All death knights possess some knowledge of the power of runes, enough to empower their chosen school of dark arts. Some however choose not to become acolytes of these disciplines and instead focus on the power of runes themselves. Known as runesmiths, these death knights are capable of inscribing and utilizing stronger runes than most.

Runesmith Presence Spells

Death Knight Level - Spells

3rd - Detect Magic, Identify

5th - Magic Weapon, Create Healthstone

9th - Dispel Magic, Elemental Weapon

13th - Fabricate, Stoneskin

17th - Circle of Power, Teleportation Circle

Bonus Proficiencies

When you take this subclass at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Arcana skill and in Blacksmith's Tools if you did not already have proficiency.

Runic Empowerment

Also at 3rd level, you can turn one of your rune weapons into a magic weapon, gaining a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with that weapon. This bonus does not apply if the rune weapon is already a magic item with a bonus to attack and damage rolls. You can change which rune weapon is empowered this way when you finish a long rest.

Runic Strikes

Additionally at 3rd level, when you spend runic power dice to deal damage with rune strike, the extra damage is force instead of necrotic.

Empowered Rune Weapon

At 11th level, the power of your rune weapon increases. The bonus added to attack and damage rolls increases to +2. In place of gaining a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls, you may choose a second rune weapon to gain a +1 bonus.

Additionally, you can have two runeforged runes active at once. This stacks with the Greater Runeforging ability, allowing for three active runes at 18th level.

Hungering Rune Weapon

At 15th level, the bonus to attack and damage rolls provided by your Runic Empowerment increases to +3. You can choose to give a +2 bonus to one rune weapon and a +1 bonus to another instead.

Additionally, when a creature within melee range makes an attack against you and misses, you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against the attacker.

Overpowered Rune Weapon

When you reach 20th level, you can invoke all of your runes (expended or not) to become a deadly runic warrior. As an action, gaining the following benefits for 1 minute:

• You have resistance to all damage.

• When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can make one additional attack as part of that action.

• Your melee weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.