*cracks knuckles* All right, let's go.
Building a 5th level Runesmith for a one-shot. I haven't looked quite as closely at this class, but I know that having a free hand is an issue. We'll go with Kholo so that we can have a d8 bite attack, a shield hand, and a free hand. The Int/Str combo works well, and runed-up teeth are a nice visual.
Level 1:
Kholo: Crunch is what makes the build work, so grabbing that. For heritage, we'll have one hand occupied, so not Dog Kholo. Runes don't take up our MAP, so let's go ahead and grab Great Kholo.
Background: Considering Gladiator, but nothing in the background is useful for the character. Let's go with Printer- picked up some runic knowledge that way.
Class feat: Let's start with the feats, and then worry about runes. We have four options to pick from. Backup Runic Enhancement is useless for us because we're going unarmed and can't be disarmed. Engraving Strike is useless for us because we're going unarmed and it doesn't support that. Remote Detonation is useless for us because we're going unarmed and we don't have any Dex to speak of anyway. Rune-Singer is useless for us because our Crafting is always going to be better than Performance and we've built specifically so we always have a free hand. ... So, there aren't any first level feats that do anything for us. Backup Runic Enhancement, I guess. We can at least cast it on somebody else or something in an emergency? Please add a first level feat for shields or unarmed attacks!
Runes: We're going to have six, so let's pick those out. The two shield runes are good picks since we're expecting to be using ours a lot. Whetstones is what we'll be using on our teeth. Let's see... are diacritic runes a separate application? Ah- there's a capstone feat to make them separate, so no. We need at least two offensive runes to stack up on enemies, so let's grab fire and thunder (looks like the only damaging ones, and the only other offensive one is a team liability). For the sixth rune, let's see... we only get three etched runes, and we're probably going teeth and shield for two. I don't know the party, so let's get the reapply diacritic. We can put it on our teeth to be able to spend two actions for 12d6 against a target once per fight.
Skills: Society from background, Crafting and Arcana from the class, Athletics, and we'll fill in the rest as needed. We'll be reflavoring all the runes as arcane. We know a ton of languages thanks to Multilingual.
Level 2:
Class feat: All right, now we can take a real class feat! Fortifying Knock will let us raise our shield and get a second shield rune on it at the same time.
Skill feat: We get Magical Crafting for free at this level. We'll also grab Titan Wrestler so that Athletics doesn't get wasted on bigger enemies.
Level 3:
Grab Toughness or Fleet, and increase Athletics.
Level 4:
Class feat: Definitely can't afford to invest in Intimidate for Terrifying Invocation. Don't need Transpose Etching because I'm not building around it. Artist's Attendance is... weird? If I have a rune on myself, it's stride twice and apply a rune on a different creature, so I guess that works better than I thought on the initial read. Let's go with that for the initial combat charge.
Skill feat: Eyes of the City or Courtly Graces for more out-of-combat options.
Level 5:
Let's go with Ask the Bones. Once per day free action to recall knowledge is some really nice action compression on a busy class.
Thoughts:
Man, having no relevant first level feats is a real bummer! I'm glad there are runes that work for unarmed strikes, but please keep them in mind for the feats as well. I feel like Runesinger could easily be cut for space because it just lets you have a way worse modifier? Backup Runic Enhancement is never fun or interesting to take; it's only ever useful if something has gone wrong.
If the class isn't going to have any subclasses, the low level feats need to pop. As it is, building the character lowered my inspiration, not fed into it.
Rune Singer also let's you trace at 30 feet for one action once per ten minutes.
The Cha isn't required so it's still useful to your build.
Yes, came here to say this. The charisma part is always pointless, the hand stuff is usually pointless (you're going to build to occupy you hands an forgoe runes all rounds but one per fight?), but the one action to trace a rune at range is always useful.
Ability to lose the manipulation trait is nice to have when you need it as well.
Oh, I misread that the first time! Yeah, that's a lot more useful. Definitely needs a reflavor for the character (and I would even say most characters taking it), but occasionally saving an action for ranged application is worth grabbing. Thanks; I appreciate the correction!