Tl, dr: which power should I activate with a bonus action first?So the Rune Knight has been a well-received subclass for fighters in Tasha's. It's a flavorful - and effective - alternative to the Eldrich Knight for a fighter with some magical powers. Now that the subclass has been out for a while, I imagine a lot of people have actual play experience with it (either as a player or GM).
For reasons that 99% of you won't care about1, my level 7 fighter is being reborn at a Rune Knight, and I'm wondering about how to play him best. He's the party tank, a decent damage dealer but very resilient, and uses his reaction to protect other party members (previously as a psi warrior). What you do in your first round of a fight can be pretty important, especially if it's a feature that will last the entire fight. It's a bit of a waste to keep those for the end of the battle, after all.
The Rune Knight has, for better or worse, a plethora of such options, and they almost all take a bonus action to activate, meaning there is a bit of a "traffic jam" to really get going (if it wasn't for this, the RK would frankly be OP). But which one to choose first?
- Hill giant rune, for that sweet sweet resistance to slashing, piercing and bludgeoning damage, significantly boosting my tanking prowess
- Storm giant rune, so I can use my reaction to boost party members by either improving their saves or attacks or by giving disadvantage to enemy attacks/saves.2
- Giant might to get bigger, do more damage and have advantage on strength saves/checks
What has been more useful as your "fight opener" in your experience?
1: We are playing storm's king thunder, and my PC died. He is a scholar who has learned elven and gith styles of swordsmanship. He also has studied giants extensively because his hometown was destroyed by giants several years ago. As the PC died and failed to protect his "students" (another PC died too, it was a "half-PK"), he feels guilty and that his hubris caused him to reject the giant's power (the runes). Thus, he will now fight fire with fire so to speak - or use the giants' power against them. Also, he seeks to understand the events better, and the seer powers of the storm giants may be key.
2: I will note that there is a bit of an overlap between this ability and both the cloud rune and runic shield, thus perhaps it is less urgent?
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