When I presented my build to some people one here, one implied I was trying to make a Warlock tank. That got me thinking: is that such a bad idea? How would I go about making it a proper tank besides the boatload of HP and recovery I already have? Go with the speedy feat to get into melee faster? Get higher dex to go sooner in combat? Forgo my Eldritch Blast and Eldritch Invocations associated with it in favor of more in your face spells like booming blade or green flame blade? (I still haven’t figured out how you give Agonizing Blast to a spell besides Eldritch Blast).
Truth be told I appreciate being more of a Gish, but I am just curious and wondered what steps I could maybe take over some of the ones I did to make myself tankier without taking away too much.
Being a tank is basically the opposite of a mage. A tank wants to wade into combat and therefore be hit and get hit. If you are attacking opponent swings that allows the mages in the rear to do their damage.
A tank has a pretty specific meaning.
You want to be I assume a big offensive dealer in damage via melee combat aka one on one fighting?
You need access to armor and shield? or dop you want 2 weapon fighting? Pact of the blade promotes single weapon.
If you want to do 2 weapon fighting that of course requires a different build.
If you want more offense, you may want to look at either a Barbarian or a fighter, depending on how many levels. Doing 19 levels of warlock is probably not a great min-max of stats. SO how high do you want to go with the melee class? To capture that ASI feat, you might want to go 4 levels of melee. Getting a 5th may not matter, but a 6th fighter gets you that another ASI feat.
You want to be I assume a big offensive dealer in damage via melee combat aka one on one fighting?
well… not really, no. Just defensive with high hit points and ways to ensure the opponent hits you instead of your teammates.
Defense wise I’m carrying a rapier and shield with medium armor. I suppose if i dumped my dexterity and wisdom I could get a 15 in Strength to use Heavy Armor without the penalty that wouldn’t let me get in front of people fast enough. Is Heavy Armor that much better? On a similar note, as long as I’m going high in strength and charisma, what about a Paladin/Warlock?
How do you mean 19 is not a good min-max? I’m only behind one level in progression, and the 20th level ability we get for warlocks we get half of at level 2. If you mean taking even least in warlock in favor of something else, I guess it just depends on the abilities we get in it’s place. While there’s nothing I could do about loosing True Polymorph at Warlock level 17, I can get an epic boon feat at what ver level 19 or 20 happens to be.
You do mention barbarians, and they have great abilities like reckless attack that encourage enemies to hit you while getting a bonus to hit yourself. I’ve heard of barbarian/fiend warlocks with similar levels, but I wonder if a barbarian/celestial warlock could work?
As a high damage melee fighting PC, you need more melee levels. That is why a 19th level warlock is not a good min max. As a mage that can fight, then 19th level is good.
Barbarian/Warlock has one sticking point, no spells while raging. As you do not always need to rage when you fight, this can work, but it also means when you are doing melee combat, you basically need to be spell free. It was mentioned that Eldritch Invocations can be used when raging.
Barbarian/Warlock need to separate out when you would use spells and when you would be swinging in rage. That separation is very doable, as long as you understand it and have acted accordingly when you pick spells. Obviously, truestrike/blooming blade/Hex/Hunger for Hadar/etc. will not work. But Armor of Agysta (sic) will work.
Heavy Armor generally ignores your dex. Medium allows up to a +2 dex bonus. So plate armor is 18AC. If you have (magical) medium or light armor with a dex bonus still = 18, then no, plate is not necessarily better.
...and ways to ensure the opponent hits you instead of your teammates.
Look at it from the other side's POV. What makes your party see an actual opponent and decide that foe is the top target priority? It usually comes down to how much offensive damage can be received versus how easy to destroy. If your defense is really high, but you offensive damage is below average, the opponents will not gravitate toward you. If you have high offensive damage, then the opponents are more likely to target you.
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When I presented my build to some people one here, one implied I was trying to make a Warlock tank. That got me thinking: is that such a bad idea? How would I go about making it a proper tank besides the boatload of HP and recovery I already have? Go with the speedy feat to get into melee faster? Get higher dex to go sooner in combat? Forgo my Eldritch Blast and Eldritch Invocations associated with it in favor of more in your face spells like booming blade or green flame blade? (I still haven’t figured out how you give Agonizing Blast to a spell besides Eldritch Blast).
Truth be told I appreciate being more of a Gish, but I am just curious and wondered what steps I could maybe take over some of the ones I did to make myself tankier without taking away too much.
www.dndbeyond.com/sheet-pdfs/Actionsparda_150088777.pdf
Being a tank is basically the opposite of a mage. A tank wants to wade into combat and therefore be hit and get hit. If you are attacking opponent swings that allows the mages in the rear to do their damage.
A tank has a pretty specific meaning.
You want to be I assume a big offensive dealer in damage via melee combat aka one on one fighting?
You need access to armor and shield? or dop you want 2 weapon fighting? Pact of the blade promotes single weapon.
If you want to do 2 weapon fighting that of course requires a different build.
If you want more offense, you may want to look at either a Barbarian or a fighter, depending on how many levels. Doing 19 levels of warlock is probably not a great min-max of stats. SO how high do you want to go with the melee class? To capture that ASI feat, you might want to go 4 levels of melee. Getting a 5th may not matter, but a 6th fighter gets you that another ASI feat.
well… not really, no. Just defensive with high hit points and ways to ensure the opponent hits you instead of your teammates.
Defense wise I’m carrying a rapier and shield with medium armor. I suppose if i dumped my dexterity and wisdom I could get a 15 in Strength to use Heavy Armor without the penalty that wouldn’t let me get in front of people fast enough. Is Heavy Armor that much better? On a similar note, as long as I’m going high in strength and charisma, what about a Paladin/Warlock?
How do you mean 19 is not a good min-max? I’m only behind one level in progression, and the 20th level ability we get for warlocks we get half of at level 2. If you mean taking even least in warlock in favor of something else, I guess it just depends on the abilities we get in it’s place. While there’s nothing I could do about loosing True Polymorph at Warlock level 17, I can get an epic boon feat at what ver level 19 or 20 happens to be.
You do mention barbarians, and they have great abilities like reckless attack that encourage enemies to hit you while getting a bonus to hit yourself. I’ve heard of barbarian/fiend warlocks with similar levels, but I wonder if a barbarian/celestial warlock could work?
As a high damage melee fighting PC, you need more melee levels. That is why a 19th level warlock is not a good min max. As a mage that can fight, then 19th level is good.
Barbarian/Warlock has one sticking point, no spells while raging. As you do not always need to rage when you fight, this can work, but it also means when you are doing melee combat, you basically need to be spell free. It was mentioned that Eldritch Invocations can be used when raging.
Barbarian/Warlock need to separate out when you would use spells and when you would be swinging in rage. That separation is very doable, as long as you understand it and have acted accordingly when you pick spells. Obviously, truestrike/blooming blade/Hex/Hunger for Hadar/etc. will not work. But Armor of Agysta (sic) will work.
Heavy Armor generally ignores your dex. Medium allows up to a +2 dex bonus. So plate armor is 18AC. If you have (magical) medium or light armor with a dex bonus still = 18, then no, plate is not necessarily better.
Look at it from the other side's POV. What makes your party see an actual opponent and decide that foe is the top target priority? It usually comes down to how much offensive damage can be received versus how easy to destroy. If your defense is really high, but you offensive damage is below average, the opponents will not gravitate toward you. If you have high offensive damage, then the opponents are more likely to target you.