[3.5] ToB - How does this look for an unarmed Warblade?

[Freylorn]

We've a game that's getting off the ground next Thursday - DM is running us through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. I was originally going to play Flaming Homer, but I decided against it. Our group is relatively low-op, so I'd like to keep from branching out into too many splatbooks where possible.

Character creation rules:

- Starting ECL 6
- All books allowed, just have to clear individual things with DM first
- Stats are a variation of elite array. We get the following layout to assign to whichever stats we please: 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 08

I've always been a fan of unarmed fighters, and decided to take a look at what an unarmed Warblade could do. So far, this is what I've come up with:

Human Warblade 06 (going for Warblade 18/Bloodclaw Master 2)

Str: 19 (18 + 1 at level 4)
Dex: 16
Con: 14
Int: 12
Wis: 10
Cha: 08

FEATS:

1) Improved Unarmed Strike, Two-Weapon Fighting
3) Superior Unarmed Strike
5) Combat Reflexes (Warblade bonus feat)
6) Snap Kick

MANEUVERS:

Moment of Perfect Mind (DM)
Wolf Fang Strike (TC)
Sudden Leap (TC)
Action Before Thought (DM)
Iron Heart Surge (IH)
Insightful Strike (DM)

STANCES:

Punishing Stance (IH)
Hunter's Sense (TC)

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? I'd really like your input on this one :smallsmile:

Thank you ahead of time!

[Runestar]

I am not seeing the point of bloodclaw master? For TWFing?

If you are unable to convince your DM to delay your stance from 4th lv to 5th or 6th lv (to allow to selection of a 3rd lv stance), might I suggest multiclassing in 2 lvs of monk?

So you would go warblade1/monk2/warblade+3. Monk gives you 3 bonus feats (stunning fist, IUS, combat reflexes), evasion and +3 to all saves at the expense of +1bab (which will delay snap kick unfortunately). Stunning fist DC is based off character lv, so it continues to improve (and you can combine it with your strikes) though you won't get many uses of it.

More significantly, you can select a 3rd lv stance at 6th lv. Absolute steel dance is pretty good.

Then later (at around lv8), take 2 lvs of swordsage for extra maneuvers, and start preparing for master of nine. Your final build will be looking like warblade1/monk2/warblade+5/swordsage2/warblade+5/master of nine5.

Or simplified, warblade11/monk2/swordsage2/MoN5. :smallsmile:

[Freylorn]

Bloodclaw Master was intended for the nifty stuff it nets you for a 2 level investment, yeah. For two levels, I ditch the -2 on TWFing, I gain full Strength bonus on my off-hand, and I get a +10 foot move speed when I'm in a Tiger Claw stance. Seemed worth the dip.

Dipping 2 levels of Monk is actually something I hadn't considered, but might work out quite well. It WOULD net me IUS for free, as well as give me some bonus feats and evasion. Delaying Snap Kick sucks, but wouldn't replacing it with Flurry at least be a bit of a consolation prize until I can pick it up at 9th?

I haven't really considered how multiclassing between two ToB classes would go. Seems like it'd be a bit complicated, honestly, although I could just be making something out of nothing there. Also, Master of the Nine hadn't overly impressed me, but it may be better than I'm giving it credit for.

Do you think TWFing is worth the investment? I was planning to pick up iTWF later on in my career, but that's about as far as I was planning to take the chain. I figured it would come in handy for stuff like Time Stands Still or Girallon Windmill Flesh Rip. But if it isn't worth it, that simplifies things.

[SuperFish]

I was under the impression that you can't TWF with unarmed attacks.

[Runestar]

Delaying Snap Kick sucks, but wouldn't replacing it with Flurry at least be a bit of a consolation prize until I can pick it up at 9th?

Flurry only works when you are not wearing armour. I had intended for the PC to wear light armour (where evasion still works, and works wonders with action before thought), otherwise your AC is going to be crap without it.


Do you think TWFing is worth the investment? I was planning to pick up iTWF later on in my career, but that's about as far as I was planning to take the chain.

In all fairness, I have zero experience with TWFing martial adepts. The few I played, I used mainly standard-action strikes. That plus taking snap kick and qualifying for master of 9 pretty much tied up all my feat slots, so I couldn't consider TWF'ing even if I wanted to.

But if you ask me, it isn't worth the feat investment.

Not sure if this counts as cheese, but you can also consider wielding a guisarme to provoke AoOs when foes move adjacent to you. You may still attack with other parts of your body as unarmed strikes (like your feet). Otherwise, combat reflexes seems quite wasted, and you may as well go deflect arrows.

[TehLivingDeath]

I was under the impression that you can't TWF with unarmed attacks.

I'm pretty sure you're right.

[Fortuna]

Well, unarmed strike qualifies as a light weapon for TWFing, so you can TWF with a weapon and unarmed strike. I've never seen a rule against TWFing with unarmed strike, so...

[Keld Denar]

I was under the impression that you can't TWF with unarmed attacks.

This is something that is VERY hotly debated. One camp states that since you only have one body, you only have one UAS. All parts of your body are the same UAS. The other camp states that since its a weapon on the PHB weapon table, you can "equip" multiple of them. One counts as your main hand, with the full +str bonus, the other counts as your offhand with only 1/2 +str bonus. How you flavor them is up to you (since an UAS isn't a punch, it can be any combination of attacks with any parts of your body). TWF just simulates an accelerated rate of attack, at the expense of accuracy.

Then, when you get monk levels involved, there is the phrase "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes."

Again, two camps. One says that that is absolute specific rules text, and that a monk can never use their unarmed strike as an offhand attack. The other states that this is general text, and that the TWF rules are the specific rule and make an exception to that rule.

So yea...both sides of the arguement there. Personally, I believe that it IS possible to TWF with UASs, and that a monk doesn't normally have an offhand unless he gains an offhand by use of the TWFing rules. Some people agree, some people disagree. In the end, its up to your DM in this case.

In case it matters, the FAQ clarifies that it is possible to TWF with UASs. Then again, it is the FAQ, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Freylorn]

Combat Reflexes was there primarily to qualify for Robilar's Gambit at level 12.

As far as not being able to TWF unarmed, I'm not sure where that impression came from. I believe there was something about flurrying with TWF possibly not being RAW, but I never saw anything about unarmed in general.

[JaronK]

TWF unarmed is only hotly contested by people who haven't read the articles that say it's totally fine. For example: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a .

Specifically: "A monk does not suffer an off-hand penalty when attacking unarmed. That is, the monk does not take any attack penalty and gains her full Strength bonus to damage (if any) no matter which appendage the monk uses to make the unarmed attack.

This rule doesn't exempt monks from two-weapon combat penalties (see below)."

And from http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070327a

"If you're making any unarmed attacks in addition to an attack with your primary hand (for instance, a sword slash and a kick or head butt), consider the unarmed attacks as off-hand attacks even if you aren't making them with a hand. See Part Two for notes about using unarmed strikes as primary and secondary weapons."

IIRC, the FAQ actually specifically talks about a Monk with Flurry and TWF making three attacks at level one, all at -4 to hit.

JaronK

[Escheton]

I know it might be taking too many non-warblade lvls. But its still half initiatorlvl so might be fine.
Take fighter lvls.
Specifically take dungeoncrasherlvls. And use nifty bullrush maneuvers for devastating dmg when bashing foes against walls. And if I remember correctly, castles have lots of those

[Greenish]

I'm going to second 1-2 level dip in monk, and would like to point out the monk variant fighting styles (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#monkVariantFightingSty les) in UA/SRD, which can get you rather nice bonus feats. Going unarmoured, even for flurry probably isn't worth it. If you're using partial BAB, two levels of monk and two levels of Bloodclaw Master (which isn't full BAB for some reason) only lose you one point of BAB in total.

You might also (or instead of monk) want to pick up levels in Fist of the Forest, which advances unarmed damage (faster than monk), and grants Con to AC while unarmoured, along with other minor benefits. Has annoying RP limitations though.

And finally, you'll want PA, at least for when you can't full attack and are relegated to a single strike.

[Shyftir]

Go Monk 2/Warblade X to start but pick up Decisive Strike from PHB2. Unlike flurry of blows it doesn't require not wearing armor to use. Forget the multiple attacks, do everything you can to make a single really good attack each round. This will naturally go well with maneuver uses.

Do go Warblade 1 first, because it has equal skill points and a better HD then Monk.

[Greenish]

Go Monk 2/Warblade X to start but pick up Decisive Strike from PHB2. Unlike flurry of blows it doesn't require not wearing armor to use. Forget the multiple attacks, do everything you can to make a single really good attack each round. This will naturally go well with maneuver uses.Decisive Strike is a full-round action, so you can't combine it with strikes.

[HunterOfJello]

You'd probably be better off if you convinced your DM to allow you to trade your weapon proficiencies for the Monk's unarmed progression and flurry of blows.

After that, you can work on other progressions.

For monk unarmed attacks they always add their full strength bonus on all attacks, making Bloodclaw Blade unnecessary.
~

Also, FYI Snap Kick is a bad investment on enemies that aren't extremely easy to hit. If you do the math and calculuate the probabilities, then it comes out as

Flurry of Blows > Standard Attack > Snap Kick

for chance of doing damage to an enemy with a reasonably high AC. (Even for times when you would have to get a natural 20 to hit an enemy, flurry is better than a standard attack for chance to do damage at all.)

[Greenish]

You'd probably be better off if you convinced your DM to allow you to trade your weapon proficiencies for the Monk's unarmed progression and flurry of blows.Even without Flurry it'd be worth it, yeah.

For monk unarmed attacks they always add their full strength bonus on all attacks, making Bloodclaw Blade unnecessary.Well, whether that holds true with TWF is questionable, and anyhow you'll get rid of the -2 penalty.

Also, FYI Snap Kick is a bad investment on enemies that aren't extremely easy to hit. If you do the math and calculuate the probabilities, then it comes out as

Flurry of Blows > Standard Attack > Snap KickI'm not sure how you arrived to that, since both Flurry (with 1-2 levels in monk) and Snap Kick add -2 penalty to all attacks and grant an extra attack, but only Snap Kick works with strikes and AoO. And of course, one of them is usable when wearing armour.

[Freylorn]

In all honesty, I'm debating if this is as viable as I had once thought.

The basic unarmed concept is nice and all, of course, but it seems to be doing a lot of fiddling around to arrive at something equal to, if not worse than, what I could have done if I just went with a two-hander.

Plus, a two-hander would free me up to go after Deep Impact, and resolving a fully power attacked Ruby Nightmare Blade for 4x damage as a touch attack DOES have it's own sort of awesomeness to it. The only real synergy that unarmed seems to have here is being able to go Strike > Snap Kick.

Opinions? I'm not as married to the unarmed concept as I probably made it sound in my first post, and it seems like it's really not worth all the messing around.

[Greenish]

The basic unarmed concept is nice and all, of course, but it seems to be doing a lot of fiddling around to arrive at something equal to, if not worse than, what I could have done if I just went with a two-hander.That's 3.5 for you. :smallamused:

Plus, a two-hander would free me up to go after Deep Impact, and resolving a fully power attacked Ruby Nightmare Blade for 4x damage as a touch attack DOES have it's own sort of awesomeness to it.x4? RNB is x2, where'd you get the other modifiers?

[Escheton]

warblades do well with twohanded reachweapons and harpoons for ranged.

[Keld Denar]

If you can use homebrew, I came up with a really good build with Eldariel's Ephemeral Blade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5883542) PrC. You take Monastic Training (ECS) and Tashalatora (Secrets of Sarlona) for Ephemeral Blade, since it is a Psionic PrC. For entry, you take 2 levels of monk, 1-2 level of Ardent, and 1-2 level of Warblade, totaling to 5 levels. 6th level is Ephemeral Blade1. For your Ardent Mantles, get Freedom and one other. Freedom gives you Dim Hop. Ephemeral Blade gives you an ability to initiate a strike after dimensional travel. Then you take Sun School (CWarrior) and Snap Kick and you'll get 3 attacks every time you move dimensionally adjacent to someone, one of which is a martial strike (go go Ruby Nightmare Blade). Since you are taking all 10 levels of EB, you are effectively a Monk12 so you get all but the last 2 UAS damage bumps (which you can get one of with Superior Unarmed Strike or a Monk's Belt), and you also get Greater Flurry.

So....Dim Hop into flanking against a foe as a swift action, get a strike + 2 free hits, then full attack with Greater Flurry for another handful of attacks including another extra hit from Snap Kick. If that strike was something like Avalache of Blades, that would be like, 12-15 attacks.

Not bad, for a monk, eh?

[SurlySeraph]

There isn't very much useful material for a Warblade TWFing at 6th level; Wolf Fang Strike + Snap Kick for 3 attacks as a standard action is nice, as are your 4 attacks on a full-round action, but you don't yet have a good way to offset the attack penalty and you don't have enough sources of bonus damage to make lots of attacks really worthwhile. Plus, Superior Unarmed Strike is only giving you 1d6 damage at this point.

If you want to go unarmed, I'd switch out one level for Unarmed Swordsage, use Assassin's Stance, and probably drop Superior Unarmed Strike and Snap Kick for Shadow Blade and Gloom Razor.

[Freylorn]

x4? RNB is x2, where'd you get the other modifiers?

I probably named the wrong maneuver - there's one that's 2x damage, and one that's 4x. Either way, they're both good Deep Impact fodder.


If you can use homebrew, I came up with a really good build with Eldariel's Ephemeral Blade PrC.

While I agree that Eldariel's work is top-notch, the truth is I'm already by far the biggest optimizer in my group. I really don't want to use any homebrew material - limiting my sources is my primary method of keeping myself in check.



If you want to go unarmed, I'd switch out one level for Unarmed Swordsage, use Assassin's Stance, and probably drop Superior Unarmed Strike and Snap Kick for Shadow Blade and Gloom Razor.

A great idea, except that this is Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, which I assume means undead everywhere. I would imagine this would greatly limit the usefulness of Assassin's Stance.

As an aside, if I do just scrap this and go for a two-hander, which would be my best bet in an undead-heavy campaign setting? I would assume Greatsword for the 2d6 damage, but I just want to double check.

[gorfnab]

The problem with going Monk 2/ Warblade X is your stats. You'll benefit more from wearing armor than not with the stats you have. Although really if you stick with light armor the only things you're losing out on are Wis to AC and Flurry of Blows. If you could pump your Int higher than you could maybe go unarmored if you took either the feat Kung-Fu Genius or Carmendine Monk.

[Keld Denar]

As an aside, if I do just scrap this and go for a two-hander, which would be my best bet in an undead-heavy campaign setting? I would assume Greatsword for the 2d6 damage, but I just want to double check.

I'd suggest a couple of weapons, actually, especially at low levels. Zombies are vulnerable to slashing, so a greatsword is great. Skeletons are vulnerable only to bludgeoning, so you'd be well served with a great club or morningstar backup. Morningstar covers the other 2 damage types. Unfortunately, there are almost no Slashing/Bludgeoning weapons outside of the Executioner's Mace from a Dragon Magazine. At higher levels, your prefered, enchanted weapon will be good enough that a couple points of DR won't make a difference, but at low levels, even DR/5 is painful if you can't overcome it.

[Greenish]

As an aside, if I do just scrap this and go for a two-hander, which would be my best bet in an undead-heavy campaign setting? I would assume Greatsword for the 2d6 damage, but I just want to double check.Reach is usually worth it. Glaive has the nifty 1d10 slashing damage, guisarme has only 2d4, but allows tripping.

Going outside core, Dragon Compendium has Lucerne hammer, which is b/p with reach. Savage Species has Chain, which is much like spiked chain without spikes, though it can also be used as a non-reach double weapon. That's exotic though.

Morning Star is a traditional back-up weapon, since almost everyone can use it, it can be used with one or two hands, and deals two types of damage, bludgeoning and piercing.

And of course, if your DM allows rather exotic sources, Dungeon #135 has the Executioner's Mace, which is a martial, 2d6 x3, Bludgeoning and Piercing or Bludgeoning and Slashing weapon. :smallcool: http://www.waynereynolds.com/Magazine%20Art/MagazineArt/DDungeon135.jpg

[Cyphrus]

Hi, I'm not certain if this is too late to be put in.

If you're interested, and not too put off by dragon magazine, there's a great ACF for barbarians that gives them improved unarmed strike, as well as the two weapon fighting line while unarmed. You just trade off your medium armor, martial weapon and shield usage for it. It is in Dragon 349.

I've played around with this, and honestly it makes for the perfect dip for those who want to play a "brawler" without dipping in monk.

Add a little pounce, and if you're feeling zesty, it's nothing but on the up and up to sniff out Improved trip from the Wolf totem ACF. Two levels and a well rounded pugilist you'll be!