I'm interested in building a martial class character that can buy/craft and make use of Bestial Mutagen. Hoping to get thoughts from those who understand the mechanics better on how possible/viable this is.
I'm thinking of a fighter with a shield and heavy armor to offset the AC penalty, agile grace and a monk dedication for flurry of blows.
I'm having trouble understanding whether or not the bestial mutagen's unarmed attacks are eligible to be chosen by a fighter for their preferred weapon group. Are unarmed attacks part of the brawling weapon group if they don't specify, or do they have no weapon group at all? If the mutagen's attacks are not compatible with fighter weapon mastery, I suppose I could take a monk stance to get solid unarmed attacks in the brawling group, though it wouldn't be quite as satisfying.
Also, am I right in thinking I'll be able to buy or craft (with the alchemical crafting feat) enough bestial mutagen to make this work?
Would love your thoughts. Thanks!
Digging in a little more, I guess I was mistaken that fighters choosing the brawling group would get to increase their proficiency with unarmed attacks. I also forgot that monk stances require unarmored.
The Iruxi Unarmed Expertise feat would seem to let a fighter take advantage of bestial mutagen from Level 13 on, but you'd have a bunch of levels in the middle where they couldn't.
I'm looking more at the barbarian and monk now and still curious about the other parts of this.
Fighters, along with everybody else, automatically progress with unarmed attacks as well as they do with their best proficiency.
So you could have a chosen Weapon Group and Unarmed gets that proficiency too.
You'd practically have to take MCD Alchemist to afford drinking so many mutagens, and then you'd be behind on the level/power curve. Then compare to Monks or Animal Barbarians whose unarmed attacks are simply superior w/o the mutagen's drawbacks.
Thematically, Animal Barbarian fits the Jekyll & Hyde image, yet fares much better.
As for defense, the Monk's ability to Stride/Flurry/Stride works well when you're AC's compromised though the mutagen's benefits aren't worth it anyway.
ETA: Which is to say mutagens really require investment to squeak out even minor benefits. They work okay to get a non-martial up to viable, yet for PCs already effective at a role, mutagens help little at being superior.
Exception being from an Alchemist sharing their at-level stuff which will give you a tiny boost alongside a drawback. Unfortunately to balance against that scenario, mutagens below level aid little unless the PC begins below normal.
Thanks for the response!
I should be clear that I know this build isn't going to be strictly optimal, I'm just investigating whether it will be possible and viable within reason because it sounds fun to roleplay.
I haven't dug into the gold economy yet, so I still don't know whether or not it will be cost-prohibitive, but MCD alchemist won't solve the problem, because, as you say, I need at-level stuff. However, I might be able to save some gold by not taking the mutagen for easier encounters.
For any of these builds, I would take a shield, so trading 1 ac and 2 reflex for 1 to hit seems okay to me. Sometimes better, sometimes worse.
For the monk, the mutagen doesn't really change my game plan, it just lets me trade defense for offense when I want to, which I think is a good option to have.
The fighter idea is more interesting to me. I would have a shield in one hand, a free hand that eventually gets up to d8 agile, and d10 jaws, both benefiting from the Monk's flurry of blows at level 12, which frees up actions to raise that shield and offset the ac penalty. It feels like a better expression of the living weapon concept.