"Tanking" in MMORPGs is a traditional role that's been with the genre for a long time - certainly it has always been a part of World of Warcraft, where the first Alliance character I ever made (actually, technically the first character I ever made, though on the wrong server, so the "real" version is a couple days younger and many levels higher) and my main since 2008 is a tanking paladin.
But I remember struggling to totally grasp the concept when I first started playing. I sort of thought it was any melee character who focused on putting out lots of damage.
MMOs (or at least WoW) use a concept called "Threat" which is a predictable manner in which enemies will target a character with their attacks (or at least most of their attacks). The more damage you do, the more threat you generate, but those who have a tank specialization have a multiplier to their threat generation - even though they're doing less than the "DPS" does to the foes, their multiplier should more than compensate for it - if they can do half as much damage (and ordinarily they do more than that) they should have a solid lead in threat.
TTRPGs don't work that way. A DM/GM will make choices as to what monsters attack which party members.
The decision tree for a DM here is a little complex - depending on the monster, they might go after foes they consider weaker and easier to take down, or they might be reactive, striking back at whoever dealt them the most damage in the last round. A smart monster might act strategically, trying to see which party member they most want to disrupt and harm in order to win the fight, while a group of unintelligent and chaotic monsters might essentially choose targets at random.
So, tanking is a lot more complex in D&D than it is in WoW.
I think there are a couple things that make you "a tank" in D&D.
The biggest element is a focus on survival. As an example, pretty much all paladins are strength-based, heavily-armored melee combatants. The need to hit with melee attacks to use Divine Smite, along with their available fighting styles, encourages Paladins to go with one of two different loadouts - either a big, two-handed weapon or a strong melee weapon with a shield (by strong melee weapon I mean a d8 weapon - a longsword, warhammer, battleaxe, or flail). Yes, you can built a dex-based paladin or go with dual-wielding, but the class doesn't support these options quite as well (that's not to say that it isn't some theoretical best option - though I think that the benefits of dual-wielding are probably not as good as going with polearm master).
Using a two-handed weapon of course maximizes the damage you can do, but by not using a shield, you lose two AC, or up to 5 AC if your party comes across a +3 shield. That means you are going to be getting hit more often.
To me, what defines a "tank" in D&D is that you have a character (almost always built for melee) that can take more punishment from big melee attacks. You can do this in a few ways: the most obvious is higher AC, which reduces the chance that you get hit. Next, you want to have a higher maximum HP, which means it takes more hits to knock you out of the fight. Finally, you might have some form of damage mitigation. This last part is less common - the Heavy Armor Master feat subtracts 3 damage from any nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing attack you take if you're wearing heavy armor. Much more common is a Barbarian's Rage mechanic, which gives you resistance to all bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage.
Typically, a Barbarian has a lower AC than tanks that wear heavy armor. They can wear medium armor, giving them a max AC (before magical armor) of 17, or 19 with a shield. But more typically, they'll go without armor, relying on unarmored defense. This is very stat-dependent. If you roll very good stats at the beginning of the campaign, a Barbarian's AC can actually get very high. The challenge, though, is that while you'll be likely to push Constitution, you're less likely to have a lot you can put into Dexterity. Still, even if a Barbarian never gets more than +2 to Dex, if they hit level 20 with maxed out Constitution, and they get a +3 shield and bracers of defense, they can actually get an AC of 26 - which is pretty freaking good.
Still, that's level 20. Most Barbarians are going to have a lower AC than other "tanks" but benefit greatly from their Rage granting resistance. Essentially, they're going to be taking damage more often, but the damage is reduced to a manageable level (Totem Warrior Barbarians who get the level 3 Bear totem effect actually get to have resistance to all damage except Psychic, which is very potent.)
Of course, my thoughts have been focusing largely on the Armorer. As a tank, they get to wear heavy armor like a Fighter or Paladin, but they have a lower average health due to the fact that an Artificer is a d8 hit die class.
However, they get around this through the use of Defensive Field. They have a bonus action they can use a number of times a day equal to their proficiency bonus which adds temporary hit points equal to their artificer level. The temp hit points last until they take the armor off or take a long rest, so as long as you aren't getting in and out of that armor all the time, it's almost like just adding more HP (as long as you use that bonus action again every time your temp HP is depleted - but Armorers actually have a pretty free and open bonus action each turn). The scaling of this also jumps up by a fair amount every time your proficiency bonus increases - to start with, it's a grand total of 6 temp hp (divided into two 3-point uses). But by level 20, you've got a total of 120 (6 20-point uses). Ultimately, with the same Con modifier, this gives you a higher effective max HP than a Barbarian - though of course, not the damage resistance.
At high levels, the Armorer has a few powerful tools to be more resilient to attacks. They can get a pretty high AC (without any magic items granted to them by the DM, they can get an AC of 25, though you can't push it a ton higher given that a lot of this relies on transforming your suit of armor). With Absorb Elements, you can, on-demand as a reaction, gain resistance to most elemental damage types, and though it consumes a costly reagent, you can also pop the 4th level spell Stoneskin to give you resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage - this does require your concentration, but with your high Con save bonus, you've got a good chance of not dropping concentration on that (especially given that the damage is mostly halved by the spell.)
The "threat" aspect of tanking is mostly absent from D&D tanks. I'd say that the primary way that so-called "tanks" can handle foes is by positioning themselves in such a way that enemies would need to draw opportunity attacks in order to get to the "back lines" of your party - or, if there's a narrow enough space, they can even block the way. But a creature that can get past could easily just ignore a tanky character. I think this is, in part, why even "tank" characters are designed to put out a decent amount of damage - ignoring them can be costly.
However, the Armorer shares an effect that Ancestral Guardian Barbarians get which actually gives them a flavor of that D&D tank. The Armorer's Thunder Gauntlet weapon applies an effect to targets it hits, giving them disadvantage on attacks against any target other than the armorer. While this doesn't prevent them from going after the squishy wizard (and if a character had a low AC, I think a DM might just eat the disadvantage and risk it,) it does incentivize them to go after the "tank," rather than the armorer's more vulnerable ally.
This has an added benefit of aiding allies who are melee combatants but are less well-armored - the normal positioning and obstruction that protects spellcasters in the back does very little to help the vulnerable Monk who has to be in melee with the foes. Now, you're making them harder to hit just by attacking.
One of the things I've been thinking about in terms of my future Armorer is what to take with my level 1 feat as a variant human. My default idea had, for a long time, been Tough. Tough increases your max hit points by two for every level you have. It's almost like having your Constitution modifier boosted by 4, except it doesn't help with saves. In fact, I think it's more analogous to making your hit die two sizes larger, though only one size larger regarding your first level. A Barbarian's d12 hit die gives them an "average" of 7 points per level, while an Artificer's d8 gives it 5. This effectively bumps it up to 7 per level. Indeed, if you roll your HP (which I know some people consider the only way to go, but I avoid because consistent low rolls can ruin a character) this makes things a little more consistent - your maximum roll is 10, but your minimum roll is 3.
That being said: tough is kind of boring. It's just more health, and my hope is that with Defensive Field, I'll be rocking enough effective HP that my going unconscious is very rare anyway. Yes, that's eventually 40 extra HP by level 20, but I'm thinking about alternatives.
The one I've landed on is Alert - this prevents you from ever being surprised (meaning even if you get ambushed, you can still act while the foes are launching their sneak attack) and creatures can't get advantage on attacks against you from being unseen. (This feels like something I'd need to remind the DM about.) But, perhaps more excitingly, it adds +5 to your initiative rolls.
My most-played characters are a Fighter with a +0 to Dexterity and a Paladin with a -2. It is extraordinarily rare for me to ever act first in initiative. With a standard array build, I'd have a +7 to initiative rolls.
And I actually think there's a lot of use to going first as a tank. While yes, it's nice to let a wizard or sorcerer get in first to drop a fireball on your foes, I could wind up using that early turn to drop Fairie Fire into the group of enemies. And worst case, I can get my Defensive Field up (if it wasn't already) and charge in to have some control over the battlefield in terms of positioning.
It's also unlikely to be a common scenario, but there is one very cool thing to the Armorer - they can don their Arcane Armor as an action (even if it's heavy armor, which usually takes 10 full minutes). So, if we were caught while camping out, I'd be able to roll out of bed and get my armor on and be fully effective for round 2 very quickly.
There are other things I've looked at (and I think I've written about them as well,) but that's mainly what I'm thinking for now.
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