Martial Arts for Non-Monks

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I'm using this rule for my next game, and I'm posting here for anyone who's wanted Fighters (or other classes) to be able to fight effectively with their hands.

Improved Unarmed Strike and the Monk's unarmed fighting ability are replaced with the following feats:

Combat Martial Arts

As Improved Unarmed Strike, plus it allows a Medium-sized character to deal 1d4 damage with his or her unarmed strikes. It has no prerequisites and may be taken as a Fighter bonus feat. This means that 1st-4th level Monks do 1d4 with their unarmed strikes, instead of 1d6 (or 1d8).

Improved Martial Arts
Prerequisites: Combat Martial Arts, BAB +5 (or Monk 5, see below)
Benefit: Your character does an additional d4 (for Medium-sized characters) damage with his or her unarmed strikes.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times; its effects stack. Every time this feat is taken, the prerequisites increase by an additional +5 BAB or five Monk levels. Monks receive this feat as a bonus feat every time their Monk level qualifies them for it. (Classes with the Monk Training class ability count as Monk for this purpose.)

---

Character size affects the damage done by the Martial Arts feats. Die type is adjusted up or down by one type for every size difference: Small martial artists do xd3, Large martial artists do xd6, and so on. Characters with claw or slam attacks may add +1 damage per die.

While this lowers the Monk's damage at 1st-4th level, from 4th level and beyond their damage is similar to the chart in the PHB, and provides a regular progression for the purposes of Epic Monks.

For multiclassed Monks, I am considering allowing BAB + 1/4 Monk level as a replacement for the BAB or Monk level requirement, but I'm uncertain how to determine when this feat is gained as a bonus feat. When I receive Complete Adventurer, I'll have to figure out how to make the various Ascetic feats work, as well-- though, for my current game, I can simply disallow them because I'm using the Gestalt rules.

Also, is anyone aware of a feat that increases the critical multiplier of a weapon or unarmed/natural attack?

edit: Corrected for my primitive caveman mind's inability to handle basic math.

 

[Samuel Leming]

Unarmed Combat for Fighters and other Classes

I've been trying to post this for the last two hours and you manage to post something very similar. If emoticons were working, I don't know which one I'd use right now. At least you've opened the door for me.
_______________

As I stated in the Do we really need the monk thread, my main difficulty with the class is that people play monks just to get effective unarmed combat and have no desire to play the more mystical aspects of the monk. My solution is to allow other character classes to gain effective unarmed combat by taking feats. In the case of the fighter, the potential will be there to surpass the monk at fighting unarmed.

I'm posting the following in the hopes of getting some feedback. Maybe you guys will see problems I don't. This isn't everything. I'm leaving out things that I don't think work yet.

Basic Unarmed Combat Feats

These first three feats form the basis of this expanded unarmed combat system. These feats may be substituted for the starting armor or weapon proficiency feats of some standard classes at first level. It would work better to treat these modified classes as cultural variants rather than substitution levels. An example will appear at the end of this post.

Improved Unarmed Attack [General]

Your unarmed attacks are more dangerous than usual for your size or type.
Prerequisite: No natural weapon, Base Attack Bonus +4 or above
Benefit: The damage done by your unarmed attack increases by one step as if you were a monk: 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10. Damage progressions for small or large sized characters can be found in the monk entry in the Player's Handbook.
Special: This feat can be taken again for each additional four point increase to your Base Attack Bonus. The feats stack and raise your unarmed damage as per the monk progression listed above. An exception to the prerequisites exist for first level class feat substitutions for beginning characters. Warrior classes(such as fighters and barbarians) or priest classes(such as clerics or druids) can substitute up to two Improved Unarmed Attack feats for the same number of standard class feature feats. Expert classes(such as rogues and bards) can only substitute for one level of Improved Unarmed Attack. Arcane or scholar classes can not subsitute Improved Unarmed Attack and must wait to take this feat until they reach BAB +4. Since the subsituted feat doesn't meet the prerequisites, a penalty on armor usage is imposed. The first substitute of Improved Unarmed Attack can only be used while wearing light or no armor, the second only while wearing no armor. For example; Scully the scrapper is a first level fighter variant with two subsituted Improved Unarmed Attack feats for an unarmed attack of 1d6. If Scully wears any armor at all, one of his Improved Unarmed Attack feats becomes unusable and his unarmed damage drops to 1d4. If he wears medium or heavy armor his unarmed damage drops to its base 1d3. At fourth level Scully has the prerequisite to take another Improved Unarmed Attack feat for a total unarmed damage of 1d8. Since he has the prerequisite, armor does not effect this latest damage increase. Now, if Scully wears light armor his unarmed damage only drops to 1d6 and if he wears medium or heavy armor it only drops to 1d4.
A fighter may select Improved Unarmed Attack as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Notes: In a low magic setting or a game where characters can aquire magic to aid unarmed combat it could be a good idea to limit the number of times this feat can be taken or to set a maximum limit on base damage. For a standard D&D game, pile it on just like the monk.​

Improved Unarmed Strike [General]

Notes: Unaltered from the Player's Handbook.​

Unarmed Block [General]

You are adept at blocking your opponents unarmed attacks.
Benefit: You receive a +2 shield bonus to your AC against unarmed attacks from opponents the same size or one size larger or smaller than your character.
Special: A fighter may select Unarmed Block as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Notes: A good feat for boxer or other pugilist NPC's. The main interest in this feat for the typical player character will usually be as a prerequisite to more advanced unarmed defensive feats.​

Defensive Unarmed Feats

Analytical Defense [General]

You are adept at anticipating your opponent's attacks.
Prerequisite: Int 13+, Improved Unarmed Strike, Unarmed Block
Benefit: You can add your Int bonus as a cerebral bonus to your AC.
Special: A fighter may select Analytical Defense as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Notes: In a high-powered high-stats game where multiple mental stats are likely to be high you may consider restricting access to this feat.​

Blinding Speed [General]

Your reflexes and power give you extra speed to dodge your opponent's attacks.
Prerequisite: Str 13+, Dex 13+, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, Unarmed Block
Benefit: You can add your Str bonus as a dodge bonus to your AC.
Special: This bonus is reduced by your encumberance or armor check penalty. This feat can not be used while raging.
A fighter may select Blinding Speed as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Notes: In a low magic setting it may be better to elliminate this feat in favor of strengthening the Unarmored Defense feat.​

Intuitive Defense [General]

You intuitively know where your opponent is about to strike.
Prerequisite: Wis 13+, Improved Unarmed Strike, Unarmed Block
Benefit: You can add your Wis bonus as a cerebral bonus to your AC.
Special: A fighter may select Intuitive Defense as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Notes: In a high-powered high-stats game where multiple mental stats are likely to be high you may consider restricting access to this feat.​

Lucky Defense [General]

You're lucky. You know it & your opponent is about to find that out for himself.
Prerequisite: Cha 13+, Improved Unarmed Strike, Unarmed Block
Benefit: You can add your Cha bonus as a cerebral bonus to your AC.
Special: A fighter may select Lucky Defense as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Notes: In a high-powered high-stats game where multiple mental stats are likely to be high you may consider restricting access to this feat.​

Unarmored Defense [General]

Your mastery of unarmored combat gives you phenominal ability to dodge your opponent's attacks.
Prerequisite: Improved Unarmed Strike, Unarmed Block or Weapon Finesse(unarmed attack), Weapon Focus(unarmed attack), Weapon Specialization(unarmed attack)
Benefit: You gain a dodge bonus to your AC equal to one fifth your character level rounded down. This feat can not be used while wearing armor.
Special: A fighter may select Unarmored Defense as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Notes: In a low magic game a bonus of one fourth character level may work better. You may want to consider making this an unnamed bonus rather than a dodge bonus.
You may consider allowing fighters specializing in finessable weapons other than unarmed attack to take this feat.​

Tactical Unarmed Feats

I have a few new ones, but many tactical and technical feats useful for unarmed combat already exist in the core rules and other suppliments. This post is long enough already.

Example Fighter Variant

This example fighter class variant is the archetypical peasant deprived of weapons by law and forced to learn the ways of the warrior to defend himself from the predations of bandits and a corrupt government. This variant is somewhat like the medieval Okinawan karateka.

BAB: Good, as standard fighter

HD: d10, as standard fighter

Saves: as standard fighter, but good save may be switched to Reflex if needed.

Class Skills:

Balance(Dex)
Bluff(Cha)
Climb(Str)
Craft(Int)
Handle Animal
Intimidate(Cha)
Jump(Str)
Swim(Str)
Tumble(Dex)​

One skill, Balance, is substituted for Ride, and two more skills, Bluff & Tumble, are excanged for dropping the standard Tower Shield Proficiency feat

All the standard fighter's armor and weapon proficiences are dropped and replaced with unarmed feats and a customized weapon list appropriate to the variant's origin:

Two additional class skills replace the Tower Shield Proficiency feat.
The Unarmed Block feat replaces the standard Shield Proficiency feat.
The Improved Unarmed Strike feat replaces the Light Armor Proficiency feat.
Improved Unarmed Attack is taken twice to boost unarmed damage from 1d3 to 1d6. These two feats replace the Medium Armor Proficiency and Heavy Armor Proficiency feats.​

For this variant fighter class you should probably construct a weapon proficiency list of simple and commonly available weapons that make sense for the origin culture in your campaign setting.

Variant fighters like the above, and other characters such as variant swashbucklers and rogues, would have satisfied most of the players I've know who wanted to play "martial artists." I've never met a player who's unarmed combat character concept has matched the monk class as written. I believe it's easier to modify the highly customizable, but somewhat bland, fighter class than to modify the rigid, but colorful, monk class.

The unarmed combat feats I've listed here have stayed away from the mystical. If you have players that want more mysticism, but don't want to go to the extreme of the standard monk class, you could construct prestige classes to provide those abilities. You could also use Hong's Martial Artist class.

Sam

 

[Samuel Leming]

I'm using this rule for my next game, and I'm posting here for anyone who's wanted Fighters (or other classes) to be able to fight effectively with their hands.

That would be me. **smilie**

Sorry, I really don't know what the proper etiquette is for a situation like this.

I didn't consider modifying the monk's abilities though. Other than perhaps limiting their damage to 1d8 if I introduced magic to enhance unarmed combat.

I'm too tired to continue this right now.

Also, is anyone aware of a feat that increases the critical multiplier of a weapon or unarmed/natural attack?

I haven't seen one. It shouldn't be too hard for you to create one, though.

Sam

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

These first three feats form the basis of this expanded unarmed combat system. These feats may be substituted for the starting armor or weapon proficiency feats of some standard classes at first level. It would work better to treat these modified classes as cultural variants rather than substitution levels. An example will appear at the end of this post.

I'm using the Weapon Group Proficiency variant from Unearthed Arcana. I allow the first tier Combat Martial Arts to replace any group proficiency feat.

Not sure I like making the Int/Wis/Cha modifier add to AC as a feat-- those are normally restricted to a small handful of classes that don't normally gain major benefits from those ability scores. I definitely do not like the idea of Str adding to AC, even though I understand how it would work realistically.

I like your Unarmored Defense feat-- combined with Intuitive Defense, it simulates the Monk's defensive capabilities. I'm using a modified version of Class Defense Bonus, and I replaced the Monk's progressive AC bonus with a Good defense rating. (They keep the ability to add their Wis modifier.) In a less extensively-houseruled game, though, this would be a good addition, I think.

I haven't seen one. It shouldn't be too hard for you to create one, though.

True enough. I just generally prefer to see how other people have solved a problem before tackling it myself.

 

[azmodean]

I like this in general, but you should probably specify that only one of the Defensive unarmed feats can be taken, and possibly change them to defensive unarmored feats. A possible exception would be unarmored defense, which would stack with any one of the attribute-related defense feats.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I like this in general, but you should probably specify that only one of the Defensive unarmed feats can be taken

I think that defeats his purpose of making the combat aspects of monk attainable through feats. I do agree about making them require the user to be unarmored.

 

[VoiceOfReason?]

I definitely agree with the skepticism over so many feats based on so many different abilities to give stackable (dodge and luck) bonuses to AC. The feats may be more balanced by adding additional bonuses to a single attack, like the dodge feat (though not neccessarily the same attack that dodge or another feat is used on).

I have also seen it quite rare that players portray their monks as the eastern mystics, priests, scholar/philosophers and (lastly) martial artists the PHB models them after, playing them more like fighters than monks. Over all, I like the feats, but would definitely take another look at stacked effects at mid/high levels.

.

 

[Samuel Leming]

I definitely do not like the idea of Str adding to AC, even though I understand how it would work realistically.

I resisted adding a feat like this at first because I was emotionally opposed(because Str already does so much), but I was having difficulty getting the variant fighters AC high enough. Being hard to hit is a central concept of these kind of characters and not having access to magic armor and shields really hurts them.

I settled on making the Blinding Speed feat really expensive and close to useless while wearing armor.

I definitely agree with the skepticism over so many feats based on so many different abilities to give stackable (dodge and luck) bonuses to AC. The feats may be more balanced by adding additional bonuses to a single attack, like the dodge feat (though not neccessarily the same attack that dodge or another feat is used on)..

You guys may be right. As I warned in my first post, these feats certainly break in a game with mega-stats at low level. Well, Power Attack and Cleave break under mega-stats too.

Let's consider the Cleric, one of the classes I want to give the least to. Unless he's an unarmed variant, a human cleric would need to be 3rd level to take the Intuitive Defense feat and a non-human would need to be 6th level. Typically these clerics would already have a Wis of 16 or 17 for a +3 bonus. Is it worth giving up three feats, two of which you'll probably never use, for a +3 bonus? How about a +5 bonus(racial stat increase plus maybe 4th lvl stat increase), like some of the non-humans would get at 6th level? It takes all three of your feats you have at that level to do this. Is it worth it? Myself, I can see doing this for the concept, but not for the power. Note: it's possible for a 1st level human unarmed variant cleric to do this, but he's given up armor use to make it happen.

Let's also consider the wizard, a character very likely to have more than one mental stat bonus. It wouldn't be uncommon for a 6th level human wizard to have a +3 int bonus and a +1 Wis bonus. Is it worth a human wizard burning all four of his general feats for a +4 AC bonus? If his stats are a little higher, is it worth all four feats for a +6? Maybe, but you've 'defined' your character to do it.

There may be something, other then uber-stats, that can break these. Would somebody be able to post an example of these feats breaking? Then I can attack and fix the problem in a concrete manner.

I have also seen it quite rare that players portray their monks as the eastern mystics, priests, scholar/philosophers and (lastly) martial artists the PHB models them after, playing them more like fighters than monks. Over all, I like the feats, but would definitely take another look at stacked effects at mid/high levels.

Taking a look at these feats, stacked or otherwise, is why I posted. The more eyes and minds the better.

Sam

 

[azmodean]

It just seems obvious that since the best current ability similar to this is AC dodge bonus = dex + wis + 1/5 class level, then AC dodge bonus = dex + wis + int + cha + str + 1/5 class level is broken.

It seems somewhat resonable, with heavy prerequisites, to allow dex + one other attribute + 1/5 class level as a bonus to AC to a character wearing no armor. Anything more than that clearly exceeds the power of special abilities granted by a class.

I settled on making the Blinding Speed feat really expensive and close to useless while wearing armor.

Every special ability that allows a second attribute to contribute to AC specifies that it only works when no armor is worn, why should these feats not have this restriction?
We are talking about D&D 3.5 aren't we?

 

[Samuel Leming]

It just seems obvious that since the best current ability similar to this is AC dodge bonus = dex + wis + 1/5 class level, then AC dodge bonus = dex + wis + int + cha + str + 1/5 class level is broken.

Well, I certainly intended to prevent that from happening. My philosophy is to prefer discouragement to heavy-handed rulism wherever I can. A standard fighter would need to burn nine of his feats to do this by 20th level. That's exactly half his feats for a non-human. I wouldn't do it. A unarmed variant fighter would need seven feats. The variant fighter could do this, if all his stats are 13+, but he's be giving up many damage increasing and tactical feats to do it. I wouldn't go this route myself, particularly since it still doesn't boost your AC up as high as a standard fighter. Now, in the case of a mega-stats game this would be a temptation for the variant fighter, which is why I warned about it in my original post.

The best current ability similar to this is the monk. No surprise given our topic. The monk is usually played as a hit and run combatant. A good part of that is that his AC commonly lags behind the fighter's by over 10 points at higher levels. I'm trying to build a character that can be a front line fighter, at least in some situations. I need to make up that AC lag somewhere. This system is still falling short of the goal. Any different ideas on how to make up the difference?

As I said, taking all three mental defense feats is not what I want to see happen. Since I can make the bonus type of all three of these feats the same and still get the effect I want, I'll do so.

It seems somewhat resonable, with heavy prerequisites, to allow dex + one other attribute + 1/5 class level as a bonus to AC to a character wearing no armor.

This reasoning is somewhat conservative, being based on a system that doesn't handle the character concept I'm trying to match.

With the change I'm making it's now dex + maybe str + maybe one other mental bonus + 1/5(1/3 at high level*) class level as a bonus to AC. Given standard access tp magic the variant fighter still doesn't match the core fighter.

*I have an Improved Unarmored Defense feat I haven't posted because I'm not happy with it yet.

Anything more than that clearly exceeds the power of special abilities granted by a class.

By a core class, yes. The Defender of Midnight gets Dex + 1/2 class level. The reduced magic in that setting keeps a standard fighter from getting as far ahead of a defender in AC.

Exceeding the special abilities of the monk class is what's needed for the character concepts I'm trying to address. What I'm doing here is trying to figure out a good way to do it.

Every special ability that allows a second attribute to contribute to AC specifies that it only works when no armor is worn, why should these feats not have this restriction?

I believe you may have missed that Unarmored Defense doesn't work while armored(The opposite from the monk, same as the Defender). Since I'm intending Unarmored Defense to be an agility bonus, I had no problem restricting it by armor. Mental bonuses to AC aren't reduced by armor, everything else(even unarmed attack damage for variant classes) is in various ways.

We are talking about D&D 3.5 aren't we?

Um, yeah. You're intending to help, right?

Sam