Gaining a Low Investment High Damage Unarmed Strike

[GuestEleven]

I got a buddy who is completely new to 3.5/PF so we decided to start him out with a fighter, he picked a scythe as his primary weapon for maximum edge. I'm optimizing him for heavy hits, trips and AOOs. So far the build strategy uses Vital Strike with Felling Smash(DM allows them to function together) to get a trip attempt as a swift action, thus getting an AOO when he successfully trips the target from Greater Trip. There is a feat named Vicious Stomp that will give you an AOO when an adjacent foe falls prone BUT the attack has to be an unarmed strike. A very fun and cool feat, I was going to have him invest in monk a little to justify this feat but I'd rather not overwhelm him. Should I just abandon the feat and pursue something else or is there a way to get a large unarmed strike without veering away from Fighter?

[Crake]

try combining leap attack, power attack, surge of fortune for an automatic crit threat, and bless weapon for automatic crit confirms vs evil creatures. Auto hit-crit-confirm with full power attack and x4 crit.

[GuestEleven]

try combining leap attack, power attack, surge of fortune for an automatic crit threat, and bless weapon for automatic crit confirms vs evil creatures. Auto hit-crit-confirm with full power attack and x4 crit.

Interesting, would need a way to get him Surge of Fortune since he isn't playing Cleric and permission to use leap attack which isn't very likely.

[StSword]

There's Greater Unarmed Strike (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/feats/greater-unarmed-strike-combat/)- turns unarmed strike to 1d8, 1d10 at level 10 from Path of War.

[Firebug]

How much is weapon damage actually contributing to the player's attack? Would it matter if they are rolling 1d3 (gauntlet, one handed) vs 2d4(scythe, two handed)? I know you mentioned Vital Strike, but they wouldn't get that on Vicious Stomp anyway.

Lets say your player is using Power Attack(PF, with +8 BAB) and having a decent strength(22), you are looking at what, 1d3 + 12(ave 14) vs a vital strike at 4d4 +18 (ave 28). A 'half damage' attack for the cost of a single feat(Vicious Stomp, well 2) isn't too bad. What other feat is going to give that much of a return? That said, to take the feat the player needs to have Improved Unarmed Strike, and the easiest way to get that is through a Deep Red Sphere (https://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Ioun%20Stone%2 0Deep%20Red%20Sphere) Ioun Stone socketed into a Wayfinder. 8k, but it doesn't cost a feat or a level. There is probably something similar in 3.5 but I am not aware.

If you are just looking to up the damage, get someone to cast Greater Mighty Wallop (http://dndtools.org/spells/races-of-the-dragon--83/mighty-wallop-greater--3107/)(3.5) on them or an Impact (https://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Impact) Amulet of Mighty Fists. Or just Merciful (https://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Merciful) and Sapping (https://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Sapping) gets you up to 3d6 for the cost of a +2 Amulet. Granted its nonlethal damage, but knocked out is just about as good as dead most time.

[noob]

Wait you are playing 3.5/pf1 or 3.5/pf2?
Also since when can you multiclass between systems?
Can I play gurps/vampire/exalted then spend hours trying to guess how things works?
Anyway as you can understand there is a lot of feat support for unarmed strike but unarmed strike shines best when you can apply a lot of dice increasing damage modifiers(else you are better off using another weapon).
Some of the most basic ones are feats(and even if sudden kick does not increase damage it still is a good feat for unarmed strike shenanigans) but you can also get size increases(enlarge person for example) and virtual size increase(the weapon is not actually bigger but it hurts as if bigger for some reason) please note that pf prevents stacking increases from size so get ones that are as big as possible.

As base dice increases are best when you can get a lot(and thus is investment heavy) the above posters were right in telling you to optimise it as if it was any other melee attack.

[Thunder999]

Pretty sure there's no such thing as 3.5/pf2

[Crake]

Pretty sure there's no such thing as 3.5/pf2

yeah, 3.5 and pf2, hell, pf1 and pf2 are not compatible with one another.

[Gruftzwerg]

Wouldn't a Monk's Belt (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#beltMonks)/Tattoo solve the problem?

[SangoProduction]

Depends on what you consider an "investment," and if you consider "high damage" and if you consider rider damage effects to count as "Unarmed Strike."

But for a 1 level dip in the Champion of the Spheres class, Sage, you get to add 1d6 points of damage to your unarmed strike, and can spend a martial talent on an unarmed-styled sphere to gain Improved Unarmed Strike.
So now you're doing 1d6 + 1d4 (base unarmed) damage at level 1. That's 1 less average damage than a greatsword. Or in other words, almost the equivalent of a 15th level monk at level 1.

You can add 1d6 per odd level in the class. So by level 3, you're essentially the equivalent of an epic level monk. (Yes, I am comparing it to monk damage to inflate the relative value. Thanks for noticing.)

Also, Sage can come equipped with touch-targeting Unarmed Strikes, +10 to Strength, and more damage boosts, as you can read about here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?622521-Sage-is-OP-(Spheres-in-Review)).

[illyahr]

Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle) steadily increases unarmed damage (d4, d6, d8, d10, 2d6) based on character level, so it's only a feat away.

[Particle_Man]

Potions of enlarge person? If you are bigger, everything does more damage.