Combat Roles #2 - Melee Soak

This role is all about the standing in a fight. You may not be dealing a lot of damage, but you can take the hits. This is a vital role to the party in combat since if you are designed to take hits, you will take them much better than someone who isn't.

There are two primary ways to fulfill this role: high armor class and high hitpoints (all the better if you manage to combine the two). High armor class keeps you from being hit while high hitpoints lets you sustain multiple hits.

This role presents has an interesting dilemma. You need to have a way to keep attention on you because if you're impossible to hit or are unfazed by any hits that do land, you're less likely to be attacked. The answer is you need to act as a source of some kind of threat for the enemies or disable their attacks. So either you deal damage so that the enemy can't ignore you, disarm them or otherwise nullify their attacks, or present yourself as the sole target by holding a choke point on the battlefield.

This role works most easily under any of the following circumstances: you have at least a d10 for hit points (although a d8 is workable, it can be rough), are able to wear heavy armor, are able to use a high dex score effectively, or have other means of ramping up your AC or hit points. Casters looking to fulfill this role should look into the Abjuration School of spells or any spells that add concealment or a miss chance.