All The Tank Builds

[Ork]

10/4/16 Fighter/Bard/Palemaster is arguably the strongest Melee build.

What. It has crappy AB. So what if I can't hit it, it can't hit me. At most, it could have 21 BAB +14 STR +3 Weapon +1 focus = 38 AB. You could build a 20 Fighter/ 3 Rogue/ 7 WM with 50 AB & 70 AC. Palemaster would never be able to touch him.

[grip]

Nah, I just fooled around with it and a balanced build like that with Str gift gets 41 Buffed ab. You could stretch the build further to get 42 but it would not be worth it.

So ab is in the neighborhood of unarmed monks and just shy of kama monks and rogue/assassin heavy builds. You gotta consider that one of these guys has an AC in the high 50s without Expertise or Improved Expertise. That is a little bit better than a balanced WM build in Improved Expertise. They shoot in at around 48 ab/44 AC. Of course that is taking into account that the PM has EMA active.

Of course WMs have other things going for them that the PMs do not. I'm not arguing for Barradoor's poing, just saying that it is a really strong build on Arelith.

[Barradoor]

10/4/16 Fighter/Bard/Palemaster is arguably the strongest Melee build.

What. It has crappy AB. So what if I can't hit it, it can't hit me. At most, it could have 21 BAB +14 STR +3 Weapon +1 focus = 38 AB. You could build a 20 Fighter/ 3 Rogue/ 7 WM with 50 AB & 70 AC. Palemaster would never be able to touch him.

I don't know what Palemaster you're building, but PM's will certainly crush pretty much any weapon-master. a 62-72 un-dispellible AC without artifacts. Crit immunty will remove a very large chunk of damage from weapon masters, coupling with not being able to be sneak attacked, 550 hp. 39 ab is a little low, but if you know you aren't normally going to hit you can use improved power attack to make all of your hits greater than that of your foe, and if you think they have a lower AC, use a divine power scroll and hit them with a 44 ab, good enough to hit any two handed weapon master often. With a Masterly Demask scimitar or rapier you've got a 12-20 crit range that does 1-6 + 20, 25, or 30 + 1d6 + 1d6.

TL:DR
Palemaster: 62-72 Undispellable AC, Crit + Sneak Immunity, 60+ Discpline, 550~ish hp, 39 AB, 44 with a divine power scroll, Damage: 1-6+ 20, 25, 30 + 1d6 + 1d6.


I've also got a rather interesting Human Katana Palemaster I liked to goof around with when the PGCC was up that was around the numbers of 56 AC in dual wield, 62 AC sword and board pre expertise, with a (17-20x2) 1-10+22, 27, or 32 + 1d6 + 1d6 damage roll, and 513 hp. It had an AB of 42~ One handed and 38 Dual Wielding

[Twily]

I don't mean to be a player police, but can we please try to stay civil, kind and respectfully constructive? The original poster labeled this topic "All the tank builds", which can only lead me to believe they want ideas from any and every tank build people know, regardless of the numbers.

[Ork]

I don't mean to be a player police, but can we please try to stay civil.

My post was intended to be a critique of the arguably best tank build. It was not an attack against the poster. I also don't believe Barradoor was being insulting. You're reading into things.

All the tank builds", which can only lead me to believe they want ideas from any and every tank build people know, regardless of the numbers.

Name me every tank build archetype you can think of. Bonus points if caster. Double bonus points if nigh immortal.

If you reread the original post, Cortex is not only looking for all the tank builds but also their effectiveness. The Palemaster build is certainly a strong contender for the immortal status, but you'd suffer through level hell for a large portion of it. It also is contingent on receiving that AC from Epic Mage Armor, something it receives very late in the game.

If you roll any Fighter/Rogue/WM, you can achieve 50 AB through the churning of Epic Strength feats, forsaking all other feats for when you receive the free Fighter Feats.

Personally, my favorite melee build is Fighter/BG/Rogue. You offset the abysmal saves of the Fighter & are able to obtain +10 dodge AC from Divine Shield. You also have access to Taunt which is able to lower up to -6AC off an opponent. Damage is consistent, but you certainly miss out on some of the WM's flavor.

[Scurvy Cur]

Chiming in on this one:

I think Ork's comments are fine. Fighter/Bard/PM is certainly a strong build, and is a very excellent tank and merits mention in this threat. If you want something that can be built to be nearly indestructible, and are not concerned about marshaling any sort of decent offensive power, this build is a very good one indeed.

It is, all the same, perfectly valid to contest Barradoor's contention that the build is "Arguably the strongest melee build" as utter horseshit. Because it is.

I can think of a number of melee builds that are much stronger overall, even if they are not as tanky as the PM, because the PM build is an exercise, largely, in overspecialization in defense. 3.0 D&D, NWN, and the Arelith module in particular do not generally reward extreme overspecialization, and builds which do this tend to underperform when contrasted with builds that achieve high performance metrics in a variety of fields, without throwing everything they have into maxing out any one of those metrics.

[grip]

^^ayep

[Dunshine]

This one turned out really well for me: FG9 / WM7 / DD14 with 3 epic dam red feats. Tons of HP, most things won't do more then 4 damage against you and you're doing 100+ crits against them while they try to get through your damage reduction and HP.

[miesny_jez]

I had a very good time with my Bard/DD/Paly build for Baston.

He didn't have the greatest AC.. nor the AB.. not even Damage Reduction feats.. but he did very well across all of the levels I played him with (24).
The build was just universally good and adaptable on the fly that what I liked the most of it:

Low AB? = Taunt + Curse Song + Warcry
Low AC? = Haste + Bard Song
Low Damage? = Divine Might + Warcry
Dragons? = Fear Immune + Good saves
Spellcasters? = Invis + Knockdown OR Breach wands
Rouges? = sneak immune

His end stats were:
AC: 58 (self buffed full buffs + stance, no expertise, 50% conceal) - rarely needed that high, generally I felt comfortable at 44 - 48
AB: 40 - 48 (self buffed at lvl 24)

[Barradoor]

Chiming in on this one:

I think Ork's comments are fine. Fighter/Bard/PM is certainly a strong build, and is a very excellent tank and merits mention in this threat. If you want something that can be built to be nearly indestructible, and are not concerned about marshaling any sort of decent offensive power, this build is a very good one indeed.

It is, all the same, perfectly valid to contest Barradoor's contention that the build is "Arguably the strongest melee build" as utter horseshit. Because it is.

I find Ork's second responce actually constructive to the conversation, as well.

On another note, please, share constructive ideas instead of being rude, the thread is about tank builds and their archtypes, and, to be honest, I don't think you know much about the topic if you think Palemaster isn't one of, if not the best melee builds, I should have specified, that it is the best melee tank, in my opinion. Tanks are supposed to be maxed out in defense. Examples being, WoW, a giant health pool, and various defensive skills to make the strain on healers less, but they lack in dps, usually going 50% under a specialised DPS class. FFXI had Blood and Blink tanks, Blood being those high health pool (DD, Con WM, DR Warlock...) Blink being the more evasion styled tanks, (Monk, Rogue, Shadowdancer...) Which all sacrifice offensive power for the strongest defense. Tanks in NWN have a hybrid between AC and HP tanks with the palemaster and dragonshaper, depending on your build, both can out-duel any melee build, save if they're evil fighting a great smiter.

TL:DR Tanks have all historically sacrificed Offensive for Defensive. pale master is strong, lets get the thread back to discussing tanks.

[Razmo_de]

I can think of a number of melee builds that are much stronger overall, even if they are not as tanky as the PM, because the PM build is an exercise, largely, in overspecialization in defense.

The aim here is to taunt your enemies and get away with it. A PM build, almost unkillable, is perfect for that.
Yeah, you can't do stuff either and in PvM you need a damage dealer.

Also, Barradoor: Overwhelming critical and imp. power attack? Really?
overwhelming critical is one of the worst combat feats.

[Barradoor]

I can think of a number of melee builds that are much stronger overall, even if they are not as tanky as the PM, because the PM build is an exercise, largely, in overspecialization in defense.

The aim here is to taunt your enemies and get away with it. A PM build, almost unkillable, is perfect for that.
Yeah, you can't do stuff either and in PvM you need a damage dealer.

Also, Barradoor: Overwhelming critical and imp. power attack? Really?
overwhelming critical is one of the worst combat feats.

Improved Power Attack will make tank battles in your faavor, because you're hitting harder. Overwhelming Critical helps add some damage, there isn't much else for Palemasters after EMA, Armor Skin, and Epic weapon Focus / Specialization. Granted there are a few different optimized palemaster, mine being either drow or human, My Drow gets Epic Weapon Focus, Spec, Armor Skin, Energy Resistance: Fire, Epic Mage Armor, Great Cleave, Overwhelming Critical and Epic Skill Focus: Discpline, there aren't many other epic feats that will really help, Epic Prowess could be used but, its only 1 ab, and I prefer the +2d6 for when they do end up critting on their 12-20 in PvE. The human, swaps Great Cleave in Epics for it in general and frees up that feat for epic prowess, the build I prefer gets EMA at 27 instead of a near end-of-story level 29, just off preference.



On a related note, my second favorite tank is monk, they're just an absolute joy to play.

[Lorkas]

imp. power attack? Really?

I was down on improved power attack quite a lot before actually taking it on a fighter character. I thought that it would only help against low-level enemies and mining.

What I've found though, is that the epic level spawns are pretty balanced around different types of strategies. There is a boss on this server that has sufficiently low AC and sufficiently high AB that I can solo the boss in IPA mode but not in Improved Expertise mode, for example, and there are several epic-level dungeons I can think of where the regular spawns have low enough AC that you can get a huge advantage from using IPA.

Believe me, it has helped a lot on my character at least. I use it far more often than I expected to when I took the feat.

[grip]

It is very nice when -guarded too.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I'm always of the philosophy that achieving the highest AB is more important than AC/damage, because you can take feats to improve those more easily (power attack, expertise, imp variants) than you can to pump AB (Weapon Focus and Epic Prowess, are all that come to mind).

This changes if you're not melee, but I always think high AB is the strongest to strive for.

Sidenote: it's interesting to see how dominant 'bard' is in the best tank thread.

[Ork]

Sidenote: it's interesting to see how dominant 'bard' is in the best tank thread.

Bards make some of the best tanks for their access to concealment as well as boosting AB/AC with one ability. A bardsong at level 16 achieves: +2 AB, +3 DMG, +5 AC. That nearly recoups the BAB lost from taking 16 levels of bard (-4 BAB as compared to FULL BAB). Stack on Paladin or BG, and gain access to divine might/shield, and all the sudden that already high CHA score becomes better. Now, add in curse song. You've just lowered your enemies by -5 AC. Throw a taunt in. That's now -11 AC. That's a net gain of +13 AB for the bard, who now does +3 bludgeoning from the song, +10 divine from divine might & +10-14 from strength. No need to change classes to get access to discipline, spellcraft, UMD, and tumble?

Bards make fantastic tanks.

[msterswrdsmn]

^ Bards get almost everything you need for a good build period. Skillwise, they have all the important skills as class skills (discipline, tumble, spellcraft, taunt, UMD, and listen). They have access to self-buffing, which means saving a ton of gold on scrolls/wands/potions.

The spells they do have access to again are what you'd consider basic needs and then some (concealment, 2nd level stat buffs, haste, GMW).

Feat-wise, curse/bardsong all cap out at 16, which falls into that magical slot that allows you to take 4 full BAB class levels to get 4 attacks per round.

The only things I can think of that they lack are trap skills (not very common for pvp these days), shield (abjuration feats), more BAB, and maybe something like truesight (amplify+clairvoyance+listen score can do most of the same thing)

[Dinosaur Space Program]

I have been looking at this thread for a bit admittedly. And had some ideas to contribute and then decided that maybe I will just contribute some thoughts instead.

To me, MMO Tank definitions actually do not work well in a NWN system.

MMO Tanks have aggro generating abilities so they can hold things to them and so mobs aren't as prone to attack the rest of the party. A true indestructible tank that sacrifices AB too hard in NWN on the other hand.. is easy to ignore. Especially in PvP.

PvE requires use of the more recent implemented 'guard' ability or before that, running in and hoping no one takes your aggro as you slowly smack them down and KD those that try to escape you.

A lot of the 'best tanks' of this thread, I find myself going 'You are right, I Would have a hard time killing those. But that doesn't mean I couldn't ignore them and kill Everyone Else while they flailed ineffectually at me, hoping to roll 20's.'

I think tanks really should be a balance of 'really hard to kill' and 'can actually threaten other AC builds'.

Also! I am not actually surprised at all for the bard in this thread. Bard has been good for a very long time, but never truly got the recognition it deserved until recently. Just wish more of them would play as bards instead of 'I happen to be a massive Hercules-like titan of strength and handsomeness that Also occasionally bursts into wordless song in battle and never mentions it again, like a strangely specific case of Tourette's'.

Regardless, this is a fun thread to see what people come up with on things. With the changes to fighter, a lot more things are applicable to be 'tanked up' or given a bit more AB than they would otherwise. The change really made mundane or hybrids with fighter to be a lot more applicable and common and I am enjoying the diversity it has spawned.

[Lorkas]

A lot of the 'best tanks' of this thread, I find myself going 'You are right, I Would have a hard time killing those. But that doesn't mean I couldn't ignore them and kill Everyone Else while they flailed ineffectually at me, hoping to roll 20's.'

I have been thinking the same thing about some, but more like "You're right, if we narrow down the definition of 'good tank' to 'best in a 1v1 PvP scenario', that's pretty good."

[Dalenger]

Is there anyway to make a kensai monk tanky? The best I can think of is to invest crap tons into STR, add damage bonus + perm essence + temp essence to some gloves, and perhaps delve a bit into rogue to get the sneak attack (although doing that would hurt my EXP, sense I'm playing a gnoll).

[Shadowy Reality]

A lot of the 'best tanks' of this thread, I find myself going 'You are right, I Would have a hard time killing those. But that doesn't mean I couldn't ignore them and kill Everyone Else while they flailed ineffectually at me, hoping to roll 20's.'

I have been thinking the same thing about some, but more like "You're right, if we narrow down the definition of 'good tank' to 'best in a 1v1 PvP scenario', that's pretty good."

Actually they are not that hard to kill and that's the sad thing. I played a PM variant and I've found them to be really lackluster. You get great AC, bunch of immunities, okay HP, decent saves. Anyone that targets AC is going to have trouble, anyone that targets saves is also going to have trouble.

But there's a very simple way to counter this and most tank builds in this thread. Touch AC. Get a Warlock or a Gonne and these tank builds are just butter. And then since you likely only have 3 attacks and your AB is crap, you're actually better using a Gonne as well, your typical PVP turns into a Gonne duel.

[Griefmaker]

your typical PVP turns into a Gonne duel.

That would tickle me pink as you actually have enough time to emote and curse and do things in the middle of a PvP battle, instead of the 2.3 seconds it takes to have a massive flurry cut someone down or the 1.7985 seconds it takes a spell to destroy someone.

PvP past level 10 tends to get rather lame as far as the PvP fight itself goes mostly because it is over so quickly, unless you have two tanky builds who are unable to hit each other (which would be quite fun and amusing...though I sadly have rarely seen that). There are exceptions, which are few and far between. One I recall vividly from about 6 years back was when one player and I decided to have our level 30 characters strike at each other, hop back, emote it out, call out the curses and jibes and so forth, then rush in again for another whack at each other and so on. There was no healing, no cheese, just a flat out brilliant duel with plenty of RP in it. Even if my dude was hosed so badly it hurt me physically to watch

[Shadowy Reality]

I agree with you, I'd also like to see a shift in mechanics so combat is a lot less powered and slower, giving ample time for people to action type things and fight at the same time, making PVP an epic experience, instead of a 3s sprint.

Unfortunately that would likely need a complete overall of most things in Arelith: weapon/armor power, enchantment strength, availability of magical items, decreasing the level cap. None of which I expect to see anytime soon, if at all.

The easiest of these would be to tune down weapons. +6 damage in masterly damask is a lot of damage in normal hits, even more for weapon masters. Essences +4 Permanent and +1d6 Temporary are also a lot of damage. If you tuned down weapons to +1, and removed damage essences you'd see the numbers go down wildly. Losing 5 damage from damask and 10 from essences would be 15 less damage per hit, 45 less in a critical (x3).

You could also remove weapon master which is the biggest culprit when it comes to damage spikes in a short succession.

It always strikes me badly when I see the typical Scimitar/Rapier weaponmaster do ~90 damage 50% of the time. It forces people to adopt shadier tactics or have certain builds (Palemaster).

[dirza]

Shadow reality, it wouldnt mean anything, most of people do attack during the initial hostilites. My experience is if you try to extend things prior fight too much, you find yourself in being time stopped and caught flatfooted.

When you try to do epic thing and challenge enemy partys champion, before you finish next emote you are laying down on ground cause someone timestopped you again and rushed to cut you down before you blink...


Anyway most of the builds above do carry along RP restrictions. Your arm is replaced by undead one, you get wings and so on. Things which have a huge influence on role play, and i myself find setting up character for role play not role play for build. Just my oppinion imho.

[Xarge VI]

You just need to get up again and carry on RPing your way instead of falling to distrust and being the first one to jump in a fight. Your character will be stomped on the ground a lot. But when you establish trust with the opposing party so that they know you're an enemy they can count on to be good sport, things start to change.