In a party, where is the Abjurer most effective?  Should he be in the front line fighting alongside Fighters and Barbarians or should he be in back with the Lore Bards and Illusionists?  

He has effectively as many hit points as the Fighter and Barbarian.  His ward makes it difficult to disrupt his concentration.  But, he’s still a Wizard.

He IS still just a Wizard.  : )

A particularly sturdy wizard, but a Wizard nonetheless...I would not place them on the front line in a prolonged conflict...if you can, get in, strike, and then GET OUT...

...but I'd hazard to say that they can at least hang somewhere in the middle of the party., between front-liners and the ranged attackers.

I have never played a “pure” Abjurer. My only experience was with Mark of Warding Dwarf, which grants Armor of Agathys spell.

Because of the incredible synergy between AoA & Arcane Ward, where my Wizard was able to leverage 15 THP from AoA and 14 HP from Arcane Ward at level 5, also delivering 15 cold damage back on each one who had hit him, I was often positioning him in the fray of the combat sharing the tank responsibility alongside the Barbarian. Careful spell management have ensured my Ward and THP were always up, which actually made my character really dangerous at melee.

Quote from Ir0ns0ul >>

I have never played a “pure” Abjurer. My only experience was with Mark of Warding Dwarf, which grants Armor of Agathys spell.

Because of the incredible synergy between AoA & Arcane Ward, where my Wizard was able to leverage 15 THP from AoA and 14 HP from Arcane Ward at level 5, also delivering 15 cold damage back on each one who had hit him, I was often positioning him in the fray of the combat sharing the tank responsibility alongside the Barbarian. Careful spell management have ensured my Ward and THP were always up, which actually made my character really dangerous at melee.

 

 Ah, yes...that specific dwarf character is incredibly sturdy for an Abjurer.

The higher-level spell-slots for "Armor of Agathys" makes it MUCH harder to bring you down...all the bonus Temp HP...constantly renewing your "Arcane Ward"...you'd be able to "hang" in melee a few rounds longer than your typical d6 spellcaster, definitely. 

Abjurer absolutely wants to be in the back. Don't forget that their Ward protects them... But you can also project the ward to protect other people at higher levels. So, if you're hanging out in the melee, you're basically having to devote your entire Ward to protect yourself, and effectively lose your level 6 ability. 

People do talk a lot about using Armor of Agyths on the Abjurer, but... well, its really not that much different from a Fiend Warlock. You get lots of temp HP (and ward in case of abjurer). You can add on more spells, like Fire Shield, so that if they hit you, the enemies will take lots of damage. Its a great combo- people really, really don't want to hit you, and if they do, you have a buffer, and its extra damage. Both Fiend and Abjurer have ways of boosting their effective HP throughout the day.

But I don't really think that this is a good use of your abilities. To put it bluntly... its only damage. Mage types are better spent focusing (and Concentrating) on spells that shape the field of battle. Even if you put up all those wards and Armor and Fire Shield spells, that makes you still a prime target for getting hit and breaking your Concentration. Or just getting hit by a Dispel Magic from the enemy mage. 

I agree with you, but this is the beauty of AoA + Arcane Ward. It’s a concentration-free mechanism which gives you huge durability (at level 5 we are talking about 21 points of “virtual” HP between the Ward and upcasted AoA THP), who aggressively retaliates back whomever dare to touch you. It’s one action setup at the first round. After that you are free to do Wizard shenanigans without the common fear of being a flimsy fellow. All it requires a dedicated micro-management of spell slots, Ward and THP tracking with some anticipated estimations about incoming damage to determine when you should replenish your Ward and/or recast AoA.

But of course you should adjust your tactics depending on the battle map, distance, positioning and number of enemies. You can do regular Wizard moves even before setting up your signature Abjurer combo, basic things like cast Web, Hypnotic Pattern or Slow against swarms, or cast Blindness against ranged or casters, or simply open the fight with a classic Fireball to cause serious damage to your enemies and then just follow-up with AoA to get them down. Remember that in the end of the day, you still are a Wizard full of bending-reality tricks, you just have an additional feature of getting more tanky than your Barbarian, heheh.

I'm familiar how it works. But that doesn't change the conclusion - standing in melee is still fundamentally BAD. You are still a priority target. Enemies will do their best to chew through your defenses. Defenses you need to either renew, and aren't casting spells to end the fight, or just lose the combo to be FUBAR in melee again. Either way, loss for you.

Or... just grapple the caster hands and silence them. Spellcaster neutralized, and grapples aren't hitting with attacks, so neither Ward nor AoA trigger.

Maintaing this also takes spell slots of increasing level to stay relevant - basically, you're burning your highest spell slots on this combo, when you could be casting spells to end the fight faster. You also lose the ability to project the ward, because you need to be selfish.

"Thorn tanks" sound fun on paper, but ultimately it has definite drawbacks that make it less than stellar.

Quote from Mephista >>

I'm familiar how it works. But that doesn't change the conclusion - standing in melee is still fundamentally BAD. You are still a priority target. Enemies will do their best to chew through your defenses. Defenses you need to either renew, and aren't casting spells to end the fight, or just lose the combo to be FUBAR in melee again. Either way, loss for you.

Or... just grapple the caster hands and silence them. Spellcaster neutralized, and grapples aren't hitting with attacks, so neither Ward nor AoA trigger.

Maintaing this also takes spell slots of increasing level to stay relevant - basically, you're burning your highest spell slots on this combo, when you could be casting spells to end the fight faster. You also lose the ability to project the ward, because you need to be selfish.

"Thorn tanks" sound fun on paper, but ultimately it has definite drawbacks that make it less than stellar.

 

 Your whole argument seems to rest on the assertion that melee fighters do nothing to end the fight.  I’m not sure that assertion holds water.

My argument is that Aburations aren't good in melee. The presence of other party members has no bearing on that. 

Quote from Mephista >>

My argument is that Aburations aren't good in melee. The presence of other party members has no bearing on that. 

 Abjurations aren’t good in melee?  I would argue that. Stone skin, Protection from Good / Evil, etc. shine brightest in melee.

Honestly I would probably just stick in the backline and just use AoA + Arcane Ward as a backup in case something does hit me. Being a thorns tank sounds great, and probably is great considering this gives you more health a average barbarian (ignoring rage). So in reality what Mephista states is a con, is actually a pro.

I'm familiar how it works. But that doesn't change the conclusion - standing in melee is still fundamentally BAD. You are still a priority target. Enemies will do their best to chew through your defenses. Defenses you need to either renew, and aren't casting spells to end the fight, or just lose the combo to be FUBAR in melee again. Either way, loss for you.

 

Using the numbers that Ir0ns0ul provided cause I'm lazy, you would have more hp than a average barbarian and definitely more hp than the fighter. Enemies chewing through your defenses is the exact purpose of this build (it damages them- a ton and they will very quickly realize that fighting you is a bad idea- you don't even make concentration saves cause ward).

While fighters have AC, and barbarian have rage, Abjurers have being able to spam more Armor Of AoA to heal both temp hp and ward.

Or... just grapple the caster hands and silence them. Spellcaster neutralized, and grapples aren't hitting with attacks, so neither Ward nor AoA trigger.

 

That's a homebrew I think, unless your monsters have the Grappler feat.

Edit: Besides, if a monster can grapple the caster hands, why not just grapple the barbarian's greataxe? At least then you only need to grapple one hand (unless the barbarian has a backup handaxe) instead of both.

Maintaing this also takes spell slots of increasing level to stay relevant - basically, you're burning your highest spell slots on this combo, when you could be casting spells to end the fight faster. You also lose the ability to project the ward, because you need to be selfish.

 

True this is a real con. The losing ability to project ward isn't that bad, cause your still preventing damage with the ward hp, so it's basically the same thing. But the whole spell slots thing yeah.

The other real con is that there's not much reason to be out in front, monsters are just going to not attack you once you deal a ton of damage from thorns. Most of the spells you want to cast work just as well in the backline as it in the frontline, and you don't have the Extra Attack like a bladesinger to actually do decent melee damage.

Edit: Yeah as I said, I would use this in the back and just be a cool trick if a monster is stupid enough to try to attack you.

I keep coming back to the unspoken assumption that a Wizard is a fundamentally better class than a Fighter.  I just don’t believe that’s true.  Likewise, I just don’t believe that a Controller is a fundamentally better role than a Defender.

The argument that an Abjurer shouldn’t try to be a Defender because then he couldn’t be a Controller rests on that unspoken assumption.

An argument could be made that an Abjurer makes a better Controller than Defender, but that argument hasn’t really been made and there’s plenty of counter-arguments to it (such as that the Abjurer has more hit points than a Fighter and other defenses).

A fifth level Abjurer with Haste is either

A : doing 4d8 * 2 damage per round (assuming they have a d8 weapon) with Booming Blade (assuming the bad guy moves)

or

B : doing 2d8 * 2 and immobilizing and keeping the bad guys off the party’s back row of PCs.

And breaking concentration from damage received is not an issue because of ward

All for the cost of one spell and this doesn’t even require multi-classing. 

I know it gets a little more complicated than that, but I’m trying to keep things simple

My point is that that compares well to the Fighter.

The issue is:

Spell slots are always going to be used on keeping AoA alive (you don't have the AC of a fighter, nor the rage of a barbarian, so you have to spend spell slots instead).

Melee dps is kinda terrible, and if you do anything else monsters are just going to walk around you.

At least it's somewhat good at tanking with the whole "if you move you take extra damage", but the person will probably just attack the fighter or some other frontliner who is doing much more than cantrip damage.

Quote from 4yulming4 >>

Melee dps is kinda terrible

 looking at my example, I don’t think 4d8 * 2 is kinda terrible at 5th level

And this is the amazing beauty of Abjuration spells and Arcane Ward synergy. If you want to avoid a big hit and regen your Ward at the same time, simply cast Shield.

Haste allows you to use the Attack action. A cantrip does not count as part of the attack action. Besides, even if it did your still doing slightly more damage than a fighter, assuming that somehow all your Int (Ward), Con (else you will have worse hp than the fighter), and Dex (cause you need to hit with the rapier for Booming Blade to work) are matched with the fighter.

Although you could drop CON if you trust your ward enough, if your using AoA then yeah I can see that argument cause nothing is going to want to hit you in the first place.

Bladesinger is a bit of a edge case RAW, but even then it's two specific rules that are opposite of each other, and you just have to determine if haste is more specific than bladersinger or not. Most DMs will rule that no you can't use a cantrip with your hasted action ever even with bladesinger because that's overpowered and they would probably be right.

Edit: For reference, a cantrip is considered a Cast A Spell action. Although I do admit you still aren't a bad tank, your just not a amazing tank. You can certainly make a decent abjurer tank, but that's highly specialized and in the end you get a build that's ehh.

Of course, an ehh build will fit in perfectly fine in most games, so this will still work as long as your not running a game of intense survival and combat where each party member needs to be perfect in their line of work that is.

Besides, should all else fail you can just run away and use your normal wizard stuff and be perfectly fine. It's really not a bad build, it's just not amazing.

Quote from 4yulming4 >>

Haste allows you to use the Attack action. A cantrip does not count as part of the attack action. Besides, even if it did your still doing slightly more damage than a fighter, assuming that somehow all your Int (Ward), Con (else you will have worse hp than the fighter), and Dex (cause you need to hit with the rapier for Booming Blade to work) are matched with the fighter.

Although you could drop CON if you trust your ward enough, if your using AoA then yeah I can see that argument cause nothing is going to want to hit you in the first place.

Bladesinger is a bit of a edge case RAW, but even then it's two specific rules that are opposite of each other, and you just have to determine if haste is more specific than bladersinger or not. Most DMs will rule that no you can't use a cantrip with your hasted action ever even with bladesinger because that's overpowered and they would probably be right.

Edit: For reference, a cantrip is considered a Cast A Spell action. Although I do admit you still aren't a bad tank, your just not a amazing tank. You can certainly make a decent abjurer tank, but that's highly specialized and in the end you get a build that's ehh.

Of course, an ehh build will fit in perfectly fine in most games, so this will still work as long as your not running a game of intense survival and combat where each party member needs to be perfect in their line of work that is.

Besides, should all else fail you can just run away and use your normal wizard stuff and be perfectly fine. It's really not a bad build, it's just not amazing.

 The point isn’t to build an amazing tank, but a decent one comparable to a fighter.

The abjurer is a full caster.  He's not a martial.  Don't confuse the ability to soak a hit or two with his ward as being a front liner.  Do what wizards do best, stand in the back and do wizard things.  If your positioning fails, you have your ward to help get you out of the bind.

As for the post above this one...the abjurer isn't a decent martial compared to a fighter.

Quote from Mephista >>

My argument is that Aburations aren't good in melee. The presence of other party members has no bearing on that. 

 This is the way.

Edit: Besides, if a monster can grapple the caster hands, why not just grapple the barbarian's greataxe? At least then you only need to grapple one hand (unless the barbarian has a backup handaxe) instead of both.

Enemies do, indeed, try to grapple and disarm (DMG combat options) characters all the time in my games. Barbarians are exceptionally good at resisting them, however,  as they get advantage on the check from Rage on both the rolls.