Druid with Monk dip: improved grapple vs Stunning fist

[Hiro Quester]

I'm playing a druid who is taking a one level dip in monk next level-up (6th).

I know it nerfs the druid a bit, but that's the point. My druid character is getting a bit overpowered (especially now wildshape is available), and this will delay progression of some of the overpowered abilities (casting, wildshape, Animal Companion, Summoning).

The advantages are enough to make it fun to play


Wis to AC, even for touch and flat footed.
Unarmed strikes for animal forms, in addition to their natural attacks (all at -5 until I take Multi-attack). Kung Fu Panda! So in Melee as a brown bear I'd do an average of 33 damage, rather than 24 (extra d8+8; 1st Natural attack at half strength). This will scale well as BAB increases to get extra attacks. Even better with haste.
Even in animal forms without much in the way of natural weapons, e.g. while scouting as a bird or rat or dog, I'd still have flurry of blows and unarmed strikes. Imagine being able to hit, hard(ish) even in forms without much natural weaponry, sounds funny to play.
Flurry of blows with Quarterstaff, in Ape form (both monk and druid weapon of choice) with Shillelagh cast on it.
Unarmed strike dice increase by the size of the creature. So as I get large and then huge animal forms, the unarmed strikes get more powerful.


I have already discussed the idea of taking this option here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?390581-Druid-with-one-level-monk-dip). That's not the point right now.

The main question for this post is which bonus feat to take, improved grapple or stunning fist.

Improved grapple seems very useful. +4 to grapple checks is nothing to sneeze at. And in wildshape there are some options for excellent grapplers. Adding the +4 to the high grapple checks of a Brown bear's +12, or Dire bear's +14, or T-Rex's +17 seems gravy. Esp. if I add bear's strength and enlarge person adding further strength and size bonus to the grapple and Unarmed strike damage.

Plus the improved grapple check increases the chance of getting further damage with rake attacks (e.g. in big cat forms) in a grapple.

(I don't yet completely understand how damage works in a grapple if you have improved grab from animal form and a monk's improved unarmed strike, and natural weapons. Pointers there would be helpful, please.)

But stunning fist also seems to fit with the druid build. The DC for the Fort save is keyed to my main casting stat, and half character (not class) level. So the DC will continue to scale as I level and invest more in wisdom. Even at level 6, with 21 wis, the DC would be 19. At level 18, with Wis at +9 the DC would be 28.

Plus I get an extra use of Stunning Fist every four non-monk levels, so already 2/day at 6th level. 3/day at 9th level. Pouncing in on the enemy mage in tiger form, stunning him with the first unarmed strikes, and then wailing on him with further unarmed strikes, plus bite, claws and rake, and then doing that damage again next round (he does nothing in between, and now has lower AC) seems pretty good.

Which do you think is more useful? I have never played a character who grapples, nor who uses SF.

I'm leaning towards Improved grapple. You can grapple many many times a day, while SF is only a few times. It improves many of the best features of wildshape pouncers and grapplers.

[eggynack]

I'd go with improved grapple. You don't really get the AoO avoidance, because improved grab already does that, but the +4 is more meaningful than the occasional stunning. Wild shape just fits really well with grappling, even if summoning fits significantly better. It doesn't help that stunning fist doesn't seem to work directly with natural weapons, instead depending on your unarmed attacks.

[Troacctid]

Don't forget that you can also choose Dodge, Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Weapon Finesse, or Toughness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#monkVariantFightingSty les). And if you do pick Stunning Fist or Improved Grapple, there's no reason not to grab the free bonus to Balance or Tumble (respectively) to go with it.

[Hiro Quester]

It doesn't help that stunning fist doesn't seem to work directly with natural weapons, instead depending on your unarmed attacks.

But I think I'd use unarmed strike most times anyway.

The damage from monk unarmed strikes will be as good as or better than most animals' damage dice for natural attacks. US scales with size (d6 for medium, d8 large, etc). Even better with improved natural attack (unarmed strike). And better again with enlarge person.

So for a single primary attack I'd probably use unarmed strike.

As far as I understand it, a monk with natural weapons can make a full round attack with all US attacks first, and then attack with all natural weapons at full BAB-5 (-2 with multiattack).

This raises a question, though. If you hit with stunning fist on your first attack, and they fail the save, is the target stunned (-2 to AC) for the subsequent attacks in that round? That would be a bonus, too.

[Hiro Quester]

Don't forget that you can also choose Dodge, Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Weapon Finesse, or Toughness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#monkVariantFightingSty les). And if you do pick Stunning Fist or Improved Grapple, there's no reason not to grab the free bonus to Balance or Tumble (respectively) to go with it.

Oh, right. Alternative fighting styles. I forgot about those. I'm not sure the styles fit thematically. But the bonus to those (usually cross class skills) would be good.

Are any of those feats better for wildshaping druid?

[Troacctid]

Combat Reflexes is worth considering. It synergizes well with larger forms that have natural reach. (It's also good for builds that take Decisive Strike instead of Flurry of Blows, but Flurry of Blows seems nicer here.)

I think it's between Combat Reflexes and Improved Grapple. I'm not a fan of Stunning Fist with only one Monk level. Stunning is cool, and I'd like it if it were, like, a gestalt build with more Monk levels on the other side, but for a dip, the daily limit is just too strict.

[Taveena]

You can actually use your unarmed strikes in tandem with natural weapons, if they all become secondary. If you're a bear, you can have your attack routine be unarmed strike 15/10/5, bite 10, claw/claw 10/10.

Also worth looking up is the Martial Monk from Dragon Magazine #310, which trades the Monk bonus feat list for the Fighter bonus feat list.

[Crake]

I think stunning fist would synergise better with a druid, who naturally leans toward a higher wis. Improved grapple is nice for the +4 and all, but the rest of it, such as being able to initiate a grapple without provoking, isn't really an issue when you have creature forms that have improved grab anyway. That and the fact that you can get improved grapple whenever you feel like it, but stunning fist, not so much.

[Bronk]

I think that if you're trying to purposely nerf your druid character, I'd go with stunning fist.

For one thing, as you mentioned, your level 6 character would only have two uses of it. Also, there are fewer things that use it as a power source... basically there is a feat that burns one use to add 1d6 fire to your attacks for a round, and another to turn your fists to iron for +1d6 damage for a round. (They would indeed be stunned for a full round if they failed their save against the stunning fist, so would incur the penalties for the full round.)

If you went with improved grappling, you would immediately get that +4 bonus, which would make you as good at grappling as if you had gotten Large Wild Shape early. You'd then probably wild shape into something strong with a powerful primary natural attack, which gets 1.5 times the strength bonus as opposed to the monk's 1X strength bonus to their unarmed attacks.

The thing about grappling though is that the rules are complicated, so they don't get used as much. However, assuming you're in a party, the other members can finish off whoever you're grappling with no penalties to hit or miss chances and such, so all your grapples might very well only last the one round.

As an aside, as a 5th level druid, you can already use Summon Nature's Ally to conjure up several large creatures or a constrictor snake to do all the grappling for you...

[Hiro Quester]

Combat Reflexes is worth considering. It synergizes well with larger forms that have natural reach. (It's also good for builds that take Decisive Strike instead of Flurry of Blows, but Flurry of Blows seems nicer here.)

I think it's between Combat Reflexes and Improved Grapple. I'm not a fan of Stunning Fist with only one Monk level. Stunning is cool, and I'd like it if it were, like, a gestalt build with more Monk levels on the other side, but for a dip, the daily limit is just too strict.

Good point. I hadn't considered the reach advantages in terms of attacks of opportunity. Combat reflexes could be useful there.

And having a tripper Animal Companion, and being able to summon trippers to flank with me also makes those AOOs come more often. Hmmm....

The daily limit on SF isn't great. But it isn't terrible. 2 with my first monk level (6th), then a 3rd at 9, 4 at level 13, and 5/day at level 17. And the DC does scale up well enough, I guess.

But grappling can lock down some Bad Guys almost as well as stunning, right? I haven't grappled much yet (just summoned. To odorless to do it for me). But I expect that when grappling I can ready my action to take actions for further damage when the wizard I grapple trys to cast while grappled) to cause damage and make them blow the required concentration check.

I'm not sure I yet understand the mechanics of grappling, what one can do within a grapple. But grappling seems like something a druid can be very good at, with minimal investment past this initial monk dip.

[Chronos]

For an ordinary monk, I would recommend Stunning Fist, since it gives them a new option, and they're never going to be all that great at grappling anyway.

For a monk/druid, though, I'd definitely go with Improved Grapple. Most of the best animal forms already have some sort of grapple-related tricks, and you'll often be Large or larger, so you'll be playing to your strengths. And if you want to drop a save-or-suck occasionally, you can already do that anyway, with your spells.

[Flickerdart]

Oh, right. Alternative fighting styles. I forgot about those. I'm not sure the styles fit thematically. But the bonus to those (usually cross class skills) would be good.

Are any of those feats better for wildshaping druid?
Combat Expertise is decent, especially if you're planning to nerf yourself - without Wildling Clasps it can be hard to have a good AC in animal form. The WIS to AC definitely helps, but why not raise that some more? There are also neat options like Improved Trip or Deadly Defense that CE unlocks.

Power Attack is also a decent choice to crank up your natural attack damage. Weapon Finesse is very useful if you intend to turn into forms like Dire Weasel.

[Hiro Quester]

Combat Expertise is decent, especially if you're planning to nerf yourself - without Wildling Clasps it can be hard to have a good AC in animal form. The WIS to AC definitely helps, but why not raise that some more? There are also neat options like Improved Trip or Deadly Defense that CE unlocks.

Power Attack is also a decent choice to crank up your natural attack damage. Weapon Finesse is very useful if you intend to turn into forms like Dire Weasel.

I'm not really looking to nerf the druid. But perhaps add melee options at the expense of slower progression of some druid features.

Combat expertise and power attack are good options. My hesitation is that my BAB isn't going to ever be great (I don't know how anyone plays a straight monk for this reason). And flurry of blows already traders a -2 to attack for an extra unarmed strike. So lowering attack bonuses further for extra damage and extra AC doesn't seem that worth it.

The possibilities of long reach with a huge or larger firm are attractive for combat reflexes. But again, one attack probably isn't going to be optimized for large damage.

Grapple is almost entirely governed by aspects I can control, though: the strength and size of the animal form I take, and its abilities (pounce and rake, improved grab, swallow whole).

I think I'm going to go that way.

[Metahuman1]

I'd honestly go with improved grapple if it was me.

Oh, and when you do Ape + Quarter Staff trick, don't forget, Brambles as well as Shillelagh.

[Hiro Quester]

I'd honestly go with improved grapple if it was me.

Oh, and when you do Ape + Quarter Staff trick, don't forget, Brambles as well as Shillelagh.

Oooooh.... I hadn't noticed how brambles and shilelagh work well together. And spikes. It's a shame that's not in our (mostly core) books.

But I figued out that even at sixth level, with only baboon shape, by grabbing a medium quarterstaff and then getting the party wizard to use the wand of enlarge person wand I bougt him on me, then casting shilelagh on the large club I'd then be wielding, I'd be effectively wielding a gargantuan quarterstaff, and able to use flurry of blows for something like 3d6+6/hit.

Adding another +6 onto that, or +12 with spikes, would have been awesome. Oh well. For a 2 1/2 foot forest gnome with 8 str, that's going to feel mighty powerful.

[eggynack]

You shouldn't worry too much about it. Brambles and spikes are kinda mediocre compared to shillelagh, with higher spell level, much shorter duration, and comparable impact. Consider, brambles is a second level spell that you'd be casting in the middle of combat for an extra five damage at level six, as the first point would be subsumed by shillelagh. If you cast spikes instead, then now you get that plus a point of to-hit and an increased threat range for another spell level, which is probably even less worth it. You'd be better off just using shillelagh, or maybe passing up on the whole thing for deinonychus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#deinonychus) form, which I think is the best combat option at level six.