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Help Me Blow Up Walls With My Bare Hands

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Howdy!
So I've been playing far too much 'Ys' recently and have decided to build myself a PF version of 'Dogi the Wall Crusher' for a Council of Thieves or Second Darkness run (we aren't sure which one yet)! If you couldn't tell by the name, he's a little famous for crushing walls (and boulders, and walls, and bars, and weapons, and walls) with his bare hands; and I'm looking for some help.

I have some basics down, but I'm looking for ways to make blowing stuff up in and out of combat viable.

Dogi the Wall Crusher
CG Human Steel-Breaker Brawler

Stats (15 Points)
Str 17
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 10
Wis 13
Cha 8

FCB into HP

Traits: <Something>, <Must be a Campaign Trait, TBD>

1. Power Attack (HD 1), Improved Sunder (Racial)
2. Two-Weapon Fighting (Brawler 2), Shrapnel Strike (Brawler 2)
3. <Something> (HD 3)
4.
5. <Something> (HD 5), Stunning Irruption (Brawler 5)
6.
7. Greater Sunder (HD 7)

The 15 Point Buy is tight, so I was highly considering dipping into something for Medium Armor (Barbarian for Rage and Fast Movement? Favored Enemy: Wall on Ranger?) and taking the Mutagenic Mauler for the Strength (as sometimes things call for Strength checks) and Natural Armor (as it loses the Light Armor AC Bonus anyway); due to my Dex being suboptimal.

The Steel-Breaker lets me pretty much ignore all hardness and DR as the game progresses (at 5), so a lot of the feats that bypass hardness are a little redundant. Should I take Pummeling Style to get a huge big hit against the Hardness/DR or is it redundant? Vital Strike or a Full-Round attack? Disruptive and Sunder Blessing?

I'm not sure how to fill out some of the blank spots.

Additionally I was looking at the Sunder Maneuvers and the tree (obviously) but I noticed something really lame in Greater Sunder which kind of got me down.

Greater Sunder wrote:


No damage is transferred if you decide to leave the item with 1 hit point.

Regardless it seems I would have to take it at some point to keep the CMB competitive.

I don't want to completely blow up our WBL, but I don't want to waste the explosive power of a good hit. So how would you help Dogi blow up walls, and items with his bare hands and get some really swell benefits out of it at the same time? I wouldn't mind Destroying Items for the damage benefits of Greater Sunder if there is a reasonable way to fix them afterwards. In the end, why just Sunder and Smash when you can Sunder and Smash and get some great effects out of it too?

I'm looking for other really cool options and ones you don't normally see in games, because its already a little suboptimal anyway, so I might as well get a little exotic with the abilities (heck I was even looking at the Untwisting Iron Style at some point before I saw the Steel-Breaker)!

Any feats, items and dips would be appreciated, even ones that help with damage against items!
99% of the PF stuff is legal (barring a few things like Leadership and such).

No Rovagug and Human is required, other than that, lay it on me!
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

If you go Half Orc you can use Gatecrasher:

Gatecrasher: Many half-orcs revel in acts of wanton destruction. Half-orcs with this racial trait gain a +2 racial bonus on Strength checks to break objects and on sunder combat maneuver checks. This racial trait replaces orc ferocity.

I'd consider going Dual Talent Human for more raw stats.

Rather than dipping, consider going Mutagenic Mauler. It's great for specialized Brawlers.

@Captain Morgan: I really want to stay with Human as I'm trying to snag as much of the character in my head as possible; though I would totally consider it if there was a trade for Skilled; I might possibly try to swing that.

@Secret Wizard: I'm definitely going Mutagenic Mauler and Steel-Breaker now actually. I figured the Mutagen (and later, Greater) would be a great boost and help out with the lack of armor. I like the move speed and the Climb speed too... In case you need to demolish something from the top down.

If I were to use Dual Talent, should I drop it in Dexterity? Constitution? Wisdom? I can delay Improved Sunder until 2; probably not worth using at 1 with how low hit points are.

The reason I wanted a Dip was for Medium Armor Proficiency, as Light kind of blows with the low stat spread. I'm looking at Id Rager Bloodrager as the dip for Medium Armor at the moment. Grant some Rage Rounds (and thus, more Strength), Dedication, Skill Focus for Sense Motive, Iron Will (when Raging) and even more Movement!

Though I'm curious if there's something better than the Bloodrager to get Medium Proficiency.

Though thanks for the help so far!
Liking the Mutagenic and debating what flavour Kool-Aid it should be.

dip would lower your changes of making that wisdom check to bypass the hardness/dr though

Thats true too.
Is it worth just sucking up a Chain Shirt instead of a Breastplate then?

I remember people finding a way to give a single classed Rogue Medium Armor with a trait; could just do that and cut the Dip out entirely.

Honestly, you need as much barbarian as you can get (or something that counts its levels as barbarian levels like Primalist Bloodrager). The reason is Strength Surge. Smasher doesn't hurt either, but the big one is Strength Surge. Outside of mythic I can't think of anything that gives you a scaling bonus to Strength checks and, well, you need it. Smashing stuff with damage (which is what you'd be doing normally) is no different than buying adamantine brass knuckles (or whatever) and just hitting it normally (in most cases). Also avoids the question of whether your fists are an "ineffective weapon", as Strength checks don't use weapons.

Pummeling Style would at least make it less "person slowly hacking away at a wall" and more "person punching walls and they explode" but only if you can keep the damage up. Ignoring (most) hardness has only cost 3k gold for a very long time, there's a reason not everyone kool-aid man's their way through walls all the time.

Also, I'm not sure how often you're going to get to use Stunning Irruption, and that's assuming you get your GM to houserule it to be useful.

Stunning Irruption wrote:

Benefit(s): Before starting combat, you can attempt to break through a door, window, or wall to enter a room.

If you succeed, the violence of your arrival is so great that all characters within 20 feet of your entry point must succeed at a Fortitude saving throw (DC = 10 + your base attack bonus) or be stunned instead of acting in the surprise round (if there is one) plus 1 round thereafter. Characters who succeed at this save are instead shaken for 1d4 rounds.

So two things. One, does "break through" mean a Strength check to break or are you allowed to just do damage? Do you get a full-round, a standard, what? Those questions need to be answered. Two, as written everyone need to make the Fort save. You, your enemies, your allies, everyone. That's... well, less than ideal. Possibly dangerous, though I guess your allies can stand 25 feet back from you before you do this (which just seems like an easy way to get yourself surrounded and flanked to death). It needs a talk with the GM ahead of time, basically.

There are two ways to break walls: Use a Strength check against the break DC or hit it until you reduce it's HP to 0. I prefer the Strength check because you can smash the wall in one go, rather than over the course of several attacks.

Finding a way to become large helps with both, as Large creatures innately get a +4 to break walls/doors (or maybe just specifically doors), and Large creatures also typically deal more damage, because Large.

You might also be interested in Shrapnel Strike, Breaker of Barriers, Untwisting Iron Strength, Deific Obedience (Rovagug), and Stunning Irruption (for the most accurate "Oh YEAH!" Kool-Aid Man impression).

When I made a similar build, I personally combined the idea with a Sunder/Bull Rush/Overrun build.

Combining Barbarian and Brawler (Mutagenic Mauler) will give you a nice Strength bonus, and you can pick up some nice Rage Powers. Strength Surge would be nice for break DCs if you invest in a lot of levels of Barbarian.

Have you considered the brother of the seal prestige class?

I mostly bring this up since they seem rather made for this. They treat object as having 1 less hardness /level in the prestige class (so -10 hardness). They also treat their unarmed strikes as if they were one size larger.

And the fun part is that the prestige class gets the awesome blow feat from a class feature. That normally does 1d6 when you smash someone into that wall... but they also have a different ability that adds their prestige class level to that damage (so 1d6+10).

I am not going to say it is better than a steel breaker brawler. But damn... that just sounds cool. To crush walls using the skull of some poor fool. It is the only reason I advocate this. You can also throw a guy into a crowd, and know them around too.

It's hard to top half-orc for sunder based builds, given their access to Gatecrasher and Smash. You could maybe play him off as just a really ugly human.

Also, the Oracle curse "Wrecker" eventually allows you to ignore all DR/hardness on objects and structures (except Epic). It makes all weapons you wield count as broken, but the Breaker archetype for Barbarian actually removes the penalty for using broken weapons and gives you a damage boost while using them (not that it matters much if you're just punching things). The Apocalypse Oracle mystery also has some fun sunder and destruction based revelations. Maybe a Rage Prophet might get your desired effect?

@Bob Bob Bob: Good point on Stunning Irruption. I'm going to hash it out with the Gm and see what he says to make it feasible. I kind of have my heart set on Brawler currently (especially with the Steel Break Ignore); though reading Strength Surge its super tempting. We use Unchained so I can probably squeeze some room for Barbarian VMC (Rage, Uncanny Dodge, Rage Power, DR) and grab Strength Surge and Rage this way without losing levels. This combined with Shrapnel Strike will let me add my BAB to Strength checks and then my Character Level.

@RaizielDragon: I'll definitely have to ask for some size increases from our eventual Wizard or Sorcerer. I'm definitely already using Shrapnel Strike because its really darn cool (and effective). I was thinking of the Iron Skin / Strength tree as well because I love the idea of powering up off of Sunders.

@lemeres: I haven't seen the Brother of the Seal, but I need to avoid Lawful for the purposes of the character. Definitely something to build around in the future.

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions.
Definitely going to do the Break DCs and Sunder as a side/combat thing.

Just stick to brawler. When you get Greater Mutagen you'll feel like a God.

Rather than dipping, I'd consider spending feats to pick up armour proficiency. Since Mauler removes your AC bonus, you have no reason not to go straight for heavy armour.
Hubaris wrote:

Thats true too.

Is it worth just sucking up a Chain Shirt instead of a Breastplate then?

I remember people finding a way to give a single classed Rogue Medium Armor with a trait; could just do that and cut the Dip out entirely.

I honestly don't know the whole trick but.

but I think tis based on the fact that the penalty for wearing armour you are not proficient with has to do wit hthe armour Check Penalty applying to a lot of other things.

SO if you get the acp down to 0, you can wear it without issue I think.

it was like.. that trait that reduced acp, then using mithral breast plate, and like that and masterwork reduced it to 0 acp or something.

--------edit:
Also, on the topic of the half orc thingies. Those are feats right? You could take that human feat thingy that lets you count as another race for purposes of taking feats etc. Which would let you take those feats. Though that eats up feats rapidly.

I'm working on a leveled mutation for explosive touch like Gambit has. Also an inhuman in the Agents of Shield TV series. He could touch a stone in the wall and blow it up. He could also turn rocks into bombs.

He can be a human fighter or barbarian, just passing on any bonus spells.

It's 100% homebrew and I do not have it ready yet, so I won't post the link yet.
-

Couple of other options for bypassing hardness or breaking objects:

A Warpriest with the Artifice blessing can ignore all object and construct hardness and DR for a minute per use.

Dwarven Monk alternate favored class bonus reduces the hardness of clay, stone, or metal by 1 when using an unarmed strike. That covers most weapons you'll run into (aside from clubs and staves, but those are easier to break anyway).

Probably way off from what you're going for, but an Investigator can take the Applied Engineering trait to break objects with a Knowledge(Engineering) check instead of Strength. That won't help you with Sunder, but you can get a high enough check to break about anything else.
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@Secret Wizard & Zwordsman: I decided on just using the trait for Medium armor (with Mithral) and then taking VMC Barbarian for Rage and Strength Surge. I did look at Racial Heritage but it does eat up the first level feat and seems a little, eh for a minor mechanical benefit.

@Goth Guru: Sounds neat! Good luck with it!

@Foeclan: I love the idea of Applied Engineering, just not for him. However I do have an Investigator/Alchemist Arsonist and Demo expert in a Way of the Wicked game who may love that with stuff like Remote Bomb (and his easy +35 K: Everything checks). That Warpriest Blessing is pretty darn cool, I recall there was a feat to steal a Blessing but it requires Divine Casting.

The game's going to start tonight, so I thank you all for the assistance and all the cool new ideas! I decided on a straight Steel-Breaker Brawler in the end with Mutagenic Mauler, but I'm going to use Gorum's Obedience, Shrapnel Strike, the entire Untwisting Iron Chain and VMC Barbarian to really get those numbers up (and eventually get some scaling DR whenever something breaks by my hands!).

I'll shatter the first door I find for you all!
Cheers and thanks!
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