King of Smack question

[Azernak0]

I have seen the King of Smack and I am impressed at what it can do. However, it seems like it wouldn't have an incredibly high chance to hit. How does the King of Smack do decent damage if it's attack is on the low side? Is it just sheer number of attacks that does it?

[PhoenixRivers]

Shock trooper boosts damage without sacrificing accuracy.

Psionic Lion's Charge boosts accuracy.

Then there's the multiple attacks thing.

[Eldariel]

It can use Psionics to pump To Hit too. E.g. Offensive Precognition alone can give you +1 + 1/3 levels (after 1st) and +1 for Overchannel on hitting.

[true_shinken]

How does Tashalatora interact with The King, btw?

[Eldariel]

Rather well (scroll down to Tashalatora of Smack).

[Lycanthromancer]

Unfortunately(?) psionic lion's charge grants a bonus to damage, not to hit.

You can use animal affinity to improve your Strength (+4 enhancement bonus), and you can drain strength from foes using strength of my enemy (up to +8 enhancement bonus without augmentation). You can also get access to metamorphosis, which can boost your strength by a dozen or more. Offensive precognition grants an insight bonus to hit. Then there's metaphysical weapon, which is like a mix of magic weapon and greater magic weapon. Call weaponry gives you an enhancement bonus to hit and damage. The soulbound weapon variant gives you the benefits of call weaponry and a free-scaling metaphysical weapon, and also gives you weapon abilities such as brilliant energy (albeit at a large cost in pp and many are only available at higher levels). Form of doom gives you a Strength bonus. Graft weapon also gives you a small boost. Concealing amorpha and greater concealing amorpha allow you to make hide checks out in the open (RAW, but I doubt RAI), which lets you hit foes flat-footed. If you don't mind some damage without adding all those Strength bonuses, you can instead deal 1d8 bludgeoning damage on every natural attack you've got as a touch attack using the hammer power. Expansion gives you both Strength and reach.

Since psychic warrior bonus feats can be pulled from the fighter bonus feat list (but not the wacky sucky fighter-only ones), you can also get Weapon Focus, Shock Trooper, and any martial strike or stance to give you bonuses to hit or to allow you to hit a lower AC. Then there's tripping; make a touch attack, trip with your massively boosted Strength score, then make an attack at a +4 bonus against your now-prone opponent. And since you get [psionic] feats as well, you can get Unavoidable Strike, Fell Shot, or Deep Impact to make touch attacks. Cloak Dance works like concealing amorpha, though again I don't think that was the intention. Jump on a mount and get a bonus for higher ground?

There are plenty of items that boost this too, as normal (see: amulet of natural attacks, power stones, etc).

Psychic warriors can do a lot to skyrocket their ability to hit, far above what any fighter could ever hope for.

[Azernak0]

I never understood the point of Tashalatora in the Smack builds. It just means you lose manifestor and power points. Aren't you unable to Flurry when using Natural Weapon like Claws?

[Greenish]

I never understood the point of Tashalatora in the Smack builds. It just means you lose manifestor and power points. Aren't you unable to Flurry when using Natural Weapon like Claws?

You can flurry first and then attack with your natural weapons as secondaries, I think.

[Eldariel]

I never understood the point of Tashalatora in the Smack builds. It just means you lose manifestor and power points. Aren't you unable to Flurry when using Natural Weapon like Claws?

You get bigger damage dice from it. Tashalatoran God of Smack has access to few more size increases for UA strikes and doesn't need PP for the base damage.

[Arakune]

To clarify: you get the standard Monk unarmed dice progression (boost it with Monk's Belt and that feat from ToB) and at level 13ish instead of using claws of the beast power (quite nice, really) you stack size modifiers and virtual size modifiers to get truly ridiculous damage dice and since you are starting with a higher dice (2d10 instead of 1d4) you get some sick damage at the end of your buff routine (2d10->Greater Mighty Wallop->Improved Natural Attack->Warshape Ability->...->"DAKKA").

[Mystic Muse]

What the heck is Dakka?

[Eldariel]

What the heck is Dakka?

Orkz' concept from WH40K. Basically, it stands for firepower without regards for accuracy. You need moar of it. No exceptions. See TVTropes.

[Yuki Akuma]

Technically it's the Ork word for "rapid fire"... but yeah.

[Azernak0]

You can flurry first and then attack with your natural weapons as secondaries, I think.

Can anyone confirm this? Can't seem to find the rules on it.

But isn't one of the points of the King of Smack is to use Claws so you can go Claws of the Vampire on it?

[Greenish]

Can anyone confirm this? Can't seem to find the rules on it.

That's how it works with full attack, but I'm not certain about flurry.

But isn't one of the points of the King of Smack is to use Claws so you can go Claws of the Vampire on it?

The point, I should think, is to smash things ridiculously hard. Besides, you can use Vampiric Blade if you want the healing.

[Arakune]

Technically it's the Ork word for "rapid fire"... but yeah.

Well, when you are rolling hundreds of dice it kind of sounds like DAKKA, and like DAKKA, there's never enough of it

[Keld Denar]

The nice thing about Tashalatora is that you get an extra feat out of it, since Monk is really front loaded. You get 3 bonus feats, and burn 2 feats on Monastic Training and Tashalatora.

Also, you get more, and more accurate attacks. In order for a King of Smack to get the really good rate of fire, you need to be an Elan (aberration type) to qualify for Rapid Strike and Improved Rapid Strike (2 feats sunk). Without them, you are stuck at 2 attacks per round. Even with them, Flurry is slightly ahead because the extra attacks gained from Flurry are always at your highest AB, rather than being paired iteratives.

Also, Tashalatorans have a higher base damage without investing any PP. Since you are already short on PP, the ones you save manifesting Claws of the Beast make up for being 2 levels of manifester behind the King for most of his career. Only at the higher end levels does it even out and move ahead. Also, if you use Ardent instead of PsyWar, you don't lose ANY manifester levels as long as you take Practiced Manifestor, which any Tashalatoran with the 2 monk levels would take.

Tashalatorans also make MUCH better grapplers. Since grapple damage is based on your UAS damage and never includes your natural attack damage, a Tashalatoran who makes a grapple check to deal damage does a lot more damage than a grappling King of Smack would trying to attack with natural weapons, and have an easier chance of succeeding. Also, Imp Grapple is a bonus feat for a Tashalatoran who wanted to grapple, whereas the King would have to take Imp UAS AND Imp Grapple just to use the trick. Adds a point of versatility to the Tashalatoran without sacrificing hardly any power.

All in all, the 2 levels lost to Monk don't actually hurt you that bad, as you net a number of bonus feats. Technically, you don't need ANY Monk levels for a Tashalatoran build, but the feat tax on it is pretty intense. Add in the fact that you probably want INA, Rapid Strike, Imp Rapid Strike, and a couple of other choice feats, you won't be able to get off the ground as an effective King of Smack for a few levels. Tashalatorans are pretty effective right out of the gate, or at the latest, level 3.

Also, Tashalatorans can use Vampiric Blade OR Claws of the Vampire, as a monks fists count as both. They are type Bludgeoning, which is a bonus if you have a wizard who can cast Greater Mighty Wallop, a bonus the King doesn't have.

It would be interesting to test each out against each other though, at a couple different ECLs. See which can out-perform the other at various power breaks?

[Lycanthromancer]

Actually, the claw powers specify "claws," meaning they don't work on unarmed strikes. Why is this so? I believe it was an oversight, as they thought you'd only use the powers on claws of the beast (and with that wording, they're pretty much right).