Fighter Martial Archetype: Rune Knight 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Rune Knight needs to be the standard for fighter subclasses going forward. It does everything I want a fighter subclass to do in ways that dynamically empower the character and offer interesting choices the entire time. If you have a love for the giants and their lore in Dungeons & Dragons, or just want a bit of magic on your fighter but don’t want the feel bads of being a ⅓ caster with Eldritch Knight, Rune Knight delivers powerful magical abilities in a way fighters gel with. My biggest gripe with the subclass is there aren’t nearly enough runes to choose from.

3rd Level: Bonus Proficiencies, Rune Carver, and Giant Might

Bonus Proficiencies you get here are smith’s tools and the Giant language. Neat!

Rune Carver is the actual meat and potatoes of Rune Knight, as you’d expect. It's a deep feature that scales as the game goes on, giving you runes that have both passive and activatable effects you can use twice a long rest. This isn’t just a single use spell slot: this is a flexible choice to customize your characters fantasy with a variety of tools that can help you define your niche among Rune Knights. Each rune coming back on a short or long rest, too, makes them all feel like their own unique resource that you can expend fairly freely.

Want to be a tricky charlatan both in and out of combat? Stick a Cloud Rune on a dagger! Not only are you passively better at Sleight of Hand and Deception checks, you have a combat tool that redirects attacks in an impactful way.

Have a desire to display a mastery of the forge and craftsmanship? The Fire Rune gives you expertise with a tool proficiency (which tends to be predominantly a ribbon) while simultaneously getting a 2d6 bonus flaming shackles on hit effect that can restrain a creature and burn them over time.

The Frost Rune empowers Animal Handling and Intimidation checks for your out of combat boon with the invoking ability offering you a 10 minute long duration +2 bonus to all Strength and Constitution ability checks and saving throws, defining the Frost Rune as one of the more clear cut ways to excel in Athletics and other out of combat Strength checks as well.

If you’re looking for better sight and insight, Stone Runes give you 120 ft. darkvision and advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks. Invoking it offers you a reaction based charm effect that incapacitates a target. INCAPACITATES. This is a excellent save or die accessible to a freaking 3rd level fighter that just passively bolsters your ability checks. You get this once per short rest in addition to ANOTHER rune once a short rest. Gross!

The other two runes, Hill and Storm, are unlocked at 7th level. Hill is for characters looking to soak a lot of damage, as it offers four kinds of damage resistance and advantage on saves against the poison condition. Storm gives you advantage on Arcana checks and makes you unable to be surprised on top of a minute's worth of reactions to reroll attacks, saving throws, or ability checks. Storm is definitely worth being a 7th level prerequisite; Hill I’m less sure of, but it's still a perfectly reasonable option to pick up.

You’ll end up getting 5/6 of these runes by the time you get to 15th level in the subclass, which I think does the subclass a bit of a disservice, as a lot of upper tier Rune Knights can start to look more and more similar. Having a broader amount of runes would radically improve this to me, and encourage creative mixing and matching to get the exact kind of Rune Knight you want. As is, though, this is a phenomenal ability that frankly could be the basis of a core class, not just subclass, and the fighter class definitely is in need of this kind of mechanic to really thrive.

Of all the options available, I think most builds will end up just forgoing the Frost Rune, as I think its on the whole the weakest, but I can absolutely see characters picking it up to define them as the survivalist that kicks in doors and tames the monstrous wolf instead of killing it.

Giant Might: because two runes with passive effects and active abilities just wasn’t enough for this subclass, you get a sweet proficiency bonus per long rest deeply thematic rage-like feature that turns you large and empowers one hit each turn. If this were a typical fighter subclass, I’d expect to just get Giant Might, and I’d be pretty okay with that. Getting it ON TOP OF the Runes will leave you feeling like you have a deep well of options to navigate fights with.

For just a 3rd level feature, you get three new choices you can make: two runes, and two uses of Giant Might, all three of which grow naturally as you gain levels beyond the expanded subclass features we’re yet to cover.

7th Level: Runic Shield

Runic Shield gives you a reaction that makes the Interception fighting style look like trash. It, like Giant Might, scales with your proficiency bonus, meaning you’re starting out with three reactions per long rest to force a creature to reroll a hit and potentially turn it to a miss. This compounds on the Cloud Rune and Storm Rune, making it so enemies can have a very difficult time land blows, as you’ve got a large quantity of reactions at the ready that protect yourself and your friends.

Not the most thematic ability of all time, but yet another new resource you have to expend and offer you more decisions in combat.

10th Level: Great Stature

Great Stature is almost a non feature, which is a bit of a let down. Growing a few inches is neat and all, and the die size increase on your Giant Might is fine, but seeing as it's capped to once a round anyway it's hard to get a lot of extra mileage out of this improvement. The subclass doesn’t need more power here, especially considering you’re getting a new rune on top of your growing number of Runic Shields and Giant Mights, but this is almost a non-feature.

15th Level: Master of Runes

Master of Runes doubles your already growing pool of runes. It DOUBLES it. You go from five rune uses per short rest to ten. Two uses of any given rune is excellent. There isn’t much to say about this; you’re going to feel like you’ve got an abundance of options in almost every fight, and you’re highly encouraged to fire off runes as often as possible seeing as you only need a short rest to get them all back.

18th Level: Runic Juggernaut

Runic Judgement caps out the subclass with another dice upgrade to d10 from d8, and another size increase. The size increase is honestly the more useful of the two, as going from a bonus d8 to d10 damage a round is fairly minimal, but adding an extra 5 feet to a Sentinel Polearm Master or making a Greatsword have reach can be a pretty solid upgrade. It also helps you feel like the giant, towering over your enemies with massive weapons and runes of destruction.

All Together

Where Rune Knight won’t be the highest damage fighter subclass out there, it doesn’t need to be. Rune Knight offers fighters a massive pool of resources it has always been in desperate need of. You get a swath of new reactions, bonus damage options, conditional effects, protection features, and weapon improvements. Where an option like Champion or Samurai will take any fighter’s attacks and make them better, Rune Knight gives you more stuff to do alongside the three to four attacks you’re used to making. You have just so many new things to do, all of which are genuinely solid additions to your character sheet unlocked as you progress.

One element that really confuses me is why this is a fighter subclass and not a barbarian subclass; Giant Might and the melee focus it presents seems to clearly line up with what that class is doing. When you rage, you’d become large and get the bonus d6 damage. Giants are known for their wrath and wars against the small folk. It looks like a perfect fit to me.

As a fighter subclass, though, Rune Knight is a homerun. I can’t recommend it enough. It definitely is one of the more complex fighter options in the game, meaning players who may struggle to juggle all of the game elements RPGs present may want to avoid, but if you want to play a fighter who can actually change up how they approach fights and have a robust expansion of their skills out of combat, Rune Knight is the subclass for you.

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