I created a Variant Human Eldritch Knight / War Wizard tank. 'Twas awesome as a tank and had good utility and decent damage too. The campaign he was in involved very generous stats, so I went 20 DEX, 20 CON, 14 INT. Mainly used my spells for Shield and Absorb Elements with the other spells focused on rituals. With light armor, he had 20 AC (before Shield / Arcane Deflection) and great saves (except WIS, but even then Arcane Deflection rocks). I love martial-magic builds like this.
However, assuming you don't have incredible stats right off the bat, this is what I'd do:
Arcane Trickster 3 (possibly 4 for the ASI/Feat) and the rest in War Wizard. Uncanny Dodge is helpful for this build, but it kind of competes with your ability to liberally use Shield, Absorb Elements, and Arcane Deflection as your reaction.
Go Variant Human if you can for the Moderately Armored Feat (for shields, but ) and then get Warcaster as a Feat ASAP (so you can cast Shield as a reaction).
For stats, you don't need more than 13 INT especially since you can easily use a crossbow at range if needed. DEX only needs to be 14 at minimum (but go higher if you can). CON should be as high as you can make it, though DEX should obviously be your best stat). Dump WIS, CHA, and STR. Your saves will be good because of Arcane Deflection (which can function as a mini-shield).
For cantrips, Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade are obviously your best bets.
As you level up, focus on utility and buff spells without attacks or saves. And Counterspell. You'll be doing most of your damage via your melee cantrip attacks like GFB and BB anyway, and those spell slots will keep you alive and at higher levels make you annoying to fight.
Because of the reliance on Feats, anything other than a Variant Human isn't ideal. But if you can triple-multiclass, you could get away with putting a level into Arcana Cleric or something and picking one of those races. Without knowing what stats you're working with, it's hard to say for sure.
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Blood Frenzy. The quipper has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn't have all its hit points.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
I've actually theory crafted a tank rogue and think it could work well and be very interesting to play!
It takes levels in Rogue Swashbuckler and Fighter. It comes online after you take the sentinel feet and really comes online after you take the Heavy Armor Master feat. If you take Varient Human, you can take one of those right away. Then take the other at 4. If you went something else, then you could take Heavy Armor Master at 8, or ignore it altogether if your DM is throwing lots of magic items and spells out at you. The feat does nothing against magic items and spells.
Here is the starting breakdown for levels:
Rogue 1
Fighter 1 - Take the Defense fighting style for one more AC.
Rogue 2
Rogue 3 - Swashbuckler
Rogue 4 - Take Sentinel or Heavy Armor Master feat. Sentinel should be your first feat.
Rogue 5
Here is how it works: Sneak attack damage only requires you use a finesse weapon. It never says you have to use your dexterity for the rolls on the weapon. Thus, you're going to use a Rapier but use your strength for attack and damage roles. Having high strength and a level in fighter lets you use heavy armor and you can use a shield. If an enemy targets your teammate with you standing next to the enemy, you get an attack granted to you by Sentinel and you get sneak attack damage. If they target you, your AC is very high and if they hit you, subtract 3 damage from normal weapon attacks and use your reaction to halve that damage. If they roll a 19 and attack your buddy to deal 21 damage to them, you turn around and hit them for 1d8+strength+3d6 sneak attack damage using your reaction. If they instead attack you with that 19, they hit you for 18 instead of 21 but then you can use your reaction to turn that into a 9. On your turn, you can attack with your rapier with sneak attack and then use your bonus action to heal using second wind.
Stats - Strength and Constitution are primary, Charisma is secondary, every thing else is a dump stat. You don't need high Dex and won't be sneaking about in this build. High HP is very important as your primary hit Die is a d8.
After level 6, you have a lot of options. You could continue in rogue forever and get max sneak attack dice. You could alternatively take more levels in fighter for action surge, a subclass, and extra attack, but otherwise take the rest of the levels in rogue (this I think is your best option). You could also split levels in rogue and fighter more evenly.
The subclasses that work best for this, in my opinion, are Champion for Improved Critical, or Samurai for Fighting Spirit. Battle master could work too to take goading strike for when you really need the enemy to attack you and not your ally.
I have a dex Rogue tank theory craft that I'm pretty proud of. The build requires a Variant Human to have armor at level 1, but you could take a level of fighter if you wanted a different race.
Level 0: Vuman:
Point Buy Stats - 8 STR, 15 DEX, 16 CON, 14 INT, 8 WIS, 12 CHA
Feat - Moderately Armored (+1 DEX)
Level 1-5: All Rogue (Arcane Trickster) and take War Caster for your ASI. I recommend find familiar and booming blade as spells. Booming Blade makes it hard for enemies to escape and War Caster let's you cast Booming Blade in place of an opportunity attack. Because of how Booming Blade is worded you can get off 2 of it's movement triggers when they try to escape (the Booming Energy hits them before they provoke an opportunity attack) which is even better than sentinel forcing them to stay as far as I'm concerned. Add in your familiar giving you advantage on nearly every attack and you are a monster in Melee despite sword and board.
I have never seen a Rogue Tank it. It is very hard to tank without Heavy Armor. Hence the word 'tank'. Basically, you either need to take Fighter/Cleric/Paladin as your first level or at least or take a Cleric that gets a Domain that grants Heavy Armor, such as Forge later on.
The best you get with Medium armor is AC 17, and that's with the same Stealth Disadvantage you get with Heavy armor. Even with a shield, that's only 19.
Heavy Armor gets you to 18, Shield brings it to 20. With Protection fighting style that makes it 21.
People think they can do that with Barbarian or Monk (10+5 for Dex +5 for Wisdom/Con). But by the time you get that, the Fighter gets magic armor and shield.
The only tank I know that is not wearing Armor is the Moon Druid because they eat the hit points in Wild Shape and laugh it off.
Rogue/Bladesinger made using point buy can have 19 AC w/bladesong by level 6, 20 by level 10, with up to 25 using "shield", which is probably the most valuable use of spellslots. Rogue Tank is absolutely viable.
Rogue tank is viable. They end up 1AC lower than heavy armor users, but can feasibly kite enemies drawing opportunity attacks from allies. They also can use uncanny dodge to halve damage when they get hit, and defensive duelist to boost AC.
my build has been. VHuman (med armor, +dex) dex, Cha Half-Plate and Shield
Swashbuckler
8, 17, 14, 10, 12, 14
4-weapon master (flavor)
8-defensive duelist
10- dex20
12- mage slayer
16- tough
19- con 16
With +3s you end up with 24-25 ac (30 if you use DD) and advantage on spell saves within 5’ of the caster. Plus 10d6+wep pretty much every turn. Your HP is in the low 200s which is again, viable.
For rogue tanking it’s not about standing in the pocket, it’s about fighting smart. Use persuasion/intimidation to goad it. It’s not magically forcing them to attack you, it’s just being a pain in the ass and making them want to fight you. You are a little more item dependent (displacer cloak ftw) but for me it’s about playing a character rather than optimization.
The fundamental problem with a rogue tank is the following question - "how difficult is it to Sneak Attack while trying to tank?"
There's two sides to being a tank. The first is being able to take a hit and keep on going. High AC and Evasion mitigates most of this, and rogues can do this part of tanking pretty well.
The second side is the ability to attract enemy attention onto yourself. The point of being a tank is to have enemies focus on you over your allies; there's a reason tanks were originally called "meat shields." If you're just super high AC, but can't hit worth jack, then enemies are simply going to ignore you and go to hit your allies.
And that's where rogue tanks run into a problem. In order to consistently pull off Sneak Attack, they need to either use Cunning Action to angle for a Advantage, or rely on someone else to stand nearby so you can smack them. You'll never be able to just plant yourself in the middle of a bridge and trade blows with the BBEG.
this is why I said I’d choose swashbuckler. Rakish Audacity allows you to sneak attack without flanking or having advantage. Fancy Footwork allows you to move out of an enemies threat range without incurring AoOs. There is a way to allow rogues to stand in the pocket and trade blows with feats/items but tanks also control battlefields; with hit-move-talk smack rogues are kite tanks.
and the talking smack is only insults on injuries with potentially 10d6+1d8+5+etc every turn.
Well, I was more addressing the OP and the idea of using an Arcane Trickster, rather than Swashbuckler, though I admit that I wasn't clear enough in my choice words.
Admittedly, Panache is admittedly a decent taunting ability, and Rakish Audacity does work well to provide sneak attack more consistently, though I'm really not happy with the former requiring an action and shared language, and the latter having a tendency to leave your allies open if there's more than one enemy.
My bad. I agree arcane trickster doesn’t seem a good choice to even attempt a tank. And panache isn’t bad but you’re right, I wouldn’t waste the action unless i couldn’t get to the enemy attacking an ally and wanted to put disadvantage on their attack. The taunting wouldn’t be magical it would just be RP talking smack and trying to goad a single enemy into following my dumbass.
Rogue tanking has some disadvantages but idk sometimes I like a challenging build rather than a stereotype. And worst case you’re a solid secondary tank for your fighter/pally to lean on in tougher fights.
Playing an AT/EK Halfling with two Shortswords (currently 3/3). Using Mage Armor and Two-Weapon Fighting (has Shield in his back pocket). Owl familiar gives advantage. Two-attacks per round with sneak attack every turn, with Booming Blade. Lots of cantrips, some useful spells. He's pretty tanky.
Rogue/Bladesinger made using point buy can have 19 AC w/bladesong by level 6, 20 by level 10, with up to 25 using "shield", which is probably the most valuable use of spellslots. Rogue Tank is absolutely viable.
I disagree. Fighters get it for free. Rogue Tanks use up valuable resources to get it. When you are done, you are left with a 2nd rate Tank.
Bladesong is an important, powerful feature which you just spent to get less AC than a Fighter or Paladin.
A single class Eldritch Knight with +3 plate and shield is AC 26, then adds the Shield spell brings it to AC 31. AC 31 beats AC 25. And he gets to action surge (you get the 2nd level ability of bladesong, he gets his action surge). Which could be a Dodge, making it AC 31 with disadvantage. But more likely it will be used to kill you.
Doing some theorycrafting and attempting to build a tank type rogue.
I have come up with the idea of going Rogue (Arcane Trickster) and maybe multiclass into bladesinger or war mage.
What do people think of this idea?
My race choices are between:
Halfling or Elf (for racial bonuses)
Hobgoblin or other (for playing against racial bonuses)
I created a Variant Human Eldritch Knight / War Wizard tank. 'Twas awesome as a tank and had good utility and decent damage too. The campaign he was in involved very generous stats, so I went 20 DEX, 20 CON, 14 INT. Mainly used my spells for Shield and Absorb Elements with the other spells focused on rituals. With light armor, he had 20 AC (before Shield / Arcane Deflection) and great saves (except WIS, but even then Arcane Deflection rocks). I love martial-magic builds like this.
However, assuming you don't have incredible stats right off the bat, this is what I'd do:
Arcane Trickster 3 (possibly 4 for the ASI/Feat) and the rest in War Wizard. Uncanny Dodge is helpful for this build, but it kind of competes with your ability to liberally use Shield, Absorb Elements, and Arcane Deflection as your reaction.
Go Variant Human if you can for the Moderately Armored Feat (for shields, but ) and then get Warcaster as a Feat ASAP (so you can cast Shield as a reaction).
For stats, you don't need more than 13 INT especially since you can easily use a crossbow at range if needed. DEX only needs to be 14 at minimum (but go higher if you can). CON should be as high as you can make it, though DEX should obviously be your best stat). Dump WIS, CHA, and STR. Your saves will be good because of Arcane Deflection (which can function as a mini-shield).
For cantrips, Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade are obviously your best bets.
As you level up, focus on utility and buff spells without attacks or saves. And Counterspell. You'll be doing most of your damage via your melee cantrip attacks like GFB and BB anyway, and those spell slots will keep you alive and at higher levels make you annoying to fight.
Because of the reliance on Feats, anything other than a Variant Human isn't ideal. But if you can triple-multiclass, you could get away with putting a level into Arcana Cleric or something and picking one of those races. Without knowing what stats you're working with, it's hard to say for sure.
Blood Frenzy. The quipper has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn't have all its hit points.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
I've actually theory crafted a tank rogue and think it could work well and be very interesting to play!
It takes levels in Rogue Swashbuckler and Fighter. It comes online after you take the sentinel feet and really comes online after you take the Heavy Armor Master feat. If you take Varient Human, you can take one of those right away. Then take the other at 4. If you went something else, then you could take Heavy Armor Master at 8, or ignore it altogether if your DM is throwing lots of magic items and spells out at you. The feat does nothing against magic items and spells.
Here is the starting breakdown for levels:
Here is how it works: Sneak attack damage only requires you use a finesse weapon. It never says you have to use your dexterity for the rolls on the weapon. Thus, you're going to use a Rapier but use your strength for attack and damage roles. Having high strength and a level in fighter lets you use heavy armor and you can use a shield. If an enemy targets your teammate with you standing next to the enemy, you get an attack granted to you by Sentinel and you get sneak attack damage. If they target you, your AC is very high and if they hit you, subtract 3 damage from normal weapon attacks and use your reaction to halve that damage. If they roll a 19 and attack your buddy to deal 21 damage to them, you turn around and hit them for 1d8+strength+3d6 sneak attack damage using your reaction. If they instead attack you with that 19, they hit you for 18 instead of 21 but then you can use your reaction to turn that into a 9. On your turn, you can attack with your rapier with sneak attack and then use your bonus action to heal using second wind.
Stats - Strength and Constitution are primary, Charisma is secondary, every thing else is a dump stat. You don't need high Dex and won't be sneaking about in this build. High HP is very important as your primary hit Die is a d8.
After level 6, you have a lot of options. You could continue in rogue forever and get max sneak attack dice. You could alternatively take more levels in fighter for action surge, a subclass, and extra attack, but otherwise take the rest of the levels in rogue (this I think is your best option). You could also split levels in rogue and fighter more evenly.
The subclasses that work best for this, in my opinion, are Champion for Improved Critical, or Samurai for Fighting Spirit. Battle master could work too to take goading strike for when you really need the enemy to attack you and not your ally.
If you take fighter at level 2 then you don't get heavy armor proficiency because of multiclassing rules.
I have a dex Rogue tank theory craft that I'm pretty proud of. The build requires a Variant Human to have armor at level 1, but you could take a level of fighter if you wanted a different race.
Level 0: Vuman:
Point Buy Stats - 8 STR, 15 DEX, 16 CON, 14 INT, 8 WIS, 12 CHA
Feat - Moderately Armored (+1 DEX)
Level 1-5: All Rogue (Arcane Trickster) and take War Caster for your ASI. I recommend find familiar and booming blade as spells. Booming Blade makes it hard for enemies to escape and War Caster let's you cast Booming Blade in place of an opportunity attack. Because of how Booming Blade is worded you can get off 2 of it's movement triggers when they try to escape (the Booming Energy hits them before they provoke an opportunity attack) which is even better than sentinel forcing them to stay as far as I'm concerned. Add in your familiar giving you advantage on nearly every attack and you are a monster in Melee despite sword and board.
I have never seen a Rogue Tank it. It is very hard to tank without Heavy Armor. Hence the word 'tank'. Basically, you either need to take Fighter/Cleric/Paladin as your first level or at least or take a Cleric that gets a Domain that grants Heavy Armor, such as Forge later on.
The best you get with Medium armor is AC 17, and that's with the same Stealth Disadvantage you get with Heavy armor. Even with a shield, that's only 19.
Heavy Armor gets you to 18, Shield brings it to 20. With Protection fighting style that makes it 21.
People think they can do that with Barbarian or Monk (10+5 for Dex +5 for Wisdom/Con). But by the time you get that, the Fighter gets magic armor and shield.
The only tank I know that is not wearing Armor is the Moon Druid because they eat the hit points in Wild Shape and laugh it off.
Rogue/Bladesinger made using point buy can have 19 AC w/bladesong by level 6, 20 by level 10, with up to 25 using "shield", which is probably the most valuable use of spellslots. Rogue Tank is absolutely viable.
Rogue tank is viable. They end up 1AC lower than heavy armor users, but can feasibly kite enemies drawing opportunity attacks from allies. They also can use uncanny dodge to halve damage when they get hit, and defensive duelist to boost AC.
my build has been.
VHuman (med armor, +dex) dex, Cha
Half-Plate and Shield
Swashbuckler
8, 17, 14, 10, 12, 14
4-weapon master (flavor)
8-defensive duelist
10- dex20
12- mage slayer
16- tough
19- con 16
With +3s you end up with 24-25 ac (30 if you use DD) and advantage on spell saves within 5’ of the caster. Plus 10d6+wep pretty much every turn. Your HP is in the low 200s which is again, viable.
For rogue tanking it’s not about standing in the pocket, it’s about fighting smart. Use persuasion/intimidation to goad it. It’s not magically forcing them to attack you, it’s just being a pain in the ass and making them want to fight you. You are a little more item dependent (displacer cloak ftw) but for me it’s about playing a character rather than optimization.
The fundamental problem with a rogue tank is the following question - "how difficult is it to Sneak Attack while trying to tank?"
There's two sides to being a tank. The first is being able to take a hit and keep on going. High AC and Evasion mitigates most of this, and rogues can do this part of tanking pretty well.
The second side is the ability to attract enemy attention onto yourself. The point of being a tank is to have enemies focus on you over your allies; there's a reason tanks were originally called "meat shields." If you're just super high AC, but can't hit worth jack, then enemies are simply going to ignore you and go to hit your allies.
And that's where rogue tanks run into a problem. In order to consistently pull off Sneak Attack, they need to either use Cunning Action to angle for a Advantage, or rely on someone else to stand nearby so you can smack them. You'll never be able to just plant yourself in the middle of a bridge and trade blows with the BBEG.
Mephista,
this is why I said I’d choose swashbuckler. Rakish Audacity allows you to sneak attack without flanking or having advantage. Fancy Footwork allows you to move out of an enemies threat range without incurring AoOs. There is a way to allow rogues to stand in the pocket and trade blows with feats/items but tanks also control battlefields; with hit-move-talk smack rogues are kite tanks.
and the talking smack is only insults on injuries with potentially 10d6+1d8+5+etc every turn.
Well, I was more addressing the OP and the idea of using an Arcane Trickster, rather than Swashbuckler, though I admit that I wasn't clear enough in my choice words.
Admittedly, Panache is admittedly a decent taunting ability, and Rakish Audacity does work well to provide sneak attack more consistently, though I'm really not happy with the former requiring an action and shared language, and the latter having a tendency to leave your allies open if there's more than one enemy.
My bad. I agree arcane trickster doesn’t seem a good choice to even attempt a tank. And panache isn’t bad but you’re right, I wouldn’t waste the action unless i couldn’t get to the enemy attacking an ally and wanted to put disadvantage on their attack. The taunting wouldn’t be magical it would just be RP talking smack and trying to goad a single enemy into following my dumbass.
Rogue tanking has some disadvantages but idk sometimes I like a challenging build rather than a stereotype. And worst case you’re a solid secondary tank for your fighter/pally to lean on in tougher fights.
Playing an AT/EK Halfling with two Shortswords (currently 3/3). Using Mage Armor and Two-Weapon Fighting (has Shield in his back pocket). Owl familiar gives advantage. Two-attacks per round with sneak attack every turn, with Booming Blade. Lots of cantrips, some useful spells. He's pretty tanky.
I disagree. Fighters get it for free. Rogue Tanks use up valuable resources to get it. When you are done, you are left with a 2nd rate Tank.
Bladesong is an important, powerful feature which you just spent to get less AC than a Fighter or Paladin.
A single class Eldritch Knight with +3 plate and shield is AC 26, then adds the Shield spell brings it to AC 31. AC 31 beats AC 25. And he gets to action surge (you get the 2nd level ability of bladesong, he gets his action surge). Which could be a Dodge, making it AC 31 with disadvantage. But more likely it will be used to kill you.
+3 plate?