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So as of now the Pummeling Style has been errataed to only work with unarmed strikes. This however opened the posibility of trough the use of martial versatility make a true iajitsu master:
Essential pieces:
You collect all your power into a single vicious and debilitating punch.
Prerequisite(s): Improved Unarmed Strike; base attack bonus +6, brawler's flurry class feature, or flurry of blows class feature.
Benefit: As a full-round action, you can pool all your attack potential in one devastating punch. Make a number of rolls equal to the number of attacks you can make with a full attack or a flurry of blows (your choice) with the normal attack bonus for each attack. For each roll that is a hit, you deal the normal amount of damage, adding it to any damage the attack has already dealt from previous rolls (if any). If any of the attack rolls are critical threats, make one confirmation roll for the entire attack at your highest base attack bonus. If it succeeds, the entire attack is a confirmed critical hit. You can only use Pummeling Style with unarmed strikes [see errata].
You broaden your study of weapons to encompass multiple similar weapons.
Prerequisites: Fighter level 4th, human.
Benefit: Choose one combat feat you know that applies to a specific weapon (e.g., Weapon Focus). You can use that feat with any weapon within the same weapon group.
Special: You may take this feat more than once. Each time it applies to a different feat.
Monk: bo staff, brass knuckles, butterfly sword, cestus, dan bong, double chained kama, double chicken saber, emei piercer, fighting fan, jutte, kama, kusarigama, kyoketsu shoge, lungshuan tamo, monk's spade, nine-ring broadsword, nine-section whip, nunchaku, quarterstaff, rope dart, sai, sansetsukon, seven-branched sword, shang gou, shuriken, siangham, tiger fork, tonfa, tri-point double-edged sword, unarmed strike, urumi, wushu dart
Martial
1d8
x3 crit
monk
This broad-bladed weapon has nine heavy rings threaded through its spine, providing additional weight to add to the force of its impressive chopping power.
Optional Piece:
You can stab your enemies with your sword or another slashing weapon.
Prerequisite(s): Dex 13, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus with chosen weapon.
Benefit: Choose one kind of one-handed slashing weapon (such as the longsword). When wielding your chosen weapon one-handed, you can treat it as a one-handed piercing melee weapon for all feats and class abilities that require such a weapon (such as a swashbuckler's or a duelist's precise strike) and you can add your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to that weapon's damage. The weapon must be one appropriate for your size.
Sample Build:
Human Swashbuckler 1, Brawler 8
Traits:
Blade of Mercy
Finding Haleen
(20pts)
STR 13
DEX 20
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 12
1.Swashbuckler:Weapon Focus(Broadsword, nine ring)[lvl1], Swashbuckler Finesse , Slashing Grace[Human Bonus]
2.Brawler1:Improved Unarmed strike[Bonus]
3.Brawler2:Enforcerer (Combat)[lvl3], Power Attack[Bonus]
4.Brawler3:
5.Brawler4:Martial Versatility(Pummeling Style)[lvl5]
6.Brawler5:Pummeling Style[Bonus]
7.Brawler6:Fiendskin (Damnation)[lvl7]
8.Brawler7:
9.Brawler8:Soulless Gaze (Damnation)[lvl9],Pummeling Charge[Bonus]
This build is optimized for damage but also has the added value of beign a terribly good intimidator.
-Im not counting items and such, so numbers will be higher
-After a Charge make flurry with Your Sword at +15/+15/+10/+10, doing 1d8+5 or +12/+12/+7/+7, doing 1d8+5 1d8+11 if you power attack
-If any of those attacks crits, YOUR OPONENT IS DEAD nuff said. Your sword crits at x3. MEaning you would be doing X12 worth damage
-If your oponent survives and you used nonlethal damage trought "Blade of Mercy" you can make up to 4 demoralizations, thanks to soullessgaze you can get your enemy frightened or even cowering. This means he will generate a AO from you in his turn
-Martial Versatiliity will keep you, erm, versatile so to say, so you can do much things besides damage.
-Skills start low, but thanks to finding Haleen and beign human you get a fairly good number of them.
-Next levels you make sure to pick improved critical, you can continue with brawler or dip on fighter if you want more feats,its up to your tastes.
Toughts?
Specific beats general. In this case, Pummeling Style has been ruled to only work with unarmed strikes. I'd expect even stricter wording down the line when Paizo really looks at the feats available and realizes that they've done little to stop the truly absurd builds people are trying to make using this.
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Specific beats general. In this case, Pummeling Style has been ruled to only work with unarmed strikes. I'd expect even stricter wording down the line when Paizo really looks at the feats available and realizes that they've done little to stop the truly absurd builds people are trying to make using this.
Refer to Martial Versatility
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Martial Versatility is familiar to me, but I don't think it works in this situation. It's blindingly clear what they intended with Pummeling Style, and, like I said, when they actually *think* about the Feats that are out there, like Feral Combat Training, and Martial Versatility, I expect even stricter wording, along the lines of 'Under no circumstances does Pummeling Style work with anything other than Unarmed Strike. This specifically excludes Feral Combat Training, and anything else that would alter your unarmed strikes.'
Martial Versatility is familiar to me, but I don't think it works in this situation. It's blindingly clear what they intended with Pummeling Style, and, like I said, when they actually *think* about the Feats that are out there, like Feral Combat Training, and Martial Versatility, I expect even stricter wording, along the lines of 'Under no circumstances does Pummeling Style work with anything other than Unarmed Strike. This specifically excludes Feral Combat Training, and anything else that would alter your unarmed strikes.'
I agree. Not only that it tends to be discussions like this that lead to the Devs nerfing something into the ground sadly.
That's not how Martial Versatility works. I agree, that is how it's written, and you would think the designers learned from the past, specifically the Adaptive weapon shenanigans from Bo9S, but nevertheless, they wrote these feats without clarifying their intent.
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While i agree its strong i dont think it broken. An unarmed Brawler can do the same with no dipping. Slashing grace is not even necessary, the idea would be the same, bonuses would be the same. The only difference would be you are attacking with unarmed strikes and you get x2 crit instead of x3.Crit would kill everything , it doesnt matter if you do x3 or x2. And while the intimidate trick is nice i think its just thematic.
More than making it more specific, i think it would be better to add the line "you can only crit on 20 and crit x2 while using this feat"
They've already, I believe, clarified that Martial Versatility does not, say, allow you to use any Heavy Blade with Dervish Dance.
So the intent is clear.
Doesn't seem like the purpose of Martial Versatility to me. I like the imagery, but mechanically it's pretty cheesy. In general it's a good idea to not be cheesy.
Also, blade of mercy is a Sarenrae specific trait, and you're using it together with feats that sell your soul to evil forces. I don't think that a lot of people will let you do that.
Doesn't seem like the purpose of Martial Versatility to me. I like the imagery, but mechanically it's pretty cheesy. In general it's a good idea to not be cheesy.
It ain't easy, bein' cheesy.
Any time I see anything labelled "iaijitsu", I expect a katana involved. Kinda like how a cowboy hat refers to a specific kind of hat and not just any hat being worn by a cowboy when the statement is made. As such, while I don't mean to detract from your build, I find the usage of "true iaijitsu" here to be inaccurate. ;) (You could argue that you have a very katana-looking nine ring broadsword... But I still feel that's not the same thing as a katana.)
To help with your build, though, rather than potentially running afoul of Sarenrae (even if its still possible to pull this off in theory), you could take a level of rogue with the thug archetype instead, freeing up those two feats for other uses.
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I would prefer it used a katana but there is no way to use it with pummeling style. There is a lot room for improvement since i just did 9 levels, sure some rogue levels could help.
For katana i guess the best bet would be a pouncing barbarian altought pounce + full attack is a different feeling than the 1hit ko that pummeling style gives
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As opposed to Weapon Focus, Pummeling Strike does NOT "apply to a specific kind of weapon". It has limited use, which is not the same thing as far as RAW is concerned ;-)
Thus Martial Versatility does not apply to PS.
This pretty much sums it up, and prevents this combination from working. That would be a pretty sick combo though.
They've already, I believe, clarified that Martial Versatility does not, say, allow you to use any Heavy Blade with Dervish Dance.
So the intent is clear.
Awesome to hear that. That removes a lot of the shenanigans people have been on about with various abilities using Martial Versatility. Do you have a source for this statement just so I can view the original discourse?
Well, while I agree that Martial Versatility does not do anything for Pummeling Style, I wonder how this works for Feral Combat Training.
I would assume that it does work:
FCT:
Choose one of your natural weapons. While using the selected natural weapon, you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike.
One, Pummeling Style has IUS as a prereq. Two, it is an effect that augments unarmed strikes.
I also do not see why you, Nocte ex Mortis, would argue that you think a further errata is needed to further exclude Feral Combat Training from beneffitting from Pummeling Style?
Does it feel wring the one blow with my hand should still be possible if there is a claw attached? Is my head-butt as an unarmed strike different from a bite attack?
Style feats apply to unarmed strikes. Style feats can be added to ONE SINGLE natural attack through combining two feats (Weapon Focus, FCT) to get it done. Same as any other style feats to be honest.
SO, maybe I am missing something, or misunderstanding the FAQ, but as it stands the text in the errata does not prohibit the combination right?
Awesome to hear that. That removes a lot of the shenanigans people have been on about with various abilities using Martial Versatility. Do you have a source for this statement just so I can view the original discourse?They've already, I believe, clarified that Martial Versatility does not, say, allow you to use any Heavy Blade with Dervish Dance.
So the intent is clear.
I don't, it was in a thread from a while back. An unofficial clarification, but enough to suggest intent.
Honestly I was a bit disappointed with that, especially in that specific instance. Scimitar is the best 1H Martial weapon anyway, so allowing it with a Longsword or something wasn't going to break anything.
IMO if you're required to be a certain race, and drop a Feat to get a little more flexibility in weapon choice on certain Feats (like perhaps the Rope Dart with one of those Spiked Chain Feats), it balances itself out somewhat.
No, Rambear it doesn't at the moment. What it does do, however, is give any Druid who wants it Pounce without having to be a cat. So, you could take FCT(Claw), and be a grizzly bear with Pummeling Style.
The intent of the Style was to give Monks and Brawlers a way to actually be able to get off their entire attack chains, and, in the Monk's case, to actually be a fast-moving skirmisher.
Yes, and Dragon Style was meant to increase monk damage which was subpar. However, that was also allowed to be applied to natural attacks. One natural attack, not all.
Besides it is difficult to say what the intent was behind this feat, intent is rather subjective. But let's discuss intent.
Feral Combat Training was in my opinion intended to have a way to improve natural attacks and make them interact with style feats. One could even argue that a feral animalistic character is also a perfect candidate to be a fast-moving skirmisher.
While we are talking about intent, in my opinion the intent of a feat related to a whole combat form (Natural attacks) should not automatically be trumped by early day opinions about how overpowered a single feat is.
Even with Crane Style they nerfed the feat when it became the defacto choice for a defensive dip, they did not exclude certain other feats from benefitting from it.
Furthermore, it takes vastly more feats for far lesser result.
IUS-> Pummel Style-> Pummeling Charge. Three feats for the effect. Usually the monk and brawler get the first for free.
For any other class:
IUS - not free, unless you dip Monk/Brawer, delaying other class features.
Weapon Focus - Not a great feat perse, but not bad. Still a feat tax.
Pummeling Style + Charge
Feral Combat Training.
That is for one type of attack. So unless you go for a Monstrous Physique four-armed Gargoyle it will mostly apply to two attacks. Charging in kitty form? Bite attacks not included in the Pummel.
The only way around that is to get 4 levels of fighter and get Martial Versatility applied to Feral Combat Training.
That's six feats. To get the same effect as a Flurry character, probably with less attacks.
To be honest, I see no reason to further adapt the feat and as such I do not expect them to.
You forgot Pummeling Bully.
IUS - not free, unless you dip Monk/Brawer, delaying other class features.
Weapon Focus - Not a great feat perse, but not bad. Still a feat tax.
Pummeling Style + Charge
Feral Combat Training.That is for one type of attack. So unless you go for a Monstrous Physique four-armed Gargoyle it will mostly apply to two attacks. Charging in kitty form? Bite attacks not included in the Pummel.
The only way around that is to get 4 levels of fighter and get Martial Versatility applied to Feral Combat Training.
That's six feats. To get the same effect as a Flurry character, probably with less attacks.
To be honest, I see no reason to further adapt the feat and as such I do not expect them to.
Don't forget that taking a level of any class with flurry means that one weapon can be used in the flurry with Feral Combat.