6:31 "For 10 minutes, you gain a +2 bonus to all ability checks, as well as saving throws that use Strength or Constitution." I read that part wrong. It is +2 bonus to ability checks and saving throws that use Strength or Constitution. The +2 to ability checks does not apply to any ability checks not using Strength or Constitution.

Time for Gargantuan Faerie Rune Knights that can fit through 1-inch spaces 😀

One interesting tidbit on Giant's Might - Enlarge/Reduce specifies that your weight increases or decreases as your size changes, but Giant's Might and Runic Juggernaut do not. This does unexpected things to the Rune Knight's density. I have seen some math out there that a halfling Rune Knight, with Reduce cast on them first, and then growing to Huge size with Runic Juggernaut, is technically less dense than air... but that gets into the ugly mixing of real world physics with D&D rules and magic. Honestly I just like the mental image of of a gigantic halfling Rune Knight slowly floating into things, like a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloon in a strong wind.

Stone option spends a reaction at the end of another creatures turns to cause incapacitation, charmed, and speed of 0 on a failed save. Since it’s at the end of a turn, this can potentially be used right after an enemy caster casts their big concentration spell. If they fail the save, incapacitation ends that spell, potentially before it even has a chance to do anything.

What I really like about this subclass is giving flavourful magical abilities to fighters without it being spellcasting. Totally MC this with barbarian!

Yeah, this one is great. I always wanted to wrestle a Tarrasque. Just throw an enlarge on top of the level 18 feature, and let me at it. What a moment that would be.

I love the idea of making a Yuan-Ti Rune Knight that has perverted the runes to make him/her closer to an Anathema. So the more powerful s/he gets the more Anathema snake like the fighter looks. I think that could be super fun.

Would love to play a halfling Rune Knight. I like halflings in general and this could make all the short jokes and cracks about eating all the party's food worth it. I can just hear the story being told now, "So then our halfling wrestled the dragon to the ground, and-" "Wait, what?"

I’ll always be a god wizard at heart, but damn this is a cool fighter subclass.

A Rune Knight should be built with grappling in mind. With so many options for using your reaction you won't be able to rely on opportunity attacks to restrict enemy movement.

0:25 Him saying that despite Rune Knight not having access to spellcasting means a lot!

I think having many different reactions for a fighter is a good thing. Fighters reaction attack is almost worthless without several specific feats invested. Being able to spend reactions to transfer damage, incapacitate specific creatures, and force confirmed hits to reroll against other creatures is awesome. Especially since the bonus damage you get is limited to once per YOUR turn.

I feel like the design team hit it out of the park with the Rune Knight. The flavor is unique and interesting, the power level is pushing the boundaries of Fighter subclasses without outright overshadowing them all, sticking with the class to higher levels has worthwhile payouts, and the playstyle provides lots of decision points to avoid every combat just being "I attack and end my turn." The only tweaks I would have liked to see were Giant's Might giving a small bonus to every hit you make (even if it was just something smaller like a flat +2 that never goes up, it just seems more flavorful that all your hits would get stronger, and would encourage sticking with Fighter for more attacks), eventual access to all 6 runes (which could also probably be better balanced against one another, poor frost giants), and an option to let your allies use your rune items (infusion style). It also bugs me a little that the Hill Giant rune is one of the best ones given all the lore around Hill Giants is that hey are the worst true giants at pretty much everything, but given that they don't really have any unique strengths other than being able to eat almost anything, I can see why they went this route. I guess they could have taken inspiration from the Mouth of Grolantor and instead have it give advantage on all attacks for a round, but that would have really stepped on the Samurai's toes.

It is worth noting that this is super bonus action hungry once you reach level 7. Bonus action to become large. Bonus action to become resistant to physical attacks Bonus action to enter the prophetic state where you cause advantage/disadvantage on enemies. As already mentioned in the video you are also very reaction hungry. This means fewer attacks of opportunity. Taken together this means Sentinel and Polearm master decrease in value. These would normally be great with large size, but after level 7, you probably don't have the reactions and bonus actions to use them effectively. Even heavy weapon master decrease a bit you are less likely to get the extra attack it can provide. Not saying this subclass isn't great, just saying it has drawbacks, drawbacks that might lead you to build your fighter differently than what you are used to.

You didn't mention it, but if you're willing to eat 2 runes, the storm rune can make the fire rune hell on earth.

This makes for the ultimate grappler build. Playing an 8ft loxodon, who can either attack with unarmed strikes or use every attack as a grapple and then free action let them go for 10/20ft (1d6/2d6) of fall damage while big. Now they’re likely prone (might be ruled an acrobatics check to stay standing) and that just sets up for the grapple pin with one of 3 viable limbs. Alternative, go aracocra and become the “Roc” for more high flying moves. Requires taking the chef feat.

This would be an interesting sub class for the 'armored pugilist' build option I will say.

I think the coolest thing about this subclass is the amount of super strong passive effects they can get... If you wanna make fighter thief character, advantage on sleight of hand, deception and thieves tools can be very cool.. I do think thatr giant's might was obviously made to work with every attack.. And the way it scales shows this. Having lvl 10 feature increase the damage die would still be rather weak when applyng to each attack, but tleast kinda cool as it'd also scale with your number of attacks... Having the die increase by 1 on 1 attack per turn is beyond disapointing.. It's like they couldn't come up wth a way to make it cool after they made the benefit only apply to 1 attack... I think the lvl 10 feature is one of the weakest subclass features in the game tbh.

The rune knight is cool. I liked it back when it was still designed as a prestige class. I’m kind of ready for prestige classes now tbh.

I've just taken a Rune Knight through a full Decent into Avernus campaign (1 session left) and the class is simply a blast. All the way through 13 I've pulled my weight, and short rest resistance is such a useful ability for a front-liner. Being large without depending on a wizard was awesome. Just flipping infernal war-machines left and right, making Godzilla Noises. In the final act (I got the angel wings- perks of being the only STR character) I was able to leverage Giant Might and an action sure to knock *6* huge demons out of the air 500ft above the ground... then used sentinel to send the last one plummeting when it came after me. +15 Athletics with Advantage for a minute is No Joke. A 14 foot tall four-armed simic hybrid with angel wings just punting demons out of the sky. It was honestly the best experience I've ever had playing a high-level martial in 5e. I played a PAM/GWM character, and the amount of options (while they mostly amounted to hit this, redirect that, don't get hit as hard) I had with my bonus action and reaction meant that I essentially exhausted every single Action/Bonus/Reaction every turn meaningfully, which I'm not used to on a martial. It's nice to be able to do more then 'I rage. Now I spin to win' every turn. I didn't realize that the tool expertise applied to tools other then Smithing! I have a DM friend who really fleshed out crafting so its nice to be able to play a character that's decent at tool use that's not an Artificer. Is there anyway else to gain expertise besides Artificer/Rune Knight?

Interested in what you think of a "power bomb" build. Grapple your target, then jump and "let go". Rules state that you can lift a creature up to "Your height*1.5", if you started out as a Goblin, you'll be 16ft high at Large size (Taller if you have a wizard friend to enlarge you). Assuming you dash on your turn, that means you can lift up a creature 20ft in the air, plus your jump height (6ft at Str16). A creature will take 3d6 fall damage from that height. Maximum damage compared to a greatsword? Perhaps not, but when you add in multiclassing, Wizard to buff yourself with Jump and Elarge spells, or Rogue to dash as a bonus action, not to mention that you can grapple 2 creatures at once (or 4 if your DM allows Simic Hybrid), you're starting to stack up some serious damage. Bare in mind this also uses Athletics (which you will have adv on, +2 if your frost rune is active), vs their anti-grapple skill, not their AC. At level 9 a buffed fighter could: Grapple 2 creatures (Extra Attack), Dash twice (Rogue Bonus+Action Surge), jumping to a height of 24 feet, and raising their targets above their heads and slam them onto the ground for 7d6 damage each. And if your DM is really nice, let you maintain the grapple. DISCLAIMER: This is purely built off RAW and not RAI, the implications for exploiting the grapple and falling damage features should not be taken as immutable.

If you’re curious about the historical alphabet the idea of these runes is based on, see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark Unfortunately, none of the D&D runes have an exact match in the Futhark, but you could use “ice” for frost, “sun” for fire, “hail” for cloud, etc.

One thing that I really love about this subclass (which has also made it my favourite Fighter subclass) is that the various rune options have very interesting interactions with multiclassing as well. While a standard, generic, pure fighter might not use deception or arcana or other of the main skills that the runes boost, when being part of a character that does (a fighter that's also a face or a fighter/wizard, fighter/cleric, fighter/druid multiclass). Also the storm rune allows a melee caster build to give disadvantage to important saves on enemies every turn, while the increased size increases the radius of things like spirit guardians/shroud etc. There's lots of little interactions on this subclass that, imo, makes it the best fighter subclass when it comes to creating a multitude of different builds with it.

Great stature does indeed help mechanically, at least in my grapple to drop build. Every foot of height gets closer to the next 10ft cut off for another d6 of damage, which is why it’s important to note the tallest options (8ft tall player races) actually get out sized by the small player races with 4ft heights like the grunge because they’re capable of a base height of 5ft, meaning they are 20ft tall when large, and 40ft tall when huge, and if hit with the wizards enlarge spell they’re a towering 80ft. The loxodon under the same conditions only reaches 72ft, though arguably the trunk can make up any slack.

One small item - I think the fire rune is more comparable to the Paladin Oath of the Ancient's Channel Divinity feature. Ensnaring Strike's greatest benefit is that it imposes an action cost to even attempt the save. Even if a creature then saves, it still cost their action economy.

I run a Rune Knight, and cloud rune is so amazing for saving allies from a Nat20 every day.

Great video! I would still like a video telling us why the Twilight Cleric is *so good*. We got one telling us it’s too good, but most DMs will allow official subclasses.

Hey Chris. Just wanna say thanks for like all the hard work you have been putting in for like the last 20 years. You are so important to this game.

Yay! New TM! These make my Mondays more worthwhile

Been playing this since Tasha's came out with a Goliath. Super fun and I cant tweak or change anything about him. He is just consistently amazing.

Lvl 18 Rune knight duergar with sentinel/polearm master can solo the Tarrasque and other non-ranged monsters without taking much damage, with 25 foot melee range

One of my recommendations during the play test was to add something to the fire giant rune that embodied their flavor as slavers, and mentioned summoning chains. I AM AGHAST! THEY TOOK MY ADVICE!!!!

10:25 correction, it is not monster manual rules. it is dungeon master guide page 278 top left corner. my comment on the rule and the "rule" is explicitly in the context of helping you reach a more appropriate damage number for monsters. therefore it should not be usable by player characters.

I nearly chose this as a class for a new campaign. But Abberant Mind was calling!

I am currently playing the Rune Knight. It is awesome. 🤣

*Cheers* Fellow Rune Knights

"Potentially" the undisputed best fighter sub-class. Finally an interesting fighter sub class with a cool ability source, utility and a hulk smash theme instead of very basic combat moves.

Would love to see a rune night build wether that be multi-class or not but whatever you think would be most optimal

The power creep is real.

"So I was thinking about playing a rune knight" Spellcaster that loves to use Enlarge: *smiles with malicious intent*

I love this. I'm thinking about mixing it with Ancestral Barbarian.

I have a concept build using Rune Knight Fighter to 7th, and Artificer Armorer to 11th. Not sure what else to do with those last 2 levels. Utilizes Sharpshooter/Archery Fighting Style in tandem with the Lightning Launcher. The ultimate goal: Enlarge yourself *and* Giant's Might to become a huge mechanical suit of armor, with a very potent and accurate ranged attack, though more resisted as lightning damage, as well as a shield. Maybe pick up a Sun Blade as your melee option, which with a +2 would offset not using Intelligence as your main attack stat with it, so if you have to fight up close you have a laser sword. Helm would be infused with the awareness infusion, weapon would be aa +2 weap (thus meaning sharpshooter bonus is effectively just a -1 to the base difficulty), and the chestpiece infusion can be swapped out between Armor of Resistance and the protection effect, along with a shield (which you can wield using the lightning launcher to no detriment) that can similarly be boosted in AC. Go Artificer 5, grab 3 levels of Fighter for Rune Knight, then work up to Artificer 11. Once you have that... Think about it. Huge sized mech with a beam cannon, laser sword, and shield; capable of flight and very very durable with a wide variety of customizability and options depending on how a fight progresses, involving both runes and infusions and spell storing items to have utility. Even can be swapped around to be a potent melee combatant if nessicary. I call this character build... *The Gundam.*

One caution about Huge and Grapple. If you have Grappled an opponent, no matter reach issues, you are in range. It’s been clarified that the foe can attacked the appendage used to make the grapple. Reach is inconsequential when determining range during a grapple.

I mean, having this subclass, plus the unarmed fighting style and the eldritch claw tattoo to get magical attacks and I think you can make an amazing wrestler character!

Personally, I'd still rather play an echo night. The rune night is a strong and respectable subclass. Still, a nearly limitless teleport allows for so much movement and positioning. It allows you to make GWM attacks from range, it allows you to escape melee without triggering opportunity attacks, it allows an at will teleport outside of combat to a distance of 60 ft starting at level 3! It's bananas! Honnestly whatever your favorite is, I suppose I'm just glad there are at least a few excellent choices for marshalls, let's go bonk bros!!!

Another big advantage about size large and higher is that it's much harder to restrain you. Many spells have the caveat of being disadvantaged against large and larger targets. Love the feel of a rune knight relying on inscriptions of power, in some ways reminding me of what an eldritch knight could have been without all the wizard showmanship.

Overpowered as hell!

I'm playing an Archer Rune Knight currently. Took a one level dip in genie warlock. The Genie's wrath is a great bonus on top of Giant's Might but it's really about being able to cast Hex. More damage on each attack but that disadvantage to the ability I choose, which will be the correspondent to the Rune I cast, is really nasty to break out of

Made a lizardfolk rune knight using the unarmed fighting style. Basically in any situation, they are always armed, always armored and can be difficult to pin down. I get to play him tomorrow and couldn't be more excited.

Tip for Wizards: cast Enlarge/Reduce on the Rune Knight when you fight an adult dragon to make their size huge, and watch the, wrestle each other. Thank me later.

I feel like the 10th level fighter subclass features are universally the least exciting. Arcane archer doesn't even get one!

Not gonna lie, the concept of Large Weapons really is a question that never asked about in full detail Some people think Enlarge/Reduce and Giant's Might make the Player's weapon be treated as a Oversized weapon, some people dont We dont have a exact answer about this

For the cloud rune I'm guessing it works like the shield spell. The DM will declare the attack hit and you would have to invoke at that point so you don't know whether it crit or how much damage it did until after the effect takes place. Oh and minor correction: the capstone is at 18th level not 17th.

Totally multiclassing this with an elemental shaman homebrew class I picked up.

Great stuff

If you check the rules for rerolls on d20 rolls, they specify that you can only reroll 1 die. IE a halfling with disadvantage who rolls snake eyes on an attack is an auto miss because they can only reroll 1 of the d20s. So with Runic Shield, you force them to reroll 1d20.

I just realised that frost rune has good application if you hand the item with this rune to a friend like a caster that isn't proficient in con saves/war caster. But that is the only use.

I believe that potion of giant size, set the Precedence for increased damage dice with increased character size.

This seems like a real neat Fighter

Adding sentinel and pole arm master to this build give you a lot of battlefield control especially if you are the only front line character in your party.

TMT videos make Monday mornings more tolerable.

15:31 well actually, height does have mechanical benefits in case you didn't know. take a look at the high jump rules again, ok? see how it say that on top of the max hight you can jump, you can also reach additional distance equal to 1 1/2 times your own height?

I think the large weapon damage boost is needed with all the things your giving up by not playing a spell casters

The Rune Knight's ability to Get Big is a key part of my "1-round tarrasque kill no magic items" build

Feels like a rune knight with calligrapher's tools is a cool and thematic idea

Great, great flavor from this subclass!! But I'm a little worried its a bit too much, especially if we can compare it to the echo knight.

Great stature would “mechanically” affect how high you can reach for climbing. It’s an average of about 7 inches... very small effect but it may matter if you choose a taller race. The giants might feature doesn’t give the same “doubling in all dimensions” description as the enlarge reduce spell, but this boost may allow a player to climb over various walls and even over buildings without worrying about a source of flight. Combined with jumping rules this could be a sizable distance. It’s interesting to think that taking 10ft of fall damage at 1d6 would cause a 40ft+ tall creature to fall prone...

Duergar enlarge is such a funny combo

They killed the coolest use of enlarge/reduce...buy it is still an awesome trick.

OK so for that part where it says you can put it on weapons or armor it should give different bonuses for what you do decide to put it on, like with fire rune on a weapon it does fire damage until you use the ruin effect. mind you you still keepo the original minor effect but this will be a bonus.

Mine is a Goliath Rune Knight with polearm master and great weapon master. Currently using fire, storm and Hill runes at lvl 9.

I'm thinking of a rune knight spore druid build for extra melee damage and tankiness while being able to cast some nice spells and support for the party as needed: Cloud rune, Fire rune, Hill Giant rune, + Symbiotic Entity for extra 1d6/attack wielding a great sword+ Halo of Spores damage+temp hitpoints. So 2d6 for grt swrd, 1d6 for symbiotic ent, 2d6 fire, possible 2d10 halo of spores damg at 14th lvl, 1d6 on one attack w/ giant's might, 2 attacks/rnd, action surge, some rage type resistance, 20 extra temp hp at druid lvl 5, forced rerolls, damg transfer, + some spell options like fire shield to punish enemies when they do hit me. Yes, please!

The cloud rune doesn't specify friendly or enemy targets so if the party barbarian makes a raging crit against something weak like a skeleton with 1 remaining hitpoint you could transfer the full blow to the enemy necromancer standing behind the rest of the skeletons.

I wonder if people catch on that the Rune Knight's runes basically work like the Mystic's Disciplines.

The first time I heard of the Eldritch Knight, I was actually imagining something with abilities like the rune knight in terms of how magic abilities worked, rather than being a one third caster.

Now, with the Rune Knight, is the first time I REALLY got excited to play a fighter. Fighters always seemed kinda generic to me, now I can't wait to play one.

Great vid as always Chris. Agreed that this is the best fighter subclass though I wouldn't say by a mile. I'd still say battlemasters and samurais are close behind. But yeah rune knights are way ahead of eks, champions, arcane archers and the psi-warrior.

I’m playing a twilight domain Cleric in my current campaign but damn I can’t wait to roll a rune knight and take my revenge on Marley.

The power on this one feels a little over the top... It's not Twilight Cleric, but its pretty crazy. The sheer number of abilities you get is staggering, and compared to other classes a lot of the rune abilities are flat better than full subclass features (like, compare Cloud Rune to the Enchanter wizard's feature to redirect attacks which requires a failed save AND happens prior to hitting)

I don’t make adventurers. Our party is a couple of rune knight artificer multi classes that run an equipment rental agency for adventurers. Capitalism, that’s the rune knight’s true power.

An interesting interpretation on Rune Shield regarding Advantage/Disadvantage: The attack roll selected is the higher/lower of the two. Rerolling the D20 makes them reroll that one. Lets say I have advantage and I roll a 20 and a 15 and I reroll my 20 and get a 1, so my advantage rolls are 1 and 15. This interpretation doesn't take away advantage or disadvantage either.

I have a gladiator rune knight that is distrustful of magic and offended if anyone claims that he uses magic. For role play, Giant Might is flavored as battle focus, which makes the battle area seem smaller.

I would love a rune wizard subclass. :)

my party currently has one of these in the form of a squirrel-kin 4th level fighter gained from a Deck of Many Things

A chaotic evil Rune Knight is a Ruin Knight...

Time for my professional wrestler heel character to come out. Suplexes, drop kicks, and sleeper holds. Leg drops, cross body blocks, and body slams. Let's goooo. Also stone rune will be roleplayed as mesmerizing people with dancing pecs and flexing.

Boy is my DM sick of my bugbear rune knight holding all her monsters prone and out of reach. With skill expert feat all my athletics checks at advantage with double digits bonus. Then when she finally lands a good hit it hits an enemy instead. Such a great class so much fun.

I kinda felt this would of worked better as a barbarian subclass initially since they're the strength class.

Thought of a cool Rune Knight concept The character learns runic magic from an Oni

I love the Rune Knight so much. I built a Norse warrior. While he has a typical tragic backstory (all of his friends and family are dead), there's a plot twist: he wants to join them in Valhalla, but feels cursed to live forever. He is so resilient in combat that never once has he been truly challenged in combat. I went for VHuman with Heavy Armour Master. When you start adding on the Hill Rune (7th level), nonmagical damage basically deals no damage after you reduce to half (round down) and take off 3. DM said to start with an uncommon item (Adamantine Plate), so he doesn't fear crits either... another PC is a Twilight Cleric. With the constant infusion of temp HP, he's Nigh untouchable until we go up against some legendary supernatural foe.

Rune Knight is the closest thing to Rage while still being able to cast spells.

Yes finally I can turn my warforged to a giant mech with a power claw and chainsward

I've done a ruin knight/Artillerist build Heavy repeating crossbow + Force balista rocks

Would be cool to see a fairy runs knight. be as bid as a thumb, then suddenly large/ huge sized. LMAO!

Rune Knight x Bladesinger = never failing concentration checks

Well, if the weapons became like the ones in the monster manual, well, RK would be broken as hell 2d12 x4 > 8d12 a turn, having the chance to double if it crits

Giants might and stone rune each taking a bonus action takes a while to set up...

Thank you for this video, been enjoying all your coverage of the Tasha’s content. I will say honestly this just feels like one of the weaker subclasses to me, so I was very interested to hear your opinion. I do agree the rune effects are strong but at the same time they are a single time between short rests which can be hit or miss how often they happen and then some of the effects either aren’t good enough or don’t scale like the fire rune chains. Other than making yourself large to provide being an obstruction, I feel like this class should have removed the giant aspect entirely. Focus more on expanding the rune book as well as having scaling better done, maybe would overlap with the Eldritch Knight a bit but it’s hard to say. I want to like this, I really do, but I can’t help but feel that having abilities that work all the time on a resource system or not is more effective than one good shot and it’s gone leaving you with basic fighter compared to Battlemaster or even Samurai. Finally as you and another commenter have said, the subclass is starved for bonus actions and reactions leaving you having to make difficult choices all the time in combat when to do what every turn. I’ll be honest, Rune Knight doesn’t feel like it was playtested before release.

regarding rerols on advantage or disadvantage: I tink the most common interpretation is, that you reroll one of the d20 (unless the wording says to reroll the entire check) and then apply (dis)advantage with the one original rol and the oine new roll. But I don'T know where i picked up this interpretation.

Gargantuan faeries are canon now!