1) You're assuming those characters are a representative sample. Given how homogenous those builds seem to be, that's a big leap
2) You've moved the goalposts from "tanks" to martials in general
3) You're still assuming shield will be cast every round, rather than the wizard needing their reaction (or spell slots) for something else
1) Well they come from 9 different campaigns with players from at least a dozen different countries across 3 different continents, and include in-person games, online-real-time games, and online asynchronous text-based games. Please show me all the characters you have played - or even those from the various web-series that are going on - that violate these trends I posted if you'd like to dispute that this is true.
2) Please define a "tank" if you wish me to narrow my scope from the current criteria I was using: melee-weapon-based Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, and Barbarians. Honestly, I think I was being too restrictive here rather than too generous, because in one campaign we had a swashbuckler rogue try to act as a "tank", in another we had a Moon druid who often acted as a tank, and in another we had a Battlesmith Artificer who would often end up acting like a tank, and other where a Hexblade Warlock was a tank. I've also DMed a couple of one-shots where a monk acted as the party tank.
3) No I'm assuming Shield will be cast any round where the wizard is getting attacked where casting Shield would make a difference between an attack hitting or missing. This is a good assumption because IME when the wizard runs out of 1st/2nd level spellslots they are also out of higher level spell slots and demand the party take a LR, so they don't ever run out of spell slots to cast Shield. In a combat where Counterspell needs to be used all the time, there generally aren't many melee/weapon-based enemies around, so the chances a caster need both Shield and Counterspell the same round are slim. Silvery Barbs likewise generally doesn't conflict with Shield because when Silvery Barbs makes sense to use : i.e. to force the big threatening brute to fail a save against something that incapacitates it - it's use prevents the need to use Shield b/c there are no attacks to block b/c you've successfully controlled the enemy that would have been attacking you.
100% I'm certain you can each think of a situation where a tank is more tanky than a wizard, but I am also certain for each and every one of those situations I can think of a different situation where the wizard is more tanky than the tank - If you want to play the "what if" game please provide post what level and which "tank" class you'd like me to use vs a wizard and we can absolutely calculate the average survivability of each one in various combats - necromancer + undead horde, Caster battle, Dragon boss fight, elemental rift, beholderkin, humanoid cult, demon incursion. But that seems like a huge waste of our time, rather than just talking about "on average" across a campaign.
This even assumes that the Fighter never bumps his Con, with his significant number of ASIs. A Wizard is going to be maxing Int, then likely focusing on Dex, particularly if he's taken Resilient Con or Warcaster.
A wizard NEVER focuses on DEX, because by the time the Wizard has a free ASI having maxed their INT (i.e. level 12) the enemies have such high changes to hit that bumping AC by 1 does almost nothing for survivability. Your "tank" at those levels is relying on HP and/or magical items that boost AC, and damage is often equally from AoEs & saves as from attacks, so Absorb Elements is the main competition to Shield and can often make your Wizard more "tanky" than the tank at these levels.
Likewise the Fighter is using their extra ASIs to pick up combat feats like PAM, Sentinel, GWM, Shield Master, while also maxing out their attack stat. If they choose to use an ASI to buff their defences they use it for one of : Resilient:DEX, Resilient:Wis or Tough, not to increase their CON.
Well they come from 9 different campaigns with players from at least a dozen different countries across 3 different continents, and include in-person games, online-real-time games, and online asynchronous text-based games.
And yet half of the martials are using polearms. I'm assuming most of those are probably bog-standard PAM/Sentinel builds too, based on your subsequent comment about Fighters always using their ASIs on feats
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Well they come from 9 different campaigns with players from at least a dozen different countries across 3 different continents, and include in-person games, online-real-time games, and online asynchronous text-based games.
And yet half of the martials are using polearms. I'm assuming most of those are probably bog-standard PAM/Sentinel builds too, based on your subsequent comment about Fighters always using their ASIs on feats
Yup, because most involve experienced players and polearms are so obviously good that people just gravitate to them. Though you are incorrect in your assumption they are PAM/Sentinel builds. The Fighters in there were mostly PAM-Sentinel but actually the Fighters had more build diversity than the non-Fighters, including a two-weapon-fighting EK who used their ASIs to pick up a bunch of magic-focused feats, a sword & board EK/warlock MC (this is the only one who took multiple ASIs rather than feats and they used them to boost CHA + STR), a Chef+Skill Expert+PAM Battlemaster, a Greatsword+GWM+Sentinel Samurai, and a Tavern Brawler + Fey Touched Psi Knight MC thing. The big uptick in Polearm builds was actually among the Barbarians, where there were only a few who did not use PAM + GWM, with their Rage bonus damage, lack of BAs after the first turn and reckless attack just makes picking up PAM + GWM such obvious choices, but there was two classic greatsword/greataxe users and a very cool two-weapon using Barb among them. Paladins nearly all fell into either sword + board or PAM at nearly 50:50 rate, only the couple Sorcadins used greatweapons other than polearms. Whereas the few STR-Rangers were again spread across build types depending on the ranger subclass they chose (PAM is much less advantageous for pet-subclasses who already have a use for their BA).
I would also agree more or less with those numbers. Especially at low levels, before the hp ac and con gaps really take off (barb hp anyone? they sort of count double ;), the martials can usually be dropped in 2 or 3 good hits whereas for the mages it's 1 or 2, and with a 16 ac from dex and mage armor plus shield the mage can be quite tanky indeed. However the mages usually still hate being in melee most of the time because they want to concentrate and or use ranged spells. Conversely the martials usually want to be in melee because they can usually do more dmg and use more abilities, ranged martials excepted. That said, the mage can totally step up to the front line and try to buy as many rounds for the party as they have shield slots, and it's fun to see them burn their power on a Gandalf "you shall not pass" scene. BUT they do it way better if they also dodge :) ...I should qualify my numbers by saying I like characters to punch a bit above their weight level and do dumb things like have a rogue go into a hag's hut to try her stew because it's funny. Suboptimal fights are where dodge really shines.
But if you are going to use Shield anyway, is there any real point to using Dodge? Unless the enemy has a crazy high to hit bonus, Shield is going to cover you. And even then, you're going to be a magic user, standing in the front of combat, doing nothing but taking the Dodge action and burning spell slots on Shield. So unless you are standing in a choke point like Gandalf, you're being fairly useless.
So once again, Dodge is great! In really niche corner cases.
Good questions! In the Gandalf example, the Balrog is WAY above his CR lvl, so yeah he better dodge AND be ready to use shield because one 20 will totally take him out, shield or no. But dodge is super great at turning crits into regular hits. Plus dodge costs nothing except a cantrip atk but shield is a slot. As to choke points and monsters running past: as we pirates say, 'Yes but actually no'. What difference does it make if you used your attack to hit the monster? If it's in its best interest to run past it's running past either way. Otherwise it's probably trying to gang up on the nearest enemy rather than spread attacks, and that's the front liner. Also of note, the mage may have BEEN in the back rank, concentrating on a cool AOE, when the monster dashed back to hit em and break it. In which case it is totally worth them using dodge and shield to keep the con going.
As he said above he is assuming equal Cons of 14. I agree the math is 60-65% for Con 14 vs 16, and 70-75% for both Con 14.
And for a Tank build martial I think a 16 Con is a better assumption than a 14.
1) Well they come from 9 different campaigns with players from at least a dozen different countries across 3 different continents, and include in-person games, online-real-time games, and online asynchronous text-based games. Please show me all the characters you have played - or even those from the various web-series that are going on - that violate these trends I posted if you'd like to dispute that this is true.
2) Please define a "tank" if you wish me to narrow my scope from the current criteria I was using: melee-weapon-based Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, and Barbarians. Honestly, I think I was being too restrictive here rather than too generous, because in one campaign we had a swashbuckler rogue try to act as a "tank", in another we had a Moon druid who often acted as a tank, and in another we had a Battlesmith Artificer who would often end up acting like a tank, and other where a Hexblade Warlock was a tank. I've also DMed a couple of one-shots where a monk acted as the party tank.
3) No I'm assuming Shield will be cast any round where the wizard is getting attacked where casting Shield would make a difference between an attack hitting or missing. This is a good assumption because IME when the wizard runs out of 1st/2nd level spellslots they are also out of higher level spell slots and demand the party take a LR, so they don't ever run out of spell slots to cast Shield. In a combat where Counterspell needs to be used all the time, there generally aren't many melee/weapon-based enemies around, so the chances a caster need both Shield and Counterspell the same round are slim. Silvery Barbs likewise generally doesn't conflict with Shield because when Silvery Barbs makes sense to use : i.e. to force the big threatening brute to fail a save against something that incapacitates it - it's use prevents the need to use Shield b/c there are no attacks to block b/c you've successfully controlled the enemy that would have been attacking you.
100% I'm certain you can each think of a situation where a tank is more tanky than a wizard, but I am also certain for each and every one of those situations I can think of a different situation where the wizard is more tanky than the tank - If you want to play the "what if" game please provide post what level and which "tank" class you'd like me to use vs a wizard and we can absolutely calculate the average survivability of each one in various combats - necromancer + undead horde, Caster battle, Dragon boss fight, elemental rift, beholderkin, humanoid cult, demon incursion. But that seems like a huge waste of our time, rather than just talking about "on average" across a campaign.
A wizard NEVER focuses on DEX, because by the time the Wizard has a free ASI having maxed their INT (i.e. level 12) the enemies have such high changes to hit that bumping AC by 1 does almost nothing for survivability. Your "tank" at those levels is relying on HP and/or magical items that boost AC, and damage is often equally from AoEs & saves as from attacks, so Absorb Elements is the main competition to Shield and can often make your Wizard more "tanky" than the tank at these levels.
Likewise the Fighter is using their extra ASIs to pick up combat feats like PAM, Sentinel, GWM, Shield Master, while also maxing out their attack stat. If they choose to use an ASI to buff their defences they use it for one of : Resilient:DEX, Resilient:Wis or Tough, not to increase their CON.
And yet half of the martials are using polearms. I'm assuming most of those are probably bog-standard PAM/Sentinel builds too, based on your subsequent comment about Fighters always using their ASIs on feats
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Yup, because most involve experienced players and polearms are so obviously good that people just gravitate to them. Though you are incorrect in your assumption they are PAM/Sentinel builds. The Fighters in there were mostly PAM-Sentinel but actually the Fighters had more build diversity than the non-Fighters, including a two-weapon-fighting EK who used their ASIs to pick up a bunch of magic-focused feats, a sword & board EK/warlock MC (this is the only one who took multiple ASIs rather than feats and they used them to boost CHA + STR), a Chef+Skill Expert+PAM Battlemaster, a Greatsword+GWM+Sentinel Samurai, and a Tavern Brawler + Fey Touched Psi Knight MC thing. The big uptick in Polearm builds was actually among the Barbarians, where there were only a few who did not use PAM + GWM, with their Rage bonus damage, lack of BAs after the first turn and reckless attack just makes picking up PAM + GWM such obvious choices, but there was two classic greatsword/greataxe users and a very cool two-weapon using Barb among them. Paladins nearly all fell into either sword + board or PAM at nearly 50:50 rate, only the couple Sorcadins used greatweapons other than polearms. Whereas the few STR-Rangers were again spread across build types depending on the ranger subclass they chose (PAM is much less advantageous for pet-subclasses who already have a use for their BA).
I would also agree more or less with those numbers. Especially at low levels, before the hp ac and con gaps really take off (barb hp anyone? they sort of count double ;), the martials can usually be dropped in 2 or 3 good hits whereas for the mages it's 1 or 2, and with a 16 ac from dex and mage armor plus shield the mage can be quite tanky indeed. However the mages usually still hate being in melee most of the time because they want to concentrate and or use ranged spells. Conversely the martials usually want to be in melee because they can usually do more dmg and use more abilities, ranged martials excepted. That said, the mage can totally step up to the front line and try to buy as many rounds for the party as they have shield slots, and it's fun to see them burn their power on a Gandalf "you shall not pass" scene. BUT they do it way better if they also dodge :)
...I should qualify my numbers by saying I like characters to punch a bit above their weight level and do dumb things like have a rogue go into a hag's hut to try her stew because it's funny. Suboptimal fights are where dodge really shines.
Good questions!
In the Gandalf example, the Balrog is WAY above his CR lvl, so yeah he better dodge AND be ready to use shield because one 20 will totally take him out, shield or no. But dodge is super great at turning crits into regular hits. Plus dodge costs nothing except a cantrip atk but shield is a slot.
As to choke points and monsters running past: as we pirates say, 'Yes but actually no'. What difference does it make if you used your attack to hit the monster? If it's in its best interest to run past it's running past either way. Otherwise it's probably trying to gang up on the nearest enemy rather than spread attacks, and that's the front liner. Also of note, the mage may have BEEN in the back rank, concentrating on a cool AOE, when the monster dashed back to hit em and break it. In which case it is totally worth them using dodge and shield to keep the con going.