Runecaster Classes of the 2014 Archive¶
Rules system: D&D 3.5 homebrew (the 2014 archive, March 2014). Legacy design material, not canon for play.
Lore page: Rune Magic.
The archive's Dwarven rune casters: two classes, the Runemaster (or Runemage) and the Runepriest, the related Runesmith skill, rune feats, five types of rune magic, the trace-empower-activate lifecycle of a rune, and rune properties and stacking. Most of the document is rune lists by level, which are D&D 3.5 spells recast as runes; these are summarized, and only the runes written for Terrun are given. The Fifth Age redesign of Dwarven rune magic is Khardic Runecasting, with its rules under Sancturi System.
The classes¶
Both classes "are true casters and require that the user have the trait enabling them to channel magic", a trait that for Dwarves "was always rare, and become even more rare over the years (approx 1 in 1000 now)".
| Class | Template | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Runemaster / Runemage | Wizard, Intelligence primary; wizard health and combat modifiers | "The scholars among dwarven runecasters", with poor weapon and armor skills. Armor does not limit their casting; most simply are not proficient. Most wear leather armor and carry a runestave. |
| Runepriest | Cleric for health and combat; Wizard at ½ level + 1 (round up) for spells per day and ½ level (round up) for spellcasting feats; rune power and DCs at current level | Battle-ready front-line casters, usually focused on guardian and destruction runes and to a lesser degree power runes. Named for operating like dwarven battle priests "just with rune magic instead of divine magic". Often carry rune-inscribed warhammers or axes. |
Multi-classing¶
- Runemaster with Wizard: spell slots as a Wizard of the two levels combined; maximum spell level in each from its own level. When preparing, choose to empower runes or memorize spells.
- Runepriest with Wizard or Runemaster: combat as any caster/melee combination; casting as primary caster level + ½ runepriest level; maximum spell level from the wizard level (or primary caster level + ½ runepriest for a runemaster-runepriest).
Runesmith¶
A related skill, taken separately from smithing under professions, for "a runecaster that combines with smithing to forge items of power". Its speciality is powering runes from Mithis rather than by casting. A functional runesmith must be a runecaster (to learn how runes work), a smith (to forge metal, especially Mithis ores) and a Runesmith (to "weave mithis lines in molten metal").
Rune feats¶
A runecaster chooses 2 rune feats at first level; from 2nd level runemasters gain 1 per level and runepriests 1 every 2 levels.
| Feat | Requires | Grants |
|---|---|---|
| Sphere Proficiency (up to five times per sphere) | the potential to learn and inscribe 2 spell levels' worth of runes in the sphere; no runes per day | |
| Sphere Specialization (once) | Sphere Proficiency (up to 4th level) | choose a sphere, and an opposition sphere no longer available; 1 bonus rune per castable spell level, from the specialized sphere |
| Sphere Specialization, Improved | specialized in the sphere | 0-level runes in the sphere free to empower; 1st-level runes empowered from 0-level slots |
| Sphere Mastery | Improved Sphere Specialization | +1 DC (resist checks) and + spell level damage for the sphere's runes |
| Field Specialization (once) | specialized in the field's parent sphere | an opposition field in the same sphere whose runes are no longer available; empower or trace 1 field rune at 1 level above the current maximum |
| Field Specialization, Improved | specialized in the field | 1st-level field runes free to empower; 2nd-level from 1st-level slots |
| Field Mastery | Improved Field Specialization | +1 DC and + spell level damage, stacking with the sphere bonuses |
Types of rune magic¶
The five types are the rune "spheres", each with four fields.
| Type | Use | Fields |
|---|---|---|
| Guardian | carved on shields or locations, used defensively | Protection/Shielding: strengthen existing defenses, armor, skin, gates (arcane). Warding: keep something specific away, creatures or magic (living, conjuration or arcane). Holding: hold something in place, "essentially the reverse of a rune of warding", often traps (arcane). Absorption: absorb energy, usually on shields (elemental or arcane). |
| Power | enhance an item or individual | Strength: stats and abilities of living creatures; rapid healing, mending, curing poison and disease. Will: the same for the mind, making one "smarter, wiser, stronger willed, fearless, enraged", or healing it. Governing: triggered by an event and combined with other runes ("if there is fire, trigger a rune of fire absorption"); holds the power for itself and the runes it triggers, may hold multiple charges and conditions, and makes traps (arcane, living or spirit). Enchantment: endow raw power or make other runes permanent with a constant energy source; used by Dwarven runesmiths for magical weapons and armor. |
| Destruction | "unleash raw elemental forces for maximum destruction", often destroying the inscribed object; on weapons or missiles. "Evil runemasters may tatoo destructive runes onto a slave, or to turn lesser minions into living bombs." | Fire, Rock (exploding or collapsing rock), Ice, Lightning |
| Disruption | living, arcane or spirit magic | Death: interfere with the spirit-body connection (spirit). Controlling: dominate the mind, triggered or inscribed on the target (spirit). Hex: disease, curses, necrotic damage (living). Dispelling: counter specific magics (arcane). |
| Shaping | elemental, arcane or conjuration magic | Elemental: subtle use of the natural, fey and elemental planes, "flaming swords, flying carpets, freezing water, or tracking nearby creatures" (elemental). Gate: gates between planes, trapping extra-planar creatures (conjuration). Animation: intelligence and life for objects, used by runesmiths "to animate golem servants" (spirit and arcane). Force: telekinetic effects. |
Rune mechanics¶
Lifecycle¶
- Tracing: the rune is drawn or carved in "a very particular and deliberate manner which creates the spell 'circuitry'". It takes a little magic and fails where magic is suppressed; "a simple visual copy of a rune is NOT a real rune". Labor intensive, with no room for error, and impossible with distractions such as combat.
- Empowerment: a standard action of several seconds' concentration touching the item (within 3 ft per level for walls and floors), consuming one of the runecaster's daily rune levels. Some runes hold several activations, some need so little energy they are in effect permanent, and some draw on a Mithis power source in the object.
- Activation: set at tracing; some trigger on weapon blows, others as soon as empowered.
Tracing methods¶
| Method | Durability | Time and duration |
|---|---|---|
| Carved | destroyed by damage of ½ what would destroy the object or area | 2-10× normal drawing time (clay to hardened metals); re-empowered at 1/10 the usual time |
| Mithis ink | destroyed by damage of ⅛ what would destroy the object; the ink's magic fades, so even permanent runes fade in time | normal; "All runemasters learn the ink rune that draws mithis out of an object to create mithis ink." |
| Drawn (regular ink, dirt, sand) | any damage or significant use of the item destroys it | ¼ normal duration; −2 to DC checks and −1 per damage die |
Mithis ink is described on Runic Inks. Runecasters inscribe the items they use so they can re-empower them easily: runestaves among runemasters; runehammers, runeaxes and runeshields among runepriests; runearmor ("scale armor is the best for carving runes in, chain is terrible and plate too easily damaged"); and runic tattoos.
Empowering¶
A runecaster may have several runes empowered, limited by the spell list "exactly like a wizard". An empowered rune detects as magic; an unempowered one does not, though Identify reveals its purpose.
- Feat: Empower Runes (Int 11, level 5), for non-runecasters, "most often, dwarven warriors": empower an already carved rune with up to ⅓ of level in spell levels (rounded up), or ½ if taken twice, never above what a runemaster of ⅓ or ½ the level could cast. Other spellcasters may take it by giving up an equal number of their own spell levels. A standard action; the empowerer controls activation like a runecaster, at ⅓ or ½ level.
- Unskilled Empowerment: a non-runecaster has a 4 − Int in 1000 chance of disrupting the tracing, easily repaired by a runecaster who knows the rune; "long term use of runes is not possible without a runecaster".
Activating¶
- Controlled Activation: a runecaster touching the object may suppress activation of runes they empowered, to keep several on one weapon or armor; switched-off runes stay off while they are unconscious until they stop touching it.
- Contact by someone other than the empowerer: half the charges and half the damage dice (round up), so a 5th-level contact damage rune does 3 dice and uses 3 charges instead of 5 and 5.
- Contact interference: several contact runes activating together nearby are unpredictable, cancelling or exploding "in a burst of raw energy". Complex enchantments interfere too: "no problem with a +5 longsword, or even a +5 demonbane longsword, but a +5 firebrand longsword" will interfere with an engraved rune.
Rune properties¶
Each rune carries a code of activation, duration, location and impact (for example I-FAL-B, or written out, Gov-Once-FleshArmorLoc).
| Property | Codes |
|---|---|
| Activation | C Contact: activates when the object touches another, one rune or effect per contact. I Immediate: activates when empowered. T Triggered: by the empowerer within 20 ft per level as a standard action (no opportunity attack, but interruptible), or a minor, uninterruptible action if holding the object. G Governed: by a governing rune or more complex criteria. |
| Duration | O Once. C Charges, which may be spread out, one charge per arrow. D Duration. P Permanent until cancelled or destroyed. |
| Location | W weapon or shield (for shield-bash); M missile; L location or object; F flesh; A armor, clothing or shield |
| Impact | B Benign, harms nothing (the default). M Minor, may damage wood, flesh or cloth. D Destructive, damages stone, iron and steel, "which makes carved tracings of these runes somewhat pointless". X Explosive, destroys the object and things near it. |
Stacking: bonuses from several runes generally do not stack; the highest applies. A +4 AC against evil rune on armor and a +2 AC rune on a shield give +4 against an evil attacker, not +6.
Converting wizard spells¶
"Theoretically, any magic that can be accomplished by a wizard is also accomplishable by a runecaster and vice versa", but the two traditions have evolved differently, and "there are things which ancient runes can do that wizards have no spells to accomplish and vice versa". A converted damaging spell is a contact rune and must sit on a weapon, "even if it is just a stone"; it releases one die per rune level per hit until its dice are used, with any damage bonus split among the dice.
At-will runecaster abilities: Examine Runes (whether a rune can be or is empowered) and Identify Runes (its rough purpose).
Runes written for Terrun¶
Runes of Empowerment¶
A governing power rune storing levels to empower another rune as a minor action; the target rune cannot be triggered in the same round. It glows brightly, and is empowered twice: a 1st-level slot for the rune itself and a 1st- to 3rd-level slot for the stored power.
| Level | Rune | Stores |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lesser Rune of Empowerment | up to 3 levels |
| 3 | Rune of Empowerment | up to 5 levels |
| 5 | Greater Rune of Empowerment | up to 7 levels |
| 7 | Master Rune of Empowerment | up to 9 levels |
The 2nd-level Power list also has Empowerment, Lesser: "empower a rune with 1-3 spell levels that can empower a rune later with a minor action".
0-level runes¶
| Rune | Type | Code | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesser Rune of Protection | Guardian | I-FAL-B | +1 AC for 10 + level rounds; does not stack with other AC spells or enchantments |
| Lesser Rune of Fire | Destruction | C-WM-B | the object bursts into flame on contact for +Int fire damage; level charges, or spread across level missiles; does not stack with other magical damage |
| Lesser Rune of Light | Power | I-FAL-B | an object glows for 1 hour per level; glowing weapons do +1 damage against undead |
| Lesser Rune of Doubt | Disruption | C-WM-B | save or feel doubt, −1 to attack and damage until a save |
| Lesser Rune of Accuracy | Shaping | I-M-B | missile weapon +1 accuracy and +1 damage; does not stack |
Runes marked new¶
| Rune | Level and type | Code | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Absorb Impact | 1st Guardian | Gov-Once-FleshArmorLoc | absorbs up to caster level squares of force that would push the object or knock it over or prone; damage is not negated, only movement; activates on such an impact and lasts one turn |
| Protection from Outsiders | 1st Guardian | Trig-Duration-FleshArmor | +2 AC and saves against extra-planar beings, counters mind control, hedges out elementals and outsiders |
| Stopping | 1st Guardian | Contact-Charges-WeaponMissile | +2 to hit with opportunity attacks provoked by movement; a hit halts the movement; level charges, up to 1 day |
| Hidden Rune | 1st Power | a rune is hidden from normal observation | |
| Transvoyance | 1st Power | observe the area around the rune as if standing there, with concentration | |
| Pain Ward, Minor | 2nd Guardian | Trig-Duration-FleshArmorLoc | a selected class of creatures takes 1d4 per round within 10 ft of the object (a 1 × level burst for floors or walls); 1 hour per level |
| Transbeing | 2nd Power | as Transvoyance, but the caster can see, hear and smell | |
| Trigger | 2nd Power | the rune triggers itself on a simple one-predicate condition and cannot anticipate: a fire protection rune activates after the fire damage | |
| Anticipating Trigger | 3rd Power | detects the event "a fraction of a second before it does", so the fire protection rune activates just before | |
| Pain Ward | 4th Guardian | 3d4 per round within 10 ft, with −2 to saves and concentration checks |
Third-party rune lists omitted
The level 1-6 rune lists for the five types are D&D 3.5 spells reclassified as runes, each with an activation code and a sourcebook page citation. About 290 entries are cited (roughly 40-55 per level), drawn from the Player's Handbook (about 170), Complete Arcane (37), Magic of Faerûn (29), Player's Guide to Faerûn (11), Underdark (9), Complete Divine (7), Dragon magazine issues 313, 314 and 325 (7), Book of Exalted Deeds (6), the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (6), Unapproachable East (5) and Races of Faerûn (4). Each level also opens with a table sorting its runes by field. They are not reproduced. The 7th-level tables are empty.