[3.5e] Unarmed Swordsage

[Kaeso]

I'm interested in building a character that uses his fists rather than any weapon, and I know that the monk class is pretty useless in combat, and that the unarmed swordsage can basically replace him. This made me curious, but I don't know any good unarmed swordsage builds, is anybody willing to share some?

[Godskook]

The only downside to UASS is that you lack the proficiency for easy AC at low-levels. This can be mostly mitigated by choosing armor without an ACP(remember, both mithral and masterwork lower ACP penalties). By level 4 or so, you can get yourself a mithral breastplate without a ACP, and just wear that for the rest of your career. With shadow blade and weapon finesse, you remove your Str dependency, and open yourself up to small races as a melee-ist. Air Goblins (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#airGoblins), notworthy for being an SRD race, get -2 Str, +4 Dex, -2 Con. This amounts to +3 to-hit, +1 damage, and +3 AC over a human UASS for the cost of 1 HP/level and the normal human benefits. You'd still get 30' movement, and darkvision to boot.

[Optimator]

Taking Superior Unarmed Strike with any of the martial adepts will work great. An unarmed Swordsage isn't built any different than a normal Swordsage, except for Setting Sun being more flavorful/fitting.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, keep in mind that you can dip Monk for getting some things a bit quicker. Say, a two-level dip.

First off, let's choose our monk wisely. I strongly suggest Passive Way variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#passiveWay). Why? Because getting Weapon Finesse is the first step to being non-dex dependent, and Improved Trip is made of lulz.

You also get Flurry, which is basically another attack for a -2. Not too shabby. You also pick up Evasion at level 2, rather than having to wait for level 9.

Now, if you wanted, you could actually stay in until 4th for Ki Strike (Magic) so you can punch out incorporeal beings. Or, just ditch at 2.

Now, from here, we go into Unarmed Swordsage. Pick up a shadow-hand stance, and Shadow Blade. Now you have Dex to Damage instead of Strength. Combined with Weapon Finesse from the monk dip, you are now Dex dependent, and may safely dump Strength to your heart's content.

Since you have both monk and swordsage, you may wish to consider Shadowsun Ninja. Basically, the capstone is completely overpowered if you are immune to Con Damage (or if your GM allows con hits to be sequential rather than one lump sum, and have a Strongheart Vest) as it lets you deal out negative levels on every punch.

If you are worried about DR, get Stone Power and Shards of Granite. Otherwise, don't bother.

Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, Tiger Claw, and diamond Mind are the four disciplines which are made of win for this build. Mountain Tombstone Strike is fun to pick up from Stone Dragon, but if you want to pick up something like Stone Bones to have a prerequisite for Shards of Granite, by all means.

Cheesy trick to make you practically immune to melee damage from Setting Sun:

* Baffling Defense. It's a Counter that lets you make a Sense Motive check to generate a miss.

*Shifting Defense. It's a stance that lets you take a 5' step every time an opponent misses you.

So basically, he misses you, then you shift away from him, keeping him from being able to make a full attack on you ever.

It's not perfect, if your opponent has a large reach, you might not be able to get out in time. Training Dummy of the Grandmaster will help with this. But it's very amusing to pounce in with Pouncing Strike, hitting a dozen times with Rabid Mongoose boost, then when an opponent tries to punish you for closing into melee, you dance away and laugh as he just wasted his entire full-round action.

[Draz74]

Now, from here, we go into Unarmed Swordsage. Pick up a shadow-hand stance, and Shadow Blade. Now you have Dex to Damage instead of in addition to Strength. Combined with Weapon Finesse from the monk dip, you are now Dex dependent, and may safely dump Strength to your heart's content a moderate extent.

Fixed that for you.

[Starscream]

Unarmed Swordsages are awesome. That's how monks should have been to begin with, instead of just guys who can punch one or two extra times a around.

If you are looking for Monk upgrades, our own Fax Celestis has done an excellent variant (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Monk) which is likewise about Tier 3 (at least by popular consensus, I once started a thread to rank all the monk fixes). Well worth a look if you are allowed homebrews.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Fixed that for you.

Read it again, it *REPLACES* Str, not adds to. Sorry.

[Greenish]

Air Goblins (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#airGoblins), notworthy for being an SRD race, get -2 Str, +4 Dex, -2 Con. This amounts to +3 to-hit, +1 damage, and +3 AC over a human UASS for the cost of 1 HP/level and the normal human benefits. You'd still get 30' movement, and darkvision to boot.Then make it Arctic (Dragon #306) for +2 con, -2 cha.

Frostwind goblin!

[Darrin]

Read it again, it *REPLACES* Str, not adds to. Sorry.

The text from Shadow Blade:

"Benefit: While you are in a Shadow Hand stance and attack with one of the discipline’s preferred weapons, you can add your Dexterity modifier as a bonus on melee damage for attacks made with the weapon."

Emphasis added. Yes, the table says "instead of", but by RAW, text trumps table.

[Hanuman]

Remember to get a novice Stone Dragon belt that holds Mountain Hammer.

Infinite adamantium +dmg strike. Monks only get that for overcoming DR, but for 3k gold you get it for overcoming hardness too. That means you can punch through steel and kick their shields in half.

[true_shinken]

Unarmed Swordsage is good enough that you won't screw up. Just take the obvious stuff as you see it coming (Superior Unarmed Strike, Shadow Blade, Snap Kick, Adaptive Style) and you'll do just fine. Don't overoptimize it unless you are in a very high power group, or you will steal the spotlight.

[Godskook]

The text from Shadow Blade:

"Benefit: While you are in a Shadow Hand stance and attack with one of the discipline’s preferred weapons, you can add your Dexterity modifier as a bonus on melee damage for attacks made with the weapon."

Emphasis added. Yes, the table says "instead of", but by RAW, text trumps table.

This, which just means you can't completely neglect your raw Str score into the negatives. A post-racial score of 10 would suffice, and even be beneficial at high levels, when you put a Str belt on.

[Kolgoth]

Well, keep in mind that you can dip Monk for getting some things a bit quicker. Say, a two-level dip.

First off, let's choose our monk wisely. I strongly suggest Passive Way variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#passiveWay). Why? Because getting Weapon Finesse is the first step to being non-dex dependent, and Improved Trip is made of lulz.

You also get Flurry, which is basically another attack for a -2. Not too shabby. You also pick up Evasion at level 2, rather than having to wait for level 9.

Now, if you wanted, you could actually stay in until 4th for Ki Strike (Magic) so you can punch out incorporeal beings. Or, just ditch at 2.

Now, from here, we go into Unarmed Swordsage. Pick up a shadow-hand stance, and Shadow Blade. Now you have Dex to Damage instead of Strength. Combined with Weapon Finesse from the monk dip, you are now Dex dependent, and may safely dump Strength to your heart's content.

Since you have both monk and swordsage, you may wish to consider Shadowsun Ninja. Basically, the capstone is completely overpowered if you are immune to Con Damage (or if your GM allows con hits to be sequential rather than one lump sum, and have a Strongheart Vest) as it lets you deal out negative levels on every punch.

If you are worried about DR, get Stone Power and Shards of Granite. Otherwise, don't bother.

Setting Sun, Shadow Hand, Tiger Claw, and diamond Mind are the four disciplines which are made of win for this build. Mountain Tombstone Strike is fun to pick up from Stone Dragon, but if you want to pick up something like Stone Bones to have a prerequisite for Shards of Granite, by all means.

Cheesy trick to make you practically immune to melee damage from Setting Sun:

* Baffling Defense. It's a Counter that lets you make a Sense Motive check to generate a miss.

*Shifting Defense. It's a stance that lets you take a 5' step every time an opponent misses you.

So basically, he misses you, then you shift away from him, keeping him from being able to make a full attack on you ever.

It's not perfect, if your opponent has a large reach, you might not be able to get out in time. Training Dummy of the Grandmaster will help with this. But it's very amusing to pounce in with Pouncing Strike, hitting a dozen times with Rabid Mongoose boost, then when an opponent tries to punish you for closing into melee, you dance away and laugh as he just wasted his entire full-round action.

Ki Strike (Su)
At 4th level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki. Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. Ki strike improves with the character’s monk level. At 10th level, her unarmed attacks are also treated as lawful weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. At 16th level, her unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction and bypassing hardness.

You do not gain the ability to harm Incorpreal creatures, you need an actual magic enchant for that not just something used to overcome DR.

[true_shinken]

You do not gain the ability to harm Incorpreal creatures, you need an actual magic enchant for that not just something used to overcome DR.
If you go for RAWtardness, actually, it works against incorporeal creatures with DR :smalltongue:

[Kolgoth]

If you go for RAWtardness, actually, it works against incorporeal creatures with DR :smalltongue:

Yes if your fists effect the creature in question in the first place - otherwise no. It's not RAWtardness either - its the rules. House rule around it if it bothers you there's no issue with that.

[true_shinken]

Yes if your fists effect the creature in question in the first place - otherwise no. It's not RAWtardness either - its the rules. House rule around it if it bothers you there's no issue with that.
Let's read it again: "Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction."
Does it say "to go through damage reduction"? No. It says dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.
An incorporeal creature with damage reduction can't be dealt damage by a non-magical weapon. Since said creature has damage reduction, the ability allows it to be treated as a magical weapon - and magical weapons have 50% chance of damaging incorporeal creatures.
This is a complete RAW reading and totally against RAI, therefore I see it as RAWtardness.

tl;dr The wording actually could be read that incorporeal creatures with DR (and only those with DR) would be vulnerable to a monk's fist

[Stegyre]

Let's read it again: "Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction."

From the SRD:

Damage Reduction
A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below.

* * * *

Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of these monsters. Such creatures’ natural weapons (but not their attacks with weapons) are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Being "treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction" is an explicit reference to the Damage Reduction entry regarding DR/magic (quoted above), which provides that such weapons "overcome[] the damage reduction of these monsters."

No more; no less. Specifically (in the present debate), it has nothing to do with incorporeality (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#incorporeality).

Of course, magic weapons may hit incorporeal creatures (by RAW), 50% of the time, but a monk's strikes are not treated as magic weapons "for the purpose of dealing damage to incorporeal creatures."

(A Magic Weapon or Magic Fang spell would address that problem, but now, I'm being excessively pedantic.)
any mischance due to insubstantiality.

That's the RAW.

[true_shinken]

Of course, magic weapons may hit incorporeal creatures (by RAW), 50% of the time, but a monk's strikes are not treated as magic weapons "for the purpose of dealing damage to incorporeal creatures."


The monk ability does not use the words overcome damage reduction. It uses the words 'dealing damage'. Is the 50% chance part of the 'dealing damage' process? Yes, it is. I think it's pretty obvious here.
Anyway, agree to disagree.

[Stegyre]

It uses the words 'dealing damage'. Is the 50% chance part of the 'dealing damage' process? Yes, it is. I think it's pretty obvious here.
Anyway, agree to disagree.
Live your dream, and play however you wish.

To call it RAW, however, is a bridge too far. :smallamused:

Truly, due to poor editing and poor playtesting, RAW is full of loopholes and inconsistencies, and any number of close questions.

But this isn't one of them. :smallsigh: