Best way to build a tank?

[Tvtyrant]

As the above question. I have heard of the Cube before, but is there any other good ways an Artificer or Wizard can make a tank?

[Aegis013]

You can always BFC the enemies so they can't move or just drop a bunch of summons down to make a wall of hp between you and the enemy.

[Tvtyrant]

You can always BFC the enemies so they can't move or just drop a bunch of summons down to make a wall of hp between you and the enemy.
I meant like a Landbattleship tank, not the MMO term.

[Aegis013]

A Warforged can alter self into animated objects. Could just become a tank looking thing that way.

Or find some way to become a Juggernaut from MMII (18hd construct, it's quite weak, but it looks like a tank thing).

[Rebel7284]

Metamorphosis? Greater Metamorphosis? Both can do objects.

The former can debatably be obtained via Limited Wish or you can always do Psionic artificer or Cerebremancer.

[Lightlawbliss]

you could talk with your dm and see if they would let you change the body shape of a golem (probolly iron).

[Inferno]

Magic of Eberron has the Earth Sled, with a bound Huge Earth Elemental to power it, for 24000g.
It doesn't have any armaments listed, but at 30' long and 15' wide it should accommodate whatever ballistas/mounted crossbows/cannons or whatever happens to be appropriate to your game.
As listed its more a transport than a tank, but it shouldn't take too much to modify it to be more tank-like.

[Tvtyrant]

Magic of Eberron has the Earth Sled, with a bound Huge Earth Elemental to power it, for 24000g.
It doesn't have any armaments listed, but at 30' long and 15' wide it should accommodate whatever ballistas/mounted crossbows/cannons or whatever happens to be appropriate to your game.
As listed its more a transport than a tank, but it shouldn't take too much to modify it to be more tank-like.

That's a pretty good find! Stick an obdurium shell on it and some animate siege weapons that reload themselves...

[Inferno]

I'm a pretty huge fan of Eberron's assorted elemental powered vehicles.
They just make so much more sense to me than having a standard, real-like galleon or some such ruling the seas in a world as magic-saturated as d&d calls for.
And all the flavor of elemental binding is just solid gold. It being a lower magic "shortcut" of sorts with all the drawbacks of the elemental potentially breaking free and wreaking havoc on your now un-powered vehicle. Awesome.

[NevinPL]

Arms and Equipment Guide has vehicles (Forest Crawler is interesting), and upgrades for them. For example, you can "transform" any sea vessel, into a land vessel (Earth Keel). So slap that onto Gnome submersible, and you got yourself a big tank (sort of).

[Piggy Knowles]

Two words: haunt shift.

Actually, five words: haunt shift and spell turrets.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Be a Malconvoker and just summon the tanks.

[ShurikVch]

Why not just Gate it?

Alternatively, you can:
1) Time travel (via spell or Time Dragon)
2) Get blueprints of tank
3) Fabricate the tank's components.
4) Assemble the tank.

[Drachasor]

Probably easiest to steal from Pathfinder for this, imho.

Pathfinder has rules for building and modifying constructs. They're available for free on the PFSRD. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/building-and-modifying-constructs)

This includes rules for making Constructs based on Animate Objects, including out of special materials like Adamantine.

Going off the guidelines, you could go with a Gargantuan or Colossal Animated object, depending on how big you want it to be. They can be given extra attacks, and the Construct rules let you give a construct a weapon to replace an attack at the cost of the weapon. A gargantuan ballista or two could be effective. Or you could have a much shorter range attack - converting an animated object's slam attack to a ranged attack gives an attack that does the same damage but has an increment of 20 feet.

A Gargantuan Adamantine Animated Tank with 10 Hit Dice (average HP 115) with 2 ranged attacks would cost 16,000gp to enchant (you'd also have to pay for the adamantine body). It would have a hardness of 20, which resists normal attacks AND energy attacks. It could move and attack on its own. It would have a base speed of 30ft.

For 1,000 gp it could fly or move at 40ft.

However, an Adamantine Construct is probably too expensive to make.

Tank attacks are harder, really, especially since Constructs have lousy dex scores (so their ranged attacks are much worse). Beyond giving them thrown weapons, intelligence, and the feat that lets them use their strength, you could go with a character handling long-range bombardment using magic or the like.

[Vizzerdrix]

Effigy Siege crab. Then give it platemail barding covered in spell turrets.

Side note: less expensive than the apparatus of Kwalash. (sp?)

[Drachasor]

Effigy Siege crab. Then give it platemail barding covered in spell turrets.

Side note: less expensive than the apparatus of Kwalash. (sp?)

Kwalish. The apparatus is overpriced and has really bizarre mechanics that were never fully updated to something more sensible in 3.X.

[Piggy Knowles]

Play a cloistered cleric 1/binder 3/(anything) 1/chameleon 10.

Use walls of iron and stone, and some purchased lead, to get the materials for a siege engine. Use guidance of the avatar, divine insight and magecraft to get an outrageous craft bonus, then fabricate the raw materials into a lead-lined metal box with a stone interior and wheels.

Cast hardening several times every off day to make your tank harder and harder to break into.

Use your floating bonus feat to craft a spell turret. For your four spells, you can go nuts, but let's keep this simple. You need four spells of the same level, and each of different schools. Greater dispel magic (abjuration), disintegrate (transmutation), waves of exhaustion (necromancy), sculpted wall of force (evocation). Sounds good to me, but a little bit of thought could come up with something more interesting. Hell, create five spell turrets if you want, and have a variety of attacks.

Kill something and animate it, keep it under your control, then haunt shift it so that it haunts your tank. It can see and hear sixty feet in all directions, and since it has moving parts, it can move on its own without needing the 10+ HD option (which is outside of the range of the haunt shift spell). Teleport inside your tank of death, and spy on the outside with a Malphas raven while directing your animated spirit to move the tank. Once inside, cast forbiddance to prevent anyone else from teleporting or phasing in.

Meanwhile, your spell turret is firing off greater dispels, disintegrating obstacles, exhausting enemies in a wide berth with no save, and surrounding itself with an impenetrable wall of force.