Chugger
2017-09-14, 07:40 PM
I was messing around with a tank concept based on a Fi, Pal, or Barb varHu taking Shield Master as the first feat and seeing where it would go (i.e. would it last until end game? or if you kept playing it and playing it would you wish you hadn't done it?).
A raging barb is a good choice for this because he gets advantage on str checks, so odds are good he can make most things prone on his bonus action - he'll have a good athletics boost to begin with (and most monsters don't) - and he's have two rolls.
And even if he's saving his rages or has run out of them, he has one decent roll or attempt to knock something down each target. And while Ogres and even Ettin have good Str scores and therefore good pluses to their rolls, a Barb with advantaged rolls still has a pretty good chance of knocking even them down.
Now, what about a fighter taking on the same role? AC will be only a bit better than the Barb (lets say the barb has con 16 and dx 14 so ac 17 w/ shield, fighter is chain and shield so ac 18). But the fighter, even if proficient in athletics, can't get advantage on the "shove" part of Shield Mastery (the bonus action shove) which knocks things prone. Oh well. Except oh wait. He can.
This is an error (edit - I'll leave it in in case someone read it earlier - sorry - the feat Athlete doesn't work this way, I got mixed up) --->[At lvl 4 the fighter can opt for a feat - Athletics - and now has advantage every single time he shoves something with that shield. He sacrificed upping STR or w/e, but that's okay - he gets ASIs at lvl 6 and 8 - he'll catch right up in a jiffy.]
At lvl 8 he'll be a pushing things prone fool, with 20 STR, and doing 2 hits w/ longsword for 2d8 + 14 or 23 average damage per round if both hit (with dueling Fi Style). Not insanely good damage, but not terrible - and he's a tank. If he's BM he could trying menacing (tripping! for when the shield bash misses) and so on to help keep things off his casters.
Now here's a weird tactic. When initiative goes well for this tank character, say Monster goes first, then our shield guy, then a melee rogue, then a barb - perfect. The monster hits or misses but doesn't kill our tank. He knocks it down and hits it twice - the rogue and barb brutalize it - it might die right there. But what if initiative is wonky? Tank goes, then monster, then rogue, then barb. Tank could ready his action ... but can he ready his bonus action or delay ... ? I don't think so (some DMs have told me no to both - I'm still looking at the rules myself). So in case this is the ruling - what would happen is tank knocks down monster and hits or misses him. Monster stands back up and hits tank. Rogue and barb try to hit monster w/out advantage because it's standing.
Okay, what if tank knocks the monster prone with bonus action, hits him with he sword but then uses his second attack to grapple him? I think you can (if standing) grapple a prone monster - you just need one hand free - oh wait - tank tries to hit him w/ sword, uses free action to drop sword (he'll have another on his belt or he's an EK and can summon it back) - and then grapples prone monster.
Tank - I think - has advantage to grapple because of Athletics feat, and if he does grapple, monster - on it's turn can't stand because it's grappled and needs movement to stand - so it either attacks at disadvantage or tries to break free of grapple (tank has advantage here too if I understand this right) and might fail. So odds are rogue and barb get to wail on a prone monster.
Next turn tank can bonus-action summon his sword (or pick it up or draw his backup) and take two chops at a still prone monster, after de-grappling it. Or take one swing at it and drop sword again and regrapple with second attack. Am I getting this right or is some hobgoblin in the rules I'm not understanding going to mess with this? (or is there a better way? to knock down and then grapple )
EK has some advantages in that he eventually can get Enlarge and thus knock prone Huge things like Hill Giants! Which could be fun. Taking Enlarge over Mirror Image .... yikes. Big sacrifice there. Another problem with EK is that with War Caster they need their bonus action for casting now - esp. if doing the SCAP cantrip thing (bb or gfb). BM might be the better route and hope a caster can Enlarge if needed.
So we then look at the multi-classing possibilities.
A Pal could go this route, too, and could easily dip Sorc 3 to get Enlarge. Or Enhance Abilities, and thus take some other feat or up Str at lvl 4 - but - the Pal has to roll to keep concentration on Enhance (as any magic capable tank would, also, to keep Enlarge going). And doing Enchance Ab is limited to slots.
A barb can't really multi into caster because you can't concentrate on spells, iirc, and rage.
A fighter can dip sorc 3 to get Enlarge (but again a reliable caster who can hit you with it instead is better, unless you're doing a caster dip for more than just this - shield, absorb elements, blade ward (limited usefulness of course) and so on make you much more tanky at the price of fi or pal levels.
So barring a polymorph into say a giant ape (who can use a shield I would think) we're knock knocking any gargantuan things prone. Would locking into a tactic like this ... I can see it getting tedious. Oh for the ten millionth time I roll to knock something prone.... But it looks like a good tactic. But there are limits - no GWM augmentation to damage. But if the party needs a tank - and given how 5e works getting advantage is really worthwhile - I wonder if some version of this build is worth pursuing. Also please help me out if I'm getting the rules wrong. And yes, I've read the excellent grappler's guide in our guide section here. It's quite good. Also I did some basic searches on shield mastery and didn't get other links here going deep into it (just a bit) - but if someone knows of a killer link that would rock - please post it.
Oh ... almost forgot the defensive damage-reducing and ST qualities of Shield Master. Does the damage reduction stack with an Ancient Pal's lvl 7 feature please?
A raging barb is a good choice for this because he gets advantage on str checks, so odds are good he can make most things prone on his bonus action - he'll have a good athletics boost to begin with (and most monsters don't) - and he's have two rolls.
And even if he's saving his rages or has run out of them, he has one decent roll or attempt to knock something down each target. And while Ogres and even Ettin have good Str scores and therefore good pluses to their rolls, a Barb with advantaged rolls still has a pretty good chance of knocking even them down.
Now, what about a fighter taking on the same role? AC will be only a bit better than the Barb (lets say the barb has con 16 and dx 14 so ac 17 w/ shield, fighter is chain and shield so ac 18). But the fighter, even if proficient in athletics, can't get advantage on the "shove" part of Shield Mastery (the bonus action shove) which knocks things prone. Oh well. Except oh wait. He can.
This is an error (edit - I'll leave it in in case someone read it earlier - sorry - the feat Athlete doesn't work this way, I got mixed up) --->[At lvl 4 the fighter can opt for a feat - Athletics - and now has advantage every single time he shoves something with that shield. He sacrificed upping STR or w/e, but that's okay - he gets ASIs at lvl 6 and 8 - he'll catch right up in a jiffy.]
At lvl 8 he'll be a pushing things prone fool, with 20 STR, and doing 2 hits w/ longsword for 2d8 + 14 or 23 average damage per round if both hit (with dueling Fi Style). Not insanely good damage, but not terrible - and he's a tank. If he's BM he could trying menacing (tripping! for when the shield bash misses) and so on to help keep things off his casters.
Now here's a weird tactic. When initiative goes well for this tank character, say Monster goes first, then our shield guy, then a melee rogue, then a barb - perfect. The monster hits or misses but doesn't kill our tank. He knocks it down and hits it twice - the rogue and barb brutalize it - it might die right there. But what if initiative is wonky? Tank goes, then monster, then rogue, then barb. Tank could ready his action ... but can he ready his bonus action or delay ... ? I don't think so (some DMs have told me no to both - I'm still looking at the rules myself). So in case this is the ruling - what would happen is tank knocks down monster and hits or misses him. Monster stands back up and hits tank. Rogue and barb try to hit monster w/out advantage because it's standing.
Okay, what if tank knocks the monster prone with bonus action, hits him with he sword but then uses his second attack to grapple him? I think you can (if standing) grapple a prone monster - you just need one hand free - oh wait - tank tries to hit him w/ sword, uses free action to drop sword (he'll have another on his belt or he's an EK and can summon it back) - and then grapples prone monster.
Tank - I think - has advantage to grapple because of Athletics feat, and if he does grapple, monster - on it's turn can't stand because it's grappled and needs movement to stand - so it either attacks at disadvantage or tries to break free of grapple (tank has advantage here too if I understand this right) and might fail. So odds are rogue and barb get to wail on a prone monster.
Next turn tank can bonus-action summon his sword (or pick it up or draw his backup) and take two chops at a still prone monster, after de-grappling it. Or take one swing at it and drop sword again and regrapple with second attack. Am I getting this right or is some hobgoblin in the rules I'm not understanding going to mess with this? (or is there a better way? to knock down and then grapple )
EK has some advantages in that he eventually can get Enlarge and thus knock prone Huge things like Hill Giants! Which could be fun. Taking Enlarge over Mirror Image .... yikes. Big sacrifice there. Another problem with EK is that with War Caster they need their bonus action for casting now - esp. if doing the SCAP cantrip thing (bb or gfb). BM might be the better route and hope a caster can Enlarge if needed.
So we then look at the multi-classing possibilities.
A Pal could go this route, too, and could easily dip Sorc 3 to get Enlarge. Or Enhance Abilities, and thus take some other feat or up Str at lvl 4 - but - the Pal has to roll to keep concentration on Enhance (as any magic capable tank would, also, to keep Enlarge going). And doing Enchance Ab is limited to slots.
A barb can't really multi into caster because you can't concentrate on spells, iirc, and rage.
A fighter can dip sorc 3 to get Enlarge (but again a reliable caster who can hit you with it instead is better, unless you're doing a caster dip for more than just this - shield, absorb elements, blade ward (limited usefulness of course) and so on make you much more tanky at the price of fi or pal levels.
So barring a polymorph into say a giant ape (who can use a shield I would think) we're knock knocking any gargantuan things prone. Would locking into a tactic like this ... I can see it getting tedious. Oh for the ten millionth time I roll to knock something prone.... But it looks like a good tactic. But there are limits - no GWM augmentation to damage. But if the party needs a tank - and given how 5e works getting advantage is really worthwhile - I wonder if some version of this build is worth pursuing. Also please help me out if I'm getting the rules wrong. And yes, I've read the excellent grappler's guide in our guide section here. It's quite good. Also I did some basic searches on shield mastery and didn't get other links here going deep into it (just a bit) - but if someone knows of a killer link that would rock - please post it.
Oh ... almost forgot the defensive damage-reducing and ST qualities of Shield Master. Does the damage reduction stack with an Ancient Pal's lvl 7 feature please?