paladin tank build?

[Akulakha]

Hi I'm a returning player and for my first character I was thinking about creating a paladin that focuses on survivability, defending allies, and buffing allies also. Does anyone have any recommendations on how I could build my paladin this way?

[R0ninknight]

I've been thinking about this, too! Honestly I suggest a paladin / man at arms multiclass of some design or other. That's what I was considering, anyway.

[Thorsson]

Gold Dwarf Pal14/DD10/MaA6 possibly. Full paladin spellcasting, EDR, full Tumble, various AC increasing Feats, Guarding the Lord.

[Uther3867]

the only issue is there's not that many paladin only spells that buff others alot, you got the cleric side but just a thought as well as for Man at arms i have to say paladin is a good fit for it i did a fighter man at arms and he's decent he had good hit points and a great ac in my opinon still gets hit but can take the damage like a trooper

[Akulakha]

So I was thinking of building up for last stand which gives 20d10 hp to all party members for a number of rounds. I'm still debating of what kind of feats I should develop for on the way. So far I've gotten paladin 4/ fighter 1 so I can get bonus feat and tower shield prof. I got luck of heroes, tower shield specialization, and combat expertise.

[Aelcar]

So I was thinking of building up for last stand which gives 20d10 hp to all party members for a number of rounds. I'm still debating of what kind of feats I should develop for on the way. So far I've gotten paladin 4/ fighter 1 so I can get bonus feat and tower shield prof. I got luck of heroes, tower shield specialization, and combat expertise.

I wouldn't do that. Not very effective, nor reliable, not even for its limited use.

You could easily build a CHA-based Pal 30 and get Luck of Heroes, Power Attack, Divine Might, Divine Shield, Tower Shield Prof, CE and ICE. If you're a human, you'll have another feat to spend as well.

In epic levels, I would go CHA until Great Smiting is available, and try to shoot for CHA 26 base (34 buffed long-term) and GS V if you manage.

Your saves and AC will be through the roof, your Turn Undead pretty good, and you'll have a lot of uses of DM and DS.

[Karond]

Do you've to specialize too much?

I mean, if you make an EDM paladin, using divine shield and a normal shield+weapon combo, you're decent at defending. You can't really buff people, but you can mimic it by taking natural leader (which doesn't hurt since you've great saves) that gives +1 AB to everyone in your party. In big partys, that's a massive permanent buff. You could further that with a few levels in warpriest for another such boost, or 3 levels of bodyguard. Hey, you might just want to do all of that, giving all your party members:

+1 AB with another +1 AB, +2 deflection AC, +2 universal saves to people close to you, and -1 AB to enemies near you (so it's like giving everyone another point of AC). Save a slot or two for casting prayer, giving another +1 AB, damage and saves to your allies and -1 to your enemies.

For your build, you would then do something like 23 paladin, 4 warpriest, 3 bodyguard, or just 26 paladin/4wapriest. If that 4th level of bodyguard is important for the 15' range and +3 bonus instead of +2 to saves, you might as well decrease the paladin levels and go for some hospitaler levels since you lose out on the epic feat either way.

From there, feats you might want to invest in is EDM, Divine Shield and the Expertise feats if you can, or just heavy shield spezializtion for another +1 AC, with luck of heroes etc. This way, you still have some offense from EDM that allows you to function on your own with some efficiency.


Then again, you could also get most of this and more if you are ready to just dip into the paladin class. Like, 4 Paladin, 3 warpriest and 23 cleric/FS...