Mage Tank
I’ll never forget my first foray into wizardry. It was my maiden voyage in Pathfinder combat, and I was a fresh-minted wizard. As a card-carrying member of Team Evocation, my spellbook was full to bursting with… not much really. (We were first level after all.) But I had burning hands on the list, and I wasn’t afraid to use it!
So no shit there we were, half a mile out of town en route to baby’s first dungeon. We heard some rustling in the hedgerows when, despite the common wisdom, we decided to investigate. It turned out to be a fantasy classic: a pair of orcish highwaymen, large as life and twice as ugly. They demanded all our precious copper pieces, we demanded they role initiative, and my dude got the first turn. Lucky me, the orcs were foolishly standing within a 15′ cone.
“I have a spell for this!” says my wizard. So first round of the first combat of my first Pathfinder game, my noodle-armed nerd charges a pair of melee bruisers.
“Burning hands!” says I.
As it turns out, 1d4 damage in a 15′ cone does not kill orcs. It annoys them.
I learned that day that a d6 hit die means “stand in the back.” Spells are cool and all, but you’ve got to have the chassis to support it. This is the same reason that transformation is less than stellar in Pathfinder, and why Witch’s experiment with Tasha’s otherworldly guise is doomed to fail. Sure you can build for it. Some niche characters can probably focus on it. But if you’re a run-of-the-mill caster, deliberately stepping into melee with a fistful of buffs and a dream is (as my long-ago Wizard discovered) not the best idea.
So how about it, guys? Have you ever made a “mage tank” work? Or do you too have a sad story of your own overconfident wizard getting lit up by orcs? Tell us your tale down in the comments!
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I’ve made it work in theory, but the closest I came to actually playing it was when I built my Magus. ^^; The rest is theory, characters I designed for fun.
Good ol’ magus! Who doesn’t love a gish in a can?
Now if I could only understand the etymology of ‘gish.’ :/
I believe it derives from ‘githzerai’, who almost always seem to go for Fighter/Wizard-combos.
Close, it comes from the Githyanki branch of that split.
Gish is an in-universe term for a githyanki fighter/spellcaster (or fighter/magic-user as the classes were called all the way back in first edition AD&D when they first appeared) which has then gotten adopted by the fan community as a wider term.
Back then humanoid enemy types would have little list of a range of how many people of each level and class (often with a little descriptive term) would be in the typical group, Githyanki had both fighters, spellcasters and 4th level fighter/magic-user multiclassed folks called “gish”
I’ve made a couple of mage tanks, primarily in 5e. The general path to this was to get a single level in cleric for medium armor and shields, as well as keeping up with spell slots and getting extra prepared slots. I went with the knowledge domain cause man i love being good at smartness. Then i went straight wizard, using spells like absorb elements and shield to boost my defenses further. The first character i made like this was a duck themed gnome called the Duck Knight. I came up with him as i was planning out the character, and thought about how he had effectively a bunch of utility things for every occasion like batman, but then absentmindedly spoke out the Duck Knight instead of the Dark Knight. The second was also my first attempt at a non evil jerkish character, as i usually like playing ultra good characters and the dm encouraged branching out. In addition, this was in a setting with a bunch of magitech, including some weapons, whose use was enhanced with good arcana, so I decided to make him a part martial, which he was actually reasonably effective with, unlike the duck knight who was more a walking artillery tank. The main wekness of both was that if an enemy got lucky, they could get taken down fast due to low hp, but with how high i could get their defenses, they would have to get pretty lucky to take them down fast enough that they couldnt just back up and take a standard mage role. Neither ever actually got knocked out even.
I’m also not sure if this counts, but i also made just an incredibly tanky magus before that could just face tank everything thrown at him while dealing lots of damage.
My first-ever Pathfinder character was a Magus, and over the course of the campaign, she shifted from a squishy damage-dealer to an extremely durable tank. Medium Armor, Snake Style, Mirror Image, Displacement, 16 CON…
We joked that her main power was “immunity to weapons.”
Wait a minute… You made a character named “the duck knight.” He was based on Batman. And you actually think he was based on Batman?
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTZiMTcxMzItNWFmZS00M2JhLTg3NGItNjM5MTJmYjhiYjYxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTAyODkwOQ@@._V1_.jpg
It may shock you, but it actually was. I had never actually watched darkling duck before, and my only knowledge of it at the time was references to it by the nostalgia critic.
For Halloween 2021, one of my DMs ran a Halloween-themed three-shot where I ran a fairy artificer. Tiny little thing with studded leather armor, a shield, the Shield spell, and Flash of Genius to add her +5 int modifier to any saving throw. She also had proficiency in Con saves. She also tended to draw attention from bosses because they kept having unremovable metal bits and she knew Heat Metal.
Same DM, longer term campaign, I have a Twilight Cleric 2/Stars Druid 4 satyr in mithral half-plate with a magic shield that, among other things, allows her to spend charges casting the Shield spell. She usually can’t get hit, though I still play her in the backline usually. She’s also pretty good at protecting allies, between Twilight Sanctuary, Sanctuary, Bane, Bless, and healing spells.
Old campaign I had a warforged armorer artificer in full plate as the party’s tank, using the Guardian configuration and the Shield spell (there’s a pattern here…) to make herself simultaneously the best and worst target. She was even going to get an enchanted set of adamantine armor right before she died trying to attune to a cursed McGuffin. Unfortunately due to an oversight, I was playing her with a d4 hit die…
Looking at her sheet again, the artificer fairy also had a Stone of Good Luck and the Armor of Magical Strength infusion to make up for her pathetic strength saves just in case, plus we were using simplified combat rules that let me use one of those six charges to mitigate damage in non-boss fights.
My current 3.5 Wizard is a Muscle Illumain Wizard who ended up fighting in a seige of kobolds. Most were base kobolds with crossbows but over 1/4 had spell casting as well. Magic missile and Power word pain, a 1st level spell that long spell description short dealt damage over time. I ended up no selling everything they had. Shield, protection from arrows, fire resistance from a party druid, enough bonuses to get 25+ AC, and Illumain, as I was one, are immune to spells with “word” based magic.
Thus I tanked a Kobold army as the rest of the party went and did tactics and retreated with me covering them.
Then the kobolds were still able to take the eastern part and then we, but mostly me, set fire to it and made sure as many kobolds were inside for it. Still a lot of kobolds still though.
“Ha, this plan is perfect! Our spells cannot be resisted by any ordinary defenses! And if they have defenses against magic in general, there’s always crossbows. Our fortress is impregnable!”
“Sir! We’re being attacked by a wizard with extremely specific defenses against our spells and crossbows!”
“…I really need to rein in the hubris.”
“Wait a single wizard? Well just attack around him and take the city!”
-Later-
“Ha it worked! We have half the city, barley lost any kobolds, and tomorrow I take rest!”
“Ah sir… the Wizard is burning down the east city…”
“…”
“and the other adventures are keeping the men in as it burns down…”
“… I’m gonna get eaten…”
remind me of a run we had, here we are exploring what seem to be a goblin\zombie research facility (as in the goblins were zombified and used for research. not that they did any of it themselves). where we get to a room with a lot of 20 ft dip pits holding mutated zombie goblins.one of which managed to get out and proved to be quite the tough guy.
my GM asks us if we want to go down the pits to destroy the undead. i ask ‘so, are they traying to get out of there?’ he says that no. they can’t get out. at which point i remind him i have a 0 level spell ready named ‘disrupt undead’ (o level spells are not used when cast. this one deal 1d6 damage to undead at range).
he look up at me, look back to his notes, look back up and go ‘ok you destroy all of the zombies…’
A failure example of ‘squishy caster in melee’ was from a Wizard PC in Rise of the Runelords. They picked the ‘Nemesis’ story feat, giving the DM leeway to create an opponent that would be a scaling, challenging rival until soundly defeated – specifically, a necromancer.
Eventually, after a few ambushes and other troubles caused by them, we meet the Necromancer in person – who had recently received an undead upgrade, becoming a full-blown mummy.
Our wizard, figuring this was a time to show off and flex their magic skills, decided to first encapsulate his foe in a spherical wall of force, then cast an array of spells to turn from squishy wizard to muscleman (Transformation, among others) and then teleported into the dome with a silence effect. Rather than do a conventional ‘wizard duel’, he wanted to humiliate his Nemesis with a wrestling cage match.
Unfortunately, their plan banked on the fact that the Necromancer was squishy caster and would be at a disadvantage in melee (the last time they saw them, they were human). A mummy was tanky and deadly up close. Two rounds later, he was floored by the Mummy’s slam attacks, and the rest of the party had to rescue him from his own poor decisions, killing off his Nemesis for him after watching his duel backfire spectacularly.
Heh, that second story reminds me of a ranger I adventured with back in 3.5 Living Greyhawk. He had as part of his backstory a hatred of Rakshasas, and low and behold we ran into one in a module. He demanded the chance to go in and solo it, so we granted it. A few rounds later, we entered, killed the Rakshasa, and swept up his disintegrated remains into a jar to take with us.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition has changed concentration somewhat- since you have 3 actions per turn, most concentration spells cost all 3 actions- and then *keep* costing 1 action each turn you want to keep them active. That keeps you from having too many up (since you’ll just have no actions to use on actually doing stuff otherwise) while also letting you tank through hits without losing your big buffs. In particular, though, is Illusory Creature.
Illusory Creature now uses your spell DC for its AC, and your spell attack roll for its Saves- and is destroyed if it’s ever hit or ever fails a save. This makes it a disposable and fairly hard to hit AC tank.
On the other hand, I’m currently playing a cleric in extinction curse who’s entire combat strategy is “if I’m the one in melee, the enemies cannot hurt my allies. I can heal myself for 100+ on a whim, they can’t.”
A bunch of successful examples of ‘squishy caster in melee’ came from our Return of the Runelords game, where we had three such characters, plus me as a conventional squishy Wizard.
One player was a Kitsune Witch who built around touch spells and using the Strangling Hair spell to become a surprisingly competent grappler and damage dealer up close, utilizing reach, Witch spells and grappling/strangling enemies to keep themselves safe from most melee attacks.
The second player was an Occultist who built towards melee combat, turning themselves into a powerhouse two-handed weapon user with oodles of enchantments to stack modifiers and damage, going from being an average fighter to one who could keep up with Fighters and Barbarians and ignored many of the counters to martials casters could whip up (truthful enchant decimates most of the caster baddies). They could even pop potent heals on themselves/others with a combo of the Healer’s Hand feat and the Specialized Healer’s Satchel.
The third player was a Sorceress who employed an interesting mashup of tactics with shadow spells – most notable of which being using Greater Possession to take control of a powerful Cloud Giant, gaining a durable and expendable body of a high CR martial monster whilst keeping all of her spellcasting abilities – even if the Cloud Giant’s body died, she’d be perfectly safe from harm herself. Her shadow spells also allowed her to be extremely flexible with what she could cast, and she often acted as a ‘tank’ for the party, buffing themselves with oodles of defensive magic and then exposing themselves to attack to draw fire away from the rest, being dodgy/durable enough that our witch/occultist could poke them with heals if something went wrong.
Gotta say, getting Truthful on the sword was the best investment I made that whole AP. Bugger off mirror images, I’m sick of your crap.
The permanency’d Symbol of Revelation in Mummy’s Mask was a pretty good investment too.
If I knew that trick for Return of the Runelords, I’d probably grab it alongside the perm’d See Invisibility (or replacing it outright).
My Ratfolk wizard was a conventional squishy caster and never waded into melee if they could help it, but they still brought along a few transformative spells with them. Spells like Frightful Aspect, Fiery/Icy Body, Particulate Form, Winds of Vengeance, Ride the Lightning and Form of the Dragon II/III (Alien or Exotic) are all wonderful buffs on a caster as they give them a unique array of outright immunities.
Frightful Aspect buffs your defenses with stats, DR and SR, gives you a cool makeover, and makes anyone with 30ft of you shaken with no save. If they still decide to attack you in melee, they automatically become frightened instead. It’s only downside is that many enemies are immune to mind whammies or fear by the time you get access to it.
Particulate form, for example shuts down anyone reliant on sneak attacks, precision damage, bleeds or crits, whilst also topping up your hp with fast healing AND letting you discharge the spell to get a burst of emergency healing. Did I mention it’s also a spell you can cast on the whole group?
Icy and Fiery form likewise, whilst huddled with their elemental weakness, give you all the immunities to crits and bodily effects of an elemental, and an immunity to the respective element, plus some elemental offensive abilities.
Winds of Vengeance makes ranged martials and swarm creatures outright unable to harm you, and punish anyone who engages in melee with you.
Ride the Lightning is a ‘get out of AOO’ spell that lasts for the entire battle, makes you immune to lightning, and damages foes you yeet yourself through.
And finally, the Form of the Dragon spells give a wide array of flexible forms to choose from, most of which also give you resistance (or outright immunity for the strongest version of the spell) to something on top of a breath attacks and stats/appearance boosts and draconic fear auras. It’s fantastic if you can get it on a martial character, but even a non-melee combatant can benefit from the defensive boosts.
Notable dragon forms are Sovereign (scaling Spell Resistance), Umbral (anti-death spells), Occult (anti-evil spells and extra AC), Nightmare (anti-mind spells, see in darkness), Time (initiative boost).
According to Witch’s spell’s visuals, the most important steps of an otherwordly makeover are ectoplasmic auras, belt-skulls, shark teeth and making sure take off your elbow-length gloves.
I’m guessing ‘otherworldly guide witch’ will soon be featured in the other handbook? :p
**Tasha’s Otherwordly Guise** was a lot more viable back in UA when it was available to Clerics, many of whom have access to heavy armor and are expected to melee.
One of my only 5E characters to die was a Hexblade at the end of a one-shot, so I have arguably never made it work either. He was viable up until that point. The Lord of Edges had wasted all his spell slots teleporting behind people. It was nothing personal.
I’ve got a fairly successful Wizard Tank in the 2E AD&D Dark Sun game I’m in. I had the stats to start as a gladiator then dual-class into Preserver (Mage). The Armor spell with a pretty good dexterity gives here an AC of 5 (15 in more modern Systems)… at least until she takes more than 9 points of damage, at which point she reverts to AC 9 (11).
So no crap, there we were, tracking down a deranged halfling killer in the dungeons beneath Nibenay. The ranger was distracted keeping a nest of Fire Beetles near the entrance off the party’s back. The fighter/thief got tied up fighting a couple asps, and the ranger/druid/psionicist couldn’t wear armor (Druids in Dark Sun can’t), and spent most of the fight trying to suck the poison out of a pair of dart wounds. Everyone else in the party was built for ranged support, so my poor mage (who got out of the arena because she didn’t like getting hit as was bad at dodging) got to play Front Line Fighter for the encounter with her Armor spell and a spear that she wielded as a quarterstaff up against a crazy halfling fighter/psionicist who was moving at double-speed due to psionically Accelerating herself. After fending off a couple thrown darts and absorbing a wrist razor hit (knocking , she cast Phantasmal Force, creating an illusion of dark ghosts of the murder victims that swarmed about the halfling’s head, effectively blinding her. The other psionicist in the party finally managed to get off a psionic attack that ended Accelerate for the murderer, which left her helpless for rounds equal to her time spent accelerated, and we finished her off.
Later my mage researched a higher-level Armor spell that improves her AC by another 3 points, and lasts for level+8 points of damage. Combined with the 3d10 hp she got as a gladiator (much better than the 3d4 she’d otherwise enjoy as a 3rd-level mage) and a good constitution, she’s ended up as a pretty good tank. The purchase of a pair of heavy crodlu (combat-capable riding lizards) has made her even better. But it took some time to get there.
Gah! Where’s the “edit” button? Soooo many mistakes in my post. Oh well, too late now.
I meant to say that the wrist razor hit took off half the durability of her Armor spell, before she cast Phantasmal Force.
Jack of all trades Bard acting as backup frontliner, not as good as fighter but can do in a pinch. Maybe even with the cleric in terms of close combat ability and while less punching power has more staying power than the glass cannon druid. Good thing we come with two warlocks to spam eldricht blast.
Oh. You say that too.
Anyways, I’ve never made a melee 100%-caster; I’ve done melee druids and melee arcane tricksters and the like, but never a melee wizard. I’ve read enough guides to know it’s possible, though. Done competently, they’re a glass cannon exceeding rogues as both cannons and glass; done munchkinerily, they can have enough abjuration effects to mitigate the glass factor.
I should try it sometime. (Not the munchkinerily version—I’m not confident enough in my system mastery to attempt it.) Maybe I’ll add it to the multi-page list of character ideas I’ve got.
One wizard attempted to battle a large amount of giant crabs that were laying siege to a windmill. As this was a sandbox style adventure and the rest of the party were less heroically minded, he was left on his own here. His plan focused around laying Web spells to slow the horde down and then beating them with his quarterstaff in a more manageable fashion.
Unfortunately, after trapping about six crabs he was still left with another two dozen that had peeled off from the greater crab horde which quickly overwhelmed and devoured him.
Mage Tank question: I once did a Symbiat from Spheres of Power. Closest non-3rd party class is Kensai / Sword Saint Magus. It worked… in that I was unhittable with a flat-touch AC of “no, you miss. Yes, I know it was flat and touch and a natural 19. You still miss.” But my damage output was basically nothing.
Better is Blur/Displacement/Greater Invisibility/Mirror Image for raw miss%.
Better still if you relax the rules a little is Kineticist, since it’s basically THE magic martial.
Do warlocks count? Not sure they should count, but I had several really fun melee warlocks.. (And I did a quite viable, if not cookie cutter melee Elementalist in Guild Wars 1 that was quite fun to play)
Oh and not to forget about my dwarven wizard, who had one level of fighter, and he made the GM kinda curse when he dropped a fireball at his own feet, sculpting himself and party members out of the effect, eliminating the kobold minions of the dragons we were fighting, unbeknowingly preventing one of said kobolds from healing said dragon up with a staff of healing.
…good times, really.
> Do warlocks count? Not sure they should count
It’s weird. A gish class is more or less *supposed* to be a melee combatant, though you don’t have to build it that way. What I’m getting at in today’s comic is that high-difficulty maneuver of making a squishy caster survive melee when they aren’t spec’d for it.
Okay so it’s not just me, markdown is broken for everyone’s comments.
I gotta say, I’m impressed that the NPC guard got off two shots with a crossbow.
Oddly, my “mage gets killed in melee” story is identical to yours, up to an including using burning hands on orcs. This was also his first time playing a wizard, but it was back in 1e AD&D when wizards only had a d4 hit die.
RIP that mage. He had a good only session.
Tasha’s otherworldly guise, at least the version linked here, seems to be more about DPS than tank. +2 AC, and a few immunities to specific damage types and conditions, do not a tank make.
I’ve found that the best “Mage Tanks” are actually Clerics. Full caster, decent armor, middling HP… nothing says ‘holding aggro’ like some smug-looking Spirit Guardians and an even smugger caster.
While I’m working on building a 3.5 kitchen-sink bard (min-maxed to fill any niche in a low-mid level party), the balsa-wood tank award goes to my son.
After playing a Mega-Tank (Fighter with smithy skills to make his own gear) for several years –plus the occasional fighting Druid, multi-classed gnome, or support character for large parties– he is now the party leader of a group comprised of two wizards, a halfling swashbuckler, and a couple of squishy familiars. After brazenly sauntering up to a few baddies who refused to respect his authority, it didn’t take long to discover that if he isn’t able to bring out the nuclear option in round 1, *every* fight results a long rest in the ICU before the team can go looking for another goblin to taunt.
In extreme cases, wizard #2 (a gnome illusionist) has had to go *invisible*, drag the wounded into a niche or side corridor, then cast *silent image* to create a temporary illusory wall while shouting “With eldritch force, I create this Wall of Stone!” and hope that the enemies fail their Sense Motive check and/or Will save.
I’ve actually got a proper mage ‘tank’ build in our current Pathfinder 2e game, of sorts. Playing a high-Con score Sorcerer Dhampir, in a game that doesn’t tend to mind the [Rare] tag stuff being used. This gave me access to a spell called Necrotic Radiation, the tl;dr of which causes a creature in the affected space- or touching the affected item- will take negative energy damage each round, giving me sizable passive healing (presumably the main reason this spell is Rare).
Being a divine spell list-associated bloodline (Psychopomp bloodline, family reunions will be fun I’m sure), I have access to Heal, Harm, Shield Other, and Life Link, among others. So I ‘tank’ by staying far from the frontlines and acting as a battery of extra hp to my allies, splitting the damage with them and healing it off by poking myself in a pinch, or throwing out Scorching Rays when I have breathing room.
Aside from that, closest I played was my Rimesoul Undine Magus in 1e, who had the Kensai archetype to get both her considerable dex and int scores to AC on top of Mage Armor. She was a dodge-y character and only dropped once in that campaign, in a 1v1 sparring match when she was unable to roll above a 7 for 15 rounds straight against a similarly tanky foe (who despite rolling well was still having trouble hitting back). Came down to the wire even then. This was the same Magus I bring up from time to time who let her parrot familiar do the talking for her, for good and for ill.
Two quick thoughts: 1. The best mage ‘tank’ handles tanking like a normal mage does: giving the job to someone else. Summon spells are your friend, and early on casting Mount and having it march ahead of you means you ALSO count as the party trap locator. Druids have animal companions more tanky than fighters at low levels, and Clerics can tank and cast in equal measure.
2. Tangentially related, but Burning Hands is a very not great spell unless you cheese it for the very reasons mentioned in that story. I still need to find a silly low-level oneshot so I can use my ‘Flying Baconator’ build that does exactly that. Gnome with Pyromaniac racial trait, Tattooed Sorcerer as class/archetype (pick evocation for your Varisian Tattoo school), pick up a Pig familiar with the Elemental (Air) archetype for a fly speed and give it the Hefty Brute (Build?) feat to up its carrying capacity, then make your Gnome’s feat Undersized Mount. Take the Precocious Spellcaster trait and select Burning Hands, and take the Orc or Draconic (red or gold) bloodline.
End result? Gnome flying on the back of her (wanted female for minimal weight) flying pig she got when someone said they’d respect her when pigs flew, raining down 4d4+4 damage 15 ft wide cones of fire. THAT’S how you make Burning Hands useful at low levels. Get 10 hp with high con/favored class bonus so Mr. Bacon has 5 hp, and give Mr. Bacon your cast of Mage Armor and let it use Total Defense each round for respectable 20(?) AC. Crits are still a nightmare, but that’s gonna be a problem at level 1 no matter what. Flavor with cantrips like Mage Hand, Open/Close, Message, etc so you never need to come down from your mount.
I actually have a pretty good “mage tank” in D&D 5e: Klezin the lizardfolk abjurer. Their natural armour combined with careful use of the Shield spell helps avoid getting hit in the first place, their high Constitution and effective extra HP from Arcane Ward cover nicely for their d6 Hit Die, spell resistance helps deal with magical foes, and they like to use spells like Fire Shield to further inflict pain on anyone going into melee with them. Even in the mid-levels, they were better at taking hits than the fighters, and once they got at-will Shield spells with Spell Mastery, they became basically untouchable.
Couple of Pathfinder examples:
Towards the mid to end of a Way of the Wicked campaign my spell sage wizard relied on the polymorph line+Transformation+cleric/druid buffs (from spell sage) to do a fine job in melee. Was more of a buffing wizard for that campaign so threw on a bunch of long lasting buffs to the whole party then would melee to save the few remaining spell slots.
A gravewalker witch in a Skulls and Shackles campaign took a convoluted route to having a combat “form”. Using Assume Appearance would have the witch possessing an undead that’s polymorphed into a humanoid that’s mundanely disguised as the original witch. This is purely a “coolness” factor scheme as the DM found out when he had an NPC know this exact method and target dispel the possession/polymorph and suddenly the undead was twice as powerful offensively.
Clearly, Witch needs to start the recruitment process for a new frontline guy or gal for the Evil Party. Because Antipaladin is otherwise employed…
If it comes to making a caster melee-worthy, it’s important to remember to play to your strengths and exploit the other guy’s weaknesses.
So take those feats that boost your HP and your weaker saves. Get gear to boost your AC and your Initiative. Select spells to improve your chance of hitting stuff and dealing good damage.
And above all, fight dirty.
Use spells to trip and weaken and blind. Transform your weak little body into something tougher. Use contingencies as soon as you can (so invest in Craft contingent spell or its equivalent a.s.a.p.). Carry bottles of nasty stuff that will give your enemy a hard time, but have spells up to make you immune to it.
Remember a big, strong warrior will pound you into the dirt, unless you put dirt in his eyes and kick him in the fork first.
Also remember, your spells can do hideous damage. If you want to go into melee, find ways to use your magic while you’re there.
Natsu would be so disappointed of your wizard 🙁
Wizards aren’t the best class to tank. With the right spells you can manage but other classes could do better. On 3.5 the Warlock got i think a cast-at-will DR15/Adamantine spell. Warlocks where great back then 😀
In Pathfinder, my Magus, when properly buffed prior to combat, could do decently well up front, though not nearly as well as our Bloodrager or ridiculously tanky warpriest. If he wasn’t buffed, as I found out after running into a Graveknight, he died as easily as any wizard.
In 5e, I have a Bladesinger who can very much handle being in the front line and does more damage than almost anyone in the party (I LOVE the spell Steel Wind Strike when the opportunity arises). However, for him to be viable, I need to have his bladesong up and both his intelligence and dexterity have to be very high, if not maxed out. We just recently hit level 18 so I can use shield and misty step more or less at will, which also drastically increases his survivability. I also have devoted his 9th level slot to Foresight, which makes him far more durable and lethal in melee than he has any right to be when combined with Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade and other bonuses from being a Bladesinger.
I could see Tenser’s Transformation or Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise working under ideal circumstances. Say you have a mountain dwarf war mage. You start out in medium armor, so with a decent dexterity score and magic armor you could easily be at 17+ AC without casting a spell. When concentrating with Durable Magic, your AC increases by 2, and depending on the spell, it might be more plus the other benefits of either of those spells. The main issue is that for this to be properly viable, it takes a wizard until fairly late in their career and up until that point, very few wizards have any business being in melee.
I have played a somewhat effective Abjuration wizard as a tank in 5e. Abjuration wizards are able to create a ward, that can then soak some damage for them. The character was a dwarf, meaning that I just had to take one feat to be able to wield both a shield and plate armor. With the shield spell, I ended up with a rather un-hittable AC, and as a dwarf I somewhat made up for my lack of HP. I did have a lower INT then usually suggested (I think around 14?), so that I could have a higher STR and CON, but I think it worked out. It worked a lot like a melee focused cleric would.
It also helps that various defense buffs like Blink or Mirror Image doesn´t require concentration, meaning that you can become pretty hard to hit, given time to prepare. If you aren´t given time to prepare, then Haste is a great buff, as it grants you +2 AC and allows you to attack next turn, while buffing yourself. Meaning you don´t have to waste a turn on buffing.
I think it is a type of character that could be even more fun to play at higher levels, where you can use more feats and have a greater selection of spells that help out in melee. I had also considered multiclassing two levels in fighter, so that I could get action surge and cast two spells in one round. Going a bit in fighter would also grant the character heavy armor proficiency, without having to take feats for it.
As for the character itself, he was this old runesmith, who used to be a respected warrior, before age took its toll. He was questing because his son had (Apparently) stolen an important clan artifact and killed his mother (My guys wife). So now my dwarf was going on a journey to find his son, reclaim the artifact, get answers and make sure that justice got done.
After the campaign ended in my last group, we gave 5e a try. I found an archetype that was supposed to make a sorcerer viable for melee. It did not. I had some cool abilities and spells, but couldn’t take any damage and kept getting knocked out. My GM was nice enough to let me change the character into an Eldritch Knight instead. No more knockouts.
When I want melee mage to work I *really* want it to work so…. largely it’s not a thing I do. But in 5e I’ve found a few exceptions. The one I can recall offhand is the Stone Sorcerer, a UA Sorcerer subclass that never made it into an official book. Why does it work you ask? Because it lets you use your Con mod for AC, so you can actually *afford* to dump a bunch of ASIs into Con (and Warcaster and most importantly Resilience: Con). As an added bonus it also gives you extra hp.
And also critically important to the way I like to play casters, it doesn’t do the very typical thing many caster subclasses do of giving you a mechanical reason to prioritize the designers chosen type of spells so you’re free to just pick whatever spells you want without worrying about what someone else thinks you “supposed” to be doing.
I recently pulled it off relatively well with my half-orc psion, Gin. Our group of Pathfinders was embroiled in conflict in the Mwangi Expanse. After saving refugees from another age, we began to investigate accounts of missing villages.
Being a dual-discipline psion, Gin was good at solving mysteries via clairsentiance powers, and making scary constructs to help our front liners, who were more than half our party of five.
Our GM made the smart play, and challenged us with larger groups of enemies. Mobility started becoming challenging, and our two tanks were having more and more trouble setting up the flank for our rogue-equivalent. After we hit level 5, being able to pull off a 1 round cast/manifestation at the beginning of battle was getting harder. So, it was time to adapt our tactics.
Gin, being the helpful sort, had a trait that improved the Aid Another action for flavour reasons. He invested in a mithral chain shirt, started using the Vigor + Share Pain + Psicrystal combo (with a hero psicrystal named Buddy, naturally), and drew his dagger to wade into the fray (to Buddy’s telepathically broadcast cries of delight).
By level 5, he was able to get an effective 50 temp hp with a standard action, which was generally enough to let him rush into position to flank with the rogue, spiking her DPS. His next few turns would be spent using Aid Another to try to assist the rogue.
Most enemies didn’t consider him much of a threat, a skinny guy who wasn’t able to hit the DC 10 aid another check half the time, especially in comparison with the rogue tearing into them. And by the time they tried a full-attack on the ineffective but somehow still threatening caster out of frustration, they generally didn’t have enough left in the tank to drop him.
Until the Tyrannosaurus Rexes. Those things wrecked our party. As Gin was caught up in one’s mouth, his final two standard actions were to throw Buddy to safety, then end Share Pain from within the dinosaur’s stomach, ensuring his heroism would live to see another day.
The Mage Tank, by it’s very nature, seems to require about two to three concurrent effects. 5e, by its very nature, seems to be at odds with this given how concentration works. At least that’s how I see it.
I think it would actually be feasible in Pathfinder if BAB wasn’t the issue that it is. I’m certain it’s possible, especially with multiclassing. Scale Fist Monk Sorcerer with Crane style and Transformation or Form of the Dragon. But it feels like something you’d want to do on Dragon Disciple and it doesn’t work WELL with Dragon Disciple. You’ll feel a bit like Witch up there. Attempt rare and dangerous 3 class multiclass…?
The one I’m trying to figure out is a synthesist summoner that is effective instead of a mess. ;p I have some ideas about it, but they all really push into coming online around level 9-12 instead of 6 (entire campaigns end before level 9 because REASONS), so it’s still a work in progress.
Yeahp, I’m one of those of the opinion that concentration was a poorly concieved mechanic, as illustrated by witch’s predicament. The relative fragility of caster classes should in itself be enough of a tradeoff for their cool powers; the ease with which a competent DM shuts down high-level spellcasting is ridiculous.
I’ve known a few dim bulbs among players who say that if you’re letting your caster take damage, you’re playing them wrong; but I’d counter that if in even the typical combat encounter sprung upon the party doesn’t have the casters imperilled, the DM is lazy, or a very soft touch.
The recent addition of the Artificer’s “mind sharpener’ infusion, that completely flips the tables on concentration, leads me to believe that Wizards have realised their oops in the original rules, so I’m now trying to hash out a house rule that changes up concentration a bit to make battlemage (or “gish”) types a plausible character option, and the War Caster feat less of a must-have.
Agreed. WOTC’s concentration is a mistake. Pathfinder has its faults, but the at least the buffs mandatory for melee casters and gishes don’t get shut down by somebody lightly scratching you. Along with a lot of other issues I have with 5e
My first character I ever played was a bard in 3.5 edition. My very first fight I used up my spell slots and then charged into the frontlines with my leather armor and my little dagger… after the cleric brought me back from unconsciousness the rest of the party kindly but firmly advised me to buy a light crossbow and stay in the back.
Now I’m playing an Eldritch Knight (in 5e), so I get to stab the bad guys and I have a few spells to mess around with. And since I took the Protection fighting style, I can make it harder for my allies to get stabbed. And since I’m a half-orc, on the rare occasion I get dropped to 0HP I can pop back up for one more swing before I go down again.
I lied, I can actually pop up for TWO more swings. Extra Attack, baby! And when I’m really mad at whoever knocked me out I throw in my Action Surge and make it four. That’s usually enough to finish them off before they can try to kill me again.
That orc fight in Crypt of the Everflame is so weird. I ran it for some of my fraternity brothers and one of them actually died so I had to figure out how to explain what happened to them after the fight.
One of my favirote “builds” ive done recently is a melee mage, but more of a cheetah with a knife than a turtle with a axe. Fast, not durable.
It involves blade songong, with magic boosting AC, and speed. And a couple of rouge levels to dash, and more importantly Disengage as a bonuse action.
So you run past the bad guys cut them with your sword/green flame blade cantrip and run away.
It’s gonna be a whole lot of fun!
Heh- only experience I have mage-tanking was accidental- found a room with lovely ‘damsels’-in-distress, and promptly fireballed the room. The rest of the party was somewhat perturbed by this, only to discover in the next round what my Wizard had already seen- they’d failed their saves against the illusions that… I think they were some flavour of hag?.. had cast, and then most of the party failed their saves [i]again[/i], this time against a fear effect.
My wizard ended up standing there facetanking a whole lotta claw rends while the rest of the party ran around screaming about nothing much. It was a close-run thing, but the hags didn’t get out, and eventually died from a terminal case of exploding repeatedly.
That’s less “mage tanking” and more a successful round of “mage glass cannoneering.”
I have a couple mage tanks (that aren’t Artificer enhancement cheese) who were very fun to play with how absurd their ac got. First off was Skippy, a dinky little Kobold war mage who used his absurd AC from their discount shield or the actual shield spell to run right in alongside the martials, occasionally dropping his bullet-pattern gimmick to kneecap a monster with a +2 baseball bat and gauntlets of ogre power.
The other is Hornelius, a Harengon Cleric-turned-Cleradin with an eventual AC of 26, which led to a hilarious moment of “don’t worry, that definitely hits” “no but what did he roll” leading to him blocking a weird attack-roll steam blast from a dragon turtle with nary a scratch on him. I just generally had great fun almost singlehandedly ending combats while my squishier companions did all the roleplay stuff beyond the occasional cloaker voiceline
For this, I usually just do some homebrew until I create a better solution.