Fist-fighting...

[ExHunterEmerald]

Awhile back I made a thread about a werewolf character. Now I'm making him. I was looking at a fist fighter of some variety, so that I can use feats that improve natural attacks for both his human and transformed stages.
He's an afflicted Dire Werewolf, +2 LA and 6 Racial HD, leaving two levels for classes. I don't want to go monk because they're somewhat underpowered, and more importantly, I want to punch things to death, not use "ki" or anything. Base creature is human, so I'll have two feats, plus the two from my racial HD levels. I'm starting with Improved and Superior Unarmed Strikes, where do I take it from there?

What about equipment? The DM's ruled that armor and equipment will survive and be functional in hybrid form. Are there anything like combat bracers/guards for attacks that still leave my attacks unhindered when transformed?

Thanks, as always, for the help, candor, snark, and amusing outbursts.

[YPU]

all i cant think of is a feat in tome of batle, it lets you deal better unarmed damage, but dous not work on natural atacks.

[Fizban]

An amulet of mighty fists will enhance all you natural weapons, the strike, claws, and bite, for 3 times the normal cost. But....

Improved Natual Attack only works with one type of attack, so you're going to have to take it once each for the claws, bite, and unarmed strike. I'd just take multiattack and call it good, you should still be able to get three +flurry attacks per round with a full attack.

[Abardam]

Actually, the amulet of mighty fists gives you the bonus to everything (unarmed strikes and natural attacks). I think.

Also, superior two weapon fighting (bloodclaw master) is hot. If you have two weapon fighting. (Also, unarmed strikes and claws are tiger claw weapons.)

[ExHunterEmerald]

Agh, I forgot to mention.
I wanted to have a weapon of some order so I can enhance and bypass DR and such.
Somewhat important to note is that it's a low-magic game, and magic items cost 1.2x normal listed price.

[PinkysBrain]

The DM's ruled that armor and equipment will survive and be functional in hybrid form.

How about animal form? Cause you will be spending a lot of time in that form as a low level afflicted lycanthrope ...

[ExHunterEmerald]

Not so much.
Also, what class should I look at? I want to be a fist-fighter type, non-monk. I was thinking fighter or warblade.

[NEO|Phyte]

I've heard that theres a variant Swordsage that uses the unarmed damage progression of a monk.

[Captain van der Decken]

Swordsage is very monk-style, though.

Warblade, rather than fighter, if that's the way you're heading.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Anything that ups my strike damage'd be good.
I'll go over ToB again now.
(I'm in class, ssssh...)

[Fizban]

Actually, the amulet of mighty fists gives you the bonus to everything (unarmed strikes and natural attacks). I think.

Uuuuuh, that's what I said....

[Deathcow]

What book is Superior Unarmed Strike from?

[ExHunterEmerald]

What book is Superior Unarmed Strike from?

Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords.

Okay, I've done a lot more development over the day--I'm using Cestus (basically gauntlets, but they'll allow me access to claw attacks.)
I've applied the template and taken two levels of swordsage, and oriented my unarmed strike and natural attack feats for my unarmed strike--So now I dish out greatsword punishment. :D
My base attack bonus isn't too hot, though. Going through the 3/4 BAB's +0 start twice (one for dire wolf racial HD and one for swordsage) have left me with a piddling +5 at ECL 10. That said, I have 50,000 GP to play with, so I'll probably take a look at magic items to boost my attack bonus and damage.
I'll probably have each hand's Cestus made of a different DR-bypassing material. Looking at a few skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel, too. This is going to be a FUN character. My will save is +14 and I haven't even tried to optimize.

[Abardam]

Uuuuuh, that's what I said....

Oh. Thought you said for three times it's cost ('it' referring to the amulet).

[jjpickar]

Have you thought of being a Kensai? I seem to remember them being able to enchant their hands. But I could be wrong...

[PinkysBrain]

Is your DM going to ignore the involuntary shapechange checks or are you just ignoring it?

[ExHunterEmerald]

Oh, we'll have shapechange checks-I have an 18 Wisdom and I'll be putting max ranks into Control Shape--+15 total, give or take.

[Fizban]

Kensai might solve a lot of weapon enchanting problems, but it costs something like +10% more for each weapon, so you'd be paying a total of 150% of the normal cost (fists apparently count as 2 natural weapons). I'd say it's worth it though, since an amulet of mighty fists is proportionately more expensive (x3 of a weapons cost vs x1.5 of the kensai's normal xp cost), and you can't lose it etc. The other kensai abilities are nothing to sneer at either.

I'd be asking your DM why he isn't using fractional BAB/saves. It's just one of those obvious rules. In case you don't know what I mean, baisically it's this: In dnd you round fractions down. Normally, a medium BAB person gets +3/4 of a point per level, but the table automatically rounds down for you, so you get +0 at level 1 instead of +3/4 [round down]. If you only add up what the table says, then you get less BAB than you should really have. What you should do is total up all the fractional amounts you have and then round that down. In your case, you have 8 HD granting 3/4 BAB, so you really should have +6, it's just common sense.

[PinkysBrain]

Oh, we'll have shapechange checks-I have an 18 Wisdom and I'll be putting max ranks into Control Shape--+15 total, give or take.

Which means you fail half the time.

[ExHunterEmerald]

The DC isn't thirty.

[PinkysBrain]

If the DC was thirty you would fail 70% of the time. The DC is 25, you will fail 45% of the time to be exact with +15 to control shape.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Oh, right. I spaced.

[GolemsVoice]

I remeber some feats to enhance your natural weapons, or was it enchantments? Argh, somebody with access and knowlegde to the books sort this out. You could make your natural weapons magic weapons, and some other funny things.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Well, I have the mundane bits--the improved and superior unarmed strikes, and improved natural attack.

[Captain van der Decken]

Greater Magic Fang? Kensai levels?

[ExHunterEmerald]

Hmm...
Looking over the werewolf stats, I have a question.
What would the stat changes for a dire werewolf be?
Normal werewolves have +2 Str, +4 Dex and Con.

[PinkysBrain]

"These adjustments are equal to the animal’s normal ability scores -10 or -11." + "Str 25, Dex 15, Con 17" =>

+14, +4, +6

BTW, about the animal form problems ... why not be a dire ape lycanthrope instead? ;)

[ExHunterEmerald]

Flavor. Also, wow. Suddenly dire werewolf doesn't seem to be the +2 race I was told it was...

[Zincorium]

Flavor. Also, wow. Suddenly dire werewolf doesn't seem to be the +2 race I was told it was...

Considering you pay for the 'dire' part with increased Animal HD, it's not all that impressive.

[ExHunterEmerald]

There's the HD too, but still, you get a 3/4 progression and feats and an almost-class out of it.
Adding the massive bonuses to that looks like the sex, basically.