How can I add dragon style? And could someone explain the best uses of brew potion and other stuff?

[Alesander]

To not be restricted by lawfull, iv chosen to take unarmed fighter archetype to gain dragon style with my Feral Vivisectionist beastmorpher.

But is there a better way to get it? Another class or archetype of a class that would give me a better 1 lvl dip then unarmed fighter. There is the monk but the damn lawfull part sucks.

My character starts at lvl 5. I did consider just going without dragonstyle, but for our campaign I also need climb, swim as class skills or should have. So Ill get that with dip aswell.

[Evilserran]

Brawler class is fully capable of blending the monk and warrior today while removing the lawful part you dont seem to want.

[Belafon]

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to get Dragon Style as a "free" feat?

If you're starting at level 5, you can be a full alchemist and take Improved Unarmed Strike as your first level feat and Dragon Style as your 3rd level feat. It eats up two feats but there is no dip required, which means you will be a better beastmorph/vivisectionist.

The (Martial Artist) archetype for the monk has no alignment restrictions. If you're just doing a one-level dip that's the only difference from the core monk.

Brawlers are a full BAB class that gets IUS as a free feat, but they don't get another bonus feat until 2nd level, the Unarmed Fighter is probably a better dip for your purposes.

[Mysterious Stranger]

The big advantage Unarmed Fighter gives you is that you get dragon style for free without having to use any feats. That is about all it gives you.

Going Brawler gives you more things but requires you to spend a feat and meet the prerequisites for dragon style. For this you get a +2 reflex save, a little better unarmed damage, martial flexibility a few times per day, 2 more skill points, and a couple of extra class skills including perception. The extra class skills partially offset the need for 3 points in acrobatics.

Martial Artist is similar to brawler, but you give up +1 BAB for +2 Will save. You gain a feat in place of martial flexibility. The penalty on your chance to hit and lower BAB (from both classes) makes flurry of blows less useful. Stunning Fist is not going to be useful as you only get a single use and chances are the save is going to be too low for it to be effective. Personally I think you are giving up too much and not getting much in return with this option.

[Alesander]

Thanks for answers.

I want the dragon style feat for my vivisectionist feral mutagen beastmorph build. I plan to utilise Pouncing Fury a great deal.

Further more I need or want climb and swim atleast as class skills, since our campaign will involve trials we have to pass.

I also want a lot so i need many feats as possible.

Weapon focus - Feral Combat Training, Dragon style, power attack, and all the extra discoveries I can. To also get in addition to Feral Mutagen, Bleed, the discovery that lets you put potion back into the bottle when drank for reuse and potion duration increase.

So a dip that gives me the class skills, extra feats, and improved unarmed attack to take dragon style or gives me dragon style. In order to save as many feats as possible.

We will start at lvl 5 and prob end at 9 or 10.

[Alesander]

Could a warpriest with deity with improved unarmed strike do the same.

It gives me weapon focus and unarmed strike + 2 wil save I badly need and a minor domain spell.

Well, that leaves me with one less base attack so that kinda sucks.

[Mark Hoover 330]

An Esoteric Magus gains IUS as a bonus feat at level 1 and can augment their unarmed strikes with their Arcane Pool as if they were manufactured weapons, though they have one less spell slot per level. Even still, Pouncing Fury is a Magus 2 spell so this is something you can cast on yourself.

Human Magus (Esoteric)5
Level 1 Feat: Weapon Focus - Improved Unarmed Strike
Level 1 Bonus Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Feral Combat Training
Level 3 Feat: Power Attack
Level 5 Feat: Furious Focus or Evolved Familiar (Skilled: Use Magic Device)
Level 5 Bonus Feat: Dragon Style

Level 2 spells you must have, either on scrolls, in potions, or tattooed per the Tattoo Spells Esoteric ability: Shadow Claws and Pouncing Fury

The main problem with this build is that you don't have claws all the time or claws you could pop out with a Swift action. You DO however have a monk's Unarmed Damage progression so by level 5 you're dealing 1d8 without claws.

For your level 3 Arcana you COULD give yourself a Familiar. If your GM allows it, here's a build to give yourself a Familiar that buffs you with wands:

1. Take a Raven familiar since it can talk and hold wands; give it the Sage Archetype
2. Get the GM's buy in to retrain the Raven's level 1 Feat to Extra Traits
3. Take the traits: Pragmatic Activator and Underlying Principles. The Familiar now has Use Magic Device as a Class skill with a +1 bonus and uses it as an Int based skill
4. At level 5 take the Evolved Familiar feat instead of Furious Focus
5. Spend the 1 Evolution point from Evolved Familiar on Skilled: Use Magic Device.

Sage familiars gain 2 skill ranks/your class level. By level 5 it could spend 5 of those ranks on UMD and have UMD +17. It needs to roll a 3 or better to use a wand to buff/heal you with, or it automatically succeeds if its a wand it's used successfully once before.

Upsides: you have the spells, feats and auto buffs you need to take advantage of Pouncing Fury. Downsides: it takes at least 2 rounds to both have Claws AND cast Pouncing Fury; you can only cast Pouncing Fury and Shadow Claws a couple times/day unless they're on scrolls.

Oh, and one last thing: if you go this route consider Blade Tutor's Spirit as one of your level 1 spells. By level 5 one casting lasts 5 minutes and during that time you suffer no penalties to attack rolls for using Power Attack. Once again though, this is a Personal self buff you'd have to spend a round arming yourself with.

[Chell Raighn]

If you really want dragon style with minimal effort… Scaled Fist Sin Monk… Sin Monk just like martial artist also doesn’t have the lawful restriction (infact it technically has the exact opposite, requiring non-lawful) and is fully compatible with scaled fist which will get you dragon style as a bonus feat…

[Alesander]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

An Esoteric Magus gains IUS as a bonus feat at level 1 and can augment their unarmed strikes with their Arcane Pool as if they were manufactured weapons, though they have one less spell slot per level. Even still, Pouncing Fury is a Magus 2 spell so this is something you can cast on yourself.

Human Magus (Esoteric)5
Level 1 Feat: Weapon Focus - Improved Unarmed Strike
Level 1 Bonus Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Feral Combat Training
Level 3 Feat: Power Attack
Level 5 Feat: Furious Focus or Evolved Familiar (Skilled: Use Magic Device)
Level 5 Bonus Feat: Dragon Style

Level 2 spells you must have, either on scrolls, in potions, or tattooed per the Tattoo Spells Esoteric ability: Shadow Claws and Pouncing Fury

The main problem with this build is that you don't have claws all the time or claws you could pop out with a Swift action. You DO however have a monk's Unarmed Damage progression so by level 5 you're dealing 1d8 without claws.

For your level 3 Arcana you COULD give yourself a Familiar. If your GM allows it, here's a build to give yourself a Familiar that buffs you with wands:

1. Take a Raven familiar since it can talk and hold wands; give it the Sage Archetype
2. Get the GM's buy in to retrain the Raven's level 1 Feat to Extra Traits
3. Take the traits: Pragmatic Activator and Underlying Principles. The Familiar now has Use Magic Device as a Class skill with a +1 bonus and uses it as an Int based skill
4. At level 5 take the Evolved Familiar feat instead of Furious Focus
5. Spend the 1 Evolution point from Evolved Familiar on Skilled: Use Magic Device.

Sage familiars gain 2 skill ranks/your class level. By level 5 it could spend 5 of those ranks on UMD and have UMD +17. It needs to roll a 3 or better to use a wand to buff/heal you with, or it automatically succeeds if its a wand it's used successfully once before.

Upsides: you have the spells, feats and...

Dude! This is quite something! I'll start checking it out tomorrow but this looks like gold for me! Thanks a lot for taking the time, I appreciate it!

[Alesander]

Iv looked over it more, and with this class it would seem just using unarmed strikes would be beneficial to focus on rather then claws?

With the imbued damage with pool points, such as speed with high damage from strength each hit and the pouncing fury as in tattoo slot.
It looks kinda great.

Question is which one do i choose. I forgo the vivisectionist sneak damage. But not much else it seems.

Edit:

After reading more it does not seem like the dmg increase of IUS stacks with natural attack from shadow claw.

[Alesander]

Chell Raighn wrote:

If you really want dragon style with minimal effort… Scaled Fist Sin Monk… Sin Monk just like martial artist also doesn’t have the lawful restriction (infact it technically has the exact opposite, requiring non-lawful) and is fully compatible with scaled fist which will get you dragon style as a bonus feat…

They unfortunately doesn't get improved unarmed strike, so it would be more feat intensive :(

master of many styles and another i cant remember also gets dragon style and IUS. But they aren't optimal.

[Chell Raighn]

Alesander wrote:

Chell Raighn wrote:

If you really want dragon style with minimal effort… Scaled Fist Sin Monk… Sin Monk just like martial artist also doesn’t have the lawful restriction (infact it technically has the exact opposite, requiring non-lawful) and is fully compatible with scaled fist which will get you dragon style as a bonus feat…

They unfortunately doesn't get improved unarmed strike, so it would be more feat intensive :(

master of many styles and another i cant remember also gets dragon style and IUS. But they aren't optimal.

Um… yes it does… neither scaled fist nor sin monk remove improved unarmed strike from the monk… there isn’t a single monk archetype that gives up IUS… there are a few that modify the damage scaling for monks unarmed strike, but none that removes it… even the weapon focused monk archetypes still have IUS.

Also, in case there is any confusion as to how sin monk doesn’t require lawful… sin monk is an ex-monk archetype, in order to become an ex-monk a monk must cease to be lawful. The requirements to take the archetype in effect remove the alignment restriction and technically adds a non-lawful restriction in its place, though returning to lawful doesn’t invalidate the archetype.

[Alesander]

Ah I see.

I checked the archertype page and forgot that it only stats whats added or replaced, not other usual things from the main class. But it's strange, I didn't get IUC in the pcgen that I use to build my character. Probably a bug then.