Spank Me Harder! A Guide to Playing a Tank in Pathfinder 2e

Insert Konosuba Darkness reference here

This video is QUALITY. I wish more Pf2e YouTubers would spend more time making videos interesting with graphics and an enthusiastic voice with energy. You've got a fine YouTube future ahead of you!

Pathfinder is an absolute blast ot play but alot of the time its hard to know what is going to be good until you try it. But in a narrative game it can be difficult to learn on the fly what abilities are good and what abilities are bad, so breakdowns like this are super helpful!

Some fun tank builds I've enjoyed playing as: - Braggart Swashbuckler - using the Antagonize feat, enemies you've Demoralized are stuck being Frightened unless they attack you, so unless they want to hit you, they have a -1 to everything (so long as you succeed your Demoralize roll). Using a Buckler or Dueling Parry allows the Swashbuckler to get very solid AC, they can grant themselves extra HP with Vivacious Bravado, and Opportune Riposte gives you a chance to punish enemies who do end up attacking you. It can be a little reliant on getting good Demoralize rolls, but it's very fun when you do. - Grappler Armor Inventor - This build comes online at later levels, but it's very funny once it does. With the armor modifications that grant bonuses to Athletics, as well as the usual set of resistances that the Armor innovation can give, you end up being a very effective grappler and quite durable. But the star of the show is Electrify Armor - grapple enemies and turn this on and they're pretty much forced to take significant damage to escape, or just stay in the grapple and cry. Inventors are disappointingly lacking in HP but this is still a lot of fun. - Air/Earth Kineticist - An alternate tanky kineticist that takes advantage of Concealment and has extra mobility from Air impulses. The Desert Wind composite stance is an incredible option in conjunction with Safe Elements in order to protect allies, giving a flat 25% miss chance to enemies inside your aura when targeting allies outside it - ideally, the only ally who doesn't get Concealment is you. Their ability to create difficult terrain with earth impulses and aura junctions also helps them keep enemies locked down. - Tiger Stance Medic Monk - Using the Tiger Stance to boost your mobility and the Medic dedication, you can take 10 foot steps in and out of Reactive Strike range, Battle Medicine yourself and your allies multiple times, and still hit with Flurry of Blows or Flurry of Maneuvers. This is more of a support build, but your support is so annoying on top of your good damage and survivability that enemies might want to go for you anyway.

Dude this is hell. Im going to wait here for 35hs. The anticipation is doing more Dmg to me then the Dragons I'm holding at bey

Was going to drop a like anyway, but had to instantly do so for the phrase “the juice is not worth the squeeze”

Homework: For the champion build, Marshal and the Diplomacy stance. It indirectly gives you an offensive presence that's hard to ignore (giant barb +1 status, potentially clumsy enemies) and adds more fear protection. Anything with an occult caster loves bon mot, so diplomacy is a solid investment anyway. For the dragon barb, dragon breath and silencing strike. You are on a timer as a barb and we don't have the feats to take another dedication for healing. So chip things to death or put multiple foes in the reactive strike danger zone with dragon breath. Cancel spellcaster turns with strikes so that your team has caster superiority and pray they deal with any other problems that arise. Kineticist. Aura shaping is a no brainer. Timber sentinel is a great back up plan and Spike Skin can protect either you or your allies.

This is a really good mixture of overview, insight, and relevant graphics that add to the experience without distracting. Great work!

My favorite tank build: Life Oracle + Champion dedication, 10 + Con hp per level, good early to mid game AC from champion dedication and Lifelink focus spell + champions reaction is such a great combo that makes you feel very relevant even when its not your turn. That on top of being an awesome healer and solid buffer/debuff caster. Also getting some athletics prof for grapple/trip is awesome as well.

Thank you for the excellent video!

Great video, have my sub !

I rly like the format of the video

5:36 shade at the Guardian lol Great analysis! My favorite tank build is a Warpriest *CLERIC* of Irori so I can Athletic Rush in for +2 to Athletics for a round (that is also a stride)... You also get to use Shield + Shield Block and Cleric Heals to sustain when you are targeted! As long as you are not one shot, you are full health after spending 2 actions. Raising a shield lets you mitigate the lack of defenses and you can keep on stalling for as long as you have heals (which is a LONG time as a Cleric). The enemies also can't ignore you as you then get to trip / grapple them or just keep on healing allies. It is INCREDIBLY difficult to deal with! Nothing is better at drawing threat than a healer, but you don't actually lose much survivability due to Cleric being able to self heal efficiently. Sometimes late in a fight you need to play backline, but you are still a full Cleric so you can totally shift that direction and throw out buff / debuff spells to make enemies want to come and attack into your defenses / self healing. Another note is that Shield Augmentation can let a shield Trip / Disarm / Shove (pick 2), or a Shield Boss can make a shield a perfectly serviceable weapon (particularly for a class that gets a boost to its damage like Barbarian or Ruffian Rogue). My next "tank to play" on my list is a maneuver focused Flurry ranger as flurry reduced MAP applies to maneuvers as well! Wrestler Archetype for Combat Grab is also REALLY good for any unarmed character. The extra skill increase in Athletics lets you increase Medicine very easily alongside the "grapple skill" so you can have Battle Medicine also make use of that offhand. Any character can both Heal and Crowd Control simply by investing in some skills... Wrestler Archetype can make that much easier. (Bastion can help action economy issues with shields, Medic can further boost non-magical healing on a tank). Even in a non-FA game I frequently see tank characters dip into one of these archetypes in order to help them accomplish their job just that little bit better (particularly if their main class lacks something like how Barbarian does not have great on hit effects, Combat Grab really helps them apply crowd control alongside their damage threat)

This is great! I've been working on a pseudo-tanking inventor for our next campaign and loved seeing a great breakdown of the core mechanics of how to do it and what to keep it mind. Excellent video and loved watching it. I'm thinking inventor at level 1, weapon innovation with an asp coil. Initial modification is Entangling Form, which applies both grapple and trip traits to the weapon. At level 2, take the fighter dedication to pick up reactive strike (at level 4). So I should be able to grapple or trip at a distance and keep enemies at bay! Since the coil is a one handed weapon, I would still have access to a shield too. There's of course the armor innovation for an inventor as well, but it doesn't speak to me the way weapon innovation does.

One of my personal favorite Tank builds is the Weighty Impact feat Summoner! So long as you land a hit, you can pop a single action to Knockdown, which attempts to Trip an enemy WITHOUT USING OR CONTRIBUTING TO MULTI-ATTACK PENALTY. And of course, with Eidolon’s Opportunity, it can take a swing at the enemy when they try to stand back up. Also, if I’m reading the Knockdown entry right, if your Eidolon lands the Reactive Strike, you should be able to attempt to Knockdown the enemy again first thing next turn, provided they’re still in range, but feel free to correct me on that. Also, depending on what spell school you get access to via your Eidolon, you could potentially even get some difficult terrain-inducing spells on your Summoner too to get some nice area denial as well!

A very funny way to get a grapple+trip weapon is an inventor dedication. You can do silly things like topping off a guisarme with entangling form. Or slap it on a whip or flail if you want the shield.

excellent

My favorite tank build is a polearm Fighter (elf, sylph, dwarf adopted ancestry). The build has a plenty of healing, damage mitigation, max armor, 40 speed, high accuracy/dpr. Combined with a Sorcerer it has the most reliable combo to deal with boss fights. These are often the most difficult encounters in my experience. The combo is: Crashing Slam + Slow (spam). If anyone knows anything stronger/more reliable let me know. I do not like using battle maneuvers on their own, because they weren't as reliable compared to attacks in my experience. I especially dislike the free hand battle maneuvers, because you can't use them well with reach. If you use reach you indirectly tax action economy and it is very reliable if you (+ teammates) position well. The next reason I dislike battle maneuvers is that attacking is often more beneficial. Like you said damage is a form of tanking. A dead creature can't deal damage anymore. Class Feats: ------------------------- 1. Sudden Charge 2. Psychic Dedication: The Tangible Dream - Shield (focus point) 4. Basic Psychic Spellcasting: Bless, False Vitality 6. Psi Development (focus point) 8. Lunge 9. Slam Down 10. Crashing Slam ('win game') Free Archetype: -------------------------- 2. Champion Dedication 4. Healing Touch (focus point) 6. Retributive Strike 8. Desperate Prayer (*focus point) 10. Rogue Dedication The Psychic + Champion combo is to get more focus points (free archetype). You get access to Shield, Shield Block from Psychic. Champion gives access to Retributive Strike, which synergizes very well. All of these abilities are reliable ways of healing/damage mitigation. In case an enemy attacks you I would use Shield Block (often use Shield on myself). The damage mitigation from Shield Block is about the same as the healing from Lay on Hands. However Shield Blocking does save an action next turn and you probably won't use your reaction anyway. The ideal scenario is that an enemy attacks your ally and you can use Retributive Strike. This means free damage mitigation and an 0 MAP attack. You save the focus point and can heal your ally on your turn. With reach you should position yourself in a way to encourage attacking allies. You also want to position in a way to get flanking and/or trigger Reactive Strike. Yes reach is very important. Notice I took Rogue Dedication. This is mainly for Gang Up for easier Retributive Strike/Reaction Strike + flanking. The speed and max armor are from Elf + Nimble Elf + Unburdened Iron + Fleet.

Weapon Inventor can add Grapple AND Trip to a melee weapon. A single handed reach melee weapon let's you use a shield for extra AC and Shield Block. Might need some GM fiat as most 1-h reach weapons are Uncommon, leaving you with the whip with its low damage die. 2-h are probably the standard to go for RAW. A ransuer gives you good damage die size, reach, and Disarm giving you three maneuver traits. A bo staff has low damage for 2-h weapons but has Parry giving you a minor defensive option. Animal Instinct Barbarian is another good DPR tank. Best static AC of all instincts with the Animal Skin feat. Natural weapons have easy access to Grapple traits. Deer gets Grapple and Reach. It's anathema to use weapons but not a shield, making you even tankier. Regardless of instinct, Furious Bully is probably the goto at level 8... Shoutout to Friendly Toss though-- sure you can use it offensively but it also means you can throw allies to safety away from enemies and avoid reactive strikes crushing your poor squishy casters. Champion at level 8/10 is easy. Quick Shield Block is great as it frees up more actions on your turn for Grappling and minotaur-ing. 10 is generally picking up your Divine Ally upgrade feat. It'll be interesting to see how PC2 shakes up Champion, especially with that new Shield focus spell that looks like a good offensive/defensive alternative to Lay On Hands / Touch of Corruption. An interesting off-tank setup I'm currently playing around with building is a Duelist/Aldori-Duelist build. They dueling parry for +2 AC is nice but nothing special. It comes online at later levels when you can strike or Disarm foes when they critically fail the strike. Duelist gives you Selfless Parry and let's you do the riposte reaction on protected allies. Remastered Disarm is good for burning actions or applying accuracy debuffs. Great to supplement another frontliner PC, like a Champion or Barbarian without a shield. I haven't looked at Kineticst too much but you've peaked my interest... I was interested in a Wood/Metal Kineticist to build some sort of wall build. Can't hurt my party if they're on the other side of a wall. If only there was a way to sustain one wall while I erect the other. Unfortunately it's not a spell otherwise you could archetype with Witch for Cackle. I'll have to rethink this one...

Too bad it's gonna be a year or so before the Guardian. The first real taunting class. Great job with the video