I'm the tank...?!

[JadePhoenix]

I was just talking to a friend who plays a very resilient character in our game and he insists my character should be more actively tanking, because I have higher AC and higher damage output, even though I have far less hit points.

The characters are as follows.
My friend's character
Human Paladin 4/Child of Khyber 4

Aberrant dragonmark abilities are shield, vampiric touch and enervation. He has CL 10 for those.

Str 16, Dex 14, Con 20, I think his Cha is 15, but I'm not sure, bab +7
AC 33 (+7 natural armor, +9 armor, +2 Dex, +1 deflection, +4 shield)
HP 105 (he can spend dragonmark uses for 8 temp hp as an immediate action)

Attack +2 glaive +15/+10, damage 1d10+7 (plus Power Attack; we use 3.5 PA) (he gets bonuses to attack through permanencied magic tattoos, I think it's +2 luck and +1 competence, or the other way around)

I don't know his saves exactly, but they are sky high. He also has Quick Recovery as a feat. Our DM considers all aberrant dragonmark feats as aberrant feats, and he has Bestial Hide and Durable Form.
His armor is mithral full plate.


My character
Elf Synthesist 8

Str 19, Dex 18, Con 13 (fused), Str 10, Dex 15, Con 10 (not fused)
HP 26 (not fused), 42 plus 50 temp hp (fused)
AC 10+12 natural, +2 shield, +4 mage armor, +4 dex = 30

Biped eidolon, Evolutions: claws, limbs (arms), limbs (legs), improved natural armor x2, skilled (Acrobatics), tremorsense, ability increase (dex), rend, energy attacks (acid), improved damage (claws)

BAB +6, attack routine +1 longsword +11, damage 1d8+5 plus 1d6+1 electricity, 2 claws +5, damage 1d6+6 plus 1d6 acid
(the longsword is a dragonfang longsword with a lesser energy assault attached to it; the claws are on the feet, acid damage was choseon for flavor, it's supposed to be an 'earth fairy' kind of thing, I'll eventually get burrow speed)

Now, Playground: who do you think should be primary tank?

[Meibolite]

Depends on what needs to be tanked. In 4e I have started becoming the tank, in the truest of senses, i get beat down, but keep the enemies on me (27 AC at lvl 9) but horrible other defenses, but i have insane HP, even more than our barb.

Your friend has a higher AC, which means he is harder to hit, but that also means an intelligent monster will stop going after him and go after the ones with a weaker AC which they can damage. He seems to output higher damage, which should make him a more immediate threat.

Also, what are your will/reflex/fort saves like? If you have insane Will and Fort saves, you should definitely tank the spellcasters, while your friend tanks the melee stuff. If he has better saves overall, then he should be tanking everything. Also, as a paladin, he has the ability to heal IIRC.

It boils down to who can take which attacks better. HP isn't really as much of a concern if you have a competent healer with you, and if you have a Heals in a Can cleric, then you should be good, whoever is tanking. I haven't read up on how the synthesist's eidolon works with heal spells too much, but from the stat blocks you've shown, it seems to me that you can both tank rather well.

Also, Armor/HP don't always factor into tanking ability as much as you'd think, I once had a Rogue 10/Duelist 10 in a 3.5 campaign that effectively tanked many monsters because if ridiculous dodge bonuses and using Hit and run tactics, as well as parrying everything he could. didn't do so well against save or die will/fort stuff, but overall he was a fun, fast, agile "tank"

[eggs]

At level 8, does anybody need to tank?
Neither of you have the control-based melee abilities to do the job well.

[Roguenewb]

Excepting the fact that I'm fairly sure Child of Khyber says non-good...

If you can keep refreshing those Temp HP I'd say you, because it's free healing...if you can't him. He just has so much more ability to stand and get hit than you...

[Urpriest]

It's irrelevant. You're both melee characters, so you both need to be adjacent to enemies. What else would you have to do to "tank" in your friend's view?

[JadePhoenix]

At level 8, does anybody need to tank?
Neither of you have the control-based melee abilities to do the job well.
Someone needs to tank, because our party members are not as resilient as us. I think our Warlock has AC 22 or something like that.
The only control we seem to have is offense, in a "attack us, we are dangerous!" kind of thing. He does have reach, while I do have Step Up and Following Step, but that's not nearly enough for a dedicated tanker (which neither of us are; the question is who should start focusing more on that).


Excepting the fact that I'm fairly sure Child of Khyber says non-good...
We are not playing in Eberron, so the DM allowed it. The whole dragonmark thing is supposed to be from experiments performed by mindflayers.


If you can keep refreshing those Temp HP I'd say you, because it's free healing...if you can't him. He just has so much more ability to stand and get hit than you...
I can't refresh it, it's my eidolon's hp.
And yeah, I think so as well, he is just more suited to it.


It's irrelevant. You're both melee characters, so you both need to be adjacent to enemies. What else would you have to do to "tank" in your friend's view?

We're discussing who should take Antagonize as their next feat, mostly. Also, I usually don't go into the thick of battle, I spend most of the time buffing. I play more like a support/utility arcane caster (I even took Magical Aptitude and spend nearly all of my money on wands and scrolls), the eidolon just keeps me safe. I have a few offensive abilities, but they are vastly inferior to everyone else in the party.

[Suddo]

Tanks are one of those things that in 3.X is not really that effective. A party without a Tank is a more interesting party as it forces everyone to be effective instead of some being glass cannons.

[Rentaromon]

Your synthesis, you have more HD than anyone ever will and you get crazy bonuses to AC. You can easily be built as a crazy strong tank so i can see why someone would say you should tank.

but you both are great tanks so id say share the load.

[JadePhoenix]

Tanks are one of those things that in 3.X is not really that effective. A party without a Tank is a more interesting party as it forces everyone to be effective instead of some being glass cannons.

That's not really the point here. Our party has glass cannons (an assassin and a clawlock) and we need ways to protect them.
Also, Antagonize makes tanking fairly easy.

[Urpriest]

Well one possibility if you're both fairly durable is for both of you to take Antagonize. That way you can split encounters between you and minimize the chance that one of you will be focus-fired.

[Knightofvictory]

I would say the paladin is built for this kind of thing. Yea, both of you can soak up your share of melee, but a few things favor the Paladin:

1. He has a reach weapon. Hopefully with Combat Reflexes. I would think he would want stuff to attack him for more opportunity attacks.
2. Lay on Hands. He can heal himself. Yes, he could use it on you, but there could be times where he is too far away, wrong initiative count, or whatever. He will always have the best chance of healing himself in combat, if it's needed.
3. Better Will saves (I'm guessing). Fear Immunity too. It's hard to tank if you fail one of those. High saves means less chance he will be shut down, means safer party.

My biggest question is the least mechanical. Which of your character concepts is better for the 'tanking' role? Do you wish to play a smart mouthed damage dealing machine that scares and taunts foes into going after you? Does he want to play the typical noble knight, jumping into harm's way, and fearlessly taking hits that would crush his allies without complaint? I would not care as much about who is mechanically better, but how I want my character to be remembered in the group.

Good luck!

[ngilop]

while I do not know anything about your speicifc charatces, synthesist summoners are the sinlge most powerful 'tank' class in panthfinder.
i mena at 10th levle you should have an AC of around 32, and thats not including the armor boosting spells/defense boosting spells you have access to as a summoner.


and I guess i just cnanot get behind your character cocnept, you take a class that is all about having your own 'tank' then the archetype that combines the two into one but 2 seprate entities. but yet, you don't know that you are the 'tank' wich in RPGs, is the big guy in mlee that everybody has to get through to get to the squishies.?

[JadePhoenix]

while I do not know anything about your speicifc charatces, synthesist summoners are the sinlge most powerful 'tank' class in panthfinder.
i mena at 10th levle you should have an AC of around 32, and thats not including the armor boosting spells/defense boosting spells you have access to as a summoner.
Yeah, I have AC 30 while fused and I have yet to spend a single gold piece on AC. Awesome.


and I guess i just cnanot get behind your character cocnept, you take a class that is all about having your own 'tank' then the archetype that combines the two into one but 2 seprate entities. but yet, you don't know that you are the 'tank' wich in RPGs, is the big guy in mlee that everybody has to get through to get to the squishies.?
Well, the eidolon can be built as many things. Damage dealer, tank and even utility. My eidolon is kind of a hybrid - high AC, a few damage boosters and expanded senses.
My character is more of a scholar than a fighter. My party has no wizard, so we share utility casting between me and the bard (and rarely the ranger... and the warlock can UMD in a pinch). Between dimension door and Dimensional Agility I can always get there to help someone who seems to be in a pinch. I'm an active support character, more or less.
Anyway, I'll try to convince him that he should take Antagonize next level. I want to continue with the Dimensional Agility tree.

[Lonely Tylenol]

"Tank" is a dated concept and a carry-over from MMOs, which have never functioned the same in the first place (unless you believe the criticisms of 4e, but we won't go there), but more importantly, having a high AC =/= being a good 'tank' in a HUGE way.

For example, if fighting against, say, a Cloud Giant (CR 11), I've never known an AC of 30 to stop the creature from simply knocking you away via Awesome Blow (or picking you up and throwing you via its perversely high Grapple check, if the DM plays with feats instead of using the standard, usually insultingly bad and Core-restrictive, feat layout, or pushing you via its much higher Bull Rush modifier, or simply running over you to get to the point that they actually want to be at--which is killing the squishy guy saying funny words and making your innards feel weird--and all of these can be done with the default SRD stat block save for one).

That's not counting all of the other things that the monster could do to avoid standing next to the 'tank'; for example, the Vrock (CR 9) has a flight speed of 50 feet, but if they really wanted to get away (or move to a target more desirable for them), they also have an at-will Greater Teleport SLA, or, if they're desperate, a stunning screech ability (which would enable them to use that flight undeterred, if the AoO was that devastating). Or, it could use its Telekinesis SLA (also at-will) to just pick you up and throw you, as the Cloud Giant above, but without an attack roll or opposed checks (even though the Cloud Giant has the higher check result).

Or, let's say you piss off the good guys in a really big way: a Trumpet Archon (CR 14) has, in addition to a fly speed of 90 ft., an at-will Greater Teleport, and a prepared Plane Shift, so this is all academic, but if it wanted, it could use its trumpet to render you basically useless and coup you or simply ignore you and move to the target you're "tanking" it away from, and if it couldn't be arsed with the Fort save ("tanks" tend to have decent ones), Dictum and Holy Word are both on its default spell loadout, as is Blade Barrier (with which it can just create a wall of blades that says "KEEP OUT" in big, bold, friendly letters).

Author's note: I wrote those examples under the assumption that the party was ECL 10, based on by reading of ngilop's comment, and didn't notice my mistake until after. I'm too lazy to change things. The shift to CR-appropriate enemies for an ECL 8 "tank" is not qualitative.

Basically: "tanking" by waving your stick "threateningly" at a foe, and then not getting hit, doesn't work. An adaptive enemy (which is to say, one that uses its standard feat loadout; one does not need to preempt anyone's abilities to do any of the aforementioned) will laugh at all a high AC count gets you, pick you up and throw you aside (literally, as the case were), and move on to whatever target it had in mind in the first place (in a party of four, there's a one-in-four that it was you anyway, unless there's a reason to believe otherwise). If enemies are being played differently, where they stand in place and attack the high AC of the "tank" single-mindedly and in spite of repeated failures (and better options), then the DM is either playing dumb to humor the "tank", or genuinely believes the lie that an enemy can be "tanked" in such a way the first place, which is tragic, because it means that the DM is so incredibly prohibited in his thought process as a DM that he literally could be replaced with a set of algorithms that say "pick the target with the highest threat rating and stand still and attack it repeatedly until one or both of you are dead", at which point your entire group is better off playing an MMO, because at least those have better graphics.

Moreover, being a "tank" in the MMO sense isn't about having a high armor rating; I mean, sure, that's bonus points, and many groups will require it of a "good tank", but it's secondary to the main goal of a tank, which is to be threatening. In MMO terms, this means that somebody with an almost sarcastically high armor rating, but without a means of generating threat with some offensive abilities specifically designed to do so (let's say, a plate-wearing Ret Paladin, to use the WoW analogue) will do worse at tanking than somebody with a lower armor rating, but a better threat-generating method (a leather-wearing SS Druid who specs for threat-generating bear stuff); the Ret Paladin may have a higher armor value, but the SS Druid is better at holding threat off the healers than he is, and a good healer can compensate for a low armor value much better than they can poor threat generation. In D&D terms, this means that a Dwarven Defender with a gorgeous AC count who has a tower shield and a perverse array of bonuses gained from the total defense action just isn't as scary as the greataxe-wielding Ubercharger who carved the enemy general in half and just kept running. If I had to choose between the guy in full plate, hiding behind his shield and making no attempt to harm me, and the armored (or even unarmored) bear that is actively shooting lightning at me, I might pick up the guy in full plate and use him as a shiny metal overweight club against the druid (the -4 penalty for improvised weapon being offset by the >4 difference in AC value between the two, meaning I'm still more effective as an enemy), which would defeat the point of a high AC value (which doesn't assist in a grapple in any way), but more importantly for this particular point, I might just ignore the guy in plate and kill the bear first, knowing that the guy in plate, while harder to hit to be sure, is not enough of a threat for me to even care if he's hard to hit; if I really needed to kill him, I could simply eliminate more immediate threats and then take my time not hitting him when all his friends are dead (and he did nothing to stop me!).

If you want to "tank" effectively in the D&D sense, it's all about threat, and since threat's not a number, you have to manage that through other means. The mechanical way to do this (which is to say that the only way to do this using numbers) is by utilizing that threat range (ha ha ha). Most people do this with the chain tripper, which, incidentally, is usually Large-sized and wielding an inclusive reach weapon (like, oh a chain), giving it an effective threat range of 20 ft. in all directions, allowing it to hit something long before it has the opportunity to base it, and then stops it from doing so, the point of which is that its defense isn't having a high AC, but simply stopping the enemy from even having the opportunity to hit you in the first place. No attack roll is made against a well-played chain tripper, so focusing on high AC is still a bad thing. I guess you can also mechanically do this by optimizing intimidate if your opponents are prideful or your DM doesn't know what the word "intimidate" means.

The other way to do this (that doesn't involve a build of any kind) is to be threatening as a person. This involves a roleplay element, and can be anything ranging from "be a badass dudette" to "know the right cutting insult to throw at your enemy, and make sure they're fightin' words". This is the way to be a "tank" by appealing to your enemy's emotional side, as opposed to reasoning: this is being the guy in full plate, hiding behind a large shield and being less of a threat than the lightning-shooting bear, but dammit he said my grandmother douches with rotten eggs, and I cannot let that slide! This is the only way I can think of to tank where AC (or anything "defensive") really matters for tanking, but it's still less important than damage output or general badassery in all its forms (being able to follow that cutting jib with a well-placed smack).

TL;DR neither of you should "tank", but if you feel you really should, the best way to do so would be by remaining a killing force to be reckoned with, which, ideally, means making as few build changes as possible, because that's probably what you were doing already before the word "tank" ever escaped anybody's lips. If you really feel like boosting your AC, I'd say it should be done as a survival tactic to prevent those hits that you do take, but even as a defensive necessity, it's still tertiary (don't make it your focus, ever); as a general rule, AC yields diminishing returns, while saves do not (and save-or-X attacks become both more common and more lethal the further along you move either the optimization or level slider). Neither you nor the Paladin should feel compelled to make any build changes based on this perception of a "tank" role.

If you understand this and the Paladin player does not, show this to the Paladin player. Make them sit through the whole thing. I don't care how verbose I am; it is necessary to hammer the point in completely.

[Lord_Gareth]

"Tank" is a dated concept and a carry-over from MMOs, which have never functioned the same in the first place (unless you believe the criticisms of 4e, but we won't go there), but more importantly, having a high AC =/= being a good 'tank' in a HUGE way.

For example, if fighting against, say, a Cloud Giant (CR 11), I've never known an AC of 30 to stop the creature from simply knocking you away via Awesome Blow (or picking you up and throwing you via its perversely high Grapple check, if the DM plays with feats instead of using the standard, usually insultingly bad and Core-restrictive, feat layout, or pushing you via its much higher Bull Rush modifier, or simply running over you to get to the point that they actually want to be at--which is killing the squishy guy saying funny words and making your innards feel weird--and all of these can be done with the default SRD stat block save for one).

That's not counting all of the other things that the monster could do to avoid standing next to the 'tank'; for example, the Vrock (CR 9) has a flight speed of 50 feet, but if they really wanted to get away (or move to a target more desirable for them), they also have an at-will Greater Teleport SLA, or, if they're desperate, a stunning screech ability (which would enable them to use that flight undeterred, if the AoO was that devastating). Or, it could use its Telekinesis SLA (also at-will) to just pick you up and throw you, as the Cloud Giant above, but without an attack roll or opposed checks (even though the Cloud Giant has the higher check result).

Or, let's say you piss off the good guys in a really big way: a Trumpet Archon (CR 14) has, in addition to a fly speed of 90 ft., an at-will Greater Teleport, and a prepared Plane Shift, so this is all academic, but if it wanted, it could use its trumpet to render you basically useless and coup you or simply ignore you and move to the target you're "tanking" it away from, and if it couldn't be arsed with the Fort save ("tanks" tend to have decent ones), Dictum and Holy Word are both on its default spell loadout, as is Blade Barrier (with which it can just create a wall of blades that says "KEEP OUT" in big, bold, friendly letters).

Author's note: I wrote those examples under the assumption that the party was ECL 10, based on by reading of ngilop's comment, and didn't notice my mistake until after. I'm too lazy to change things. The shift to CR-appropriate enemies for an ECL 8 "tank" is not qualitative.

Basically: "tanking" by waving your stick "threateningly" at a foe, and then not getting hit, doesn't work. An adaptive enemy (which is to say, one that uses its standard feat loadout; one does not need to preempt anyone's abilities to do any of the aforementioned) will laugh at all a high AC count gets you, pick you up and throw you aside (literally, as the case were), and move on to whatever target it had in mind in the first place (in a party of four, there's a one-in-four that it was you anyway, unless there's a reason to believe otherwise). If enemies are being played differently, where they stand in place and attack the high AC of the "tank" single-mindedly and in spite of repeated failures (and better options), then the DM is either playing dumb to humor the "tank", or genuinely believes the lie that an enemy can be "tanked" in such a way the first place, which is tragic, because it means that the DM is so incredibly prohibited in his thought process as a DM that he literally could be replaced with a set of algorithms that say "pick the target with the highest threat rating and stand still and attack it repeatedly until one or both of you are dead", at which point your entire group is better off playing an MMO, because at least those have better graphics.

Moreover, being a "tank" in the MMO sense isn't about having a high armor rating; I mean, sure, that's bonus points, and many groups will require it of a "good tank", but it's secondary to the main goal of a tank, which is to be threatening. In MMO terms, this means that somebody with an almost sarcastically high armor rating, but without a means of generating threat with some offensive abilities specifically designed to do so (let's say, a plate-wearing Ret Paladin, to use the WoW analogue) will do worse at tanking than somebody with a lower armor rating, but a better threat-generating method (a leather-wearing SS Druid who specs for threat-generating bear stuff); the Ret Paladin may have a higher armor value, but the SS Druid is better at holding threat off the healers than he is, and a good healer can compensate for a low armor value much better than they can poor threat generation. In D&D terms, this means that a Dwarven Defender with a gorgeous AC count who has a tower shield and a perverse array of bonuses gained from the total defense action just isn't as scary as the greataxe-wielding Ubercharger who carved the enemy general in half and just kept running. If I had to choose between the guy in full plate, hiding behind his shield and making no attempt to harm me, and the armored (or even unarmored) bear that is actively shooting lightning at me, I might pick up the guy in full plate and use him as a shiny metal overweight club against the druid (the -4 penalty for improvised weapon being offset by the >4 difference in AC value between the two, meaning I'm still more effective as an enemy), which would defeat the point of a high AC value (which doesn't assist in a grapple in any way), but more importantly for this particular point, I might just ignore the guy in plate and kill the bear first, knowing that the guy in plate, while harder to hit to be sure, is not enough of a threat for me to even care if he's hard to hit; if I really needed to kill him, I could simply eliminate more immediate threats and then take my time not hitting him when all his friends are dead (and he did nothing to stop me!).

If you want to "tank" effectively in the D&D sense, it's all about threat, and since threat's not a number, you have to manage that through other means. The mechanical way to do this (which is to say that the only way to do this using numbers) is by utilizing that threat range (ha ha ha). Most people do this with the chain tripper, which, incidentally, is usually Large-sized and wielding an inclusive reach weapon (like, oh a chain), giving it an effective threat range of 20 ft. in all directions, allowing it to hit something long before it has the opportunity to base it, and then stops it from doing so, the point of which is that its defense isn't having a high AC, but simply stopping the enemy from even having the opportunity to hit you in the first place. No attack roll is made against a well-played chain tripper, so focusing on high AC is still a bad thing. I guess you can also mechanically do this by optimizing intimidate if your opponents are prideful or your DM doesn't know what the word "intimidate" means.

The other way to do this (that doesn't involve a build of any kind) is to be threatening as a person. This involves a roleplay element, and can be anything ranging from "be a badass dudette" to "know the right cutting insult to throw at your enemy, and make sure they're fightin' words". This is the way to be a "tank" by appealing to your enemy's emotional side, as opposed to reasoning: this is being the guy in full plate, hiding behind a large shield and being less of a threat than the lightning-shooting bear, but dammit he said my grandmother douches with rotten eggs, and I cannot let that slide! This is the only way I can think of to tank where AC (or anything "defensive") really matters for tanking, but it's still less important than damage output or general badassery in all its forms (being able to follow that cutting jib with a well-placed smack).

TL;DR neither of you should "tank", but if you feel you really should, the best way to do so would be by remaining a killing force to be reckoned with, which, ideally, means making as few build changes as possible, because that's probably what you were doing already before the word "tank" ever escaped anybody's lips. If you really feel like boosting your AC, I'd say it should be done as a survival tactic to prevent those hits that you do take, but even as a defensive necessity, it's still tertiary (don't make it your focus, ever); as a general rule, AC yields diminishing returns, while saves do not (and save-or-X attacks become both more common and more lethal the further along you move either the optimization or level slider). Neither you nor the Paladin should feel compelled to make any build changes based on this perception of a "tank" role.

If you understand this and the Paladin player does not, show this to the Paladin player. Make them sit through the whole thing. I don't care how verbose I am; it is necessary to hammer the point in completely.

You are a god amongst men, sir. Thank you for laying this out in such a thought-out manner. Now I can show it to people in my home town that wonder why my spellcasting villains always ignore them in favor of attacking the party casters.

[LordBlades]

Lonely Tylenol pretty much hit the nail on the head re: tanking in D&D.

Apart from what he said, I know are a couple more ways to 'tank' more-or-less successfully:

a)wall of warm bodies(or swarm of bears like my party likes to call it). Works best if you're a summoning specialist or necromancer with a lot of undead. You simply swarm the enemy with as many summons/undead/whatever disposable minions you have on hand so the enemy has a very hard time to move past them. Of course, doesn't work vs enemies with good movement modes (very fast, burrowing, flying, teleporting etc.)

b)battlefield control. You 'tank' by shaping the battlefield in such a way that the enemy goes where you want him to, not where he wants. A cloud giant is a scary opponent. A cloud giant in a Forcecage is a minor annoyance.

What's most important however is that really dangerous opponents will get wherever they need to go eventually, and there's little you can do prevent it. There's many more ways to bypass obstacles in this game that there are to hold somebody down.

[JadePhoenix]

Except Antagonize (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/antagonize) changes almost everything LonelyTylenol said.



"Tank" is a dated concept and a carry-over from MMOs, which have never functioned the same in the first place (unless you believe the criticisms of 4e, but we won't go there), but more importantly, having a high AC =/= being a good 'tank' in a HUGE way.
It's not a carry-over from MMOs. Keeping enemies off of the spellcaster's butt was the fighter's main shtick in AD&D.
And I never said high AC = good tank.


For example, if fighting against, say, a Cloud Giant (CR 11), I've never known an AC of 30 to stop the creature from simply knocking you away via Awesome Blow (or picking you up and throwing you via its perversely high Grapple check, if the DM plays with feats instead of using the standard, usually insultingly bad and Core-restrictive, feat layout, or pushing you via its much higher Bull Rush modifier, or simply running over you to get to the point that they actually want to be at--which is killing the squishy guy saying funny words and making your innards feel weird--and all of these can be done with the default SRD stat block save for one).
I don't know why you're trying to make a point against tanking, but this does not apply to my party at all.
We have a bard (squishy), a hexblade/binder debuffer, a clawlock (squishy), a ranger/assassin (squishy), a synthesist (me) and a paladin.
We noticed our defenses were a lot better than the rest of the group, so we thought we should do something do avoid them being killed.
We all have our means to do so - the paladin has a reach weapon and ridiculous saves, so once he gets Antagonize, things should work out much better. I have Following Step and Dimensional Agility, meaning getting past me and keeping me grappled is not easy. My AC 30 without using a single magic item, I could get it a lot higher if I wanted to.


That's not counting all of the other things that the monster could do to avoid standing next to the 'tank'; for example, the Vrock (CR 9) has a flight speed of 50 feet, but if they really wanted to get away (or move to a target more desirable for them), they also have an at-will Greater Teleport SLA, or, if they're desperate, a stunning screech ability (which would enable them to use that flight undeterred, if the AoO was that devastating). Or, it could use its Telekinesis SLA (also at-will) to just pick you up and throw you, as the Cloud Giant above, but without an attack roll or opposed checks (even though the Cloud Giant has the higher check result).
Well, if they spend a standard action to teleport, the tank has done his job already, because it's a turn during which squishier party members took no damage.


Or, let's say you piss off the good guys in a really big way: a Trumpet Archon (CR 14) has, in addition to a fly speed of 90 ft., an at-will Greater Teleport, and a prepared Plane Shift, so this is all academic, but if it wanted, it could use its trumpet to render you basically useless and coup you or simply ignore you and move to the target you're "tanking" it away from, and if it couldn't be arsed with the Fort save ("tanks" tend to have decent ones), Dictum and Holy Word are both on its default spell loadout, as is Blade Barrier (with which it can just create a wall of blades that says "KEEP OUT" in big, bold, friendly letters).
CR 14 is a lot above our level, our Paladin is immune to Dictum and Holy Word, we wouldn't be fighting a Trumpet Archon and the Paladin has ridiculous saves.


Author's note: I wrote those examples under the assumption that the party was ECL 10, based on by reading of ngilop's comment, and didn't notice my mistake until after. I'm too lazy to change things. The shift to CR-appropriate enemies for an ECL 8 "tank" is not qualitative.
I'm pretty sure we could do well against those if the Paladin had antagonize, so you're basically just making me wish more that he took the feat.


Basically: "tanking" by waving your stick "threateningly" at a foe, and then not getting hit, doesn't work.
Of course it doesn't. That's why I didn't say that.

An adaptive enemy (which is to say, one that uses its standard feat loadout; one does not need to preempt anyone's abilities to do any of the aforementioned) will laugh at all a high AC count gets you, pick you up and throw you aside (literally, as the case were), and move on to whatever target it had in mind in the first place (in a party of four, there's a one-in-four that it was you anyway, unless there's a reason to believe otherwise). If enemies are being played differently, where they stand in place and attack the high AC of the "tank" single-mindedly and in spite of repeated failures (and better options), then the DM is either playing dumb to humor the "tank", or genuinely believes the lie that an enemy can be "tanked" in such a way the first place, which is tragic, because it means that the DM is so incredibly prohibited in his thought process as a DM that he literally could be replaced with a set of algorithms that say "pick the target with the highest threat rating and stand still and attack it repeatedly until one or both of you are dead", at which point your entire group is better off playing an MMO, because at least those have better graphics.
Well, if that was the case, I wouldn't have come here asking who should take Antagonize, would I?


Moreover, being a "tank" in the MMO sense isn't about having a high armor rating; I mean, sure, that's bonus points, and many groups will require it of a "good tank", but it's secondary to the main goal of a tank, which is to be threatening. In MMO terms, this means that somebody with an almost sarcastically high armor rating, but without a means of generating threat with some offensive abilities specifically designed to do so (let's say, a plate-wearing Ret Paladin, to use the WoW analogue) will do worse at tanking than somebody with a lower armor rating, but a better threat-generating method (a leather-wearing SS Druid who specs for threat-generating bear stuff); the Ret Paladin may have a higher armor value, but the SS Druid is better at holding threat off the healers than he is, and a good healer can compensate for a low armor value much better than they can poor threat generation. In D&D terms, this means that a Dwarven Defender with a gorgeous AC count who has a tower shield and a perverse array of bonuses gained from the total defense action just isn't as scary as the greataxe-wielding Ubercharger who carved the enemy general in half and just kept running. If I had to choose between the guy in full plate, hiding behind his shield and making no attempt to harm me, and the armored (or even unarmored) bear that is actively shooting lightning at me, I might pick up the guy in full plate and use him as a shiny metal overweight club against the druid (the -4 penalty for improvised weapon being offset by the >4 difference in AC value between the two, meaning I'm still more effective as an enemy), which would defeat the point of a high AC value (which doesn't assist in a grapple in any way), but more importantly for this particular point, I might just ignore the guy in plate and kill the bear first, knowing that the guy in plate, while harder to hit to be sure, is not enough of a threat for me to even care if he's hard to hit; if I really needed to kill him, I could simply eliminate more immediate threats and then take my time not hitting him when all his friends are dead (and he did nothing to stop me!).
This is nothing new. This is the reason I came to the forums. Have you even read my posts?


I guess you can also mechanically do this by optimizing intimidate if your opponents are prideful or your DM doesn't know what the word "intimidate" means.
Antagonize. Yeah.


If you understand this and the Paladin player does not, show this to the Paladin player. Make them sit through the whole thing. I don't care how verbose I am; it is necessary to hammer the point in completely.
He understands. We both do. The point is who should take Antagonize as the 9th level feat.

[Lord_Gareth]

Except Antagonize (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/antagonize) changes almost everything LonelyTylenol said.


Intimidate: The creature flies into a rage. On its next turn, the target must attempt to make a melee attack against you, make a ranged attack
against you, target you with a spell, or include you in the area of a spell. The effect ends if the creature is prevented from attacking you or attempting to do so would harm it (for example, if you are on the other side of a chasm or a wall of fire). If it cannot attack you on its turn, you may make the check again as an immediate action to extend the effect for 1 round (but cannot extend it thereafter). The effect ends as soon as the creature attacks you. Once you have targeted a creature with this ability, you cannot target it again for 1 day.

No it doesn't. You Antagonize, it flings you with Telekinesis. You Antagonize, it uses Hold Person. You Antagonize, it Awesome Blows you out of the way. Snatch. Bull rush. Forcecage. All the things Tylenol said about it getting you out of the way and then proceeding to ignore you remain completely true.

[Deox]

Antagonize works only 1/day per target, and only until they attack you.

If I'm an enemy caster and I'm forced to attack you, that's fine. I can easily just include you in my spell's area of effect. Or even still target you with the main part of the spell and chain it out (or even vise versa).

[JadePhoenix]

No it doesn't. You Antagonize, it flings you with Telekinesis. You Antagonize, it uses Hold Person. You Antagonize, it Awesome Blows you out of the way. Snatch. Bull rush. Forcecage. All the things Tylenol said about it getting you out of the way and then proceeding to ignore you remain completely true.

Hold Person against a Paladin/Child of Khyber? Good luck. Awesome Blow against his high AC, with the -4 penalty Awesome Blow has? Good luck. Bull rush might work, but that costs an attack of opportunity and a full-round action. Forcecage does take him out (but doesn't take me out, due to Maker's Call). Also, if the opponent spends an action dealing with you, you have done your job successfully.
One round is all our clawlock and assassin usually need to deal with stuff. Please, read the thread before saying "we're doing it wrong".


Antagonize works only 1/day per target, and only until they attack you.

If I'm an enemy caster and I'm forced to attack you, that's fine. I can easily just include you in my spell's area of effect. Or even still target you with the main part of the spell and chain it out (or even vise versa).
Most save-or-lose effects are single target, so if the Paladin can take them, it's worth the cost. If they happen to surive the onslaught of attacks after being debuffed by our hexblade and full-attacked by a clawlock and an assassin... well, then we're in a lot of trouble, but we're supposed to be.

[eggs]

Antagonize is a more powerful ability than a noncaster would get, but Synthesists get Black Tentacles and grizzly bear summoning, which do more control for fewer resource investments than refocusing a melee build into a control role. I'm still very doubtful that anyone needs to be forced to take the position.

[Deox]

That's true, though sounds like they're high enough level that monsters could have access to Freedom of Movement rendering any grappling / most movement hampering useless.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Except Antagonize (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/antagonize) changes almost everything LonelyTylenol said.

OK, I stand corrected. Paizo's game designers don't know what the word "intimidate" means.

I guess this basically just gives a mechanic to "be a threatening person"/"make sure they're fightin' words", and yet I still can't shake the feeling that role-play is being discarded for roll-play to promote an awkward and even immersion-breaking mechanic that advances a "never-was" role in order to... Make Pathfinder more like a video game, I guess? And is also poorly balanced to boot? Seems like a miss on literally every front.

But OK.

I would just ask your DM if he's willing to let roleplaying act as a suitable substitute for the feat, because talking is a free action (and this feat is a standard action, which is basically your paladin friend's turn), rolling dice means a possibility of failure, the Intimidate one is the only one worth using (the Diplomacy use amounts to your Paladin friend using his standard action to cast Doom with restrictions, which is literally pathetic when you consider that any character capable of reliably using Diplomacy to impose a shaken penalty could almost as easily make a "hostile" enemy "not hostile", and can do it more easily if you're using 3.5's Diplomacy rules as opposed to Pathfinder's) and somehow I doubt the average paladin keeps Intimidate maxed, it's limited-use (once per person per day, which gives you a fleeting moment against them before they are free to act otherwise) and it costs a feat for something that you can't use on creatures immune to mind-affecting effects (constructs, oozes, plants, vermin, undead and swarms) or with an INT of 3 or less (animals and some magical beasts, plus the occasional mindless creature regardless of type), may well be language-dependent (this really depends on how your DM approaches Diplomacy and Intimidate, and RAW isn't a legitimate complaint on my part, but dammit I'm butt-hurt that my point-form essay could be challenged by a single poorly-conceived feat! :smallannoyed: ... :smallbiggrin:), and is in all other ways indistinct from something that could just be roleplayed without the mechanic.

The standard action part is what kills me - if one round is all you need (per the Intimidate usage), then your Paladin could make that one round to do something else and make it count. If one round is not enough, neither is the feat. (EDIT: And while I started my post before you said it, that directly addresses the following:


Hold Person against a Paladin/Child of Khyber? Good luck. Awesome Blow against his high AC, with the -4 penalty Awesome Blow has? Good luck. Bull rush might work, but that costs an attack of opportunity and a full-round action. Forcecage does take him out (but doesn't take me out, due to Maker's Call). Also, if the opponent spends an action dealing with you, you have done your job successfully.
One round is all our clawlock and assassin usually need to deal with stuff. Please, read the thread before saying "we're doing it wrong".


Most save-or-lose effects are single target, so if the Paladin can take them, it's worth the cost. If they happen to surive the onslaught of attacks after being debuffed by our hexblade and full-attacked by a clawlock and an assassin... well, then we're in a lot of trouble, but we're supposed to be.

There is no point in time where a standard action Knight's Challenge is worth the opportunity cost, because if your group is killing all the things in one round, then the Paladin either has something better to do or is lagging hopelessly behind, and I don't need to know anything about your party's optimization level to know that's true, even though I know at least a little.)

You are, however, technically correct, which is the best kind of correct (http://imgur.com/gallery/9kkXA), so do with the feat as your group will. :smallsmile:

[eggs]

Level 8's earlier than I'd worry about that, but if that's a concern, there are plenty of Summoner spells targeting other defenses. It's a spellcaster in 3e. Almost by definition, it's versatile to a fault.

[LordBlades]

The Paladin will probably do well to take Antagonize. He doesn't look to be able to affect the battle decisively on his standard action.

You on the other hand I'd advise against it. You're a caster with decent spell list. Using Atnagonize means you're not casting a spell that round. You could spend your standard action using Antagonize to (moderately) inconvenience an enemy for 1 round, or you could use a standard action to cast let's say Black Tentacles and inconvenience multiple enemies for multiple rounds.

[Answerer]

The feat changes nothing because it's pathetically weak and isn't worth taking. It won't turn any character into a tank by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't agree with a fair few things Tylenol said, but his main premise, that tanking as a thing does not exist in 3.P, stands. You cannot do it. They never printed abilities that make you any good at doing it. The one or two things that pretend to do it (Antagonize, Defensive Rebuke, Goad, Test of Mettle) are weak, limited, or both. The overwhelming majority of things intended to be for "tanking" characters (defense boosts, most painfully demonstrated by the Dwarven Defender) don't help even slightly with aggro-control which is what is necessary, and having too many of them leads to the exact kind of "ignorable wall" character that Tylenol described.

So Tylenol's advice still stands. Neither of you should pretend to tank, because neither of you can tank. The option does not, really, exist. Nor does your party need a tank (seeing as every other party has done without one, whether they tried to have one or not); if every member of your party is capable of his own defense and offense (as they should be), you are all threats and are all capable of keeping yourselves alive, and will therefore function just fine.

If you want a game where the martial characters protect the casters while they "bring the rain" so to speak, you need a different system. I hear 4e's decent for that?

[Lonely Tylenol]

The Paladin will probably do well to take Antagonize. He doesn't look to be able to affect the battle decisively on his standard action.

You on the other hand I'd advise against it. You're a caster with decent spell list. Using Atnagonize means you're not casting a spell that round. You could spend your standard action using Antagonize to (moderately) inconvenience an enemy for 1 round, or you could use a standard action to cast let's say Black Tentacles and inconvenience multiple enemies for multiple rounds.

Unless the Paladin has maxed ranks in Intimidate, I'd still advise against Antagonize, because while I don't know much about the Child of Khyber PrC, I do know that any Paladin 4 or higher with a positive WIS mod can cast 1st-level spells, and a Diplomacy-focused Paladin has a doozy in Honeyed Tongue (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/honeyed-tongue), which can basically end a combat by simply turning everything that can be affected with a Diplomacy check non-hostile. Of course, this involves not killing things, so your mileage may vary based on DM or group mentality.

Of course, a Paladin with maxed ranks in Intimidate has nothing better to do with the skill, so they might as well get a use for it in Antagonize, but then... Why has the Paladin maxed Intimidate for eight straight levels?... :smallconfused:

Oh, and just so the record is straight on this one--I found out about Honeyed Tongue today. Like, in the process of writing one of the other posts in this thread. By accident. It is still so much better than Diplomacy-focused Antagonize.


I don't agree with a fair few things Tylenol said

Then you are wrong. :smallmad:

Naw, I kid. :smallbiggrin:

[JadePhoenix]

I doubt the average paladin keeps Intimidate maxed
Well, a Child of Khyber is hardly an average paladin. He does keep it maxed, specially because it's the only social skill he doesn't get penalties due to the aberrant feats.


The standard action part is what kills me - if one round is all you need (per the Intimidate usage), then your Paladin could make that one round to do something else and make it count. If one round is not enough, neither is the feat.
In a round, he could a) use Enervate or b) use Vampiric Touch or c) do two attacks for nonimpressive damage. He is not a damage dealer, he was built to be tough because he wanted to be tough. One round is enough for our damage dealers to deal with most targets.


There is no point in time where a standard action Knight's Challenge is worth the opportunity cost, because if your group is killing all the things in one round, then the Paladin either has something better to do or is lagging hopelessly behind, and I don't need to know anything about your party's optimization level to know that's true, even though I know at least a little.)
He is definetely not lagging behind. Between his saves, Quick Recovery and endurance, he basically solved our encounter with mind flayers by himself.
We had two tough encounters last session and our characters where the only ones standing at the end; that's the reason we discussed taking Antagonize.


You are, however, technically correct, which is the best kind of correct (http://imgur.com/gallery/9kkXA), so do with the feat as your group will. :smallsmile:
I'm glad you will allow us to keep playing our game the way we have been doing. God forbid us doing that without your permission!



The feat changes nothing because it's pathetically weak and isn't worth taking. It won't turn any character into a tank by any stretch of the imagination.
I don't see how. Antagonize seems quite powerful to me. Unless you can explain why, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.


The Paladin will probably do well to take Antagonize. He doesn't look to be able to affect the battle decisively on his standard action.

You on the other hand I'd advise against it. You're a caster with decent spell list. Using Atnagonize means you're not casting a spell that round. You could spend your standard action using Antagonize to (moderately) inconvenience an enemy for 1 round, or you could use a standard action to cast let's say Black Tentacles and inconvenience multiple enemies for multiple rounds.
My thoughts exactly.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, a Child of Khyber is hardly an average paladin. He does keep it maxed, specially because it's the only social skill he doesn't get penalties due to the aberrant feats.

I have already confessed to not knowing much about the Child of Khyber PrC.


In a round, he could a) use Enervate or b) use Vampiric Touch or c) do two attacks for nonimpressive damage. He is not a damage dealer, he was built to be tough because he wanted to be tough. One round is enough for our damage dealers to deal with most targets.

All of those sounds like better options, frankly.


He is definetely not lagging behind. Between his saves, Quick Recovery and endurance, he basically solved our encounter with mind flayers by himself.
We had two tough encounters last session and our characters where the only ones standing at the end; that's the reason we discussed taking Antagonize.

Then he has something better to do, as we've established.

Isn't it great how "either/or" statements work? :smallwink:


I'm glad you will allow us to keep playing our game the way we have been doing. God forbid us doing that without your permission!

You're welcome! :smallsmile:

You have another rather large post addressed solely to me that I haven't addressed. It looks like it was edited in to the post I addressed which had one line prior, and I didn't see it until now. Would you like me to address those points? I feel like I'm being rude by ignoring it.


I don't see how. Antagonize seems quite powerful to me. Unless you can explain why, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.

/cough


I would just ask your DM if he's willing to let roleplaying act as a suitable substitute for the feat, because talking is a free action (and this feat is a standard action, which is basically your paladin friend's turn), rolling dice means a possibility of failure, the Intimidate one is the only one worth using (the Diplomacy use amounts to your Paladin friend using his standard action to cast Doom with restrictions, which is literally pathetic when you consider that any character capable of reliably using Diplomacy to impose a shaken penalty could almost as easily make a "hostile" enemy "not hostile", and can do it more easily if you're using 3.5's Diplomacy rules as opposed to Pathfinder's) and somehow I doubt the average paladin keeps Intimidate maxed, it's limited-use (once per person per day, which gives you a fleeting moment against them before they are free to act otherwise) and it costs a feat for something that you can't use on creatures immune to mind-affecting effects (constructs, oozes, plants, vermin, undead and swarms) or with an INT of 3 or less (animals and some magical beasts, plus the occasional mindless creature regardless of type), may well be language-dependent (this really depends on how your DM approaches Diplomacy and Intimidate, and RAW isn't a legitimate complaint on my part, but dammit I'm butt-hurt that my point-form essay could be challenged by a single poorly-conceived feat! :smallannoyed: ... :smallbiggrin:), and is in all other ways indistinct from something that could just be roleplayed without the mechanic.

The standard action part is what kills me - if one round is all you need (per the Intimidate usage), then your Paladin could make that one round to do something else and make it count. If one round is not enough, neither is the feat.

I didn't mean to insult with the Futurama reference--Antagonize is a mechanic designed to make a "tank" character "tank"--but it is still terrible. Even knowing that the Paladin has Intimidate maxed (and thus has access to the better of two uses) doesn't change that.

EDIT: I mean, seriously, the difference between Antagonize and being a jerk without Antagonize is the following:

With Antagonize:
Paladin: "Your grandmother douches with rotten eggs!"
DM: "OK, roll an Intimidate check at DC21."
/Paladin rolls
Paladin: "...19."
DM: "OK, that was fun. What do you want to do with your move action?"

Without Antagonize:
Paladin: "Your grandmother douches with rotten eggs!"
DM: "BBEG doesn't seem happy about that. He shouts obscenities at you as he swings his axe/sword/spare limb/spell at you."
Paladin: "Great! I full-attack him."

Antagonize happens to be one of those rare moments where Stormwind Fallacy proves to be true by trading role-play for roll-play on a 1:1 basis, and yet simultaneously proves it false by being horribly underpowered in the process.

[JadePhoenix]

/cough


Your quote basically says "ask your DM for houserules". That's not an argument against the feat's efficiency.




Then he has something better to do, as we've established.

Isn't it great how "either/or" statements work? :smallwink:

Except what he does better is "take hits". He was built to do just that (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241173).

[Lonely Tylenol]

Your quote basically says "ask your DM for houserules". That's not an argument against the feat's efficiency.

"Roleplaying" is not a houserule. Since the feat is mind-effecting and possibly language-dependent, there is not a single enemy that can be reasonably affected by Antagonize, but not by shouting obscenities at them. Otherwise, it's a standard action to do something that there technically isn't a mechanic for, but isn't really worth the novelty.


Except what he does better is "take hits". He was built to do just that (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241173).

I can think of better ways to "take hits" than Antagonize. Shouting obscenities is a free action and doesn't cost a feat, so if it works one time in a thousand, it's worth the nothing that it costs, and frees up feat slots for the ability to do something ridiculously badass, which will probably throw him into the "this guy should take some hits" category.

You've adequately convinced me with past posts that your group (DM and players alike) is savvy enough about this sort of thing to not need Antagonize either to drop things effectively or to find a way to do it that doesn't rely on obviously sub-par and superfluous mechanics, and I hope that the reductio ad absurdum and either/or arguments haven't created any confusions about that. That's why I'm telling you right now that it is a trap for all of the reasons listed above and more. You can take my word for it or don't (and even if, when it works, your Paladin will I guess have the satisfaction of getting hit a lot successfully combined with the frustration of not being able to do more... Which I guess is what it's like when people eat fast food?).

EDITing this in from the first page, because I EDITed it in after your response:


EDIT: I mean, seriously, the difference between Antagonize and being a jerk without Antagonize is the following:

With Antagonize:
Paladin: "Your grandmother douches with rotten eggs!"
DM: "OK, roll an Intimidate check at DC21."
/Paladin rolls
Paladin: "...19."
DM: "OK, that was fun. What do you want to do with your move action?"

Without Antagonize:
Paladin: "Your grandmother douches with rotten eggs!"
DM: "BBEG doesn't seem happy about that. He shouts obscenities at you as he swings his axe/sword/spare limb/spell at you."
Paladin: "Great! I full-attack him."

Antagonize happens to be one of those rare moments where Stormwind Fallacy proves to be true by trading role-play for roll-play on a 1:1 basis, and yet simultaneously proves it false by being horribly underpowered in the process.

Even in the cases where the latter fails without Antagonize, he's still only wasted a free action against the Antagonize example's standard. It is literally making roleplaying and mechanics worse.

[Answerer]

I don't see how. Antagonize seems quite powerful to me. Unless you can explain why, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.
It's not.

You're spending a Standard doing nothing, hoping that the other guy's Standard will do nothing.

First, you need someone to use it on. Plenty of things are going to be immune, and in the case of large numbers of weak enemies, it's useless.

Second, the target could make his Save. That's true of all Save-or- effects, but it's an issue.

Third, assuming it works, the target is not required to give up as many actions as you have. Ideally, the target spends his entire turn attacking the Paladin and misses. In this case, the Paladin and the target have both given up their turns for no net effect; this is a wash, and confers on the Paladin no advantage.

But in less-than-ideal situations, the Paladin is included in an effect -- that still targets his teammates. An AoE, or a full-attack that hits the Paladin once and hits an ally on all of the other attacks, etc. In this case, the Paladin has spent more of his actions doing nothing than the target has. Not to mention the entirely possible scenario where the Paladin actually takes serious damage during this debacle.

In order for control abilities to be meaningful, they have to confer an advantage. Your target needs to lose more actions than you do. That is not even remotely the case with Antagonize.

And this is after you spent a feat, and a skill point each level, just to get this option and make it functional.

It is not a good feat.

[Mr Tumnus]

Your quote basically says "ask your DM for houserules". That's not an argument against the feat's efficiency.

He wasn't saying "Ask your DM for houserules" he was just making a comment about how painfully obvious how bad that feat is.

Hypothetical situation, a creature wades into combat. Your paladin antagonizes him, OH NOES! HE DOESN"T SPEAK COMMON. The paladin proceeds to do ANYTHING ELSE.


You cannot make this check against a creature that does not understand you or has an Intelligence score of 3 or lower.

[BlueEyes]

It is said that one of the things that make Tanking in D&D hard or almost non-viable is the fact that there's not many mechanical ways to aggro. You can optimize your "tank" how much you like, but if the enemy just ignores him, you're just wasting time. Antagonize helps with that.
You can roleplay the most annoying or insulting character you want, but just hurling obscenities at your opponents doesn't force them to attack you.

[Gavinfoxx]

It is said that one of the things that make Tanking in D&D hard or almost non-viable is the fact that there's not many mechanical ways to aggro. You can optimize your "tank" how much you like, but if the enemy just ignores him, you're just wasting time. Antagonize helps with that.
You can roleplay the most annoying or insulting character you want, but just hurling obscenities at your opponents doesn't force them to attack you. You need mechanical ways.

The thing is.. Antagonize doesn't help with that, for reasons that have been mentioned.

The better ways of tanking are to be a legitimate and immediate threat to enemies, or to lockdown large swathes of enemies with knock-down, trip, stand still, or even various other melee debuffs.

[BlueEyes]

It draws aggro.

[Gavinfoxx]

Not successfully! It's intended to do that, and fails miserably.

[Deox]

Let's look at the application of each use -

The Diplomacy version (assuming best case scenario and you beat the DC), makes it so they have a -2 penalty to attack rolls (but not against you). This would be alright in the lower levels, but its usefulness quickly flies out the window. Sure the 10% spell failure rate is nice, but it only applies if you're somehow not involved in the target area.

Intimidate's version explicitly states that once you target a creature with this use, you can't target them again for 1 day, regardless if the check is successful.

The feat doesn't draw "aggro"; it draws away from picking a better feat.

[JadePhoenix]

Well, look at that. I talked to my DM regarding the whole Antagonize conundrum and he thinks the feat is not necessary and really is going to allow RP alone to provide such benefits. Looks like I was wrong.

[Lord_Gareth]

The feat doesn't draw "aggro"; it draws away from picking a better feat.

This is true of almost all of Pathfinder's 'melee' feats. Paizo either genuinely can't design their way out of a paper bag or actively hates melee, but either way it's more full of traps than Admiral Ackbar's Christmas Party.

[Deox]

Paizo either genuinely can't design their way out of a paper bag or actively hates melee

Can't it be both?

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, look at that. I talked to my DM regarding the whole Antagonize conundrum and he thinks the feat is not necessary and really is going to allow RP alone to provide such benefits. Looks like I was wrong.

Worth every bit of aggro drawn by suggesting it.

Gotta get back to work.

Enjoy! :smallbiggrin:

[BlueEyes]

To be honest Antagonize is kinda broken, so it's good that your DM is cool with using roleplaying instead of rules. It's just that most DMs aren't satisfied with only that.

[Answerer]

Broken, as in a complete trap of a feat? Absolutely, but so are many others.

Broken, as in overpowered? Not even remotely. It's a bad use of an action, even if you didn't need a feat and skill points to use it. Since you do, it's awful.

[BlueEyes]

No, it's broken because it can be abused.

[Gavinfoxx]

How, exactly, can it be abused? It's a complete crap feat that sucks even if it DOES work! And it isn't likely to work!

[Reverent-One]

I assume he's referring to the original wording of the feat, which required the target to attack you with a melee attack. No ranged attacks or spells allowed. That Wizard with 8 strength that attacks at range? Now he's going to run up and try to punch you.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I assume he's referring to the original wording of the feat, which required the target to attack you with a melee attack. No ranged attacks or spells allowed. That Wizard with 8 strength that attacks at range? Now he's going to run up and try to punch you.

OK, that *is* broken. It breaks verisimilitude open so wide, you could stick your arm in up to the elbow and wiggle it around.

It's also frighteningly good (like, pass the Intimidate DC against my sorry rear good), but for all the wrong reasons. All of them.

[BlueEyes]

It allows to just make anyone attack you for no reason. It might be "crap" in combat, but it is abusable out of combat.
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3v4s&page=1?Antagonize

[Answerer]

Actually, I love the must-attack-with-a-melee-attack version. That one actually does something – a lot of things. Almost like a spell, gasp! Make it once per encounter, and it's a great feat.

[Lonely Tylenol]

It allows to just make anyone attack you for no reason. It might be "crap" in combat, but it is abusable out of combat.
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3v4s&page=1?Antagonize

That... Actually is abusable. Two guys sit down at a bar to discuss business, things turn ugly, one uses Antagonize, Greedo shoots first, Han (and any friends) descend on him, and nobody bats an eyelash because it's all self-defense. Suddenly, no one person is safe from going Hulk-mad (without the rage benefits), even in casual conversation! PC wants an apple, takes it from the cart, Antagonizes the cart owner, cart owner strikes, and suddenly he needs to be restrained for the good of society for his random outbursts! But don't worry--the PCs will watch his cart until he gets free!

Madness! Madness, I tell you!

On a more serious note, JadePhoenix, regarding this Paladin's Intimidate skill: is it optimized, and what of 3.5 is on the table? Intimidate can be used to tank in the Antagonize sense, but if you optimize it well, you can also Fear the bejeezus out of people, which is basically the same thing but with a RIDICULOUS payoff in 3.P (and for roughly the same cost). Imperious Command makes everyone cower for a full round, then become shaken for the next round, and the Fearsome armor property (both of which are Drow of the Underdark) turns your Imperious Command-beefed demoralize into a move action. Then, the skill trick Never Outnumbered (Complete Scoundrel) allows you to fear-bomb everyone within so and so feet of you (away from books) 1/encounter (you can still repeatedly fear bomb any single person after expending the skill trick though), which means you can get literally everyone around you to cower in fear for one round. This is basically the same principle as tanking (you root someone's feet to the ground and make them stay put where you want), with roughly the same check DC, but instead of making them hit you, you just make them sit in the fetal position and rock for awhile.

Now here's the juicy part: you can combine this with, say, Dastardly Finish (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dastardly-finish-combat[/url) on the Assassin (or anyone who qualifies), allowing them to basically coup anyone that can be Intimidated. The result is that you can do the same thing as Antagonize, but with smaller actions, they do nothing but cower instead of attacking, you can bomb a city block with it*, and your Assassin can pick one person out of the crowd and just auto-kill them. Well... More easily than Death Attack, anyway. Also, White Raven Tactics. Somehow.

And then afterward? Bully them into fighting you, Antagonize-style, only without the feat (resolve as roleplay), and now you've given them a REASON to think they should poke the Paladin hard (the Paladin is literally the most fearsome thing around).

Does that help? :smallbiggrin:

[Mr Tumnus]

It allows to just make anyone attack you for no reason. It might be "crap" in combat, but it is abusable out of combat.
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3v4s&page=1?Antagonize

Again, for all the wrong reasons. It's viability as a "I want to be a **** and ruin everyone's good time" is great but do you really want to be that guy.

[BlueEyes]

Who said anything about it's viability?

[JadePhoenix]

On a more serious note, JadePhoenix, regarding this Paladin's Intimidate skill: is it optimized, and what of 3.5 is on the table?

Everything 3.5 might be used. Imperious Command does seem like a good idea, but the Paladin has maxed Intimidate, good Charisma and that's it. He would demoralize as a standard action. Still seems like a good idea.
Our assassin does not qualify for dastardly finish (only 3d6 sneak attack), and since it looks like she'll be multiclassing into JPM, I don't think she ever will, though.
Thanks for the suggestion.

[BlueEyes]

Take the Never Outnumbered skill trick.

[JadePhoenix]

Take the Never Outnumbered skill trick.

It's still a standard action, it just affects more people. Good idea, still.

[Lonely Tylenol]

It's still a standard action, it just affects more people. Good idea, still.

The Fearsome armor property (which I also mentioned, also from the same book as Imperious Command) has a flat gp cost (meaning it is less prohibitive, cost-wise, than a +1), gives a +5 to Intimidate checks, and makes demoralizing a move action, which means that, in addition to demoralizing multiple people (and forcing them to cower in fear), the Paladin player gets to keep their standard action (which can be used to cast the Paladin's one spell, the dragon mark SLAs, or, of they dip Crusader or Warblade next level, use a strike, or even just attack or move or whatever it is the player wants to do with a standard action).

I mentioned all three things together for a reason: Imperious Command alone is okay (it amounts basically to trading actions, same as Antagonize, but with an actual debuff worth mentioning), two is good (either you're doing the same trick as a move action or you're doing it to multiple people, both of which are positive trades in action economy), but three is amazing, because it has the opportunity to shut down an entire encounter, and then use your standard action (the best kind of action) to do stuff (the best kind of stuff). This is literally good enough to burn a feat on something subpar like Skill Focus (which, admittedly, is less subpar in Pathfinder, if only because of the bonus being doubled) just to make it better, especially because, since it is repeatable, nothing stops you from fear-locking the same enemy until death except for your ability to pass the DC (well, that and immunities). Zhentarim Fighter has been considered a whole tier higher than Fighter just because it can do this trick as a swift action, meaning it can do this and then full attack (and in 3.P? Zhentarim Sneak Attack Thug Fighter 9 has +5d6 Sneak Attack, the skills to maximize Intimidate and take skill tricks with a dumped INT, and can demoralize as a swift action, so it can take Dastardly Finish at 9, allowing it to force its foe to cower as a swift action and then perform a coup de grace on the same cowering foe in the same round, a trick I've called "No Merci, Boo, Coup" because I'm precisely the type of contemptible scoundrel who would layer puns and foreign naming conventions in such a stupid fashion).

Anyway, TL;DR: Imperious Command is okay. Imperious Command with Fearsome armor or Never Outnumbered is good. Imperious Command with Fearsome Armor and Never Outnumbered is a pants-wittingly awesome gleegasm of fun! If you can't get Fearsome because of prior WBL commitments, that's okay, but the amount of awesome is practically exponential.

And to answer your previous post, it's a shame that the Assassin can't take Dastardly Finish, but the cowering condition imposes a penalty to AC and denies DEX bonus to AC, so the Assassin and any other precision damage users in your campaign will thank your Paladin for its use. ;)

[JadePhoenix]

The Fearsome armor property (which I also mentioned, also from the same book as Imperious Command) has a flat gp cost (meaning it is less prohibitive, cost-wise, than a +1), gives a +5 to Intimidate checks, and makes demoralizing a move action, which means that, in addition to demoralizing multiple people (and forcing them to cower in fear), the Paladin player gets to keep their standard action (which can be used to cast the Paladin's one spell, the dragon mark SLAs, or, of they dip Crusader or Warblade next level, use a strike, or even just attack or move or whatever it is the player wants to do with a standard action).

I didn't comment on this because we won't be getting it, at least not for a long time. We're on the run, the kingdom considers us pirates and we're basically Public Enemy Number 1. No wizard would craft anything for us, because the bounty on our heads is worth a lot more.

[Lord_Gareth]

I didn't comment on this because we won't be getting it, at least not for a long time. We're on the run, the kingdom considers us pirates and we're basically Public Enemy Number 1. No wizard would craft anything for us, because the bounty on our heads is worth a lot more.

Clawlock isn't high enough level to craft it?

[Lonely Tylenol]

I didn't comment on this because we won't be getting it, at least not for a long time. We're on the run, the kingdom considers us pirates and we're basically Public Enemy Number 1. No wizard would craft anything for us, because the bounty on our heads is worth a lot more.

...Any chance you could convince your DM to run a fear-bomber against your party, then kill the fear-bomber and strip them of their armor? :smalltongue:

EDIT, in response to Lord Gareth:

The Fearsome armor property has a CL 3 requirement and no spell requirement, which means a +1 Fearsome full plate can be made by literally anybody capable of taking the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat, even people low enough level to bully into the making.

Which brings me back to JadePhoenix:

You could answer this question better than I, but is there absolutely anybody in the world weak enough to intimidate into perform a task for you, selfish enough to be intimidated (somebody who can be bought, basically), who is capable of crafting any magic arms and armor (which is to say CL 3 or higher)? I understand HR is scarce, but literally anybody will do. There's no reason to be picky if you can't afford to be.

[JadePhoenix]

Clawlock isn't high enough level to craft it?

No, Warlocks can only begin crafting at level 12, I think.

[Urpriest]

Clawlock isn't high enough level to craft it?

They're 8th level, see OP.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I made a lengthy edit to the last post of the previous page which might as well be its own post, so here goes:

In response to Lord Gareth:

The Fearsome armor property has a CL 3 requirement and no spell requirement, which means a +1 Fearsome full plate can be made by literally anybody capable of taking the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat, even people low enough level to bully into the making... So while the lock can't, nearly anybody else can.

Which brings me back to JadePhoenix:

You could answer this question better than I, but is there absolutely anybody in the world weak enough to intimidate into perform a task for you, selfish enough to be intimidated (somebody who can be bought, basically), who is capable of crafting any magic arms and armor (which is to say CL 5 or higher)? I understand HR is scarce, but literally anybody will do. There's no reason to be picky if you can't afford to be.

[JadePhoenix]

You could answer this question better than I, but is there absolutely anybody in the world weak enough to intimidate into perform a task for you, selfish enough to be intimidated (somebody who can be bought, basically), who is capable of crafting any magic arms and armor (which is to say CL 5 or higher)? I understand HR is scarce, but literally anybody will do. There's no reason to be picky if you can't afford to be.

Well, eventually we won't be criminals anymore (we hope) than it might work. Right now we have other priorities.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, eventually we won't be criminals anymore (we hope) than it might work. Right now we have other priorities.

Ah, gotcha.

In that case, ask your Paladin to take Imperious Command and the Never Outnumbered skill trick at 9, and maybe Skill Focus (Intimidate) at 11 if you guys decide it's worth it. Some of the puzzle is not as good as all, but it's still good.

[JadePhoenix]

Ah, gotcha.

In that case, ask your Paladin to take Imperious Command and the Never Outnumbered skill trick at 9, and maybe Skill Focus (Intimidate) at 11 if you guys decide it's worth it. Some of the puzzle is not as good as all, but it's still good.

I think he'll take Quicken SLA at 11. His plan was originally to take it twice, at 9 and at 11. He becomes a lot deadlier with quickened enervation.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think he'll take Quicken SLA at 11. His plan was originally to take it twice, at 9 and at 11. He becomes a lot deadlier with quickened enervation.

Oh? No arguing there... :smallbiggrin: