Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FilthySanchez 11-02-05, 09:40 AM	Something along the lines of the "Warrior" class from Everquest or World of Warcraft? If you've never played either I'll summarize the tank's main abilities - Absorb a LOT of hits / damage (High AC, loads of HPs, damage reduction) - Damage mitigation (Something that seems lacking in 3.5. Parry, Dodge, Block) - Gain and keep the chosen opponent's attention focused on you (Goad or Taunt) - Partial immunity to damage (Immune to / reduced damage from spells, crits, sneak attack) - Some ability to hamper the target's effectiveness in combat (Disarm, spell interruption) - Ability to deal damage though not nearly as important as the above 5. If anyone has tried something like this, please share. If anyone can think of any must-have feats, classes, PrCs, weapon or armor enchantments, please share. Also along the same lines, any races that give good Con bonuses / fast healing / regen without too high an LA? Does gaining immunity to critical and stunning hits protect you in any way from other attack forms such as daze or sneak attack? I might have missed something and if I did, feel free to mention it but please don't hijack the thread and turn it into a debate over the mentioned games / classes.
obrysii 11-02-05, 10:15 AM	Well, a Feral Bullywug would suit your purposes. All of the benefits of the Feral template plus +6 racial bonus to con for a grand total of +1 LA
cvazi 11-02-05, 10:40 AM	Though less elegant, another route is 4 levels in warshaper: lvl1: Immune to crits lvl2: +4 Str, +4 Con lvl3: +5' Reach lvl4: Fast Healing 2
PhoenixInferno 11-02-05, 10:56 AM	Immunity to Critical Hits protects you from Sneak Attack - its in the rules.
Prominence 11-02-05, 10:59 AM	- Absorb a LOT of hits / damage (High AC, loads of HPs, damage reduction) So high con, DR/-, and high AC. Sounds like adamantium platemail with good con, or a barbarian. - Damage mitigation (Something that seems lacking in 3.5. Parry, Dodge, Block) This is basically AC, as dodge, block, and parry all fall under there. At any rate, Dodge is a feat, Parry/block would be a shield, a tower shield can give cover for the indicated miss-chance. - Gain and keep the chosen opponent's attention focused on you (Goad or Taunt) Intimidate and taunting works. I played a dragonlance campaign that the kender routinely taunted the bad guys. There's also tripping, which keeps the enemy pre-occupied with you - Partial immunity to damage (Immune to / reduced damage from spells, crits, sneak attack) Ok, so basically you want to slap Fortification on your armor for crit resistance, uncanny dodge for sneak attack resistance, and Spell Resistance or good saves. - Some ability to hamper the target's effectiveness in combat (Disarm, spell interruption) Disarm is a feat, hitting a spellcaster can interrupt the spell. Consider the Mage Slayer feat in complete Arcane, and ample use of readied actions. Also trip, sunder works well. You want a Human Barbarian 2 / Fighter 4 / Champion of Gwynharf (BoED) 10 / anything 4 Human paragon? change human with Raptoran and go to Fighter 8? Chamelion? You decide. You get: Dr 5/-, High con for HP, high saves from divine grace, Enough fighter for some tactical options, intimidation options, and good AC from some mythril full plate or whatever. Good damage from high STR. It's a lot harder to get D&D out of an mmorpg than the reverse.
oxybe 11-02-05, 10:59 AM	warshaper is nice but you need to be able to shapechange first. a changeling can qualify for this quite easily. IMO, this is a job for the warforged juggzerker (ftr4/barb1/WFJ 5/FB10). you get: -immunity to subdual damage, sneak attacks & criticals. you can also absorb a lot of hits (warforged has a natural +2 con, + the rage& frenzy bonus). -you get a decent AC, since the Adamantium Armor plating (basically full plate) can be enhanced. rings with deflection bonuses and some natural armor can help boost your AC. -if memory serves you can get a warforged feat that gives you DR. -the Goad feat can serve you well when you want to get someone's attention. -Sundering (ie. breaking) a weapon will be child's play since you can deal a bunch of damage. -If possible gets as big a weapon as possible. if memory serves, Complete Warrior has a great-axe like weapon that has a 10 ft reach. now, this doesnt help for damage dealing, but it will let you hit farther then normal, allowing you to sunder from afar, and forcing you enemies to come get you (possibly giving you attacks of opportunities) -Damage dealing is stupid easy with this build. a great-axe/greatsword (or any 2-handed weap) can deal major damage in the hands of a juggzerker, since you get a 4:1 bonus damage/-attk bonus ratio on your power attacks. any enemy in fullplate is just a fleshbag in a can. and you just happen have the best can opener in all the realm...
InfoStorm 11-02-05, 11:00 AM	The best character I had that resembles your tank and has survived for any length of time so far is a simple Dwarven Barbarian with Max CON. Med Armor + Shield & fair DEX give ahigh enough AC, while the CON & d12/leve from barbarian give loads of HP. Advancement prevents flanking and grants DR. Any race with + CON and barbarian would probably work just as good.
PhaedrusXY 11-02-05, 12:06 PM	I don't have a build, but what I thought of after reading your post was a Warshaper Mineral Warrior. The easiest way to get into Warshaper is probably to play a Changeling, as was already pointed out. I'd use Psywarrior as the base, for defensive powers and bonus feats.
Aramas 11-02-05, 12:16 PM	Dwarf Ranger 3rd / Fighter 2nd / Deepwarden 2nd / Dwarven Defender 10th / XXX 3rd I'd pick up another 3 levels of Deepwarden for the last 3 levels of the build. OR If you are allowed to make liberal use of UA Dwarf Paragon 3rd / Generic Warrior 2nd / Deepwarden 5th / Dwarven Defender 10th, with the last 3 levels of Deepwarden coming at the end. For both builds you'll want the Goad feat and a Flying Carpet to stand on. Sidenote: Does the damage reduction from Adamantine Armor stack with the damage reduction granted by Dwarven Defender?
DDogwood 11-02-05, 12:34 PM	A fighter/barbarian would be a nice, relatively straightforward way to simulate an EQ or WoW Warrior. Since those classes gain most of their damage mitigation abilities from equipment, it is fair to do the same in D&D. It is worth noting that both of the classes you mentioned are extremely heavily influenced by the D&D Fighter class. The key things to look for are tactical flexibility (the ability to trip opponents, disarm them, and sunder items, as appropriate), respectable damage, a good BAB, and a certain degree of mobility. For equipment, a 1-H weapon and shield will provide the best protection. A +5 Mithril Large Shield of Spell Resistance (19) and a suit of +5 Mithril Full Plate of Heavy Fortification gives a base AC of 30, unbuffed & without Dex bonuses, along with immunity to critical hits and a decent chance to ignore most spells. A +5 Thundering Ghost Touch Flail of Defending is always a nice addition. Our fighters generally wore "Fighter Pyjamas", which were the best Bracers of Armor available - when the inevitable night attack comes, your fighter will still be able to fight. Additional equipment, such as Rings of Protection, and any save-boosting items, are strongly recommended. For feats, look at Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Improved Disarm, Power Attack, and Improved Sunder. There are lots of other feats that are appealing, but these cover your basic crowd-control/mobility options. Quick Draw is also worth getting if you are likely to carry multiple weapons or be disarmed (i.e. no chained gauntlet), and Improved Toughness is always good. The fastest way to get these feats is to take 8 levels of Fighter. Human or Dwarf is the best way to go in this character, although other races are certainly possible. 5 levels of Rogue and 5 levels of Barbarian give a nice array of skills and abilities, as well as +3d6 Sneak Attack (you will be flanking a lot), Improved Uncanny Dodge, and Evasion when he's not in his armor. The last two levels should be Deepwarden for a Dwarf - with 5 Rogue levels, the prereqs should be very easy to meet, and this allows Con as a bonus to AC, reducing your need to put lots of points into Dexterity. For any other race, depending ont he favored class, you may want to put 2 more levels into Fighter or Rogue. The Rogue levels give another +1d6 to Sneak Attack and a bunch of skill points, so are worth considering. There aren't a lot of good ways in the Core rules to taunt foes; Intimidate is a good way to go, along with an ability to make Trip attacks, but the ability to drop the shield and make 2-H Power Attacks with the flail is probably the best way to deal with the bad guys assaulting your "squishy" characters. So we have either: Human Rogue 7/Fighter 8/Barbarian 5 - BAB+18, ~104+Con HP (easily 200+ with a good Con score and Improved Toughness), AC ~32+rings+buffs, +4d6 Sneak Attack, Improved Uncanny Dodge as a 12th level Rogue/Barbarian, and a wide range of battlefield control options. Dwarf Fighter 8/Rogue 5/Barbarian 5/Deepwarden 2 - Same BAB, at least as many HP, similar AC, +3d6 Sneak Attack, Improved Uncanny Dodge as a 10th-level Rogue/Barbarian, and a wide range of battlefield control options. These are not fully optimized, but are designed as a good framework for being able to "tank" effectively for your party without ending up as a one-trick pony (like the Gatling Chain Tripper or a pure HP/AC build). They should also provide a good array of skills to use outside of a normal combat situation, which is always important.
Eidolon Faer 11-02-05, 12:35 PM	The Goad feat can be found in Complete Adventurer, and it allows you to use a Move-equivalent action to "hold aggro." I've found that, in general, approximating a EQ Shadowknight (ie Hexblade) or Paladin (duh) works fairly well, since Goad is Charisma-Based. EQ Warriors are a bit more problematic though, with their absurdly-thick hides. Con 20 Dwarf Fighter with Improved Toughness and Toughness begins to approach how EQ tanks work.
oxybe 11-02-05, 03:01 PM	oops. i knew goad was in one of the complete books. my bad :P thoughness... does anyone actually use that? i can see how in a low level game thoughness is useful (very niche though), but improved thoughness outranks it on so many levels. you get +1 extra hp/level for 1 feat. unless you plan on taking a PrC that needs thoughness as a prereq, stay away from this feat.
DDogwood 11-02-05, 04:30 PM	toughness... does anyone actually use that? i can see how in a low level game thoughness is useful (very niche though), but improved thoughness outranks it on so many levels. you get +1 extra hp/level for 1 feat. unless you plan on taking a PrC that needs thoughness as a prereq, stay away from this feat. Agreed, Toughness is one of the worst feats in the game. I was using the same rules as Improved Toughness for the Toughness feat when 3.0 first came out. I would even suggest that most PrCs that have Toughness as a prereq. aren't worth taking - it's just that bad.
solbergb 11-03-05, 03:00 AM	Something along the lines of the "Warrior" class from Everquest or World of Warcraft? ...... I might have missed something and if I did, feel free to mention it but please don't hijack the thread and turn it into a debate over the mentioned games / classes. Well...to me the main attribute of a "tank" in a typical MMORPG game is to somehow keep aggro on himself, while surviving the outcome of having aggro on him. THAT is the challenge with tanks in D&D too..it is easy to make a near-infinite AC tank, if you don't care about hurting the enemy. But keeping that AC while remaining so significant a threat that the bad guys don't ignore you to beat on your other party members...that's the "rub". The tactical feats (grapple, trip in particular, sometimes bull rush) can limit mobility and force the enemy to attack you, or nobody...when they work. There are some charisma feats (eg, goad) that keep attention on you, and some spells too. High AC Clerics get a bonus because healing the party or doing offensive cleric stuff tends to draw attention. Simply keeping strong fighter offense can get the job done too - your barbarian can "tank" for a bit, and can usually get the attention of the bad guy, but usually needs constant heals to stay in the front line. It is a harder problem in a paper-and-pencil game than in a CRPG or MMORPG, because the enemy isn't a braindead computer AI (well...ok zombies and animals are close). It is much more like PVP in a MMORPG, but without the exploits. Assuming all is fair and nobody has found a way to cheat, in PVP usually the warrior types don't get much opportunity to "tank" in PVP, it is everyone running around trying to gank the character class that their class happens to be good at killing, while avoiding those that treat your class as an easy snack. In mass PVP, the winner is usually the side that can concentrate force and coordinate to pick off the enemy one at a time better than the opposition. Neither fight is much like fighting the enemies, where you can have 8 guys in the back doing stuff, while one guy takes all the hits.
Etiquette_Gnome 11-03-05, 03:16 AM	I'm going to have to agree here, the best way to get the 'aggro' effect against intelligent foes is to utilize 'crowd control' in its various forms. Tripping, grappling, disarming, and various ways to slow them down (lots of tanglefoot bags in the beginning). Try to find a heavy fighter build that utilizes this effectively, which I think a spiked chain fighter would be ideal at.
FilthySanchez 11-03-05, 11:41 PM	That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm looking for ways to GET the critter's attention and KEEP it. Goad is a great looking feat so far. If there are some spells that emulate this I'm listening, I don't mind making this guy a hexblade, paladin or Gish as long as he can fulfill the role I have in mind. Optimally, if there are three main targets on the mat and some fodder, I want a way to FORCE the main targets to attack me and only me and live through their attacks long enough for the party to dispense with the fodder and turn the big guns safely on the main guys.
Zemyla 11-04-05, 01:43 PM	You should never take toughness even if it's required as a prereq, because Azure Toughness (from Magic of Incarnum) grants you much the same properties, plus a point of essentia. And that's always handy.
Arikas 11-04-05, 02:45 PM	You should never take toughness even if it's required as a prereq, because Azure Toughness (from Magic of Incarnum) grants you much the same properties, plus a point of essentia. And that's always handy. i agree, toughness is just stupid, considering greater toughness or whatever from i believe complete warrior gives you +1 hp per hd. FAR more useful and i dont think theres any pre -reqs (haha sorry for the mad guestamations, books are at my buddies house)
Pellanor 11-04-05, 04:11 PM	It has a prereq of +2 base fort save.... basically stops low level rogues and wizards from taking it, unless they multiclass.
Khazra Reborn 11-04-05, 04:46 PM	I'm going to put forward the following build: mineral warrior (LA bought off) changeling rokugan ninja5/fighter1/warshaper4/chameleon10 arcane & combat focus mimic SA & rage ability boons +6str/con Most of the day you wonder around appearing as a normal changeling, in which form your con is: 18(base)+4(race)+4(warshaper)+5(levels)+ 5(inherant)+6(enhance)+6(boon)+4(rage)= 52 Your str is also pretty high & you can hold your own in melee When you can, you cast draconic polymorph (war troll) followed by giant size when you con is: 32+2(draconic P/morph)+4(warshaper)+5(inherant)+6(enhanc e)+6(boon)+8(giant size)+4(rage)= 67 With con that high HP might just srcape the 700 mark :eek: Plus, you have amazing regeneration, natural armour & a str of 50+
Justisaur 11-04-05, 05:01 PM	That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm looking for ways to GET the critter's attention and KEEP it. Goad is a great looking feat so far. If there are some spells that emulate this I'm listening, I don't mind making this guy a hexblade, paladin or Gish as long as he can fulfill the role I have in mind. Optimally, if there are three main targets on the mat and some fodder, I want a way to FORCE the main targets to attack me and only me and live through their attacks long enough for the party to dispense with the fodder and turn the big guns safely on the main guys. I'm trying to do just this with the Paladin I've got now, I didn't know about Goad though. I'll have to see if I can change out some feat(s) for it. The one thing the paladin (or at least a few levels) has is the high cha bonus to saves. They've really saved him so far, he's 7th lv and has 18 cha now (17 with 1 point from levels), it's +4 on all his saves. You just aren't going to get this with a normal figher type build. He's been the last one standing at least 2x due to his high saves so far. Also the lay on hands has been a godsend, seemingly to almost double the amount of damage he can take, although he doesn't take damage that often. He hasn't been very good at getting 'agro' so far though, or dealing damage (although once or twice a lance charge has been pretty devistating). He does shine once in awhile and it's pretty cool when he does. Here's his current stats Human Str 13 (+1) Dex 10 (0) Con 12 (+1) Int 10 (0) Wis 15 (+2) Cha 18 (+4) I think I really should have switched str for int so I could have gotten combat expertise, but I didn't want him to be totally inept at damage. The other thing I don't like about this character is he has become the default leader due to the high cha, which I don't really care for that much, I usually like someone else to be the face-man. Feats: Power Attack, Reckless Attack, Divine Might, Divine Shield, The power attack, Reckless attack & divine might don't really fit, but I couldn't figure anything more useful at the time. If I were totally rewriting the feats (which I might be able to do) I'd definitely take Goad. Anyone have other ideas to replace Divine Might & Reckless Attack? What about PRCs to make him more of a "Tank" type character? I can use any of the complete books & miniature's handbook. I've been leaning toward keeping with paladin though because the holy weapon spell comes pretty late, and it's pretty awesome. P.S. Sorry if I'm hijacking here, I'll start a new thread if you think it's appropriate.
FilthySanchez 11-04-05, 06:16 PM	It's cool, been considering a pally build anyways. Fighter 4, Pally 4, Knight of the Chalice 6, Hunter of the Dead 6. More spells from multiple casting lists seems more useful to me than straight pally and the extra abilities vs outsiders and undead are always helpful.
Khazra Reborn 11-05-05, 08:21 AM	fighter1/cleric6/prestige paladin3/fist of raziel10 has all the essential paladin goodness, plus better smites & 9th level cleric spells :eek:
Eidolon Faer 11-05-05, 10:34 AM	I'm not aware of any spells that mimic Goad. Goading something is generally a bad idea unless you have beefy AC and hitpoints. Also, given my DM's luck at rolling Saving Throws, it seems to be working about as well as Warrior Taunt in EQ. (Not very, for those of you who aren't aware. Warriors generally rely on weapon effects to maintain aggro in EQ since Taunt works about 1 time in 30.) Mind you, when it DOES work, it's absolutely beautiful.
Justisaur 11-06-05, 10:26 AM	I was able to trade out divine shield for goad, since that's the only feat I've never used, not sure that's the greatest idea, since I won't have the super AC to stand up in a fight, but my AC is 25, not bad for lv 7. Goad will have a will save of 17, that seems pretty good, especially against creatures I'm likely to be able to use it against. I'm not sure how good it's going to be as if I'm not mounted I have a hard time keeping up with the rest of the party, and you have to be in melee range to use it, and it's also only any good against meleers. For 9th lv, I just can't pass up Dragon Steed (Dracronomicon) since that will give me a flying mount. We seem to have been running into tons of flying monsters... So that means 12th for Divine Shiled, that's a ways away yet. So my feat progression looks like this so far: 1st: Power Attack 1st(Human): Reckless Charge (sorry I put reckless attack, it was reckless charge) 3rd: Divine Might 6th: Goad (future) 9th: Dragon Steed 12th: Divine Shield - I am going to try to see if I can change out Divine Might for Divine Shield, but I have used it before, so it's unlikely, although the DM might allow it if I suffer through a level or two of not using Divine Might. It's been at least one level since I've used it. I keep thinking I might have been better off going Dwarf, and switching to dwarven defender later. The negative charisma modifier on dwarves just hurts a lot on paladins, but the extra save bonus on spells, and con seem like they would probably make up for it.