How do you play a tank? And party help

[Sir cryosin]

Ok so I'm in a party of 4 but it will be 3 most of the time. One player she tends to play range character and is afraid to mix it up in melee if she doesn't have to. The other player tends to be melee player. He has played a EK, melee Goliath storm sorcerer, rouge melee, and now a shadow monk with a couple of lvs rogue. I have created second line range characters I was a shadow monk, warlock 2 fightet xbows man 12 as a demon hunter type build, then a paladin that didn't make it pass 3ed lv, then I just lost this character a gunslinger fighter archtype pistol and shield. Had a AC of 18 at lv 5. I was getting attached to the character. But lost him to the female rogue assassin suffering from a madness that turned her into a freaking psychopathic killer. While we were setting up an ambush 30 nowles. DM let me use the unearth arcana close combat fighting style so I played like a tank I was up in monsters face point blank firing. I was doing good keep ago most of the time but I really don't have no exp plating tanks even tho I tend to play dps as tanks and I die a lot. So I want people to help me understand how to play tanks

[Sir cryosin]

Oh I for got to mention we never have any healers I tried with my palay but they toke him for granted.

[Douche]

When i play the tanks I like to have shield n plate mail then I tell all the bad guys, "Hey, jerk, I am the big scary and you must fight me" and then when they miss cuz I am uber armor I tell them "Hey Jeffret, you can't even hit me what a jerk" but then my DM rolls the miraculus crits like 4 times in a row, at which point I become angered and flip the tbales. There is just no way that you roled 15 crits in a row just cuz I have 21 AC and you are a big fat phony. I hate you. Then Faldrin the wizard tells me "Valakash, do not be angrered! The infallible DM is not trying to cheat. It happens, man!" but for truth, he plays in our other game and never rolls above 12. Something is fishy here. I cry fowl.

Sometimes I also like to tear doors off their hinges cuz then I have half cover and it provides an other +2 AC. So i carry a shield in the one hand and a door in the otherr. I smash the door in the face of the enemy and exclaim "Knock knock, *****!" when it is time for my friends to be attacked I like to berate them and say you should have stayed back, fools. I find that verbal abuse it is the best way to motivate people. As the tank you should be a natural leader, valiantly charging to the front lines and as suich the leader must also be prepared to yell at his teammates when they are doing everything wrong.

I will leave you with this final tip; roleplaying is the best way to tank because there is not a taunting ability like in WoW. When I used to play WoW and the idiot DPS could not wait for me to pull the mobs, then I would let him die because he is an idiot and can pay the repair costs. But sometimes I was just doing poorly because I don't have a mouse, so I actually had to taunt so that everyone would not think I suck. In that case you are aware that there is not really a good option for taunting in D&D, therefore you must be creative. I enjoy personally insulting & taunting the DM through the guise of insulting his characters. He is quite fat, so even when his NPC is skinny I tell him to go eat a doughtnut. This will motivate the DM into wanting to kill you - but be warned, he will also cheat and say that he rolled many crits when in fact he is a liar. At this point you must call him on his bluff. But be sure to look at his body language and take verbal cues. I suggest watching some tutorial videos on how to detect a liar. Then you can make him look like a fool in front of everyone. It is a great time.

[MaxWilson]

To be a good tank, you need a way to ensure that the party as a whole is safe. One component is ensuring that you yourself are safe. AC 18 isn't enough to be a real tank. It's not really much different from AC 16.

A paladorcs with A.C. 21 plus disadvantage to enemy attacks from Blur can tank. So can an AC 18 grappler with a Sanctuary spell up. You need to find a defensive gimmick. Grappling is probably the easiest but spells like Wrathful Smite work too.

[JumboWheat01]

Step 1 - Be a Rock Gnome
Step 2 - Build a large, solid, mechanical device with a balista on top
Step 3 - Drive the mechanical device.

Okay, that may've been overly silly.

One good way to tank it up is the Sentinel feat. Using your Opportunity Attacks to prevent enemies from moving past you is a great way to keep squishier characters from taking a beating. Barbarians can also tank it up by providing a more obvious target. Granting advantage to your enemies is a good way to make them want to attack you.

[Theodoxus]

Snip

That was fantastic. And I call myself Extraordinaire - lol


To the OP, as my new friend above mentioned, there is no taunting ability, per se in 5E - there's some things that can fake it - and it's not hard to implement a 4E style leadership taunt into the game...

But just using feats, Polearm Master and Sentinel will together, provide a lot of stopping power to enemies trying to skirt you to get to your ranged party members. I recommend a hill dwarf bearbarian for maximum HP and rage soaking of incoming damage (in fact, I find it better to go shirtless, even if you don't max out Dex/Con - if things find you a tasty morsel of easy to hit bag of meat, they're more inclined to chomp on you, thus protecting your friends and smashing faces with your quarterstaff and shield.

Good luck!

[Sir cryosin]

First of all 18 ac was and still is the highest ac in the group. I had only 100 gp no were near a town didn't run in to anyone wearing plat. I was asking for tips on how to play a tankest character. You can't start off with 20 AC . Unless your play some house rules. My DM is a easy read we can tell when he rolls bad good or is getting to turn on his sadistic side. But he is fair and understanding. He likes to split monsters up and have one attack each party member. I would like for some ideas or opinions and options on how to control this type of play and how to be a better tank and some tank builds if there is some that do more damage it would be nice. I don't care about full lv 20 builds because we will most likely never reach lv 20. Around 10 to 15 is nice.

[JackPhoenix]

Snip

This post caused me literal physical pain from facepalming at its stupidity. Do not listen to its "advice" unless you wanted to be labeled That Guy and kicked out of the game.


First of all 18 ac was and still is the highest ac in the group. I had only 100 gp no were near a town didn't run in to anyone wearing plat. I was asking for tips on how to play a tankest character. You can't start off with 20 AC . Unless your play some house rules. My DM is a easy read we can tell when he rolls bad good or is getting to turn on his sadistic side. But he is fair and understanding. He likes to split monsters up and have one attack each party member. I would like for some ideas or opinions and options on how to control this type of play and how to be a better tank and some tank builds if there is some that do more damage it would be nice. I don't care about full lv 20 builds because we will most likely never reach lv 20. Around 10 to 15 is nice.

You can get starting AC 20 if you're playing warforged fighter with Defense FS. 16 chain mail, +2 shield, +1 FS, +1 Warforged. Everyone else can get 19 with Protection FS. Paladin 6+ high Charisma is good for increasing saving throws (not just yours, but for the whole party, but then they have to cluster which have its own disadvantages), barbarian 2 (bear totem) will give you resistance to all damage (except psychic) twice a day, plus advantage on strenght checks (like grapple or shove)

If the GM likes to split the monster attacks amongst the party, you should look into ways to stop them from moving to other targets: grapple, Sentinel feat, Protection FS to impose disadvantage on enemies attacking other party members. Even shoving the enemy prone may help. BM fighter have more options at his disposal, as do spellcasters. And remember, it's not just on you, but it relies on the whole group coordinating their tactics. If the other characters run around the battlefield as headless chicken without any cooperation, the best tank in the world won't help.

[Flashy]

If the GM likes to split the monster attacks amongst the party, you should look into ways to stop them from moving to other targets: grapple, Sentinel feat, Protection FS to impose disadvantage on enemies attacking other party members. Even shoving the enemy prone may help. BM fighter have more options at his disposal, as do spellcasters. And remember, it's not just on you, but it relies on the whole group coordinating their tactics. If the other characters run around the battlefield as headless chicken without any cooperation, the best tank in the world won't help.

This is a lovely summary. Tanking in 5e is largely positional.

[Sir cryosin]

We do theater of the mind so it a little hard to actually position everybody and one player like to stay far back as possible so it hard to cove so much so quickly efficiently. DM lime to use a lot of groups of monsters which is funny because the party is largely single target we have no aoe's and we are just now thinking about trying to get some aoe's.

[MaxWilson]

First of all 18 ac was and still is the highest ac in the group. I had only 100 gp no were near a town didn't run in to anyone wearing plat. I was asking for tips on how to play a tankest character. You can't start off with 20 AC . Unless your play some house rules. My DM is a easy read we can tell when he rolls bad good or is getting to turn on his sadistic side. But he is fair and understanding. He likes to split monsters up and have one attack each party member. I would like for some ideas or opinions and options on how to control this type of play and how to be a better tank and some tank builds if there is some that do more damage it would be nice. I don't care about full lv 20 builds because we will most likely never reach lv 20. Around 10 to 15 is nice.

And I gave you some tips. I was on phone so didn't write much, but with only AC 18 you will need to impose disadvantage on enemies somehow in order to be noticeably tougher than anyone else in the party. Grappling is one way to impose disadvantage.

Let me illustrate my point. I'm going to roll four sets of ten ogre attacks (+6 to hit). It doesn't necessarily represent ten ogres, it could be two ogres that take you five rounds to kill both. Two of these are against AC 16. Two are against AC 18.

#1: 4 hits
#2: 4 hits
#3: 3 hits
#4: 5 hits

Which are these are AC 16 and which are 18? The AC 18 guy is #1 and #3. Not a huge difference, not big enough that you will actually feel tankier.

Now I'm going to roll four sets of ten ogre attacks (+6 to hit). Two of these are against AC 16. Two of them are against an AC 19 Paladin (chain mail + shield + defense style) who is grappling a prone Ogre. (E.g. Paladin grappled the ogre on his turn and dragged him into a chokepoint; another PC Pushed the ogre prone with his halberd; the second ogre is either stuck outside the chokepoint or distracted by another PC.)

#1: 7 hits
#2: 2 hits
#3: 5 hits
#4: 1 hit

Which of these are AC 16 and which are the AC 19 grappler? The AC 19 grappler is #2 and #4. The difference is big enough to actually see.

In order to be an effective tank, you need at least one trick in addition to AC 18. It could be a Shield spell, or grappling, or Sanctuary (awesome no-concentration bonus action protection spell for a tank, and depending on how your DM interprets "attacks" it might be fully compatible with grappling enemies), or temp HP on kill as a Warlock/Long Death monk. But if all you've got is +2 to AC relative to another guy, you're not going to see a noticeable difference in your tankiness.

Edit: another great Paladin spell is Shield of Faith for AC 21. Wrathful Smite too, in a different way.

[Nicrosil]

Oh man, do I love tanking. I could give you tons of advice mechanics-wise, but first I'll need specifics. What level are you starting at and how far do you think you'll go? What books are available? What Unearthed Arcana stuff is legal, if any? Any homebrew?

Now, being a tank in battle is largely psychological. You could be a naked barbarian, a knight in full plate, hell, even an old man in a bathrobe, and still feel like a tank. You'll be at the front lines, the first line of defense the squishies, your squishies have. You'll be knee deep in the clotting blood of your foes and goddammit, you'll like it. If you should fall, your team will fall. Take that to heart. You are the mother bear, the old dragon, the grizzled general that they brought out of retirement one last time, the oncoming storm, the immovable object and the unstoppable force.. Your number one priority is not victory; **** victory. You're getting them out of here alive, dammit. Do whatever it takes, and may the gods have mercy on your soul.

So yeah, I like being a tank.

[Arkhios]

A few key points about being a tank:

1. Be threatening. A tank with high defenses but poor offensive capabilities is a bad tank. If you are difficult to hit, but in turn if either your damage output is crap or you're not imposing some other hindrances, your foes will ignore you and focus on the more squishy targets first, and then swarm on you as a dessert.

2. Be defending. Defend your allies at all costs, so that your allies will get the least amount of harm in their way. This can be achieved by positioning yourself in such a way that your allies are in relative safety from the targets you attempt to tank, or by tactical features such as protection style, sentinel feat, grappling, or via spells.

3. Be resilient. As a tank you willingly accept a large amount of harm inflicted upon you. High AC can mitigate this, but there are other abilities which can help you as well. Dodge action, Paladin auras, rage, shield master, various spells.

[JellyPooga]

We do theater of the mind so it a little hard to actually position everybody

This is a common fallacy.

Theatre of the Mind makes it easier to get good positioning, not harder. As the party Tank, phrases like "I move to a position to protect the Mage" or "I cover the door" or (In-character) "Get behind me! I've got this" does the job in seconds that a battle-grid sometimes doesn't even allow for (even though it probably should).

[djreynolds]

A few key points about being a tank:

1. Be threatening. A tank with high defenses but poor offensive capabilities is a bad tank. If you are difficult to hit, but in turn if either your damage output is crap or you're not imposing some other hindrances, your foes will ignore you and focus on the more squishy targets first, and then swarm on you as a dessert.

2. Be defending. Defend your allies at all costs, so that your allies will get the least amount of harm in their way. This can be achieved by positioning yourself in such a way that your allies are in relative safety from the targets you attempt to tank, or by tactical features such as protection style, sentinel feat, grappling, or via spells.

3. Be resilient. As a tank you willingly accept a large amount of harm inflicted upon you. High AC can mitigate this, but there are other abilities which can help you as well. Dodge action, Paladin auras, rage, shield master, various spells.

All are perfect points. Arkhios is on the money

Do they draw agro.

You must be seen as a target that must be destroyed. Do you appear threatening, a guy in plate armor appears threatening. The big bear is scary. A crazy naked person with a sword.

High AC that doesn't get cancelled out. Doesn't need a long rest. You can be hasted, but you are not the guy concentrating on the spell. At least 20 AC. Mirror image is nice.

Hit points galore, I can't worry about you, can you hold without any healing. The rogue is off trying to score big hits, the ranger is picking off people, the monk is going for the bad wizard, the cleric and bard are buffing. Can you hold your own for 5-6 rounds?

And for me, wisdom save proficiency. I do not need my expensively out-fitted tank turning on me. Resilient wisdom is easily obtained by a fighter.

A class feature or feat, like above. Dodge action is huge, defensive duelist is actually good for a sword and board- rapier is the same damage and a 13 in dex is cheap, shield spell, rage, stoneskin, heavy armor master

A class feature or feat for offense like above.

So high AC, high hit points, good DPR. And class features and feats and spells. You are on your own for at least 5 rounds. That can be a long time vs giants and undead and demons. Long enough for the monk and rogue and ranger to sculpt the battlefield, the buffers to buff, and casters to get going.

And evasion is nice, 7 levels of rogue or shield master, so your caster can drop something big on that group you are holding off, sculpt spell is very nice to have for a caster and his tanks.

[Lines]

Figure out a way to make smart things hit you. 'Hit hard so they want to attack you' is basically useless advice, there's basically nothing you can do that will make you a more appealing target than the wizard - even being a tanky wizard won't help, because then it's just a choice between attacking a tough wizard and a squishy wizard.

There are a few abilities which give the opponent disadvantage on attacks against targets other than you, and they're not a bad start (you want to pick one you can use repeatedly if possible), but it's not reliable, only gives disadvantage and doesn't work if they aren't using abilities that inflict saves.

Optimally you want to immobilise your enemy, means they can't attack anyone else in melee and party members can avoid being in line of sight if they have ranged abilities and makes it easy to cause disadvantage. Options include:

Grappling: Get high strength, grab athletics expertise from somewhere. Monsters tend not to have athletics trained, so you'll have an advantage of 4-12 +-strength difference. Once they're grappled you can trip them and they can't get up.

Tunnel fighter+polearm master+sentinel: If you can use UA stuff, grab tunnel fighter and opportunity attack your way to victory.

Reduce their speed: Spells like spirit guardians can reduce speed, combine with difficult terrain and they will usually only be able to move 5-10 feet a round.

Ask your DM for other stuff: Like marking from the DMG or to transfer stuff from editions like 4e that had actual tank abilities. A 4e fighter has proper lockdown, ask for some of their abilities.

[Sir cryosin]

Thanks for all ya'll help I have some other question one I'm the leader some what in are party but not really. It just 3 people just tagging alone with each other. How can I assume a proper leadership role. The current rogue she plays it safe with her characters and is all way plays a character with a bow. That's find but can be super quick to judge hard headed stubborn sometimes and just plain out full of her self. And the other player likes her and been hanging out with her out of the game. He's not a problem most of the time. She's fine untell my character does something hers or her don't like and then I get treated like **** untell she gets a chance to kill me. She has killed or been responsible for 4 of the groups pc deaths. She is sitting with more pc kills then the DM. How can I address this with out going drill sergeant on her. Because it's just a game and I like the group.

For who ever asked for my level I'm not playing a tank right now I'm tired of it so I'm playing a magic assassin that looks after his own ass for now.

[Arkhios]

All are perfect points. Arkhios is on the money

Do they draw agro.

I suppose 10+ years of playing a tank of various forms in various MMO's (mainly WoW, admittedly) leaves its mark on you :P
PS. there is actually one specific "taunt" in the game I'm aware of: Compelled Duel spell (at least on Paladin list, might be on other's too).
In fact, make that two; in Dungeon Master's Guide there is this optional rule about Mark (AFAIK, first introduced in 4th edition D&D) which essentially is a taunt. Not a compelling one, but rather a suggestive one. (e.g. "You'd better stay next to me, or I'll hit you truly.")


Thanks for all ya'll help I have some other question one I'm the leader some what in are party but not really. It just 3 people just tagging alone with each other. How can I assume a proper leadership role. The current rogue she plays it safe with her characters and is all way plays a character with a bow. That's find but can be super quick to judge hard headed stubborn sometimes and just plain out full of her self. And the other player likes her and been hanging out with her out of the game. He's not a problem most of the time. She's fine untell my character does something hers or her don't like and then I get treated like **** untell she gets a chance to kill me. She has killed or been responsible for 4 of the groups pc deaths. She is sitting with more pc kills then the DM. How can I address this with out going drill sergeant on her. Because it's just a game and I like the group.

For who ever asked for my level I'm not playing a tank right now I'm tired of it so I'm playing a magic assassin that looks after his own ass for now.

It feels like she's playing a whole different game than the others in your group. It's almost as if she's trying to draw out any excuses to resort to Player versus Player combat. Like she's getting kicks out of killing other player's characters. I can respect your hopes for not going drill sergeant on her, but seriously, if her play style always ends up killing off one or another of her party members it can get very frustrating at some point. If this were to happen once more, I would honestly suggest talking about it with her. Just say it aloud that you don't like it anymore. It's not fun being killed all the time by a party member who should be an ally instead of an enemy. I realize that your group is playing evil characters, but even evil characters can have friends. And they do have friends. Without any friends a.k.a. anyone to count on, evil people would end up dead or incarcerated really quickly.

[djreynolds]

Someone has a thread about playing evil. Please ask if this is okay, out of game. Some people, like me have work, school, kids. I'm okay with evil players, but don't ruin the game. It can be a real drag. DMs get heartburn, and players quit. And a lot of games do not really included stuff about evil PCs.

Its like playing a pick up game of basketball, don't hog the ball man.

Also read "War of the Spider Queen", good stuff about evil PCs.

[Sir cryosin]

That's the thing it's not an evil campaign. I don't want to be a ****. I had 2 chances to kill her but left her to make saving throws. Would it be the wrong thing to do if I just flat out kill her character next time. First time the party was charmed by dryads and was made to fight the other dryads and there champions aka my other party members. The other time the party got hit with some kind of madness me and another member started to show catabolism urges were her maddness said she's craves to start fights in the see blood. So does she do is as soon as she is affected by the madness. She turns around and shoot me with an arrow. So now since this was the second time she turned around and shot me with an arrow I got pissed I pulled out my pistol I proceeded to shoot her 2 times drop the pistol pull out another two pistols and action surge dropped her right there. What's up was we were in the middle of setting up a ambush to take out 24 Knowles.

[Sir cryosin]

Well those two reasons may seem like solid RP reasons to attack another party member. But she was getting so bad with the madness where she was trying to attack only only one other party member. That had a character that she done are done already killed off because he called her and hor. Which her character kinda is your character's a companion like a like companions off of Firefly. So she been bias to the player and his pc's.

[Gurifu]

Fighters with with Heavy Armor Master and Bear Totem Barbarians are solid tanks using the tactics mentioned by others in this thread. However...

At low and medium levels, Moon Druids are probably the best tanks, and moreover they don't require special builds or tactics. Your summoning spells are very strong compared to others at similar level, and your transformation into monsters provides you with a large pool of disposable hit points for yourself. Access to Large creatures as transforms and summons from relatively early on means that you and your summoned minions can physically block enemies away from your squishies on most maps. Just make sure that you have strong Concentration saves, because you'll be getting hit a lot and keeping your summoned creatures up to soak up attacks for as long as possible will increase your functional tanking effectiveness.

At high levels, nothing really stands up to True Polymorph for tanking potential (TP an ally into a CR=level monster, or TP yourself when you're running out of spells and wade into melee), but most games don't make it that high.

[Finieous]

Oath of the Crown paladin with PAM and Sentinel is pretty effective. Champion's Challenge is a potent AoE pseudo-taunt with no action cost (pending errata) and no duration. This allows you to pull enemies away from your squishies, and you can use it while, for example, Dashing or Dodging. At 7th level, you can straight-up take damage for an ally within 5 ft., even when all your positional shenanigans fail. You should always have good choices for reactions: opportunity attack approaching enemy, reaction attack with Sentinel, or just soak damage for an adjacent ally. Combine with the usual assortment of paladin spells: wrathful smite, warding bond, compelled duel, etc. The only problem I see is that you're a lot more sticky than you are resilient, so team up with a Life Cleric.