How to Play a Rune Knight Fighter in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

TIME STAMPS
0:00 - Sponsor
0:44 - Intro
1:56 - Rune Knight Runes
3:01 - Rune Knight Abilities
4:08 - Races
7:43 - Ability Scores
9:44 - Rune Choices
21:27 - Feats
28:56 - Conclusions

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[edamommy]

Cloud Rune is fantastic in flipping critical hits at the frontline. Fought a brainstealer dragon as a Rune Knight, the dragon crit on Extract Brain (instakill if the target hits 0), used Cloud Rune to force her to eat her own son's brain instead

[jonah]

Key things about the Rune Knight:

Giants might makes you Large, not just one size larger. This means you still become large even if you are a goblin

The runes and damage boosts work with ranged options

So playing a goblin with a hand crossbow that grows to 12 feet tall and carries around what is now basically a small ballista

[izegrimcreations]

Cloud rune changed a TPK into a relatively easy win. Fighting the two mindflayers in RoF. One stunned and hit our monk for 67 damage. Since it required an attack roll, I simply switched it to the other mind flayer, killing it. Half our party was stunned at that point, so taking out one of them instead of having the monk die was game changing.

[leonnici]

Stacking Duergars Enlarge with Giant Might allows you to become huge and later even gargantuan. It also fits the theme of combining magic and smithing.

[Someone-nrdg]

I like to imagine that for a Warforged to become huge, it summon other machines to fuse with like in Power Rangers.

[piedpiper]

On the subject of Tavern Brawler and Grappler feats, I would like to remind everyone that since you become a Huge creature at high levels, you can technically grapple a Tarrasque and turn the fight into a kaiju battle.

[XDependent]

As a Half-Orc Rune Knight, I can say I have had a lot of fun. One big thing I noticed is that Rune Knights are really fun to play as 'Anti-Caster' type Fighter. Since your abilities aren't spells, you never have to worry about Counterspells, and since you have so many ways to manipulated Dice rolls (Saving Throws, Ability Checks, etc), it means you can often be as helpful as a Divination Wizard in making sure spells do or don't go through. I really leaned into this eventually and even took Mage Slayer just to scream with casters' concentration.

[WhosAlx]

If I played a rune knight I’d give my character the archeologist background. They first encountered the runes at an excavation and are driven to learn the secrets of the giants.

[dgrimesii]

I really like the idea of a Dragonborn Rune Knight that is a member of an elite force that is trained to fight giants using their own magic against them.

[skidoo]

I played a Loxodon Run Knight with the Unarmed Fighter fighting style and the Tavern Brawler + Skill Expert (athletics expertise) feats. With 3 grappling appendages and expertise+advantage on all grapple checks, he was an absolute monster of a battlefield controller and tank

[backlash]

One thing you can do with the Cloud rune is to transfer an awesome attack by one of your allies against a peon to the BBG . If your Rogue does a sneak attack crit the deals a ton on damage against a guard with 5 hits left you can thump the boss .

[chefdontrun]

I'm currently playing a grey dwarf Rune Knight. Using Enlarge to become Huge at early levels is awesome.

[PatrickYule]

Guys, do not sleep on Cloud Rune and alternative builds. I am playing a Dex/Cha Halfling in Rime of the Frostmaiden. Cloud Rune setups by the party, especially with Deception as needed, are absolutely devastating to many encounters.

You really get to be that "Trickster" role, but combined with the damage output and survivability of a fighter. Runic Shield blends with this very well too. Have fun.

[matthewparsons]

Fun story: My brother and I played a campaign just over a year ago where he played an Abjuration Wizard and I played a Rune Knight Fighter. We ended up in trouble with the law and sentenced to death in a gladiator pit. When we got there it was described like a classic colosseum with marble pillars all around to climb or knock over. Our opponents were an NPC Artillerist Artificer and Bear Totem Barbarian of equal levels to us. The fight goes on, my Rune Knight has a character connection with the Barbarian that makes them hate each other, and it starts to look dire. All of a sudden, the Barbarian uses all of his might to rip one of the pillars out of the ground and drop it on my brother's Wizard. He rolled the damage: 283 BLUDGEONING DAMAGE! He was a goner, my DM was genuinely looking to wipe out one of our parties favourite characters to create some real loss, and then the column disappeared. My brother was perfectly safe as we all looked over to my character, my enormous shield glowing green where the rune had been etched, and then the column reappeared over the Artificer and he was flattened. The Barbarian looked at me with disgust, and my DM was momentarily horrified that I had that kind of power at level 4.

The moral of the story is: Can a Battlemaster do that?

[patdav]

i'll admit, my favorite choice of race is that of the Fairy from Witchlight/Monsters of the Multiverse, allowing you to access Huge size early, and Gargantuan size at level 18. along with that, you also have access to Tiny size as well. this gives the fairy almost unrestricted access to all size categories whenever the need arises.

plus the flavor of having sylvan runes rather than giant runes is very fun. change the smith tool proficiency to weaver's tools to actually sew the runes into clothing, and it is really cool flavor.

plus the idea of this small dainty creature just getting roided and buffing themselves to high heaven is just a funny visual that i had to include,

[Sabortooftigar]

I've been super happy with my battleaxe and shield Green Knight inspired Firbolg rune knight, because they are sort of related to both fae and giants. I went with a theme out approach. They also have the powerful build, so my carrying capacity with giants might on goes up to over a thousand pounds. The ability to cast detect magic and to a lesser degree disguise self have also been really useful.
Maxed out strength, then took skill expert at 8 to boost con to 16 and get expertise in athletics for grappling all the things. Already grappled a young white dragon, watch out bosses. Being able to grant disadvantage from storm rune in the right grapple, shove, fire rune or stone rune, has been very fun and cool synergy baked in. Trying to pick what to do next. Might go for slasher, grappler, or shield expert or max con next.
I started fire and stone, and went to fire, hill, and storm.

[CreationsFlare]

Part of what makes Rune Knight such a loved Fighter is that it doesn't try to force you into certain builds. You could be anywhere from a brutish Strength meat DPS, a steely aggro/CC tank, sneaky rogue-ish analog, or even just a more nordic approach to magic bowman.

Also, I wouldn't sleep on Frost Rune if your goal is to grapple and keep something locked down for sure. But if your goal is damage or other opportunities for it, then it is conveniently last. And that's great.

[QuinnTheGM]

Easily my favorite fighter subclass! The runes are so unique, and I really like the customization that you get by selecting different options. It almost feels like a magical version of a Battle Master.

[TreiberSeptim]

The cloud rune is amazing. Our Rune Knight has diverted numerous crits onto enemies that would have really put a character‘s life at risk. The turnaround of „I take 20 damage? No, YOU take 20 damage!“ is amazing, at least at low levels so far.

[Wilkiesmuse]

I played a Kobold Rune Knight recently and he was honestly one of the characters I've had the most fun playing! Suplexing an anklyosaurus was a highlight, and using the Cloud Rune to swap crits from our squishy casters onto enemies was amazing. I actually built him to use dex for his fighting rather than strength, which played in well with the deception and sleight of hand bonuses, and it was hilarious when the tiny, scared kobold suddenly becomes a large sized angry mini-dragon!