Did you consider playing as a bugbear? They get a 5 foot bonus to reach which stacks with a reach weapon. Would make your battlefield control absolutely ridiculous.
I’d love to see some of your takes on ranger stuff in the future. I think it’s a class that’s gotten a lot of love and improvements over the course of 5e’s lifespan, and has gone from being largely considered one of the worst, to a very strong option. As a more offensive minded player I took blindsight instead of alert when making my own bladesinger wizard, and found myself using it to superb effect. It made me realize that the ranger gets access to that fighting style and spells like fog cloud without any need for specific subclasses, feats, or multiclassing.
I'll definitely get to them, but I have literally never played a Ranger in any edition so I'll have to really do a lot of research. But hey, Fighter is new to me too! :-)
@@Bilbrons-and-Dragons I'm really enjoying your content, you really put an effort on the builds. I would like to see a ranger optimization for hexcrawl too! Survivalist mode on!!!
Great build. I like the idea of taking GWM on a grappling build, I didn't actually consider that as an option but it makes a lot of sense considering you can cause prone pretty easily. A different grappler build you could do would be Simic Hybrid Beast Barbarian 6/Battlemaster Fighter 3, with similar advantages to this one, and notably an additional free hand and Trip Attack and other great maneuvers.
Hi - a suggestion, though I may be in the minority opinion. I would zoom into the notes/character sheets a bit more. It is easy to read on the PC, but when I watch in bed or while eating, on a tv across the room, I can't read anything. thanks
Simic Hybrid is the 2nd race I was considering for my rune knight grappler, I went with a Grung, unarmed fighting style to apply my natural poison on each punch, and tavern brawler feat for bonus action grapples and fun things like swinging enemy bodies around (my dm rules bodies as improvised weapons if you hit someone with it)
I would have sacrificed about 60 HP by dropping constitution to get the wisdom resilient feat, so my wisdom saves aren't hot garbage. Besides 200 HP I find is a very comfy amount as healing from either a cleric or a potion can be make keeping your self healthy easy enough even when taking hits from some of the strongest monsters. I personally advise healing before you drop bellow 100 HP because power word kill starts showing up in later levels.
Considering your size increase, would it not be a damage increase to high jump with your grappled foes and drop them, manta gliding to safety if needed (this also frees up mobile feat so you can take athlete to jump higher) and then attacking them?
Bilbron, how do you feel aboout a Dex-based Rune Knight? Do you think their features are being wasted without the ability to grapple? Further, you recommend against CBE/PAM due to BA clog - do you think there is any circumstance where having that BA attack is ever worth the opportunity cost? Or would you just take Gunner and shoot for a Musket (if available - otherwise, longbow) in lieu of a hand crossbow? Is it worth at all trying to do the CBE/SS schtick on a RK, or a sharpshooter-only archer?
I'll be honest, the clog is ALARMINGLY bad. They have like 5 things competing for both Bonus Actions and Reactions! I didn't actually plan to take Mobile going in (I was eyeing both PAM and Sentinel) but plotting things out round by round made me realize that it would typically be like round 3-4 before you had a spare bonus action, and this is a game where battles are like 3-5 rounds long. No bueno. I don't think anything that relies on the Bonus Action or Reaction is viable for the RK AT ALL. Dex based could work because it would free you up from all the grappling oriented stuff. It doesn't max out the class abilities, but opens up ranged specialization and dipping with non-armor classes (e.g. Barbarian), and implementing all these crazy runes from range could be super sweet, especially once you hit 15th level and get 10x per short rest! So I think it might work but it'd have to be a well-thought out build. The Storm Rune with it's "Bonus Action to activate for 1 minute and Reaction to use every turn" to consistently impose disadvantage is rife for abuse. Going heavy and skipping the offhand hand crossbow angle makes a lot of sense, I think, because that Bonus Action is just never gonna get used.
@@Bilbrons-and-Dragons Thanks for the perspective. I guess, that if I have Cloud and Fire runes to start off, then it's less cloggy (only have Giant Might to worry about until level 7) but it will still get to be worse later. And even with 1 turn's worth of wasted bonus action that could have been spend shooting something, not good. I'm expecting a Hand Crossbow to do about 10 damage on a hit (less avg due to accuracy, obviously) or 20 with sharpshooter, while a musket is looking at about 13/23. So one shot from CBE is effectively worth 3 turns' worth of GM damage = giant might would almost never be worth using, leaving me with only the runes of the class. The math gets even worse when you factor in Sharpshooter. Maybe I ought to be looking at some other kind of fighter then, shame as I really do enjoy the RK flavor. I'm just very married to the DPR sniper playstyle!
Great video and build! I was wondering though,if you could start with a free feat at level 1 so long it does NOT increase your character's stats,which one would you take on this build?
Did you consider a John Wick style hand crossbow expert? It could work really well with this build. Sharpshooters would stack damage, and since Xbow expert removes the disadvantage in melee range... you would still have advantage on the prone targets. Also if you take 2 levels Artificer, the Invocation would remove the ammo property so you could use a shield at the same time. Might make the build a bit M.A.D. though trying to have dex for a crossbow and str to grapple.
@@miscellaneousshadow7452 Under the prone condition it reads: "An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage." And since Crossbow Expert removed the disadvantage for making ranged attacks within 5' of an enemy. They now have advantage.
In my current campaign I playing a Loxodon Rune Knight, my original plan was to have my hands free and pair them with unarmed fighting style for a true fist fighting grappler character, with Loxodon's trunk, I can grapple up to three enemy at the same time. But then I realised even with me having a one hand weapon plus a shield, I can still grapple the target with my trunk, so my current plan is to get shield master feat first and this will make the grapple/shove actions happen in one turn, then using the one handed weapon to smack the enemy to death. Would u say the shield master bonus shove works great here? or maybe im not considering things too well and there is better options.
Shield Master is problematic because the Shove happens after your Attack Action and not before, so not a fan. It's generally better to just Shove with your 1st attack then Grapple with 2nd.
Have you ever thought teaching a tactics class? Sort of taking a for instance map with x amount of mobs and how a party should win? I would be curious how to handle a board with say full of goblins (ranged and melee) maybe a shaman in the mix and how to win the encounter. Maybe a few for each tier of play??
I have thought about adding a "Tactical Challenge Series" where I describe a particular scenario and consider options for confronting it. I think it could be interesting! Problem is that there are many party compositions so its hard to come up with a standardized way of approaching it since not every party will be able to do the same things.
@@Bilbrons-and-Dragons Well just a general way to approach tactics. Like always get rid of the casters first or make sure to focus your attacks etc. Maybe how to deal with spells mobs may cast on you etc.
Honestly, I'm not that familiar with Monks, so I can't give you an informed opinion... hopefully someone else here in the Comments can provide one though!
I have a small one for Patreon guys, but I don't have the time or inclination to run a public server. But you can reach out to me on Reddit or Twitter.
If you play high magic campaign - would existance of magic items like Giant's Belts or Ogre Gloves prevent you from packing +2 STR ASI as early as level 4?
@@Bilbrons-and-Dragons Thanks. I have to say that I also think you are mistaken a little about Fire Rune. It's very powerful rune vs enemy casters. Even high CR casters have low STR scores no bonuses to saves on them. Hitting enemy caster with javelin (or with melee, depending on situation) and making him restrain (disadvantage on dex saves, advantage on attacks on him, speed 0) and dealing 2d6 damge every turn to challange his concentration check is something really really strong. This also skip whole shove + grapple on casters, making you restrain them in one hit and pommel them with advantage. Chances are very low they will resist Fire Rune on CON 18-20 Rune Knight.
@@honestbenny It's a solid Rune... they're all pretty good! I love the visual, too. I just like the others better but I'm defensive-minded and I can see others having different preferences.
@@Bilbrons-and-Dragons Simillar to me but I think Cloud Rune is little overkill at lower levels. It can be used only once and there is not much "big hits" going on Tier 1. I think it gets much better once enemies can hit with stuff like Disintegrate etc.
