D&D 5E [5e] The Dreadnought: Mountain Dwarf Battle Master Tank

transtemporal

Explorer

• Nov 8, 2014

• #11

Quartz said:

Looking at the build order, if you're wanting a weapon + shield fighter, I suggest taking the Shieldmaster feat at level 4, not level 16.

Click to expand...

Personally, I think maxing out the primary attack stat takes precedence and assuming the standard stat array, you can't do that until at least level 8. +2 attack bonus for all attacks seems to have more utility than a situational bonus to one saving throw. Although to be honest, I haven't thought it through that thoroughly so happy to take advice on it, lol.

My reasoning for taking Alert and Sentinel before Shieldmaster is that melee tanking is really the focus of the build and those two feats are key to that*. Although I might swap Lucky for Shieldmaster in the build order. Thats a little too long to be taking breath weapons to the face...

* taking Alert is really dependent on whether your DM allows the old Delay action. If thats a possibility then you could drop the feat and get party members higher in the initiative order to delay their actions until after you.

 

log in or register to remove this ad

Quartz

Hero

• Nov 8, 2014

• #12

transtemporal said:

Personally, I think maxing out the primary attack stat takes precedence and assuming the standard stat array, you can't do that until at least level 8. +2 attack bonus for all attacks seems to have more utility than a situational bonus to one saving throw. Although to be honest, I haven't thought it through that thoroughly so happy to take advice on it, lol.

Click to expand...

I'm thinking thematically, not statistically.

 

transtemporal

Explorer

• Nov 9, 2014

• #13

Quartz said:

I'm thinking thematically, not statistically.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, thematically Shieldmaster is frickin' sweeeeeeeeeet! The imagery alone is almost worth it!

 

Zardnaar

Legend

• Nov 12, 2014

• #14

You can't guarantee you will get +3 armour and a +3 shield that may or may not buff AC anyway.

 

transtemporal

Explorer

• Nov 12, 2014

• #15

Zardnaar said:

You can't guarantee you will get +3 armour and a +3 shield that may or may not buff AC anyway.

Click to expand...

I admit its somewhat provisional since we haven't seen the dmg and I don't know what our dm might give us as treasure, but think of it this way "if you want to play a tank for a given level and youre a heavy armor wearer, you should be aiming at 70-80% dmg mitigation by whatever combination of AC and resistance required to get there."

The implication is if you can't achieve that, you may find high levels not much fun...

 

transtemporal

Explorer

• Nov 23, 2014

• #16

I had a couple of PMs regarding AC spell buffs so I may as well answer here. Basically I don't think I can reasonably expect the cleric or wizard to cast a concentration spell like Haste or Shield of Faith on me when there are better party-member or party-wide applications they could be using, e.g. Haste is better for a Sorlock or other high DPR class, Shield of Faith is probably not as useful as Holy Aura at that level.

Also, there was a question about Rings of Protection. Unfortunately, Nikosandros' thread was effectively shut down before I could ask the question of whether the ring stacks with armor/shield. Guess I'll just have to wait until my DMG arrives (unless somebody else knows the answer already).

 

Minsc

Explorer

• Jan 10, 2015

• #17

I'm brand new to this game, and I appreciate the build layout. Thank you.

But I need to ask: What's the point of the high DEX on a guy in Plate Mail?

 

transtemporal

Explorer

• Feb 12, 2015

• #18

Minsc said:

I'm brand new to this game, and I appreciate the build layout. Thank you.

But I need to ask: What's the point of the high DEX on a guy in Plate Mail?

Click to expand...

Sorry Minsc, haven't been paying attention to the thread! (Cool name btw )

The answer is basically because there's no great competition for stats with this build, the standard array allows you to and having high initiative allows you to get ahead of your party (and hopefully the bad guys) and set up the battlefield the way you want it.

After playing this a bit more, I realized how amazing the Shield Master feat is (for the knockdown which is a supersweet party buff), so I've swapped that in rather than the ability improvement at 6.

 

Last edited: Feb 12, 2015