You Might Be a Rune Knight | Fighter Subclass Guide for DND 5e

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[@researcherchameleon4602]

If you made a Dragonborn rune knight, and had the wizard cast enlarge/reduce, you could walk up to Strahd’s castle as a legally distinct Godzilla

[@greevar]

Thermonuclear breath attack!!!!!

[@researcherchameleon4602]

@@greevar the DM could make an Anti-party with a lizard shaped warforge who is also a rune knight, and a few wizard levels, and you get a legally distinct giant robot that looks like the giant fire breathing lizard for a Kaiju fight, or a Hadooze or bugbear for King Kong, or an Aarokokra for Rodan

[@ragingdragon579]

Looking to do this exact thing soon in my current campaign 🤣 not a dragonborn but I sure am looking for some kaiju fights

[@airproci]

@@researcherchameleon4602not only a warforged an artificer armorer rune knight so you cast yourself enlarge reduce and give yourself some booming gauntlets to make your mighty hits even more like a thunder storm or make battle smith gnome so that you can ride the pet and become a giant chavalier smashing everything

[@researcherchameleon4602]

@@airproci I just realized that a warforge rune knight can also have some Jet Jaguar flavor, perhaps you could get a Tortle for some gamera flavor too, a plasmoid for Hedora, a home brew mindflayer for Cthulhu, Ginase for the Titans from Hercules, I am just thinking of a roster of legally distinct kaiju builds, feel free to add on

[@matthewbeard8860]

Rune magic is such an underutilized aspect of DnD. Would love to see more official subclasses using Runes

[@GoobieTheGoob]

Bigby’s did that with their new feats although it’s a little annoying to have more tiered Feats that require you to take more than one just to increase it’s base effectiveness. For people who don’t get as many ASI’s as fighter, it’s a really poorly optimized choice.

[@BonedZoned]

I played one of these in the Odyssey of Theros campaign. You have no idea how funny the look on my dms face was when I successfully suplexed a devil as a large sized Triton.

[@James_Irish]

Okay, but is nobody going to talk about how amazingly funny YMBA is while also educating about awesome D&D stuff?

[@darlingxluxii7977]

Ikr so awesome 😂❤

[@LegendOhil]

We dont need to. We all known it.

[@sullivantwiss1954]

All fear giants! I would love to see Minotaurs for the race shorts, War Clerics, Star and Wildfire Druids, Ancients and Open Sea Paladins, and Sun Soul Monks (Rest in Peace, Akira Toriyama)

[@elijahmaples5914]

Love rune knight fighter, not only is it a magic martial but also it helps me live the fantasy of being half ogre. I don't know why I want that but I do

[@Merilirem]

Its so much more fun than eldritch knight even for a multiclass who would normally want those spell slots.

[@janetsbrick]

I’m a middle aged woman with a broken back but the idea of a Goliath Rune Knight who can grapple anything and juggle boulders is still such a kick.

[@WolfHreda]

My first Rune Knight is a Duergar tavern bouncer and professional wrestler. She's the only character I've ever even considered taking Tavern Brawler with, and it's entirely for the bonus action grapple. Between that and Skill Expert (Athletics) she gets a nightmarish bonus to her grappling ability, and entirely RAW at 11th level, you can Unarmed Strike, BA Grapple, Shove your enemy prone, and use the third attack of your Attack action to Unarmed Strike again, this time with advantage. If you've still got your Action Surge, you can attack three more times all at advantage. The Eldritch Claw tattoo is a must.

[@scryptid_]

this is literally my current character, she’s a monster ❤ big fan of dragging medium creatures around at full speed. great minds

[@WolfHreda]

@@scryptid_ "Hell yeah, brother. Expect the unexpected in the Kingdom of Madness. Oh yeah!"

[@asterodon]

Also with Tavern Brawler it gives you proficiency with improvised weapons, so you could grab a Goblin and use it as a weapon against another enemy which is just hilarious. You could also use trees or parts of buildings as weapons. Rune Knight Fighter is just an awesome subclass and easily my favorite Fighter.

[@NonLogicUser]

Having convinced my DM that a large build (Goliath) increases grapple by one size category, really makes the case for Tavern Brawler. Aka weapon prof. Medium humanoid.

[@Vini-zv3lr]

I've been playig a grappler rune knight for some time too, focusing more on being an enabler for the party. The moment I got a magic sword though, it became a completely opressive build for any enemy vulnerable to grappling. Pinning down a dragon and letting the whole party to wail on it with advantage, meanwhile doing very respectable damage.

[@adamevaskevich5528]

My main man I'm currently playing is a Runeknight Unarmed Fighter Dwarf who is all about grappling people all jumping off buildings or tree with them under me. Because if you have powerful build from dwarf, goliath and a few other races, there is no size you can't grapple in 5e if you are Large. Since you are able to drag as part of movement when grappling (if you move at half speed) and Powerful Build says you can lift, drag or push creatures one size category larger than normal. So a 3rd level Runeknight Dwarf can grapple a Tarrasque, it's such a fun build

[@semda9245]

Small race Rune Knights are just so funny to me. That little gnome you thought you could easily throw aside just became so massive that he can snap you in half with just his pinkies!

[@janetsbrick]

@@semda9245 I have been pondering a dex-based small Fairy Rune Knight. If you get athletics expertise then with the Rune Knight bonuses including the frost rune, the lack of much of a strength bonus almost doesn’t matter…you have so many pluses you’re likely to succeed, and you can wear light armor and fly. And there’s something about a huge flying fairy who can grapple a dragon that’s just hilarious. Backstory, I love the idea of rune knights coming from the equivalent of a pro wrestling performing background, because you just know they’d find work doing something like that.

[@Fowler-27]

Duergar at third level also get the ability to enlarge themselves, so you can go even bigger

[@shmazpootaz4331]

Favorite fighter of all time. So much fun to play

[@Bloodxbeast666]

Bro there's a letterkenny reference within the first 10 seconds. I already insta like YMBA videos, but if I diddnt that would've been more than enough🤣

[@andrewdowns3673]

Also slap on some of the Giant Feats, take the Giant Foundling background, and be a 2024 Goliath for the new trait of Large Form for extra giant uses, and your'e a beast on the battlefield.

[@Strunmahmah]

I feel so called out by that add break, I loved Disney's Dinosaur

[@Kragock]

Me too! 😃

[@GoobieTheGoob]

I love that Rune Knight is sorta adjacent to how Eldritch Invocations are. You get all these magic features but they’re not necessarily magic in the same context we normally know it. It’s very creative and takes Fighter outside of the purely martial playstyle in a different way than say, Eldritch Knight, who is literally a spellcaster instead of a rune carver.

[@SarmInTheHat7030]

You do a really good job of making me want to play the subclass you show in these videos

[@ElMagico2006]

Playing a Minotaur Rune Knight now. Just hit level 6, fire and stone rune, pole arm master, sentinel, great weapon fighting. When large you can lock down any corridor and have a huge range, and that sentinel…nasty. Because you can use it with pole arm master, opportunity incoming beast or melee fighter. Stops them cold out of reach, and fire rune them in place. It’s great.

[@manannaman9121]

The only thing you need to do is not use a puny axe, use a hammer the superior wepon. O yes and also multiclass into battle smith artificer to have forever best best friend.

[@bodenking]

Oh god, the idea of a Huge rune knight walking up to a castle wall with an equally huge hammer

[@WTFxDiglettxFTW]

i was playing a lvl 11 rune knight minotaur and it was one of the best charecter i had ever rolled, endless mischief in and out of combat.

[@hereticblasphemer]

Im currently a lvl 10 rune knight. Captain Fergus McTavish is 6 foot tall mountain dwarf with a + 2 flame tongue greatsword. Tough and lucky feats.

[@rickxhoshinji]

I’m trying to learn about the Rune Knight, but I can’t stop laughing.

[@joshsmith8475]

It's always a good day when there is a new YMBA upload!!!

[@Treeco44]

I have wanted to play as a Duergar rune knight with the grappler and tavern brawler feats for ages now to play as a gargantuan, Jackie Chan esk character with the ultimate goal culminating in pile-driving a tarrasque, Undertaker style, at the end of the campaign.

[@AtelierGod]

The Frost Rune isn’t actually bad, it is just niche in its usage, for example if you played a Fairy Rune Knight you’d like use your bonus action to grow to large or huge depending on level and then cast Enlarge/Reduce on yourself to grow an size larger but even with con save proficiency it is possible to fail a con save and lose your growth, invoking the frost rune on your next turn would allow you to gain a +2 to con saves so you’d be that much more capable of staying in the fight.

[@marcusblacknell-andrews1783]

You know, Bigby’s book: Glory of the Giants provides a fascinating background, “Rune Carver”. I once built a Rune Knight with that background and created a Master of Runecraft!

[@Hdinoify]

God I love this subclass so freaking much. Been playing it since it started as Unearthed Arcana, and still currently playing on in a campaign for the last 3-4 years now.

[@williamgordon5443]

A small correction on the Cloud Rune, you can redirect any attack, meaning that if the paladin hits a crit on an enemy that's almost down, you can say "Nope, that crit is more useful on that enemy over there, now smite."

[@voodooozo3755]

Recently I started new campaign with my friends and decided to go fighter and probably battle master goliath. When choosing the subclass I discovered the existence of rune knight and thought my Goliath would fit this choice as his ancestor are giants after all. Not to mention I have sorcerer in my team with enlarge/reduce spell. It's pretty damn funny when I can grapple large or bigger enemies no problem or straight up throw them at one another haha

[@KalinaHitanaVTuber]

Definitely my favourite sounding Fighter of them all, this is 100% the one I'd choose if I had to make a Fighter character

[@Orcawsom]

been waiting for the Rune Knight ep since day 1. glad to finally see it.

[@jakebattaglia1672]

Dream Character is a Kenku Rune Knight/ Forge Cleric just infinite flavor and such fun combinations of abilities

[@Dack.howaboutyou]

Rune Knight seemed like an immediate sleeper hit from when i first saw it... Great solo-class, also plenty of cool multi-class ideas AND so much potential flavour/RP! Glad you see the potential as well; great video!

[@nicholasdookhram9211]

The oath of redemption paladin seems neat :)

[@Siegsoul]

I used this to play an oiled up Minotaur wresler

[@tyrapp2202]

Got a level 10 character in a campaign me and my friends been playing for over a year, 8 in rogue 2 in fighter and the rune carver fighter stole my heart. Great multiclass potential with rogue, very excited to play it

[@crookedfang1534]

So proud of how far you've grown.

[@Drogen0]

I’ve become so obsessed with this channel since I started playing (Adventure League is the big thing in my town over home brew games) and this has really helped me try out different classes I wouldn’t have before. I just ordered a Lizardfolk mini that’s too big but now I think I have a great use for it this week with the other mini I bought.

[@Pkhemi]

YES WE GOT THA BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

[@wuggldy]

Damn near shit myself at 3:14 Great video as always, even if I had to pause for a bit to let the ringing in my ears fade before I could continue lol. I'm personally really excited for you to eventually cover the Thief - even though it's not the most mechanically flashy, it's got some serious potential for all sorts of classic Rogue shenanigans.

[@kubiakpella]

Oathbreaker Paladin pls

[@Geodragon667]

Watching this video brings up good memories of my Rune Knight Kobold. Everyone feared that little guy. Oh and Gnome bowling.

[@Adalfarus]

Could you do one of these on the chronurgy wizard? I have a very epic backstory of two characters who both grow up in a long abandoned city in the underdark where beautiful drawings and murals remain, made by people over a millennium ago during the returning 'apocalypse' in the great age of Níer. One of the characters is a child who flees deep down into a, what seems to be, never-ending stairway into the depths of the earth until she reaches the city. In the city she comes across a very old elven librarian, who still lives there, and whose mission it is to maintain the ancients manuscripts in the massive library of the city and does so with the help of a boy (the other character). The librarian takes the girl in and shows her the ancient murals, some dark and grim for portraying the final moments of their civilisation and it makes her very sad up until the wizard shows her the other murals, rows and rows of beautiful drawings of flowers, trees, silhouettes of hands, faces of all kinds of humanoids while they're doing practices of everyday life. The old librarian explains that many people lost their hope when the city got wiped-out and that they believed that they were the last stronghold of civilisation but that even without hope for a future for all civilisation, they drew everything that was important to them, from the games they played to the sun-touched farms they lived in on the surface, from their families to simple practices one wouldn't think of immediately like how to make bread. The librarian explained to the girl that these walls contain the final, and most important moments of the old civilisation, their history and their way of life; and that they might never know how it really must've been back then, but by standing there, in the halls where their legacy lies which is waiting to be forgotten, they can only imagine and that that by itself honours those who have fallen. The child finds the thought beautiful and seeks for ways to preserve the ancient murals, for years she helps the librarian and looks for ways to preserve the murals. She seeks for answers by skimming through the many thousands ancient tomes and eventually finds books on chronurgy, a practice of magic that has been long forgotten as a school of magic on the surface due to the fact that it's so complicated. She studies it and soon realises that to preserve these halls, the first thing she should do, is to train and become both potent enough to preserve the murals and strong enough to protect the ruins and library from the upcoming 'apocalypse'. The boy seeks to do the same (he will be a cleric) and so they set out to the surface with the mission to become strong enough to protect the city by either making a last stand there or by not making any demons reach it in the first place when the apocalypse is truly there. Sorry for the long text m8, Idek if you'll read it yourself but I love your videos and you inspire me with your creativity. I'd just fucking love to see a 'You Might Be a Chronurgy Wizard' vid drop. Thx for all your hard work, I love what ur doing, keep it up

[@pauliepizzo8633]

Rune knight fighter + giant barb 10 level of each I give you the element titan for your kaijou smashing pleasure

[@taytaystark7588]

Well I know what my next character is going to be😂

[@reddbaron5986]

1:22 You didn't have to call me out like that, jeez

[@ianphillips2137]

6:16 I’d change this rune to replace the animal handling with ignoring difficult terrain, and replace the active effect entirely with 1d10+Con temporary hit points I’d also add scaling to the fire runes initial damage, making it 2d6+PB fire damage

[@jdomond1]

My favorite 😍 clas periodt

[@Merilirem]

Rune Knight is indeed just the best fighter.

[@CambinoWatches]

I played a teifling rune knight with high intelligence and low con named Free. He was by far my favorite character to play. His high intelligence and decent charisma allowed him to talk himself out of issues or see through illusions and keep the pressure on our enemies, and once I got the flame tongue I was DESTROYING in combat. And other than using it to save friends from crits we had a combo where Free would grapple an enemy, a mage would hit him and the opponent with fireball and I’d invoke the cloud rune to send my damage to the enemy doubling the damage!

[@rocksnrolls]

My Barbarian is multiclassing into Rune Knight and i am insanely excited now

[@jmd9402]

there's also a section in thd DMG for oversized weapons that says when a creature increases in size the damage dice of their weapon is multiplied. Large creatures do double damage, huge creatures do thriple damage, and gargantuan creatures do quadruple.

[@haydenmccameron1782]

This is one of my favorite subclasses and ironically i was just thinking about making this my next character

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

Nothing about the situation you described is ironic. It is at most a mildly entertaining coincidence. Irony =/= coincidence.

[@SaburoDK]

The Stone reaction is soo brutal, i used It in a long campaing to win so many times. This subclass is probably my favorite, my halforc was a powerhouse

[@sarcasticsage984]

love the godforged reference with Skold.

[@androidmk5987]

Fun fact it's best to go as a duergar as a rune knight since this let's you cast enlarge/reduce on yourself. So you can go to huge at level 3.

[@ryankealty1376]

I can absolutely vouch for Dr. Dhrolin's Dictionary of Dinosaurs! If you're a fellow dino lover, it is totally worth picking up. I kickstarted it last year and got my book in December. The book really shines with the dinosaur stat blocks. They aren't just basic beast stat blocks; they put A LOT of work into creating unique features and abilities for even the low CR dinosaurs. On top of that, there are also optional magical rules for each individual dinosaur that can increase the CR. For example, Carcharodontosaurus's bite attacks cause a Torn Condition, Yutyrannus have advanced pack hunting mechanics and an optional Frost Breath, and Paralititan has a massive hyper beam style Rear Up into Almighty Stomp combo that does massive damage and the shock wave destroys all mundane objects in range. They've also included a d100 minor mutation table, a d20 major mutation table, niche-based behavior tables, and domestication/mounted mechanics. I honestly can't shill for this book enough. This is everything I wanted from a dinosaur monster book Edit: spelling

[@Souplord1]

I love your vids dawg

[@kingsim9288]

Rune knight sounds so fun! 🤩

[@TheDeadmanstrolling]

I play a goliath rune knight. His push weight is insane

[@theteaman3357]

10:10 electric wizard spotted in background

[@NobodyDungeons]

So, this subclass benefits massively from the shove grapple combo. With this combo you can attack at advantage to make sure those great weapon master attacks are hitting squarely while taking attack at disadvantage and contributing to battlefield control. Make sure you can grapple as a bonus action, and that you have the hands or other limb to do so. Simic hybrid, loxodon, and other make great choices for their extra appendages.

[@dreadx1478]

Been looking forward to your video on this subclass for a while

[@Vrir16]

Not gonna lie I love all the MTG artworks sprinkles throughout

[@Merilirem]

I love being big. Truly being a giant wizard is the greatest multi class possible!

[@AtelierGod]

2:23 Oh nice, more Moon Druid material.

[@jonathanocchi7044]

This has been my favorite video so far! Now I just need to get my group to play 5th edition.

[@pappajudas9267]

If I made a Giff Rune Knight. The rules on hippo build says that they count as one size larger. So if I understand the raw correctly, if I stick with it and become huge, I now count as gargantuan for lifting, pushing and carrying!

[@AidanKerr]

Rune Knights are awesome, planning on multi-classing four levels of it my Forge Domain Cleric. Not gonna get to use its abilities for a while but it’s gonna be fun.

[@vampireraef]

Grow giant use a ballista like a crossbow

[@Tsukuyomi_99]

Nice vid man

[@ThorcleTheMighty]

The Unearthed Arcana version of Samurai is personally the best fighter subclass.

[@calebdavidhizar2406]

I took great weapon master and savage attacker with my rune knight. I'm basically always doing max or close to max damage everytime I hit.

[@pugcraft8]

I have a dnpc in my campeyn ( I have only 2 players so dmpc was important for action aconomy) he was a rune knight with one level in dardarien and he was a perfect support and tank for them

[@GORtheBULL]

Unarmed Fighting w/ Tavern Brawler Duergar Rune Knight here. Yes, it's as fun as it sounds.

[@shadowldrago]

I REALLY want to play a Duergar Rune Knight.

[@Squishy_Kat]

love your content and you never fail to impress!

[@p.h.744]

My favorit fighter subclass ... and I would really love to implement the rune knight as a "rune fighter" barbarian. To me, that makes a lot more sense to have this raw display of power as a barbarian than as a fighter, whose power comes with training. And the rune fighter seems more fun than the path of the giant barbarian (apart from: the tossing-people-around-the-battlefield-thing). Maybe my DM will let me do that. Thanks for the video. 😃

[@justlazykid]

By the way, you can carry around a large (or huge at lvl 17) sword which you pull out when you activate giant's might to literally DOUBLE THE DAMAGE DICE

[@ianmcmullen3629]

Love Fighters, Love this subclass, love your vids!

[@bigcdo1498]

This is a subclass of giant proportions.

[@casbot71]

Flying races as Rune Knights.. Yes, a Fairie is fun, but a Winged Teifling can wear medium armour and can slam as a giant from the sky, or just stay out of the inferior meele weapon reach as they polearm from above.

[@davidlewis8814]

Strahd murdered my 7th level Rune Knight. Don’t get me wrong, my guy had properly earned his ire. I miss him, but what an epic scene it was!

[@blue-eyeswhitekirbo2543]

I personally grab the frost rune since it helps boost a rune knight grappler so I can strangle dragons and beat them silly with unarmed fighting

[@bthsr7113]

This is how you get to cosplay Ghostrider? Huh, would not of have expected that.

[@ShadestheMothman]

Maybe useless to point this out but giants might doesn’t increase your size by a category, it specifically makes you large. This means if you play a small race you lose nothing. Small races usually have to use smaller mounts and weapons, and the enlarge spell only makes them medium. But this subclass removes that

[@canyonsnyder7594]

I have a Lizardfolk Barbarian/ Rune Knight, basically turned into an unstoppable kaiju

[@petergriffin2779]

you should cover wildfire Druid

[@greevar]

I'm a rune knight in real life, actually. If you disagree, you can talk to my big-ass hammer.

[@Avigorus]

Something I think you glossed over is how all of the rune powers are 1/rest, so the flame shackles are not broken since there's no way to ever use it twice in one combat.

[@NotAbot1011]

Up to two later on

[@Mario.1997]

Honestly if you have a cool DM that will give you a way of having a consistent supply of enlargement potions you don't need to be a fairy or underdark dwarf or need a caster's help.

[@firelanm4237]

A kobold Rune Knight who is simply tired of being the little guy.

[@projectmc15]

That’s a typo in 4:35 right? That’s supposed to be 30ft? Genuinely want to know. Awesome video BTW

[@sak471997]

Now let's just Imagen a party that has both a Giant Barbarian and a Rune Knight

[@DParkerNunya]

3:38 IS THAT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER I SEE

[@gavincopeland6338]

Your vedios are funny as heck I can't wait tell we get the tempest cleric vedio

[@rescuehamster1734]

Soooooo.....this lets me play as Ultraman, is what I'm seeing. Shwwah.

[@Wreckur4203]

Ultraman Z theme song intensifying 🎉🎉🎉

[@warkaina3232]

please do kensei monk at some point

[@Delta-V-Heavy]

I play a Halfling Rune Knight, so sometimes I’m 2’10” and sometimes I’m 10’2”

[@DiscoSamurai]

YMBA~! I'm learning D&D at the YMBA~~~~!

[@cdwarrior6582]

Storm rune is blatantly one of the best things in the whole game

[@gormold4163]

I feel like if your dwarf starts to push six feet tall, you have a pretty strong argument for upgrading your movement to the full 30 feet.