Hi all,
I'm currently creating a Samurai (Brawling Blademaster archetype) for a new campaign starting lvl 3 to 20th. I'm currently planning on giving him two wakizashi's along side his ability to fight barehanded. I don't have a firm lock on his overall build but the one aspect I'm trying to improve his wakizashi's base damage.
Are there any ways to improve the damage of the wakizashi or get it to scale with my unarmed strike damage?
Some of the ways I currently know about are
-Impact enchantment
-Ascetic Style
*A few parameters for the build
1) I do not want to multi class(dip) into another class
2) I would like the dmg increase to be permeant (not relying on spells or potions to increase dmg, or temporary increases)
Thank you for any insight you have.
None of the methods you've point out will raise your wakizashi's damage.
Impact Enchantment doesn't work on light weapons. Wakizashi is a light weapon.
Ascetic style lets you apply feats with improved unarmed strike as a prerequisite to monk weapons. Wakizashi is not in the Fighter's Monk Weapon category. Also that would only let you apply feats, not class abilities like the scaling damage.
As for improving damage, you won't be able to get it to scale with your unarmed damage. Monks have a few ways to get that, Warpriests can do that. Samurai don't have a way. At least none that I am aware of.
That just leaves raising the damage via feats like any other weapon. Just about anything you do should benefit your unarmed strikes as much as your light weapon.
thx for the feedback
Focus on static damage. It is easy to increase your Strength by +2 (giving you a +1 bonus) over increasing a damage dice (1d6 to 1d8 is only an average damage increase of 1).
Is there any reason you are going for a Wakizashi over a normal Katana? The katana is the same thing except one handed and 1d8, meaning you can put impact on it and increase your damage to 2d6 (average damage of 7 over the 4.5 for the 1d8 along with permanently increased minimum damage)?
The only other pathfinder ways to increase weapon damage would be to increase your size.
Also that would only let you apply feats, not class abilities like the scaling damage.
That is wrong - Ascetic Style works for a whole bunch of stuff, including class features. The feat says "effects that augment an unarmed strike", and a Monk's scaling unarmed strike damage (and thus also the Brawling Blademaster's Empty Hand ability) explicitly counts as such.
Of course, the only way to use Ascetic Style with a wakizashi is by using Versatile Design, which means you'd need to invest another feat (Weapon Adept or Modified Weapon Proficiency).
It's however important that when you use Ascetic Style with that ability, your unarmed strike damage overrides the weapon's damage, and thus the weapon's damage dice and size (including impact) doesn't matter.
In addition to the scaling unarmed strike damage, other things that work with Ascetic Style are:
● Feats that enhance US, e.g. Possessed Hand
● Feats that have IUS as a prereq, e.g. Hex Strike
● Traits that enhance US, e.g. Bullied
● Spells that enhance US, e.g. Magic Fang
● Items that enhance US, e.g. Amulet of Mighty Fists (multiple enhancement bonuses don't stack, but other magic weapon abilities can be stacked with them)
Apart from that, I second SorrySleeping's advice of focussing more on damage bonuses than the damage dice. You need to stack effects (and that's highly limited) and start with a large base damage to begin with for the latter to be worth it.
Also that would only let you apply feats, not class abilities like the scaling damage.That is wrong - Ascetic Style works for a whole bunch of stuff, including class features. The feat says "effects that augment an unarmed strike", and a Monk's scaling unarmed strike damage (and thus also the Brawling Blademaster's Empty Hand ability) explicitly counts as such.
If what you're saying is correct then I'm not sure what the point of the feat Ascetic Strike is. The existence of the feat alone suggests that without it you would not gain said benefit. In fact the feat would actually be a downgrade.
But, otherwise yes. This feat would allow you to swap out the wakizashi's base damage to be equal to your unarmed strike damage. Provided the wakizashi you're using has been modified via Versatile Design. Additionally, your character would have to count as a 5th level monk(in general) or have the monk weapon training class feature (brawling blademaster on its own doesn't qualify, meaning you're looking at 5 levels in fighter or monk). The overall advantages of doing this are pretty minimal.
I will point out that it is possible to dual wield a katana and a wakizashi without suffering any extra penalties provided that the katana is in your main hand. Which seems to be the intention of the archetype as it grants you proficiency with both along with two-weapon fighting at 3rd level.
edit: Reading over the two feats again, I'll concede that the benefits of Ascetic Strike are for non-monk characters. The feat does nothing beneficial if you are a monk with the still mind feature.
If what you're saying is correct then I'm not sure what the point of the feat Ascetic Strike is. The existence of the feat alone suggests that without it you would not gain said benefit. In fact the feat would actually be a downgrade.
As you've realize, non-monks. Also, the writer of the feat line has stated that the published version is not what he orignially envisioned (although it is what he handed in, and his alleged intended versions are mutually exclusive and his accompanying statements filled with errors).
The wording (well, that part) is copy-pasted from the pre-erratum Feral Combat Training, for which a now deleted because no longer needed FAQ was made that explicitly states that ""
Additionally, your character would have to count as a 5th level monk(in general) or have the monk weapon training class feature (brawling blademaster on its own doesn't qualify, meaning you would have to take at minimum a 1 level dip in monk).
That's only for the special part of applying Ascetic Style to other weapons, not for the feat itself. As for the advantages... for the base damage, it's only worth the feat cost at 16th level, although being able to profit from an AoMF lowers that in practice.
I will point out that it is possible to dual wield a katana and a wakizashi without suffering any extra penalties provided that the katana is in your main hand. Which seems to be the intention of the archetype as it grants you proficiency with both along with two-weapon fighting at 3rd level.
The archetype's intend is to TWF katana or wakizashi with unarmed strike.
Can you link anything official or from PFS? Or is this just your own assertion?
Er, open the book and see what's printed? "you can apply the effects of feats that have Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite, as well as effects that augment an unarmed strike". It doesn't just talk about feats, it says "effects".
In addition to the official FAQ saying that the Monk's unarmed strike damage does count for the feat language "effects that augment an unarmed strike", there are some posts by the feat's writer who confirm my assertion:
Here is a post about being embarrased that the feat includes all effects, not just feats and class features as envisioned.
Here is a post acknowledging that as written, AoMF works with the feat.
Here is a post where the author said that Ascetic Strike was made useless, and even though that's not true for non-monks, that statement only makes sense when the unarmed strike damage does get applied by Ascetic Style.
I don’t believe that versatile design weapons are a legal option for ascetic style tho.
The feat asks for "Choose one weapon from the monk fighter weapon group." A weapon with versatile design (monk group) does qualify for that. Note that it says "one weapon", not "one type of weapon" (like Weapon Focus does). It absolutely does work, but you usually need more feats, and of course it only works with melee weapons.
Thanks everyone for your input,
I'll take what was mentioned here into account. For now I'm going to focus on static damage, maybe katana/wakizashi or wakizashi/wakizashi and work up two weapon feint chain
My DM has a really cool house rule for feinting. It works as written but you get to roll your weapon damage twice. Gives feinting in combat way more potency valuable to all martial rather than just sneak attackers.
There is no precedent or suggestion that an option like “wakazashi with versatile design: monk” would be legitimate, from any Paizo publication, or FAQ, or forum post, or other official source, not for ascetic style or any other feat or feature in pathfinder.
Bull s#!&. The very description proves you wrong. "The modified weapon is considered to be a weapon of that weapon group (such as for the fighter’s weapon training class feature)." There you have it, and example of a class feature right in the description.
Also, what you're saying is that Versatile Design doesn't do anything. If that's your position, I can't take you seriously.
So the disagreement is that I follow what's actually written in the feat, and you make stuff up? Gotcha!
Seriously, Ascetic Style says "Choose one weapon", not "Choose one type of weapon". Indeed, the word "type" does not appear anywhere in the feat's text.
Also, you do select weapon groups with weapon training. Just saying.
Irrelevant. "The modified weapon is considered to be a weapon of that weapon group".
You literally have no argument without making up the word "type" in the feat description.