I've played a rune knight for 10 levels. Cloud rune can turn a crit on an ally into a crit on an enemy on reaction once per short rest. That's an extremely powerful support ability in my experience, and between storm rune and runic shield you're using your reaction basically every turn to control enemy actions. Super fun class
I feel like they really didn't think through the cloud rune nearly enough lol for one, it gives context that cloud Giants use deceptive magics and the rune is using that tricky stuff to redirect attacks. But mainly, redirecting an attack is insane. We were fighting two t rexes and one got a crit vs our paladin. Rune knight redirect to the other trex. Paladin takes no damage, trex gets A massive crit which goes to the other enemy. Also getting the bonuses to str checks makes the rune knight an insane grappler. Our rune knight took the unarmed fighting style and went with a brawler build ended up choke slamming the trex. The subclass is fun, has good fluff, and is very effective. Also tool proficiencies are as useful as you make them. If you never try to use the smiths tools then yeah it feels like a waste, If you use it all the time it's a bit different
There is 1 tool proficiency that is extremely useful, especially if you are a high Dex character, and that’s Thieves’ Tools. Doubling your proficiency bonus with those could really come in handy. 🤠👍
And you can absolutely build this with Dex. Obviously if you wanted grappling to be your main thing, I'd go strength, but that is the only thing I can see that really NEEDS Str in this subclass. A maxed Dex and a shield still get you to 19 AC pretty easily. And even with just a 12 or so strength, with your abundance of ASIs as a fighter, taking skill expert is very doable. Get expertise in Athletics, and add Advantage on top of that, you are still an amazing grappler. I almost tend to think that it almost works better as a Dex build. The passive of a few of the runes really help a Dex PC and Dex is just more useful in general. If tanking and group support are your thing, I'd go Dex.
Very excited to make my Fairy fighter. Enlarge granted at level 5, plus giants might, can be every size between Tiny and Huge depending on what the situation calls for. Would love to play a longer campaign and then be Gargantuan size.
In 5e surprised is a condition like charmed or frightened and the DM is supposed to like, check in the first round of every combat if anyone is surprised.
I think you guys are really underselling the Rune Carver feature. I agree that Frost is pretty weak, but as a flat bonus it does stack with advantage. Definitely situationally useful at best. Cloud has fun ribbons (advantage on sleight of hand and deception), but the once/rest ability to redirect attacks is a game-changer. There's no save. Just once per rest, make an enemy wreck another enemy instead of you or your ally. As I said in another comment, expertise in all tools is cool for the Fire rune, especially for thieves' tools. The Stone rune gives super darkvision, and this works for all the races that don't have darkvision, fixing one of their biggest weaknesses as early as level 3. Insight is nice, too. The reaction is basically a 1/rest Hold Monster on a reaction, which is beast: creatures don't come out of the stupor from taking damage. Hill gives you dwarf poison resistance and the most powerful part of a Barbarian rage 1/rest. Incredible. Storm is also clearly very powerful - it lasts a minute and you can keep using it for ten rounds! You could use this in social situations to give yourself or other party members advantage on all their checks, or disadvantage for the NPC. In combat, obviously you could use it to change hits into misses and vice versa, but you could also use it to give enemies disadvantage on saves vs. your party spellcaster. That's insane! The other thing you didn't touch on: you inscribe ITEMS with these runes, not yourself. Nothing in the feature says they have to be items that YOU are wearing. You could give these benefits to someone else simply by letting them borrow the item or by inscribing theirs that day in the first place. At level 15, you can use all of the invocations twice! So two Cloud Giant attack redirects, two Stone Hold Monsters, two Fire Giant shackles, two Storm Giant advantage/disadvantage, two Hill mini-rages... The other stuff the subclass gets is good, sure, but the Rune Carver feature is awesome. You get lots of fun active abilities to use, and the bonuses to skills and such really give your Fighter a lot of things to do outside of combat, which is one of the biggest downsides to playing a fighter.
Having run a campaign that used the Unearthed Arcana Rune Knight who was later revised into an official one, I've got to say that the official one is way better. The Unearthed Arcana based all their DC abilities on Intelligence, which divides the fighter's ability score focus away from their core stats. The official one changed this to Constitution, which makes the runes feel more tied to your innate power, rather than intellect, and compliments the fighter's overall build much better. Plus, the original one couldn't turn huge!
Once grappling and shoving gets taken into account, along with growing to large size, then things get fun. Hell, you can even grapple 2 creatures at the same time and restrain them. Add in the runes of choice and the Rune Knight becomes quite powerful. Grapple a creature and move them along the edge of a spike growth spell. Shove them into a Wall of Fire, Cloud of Daggers, Web, etc. Grow to a large size and block that 10ft hallway to keep your allies safe. The options are many for a creative player and team.
Ooh! For heroes’ feast somebody’s gotta do a baker bard based on Mery Berry or Paul Hollywood from Great British Baking Show. Bardic inspiration: handshake!
The cloud-rune ability sounds like the trick Utgarda-Loki played on Thor, where he redirected Thor's hammer-strikes to hit nearby mountains instead of himself.
To note why they make them so strong in UA but usually get scaled down has to do with development scaling. It's harder to scale up than to scale down. It is the same thing as in video games. You find out what doesn't work and then bring it down a tad, but if a feature seems weak and then is brought up, it could turn out to be game breaking when it gets much stronger. Now this still doesn't explain everything they do to the monk.
Yall goofin on darkvison abilities, but the eldritch invocation Devils Sight is pretty badass, and having more options available at character creation could encourage and support people wanting to mix up the race they play. It does suck to be the only one in the party without darkvison. Darkvison can be powerful.
If I am running unearthed arcana it's because we are playing a play-test game. Which means we are willing to have things either not work as intended or be completely over the top. Trying things out is fun, but I can't base a full campaign around it.
These guys are hilarious. Rune carver sucks, but giant size, that’s your bread and better. 😂 Ignoring the power of the active runes, which are awesome, 120 ft darkvision and poison resistance are baller for a lot of races including goliaths, dragonborn and variant humans.
I agree, lots of decent proficiencies that add great out of combat utility that fighters struggle to get. Cloud rune keeps you from EVER being surprised. Advantage on all Intimidation, Deception, and/or insight checks are all incredibly useful. 7th level basically have silvery bards on a stick for attack roles. You will be able to prevent so many crits on your allies. Great all-around fighter subclass
@@ryancparker Even got the part about giants might adding more damage than enlrage/reduce wrong. Giant's might is only a d6 once a round, while enlarge adds 1d4 per hit which could easily be 3 hits a round. I wish they had added some cool high level runes, like the "Dungeon Dudes" suggested. But other than that, this is an exciting fighter subclass that is probably going to be my next PC.
Just played this in ToA. Bossed the atropal with the stone rune and storm rune. Then bossed Acerack with the storm and cloud rune. Played a Goliath with shield master.
To me it seems there’s little difference between using Unearthed Arcana and homebrewing, which y’all frequently support. Is there a distinction to yall? The reasons you gave to not using Unearthed Arcana (it not being the official balanced version which other play groups might not accept) also applies to using a Homebrew.
@@feihceht656 I get that, I just don't get why they are hung up on something being changed when they can just choose to use the "unofficial" one they do like, especially since they promote changing things themselves all the time.
The problem with rune knight is that they didn’t want it to be elemental knight. Unfortunately, their runes do not touch upon the broader nature of giants in a clearer format, and giant lore itself needs a Fizban’s style touch up
Loved the comment about calling PETA on WOTC, and then immediately following it up with, "Actually don't do that, they'll take it too seriously..." laughed at this then I got sad.
There’s a lot of tables that don’t do unearthed arcana, which is ironic cause the play testing doesn’t seem to happen. And then there’s a vocal minority with TH-cam channels who usually completely misunderstand features and get the stuff nerfed. Look at basically every monk…
I feel like your take on the rune Knight is so off. Honestly it feels like you didn't have time to really feel the build. Rune Knight is one of the most fun to play and best built sub classes in 5e
![โอ้เธอช่าง... - บี้เดอะสกา ft. ต๋อง เทวัญ (Prod. by ป๋าเพชร) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zbWhiLFmVL0/mqdefault.jpg)
I've played a rune knight for 10 levels. Cloud rune can turn a crit on an ally into a crit on an enemy on reaction once per short rest. That's an extremely powerful support ability in my experience, and between storm rune and runic shield you're using your reaction basically every turn to control enemy actions. Super fun class
I played the cloud rune as the homie has magical clouds form around him and then another forms around the new target and it's like a dimensional shift
I feel like they really didn't think through the cloud rune nearly enough lol for one, it gives context that cloud Giants use deceptive magics and the rune is using that tricky stuff to redirect attacks.
But mainly, redirecting an attack is insane. We were fighting two t rexes and one got a crit vs our paladin. Rune knight redirect to the other trex. Paladin takes no damage, trex gets A massive crit which goes to the other enemy.
Also getting the bonuses to str checks makes the rune knight an insane grappler. Our rune knight took the unarmed fighting style and went with a brawler build ended up choke slamming the trex.
The subclass is fun, has good fluff, and is very effective.
Also tool proficiencies are as useful as you make them. If you never try to use the smiths tools then yeah it feels like a waste, If you use it all the time it's a bit different
I think you guys were determined not to like this subclass. I think it is very cool
I played this subclass get broken very easily but it's a fun one keep up the good work guys can't wait to see when you guys do oath of Conquest
There is 1 tool proficiency that is extremely useful, especially if you are a high Dex character, and that’s Thieves’ Tools. Doubling your proficiency bonus with those could really come in handy. 🤠👍
Double tool proficiency applies to vehicles as well.
And you can absolutely build this with Dex. Obviously if you wanted grappling to be your main thing, I'd go strength, but that is the only thing I can see that really NEEDS Str in this subclass. A maxed Dex and a shield still get you to 19 AC pretty easily. And even with just a 12 or so strength, with your abundance of ASIs as a fighter, taking skill expert is very doable. Get expertise in Athletics, and add Advantage on top of that, you are still an amazing grappler. I almost tend to think that it almost works better as a Dex build. The passive of a few of the runes really help a Dex PC and Dex is just more useful in general. If tanking and group support are your thing, I'd go Dex.
Very excited to make my Fairy fighter. Enlarge granted at level 5, plus giants might, can be every size between Tiny and Huge depending on what the situation calls for. Would love to play a longer campaign and then be Gargantuan size.
In 5e surprised is a condition like charmed or frightened and the DM is supposed to like, check in the first round of every combat if anyone is surprised.
I think you guys are really underselling the Rune Carver feature. I agree that Frost is pretty weak, but as a flat bonus it does stack with advantage. Definitely situationally useful at best. Cloud has fun ribbons (advantage on sleight of hand and deception), but the once/rest ability to redirect attacks is a game-changer. There's no save. Just once per rest, make an enemy wreck another enemy instead of you or your ally. As I said in another comment, expertise in all tools is cool for the Fire rune, especially for thieves' tools. The Stone rune gives super darkvision, and this works for all the races that don't have darkvision, fixing one of their biggest weaknesses as early as level 3. Insight is nice, too. The reaction is basically a 1/rest Hold Monster on a reaction, which is beast: creatures don't come out of the stupor from taking damage. Hill gives you dwarf poison resistance and the most powerful part of a Barbarian rage 1/rest. Incredible. Storm is also clearly very powerful - it lasts a minute and you can keep using it for ten rounds! You could use this in social situations to give yourself or other party members advantage on all their checks, or disadvantage for the NPC. In combat, obviously you could use it to change hits into misses and vice versa, but you could also use it to give enemies disadvantage on saves vs. your party spellcaster. That's insane!
The other thing you didn't touch on: you inscribe ITEMS with these runes, not yourself. Nothing in the feature says they have to be items that YOU are wearing. You could give these benefits to someone else simply by letting them borrow the item or by inscribing theirs that day in the first place. At level 15, you can use all of the invocations twice! So two Cloud Giant attack redirects, two Stone Hold Monsters, two Fire Giant shackles, two Storm Giant advantage/disadvantage, two Hill mini-rages...
The other stuff the subclass gets is good, sure, but the Rune Carver feature is awesome. You get lots of fun active abilities to use, and the bonuses to skills and such really give your Fighter a lot of things to do outside of combat, which is one of the biggest downsides to playing a fighter.
I think the working is that using the item gives you the benefits, not who's holding the item. You use your reaction, not the item wielder.
The fire giant rune works for all tools, including thieves' tools. Cool way to fill in part of the rogue role if your party is lacking one.
Rune knight is my fave fighter subclass
Could use some of these runes to shovel my driveway, thanks guys!
🥶👍
Having run a campaign that used the Unearthed Arcana Rune Knight who was later revised into an official one, I've got to say that the official one is way better. The Unearthed Arcana based all their DC abilities on Intelligence, which divides the fighter's ability score focus away from their core stats. The official one changed this to Constitution, which makes the runes feel more tied to your innate power, rather than intellect, and compliments the fighter's overall build much better. Plus, the original one couldn't turn huge!
Once grappling and shoving gets taken into account, along with growing to large size, then things get fun. Hell, you can even grapple 2 creatures at the same time and restrain them. Add in the runes of choice and the Rune Knight becomes quite powerful.
Grapple a creature and move them along the edge of a spike growth spell.
Shove them into a Wall of Fire, Cloud of Daggers, Web, etc.
Grow to a large size and block that 10ft hallway to keep your allies safe.
The options are many for a creative player and team.
Ooh! For heroes’ feast somebody’s gotta do a baker bard based on Mery Berry or Paul Hollywood from Great British Baking Show. Bardic inspiration: handshake!
The cloud-rune ability sounds like the trick Utgarda-Loki played on Thor, where he redirected Thor's hammer-strikes to hit nearby mountains instead of himself.
To note why they make them so strong in UA but usually get scaled down has to do with development scaling. It's harder to scale up than to scale down. It is the same thing as in video games. You find out what doesn't work and then bring it down a tad, but if a feature seems weak and then is brought up, it could turn out to be game breaking when it gets much stronger.
Now this still doesn't explain everything they do to the monk.
Yall goofin on darkvison abilities, but the eldritch invocation Devils Sight is pretty badass, and having more options available at character creation could encourage and support people wanting to mix up the race they play.
It does suck to be the only one in the party without darkvison. Darkvison can be powerful.
If I am running unearthed arcana it's because we are playing a play-test game. Which means we are willing to have things either not work as intended or be completely over the top. Trying things out is fun, but I can't base a full campaign around it.
Perhaps you could flavor the attack redirect as the targets vision being clouded and thats why they missed?
These guys are hilarious. Rune carver sucks, but giant size, that’s your bread and better. 😂 Ignoring the power of the active runes, which are awesome, 120 ft darkvision and poison resistance are baller for a lot of races including goliaths, dragonborn and variant humans.
I agree, lots of decent proficiencies that add great out of combat utility that fighters struggle to get. Cloud rune keeps you from EVER being surprised. Advantage on all Intimidation, Deception, and/or insight checks are all incredibly useful. 7th level basically have silvery bards on a stick for attack roles. You will be able to prevent so many crits on your allies. Great all-around fighter subclass
@@taylorsmith9197yeah these guys are clueless. They think this subclass needs to be rebalanced. My goliath rune knight is a game changer.
@@ryancparker Even got the part about giants might adding more damage than enlrage/reduce wrong. Giant's might is only a d6 once a round, while enlarge adds 1d4 per hit which could easily be 3 hits a round. I wish they had added some cool high level runes, like the "Dungeon Dudes" suggested. But other than that, this is an exciting fighter subclass that is probably going to be my next PC.
Just played this in ToA. Bossed the atropal with the stone rune and storm rune. Then bossed Acerack with the storm and cloud rune. Played a Goliath with shield master.
Red Warrior needs food Badly!!
To me it seems there’s little difference between using Unearthed Arcana and homebrewing, which y’all frequently support. Is there a distinction to yall? The reasons you gave to not using Unearthed Arcana (it not being the official balanced version which other play groups might not accept) also applies to using a Homebrew.
@@feihceht656 I get that, I just don't get why they are hung up on something being changed when they can just choose to use the "unofficial" one they do like, especially since they promote changing things themselves all the time.
It is a very powerful class of fighter. But I was expecting you to go with a Goliath and start growing the character from there :)
If I make this character I shall name them Rune Ed the Ruin Delver.
The problem with rune knight is that they didn’t want it to be elemental knight. Unfortunately, their runes do not touch upon the broader nature of giants in a clearer format, and giant lore itself needs a Fizban’s style touch up
Gauntlet: Dark legacy was the shit! Red wizard main
😎
Indeed
Loved the comment about calling PETA on WOTC, and then immediately following it up with, "Actually don't do that, they'll take it too seriously..." laughed at this then I got sad.
Good soup
There’s a lot of tables that don’t do unearthed arcana, which is ironic cause the play testing doesn’t seem to happen.
And then there’s a vocal minority with TH-cam channels who usually completely misunderstand features and get the stuff nerfed.
Look at basically every monk…
Any SQS updates?
i miss my favorite internet show.
One week from today
@@Thedungeoncast YEEEESSSSSS WOOOHOOOO
Tuesday Feb 1st 7PM PST
@@Thedungeoncast I'm so excited. It's literally impossible to express via txt.
xXxARTHAS MENETHILxXx
I feel like your take on the rune Knight is so off. Honestly it feels like you didn't have time to really feel the build. Rune Knight is one of the most fun to play and best built sub classes in 5e