I am going to be the tank for a party starting the curse of strahd campaign. Our party consists of a cleric(domain tbd), an arcane trickster rogue, a warlock hexblade, a warlock fiend focus, a bard of some flavor, and a wizard.
How the hell am I going to keep them alive? We are starting at level 1 and get a free bonus feat. Variant human is allowed and anything that is in the expanded rules with possible UA stuff if I ask.
Thinking of sword and board, half wood elf with a starting stat distribution of 16 str, 10 Dex, 16 Con, 8 int, 8 wis, 16 cha. link to my current build: https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Manorien/characters/44688504 I take the fast movement part of the racial.
My thought is to pick up sentinel and then likely stats depending on what magic items I get. Not sure if I should go defense or dueling fighting style. Maybe go martial prowess(whichever gives you battlemaster options) for trip attack and some others to help disable opponents.
I like the idea of roleplaying an oath of vengeance pali, knowing that I am giving up spell resist aura or possible fear shenanigans. I don't want to fool around with multiclassing, especially not for a level dip or two.
We will likely end this campaign around level 10. Also, our gm has decreed that there will be no resurrections and that my odds of finding a STR giving magic item are low.
There are going to be 7 of you, so I wouldn't worry about keeping people alive. The action economy swings in your favor. Unless the DM also dials things up on their end.
Having said that, tanking isn't something that's really done. As in it's not something you can just build any frontline character to do. In MMO terms, you need to draw aggro. And you're basically limited to single-target effects. You might draw the attention of one target, but against a half dozen vampire spawn or werewolves it won't matter much. Still, compelled duel is going to be your bread and butter for boss fights. Just be aware that in-combat healing is a sucker's game. If you plan on tanking, start with a shield and bolster your AC with spells like shield of faith. You're not buying better armor than chainmail unless the DM adds a blacksmith.
Moving on to your archetype, because even feats don't really help with keeping the enemy's attention...
The Oath of the Crown from SCAG gets compelled duel automatically, but any paladin can prepare it; it's on the class's spell list. Beyond that, it depends on what you wish to bring to the table. The Oath of the Ancients has spells that offer battlefield control and, at 7th-level, an aura that bolsters defenses against magical damage. The Oath of Devotion can use its Channel Divinity to give yourself a magic weapon (useful for getting past resistances and immunities) and turn undead.
But the most important piece of advice I can give is to not overthink this. Just have fun.
I disagree. Tanking is absolutely something you can build a character to do, it's just not something that's a default assumed part of a default party dynamics in 5e the way it was in 4e. In 4e there were relatively crucial party functions that were almost always going to require party members with noticeably below average defensive abilities. If the enemies were allowed to freely concentrate their attacks, those critical party members would quickly drop - faster and harder than your healer could make up for, so it was important for any good party to have a reliable tank that combined above average defenses with the ability to punish enemies who attacked other party members, such that they would either attack the tank and be less effective, or attack the tank's charges and accelerate their defeat in the process. The tank was even more efficient to heal, since most 4e healing was based in some way on hit die size. The result was a bit video gamey, but also build party cooperation and synergy into the core mechanics.
In 5e, you absolutely CAN be a tank, but whether or not your party NEEDS a tank is another matter. Tanking is useful if there are party members with poor defenses such that enemy attacks will become significantly more effective when concentrated on those vulnerable targets. In 5e, this isn't always the case. Sure, a wizard might have a small hit die size and thus a small hit point pool... but they also have powerful defensive spells like Shield, Endure Elements, Mirror Image, Levitate, Fly, and Blink. However, these defensive spells come with the inherent tradeoff that you aren't using those spell slots on powerful offensive and control spells like Thunder Wave, Faerie Fire, Shatter, Web, Fireball, or Hypnotic Pattern. But not all defensive features available to a wizard come from spell slots. Some wizard subclasses such as blade singer, war wizard, or abjurer have additional abilities that can dramatically increase their defense without spending spell slots. Additionally, in 5e multiclassing can be used to let any class access better armor and base HP.
So in 5e does your wizard need a tank to protect them? Well, it depends. If your party wizard is an abjurer who started out with a single level of forge cleric for armor proficiencies, the answer is probably no. They've invested permanent resources into ongoing defensive abilities that will significantly blunt enemy attacks that are sent their way. However, most wizards have to expend significant spell slot resources on personal defense if they want to withstand enemy attacks, and those characters benefit dramatically from an effective party tank, because the fewer spell slots they have to spend on defensive spells like Shield, Mirror Image, and Fly, the more they can spend on encounter winning spells like Thunderwave, Web, and Hypnotic Pattern. The entire party gets more powerful because the tank's protection let the wizard reinvest defensive resources into offense and control.
Wizards aren't the only class that follows this pattern. All of the full arcane casters do, including Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks. Again, there are defensive features and and build options available to them that would negate the need for a tank. Valor Bards and Hexblade Warlocks and Sorcerers that begin their careers with a couple levels of paladin probably don't need a party tank to help them redirect spellcasting resources from defense to offense, they've already dedicated subclass or multiclass resources to enabling that exact trade off. But more stereotypical examples of these classes - Lore or Eloquence Bards, Non-Hex warlocks (at least the ones who don't spend all day hiding in clouds of darkness), and any sorcerer who values timely spell level access too much to dip paladin is going to benefit heavily from a dedicated tank in the party.
Likewise with some druids. Monks, Melee Rogues, and some melee rangers also like having a solid tank around, even without much in the way of spell slots to redirect from defense to offence, mostly due to those classes being a bit lacking in overall defensive features. They're skirmisher classes that tend to rely on ducking in and out of attack range, and that's a lot easier to do with a dedicated tank around to help pin enemies in place. Really depends on build choices though, particularly for rangers.
So there are classes and builds that appreciate a party tank, but there are many that don't need them. Most martials - fighters, barbarians, paladins, obviously. These are the classes most likely to /be/ a tank if the party needs one, not be the one to need a tank in the first place. Battlesmith artificers fall in here despite not being what most would call a 'martial' class. Most clerics. Depending on the combat environment, ranted characters - archery rangers, bow rogues, spellcasters that focus on long ranged spells - can effectively win combats before enemies have the chance to close into threat range, or can dance around the perimeter of a melee scrub as long as there are any melee party members to create one, regardless of whether those party members build specifically for tanking. In dense woodland or urban terrain, or tight, twisty dungeon environments, that might not be an option, though. And as mentioned many otherwise squishy classes have build options to be more tough. Hexblades don't need a tank, but feylocks might. Bladesingers might not need a tank, but Enchanters might. Sword Bards might not need a tank, but Eloquence Bards might. etc.
If your party has one or more "squishies" then building as a tank is a reasonable choice - though you don't want to have too many dedicated tanks. One is usually plenty, more tanks than squishies is usually a mistake, even if the number of squishies is zero. If nobody in your party is squishy, then having a tank just encourages enemies to concentrate their attacks when there's no competitive advantage for your party to have them do so.
Having established that Tanks are sometimes but not always useful, does OP's party want one? Well, the cleric and hexblade probably don't need one, and the fiendlock's a bit on edge. They're not super tough, but they can generate some temporary hp and some fiendlock tactics build around inviting attacks and then retaliating, so they may or may not want someone else in the party drawing attacks away from them. But between the rogue, bard, and wizard, you're almost assuredly going to end up with at least one squishy in the party, if not more. And if the DM does ramp up encounter difficulty to match the larger party size, then those squishies could potentially go down /very/ fast, much faster than the cleric will be able to keep up with - not to mention that clerics have a similar trade off with their spell slots in that the fewer slots they have to burn on healing the party they more they can put into powerful buffs and offensive spells like bless, spiritual weapon, and spirit guardians.
So yeah, I'd say this party could use a tank.
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But how exactly do you tank in 5e? It's not as clear cut as in 4e where tanking meant choosing a class with the defender tag and just using their explicit mark and punish mechanics. To be an effective tank you've got to balance a handful of concepts:
Personal Defense. The entire point of tanking is to safely absorb enemy offense in order to preserve party resources - particularly HP and spell slots. If it doesn't take much to drop you, then you aren't tanking. There are a lot of ways to build up this defense - high AC, high max hit points, & good saving throws are the vanilla options. Beyond that look for resistance to damage types, temporary hp generation, resistance or immunity to conditions, self healing abilities, reactive abilities to negate incoming attacks, and so on. In theory the more the better, but don't forget...
Aggro Generation. To borrow the MMO terminology. If you just stack defense, you risk turning into a "turtle". A turtle, is very hard to hurt, but unlike a tank is not very threatening. It's easy to ignore a turtle. If your defenses are so much better than the rest of the party, then enemies are naturally going to want to target your allies instead of you, so you have to provide some additional motivation not to just do that. In 4e these mechanics were very obvious and clearly defined, in 5e they're so nebulous and scattered that you might be forgiven for thinking it's something that just isn't available. Aggro Mechanics come in a lot of different forms, but generally fit a few distinct subcategories:
Hard Control. Abilities that outright prevent an enemy from attacking one of your allies. For instance, if you have the Sentinel Feat and a melee-only enemy attempt to walk out of your threatened area in order to attack one of your allies, and you hit that enemy with an opportunity attack, then that enemy's speed is reduced to zero for the rest of their turn. They cannot move away from you, and thus cannot reach your ally to attack them at all. Another example is the Oath of Conquest level seven feature Aura of Conquest, which similarly reduces enemy movement speed to zero if they're frightened of you while within the aura's radius. Enemies without ranged attacks that are caught by this effect simply cannot move to reach your allies to even try to attack them. Spells like Hold Person or Banishment could also apply here, along with anything that restrains, immobilizes, or paralyzes, though conditions that prevent enemies from attacking /at all/ aren't so much 'aggro' mechanics as just flat control, except perhaps in how they might motivate other enemies to attack you in order to disrupt concentration (see 'lure' below). The Frighten condition can be used for this if you can position yourself such that a frightened enemy can't approach your allies without also approaching you. The main generic option here, of course, is grappling. Terrain can also be utilized this way. If your tank can position themselves in a natural choke point like a doorway, you can prevent enemies from accessing the squishies without employing any complicated mechanics at all.
An interesting subtype of hard-ish control is damage splitting mechanics like the Redemption Paladin's aura or the spell Warding Bond. In a way you can consider these soft control, as they encourage the enemy to attack you so that they don't split damage, but I put them more in hard control since they take the option of concentrating damage on your charge or charges off the table altogether. The enemy can't focus their damage on the squishiest party member, at best they can split it 50/50 between the squishy and the tank. Though they do get to bypass your AC by doing this, so to make proper use of such abilities your resilience needs to come from more than just being hard to hit.
Hard control is obviously the most effective kind of control, but it also tends to allow saves or other means of resistance or escape, and is often single target. Multi-target hard control is incredibly powerful, but is also more typically the realm of dedicated control classes, like those squishy wizards we like to protect. The ideal scenario you're looking for here is for the party wizard and bard to ensnare the weak-saved minions with webs and hypnotic patterns while you lock down their tougher boss with something like the Sentinel feat. Then the party damage dudes can pick everything off at their leisure
Threat. Tanks are tanks and not turtles because they've got a big ol' cannon on a turret, right? Tanks are typically big and intimidating, and they are usually martial classes that can do significant damage by default, without even especially investing in it. If your party's arcane casters prioritize debuffing and control, and your party's divine casters prioritize buffing and support, and your party's rogue/monk types prioritize skills and infiltration then the party tank may even be the biggest source of raw hit point damage in the party, and that alone can motivate enemies to target you. And honestly, round by round, the think most tanks are doing with their actions most of the time is making attacks. You want those attacks to be effective, so you want to invest at least somewhat in making them threatening. More powerful attacks also means more powerful opportunity attacks, which I'll get into a bit below. That said, eventually you have to hit a trade off between offense and defense where more offense means not being tough enough to still function as a tank. And even with the most devastating of glass cannon builds, there's almost no amount of damage that a single warrior can put out in a turn that is going to be more threatening to a group of enemies then a wizard's Fireball or Hypnotic Pattern or Wall of Force, so as a tank you're going to look beyond pure threat. Just don't neglect it altogether.
Punishment: Where hard control outright prevents the target from attacking your allies, punishment abilities say they *can* if they really want to, but you'll make them regret doing it. The classic generic option here is the opportunity attack. An enemy can walk away from you to go bop your squishy friend, but if they do that you get an extra out-of-turn attack to hit them with. If the marginal advantage of attacking your softer ally instead of you is less then the value of the free attack you get to make, then the enemy is dis-incentivized from attacking your ally at all. Even if it is still in the enemy's advantage to attack your ally, the extra attack you get in on their way over still mitigates the advantage they gain from doing so at least to a degree. And while you only get one reaction - and thus at most one opportunity attack - a round, if you can engage multiple enemies at once you can force several of them to face this decision in a row, one after the other. Ie, the first enemy decides it isn't worth it to provoke your opportunity attack in order to go after your friend, so they attack you instead, and you still have your opportunity attack to threaten the second enemy with.
Not all punishment mechanics are damage. A ranged enemy can target your ally without provoking an opportunity attack from you if they just sit still, but in that case they're "punished" by disadvantage on the attack. The protector fighting style similarly punishes an enemy for attacking an adjacent ally with disadvantage, while the interception style punishes such attacks with reduced damage. The key thing isn't just that the enemy's attacks are punished, though, it's that they're punished for attacking your allies instead of you. This creates the extra incentive to attack you, drawing attacks away from your allies. What you want here is not for the enemy to take the punishment, what you want is for them to be sufficiently afraid of taking that punishment that they choose to target you, the tank, instead.
There are lots of punishment mechanics in the game apart from the generic opportunity attack. A couple fighting styles were already mentioned. Compulsory Duel is an option here, though not a great one, imo, since it uses a spell slot, targets only a single enemy, and does nothing if they pass their save. At least it doesn't burn an action. Sentinel's option to make a reaction attack against enemies that target your allies is a great one. Booming Blade can be effective, particularly if you combine it with Warcaster to threaten extra deadly opportunity attacks for moving away from you. Anything else that can make an opportunity attack more dangerous helps here, from feats like Great Weapon Master to class features like Divine Smite. If your opportunity attack is strong enough, and the enemy weak or injured enough, then an opportunity attack can become a form of hard control by outright killing an enemy that provokes it before they get to attack at all. Getting away from reaction abilities, the armorer artificer's thunder gauntlets or the cavalier fighter's unwavering mark are good examples of punishment mechanics. There really are a lot of abilities that fall into this category, most of which are found in dedicated tanking subclasses like the Cavalier or Ancestral Guardian.
Lure: where punishment mechanics discourage enemies from attacking your allies, lure mechanics encourage them to attack you. These are a bit trickier, since any mechanic that makes it better for enemies to concentrate attacks on you are going to be in tension with the entire premise of playing a tank, which is to concentrate enemy attacks where they will be least effective. Even so, there are still several effective ways to lure enemy attacks. The prime example in 5e is the combination of Barbarian's rage and reckless attack features. Reckless attack gives enemies advantage to hit, so they're more likely to hit, and more likely to critically hit. However, while the barbarian is raging they have resistance to common forms of damage, which will often mean enemies are hitting for only half damage - even their crits only land like a normal attack - and that damage is being dealt to the character with the highest maximum hit point total possible. Any healing the barbarian receives also goes twice as far as well, so multiple enemies can end up wailing away on the barbarian.
Lure features aren't just found in barbarians, though. Perhaps the most common way to draw enemy attention is to be concentrating on an important, battle-effecting spell, such that enemies will be motivated to attack you in the hope that you fail concentration. Obviously the most dramatic concentration spells will come from the party's full casters, but a half caster like the paladin can draw some significant heat this way as well via spells like Bless or Aura of Vitality. Non-spell-based party buffing features can also attract this sort of attention, though in the hope of knocking you out altogether instead of just breaking your concentration. Aura of Protection with a high charisma bonus on its own can draw a lot of heat, especially when combined with Bless, since it renders the most dangerous attacks of many enemies largely ineffective on allies under your protection. Of course, you don't want to /actually/ lose concentration on important buff spells, so if you're trying to attract aggro this way then it's worth investing in shoring up your concentration saves.
Area Control: So I talked a bit about defense and a lot about aggro, but another principle of tanking to consider is area denial. As with hard control, this is something that more typically falls under the auspices of a dedicated controller class, but as a tank you tank you want to be able to take and hold an area of the battlefield, to establish a defended position within which enemy options are limited and their offensive actions impaired, and/or where your allies are relatively safe. By default, your zone of influence is your weapon's reach, so a reach weapon can help here, though the reach property will come at the cost of AC (for two handed reach weapons like halberds) or damage (for a whip). A prime example of this in 5e is the combination of the feats Polearm Master and Sentinel with a reach weapon like a Glaive or Halberd. Your opportunity attack then extends out to 10 feet, and can stop one enemy a turn from either entering or leaving that zone, potentially more if some are convinced not to even try, or if you have extra opportunity attacks in a round from something like the cavalier fighter's 18th level feature. Though it's difficult to access on a tank (notably Crown Paladins get it), the Spirit Guardians spell is amazing for this. Spirit Shroud is a respectable alternative. The echo knight fighter's manifest echo ability is another great feature for this. The spell 'enlarge/reduce' used to increase your size can be amazing here, increasing the space you can physically occupy and the area your attacks threaten by default, and stacking particularly well with other area denial abilities. Darkness can also be effective here against sighted enemies so long as you have a means of working within it such as the devil's sight warlock invocation (now accessible via a feat) or the blind fighting combat style, but it can be problematic if your allies can't also work through it.
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So... tanks can be useful, and there are some general tanking principles. We're in the paladin forum, so how would we apply those principles specifically to a tanky paladin build in this party?
First, lets list some of the features paladins have access to by default in our main categories:
Personal Defense: d10 hit die, full armor & shield proficiencies, 5 points of lay on hands per level, which can be used for self healing or to heal others, aura of protection, immunity to diseases, eventual immunity to fear, access to the defense fighting style, access to spells like Bless, Shield of Faith, Aid, and Aura of Vitality. Paladin maybe isn't the out-and-out toughest of all the base classes, but it's definitely up there. Certainly tough enough to make concentrating enemy attacks towards you and away from the bard, wizard, rogue, and fiendlock a net positive for the party as a whole. Just don't skimp on constitution and charisma, and be willing to use at least some of your spell slots on actual, you know, spells.
Hard Control: not too much by default, though there are some spells, including Warding Bond provided your DM allows the expanded spell lists in Tasha's Cauldron of everything. Consider picking up the Sentinel feat to help out here. And some of the subclasses help here.
Threat: tons. Your damage may not be as consistently high as the fighter or barbarian, but thanks to divine smite nobody can pour as much damage as a paladin can into an individual attack when they *really* want to. And if you score a crit? Yikes. And since threat is more about the damage you *can* do than it is the damage you *will* do, paladins have some of the best threat in the game, even if they don't invest extra build resources in their weapon damage. Unfortunately, if you rely overmuch on divine smite for threat, that can cut into your ability to leverage your spell slots for anything else, so don't be too free wheeling with your smites. Try coupling your threat with some role playing. Tell the enemies you'll crush anyone who tries to hurt your friends, then reserve your smites for the ones that ignore the warning. The rest will catch on quick, and you'll be able to use the 'threat' of those spell slots to encourage enemies to attack you without necessarily having to actually spend them.
Punishment: Thanks to divine smite, paladins have potentially the deadliest opportunity attacks and Sentinel feat reaction attacks in the game. You also have access to spells like Compelled Duel (though again I'm not a fan) and combat styles like Protection and Interception, though they compete with the Sentinel feat for reactions. Thankfully you can trade them out for something else if you do add the Sentinel feat provided your DM is using the optional class features from Tasha's Cauldron of everything. Some subclass features can help.
Lure: Concentration spells like Bless, Aura of Vitality, Spirit Shroud, and Crusader's Mantle (particularly if other party members can summon in extra allies) are all pretty effective spells that will make your party tougher in a way that enemies will need to respond to. Your auras, particularly aura of protection, can also make it difficult for enemies to effectively deal with the party without taking you down first.
Area Control: Your auras, particularly aura of courage, make you a walking defensive position for your allies. A reach weapon can help with that, as can some spells and subclass features.
That's a pretty solid set of base features there, so paladins who want to build as a tank have a good foundation to work from. Build on that foundation with a solid subclass choice. Conquest, redemption, ancients, watchers, & crown all have selling points, though their relevant features might come earlier (watcher's channel divinity at level 3) or later (crown's Spirit Guardians oath spell at level 9). My favorite is oath of Conquest for the way aura of conquest combines with Conquering Presence, Wrathful Smite, or Fear for effective hard control and area control against groups of weaker enemies. Stronger enemies are generally less vulnerable to frighten, having either good wisdom saves or outright immunity, but the paladin base class is already strong against individual powerful enemies, and the oath spell spiritual weapon helps there, too. But Conquerors have a bit of a sinister feel to them that can make it difficult to integrate them into some parties, so you might want to go with one of the others, all of which have their selling points.
Beyond subclasses, you'll want to look at your ASIs. There are solid feats for tanking the most notable being Sentinel, and you'll probably want that. You'll also probably be relying on concentration spells to some degree, so resilient constitution or war caster to shore up your concentration saves might be good. Other feats that are very strong for tanking include Inspiring Leader, Alert, and Polearm Master. That said, you really want a maxed out charisma to make your aura of protection as strong as it can be. And you might need charisma for save DCs on your spells and channel divinity, particularly if you take a subclass like Conqueror that relies on landing condition effects on enemies. You also can't let your weapon attack stat lag too far behind or your attacks won't be accurate enough to generate the kind of threat you want.
That's a lot of pressure on your ASIs, so you probably have to settle for maybe one or two most important feats to your build and let the rest go. Fancy, multi-feat combos like Polearm Master + Great Weapon Master + Sentinel are for fighters, who get extra ASIs and generally don't even have secondary stats to really spend them on, let alone co-primary stats like charisma is for paladins, particularly those that favor tanking & support.
For race, there are a few great options - Half Elf, Fallen Aasimar, Triton (for aquatic games), Eladrin (for the rare dex-primary paladin builds), and so on. More if your DM uses the "customizing your origin" rules from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. But you should at least strongly consider Variant Human for that bonus feat. Again, pressure on a paladin's ASIs is very tight, particularly for tanky support paladins. The human's bonus feat can be the difference between picking up a key feat like sentinel or resilient constitution at level one and not being able to fit it into your build at all.
Single Classed paladin is strong and good throughout, but there does hit a point where strong new features start to slow down a bit. Depending on build and subclass choices that might be as early as level 7 or might be as late as level 14. At no point do you need to multiclass to have a strong tanky paladin, but even so you might consider looking into levels of sorcerer, bard, or warlock (particularly hexblade) at some point in your progression. Such a multiclass can net you extra spells per day, defensive spells like Shield or Endure Elements, and useful features like bardic inspiration, metamagic, or warlock invocations. Hexblade in particular gives you Hex Warrior, which can ease up some of the pressure on your later ASIs by letting you use charisma for your attacks in addition to your auras and spellcasting. You have to stick to a one handed weapon, though, unless you're willing to commit 3 or more levels for blade boon (and even then I personally like chain boon better), but it is a strong option to consider.
Again, you don't need to multiclass to be effective, and doing so will cut into your max HP, and will cut off your access to strong end game paladin features like the oath capstones and expanded aura range (if you take more than two levels). Also, if you multiclass you'll probably want to pick up war caster, to make spellcasting easier while using a weapon and a shield (the Shield spell, for instance, can't be cast with your hands full without DM house rule intervention, even if you're holding a spellcasting focus), and that's putting more pressure on your ASIs, particularly since a first level variant human paladin can't get war caster as your bonus feat, since you're not technically a spell caster yet.
In my opinion tanking is locking down the most dangerous foes so that they cannot engage your more squishy party members. Effects like fear and slow are great for this purpose. A really solid option would be a Fallen Aasimar Conquest Paladin. For your bonus feat I would consider taking the Slasher feat to apply a speed reducing effect on your melee attacks once per turn. In terms of Fighting style I feel the best choices are Interception or Protection because keeping others alive is in the job description of a tank. So something along the lines of this might suit you:
Fallen Asimar
Bonus feat: Slasher (Strength)
Strength 16 (14+1 from racial bonus +1 from bonus feat) Dexterity 8 Constitution 14 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 12 Charisma 16 (14+2 from racial bonus)
Straight away you melee attack can reduce speed and you have a once per long rest fear effect from Aasimar. Oath of Conquest then gives you another fear ability every short rest while adding powerful spells like Hold Person and Spiritual Weapon to your arsenal. Once you hit lvl 7 your fear effects get even stronger thanks to your aura dropping everything within 10 ft thats afraid of you to 0 speed.
I didn't notice when I was writing that textbook above that this is for Curse of Strahd specifically. While Conquest is my favorite oath for tanky paladins in general, I don't especially recommend it for Curse of Strahd. Too many enemies in that campaign are immune to frighten, including a bunch who in other campaigns would normally be quite vulnerable to it. It's not terrible, there are some frighten vulnerable enemies, and spiritual weapon is still a strong oath spell, but it can get kind of frustrating.
I would instead recommend Redemption, Ancients, Watchers, or Devotion. I normally consider Devotion to be a more offensive oath, thanks to the sacred weapon channel divinity, but in ravenloft specifically Turn the Unholy is amazing and charm immunity from aura of devotion can be a real lifesaver.
I'm playing a oath of the ancients paladin (Edit: I'm a half-elf) right now, I really enjoy the feel of the class, using the chef feat and proficiency with a lute. Just got access to the level 7 resistance vs spells but not sure how good it will do me really, still i'm enjoying the life and happy aspect of the character. Feels needed in this place ;)
That said, a Devotion paladin gets immunity to charmed status which can be pretty good now and then I imagine. More importantly they get Turn the Unholy and Sacred Weapon, adding your charisma modifier to hit for 1minute. And it becomes magic. This is good.
Oath of the Crown actually gives you the ability to force every creature (of your choice) within 30' to take a wisdom save or they cannot willingly move more than 30' away, so this could prevent things from attacking your squishier friends. They can also take a hit on a friend within 5', taking full damage instead of them.. Though at times the spell for Warding bond would just work better (they get that too).
Sentinel is a great feat for a protector btw but if you're going to use concentration spells you might want war caster if nothing else just to be able to cast spells with a shield. On the other hand, a devotion paladin with a greatsword and GWM feat could negate the -5 by using the Sacred weapon feature, which would let you do 2d6+13 at +3 to hit with just +2 proficiency bonus. A dead (not undead) opponent cant harm your friends.
Also, while I agree half elves make great paladins, don't underestimate half-orcs either. The ability to drop to 0 and ignore that by dropping to 1 instead is REALLY good. (They also make for great assassins with the autocrit from assassins and bonus damage on crits from half-orc).
And... Dragonborn make pretty good paladins, I'd suggest either a Gold or Silver variant, with the gold one being statistically better probably but the silver one being better just because I say so and it's cool :p Also being a paladin with good charisma you could probably make decent use of the Dragon Fear feat as well, possibly making all creatures within 30' frightened of you. There are a few things immune to this though, but you can use your breath on them instead.
Hello internet!
I am going to be the tank for a party starting the curse of strahd campaign. Our party consists of a cleric(domain tbd), an arcane trickster rogue, a warlock hexblade, a warlock fiend focus, a bard of some flavor, and a wizard.
How the hell am I going to keep them alive? We are starting at level 1 and get a free bonus feat. Variant human is allowed and anything that is in the expanded rules with possible UA stuff if I ask.
Thinking of sword and board, half wood elf with a starting stat distribution of 16 str, 10 Dex, 16 Con, 8 int, 8 wis, 16 cha. link to my current build: https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Manorien/characters/44688504 I take the fast movement part of the racial.
My thought is to pick up sentinel and then likely stats depending on what magic items I get. Not sure if I should go defense or dueling fighting style. Maybe go martial prowess(whichever gives you battlemaster options) for trip attack and some others to help disable opponents.
I like the idea of roleplaying an oath of vengeance pali, knowing that I am giving up spell resist aura or possible fear shenanigans. I don't want to fool around with multiclassing, especially not for a level dip or two.
We will likely end this campaign around level 10. Also, our gm has decreed that there will be no resurrections and that my odds of finding a STR giving magic item are low.
What would you do given those parameters?
Thanks for the help!
There are going to be 7 of you, so I wouldn't worry about keeping people alive. The action economy swings in your favor. Unless the DM also dials things up on their end.
Having said that, tanking isn't something that's really done. As in it's not something you can just build any frontline character to do. In MMO terms, you need to draw aggro. And you're basically limited to single-target effects. You might draw the attention of one target, but against a half dozen vampire spawn or werewolves it won't matter much. Still, compelled duel is going to be your bread and butter for boss fights. Just be aware that in-combat healing is a sucker's game. If you plan on tanking, start with a shield and bolster your AC with spells like shield of faith. You're not buying better armor than chainmail unless the DM adds a blacksmith.
Moving on to your archetype, because even feats don't really help with keeping the enemy's attention...
The Oath of the Crown from SCAG gets compelled duel automatically, but any paladin can prepare it; it's on the class's spell list. Beyond that, it depends on what you wish to bring to the table. The Oath of the Ancients has spells that offer battlefield control and, at 7th-level, an aura that bolsters defenses against magical damage. The Oath of Devotion can use its Channel Divinity to give yourself a magic weapon (useful for getting past resistances and immunities) and turn undead.
But the most important piece of advice I can give is to not overthink this. Just have fun.
I disagree. Tanking is absolutely something you can build a character to do, it's just not something that's a default assumed part of a default party dynamics in 5e the way it was in 4e. In 4e there were relatively crucial party functions that were almost always going to require party members with noticeably below average defensive abilities. If the enemies were allowed to freely concentrate their attacks, those critical party members would quickly drop - faster and harder than your healer could make up for, so it was important for any good party to have a reliable tank that combined above average defenses with the ability to punish enemies who attacked other party members, such that they would either attack the tank and be less effective, or attack the tank's charges and accelerate their defeat in the process. The tank was even more efficient to heal, since most 4e healing was based in some way on hit die size. The result was a bit video gamey, but also build party cooperation and synergy into the core mechanics.
In 5e, you absolutely CAN be a tank, but whether or not your party NEEDS a tank is another matter. Tanking is useful if there are party members with poor defenses such that enemy attacks will become significantly more effective when concentrated on those vulnerable targets. In 5e, this isn't always the case. Sure, a wizard might have a small hit die size and thus a small hit point pool... but they also have powerful defensive spells like Shield, Endure Elements, Mirror Image, Levitate, Fly, and Blink. However, these defensive spells come with the inherent tradeoff that you aren't using those spell slots on powerful offensive and control spells like Thunder Wave, Faerie Fire, Shatter, Web, Fireball, or Hypnotic Pattern. But not all defensive features available to a wizard come from spell slots. Some wizard subclasses such as blade singer, war wizard, or abjurer have additional abilities that can dramatically increase their defense without spending spell slots. Additionally, in 5e multiclassing can be used to let any class access better armor and base HP.
So in 5e does your wizard need a tank to protect them? Well, it depends. If your party wizard is an abjurer who started out with a single level of forge cleric for armor proficiencies, the answer is probably no. They've invested permanent resources into ongoing defensive abilities that will significantly blunt enemy attacks that are sent their way. However, most wizards have to expend significant spell slot resources on personal defense if they want to withstand enemy attacks, and those characters benefit dramatically from an effective party tank, because the fewer spell slots they have to spend on defensive spells like Shield, Mirror Image, and Fly, the more they can spend on encounter winning spells like Thunderwave, Web, and Hypnotic Pattern. The entire party gets more powerful because the tank's protection let the wizard reinvest defensive resources into offense and control.
Wizards aren't the only class that follows this pattern. All of the full arcane casters do, including Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks. Again, there are defensive features and and build options available to them that would negate the need for a tank. Valor Bards and Hexblade Warlocks and Sorcerers that begin their careers with a couple levels of paladin probably don't need a party tank to help them redirect spellcasting resources from defense to offense, they've already dedicated subclass or multiclass resources to enabling that exact trade off. But more stereotypical examples of these classes - Lore or Eloquence Bards, Non-Hex warlocks (at least the ones who don't spend all day hiding in clouds of darkness), and any sorcerer who values timely spell level access too much to dip paladin is going to benefit heavily from a dedicated tank in the party.
Likewise with some druids. Monks, Melee Rogues, and some melee rangers also like having a solid tank around, even without much in the way of spell slots to redirect from defense to offence, mostly due to those classes being a bit lacking in overall defensive features. They're skirmisher classes that tend to rely on ducking in and out of attack range, and that's a lot easier to do with a dedicated tank around to help pin enemies in place. Really depends on build choices though, particularly for rangers.
So there are classes and builds that appreciate a party tank, but there are many that don't need them. Most martials - fighters, barbarians, paladins, obviously. These are the classes most likely to /be/ a tank if the party needs one, not be the one to need a tank in the first place. Battlesmith artificers fall in here despite not being what most would call a 'martial' class. Most clerics. Depending on the combat environment, ranted characters - archery rangers, bow rogues, spellcasters that focus on long ranged spells - can effectively win combats before enemies have the chance to close into threat range, or can dance around the perimeter of a melee scrub as long as there are any melee party members to create one, regardless of whether those party members build specifically for tanking. In dense woodland or urban terrain, or tight, twisty dungeon environments, that might not be an option, though. And as mentioned many otherwise squishy classes have build options to be more tough. Hexblades don't need a tank, but feylocks might. Bladesingers might not need a tank, but Enchanters might. Sword Bards might not need a tank, but Eloquence Bards might. etc.
If your party has one or more "squishies" then building as a tank is a reasonable choice - though you don't want to have too many dedicated tanks. One is usually plenty, more tanks than squishies is usually a mistake, even if the number of squishies is zero. If nobody in your party is squishy, then having a tank just encourages enemies to concentrate their attacks when there's no competitive advantage for your party to have them do so.
Having established that Tanks are sometimes but not always useful, does OP's party want one? Well, the cleric and hexblade probably don't need one, and the fiendlock's a bit on edge. They're not super tough, but they can generate some temporary hp and some fiendlock tactics build around inviting attacks and then retaliating, so they may or may not want someone else in the party drawing attacks away from them. But between the rogue, bard, and wizard, you're almost assuredly going to end up with at least one squishy in the party, if not more. And if the DM does ramp up encounter difficulty to match the larger party size, then those squishies could potentially go down /very/ fast, much faster than the cleric will be able to keep up with - not to mention that clerics have a similar trade off with their spell slots in that the fewer slots they have to burn on healing the party they more they can put into powerful buffs and offensive spells like bless, spiritual weapon, and spirit guardians.
So yeah, I'd say this party could use a tank.
...
But how exactly do you tank in 5e? It's not as clear cut as in 4e where tanking meant choosing a class with the defender tag and just using their explicit mark and punish mechanics. To be an effective tank you've got to balance a handful of concepts:
Personal Defense. The entire point of tanking is to safely absorb enemy offense in order to preserve party resources - particularly HP and spell slots. If it doesn't take much to drop you, then you aren't tanking. There are a lot of ways to build up this defense - high AC, high max hit points, & good saving throws are the vanilla options. Beyond that look for resistance to damage types, temporary hp generation, resistance or immunity to conditions, self healing abilities, reactive abilities to negate incoming attacks, and so on. In theory the more the better, but don't forget...
Aggro Generation. To borrow the MMO terminology. If you just stack defense, you risk turning into a "turtle". A turtle, is very hard to hurt, but unlike a tank is not very threatening. It's easy to ignore a turtle. If your defenses are so much better than the rest of the party, then enemies are naturally going to want to target your allies instead of you, so you have to provide some additional motivation not to just do that. In 4e these mechanics were very obvious and clearly defined, in 5e they're so nebulous and scattered that you might be forgiven for thinking it's something that just isn't available. Aggro Mechanics come in a lot of different forms, but generally fit a few distinct subcategories:
An interesting subtype of hard-ish control is damage splitting mechanics like the Redemption Paladin's aura or the spell Warding Bond. In a way you can consider these soft control, as they encourage the enemy to attack you so that they don't split damage, but I put them more in hard control since they take the option of concentrating damage on your charge or charges off the table altogether. The enemy can't focus their damage on the squishiest party member, at best they can split it 50/50 between the squishy and the tank. Though they do get to bypass your AC by doing this, so to make proper use of such abilities your resilience needs to come from more than just being hard to hit.
Hard control is obviously the most effective kind of control, but it also tends to allow saves or other means of resistance or escape, and is often single target. Multi-target hard control is incredibly powerful, but is also more typically the realm of dedicated control classes, like those squishy wizards we like to protect. The ideal scenario you're looking for here is for the party wizard and bard to ensnare the weak-saved minions with webs and hypnotic patterns while you lock down their tougher boss with something like the Sentinel feat. Then the party damage dudes can pick everything off at their leisure
Not all punishment mechanics are damage. A ranged enemy can target your ally without provoking an opportunity attack from you if they just sit still, but in that case they're "punished" by disadvantage on the attack. The protector fighting style similarly punishes an enemy for attacking an adjacent ally with disadvantage, while the interception style punishes such attacks with reduced damage. The key thing isn't just that the enemy's attacks are punished, though, it's that they're punished for attacking your allies instead of you. This creates the extra incentive to attack you, drawing attacks away from your allies. What you want here is not for the enemy to take the punishment, what you want is for them to be sufficiently afraid of taking that punishment that they choose to target you, the tank, instead.
There are lots of punishment mechanics in the game apart from the generic opportunity attack. A couple fighting styles were already mentioned. Compulsory Duel is an option here, though not a great one, imo, since it uses a spell slot, targets only a single enemy, and does nothing if they pass their save. At least it doesn't burn an action. Sentinel's option to make a reaction attack against enemies that target your allies is a great one. Booming Blade can be effective, particularly if you combine it with Warcaster to threaten extra deadly opportunity attacks for moving away from you. Anything else that can make an opportunity attack more dangerous helps here, from feats like Great Weapon Master to class features like Divine Smite. If your opportunity attack is strong enough, and the enemy weak or injured enough, then an opportunity attack can become a form of hard control by outright killing an enemy that provokes it before they get to attack at all. Getting away from reaction abilities, the armorer artificer's thunder gauntlets or the cavalier fighter's unwavering mark are good examples of punishment mechanics. There really are a lot of abilities that fall into this category, most of which are found in dedicated tanking subclasses like the Cavalier or Ancestral Guardian.
Lure features aren't just found in barbarians, though. Perhaps the most common way to draw enemy attention is to be concentrating on an important, battle-effecting spell, such that enemies will be motivated to attack you in the hope that you fail concentration. Obviously the most dramatic concentration spells will come from the party's full casters, but a half caster like the paladin can draw some significant heat this way as well via spells like Bless or Aura of Vitality. Non-spell-based party buffing features can also attract this sort of attention, though in the hope of knocking you out altogether instead of just breaking your concentration. Aura of Protection with a high charisma bonus on its own can draw a lot of heat, especially when combined with Bless, since it renders the most dangerous attacks of many enemies largely ineffective on allies under your protection. Of course, you don't want to /actually/ lose concentration on important buff spells, so if you're trying to attract aggro this way then it's worth investing in shoring up your concentration saves.
Area Control: So I talked a bit about defense and a lot about aggro, but another principle of tanking to consider is area denial. As with hard control, this is something that more typically falls under the auspices of a dedicated controller class, but as a tank you tank you want to be able to take and hold an area of the battlefield, to establish a defended position within which enemy options are limited and their offensive actions impaired, and/or where your allies are relatively safe. By default, your zone of influence is your weapon's reach, so a reach weapon can help here, though the reach property will come at the cost of AC (for two handed reach weapons like halberds) or damage (for a whip). A prime example of this in 5e is the combination of the feats Polearm Master and Sentinel with a reach weapon like a Glaive or Halberd. Your opportunity attack then extends out to 10 feet, and can stop one enemy a turn from either entering or leaving that zone, potentially more if some are convinced not to even try, or if you have extra opportunity attacks in a round from something like the cavalier fighter's 18th level feature. Though it's difficult to access on a tank (notably Crown Paladins get it), the Spirit Guardians spell is amazing for this. Spirit Shroud is a respectable alternative. The echo knight fighter's manifest echo ability is another great feature for this. The spell 'enlarge/reduce' used to increase your size can be amazing here, increasing the space you can physically occupy and the area your attacks threaten by default, and stacking particularly well with other area denial abilities. Darkness can also be effective here against sighted enemies so long as you have a means of working within it such as the devil's sight warlock invocation (now accessible via a feat) or the blind fighting combat style, but it can be problematic if your allies can't also work through it.
....
So... tanks can be useful, and there are some general tanking principles. We're in the paladin forum, so how would we apply those principles specifically to a tanky paladin build in this party?
First, lets list some of the features paladins have access to by default in our main categories:
That's a pretty solid set of base features there, so paladins who want to build as a tank have a good foundation to work from. Build on that foundation with a solid subclass choice. Conquest, redemption, ancients, watchers, & crown all have selling points, though their relevant features might come earlier (watcher's channel divinity at level 3) or later (crown's Spirit Guardians oath spell at level 9). My favorite is oath of Conquest for the way aura of conquest combines with Conquering Presence, Wrathful Smite, or Fear for effective hard control and area control against groups of weaker enemies. Stronger enemies are generally less vulnerable to frighten, having either good wisdom saves or outright immunity, but the paladin base class is already strong against individual powerful enemies, and the oath spell spiritual weapon helps there, too. But Conquerors have a bit of a sinister feel to them that can make it difficult to integrate them into some parties, so you might want to go with one of the others, all of which have their selling points.
Beyond subclasses, you'll want to look at your ASIs. There are solid feats for tanking the most notable being Sentinel, and you'll probably want that. You'll also probably be relying on concentration spells to some degree, so resilient constitution or war caster to shore up your concentration saves might be good. Other feats that are very strong for tanking include Inspiring Leader, Alert, and Polearm Master. That said, you really want a maxed out charisma to make your aura of protection as strong as it can be. And you might need charisma for save DCs on your spells and channel divinity, particularly if you take a subclass like Conqueror that relies on landing condition effects on enemies. You also can't let your weapon attack stat lag too far behind or your attacks won't be accurate enough to generate the kind of threat you want.
That's a lot of pressure on your ASIs, so you probably have to settle for maybe one or two most important feats to your build and let the rest go. Fancy, multi-feat combos like Polearm Master + Great Weapon Master + Sentinel are for fighters, who get extra ASIs and generally don't even have secondary stats to really spend them on, let alone co-primary stats like charisma is for paladins, particularly those that favor tanking & support.
For race, there are a few great options - Half Elf, Fallen Aasimar, Triton (for aquatic games), Eladrin (for the rare dex-primary paladin builds), and so on. More if your DM uses the "customizing your origin" rules from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. But you should at least strongly consider Variant Human for that bonus feat. Again, pressure on a paladin's ASIs is very tight, particularly for tanky support paladins. The human's bonus feat can be the difference between picking up a key feat like sentinel or resilient constitution at level one and not being able to fit it into your build at all.
Single Classed paladin is strong and good throughout, but there does hit a point where strong new features start to slow down a bit. Depending on build and subclass choices that might be as early as level 7 or might be as late as level 14. At no point do you need to multiclass to have a strong tanky paladin, but even so you might consider looking into levels of sorcerer, bard, or warlock (particularly hexblade) at some point in your progression. Such a multiclass can net you extra spells per day, defensive spells like Shield or Endure Elements, and useful features like bardic inspiration, metamagic, or warlock invocations. Hexblade in particular gives you Hex Warrior, which can ease up some of the pressure on your later ASIs by letting you use charisma for your attacks in addition to your auras and spellcasting. You have to stick to a one handed weapon, though, unless you're willing to commit 3 or more levels for blade boon (and even then I personally like chain boon better), but it is a strong option to consider.
Again, you don't need to multiclass to be effective, and doing so will cut into your max HP, and will cut off your access to strong end game paladin features like the oath capstones and expanded aura range (if you take more than two levels). Also, if you multiclass you'll probably want to pick up war caster, to make spellcasting easier while using a weapon and a shield (the Shield spell, for instance, can't be cast with your hands full without DM house rule intervention, even if you're holding a spellcasting focus), and that's putting more pressure on your ASIs, particularly since a first level variant human paladin can't get war caster as your bonus feat, since you're not technically a spell caster yet.
In my opinion tanking is locking down the most dangerous foes so that they cannot engage your more squishy party members. Effects like fear and slow are great for this purpose. A really solid option would be a Fallen Aasimar Conquest Paladin. For your bonus feat I would consider taking the Slasher feat to apply a speed reducing effect on your melee attacks once per turn. In terms of Fighting style I feel the best choices are Interception or Protection because keeping others alive is in the job description of a tank. So something along the lines of this might suit you:
Fallen Asimar
Bonus feat: Slasher (Strength)
Strength 16 (14+1 from racial bonus +1 from bonus feat)
Dexterity 8
Constitution 14
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 12
Charisma 16 (14+2 from racial bonus)
Straight away you melee attack can reduce speed and you have a once per long rest fear effect from Aasimar. Oath of Conquest then gives you another fear ability every short rest while adding powerful spells like Hold Person and Spiritual Weapon to your arsenal. Once you hit lvl 7 your fear effects get even stronger thanks to your aura dropping everything within 10 ft thats afraid of you to 0 speed.
Wait, Hold Up...
I didn't notice when I was writing that textbook above that this is for Curse of Strahd specifically. While Conquest is my favorite oath for tanky paladins in general, I don't especially recommend it for Curse of Strahd. Too many enemies in that campaign are immune to frighten, including a bunch who in other campaigns would normally be quite vulnerable to it. It's not terrible, there are some frighten vulnerable enemies, and spiritual weapon is still a strong oath spell, but it can get kind of frustrating.
I would instead recommend Redemption, Ancients, Watchers, or Devotion. I normally consider Devotion to be a more offensive oath, thanks to the sacred weapon channel divinity, but in ravenloft specifically Turn the Unholy is amazing and charm immunity from aura of devotion can be a real lifesaver.
Thanks for all of the responses and advice!
I'm playing a oath of the ancients paladin (Edit: I'm a half-elf) right now, I really enjoy the feel of the class, using the chef feat and proficiency with a lute. Just got access to the level 7 resistance vs spells but not sure how good it will do me really, still i'm enjoying the life and happy aspect of the character. Feels needed in this place ;)
That said, a Devotion paladin gets immunity to charmed status which can be pretty good now and then I imagine. More importantly they get Turn the Unholy and Sacred Weapon, adding your charisma modifier to hit for 1minute. And it becomes magic. This is good.
Oath of the Crown actually gives you the ability to force every creature (of your choice) within 30' to take a wisdom save or they cannot willingly move more than 30' away, so this could prevent things from attacking your squishier friends. They can also take a hit on a friend within 5', taking full damage instead of them.. Though at times the spell for Warding bond would just work better (they get that too).
Sentinel is a great feat for a protector btw but if you're going to use concentration spells you might want war caster if nothing else just to be able to cast spells with a shield. On the other hand, a devotion paladin with a greatsword and GWM feat could negate the -5 by using the Sacred weapon feature, which would let you do 2d6+13 at +3 to hit with just +2 proficiency bonus. A dead (not undead) opponent cant harm your friends.
Also, while I agree half elves make great paladins, don't underestimate half-orcs either. The ability to drop to 0 and ignore that by dropping to 1 instead is REALLY good. (They also make for great assassins with the autocrit from assassins and bonus damage on crits from half-orc).
And... Dragonborn make pretty good paladins, I'd suggest either a Gold or Silver variant, with the gold one being statistically better probably but the silver one being better just because I say so and it's cool :p Also being a paladin with good charisma you could probably make decent use of the Dragon Fear feat as well, possibly making all creatures within 30' frightened of you. There are a few things immune to this though, but you can use your breath on them instead.
Thanks Dot!