Pummeling Style (Combat, Style) You collect all your power into a single vicious and debilitating punch.
Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike; base attack bonus +6, brawler’s flurry class feature, or flurry of blows class feature.
Benefit: As a full-round action, you can pool all your attack potential in one devastating punch. Make a number of rolls equal to the number of attacks you can make with a full attack or a f lurry of blows (your choice) with the normal attack bonus for each attack. For each roll that is a hit, you deal the normal amount of damage, adding it to any damage the attack has already dealt from previous rolls (if any). If any of the attack rolls are critical threats, make one confirmation roll for the entire attack at your highest base attack bonus. If it succeeds, the entire attack is a confirmed critical hit.
Hi all,
I have trouble understanding the benefits of Pummeling Style. It seems to me that the "to-hit" chances and the total damage are the same that with a flurry of blows/full attack, and that the only "better" thing is the increased critical chance (and the fact that it gives you access to Pummeling Charge).
Now, I know I can be dense sometimes (especially after a long day's work), but what am I missing here?
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Ignoring that it's a prereq for Pummeling Charge, the benefits are the increased crit chance and whatever benefits come from making one attack as opposed to many. This is good for overcoming DR, or avoiding defensive retaliation abilities, e.g. punching things that damage you for attacking with an unarmed strike, or reducing the chance of getting stuck on a mimic, etc.
Norrmally damage reduction and hardness apply to each hit in a full attack or flurry. So totaling all the damage a series of hits might make into one hit makes it so that the DR only applies once, rather than multiple times. That can make a huge difference. Plus other stuff as above.
(ninja'd!)
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First the key change is the pooling of all damage into one strike. THis allows you to more easily overcome damage reduction, just like clustered shots. Because all the damage is 'one devestating punch', you only apply DR once, instead of one for each hit.
Second, dont dismiss the increased critical chance. It can be huge.
First the key change is the pooling of all damage into one strike. THis allows you to more easily overcome damage reduction, just like clustered shots. Because all the damage is 'one devestating punch', you only apply DR once, instead of one for each hit.
Second, dont dismiss the increased critical chance. It can be huge.
Just to put some numbers on it, if you have a 10% chance of a critical threat (e.g., 19-20 range, which is easily doable), and you attack four times with Pummeling Strike, you have a 35% chance of getting a single critical threat which retroactively applies to all strikes in that round. So it basically raises critical damage by nearly 4x.
Pooling your attacks has both positive and negative effects. It lets you minimize DR. It also has your whole full attack affected by a single miss chance (so cover, darkness, and blur are your enemy).
For the crit chance- the crit chance is all about the chance that you WON'T crit with at least one of your punches (since it is confirmed with your highest BAB). The more attacks, the higher the chance that at least one of them will crit.
19/20^7=69.8% chance of not critting; that means a 30% chance of critting with the damage from your whole full attack, which is on par with a high crit weapon with keen. You can get 7 attacks by around level 11 as a monk. Throw in improved critical. 18/20^7=47.8%, or a 52% chance of critting (slightly less in reality; with the base range, a critical threat is always an auto hit since it has to be a natural 20; with this, you might hit 19 with your last 'attack' in flurry, and still miss for that roll.)
There is a reason why I was such a verbal opponent against the argument that pummeling style could be used for any weapon. If you could get that on a keen high crit weapon....it is pretty much critting with every full attack.
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Pooling your attacks has both positive and negative effects. It lets you minimize DR. It also has your whole full attack affected by a single miss chance (so cover, darkness, and blur are your enemy).
Actually - I do have a quick question about how pummeling meshes with true strike. I know that the +20 would only apply to the first roll, but would the whole thing ignore concealment? (Unless perhaps it wouldn't if the true strike roll missed - not that there would usually be more than a 5% chance of that.)
If I'm right - it's make the true strike quiggong ability considerably more advantageous in order to deal with concealment. (Currently it's sort of meh except for very specific builds.)
Pooling your attacks has both positive and negative effects. It lets you minimize DR. It also has your whole full attack affected by a single miss chance (so cover, darkness, and blur are your enemy).Actually - I do have a quick question about how pummeling meshes with true strike. I know that the +20 would only apply to the first roll, but would the whole thing ignore concealment? (Unless perhaps it wouldn't if the true strike roll missed - not that there would usually be more than a 5% chance of that.)
If I'm right - it's make the true strike quiggong ability considerably more advantageous in order to deal with concealment. (Currently it's sort of meh except for very specific builds.)
Well, the first sentence says you gain a benefit on your next attack, and the following sentence clarifies your next attack as your next attack roll. The final sentence, the one that speaks about ignoring concealment, does nothing to modify or re-quantify the duration of benefit, so I think the only assumption you can make is that it applies to the next roll.
I can see how some people would treat the first sentence as the general case, the second sentence as a more specific case, and the third sentence as reverting back to the general, but I personally don't think there is much credence to that idea (it takes more finagling to get to that point than the other).
It should also be noted that anything which applies to an attack (not attack roll) applies to every part of the attack (each roll) for example if the first attack get's 1.5 str from dragon style then every roll gets the bonus.
Really? Why is that? Is says for each roll you do normal damage, not for each roll you deal damage as the first strike in the full attack.
It should also be noted that anything which applies to an attack (not attack roll) applies to every part of the attack (each roll) for example if the first attack get's 1.5 str from dragon style then every roll gets the bonus.Really? Why is that? Is says for each roll you do normal damage, not for each roll you deal damage as the first strike in the full attack.
Meh. Forget dragon style, it leads to too many arguments (And also requires you to go MoMS monk to fuse it with pummeling, which means you can't do very well if you stay in monk- that seems troublesome).
Grab Horn of the Criosphinx instead. It is a feat that gives x2 str bonus when charging, and it is for 2 handed weapons....except for the fact that it also has an added line that lets monks use it when fighting unarmed (it even insert itself as a choice for monk bonus feats).
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Pooling your attacks has both positive and negative effects. It lets you minimize DR. It also has your whole full attack affected by a single miss chance (so cover, darkness, and blur are your enemy).Actually - I do have a quick question about how pummeling meshes with true strike. I know that the +20 would only apply to the first roll, but would the whole thing ignore concealment? (Unless perhaps it wouldn't if the true strike roll missed - not that there would usually be more than a 5% chance of that.)
If I'm right - it's make the true strike quiggong ability considerably more advantageous in order to deal with concealment. (Currently it's sort of meh except for very specific builds.)
Well, the first sentence says you gain a benefit on your next attack, and the following sentence clarifies your next attack as your next attack roll. The final sentence, the one that speaks about ignoring concealment, does nothing to modify or re-quantify the duration of benefit, so I think the only assumption you can make is that it applies to the next roll.
I can see how some people would treat the first sentence as the general case, the second sentence as a more specific case, and the third sentence as reverting back to the general, but I personally don't think there is much credence to that idea (it takes more finagling to get to that point than the other).
I totally agree with you - both sentences are specific to that single attack roll. However - for pummeling strike specifically - you only roll once for concealment for the full flurry (since it's technically only a single attack with multiple rolls). If that True Strike attack roll hits the target AC - would its benefit vs concealment apply to the entire pummeling strike?
Not really. It either works or you apply DR/Hardness more times. Feats which apply to a roll apply once. Feats which apply to an attack (Spirited charge on a mounted charge, HotCS, dragon style, the +2 charge bonus to hit) all apply to every roll because they apply to "The Hit" which things like Janni style and true strike apply "To the roll".
I don't see that, I'm afraid.
While using this style, you gain a +2 bonus on saving throws against sleep effects, paralysis effects, and stunning effects. You ignore difficult terrain when you charge, run, or withdraw. You can also charge through squares that contain allies. Further, you can add 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus on the damage roll for your first unarmed strike on a given round.
N.b., it says your first strike, not your first hit. If you get four attacks, miss on the first roll, and hit on the remaining three, you wouldn't expect to get additional damage on the second attack simply because it was the first successful strike.
Adding Pummeling into it: The wording of Pummelling Strike says that you roll damage "normally for each hit," suggesting that you would make three damage rolls for your three successful hits (and of course do no damage for your miss), with "normal" bonuses, which in this case would be the unmodified Strength damage. This damage would then be totalled.
DR would happen only once because DR isn't a property of the strike but of the target.
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It helps overcome DR.
Every attack is reduced by DR typically. So if your fighting a DR/10 creature with 3 attacks that deal 1d8+10 your looking at about 1-8 damage a hit. But with Pummeling style your doing 20+ damage. it makes a huge difference.
This is what makes Lancers so strong. They do the equivalent of 3 attacks in 1 big hit so DR is less of an issue than it is to a normal melee type.
Not really. It either works or you apply DR/Hardness more times. Feats which apply to a roll apply once. Feats which apply to an attack (Spirited charge on a mounted charge, HotCS, dragon style, the +2 charge bonus to hit) all apply to every roll because they apply to "The Hit" which things like Janni style and true strike apply "To the roll".I don't see that, I'm afraid.
While using this style, you gain a +2 bonus on saving throws against sleep effects, paralysis effects, and stunning effects. You ignore difficult terrain when you charge, run, or withdraw. You can also charge through squares that contain allies. Further, you can add 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus on the damage roll for your first unarmed strike on a given round.N.b., it says your first strike, not your first hit. If you get four attacks, miss on the first roll, and hit on the remaining three, you wouldn't expect to get additional damage on the second attack simply because it was the first successful strike.
Adding Pummeling into it: The wording of Pummelling Strike says that you roll damage "normally for each hit," suggesting that you would make three damage rolls for your three successful hits (and of course do no damage for your miss), with "normal" bonuses, which in this case would be the unmodified Strength damage. This damage would then be totalled.
The errata changed the text of this and thus the functionality.
"While using Dragon Style, increase your Strength bonus on unarmed strike damage rolls by an additional one-half your Strength bonus, to a total of twice your Strength bonus on the first attack and 1-1/2 your Strength bonus on the other attacks"DR would happen only once because DR isn't a property of the strike but of the target.DR counts the number of strikes. If you do not allow dragon style to apply to all...
I Think pummeling style is good enough without making up extra good stuff like this.
I think you will all enjoy seeing Horn of the Criosphinx. If there is ever a debate about whether dragon style works, just try this one instead.