| BlisterSlim |
Hello all,
I'm hoping to get some advice for an upcoming game. My GM wants to run a game set in Freeport using the Gestalt character rules. For those unfamiliar with Gestalt, you pick two classes and gain the abilities of both at each level.
I've decided to play an unarmed specialist using Brawler and Monk with the Master of Many Styles archetype. I've never played a character who specializes in combat maneuvers so this will be fun and new for me.
The problem is I'm a bit overwhelmed with the feat options and struggling to have the character do what I want it to do. My basic idea is to start off in a damage dealing "mode," get in close and then use Martial Flexibility and MoMS wildcard feats to switch to "grappling mode." by grabbing Kraken Style, Greater Grapple and the like. I'd like to include Ki Throw/Binding Throw to make it easy to get into grappling if possible.
In fights where there's nothing to grapple I can grab whatever is appropriate. I'm really not sure how effective this character is going to be, so I'd really appreciate some advice.
Here's what I'm tentatively planning for my feat choices:
1: Weapon Focus (Unarmed), Outslug Style, Pummeling Style
2: Dirty Fighting, Pummeling Charge
3: Power Attack
4: N/A
5: Improved Grapple, Improved Trip
6: MoMS Wildcard feat slot
7: Jabbing Style
8: Lunge?
Does this seem reasonable? I feel like this is a good base to work from but I wish I could fit in Dodge, Combat Reflexes, Ki Throw, Vicious Stomp... well and a lot of other stuff. I'm not really sure what should be "core" feats and what I should be picked up with martial flexibility. Thanks in advance for any advice.
| avr |
Zero magic and 4 base skill points (with no int-based class features) doesn't sound the best for gestalt. You generally want to cover multiple bases in gestalt rather than build to a laser-sharp focus. Also you lack AC - light armor alone isn't good, no armor with a wis bonus added is worse, and again, you have no magic.
As written you will be good at grappling one BBEG but their mooks will probably cut you down before you get there, and you have nothing much to do out of combat. I'd rethink the idea from scratch.
Edit: for example, have one side of the gestalt be tetori monk. That archetype & class contain everything you absolutely need to grapple. Make the other side something with skills and/or magic which doesn't come off int or cha - an urban hunter, an unchained rogue, a kineticist, an empyreal sorcerer, or a warpriest perhaps.
| BlisterSlim |
Zero magic and 4 base skill points (with no int-based class features) doesn't sound the best for gestalt. You generally want to cover multiple bases in gestalt rather than build to a laser-sharp focus. Also you lack AC - light armor alone isn't good, no armor with a wis bonus added is worse, and again, you have no magic.
As written you will be good at grappling one BBEG but their mooks will probably cut you down before you get there, and you have nothing much to do out of combat. I'd rethink the idea from scratch.
Edit: for example, have one side of the gestalt be tetori monk. That archetype & class contain everything you absolutely need to grapple. Make the other side something with skills and/or magic which doesn't come off int or cha - an urban hunter, an unchained rogue, a kineticist, an empyreal sorcerer, or a warpriest perhaps.
Well I'm not too worried about covering multiple roles. We've got a skill-monkey and a full caster in the party already. I mostly just want to play a sort of character I've never played, with a strong theme. I trust our GM to make everyone relevant, but I'd like to make his job easy if possible.
As for AC, our GM is giving us 30 points for point buy (why not go all out when doing gestalt?), so I can start with 16 in Dex and Wis, which gives me 16 AC at lvl 1, 17 with outslug style if I can 5 foot step. It's not incredible, but could be worse. I have the option to shift into crane style or something if badly injured.
I was hoping to fill a bit more of a control roll using maneuvers but it seems tough to really leverage those compared to just casting walls or black tendrils.
The background of the character is that he was a gentleman boxer, who was betrayed by a pirate captain while on a voyage and sold into slavery in a faraway land. He eventually escaped and began to learn mystic martial arts from the people of that land, but was cast out when he started using Hungry Ghost powers to eat people's ki. Now he's back in freeport with a bunch of scary mystic tattoos and is a lot less gentlemanly.
I guess I could maybe get what I want with Tetori monk and then another class that could give me fear/darkness/soul sucking magic. But I was really hoping to play around with maneuvers, and I figured Brawler would be the best choice for that style.
Weirdo
|
Brawler is good for maneuvers. And while it is generally a good idea to go for versatility in gestalt you could make a perfectly functional Brawler//Monk build.
This is not that build.
First, I don't think you understand how the MoMS works:
At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat. He does not need to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat. Starting at 6th level, a master of many styles can choose to instead gain a wildcard style slot. Whenever he enters one or more styles, he can spend his wildcard style slots to gain feats in those styles’ feat paths (such as Earth Child Topple) as long as he meets the prerequisites. Each time he changes styles, he can also change these wildcard style slots.
1) You've taken Pummeling Charge as your 2nd level bonus feat, but it's a feat in a style feat path, not actually a style feat. It's therefore not available as a bonus feat. You could use a wildcard slot to take it, but you'd need to qualify for it (ie you'd need to be level 8).
2) You can only use wildcard slots to take feats in the path of a style feat you are entering. You must have Kraken Style in order to enter Kraken Style, thus you must take Kraken Style if you want to use style feats for the Kraken Style feat path. You could take Kraken Style with Martial Flexibility first, but that means you're not taking eg Greater Grapple and it's an extra action to set up.
On that note, you've got three combat styles by level 7 but not Combat Style Master. This means it's still a swift action for you to activate each style - which is terrible action economy, especially since it's competing with things like your ki pool and martial flexibility. The 8th level MoMS advancement helps somewhat since it lets you use a swift action to enter/switch all your styles instead of taking an action for each style.
I could provide some suggestions for sorting out your feat selection, but first...
Have you considered Strangler Brawler//Esoteric Magus? That would work with the "scary mystic tattoos" and would give you access to thematic spells. Chill Touch would be a good staple for you - you'd also get Darkness and Vampiric Touch as you level. The Esoteric Magus gives you back the unarmed strike progression that the Strangler Brawler gives up. You'd use light armour. You're treated as having a ki pool for feats like Enhanced Ki Throw. (You could also stick with standard brawler depending on how much grappling you want to do - this lets you keep flurry - which I don't think you can use with spell combat - and your brawler AC bonus.)
| BlisterSlim |
Brawler is good for maneuvers. And while it is generally a good idea to go for versatility in gestalt you could make a perfectly functional Brawler//Monk build.
This is not that build.
Thanks for your reply.
It does look like I misinterpreted the Master of Many Styles. I figured a feat that was part of the style chain would count, oops.
I overlooked combat style master, that looks like a must have.
I'd rather not play a magus since that's what I played in our last game. I would definitely be interested in some ideas for feat selection or even just how to play a brawler in general.
| avr |
A brawler builds off some basic feats - you want at least 2-3 of Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Weapon Focus, and IUS. Dirty Fighting can substitute if you're really interested in maneuvers but it's not as good for other prereqs. You'll need to make a list of some feats that you might want to flex before play and what they do (and be familiar with that list!), there's few things more annoying than a player spending 10+ minutes to decide what they're going to do this round.
In the long run if you're going to grapple a lot you will need magic or the tetori archetype. If that's just one maneuver and you plan to switch between them all then maybe you can get around that by dropping grappling once monsters get too big or too magical.
The problems remain that your AC is not good for gestalt and won't get much better (you'll want an amulet of mighty fists rather than an amulet of natural armor, and increasing your wisdom is more expensive than enchanting armor for example), and you lack accuracy/damage boosts compared to most pure martial characters.
Would you consider a mysterious avenger swashbuckler // eldritch scrapper sorcerer? Eldritch scrapper gets the martial flex class feature and between the swashbuckler's opportune parry and riposte deed and some spells your defence will be better, and you may be able to increase your attack bonus when needed too. Darkness/evil/soul sucking magic should be achievable for a sorcerer. Using a whip helps with combat maneuvers at low levels, which is why it occurred to me..
Weirdo
|
Sorry this post took a while, I wanted to fiddle with this idea.
Martial Flexibility is best used for feats that are situational. This includes most of your maneuver stuff, since grappling is wildly more useful against a humanoid spellcaster than against a tiger and you can't even try to trip anything that flies. As avr mentioned you'll want to grab some core feats that serve as pre-requisites for feats you'll want to grab with Martial Flexibility. It can be helpful to take Improved Trip or Improved Grapple as normal feats if you want to build off them in fancy ways but make sure you've got the basics taken care of first – Greater Trip and Vicious Stomp will fall on their face if you don't have Combat Reflexes.
In my experience with a tripping/grappling monk//alchemist, tripping is quite a bit more useful if you've got melee teammates who can also take advantage of the AoO. Ki Throw in particular depends on your team composition. There are two other melee characters, we all have the Outflank teamwork feat, and one of them is a TWF rogue//samurai, so Ki Throw often means an enemy is not only prone but flanked and about to get sneak attacked for buckets of damage. If you are the only melee character in the party it is a better idea to work on improving your own damage with eg Vicious Stomp. (Also, while I'd like to get Binding Throw at some point, most of the time I don't want to follow up a trip with a grapple – I want to get as many mooks on the ground as I can.)
Tetori is worth considering if you wanted to focus on grappling in the long run - though how useful it is depends on how likely your GM is to try and counter your grappling using magic. You could still pair it with Brawler, though also consider Stygian Slayer or Lore Warden Fighter for some extra skill points – Lore Warden would work well if you still wanted to trip.
Another versatility option to consider: Tetori or Brawler//Void Kineticist with Kinetic Fist. I'm not really sure how well it would work but it fits your character concept quite nicely.
Elemental Ascetic is closest to your current build with a Wis focus, the monk AC bonus (at level 2), and the ability to enhance your fists free at will. It's the best way to build the Tetori//Kineticist since you need Wis anyway and don't get flurry from tetori. You could also combine this with brawler but there are more options:
Brawler//Vanilla Void Kineticist can the blast at range, wear light armour, and invest less in Wis but also takes burn every round of flurrying with kinetic fist until level 5. You'd want Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot at some point, though you could always take them with Martial Flexibility if you don't do a lot of shooting (with energy blasts Precise Shot isn't quite as important).
Finally, if you're OK with being evil you can take Brawler//Dark Elementalist which blasts like the normal version but gets the good will save, is Int-based (so plenty of skills)... and fuels its dark powers by torturing the souls of the fallen.
With the Brawler//MoMS, I'd suggest something like this:
1 - Weapon Focus (UAS), Outslug Style (MoMS), Dirty Fighting or Power Attack, (Martial Flexibility 1)
2 - Dirty Fighting or Power Attack, Pummeling Style (MoMS)
3 - Combat Reflexes
5 - Combat Style Master, Lunge
6 - Wildcard slot, (martial flexibility 2)
7 - 1
8 - Pummelling Charge?, (fuse 3 styles)
9 - 1
10 – Wildcard slot, (martial flexibility 3)
By level 2 you can take any Improved Maneuver feat using Martial Flexibility, or use it for something like Dodge if maneuvers aren't useful in a particular combat.
By level 6 you can take any two maneuver feats (eg Improved + Greater Grapple, Improved Trip + Vicious Stomp), but what's more exciting is what happens to your combat style options. Your most basic option is to use your Wildcard slot for Outslug Weave, but once you get Martial Flexibility involved you can also grab Outslug Sprint, or grab an entirely new base style feat if you're not using Pummeling's DR penetration at the moment. In fact, if you take two style path feats with Martial Flexibility and then use your Wildcard on the same style, you can instantly master any style. I find Snake Style works quite well if your AC is middling – Sense Motive is useful out of combat, too. Note the top feat Snake Fang uses that Combat Reflexes feat we have. Dragon is also easy to qualify for, provides a solid damage bonus, and makes it a lot easier to use Pummeling Charge at level 8. You can grab Dragon Style + Dragon Ferocity with Martial Flexibility and still use your wildcard for Outslug Weave.
From there it gets flexible – you can grab an actual Improved Maneuver feat or two if you're still getting mileage out of them and don't expect that to change. This would mean that once you hit level 10 you can do things like building on Improved Trip with Ki Throw + Improved Grapple + Binding Throw or Greater Trip + Ki Throw + Vicious Stomp. Alternatively, with a total of 5 flexible feats it's easy to grab an entire style feat chain. If you find you're using a particular style with Martial Flexibility a lot, level 7-9 is also a good time to grab yourself the base style for real. Note that at level 8 you get an attack bonus equal to your active styles so activating that third style is a +1 to attack for you. I'm also assuming you want Pummeling Charge at 8 but you can always Wildcard it in if you have other priorities at that point.
You can even tweak it earlier on and delay Power Attack, taking Combat Reflexes at 2 and Improved Trip at 3, which gives you more opportunity to explore Ki Throw and Vicious Stomp at early levels when they're fun and lets you pull off some nice stuff at level 6, but leaves you with another feat invested if trip's usefulness tapers off. You could also delay Lunge until level 7, but then you leave your Wildcard slot unfilled at 6 unless you use Martial Flexibility to qualify for something.
| BlisterSlim |
First up, thanks a lot to both of you guys for your help!
It looks like maybe I was trying to be too focused with the brawler, it seems like flexibility is the name of the game (which makes sense considering its abilities). I think I may have overstated the mystic angle, I really wanted to focus on unarmed combat primarily, with just a splash of magic for flavour.
I think you're right that it makes sense not to focus too much on grappling if I'm not going Tetori and just have it as one tool in the toolbox. While I think my GM wouldn't screw me over too much with grapple immune monsters, it would still be nice to be effective in every fight.
The eldritch scrapper looks really interesting, what a bizarre archetype. I love Gish style characters though so I'm gonna have to build one at some point. That gestalt combo seems really interesting but it's really not what I'm going for this time around.
It looks like our party is going to have a swashbuckler of some sort, a ranger/rogue, and a paladin of freedom/oracle. So I'm definitely going to have friends in melee. I may be able to convince them to go with some teamwork feats.
The kineticist looks really cool and would give me a lot more flexibility. I'm not too familiar with the class but it seems like a lot of the powers I could theme as being martial arts rather than magical. I will definitely look into this.
The brawler/MoMS build looks really close to what I was going for! Only thing though, I don't think Lunge can be taken at level 5, it requires BaB +6. Other than that it sounds like the build does pretty much what I was hoping, swapping out entire styles at will and so on.
The other guys are kind of pushing me to take my 2nd option (witch/alchemist debuffer), since we already have lots of melee. But I feel a lot better about the build now. Thanks again you two!
Weirdo
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Darn, I thought I checked all the pre-reqs. Well, as mentioned taking Lunge at 7 instead of 5 mostly just makes using your wildcard slot at 6 a little awkward. You can still progress Outslug if you take Lunge with Martial Flexibility, or use Martial Flexibility to take a different style to build on with the Wildcard, but for that one level if you put Martial Flexibility into maneuver feats your Wildcard isn't doing anything for you.
Kineticists, being not quite casters, are really easy to flavour as ki users.
Glad the ideas were helpful! I had a lot of fun with the Brawler//MoMS because I also love the idea of being able to pull off a bunch of styles on the fly and the MoMS alone doesn't quite get there...