The Path of the Ancestral Guardians Barbarian subclass has an excellent tank taunt that I previously forgot.
Other videos mentioned in this video
The Best Tank in Dungeons & Dragons (is an artificer)
Other Resources
If you would like to subscribe to my free newsletter then please go here.
If you want the posts from this blog delivered to your inbox:
I also have a Discord server that you can join here.
Transcript:
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:11
Bennett Tomlin
Dungeons and Dragons 5e has a tank problem. Specifically, many of the classes that you would generally think of as tank classes lack a good taunt. Let me explain. The tank role is conceptually the member of the party who is meant to attract attacks from enemies and hopefully be able to stand up to quite a few of those attacks.
00:00:23:13 - 00:00:57:21
Bennett Tomlin
There are definitely certain classes which are good at half of the tank role, which is taking a lot of hits or a lot of damage. The barbarians rage reduces half of incoming bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. The path of the Bear Totem gets half of all incoming damage except psychic. That is certainly very helpful when taking a lot of damage, especially 00:00:00:04 - 00:00:06:15
Bennett Tomlin
In my recent video about tanks, I said that the only tank taunt that barbarians get is reckless attack.
00:00:06:15 - 00:00:30:03
Bennett Tomlin
Barbarians even get a weak taunt in reckless attack, which gives the barbarian advantage on attack, but also gives enemies advantage on attacks against the barbarian, which should at least somewhat entice your DM to attack you. However, as far as I know, that's the extent of taunts in the base barbarian class and I really wish there was a better one.
00:00:30:03 - 00:00:31:10
Bennett Tomlin
This was wrong.
00:00:31:10 - 00:00:47:16
Bennett Tomlin
Thank you for pointing this out to me. Several commenters on my last video. I completely forgot about the path of the ancestral guardian barbarian. This barbarian gets an excellent taunt that we should absolutely talk about at third level.
00:00:47:18 - 00:01:10:13
Bennett Tomlin
You get the Ancestral Protectors feature. The feature states that spectral warriors appear when you rage and the first enemy you hit, and a turn becomes the target of those spectral warriors, making it so they have decent vantage and attacks against people who are not you. And if they do hit people who are not you, that person has resistance to the damage.
00:01:10:13 - 00:01:36:05
Bennett Tomlin
So effectively takes half damage. This is awesome and has some similarities with the Thunder gantlets we talked about before. The biggest difference is I see that it only works on one opponent instead of everyone you hit. But unlike the Thunder Gantlet, this reduces the damage to someone in your team. If they hit someone who's not, you. This is a really cool barbarian feature.
00:01:36:07 - 00:02:04:22
Bennett Tomlin
More barbarian subclasses should get taunts. I stand by my assessment that the Thunder Gantlets are better because you can use them on more enemies, but this is cool. At level six, the warriors become even more useful when someone near you within 30ft gets hit. You can use your reaction to reduce that damage by two d6, increasing to three d6 at level ten and 4d6 at level 14.
00:02:05:00 - 00:02:27:18
Bennett Tomlin
Also at level 14, when we reduce damage, we also return that amount of force damage to the person doing the damaging. Nice way to just build all those features together. So now we have at least one enemy. We are basically forcing to attack us and hopefully reducing at least some other damage to our party. Plus, you're a barbarian.
00:02:27:20 - 00:02:35:08
Bennett Tomlin
You have tons of hit points. You have rage to reduce incoming damage and you can put out some really good martial damage.
00:02:35:08 - 00:02:52:08
Bennett Tomlin
Build wise, I don't think we need a full build for this right now. Barbarian backbone with probably at least two levels in fighter for action surge. Bugbear is still probably the best race, but many other ones are going to work really well with this variant human, custom origin.
00:02:52:10 - 00:03:07:07
Bennett Tomlin
any of the orcs races with relentless endurance? Any of those will work great, but for now, I just wanted to talk about how cool this feature was, and that this might be my new favorite barbarian subclass.
when combined with the tendency for barbarians to have a high constitution, and their massive d12 hit die means they can take a licking and keep on ticking.
00:00:57:23 - 00:01:22:01
Bennett Tomlin
Barbarians even get a weak taunt in reckless attack, which gives the barbarian advantage on attack, but also gives enemies advantage on attacks against the barbarian, which should at least somewhat entice your DM to attack you. However, as far as I know, that's the extent of taunts in the base barbarian class and I really wish there was a better one.
00:01:22:03 - 00:01:47:03
Bennett Tomlin
The fighter class. You can have a high AC, you can have heavy armor proficiency, shield proficiency, high proficiency score, plenty of ability score increases. If you want to pick up the tough feat or something like that, which means fighters can take a lot of damage. So that's part of being a tank. Plus, fighters can take the interception class feature, which lets you step in to reduced damage that someone else takes in.
00:01:47:03 - 00:02:13:18
Bennett Tomlin
The battle master subclass even has a maneuver which is the second best taunt in the game. The goading Attack, which allows you, when you hit to add a bit of extra damage with your superiority, die and force the enemy to make a wisdom saving throw. If they fail, they have disadvantage on attacking anyone who is not you. This can be combined with things like bait and switch with help you benefit your own AC or one of your allies.
00:02:13:18 - 00:02:32:14
Bennett Tomlin
ACs to make it harder to hit them. To be clear, can't be combined on the same attack, can be combined in like a series of attacks, and you get a lot of attacks as a fighter. However, both of those are burning your superiority die, and you only have four of those to start with. Eventually you get up to six, but that's still not a ton.
00:02:32:16 - 00:02:53:06
Bennett Tomlin
You get them back on a short rest, so you can be somewhat aggressive in burning them, but it's not ideal. Rune Knight. Another fighter subclass can use their cloud rune to redirect attacks, which helps with them making enemy attacks ineffective. Part of being a tank. But it's so much worse than the alternative. Last class I kind of want to talk about your paladins.
00:02:53:08 - 00:03:13:11
Bennett Tomlin
You have a high AC, you have a d10 hit tie, both of which help you take a lot of attacks. They also get access to the compel Duel spell, which takes a bonus action in a first level smite slot. Forces another creature to make a wisdom saving do. If they fail, then it has disadvantage on attacks against people who are not you.
00:03:13:13 - 00:03:34:11
Bennett Tomlin
And if it tries to move more than 30ft away from you, it needs to make a wisdom save. It will not be able to do it. However, this spell is not great if one of your allies casts anything at it or attacks it, the spell ends so only you can be attacking this enemy. It takes your concentration and no one can even help you by debuffs.
00:03:34:13 - 00:03:52:17
Bennett Tomlin
Plus, it's a wisdom saving throw. So unless you have a really high charisma, that's going to be hard for you as a paladin. This makes the spell pretty frustrating in play, unless you're using it for some narrative reason when you shout out to your party. This is the prince who killed my brother. He is for me and me alone to kill.
00:03:52:21 - 00:04:07:20
Bennett Tomlin
The rest of you deal with the guard as you send them away in caste compelled duel on this prince you've been obsessed with for the rest of the campaign. Generally a kind of situational spell and not a super great tank taunt.
00:04:07:20 - 00:04:29:22
Bennett Tomlin
I should mention the oath of Conquest has a feature where they can frighten people and then use their aura of conquest to stop them from moving, which means you can potentially stop people from moving to attack your party members. But again, it's a saving throw. They get to repeat at the end of every term, oath of redemption gets the aura of the Guardian, which lets you take damage instead of other people in your party, but you're still taking the damage, you know?
00:04:30:00 - 00:04:36:05
Bennett Tomlin
So now that I've talked about all these problems with the other tank classes, what am I going to recommend?
00:04:41:17 - 00:05:19:16
Bennett Tomlin
The best tank subclass in Dungeons and Dragons is the Armorer Artificer subclass, first introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. The artificer subclass is a half caster, though with a slightly different rounding rule than other half casters. Plus they get cantrip. They're often inventors, tinkerers, alchemists, or artisans channeling their magic through their creation. They only have a d8 head die, which hurts when you're building a tank, but this will be counterbalanced by other features we discuss the armorer subclass in specific focuses on magically enhanced armor.
00:05:19:18 - 00:05:32:22
Bennett Tomlin
We will discuss how this class plays and the features that really come through when you build it. But for now, we are primarily interested in one class feature armor model, specifically the Guardian form of the armor.
00:05:32:22 - 00:05:39:12
Bennett Tomlin
The Guardian Armor has two specific sub features that we depend on the Thunder Gantlets.
00:05:39:14 - 00:06:01:17
Bennett Tomlin
This feature is the best tank taunt in the game. Your Gantlets count as a simple melee weapon, as long as you are not holding anything, and you have no reason to be holding anything because you can use your armor as your main focus, though a shield in your other hand, and you can both cast and do melee attacks without paying the war caster techs.
00:06:01:19 - 00:06:29:10
Bennett Tomlin
You can also use your intelligence modifier for this, same as our spell casting, which means we do not need a high strength, especially since one of our features is that we bypass strength requirements for armor. When we hit it does one D8 thunder damage plus our intelligence or strength modifier depending on whatever we're using to hit. And the great thing about thunder damage is it's less commonly resisted than bludgeoning damage.
00:06:29:12 - 00:06:50:08
Bennett Tomlin
Then we get to the really powerful part of this feature, and I'm going to read directly from Tasha's Cauldron of everything for this. A creature hit by the Gantlets has disadvantage on attack rules against targets other than you until the start of your next turn, as the armor magically emits a distracting pulse when the creature attacks someone else.
00:06:50:09 - 00:07:19:18
Bennett Tomlin
This means every single time we attack someone, we do an excellent job of convincing them to attack us instead of someone else. Unlike the Battle Master's goading attack, there is no saving throw. There is also no resource burn. This applies every single time we hit with our thunder Gantlet no saving throw, no resource burn and armorer artificers still get extra attack at level five.
00:07:19:20 - 00:07:36:16
Bennett Tomlin
Like other half caster martials, even though our spell slots and cantrip are better than other half casters. Plus, between heavy armor, a shield and infusions that can boost our defense even higher. Many of the attacks we are beating won't even hit us.
00:07:36:16 - 00:07:42:15
Bennett Tomlin
The second feature, the Guardian Armor, gets at level three that helps this character remain an effective tank.
00:07:42:17 - 00:08:06:07
Bennett Tomlin
Is the defensive field feature reading directly from the book again: As a bonus action, you can gain temporary hit points equal to your level in this class, replacing any temporary hit points you already have. You lose these temporary hit points if you doff the armor. You can use this bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
00:08:06:07 - 00:08:14:14
Bennett Tomlin
This means that we have access to a significant pool of extra hit points that we can use. A really nice boost to our survivability.
00:08:14:14 - 00:08:42:14
Bennett Tomlin
I recently played from level 15 to level 20. An armorer Artificer or multiclass, and it was so much fun to make my DM just come at me over and over. Leaving the more effective people to remain effective. Before we get into a build that uses this taunt effectively. I first want to talk about some of the reasons I think there are not better tank tanks, and some of the things you should consider as a player before taking on this role.
00:08:48:00 - 00:09:00:18
Bennett Tomlin
Before we get into the build, I want to talk a little bit about the problems with playing a tank. The first is that party roles in the very gamer sense I have been talking about them, have fallen out of favor at many tables.
00:09:00:18 - 00:09:29:03
Bennett Tomlin
I think. Blame it on Critical Role or Dimension 20 if you want two shows I love and that have massively influenced my DM and playstyle, but I think many D&D tables nowadays emphasize role play and big cinematic set piece combat sessions, and many of the newer expansion books for 5e have emphasized versatile subclasses and backgrounds. Think about the party rogue role that emphasizes sneaking, lockpicking, and disabling traps.
00:09:29:05 - 00:09:47:15
Bennett Tomlin
This class is still really good at filling this role, but if you're in a campaign that doesn't have a rogue, you can generally get by. Have an artificer in your party. They get proficiency in thieves’ tools at level one, expertise in tools at level six, and will be great at picking locks if you give them a little bit of dexterity.
00:09:47:17 - 00:10:08:23
Bennett Tomlin
And there's a subclass, the armorer with the infiltrator armor instead of the Guardian armor we're focusing on today, that gives you advantage on stealth. Don't want to play a rogue or an artificer, or if you play any other class, but take the criminal or spy background, then you will also get proficiency in thieves tools. Add someone with pass without a trace to the party and you all will still be quite sneaky.
00:10:09:01 - 00:10:28:12
Bennett Tomlin
Have a different background idea in mind? Or consider the investigator background. One of the house agent backgrounds, the myriad operative background, or one of several others that give you thieves tools, proficiency when a completely different background. As long as you're playing a half elf, half orc, or human, you can take the prodigy feat and gain proficiency in thieves tools.
00:10:28:17 - 00:10:51:10
Bennett Tomlin
And if you built your character cleverly, you can probably also pick up expertise in stealth. If your DM allows that. You could even play an auto gnome. They get proficiency in any two tools. Warforged. Get a tool proficiency as well. My point is not that this is a bad thing, but just part of the five design philosophy seems to be enabling many paths to a functional party.
00:10:51:12 - 00:11:11:06
Bennett Tomlin
There's another dynamic that makes tanks somewhat less effective in five. Combat often does not seem to last very long, as Colby over at D4 will tell you burst damage is the king, Queen, and the gods above in 5e. Being able to do a ton of damage early in the combat is the biggest and most helpful thing you can do.
00:11:11:08 - 00:11:49:07
Bennett Tomlin
Shifting the action economy even slightly fundamentally changes battles. There's ways around this your DM might rely on for making sure the action economy is steeply against you. At the beginning, running more enemies with legendary actions and a lot of hit points, or running lots of like high hit point mobs or swarms. But fundamentally in 5e action economy is king in burst damage has the biggest effect on combat and most combats do not last very long, at least not to reach a point where you can tell who is likely to win without new enemies hitting the field the longest combat in my recent campaign, where I was a player that went up to level 20,
00:11:49:09 - 00:12:09:06
Bennett Tomlin
the longest combats we had ran like ten rounds at most, and that was often split over like a couple of phases, with the boss transforming or moving, or as being teleported as part of the battle to some other plane or field or something. And I think most combats generally run shorter than that, and especially at my tables when I'm DMing.
00:12:09:08 - 00:12:26:20
Bennett Tomlin
This fact makes a character who is intended to absorb hits for many rounds somewhat less valuable in the overall design, something that they can not have value. But it seems to me to be a somewhat less valuable role than, say, control, or someone with great weapon, master or sharpshooter.
00:12:26:20 - 00:12:36:14
Bennett Tomlin
talk to your DM. Think about your table. But at my table, I did have a ton of fun playing a tank build that was reminiscent of what I'm about to show you.
00:12:36:16 - 00:12:39:08
Bennett Tomlin
With that out of the way. Without further ado.
00:12:44:18 - 00:13:12:20
Bennett Tomlin
We're going to start with the bugbear race because it is incredibly powerful. It is so powerful that you should absolutely discuss with your DM about whether or not it will fit with the setting, in the style of play at the table. This is always good advice, but especially if you're doing anything resembling power gaming, min maxing, or game breaking, a good DM will work with you as you work with them to make sure you feel satisfied in play, and so does everyone else at the table.
00:13:12:20 - 00:13:31:09
Bennett Tomlin
Recently I've been talking with my DM for the campaign where I'm a player about how to appropriately nerf the College of Eloquence class to make it appropriate. It's just part of the process at a good table. However, if your DM allows you to play a bugbear, let's talk about its features from least to most important.
00:13:31:11 - 00:13:58:11
Bennett Tomlin
You’re humanoid, which counts as a goblinoid. You’re a medium creature. Walking speed of 30ft. Darkvision. Fey Ancestry. So advantage and saving throws to avoid being charmed. You count as one size larger when determining how much you can carry your move. You are proficient in stealth. You can easily move through spaces intended for small creatures. All good stuff, but the important to are long-limbed reading from the book again.
00:13:58:13 - 00:14:19:01
Bennett Tomlin
When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is five feet greater than normal and then surprise attack. Reading from the book, if you hit a creature with an attack roll, the creature takes an extra 2d6 damage. If it hasn't taken a turn yet. In the current combat. Let's start with long limbed rules as written.
00:14:19:01 - 00:14:35:21
Bennett Tomlin
It says that your thunder gantlets are going to work from ten feet away instead of five feet, which will be useful for avoiding some opportunity attacks, especially early on in this build. Can also force enemies to move to get you, which will be useful if you have someone casting something that hurts the enemy, like spike growth.
00:14:35:21 - 00:15:00:22
Bennett Tomlin
Now again, your DM might say you can't punch someone from ten feet away. That's ridiculous. And if your DM says this, I think they're being eminently reasonable. But rules are rules for this hypothetical build here. The second really useful feature lets us increase our damage, on every single individual we can attack before they've had a turn, they take two d6 extra damage, which is wonderful.
00:15:01:00 - 00:15:24:09
Bennett Tomlin
Now again, talk to your DM. But despite the word surprise being in the feature name, it does not require your enemy to be surprised just for you to be going before them in the first round of combat Ability scores, we're going to go with point B 13 and strength nine and dexterity 14 in con, and we're going to give that our plus two for a total of 1615 and intelligence.
00:15:24:09 - 00:15:43:01
Bennett Tomlin
And we're going to give that our plus one for a total of 16. Eight in wisdom and 13 in charisma. A bit multi ability score dependent on this build because of eventual multiclass is that I want to take. So I don't love all those odd numbers. And I especially don't love how easy it will be for us to fail.
00:15:43:02 - 00:15:53:20
Bennett Tomlin
Wisdom saving throws. But it is what it is for background: Choose whatever you like. It does not particularly matter. I took sailor. With that established, let's get into the build.
00:15:53:20 - 00:16:10:23
Bennett Tomlin
Level one. We're starting fighter. This is not necessary. And if you want to start Artificer because it fits your build your backstory better, then go for it. I went Constitution saving to proficiency and will eventually be taking fighter levels, so figured we might as well get into it at level one is a fighter.
00:16:10:23 - 00:16:40:05
Bennett Tomlin
You get proficiency in all armors and shields, simple and martial weapons and two skills from a pretty good list. Pick whatever you like for those proficiencies. I went with acrobatics and insight. You get a fighting style and I would take defense, which gives you a plus one to AC. When you're wearing armor, you also gain the second wind feature, which lets you use a bonus action once per rest wrist to regain 1d10 plus your fighter level hit points, which helps your survivability a little more.
00:16:40:05 - 00:16:51:05
Bennett Tomlin
At level one, I have 13 hit points and an AC of 19 with chainmail and a shield. Right now you will play like a somewhat ineffective sword and board fighter, running up and slashing at the enemies.
00:16:51:05 - 00:17:05:04
Bennett Tomlin
Level two we're taking our first artificer level. We gain proficiency in thieves tools and tinkers tools, which is nice to have. We gain the magical tinkering feature which lets us create some fun little effects, mostly useful out of combat, and we start gaining our spells.
00:17:05:06 - 00:17:23:18
Bennett Tomlin
For cantrip. I will take Booming Blade, which lets us add some damage to our attack if the enemy is foolish enough to move and as we discussed, our extra reach will help motivate them to move. I would also take shock and grasp because I want to be able to use my intelligence modifier to attack already and this takes away enemies opportunity attacks as well.
00:17:23:18 - 00:17:49:20
Bennett Tomlin
For spells, I would take. Absorb elements. It lets you get with a reaction on demand resistance to an elemental damage. And then add that pack on your next attack. Long Strider will be useful to increase our movement speed when we need it. Especially if we know combat is coming and we can get it off without using one of our combat expeditious retreat lets us dash is a bonus action, which again helps us get to where the baddies are.
00:17:49:22 - 00:18:02:16
Bennett Tomlin
In combat, you try to run up and use your shocking grasp or booming blade to do some damage, ideally from ten feet away, hopefully avoiding opportunity attacks. We use our spell slots for absorb elements or expeditious retreat if we need it.
00:18:02:16 - 00:18:29:19
Bennett Tomlin
Level three we take another artificer level. We gain a core artificer feature which lets us infuse items with a bit of magic at this level. For known infusions, I would take enhanced defense, which will give us a plus one to our AC enhanced Arcane focus, which would give us a plus one bonus to spell attack rolls, enhanced weapon which would make our weapon magical and give it a plus one, and mind Sharpener, which lets us use four charges in reaction to maintain concentration.
00:18:29:21 - 00:18:34:16
Bennett Tomlin
The two I have active for now are Enhanced Defense and Enhanced Arcane Focus.
00:18:34:16 - 00:18:50:11
Bennett Tomlin
We now have a 20 AC and mostly in combat. We run up and use Shocking Grasp to do damage. In terms of spells, I would add Faerie fire. If we have a set up round, it can be really useful to have it for giving other people and yourself advantage on attack.
00:18:50:13 - 00:18:55:00
Bennett Tomlin
We mostly user spell slots for absorb elements and expeditious retreat when they're needed.
00:18:55:00 - 00:19:14:04
Bennett Tomlin
Level four we take another artificer level. We gain the right tool for the job feature, which lets us make any artisan tools we need. And we finally get our subclass and we are taking armor. We gain proficiency in Smith's tools, letting us we're kind of armor and we get the Arcane Armor feature, which is important for us.
00:19:14:06 - 00:19:38:19
Bennett Tomlin
You spend an hour with any armor and we get to make it special and give it the following properties. Strength requirements for armor no longer applied to us, so we are switching to plate armor, which makes our AC 22. We can use our armor as our spellcasting focus. Our armor cannot be removed against our will and covers your entire body and can serve as a prosthesis.
00:19:38:21 - 00:20:00:23
Bennett Tomlin
You can take the armor on or off with an action. We can also finally pick our armor type and change it with an hour of time. The infiltrator form gives you advantage on stealth checks, a good ranged attack option, and a little more movement speed. But what we care about is the Guardian form. This gives us those delicious thunder gantlets and that wonderful defensive field.
00:20:01:01 - 00:20:16:14
Bennett Tomlin
We also gain the Magic missile and Thunder wave spells thanks to this subclass. At this point I would trade out shocking grasp for guidance because guidance is incredible and we now have a way to attack with our intelligence using our Thunder gantlets
00:20:16:14 - 00:20:30:10
Bennett Tomlin
In combat, we now run up, hit them with the Thunder gantlets either from ten feet away. If you want to avoid opportunity attacks or from five feet away if you want to add booming blade damage. And then we use our spell slots for absorb elements and expeditious retreat when they're needed.
00:20:30:10 - 00:20:37:06
Bennett Tomlin
Level five. We take another artificer level. We gain our first ability score, increase our feet, and we are taking the mobile feet.
00:20:37:06 - 00:20:56:16
Bennett Tomlin
The mobile feet increases our movement speed by ten feet. Plus, if we take the dash action on our turn, which includes long strider, we bypass difficult terrain and most importantly says that when we make a melee attack against a creature, whether we miss or hit, we do not provoke opportunity attacks from that creature.
00:20:56:18 - 00:21:14:16
Bennett Tomlin
This will let us run in, punch, and retreat, forcing them to move. Now in combat, you want to be running up using booming blade in your thunder gantlets and running away. They will take the extra booming blade damage on a hit and if they want to hit you back, we'll need to move, taking the rest of the booming blade damage.
00:21:14:18 - 00:21:36:05
Bennett Tomlin
Plus, remember in the first round, if you hit them before their turn, you get to add your two d6 extra surprise damage. In terms of spells, I would add sanctuary as a bonus action spell that you can cast on yourself. That means that any creature that tries to attack the sanctuary creature first needs to make a wisdom saving throw, or directed at someone else.
00:21:36:07 - 00:21:52:00
Bennett Tomlin
This means we can potentially hit someone, run away, give them disadvantage on attacking anyone who is not us, and if they do try to attack us, they need to make a wisdom saving throw if they want to. First you can like totally taken enemy out for a round of combat
00:21:52:00 - 00:21:57:06
Bennett Tomlin
level six. We take another artificer level and we finally get extra tech.
00:21:57:08 - 00:22:21:16
Bennett Tomlin
We up to 53 hit points to by the way, plus our little stash of four temporary hit points we get from our defensive field. We finally have second level spell slots, and we always have mirror image and Shatter prepared. If you decided against taking the mobile feat, you'll probably want to take Kinetic Jaunt, which gives you most of the same features, but with having to burn a spell, I want to avoid the resource drain.
00:22:21:16 - 00:22:41:13
Bennett Tomlin
And so I went with the mobile feat here. I would also consider adding vortex warp to your spells for extra mobility on the battlefield. At this point, you should trade out booming Blade for something else, because we will almost always want to use both of our attacks instead of just one, and so we cannot use Booming Blade as our action anymore.
00:22:41:15 - 00:23:01:01
Bennett Tomlin
You might want to take Firebolt or Rare for us to have a good range option in combat. You will run up and try to attack someone. If you hit, you will run to someone else and attack them as well. Then you will retreat from both of those people, with both of them now having disadvantage if they attack anyone who is not you.
00:23:01:01 - 00:23:06:10
Bennett Tomlin
Level seven. We are back to fighter levels because yep, we want action surge
00:23:06:10 - 00:23:26:13
Bennett Tomlin
action surge gives us an entire extra action letting us potentially attack two other people. This is potentially huge in terms of drawing people to attack you, and can help you do other casting or movement things if needed. This is a huge level for making this character feel like a super effective taunt.
00:23:26:13 - 00:23:27:11
Bennett Tomlin
Base tank
00:23:27:11 - 00:23:36:08
Bennett Tomlin
level eight. We take a level in Paladin. Some DMs don't love people multiclassing this many classes. So as always, talk to your DM.
00:23:36:08 - 00:23:41:06
Bennett Tomlin
We eventually want Divine Smite, so we're going to be taking two levels of Paladin in total.
00:23:41:06 - 00:24:01:14
Bennett Tomlin
This level does not fundamentally change the character much. It adds lay on hands, which is a nice little bit of healing, and it adds divine sense, which lets us see if there's any celestials, fiends, or undead around us. We're still doing the exact same thing as the last couple levels. Run up. Punch punch. Action surge. If we need to punch, punch retreat
00:24:01:14 - 00:24:06:09
Bennett Tomlin
level nine, we're taking another level in Paladin and we get smite.
00:24:06:11 - 00:24:12:13
Bennett Tomlin
This lets us burner spell slots, add extra d8s to our attacks for as long as we have spell slots.
00:24:12:13 - 00:24:37:01
Bennett Tomlin
We also get another fighting style here. Pick your favorite. I went with interception, which lets us reduce damage to someone next to us, which again makes sense as a tank. In combat, we're still running between as many people as possible to attract attacks, and we get to add some smites under those to really do some extra damage. Don't forget about your d6s if you're punching people before they take a turn on the first round.
00:24:37:03 - 00:24:50:19
Bennett Tomlin
For Paladin spells, I would take bless. and I have a whole video on why you should do that, though mostly use it if you get a set up round. Other than that, take what you want. Favoring things that don't require a saving throw. Your charisma is not great.
00:24:50:19 - 00:24:56:11
Bennett Tomlin
I went with shield of Faith because we might want to sometimes use our bonus action to boost our AC.
00:24:56:11 - 00:25:17:07
Bennett Tomlin
to 24. This is the core of the build. Depending on your specific campaign and how you imagine the character, you can take it in tons of direction. You can take extra artificer levels and get more spell slots and infusion, take more Paladin levels, eventually getting an oath and auras or maybe something a little silly. I feel a little silly.
00:25:17:07 - 00:25:34:06
Bennett Tomlin
Level ten we're taking a level in Wizard. I know, I know, I know spells thought progression really helps with the burst damage. I know, I know, I know, and as we already discussed, burst damage is king and queen in five. And I know, I know, I know, but adding in a full caster really helps her spell slot progression.
00:25:34:08 - 00:25:57:20
Bennett Tomlin
If your DM is not cool with this then don't do it. I'm already three classes deep and this is the fourth class we're adding to the build. If your DM doesn't want you to add this, stick with Artificer and Paladin and it's still very satisfying in play. But here in the internet we can do whatever we want. And we now have 87 hit points and we now have two third level spell slots.
00:25:57:20 - 00:26:05:14
Bennett Tomlin
At level one and Wizard we get Arcane Recovery which lets us get some spell slots back, which is great. We might sometimes want more smite slots.
00:26:05:14 - 00:26:19:02
Bennett Tomlin
In terms of cantrip, I would add mending because we arguably should have taken it sooner as an artificer. Makes sense for you to be able to fix things mine sliver because it's a range cantrip with a nice little debuff and then whatever works with your character concept.
00:26:19:04 - 00:26:39:03
Bennett Tomlin
Terms of spells I would add shield because a reaction to add five to our AC is wonderful, because we don't want to get hit silvery barbs if your DM allows it because this spell is broken is health at my table, it requires a second level spell slot. Talk to your DM and see what they say. Other than that, pick your favorite.
00:26:39:05 - 00:26:43:22
Bennett Tomlin
Our combat still looks the same, but now we have extra spell slots for more Smite
00:26:43:22 - 00:27:03:03
Bennett Tomlin
level 11. We're taking another level in Wizard for arcane tradition, we're picking School of Abjuration. This gives us our arcane word, which effectively grants us an additional set of hit points that could hit before our temporary hit points. It has hit points of double our wizard level and our intelligence modifier.
00:27:03:08 - 00:27:25:03
Bennett Tomlin
So seven hit points right now, but does require us to burn an abjuration spell to initially get it up. When we cast abjuration spells mostly just shield. For now, we get to regain hit points equal to twice the level of the spell. This helps make us a little more tank like because it hits our arcane word, it hits our defensive field, and then finally, finally it hits us.
00:27:25:05 - 00:27:28:03
Bennett Tomlin
We are still mostly running around and punching people.
00:27:28:03 - 00:27:40:14
Bennett Tomlin
Level 12 another level. In Wizard, we break the triple digit hit point mark with 101 and we get second level wizard spells. I would make sure to take Misty step for extra mobility. Other than that, trust your instincts.
00:27:40:14 - 00:27:48:09
Bennett Tomlin
Level 13. We're taking another level in Wizard. And remember, these wizard levels are helping your arcane ward with a 108 hit points.
00:27:48:10 - 00:27:59:21
Bennett Tomlin
And we also get another ASI, which we're going to use to boost our intelligence. We also have a second fourth level spell slot, which is wonderful for smite. Remember fourth level is where damage for Divine Smite caps out.
00:27:59:21 - 00:28:11:05
Bennett Tomlin
Level 14. We're taking another level in Wizard we have 115 hit points. We get a fifth level spell slot which we will mostly use for non divine smite things because those cap at level four.
00:28:11:07 - 00:28:40:18
Bennett Tomlin
We also finally know third level spells. And there's two I really want here Counterspell because it's so overpowered. As I talked about in this video and Ashardalon's Stride the billowing flames of a dragon blast from your feet, granting you explosive speed for the duration. Your speed increases by 20ft, and moving doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. When you move within five feet of a creature or an object that isn't being worn or carried, takes one d6 by your damage from your trail of heat.
00:28:40:20 - 00:29:04:09
Bennett Tomlin
A creature or object can take this damage only once during a turn, and when you up cast this, your speed increases by an extra five feet per level and the damage increases by one d6 per level. What this means is that if we cast Ashardalon's Stride with our fifth level spell slot, it increases our speed to 70ft per round and it will do three d6 damage to every one we run.
00:29:04:09 - 00:29:20:20
Bennett Tomlin
But we are still running between enemies, punching as many as possible to draw their attacks towards us, hopefully doing the extra surprise attack damage on the first round, adding extra smite damage whenever we can, and three d6 damage every time we move past someone.
00:29:20:20 - 00:29:30:15
Bennett Tomlin
Level 15 we go back to Artificer. We have 123 hit points, our Artificer Defensive field and our Abjuration Wizard arcane word to help keep us alive.
00:29:30:17 - 00:29:48:07
Bennett Tomlin
We get two more infusions to know and one more to have prepared for known. I added spell refueling, ring and boots of the winding path. We will be switching enhanced arcane focus to instead have main sharpener, because we really want to keep concentration up on a shard on straight. We will also keep spell refueling ring to get another smite splat.
00:29:48:09 - 00:30:06:18
Bennett Tomlin
Level 16. We're taking another level in Artificer we have 131 hit points. Arcane Ward and our defensive field. We get Flash of Genius at this level, which lets us add our intelligence modifier plus four to many d20 rules. And this includes counter spell, which is really powerful.
00:30:06:18 - 00:30:13:09
Bennett Tomlin
We also get another fifth level spell slot, which lets us cast a shard lens stride at that high level twice per long rest
00:30:13:09 - 00:30:13:18
Bennett Tomlin
Now
00:30:13:18 - 00:30:29:16
Bennett Tomlin
level 17, we are taking another level in Artificer maxing out our intelligence. With the ability score increase, we are burning people up with our stride, punching people, action surging when we need to and dropping an absurd amount of smites into them as we go.
00:30:29:16 - 00:30:36:10
Bennett Tomlin
Level 18. From here you can really do whatever you want. Two more levels in Paladin would give you an ASI, which might be useful.
00:30:36:13 - 00:30:52:20
Bennett Tomlin
Three more levels in Wizard would also give you an AC for level spells and a better arcane ward. More levels. And Paladin would give you an oath and those features. But we never get to aura, so I don't think it's worth it because this is supposed to be an artificer. I think I'm going to go with an artificer level here.
00:30:52:22 - 00:31:12:23
Bennett Tomlin
This gives us a new feature called Armor Modifications, which effectively breaks our armor into more pieces and gives us two more infusions we're allowed to have prepared. We're going to add enhanced weapon to our Thunder Gantlets and Enhanced Arcane Focus to get that extra bonus to our spells, save DC. We also now have a level six spell slot for Use It for Ashardalon's Stride.
00:31:13:03 - 00:31:27:07
Bennett Tomlin
We now have a movement speed of 75ft per round and do four d6 damage to everyone we run by plus the damage from our Thunder Gantlets plus smite plus two d6. If it's the first round of combat and we're hitting them before they've had a turn
00:31:27:07 - 00:31:31:08
Bennett Tomlin
level 19, we don't really need this anymore, but I cannot help myself.
00:31:31:08 - 00:31:45:14
Bennett Tomlin
So we're taking another level in. Wizard lets us send our word towards one of our friends to help protect them. So that's cool and it makes our ward better. Of course we're running around letting everyone on fire, slamming them with smite and making them attack us instead of our friends.
00:31:45:14 - 00:31:50:22
Bennett Tomlin
Level 20. We're going to cap it off with one more level in Wizard to get fourth level spells.
00:31:51:00 - 00:32:15:15
Bennett Tomlin
We have 161 hit points, a great arcane ward and the artificers defensive field helping us stand up to a lot of combat for fourth level spells. I would recommend Fire Shield because it hurts people who do eventually hit you. Polymorph because it's such a useful multi-purpose spell, and banishment because it's an abjuration spell that sends enemies packing. We also now have a level seven spell slot.
00:32:15:17 - 00:32:23:14
Bennett Tomlin
We use it for Ashardalon's Stride. We now have a movement speed of 80ft per round and do five d6 damage to everyone we've run by.
00:32:23:14 - 00:32:29:19
Bennett Tomlin
We are running around. Everyone is on fire. They are being smite. They can't attack anyone. We might still be using Sanctuary City.
00:32:29:20 - 00:32:47:16
Bennett Tomlin
They also can't really attack us and we are just control ING, tanking, taunting and pulling everything in towards us, letting everyone else in our party. Damaged healers, controllers, debuff healers, be effective and not have to deal with these enemies really fighting through them.
00:32:47:16 - 00:32:56:17
Bennett Tomlin
And that's really it. I think this taunt is by far the best tank taunt in building it this way has made it a potent burst damage dealer as well.
00:32:56:19 - 00:33:15:14
Bennett Tomlin
Like I mentioned before, there's other ways to do this. You could replace the wizard levels with Sorcerer Bard. You could skip the fighter levels if you don't want the extra burst. If you don't need truly maxed out damage, you can keep progressing. Artificer mostly. My point is, I am glad that five has at least one tank taunt which works.
00:33:15:16 - 00:33:30:05
Bennett Tomlin
You want to take a more detailed look at this build and check out the description. I have a bunch of links to this build at different levels and beyond, so you can see what it looks like and even use it for your sessions if you want. Let me know in the comments what you think and how you think.
00:33:30:07 - 00:33:32:05
Bennett Tomlin
Tanks work in 5e.
Bennett's Blog 