The best tank character I have ever done is one of the two PCs I am playing currently. It’s a Level 14 Goliath - 8 Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/6 Rune Knight Fighter. Ancestral Protectors and Spirit Shield are great for allowing me to mitigate damage to my allies by either decreasing the damage or giving them resistance to damage and giving disadvantage to enemies when they attack someone other than me. And then with Rune Knight, my Fire Rune and Cloud Rune can restrain an enemy and deal them chip damage other time or redirect an attack to another target, respectively. Not to mention with Giant’s Might, I can much more easily grapple enemies directly. And of course, Second Wind and Stone’s Endurance plus the damage resistances of Rage help limit the damage I take 👍🏻
This is in no way near the best but a blade singer who took medium and heavy armour feats so that they could wear plate armour (18 AC) wear a shield (total 20 AC) and using the song singalong with their 20 (+5) Intelligence stat for a basic 25 AC. Use your last 2 ASI's to then get polearm master + sentinel so you can lock them down while your at it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Maybe be a necromancer instead and "tank" using an army of undead. I had one Idea where you use one 9th level spell slot and one 8th level spell slot on an upcasted version of create undead to make 5 wights. Use those 5 wights to massacre 60 creatures that are eligible to become zombies and now you have a micro army why stop there use your remaining spell slots to create more undead and then use the 14th level necromancy ability after capturing another undead army to turn all the corpses into bodyguards and a personal army who can action economy a dragon to death (maybe)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Five wights and sixty zombies represent zero threat to something that can fly.
Even against non-fliers, melee has very limited capabilities because most of them can't even reach the target, and they have to clump up by enough to be trivially obliterated by area effects. The usual way to 'tank' with spellcasters is either wall-type spells or meatwall summons.
A great tank option is Crown Paladin and Cavalier Fighter. Oath of the Crown - Champion Challenge allows you to create a 30 ft non-escapable barrier for enemies centered on you. If your allies get stuck they can easily move out of it and kill the enemies from ranged. The other ability, Divine Allegiance allows you to substitute your health in place of an ally's. Cavalier has a lot of great abilities for tanking (none of which require you to be mounted). Your Unwavering Mark at 3rd (imposes disadvantage on anyone but you) has multiple uses and will make them have to attack you. If they don't you get to hit them a lot harder when it comes back to you. Warding Maneuver at 7th can add a nice AC bonus to you or an ally if they get hit, potentially negating the entire attack. Has multiple uses, and is pretty self exclamatory in uses and tankiness. Hold The Line at 10th level states "Creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they move 5 feet or more while within your reach, and if you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, the target's speed is reduced to 0 until the end of the current turn." This basically functions as polearm master (without the requirement of a polearm) and sentinel without taking those feats. When moving 5ft or more while within reach means that this can be used if an enemy comes into your zone for the first time. It's not exclusively referring to when they move around your zone when the two of you are engaged. Also, no reach, or use limit on this, take that information as you may. If you take the Dueling & Defense fighting styles you get an extra damage boost plus better AC. Defense+Plate+Shield = 21 AC; NO MAGIC ITEMS INCLUDED. Your damage output is still great with 3 attacks with 11 Fighter levels. Access to Divine Smite and Smite spells at 3rd level as a 9 Paladin as well as dueling fighting style. You also are spongy/tanky if you take Tough as well use some ASI to increase CON. You could also get a caster to give you either Haste (+2 AC and an extra action), Aid (5 x spell level - 5 Extra HP), or Stoneskin (Resistance to nonmagical weapons). All of this is without the use of magic items.
Best tanks are Barbarians (see above), Druids (see above) and Paladins (for armor). Rogues do NOT tank.
As for 'not letting someone multi-class that much', nope. The reason people do not multi-class that much is because it is a BAD idea. You always end up weak. Never seen a good character that had more than 3 levels outside their main class. NEVER works out well.
His build was:
Rogue 7, Barbarian 3, Paladin 6, Warlock 3, Cleric 1. He was MAD as hell, needing Con, Dex, Charisma, and Wisdom.
He misses out on a ton of ASI/Feats (getting only 2 as compared to the normal 5) Imagine giving up 3 feats for this thing. He has 3 different casters, never getting more than 2nd level spells, so all a) all the spells will be weak and b) he never gets a smite worth taking. He took Paladin for Advantage (despite being able to get something similar from his Rogue class or feats) and saves yet gave up the class ability to move after taking an AoO. He took Warlock just for the Charisma Modifier when he was already good at Dex He valued Elven Accuracy, thinking it gave him a 27% crit chance. Worst of all was taking War Cleric for basically nothing. Could have gotten a feat in Rogue, Barbarian or Warlock for it. Worst of all with one of his two only feats, he took Great Weapon Master, granting a +10 to damage for a CRIT BASED character. You know that -5 penalty applies to hit but the +10 does not get doubled for a crit.
Rogue is a bad idea for TANK. Good for Social, Stealth and Utility, but they are not tanks.
For a good crit focused build, consider the following
Elf (for Elven Accuracy)
20 levels of Fighter (Champion), getting 7 feats, using a Rapier, Dex based
Mounted Combat (for Advantage against creatures smaller than your mount)
Grappler (for advantage while grappling)
Piercer (for even more damage while using your rapier)
Shield Master (to tank you up)
Toughness
Resilient to shore up a bad save
Whatever you want, cause you got so many ASI Maybe the one that gives you BattleMaster maneuvers. Or take Magic Initiate and get the Shield Spell for an Emergency +5 to AC
If you are facing a large creature, you use your mount to get advantage. If not, get off and grapple.
You get a high AC, 4 attacks + your shield, all at advantage with triple advantage., Indomitable, a crit range of 18-20 before you get your 3 dice rolls to hit that number, Action surges, second winds, constant healing when below 50%, multiple fighting styles, and Remarkable Athlete.
You are harder to hit and do more damage cause all you really want for this build is Dex and Con. You take your Half Plate and shield with magic, making an AC over 20, quite possibly 25. Good enough for you to avoid most hits, but still attract an attack or two so you do your job of keeping the bad guys focused on you.
As for 'not letting someone multi-class that much', nope. The reason people do not multi-class that much is because it is a BAD idea. You always end up weak. Never seen a good character that had more than 3 levels outside their main class. NEVER works out well.
Rogue should work pretty well with Fighter, Ranger, or Paladin -- the capstone abilities aren't that great, and having both sneak attack and multiattack seems nice.
As for 'not letting someone multi-class that much', nope. The reason people do not multi-class that much is because it is a BAD idea. You always end up weak. Never seen a good character that had more than 3 levels outside their main class. NEVER works out well.
An example of a build that has big multiclass dips is (1) hexblade warlock, (8) devotion paladin, (11) swords bard (in that order)
It's a Paladin that's taking more than half of his levels in other classes, while fundamentally being a Paladin foremost.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The best tank character I have ever done is one of the two PCs I am playing currently. It’s a Level 14 Goliath - 8 Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/6 Rune Knight Fighter. Ancestral Protectors and Spirit Shield are great for allowing me to mitigate damage to my allies by either decreasing the damage or giving them resistance to damage and giving disadvantage to enemies when they attack someone other than me. And then with Rune Knight, my Fire Rune and Cloud Rune can restrain an enemy and deal them chip damage other time or redirect an attack to another target, respectively. Not to mention with Giant’s Might, I can much more easily grapple enemies directly. And of course, Second Wind and Stone’s Endurance plus the damage resistances of Rage help limit the damage I take 👍🏻
This is in no way near the best but a blade singer who took medium and heavy armour feats so that they could wear plate armour (18 AC) wear a shield (total 20 AC) and using the song singalong with their 20 (+5) Intelligence stat for a basic 25 AC. Use your last 2 ASI's to then get polearm master + sentinel so you can lock them down while your at it.
[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Drummer Generated Title
After having been invited to include both here, I now combine the "PM me CHEESE 🧀 and tomato into PM me "PIZZA🍕"
As cool as that would be, you can’t actually use the Bladesong while wearing Medium or Heavy Armor, even if you have proficiency in them
Oh wait, Now I see that...
Maybe be a necromancer instead and "tank" using an army of undead. I had one Idea where you use one 9th level spell slot and one 8th level spell slot on an upcasted version of create undead to make 5 wights. Use those 5 wights to massacre 60 creatures that are eligible to become zombies and now you have a micro army why stop there use your remaining spell slots to create more undead and then use the 14th level necromancy ability after capturing another undead army to turn all the corpses into bodyguards and a personal army who can action economy a dragon to death (maybe)
[roll]7d6[/roll]
Every post these dice roll increasing my chances of winning the yahtzee thread (I wish (wait not the twist the wish threa-!))
Drummer Generated Title
After having been invited to include both here, I now combine the "PM me CHEESE 🧀 and tomato into PM me "PIZZA🍕"
Five wights and sixty zombies represent zero threat to something that can fly.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Even against non-fliers, melee has very limited capabilities because most of them can't even reach the target, and they have to clump up by enough to be trivially obliterated by area effects. The usual way to 'tank' with spellcasters is either wall-type spells or meatwall summons.
A great tank option is Crown Paladin and Cavalier Fighter. Oath of the Crown - Champion Challenge allows you to create a 30 ft non-escapable barrier for enemies centered on you. If your allies get stuck they can easily move out of it and kill the enemies from ranged. The other ability, Divine Allegiance allows you to substitute your health in place of an ally's. Cavalier has a lot of great abilities for tanking (none of which require you to be mounted). Your Unwavering Mark at 3rd (imposes disadvantage on anyone but you) has multiple uses and will make them have to attack you. If they don't you get to hit them a lot harder when it comes back to you. Warding Maneuver at 7th can add a nice AC bonus to you or an ally if they get hit, potentially negating the entire attack. Has multiple uses, and is pretty self exclamatory in uses and tankiness. Hold The Line at 10th level states "Creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they move 5 feet or more while within your reach, and if you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, the target's speed is reduced to 0 until the end of the current turn." This basically functions as polearm master (without the requirement of a polearm) and sentinel without taking those feats. When moving 5ft or more while within reach means that this can be used if an enemy comes into your zone for the first time. It's not exclusively referring to when they move around your zone when the two of you are engaged. Also, no reach, or use limit on this, take that information as you may. If you take the Dueling & Defense fighting styles you get an extra damage boost plus better AC. Defense+Plate+Shield = 21 AC; NO MAGIC ITEMS INCLUDED. Your damage output is still great with 3 attacks with 11 Fighter levels. Access to Divine Smite and Smite spells at 3rd level as a 9 Paladin as well as dueling fighting style. You also are spongy/tanky if you take Tough as well use some ASI to increase CON. You could also get a caster to give you either Haste (+2 AC and an extra action), Aid (5 x spell level - 5 Extra HP), or Stoneskin (Resistance to nonmagical weapons). All of this is without the use of magic items.
Tough is a nearly pointless feat. The actual boost it provides really only amounts to being able to take one or maybe two more hits, tops.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Best tanks are Barbarians (see above), Druids (see above) and Paladins (for armor). Rogues do NOT tank.
As for 'not letting someone multi-class that much', nope. The reason people do not multi-class that much is because it is a BAD idea. You always end up weak. Never seen a good character that had more than 3 levels outside their main class. NEVER works out well.
His build was:
Rogue 7, Barbarian 3, Paladin 6, Warlock 3, Cleric 1. He was MAD as hell, needing Con, Dex, Charisma, and Wisdom.
He misses out on a ton of ASI/Feats (getting only 2 as compared to the normal 5) Imagine giving up 3 feats for this thing. He has 3 different casters, never getting more than 2nd level spells, so all a) all the spells will be weak and b) he never gets a smite worth taking. He took Paladin for Advantage (despite being able to get something similar from his Rogue class or feats) and saves yet gave up the class ability to move after taking an AoO. He took Warlock just for the Charisma Modifier when he was already good at Dex He valued Elven Accuracy, thinking it gave him a 27% crit chance. Worst of all was taking War Cleric for basically nothing. Could have gotten a feat in Rogue, Barbarian or Warlock for it. Worst of all with one of his two only feats, he took Great Weapon Master, granting a +10 to damage for a CRIT BASED character. You know that -5 penalty applies to hit but the +10 does not get doubled for a crit.
Rogue is a bad idea for TANK. Good for Social, Stealth and Utility, but they are not tanks.
For a good crit focused build, consider the following
Elf (for Elven Accuracy)
20 levels of Fighter (Champion), getting 7 feats, using a Rapier, Dex based
If you are facing a large creature, you use your mount to get advantage. If not, get off and grapple.
You get a high AC, 4 attacks + your shield, all at advantage with triple advantage., Indomitable, a crit range of 18-20 before you get your 3 dice rolls to hit that number, Action surges, second winds, constant healing when below 50%, multiple fighting styles, and Remarkable Athlete.
You are harder to hit and do more damage cause all you really want for this build is Dex and Con. You take your Half Plate and shield with magic, making an AC over 20, quite possibly 25. Good enough for you to avoid most hits, but still attract an attack or two so you do your job of keeping the bad guys focused on you.
Rogue should work pretty well with Fighter, Ranger, or Paladin -- the capstone abilities aren't that great, and having both sneak attack and multiattack seems nice.
An example of a build that has big multiclass dips is (1) hexblade warlock, (8) devotion paladin, (11) swords bard (in that order)
It's a Paladin that's taking more than half of his levels in other classes, while fundamentally being a Paladin foremost.