D&D 5E Rune Knight Is The Best Fighter Overall IMHO.

[DeviousQuail]

Cavalier

Ancestral Barbarian
Armorer Artificer
Swashbuckler Rogue
Conquest Paladin
Anyone with Compelled Duel including every Paladin

To a lesser extent, but still valid:
Anyone with Sentinel
Any Barb that attacks recklessly

 

[niklinna]

I'm aware but I'm the only one in the group who knows that.

Not that most of them know or care acout the issue or play an EK.

Think I'll just errata it so your bonded weapons count as a spellcasting focus.

Face it, it's just not worth playing with people who don't scour the errata and insert them as annotations into their PDFs of the rulebooks and don't know all the minor details of—well, at least their own freakin' class.

 

[Zardnaar]

Face it, it's just not worth playing with people who don't scour the errata and insert them as annotations into their PDFs of the rulebooks and don't know all the minor details of—well, at least their own freakin' class.

What's errata?

 

[Seramus]

What's errata?

A necromancer crawling up from his tomb to take vengeance on the living.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It there technically anything preventing a rune knight from looting weapons of large and later huge opponents and using those?

In any case, it bothers me that the best fighter subclasses seem to be magical from the get-go. Battlemaster is the only one in the discussion that is a pure martial.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

It there technically anything preventing a rune knight from looting weapons of large and later huge opponents and using those?

No, but they don't do anything a normal-size weapon wouldn't do, because the rules for oversized weapons are for monsters, not for PCs. If players can use them, then the only weapon-using build becomes a Rune Knight with Enlarge cast on them to use Huge weaponry, preferrably from range.

Edit: But if you're giving regular-sized people regular-size weapons with +1d6 fire damage or something, then oversized weapons are just those but with the drawback of having to be big to make use of them, and that seems perfectly balanced. It's just that you usually run into giants way before additional damage modifier weapons, and people can have big weapons crafted much easier than magic weapons.

 

[Ancalagon]

Sorry - Protection from Evil and Good.

Probably the second best 1st level Tanking spell. A must have on EKs, Bladesingers, melee Warlocks and melee Clerics if you really want to grind against enemy hordes (less important on Clerics due to high Wisdom saves).

... really? PEG only protects vs a portion of foes, given the very limited amount of spells you can learn as an EK, I wouldn't take it...

 

[ECMO3]

... really? PEG only protects vs a portion of foes, given the very limited amount of spells you can learn as an EK, I wouldn't take it...

Yes a large portion of foes - elementals, undead, celestials, fiends, fey, and aberations. It certainly varies by campaign, but that is 44 pages of monsters on D&D beyond out of 138 pages total. In addition to the disadvantage on attack rolls, it also completely nullifies frightened and charmed from those creatures (assuming you cast it before their turn). These are two very debilitating conditions on a melee combatant, frightened completely stops movement towards the enemy and charmed stops you from attacking them. That is in addition to other effects that often come along with these conditions when imposed by an enemy (incapacitated, controlled, must run away etc). It turns an encounter from something like a Chain Devil from a very tough fight to a walk in the park for a tier 2 fighter.

IME, it is the second best EK spell after Shield. It is more useful than Absorb Elements, which I would say is the third. All three of those are abjurations and none of them require intelligence, making them ideal on an EK.

A 3rd level EK has two spells to pick from this small list, and a 4th-6th level EK has three spells to take:
Absorb Elements
Alarm
Mage Armor
Protection from Evil and Good
Shield
Snare
Burning Hands
Chromatic Orb
Earth Tremor
Frost Fingers
Magic Missile
Tasha's Caustic Brew
Thunderwave
Witchbolt

What spells would you pick from that list instead of the 3 I mentioned?

If you are running a high intelligence a few of them are decent options, but even those are very situational as these are 1st level spells without slots to upcast effectively, none are good controls spells (even when compared to other 1st level spells) and they are not going to do a lot of damage for this level or any future level.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes a large portion of foes - elementals, undead, celestials, fiends, fey, and aberations. It certainly varies by campaign, but that is 44 pages of monsters on D&D beyond out of 138 pages total. In addition to the disadvantage on attack rolls, it also completely nullifies frightened and charmed from those creatures (assuming you cast it before their turn). These are two very debilitating conditions on a melee combatant, frightened completely stops movement towards the enemy and charmed stops you from attacking them. That is in addition to other effects that often come along with these conditions when imposed by an enemy (incapacitated, controlled, must run away etc). It turns an encounter from something like a Chain Devil from a very tough fight to a walk in the park for a tier 2 fighter.

IME, it is the second best EK spell after Shield. It is more useful than Absorb Elements, which I would say is the third. All three of those are abjurations and none of them require intelligence, making them ideal on an EK.

A 3rd level EK has two spells to pick from this small list, and a 4th-6th level EK has three spells to take:
Absorb Elements
Alarm
Mage Armor
Protection from Evil and Good
Shield
Snare
Burning Hands
Chromatic Orb
Earth Tremor
Frost Fingers
Magic Missile
Tasha's Caustic Brew
Thunderwave
Witchbolt

What spells would you pick from that list instead of the 3 I mentioned?

If you are running a high intelligence a few of them are decent options, but even those are very situational as these are 1st level spells without slots to upcast effectively, none are good controls spells (even when compared to other 1st level spells) and they are not going to do a lot of damage for this level or any future level.

It's good I wouldn't rate it over ahead or absorb elements. They're useful all the time.

You may not even encounter anything requiring PEG.

 

[niklinna]

It's good I wouldn't rate it over ahead or absorb elements. They're useful all the time.

You may not even encounter anything requiring PEG.

Then again, you might!