Unarmed Style Choice (Low-op)

[Meth In a Mine]

Hey all, I was looking to make a wrestler-style combatant, but I don't know what class to pick for the job. After consulting with my GM, he gave me a couple options. First is monk, obviously, and he mentioned a Tetori Wrestler archetype, or possibly the natural-weapon fighter archetype. He also suggested the Brawler hybrid class, and he agreed with my choice to go for the Reaping Mauler PrC. All of these options look good, but I don't know which would be more effective at the grappling style of combat. I was wondering if anyone could help me out here.

Thanks in advance.

[Psyren]

If you want a grappler without magic/psionics, Tetori or Brawler are your best bets. Tetori in particular is useful because you gain the grab ability, meaning you can make free grapple checks as part of your normal attacks.

Brawler is... okay, but Tetori gets just about every advantage it gets and more besides since you want to focus on grappling.

[Urpriest]

Which edition are you talking about? You're listing both 3.5 and PF content, but since grappling changed dramatically between the two, if you're playing 3.P you need to tell us which set of rules you're using for grappling.

[Larkas]

Let me dispel any confusion upfront: are you talking Pathfinder? 3.P?

[HammeredWharf]

Do yourself a favor and ignore Reaping Mauler. It requires you to be medium-sized, so it actually makes you worse at grappling.

[shylocke]

Do yourself a favor and ignore Reaping Mauler. It requires you to be medium-sized, so it actually makes you worse at grappling.

But its abilities are still entertaining when you win a grapple.

[Hiro Protagonest]

But its abilities are still entertaining when you win a grapple.

Replace when with if.

[shylocke]

Replace when with if.

Well... If its its a low power campaign with a level cap there shouldn't be a problem.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Ehh if you take as light detour into Leviathan Hunter (Stormwrack) you can get Clever Wrestling as a bonus feat "even if you don't meet the pre-requisites" allowing you to get into Reaping Mauler and still retaining the possibility of being larger than medium.

Not that Reaping Mauler is good.

[HammeredWharf]

Oh, didn't know about Leviathan Hunter. It's a bit better than... well, being awful, I suppose. Since it looks like 3.5 material is allowed, I'd take one goliath barbarian racial substitution level and some swordsage levels for Crushing Weight of the Mountain. You'll count as huge for grappling and deal not-awful damage while at it. I'm not sure if that's low op or not.

So, maybe Tetori 9 / Goliath barbarian 1 / Swordsage 1? I'm not sure what you'll do afterwards. You can't take any more monk levels because of alignment restrictions, but could take a level of ranger and enter the leviathan hunter / reaping mauler tunnel. That'll get you to ECL 20, but I'm not entirely sure how good a build it is, because I'm not a Pathfinder pro.

[Zetapup]

Totemist going into Black Blood Cultist is pretty good. Attacking with all your natural attacks every time you succeed in a grapple? Yes please. If you think Totemist is too powerful for this, you could go into black blood cultist through barbarian/chaos monk or something similar (black blood cultist requires rage, unfortunately, so you can't be a normal monk because they require lawful and barbarian requires chaotic. Also, black blood cultist requires an evil alignment so you may want to talk to your dm about waiving that).

I'd say that size increases are more important than reaping mauler. They give you a huge bonus to grapple and it can be challenging to grapple at higher levels without being larger size. If you can find a way to be larger than medium size and still qualify for reaping mauler, great. Otherwise, eh.

[Meth In a Mine]

Let me dispel any confusion upfront: are you talking Pathfinder? 3.P?

You are correct. I should have specified, we are playing PF, but 3.5 content is pretty much all allowed, except for things that don't transfer over well like Extend Rage.
My bad.

EDIT: I don't know about any sort of level cap we have, but I suppose we would keep going until we hit 20, unless the DM has something special in mind for epic levels (hopefully NOT the ELHB...)

[Gavinfoxx]

Which set of grappling rules takes precedence?

[Meth In a Mine]

Which set of grappling rules takes precedence?

Pathfinder's CMB/CMD system for its simplicity takes precedence.

[Gavinfoxx]

Got a few handbooks for ya.

http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/2109491

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=585.0

They are 3.5e though, dunno about PF grappling... I think PF nerfed a lot of grappling rules, making it wayyyy less useful?

[Gemini476]

Got a few handbooks for ya.

http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/2109491

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=585.0

They are 3.5e though, dunno about PF grappling... I think PF nerfed a lot of grappling rules, making it wayyyy less useful?

It's kind of hopelessly difficult to beat the CMD of larger enemies, yeah. Which is a problem, since once you get to higher levels most enemies will be larger than you.

You can do it, IIRC, but I'm not entirely sure if it's actually worth it.

[Larkas]

It's kind of hopelessly difficult to beat the CMD of larger enemies, yeah. Which is a problem, since once you get to higher levels most enemies will be larger than you.

You can do it, IIRC, but I'm not entirely sure if it's actually worth it.

Not only that. Grapple was an attack in 3.5. They changed it to a standard action in PF. Not to mention the changes to the pinned condition.

[Psyren]

Tetori deals with both of those issues; The grab ability staples grapple back onto your normal attack routine, and it allows you to use it against creatures larger than you as well.

[EugeneVoid]

+1 Black Blood Cultist.
Natural entry is barbarian so high strength for grappling.

Savage grapple lets you rip things to shreds.
Because this is low-op, just don't go Primeval, Bear Warrior, or anything that gives you natural weapons. Maybe FotF for bite/claw.

[Gemini476]

Tetori deals with both of those issues; The grab ability staples grapple back onto your normal attack routine, and it allows you to use it against creatures larger than you as well.

When I was talking about larger opponents I was more meaning the quadratic size bonuses to CMD - +8 for Colossal, for instance.

CMB: BAB+Str+Size+4 (Greater Grapple)
CMD: BAB+Str+Dex+Size

You're probably going to lose out a bit to larger opponents, according to the guidelines (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/monster-creation) - here's a little list:

CMD
Medium: BAB
Large: BAB+4-1+1=BAB+4
Huge: BAB+8-2+2=BAB+8
Gargantuan: BAB+12-2+4=BAB+16
Colossal: BAB+16-2+8=BAB+24
That's for a stock, by-the-guidelines block of Monster-brand tofu, of course, but still. Given that you'll be unlikely to be larger than Large, I'd reckon that against the largest enemies it ends up as BAB+Str vs. BAB+19 (vs. BAB+11 for Gargantuan).


I haven't actually checked through the Bestiary for creatures that will mess you up specifically, but I would not personally take a focused grappler up to level 20. Maybe 13-ish or so, but not 20.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Didn't PF reduce the size bonus to combat maneuvers?

[Urpriest]

I'm going to echo what some of the others are saying. It's impossible to be a competitive PF grappler without Tetori. You can throw in Black Blood Cultist as well, but you need that Tetori base in order to do anything meaningful.

[Psyren]

When I was talking about larger opponents I was more meaning the quadratic size bonuses to CMD - +8 for Colossal, for instance.

CMB: BAB+Str+Size+4 (Greater Grapple)
CMD: BAB+Str+Dex+Size

You're probably going to lose out a bit to larger opponents, according to the guidelines (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/monster-creation) - here's a little list:

CMD
Medium: BAB
Large: BAB+4-1+1=BAB+4
Huge: BAB+8-2+2=BAB+8
Gargantuan: BAB+12-2+4=BAB+16
Colossal: BAB+16-2+8=BAB+24
That's for a stock, by-the-guidelines block of Monster-brand tofu, of course, but still. Given that you'll be unlikely to be larger than Large, I'd reckon that against the largest enemies it ends up as BAB+Str vs. BAB+19 (vs. BAB+11 for Gargantuan).


I haven't actually checked through the Bestiary for creatures that will mess you up specifically, but I would not personally take a focused grappler up to level 20. Maybe 13-ish or so, but not 20.

Tetori combines with Qinggong, which gets you access to both True Strike and Quicken SLA for an easy guaranteed grapple when you need it against something particularly large. Once you have them in your grip, you get a +4 to maintain and they get -2 due to the dex penalty from the grappled condition, nullifying even a Colossal size bonus almost completely.

Furthermore, you get to roll twice to maintain each round and only need to succeed at one to keep the grapple going, plus you get constrict damage on each successful roll.

[Big Fau]

Well... If its its a low power campaign with a level cap there shouldn't be a problem.

By the time you get into the PrC to make use of those abilities most enemies from the MMs will have Grapple modifiers healthily higher than your's unless you pump it to the point that you've crippled your character whenever he isn't grappling.