Tank Theory

[knasser]

My observation is only a small one after so many more developed and interesting arguments, but I'll put it anyway. I think Carpe DM (nice name, btw) is correct. The premise of the Tank is self-defeating. However, it offers a strong tactical advantage that cannot be ignored. The tank is like your own piece of mobile terrain that hinders monsters' own tactical options. You don't get that with other roles because the other roles can't take the punishment. So if a monster is fighting two PCs in a simple melee, one a striker and the other a defender , Carpe DM's paradox occurs. But you can't use a striker to block a passageway from a horde of bugbears. (Well, not unless you can immobilise her. ).

 

[Gruns]

I do not understand a word said in this entire post. But did you guys see the one about the Kobold pirate with the goblin monkey?!?

Later!
Gruns

 

[DracoSuave]

The premise of the tank is only self defeating if you have a Striker that doesn't cooperate. One that stays in melee with one monster and doesn't move in and out of dodge is an example.

Sometimes that's okay, a TWF Ranger/Barbarian has Defender hit points so they can take an extra hit.

But if the Striker's only looking at damage and is not finding ways to make it more difficult for the monster to counter attack, then he's not doing his job as well. In many cases the 'tank paradox' happens because while the Defender is -trying- his best to get hit, the Striker is also -trying his best- to get hit. Strikers should not actively -try- to compete with Defenders for beatings.

 

[Drakona]

Okay, first of all, 'tank' is not an MMO-specific term. Maybe MMOs mean something extra technical by it, but I'm pretty sure it's an ancient, general gaming term of art. I mean, I use it to describe my actions in games as diverse as Starcraft, Nethack, and Left 4 Dead, and I've never even played an MMO. It just means 'the guy who saves everybody else hits by taking them himself', which is a pretty broadly applicable strategy.

Anyway, I wouldn't take it as being synonomous with the defender's role in D&D. The 4E roles are kind of like general packages of more specific roles. 'Tank' covers the 'drawing fire' part of what defenders do, but they also have 'debuffer' and 'meat shield' aspects, along with whatever you'd call obstructing movement and general tactical positioning of everyone. And leaders are part 'buffer' and part 'healer' and have other aspects. The roles aren't sacrosanct for the purposes of discussion. If you want to talk about healers or tanks, talk about healers or tanks. That's legit.

The correct comparison isn't between having a tank and not having a tank, but between having a tank and having another, for example, striker.

Pardon me, sir, but I think you are changing the question. You didn't ask whether tanks are better than strikers, but whether they are self-defeating. Perhaps an all-striker party is the bomb--I've heard that it is--but that's beside the point. Even if strikers were always better, that would make tanks merely suboptimal, not paradoxical or self-defeating. Tanks do contribute exactly what they say they will: they defend the party by drawing fire. Whether they'd be more helpful by doing damage instead is an entirely separate question.

When the defender performs her role, the rational response of everyone in the party ought to be "darn, I wish that hadn't happened." That is not the case with a well-placed fireball, a knife in the back, an arrow to the head, a healing spell, or any other core class function.

I don't think that's true. When the monster acts, the rational response of everyone is "darn, I wish that hadn't happened", because monsters exist to oppose the party. But remember that the monster's hit is not when the defender acts. The mark is when the defender acts, and everyone does cheer. The defender limits the monster's options, which is what he's there to do. When that results in him tanking, that's still a win for the party, and they should still cheer.

Put another way, from a DM's perspective, my players often her me sputter, "Okay, the monster is going to charge over and attack the rog . . . er, wait, you marked it last round, didn't you? . . . okay, he's going to . . . er, I think he has an ability that . . . screw it, he attacks the fighter."

And the players smile, and they should smile. The defender worked.

 

[Stalker0]

I think WOTC created marks specifically to stop the self defeating principal of the tank. You have awesome defense, but without some method to get people to attack you, that defense is wasted.


The question becomes....do the marks do an effective job?

There's a big factor that's important to consider here: The PC/NPC divide. NPCs have a lot of hitpoints and they do alright damage to a PCs much lower hitpoints.

In a nutshell: If a monster takes 20 damage a round and is dealing out 20 damage, the monster is normally winning.


This is my problem with the paladin's mark, its damage isn't always that good of an incentive. As others have mentioned, if the paladin's AC is high enough, its still well within the monsters best interest to attack someone else. If a monster can hit a squishy wizard for 15 damage and provide some nasty afteraffect (while still having a better chance to hit the wizard than he had the paladin), does it care if it takes 6 or so damage from the mark?

EDIT: But on the other hand, a paladin can use his lay on of hands to heal his buddies, in this way he is defending them by keeping their hitpoints high, no matter what the monster does. If the paladin has a very large AC, he never gets hit, and so has more lay on hands to give to his allies.

With the fighter, his defenderishness revolves less around his mark and more around movement control. He also can do some very good damage with his mark attacks, but the fact that he can stop movement on his OAs forces the monster to stay close, even if the monster has no incentive whatsoever to attack the fighter.

The swordmage has 2 marks, but I think the shielding mark is flat out the best one...and is the best mark among all the defenders. The swordmage mage's mark doesn't attack the monsters boatload of hitpoints, it attacks his much more moderate damage. This is defending personified, if you attack my buddies, I don't care, they simply won't be harmed that much. If you attack me and my high AC, you won't hurt me much. In other words, I have just shut down your offense.

All of this said, the bottom line is a DM can always set up fights to screw his party, its his job to make the players feel good and useful. If a monster misses a buddy because of that -2 attack from the mark, the DM should mention that once in a while to make teh defender feel good. He should announce that he was going to pulverize the rogue...but he just can't take the risk of that mark damage...etc.

 

[CapnZapp]

I usually wear the DM hat at our table, but I've recently gotten the chance to sit on the other side of the screen. The party I was joining needed a Defender, so that's what I played. Let me preface that by saying I have striker instincts.

I had a very hard time adjusting to the defender paradigm. As the defender I saw it as a lose-lose situation: If I do my job poorly my friend gets stabbed in the face, and if I do my job well I get stabbed in the face.

Intellectually I knew that my character had more HP and could better take the hit, but on some gut check level I couldn't get over the hurdle to believe that getting stabbed in the face was a reward for a job well done. It still doesn't sit right with me. I still do stupid things and employ subpar defender tactics, like hit and run, or mark and avoid, intentionally making it hard for my target to attack me. All because I can't wrap my head around the idea that getting attacked is a good thing. Now as a shielding swordmage that works out ok, I'm still protecting my party by mitigating damage, but were I playing any other defender this wouldn't fly.

I suspect that the OP may have some similar mental blocks in instinctively supporting the defender role, getting attacked is bad, either the monster attacks the defender or his ally, either way someone got attacked, something bad happened, defender was ineffective.

You really need to try playing a World of Warcraft fighter.

The reward for a job well done isn't the stabs to the faces, its when the fight's over and you look behind you and you see your party members are still standing...

Regardless, there's nothing wrong with your playstyle nor is there anything wrong with the defender role. Only thing's wrong here is your choice of character!

Don't play a character whose role you don't enjoy... and yes, accept that there are different roles to begin with - that any individual aren't likely to enjoy all sorts of characters equally.

 

[Drakona]

This is my problem with the paladin's mark, its damage isn't always that good of an incentive. As others have mentioned, if the paladin's AC is high enough, its still well within the monsters best interest to attack someone else. If a monster can hit a squishy wizard for 15 damage and provide some nasty afteraffect (while still having a better chance to hit the wizard than he had the paladin), does it care if it takes 6 or so damage from the mark?

That I'll definitely agree with. I don't think those marks should be perfectly effective, as the extreme -20 atk/400 dmg example I gave earlier in the thread, but the -2/piddly penalty is pretty . . . piddly. That's especially true for paladins. The fighter's abilities in terms of movement restrictions and the like add up to a much better pure defender.

If you ask me, the paladin needs a more effective mark -- something more on the order of -5/3[W]. Fighters can be all tactical and manipulative, but paladins are supposed to be martyrs, right? They should get hit more, which translates to a more effective mark.

As it is, I think they have a significantly less effective mark.

 

[Incenjucar]

As it is, I think they have a significantly less effective mark.

The paladin's mark always hits, has range, and empowers some class abilities to do greater damage.

That said, marks are not automatically intended to be equal. Defenders have different balances of abilities between them. They don't all need to be slight variations on one another.

 

[brendan candries]

As it is, I think they have a significantly less effective mark.

Whatever the difference in baseline effectiveness might be. There are 2
paladin paragon paths that actually improve Divine Challenge a lot.

STR paladins have Champion of Order: getting an OA that works much like the fighter's Combat Challenge melee basic attack. It doesn't help against shifting though and shifting is it's major downside. On the other hand, OA's are easier to improve through feats. Oh, while you're at it, check out the Certain Justice encounter power that comes along with it.

CHA (+Wis) paladins have Hospitaler: the target of your Divine Challenge can't help healing your allies that he attacks (hits or misses). Note that this also works for attacks that include you.

I could have mentioned Astral Weapon also, but it pales in comparison to the other 2 regarding Divine Challenge.

 

[Carpe DM]

Brendan:

Cool analysis. But relying on Paragon Paths to fix Paladins vis-a-vis Fighters only works if Fighter Paragon paths don't contain a similar incremental increase. My suspicion is that the effectiveness of the Fighter tank vs. Paladin shows the curves further diverging with Paragon paths, not converging. But I'm happy to be wrong.

And, of course, given that Combat Challenge scales with ability (str.) AND weapon bonuses, whereas Divine Challenge scales only with ability (cha.), and given that only Cha. based paladins can scale their primary stat along with divine challenge, I suspect the problem gets a lot worse at higher levels, not better.

best,

Carpe