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Recently I aquired an Aasimar boon in Society play and seeing as I am a fan of the tanking option in MMO's I was kind of wondering/considering to bring it to PFS and see how it goes with an Aasimar.
I was looking at some of the PLD types that might give you the benefit of taking some damage, but I am kind of lost on a few things and for this I turn to you people...
1) Any way of ensuring that the BBEG focuses on me in PFS?
2) What would you recommend me to go for to see a good build/effort?
3) drop PLD? and go for something else? if yes, what then?
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There is no aggro mechanic in Pathfinder.
This is not World of Warcraft or any MMO.
There is no such thing as tanks in Pathfinder.
There is however a guy in heavy armor who crushes his foes underfoot. He gets hate by being a real threat.
I recommend a paladin with Dangerously curious trait. Use a Falchion with power attack. With your first 2 PP buy a wand of cure light wounds. With your next 2pp buy a wand of shield. Use shield wand before you go into a room expecting a fight. Heal with the CLW wand after combat.
Your now a good front line guy.
Once you get some wealth buy full plate armor.
What Fruian said.
That said, there are some sort of aggro kind of "Provoke" type things. Antagonize in particular, and the Barbarian's Come And Get Me while not deliberately a "provoke" is basically a big invitation to an enemy saying "Hit me!"
For actual classes I'd recommend just going Invulnerable Rager Barbarian, or maybe Steelblood Bloodrager with Destined bloodline. Since you're PFS though you don't get the benefit of Primalist, so this is a bit weaker arguably due to no rage powers.
You can't force agro on you, but you can certainly encourage it. A low intelligence enemy should simply attack the closest threat, so always lead the formation. A hospitaller paladin or life oracle will not be ignored by most intelligent enemies, as any attacks you don't take personally, you can heal away from others.
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You could always trip anyone approaching your party. If you limit their mobility, you might manage to put enemies in the position that the only person they can hit, is you.
Later, there's stuff like dazing assault (I'm not sure how effective this one is, I've never used it, but people keep saying monsters always make their fort saves).
Paladins can take a big beating because of their lay on hands. barbs can take a beating because of HP and DR.
If you go Paladin with the goal of being a beat stick, I strongly recommend picking up Fey Foundling as your lvl 1 feat. It is so amazingly powerful you will wonder how you ever got along without it.
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If you want to a tank in the 'I'm durable and useful but don't do the damage' sort of way - you could go with a tanky bard. Your damage will be mediocre (though with Fencing Grace it's decent) - but you'll be buffing the whole party just by being around - so you easily pull your weight.
Plus - I've found that in Society play GMs tend to get an evil gleam in their eye the first time or two they see the 'squishy' bard charge forward into the middle of the fray and are sure to take a swing or three at them. With a mithril breastplate, a heavy shield, and a high dex you'll usually have the best AC in the group, especially since you don't need to spend as much gold on offensive gear... because that's not your job.
If someone swings at you - awesome - they likely miss! If they don't swing at you - nearly as good - you get AOOs for decent but not spectacular damage as they run past you, and give flanks to your party. Both while being a bard buffing machine.
Life oracle/shaman can siphon damage from others to themselves, combo that with some lay on hands and you get what's call the Oradin. Shield other spell also does the whole damage sharing thing.
Heretek, I have a PLD (Oath of Vengeance) with Fey Foundling, one of them is enough for now :P
Bard might be a nice idea to tinker around with..
@chess pwn, hmmm that is an interesting idea
Nice. With regards to the Oradin, if you already have an Oath of Vengeance, then it may not be different enough for what you want.
The idea is basically you create a life link so when any allies are injured, you subtract your health, to heal their own. You get around this by using very powerful Lay on hands, with fey foundling etc. So you're still basically the party beat stick, but you also provide the party with fast healing 5 basically.
From there, you can go more healery, or more paladiny depending on your flavor, more focused on spell casting and channel energy, or your smites and lay on hands etc. Holy Vindicator is a very common prestige class for the Oradin as well.
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It's a roleplaying game after all, taunt your GM in combat to attack you!
@chess Pwn can you pm me a rough build of it? I am really curious about it now
There's a nice thread/guide all about Oradins over at GitP.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?257365-PF-Oradin-Mini-Guide-O r-How-to-be-a-Healbot-minus-the-bot|
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One option is playing as a keneticist with the earth element. Learning Kenetic Blade and eventually Kenetic Whip means you'll be able to make AoOs all over the place. Weapon Finesse and Combat Reflexes are necessary here.
Fort and Reflex saves will be amazing, your high Con will give you health even after the burn mechanic, and you get as much DR as an Invulnerable Rager Barbarian. Go secondary into Water and now you have the option get a free no-hands shield too. That's pretty durable, plus you can be a threat on the field.
There is no aggro mechanic in Pathfinder.
Compell Hostility on a sword & board cleric, oracle or paladin. If playing a cleric, don't stress over DPS. Between Compel Hostility and radiating heals/buffs, you'll already be a target.
Or use a Dex magus with the Bodyguard feat + Gloves of Arcane Striking
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Careful of the Oradin: it looks pretty slick, but has VERY low healing capacity at high levels: 4d6 channels aren't going to keep your allies up at that level (especially since that INCLUDES Phylactery of Positive Channeling - you only actually have 2d6 of channeling!), and 6d6 LOH (again with magic items ALREADY ADDED IN) isn't a lot at level 10.
You also don't have any high level healing spells.
In short you are the "Healer" that can get parties killed because you really kinda suck at healing.
If you already have a LOH-focused paladin, I'd go with a DR-focused Barbarian: your damage output will make you a target for the bad guys, but you are going to be something of a drain on healing resources 'cause you are going to take a lot of damage (pretty low AC).
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One of my favorite 'tank' builds is my Druid X/Monk 1 Summoner.
Basically build for High Wisdom, good dex/con.
Get gear that focuses on Wisdom and AC/Saves. Feats Dodge bonus for monk, Aug Summoning and Sp Focus Conjuration.
Move towards melee and start casting Summon spell. Watch the bad guy run at you to disrupt your casting, and miss.
Summons start attacking, start casting another one, if they don't have caster types, use SNA 1 to tank with.
You wanna tank? You want enemies to attack you instead of your friends? Go bloodrager with decent dex, take Bodyguard and Arcane Strike Feats. Get gloves of Arcane Striking, get +5 benevolent armor. +12 AC to allies next to your. Done! =D
Same idea as the magus.
Opponents have little choice; no point in attacking anyone else.
An Angel-Kin Aasimar would make an extremely potent Barbarian1/Oracle with one of the mysteries that shifts DEX AC to CHA. Throw in the spell Ironskin (or Barkskin if you're a Nature Oracle), and you've got a character with a mithril Breastplate, full "DEX" AC behind it, and a big natural armor buff on top of that. At level 8, just using Magical Vestment it could come to 6+2AC +5CHA +6Ironskin = +19.
On the offensive side, Lame Curse and Fast Movement equal out, while Lame Curse and one Extra Rage gives you 12 rounds of rage per day that you can turn on and off at will without fatigue. Since you can stack charisma as well as strength, your spellcasting is actually quite potent, meaning that you can add to your tanking (and overall party support) with things like a high-DC Aura of Doom (10min/level) to debuff targets by nothing more than moving up to them.
Or, for truly absurd supernatural tanking, check out the Warpriest's Glory or Charm minor Blessing, for self or others. It's like a Sanctuary spell that scales with your level and doesn't stop working against other foes when you attack a target. It's not really that relevant to PFS, but Quicken Blessing at 10 even means you can swift-action the blessing back on if it comes down.
An Aasimar Warpriest could stack wisdom and pick up Guided Hand. Maybe even do something like a high-wisdom, medium-strength Sarenrae Warpriest who takes a level of Unchained Monk and uses Crusader's Flurry and eventually Guided Hand to shred targets with buffed two-handed scimitar flurry while using Glorious Presence and Wisdom AC to tank like a brick wall wearing a robe. As a bonus, Mantis Style and Cornugon Stun for brutally high DC Stunning Fist attacks through scimitar.
EDIT: As a side-note on 'aggro' tactics, to protect other party members from a melee character, move up to it and ready an attack against the enemy moving. If it moves against an ally, it eats an AoO and the readied attack. If it attacks you, then you got what you wanted - and get to full-attack it next round anyhow.
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Going high AC is NOT the goal if you want to tank in Pathfinder: is your AC is too high, intelligent opponents will switch to a target that they can hit. You want to draw their attention by being a big threat (doing a lot of damage) and maintain their interest by being hit-able. That's why many people on these boards will recommend self-healing paladins and damage-soaking barbarians for Pathfinder "tanks": bvoth are good at doing damage AND at absorbing damage.
With regard to the Oradin, I would argue that they are not as good as a Paladin, Cleric or Oracle at ANY level. It is an idea that looks pretty impressive on paper, but isn't a viable healer, IMO.
Well, a foe intelligent enough to prioritize targets might decide that the damage-soaking or self-healing target isn't a wise one either... the principle works the same (of course, it all depends on how a GM plays things). A character who more effectively conceals their survivability should benefit from the rather rough learning curve involved. At the end of the day, 'tanking' without some kind of solid self-preservation strategy isn't a good idea.
Anyhow, it's true that presenting a threat that a target really doesn't want to ignore - or take an AoO from, or take a readied attack from - is probably the most straightforward form of tactical 'aggro'. With of course the other benefit of high damage being that massacre is a very sound tactical move. Neither of the concepts I posted above are lacking in the two-handed murder department.
Going high AC is NOT the goal if you want to tank in Pathfinder: is your AC is too high, intelligent opponents will switch to a target that they can hit. You want to draw their attention by being a big threat (doing a lot of damage) and maintain their interest by being hit-able. That's why many people on these boards will recommend self-healing paladins and damage-soaking barbarians for Pathfinder "tanks": bvoth are good at doing damage AND at absorbing damage.
With regard to the Oradin, I would argue that they are not as good as a Paladin, Cleric or Oracle at ANY level. It is an idea that looks pretty impressive on paper, but isn't a viable healer, IMO.
Dealing a lot of DPR is one way to make yourself a target.
The High AC Divine Caster with Compel Hostility can force an opponent to attack while healing any damage taken by the rest of party.
A kensai bodyguard simply raises the AC of everyone around him to absurd levels (assuming the group put at least some thought into AC) while still dealing high DPR.
PFS tends to be chock full of melee, and it is very hard to stop a monster from attacking someone thats in melee with it.
Grapple: Any of the grapply builds can shut down a monster and or force it to go after you.
Trip: opponents lying flat on their back have a hard time attacking your friends.
Mouser Swashbuckler: Gives a -4 to hit anyone other than you
Body guard: can pile on the AC bonuses for your friends.
High AC is nice but unreliable. Safe tanking requires multiple forms of damage mitigation. You want things like mirror image, damage reduction and damage redistribution. This is why I like bloodrager tanks. They can easily get all of those things, while still doing good damage.
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High AC is nice but unreliable. Safe tanking requires multiple forms of damage mitigation. You want things like mirror image, damage reduction and damage redistribution. This is why I like bloodrager tanks. They can easily get all of those things, while still doing good damage.
Actually - the way AC works is - the more you have, the more valuable that next point becomes. For example - if you are hit on a 5+, getting +4 to your AC only reduced the damage you take by 1/4. (hit 80% vs 60%) But if you're only hit on a 15+, getting +4 to your AC reduced the damage you take by 2/3 (hit 30% vs 10%).
So really, spreading around the resources has reduced benefit to going pure AC. However, it is good to get additional defenses against things which AC doesn't protect from. (saves etc)
Actually - the way AC works is - the more you have, the more valuable that next point becomes. For example - if you are hit on a 5+, getting +4 to your AC only reduced the damage you take by 1/4. (hit 80% vs 60%) But if you're only hit on a 15+, getting +4 to your AC reduced the damage you take by 2/3 (hit 30% vs 10%).
So really, spreading around the resources has reduced benefit to going pure AC. However, it is good to get additional defenses against things which AC doesn't protect from. (saves etc)
The flaw with going pure AC is unless you go for broke with optimization, you're never going to beat out monster attack rolls. Attack bonus increases far faster than you can gain AC unless you're doing crazy stuff.
The flaw with going pure AC is unless you go for broke with optimization, you're never going to beat out monster attack rolls. Attack bonus increases far faster than you can gain AC unless you're doing crazy stuff.
And then there are the issues with touch attacks and effects that deny your dex bonus to AC. Another thing going in the bloodrager's favor is that he has Uncanny Dodge, so almost never loses his dex bonus to AC.
But the worst is that your AC doesn't do anything against spells and effects that don't require a hit roll. Ultimately, AC is a nice thing to have and you should try to raise it, but it alone is insufficient for a "tank".
High AC is nice but unreliable. Safe tanking requires multiple forms of damage mitigation. You want things like mirror image, damage reduction and damage redistribution. This is why I like bloodrager tanks. They can easily get all of those things, while still doing good damage.Actually - the way AC works is - the more you have, the more valuable that next point becomes. For example - if you are hit on a 5+, getting +4 to your AC only reduced the damage you take by 1/4. (hit 80% vs 60%) But if you're only hit on a 15+, getting +4 to your AC reduced the damage you take by 2/3 (hit 30% vs 10%).
So really, spreading around the resources has reduced benefit to going pure AC. However, it is good to get additional defenses against things which AC doesn't protect from. (saves etc)
But hen there's the human element: the higher your AC the less often you'll get swung at, doubly so in PFS where all those tastey lightly armored targets are standing right next to sir clanks a lot.
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Please don't straw-man me -
1. I was NOT saying that AC should be boosted at the expense of all offense or other abilities - I was comparing it only to having multiple layers of defense against the same thing. (which I quoted beforehand)
2. I specifically mentioned also having defenses against things which AC does not protect you from.
The flaw with going pure AC is unless you go for broke with optimization, you're never going to beat out monster attack rolls. Attack bonus increases far faster than you can gain AC unless you're doing crazy stuff.
I've heard that argument many times. I simply don't buy it. It's not that hard to keep up with monster attack bonuses if you know what you're doing. Not that you won't get hit at all - but it's not hard to be in the range where they'll miss you a decent % of the time.
There is a table of the expected Attack Bonus of a monster for a given CR: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monsterCreation.html. You should be able to use it to get a ballpark of how much good your AC is doing.
But ultimately we should be comparing actual builds. I'm fairly certain my tanky bloodrager, with multiple layers of defense, will fair better than whatever AC only option you present.
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But ultimately we should be comparing actual builds. I'm fairly certain my tanky bloodrager, with multiple layers of defense, will fair better than whatever AC only option you present.
I do love the Bloodrager for the ability to get Multiple Layers Naturally. Arcane bloodrager's Displacement while raging is so freaking good. Blur at 4->Displacement at 8. Mixed with DR, Fast healing, Resist Energy, Temporary Hit points (False Life), Heroism...has such great tools at hand.
A decent AC is what is going to keep ya alive till Level 4. After that the Layers Kick in and become more important to the Bloodrager than AC does. I always Grab a shield for the first 4 levels myself and worry about building my base of survival before I turn focus to Damage.
A decent AC is what is going to keep ya alive till Level 4.
The problem with that is that those levels are also where you are going to find it hardest to afford/find the better/heavier armors.
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Yes. That is the only thing available to the up and coming poor adventurer. Trying to get and keep that AC of 20+ before your Layers start to come online. Luckily with my Spell-eater build, I gain Fast healing at level 2 to help till Blur at 4. Other Archetypes offer things like Heavier Armor.
All in all Bloodrager is an amazing Frontline Class that can be hard to kill. They also can do some solid damage and that is enough to make them a real threat that the enemy will find it hard to ignore.
Add in reach tactics with Enlarge person and/or Long arm and you can have a very nice radius of Influence on the field.
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I think the effect of Blur or Displacement as compared to AC is often overestimated. The problem with 'layers' of hit reduction is that when you calculate two probability events together like that, its ProbA + ProbB - (ProbA+B); the second miss chance is useless if the first miss chance succeeds, so you have to remove the overlap.
If you have a 50% chance to be hit, Blur will reduce your total incoming hits by 10%: 20% miss chance x the 50% of attacks where it matters. So if a hit is 100 damage, blur takes you from an average of 50 damage/attack to 40. Displacement in that situation is an overall reduction of 25%: 50% miss chance x the 50% of attacks that connect. So by the same numbers, from 50 damage/attack to 25.
By comparison, if AC is stopping 50% of incoming hits, casting Shield to add 4 points of AC means stopping 70% of incoming hits. Again, if a hit is 100 damage, then that +4AC has dropped average damage/attack from 50 to 30.
Of course, for characters whose AC isn't stopping nearly as many hits, Blur and Displacement are much more effective. If AC only stops 25% of hits, then Blur drops a 75 damage/attack situation to 60, and Displacement drops it to 37.5. Still, even in this situation, the +4AC of Shield drops 75 damage/attack to 55.
@BadBird Using that same math, consider effects that counter your AC. Other forms of mitigation have much rarer counters.
There is no aggro mechanic in Pathfinder.
This is not World of Warcraft or any MMO.
There is no such thing as tanks in Pathfinder.
There is however a guy in heavy armor who crushes his foes underfoot. He gets hate by being a real threat.
I recommend a paladin with Dangerously curious trait. Use a Falchion with power attack. With your first 2 PP buy a wand of cure light wounds. With your next 2pp buy a wand of shield. Use shield wand before you go into a room expecting a fight. Heal with the CLW wand after combat.
Your now a good front line guy.
Once you get some wealth buy full plate armor.
It's funny you should think so. WoW is very, very much derived from DnD!
Gaming history lesson time! The plague of MMO gaming known as the trinity was standardized by WoW, but it was not originated there. The tactic actually comes from a common technique (At the time) for RollPlaying games. You had one member of the party throwing down powerful kill spells, another member of the party soaking damage, another member healing that damage, and a FORTH who was known as Control. This last role was used to get enemies to attack the big guy with heavy armor or to funnel them together for the big killtacular fireball. This was largely obsoleted in gaming by the predominance of PvE which used an Aggro mechanic that could be manipulated. However, the role still appears in the video game DC Universe, and it helps to make the technique a bit more viable for PvP.
This technique was largely obsoleted for DnD around 3rd addition where combat healing and the mighty kill spells tended to be less potent compared to their buffing alternatives. This change in playstyle prompted the rise of the "god" Wizard and made the "Trinity" less of a viable option for easily optimizing parties. Despite which some tables will still insist on the roles being filled. Old habits die hard.
Despite which, Pathfinder has some cool options for tanking. Chief among them in my mind is Antagonize which fits well into an intimidate build.
On the Kineticist front, kinetic healer and Water + Earth is a good combo for just sitting in the line of fire and absorbing it all. Unfortunately, Kinetic Chirurgeon takes up to 13th to get a Swift Action to heal and the loose of infusion specialization is going to basically mean you are paying Burn to heal, not a good trade-off. I think I like going heavy intimidate better over Kineticist.
That's fine in theory, but in practice damage doesn't always come in straight hits. The concealment from the spells also provides protection from any sneak attack damage. It also helps neutralize damage from touch attacks which might have much more easily bypassed your stellar AC under normal circumstances. Those aren't uncommon things to face and so if you have to choose between moderately high AC + concealment chance vs. slightly higher AC you're almost always mechanically better off taking the former to protect against a wider range of attack types for virtually the same level of protection against a single direct attack.
Agree.
My kensai maintains a high touch ac and keeps both Mirror Image and Blur available.
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It's funny you should think so. WoW is very, very much derived from DnD!
I played Wow for over 5 years from Vanilla to Wrath of the Lich King and at 1 point was ranked 6th best healer on the server gear/guild/and class wise. I played FF11 before that and Everquest before that.
I've been playing since 3.5 DnD.
I know my statements to be true when speaking of Pathfinder.
Despite which some tables will still insist on the roles being filled. Old habits die hard.
This is the Main problem. Old habits and ways of thinking just don't die. I'm a fan of the Forge of Combat style of creating Pathfinder Groups. 2 hammers, 1 Arm, and 1 Anvil. If a person playing a role can also cover more than 1 role even better.
Despite which, Pathfinder has some cool options for tanking. Chief among them in my mind is Antagonize which fits well into an intimidate build.
Good luck with that as The target must be able to understand you or have an Int of 3+. Most non humanoids will fall into that catagory as most Frontliner "Tanks" have very few skills and a low Int so they only know 1-2 Languages.
That alone makes it way different than a MMOs Provoke Ability which works on almost every PvE encounter out there.Another misconcept is the Term "Tank". Many people look at it as a character who has a very high defense. The truth of the Matter is a real life tank has good armor but also has Very good damage output. And fighting a tank is literally a game of Rocket tag.
The way a player needs to play a tank in pathfinder is simple:
I am the First they come to....they can fight me or I can severely Punish them for trying to ignore and get by me. Because I truly am a Real threat with a unlimited daily use of Swing X weapon.
But Lastly a Player needs to know every target chosen is DM dependent. If the DM wants to ignore you and take it out on the cloth wearing Wizard....well he is going to do so regardless of your protest or abilities. So it is best to be able to kill things as quickly as possible so they can no longer harm your team mates.
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The concealment from the spells also provides protection from any sneak attack damage.
I'm not sure what SA has to do with being hit. Unless you mean flatfooted AC
It also helps neutralize damage from touch attacks which might have much more easily bypassed your stellar AC under normal circumstances.
True - but so does a high Touch AC.
Also of note - if you do have stellar AC - mirror image combos with it FAR better than a miss %.
If they miss your AC by 5+, it doesn't even take out an image. When you do have to deal with a touch AC - it has to deal with the images. While touch attacks aren't exceptionally rare, they aren't all that common either unless you're in an encounter against incorporeal critters, so they're unlikely to burn through all of your images in an encounter.