From TCoE, the Rune Knight subclass for fighters has the following feature
Runic Shield
At 7th level, you learn to invoke your rune magic to protect your allies. When another creature you can see within 60 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to force the attacker to reroll the d20 and use the new roll.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
What is super weird about this ability is that the attacker MUST use the new roll, as opposed to letting you choose which roll the attacker uses. So, when you use this ability you could end up
1) Turning a hit into a miss {what I imagine is the intended use of the feature}
2) Turning a hit into another hit {a way for the feature to not be absolute and possibly "fail"
3) Turn a hit into a CRITICAL HIT
Its this third possibility that I find really odd. I can see why a runic shield might fail to protect an ally, but why would it make the attack even more effective?? This ability can only be used prof number of times per long rest, so I find it odd that one of your few uses could actually end up being detrimental rather than beneficial or a dud
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You get to see when they hit, and then you use your Reaction to get a chance to negate their hit. That's pretty cool. The things is, luck is not always kind, there's a risk involved, so it could end up backfiring, and you just made the situation worse, just like you said. You had the potential of negating a natural 20, and it's pretty unlikely that they are going to get another natural 20 with their next attack. You only get to do this 3 times at level 7, but ask yourself, how many other ways are there of negating the effect of a natural 20 available to a Fighter?
You get to see when they hit, and then you use your Reaction to get a chance to negate their hit. That's pretty cool. The things is, luck is not always kind, there's a risk involved, so it could end up backfiring, and you just made the situation worse, just like you said. You had the potential of negating a natural 20, and it's pretty unlikely that they are going to get another natural 20 with their next attack. You only get to do this 3 times at level 7, but ask yourself, how many other ways are there of negating the effect of a natural 20 available to a Fighter?
It doesnt seem like a very effective "shield" if it can cause more harm than good. As you pointed out, the only way for this feature not to risk making things worse is to only use it when someone rolls a nat20, because worst case scenario the roll stays exactly the same as it was.
It seems like an odd design choice for a "shield" ability to be like "I encompass my ally in a runic shield as the attack hits" 'Okay, well not only do they still get hit by the attack, but because you tried to protect your ally using your limited use class feature you have also inadvertently doubled the damage they take from the attack."
You get to see when they hit, and then you use your Reaction to get a chance to negate their hit. That's pretty cool. The things is, luck is not always kind, there's a risk involved, so it could end up backfiring, and you just made the situation worse, just like you said. You had the potential of negating a natural 20, and it's pretty unlikely that they are going to get another natural 20 with their next attack. You only get to do this 3 times at level 7, but ask yourself, how many other ways are there of negating the effect of a natural 20 available to a Fighter?
It doesnt seem like a very effective "shield" if it can cause more harm than good. As you pointed out, the only way for this feature not to risk making things worse is to only use it when someone rolls a nat20, because worst case scenario the roll stays exactly the same as it was.
It seems like an odd design choice for a "shield" ability to be like "I encompass my ally in a runic shield as the attack hits" 'Okay, well not only do they still get hit by the attack, but because you tried to protect your ally using your limited use class feature you have also inadvertently doubled the damage they take from the attack."
It does work both ways, you know. You can use it when an ally (including yourself) hits an enemy, in order to fish for crits - for example, if you're wielding a vorpal sword, so you don't care about damage, only trying to get a 20 to show up on the die. It's not just a defensive ability.
You get to see when they hit, and then you use your Reaction to get a chance to negate their hit. That's pretty cool. The things is, luck is not always kind, there's a risk involved, so it could end up backfiring, and you just made the situation worse, just like you said. You had the potential of negating a natural 20, and it's pretty unlikely that they are going to get another natural 20 with their next attack. You only get to do this 3 times at level 7, but ask yourself, how many other ways are there of negating the effect of a natural 20 available to a Fighter?
It doesnt seem like a very effective "shield" if it can cause more harm than good. As you pointed out, the only way for this feature not to risk making things worse is to only use it when someone rolls a nat20, because worst case scenario the roll stays exactly the same as it was.
It seems like an odd design choice for a "shield" ability to be like "I encompass my ally in a runic shield as the attack hits" 'Okay, well not only do they still get hit by the attack, but because you tried to protect your ally using your limited use class feature you have also inadvertently doubled the damage they take from the attack."
It does work both ways, you know. You can use it when an ally (including yourself) hits an enemy, in order to fish for crits - for example, if you're wielding a vorpal sword, so you don't care about damage, only trying to get a 20 to show up on the die. It's not just a defensive ability.
I considered that, but its really not worth using on an ally's attack unless your sure that they are going to hit the majority of the time (i.e. they have a large attack bonus modifier). With that in mind, if you are fighting an enemy you are confident you can still hit even if you roll lower thanks to the feature, is it really the type of enemy you need to be crit fishing on? The case with a vorpal sword is a very niche application of the ability, though an interesting one.
I would also add that in the same vein it seems like a strange design choice for an ability designed to be a "shield" to be used to empower an ally's attack rather than defense. I would argue it is absolutely intended as a defensive ability. Can it be used offensively? Absolutely, by clever players in the right situations, but those situations are not going to be as commonplace as the simple need to try and negate an attack against a team member.
Edit: It is also worth noting for an offensive application that it is just as detrimental to an ally's attack, since every time you make them reroll their attack in the name of crit fishing, you introduce a 5% chance they will critically fail their attack roll, and lose their attack regardless of high their to hit bonus is. The odds are more in your favor with a high level champion fighter, but otherwise its not really doing the ally any favors.
So, in the situation where you have a party with a champion fighter and a rune knight fighter AND the champion fighter gets their hand on a vorpal sword AND you are fighting an enemy you are ok with potentially losing damage from a handful of attack on, then there could be a chance to turn this into an offensive ability. Otherwise, it doesnt seem like it would be worth it to force an ally to take an attack that was already going to hit and reroll it (potentially causing it to miss or critically fail)
It doesnt seem like a very effective "shield" if it can cause more harm than good.
I would imagine some people might save Runic Shield for when a) someone gets hit with a crit, or b) someone takes a hit that could finish them off, or otherwise has potentially debilitating side effects.
In those cases, there really isn't any downside to the re-roll.
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As far as I can tell, the Champion subclass is only slightly more popular than the Purple Dragon Knight. It's because all they get is a slightly increased critical range, and that's about it for the subclass. Even if the utility is terribly limited, and you only get to use it a few times per day, it's still better than what a Champion gets, and in fact, is able to negate the Champion's own ability. If you don't feel the Runic Knight is powerful enough, might I suggest the Battle Master? That's the single most popular subclass, and there's got to be a reason for that. I believe the next down on the list is the Echo Knight, and after that is the Eldritch Knight.
I've seen convincing arguments that if you're wanting to play a Fighter and be a tank, the Cavalier is the best choice.
It doesnt seem like a very effective "shield" if it can cause more harm than good.
I would imagine some people might save Runic Shield for when a) someone gets hit with a crit, or b) someone takes a hit that could finish them off, or otherwise has potentially debilitating side effects.
In those cases, there really isn't any downside to the re-roll.
I agree the best strategy is to wait for a critical hit to use it, but I doubt that was the intent it was designed with. In the same way, a Paladin's Divine Smite is best used when applied to a crit, but the ability is meant to used more frequently than that.
It feels like a "wild magic" version of the Grave Domain's Sentinal at Death's Door ability. On one hand, its better because 1) It stops any attack fully, not just reduce it from a crit to normal and 2) it can stop attacks other than crits. The downside is that if you use it for any attack other than a crit, theres always a 5% it will hurt your ally rather than help them. On top of that, even if you do save it for a crit, theres a 5% chance youll use the ability without it making any difference. And then, when you get into the finer details of the monster's to hit bonus, there will always be an x% chance that even a normal attack will still hit after rerolling and youll waste the ability and your reaction.
I see the appeal and use of the feature, but the fact that a protective ability can actively hurt your allies seems like a bad choice.
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As far as I can tell, the Champion subclass is only slightly more popular than the Purple Dragon Knight. It's because all they get is a slightly increased critical range, and that's about it for the subclass. Even if the utility is terribly limited, and you only get to use it a few times per day, it's still better than what a Champion gets, and in fact, is able to negate the Champion's own ability. If you don't feel the Runic Knight is powerful enough, might I suggest the Battle Master? That's the single most popular subclass, and there's got to be a reason for that. I believe the next down on the list is the Echo Knight, and after that is the Eldritch Knight.
I've seen convincing arguments that if you're wanting to play a Fighter and be a tank, the Cavalier is the best choice.
1) The Runic Shield doesnt negate the champion's ability. If anything it is less like to work on a Champion because they have such a large crit range
2) Nowhere in here was I suggesting that the Rune Knight as a subclass wasn't powerful enough. I was just highlighting something I found strange about one aspect of one of their features.
3) I do not know what point you are making about Battlemasters and their popularity. Nor do I see how Cavalier, Echo Knight, or Eldritch Knight are relevant. How popular they are or what roles they succeed at have literally nothing to do with what I was discussing.
The sole purpose of this thread was to point out that I found it odd that a Runic Shield could allow the enemy to score a crit while it is meant to be a protective ability. Thats it. Nothing more, nothing less
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I see the appeal and use of the feature, but the fact that a protective ability can actively hurt your allies seems like a bad choice.
That's what I'm saying though -- you'd only use it when the situation is dire and there is no chance of hurting your allies
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Fortune favors the bold. Where’s your sense of adventure? 😉 It’s a gambler’s feature. A 5% chance to bust, or a ?% chance to boon. Gotta run the odds and take the chance. Statistically there’s only a 5% risk.
If you know whoever got hit has high AC and the attacker just got lucky because they have been rolling lower all battle and you figure their Attack bonus isn’t that high, may be the DM finally rolled that 16+ that mood needs to hit the whoever but the whoever is Concentrating on something really important, 5% risk, 75% reward… I’ll take those odds.
Or if whoever just got hit is so low on HP they’re going down Crit or no Crit, and the attacker has been hitting about half the time, that’s a 50% chance to save whoever, and a 0% chance to make it worse… yeah, I’ll take those odds.
Fortune favors the bold. Where’s your sense of adventure? 😉 It’s a gambler’s feature. A 5% chance to bust, or a ?% chance to boon. Gotta run the odds and take the chance. Statistically there’s only a 5% risk.
If you know whoever got hit has high AC and the attacker just got lucky because they have been rolling lower all battle and you figure their Attack bonus isn’t that high, may be the DM finally rolled that 16+ that mood needs to hit the whoever but the whoever is Concentrating on something really important, 5% risk, 75% reward… I’ll take those odds.
Or if whoever just got hit is so low on HP they’re going down Crit or no Crit, and the attacker has been hitting about half the time, that’s a 50% chance to save whoever, and a 0% chance to make it worse… yeah, I’ll take those odds.
The reason this seems so odd to me is no other ability that is meant to accomplish the same thing comes with that risk.
Moreover, it doesnt thematically make sense for a "shield" to put the person it is protecting in potentially more danger rather than less.
Outside of the Wild Magic table, there are very few features in 5e that come to mind where you can cause your allies more harm if a roll doesnt go the way you want, especially one which is designed with the idea of protecting them.
I see the appeal and use of the feature, but the fact that a protective ability can actively hurt your allies seems like a bad choice.
That's what I'm saying though -- you'd only use it when the situation is dire and there is no chance of hurting your allies
I doubt that that is how the ability was intended to be used. Again, citing my comparison to a Paladin's smites, is it a smarter choice to use it only when a crit occurs? Yes. Did the game designers only want players to use it when a crit occurs? Most likely not
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To highlight why I find this so odd, let me make a comparison to a few other features which I think are meant to have a similar effect (making an attack that hits not hit or be less hurtful)
1) Combat Inspiration (Valor Bard): Adds value to AC after seeing attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less
2) Shield Spell: Adds 5 to AC after being hit by attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less.
3) Shield from Death's Door (Grave Cleric): Turns a crit into a regular hit. Cannot affect regular hits, but is guaranteed to stop the extra damage from a crit.
4) Interception Fighting Style: Reduces damage by 1d10+prof. May not remove damage altogether, may result in a low roll, but does not risk adding damage the target was not originally going to take
Compared to these four protection abilities, Runic Shield is the only one that risks making the target take MORE damage if used on any attack other than a crit. In the rest of these, the features either reduce the damage the ally would take, or just dont work.
There is definitely a fun place in D&D for high risk high reward abilities. I do not think abilities meant to protect your allies is one of those places.
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Fortune favors the bold. Where’s your sense of adventure? 😉 It’s a gambler’s feature. A 5% chance to bust, or a ?% chance to boon. Gotta run the odds and take the chance. Statistically there’s only a 5% risk.
If you know whoever got hit has high AC and the attacker just got lucky because they have been rolling lower all battle and you figure their Attack bonus isn’t that high, may be the DM finally rolled that 16+ that mood needs to hit the whoever but the whoever is Concentrating on something really important, 5% risk, 75% reward… I’ll take those odds.
Or if whoever just got hit is so low on HP they’re going down Crit or no Crit, and the attacker has been hitting about half the time, that’s a 50% chance to save whoever, and a 0% chance to make it worse… yeah, I’ll take those odds.
The reason this seems so odd to me is no other ability that is meant to accomplish the same thing comes with that risk.
Moreover, it doesnt thematically make sense for a "shield" to put the person it is protecting in potentially more danger rather than less.
Outside of the Wild Magic table, there are very few features in 5e that come to mind where you can cause your allies more harm if a roll doesnt go the way you want, especially one which is designed with the idea of protecting them.
I’m pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down neighbor. This feature isn’t like the other features you are used to, and that makes you instinctively uncomfortable. Salespeople refer to it as “The Used To Factor.” No, this isn’t like the rest of everything else in 5e, and I love it. The edition is too streamlined, too samesame IMO, and I think this is refreshing. It’s more like the way Halflings’ Lucky trait works, only inverted because it’s on the opponents roll instead of your own.
But you’re so focused on the unpredictability of it that I don’t think you even looked at the numbers I included. A 5% chance of it becoming a Crit compared to a 75% chance of it becoming a miss, and a 20% chance of a wash. 75:5 = 15:1 I’ll bet on 15:1 odds in my favor, absolutely. Or if I got a 50/50 shot to improve things with no possibility of it getting worse. That’s not even gambling anymore, you’re just betting with the houses money now.
Or what if it’s already a Crit? Shoot, you got nowhere to go but up from that. 5% it’ll still be a Crit, no loss, even of there is a 0% chance to make it a miss, that means there’s a 95% chance to at least drop it from the Crit it already is to not a Crit.
I agree, the name doesn’t fit, but I personally ignore names most of the time so it didn’t bother me. I don’t look at this and think “‘shields ‘don’t work like that.” I look at this and think, ahh, a gamblers’ feature. Excellent, we need more of those. You keep pointing out the oddity of it and focusing on that chance for a worst case scenario. What I see is a feature that requires careful assessment as to if the potential risk is acceptable for the potential reward.
This isn’t a feat one uses when the odds are bad, this is a feature one uses when the odds are very much in your favor, or when there is no chance to make things worse (it’s already a Crit), or when your desperate and need that 95 yd Hail Mary to the End Zone in the final 30 seconds of the game. 😉
To highlight why I find this so odd, let me make a comparison to a few other features which I think are meant to have a similar effect (making an attack that hits not hit or be less hurtful)
1) Combat Inspiration (Valor Bard): Adds value to AC after seeing attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less
2) Shield Spell: Adds 5 to AC after being hit by attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less.
3) Shield from Death's Door (Grave Cleric): Turns a crit into a regular hit. Cannot affect regular hits, but is guaranteed to stop the extra damage from a crit.
4) Interception Fighting Style: Reduces damage by 1d10+prof. May not remove damage altogether, may result in a low roll, but does not risk adding damage the target was not originally going to take
Compared to these four protection abilities, Runic Shield is the only one that risks making the target take MORE damage if used on any attack other than a crit. In the rest of these, the features either reduce the damage the ally would take, or just dont work.
There is definitely a fun place in D&D for high risk high reward abilities. I do not think abilities meant to protect your allies is one of those places.
You just pulled the wrong comps. This feature isn’t meant to “making an attack that hits not hit or be less hurtful.” This feature is meant to take a Crit and blow it down to not a Crit. This is meant more for the chess players, folks who know how to make a Mastermind a DM’s worst nightmare. This is meant to be the inverse of Indomitable. This isn’t a “high risk high reward” ability, it’s a determine when the risk is low and the potential reward is high and use it then. Kinda like saving your Divine Smites for when you Crit on a big’un, and not wasting them all an you first X many attacks on minion creatures. Don’t use this when the risk of a Crit outweighs the potential miss, use it when the Crit won’t make a difference anyway, but that couch miss could change the day. Make sense?
From TCoE, the Rune Knight subclass for fighters has the following feature
Runic Shield
At 7th level, you learn to invoke your rune magic to protect your allies. When another creature you can see within 60 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to force the attacker to reroll the d20 and use the new roll.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
What is super weird about this ability is that the attacker MUST use the new roll, as opposed to letting you choose which roll the attacker uses. So, when you use this ability you could end up
1) Turning a hit into a miss {what I imagine is the intended use of the feature}
2) Turning a hit into another hit {a way for the feature to not be absolute and possibly "fail"
3) Turn a hit into a CRITICAL HIT
Its this third possibility that I find really odd. I can see why a runic shield might fail to protect an ally, but why would it make the attack even more effective?? This ability can only be used prof number of times per long rest, so I find it odd that one of your few uses could actually end up being detrimental rather than beneficial or a dud
Yep, 100% odd that the feature can cause it to be worse when it is meant to protect your allies, but I just imagine it to be deflecting the attack rather than blocking it entirely. Maybe the attack was hitting the torso and the deflection of the shield causes it to hit them in the head instead? That's my best interpretation. The idea is to deflect it away completely but sometimes you misjudge and make things worse.
To highlight why I find this so odd, let me make a comparison to a few other features which I think are meant to have a similar effect (making an attack that hits not hit or be less hurtful)
1) Combat Inspiration (Valor Bard): Adds value to AC after seeing attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less
2) Shield Spell: Adds 5 to AC after being hit by attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less.
3) Shield from Death's Door (Grave Cleric): Turns a crit into a regular hit. Cannot affect regular hits, but is guaranteed to stop the extra damage from a crit.
4) Interception Fighting Style: Reduces damage by 1d10+prof. May not remove damage altogether, may result in a low roll, but does not risk adding damage the target was not originally going to take
Compared to these four protection abilities, Runic Shield is the only one that risks making the target take MORE damage if used on any attack other than a crit. In the rest of these, the features either reduce the damage the ally would take, or just dont work.
There is definitely a fun place in D&D for high risk high reward abilities. I do not think abilities meant to protect your allies is one of those places.
You just pulled the wrong comps. This feature isn’t meant to “making an attack that hits not hit or be less hurtful.” This feature is meant to take a Crit and blow it down to not a Crit. This is meant more for the chess players, folks who know how to make a Mastermind a DM’s worst nightmare. This is meant to be the inverse of Indomitable. This isn’t a “high risk high reward” ability, it’s a determine when the risk is low and the potential reward is high and use it then. Kinda like saving your Divine Smites for when you Crit on a big’un, and not wasting them all an you first X many attacks on minion creatures. Don’t use this when the risk of a Crit outweighs the potential miss, use it when the Crit won’t make a difference anyway, but that couch miss could change the day. Make sense?
This ability is not designed only to stop crits. If it was, the language of the ability would reflect that and would probably be closer to the Grave Cleric's ability. It is designed to try and stop ANY hit you want. The fact that a new player might not see that it is best used when saved for a crit makes this ability have a trap aspect to it.
I have already stated several times how I see this as comparable to a Divine Smite to "wait for a crit" but no one who plays a Paladin is going to wait all day for only crits to use their smites on. They will throw a smite onto several of their other hits otherwise risk ending the day with spell slots unused. In the same vein, if you only use this ability for crits, then you might have several uses of the feature unused by the end of the day. On the other hand, if you try to use this ability on anything other than a crit, then there is a 5% risk associated with it
Yes, you CAN wait for a crit, but the ability is not designed to be used exclusively for them.
The fact that you have to "weigh the risk" of using a protective ability in the first place is extremely odd. A protective ability that has ANY risk of putting your ally in more danger is a very poor protective ability in my opinion.
I do want to clarify at this point that I do not think Runic Shield is a "bad" ability, per say. I just think that this added risk it has makes it strange compared to other protective abilities in the game. I do think that at the right table, accidently turning a hit into a crit instead of a miss could be a super fun moment in character or funny moment for the table. I do think that there are "smart" ways to use this ability, but new players may not recognize that and could feel bad when their ability doesnt work to help their friends.
I still just think it is an odd choice by design to leave a harmful outcome as a possibility for a shield feature.
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I do want to clarify at this point that I do not think Runic Shield is a "bad" ability, per say. I just think that this added risk it has makes it strange compared to other protective abilities in the game. I do think that at the right table, accidently turning a hit into a crit instead of a miss could be a super fun moment in character or funny moment for the table. I do think that there are "smart" ways to use this ability, but new players may not recognize that and could feel bad when their ability doesnt work to help their friends.
I still just think it is an odd choice by design to leave a harmful outcome as a possibility for a shield feature.
Yeah, that part is a bit odd. If they'd called the ability "Cast the Runes" or something and changed the flavor text to be explicitly about trying to change fate rather than "shield" anybody, it'd be fine. It's the chill touch of class features.
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From TCoE, the Rune Knight subclass for fighters has the following feature
What is super weird about this ability is that the attacker MUST use the new roll, as opposed to letting you choose which roll the attacker uses. So, when you use this ability you could end up
1) Turning a hit into a miss {what I imagine is the intended use of the feature}
2) Turning a hit into another hit {a way for the feature to not be absolute and possibly "fail"
3) Turn a hit into a CRITICAL HIT
Its this third possibility that I find really odd. I can see why a runic shield might fail to protect an ally, but why would it make the attack even more effective?? This ability can only be used prof number of times per long rest, so I find it odd that one of your few uses could actually end up being detrimental rather than beneficial or a dud
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You get to see when they hit, and then you use your Reaction to get a chance to negate their hit. That's pretty cool. The things is, luck is not always kind, there's a risk involved, so it could end up backfiring, and you just made the situation worse, just like you said. You had the potential of negating a natural 20, and it's pretty unlikely that they are going to get another natural 20 with their next attack. You only get to do this 3 times at level 7, but ask yourself, how many other ways are there of negating the effect of a natural 20 available to a Fighter?
<Insert clever signature here>
It doesnt seem like a very effective "shield" if it can cause more harm than good. As you pointed out, the only way for this feature not to risk making things worse is to only use it when someone rolls a nat20, because worst case scenario the roll stays exactly the same as it was.
It seems like an odd design choice for a "shield" ability to be like "I encompass my ally in a runic shield as the attack hits" 'Okay, well not only do they still get hit by the attack, but because you tried to protect your ally using your limited use class feature you have also inadvertently doubled the damage they take from the attack."
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It does work both ways, you know. You can use it when an ally (including yourself) hits an enemy, in order to fish for crits - for example, if you're wielding a vorpal sword, so you don't care about damage, only trying to get a 20 to show up on the die. It's not just a defensive ability.
I considered that, but its really not worth using on an ally's attack unless your sure that they are going to hit the majority of the time (i.e. they have a large attack bonus modifier). With that in mind, if you are fighting an enemy you are confident you can still hit even if you roll lower thanks to the feature, is it really the type of enemy you need to be crit fishing on? The case with a vorpal sword is a very niche application of the ability, though an interesting one.
I would also add that in the same vein it seems like a strange design choice for an ability designed to be a "shield" to be used to empower an ally's attack rather than defense. I would argue it is absolutely intended as a defensive ability. Can it be used offensively? Absolutely, by clever players in the right situations, but those situations are not going to be as commonplace as the simple need to try and negate an attack against a team member.
Edit: It is also worth noting for an offensive application that it is just as detrimental to an ally's attack, since every time you make them reroll their attack in the name of crit fishing, you introduce a 5% chance they will critically fail their attack roll, and lose their attack regardless of high their to hit bonus is. The odds are more in your favor with a high level champion fighter, but otherwise its not really doing the ally any favors.
So, in the situation where you have a party with a champion fighter and a rune knight fighter AND the champion fighter gets their hand on a vorpal sword AND you are fighting an enemy you are ok with potentially losing damage from a handful of attack on, then there could be a chance to turn this into an offensive ability. Otherwise, it doesnt seem like it would be worth it to force an ally to take an attack that was already going to hit and reroll it (potentially causing it to miss or critically fail)
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I would imagine some people might save Runic Shield for when a) someone gets hit with a crit, or b) someone takes a hit that could finish them off, or otherwise has potentially debilitating side effects.
In those cases, there really isn't any downside to the re-roll.
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Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
As far as I can tell, the Champion subclass is only slightly more popular than the Purple Dragon Knight. It's because all they get is a slightly increased critical range, and that's about it for the subclass. Even if the utility is terribly limited, and you only get to use it a few times per day, it's still better than what a Champion gets, and in fact, is able to negate the Champion's own ability. If you don't feel the Runic Knight is powerful enough, might I suggest the Battle Master? That's the single most popular subclass, and there's got to be a reason for that. I believe the next down on the list is the Echo Knight, and after that is the Eldritch Knight.
I've seen convincing arguments that if you're wanting to play a Fighter and be a tank, the Cavalier is the best choice.
<Insert clever signature here>
I agree the best strategy is to wait for a critical hit to use it, but I doubt that was the intent it was designed with. In the same way, a Paladin's Divine Smite is best used when applied to a crit, but the ability is meant to used more frequently than that.
It feels like a "wild magic" version of the Grave Domain's Sentinal at Death's Door ability. On one hand, its better because 1) It stops any attack fully, not just reduce it from a crit to normal and 2) it can stop attacks other than crits. The downside is that if you use it for any attack other than a crit, theres always a 5% it will hurt your ally rather than help them. On top of that, even if you do save it for a crit, theres a 5% chance youll use the ability without it making any difference. And then, when you get into the finer details of the monster's to hit bonus, there will always be an x% chance that even a normal attack will still hit after rerolling and youll waste the ability and your reaction.
I see the appeal and use of the feature, but the fact that a protective ability can actively hurt your allies seems like a bad choice.
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1) The Runic Shield doesnt negate the champion's ability. If anything it is less like to work on a Champion because they have such a large crit range
2) Nowhere in here was I suggesting that the Rune Knight as a subclass wasn't powerful enough. I was just highlighting something I found strange about one aspect of one of their features.
3) I do not know what point you are making about Battlemasters and their popularity. Nor do I see how Cavalier, Echo Knight, or Eldritch Knight are relevant. How popular they are or what roles they succeed at have literally nothing to do with what I was discussing.
The sole purpose of this thread was to point out that I found it odd that a Runic Shield could allow the enemy to score a crit while it is meant to be a protective ability. Thats it. Nothing more, nothing less
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That's what I'm saying though -- you'd only use it when the situation is dire and there is no chance of hurting your allies
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Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Fortune favors the bold. Where’s your sense of adventure? 😉 It’s a gambler’s feature. A 5% chance to bust, or a ?% chance to boon. Gotta run the odds and take the chance. Statistically there’s only a 5% risk.
If you know whoever got hit has high AC and the attacker just got lucky because they have been rolling lower all battle and you figure their Attack bonus isn’t that high, may be the DM finally rolled that 16+ that mood needs to hit the whoever but the whoever is Concentrating on something really important, 5% risk, 75% reward… I’ll take those odds.
Or if whoever just got hit is so low on HP they’re going down Crit or no Crit, and the attacker has been hitting about half the time, that’s a 50% chance to save whoever, and a 0% chance to make it worse… yeah, I’ll take those odds.
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The reason this seems so odd to me is no other ability that is meant to accomplish the same thing comes with that risk.
Moreover, it doesnt thematically make sense for a "shield" to put the person it is protecting in potentially more danger rather than less.
Outside of the Wild Magic table, there are very few features in 5e that come to mind where you can cause your allies more harm if a roll doesnt go the way you want, especially one which is designed with the idea of protecting them.
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I doubt that that is how the ability was intended to be used. Again, citing my comparison to a Paladin's smites, is it a smarter choice to use it only when a crit occurs? Yes. Did the game designers only want players to use it when a crit occurs? Most likely not
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To highlight why I find this so odd, let me make a comparison to a few other features which I think are meant to have a similar effect (making an attack that hits not hit or be less hurtful)
1) Combat Inspiration (Valor Bard): Adds value to AC after seeing attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less
2) Shield Spell: Adds 5 to AC after being hit by attack roll, potentially causing attack to miss. Can fail, but will not make the attack more likely to hit, only less.
3) Shield from Death's Door (Grave Cleric): Turns a crit into a regular hit. Cannot affect regular hits, but is guaranteed to stop the extra damage from a crit.
4) Interception Fighting Style: Reduces damage by 1d10+prof. May not remove damage altogether, may result in a low roll, but does not risk adding damage the target was not originally going to take
Compared to these four protection abilities, Runic Shield is the only one that risks making the target take MORE damage if used on any attack other than a crit. In the rest of these, the features either reduce the damage the ally would take, or just dont work.
There is definitely a fun place in D&D for high risk high reward abilities. I do not think abilities meant to protect your allies is one of those places.
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I’m pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down neighbor. This feature isn’t like the other features you are used to, and that makes you instinctively uncomfortable. Salespeople refer to it as “The Used To Factor.” No, this isn’t like the rest of everything else in 5e, and I love it. The edition is too streamlined, too samesame IMO, and I think this is refreshing. It’s more like the way Halflings’ Lucky trait works, only inverted because it’s on the opponents roll instead of your own.
But you’re so focused on the unpredictability of it that I don’t think you even looked at the numbers I included. A 5% chance of it becoming a Crit compared to a 75% chance of it becoming a miss, and a 20% chance of a wash. 75:5 = 15:1 I’ll bet on 15:1 odds in my favor, absolutely. Or if I got a 50/50 shot to improve things with no possibility of it getting worse. That’s not even gambling anymore, you’re just betting with the houses money now.
Or what if it’s already a Crit? Shoot, you got nowhere to go but up from that. 5% it’ll still be a Crit, no loss, even of there is a 0% chance to make it a miss, that means there’s a 95% chance to at least drop it from the Crit it already is to not a Crit.
I agree, the name doesn’t fit, but I personally ignore names most of the time so it didn’t bother me. I don’t look at this and think “‘shields ‘don’t work like that.” I look at this and think, ahh, a gamblers’ feature. Excellent, we need more of those. You keep pointing out the oddity of it and focusing on that chance for a worst case scenario. What I see is a feature that requires careful assessment as to if the potential risk is acceptable for the potential reward.
This isn’t a feat one uses when the odds are bad, this is a feature one uses when the odds are very much in your favor, or when there is no chance to make things worse (it’s already a Crit), or when your desperate and need that 95 yd Hail Mary to the End Zone in the final 30 seconds of the game. 😉
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You just pulled the wrong comps. This feature isn’t meant to “making an attack that hits not hit or be less hurtful.” This feature is meant to take a Crit and blow it down to not a Crit. This is meant more for the chess players, folks who know how to make a Mastermind a DM’s worst nightmare. This is meant to be the inverse of Indomitable. This isn’t a “high risk high reward” ability, it’s a determine when the risk is low and the potential reward is high and use it then. Kinda like saving your Divine Smites for when you Crit on a big’un, and not wasting them all an you first X many attacks on minion creatures. Don’t use this when the risk of a Crit outweighs the potential miss, use it when the Crit won’t make a difference anyway, but that couch miss could change the day. Make sense?
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Yep, 100% odd that the feature can cause it to be worse when it is meant to protect your allies, but I just imagine it to be deflecting the attack rather than blocking it entirely. Maybe the attack was hitting the torso and the deflection of the shield causes it to hit them in the head instead? That's my best interpretation. The idea is to deflect it away completely but sometimes you misjudge and make things worse.
This ability is not designed only to stop crits. If it was, the language of the ability would reflect that and would probably be closer to the Grave Cleric's ability. It is designed to try and stop ANY hit you want. The fact that a new player might not see that it is best used when saved for a crit makes this ability have a trap aspect to it.
I have already stated several times how I see this as comparable to a Divine Smite to "wait for a crit" but no one who plays a Paladin is going to wait all day for only crits to use their smites on. They will throw a smite onto several of their other hits otherwise risk ending the day with spell slots unused. In the same vein, if you only use this ability for crits, then you might have several uses of the feature unused by the end of the day. On the other hand, if you try to use this ability on anything other than a crit, then there is a 5% risk associated with it
Yes, you CAN wait for a crit, but the ability is not designed to be used exclusively for them.
The fact that you have to "weigh the risk" of using a protective ability in the first place is extremely odd. A protective ability that has ANY risk of putting your ally in more danger is a very poor protective ability in my opinion.
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I do want to clarify at this point that I do not think Runic Shield is a "bad" ability, per say. I just think that this added risk it has makes it strange compared to other protective abilities in the game. I do think that at the right table, accidently turning a hit into a crit instead of a miss could be a super fun moment in character or funny moment for the table. I do think that there are "smart" ways to use this ability, but new players may not recognize that and could feel bad when their ability doesnt work to help their friends.
I still just think it is an odd choice by design to leave a harmful outcome as a possibility for a shield feature.
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Yeah, that part is a bit odd. If they'd called the ability "Cast the Runes" or something and changed the flavor text to be explicitly about trying to change fate rather than "shield" anybody, it'd be fine. It's the chill touch of class features.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)