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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TKDB" data-source="post: 5867272" data-attributes="member: 6690697">Yeah, that's pretty much how tripper lockdown builds go. Combat Reflexes + Improved Trip + spiked chain for reach tripping. Add size increases to boost your reach and help you trip more effectively, get Stand Still to help with those foes you can't trip, and that's more or less the core of it.I actually agree with you in terms of preferred playstyle, but sadly the math favors the aggressive in 3.x. You negate more damage by killing things quicker than you do by pumping your ability to avoid/soak hits.As for drawing aggro, you can of course assume that the DM will portray the monsters more or less realistically and have them focus on you if you present yourself as a threat worth taking out, but my point is that there's not much you can do to force the issue if the monsters get other ideas. If a monster decides, for whatever reason, to ignore you and focus on another party member, then you don't have many options to prevent that. There's the knight's challenge ability, trip/Stand Still lockdown with AoO, and that's pretty much it. I think there might be some sort of a taunt feat out there somewhere, but IIRC it's pretty wimpy.Fortunately, 3.x doesn't have all that much need for aggro-pulling tanks, because most classes are reasonably capable of dealing with enemy attention. Rogue-types tend to be mobile and good at running away safely, and a well-prepared arcane caster can have all sorts of tricks up his sleeve to keep out of a monster's clutches.At the end of the day, high-end optimization is pretty overrated anyway. If what's fun for you is to be the toughest, most unkillable dude there is, then who cares if that's not the most "optimal" way to play the character? Gaming would be pretty boring if everyone only ever played fully optimized characters.</blockquote>

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