What's up with the impaling critical ?


Advice


My super awesome samurai plays with twf and I meet the prerequisites but I can't understand how it works. Is it attack and pull it out ? Or attack a round goes by and then pull it out? Help a fellow samurai plz....


You attack, you crit, the weapon is now impaled into the enemy. Enemies turn comes up, they take the impaled damage. You can then use your immediate action, on their turn, to rip it out, effectively giving them the impaled damage twice in their turn. Keep in mind, ripping it out from them costs an immediate action, which eats your swift action for your next turn. If they try to step away then it's only a free action to rip it out, dealing the impaled damage.

Alternatively, in the same turn you crit and impaled the enemy, you could use your immediate (swift) action to rip it back out, but then you just deal less damage, so it doesn't seem as useful, unless you really want your swift action for your next turn.

Dark Archive

He stays impaled until you pull it out, he spends a move action to pull it out or he moves out of your reach (in which case you have the option to pull it out or drop in and leave him impaled). Every round on his turn he automatically takes damage from the weapon. So the way it works is on a crit you impale them on your katana (assuming since you play a samurai). Then you can either let it go as an free action and then draw a 2nd one for free if you've got quick draw to execute any follow up attacks (potentially impaling them again) and repeat until you either run out of attacks, katanas, or stop critting. If he trys to move away you can either release the last sword you impaled him with or use an immediate action to pull that sword out and stay armed. (Either way he takes the damage for that sword being in him at the begining of that turn) otherwise he has to spend a move action per sword to pull it out.

So best case scenario you crit 3 times and shove three katanas in him. Choosing to let go of them and leave him impaled. (we'll say A is a +1 flaming, B a +1 and C is a masterwork) on his turn he automatically takes 1d8 +1d6 +1 from A, 1d8+1 from B and 1d8 from C since only the weapons damage die and modifiers apply. He can move away with all three in him (to take the same damage automatically on his next turn) or spend a move action to pull 1 of them out so next turn he'd only take damage from the remaining 2 (possibly more if you crit on your next turn)


Of course, if you crit something three times and it doesn't die, you're screwed.


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I want to build a brawler using snake style and this feat now. Not optimal, but the imagery...


Flying Blade Swashbuckler ...with daggers... 17-20 crit and you can carry lots of them.


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Hamatulatsu Monks get to do this with their bare hands. Pretty anime.


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DominusMegadeus wrote:
Hamatulatsu Monks get to do this with their bare hands. Pretty anime.

Total "Fist of the North Star," right?


I'm really loving that Hamatulatsu imagery right now, however how can we make this work? Unarmed strikes are still only 19-20 with improved crit.

With Feral Combat Training and Ascetic Style we can pick up a high crit monk weapon, now allowing us to utilize the high crit and ignore the poor damage dice as we can now use the monk's unarmed strike damage dice instead. Unfortunately monk weapons are mostly bad, so our only options really are the Urumi, which still totally kills the impaled with your hands imagery on top of requiring proficiency. What could work though is the rather terrible Emei piercer. It automatically makes your attacks piercing which is irrelevant given Hamatulatsu, and deals terrible damage which is irrelevant thanks to the previously mentioned feat combo, but visually it's just a needle between your knuckles, and at least will get us an 18-20 which while still poor is still better than 19-20.

Any other ideas?


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*** Emei Piercer would get you to 17-20/x2 ... which is the pretty damn good for "Unarmed" looking strikes.

Cestus is also 19-20/x2 B or P... 1d4 instead of 1d3 (not that that matters with Ascetic Style) simple weapon nothing exotic that needs special training. And is in the monk weapon group.


TGMaxMaxer wrote:

*** Emei Piercer would get you to 17-20/x2 ... which is the pretty damn good for "Unarmed" looking strikes.

Cestus is also 19-20/x2 B or P... 1d4 instead of 1d3 (not that that matters with Ascetic Style) simple weapon nothing exotic that needs special training. And is in the monk weapon group.

Some reason I thought 19-20 went to 18-20, 17-20 definitely makes it a better option. The damage type is irrelevant since Hamatulatsu lets you use your unarmed strikes for B or P damage damage anyway, and Ascetic Style transfers that to whatever weapon we choose.

As for the Cestus, yea it's also definitely an option and fits the flavor.


That's just it... with Ascetic Style, you don't need Feral Combat Training at all.

You can just use a weapon with all the unarmed abilities... So Ascetic Style, Hamatulatsu, and Impaling Crit are all you need.

Now you have a 17-20/x2 piercing attack that uses unarmed strike scaling damage and if they pull off or you pull off you get to do damage again.

It really works best with a Brawler, since they count as fighters for feat pre-reqs, and you need weapon Spec to take Impaling Crit.

You need IUS, Wpn Focus (unarmed), Wpn Focus(cestus), for Ascetic Style and Hamatulatsu. Then you need Weapon Spec(Cestus), and Critical Focus for Impaling Crit, which means Weapon Adept Monk 3, Unarmed Fighter (free style feat)4, or Brawler 4.

So... 8 feats and BAB of +11 to have a 17-20x2 crit, full unarmed strike damage, impaling fist attack, that sickens (or staggers) the target, and takes a move action on their part to pull your hand out of their chest for extra damage. At BAB 13 it ups to a grapple check to pull it out, and it deals damage, or bleed damage when it does.

Nasty.


TGMaxMaxer wrote:

That's just it... with Ascetic Style, you don't need Feral Combat Training at all.

You can just use a weapon with all the unarmed abilities... So Ascetic Style, Hamatulatsu, and Impaling Crit are all you need.

Now you have a 17-20/x2 piercing attack that uses unarmed strike scaling damage and if they pull off or you pull off you get to do damage again.

It really works best with a Brawler, since they count as fighters for feat pre-reqs, and you need weapon Spec to take Impaling Crit.

You need IUS, Wpn Focus (unarmed), Wpn Focus(cestus), for Ascetic Style and Hamatulatsu. Then you need Weapon Spec(Cestus), and Critical Focus for Impaling Crit, which means Weapon Adept Monk 3, Unarmed Fighter (free style feat)4, or Brawler 4.

So... 8 feats and BAB of +11 to have a 17-20x2 crit, full unarmed strike damage, impaling fist attack, that sickens (or staggers) the target, and takes a move action on their part to pull your hand out of their chest for extra damage. At BAB 13 it ups to a grapple check to pull it out, and it deals damage, or bleed damage when it does.

Nasty.

You are correct on not needing Feral Combat, however if you take Hamatulatsu Master you can use your monk bonus feats to take Impaling Crit as a bonus feat without prereqs at lvl 10.

Hamatulatsu Master Bonus Feats:
A hamatulatsu master replaces the normal monk bonus feats with the following: Deflect Arrows, Dodge, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Improved Grapple, Intimidating Prowess, Scorpion Style, or Weapon Focus.

At 6th level, the following feats are added to the list: Gorgon's Fist, Hamatulatsu, Improved Sunder, Mobility, Power Attack.

At 10th level, the following feats are added to the list: Critical Focus, Impaling Critical (unarmed strike), Improved Critical, Medusa's Wrath, Snatch Arrows.

At 14th level, the following feat is added to the list: Improved Impaling Critical. Anytime a hamatulatsu master would gain a bonus feat, she can instead choose to gain two additional uses of stunning fist per day.

A monk need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them.

So all you need is Hamatulatsu Master archetype, Weapon Focus (Cestus) , and Ascetic Style, all doable at lvl 1 as a human. You don't even need Focus Unarmed though technically I think it would stack to give you +2 to hit? Everything else comes in time. Better yet it even works with Unchained Monk. Obviously Weapon Focus and Spec will help out in the long run, but they are not needed to get up and running.

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