Need some advice for a lvl5 tank build.

[Fooly_Cooly]

Hey it's me again here to ask for more advice from all you sages of ENworld . I'm playing in a lvl 5 campaign soon and we need a tank. The rest of the party is a witch(Specializes in heal and enchant I believe) A dragon blooded sorcerer (Specializes in cold magic) and a pathfinderized swashbuckler. I need to fill the tank role. I was thinking of going half orc armor master fighter. Any help with the build or alternative builds are welcome .

 

[Pielorinho]

A tank has two roles:
1) Be hard to kill; and
2) Attract attacks like honey attracts flies.

The armor master fighter gets the second part down, but the first part might be difficult. If an enemy is facing a low-damage-output half-orc that's almost impossible to hit, and a high-damage-output sorcerer who's easy to take down, why would they go after the tank?

Consider taking some feat or class that makes you more of a threat. I love 4E challenges for this purpose, but you could also look at taking a level of cavalier. The challenge ability allows you to focus an enemy's attention on you and gain some bonuses against them--for example, Order of the Seal gives you a free trip or bull rush against the target of your challenge under many circumstances, whereas Order of the Shield gives you a bonus to attack if the target of your challenge attacks someone else.

The other way I can think of to attract attention is to be a reach fighter. Take a reach weapon and combat reflexes to prevent enemies from getting past you. Next level, take lunge so that you can extend reach at will, more or less.

Finally, I'll say that the straight-up fighter in our game, with his greatsword, high strength, and multiple feats sunk into the sword, does insane damage--something like 2d6+16 per hit (is that right? 18 str=+6, +2 weapon specialization, +6 power attack, +2 sword--yep). Other characters have more maneuverability, but when he gets up close and personal, it's all over for the baddies. Convince that sorcerer to invest in a haste spell, and you'll be his BFF.

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

So less focus on armor and health and more focus on dmg then? In essence I must be a high dpr build in order to be tank huh.Sounds like I'd just be going classic fighter.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Be a Paladin. Your saves, especially fort and will, will be obscenely high, you can wear full plate, and you can use Smite Evil to push out big damage on the boss enemies. Use Lay on Hands for your self for swift action healing without missing a beat on killing monsters.

I know you want ot be a good tank, but I would use a 2H weapon so your damage is good enough to make you a serious threat. For feats, get Antagonize, Step Up (maybe the APG follow-ons, they're sometimes alright), and possibly some other feats to take advantage of Intimidate, which you should be maxing out for Antagonize. Cornugon Smash is excellent if available, though iirc you need 6 skill ranks to get it (ie, it's a 7th level feat). Barring that, I rather like the Blade of Mercy trait + Enforcer feat.

What books can you use for race? Bonus to Cha and Str would be ideal, but I think only 3rd party PF races offer that.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Alternatively, level 5 means you're just 1 level away from getting Shield Master using Ranger. I have a build concept for dual wielding shields (you'd use a heavy + light till level 6 and then switch to dual heavies), though you could just 2H a single heavy shield if you wanted. My build was all about getting a lot of bull rush checks, more so than purely optimal damage or anything.

Works much better when your allies can create lots of nasty battlefield control spells and such to knock enemies into. Or pit spells.

Direct link to sample lvl 9 build: http://www.enworld.org/forum/pathfinder-rpg-discussion/308795-dual-shield-ranger-build-help.html

 

[Pielorinho]

So less focus on armor and health and more focus on dmg then? In essence I must be a high dpr build in order to be tank huh.Sounds like I'd just be going classic fighter.

Well, as I said, the quintessential tank has some way to gain aggro (pardon the expression). Pathfinder doesn't have very good aggro-gaining mechanics, AFAIK, so intelligent enemies will totally ignore the small-damage, hard-to-hit turtle in favor of hitting the glass cannon instead.

I suggested a couple of paths for gaining aggro, or at least making it difficult for enemies to get past you to the real threats, but I think the system is built more around damage-dealing fighters.

 

[Pielorinho]

Wow, antagonize is awesome. On the minus side, you give up all attacks for the round. On the plus side, this (esp. plus a reach weapon) is a total wizard-killer feat: if you have a decent intimidate score, say, 9 (5 ranks + 3 trained + 1 cha), you're making a DC 15 check vs. most equal-level wizards (assuming they don't treat wis as a dump-stat, which is pretty common IMO). Succeed 75% of the time in getting that nasty wizard to try to make a melee attack against you. Poor wizard.

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

Yeah I was planning on getting antagonize anyway. I knew that it was going to be necessary if I wanted the badies to come my way. I actually went for a paladin first but...it really seems like they have a lot of dead lvls compared to fighters and they dont get that beautiful armor training. In this one any book is an option. Including and 3.5 or 3rd party 3.5 books. Its supposed to be a tough campaign.As for battlefield control that the main focus of the sorc i mentioned. With the available 3.5 content I mentioned he is going to be crazy battlefield control. Tons of spells to make ice for ops to slip on and make them freeze there shorts off if they get near him. I'm not so much protecting him as just soaking up damage really. Haha.I wouldn't mind doing paladin if someone can give me a good build idea. The ranger would def be effective but... 2 shield fighting just seems kind of cheesy.No offense to your build mechanically it looks great. It just doesnt seem like youd ever see anyone use only 2 shields. Would they both need to have of bashing on them to be effective?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah I was planning on getting antagonize anyway. I knew that it was going to be necessary if I wanted the badies to come my way. I actually went for a paladin first but...it really seems like they have a lot of dead lvls compared to fighters and they dont get that beautiful armor training. In this one any book is an option. Including and 3.5 or 3rd party 3.5 books. Its supposed to be a tough campaign.

Paladin is boring but effective, basically. The spells help make up a bit for the dead levels, and the UM and UC probably added some good choices. That said, if you really want armor training, you could multiclass/dip. The Emissary Cavalier is quite nice for that. Mithral Fullplate is medium armor (you just need heavy armor proficiency to use it w/o penalty, which you'll have from Paladin), so you could start out in Breastplate and switch to mithral fullplate when you can afford it. Good 1 level dip. A nice DM might even let the mount stack with your paladin levels...maybe. Could also go to 2nd level if there's a cavalier Order ability you really like. Ronin/Knght Errant is pretty sweet (Slippery Mind and auto stabilize), Cockatrice is a major help if doing something with Dazzling Display.

As for battlefield control that the main focus of the sorc i mentioned. With the available 3.5 content I mentioned he is going to be crazy battlefield control. Tons of spells to make ice for ops to slip on and make them freeze there shorts off if they get near him. I'm not so much protecting him as just soaking up damage really. Haha.I wouldn't mind doing paladin if someone can give me a good build idea. The ranger would def be effective but... 2 shield fighting just seems kind of cheesy.No offense to your build mechanically it looks great. It just doesnt seem like youd ever see anyone use only 2 shields. Would they both need to have of bashing on them to be effective?

Nah, bashing just ramps up the damage a fair bit and is really helpful before you get Shield Master at level 6 (can probably only afford it on one shield before then, though). You don't need it. Considering TWF in PF is still widely considered inferior to 2H fighting, I don't see why doing a TWF build would be cheesy. But again, you could always just fight with a single heavy shield and 2H it. I really like the dual shield image/style, though, and late game it's cool to be able to split special property enhancements between them.

As for Paladin, I thought I gave you a good build idea, at least roughly. I'd probably do Half-Elf for Skill Focus (Intimidate) and get a trait to make Intimidate a class skill. Half-Orc gives an Intimidate bonus and has a racial trait that gives +2 intimidate instead of the usual +1, so that can work, too, though at level 10 the +6 from skill focus is much better.
Another option could be the Eldritch Heritage line to get some nice cha-based sorc bloodline powers. Most don't seem very good, though. Only one I REALLY like is Marid bloodline. You have to waste a feat (or be a Half-Elf) on Skill Focus (Knowledge planes) and then another feat on a completely worthless low level bloodline ability. But then at level 11 you get the payoff: Water's Fury, an at will area effect line attack that does modest damage and blinds on a failed reflex save. You're starting at level 5, so I don't know if enduring two worthless feats for 6 levels before it even pays off is worth it, probably not.
I also like Osyluth Guile, if your Paladin can perhaps change the name to something less offensive to his sensibilities.

 

[1Mac]

If 3p Pathfinder stuff is allowed, consider the Armiger from Super Genius Games. It's weird in that it only has a medium BAB (with ways of improving it for certain weapons), but it's got all armor and shield proficiencies, more HP than the Barbarian (d12 with anything below a 6 counting as a 6), and the ability to provide all kinds of defensive bonuses and temporary HP to adjacent allies. So it's more of a support class than an offensive class, all about positioning yourself next to squishy high-damage characters like your party's sorcerer and making them harder to kill.