Grizl' Bjorn
2017-04-24, 07:54 PM
This is a build I’ve been toying with ever since my DM made an interesting point- in a world of magic, sentient opponents will generally tend to target spell casters to try and get them down first in a fight. This creates the possibility of tanking- a magic user designed to be conspicuous and focus attacks on themselves.
First we take the immortal sub-class. This enables us to add our constitution bonus to our AC, and gives us an extra hit-point per level. For our bonus disciplines we take bestial form and Iron body. For our first discipline with take mastery of force. Inertial armour sets our AC to 14 plus bonuses, and between our dex and con bonuses our AC should go straight to 17. We set our psionic focus to Iron body for another bonus, taking us to 18. Later when we have more psi points we can use bestial form to add yet another bonus, bringing our total to 19.
So let’s say you’re at level four. You’ve got 14 Con and 12 Dex. With inertial armour, tough hide and Iron Body focus you’re running an AC of 19. Then all you’ve got to do is stride around the battle field provocatively. Have your character yell out things like “I AM THE MASTER OF ARCANE POWER, YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY SURVIVE”. Force push mooks and use showy cantrips like energy beam to draw maximum attention to yourself. If you take psionic restoration, make a big show of being the party healer as well.
The result is that if your DM is playing the mooks like typical mooks in a fantasy world where mages are generally dangerous but squishy, they’ll attack you, only to smash against your fairly high hit point count and very high AC.
As the class goes along, this shtick only gets better and better. You get temporary hitpoints each level, meaning that even when your enemies do hit, a portion of their attack is effectively wasted each turn. You can continue to take abilities which do things like impose disadvantage on attack rolls etc. Powers like intellect fortress make you safe, and when you’re out of combat you can enjoy the sweet, sweet utility options that the UA mystic provides, whether that be using psionics to act as a party face, gaining mobility and scouting options or setting up interesting traps and tricks.
I'm sure the basic concept can work with a bunch of other classes as well. Just make yourself look like a scary mage who has to go down quickly and then use spells and design to choices to make it very difficult to be taken down. Roleplay an arrogant but powerful caster in battle, maybe even cackle a little. Throw showy but cheap spells around, all the while layer caking on the defensive options like mage armour, shield, etc. Immortal seems to work particularly well because of the wealth of stackable armour class bonus access, but I'm sure the concept is replicable with other classes.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
First we take the immortal sub-class. This enables us to add our constitution bonus to our AC, and gives us an extra hit-point per level. For our bonus disciplines we take bestial form and Iron body. For our first discipline with take mastery of force. Inertial armour sets our AC to 14 plus bonuses, and between our dex and con bonuses our AC should go straight to 17. We set our psionic focus to Iron body for another bonus, taking us to 18. Later when we have more psi points we can use bestial form to add yet another bonus, bringing our total to 19.
So let’s say you’re at level four. You’ve got 14 Con and 12 Dex. With inertial armour, tough hide and Iron Body focus you’re running an AC of 19. Then all you’ve got to do is stride around the battle field provocatively. Have your character yell out things like “I AM THE MASTER OF ARCANE POWER, YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY SURVIVE”. Force push mooks and use showy cantrips like energy beam to draw maximum attention to yourself. If you take psionic restoration, make a big show of being the party healer as well.
The result is that if your DM is playing the mooks like typical mooks in a fantasy world where mages are generally dangerous but squishy, they’ll attack you, only to smash against your fairly high hit point count and very high AC.
As the class goes along, this shtick only gets better and better. You get temporary hitpoints each level, meaning that even when your enemies do hit, a portion of their attack is effectively wasted each turn. You can continue to take abilities which do things like impose disadvantage on attack rolls etc. Powers like intellect fortress make you safe, and when you’re out of combat you can enjoy the sweet, sweet utility options that the UA mystic provides, whether that be using psionics to act as a party face, gaining mobility and scouting options or setting up interesting traps and tricks.
I'm sure the basic concept can work with a bunch of other classes as well. Just make yourself look like a scary mage who has to go down quickly and then use spells and design to choices to make it very difficult to be taken down. Roleplay an arrogant but powerful caster in battle, maybe even cackle a little. Throw showy but cheap spells around, all the while layer caking on the defensive options like mage armour, shield, etc. Immortal seems to work particularly well because of the wealth of stackable armour class bonus access, but I'm sure the concept is replicable with other classes.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?