I'm trying to make a tough unarmed fighter who'll punch your lights out

[Xisifer]

Hello, Paizo community!

Recently, I came across an interesting story on Reddit and it really inspired me to see if that kind of character can be replicated in Pathfinder: an unarmed fighter who can knock people's lights out with sheer badassery. He doesn't need any fancy tricks, just the ability to deal a LOT of unarmed damage with huge haymaker punches. Think like Balrog or Zangeif and you're about 75% there.

However...

The actual game mechanics of Pathfinder don't seem to support this concept very well.

The Monk has a lot of supernatural Eastern martial arts flavor to them, which doesn't quite fit.

The Unarmed Fighter [Fighter archetype] improves the Fighter's durability somewhat, but doesn't do anything to give better unarmed damage or Combat Maneuver bonuses.

The Brawler [Fighter archetype] receives bonuses when using close-range weapons, but doesn't actually get anything for being unarmed.

Is there something I'm missing? Any help would be appreciated!

[TriOmegaZero]

1st Level Monk (Martial Artist)/Xth Level Barbarian.

[Sub_Zero]

I agree with triOmegaZero,

you can pick up some interesting rage powers to compliment it.

powerful blow, and crippling strike seem appropriate. Your blows are basically powerful enough to damage their strength or dex scores.

[LearnTheRules]

The Brawler does get bonus damage to unarmed strikes you know... it's part of the close weapon group that the class feature affects.

A brawler will do pretty consistent damage with unarmed strikes should he have a good strength score. If you want high damage on single punches, take both dragon style and the vital strike feat chains. Vital strike isn't massively useful due to only adding an extra 1d3 damage (3d3 with the greater feat) but can help on charge attacks or whenever you can only make standard attacks.

Weapon Specialisation (unarmed strike) will come in pretty handy, as will boar style. I know the styles are kinda eastern in feel but they're the best way to boost unarmed damage. Belier's Bite can come in handy too, as will Power Attack.

[supar]

I have actually built out this myself. Using the brawler fighter archetype and combining it with the dragon combat style(dragon ferocity). What you get is a fighter that can have the 1 1/2 dmg on his unarmed attacks. the bonus on the close combat improves his unarmed attacks as well. Combined with wep spec you get some pretty serious base dmg. Happen upon a monk robe? now your dmg goes up to D8 with the right amount of int. You can do Felling smash combined with the trip greater trip

[Puma D. Murmelman]

I was about to ask a similar question for my current character.

She's a barbarian/martial artist (3rd party class) changeling with the hulking hag-trait and goes for 1d6+8 damage unarmed with the brawler rage power (only while raging, of course).

I thought about taking 3 fighter(brawler) levels for the decent damage boost and perhaps one more for specialisation.

Also, there are two feats in the same book the martial artist is from (A Fistful of Denarii from Tripod Machine) that grants you the unarmed damage of a monk your level -3 and later your whole level.

[Lucio]

Worth giving the Martial Artist archetype from Ultimate Combat a look, it strips out of lot of the mystical flavour in favour of more straight forward attacks. You could then combine this with a couple of levels of Barbarian for a dip into rage powers, particularly potent when combined with the Martial ARtist's immunity to Fatigue @ level 5

[Xisifer]

@TriOmegaZero: Oooh, good idea! I hadn't thought about rage powers

@Sub_Zero: Good idea. However, I'm not 100% sure about staying in Barbarian for 8 whole levels, mainly because I want to pick up Weapon Specialization at some point, and I don't think there's anything that lets a Barbarian get that.

@LearnTheRules: Ooh, good catch on unarmed being included for Brawler. Great ideas for Weapon Specialization and Boar Style, too. That +1atk/+5dmg is nothing to sneeze at.

@supar: Good idea. Dragon Style and Weapon Specialization look like they'll combine marvelously.

Going from all these replies, it's sounding like the way to go might be:

Brawler 4 (gain +1 attack / +3 damage from Close Combatant, +1 attack / +2 damage from Weapon Focus/Specialization)

Martial Artist 5 (gain Exploit Weakness, immunity to Fatigue and 1d8 unarmed damage)

Barbarian X (gain Powerful Blow, Crippling Strike, and whatever other goodies I want)

This looks like a pretty solid build. Thanks!