It is not too good as a physical tank as it has no hardiness and no stoneskin or such spells. It can have a quite good AC but AC is not that reliable lategame as I already mentioned.
my favourite tank type character is the good ol' half-orc berserker, half-orc berserkers start kicking butt at level 1 and continue to do so all the way to level 40
see in my opinion a good tank has to be useful for as long as possible, yes blades and multi/dual class mages and clerics can tank quite well with spell back up, but the berserker doesn't need to wait to start kicking some serious butt, they start kicking butt right out the get go
plus there are some enemies that will dispel all of your cool shields ( unless you can exploit the enemy by making them waste it on some else) but with a half-orc berserker regardless of spells cast on them on or not, they still continue to kick butt
plus that enrage ability it laughably awesome, + 2 to hit/AC/ to damage PLUS immune to basically everything that would make you hit the mystical "L" key on the keyboard AND the fact that enrage cannot be dispelled makes it all the more awesome
my level 40 half-orc berserker had over 250 HP and was wielding the ravanger dealing 35+ damage a hit, lolling all over enemies and that's all without casting a single spell
so in my opinion if you want a good tank that kicks butt right from the get go and continues to do so, get a half-orc berserker now and start wielding some two handed weaponry and watch as you slice and dice through enemies without a worry or care
I have never had more success (and fun) in both BG1 or Continuing to and finishing BG2 then when I'm running a pure Bezerker (with a strong cast of friends) ...(I'm also one of those wierd Final Fantasy 1 purists who only play by creating their entire parties now)
I have to agree with @sarevok57 - all you theorycrafting mage-cleric-fighter-unicorns are only dependent of buffs and have to rest all the time to stay viable. A bloody barbarian will kick serious arse since the day 1 and will keep kicking arse till the very end of the saga as an enraged steel tornado.
Eh, Barbarians/Berserkers are also dependent on resting to recover their rages, without which they have issues dealing with magical save-or-suck attacks. One of the nice things about being a Fighter/Mage/Cleric is that you have a ridiculous number of spell slots, allowing you to switch between Mage and Cleric protections to extend your workday, rather than resting because you just don't have the energy to get mad anymore.
Shorty bonuses are always up
With defender of easthaven you get an easy 40% damage resistance. Shoots up to 90% when needed with extra save bonuses.
Easy to stack elemental resists with items. These can't be dispelled and need no management.
I personally don't like worrying about when prof. from magical weapons will run out of how many hits stoneskin has left. I'd rather just have a solid wall of steel laugh as enemy spells break against him, as waves of fire feel like a warm breeze and as the foes' weapon shatter like their skulls.
I would say Ranger/Cleric due to Iron Skins (which last for sooooo long) and cleric buffs, add in fighter HLAs later and you have a tank which is quite versatile, able to deal with enemy magicians via Insect Plagues AND something which nobody has really mentioned, has a great amount of healing.
I realise healing in battle isn't optimal but when pressed, potions only do so much and sometimes you need to go for a Heal on the tank. It's good if the tank could heal himself since the party which is usually fighting on multiple fronts and you need every man/woman ^^
I would say Ranger/Cleric due to Iron Skins (which last for sooooo long) and cleric buffs, add in fighter HLAs later and you have a tank which is quite versatile, able to deal with enemy magicians via Insect Plagues AND something which nobody has really mentioned, has a great amount of healing.
I realise healing in battle isn't optimal but when pressed, potions only do so much and sometimes you need to go for a Heal on the tank. It's good if the tank could heal himself since the party which is usually fighting on multiple fronts and you need every man/woman ^^
Unless you specifically activate it from the baldur.ini file, a ranger/cleric should not have druid spells beyond level 3, thus no iron skins.
In a low rest environment with nightmare mode, I have found that the ->
Fighter/Cleric Dwarf multi-class is my strongest tank
For me tanking means ->
Skeletons - Armor Class - Damage Reduction - Saving Throws - Regeneration - Immunity to Level Drain
Early on the skeletons get you through any hard fight (use them sparingly in low rest environment) - and you can tank hits and regen up when they get past your huge armor class (+2 full plate with limited wish scroll in adventurer's mart + fortress shield).
With Dwarf saving throws and admittedly a skald in the party - you are basically immune to status effects. The only thing that hits me from time to time is the unsavable domination spells - if i forget to swap on helm of charm protection.
While AC becomes nearly useless in TOB - you switch to being a pure mitigation tank with 85% damage reduction and a stack of potions. TOB is really easy with a proper tank.
Amulet of Power - Gaxx Ring
Protection from Evil + Armor of Faith + DuHM - are all incredibly useful defensive spells that you get a ton of.
ALSO keep in mind if you get the 3 wisdom tomes from BG1 you can have 21 wisdom which gives you a ton of bonus spells.
I have played mage duals and multis but they need to rest too often to be effective. If you play in a high rest environment (cheesy) then mages definitely can be more effective in a lot of fights.
I have played ranger/cleric even WITH iron skins and I find it to be worse due to missing out of 5 saving throws. I will trade ironskins for saving throws faster levels ups (fighter vs ranger) and higher con regen with tome of constitution on a dwarf.
I have played the dwarven defender - but I hate not having amulet of power - even though he can use upgraded mace of disruption - its not as convenient. I also don't like the lack of skeletons early that are really really strong offensively and defensively in some critical fights.
I've also messed around with nearly every flavor of paladin ranger and fighter that was mentioned in this thread and just found that they didn't hit all the necessary points.
Unless you specifically activate it from the baldur.ini file, a ranger/cleric should not have druid spells beyond level 3, thus no iron skins.
Already done ^^
Also what about an Undead Hunter with 100 MR? Plenty of Immunities while ignoring most magic with a great AC might be the closest to a Fighter/Mage in terms of defence.
@FinneousPJ For sake of argument if you removed the skeletons from the equation things would certainly be a bit harder on a few fights. Summons within Nightmare are a difficult thing to deal with. One way to solve it manually but I find it annoying is to save the game and reload it. Doing so brings the summons back to normal. This works for summons you would pop up before a battle but not during for obvious reasons. Regardless even with weak skeletons I'd choose the fighter/cleric.
As for my "high rest" comment - certainly opinions will differ and I don't proclaim that my way is correct only that in my myriad playthroughs I've arrived at a fairly strong anti-rest policy. My two sentence summary of reasoning is that being able to rest all the time reduced the difficulty down very low as all abilities/hlas/spells were available for every fight. When you can meta game prebuff every encounter with 6 or 7 spells, while having no concern about wasting or conserving - you take away the fun and the challenge.
My one and only story gripe about the game is that I really wish they had put a sense of urgency into things and thus provided an incentive not to rest. Everything unfolds at 30 days or 300 days at exactly the same pace and that breaks the intensity a bit for me. But at the end of the day to each their own!
AC is far from useless in ToB, you can make everyone miss you on anything else than a critical hit without a shield, you just need to stack it.
Get to -26 base AC then throw Improved Invisibility + Prot from Evil + armors modifiers into the mix and you have -36 AC versus crushing. Enough to make even The Ravager miss you all the time.
It's equivalent to 95% damage reduction + 95% reduction versus on-hit effects like elemental damage or level drain. Physical damage resistances won't protect you against that.
A well played mage of some sort is probably the best contender simply because only mages can get access to Spell Immunity and thus immunity to Dispel Magic and True Sight. Berserkers are also good due to not being affected too badly by Dispel, but as mentioned before Breach kinda messes with them a lot. I believe the 'standard' tank-mage runs Improved Invisibility to prevent single-targets and the +4 to all saves, SI: Divinity to keep said II active, and SI: Abjuration to keep both of them from being Dispelled. Add Mirror Image, Stoneskin, sometimes Blur, Bracers of AC3, and either the cloak of Mirroring or elemental protections or SI:Necromancy or Evocation depending if you're facing Sunfire or ADHW... And throw in a Spellshield against stuff that can use Spellstrike. If you're still having trouble with melees, throw in a Teleport Field as well just to mess them up further.
So yeah, a mage played at its highest level is best equipped for tanking stuff. Problem is, I'm not actually good enough at micromanaging to play at this high of a level, so I'm gonna say Cavalier, Dwarven Defender, Berserker (of a shorty race) or... Clerics are also good for this, and there's the argument that the Cleric/Mage is even more absurd in its defensive potential than straight-up Mage with Death Ward and Chaotic Commands and the use of shields and helmets.
Overall? I'm gonna go with a Gnome C/I as the best tank protagonist possible.
Unless you specifically activate it from the baldur.ini file, a ranger/cleric should not have druid spells beyond level 3, thus no iron skins.
Already done ^^
Also what about an Undead Hunter with 100 MR? Plenty of Immunities while ignoring most magic with a great AC might be the closest to a Fighter/Mage in terms of defence.
Reaching 100% MR with a paladin is not that easy:
Carsomyr gives 50%
Hell+MoLtM gives 15%
Enkidu's plate gives 5%
Add amulet (10%) and ring of gaxx, it is still only 90%.
To reach 100% MR, you need to play a Thief, for Use Any Item. This way you can use both Carsomyr and the Human Flesh Armor, who are the 2 best MR items (50% and 20%), later you can also change the Armor of Flesh by the Silver Dragon Armor
The Wizard Slayer/Thief dual class can even reach 100% without using the Armor of Flesh
However, the problem with a 100% MR tank lies in the fact it doesn't protect the tank against Imprisonment, which is a kinda huge blind spot considering it's the most dangerous spell of the game
I think that all arguments about being the "best" tank which are based on items/skills/spells you get in the last 10% of the game are kinda stupid (like UAI etc). Also, I think relying on cheese is not really a fair measurment of a character concept's ability to tank. So with that said, I kinda agree with @sarevok57 and @Tredvolt among others. Being strong from level 1 and onwards makes you a pretty damn good tank and a couple of the character builds above here wouldn't be able to do that.
Spending all your spellslots to make you _almost_ as good as a vanilla fighter doesn't make you a great tank, so no bards (defensive spin is good in theory, but pretty crappy in practice).
Same with high level dualclasses or CHARNAME's needing UAI to be effective.
Single class mages and sorcs are amazing ofc but will need a good team for a decent portion of the game until they at least reach level 4 spells, and you'll need a couple of those spell slots to be even remotely decent compared to a fighter type (a fairry low level dual classed berzerker mage is great though).
So with that said, I think multiclasses are the best, either F/C or M/C and I think shorties with their saves are amazing. The cleric part of this multi offers buffs, and for the latter one, also armor options. Berzerkers are great as well, but a good F/C dwarf will be almost as good in the beginning and better later on. I would prolly rate a dwarf F/C or a gnome C/I as the best throughout the game, from the start to the finish they can be relied upon to take the heat.
Great saves, great item options, good survivability throughout the game (from level 1), good offensive options to boot, not much resting needed, summons if needed and much more. Neither is item dependent, though ofc good items are needed to make them great (as for ALL character concepts). Neither use any kind of cheese (why are buffed summons called cheese?) to be effecient either.
Ring of Gaxx can be obtained twice So the Paladin can just get 100, be it through a little thievery ^^
Also Paladins do have rather high saves to help vs Imprisonment
There's no save vs. Imprisonment. It just works.
I also was under the impression the EEs had closed the two Rings of Gaxx exploit, but I haven't actually tested. Can someone confirm one way or the other?
So Berserker dualed to thief with UAI should have 100MR and immunity to imprisonment (when raged), as well as being pretty tanky physically. No shorty saves unfortunately, but a solid option.
Edit: misses out on Easthaven due to carsomyr, so not as physically tanky as may be hoped.
Ring of Gaxx can be obtained twice So the Paladin can just get 100, be it through a little thievery ^^
Also Paladins do have rather high saves to help vs Imprisonment
There's no save vs. Imprisonment. It just works.
I also was under the impression the EEs had closed the two Rings of Gaxx exploit, but I haven't actually tested. Can someone confirm one way or the other?
Just tried it with a 255 Pick pocket thief, it does not work anymore apparently.
As for the subject, I believe I may have found a new way of being a good tank.
It involves a Berzerker dualing into thief, relying on AC (which works very well from level 1 to late Underdark) and Thac0 lowering with Soul Reaver+4 you get late SoA. This should take you up to the end of ToB and work well even against the lowest Thac0 enemies.
Early game, pick a 1H weapon and a shield. That will get you a decent enough AC to tank physical damage, while your rage will protect you from CC, and your HP pool should be enough to tank what manages to hit you.
Once you get the Soul Reaver, drop your shield and equip the big sword:
Your lategame build gives you:
-15AC (down to -23 with Improved evasion and berzerker rage), + specific AC (from belts and armor). It is enough against lowly enemies, and you should focus worthy enemies with Soul Reaver to lower their Thac0 anyway. Note that you may give a +4 to-hit penalty to enemies with Improved invisibility (improved cloak of protection) or shadow door (3* per day, night walkers).
Undispellable immunity to all magic except some death magic (Vorpal hit notably) (Status, thanks to Berserker Rage, damage thanks to the cloak of mirroring).
Decent damage output.
However note that your physical resistance is flawed when AC does not matter. Cases that come to mind are Wing Buffet from dragons, or enemy time stop.
Comments
It is not too good as a physical tank as it has no hardiness and no stoneskin or such spells. It can have a quite good AC but AC is not that reliable lategame as I already mentioned.
see in my opinion a good tank has to be useful for as long as possible, yes blades and multi/dual class mages and clerics can tank quite well with spell back up, but the berserker doesn't need to wait to start kicking some serious butt, they start kicking butt right out the get go
plus there are some enemies that will dispel all of your cool shields ( unless you can exploit the enemy by making them waste it on some else) but with a half-orc berserker regardless of spells cast on them on or not, they still continue to kick butt
plus that enrage ability it laughably awesome, + 2 to hit/AC/ to damage PLUS immune to basically everything that would make you hit the mystical "L" key on the keyboard AND the fact that enrage cannot be dispelled makes it all the more awesome
my level 40 half-orc berserker had over 250 HP and was wielding the ravanger dealing 35+ damage a hit, lolling all over enemies and that's all without casting a single spell
so in my opinion if you want a good tank that kicks butt right from the get go and continues to do so, get a half-orc berserker now and start wielding some two handed weaponry and watch as you slice and dice through enemies without a worry or care
That got a good laugh out of me. My next Zerker will most definitely be named "Steel Tornado."
Shorty bonuses are always up
With defender of easthaven you get an easy 40% damage resistance. Shoots up to 90% when needed with extra save bonuses.
Easy to stack elemental resists with items. These can't be dispelled and need no management.
I personally don't like worrying about when prof. from magical weapons will run out of how many hits stoneskin has left. I'd rather just have a solid wall of steel laugh as enemy spells break against him, as waves of fire feel like a warm breeze and as the foes' weapon shatter like their skulls.
I realise healing in battle isn't optimal but when pressed, potions only do so much and sometimes you need to go for a Heal on the tank. It's good if the tank could heal himself since the party which is usually fighting on multiple fronts and you need every man/woman ^^
Unless you specifically activate it from the baldur.ini file, a ranger/cleric should not have druid spells beyond level 3, thus no iron skins.
It is optionnal. I almost never used healing during battle
Fighter/Cleric Dwarf multi-class is my strongest tank
For me tanking means ->
Skeletons - Armor Class - Damage Reduction - Saving Throws - Regeneration - Immunity to Level Drain
Early on the skeletons get you through any hard fight (use them sparingly in low rest environment) - and you can tank hits and regen up when they get past your huge armor class (+2 full plate with limited wish scroll in adventurer's mart + fortress shield).
With Dwarf saving throws and admittedly a skald in the party - you are basically immune to status effects. The only thing that hits me from time to time is the unsavable domination spells - if i forget to swap on helm of charm protection.
While AC becomes nearly useless in TOB - you switch to being a pure mitigation tank with 85% damage reduction and a stack of potions. TOB is really easy with a proper tank.
Amulet of Power - Gaxx Ring
Protection from Evil + Armor of Faith + DuHM - are all incredibly useful defensive spells that you get a ton of.
ALSO keep in mind if you get the 3 wisdom tomes from BG1 you can have 21 wisdom which gives you a ton of bonus spells.
I have played mage duals and multis but they need to rest too often to be effective. If you play in a high rest environment (cheesy) then mages definitely can be more effective in a lot of fights.
I have played ranger/cleric even WITH iron skins and I find it to be worse due to missing out of 5 saving throws. I will trade ironskins for saving throws faster levels ups (fighter vs ranger) and higher con regen with tome of constitution on a dwarf.
I have played the dwarven defender - but I hate not having amulet of power - even though he can use upgraded mace of disruption - its not as convenient. I also don't like the lack of skeletons early that are really really strong offensively and defensively in some critical fights.
I've also messed around with nearly every flavor of paladin ranger and fighter that was mentioned in this thread and just found that they didn't hit all the necessary points.
Already done ^^
Also what about an Undead Hunter with 100 MR? Plenty of Immunities while ignoring most magic with a great AC might be the closest to a Fighter/Mage in terms of defence.
As for my "high rest" comment - certainly opinions will differ and I don't proclaim that my way is correct only that in my myriad playthroughs I've arrived at a fairly strong anti-rest policy. My two sentence summary of reasoning is that being able to rest all the time reduced the difficulty down very low as all abilities/hlas/spells were available for every fight. When you can meta game prebuff every encounter with 6 or 7 spells, while having no concern about wasting or conserving - you take away the fun and the challenge.
My one and only story gripe about the game is that I really wish they had put a sense of urgency into things and thus provided an incentive not to rest. Everything unfolds at 30 days or 300 days at exactly the same pace and that breaks the intensity a bit for me. But at the end of the day to each their own!
Get to -26 base AC then throw Improved Invisibility + Prot from Evil + armors modifiers into the mix and you have -36 AC versus crushing. Enough to make even The Ravager miss you all the time.
It's equivalent to 95% damage reduction + 95% reduction versus on-hit effects like elemental damage or level drain. Physical damage resistances won't protect you against that.
So yeah, a mage played at its highest level is best equipped for tanking stuff. Problem is, I'm not actually good enough at micromanaging to play at this high of a level, so I'm gonna say Cavalier, Dwarven Defender, Berserker (of a shorty race) or... Clerics are also good for this, and there's the argument that the Cleric/Mage is even more absurd in its defensive potential than straight-up Mage with Death Ward and Chaotic Commands and the use of shields and helmets.
Overall? I'm gonna go with a Gnome C/I as the best tank protagonist possible.
@Gotural -36 a is hell of AC, I don't succeed to see how you reach it. Care to share the full calculation?
Reaching 100% MR with a paladin is not that easy:
Carsomyr gives 50%
Hell+MoLtM gives 15%
Enkidu's plate gives 5%
Add amulet (10%) and ring of gaxx, it is still only 90%.
To reach 100% MR, you need to play a Thief, for Use Any Item. This way you can use both Carsomyr and the Human Flesh Armor, who are the 2 best MR items (50% and 20%), later you can also change the Armor of Flesh by the Silver Dragon Armor
The Wizard Slayer/Thief dual class can even reach 100% without using the Armor of Flesh
However, the problem with a 100% MR tank lies in the fact it doesn't protect the tank against Imprisonment, which is a kinda huge blind spot considering it's the most dangerous spell of the game
Spending all your spellslots to make you _almost_ as good as a vanilla fighter doesn't make you a great tank, so no bards (defensive spin is good in theory, but pretty crappy in practice).
Same with high level dualclasses or CHARNAME's needing UAI to be effective.
Single class mages and sorcs are amazing ofc but will need a good team for a decent portion of the game until they at least reach level 4 spells, and you'll need a couple of those spell slots to be even remotely decent compared to a fighter type (a fairry low level dual classed berzerker mage is great though).
So with that said, I think multiclasses are the best, either F/C or M/C and I think shorties with their saves are amazing. The cleric part of this multi offers buffs, and for the latter one, also armor options. Berzerkers are great as well, but a good F/C dwarf will be almost as good in the beginning and better later on. I would prolly rate a dwarf F/C or a gnome C/I as the best throughout the game, from the start to the finish they can be relied upon to take the heat.
Great saves, great item options, good survivability throughout the game (from level 1), good offensive options to boot, not much resting needed, summons if needed and much more. Neither is item dependent, though ofc good items are needed to make them great (as for ALL character concepts). Neither use any kind of cheese (why are buffed summons called cheese?) to be effecient either.
Also Paladins do have rather high saves to help vs Imprisonment
There's no save vs. Imprisonment. It just works.
I also was under the impression the EEs had closed the two Rings of Gaxx exploit, but I haven't actually tested. Can someone confirm one way or the other?
Edit: misses out on Easthaven due to carsomyr, so not as physically tanky as may be hoped.
Just tried it with a 255 Pick pocket thief, it does not work anymore apparently.
As for the subject, I believe I may have found a new way of being a good tank.
It involves a Berzerker dualing into thief, relying on AC (which works very well from level 1 to late Underdark) and Thac0 lowering with Soul Reaver+4 you get late SoA. This should take you up to the end of ToB and work well even against the lowest Thac0 enemies.
Early game, pick a 1H weapon and a shield. That will get you a decent enough AC to tank physical damage, while your rage will protect you from CC, and your HP pool should be enough to tank what manages to hit you.
Once you get the Soul Reaver, drop your shield and equip the big sword:
Your lategame build gives you:
-15AC (down to -23 with Improved evasion and berzerker rage), + specific AC (from belts and armor). It is enough against lowly enemies, and you should focus worthy enemies with Soul Reaver to lower their Thac0 anyway. Note that you may give a +4 to-hit penalty to enemies with Improved invisibility (improved cloak of protection) or shadow door (3* per day, night walkers).
Undispellable immunity to all magic except some death magic (Vorpal hit notably) (Status, thanks to Berserker Rage, damage thanks to the cloak of mirroring).
Decent damage output.
However note that your physical resistance is flawed when AC does not matter. Cases that come to mind are Wing Buffet from dragons, or enemy time stop.
On the subject of Tankiness, Barbs have a lot of health and resistances, so I would say stand a good chance ^^