Yes, that works.
Brawler Constructed pugilist (Vicious Blades)
Human
Class pre-chosen feat*1 Brawler (Improved Unarmed Strike*)(Weapon Finesse)(Weapon Focus)
2 Brawler (Slashing Grace)(Two-Weapon Fighting*)
3 Brawler (Two-Weapon Grace)
Would not this line from Slashing Grace preclude getting Dex to Damage while TWF, since it appears your making a TWF build?
"You do not gain this benefit while fighting with two weapons or using flurry of blows, or any time another hand is otherwise occupied."
i think that is why he also took 2-weapon grace
i think that is why he also took 2-weapon grace
Since the "Two-Weapon Fighting" feat a 2nd level Brawler gets is actually the Brawler's Fury class feature, they can make all their attacks with their unarmed strike (aka the Constructed Limb's Vicious Blades). Since they aren't attacking with 2 weapons or using flurry of blows, they should be able to use Slashing Grace without impediment or the need for Two-Weapon Grace. In fact, I'm pretty sure Two-Weapon Grace does nothing for this build.
Here are the relevant bits of Brawler's Flurry:
"Starting at 2nd level, a brawler can make a brawler’s flurry as a full-attack action. When doing so, a brawler has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat when attacking with any combination of unarmed strikes, weapons from the close fighter weapon group, or weapons with the “monk” special feature. She does not need to use two different weapons to use this ability.
A brawler applies her full Strength modifier to her damage rolls for all attacks made with brawler’s flurry, whether the attacks are made with an off-hand weapon or a weapon wielded in both hands."
Yes and rangers can't take boon companion, life oracles and paladins can't take feats that require channel energy, etc.
There is such a thing as too much pedanticism. It works almost exactly like flurry of blows, quacks like flurry of blows, and walks like flurry of blows. Pummeling style should work with it, and slashing grace should turn off when used.
Sure, you could treat it like Flurry of Blows, but then you should do so for everything, but prior calls on it don't seem to. You can't add the advancement of Brawler's Flurry and Flurry of Blows together, for example... <shrugs> Make whatever call works for your game...
Yes and rangers can't take boon companion, life oracles and paladins can't take feats that require channel energy, etc.
There is such a thing as too much pedanticism. It works almost exactly like flurry of blows, quacks like flurry of blows, and walks like flurry of blows. Pummeling style should work with it, and slashing grace should turn off when used.
Life Oracles and Paladins can take channel energy feats
First, let me give a bit of background. Back when I was at Wizards, at the start of 3E I worked with Jonathan Tweet on a bunch of advice columns, including an article called "How to Design a Feat." One of the concepts we established was "things should be the same, or they should be different." (And by "different" I mean "very different" so you don't mix up the two.) That concept helps players remember different rules--if rule X is already in the game, and you're creating new rule Y that works a lot like X, you should either (1) make Y work EXACTLY like X, or make Y work differently than X. That way, players can remember that Y works like X, or not accidentally confuse how Y and X work. And if Y feels a lot like X, it's almost certainly supposed to work like X, and things that attach to X should be able to attach to Y.For example, imagine an alternate universe where the PFRPG feat Improved Trip gave a +2 bonus on trip maneuvers, but Improved Sunder gave a +3 on sunder maneuvers, Improved Grapple gave a +4 on grapples, and Improved Disarm gave a +2, and only some of them said you didn't provoke an AOO for attempting the maneuver. That would be incredibly confusing and hard to remember--unless you were a total memory freak, every time you encountered one of those feats you'd have to look up the exact bonus it gave because the listed bonuses were all very similar, and you'd have to look up whether or not it provoked an AOO because there wasn't a clear pattern to which ones did or didn't. Instead, in this universe, all of those feats give a +2, they all let you do the maneuver without provoking an AOO, and all of them give you a +2 to your CMD when defending against that sort of maneuver. Not only does this mean the feats are balanced against each other, but they're consistent and therefore easy to remember. Likewise, all of the +2/+2 skill feats give you +2 to two skills, not +1 to one skill and +3 to another skill. Consistency in rules means you have to memorize fewer specifics and just remember things like "the core skill bonus feats give +2/+2" and "the improved maneuver feats are all +2 offense/+2 defense/no AOO." That helps you play the game and run the game.
So when the cleric class has a header section called "Class Features" and under that is an entry that says "Channel Energy," and the oracle class has a section called "Class Features" and under that is an entry that says "Channel: You can channel positive energy like a cleric," and the paladin class has a section called "Class Features" and under that is an entry that says "Channel Positive Energy (Su): ... she gains the supernatural ability to channel positive energy like a cleric," those all are intended to work the same way, even though they're not given identical names. For one, because the paladin and oracle "versions" of that ability tell you it works like the cleric "version" of the ability. For two, because having them all work the same way is simpler and easier to remember than each of them working a different way. Now, given, the oracle gets 1+Chamod per day instead of the cleric's 3+Chamod, and the paladin spends uses of lay on hands instead of a separate X/day allotment, but if you line up a good cleric 5, a life oracle 5, and a paladin 5, and tell each of them to channel a burst of positive energy, all three of them are healing 3d6 to living or dealing 3d6 to undead, DC 10 + 1/2 level + Chamod, 30 ft. radius, no AOO, and so on. Exactly the same. Because it's easier to remember that way. Because it makes the game easier to run that way.
And that means things like Improved Channel and Alignment Channel and Extra Channel should apply equally to the cleric, life oracle, and paladin (you'll note for Extra Channel the paladin ability's counting method of uses per day for the feat is slightly diff because the paladin ability is based on using lay on hands, but the net result is the paladin gets +2 uses of channel per day, just like the cleric and oracle). Because to do otherwise means we need different versions of these feats for oracles and paladins because under the strictest interpretation, neither of them has a class ability that's specifically and explicitly named "channel energy;" and three sets of redundant identical feats for clerics, oracles, and paladins is lame and a waste of space.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. If you line up Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Duckman, and Howard the Duck, from a game standpoint it makes sense that a +1 duck-bane arrow is going to do +2d6 damage in addition to normal arrow damage if you shoot any of them, because they're all ducks. And if you shot that arrow at "Duckie" from Pretty in Pink, it wouldn't get any bonus damage, because he isn't a duck. And you should be able to see why those first four are ducks and the last one isn't.
And if for some reason two things that seem almost the same (like "channel energy" vs. "channel" vs. "channel positive energy") shouldn't act exactly the same, count on us to tell you how it is different. For example, take the necromancer "power over undead" ability; you can't heal or harm with it, but you can use Command Undead or Turn Undead with it (both of which are based on channeling), and can take feats that augment those two applications, but not feats that alter your purpose away from undead. So, necromancers get an ability that works just like channel energy, except (1) it always works like Command Undead or Turn Undead (i.e., no heal-harm aspect), and (2) can't ever be used on something other than undead. Does the necromancer have an ability called "channel energy"? No. Does it let you do stuff that clerics with Command Undead or Turn Undead can? Yes. In those cases, does it work exactly like channel energy modified by those feats? Yes. Does it make sense that the necromancer can use feats and abilities that rely on channel energy as long as the feat or ability augments their power over undead? Yes. So if there was a "Prerequisite: channel energy class feature" feat that increase the number of d6s you healed or harmed, would you let a necromancer take it? No, because their channel never heals or harms. If there was a "Prerequisite: channel energy class feature" feat that increased the number of HD of undead you could command or turn at one time, would you let a necromancer take it? Yeah, because that sounds exactly like something the necromancer should be able to do with his channeling ability, as it's something a Command Undead/Turn Undead cleric ought to be able to do it. What about a channel feat that changed the area from a sphere to a cone? Sure, because you could see a Command Undead/Turn Undead cleric taking that feat.
Sometimes rules aren't going to have the exact same name or wording.
* Part of that is because things are designed by different people and one prefers one wording to another.
* Part is because we don't want similar chunks of text near each other to be identical, because that's an awkward read and is boring.Note that the descriptions for flaming and frost aren't exactly identical, even though they work basically the same way. And would you really want the cleric class ability to be written as "channel energy (positive)" or "channel energy (negative)"? And the paladin ability as "channel energy (positive)"? And the necromancer ability "channel energy (positive, Turn Undead only)" or "channel energy (negative, Command Undead only)"? I mean, c'mon, try using that in a sentence. :/
* Part is because between book A and book B we've decided a better way to phrase a rule so it's clear to more people, so B's rule looks or is named just a little different than A's rule.
* Part is because English is a very flexible language, and whether you say "Sean kissed Jodi on their first date" or "Jodi was kissed by Sean on their first date," you should understand there was a kiss.
* Part of it is we have to wrap some text around a piece of art or make sure that a paragraph ends at the bottom of a page so a new header can start at the top, so we alter a word or two so the lines break differently. Not important words like "as a cleric of your level," but stuff that keeps the same intent. A paladin's ability could have been written as "Channel Energy: You channel energy as a cleric of your level. Paladins always channel positive energy, never negative energy, etc. etc." but it's cleaner to present it the way it is, rather than presenting negative channeling as a possible option for the paladin and then taking it away in the next sentence.
* And part of it is sometimes we make mistakes and don't write things as clearly as we should, or forget some obscure combination in this very complex game, or an author use a pre-errata wording of an ability when writing a new ability.Could the game be more "perfect" by using exactly the same terminology? Yes, mostly. But I think holding that up as some kind of ideal is a pipe dream. Even programmers, who copy a subroutine from one part of a program to use as a model in a different part, still make changes sometimes, either because they better understand how the coding works since they wrote the original sub, or something unique is needed for that sub in the new location, or whatever.
But, as Monte says, "the DM is not a robot." Players aren't robots, either. And as James Wyatt says, "You can never write a rule that is so clear that *everyone* understands it." Skip Williams used to get Sage Advice questions like, "Do I have to take Power Attack before I take Cleave?" Obviously the answer is "yes"... but it wasn't obvious to that reader, for some reason. Now, that's a very simplistic example, and the "channel energy class feature" prereq is not a simplistic example, but I think you get the gist of it: sometimes you're going to have to make rulings based on how you think the rules fit together. Sometimes it's more obvious than others how those rules fit together, but if they seem to have the same root, it's better to assume they're supposed to work the same way than to doubt your own ability to realize the similarities between them.
If "channel energy" and "channel positive energy" and "channel" aren't all class features (even though they're all listed in the "Class Features" part of their respective class writeups, and even though the book never defines exactly what a "class feature" is, although each class's "Class Feature" entry does say "The following are class features of the [class]" or even "All of the following are class features of the [class]"), you'd have to wonder why the Core Rulebook didn't include paladin versions of Improved Channel and Turn Undead that have "channel positive energy" as a prerequisite. And you'd have to wonder why consecrate boosts cleric channel energy DCs but not paladin channel positive energy DCs (the spell specifically says "The DC to resist positive channeled energy..." which probably means a cleric channeling positive energy, but is unclear if that also means a paladin's "channel positive energy" ability). And so on. When, realistically, it makes sense that paladins should be able to take Improved Channel, and that consecrate should affect paladin channel DCs just as well as it affects cleric positive channel DCs. And likewise for life oracles. And necromancers.
Things should be the same, or they should be different.
There are a number of threads (see belwo) on the board that indicate that is both RAW and RAI that a character with 2 levels of Brawler can use Brawler's Fury to help qualify for the ITWF (Improved Two-Weapon Fighting) and GTWF (Greater Two-Weapon Fighting) feats when they hit the requisite Dex/BAB.
The most important:
Key Thread post from Jason Bulmahn Lead Designer
"**OFFICIAL UPDATES**
The following updates apply to the Brawler....
• A brawler can use the feats granted by brawler's flurry to qualify for other feats, but can only use those other feats when using brawler's flurry (as that's the only time she actually meets those prerequisites)."
Slashing Grace does not allow most shields, but bucklers work because they don’t occupy the hand. Flurry of blows, brawler’s flurry, two-weapon fighting, and spell combat all don’t work with Slashing Grace.here
Well, that settles that. Officially doesn't work. Noted.
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Well, that settles that. Officially doesn't work. Noted.Slashing Grace does not allow most shields, but bucklers work because they don’t occupy the hand. Flurry of blows, brawler’s flurry, two-weapon fighting, and spell combat all don’t work with Slashing Grace.here
But 2 weapon grace should work just fine