| Finalferrin |
I have been toying around with a build for a campaign I am currently level two in. It focuses on grappling, without taking any archetype.It is an unchained monk tho.
Here is how it will go:
Race: Human
Stats: 16, 17, 10, 10, 18, 6
First level: Monk- take improved grapple as bonus, and deadly grappler as first level feat. Human secondary feat I gave up for an extra plus 2 str (gm said ok, so I did it)
Second Level: Monk- took combat reflexes as bonus feat, gained evasion. Now have a +2 Bab
Third Level: Druid- Weather or Air Domain: 2 first level druid spells. One of which will be shilleleigh. Cast on quarterstaff have a magical quartestaff, each end 2d6. FoB with quarter staff now +5/+5 4d6+6 at level 3. Also you boost up that will save.
(note: I had to take the second level of monk first, because my GM is anal about druids and how they make horrible adventurers and required me to actually do RP elements to gain a class level. So when I leveled up to second I could not just take Druid, had to find a shrine he hid in a faraway area and meditate there for so many days)
Fourth Level:Druid- Gain a Bab, woodland stride and another first level spell.
fifth level : Monk- Gain a Bab, Ki Pool, Ki strike(magic) and fast movement 10.
6th level: Monk- Gain a Bab, and your damage die for unarmed increases to d8 making your grapple damage 2d6 with deadly grappler
7th Level: Druid- Gain a Bab putting you at BaB 6 and letting you take greater grappler. Your grapple damage will now equal your shileleigh FoB.
8th Level: Druid- Gain Wild Shape and you now got 3 second level spells to play with.
9th level: Druid - take Shape Focus, gain access to 2 3rd level spells. You can now wildshape 3/day into Huge creatures.
here is why this is important: Wild Shape operates off of polymorph, which states that you lose class features dependant upon form. So if you shape into a Huge creature that can do an unarmed attack. Like a headbut, Kick, tail slash (GM discretion on this one), Punch you get to keep the class feature which bumps up the damage die for monk. Right now its sitting at a d8. Now you've got the natural attacks of whatever creature your shaped into, here is where it gets grey. Back at first level you took deadly grappler which simply makes your grapple damage as if a category size larger. So if your a medium monk with a d8, your grapple damage is 2d6. If your a Large animal capable of an unarmed attack your grapple damage is 3d6. If your a Huge creature capable of an unarmed attack your grapple damage is 6d6. coupled with greater grappler your looking at 12d6 grapple damage a round.
Your initially thinking wait, what. But the Monk class ability for increasing unarmed damage treats a monks hand, head, foot (whatever the unarmed attack is made with) as a natural weapon. And effectively increases the size die during level progression. At level 1 your d4 is increased to a d6, at 4th level a d6 becomes a d8. Following that progression and the fact when you increase the size of the monk a d8 becomes 2d6 by the chart it does give you. From there you take the same jump up to account for the monks class ability bumping up the die. So Huge unarmed is 3d6 from there the deadly grappler bumps it up to 6d6. Same jump from a Gargantuan weapon bumping up into colossal...
You will have to sell your GM on this as RAW will not contradict me, but its to vaguely worded on these things to outright support me.
If you play your cards right and your GM allows it you can be the best grapplin monk around. And you got the 3rd level feat and 5th level feat to do whatever it is you want with.
Have not put much thought on how to progress after this point, I will likely wait to see.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this. I spent an entire day going through pfsrd and core books, looking at damage die progressions and for examples of monks that are huge. Or just Huge creatures capable of taking a monk. I added templates, even created a monster that had been awakened and thus able to take levels in monk to see how the die would pan out. This is what I came up with.