Rune Night: 5e Twilight Cleric / Rune Knight Build
This Dnd build aims to augment Twilight's powerful already capabilities with Rune Knight's unity.
Key Spell and Stats
Cantrips: Toll the Dead, Guidance
Level 1: Sleep, Command, Bless, Healing word
Level 2: Aid
Level 3: Spirit Guardians, Animate Dead
Level 4: Deathward
Low levels keep bless up and sleep anyone we get a chance to at higher levels the gameplan is all about Spirit Guardians, pushing people into it, maintaining its concentration, opting in many cases to dodge with spirit guardians activate instead of attacking. Aid and deathward are amazing support skills and using the spell Command at various spell levels giving us some nice non-concentration control.
We are using Custom lineage with the stats:
8STR, 14DEX, 14CON, 17WIS, 12CHA, 8INT
Level Progression
Level 1 Fighter. Feat Telekentic(Wisdom)
You start with fighter You pick up armor & shields and a CON saving throw
You also pick up the fighting style interception which combined with our Channel divinity will make sure your party members aren't taking damage. We also pick up the feat telekinetic to push our wisdom to 18 and do some minor battlefield control.
Level 2 Twilight
Finally, Twilight Sleep works wonders at these levels. Also, there's always bless and Faire Fire when you need it too. Make sure to have Vigilant Blessing up at all times and use Eyes of Night when needed.
Level 3 Twilight
You finally get one of the best subclass abilities in the game Twilight sanctuary with this on you and your party won't be taking damage.
Level 4 Twilight
The only slow level. Your game plan remains the same at this level.
Level 5 Twilight. Feat Lucky
We pick up the feat Lucky allowing us to re-roll anything we need to.
Tier 2
Level 6 Twilight
You finally get one of the best spells in the game Spirit Guardians, now you can deal a massive amount of damage for just being around. Spirit Guardians combined with Twilight sanctuary & simply dodging there's hardly anything in the game that could stop you. Additionally, you can use telekinetic to pull opponents into spirit guardians making it much harder to escape your grasp.
Level 7 Fighter
You get action surge, a nice way to quickstart Twilight Sanctuary and Spirit guardian engine when you need it.
Level 8 Rune Knight
You become a RuneKnight giving you a lot.
Cloud Rune
This Rune is amazing. Redirect attacks not only away from you and your party, but, those direct attacks to your opponent’s allies
Frost Rune
You can use this whenever You need a boost to concentration checks. With a 2+ it’s very unlikely You will fail. Does complete with other good BA abilities You have, unfortunately.
Giant’s Might
You can use this ability to make you large, increasing the range of the spirit guardians.
Level 9 Twilight
You get Steps Of The Night giving us a fly speed when near dim light or darkness
This ability is awesome when those conditions are met, as you can just cast Spirit guardians to fly up ten feet placing you in an optimal situation to hit your opponents and still be out of melee range, and have your aura protect your friends
Level 10 Twilight
You get level 4 spells. Deathward should make us even harder to kill.
Final Level Twilight. Feat Magic Initiate(Druid)
Thanks to the feat magic initiative you can pick up Magic Stone & Thorn Whip the latter of which combines nicely with Spirit Guardians & Steps Of The Night allowing you to pull them into the air, causing them to then drop taking fall damage and the prone condition.
Animated dead Stone
1. Cast Animate undead out-of-combat using a 4th level spell slot to summon 3 skeletons
2. Out of combat you assign your orders(you can assign your command just once, and they will follow those commands for the duration without needing you to re-order)
3. During combat use Magic stone as a bonus action for 3 Magic Stones, drop the 3 stones(dropping things is a free interaction, doesn't even cost an object interaction)
4. Have the 3 skeletons on their turns throw the magic stones at the opponent for around 20-25 average damage per round.
So what commands should you give them?
“Take cover behind me, and Throw the magic stone at our opponents” is a simple one
Overall, cover plus Twilight Sanctuary should keep your skeletons alive for a very long time. Remember you can also use interception to further reduce the damage taken by your skeletons which is a great thing to use if you know your opponent is really trying to take out one of your skeletons.
Conclusion & Ideas For Tier 3 and Alternative Build Progressions
“What should I pick for Tier three and beyond?” The best answer is more levels in Twilight as Twilight Sanctuary scales with the more levels of twilight you have, however, you could opt for 7 levels of Rune Knight for the class ability Runic Shield for fun. Whatever you choose the game plan remains mostly the same.
If you don’t mind waiting for some power spikes in this build, you could modify the original stat block to have 13CHA so you can optimally take one level of Divine Soul Sorcerer for the ability Favor Of The God’s and the spells Shield & Absorb Elements making you even more solid defensively.
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