Are there any good mechanics for the tank role in RPGs? D&D's tanking seems to be giving yourself sky high defenses but without a real incentive to attack you enemies will still dogpile your allies. Melee enemies can avoid AoOs with mobility options (even Sentinel+PA) while ranged or casters ignore them completely. Some archetypes impose disadvantage unless targeting you but accuracy usually isn't a problem for in-tier threats against squishy allies. Are there any systems that handle it well?
>Have you tried not playing D&D?
I have. Nobody else in my area has. It's the only thing people play. I'd like to hear about something better.
Have you tried playing D&D 4e?
That sounds like a myth. I started with 5e and found 3.5e games later, even OSR once but never 4e.
Whenever I tried taunting DMs took it as a flavor thing and understandably had no incentive to listen. I guess it needs to be backed up hard by mechanics.
One of 4E's class roles, Defender, universally comes with a marking mechanic. Marked enemies take a penalty to attacking characters other than the one who marked them, and attempting to do so anyway usually incurs some sort of retribution from the Defender in question.
Various third-party d20 supplements greedily harvest marking mechanics to put in their own games, from Dreamscarred Press's Path of War to Drop Dead Studios' Spheres of Power.
tl;dr: You don't have to stop playing D&D; just use third-party content.
4E has defenders yeah, but even 5E stole this for some supplemental variants. For example, there's some ancestor flavor barbarian that can force an enemy to attack him, and I think there's compelled duel too.
ICON, which was heavily influenced by 4E for its combat, has multiple interrupt reactions for tanks. Most "reds" can easily get 2-3 interrupts per round and at most they can get up to around six or seven with multiclass.
Something similar exists with polearm master in 5e or how Impaling weapons work in UESRPG. However, masses of enemies can still sneak by easily once you run out of action economy (e.g.: spend your reaction).
>Re:Misdirection, Illusion
It's surprising but I don't think I've ever seen a game where the trickery, veils, illusions, cloaking, etc. were a power of a "defender/tank" class. This is usually the domain of thieves and mages. "Cloak Other" or just throwing smoke grenades is a cool idea.
>It's surprising but I don't think I've ever seen a game where the trickery, veils, illusions, cloaking, etc. were a power of a "defender/tank" class
The secret is that the tank role is a controller class. Just a very specific kind that specializes in longer duration soft control.
>It's surprising but I don't think I've ever seen a game where the trickery, veils, illusions, cloaking, etc. were a power of a "defender/tank" class
mesmerist in guild wars
I played a fighter once in 4e, and IIRC everything they did used the marking mechanic. It felt incredibly limited and borderline pointless, since your marking attack would flat-out kill any 1hp mook monster you hit with it, and anything tougher didn't give a shit about a -1 to hit and a single melee attack from your useless fighter, especially if they could fly, disengage from melee like kobolds, or any other trick that meant you couldn't actually make that attack when the time came. It also didn't help that IIRC you could only mark one target at a time.
If the penalty scaled up to be more severe as you got to be higher level or you could flat-out force the marked creature to attack you instead of someone else, it might have been useful, but I didn't see any signs of that during my admittedly quite limited time perusing the book..
>and anything tougher didn't give a shit about a -1 to hit and a single melee attack from your useless fighter, especially if they could fly, disengage from melee like kobolds, or any other trick that meant you couldn't actually make that attack when the time came.
It's a -2 base, which matters a great deal when enemies hit about half the time, and they have to have a mark removal ability or have you crowd controlled to avoid getting hit by Combat Challenge.
That's not quite how a Fighter's mark works. It's -2 to hit rolls, as well as the fact that you add your Wisdom bonus to your opportunity attacks, on top of your opportunity attacks immediately halting their movement.
For more slippery targets like Kobolds, you also still get to make an attack even if the target Shifts. It's just an Immediate Interrupt rather than an Opportunity attack, so you only get that once per round.
Combine this with the fact that any sort of movement within a creature's reach provokes opportunity attacks, and a Fighter can be very sticky. You aren't even limited to marking a single target, simply by how many targets you can attack. Later books came out with at-wills and feats that helped with that, but even the PHB Fighter had some ability to make multiple attacks.
It's not perfect, because 4e was a game designed around teamwork where classes other than Fighter are better at dealing damage or inflicting status conditions from a range to deal with flying targets, but a Fighter can actually be a proper frontline in 4e, in the sense that they can ensure that a dozen goblins don't simply run past them to stab the wizard.
>It also didn't help that IIRC you could only mark one target at a time.
Fighters could mark multiple targets at a time. Paladins could only mark one target at a time.
I'm not sure what others Defenders could do because none of them interested me enough.
I've been brewing MMO style reactions/interrupts for 5e. How would you feel if abilities that did tanking like that were attached to shields instead of feats or class abilities? I don't see why we can't just redirect an attack other than it would feel weird being used on a player. Monsters having different rules than players is probably a good thing.
>Whenever I tried taunting DMs took it as a flavor thing
You need to literally use the words "I prevent them from attacking the wizard". Use those exact words.
Tanks are worthless if they can't prevent enemies from attacking their allies. This could be through taunts or redirecting attacks towards themselves if you're lazy. Tanks matter more the more positioning matters as well.
How about lines of tanks to protect your important characters? How about using terrain to your advantage? How about using surprise so you hit the enemy when they arnt expecting it? How about hiding your squishies (camo. illusions, etc), disguising them as something else, using misdirection, or just keep them far from the battlefield?. Maybe get your ass out of retarted Game of Warcraft mechanics and start thinking how you would do it for real? Come on anon, how would YOU protect some squishies from an enemy force?
Ehhhhh, in terms of DnD 5E mechanics this doesn't work out as often as it probably should.
>line of tanks
Given most parties in a campaign range from 2 to 6 players, getting a line set up usually doesn't happen unless the players can get mooks/underlings to help them out. Even then, the way movement works still makes it pretty easy to walk past people unless its in an enclosed space like a dungeon. Not to mention ranged attacks can just sail through people with the only way to prevent that is if the DM rules that characters on the battlefield will count as partial or full cover.
>terrain
Sometimes works, but highly dependent on the DM than the mechanics.
>surprise
I don't know how often it comes up in your games, but the ones I've been in very rarely have surprise encounters where the players are the one ambushing people. I think it mostly has to do with most campaigns being about the party going into an unknown place rather than a known threat coming to the party. Also that doesn't solve the issue of the character defined by being a heavy slab of meat actually doing their role well in a game.
>misdirection/illusions/distance
This is actually one I see more often and enjoy when players and my teammates use. However, again, the original complaint is about tanky characters in 5E not really being able to capitalize on their brick wall attributes. This suggestions doesn't really address that.
Do note I'm not saying any of these suggestions are bad or ill thought out. I wish more players would capitalize on ideas outside of a ruleset. However it is important to note that mechanics define what a player will attempt, especially newcomers. And if the mechanics of a system don't or won't help a player attempting to accomplish something (especially if that something is already being defined in the system such as having character classes built around being hard to put down, I.E a tank), that is still a failure on the systems part than the player's part.
Hiw about you go play an actual fricking game and realize that your theorycrafting mommy may i solutions are fricking garbage that dont stand up to actual mechanics
I do play, using non shit mechanics like you seem to insist on and have a great time doing so. You should try it, you autist.
I played a tank in a Starcraft homebrew system, and yeah, mechanics to draw in enemy attacks helped. Of course, my character was also the nuke of the group, so enemies prioritized him anyway.
A good mechanic for "tanking" would be codified abilities/resources that either force enemy attention or have a chance to force enemy attention, instead of just saying "daddy DM decides".
Personally, I like my defensive abilities to enable things like allowing the defender to step in the way and/or halt an enemy's movement or intercept a projectile, to attack an enemy as a reaction before they can move towards or attack an ally, things like that.
In the end, it's about giving characters options that they can rely on, and having said options behave consistently instead of being relegated to some homosexual who can either forget his previous ruling or ignore it out of malice/"thuh nurrutive".
"Tanking" is only a thing in video games with shit AI. It has no place in tabletop games.
I agree, just like with "charm" effects and other forms of magical suggestion.
Because nobody changes sides mid battle or war ever, do they anon.
Well, clearly nobody has ever prioritized a more threatening or obnoxious target over another.
This. The thing that made people think the DM was a dangerous mad man out to kill all your characters was simple tactics.
>Put the wizard in back. Put the fighter in front.
>Haha dumb monsters will just run right at the "tank" and no one will get hurt!...
>OH NO THE DM IS USING RANGED ATTACKS ON OUR 3 HP WIZARD!! GAME OVER MAN! GAME OVER!!
This is the peak midwit take.
This anon most likeley considers himself very intelligent for coming up with this brainless post.
This.
moron.
>tanking is video games and bad but charming and magical suggestion is also in video games but are good because some reason
>a "game" that has magical suggestion and charming can't also have tanking for some reason
Correct take, the only counter to this would be talking about army sized groups where infantryman stop other melee from reaching ranged attackers.
Mindless take. Just because the term 'tanking' comes from a videogame doesn't mean that the concept of protecting allies from harm doesn't exist in tabletop.
That being said, 'tanking' as a term is as obnoxious and unhelpful as all the aphantasia morons that get set off by the term like a dogwhistle.
The best way of tanking is to kill your enemies FASTER!
Tanking works pretty well in 3.5e or Pathfinder. Battlefield control builds using polearms and feats such as Stand Still or Knockdown are common in the former while the latter has an entire school of moves in the Path of War subsystem dedicated to tanking (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/disciplines-and-maneuvers/eternal-guardian-maneuvers/).
Valor from Valorous Games has all sorts of stuff for tanking. Counterattack lets you store an attack and use it as a reaction at any point (which can be modified from knocking back an opponent several spaces, slowing them down for several turns, or straight knocking them in the air or on their ass), Cover, which lets you jump in front of an enemy's attack, and Provoke, which is what it says on the tin
how crunchy is valor? I prefer more crunchy stuff. Somewhere between gurps and D&D is my ideal level of crunch.
I don't like stuff less crunchy than D&D, specially narrative shit like fate or dungeon world.
It's the right amount of crunchy without being bloated, you build your character by arranging their stats (every stat is important to every character in some way, it's a matter of picking what you want to focus on what benefits you get, Muscles and Guts give you the top tank, with Muscle giving discounts and even additional knockback potential. Guts is a mix of Charisma, willpower, and Constitution stat), special skills and Techniques (basically your "effects". If you want even more options to test out there's a pdf called Tools of the Trade for 5 bucks that adds a good chunk of options that are very frequently used (in the games I hear talked about on the discord anyway,). One involves modifying the Reposition to where if an enemy hits a solid surface (including someone with enough ranks of Immovable), they fricking wall bounce.
Actual combat only takes a d10, but there's a lot of emphasis on both positioning and resource management too. Enemies can't just walk around you, as everyone (unless you take a specific flaw) has a Zone of Control which slows enemies down.
If you want to stick with D&D, 4e Defender classes were designed from the ground up to be tanks. The role division of 4e is one of the reasons why people back them complained it was too videogamey. Defender = Tank, Striker = DPS, Leader = Healer/Buffer, Controller = CC/Debuffer. It doesn't have an actual "threat" or "aggro" mechanic like most video games though, instead Defenders have mechanics that incentivise the enemy to hit them. How they do this depends on your class and which abilities you take. For example they can impose penalties on enemies that don't attack them, they can get free attacks against enemies that attack an ally, they get ways to prevent the enemy from walking past them, etc. A good tank will set up enemies with a lose-lose situation: If they attack the tank, it helps the party because that's what the tank is for. If they don't attack the tank, it still helps the party because it lets the tank shit on them.
YMMV of course. Some people really hate 4e, occasionally even for actual reasons other than "not muh 3.x!" I think it's a solid system that's better designed than 3.x and 5e, but which just happens to have a greater focus on tactical combat than other D&D editions.
Pf2e fixed tanking by taking away attack of opportunity from everyone, buffing it considerably, and giving it to fighters and other tank classes exclusively. Also movement costs an action, so an enemy running away from the fighter to jump the wizard pays twice (action and hp). If the fighter builds to be a tank instead of just being a striker that can kind-of tank on the side, he can end thr enemies move action when he hits the aoo, and he can get multiple aoos on the same turn.
In 5e tho I did play a pretty good tank. Battlemaster fighter with sword and shield, and 3 lvls of arcane trickster for the shield spell, a familiar to hide on my person in a safe little box to always guarantee sneak attacks. If the enemies attacked me and missed I could riposte + sneak attack as a reaction. If they tried to leave they get sneak attack aoo'd. That, plus micromanaging my other players positioning and strategically venting excessive enemy aggro onto the half squishies like cleric when I needed a break, made for a very fun playstyle.
I forgot to mention: take trip attack as well. So when you are punishing their movement you can trip them to end their movement early and force them to stay with you.
>battle master fighter protection fighting style
>shield master for bonus shove (prone = less movement)
>goading attack
>B&S/maneuvering attack to get squishies out of danger
Don't listen to this guy unless you want to die in hard encounters. Goading attack and maneuvering attack are too weak/unimpactful and situational to be worth taking. Tripping attack, riposte. 3rd pick is more free but menacing is better than that anon's suggestions. And protection fighting style is also garbage because you are giving up 1ac to take it. You need to stack your defenses as high as possible.
Shield master shove is pretty good tho.
Menacing is worthless if the target is immune to being frightened. Riposte is a reaction so prevents use of shield master/protection. High level encounters don't give a frick about AC.
AC never stops being relevent. Most monsters attack ac at all levels of play. Of course saves are important too. Riposte is a reaction yes. It's a good one that is worth using sometimes. You only have so many superiority dice so it's not something you need to spam every round for it to be good. It does create a good no-win situation for your enemies though. And fright immune isn't so common that menacing won't get a lot of use. But Tasha might have added better rotations for your 3rd pick.
>AC never stops being relevent
Sure but a monster with +9000 to attack rolls really doesn't care if you're AC21 or AC22. It does care if you're applying disadvantage to its attacks, though.
A surprising number of monsters are immune to being frightened. I'd rather not risk it.
>Sure but a monster with +9000 to attack rolls really doesn't care if you're AC21 or AC22.
most monsters cap out at +12 at the absolute highest, which is only a 55% hit rate against 22 AC (having full plate, a shield, and defense fighting style with a single item giving +1 AC by the time you're level 17+ is poverty tier), that's still a huge amount of effective damage prevention compared to only having 17 AC, being hit on a 5+ versus being hit on a 10+ is literally a 100% increase in hits taken, you go from avoiding half the enemy's attacks to only 25% of them.
>gets critted anyway
My post was about increments of 1 in terms of AC, so I don't understand why you're comparing larger increments.
Besides, the reason I originally said hard encounters don't care about AC is because they have means of bypassing it entirely or reliably getting advantage on their rolls.
>advantage
needing to hit on a 10 vs needing to hit on a 15 is still huge, advantage or not.
>comparing larger increments.
I don't think you quite understand the math here.
If you're already in full plate and shield, a +1 is literally better for you than it would be for someone with lighter armor and no shield.
Why are you deliberately ignoring the context of the conversation? Yes AC differences matter when they're huge, well observed. Tiny increments matter far less when you're facing something with insane modifiers.
first of all, the context of the entire thread is "TANKS". The context of this particular conversation is about a fighter choosing between protection and defense fighting styles.
see
>when they're huge
No, tiny modifiers matter the moment you start wearing heavy armor and wielding a shield, something rather common.
And another thing: Every single "huge" number is made of small tiny numbers so stop getting into this logical fallacy where you think that somehow a +1 doesn't matter, the way to get a +5 is by stacking +1s, so every single plus one matter or you won't get to +5.
>insane
there are no monsters with "insane" modifiers in 5e.
Kraken gets +17. Come on man. You look silly.
First of all, nice of you to ignore the entire rest of the post so you can post a quick gotcha. Second of all, going from being hit on anything but a 1, vs being hit on a 5 is actually a huge difference, and each +1 increases your effective survivability from that point even further.
>but that means you need huge numbers
A shield is but a +2. Are you saying you shouldn't ever wear a shield since a super high level boss-tier monster can eventually reach +17 to hit?
Why even wear armor anyway? It's just +8, with enemies that have 17 to hit you'll get hit anyway!
moron logic.
I only needed that one gotcha to prove you don't know what you're talking about. +17 isn't even the highest out there.
Your continued sperging is just strawmaning and taking what I said out of context.
>continues to ignore the rest of the post
So you don't want to actually discuss anything, you're just here to shitpost. Good to know.
I'm ignoring irrelevant nonsense that in no way reflects what I said, yes.
>irrelevant
I get it, you're now gonna refuse to adress any actual points and just gonna keep replying saying anything except the one gotcha matters because you really really want to "win" the argument.
that's only insane in the context of 5e, which is very scared of big modifiers, to be fair to him
you can't buff your AC to 36 in 5e afaik but you can certainly stack a few smaller mods and get to the mid-20s before using temporary modifiers, but it's gonna require a GM willing to let you get some nice fricking armour
Sure, AC is made up of little modifiers. I'm not contesting that, it's obvious. I'm just saying it's ok to pass up on one or two of those little modifiers if it nets you something you'll generally find more useful.
>it's ok to pass up on one or two of those little modifiers
The point is that each little modifier is increasingly better the more of them you have.
So if you're a tank (reminder of the context of the thread) who is already wearing heavy armor, that +1 is actually rather significant.
Also obvious. But then you encounter something that renders your high AC next to worthless and have to rely on other means of mitigating damage instead.
>then you encounter something that renders your high AC next to worthless
The higher the enemy attack rolls, the more important those +1 are, statistically speaking.
If something ignores AC completely like a saving throw, you're usually not having to choose between "+AC vs + saving throw" so it's not really that relevant to a discussion about AC.
>The higher the enemy attack rolls, the more important those +1 are, statistically speaking
Can you explain how?
>If something ignores AC completely like a saving throw, you're usually not having to choose between "+AC vs + saving throw"
Sometimes you are. Or +AC vs applying disadvantage, which is precisely why the conversation began.
>Can you explain how?
>being hit on a 5+ versus being hit on a 10+ is literally a 100% increase in hits taken, you go from avoiding half the enemy's attacks to only 25% of them.
>Or +AC vs applying disadvantage, which is precisely why the conversation began.
You're applying disadvantage on an enemy attack against an ally, while the +1 is for yourself, and it uses up your reaction, while the +1 is always on.
Not to mention if you're using protection, you have to be adjacent to an ally, unless I misunderstood the " a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you" part, which is bad for many reasons.
hit on a 5+ versus being hit on a 10+ is literally a 100% increase in hits taken, you go from avoiding half the enemy's attacks to only 25% of them.
We weren't talking about being hit on a 5+ or being hit on a 10+ though. We're talking about being hit on a 4+ or being hit on a 5+.
Idk man. The number of times I've saved a squishy from being hit or critted has massively outweighed being 5% less likely to avoid damage (when I have way more HP than the squishy anyway).
The problem is that you're comparing a number you notice (an enemy rolling a twenty) vs a number you don't notice (the gm just saying he missed).
Not to mention one is a bonus that is on 100% of the time, while the other requires
>squishy ally frick up and be in range of enemy attack
then
>squishy ally be in range of you
then
>you haven't used your reaction yet
You're essentially arguing with "feels" vs statistics. And humans are terrible at statistics.
Yeah it's almost as though the game hinges on more than just statistics.
I'm not going to take a math lesson from someone who thinks the odds of rolling 12+ on a d20 are 40%.
>Yeah it's almost as though the game hinges on more than just statistics.
I assumed we were arguing about which is better, not which "feels" better.
Please explain how you compare the two, statistically. You can't.
>statistically
one is always on
the other requires several specific conditions to activate, and doesn't even guarantee its success.
seems pretty clear to me.
>seems pretty clear to me
I thought we were discussing statistics, not feelings.
It isn't 5% less likely. That's the point. If the enemy hits you by rolling a 12, a plus 1 ac makes them hit you on a 13. That means their hit chance went from 40% to 35%. That is ((40/35) -1)% less likely to hit you (14%). 14% damage mitigation from that one +1 ac. 14% dmg mitigation is something I would kill for in an mmo. And optimization works the same way here.
>. That means their hit chance went from 40% to 35%. That is ((40/35) -1)% less likely to hit you (14%). 14% damage mitigation from that one +1 ac.
This is what 99% of players simply cannot comprehend. They don't understand the difference between absolute percentages and relative increases. It's the same reason you'll see brainlets not understand why getting an 18-20 crit range is so good in 3.5/PF1E, "oh it's just 10% more chance to crit"
going from critting on 1/20 to 3/20 is a 300% difference. It's why Fighter is the best class in the entire game in Pathfinder 2e, where every attack you roll 10 above enemy AC is a crit, and Fighters get a permanent +2 to attack that nobody else can get.
>+2 to attack that nobody else can get
Gunslingers get it too, but they pay for it by being shackled to the worst weapon group in the game.
>Challenge 23
>still only +17
>meaning only 80% chance to hit vs AC 21, which is achievable with no magic items
>but you're fighting it at level 20, by which point you should have your max number of attuned magic items
>and plenty of magical ways of increasing your AC further
I get it, you can't wrap your head around statistics so an 80% just sounds like 100% in your brains.
you're responding to two people disagreeing with each other as if they're saying the same thing
are you okay? can you raise your arms above your head?
Just quoted the wrong post bro, calm down
>Kraken gets +17. Come on man. You look silly.
a kraken is CR23 and you won't be fighting one ever. even if you are, by the time you fight an enemy worth 50,000 XP, you can easily have a +1 armor, a +1 shield, and maybe a cloak of protection or something. That's 18+2+1+1+1, add on Defensive fighting style for another +1, now you're at 24. An Artificer can guarantee this much just with a few infusions by half the level you'll be fighting krakens at.
Being hit on an 8+ versus being hit on a 2+ is a 400% increase in survivability. If you can give the enemy disadvantage, you have decent odds of them missing with an attack or two every turn when multiattacking, while even if you give the Kraken disadvantage, if you only have 18 AC (because you're NOT invested in defense, and are just a dexgay in +1 studded leather with no shield, or are a medium armor character using a halberd so it's just +1 half plate) EVEN WITH DISADVANTAGE the enemy is still gonna hit you near 100% of the time, since he only misses on a 1.
armor class matters even in incremental values of +1.
That's why every +1 matters. Ac has whatever the opposite of diminishing returns is called. If a monster needs a 10 to hit me +1 ac is only 10% damage mitigation (ignoring crit dmg for simplicity). But if it needs a 15, +1 ac is 25% more damage mitigation. And dpr ans thus combat effectiveness is mutliplicatively calculated. But if you ac stack as much as possible you can actually be fairly tanky by that virtue.
Tanking shouldn't exist because a heavily armoured fighter should be better at attacking boldly without needing a weapon to defend themselves
I normally would be the first one to say "HYTNPDND" but to be honest, your problem is easy to solve.
D&D4e already solved it.
Just add these house rules to literally any D&D version you play.
>marked condition: Whenever you are marked, you have disadvantage on all attacks except against the origin of the marked condition.
If you think disadvantage is too OP, make it -2 or -3
>new class feature: Whenever you attack a target with a melee weapon or an unarmed attack, the target is marked until the end of the next turn. If any marked target attacks an ally, you may make an attack against the atackee as a reaction.
Fighters get this feature at level 3 (to discourage dipping), paladins at level 5.
tweak to remove any sort of powergaming bullshit that can come from me writing without really paying attention.
Mutants and Masterminds has plenty of options for playing a classic selfless hero who puts himself in harm's way to shield others. The most straightforward way would simply be taking pic related, but you can also make an entire powerset around deflecting and blocking attacks, or set up triggered powers to occur upon being attacked or tanking a blow meant for another, or even deal most of your damage as "Thorns" where enemy attacks rebound and hurt themselves.
IMO Interpose kinda sucks (unless your party sharply unbalances its defenses and coordinates to fill gaps, but even then it's 1/round) because M&M doesn't really have distinct squishy glass-cannon options like D&D's backline casters; everyone typically buys defenses to the limit and picks a couple weak saves, and you don't get a lot of points back for deliberately buying them lower than the caps.
Deflect is great though if you can put it in an array with other 3+ PPR powers, since it pops off with Area and/or Selective and Reflect.
Interpose is nice because it's off-turn movement, and if you have a Triggered ability that keys off being hit, it's ALSO off-turn damage, which are otherwise very rare to come by. There's also the fact this is a superhero game and being able to use it on npcs or civilians or whatever is a huge narrative deal, and it can easily tie into your Motivations or other Complications to earn hero points by facetanking something you probably shouldn't, but that it makes sense a selfless hero would try to.
When my friend decided to run something else that wasn't Pathfinder for the 100th time, he used Interpose and cucked the shit out of our attacks the first time in a Jojo game.
Second time around that stand user got to find out what a Perception Range attack tasted like.
Tanking is a video game concept, it has no equivalence in reality. Untether your mind from the gamist mindset.
It does, you just can't really replicate having your shield and spear wielders hold a passage whilst you fire over the top of them in a game like DnD that constantly forces you into square arenas
>Healing is a video game concept, it has no equivalence in reality. Untether your mind from the gamist mindset.
>Crowd Control is a video game concept, it has no equivalence in reality. Untether your mind from the gamist mindset.
>Gaining experience points and leveling up is a video game concept, it has no equivalence in reality. Untether your mind from the gamist mindset.
>Healing is from the real world
>Crowd control is from the real world
>Experience points and levelling up is from roleplaying games
Joan of Arc disagrees with your statement.
All games are video games, moron.
It's pretty moronic to "play" a !game where being "hit" is decided by a pass-fail dice roll, in the first place.
Nechronica has good rules for playing that role with one of its classes. Characters are a combination of two classes so you can take the class that gives you the skill for taking damage in someone's place and pair it with the skill on another class that lets you regenerate body parts. There's still ways around it, and doing nothing but regenerating all your bits after every attack isn't the most cost effective way to go about things but it gives you a lot of control over how damage is distributed.
Rather than standing around and drawing aggro, wouldn’t it make more sense for a tank to be a frontline juggernaut with a focus on aoe and crowd control attacks? Design it like a tank in a pvp moba or something where there isn’t ai aggro to exploit
>frontline juggernaut with a focus on aoe and crowd control attacks?
like a D&D 4e fighter?
4e has solved this with mark and punish
>m-muh mmo
It works nothing like an mmo.
I wish mmos would do tanking this way.
You mark an enemy giving the enemy a malus to hit anyone but you, additionally if he does attack someone else you can whack him. Its simple and elegant
>>You mark an enemy giving the enemy a malus to hit anyone but you, additionally if he does attack someone else you can whack him. Its simple and elegant
My issue with this is, how does it even get represented in-game? Like, if you mark a goblin, how does the goblin know it is marked to even make a decision about what to do? Otherwise it just acts in ignorance so it doesn't ever really ward them off, just gives you free attack.
That's on the player and/or DM to fluff, but a few examples
>may be actively getting in the way (melee)
>target is spooked by your death stare
>target is cautious after whatever action you took to mark it
>you're just straight taunting your targets, keeping them distracted
>you actually do place a literally magic mark that gets in their way (Swordmage)
100% up to you.
The goblin understands it because its an obvious move.
4e is abstracted, "marked" doens tmean you literally "mark" him.
Mark just means you threaten him, challange him, just stand in his way.
Its different based on class.
For example a fighter can only do it in melee. His Mark is just a threatening presence that tells enemies he will hit them if they attack the guy besides him.
The paladin meanwhile challenges the enemy with divine power and the enemy gets smote if he doesnt accept.
The Swordmage meanwhile places magic on the enemy that teleports the enemy to the swordmage if he attacks someone else.
"enemies within your reach who attack allies instead of you provoke an attack of opportunity" is essentially what marking is. there were already ways to do playstyles like this even in 3.X, with reach trip battlefield control fighters being a menace, 4e just codified it and expanded on the idea. If I'm a master of armed combat and six inches away from your face, you cannot afford to not focus on me, and trying to maul my squishy wizard buddy offers an opening I won't miss.
For the Fighter, at least.
homie just play 4e
>b-but some 3eeaboos said it’s too video-gamey!
A) people said the same thing about 3e when it came out
B) the stuff 4e does thats similar to video games are things video games copied from d&d in the first place
Nobody is gonna play D&D: Disgaea Edition if you keep begging like this. It's pathetic and comes across as desperate, which turns away a potential player. If you really wanted to lure people in you'd need to extoll the virtues of your preferred system by articulating what makes it good in a non-shitheel way, and then wait for other anons to ask questions, thereby drawing them into a conversation and getting them invested. Talking like a b***hy gay just makes them recognize what an insufferable 4rrie you are.
>SYSN04
Captcha gets it.
NTA but who the frick cares.
I dont give a shit if you play this system, ive got a table of my own where i play with my friends.
OP asked a question, he got an answer.
Its friendly advice, not that you would understand someone actually beeing genuine and not trying to bait people into replies.
You don't have a table or friends.
Too video-gamey.
The trinity doesn't exist in DnD. Everyone is DPS and a couple classes off-heal.
If you want to tank you need to do things that aren't directly in the rulebook. Intimidation or persuasion rolls in combat. Grappling, or STR checks to hold or stop enemies. Readying actions. But it really isn't required or fun.
Stop trying to force vidya, or even worse, mmo, mindset into TTRPGs. They aren't fun for anyone without your specific brand of brain damage.
>They aren't fun for anyone without your specific brand of brain damage.
So you admit they're fun for some people.
Then let those people have their fun. Why even post in this thread?
Its fun for moronic brain damaged people who should really just stick to their shitty video games.
There is no obligation to cater to people. Anyone. Just because a subset of people exist does not mean that those people are automatically expected to be given what they want.
4e exists as the "video game edition". They can go play that. Don't let them ruin other games with their shitty formulaic design sense.
>Bad at mmos
Yeah because they're SO difficult. Don't stand in the glowing circles, go stand in this glowing circle. Look up the wiki entry so you know the mechanics. Do the exact same rotation of abilities you can just macro together so there is as little thinking involved as possible. Do this over and over and over again exactly the same way every week.
Such engaging gameplay. Sorry for expecting TTRPGs to be better than the literal moron genre of video games designed for and by autistics.
>There is no obligation to cater to people. Anyone. Just because a subset of people exist does not mean that those people are automatically expected to be given what they want.
Combat wheelchairs.
Drow aren't inherently Evil.
Dumbing down mechanics even more because math bad.
Gay bear Druids.
Half races no longer exist in name.
Orcs aren't inherently Evil.
Racial attribute negatives.
Strahd is canonically bisexual and simps for Tatiana.
"Tasha's Cauldron of Everything", in reference to "Xanathar's Guide to
The rising sentiment of "roleplay over rollplay" despite no steps being taken to address roleplay in the mechanics.
Visitati aren't inherently Evil.
X Cards and player consent forms.
Huh. Sounds a lot like a subset of people was, and continues to be, catered to. But let's just ignore the past half a decade in favor of your shitty point.
>Any of this in any way a positive
Thanks for proving my point about catering to morons
>5e
If the industry didn't chase and try and be 5e at every opportunity I wouldn't care about it. But it does. So any stupid change in 5e is going to ripple to other good games in 2 years. So yes, I have a vested interest not to port moronic, outdated and unfun video game mechanics to 5e.
I hope your brain damage is cured.
>So any stupid change in 5e
you're 15 years too late to be caring about stupid rules in 5e, moron.
Also you do realize screeching about it on Ganker isn't doing anything right? No one will change their minds or stop discussing video gamey rules on /tg/ because of a random moron.
OP asked, I responded
If all you want is affirmations and contribution to stupid ideas, then that other website is more your speed. Here I will call you moronic for wanting moronic things and you can't stop me.
>Are there any good mechanics for the tank role in RPGs
You did not answer his question, you went on a random tirade irrelevant to the thread.
I responded by telling him there is no trinity, in other words no tank role, in RPGs. And explained why, because mmo roles are for moronic moutbreathing autistics.
>there is no trinity,
Except that you can tank in 5e, the protection style is right there. Since it's a weak mechanic, it makes sense to ask for better mechanics to house-rule in.
Everything else on your post is just you rambling like a homosexual.
Tanking is an action, not a role, you double Black person.
Anyone can tank in any RPG, it's just about trying to protect your allies while being hard to kill, and this has been a thing since RPGs were a thing.
>Since it's a weak mechanic, it makes sense to ask for better mechanics to house-rule in.
Its a weak mechanic because the specific mmo interpretation of the word "tank" is moronic and not supported. Tanking used to just mean the guy that can take damage. Now it has to include moronic magical effects to force enemies to target the lowest threat but hardest to hurt person because mmo players are entirely unable to think beyond the enforced trinity.
I even suggested using the existing rules and roleplaying in order to achieve the desired effect, but that isn't good enough for video game mindset morons like yourself, you have to have those stupid effects that FORCE enemies to attack the least desirable target because god forbid the wizard has to think about being threatened.
MMOs and their playerbase were a mistake.
>but that isn't good enough
Yes. Because your suggestions are shit and don't work but you're too mechanically incompetent to know why.
Maybe get a better GM who actually allows things beyond the printed mechanics work? Maybe try roleplaying in a roleplaying game instead of treating it like a really shitty wargame? A good GM will take your mmo brain damage into account and let you have fun in your way, even if its wrong. But again, thats not good enough for you. You have to have magical taunt abilities because anything less isn't enough like an mmo for your stupid homosexual brain.
don't care didn't read. I will keep adding tanking mechanics do D&D, and no I will not play D&D 4e, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Also I only got to D&D trough baldurs gate 3, and you homies best be ready for a whole bunch of people like me 🙂
>I'm going to play in sewage and there's nothing you can do to stop me
Sure. Go ahead. Nothing stopping me from saying you're a moronic homosexual either.
Feel free to scream into the empty void if it makes you feel better about the inevitable march of people like me overtaking grognards like you as the target audience of D&D.
>Feels self satisfied that he's ruining something out of spite
I hope you find jesus
I'm not ruining anything. I'm making it better.
No one cares you Johnny-Come-Lately homosexual. You'll be gone as soon as the next fad comes along. So sperg out for your 15 minutes.
A better GM isn't going to make reactions not exist or make your moronic idea of grappling a single enemy work worth a damn against more than one.
Ah we finally arrived at
>just roleplay your attacks bro
Yes. Why is that a bad thing? Its a roleplaying game. In the medium where you can actually do anything. We're not playing video games here, mechanics are not the end of the line.
>Vaguely insult the poster
>don't actually make any concrete statements
>Just claim victory without making any specific statements
Yup, its a braindead mmo player. Actually make an argument, this isn't reddit or your "guild"
You have a poor understanding of RPGs.
>Any of this in any way a positive
I didn't say those things were positives. The post I responded to said there's no obligation to cater to any subset of people, and I gave examples of how subsets have been catered to.
Factual exceptions to what was said exist, and you can't handle that, for some reason.
What's wrong?
>nooo you're not allowed to have fun in a way I don't approve! stop it stop it stop it
No.
I will keep bringing fun video game mechanics to tabletop rpgs, and there's nothing you can do about it.
lmao this homie really being elitist about D&D5e?
I hope WotC adds """MMO""" mechanics just to ruin the game for you.
This. The worst tabletop RPG is 100 times better than the best MMO. Nothing from MMOs should be copied or adapted to tabletop, ever.
video game rpgs once merely aped dungeons and dragons, they have since dramatically improved in terms of mechanics while d&d is still stuck in the past
video games have surpassed d&d, and they only edition to get anywhere close to being as fun to play as even a mediocre video game rpg is 4e
Oh yes. A magical taunt ability that only serves to gamify an already gamified system is definitely an "improvement".
If the wizard can't protect themselves if one guy gets through, then your wizard is doing it wrong. NEEDING an ability to trivialize the game because you've turned all enemies into braindead zombies that slap a brick wall to have fun just indicates you have mmo brain damage. The concept is shit in video games and its even shittier in a TTRPG where enemies can be more than braindead AI that hasn't improved in a decade.
MMO game design should be spit on. Not praised. There are so many other things that video games do that could be put into TTRPGs as improvements. But the shitfrick "trinity" thats limited game design for 2 decades isn't one of them.
>Black person literally doesn't know how 4e marks work
it's practically a meme at this point that the people that hate 4e don't actually know anything about it
i'm not going to spoonfeed you, look it up yourself if you care to become slightly less moronic, or continue to revel in your ignorance
I wish this was bait, but you fricking moronic secondaries actually believe this. Imagine beeing so confident about something you have no idea about that you smugly spout blatant bullshit.
Iits about as accurate as saying dnd incorporates literal devil worship
Oh, you just have no idea how Marks work in the first place. Your whole deranged rant has zero value.
You're bad at the game.
Pathfinder 2e Champions are tanky as shit and certain champion causes have reactions that directly prevent damage on party members, or prevent them from getting manhandled. This encourages the GM to target the champion so they can't trigger their reaction, but then again they have the highest AC in the game (tied with Monks I think).
Only 10-20% of enemies have Attack of opportunity/reactive strike reaction, and everyone can use Step to disengage from an enemy who does have it. Because players can get reactive strike as a reaction, you can discourage enemies from leaving your tank's melee range. You can also move them around with push and reposition, keep them still with grapple, and trip or disarm them - all with athletics skill. Because spells and ranged attack often trigger reactive strike, you can get up close to them to shut them down.
Every class can use shields, but I think Champion, Monk, and Fighter use them best. You can also use a tower shield and have allies use your raised shield as cover and even stealth using it.
>champion
what, do they not call them paladins any more?
Paladins are a type of Champion
Champions are the class, and Paladins are just one of the Causes (champion subclasses) you can choose. Others include Redeemer, Liberator, Anti-Paladin, Tyrant, and Desecrator.
Your Cause used to be tied to your alignment, and Paladin was Lawful Good Champion, but they are removing alignment from the game with the remaster and you can choose whatever - but you're still bound by your Cause's Edicts and Anathemas. So no good Tyrants, but perhaps morally grey Tyrants?
The Tenets of Evil Causes are a bit more selfish when it comes to tanking, their reactions are based on taking damage, and not a party member taking damage. Still just as tanky, and good at bullying enemies so hard they have to focus you instead of your allies.
>"tanking"
Wrong board
Wrong board
Wrong board
Wrong board
Wrong board
please google the origin of the term
Rolled 6, 1 = 7 (2d6)
test
Digimon Digital Adventures full on has support for it. It has an Intercede mechanic which lets you give up an action to take a hit for an ally, a tree for boosting your Armor (Damage reduction) and turning damage you take back onto your foes (either in small chips with What Goes Around or Gold/Obsidian digizoid at higher stages or via the incredibly powerful COmbat Monster quality which turns damage you take up to your Health stat into bonus damage on the next attack you land), the Shield Effect can add a ton of extra temp HP onto your digimon, and there are ways to bolster your Dodge pools. Plus, you can use the Taunt Effect to force enemies to attack you or eat a fat penalty to their attack pools or straight up just drop their damage and accuracy.
Short answer is tanking really isn't a mechanic in TTRPGs because the abstract nature of battles and the decision making being done by a human. In Vidya it's a hard mechanic to stop the annoyance of an AI ignoring NPC's just targeting the main character, who when defeated typically results in a game owner. It's why in older games or crappy games where enemies ignore your party to just hard nuke the MC are frustrating.
Long answer: Depends on your DM
For D&D/PF we homebrewed intimidation having a passive mechanic where most mook enemies would target the individual with highest ranks even if they were not first in initiative. It was down to the DM to play it sensibly - so mobs wouldn't just blindly charge towards them and provoke ooo's, smarter enemies would target but not dogpile magic users etc etc. As a free action an intimidate check could "taunt" a single enemy in the sense they got disadvantage targeting anyone else until they had at least damaged the "tank" once since being taunted. It wasn't perfect and created a couple odd situations but it gave some value to defensive focused characters.
In other systems like genesys we came up with a basic aggro system by simply enforcing disadvantage dice when trying to target something that's not an immediate threat or the tank character actively trying to bait enemies (though combat is very abstract).
Our final homebrew "tanking" mechanic was in the Iron Kingdoms RPG and was based on armour type - going Warcarster, Jack's/Man-of-war, Heavy, Light. Enemies would prioritise targets in that order. That's because in the setting everyone knows you want a Warcarster dead quickly, and you can't let a Jack freely hulk smash shit. Doesn't make enemies stupid though so again an amicable DM is required.
spheres of power expansion for pathfinder has a number of options for taking hits for people and/or blocking enemies from approaching and stuff like that
you can combine these things plus some movement stuff to make a guy who runs around blocking enemies from getting closer while also diving in the way of attacks that would hit
additionally it's possible to eat damage and spit it back at the enemy or just gain temp hp every turn as ablative
at higher levels you can potentially combine all of this shit, although, as you'd expect, it's best to choose a couple of things at most to specialise in
it's definitely got most of the clunk pathfinder is known for but certainly lets you tank really well
at lleast 87% sure it has taunting/challenging as well but I might be wrong there
>D&D's tanking seems to be giving yourself sky high defenses but without a real incentive to attack you enemies will still dogpile your allies
Intelligent enemies would try to do this regardless of abilities. It's up to the group to take advantage of terrain and support abilities to force enemies to engage the tank. Also, several classes have the ability to force disadvantage on enemies that don't attack them(Ancestral Guardian barb jumps right to mind), giving them incentive to attack you.
What support abilities? Anything a fighter does that isn't full attack is a waste of his turn.
Gross MMO pathologies don't have a place in good TTRPGs.
If you're stuck playing 5e look at third party stuff, or look into making your own feats or possibly a subclass. The Exemplar talent line in Lancer is a pretty neat thing and could be rolled up into a feat or a core mechanic for a subclass.
Already posted the solution. Stop replying to this thread.
Which one?
If it's after the sixth reply, yours was too late.
Incorrect.
OP here. The thread is helpful. Keep posting TANKS.