There's just something fun about punching things. Unfortunately, unless you're a monk it feels like unarmed strikes trail off really quickly. I've tried an unarmed strike fighter build before and the biggest pitfall seemed to be no way to get over the magic item dependency non-magic classes tend to have.
Ultimate Equipment has as far as I can find, about 9 items that can modify unarmed strikes in any sort of relevant and positive way.
Brawling Armor
Bodywrap of Mighty Strikes
Amulet of Mighty Fists
Forge/Frost Fist Amulet
Ring of Strength Sapping
Monk's Robe (Increased damage dice to Monk's but none of the DR qualities)
Tentacle Cloak (bonus attacks only)
Talons of Leng (which are cursed)
Longarms Bracers (which only offer reach, not magic for bypassing damage reduction)
And even these items, many of them have downsides like not being able to use your hands, or only functioning once per round, and none of them are weapon slot. The best among them in the Amulet of Mighty Fists, but neck slot has some pretty good and powerful items to be giving up for the equivalent of +1-5 weapon.
Currently working with a Vigilante unarmed strike character. Style Feats and Vigilante Talents give her a pretty good punch, but there's nothing in Feats or classes other than Monk that'll let her compete with higher level encounters.
Do any of the newer releases, or adventure modules have additional unarmed strike options? Or more interesting things that give a dice boost or natural attack that might be interesting? Hell, I'd take a hand-slot bandage wrap or something. Obviously it could be made as a magic item GM-wise, but I'm wondering what more published Paizo has released on the matter.
Hand slot deliquescent gloves makes your unarmed strikes corrosive (1d6 acid damage).
Head slot Helm of the mammoth lord gives a gore attack.
Fighters can use their nifty advanced weapon training options to add enchantment bonuses and abilities to their weapon with the Warrior Spirit and since unarmed strike is in the close weapon group...
Warpriests can use their sacred weapon damage on their unarmed strikes. If you don't care about that the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain gives the fighters weapon training instead.
The Wilding Strike feat chain from Ultimate Wilderness enables you to scale up your unarmed strike damage if you are not a Monk or other character for which such damage already scales.
monk
lv1 +1.5 damage
lv4 +1 damage, 2.5 total
lv8 +1 damage, 3.5 total
lv12 +1.5 damage, 5 total
lv16 +2 damage, 7 total
lv20 +2 damage, 9 total
Fighter with WS, GWF, and GWS
lv4 +2 damage
lv5 +1 damage, 3 total
lv9 +1 damage, 4 total
lv12 +2 damage, 6 total
lv13 +1 damage, 7 total
lv17 +1 damage, 8 total
So the fighter is 1 damage behind at the end but is ahead after lv5 until that end, but also has a +5 to accuracy that the monk can't have (which is worth about 10 damage). This also is excluding the gloves of dueling for fighter that increases both by 2 that the monk can't match.
Overall I'd say the fighter is doing just fine on damage with their unarmed strikes compared to the monk.
|
monk
lv1 +1.5 damage
lv4 +1 damage, 2.5 total
lv8 +1 damage, 3.5 total
lv12 +1.5 damage, 5 total
lv16 +2 damage, 7 total
lv20 +2 damage, 9 totalFighter with WS, GWF, and GWS
lv4 +2 damage
lv5 +1 damage, 3 total
lv9 +1 damage, 4 total
lv12 +2 damage, 6 total
lv13 +1 damage, 7 total
lv17 +1 damage, 8 totalSo the fighter is 1 damage behind at the end but is ahead after lv5 until that end, but also has a +5 to accuracy that the monk can't have (which is worth about 10 damage). This also is excluding the gloves of dueling for fighter that increases both by 2 that the monk can't match.
Overall I'd say the fighter is doing just fine on damage with their unarmed strikes compared to the monk.
While fighter is similar in average damage, the monk has a higher damage ceiling than the fighter. The monk also has an easier time getting into certain style chains like Dragon Style, and will have more attacks than the fighter. And if we're talking Unchained then they can even move and full attack thanks to Flying Kick.
So I think in general the monk still probably comes out ahead of the fighter in unarmed by a decent amount. But Fighter certainly isn't bad as you've shown.
|
|
A Dex based vigilante can get both the lethal grace and fist of the avenger talents for a total of +15 damage per strike by level 20. And you can use gauntlets for enchantment bonuses. Because gauntlets are still considered unarmed strikes, amulet of mighty fists should also work when using them in addition to enchantment bonuses from the gauntlets. Straight vigilantes need a decent Dex anyway since there's way for them to ignore the Dex prereqs from the twf feat chain.
A Dex based vigilante can get both the lethal grace and fist of the avenger talents for a total of +15 damage per strike by level 20. And you can use gauntlets for enchantment bonuses. Because gauntlets are still considered unarmed strikes, amulet of mighty fists should also work when using them in addition to enchantment bonuses from the gauntlets. Straight vigilantes need a decent Dex anyway since there's way for them to ignore the Dex prereqs from the twf feat chain.
That's the build actually that I'm going with, is a Dex-based avenger vigilante with exactly those two things. Gauntlets for enhancement and the bypassing of various damage reductions could work I suppose, however as an arachnid wildsoul I don't think I can wear gauntlets and still shoot webs.
The Quain Martial Artist Region Trait grants a +1 Trait Bonus to damage to Unarmed Strikes. It’s a little thing, but it can make a big difference at low levels.
The Wilding Strike feat chain from Ultimate Wilderness enables you to scale up your unarmed strike damage
Yeah, but it's total crap. I mean seriously, pure trap option. Each of the feats increase the average damage by 1 - you're paying a feat to get the benefits of a trait. Even if you're somehow constantly enlarged (large "if"), that's a total average damage increase of 5.5 with all three feats, i.e. less then 2 per feat, making them weaker then Weapon Spec.
Likewise, the damage increase per feat lost for VMC Monk is pretty small, an average of 1.2 damage.As Avenger Vigilante has more feats than a Fighter, but is lacking other class features, VMC is still a good choice - I'd go with Barbarian.
Since you can't two-hand unarmed strikes anyway and the good style chains have annoing prereqs that are taxing you (unlike monks), I'd probably go dex based with Lethal Grace + VMC unBarb.
arachnid wildsoul
Why??? You're already using a bad weapon, why do you punish yourself further?
arachnid wildsoulWhy??? You're already using a bad weapon, why do you punish yourself further?
As someone who's played and GM'd games for years, I've discovered I much more prefer to play characters who are somewhat deliberately bad, and need to play smart. My character prior to this one was a dhampir gunslinger with the mysterious stranger archtype, and blood drinking (goblinoid) as the first feat. Terrible start, but around level 9 things got ridiculous with untyped damage bonuses of Cha + Dex on basically every shot.
Thematically, I like the idea of playing terrible drow spiderman. :P
And you can use gauntlets for enchantment bonuses. Because gauntlets are still considered unarmed strikes, amulet of mighty fists should also work when using them in addition to enchantment bonuses from the gauntlets.
Unfortunately you could not use both. You cannot receive two bonuses of the same type to one thing (attack roll and damage roll being this case). Magic weapons provide and enhancement bonus, as does the amulet, so you'd just wind up with whichever is greater.
Which is the major downside, that pretty much no Magic Items stack with one another, unless they're offering Insight or Circumstance bonuses, or the holy grail, untyped bonuses (which normally come from feats). So of all the limited unarmed strike options, really only a few can actually interact with one another. Like Monk's Robe which gives you Monk's unarmed strike and nothing else, the Bodywrap of Mighty Strikes limited per day uses though, but you need the neck slot for and the Forge Fist Amulet which adds the flaming quality and turns your fists Adamantine for damage reduction purposes.
Unfortunately you could not use both. You cannot receive two bonuses of the same type to one thing (attack roll and damage roll being this case). Magic weapons provide and enhancement bonus, as does the amulet, so you'd just wind up with whichever is greater.
It is possible to stack an AoMF filled with non-enhancement bonuses with a regular weapon's enhancement bonuses, though. E.g. one could stack a +3 weapon with a flaming AoMF.
That said, it's highly debatable whether Gauntlets really count as unarmed strikes. A search should show multiple threads on that topic, so we shouldn't discuss this here, but let's just say that a GM is likely to veto such stuff.
Thematically, I like the idea of playing terrible drow spiderman. :P
"Terrible" being the operative word - the archetype doesn't even grant Spidey's signature move until 18th level (and quite frankly, compared to flight, is just sucks).
Thematically, I like the idea of playing terrible drow spiderman. :P"Terrible" being the operative word - the archetype doesn't even grant Spidey's signature move until 18th level (and quite frankly, compared to flight, is just sucks).
Also true. The campaign she's in is going that high, and I like to play smart. The level 12 is going to grant climb speed which paired with the vigilante speed boost and acrobatic trait is gonna meas easy fast climbing of 50. Mixed with drow's darkness and vigilante intimidate bonuses Nightmare Fist is a good option, dropping from the cieling and mass intimidating with dazzling display before dropping Deeper Darkness. And I just like the idea of shooting a web at a weak pillar or something and pulling it down. Grappling hook AC 5 basically means you can hit any wall or surface, and though the rules aren't exact for it, in theory you could use your used to pull in items from a distance or other such things. :3 Fun > Meta Character Options.