No, you really don't. You're not actually following what I'm saying.
The fact that Rogues have to have an ally nearby the enemy completely and utterly defeats the point of calling them a tank. Tanks get between allies and enemies, not rely on enemies and allies to get together. I talked about Barbarians and OA at length. You're just bringing up the same old things, over and over, without actually adding anything new.
At this point, I'm just going to assume that you're confusing "tank" with "melee-range character" and move on. Good day.
So Rogue Sneak Attack wanting an ally nearby makes them not a tank, but the Protection Fighting Style only working when you have an ally nearby makes them a tank?
Once again, you're using a double standard.
These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
No, you really don't. You're not actually following what I'm saying.
The fact that Rogues have to have an ally nearby the enemy completely and utterly defeats the point of calling them a tank. Tanks get between allies and enemies, not rely on enemies and allies to get together. I talked about Barbarians and OA at length. You're just bringing up the same old things, over and over, without actually adding anything new.
At this point, I'm just going to assume that you're confusing "tank" with "melee-range character" and move on. Good day.
So Rogue Sneak Attack wanting an ally nearby makes them not a tank, but the Protection Fighting Style only working when you have an ally nearby makes them a tank?
Once again, you're using a double standard.
These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
ok so once again going to clear something up, in D&D there is not "tank" you are always a meat shield, high AC and decent HP help but so long as you have those two things going you can be a "tank", FURTHER MORE, just because you put your defensive stats first does not mean you will be dealing less damage, fighters, paladins and rangers with the dueling fighting style can deal alot of damage with a one one handed weapon, I made a barbarian fighter for a one shot (level 7, 5 in barbarian) and the lowest damage they hit for is 11, fighters, paladins and rangers can take this further with maneuvers, smites or various extra add ons (if your a ranger there is a TON of stuff like the Horizon Walker or hunter. anyways in both cases .
SO in both cases "tanks" don't have to be big dudes in plate mail that only do a little damage and "DPS" don't have to be little dudes with low AC that deal lots of damage, welcome to D&D where you can do both if you have the right subclass and gear, so make your sorcerer tank and face roll stuff.
ok so once again going to clear something up, in D&D there is not "tank"
There's no official tank role in 5e, but "tank" has become well known enough in geek culture that it can apply to games (both digital and not) and even just stories (usually fantasy, but sometimes not); its now a casual term that has uses outside of its MMO origin. Calling someone a "meat shield" versus a "tank" seems like just semantics, when they fill a similar role; indeed, the term tank was originally derived from the same archetypes that "meat shields" does, but without the negative connotation.
The generally accepted use of "tank" as a term is someone who will take the brunt of enemy attacks away from allies, and has some method of surviving said attention. D&D is a bit different from MMOs, in that rather than using a hate or aggro stat that you manipulate, you rely on positioning, things like Opportunity Attacks, and certain spells / feats. So, we can say that D&D does have tanks, despite relying on different tools than their MMO counterparts.
Ok so people forget that swashbuckler is a archetype for rogues
No, didn't forget. The original discussion was excluding subclasses. From the beginning, it was acknowledged that subclass, feats, spells, race, magic items and the like will change the core direction of the class. Swashbuckler, Kensei, and some Hunter options seem to work, off the top of my head.
No, you really don't. You're not actually following what I'm saying.
The fact that Rogues have to have an ally nearby the enemy completely and utterly defeats the point of calling them a tank. Tanks get between allies and enemies, not rely on enemies and allies to get together. I talked about Barbarians and OA at length. You're just bringing up the same old things, over and over, without actually adding anything new.
At this point, I'm just going to assume that you're confusing "tank" with "melee-range character" and move on. Good day.
So Rogue Sneak Attack wanting an ally nearby makes them not a tank, but the Protection Fighting Style only working when you have an ally nearby makes them a tank?
Once again, you're using a double standard.
These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
A tank isn't any good if you can just ignore it and focus on its teammates. Having powerful opportunity attacks makes it painful to run away from a tank. A good way to tank is to make it very painful for enemies to run away from you.
I showed that the AC one can get as an Evasion tank in light or medium armor is comparable to the AC one gets in heavy armor, but then I'm told that tanking is more than just high AC. I brought up Evasion, Deflect Missiles, and Uncanny Dodge, and I was told that things don't help with tanking. I was told that Rogues aren't good tanks because they don't get good opportunity attacks, so I mention Sneak Attack, and again I'm told that doesn't help for tanking.
You guys can't seem to figure out what makes someone a good tank, because you're struggling to find a definition that makes sense, but disqualifies Rogues, Rangers, and Monks.
Since you're having difficulty, I will give you the answer that you're looking for. A tank is someone with high strength. It doesn't matter what their AC is, what their ability to negate damage is, what their threat is. All that matters is Strength and Constitution.
No, you really don't. You're not actually following what I'm saying.
The fact that Rogues have to have an ally nearby the enemy completely and utterly defeats the point of calling them a tank. Tanks get between allies and enemies, not rely on enemies and allies to get together. I talked about Barbarians and OA at length. You're just bringing up the same old things, over and over, without actually adding anything new.
At this point, I'm just going to assume that you're confusing "tank" with "melee-range character" and move on. Good day.
So Rogue Sneak Attack wanting an ally nearby makes them not a tank, but the Protection Fighting Style only working when you have an ally nearby makes them a tank?
Once again, you're using a double standard.
These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
A tank isn't any good if you can just ignore it and focus on its teammates. Having powerful opportunity attacks makes it painful to run away from a tank. A good way to tank is to make it very painful for enemies to run away from you.
I showed that the AC one can get as an Evasion tank in light or medium armor is comparable to the AC one gets in heavy armor, but then I'm told that tanking is more than just high AC. I brought up Evasion, Deflect Missiles, and Uncanny Dodge, and I was told that things don't help with tanking. I was told that Rogues aren't good tanks because they don't get good opportunity attacks, so I mention Sneak Attack, and again I'm told that doesn't help for tanking.
You guys can't seem to figure out what makes someone a good tank, because you're struggling to find a definition that makes sense, but disqualifies Rogues, Rangers, and Monks.
Since you're having difficulty, I will give you the answer that you're looking for. A tank is someone with high strength. It doesn't matter what their AC is, what their ability to negate damage is, what their threat is. All that matters is Strength and Constitution.
You just quoted a fighting style that literally makes an enemy less likely to attack your friend than you and compared it to sneak attack.
If you use Protection Fighting Style, you are basically saying "ok you can attack my teammate, but you will do so with disadvantage or you can attack me with no such penalties". If they keep attacking the chosen target, they will miss more. If they decide to switch to you, your job as a tank is done and fullfilled. The core function of the fighting style is to discourage enemy from fighting your team mate while the core function of sneak attack makes it so that you want them in melee with no such protection.
One of them can be used in a situation like "oh shit, they closed in on my wizard buddy, better go there and protect so he can go away and the enemy gets disadvantage on the attack of opportunity", the other is "oh, they closed in on my wizard buddy, nice, now I can do more damage".
ok so once again going to clear something up, in D&D there is not "tank"
There's no official tank role in 5e, but "tank" has become well known enough in geek culture that it can apply to games (both digital and not) and even just stories (usually fantasy, but sometimes not); its now a casual term that has uses outside of its MMO origin. Calling someone a "meat shield" versus a "tank" seems like just semantics, when they fill a similar role; indeed, the term tank was originally derived from the same archetypes that "meat shields" does, but without the negative connotation.
The generally accepted use of "tank" as a term is someone who will take the brunt of enemy attacks away from allies, and has some method of surviving said attention. D&D is a bit different from MMOs, in that rather than using a hate or aggro stat that you manipulate, you rely on positioning, things like Opportunity Attacks, and certain spells / feats. So, we can say that D&D does have tanks, despite relying on different tools than their MMO counterparts.
Ok so people forget that swashbuckler is a archetype for rogues
No, didn't forget. The original discussion was excluding subclasses. From the beginning, it was acknowledged that subclass, feats, spells, race, magic items and the like will change the core direction of the class. Swashbuckler, Kensei, and some Hunter options seem to work, off the top of my head.
The term "evasion tank" is also fairly well known in gaming culture, and it refers to someone that uses agility or dexterity as their primary stat while filling the role of a traditional tank when it comes to survivability, and ability to generate threat and be the focus of enemy attacks.
So the question is, do evasion tanks in D&D 5e have the survivability and threat to be good enough evasion tanks? Did the designers of 5e make evasion tank a viable strategy?
No, you really don't. You're not actually following what I'm saying.
The fact that Rogues have to have an ally nearby the enemy completely and utterly defeats the point of calling them a tank. Tanks get between allies and enemies, not rely on enemies and allies to get together. I talked about Barbarians and OA at length. You're just bringing up the same old things, over and over, without actually adding anything new.
At this point, I'm just going to assume that you're confusing "tank" with "melee-range character" and move on. Good day.
So Rogue Sneak Attack wanting an ally nearby makes them not a tank, but the Protection Fighting Style only working when you have an ally nearby makes them a tank?
Once again, you're using a double standard.
These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
A tank isn't any good if you can just ignore it and focus on its teammates. Having powerful opportunity attacks makes it painful to run away from a tank. A good way to tank is to make it very painful for enemies to run away from you.
I showed that the AC one can get as an Evasion tank in light or medium armor is comparable to the AC one gets in heavy armor, but then I'm told that tanking is more than just high AC. I brought up Evasion, Deflect Missiles, and Uncanny Dodge, and I was told that things don't help with tanking. I was told that Rogues aren't good tanks because they don't get good opportunity attacks, so I mention Sneak Attack, and again I'm told that doesn't help for tanking.
You guys can't seem to figure out what makes someone a good tank, because you're struggling to find a definition that makes sense, but disqualifies Rogues, Rangers, and Monks.
Since you're having difficulty, I will give you the answer that you're looking for. A tank is someone with high strength. It doesn't matter what their AC is, what their ability to negate damage is, what their threat is. All that matters is Strength and Constitution.
You just quoted a fighting style that literally makes an enemy less likely to attack your friend than you and compared it to sneak attack.
If you use Protection Fighting Style, you are basically saying "ok you can attack my teammate, but you will do so with disadvantage or you can attack me with no such penalties". If they keep attacking the chosen target, they will miss more. If they decide to switch to you, your job as a tank is done and fullfilled. The core function of the fighting style is to discourage enemy from fighting your team mate while the core function of sneak attack makes it so that you want them in melee with no such protection.
One of them can be used in a situation like "oh shit, they closed in on my wizard buddy, better go there and protect so he can go away and the enemy gets disadvantage on the attack of opportunity", the other is "oh, they closed in on my wizard buddy, nice, now I can do more damage".
You really can't spot the difference?
Do you know what having Sneak Attack on opportunity attacks does? It makes enemies less likely to run away from you and attack your friends.
That enemy isn't going to run away and stand next to the wizard if he's going to get hit really hard by an opportunity attack from you. The point of Sneak Attack opportunity attacks is to keep enemies from running away from you.
Your suggestion for the protection fighting style is what to do when enemies do run away from you. If they're running next to your wizard, you're not doing a good job tanking. Your job as a tank is to stop them from running next to the wizard.
It's also the wizard's job to stand more than 30ft away from the tank.
No, you really don't. You're not actually following what I'm saying.
The fact that Rogues have to have an ally nearby the enemy completely and utterly defeats the point of calling them a tank. Tanks get between allies and enemies, not rely on enemies and allies to get together. I talked about Barbarians and OA at length. You're just bringing up the same old things, over and over, without actually adding anything new.
At this point, I'm just going to assume that you're confusing "tank" with "melee-range character" and move on. Good day.
So Rogue Sneak Attack wanting an ally nearby makes them not a tank, but the Protection Fighting Style only working when you have an ally nearby makes them a tank?
Once again, you're using a double standard.
These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
A tank isn't any good if you can just ignore it and focus on its teammates. Having powerful opportunity attacks makes it painful to run away from a tank. A good way to tank is to make it very painful for enemies to run away from you.
I showed that the AC one can get as an Evasion tank in light or medium armor is comparable to the AC one gets in heavy armor, but then I'm told that tanking is more than just high AC. I brought up Evasion, Deflect Missiles, and Uncanny Dodge, and I was told that things don't help with tanking. I was told that Rogues aren't good tanks because they don't get good opportunity attacks, so I mention Sneak Attack, and again I'm told that doesn't help for tanking.
You guys can't seem to figure out what makes someone a good tank, because you're struggling to find a definition that makes sense, but disqualifies Rogues, Rangers, and Monks.
Since you're having difficulty, I will give you the answer that you're looking for. A tank is someone with high strength. It doesn't matter what their AC is, what their ability to negate damage is, what their threat is. All that matters is Strength and Constitution.
You just quoted a fighting style that literally makes an enemy less likely to attack your friend than you and compared it to sneak attack.
If you use Protection Fighting Style, you are basically saying "ok you can attack my teammate, but you will do so with disadvantage or you can attack me with no such penalties". If they keep attacking the chosen target, they will miss more. If they decide to switch to you, your job as a tank is done and fullfilled. The core function of the fighting style is to discourage enemy from fighting your team mate while the core function of sneak attack makes it so that you want them in melee with no such protection.
One of them can be used in a situation like "oh shit, they closed in on my wizard buddy, better go there and protect so he can go away and the enemy gets disadvantage on the attack of opportunity", the other is "oh, they closed in on my wizard buddy, nice, now I can do more damage".
You really can't spot the difference?
Do you know what having Sneak Attack on opportunity attacks does? It makes enemies less likely to run away from you and attack your friends.
That enemy isn't going to run away and stand next to the wizard if he's going to get hit really hard by an opportunity attack from you. The point of Sneak Attack opportunity attacks is to keep enemies from running away from you.
Your suggestion for the protection fighting style is what to do when enemies do run away from you. If they're running next to your wizard, you're not doing a good job tanking. Your job as a tank is to stop them from running next to the wizard.
It's also the wizard's job to stand more than 30ft away from the tank.
That's all nice and good but I think we're talking different scenarios here.
My suggestion for protection tanking assumes a battlefield where you have 5-6 player characters against 5-6 enemies. Saying that if one of them runs to your wizard is your failure as a tank is, frankly, ridiculous. You have limited number of attacks of opportunity and limited number of Sneak Attacks. Stuff will get past you. You will get ambushed where the enemy will be closer to a wizard anyway.
But I will grant you that - if you have means of Sneak Attacking on AoO, it's a great demotivator, when it works. Protection Fighting Style is, on the other hand, a dedicated tool to undo a shitty situation which has a highly likelyhood of happening (because of lack of aggro compelling skills).
No, you really don't. You're not actually following what I'm saying.
The fact that Rogues have to have an ally nearby the enemy completely and utterly defeats the point of calling them a tank. Tanks get between allies and enemies, not rely on enemies and allies to get together. I talked about Barbarians and OA at length. You're just bringing up the same old things, over and over, without actually adding anything new.
At this point, I'm just going to assume that you're confusing "tank" with "melee-range character" and move on. Good day.
So Rogue Sneak Attack wanting an ally nearby makes them not a tank, but the Protection Fighting Style only working when you have an ally nearby makes them a tank?
Once again, you're using a double standard.
These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
A tank isn't any good if you can just ignore it and focus on its teammates. Having powerful opportunity attacks makes it painful to run away from a tank. A good way to tank is to make it very painful for enemies to run away from you.
I showed that the AC one can get as an Evasion tank in light or medium armor is comparable to the AC one gets in heavy armor, but then I'm told that tanking is more than just high AC. I brought up Evasion, Deflect Missiles, and Uncanny Dodge, and I was told that things don't help with tanking. I was told that Rogues aren't good tanks because they don't get good opportunity attacks, so I mention Sneak Attack, and again I'm told that doesn't help for tanking.
You guys can't seem to figure out what makes someone a good tank, because you're struggling to find a definition that makes sense, but disqualifies Rogues, Rangers, and Monks.
Since you're having difficulty, I will give you the answer that you're looking for. A tank is someone with high strength. It doesn't matter what their AC is, what their ability to negate damage is, what their threat is. All that matters is Strength and Constitution.
You just quoted a fighting style that literally makes an enemy less likely to attack your friend than you and compared it to sneak attack.
If you use Protection Fighting Style, you are basically saying "ok you can attack my teammate, but you will do so with disadvantage or you can attack me with no such penalties". If they keep attacking the chosen target, they will miss more. If they decide to switch to you, your job as a tank is done and fullfilled. The core function of the fighting style is to discourage enemy from fighting your team mate while the core function of sneak attack makes it so that you want them in melee with no such protection.
One of them can be used in a situation like "oh shit, they closed in on my wizard buddy, better go there and protect so he can go away and the enemy gets disadvantage on the attack of opportunity", the other is "oh, they closed in on my wizard buddy, nice, now I can do more damage".
You really can't spot the difference?
Do you know what having Sneak Attack on opportunity attacks does? It makes enemies less likely to run away from you and attack your friends.
That enemy isn't going to run away and stand next to the wizard if he's going to get hit really hard by an opportunity attack from you. The point of Sneak Attack opportunity attacks is to keep enemies from running away from you.
Your suggestion for the protection fighting style is what to do when enemies do run away from you. If they're running next to your wizard, you're not doing a good job tanking. Your job as a tank is to stop them from running next to the wizard.
It's also the wizard's job to stand more than 30ft away from the tank.
That's all nice and good but I think we're talking different scenarios here.
My suggestion for protection tanking assumes a battlefield where you have 5-6 player characters against 5-6 enemies. Saying that if one of them runs to your wizard is your failure as a tank is, frankly, ridiculous. You have limited number of attacks of opportunity and limited number of Sneak Attacks. Stuff will get past you. You will get ambushed where the enemy will be closer to a wizard anyway.
But I will grant you that - if you have means of Sneak Attacking on AoO, it's a great demotivator.
If the battlefield is a small room, then highly mobile evasion tanks are not nearly as good. I will grant you that.
But when there's enough room that mobility is useful, and where your ranged allies can stand more than 30ft away from their targets, it's very different.
At least in my group, most combats have taken place in either large rooms, or in multiple rooms. We have had a few combats where everyone was in a small room, but those were quite rare.
One of the biggest advantages of evasion tanks is their superior mobility. If you negate that advantage, they are weaker. But most of the time, superior mobility isn't being negated by a tiny battlefield.
Do you know what having Sneak Attack on opportunity attacks does? It makes enemies less likely to run away from you and attack your friends.
That enemy isn't going to run away and stand next to the wizard if he's going to get hit really hard by an opportunity attack from you. The point of Sneak Attack opportunity attacks is to keep enemies from running away from you.
Your suggestion for the protection fighting style is what to do when enemies do run away from you. If they're running next to your wizard, you're not doing a good job tanking. Your job as a tank is to stop them from running next to the wizard.
It's also the wizard's job to stand more than 30ft away from the tank.
Then who's your ally that's standing by the monster? You're the tank. So, who's the other ally, if not the wizard? The healer? The mobile skirmisher? Why should the monster be attacking the rogue, when there's an easier to hit target nearby? A second tank would already have any monster you're threatening already covered, making the rogue redundant and kind of pointless when they could be contributing to the fight in other ways.
That's why this is a problem. In order for your rogue tank idea to work, you're relying on having an alternate, often squishier, target in range.
And that's without the fact that rogues often rely on Uncanny Dodge for damage mitigation, and that takes up your reaction, so rogues cannot use both Uncanny Dodge and an Opportunity Attack on the same round. You have to choose between saving your own skin, and someone else's.
Further compounding the issue, melee rogues often rely on two weapon fighting, so they still get two rolls to hit with their Sneak Attack. This precludes you from being able to use Cunning Action reliably in combat.
Swashbucklers have features that get around a lot of these issues, but we're not talking about that subclass. Swashbucklers have a lot of potential because they change how Sneak Attack works, and effectively give you a mini-Disengage with their Fancy Footwork ability. But every other rogue subclass has major issues involved.
Do you know what having Sneak Attack on opportunity attacks does? It makes enemies less likely to run away from you and attack your friends.
That enemy isn't going to run away and stand next to the wizard if he's going to get hit really hard by an opportunity attack from you. The point of Sneak Attack opportunity attacks is to keep enemies from running away from you.
Your suggestion for the protection fighting style is what to do when enemies do run away from you. If they're running next to your wizard, you're not doing a good job tanking. Your job as a tank is to stop them from running next to the wizard.
It's also the wizard's job to stand more than 30ft away from the tank.
Then who's your ally that's standing by the monster? You're the tank. So, who's the other ally, if not the wizard? The healer? The mobile skirmisher? Why should the monster be attacking the rogue, when there's an easier to hit target nearby? A second tank would already have any monster you're threatening already covered, making the rogue redundant and kind of pointless when they could be contributing to the fight in other ways.
That's why this is a problem. In order for your rogue tank idea to work, you're relying on having an alternate, often squishier, target in range.
And that's without the fact that rogues often rely on Uncanny Dodge for damage mitigation, and that takes up your reaction, so rogues cannot use both Uncanny Dodge and an Opportunity Attack on the same round. You have to choose between saving your own skin, and someone else's.
Further compounding the issue, melee rogues often rely on two weapon fighting, so they still get two rolls to hit with their Sneak Attack. This precludes you from being able to use Cunning Action reliably in combat.
Swashbucklers have features that get around a lot of these issues, but we're not talking about that subclass. Swashbucklers have a lot of potential because they change how Sneak Attack works, and effectively give you a mini-Disengage with their Fancy Footwork ability. But every other rogue subclass has major issues involved.
Usually groups are more than just a tank and a bunch of ranged players. If it's the case where you're the only melee person in the party, Swashbuckler makes sense. But it's rare for parties to have just one melee and the rest ranged. It's more common in smaller groups, but when you have four or five people, normally you have at least two guys that are in melee.
You only have to use Uncanny Dodge if somebody hits you with an attack. You only get to use an opportunity attack if somebody is running away from you. If somebody has multi-attack, they're probably not hitting hard enough to use Uncanny Dodge. If they don't have multi-attack, then they can't hit you and run away and hit your ally in the same round. You're not forced to use Uncanny Dodge if someone hits you. And if someone tries to hit you, they're not guaranteed to hit (nor is your opportunity attack guaranteed to hit).
You're trying to think about a melee Rogue as a tank, instead of thinking of a Rogue specifically building to be a tank. If you're playing a tank, you build your character different from a typical melee Rogue.
The idea that a Rogue Tank wouldn't be identical to a Rogue that isn't trying to tank seems to be too difficult for you to comprehend.
Since we're apparently not supposed to talk about the abilities of subclasses, what can a Barbarian do to protect their melee allies from being attacked? They don't get any abilities for protecting nearby allies if you ignore the subclasses. You would have to take a feat for that. But we're not looking at feats, we're looking at classes, right?
I am sorry that you're so upset that I don't accept the "you're not a tank unless you can cause disadvantage on one attack directed to a player standing next to you" definition of what it means to be a tank.
Nevermind the fact that this bonus won't trigger if they attack people that aren't standing next to you, and that this bonus won't help too much against enemies with multi-attack, or larger groups of weaker enemies that attack the person next to you multiple times, or if they choose to make the person next to you do a saving throw (and quite possibly you as well, since that's how a lot of spells that make you do a dexterity saving throw work). These things are irrelevant because you have your definition of what it means to be a tank, and you seem to really hate evasion tanks for some unspecified reason, and you feel the need to exclude them from being tanks, and you couldn't find a rational justification to exclude them so you figured being irrational was called for.
I don't know why evasion tanks upset you so much, but that's something for you to discuss with your therapist.
By the way, every Rogue has enough dexterity to multiclass fighter for one level and get the ability to use shields and pick up a fighting style. And if the Protection Fighting Style didn't suck so much, that would actually be a decent option. But because it won't help much against multi attack, multiple opponents, saving throws, or allies that aren't next to you, it's not really necessary for tanks to choose it.
ok you can turn a rogue into a tank in several ways, you can take ONE level in fighter and you can use shields, using studded leather or half plate with medium armor master will give you high AC and not mess with your ability to sneak, combed with swashbuckler and you are 100% a tank, high AC and 1d8 hit dice, you will have on average 2 HP less than fighters and 3 less than barbarians but you will take less damage from spells thanks to evasion and can half damage from big hits thanks to uncanny dodge, yet still you guys argue on why they can't be a tank, for those saying they can't be a tank: you are 100% wrong, I already very simply stated on why and how they can be powerful tanks that are also very good at dealing big chunks of damage, you don't even have to be a swashbuckler, a arcane trickster can do it just find if they pick up shield and some other defensive spells, not to mention one level in fighter can either boost there AC by 1 or there damage using a one handed weapon by two, or take two weapon fighting and pick up dual wielder and you still get a +1 to AC and can make two pretty strong attacks.
A really good example I made in my game on monday is that my battle smith artificer is a tank (though every class of artificer can be but won't get two attacks) at level 9 in +1 half plate with a repulser shield and a cloak of protection he has 22 AC and 94 HP and on top of that he can haste himself and bump it to 24 AC and if that wasn't enough he also has shield to top himself off at 29 AC and even if a attack does hit with +8 to con checks (and the ability to bump it to a +13 to con checks) he will never brake concentration on any of his spells witch he can use to buff himself or control the battle field, overall the DM gave up on hitting him and picked on the poor cleric instead XD
if you really want to get into it several races can further boost being a tank like hill dwarf or the new version of warforged (I had a discussion about how OP the +1 AC is vs the flat AC + proficiency as the +1 AC is always added to your AC even if your using wild shape or other spells and stacks with defensive fighting style and other class related AC buffs)
If you have a party that has a dedicated front line, like a barbarian or melee fighter, then the sneak attack damage is almost guaranteed every round. Or if you are the Frontline as a rogue with swashbuckler then you definitely always get it.
There is no tank role because there is no aggro mechanic.
there is no "arggo" BUT if you hit something really hard they will 100% try to kill you, the reason arggo was invented is because they couldn't hire a guy to go control every NPC and go: ok kill the dude that hits you the hardest. so yes there is arggo, no there is no tank role because every class can be made to do anything, like a high AC blandsinger wizard with 20 con and toughness and can take hits for days
I'd argue Cleric isn't a D in debuffs at control/debuffs like a Fighter. They have access to a multi-target bane against early mobs that have low CHA and Command to hit low WIS
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These are so different in their core and function that I can't believe you just made that comparison ;-)
ok so once again going to clear something up, in D&D there is not "tank" you are always a meat shield, high AC and decent HP help but so long as you have those two things going you can be a "tank", FURTHER MORE, just because you put your defensive stats first does not mean you will be dealing less damage, fighters, paladins and rangers with the dueling fighting style can deal alot of damage with a one one handed weapon, I made a barbarian fighter for a one shot (level 7, 5 in barbarian) and the lowest damage they hit for is 11, fighters, paladins and rangers can take this further with maneuvers, smites or various extra add ons (if your a ranger there is a TON of stuff like the Horizon Walker or hunter.
anyways in both cases .
SO in both cases "tanks" don't have to be big dudes in plate mail that only do a little damage and "DPS" don't have to be little dudes with low AC that deal lots of damage, welcome to D&D where you can do both if you have the right subclass and gear, so make your sorcerer tank and face roll stuff.
There's no official tank role in 5e, but "tank" has become well known enough in geek culture that it can apply to games (both digital and not) and even just stories (usually fantasy, but sometimes not); its now a casual term that has uses outside of its MMO origin. Calling someone a "meat shield" versus a "tank" seems like just semantics, when they fill a similar role; indeed, the term tank was originally derived from the same archetypes that "meat shields" does, but without the negative connotation.
The generally accepted use of "tank" as a term is someone who will take the brunt of enemy attacks away from allies, and has some method of surviving said attention. D&D is a bit different from MMOs, in that rather than using a hate or aggro stat that you manipulate, you rely on positioning, things like Opportunity Attacks, and certain spells / feats. So, we can say that D&D does have tanks, despite relying on different tools than their MMO counterparts.
No, didn't forget. The original discussion was excluding subclasses. From the beginning, it was acknowledged that subclass, feats, spells, race, magic items and the like will change the core direction of the class. Swashbuckler, Kensei, and some Hunter options seem to work, off the top of my head.
A tank isn't any good if you can just ignore it and focus on its teammates. Having powerful opportunity attacks makes it painful to run away from a tank. A good way to tank is to make it very painful for enemies to run away from you.
I showed that the AC one can get as an Evasion tank in light or medium armor is comparable to the AC one gets in heavy armor, but then I'm told that tanking is more than just high AC. I brought up Evasion, Deflect Missiles, and Uncanny Dodge, and I was told that things don't help with tanking. I was told that Rogues aren't good tanks because they don't get good opportunity attacks, so I mention Sneak Attack, and again I'm told that doesn't help for tanking.
You guys can't seem to figure out what makes someone a good tank, because you're struggling to find a definition that makes sense, but disqualifies Rogues, Rangers, and Monks.
Since you're having difficulty, I will give you the answer that you're looking for. A tank is someone with high strength. It doesn't matter what their AC is, what their ability to negate damage is, what their threat is. All that matters is Strength and Constitution.
You just quoted a fighting style that literally makes an enemy less likely to attack your friend than you and compared it to sneak attack.
If you use Protection Fighting Style, you are basically saying "ok you can attack my teammate, but you will do so with disadvantage or you can attack me with no such penalties". If they keep attacking the chosen target, they will miss more. If they decide to switch to you, your job as a tank is done and fullfilled. The core function of the fighting style is to discourage enemy from fighting your team mate while the core function of sneak attack makes it so that you want them in melee with no such protection.
One of them can be used in a situation like "oh shit, they closed in on my wizard buddy, better go there and protect so he can go away and the enemy gets disadvantage on the attack of opportunity", the other is "oh, they closed in on my wizard buddy, nice, now I can do more damage".
You really can't spot the difference?
The term "evasion tank" is also fairly well known in gaming culture, and it refers to someone that uses agility or dexterity as their primary stat while filling the role of a traditional tank when it comes to survivability, and ability to generate threat and be the focus of enemy attacks.
So the question is, do evasion tanks in D&D 5e have the survivability and threat to be good enough evasion tanks? Did the designers of 5e make evasion tank a viable strategy?
Do you know what having Sneak Attack on opportunity attacks does? It makes enemies less likely to run away from you and attack your friends.
That enemy isn't going to run away and stand next to the wizard if he's going to get hit really hard by an opportunity attack from you. The point of Sneak Attack opportunity attacks is to keep enemies from running away from you.
Your suggestion for the protection fighting style is what to do when enemies do run away from you. If they're running next to your wizard, you're not doing a good job tanking. Your job as a tank is to stop them from running next to the wizard.
It's also the wizard's job to stand more than 30ft away from the tank.
That's all nice and good but I think we're talking different scenarios here.
My suggestion for protection tanking assumes a battlefield where you have 5-6 player characters against 5-6 enemies. Saying that if one of them runs to your wizard is your failure as a tank is, frankly, ridiculous. You have limited number of attacks of opportunity and limited number of Sneak Attacks. Stuff will get past you. You will get ambushed where the enemy will be closer to a wizard anyway.
But I will grant you that - if you have means of Sneak Attacking on AoO, it's a great demotivator, when it works. Protection Fighting Style is, on the other hand, a dedicated tool to undo a shitty situation which has a highly likelyhood of happening (because of lack of aggro compelling skills).
If the battlefield is a small room, then highly mobile evasion tanks are not nearly as good. I will grant you that.
But when there's enough room that mobility is useful, and where your ranged allies can stand more than 30ft away from their targets, it's very different.
At least in my group, most combats have taken place in either large rooms, or in multiple rooms. We have had a few combats where everyone was in a small room, but those were quite rare.
One of the biggest advantages of evasion tanks is their superior mobility. If you negate that advantage, they are weaker. But most of the time, superior mobility isn't being negated by a tiny battlefield.
Then who's your ally that's standing by the monster? You're the tank. So, who's the other ally, if not the wizard? The healer? The mobile skirmisher? Why should the monster be attacking the rogue, when there's an easier to hit target nearby? A second tank would already have any monster you're threatening already covered, making the rogue redundant and kind of pointless when they could be contributing to the fight in other ways.
That's why this is a problem. In order for your rogue tank idea to work, you're relying on having an alternate, often squishier, target in range.
And that's without the fact that rogues often rely on Uncanny Dodge for damage mitigation, and that takes up your reaction, so rogues cannot use both Uncanny Dodge and an Opportunity Attack on the same round. You have to choose between saving your own skin, and someone else's.
Further compounding the issue, melee rogues often rely on two weapon fighting, so they still get two rolls to hit with their Sneak Attack. This precludes you from being able to use Cunning Action reliably in combat.
Swashbucklers have features that get around a lot of these issues, but we're not talking about that subclass. Swashbucklers have a lot of potential because they change how Sneak Attack works, and effectively give you a mini-Disengage with their Fancy Footwork ability. But every other rogue subclass has major issues involved.
Usually groups are more than just a tank and a bunch of ranged players. If it's the case where you're the only melee person in the party, Swashbuckler makes sense. But it's rare for parties to have just one melee and the rest ranged. It's more common in smaller groups, but when you have four or five people, normally you have at least two guys that are in melee.
You only have to use Uncanny Dodge if somebody hits you with an attack. You only get to use an opportunity attack if somebody is running away from you. If somebody has multi-attack, they're probably not hitting hard enough to use Uncanny Dodge. If they don't have multi-attack, then they can't hit you and run away and hit your ally in the same round. You're not forced to use Uncanny Dodge if someone hits you. And if someone tries to hit you, they're not guaranteed to hit (nor is your opportunity attack guaranteed to hit).
You're trying to think about a melee Rogue as a tank, instead of thinking of a Rogue specifically building to be a tank. If you're playing a tank, you build your character different from a typical melee Rogue.
The idea that a Rogue Tank wouldn't be identical to a Rogue that isn't trying to tank seems to be too difficult for you to comprehend.
Since we're apparently not supposed to talk about the abilities of subclasses, what can a Barbarian do to protect their melee allies from being attacked? They don't get any abilities for protecting nearby allies if you ignore the subclasses. You would have to take a feat for that. But we're not looking at feats, we're looking at classes, right?
Now, you're just being deliberately insulting and derogatory to people that don't agree with you, rather than talking. So, good bye and blocked.
I am sorry that you're so upset that I don't accept the "you're not a tank unless you can cause disadvantage on one attack directed to a player standing next to you" definition of what it means to be a tank.
Nevermind the fact that this bonus won't trigger if they attack people that aren't standing next to you, and that this bonus won't help too much against enemies with multi-attack, or larger groups of weaker enemies that attack the person next to you multiple times, or if they choose to make the person next to you do a saving throw (and quite possibly you as well, since that's how a lot of spells that make you do a dexterity saving throw work). These things are irrelevant because you have your definition of what it means to be a tank, and you seem to really hate evasion tanks for some unspecified reason, and you feel the need to exclude them from being tanks, and you couldn't find a rational justification to exclude them so you figured being irrational was called for.
I don't know why evasion tanks upset you so much, but that's something for you to discuss with your therapist.
By the way, every Rogue has enough dexterity to multiclass fighter for one level and get the ability to use shields and pick up a fighting style. And if the Protection Fighting Style didn't suck so much, that would actually be a decent option. But because it won't help much against multi attack, multiple opponents, saving throws, or allies that aren't next to you, it's not really necessary for tanks to choose it.
ok you can turn a rogue into a tank in several ways, you can take ONE level in fighter and you can use shields, using studded leather or half plate with medium armor master will give you high AC and not mess with your ability to sneak, combed with swashbuckler and you are 100% a tank, high AC and 1d8 hit dice, you will have on average 2 HP less than fighters and 3 less than barbarians but you will take less damage from spells thanks to evasion and can half damage from big hits thanks to uncanny dodge, yet still you guys argue on why they can't be a tank, for those saying they can't be a tank: you are 100% wrong, I already very simply stated on why and how they can be powerful tanks that are also very good at dealing big chunks of damage, you don't even have to be a swashbuckler, a arcane trickster can do it just find if they pick up shield and some other defensive spells, not to mention one level in fighter can either boost there AC by 1 or there damage using a one handed weapon by two, or take two weapon fighting and pick up dual wielder and you still get a +1 to AC and can make two pretty strong attacks.
A really good example I made in my game on monday is that my battle smith artificer is a tank (though every class of artificer can be but won't get two attacks) at level 9 in +1 half plate with a repulser shield and a cloak of protection he has 22 AC and 94 HP and on top of that he can haste himself and bump it to 24 AC and if that wasn't enough he also has shield to top himself off at 29 AC and even if a attack does hit with +8 to con checks (and the ability to bump it to a +13 to con checks) he will never brake concentration on any of his spells witch he can use to buff himself or control the battle field, overall the DM gave up on hitting him and picked on the poor cleric instead XD
if you really want to get into it several races can further boost being a tank like hill dwarf or the new version of warforged (I had a discussion about how OP the +1 AC is vs the flat AC + proficiency as the +1 AC is always added to your AC even if your using wild shape or other spells and stacks with defensive fighting style and other class related AC buffs)
If you have a party that has a dedicated front line, like a barbarian or melee fighter, then the sneak attack damage is almost guaranteed every round. Or if you are the Frontline as a rogue with swashbuckler then you definitely always get it.
Correct, but not for the reason quoted.
There is no tank role because there is no aggro mechanic.
there is no "arggo" BUT if you hit something really hard they will 100% try to kill you, the reason arggo was invented is because they couldn't hire a guy to go control every NPC and go: ok kill the dude that hits you the hardest. so yes there is arggo, no there is no tank role because every class can be made to do anything, like a high AC blandsinger wizard with 20 con and toughness and can take hits for days
I'd argue Cleric isn't a D in debuffs at control/debuffs like a Fighter. They have access to a multi-target bane against early mobs that have low CHA and Command to hit low WIS