Crit Fishing Tank

[TheHutz]

In my Tomb of Annihilation game I've found myself in the role of tank. I've been a playing a flail and shield Rock Gnome Fighter 1/Abjurer Wizard 3. While early on the AC tanking worked decently well, I've found myself on the verge of death more and more lately. Furthermore, while I have a number of solutions to out of combat situations via a wizards utility, I feel somewhat useless in combat.

For the reasons above, and some in character reasons, I may retire this character soon. Some of the best ways to "tank" in 5e are through area denial and restricting enemies movement. I've been thinking some sort of polearm using bear totem barbarian would better fit the needs of the party. We are currently:

Dwarf Stone Sorcer 1/Lore Bard 3
Half Elf Ranger 1/Fey Pact of the Chain Warlock 3
Half Orc Vengeance Paladin 4
Dwarf Forge Cleric 4
Aarokocra Ranger 4 (likely leaving the group)

We have utility covered for the most part, and while having some things that the wizard provides is nice, I don't think it's totally necessary. We use the talent tree homebrew system instead of feats, but you can mostly achieve the same goals using talents as you can feats, so sentinel, Polearm Master, even a less powerful version of Tunnel Fighter will eventually be available. Racial feats are allowed without the stat boost for a talent point. I was also planning a 3 level fighter dip for the expanded crit range by level 8.

I wanted to throw in some crit fishing down the road for fun and thought it would be interesting to have an elven barbarian utilizing elven accuracy. Unfortunately elven accuracy doesn't allow for STR attacks. Is losing out on the rage damage bonus the only issue with going Dex Barbarian? How significant is that loss? Are there any other good crit fishing builds that are also great tanks? Should I just abandon the EA idea and go for a more typical STR based Barb? Appreciate the input!

[Contrast]

I wanted to throw in some crit fishing down the road for fun and thought it would be interesting to have an elven barbarian utilizing elven accuracy. Unfortunately elven accuracy doesn't allow for STR attacks. Is losing out on the rage damage bonus the only issue with going Dex Barbarian? How significant is that loss? Are there any other good crit fishing builds that are also great tanks? Should I just abandon the EA idea and go for a more typical STR based Barb? Appreciate the input!

Reckless attack also requires attacking with strength which is, I assume, how you were planning on triggering the advantage for elven accuracy to come into play.

Honestly with a stone sorc, paladin and forge cleric I would have assumed your party already had a number of less squishy targets. If you're looking to be the guy who runs into combat and gets all the enemies to focus on him you're going to go down a lot. That's just how 5E works.

You may want to consider samurai fighter - they can turn on-able advantage and temporary hit points.

[Blood of Gaea]

3 Champion Fighter/X Ancestral Guardian Barbarian would do the trick.

If you want a more magical route: 1 Hexblade/X Divine Soul can become tougher with the use of Aid and Armor of Agathys, along with various other defensive spells. This option also gives you Spirit Guardians, which is rather solid for a tank. Snag Warcaster (or whatever effect is the equivalent) and you can also toss out your Booming Blade as an AoO.

And Hexblade gives you that once a short rest hex ability, which give you an expanded crit range.

[Wildarm]

It's difficult to build a true crit fisher who also can function as a tank, at least at lower levels. Too many roles and feats are needed to do it well.

Half Elf Paladin X / Hexblade 3(Pact of the Blade) would probably be your best choice. Use EA, Darkness + Devil's sight and smite whenever you crit(~30% chance on Hexblade Curse target while in darkness)

You could try an Elven dex barbarian, perhaps with double bladed scimitar, it would be OK but not fantastic.

Kobold Dex Paladin or Champion fighter might be fun to try it with. Pact Tactics will get you some extra crit chances.

[Nhorianscum]

In my Tomb of Annihilation game I've found myself in the role of tank. I've been a playing a flail and shield Rock Gnome Fighter 1/Abjurer Wizard 3. While early on the AC tanking worked decently well, I've found myself on the verge of death more and more lately. Furthermore, while I have a number of solutions to out of combat situations via a wizards utility, I feel somewhat useless in combat.

For the reasons above, and some in character reasons, I may retire this character soon. Some of the best ways to "tank" in 5e are through area denial and restricting enemies movement. I've been thinking some sort of polearm using bear totem barbarian would better fit the needs of the party. We are currently:

Dwarf Stone Sorcer 1/Lore Bard 3
Half Elf Ranger 1/Fey Pact of the Chain Warlock 3
Half Orc Vengeance Paladin 4
Dwarf Forge Cleric 4
Aarokocra Ranger 4 (likely leaving the group)

We have utility covered for the most part, and while having some things that the wizard provides is nice, I don't think it's totally necessary. We use the talent tree homebrew system instead of feats, but you can mostly achieve the same goals using talents as you can feats, so sentinel, Polearm Master, even a less powerful version of Tunnel Fighter will eventually be available. Racial feats are allowed without the stat boost for a talent point. I was also planning a 3 level fighter dip for the expanded crit range by level 8.

I wanted to throw in some crit fishing down the road for fun and thought it would be interesting to have an elven barbarian utilizing elven accuracy. Unfortunately elven accuracy doesn't allow for STR attacks. Is losing out on the rage damage bonus the only issue with going Dex Barbarian? How significant is that loss? Are there any other good crit fishing builds that are also great tanks? Should I just abandon the EA idea and go for a more typical STR based Barb? Appreciate the input!

EA isn't really worthwhile without at least a 19-20 crit range.

For a low level "Crit fishing tank" I suggest Vengadin9/Hex1 (EA) or Zealot7/Champion 3 (GWM)

[Damon_Tor]

You could consider a gnome Battlesmith artificer. Mounted on your iron defender, you can use a Lance and shield combo, for great damage, reach and defense. If you can manage to get yourself a ring of spell storing, you can have your Iron Defender cast Warding Bond on you, basically turning it into a extra bank of hitpoints for yourself. And you'll have a number of spells that help you tank.

Playing a dex barbarian is a bit like swimming upstream. If all you're a barbarian for is the resistance from rage I feel like there are easier ways to get it.

[Keravath]

I'm just wondering why you are finding yourself on the front lines at all.

At first level you were a fighter ... so what ... after that you are an abjuration wizard who has some extra resilience FOR A WIZARD but isn't really intended to be a front line fighter. The fighter gives you the ability to wear armor and cast spells, defensive to increase your AC and constitution saving throws to maintain concentration. Otherwise you are a wizard with the typically lower hit points and the spells to aid your party in combat and take down opponents. If you wanted to build a front line fighter with magical ability you might be better off with taking eldritch knight to at least 5 with perhaps a few levels in wizard.

There is no point in taking fighter to level 3 to get a better critical range since you will only ever have 1 attack unless you increase your fighter levels further and enhance extra attack.

Your party has both a paladin and a cleric which are both good "tanks" as far as that goes in 5e. You only have one character, the wizard (though possibly the bard at level 6) which will have fireball and other very useful spells. The wizard also has ritual casting for things like Comprehend Languages, Find Familiar, Detect Magic, Identify, Alarm, Leomunds Tiny Hut that may be very useful or even essential at some point. The campaign will go to at least level 11 if you finish it and a wizard could play an important role in keeping your party alive BUT a wizard is NOT a front line melee fighter or tank.

If you don't want to play a wizard, that's fine, the class isn't for everyone but the issue would seem to me to be that you are playing your wizard as a front line tank rather than the ranged/support/aoe/damage role that they usually fill. Your arcane ward does not make the character sufficiently better in a front line role and as soon as you hit level 5, your cantrips will do more damage than your one attack.

Anyway, the best crit fishing type builds for melee are something like Bear totem barbarian 5/ Champion fighter 3 or the reverse but it won't really come online until level 8 or so when you have extra attack, rage, reckless attack, and an enhanced crit range. This should be combined with great weapon fighting or the equivalent for best results. In the long run, a wizard is probably more useful but if you aren't having fun playing it or want to be in the melee rather than standing back and blasting then a rebuild to something else might be in order.

[Citadel97501]

Sorry if this thread is being revived from near death, but I had a similar crit fishing tank but I think there is a better method to accomplish it. I did this by identifying the things you need to crit fish, and tank.

To Crit Fish: Advantage, Critically hit on 19 or 20's
Tank: High Armor Class & High Saves, Extra hit points are also helpful.
Danger: Need to be far to dangerous for someone to just ignore you.

So together this got me looking at Paladin as it can provide a lot of these benefits, then I realized the Bard: College of Swords adds these same things but your health is a bit low, so how about adding

What about a Half Elf mixing the Paladin: Path of Heroism 3-7 (Unearthed Arcana), and Bard: College of Swords 3-14?

Now you have a solid critical fisher, with Spell Smiting, that can also give himself a very high armor value with Defensive Flourish or the Shield spell as needed, & Fighting Style: Defense. You also have the great capacity to create advantage by using bardic spells. Also each of your critical hits are going to be providing your party or yourself some Temporary Hit Points or Frightening your enemies.

Really the only issue will be when you run out of bardic songs, but that brings us to one of the more useful tricks available to bards ie the spell "Catnap" which is rather meh for most Long Rest casters but as it will let you recharge all of your Bardic Song shenanigans & your Channel Divinity this ability takes a whole new use for Bards.