I'm working on a back up character for a home game. Not PFS. No 3rd Party material.
My party almost got TPK'd because of an anti-magic field, and we realized that we are very magic oriented. If/when my PC goes down, I wanted to bring in one that was a full on martial that could shine in melee and save the casters if magic is a no go.
I just found out about the Crusader's Flurry feat and decided to go for a crit fishing build as I haven't really played a character like that before. The problem I come to is Master of Many Styles vs Shield Champion Brawler (I don't really want to go maneuver based and I figure some of the shield abilities may end up helping save some lives).
With MoMS having only a 3/4 BAB progression, I feel like trying to follow that class would lose out on a lot of feat pre-reqs and you would have to clear the feats for TWF chain.
Going Brawler seems to have a decent character in general with a good amount of variation thanks to flexibility. But I'd really like to get access to Ascetic Style and be able to call up another style tree to fuse with it so I can apply the effects to the weapon attacks.
**On a related note, has there been a ruling on Pummeling style's interaction with things like Ascetic Style and Feral Combat Training? Does this "This ability works only with unarmed strikes, no matter what other abilities you might possess" override treating things as unarmed strikes as related to feats? I haven't been able to track down anything other than opinion**
Anyway, here is the current build. Is dipping MoMS worth losing another BAB progression?
Human Brawler (Shield Champion) 7/Cleric (Crusader) 1
STR 21
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 12
CHA 7
Feats
L1 (Bra) - Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Shield Bash, Power Attack
L2 (Cle) - Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
L3 (Bra) - Weapon Specialization, Crusader's Flurry
L4 (Bra) - Far Shot
L5 (Bra) - Shield Focus
L6 (Bra) - Saving Shield
L7 (Bra) - Shield Slam
L8 (Bra) - N/A
You normally can't use Ascetic Style on your Scimitar: you'd have to do something sneaky like take Ascetic Style for the Temple Sword
This is what the Crusader's Flurry is for. Treat deity's favored weapon as a monk weapon. I guess I should have added diety to the build -- Uskyeria.
I like the Snake Style approach.
You don't actually need to dip Cleric, the Versatile Desing weapon modification allows the same thing (and for non-exotic weapons, you don't need to care about proficiency, either).
That said, I don't understand your build. What do you actually want to do with the character? You say you want to go crit-fishing with a scimitar, but then you pour four feats into fighting with a shield. You also don't have the dex to properly throw it, so the Shield Champion archetype doesn't really do you any good.
Have you maybe considered Swashbuckler? Does pretty well with a Scimitar (with the Dervish Dance feat, that is) and doesn't use any magical abilities.
Does this "This ability works only with unarmed strikes, no matter what other abilities you might possess" override treating things as unarmed strikes as related to feats?
Yes, that's literally what it says. There is no possibly way in all of Pathfinder, present or future, to use Pummeling Style with anything but unarmed strikes. There is no "ruling" because the words tell you everything you need to know. The post-erratum version of the feat says "no matter what other abilities you might possess", so other abilites you possess do not matter.
I should have clarified my question on pummeling style a bit more. Looking around forums I found that in the early days of the style feats, people were trying to apply Pummeling style to weapons because it did not have the mention of only using unarmed strikes.
I was mainly trying to discern if this added language was to preclude using regular manufactured weapons from inclusion or if it was to override other style feats like ascetic style from use with pummeling style. From your vitriolic response I assume that is the general consensus.
As to your confusion about the shield focus on a crit fishing build. With the cleric dip, this character was unable to qualify for any critical feats of which I am aware as Improved Critical is not available until +8 BAB.
Your excellent recommendation of Versatile Design means the Brawler 8 bonus feat could be applied to Improved Critical.
The rest of the party is very squishy. 2 full casters, a vanilla monk who only attacks from range, and a magus who rolled low on his hp and has a permanent neg level. The shield abilities are so I can help protect the squishier party members.
I've played 3 DEX based builds like the swashbuckler and while I enjoy using STR as essentially a dump stat, I want to expand my play experience. The Martial Flex of the Brawler is very intriguing to me so I really want to play around with that.