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This idea got brought up over in the other impaling critical thread but I figure the discussion was getting pretty off topic, so I figured I'd start this up.
The concept here is to use Ascetic Style to apply monk unarmed strike damage to a cestus, then through Improved Critical or Keen to achieve a 17-20/x2 crit rate and then crit somewhat reliably for Impaling Critical shenanigans.
Using Unchained Monk we can actually take the Hamatulatsu Master archetype, allowing us to pick up Weapon Focus (Cestus) as our lvl 1 monk bonus feat, and use our normal lvl 1 for Ascetic Style. At lvl 6, we use our bonus feat to gain Hamatulatsu, allowing us to deal piercing damage, and sicken on a crit. At level 9 we can theoretically take Improved Critical (Cestus) or have it enchanted to Keen by this point, and lvl 10 we finally take Impaling Critical (Cestus) for our fun impaling shenanigans, and since we take it as our monk bonus feat, the prereqs are not required.
However, I'm not much of a monk player, so beyond this basic framework, I'm unsure how to make this work even better. It also brings up a variety of questions due to Ascetic Style: Do Weapon Focus for Unarmed and Cestus stack to give +2 to hit? Say I have a Keen Cestus, and an AoMF +2. How does that even work? Do they stack? What takes precedence?
Lots of questions, but impaling people with fists is too great a concept to ignore.
weapon focuses wouldn't stack as it's the same feat, even though you have two sources of the same feat, it's still the same.
The +1 keen cestus with +2 AoMF should become a +2 keen cestus.
That's unfortunate, but the question then becomes how deep does the rabbit hole go? The benefit of AoMF not requiring the initial +1 investment makes it the obvious choice for easy access to keen for only 4k, making the Cestus a good option for enhancement bonuses, leaving the enchantments to the AoMF.
Also as I continue thinking this build through I'm starting to divert a bit into more just "fun" and thematic concepts for a Devil Nun.
Level 1: Bleeding Attack
Level 1B: Weapon Focus Unarmed
Level 2B: Improved Grapple
Level 3: Ascetic Style (retrain Weapon Focus Unarmed into Cestus prior to this)
Level 4: Qinggong for Barkskin Ki Power
Level 5: Toughness?, Flying Kick
Level 6B: Hamatulatsu, ?? Ki Power?
Level 7: Hamatula Strike
Level 8: ?? Ki Power?
Level 9: Greater Grapple
Level 10B: Impaling Critical
It's perhaps less focused now, but all feels very relevant for a Devil Nun, as it's all rather thematic, even if the Hamatula Strike may not be particularly effective. Thoughts?
Newly learned revelation: Rope dart by RAW works with Hamatula Strike, and it works with Ascetic Style since all monk weapons work with it past lvl 5.
So by RAW I can pull out a rope dart, throw it at a target, hit, succeed on the grapple check, yell "Get over here!", and drag them right into the square next to me. It even would deal my monk unarmed damage dice.
When not using the above, we still have our 17-20/x2 Cestus which we can flurry the target, deal our damage, get a free grapple and then have them grappled for their next turn. When my turn comes back around, I free action release them from grapple, then flurry them again, grappling them again, and repeating the process. This results in the enemy having a limited turn due to the grappled condition, and I can continue laying the beatdown with flurries, hoping for the crit to start the impaling critical shenanigans.
This is just too much fun on paper. I need to play this.