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This is the build for the 'tank' I run in PFS, customized to suit your criteria...
Tiefling (Pitborn) 11th level Paladin (Oath of Vengeance)/1st level Oracle (Lore, Legalistic)
FCB: +1 hit point at 1st level, +1 to Lay on Hands at 2nd, 4th - 12th level
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Attributes:
STR - 15 (+2 racial bonus, +1 @ 4th, 8th & 12th level)
DEX - 10
CON - 14
INT - 13 (-2 racial penalty)
WIS - 10
CHA - 16 (+2 racial bonus)
Traits:
Suicidal
Reactionary
Racial Abilities:
Dark Vision 60'
Cold Resistance 5
Electricity Resistance 5
Fire Resistance 5
Soul Seer
Fiendish Sprinter
Feats:
1st - Fey Foundling
3rd - Extra Lay on Hands
5th - Power Attack
7th - Extra Lay on Hands
9th - Greater Mercy
11th - Ultimate Mercy
Paladin Abilities:
Detect Evil at Will
Smite Evil 4/day (+4 attack, +4 AC, +11 damage)
Lay on Hands (Heal 5d6+20 self as a swift action or 5d6 others as a standard, usable 13/day, also removes Shaken condition, Cures Disease and Poison or adds an additional 1d6+2 healing)
Divine Health (Immune to Disease)
Channel Wrath (expend 2 Lay on Hands for an additional Smite)
Aura of Courage (Immune to Fear, grants +4 saves vs. Fear to allies)
Aura of Resolve (Immune to Charm, grants +4 saves vs. Charm to allies)
Divine Bond (+3 in enhancement bonuses 2/day)
Powerful Justice (Grant allies the damage bonus from Smite Evil)
Mystery/Curse:
Sidestep Secret (add your CHA bonus to Reflex saves and AC instead of DEX)
Sickened for 24 hours if you break your word
1/day gain a +4 morale bonus to any one roll when trying to keep your word
+3 to Diplomacy, Intimidate and Sense Motive when speaking to a person one-on-one.
Spells:
Deathwatch at will
Oracle Spells Known (0 - Unlimited, 1st - 4/day):
0 - Detect Magic, Enhanced Diplomacy, Guidance, Resistance
1st - Cure Light Wounds, Know the Enemy, Moment of Glory
Paladin Spells
1st - Heroic Defiance x2, Divine Favor
2nd - Litany of Righteousness x2
3rd - Paladin's Sacrifice x2
Skills:
Diplomacy (11 ranks)
Intimidate (11 ranks)
Knowledge: Arcana (1 rank)
Knowledge: Nature (1 rank)
Knowledge: Planes (1 rank)
Knowledge: Religion (1 rank)
High AC, ridiculous saves, tons of immunities, energy resistances, defensive buffs for your allies, the ability to take hits and damage for your allies, an insane amount of swift-action self-healing, the ability to remove conditions, as many Smites as you need to hammer your foes and some very useful spells. You can even raise the dead. Out of combat, he still has some interesting skill options for such a skill-starved character.
I play the character as a two-hander, something you'd want if you were going for a reach build. He's in no way dependent on gear but some of the gear you might want to consider is mithril full plate, winged boots, 2nd level Pearls of Power (for Litany of Righteousness) and all of the usual acoutrement.
Well, I don't really want to spend the time to convert him, but I've essentially done this in PFS (Xue) with a Nagaji Cavalier (Beast Rider, Gendarme, Honor Guard), Fighter (Dragoon), Monk (Sacred Mountain, Master of Many Styles). Order of the Dragon (naturally), and he is versed in both snake style and dragon style.
The plan is to take some more fighter and cavalier levels, and then mammoth rider to nab a dinosaur mount. Boon companion for a full-level animal companion. His weird mishmash of classes plentiful feats, plus racial abilities make him pretty resilient with a potentially very good AC depending on the armor and decent saves. He has some "per day" abilities, but not really built around them. He not only is a front line but hands out AC bonuses as well via bodyguard. A little light on pure offense, but his animal companion helps compensate a bit.
I have a variant of the paladin tiefling build that i play in PFS. Instead of tiefling I went Nagaji and instead of full Paladin w/Oracle I went Paladin 4 (Oathes of Vengeance and vs Fiends) / Bard 1 (Arcane duelist) / Dragon Disciple 5.
I took Fey Foundling, Extra Lay on Hands, Greater Mercy and Ultimate Mercy. Also bought a Bracers of the Merciful Knight which offers a huge boost to my # of lay on hands per day (with his very high CHA and feats he gets 12 uses a day for 4d4 +8 and usually 1d6+2 more from greater mercy (I think the example above has the math on the lay on hands wrong - he should be getting 5d6 +10 not +20 (not sure where his extra +10 comes from)
The extra +10 comes from the Tiefling FCB for Paladins (Favored Class Bonus) that grants +1 point per level to Lay on Hands when used to heal yourself only. At 1st level he didn't have Lay on Hands so he took the bonus hit point and at 3rd level (his Oracle level) he didn't get an FCB. The other 10 levels are where the extra +10 came from.
Bracers of the Merciful Knight would be an item I'd recommend for this build as well, but obviously that just adds to his already formidable abilities.
According to PFS rules, the character would have 99 hit points without magical gear. Without magical gear he'd be able to heal an average of 487.5 hit points per day without ever having to miss an attack or move action. With Bracers of the Merciful Knight that ups to 7d6+24 15/day or an average of 727.5 hit points per day. None of that includes Greater Mercy which would be another 71.5 - 82.5 per day. I'd say that makes for a hell of a tank.
All those extra Smites + Power Attack and having a couple of Litanies in his pocket really makes him hit hard enough that he's dangerous to ignore. Its good not to have to ration his Smites and with so many opportunities for Swift/Immediate actions, I'm glad I don't have to figure out when to Arcane Strike and when not to. Powerful Justice is a hell of an ability as well; giving everyone in the party +11 damage vs. an evil enemy of their choice is pretty sweet.
Not knocking your build at all - it certainly sounds like fun - but I'm just talking with regards to tanking for the OP.
Here is a build I intended for PFS
I have a few builds like this. I like MAD builds anyway.
St14
In12
Wis14
Dex16
Con13
Cr10Level 1, Ranger1: Freebooter, Weapon Focus Claws
2R1Monk1: Master of Many Styles, Snake Style, Unarmed Damage 1d6
3R1M2: Evasion, Snake Fang, Combat Reflexes
4R1M2Fighter1: Feral Combat Training, Claws, +1 Con
5R1M3F1: Maneuver Training, Still Mind, Monastic Legacy
6R2M3F1: Improved Natural Weapon, Claws
ally obtain a Wand of Monstrous Physique and Polymorph into a 4-armed Sahaugin, gaining 2...
Hey Scott, I notice you have 6 classes by 12th level. Now I'm really a fan of not seeing classes as classes-in-world and more as packages of mechanics to be flavored however you like, but how do you flavor this character? Part ranger, part monk, part fighter, part alchemist, part witch, part cavalier. I'm very interested to know the story that ties this together.
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Invulnerable Rager Barbarian with Flesh Wound Rage Power. 1/rage, you can Fort save against the damage of a single attack, and if you succeed, the damage is halved and turned to nonlethal, which your DR is doubly effective against. It's entirely possible to outright negate the damage from an attack this way, especially since your Fort save is the highest among all the classes.
Combine this with Come and Get Me and Rage Cycling (I perfer the Internal Fortitude Rage Power with a Flawed Scarlet and Green Cabochon, myself) and you can provoke attacks that you can negate on your turn while gaining extra attacks of your own. This works especially well if you use maneuvers you aren't proficient with (and with Strength Surge, they'll still hit, too). Specifically Disarm, Trip, and Sunder though, as other maneuvers require standard actions instead of attacks.
Despite being a Barbarian, you don't have to have poor AC, either. Barbarians get access to Natural Armor through their class, and can even get Dodge bonuses (though these require a move action to activate I believe). Because of this, you can actually have comparable or even greater AC to an equivalent Fighter, if you so choose.
On top of this, you can have great saves against spells, spell-like abilities, and even supernatural effects through Superstition, and great Touch AC against rays and incorporeal with Ghost Rager. Most importantly though, you can Sunder Spells, which is an amazing boon for a martial class (and can also be combined with Strength Surge for automatic success).
Barbarians also have a host of other rage powers that allow them to get extra health when they fall low, ignore ability damage, or even ignore negative levels, but those are fairly limited in scope, so I won't suggest them as "must haves" when there are a bunch of other things Barbarians could have instead.
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No one's mentioned anything like this yet, so I'll throw out a variant of the tank I run in PFS.
Human Flowing Monk 10 / Staff Magus 2
For Feats you'll want Combat Reflexes/Bodyguard, and then Feat Tree up through Greater Trip or Greater Reposition (or both) depending on playstyle. Arcane Strike (especially if you can pick up the Gloves of Arcane Striking).
Spells: Enlarge Person and Shocking Grasp for sure. At least one Touch cantrip.
What's the point:
Flowing Monk gives you a level/day interrupt for any attack against you *or* an adjacent ally. If you have reach, you can usually use that to either trip the enemy so they can't get into attack range or reposition them out of their attack range (And with Greater Trip/Reposition they get AoO'd for their trouble.) And you get bonuses to your CMB if they are charging or Power Attacking.
Flowing Monk also increases your AC for every adjacent enemy, and when you are flanked you can make your enemies attack each other. This is a tank class that thrives on savvy positioning and which plays very differently than most other characters -- being able to function as a tank even when not being directly targeted is generally hard to pull off in Pathfinder.
You also have fabulous saves.
The Staff Magus levels do a couple of things:
free Quarterstaff Mastery -- and the ability to Spellstrike through trips
Quarterstaff is a monk weapon, so you can flurry with it
Arcane Pool can be used on Unarmed Attacks
Just enough offensive punch to avoid the usual Monk tank problem of having the enemies ignore you. Spellstrike just once and they'll worry about you all day.
It's certainly possible to change the class ratio -- another level of Staff Magus would give you an Arcana (Wand Wielder is great) and with Magical Knack increasaes your CL to 5 (upping Arcane Strike). The character I run is FM 4 / SM 6 which makes her a little less tanky but packing more of a punch -- really depends on what you want.
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Tanking is one of those roles that is difficult to pull off in PF but this one I have used and had a lot of fun with in PFS, but this one is includes some non PFS abilities. This tank doesn't come online til later but at level 12 he is great.
Half-Orc Blight Druid 11, Sohei Monk 1 Eagle Domain
S 10 D 14 C 14 I 12 W 22 Ch 10
Traits Fates Favored, Magical Knack Druid
Feats:
Dodge (B)
Shaping Focus
Natural Spell
Snake Style
Powerful Shape
Craft Wondrous Items
Ability Focus Whirlwind
Basic Premise is you run around as Huge Air Elemental, (5/day, 12 hour each), Make your own magic items (Headband of Wisdom, Ioun stones, Stat Belts etc.) Defensively you are immune to Disease, Sickened, Nauseated, Crits, Sneak Attack, Bleed, have DR 5/-, Immune to Poison via Spell, can create an Ioun Stone to make you immune to Fatigue/Exhaustion and have Evasion.
You tank via whirlwind (DC 25 before items, can boost to 28 with a headband easy) and pick stuff up and hold it aloft. Anything in your Whirlwind must make a Fort Save (DC 21, + with wis headband) or be Sickened (disease effect so it works on most outsiders) and at -2 to attack and -4 dex. Plus any other debuffs from spells.
Between Barkskin (extended with a rod you make), Huge Air Elemental Form, Wis to AC you can have a great AC, plus a very high Sense Motive check for attacks that roll high or those annoying touch spells. You can pick up huge creatures (In PFS I have juggled Hill Giants, Stone Golems, Girallons and lots of humanoids, swarms and oozes).
You always go in the surprise round (great for getting buffs up), are still a primary caster with 6th level spells (all sorts of toys you can play with, buff your attacks w/Greater Magic Fang, Vine Strike, Sickening Strikes) running around with a Liveoak, Staffspell and can have fun with Fireseeds plus Resist Energy, walk up to someone and do 8d8+96 fire, Ref Save, no SR.
Between Barkskin (extended with a rod you make), Huge Air Elemental Form, Wis to AC you can have a great AC, plus a very high Sense Motive check for attacks that roll high or those annoying touch spells. You can pick up huge creatures (In PFS I have juggled Hill Giants, Stone Golems, Girallons and lots of humanoids, swarms and oozes).
An air elemental with skin made of bark?
;-P
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For Hit Points, you can take a level in a class with a Familiar, the Boon Companion feat, and the Protector Familiar Archetype.
Your familiar will have half your hit points, and you can choose to transfer half the damage you take to your familiar at any time that takes no action.
If by "tanking", you mean drawing attacks away from my allies and mitigating the damage, then it's really hard to beat a dedicated summoner at that job. Of course many classes can make strong summonses.
If by "tanking", you mean drawing attacks away from my allies and mitigating the damage, then it's really hard to beat a dedicated summoner at that job. Of course many classes can make strong summonses.
That's true. Though a tank AND a summoner of some sort pretty much equal 'win'.
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Not really a "tank" per se, but if the purpose is to mitigate damage dealt, then what about the ultimate long time healer?
Greater Skald's Vigour + Raging Song + Lesser Celestial Totem + Path of Glory = ludicrous amount of healing per turn.
This ges better if you spent your first level as a Bloodrager with the Aberrant bloodline, cuz now you can take the Aberrant Familiar feat for a Tumor Familiar. Choose the Valet archetype for your familiar, so it can share teamwork feats. Get the feat "Amplified Rage." You now have a +8 STR and CON during your Inspire Rage, as well has fast healing 8 (+ your skald level arguably, which is insane). With Path of glory, you add 1 + 11 hp to that for 11 rounds. Basically Fast Healing 20.
Altogether, that's a good 220 HP per ally over the course of the spell. With this, it doesn't matter who the opponent attacks. None of you are going down.
Paizo only, or is 3rd party acceptable?
Druids can be very tanky once they start to shapeshift.
At 12th level a Goliath Druid with:
Half Orc Goliath Druid 12
Str:16 (+3 lvl advancement)
Dex:14
Con:14
Int:10
Wis:14
Cha:10
1: Dodge
2:
3: Heavy Armor
4:
5: Impoved Natural Armor
6:
7: Shield Focus
8:
9: Combat Reflexes
10:
11: Stand Still
12:
Could shapshift into a Moss Troll all day long. He gets 15' reach with his scimitar, +6 Str -2 Dex +4 Con, and +8 Natural armor (including Half-Orc favored class bonus), plus he can wear a Dragonhide Full Plate normally, even shapeshifted (because he's a troll). He also gain Regeneration.
Without a lot of hassle, you could have a +3 Full Plate, +3 large wooden Shield, Barkskin almost all day long (using a lesser rod of extend, 3 level 2 slots cover you for 6 hours), a Jingasa (which fits nicely with the favored by destiny trait that you are going to take anyway because of your +1 luck bonus racial tattoo), a +2 or +3 ring of protection and maybe a ioun stone with +1 insight bonus to AC. You'll have AC 10+12 armor bonus + 6 shield bonus + 14 natural armor bonus +1 Dex +1 Dodge +2 luck +3 deflection +1 insight -1 size, for AC 49 at lvl 12, which is decent. You also have good Will and Fort saves (you'll pump wisdom with items, and Con with wildshaping polymorph bonus), Con 18 plus items, and regeneration makes you extra tough. You'll need to keep fire resist covered, though, because moss troll is vulnerable, or shapeshift into Rock Troll instead, although you'll miss 5' of reach compared to a Moss Troll. Or you could shapeshift into Desert Giant, if you want some fire resist (but you won't regenerate).
15' reach and stand still make for some decent area control. You could get that online at lvl 6, changing the order of the feats.
You have also a pet, which helps tanking (a stegosaurus or anylosaurus is pretty good in AC and have reach and special attacks that daze or trip, and barding is cheap. Access to medium armor cost feats to your pet, not you, and a non-magical breastplate adds +6 armor to him, who already has a huge natural armor bonus, +19 at that level. That's AC 38, counting only Dex and armor bonus. It can go higher if you cast Barkskin on him, and higher if the pet burns a few feats in dodge and imp nat armor). A Menacing amulet of mighty fist will help you and every other melee in the team, which is really good. I think many party members would contribute to it if you ask them.
EDIT: Just read your "low magic" stuff. Well, then of course without +3 magic items the numbers would be lower, but they will be for other classes as well. The class doesn't need any magic item to "work", and can use pretty much anything. You can also ignore amulets of natural armor (Because of barkskin), and you get some nice Nat Armor from shapeshifting and half-orc favored class bonus.
I'm partial to my basic Druid/Monk Split. At lvl 12 it works out to:
Druid 8 (Saurian Shaman/Lion Shaman) / Monk 4 (MoMS, Monk of the Sacred Mountain)
With Monastic Legacy, you hit as an 8th level Monk (1d10) and if you are wildshaped into something Huge, then it does a pretty decent 4d8 damage (8d8 if you are casting one of your two castings of Strong Jaw).
Planar Wildshape makes sure that you have continual DR 10 vs either good or evil (I'd choose good personally, as most of enemies aren't likely to have holy weapons unless something has gone off the rails)in animal form.
Lvl 4 Monk of the Sacred Mountain means you can't be moved or knocked prone, which is jolly useful as a Tank. (You have to remain in the same square, but with 15ft reach, this actually isn't much of a chore)
Stats would be like:
Versatile Human (Shapeshifted into Allosaurus):
Str 26 (+2 From lvl, +6 from WS)
Dex 6 (-4 from WS)
Con 14 (+1 from lvl)
Int 12
Wis 18
Cha 10
Feats would be:
Lvl 1: Improved Grapple (1st), Dragon Style (Monk Bonus)
Lvl 3: Weapon Focus (Claw) (3rd)
Lvl 5: Feral Combat Training (Claw) (5th)
Lvl 7: Natural Spell (7th)
Lvl 9: Planar Wild Shape (9th), Dragon Ferocity (Monk Bonus), Toughness (Monk Bonus)
Lvl 11: Monastic Legacy (11th)
Reasonably good at all levels. Has druid buffs and a decently leveled pet dinosaur.
prototype00
Better unarmed strike damage (Monastic Legacy requires Still Mind), the ability not to be knocked prone or moved from spot (requires lvl 4 Monk of the Sacred Mountains), Toughness (its a nice bonus feat for a 2nd level Monk of the Sacred Mountain).
Earth Elemental is all right, but I prefer the DR 10 of planar wildshape (requires animal form) to the DR 5 of Earth Elemental. Allosaurus also has better attack options (pounce/rake) than the Earth Elemental.
As far as buffing is concerned, best Druid spells (GMF, Strong Jaw) are in place by lvl 4 spells. No need to kill yourself for spells that aren't directly related to "Tankiness"
prototype00
P.s. BaB wise, the Mnk 4/ Druid 8 has exactly the same to hit as Druid 12 and a better to hit than Mnk 1/ Druid 11.
For Hit Points, you can take a level in a class with a Familiar, the Boon Companion feat, and the Protector Familiar Archetype.
Your familiar will have half your hit points, and you can choose to transfer half the damage you take to your familiar at any time that takes no action.
This gets even better with a tumor familiar because those have fast healing 5 while attached to you.
I made a build some time ago for an abyssal bloodrager. It's a dwarf using a longhammer and a boulderhelmet and has an tumor octopus familiar attached to his chin (living in his beard).
The familiar can use bodyguard with combat reflexes several times per round, the dwarf can do nice damage, is tough and from level 5 on he can share damage with his fast healing familiar.
I build him as a spell eater to get fast healing and the ability to self heal as a swift action.
Better unarmed strike damage (Monastic Legacy requires Still Mind), the ability not to be knocked prone or moved from spot (requires lvl 4 Monk of the Sacred Mountains), Toughness (its a nice bonus feat for a 2nd level Monk of the Sacred Mountain).
Earth Elemental is all right, but I prefer the DR 10 of planar wildshape (requires animal form) to the DR 5 of Earth Elemental. Allosaurus also has better attack options (pounce/rake) than the Earth Elemental.
As far as buffing is concerned, best Druid spells (GMF, Strong Jaw) are in place by lvl 4 spells. No need to kill yourself for spells that aren't directly related to "Tankiness"
prototype00
P.s. BaB wise, the Mnk 4/ Druid 8 has exactly the same to hit as Druid 12 and a better to hit than Mnk 1/ Druid 11.
and a little bit of ki points as well.
A properly built Life Oracle can "tank" fairly well. If something doesn't attack you, you just heal the damage it did. If something does attack you, then you heal the damage it did. Max Constitution and Charisma.
That said, I'm personally really liking the Slayer's Dirty Tricks Build for tanking.
** spoiler omitted **...how is the slayer better than lore warden X\thug 3?
Slightly better BAB, Skills and HP, but basically because almost nothing is immune to dirty tricks. Even if something is immune to one of the types of dirty trick, you can just use a different kind. Also, you can go strength based, and use the talents to get all of the two weapon fighting attacks to trigger more dirty tricks.
Edit: Also as per the original limitations, the Slayer Dirty Tricks build can use just whatever good light and/or one-handed weapons you come across in your adventure, so you don't have to rely on keeping weapons of your weapon specialization path.
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nice one, wont the bard be, a bit fragile?
low AC, low HP etc.
Why? It'd only be 11hp behind a standard d10 combatant - and the AC would be extremely solid.
Mithril Breastplate/heavy shield and extremely high dex. By 4ish when they can afford the mithril breastplate, their AC before any magic would be 24. (6 armor/5 dex/2 shield/1 size) By 12 it should be 38 pre-buffs without trying too hard. (+4 armor/shield/+1 jingasa/+1 ioun/+2 ring/+2 AoNA)
There are builds which higher AC (monk/some sword & board builds) but it'd be quite solid, especially combined with parry & riposte. (On second thought - you may consider squeezing Combat Reflexes into the build for that & to mesh with Step-Up.)
In addition - at level 4 if they have merely a masterwork weapon they'd hit at +12 for 1d4+7 (18-20) damage assuming their song is going. Not amazing - but enough where they can't be ignored, especially combined with all their buffing. Especially when in the face of a caster/archer.
If 3rd party material is allowed I was going to suggest a Warder, the only Pathfinder class I've encountered that makes playing a "tank" actually feasible and viable.