An interesting note is that with Grappling style combined with Hamatula Strike and piercing fists you could impale opponents with one hand and continue to beat them with your other during a full attack, and then make the second free grapple check at the end of your full attack to attempt to pin or deal more damage before your opponent has even had the chance to escape.
This sounds very brutal. Literally. But what is grappling style?
|
An interesting note is that with Grappling style combined with Hamatula Strike and piercing fists you could impale opponents with one hand and continue to beat them with your other during a full attack, and then make the second free grapple check at the end of your full attack to attempt to pin or deal more damage before your opponent has even had the chance to escape.This sounds very brutal. Literally. But what is grappling style?
It's actually grabbing style, in the acg.
You could go for a 3 level dip into Monk of the Empty Hand to make improvised weapons count as piercing. *shrug*
Imbicatus: Did I miss a Crane Wing nerf? Dangit! Show me please, I want to know what I'm angry about.
You can get 14, 14, 14, 7, 9, 14 before racial bonuses with a 15 point buy. If you dropped Wisdom to 7 you can go to 15, 14, 14, 7, 7, 14 before racial bonuses which pushes you to 17 strength with a racial buff which is good enough I believe.
The main choice is going for Hamatulatsu Strike or Snake Style, because Snake Style forces you to wear no armor if you intend to mix styles with a MoMS dip, which you would need to do to use *Grabbing Style*.
*Should totally be grappling style*
|
|
If you use Grabbing Style, you are obligated to sing out "Sham-on" or "Hee-Hee!" when making grabs.
Did I miss a Crane Wing nerf? Dangit! Show me please, I want to know what I'm angry about.
I was referring to the initial nerf when they changed the auto-deflect one attack per round to a +4 to ac once per round. It's been recently buffed back up to a +2 to ac for the entire round vs a single opponent. It's worth taking again, but it's still a shell of it's former glory.
You can get 14, 14, 14, 7, 9, 14 before racial bonuses with a 15 point buy. If you dropped Wisdom to 7 you can go to 15, 14, 14, 7, 7, 14 before racial bonuses which pushes you to 17 strength with a racial buff which is good enough I believe.
The main choice is going for Hamatulatsu Strike or Snake Style, because Snake Style forces you to wear no armor if you intend to mix styles with a MoMS dip, which you would need to do to use *Grabbing Style*.
*Should totally be grappling style*
INT 7 WIS 7 ? Ouch. Consider the irrepresible and Sound of Mind trait combo. This along with the Sohei dip should make your Wil save semi decent against the things that matter.
Alternatively you could consider dumping CHA (would suck for enforcer) as a charisma of 7 gives you a panache pool of 1. Add to that a extra panache feat and you have the panache of a 16 charisma character.I'd be interested to see a feat progression for your build cause for the life of me I can't make it happen and have decided to forgoe the unarmed route.
Where in the description of fuse style does it say you can't use the ability with armor?
Also consider your swift action economy as the following all require swift actions:
- Activating Style Feats (each individually however there is a feat that makes it a free action)
- Activating Challenge
- Riposte
Fuse style replaces Flurry of Blows, it is logical that since it replaces Flurry and Flurry is lost in armor that Fuse Style is lost in armor.
At least that is how I would GM it and any other monk ability that replaces an option that armor prevents from functioning.
Anyway, 15 point buys are BRUTAL for those that do not like dump stats and I never subject my players to them. 20 is enough points that people won't need to dump to be effective, which is why I use that or just assign an array of scores that people can place as they will.
Anyway, if you want you can avoid dumping anything and just go 14,14,14,10,10,10...at which point you may as well dump charisma anyway and just take that feat...which you will have trouble fitting into your build unless you are human. That allows you to take two 15s or to up wisdom and Intelligence to 12. Again though, how you are going to get the feat in without being human is a strange question.
I crafted up two builds, this first one is the armorless one that uses Fuse Styles.
1: MOMS (IUC, Grabbing Style) Improved Grapple or Combat Reflexes
2: Cavalier: Weapon Finesse
3: Snake Style
4: Nothing
5: Combat Reflexes or Improved Grapple
6: Nothing
7: Hamatula Strike/Greater Grapple
8: Nothing
9: PINNING KNOCKOUT!
The other uses Hamatulatsu Strike,
1: Monk (Can be any type of monk provided they give you Flurry) Improved Unarmed Combat, Improved Grapple or Combat Reflexes, Weapon Focus Fist
2: Cavalier: Weapon Finesse
3: Hamatulatsu Strike
4: Nothing
5: Improved Grapple or Combat Reflexes
6: Nothing
7: Hamatula Strike/Greater Grapple
8:
9: Greater Grapple
As you can see, the second build allows you to wear armor but it pushes your feat progression behind to level 9 thanks to using up an extra feat.
Enforcer doesn't fit until later, which sucks but is what it is. Same with other feats, once you have what you need to impale people with your bare hands and then deal non-lethal damage to them over and over, you can spread out into other feats.
Pinning Knockout is a fantastic feat since you will always be dealing non-lethal damage while grappling.
Remember that you are doing some crazy shenanigans with Grappling, you get a full attack off and you impale followed by a free round to pin or damage. Then on your next turn you can use your two actions from greater grapple to just shred the opponent because they are challenged and you are dealing damage with a light piercing weapon...so you are getting double your level to damage on the non-lethal damage. Then you are using Pinning Knockout to double that damage, so you are dealing twice your Unarmed damage and Quadruple your level in non-lethal damage to your enemy, twice a round.
Of course if you pick up Rapid Grappler, you can make 3 grapple checks during your turn...OR you can use two checks and then make an attack with your other hand and then get to punch them and grapple them again, or you can grapple someone else. Or you can use your free hand to Parry and Riposte, though I would save those ripostes because you want your swift action to deal MASSIVE damage to your target.
The one downfall is that your damage sinks to pathetic against anything that is immune to non-lethal damage.
So say yeah for Non-lethal takedowns?
Think of yourself as Solid Snake.
*******Post write-up Notes: Level -1 should be used when calculating challenge damage due to that monk level to speed things along.
Additionally: Your action economy is pretty full of Swift actions, egregiously infact. Picking the right swift action to use is HUGE, and so is picking the right moment to expend Panche since you will not have that much of it.
Finally, Grappling style is not entirely needed EXCEPT that it allows you to parry and allows you to keep your Dex to AC while pinning an opponent which is important since that is all your AC and the name of the game is pinning people and crushing them between your massive thighs..I mean hands. Again, it frees up a hand which you could have anyway...it just removes the -4 CMB penalty for not using both hands.
Still not mandatory, and removing it allows you to go full Cavalier. So that is something worth deciding as I know some people hate to multiclass and others hate the MoMS.
|
Fuse style replaces Flurry of Blows, it is logical that since it replaces Flurry and Flurry is lost in armor that Fuse Style is lost in armor.
In many ways unfortunately - that's not the way it's been ruled. Not that it's usually the reason for the 2 level dip in MoMS - it's usually just to get the whole style line at low levels, plus a boost to saves.
Really? Well then ignore me, that is just my table variation.
Anyway, this build has no reason to get the full line of feats instantly since there are so many more important things. I would not care about the other parts of Grabbing style, though I assume Snake Style's other parts would be quite powerful.
I agree that MoMS is a very powerful dip, perhaps two powerful, which is why I assumed that Fusing styles was prevented by armor. After all gaining style feats early is already quite powerful.
As a bump, the total damage with Rapid Grapple and Pinning Knockout is 9x Level (3x is precision, 3x is "critical") + 6x Strength (3x critical)+ 6x Unarmed (3x critical) (Over 3 hits, so 3x Level, 2x Strength, and 2x Unarmed per hit)
This build still works without being a Daring Champion but you lose 3x level to damage on the Grapple.
I'm going to go over other archetypes and jazz to see what works best, but 3x level to damage more is pretty nice but the whole concept of Pinning KO combined with Challenge just seems hella-sexy when paired with Hamatsula Strike and the Order of the Hammer full attack bonus grapple maneuver.
No other Archetype stack with Daring Champion sadly.
Yes, but giving up Daring Champion only gets rid of 3x Damage to level, so you don't NEED to be one in order to make the build work.
It does more damage with it, but there is nothing stopping you from going full normal Order of the Hammer Cavalier/Samurai for Heavy Armor and a Mount.
Like the build. Comment about grappling, though. My rules-fu is weak here, so I expect to be wrong, but mentioning it for my sake.
I don't believe you can pin with Hamatula Strike + Order of the Hammer. Both allow you to make a grapple check, which could cause damage with constrict. But I don't think you can use a grapple manuever check to pin a creature you already grapple. Pinning is part of maintaining a grapple, a special type-of grapple check. As far as I can tell, gaining multiple grapple checks per round only act as a safety if one fails.
My reading makes Rapid Grappler... Awful, but I can't help but try to separate grapple and grapple maintains rule-wise.
|
|
Like the build. Comment about grappling, though. My rules-fu is weak here, so I expect to be wrong, but mentioning it for my sake.
I don't believe you can pin with Hamatula Strike + Order of the Hammer. Both allow you to make a grapple check, which could cause damage with constrict. But I don't think you can use a grapple manuever check to pin a creature you already grapple. Pinning is part of maintaining a grapple, a special type-of grapple check. As far as I can tell, gaining multiple grapple checks per round only act as a safety if one fails.
My reading makes Rapid Grappler... Awful, but I can't help but try to separate grapple and grapple maintains rule-wise.
You are correct that you cannot pin with the attack action grapple hamatula strike allows, but not for the reasons you list. Hamatula Strike allows you to make a grapple as an attack action against an impaled oppenent, but only to damage the opponent.
However, you are explicitly allowed to use a grapple check to pin a creature that you are grappling.
Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).
Move: You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.
Damage: You can inflict damage to your target equal to your unarmed strike, a natural attack, or an attack made with armor spikes or a light or one-handed weapon. This damage can be either lethal or nonlethal.
Pin: You can give your opponent the pinned condition (see Conditions). Despite pinning your opponent, you still only have the grappled condition, but you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC.
Tie Up: If you have your target pinned, otherwise restrained, or unconscious, you can use rope to tie him up. This works like a pin effect, but the DC to escape the bonds is equal to 20 + your Combat Maneuver Bonus (instead of your CMD). The ropes do not need to make a check every round to maintain the pin. If you are grappling the target, you can attempt to tie him up in ropes, but doing so requires a combat maneuver check at a –10 penalty. If the DC to escape from these bindings is higher than 20 + the target's CMB, the target cannot escape from the bonds, even with a natural 20 on the check.
Funnily enough, it was the unbolded part of the first paragraph that clicked for me. I had been reading it as if you succeed the maintain check rather than succed a grapple check, not just maintains.
Thanks!
The good news is that you are not pinning with Hamatsula strike, but rather with the free check after your full attack in order to pin.
Right. I was reading that you must use the "maintain grapple" standard action to pin an opponent when that check is just a grapple check itself.
I was thinking that any number of grapple checks per round could not allow for a pin if you did not have a standard/move action free to 'maintain a grapple'. Now I see that making a grapple check against an opponent you are grappling allows you to pin as well as just deal additional damage.
I've fidgeted around a bit with builds and have settled on a build for PFS which forgoes the Order of the Hammer for Order of the Seal, my reasoning being the awesome challenge ability.
This build tries to maximize profit from precise strike and challenge bonus damage by getting plenty of AoO. AoO are provoked via reach(Swordmasters Flair), Snake Fang and free Trip+Vicious Stomp. Parry and Riposte can also help with additional attacks. The build comes together fully by level 5 and should work nicely as of level 3 when snake style and fang are acquired. Swift action economy is a concern however.
Human Daring Champion X/Master of Many Style Monk 1
STR 12 DEX 18 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 7 CHA 16
Traits: Irrepresible, Sound of Mind
1 DC Finesse, Combat Reflexes, Steadfast Personality
2 DC Order Ability (pretty lame)
3 MOMS IUS, Snake Style, Snake Fang
4 Nimble
5 Vicious Stomp, Panache, Deeds
There's still a bit of wiggle room with the feats and point buy but the build outline above seems sensible for PFS as it has a solid offensive, good defenses and 5 skills per level with a strong CHA modifier. Also the build avoids rules ambiguities which is a big plus in my book.
Just a quick heads up for those following this thread.
Kata Master stacks with MoMS and his panache ability includes the following clause:
A kata master can use an unarmed strike or monk special weapon in place of a light or one-handed piercing melee weapon for granted swashbuckler class features and deeds.
So a dip into Kata Master removes the need for Snake Style/Hamatulamula for Precise Strike and other deeds.
However this will only helps STR based builds as Champion's Finesse is not a swashbuckler class feature.
it's not clear but the use of the word "granted" feels like it's intended only for Deeds fron the Kata Master Architype
RAW though it works