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Gaming Discussion => D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder => Topic started by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 20, 2015, 10:08:13 PM

Title: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 20, 2015, 10:08:13 PM
After my last successful thread (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16014.0), it occurred to me when thinking about how much I enjoy tanking in LoD (http://www.LegendsofDota.com) (DotA  (http://www.playdota.com) with multiclassing), and that the build goals are very similar to various D&D abilities. As a result I'm going to explain through matching DotA terms when tanking fails and when it succeeds.

First let's imagine a regular DotA match. You are up against normal, well-rounded enemies. You have a normal, well-rounded team that picks:
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So its up to you to pick the tank. Even the skillmonkey, if spotted, could go down in a round, the casters surely would, and the carry needs you to buy some time before they can down enough enemies that they can win a 1v1.
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You should feel like canon fodder because you are. What's the problem with the above?
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Let's look at a standard LoD tank build:
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This means we could soak up the following damage:
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So the question becomes, how do we build a D&D character that can tank over 1500 effective damage in less than a minute?

Let's start by copying the DotA abilites as closely as we can:
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It looked like a ardent 1 (magic mantle) / Erudite X / warblade or crusader 1 might be able to pull off most of this. You don't have to pull out all the stops to get tons of HP (draconic polymorph, might of the city, kiss of the vampire, etc) but it helps. Thoughts?

Bonus:
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Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Solo on July 20, 2015, 10:25:51 PM
Iron Heart Surge!
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: ketaro on July 21, 2015, 12:47:25 AM
Regeneration & Diehard :v
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: linklord231 on July 21, 2015, 05:02:04 AM
I confess I may have missed your answer to this (I don't play DotA, so you lost me with some of the jargon), but I didn't see you address the issue of why your enemies should focus on you.  It doesn't matter that you are literally unkillable if the enemies can just ignore you and kill the rest of your team instead. 

You have to be able to deal "enough" damage that they can't simply ignore you, or provide some other annoyance factor that makes them want to target you.  Maybe you have some kind of Shield Other or healing ability to keep your allies alive, or an ability that makes your enemies less effective (debuff aura or status effect maybe), or maybe your a BFC Tripper and they simply can't get to your teammates. 

Like I said before, I don't play DotA.  But I do play a little Heroes of the Storm, so I'll talk about some of the abilities the tanks in that game have.

(click to show/hide)

Common themes:
Almost everyone has some kind of stun.  Those that don't, have something similar - a root or a blind.  Tyrael is the only one that doesn't have one of those 3 things. 
Almost everyone has some kind of emergency damage mitigation - either a self heal or an activated shield or a lifeleech ability.  Presumably this is to carry you through burst damage.
Almost everyone has a gap-closing ability.  Stitches, Johanna, and Sonya drag the target to themselves/vice versa, everyone else has a charge or teleport.  The only exception is Arthas, who has a long range root and a slowing aura to make up for it.
Lots of people have an AoE damage ability.
Lots of people have a slow.
Lots of people do at least moderate DPS. 
A few people give buffs to nearby allies.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Solo on July 21, 2015, 02:26:57 PM
Tank must draw aggro. Tank must lock people down. Tank must take damage. Best tank is Sorcerer with Wings of Cover, Wings of Flurry, Ruin Delver's Fortune, and Greater Blink.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 21, 2015, 08:20:49 PM
Iron Heart Surge!
You saw the bonus, huh?

Best tank is Sorcerer with Wings of Cover, Wings of Flurry, Ruin Delver's Fortune, and Greater Blink.
Uh, ghost-touch weapon + see invis + attack iterations?

Regeneration & Diehard :v
:) Yeah I'm trying to actually take the damage without shenanigans (delay death,etc), ie actually tank rather than abuse some invulnerability bug. Those do sometimes happen in LoD...

I confess I may have missed your answer to this
The tl;dr answer is, we simply suck at making tanks. We build "standard" dota heroes, not LoD heroes (thinking outside the box).

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(I don't play DotA, so you lost me with some of the jargon)
I tried to translate everything into D&D terms, so let me know if I missed a spot.

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I didn't see you address the issue of why your enemies should focus on you.  It doesn't matter that you are literally unkillable if the enemies can just ignore you and kill the rest of your team instead.
Well they shouldn't, but they will. Trust me. I have watched thousands of very intelligent players who know that you have a megatank focus the tank. Why? Because you are in their face, and they want to kill you.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've watched a whole team literally ignore a super-tank and solely consider his team. We're talking no attacks wasted, completely walking around, "go let him attack our base" kind of ignoring. Hell, I build super tanks all the time, and I still don't ignore them when they get in my face -- even if I don't have a DPS build. Now imagine your enemies have never seen a supertank before. I gaurantee they will focus you, if you play correctly -- agressively and seemingly vulnerable. This is why we have to actually take damage, rather than just avoid it all.

Put another way, it becomes "imagine your enemies will never fight you. Maybe, you're a supertank, or maybe they are dominated/throwing the game. Now imagine all the things you can get away with." By that point, you've almost won everything before you start. Its obvious, and your enemies do know that. So they won't ignore you.

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You have to be able to deal "enough" damage that they can't simply ignore you, or provide some other annoyance factor that makes them want to target you
This is surprisingly easy, imho. Again, see the "Do you know how to wreck havoc if you knew no one would try to stop you?" question above.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Solo on July 21, 2015, 09:12:13 PM
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Uh, ghost-touch weapon + see invis + attack iterations

Probably want to add Pounce to that list for when you finally make it through Solid fog, grease, black tentacles, and webbing to reach the arcane death machine.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: faeryn on July 22, 2015, 02:09:31 AM
From a purely D&D viewpoint, tanks are highly impractical. Sure it may not be wise to ignore the unkillable guy and let him roam around your lair while you kill his friends. But at the same time, that might actually be the smartest thing you can do. He's bound to run headlong into a multitude of traps, attract more attention than he can handle and eventually just be completely overwhelmed by to many enemies that he simply can't do a ddignificant amount of damage to due to his defensive focus.

It becomes less "no one will stop you" and more "everyone else will stop you". In D&D there's just no reliable ways to force enemies to attack you. The only ways to force enemies to attack you are:

Deal so much damage that you are a clear and obvious threat that must die right now...
Be a general neusance making it impossible to simply ignore you, even if you can't do much damage...
A single spell (I forget what it's called) that forces 1 enemy to attack you for 1 round... not exactly the most effective option really... But atleast its not mind-affecting...
Mind-affecting spells such as Suggestion, implanting a compulsion to attack you or ignore your allies...
Block access to your allies... doesn't tend to work to well without being paired with being a neusance, since enemies can almost always find a way around you.


All of those methods are far to easily shut down too...

High damage? Ignoring the fact that if your built to take damage you most likely can't dish it out all that well... being disarmed or grappled typically shuts a heavy damage tank down pretty quick.
General Neusance? Countered by it's very own tactics... It can also simply be ignored depending on the type of neusance, since some of the tactics for being a neusance have immunities...
That one spell? Assuming you even bother to counter it since it only lasts 1 round and the caster is almost guaranteed to only be able to use it only a couple times to begin with... Antimagic Field... succeed on your will save... it's like a 1st level spell so making that save really shouldn't be a problem at all...
Mind-affecting spells? Do I even have to say anything on this one?
In the way? Tumble, fly, burrow, translocation, teleport, etherial jaunt, ranged weapon, reach weapon, being knocked prone... I really could keep going, but I think you get the picture...

The amount of effort it takes to actually tank in D&D is countered so easily without even building for it. Unless you've got a DM who will actually throw minions at your tank for the rest of your party to pick off, there's really no justifiable way to play a tank in D&D. Your best bet is to just stand in the way and be a neusance for as long as you can before you inevitably get locked down... But hey, if you are anticipating being locked down, then you might be able to put up a well timed barrier between the enemy and your allies and with any luck be back in the game before they get through.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Solo on July 22, 2015, 02:34:14 AM
Clearly, then, tanking should be left to Druids who cast Wall of Bears.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Unbeliever on July 22, 2015, 11:15:56 AM
@Faeryn

If only there were a variety of optimized lockdown builds ...

That being said, there aren't really any good drawing aggro tactics extant in 3E D&D.  But, there are plenty of ways to make yourself a kind of shield wall a lot of the time. 
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 22, 2015, 11:31:00 PM
Clearly, then, tanking should be left to Druids who cast Wall of Bears.
Did someone allude to a Bear Build (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8770.msg269761#msg269761)?
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Uh, ghost-touch weapon + see invis + attack iterations

Probably want to add Pounce to that list for when you finally make it through Solid fog, grease, black tentacles, and webbing to reach the arcane death machine.
That's funny I was thinking low OP, t4 glaivelock (amulet of natural attacks works, right? or is magic mantle/transdimensional power necessary), so no webs, plus flight and ddoor. Fight tentacles with tentacles?

From a purely D&D viewpoint, tanks are highly impractical. Sure it may not be wise to ignore the unkillable guy and let him roam around your lair while you kill his friends. But at the same time, that might actually be the smartest thing you can do. He's bound to run headlong into a multitude of traps, attract more attention than he can handle and eventually just be completely overwhelmed by to many enemies that he simply can't do a dignificant amount of damage to due to his defensive focus.
On a standard tank, the "overwhelm" part does apply. But supertanks are different. You won't have any base left by the time the party is dead and the anti-tank slog can begin. Again this is a "you've won before you started" situation, assuming your enemies know to do this (which they won't).
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In the way? Tumble, fly, burrow, translocation, teleport, etherial jaunt, ranged weapon, reach weapon, being knocked prone
everyone flies (can fliers be tripped?), but thicket of blades is great for stopping the standard rogue tactics to pierce the frontline. Casters are assumed to have anticipate teleport for their own safety, but yes snipers can focus your party, if they chose to. That's why you either get in their face or have the DPS focus them first.
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just stand in the way and be a neusance for as long as you can before you inevitably get locked down... But hey, if you are anticipating being locked down, then you might be able to put up a well timed barrier between the enemy and your allies and with any luck be back in the game before they get through.
Yes being a nuisance is fun. And then what you said after that is a big no no no. The point is to actually take the damage: to actually tank. Not to run and hide and force your enemies to refocus to your party members. You successfully hold agro because you stay there and are getting hurt.

there aren't really any good drawing aggro tactics extant in 3E D&D
Because they aren't necessary, assuming you can actually tank. Comon, this is the whole point of the thread.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: linklord231 on July 23, 2015, 02:25:25 AM
Just so we're on the same page here, your definition of a "Supertank" is someone who takes damage (not avoids it by being untargetable or forces enemies to otherwise waste their actions).  A "Supertank" should coerce enemies in to attacking him - he should be attacked because enemies are afraid of the consequences of not attacking him, rather then being mind controlled or otherwise "forced" to attack.  If you attack a "Supertank", you lose because that's what he wants you to do, so that his allies can kill you.  If you don't attack a "Supertank", you lose because then he'll kill you. 

Is that about right?
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Unbeliever on July 23, 2015, 09:50:16 AM
I have the same issue that Linklord has been mentioning, which is why I guess I'm missing "the entire point of the thread."  I don't play DotA or LoD or HotS (but not the first of Blizzard's HotS) or any other funny stream of acronyms. 

Honestly, I think using the DotA, et al. metaphor is more confusing than helpful.  In D&D enemies don't usually have a "base" or something that is essential for them to defend.  Further, part of the tactical role of a tank in D&D is to soak up hits for the squishier characters.  So, the OP keeps using the term, but in a way different from the way we all use it. 

From what I can understand, this seems to be the heart of the thread: 
The problem with is tanking isn't that enemies won't fight you, its that you'll die when you do (you're a bad tank). So what's a good tank? One that survives an entire wailing on them. Sure you'll not be able to fight back, so you better have some allies doing the DPS, but you won't die; you'll keep tanking for a long time. You'll do your job.
I think there's some problem that the enemies will just circumvent you in D&D b/c of the aforementioned issues.  The only counter to this in this thread is "well, they don't in the MOBA games."  Cool, but that doesn't really tell us anything about D&D, which is a turn-based PnP cooperative RPG and not a pseudo-RTS competitive computer game. 

But, if we're setting that aside and the question resolves into something like:  "how do I make a super durable front-line character."  That I can wrap my head around.

However, Charopp boards have never thought this was particularly difficult.  Whenever people say "tanking is dead," on these boards, which I'm on record saying is overblown, etc. etc., they always talk about the tactical circumvention type of stuff.  Not, that you're made of cardboard.  The old Trouserfang Dwarf can suck up as much straight damage as you can con your DM into, for example. 
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 25, 2015, 11:10:31 PM
a "Supertank" is someone who takes damage (not avoids it by being untargetable or forces enemies to otherwise waste their actions).
Successfully, yes. Standard tanks don't actually do this: they die quickly when focus-fired.
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A "Supertank" should coerce enemies in to attacking him - he should be attacked because enemies are afraid of the consequences of not attacking him
Ideally, yes. I don't underestimate the "all up in their grill" approach  :D
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If you attack a "Supertank", you lose because that's what he wants you to do, so that his allies can kill you.  If you don't attack a "Supertank", you lose because then he'll kill you.
Or do any number of awful things to an opponent who isn't bothering to properly fight/defend. But yes, often out of coincidence, supertanks have well above average DPS / DPR.

Honestly, I think using the DotA, et al. metaphor is more confusing than helpful.
Sorry, but it was necessary for me to realize the difference between standard tanks and super-tanks. The first is the usual 30 Con Crusader Ruby Knight Windicator + necrotic empowerment + Improved toughness, etc while the second thinks "1000 damage? I'm not breaking a sweat. I'll walk it off in a minute."
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In D&D enemies don't usually have a "base" or something that is essential for them to defend.
They certainly do in a lot of printed adventures, and I'd venture normal, private campaigns too. Different enemies defend different things, of course.
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Further, part of the tactical role of a tank in D&D is to soak up hits for the squishier characters.
I agree. Usually enemies "focus" attacks on very few targets. By being the target, you protect the squishies.
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that doesn't really tell us anything about D&D, which is a turn-based PnP cooperative RPG and not a pseudo-RTS competitive computer game.
it has a) highly similar, although often simplified D&D abilities, b) complex rule interactions, c) highly motivated tactical actions. My point was even better. When people say "Then you're enemies will stop attacking you" I counter: 1) they don't know if you're going to die in another round or two, 2) They've never seen anyone take multiple swords to the face and live, 3) they are in a struggle for their life (supertanks can attack too) and not calmly analyzing the situation. But in LoD DotA, all of those things are not true and yet players still focus super tanks. Therefore I conclude that enemies will as well in D&D (outside of some highly assholish behavior from a metagaming DM).
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That I can wrap my head around
Good. I know how to build Supertanks in DotA. I'm less familiar with the boards trying (in non-TO manners) in D&D.
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Trouserfang Dwarf can suck up as much straight damage as you can con your DM into, for example
I didn't realize people took that build seriously. I still laugh when I see it. It has all the usual TO problems: 'how do you walk with snakes in your pants?' 'How do you force the snakes to bite?' 'How do you get them to recharge their poison after they bit you once?' etc etc

I'm hoping to stay away from TO, although I was mentioning that a lot of "normal"ish tanking abilities in DotA seem quite powerful by D&D standards and might require light rule-bending for faithful D&D replicas.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: nijineko on July 25, 2015, 11:47:31 PM
Ogre (http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/)


^^
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: faeryn on July 26, 2015, 01:15:01 PM
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just stand in the way and be a neusance for as long as you can before you inevitably get locked down... But hey, if you are anticipating being locked down, then you might be able to put up a well timed barrier between the enemy and your allies and with any luck be back in the game before they get through.
Yes being a nuisance is fun. And then what you said after that is a big no no no. The point is to actually take the damage: to actually tank. Not to run and hide and force your enemies to refocus to your party members. You successfully hold agro because you stay there and are getting hurt.

I think you misread that... I didn't say anything about running and hiding and forcing your enemies to refocus to your party... I outlined a valid method to keep them AWAY from your party while you get back into the action and will likely result in them keeping focus on you simply because they can't touch anyone else. If you know or anticipate that you will get locked down this round, then if you have the means to create a barrier "BETWEEN THE ENEMY & YOUR ALLIES" meaning you should be the only target on the same side of the barrier as your enemy in optimal conditions. They can either A) try to bypass the barrier to get to your allies, or B) wail on you until it's down likely resulting in you getting back up again and becoming a nuisance to them again.

EDIT: You can use contingency spells for creating those barriers too... this route is far less likely to result in annoying the DM and flying books.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Unbeliever on July 26, 2015, 01:51:18 PM
I was mentioning that a lot of "normal"ish tanking abilities in DotA seem quite powerful by D&D standards and might require light rule-bending for faithful D&D replicas.
This seems totally true to me.  In pretty much any computer game that I've seen the tanking/damage-soaking abilities seem to be, mechanically, far superior to what D&D tends to offer.  That being said, they also tend to be worthless at higher levels (e.g., Diablo 3), too, so there's that.  I think it might be due to damage scaling in the computer games. 

I've already told you that I think the benchmarking, etc. in this thread misses the point.  I don't want to belabor that, but it seems like you want to use a radically different game's set of systems to do something while missing the tools D&D gives you.  If the idea was to look into homebrew, i.e., something like "how do we make tanking fun like it is DotA?" then that'd make more sense.  But, that doesn't seem to be the project. 

Let me see if I can be less vague than that.  Off the top of my head, a dragonfire inspiration, song of the white raven Crusader or Warblade with reach and dual-wielding spinning swords seems to be a great tank, super or otherwise.  He'll crank out solid damage (twf with dragonfire inspiration), and he'll pretty much win at melee combat.  Depending on how you set it up, he can either stop enemies in their tracks (Stand Still feat) or just make them really regret moving around (AoOs, especially with Double Hit).  And, on top of that, he'll have a nearly full maneuver progression and probably access to UMD for some flexibility, especially out of combat. 

Obviously, he doesn't stop everything, but it's pretty damn effective at what he does.  The maneuvers help paper over any glaring weaknesses.  He can't, however, take 1500 damage over 10 rounds.  He totally avoids the DotA (I think?  Tell me if I'm wrong) approach that the OP takes in favor of what D&D gives you, which is usually some form of battlefield control. 

Perhaps more constructively, I've found the Vampire Torc to be a great in combat healing item on the right, burst damage character.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: FireInTheSky on July 26, 2015, 06:42:57 PM
So much homebrew, but also a lot of not dying. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10258.msg168126#msg168126)
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: faeryn on July 27, 2015, 01:22:41 PM
A few things I feel are worth mentioning...


Tanks in PvP based video games such as DoTA... People will attack these tanks regardless of if they are a "supertank" or not for a reason unrelated to what you have previously posted. The reason is that the players typically have an understanding of how the abilities in the game work and know that there is a limited time frame in which the tank is at their best and if you can get them when their abilities are on cooldown you will stand a good chance at taking them down. However, how do you catch them with their abilities on cooldown? You attack them and force them to use them then hope that you survive long enough to deal some heavy damage when they are vulnerable. DoTA tanks are very killable, you just have to know when and how to strike. And most people who enjoy those games know precisely that. That's not to say you won't frequently encounter newbies who don't know what they are doing when they attack a tank...

Tanks in D&D don't follow the same sort of time-based mechanics. You use an ability it lasts a number of rounds and usually has no cooldown. You can usually just reactivate it on the turn it ends on and be fine, so you don't have periods of vulnerability in D&D... additionally tanking in D&D is more of a game of mitigation rather than soaking... It's significantly harder to get large health pools in D&D than it is in an online game with tank classes... But it's also significantly easier to ignore damage all together in D&D. Everything from immunities to absurdly high armor class, it's all easily accessible in D&D. If you can manage to get your AC approximately 35 points higher than your character level, then the vast majority of the time nothing will be able to hit you without a nat20. And I can tell you from experience that's really not hard to accomplish... If magic is abundant in your campaign then that number increases by another 5~10 points... pair your high AC with various resistances, immunities, and fasthealing/regeneration, and you've got yourself a tank. Walk into swarms of enemies and laugh as they barely scratch your armor, when someone does manage to hit you however, you reduce the damage to a minimal amount and just heal it up over the next few rounds as you continue to laugh.


Tanks work significantly different from one game to the next. It all relies on the mechanics of the game. Regrettably though, while it's possible to make a "tank" in D&D in the sense that they can survive massive armies unscathed, it's not really feasible to make one who can redirect the enemies attention to themselves and away from their squishier allies.

Lets look at this from some logical stand points... a group of adventurers walks into a cave full of kobolds, one of the adventurers steps out from the party and stands in front wearing a thick suit of armor, behind him is an archer wearing some thin leathers, a mage in a robe, a cleric with a flimsy chain mail shirt, and a rogue who's trying to sneak across the cave wall wearing leather as well... If you're a kobold you're probably looking at this and thinking, "squishy one in back... open squishy in can after" it's really the most simple of logics out there... so simple that it literally is a no-brainer... if you put an unopened clam in front of someone who's hungry and a bowl of fruit next to it, they will go for the fruit first without even a moment's thought. The same mentality applies to combat, if you have a walking fortress and a squishy mage, you're first thought is usually going to be on the mage.

So the dilemma becomes, how do you make the walking fortress look like an easy squishy target? Well... the best options in my opinion come from magic... you've got a tank who wants full plate? nope, get that notion out of your head, take the lightest armor you can for your armor enchantments, get the most of your dex bonus to AC and get a mage to provide you with Greater or Improved Mage Armor... or be psionic and use Inertial Armor... or a monk... AC from sources other than physical armor make you appear to be a squishy... so now you're not the "squishy in a can" but instead you are the "squishy"... the squishy that for some inexplicable reason isn't so squishy... as the enemy would see it. Pair your vulnerable appearance with general nuisances and you're well on your way to being a true D&D tank...

So... in short...

7 steps to D&D tanking
step 1: appear squishy
step 2: get your AC as high as you can
step 3: resistances, immunities, & healing
step 4: make yourself too annoying to ignore
step 5: contingency
step 6: laugh maniacally
step 7: .... you are a tank now
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Ice9 on July 27, 2015, 04:19:49 PM
If a "supertank" is supposed to have significantly scary offense (enough that leaving them alone would be deadly) and unbreachable defense, and no weak points that would allow an easy shutdown ... then doesn't this all boil down to "if you play a character that's way fucking stronger than the opposition, you'll be good at tanking (or whatever else you choose to do)"?

I mean, yes, the power of optimization.  But presumably the GM is optimizing the foes also, otherwise you wouldn't even need a tank because every fight would be a one-round faceroll.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 27, 2015, 08:06:31 PM
I think the benchmarking misses the point
The only point of the benchmarking was to help elucidate the differences between a standard (fail) tank and a (successful) super-tank.
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If the idea was to look into homebrew, ... But, that doesn't seem to be the project.
Correct. I am hoping to mirror other outside-of-the-box thinking when building D&D tanks using only canon material.
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He totally avoids the DotA (I think?  Tell me if I'm wrong) approach that the OP takes in favor of what D&D gives you, which is usually some form of battlefield control.
Correct.
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I've found the Vampire Torc to be a great in combat healing item on the right, burst damage character.
So, limited use wraithful healing. Oddly D&D is very high-powered on the lifesteal % (50 is very high, 10% is standard/entry level in DotA)

DoTA tanks are very killable, you just have to know when and how to strike. And most people who enjoy those games know precisely that. That's not to say you won't frequently encounter newbies who don't know what they are doing when they attack a tank...
Yes, however supertanks are still tankier almost any standard tank even when all their abilities are on cooldown. LoD takes standard Dota and cranks it up to an 11
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laugh as they barely scratch your armor, when someone does manage to hit you however, you reduce the damage to a minimal amount and just heal it up over the next few rounds as you continue to laugh
counterproductive for a supertank. If enemies don't hurt you, they'll rethink their attacks. If they do hurt you (but you know you can take it), they won't.
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while it's possible to make a "tank" in D&D in the sense that they can survive massive armies unscathed, it's not really feasible to make one who can redirect the enemies attention to themselves and away from their squishier allies.
Ah, but we are interested in super tanks. And super-tanks take damage.
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if you put an unopened clam in front of someone who's hungry and a bowl of fruit next to it, they will go for the fruit first without even a moment's thought. The same mentality applies to combat, if you have a walking fortress and a squishy mage, you're first thought is usually going to be on the mage.
Exactly. That's why we don't make the food hard to get. We make one bowl have more food than you can quickly eat. (I'm all for DMs focusing the mage)
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So the dilemma becomes, how do you make the walking fortress look like an easy squishy target?
No. You mean "how do we become an easy target" and the answer is easy: get in enemies faces. Really, this all works like DotA -- which is why I'm sticking to the analogy.
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step 2: get your AC as high as you can
step 3: resistances, immunities
Definitely a no to number 2. #3 is a yes only for binary things (mind-affects), but resistances should be low enough that you do take some damage. This way enemies think they are making progress.

If a "supertank" is supposed to have significantly scary offense
No. They have decent DPS or DPR, but they aren't the carry.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Ice9 on July 27, 2015, 09:09:07 PM
No. They have decent DPS or DPR, but they aren't the carry.
What makes them sticky then?  If the tank is doing the same or less damage as the other party members, while being 10x harder to kill, it seems like enemies who find that out would just save them for last.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: linklord231 on July 27, 2015, 11:18:14 PM
I think the point is that they don't SEEM like they're hard to kill? The enemy knows they've attacked him a lot, but aren't sure how close to dead he actually is. You're basically betting on them falling for the Sunk Costs Fallacy.

Also, I find it ironic that all the "alternative" tanking methods the community has come up with over the years (summons, BFC, action denial, avoidance tanking, etc) are suddenly the "traditional" tanks, and PBMC's strategy of "just be hard to kill" and is "thinking outside the box"
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: faeryn on July 28, 2015, 02:12:37 AM
I think the point is that they don't SEEM like they're hard to kill? The enemy knows they've attacked him a lot, but aren't sure how close to dead he actually is. You're basically betting on them falling for the Sunk Costs Fallacy.

Also, I find it ironic that all the "alternative" tanking methods the community has come up with over the years (summons, BFC, action denial, avoidance tanking, etc) are suddenly the "traditional" tanks, and PBMC's strategy of "just be hard to kill" and is "thinking outside the box"

It's not really that it's "thinking outside the box" but rather that the mechanics of the game make the other methods far simpler... I mean sure, you could make a tank who wears absolutely no armor, has their AC as low as they possibly can get it so that every attack lands a hit on them, and uses an absurd amount of resistances and fast healing to mitigate the damage they take down to a minor scratch... but that's actually a heck of a lot harder to really accomplish than it sounds... first you've got to figure out how to get damage resistance high enough to reduce large hits down to only a few points of damage... As I already mentioned getting yourself a mountain of HP in D&D is not really a very feasible task so your left with damage reduction... but even that is limited to only a few points... typically without houserules or homebrew you're only going to get at most DR10, but usually only DR5... at low levels that's an amazing amount of DR, but as you get up in levels it starts to become just a small reduction...

DR5 on a hit of 35 still leaves you taking 30 damage, take that type of hit 3-4 times per mob from 3 or 4 mobs per round... now you're looking at trying to soak up 270~480 damage per round, and you probably only have ~2000 health if you optimized for health... you'll be dead in about 5 rounds of combat unless you've got someone healing you... but the instant someone starts healing you they are a greater threat than you are and will likely be dead or dying by the end of the next round... healing yourself will likely result in enemies wising up and moving on to other targets as well... so that in mind you'll certainly want your AC high enough that you are still hard enough to hit that you won't just take every attack dished out in the round... as far as fasthealing and other forms of per-round healing go, you're not likely to get much more than +15 per round so that's really not going to help you out much when you're taking nearly 500 damage per round...

As with everything though, the more options you've got available for optimizing your health, the more options the DM has for optimizing damage of mobs... so if you're walking around with 10k health, expect the DM to have mobs dishing out 250+ damage per hit... making your DR and fasthealing even less beneficial...
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: ketaro on July 28, 2015, 04:27:18 AM
(click to show/hide)

On the DR thing

Be a Human. Roll with traits/flaws. (UA crap :v )
Acquire 20 Con. (Might require PF Human)
Bonus Feat -> Toughness.
x2 Flaw Feats -> Roll With It x2
1st Level Feat -> Roll With It
1st Level -> DR 6/-

Be a god among commoners.

12 Levels Later -> DR 14/- That stacks with any other single source of DR#/-.

In a totally vanilla-esque game (lacking homebrew, houserules and cheese shananigans of powergamey-ness), this could totally get by despite that every single feat slot is the same feat over and over forever after  :lmao

Spice it up with a Martial Adept class so it doesn't matter you have shit feats, you got martial maneuvers and thus can still accomplish things on the battlefield. White Raven would likely suit this support tank wonderfully.  :rolleyes

Or stack it with Crusader's delay damage stuff and pretend to never get hurt (in melee)!
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Jackinthegreen on July 28, 2015, 05:00:52 AM
Templates would be fine too.  Arctic is the main +0 LA one since Dragonborn tosses the feat.  The Dragonlance Proto-creature would work too.  Various +1 LA templates would obviously be fit to get 20 Con from the start.

Or there's the Exiled Dwarf from Dragon 320 that gets a bonus feat and +2 con, -2 cha.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: ErikF on July 28, 2015, 01:41:22 PM
I may be missing something, but is there a reason why only HP seems to be looked at in this tank analysis? IMO, HP are secondary to AC and ability-related scores because you can easily get healed but not so easily get restored from drain/damage.

For example, how do one of these supertanks survive things like Enervation/Bestow Curse/Touch of Idiocy/etc. if they are basically just bags of HP with no AC who are supposed to soak damage? If you have a terrible AC, level and ability drain can knock you out of a fight extremely quickly. I mean, even save or sucks like Freezing Glance can make regular tanks ineffective if they have poor Will saves! (Mundane poisons will get you too if you fail your Fort save, and you will roll a 1 eventually.)
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: faeryn on July 28, 2015, 02:42:38 PM
I may be missing something, but is there a reason why only HP seems to be looked at in this tank analysis? IMO, HP are secondary to AC and ability-related scores because you can easily get healed but not so easily get restored from drain/damage.

For example, how do one of these supertanks survive things like Enervation/Bestow Curse/Touch of Idiocy/etc. if they are basically just bags of HP with no AC who are supposed to soak damage? If you have a terrible AC, level and ability drain can knock you out of a fight extremely quickly. I mean, even save or sucks like Freezing Glance can make regular tanks ineffective if they have poor Will saves! (Mundane poisons will get you too if you fail your Fort save, and you will roll a 1 eventually.)

Those sort of problems are exactly what we seem to be moving towards with the most recent posts... As I pointed out in my previous post, a tank who's just a sack of HP with little to no AC will take so much damage per round from multiple sources that they won't last very long even with the level of DR & Fasthealing available to them...

So if having so much AC that your impossible to hit means you simply won't get attacked, but having so little AC that you can't not be hit means you'll die fast, then you must find a middle ground for your AC so you can at least attempt to reduce the number of attacks that hit you per round to a manageable number.

And you bring up an excellent additional point, spells & ability damage will likely knock an HP tank out of the game really fast... this is kinda where the whole Immunities thing I pointed out earlier comes into play though... you need to get certain immunities to be an effective tank, and it's more than just immunity to mind-affecting stuff... immunity to negative energy-effects is one you should get to negate certain save-or-suck spells... immunity to transmutations is another one you should probably look into... freedom of movement so you can't be locked down... immunity to poisons & diseases (surprisingly very easy to get)


As for your initial question... why only HP? Well... thats what the OP is looking for... he's trying to steer away from the traditional tanks, and HP tanking is what fits into his ideal of a "supertank"...
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 31, 2015, 11:55:45 AM
I think the point is that they don't SEEM like they're hard to kill? The enemy knows they've attacked him a lot, but aren't sure how close to dead he actually is. You're basically betting on them falling for the Sunk Costs Fallacy.
Yup. I mean, everything else they're ever slashed at with a sword (and watched blood splatter) has died.
Quote
Also, I find it ironic that all the "alternative" tanking methods the community has come up with over the years (summons, BFC, action denial, avoidance tanking, etc) are suddenly the "traditional" tanks, and PBMC's strategy of "just be hard to kill" and is "thinking outside the box"
:lol  :lmao  :clap I'm down with the latter three on the squishies, but yeah avoidance tanking is for the carry, not a super-tank.

sticky
Huh?
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enemies who find that out
They won't know until its too late. Super-Tanks always travel with the party.

that's actually a heck of a lot harder to really accomplish than it sounds...
Correct. Everything else you said is a solid understanding of traditional tanking statistics in D&D. DR, fast healing, and base HP are all very hard to get to "normal" tanking levels for most other games that build tanks.

HP are secondary to AC and ability-related scores because you can easily get healed but not so easily drain/damage
Abilitiy drain and damage is considered an "alternate" death system like Death-Affects or petrification. I see no cheesiness with immunity to those methods whilst still having the normal vulnerability of death by HP damage.
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how do one of these supertanks survive things like Enervation/Bestow Curse/Touch of Idiocy/etc. Even save or sucks like Freezing Glance can make regular tanks ineffective if they have poor Will saves! (Mundane poisons will get you too
Again, immunities. Didn't I mention the ToB maneuvers?

will take so much damage per round from multiple sources that they won't last very long even with the level of DR & Fasthealing available to them...
Yes. You were thinking about a standard tank, not a super tank. Though the translation I presented isn't perfect, you are welcome to build a normal monster encounter (god-wizard ganks count as DM metagaming) for a ECL 10 or 11 party that will deal more than 1500 within a minute (300+ per round for five rounds)
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trying to steer away from the traditional tanks, and HP tanking is what fits into his ideal of a "supertank"...
And fractional damage mitigation, where the damage is actually dealt
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: TuggyNE on August 01, 2015, 01:32:07 PM
I think the point is that they don't SEEM like they're hard to kill? The enemy knows they've attacked him a lot, but aren't sure how close to dead he actually is. You're basically betting on them falling for the Sunk Costs Fallacy.
Yup. I mean, everything else they're ever slashed at with a sword (and watched blood splatter) has died.
While the char-building strategy you're promoting is a key part of this idea, I honestly think the far more crucial and far harder part is not changing one's own mindset about tanks, but changing one's DM's about the nature of semi-rational enemy behavior. But there's not a lot about that here. Any thoughts on that?
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Solo on August 01, 2015, 01:42:21 PM
Buy him a beer and explain your theories.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on August 06, 2015, 04:50:04 PM
Any thoughts on that?
Unless the DM is purposely chosing to metagame and invalidate your character build, the monsters you fight are "regularly" built and so they won't know about supertanks. I'm sure there might be some monsters out there, that specifically don't fight things that are being highly aggressive towards them, but that's not the norm, and I can't think of any off-hand that will still threaten your party-mates

To prove the point, I grabbed a random page or a random monster book (MMIII) and found CR7 elder redcaps. They specifically power attack and wade into melee as an ambush (you are on watch, right?). If the tank is there, they shouldn't avoid him.
I built for level 10, so let's grab a CR10. I didn't recognize Ssvaklor (so no bias there) and found it as a yaunti/dragon thing that uses a fort-save poison breathe in between melee with "a bunch of enemies." The tank is out front, right?
So ignoring immunities, the con-based save will be made. The SLAs aren't a threat and, thanks to being a supertank, neither is the damage. Your allies win.

Just in case we are up against higher than our CR opponents, I'll grab a MMII (low-balled CR stereotype) random critter: I originally found shadowspiders (which are, again, not a threat and won't refocus away from the tank) but it was CR12, so I looked at the CR13's.
Dragonflesh golems sounded cool (didn't know they made those). It's magic immune with good saves, DR, flight, and a debuff aura. Not bad, but not a problem.

I could keep going, but the point is standard enemies will attack the tank, if played by the DM correctly. As far as telling the DM how to play, it all depends on if the DM gets to be a cheating bastard or not. I feel that since player's aren't allowed to fudge, DMs shouldn't either. Unless you are playing a specifically metagame-heavy campaign (Oots style), players aren't allowed to metagame either. I was just reading a campaign journal on this very boards where a player was suspected of reading the adventure ahead of time and alerting the party to things his character shouldn't know. This is widely frowned upon, just like a DM building or playing monsters with metagame knowledge of the players. Allowing monsters to know about a supertank falls under this category.

Yes, you could metagame/Contact other plane TO/have a massive intell-gathering posse against you, but if you have enemies who know you're every strength and weakness in order to exploit your build, you've pretty much lost the arms race no matter what. If you're already at that point, it doesn't matter if you are playing the tank or the DPS or the godwizard or whatever, you've lost any semblence of a normal, successful party.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: LudicSavant on August 07, 2015, 12:52:40 PM
I play League of Legends rather than DotA for my MOBA fix.  There, tanks clearly work, but they also do a number of things that aren't done well by many D&D tanks, as well as some factors that don't really come into play in D&D.

A few of the things make tanks important there:

1)  The presence of turrets and other AI foes (such as Baron or Dragon) which do a great deal of damage, and their targets can be easily decided by your own actions.  Someone needs to take the turret damage if you want to dive people under a turret, so simply having the durability to do that gives your team some offensive utility.  In D&D, there is no equivalent to turret shots.  Enemies need an actual reason to want to target a guy with the highest tanky stats.  That's okay, because tanks are pretty relevant to fights that don't go on around turrets and the like, too!

2)  Peel.  Sure, the enemy might try to dive your ADC (your squishy ranged guy who hits like a truck but will die in a stiff breeze... the person you want to tank for, essentially), but many tanks in League have ways to make you stop attacking that target... often as simple as being able to slow your movement speed while the ADC just moves backwards a bit, because ability ranges aren't crazy high like in D&D and kiting and positioning remains very important.  Simply interposing yourself between the squishy and the enemy is enough to block most skillshots.

By contrast, in D&D melee characters tend to struggle to actually interfere with projectiles or keep enemies from being able to use their ranged attacks or combos.  A Fireball is going to be able to target anyone on the field.  If the opponent can cast it at all, they can probably cast it across the full range of the battlemap as long as there aren't walls in the way.

3)  If the enemy focuses you, your team is at an advantage.  This doesn't necessarily mean you can take the entire enemy team's damage output, as the OP suggests, because this isn't the case for many tanks in League of Legends (at least, if neither team has a huge XP/Gold lead).  It means that if they use all of their attacks on you, your team comes out with a massive advantage and will win the encounter.

So, why does it produce an advantage for enemies to attack you?  Well, it may mean a number of things.   It may mean that your allies go unharassed and are able to pull off a nasty combo uninterrupted.  In may mean that enemies have bunched into a disadvantageous position to deal with you.  It may mean that they actually take damage or interrupts simply for hitting you.  But almost all the time, one simple factor applies:  Enemy damage output is not constant.  If enemies blow their abilities, they have to wait for them to cool down before they can use them again. So, maybe that enemy mage might have been able to take your squishy from 100-0 with one half-second combo, but his ability to do that won't be up for another 6 seconds... giving ample time for your squishy mage to sidle into position without fear and blow him up.

4)  In League, it's worth it for you to die to kill off several enemies in a teamfight.  In D&D, losing even one party member is often considered a major failure.  This is partially remedied by resurrection spells, but those leave an unsatisfying taste for many.  This could be remedied for D&D by having more "degrees of failure," but that could take up another entire topic on its own so I won't really get into that.

5)  Threat when ignored.  This is necessary for 3 to be relevant.  This isn't necessarily damage... after all, some tanky champions have so little damage that, if they show up on their own, you can almost completely ignore their existence.  Alistar, for instance, is a very effective tank (considered high tier character currently) that tends to fit this mold with his most popular builds.  However, with a teammate around, these characters without damage of their own tend to create fantastic opportunities for their ALLIES to deal damage, while receiving little in return.

That said, many DO project a great deal of offensive threat and can kill your entire team if left unharassed.  This tends to be balanced by the fact that heavy-hitting tanks can be easily cced and kited... at the cost of, of course, having to focus on them instead of some squishier target, or letting them zone you out.

6)  Now, you can't really take the entire enemy team's damage on the chin.  While it can be possible to do this if you're fed or if the enemy team composition is terrible and you got to build full armor against an all AD tea or something, these are cases where the game is basically already won for your side (barring crucial tactical errors for your team).  Even the most durable aren't going to be able to take the full force of the enemy team's offense for more than a brief period of time. 

However, it's important to note that it's not actually easy for the enemy team to focus all of their efforts on only one person during a teamfight, due to positioning, kiting, ranges, cc, interrupts, being in a position to land skillshots, etc.  Often you will be able to survive diving into the entire enemy team... as long as others of your team are there to support you.  This is simply because focusing you to death becomes an undesirable or impossible strategy due to everything that's going on in a teamfight.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: faeryn on August 08, 2015, 01:08:12 AM
The main reasons I find this type of tanking to be so impractical in DnD is that DR & Fasthealing are severly limited in what they can actually do for you on a round-by-round basis... damage can get up to prretty heafty numbers even at level 10 it can be high enough that DR & Fasthealing are pretty laughable as defenses... But thats not the biggesst thing still... the biggest is the sheer lack of ways of getting your HP high enough that those "large hits" are laughable to you.

I guess you can use a myriad of temporary HP tricks to boost your HP through the roof before going into combat... I do actually know of atleast 1 such trick that can result in some pretty heafty HP values without cheese and astronamacle with cheese... One is a certain incarnum ability (I can't recall the name off the top of my head atm, and am not currently able to dig up my charactersheet that has it) that grants you a stacking bonus to attack, saves, and temporary HP for every living creature defeated within (i think it was) 20ft, that lasts for 11minutes (each increase, duration does not reset per application, so it might be tricky to keep track of how much falls off when if you have long encounters)... but in an area with a large number of low health enemies it builds up your HP very fast to deal with that one big bad you know you'll encounter, and allows you a bit of a health buffer while tanking the mobs.

The same ability can be cheesed with tricks like bringing several bags of critters to sacrifice before entering combat just to get a giant boost in HP...
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on August 08, 2015, 03:07:03 PM
1) The presence of turretstowers

2) ranges aren't crazy high like in D&D and kiting and positioning remains very important

3) Enemy damage output is not constant ... cool downs

4) it's worth it for you to die to kill off several enemies in a teamfight.  In D&D, losing even one party member is often considered a major failure.  This is partially remedied by resurrection spells ...  This could be remedied for D&D by having more "degrees of failure,"

5) with a teammate around, these characters without damage of their own tend to create fantastic opportunities for their ALLIES to deal damage, while receiving little in return.

6) focusing you to death becomes an undesirable or impossible strategy due to everything that's going on in a teamfight.
These are all good points. 1) this would be like alliance-obeying single target traps. Infinite ammo can be assumed. It would be interesting to port this into D&D to help team-play.

2) Absolutely true. You can shoot for thousands of feet, without much effort in D&D. I was always baffled by the fact that weapons have a whopping 10 range increments. I'd be interested to see a game where there were none.

3) right on the mark. A lot of cooldown abilities (expressed in rounds) in D&D are AoE. I wonder if an automatic cooldown system (for each d6, wait one round, etc) would be worth the over-head for a DM trying to keep track of that for various monsters and abilities.

4) I'm a big fan of revivify. Stretching D&D too much on this would be interesting but hard to balance. For instance if enemies do this too much, if feels like traction is impossible. If allies do this too much if feels like you're just throwing dead bodies at the enemy. Either way, I defined a good tank in D&D as one that takes damage but doesn't die.

5) the designers might have thought this was already the case in D&D, even though it isn't. It almost feels like this is the case in low level, core-only games. Casters were assumed to have to be in the back away from forced concentration checks and ranged attackers were assumed to be glass canons. Too bad WotC failed on that, but I don't think its unreasonable to reinforce those things with house-rules, whatever they may be.

6) Not really reproducable in a turn-based game, but I am a big fan of limited times for taking your turn. Thus you might forget to make the more optimal choice within your 18 seconds or whatever. The effect you speak of totally happens all the time in MOBAs, though.

Also, see Penny Arcade about LoL.  :cool

The main reasons I find this type of tanking to be so impractical in DnD is that DR & Fasthealing are severly limited
Which is why we don't use them. You'll notice I don't mention them much in my OP.

Quote
One is a certain incarnum ability (I can't recall the name off the top of my head atm, and am not currently able to dig up my charactersheet that has it)
You are refering to my Maximum Hit Point world record build. Yes, it is in my sig. I'm not interested it that right now.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: LudicSavant on August 08, 2015, 04:32:46 PM
Peeling, rather than "aggro," is the main thing people should be talking about, I think, especially since getting enemies to attack you isn't the only way to peel.  Melee fighters in D&D tend to be rather awful at peeling anything that isn't ALSO melee, and even then they're generally not great at it (heck, D&D squishies are often superior at peeling).  Certainly not on a par with the tanking designs you see in well designed PvP games.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Jackinthegreen on August 10, 2015, 04:04:39 PM
For some reference on what peeling is, at least as far as LoL/moba terms go:  http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2054346

Basically it's crowd control, which we've already been talking about.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Unbeliever on August 10, 2015, 08:06:47 PM
Peeling, rather than "aggro," is the main thing people should be talking about, I think, especially since getting enemies to attack you isn't the only way to peel.  Melee fighters in D&D tend to be rather awful at peeling anything that isn't ALSO melee, and even then they're generally not great at it (heck, D&D squishies are often superior at peeling).  Certainly not on a par with the tanking designs you see in well designed PvP games.
To be fair, if you can battlefield control (aka "peel" from what I'm gathering) the majority of melee fighters, then in most D&D games you're going to be a very successful tank.  Most D&D monsters and opponents are melee-ish.  Even those with spell-like abilities tend to be more potent with melee, and there are other good shutdown spellcasting abilities available if you've got reach, etc.  The classic charopp melee battlefield control builds do a great job at locking down a huge chunk of D&D opponents. 

This has come up a few times in this thread, and I think it gives a false impression of what constitutes a tactically successful build.  My point does, however, presume that your DM isn't habitually going out of his or her way to utterly shut down your character.  But, I think this is a reasonable assumption for nearly anything. 
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on August 11, 2015, 10:24:37 PM
[lockdown] rather than "aggro," is the main thing people should be talking about, I think, especially since getting enemies to attack you isn't the only way to [save allies]
I'm not interested in the squishy caster abilities that get enemies off your carry (slow, daze, etc) if they already happen to be attacking him. I'm interested in actually living after being so obviously deep into enemy territory and heinously offensive that your supertank already has the whole focus of your opponents.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on April 25, 2017, 06:41:17 PM
I think back fondly to this thread and decided to post how I solve spiteful DMs who think enemies will let you pillage their territory when you look too tanky (as if that's ever been a normal thing in D&D). The secret was to be a commoner. No, I'm not joking.

What is a monster?
(click to show/hide)

Race
(click to show/hide)

(https://cdn0.gamesports.net/storage/9000/9585.jpg)

Be a Commoner with the most crippling single ability in the game: the Delicious flaw ("All monsters attack you if able, regardless of their attitude towards the party."). No it's not being dead. Ghosts rock. Also take the Weresheep flaw ("you suffer the effects of the Delicious flaw") [DragMag330p87]. You should already see why this is clutch, but here's the full discussion:

(click to show/hide)

How to separate RP from combat
(click to show/hide)

Further Templates:
(click to show/hide)

I still agree with my class guideline in the opening post, but I can give more detail if people don't "get it".
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: SorO_Lost on April 26, 2017, 01:06:45 AM
I think back fondly to this thread
...And I think to my self, why didn't he use Dungeons & Dragons Online for tank examples? And then I realized it's PBMC, he loves irreverent discussion on trivial things and pointless plugs. Like what is a "monster" or his homebrew ECLs.

There are quite a few spells that force creatures to target specific creatures, example the Bard charming a monster and telling him to attack the fighter he already wants to attack is acceptable, but the Goad Feat can force a Will Save to force creatures you attack you from level 1. And a four level dip into Knight can do the same thing but lasts several rounds. Also you can just stand in the middle of a hallway, not many creatures can Tumble past without provoking AoOs.

Or you know, 2nd party Flaws. The amount of damage is a pretty trivial deal, you can Augment some iron figures and use Spell Storing/Schemas to pass around Substitution for 1/2 damage, then there is Snowsong and Starmantle which can also halve damage. Wraithful Healing for tanks to heal on the fly, several ways to damage immunity and Paladins can easily access one of them, and so on. But wait! Those things are auto-labeled high powered broken. So I guess tanking is inherently broken and that's the real reason we don't use it.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: awaken_D_M_golem on April 26, 2017, 05:59:17 PM
I called this the "He Hate Me" strategy, a few years back.
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10792.msg180739#msg180739
Most of them are viable tack-ons to normal builds.

I think the best that can be done with it, is
a) ... potential multi-buffing before round 1
b) ... No surprise for round 1
c) ... all attacks target He Hate Me
d) ... rest of party doesn't attack until buff suite up
e) ... might do steps c + d an extra time.
f) ... then normal

I think the no surprise, and the possible buff time
makes it worthwhile, against focus fire on 1 guy.


Hiding the ~Target guy, until trigger time, seems like
a viable direction, like Invisible until trigger time is good.


Along the lines of the Goad feat and Knight 4,
4e Defender-y stuff can be back-doored in (iirc)
via some of the 4e -> 3e conversion material.
Certainly a lot useful in that pile, though the people
who know it best, are probably uncooperative.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on April 28, 2017, 11:15:21 PM
Soro I never played D&DO (and generally stay away from MMOs even before people hated 4e). You could post an analogous build, though, the way I did for DotA. The monster discussion is at the heart of the build (in a way that the race isn't) because without picking out what we mean by monster, a reader could say: "monsters aren't defined in game, doesn't work" or "doesn't protect you from orcs because they are humanoid which is clearly what the flaw means!" or whatever.

On topic, if your enemy fails a will save, they've already lost. Especially if they are susceptible to [Mind-Affecting] abilities. So its a moot point and you already mentioned the use limitations, but there are a ton more. Maybe you have some build I don't know about that lets a Knight 4 actually hold agro to things behind an easily destroyed mesh screen the Knight doesn't know about or have it work on typical dumb (less than 3-4 int) bruisers including mindless opponents like undead or vermin, or a ton of mooks, or ranged attackers 110 away/apart or effected enemies who get teleported away and come back for round two or ... you get the idea. Knight 4 is too limited to work and it requires more levels than a dip.

I called this the "He Hate Me" strategy, a few years back.
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10792.msg180739#msg180739
Aw crap Demelain, apparently had the clutch agro idea before me. But he didn't build a character that could survive large amounts of damage. Its a shame no one linked it earlier...  :( The "hate me" strategy is different to me. It's kind of like the "love me" strategy of diplomancy but repeatedly minimized instead of maximized.

I find will-save dependent effects to be not good enough since if you can reliably get an enemy to fail a willsave you can put him out of combat without even getting hurt. Tanks have to get hurt, so good agro abilities have to be better than the usual disables: no save.

From my perspective, if the PCs are actively on edge at the time, all combat should start with monsters more aware than the PCs and therefore with a surprise round. Sure, a PC can specifically build to counter this, but it helps transform a four man party into a three man party. That's why I assume PCs won't know when to buff unless they have a really good scout. Any buffs under several hours are going to get used up while the party goes deeper into the dungeon...

Reaction to linked thread:
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Detailed response to the "Hate Me" strategy since that was the far more useful reply:
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While you might have meant it to control the timing of fights, the Delicious weresheep build does that already by just uninvis'ing and, if necessary, changing form.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: linklord231 on April 29, 2017, 03:13:40 AM
It's been 2 years, and I still don't understand the point of this thread.  Are we supposed to be discussing specific "supertank" builds, as defined in the OP?  Cuz that hasn't been happening. 

Notably, the issues brought up before still haven't been addressed.  Namely, assuming that a character uses some kind of trick to become effectively immune to damage (non-bypassable regeneration + immunity to nonlethal, Delay Death + Beastland Ferocity, etc) and has immunity to all the important things that aren't hit point damage, what then?  If we assume that by investing character resources in becoming a supertank a character gives his party members a competitive edge when it comes to DPR, wouldn't a well-disciplined enemy focus fire on those higher-priority targets first, thus defeating the purpose of being a tank? 

The OP's answer seems to be "if the DM does that, he's role-playing the bad guys wrong!"  to which I counter with "So?  Some groups play combat as a tactical miniatures wargame, and that's going to be an issue." 

I propose that in addition to being nigh-unkillable, a supertank must also possess some mechanical way to take hits intended for his allies.  A "peel" ability, as described earlier.  Either he compels (natural language term, not [compulsion] effects) enemies to attack him, or he disincentivizes attacking other targets via some kind of Challenge mechanic, or has Shield Other, and so on. 

All that being said, there's a reason "You can't be a tank in D&D" is practically a meme.  It's very difficult to effectively build a character that fits the same niche as a video game tank.  You're better off distilling "tanking" down to it's essence, which is basically "get the enemy to waste it's actions", and building a character good at that.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Captnq on April 29, 2017, 09:08:45 AM
So, assuming that I made an erudite who got war weaver and maxed it out. Then, he used arcane fusion to cast celerity and celerity lesser 4 times, and then used linked to add in a few other minor buffs, like haste and what not, So basically by the second round of combat a group of 5 is each getting 4 extra move and 5 extra standard actions. (There's a psion power that lets you use personal range powers on others, and erudites treat spells as powers, so it's just a matter of time to stack everything in the eldritch tapestry to trigger later.)

If you are moving so fast that nobody gets to act for basically 5 full round actions, is that a tank? I mean, you are immune to damage in so much nobody can even act to attack you. You go basically 5 rounds before anyone else. (useful for melee characters, useless for spellcasters/psionists, because it's still "one round" and thus you can only cast/manifest so many spells.)

And second if you take 40 "dazed next round penalties" all at once, are you still dazed only one  round, or would I be well within my rights to daze said erudite for 4 minutes straight?
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: SorO_Lost on April 29, 2017, 10:31:10 AM
It's been 2 years, and I still don't understand the point of this thread.
I believe he wants the video game mechanics of exploiting a basic AI's ability to viably attack targets which causes them to ignore most of the users playing. Except discussing 4th edition, video games, or any method he can insult in D&D are excluded. Instead, he wants a DotAd20 product built on contradictions.

For example.
Put another way, it becomes "imagine your enemies will never fight you. Maybe, you're a supertank, or maybe they are dominated/throwing the game. Now imagine all the things you can get away with." By that point, you've almost won everything before you start. Its obvious, and your enemies do know that. So they won't ignore you.
You need to be so powerful your enemies will ragequit the moment you step on the battlefield, that'll surely make them stick around and fight you. And if they don't, it's totally bad DMing.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: KellKheraptis on April 29, 2017, 05:42:19 PM
Wouldn't a Tash-Psy-War King of Smack on CrackTM fulfill all of these parameters?  They think you're squishy, you can spam the things that draw attention, you're a damage sponge who regens it all with vampiric claws, and if they ignore you, you do enough damage to carve out continents.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: SorO_Lost on April 29, 2017, 06:29:25 PM
I have no idea what you're talking about, but if it involves a Monk/Warlock/Warmind using Beast Strike, Eldritch Claws, and Claws of the Vampire then oh sure absolutely you're barking up the tree of pretty much ignoring damage. All through there are other ways to augment the attack besides attacking two squares, like Blood Wind & Bloodstorm Blade.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: KellKheraptis on April 30, 2017, 01:40:15 PM
I have no idea what you're talking about, but if it involves a Monk/Warlock/Warmind using Beast Strike, Eldritch Claws, and Claws of the Vampire then oh sure absolutely you're barking up the tree of pretty much ignoring damage. All through there are other ways to augment the attack besides attacking two squares, like Blood Wind & Bloodstorm Blade.

That'd work too, but I was thinking Psychic Warrior and Tashlatora.  Same premise though.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on May 02, 2017, 01:44:37 AM
Hmm. Lifesteal is a good way to balance out incoming damage. A turn-based game does have some limitations that realtime strategy games don't, but either way the question is if you can lifesteal back all of the HP you lost as well as if you can tank a full rounds' worth of enemy damage. So, uh, how much can king of smack tank in the round and how much HP can it lifesteal?

assuming that a character uses some kind of trick to become effectively immune to damage (non-bypassable regeneration + immunity to nonlethal, Delay Death + Beastland Ferocity, etc) and has immunity to all the important things that aren't hit point damage
Not in OP. I'm not sure where you're pulling this from. The point is that it works butthe way to take large amounts of effective damage is to use % damage reducers
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wouldn't a well-disciplined enemy focus fire on those higher-priority targets first, thus defeating the purpose of being a tank. ... Some groups play combat as a tactical miniatures wargame, and that's going to be an issue
Well atleast this part was relevant. That's the reason for the delicious weresheep agro mechanic. You reading the bump, right? For the record, I'm fine with the tactical wargame version of D&D, but the vast majority of players aren't: "all the enemies from now on have the cold subtype. You might want to stop preparing shivering touch." Queue all the "help! my DM is focusing me!" threads.
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You're better off distilling "tanking" down to it's essence, which is basically "get the enemy to waste it's actions", and building a character good at that.
I disagree. That's the disabler's job, not the tanks. Sometimes you can't lock down the DPS. He attacks need to go somewhere. In this case, the disabler would melt, as would the DPS. Thus, tank has a role. Unless of course you can permanently lock down any kind and number of opponents, guaranteed -- but then you basically don't have any opposition (congratulations?).

There's a psion power that lets you use personal range powers on others
One not a 9th level (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/affinityField.htm) power?

Soro's off his meds again. Everyone can ignore him...
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: SorO_Lost on May 02, 2017, 03:11:51 AM
Stop trolling. You know very well that this isn't the case.
That's the thing PBMC, I don't. In fact, I'm pretty sure English is a second language to you so I generally avoid picking too much into your statements. Like claiming no one listens to me and then quoting your self as proof or when at least two people post in your thread saying they don't have any idea of what you mean or want your explanation is an ad hominem attack. Which honestly PBMC, I don't think you will be able understand what this sentence is trying to tell you either.

In any case, moving on. There is no such thing as an analogous build for tanking in DDO because anything capable of surviving and holding the top spot in damage works, like being the only lv30 in a lv22 quest. For a DotA example, towers will target enemy heroes attacking friendly heroes over the same enemy attacking the tower. Thus any cheap disposable unit in DotA can serve as a tank by drawing enemy fire away from priority assets.

The core element of tanking in a video game is the aggro mechanics where you, or at least someone smarter than you, exploits the simple video game mechanics used for rudimentary decision making. In order to port these things over to D&D the DM has to in turn treat his creatures as being retarded and easily exploited by such things as chest-high walls. And while it is highly insulting to the creature's lore, to the DM running the game since he can be replaced by a slip of paper, and pragmatically a dumb waste of time since if you wanted limited AIs running on automated scripts you should just play an actual video game instead or eg "wrong media". The DM has the full ability to make this happen without any houserules or examples of external games.

Which brings us to the second point. As my examples of Knight & Goad bring up it is actually possible to force a creature to attack another without any in-game roleplaying or assuming how the DM will run things. It's also possible to prevent them from attacking certain targets by using such things as Fly or Greater Invisibility. And people have even gone as far as bring up the ability to directly limit a creature's possible options, such as trip or anything else that fits into the "disabler" role. However, just like before these things are just not good enough for you and you rejected them, and then insulted them too.

Which brings us into the full loop. Disabling your opponent's options on what they can attack isn't tanking but disabling. But using the Delicious flaw to disable your opponent's options on what they can attack is. We're right back around to not knowing what you're talking about or wanting. All I know is, you think it's our fault that we don't know.

These meds you spoke of, you should consider taking them.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: awaken_D_M_golem on May 07, 2017, 02:35:59 PM
Re-reaction to PLZ ... yeah timing, specifically for buffing, seemed the best usage to me. 
Enthrall is probably useful early game, but agree [MA] isn't good mid+later.
Ronin only requires either DC 10 check.  Completely do-able by a bog standard town leader.  But sure it's bbeg only.

I'm surprised you didn't have a mark-of-sin reaction to Mark Of Sin (wink).
Is the wording of it, enough to bypass a Spellcraft check?
If not, it should be relegated to the Enthrall Ronin Intimidate pile,
because Trained in that is quite rare.  Diplo -10 is still useful.


Commoner turns into a WereSheep for a feat, is rather t.o.-ish I would say.
I like it.  Might even beat a few housecats.
Refluff on a 1 size up WereRat perhaps?
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on May 14, 2017, 11:36:51 PM
Timing, specifically for buffing, seemed the best usage to me.
I dislike the 10min/level buff usage. As a player I often play too stingy. It does pay off though in a stereotypical "hard mode DM" where the layers never know when there's going to be an attack on (or in) the town, etc.
Ronin only requires either DC 10 check
Its only as good as you are infamous.  :(
I'm surprised you didn't have a mark-of-sin reaction to Mark Of Sin (wink).
Is the wording of it, enough to bypass a Spellcraft check?
If not, it should be relegated to the Enthrall Ronin Intimidate pile,
because Trained in that is quite rare.  Diplo -10 is still useful.
I know about the Cain reference. What spellcraft check are you talking about?
Commoner turns into a WereSheep for a feat, is rather t.o.-ish I would say.
I like it.  Might even beat a few housecats.
Refluff on a 1 size up WereRat perhaps?
It's overkill, yes. It's basically a RAI response to a RAI ruling that humanoids aren't "monsters" because the RAW is fuzzy on that. It's metagame at that point to answer the question "Why isn't there a human entry in the monster manual?" For instance, Ur-Priest's Monster Handbook hints that he would say that even humans are "monsters," whilst I would say most DMs I've played with might disagree. The only solution was to find a way to make even humans find you delicious. And rats aren't!  :P

Bored now
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Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: linklord231 on May 15, 2017, 12:43:35 AM
assuming that a character uses some kind of trick to become effectively immune to damage (non-bypassable regeneration + immunity to nonlethal, Delay Death + Beastland Ferocity, etc) and has immunity to all the important things that aren't hit point damage
Not in OP. I'm not sure where you're pulling this from. The point is that it works but the way to take large amounts of effective damage is to use % damage reducers
From here, mainly.
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The problem with tanking isn't that enemies won't fight you, its that you'll die when you do (you're a bad tank). So what's a good tank? One that survives an entire team wailing on them. Sure you'll not be able to fight back, so you better have some allies doing the DPS, but you won't die; you'll keep tanking for a long time. You'll do your job.
A character who can survive the whole enemy team wailing on him for several rounds is "effectively immune" to HP damage.  I thought the whole strategy was to create a character who doesn't care how much damage he's taking, because he'll survive it?  Regardless, my point was that it doesn't matter what methods you use to become a Supertank, because I was calling the validity of the entire strategy in to question. 

Quote
wouldn't a well-disciplined enemy focus fire on those higher-priority targets first, thus defeating the purpose of being a tank. ... Some groups play combat as a tactical miniatures wargame, and that's going to be an issue
Well at least this part was relevant. That's the reason for the delicious weresheep agro mechanic. You reading the bump, right? For the record, I'm fine with the tactical wargame version of D&D, but the vast majority of players aren't: "all the enemies from now on have the cold subtype. You might want to stop preparing shivering touch." Queue all the "help! my DM is focusing me!" threads.
I skimmed the bump, and dismissed it when I realized that it revolved around a combination of your personal homebrew and a literal joke in a 2nd party product.  But, it was a good faith effort to address my concerns with the strategy, which I applaud. 

Quote
You're better off distilling "tanking" down to it's essence, which is basically "get the enemy to waste it's actions", and building a character good at that.
I disagree. That's the disabler's job, not the tanks. Sometimes you can't lock down the DPS. He attacks need to go somewhere. In this case, the disabler would melt, as would the DPS. Thus, tank has a role. Unless of course you can permanently lock down any kind and number of opponents, guaranteed -- but then you basically don't have any opposition (congratulations?).

Which brings us back around to the topic of the thread, I guess, where the next logical step is to talk about specific builds or tricks to become a Supertank and compare them to the status quo methods for "tanking" (which is to say, what you would call avoidance tanking or disabling). 
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: Endarire on May 15, 2017, 05:13:19 AM
Hood (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7200.0) was a pretty good tank.  She kept the party safe by one-shotting or one-rounding anything seemingly hostile that came within reach.  No party deaths except when people did foolish things like go off on their own or purposely PvP.
Title: Re: Tanking Analysis in D&D (or why we've been giving up on that party role)
Post by: PlzBreakMyCampaign on July 18, 2017, 07:01:48 PM
Yes the hood would be an example of a standard D&D tank: "be careful and you probably won't die". A MegaTank is instead "I can take all the hits so the enemies don't have any damage left to give to the team."

A character who can survive the whole enemy team wailing on him for several rounds is "effectively immune" to HP damage.  I thought the whole strategy was to create a character who doesn't care how much damage he's taking, because he'll survive it?
I'll grant this. For instance in DotA Dazzle's Shallow Grave spell gives a six seconds buff where an ally can't die to from any amount of damage. The problem with bringing that into D&D, is that there are ways to make spells effectively never-ending. That's why these things are broken and I didn't bother discussing old hat (See sig). In DotA, there is a mode that allows this: "-WTF" mode. WTF mode is basically a joke, kind of like RAW D&D. No one plays it competitively. Instead everyone plays the fixed balanced version (cough sounds familiar).

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I guess, where the next logical step is to talk about specific builds or tricks to become a Supertank and compare them to the status quo methods for "tanking" (which is to say, what you would call avoidance tanking or disabling).
I'm up for reviewing them, but I don't feel like making any. Just like I don't bother making regular DotA tanks anymore now that I'm used to making MegaTanks in LoD DotA.