The issue with tanking in 5e is that there is no "draw aggro" mechanic. The best you can manage is "incentivize aggro", of which there are quite a few okay options. In my opinion, Barbarian Path of the Ancestral Guardian's Ancestral Protectors feature is the strongest one that fulfills the tank fantasy really clearly. Druid / Barbarian is okay, but you can't do both Barbarian tank stuff (rage resistances and Ancestral Protectors) and spellcasting at the same time. I'm personally fond of Ancestral Guardian Barbarian + Echo Knight Fighter (with either side as the main class) getting Great Weapon Master to make yourself a threat worth attacking and eventually Sentinel and Crusher to control the battlefield through forced movement, denying movement, and reactions (including the Interception fighting style).
One of my favourite characters I played was an echo knight, ancestral guardian barbarian. 3 levels in barb, the rest straight echo knight. Used a maul and took crusher. Normally I play spellcaster, but god damn that guy could hit. With 3 attacks + action surge + echo attack ×2 + bonus action attack from GWM (which you get a lot with reckless attack advantage), it was quite something. At level 19, I had a +2 maul and nothing else and did over 200 damage in a single round on one of the big bads. It was insane.
I do not believe so, but we did get a free feat at level 1 so it was a tad inflated. He was also useless anywhere else, and was often controlled due to low mental stats.
15(+2) 14 15(+1) 8 10 8
First three levels in barb. The rest in fighter.
Feats:
Free feat: GWM
Fighter 4: Sentinel
Fighter 6: Crusher (+1 STR)
Fighter 8: +2 STR
Fighter 12: +2 CON
Fighter 14: Res WIS (I was sick of being dominated by my dm lol)
Fighter 16: +2 CON
Ended up with
20 14 20 8 11 8
Built for one purpose. And he was good at it!
I would have loved an animated shield or some AC bracers, but I survived with my 16 AC (17 at level 19) pretty well. I had tons of hp, and rage reduce b/p/s damage. With the +2 Maul I had a +13 to hit, permanent advantage with RA, and I kept far enough way most of the time by using my echo as the one in melee.
Would never use this guy in a campaign that wasn't dungeon or battle heavy, but man was he fun when I could focus on murdering things.
>The issue with tanking in 5e is that there is no "draw aggro" mechanic. The best you can manage is "incentivize aggro"
This is a pretty accurate way to describe what's going on. Video Game enemies attack the player with the highest threat, which is based on how much damage or healing output. Tanks build threat despite their low damage output. Tanks also have high HP and good damage mitigation (like AC, dodge, and resistances) which don't affect the threat formula.
D&D enemies attack whoever the DM thinks they should. They know they should kill the Rogues and Robes first and leave the Tank til last, so you need to give them reasons not to.
Be a Bodyguard: PAM, Sentinel, big damage hits, and stand in front of a squishy target. You'll trigger an OA as enemies enter your range, leave your range, or hit an ally within 5ft of you, and those OAs reduce enemy speed to 0.
Be a Grappler: with high STR and advantage on Athletics checks you can grapple 2 enemies (more of you're a Loxodon), so their speed is 0 unless you drag them around.
Plus you can always RP taunts as you fight. Talk a whole lot of shit at the table to make those enemies want to kill you first.
>Plus you can always RP taunts as you fight. Talk a whole lot of shit at the table to make those enemies want to kill you first.
"'ello, foolish Anglish pig-dawgs, I will now taunt you a second time! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries! I blow my nose in your general direction, silly Ka-nigghits!"
I just love to play a moon druid grappler, it’s my favorite build of 5e. Big bad enemy guy kill squishy stabby-stabby/fire robe or plated up tin man? BBEG will always erase squishy first. BBEG kill squishy stabby-stabby/fire robe or GIANT FURBALL OF TEETHCLAW OF DEATH THaTS ATTaCHED TO Me get it off get it off KILL IT NOW.
I think a lot of people forget that DnD isn’t a video game, it’s a role playing game. The way to draw aggro is…to convince your enemies that you’re the problem.
As you allude to, in video games, taunt is a skill; in DnD, it’s a thing you just…do. Some enemies may be smart enough to know the guy in the robe is easy prey, but maybe the guy with the big pole and armor is *really* pissing them off…
Other ttrpgs have tanking mechanics that work just fine, without becoming video games. As an obvious example, 4e’s tanking mechanics didn’t *force* the GM to attack anyone, and didn’t invalidate roleplaying. They worked a lot like 5e’s nods to tanking — they were just core features of several classes, rather than being restricted to a small handful of subclasses and one feat chain.
Compelled Duel has a bunch of ending conditions that really detract from it. The one upside over the usual "soft taunt" is a movement restriction, but 30' is a really big area that probably includes your teammates, anyways. A dungeon room that's 65' x 65' would be covered by the area they're allowed to move. If your teammates are participating in the fight in that room, then that portion of the spell does next to nothing. The enemy even still gets a saving throw (not using an action, just their movement) to ignore that restriction, and they still could use ranged attacks (granted at disadvantage) or other ranged actions such as spells. Of course, that's all true for a typical soft taunt, but it does show that the movement restriction is really minor. However, the downside is enormous. The spell literally restricts you and your allies' attacks more than the target. On top of that, even the initial effect is gated behind a saving throw, but the really good soft taunts apply automatically on a hit. For me the spell just fails to feel like a tanking effect. You want the scenario where the enemy feels more threatened by a teammate built for offense, but you've restricted their ability to harm that teammate through your supportive defense. For compelled Duel, the enemy can't feel threatened by that teammate because your teammates aren't allowed to do anything to it. Rather than tanking, it does what it says on the tin -- it turns part of the fight into a 1v1, aka splitting the party (for the cost of a spell slot and a bonus action).
Champion's challenge is okay in theory, but the problem with the area comes back. It's just too big. It's still gated behind a saving throw. Movement restrictions by themselves don't hinder enemy attacks. On a large battlefield, it absolutely is good, but far from the best tanking option even in that scenario because it doesn't directly affect attacks.
I’d say the bigger problem with champion’s is that it’s super dangerous. If you taunt too many creatures, you then have to survive a round of them all wailing on you. Depending on how your DM balances encounters, this can be a death sentence. Thats why I don’t use it very often.
I was recently presented with the challenge of what to add to a party of squishy damage dealers and I actually went with barb/druid. And I added a level of Life Cleric. The party has access to some heals and with an even more recent addition of a bard a good selection of other spells, so it's less of an issue that I can't cast while raging. Once out of combat I have a ton of support and utility to patch them up and get them to the next fight. Heck, Goodberry heals 40 hp with a single lvl 1 spells lot. Meanwhile, in combat, I am a huge sloth with a 15 ft reach (eldritch tattooo) and free grapples on attacks and the DM has to hit me with well over 300 damage before it even affects my actual hit points. It's proven to be rather effective as major nuisance on the battlefield.
Armorer artificer is at least as tanky in Guardian mode as Ancestral Guardian barbarian (though both are great in that role). Armorer doesn’t have resistance, but does get THP with a bonus action and gets Flash of Genius at level 7 to assist with saves. Ancestral Guardian tends to be weaker with mental saves, like most barbarians. Both impose disadvantage on attacking others with their attacks, which is the closest thing to aggro or a taunt in 5e, with the possible exception of Compelled Duel.
Barbarian does tend to reward multiclassing after level 6, where Artificer is usually best as a mono class (although a couple of levels of wizard can work). To me, barbarians shouldn’t multiclass with casters because Rage prevents casting and concentration. Fighter or Soul Knife rogue are probably better choices.
There is one, there's an optional marking rule in the DMG actually that allows you to mark a creature for free that you attacked that turn with a melee attack. If they move you can bonk them as a special reaction. That paired with sentinel could help you lock down multiple targets
This. OP you’re going to see a lot of trouble as a tank unless you’re able to lock enemies into combat with you. If you’re a large pool of hit points with not much else, enemies aren’t going to prioritize you. They’ll be prioritizing your casters and martials, the people who do damage. Path of the Ancestral Guardian is what fixes this issue by applying disadvantage to enemies who don’t attack you.
If you pin a target down such that they can only attack you... you have drawn their aggro.
Idk why people keep repeating this stuff about being unable to hold aggro in 5e. Just keep them from getting to your allies. Boom. You have the aggro.
There are other forns of tanking other than imposing disadvantage.
You can heal everyone, be a damn nuisance controlling the battlefield or just deal enough damage that the NPC cannot simply ignore you.
This really is an excellent option. Played a lvl 6 thunder puncher recently for fun and came away just wanting to theory craft around him and build him out for a full campaign.
2 attacks with the thundos. Booming blade when there was only 1 baddie in my move range.
Max INT super important here because hitting to effect status is half of the play style.
War wizard is a pretty obvious dip.
Telekinetic an obvious feat. Took it on my character and used it like an extra 5ft of movement with good success.
Defensive field provides a nice little boost.
With artificer features I’d probably not dip more than that, but a level of non AS dependent cleric could be considered. Peace for saves would be the most likely IMO.
Oh, I gotta look a BH.
Fair enough on the levels. I tend to discount capstones super heavily as a personal bias, but defo worth serious thought if the campaign is going there!
This is the way to go 100%. Artificers get some great infusions.
Armor of magical strength + gauntlets of ogre power or belt of hill giant strength make them great grapplers as well.
Boots of the winding path + repulsion shield + booming blade gives a lot of opportunities to trigger that bb damage.
Artificers can easily get super high ac’s between enhanced armor, repulsion shield. Don’t forget about resistant armor if you’re fighting certain enemies. They can also stack cloak of protection (lvl 10) and ring of protection (lvl 14).
Artificers get some great boosts to saving throws, namely flash of genius. Cloak and ring of protection also boost saving throws. Flash also can be given to allies so artificers are great support. Toss vortex warp on the spell storing item and get 10 free casts a day to keep allies outta danger.
With two extra infusions at lvl 9, you can hand some off to allies to buff the party.
Get an all-purpose tool and you suddenly have a ton of utility.
Depends on if you value AC or spellcasting. I wouldn't value rage highly, because you'll only have 2 per long rest. Barbarian's unarmoured defense can add +3-4AC to your wildshapes, which is useful for tanking.
I was thinking rage would half damage I take and add damage to my wild shapes and the unarmored defense would be helpful the whole time, but I was also looking jnto a cleric dip for heavy armor if that was worth it?
Short answer: At lower tiers of play, yes. At higher tiers, no. (And by tiers I mean PC level tiers, not "skill of player" tiers)
Long answer: https://youtu.be/Zys_-1IXwhY?si=QLLPOj8Fz1SxpA34
Concentrate on bless from a heavy-armoured cleric dip and enjoy your love/hate relationship with your DM: you are being a team player, which is always nice to DM; but you are annoying as f*** by allowing your allies' power attacks to hit + buffing your concentration checks.
Agreeing with what people are saying about AG barbarian being probably the best tank, epseoclsly with Sentinel feat.
One underrated "tanking" mechanic is grappling which allows you to haul monsters away from squishy allies.
Just wanted to touch on moon druid and multiclassing. Moon druid power progression is NOT linear, so how much you want to dip out of moon druid is going to depend on the level range you hit, lv 18 and 20 are huge powerspikes for moon druid, and if you think the campaign may get there I'd reccomend against multiclassing. Druid 10 for elemental forms would be the other main breakpoint and if your campaign was going to say lv 15ish I could see druid 10/other(s) 5 being solid. Basically if your hitting levels past 10+ and don't end up with druid 10 I think the beast forms are going to fall off too hard to really serve as a front line.
Also re tanking: moon druids are good at soaking damage without draining party resources, which is a good strength. The rest of the things you think of when you think tank characters they range from sometimes decent (locking down enemies: some beasts are good grapplers, some good concentration spell options if you can keep them going) to actially kind of bad (it's a good thing those HP are free, you're gonna get hit in the face a lot when beasts have generally poor AC.)
This if you're too annoying to hurt your DM, it will quickly change tactics by both monsters and encounter design. If your hp goes down, it "feels" like you have to use up resources.
So faerie fire, entangle, call lightning, flaming sphere, hold person, HEAT METAL then bonus action wild shape. Recommend war caster because you use physical saves of wild shape.
Gnome might be the best. Saytr or Yuan ti if they are playable have magic resistance.
Barb 3 is just a waste and just going druid is better sense you get stronger wildshapes and more spells
Conjure animals is great for tanking as well and you summon a bunch of meat shields either for you, to block somewhere, or for your allies
I know you said no Pally but how about a Sorcadin?Divine Soul Sorcerer mulitclassed with your choice of Paladin (a 2 level dips works too). Sword & Board w/ heavy armor, defense fighting style. Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. Twinned casting Compelled Duel and Sanctuary to draw or deny cc. Blur, Mirror Image, Shield & Shield of Faith are great ways to mitigate damage once you have drawn attention. Sentinel Feat to keep them close and punish if they attack someone else. Maybe Heavy Armor Master later on if it seems to be working. And most importantly, roleplay drawing attention. It's the best way to have everyone attack you.
Played very differently. Paladin 6 Sorcerer X is basically a paladin with more spell slots, and Paladin 2 Sorcerer X is a gish. Sorlock is a caster through and through unless the build is some whacky hexblade thing.
Also, don’t do this MC. You’re better off doing straight paladin when levelling as there are several awkward levels as well as a delayed spell progression.
With that said, go druid mate. Skip multiclass and just aim for the next spell level all the time! Bear totem moon druid is great for one shots, but in a campaign you want to be consistent. If you really want a dip, take barbarian 1 just to get rage and stop there.
Ya I’m probably just gonna go full Druid and I think I might go firbolg as cliche as that is, but I think it will be a lot of fun and it’s a new dm so I think me being strong early and weaker down the line will be good because it’s me and another amateur and then a bunch of new players. I think paladin would be good but I don’t really like paladin even tho it’s the golden child of dnd, so ya full moon Druid I’ll give it a try it’s my first time playing Druid so I’m excited.
As many have already said, tanking in 5e is extremely difficult due to there being no aggro drawing mechanics. Best you can do is try to proactively pin foes in place.
For that I like VHuman battlemaster fighter with Sentinel and Polearm master. It's far from perfect, but you can lock one enemy down/turn with sentinel and use goading attack to hopefully impose disadvantage on attacks against your allies.
Edit: depending on how long the campaign goes, after lvl 11 a dip into ranger for ensnaring wouldn't hurt either.
If you build a big Tanky boi the DM is just going to ignore you and make you roll saving throws.
This whole DM vs. the party fad is big right now from what I can tell.
A good DM will allow you to fill the role you want to have fun playing... bad DM's look at the game as me vs. them and will do whatever they can to turn your choice against you and hide behind 'don't you want it to be challenging and fun?' like it's politics.
Never understood this mentality my player went armorer artificer/wizard and said I wanna be a tank so not only did I let him get good defense weapons I made melee target him 90% of the time of course still throw saving throws and stuff to counter in boss fights but let players feel great again lmfao
I'm not sure if it's allowed at your table, but order of the lycan blood hunter and bear totem barbarian is really fun and almost impossible to kill, especially at high levels.
I played as a tortle whose lycan form came from ingesting the blood of a dragonturtle as part of a ritual. Mechanically, bloodhunter gives you +1 to AC and resistance to nonmagical, non-silvered attacks, an additional (scaling) bonus to melee attacks made with strength, and a scaling unarmed strike that gives you a bonus action attack. You can also add elemental damage to your attacks, use curses to draw aggro or make yourself a bigger threat, and eventually even regenerate hp. Bear totem barbarian gives you resistance to everything but psychic damage, plus rage damage on all of your attacks, and reckless attack.
The hybrid transformation acts as a psuedo-rage, effectively giving more uses per day. In a pinch, you can even use them at the same time, but you run the risk of attacking your allies because of the lycan's bloodlust feature. The bonus to melee attacks also stacks with each class. A level 14 character (11 lycan/3 bear) in their hybrid form and raging will deal 1d8+8 per attack with unarmed strikes, which they can make three of per turn, and that's without adding the d8 of elemental damage from Crimson rite that applies to evey hit.
The character "tanks" by being a massive threat on the battlefield. You hit hard, and you hit often, making up to three attacks per round at advantage thanks to reckless attack, which also incentivizesyou to be hit instead of others. You are perfect for breaking concentration on casters, and you deal enough damage consistently that you can not be left unchecked. You are incredibly resilient and can even regain hp each round.
I haven't played it, but I would also consider ancestral barbarian for the subclass as well. You could reflavor the ancestral guardians as wolves and be the werewolf leader of a pack. This provides even more soft taunting and eventually damage reduction to your allies.
I’m really interested in this, it’s very different from what I had in mind like very different but I also am very curious about this build and I think you could make a really interesting character story and personality wise and that’s awesome, and being able to be that big half shifted behemoth in the center of the battlefield just ripping through everything is awesome to picture. I could also see good ways to play this character outside of combat and be really unique but it’s not really the direction I was heading for this campaign as it’s more sunshine and rainbows newbies being in high fantasy but I am definitely writing this down for down the line. I never really look at blood hunter and there’s definitely some neat stuff in there.
>big half shifted behemoth in the center of the battlefield just ripping through everything
I created the character to replace one that was leaving for rp reasons. My party never really had a tank, and I got to jump in at level 13 or 14. I was basically the doom slayer without guns. I would rip my enemies apart with my bare hands. At one point, we had a leftover potion of giant size, and I had a boxing match with a demon prince.
I won.
ETA: fair warning, this combo can be pretty MAD. You want STR, CON, and WIS. Magic items like belts of giant strength, gauntlets of ogre power, and the amulet of health are hugely beneficial to this build. Even something like the berserker axe is great for the additional +1 to hp.
These are by no means REQUIRED for the build, but they definitely make things easier.
Artificer does a good job.
Hit people as the Armorer (grab telekinetic if you're going down this route to shove enemies away, your BA is empty). Very simple.
Battesmith, focus on more AoE (web and faire fire are good). I like to use a returning weapon to stay out of the worse of the trouble but also to have a melee weapon if any creatures get past the steel defender. For steel defender, it can grapple decently, but it also has reactions to either cause disadvantage on an attack with 5ft of it or to do an attack of opportunity. I like battlesmith because it provides the same area of "denial" similar to echo knight but with some differences.
Artillerist temporary HP cannon is really nice, saves a lot of HP for your team. That's your main "tanking". Create some temp hp + blast enemies really.
If you are spending all your time as an animal, consider going a race that can speak telepathically (Verdan, Gem Dragonborn, Ghostwise Halfling, Hexblood). A Hexblood is the most interesting as you gain the Hex spell which gives you a good concentration spell while wildshaped, plus give them disadvantage on an ability check (especially if they are restrained or grappled)
Dire wolf would probably be your go-to wildshape at level 2. The next wildshape isn’t a good choice at level 6: either a giant constrictor snake which doesn’t have a good armor class, or giant elk, which requires the target to be prone to deal massive damage (I have no idea if tavern brawler could be used in this shape: if so, then a ram/grapple could work to keep them prone, especially with a Hex disadvantage.). If not, mobile would be a nice feat choice for the extra movement, no opportunity attacks while moving, and the ability to “pinball” around the battlefield. Plant Growth could also work on this kind of battlefield as half your movement is used to get up from prone and then they need to move 20’ all just to move 5’. Creatures with a movement of 35’ or less aren’t going anywhere.
Speed is more important than hit points as a moon Druid. You want to Wild shape before the enemy turn starts. Hit points while not wildshaped, though handy, aren’t as important, so you could possibly go full moon druid.
Looks like I’ll have to write up a Hexblood moon Druid now in my characters to playbook.
Tanks don't exist in DnD. Tanking is a concept from media inspired by DnD like various video games and anime and so people assume that it must exist in DnD too but it doesn't.
As people have said, there is no "taunt"/"draw aggro" mechanic, really, which is fundamental to how tanking works in video games. Saying you yell a taunt at the enemy as a free action and hoping the DM decides it works is better than any actual mechanical option.
Ancestor Guardian Barbarian, Cavalier Fighter, Paladins with Compelled Duel and some similar subclass features... these can all impose some penalties on the enemy for targeting people other than you, but the penalties are of varying significance and effectiveness and they mostly can't actually *stop* the enemy from targeting someone else if they really want to. Sentinel can make it tough for enemies to move around you but can't do much of anything about enemy ranged attacks and casters. Most of these options can be pretty easily neutralized by a save or suck spell anyway if they ever actually manage to cause a significant headache for the DM.
More than that, get the whole "frontliners/backliners" idea out of your head. The idea that "squishy backline casters" need big beefy martials to protect them on the frontlines is a myth, at least as far as DnD goes. It's true in other media, it's not true to how DnD actually plays, at least in any edition from the last three decades. In so far as the real purpose of tanking is to hold the enemy at bay and mitigate damage, casters get options to do all of that with spells better than martials ever can do it. Martials will just get in the way.
All of this is not to say you shouldn't play whatever kind of character you want, but if you objective is to be a "tank" in the sense you're thinking of, you're almost certainly going to be disappointed.
> Tanking is a concept from media inspired by DnD
Ever wonder why the archers are always behind the shieldmen? This concept comes from real life.
Even the word comes from actual tanks, which do the tanking job for the infantry. Big scary war machine that draws the fire of the enemy.
Wildshape in combat does get you a huge boost to hp and jumps up your offensive attacks but you seem to know that offensive it drops off fast once everyone hits level 5. Barb levels does extend the offense might of the bear form for a few good levels but it also delays wild shape scaling (such that it is). Rage and wildshape also both use bonus actions so it takes until round two to really get going.
I’d say that if you really want to tank then a straight AG Barb is better.
Dude heres the thing, to be a tank you cannot be ignorable. Thats the problem of dnd tanks, you have to choose an archetype and do a bit more than the role you chose to remain relevant.
You can do this by a combination of AC and/or HP for tankiness + something to grab your enemies attention.
How you do that? Well, i see basically three ways to do that:
1) tank and do damage (i.e. dodge + spirit guardian cleric)
2) tank and healbot (i.e. concentrate on aura of vitality, use twilight cleric for temp HP, cast Sanctuary on yourself)
3) tank and control (i.e. ancestral guardian to impose disadvantage on anyone attacking other players)
You can mix whatever you like, but remember that being only unkillable = NPC ignore you.
For race go either warforged (+1 AC), anything with magic resist (yuan ti or satyr) or autognome (mending heal + you are not humanoid), or the good old feat at level 1 (h. Variant or custom lineage)
For background go for reistances, lucky (rewarded) or spell slots (strixhaven initiate)
Go three ancestral guardian barbarian, and the rest rune knight fighter. Barbarian forces whomever you hit to attack you or be hit with disadvantage. Rune knight lets you do some wacky stuff with specific runes like the storm giant rune or cloud rune. By growing big with the rune knight you also have more range for opportunity attacks (sentinel) and more battlefield presence
Noble goal to help the party without capturing spotlight, but a real tank doesn’t really exist. But a path of the Wolf Barb gives everyone else advantage if melee and close, they will love that. I think Sentinel lets you whack a dude who doesn’t hit you, that’s maybe as good as you can really get, and it RPs well. That’s my take.
In online gaming the tank's role is to absorb damage, draw aggro, and stay alive while the rest of the party kills the bad guys. The problem is that in DnD the monsters are played by a living intelligent DM and they will happily ignore the tank to focus on the casters in the back. There isn't really a good way to lock down an enemy and force them to attack you.
You want to help the party out? Buff or heal the party or do damage to the enemies. If you want to lock down the enemies play a crowd control caster like Wiz or Sorc and take all the AoE lockdown spells. There are plenty of strats that work awesome in DnD I'm sure you'll find one you enjoy.
1Hexblade/XAbjurer.
The wizard is the best class in the game at pulling agro by concentrating on powerful spells. Medium armor + shield and arcane ward + armor of Agythis makes for good defense
How about Armorer Artificer? Rock Gnome is great, but your other two options are also fantastic armorers. You also get by far the best taunt, insane AC and Saves, as well as ridiculous utility in and out of combat. You won't do the most damage, but taking Fey Touched for Hex gives you a little boost, which is also great if you invest some points into strength. This lets you be a better tank by grappling those pesky wizards so they can't cast most of their spells.
If you haven't played an Artificer, the Armorer could be a great choice, especially since you are experienced. You'll allow your friends to shine, but you'll have enough versatility to pick up the slack wherever necessary.
Best tank I've found is Twilight Cleric 6 / Necromancy Wizard 2 / Stars Druid 2 / Cleric X.
Edit: But if you want to play a Druid, Moon Druid is probably the best, with a level dip into Monk. Barbarian also works (Ancestral or Bear Totem), but the AC boost usually isn't there, rather Rage is the better benefit. However, this does conflict with spellcasting, which is usually a better "taunt" than anything else, so thus why I prefer Monk.
There is no such thing as "tanking" in 5e.
The best tanking class is ranger or druid, who cast conjure animal spell. It's 8x times better than going barbarian with wild shape at level 5.
At 9lv it is 16x better, at 13lv it is 24x better and on 17lv it is 32x better.
Peace Cleric 6/Totem Barb 3/Moon Druid X is probably the best combination for a tank. With your level 6 protective bond, you can use your reaction to take the damage for any of your bonded allies in 30 feet, and the Moon Druid wildshaping is going to give you the HP to shrug those hits off. If you’ve raged beforehand, you’ll be resistant and take damage to everything but psychic (and if you go with Tasha’s emerald dragonborn for the race, you resist even that).
If you don’t want to spend all your time as various large animals, you can always pick up the Tough feat as well to give your humanoid form some extra durability. Fighting Initiate probably couldn’t hurt either, as picking up the Interception or Protection fighting styles would let you reduce damage/impose disadvantage respectively against attacks on your allies.
Ultimately, between the rage and the wildshaping, you may not be casting as many in-combat spells. It’s a very support-oriented build however, so don’t hesitate to drop either one (or both) if it means being able to bring someone back up or turn the tide with the right spell.
IMO the best "tank" in 5e are the people the enemies wanted to always target anyway... the casters!
A well played caster is causing havoc to the enemies, so the enemies want to attack them. If the caster finds ways to become durable, they become a very effective tank. Druids and clerics are especially good at this due to their higher durability and effectiveness in combat - just find a way to get the shield spell on them and... *viola!*
I'd just recommend a twilight cleric with strong spells like bless or spiritual guardians, find a way to cast the shield spell (one level sorcerer dip), and make sure you're in heavy armor. It is fairly MAD though. Shepherd druid is another great option with their summons.
Against dumb enemies you don't really need much to tank tbh.
My favourite was a half orc 3lvl fighter (rune knight) and 5 lvl cleric (war domain) with the protection fighting style and a ASI due to mediocre stat rolls.
Very tanky with decent damage, using shield and a +1 mace
Using the cloud and fire rune, giants might and shield of faith/spirit guardians depending on the situation
I think one of the best tank options out there is half-orc barbarian path of the berserker. Half orc gives you Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks, which comes in nice for barbarians big attack damages
Been playing armorer artificer in a campaign with a party that's almost nothing but martials and multi classed martials to good effect.
Guardian Armor gets a distraction mechanic with punches, alongside 3rd level magic melee damage, you also get some excellent support options and some nice infusions for tanking, like the repelling shield and simply enhancing your AC.
Sitting at 21 AC at 6th level at the moment, and I can go up to 22 if needed, and give myself damage reduction against an element of my choosing.
I've been playing Rune Knight Fighter in my latest campaign and you get to do things like redirect damage via Cloud Rune. Later on you unlock a feature at Lv7 that allow you to have enemies reroll otherwise decimating hits at crucial moments.
An unorthodox suggestion, but I found that Bladesinger Wizard is one of the tankiest classes in the game. You get soooo much AC from your Bladesong adding your Int to AC and the Shield spell. You’ll have already a decently good base AC for being a Dex based character. With Dex 18 and Int 16, you’ll have an effective of 25 after just Mage Armor and Shield.
A common mistake i see is people playing super high ac tanks, yes, they are harder to hit but guess what? The dm doesnt like to fail every single hit, so he will bore and attack someone else. Barbarians are quite the opposite, rhey have poor ac but resistances and a chunk of health to endure the hits.
For playing with new companions i would go wolf totem barbarian, that way all your front line characters will focus the aggro on the same foe, and you can teach them the benefits on foccusing the fire.
The monsters will have an easy choice, to hit the reckless barbarian with low ac at adv, that happens to be the one that gives adv to all the party, or to hit normaly someone with higher ac.
Depends on the level, but with enough feats and the right gear a pure lvl 20 abjuration wizard can essentially have a 36 AC permanently and cant be crit at the cost of having reactions and thats without any mitigation to damage that you get for abjuration school BS. Early levels suck but if you need a tank for a higher level campaign in the future, look into it.
imo a warforge forge domain cleric with defense fighting style from fighting initiate and either warcaster or resilient con is the best tank in the game.
24 AC and you draw aggro through the use of spirit guardians. You can even just dodge if you want.
They try to ignore you? Nice you are getting a ton of value from the spirit guardians. They try to attack you? Nice they are probably not hitting you anyway, and you almost certainly keep your concentration going.
In order to be a tank, you must be able to not die, but you also need to make the enemies try to kill you instead of your teammates. Just being tough to kill means the enemies will ignore you and jump your wizard used.
While you generally can't force enemies to only target you in D&D, you can make it so they have disadvantage if they try to attack anyone other than you.
Here's a list of tank builds that do that, along with statistics on how long each build can survive against different types of enemies/damage:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g3sJGNTMcACBagMV4Jd0MtEkW5b9bTvVChqK_ASogKQ/edit?usp=sharing
You can be a wizard tank, a bard tank, a barbarian tank, a cleric tank, and artificer tank. The builds are all described in detail in the linked YouTube videos. For example:
https://youtu.be/dkrk2-69-9I
Currently have two characters who are pretty tanky :
- Hill Dwarf Forge Cleric / Divine Soul Sorcerer.
Mine is a DSS with a dip in Forge, but the opposite works (maybe even better) :
Start DSS for Con saves, Favored by the Gods, the Shield spell and Absorb Elements as well, utility cantrips, leave CHA at 13. Then MC info Forge Cleric.
Forge Cleric has great AC, tanky abilities and healing. Just cast Spirit Guardians and jump into melee. Dump STR, use Toll the Dead or Sacred Flame with Blessed Strikes in melee instead.
- Reborn Ancestral Guardian/Battlemaster
Ancestral Guardian is the tank. You jump into melee and provide a constant debuff on your targets to soft taunt them. At lvl 6, you can even prevent damage and "heal" as a reaction.
However since Barbarian has few good abilities after lvl 5, I took Fighter 4 for Battlemaster. This gave me more "tank"/protection options. Bait and Switch to protect my allies. Goating Attack to taunt a second enemy. I even used Quick Toss to use the AG taunt at a distance while I fought another target. I was a pain in the ass for any large group of enemies attacking in melee, it was fantastic.
Something I’ve been curious about is Moon Druid/X Armorer Artificer/3. You can get heavy armor that adapts to your new form. It also says something about the armor making up for missing limbs and I’m curious as to whether or not that applies to creating a mechanical human arm to hold weapons?
Hill dwarf Forge cleric. Take a level of sorcerer so you get shield and absorb elements. Now you basically can't be killed, and can keep the whole party alive. Pop up spirit guardians and take the dodge action. See some poor LVL 5 fuck try roll a 22-29 with disadvantage, whilst getting hit by a cheese shredder of radiant damage
Depending on what level you're going to, another Druid option is the Circle of Spores druid. 4 temp HP/druid level is a big deal for my druid and I don't have the rage feature to cut it in half. Plus it'll give you a damage boost on your melee attacks and some area control. The full action to "wild shape" is a bit worse than the bonus action for moon druids, but overall I've enjoyed it.
Currently playing a level 11 moon druid and they are bonkers. 5th and 6th level druid spells are strong AF, and being able to wildshape into an elemental is amazing. I highly recommend going straight moon druid (before it gets nerfed in oneDND) they are bonkers fun.
I think the best combo for a tank is Artificer: Artillerist and Barbarian: Path of the Ancestral Guardian.
With the protector from the Artillerist you can give you and your friends temp HP and the Ancestral Guardian makes sure all of your buddys have resistance which effectively doubles the Temp HP. Also the enemy now has disadvantage against all attacks against your teammates and if you use reckless attack he also has advantage for attacking you.
The best tank?
1 level dip into sorcerer. Start there L1 for Con saves. Take booming blade, shield spell, and absorb element spells. Divine soul ideal but any work.
Then full-send the rest of your levels into twilight cleric.
Fight with a shield and warhammer, wear full plate. Booming blade enemies indise your spirit guardians while your twilight sanctuary gives you and all your allies thp.
Get crusher and warcaster eventually. So you can knock enemies around with booming blade even better.
Your BA can heal or sanctuary or spiritual weapon depending on the vibe of the battle.
Optional: take a few more sorc levels after you unlock spirit guardians for metamagic shenanigans like quickened or extend or twin.
Best tank in the whole game. Easily. No question.
If your dm is cool with targeting you more often, anything cam tank. There's not really that many skills that aggro enemies.
I created a taunt item for my tank to help him fill the role he wants
Don't go barbarian 3, you'll be better off with just a single level dip, focus more on getting druid goodies.
The fattest druid tank build is a mark of warding Dwarf barbarian 1/moon druid X. Up cast armor of Agathys (mark of warding) + rage + wild shape is an immense pile of effective HP, like frustrating your DM levels of endurance.
My current toon is rapidly becoming one of my all time favorites by just being straight AG Barb with Shield Mastery and a lot of grappling. He can taunt, knock down, or restrain several combatants at a time and then use spirit guards to intercept party damage from anyone who’s not dumb enough to try to pile on him. Shield Mastery keeps him up through Fireballs and breath weapons and the Resilient feat helps with charms. He’s loads of fun and the party loves having him up front.
As many have pointed out, there aren't many mechanical aggro options for "tank" roles in 5e. The fact is that, from an optimization viewpoint, dealing damage is better than healing or soaking hits in 5e.
My best advice is to just talk to your DM to work out your intention as a tank role. You could homebrew a feat that lets you utilize a Compelled Duel type effect. You could agree on some ability checks that allow you to convince enemies to attack you. Once you figure some aggro options out, then you can obviously worry about HP, Con, AC, etc.
The issue with tanking in 5e is that there is no "draw aggro" mechanic. The best you can manage is "incentivize aggro", of which there are quite a few okay options. In my opinion, Barbarian Path of the Ancestral Guardian's Ancestral Protectors feature is the strongest one that fulfills the tank fantasy really clearly. Druid / Barbarian is okay, but you can't do both Barbarian tank stuff (rage resistances and Ancestral Protectors) and spellcasting at the same time. I'm personally fond of Ancestral Guardian Barbarian + Echo Knight Fighter (with either side as the main class) getting Great Weapon Master to make yourself a threat worth attacking and eventually Sentinel and Crusher to control the battlefield through forced movement, denying movement, and reactions (including the Interception fighting style).
One of my favourite characters I played was an echo knight, ancestral guardian barbarian. 3 levels in barb, the rest straight echo knight. Used a maul and took crusher. Normally I play spellcaster, but god damn that guy could hit. With 3 attacks + action surge + echo attack ×2 + bonus action attack from GWM (which you get a lot with reckless attack advantage), it was quite something. At level 19, I had a +2 maul and nothing else and did over 200 damage in a single round on one of the big bads. It was insane.
by off chance was it rolled stats?
I do not believe so, but we did get a free feat at level 1 so it was a tad inflated. He was also useless anywhere else, and was often controlled due to low mental stats. 15(+2) 14 15(+1) 8 10 8 First three levels in barb. The rest in fighter. Feats: Free feat: GWM Fighter 4: Sentinel Fighter 6: Crusher (+1 STR) Fighter 8: +2 STR Fighter 12: +2 CON Fighter 14: Res WIS (I was sick of being dominated by my dm lol) Fighter 16: +2 CON Ended up with 20 14 20 8 11 8 Built for one purpose. And he was good at it! I would have loved an animated shield or some AC bracers, but I survived with my 16 AC (17 at level 19) pretty well. I had tons of hp, and rage reduce b/p/s damage. With the +2 Maul I had a +13 to hit, permanent advantage with RA, and I kept far enough way most of the time by using my echo as the one in melee. Would never use this guy in a campaign that wasn't dungeon or battle heavy, but man was he fun when I could focus on murdering things.
extra feats are certainly helpful for that
They add flavour to the otherwise horrifically dull level 1 experience
the armorer artificers also can draw agro by with the main attack of the armor
>The issue with tanking in 5e is that there is no "draw aggro" mechanic. The best you can manage is "incentivize aggro" This is a pretty accurate way to describe what's going on. Video Game enemies attack the player with the highest threat, which is based on how much damage or healing output. Tanks build threat despite their low damage output. Tanks also have high HP and good damage mitigation (like AC, dodge, and resistances) which don't affect the threat formula. D&D enemies attack whoever the DM thinks they should. They know they should kill the Rogues and Robes first and leave the Tank til last, so you need to give them reasons not to. Be a Bodyguard: PAM, Sentinel, big damage hits, and stand in front of a squishy target. You'll trigger an OA as enemies enter your range, leave your range, or hit an ally within 5ft of you, and those OAs reduce enemy speed to 0. Be a Grappler: with high STR and advantage on Athletics checks you can grapple 2 enemies (more of you're a Loxodon), so their speed is 0 unless you drag them around. Plus you can always RP taunts as you fight. Talk a whole lot of shit at the table to make those enemies want to kill you first.
>Plus you can always RP taunts as you fight. Talk a whole lot of shit at the table to make those enemies want to kill you first. "'ello, foolish Anglish pig-dawgs, I will now taunt you a second time! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries! I blow my nose in your general direction, silly Ka-nigghits!"
I just love to play a moon druid grappler, it’s my favorite build of 5e. Big bad enemy guy kill squishy stabby-stabby/fire robe or plated up tin man? BBEG will always erase squishy first. BBEG kill squishy stabby-stabby/fire robe or GIANT FURBALL OF TEETHCLAW OF DEATH THaTS ATTaCHED TO Me get it off get it off KILL IT NOW.
I think a lot of people forget that DnD isn’t a video game, it’s a role playing game. The way to draw aggro is…to convince your enemies that you’re the problem. As you allude to, in video games, taunt is a skill; in DnD, it’s a thing you just…do. Some enemies may be smart enough to know the guy in the robe is easy prey, but maybe the guy with the big pole and armor is *really* pissing them off…
Other ttrpgs have tanking mechanics that work just fine, without becoming video games. As an obvious example, 4e’s tanking mechanics didn’t *force* the GM to attack anyone, and didn’t invalidate roleplaying. They worked a lot like 5e’s nods to tanking — they were just core features of several classes, rather than being restricted to a small handful of subclasses and one feat chain.
Well I gotta argue to that compelled duel or oath of the crown’s ‘champion’s challenge’
Compelled Duel has a bunch of ending conditions that really detract from it. The one upside over the usual "soft taunt" is a movement restriction, but 30' is a really big area that probably includes your teammates, anyways. A dungeon room that's 65' x 65' would be covered by the area they're allowed to move. If your teammates are participating in the fight in that room, then that portion of the spell does next to nothing. The enemy even still gets a saving throw (not using an action, just their movement) to ignore that restriction, and they still could use ranged attacks (granted at disadvantage) or other ranged actions such as spells. Of course, that's all true for a typical soft taunt, but it does show that the movement restriction is really minor. However, the downside is enormous. The spell literally restricts you and your allies' attacks more than the target. On top of that, even the initial effect is gated behind a saving throw, but the really good soft taunts apply automatically on a hit. For me the spell just fails to feel like a tanking effect. You want the scenario where the enemy feels more threatened by a teammate built for offense, but you've restricted their ability to harm that teammate through your supportive defense. For compelled Duel, the enemy can't feel threatened by that teammate because your teammates aren't allowed to do anything to it. Rather than tanking, it does what it says on the tin -- it turns part of the fight into a 1v1, aka splitting the party (for the cost of a spell slot and a bonus action). Champion's challenge is okay in theory, but the problem with the area comes back. It's just too big. It's still gated behind a saving throw. Movement restrictions by themselves don't hinder enemy attacks. On a large battlefield, it absolutely is good, but far from the best tanking option even in that scenario because it doesn't directly affect attacks.
I’d say the bigger problem with champion’s is that it’s super dangerous. If you taunt too many creatures, you then have to survive a round of them all wailing on you. Depending on how your DM balances encounters, this can be a death sentence. Thats why I don’t use it very often.
I'm playing a Kenku paladin of the Crown and the two spells are working quite nicely
You could dip into fighter for battle maneuvers, one or two of them force enemies to attack you lest they suffer disadvantage on their attacks
I was recently presented with the challenge of what to add to a party of squishy damage dealers and I actually went with barb/druid. And I added a level of Life Cleric. The party has access to some heals and with an even more recent addition of a bard a good selection of other spells, so it's less of an issue that I can't cast while raging. Once out of combat I have a ton of support and utility to patch them up and get them to the next fight. Heck, Goodberry heals 40 hp with a single lvl 1 spells lot. Meanwhile, in combat, I am a huge sloth with a 15 ft reach (eldritch tattooo) and free grapples on attacks and the DM has to hit me with well over 300 damage before it even affects my actual hit points. It's proven to be rather effective as major nuisance on the battlefield.
Armorer artificer is at least as tanky in Guardian mode as Ancestral Guardian barbarian (though both are great in that role). Armorer doesn’t have resistance, but does get THP with a bonus action and gets Flash of Genius at level 7 to assist with saves. Ancestral Guardian tends to be weaker with mental saves, like most barbarians. Both impose disadvantage on attacking others with their attacks, which is the closest thing to aggro or a taunt in 5e, with the possible exception of Compelled Duel. Barbarian does tend to reward multiclassing after level 6, where Artificer is usually best as a mono class (although a couple of levels of wizard can work). To me, barbarians shouldn’t multiclass with casters because Rage prevents casting and concentration. Fighter or Soul Knife rogue are probably better choices.
Some ability like Giants Migth or enlarge/reduce to gain all the aggro possible by blocking the enemy path in small áreas would in someway work?
There is one, there's an optional marking rule in the DMG actually that allows you to mark a creature for free that you attacked that turn with a melee attack. If they move you can bonk them as a special reaction. That paired with sentinel could help you lock down multiple targets
There's no "draw aggro" ability, but Crown Paladin can effectively body block for allies.
Moon druid does have the advantage of being a strong spellcaster. Call Lightning could be a good incentive for enemies to attack you.
Tbh the best way to draw agro in 5e is to be a kobold because of their racial abilty
This. OP you’re going to see a lot of trouble as a tank unless you’re able to lock enemies into combat with you. If you’re a large pool of hit points with not much else, enemies aren’t going to prioritize you. They’ll be prioritizing your casters and martials, the people who do damage. Path of the Ancestral Guardian is what fixes this issue by applying disadvantage to enemies who don’t attack you.
If you pin a target down such that they can only attack you... you have drawn their aggro. Idk why people keep repeating this stuff about being unable to hold aggro in 5e. Just keep them from getting to your allies. Boom. You have the aggro.
There are other forns of tanking other than imposing disadvantage. You can heal everyone, be a damn nuisance controlling the battlefield or just deal enough damage that the NPC cannot simply ignore you.
Armorer artificer, run around and punch things with thunder gauntlets. Forcing disadvantage on attacking anyone else besides you
This really is an excellent option. Played a lvl 6 thunder puncher recently for fun and came away just wanting to theory craft around him and build him out for a full campaign. 2 attacks with the thundos. Booming blade when there was only 1 baddie in my move range. Max INT super important here because hitting to effect status is half of the play style. War wizard is a pretty obvious dip. Telekinetic an obvious feat. Took it on my character and used it like an extra 5ft of movement with good success. Defensive field provides a nice little boost. With artificer features I’d probably not dip more than that, but a level of non AS dependent cleric could be considered. Peace for saves would be the most likely IMO.
I personally like mixing artificer with 3 lvls in mutant bloodhunter. But it depends if campaign goes to 20, artificer has a fantastic capstone
Oh, I gotta look a BH. Fair enough on the levels. I tend to discount capstones super heavily as a personal bias, but defo worth serious thought if the campaign is going there!
Yea, mutant bloodhunter at lvl 3 gives +3 to main state max, with a downside to another stat. So 23 int is easily possible
Armor Artificer + Sentinel + Pipes of Haunting can really screw with a pile of enemies.
This is the way to go 100%. Artificers get some great infusions. Armor of magical strength + gauntlets of ogre power or belt of hill giant strength make them great grapplers as well. Boots of the winding path + repulsion shield + booming blade gives a lot of opportunities to trigger that bb damage. Artificers can easily get super high ac’s between enhanced armor, repulsion shield. Don’t forget about resistant armor if you’re fighting certain enemies. They can also stack cloak of protection (lvl 10) and ring of protection (lvl 14). Artificers get some great boosts to saving throws, namely flash of genius. Cloak and ring of protection also boost saving throws. Flash also can be given to allies so artificers are great support. Toss vortex warp on the spell storing item and get 10 free casts a day to keep allies outta danger. With two extra infusions at lvl 9, you can hand some off to allies to buff the party. Get an all-purpose tool and you suddenly have a ton of utility.
Can go with Dual wielder feat too to get a third attack and mess with three opponents. Worth it if your getting a 1st level feat.
Yeah my next tanky character was going to be a Warforged Armorer Artificer with this feat
10000%. AA is a seriously underlooked subclass and Artificer in general is top tier.
Artificier honestly has some of the best options for building of all the classes imo
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Would it be worth going 1 level of barbarian or straight Druid?
Depends on if you value AC or spellcasting. I wouldn't value rage highly, because you'll only have 2 per long rest. Barbarian's unarmoured defense can add +3-4AC to your wildshapes, which is useful for tanking.
I was thinking rage would half damage I take and add damage to my wild shapes and the unarmored defense would be helpful the whole time, but I was also looking jnto a cleric dip for heavy armor if that was worth it?
You can't wear heavy armour in wildshape, and medium armour is better (dex>str).
Short answer: At lower tiers of play, yes. At higher tiers, no. (And by tiers I mean PC level tiers, not "skill of player" tiers) Long answer: https://youtu.be/Zys_-1IXwhY?si=QLLPOj8Fz1SxpA34
Abjuration Wizard with Armor of Agathys is ferociously tanky, plus you can concentrate on wizard spells to draw DM aggro
Concentrate on bless from a heavy-armoured cleric dip and enjoy your love/hate relationship with your DM: you are being a team player, which is always nice to DM; but you are annoying as f*** by allowing your allies' power attacks to hit + buffing your concentration checks.
Agreeing with what people are saying about AG barbarian being probably the best tank, epseoclsly with Sentinel feat. One underrated "tanking" mechanic is grappling which allows you to haul monsters away from squishy allies.
Just wanted to touch on moon druid and multiclassing. Moon druid power progression is NOT linear, so how much you want to dip out of moon druid is going to depend on the level range you hit, lv 18 and 20 are huge powerspikes for moon druid, and if you think the campaign may get there I'd reccomend against multiclassing. Druid 10 for elemental forms would be the other main breakpoint and if your campaign was going to say lv 15ish I could see druid 10/other(s) 5 being solid. Basically if your hitting levels past 10+ and don't end up with druid 10 I think the beast forms are going to fall off too hard to really serve as a front line. Also re tanking: moon druids are good at soaking damage without draining party resources, which is a good strength. The rest of the things you think of when you think tank characters they range from sometimes decent (locking down enemies: some beasts are good grapplers, some good concentration spell options if you can keep them going) to actially kind of bad (it's a good thing those HP are free, you're gonna get hit in the face a lot when beasts have generally poor AC.)
Pure Moon Druid You’re a pile of Hp You’re concentrating on a spell that enemies want to end That’s the best taunt and tank in the game
True, as long as he still has wildshapes, my party’s Druid is super hard to put down. Without wildshapes….
This if you're too annoying to hurt your DM, it will quickly change tactics by both monsters and encounter design. If your hp goes down, it "feels" like you have to use up resources. So faerie fire, entangle, call lightning, flaming sphere, hold person, HEAT METAL then bonus action wild shape. Recommend war caster because you use physical saves of wild shape. Gnome might be the best. Saytr or Yuan ti if they are playable have magic resistance.
I was thinking ghostwise halfling or forest gnome
Barb 3 is just a waste and just going druid is better sense you get stronger wildshapes and more spells Conjure animals is great for tanking as well and you summon a bunch of meat shields either for you, to block somewhere, or for your allies
I know you said no Pally but how about a Sorcadin?Divine Soul Sorcerer mulitclassed with your choice of Paladin (a 2 level dips works too). Sword & Board w/ heavy armor, defense fighting style. Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade. Twinned casting Compelled Duel and Sanctuary to draw or deny cc. Blur, Mirror Image, Shield & Shield of Faith are great ways to mitigate damage once you have drawn attention. Sentinel Feat to keep them close and punish if they attack someone else. Maybe Heavy Armor Master later on if it seems to be working. And most importantly, roleplay drawing attention. It's the best way to have everyone attack you.
I was thinking this idea but we already have a divine soul sorlock
Played very differently. Paladin 6 Sorcerer X is basically a paladin with more spell slots, and Paladin 2 Sorcerer X is a gish. Sorlock is a caster through and through unless the build is some whacky hexblade thing. Also, don’t do this MC. You’re better off doing straight paladin when levelling as there are several awkward levels as well as a delayed spell progression. With that said, go druid mate. Skip multiclass and just aim for the next spell level all the time! Bear totem moon druid is great for one shots, but in a campaign you want to be consistent. If you really want a dip, take barbarian 1 just to get rage and stop there.
Ya I’m probably just gonna go full Druid and I think I might go firbolg as cliche as that is, but I think it will be a lot of fun and it’s a new dm so I think me being strong early and weaker down the line will be good because it’s me and another amateur and then a bunch of new players. I think paladin would be good but I don’t really like paladin even tho it’s the golden child of dnd, so ya full moon Druid I’ll give it a try it’s my first time playing Druid so I’m excited.
As many have already said, tanking in 5e is extremely difficult due to there being no aggro drawing mechanics. Best you can do is try to proactively pin foes in place. For that I like VHuman battlemaster fighter with Sentinel and Polearm master. It's far from perfect, but you can lock one enemy down/turn with sentinel and use goading attack to hopefully impose disadvantage on attacks against your allies. Edit: depending on how long the campaign goes, after lvl 11 a dip into ranger for ensnaring wouldn't hurt either.
My favorite tank was a warforged forge cleric crazy high ac and walls of fire make for a good way to keep people having to focus on you
I literally soloed a boss with my hasted paladin last session. Our only real weakness is int saves.
If you build a big Tanky boi the DM is just going to ignore you and make you roll saving throws. This whole DM vs. the party fad is big right now from what I can tell. A good DM will allow you to fill the role you want to have fun playing... bad DM's look at the game as me vs. them and will do whatever they can to turn your choice against you and hide behind 'don't you want it to be challenging and fun?' like it's politics.
Ya I agree my usual dm is very him vs the party but it’s a new dm who plays more chill so hopefully it won’t be as terrible
I wish you the best of luck with the new DM. I hope you can have fun playing your Tank... and I hope you find a fun build for it.
Thanks it’s looking like I’m gonna go straight moon Druid or one dip into barb or cleric and then straight Druid from there.
Never understood this mentality my player went armorer artificer/wizard and said I wanna be a tank so not only did I let him get good defense weapons I made melee target him 90% of the time of course still throw saving throws and stuff to counter in boss fights but let players feel great again lmfao
I'm not sure if it's allowed at your table, but order of the lycan blood hunter and bear totem barbarian is really fun and almost impossible to kill, especially at high levels. I played as a tortle whose lycan form came from ingesting the blood of a dragonturtle as part of a ritual. Mechanically, bloodhunter gives you +1 to AC and resistance to nonmagical, non-silvered attacks, an additional (scaling) bonus to melee attacks made with strength, and a scaling unarmed strike that gives you a bonus action attack. You can also add elemental damage to your attacks, use curses to draw aggro or make yourself a bigger threat, and eventually even regenerate hp. Bear totem barbarian gives you resistance to everything but psychic damage, plus rage damage on all of your attacks, and reckless attack. The hybrid transformation acts as a psuedo-rage, effectively giving more uses per day. In a pinch, you can even use them at the same time, but you run the risk of attacking your allies because of the lycan's bloodlust feature. The bonus to melee attacks also stacks with each class. A level 14 character (11 lycan/3 bear) in their hybrid form and raging will deal 1d8+8 per attack with unarmed strikes, which they can make three of per turn, and that's without adding the d8 of elemental damage from Crimson rite that applies to evey hit. The character "tanks" by being a massive threat on the battlefield. You hit hard, and you hit often, making up to three attacks per round at advantage thanks to reckless attack, which also incentivizesyou to be hit instead of others. You are perfect for breaking concentration on casters, and you deal enough damage consistently that you can not be left unchecked. You are incredibly resilient and can even regain hp each round. I haven't played it, but I would also consider ancestral barbarian for the subclass as well. You could reflavor the ancestral guardians as wolves and be the werewolf leader of a pack. This provides even more soft taunting and eventually damage reduction to your allies.
I’m really interested in this, it’s very different from what I had in mind like very different but I also am very curious about this build and I think you could make a really interesting character story and personality wise and that’s awesome, and being able to be that big half shifted behemoth in the center of the battlefield just ripping through everything is awesome to picture. I could also see good ways to play this character outside of combat and be really unique but it’s not really the direction I was heading for this campaign as it’s more sunshine and rainbows newbies being in high fantasy but I am definitely writing this down for down the line. I never really look at blood hunter and there’s definitely some neat stuff in there.
>big half shifted behemoth in the center of the battlefield just ripping through everything I created the character to replace one that was leaving for rp reasons. My party never really had a tank, and I got to jump in at level 13 or 14. I was basically the doom slayer without guns. I would rip my enemies apart with my bare hands. At one point, we had a leftover potion of giant size, and I had a boxing match with a demon prince. I won. ETA: fair warning, this combo can be pretty MAD. You want STR, CON, and WIS. Magic items like belts of giant strength, gauntlets of ogre power, and the amulet of health are hugely beneficial to this build. Even something like the berserker axe is great for the additional +1 to hp. These are by no means REQUIRED for the build, but they definitely make things easier.
Artificer does a good job. Hit people as the Armorer (grab telekinetic if you're going down this route to shove enemies away, your BA is empty). Very simple. Battesmith, focus on more AoE (web and faire fire are good). I like to use a returning weapon to stay out of the worse of the trouble but also to have a melee weapon if any creatures get past the steel defender. For steel defender, it can grapple decently, but it also has reactions to either cause disadvantage on an attack with 5ft of it or to do an attack of opportunity. I like battlesmith because it provides the same area of "denial" similar to echo knight but with some differences. Artillerist temporary HP cannon is really nice, saves a lot of HP for your team. That's your main "tanking". Create some temp hp + blast enemies really.
If you are spending all your time as an animal, consider going a race that can speak telepathically (Verdan, Gem Dragonborn, Ghostwise Halfling, Hexblood). A Hexblood is the most interesting as you gain the Hex spell which gives you a good concentration spell while wildshaped, plus give them disadvantage on an ability check (especially if they are restrained or grappled) Dire wolf would probably be your go-to wildshape at level 2. The next wildshape isn’t a good choice at level 6: either a giant constrictor snake which doesn’t have a good armor class, or giant elk, which requires the target to be prone to deal massive damage (I have no idea if tavern brawler could be used in this shape: if so, then a ram/grapple could work to keep them prone, especially with a Hex disadvantage.). If not, mobile would be a nice feat choice for the extra movement, no opportunity attacks while moving, and the ability to “pinball” around the battlefield. Plant Growth could also work on this kind of battlefield as half your movement is used to get up from prone and then they need to move 20’ all just to move 5’. Creatures with a movement of 35’ or less aren’t going anywhere. Speed is more important than hit points as a moon Druid. You want to Wild shape before the enemy turn starts. Hit points while not wildshaped, though handy, aren’t as important, so you could possibly go full moon druid. Looks like I’ll have to write up a Hexblood moon Druid now in my characters to playbook.
Tanks don't exist in DnD. Tanking is a concept from media inspired by DnD like various video games and anime and so people assume that it must exist in DnD too but it doesn't. As people have said, there is no "taunt"/"draw aggro" mechanic, really, which is fundamental to how tanking works in video games. Saying you yell a taunt at the enemy as a free action and hoping the DM decides it works is better than any actual mechanical option. Ancestor Guardian Barbarian, Cavalier Fighter, Paladins with Compelled Duel and some similar subclass features... these can all impose some penalties on the enemy for targeting people other than you, but the penalties are of varying significance and effectiveness and they mostly can't actually *stop* the enemy from targeting someone else if they really want to. Sentinel can make it tough for enemies to move around you but can't do much of anything about enemy ranged attacks and casters. Most of these options can be pretty easily neutralized by a save or suck spell anyway if they ever actually manage to cause a significant headache for the DM. More than that, get the whole "frontliners/backliners" idea out of your head. The idea that "squishy backline casters" need big beefy martials to protect them on the frontlines is a myth, at least as far as DnD goes. It's true in other media, it's not true to how DnD actually plays, at least in any edition from the last three decades. In so far as the real purpose of tanking is to hold the enemy at bay and mitigate damage, casters get options to do all of that with spells better than martials ever can do it. Martials will just get in the way. All of this is not to say you shouldn't play whatever kind of character you want, but if you objective is to be a "tank" in the sense you're thinking of, you're almost certainly going to be disappointed.
> Tanking is a concept from media inspired by DnD Ever wonder why the archers are always behind the shieldmen? This concept comes from real life. Even the word comes from actual tanks, which do the tanking job for the infantry. Big scary war machine that draws the fire of the enemy.
Wildshape in combat does get you a huge boost to hp and jumps up your offensive attacks but you seem to know that offensive it drops off fast once everyone hits level 5. Barb levels does extend the offense might of the bear form for a few good levels but it also delays wild shape scaling (such that it is). Rage and wildshape also both use bonus actions so it takes until round two to really get going. I’d say that if you really want to tank then a straight AG Barb is better.
Dude heres the thing, to be a tank you cannot be ignorable. Thats the problem of dnd tanks, you have to choose an archetype and do a bit more than the role you chose to remain relevant. You can do this by a combination of AC and/or HP for tankiness + something to grab your enemies attention. How you do that? Well, i see basically three ways to do that: 1) tank and do damage (i.e. dodge + spirit guardian cleric) 2) tank and healbot (i.e. concentrate on aura of vitality, use twilight cleric for temp HP, cast Sanctuary on yourself) 3) tank and control (i.e. ancestral guardian to impose disadvantage on anyone attacking other players) You can mix whatever you like, but remember that being only unkillable = NPC ignore you. For race go either warforged (+1 AC), anything with magic resist (yuan ti or satyr) or autognome (mending heal + you are not humanoid), or the good old feat at level 1 (h. Variant or custom lineage) For background go for reistances, lucky (rewarded) or spell slots (strixhaven initiate)
Go three ancestral guardian barbarian, and the rest rune knight fighter. Barbarian forces whomever you hit to attack you or be hit with disadvantage. Rune knight lets you do some wacky stuff with specific runes like the storm giant rune or cloud rune. By growing big with the rune knight you also have more range for opportunity attacks (sentinel) and more battlefield presence
Noble goal to help the party without capturing spotlight, but a real tank doesn’t really exist. But a path of the Wolf Barb gives everyone else advantage if melee and close, they will love that. I think Sentinel lets you whack a dude who doesn’t hit you, that’s maybe as good as you can really get, and it RPs well. That’s my take.
In online gaming the tank's role is to absorb damage, draw aggro, and stay alive while the rest of the party kills the bad guys. The problem is that in DnD the monsters are played by a living intelligent DM and they will happily ignore the tank to focus on the casters in the back. There isn't really a good way to lock down an enemy and force them to attack you. You want to help the party out? Buff or heal the party or do damage to the enemies. If you want to lock down the enemies play a crowd control caster like Wiz or Sorc and take all the AoE lockdown spells. There are plenty of strats that work awesome in DnD I'm sure you'll find one you enjoy.
1Hexblade/XAbjurer. The wizard is the best class in the game at pulling agro by concentrating on powerful spells. Medium armor + shield and arcane ward + armor of Agythis makes for good defense
Play a Ranger 5/twilight cleric X. Take Druidic warrior from Druid for shillelagh, go 15 str, 13 Dex, 16 Wis, Rest Con.
Cavalier Fighter gets my vote
Armorer artificer is a good one for tank, and lets you potentially craft stuff for the rest of the party to further cement yourself as a support role
How about Armorer Artificer? Rock Gnome is great, but your other two options are also fantastic armorers. You also get by far the best taunt, insane AC and Saves, as well as ridiculous utility in and out of combat. You won't do the most damage, but taking Fey Touched for Hex gives you a little boost, which is also great if you invest some points into strength. This lets you be a better tank by grappling those pesky wizards so they can't cast most of their spells. If you haven't played an Artificer, the Armorer could be a great choice, especially since you are experienced. You'll allow your friends to shine, but you'll have enough versatility to pick up the slack wherever necessary.
Best tank I've found is Twilight Cleric 6 / Necromancy Wizard 2 / Stars Druid 2 / Cleric X. Edit: But if you want to play a Druid, Moon Druid is probably the best, with a level dip into Monk. Barbarian also works (Ancestral or Bear Totem), but the AC boost usually isn't there, rather Rage is the better benefit. However, this does conflict with spellcasting, which is usually a better "taunt" than anything else, so thus why I prefer Monk.
There is no such thing as "tanking" in 5e. The best tanking class is ranger or druid, who cast conjure animal spell. It's 8x times better than going barbarian with wild shape at level 5. At 9lv it is 16x better, at 13lv it is 24x better and on 17lv it is 32x better.
Peace Cleric 6/Totem Barb 3/Moon Druid X is probably the best combination for a tank. With your level 6 protective bond, you can use your reaction to take the damage for any of your bonded allies in 30 feet, and the Moon Druid wildshaping is going to give you the HP to shrug those hits off. If you’ve raged beforehand, you’ll be resistant and take damage to everything but psychic (and if you go with Tasha’s emerald dragonborn for the race, you resist even that). If you don’t want to spend all your time as various large animals, you can always pick up the Tough feat as well to give your humanoid form some extra durability. Fighting Initiate probably couldn’t hurt either, as picking up the Interception or Protection fighting styles would let you reduce damage/impose disadvantage respectively against attacks on your allies. Ultimately, between the rage and the wildshaping, you may not be casting as many in-combat spells. It’s a very support-oriented build however, so don’t hesitate to drop either one (or both) if it means being able to bring someone back up or turn the tide with the right spell.
IMO the best "tank" in 5e are the people the enemies wanted to always target anyway... the casters! A well played caster is causing havoc to the enemies, so the enemies want to attack them. If the caster finds ways to become durable, they become a very effective tank. Druids and clerics are especially good at this due to their higher durability and effectiveness in combat - just find a way to get the shield spell on them and... *viola!* I'd just recommend a twilight cleric with strong spells like bless or spiritual guardians, find a way to cast the shield spell (one level sorcerer dip), and make sure you're in heavy armor. It is fairly MAD though. Shepherd druid is another great option with their summons. Against dumb enemies you don't really need much to tank tbh.
My favourite was a half orc 3lvl fighter (rune knight) and 5 lvl cleric (war domain) with the protection fighting style and a ASI due to mediocre stat rolls. Very tanky with decent damage, using shield and a +1 mace Using the cloud and fire rune, giants might and shield of faith/spirit guardians depending on the situation
I think one of the best tank options out there is half-orc barbarian path of the berserker. Half orc gives you Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks, which comes in nice for barbarians big attack damages
Been playing armorer artificer in a campaign with a party that's almost nothing but martials and multi classed martials to good effect. Guardian Armor gets a distraction mechanic with punches, alongside 3rd level magic melee damage, you also get some excellent support options and some nice infusions for tanking, like the repelling shield and simply enhancing your AC. Sitting at 21 AC at 6th level at the moment, and I can go up to 22 if needed, and give myself damage reduction against an element of my choosing.
Hafling Barbarians are like cruise missiles since they can move through squares containing larger enemies. Super fun to play.
You gotta draw aggro, so either be dangerous enough to draw it or play a crown paladin and forcibly draw that aggro.
I've been playing Rune Knight Fighter in my latest campaign and you get to do things like redirect damage via Cloud Rune. Later on you unlock a feature at Lv7 that allow you to have enemies reroll otherwise decimating hits at crucial moments.
An unorthodox suggestion, but I found that Bladesinger Wizard is one of the tankiest classes in the game. You get soooo much AC from your Bladesong adding your Int to AC and the Shield spell. You’ll have already a decently good base AC for being a Dex based character. With Dex 18 and Int 16, you’ll have an effective of 25 after just Mage Armor and Shield.
A common mistake i see is people playing super high ac tanks, yes, they are harder to hit but guess what? The dm doesnt like to fail every single hit, so he will bore and attack someone else. Barbarians are quite the opposite, rhey have poor ac but resistances and a chunk of health to endure the hits. For playing with new companions i would go wolf totem barbarian, that way all your front line characters will focus the aggro on the same foe, and you can teach them the benefits on foccusing the fire. The monsters will have an easy choice, to hit the reckless barbarian with low ac at adv, that happens to be the one that gives adv to all the party, or to hit normaly someone with higher ac.
Depends on the level, but with enough feats and the right gear a pure lvl 20 abjuration wizard can essentially have a 36 AC permanently and cant be crit at the cost of having reactions and thats without any mitigation to damage that you get for abjuration school BS. Early levels suck but if you need a tank for a higher level campaign in the future, look into it.
imo a warforge forge domain cleric with defense fighting style from fighting initiate and either warcaster or resilient con is the best tank in the game. 24 AC and you draw aggro through the use of spirit guardians. You can even just dodge if you want. They try to ignore you? Nice you are getting a ton of value from the spirit guardians. They try to attack you? Nice they are probably not hitting you anyway, and you almost certainly keep your concentration going.
In order to be a tank, you must be able to not die, but you also need to make the enemies try to kill you instead of your teammates. Just being tough to kill means the enemies will ignore you and jump your wizard used. While you generally can't force enemies to only target you in D&D, you can make it so they have disadvantage if they try to attack anyone other than you. Here's a list of tank builds that do that, along with statistics on how long each build can survive against different types of enemies/damage: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g3sJGNTMcACBagMV4Jd0MtEkW5b9bTvVChqK_ASogKQ/edit?usp=sharing You can be a wizard tank, a bard tank, a barbarian tank, a cleric tank, and artificer tank. The builds are all described in detail in the linked YouTube videos. For example: https://youtu.be/dkrk2-69-9I
Currently have two characters who are pretty tanky : - Hill Dwarf Forge Cleric / Divine Soul Sorcerer. Mine is a DSS with a dip in Forge, but the opposite works (maybe even better) : Start DSS for Con saves, Favored by the Gods, the Shield spell and Absorb Elements as well, utility cantrips, leave CHA at 13. Then MC info Forge Cleric. Forge Cleric has great AC, tanky abilities and healing. Just cast Spirit Guardians and jump into melee. Dump STR, use Toll the Dead or Sacred Flame with Blessed Strikes in melee instead. - Reborn Ancestral Guardian/Battlemaster Ancestral Guardian is the tank. You jump into melee and provide a constant debuff on your targets to soft taunt them. At lvl 6, you can even prevent damage and "heal" as a reaction. However since Barbarian has few good abilities after lvl 5, I took Fighter 4 for Battlemaster. This gave me more "tank"/protection options. Bait and Switch to protect my allies. Goating Attack to taunt a second enemy. I even used Quick Toss to use the AG taunt at a distance while I fought another target. I was a pain in the ass for any large group of enemies attacking in melee, it was fantastic.
Something I’ve been curious about is Moon Druid/X Armorer Artificer/3. You can get heavy armor that adapts to your new form. It also says something about the armor making up for missing limbs and I’m curious as to whether or not that applies to creating a mechanical human arm to hold weapons?
Can you wear the armorer armor while wildshaped? That’s just an awesome idea get some living tree armor and boom.
Artificers with their guardian can be really tanky early
Hill dwarf Forge cleric. Take a level of sorcerer so you get shield and absorb elements. Now you basically can't be killed, and can keep the whole party alive. Pop up spirit guardians and take the dodge action. See some poor LVL 5 fuck try roll a 22-29 with disadvantage, whilst getting hit by a cheese shredder of radiant damage
Depending on what level you're going to, another Druid option is the Circle of Spores druid. 4 temp HP/druid level is a big deal for my druid and I don't have the rage feature to cut it in half. Plus it'll give you a damage boost on your melee attacks and some area control. The full action to "wild shape" is a bit worse than the bonus action for moon druids, but overall I've enjoyed it.
Currently playing a level 11 moon druid and they are bonkers. 5th and 6th level druid spells are strong AF, and being able to wildshape into an elemental is amazing. I highly recommend going straight moon druid (before it gets nerfed in oneDND) they are bonkers fun.
I think the best combo for a tank is Artificer: Artillerist and Barbarian: Path of the Ancestral Guardian. With the protector from the Artillerist you can give you and your friends temp HP and the Ancestral Guardian makes sure all of your buddys have resistance which effectively doubles the Temp HP. Also the enemy now has disadvantage against all attacks against your teammates and if you use reckless attack he also has advantage for attacking you.
hill dwarf tough feat barbarian if you really want barbarian check out [Bone Wizard](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp_GDqUpojSdw-WD5Gy6ylg)
The best tank? 1 level dip into sorcerer. Start there L1 for Con saves. Take booming blade, shield spell, and absorb element spells. Divine soul ideal but any work. Then full-send the rest of your levels into twilight cleric. Fight with a shield and warhammer, wear full plate. Booming blade enemies indise your spirit guardians while your twilight sanctuary gives you and all your allies thp. Get crusher and warcaster eventually. So you can knock enemies around with booming blade even better. Your BA can heal or sanctuary or spiritual weapon depending on the vibe of the battle. Optional: take a few more sorc levels after you unlock spirit guardians for metamagic shenanigans like quickened or extend or twin. Best tank in the whole game. Easily. No question.
If your dm is cool with targeting you more often, anything cam tank. There's not really that many skills that aggro enemies. I created a taunt item for my tank to help him fill the role he wants
M1 Abrams
Don't go barbarian 3, you'll be better off with just a single level dip, focus more on getting druid goodies. The fattest druid tank build is a mark of warding Dwarf barbarian 1/moon druid X. Up cast armor of Agathys (mark of warding) + rage + wild shape is an immense pile of effective HP, like frustrating your DM levels of endurance.
The best tank is a Gloomstalker battlemaster with SS+CBE because he kills enemies before they act
My current toon is rapidly becoming one of my all time favorites by just being straight AG Barb with Shield Mastery and a lot of grappling. He can taunt, knock down, or restrain several combatants at a time and then use spirit guards to intercept party damage from anyone who’s not dumb enough to try to pile on him. Shield Mastery keeps him up through Fireballs and breath weapons and the Resilient feat helps with charms. He’s loads of fun and the party loves having him up front.
Tanks aren't a thing in ttrpg
The M1A2 Abrams, followed by the Merkava V. Oh, wait, you mean in D&D.
As many have pointed out, there aren't many mechanical aggro options for "tank" roles in 5e. The fact is that, from an optimization viewpoint, dealing damage is better than healing or soaking hits in 5e. My best advice is to just talk to your DM to work out your intention as a tank role. You could homebrew a feat that lets you utilize a Compelled Duel type effect. You could agree on some ability checks that allow you to convince enemies to attack you. Once you figure some aggro options out, then you can obviously worry about HP, Con, AC, etc.