So I'm getting into a Skull and Shackles game in about a week, and decided I'd like to play a half-orc brawler. Problem is, I'm not really sure how to build him. I've never played an unarmed combatant before, and the ACG stuff is still pretty new in my head, so I'm not sure what the optimal direction to go for him is.
My build limitations are: Starting stat spread of 18 16 14 14 12 12, two traits (one of which must be a campaign trait), max starting gold. There's a possibility of Mythic coming in down the line, but for now I'll assume standard stuff. Allowed materials are anything official Paizo.
What I've got so far is
Jarn, half-orc Brawler 1
Str 20
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 12
Wis 14
Cha 12
Traits: Fate's Favored, Besmara's Blessing
Racial tweaks: Sacred Tattoo, City Raised
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack
The race and traits are locked at this point, but everything else can be changed around. Also, I'd like to stick with a straight Brawler, none of the 2 level MoMS dip that seems to be so popular around here.
At first level, I'll probably grab a weapon like a longsword or something simple and two hand it for damage, since the motivation for unarmed combat doesn't really kick in until Flurry at level 2. From there, the build progression I had in mind is:
1. Power Attack, Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus)
2. Pummeling Style (Bonus)
3. Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike)
5. Combat Expertise, Weapon Specialization (Unarmed Strike) (Bonus)
7. Pummeling Bully
8. Pummeling Charge (Bonus)
9. Improved Critical (Unarmed Strike)
11. Greater Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike), Combat Reflexes (Bonus)
13. Greater Weapon Specialization
14. Critical Focus (Unarmed Strike) (Bonus)
15. Martial Versatility (Unarmed Strike)
16. Martial Mastery (Unarmed Strike)
17. Counterpunch, Dazing Assault (Bonus)
19. No idea
20. No idea
My thought process with this build is to grab a lot of the basic damage and accuracy boosting feats, as well as the first feats of most major feat chains, and use Martial Flexibility to grab specific things I might need. Getting Martial Mastery later on means that those feats will then also apply to other Close weapons I use, which also get their damage boosted by Close Weapon Mastery, meaning fighting with a weapon becomes an option, even a late one.
I'm not super sure about this build, though. It seems a bit too generalized, and I might suffer from not being focused enough in a build to do much, and overly rely on Martial Flexibility. Any feedback?
I'm probably going to be doing a lot of close quarters combat early on where charging won't be that great of an option anyways. I'm content just Superman punching dudes in the face, or smacking them with a two-handed quarterstaff.
And I'm trying to not overly munchkin the character for the sake of my narrative-focused GM, so that means I'm going to try to stay in the confines of the brawler class. MoMS is what, like, every other class seems to want to do, and doesn't really fit the background of the character.
The thoughts I had for different directions to go with this are;
Grab the various Trip feats and take advantage of Pummeling Bully, so I can knock people down and punch them for it, even at the end of a charge. If I have multiple targets around me, I can forgo the Pummeling and instead trip more than one enemy.
Grab the Enforcer feat and get things like Dazzling Display/Disheartening Display to make enemies I fight shaken or possibly panicked. A decent debuff, but tricky to hit multiple targets with as a brawler.
Knocking people off decks and into the water is a cool idea, but I'm not sure how to combine it with Pummeling Style, which is something I see as pretty core to the imagery of the character, sucker punching people really hard. Pummeling Bully allows for repositioning and tripping, which is why I thought of going that way. Unfortunately, I can't reposition enemies into dangerous things, so my thought was to just get Greater Trip and Vicious Stomp, so I can charge into an enemy with Pummeling Charge, deck him in the face, trip him, and hit him twice for it. Sucker punch and a curbstomp.
As it's a possibly evil campaign, I suppose I could look at feats like Merciless Rush and Squash Flat, possibly in conjunction with Spiked Destroyer. Armor spikes would get the damage scaling as part of the Close weapon group, and I could try to plow through enemies with bull rushes and overruns, then hit them while they're down.
I want to stick straight Brawler, without dipping for stuff.
Any other feedback? I'm really imagining a brawler as much more focused on hitting people hard and knocking them around, compared to the graceful mobility and mystic stuff of a monk. I'm just not really sure how best to work that.
Bull Rushing is ably taken care of by Martial Flexibilty.
I'd consider taking Dodge? - it gets you a good foothold in the mobility suite of feats (eg. at 6th you could Martial Flexibility into Whirlwind Attack).
Yeah, I figured having the core prereq feats for a lot of things freed me up to grab the more situational maneuvers and the like when I need them, and otherwise have a core strategy. My initial idea of grabbing all the Weapon Focus/Weapon Specialization/Crit stuff seems nice for damage on paper, but if I just wanted to be a DPR machine, I'd play a Slayer or something. So maneuvers of some sort seems some way to go, and trip seems the most relevant of the options you can Flurry with.
I mean, leg sweeps and the like seem pretty in-tune with a street fighter sort of brawler, I think.
punishing kick and vicous stomp make a good combo