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Its only out to about 9th level, but here is a
Str20[+2Race, +2Levels]
Dex14
Con14
Int8
Wis12
Cha10
Feats:
1:Improved Unarmed Strike
1:Enforcer
1:Intimidating Prowess
2:Weapon Focus[Unarmed Strike
3:Pummeling Style
5:Power Attack
5:Weapon Specialization
7:Pummeling Charge
8:Improved Critical[Unarmed Strike]
Set Maneuver Training to Grapple, so that in case of emergencies you can pull out Improved Grapple[and later, Greater Grapple], and shut down the enemy caster. After the first one, it doesn't really matter which one you choose[I'm a fan of dirty trick].
Against opponents non-immune to nonlethal, do mostly nonlethal damage[you can always pound them to actual death later if you need], and intimidate them, giving a functional AC buff to everyone, and helping out Save-or-Suck party casters.
Its only out to about 9th level, but here is a ** spoiler omitted **
I like this, seems like the kind of guy that could kneecap a fire giant. :) Two possible places my mind wants to take it after the levels you wrote up are either 1) toward Deadly Strike, 2) down the dirty trick line of feats.
Nice.
Ghorrin
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edit: feel free to post your own brawler build ideas
ive seen a lot of people talk about rules, but few talk about actually building something. brawler offers a interesting opportunity, given the nature of his martial flexibility lends him to building slightly different then some, tho you dont have to.
for this build lets assume that by the wording, you only have to spend your resources for martial flexibility once every ten rounds, but you can in those ten rounds, switch feats every round for free (or up to a move action technically)
there is some argument over whether this is accurate or not, and ive seen the argument for both sides.
that all said what do we need to make a brawler work at punching really well
power attack
pummeling style/dragon style.
now thats a lot of feats to start...potentially 7...tho we can cut out the third dragon style feat...thats 6. still a lot tho.
how about a 2 level dip in MOM? (i know what a surprise right?),
MOMS
1-power attack, pummeling style
2-pummeling charge
BRAWLER
1-dragon style
2-extra flexibility
3-dragon ferocityso as soon as level 5 you can do a charge>pummel with dragon style/ferocity kicking in...and using your brawlers fury to get an extra attack so pummel at such a early level isnt a waist. now there may be a better way to go about the beginning "skeleton" for this build but this is a general basis. At level 4 you have 8 uses of flexibility instead of 5, if you go human you can spend another one on flexibility and get 11. or you can decide on some base feats so you can branch out further with flexibility into feat chains.
now with pummeling style, id be tempted to drop maneuver training for the shield archetype to have a ranged option. it replaces brawler strike (equivalent of ki strike) but pummeling style will let you blow thru DR anyways
beyond this im not sure and im going to need to comb thru the database of combat feats very closely.
also might be wise to get a few defensive feats like iron will since...
Seems nice. I'd advise against getting Pounce at such an early level[mostly because I don't want to see Pummeling Charge become a repeat of the Crane Wing debacle], but if you do want to do this, I'd go with Brawler2/MoMS2/BrawlerX. Perhaps use a feat progression like this:
1:Improved Unarmed Strike1:Pummeling Style
1:Power Attack[if human]
3:Pummeling Charge, Power Attack[Extra Flexiblity if Human]
4:Dragon Style
5:Dragon Ferocity, Extra Flexiblity[Weapon Focus if human. Or Enforcer, if you want to go that route]. Main reason to delay Pummeling Charge is that you don't have a use for it until you get Brawler's Flurry, and that means its a wasted feat for 4 levels.
The brawler's martial flexibility isn't the compelling part of the class - that's just a way to make it harder for a novice player to play well and overpowered for an experienced player who's aware of all the potential feat combos that would be most useful in different situations.
The compelling part is that it's completely SAD. Even more so than the Fighter. At least some fighters had a reason to have a 13 Int, or the Dex to get the TWF feats.
The brawler's flurry, with the damage that progresses regardless of what you attack with, means that the best thing to do is just use the weapon with the best crit range that you can find so that you can spend the minimum amount of money for the most attacks. Unarmed strikes would mean using an amulet of mighty fists, which costs 50% more than using a weapon that will have the same (or possibly better at low levels) damage with a better crit. Traditional two weapon fighting costs twice as much. Plus, a brawler can flurry while using a shield if he's willing to get only a 1:2 ratio on his power attack instead of 1:3. (And if you use a spiked shield, you can easily make the spikes +whatever defending shield spikes and make your last attack each round (the one that was already least likely to hit) with it to get some extra defence from it)
If you either spend two feats, or dip one level in any of several classes, you can get back heavy armour proficiency, which will almost certainly amount to more AC than the small AC bonus the class gives (which is the only thing lost for wearing the heavy armour).
So right now, the best use I see for the brawler is a max Str character wearing heavy armour and a heavy spiked shield, who flurries with whatever the best crit weapon in the close group is.
(Unless Crusader's Flurry can be applied to Brawler's Flurry, then it's instead going to be the same thing with a one level crusader cleric dip at second level using whatever his god's favoured weapon is, possibly heading to Sentinel for the attack and damage boosts.)
Maybe someone can verify for me but I was under the impression that you could not use MoMS with brawler. You can't archetype with the parent class of a hybrid class
The "no multiclassing with parent classes" rule was removed from the book. It's a thing you can totally do.
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...edit: feel free to post your own brawler build ideas
ive seen a lot of people talk about rules, but few talk about actually building something. brawler offers a interesting opportunity, given the nature of his martial flexibility lends him to building slightly different then some, tho you dont have to.
for this build lets assume that by the wording, you only have to spend your resources for martial flexibility once every ten rounds, but you can in those ten rounds, switch feats every round for free (or up to a move action technically)
there is some argument over whether this is accurate or not, and ive seen the argument for both sides.
that all said what do we need to make a brawler work at punching really well
power attack
pummeling style/dragon style.
now thats a lot of feats to start...potentially 7...tho we can cut out the third dragon style feat...thats 6. still a lot tho.
how about a 2 level dip in MOM? (i know what a surprise right?),
MOMS
1-power attack, pummeling style
2-pummeling charge
BRAWLER
1-dragon style
2-extra flexibility
3-dragon ferocityso as soon as level 5 you can do a charge>pummel with dragon style/ferocity kicking in...and using your brawlers fury to get an extra attack so pummel at such a early level isnt a waist. now there may be a better way to go about the beginning "skeleton" for this build but this is a general basis. At level 4 you have 8 uses of flexibility instead of 5, if you go human you can spend another one on flexibility and get 11. or you can decide on some base feats so you can branch out further with flexibility into feat chains.
now with pummeling style, id be tempted to drop maneuver training for the shield archetype to have a ranged option. it replaces brawler strike (equivalent of ki strike) but pummeling style will let you blow thru DR anyways
beyond this im not sure and im going to need to comb thru the database of combat feats very closely.
also might
If you have a trait to spare, the +1 Will Save trait is great, and obviously Iron Will is good on all Brawler builds. Improved Iron Will, if you have room, is nice to pick up as well. There is Birthmark, if you are mainly worried about dominate person type spells, getting more for your money. And finally, Half-Elf can net you both a flat +2 to all saves and another +2 v. Enchantment.
For the pummeling Style, I'd still recommend moving the MoMS dips later, so that you have less levels with "wasted" feats.
For Archetypes, Steel-Breaker looks pretty good. I mean, the ignoring DR bit isn't as big with Pummeling Style, but a +2 to attack rolls is gravy, especially since Brawler doesn't come with an attack booster. Mix in the option to instead get 1/2 level to AC, and its fairly nice. Replaces Maneuver Training with slightly different Maneuver Training, so, is there really a difference if you weren't using it?
~2cp
The brawler's martial flexibility isn't the compelling part of the class - that's just a way to make it harder for a novice player to play well and overpowered for an experienced player who's aware of all the potential feat combos that would be most useful in different situations.
The compelling part is that it's completely SAD. Even more so than the Fighter. At least some fighters had a reason to have a 13 Int, or the Dex to get the TWF feats.
The brawler's flurry, with the damage that progresses regardless of what you attack with, means that the best thing to do is just use the weapon with the best crit range that you can find so that you can spend the minimum amount of money for the most attacks. Unarmed strikes would mean using an amulet of mighty fists, which costs 50% more than using a weapon that will have the same (or possibly better at low levels) damage with a better crit. Traditional two weapon fighting costs twice as much. Plus, a brawler can flurry while using a shield if he's willing to get only a 1:2 ratio on his power attack instead of 1:3. (And if you use a spiked shield, you can easily make the spikes +whatever defending shield spikes and make your last attack each round (the one that was already least likely to hit) with it to get some extra defence from it)
If you either spend two feats, or dip one level in any of several classes, you can get back heavy armour proficiency, which will almost certainly amount to more AC than the small AC bonus the class gives (which is the only thing lost for wearing the heavy armour).
So right now, the best use I see for the brawler is a max Str character wearing heavy armour and a heavy spiked shield, who flurries with whatever the best crit weapon in the close group is.
(Unless Crusader's Flurry can be applied to Brawler's Flurry, then it's instead going to be the same thing with a one level crusader cleric dip at second level using whatever his god's favoured weapon is, possibly heading to Sentinel for the attack and damage boosts.)
That's one perspective. But frankly I think you're downplaying a lot with this assessment. Maybe you want your Brawler to not take a hit to his movement speed, or be able to use skills like stealth.
I mean, that's certainly one way to optimize the character, but I think you're starting to move away from what made the class interesting to begin with.
Has anyone thought of making a brawler that uses dervish dance? I feel like you could do some neat things with it
Fair enough
Has anyone thought of making a brawler that uses dervish dance? I feel like you could do some neat things with itThat'd be silly. You can't flurry with a scimitar.
If you want dex to damage, you're pretty much locked into the agile property.
I would agree that dervish dance isn't the best option for a brawler, but slashing grace would work for many weapons the brawler can flurry with. A brawler could even use it with unarmed strikes if you had Boar Style.
Here's a mostly brawler build
Vishkanya Wild Child Brawler 6/Urban bloodrager 1/High fort save class 1/high fort save class 2
20 pt buy: 10 16 18 10 10 10
levels 4 and 8 +1 con
High dex, High con
feats
1: Sleep venom
2 brawler: weapon finesse
3: iron will
5: improved iron will
5 brawler: Martial focus
7 boon companion
9 extra rage?
agile weapon
Uses martial flexibility after level 6 to get access to item mastery feats. Disple magic, flight, and suggestion at level 7, breath of life at level 9.
Has a large T Rex that gets an extra attack as an immediate action from the wild child's skirmisher trick.
A con based poison that knocks enemies unconscious.
Great fort and ref saves, ac and hp will be good because of dex and con focus
Could go guide ranger, urban barbarian, or even paladin after level 6 instead.
By the way, shortly after posting about slashing grace, I noticed that you couldn't flurry with it, but the site kept crashing and I couldn't delete my post. :(
Can go a slight different route too.. go for high dex... dip at least 1 into unchained rogue for weapon finesse... agile maneuvers, and you have good attack and CMB without having to go to stupid levels of STR
So was it necessary to resurrect a Thread from 2014?