Most Efficient Wall (Best Tank)

[SpicyBoi_Nezu]

My D&D group is doing a campaign, where we are playing the bad guys. But that doesn't necessarily matter, what matters is that I need recommendations on how to build the most efficient tank in 3.5. This campaign, being a party filled with those that may be considered evil, allows for a larger selection of Races and Classes. I originally wanted to play a Serial Killer, but I don't feel confident enough in my ability to play him to his fullest potential (I'm not the best at playing rogues). The next idea I had was to play a Dhampir Seal-Breaker Antipaladin (Pathfinder), but the way that that played out, when I put everything down on paper (Level 5), I realized that this combination wasn't the best when it comes to being the tank, resulting in only 45 HP and 19 AC (Our Necromancer has more than that much HP)

Antipaladin, Seal-Breaker archetype, the only thing that stood out was the fact that my (Mount) functions as an animal companion, and since I summon it, I took the Augment summon feat, and was given an Undead Fiendish Dire-Wolf. Also, the benefits to the undead in his presence at later levels would really help out resident Necromancer.

I toyed around with some combinations of human fighter, but was never satisfied. My knowledge of non-PHB material is very limited, and I need either a race that heals from negative energy, or a class where I can spend a feat getting that. I'd prefer to stay away from a full blown spell-caster, because I really don't want to compete with our Warlock (He's a bit sensitive about the fact that he doesn't really cast "spells" necessarily). I'm open to all recommendations, or, if you feel the need to explain to me why a Tank is not needed in a Party of an Undead Necromancer, Teifling Duelist, and Aasimar Warlock, but if you choose that, you'll need to give me your opinion on what role I should fill in this party.

[Andreaz]

The biggest question to answer there is "how do I make sure the enemies will not be able to hurt my team", making sure you are a bad option to attack, but others are worse.

Riddling the enemies with debuffs is the ruling paradigm there, as that's usually the easy way to ensure there are no good options for the enemy. The classic answer is optimizing Trip and reach.

[MeimuHakurei]

Crusaders are effective at taking hits while also having a number of supportive features to buff and heal allies while also penalizing enemies for targeting them. As a tank, you don't just want high passive defenses, you also want to prevent the enemies from simply going for another target. Your class also has a decent amount of healing options, which is fairly reasonable for even evil group as they aren't specifically positive energy.

As for healing with negative energy, the feat Tomb-Tainted Soul is all you need really. You shouldn't try and become a true undead as that will remove your Constitution score, putting a damper on how many hit points you can have.

[The Kool]

Given your party, I can see that one of them is a minionmancer. Minionmancers are tanks, after a fashion, in that they spend their resources on bodyblocking the enemies and keeping the party safe that way, they just send skeletons to do it instead of going themselves. At level 5, he should already have some of this up and going, so you'd be perfectly fine without a tank. If I were to pick a role that would go well with this party, I would choose a Swift Hunter (ranger/scout with the Swift Hunter feat) to add some trapfinding, skills, tracking, and ranged damage (to stand behind the meatbone wall and still fight).

But if you're set on a tank, antipaladin sounds pretty good. I'd recommend you lean more towards a front line support role than true tanking. A barbarian or similar can be a terrifying option, you get loads of HP and by diving in headfirst you can take the attention off your party as they all try to deal with the more imminent threat, allowing the bone wall to get into place. With frenzied berzerker, you may even be able to get a bunch of the Necromancer's minions also raging alongside you. If you want something a bit more classically armor-clad and trained, Fighter works well because there's loads of feats out there to lean you into zone control. Prevent the enemies from getting anywhere near your party, control your extended threatened area with trip attacks and AoOs. Any tank, in order to not feel useless and pointless, needs to work with their party to figure out common tactics and strategies. Once you have something figured out, you should be able to move forward with some ideas.

[Segev]

Maximize reach, master tripping, maximize AoO, and look into the Stand Still feat. These will let you halt passage through your ideally very large threatened area.

You may also wish to look at Expert Tactician from Complete Adventurer. Anything you hit with an AoO you give your allies a +2 Circumstance bonus to hit and damage in melee for 1 round. With a minionmancer, that adds up fast.

For true maximum threatened area, as well, I like the dvati race from Dragon Compendium. Two mind-linked bodies is twice the equipment cost, but also twice the area. Plus your self-flanking ability is pretty good.

[Eldariel]

Honestly, with Duelist and Necromancer, you already have two characters who take the frontline a way or another. Tanking hits (as in actually being damaged) is best done with disposable minions anyways, since it really sucks to take a Greataxe crit to the face and die randomly when it could have been Skeleton #336 instead. A third frontliner isn't necessary a bad idea but it would make the magic muscle of hte party rather weak (Necromancer is likely a bit restricted in what they are running and Warlock is...just a Warlock); if you don't want to play a full-blown caster, a skilled semi-caster of some sort could be nice (Bard, Factotum [Dungeonscape], even Beguiler [Player's Handbook II]) adding to what the party is lacking on multiple levels. Or a Cloistered Cleric [8url=http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#cloisteredCleric]here[/url]], not necessarily doing that much necromancy (though you can support that too) but more general battlefield control and disabling/debuffing magic and skills (and summons, to further complement your frontliners; Dretch is a great summon on level 3 for instance and demon summoner is an awesome character archetype for this type of a campaign).

E.g. Bard can just pick the Requiem-feat [Libris Mortis] to affect the whole cavalcade with Bardic Music as per usual (a rather potent combination, really; buffing a bunch of minions can lead to rather impressive numbers) and Factotum has no particular provisos either way, doing everything decently. Both of them also bring a bucketload of skills onto the table. Beguiler would fall in the same paradigm, except with full-on enchantment and illusion magic (it's really easy to play an evil Bard/Beguiler; warping peoples' minds is ambiguous at the best of times and when done with full-on, honest maleficence, all the more so - think "suave corruptor"-archetype, more stealthy and magicky in Beguiler's case - either could easily play the serial killer too if you so desired as anyone helpless can be Coup de Graced and social manipulation is an excellent way to make people helpless).

Factotum can kinda do everything so that's fine as well though it would certainly require that you build a character concept to fulfill with it; it's kind of a tabula rasa with some arcane bent on its own. Mystic Ranger [Dragon Magazine #336] would also fit rather perfectly, both as a hunter of men sort of character and as a martial character who also brings skills and some support spellcasting to the table (though in Ranger's case, most of the spellcasting exists to supplement the martial prowess of the character).


If you want to provide some mystical support but steer clear from the vancian spellcasters, how about a Psion or a Psychic Rogue (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd%2Fpsm%2F20040723b)? Both play up the mindrape-angle rather well. Or perhaps a Binder [Tome of Magic], which lends itself excellently to something like this while being a rather versatile but not too powerful a class (there's even the Summon Vestige, Zceryll (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070718), though you'd need to wait a while for it) that can provide many kinds of support while being a creepy guy-who-deals-with-things-that-should-not-be (and occasionally grows horns and stuff...and does pretty much anything depending on the day and what you need).

[Segev]

If you're willing to consider a more buff-and-support focused role as a "tank," a Vitalist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist) may be useful. In addition to the powers of the class, it should be open to usual psicrystal+share power+Vigor (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/psionic-powers/v/vigor/)+Share Pain (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/psionic-powers/s/share-pain/) shenanigans to give yourself a bunch of temporary hp.

The Vitalist Methods (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist/#TOC-Vitalist-Methods) of Mender, Soulthief, Lifemonger (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist/archetypes/dreamscarred-press/lifemonger-duergar/), and Life Leech (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist/archetypes/dreamscarred-press/life-leech) seem like good possible choices for a Vitalist in an evil party who is trying to help the whole party tank. Especially with undead minions.
Edit: Life Leech and Lifemonger are archetypes, not Methods, so you can have a Method along with them. (end edit)

Life Leech will let you siphon hp more or less at will from the undead to feed the important party members, as well as potentially force enemies into the collective where they can become hp batteries for the party. The Lifemonger has similar abilities. The Mender is the most "traditional" healer Method, but its powers still have the benefit of not (usually) counting as positive energy, so you can heal undead as much as non-.

If you can talk your DM into ruling in your favor on this, the ability to redirect "healing" within your Collective could also allow you to redirect negative energy damage from living allies to undead minions; it does specify that the type of healing (positive or negative) doesn't change. However, it's more likely that he'll rule that negative energy damage doesn't meet the requirements for transfer when hitting living targets. That said, with Unwilling Participant (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/feats/unwilling-participant-psionic/) (which Life Leech grants as a bonus feat), you can force enemies into your collective, and make any negative-energy-based healing your allied undead take that you don't need them to heal up from be redirected as "negative energy healing" (which is harmful) to living enemies.

This is particularly useful if your necromancer has the Destructive Retribution feat from Libris Mortis. When undead created by a necromancer with this feat are destroyed, they explode in a cloud of negative energy that hits all adjacent spaces for 1d6 negative energy damage per HD of the destroyed undead. Not only does this hurt living enemies next to them, but it heals undead next to them. If those healed undead are in your collective, and there are enemies also within it, you can redirect any excess "healing" for the undead to those enemies.

[Uncle Pine]

Along with everything else that has been mentioned, Secrets of Xen'drik page 96 lists various alternate curses, one of which has great tanking potential:

The character is surrounded by an unnerving aura of menace. Lower the starting attitude of NPCs and animals towards this PC by one step. If a creature is already hostile, it attacks this character in preference to any others.
On the plus side, since you'll be playing the bad guys being disliked by everyone seems in-character and being targeted by all attacks will make you an amazing tank. However, you'll be disliked by everyone and targeted by all attacks.

[Menzath]

I might as well jump on the bandwagon and throw out some suggestions as well.

So you have a minionmancer, a melee, and a "mage".
As others have pointed out minionmancers do also double as thanks by virtue of Cannon fodder for days.
This leaves you with options.
I would actually suggest a bardsader or similar build if you wanted to go and do melee as well.

But I personally would go a little wacky.
Something like a deepwyrm half drow, divine bard 4/Marshal 2/divine agent 2/ Walker In the waste 10/ some filler 2.
With feats like mind over body, and tomb tainted soul to get you thru early levels, draconic aura and dragon fire inspiration towards mid levels.
Ask if when you hit Walker in the waste 10 if you can re-train tomb tainted soul since it would become redundant.

Since you would mostly be bard, you wouldn't be a "full" caster, and with the mentioned feat requiem, and a draconic aura, you could inspire(or Dragonfire) and have Marshal and draconic auras on all your allies. Though with the Walker in the waste build it's more for a cool theme and becoming a dry lich, more than anything else.

You could instead have a bard 1/Marshal 1/and either crusader or warblade 18 with the feat song of the white Raven. That would still give you all the buffs, but inspire as a 19th level bard.

[redwizard007]

Personally, I'd rock a bard and pick up the feat to affect undead. It's sick with a necromancer.

If you are set on a tank, then you have a few options:

As previously mentioned, you could focus on Attacks of Opportunity and tripping. A half-ogre, or Goliath fighter would be the way to go here. Max Dex and go to town. This is if you want to focus on control. I think that role is covered by the rest of your party.

Barbarian could be a better fit. You would be the primary DPS for your group, but you probably wouldn't do much else. Crank up your Strength and Constitution, get a big axe, and rage against the machine. Don't touch a single feat that affects multiple targets. You want to pick one enemy and wreck him as quickly as possible. Then find a new target and repeat. Let the minionmancer play with swarms, you have bigger priorities.

[liquidformat]

So here are my two cents.

Like stated above going tank is probably not your best bet since there is already a minionmancer. If you still want to like already stated tripper build is a good choice. anthropomorphic amphibious squid/octopus could be a lot of fun as an off the wall race. Barbarian 2 (with wolf totem lion spirit totem)/Psychic warrior 2 (with expansion)/Fighter 2/warblade 14 could be a good class breakdown.

Bard is another great option that has been stated before; however, I would like to add in going with Inspire Awe into a dread witch going for full fear build. Pickup Melodic Casting, Dreadful Wrath, tomb tainted soul, Haunting Melody. You can make a pretty nasty debuffer very quickly.

If you are going for mystic ranger keep in mind that the ranger spell list is heavy on bfc, buff, and utility spells and there are more ranged/archery spells than two weapon fighting/melee spells, there are also more spells focused on natural weapons than two weapon fighting/melee.

[Karl Aegis]

The best wall is Wall of Force. You're probably better off taking terrain with you with (Extend Spell) Shrink Item than dedicating one of your limited player slots to being a piece of terrain. I recommend parts of domes or staircases. Or you can bind Ronove and just put a chair between you and a charger to block most of their charge damage.

[Menzath]

So here are my two cents..... anthropomorphic amphibious squid/octopus could be a lot of fun as an off the wall race. Barbarian 2 (with wolf totem lion spirit totem)/Psychic warrior 2 (with expansion)/Fighter 2/warblade 14 could be a good class breakdown.

You know, being a giant octo horror creature does sound pretty awesome.
Could build it like King of smack without to many issues as well.

And if you couldn't start as an octopus, you could be a ranger(wild shape variant)/warshaper/master of many forms to still be a giant monster all day.