Cranefist's page

Matches wrote:

I've never built a Gunslinger before, so I'm playing with a few things here and there to raise a Gunsligner's AC.

I'll start with stats and go from there. Currently his stats are as follows at level 12:

Str: 15
Dex: 22 (base 18; +2 for being human, +1 @ lvl 4, +1 @ lvl 8)
Con: 13
Int: 18
Wis: 13
Cha: 11

Feats: Armor Proficiency(Light), Catch Off-Guard, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Exotic Weapon Proficiecny(Firearms), Gunsmithing, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload (Revolver), Simple Weapon Proficiency, and Two-Weapon Fighting

Gunslinger Feats: Bludgeoner, Bullseye Shot, and Deadly Aim
Gunslinger Training Choices: Revolver, Rifle

'Abilities': Human Racial Trait (Bonus Feat, Skilled), Ability Bonus (+2 Dex), Favored Class (Gunslinger), and Favored Class Bonus (Bonus HP 11x)

HP: 144
Race: Human (Mwangi Expanse)
BAB: +12/+7/+2
Initiative: +6

AC: 17 (before armor); 21 (w/Mithral Shirt)
Flatfooted: 10 (before armor); 14 (w/Mithral Shirt)
Touch: 17

Fort: +9
Ref: +14
Will: +5

CMB: +14
CMD: 31

Weaponry: Revolver (x2), Rifle
Armor: Mithral Shirt

What I'm wanting to do is raise his AC a bit hire. A 21 as an AC at level 12 is too low in my opinion, I just don't know how to go about raising it at this point.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Note: I'm using PCGen to generate him, so if there's any mistakes, please let me know.

Pfft. Who needs AC? Build for speed killing,they can't hurt you if they are shot full of holes and dying.

That's what I was thinking. Any monster than can hit a good AC will be shot full of holes and automatically killed by a gunslinger. I'd raise your will save. Only thing that can touch you.

I like to put it on rogues (then I also like to play rogues with strength scores of 18+) just because I love sneaking but I hate missing.

Before we get into this your ideas have been covered in other threads, and explained why they are not acceptable to a lot of us. In the last thread I listed links to other monk threads. Could you read them so we can avoid rehashing the same points? At the very least read the entire last thread.

Thank you for moderating the board. I wouldn't want someone new to make a thread. You never know when Paizo is going to run out of space!

Moving away from a hit is better than taking it head on.

Turning your back, closing your eyes and holding your breath during a fire ball will save you from half the damage.

Having a lightning bolt jump down your right arm and out your right leg will save you from most of the damage, compared to having it go straight through your chest.

true true. if not treating my game with the respect I ask is too much for a player then he/she doesn't need to play in my game. I'm going to be putting hours and hours into this and I want to give a genuine experience. Not a hack and slash game where the players actions don't have conciquences. if you want that you can stay home and play skyrim on easy. so, 20 points is the general verdict?

It doesn't matter what their stats are. The game isn't balanced on any level. There is no internal logic regarding the level of NPCs or the number of goblins. Want 10 goblins instead of 6? 10 goblins appear. Town black smith not strong enough at 4th level? Make him 12th and give him a level of fighter. Who cares? There is no reason as the GM to pick one thing over another.

Maybe you will end up with a bunch of crappy fighters and multiclass rogue / sorcerers, or maybe you will end up with a party full of Witches, Summoners, Paladins and Clerics. APL doesn't even mean anything.

If everything can be selected without rhyme or reason, the world and game is neither balanced nor internally consistent, and the strength of the PCs is random based on taste - completely derived from feat and class selection, it does not matter, at all, how many points you give them to start.

nice

I guess luck is saving them. Maybe when one of them dies from not running they will learn. If they had another GM before you, that might be part of it.

I would not worry about it. They will learn to run or they will day. It is a problem that takes care of itself eventually.

Honestly, I was impressed that they ran away at all.

I'm a big believer that logic is b%@%%~$+ and that everyone makes their decisions emotionally. Logic is just a rationalization of your decision after you make it. That's why the Supreme Court can go 5/4 every time on pure logic, so to speak.

Something about running all out of spells and HP changed their feeling, made them want to run. That doesn't happen in PF much. Normally it is rocket tag. It was big luck the fighter was up with 1. It was luck they nat 20ed an intimidate check after killing the chief to put a break in the fight (which they squandered by jumping back in on their own). That break let the paladin wake up the cleric.

I was thinking, wondering, if hero points or something like them might be good at getting PCs to run. If you explain the hero point as, "play this not to die but know death is coming," maybe they can use it to get away.

In that case I don't know why your players don't run. Do you allow them to die for not running or do you save them?

I roll all the dice in the open. I tell them the levels of the NPCs. If it is important, I declare what I need on the dice before I roll it.

I'll occasionally give some advice. I'll stretch NPC behavior sometimes to give the PC the benefit of the doubt. But that's about it. Like, I let the troll be distracted longer than I needed, but it still came.

Players expect for most encounters to be winnable, so they are accustomed to not running. As a GM I never give a CR so high they don't have a chance at winning. Now that does not mean every NPC they meet can be defeated, but anything I can reasonably expect for them to fight will not be too tough for them. At the same time my players know that there is a time to retreat.

Orcs can be taken down and players don't know what level the NPC's are, nor should they know.

The troll should have been scary assuming they made the knowledge check.

I run pretty standard internal scale. You can tell what level NPCs are by their reputation provided there isn't a secret history with the NPC. The orc chiefs exploits were known, so his level was known.

For a LOT of reasons, I think the game is more simulationist if you can gauge CR and Level directly. It helps with RP for me.

Cranefist wrote:

Pathfinder doesn't make it hard to run away. Players choose to make characters that can't run away.

I routinely have first level characters with speed scores of 40' or who have a spell like Obscuring Mist or Expeditious Retreat memorized so that they can escape. If I feel like I need to cast it to have a chance at winning the fight, I flee to fight another day.

If you make a dwarf with a speed of 20', it is not the GM's fault.

Player: But how was I supposed to escape from a herd of stampeding wildabeasts?

GM: It's not my fault you didn't play a monk with the Fleet feat.

Player: Will we ever need to be able to run away?

GM: Probably. Can't win them all.

Player: I don't care. I'm making a dwarf fighter with no Fleet, no Run, no horse and no spells.

GM: What's your back up?

Pathfinder doesn't make it hard to run away. Players choose to make characters that can't run away.

I routinely have first level characters with speed scores of 40' or who have a spell like Obscuring Mist or Expeditious Retreat memorized so that they can escape. If I feel like I need to cast it to have a chance at winning the fight, I flee to fight another day.

If you make a dwarf with a speed of 20', it is not the GM's fault.

There is a lot of emotional content when PCs feel like they have to run, especially from a fight they started.

Tonight, the party was trying to rescue a noble woman from the clutches of the vile orc chief. The party of 4 2nd level characters was planning on taking on a 5th level orc, 12 first level orcs, and a standard troll, plus a POSSIBLE wyvern rider who may or may not show up (didn't).

They have a good plan. I give orcs -2 strike during the day, so they come in the day, distract the troll with a summon monster, and set fire to the oil treated animal skin tents. They were hoping during the disarray they could bust in and grab the woman and flee.

Instead, first guy out Leeroy Jinkins style charges a random orc and they get embroiled in a combat that seems to get worse every round as more enemies get into the fray and they party doesn't have a spell caster to thin out the orcs.

They manage to cut the woman free who flees to the NPC archer and yet the player playing the cleric decides, screw it, and attacks another orc.

It was only after the paladin was out of healing and the cleric had been revived TWICE, after the fighter is reduced to 1 HP because I managed to roll 1s on a falcion, while the troll and most of the orcs are still up, that they decided to withdraw.

It occurred to me that emotionally, it was the spending of resources, of being out of spells and being below some imaginary HP threshold that let them make the decision they needed to run.

They should have run as soon as the woman was free. They should have known they couldn't win because they have fought orcs before, while level 2, and they are all old gamers. Gamers hate to run. The fighter should have realized he was near death at 6 HP vs. orcs with 2 handed weapons, but being reduced to 1 was all that made him scared. But if they were just suicidal, why run in the end at all?

Anyone else notice the resource thing is what gets PF players to run?

Does anyone think having hero points, and spending them, makes players more likely to run because their get out of jail free card is blown?

Your items and favored enemy (and Instant Enemy) will go a long way towards making up the difference in expectations.

Also you've got Great Cleave (but haven't taken Cleave) and Dreadful Carnage (but haven't taken Furious Focus). I'd recommend dropping Great Cleave for Furious Focus.

Thanks. That makes sense.

The high level feats are ranger bonus feats for a two handed stylist.

I just wrote up another 11th level character. I'm playing in a high level game today and this is my first session.

I wrote up an 11th level Ranger Skirmisher, two handed fighter, with a pole arm. I am locked into this decision now as the GM has purchased a miniature already.

Here is his frame:

STR 18
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 10

HP 92
AC

Base +11
Melee +15 / +10 / +5
Range +13 / +8 / +3

Fort +9
Ref +9
Will +5

Feats:
1 – Dodge
1 – Weapon Focus – Glaive
2 – Power Attack
3 – Combat Reflexes
5 – Mobility
6 – Great Cleave
7 – Combat Patrol
9 – Body Guard
10 – Dreadful Carnage
11 – In Harm’s Way

Skirmisher Tricks

Cat Fall 20’
Upending Strike
Vengeance Strike
Quick Climb

Right now, he looks like a bit of a wuss. I'm afraid he isn't going to hit enough and when he hits, he won't do enough damage. I understand he has advantages fighters don't, but I'm used to having weapon training, weapon spec, and so on and on.

Monks and rogues are about as neutered while they have all their equipment.

Cranefist wrote:

Seranov wrote:

Ridiculous utility, versatility and overall power should indeed have a significant drawback. Even if that only drawback is "my DM is a dick and specifically targets my spellbook with Sunder/by theives/etc."

It is certainly the DM doing it and not the NPC because no DM crafting an intelligent enemy would dare let that enemy take advantage of a common knowledge weakness you chose for yourself.

Yes, I chose to have a horrific crippling weakness that all but removes me from play because I chose it. Not because its a rule I have to have to play a class or a certain way or anything.

Oracles break their own legs or gouge their own eyes to enter their class. They get a little better over time though.

Wizards are too powerful.

Wizards have an unfair disadvantage - they can be disarmed!!! And the disarm takes 24 hours to take effect!!!

Preposterous!!!

And I can't pick another class!!!

Ridiculous utility, versatility and overall power should indeed have a significant drawback. Even if that only drawback is "my DM is a dick and specifically targets my spellbook with Sunder/by theives/etc."

It is certainly the DM doing it and not the NPC because no DM crafting an intelligent enemy would dare let that enemy take advantage of a common knowledge weakness you chose for yourself.

mplindustries wrote:

Take 2 levels of Ranger and choose the Crossbow style. Deadly Aim without pre-reqs. Problem solved.

Cheater. lol :)

My alternate is a Fighter 6 / Duelist 5 with a dump stat of Strength (10). He's a little guy who disarms and grapples with something like a +26, and his AC in Mithral Parade Armor +2 or +3 shoots up to around 37 when drawing AoO's for moving.

So his schtick is so run up to the monster, knock away its weapon and jump on, then throw a couple grapples a turn and tie it up.

I was down on him because without magical aid he CAN'T do his thing against any kind of worthy boss monster, and a whole character wrapped up around the idea of fighting one single enemy, it sucks if they can't dish it out on their own.

Grizzly, thanks for the help.

I probably won't play him. If I can't figure out how to oldman stat him and still kill things, I'll probably do something else.

Got ya, thanks.

No wonder I didn't see guided. It isn't core, so it is right out. I can't use it.

I thought it sounded a little powerful.

As I understood it with Hammer the Gap, if you miss it starts over. So you hit with the first two shots, then the rest miss, you get 1 point of damage, and often nothing against anything with a high AC that's dangerous.

I'm trying to dump dex because I wanted to make an old man.

Thanks for the tip about being able to dump strength. I didn't know about the guided enhancement.

Ohla,

I'm working on an 11th level Zen Archer monk who has a Dex of 7.

I can't take deadly aim, so I'm concerned about his damage.

Is there anyway I can make this work?

I must be the only one who has ever seen the fighter of the party kill most everything in the encounter, while the Wizard and Cleric provided support.

Guy with pointy things smacking them into the bad guys fixes encounters far better than anything else in pretty much EVERY game I have been a part of.

Countdown to "but but but personal experience doesnt matter in the face of such overwhelming theory!" argument in 3.........2.........

The theory is that the wizard always starts the fight. He summons a monster that is as good as the fighter. Then he hastes the monster and it wins.

Also, if a wizard casts haste on a fighter, anything the fighter kills, he shouldn't get credit for. Really, it is the wizard doing the killing.

Does the Amulet add to Grapple checks and CMD vs. Grapple?

Thanks

If I'm a human fighter for 6 levels and then a Duelist for 5 levels, how many levels of favored class do I have for extra skill points?

I'm working on some higher level characters for a 12th level game. I get an 11th level character.

I'm probably going to make a switch hitter and try to stuff several different abilities onto him.

Doing too many things at once does weaken a martial and I'm concerned I don't know how powerful he needs to be to be relevant.

How high does a skill like Perception or Stealth need to be?

How much DPR against a CR 12 does it need minimum if I want him to be able to stand on damage.

What are the minimum archery feats at that level? Arrows seem very feat intensive.

Nope, archetypes are all or nothing.

Thank you.

Question to all:

Dazing Assault (Combat)

You can daze foes with wild attacks.

Prerequisites: Str 13, Power Attack, base attack bonus +11.

Benefit: You can choose to take a –5 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to daze opponents you hit with your melee attacks for 1 round, in addition to the normal damage dealt by the attack. A successful Fortitude save negates the effect. The DC of this save is 10 + your base attack bonus. You must choose to use this feat before making the attack roll, and its effects last until your next turn.

___________________

Does the feat listed here apply to AoOs as well?

The second level Polearm Master's Ability:

At 2nd level, as an immediate action, a polearm master can shorten the grip on his spear or polearm with reach and use it against adjacent targets. This action results in a –4 penalty on attack rolls with that weapon until he spends another immediate action to return to the normal grip. The penalty is reduced by –1 for every four levels beyond 2nd.

This ability replaces Bravery.

Question: Can I take two levels of Fighter - Polearm Master, then switch to regular fighter? Is there any funky rules with the favored class bonus and does the ability above continue to improve despite no longer gaining levels in Polearm master?

I'm about to kick martial / caster disparity in the face. I just got invited to join a live group that is playing at 11-12th level. I said I wanted to play a fighter. They said they needed a fighter.

I'm about to be the strongest wizard carrying fighter they've ever seen.

Mission - Protect Casters during Surprise Rounds

Method - Get a 25' Reach, Standstill, See Invisibility, Improved Initiative and a maxed out Perception Score

Secondary Goal - Be able to escape battle when the wizards fail, without their help.

Lets get to character creation.

I always tell my players the DCs of checks and the ACs of enemies. Knowing the difficulty in my opinion, increases immersion by letting players make better decisions and picture by how much and why they are missing.

Amung experienced players, I think telling them before an attack roll on a fighter either:

Nothing
AC 15
AC 30

Create very different images of the competence of the target.

In addition to all that: when a GM conceals target numbers, it is almost never an honest game. They probably don't even care what your total is or know the DCs. They just want to see you roll a natural 10 or 15+, or want a certain outcome no matter what the dice say.

You know, there was a time when a party could just hire a bunch of mercenaries.

What happened?

Read my op. they did.

AinvarG wrote:

I can certainly see the points being made against GMPC use. I really had not thought about it. At our table, we have a bit of a rotation on our GMs sometimes. As it happens, my character was a pretty strong part of the party structure, but now I'm the GM. I had not really planned to retire him, but you have certainly given me food for thought.

Sad to think that I have played through 18 levels just to push him to the sidelines because of my changed role.

I think the issue here is that in 100% of groups I've been involved in, if the GM changed, they started their own game rather than running the previous GM's game. Why would you continue the other guy's story? Hell, how would you know where he was going with it? Why not start your own?

My group has changed gms but kept characters and story several times. It isn't about the gms story - it's about the players and what they want. If a player likes what's going on enough, they couldn't care less who is pulling the strings.

I ran a large battle tonight. In a cave, 3 squares wide, 3 1st level pcs with a 3rd level fighter, 10 first level fighters, and a 1st level cleric went against about 25 crazed farmers and a ghast - with the ability to turn to his side a round later anyone he bites, instead of stench and disease.

During the battle, the third level fighter and a first level fighter were turned. The ghast made it up to the paladin and paralyzed him (for 3 rouns). Before the ghast struck the final blow, the legionnaire behind the paladin switched places with him and fought it off (was eventually turned) until the paladin was healed by the npc cleric and the paralysis wore off.

The party won, but it was dicey.

While I like maintaining the integrity of the sandbox I run and I don't fudge dice, I find having some npcs around really helps keep the party active in adventures and death free. Nothing like a good npc meat shield or multiclass healer / rogue to keep the party alive. They might redshirt, but at least the invested players stay alive.

I'm running for a decent party. For only having three people, fighter, paladin and cleric, they found ways to get tracking and trap finding and now that they are second level, two sources of healing, plus some ok damage.

I asked them today if they wanted a DMPC to round out the group and like any self respecting old schoolers, they declined. Still, I really do like having one around to play. At least I know they aren't afraid to badger npcs into helping them when they think they need it.

This is general discussion, so I'm just generally discussing.

How receptive are you to the GMPC if he is low powered and doesn't contribute to many ideas or directions - just role play and combat help (though he gets a share of the loot and xp).

Minus the point buy, my impression was that the OP's way is the standard forum way.

for purposes for interactive, i liked Palladium with its number of attacks that can be "spent"

you can spend them as attacks, you can spend them as dodges, parries are free....etc etc, even if someone goes first, you have actions you can spend/burn to react to their act.

something like that would be cool

The problem with the Palladium system is how you can abuse the action system. For example, get an extra action per round by any means, and then always shoot with your last action because your opponent will be out of dodges.

It's been years since I've seen a resurrection: combination of plenty of low-level adventuring and players not having a resrurection-assumption.

Last time a mid-level character died in a game I was GMing the adventurers built a grave out in the wilderness where the death happened and mourned their fallen foe. After the adventure they returned (along with their new friend) and transported the remains back to the dead PC's homeland.

The whole resurrection-is-super-common view is heavily influenced by playstyle.

What's common for your group might not be common for others.

I've never once let a PC get a resurrection or had a character raised in a game.

"I want to actually run this game, so can I help gm?"

"Is it ok if I don't respect you, your rulings, or the time you put into the game?"

"Is it ok that I don't trust you?"

"Is it ok that I am so invested in the outcome of every dice roll that I am not willing for the outcome to be less favorable, in any way, unless that less favorable condition was prescribed completely in the rules in accordance with page 72 of the PFS SRD FAQ? I will however accept boons from outside the rules."

northbrb wrote:

i have always enjoyed playing DnD and i love pathfinder but i have to admit one thing i cant stand is when anyone refers to something in the game as "broken". Sure many DM's chose to remove something from their game if they feel it doesn't work right but in my honest opinion how can you truly enjoy a game if you don't trust the game to work?

My group follows one major rule, If it is in one of the core books (meaning any book released by Paizo) then it is always allowed without question.

How can you comfortably play in a group if you cant assume what you look at in the books is an option for you to use?

How can you truly enjoy a character if it wasn't your first choice but that option isn't allowed in some ones games?

i just feel that the term "Broken" just ruins any real fun i might have in a group, something might seem powerful or wonky to you but others might feel it works just fine.

Well, to be honest, there are some classes that I feel are no fun for anyone, like the Summoner. Suddenly the party Cavalier, Fighter, Paladin etc is obsolete, AND this guy can cast spells at the same time! So, why would I want to allow a class that negates another PC's niche? That's a recipe for unhappiness.

Some other classes I ban simply because of thematic reasons, like all the European classes when I am running an Eastern themed game, or vice versa. Others are banned simply because they are exclusively for Evil characters, thus NPC's.

Now, I personally don't think poison use or controlling/creating zombies and skeletons to be evil (they are nothing more than robots) so unlike most DM's I am fine with them. Thus, if the guy playing the Rogue wants to find a way to get poison use, knock yourself out, have fun.

I never got the impression any kind of undead is like a robot. They are fueled with negative plane energy - they are sufferings.

Either their soul doesn't want to go back to the ground, or they feel hungry or sick and are pissed off about it. That's what makes it evil - not the act of making a robot, but that the robot is motivated by its own suffering.

Moles maybe? Larger-than-average-but-not-quite-giant insects?

In before obvious...

Rodents of Unusual Size?

The biggest source of the caster / martial disparity is the way the game is played. I'm guilty of this as well, so I play by house rules that weaken the caster.

The issue is encounters and difficulty, or put another way, you can force a caster to run out of spells but you can't make a fighter run out of sword, or even arrows past a point.

In the old days, you might have half a dozen encounters in a dungeon and to sleep the characters would have to board up a room. Monsters might attack in the night and keep you from sleeping. You never knew what level of monster you were dealing with right away and often they were right around corners, coming up out of cracks, or hiding behind doors.

Casters could run out of spells, not sleep to get them back, not have time to precast, and not know when he should throw his good ones.

To make matters worse, it was easy to disrupt a wizard.

Now days, casters in most people's games start fights, know what they are up against, get 12 rounds to precast, only have to fight one hard fight a day, always get to sleep... it is no wonder they seem strong.

The natural and fair environment for this game is a dark, long, and dangerous dungeon that harshly pushes the party's resources and in which the wizard does not have enough spells.

The usual environment that benefits him is the leisurely stroll with a BBEG with whom you start the fight after mopping up his minions.

So you have three options to fix the martial / caster dispairity:

Neuter the wizard with house rules
Change the way you play the game
Metagame with the NPCs so that they are always resistant to the PC's magic

It's like dividing by zero.

The awesomeness approaches infinity?

Not sure about the int, because he doesn't really display that much knowledge. It could be argued that his tactics were intelligent, but I think he benefited more from being wise vs. being smart.

You could drop the INT as low as you want sense Themistocles was pulling the strings anyway. I'd dump INT to a 9-10 and boost CHA more.

If you want to make him as he was in the movie, then level 5-6 is fine. If you want him to be WHO he is in a D&D game, the OP is right on.

Well, I think it is cool that you put in the effort. However, I think this is a little min-max'ed for what is effectively an NPC build.

I would say, as one of Sparta's kings, Leonidas would probably have a few Aristocrat levels. Aristocrat isn't even all that bad of a class. All martial weapons, all armor, great skill list. Not PC level, but still pretty good. And if we limit it to 4 levels or less, he only loses 1 BAB.

I agree with Phalanx fighter. Sparta perfected the phalanx method of fighting.

I agree that the movie didn't depict him as a 20th level fighter

I would prefer a more realistic build for him, like

LN human male Aristocrat 2/Phalanx Fighter 8
Str 16
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 16
(20pt buy, after racial and level, before equipment)

That's excellent.

I am 100% sure that I used the english definitions.

If all you want is custom items and have the time to wait there's no reason to take crafting feats if you have to pay full price anyway. Just put in an order for a custom item with a wizard or some such.

Keep in mind the WBL chart states you start with a certain number of gold coins. It's not a representational value of total wealth. You literally have that number of GP to play with. Crafting doesn't double your WBL. It simply lets it stretch further.

My contention has always been that GMs who hate crafting simply hate the idea that PCs can have good things. They want ways to steal from the players and be as unaccountable as possible simply claiming "that's how the system works."

If the non-crafter sells an item he has half that item's value. If he then buys and then resells another item he has even less. The crafter has the potential to keep the amount of wealth they have a constant. If they sell they get half. They can then take that half and get the same item again or another of equal value. There is no real "stealing" from a crafter like there is with non-crafters.

GMs hate crafting because they hate the drive in their players to try and make adventures he put time into obsolete by creating work arounds.

GMs also hate crafting because they haven't figured out that what they really want is to just play E6.

Sensten, abstraction makes the game world feel more realistic because your understanding of combat and my understanding of combat, as well as anything else, are not the same. Whatever shared ground we have will be nullified anyway by things like turn based movement and decision making.

The more ability for each person playing to simply narrate what they are trying to do, and the more fair the dice mechanic is between players, the more realistic it will feel, because their isn't a wide gulf between the narration and the action, nor a brick wall of rules.

In pathfinder, I can't swing on a rope past a pirate and wack him because I don't have fly by attack. Stupid.

So long as what is being asked for is within the scope of what an ordinary person would expect for such a character in a novel to be able to do, just let it ride.

If you start calling Strength, Power, you get why it works for strike and damage. Being nimble doesn't do anything for your hitting if you can't move a defending element.

^Light Mace is still Finesse anyway =D

Could a monk do that with different hands so he could fight UFC style?

Jab jab jab OVERHAND RIGHT