hi guys, 

I'm making a kobold totem (bear, eagle, bear) barbarian named Pyp and, after the sixth level, he will take 3 levels into the fighter class. Now, the problem his that I don't know which subclass to chose, i'm undecided between the rune knight and the battle master, can you give me some advice?

here is some info about the pc:

his stats are 18 str, 14 dex, 16 cos, 11 int, 13 wis, 11 cha; he will give up his first asi to take the dual wielder feat and then, with his first level as a fighter, the two weapon fighting style.

P.s.

I don’t know if I posted this thread in the right place, in case I made a mistake please forgive me. Also, sorry if i made any typos or grammatical errors, english is not my primary language.

Battle Master is the most generally useful fighter subclass, but if the idea of a kobold growing to Large size with Giant's Might makes you giggle like it does me, Rune Knight is far from a bad choice

The one thing to watch out for with Rune Knight if you go that route is to take runes that don't require bonus actions, to avoid bumping into your raging, but the best starter ones (Cloud, Fire, Stone) are either reactions or trigger on an attack so it's not a huge concern. It would only really come up if you took RK to 7th level and were looking at the Storm Rune

Champion. Fishing for Critical Hits with a Barbarian is amazing because of Brutal Criticals.

I know that, but I find champion pretty boring thematically speaking. Also, Rune knight or battle master would make more sense with his background

You do you. I figure that if you’re only dipping 3 levels then the Fighter stuff would be just there to augment the Barbarian stuff which is your main anyway.

Battle Master is not the best sauce IMO because it doesn’t get goodgood ‘til higher levels (same with RK to be honest). Even for a Full Battle Master they never have enough Superiority Dice. Plus, with all those Maneuvers to choose from, only picking 3 always leaves me with “buyer’s remorse” no matter which 3 I pick.

The Rune Knight’s super smash starts to look anemic at higher levels unless it’s the main class and gets the larger die size. But with a 3-level dip that’ll never happen and at Barb6/Fighter3, you’ll already be close to “higher levels.” And the Runes themselves aren’t too impressive until one has gotten a bunch of them.

If you were going straight Fighter I would have never suggested Da Champ, but if you just want a little Fighter sauce to dip a Barbarian nugget into, IMO Champ flavored is always a contender. Like I said, do whatever you think is most fun and don’t let anyone stop you, especially me. But you asked for opinions and those are mine.

If you are only willing to consider Battlemaster or Rune Knight, I would go with Rune Knight since you will only take it to level 3. In combat and out of combat options and the passives don't muck with action economy. If you are only planning on having a combat focus, go with BM.

Which maneuvers were you thinking of choosing if you went the Battlemaster route?

Which runes would you choose if you went the Rune Knight route?

Rune Knight is better suited for this low of a level. If you were willing to sacrifice more levels into Fighter I would recommend battlemaster. However, Rune Knight will probably be more fun for you, as your kobold charges the enemy getting bigger and bigger with every step until they tower over them, an equally large axe in their hands. 

I'm hesitant to suggest Rune Knight, even though I think it's a great fighter subclass, simply because Giant's Might, like Rage, costs a Bonus Action to trigger, and you get the redundancy of advantage on STR checks, which you already get by raging. It is nice that the runes still give you passive benefits, but I think you'll be wrestling with the Subclass features more often than not. I'd take Battlemaster... it plays better with Barbarian and has great customization.

That said... might I recommend the Cavalier Subclass? As a Bear Totem Barbarian you want to have as many attacks as possible aimed at you, because you're resistant to so much damage. The Cavalier Subclass gives you the Unwavering Mark class feature... as a free action when you attack, you can Mark an enemy you hit with a Melee attack. This gives them disadvantage if they attack anyone other than you while they're still within five feet of yourself, and if they do attack anyone else under those conditions you then gain the option to make a special Bonus Action Attack with Advantage and extra damage on your next turn... although with your focus on two-weapon fighting, that part of it isn't quite as useful, since you can just go reckless to get advantage anyway, but it's still a nice little cherry on top of a class feature that plays well with your chosen Barbarian subclass.

Quote from TransmorpherDDS >>

I'm hesitant to suggest Rune Knight, even though I think it's a great fighter subclass, simply because Giant's Might, like Rage, costs a Bonus Action to trigger, and you get the redundancy of advantage on STR checks, which you already get by raging. It is nice that the runes still give you passive benefits, but I think you'll be wrestling with the Subclass features more often than not. I'd take Battlemaster... it plays better with Barbarian and has great customization.

That said... might I recommend the Cavalier Subclass? As a Bear Totem Barbarian you want to have as many attacks as possible aimed at you, because you're resistant to so much damage. The Cavalier Subclass gives you the Unwavering Mark class feature... as a free action when you attack, you can Mark an enemy you hit with a Melee attack. This gives them disadvantage if they attack anyone other than you while they're still within five feet of yourself, and if they do attack anyone else under those conditions you then gain the option to make a special Bonus Action Attack with Advantage and extra damage on your next turn... although with your focus on two-weapon fighting, that part of it isn't quite as useful, since you can just go reckless to get advantage anyway, but it's still a nice little cherry on top of a class feature that plays well with your chosen Barbarian subclass.

 The idea of a Kobold Barbarian/Cavalier is so nonsensical for the traditional archetypes that I kind of love it.  And the mechanics are actually pretty great.  You could ride into battle on your trusty pig or goat.  With Mounted Combatant, your mount won’t be targeted and you can shift attacks to you and your resistances.  The mount will help get you to where you need to be for your Unwavering Mark too.

Have fun coming up with the back story for this craziness!

If you go Runeknight, and have a friend to cast Enlarge on you, you could be raging as a HUGE-size Kobold, able to grapple Gargantuan creatures.

If your DM permits, one of my favorite Fighter types is the Echo Knight, because it gives you unlimited Bonus Action short-range teleports, and you can attack from places other than where you actually are... and they're not spells, so you can use the abilities while raging.

The thing about Cavalier is that everyone assumes that it's just for mounted combat... but really it only has one class feature that exclusively applies to mounted combat ("Born to the Saddle", which basically just makes it harder to knock you off your mount and makes mounting/dismounting easier). Everything else in the build, while it pairs well with riding a mount (since it gives you a ton of short-range defense options that you can easily use to defend your mount), still works just fine without one.

That said... it is a lot easier to maximize the benefits of the subclass as a small race, since you can ride a medium sized mount, which is much more likely going to be able to accompany you into dungeons and other situations where a Large horse might be a liability. But especially as a Barbarian, you don't necessarily need a mount.

Also, I read into Totem Barbarian a little more closely and saw that the Cavalier Feature competes a bit with the proposed third totem choice, since Raven said they were planning to take the bear totem, which is basically just a better version of the Cavalier ability. I, personally, think it's worth it to go Cavalier instead... you get an admittedly limited version of that ability, but much earlier in the game, and it leaves you open to taking one of the other Totem options... Eagle is always fun, because who doesn't want to fly? But I personally would rather take the Cavalier feature then go for the Elk totem at level 14... it's basically trading your off-hand attack for a trample ability that doesn't get the full benefits of rage (since it's not really an attack), but still deals damage and knocks the enemy prone. For other builds I might have recommended the Wolf Totem, since it also knocks enemies prone with a full bonus action and doesn't rely on a saving throw (instead just requiring that you land a melee weapon attack), but since this character is built around two-weapon fighting it would be completely losing the off-hand attack to get the full effect, instead of swapping it for a different damage dealing option.

I've played both versions either as a one shot or in a campaign and I think they're both solid choices. I'd go with whichever sounds more fun flavor wise.

Having a large kobold sounds great, but if you have a fun character concept for a kobold tactician that could be really great too. I also love the idea given here of a kobold cavalier riding a boar or a goat.