Occult Blade

  Many criminal organizations are infamous and feared. Occult Blades are cleverly subtle, using targeted bribery, inconsistent extreme violence, and winking denials to leave people paranoid that anyone could be working for them. 

Operating in cultivated obscurity, they utilize magical techniques to occlude people’s memories of their actions, so their crimes are only vaguely recalled by victims, and authorities know them more by their absence than by any evidence they leave of their intentions. 

Sleight of Mind

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you learn to stealthily project your consciousness into the mind of another creature, allowing you to see their thoughts. Every mind is different, though, and to actually understand what you’re seeing takes some finesse, as you pull out a thought and hold it in your mind for a moment.

You can spend an action to cast detect thoughts , which does not require any verbal, somatic, or material components, but has a distance of only 5 feet. You can prevent a creature from knowing that you’re probing its mind by succeeding an Intelligence or Charisma (Sleight of Hand) check opposed to that creature’s Wisdom (Insight) check. If you succeed, the creature does not realize its mind was being probed.

Your spellcasting ability modifier for this spell is Intelligence or Charisma, and if a creature does become aware you’re probing its mind and uses an action to try to end the spell, you can use Charisma in place of Intelligence to oppose its Intelligence check.

After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest .

Absent Recall

Also at 3rd level, whenever an attack you make deals sneak attack damage, you can choose to have those dice be psychic damage instead of being dealt by the weapon.

Whenever you deal psychic damage to a creature this way, you impede its ability to form long-term memories of this encounter. If at any point in the next hour you and all your allies who were in the encounter are out of that creature’s sight for more than a minute, it forgets all details of your group’s appearance and the specific actions you took during the encounter. It recalls that it was attacked, and understands that its memories are occluded, but won’t remember, for example, where you fled, how many people there were, or what tactics you used.

A creature that is immune to being charmed is able to remember the encounter normally. And a creature that is aware of this ability might take actions before its memories fade to record details in text or by telling someone else.

Steal Your Shadow

At 9th level, your Sleight of Mind ability improves. When you dig deeper into a creature’s memories and it fails its saving throw to resist, you gather a temporary imprint of its personality, which you store in your mind until you complete a long rest .

Until that time, you can turn your mental focus inward and interact with that creature’s personality in a sort of mindscape. Initially the personality imprint believes it’s in whatever situation it was when you gathered the thoughts, so this is mostly useful for asking questions without alerting the real creature. Once you spend about ten minutes interacting with the imprint, it loses cohesion and dissipates. It cannot actually be harmed, nor is it a ‘real’ mind, so you cannot try, for example, to cast spells on it. The mindscape is limited, so many actions will tip it off that its existence isn’t real, which prompts most mental imprints to become unstable.

Plant Memories

At 13th level, you can slip into a creature’s mind and begin altering and adding memories. Spend an action to cast modify memory , which requires no verbal or somatic components, but has a range of only 5 feet. Your spellcasting ability modifier is Intelligence or Charisma. You can communicate the new memories telepathically.

After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest .

Steal Loyalty

At 17th level, you’re able to deftly rewrite a foe’s mind in the middle of battle. When you would deal sneak attack damage to a creature, you may instead cast dominate monster on it, which requires no verbal or somatic components. Your spellcasting ability modifier is Intelligence or Charisma. If the creature succeeds its saving throw , or whenever the spell ends, that creature takes psychic damage equal to your sneak attack dice.

After you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a Freelinking: Node title restingshort or long rest does not exist .