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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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.

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🤣

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

Favorite fighter of all time. So much fun to play

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I used this to play an oiled up Minotaur wresler

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!

Oathbreaker Paladin pls

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

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!

The oath of redemption paladin seems neat :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

YES WE GOT THA BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

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

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.

My favorite 😍 clas periodt

I REALLY want to play a Duergar Rune Knight.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Rune knight sounds so fun! 🤩

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."

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.

love the godforged reference with Skold.

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.

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!

Rune Knight is indeed just the best fighter.

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

I love your vids dawg

Grow giant use a ballista like a crossbow

Nice vid man

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

you should cover wildfire Druid

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Love Fighters, Love this subclass, love your vids!

"You ever wanted the power of a Barbarian without having to eat all those crayons???" 😂😂😂😂

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

please do kensei monk at some point

love your content and you never fail to impress!

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

Not gonna lie I love all the MTG artworks sprinkles throughout

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.

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.

Crayons made me cry laughing

But i like the frost rune, its a rage that last 10 minutes

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.

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

No mention of the "loophole" for stone rune? It incapacitates the enemy, but unlike virtually all other incapacitates, this one doesn't give a save upon taking damage. So your entire party can gang up on them, firing off your most powerful combos, and they still only get *one* save each round to end it

2:23 Oh nice, more Moon Druid material.

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

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. 😃

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

This is a subclass of giant proportions.

Rip headphone users, every time that atomic footage gets used.

I wish I still played I would definitely play the smallest rata dm would allow just for this class 😂

I have a strong desire to make a kobold a rune knight or giant barbarian.

One of my players in my homebrew world is a dwarf and he took rune night and has sorcerer mixed in. Everyone thinks hes a human or half dwarf.

You know its time to suplex a dragon as a dragon born named godzilla

Charlatan background, start as artificer and imediately jump to fighter. At level 4 when you reach runeknight pick fire rune and you now have expertise in 6 different tools.

Well, I say, this video is a huge success😂

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

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