Fist of the Forest - simple outline

[Heatwizard]

I'm relieving the current DM to take a shot at the head chair myself. Eberron, anything goes, though the nature of the players is zero-op. Two who were just introduced to tabletop, one who's fresh from fourth, and the DM who...isn't going to be a threat. I called the frontliner role early, since it's the Hard One To Do, and he suggested Monk to me. I'm really not trying to sound condescending, but...there's your point of reference.

I drive one of the group home afterwards, and I like to build characters so I tend to ramble about that. He's angling to play a fist-fighter, though he paid attention to my disjointed babblings long enough to pick up that Monk is a poorly designed class; I mentioned the couple of ways I remembered off-hand to make a healthy hand-to-hand combatant, and he was interested in Fist of the Forest.




SO. Now that the story's over, let's get to brass tacks: I'm trying to avoid building everyone's characters FOR them (because I'll do it if left unchecked) but I want to help point this guy up the path of 'Decent Puncher'. I don't know squat about unarmed, I'm more of a greatsword kind of guy, so I could use a hand wrapping my mind around the options.

No competition; don't get cut-throat, just give me the staples so he doesn't fall behind. Let's not dip, please.
Eberron, all books. (I know I said these already, but I know how people hate to read threads so I might as well make it easy)
Tenative party is a Bug-themed Druid, swashbuckler pirate (may not be Swashbuckler the class, didn't ask), and a non-committed; either a Sorcerer, a Cleric, or a Paladin apparently.
Fist of the Forest is necessary, though given that it's good it's not much of a restriction. I'm waiving the Great Fortitude prereq, so he can get in by 4th no matter what he goes with.
He doesn't seem particularly interested in Swordsage, but I could be mistaken. I intend to bring it up again, but let's appraise our other options.
My kneejerk reaction is to suggest Barbarian; thematically appropriate, rage is useful. Barb rage and FotF trance stack, right? Any feats to get these two to play nice?
Is Ranger worth thinking about? A handful of spells might serve him well, but MAD will rear its head.
Any tricks to keep unarmed fighters doing well that I can implement behind the screen? Types of enemies I should think carefully about deploying?
Bonus Round: I intend to deliver him a magic weapon (those bandages you wrap around your wrists and knuckles) at some point. Any enchantments that are particularly fun for an unarmed fighter?

You can post whole builds, just don't knock yourself out doing so; any input I give is going to be vague.

[Aeryr]

Barbarian and fist of the forest play together nicely. I suggest adding frostrager, from frostburn, it can be found online but I cannot access wizard webpage at work (just google it).

So some ideas
-Check totems (UA) and Spiritual totems (CC): Personally I like wolf totem and spirit lion totem. But the bear totem might also be worthwile.

-Check the different rages: Ferocity (CS web enhancement) or Whirling Frenzy (UA) specially. The first increases dex, in case you like it, and the second gives you an extra attack.

-Check prestige classes that will improve your unarmedness, like bear warrior (being a bear is awesome) or frostrager that gives you more attacks and more damage with unarmed attacks.

-For weapon enhancement I am AFB but isn't there a weapon enhancement at MIC that increases the duration of a barbarian's rage? That could be woth it.

[Dumbledore lives]

There are some good unarmed feats from ToB, namely Superior Unarmed Strike and Snap Kick. Combined with Frostrager and Fist of the Forest and Whirling Frenzy you can get a hell of a lot of attacks for decent damage if you have good strength.

My favorite unarmed build is Fighter 2/Barbarian 2/Fist of the Forest 2/Frostrager 2, though it might be a little dip heavy for you. If I where to finish the build I'd finish FotF and Frostrager, then maybe get some Frenzied Berserker for awesome power attack.

[Taelas]

My favorite Fist of the Forest build is Barbarian/FotF/Bear Warrior. Cuz nothing says "Decent Puncher" like KUNG FU BEAR!

Get Superior Unarmed Strike and Snap Kick as mentioned above, and a fanged ring (which gives you Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike), and increases your damage by one step). Once you're a Bear, get Multiattack too.

A monk will look like a slow attacker compared to you! At BAB 16+, you'll have 5 unarmed strikes and 3 natural attacks. With Multiattack, the penalty on the natural attacks is -4 (due to Snap Kick) and -2 on the Unarmed Strikes, so before Str, you'd look at +14/+14/+12/+12/+12/+9/+4/-1. Compare that to the 16th level Monks (+12/+12/+12/+7/+2). The monk of course does unarmed damage on all of them, but it's still in the FotF's favor.

[Talya]

There's an "urban brawler" barbarian variant in a dragon magazine somewhere that is absolutely perfect for setting up FotF mechanically (although the "urban" part of the fluff seems to contrast the nature-focus of FotF a lot.) Apart from giving you Improved Unarmed Strike without taking a feat, it also gives you TWF for unarmed strikes only (and some DMs will -- in my view, incorrectly -- view it as the only way to get TWF for unarmed strikes.)

[Darrin]

Now that the story's over, let's get to brass tacks: I'm trying to avoid building everyone's characters FOR them (because I'll do it if left unchecked)


I have this problem as well. Is there such a thing as Over-Optimizers Anonymous?




My kneejerk reaction is to suggest Barbarian; thematically appropriate, rage is useful. Barb rage and FotF trance stack, right? Any feats to get these two to play nice?



No need for feats... they play nice pretty much right out of the box.

I like Wolf Totem Barbarian 2, which gets Improved Trip without wasting a feat on Combat Expertise. Trip is your basic bread-and-butter debuff for meatbags. If you can get your unarmed damage up to around 10 per hit, then Knock-Down (SRD version, in the Divine section) makes a nifty attack-trip-attack combo.

You can also swap fast movement for Spirit Lion Totem pounce. Melee needs some sort of pounce to stay relevant, unarmed scrappers even moreso. And if anyone complains about having more than one totem, just ask them if they've ever seen a totem pole with only one animal.

At the very least, I'd grab one level of Barbarian for Spirit Lion Totem and Whirling Frenzy. (I *hate* how standard rage mucks up your Con with "fake HPs".)




Is Ranger worth thinking about? A handful of spells might serve him well, but MAD will rear its head.



Ranger hardly ever needs more than 14 Wisdom. If Spell Compendium is available, then yes, ranger spells are worth it, but even with just core, you can hand them a wand of cure light wounds and they can be a back-up out-of-combat healer in a pinch.

Even better, though, we can use Frostblood Orc/Half-Orc to get Improved Natural Attack at 4th level. Frostblood Orcs get Endurance as a bonus feat, but if they get Endurance later (such as from a class feature), they can take any other feat they qualify for. So if you're taking at least three levels of Ranger, you can treat this as sort of a "human bonus feat", but you can delay when you take Ranger 3 to cherry-pick some feats with annoyingly bizarre prereqs.

1) Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian 1. Feat: Improved Unarmed Strike.
2) Ranger 1.
3) Ranger 2. Feat: Superior Unarmed Strike. Strong-Arm Combat Style: Power Attack (Dragon #326)
4) Ranger 3. Endurance -> Improved Natural Attack.
5) Fist of the Forest 1.
6) Fist of the Forest 2. Feat: Snap Kick.




Any tricks to keep unarmed fighters doing well that I can implement behind the screen? Types of enemies I should think carefully about deploying?



Just be careful about DR, which tends to bone unarmed strikes more than most other weapons. And make sure you "drop" items to shore up their weaknesses.

I like to make sure there are plenty of potions/oils to get around DR, like ghost oil, silversheen, oil of align weapon, etc. Necklace of Natural Weapons can help with the enchantment issue. Wyrmfang Amulet or Dragonfang Gauntlets for DR/magic. Ring of Adamantine Touch and Golembane Scarab for dealing with golems.




Bonus Round: I intend to deliver him a magic weapon (those bandages you wrap around your wrists and knuckles) at some point. Any enchantments that are particularly fun for an unarmed fighter?



Well, depending whether you interpret "unarmed strike" as a multitude of striking surfaces or one single body-wide striking surface, Sizing and Hideaway may lead to the most bizarre results: Monk is now colossal-sized! Monk folds up into Samus' Morphball!

Metalline and Transmuting are probably the best for bypassing DR, but you'll probably get much better mileage out of something that just adds damage, like frost/flaming/shock/corrosive. Corrosive would probably be best, since you can get frost/flaming/sonic from spells, and shock from Bracers of Lightning.

I'm rather partial to Torturous (+1/+2 enhancement, Ghostwalk p. 64): every hit, target must save vs. stun for 1 round. DC is only 12, which is kinda meh, but everybody rolls a 1 eventually, and you can increase the DC to 17 if you pay for the +2 enhancement upgrade. Sudden Stunning and the various Surges (DMGII) are cheap and a great way to buff up lackluster unarmed strike damage.

[Darth Stabber]

My kneejerk reaction is to suggest Barbarian; thematically appropriate, rage is useful. Barb rage and FotF trance stack, right? Any feats to get these two to play nice?
Bonus Round: I intend to deliver him a magic weapon (those bandages you wrap around your wrists and knuckles) at some point. Any enchantments that are particularly fun for an unarmed fighter?

There is a 3.0 magic item (in savage species) that adds magical properties to natural weapons (unarmed strikes count): amulet of natural weapons. It's not perfect, but it does do the job.

FotF trance and Barb Rage explicitly stack.

Urban, Spirit Lion Totem, Wolf Totem, whirling frenzy Barbarian5/FotF3/frost rager5/bear warrior5/warshaper2?

Gives you all sorts of neat toys, though I would normally do this in a different order, this order fits the idea a little closer. Besides, who doesn't want to be an angry ice bear.

[Darrin]

There is a 3.0 magic item (in savage species) that adds magical properties to natural weapons (unarmed strikes count): amulet of natural weapons.


Nitpick: Necklace of Natural Weapons. It was also posted online (and thus considered "updated" for some 3.5 purists) under a slightly different name, Necklace of Natural Attacks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060707a).

[ForgottenCode]

I think my two favourite Fist of the Forest builds would be either a

Half Orc Overwhelming Attack Monk 3/Fist of the Forest 3/Half-Orc Paragon 3/Bear Warrior 10/Warshaper 1, because it amuses me immensely to get a LG character who can erupt in a rage and turn into a crazy attacking bear.

or

Bear Totem Barbarian 3/First of the Forest 3/Bear Totem Barbarian 2/Primeval 10/Warshaper 2.

[Andorax]

Eberron, you say? Well, aside from the aforementioned Superior Unarmed Strike mentioned from Tome of Battle, I'd like to draw you to another feat that would be interesting and applicable:

Dragon 355: Beast Strike. (BAB +5, Improved Unarmed Strike, either a claw or slam attack)

Add your claw or slam damage to your unarmed strike or grapple damage.


Now, since this is Eberron, the next step along this chain is...Shifter. Shifter Barbarian/Fist of the Forest with Superior Unarmed Strike that tacks Shift-provided claw damage on top of that.

Very thematic, very in-line with the setting...not world-breaking, but genuinely workable.