Eraknephobia
2020-05-10, 01:29 AM
Now this is a build I conjured up when looking at an unarmed Barbarian build a good year ago. It is the entire reason I made an account on here. I am going to be somewhat general and feel free to fact check me, I made this build a year ago and only recently started playing it again (I took a year off going to school abroad). ANYWAYS I'm going to start what I am looking at in front of my face, and then I will break down the build.
Monkey D Luffy - Shifter (Beasthide)- Warshaper 3/ Fist of the Forest 1/ Battledancer 1/ Stoneblessed 3/ Deepwarden 2/ Unarmed Swordsage 10
now I know, a lot of little dips into classes. Stoneblessed and Deepwarden are very unessential to the build. I took it because I could.
Now Monkey D Luffy, king of the pirates is what I lovingly call a ranged unarmed fighter. His reach is 30ft as a medium creature using no weapons or magic (and a single flesh graft). When I said I would be playing a ranged unarmed fighter to the table, I got some pointed looks and chuckles. Game play wise the idea go-go gadget extendo arms-ing my way through fights was even more comical. Even more so when I used my feral trance to gain a bite attack... That had a mighty 25 ft reach (by RAW also 30ft but come on, I need to be fair somehow). We had great fun with it, such as throwing a boss' own minions into his dm brand aura of disintegration.
We very quickly realized that this incredibly comical build might actually be decent. Now my nickname on discord is 51+ AC lord. This is because of the secondary benefit to this build and the entire reason I took stoneblessed and deepwarden for fun. Monkey D Luffy with his rubbery body is incredibly resistant to attacks. He gets 2x his Con to Ac, as well as charisma and wisdom. He doesn't get Dex however which... Oh gee darn. Whatever will I do? Not only do I get those disgusting bonuses to AC, as a beasthide shifter with the beasthide elite feat (because I could) I can get +2 con and +4 to nat AC for a total of +6 to AC whenever I shift. A pittance on top of my already base 51 AC but still.
Now this already makes for a pretty solid build. His BAB is something to be desired, but again, Stoneblesed and Deepwarden are far from essential. All it did was give this ability heavy build less need for dex. In fact I could have further optimized by building my dex instead of strength and getting weapon finesse and shadow blade etc but I a lot of this build is slightly under 100% optimized for the sake of my dm (yeah 51 ac was for the sake of my dm. Let's not dwell on that).
This build was comical and strong, having someone that could attack the entire battlefield (in some situations) and an incredible AC that has a higher touch than flatfooted. Well that sure is a solid build right there. But wait, there's more. Order now and receive 6d8+strength (1-1/2 times if I took that dwarf specific unarmed feat which with stoneblessed I am) to damage. +2 when in a feral trance paired with a 1d6 bite. Eh, but I chose to spec into two weapon fighting for an hilarious flurry of blows and terrifying bites from a dude halfway across the battlefield. But that's not all, as swordsage with the giants stance and the battledancer's ability to improve a natural weapon (let's say, oh our unarmed attack) that gives you a mighty 12d8+strength +2 to damage when buffed up. Which takes a free action, a swift, an immediate (with reactive shifting), and a move action. Making all your buffs available to you on your turn. You lose a full attack with this but most normal builds can't full attack on the first round anyways (charger builds are an exception but still). Regardless, who cares? You have the incredibly helpful maneuvers, most of which take a standard to activate.
So that's a pretty strong build as is, and was a a wonderful and welcome addition to the party. Role playing was a joy as Beasthide shifters are brash and often interu- "MY NAME IS MONKEY D LUFFY, AND I'M GOING TO BE THE PIRATE KING AND FIND THE ONE PIECE!" Nothing about this character was boring.
To add on to this, on the last session, my dm was handing out magic items to people for our final fight against the BBEG to make it more entertaining. Everything he suggested I either already had, or would be a boring slight upgrade to an absolute beefcake. I was a little disappointing, till he decided to give me magic sandals (I already had an iconic magic straw hat) and one of my comrades suggested the enchantment be making me colossal 1/day. And let me tell you, when he agreed to that, I couldn't close my jaw for an hour.
I'm sure if you are here I don't need to explain to you why that is so amazing for this character, but because it's fun and the off chance it hasn't fully sunk in the sheer absurdity of what this meant, let me break it down for you. SIX TIMES MY REACH BONUS *ahem* sorry got a little excited there. This makes my already hilarious unarmed reach 180 ft, becoming truly a ranged unarmed fighter. +12 nat Ac and -8 to ac for a net +4. Not to mention +12 con for 240 temp hp and another +12 to my AC. Meaning my 51 base AC could now become 73 without any external buffs. Disgusting. Moving on to the damage, +32 strength and -8 to hit for a cool +8 to hit and +16 to damage. And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, 18d8 as my damage dice, or when fully buffed up, 40d8! Yes you read that right. 40d8. Now of course I had to HIT with my fists that now hit as hard and were the size of trains, but with as many attacks as I have, and a belt of battle, not hitting at least once in a round is nigh impossible. And the damage if I hit all my attacks? That would floor any creature with high con and invested every feat into improved toughness.
Edit: As I have recently found out, The warshaper's ability to increase damage dice by one step technically has no limit. In fact the text SPECIFICALLY states that you can use this as many times as you like. This means you can increase your damage dice by another step for a move action every round. To put that in perspective, next round that impressive 40d8 goes up to 60d8. And then 90d8 etc. Yes increasing damage dice is exponential. If you have a soul, you will limit this abuse of rules. But for those of you who don't, all I'm saying is it also doesn't state a time limit. Assuming it only works when you are shifting, You sill have a ridiculous con and shifter feats. At medium size, my shifting lasts 18 rounds. That is plenty of time before combat to bust out. Well the guns so big they can split the earth like a hot butter knife through air. Literally no resistance. If you don't like the idea of playing Monkey D Luffy, well maybe one punch man will be more your speed.
So I think you should have a general idea of how this build works, but here are some tips and suggestions to building your own pirate king. I will only mention the ones I used or thought of. 3.5 is a very expansive game and I am lazy.
Increasing Reach:
Warshaper 3: gives you +5 ft reach (as well as improving your unarmed damage dice with a move action and increasing your con and strength by 4)
Willing Deformity (Tall): requires willing deformity which gives a +3 to intimidate. Eh, but maybe there's some fear possibilities. +5 reach regardless
Inhuman reach: requires Aberrant blood but gives another +5 to reach. Aberrant blood gives a minor bonus to your choice of a small list of bonuses. +2 to grapple is the best and you could probably make a pretty solid grappler with this. There's eve more comical potentials with grappling your opponent from 30ft away and dragging them off. Have you ever wanted to make scorpion in dnd?
Extended reach: Requires a non rigid attack form. Inhuman reach and possibly Warshaper would meet this. +5 reach
Flesh graft, long arm: Now this is a fiendish graft, so best for neutral or evil creatures, but at higher levels, the DC to deal wisdom damage is negligible and easily negated by your party. This is also why I personally ruled my bite as only having 25ft reach. By RAW it's an upgrade to your reach. But lobbing off your arms and replacing them with longer arms doesn't make a lot of sense for a bite to reach further.
Get big: Have a friendly neighborhood spell caster increase your size. This doubles your range when you become large. Becoming larger than that is difficult, but if you can find a way, do it. It's quite the spectacle.
Getting around the feats:
Now obviously this is very feat intensive build with not a lot bonus feats from classes. It hurts. Now one easy work around that you should probably be taking as an unarmed character anyway is the vow of poverty. You could argue that a flesh graft is not technically an item and this would still keep your range at 30ft. Vow of poverty is amazing for this build for many reasons and would increase that base 51 ac by more than 12. I didn't even bother doing the actual calculation when looking at this option as I wanted to be kind to my dm. Also, this was a low magic campaign and he gave us benefits similar to vow of poverty (ability increases and extra feats) so that would have been... Well disgusting. Also it means I can't actually hold the One Piece. If I ever find it that is...
Other ways to do this? Flaws and bonus feats from classes. Dip into fighter somewhere if you're that desperate for more feats.
Increasing your damage dice:
Classes: It's... basically built into this build. Two of the classes give you activated buffs to this, one gives improved unarmed fighting for free, and a another improves your damage dice by one step. If I am remembering correctly, Unarmed Swordsage progresses the damage as a monk. I honesty don't 100% remember WHAT gives me the unarmed damage as a monk, but I know it does somewhere.
Superior Unarmed Strike: another feat. Ouch. This one might not be necessary as it only improves it up to a monk 4 levels higher. The Monk's damage dice caps out so after a certain level, the benefits drop off.
Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike): Yet again another feat. This one is not as strong as Superior Unarmed Strike in lower levels, but will always give you benefits.
Giants Stance: As mentioned before, this stance increases your damage dice. You can't move more than 5ft, however you are almost never moving. You will almost always be in this stance therefore unless you want to be a tripper or a grappler. In that case you will be in Step of the Wind stance. Either way, at swordsage 8, you will be getting a +2 to all saves for staying in the same stance all day.
Get big (again): best way to increase the size of your damage dice? Actually increase your size
The Core Build:
So there are the tips. Now lets break it down even further. This is everything you need for this build to work.
Race: Shifter (any)
Classes: Warshaper 3/ Fist of the Forest 1/ Battledancer 1 Unarmed Swordsage x
Stances: Giants stance. More damage is more good
Feats: as many range increasing feats as you want really. +15 reach from three feats is already pretty strong (Aberrant blood, Inhuman reach and extend reach). 2 more feats for another 5 feet reach is kind of meh and probably not worth it for someone who wants to fully optimize. But that isn't as fun anyways so who cares? Improved natural attack is a non reach increase that is necessary, and I believe it's the only other feat basically required unless I am mistaken.
Fleshgrafts: I considered not putting this in the core build, but not many items increase your reach to my knowledge. There is a weapon enhancement I forget the name of that increases reach by 5 on attacks. That isn't as strong as a permanent non situational buff so I didn't bother. Plus it doesn't increase the squares you threaten. Meh.
And that... is honestly it I think. It needs a few dips in some powerful classes. It is a strong build even without that insane reach, most of which is gained from feats. If you really want, +5 reach and insane AC as well as some disgusting damage is still a great build. If that is really what you want to build then your classes are essentially picked for you. You want to be a beasthide shifter and probably want some shifter feats. It is also notable that willing deformity and Aberrant blood have feats in the chain that increase AC. They aren't great but they are something.
That's that. Put your skills where you will find use, and max profession sailor for flavor. Now go forth with this curse of knowledge. Don't give it up... DREAMING!
Monkey D Luffy - Shifter (Beasthide)- Warshaper 3/ Fist of the Forest 1/ Battledancer 1/ Stoneblessed 3/ Deepwarden 2/ Unarmed Swordsage 10
now I know, a lot of little dips into classes. Stoneblessed and Deepwarden are very unessential to the build. I took it because I could.
Now Monkey D Luffy, king of the pirates is what I lovingly call a ranged unarmed fighter. His reach is 30ft as a medium creature using no weapons or magic (and a single flesh graft). When I said I would be playing a ranged unarmed fighter to the table, I got some pointed looks and chuckles. Game play wise the idea go-go gadget extendo arms-ing my way through fights was even more comical. Even more so when I used my feral trance to gain a bite attack... That had a mighty 25 ft reach (by RAW also 30ft but come on, I need to be fair somehow). We had great fun with it, such as throwing a boss' own minions into his dm brand aura of disintegration.
We very quickly realized that this incredibly comical build might actually be decent. Now my nickname on discord is 51+ AC lord. This is because of the secondary benefit to this build and the entire reason I took stoneblessed and deepwarden for fun. Monkey D Luffy with his rubbery body is incredibly resistant to attacks. He gets 2x his Con to Ac, as well as charisma and wisdom. He doesn't get Dex however which... Oh gee darn. Whatever will I do? Not only do I get those disgusting bonuses to AC, as a beasthide shifter with the beasthide elite feat (because I could) I can get +2 con and +4 to nat AC for a total of +6 to AC whenever I shift. A pittance on top of my already base 51 AC but still.
Now this already makes for a pretty solid build. His BAB is something to be desired, but again, Stoneblesed and Deepwarden are far from essential. All it did was give this ability heavy build less need for dex. In fact I could have further optimized by building my dex instead of strength and getting weapon finesse and shadow blade etc but I a lot of this build is slightly under 100% optimized for the sake of my dm (yeah 51 ac was for the sake of my dm. Let's not dwell on that).
This build was comical and strong, having someone that could attack the entire battlefield (in some situations) and an incredible AC that has a higher touch than flatfooted. Well that sure is a solid build right there. But wait, there's more. Order now and receive 6d8+strength (1-1/2 times if I took that dwarf specific unarmed feat which with stoneblessed I am) to damage. +2 when in a feral trance paired with a 1d6 bite. Eh, but I chose to spec into two weapon fighting for an hilarious flurry of blows and terrifying bites from a dude halfway across the battlefield. But that's not all, as swordsage with the giants stance and the battledancer's ability to improve a natural weapon (let's say, oh our unarmed attack) that gives you a mighty 12d8+strength +2 to damage when buffed up. Which takes a free action, a swift, an immediate (with reactive shifting), and a move action. Making all your buffs available to you on your turn. You lose a full attack with this but most normal builds can't full attack on the first round anyways (charger builds are an exception but still). Regardless, who cares? You have the incredibly helpful maneuvers, most of which take a standard to activate.
So that's a pretty strong build as is, and was a a wonderful and welcome addition to the party. Role playing was a joy as Beasthide shifters are brash and often interu- "MY NAME IS MONKEY D LUFFY, AND I'M GOING TO BE THE PIRATE KING AND FIND THE ONE PIECE!" Nothing about this character was boring.
To add on to this, on the last session, my dm was handing out magic items to people for our final fight against the BBEG to make it more entertaining. Everything he suggested I either already had, or would be a boring slight upgrade to an absolute beefcake. I was a little disappointing, till he decided to give me magic sandals (I already had an iconic magic straw hat) and one of my comrades suggested the enchantment be making me colossal 1/day. And let me tell you, when he agreed to that, I couldn't close my jaw for an hour.
I'm sure if you are here I don't need to explain to you why that is so amazing for this character, but because it's fun and the off chance it hasn't fully sunk in the sheer absurdity of what this meant, let me break it down for you. SIX TIMES MY REACH BONUS *ahem* sorry got a little excited there. This makes my already hilarious unarmed reach 180 ft, becoming truly a ranged unarmed fighter. +12 nat Ac and -8 to ac for a net +4. Not to mention +12 con for 240 temp hp and another +12 to my AC. Meaning my 51 base AC could now become 73 without any external buffs. Disgusting. Moving on to the damage, +32 strength and -8 to hit for a cool +8 to hit and +16 to damage. And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, 18d8 as my damage dice, or when fully buffed up, 40d8! Yes you read that right. 40d8. Now of course I had to HIT with my fists that now hit as hard and were the size of trains, but with as many attacks as I have, and a belt of battle, not hitting at least once in a round is nigh impossible. And the damage if I hit all my attacks? That would floor any creature with high con and invested every feat into improved toughness.
Edit: As I have recently found out, The warshaper's ability to increase damage dice by one step technically has no limit. In fact the text SPECIFICALLY states that you can use this as many times as you like. This means you can increase your damage dice by another step for a move action every round. To put that in perspective, next round that impressive 40d8 goes up to 60d8. And then 90d8 etc. Yes increasing damage dice is exponential. If you have a soul, you will limit this abuse of rules. But for those of you who don't, all I'm saying is it also doesn't state a time limit. Assuming it only works when you are shifting, You sill have a ridiculous con and shifter feats. At medium size, my shifting lasts 18 rounds. That is plenty of time before combat to bust out. Well the guns so big they can split the earth like a hot butter knife through air. Literally no resistance. If you don't like the idea of playing Monkey D Luffy, well maybe one punch man will be more your speed.
So I think you should have a general idea of how this build works, but here are some tips and suggestions to building your own pirate king. I will only mention the ones I used or thought of. 3.5 is a very expansive game and I am lazy.
Increasing Reach:
Warshaper 3: gives you +5 ft reach (as well as improving your unarmed damage dice with a move action and increasing your con and strength by 4)
Willing Deformity (Tall): requires willing deformity which gives a +3 to intimidate. Eh, but maybe there's some fear possibilities. +5 reach regardless
Inhuman reach: requires Aberrant blood but gives another +5 to reach. Aberrant blood gives a minor bonus to your choice of a small list of bonuses. +2 to grapple is the best and you could probably make a pretty solid grappler with this. There's eve more comical potentials with grappling your opponent from 30ft away and dragging them off. Have you ever wanted to make scorpion in dnd?
Extended reach: Requires a non rigid attack form. Inhuman reach and possibly Warshaper would meet this. +5 reach
Flesh graft, long arm: Now this is a fiendish graft, so best for neutral or evil creatures, but at higher levels, the DC to deal wisdom damage is negligible and easily negated by your party. This is also why I personally ruled my bite as only having 25ft reach. By RAW it's an upgrade to your reach. But lobbing off your arms and replacing them with longer arms doesn't make a lot of sense for a bite to reach further.
Get big: Have a friendly neighborhood spell caster increase your size. This doubles your range when you become large. Becoming larger than that is difficult, but if you can find a way, do it. It's quite the spectacle.
Getting around the feats:
Now obviously this is very feat intensive build with not a lot bonus feats from classes. It hurts. Now one easy work around that you should probably be taking as an unarmed character anyway is the vow of poverty. You could argue that a flesh graft is not technically an item and this would still keep your range at 30ft. Vow of poverty is amazing for this build for many reasons and would increase that base 51 ac by more than 12. I didn't even bother doing the actual calculation when looking at this option as I wanted to be kind to my dm. Also, this was a low magic campaign and he gave us benefits similar to vow of poverty (ability increases and extra feats) so that would have been... Well disgusting. Also it means I can't actually hold the One Piece. If I ever find it that is...
Other ways to do this? Flaws and bonus feats from classes. Dip into fighter somewhere if you're that desperate for more feats.
Increasing your damage dice:
Classes: It's... basically built into this build. Two of the classes give you activated buffs to this, one gives improved unarmed fighting for free, and a another improves your damage dice by one step. If I am remembering correctly, Unarmed Swordsage progresses the damage as a monk. I honesty don't 100% remember WHAT gives me the unarmed damage as a monk, but I know it does somewhere.
Superior Unarmed Strike: another feat. Ouch. This one might not be necessary as it only improves it up to a monk 4 levels higher. The Monk's damage dice caps out so after a certain level, the benefits drop off.
Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike): Yet again another feat. This one is not as strong as Superior Unarmed Strike in lower levels, but will always give you benefits.
Giants Stance: As mentioned before, this stance increases your damage dice. You can't move more than 5ft, however you are almost never moving. You will almost always be in this stance therefore unless you want to be a tripper or a grappler. In that case you will be in Step of the Wind stance. Either way, at swordsage 8, you will be getting a +2 to all saves for staying in the same stance all day.
Get big (again): best way to increase the size of your damage dice? Actually increase your size
The Core Build:
So there are the tips. Now lets break it down even further. This is everything you need for this build to work.
Race: Shifter (any)
Classes: Warshaper 3/ Fist of the Forest 1/ Battledancer 1 Unarmed Swordsage x
Stances: Giants stance. More damage is more good
Feats: as many range increasing feats as you want really. +15 reach from three feats is already pretty strong (Aberrant blood, Inhuman reach and extend reach). 2 more feats for another 5 feet reach is kind of meh and probably not worth it for someone who wants to fully optimize. But that isn't as fun anyways so who cares? Improved natural attack is a non reach increase that is necessary, and I believe it's the only other feat basically required unless I am mistaken.
Fleshgrafts: I considered not putting this in the core build, but not many items increase your reach to my knowledge. There is a weapon enhancement I forget the name of that increases reach by 5 on attacks. That isn't as strong as a permanent non situational buff so I didn't bother. Plus it doesn't increase the squares you threaten. Meh.
And that... is honestly it I think. It needs a few dips in some powerful classes. It is a strong build even without that insane reach, most of which is gained from feats. If you really want, +5 reach and insane AC as well as some disgusting damage is still a great build. If that is really what you want to build then your classes are essentially picked for you. You want to be a beasthide shifter and probably want some shifter feats. It is also notable that willing deformity and Aberrant blood have feats in the chain that increase AC. They aren't great but they are something.
That's that. Put your skills where you will find use, and max profession sailor for flavor. Now go forth with this curse of knowledge. Don't give it up... DREAMING!