Tank help (Ardent or otherwise)?

[20percentcooler]

I'm playing an ardent in the upcoming (Level 3) campaign, and my role is the tank. I have my AC up to 23, but I was wondering if anyone knows any really good tanky feats. Thanks!

[Psyren]

What do you mean by "Tank?" Typically in RPGs, a tank is someone that takes damage for the party by forcing enemies to attack him - but in D&D, there is no real aggro system, so you need battlefield control to funnel attackers to you instead.

If that is what you meant, your powers will do a much better job of that than any physical feat. Techniques like Share Pain, Dimension Swap and Expansion will ensure that nothing can harm your teammates instead of you, and Vigor + a Psicrystal will keep you alive through all that punishment.

In short, all the regular manifester feats will do the job just fine.

[Dr Bwaa]

The Devoted Defender PrC from Sword and Fist is a pretty fun path to take; it's more of a bodyguard role (you can only protect one person at a time--your "Charge") but it's pretty good at what it does if you have a way to extend a bit of protection to your other teammates outside the class's abilities.

Perks: enemies attacking your Charge provoke AOOs from you, you can deflect melee attacks against your Charge if you're in range, and you can switch places with your charge to if they would be hit, and receive the attack yourself instead (which may not even hit you since you probably have much better AC). Take that Arrow of Death yourself instead of letting it hit the party Wizard.

I'd try to get your DM to waive the horribleterrible Alertness prerequisite though, if you can. :smallannoyed:

[eggs]

I don't know if you're looking for standard advice or something more in-depth. As far as basic combos for an Ardent/Psionic tank:

A psionic character, the Share Pain/Vigor/Psicrystal trick makes your HP go a lot further. The trick essentially boils down to manifesting Share Pain to split any damage you take between yourself and your psicrystal for a long duration; then when fights start, manifest Vigor to give yourself and your psicrystal 5 temp HP per PP each (ideally you would do this with Link or Quicken Power, so you can still fight in the first round); this gives you a good HP buffer of your own through Vigor, but half of that damage is being distributed to your psicrystal, filtered through its hardness, and then buffered again by the Psicrystal's iteration of the vigor power.

Expansion and the Reach (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040827e) Power can give you wider reach, which is useful for battlefield control. To turn that reach into control, you can use things like the Stand Still feat to stop movement or the Knockback feat from Races of Stone to push targets around (especially if you've dipped into Fighter for the Dungeoncrasher alternate class feature in Dungeonscape, which does very high damage to anyone pushed into a wall); Bracers of Opportunity from Magic Item Compendium can Expansion builds' typical Combat Reflexes troubles, and allow you to restrict more than one creature's movement per round.

Linked Power from Complete Psionic is good enough to almost always be useful on psionic builds, but especially on tanks. It's very close to a free Quicken Power, but with 1 round's delay, a slightly lower PP cap (since you have to manifest two powers within your normal cap) and no manifesting time for the second power. If you take it along with a low-PP cost Swift or Immediate power like Dimension Hop, Grip of Iron, Hustle or Reach, you can drop a swift power in the first round for a minor buff and engage in combat immediately, waiting for your bigger buffs like augmented expansions and metamorphosis to come into play in the second round.

War Troll (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b&page=6) Metamorphoses are also great for tanks, due to the dazing rider effect on attacks. There's a good chance they're too great, but a high-strength Tripper or Improved Grabber like a Dire Wolf, Dire Bear or Monstrous Scorpion can also get some decent control-based rider effects out in a lower-powered game.

[Psyren]

Ardents in particular are suited to this. The Guardian and Justice Mantles + some other powers lets you pull off most if not all of the tricks in Dr Bwaa's post. And their unique method of power access means that multiclassing for proficiencies is less burdensome.

[Bloodgruve]

Goad (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-adventurer--54/goad--1237/) is one of the few real 'taunts' in the game aside form some class features.

Dampen Power is a great tanky power.

Dimension Twister is great for some damage and pulling an enemy close.

Energy Emanation is good for having groups stuck on you especially if you are a tripper.

Freedom Mantle + Linked Power + Dominant Ideal ACF is great. Dimension Hop>Hustle or Hustle>Hustle or whatever. This could be used in conjunction with Goad for a single 'taunt' per turn while retaining your actions.

Substitute Power is IMHO one of the best ACF's out there. Take a domain and if you feel a power fits the flavor just throw it in, be ready to have a good explanation for your DM :)

I would take Guardian, Freedom and maybe Natural World mantles. ACF Claws of the Beast to Natural World for some scaling fun. I ran Corruption and Madness with Form of Doom ACF'd in for some Cthulhu'esque flavor.

GL
Blood~