Fighters often take a beating so any resilience traits are going to help you out.
- Innate spellcasting: You can’t repeat cast spells but should have a decent wisdom. Still, it likely isn’t your forte so probably not a strong choice for a sorrow knight.
- Damage dealing: You’re primarily there to deal a lot of damage to your targets making it handy to find more ways to deal damage.
Recommended options
- Aasimar (2024): Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage increases your hardiness. Just be aware you get necrotic resistance at level 15, if you won’t reach those levels, this will still be useful. For celestial revelation, I’d avoid necrotic shroud as it relies on strong charisma, but inner radiance and temporary flight are both useful. A bit of healing is a decent emergency option too.
- Dragonborn (2024): Dragon’s breath gives you some AoE damage not normally available to fighters and only replaces a single attack instead of using your whole action making it a very strong option. Temporary flight lets you get to hard to reach enemies. Plus there’s a resistance for better durability.
- Dwarf (2024): An extra hit point per level is great for a frontline warrior. And for even more resilience, you have resistance against poison and advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition.
- Goliath (2024): Faster movement makes you even better at traversing the battlefield. Your giant ancestry grants some very useful options too. For a sorrow knight, the durability of the stone giants, knocking enemies prone with hill giant and extra damage from fire giants are all great options.
- Orc (2024): A couple of great endurance features here with temporary hit points and relentless endurance to save you when knocked to 0HP. Great for a frontline melee warrior.
- Shifter (2024): All the shifter forms are great on a sorrow knight. Beasthide will make you tougher, longtooth gives you more damage (and fighters don’t often use their bonus action anyway), swiftstride will make you quicker and more evasive and wildhunt makes attacks less likely to hit and your wisdom checks better.
- Warforged (2024): Great for a really tough sorrow knight (and you can play Marvin the paranoid android from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). You’ll get things like poison resistance, advantage against the poisoned condition and +1AC.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 with ability score increases, origin feats and skills all now linked to your background.
For a sorrow knight, you’ll want a background that increases strength/dexterity with constitution or wisdom as secondary options. You’ll also want some appropriate skills and origin feats too.
| Name | Ability scores | Origin feat | Skill proficiencies | Tool proficiency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Farmer | Strength, constitution, wisdom | Tough | Animal handling, nature | Carpenter’s tools |
| Flaming fist mercenary (HoF) | Strength, constitution, charisma | Tough | Intimidation, perception | Smith’s tools |
| Guard | Strength, intelligence, wisdom | Alert | Athletics, perception | One kind of gaming set |
| Ice fisher (HoF) | Strength, dexterity, constitution | Alert | Animal handling, athletics | Woodcarver’s tools |
| Purple dragon squire (HoF) | Strength, wisdom, charisma | Purple dragon rook | Animal handling, insight | Navigator’s tools |
| Rashemi wanderer (HoF) | Strength, constitution, charisma | Tough | Intimidation, perception | Cartographer’s tools |
| Soldier | Strength, dexterity, constitution | Savage attacker | Athletics, intimidation | One kind of gaming set |
Feats
I’d suggest the following feats for a sorrow knight:
Origin feats
- Alert – You can either give yourself an initiative boost, or pass on the benefits.
- Arcane omens (AU) – Guidance is great for enhancing skill checks and you get some decent boosts to saving throws.
- Arcane safeguard (AU) – Resistance as a bonus action works well on a bonus action-lite subclass to provide some resilience. Help your allies with ability checks to grant some temporary hit points too.
- Lord’s alliance agent (HoF) – Work as a team with other melee warriors to gain advantage and grant heroic inspiration.
- Lucky – More ways to be reliable at important rolls is universally beneficial.
- Musician – A universally great feat for dishing out heroic inspiration.
- Shadowmoor Hexer (LFL) – Hex is great on a high attack class and retaliation damage is great on a build that should be drawing attacks.
- Tough – You’ll likely be on the front lines so some extra resilience is very useful!
- Zhentarim ruffian (HoF) – Advantage on initiative rolls is pretty good. Make sure someone in the group has musician or a similar feat to make sure you have a regular supply of heroic inspiration. Your opportunity attacks hurt a little more too.
General feats
- Defensive duelist – Great AC boost on a melee dexterity build.
- Dual wielder – Another attack on a dual wielder if you’re already using the nick weapon mastery property. Sorrow knights don’t have heavily occupied bonus actions so you should be able to get off plenty of bonus action attacks.
- Durable – Better death saving throws plus bonus action heals are great for a subclass that won’t always have something to do with their bonus action and will need regular healing.
- Great weapon master – Extra damage each attack and an extra attack when you land a critical, which fighters should be better at because of their high numbers of attacks.
- Heavy armor master – Decent extra durability if you’re going to be wearing heavy armor. Also depends on what you expect to be facing, but the damage types are common enough to be consistently useful.
- Inspiring leader – Grant temporary hit points to the party every rest and the wisdom boost suits a sorrow knight.
- Mage slayer – Best against mages, but having what is practically legendary resistance is also great.
- Polearm master – Great for getting in extra attacks with polearms.
- Purple dragon commandant (HoF) – Bonus action temporary hit points is pretty good, especially as your bonus action won’t be used a lot. Advantage on attack rolls is really good too, even if it is just while bloodied.
- Resilient – Makes you a bit tougher which is handy.
- Sentinel – Great for landing opportunity attacks more often and doing more with those attacks.
- Shield master – Great for enhancing shield-wielding fighters.
- Spell resistant (AU) – A damage resistance and some great resilience against spells will help you last longer.
- Zhentarim tactics (HoF) – Fighters tend to draw lots of attacks so this makes for easy opportunity attacks. Just be aware that from level 18, you may be using your reaction more for defence, but many characters won’t reach this level anyway.
Weapons
The weapons you choose will depend largely on how you want to fight and what weapon mastery properties you want to be using:
- Pure damage: Go for two-handed weapons like a greatsword, greataxe, glaive, halberd or maul. These weapons will do the most damage per hit.
- Sword and shield: If you want to go heavier on defense with a shield, you’ll need a one handed weapon like a longsword, battleaxe, morningstar or warhammer.
- Two weapon fighting: If you want to fight with two weapons for the extra offhand attack, you’ll need to use light weapons. Handaxes and scimitars are best for this. This will occupy your bonus action a decent bit, especially if you go for the dual wielder feat combined with the nick weapon mastery property, but fighters don’t make heavy use of their bonus action anyway. Nick means you’ll still get one extra attack even when you do need your bonus action for something else.
- Ranged: Tridents and javelins can be thrown allowing you to make ranged attacks with your strength. If you’re a dexterity build, a longbow is your best option (because it doesn’t have the reload property). However, each of these options is inferior to what you can accomplish with melee attacks so I’d stick to ranged attacks when you can’t get into melee.
A big part of your decision-making around weapons should come down to the weapon mastery properties you want to use. This mainly depends on the tactics you want to employ, but you can check out my weapon mastery guide to work out how best to utilise these properties.
Armor
This will depend on how much you can invest in dexterity. If playing a dexterity build, then light armor will work well, with studded leather your best option. Medium armor might be better before your dexterity reaches the highest tiers though. I’d generally recommend playing a melee build for a sorrow knight making a strength build a better option.
If you’re a strength build, take heavy armor (plate mail is best if you can afford it).
If you want some extra protection, a shield is a good choice but it will diminish your damage output. Surviving longer is often a great tactic for doing more damage in the long run, but if you want to strike harder and take down enemies quicker, you may want to forego the shield.
