Unarmed Combat With a Twist

[Blue Paladin]

The twist being I want to do it armed

I'm trying to construct a grappler who proceeds to bash their grapplee with a weapon. Here's the basics so far:

Goliath
Improved Grapple
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Warmace
Wolverine Stance (Bo9S)
Large Warmace (Complete Warrior)

Anyone have any ideas to improve on this? Sources allowed are Complete [everything but Scoundrel & Divine], Tome of [everything], Unearthed Arcana, and most everything Forgotten Realms. Starting level is 4, though I'd like to see theoretical builds all the way out to 20, just to gauge overall effectiveness.

[Quietus]

Unless Wolverine Stance allows you to do so, you're going to need to go Fighter for a while and get BAB +18, to get that PHB2 feat that lets you use your incredibly specialized weapon in a grapple. Otherwise, you can only use light weapons while grappling.

[the_tick_rules]

go with earth's embrace, does and extra d12 damage during a grapple.

[Person_Man]

Scorpion's Grasp feat: Free grapple check whenever you hit with an unarmed strike, light, or melee weapon. Sandstorm.

Knifefighter feat: If your base attack bonus is +6 or higher, you can make a full attack with a light weapon while grappling, provided that you already have your weapon drawn. (Unarmed Strikes and natural weapons are light weapons, FYI). Player's Guide to Faerun.

Touch of Golden Ice: Every time you touch an Evil enemy with a natural/unarmed attack, they must make a DC 14 Fort Save or take 1d6 Dex damage. Book of Exalted Deeds. Sadly, the Save DC never increases. But hey, everyone fails on a roll of 1, and since Golden Ice is a ravage ("good poison") they have to Save every time you touch/hit them. Just don't accidentally pick up any Evil women at the bar, the kiss goodnight could be a real problem...

Very simple and potent combo. Punch enemy. Free Grapple Check. If you succeed you deal unarmed damage (again) and your enemy grappled, which means he's denied their Dex bonus, doesn't threaten, and has very limited actions. Finish out your full attack. Kill enemy and/or reduce them to 0 Dex and leave them paralyzed. If you fail to kill enemy for some reason, he's still grappled, and thus screwed.

The main downside is that when you grapple, you also lose your Dex bonus to AC and don't threaten, making you highly vulnerable to counter attack. So its best not to grapple unless you only have a very small number of enemies.


You don't see this combo very often, because Scorpion's Graasp requires that you be from "Wastes" like a desert, Knifefighter requires that you be from a specific list of races from a specific list of places in Faerun. Being a human from Anauroch is usually your best option, though with DM approval, he might let you be a Goliath.

[FireSpark]

There's a feat in ToB (Flipkick IRC), that if you make a succesful critical hit, you get a free unarmed attack at the bonus used to make the first attack. Not all that great in my book, but if you're wanting to incorporate weapons into an unarmed character, it'd be worth a look.

go with earth's embrace, does and extra d12 damage during a grapple.

Only once you get them pinned, actually.

[Arbitrarity]

Snap Kick. Requires Improved unarmed Strike, BAB +6, gives an extra unarmed attack at 1/2 str mod to damage, -2 on all attacks in the round.

[Blue Paladin]

Unless Wolverine Stance allows you to do so, you're going to need to go Fighter for a while and get BAB +18, to get that PHB2 feat that lets you use your incredibly specialized weapon in a grapple. Otherwise, you can only use light weapons while grappling.

That's exactly what Wolverine Stance does; it allows you to use a one-handed weapon in grapple (without the -4 to hit, to boot).

Scorpion's Grasp feat: Free grapple check whenever you hit with an unarmed strike, light, or melee weapon. Sandstorm.

That last bit... Does that mean it activates on a hit from -any- melee weapon?

Knifefighter feat: [details]

Seems to be trumped entirely by the Wolverine Stance. No penalty to hit, no restriction on full attacking or anything. Also allows all one-handed weapons instead of being restricted to daggers.

Touch of Golden Ice

Requires hitting with unarmed attacks, which is not really happening once the target is grappled and being maced.

[Person_Man]

That last bit... Does that mean it activates on a hit from -any- melee weapon?

The wording of Scorpion's Grasp allows any light weapon (including unarmed attacks and other natural attacks) or one handed melee weapon. Though if you use a one handed melee weapon, you have to drop it when the Grapple is established.

Seems to be trumped entirely by the Wolverine Stance. No penalty to hit, no restriction on full attacking or anything. Also allows all one-handed weapons instead of being restricted to daggers.

The wording of Knifefighter is that it allows you to use any light weapon (including unarmed attacks and other natural attacks), with no attack penalty, and it allows you to make a full attack when you're grappling. Without Knifefighter, you are limited to a single attack. Wolverine Stance negates the attack penalty while grappling and gives you a +4 damage bonus, but you are still limited to a single attack. So obviously, Knifefighter is superior once you have more then one attack.

Requires hitting with unarmed attacks, which is not really happening once the target is grappled and being maced.

After you succeed on any Grapple check, you automatically deal unarmed damage for free (in addition to the damage you used to hit the guy get the free Grapple check in the first place, assuming you're using Scorpion's Grasp), so you want to try and maximize unarmed damage. Plus Unarmed Strikes count as light weapons, and they can be used with Weapon Finesse, and they count as natural weapons, and they count for Power Attack. If you're using a light weapon that's not a natural attack, you can't apply Power Attack, the main source of melee damage in D&D. And if you're using a one handed weapon, you can't use Knifefigher and you have to drop your weapon if you're using Scorpion's Grasp. Thus, unarmed strikes are superior in most cases for a grapple build.

FYI, this Grapple builds tend to be the opposite of traditional melee builds, where you want to use a two handed weapon and maximize reach. So I entirely understand why it might be confusing.

[Blue Paladin]

The wording of Scorpion's Grasp allows any light weapon (including unarmed attacks and other natural attacks) or one handed melee weapon. Though if you use a one handed melee weapon, you have to drop it when the Grapple is established.

Dropping the one-handed weapon is bad. I probably won't be able to use this feat then.

The wording of Knifefighter is that it allows you to use any light weapon (including unarmed attacks and other natural attacks), with no attack penalty, and it allows you to make a full attack when you're grappling.

Wolverine Stance allows you to use any one-handed weapon with no penalty. And under the grappling section of combat, you can make a full attack while grappling even without Knifefighter: "If your base attack bonus allows you multiple attacks, you can attempt one of these actions in place of each of your attacks, but at successively lower base attack bonuses." One of those possible actions is attack your opponent (usually at a -4, and only with light weapons; of course, we're discussing ways around these drawbacks).

Without Knifefighter, you are limited to a single attack. Wolverine Stance negates the attack penalty while grappling and gives you a +4 damage bonus, but you are still limited to a single attack. So obviously, Knifefighter is superior once you have more then one attack.

A good conclusion from a bad assumption. You are not limited to a single attack while grappling. I'll take the 3d6 weapon over the 1d4 weapon any time. The +4 damage bonus against larger things is just gravy.

After you succeed on any Grapple check, you automatically deal unarmed damage for free (in addition to the damage you used to hit the guy get the free Grapple check in the first place, assuming you're using Scorpion's Grasp), so you want to try and maximize unarmed damage.

The double unarmed strike damage is really the only thing going for Scorpion's Grasp; assuming you normally get two attacks, that's triple unarmed damage on the first round. To make that worthwhile compared to the Wolverine Stance, it has to compare favorably to unarmed damage plus one weapon damage. Even with levels of Monk (and assuming everything hits), at mid levels that's 3d8 unarmed on the first round, 2d8 on subsequent (+1d8 when Flurrying); compare that to the other version, 1d3 (unarmed) + 3d6 (weapon) on the first round, 6d6 on subsequent rounds. This isn't even counting whatever enchantments get stuck on the mace.

[List of other good things about unarmed strikes] Thus, unarmed strikes are superior in most cases for a grapple build.

Yeah, but as stated, this isn't like most grapple builds.

[Person_Man]

A good conclusion from a bad assumption. You are not limited to a single attack while grappling.

Whoops, right you are. Knifefighter specifically says that you can't make a full attack during a grapple. But after re-reading the FAQ and Sage Advice, apparently the rules have been updated on this without my knowledge.

So your build makes a lot more sense to me now. But I'd still go with Scorpion's Grasp though, for the same reason I use Knock-Down. Scorpion's Grasp allows you to just roll to hit and deal damage as normal, and then you get a free Grapple. Your build must give up an attack and its damage in order to establish the grapple. So I think a unarmed variant Swordsage with a few magic items would have a much better average damage output then your Goliath whatever, and it could do so without Level Adjustment.

But having said that, I think your build should be fine. Good luck.