Arcane Bastion

[SamsDisciple]

So recently I was looking at builds for the old neverwinter nights game and there was a build titled Arcane Bastion that made me wonder if something like this would work in regular old 3.5 and if there were better class combos. The basic idea was to use wizard spells to cause an effect of damaging anybody who hits the character then use dwarven defender to have damage reduction vs everything so the character buffs up then just sits in the middle of battle wandering around and letting people hit him till they are dead while not getting alot of damage himself. So now playground lets come up with some ideas so my character can become a reality.

TLDR version: Character with low AC, High DR, hurts attacker whenever he gets hit

[ArcturusV]

Hmm... probably need a template race of some sort. Like going for a Devil-Blooded AND Demon-Blooded. That's 4 LA you're eating right there, which is bad if you can't buy it off. But the reason I mention it is, off the top of my head, you get a bunch of Energy Resistances. I think they stack. So you'd end up having immunity to Electricity, 20 Fire, 20 Acid. Important sort of thing as you don't want someone to just use something like Lightning Bolts to take out down. You'd also get scaling DR with levels from each of them. So you'd have DR 10/Good and Cold Iron, and DR 10/Good and Silver, eventually. You would be gaining +2 Natural Armor per level. Which may not be your bag, as you said you want a low AC. But you kinda want SOME AC so a guy can't just Power Attack smash you to overcome your DR more easily.

[tuesdayscoming]

Psionics have a few nice tricks for this sort of thing. Empathic Feedback (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/empathicFeedback.htm), Forced Share Pain, and a few others.

The Binder class can also pick up an ability very similar to Forced Share Pain, through binding Dahlver Nar.

Clerics get the spell Divine Retaliation (http://dndtools.eu/spells/players-handbook-ii--80/divine-retaliation--2971/), which also fits the bill nicely.

Personally, my favorite way of doing a character like this is to use Shield Other or Glory of the Martyr on the whole party, then use Forced Share Pain or Dahlver Nar's Shield Self ability on the enemy. Add in fast healing, temporary hp, Delay Death (http://dndtools.eu/spells/races-of-destiny--81/delay-death--3048/), or Hostile Empathic Transfer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/empathicTransferHostile.htm) to taste!

[SamsDisciple]

I am liking the general idea of the psion doing this kind of build but can psions a) get damage reduction b) get healing for themselves c) get temp hitpoints to increase survivability

[Diarmuid]

The problem with this kind of build is/has always been why the opponents would continue to attack you over your allies when their attacks are doing little and you have little to do to them to deter them from it.

If you're not a threat, no intelligent attacker is going to waste time trying to drop you rather than your Rogue/Wizard/etc friend who's actually trying to kill them. There isnt a sufficient "Taunt" mechanic in D&D to make this really work.

Most of these builds invovle some kind of "lockdown" aspect to help deter enemies from simply bypassing you to get to your squishy friends.

[Psyren]

I am liking the general idea of the psion doing this kind of build but can psions a) get damage reduction b) get healing for themselves c) get temp hitpoints to increase survivability

a) Yes: see Touch of Health, Body Adjustment, etc.
b) Yes: see Biofeedback, Intertial Barrier, Immovability etc.
c) Yes: see Vigor (+ Share Pain), Assimilate etc.

[SamsDisciple]

So we have the correct powers and we have the ability to do the damage but as was intelligently pointed out we need to have a lock down mechanism of some sort or have a good enough incentive to have the enemies continue to attack me over my allies. I am fairly certain there is a set of body guard feats that would let me take an attack in the place of an adjacent ally to take some of the heat off of them, in some cases we just need to make them remember that I am a full caster and continue to blow them up until they attack me again and kill themselves (but this would end up being a large waste of resources per encounter), and this also seems like it would take several rounds of buffing since psionics dont metamagic the same way so I cant just quicken everything. I am still liking the idea but how do we get people to reasonably and by RAW attack the full caster with flaming pajamas?

[Valwyn]

You could try the Goad feat, but it's not as good as Taunt in NWN (move action to make a single enemy within melee attack you next turn, but it can still take other actions normally).

Also remember that reach weapons didn't exist in NWN. Death Armor, Fire Shield and Acid Sheath will get foiled by a longspear in the actual games (unfortunately). Dunno if psionics can deal with that.