Optimization Build me optimized tanks (Barb, Fighter, Rogue)! [Archive]

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PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-27, 07:35 PM

polymphus

2017-12-27, 09:57 PM

I know it's not a class in the title, but here's an unusual-but-powerful tank build:

Race: Variant Human
Starting Feat: Defensive Duellist
Starting ability scores: Str10 Dex15, Con14, Int12, Wis13, Cha8
VHuman stat bump: Dex, Wis
Class: Monk
Archetype: Way of the Kensei
ASIs: +4 Dex, +6 Wis

Your primary Kensei Weapon is a rapier. Your Kensei Block and Defensive Duellist will allow you to add Proficiency + 2 to your AC when wielding (important: not using, but wielding) a rapier. At lvl20, that's 28AC with no armor, no magic items, and a rapier. You also have Evasion, and Step of the Wind lets you dodge as a bonus action. You're tough, you're highly mobile, and you have excellent lockdown in the form of Stunning Strike.

At lvl1, AC is 15 base, or 17 with defensive duellist active.
At lvl4, put +2 into Dex. Your base AC goes to 16, but you've picked up your Kensei block, making it an effective 18. You can effectively ignore 1 missile attack per turn, and dodge as a bonus action.
At lvl5, proficiency goes up: +1 to AC. You get stunning strike, and extra ki for dodges.
At lvl10, you've picked up evasion and the ability to end any charmed/frightened effects on you at will. Dump +2 into Dex, giving you Dex 20. Proficiency is at +4. Base AC is now 17, +2 for Kensei, +4 for DD: 23. Your ki pool is now big enough that you can give all attacks against you disadvantage for extended periods of time.
At lvl11, nothing has changed.
At lvl16, you've dumped two ASIs into Wisdom. Proficiency is at +5. Effective AC is 25. You have proficiency in all saving throws, and can reroll failed saving throws with ki. Ki pool: 16 -- if you're dedicated to tanking, you can throw those all onto saving throws and dodges.
At lvl17, nothing changes.
At lvl20, you can burn ki to become invisible, and gain resistance to all damage except force. +2 more Wis. Ki pool is now at 20. Ki recharges on a short rest: I've almost never seen a monk burn all 20 before being able to get it back. This means, effectively, that you can have advantage on all saving throws (+ proficiency!). AC is now at 28 and most attacks against you will have disadvantage.

Roundup: AC28, proficiency on all saving throws (with rerolls for fails, and possible rerolls of rerolls), evasion, dodge as a bonus action (disadvantage on all attacks against you until the start of your next turn), resistance to all damage except force, deflect missiles. This all runs on Ki, but ki is very easy to get back and the pool by the time you've got a decent number of levels is pretty massive.

Not amazing HP and takes a while for the ball to get rolling, but damned if it doesn't take a lot to bring down. A lot of it depends on the misunderstood and under-used Step of the Wind ki ability: burning 1 ki to give all attacks against you disadvantage for a full turn is huge, but often ignored because flurry of blows is more showy. Once Diamond Soul kicks in, saving throws become a joke. Throw in some nice Kensei/Defensive Duellist synergy for that crazy AC boost and you've got an incredibly tough nut to crack.

GreyBlack

2017-12-28, 12:00 AM

BobZan

2017-12-28, 06:13 AM

The good tanking features are: HP, AC, Resistance & Saves.

I recommend these:

Bearbarian -> will have HP, Resistance and decent AC.
V. Human -> Defensive Duelist

Stats (point-buy) 16 14 16 8 10 8
HP: 15 + 10/level

ASIs: STR and CON / Resilient Wis is a good pick after Max STR

Go with Medium Armor and Shield + Longsword
CA: 14+2+2=18 + 2/reaction=20/reaction on Level 1

Upgrade your armor asap to Half Plate (15+2+2 (+x/reaction) - x equals proficiency from Defensive Duelist

Key level:

Lv 3 - Pick the Path of Totem Warrior - Select Bear

Strategy 'tank-wise': don't Reckless Attack for more tankiness. Rage on key encounters for Resistance to "everything"

Ancients Paladin -> AC, HP and Saves
V. Human ->
Heavy Armor Master -> -3 damage/hit (bsp)
or
Shield Master

16 8 14 8 12 16

ASIs: STR and CHA

Go Chain Mail + Shield + Defense Fighting Style

AC: 16+2+1=19

Upgrade for a Full Plate as soon as you can

Lv 1: Fighting Style, Lay on Hands
Lv 2: Divine Smite
Lv 3: Oath of the Ancients
Lv 6: Aura of Protection
Lv 7: Oath Aura (Magic Resistance)

Eldritch Knight -> Very high AC (Shield), Resistance (Absorb Elements) and HP
V. Human ->
Heavy Armor Master -> -3 damage/hit (bsp)
or
Shield Master

16 10 16 10 13 8

ASIs: Warcaster then STR +4 then Resilient Wis then CON +4

Go Chain Mail + Shield + Defense Fighting Style

AC: 16+2+1=19

Upgrade for a Full Plate as soon as you can

LV 3: Eldritch Knight -> Spells: Shield, Absorb Elements and Protection from Evil and Good

LV 7: Spells: Blur and Mirror Image

Lombra

2017-12-28, 07:11 AM

I think that PHB only paladins and fighters are the best tanks, because they can draw aggro easily. Ancients paladin also works great versus spellcasters.

Galactkaktus

2017-12-28, 03:52 PM

My way of thinking about efficent tanks are that they should be durable and have some way of punishing enemies from attacking other party members.

My Barb whould probably be something like
Lv1
Vhuman
16 Str
16 Con
15 Dex
8 Wis
8 Int
8 Cha
Feat Great Weapon Master (Important to make your opportunity attacks really threatining so enemies think twice before runing past you and murder other party members. And killing stuff is a very good way of preventing damage)
AC 15(If you can get Scale mail, Breastplate or Half plate the AC can be abit better)
HP 15

Lv4
+2 Str(18)
And by now you should have gotten some kind of armor to get abit better ac than 15. Reckless attack is also very good at encouraging enemies to attack you and danger sense can't hurt. I whould probably take path of the berserker as my primal path since mindless rage at level 6 prevents some of the worst status conditions that can be inflicted on you and frenzy gives alot of damage.

Lv5
Extra attack is great and fast movements are both great things.

Lv10
+2 Str(20)
Mindless rage is really good. Feral instincts makes it easier for you to engage before the enimies attacks. And you should have access to half plate by now so 17 AC

Lv11
Relentless rage keeps you in the fight longer

Lv16
+2 Con(18) Resilient(dex) Your unarmored defense is now as good as the best non magic medium armor with the added benefit of not getting disadvantage on stealth. Proficency in dex saving thorws is quite good.
Retaliation makes stuff die faster which is great and Persistant rage makes it very hard to interupt your rage.

Lv17
Not That many important things.

Lv20
+4 Str(24) +6 Con(24) AC 19 And alot of health.
Unlimited rages is pretty darn good.

Citan

2017-12-28, 04:04 PM

Parameters:
+No magic items (I'm comparing them plain right now)
+Standard Point Buy
+Any PHB race and sub-class
+Feats allowed
+No multiclassing!

An ideal response would have information for one of the 3 classes for each of 8 specific levels:
1, 4, 5, 10, 11, 16, 17, 20 (the start and end of each tier). Note: If something doesn't change, that can be referenced as "same as level X"

Information needed:
+Ability scores
+feats that directly affect damage intake
+information about class or racial features that affect damage intake (% of time spent Reckless, for example). If something's hard to quantify, please let me know (spell slot usage?)
+AC. Assume that by level 5 that armor is maxed out (ie plate for fighters).
Hi OP! First things first...

I think that PHB only paladins and fighters are the best tanks, because they can draw aggro easily. Ancients paladin also works great versus spellcasters.
This.
Ancients Paladin wins everything hands down, level 1-20, stat.
Next comes other Paladins, same base strengths, some nice perks (Devotion: immunity to fear IIRC).
Next comes Monks, but only on second half of their career, especially Long Death ones.
Next comes Bear Barbarians (mainly crowd resilience), Arcane Tricksters (mostly 1v1 resilience, but can be built for big control) and Eldricht Knights (high base AC + Shield + largest number of ASIs make them the most versatile after Paladins).

Now that the elephant in the room is adressed...
(Note that all I'm suggesting is from memory, books unavailable to me for moment).
(Also note that I WON'T write the required level of detail: first because it's mostly overkill, second because you are a grown up -or at least I suppose so-, you can fill in the blanks easily enough).

Barbarian: Full Bear Totem (or Wolf at 14 if you'd like another tactical option)
Races: any with +2 STR or CON. Goliath preferred if you want to be the one who holds all loot, carry a party member on shoulder for fun or breaks large things.
ASI: if you want to min-max and metagame, bet on getting a Giant Belt that will boost your STR and just bump CON to get extra resilient. Otherwise, max STR, CON to 16, DEX= 14, WIS>=10, grab GWM and Sentinel. Wear medium armor.
Tactics: just hack and slash, always trying to get between 2 and 5 people focus on you, balancing turns with Reckless Attack and turns without.
As your objective is tanking, getting a chance to stop enemy in its track with Sentinel should be a priority.
Try to get Sentinel early, earlier than GWM in fact (you could totally ditch it actually, but Barbarians are usually expected to hit hard, and killing things fast is often the best option. Although you could instead play the "True Sentinel" card and instead pick Polearm Master).

Fighter: Battlemaster (didn't pick EK because while they are much better in resilience, aggro / control tactics tend to come online later, too late to my taste considering your demand).
Obvious feats: Resilient: Wisdom, Martial Adept.
Build as STR with GWM, PAM and either Mobile or Sentinel (heavy reach melee).
Build as STR with Dual Wielder, Sharpshooter and Mage Slayer or Mobile or Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster (great polyvalence).
Build as DEX with Shield Master, Sentinel, Defensive Duelist or Magic Initiate: Cleric (Shield of Faith/Bless) or Magic Initiate: Wizard (Find Familiar, Booming Blade -works against Sentinel-) (heavy resilience).
Build as DEX with Crossbow Expert, Mage Slayer and Sharpshooter (distant control).

Manoeuvers: Commander's Strike (if Rogue/Paladin or other nova striker in party), Trip Attack (for melee friends), Menacing Attack (perfect from a distance), Disarming Strike (very useful to actively prevent spellcasting or powerful attacks if you can shoot the weapon away or have it grabbed by yourself or a friend), Evasive Manoeuver (for melee builds).

Heavy melee: coordinate with ranged allies so you don't bother them, use Shove whenever it seems useful, otherwise, just bash away. Be bold enough to get as many enemies as you can to follow you, then use Menacing Strike to keep the most dangerous occupied while you either drop its speed (Sentinel) or make him chase you (Mobile). OR: rush through the lines to whack one backliner then dart away, using a combination of Evasive Manoeuver and Action Surge: most enemies should waste their OA on you while you spare movement by going straight instead of around, but beware of where you finish your turn: if careless, you will get ganged upon and you don't have tools against that.

Polyvalent: lure enemies when you can, don't hesitate to directly target backliners with your javelins, especially casters (+ Disarm & familiar grabbing focus + Mage Slayer) or flyers (+ Trip Attack). You can also use most of the ideas given above. Idea is that you deal lesser spike damage but you are pretty sure to have a chance at hitting things which are beyond normal melee for x reason (confer all the threads about dual wielding). Note that the drawing/sheating interaction economy will become a major hindrance if you plan on using thrown attacks regularly after you get your 3rd Extra Attack. If you'd like to be a throwing machine, speak with your DM beforehand to see if he agrees to waive that requirement. Otherwise, just don't do it, it's too much a pain without multiclasses. :)

Heavy Resilience: basically stand in the middle of things (don't go above 4 enemies at same time though), shove creatures with bonus action (and maybe normal attacks if melee friends close by), use Menacing Strike or Defensive Duelist against the most dangerous ones, otherwise try to trigger Sentinel as often as possible. When on the verge of being overrun, either go on the offensive to try and clear a path, or use Evasive Footsteps to move away safely.

Distant Control: try to stay close enough to the front to aggro enemies, but keep your eyes on flyers and casters mostly: your job will be to put down the first (Trip) and terminate the others (Mage Slayer + Precision) as soon as possible, otherwise helping others by applying Menacing Attack on the most dangerous martial foes.

That's it for tonight, no time left for Rogue One, sorry. ;)

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-28, 05:00 PM

Citan, that's all well and good, but it doesn't meet my needs at all. I'm specifically doing a spot of theorycraft around longevity under certain assumptions.

Specifically--at the given levels (2 per tier), how does the stock (ie no magic items, no non-PHB sources) longevity (measured in Rounds to Live) vary between a selection of builds?

Assumptions:

Universal: 2 combats per short rest.
Two variants:
**Multi-target (actively taking attacks from multiple sources)
**Single "hard" solo combat (only one opponent, but at much higher CRs)

Three stylized damage types:
**Attacks vs AC (of physical damage types)
**Effects that deal damage and are mitigated (for half damage) by a Dexterity save--non-physical damage types.
**A 50-50 mix of the two other sources.

All opponent numbers (damage, attack bonuses, saves, etc) are pulled from the averaged numbers from the MM (and thus account for the fact that the offensive CR of real MM monsters is almost uniformly higher than the written CR, because the health and defensive CR is much lower than the DMG guidance).

Thus, I'm only concerned with damage intake (and things that influence it like AC, saves, regeneration, etc) and HP (and things that influence it directly, not including items or external healing). The builds should allow for reasonable normal adventuring--that is, they're not specific "turtle" builds that can't actually threaten anyone, but neither are they max-damage. Accounting for damage is outside the scope of this project as it stands.

Currently, my numbers are very rough and thus any conclusions are tentative.
Of the four builds (and five scenarios) I've looked at so far, the results are basically (averaged across all levels)

For the 2+ monster case:

Class
AC
Save
Mixed

Bearbarian (raging)
~6, lots of variation
4.7, increases with level
~5, large variance

Bearbarian (not raging)
3.7 (accounting for infinite rage at level 17+)
3.2 (same deal)
3.4 (ditto)

Fighter (no subclass, unoptimized)
3.7 (6.3 at first level)
2.0
2.4

Rogue (subclass irrelevant)
2.5
2.9
2.6

EK (as posted above)
6.2
2.3
3.1

The EK is weakest near the bottom of T2 (~level 5), the barbarian shows strong cyclical tendencies--strong at the bottom of a tier, weaker at the top, showing he's not scaling within a tier very much.

Another difference is in non-damage saves--the barb averages 29% success against level appropriate wisdom saves, the others (all very similar) about 37%.

I'll repeat that all of these are very, extremely, no-question tentative and rely on some large assumptions about damage smoothing, exact foes, situations, etc. But they're interesting, mainly in how good a bearbarb is.

Citan

2017-12-28, 06:38 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-28, 07:27 PM

Oh, ok. I indeed didn't understand that. ;)

I'm not sure how to help you then, because it seems quite hard to theorycraft... Also I have some difficulties reading your results table. What are those numbers? Number of success against a total number of attacks sustained?

In general, as far as resilience goes, my gut thinking would be that...
- Against single enemies, Rogue are subpar until they get Uncanny Dodge, then then go above the two others when comparing unoptimized classes, because they can also Disengage and avoid damage on successful DEX saves (Evasion), and ultimately gain WIS proficiency for free. so they can perfectly grab Constitution Resilience to complete the strong saves triptyc.
- Against multiple enemies, Bear Barbarian should be the best from level 1 to level 10 or so, then EK should get up to parity (or maybe better weapon damage-wise) thanks to higher number of Shield, the save reroll, other defensive spells (Blur, Mirror Image) and additional feats. While Barbarian takes again / keep the lead past lvl 14-15 because its resilience works against all damage except psychic and magical effects become much more common.

But it really depends on so many factors... :)

Sorry, it's Rounds to live (Max HP / damage intake per round). Higher is better. My gut assumption is that combats (other than super-epic ones) shouldn't take more than about 5 rounds with a majority between 3 and 4, so anything around 3+ is decent (because it assumes that you're taking damage from multiple sources for that long--there's probably a round or two getting into position and a round or two after you've disabled some of the enemies.

Uncanny dodge is really hard to simulate without, you know, actual round by round simulations. Since it only works on the first hit and uses up a reaction, it's a pain to simulate, but those numbers include a fudge factor to account for it.

At level 10, for instance, the incoming average per enemy damage (before crits) is 47.5, almost certainly divided among several attacks. I made the (generous and strongly simplifying) assumption that each enemy only makes one big hit each round. Thus, the effect of uncanny dodge is to multiply the incoming damage by (1-2/n), where n is the number of enemies present. With an avoidance of ~52%, the rogue (without uncanny dodge) takes ~20 damage per round per opponent. Without the uncanny dodge multiplier, they're taking ~27 dpr, cutting their RTL to 1.7 (from 2.3). Still doesn't help much.

All of this assumes rounds actually taking damage (because I'm only concerned here with soaking/evading hits).

Blur (especially) makes a huge difference for the EK (judging from my numbers)--I'm assuming you're using it out of every 2nd level slot. Going from level 5 to level 10 (after blur comes online), the AC-only RTL of the EK doubles (from 3.5 to 7.6 against multiple targets). While it falls off after that, the EK is on-par with the raging bearbarb past level 10, with a tiny fraction of the variability.

BigONotation

2017-12-28, 08:05 PM

Given the premise, not sure how anyone beats a Bearbarian with Shield Master at any level. The one caveat being bad mental saves which can be shored up with Resilient Wisdom.

Klorox

2017-12-29, 05:32 AM

I've never seen a tanky rogue. That'd be interesting!

Arkhios

2017-12-29, 09:11 AM

I've never seen a tanky rogue. That'd be interesting!

With how the 5th edition rogue is designed they actually have decent potential for being tanky.
Uncanny Dodge lets a rogue spend his/her reaction to halve damage from one source which is just awesome.

Although, I'd definitely take at the very least Moderately Armored feat. Sentinel is also a must have, especially because sneak attack damage can be dealt off-turn.

pdegan2814

2017-12-29, 10:03 AM

With how the 5th edition rogue is designed they actually have decent potential for being tanky. Although, I'd definitely take at the very least Moderately Armored feat. Sentinel is also a must have, especially because sneak attack damage can be dealt off-turn.

Are you taking Moderately Armored so you can use a shield?

Arkhios

2017-12-29, 10:04 AM

Are you taking Moderately Armored so you can use a shield?

Yes, and Half-plate. But shield has other good uses. With expertise on athletics, shield master (yes, another must have feat for rogue tank) enables very probable sneak attack on each turn.

Specter

2017-12-29, 10:05 AM

I've never seen a tanky rogue. That'd be interesting!

Arcane Trickster with Booming Blade, Mirror Image, Blur, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion and Sentinel can tank like hell, and it's all there at level 7.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-29, 10:12 AM

Arcane Trickster with Booming Blade, Mirror Image, Blur, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion and Sentinel can tank like hell, and it's all there at level 7.

Except that most of the boost comes from blur (based on my data), and you really don't have the spell slots to keep that up most of the time (unless your group only does 1 big combat per day). And if (when) you get hit, you're unlikely to keep concentration since you don't have proficiency in CON saves. And you can't keep Mirror Image and Blur up together unless you only have one fight--you only have two level 2 slots, three max. Uncanny dodge helps, but not enough to close the gap of damage intake vs health.

Rogues do reasonably well (low damage intake) against exclusively DEX save (save for half-type) damage. But even then they're worse than an unoptimized bear barbarian with rage. Of course the rogue is probably doing better damage than a tanky barbarian (since he's not using reckless or a big weapon) and thus might be stickier (especially with sentinel), but he's not more survivable.

pdegan2814

2017-12-29, 10:12 AM

Given the premise, not sure how anyone beats a Bearbarian with Shield Master at any level. The one caveat being bad mental saves which can be shored up with Resilient Wisdom.

Resilient(Wis) is definitely a good idea, though I'm not sure about Shield Master. Yes, it means better Dex saves and essentially Evasion at the cost of your reaction. Definitely excellent for survivability. But if he's TOO hard to hit, you've gotta make sure he's enough of an offensive threat that they don't just ignore him and attack the squishies. Pair a Reckless, GWM-swinging engine of death & destruction with a good healer, and clear the field :)

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-29, 10:18 AM

Resilient(Wis) is definitely a good idea, though I'm not sure about Shield Master. Yes, it means better Dex saves and essentially Evasion at the cost of your reaction. Definitely excellent for survivability. But if he's TOO hard to hit, you've gotta make sure he's enough of an offensive threat that they don't just ignore him and attack the squishies. Pair a Reckless, GWM-swinging engine of death & destruction with a good healer, and clear the field :)

That is a balancing factor in real play, for sure. By going pure tanky, you're giving up a lot of the damage output of the barbarian. Compare this to a tanky EK or battlemaster--you keep a much larger percentage of the output while still being pretty survivable.

Specter

2017-12-29, 10:33 AM

Except that most of the boost comes from blur (based on my data), and you really don't have the spell slots to keep that up most of the time (unless your group only does 1 big combat per day). And if (when) you get hit, you're unlikely to keep concentration since you don't have proficiency in CON saves. And you can't keep Mirror Image and Blur up together unless you only have one fight--you only have two level 2 slots, three max. Uncanny dodge helps, but not enough to close the gap of damage intake vs health.

Rogues do reasonably well (low damage intake) against exclusively DEX save (save for half-type) damage. But even then they're worse than an unoptimized bear barbarian with rage. Of course the rogue is probably doing better damage than a tanky barbarian (since he's not using reckless or a big weapon) and thus might be stickier (especially with sentinel), but he's not more survivable.

Mirror Image should come before Blur. Even if you have 1AC, an enemy would still have 25% chance of hitting you. With an actual AC of 16+, that's 20% chance or less of getting hit. With an ally next to you, your enemy either attacks you with little chances of success, or attacks someone else and gets sneaked. With Booming Blade, they won't be eager to move either.

Other things:
- Cunning Action lets you be pretty much wherever you want on the field. Especially useful on the first turn (not needing to waste an action to dash/disengage).
- Rogues can be proficient in the 3 big saves + INT with Slippery Mind, losing only to Monk in that department.
- Elusive means no advantage for enemies. Obviously good at preserving you.

They're not the best tanks, but considering they can also be a striker and a skillmonkey with little effort, there's no reason not to tank.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-29, 11:09 AM

Mirror Image should come before Blur. Even if you have 1AC, an enemy would still have 25% chance of hitting you. With an actual AC of 16+, that's 20% chance or less of getting hit. With an ally next to you, your enemy either attacks you with little chances of success, or attacks someone else and gets sneaked. With Booming Blade, they won't be eager to move either.

Other things:
- Cunning Action lets you be pretty much wherever you want on the field. Especially useful on the first turn (not needing to waste an action to dash/disengage).
- Rogues can be proficient in the 3 big saves + INT with Slippery Mind, losing only to Monk in that department.
- Elusive means no advantage for enemies. Obviously good at preserving you.

They're not the best tanks, but considering they can also be a striker and a skillmonkey with little effort, there's no reason not to tank.

+ Mirror image drops fast against things that make multiple attacks (ie most things) or against multiple foes. You also don't have the spell slots to keep it up very much at all.
+ Cunning action doesn't close the gap in survivability enough.

Recalculating with moderately armored at level 1 (and assuming you don't have the cash to upgrade armor until after level 1) takes the average (across all levels) RTL for the sub-class-less rogue to 3.1 (still worse than a rage-less barbarian). Mirror image or blur would help some, but not even enough to hit the performance of a sub-class-less fighter.

Does the extra mobility make up for it? Maybe. That's a different conversation. Rogues are much less squishy than commonly thought, but I'd bet that most classes are unless they specifically dump defenses. That's inherent in the math of this edition, and, in my opinion, a good thing. No MMO-style rigid roles--anyone can take a hit (or two) from the big boys with good tactics and some luck. You can have groups with no "tank" type and still be successful. Your tactics must change to compensate, but it's not a hard barrier.

JellyPooga

2017-12-29, 11:45 AM

+ Mirror image drops fast against things that make multiple attacks (ie most things) or against multiple foes. You also don't have the spell slots to keep it up very much at all.
+ Cunning action doesn't close the gap in survivability enough.

Recalculating with moderately armored at level 1 (and assuming you don't have the cash to upgrade armor until after level 1) takes the average (across all levels) RTL for the sub-class-less rogue to 3.1 (still worse than a rage-less barbarian). Mirror image or blur would help some, but not even enough to hit the performance of a sub-class-less fighter.

Does the extra mobility make up for it? Maybe. That's a different conversation. Rogues are much less squishy than commonly thought, but I'd bet that most classes are unless they specifically dump defenses. That's inherent in the math of this edition, and, in my opinion, a good thing. No MMO-style rigid roles--anyone can take a hit (or two) from the big boys with good tactics and some luck. You can have groups with no "tank" type and still be successful. Your tactics must change to compensate, but it's not a hard barrier.

How do you figure that a Rogue has less survivability than a rage-less Barbarian? The difference in HP between Rogue and Barbarian is 4+2 per (level-1), assuming equal Con. Uncanny Dodge easily accounts for that discrepancy in one or two hits, let alone extended rounds of combat or multiple combats per day. Their AC is roughly comparable; assuming Moderately Armoured it's exactly equal (not accounting for subclass, where an Arcane Trickster easily outpaces the Barb for at least a couple of combats a day with spell effects of one stripe or another). Literally the only thing the Barbarian has to last longer than a Rogue is the Resistance offered by Rage because without it, all he has is a very slight HP advantage. Even then, the Rogue can boast that he can get into more fights than the Barbarian can Rage and doesn't have to worry about his Uncanny Dodge expiring due to time (which is unlikely anyway) or failure to attack/take damage (which is always a possibility that is often overlooked).

In actual play, the Barbarian also probably has an AC disadvantage compared to the Rogue, because of the benefits offered by GWM and/or PAM; neither of which are available to the Rogue, who may as well go S&B or (though I wouldn't recommend it) TWF with Dual Wielder for the +1 AC.

Then there's Evasion. Not applicable to normal attacks, but against literally any AoE, the Rogue has functional Resistance even if he fails. No needing to activate Rage, no concerns whether it's spell damage or not (re: Ancients Pally) and if he succeeds on his Dex Save (which is likely), he has functional immunity to whatever damage type is being dealt, regardless of subclass. A Bearbarian might only take quarter damage from Fireball on a successful Save, but that's still an average of 7 damage compared to the 0 that a level 7+ Rogue takes (and I'll remind you that the Barbarian at that level only actually has 16 more HP than the Rogue).

Rogues aren't just "surprisingly decent" tanks...they're actively competetive compared to the usual suspects of Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin. They're capable of having near or better than the HP efficiency of the Barbarian, the AC of an Eldritch Knight and the general resistance to magical effects of a Paladin. Added to a very mobile and high off-turn threat level that makes them an attractive and sticky target. If we're talking about pure Tank builds, the Rogue isn't just a contender for the title, IMO; he's the one the others are battling for it.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-29, 12:11 PM

Here are a few things--

+ making decisions based on comparing things in a vacuum is a bad idea. The entire point of my explorations here is to check that intuition.
+ To have "comparable" AC, the rogue must invest a feat (to get medium armor and shields). The barbarian gets that for free.
+ HP increases due to HD size and CON are cumulative (and thus small differences matter). Going V Human (for that feat) means that your other ability scores suffer (compared to regular human or another race). This is an inherent trade-off.
+ At high levels (where some of the rogue's benefits come in), a barbarian can already rage in the vast majority of battles. And rage (with the attendant resistance) is a huge benefit.
+ If a rogue is using uncanny dodge, he's also not using sentinel or making OAs. That slaughters the rogues stickiness. My numbers actually overstate the benefit of uncanny dodge--it assumes that each enemy only makes a single attack (instead of multiple, like almost all monsters do).
+ Past level 5, the growth in attack bonuses means that without +AC items you're going to take hits. Having more HP makes a huge difference here. The barbarian I'm using has about 20 more health than the rogue at level 10 and takes a comparable amount of damage (~15/enemy/round) without raging. That means that the non-raging barbarian lasts ~2/3 of a round longer than the rogue. This only gets worse--a level 20 barbarian has ~80 more HP, and can rage infinitely. This makes them take both less damage (33 for the rogue, 22 for the raging barbarian) but have 1.4x the health to soak hits in.
+ This disparity is exponentially worse against a big solo target. There, the rogue is taking his entire health pool in damage at level 20 per round from an AC source. The barbarian takes about the same amount of damage before rage, but has a bigger pool of health. With rage, the barbarian lasts more than twice as long.

From actual play, the difference between a rogue tanking and a barbarian tanking comes down to luck and situations. In the right situations and with good rolls (or poor attack rolls), the rogue can do fine. The barbarian needs a lot less buffer with situational advantages once you get past the lowest levels but has significant level-to-level variation (low within-tier scaling). A fighter is more middle-of-the-road, but has basically no situational weaknesses.

JellyPooga

2017-12-29, 01:37 PM

+ To have "comparable" AC, the rogue must invest a feat (to get medium armor and shields). The barbarian gets that for free.

This is irrelevant because we're talking solely about single class tank builds. A Rogue built to Tank will be taking Moderately Armoured to take advantage of a shield, the same as a Barbarian is likely to be taking Resilient (Wis) to avoid spellcasters ruining his day. As the Rogue gets more ASI's than a Barbarian, the Rogue is also effectively getting this "free" by comparison.

+ HP increases due to HD size and CON are cumulative (and thus small differences matter). Going V Human (for that feat) means that your other ability scores suffer (compared to regular human or another race). This is an inherent trade-off.

Ability scores as a Tank are going to be comparable regardless of Class, making the V.Human argument irrelevant. At all levels bar 20, the Barbarian only has 2+2(level) more HP than the Rogue. At level 19, this is merely 40hp; about one decent hit from a big hitter (e.g. Meteor Swarm deals 35 damage to a Raging Barbarian that passes his save, the same damage as an Ancient Red Dragons Bite attack). At level 20, the Barbarian gains a significant advantage from his capstone, to the tune of an additional 40hp over what the Rogue has...but that's at level 20.

+ At high levels (where some of the rogue's benefits come in), a barbarian can already rage in the vast majority of battles. And rage (with the attendant resistance) is a huge benefit.

The Barbarian can Rage in most battles, yes, but not all. He also has to activate Rage and maintain it in order to benefit. UD and Evasion are virtually "always on".

+ If a rogue is using uncanny dodge, he's also not using sentinel or making OAs. That slaughters the rogues stickiness.

Not really. Against a single opponent, the Rogue is only using UD if his opponent is attacking him and OA if his opponent is evading him. The two are exclusive, but complimentary. Against multiple opponents, no-one has anything worth a damn to be sticky, so the Rogue is no worse off there, except where Rage has benefits against multiples anyway.

Specter

2017-12-29, 01:40 PM

In addition to what Jelly said, you have to figure out why enemies would want to target each class, instead of someone else in the field.

A Barbarian is big and strong, to the point where even beasts and such would avoid him in favor of others. He also takes half damage from all attacks, and if given a choice, you'll want to target someone who'll take full damage. The Barbarian built for tanking is not the prime damager in the field, so enemies will be looking for high-priority targets. The prime barbarian tank in this sense is not Bear, but Wolf, because if enemies don't get rid of him the attacks of allies land more consistently.

A Rogue is not the bulky type, and thus seems weak, which is perfect for luring enemies. His damage output is consistent, especially when it comes to opportunity attacks, so he will be bothersome if not dealt with. With Arcane Trickster's Booming Blade, enemies have less incentive to move and must stay their ground or take damage.

Tanking isn't about taking hits, that's something even a gelatinous cube can do. It's about taking hits and making yourself the center of attention. In the latter, Rogue wins.

ProseBeforeHos

2017-12-29, 02:27 PM

Variant Human Barbarian with starting stats of Str 16 Dex 14 and Con 16. Grab sentinel at level one, go into bear totem at level 3.

Mountain Dwarf Fighter with starting stats of Str and Con 17. Grab sentinel at level 4 and a +1 stat bump to both con and str at level 6. Go battle-master and dueling at levels 3 and 2 respectively.

The "optimized tank" really is just a) a lot of hp b) some resistances c) the sentinel feat d) enough damage that you can't just ignore them.

Rouges don't make good tanks, but the same formula as above applied to a paladin tank.

Arkhios

2017-12-29, 02:45 PM

A Barbarian is big and strong

But what if I made a Halfling Barbarian (As I definitely would!) :smallbiggrin:

Imho, Stout Halfling with STR 15, DEX 16, CON 16, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 8 would be far from doomed to fail. Great Potential for high AC, and picking Shield Master might not be bad choice either.

Citan

2017-12-29, 07:31 PM

How do you figure that a Rogue has less survivability than a rage-less Barbarian? The difference in HP between Rogue and Barbarian is 4+2 per (level-1), assuming equal Con. Uncanny Dodge easily accounts for that discrepancy in one or two hits, let alone extended rounds of combat or multiple combats per day. Their AC is roughly comparable; assuming Moderately Armoured it's exactly equal (not accounting for subclass, where an Arcane Trickster easily outpaces the Barb for at least a couple of combats a day with spell effects of one stripe or another). Literally the only thing the Barbarian has to last longer than a Rogue is the Resistance offered by Rage because without it, all he has is a very slight HP advantage. Even then, the Rogue can boast that he can get into more fights than the Barbarian can Rage and doesn't have to worry about his Uncanny Dodge expiring due to time (which is unlikely anyway) or failure to attack/take damage (which is always a possibility that is often overlooked).

In actual play, the Barbarian also probably has an AC disadvantage compared to the Rogue, because of the benefits offered by GWM and/or PAM; neither of which are available to the Rogue, who may as well go S&B or (though I wouldn't recommend it) TWF with Dual Wielder for the +1 AC.

Then there's Evasion. Not applicable to normal attacks, but against literally any AoE, the Rogue has functional Resistance even if he fails. No needing to activate Rage, no concerns whether it's spell damage or not (re: Ancients Pally) and if he succeeds on his Dex Save (which is likely), he has functional immunity to whatever damage type is being dealt, regardless of subclass. A Bearbarian might only take quarter damage from Fireball on a successful Save, but that's still an average of 7 damage compared to the 0 that a level 7+ Rogue takes (and I'll remind you that the Barbarian at that level only actually has 16 more HP than the Rogue).

Rogues aren't just "surprisingly decent" tanks...they're actively competetive compared to the usual suspects of Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin. They're capable of having near or better than the HP efficiency of the Barbarian, the AC of an Eldritch Knight and the general resistance to magical effects of a Paladin. Added to a very mobile and high off-turn threat level that makes them an attractive and sticky target. If we're talking about pure Tank builds, the Rogue isn't just a contender for the title, IMO; he's the one the others are battling for it.
So here we are yet again...

1. "Comparable AC": not by far: Barbarian can get 18-19 AC by level 2 or 3 with proper equipment (14 dex, medium armor and shield). Rogue won't get it before level 4 at best thanks to feat (which means delaying his offensive progression for a full whole 4 levels), unless he shoehorns himself into a Variant Human.

2. "Literally the only thing the Barbarian has to last longer than a Rogue is the Resistance offered by Rage because without it"

Rage which he gets 2 per day early, 4 as early as level 6, 5th at level 12 and ultimately unlimited. You remember that DM are not supposed to give more than 6 encounters usually, right? And that of those six, only two should be really dangerous, and at least one should be usually a cakewalk? And that many many players live sessions in which they get only 1-3 encounters anyways for various reasons? So it's not like a player is supposed to enter rage as soon as he hears a strange sound or see someone acting agressively. XD

Rage that can be shorted by lack of damage given (which becomes really unlikely between Shove checks with advantage, Reckeless Attack and Extra Attack) or damage taken (equally unlikely, even if Barbarian doesn't use Reckless Attack, because he actively tries to aggro people, especially when built as a tank. And a limit that gets lifted for those brave that reach level 15.
Rage that provides equally good efficiency against damages of any source, each and every time of every turn, without using reaction.

3. "AC disadvantage": if you are comparing classes built as tanks, there is NO reason whatsoever for a Barbarian NOT to use a shield. Which he is proficient with without further investment too. And besides Sentinel, PAM works with shield by RAW, as incoherent and infuriating as may seem to many DMs. Moot point.

4. "Evasion", "against literally any AoE, the Rogue has functional Resistance even if he fails; he has functional immunity to whatever damage type is being dealt, regardless of subclass."

Literally any AOE? Not quite true: somewhere around 80% AOE are DEX saves, which is great for Rogue, but it's still not everything.

Functional immunity to whatever damage? Errr, let's stop dreaming here: DEX saves are pretty common, but not the only common ones: many monsters have nasty effects targeting Constitution. WIS saves can force you to take damage one way or another, and you become only good against them at level 15. STR saves can force you to stay put one way or another, making you a prime target for gangbanging, ultimately ending in a huge amount of damage.

5. "A Bearbarian might only take quarter damage from Fireball on a successful Save, but that's still an average of 7 damage compared to the 0 that a level 7+ Rogue "
Let's play a game: take lvl 10 guys, normally built: Rogue has 20 DEX, Barb has 14 DEX. One has +5+4=9 to save, the other has just +2.

Brrr, beware that Fireball!
Against a DC 15, Rogue needs only 6: easy peasy, 75% chance to suffer no damage. On those 25% cases, he will suffer half damage.
Barb has advantage, but with only a 2, he needs to roll 13, thanks to advantage he still gets roughly 64%.
Provided he took Shield Master (after all "he's built as a tank"), he'd now get another +2, so need 11: with advantage, it's 75% chance... To get hit for quarter damage. And 25% chance to get hit for half damage.
So Rogue has a definitive advantage on Barb, but only on Dex saves.

Now for the big question(s)...
- How often, really, do bad guys use AOE on a tank, aka someone usually considered as actively getting melee and ranged guys alike to focus on him (meaning many "caster friendlies" close around that will very probably be affected, and very probably have low save/resistance to it)?
- How often, in general, is anyone subjected to Dex saves compared to STR, CON saves or checks (barring mental problems) which are much more harmful to a martial (not listing creature's effects like Ghouls's because too many of them, but among low-to-medium spells, Thunderwave, Blindness, Cone of Cold, Stinking Cloud, Moonbeam, Entangle, Plant Growth)? Especially tanks, which are much more exposed to many STR/CON riders automatically triggered on melee attacks?
- How often, in general, will a tank (against, supposed to get focus on him) manage to get everyone interested in him but still get hit only one or two times a turn?
And that is the most optimistic situation, which is...
* enemy crowds that act without any preexisting knowledge of the party (less and less probable as party levels in a long-term campaign)
* enemies that have no intelligence to notice and react to newly acquired information ("this one hits hard", "this one seems to favor one-to-one", "this one seems expert at avoiding quick attacks -dex saves-").
* enemies that have no teamwork whatsoever (because otherwise, enemy will just ask archers to focus fire, or ask one guy to entice you to land a Sneak Attack on Opportunity Attack, possibly killing him or at least hurting him like hell, but leaving you powerless against the next big thing coming for you).

---
Get any Rogue in a crowd, barring a heavily built Arcane Trickster (Resilient: Constitution, Moderately Armored, Shield, Mirror Image, Blur/Haste/Greater Invisibility), he will be downed much much faster than Barbarian.
Get any Rogue in any normal campaign, mimicking Barbarian's tactics to draw fire, and he will die miserably sooner or later because he is really great only at two things:
- avoiding to be targeted by many people through range limitation (Dash/Disengage) or vision limitation (Hide).
- keeping a great pressure on a single enemy through high damage (Sneak Attack) and high resilience (Disengage to avoid OA, Uncanny Dodge to reduce one hit).
Get any Rogue to act like a tank, and he will need to sacrifice a good chunk of latent potential (feat choice) and immediate potential (reactions) to reach an acceptable efficiency.
As said above, only Arcane Tricksters can be made into very good tank, and even those are made at a great cost.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-29, 07:34 PM

As a note to all--I'm re-doing my numerical work with much better numbers (and more control). I'll post when I'm done. I've done the Bearbarb and the EK, working on the AT rogue. So far, the stand-out things are the synergy between shield and blur and the power of shield master's 3rd bullet (it's a limited evasion).

JellyPooga

2017-12-30, 04:09 AM

So here we are yet again...

1. "Comparable AC"

Why is V.Human a "shoehorned" choice? It's a valid option that grants Rogue equal AC to the Barbarian.

2. "Literally the only thing the Barbarian has to last longer than a Rogue is the Resistance offered by Rage because without it"

Note that this comment was in direct response to the assertation that a non-Raging Barbarian lasts longer than a Rogue. I don't dispute that a Barbarian likely has sufficient uses of Rage to activate it in most fights. There are conditions on activating Rage, however and it also had those end conditions. As unlikely as they are to come up, they still exist; one turn pinned in place by Hold Person, for example (one among many), is enough to bump the Barbarian back into "inefficient HP" territory, if not in that fight, but a subsequent one.

3. "AC disadvantage": if you are comparing classes built as tanks, there is NO reason whatsoever for a Barbarian NOT to use a shield. Which he is proficient with without further investment too. And besides Sentinel, PAM works with shield by RAW, as incoherent and infuriating as may seem to many DMs. Moot point.

Conceded.

Literally any AOE? Not quite true: somewhere around 80% AOE are DEX saves, which is great for Rogue, but it's still not everything.

Conceded.

Brrr, beware that Fireball!

Facetious comments and the fact that it's just one example aside, yeah, you'd better. Fireball deals 28 damage (average). A level 10 Barbarian with Con 16 (for the sake of argument) has 105hp. 28 is a solid quarter of his total HP (give or take). You want that to be reduced and eliminating it altogether is better still.

Now for the big question(s)...
- How often, really, do bad guys use AOE on a tank?

As often as they use them on anyone else? It's rather the point of an AoE, wouldn't you say? :smallbiggrin: The image of a Tank only ever being surrounded by a big mob of foes is a pipe-dream. A Dragons breath weapon, for example, is a credible fear for the Tank without Evasion or resistance to its damage type. It's fairly common for a party of adventurers to be the ones outnumbering their foe; AoE effects are a valid counter to the action economy advantage this grants.

- How often, in general, is anyone subjected to Dex saves compared to STR, CON saves or checks (barring mental problems) which are much more harmful to a martial (not listing creature's effects like Ghouls's because too many of them, but among low-to-medium spells, Thunderwave, Blindness, Cone of Cold, Stinking Cloud, Moonbeam, Entangle, Plant Growth)? Especially tanks, which are much more exposed to many STR/CON riders automatically triggered on melee attacks?

This, of course, is very campaign dependent and I can't give an answer that actually has much relevence. I will concede that as a Tank, you will be exposed to more of those melee rider effects you describe, which the Rogue has small defence against.

- How often, in general, will a tank (against, supposed to get focus on him) manage to get everyone interested in him but still get hit only one or two times a turn?

I'll answer this with a question of my own; how is any Tank supposed to draw the attention of multiple foes? It remains that as good as a Barbarian might be at weathering multiple attacks, he has no ability beyond Reckless Attack (which has the added effect of increasing thr chance of those attacks hitting; a two edged sword indeed) that actually incentivises one enemy to attack him, let alone many. At least the Rogue has the ability to draw one foe.

Get any Rogue to act like a tank, and he will need to sacrifice a good chunk of latent potential (feat choice) and immediate potential (reactions) to reach an acceptable efficiency.
As said above, only Arcane Tricksters can be made into very good tank, and even those are made at a great cost.

The sacrifice of potential is irrelevant. We're not talking about "any" Rogue, we're talking about one specifically built to be a Tank. May as well bring up the loss of ranged potential in a Fighter built as a Tank, or the loss of Spellcasting potential in a Paladin Tank.

Saltmarsh

2017-12-30, 01:28 PM

How about we build you intresting and fun characters .
Which may not be mathematically the best but still lots of fun

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-30, 01:31 PM

How about we build you intresting and fun characters .
Which may not be mathematically the best but still lots of fun

That's the best option for play, but I'm trying to test intuitions here. Things like "how much of a difference does Shield Master really make?" "How important is evasion?" "How big are the actual differences in survivability as a function of level, and how much does the situation matter?"

My personal preference for a system is that there are multiple approximately-equal routes to survivability. I hate hard niche protection.

djreynolds

2017-12-30, 03:03 PM

Half Orc Champion

16/13/16/11/11/8
1st duelist style
4th level shield master
6th level prodigy (human, half, half orc) grab expertise in athletics and snag investigation
8th +2 str 18
10th defensive style
12th resilient wisdom +5 wisdom save
14th defensive duelist
16th +2 str 20
18th survivor
19th mage slayer or lucky, either one
20th

184HP 21AC 20/13/16/11/12/10 saves str +11/ con +9/ wis +7
Athletics +17, investigation6, wisdom skills +7, intimidation +5

Skill wise arcana and investigation are good to find arcane focuses and disarm/destroy them

Now I have played this build as 18 champion/2 rogue minus the human prodigy which did not exist for expertise in athletics

You can grab magic initiate for hex from warlock or cleric for bless

Shield master and improved critical works, you will roll many 18, 19, 20

Survivor could be awesome with dwarven resilience but without picking up rogue you cannot have expertise in athletics

The toughest aspect is saves versus fear, charm, and banishment... those types of spell and this is where paladin wins

Citan

2017-12-30, 07:29 PM

Why is V.Human a "shoehorned" choice? It's a valid option that grants Rogue equal AC to the Barbarian.

Because it's still one feat you have to take to get up to the task. Not a big deal at all, but it is still something "outside the class". :)

Note that this comment was in direct response to the assertation that a non-Raging Barbarian lasts longer than a Rogue. I don't dispute that a Barbarian likely has sufficient uses of Rage to activate it in most fights. There are conditions on activating Rage, however and it also had those end conditions. As unlikely as they are to come up, they still exist; one turn pinned in place by Hold Person, for example (one among many), is enough to bump the Barbarian back into "inefficient HP" territory, if not in that fight, but a subsequent one.

Ok, I missed that comment.
I don't really agree on the point you seem to make about Rage being cumbersome: activating it is only a bonus action, and unless enemies are playing tactical with party awareness to avoid Barb on purpose (which is, I admit, entirely possible except probably at levels 1-4) it should be hard for Barbarian to not fulfill the condition every round (I obviously put aside metagaming shenanigans such as killing mouses).
But I agree my view is very biaised by the narrow perimeter of my experience, so I'll put this aside. :)

Facetious comments and the fact that it's just one example aside, yeah, you'd better. Fireball deals 28 damage (average). A level 10 Barbarian with Con 16 (for the sake of argument) has 105hp. 28 is a solid quarter of his total HP (give or take). You want that to be reduced and eliminating it altogether is better still.

Yeah, totally agree on that. ^^

As often as they use them on anyone else? It's rather the point of an AoE, wouldn't you say? :smallbiggrin: The image of a Tank only ever being surrounded by a big mob of foes is a pipe-dream. A Dragons breath weapon, for example, is a credible fear for the Tank without Evasion or resistance to its damage type. It's fairly common for a party of adventurers to be the ones outnumbering their foe; AoE effects are a valid counter to the action economy advantage this grants.

This, of course, is very campaign dependent and I can't give an answer that actually has much relevence. I will concede that as a Tank, you will be exposed to more of those melee rider effects you describe, which the Rogue has small defence against.

Yeah, I guess there can be no definitive opinion here. I just wanted to stress out that contrarily to Barb's Bear feature (except psychic damage of course, but that is rare -for now-), Rogue's Evasion is not jailfree card at all: it caters to a specific kind of situation, and as such its usefulness is heavily dependent on campaign setting and DM's style (contrarily to Bear or Uncanny Dodge).

I'll answer this with a question of my own; how is any Tank supposed to draw the attention of multiple foes? It remains that as good as a Barbarian might be at weathering multiple attacks, he has no ability beyond Reckless Attack (which has the added effect of increasing thr chance of those attacks hitting; a two edged sword indeed) that actually incentivises one enemy to attack him, let alone many. At least the Rogue has the ability to draw one foe.

I'm simply too lazy to list all again, I may take time to try and find older posts on that later.
In short, Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, Cleric get spells and features that can directly affect enemy behaviour and choices. Monk gets Stunning Strike and more generally shove/grapple tactics. Fighter gets more or less the same, with Battlemaster getting more options. Barbarian gets Reckless Attack to lure enemies towards him.
Besides, nobody forces you to play alone, in fact, it's pretty boring to play like this: nothing really can beat teamwork. And true teamwork makes it pretty easy to make someone a prime target for how many opponents you want: Druids (several spells that mainly hinders movement, so can be circumvened one way or another), Careful Sorcerers (well, unless DM follows that stupid twitter ruling) and Wizards (more variety in control in general, between hazard spells, terrain spells and wall spells) can easily help you draw enemies, either directly (imprison them with you, suggest them to fight you) or indirectly (making you the only reasonable target because only reachable or only visible).

The sacrifice of potential is irrelevant. We're not talking about "any" Rogue, we're talking about one specifically built to be a Tank. May as well bring up the loss of ranged potential in a Fighter built as a Tank, or the loss of Spellcasting potential in a Paladin Tank.
It's not irrelevant imo. Because other classes can be built as a tank without eating so much into their prime features or expected roles.

Whereas your Rogue tank has to choose, every single turn, whether he should "be a Rogue" (deal high damage in own turn and off-turn) or "be a tank" (alternate between stop movement, draw attack and the classic deal high damage, reduce damage off-turn).
Best case, he juggles well and does as much damage as someone that does not play an optimized Rogue, while smartly balancing between "alleviating the plate of others" (taking damage") and "keeping alive to not waste healing resources" thanks to Uncanny Dodge.
Worst case, he becomes sandwiched by other people or becomes the prime target of a spell that works his weakness and quicly fall down, putting a double punition on the whole party.

To take your own examples, a Fighter tank (I guess you mean shield and maybe Shield Master?) can easily cope up with ranged potential: if Champion/Battlemaster, grab Sharpshooter, draw and shoot Javelins occasionally (well, for Champion I admit you are right, it's a net potential loss. For Battlemaster, just use Trip Attack to drop a flyer and resume your attack with another weapon drawn). If EK, use cantrips.
Anyways, besides this particular case (which should not happen often in the first place, since you are supposed to always keep enemies close to you so you should have things to hit in melee) nothing changed much for the Fighter tank: he still has his up to 4 attacks to use on dealing damage or applying control trhough Shove or special features, and the only thing that changed to make him "tanky" was to take a shield and possibly one feat to go with (Sentinel/PAM/Shield Master), which helps him be a better plain Fighter in nearly all situations simply because these are added chances to make weapon attacks, and making as many attacks as possible is being a Fighter.

For Paladin, there is potentially no loss at all depending on whether you are ready to micro-manage your weapon.
It does not change at all how he acts compared to an usual Paladin (some could actually argue that the archetypal Paladin wields a shield in the first place ^^): Paladins are supposed to be heavily reliant on melee anyways, and not very mobile, so shield is mostly a given.
Many Paladins will mainly use Bless (or another long-minute spell like Moonbeam, Haste) at the start of a fight then just blow slots on smites. So cast the spell before drawing weapon, your're good to go.
Or they will use smite spells which are coincidentally (or not) verbal-only components (except maybe the highest level, I don't remember). Even Misty Step is verbal only. So no problem either.

If really a Paladin feels the need to ease the spellcasting management, grab Warcaster as soon as you want and you are ready to go.
It also helps Paladin keeping his concentration, so it is helping him being a better plain Paladin anyways.

Building Rogue "as a tank" is like building a Fighter to be as good in sneaking as an Arcane Trickster (Expertise, Reliable Talent, Darkness, Greater Invisibility, Hide as bonus action, Dash as bonus action): you can certainly come close enough to be satisfied (build as Dex, get UA feat, cast Haste on yourself) but it will still be several levels behind.
Or building a Bard as a sharpshooter: you can certainly grab Swift Quiver, and some other perks that help you with archery like usual feats, so you can be pretty good with archery when it counts, but you will still be ultimately very far behind those classes which are built for this (Fighter, Ranger, and in some niche way, Rogue).

It can certainly be done, it can certainly be efficient, and it will certainly be fun, but that is without any doubt a distorsion of what the class was made to be, making the investment costly because you are not really synergizing with your strengths.

(By the way: the best tank is probably actually a pair: one caster with some easy regen option and healing, and a Ancients Paladin / Rogue with Warding Bond applied).

JellyPooga

2017-12-31, 06:23 AM

I don't really agree on the point you seem to make about Rage being cumbersome: activating it is only a bonus action, and unless enemies are playing tactical with party awareness to avoid Barb on purpose (which is, I admit, entirely possible except probably at levels 1-4) it should be hard for Barbarian to not fulfill the condition every round (I obviously put aside metagaming shenanigans such as killing mouses).
But I agree my view is very biaised by the narrow perimeter of my experience, so I'll put this aside. :)

It's not so much that Rage is cumbersome; as you say, it's activated as a Bonus Action and while I could comment that this means waiting for your turn to come around before you benefit from the resistance it offers, unlike Uncanny Dodge (which is only disabled if you're surprised or have already taken a Reaction that Round), Barbarians have a decent chance of beating most foes Initiative after level 7 anyway, so activating Rage in the first place isn't a problem. What does become a problem is when a Barbarian comes up against a Controller enemy. Spells like Hold Person, Entangle, Sleep and Darkness, just to mention a few low level ones, will ruin a Barbarians day. It's all well and good carrying a javelin or two for emergencies, but if you can't reach or target your enemy, your Rage can (and will) end prematurely. Taking the assumption that a single use of Rage will last a whole fight is not, IMO, a valid one. Then again, as you say, in a campaign that doesn't feature a whole lot of spellcasters or other controller foes, this may not be a concern.

In short, Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, Cleric get spells and features that can directly affect enemy behaviour and choices. Monk gets Stunning Strike and more generally shove/grapple tactics. Fighter gets more or less the same, with Battlemaster getting more options.

These are, strictly speaking, more Control elements than Tanking ones. Yes, there's a certain amount of Control involved in Tanking, but Bards, Clerics, Monks and Sorcerers don't really have the features to be a top-tier Tank, per se, but rather Control Support for a Tank. Fighters and Paladins...yes, they have some options as well as the cajones to Tank it up, but it's still all single enemies rather than drawing/keeping the attention of multiple foes.

Besides, nobody forces you to play alone

Totally agree. For a Tank to work really well, he needs the support of a team; no-one can cover all the bases, after all.

It's not irrelevant imo. Because other classes can be built as a tank without eating so much into their prime features or expected roles.

It's rather my point that the "prime features" of the Rogue are Tank abilities;

Sneak Attack: Makes you a credible threat off turn, if a foe tries to evade you. This makes you "sticky"
Uncanny Dodge/Evasion: Obvious
Expertise (Athletics): Grappling is a valid tank feature
Elusive: No Advantage against you? Harder to hit = good tank feature

These abilities (except possibly Expertise) aren't taking away from any other choice a Rogue might make for his build. Yes, he can choose to be a skirmisher, or an archer, or a burgler, or even a spellslinger or whatever else, but the above are all core features for the Rogue that contribute to being a good tank, just as Rage and Reckless Attack are core features that make the Barbarian a good tank. A Rogue that chooses to be a Tank isn't choosing between "being a Rogue" and "being a Tank"...he's just being a Rogue that's been built in a certain way to take best advantage of those features he wants to focus on. Having to choose what he does with his Reaction (e.g. OA, UD, Spell), doesn't make him any less a Rogue than a Fighter choosing between using a melee attack or a ranged attack on his turn. As I've mentioned in a previous post, that choice between taking an Opportunity Attack and using Uncanny Dodge (at least against a single opponent) is not in your own hands because the circumstances are largely exclusive; one for when a foe is moving away, the other when he's attacking you. Yes, he could attack you and then move away, but in that case you've still filled your role as Tank by eating at least that one attack.

To take your own examples, a Fighter tank (I guess you mean shield and maybe Shield Master?) can easily cope up with ranged potential: if Champion/Battlemaster, grab Sharpshooter...

A Fighter with Sharpshooter is arguably not one that's built as a Tank, but more as a generalist.

Anyways, [snip] nothing changed much for the Fighter tank: he still has his up to 4 attacks to use on dealing damage or applying control trhough Shove or special features, and the only thing that changed to make him "tanky" was to take a shield and possibly one feat to go with (Sentinel/PAM/Shield Master), which helps him be a better plain Fighter in nearly all situations simply because these are added chances to make weapon attacks, and making as many attacks as possible is being a Fighter.

[snipped similar point about Paladin]

Building Rogue "as a tank" is like building a Fighter to be as good in sneaking as an Arcane Trickster [snip] It can certainly be done, it can certainly be efficient, and it will certainly be fun, but that is without any doubt a distorsion of what the class was made to be, making the investment costly because you are not really synergizing with your strengths.

That's just it, though; the Rogue does have synergy with the Tank role because it is one of their strengths. Is it the "expected" one? Perhaps not, but on paper the 5ed Rogue is at least as good as the Fighter at Tanking like a pro (and can do "typical" Rogue stuff on the side, like be a skill monkey, just as the Fighter Tank can do Fightery stuff on the side, like punch walls or whatever it is Fighters do :smallbiggrin:). If you take away the Rogue mindset (Dex focus, stealthy, stabby guy with small weapons) and plug in a Beefy Brute suite of abilities and mindset (Con focus, Armour, bad attitude and lead shoes), you get a damned good Tank; perhaps even better than the go-to Tank Classes. Does it take investment to do it? Yes, it does, but not really any more than it does to make a Barbarian or Fighter into a Tank.

Just take a look at what it takes for a Rogue to become a solid Tank;
Ability Scores:

Dex: Rogues like Dex; defence, offence, initiative. What's not to like? Dex is Tanky. No additional investment required here.
Con: Everyone wants good Con. Is this considered "additional" investment? No more so than any other Tank Class.
Feats

Moderately Armoured: Single Class, yeah, we want this on a Rogue, if only for the shield. This definitely counts as non-typical investment.
Sentinel: Rogues love this Feat, Tank or otherwise. It gives them additional opportunities to use Sneak Attack off-turn and an element of battlefield control. This is not a Tank feat for a Rogue, this is just a solid choice; non-Tank Rogues take this feat with good reason.
Shield Master: Eh, sort of unnecessary for a Rogue. They've already got Evasion and good Dex Saves. Definitely a secondary consideration.
Resilient (Con [probably] OR Str [controversially]): Rogue wants this, just to shore up his defences. Is this a Tank feat? Yes. Is it "additional investment"? Possibly, but only if you chose Str, because like increasing Con itself everyone wants Con Save proficiency if they can get it.

aaaand that's about all a Rogue needs to be a Tank (and even a couple of those are debatable). How many of these is a Barbarian or Fighter investing in to be the best Tank he can be? How much do these compromise his "Rogueishness"? With six ASI/Feats available to him over the course of his career (Race aside), a Rogue can definitely afford the sole (IMO) "additional investment" Feat. There are some other Feats (e.g. Tough, Durable), that you might want and struggle to find a place for, but so would any Class character looking to squeeze them in to their build. As an Arcane Trickster, you'll be taking defensive spells like Shield and Blur, but again, those are solid choices regardless of your chosen role and to be fair, with the limited spell selection available to an AT, there's not a lot else to choose from.

(By the way: the best tank is probably actually a pair: one caster with some easy regen option and healing, and a Ancients Paladin / Rogue with Warding Bond applied).

Agree :smallwink:

Talamare

2017-12-31, 06:53 AM

This is borderline a pointless debate

Bear Barbarians are inherently and naturally one of the Tankiest things in this game by a massive margin
Trying to argue that a Rogue is his equal is just silly.

To make it worse is that you're completely hamstringing the Rogue!
A Pure Bear Barbarian is still able to do everything a Tank needs to do. He gains little from MCing and are arguably side grades.

While a Rogue taking a single level of Fighter at lv1 has MASSIVE GAINS.
Automatically gains Medium Armor and Shields, Fixing his Low Level AC and saves him from using a Feat to gain Shields
Gains +2 HP, always useful... regardless how tiny
Gains Saving Throws to Con, so that he can maintain his Blur. As well as it's an important save that he fixes.
Gains to heal for 1d10+1 per short rest, massive at early levels... Exists at higher level (can't even call it good, but -shrugs-)
Finally gains +1 to AC

What does a Rogue lose from doing this?
Loses his Saving Throw to Int... Worst Save in the game!
Loses proficiency in 1 skill... who cares
Loses his Saving Throw to Dex... Slightly important, but you will have +5 to Dex and Evasion, not a big deal
Loses an auto hit per short rest (or basically auto success on a skill check) at lv20... It's a decent ability but not a big deal either

JellyPooga

2017-12-31, 07:24 AM

Bear Barbarians are inherently and naturally one of the Tankiest things in this game by a massive margin
Prove it.

Trying to argue that a Rogue is his equal is just silly.
Why?

To make it worse is that you're completely hamstringing the Rogue!
A Pure Bear Barbarian is still able to do everything a Tank needs to do. He gains little from MCing and are arguably side grades.

While a Rogue taking a single level of Fighter at lv1 has MASSIVE GAINS.
Automatically gains Medium Armor and Shields, Fixing his Low Level AC and saves him from using a Feat to gain Shields
Gains +2 HP, always useful... regardless how tiny
Gains Saving Throws to Con, so that he can maintain his Blur. As well as it's an important save that he fixes.
Gains to heal for 1d10+1 per short rest, massive at early levels... Exists at higher level (can't even call it good, but -shrugs-)
Finally gains +1 to AC

What does a Rogue lose from doing this?
Loses his Saving Throw to Int... Worst Save in the game!
Loses proficiency in 1 skill... who cares
Loses his Saving Throw to Dex... Slightly important, but you will have +5 to Dex and Evasion, not a big deal
Loses an auto hit per short rest (or basically auto success on a skill check) at lv20... It's a decent ability but not a big deal either

I've specifically avoided discussing Multiclass builds or implications because that's not the topic of discussion.

Specter

2017-12-31, 09:44 AM

This is borderline a pointless debate

Bear Barbarians are inherently and naturally one of the Tankiest things in this game by a massive margin
Trying to argue that a Rogue is his equal is just silly.

1) Tanking =/= resisting damage. Tank Bearbarian is the guy no one wants to attack on the battlefield, because his damage is mediocre and he brings no strategic control whatsoever. If you want to make a tank Barbarian, go Wolf.

2) Jelly and I just used thousands of words to show that, yes, Rogue can tank, and quite easily.

Talamare

2017-12-31, 09:57 AM

1) Tanking =/= resisting damage. Tank Bearbarian is the guy no one wants to attack on the battlefield, because his damage is mediocre and he brings no strategic control whatsoever. If you want to make a tank Barbarian, go Wolf.

2) Jelly and I just used thousands of words to show that, yes, Rogue can tank, and quite easily.

and I have used 1000s of words to show the same in the past as well

but if you read

Bear Barbarians are inherently and naturally one of the Tankiest things in this game by a massive margin
Trying to argue that a Rogue is his equal is just silly.

I said that Rogue isn't his equal when it comes to being Tanky
Rogue's default class has a massive amount of tools, but lacks a few crucial things that is EASILY fixed by MCing a single level at 1

Barbarian doesn't need any inherent fixes to be one of the tankiest things around

Also, your 1 is just absolutely meaningless.
Enemies don't inherently know that the barbarian has mediocre damage, that he has no strategic control, and that he has a ton of survivability.
It also depends completely on the enemies themselves.

Finally, one of the CORE components to Tanking is resisting damage, and arguably the most important part.
If you die instantly as a Tank, then you're not a Tank. Since anyone can draw attention to themselves.
As well as you wouldn't call a Controller Wizard a Tank even if he brings a ton of strategic control.
(Dismissing the notion of if a Tank is even needed if the control from the controller is good enough, since it gets us nowhere)

Prove it.
"one of"
Waste your own time proving it's not.

JellyPooga

2017-12-31, 11:59 AM

"one of"
Waste your own time proving it's not.

Also;
"massive margin"

That requires some evidence. In a "one hit per turn" scenario, the Barbarian has marginally more HP than the Rogue and the same reduction in damage. That's not a massive margin. That's "situationally better", pending multiple incoming attacks. Hardly conclusive.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-12-31, 01:40 PM

@JellyPooga, @Talmare--I find such discussions very pointless. You're discussing things at such a high level of abstraction and with such ill-defined criteria (and subject to such variability) that there's no hope of resolution. Here's a challenge--construct a specific measure (or set of measures), create scenarios, and then test those scenarios and report.

My effort with this and the related thread were an attempt to do that (for one, admittedly limited, measure). Instead of arguing where you don't even have fixed, mutually-agreed-on premises, work on nailing those down first.

Either way, discussions on "is build X a better tank than build Y" is only on-topic if those are built on the same chassis. Comparing rogues to barbarians is decidedly off topic and less useful. Build a better rogue, or a better barbarian compared to the ones of those classes presented. Or start your own threads.

Specter

2017-12-31, 02:13 PM

Here's a proposed build by level 10:

The Charming Tank
V. Human Swashbuckler
ST10, DX20, CO16, IN8, WI14, CH12
83HP, 19AC with shield
Starting feat: Moderately Armored
Expertise (Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception, Persuasion)
Sneak Attack 5d6
Cunning Action
Rakish Audacity
Fancy Footwork
ASI: +1DEX +1CON
Uncanny Dodge
Evasion
ASI: +2DEX
Panache
Feat: Resilient (WIS)

I had totally forgotten about Swashbuckler's Panache, which is a perfect tank feature; straight-up aggro drawing. AC is good, but not high to the point where you'd be avoided. AoE and mind effects taken care of. Rakish Audacity lets you sneak even alone in the frontline. With expertised Acrobatics and Cunning Action, no one's ever pinning you down. Expertised Perception means no sneaking around for enemies.

djreynolds

2017-12-31, 02:26 PM

[QUOTE=Specter;22710594

AC is good, but not high to the point where you'd be avoided. [/QUOTE]

100%, this perfect.

Arkhios

2017-12-31, 03:09 PM

Resilient (Wisdom) is somewhat redundant for a Rogue, because Slippery Mind (while at 15th level) is a class feature for all rogues.

Specter

2017-12-31, 05:05 PM

Resilient (Wisdom) is somewhat redundant for a Rogue, because Slippery Mind (while at 15th level) is a class feature for all rogues.

Yep. If I aimed for level 15, I'd trade it for Resilient (CON) to have the big three.

Edit: also happy new year!