KutuluKultist
2012-02-27, 08:26 AM
Build: The Tripmeister.
Back in 3.x, this build used a spiked chain and was a very impressive realization of non-magical battlefield control. In PF, the spiked chain has been neutered and it cannot serve a Tripmeister anymore leaving the Tripmeister a mere shadow of her former self without her prickly companion. But fear not, along came ultimate combat and provided us with a series of feats that introduced the Tripmeister to a new life partner: the whip. Shiny boots of shiny, shiny leather might be part of her future wardrobe, too.
Ingredients
Whips.
Fighter class, lore warden archetype.
Monk class, Maneuver Master archetype.
The combat expertise feat.
The Improved Trip feat chain (2 feats)
The Whip Mastery feat chain (3 feats)
Other feats for flavoring.
The Drawing Room
Whips are not very powerful weapons, they do 1d3 non-lethal damage and even wearing a pittance of armor or having mildly thick skin protects you completely. It does however have a number of special features: disarm, trip and reach. This particular reach feature is unique to the whip as it gives you a reach of 15" and you can attack even closer squares, unlike with normal reach weapons. This great advantage is coupled with a great disadvantage: attacking with a whip provokes attacks of opportunity. Our approach will build on the strengths of the whip (reach, maneuvers) and will eliminate or compensate for the disadvantages (low damage, provoking use).
The lore warden fighter archetype has two advantages that are of interest in a Tripmeister build. First, it grants the combat expertise feat as an additional bonus feat at second level "even if he would not normally qualify for this feat.". That means that we can safely tank our INT.
The second advantage is the maneuver mastery ability - not to be confused with the maneuver master monk archetype discussed in a moment - which grants us a flat untyped bonus to CMB and CMD for any and all maneuvers. This bonus starts out at +2 at third level and goes up to +8 at 15th.
The price for all of this is that you do not get medium armor or heavy armor, nor shield proficiency and also have to do without armor training, which at this point would have been moot anyway. You still get weapon training.
The maneuver master monk archetype not only gives improved trip as a bonus feat, it also grants us the awe inspiring flurry of maneuvers ability. Unlike flurry of blows, which it replaces, flurry of maneuvers is not limited to being used only with monk weapons. What this does is allow us to make an additional free maneuver as part of a full attack at a -2 penalty to all combat maneuver checks - not though, to the normal attacks we make that round. As if that wasn't gravy enough, we also can use any maneuver like this, regardless of whether it would ordinarily require a standard action to use or replaces an attack.
The later abilities are not as essential. At third level, anyone who tries a maneuver for which you have the improved maneuver feat on you provokes AoO, even if they normally wouldn't. At fourth level, you can spend a ki-point before making a maneuver roll to roll twice and get the better result. At fifth level, you can use a swift action to add your wisdom modifier to a single maneuver check rolled that round. At 11th level, you can make two maneuvers as a standard action, either the same maneuver against two adjacent targets or two different maneuvers against a single target. I recommend dropping out at 4th the latest.
Combat expertise allows you subtract from your attack bonus and add to your AC. Not a terribly useful thing in general, but it might occasionally come in handy. It's main role and the reason why it's here is that it acts as a prerequisite for many nice maneuver feats including improved trip and greater trip. Normally, this feat requires an INT of 13, but thanks to the lore warden archetype, the Tripmeister doesn't have to be that smart.
Improved trip gives a +2 bonus to trip attempts and you no longer provoke attacks of opportunity for tripping, greater trip grants another +2 and people you trip now provoke attacks of opportunity.
Whip mastery makes the whip a weapon, rather than a toy. You no longer provoke AoO when using it, you can deal lethal damage and you can hurt people and things even if the are armored. That is very nice. But the real kicker comes with improved whip mastery, now you threaten an area equal to your natural reach plus 5 ft. Unless you are enlarged somehow, this will be ten feet, but you also threaten the squares next to you.
Races and Stats
The Tripmeister needs a high strength more than anything else. A high dexterity is useful for defense, initiative and we can use the fury's fall feat to add it to our CMB for tripping. constitution is important for everyone and the Tripmeister does no have heavy armor to back her up. Wisdom adds to will saves, stunning fist DC (which you will rarely use, but it could come up) and unarmored AC. Intelligence and charisma do nothing for you.
The priority of Wisdom depends on your party. If you have an arcane caster willing to lay mage armor on you, putting some points into wis can help with your AC early on, but in general, you are better off wearing a chain shirt.
STR -> DEX -> CON -> WIS -> INT -> CHA.
The issue of race is settled by the need for strength. Anything that gives a strength bonus is in, everything else is a third place runner up. Among races which add to strength, those that grant a useful bonus feat are preferred, as we have feat intensive build.
Humans grant extra skill points and bonus feat which can buy any of the first level feats we need.
Half-elves can use the ancestral weapons alternative racial trait to get exotic weapon proficiency (Whip), the also get elven immunities, a bonus of perception and low-light vision. Arguably better than an extra skill point.
Half Orcs have the beast master alternate racial trait which gives proficiency with whip and nets. They also bring ferocity, a bonus to intimidate and darkvision to the table.
Building the Build
This table lists the feats acquired at certain levels, bonus feats are always clustered at the end, non-feat abilities that are important are listed first and underlined. Feats are color coded to distinguish central feats, feats I don't think should be replaced and feats that could easily be replaced by something or other.
{table=head]Level|Class|Feats & Features
1|FIG1|1st: weapon focus(whip), bonus: exotic weapon proficiency (whip), combat reflexes
2|MNK1|flurry of maneuvers, bonus: improved trip, stunning fist, improved unarmed strike
3|FIG2|3rd: whip mastery, bonus: weapon expertise, power attack
4|FIG3|maneuver mastery +2
5|FIG4|5th: improved whip mastery, bonus: fury's fall
6|FIG5|weapon training I
7|FIG6|7th: improved dirty trick, bonus: greater trip
8|FIG7|maneuver mastery +4
9|MNK2|9th: greater whip mastery, bonus: improved grapple
10|FIG8|bonus: greater grapple
11|FIG9|weapon training II, 11th: sleeper hold,
12|FIG10|bonus: greater dirty trick
13|Fig11|maneuver mastery +6, 13th: Pin down,
14|Fig12|bonus: disruptive
15|Fig13|13th: spellbreaker, weapon training III
16|Fig14|bonus: teleport tactician
17|Fig15|maneuver mastery +8, 15th: penetrating strike,
18|MNK3|maneuver defense, maneuver training
19|MNK4|ki-pool, reliable maneuver, 17th: rapid grappler
20|Fig16|bonus: greater penetrating strike
[/table]
Commentary:
At first level, we have to bite the bullet and be less than stellar. You carry a whip around and trip people when you can, but once the meele is under way, you switch to you greatsword and start hacking away. A interesting alternative is to use a scorpion whip. It's an exotic light weapon with which you are automatically proficient if you are proficient with whips. EWP:whip also means you can use the scorpion whip as a whip and gain disarm, trip and the whip's reach property. The scorpion whip does lethal damage per default and is not made ineffectual by armor and it does 1d4 rather than 1d3 damage. It might even be a replacement for the whip in general, but only if the whip mastery feat chains works with it, too. The scorpion whip states that it can be used like a whip, but the whip mastery feats refer only to whips explicitly and it is up for discussion whether they should apply to the scorpion whip. I wouldn't allow it, but you DM might, so clarify that before you make this choice.
Second level bumps our saves nicely and gives us both improved trip and flurry of maneuvers. We can now trip twice a round and are better at it.
Third level is spring time for Tripmeister. Whip mastery allows us to use the whip in the thick of meele. From now on, the great sword is only for occasions that demand massive damage and only massive damage. As your whip gets more magical, those occasions will stop occasioning the great sword, which will fall behind in enchantment over the next few levels. As you focus more on the whip, start carrying backup whips for when you roll badly and have to drop your whip due to a failed trip. Consider holding a whip in each hand, so you don't have to draw one if you drop one. Note that this isn't two weapon fighting. Two weapon fighting only applies when you take an extra attack and you only have an off-hand weapon if you are two weapon fighting.
Power attack is your usual damage stand-by. Combat expertise is only for special occasions and of course a prerequisite for many maneuver feats.
Level four gives you +2 on CMB and CMD, you just got better at what you're good at.
Level five is happy time. Thanks to improved whip mastery, you threaten. You already have combat reflexes, so go fishing. Fury's fall adds your dex bonus to trip attempts. Thank you very much fury's fall.
The last level was such a great level, level six is kind of dull in comparison. You get weapon training I and if you've half a mind, you pick flails as your weapon type to train in. So now you get +1 to hit and damage with you whip. The +1 to hit also works on all maneuvers you perform with you whip.
The core of this build is done by level 7. You know have greater trip and tripping people makes them provoke AoO. Everything from here on out it is garnishing and gravy. Such as improved dirty trick. You get bonuses to maneuvers and dirty trick is very versatile. Given the description, it's pretty clear that you should be able to use dirty trick with you whip, hitting their eyes, painful spots, slicing their belts, twisting them to disorient them. Go wild, go crazy, stay safe.
Level 8 is boring but good. Another +2 to all maneuvers says that you get better and messing with people.
A second level of monk gives you a bonus feat, evasion and better saves. We pick improved grapple, because we just picked greater whip mastery for our regular feat and greater whip mastery allows you to grapple with you whip. It also means you will never drop your whip due to a failed trip again.
You now are great at grappling. This allows you to maintain the grapple as a move action - you can also use your flurry of maneuvers bonus maneuver to maintain a grapple, but greater grapple means that you can now move around while maintaining a grapple.
Sleeper hold is a nice little feat, particularly against opponents with low consitution. If you maintain a grapple for a number of rounds equal to their consitution bonus (minimum 1 round), they have to make a fortitude check (DC based on your strength), or fall unconscious for 1d4 rounds. You can keep attempting this if you keep maintaining your grapple and every round the DC increases. Welcome to your mage killer option. YOu also get weapon training II. For you second weapon group, pick bows. Not because it is particularly useful, but at least it might some times come into play.
Greater dirty trick makes you not provoke AoO even against adjacent targets, you also get a further bonus.
Pin down is a great feat if you have lots of threatened squares. If it didn't require 11 levels of fighter, we would have taken it long since. Now, people taking 5 ft steps or withdrawing from squares you threaten provoke AoO from you, which you can only use to make them stop moving. Now whenever anyone ends up in your threatend squares, between trip attempts and pin down, they'll have a really hard time getting out and away.
Disruptive makes it more difficult for opponents you threaten to cast defensively. Not a huge advantage at this level, but one of two prerequisites for teleport tactician.
Spellbreaker is the second prerequisite and it makes casters you threaten who fail their defensive casting check provoke AoO from you. Not bad, but probably not all that common an occasion. You also get your final dose of weapon training. I'd go with natural weapons, since maybe you want to hit someone with a stunning fist some day. Maybe.
Teleport tactician rounds out your lock down scheme. Now they can't walk, walk carefully or teleport around in you zone of control.
Penetrating strike comes around a bit late, but it comes at last. This should help with material based DR, for which you have no recourse.
The third monk level gives you an effective +1 to your CMB and the not overly helpful maneuver defense abillity.
The fourth level of monk gives you a ki-pool and the reliable maneuver ability. Rapid grappler gives you an extra grapple maneuver as a swift action if you use a move action to maintain a grapple.
Greater penetrating strike allows you to ignore 10 points of DR. Not a tremendous capstone, but you've had a lot of fun getting here.
The math
Here are the bonuses you get to trip people.
BAB +20
STR +x
DEX +y
improved trip +2
greater trip +2
man. mastery +8
weapon train. +3
weapon focus +1
If we assume a perfect situation, we have STR 36 and DEX 26. We get
BAB +20
STR +13
DEX +8
improved trip +2
greater trip +2
man. mastery +8
weapon train. +3
weapon focus +1
enhancement +5
-------------------
+62
The Tarasque has CMD of 66. Hence, you have a 80% chance to trip Godzilla. And you can roll twice and take the better result. I see some flattened landscape in the future. Remember, the taller they are, the harder they fall.
Variations
The above outline is just one realization of the Tripmeister approach. It is focussed on locking down opponents in a large area. In so far as any fighter can, it can stand up to casters. But there are of course variations, some not so good, others merely with a shifted focus.
We look first into alternative feats.
Dex based. The whip is finesseable, meaning you can get weapon finesse and agile maneuvers to key your attacks and CMB off dex. This is strictly a worse option than the above build, costing you two extra feat and leaving you without a viable damage potential with your whip until you get the agile enchanement on your whip. On the other hand, you can get you dex bonus twice to your CMB (the second one comes from fury's fall, which just adds a blank bonus based on your dex), allowing for an even higher trip bonus. This is interesting mostly if you are set on playing a race with a STR penalty or even a small race, which I cannot recommend, but if that's what you want, this is how you do it.
Two weapon fighting. You have the dex and your trip bonuses are good enough to survive another -2. I cannot recommend greater two weapon fighting, but if you take two weapon fighting, you probably also should take improved two weapon fighting.
Other maneuver feats. We've focussed on trip, grapple and dirty trick. The former two are supported by whip mastery and pretty useful, being arguably the best combat maneuvers available. Dirty trick was put in, because it so very versatile. But drag, reposition, bull-rush and disarm are all options if you want them.
YOu could also increase your damage potential by going the weapon specialisation route. You're dead set on whipping anyway, so why not whip up some specialisation bonuses?
Less thematically oriented Tripmeisters can of course use the large number of feats for other things. You could buy back your medium and heavy armor proficiencies or your shield proficiency or go over the top and play the tower shield and whip game. Since you have a high dex, mobility feats such as nimble moves are accessible. Toughness and the save feats are as desirable as ever, even though your monk levels give you better base saves than you'd have as just a fighter.
Ranged combat requires a lot of feats and but if you want to build up that option, you have the dexerity and strength to make it work. Since it requires switching weapons, consider quick draw.
Dodge, mobility, spring attack are good feats, but the help you very little. Your great reach makes the added mobility advantages mostly moot and spring attack means you can only take standart actions, hence not use flurry of maneuvers. I advise against it.
And some alternatives to the class set-up.
You could take the last two monk levels earlier, but I feel that maneuver mastery is much better than reliable maneuvers. You most likely don't have a very high wisdom and certainly not too many monk levels, meaning you have only very few ki-points and using a whip means you rarely will provide a killing blow or land a critical hit, giving you few opportunities to refill your ki.
You could take more monk levels. Again, I find that maneuver mastery is superior to what the maneuver master monk offers, but your mileage might vary and it is certainly feasible. You have to live with many fewer feats, but you get extra flurried maneuver attempts, ki-powers (some of which are quite good, check the Quing-Gong monk) and all the quirks of being a monk, such as three good save. You CMB doesn't suffer from this due to maneuver training, but you BAB does.
You could throw in a level of barbarian and spend some feats on extra rage. You would have to do this before you become a monk and you would have to switch alignment in between. Rage is nice and so is fast movement, though this character doesn't really need it. But it requires a large feat investment to keep rage viable, in particular because your combat style does not exactly speed up confrontations. And that means that it will take you longer to bring the build to fruition.
The pain taster prestige class gives nice bonuses, in particular a substantial +2d6 damage for your whip. It's a five level class that has endurance, die hard and great fortitude as prerequisites, so you might have to do a bit of shuffling to get the feats into the build. It's also associated with the drow and Zon-Kuthon in fluff.
Equipment that maketh the PC
You whip is your number one piece of equipment to enchant.
Get some elemental damage bonuses. Avoid the burst properties, though, you're not too likely to land crits.
Holy is also an excellent investment, since enemies are more often evil than not.
The dueling property gives a bonus to disarm and feint checks as well as initiative.
The dueling-FG property for the Pathfinder Society Field guide is much better. You pick a combat maneuver and the weapon grants twice it'S enhancement bonus as a luck bonus on the maneuver (meaning you get the enhancement bonus thrice) as well as CMD against the maneuver. This is an excellent enchantment for any variation of Tripmeister and at +1 it's a steal. You can get several versions for several different maneuvers, too.
Ghost touch. Ever wanted to trip an incorporeal creature? Here is your solution.
Ki-focus. You have stunning fist. This makes it useable.
Vorpal. Makes your vorpal whip go snicker snacker, off-with-the-header. The visuals for this must be amazingly painful.
Get a belt of giant strength. Switch to a belt of physical perfection or an item that increases only strength and dexterity if available. The rest is really optional. You're not so front-liney that you absolutely need the best armor, nor are your saves so horrible that you desperately need to have the best cloak of resistance. So go wild, go crazy, go dressed up.
Final Remarks
Well, I hope you've enjoyed my build and I hope it helps you with characters you might play in the future. If so, let me know how it played out. And if you've noticed any mistakes, please tell me.
Back in 3.x, this build used a spiked chain and was a very impressive realization of non-magical battlefield control. In PF, the spiked chain has been neutered and it cannot serve a Tripmeister anymore leaving the Tripmeister a mere shadow of her former self without her prickly companion. But fear not, along came ultimate combat and provided us with a series of feats that introduced the Tripmeister to a new life partner: the whip. Shiny boots of shiny, shiny leather might be part of her future wardrobe, too.
Ingredients
Whips.
Fighter class, lore warden archetype.
Monk class, Maneuver Master archetype.
The combat expertise feat.
The Improved Trip feat chain (2 feats)
The Whip Mastery feat chain (3 feats)
Other feats for flavoring.
The Drawing Room
Whips are not very powerful weapons, they do 1d3 non-lethal damage and even wearing a pittance of armor or having mildly thick skin protects you completely. It does however have a number of special features: disarm, trip and reach. This particular reach feature is unique to the whip as it gives you a reach of 15" and you can attack even closer squares, unlike with normal reach weapons. This great advantage is coupled with a great disadvantage: attacking with a whip provokes attacks of opportunity. Our approach will build on the strengths of the whip (reach, maneuvers) and will eliminate or compensate for the disadvantages (low damage, provoking use).
The lore warden fighter archetype has two advantages that are of interest in a Tripmeister build. First, it grants the combat expertise feat as an additional bonus feat at second level "even if he would not normally qualify for this feat.". That means that we can safely tank our INT.
The second advantage is the maneuver mastery ability - not to be confused with the maneuver master monk archetype discussed in a moment - which grants us a flat untyped bonus to CMB and CMD for any and all maneuvers. This bonus starts out at +2 at third level and goes up to +8 at 15th.
The price for all of this is that you do not get medium armor or heavy armor, nor shield proficiency and also have to do without armor training, which at this point would have been moot anyway. You still get weapon training.
The maneuver master monk archetype not only gives improved trip as a bonus feat, it also grants us the awe inspiring flurry of maneuvers ability. Unlike flurry of blows, which it replaces, flurry of maneuvers is not limited to being used only with monk weapons. What this does is allow us to make an additional free maneuver as part of a full attack at a -2 penalty to all combat maneuver checks - not though, to the normal attacks we make that round. As if that wasn't gravy enough, we also can use any maneuver like this, regardless of whether it would ordinarily require a standard action to use or replaces an attack.
The later abilities are not as essential. At third level, anyone who tries a maneuver for which you have the improved maneuver feat on you provokes AoO, even if they normally wouldn't. At fourth level, you can spend a ki-point before making a maneuver roll to roll twice and get the better result. At fifth level, you can use a swift action to add your wisdom modifier to a single maneuver check rolled that round. At 11th level, you can make two maneuvers as a standard action, either the same maneuver against two adjacent targets or two different maneuvers against a single target. I recommend dropping out at 4th the latest.
Combat expertise allows you subtract from your attack bonus and add to your AC. Not a terribly useful thing in general, but it might occasionally come in handy. It's main role and the reason why it's here is that it acts as a prerequisite for many nice maneuver feats including improved trip and greater trip. Normally, this feat requires an INT of 13, but thanks to the lore warden archetype, the Tripmeister doesn't have to be that smart.
Improved trip gives a +2 bonus to trip attempts and you no longer provoke attacks of opportunity for tripping, greater trip grants another +2 and people you trip now provoke attacks of opportunity.
Whip mastery makes the whip a weapon, rather than a toy. You no longer provoke AoO when using it, you can deal lethal damage and you can hurt people and things even if the are armored. That is very nice. But the real kicker comes with improved whip mastery, now you threaten an area equal to your natural reach plus 5 ft. Unless you are enlarged somehow, this will be ten feet, but you also threaten the squares next to you.
Races and Stats
The Tripmeister needs a high strength more than anything else. A high dexterity is useful for defense, initiative and we can use the fury's fall feat to add it to our CMB for tripping. constitution is important for everyone and the Tripmeister does no have heavy armor to back her up. Wisdom adds to will saves, stunning fist DC (which you will rarely use, but it could come up) and unarmored AC. Intelligence and charisma do nothing for you.
The priority of Wisdom depends on your party. If you have an arcane caster willing to lay mage armor on you, putting some points into wis can help with your AC early on, but in general, you are better off wearing a chain shirt.
STR -> DEX -> CON -> WIS -> INT -> CHA.
The issue of race is settled by the need for strength. Anything that gives a strength bonus is in, everything else is a third place runner up. Among races which add to strength, those that grant a useful bonus feat are preferred, as we have feat intensive build.
Humans grant extra skill points and bonus feat which can buy any of the first level feats we need.
Half-elves can use the ancestral weapons alternative racial trait to get exotic weapon proficiency (Whip), the also get elven immunities, a bonus of perception and low-light vision. Arguably better than an extra skill point.
Half Orcs have the beast master alternate racial trait which gives proficiency with whip and nets. They also bring ferocity, a bonus to intimidate and darkvision to the table.
Building the Build
This table lists the feats acquired at certain levels, bonus feats are always clustered at the end, non-feat abilities that are important are listed first and underlined. Feats are color coded to distinguish central feats, feats I don't think should be replaced and feats that could easily be replaced by something or other.
{table=head]Level|Class|Feats & Features
1|FIG1|1st: weapon focus(whip), bonus: exotic weapon proficiency (whip), combat reflexes
2|MNK1|flurry of maneuvers, bonus: improved trip, stunning fist, improved unarmed strike
3|FIG2|3rd: whip mastery, bonus: weapon expertise, power attack
4|FIG3|maneuver mastery +2
5|FIG4|5th: improved whip mastery, bonus: fury's fall
6|FIG5|weapon training I
7|FIG6|7th: improved dirty trick, bonus: greater trip
8|FIG7|maneuver mastery +4
9|MNK2|9th: greater whip mastery, bonus: improved grapple
10|FIG8|bonus: greater grapple
11|FIG9|weapon training II, 11th: sleeper hold,
12|FIG10|bonus: greater dirty trick
13|Fig11|maneuver mastery +6, 13th: Pin down,
14|Fig12|bonus: disruptive
15|Fig13|13th: spellbreaker, weapon training III
16|Fig14|bonus: teleport tactician
17|Fig15|maneuver mastery +8, 15th: penetrating strike,
18|MNK3|maneuver defense, maneuver training
19|MNK4|ki-pool, reliable maneuver, 17th: rapid grappler
20|Fig16|bonus: greater penetrating strike
[/table]
Commentary:
At first level, we have to bite the bullet and be less than stellar. You carry a whip around and trip people when you can, but once the meele is under way, you switch to you greatsword and start hacking away. A interesting alternative is to use a scorpion whip. It's an exotic light weapon with which you are automatically proficient if you are proficient with whips. EWP:whip also means you can use the scorpion whip as a whip and gain disarm, trip and the whip's reach property. The scorpion whip does lethal damage per default and is not made ineffectual by armor and it does 1d4 rather than 1d3 damage. It might even be a replacement for the whip in general, but only if the whip mastery feat chains works with it, too. The scorpion whip states that it can be used like a whip, but the whip mastery feats refer only to whips explicitly and it is up for discussion whether they should apply to the scorpion whip. I wouldn't allow it, but you DM might, so clarify that before you make this choice.
Second level bumps our saves nicely and gives us both improved trip and flurry of maneuvers. We can now trip twice a round and are better at it.
Third level is spring time for Tripmeister. Whip mastery allows us to use the whip in the thick of meele. From now on, the great sword is only for occasions that demand massive damage and only massive damage. As your whip gets more magical, those occasions will stop occasioning the great sword, which will fall behind in enchantment over the next few levels. As you focus more on the whip, start carrying backup whips for when you roll badly and have to drop your whip due to a failed trip. Consider holding a whip in each hand, so you don't have to draw one if you drop one. Note that this isn't two weapon fighting. Two weapon fighting only applies when you take an extra attack and you only have an off-hand weapon if you are two weapon fighting.
Power attack is your usual damage stand-by. Combat expertise is only for special occasions and of course a prerequisite for many maneuver feats.
Level four gives you +2 on CMB and CMD, you just got better at what you're good at.
Level five is happy time. Thanks to improved whip mastery, you threaten. You already have combat reflexes, so go fishing. Fury's fall adds your dex bonus to trip attempts. Thank you very much fury's fall.
The last level was such a great level, level six is kind of dull in comparison. You get weapon training I and if you've half a mind, you pick flails as your weapon type to train in. So now you get +1 to hit and damage with you whip. The +1 to hit also works on all maneuvers you perform with you whip.
The core of this build is done by level 7. You know have greater trip and tripping people makes them provoke AoO. Everything from here on out it is garnishing and gravy. Such as improved dirty trick. You get bonuses to maneuvers and dirty trick is very versatile. Given the description, it's pretty clear that you should be able to use dirty trick with you whip, hitting their eyes, painful spots, slicing their belts, twisting them to disorient them. Go wild, go crazy, stay safe.
Level 8 is boring but good. Another +2 to all maneuvers says that you get better and messing with people.
A second level of monk gives you a bonus feat, evasion and better saves. We pick improved grapple, because we just picked greater whip mastery for our regular feat and greater whip mastery allows you to grapple with you whip. It also means you will never drop your whip due to a failed trip again.
You now are great at grappling. This allows you to maintain the grapple as a move action - you can also use your flurry of maneuvers bonus maneuver to maintain a grapple, but greater grapple means that you can now move around while maintaining a grapple.
Sleeper hold is a nice little feat, particularly against opponents with low consitution. If you maintain a grapple for a number of rounds equal to their consitution bonus (minimum 1 round), they have to make a fortitude check (DC based on your strength), or fall unconscious for 1d4 rounds. You can keep attempting this if you keep maintaining your grapple and every round the DC increases. Welcome to your mage killer option. YOu also get weapon training II. For you second weapon group, pick bows. Not because it is particularly useful, but at least it might some times come into play.
Greater dirty trick makes you not provoke AoO even against adjacent targets, you also get a further bonus.
Pin down is a great feat if you have lots of threatened squares. If it didn't require 11 levels of fighter, we would have taken it long since. Now, people taking 5 ft steps or withdrawing from squares you threaten provoke AoO from you, which you can only use to make them stop moving. Now whenever anyone ends up in your threatend squares, between trip attempts and pin down, they'll have a really hard time getting out and away.
Disruptive makes it more difficult for opponents you threaten to cast defensively. Not a huge advantage at this level, but one of two prerequisites for teleport tactician.
Spellbreaker is the second prerequisite and it makes casters you threaten who fail their defensive casting check provoke AoO from you. Not bad, but probably not all that common an occasion. You also get your final dose of weapon training. I'd go with natural weapons, since maybe you want to hit someone with a stunning fist some day. Maybe.
Teleport tactician rounds out your lock down scheme. Now they can't walk, walk carefully or teleport around in you zone of control.
Penetrating strike comes around a bit late, but it comes at last. This should help with material based DR, for which you have no recourse.
The third monk level gives you an effective +1 to your CMB and the not overly helpful maneuver defense abillity.
The fourth level of monk gives you a ki-pool and the reliable maneuver ability. Rapid grappler gives you an extra grapple maneuver as a swift action if you use a move action to maintain a grapple.
Greater penetrating strike allows you to ignore 10 points of DR. Not a tremendous capstone, but you've had a lot of fun getting here.
The math
Here are the bonuses you get to trip people.
BAB +20
STR +x
DEX +y
improved trip +2
greater trip +2
man. mastery +8
weapon train. +3
weapon focus +1
If we assume a perfect situation, we have STR 36 and DEX 26. We get
BAB +20
STR +13
DEX +8
improved trip +2
greater trip +2
man. mastery +8
weapon train. +3
weapon focus +1
enhancement +5
-------------------
+62
The Tarasque has CMD of 66. Hence, you have a 80% chance to trip Godzilla. And you can roll twice and take the better result. I see some flattened landscape in the future. Remember, the taller they are, the harder they fall.
Variations
The above outline is just one realization of the Tripmeister approach. It is focussed on locking down opponents in a large area. In so far as any fighter can, it can stand up to casters. But there are of course variations, some not so good, others merely with a shifted focus.
We look first into alternative feats.
Dex based. The whip is finesseable, meaning you can get weapon finesse and agile maneuvers to key your attacks and CMB off dex. This is strictly a worse option than the above build, costing you two extra feat and leaving you without a viable damage potential with your whip until you get the agile enchanement on your whip. On the other hand, you can get you dex bonus twice to your CMB (the second one comes from fury's fall, which just adds a blank bonus based on your dex), allowing for an even higher trip bonus. This is interesting mostly if you are set on playing a race with a STR penalty or even a small race, which I cannot recommend, but if that's what you want, this is how you do it.
Two weapon fighting. You have the dex and your trip bonuses are good enough to survive another -2. I cannot recommend greater two weapon fighting, but if you take two weapon fighting, you probably also should take improved two weapon fighting.
Other maneuver feats. We've focussed on trip, grapple and dirty trick. The former two are supported by whip mastery and pretty useful, being arguably the best combat maneuvers available. Dirty trick was put in, because it so very versatile. But drag, reposition, bull-rush and disarm are all options if you want them.
YOu could also increase your damage potential by going the weapon specialisation route. You're dead set on whipping anyway, so why not whip up some specialisation bonuses?
Less thematically oriented Tripmeisters can of course use the large number of feats for other things. You could buy back your medium and heavy armor proficiencies or your shield proficiency or go over the top and play the tower shield and whip game. Since you have a high dex, mobility feats such as nimble moves are accessible. Toughness and the save feats are as desirable as ever, even though your monk levels give you better base saves than you'd have as just a fighter.
Ranged combat requires a lot of feats and but if you want to build up that option, you have the dexerity and strength to make it work. Since it requires switching weapons, consider quick draw.
Dodge, mobility, spring attack are good feats, but the help you very little. Your great reach makes the added mobility advantages mostly moot and spring attack means you can only take standart actions, hence not use flurry of maneuvers. I advise against it.
And some alternatives to the class set-up.
You could take the last two monk levels earlier, but I feel that maneuver mastery is much better than reliable maneuvers. You most likely don't have a very high wisdom and certainly not too many monk levels, meaning you have only very few ki-points and using a whip means you rarely will provide a killing blow or land a critical hit, giving you few opportunities to refill your ki.
You could take more monk levels. Again, I find that maneuver mastery is superior to what the maneuver master monk offers, but your mileage might vary and it is certainly feasible. You have to live with many fewer feats, but you get extra flurried maneuver attempts, ki-powers (some of which are quite good, check the Quing-Gong monk) and all the quirks of being a monk, such as three good save. You CMB doesn't suffer from this due to maneuver training, but you BAB does.
You could throw in a level of barbarian and spend some feats on extra rage. You would have to do this before you become a monk and you would have to switch alignment in between. Rage is nice and so is fast movement, though this character doesn't really need it. But it requires a large feat investment to keep rage viable, in particular because your combat style does not exactly speed up confrontations. And that means that it will take you longer to bring the build to fruition.
The pain taster prestige class gives nice bonuses, in particular a substantial +2d6 damage for your whip. It's a five level class that has endurance, die hard and great fortitude as prerequisites, so you might have to do a bit of shuffling to get the feats into the build. It's also associated with the drow and Zon-Kuthon in fluff.
Equipment that maketh the PC
You whip is your number one piece of equipment to enchant.
Get some elemental damage bonuses. Avoid the burst properties, though, you're not too likely to land crits.
Holy is also an excellent investment, since enemies are more often evil than not.
The dueling property gives a bonus to disarm and feint checks as well as initiative.
The dueling-FG property for the Pathfinder Society Field guide is much better. You pick a combat maneuver and the weapon grants twice it'S enhancement bonus as a luck bonus on the maneuver (meaning you get the enhancement bonus thrice) as well as CMD against the maneuver. This is an excellent enchantment for any variation of Tripmeister and at +1 it's a steal. You can get several versions for several different maneuvers, too.
Ghost touch. Ever wanted to trip an incorporeal creature? Here is your solution.
Ki-focus. You have stunning fist. This makes it useable.
Vorpal. Makes your vorpal whip go snicker snacker, off-with-the-header. The visuals for this must be amazingly painful.
Get a belt of giant strength. Switch to a belt of physical perfection or an item that increases only strength and dexterity if available. The rest is really optional. You're not so front-liney that you absolutely need the best armor, nor are your saves so horrible that you desperately need to have the best cloak of resistance. So go wild, go crazy, go dressed up.
Final Remarks
Well, I hope you've enjoyed my build and I hope it helps you with characters you might play in the future. If so, let me know how it played out. And if you've noticed any mistakes, please tell me.