Effective unarmed/punching build?

[AlphaGXD]

***NO STORY SPOILERS PLEASE***

Exactly as the title says, I'm just looking for an effective build where I can do the "haha, I punched a literal god to death".

I'm not familiar with Pathfinder, I've played D&D for about a decade but haven't gotten into Pathfinder. Everything I look up is either from the books that includes stuff not in the game, people arguing for 3 years in a forum about mechanic in the books or people just complaining about Monk being weak in-game.

I just want an actual unarmed build that's fun and works. Doesn't have to be SS-tier, doesn't have breeze through Unfair, but having it work on Daring is a must.

+1 for use of heavy armor

[pete3great]

Phew. Bit of a tall order, especially with heavy armor. There are monk builds, but they don't often focus on the actual hand to hand. But, if you're willing to change form or have wolverine claws, Shifter might be what you're looking for.

[AlphaGXD]

Originally posted by pete3great:

Phew. Bit of a tall order, especially with heavy armor. There are monk builds, but they don't often focus on the actual hand to hand. But, if you're willing to change form or have wolverine claws, Shifter might be what you're looking for.

Oh the heavy armor isn't a requirement, it's just an extra feature that'd be cool. I was thinking possibly blood rager, multi-class to monk but I just haven't seen anything to tell me if it'd be good or a waste of time. Otherwise I was also thinking mutagen fighter and monk.

[reidj062]

Heavy armor is a terrible choice for an unarmed build. The best classes for unarmed are barbarian (medium armor proficiency), monk (no armor), and brawler (light armor). Brawler is not in the game but there are mods for it.

Aeon is a great choice for a legend path for melee, as it has debuffs for enemies within 30 ft of you. Demon is also great, as it gives you massive boosts to damage and stats, plus you can rage and teleport.

As for stats, your focus should be on dex first. This adds to touch AC, reflex, initiative, and with weapon finesse, to your attack roll. You can take a mythic power to get dex to damage as well, so you probably don't need to put strength above 10 or 12.

Con should also be a heavy focus, as you will be in the thick of things. Wisdom is also important for monk builds- it adds to ki points and your AC. You probably want at least 14 wisdom to start as a monk.

Dodge and weapon finesse are great first feats. Weapon focus: unarmed strike and toughness are also worth investing in.

I also think it's a poor decision to say "I have no idea how this game works, I need a build, and it must work on daring." If you have no idea how the game works, why are you attempting daring? Start on core or something and work your way up.

[jonnin]

armor isn't as impressive in this game as it should be. Heavy armor tends to just make you slow as crap, on top of being less good at actually protecting you.
That aside..
the most epic puncher I know of is going to be a dragon disciple monk.
first level:
- cha spontaneous caster of any sort. Arcanist is possibly best here. Pick your stats to be a monk using strength. your first level as the caster, you will pick defense spells like shield, expedious retreat, reduce person, enlarge person. Your arcanist pick will be free mage armor because of its very long duration. Stats will be 19 str, and split dex & cha at 16/16 or higher if you possibly can do so. you need at least a 12 int to pick up level 2 spells as the minimum.

Then its pretty straight forward. your one level of caster will be followed by monk levels until DD class unlocks at level 5 (when you have 5 ranks of arcane knowledge). Your monk subclass will be the dragon one, using CHA for armor instead of WIS.

Once DD unlocks take at least 4 levels to get the stat bonuses. Here is where choices matter. If you want to pursue DD class deeper, you will get more spell levels and +2 to int which lets you cast level 4 spells, making you a bit more flexible with some magic. That is an option, and you get cool dragony things like wings and bite and breath etc whatever those are at higher levels, polymorph to dragon form too. This is at the cost of weaker unarmed attacks, though! Or, you can stop DD at level 4 (str is now maxed out) and proceed to monk out to max level.

The dragon bite attack is useful in this build, as are any other bite attacks you may get (a couple races have one, and other ways to get too). You must stand very close to enemy to proc bites else they just don't fire and you lose that extra attack and damage.

by act 3 start you will have a 40ish str with that, assuming a +2 or +4 str belt has been found by now. A +2 or +4 wis hat is easy to find as well for more AC, as are + cha hats. The crazy str from DD mostly makes up for losing monk levels to get the next damage die.
-----------------------
another monk build is to not go dragon disciple or caster, and max out wis & dex on a more standard build. Get weapon finesse and your first mythic choices will be advanced weapon finesse: at this point your dex bonus applies to damage (instead of str bonus) and you start crunching stuff with your fists very very hard. So you will be a low damage, almost useless damage character (but you can tank!) until past the intro areas of the game, bear with it. A 20 dex 20 wis has a 20 AC at level 1, naked, and that goes up with items and a mage armor potion will get you through the whole intro with more armor than seelah can get with all her metal and shields. But 20/20 is a tight point spread, you are only good at one thing, sacrificed every other stat and your race choice is limited to get that. More realistic is 19/19 and a little more distribution into con etc. Kitsune has a bite and can play the dex monk build well if you want the bite idea again.

--------------------
and lastly sohei can go fists and still has a pet horse that can help tank and support the team. Pets are good. The armor lets you mess with the stats some too, so you can play str or dex version and adjust for armor as you see fit on that front.

---------
other puncher builds ... if you insist on that heavy armor... hybrid a monk and a fighter type will work. If you want that ... we can work something up that will do well.

------------
and one weird one: there is a cleric derived class "warpriest I think" with the cult leader subclass. This lets you... do more damage with your chosen weapon. You chosen weapon can be unarmed strike. And it lets you get sneak attacks. And you get at least medium armor, I forget if it has heavy or no. Some of the domains let you add damage to your weapon (eg 'good' or 'law' damge 1d6 I think) early game this will more than make up for waiting on your weapon die to increase. Base attack will be lower, but youll have cleric magic.

[AlphaGXD]

Originally posted by jonnin:

armor isn't as impressive in this game as it should be. Heavy armor tends to just make you slow as crap, on top of being less good at actually protecting you.
That aside..
the most epic puncher I know of is going to be a dragon disciple monk.
first level:
- cha spontaneous caster of any sort. Arcanist is possibly best here. Pick your stats to be a monk using strength. your first level as the caster, you will pick defense spells like shield, expedious retreat, reduce person, enlarge person. Your arcanist pick will be free mage armor because of its very long duration. Stats will be 19 str, and split dex & cha at 16/16 or higher if you possibly can do so. you need at least a 12 int to pick up level 2 spells as the minimum.

Then its pretty straight forward. your one level of caster will be followed by monk levels until DD class unlocks at level 5 (when you have 5 ranks of arcane knowledge). Your monk subclass will be the dragon one, using CHA for armor instead of WIS.

Once DD unlocks take at least 4 levels to get the stat bonuses. Here is where choices matter. If you want to pursue DD class deeper, you will get more spell levels and +2 to int which lets you cast level 4 spells, making you a bit more flexible with some magic. That is an option, and you get cool dragony things like wings and bite and breath etc whatever those are at higher levels, polymorph to dragon form too. This is at the cost of weaker unarmed attacks, though! Or, you can stop DD at level 4 (str is now maxed out) and proceed to monk out to max level.

The dragon bite attack is useful in this build, as are any other bite attacks you may get (a couple races have one, and other ways to get too). You must stand very close to enemy to proc bites else they just don't fire and you lose that extra attack and damage.

by act 3 start you will have a 40ish str with that, assuming a +2 or +4 str belt has been found by now. A +2 or +4 wis hat is easy to find as well for more AC, as are + cha hats. The crazy str from DD mostly makes up for losing monk levels to get the next damage die.
-----------------------
another monk build is to not go dragon disciple or caster, and max out wis & dex on a more standard build. Get weapon finesse and your first mythic choices will be advanced weapon finesse: at this point your dex bonus applies to damage (instead of str bonus) and you start crunching stuff with your fists very very hard. So you will be a low damage, almost useless damage character (but you can tank!) until past the intro areas of the game, bear with it. A 20 dex 20 wis has a 20 AC at level 1, naked, and that goes up with items and a mage armor potion will get you through the whole intro with more armor than seelah can get with all her metal and shields. But 20/20 is a tight point spread, you are only good at one thing, sacrificed every other stat and your race choice is limited to get that. More realistic is 19/19 and a little more distribution into con etc. Kitsune has a bite and can play the dex monk build well if you want the bite idea again.

--------------------
and lastly sohei can go fists and still has a pet horse that can help tank and support the team. Pets are good. The armor lets you mess with the stats some too, so you can play str or dex version and adjust for armor as you see fit on that front.

---------
other puncher builds ... if you insist on that heavy armor... hybrid a monk and a fighter type will work. If you want that ... we can work something up that will do well.

------------
and one weird one: there is a cleric derived class "warpriest I think" with the cult leader subclass. This lets you... do more damage with your chosen weapon. You chosen weapon can be unarmed strike. And it lets you get sneak attacks. And you get at least medium armor, I forget if it has heavy or no. Some of the domains let you add damage to your weapon (eg 'good' or 'law' damge 1d6 I think) early game this will more than make up for waiting on your weapon die to increase. Base attack will be lower, but youll have cleric magic.

You sir, are an absolute legend. One of the few people to give me a massively detailed and indepth response. After consulting in the Discord, I have decided on a Basic Warpriest, but I will still thoroughly read through your response as well since you dedicated so much time with obvious passion to it. Thank you very much.

[jonnin]

You are welcome. I like unarmed as well, so it was no biggie to share ideas.

^^ the cult guy gets sneak attack, the other warpriest don't. In the grand scheme, its about 8d6** (average 24) damage added to each hit when it procs (requires flat footed / flanked etc & some things immune). That is really the only reason I said that subclass.

**assumes you eventually grab the extra die sneak attack feats.

[AlphaGXD]

Originally posted by jonnin:

You are welcome. I like unarmed as well, so it was no biggie to share ideas.

^^ the cult guy gets sneak attack, the other warpriest don't. In the grand scheme, its about 8d6** (average 24) damage added to each hit when it procs (requires flat footed / flanked etc & some things immune). That is really the only reason I said that subclass.

**assumes you eventually grab the extra die sneak attack feats.

So, I read through your entire build ideas, and I do like a fair bit of them. My biggest problem comes down to me being stubborn and the fact that I don't wanna be super-duper magical or using anything other than fists. I'm currently still running that basic Warpriest as an Oread and it's going damn well tbh. I took weapon focus unarmed strike, got improved unarmed strike and have power attack + sacred weapon and I'm doing as much damage as a greatsword. I'll keep running with it and see how it goes, let me know if you have any ideas to improve it.

[jonnin]

Originally posted by AlphaGXD:

Originally posted by jonnin:

You are welcome. I like unarmed as well, so it was no biggie to share ideas.

^^ the cult guy gets sneak attack, the other warpriest don't. In the grand scheme, its about 8d6** (average 24) damage added to each hit when it procs (requires flat footed / flanked etc & some things immune). That is really the only reason I said that subclass.

**assumes you eventually grab the extra die sneak attack feats.

So, I read through your entire build ideas, and I do like a fair bit of them. My biggest problem comes down to me being stubborn and the fact that I don't wanna be super-duper magical or using anything other than fists. I'm currently still running that basic Warpriest as an Oread and it's going damn well tbh. I took weapon focus unarmed strike, got improved unarmed strike and have power attack + sacred weapon and I'm doing as much damage as a greatsword. I'll keep running with it and see how it goes, let me know if you have any ideas to improve it.

you get +1 if you take the background that also has unarmed strike, but you may want some other background for some other reason, its small in the grand scheme.

If you don't want spells, you can pull the casting stat to 10 or lower and it just won't give them to you. To use a spell you need casting stat = 10+ the spell level. Watch out as this can also affect # of uses of your domain clicky or other things so it may not be wise (yea, I went there) to do this.

Oread has reduced movement. If it works for you, great. My unarmed guys are mostly monks (I didn't do the warpriest with unarmed) who get full movement (for not wearing armor) and extra movement (for being monks) so they can zip across the whole combat arena and murder the wizard or archer or special magic teleporting bunghole of plot powers with relative ease. If you just want main stat strength, the races are wide open... asimir, human, orc, tiefling, dhampir, and probably others have at least one +2 str variation available.

other than the movement speed, at this point I think most anything else we change would just be very minor stuff. Unless you are trying to build an 'unfair' character (which I am not sure I am good enough to do, being honest -- and that is more of a team effort where builds play off each others' choices) , you are all set ... have fun !

side note, I would not calculate it that way. The guy using a greatsword ALSO has power attack, and weapon focus, and so on. You are not yet punching as hard as a greasword specialized fighter, but eventually you will be. Its a little slower progression as the fighter is ready to roll at level 1.

[Kaze]

Unfair, from what I read, boils down to pets, summons, and a merc Arcanist: Brown-fur Transmuter. You want to punch something (many somethings) until it explodes?

Some numbers: Take your 20 str monk (+5) Level it up to 8 (Beginning of act 2 if you follow the good guide of when to turn on and off exp sharing).

So now 22 str, that's +6.

Bull's strength when cast by the brown fur is another +6 STR so that's 28 for +9 bonus.

Enlarge Person (later on Legendary Proportions) when cast by the brown fur is another +4 for 32 STR (+11).

And that's just the basic stuff at level 8 which includes Flurry of Blows, Haste, Close to the Abyss for a free Gore attack, Motherless Teifling as your race for a Bite attack...

If you feel like sacrificing 4 STR you can take a Kitsune as your MC for the Bite attack and at level 10 give them Vulpine Pounce which lets you make a full attack after a charge (Huge. Was better when you could stack like 5 different Bite sources).

Anyway, have fun punching! Don't skip buffs before fights (Save often so you know when the fights are).

Edit: Don't try to punch elementals... they will hurt you back. Also, adding to what Jonnin said, you might also give Shifter a try since they can take "Brutality Incarnate" Mythic ability and their attacks now pierce all DR except Mythic DR... Which shows up on all of what, 5 dudes in the game?

Edit Again: Not saying don't roll with it, but cult leader will fall off cause the game will throw a lot of stuff at you that just... doesn't take precision damage/is immune to crits. Shadows, Shadow Demons, and Sarkorian Ghosts being the worst offenders... That's when you have Lann in the back with Finnean Shortbow going BRRRR.

[jonnin]

^^ Yes, I agree with most of that. But cult leader specifically doesn't lose much to get sneak attacks. Some classes give up a lot for that, but not this one. Its pretty darn close to the generic warpriest.

Hmm... Its probably trying to do too much to brown fur arcanist -> scaled fist -> dragon disciple. I don't think you get far enough in BFA to make it useful unless you give up more monk levels and lose your fist die increases? Would have to be a BFA buddy supporting the team instead...

[Null Winter]

For pure punching, I had a lot of fun with Shifter: Rageshaper. Getting both Rage buffs and Size buffs which can stack with the usual buffs is pretty nice, and you eventually ignore all DR aside from universal DR- without taking any talent choices or Mythic choices to do so. The extended reach from almost always being massive helps with area control and positioning in fights, extending the range at which you can use a full turn attack instead of requiring moving and attacking.

If you opt for a kitsune, then you can take Pounce at lvl10 to convert your Charge action into a full turn attack from across the map, along with granting extra bite attacks after your slams.

The class' unique "slams" count as natural attacks, so all the gear designed to enhance natural attacks that most party members can't use with their default builds is up for grabs for you. You also get access to light and medium armor by default with a bonus for using "natural" material armors (leather and such).

You get great Fortitude and Reflex saves, with additional Will saves while you are Raging; ideal for a hyper-aggressive frontline tank.

Your "once per Rage" AOE ground slam scales off CON, as well, and can knock down enemies that are usually resistant to being rendered prone; for some reason, allies are also immune to it so you can use it as an emergency crowd control without worrying about nuking your squishy wizards.

[AlphaGXD]

Originally posted by Null Winter:

For pure punching, I had a lot of fun with Shifter: Rageshaper. Getting both Rage buffs and Size buffs which can stack with the usual buffs is pretty nice, and you eventually ignore all DR aside from universal DR- without taking any talent choices or Mythic choices to do so. The extended reach from almost always being massive helps with area control and positioning in fights, extending the range at which you can use a full turn attack instead of requiring moving and attacking.

If you opt for a kitsune, then you can take Pounce at lvl10 to convert your Charge action into a full turn attack from across the map, along with granting extra bite attacks after your slams.

The class' unique "slams" count as natural attacks, so all the gear designed to enhance natural attacks that most party members can't use with their default builds is up for grabs for you. You also get access to light and medium armor by default with a bonus for using "natural" material armors (leather and such).

You get great Fortitude and Reflex saves, with additional Will saves while you are Raging; ideal for a hyper-aggressive frontline tank.

Your "once per Rage" AOE ground slam scales off CON, as well, and can knock down enemies that are usually resistant to being rendered prone; for some reason, allies are also immune to it so you can use it as an emergency crowd control without worrying about nuking your squishy wizards.

Rageshaper looked like a looooot of fun, I was just concerned with my damage potential with it. Could be a good multiclass later down the line though...

[Null Winter]

Originally posted by AlphaGXD:

Originally posted by Null Winter:

For pure punching, I had a lot of fun with Shifter: Rageshaper. Getting both Rage buffs and Size buffs which can stack with the usual buffs is pretty nice, and you eventually ignore all DR aside from universal DR- without taking any talent choices or Mythic choices to do so. The extended reach from almost always being massive helps with area control and positioning in fights, extending the range at which you can use a full turn attack instead of requiring moving and attacking.

If you opt for a kitsune, then you can take Pounce at lvl10 to convert your Charge action into a full turn attack from across the map, along with granting extra bite attacks after your slams.

The class' unique "slams" count as natural attacks, so all the gear designed to enhance natural attacks that most party members can't use with their default builds is up for grabs for you. You also get access to light and medium armor by default with a bonus for using "natural" material armors (leather and such).

You get great Fortitude and Reflex saves, with additional Will saves while you are Raging; ideal for a hyper-aggressive frontline tank.

Your "once per Rage" AOE ground slam scales off CON, as well, and can knock down enemies that are usually resistant to being rendered prone; for some reason, allies are also immune to it so you can use it as an emergency crowd control without worrying about nuking your squishy wizards.

Rageshaper looked like a looooot of fun, I was just concerned with my damage potential with it. Could be a good multiclass later down the line though...

I went raw Rageshaper for a Core Azata playthrough and have been effectively soloing (and even one-turning some) bosses since partway through Act 4. Since all you need to worry about is STR (default attack accuracy and damage) and CON (ground slam and durability), you can min-max it really easily. Rageshaper's passives while raging render you immune to pretty much all negative effects and add universal damage reduction.