D&D 5E Was the Rune Knight (in Tasha's) "over-nerfed"?

[MostlyHarmless42]

Sucks, but to be expected. The UA wasn't clear on that point so its at least nice that it gets specified here.

It also feels ike a missed opportunity. Feels like being able to engrave runes on your allies' gear would be a cool way to offer support, but that you would just be able to tap into them much better than them,ya know? Maybe that kind of thing would work for a Bard of Fashion or something? Give minor buffs through magical embroidery!

I'm thinking that might be what I end up making the 7th level ability if I end up doing a complete redesign. Seems appropriate for around that level, and it would mean less stuff competing for your reactions.

And yes, that cloud rune might as well be a straight copy of the fey warlock 6th level ability, albeit you don't teleport. It is also similar to the drunken master monk ability and the mastermind rogue one, all of which are also 6+ level abilities. I'm not sure where ANY of their thinking was on the runes specifically. Again, I love the class conceptually, but it really needed one more pass.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

An interesting option might be to build a dex rune knight with background proficiency in slight of hand and thieves tools. With the fire and cloud runes you could replace a rogue.

 

[Ancalagon]

I've got a player who's playing the original UA Rune Knight, and it's crazy powerful. I haven't seen the new version, but I'd say it needed a bit of nerfing.

Oh absolutely! My concern was over-nerfing... and others have pointed out some roughness and thematic issues that are still there.

Is it playable in its current form? Yes.

 

[Ancalagon]

Sucks, but to be expected. The UA wasn't clear on that point so its at least nice that it gets specified here.

It also feels ike a missed opportunity. Feels like being able to engrave runes on your allies' gear would be a cool way to offer support, but that you would just be able to tap into them much better than them,ya know? Maybe that kind of thing would work for a Bard of Fashion or something? Give minor buffs through magical embroidery!

That would be a rune-smith essentially. It's a character concept more rooted in dwarven tradition, and is sort of an old-timey artificer if you think about it....

Warhammer frpg 2nd ed did it (in a supplement) fairly well, and I encourage you to read up on it. It would be... challenging... to port it over to 5e, but doable?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You can fluff artificers to use magical runes, it doesn't have to be magi-tech.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

You can fluff artificers to use magical runes, it doesn't have to be magi-tech.

Definitely true, though it would be nice to see an archetype for every different toolset for the artificer (i.e. magic chef, some sort of magic gaming set on, a painter, etc), due to all of the current archetypes having abilities That sort of force them to use the expected tool. I'd probably have cautioned against doing what they did, but the damage has already been done. I also think runes are so prevalent a theme that one can have multiple class archetypes dedicated to them without ruining the theme.

 

[Undrave]

I'm thinking that might be what I end up making the 7th level ability if I end up doing a complete redesign. Seems appropriate for around that level, and it would mean less stuff competing for your reactions.

And yes, that cloud rune might as well be a straight copy of the fey warlock 6th level ability, albeit you don't teleport. It is also similar to the drunken master monk ability and the mastermind rogue one, all of which are also 6+ level abilities. I'm not sure where ANY of their thinking was on the runes specifically. Again, I love the class conceptually, but it really needed one more pass.

Also, don't you end up with more Runes you can engrave than gear you can carry? It would make sense the passives could be handed out to allies. I mean, they're just on your dagger or whatever.

 

[jgsugden]

Remember that there is an acceptable spectrum of power for PCs, not a specific singular level. It is ok for some PCs to be a bit more powerful than other PCs so long as they are all fun to play.

That being said - both versions of the class were within the spectrum. So is everything ever put into UA or official books. It is a wider spectrum than some people realize.

 

[Ancalagon]

Remember that there is an acceptable spectrum of power for PCs, not a specific singular level. It is ok for some PCs to be a bit more powerful than other PCs so long as they are all fun to play.

That being said - both versions of the class were within the spectrum. So is everything ever put into UA or official books. It is a wider spectrum than some people realize.

this is getting off topic, but I really appreciate that the power differential between PCs in 5e is nowhere as massive as it could be in 3.X or Pathfinder.

 

[Ancalagon]

Also, don't you end up with more Runes you can engrave than gear you can carry? It would make sense the passives could be handed out to allies. I mean, they're just on your dagger or whatever.

In the Warhammer version, you could create temporary runes (works for a few minutes upon activation) or permanent items. You could freely give them to someone else, which was both a boon and a curse. So sure you could give a magic sword to a warrior-king (a great tribute/bribe)... but a goblin could steal your magical shield and if you didn't catch said goblin, you might never ever see that shield again...

The rules were balanced by a number of "runesmithing principles" that reigned in the runesmith. Perhaps the most important one was a runesmith would never "repeat himself". If you made a permanent shield with a particular rune... you would not do so again.