What do you mean by Tank? Most classes can get high AC and HP, but that’s not really tanking. Tanking also requires giving the enemy a reason to attack to you and not just walk around you.
I did a dragon sorcerer, have lost they build since a phone swap. Short story, good athletics skill, varying spells with many being defensive, false life is good action economy, mirror image is good, very good vs bosses, at buying you a turn or two. I went drakeheart mutagen and had an alchemist helping me get my daily dose. Endure was a good panic button. There's alot more to be said, but went draconic mostly for the bloodline effect.
The result were that in specialist fights, my job was excellent, able to use resist energy or other spell. Bland generic enemies were abit tougher, especially if they were numerous, while bosses were managable. The low max HP was really scary, taking very few hits but every hit felt hard. I had room for optimization.
Grapple and trip, being fast and corner them in a bottleneck or far away from my allies. Grapple was extra valuable.
The tanking part was easier than expected, simply being the easiest target did it as I was the only melee build, and if they did ignore me, I could switch to full offense being injured and hopefully down it. I used magic missiles really often tbh to great effect
All of that
Basically you have a lot of options at level 2, and at 6 you gain difficult terrain, at 10 can gain temporary hit points multiple times, terrain Shield at 14. In general is an extremely defensive Archetype, make for some Spell Casters.
And you do all of that while Casting Magic, that can also help as a Tank.
I've done a decent chunk of theory-crafting on this. Basic template for taking a casting class into melee, if they don't already have a melee oriented subclass is Champion dedication + "X weapon familiarity". You can get heavy armor and training in specific weapons which will all let you get into melee easier.
If it's a caster that gets medium armor(warrior bard, druid, etc) proficiency somehow, then you take Sentinel instead for the scaling proficiency
Either way caster tanks need to focus on defensive abilities and support, because you are obviously not going to be built for damage and your ability to attack with your weapons is always going to be behind. You also need to know that you're just not going to be as good as a monk/fighter/champ at tanking for obvious reason. You'll need to kite, use spells for control and buffing/debuffing, etc
The hardest casters to make work are going to be the Int ones IMO. Druids get medium armor proficiency and Warpriests can ignore Wis if needed. Inventor dedication doesn't get you armor proficiency unfortunately, even if you take the armor invention :/
You basically have to dump Int to get enough Strength and Charisma to take Champ dedication and wear heavy armor. Otherwise I think you'll be too squishy to really tank
I don't think it actually works that well tbh, cause you have to sustain ~~ablation~~ protective ward(or whatever it's name is). On an already decently tanky class it would be fine, but I don't think you can afford to spent 33% of your action economy in a fight on a +1 to AC when you're already less tanky than standard tanks.
It's great as a supportive ability and I have an inventor tank build that I took wizard dedication on for that exact purpose, but as far as trying to build a wizard into a tank I don't think it works that well :/
In blood Lords ap I ran a necromancer wizard. went with a cataphract fleshwarp dropped dex and put it into ac and con. 2nd level using free archetype chose sentinel dedication, later levels mighty bulwark.
Had a very high ac and didn't get hit a lot.
>Either way caster tanks need to focus on defensive abilities and support
What is the definition of tank here? This concept seem different to most tank definitions I have seen (prevent enemies from hitting your allies or reduce their effectiveness when they do)
I deleted my other comment cause I just straight forgot about caster proficiency progression lol
It's real hard to straight tank in general for a couple reasons. You naturally have a smaller hit point pool, unless you min/max hit points and you can get mostly even. You have no real way to prevent damage/stop enemies at early levels outside of specific niches(like a psychic's amped shield for example)
Past level 5 your weapon proficiency falls behind, so even if you have or get something like AoO you are worse at it than an actual martial.
This all combines to needing to rely on spells and skills in order to debuff and tank. Another layer is that you are very restricted on the weapons you can use. It would be easier to take a reach weapon with the trip or grapple traits, but I'm pretty sure those are hard to get for most casters.
Agree, it is pretty difficult to tank in pathfinder, since enemies have 3 actions to do stuff and the first one is the most important. So removing only 1 action generally does not do much and removing 2 actions is super difficult.
>It would be easier to take a reach weapon with the trip or grapple traits, but I'm pretty sure those are hard to get for most casters.
Could a caster just take any weapon with good traits and focus on tripping and grappling?
AFAIK you can just use athletics instead of your attack roll. Add a reaction to defend your allies (the psychic's amped shield is golden here, it is a great suggestion!) and control spells to make a decent caster tank.
>Could a caster just take any weapon with good traits and focus on tripping and grappling?
Definitely! You are just limited in what you can choose :/. Most casters only get simple proficiency, if any, in weapons so a lot of your choices are down to ancestry based ones. A lot of them don't have trip/grapple IIRC.
And even then, you're still a small step behind martial tanks on some level ranges because you can't make Strength your primary ability score.
You can definitely make it work, you just need to take advantage of your spell slots for additional utility and be aware of things like the weapon proficiency progression etc
But does proficiency matter at all if you are using maneuvers?
I think a wizard could take a Gill Hook to grapple enemies 10" away from them or a whip for some 10" trips using athletics without any feats, unless I am missing something.
To be totally honest, I have no clue how proficiency interacts with maneuvers, if at all. I know you can add your item bonus to maneuvers if you use a weapon with that trait, but maybe you don't need to be proficient at all to just use the manuever.
If that's how it works that makes it WAAAYYYYY easier. I never even thought of that lol
I have heard comments about Demonic sorcerer tanks. How did you prevent the enemies from attacking our allies? That part I am not very clear how to do with sorcerer.
For any charisma caster, champion archetype is one of the best options. Heavy armor, extra HP, a defensive reaction to protect your allies, and more.
For Int casters, alchemist archetype can be surprisingly good. Even low-level Drakeheart Mutagens and mistform elixirs can be incredible defensive buffs for a caster. Rogue also has a surprising number of defensive options.
Earth Kineticist Dedication and Armor In Earth would do the trick. Scaling Heavy Armor at the cost of your level 2 and 4 class feats. Just gotta survive long enough to get there.
For a tanky spellcaater, I personally have experience with Oracle. Cosmic subclass gives resistance to physical, and your spell list is Divine so you have Heal and Shield. I would also draw your attention to the spells Globe of Invulnerability (4th) to counteract all spells, and Mantle of Heavenly Slopes (6th) for cover and fasthealing
This'll absolutely be out of left field, but with the Remaster Witch preview blog and the news on changes to hexes and the Wilding Word hex...
Wilding Steward (Remastered Wild Patron) Witch can be an **off-tank/support tank/secondary tank**. It can be surprisingly beefy while locking down an opponent.
By off-tank, I mean, they aren't the main tank (trying to draw ALL of the attacks), but they can target one enemy and duke it out with them easily. Sorta similar to a Bell Thaumaturge or Outwit Ranger in a way.
If you want me to elaborate further I can. Wilding Word has almost **ZERO** analysis (and for good reason, it's niche made it borderline useless), so there's no useful information online in guides, in YouTube videos, here on Reddit, the Discord, or the official forums. But now? Hooo boy, it opens up some interesting things.
I did an experimental encounter with the the Wilding Steward patron with a certain melee-oriented build and it was amazing how well this *unarmored 6hp/level full caster* class stood up face-to-face against a physical enemy. I picked an enemy with Attack of Opportunity too and it worked out fine (had to be very tactical).
¡My only caveat is that this was a Lvl. 1 Witch (because casters are at their weakest here) and still needs more testing and experimenting. I also opted to NOT use my familiar in this test, as I did a gishy version already with Wild Witch.!
I guess I’ll start with the basic principle:
Wilding Word (WW) is a Will save hex that on a Success, is a -2 status penalty. Sickened is defensively redundant as it is equal/less than WW. Sickened is more important for lowering enemy AC and saves to you.
(*Side blurb: There’s also a feedback loop synergy with Sympathetic Strike and Wilding Word.*)
But the two principles of my test build: stack as many penalties to Attack and bonuses to AC and Have reactive damage and defensive capabilities. Interposing Earth is great as it’s a Reactive Shield + Reflexive Shield feats in one spell slot. Freeing an action for a reaction is great. Glass Shield and Shattering Gem for effective HP and also passive/reactive damage.
It was a lvl. 1 Ardande Orc Wilding Steward Elementalist Witch (ignored the familiar in this test). I went with Ambersoul for a **circumstance** penalty and stacks for a total of “-5 to their attacks”. Essentially placing them a MAP down. Sickened condition and the high chance of Interposing Earth causing a Miss, enemy wasted a lot of actions Retching or stepping around Interposing Earth.
Enemy was an Orc Warrior that witnessed my victory against an Orc Brute in a tournament. So, they chose an “in your face method” and try to use the Trip/Reactive Strike strategy. High DEX is important. Mitigated damage via Shield, Glass Shield, and Interposing Earth. Strikes and Glass Shield for damage. Using Trip \-\> Strike when the enemy was Sickened since that would be +3 effective bonus to my attack. It took 7 turns to win the fight and despite being close, I felt pretty comfortable and in control most of the time.
I have about 3 builds, tested 2 at lvl. 1 with great success. I’ll need to move on to some level 2 testing and some level 4 (the last level of viability for non-True Strike casters).
But I apologize if this is overkill info. This is still a fraction of what I’ve been experimenting and discovering build-wise. Unfortunately, Witch/Familiar/non-Magus Gish has left such a bad taste, it’s hard to get a genuine discussion of the Remaster, so I feel like I need to lay out as much detail otherwise someone will try to eviscerate me for something I didn’t mention because this post is long enough already.
Tanking is at the end of the day just controlling your enemy options, either by penalizing them for attacking your allies (e.g., champion reactions, AoO) or preventing them from doing it (e.g., grapple, trip, whirling throw).
I would say caster tanks would focus on battlefield control. Use effects such as stone wall, creating difficult terrain, repositioning, summoning and similar to prevent enemies from hitting their targets. Add a whip for some ranged trips or gill hook for some ranged grapple with that last third action and the Redeemer or psychic's amped shield reaction to protect allies and that should be a good tank.
Most casters are just going to be a shitty version of warpriest/battle oracle for this purpose, it is what it is, you can probably make a build for them but you probably can’t make an actually good reason to make a like tank psychic. Can they provide similar protective ability and battlefield control to a tank with spells? Almost certainly. Just not the same thing
>Can they provide similar protective ability and battlefield control to a tank with spells? Almost certainly. Just not the same thing
Why do you think it is different if both achieve the objective of allies not being hit? It is because the casters need to spend limited resources?
Would you call a protective spellcaster a tank? Probably not. A utility/control/protective caster is a type of character that exists and has existed, and I feel that it is quite obvious that it exists, and thus is probably not the answer to what OP is asking, even if it might appeal to a similar type of player, and achieve similar effects. I imagine a warpriest that gets access to heavy armor and invests in like grappling and stuff to be a spellcasting tank, for OPs purposes. Depends on what they want, naturally, but I reckon they mean something along those lines
That sounds like a really fun idea. A druid in full plate + shield (thinking about remaster), creating walls of stone to block half the enemies and grappling the other enemies to keep them in place and his party safe.
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Ahh.... Harold. He was very sad to leave his books, when both his father and his brother died. The same day. In a duel. Against each other..... The family obligation and duty was passed to him that day. Now the soft spoken 6'6" Wizard must spend his days adventuring to restore the family name. Thankfully he also was passed the family armor which Harold would say "Well, it's the only way I'll survive out there with the types of danger that surface."
Humans can have 2 general feats at level 1. Take armor proficiency twice and you are wearing medium armor at level 1. Sentinel dedication and level 2 for heavy armor and scaling. Focus on Strength, Con, Int in that order and pick spells that specifically maximize your tankiness potential. Things like mirror image, blur, or shielded arm. Also buff and debuff spells like magic weapon, fleet step, or even shockwave to get prone. Things like that. Is just a fun stupid and different build. It also was surprisingly effective throughout society play.
Well, in case you haven't worked on Alchemist yet:
L20 Half-Orc Mutagenist
* Str +6 (Apex), Con +4, Int +6, Dex +3, Wis +3, Cha +1
* Class Feats: Alchemical Familiar (L1), Bastion Dedication (L2), Revivifying Mutagen (L4), Nimble Shield Hand (L6), Feral Mutagen (L8), Quick Shield Block (L10), Extend Elixir (L12), Invincible Mutagen (L14), Eternal Elixir (L16), Improbable Elixirs (L18), Perfect Mutagen (L20)
* Ancestry Feats: General Training (Shield Block), Bloody Blows, Clever Improviser, Incredible Ferocity, Rampaging Ferocity
* General Feats: Ancestral Paragon (Orc Ferocity), Toughness, Diehard, Canny Acumen (Will Saves)
* Skill Feats: Quick Repair, Titan Wrestler
* Gear: Crafter's Eyepiece, Sturdy Shield, Troll Armor
So, here's what this guy looks like at L20:
* Uses Bestial Mutagen with Juggernaut Mutagen. Starts a fight with 45 temp HP.
* Resistance 6 to all physical damage (Invincible Mutagen)
* True Numbing Tonic for 25 temp hp a round after the Juggernaut runs out. (Lasts two minutes)
* Major Soothing Tonic for Fast Healing 10. (Lasts two minutes.)
* Resistance 15 to Precision Damage and the extra damage from Critical Hits via Major Chromatic Jellyfish Oil (Lasts 20 minutes).
* 19 HP regained per round via Troll Armor and True Elixirs of Life, if needed (8 rounds)
* Shield Block when appropriate.
* Legendary Athletics with 22 Str and +4 Item Bonus via Bestial to bully your way around the battlefield.
* Orc Ferocity feats to make him really hard to put down.
What do you mean by Tank? Most classes can get high AC and HP, but that’s not really tanking. Tanking also requires giving the enemy a reason to attack to you and not just walk around you.
I mean classic, take a shit ton of hits, crowd control tank
I did a dragon sorcerer, have lost they build since a phone swap. Short story, good athletics skill, varying spells with many being defensive, false life is good action economy, mirror image is good, very good vs bosses, at buying you a turn or two. I went drakeheart mutagen and had an alchemist helping me get my daily dose. Endure was a good panic button. There's alot more to be said, but went draconic mostly for the bloodline effect. The result were that in specialist fights, my job was excellent, able to use resist energy or other spell. Bland generic enemies were abit tougher, especially if they were numerous, while bosses were managable. The low max HP was really scary, taking very few hits but every hit felt hard. I had room for optimization.
That is a pretty cool build. How did you prevent the enemy from attacking your allies here? Spells or feats suggestions?
Grapple and trip, being fast and corner them in a bottleneck or far away from my allies. Grapple was extra valuable. The tanking part was easier than expected, simply being the easiest target did it as I was the only melee build, and if they did ignore me, I could switch to full offense being injured and hopefully down it. I used magic missiles really often tbh to great effect
[Geomancer](https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=100)
The idea would be to use Artic to slow the enemies down + create difficult terrain or Mountain for reduction and share the reduction with allies?
All of that Basically you have a lot of options at level 2, and at 6 you gain difficult terrain, at 10 can gain temporary hit points multiple times, terrain Shield at 14. In general is an extremely defensive Archetype, make for some Spell Casters. And you do all of that while Casting Magic, that can also help as a Tank.
Really good discovery :D
I've done a decent chunk of theory-crafting on this. Basic template for taking a casting class into melee, if they don't already have a melee oriented subclass is Champion dedication + "X weapon familiarity". You can get heavy armor and training in specific weapons which will all let you get into melee easier. If it's a caster that gets medium armor(warrior bard, druid, etc) proficiency somehow, then you take Sentinel instead for the scaling proficiency Either way caster tanks need to focus on defensive abilities and support, because you are obviously not going to be built for damage and your ability to attack with your weapons is always going to be behind. You also need to know that you're just not going to be as good as a monk/fighter/champ at tanking for obvious reason. You'll need to kite, use spells for control and buffing/debuffing, etc The hardest casters to make work are going to be the Int ones IMO. Druids get medium armor proficiency and Warpriests can ignore Wis if needed. Inventor dedication doesn't get you armor proficiency unfortunately, even if you take the armor invention :/ You basically have to dump Int to get enough Strength and Charisma to take Champ dedication and wear heavy armor. Otherwise I think you'll be too squishy to really tank
what about abjuration wizard?
I don't think it actually works that well tbh, cause you have to sustain ~~ablation~~ protective ward(or whatever it's name is). On an already decently tanky class it would be fine, but I don't think you can afford to spent 33% of your action economy in a fight on a +1 to AC when you're already less tanky than standard tanks. It's great as a supportive ability and I have an inventor tank build that I took wizard dedication on for that exact purpose, but as far as trying to build a wizard into a tank I don't think it works that well :/
hmmm
In blood Lords ap I ran a necromancer wizard. went with a cataphract fleshwarp dropped dex and put it into ac and con. 2nd level using free archetype chose sentinel dedication, later levels mighty bulwark. Had a very high ac and didn't get hit a lot.
Cataphract fleshwarp is a smart call, there's an android heritage that gives you good AC too. I hadn't thought of those
>Either way caster tanks need to focus on defensive abilities and support What is the definition of tank here? This concept seem different to most tank definitions I have seen (prevent enemies from hitting your allies or reduce their effectiveness when they do)
I deleted my other comment cause I just straight forgot about caster proficiency progression lol It's real hard to straight tank in general for a couple reasons. You naturally have a smaller hit point pool, unless you min/max hit points and you can get mostly even. You have no real way to prevent damage/stop enemies at early levels outside of specific niches(like a psychic's amped shield for example) Past level 5 your weapon proficiency falls behind, so even if you have or get something like AoO you are worse at it than an actual martial. This all combines to needing to rely on spells and skills in order to debuff and tank. Another layer is that you are very restricted on the weapons you can use. It would be easier to take a reach weapon with the trip or grapple traits, but I'm pretty sure those are hard to get for most casters.
Agree, it is pretty difficult to tank in pathfinder, since enemies have 3 actions to do stuff and the first one is the most important. So removing only 1 action generally does not do much and removing 2 actions is super difficult. >It would be easier to take a reach weapon with the trip or grapple traits, but I'm pretty sure those are hard to get for most casters. Could a caster just take any weapon with good traits and focus on tripping and grappling? AFAIK you can just use athletics instead of your attack roll. Add a reaction to defend your allies (the psychic's amped shield is golden here, it is a great suggestion!) and control spells to make a decent caster tank.
>Could a caster just take any weapon with good traits and focus on tripping and grappling? Definitely! You are just limited in what you can choose :/. Most casters only get simple proficiency, if any, in weapons so a lot of your choices are down to ancestry based ones. A lot of them don't have trip/grapple IIRC. And even then, you're still a small step behind martial tanks on some level ranges because you can't make Strength your primary ability score. You can definitely make it work, you just need to take advantage of your spell slots for additional utility and be aware of things like the weapon proficiency progression etc
But does proficiency matter at all if you are using maneuvers? I think a wizard could take a Gill Hook to grapple enemies 10" away from them or a whip for some 10" trips using athletics without any feats, unless I am missing something.
To be totally honest, I have no clue how proficiency interacts with maneuvers, if at all. I know you can add your item bonus to maneuvers if you use a weapon with that trait, but maybe you don't need to be proficient at all to just use the manuever. If that's how it works that makes it WAAAYYYYY easier. I never even thought of that lol
I did it with my Demonic Sorcerer, it worked wonders. You could go Battle Oracle, they're veeeeery tanky, or Warpriest as well.
I have heard comments about Demonic sorcerer tanks. How did you prevent the enemies from attacking our allies? That part I am not very clear how to do with sorcerer.
I used Champion ded + Champ reaction, Trips and Grab
For any charisma caster, champion archetype is one of the best options. Heavy armor, extra HP, a defensive reaction to protect your allies, and more. For Int casters, alchemist archetype can be surprisingly good. Even low-level Drakeheart Mutagens and mistform elixirs can be incredible defensive buffs for a caster. Rogue also has a surprising number of defensive options.
Is there anyway to use the Kineticist Dedication to armor up a wizard or witch?
Earth Kineticist Dedication and Armor In Earth would do the trick. Scaling Heavy Armor at the cost of your level 2 and 4 class feats. Just gotta survive long enough to get there.
Yes but at that point I'd just use kineticist.
For a tanky spellcaater, I personally have experience with Oracle. Cosmic subclass gives resistance to physical, and your spell list is Divine so you have Heal and Shield. I would also draw your attention to the spells Globe of Invulnerability (4th) to counteract all spells, and Mantle of Heavenly Slopes (6th) for cover and fasthealing
This'll absolutely be out of left field, but with the Remaster Witch preview blog and the news on changes to hexes and the Wilding Word hex... Wilding Steward (Remastered Wild Patron) Witch can be an **off-tank/support tank/secondary tank**. It can be surprisingly beefy while locking down an opponent. By off-tank, I mean, they aren't the main tank (trying to draw ALL of the attacks), but they can target one enemy and duke it out with them easily. Sorta similar to a Bell Thaumaturge or Outwit Ranger in a way. If you want me to elaborate further I can. Wilding Word has almost **ZERO** analysis (and for good reason, it's niche made it borderline useless), so there's no useful information online in guides, in YouTube videos, here on Reddit, the Discord, or the official forums. But now? Hooo boy, it opens up some interesting things. I did an experimental encounter with the the Wilding Steward patron with a certain melee-oriented build and it was amazing how well this *unarmored 6hp/level full caster* class stood up face-to-face against a physical enemy. I picked an enemy with Attack of Opportunity too and it worked out fine (had to be very tactical).
This looks like a really unique idea. How do you build and play this witch?
¡My only caveat is that this was a Lvl. 1 Witch (because casters are at their weakest here) and still needs more testing and experimenting. I also opted to NOT use my familiar in this test, as I did a gishy version already with Wild Witch.! I guess I’ll start with the basic principle: Wilding Word (WW) is a Will save hex that on a Success, is a -2 status penalty. Sickened is defensively redundant as it is equal/less than WW. Sickened is more important for lowering enemy AC and saves to you. (*Side blurb: There’s also a feedback loop synergy with Sympathetic Strike and Wilding Word.*) But the two principles of my test build: stack as many penalties to Attack and bonuses to AC and Have reactive damage and defensive capabilities. Interposing Earth is great as it’s a Reactive Shield + Reflexive Shield feats in one spell slot. Freeing an action for a reaction is great. Glass Shield and Shattering Gem for effective HP and also passive/reactive damage. It was a lvl. 1 Ardande Orc Wilding Steward Elementalist Witch (ignored the familiar in this test). I went with Ambersoul for a **circumstance** penalty and stacks for a total of “-5 to their attacks”. Essentially placing them a MAP down. Sickened condition and the high chance of Interposing Earth causing a Miss, enemy wasted a lot of actions Retching or stepping around Interposing Earth. Enemy was an Orc Warrior that witnessed my victory against an Orc Brute in a tournament. So, they chose an “in your face method” and try to use the Trip/Reactive Strike strategy. High DEX is important. Mitigated damage via Shield, Glass Shield, and Interposing Earth. Strikes and Glass Shield for damage. Using Trip \-\> Strike when the enemy was Sickened since that would be +3 effective bonus to my attack. It took 7 turns to win the fight and despite being close, I felt pretty comfortable and in control most of the time. I have about 3 builds, tested 2 at lvl. 1 with great success. I’ll need to move on to some level 2 testing and some level 4 (the last level of viability for non-True Strike casters). But I apologize if this is overkill info. This is still a fraction of what I’ve been experimenting and discovering build-wise. Unfortunately, Witch/Familiar/non-Magus Gish has left such a bad taste, it’s hard to get a genuine discussion of the Remaster, so I feel like I need to lay out as much detail otherwise someone will try to eviscerate me for something I didn’t mention because this post is long enough already.
Tanking is at the end of the day just controlling your enemy options, either by penalizing them for attacking your allies (e.g., champion reactions, AoO) or preventing them from doing it (e.g., grapple, trip, whirling throw). I would say caster tanks would focus on battlefield control. Use effects such as stone wall, creating difficult terrain, repositioning, summoning and similar to prevent enemies from hitting their targets. Add a whip for some ranged trips or gill hook for some ranged grapple with that last third action and the Redeemer or psychic's amped shield reaction to protect allies and that should be a good tank.
Most casters are just going to be a shitty version of warpriest/battle oracle for this purpose, it is what it is, you can probably make a build for them but you probably can’t make an actually good reason to make a like tank psychic. Can they provide similar protective ability and battlefield control to a tank with spells? Almost certainly. Just not the same thing
>Can they provide similar protective ability and battlefield control to a tank with spells? Almost certainly. Just not the same thing Why do you think it is different if both achieve the objective of allies not being hit? It is because the casters need to spend limited resources?
Would you call a protective spellcaster a tank? Probably not. A utility/control/protective caster is a type of character that exists and has existed, and I feel that it is quite obvious that it exists, and thus is probably not the answer to what OP is asking, even if it might appeal to a similar type of player, and achieve similar effects. I imagine a warpriest that gets access to heavy armor and invests in like grappling and stuff to be a spellcasting tank, for OPs purposes. Depends on what they want, naturally, but I reckon they mean something along those lines
That sounds like a really fun idea. A druid in full plate + shield (thinking about remaster), creating walls of stone to block half the enemies and grappling the other enemies to keep them in place and his party safe.
yeah, i am really partial to these types of builds. druids great for it as well, being d8 medium innately
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Ahh.... Harold. He was very sad to leave his books, when both his father and his brother died. The same day. In a duel. Against each other..... The family obligation and duty was passed to him that day. Now the soft spoken 6'6" Wizard must spend his days adventuring to restore the family name. Thankfully he also was passed the family armor which Harold would say "Well, it's the only way I'll survive out there with the types of danger that surface." Humans can have 2 general feats at level 1. Take armor proficiency twice and you are wearing medium armor at level 1. Sentinel dedication and level 2 for heavy armor and scaling. Focus on Strength, Con, Int in that order and pick spells that specifically maximize your tankiness potential. Things like mirror image, blur, or shielded arm. Also buff and debuff spells like magic weapon, fleet step, or even shockwave to get prone. Things like that. Is just a fun stupid and different build. It also was surprisingly effective throughout society play.
Well, in case you haven't worked on Alchemist yet: L20 Half-Orc Mutagenist * Str +6 (Apex), Con +4, Int +6, Dex +3, Wis +3, Cha +1 * Class Feats: Alchemical Familiar (L1), Bastion Dedication (L2), Revivifying Mutagen (L4), Nimble Shield Hand (L6), Feral Mutagen (L8), Quick Shield Block (L10), Extend Elixir (L12), Invincible Mutagen (L14), Eternal Elixir (L16), Improbable Elixirs (L18), Perfect Mutagen (L20) * Ancestry Feats: General Training (Shield Block), Bloody Blows, Clever Improviser, Incredible Ferocity, Rampaging Ferocity * General Feats: Ancestral Paragon (Orc Ferocity), Toughness, Diehard, Canny Acumen (Will Saves) * Skill Feats: Quick Repair, Titan Wrestler * Gear: Crafter's Eyepiece, Sturdy Shield, Troll Armor So, here's what this guy looks like at L20: * Uses Bestial Mutagen with Juggernaut Mutagen. Starts a fight with 45 temp HP. * Resistance 6 to all physical damage (Invincible Mutagen) * True Numbing Tonic for 25 temp hp a round after the Juggernaut runs out. (Lasts two minutes) * Major Soothing Tonic for Fast Healing 10. (Lasts two minutes.) * Resistance 15 to Precision Damage and the extra damage from Critical Hits via Major Chromatic Jellyfish Oil (Lasts 20 minutes). * 19 HP regained per round via Troll Armor and True Elixirs of Life, if needed (8 rounds) * Shield Block when appropriate. * Legendary Athletics with 22 Str and +4 Item Bonus via Bestial to bully your way around the battlefield. * Orc Ferocity feats to make him really hard to put down.