Currently playing at LVL 10 in a very deadly campaign post-CoS, (Strahd escaped Barovia and is trying to conquer everything surrounding it, and has become even more powerful). I'm about to roll my third character and has been the main "Tank" in the party so far, where there are other 4 casters/range PCs and just one more melee PC.
I have played two PC's, the first one a devotion paladin with a level in Divine Soul Sorcerer, the second one a full Vengeance Paladin. The bonus to savings throws and buffs like my 3rd level Aid + Inspiring leader kept me from dying until now, not to mention the ability to use Shield/Absorb elements and immunity to charm in my first PC. But I'm really struggling to keep my character alive and end up in the ground more than a couple of times per session normally, while my fellow casters have around half of my HP and they are not even threatened most of the time.
So with that in mind, I may ask you, what is the best "Tanking" build you have played so far, keeping in mind that my goal is to protect the rest of my party and not going down too often? Maybe eldritch knight/cavalier with tough feat? Ancestral Guardian Barbarian + mobile? Path of the bear totem warrior?
Pick up one of your ranged allies who is lurking in the back not contributing his valuable hit points to the fight
Throw him in the middle of the enemies.
While they are distracted, attack.
(more generally: D&D doesn't really encourage MMO-style tanking, because the difference in toughness between characters isn't that high. Instead, what you want to do is make sure that the enemy is unable to focus fire any one character).
Maybe another strategy might be a pet/minion based class? Shepherd Druid leaps to mind. Other possibilities might be an echo knight or a battle smith artificer (for the steel defender) ?
I am playing an eldritch knight/abjuror in Tomb of Annihilation. Key feature being Heavy Armor Mastery and Protection from Evil and Good. He’s been very robust. Your campaign sounds more hardcore though.
But I'm really struggling to keep my character alive and end up in the ground more than a couple of times per session normally, while my fellow casters have around half of my HP and they are not even threatened most of the time.
As Panatgruel was saying, it sounds like part of your issue is party tactics. Ideally you should spread the damage around a bit. Make use of your teammates' HP and hit dice.
Might be an issue with your DM's tactics as well. Anything smart should be trying to get around the guy in full plate to hit the squishies.
Aside from that, you might want to try a Bear Totem Barbarian to have resistance against nearly everything, or an Ancients Paladin for resistance against magic plus the other nice Paladin stuff.
Your repeated deaths/downs do seem indicative of too much pressure being put on you. It's not like those casters have 5 hp. They can take a hit. Having a caster step in to take some aggro near the end of a fight after they have managed to stay near full can be a very useful strategy.
I think you should try a Spirital Weapon + Spirit Guardians Cleric with heavy armor proficiency and force your allies to help pick up the slack.
I believe a Bear Totem Barbarian Hill Dwarf with custom origin from Tasha’s focusing CON > STR can be super tanky. You can go crazy and get Tough feat at level 4 or 8. It’s 145 HP considering CON 18 and Tough feat. You are basically resistant to everything, virtually getting 290 HP at level 10.
How do you get that much hp? With tough if you get it at lvl 4 you get 8 health initially with 2hp or lvl afterwards. What is giving you that extra hp?
How do you get that much hp? With tough if you get it at lvl 4 you get 8 health initially with 2hp or lvl afterwards. What is giving you that extra hp?
I have a character that is far too good of a tank. Her enemies usually can't hit her, and if they do, they hardly leave a scratch on her. She's so good at being a tank that her enemies just take a turn attacking. and next round they ignore her and go hit everyone else. The rest of the party soaks up all the damage. She'd do better without the heavy armor and the shield. Then she'd take tons of damage. She'd probably end up making death saves every single combat, but that's ok. Plenty of healing around. Get her stable with a healer's kit, then use magic and everything is sorted out fine.
I have a character that is far too good of a tank. Her enemies usually can't hit her, and if they do, they hardly leave a scratch on her. She's so good at being a tank that her enemies just take a turn attacking. and next round they ignore her and go hit everyone else. The rest of the party soaks up all the damage. She'd do better without the heavy armor and the shield. Then she'd take tons of damage. She'd probably end up making death saves every single combat, but that's ok. Plenty of healing around. Get her stable with a healer's kit, then use magic and everything is sorted out fine.
This is the opposite of tanking. This is how you build a bad tank.
A tank's primary job is damage prevention, and as a corollary, mobility prevention, because mobility prevention prevents melee damage. You should be protecting the party. Being durable yourself is 100% ok if you're taking hits for the party, but you need a way to take hits for the party. Letting them run off and hit the party means you have failed as a tank.
The UA armourer (guardian) made a very good tank, high A.C. temporry hit points you can replace every turn and cast shield if you you need it. Anything you hit has disadvantage if they attack one of the squished instead.
The Tashas version however can not cast shield and the defensive field has been severely limited, making them more like a bladesinger, hard to hit but if they do get hit with limited HP they soon start looking bad.
Just as I said, my character is so good at preventing damage to herself that the rest of the party ends up taking all the damage. Tanks, as such, become largely pointless after tier 1, and I plan to switch over to doing damage soon. The same problem exists as you move on in levels, the better you are at avoiding damage, the greater the lengths the enemies will take to avoid you, and there is little you can do about that.
There are a wide variety of things that can be done to make yourself a better tank. All of them are at the expense of damage output, which tends to prove the old saying "The best defense is a good offense".
I guess I better say something about the topic of the thread. Fighter- Battlemaster. They have the best tools for the job.
Just as I said, my character is so good at preventing damage to herself that the rest of the party ends up taking all the damage. Tanks, as such, become largely pointless after tier 1, and I plan to switch over to doing damage soon. The same problem exists as you move on in levels, the better you are at avoiding damage, the greater the lengths the enemies will take to avoid you, and there is little you can do about that.
There are a wide variety of things that can be done to make yourself a better tank. All of them are at the expense of damage output, which tends to prove the old saying "The best defense is a good offense".
I guess I better say something about the topic of the thread. Fighter- Battlemaster. They have the best tools for the job.
I disagree with that, tanks need features that prevent, or enemies attacking the rest of the party or at least reduce the damage they can do if they try, being in melee range so they have to either draw an op attack or make a ranged attack at disadvantage to not attack you only goes so far. Though I admit the options are limited: Features such as the following can work:
Guardian Armorer: Any creature you hit on your turn has disadvantage on attacks agaist creatures other than you
Sentinal Feat: Prevents melee attacks against other party members who have positioned themselves out of range, ranged attacks will be at disadvantage (you don't want reach)
Grappling creatures so they can move to your friends (and ranged attacks will be at disadvantage
Ancestral Guardian Barb's Spirit shield: If the an enemy attacks someone other than you you can reduce the damage (using a reaction)
Compelled duel spell: Somewhat situational but you can use it against a heavy hitting boss with a number of minions doing much less damage. You duel the boss so the big hits all come your way while the rest of the party deal with the minions
It has been a long time, and I could easily be wrong, but I believe that Wizards of the Coast provided some information about the game that was pretty surprising. The most commonly played class was Fighter. The most commonly used race was Human. Feats and Multi-Classing were almost never used. I seem to remember the people at D&D Beyond saying essentially the same thing.
Have a look. Judging by the total number of thread and posts, Warlock is by far the class that draws the most attention. Barbarian and Bard are down at the bottom. There is no forum for races. My own experience is that almost nobody plays Humans, and I am told that I am unique in this respect. What do I play? Heavily armored Human Battlemaster-Fighter with a longsword and shield.
To the topic then. The argument that Barbarians make superior tanks is pretty convincing. I kind of see them out in the forefront of the battle, fighting in a furious rage with reckless abandon where their large pool of hit points allows them to soak up the large amount of damage that they take. It's great to know that all they need do is pick up a shield and hold it to be much better than a Fighter in all respects. Yay for the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian!
Not convinced the gloves on Arcane Propulsion Armor are compatible with Thunder Gloves. But yes, artificers are up there in the tank competition (Artillerist is also really good at it though in a somewhat different style).
Moon druid is a good shout. It is fine pure but multi classing as a totem barbarian would be awesome. I play as a fey touched moon druid and often I end up near full health at the end of fights, despite being a tank. I try to avoid it as conjure animals can be a time sink but you have polymorph, conjure animals and 2 wildshape meatbags. While feytouched prob isn't the optimized feat it can give you bless for helping on saves plus a get out of Dodge if you are out of options.
A great thing about polymorph is once your low you can just tag a teammate and swap roles. He tanks and you hide at the back spamming ranged cantrips while maintaining concentration on mammoth/giant Ape or whatever.
Not only this but they have a ton of movement restriction spells which helps avoid damage happening. (Combo spike growth and plant growth is just pure cheese and you can set this up on your own.)
I believe a Bear Totem Barbarian Hill Dwarf with custom origin from Tasha’s focusing CON > STR can be super tanky. You can go crazy and get Tough feat at level 4 or 8. It’s 145 HP considering CON 18 and Tough feat. You are basically resistant to everything, virtually getting 290 HP at level 10.
Make that hill dwarf a mountain dwarf, dip into sorrceror to cast shield on you before you rage, you'll be a walking tank
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Hi Everyone!
Currently playing at LVL 10 in a very deadly campaign post-CoS, (Strahd escaped Barovia and is trying to conquer everything surrounding it, and has become even more powerful). I'm about to roll my third character and has been the main "Tank" in the party so far, where there are other 4 casters/range PCs and just one more melee PC.
I have played two PC's, the first one a devotion paladin with a level in Divine Soul Sorcerer, the second one a full Vengeance Paladin. The bonus to savings throws and buffs like my 3rd level Aid + Inspiring leader kept me from dying until now, not to mention the ability to use Shield/Absorb elements and immunity to charm in my first PC. But I'm really struggling to keep my character alive and end up in the ground more than a couple of times per session normally, while my fellow casters have around half of my HP and they are not even threatened most of the time.
So with that in mind, I may ask you, what is the best "Tanking" build you have played so far, keeping in mind that my goal is to protect the rest of my party and not going down too often? Maybe eldritch knight/cavalier with tough feat? Ancestral Guardian Barbarian + mobile? Path of the bear totem warrior?
How to improve survivability:
Play a goliath barbarian.
Pick up one of your ranged allies who is lurking in the back not contributing his valuable hit points to the fight
Throw him in the middle of the enemies.
While they are distracted, attack.
(more generally: D&D doesn't really encourage MMO-style tanking, because the difference in toughness between characters isn't that high. Instead, what you want to do is make sure that the enemy is unable to focus fire any one character).
Maybe another strategy might be a pet/minion based class? Shepherd Druid leaps to mind. Other possibilities might be an echo knight or a battle smith artificer (for the steel defender) ?
I am playing an eldritch knight/abjuror in Tomb of Annihilation. Key feature being Heavy Armor Mastery and Protection from Evil and Good. He’s been very robust. Your campaign sounds more hardcore though.
As Panatgruel was saying, it sounds like part of your issue is party tactics. Ideally you should spread the damage around a bit. Make use of your teammates' HP and hit dice.
Might be an issue with your DM's tactics as well. Anything smart should be trying to get around the guy in full plate to hit the squishies.
Aside from that, you might want to try a Bear Totem Barbarian to have resistance against nearly everything, or an Ancients Paladin for resistance against magic plus the other nice Paladin stuff.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Your repeated deaths/downs do seem indicative of too much pressure being put on you. It's not like those casters have 5 hp. They can take a hit. Having a caster step in to take some aggro near the end of a fight after they have managed to stay near full can be a very useful strategy.
I think you should try a Spirital Weapon + Spirit Guardians Cleric with heavy armor proficiency and force your allies to help pick up the slack.
I believe a Bear Totem Barbarian Hill Dwarf with custom origin from Tasha’s focusing CON > STR can be super tanky. You can go crazy and get Tough feat at level 4 or 8. It’s 145 HP considering CON 18 and Tough feat. You are basically resistant to everything, virtually getting 290 HP at level 10.
How do you get that much hp? With tough if you get it at lvl 4 you get 8 health initially with 2hp or lvl afterwards. What is giving you that extra hp?
12 at level 1
63 from level ups at 1d12 or choose 7
40 from 10 times con
20 from tough
Total is 135
I have a character that is far too good of a tank. Her enemies usually can't hit her, and if they do, they hardly leave a scratch on her. She's so good at being a tank that her enemies just take a turn attacking. and next round they ignore her and go hit everyone else. The rest of the party soaks up all the damage. She'd do better without the heavy armor and the shield. Then she'd take tons of damage. She'd probably end up making death saves every single combat, but that's ok. Plenty of healing around. Get her stable with a healer's kit, then use magic and everything is sorted out fine.
<Insert clever signature here>
This is the opposite of tanking. This is how you build a bad tank.
A tank's primary job is damage prevention, and as a corollary, mobility prevention, because mobility prevention prevents melee damage. You should be protecting the party. Being durable yourself is 100% ok if you're taking hits for the party, but you need a way to take hits for the party. Letting them run off and hit the party means you have failed as a tank.
The UA armourer (guardian) made a very good tank, high A.C. temporry hit points you can replace every turn and cast shield if you you need it. Anything you hit has disadvantage if they attack one of the squished instead.
The Tashas version however can not cast shield and the defensive field has been severely limited, making them more like a bladesinger, hard to hit but if they do get hit with limited HP they soon start looking bad.
Just as I said, my character is so good at preventing damage to herself that the rest of the party ends up taking all the damage. Tanks, as such, become largely pointless after tier 1, and I plan to switch over to doing damage soon. The same problem exists as you move on in levels, the better you are at avoiding damage, the greater the lengths the enemies will take to avoid you, and there is little you can do about that.
There are a wide variety of things that can be done to make yourself a better tank. All of them are at the expense of damage output, which tends to prove the old saying "The best defense is a good offense".
I guess I better say something about the topic of the thread. Fighter- Battlemaster. They have the best tools for the job.
<Insert clever signature here>
A battle master is a good general purpose fighter, but a cavalier or ancestral guardian barbarian is better at locking down enemies.
I disagree with that, tanks need features that prevent, or enemies attacking the rest of the party or at least reduce the damage they can do if they try, being in melee range so they have to either draw an op attack or make a ranged attack at disadvantage to not attack you only goes so far. Though I admit the options are limited: Features such as the following can work:
It has been a long time, and I could easily be wrong, but I believe that Wizards of the Coast provided some information about the game that was pretty surprising. The most commonly played class was Fighter. The most commonly used race was Human. Feats and Multi-Classing were almost never used. I seem to remember the people at D&D Beyond saying essentially the same thing.
Have a look. Judging by the total number of thread and posts, Warlock is by far the class that draws the most attention. Barbarian and Bard are down at the bottom. There is no forum for races. My own experience is that almost nobody plays Humans, and I am told that I am unique in this respect. What do I play? Heavily armored Human Battlemaster-Fighter with a longsword and shield.
To the topic then. The argument that Barbarians make superior tanks is pretty convincing. I kind of see them out in the forefront of the battle, fighting in a furious rage with reckless abandon where their large pool of hit points allows them to soak up the large amount of damage that they take. It's great to know that all they need do is pick up a shield and hold it to be much better than a Fighter in all respects. Yay for the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian!
<Insert clever signature here>
Not convinced the gloves on Arcane Propulsion Armor are compatible with Thunder Gloves. But yes, artificers are up there in the tank competition (Artillerist is also really good at it though in a somewhat different style).
Some ideas, complete with demonstrations. Just, y'know, food for thought.
Please do not contact or message me.
Moon druid is a good shout. It is fine pure but multi classing as a totem barbarian would be awesome. I play as a fey touched moon druid and often I end up near full health at the end of fights, despite being a tank. I try to avoid it as conjure animals can be a time sink but you have polymorph, conjure animals and 2 wildshape meatbags. While feytouched prob isn't the optimized feat it can give you bless for helping on saves plus a get out of Dodge if you are out of options.
A great thing about polymorph is once your low you can just tag a teammate and swap roles. He tanks and you hide at the back spamming ranged cantrips while maintaining concentration on mammoth/giant Ape or whatever.
Not only this but they have a ton of movement restriction spells which helps avoid damage happening. (Combo spike growth and plant growth is just pure cheese and you can set this up on your own.)
Make that hill dwarf a mountain dwarf, dip into sorrceror to cast shield on you before you rage, you'll be a walking tank
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