Build Suggestions for Tank type character

[Ualaa]

Any suggestions are very much appreciated.
I'd really like to give him three or four solid suggestions to pick from...

One of the players in my group is somewhere on the Aspergers scale. Go far enough along the scale, and your autistic, but he's not that far along that scale. Still, that gives you an idea of what he is like, as far as D&D goes.
He loves the game, and that our social group has included him. He's a smart guy, but has a bit of a learning curve. Give him a new mechanic, and he'll get it after using it for three sessions or so.

Last campaign he decided on the Scout role, and played a number of different characters in a deadly dungeon.

This campaign, he has decided on being the main tank. The one who can plug a choke point, take a lot of enemy attention and allow his casters to do their thing unmolested. There won't always be a choke point, so control in general and the ability to survive are important.

We're playing with a lockout system of several characters.
His next guy cannot be:
- Race: Dwarf or Half-Orc
- Class: Soulknife or Warder

Both of his last two were Path of War characters, the Soulknife had the archetype for some maneuvers.
He likes the PoW options... Readying so many of his maneuvers (choosing those index cards) and flipping them over once used.



Our build rules are:

- Race, one of: Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, or Human.
- Racial traits from Advanced Race Guide and Advanced Player's Guide are okay.
(Dwarf and Half-Orc are locked out for his next guy)

- Classes... up to three classes in a single build.
- Archetypes... up to one archetype on a given class, but in a three class build each could have one.
(Soulknife and Warder are locked out)

- When his third guy dies, that lockout also applies to the fourth guy.
- When his fourth guy dies, the three previous lockouts apply, but the first one (Dwarf & Warder) are no longer locked out.

- 20 point Pathfinder buy.

- Alignment: LG, NG, CG, LN or TN

- Darkvision is a huge bonus; we assume we'll be going underground at some point (probably after level 6), but quite likely for most of the campaign, from that point onwards.
(Running AAW's: Rise of the Drow)

- No Synthesist Summoner, Leadership feat (or class feature that is the equivalent), and up to maximum of two sources of Summons/Animal Companions/Conjurations/Eidolons/Paladin Mounts/Similar at one time.
(We have six regular players and a sporadic seventh player, already)

- Sources: Paizo Pathfinder RPG books, Path of War (but not Expanded), and Spheres of Power.

He'll be coming in at level 3, with 2,400 gold pieces of gear.
Up to 1,200gp on his most valuable piece, up to 600gp on other gear.



No class exists in a vacuum; his allies are:
... a Half-Orc - Warder (Shield Charge, Tank Capable, decent DPS through PoW Maneuvers)
... a Gnome - (Sphere) Sorcerer (Destruction, Divination, Life, Protection spheres so far)
... a Gnome - (Sphere) Oracle / (Sphere) Cleric / (Sphere Summoner) (Healer with an Eidolon, so far)
... an Elf - Wizard (Evocation specialist) (Scribing scrolls, using Invis, Buffs, and Nukes so far)
... Another guy died this session, he was playing the Scouting Character.

And very sporadically we have:
... a Dwarf - Shifter (Spheres of Power, Destruction & Alteration so far)

[exelsisxax]

Why do you/he think a tank is a good idea? the party already has a Warder. That's more tank than you can get in any 1pp gestalt build.

[stanprollyright]

Sword and board Paladin? Heavy armor, lots of HPs, heals self as a swift action?

[Ssalarn]

Hmmm... Some of the best core tanking options are actually race-locked, so removing dwarves and half-orcs from the equation makes it tricky...

(Obligatory plug: Akashic Mysteries, also from Dreamscarred Press, is highly reviewed and offers several great builds for tanking.)

So, with the limitations you've laid out I should ask: at what point will your friend not consider a class a "tank"? For me, tank means a weapon-wielder with area control and party defense mechanics, someone who can protect an ally, hit reasonably hard, and prevent an enemy from circumventing them. With those requirements in mind, you could consider the Mesmerist class from Paizo's Occult Mysteries with the Vexing Daredevil archetype. With the Blinding Strike Dazzling Feint and the Shadow Splinter Mesmerist Trick, you can mitigate the enemy's ability to deal damage while still being able to deal decent damage yourself, have a great Will save so he can't be flipped against the group, and the mesmerist spell list is pretty robust and sports several spells useful for tanking like grease, hideous laughter, obscuring mist, daze monster, confusion, etc. You basically shore up your lack of a marking mechanic with control abilities that allow you to funnel the flow of battle towards you and limit opponents' ability to disengage or target your allies. You also get a ton of feint feats for free, so it's easy to quickly work towards something like Two-Weapon Feint that lets you maximize your damage output and build on a high Dex. Even though it's a 3/4 BAB chassis, personal buffs along with feints and other opponent debuffs should still afford you enough accuracy to grab Piranha Strike for bonus damage. If you go with halfling as the race, you can snag the Risky Striker feat and lean more heavily on blur, displacement, and similar effects to give you the same (or better) results as an optimized AC.

[Elricaltovilla]

You mentioned he likes PoW, so I'll start there. There are four guaranteed Tank bases in Path of War. Five if you're allowing material that is still in playtest and six if you're willing to not quite be a true tank. Those options are:


Warder. He's already played one and can't play it again so no worries. Although I will point out that archetypes can make for drastically different playstyles. Hawkguard Warder for example.
Zealot. PoW:E class, has a splash of psionics. The best choices are the Creation or Protection missions. Castilonium has a good guide here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?505647-Unity-and-Determination-Castilonium%92s-guide-to-the-Path-of-War-Zealot&highlight=zealot).
Knight Disciple Paladin. Paladin archetype, only gets up to 6th level maneuvers natively, but can pick up higher level maneuvers through prestige classes or feats like Advanced Study. Knight Disciples are mitigation tanks, their abilities work by reducing or removing damage dealt by enemies and preventing afflictions from happening.
Monk of the Silver Fist. Monk archetype, only gets up to 6th level maneuvers natively, but can pick up higher level maneuvers through prestige classes or feats like Advanced Study. MosF is a bodyguard style tank, that takes attacks directly for allies and is able to massively hurt enemies that target allies but is limited in the number of people it can actively protect. Better at protecting one single ally than the whole group.
Medic. Yes its a healing class, but the end result is functionally identical to mitigation tanking, removing damage and conditions from allies and frustrating enemy attempts to harm your friends.
Vanguard Commander Warlord. Warlord archetype that fights with S&B. In my opinion, not actually a great tank, but it does have access to Iron Tortoise and Eternal Guardian, which is often enough.


Worth noting is that with the correct selection of disciplines and maneuvers, anyone can be a tank. The key disciplines are Eternal Guardian (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/eternal-guardian-maneuvers) and Iron Tortoise (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/iron-tortoise-maneuvers). Supplementing these two disciplines with the proper maneuvers from other disciplines (Cursed Razor (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/cursed-razor-maneuvers), Mithral Current (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/mithral-current-maneuvers), and Silver Crane (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/silver-crane-maneuvers) are great choices, but almost all disciplines have options) will let you turn any initiator into a pretty successful "tank," although without the specialization that some of the above classes provide.

Outside of Path of War, there are still some options. The Oradin Build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?257365-PF-Oradin-Mini-Guide-Or-How-to-be-a-Healbot-minus-the-bot), is a pretty good mitigation tank. Barbarians with Superstitious and Come And Get Me rage powers make for decent tanks as well. A Magus that uses Rime Spell and Frostbite, Frigid Touch or Chill Touch can also debuff/tank by locking down enemy actions and being exceptionally difficult to hit. Feats such as Bodyguard can help make your character more tanky as well by providing defense to allies.

Tanking is really more a philosophy or style of play than it is a role to be filled on the battlefield. As long as you're keeping the enemy from hurting your allies you are, in a sense, tanking.

[Ualaa]

Thanks for the suggestions; several options for me to direct him to consider.

[Serafina]

You might also want to consider the Mesmerist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/mesmerist), who can implant a person, including themselves, with the Meek Facade Mesmerist Trick. If an enemy then misses that person, they can be forced to keep attacking the same person for 1 round - with no save, although this is a mind-affecting effect. This also grants an extra 2(+1/5 level) to AC.
This is a rather good way to keep an enemies attention on yourself - it may only work for one round, but of course it can be combined with other means of tanking and isn't the only trick.

The Psychic Inception Bold Stare allows the Mesmerist to affect enemies who are immune to mind-affecting with such effects - including Meek Facade.
The Restriction Bold Stare makes an enemy consider all areas of dim light or darker illumination as difficult terrain. This is even the case for enemies who can't see, or have darkvision - and difficult terrain that doesn't hinder your party is great for restricting enemy movement.
And the Oscilliation Bold Stare makes the affected enemy treat every ally more than 30 feet away from them as having 20% concealment. It's only a 20% miss chance, but also prevents precision damage and some other things.

And of course, the Mesmerist does get Illusion-spells, so they can give Mirror Image and Blur and other such defensive spells to themselves.


Since dips are okay, you can combine all this with a few levels (though one is already good) of Swashbuckler (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/swashbuckler). Opportune Parry and Riposte is great - prevent an enemy from hitting you, and then hit them right back.
Having Panache also allows you to use a Swordmasters Flair (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/swordmaster-s-flair) - this can increase the reach of your one-handed weapons by five feet, and reach is king for tanking.


As for choice of weapons, the Rapier is the classic Swashbuckler weapon. However, there's two other weapon options:
- the Starknife, if you worship Desna and take the Way of the Shooting Star (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/divine-fighting-technique-combat) Divine Fighting Technique. If you do, then you can use Charisma for both attack and damage (in place of strength or dexterity) with the Starknife - which then makes you very single-ability dependant.
- the Glaive, if you worship Shelyn and take the Bladed Brush feat (which sadly isn't on the PFSRD yet). It only has Weapon Focus and the worship as a prerequisite - but it allows you to treat the Glaive as a one-handed piercing or slashing melee weapon, making it fully eligible as a swashbuckler weapon and weapon finesse. This gives you reach, and since it's now compatible with the Swashbucklers Flair you can get 15 foot reach out of that!


Paths of the Righteous (where Bladed Brush is from) also has a nice prestige class, the Devoted Muse. You get Charisma-to-AC as long as you wear light armor (up to +1/level), it advances your swashbuckler deeds, and it gets tricks based around feinting - specifically, you can give enemies miss chances, confuse, stagger or daze them (though that all allows a save) and then get increased movement, damage or buffs out of that. At the very least, putting two levels into that PrC instead of Swashbuckler is a good idea, and you can easily argue that more levels are good too. However, the PrC is also not on the PFSRD yet and feinting can be too feat-intensive to get a good action economy for

For Archetypes, you don't need any.
But for the Swashbuckler, you might take Flying Blade (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/swashbuckler/archetypes/paizo---swashbuckler-archetypes/flying-blade) if you pick up the Starknife, or Noble Fencer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/swashbuckler/archetypes/paizo---swashbuckler-archetypes/noble-fencer-swashbuckler-archetype) for some improved social abilities. Both just change a deed for your dip.
I can't recommend any Mesmerist-Archetypes that replace Bold Stare, it's too useful for a tank-build. Vexing Daredevil (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/mesmerist/archetypes/paizo-llc---mesmerist-archetypes/vexing-daredevil-mesmerist-archetype) sadly does, and is the only archetype that really improves your martial inclination.


Feats will actually be tricky, but you can go for the standard "tank" feats of Combat Reflexes, Stand Still (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/stand-still-combat---final), Lunge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/lunge-combat---final), In Harms Way (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/in-harm-s-way-combat) and so on.

[upho]

Warder. He's already played one and can't play it again so no worries. Although I will point out that archetypes can make for drastically different playstyles. Hawkguard Warder for example.
Zealot. PoW:E class, has a splash of psionics. The best choices are the Creation or Protection missions. Castilonium has a good guide here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?505647-Unity-and-Determination-Castilonium%92s-guide-to-the-Path-of-War-Zealot&highlight=zealot).
Knight Disciple Paladin. Paladin archetype, only gets up to 6th level maneuvers natively, but can pick up higher level maneuvers through prestige classes or feats like Advanced Study. Knight Disciples are mitigation tanks, their abilities work by reducing or removing damage dealt by enemies and preventing afflictions from happening.
Monk of the Silver Fist. Monk archetype, only gets up to 6th level maneuvers natively, but can pick up higher level maneuvers through prestige classes or feats like Advanced Study. MosF is a bodyguard style tank, that takes attacks directly for allies and is able to massively hurt enemies that target allies but is limited in the number of people it can actively protect. Better at protecting one single ally than the whole group.
Medic. Yes its a healing class, but the end result is functionally identical to mitigation tanking, removing damage and conditions from allies and frustrating enemy attempts to harm your friends.
Vanguard Commander Warlord. Warlord archetype that fights with S&B. In my opinion, not actually a great tank, but it does have access to Iron Tortoise and Eternal Guardian, which is often enough.


Thanks for the suggestions; several options for me to direct him to consider.Just in case you missed it, I'd like to point out that of all the otherwise very good suggestions listed above, only the Vanguard Commander Warlord - probably the least tanky option - is available due to the lockout rules and the currently allowed sources for your game. The warder's locked out, option 2-4 are from PoW:E, and the medic is still in playtest (though definitely complete and tested enough to work as intended in a normal game throughout all levels IMO). My suggestion is actually that you allow PoW:E (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war) content (or talk to the GM to do so), since this means not only the number of highly suitable tank classes drastically increase, but also the number of possible PoW character concepts in general. Not to mention the game will also gain some very interesting disciplines, feats and traits. In fact, I'd recommend also allowing both the medic (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?483472-Dreamscarred-Press-Presents-The-MEDIC!/page1) and the very cool and well balanced control-/mobility-focused Fool's Errand (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?487641-Dreamscarred-Press-Path-of-War-Fool-s-Errand) discipline (including associated options such as the brawler archetype), also still in playtest.

Regardless of what additional PoW material you choose to include, I have to recommend Akashic Mysteries. Perhaps because Ssalarn happen to be the writer, his "obligatory plug" above is way to modest IMO. The book is simply the best PF supplement written so far IMO, and regardless of whether or not the player you're helping out will find something of use in it for the current game, the players as well as the GM in your group are bound to soon see it as vital and include it in every PF game, right along with the CRB. Trust me, it's seriously that good. The only potential downside is that, unlike with PoW:E, the material isn't yet available for free online, so you cannot try it out before buying. (Check out Psybomb's guides to the AM classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377818-PsyBomb-s-Guides-to-the-Akashic-Mysteries!)).


This is a rather good way to keep an enemies attention on yourself - it may only work for one round, but of course it can be combined with other means of tanking and isn't the only trick.I have to say that while the effect is rather perfect for a tank, the 1 round duration and standard action application means it can only be used effectively once per combat. Which makes me doubt whether the whole mesmerist dipping is recommendable for a tank in the first place. But maybe there's some way around this?


Feats will actually be tricky, but you can go for the standard "tank" feats of Combat Reflexes, Stand Still (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/stand-still-combat---final), Lunge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/lunge-combat---final), In Harms Way (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/in-harm-s-way-combat) and so on.Especially without PoW:E options, I very much agree about feats being tricky. And considering the poor quality of the most obviously tank related Paizo feats, I simply wouldn't bother. Most of them are full of feat taxes and limited to adjacent enemies and thus largely useless with reach, and for example Lunge doesn't even last beyond your own turn and therefore doesn't help with what's actually important - increasing threatening reach.

Instead, I recommend using feats to improve melee control/debuff capacity, primarily via combat maneuvers and/or demoralization:

Combat Maneuvers Trip if your campaign isn't intended to go beyond say 10th or so, otherwise dirty trick. Trip is best combined with Greater Trip and for example Wolf Trip from a MoMS 2 dip together with Vicious Stomp and tons of other powerful combinations. Unfortunately completely shut down buy flight and hard size caps, so rarely worthwhile in higher levels. Dirty trick is frankly so good it's borderline OP with Dirty Trick Master used RAW, especially with Seize the Opportunity (if PoW:E is allowed) or Kitsune Vengeance (w/o PoW:E). Works great on especially a bloodrager with the Savage Dirty Trick rage power (via primalist archetype) at 8th, combine with aberrant bloodline for additional reach and add superstition for much improved saves. Qualifying for the standard feats for both is virtually always best via Dirty Fighting (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dirty-fighting-combat) instead of the traditional Combat Expertise route.

Demoralization Best applied via Cornugon Smash and Power Attack, or Enforcer if it's more important to retain accuracy (best with unarmed strikes since they don't take penalties from dealing nonlethal, otherwise Bludgeoner or a merciful weapon). Combine with a cruel weapon for a pretty decent -4 to most rolls, and add Intimidating Prowess if Cha isn't enough for a sufficient Intimidate bonus. To become really scary, add on Black Seraph Annihilation (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/pow-e-feats/black-seraph-style) (PoW:E) and Soulless Gaze (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/damnation-feats/soulless-gaze-damnation) plus Fiendskin (very story dependent prerequisites and potentially dire consequences, check with GM first). Can easily have even undead, constructs and eventually the tarrasque running away in panic or cowering crying for mommy...

Also, check out the new and very tanky Shield Brace (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/shield-brace-shield-mastery), in case PoW:E's Pikeman's Training isn't an option.