Unarmed dragon build

[Shadowscale]

I was interested in making a character that specializes in powers typically associated with dragons as well as unarmed fighting. My idea to accomplish such was unchained monk1/bloodrager Blood Conduit (white dragon) 5/Dragon disciple10 then probably finishing the rest off with more bloodrager.

My question to the playground, is any of this at all optimal and if not how would I go about making it better whist still trying to use the same classes. Any ideas for feats or anything I should be taking as well or magic items to look out for?

All help would be appreciated.

[Florian]

I was interested in making a character that specializes in powers typically associated with dragons as well as unarmed fighting. My idea to accomplish such was unchained monk1/bloodrager Blood Conduit (white dragon) 5/Dragon devotee 10 then probably finishing the rest off with more bloodrager.

My question to the playground, is any of this at all optimal and if not how would I go about making it better whist still trying to use the same classes. Any ideas for feats or anything I should be taking as well or magic items to look out for?

All help would be appreciated.

That´s... not so good nor is it in any way efficient.

The boon of a good natural attack based build is the sheer number of attacks that you have at lower levels. That boon will drop around level 10 when weapon classes and their iterative attacks will catch up and be better at it. So Hyde-builds compensate by putting Greater Invis. and sneak attack in there.

Your build gains fewer natural attacks, at a level equal to iterative attacks and has very sub-par spell casting on top of it.

[Psyren]

Doesn't Dragon Devotee only have 5 levels? Or did you mean Dragon Disciple?

[Shadowscale]

Doesn't Dragon Devotee only have 5 levels? Or did you mean Dragon Disciple?

I did actually, I always confuse those two let me edit it.
help would still be appreciated as I'vent really any help yet it appears.

[Florian]

help would still be appreciated as I'vent really any help yet it appears.

AFB right now, but consider this: Magus (Eldritch Scion/Esoteric) VMC Monk into Dragon Disciple.
Arcana should go into Ki Arcana, feat-wise it´s Power Attack and that feat that lets natural weapon count for monk damage increase.
Should get you dragon-y soon enough and at least keeps up a bit of useful spellcasting.

[Shadowscale]

AFB right now, but consider this: Magus (Eldritch Scion/Esoteric) VMC Monk into Dragon Disciple.
Arcana should go into Ki Arcana, feat-wise it´s Power Attack and that feat that lets natural weapon count for monk damage increase.
Should get you dragon-y soon enough and at least keeps up a bit of useful spellcasting.

Thank you, I never thought of that. That seems to be a much more solid build actually.

[Psyren]

I'm honestly not sure what monk is adding to this except a bunch of restrictions you don't need. If you must dip a punching class, I would dip Brawler instead - this lets you at least wear light or medium armor, plus you can still cast all your spells while wearing it. Or dip Unarmed Fighter for IUS and a free style feat.

[Florian]

I'm honestly not sure what monk is adding to this except a bunch of restrictions you don't need. If you must dip a punching class, I would dip Brawler instead - this lets you at least wear light or medium armor, plus you can still cast all your spells while wearing it. Or dip Unarmed Fighter for IUS and a free style feat.

That´s more about maximizing the arcane pool. Ki Arcana lets you stack up both pools. ES blood rage is fired with the Arcane Pool, so pure profit here.

[Psyren]

That´s more about maximizing the arcane pool. Ki Arcana lets you stack up both pools. ES blood rage is fired with the Arcane Pool, so pure profit here.

I was actually talking about the original version of the build there (OP's Monk/Bloodrager, rather than your VMC Monk/Magus.)

One issue with the VMC monk version is that you have to go unarmored to keep the ki pool:


Armor: At 1st level, he loses all his secondary monk abilities when wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load.

On top of which you get no AC bonus until 15th.

[Florian]

I was actually talking about the original version of the build there (OP's Monk/Bloodrager, rather than your VMC Monk/Magus.)

One issue with the VMC monk version is that you have to go unarmored to keep the ki pool:



On top of which you get no AC bonus until 15th.

My guess is, because the original build uses (Un)Monk, that its about the extra attack from flurry for level 1.

As for VMC Monk, you´re right up to a point. You don´t lose access to armor and you don´t have to go unarmored until you get some things up and running. That doesn´t hinder the Ki Pool at all and that simply is the main attraction here. But honestly, I´m not averse to just buying a wand of Mage Armor and Shield, cheap and sufficient for quite some levels, at least until the natural armor and such things start to crop up.