D&D 5E Balancing the Rune Knight

[Hurin70]

I have a player who wants to play the Rune Knight subclass of Fighter from the Unearthed Arcana article. I have not had anyone play one yet, but looked through the class and on some websites, and it looks rather overpowered to me. The RK sure gets a lot of goodies up-front (at level 3), with both passive and active rune abilities and Giant Might as an additional cherry on top. I have seen quite a few people (though certainly not all) saying the class is overpowered, and I would like to err on the side of caution by toning down the RK's powers a bit to start. I can always buff them back up to what they are in the RAW if it turns out he is not overpowered.

My question is: if I am concerned about the RK being overpowered, how can I best balance it? I am thinking of changing the refresh rate of the runes' active ability to only on a long rest (rather than on a long or short rest). Would that be reasonable? Is there a better way of toning down the RK without wrecking the class?

 

[Xenonnonex]

Is it not the point of UA to test subclasses. As they are. Then offer critique to balance them. Playtest them in other words.

 

[Hurin70]

Is it not the point of UA to test subclasses. As they are. Then offer critique to balance them. Playtest them in other words.

Not when I have an ongoing game that can be wrecked. I learned that lesson with the Mystic.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Not when I have an ongoing game that can be wrecked. I learned that lesson with the Mystic.

The mystic is dead. You can help improve the rune knight.

 

[Hurin70]

The mystic is dead.

Yes, but he also killed my campaign, so I would prefer not to repeat the mistake of using UA material in an ongoing campaign without toning down some of its most overtly troublesome powers.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Yes, but he also killed my campaign, so I would prefer not to repeat the mistake of using UA material in an ongoing campaign without toning down some of its most overtly troublesome powers.

Wizards would have learned from the mystic.
Do whatever you want.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Is it not the point of UA to test subclasses. As they are. Then offer critique to balance them. Playtest them in other words.

As with anything in RPGs, not everybody has play things with the same goal in mind. Playtesting things as they are is great. Trying to tailor it to your home game is also great. Let's all just have fun.

To the original point though, I haven't actually played the rune knight, so I'm unsure. You could try doing the active abilities on a long rest only and see how it goes. I think the important thing is to talk with the player and let them know that you're all trying this out and that you might need to make adjustments, or even change subclasses, as the campaign goes on.

 

[Xenonnonex]

As with anything in RPGs, not everybody has play things with the same goal in mind. Playtesting things as they are is great. Trying to tailor it to your home game is also great. Let's all just have fun.

To the original point though, I haven't actually played the rune knight, so I'm unsure. You could try doing the active abilities on a long rest only and see how it goes. I think the important thing is to talk with the player and let them know that you're all trying this out and that you might need to make adjustments, or even change subclasses, as the campaign goes on.

To OP. Talk to your player first. This is important. Before toning down the subclass. Your player will feel victimized if you do not talk beforehand.

 

[Hurin70]

Yes, I have talked to the player and let him know that I am ok with him playing a Rune Knight so long as he accepts some tweaks to its powers and abilities, due to the balance concerns I have.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I think the passive abilities are not really anything terribly impressive. A lot of advantage on skills they probably still won't be particularly good at. The problem is that the short rest abilities are a little overpowered for level 3 (unbreakable rage-like resilience on a short rest at that point seems unfair to the Barbarian). I would just treat them like Bardic inspiration and have them start out as long rest abilities that then become short rest at level 7 or 10 or whatever.

If you're concerned about high level maybe cap out how many runes they can ever know at 3. It does all start to add up to quite a bit.