Entire party of tanky characters

[CTurbo]

How would it play out? What would be a good party composition?

I think a Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, and Barbarian would probably be a pretty good party. They're missing some utility and possible ranged damage unless the Fighter is Dex based and the Cleric is a Light or Tempest, but I don't see any obvious weaknesses that backgrounds and feats couldn't fix. You could avoid heavy armor and still be tanky while not totally sucking at stealth.

Dex Battle Master. Doesn't have to be Archery style. Could be TWF and just carry a longbow. Grab Ritual Caster or Magic Initiate for utility.
Wolf Totem Barb. Self explanatory. Could also grab Ritual Caster for utility.
Ancients Paladin. Could even be Dex based. Party face plus obvious Paladin things.
Light or Tempest Cleric. Healing, buffing, and blasting oh my.


Maybe add a Moon Druid for more utility without sacrificing tankiness?

I like the idea of having 4 or 5 frontline characters just destroying things in combat. They could play hug the Paladin to help with saves and fight to stand next to the Wolf Barb for advantage on attacks.

[Blood of Gaea]

An Eldritch Knight with Ritual Caster, a Conquest Paladin, a Wolf Totem Barbarian with four levels of Cavalier Fighter, and a Forge Cleric would be a pretty gnarly combination.

[SVamp]

Human Fighter 1/abjuration wiz X, war caster at lvl 1 with scag cantrips? Should be pretty tanky.. and if you have a half decent dex scag cantrip reactions could be useful. (If not, good ole fire bolt or toll the dead works too if you didn’t roll stats) Either way, you’d be at the front with higher-than-fighter AC, better than fighter resistance vs AOEs, and fighter-like HPs while providing the much lacking arcane crowd control and buffing.

[CTurbo]

Funny I never even thought about the EK Fighter, although I did consider an Abjurer, but still that d6 hit die....

I do like the idea of disregarding stealth and just having a bunch of heavy armor guys and a Barb lol

[Gastronomie]

Perhaps they may find themselves screwed up in certain instances where magical knowledge, examination or magical methods of travel are required, but otherwise I suppose it's fine, especailly with a caring DM. But I don't know such an instance IRL, so stuff might be tougher than it is in paper.

Not directly related to the topic, but I have seen an almost-full-caster-only party, and at least that end of the spectrum worked brilliant.

[Skylivedk]

I'm DM for the following in Storm King's Thunder:
Forge Cleric 1 / Abj Wiz X (dwarf)
Barbarian X (started as bear, was allowed to redo to wolf) (half orc)
Dev Pala 6 / Sorc X (half elf)
Gorilla (Str based Open Hand monk with a mix of half-orc, gnome traits and gorilla traits).

The last two are the least tanky... And that's a dude in a heavy plate with killer saves and 1 ton can of whoopass that has some of the best mobility options with the lowest alternative cost in the game. They're pretty damn tanky. In general, I either change or add encounters. It's been fun so far!

[BreaktheStatue]

I'm DM for the following in Storm King's Thunder:
Forge Cleric 1 / Abj Wiz X (dwarf)
Barbarian X (started as bear, was allowed to redo to wolf) (half orc)
Dev Pala 6 / Sorc X (half elf)
Gorilla (Str based Open Hand monk with a mix of half-orc, gnome traits and gorilla traits).

The last two are the least tanky... And that's a dude in a heavy plate with killer saves and 1 ton can of whoopass that has some of the best mobility options with the lowest alternative cost in the game. They're pretty damn tanky. In general, I either change or add encounters. It's been fun so far!

I love the gorilla idea. What's its name?

[Haydensan]

I'm DM for the following in Storm King's Thunder:
Forge Cleric 1 / Abj Wiz X (dwarf)
Barbarian X (started as bear, was allowed to redo to wolf) (half orc)
Dev Pala 6 / Sorc X (half elf)
Gorilla (Str based Open Hand monk with a mix of half-orc, gnome traits and gorilla traits).

Snip

Remember the totem barbarian can pick a different totem animal for each choice, they aren't locked in to picking the same thing each time.

What oath is the paladin?

[Shuruke]

For tank party u can still have ranged damage

Arcane archer with sage background for knowledge skills
Archery style allows for dex to be one mod point lower and still hit consistently ie +2 dex is a +6 hit
If con and int are high stats you can pick things like enfeebling or shadow arrow.


For a blaster mage you can do light cleric with starting level fighter for heavy armor and armor style to prioritize wis and con

Protection style palladin with one level rogue for expertise and sneak attack with rapier
Uses half plate and medium armor master to have 20ac with shield donned

A zealot barbarian that cleric doesn't need materials to revivify etc. Uses great axe puts 3 levels in fighter for maneuvers and great weapon style

Optional 5th character
Banneret fighter (purple dragon knight) polearm master who stands behind the palladin for 1/2-3/4 cover Dec only needs to be a +2 or take heavy armor have str cha as main stats take inspiring leader and the martial adept for the temp hp this coupled with cleric using aid on everyone would be nice survivability

[Shuruke]

In a campaign I'm in we have

Glamour bard range dps (warlock intiate for eldritch blast)

Light cleric support never hit my allies build

Shepherd druid- never remembers totem and rarely summons XD

Arcane trickster alchemist with 9 con. Taken cc and support spells. Haste, enlarge, sleep, color spray. Crafts whenever possible for dust disappearance and dust of coughing and choking. Dm has allowed Alchemist fire and acid sneak attacks but usually uses heavy crossbow used downtime to train in.

We've made it from level 1-17 and even though we occasionally have the druid go down theirs enough healing and the DM has allowed the 17th level trickster feature to steal healing spells so when needed cleric can use cure wound choose to fail save and then the trickster fills his ring of spell storing with heals. Also been allowed to make scrolls with spells I know from stealing so have lots of misc 1st level spell scrolls like entangle etc that with expertise in arcana and reliable talent can just get used with us not even rolling anymore.

Probably my favorite group
And the fight we really needed help I sneak attacked the druid to drop him to 0 for 9th level cast of summon beasts XD

That was a head turner when I stated I was attacking him cuz everyone forgot that feature XD

[SVamp]

Funny I never even thought about the EK Fighter, although I did consider an Abjurer, but still that d6 hit die....

I do like the idea of disregarding stealth and just having a bunch of heavy armor guys and a Barb lol

With a refreshable hp buffer and your much higher defences (shield spell, physical shield, absorb elements, optional additional buffs like blur n such ) you will be tankier than everyone except the barbarian.

When you add in hypnotic patterns, hold monster / Tasha’s , polymorph, etc, you will be mitigating more damage to your party than any other character imho.

[Misterwhisper]

For a while our group was:

Warforged forge cleric, hammer and shield.

Warforged ancestral guardian barbarian also hammer and shield

Warforged hexblade pact of the blade also hammer and shield

Warforged paladin oath of ancients. Yep, hammer and shield.

All 4 had the same gear and look, stats were all different though.

We were the unyielding brute squad.

Later we recruited a bard. He was also a Warforged with a shield and hammer, valor bard.

[Man_Over_Game]

How would it play out? What would be a good party composition?

I think a Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, and Barbarian would probably be a pretty good party. They're missing some utility and possible ranged damage unless the Fighter is Dex based and the Cleric is a Light or Tempest, but I don't see any obvious weaknesses that backgrounds and feats couldn't fix. You could avoid heavy armor and still be tanky while not totally sucking at stealth.

Dex Battle Master. Doesn't have to be Archery style. Could be TWF and just carry a longbow. Grab Ritual Caster or Magic Initiate for utility.
Wolf Totem Barb. Self explanatory. Could also grab Ritual Caster for utility.
Ancients Paladin. Could even be Dex based. Party face plus obvious Paladin things.
Light or Tempest Cleric. Healing, buffing, and blasting oh my.


Maybe add a Moon Druid for more utility without sacrificing tankiness?

I like the idea of having 4 or 5 frontline characters just destroying things in combat. They could play hug the Paladin to help with saves and fight to stand next to the Wolf Barb for advantage on attacks.

For a group like this, I'd really recommend swapping out the Ancients Paladin for Crown. Not only do you have a means of grabbing enemies to prevent them from running away, but you have plenty of abilities that work well with melee allies.

[jaappleton]

This was actually my first 5e party.

We didn't have a session zero... So...

Half Orc Totem Barbarian
VHuman TWF Champion Fighter
Half Elf GWF Ancients Paladin

Honestly? WE MADE IT REALLY FAR. We kicked a lot of ass, we really did. We didn't have stuff like Fireball to handle large encounters but damn could we slice our way through a battle.

[Corran]

Party of tanks? Wolf barbarian and BM fighter make a good duo up front. The barbarian hits like a train with GWM and reckless attack, drawing lots of focus from the enemy because of this. The fighter does have a good AC (18-19) which compared to the barbarian's lower AC which is attacked at advantage due to reckless attack, tends to make him less of a priority target to the enemy. He capitalizes on that by grabbing PAM, GWM and sentinel, ending up hitting even harder than the barb.

Now, these two characters make for a fantastic pair, assuming the can play an encounter to their strong suit, which means fighting mundane melee enemies. You can throw a paladin or a cleric as another melee tanky backup. The cleric will provide some AoE or support (through spirit guardians or bless) along with some status removal effects and healing (which wont be wasted on either the barb or the fighter). While a paladin would provide support (through bless) and pre-emptive status removal effect (through the aura, that is by boosting the saves of the barb and the fighter which are one of their weak points; later on cleansing touch for after a condition sticks) and some healing (lay on hands; pre-emptively by aid). No AoE though, unless crown.

One thing that is missing is utility (though the cleric does bring some of this to the table) and stealth. A druid can take care some of this. Make him a moon druid if you want all characters to be able to hold their own (or in other words, to be tanky enough).

You can mix and match this group comp, but the main problem, at least the way I see it, is that most such parties will struggle against enemies that can kite them. You need a combination of good ranged attacks, mobility and battlefield control, and that might be hard to achieve in a party where everyone specializes (even to some degree) to be tanky.

[guachi]

The last campaign I ran wasn't totally tanky/melee but the trio of a Gloom Stalker Ranger in half-plate, a Wolf Totem Barbarian and an Ancients Paladin was brutally effective. It had offense and defense that was tough to crack once they hit mid-levels.

The crossbow wielding Arcane Trickster and Sorcerer with his Twin Haste rounded out the party. A hasted Barbarian and Wood Elf Gloom Stalker move really fast on the first turn of combat. As long as the target was reachable on foot, the lack of ranged abilities wasn't a big deal.

The party wasn't remotely min-maxing it was just good synergy of class abilities.