Help making a "party tank"

[jangartharn1]

Hey guys. So in a campaign in playing in the party just got wiped (our fighter got us into a really bad situation a story for another time.) long story short we got killed. Now I'm making a knight for my back up character who plans to prestige into a purple dragon knight. The idea is he'll pretty much be a support tank. The problem is I'm looking for items that would help with such a build. I'm mostly looking for items that'll buff my allies when I take damage and other things like that. If anybody could tell me of magic items that would help with this then I would be most appreciative. Oh and this is an 8th level campaign and I get 21,000 gold to spend on starter items and if you could also include in which books I'll find these items then I'll be oh so thankful. :)

[LTwerewolf]

The problem with tanking in 3.5 is that there's not really a mechanic for it. You either need to be threatening enough that they want to attack you first, or you need to be a heavy battlefield controller. Items at this point are an afterthought. How exactly do you intend on tanking?

[Rothgar Ironmit]

Ancestrial Weapon I believe its in the book of exalted deeds

[jangartharn1]

For the most part I plan on making good use of the shield ally ability that the knight gets at 6th level. So I can at least take some damage for my allies. And for the rest of it I just plan to be the guy who is the biggest threat to the enemy. Aka just being in their face and stuff like that.

[Rothgar Ironmit]

You could make the shield the Ancestrial Weapon cuz i think the varriant to weapon is item

[Deeds]

From magic item compendium I'd pick up the blurring enhancement. A 20% miss chance is nice. Maybe you should get a nice spiked chain with the combat reflexes feat or something. Ultimately, you'll need to tailor your build to your DM's play style. If the monsters realize that the guy in the funny pajamas is the real threat then your high AC will not stop them from walking past you. If the monsters decide that the knight with the sharp stick is the threat then you're a lucky guy ( I think.)

As far as buffing goes you should consider a different class. Level 3 Cleric offers Shield Other so that you and an ally effectively share an HP pool. Sorta.

EDIT: shield ally is a thing? I admit I know little about knights.

[LTwerewolf]

That only works if the DM doesn't play the enemies to their fullest ability. Sure animals will probably attack the thing right in their face, but a moderately intelligent opponent isn't going to attack the guy he can't really hurt. That's the one you gang up on last. That dude over there that just turned our friend inside out that looks like he's envious of the defensive power of wet paper? Yeah, he's first. You want your job to be keeping that squishy looking dude alive? Make sure they can't get there. Battlefield control or raw damage. Often, the barbarian makes a better "tank" than the knight, because they want to get rid of the guy cleaving their team in half. Knights aren't really built for damage, but they are built for the battlefield control.

[Kelb_Panthera]

For the most part I plan on making good use of the shield ally ability that the knight gets at 6th level. So I can at least take some damage for my allies. And for the rest of it I just plan to be the guy who is the biggest threat to the enemy. Aka just being in their face and stuff like that.

Do not make the extremely common mistake of underestimating the readied action on a defense oriented character. Readying to interpose yourself between an enemy and an ally can be very effective. You still need to be acceptably good at -stopping- an enemy with the the AoO you'll get as they continue their move but being ready to get into position can -seriously- expand the area you can cover.

[NecessaryWeevil]

You might want items (wands? potions?) to increase your size. Extended reach is very nice for battlefield control and getting bigger is an easy way to get more reach. Helps you grapple too if that's a tactic you want to employ.

[Thurbane]

Some classes are specifically made to address tanking issues of opponents just ignoring them - however, they don't do it especially well, and are cruddy classes in any case. If you gestalted Knight//Crusader, you might have a better chassis.

Otherwise, your best option is usually to take advantage of dungeon/terrain layout to try and force enemies to go through you rather than giving them a choice.

Massive reach, AoO optimized builds with Stand Still can be of help as well.

[Conradine]

Barbarian 1 / Fighter 4 / Occult Slayer 5 / Furious Berserker 4

No domination, no charm, no mind effect, no emotion, nothing can affect his mind. He can take a bazillion damage and keep fighting. You try to disintegrate him? He bounces the ray back to you.

For his level, virtually unstoppable.

[TheFurith]

Three levels of Knight to get Bulwark of defense, combat reflexes, improved trip, high DEX, a spiked gauntlet and a guisarme. Should stop people in their tracks pretty good. If you have access to anything from PF the Cruel weapon stacks well with Intimidating Strike. -4 to pretty much anything they want to do is pretty good. Makes up for not having a shield to a good degree as well. Your caster friends will also love the -4 to their saves.

Why haven't I mentioned anything about durability? Because unless your DM just accepts that you want people to target you he's going to have everything ignore you. Because for whatever reason people think that in a battle people would just walk right by some dude swinging an axe at their head because he's wearing armor. He's totally not going to kill you when you turn your back to him and attack his friends. Right?

I mean that's what they did in like medieval battles. The infantry would just walk passed one another and kill the enemy archers and leaders. Right? It's really stupid, but that's how it'll go. So don't be indestructible, but keep the enemies off your team regardless.

Though if your DM is one of those people you'll probably find yourself suddenly running into undead centaurs armed with bows....

[ShurikVch]

I don't sure which sources are allowed, but assuming "whatever official"...

Infamous "Flaws for Commoners" article in Dragon #330 have this:
Delicious
Someone cast divine flavor on you.
Effect: All monsters attack you if able, regardless of their attitude towards you or the rest of your party. In addition, you go down smooth. When subjected to the swallow whole special attack, you are treated as two size categories smaller than you actually are.If monsters will attack you when they can, it's mean they wouldn't attack rest of the party

But being a living walking monster magnet 24/7 may be troublesome

Luckily, the article also have another flaw:
Weresheep
Theresheep!
Effect: You are afflicted with lycanthropy. Not such a flaw, right? Your hybrid and animal forms are harmless sheep. When in hybrid or animal form you suffer the effects of the Delicious flaw.Thus, by turning in and out of your hybrid form, you will be able to "switch" that "monster magnet" "on and off"

Possible build: Commoner 1/Barbarian 1/Crusader 3/Warshaper 5/Crusader 5

Note: because Sheep is a Small Animal, your Commoner shouldn't be bigger than Medium in order to assume the Hybrid Form

Also, "party tank"? :smallbiggrin:https://i1.sndcdn.com/avatars-000004454611-xryprk-t500x500.jpghttp://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/607/923/37e.jpg

[ace rooster]

I quite like a charisma focused paladin with shield ward (PHII) and divine shield (CW). AC, touch AC, and saves all get tasty. Improved overrun and/or sunder are well worth picking up, as it keeps you relevant despite not building for damage. Improved trip and disarm with a flail are pretty good too, and it is not like combat expertise is not going to see use. Find some way of being large, as it really gives you some presence on the battlefield which can otherwise be lacking.

These things are not great against monsters with big size bonuses, which tend to come up. You should be able to take a charge of most things, but generally full attacks are still very dangerous.

Tridents are worth mentioning, as they do double damage readied against a charge, and are one handed. You are probably going to be readying against a few charges.

Also worth mentioning is that trips, disarms, and sunders and grapples will often be worth doing just to draw out the AoO, if an ally would like to do something that would provoke one (casters wanting to avoid the check to cast defensively for example, or approach an enemy with reach). In these cases, it can be good not having the appropriate feat, particularly for grapples, where you don't actually want to grab them.

Unfortunately playing a 'tank' simply does not work at mid to high level. AC cannot be made to scale fast enough to keep up with monsters, and their damage scales similarly to your total HP. A CR 13 red dragon for example, attacks with a mod of 27 and a damage average of 84. If it uses spells or power attack that can get much higher. You are not going to be tanking that for more than a couple of rounds without some stinky cheese.

At high level, by far the most effective 'tank' is getting somebody else to do it. You might not have a huge amount of control of them, but the 6-15HD worth of dire badgers from a single summon nature's ally IV are often going to be more effective at soaking damage than a level 8PC, simply due to them being expendable and them covering more territory. Necromancers can be even better at this, and with a spectral hand can animate corpses mid battle from a safe range! A warlock can be throwing this around like candy by 8th level, if they have no intention of keeping the undead on their feet.

Sorry if this is sounding like a bit of a downer, but 8th level is around where I've found that melee stops really being viable. The monsters are generally out scaling you, and you are not getting anything they are not. Consider for reference what a level 9 druid with a ring of the beast and augment summoning can do in 3 rounds. They can summon ~4 bears and cast animal growth, to give each of them 75hp and a str of 39. They form a solid wall of bear 60' long. That's the competition.

[JonVMD]

The "Magic Item Compendium" many magical armors. However, usually they give resistance to elements or magic, and the cost is high. From what i remember, you couple those itens in your armor.

In D&D 3,5 full tanks build are underpowered, usually a half-tank is much better.

[ekarney]

First you'll need a cannon and a birthday cake...

Tanking in 3.5 is more about area lockdown than anything else, so build a trip character.

[Segev]

If I remember correctly, things like Knight's Challenge and other marking abilities that allow you to punish people for attacking somebody other than you tend to allow you one strike against said foes. If that's the case, you want to optimize for maximum single-strike damage. This will also make charging and moving-then-attacking more viable for you.

Consider getting a custom item that enables you to cast enlarge person on yourself some number of times per day. It will cost 1800 gp for a command-activated, unlimited-uses item of this sort. Or 360 gp per use per day, if you want it charged-per-day. This will let you get physically bigger, increase your reach, and enable you to selectively alter size to better block space with your body.

Somewhere, I thought there was a shield of arrow attraction that actively dragged ranged attacks towards you, but I am having trouble finding it so I can't price it nor even be sure if it was technically "cursed" or not.

A Ring of Friend Shielding pair would be great, except that it's 50,000 gp for a single pair.

[Vizzerdrix]

For Battlefield control, shapesand is hard to beat.

[Thurbane]

Consider getting a custom item that enables you to cast enlarge person on yourself some number of times per day. It will cost 1800 gp for a command-activated, unlimited-uses item of this sort. Or 360 gp per use per day, if you want it charged-per-day. This will let you get physically bigger, increase your reach, and enable you to selectively alter size to better block space with your body.

Note that 1800gp is a guideline only, and the DM is completely free to disallow custom items, or use a similar existing item as a price baseline. The closest I can think of is the Ring of Growth in Savage Species, which is 18,000gp for a 1/day 9 minute use. Admittedly, the effect from this ring is a bit "above-and-beyond" what Enlarge Person actually does. Still, hope that your DM doesn't use this for the comparison. :smalltongue: