Hi all! I'm playing in a Jade Regent Campaign and am looking for some advice for feat progression for my Maneuver Master. The GM made me nerf it a little with Infernal Bastard in exchange for letting me choose the ancestry of the character for the Fiendish Heritage feat (Oni). What I have planned so far is as follows:
Tiefling Monk (Maneuver Master Archetype)
Favored Class Bonus: +1 HP
-25 Point Buy Starting Stats-
Str: 20 (18, +2 Racial)
Dex: 14
Con:10
Int: 7
Wis: 18 (16, +2 Racial)
Cha: 7 (9, -2 Racial)
-Starting Saves-
Fort: +2
Reflex: +4
Will: +7
-Feats and Features-
1: Traits- Younger Sibling Ameiko: +1 to Will; Infernal Bastard: Loses resistances for +2 to saves vs. Cold, Electricity and Fire. Loses Darkness SLA for casting 0-level spell at will.
Feats- Infernal Bastard (Oni Heritage and doesn't require sleep); Bonus Feat: Improved Trip
2: Bonus Feat- Improved Grapple
3: Feat-Combat Reflexes
5: Feat- Vicious Stomp
6: BF- Greater Trip
7: F- Ki Throw
9: F-Binding Throw
10: F- Greater Grapple
-The Plan-
Going along with the Eastern thematic elements of Jade Regent, I basically wanted to create an Oni Judo/Jujutsu practitioner and thought that there were sufficient mechanics to back up the build.
At level 10, the plan would be:
Maneuver 1: Initiate Flurry of Maneuvers -> Trip the opponent, provoking an attack of opportunity from all who threaten due to Greater Trip-> Take attack of opportunity from Vicious Stomp and apply Stunning fist to the attack -> Use Ki throw to reposition enemy in most advantageous place -> Use a Swift Action from binding throw to make a grapple attempt, provoking attacks of opportunity from those who threaten.
Maneuver 2: Use second maneuver to pin the opponent at a -4 to their CMD (due to their being prone), more if stunning fist worked and provoking an attack of opportunity from all nearby due to Greater Grapple
Maneuver 3 and 4: Either tie up the opponent, start pounding him with unarmed strike attacks that he no longer has the AC to avoid, or re-attempt any failed maneuvers. I can even make a fifth maneuver by spending a Ki point.
-The Question: Where do I go from here?-
So at 10th, I have great bonuses to two combat maneuvers that are very useful against a multitude of enemies, and if that doesn't work then I have a high strength, unarmed strike damage, and stunning fist to rely on. Once Magic Items and Ability score increases occur (Most likely to Strength), these strategies become even more viable in my opinion.
My question is: where do I go from here? Take Fury's Fall to increase my chance of tripping? Start taking Grapple feats like Pinning Knockout and Jawbreaker? I could even ,once level 12 comes around, start taking stuff from the Dimensional Dervish feat progression which would culminate with Dimensional Maneuvers giving me a +4 to trip against an opponent up to 1200 feet away (which now that I think about it is kind of cool, but somewhat silly).
I like grappling a LOT and there's a party wizard who can enlarge persons, making this something usable on Huge creatures. How do you think I can improve what I have here, and what can I do to make this character great from levels 11-20?
I realize that you have already put in a lot of work on this but since you like grappling so much, have you taken a look at the Tetori archetype for Monk?
It's a pretty amazing grappler, eventually able to prevent enemies from escaping as if they had been dimensionally locked, amongst other unique abilities.
Is it too late to go back and make him an Oread instead? You get the same stat mods w/o any of the bs.
Tiefling is NOT overpowered, I'm still dumbfounded with the "advice" on d20pfsrd on how to nerf them to bring them in line with humans. AKA, forever and always the best race for anything.
I realize that you have already put in a lot of work on this but since you like grappling so much, have you taken a look at the Tetori archetype for Monk?
Yes, I have looked at Tetori and was excited about it, especially the maintaining Dex to AC and making attacks of opportunity while grappling. In my opinion, though, it doesn't stack up to Flurry of Maneuvers and the other maneuver abilities that come along later.
With Flurry of Maneuvers one can theoretically pin an opponent in a single round from first level, and my build would be able to do it at second. With Tetori, although the Inescapable Grasp feature is powerful, one has to wait until 6th level (when you get Greater Grapple) to make more than one grapple check per round, leaving the Tetori to be more powerful but less efficient. Maneuver Master becomes even more ridiculous at 6th and 8th levels when he can make three and four grapple checks per round, something that a Tetori cannot do at any level.
The Tetori might be a better choice for other campaigns, but in this one where the Monk is more focused on putting single or multiple opponents at a great disadvantage in respect to AC and attacking ability I saw Maneuver Master as the way to go. I plan on leaving the crazy damage dealing to the Mounted Rager Barbarian and the Vivisectionist/Beastmorph Alchemist in the party.
Edit: COMMA SPLICE
Is it too late to go back and make him an Oread instead? You get the same stat mods w/o any of the bs.
Tiefling is NOT overpowered, I'm still dumbfounded with the "advice" on d20pfsrd on how to nerf them to bring them in line with humans. AKA, forever and always the best race for anything.
A very valid point about the Oread. If I had the choice at this point I probably would have gone with that rather than the Tiefling. Initially, I just liked the idea of a Lawful Good Oni-Spawn, but I can see now how it could have worked well with Oread story-wise as well as mechanically. If I had gone this route, I could have had the same stats, one more trait, and one more feat that I would probably use to take Improved Grapple at first level. If Oread, it would probably have looked like this:
1: Traits- Younger Sibling Ameiko: +1 to Will; Bullied: +1 to attack on unarmed AoO
Feats- Improved Grapple; Bonus Feat: Improved Trip
2: Bonus Feat- Combat Reflexes
3: Feat-Vicious Stomp
5: Feat- Ki Throw
6: BF- Greater Trip
7: F- Binding Throw
9: F- Greater Grapple
10: F- Medusa's Wrath, Maybe? Would have to ask GM whether I could apply it to Flurry of Maneuvers, but don't see why he would object.
Edit: In addition, I agree with Tieflings not being that overpowered, but can see how people would think that due to the 1st-level spell-like ability and the elemental resistances making them all but impervious to cold, fire and electricity damage for the first few levels.
The GM agrees with this too, and had me take the Infernal Bastard trait in exchange for choosing the Tiefling Heritage rather than rolling a d10 and taking the result, which would have screwed me over if I had gotten Kyton Spawn or something to that effect.