When I presented my build to some people one here, one implied I was trying to make a Warlock tank. That got me thinking: is that such a bad idea? How would I go about making it a proper tank besides the boatload of HP and recovery I already have? Go with the speedy feat to get into melee faster? Get higher dex to go sooner in combat? Forgo my Eldritch Blast and Eldritch Invocations associated with it in favor of more in your face spells like booming blade or green flame blade? (I still haven’t figured out how you give Agonizing Blast to a spell besides Eldritch Blast).
Truth be told I appreciate being more of a Gish, but I am just curious and wondered what steps I could maybe take over some of the ones I did to make myself tankier without taking away too much.
Being a tank is basically the opposite of a mage. A tank wants to wade into combat and therefore be hit and get hit. If you are attacking opponent swings that allows the mages in the rear to do their damage.
A tank has a pretty specific meaning.
You want to be I assume a big offensive dealer in damage via melee combat aka one on one fighting?
You need access to armor and shield? or dop you want 2 weapon fighting? Pact of the blade promotes single weapon.
If you want to do 2 weapon fighting that of course requires a different build.
If you want more offense, you may want to look at either a Barbarian or a fighter, depending on how many levels. Doing 19 levels of warlock is probably not a great min-max of stats. SO how high do you want to go with the melee class? To capture that ASI feat, you might want to go 4 levels of melee. Getting a 5th may not matter, but a 6th fighter gets you that another ASI feat.
You want to be I assume a big offensive dealer in damage via melee combat aka one on one fighting?
well… not really, no. Just defensive with high hit points and ways to ensure the opponent hits you instead of your teammates.
Defense wise I’m carrying a rapier and shield with medium armor. I suppose if i dumped my dexterity and wisdom I could get a 15 in Strength to use Heavy Armor without the penalty that wouldn’t let me get in front of people fast enough. Is Heavy Armor that much better? On a similar note, as long as I’m going high in strength and charisma, what about a Paladin/Warlock?
How do you mean 19 is not a good min-max? I’m only behind one level in progression, and the 20th level ability we get for warlocks we get half of at level 2. If you mean taking even least in warlock in favor of something else, I guess it just depends on the abilities we get in it’s place. While there’s nothing I could do about loosing True Polymorph at Warlock level 17, I can get an epic boon feat at what ver level 19 or 20 happens to be.
You do mention barbarians, and they have great abilities like reckless attack that encourage enemies to hit you while getting a bonus to hit yourself. I’ve heard of barbarian/fiend warlocks with similar levels, but I wonder if a barbarian/celestial warlock could work?
As a high damage melee fighting PC, you need more melee levels. That is why a 19th level warlock is not a good min max. As a mage that can fight, then 19th level is good.
Barbarian/Warlock has one sticking point, no spells while raging. As you do not always need to rage when you fight, this can work, but it also means when you are doing melee combat, you basically need to be spell free. It was mentioned that Eldritch Invocations can be used when raging.
Barbarian/Warlock need to separate out when you would use spells and when you would be swinging in rage. That separation is very doable, as long as you understand it and have acted accordingly when you pick spells. Obviously, truestrike/blooming blade/Hex/Hunger for Hadar/etc. will not work. But Armor of Agysta (sic) will work.
Heavy Armor generally ignores your dex. Medium allows up to a +2 dex bonus. So plate armor is 18AC. If you have (magical) medium or light armor with a dex bonus still = 18, then no, plate is not necessarily better.
...and ways to ensure the opponent hits you instead of your teammates.
Look at it from the other side's POV. What makes your party see an actual opponent and decide that foe is the top target priority? It usually comes down to how much offensive damage can be received versus how easy to destroy. If your defense is really high, but you offensive damage is below average, the opponents will not gravitate toward you. If you have high offensive damage, then the opponents are more likely to target you.
There’s a good number of warlock spells that could be good at helping you tank. You might actually get use from blade ward, until you have something better for your concentration. Armor of agathys, the various investiture spells (fire, ice, etc.) spirit shroud, thunder step in case things get a little overwhelming and you need to get out. I’d say you can tank pretty well.
The idea that tanks should draw attention to themselves by doing damage to get enemies to attack them is correct, but only up to a point. For one, it will depend on how intelligent the enemies are — and on how intelligently your DM plays them. For 2, there’s terrain; half of tanking comes down to placing yourself correctly. And for 3, D&D combats tend to be pretty sticky. Once you engage someone in melee, 8 times out of 10, they stay there until one of you drops. (The other two are enemies that can teleport or have some kind of bonus action disengage.) And hey, if the orc wants to disengage and run closer to the wizard and just stand there, great. You’ve just taken its action economy.
If multiclass is what you're going for, ask yourself how much you want to focus on being a warlock and how much you want to focus on other classes.
If you want to focus most of your class levels on warlock ... take the Hexblade subclass, use the Pact of the Blade pact boon, and make all of your spells self-protection (Blade Ward, Shield) or damage-increasing (Green-Flame Blade, Hex). Your Invocations can be anything you want, but I recommend ones that enhance your pact weapons like Lifedrinker.
If you want to focus most of your class levels elsewhere and only take a level or two in warlock ... take the Undead or Hexblade warlock subclass for warlock and choose Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, or Monk as your other class. Barbarian gives you loads of HP and sheer power, Fighter gives you lots of attacks and self-healing, Paladin smites can be used in tandem with Hex and Hexblade curses to deal lots of damage at once, and Monk gives you agility and the ability to land many blows in one turn.
If you pick Barbarian, I recommend the Totem Warrior -- Wild Heart in 2024 -- to gain resistance to (nearly) all damage during rage. Or go with Berserker for a more attacking-oriented character. Make most of your spells out-of-battle-utility spells. Battle spells mean nothing because you can't cast them while raging. Invocations should be utility (or Pact of the Blade boosts if applicable).
If you pick Fighter, any subclass should be fine. I don't recommend Eldritch Knight because that's a lot of ability scores to deal with and frankly, they're not good tanks. Champion and Samurai are good for a tank build. Rune Knight is also a viable option, but it only comes into its own for a tank build at level 7.
If you pick Paladin, once again, any subclass is fine. But a Vengeance Paladin with one level as a Hexblade warlock would allow for some incredible single-target damage. Divine Smite plus smite spells plus Hexblade curse plus hunter's mark plus Vow of Emnity equals a LOT of damage with a single attack. Oath of the Crown and Oath of Conquest are also good choices.
If you pick Monk, I recommend Way of the Kensei for the helpful abilities when in melee. Remember, if you're trying to focus on Monk powers rather than Warlock ones, you need to focus more on your Wisdom than your Charisma. In turn, your Warlock spells will suffer a bit, so sticking with utility spells would be helpful.
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When I presented my build to some people one here, one implied I was trying to make a Warlock tank. That got me thinking: is that such a bad idea? How would I go about making it a proper tank besides the boatload of HP and recovery I already have? Go with the speedy feat to get into melee faster? Get higher dex to go sooner in combat? Forgo my Eldritch Blast and Eldritch Invocations associated with it in favor of more in your face spells like booming blade or green flame blade? (I still haven’t figured out how you give Agonizing Blast to a spell besides Eldritch Blast).
Truth be told I appreciate being more of a Gish, but I am just curious and wondered what steps I could maybe take over some of the ones I did to make myself tankier without taking away too much.
www.dndbeyond.com/sheet-pdfs/Actionsparda_150088777.pdf
Being a tank is basically the opposite of a mage. A tank wants to wade into combat and therefore be hit and get hit. If you are attacking opponent swings that allows the mages in the rear to do their damage.
A tank has a pretty specific meaning.
You want to be I assume a big offensive dealer in damage via melee combat aka one on one fighting?
You need access to armor and shield? or dop you want 2 weapon fighting? Pact of the blade promotes single weapon.
If you want to do 2 weapon fighting that of course requires a different build.
If you want more offense, you may want to look at either a Barbarian or a fighter, depending on how many levels. Doing 19 levels of warlock is probably not a great min-max of stats. SO how high do you want to go with the melee class? To capture that ASI feat, you might want to go 4 levels of melee. Getting a 5th may not matter, but a 6th fighter gets you that another ASI feat.
well… not really, no. Just defensive with high hit points and ways to ensure the opponent hits you instead of your teammates.
Defense wise I’m carrying a rapier and shield with medium armor. I suppose if i dumped my dexterity and wisdom I could get a 15 in Strength to use Heavy Armor without the penalty that wouldn’t let me get in front of people fast enough. Is Heavy Armor that much better? On a similar note, as long as I’m going high in strength and charisma, what about a Paladin/Warlock?
How do you mean 19 is not a good min-max? I’m only behind one level in progression, and the 20th level ability we get for warlocks we get half of at level 2. If you mean taking even least in warlock in favor of something else, I guess it just depends on the abilities we get in it’s place. While there’s nothing I could do about loosing True Polymorph at Warlock level 17, I can get an epic boon feat at what ver level 19 or 20 happens to be.
You do mention barbarians, and they have great abilities like reckless attack that encourage enemies to hit you while getting a bonus to hit yourself. I’ve heard of barbarian/fiend warlocks with similar levels, but I wonder if a barbarian/celestial warlock could work?
As a high damage melee fighting PC, you need more melee levels. That is why a 19th level warlock is not a good min max. As a mage that can fight, then 19th level is good.
Barbarian/Warlock has one sticking point, no spells while raging. As you do not always need to rage when you fight, this can work, but it also means when you are doing melee combat, you basically need to be spell free. It was mentioned that Eldritch Invocations can be used when raging.
Barbarian/Warlock need to separate out when you would use spells and when you would be swinging in rage. That separation is very doable, as long as you understand it and have acted accordingly when you pick spells. Obviously, truestrike/blooming blade/Hex/Hunger for Hadar/etc. will not work. But Armor of Agysta (sic) will work.
Heavy Armor generally ignores your dex. Medium allows up to a +2 dex bonus. So plate armor is 18AC. If you have (magical) medium or light armor with a dex bonus still = 18, then no, plate is not necessarily better.
Look at it from the other side's POV. What makes your party see an actual opponent and decide that foe is the top target priority? It usually comes down to how much offensive damage can be received versus how easy to destroy. If your defense is really high, but you offensive damage is below average, the opponents will not gravitate toward you. If you have high offensive damage, then the opponents are more likely to target you.
There’s a good number of warlock spells that could be good at helping you tank. You might actually get use from blade ward, until you have something better for your concentration. Armor of agathys, the various investiture spells (fire, ice, etc.) spirit shroud, thunder step in case things get a little overwhelming and you need to get out. I’d say you can tank pretty well.
The idea that tanks should draw attention to themselves by doing damage to get enemies to attack them is correct, but only up to a point. For one, it will depend on how intelligent the enemies are — and on how intelligently your DM plays them. For 2, there’s terrain; half of tanking comes down to placing yourself correctly. And for 3, D&D combats tend to be pretty sticky. Once you engage someone in melee, 8 times out of 10, they stay there until one of you drops. (The other two are enemies that can teleport or have some kind of bonus action disengage.) And hey, if the orc wants to disengage and run closer to the wizard and just stand there, great. You’ve just taken its action economy.
If multiclass is what you're going for, ask yourself how much you want to focus on being a warlock and how much you want to focus on other classes.
If you want to focus most of your class levels on warlock ... take the Hexblade subclass, use the Pact of the Blade pact boon, and make all of your spells self-protection (Blade Ward, Shield) or damage-increasing (Green-Flame Blade, Hex). Your Invocations can be anything you want, but I recommend ones that enhance your pact weapons like Lifedrinker.
If you want to focus most of your class levels elsewhere and only take a level or two in warlock ... take the Undead or Hexblade warlock subclass for warlock and choose Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, or Monk as your other class. Barbarian gives you loads of HP and sheer power, Fighter gives you lots of attacks and self-healing, Paladin smites can be used in tandem with Hex and Hexblade curses to deal lots of damage at once, and Monk gives you agility and the ability to land many blows in one turn.
If you pick Barbarian, I recommend the Totem Warrior -- Wild Heart in 2024 -- to gain resistance to (nearly) all damage during rage. Or go with Berserker for a more attacking-oriented character. Make most of your spells out-of-battle-utility spells. Battle spells mean nothing because you can't cast them while raging. Invocations should be utility (or Pact of the Blade boosts if applicable).
If you pick Fighter, any subclass should be fine. I don't recommend Eldritch Knight because that's a lot of ability scores to deal with and frankly, they're not good tanks. Champion and Samurai are good for a tank build. Rune Knight is also a viable option, but it only comes into its own for a tank build at level 7.
If you pick Paladin, once again, any subclass is fine. But a Vengeance Paladin with one level as a Hexblade warlock would allow for some incredible single-target damage. Divine Smite plus smite spells plus Hexblade curse plus hunter's mark plus Vow of Emnity equals a LOT of damage with a single attack. Oath of the Crown and Oath of Conquest are also good choices.
If you pick Monk, I recommend Way of the Kensei for the helpful abilities when in melee. Remember, if you're trying to focus on Monk powers rather than Warlock ones, you need to focus more on your Wisdom than your Charisma. In turn, your Warlock spells will suffer a bit, so sticking with utility spells would be helpful.