Unarmed Skillmonkey Challenge

[Ethernil]

As per the title post builds for skill monkey characters whose main combat style is unarmed. Be it pure unarmed damage and size boosting, grappling-tripping-disarming, buffing himself with spells etc. I know that psionic monk is probably the strongest but no psionics allowed in this build. Also transforming him/herself is fair play as long as the combat is with unarmed strikes and not other natural weapons (claws etc). Preferably one that is playable in all phases of the game instead of just in high levels.

[Gildedragon]

If pathfinder is allowed:
Sohei-Master of Many Styles 2
Factotum 8

Feats:
Knowledge devotion
Nymph's Kiss (ASAP)
Kirin Style feat chain
Kung Fu Genius or Carmendine Monk
Keen Intellect
Item Familiar if possible

[Seppo87]

Unarmed Swordsage, Swashbuckler 3, get Daring Outlaw through Assassin's Stance.

Swordsage gives you 6 skill points per level, Swashbuckler gives you 4 but it's just 3 levels.

Go with Dex as your primary stat but try to keep INT at a decent value, it will give you more damage and more skill points.

[AnimeTheCat]

Monk 4/Ninja X with the Ascetic Stalker feat will grant you scaling unarmed damage, good skills, great supernatural abilities (Ninja Ki powers), great skill-monkey skills, +1/+1 flurry, and lots of other really neat stuff. Here's my general recommended build using a 32 point buy system:

Human Ninja 1/Monk 4/Ninja X
Str - 10
Dex - 16
Con - 12
Int - 14
Wis - 16
Cha - 8

depending on the roll you want to take you either put your point in to str, dex, or int.

Feats:
Human: Combat Expertise
1st: Improved Trip
Monk 1: Improved Unarmed Strike
Monk 1: Stunning Fist
3rd: Weapon Finesse
Monk 2: Deflect Arrows
6th: Ascetic Stalker

From there, do as you please. At sixth level this nets you:
Ki Pool: 6 points
Unarmed Damage: 1d8
Ki Strike: Magic
Flurry of Blows: +1/+1
Evasion
Still Mind (+2 vs enchantments)
Slow Fall 20 ft.
Ghost Step (invisibility)
Sudden Strike +1d6
trapfinding

and as you level up in Ninja you get a bigger ki pool, more unarmed damage, and better Ki Strikes. You have to stay lawful, but you can cross class freely between ninja and monk as you please, each giving you ki pool, unarmed damage, and ki strike progression. On top of all of that, you can kick, trip, grapple (if you want).

[Troacctid]

How about Domain Wizard (Cold) into Urban Savant with Greater Mighty Wallop-powered Improved Unarmed Strikes delivering Chill Touch spells to make a zillion unarmed attacks as a standard action?


Unarmed Swordsage, Swashbuckler 3, get Daring Outlaw through Assassin's Stance.

Swordsage gives you 6 skill points per level, Swashbuckler gives you 4 but it's just 3 levels.

Go with Dex as your primary stat but try to keep INT at a decent value, it will give you more damage and more skill points.
Swashbuckler seems way worse than just taking more swordsage. All it does is lose two initiator levels, reduce your unarmed damage dice, and make you more MAD.

[Seppo87]

Swashbuckler seems way worse than just taking more swordsage. All it does is lose two initiator levels, reduce your unarmed damage dice, and make you more MAD.
Technically, benefitting from multiple stats doesn't make you mad - D stands for dependency while this combination simply adds some damage from a secondary stat that would not be dumped anyway
The point is the free weapon finesse and the fact that With Daring Outlaw and zero rogue levels, Swashbuckler gives 2d6 sneak attack at LV3.
Int to dmg is just a plus, since you're going to have somewhere between 12-14 INT at lv1, up to 18-20 later (belt of magnificence) it's not like +4-5 dmg per hit would suck on top of the sneak attack and free finesse.
All in all, it's a good dip.
Getting sneak attack is good because you can take Staggering Strike and use it outside of assassin's stance, freeing up your stance slot for something better.
Use Distracting ember and you flank whenever you feel like it.

I would actually even add a barbarian1 (ferocity variant + lion totem) to the mix.
Gets BaB 16, pounce, lots of extra damage while raging, 9th lv maneuvers, minimum investment.

Something like Ss1, Sb3, brb1, ss15.

Imho, better than straight up swordsage.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Cloistered cleric with the Kobold and Trickery domain is pretty nice. Maybe add human and Nymph's Kiss, if required (explain that you're a CG diplomat to some copper kobolds). Ordained champion can get you extra attack power, if needed.

[Psyren]

Ninja VMC Monk would be my choice. You'll get great unarmed skills and your ki pool doubles at 11th level.

[Troacctid]

Technically, benefitting from multiple stats doesn't make you mad - D stands for dependency while this combination simply adds some damage from a secondary stat that would not be dumped anyway
The point is the free weapon finesse and the fact that With Daring Outlaw and zero rogue levels, Swashbuckler gives 2d6 sneak attack at LV3.
Int to dmg is just a plus, since you're going to have somewhere between 12-14 INT at lv1, up to 18-20 later (belt of magnificence) it's not like +4-5 dmg per hit would suck on top of the sneak attack and free finesse.
All in all, it's a good dip.

It's not free—it's actually pretty expensive, since you're spending class levels on it. And you don't get any sneak attack damage if you don't have rogue levels to stack with. Even if you did, it would still be worse than actual rogue levels, or even fighter levels. Certainly worse than assassin. I'd take binder over it, too. Or, y'know, more swordsage, because being down a full level of maneuvers is probably costing you at least 2d6 damage.

Anyway, it's much easier to just put points into Strength. There's no reason to go so far out of your way to avoid it.

[Seppo87]

being down a full level of maneuvers is probably costing you at least 2d6 damage.
just put points in strength
If you use single standard action Strikes, sure.
If you don't, no, not really.

Dex is straight up better than Strength in 3.5 except a few notable cases like Revenant Blade and War Hulk, or for builds based on actual size increase and trip/bullrush.

What's good about Shadow Blade however is that not only you still add STR, but DEX is not halved on off-hand attacks.
It is objectively more damage
Get 2wf (just the first one, + gloves of the balanced hand) spam Mongoose maneuvers like there's no tomorrow.
There is no reason why you should ever consider using a single hit strike if you can full-attack instead (except maybe Mountain Hammer to break doors) and that barb level is there just to make sure you pretty much always can

In the meantime, your AC is notably higher and all your dex-based skills will have higher scores. Better initiative and saves.

[Rebel7284]

Monks, with their Sun School tactical feat make pretty great shadowpouncers. Getting three or more full attacks per round is pretty nice.

[Troacctid]

If you use single standard action Strikes, sure.
If you don't, no, not really.
If you're not planning on using strikes, why are you even a swordsage? That's like the whole point.


What's good about Shadow Blade however is that not only you still add STR, but DEX is not halved on off-hand attacks.
Neither is STR. Not on your unarmed attacks, anyway.

What kind of differential are you planning to have between STR and DEX, exactly? Are you running with 18 DEX and 8 STR? Sure, then you probably want Weapon Finesse. But assuming you're not, like, a halfling, you could go 16 DEX and 14 STR for the same point-buy cost. Then you can take Knowledge Devotion instead of Weapon Finesse and have better attack and damage while only being down 1 point on other DEX-based stuff. And if you're dipping barbarian, you can actually get some use out of the +4 STR from raging (or ferocity-ing, or whatever).

[daremetoidareyo]

How weird do you want to get? Here are 2 builds around the theme of unarmed skillmonkey. These builds focus on not attacking but stealing and tumbling so much that all of your opponents hit each other. In order to get the bad guys to target you, you have to steal something off of them...which I have found works amazing on the PCs from the DM side of the screen. I haven't used these builds as a PC, but man do I want to.

Build Number 1 Combat Pickpocket (32 point buy: str 8, con 12, dex 16, int 14, wis 16, cha 10):




Level
Class
Feats




1


martial rogue
combat expertise (bonus), good karma, (human) advantageous avoidance




2


monk (cobra strike)
dodge (Bonus)




3


monk (cobra strike)
mobility (bonus), trickery devotion? Cutpurse?




4


martial rogue 2
combat reflexes (bonus)




5


martial rogue 3






6


fighter 1 b, 6
deceptive dodge (bonus), combat panache




7


fighter 2 b, 6
gnome tunnel acrobatics




8


martial rogue 4
Elusive target




9


Fortune’s Friend
goad/travel devotion/master pickpocket (city of stormreach)




10


Fortune’s Friend
Unbelievable luck




11


Fortune’s Friend






12


Fortune’s Friend
Sly Fortune, feat




13


Fortune’s Friend










Cutpurse allows you to use standard actions to perform sleight of hand checks to steal spell components, wands, or any non-attended item on an enemy in melee range without tripping any attacks of opportunity. This really makes opponents very mad. Master pickpocket, if you choose to take it, allows you to make sleight of hand checks as a free action at only a -10 penalty. Free actions don't proc AOOs I'm told by people online that one time I googled it. You can now rob people of everything they have that isn't strapped and locked onto them or in their hands. These things will make your opponents target you selectively.

This build relies on two important Luck feats: good karma and advantageous avoidance. Good karma allows you to swap yourself into the line of fire! Advantageous avoidance allows you to force them to re-roll the attack that is targeting you. The only problem is that you don't have enough luck rerolls. That is where the 5 levels of fortune's friend comes in. This prestige class gives you 3 extra luck re-rolls and two more luck feats. If one of those luck feats is unbelievable luck, the prestige class gives you 6 extra luck rerolls, bring you up to 8 per day. You can jump in front of 8 attacks!

At level 6, your real abilities come online. Combat panache and deceptive dodge allow you to get real abusive with your ability to jump in front of opponents attacks of your allies.

When a melee attack by your dodge target (as per the Dodge feat) misses you while you are fighting defensively, that attack has a chance to strike another target of your choice that is both adjacent to you and within the attacker's reach. The attacker must make a new attack roll for the redirected attack, using the same modifiers applied to the missed attack. You may use this feat once per round. If there are no other targets adjacent to you and within the attacker's reach, you can't have attacks strike others.

For a brief moment, you appear to let your guard down. As your foe swings at you, you slip out of the way, causing his attack to slam into one of his allies. By positioning yourself correctly and making yourself an appealing target, you dupe your foe into making a critical blunder. To use this maneuver, you must be successfully attacked by a foe. On your next turn, you can take a move action to make a Bluff check opposed by his Sense Motive check. If you succeed on the check, you can take an immediate action at the start of your foe's next turn and designate a different target for your opponent's next melee attack (which must be a creature it threatens).

See, if they hit you this turn next turn you make an immediate action and make them hit another opponent. If they miss you this turn, they hit another opponent.

At level 7, you add gnome tunnel acrobatics to the ridiculous mix, now whoever's threatened region you move through causes someone to get hurt:

Combat Puppeteer: You slip between your foes in a blur of movement, confusing them and causing them to strike at each other by mistake. If you use the Tumble skill to avoid an opponent's attack of opportunity, you can use this maneuver on the following round. You must make a double move and attempt a Tumble check at a -5 penalty to avoid a foe's attack of opportunity. If your check succeeds, your foe makes an attack of opportunity but targets a creature of your choice within its reach rather than you. You can use this maneuver against one creature per round.

At level 8, you add elusive target to your arsenal. This allows you make trip attacks when you move out of a threatened square, which plays with combat puppeteer's ability to make them attack someone else (which technically misses you...). This ability also forces a flanking attacker to miss you and hit one of his co-flankers.

So on any given round, you have between three or four opportunities to make your enemies attack each other, and you can jump in front of your allies to help them with good karma, and if they crit on you, you can advantageously avoid them.

The Domain devotion feats are super helpful for your abuse here. If you pimp out that hide skill a bit, you can use trickery devotion at level 10 to do everything that you can do in combat: Make a buttload of skill checks that result in the opponents whomping on each other. At 15th level, you have a second version of yourself forcing your enemies to attack each other up to 3 or 4 times a round. Travel devotion gives you an extra swift action move that you can use to get yourself into locations where two enemies are flanking you.

Consider evasive reflexes to use AOO to get into positions for free action sleight of handing or to be in the way of enemies for your diverted attack abuse. Consider swordsage (or martial study) for distracting ember to conjure a flanker to flank yourself so that you can make the bad guys attack him (only useful for natural weapons). Due to how poorly the concept of ally is defined, also consider changing your race to silverbrow human and taking a level of bard to dragonfire inspiration your "allies" to wollop each other even harder.

The first 5 levels are going to require quite a bit of flask throwing to make it work. After that, always fight defensively, run around the battlefield, and use skill checks to get out of combat situations with a single entity.

VOP version of the same flipping thing!





Level
Class
Feat




1


Martial rogue
sacred vow (1), vow of poverty (b), combat expertise(b), nymphs kiss (b)




2


cobra strike monk
vow of nonviolence (b), dodge




3


cobra strike monk
advantageous avoidance (3), mobility (b)




4


martial rogue
defender of the homeland (CoV) (b), combat reflexes (b)




5


martial rogue






6


fighter
deceptive dodge, trickery devotion, vow of peace




7


fighter
gnome tunnel acrobatics




8


martial rogue
elusive target, servant of the heavens (b)




9


Fortunes friend
good karma




10


Fortunes friend
exalted feat, make your own luck




11


Fortunes friend






12


Fortunes friend
spring attack, unbelievable luck, exalted feat




13


Fortunes friend






14


fighter






15


fighter
weapon focus, alertness




16


devoted defender






17


Jaunter






18


Jaunter
combat panache




19


Jaunter






20


Jaunter







Be chaotic good. That way you can steal things. You must cast them away or drop them immediately so that the DM doesn't accuse you of breaking your vow. In this case, your AC is super high, so combat panache is unnecessary until later levels. The great thing about VOP on this build is that you can also take vow of nonviolence and vow of peace. Seeing as how you never attack after 5th level, you get the reward of those feats while your enemies bash each other's skulls in.

[Ethernil]

I had the following ideas:

a) Monk 2-Rogue 18 or Monk 6 Rogue 14 with ascetic rogue. Either getting the monk acf that makes him invisible every 3 rounds to deliver sneak attack or getting the feat rogue acf and focusing on maneuvers (trip, disarm, grapple). Ofcourse carmendine monk is necessary to reduce mad a bit.
b) Monk 2-Rogue 3-Chameleon 10 and the rest rogue with ascetic rogue. Losing 10 lvls of monk unarmed damage progression for spell access to stuff like mighty wallop and enlarge person, ability boost, a floating feat and you can always raise your effective monk lvl with a monk belt, monk tattoo and the superior unarmed strike feat. The rest of the lvls can be rogue and maybe a lvl of cloistered cleric for turn undead and access to crafting feats for the floating chameleon one.
c) Monk 2-Factotum 18. Ofcourse carmendine monk is a necessity although i dunno if monk and factotum armor bonuses stack. Using the usual unarmed items and spell bossters along with inteligence synergy for tripping or whatever.
d) Monk 2-Scout 4-Ranger 14. Ascetic hunter and swift hunter feats. Trading away the weak animal companion for spellcasting(faerun specific) and combat styles for the wildshape variant as you can't dual wield monk unarmed strikes. I don't know if using gauntlets to dual wield would be optimal but it might be, ignoring flurry of blows and just picking snap kick. I m not sure if there are animal forms that utilize unarmed strike. Maybe apes?

[ShurikVch]

b) Monk 2-Rogue 3-Chameleon 10 and the rest rogue with ascetic rogue. Losing 10 lvls of monk unarmed damage progression for spell access to stuff like mighty wallop and enlarge person, ability boost, a floating feat and you can always raise your effective monk lvl with a monk belt, monk tattoo and the superior unarmed strike feat.SUS works better without any levels in Monk: compare full progression to measly 2+4

[Ethernil]

Monk lvls stack with both beltand the superior unarmed strike eat, probably with the monk tattoo as the bonuses dont have a specific type. More importantly monk makes your unarmed strikes count as natural weapons and manufactured ones thusmaking them exploit boosts like the improved natural attack feat.

[tsotate]

If you're not planning on using strikes, why are you even a swordsage? That's like the whole point.
Due to the lack of errata, they get 2xINT more skill points at level one than anyone else. Potentially useful on what is explicitly a skillmonkey build.

[ShurikVch]

Monk lvls stack with both beltand the superior unarmed strike eat, probably with the monk tattoo as the bonuses dont have a specific type.Monk lvls stack, but SUS and belt are not - you got only better one (which is belt with +5)
Also, tattoo cost 80k - how early will you get it?
More importantly monk makes your unarmed strikes count as natural weapons and manufactured ones thusmaking them exploit boosts like the improved natural attack feat.(Arguebly) "Normal" US is already count as Natural Weapon - check the description of Fanged Ring:
fanged ring grants its wearer the Improved Unarmed Strike feat and the Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike) feat.Improved Natural Attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#improvedNaturalAttack):
Choose one of the creature’s natural attack forms. The damage for this natural weapon increases by one step, as if the creature’s size had increased by one category

[Troacctid]

Due to the lack of errata, they get 2xINT more skill points at level one than anyone else. Potentially useful on what is explicitly a skillmonkey build.
Well then forget unarmed strikes—you should be using a scorpion whip. It deals 1d43 damage per hit.

[Ethernil]

Would it be possible to make a master of 9 skill monkey without cheesing it out?

[ShurikVch]

Well then forget unarmed strikes—you should be using a scorpion whip. It deals 1d43 damage per hit.But where you can get d43? :smallamused:

[Ethernil]

It is a typo like the skill point one on swordsage.

[Psyren]

It is a typo like the skill point one on swordsage.

Thatsthejoke.jpg

[Eisfalken]

Just off the cuff... battle dancer / rogue / wizard / unseen seer? Finish with arcane trickster if there's room at the top.

Superior Unarmed Strike to keep damage high. Greater mighty wallop for even more damage. Hunter's eye for more SA.

Those three should pump an unarmed strike to something stupid, even before you throw in a necklace of natural attacks for spell storing, or wraithstrike, blood wind, etc.

Needs good mobility, stealth, and battlefield control to line up shots, but that shouldn't be difficult with good spell selection and a few wands. I wouldn't take Arcane Strike unless you go (focused) specialist to get more slots (which may not be a bad thing, if you buy some kosher ACFs to go with this build, like conjuration teleports). Get the ACF to swap out your Scribe Scroll for a better fighting feat.

You could technically go sorcerer if you aren't opposed to delaying that 9th level stuff, which allows you to get Spell Shield ACF, as well as maybe considering Arcane Strike (which is great in fights where something just happens to be immune to all your magic, but not your fists, and you are reasonably safe from being hit in return).

Try to weasel divine power in there for max cheese, but honestly you may not need it here. Darkhidden and Staggering Strike should be taken when possible.

Just throwing out something other than swordsage for the masses.

Edit: Didn't mention skills, but yeah, you're only slightly behind full rogues and factotums. Very slight MAD, but not really; Str and Wis just can't give penalties, otherwise it's all Dex, Int, and Con. Cha is dump if you aren't party face; if you go with sorcerer, just put Int ahead of Str and Wis and you should be fine.

Essentially this is a scout/debuff/damage build. Get in, find targets, lock down what you can, start Fist-of-the-North-Starring them until dead, wash, rinse, repeat.

The non-US version of this that I built is pretty boss. You suffer a little loss of effectiveness when you grab wizard those three levels, but after that it's smooth sailing right up the skill charts. Tumble, Hide, and Move Silently to get into position; Listen and Spothe to locate targets; Knowledge and Spellcraft to identify threats. All with spells to back everything up. Do build up Concentrate in case you need a spell in melee, but honestly mobility is the key. Teleports will save your bacon here.