How is it? I enjoy versatility and creativity in this game and I am in need of playing a frontliner for my party this new campaign. I want to be giant kin for what I am making and firbolg seems more fun than goliath in all honesty. No worries about culture since he is adopted by a family and his sibling (another player) is also adopted who happens to be a changeling sorcerer. Any info on the Rune knight especially since I have never touched fighter before but played a barbarian once. I like solving problems creatively, I enjoy thematics, and needed to know if this would be a good pick for me since I don't want to feel too underpowered.
I made a Fire Genasi Rune Knight and it was awesome.
Overview: Its a very durable subclass that will allow you to still be a problem solver as there is a need to have high INT for your Runes. You will be a great front liner that is very adaptable in and out combat with your runes. They all have actives and passives while they are equipped so you get to do some cool things while fighting and perhaps investigating or engaging and very important social interactions.
how is the damage and experience at level 3? what are some good rune choices for the first two? I was thinking cloud and storm could be a cool thing for my firbolg who is studying his giant linage after being raised by a human and and elf couple who couldn't have children of their own.
The damage is pretty dang good. It is considered by many to be a better version of the Eldritch Knight. At 3rd level you will be one of the stronger melee characters in your party. Rune choice is tough because they are all great. Some have better passives and others better actives.
The Hill Rune is great because you get resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage for 1 minute AND poison damage along with advantage on saving throws against being poisoned as your passive. As a front liner this will be great to have in heavy combat. The passive and active is pretty great for this one and to me it was no brainer because I knew I was going to be on in the fray almost every time (the only other melee option in our party was a War Cleric)
I was torn between Fire and Storm after that. Fire rune active allows you to restrain an opponent and give them 2d6 fire damage at the start of each of its turns when they fail their strength saving throw. So you could throw a javelin, dagger, hatchet at a spell caster or long distance fighter and than activate this. Restraining them and giving your party edge. Atleast that's how i used it. Storm's passive is amazing, NEVER be surprised. Cmon, thats a crazy good buff IMO. Not to mention in combat you can grant advantage to allies and disadvantage to any foe within 60 ft which will be most in most scenarios.
The others are great too but these were the ones that I thought would help me the most at early levels. Another good shout out is the Frost Rune that gives you +2 to STR. That can always help early on. The nice thing is that you can swap out your Runes if you feel like one would benefit you more, you can just have 2 on at a time until 7th level.
Also at 3rd level you get Giant's Might which gives you advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws and boost your weapon attacks with an extra 1d6 damage.
Yeah the runes are soo hard to pick between plus potential visual flavor like activating the storm rune making your eyes spark and flicker, activating the cloud rune to cause mist to spread put creating an illusion for an enemy to make them hit the wrong target, chucking a throwing axe into the enemy and as it hits fiery chains burst from the wound restraining the individual, using the frost rune causing frost to glaze over your body and armor and your breath to fog up as your str increases, ect you gotta love the potential flavor to make you more badass lol.
So what weapons and fighting style do you think works best for this class? Trying to limit my options a but lol. Also do you think the grappler feat is good for this setup? Love tools I can get super creative with to solve situations!
You start with the option to have 2 runes at level 3, and there are 2 that you should obviously start with: Hill Giant and Frost Giant runes.
The hill giant one gives you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. The frost giant one gives you increased strength, which can be above 20. These are the ones you definitely want to start with.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Never played it, but I will say to be sure your DM is ok with UA content. It can sometimes be quite unbalanced one way or the other. Not saying this is in particular, just it can happen with UA, and not all DMs are good with using it.
oh it's good he is doing it for the first time, I went over it with him, also if it does get a bit too ridicules like with anything I will manage it through my own choices to balance it through choices if needed. I like to be effective but hate being under or over powered so I am pretty good at regulating things myself lol.
Yeah the runes are soo hard to pick between plus potential visual flavor like activating the storm rune making your eyes spark and flicker, activating the cloud rune to cause mist to spread put creating an illusion for an enemy to make them hit the wrong target, chucking a throwing axe into the enemy and as it hits fiery chains burst from the wound restraining the individual, using the frost rune causing frost to glaze over your body and armor and your breath to fog up as your str increases, ect you gotta love the potential flavor to make you more badass lol.
So what weapons and fighting style do you think works best for this class? Trying to limit my options a but lol. Also do you think the grappler feat is good for this setup? Love tools I can get super creative with to solve situations!
Flavor is really cool and you can get super creative with it! I personally think Dueling fighting style works the best. You can put a Rune on your shield for flavor and shield gives +1 to AC which is useful if you or going to frontline. It also gives you guaranteed +2 for damage rolls. I used Great Weapon Fighting, but it was more for flavor than optimization. Defense would be a good option as well especially is you have a shield.
You start with the option to have 2 runes at level 3, and there are 2 that you should obviously start with: Hill Giant and Frost Giant runes.
The hill giant one gives you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. The frost giant one gives you increased strength, which can be above 20. These are the ones you definitely want to start with.
I agree, Hill is a must for 1 of your first 2 runes. So many buffs. But other than the Hill rune, there is a good case for most of them. Frost is great if you know that your campaign/session is going to be combat heavy (lasts for 10 minutes) with the likely hood of a lot of short rest or a DM that is flexible on what constitutes a short rest to him. The Frost Runes passive is pretty situational and doesn't really optimize or blend well with the other stats for this subclass. You get advantage on Wis (animal handling) checks and Cha (intimidation) checks. Where as Stone's passivegives you advantage on insight checks and grants darkvision (or increased darkvision if you already have it). Storm gives you advantage on Int (arcana) checks, but more importantly you can never be surprised. That means, no sneak attack bonus to NPCs or ambushes for your party while you are there. Sky allows you to essentially rebound any attack (spell, physical, magical, short or long distance) thrown at you OR a part member and throw it at another monster within 30 ft. You could use this to tank and save your mage or your glass cannon or your healer. This could easily alter a fight or even end it depending upon the attack thrown at you.
You start with the option to have 2 runes at level 3, and there are 2 that you should obviously start with: Hill Giant and Frost Giant runes.
The hill giant one gives you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. The frost giant one gives you increased strength, which can be above 20. These are the ones you definitely want to start with.
I very much disagree with this. Hill, sure, unless you have someone else who intends to soak all the damage you want it. But a Dex-based Rune Knight is pretty powerful in its own right, and that kills any need for the Frost Rune. The Frost Rune's passive is somewhat mediocre; Animal Handling is pretty rarely rolled so it's only relevant for Intimidation checks. Its active is also frankly pretty medium, translating for the most part to +1 to attack and damage rolls (and maybe not even that, as there's a pretty solid argument for a dex-based Rune Knight out there). I'm not sure that compares favorably to locking an enemy out of the fight, restraining an enemy so your team can dogpile them with advantage-oriented attacks, or just handing out advantage and disadvantage like Halloween candy.
For the purposes of 'creative problem solving', I'm actually a large fan of the Fire rune. Grab as many tool proficiencies as you can and have fun leveraging them to various situations (note that on top of the obvious, technically speaking gaming sets and musical instruments are tools. Just saying). It's no slouch in combat either, and is notable for being the only rune that doesn't require any kind of action to make use of - especially if you grab the Storm rune, you're going to want it soon after. Realistically, I'd base a lot of this on what your party needs too. The Fire rune is wonderful if you have a Warlock in the party willing to apply Hex, as that forces disadvantage on their escape checks, or if you have a Rogue or elf in the party who'd love Restrained targets providing them with an easy source of advantage. The Stone and Cloud runes are very nice if the rest of your party is relatively fragile, as they can take pressure off of your allies. Hill is generally a go-to of mine but with a Barbarian or Armorer in the party you probably have less need of it. Etc., etc.
Regarding combat itself: it can be a bit awkward but two-weapon fighting gets *very* powerful with Rune Knights. They don't really need the extra AC from a shield since the Hill rune is solid damage mitigation and TWF scales extremely well with Giant's Might. It does sometimes take some time to get rolling, as you need a bonus action to activate Giant's Might and the Hill and Storm runes are also bonus actions to activate, but if you have any kind of prep time or just don't need/take all of those runes the damage is pretty nice. At low levels one of the Blade cantrips may also be appealing pickups, though unless you straight up dip Wizard (which is... not the craziest thing in the universe) it's probably not practical to get on a Firbolg. If you don't want to TWF, I'd go for the typical polearm nonsense; the sheer area of the battlefield that you can influence with large size and a ten foot reach is silly. Polearm Master does let you do a similar thing to TWF in getting the bonus action attack to maximize your Giant's Might bonus damage, which is nice.
In play I ran a high elf that dipped a couple levels into Wizard, got utility spells, better AC, and some mobility tricks alongside a consistent ranged weapon. The big thing that jumped out at me was that I was actually very hit or miss on the Storm rune. It feels incredibly powerful, and when it was good it was great - even outside of combat passing out advantage for skill checks came up, and in combat it got to help out a few times. However, the Rune Knight has a lot they can do with a reaction. Defensive Runes, AoOs (which come up more when you get to be Large size fairly regularly, especially if you do the polearm thing), Cloud Rune, and Stone Rune all use your reaction, and that meant I wasn't always leveraging my Storm rune. In fairness I made that worse because War Wizard's second level feature, while absurdly good for the Rune Knight, is also a reaction, so... a lot of things piling into that one resource slot. The same happened to an extent with my bonus action, though that smoothed out after a couple rounds. Even with the awkwardness, I was definitely suffering from a very first world problem, and I had no complaints about the combat experience; it's definitely the most enjoyable martial I've played in 5e.
Out of combat, I absolutely adored the character. Fire rune + tool proficiencies can provide a lot of interesting ways to solve problems and even just create a more interesting character by excelling at a pretty mundane 'hobby'. Using the Storm rune to pass out advantage on skill checks was fun. And just the sheer number of skills the character was good at was great - on top of your proficiencies, it's pretty easy to be surprisingly decent at something like Insight when you just always have advantage on those checks. And if you do have proficiency, you can get extremely good at those things you decide are your focus.
The others are extraordinary too however these have been the ones that I thought might help me the maximum at early ranges. Another suitable shout out is the Frost Rune that offers you +2 to STR with Garage Door Opener Repair. That can continually help early on. The high-quality component is that you can switch out your Runes in case you experience like one could gain you more, you can simply have 2 on at a time until seventh degree.
Regarding combat itself: it can be a bit awkward but two-weapon fighting gets *very* powerful with Rune Knights. They don't really need the extra AC from a shield since the Hill rune is solid damage mitigation and TWF scales extremely well with Giant's Might. It does sometimes take some time to get rolling, as you need a bonus action to activate Giant's Might and the Hill and Storm runes are also bonus actions to activate, but if you have any kind of prep time or just don't need/take all of those runes the damage is pretty nice. At low levels one of the Blade cantrips may also be appealing pickups, though unless you straight up dip Wizard (which is... not the craziest thing in the universe) it's probably not practical to get on a Firbolg. If you don't want to TWF, I'd go for the typical polearm nonsense; the sheer area of the battlefield that you can influence with large size and a ten foot reach is silly. Polearm Master does let you do a similar thing to TWF in getting the bonus action attack to maximize your Giant's Might bonus damage, which is nice.
I think RK fits PERFECTLY with a two-weapon fighting build. In my game, I will play a Variant Human, and grab Dual-Wielder. The damage is nuts when you're hitting 2-3 times per turn and adding a d6 to each of them.
I hadn't considered PAM, but I'd rather use two weapons anyway. I like rolling dice.
I don't see any issue with a two-weapon fighting build. You could place 1 Rune on each sword as well. Only thing to consider would be your AC. Would you be a DEX fighter?
If you take the Hill Giant rune, your AC becomes less important. You can still wear heavy armor, so I'd do a strength build with the intention of wearing heavy armor.
A DEX build would work just fine too, but that limits your weapon choices a bit (assuming you want to use d8 weapons).
Not like your AC will even be particularly bad. Str build gets to go heavy armor with +1 AC from Dual Wielder, which means once you find plate your nonmagical AC is a 19. That's pretty good on something that has more functional hit points than the Barbarian, especially since you don't need to eat attacks at advantage every round in order to do your thing.
Honestly even without particularly investing in your defenses beyond the basics, the Rune Knight is probably the best tank in the game against physical attacks. Non-bludgeoning/piercing/slashing/poison damage can still be a problem, but your saves are actually kind of decent once you get to the mid-levels and get Indomitable and maybe the Storm rune for emergency advantage. You could go deeper into your defenses and build a super-tank character with a shield and such but... it's not really needed. I tend to agree with bangarang1: cover your basics, that makes your AC very good anyway, and you'll still do just fine.
Dex build is a way to build toward that super-tank style of play and still maintain your damage output, but there's a lot of work involved in going that route.
You get a small armada of abilities at 3rd level. Many of which are just straight up components of other class features (Hill giant gives B/P/S resistance for 1 minute) or dwarf them crazily. Storm rune lets you impose disadvantage on a save as a reaction for 1 minute. A sorcerer takes 3 SP (all of its SP at that point) to impose disadvantage on one save vs this fighter gets up to 10 disadvantage at the same level that recharges on a short rest. On top of this they get giant form that gives additional damage and ADV on STR checks/saves.
They need a pretty heavy nerf to bring it back in line with the other fighter subclasses and I fear that may strip a lot of what people like about it but we shall see.
You get a small armada of abilities at 3rd level. Many of which are just straight up components of other class features (Hill giant gives B/P/S resistance for 1 minute) or dwarf them crazily. Storm rune lets you impose disadvantage on a save as a reaction for 1 minute. A sorcerer takes 3 SP (all of its SP at that point) to impose disadvantage on one save vs this fighter gets up to 10 disadvantage at the same level that recharges on a short rest. On top of this they get giant form that gives additional damage and ADV on STR checks/saves.
They need a pretty heavy nerf to bring it back in line with the other fighter subclasses and I fear that may strip a lot of what people like about it but we shall see.
Many people seem to take issue with the fact that the fighter can impose disadvantage on saves, so I removed saves from the equation, and just made it apply to attacks/checks. I also tied it's usage to your INT modifier. That brings it in line a bit more, IMO.
That's the most egregious part of the Rune Knight abilities; the Hill Rune granting resistance isn't that OP, because you're sacrificing something else to get that.
You get a small armada of abilities at 3rd level. Many of which are just straight up components of other class features (Hill giant gives B/P/S resistance for 1 minute) or dwarf them crazily. Storm rune lets you impose disadvantage on a save as a reaction for 1 minute. A sorcerer takes 3 SP (all of its SP at that point) to impose disadvantage on one save vs this fighter gets up to 10 disadvantage at the same level that recharges on a short rest. On top of this they get giant form that gives additional damage and ADV on STR checks/saves.
They need a pretty heavy nerf to bring it back in line with the other fighter subclasses and I fear that may strip a lot of what people like about it but we shall see.
Many people seem to take issue with the fact that the fighter can impose disadvantage on saves, so I removed saves from the equation, and just made it apply to attacks/checks. I also tied it's usage to your INT modifier. That brings it in line a bit more, IMO.
That's the most egregious part of the Rune Knight abilities; the Hill Rune granting resistance isn't that OP, because you're sacrificing something else to get that.
Like the changes!
Attack/or ability using reaction seems fair. Would make an interesting grapple build!
As for B/P/S resistance I would disagree as you are basically giving the fighter rage with the Giant Form as a combo.
Extra damage, ADV on STR Saves/Checks, and Resistance to B/P/S.
Its a big boon that normally requires a 4th level spell to mimic: Stoneskin
Being able to basically cast Stoneskin on yourself once per short rest (~ 3-4 times per day if you follow the 2-3 short rest expectation) at 3rd level is pretty crazy good in combo with the fact you get advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance against poison damage and can activate Giant Form on top of that.
OH you can also have two runes at 3rd level so you can also activate the Frost rune and increase your STR by 2. And since this one lasts 10 minutes you could potentially activate it before combat and have +1 to attacks and damage on top of the above.
Its less about one individual ability and more that you get so many of them together.
You're not wrong, I just think that the things you DON'T get from Barbarian outweigh getting this one thing.
Barbarians still have:
d12 hit die
Other base barbarian features
All of their subclass features
I don't think putting a rage-like mechanic on a rune is that bad. You don't really get to use it much more than a barbarian can until 15th level, when you can use it twice per short rest. You're also not probably going to be fighting more than 5 times per day, so I can't really see how the short rest reset does much for you. PLUS, it still takes up a rune slot.
All in all, I REALLY love this subclass, and I think it's in line with Battlemaster. It gives far more out of combat flavor than most Fighter subclasses do.
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How is it? I enjoy versatility and creativity in this game and I am in need of playing a frontliner for my party this new campaign. I want to be giant kin for what I am making and firbolg seems more fun than goliath in all honesty. No worries about culture since he is adopted by a family and his sibling (another player) is also adopted who happens to be a changeling sorcerer. Any info on the Rune knight especially since I have never touched fighter before but played a barbarian once. I like solving problems creatively, I enjoy thematics, and needed to know if this would be a good pick for me since I don't want to feel too underpowered.
I made a Fire Genasi Rune Knight and it was awesome.
Overview: Its a very durable subclass that will allow you to still be a problem solver as there is a need to have high INT for your Runes. You will be a great front liner that is very adaptable in and out combat with your runes. They all have actives and passives while they are equipped so you get to do some cool things while fighting and perhaps investigating or engaging and very important social interactions.
What do you specifically want to know?
how is the damage and experience at level 3? what are some good rune choices for the first two? I was thinking cloud and storm could be a cool thing for my firbolg who is studying his giant linage after being raised by a human and and elf couple who couldn't have children of their own.
The damage is pretty dang good. It is considered by many to be a better version of the Eldritch Knight. At 3rd level you will be one of the stronger melee characters in your party. Rune choice is tough because they are all great. Some have better passives and others better actives.
The Hill Rune is great because you get resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage for 1 minute AND poison damage along with advantage on saving throws against being poisoned as your passive. As a front liner this will be great to have in heavy combat. The passive and active is pretty great for this one and to me it was no brainer because I knew I was going to be on in the fray almost every time (the only other melee option in our party was a War Cleric)
I was torn between Fire and Storm after that. Fire rune active allows you to restrain an opponent and give them 2d6 fire damage at the start of each of its turns when they fail their strength saving throw. So you could throw a javelin, dagger, hatchet at a spell caster or long distance fighter and than activate this. Restraining them and giving your party edge. Atleast that's how i used it. Storm's passive is amazing, NEVER be surprised. Cmon, thats a crazy good buff IMO. Not to mention in combat you can grant advantage to allies and disadvantage to any foe within 60 ft which will be most in most scenarios.
The others are great too but these were the ones that I thought would help me the most at early levels. Another good shout out is the Frost Rune that gives you +2 to STR. That can always help early on. The nice thing is that you can swap out your Runes if you feel like one would benefit you more, you can just have 2 on at a time until 7th level.
Also at 3rd level you get Giant's Might which gives you advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws and boost your weapon attacks with an extra 1d6 damage.
Yeah the runes are soo hard to pick between plus potential visual flavor like activating the storm rune making your eyes spark and flicker, activating the cloud rune to cause mist to spread put creating an illusion for an enemy to make them hit the wrong target, chucking a throwing axe into the enemy and as it hits fiery chains burst from the wound restraining the individual, using the frost rune causing frost to glaze over your body and armor and your breath to fog up as your str increases, ect you gotta love the potential flavor to make you more badass lol.
So what weapons and fighting style do you think works best for this class? Trying to limit my options a but lol. Also do you think the grappler feat is good for this setup? Love tools I can get super creative with to solve situations!
You start with the option to have 2 runes at level 3, and there are 2 that you should obviously start with: Hill Giant and Frost Giant runes.
The hill giant one gives you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. The frost giant one gives you increased strength, which can be above 20. These are the ones you definitely want to start with.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Never played it, but I will say to be sure your DM is ok with UA content. It can sometimes be quite unbalanced one way or the other. Not saying this is in particular, just it can happen with UA, and not all DMs are good with using it.
oh it's good he is doing it for the first time, I went over it with him, also if it does get a bit too ridicules like with anything I will manage it through my own choices to balance it through choices if needed. I like to be effective but hate being under or over powered so I am pretty good at regulating things myself lol.
Flavor is really cool and you can get super creative with it! I personally think Dueling fighting style works the best. You can put a Rune on your shield for flavor and shield gives +1 to AC which is useful if you or going to frontline. It also gives you guaranteed +2 for damage rolls. I used Great Weapon Fighting, but it was more for flavor than optimization. Defense would be a good option as well especially is you have a shield.
I agree, Hill is a must for 1 of your first 2 runes. So many buffs. But other than the Hill rune, there is a good case for most of them. Frost is great if you know that your campaign/session is going to be combat heavy (lasts for 10 minutes) with the likely hood of a lot of short rest or a DM that is flexible on what constitutes a short rest to him. The Frost Runes passive is pretty situational and doesn't really optimize or blend well with the other stats for this subclass. You get advantage on Wis (animal handling) checks and Cha (intimidation) checks. Where as Stone's passive gives you advantage on insight checks and grants darkvision (or increased darkvision if you already have it). Storm gives you advantage on Int (arcana) checks, but more importantly you can never be surprised. That means, no sneak attack bonus to NPCs or ambushes for your party while you are there. Sky allows you to essentially rebound any attack (spell, physical, magical, short or long distance) thrown at you OR a part member and throw it at another monster within 30 ft. You could use this to tank and save your mage or your glass cannon or your healer. This could easily alter a fight or even end it depending upon the attack thrown at you.
I very much disagree with this. Hill, sure, unless you have someone else who intends to soak all the damage you want it. But a Dex-based Rune Knight is pretty powerful in its own right, and that kills any need for the Frost Rune. The Frost Rune's passive is somewhat mediocre; Animal Handling is pretty rarely rolled so it's only relevant for Intimidation checks. Its active is also frankly pretty medium, translating for the most part to +1 to attack and damage rolls (and maybe not even that, as there's a pretty solid argument for a dex-based Rune Knight out there). I'm not sure that compares favorably to locking an enemy out of the fight, restraining an enemy so your team can dogpile them with advantage-oriented attacks, or just handing out advantage and disadvantage like Halloween candy.
For the purposes of 'creative problem solving', I'm actually a large fan of the Fire rune. Grab as many tool proficiencies as you can and have fun leveraging them to various situations (note that on top of the obvious, technically speaking gaming sets and musical instruments are tools. Just saying). It's no slouch in combat either, and is notable for being the only rune that doesn't require any kind of action to make use of - especially if you grab the Storm rune, you're going to want it soon after. Realistically, I'd base a lot of this on what your party needs too. The Fire rune is wonderful if you have a Warlock in the party willing to apply Hex, as that forces disadvantage on their escape checks, or if you have a Rogue or elf in the party who'd love Restrained targets providing them with an easy source of advantage. The Stone and Cloud runes are very nice if the rest of your party is relatively fragile, as they can take pressure off of your allies. Hill is generally a go-to of mine but with a Barbarian or Armorer in the party you probably have less need of it. Etc., etc.
Regarding combat itself: it can be a bit awkward but two-weapon fighting gets *very* powerful with Rune Knights. They don't really need the extra AC from a shield since the Hill rune is solid damage mitigation and TWF scales extremely well with Giant's Might. It does sometimes take some time to get rolling, as you need a bonus action to activate Giant's Might and the Hill and Storm runes are also bonus actions to activate, but if you have any kind of prep time or just don't need/take all of those runes the damage is pretty nice. At low levels one of the Blade cantrips may also be appealing pickups, though unless you straight up dip Wizard (which is... not the craziest thing in the universe) it's probably not practical to get on a Firbolg. If you don't want to TWF, I'd go for the typical polearm nonsense; the sheer area of the battlefield that you can influence with large size and a ten foot reach is silly. Polearm Master does let you do a similar thing to TWF in getting the bonus action attack to maximize your Giant's Might bonus damage, which is nice.
In play I ran a high elf that dipped a couple levels into Wizard, got utility spells, better AC, and some mobility tricks alongside a consistent ranged weapon. The big thing that jumped out at me was that I was actually very hit or miss on the Storm rune. It feels incredibly powerful, and when it was good it was great - even outside of combat passing out advantage for skill checks came up, and in combat it got to help out a few times. However, the Rune Knight has a lot they can do with a reaction. Defensive Runes, AoOs (which come up more when you get to be Large size fairly regularly, especially if you do the polearm thing), Cloud Rune, and Stone Rune all use your reaction, and that meant I wasn't always leveraging my Storm rune. In fairness I made that worse because War Wizard's second level feature, while absurdly good for the Rune Knight, is also a reaction, so... a lot of things piling into that one resource slot. The same happened to an extent with my bonus action, though that smoothed out after a couple rounds. Even with the awkwardness, I was definitely suffering from a very first world problem, and I had no complaints about the combat experience; it's definitely the most enjoyable martial I've played in 5e.
Out of combat, I absolutely adored the character. Fire rune + tool proficiencies can provide a lot of interesting ways to solve problems and even just create a more interesting character by excelling at a pretty mundane 'hobby'. Using the Storm rune to pass out advantage on skill checks was fun. And just the sheer number of skills the character was good at was great - on top of your proficiencies, it's pretty easy to be surprisingly decent at something like Insight when you just always have advantage on those checks. And if you do have proficiency, you can get extremely good at those things you decide are your focus.
The others are extraordinary too however these have been the ones that I thought might help me the maximum at early ranges. Another suitable shout out is the Frost Rune that offers you +2 to STR with Garage Door Opener Repair. That can continually help early on. The high-quality component is that you can switch out your Runes in case you experience like one could gain you more, you can simply have 2 on at a time until seventh degree.
I think RK fits PERFECTLY with a two-weapon fighting build. In my game, I will play a Variant Human, and grab Dual-Wielder. The damage is nuts when you're hitting 2-3 times per turn and adding a d6 to each of them.
I hadn't considered PAM, but I'd rather use two weapons anyway. I like rolling dice.
I don't see any issue with a two-weapon fighting build. You could place 1 Rune on each sword as well. Only thing to consider would be your AC. Would you be a DEX fighter?
If you take the Hill Giant rune, your AC becomes less important. You can still wear heavy armor, so I'd do a strength build with the intention of wearing heavy armor.
A DEX build would work just fine too, but that limits your weapon choices a bit (assuming you want to use d8 weapons).
Not like your AC will even be particularly bad. Str build gets to go heavy armor with +1 AC from Dual Wielder, which means once you find plate your nonmagical AC is a 19. That's pretty good on something that has more functional hit points than the Barbarian, especially since you don't need to eat attacks at advantage every round in order to do your thing.
Honestly even without particularly investing in your defenses beyond the basics, the Rune Knight is probably the best tank in the game against physical attacks. Non-bludgeoning/piercing/slashing/poison damage can still be a problem, but your saves are actually kind of decent once you get to the mid-levels and get Indomitable and maybe the Storm rune for emergency advantage. You could go deeper into your defenses and build a super-tank character with a shield and such but... it's not really needed. I tend to agree with bangarang1: cover your basics, that makes your AC very good anyway, and you'll still do just fine.
Dex build is a way to build toward that super-tank style of play and still maintain your damage output, but there's a lot of work involved in going that route.
Overall the subclass is way too powerful.
You get a small armada of abilities at 3rd level. Many of which are just straight up components of other class features (Hill giant gives B/P/S resistance for 1 minute) or dwarf them crazily. Storm rune lets you impose disadvantage on a save as a reaction for 1 minute. A sorcerer takes 3 SP (all of its SP at that point) to impose disadvantage on one save vs this fighter gets up to 10 disadvantage at the same level that recharges on a short rest. On top of this they get giant form that gives additional damage and ADV on STR checks/saves.
They need a pretty heavy nerf to bring it back in line with the other fighter subclasses and I fear that may strip a lot of what people like about it but we shall see.
Sadly I tend to agree with you. I made a few modifications to some of the runes - check out my homebrew Rune Warrior subclass here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/408906-rune-warrior
Many people seem to take issue with the fact that the fighter can impose disadvantage on saves, so I removed saves from the equation, and just made it apply to attacks/checks. I also tied it's usage to your INT modifier. That brings it in line a bit more, IMO.
That's the most egregious part of the Rune Knight abilities; the Hill Rune granting resistance isn't that OP, because you're sacrificing something else to get that.
Like the changes!
Attack/or ability using reaction seems fair. Would make an interesting grapple build!
As for B/P/S resistance I would disagree as you are basically giving the fighter rage with the Giant Form as a combo.
Extra damage, ADV on STR Saves/Checks, and Resistance to B/P/S.
Its a big boon that normally requires a 4th level spell to mimic: Stoneskin
Being able to basically cast Stoneskin on yourself once per short rest (~ 3-4 times per day if you follow the 2-3 short rest expectation) at 3rd level is pretty crazy good in combo with the fact you get advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance against poison damage and can activate Giant Form on top of that.
OH you can also have two runes at 3rd level so you can also activate the Frost rune and increase your STR by 2. And since this one lasts 10 minutes you could potentially activate it before combat and have +1 to attacks and damage on top of the above.
Its less about one individual ability and more that you get so many of them together.
You're not wrong, I just think that the things you DON'T get from Barbarian outweigh getting this one thing.
Barbarians still have:
I don't think putting a rage-like mechanic on a rune is that bad. You don't really get to use it much more than a barbarian can until 15th level, when you can use it twice per short rest. You're also not probably going to be fighting more than 5 times per day, so I can't really see how the short rest reset does much for you. PLUS, it still takes up a rune slot.
All in all, I REALLY love this subclass, and I think it's in line with Battlemaster. It gives far more out of combat flavor than most Fighter subclasses do.