3.5 unarmed warrior?

[Gustav]

Is it possible to build a heavy armored warrior that attacks with unarmed strikes? How? Is it effective?

[Troacctid]

I mean anyone can take Improved Unarmed Strike as a feat so obviously it's possible. How effective it is will depend on the build and the player.

[ViperMagnum357]

Unarmed attacks are pretty low damage in terms of damage dice unless you invest at least 8 levels in Monk, or something that advances Monk unarmed damage (always a better option). At 8th level the base damage exceeds standard averages for martial one handed weapons, and moves into two hand and exotic one hand damage while you are still free to use MWF/TWF.

If you want to actually use your hands to strike, use gauntlets, which can be enhanced like normal weapons but are otherwise normal unarmed attacks; then look at a two weapon/multi weapon fighting handbook. If you want to grapple and you do not want to be a monster, there are a few grappling handbooks around that will have little to do with actually striking your opponents. Or just be a monster, and decide if you want to pick something with Improved Grab; or something Huge or larger with claw and bite attacks you can build around the Snatch feat line.

[inuyasha]

I couldn't tell you how I did it right now, but using Pathfinder (and not a whole lot of PF specific options) I built a single-classed Fighter who could attack for 1d4+12 with his fists for a friend of mine, he was all kinds of fun.

It's difficult, but not impossible.

[Dunsparce]

Tome of Battle has a Feat called Superior Unarmed Strike, that can give anyone scaling unarmed strike damage similar to Monk/Battledancer/Unarmed Swordsage, though the die is smaller (2d6 by level 20 instead of 2d10). Better then only dealing 1d4, though. And it means you don't have to dip into a mediocre class like Monk.

[OgresAreCute]

Pathfinder has an antipaladin archetype called the Iron Tyrant which punches things. I don't think 3.5 really has much support for this natively.

[Eldariel]

Cleric and all their buffs apply to unarmed strikes just fine so an unarmed Cleric (much better a Monk than the class) certainly works. Though it's not really optimal, it's still plenty good. Superior Unarmed Strikes is a nice addition on top of it. Though you're probably not really inclined to wear armor if you have Wisdom to AC from Monk's Belt or whatever anyways, it's certainly an option: Clerics don't lose anything for wearing armor and have heavy armor proficiency. Sacred Fist might actually work reasonably well for this too though the amount of stuff you lose for going armored grows that way.

[Biggus]

A Fanged Ring (Dragon Magic) gives you continuous improved natural attack for 10,000GP, and a Belt of Growth (Magic Item Compendium) gives you Enlarge Person for 10 mins per day (you can't split the duration, but as it's only 3,000GP you should be able to afford more than one by mid-levels).

Combined with the Superior Unarmed Strike feat you could get your unarmed damage up to 4d6 at level 16+.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

There're a couple of fun ways to include unarmed strikes as part of other attack routines. For instance, you can TWF with a two handed weapon and unarmed strikes. Probably more relevant to this thread is that unarmed strikes count as natural weapons but can have iterative attacks like a normal weapon. So a Totemist could bind Heart of Fire and add that damage (+1d4 per essentia invested) to their unarmed strikes as well as their natural attacks, and/or shape Dread Carapace for a Power Attack equivalent. On that note, despite being a light weapon, unarmed strikes get bonus damage from Power Attack like a one handed weapon (+1 to damage per +1 to attack sacrificed).

[Telonius]

Unarmed combat is a hard style to buff, particularly if you want to go with heavy armor. Your best bet might be to go with something like a Kensai build, and try to stack different effects onto the individual strikes (Wounding, things like that). Maybe even dip Rogue or Swordsage and get access to Sneak Attack and Craven. (You'd lose out on Evasion because of the heavy armor, but you'll be more hurting for lack of damage progression).

[emeraldstreak]

Is it possible to build a heavy armored warrior that attacks with unarmed strikes? How? Is it effective?

You can get massive amounts of damage from properly optimized Unarmed Strike. But you want the real deal, not the knockoffs.

Accounting for heavy armor, you can make it work with a Decisive Strike monk (you'll lose some features but you can dump Wis and Dex and focus on Str). More complicated options would be trying to fit heavy armor with Unarmed Swordsage or the binders' way of getting full-fledged unarmed strike.

[darkdragoon]

If you're willing to ignore/forego the AC bonus stuff like Monk's Belt and Fist of the Forest should work just fine.

[Bphill561]

There are fighter variants in Dragon Magazine #310 including the Pugilist. The class losses martial weapon and shield proficiency's, but gains improved unarmed strike and endurance feats (still has heavy armor prof.) It has a slightly different bonus fighter feat list and specialized abilities they can take in place of feats. I just noticed one that is just plain wrong for someone with regeneration, you can reduce the amount of nonlethal damage you take by your Constitution modifier every time you are hit. The class is also useful for spelldancer entry since endurance and 2 fighter feats are a requirement.

There is also the Shou Disciple class in Unapproachable East. It is 5 levels long, has full BAB, 2 bonus feats, and gets his unarmed damage up to 2d6. It might be worth taking if superior unarmed strike takes too long for you. The class is sometimes used with Eldrich/Beast Claw warlocks.

Maug Pike stones are a useful graft in the fiend folio that adds 1d4 damage to your unarmed strikes.

[Falontani]

From faiths of Eberron there is the Argent Fist which combines most of the monk features with paladin features allowing you to: wear heavy armor and a shield while retaining wisdom to ac, count paladin/monk/Argent Fist levels for unarmed strike damage.
A sample build would be something like: monk 2, cleric 4, prestige paladin 2, argent fist 2, sacred fist 10.

Effective monk level for unarmed strike: 16, with monk's belt you easily reach 20
Effective cleric level: 13 giving us 7th level divine spells
Bab: 17, you could cast divine power, but you don't need it.

[Unavenger]

I feel that a duskblade or one of the tome of battle classes might be a good bet, since a lot of the abilities you get don't care much how good your weapon is in the first place.

[Thurbane]

From faiths of Eberron there is the Argent Fist which combines most of the monk features with paladin features allowing you to: wear heavy armor and a shield while retaining wisdom to ac, count paladin/monk/Argent

That's really interesting - I was completely unaware of that PrC. I didn't think there was anything that let Monk wear armor and keep their Monk AC bonus. Great find, thank you!

Probably never seen it because of the (IMHO) terrible layout of some (mainly campaign specific, but oddly including Cityscape) books where PrCs etc. are scattered throughout different chapters, instead of being consolidated...

[liquidformat]

That's really interesting - I was completely unaware of that PrC. I didn't think there was anything that let Monk wear armor and keep their Monk AC bonus. Great find, thank you!

Probably never seen it because of the (IMHO) terrible layout of some (mainly campaign specific, but oddly including Cityscape) books where PrCs etc. are scattered throughout different chapters, instead of being consolidated...

The biggest complaint I have is that both Knight Training or Monastic Training are categorically worse than Ascetic Knight, if you can get your dm to accept Ascetic Knight instead that is great.

I normally go with barbarian as my base, you can still wear mithril full plate if you like but there are better options depending on the build. Anyways look at barbarian/fist of the forest/frostrager/bear warrior or blackblood cultist, heck you could even probably do barbarian 4/fist of the forest 2/frostrager 5/bear warrior 1/blackblood cultist 8. Another one that I like is primeval going in with the base of either barbarian/monk/FotF or barbarian/Ranger/FotF granted those builds all focus on unarmed strike + natural attacks so if isn't purely unarmed strike but none the less very powerful.