With the errata about unarmed attacks scaling better, I was looking at making a beefy cleric that punches people in the face. I love that fists can be a favoured weapon!
But I'm worried that picking unarmed is going to make my character weaker. The whole emblazon armament line of feats, which are super cool, specify they only work with weapons or shields. Is there something I'm missing or are unarmed clerics a bad idea for a caster who wants to do some melee?
I think that if you want to be an unarmed cleric you really need to multiclass into Monk and pick up one of the stance feats.
I will say that, given how intrinsically tied to one of the most well known gods in the setting the idea of the punch cleric is, I suspect we'll get an archetype for this specific character at some point soon. Perhaps in Gods & Magic book coming out in January.
A Cleric already struggles to do melee well.
Picking an inferior weapon doesn't help that.
So you have to take an MCD to make your unarmed attacks better.
Barbarian has some, but then you have to take Moment of Clarity (and use an extra action) in order to cast spells during rage. Awkward, but eventually doable.
Or Monk, which has some good slap attacks, but their stances require you to be Unarmored, which hurts.
You'd need high Str & Dex plus want Wis & Con & Cha.
And still be very inferior all around.
Or go War Priest and have armor, but a 1d6 fist.
It probably comes together after your 10th level stat boosts, but that's a long path just to become mediocre. (As a melee, you'll still be a full-caster!)
If you are willing to give up your full-casting, then you could MCD Cleric from a Monk base. The names overlap in our world, and you really would be clergy, if only secondarily. You could even get a Background that says you are. :)
This would be easy to do. Get a stance for slapping, Stunning Fist for really slapping, and a whole bunch of Cleric spells from 4th on. It also takes awhile to come online, but your holy man can give people a beefy slap from level 1. Add spell items as your casting level increases.
You could also pull this off w/ a Champion & gauntlets.
There were deities with gauntlet as their primary weapon, so when they come in, you could build a War Priest (of dubious value) around that.
So yeah, the trick of unarmed increasing with simple proficiency is a misleading freebie. Martial > Simple > Unarmed, unless your class specifically boosts the latter two. Which Cleric doesn't.
I'm not sure how Irori would fit into all this.
Fists aren't technically Simple Weapons to go to a bigger die type.
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I'm not sure how Irori would fit into all this.
Fists aren't technically Simple Weapons to go to a bigger die type
This makes me thing with them already Errata'ing Unarmed proficiency, maybe better to just class it as Simple Weapon, otherwise they need to separately add it Simplicity Feat etc. Seems better to just call it Simple and include it along with Wizard weapons or anybody else not getting Simple? Not sure if they indicated how they are planning to Errata it yet...?
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I'm not sure how Irori would fit into all this.
Fists aren't technically Simple Weapons to go to a bigger die type.
Deadly simplicity says it also works on unarmed attacks if that's your deity's favorite weapon. It even brings up Irori as being an example for this.
And since clerics aren't even expert in simple weapons, Irori is your ony chance to get that unarmed proficiency higher then trained.
There's also the question whether or not Irori's Fist proficiency also applies to other kinds of unarmed attacks. If yes, a Cleric/Monk isn't too bad.
@Gaulin: If Irori's proficiency does apply to monk stance attacks, such a character is definitely possible. I'd go with 14 Str, 14 Dex, 10 Con, 10 Int, 18 Wis, 12 Cha. Get Monk Dedication at 2 and Mountain stance at 4. Those first few levels will probably suck but at least you're not completely useless in melee. You could also sacrifice a bit of spell power and go with 16 Str and Wis.
I'd also go cloistered cleric, since medium armor won't do much for you and the Monk Dedication makes deadly simplicity superflous.
Mountain Stance is mostly used as AC buff without need for Dex. So you can increase Str, Con, Wis and Cha with your boosts every 5 levels.
Deadly Simplicity already has specific wording for what to do if your god's favored weapon is an unarmed strike so that isn't too much of a concern.
I think MCing is the only way to make it work, and even then it is a little funky. It would be nice to know if any unarmed attack would count as a favoured weapon, that would open some doors.
That being said I don't think the armaments line of feats is all that powerful, especially if you're stacking them up against other early level class feats, and thats really the only thing being unarmed locks you out of as a cleric of Irori or what have you.
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The awkward thing about cleric is they only ever gain expert in their deity's favored weapon and Irori's favored weapon is fist, not unarmed strikes in general.
So I'm not sure if barbarian/monk actually helps you very much here, because the rules treat them all as separate weapons within the unarmed category.
If you are willing to give up your full-casting, then you could MCD Cleric from a Monk base. The names overlap in our world, and you really would be clergy, if only secondarily. You could even get a Background that says you are. :)
This would be easy to do. Get a stance for slapping, Stunning Fist for really slapping, and a whole bunch of Cleric spells from 4th on. It also takes awhile to come online, but your holy man can give people a beefy slap from level 1. Add spell items as your casting level increases.
Just like the sacred fist warpriest from 1e.
That's a concept I like. Is it viable?