@ Bk[spoiler]
Moral of this story is that tanking in 3.5 is not possible. Either you can't do it in any meaningful way, so you fail; or you can, but if you can you have the ability at your command to solo every encounter and would thus be better off trying to do just about anything other than tanking.
Ah. No. There's just too many abilities to account for. It's quite possible to be effective, without killing EVERYONE and preventing EVERYTHING.
That's not what Midnight_v, Nachofan99, or Weenog seem to believe. I recall saying that it's okay for characters to fail sometimes and being shouted down like an idiot. I would be led to believe that if you can't kill everything all the time you're a bad tank.
[/spoiler]Come on Bkdubs123 "shouted down like an idiot" = needless hyperbole, and frankly as one of the people on this board who I think I share a mutual respect with, I'd like to think we should be above it.
I heard what you were saying and you never got back to me.
A middle ground? Is there? Is there really?
Okay there might be a middle ground but THIS game doesn't support that.
That middle ground is illustrated in my mind by World of Warcraft I played it for a year or so till cataclysm came out, and no one can do important dungeons by themselves.
I'm not sure that I want to play that as a TTRPG.
That middle ground is a in my head very hard to broach right now in the 3.5 ruleset because of the way mosters interact and moreso because there are already characters via spell mostly that totally Do win encounters by themselves All(or at least a vast majority( of the time).
The concept of th tank just doesn't matter unless someone needs protecting.
Thats my initial thought on the matter, but lets entertain the idea shall we? Yes.
Tanking, 2 things
1. Aggro
2. Not dying.
So how do we get aggro in D&D. Taunts: Something lke the GOAD feat, (essentially a taunt, move action etc. will save or attack me.)
You can do that, its not horrible, however, people tend to be adverse to it.
It doesn't have to be a move action either, it can be a free action triggered by initiative or whatever but if this is the way you want to go with getting monster to attack you, I'd like to see it defined in a way that doesn't suck and mechnically it might need to be something that even dragons care about, so it requireing a saving throw might not be the best idea have fun figuring out what mechanic to use for that.
Be a threat:There are a couple ways of doing this, but you have to DO something to be a threat.
Why? The default position of any reasonably intelligent creatures in D&D is kill the caster first if at all possible.
Theortically, a caster is easier to kill, they're dressed in cloth (not clerics) and they aren't giant bags of hp.
Realistically we know that isn't true but in someways its supposed to be.
So you if you want to convince someone to NOT target your mages first have to be able to convice the opponent that you are as a credible threat as the guy over there chanting...
"...blackness without begining or end! One-eyed God imprisoned there.." BE StiCKY!This is the way tanking is usually done in D&D. You get all up in the opponents face and vigrously apply Attack of Oppurtunity based beating. Cutting off any action that provokes an AoO and then sometimes getting an AoO if they DO NOTHING. There are weaknesses to this approach too. Supernatural abilities normally Don't provoke (feat for that);
quickend spells dont' provoke (and there isn't a feat that stops that).
This method does have some traction and works somewhat in D&D, though... you don't stop line of sight to the party though, but realistically as I stated at the begining.
Sticky is the art of attemping to turn yourself into a living battlefield control spellWhich in someways begs the question... why not have someone that casts BFC spells instead? They tend to call that guy "God", and Midnight_v doens't have a good answer for that at this moment, though maybe its the idea that someday once a campaign or so someone will hit you with antimagic field oblivion!(tm) though this might screw the tank as well depending on how much he's utilizing magic to stay strong.
Just my humle opinions. I'll dig up some working example of each.
I don't know of a build that uses Goad.
The frank and K Knight does the "I'm a threat" thing as a punisher mechanic.
Many Many sticky knights are floating around. Maybe a lil lock build is the best one, I prefer the black octopus... but that has a "main gun".
So thats how I see it. For aggro. I'll think up the "Office of not dying" in a sec. . .
