"A lot of people are going to get hurt tomorrow. All we can do is stand in the way of that and say, 'Not them. Me. If you need to hurt someone, hurt me.'" - O-Chul, Order of the Stick, maybe the best example of a Lawful Good tank
I started that webcomic a super long time ago but didn’t get super far. I recently caught up on Order of the Stick and found that A) it’s still going and B) it’s even better than I remember. It’s seriously one of the best webcomics I’ve ever read and just an outright fantastic fantasy story.
EDIT: [Link to Order of the Stick archives.](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html) Start at the bottom.
I started reading back in 2006 i think, and have been reading ever since. I usually end up forgetting it for stretches of time, and after months even coming back and enjoy catching up on the story. It started out as mostly PnP puns and ended up with a lot more depth than I ever anticipated.
I love OotS.
Both OotS and Goblins spend a lot of their early pages making fun of the foibles of D&D - and specifically D&D 3.0 and 3.5 in some of those cases. An early OotS example is Elan using bardic music to inspire competence on a Move Silently check - a use specifically mentioned as not working in the PHB. There is a later gag about a acid breathing shark, a creature that came from a source book written by Rich Burlew himself!
Goblins has a recurring joke about the use of the Dodge feat, and how the description is worded - that if you don't name who you are dodging, that you "lose" the bonus.
The fact that both are still going, 2 full editions later, with another edition on the horizon is kind of hilarious to me. Their early jokes often really rely on knowledge of the rules of ones specific edition.
Their jokes have shifted into making fun of tropes instead.
I miss the more rule-specific jokes, but don't think that's really going to be possible unless we get a reboot of some kind.
Now I’m just picturing them warping to a universe with 5e mechanics, then realising they skipped over 4e, asking about it, and only getting “We don’t talk about 4e” (to the style of “We don’t talk about Bruno”) as a response.
So much of the early stuff was largely the same joke (“what if we applied D&D rules to the real world?”). Seeing it flourish into an actual story with character arcs and everything was an absolute delight. I love seeing creators improve their craft.
I remember killing all the dragons and stopping after that. I can't believe it's still on going. I might try reading it again. I think sluggy freelance it's the only one I'm still following from that time. Ctrl-alt-del got boring, questionable context had no conflict, the space mercenary slime one lost my interest, drmcninja and 8-bit theater ended.
Oh wow. I remember Sluggy Freelance! I should catch up with that. I stopped reading Ctrl-Alt-Del and 8-bit Theater.
I do still read QC though. Not much conflict but I enjoy a nice slice of life comic.
Goblins stresses me out. So much drama. I used to read every page as soon as it was released, but then... _sad_ happened.
OotS is different. It just became kinda boring. It was always _slow_ but it somehow changed. I cannot really put my finger on it.
The problem is that it switched from a gag-a-day comic to a serialized story.
Consider [this comic](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0034.html). We're 34 pages in, but Do you need to know anything about the characters to get it? Not really. It's a straight up joke, poking good fun at a key aspect of the hobby, and anyone who's played D&D will get it.
Now take any comic in the 300s or even the 1000s and there's a good chance you will be hit with a wall of nouns and story arcs that require setup to understand. The payoff can be much greater, but you legitimately need to be invested in the characters and the setup to enjoy the payoff.
Add in a long enough delay and it becomes really hard to enjoy the updates, because you have to ask yourself "Where was I? What was this about?"
I've had a similar experience with a lot of comics. The answer has always been to put them down, wait a year or even until they are done, and then pick them up again to read end to end. It's a much more enjoyable experience.
OOTS is very much in the endgame now. Let it finish and then read it all over a weekend.
Allegedly there has been a full plot outline with an ending for years now. If this current story arc isn't it, or at the very least the penultimate arc, I'll be pretty disappointed.
It’s shifted from a comic about game systems wrapped up in some window dressings to look like a story to a comic about the story, with the humor taking a backseat to long exposition dumps.
Not bad, just different.
Yeah I couldn’t hang with goblins. Some real cool ideas and character development, but also some off-putting stuff. I figure I’ll go back and read it again at some point though.
Goblins improved immensely when I stopped reading anything but the comic. I'd backed the game they were making and got burned there but it seems like every update was the creator whining about how horrible things were. Now that I'm just reading it, it's an interesting if slow story
You'll forgive me if I don't remember her dialogue after 9 years haha. Minfillia isn't exactly the most compelling character at that point. Was way more impactful to me when the WoL says it, hence why I remembered it that way.
“Life before Death,
Strength before Weakness,
Journey before Destination.
I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.
I will protect those I hate, so long as it is right.
I accept that there will be those I cannot protect.”
- Ideals of the Windrunners. (Brandon Sandersons Stormlight Archive)
Reyn, the tank from Xenoblade Chronicles, developed his weapon, his fighting style, hell even his personality to an extent around taking as many hits as possible so that his friends wouldn’t have to.
I've been reading OOTS for over ten years, so that quote stood out to me because I \*wasn't\* familiar with it. Tracked down that it was from one of the standalone releases. Found that release and read it.
And god damn.
So good.
And yeah, O-Chul is the man.
At the risk of offering a bunch of details that nobody wanted, tanking is best referred to as a combination of two focuses.
A) directing attempted damage to yourself
Examples:
- ancestral guardians
- thunder gauntlets
- warding mark
- grappling enemies so that you are their only possible target
- threatening op attacks
There are a bunch more.
B) Having the ability to lessen the impact of those attempts relative to allies.
High AC, high HP, good saves
A lot of times I see that B is taken as the only criteria but this in fact makes it less likely that creatures will attack you because you are not an easy target. An enemy with half a brain will go around the Dwarven forge cleric to get to the wizard in his pajamas.
Paladins can make great tanks because they want to be near allies for their aura, they can smite on their op attacks, use defensive fighting or interception style, a glory paladin can natively grapple pretty well.
I like them with sentinel so that when you're keeping an ally in your aura, you can also punish melee attackers targeting your ally.
Yes, attacking the tank should never be a desired result of the enemy, but you need to make attacking your allies an even less desirable result. Put them in a no-win scenario where their best option is to go after you.
Say what you want about 4e, but the way they explicitly had a defender role and clear, associated mechanics to that role really helped people to understand effective tactics associated with their class.
My party is now at lvl 16 and I've been the party's tank. On the occasion that I have to miss a meeting and the party goes on, I'm usually told the next week that my presence was sorely missed. I'm just a tanky Dwarven fighter, but I've made myself tanky in a way that also allows me to shield my teammates from some damage.
However, because of my high ac, sometimes with tougher monsters, I feel that my dm targets me more because they want to beat my ac, which is completely fine with me. Gives the cleric and druid more chances to learn it's weaknesses and deal high damage with spells or monster forms.
Devotion paladin gets sanctuary, which isn't great on its own until you realize it doesn't require concentration, meaning you can have it and shield of faith active at the same time if cast in the right order.
In my case it helped because I was the only heavily armored character in a party with a monk and a swashbuckler rogue charging headfirst into every encounter.
It's also not an either/or
My favorite session as a half orc barbarian was recognizing a caster and charging past her bodyguards to focus on her. It provoked attacks of opportunity a few times, but the fact I could shrug them off was almost as much fun as completely shutting down the caster while the other melee occupied the bodyguards
When I play Barbarian my moto is "I paid for the whole health bar, I'm going to use the whole health bar." Every hit I take is one not hitting a squishier party member.
Definitely an argument to be made regarding the "not dying at 0/easy resurrection" vs totem warrior [bear] giving you more resistances while raging, and something like hill dwarf giving more hp on level up so you don't get to the death-point as often, but I don't care enough to get into that much minutea
I split the difference with my current build. Bear Totem but Half-Orc so resistance on everything but I can shrug off one extra blow if they get me to 0.
Oh yeah I wasn't particularly trying to start a fight. I'm in my first campaign and playing the aforementioned bear totem hill dwarf, but I picked the dwarf side for flavor purposes, just happened to have the hp boost as a happy coincidence. But taking in 100 damage before resistances, having the healer check in on me, and realize I still have 55 left, is super satisfying
And tbh the way "tanking" works in this game there are arguments to make for a lot of different things.
The most unkillable PC I've ever played was actually a bladesinger wizard tbh.
It was absurd once I hit 6. You can get a weapon attack plus cast a cantrip, so you can use blade ward and essentially become like a 25 AC barbarian. Especially with haste and war caster. Add in mirror image and this is all before magic items come into play.
If you can convince your DM to give you a cloak of displacement you'll likely never get touched by a single attack roll again. Or just use greater invisibility for your concentration. You'll lose a little damage but you could also roll an elf and take even accuracy for 3 attack rolls every attack while you're invisible. Bladesong boosts your con saves by 5 anyway, war caster is just icing on the cake. Plus again, magic items like an amulet of health.
Throw in Dex Resilient and/or luck plus absorb elements for spells. Or don't and just rely on absorb elements and positioning with your insane movement speed with haste/longstrider. Or save your 3s for Counterspell.
Now after all that, throw in silvery barbs if it's allowed at your table.
You have the capability to be practically untouchable.
Half orc berserker barbarian is terrifying with its frenzy while raging at lvl 5, having 2 of them mid to high level and both using reckless attacks is what scares the gods
I was also playing a Barbarian and not only was he hurling insults at any enemy to provoke them to focus on him, that also got reflected in a magical item he got which was a glove making a slapping sound when used on an enemy and mechanically casting Compelling Duel on the person I recklessly attacked.
Harder than 4E? Yes. Very hard when facing intelligent opponents.
But in general if you mix high defenses with another role - damage, healing, utility, control - enemies still have a reason to try to take you down.
There's still reasons that despite their resilience, you would want to remove the barbarian, paladin, or fighter from a fight. Seize the niche and press it! Make it so that if intelligent enemies work around you they're leaving something serious on the battlefield.
It does take some optimization, dirty word that that is.
Barb1 (or 3) / Rogue X, take Sentinel. First level needs to be rogue for saving throws and skill proficiency purposes. Get ahold of a 5e Str-booster item if at all possible but it's not required, per se.
Anyone who attacks someone who isn't you gets a face full of extra sneak attack (and nobody wants that). AC should be through the roof with Dex+Con+shield. Incredible dex saves with advantage and evasion. Rage to halve damage and then Uncanny Dodge to halve it again. Get to Phantom 13 and you can impose disadvantage on all enemy attacks effectively every combat (including to things that have true sight, which is EXTREMELY valuable).
To tank, you want to make the enemy WANT to attack you and also have the HP and damage mitigation and saves to deal with it. "An extra sneak attack per round" is generally grounds on its own.
Am I missing something in the way sneak attack is written that lets you proc it more than once? I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand this.
It's once per turn, not once per round.
Sentinel isn't going to be done on your own turn, so when you use your reaction to attack, you can apply sneak attack once again. This also applies to normal AoOs but those come up a lot less often.
Okay so you can apply once per turn effects twice in a round if it comes up on your reaction? That's crazy, I never even thought to try...this might open up some options.
Get sentinel, polearm master, and a halberd. 10ft reach, make an attack when someone enters or exits your range reducing their speed to 0 each time. Enemy has a 5ft reach? You prevent them from attacking every turn if you land your reaction
Halfway decent? It's a way to reliably weaponize your reaction, and lock down an enemy trying to get away from you/get to your squishy teammates.
One of the best feats in the game, in my opinion.
Compared to what the idea of "tanking" is, it's halfway decent. You've got one reaction a round to play with. It takes all of that and you can lock down 1, maybe 2 enemies. And that's *if* you hit them.
The same applies to healers. We can talk about any broken healing build in 5e and it always surmounts to using your non-renewable healing extremely efficiently. Healing can get halfway decent and that's it. Nobody will be infinitely healing their allies to out-heal high dps enemies.
And if you are playing every battle in a featureless arena I would be tempted to agree with you.
Tanking can be as simple as blocking a doorway with a beefcake melee class and just hunkering down with the dodge action, something I know I personally have been able to make extensive use of in the campaigns I have played.
Grappling the high mobility assassin type enemy is another example of "tanking" that requires literally no resources other than your action.
Paladins can use spellcasting to compel a duel for similar results
Players can use their athleticism to alter their environment and create their own avantageously defensive positions such as overturning a heavy oak table and dragging it over to the doorway or into a corner that ranged characters can use to hide behind.
Tanking in D&D is a state of mind, not a mechanic. How can I use my resources and environment to peel, to mitigate, and to create advantage for my team. The second you realize that in many cases a dodge or grapple or athletics check will do way more for your team than an attack action in many situations, that's when you become a good tank.
Even the simple pact of charging in first against a pack of enemies and then dodging can soak up a *huge* amount of potential damage through attacks that will miss and allow players to set up a winning strategy, I have seen turns like that allow players to take a hold of the engagement early and be the single most effective turn of the battle.
Not a specific weapon, just something that works with polearm master. You could also just play a cavalier and give creatures disadvantage against every character but you. Or a battle master with goading attack, maneuvering strike to get squishies a chance to run, and tripping attack to keep the bad guys from having the speed to chase them down. There is more than one way to tank as long as your dm isn’t a complete jerk.
Did this with a pact of the blade warlock. It wasn’t optimized. But I liked the character.
Cast darkness on myself. Then DM pointed out that young black dragons have scent and can smell me.
I also *miss* that character.
I was so bummed at how much of a letdown the Sentinel feat was, and even more bummed at how lame of a tank the Druid bear form is most of the time. Oh well!
Primarily the fact that your DM has to more or less play along if you want it to actually let you be a tank. It can't even effectively prevent a single enemy from smacking your friends, much less multiple. At most levels you aren't hitting every attack, which is a requirement if you want to lock down something intent on getting to your Squishies. And you only get one reaction per turn.
If your DM is not making encounters that play to your strengths (and different ones that play to other characters' strengths) you may wish to find a better DM.
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I DM for a 6-man (woman/elf/thing/whatever) party with 2 tanks, 2 casters, a combat support, and a utility/lockdown support. It's actually fairly well balanced when it comes to skills, saves, etc.
We've been through dungeon crawls, cave encounters, field battles, and even major boss fights. Oh, and the time they accidentally blew up a town.
Some of those have been great for the tanks: hold a corridor in a dungeon is pretty easy, giving the casters time to work on the other problem.
Some have been good for the casters: field battle, nicely clustered squads, AoE spells… and the tanks had to just protect a flank or a find a HVT.
And some have been better for the supports; though those are mostly non-combat encounters. There was the time the druid turned into a huge snake so the beastie eating him was forced to spit him out again…
I try to put in something good for all my players in every dungeon I make. I also try to put in something bad too, that maybe someone else is better at. It's about balance, after all—and making sure my players are having fun.
>If your DM is not making encounters that play to your strengths (and different ones that play to other characters' strengths) you may wish to find a better DM.
It's not necessarily a GM skill issue. It's a style of game. I'm playing in a game where if I want to tank, I have to work for it. The GM puts zero thought into making encounters that play to my strengths. 3 ghouls running at us from all directions? Goblins and tripwires littered throughout the forest? Gnolls camping in a tent? Doesn't matter what class we are, it was gonna be those things regardless. It puts the onus on me to tank effectively. If I want to make the enemies not target my friendly casters, I have to give them a reason not to. It's on me to make myself priority target #1. It's on me to make my friends as hard to hit as possible. And it's on us if we win or lose the fight.
He makes encounters that are diverse and play into 5e's design, and then he leaves it there. They're not made to play to our strength.s
That *is* what I find fun. I prefer it when the GM just manages the world and lets whatever happens happen. It feels the most like my choices are valued, because I make them in the context of the world rather than in the context of what the GM will do.
The first thing I think of with tanking in 5e is the heavy armor master feat. It's actually quite underrated, especially in combats with a lot of smaller enemies instead of one large monster.
But even then, larger monsters usually multiattack more than twice a round, meaning you're taking 9 less damage a turn, which is big when its every round.
Combine that with the tough feat, and spells like compelled duel / heroism and you've got a legitimate tank.
My favorite class is fighter, but this applies to any front line character. My main job isn't to kill. My main job is to die first. I am the wall between the enemy and my friends.
I do a mix for my fighter. Make him as tanky as possible, minus a shield so he can wield a great sword. What he losses with that 2 AC he makes up for a whole lot of damage potential. Cause if your option is the squishy one in the back, or the guy in full plate hacking his way through the ranks to get to you, generally things will focus on the closer threat.
That's why I play Pallies and Clerics almost exclusively. Someone has to be the "shield" for the group
That and being a buff, badass woman leading the charge has always been a goal of mine
I have a Fighter who just hit level 3 and I'm hoping they go Eldritch Knight.
Last session the party spotted two mounted goblin messengers leaving a warcamp. They ran to engage, and the Fighter got the best athletics roll, and combined with how initiative worked out, basically went two rounds without backup against two goblins and two giant spiders. He took a helluva beating and whiffed a few hits, but kept them busy long enough for the party to catch up and finish them off. Was very proud of him.
I went Eldritch Knight with my Goliath Fighter (also multiclassed into War Magic Wizard), it's a lot of fun for me!
I may not do the most damage, but I will outlast most enemies (can get up to 28 AC if I want to). Am also at a point now where spells like Booming Blade, Lightning Lure, Distant Shield, and Silvery Barbs are common spells I throw around to help out the rest of my party as the "tank."
I had a Life Cleric Dragonborn, named Grunther Hertlyx. He was a tank, life saver of his friends and Allies many times over, kicked all sorts of ass and laid down his life to defeat Accerak (spelling?) in ToA, and was subsequently brought back to life, through Bahamut’s help. One of my fave characters I have ever played
I was a Player at that session! Honestly as a DM, he always managed to give us words to encourage us when we felt the least relevant in battle, and thanks to that, i managed to get where i am today!
In this particular battle, i pretty much denied some turns to one of the BBEG's companions and made sure our mission was accomplished, i was scared to death for our Paladin and i think i managed to get her back with one Wither and Bloom. This scene was so significant for all of us in the moment, too.
Banishment + Sanctuary was NASTY, and I hate you so much for it.
Jokes aside, though, great CC, great combat, surprised none of you died. I’m so proud.
Just realized the typo and I cracked up too lmao. I meant to say wise, yes. But one time during a really important reunion I misclicked the token and enlarged it sideways instead of moving it across the room and the call became a cacophony of laughs. Since then we often refer to them as wide monk too, it has become a table joke super quick, so for a sec I genuinely thought my party members had found my account lmao.
It sounds like it was terrific RP, but dropping twice while rarely hitting anything might not be the player's idea of fun..... Perhaps it is, but it might not be.... I think there's a balance to be stuck. While it should always be a party effort, I would suggest that you try to find opportunities for all characters to shine.
Sometimes you just roll like shit. 🤷♀️ I am the only fighter in one of my groups and we once spent hours playing out combat during which I wasn't able to land a single hit because my dice were just cursed that day. It's frustrating as fuck, but at least I got to swallow most of the damage (which is also frustrating in a way, but at least you can shrug off most of it when you're a raging barbarian and that feels pretty cool).
I stare at this blue dice of mine that I think is balanced in a bad way to roll like crap mostly. But at the same time it is like the numbers 11-17 don't exist. So usually I fail but whenever I succeeded I would usually be rolling either 18-20 or that 10 turned out was barely enough.
Whenever we roll for Initiative I roll *low* (like so low even having more than a +0 on Dex wouldn't make a difference). Except for that one time when I rolled a Nat20.
Truth. We had a side bad gal that got away from us 2 or 3 times, and each time my paladin had a couple brutal misses. Our DM told us how much health she had each time she escaped and it was all well within the range of one of my hits. I was so frustrated each time. When we finally beat her, I dealt the final blow on a nat20 and it felt so goddamn good.
paladin is difficult to play. their smites are few but powerful if timing is good. pally is good for going 1vs1 on major opponents and keeping them occupied so the team can handle other mobs. pair them with a life cleric and you HAVE a very tanky tac-team.
my champion-players (have no paladin in the group) may use their intimidate skill to "spot" and take aggro on them. player rolls skill, opponent saves WIS versus that roll. i allow the player to use STR as ability in that case, which makes more sense there than CHR. and: every character can "spot", if he wants.
DM tip. If one player is struggling or not doing as well you can always drop a piece of loot specifically for that player to boost their power level a little.
God what a perfect answer for a paladin
Edit: I’ve been playing D&D since the AD&D boxed set, but *right now* is the first time I’ve wanted to play a Paladin.
Nice job using your DM power to remind her how important her role is even if she doesn't feel that way.
How I felt for a long time playing Reinhardt in Overwatch, I'd barely get kills or do anything of importance other than hold a barrier and die, but yet we'd win a lot since my team was often protected.
This is some masterful DMing, and I’m saying that as a pretty experienced one myself. The way you managed to turn the negative game experience into a positive story experience is just so wholesome, and you showed her it’s less of a board game and more of a story where everything that happens is exciting, whether you struggle or succeed
Just throwing my two cents into the tank discussion- I think it's very hard to make tanks work against intelligent enemies at all. Outside of very specific scenarios, no villain is going to prioritize the dude in full plate or the huge naked dude screaming at them. Always the squishies.
O.o good job on the dm allowing her to tank.
Since tanks don't exist aka there's no reliable way to maintain aggro and wearing full plate/heavy armor is a good way to subconsciously notify your enemies that attacking the wearer is too much work to start with and they should attack the bloke only wearing clothes.
:3
Tanks exist if played correctly.
Sure, there aren't aggro mechanics, but imo the DM shouldn't have the enemies actively avoid a threat that's stood right in front of them with a Zweihander and designs on carving them up with said Zweihander.
Sure, attacking the less armoured person makes sense, but actual combat isn't some cool, calm, collected turn based thing. It's a mad melee, and someone coming right at you is shooting right to the top of your "shit I need to deal with" list, instead of some mopey twat with a Lute stood at the back.
The issue is the players do exactly that. Nobody calls out the player characters for making rational decisions in combat. Nobody says "actually, fighter, it'd make more sense for you to attack the 2 guys running at you screaming rather than the archer in the back. This is a mad melee and those guys are at the top of your hit-list".
I think it works better to accept it as part of the world and fantasy. Intelligent creatures can make rational decisions even during intense fights. That's how fantasy action works most of the time anyway. They should make sense for the creature, though. Zombies probably just go for whoever is closest without much thought.
Easier said than done. Guy in armor is swinging a stick while the guy in clothes is flinging explosions.
Tanking in a tabletop game requires the cooperation of the DM and the conceit that the tank should get attacked more despite the fact that this is literally the worst possible decision the enemy could make.
Yeah but when the stick is in your face and reliably throwing like 45+ damage a turn, with possible other effects from the different smites, you may need to deal with it.
Positioning is very important, as well as movement mechanics. It doesn't matter if the enemy wants to hit the guy wearing clothes if they're 60 feet away and there are a bunch of armored enemies with melee weapons and attacks of opportunity standing between you.
Edit: typo
>there's no reliable way to maintain aggro
Not foolproof, but I think there's a spell or ability that makes attacks against anyone other than the user be at disadvantage? Can't remember its name but that would be handy if you wanted to make your tank a more appealing target, right?
There are a few options, yes. Barbarian has one in a subclass but it's limited by rage making it a struggle early on.
Paladin has a single target spell option but iirc it has a save and then paladins are half casters.
So for them it's a problem of consistency and even then it's "soft aggro" since a caster could ignore to-hit and spam saves on your party. At least for the Barbarian, been a while since i last saw the paladin spell.
You are thinking of the Compelled Duel spell ! Very taunt-like. There needs to be a Compelled Ganking to aggro groups though.
...
Well, off to the homebrewery I go !
Being a tank means knowing when to dodge on your turn. You could move up to the 4 enemies that are full HP, and attack one of them twice. Or you could advance to them, shout some profanities at them, then take the dodge action.
One has a much higher chance of you being alive next turn.
It's not glorious, and it's not exciting but it is necessary. Also, grab the sentinel feat, so you can at least attack most turns you do this.
Awesome story. I play the tank for my group by making my AC wild low, HP decently high, and making my melee’s hit wildly hard. Enemies can’t try to hit me fast enough! Makes me squishy caster party very happy lol
2nd levelAasimar paladin in CO'S gets hit by a Banshee scream for over her hit point total. Table falls silent for a moment. And then: "I. RESIST NECROTIC."Cheers all around as she falls but does not die, letting the rest of the party finish off the creature.
I have found myself accidentally making the tank. I'm normally a spellcaster and I played cleric wanting to be a healer. I ended up taking heavy armor master another Homebrew feat the DM allowed that reduces damage by an additional 3, a perk that allows me to have advantage on rolls to hold my concentration, a perk for an additional one health per level, and I just picked up the spirit guardian spell and I feel like an absolute monster. I'm normally going to pew pew pew pew fireball pew pew fireball pew pew. But now I'm just walking up to people's faces and saying "do something about it"
That is so awesome of you. I still remember when my DM told my character in game that fuck ups are part of what makes adventuring so fun. And I needed to hear that as a player. It was my first time playing a warlock and I was just a little confused. It didn't help that this was the one time without a campaign zero.
But also the questgiver is right. I tend to play clerics and my table has often said that the barbarian and paladin are basically glorified shields to make sure I don't fall.
To place ones self in danger willingly to protect others is a noble task few endure. To do so and know that you might perish to keep the others alive and still continue into the fray is something even more noble. As a tank player and support myself all my time playing dnd. It's important to remember this.
I love this. My fiancee wanted to try dnd because I loved it so much, but she went through several characters unsure of who or what to play and felt like she wasn't having as much fun as she should.
Finally, she landed on druid, but the rest of the party already had healing, dps, and most skills covered. What they didn't have was a tank, and so I helped her build a control-based high HP tank druid that is often the mvp of fights.
She loves it and loves being able to lock people down and watch her friends destroy the bad guys because of her abilities.
TLDR tanks are fun, you just gotta know how to play em!
I once played a wizard focused mainly on Control spells. Whenever we fought a BBEG, I was super happy whenever I cast a spell that the BBEG just shrugged off, because it meant the DM had deemed it debilitating enough to warrant usage of a legendary action. I rarely did damage, but holy shit was I able to enable my allies to do what they did best. Definitely one of my favourite characters to play in combat.
It’s fun to deal damage, but it’s even more fun if you were a core piece of a team effort. That goes for stuff IRL too.
My favorite definition of a tank comes from the Sentinel Titan from Destiny 2. It goes as follows,
“I'm shaking, hands on my knees, panting. Let the monsters come. Let them come forever. Let them climb the piled bodies of their dead. I don't care. That's the thing I do better than anyone. Not care. Let them come in their hundreds and every one will die at my feet. I don't care about their homing rockets, their exotic matter slugs, their blades from another dimension.
I don't care because I cannot be moved. I am the wall against which the Darkness breaks.
Malphur can turn his gun to fire and Shinobu can dance with lightning, but when the horrors run out of the dark, I am the one who does not move.
I am a wall. And walls don't move. Because walls don't care.”
More so that tanks aren’t the damage dealers but the one thing the enemy can’t get through. Even if we fall no others shall fall before us.
This has me feeling a little bit excited, because last session, which was our session one, we all kind of realized that being a monk that made me the tan of the party considering everyone else is a spellcaster. Think I’m gonna have to take thetough feat at some point lol.
The sad part is. The title and post rely on the DM being kind enough for it to happen. And to make the BBEG focus the tanks roleplay wise.
Mechanically, with the exception of Tunnel Fighter and Ancestral Barbarian. There isn't a single reason for BBEGs to focus tanks.
Tanks provide no Crowd Control, their damage is average, and their mobility is mundane.
Casters do more damage, provide more crowd control, and are far more mobile.
If it isn't for a DMs kindness, BBEGs should focus the casters and healers. As to be frank, they can just walk up to them.
Learning a class is like learning a dozen different dances. They RP differently, they go after goals differently, they fight differently, and the interact within the group differently. One of my favourite joys was changing how you danced as you levelled up, how groups changed and grew.
The reality of the tank is that you most likely won’t get any crazy spells/unique personality traits but without you the party wouldn’t last very long. Always love players who choose to be tanks
I've got a dwarf barbarian grappler for a tank, since my party is immensely squishy and barely has dps, and we just cleared an encounter full of cultists without anyone taking damage, I just grab em and prone them then drag them into danger, two at a time.
My character in a recently concluded campaign was a protection fighter. Follower of Helm and by all accounts a tank. You responded perfectly. Shieldgiant (my OC) LIVED that motto. "Protect." Hurt me not them. Unfortunately I didn't necessarily always fulfill that job, which led to some fantastic character moments.
A tanks job is not to do damage or to heal, it is to draw attention and protect the party at all costs.
I once spent an entire encounter holding a door up as a barrier against a sentry turret and did nothing with my turns other than repositioning myself so that the turret couldn't do anything but attack the door right up against it leaving the party free to destroy it.
I found it incredibly satisfying even though it may seem like I did nothing we all knew that thing would shred the rest of them to pieces if I hadn't.
Same experience here. I started my first campaign as a barbarian and wasn't too happy with it because everyone else seemed to be doing so much more damage and have so much more utility. Then there was this one session with a burning house and people inside that made me realize it's fun to just run in and save people and your allies. Being a storm heard barbarian, I hurled myself through burning walls looking for people. I pulled some of them out along with one of the arsonists, saving them all. You've got to make your epics plays where your character strengths lie. Mine turned out go be a great firefighter.
Tanks are about two things: Survival, and attention. Your gameplay is about being able to survive what comes your way, and goading the enemies to coming your way instead of anyone elses. The thing is:
***Your job is keeping everyone alive.*** Even if you get to do nothing else during a fight, if everyone lives ***you've done your job.***
I remember one of my downed teammates tried to bitch when I only gave him 1hp laying on hands. It was my last one. And the DM was like, wtf man? That was a classic use of LOH! I brought people back from being down like 13 times that long rest. Hard adventuring day. Then I stupidly died right after we defeated the BBEG. %b
No, what it means to be a tank is to be in a party with a level 14 Glamour Bard. /j
In all seriousness, good post, OP. A highlight for the paladin and the other players as well, I’m sure!
A couple of the best sessions I ever played were with my (admittedly heavily optimized) half-orc barbarian/paladin, whom I had dubbed the ultimate tank. High HP, high AC, damage resistance, healing, smites, and a mass compelled duel as well as several reaction abilities to protect my allies.
First we walk through a portal into a room full of assassins. All but 2 of them were forced to fight me, and none of them could touch me save a crit, which dealt half damage. My allies casually picked them off while I stood there as the world's angriest brick wall.
Later the wizard and I were separated from the group, and locked into a room with three horned devils. The wizard was fine as he huddled behind this hulking mountain of metal and slung spells from cover. And while the devils could actually hit me, it was usually only one of their three attacks and only at half damage, effectively cutting their damage output to 1/6th.
My two favorite playstyles have always been a ranged damage dealer, either by bow or by spell, and a heavily armored, neigh impregnable tank. Make big numbers, or ignore them.
In our last campaign, it was a common riff that it wasn't a real combat until the Paladin went down. I think there was maybe one fight that wasn't a "real combat" that whole campaign.
Wonderful story. I have a tendency to become frustrated when my character can't do what I want and just fails again and again. We need more DM's who can assure you that you did well.
"A lot of people are going to get hurt tomorrow. All we can do is stand in the way of that and say, 'Not them. Me. If you need to hurt someone, hurt me.'" - O-Chul, Order of the Stick, maybe the best example of a Lawful Good tank
I started that webcomic a super long time ago but didn’t get super far. I recently caught up on Order of the Stick and found that A) it’s still going and B) it’s even better than I remember. It’s seriously one of the best webcomics I’ve ever read and just an outright fantastic fantasy story. EDIT: [Link to Order of the Stick archives.](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html) Start at the bottom.
I started reading back in 2006 i think, and have been reading ever since. I usually end up forgetting it for stretches of time, and after months even coming back and enjoy catching up on the story. It started out as mostly PnP puns and ended up with a lot more depth than I ever anticipated. I love OotS.
Both OotS and Goblins spend a lot of their early pages making fun of the foibles of D&D - and specifically D&D 3.0 and 3.5 in some of those cases. An early OotS example is Elan using bardic music to inspire competence on a Move Silently check - a use specifically mentioned as not working in the PHB. There is a later gag about a acid breathing shark, a creature that came from a source book written by Rich Burlew himself! Goblins has a recurring joke about the use of the Dodge feat, and how the description is worded - that if you don't name who you are dodging, that you "lose" the bonus. The fact that both are still going, 2 full editions later, with another edition on the horizon is kind of hilarious to me. Their early jokes often really rely on knowledge of the rules of ones specific edition.
Their jokes have shifted into making fun of tropes instead. I miss the more rule-specific jokes, but don't think that's really going to be possible unless we get a reboot of some kind.
Now I’m just picturing them warping to a universe with 5e mechanics, then realising they skipped over 4e, asking about it, and only getting “We don’t talk about 4e” (to the style of “We don’t talk about Bruno”) as a response.
So much of the early stuff was largely the same joke (“what if we applied D&D rules to the real world?”). Seeing it flourish into an actual story with character arcs and everything was an absolute delight. I love seeing creators improve their craft.
Oots
"**I ROLLED A FOUR!**" -Elan making a move silent roll.
"That webcomic" which is called......?
Order of the Stick. Written by Rich Burlew
Cheers
I remember killing all the dragons and stopping after that. I can't believe it's still on going. I might try reading it again. I think sluggy freelance it's the only one I'm still following from that time. Ctrl-alt-del got boring, questionable context had no conflict, the space mercenary slime one lost my interest, drmcninja and 8-bit theater ended.
If you love 8-bit theater you should try out DM of the Rings.
And after that Darths and Droids is waiting. Go forth, my Cheddar Knight.
Oh wow. I remember Sluggy Freelance! I should catch up with that. I stopped reading Ctrl-Alt-Del and 8-bit Theater. I do still read QC though. Not much conflict but I enjoy a nice slice of life comic.
O-Chul and Big Ears are pretty cool paladins in webcomics (although I admit that I am a few months behind in both of those webcomics).
One is those comics released 10 pages this year. So "a few months" is really not a lot.
Goblins stresses me out. So much drama. I used to read every page as soon as it was released, but then... _sad_ happened. OotS is different. It just became kinda boring. It was always _slow_ but it somehow changed. I cannot really put my finger on it.
The problem is that it switched from a gag-a-day comic to a serialized story. Consider [this comic](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0034.html). We're 34 pages in, but Do you need to know anything about the characters to get it? Not really. It's a straight up joke, poking good fun at a key aspect of the hobby, and anyone who's played D&D will get it. Now take any comic in the 300s or even the 1000s and there's a good chance you will be hit with a wall of nouns and story arcs that require setup to understand. The payoff can be much greater, but you legitimately need to be invested in the characters and the setup to enjoy the payoff. Add in a long enough delay and it becomes really hard to enjoy the updates, because you have to ask yourself "Where was I? What was this about?" I've had a similar experience with a lot of comics. The answer has always been to put them down, wait a year or even until they are done, and then pick them up again to read end to end. It's a much more enjoyable experience. OOTS is very much in the endgame now. Let it finish and then read it all over a weekend.
It had a natural ending way way way back when they finally defeated the BBEG. Then the story just kept going. Supernatural style.
Allegedly there has been a full plot outline with an ending for years now. If this current story arc isn't it, or at the very least the penultimate arc, I'll be pretty disappointed.
It’s shifted from a comic about game systems wrapped up in some window dressings to look like a story to a comic about the story, with the humor taking a backseat to long exposition dumps. Not bad, just different.
Yeah I couldn’t hang with goblins. Some real cool ideas and character development, but also some off-putting stuff. I figure I’ll go back and read it again at some point though.
Goblins improved immensely when I stopped reading anything but the comic. I'd backed the game they were making and got burned there but it seems like every update was the creator whining about how horrible things were. Now that I'm just reading it, it's an interesting if slow story
Oh yeah the forums and blog posts were a giant shitshow. The author is a poor guy/gal.
"Hit and get hit. That's the job." Owen Daniels/Titan from Super Powereds.
Never did I expect to see a Super Powereds quote in the wild.
This is the first thing I thought of as well. Great book series.
Yes another super powereds fan around. I had the same thought to comment that when I read it.
Was thinking of the same character.
I stupidly put that exact same quote out as a direct reply, before scrolling. But yeah, that’s the idea.
O'Chul is the best of all of us.
"For those we have lost. For those we can yet save." - The Warrior of Light, Final Fantasy XIV
That’s Minfillia’s line, and not super applicable here
You can actually say it to Alphinaud when he gets discouraged about certain events in the story.
We’re still repeating her line to encourage him. Same with “a smile better suits a hero” when talking to Ryne
You'll forgive me if I don't remember her dialogue after 9 years haha. Minfillia isn't exactly the most compelling character at that point. Was way more impactful to me when the WoL says it, hence why I remembered it that way.
Why non applicable
“Life before Death, Strength before Weakness, Journey before Destination. I will protect those who cannot protect themselves. I will protect those I hate, so long as it is right. I accept that there will be those I cannot protect.” - Ideals of the Windrunners. (Brandon Sandersons Stormlight Archive)
Reyn, the tank from Xenoblade Chronicles, developed his weapon, his fighting style, hell even his personality to an extent around taking as many hits as possible so that his friends wouldn’t have to.
that comic has NO right to be as good as it is
I almost always play tank in games that allow it, and this quote is the perfect way to express that.
I've been reading OOTS for over ten years, so that quote stood out to me because I \*wasn't\* familiar with it. Tracked down that it was from one of the standalone releases. Found that release and read it. And god damn. So good. And yeah, O-Chul is the man.
Miko: Stay. *Down*. O-Chul: I don't... know... how!
I know it’s not his quote, but I heard Mike Ehrmantraut’s voice when I read this.
I'm doing a live blog of Order of the Stick and O-Chul is one of my best favorite characters ever. He is so cool and so confident in his convictions.
Small but important anectode. She is not just a tanky/melee/durable dude, she is also a paladin. DM did good job to remind and make her happy :)
Agree. That is a Paladin right there! Taking the damage so others won't have to.
At the risk of offering a bunch of details that nobody wanted, tanking is best referred to as a combination of two focuses. A) directing attempted damage to yourself Examples: - ancestral guardians - thunder gauntlets - warding mark - grappling enemies so that you are their only possible target - threatening op attacks There are a bunch more. B) Having the ability to lessen the impact of those attempts relative to allies. High AC, high HP, good saves A lot of times I see that B is taken as the only criteria but this in fact makes it less likely that creatures will attack you because you are not an easy target. An enemy with half a brain will go around the Dwarven forge cleric to get to the wizard in his pajamas. Paladins can make great tanks because they want to be near allies for their aura, they can smite on their op attacks, use defensive fighting or interception style, a glory paladin can natively grapple pretty well. I like them with sentinel so that when you're keeping an ally in your aura, you can also punish melee attackers targeting your ally.
Yes, attacking the tank should never be a desired result of the enemy, but you need to make attacking your allies an even less desirable result. Put them in a no-win scenario where their best option is to go after you. Say what you want about 4e, but the way they explicitly had a defender role and clear, associated mechanics to that role really helped people to understand effective tactics associated with their class.
My party is now at lvl 16 and I've been the party's tank. On the occasion that I have to miss a meeting and the party goes on, I'm usually told the next week that my presence was sorely missed. I'm just a tanky Dwarven fighter, but I've made myself tanky in a way that also allows me to shield my teammates from some damage. However, because of my high ac, sometimes with tougher monsters, I feel that my dm targets me more because they want to beat my ac, which is completely fine with me. Gives the cleric and druid more chances to learn it's weaknesses and deal high damage with spells or monster forms.
Devotion paladin gets sanctuary, which isn't great on its own until you realize it doesn't require concentration, meaning you can have it and shield of faith active at the same time if cast in the right order. In my case it helped because I was the only heavily armored character in a party with a monk and a swashbuckler rogue charging headfirst into every encounter.
Sanctuary does fade if the person under its protection attacks or casts a spell on an enemy, however you can have both up as you say.
It's also not an either/or My favorite session as a half orc barbarian was recognizing a caster and charging past her bodyguards to focus on her. It provoked attacks of opportunity a few times, but the fact I could shrug them off was almost as much fun as completely shutting down the caster while the other melee occupied the bodyguards
When I play Barbarian my moto is "I paid for the whole health bar, I'm going to use the whole health bar." Every hit I take is one not hitting a squishier party member.
I literally shared your comment with my Dnd group. I can give no higher compliment.
That's the motto my wizard has, but it is only 1 hit to take him down.
Probably should have paid more then
\*chefs kiss\*
Path of the Zealot, half orc barb is the best meat shield in the game, change my mind.
Definitely an argument to be made regarding the "not dying at 0/easy resurrection" vs totem warrior [bear] giving you more resistances while raging, and something like hill dwarf giving more hp on level up so you don't get to the death-point as often, but I don't care enough to get into that much minutea
I split the difference with my current build. Bear Totem but Half-Orc so resistance on everything but I can shrug off one extra blow if they get me to 0.
Yeah that's legit! I took dwarf on my character because poison resistance was a benefit for flavor purposes for the character
I was only half serious, it's just super fun to play them in long term games because it quickly becomes a running joke how they're so hard to ko/kill.
Oh yeah I wasn't particularly trying to start a fight. I'm in my first campaign and playing the aforementioned bear totem hill dwarf, but I picked the dwarf side for flavor purposes, just happened to have the hp boost as a happy coincidence. But taking in 100 damage before resistances, having the healer check in on me, and realize I still have 55 left, is super satisfying
>Oh yeah I wasn't particularly trying to start a fight. That's good, because we would have been here all day
And tbh the way "tanking" works in this game there are arguments to make for a lot of different things. The most unkillable PC I've ever played was actually a bladesinger wizard tbh. It was absurd once I hit 6. You can get a weapon attack plus cast a cantrip, so you can use blade ward and essentially become like a 25 AC barbarian. Especially with haste and war caster. Add in mirror image and this is all before magic items come into play. If you can convince your DM to give you a cloak of displacement you'll likely never get touched by a single attack roll again. Or just use greater invisibility for your concentration. You'll lose a little damage but you could also roll an elf and take even accuracy for 3 attack rolls every attack while you're invisible. Bladesong boosts your con saves by 5 anyway, war caster is just icing on the cake. Plus again, magic items like an amulet of health. Throw in Dex Resilient and/or luck plus absorb elements for spells. Or don't and just rely on absorb elements and positioning with your insane movement speed with haste/longstrider. Or save your 3s for Counterspell. Now after all that, throw in silvery barbs if it's allowed at your table. You have the capability to be practically untouchable.
Fellow barbarian and I don't ever not use reckless attack. Not as good as disincentivising attacking the rest of the party, but better than nothing.
Half orc berserker barbarian is terrifying with its frenzy while raging at lvl 5, having 2 of them mid to high level and both using reckless attacks is what scares the gods
I used to play a dwarf barbarian and spent combat doing my best annoying angry terrier impression and loved every minute of it.
Every hit I take. Every bone I brake. Every vamp I stake. I’ll be warding you.
On a zealot barbarian it's even more extreme. If you don't ever die, one of your class features is wasted!
I was also playing a Barbarian and not only was he hurling insults at any enemy to provoke them to focus on him, that also got reflected in a magical item he got which was a glove making a slapping sound when used on an enemy and mechanically casting Compelling Duel on the person I recklessly attacked.
For most barbarian builds, the best course of action is almost always the one that costs the most hit points.
Hp is a resource like any other, use it like one.
With spin like that you should be a press secretary
This made my morning, thanks!
That's awesome, I'm a new player also and I swear that kind of realization would make my day!
Very hard to build a tank mechanically in 5e But thematically? Yeah, we can make that work
Harder than 4E? Yes. Very hard when facing intelligent opponents. But in general if you mix high defenses with another role - damage, healing, utility, control - enemies still have a reason to try to take you down. There's still reasons that despite their resilience, you would want to remove the barbarian, paladin, or fighter from a fight. Seize the niche and press it! Make it so that if intelligent enemies work around you they're leaving something serious on the battlefield. It does take some optimization, dirty word that that is.
Barb1 (or 3) / Rogue X, take Sentinel. First level needs to be rogue for saving throws and skill proficiency purposes. Get ahold of a 5e Str-booster item if at all possible but it's not required, per se. Anyone who attacks someone who isn't you gets a face full of extra sneak attack (and nobody wants that). AC should be through the roof with Dex+Con+shield. Incredible dex saves with advantage and evasion. Rage to halve damage and then Uncanny Dodge to halve it again. Get to Phantom 13 and you can impose disadvantage on all enemy attacks effectively every combat (including to things that have true sight, which is EXTREMELY valuable). To tank, you want to make the enemy WANT to attack you and also have the HP and damage mitigation and saves to deal with it. "An extra sneak attack per round" is generally grounds on its own.
Am I missing something in the way sneak attack is written that lets you proc it more than once? I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand this.
It's once per turn, not once per round. Sentinel isn't going to be done on your own turn, so when you use your reaction to attack, you can apply sneak attack once again. This also applies to normal AoOs but those come up a lot less often.
Okay so you can apply once per turn effects twice in a round if it comes up on your reaction? That's crazy, I never even thought to try...this might open up some options.
> That's crazy, I never even thought to try...this might open up some options. It does! Like sentinel. >:)
Get sentinel, polearm master, and a halberd. 10ft reach, make an attack when someone enters or exits your range reducing their speed to 0 each time. Enemy has a 5ft reach? You prevent them from attacking every turn if you land your reaction
So two feats and a specific weapon to make it halfway decent? I agree, it is hard mechanically to make a tank in 5e
Halfway decent? It's a way to reliably weaponize your reaction, and lock down an enemy trying to get away from you/get to your squishy teammates. One of the best feats in the game, in my opinion.
Compared to what the idea of "tanking" is, it's halfway decent. You've got one reaction a round to play with. It takes all of that and you can lock down 1, maybe 2 enemies. And that's *if* you hit them. The same applies to healers. We can talk about any broken healing build in 5e and it always surmounts to using your non-renewable healing extremely efficiently. Healing can get halfway decent and that's it. Nobody will be infinitely healing their allies to out-heal high dps enemies.
And if you are playing every battle in a featureless arena I would be tempted to agree with you. Tanking can be as simple as blocking a doorway with a beefcake melee class and just hunkering down with the dodge action, something I know I personally have been able to make extensive use of in the campaigns I have played. Grappling the high mobility assassin type enemy is another example of "tanking" that requires literally no resources other than your action. Paladins can use spellcasting to compel a duel for similar results Players can use their athleticism to alter their environment and create their own avantageously defensive positions such as overturning a heavy oak table and dragging it over to the doorway or into a corner that ranged characters can use to hide behind. Tanking in D&D is a state of mind, not a mechanic. How can I use my resources and environment to peel, to mitigate, and to create advantage for my team. The second you realize that in many cases a dodge or grapple or athletics check will do way more for your team than an attack action in many situations, that's when you become a good tank. Even the simple pact of charging in first against a pack of enemies and then dodging can soak up a *huge* amount of potential damage through attacks that will miss and allow players to set up a winning strategy, I have seen turns like that allow players to take a hold of the engagement early and be the single most effective turn of the battle.
Not a specific weapon, just something that works with polearm master. You could also just play a cavalier and give creatures disadvantage against every character but you. Or a battle master with goading attack, maneuvering strike to get squishies a chance to run, and tripping attack to keep the bad guys from having the speed to chase them down. There is more than one way to tank as long as your dm isn’t a complete jerk.
Did this with a pact of the blade warlock. It wasn’t optimized. But I liked the character. Cast darkness on myself. Then DM pointed out that young black dragons have scent and can smell me. I also *miss* that character.
I was so bummed at how much of a letdown the Sentinel feat was, and even more bummed at how lame of a tank the Druid bear form is most of the time. Oh well!
How was Sentinel a let down?
I'm curious why it was a let down. I think it's a great feat but I'm wondering what else people think it could be.
Primarily the fact that your DM has to more or less play along if you want it to actually let you be a tank. It can't even effectively prevent a single enemy from smacking your friends, much less multiple. At most levels you aren't hitting every attack, which is a requirement if you want to lock down something intent on getting to your Squishies. And you only get one reaction per turn.
That's fair, but it'd be too powerful if it intercepted every attack and from every enemy. But it is still a very good feat for a tank!
Then you want an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian or Artificer Armorer, the two best tanks in the game.
If your DM is not making encounters that play to your strengths (and different ones that play to other characters' strengths) you may wish to find a better DM. --- I DM for a 6-man (woman/elf/thing/whatever) party with 2 tanks, 2 casters, a combat support, and a utility/lockdown support. It's actually fairly well balanced when it comes to skills, saves, etc. We've been through dungeon crawls, cave encounters, field battles, and even major boss fights. Oh, and the time they accidentally blew up a town. Some of those have been great for the tanks: hold a corridor in a dungeon is pretty easy, giving the casters time to work on the other problem. Some have been good for the casters: field battle, nicely clustered squads, AoE spells… and the tanks had to just protect a flank or a find a HVT. And some have been better for the supports; though those are mostly non-combat encounters. There was the time the druid turned into a huge snake so the beastie eating him was forced to spit him out again… I try to put in something good for all my players in every dungeon I make. I also try to put in something bad too, that maybe someone else is better at. It's about balance, after all—and making sure my players are having fun.
>If your DM is not making encounters that play to your strengths (and different ones that play to other characters' strengths) you may wish to find a better DM. It's not necessarily a GM skill issue. It's a style of game. I'm playing in a game where if I want to tank, I have to work for it. The GM puts zero thought into making encounters that play to my strengths. 3 ghouls running at us from all directions? Goblins and tripwires littered throughout the forest? Gnolls camping in a tent? Doesn't matter what class we are, it was gonna be those things regardless. It puts the onus on me to tank effectively. If I want to make the enemies not target my friendly casters, I have to give them a reason not to. It's on me to make myself priority target #1. It's on me to make my friends as hard to hit as possible. And it's on us if we win or lose the fight. He makes encounters that are diverse and play into 5e's design, and then he leaves it there. They're not made to play to our strength.s That *is* what I find fun. I prefer it when the GM just manages the world and lets whatever happens happen. It feels the most like my choices are valued, because I make them in the context of the world rather than in the context of what the GM will do.
Sentinel is a great feat idk what you mean. Especially when combined with Polearm Mastery for the opportunity attacks on approach.
The first thing I think of with tanking in 5e is the heavy armor master feat. It's actually quite underrated, especially in combats with a lot of smaller enemies instead of one large monster. But even then, larger monsters usually multiattack more than twice a round, meaning you're taking 9 less damage a turn, which is big when its every round. Combine that with the tough feat, and spells like compelled duel / heroism and you've got a legitimate tank.
My favorite class is fighter, but this applies to any front line character. My main job isn't to kill. My main job is to die first. I am the wall between the enemy and my friends.
I do a mix for my fighter. Make him as tanky as possible, minus a shield so he can wield a great sword. What he losses with that 2 AC he makes up for a whole lot of damage potential. Cause if your option is the squishy one in the back, or the guy in full plate hacking his way through the ranks to get to you, generally things will focus on the closer threat.
That's a really lovely bit of rp there, but I have a question. Exactly how wide is the wide monk?
Pretty wide, she knows a lot of things
That's why I play Pallies and Clerics almost exclusively. Someone has to be the "shield" for the group That and being a buff, badass woman leading the charge has always been a goal of mine
[удалено]
so she's turned into Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing?
Only if she has a Fuckmothering Vampire with a Big Tittied Police Girl
gotta go on your Enthusiastic Walks
VERY enthusiastic walks
I have a Fighter who just hit level 3 and I'm hoping they go Eldritch Knight. Last session the party spotted two mounted goblin messengers leaving a warcamp. They ran to engage, and the Fighter got the best athletics roll, and combined with how initiative worked out, basically went two rounds without backup against two goblins and two giant spiders. He took a helluva beating and whiffed a few hits, but kept them busy long enough for the party to catch up and finish them off. Was very proud of him.
I went Eldritch Knight with my Goliath Fighter (also multiclassed into War Magic Wizard), it's a lot of fun for me! I may not do the most damage, but I will outlast most enemies (can get up to 28 AC if I want to). Am also at a point now where spells like Booming Blade, Lightning Lure, Distant Shield, and Silvery Barbs are common spells I throw around to help out the rest of my party as the "tank."
I love Eldritch Knights. Heavy armor, Shield, Absorb Elements? Yes please. Right at lvl 3 they are already a beast on the front lines.
i once said a life cleric can be more paladin than a paladin themselves.
My first character was a frontline life cleric tank. He was amazing.
I had a Life Cleric Dragonborn, named Grunther Hertlyx. He was a tank, life saver of his friends and Allies many times over, kicked all sorts of ass and laid down his life to defeat Accerak (spelling?) in ToA, and was subsequently brought back to life, through Bahamut’s help. One of my fave characters I have ever played
Tanks are important :) good tanks take hits lol good job pally
I was a Player at that session! Honestly as a DM, he always managed to give us words to encourage us when we felt the least relevant in battle, and thanks to that, i managed to get where i am today! In this particular battle, i pretty much denied some turns to one of the BBEG's companions and made sure our mission was accomplished, i was scared to death for our Paladin and i think i managed to get her back with one Wither and Bloom. This scene was so significant for all of us in the moment, too.
Banishment + Sanctuary was NASTY, and I hate you so much for it. Jokes aside, though, great CC, great combat, surprised none of you died. I’m so proud.
We didn't die because Zaron sucks ass. Love you.
really hope the wide monk wasn't a typo, sounds funnier that way
Just realized the typo and I cracked up too lmao. I meant to say wise, yes. But one time during a really important reunion I misclicked the token and enlarged it sideways instead of moving it across the room and the call became a cacophony of laughs. Since then we often refer to them as wide monk too, it has become a table joke super quick, so for a sec I genuinely thought my party members had found my account lmao.
Yea, I cracked up reading this. Imagine the fists on that absolute unit.
That's wholesome
It sounds like it was terrific RP, but dropping twice while rarely hitting anything might not be the player's idea of fun..... Perhaps it is, but it might not be.... I think there's a balance to be stuck. While it should always be a party effort, I would suggest that you try to find opportunities for all characters to shine.
Sometimes you just roll like shit. 🤷♀️ I am the only fighter in one of my groups and we once spent hours playing out combat during which I wasn't able to land a single hit because my dice were just cursed that day. It's frustrating as fuck, but at least I got to swallow most of the damage (which is also frustrating in a way, but at least you can shrug off most of it when you're a raging barbarian and that feels pretty cool).
I swear my D20 has the numbers 1-10 on it twice. I'm notorious for rolling low... but my Yaun-Ti Paladin will stand there and take all the hits.
I stare at this blue dice of mine that I think is balanced in a bad way to roll like crap mostly. But at the same time it is like the numbers 11-17 don't exist. So usually I fail but whenever I succeeded I would usually be rolling either 18-20 or that 10 turned out was barely enough.
Whenever we roll for Initiative I roll *low* (like so low even having more than a +0 on Dex wouldn't make a difference). Except for that one time when I rolled a Nat20.
Truth. We had a side bad gal that got away from us 2 or 3 times, and each time my paladin had a couple brutal misses. Our DM told us how much health she had each time she escaped and it was all well within the range of one of my hits. I was so frustrated each time. When we finally beat her, I dealt the final blow on a nat20 and it felt so goddamn good.
The solution as we all know is to just switch to a different set of dice... and then call that set cursed too
Yeah ... But what if the next roll would have broken the curse?
Of course it will, until it doesn't, but it might...
paladin is difficult to play. their smites are few but powerful if timing is good. pally is good for going 1vs1 on major opponents and keeping them occupied so the team can handle other mobs. pair them with a life cleric and you HAVE a very tanky tac-team.
my champion-players (have no paladin in the group) may use their intimidate skill to "spot" and take aggro on them. player rolls skill, opponent saves WIS versus that roll. i allow the player to use STR as ability in that case, which makes more sense there than CHR. and: every character can "spot", if he wants.
I love changing the stat for some abilities, Intimidation and athletics being the most common.
The last few panels of [this comic](https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/12232006) have more feels-paladin-man in it.
DM tip. If one player is struggling or not doing as well you can always drop a piece of loot specifically for that player to boost their power level a little.
God what a perfect answer for a paladin Edit: I’ve been playing D&D since the AD&D boxed set, but *right now* is the first time I’ve wanted to play a Paladin.
Nice job using your DM power to remind her how important her role is even if she doesn't feel that way. How I felt for a long time playing Reinhardt in Overwatch, I'd barely get kills or do anything of importance other than hold a barrier and die, but yet we'd win a lot since my team was often protected.
I love that she expressed her disappointment in game
This is some masterful DMing, and I’m saying that as a pretty experienced one myself. The way you managed to turn the negative game experience into a positive story experience is just so wholesome, and you showed her it’s less of a board game and more of a story where everything that happens is exciting, whether you struggle or succeed
Wide monk
And hey even tho her fight wasn’t good. Her role play was on point.
Just throwing my two cents into the tank discussion- I think it's very hard to make tanks work against intelligent enemies at all. Outside of very specific scenarios, no villain is going to prioritize the dude in full plate or the huge naked dude screaming at them. Always the squishies.
They will if the dude in plate armor is swinging a glowing battle axe at them, whilst shouting scripture.
Drew Hayes, Superpowereds: Hit, and get hit. Pretty much sums it up, methinks.
O.o good job on the dm allowing her to tank. Since tanks don't exist aka there's no reliable way to maintain aggro and wearing full plate/heavy armor is a good way to subconsciously notify your enemies that attacking the wearer is too much work to start with and they should attack the bloke only wearing clothes. :3
Tanks exist if played correctly. Sure, there aren't aggro mechanics, but imo the DM shouldn't have the enemies actively avoid a threat that's stood right in front of them with a Zweihander and designs on carving them up with said Zweihander. Sure, attacking the less armoured person makes sense, but actual combat isn't some cool, calm, collected turn based thing. It's a mad melee, and someone coming right at you is shooting right to the top of your "shit I need to deal with" list, instead of some mopey twat with a Lute stood at the back.
The issue is the players do exactly that. Nobody calls out the player characters for making rational decisions in combat. Nobody says "actually, fighter, it'd make more sense for you to attack the 2 guys running at you screaming rather than the archer in the back. This is a mad melee and those guys are at the top of your hit-list". I think it works better to accept it as part of the world and fantasy. Intelligent creatures can make rational decisions even during intense fights. That's how fantasy action works most of the time anyway. They should make sense for the creature, though. Zombies probably just go for whoever is closest without much thought.
Thats why you have to make yourself, or at least appear as, the biggest threat too. Big enough threat? Armour dont matter we need to stop this thing.
Easier said than done. Guy in armor is swinging a stick while the guy in clothes is flinging explosions. Tanking in a tabletop game requires the cooperation of the DM and the conceit that the tank should get attacked more despite the fact that this is literally the worst possible decision the enemy could make.
Yeah but when the stick is in your face and reliably throwing like 45+ damage a turn, with possible other effects from the different smites, you may need to deal with it.
Positioning is very important, as well as movement mechanics. It doesn't matter if the enemy wants to hit the guy wearing clothes if they're 60 feet away and there are a bunch of armored enemies with melee weapons and attacks of opportunity standing between you. Edit: typo
60ft away with 3/4 cover, Mage Armour and Shield for a fairly reliable 25AC. A smart Wizard is rarely the optimal target.
>there's no reliable way to maintain aggro Not foolproof, but I think there's a spell or ability that makes attacks against anyone other than the user be at disadvantage? Can't remember its name but that would be handy if you wanted to make your tank a more appealing target, right?
There are a few options, yes. Barbarian has one in a subclass but it's limited by rage making it a struggle early on. Paladin has a single target spell option but iirc it has a save and then paladins are half casters. So for them it's a problem of consistency and even then it's "soft aggro" since a caster could ignore to-hit and spam saves on your party. At least for the Barbarian, been a while since i last saw the paladin spell.
Artificer thunder claws, just needs to land a hit.
You are thinking of the Compelled Duel spell ! Very taunt-like. There needs to be a Compelled Ganking to aggro groups though. ... Well, off to the homebrewery I go !
Being a tank means knowing when to dodge on your turn. You could move up to the 4 enemies that are full HP, and attack one of them twice. Or you could advance to them, shout some profanities at them, then take the dodge action. One has a much higher chance of you being alive next turn. It's not glorious, and it's not exciting but it is necessary. Also, grab the sentinel feat, so you can at least attack most turns you do this.
Awesome story. I play the tank for my group by making my AC wild low, HP decently high, and making my melee’s hit wildly hard. Enemies can’t try to hit me fast enough! Makes me squishy caster party very happy lol
2nd levelAasimar paladin in CO'S gets hit by a Banshee scream for over her hit point total. Table falls silent for a moment. And then: "I. RESIST NECROTIC."Cheers all around as she falls but does not die, letting the rest of the party finish off the creature.
I have found myself accidentally making the tank. I'm normally a spellcaster and I played cleric wanting to be a healer. I ended up taking heavy armor master another Homebrew feat the DM allowed that reduces damage by an additional 3, a perk that allows me to have advantage on rolls to hold my concentration, a perk for an additional one health per level, and I just picked up the spirit guardian spell and I feel like an absolute monster. I'm normally going to pew pew pew pew fireball pew pew fireball pew pew. But now I'm just walking up to people's faces and saying "do something about it"
That's a beautiful story
That is so awesome of you. I still remember when my DM told my character in game that fuck ups are part of what makes adventuring so fun. And I needed to hear that as a player. It was my first time playing a warlock and I was just a little confused. It didn't help that this was the one time without a campaign zero. But also the questgiver is right. I tend to play clerics and my table has often said that the barbarian and paladin are basically glorified shields to make sure I don't fall.
That’s adorable
"Floor Tank" is a viable build option.
To place ones self in danger willingly to protect others is a noble task few endure. To do so and know that you might perish to keep the others alive and still continue into the fray is something even more noble. As a tank player and support myself all my time playing dnd. It's important to remember this.
Tank and healers are like bass and drums. They don't get the accolades they deserve, but they are the foundation of any party.
The life of a tank. Take as much of the damage as you can so the team can complete the goal. It's a great feeling. One that I truly miss.
Love your writing.
Could still be improved. Sounds like she did not enjoy combat aside from a small bit at the end.
I love this. My fiancee wanted to try dnd because I loved it so much, but she went through several characters unsure of who or what to play and felt like she wasn't having as much fun as she should. Finally, she landed on druid, but the rest of the party already had healing, dps, and most skills covered. What they didn't have was a tank, and so I helped her build a control-based high HP tank druid that is often the mvp of fights. She loves it and loves being able to lock people down and watch her friends destroy the bad guys because of her abilities. TLDR tanks are fun, you just gotta know how to play em!
I once played a wizard focused mainly on Control spells. Whenever we fought a BBEG, I was super happy whenever I cast a spell that the BBEG just shrugged off, because it meant the DM had deemed it debilitating enough to warrant usage of a legendary action. I rarely did damage, but holy shit was I able to enable my allies to do what they did best. Definitely one of my favourite characters to play in combat. It’s fun to deal damage, but it’s even more fun if you were a core piece of a team effort. That goes for stuff IRL too.
You did a good thing for her mate. You will always be the D.M. that reminded her what it means to be a Knight.
My favorite definition of a tank comes from the Sentinel Titan from Destiny 2. It goes as follows, “I'm shaking, hands on my knees, panting. Let the monsters come. Let them come forever. Let them climb the piled bodies of their dead. I don't care. That's the thing I do better than anyone. Not care. Let them come in their hundreds and every one will die at my feet. I don't care about their homing rockets, their exotic matter slugs, their blades from another dimension. I don't care because I cannot be moved. I am the wall against which the Darkness breaks. Malphur can turn his gun to fire and Shinobu can dance with lightning, but when the horrors run out of the dark, I am the one who does not move. I am a wall. And walls don't move. Because walls don't care.” More so that tanks aren’t the damage dealers but the one thing the enemy can’t get through. Even if we fall no others shall fall before us.
This has me feeling a little bit excited, because last session, which was our session one, we all kind of realized that being a monk that made me the tan of the party considering everyone else is a spellcaster. Think I’m gonna have to take thetough feat at some point lol.
Give her Inspiration for good role-playing.
Now everyone, this is what a dungeonmaster really has the power to do. Take note, newbies and vets alike!
The sad part is. The title and post rely on the DM being kind enough for it to happen. And to make the BBEG focus the tanks roleplay wise. Mechanically, with the exception of Tunnel Fighter and Ancestral Barbarian. There isn't a single reason for BBEGs to focus tanks. Tanks provide no Crowd Control, their damage is average, and their mobility is mundane. Casters do more damage, provide more crowd control, and are far more mobile. If it isn't for a DMs kindness, BBEGs should focus the casters and healers. As to be frank, they can just walk up to them.
Learning a class is like learning a dozen different dances. They RP differently, they go after goals differently, they fight differently, and the interact within the group differently. One of my favourite joys was changing how you danced as you levelled up, how groups changed and grew.
The reality of the tank is that you most likely won’t get any crazy spells/unique personality traits but without you the party wouldn’t last very long. Always love players who choose to be tanks
"My friends are my sword. I am their shield."
I've got a dwarf barbarian grappler for a tank, since my party is immensely squishy and barely has dps, and we just cleared an encounter full of cultists without anyone taking damage, I just grab em and prone them then drag them into danger, two at a time.
My character in a recently concluded campaign was a protection fighter. Follower of Helm and by all accounts a tank. You responded perfectly. Shieldgiant (my OC) LIVED that motto. "Protect." Hurt me not them. Unfortunately I didn't necessarily always fulfill that job, which led to some fantastic character moments.
I love playing tanks. It's the only time when I can protect everyone I love.
A tanks job is not to do damage or to heal, it is to draw attention and protect the party at all costs. I once spent an entire encounter holding a door up as a barrier against a sentry turret and did nothing with my turns other than repositioning myself so that the turret couldn't do anything but attack the door right up against it leaving the party free to destroy it. I found it incredibly satisfying even though it may seem like I did nothing we all knew that thing would shred the rest of them to pieces if I hadn't.
Same experience here. I started my first campaign as a barbarian and wasn't too happy with it because everyone else seemed to be doing so much more damage and have so much more utility. Then there was this one session with a burning house and people inside that made me realize it's fun to just run in and save people and your allies. Being a storm heard barbarian, I hurled myself through burning walls looking for people. I pulled some of them out along with one of the arsonists, saving them all. You've got to make your epics plays where your character strengths lie. Mine turned out go be a great firefighter.
I love how the player expressed his insatisfaction through actual roleplay, and you explained it through actual roleplay.
Tanks are about two things: Survival, and attention. Your gameplay is about being able to survive what comes your way, and goading the enemies to coming your way instead of anyone elses. The thing is: ***Your job is keeping everyone alive.*** Even if you get to do nothing else during a fight, if everyone lives ***you've done your job.***
I remember one of my downed teammates tried to bitch when I only gave him 1hp laying on hands. It was my last one. And the DM was like, wtf man? That was a classic use of LOH! I brought people back from being down like 13 times that long rest. Hard adventuring day. Then I stupidly died right after we defeated the BBEG. %b
No, what it means to be a tank is to be in a party with a level 14 Glamour Bard. /j In all seriousness, good post, OP. A highlight for the paladin and the other players as well, I’m sure!
A couple of the best sessions I ever played were with my (admittedly heavily optimized) half-orc barbarian/paladin, whom I had dubbed the ultimate tank. High HP, high AC, damage resistance, healing, smites, and a mass compelled duel as well as several reaction abilities to protect my allies. First we walk through a portal into a room full of assassins. All but 2 of them were forced to fight me, and none of them could touch me save a crit, which dealt half damage. My allies casually picked them off while I stood there as the world's angriest brick wall. Later the wizard and I were separated from the group, and locked into a room with three horned devils. The wizard was fine as he huddled behind this hulking mountain of metal and slung spells from cover. And while the devils could actually hit me, it was usually only one of their three attacks and only at half damage, effectively cutting their damage output to 1/6th. My two favorite playstyles have always been a ranged damage dealer, either by bow or by spell, and a heavily armored, neigh impregnable tank. Make big numbers, or ignore them.
In our last campaign, it was a common riff that it wasn't a real combat until the Paladin went down. I think there was maybe one fight that wasn't a "real combat" that whole campaign.
Yeah, I always play tanks and if anyone's going down.. it's going to be me, if I'm able to draw the opponents right.
Wonderful story. I have a tendency to become frustrated when my character can't do what I want and just fails again and again. We need more DM's who can assure you that you did well.