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- This is a Fighter subclass that is able to wield the magic of runes to enhance their defense, empower their attacks, and also gain other abilities, including being more effective in social situations, that sort of thing. And of course because these runes are originally associated with Giants, this is also a Fighter who can get big. - [Interviewer] Yes. (laughter) - This sort of concept of harnessing the magic of Giants was something we explored a while ago in a subclass for the Sorcerer, it was called the Giant Soul. When we looked at the play test feedback to that subclass, we saw people really liked the concept of a subclass tied to Giants, but there was some squeakiness in the system in associating it with the Sorcerer. So we took it back as we often do with something where it's like, there are indications we should do more work on this, but you know, maybe we need to take a new direction. I was looking at it and had this a-ha moment of I think really where this belongs is in the Fighter. The Fighter already has the perfect infrastructure for being a warrior, whether in melee or at range. The Fighter is the consummate warrior. And rather than this Giant associated character mostly being a spell caster with some martial prowess, we felt it made more sense for this to be a warrior with some supernatural abilities. And then as we pondered it, it all fell into place, because it's also just such a fun aesthetic. Because what this Fighter does is they etch these giant runes on their sword, or whatever weapon it is they wield, on their armor, on their shield, and then they gain different magical abilities because of the rune that they have inscribed. So this subclass includes inside it a whole list of runes, each one associated with one of the different, sort of canonical giant types in D and D. And these runes, as long as you are wearing or carrying an item that bears one of those runes, they give you an ongoing benefit. So in a way, you're almost, it's like you're almost getting an item that's sort of like a magic item. Each of the runes then also has an ability that you can invoke. It's sort of a limited use ability that might let you deal more damage, you know, that sort of thing. There's even one that lets you cause an attack that hit somebody, hit somebody else, regardless of like, you could cause a melee attack, the injury of that attack, to actually affect somebody 30 feet away. So again, there's some neat affects here, having, and they're all themed to the Giant types. So, the cloud rune, it's all themed around the deceptiveness of Cloud Giants. Similarly, the frost rune is all about emulating sort of the mighty presence of a Frost Giant, this kind of thing. The rune associated with Hill Giants is all about extreme physical resilience. And so the Fighter gets to decide which of these runes to inscribe each day. And so you have this sort of neat kit of different special abilities available to you, represented by these runes. And then as you go up in level, you gain the ability to inscribe more of these runes each day, you gain the ability to invoke them more times each day, you also gain the capability to use sort of this runic magic to defend your allies. And also we've made sure to make it so that the runes work whether you are a ranged Fighter or a melee Fighter or a hybrid Fighter. I love the Fighter's versatility. I love that the class, sort of at base, allows you to make classic warriors of almost any type. I mean it, it is an amazingly versatile class. Similar in some ways to the Wizard in being just being so versatile. You know, it's basically the Wizard can represent so many different types of spell casters that you might imagine, and just in a similar way, the Fighter can represent so many different types of warriors. They're not limited to just like, you know, a guy in armor. It could be, you know, again, instead a character who is a two-weapon Fighter, you know, a person who's pro at hurling things, the Master Archer, all of these are Fighters. And so whatever path you take as a Fighter, you can marry that path with the Rune Knight and make what you do even better through the application of these magic runes. - [Interviewer] This sounds like an incredibly versatile Fighter. - Yes, this Fighter has a versatility that approaches the versatility of the Battle Master. It doesn't quite reach it, I mean the Battle Master was designed to in some ways be one of the most versatile, if not, the most versatile subclass in the entire game, and it's a very well liked subclass. This subclass sort of goes in that direction of giving you a kit of options that you get to play with. And also if you just want to, you know, use rune magic to get bigger, well that's also an option here. - [Interviewer] You of course know I want to do that. (laughter) I got to play the proto Rune Knight as Torvin, who wasn't the brightest boy in your game. (laughter) - Yes, yeah, when you were in Sorcerer form, and in fact DMing for you, playing that character, helped clarify for me that the Sorcerer was not the optimal place for the subclass. And one of the reasons why I say that is to realize the concept, we actually had to spend sort of a lot of the subclass's feature budget on just bringing it up to par, when it came to being somebody in melee. And that's always something we have to keep an eye on when we try to embed martial prowess inside a class that is otherwise sort of a pure spell caster. It works sometimes depending on the concept. Particularly if it's okay for the martial bit to be sort of a glass canon, because again, the spell caster tends to already be a glass canon. But if the whole concept is actually amazing resilience, then you end up, you know, having to pile feature upon feature of like, just to make it so you can survive, so you can, you know, if you decide you're a melee combatant, you can go in and not drop dead after a round. There are so many characters you can imagine here. You know, from a character who maybe even grew up among Giants, or you know, you can imagine a dwarf who grew up in the mountains, where the dwarf's ancestors might've fought Giants, but actually studied their runes and have learned how to harness the magic of those runes. You can imagine a Fighter who might even have a scholarly bent, and who learned the runes, you know, studying in one of the world's great academies. The character could also be very heroic, but could also be sort of grim and menacing, because that ability to suddenly become large, again, it can have two very different moods in play because that character could be super imposing, but it also could be a very protective presence, depending on the character's personality and how they're played.