Dwarf Tank

[Rosleaw]

Hi again :) I wanna make the stereothipical dawrf tank with axe, shield, beer drinking issues and hate for monstrous humanoid. I been reading the fighter and the darven defender, but i don't completly get my idea, i thought about a few levels of barbarian for the rage and stufs like that, any idea?

[boj0]

Okay, I'm just going to get this out of the way:
1. Do you have access to Tome of Battle?
2. If you pick Fighter, after 2-4 levels, drop it like a bad habit
3. Tanking is a tough job in 3.5 if you're not a Knight and/or Crusader
4. Tripping is your friend if you want to have battlefield control
5. What is everyone else in your party playing?
6. What level are you playing at?

[Rosleaw]

Sorry ofr the lack of information, i'm new on this requesting data.

I'll be starting on lvl 7 or 8
i think i can use tome of battle
i can use some crusader or knights lvls, if i know something about them :confused:
then i have a wizard a druid a snipper (something with really big crosbow) and a barbarian
and i'm not really fond by tripping, i used to have a monk that did that, and really enojy it, but it's not the idea now. I was thinking about a damage dealer tank (if that can exist)

[Hiro Protagonest]

Alright, if you're playing a tanking fighter, the only way to stop your enemies from walking right past you (tumble, 5 ft. steps, not adjacent to you, etc.) is to carry a reach weapon with trip and have the improved trip and combat reflexes feats. And that still doesn't deal with those guys who use tumble and 5 ft. steps.

If you're playing a crusader, you don't have to be a tripper to tank, though you still need combat reflexes and probably a reach weapon. Get thicket of blades, it gives you the ability to AoO guys who tumble and withdraw and take 5 ft. steps. Iron guard's glare is also pretty much a necessity of tankers.

Edit: for the fighter, you can take stand still in place of improved trip, but it has the same problems.

[Jude_H]

If you use Tome of Battle, a Warblade with a focus on Iron Heart and Stone Dragon would hit the concept straight-on.

If you don't have/aren't interested in ToB, the Deepwarden class (from Races of Stone or online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040807a&page=4)) is pretty cool for Dwarves. Ranger 3/Barbarian 2/Deepwarden X is a pretty neat place to start.

[Amphetryon]

With Player's Handbook II's Knight class, Tome of Battle and some Crusdader and Warblade levels, Deepstone Sentinel can do a good representation of the archetype you're after. On a Dwarf chassis, I might do something like Knight 5/Crusader 4/Warblade 6/Deepstone Sentinel 5 (it's only 5 levels long).

Does your group enforce XP penalties for uneven levels? It would influence how to put the above build together, and thus what to recommend for a 7th level start.