Alrighty, so I somehow got it into my head to make a mutagenic mauler who uses a kusarigama as his main weapon, utilizing the ascetic style line of feats to beef up its damage. I noted that the last feat in the line, ascetic strike (the very feat that gives the kusarigama its monk dice) also replaces still mind as a prerequisite for monastic legacy. I think you know where this is going, right? So, I figured it'd be a good idea to ask some questions here...
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1.) I originally got excited that monastic legacy was going to beef up my kusarigama even more, but when I got a closer look at ascetic strike, I started wondering whether or not it'd work. Ascetic strike states that my chosen weapon deals the unarmed damage die of a monk four levels under my character level. Monastic legacy adds half my non-monk levels to my effective monk level to determine the dice, and since the is a feat that has improved unarmed strike, I would think ascetic style would apply it to my chosen weapon as well. So, do the levels from monastic legacy stack onto the effective monk level from ascetic strike? If so that means one's chosen weapon should deal damage like a monk with a level of:
(character level - 4) + (non-monk levels / 2)
So for example if I'm monk 2/fighter 6 wielding a quarterstaff with these feats, each end of it would deal damage like a (8-4)+(6/2)=7th level monk. If not, then the weapon itself deals as much as an 8-4=4th level monk, while my actual unarmed strikes damage like a 2+(6/2)=5th level monk.
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2.) The other thing that factors in here is how monastic legacy interacts with the brawler's martial training class feature. For the purposes of feats, a brawler is considered both a fighter of his brawler level and a monk of his brawler level. I'm seeing three ways this can be interpreted:
- Monastic legacy considers his levels to simultaneously be fighter and monk. Because all of them are technically monk levels, they don't qualify for the added levels, therefore his unarmed strikes are treated as being his effective monk level, making this a waste of a feat for anything that has a monk's unarmed damage built into its class unless it's taken some monk or brawler levels.
- Monastic legacy considers his levels to be fighter levels and monk levels, but counts them separately. Because he has N levels of non-monk (i.e. fighter) and N levels of monk, he gets unarmed strike damage of a monk 1.5 times his brawler level (N+N/2=N+0.5N=1.5N).
- Monastic legacy not only considers him both an Nth level monk and an Nth level fighter, but also an Nth level brawler. Since he has N levels in two non-monk classes as far as this feat is concerned (N in brawler, and N in fighter because of martial training), he considers his unarmed strike damage as if he was a monk twice his brawler level (N+2N/2=N+N=2N).
Which of these interpretations would be the right one? Assuming the second or third to be true, and assuming monastic legacy does in fact affect the damage dealt by the weapon chosen for ascetic style, would that mean my kusarigama would be capable of dealing damage like an unarmed strike from an monk four levels less than one and a half or two times my brawler level?
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3.) Assuming either the second or third interpretation of monastic legacy's interaction with the brawler class is true, that means monk damage dice will be increasing well beyond an effective level of 20. I've been assuming that beyond the 2d10 a monk or brawler has at 20th level, it advances along the same scale as is listed in the page for enlarge person. However, it's been argued to me that, because the chart for unarmed damage stops at 2d10 and scales differently than the regular damage increment scale (which doesn't include 2d10), it wouldn't increase at all past that. Which seems goony to me, considering there's a specific ruling for how to advance 2d10. As I see it, a 20th-23rd monk deals 2d10, then 24th-27th is 4d6, 28th-31st is 4d8, 32nd-35th is 6d6, 36th-39th is 6d8, and 40th is 8d6. Would that be accurate, or is there special scaling for monk unarmed damage beyond 20th level that I'm unaware of?
2) all monk, it'll do nothing for him as a solo brawler.
I see. Well, that sucks. :/
If I may ask, why would that aspect of ascetic strike even exist, then? If someone without monk levels has ascetic strike they'll be dealing more damage with their chosen weapon than their unarmed strikes even with it, which renders monastic legacy pointless for them.
If someone skips ascetic strike, they need at least 3 levels of monk, but then they'll actually be using their unarmed strike and not a weapon, so that prerequisite replacement isn't doing anything because the feat's not being taken. Assuming 20th level you'd need a minimum of monk 14 for your unarmed strike damage to surpass your ascetic weapon damage. And because you're not taking ascetic style anyway, you're not getting any advantage from ascetic strike's still mind replacement.
In other words, if you have ascetic strike, you'll never need monastic legacy, and if you have monastic legacy, you'll never need ascetic strike. So why have ascetic strike able to replace still mind as a prerequisite to monastic legacy? Is it because of a chance to have your weapon disarmed or sundered? Wouldn't it be easier to use a monk weapon that can't be disarmed like a cestus, then?
I really feel like I've missed something here...
Because the ascetic feat line is poorly written. It doesn't keep in mind the errata to feral weapon training and reintroduces problems the design team worked hard to remove.
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Because the ascetic feat line is poorly written. It doesn't keep in mind the errata to feral weapon training and reintroduces problems the design team worked hard to remove.
They used the same words that had been improperly twisted in FCT, pre-rewording. They should have reworded this new feat as a result, but they kinda make it clear that wouldn't be allowed by telling you how to replace with unarmed damage (Character Level - 4).
if you have ascetic strike, you'll never need monastic legacy, and if you have monastic legacy, you'll never need ascetic strike.
Which is probably the design.
The rules and FAQs don't speak to whether you can get credit for a level twice if you have different sources of effective class level.
I think they do, but hey should that subject get answered in FAQ I'm confident of the outcome. Are you?
Because the ascetic feat line is poorly written. It doesn't keep in mind the errata to feral weapon training and reintroduces problems the design team worked hard to remove.They used the same words that had been improperly twisted in FCT, pre-rewording. They should have reworded this new feat as a result, but they kinda make it clear that wouldn't be allowed by telling you how to replace with unarmed damage (Character Level - 4).
The way ascetic style is worded, I didn't assume the damage dice from a monk would apply to the weapon at that point. Just feats that include unarmed strike as a prerequisite and effects from equipment and spells that'd normally only affect unarmed strikes (such as the blood crow strike spell or thorn strike spell). I'd assume that with this and monastic legacy (but without picking up ascetic strike) your chosen weapon would get the effects of monastic legacy, but because it's only half of your character level, you'd outgrow this by 8th level anyway, and many weapons in the monk group have 1d8 damage or more anyway.
I can see how the confusion comes in when we get to ascetic form though. It seems like this is as far as any class with monk damage needs to go unless their monk damage is less than level - 4 (which, as I noted above, only applies to Iroran paladin). That does make this useful for classes and archetypes that utilize their unarmed strikes but don't get monk damage dice (such as unarmed fighter and elemental ascetic kineticist) if they happen to take the full line, but then monastic legacy isn't needed. I could see this not working with damage dice though, in which case you'd need ascetic strike... but taking that makes monastic legacy pointless, as the damage dice you get from it are surpassed by what ascetic strike grants you.
Which reinforces my point:
if you have ascetic strike, you'll never need monastic legacy, and if you have monastic legacy, you'll never need ascetic strike.Which is probably the design.
See, if that's part of the design, that makes zero sense. Literally the only people who would benefit from monastic strike as we're figuring it would be classes that take a minimum three level dip into monk and use a different style line (or none at all). If you get monk damage dice equal to half the levels you plan to take in a class or less, that's the only way your monastic legacy's damage dice would overtake the damage dice you're already getting. Otherwise you would either ignore both ascetic style line and monastic legacy entirely (since you're going to deal equal or higher damage with your fists) or you take only ascetic style and ascetic form (which would give you the advantage of a weapon's abilities). Literally the only thing I can see getting an advantage from ascetic strike is Iroran paladin since they are the only ones whose damage dice would increase as a result of taking ascetic strike.
The rules and FAQs don't speak to whether you can get credit for a level twice if you have different sources of effective class level.I think they do, but hey should that subject get answered in FAQ I'm confident of the outcome. Are you?
I'd really like to see this get answered in an FAQ as well. Honestly if it was up to me it'd apply 1.5 times, since the brawler is considered both a monk and a fighter in regards to feats that have a different effect depending on the class, and monastic legacy is one such feat. You add half of you nonmonk levels to your full monk levels, so the nonmonk portion should apply to your fighter levels.
But this is obviously in contention, and I'd like to see word of god on this rather than basing it on what I'd do, or what I can ask my DM to allow.
Also, I should note that my third question, regarding how monk damage would scale beyond 20th level, still has reason to be answered, as even without any sort of ascetic or monastic anything, a monk's robe would give a monk or brawler wearing it the damage dice of a 25th level monk at 20th level, so it's got to advance at least one step (assumedly at 24th, which would be when the monk wearing it is at 19th), yes?
speculated on that mythical what-if, and I'm not inclined to.Then why speculate on whether or not the rules allow double dipping levels? When the rules clearly don't allow stacking of other types of things.
This is the closest I saw to an answer:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=518?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Qu estions-Here#25872
This is a similar situation, as champion of Irori is a non-monk class, so monastic legacy should use it as such, but it also has a native class ability that allows its levels to stack with monk levels to determine unarmed strike damage. The thing is, this is attempting to add two different bonuses to the effective monk level, so we'd only apply the larger of the two bonuses (which would more than likely be the one granted by champion of Irori's buff to the damage dice).
However this is different because the above is a situation of two numbers of the same type (effective levels from champion of irori's ability versus effective levels from monastic legacy) trying to increase the same thing (effective monk level). The brawler situation is only attempting to add a single number (effective fighter levels).
Anyway, I did want a word-of-god answer to this, so I'll likely go ahead and ask in that thread, see where things fall.