Enlightened Fist

[Garetek]

So randomly at work, one of my coworkers who is a fellow geek and gamer like me asked me about the Enlightened Fist. Having never heard of it, I looked it up and began to read through it. Now, having completed it and scoured a few forums I want to play one. I can see the advantages of playing one. But wanted to have the forums ideas on them.
Maybe have some builds posted? Pretty much everything is open for use. and I would like to use something human, or maybe something that does not rely on a torch. But I do enjoy the extra feat human gets.

[Godskook]

A respectable build is:

Human
Monk 1/Wizard 4/Enlightened Fist 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Enlightened Fist +6

That gets you everything you need to be effective. There's plenty of ways to make up the last 9 monk levels, depending on what books are available. Superior Unarmed Strike grants 4, Monk's Belt grants 5, and Monk's Tattoo grants 4.

After that, standard gish/caster optimization, except that Greater Mighty Whallop becomes a required spell.

[Garetek]

Looks pretty easy, but my question is, Can I sub sorcerer or any other spon. casting arcane user?

[Ernir]

You can reduce the damage the class does to your caster level but keep advancing your "monk abilities" by taking only a few levels of it, and then going over to Master of the East Wind (Dragon #314).


my question is, Can I sub sorcerer or any other spon. casting arcane user?
Yes, but they don't make as good Abjurant Champions, due to Luminous Armor (Book of Exalted Deeds) not natively being on their list.

[Godskook]

Looks pretty easy, but my question is, Can I sub sorcerer or any other spon. casting arcane user?

1.Why?

2.Sorcerers have 18/20 casting while Wizards have 17/20, this makes it harder to build the above progression cause on a Sorcerer chassis, you must either lose 9ths or spend 2 extra feats getting into EF. Neither is a particularly attractive idea, making Sorcerers categorically worse for entering Enlightened Fist. 'Course, if you're not worried about getting 9ths, a direct substitution isn't that bad.

[Cespenar]

By the way, I'm probably very wrong on this, but the text on Arcane Fist reads like it's not been limited by anything. So, you can, with this theory, cast and deliver all your touch spells in one turn, if you have enough Stunning Fist uses.

[Godskook]

1.The ability doesn't grant any additional attacks. It actually requires you to 'carry' the spell on top of one of your normal attacks(wording seems to indicate that you still get normal attack damage, but that you're targeting normal AC).

2.As far as I can tell, you must have a full-round action available for each use of the ability, which typically limits it to 1/turn.

[Cespenar]

1.The ability doesn't grant any additional attacks. It actually requires you to 'carry' the spell on top of one of your normal attacks(wording seems to indicate that you still get normal attack damage, but that you're targeting normal AC).

2.As far as I can tell, you must have a full-round action available for each use of the ability, which typically limits it to 1/turn.

1. Yes, but you can 'carry' a different spell on each of your flurry attacks, which isn't a bad deal. Shocking Grasp x4, for example.

2. Well, I don't see the "for each use" part. Care to clarify? It says "cast and deliver as part of an unarmed full attack action". No usage of "each" or "1/round" or even "this counts as your 1 stunning fist attempt per round".

Edit: Is there an errata for this that I might be missing?

[Prime32]

Note the feats Ascetic Mage and Carmendine Monk, which make your monk abilities based on Cha or Int respectively (Kung Fu Genius is a weaker alternative to Carmendine Monk)

[Jornophelanthas]

1. Yes, but you can 'carry' a different spell on each of your flurry attacks, which isn't a bad deal. Shocking Grasp x4, for example.

2. Well, I don't see the "for each use" part. Care to clarify? It says "cast and deliver as part of an unarmed full attack action". No usage of "each" or "1/round" or even "this counts as your 1 stunning fist attempt per round".

Edit: Is there an errata for this that I might be missing?

Beginning at 3rd level, an enlightened fist can spend one of her daily stunning attempts to cast and deliver a touch spell as part of an unarmed full attack action. She can choose to deliver the touch spell with any single unarmed strike attack she makes during the action. This is the exact wording.

I have some comments that may answer the above question, but I also have a question of my own.

Comment 1
As has already been mentioned, this wording suggests that you can spend one of your daily stunning attempts as part of the unarmed full attack action. I don't believe this is one per touch spell, but rather one per full attack action.
EDIT: This also implies that you can't use a regular stun attack, or a Fist of Energy on the same full attack that you are already using Arcane Fist.

Comment 2
The wording also suggests that you can only choose one single unarmed strike attack out of the entire full attack to discharge the spell. If that attack misses, you can't discharge it on the next attack in that flurry.
Instead (and this is my interpretation), you are treated as having held the discharge, and you can discharge it in a following round, either as a melee touch attack, or as part of an unarmed strike, as per the normal rules for holding the charge of a touch spell (PHB3.5 pp.140-142).

This leads up to my question:
How does the Arcane Fist ability interact with a touch spell with multiple charges, such as Chill Touch?
I have a theory, but I am looking for an unbiased answer, so I won't present it yet.

[McToomin]

I'm currently playing an EF and loving it. My GM allows Chill Touch to process with each attack, since that's how the spell seems to be written. A couple of suggestions from my experience. I don't have books handy and so don't know the sources.

1) As mentioned, Greater Mighty Whallop is an ESSENTIAL spell. Get it as early as possible.

2) If you have feats to spare, Practiced Spellcaster can make up any lost caster levels, in case you don't use an almost-full-caster build like the one posted.

3) Get a Fanged Ring, causing your attacks to be counted as one size category higher. Stacks with Greater Mighty Whallop, as far as I'm aware, netting you some ridiculous damage output WITHOUT even counting spells cast as a full-attack action (as is currently being discussed).

4) Get some leather straps or something your DM to wear around your fist to enchant like weapons (there is an official item that serves this purpose, can't remember exact name), and get the Spell-Storing enchantment. There are several low-level spells you can get a LOT of mileage out of, such as the aforemented Shocking Grasp or, even better, Vampiric Touch.

[Godskook]

3) Get a Fanged Ring, causing your attacks to be counted as one size category higher. Stacks with Greater Mighty Whallop, as far as I'm aware, netting you some ridiculous damage output WITHOUT even counting spells cast as a full-attack action (as is currently being discussed).

Afaik, there's never any typing to size bonuses, which means that only 2 reasons would prevent a bonus from stacking. The first is "same name" which, again, doesn't exist afaik. The second is explicit mention. INA has neither(from the fanged ring), thus, it stacks with everything. GMW's only restriction is that it can't increase above colossal, but since boni are applied in the best order, that's not a problem(well, it does mean that anyone that plans on using GMW extensively is no worse off for using a small race, since medium races cap-out early on GMW).

[McToomin]

Yeah my character is a kobold currently doing 6d6 per attack, and at next caster level it'll increase to 8d6 :)

[Cespenar]

Comment 1
As has already been mentioned, this wording suggests that you can spend one of your daily stunning attempts as part of the unarmed full attack action. I don't believe this is one per touch spell, but rather one per full attack action.
EDIT: This also implies that you can't use a regular stun attack, or a Fist of Energy on the same full attack that you are already using Arcane Fist.


Such an emphasis on "one" doesn't exist in the original text, though, so there's nothing to cast it in stone as such. I see where you come from, but it's worded very vaguely, in my opinion.

[SleepyShadow]

If you're building an enlightened fist, I would personally do something akin to this:

Monk 2/Battle Sorcerer 3/Enlightened Fist 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Enlightened Fist +7

I believe there is a good listing of touch spells floating around somewhere. I'll see if I can dredge it up for you.