I'm playing a bear totem barbarian and we just hit level 6. After playing with the idea of doing 3 levels for champion I decided to go straight barb. But we're playing Storm King's Thunder and I've been looking at the Rune Knight as a potential multiclass. I think the idea sounds like a lot of fun but I wanted to get some feedback on the pros and cons of the mechanics of it first.
I'd say it's worth the investment if you have the Con to have decent ST on the runes. Barbarians fall off pretty hard at 7-8 and fighter falls off at 11-15 so it's a good match up with some leeway. Depending on what you usually spend your actions on the first few fighter levels are a boon. Interception doesn't seem like a lot of damage reduction but it adds up and of your DM allows the fighting style changes in Tasha's then once your get rune shield you could swap it.
RK particularly is just a solid subclass with mix of utility, damage mitigation, control, and some damage. It plays nice with barb as long as you can handle the action economy juggling.Imagine using reckless attack and getting critically hit then redirecting it back at team monster. Neat trick to have on top of all the other goodies.
Avoid champion. It's really is a very minor damage increase if you aren't stack on rider dice even with frequent advantage. If you pick a damage fighting style at fighter 1 it will add more damage than the champion's subclass feature until lv 10 for barbs...
Thanks, I was originally thinking of doing 3 levels of champion but then read basically what you said and changed my mind. I especially like the RK for RP reasons and the main downside I can see is the bonus action stuff, but if I giant's might rd1 while out of range then rage rd2 getting into range that should be okay. The other possible downside is reducing the number of times I can rage per day, so far though SKT is quite a bit of travel with not many fights per day, no long dungeon crawls so far.
As for the fighting style I'm leaning defense for the AC, but I'll look into interception.
I'm also leaning towards 4 levels of fighter then going back to barb to finish the campaign. I think SKT finishes up around 12ish so the only good barb things I'd be missing out on are several levels of brutal critical and no relentless rage, but I am a half-orc so I have some of that already.
I made a Longtooth Shifter Beast Barbarian 3rd lvl, and I was wondering if the D&D community thought Rune Knight or druid circle of the moon would be more cool. I didn’t know about bugbear when I made shifter, but my whole plan the whole time was to gain a size category to increased dam. on natural weapons/ unarmed strike…( My DM did not allow for Shifter to have the tabaxi stuff with unarmed strike )
Also, can we talk about how shifter should have the same thing as tabaxi…
Cat's Claws. Because of your claws, you have a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
How hard would it be for them to say “Shifter’s Claws”
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm playing a bear totem barbarian and we just hit level 6. After playing with the idea of doing 3 levels for champion I decided to go straight barb. But we're playing Storm King's Thunder and I've been looking at the Rune Knight as a potential multiclass. I think the idea sounds like a lot of fun but I wanted to get some feedback on the pros and cons of the mechanics of it first.
Thanks, I was originally thinking of doing 3 levels of champion but then read basically what you said and changed my mind. I especially like the RK for RP reasons and the main downside I can see is the bonus action stuff, but if I giant's might rd1 while out of range then rage rd2 getting into range that should be okay. The other possible downside is reducing the number of times I can rage per day, so far though SKT is quite a bit of travel with not many fights per day, no long dungeon crawls so far.
As for the fighting style I'm leaning defense for the AC, but I'll look into interception.
I'm also leaning towards 4 levels of fighter then going back to barb to finish the campaign. I think SKT finishes up around 12ish so the only good barb things I'd be missing out on are several levels of brutal critical and no relentless rage, but I am a half-orc so I have some of that already.
It'd make your barb a really good grappler, even against huge monsters.
Fighting style, action surge, rune magic, and second wind are also great abilities for a barb to have on hand.
I'd go for it.
I made a Longtooth Shifter Beast Barbarian 3rd lvl, and I was wondering if the D&D community thought Rune Knight or druid circle of the moon would be more cool. I didn’t know about bugbear when I made shifter, but my whole plan the whole time was to gain a size category to increased dam. on natural weapons/ unarmed strike…( My DM did not allow for Shifter to have the tabaxi stuff with unarmed strike )
Also, can we talk about how shifter should have the same thing as tabaxi…
How hard would it be for them to say “Shifter’s Claws”