I want to build a Tank that can manage hostiles and control the battlefield while the rest of the team burns them down.

Building a Shield and Spear Fighter. Shield Wall type character for battlefield control. I will be blocking and intercepting for a team that is mostly ranged.

Relatively new to 5E so not sure about this build.  Any tips or critics appreciated.

Variant Human
Background: Mercenary Veteran
Starting campaign at level 5.
STATS: Battle Master

Feats
LVL 1 Shield Master
LVL 4 Polearm Master
LVL 6 Sentinel
LVL 8 Charger
LVL 10+ Stats

Fighting Styles in order of preference;
Protection
Defence
Duelling

I have a few concerns;

Polemaster competing with Protection Fighting Style for reactions.

Spear has no reach. 

Is a shield build viable.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/fighter Firstly I recommend popping this in to the fighter forum unless a moderator doesn't mind leaving it in this category.

I personally think keeping the shield is a good idea. Even if an enemy makes it past you or maybe you're incapable of stopping a creature from moving towards a ranged ally you can at least use a reaction to put disadvantage on the attack roll using Protection.
EDIT: Noting that you have to spend your reaction to either hit (or miss) a foe and stop them dead in their tracks because of Sentinel and not even allow them reaching your bros, I think going without shield might be even less viable than I thought.

The spear itself can be a bit of an iffy one. There is a UA feat that perks it up from a d6 to a d8 including some adding benefit of taking a stance that if an enemy closes in, you have a free attack to hit them. You might be better off with a Reach weapon so you can control more of the area around you in a 10ft radius rather than 5ft since it can be easily bypassed. It's a tricky one because yes you're able to stop one creature from getting past with the Sentinel feat, but anything else might break through; if the DM enjoys using swarms in their encounters.

If you're hunting big monsters? A polearm with Reach and Sentinel can probably be a life-saver.

Shield is definitely viable.  I'd take PAM at first level, and probably not shield master at all.  I'd worry about getting my stats to 20 before I took sentinel (which is fantastic).  I'd probably not take charger for a lot of reasons, not the least of which my divine sorc is /constantly/ hung out to dry by a charger fighter who will not stand in between me and the bad guys. I'm very biased against that feat.  My squishy ass is the only healer, too.

I'd probably take duelling first; you will use it's benefits regularly, and you do not want your DM to ignore your attacks because they don't hurt enough.  Give him a reason to respect your authority, otherwise he'll walk around you and gut your casters. 

Protection is nice at first glance, but if you're not standing within 5 feet of your squishies (as a squishy ranged player, I can assure you I avoid being within 5ft of my front liners) it's not going to help you much.  Protection works best imo when you're teamed up with another melee who wants to deploy as far forward as you do.

Quote from LordSalvo >>

 

Polemaster competing with Protection Fighting Style for reactions.

 

 This is an insightful concern. PAM also competes with Shield Master for your bonus action and reaction, so while options are good I think you're getting diminished return here.

Keep in mind that once smart enemies see PAM/Sentinel in action, they will often try to avoid you. This can run counter to a strategy where you're trying to attract enemies off your teammates.

Protection is handy when the enemies break through to the back ranks, but how often that happens can vary table to table. Personally, I like to keep the ranged guys on their toes and not just standing in one place for the entire fight.

Protection is handy when the enemies break through to the back ranks, but how often that happens can vary table to table. Personally, I like to keep the ranged guys on their toes and not just standing in one place for the entire fight.

 If the squishy is within 5 ft, the monster can simply step around without leaving a threatened square, and therefore not provoking.  As a squishy player, I prefer to not be attacked than to be attacked with disadvantage.  I'm going to be standing back farther and trying to make sure that monsters have to go THROUGH my melees (and provoke OA) to get to me.  That's one reason why I despise charger so much, it takes away from my ability to play angles and gives the enemy easier lines to get to me.  The last session we played in the game with the charger tank, I was using our paladin as a meat shield.  The DM talked her into re-positioning himself so that he could rush me and the dragon sorc with some other characters.  I was...less than pleased...because she said she was good 2-3 times before he finally talked her into moving.  My melees in that campaign, let me down OFTEN. 

My party got unhappy with me that fight because I immediately dropped my conc buffs and dropped a globe of darkness on myself to disengage, and I left the dragon sorc to eat it for a change.  I had told them before that session if they didn't start defending me, I'd start defending myself...

Yeah, I agree with crazyhawk. Shield is viable, PAM ASAP, skip Shield Fighter, it’s not really worth it. Maybe look at Mobile instead of Charger. It helps you be where you need to be when you need to be there, and for a Melee/Tank build, that’s always key. (And maybe think about Aberrant Dragonmark, sometimes Cantrips like Lightning Lure, or Green Flame Blade at the just right time can be helpful for the Tank.)

I would take pam at level 1, shield master competes for bonus action, and pam is stronger. Take sentinel at level 4 and then max strength before looking at more feats. Also, protection fighting style is kind of bad, better use of your reaction would be the attack of opportunity from sentinel. Dueling is probably better than the +1 ac style. Assuming you start with 16 STR, it increases your average damage per round (assuming everything hits) from 18.975 to 24.975, which is over a 30% increase in damage.

For later levels: healer, prodigy, lucky, alert, mobile, magic initiate, resilient WIS, heavy armor master, and tough (no particular order) are all feats off the top of my head that I would consider before charger. 

Charger isn't really a very Hoplite feat, if that's important to you. Also, if you really want to be a defensive, protective fighter, the Cavalier is probably the best way to go. Ignore the mounted bits, you can make an excellent Cavalier without even looking at a mount.

As for the general build, shields are very viable, shield master and charger not as much for this build, as have been mentioned. I'd suggest replacing them with Mobile and Tough. Mobile to get where you're needed, Tough because tanking in 5E is done more with HP than AC after a certain point.

Thanks for the comments and feedback.

On the Fighting Style, the argument for Duelling over Protection are good ones and aside from the flavour of the Character Duelling is undoubtedly better.

Shield Master was the 'Feat' that sparked my imagination and though the comments are all valid it is the Characters signature move to such an extent in the original build I had envisioned taking Tavern Brawler so he could use the shield as an improvised weapon.  In the end, PAM and Spear offered too much utility, especially when combined with Sentinel.  I feel that although Shield Master does compete with PAM for bonus action it can still be advantageous to have the option to knock a target prone as a bonus action without using a Superiority Dice (Trip).

Charger V Mobile.  I had looked at both.  It is weighing up a permanent +10 Movement 40 to a situational +30(60) movement.  Based on movement alone Mobile is better.  However, the reason I tend to favour Charger is when a troublesome hostile gets to the backline and tries to pin down one of the squishies I can dash and potentially shove they out of threat range letting the teammate get clear without AoP.  Additional the improved shove could have cool herding potential, pushing enemies into AOE spell or into natural hazards. But yes the extra 10 movement is hard to pass up.

You can knock someone prone without Shield Master and prone isn’t really that great anyway. The next turn they just yo-yo right back up. Also, mobile lets you get out of combat without provoking OAs so that you can dash to protect the squishies.

Shield master is something that I wish could be cooler.  imo, it /should/ be able to make a bonus action attack ala dual wield.  If they DID put it in that way though, it would be strictly superior to DW, which is already problematic enough after mid-levels.  I don't envy the game designers on having to solve that problem.  I think that my personal preferred solution might have been a bridge too far for an edition with a clear mandate to extend an olive branch to the 3.5 crowd who loathed 4e.

I think to make this work, the weapons table needs to be fixed to recognize that there is more than 1 kind of "spear".

They give a different entry for every small change in the length and shape of a sword, granting it different stats.

But spears? whether it is a 3' throwing spear or a 6' one-handed doru spear or a 14' two handed longspear that must be used with two hands-- its all just called a "spear" and treated as a single entry. Moreover, it is considered a "simple" weapon which means that, for the sake of mechanics, it has to be a bad weapon.

I have thought for a few years that the whole "weapons table" ought to be entirely eliminated. Instead characters could do damage based on whether they have "Simple Weapon" proficiency or "Martial Weapon Proficiency"-- but they could use the same weapon and do different damage die with that weapon.

So if you had Simple weapon proficiency

Light weapon, 1-handed ranged weapon - 1d4
1-Handed weapon, 2-handed ranged weapon, 1-handed ranged weapon with loading - 1d6
2-Handed weapon, 2-handed ranged weapon with loading - 1d8

But if you have Martial weapon proficiency

Light weapon, 1-handed ranged weapon - 1d6
1-Handed weapon. 2-handed weapon with reach, 2-handed ranged weapon, 1-handed ranged weapon with loading - 1d8
2-Handed weapon, 2-handed ranged weapon with loading - 1d10
2-Handed heavy weapon* - 1d12

* Assuming that some property could be given to heavy weapons beyond "small sized characters can't use it" like a penalty to initiative or to hit or requiring someone to recover from a swing similar to "loading" weapon

Anyway, I know it would take away the part of the game about spending GP to buy weapons, but frankly-- by level 3 the character has all the money they need to buy any basic weapon on the market easily, so that only affects the first couple levels.

And the advantage would be that a person wouldn't be mechanically disadvantaging themself if they decided to actively engage in the environment and make use of nearby objects or the enemies themselves as weapons rather than sticking exclusively to the weapon that gives them the best damage roll.

Also-- we would see WAY less characters with the few weapons on the weapon table that are mechanically advantaged over the others. Players would be free to choose whatever weapon they felt best fit their character rather than whatever the designers of the game arbitrarily decided years ago.

Anyway-- that is all aside-- main point is that to get this to function, you should replace (or rename) the singular "spear" entry on the weapons table and add "shortspear" with stats like a longsword and "longspear" as a d8 reach weapon as martial weapons.

We do have the pike, which is essentially a long spear.

I'd take the level 8 as an asi rather than a feat. Going that high level with 16 strength means your to-hit and damage start slipping behind other players.

Quote from crzyhawk >>

We do have the pike, which is essentially a long spear.

 Can’t wield it with a shield though. But you can a lance!

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from crzyhawk >>

We do have the pike, which is essentially a long spear.

 Can’t wield it with a shield though. But you can a lance!

Well, the pike would be the 14' variety that you absolutely need to hold with both hands to keep it steady. So it not being able to be wielded by two hands is just fine.

The issue is that what they are trying to create here is a fighter whose signature weapon is classified as a simple weapon and, as a result, does one smaller die size in damage than any weapon that a person with martial weapon proficiency should want to use. And, yeah, you can up the damage die for just this one class-- but that seems a bit limited.

I got to think that if one can keep control of a spear with only one hand while also holding a shield, that particular type of spear probably isn't going to be so long as to grant a full 5' reach anyway though. It'll certainly have more reach than most other 1-handed weapon, but just not as much as a proper 10+' long pole.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from crzyhawk >>

We do have the pike, which is essentially a long spear.

 Can’t wield it with a shield though. But you can a lance!

 People shouldn't be thinking that they should be wielding a 14 foot "longspear" one handed with a shield either.

reach + shield should = no.

That’s why I suggested Shield and Lance. Too bad it doesn’t qualify for PAM.

Quote from IamSposta >>

That’s why I suggested Shield and Lance. Too bad it doesn’t qualify for PAM.

 Lance and Shield are nice, unfortunately, Lance is two-handed unless mounted.

Quote from LordSalvo >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

That’s why I suggested Shield and Lance. Too bad it doesn’t qualify for PAM.

 Lance and Shield are nice, unfortunately, Lance is two-handed unless mounted.

 I thought it only gave the penalty to hit in short range when not mounted and one handed.