Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
hmm ok i'll look into that
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life is very busy unfortunately, gone from most Pbp's indefinitely. If you'd like to contact me, I am on Discord at GreatAxeblade#7595, always happy to chat :)
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
That makes zero sense for a monk.
It's a damage upgrade until level 11 if you're not using melee weapons and the bludgeoning damage works nice for grappler builds. Unarmed strikes heavy builds will love it. If you're going at least 4 levels in fighter, you can save the last for just before or just after monk 11 to change the style to something else. It works perfectly in conjunction with martial arts.
Edit: alternatively, you could get it via fighting initiate, perhaps as a human variant, and change the fighting style wherever you reach a level with an ASI in any class.
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
Or, the Fighting Initiate feat. You can get that as a Variant Human or Custom Lineage at level one, and it may be worth taking it at level 4 if you have high enough Dexterity and Wisdom scores.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
It makes your unarmed strikes d8's if you aren't holding any weapons/shields. That keeps it relevant to 11, and worth a consideration overall. But I don't think fighter is the way to get it. Pick it up at level 1 as VHuman or custom race as others have mentioned.
The fact that fighting initiate is a thing now really devalues the fighter dip for me. I just think the monk gets too much out of its own class and fighter doesn't bring enough unique qualities to the table anymore. I think a fighter dip is much better on a barbarian or ranger that have some pretty weak levels in the 6-10 range. Monk wants all the monk levels it can get.
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
That makes zero sense for a monk.
It's a damage upgrade until level 11 if you're not using melee weapons and the bludgeoning damage works nice for grappler builds. Unarmed strikes heavy builds will love it. If you're going at least 4 levels in fighter, you can save the last for just before or just after monk 11 to change the style to something else. It works perfectly in conjunction with martial arts.
Edit: alternatively, you could get it via fighting initiate, perhaps as a human variant, and change the fighting style wherever you reach a level with an ASI in any class.
At monk level 5 the martial arts dice becomes a 1d6, so this is only a small increase in damage for the first four levels and only if your strength is higher than your dexterity.
You'd be better served just putting that ASI into your attack stat.
Look at Martial Arts again. Martial arts gives you the ability to use dexterity or strength, and it lets you replace the damage die of a weapon or unarmed strike with a d4 that scales, but it doesn't force the use of the d4.
If you aren't using a shield (which you aren't as a monk) and aren't using a weapon, the d6 becomes a d8. That means that your unarmed strikes equal every weapon you can use with the exception of a dedicated weapon or Kensei versatile d8/d10 weapon. The d6 is only good until 5, but the d8 lasts until 11.
Many builds will be better served by the ASI, but unarmed strike builds will love this and can change it to something like blind fighting, dueling, archery, or whatever other fighter fighting style that strikes their fancy wherever they get a level that gives them an ASI. It's like many other feats for monks, possibly not as good as the ASI, but useful for the right build or character concept.
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
That makes zero sense for a monk.
It's a damage upgrade until level 11 if you're not using melee weapons and the bludgeoning damage works nice for grappler builds. Unarmed strikes heavy builds will love it. If you're going at least 4 levels in fighter, you can save the last for just before or just after monk 11 to change the style to something else. It works perfectly in conjunction with martial arts.
Edit: alternatively, you could get it via fighting initiate, perhaps as a human variant, and change the fighting style wherever you reach a level with an ASI in any class.
At monk level 5 the martial arts dice becomes a 1d6, so this is only a small increase in damage for the first four levels and only if your strength is higher than your dexterity.
You'd be better served just putting that ASI into your attack stat.
Look at Martial Arts again. Martial arts gives you the ability to use dexterity or strength, and it lets you replace the damage die of a weapon or unarmed strike with a d4 that scales, but it doesn't force the use of the d4.
If you aren't using a shield (which you aren't as a monk) and aren't using a weapon, the d6 becomes a d8. That means that your unarmed strikes equal every weapon you can use with the exception of a dedicated weapon or Kensei versatile d8/d10 weapon. The d6 is only good until 5, but the d8 lasts until 11.
Many builds will be better served by the ASI, but unarmed strike builds will love this and can change it to something like blind fighting, dueling, archery, or whatever other fighter fighting style that strikes their fancy wherever they get a level that gives them an ASI. It's like many other feats for monks, possibly not as good as the ASI, but useful for the right build or character concept.
Yep I misread what you said.
Still, the feat only works with strength. It's 1 average damage increase per attack which isn't bad. But an ASI into your attack stat provides that and an increase in attack. I still don't really think this is useful.
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
That makes zero sense for a monk.
It's a damage upgrade until level 11 if you're not using melee weapons and the bludgeoning damage works nice for grappler builds. Unarmed strikes heavy builds will love it. If you're going at least 4 levels in fighter, you can save the last for just before or just after monk 11 to change the style to something else. It works perfectly in conjunction with martial arts.
Edit: alternatively, you could get it via fighting initiate, perhaps as a human variant, and change the fighting style wherever you reach a level with an ASI in any class.
At monk level 5 the martial arts dice becomes a 1d6, so this is only a small increase in damage for the first four levels and only if your strength is higher than your dexterity.
You'd be better served just putting that ASI into your attack stat.
Look at Martial Arts again. Martial arts gives you the ability to use dexterity or strength, and it lets you replace the damage die of a weapon or unarmed strike with a d4 that scales, but it doesn't force the use of the d4.
If you aren't using a shield (which you aren't as a monk) and aren't using a weapon, the d6 becomes a d8. That means that your unarmed strikes equal every weapon you can use with the exception of a dedicated weapon or Kensei versatile d8/d10 weapon. The d6 is only good until 5, but the d8 lasts until 11.
Many builds will be better served by the ASI, but unarmed strike builds will love this and can change it to something like blind fighting, dueling, archery, or whatever other fighter fighting style that strikes their fancy wherever they get a level that gives them an ASI. It's like many other feats for monks, possibly not as good as the ASI, but useful for the right build or character concept.
Yep I misread what you said.
Still, the feat only works with strength. It's 1 average damage increase per attack which isn't bad. But an ASI into your attack stat provides that and an increase in attack. I still don't really think this is useful.
Martial Arts allows the feat to work with dexterity. The only thing that the feat is doing is changing the damage of an unarmed strike from being 1 + your strength modifier to 1d6/1d8 + your strength modifier.
Martial Arts
At 1st level, your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of combat styles that use unarmed strikes and monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don’t have the two-handed or heavy property.
You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed or wielding only monk weapons and you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a shield:
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons.
You can roll a d4 in place of the normal damage of your unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as you gain monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table.
When you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, you can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action. For example, if you take the Attack action and attack with a quarterstaff, you can also make an unarmed strike as a bonus action, assuming you haven’t already taken a bonus action this turn.
Martial arts doesn't care where your damage comes from. You can use a Tabaxi's Claw attack, a Lizardfolk's Bite attack, an Aarakocra's Talon attack, a Minotaur's Horns attack, or any other attack that lets you make unarmed strikes with Martial Arts and use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls. It'll even keep the slashing or piercing damage instead of bludgeoning damage if that is the damage type of the attack.
As for average damage, yes its 2 average damage per unarmed strike until level 5 and 1 average damage per unarmed strike after that until level 11. As a human variant, you can put your 15 on dex, your 14 on wisdom and choose this as your feat for a damage increase on all of your unarmed strikes, including the bonus action attack and flurry of blows. It's a bit of a wash on the primary attacks since you can use a quarterstaff or spear with any monk and use the versatile die, but not everyone wants to use a weapon. This enables those people to use those attacks. A generous DM may even allow the damage upgrade for the natural attacks that I mentioned earlier and allow them to retain their damage type, but that's not a RAW reading for me.
Sorry, I was trying to do too many things and should have not been trying to comment on stuff. Derp.
I think you've convinced me that this works. There is an argument to be made that it shouldn't but honestly I think it's more fun to allow it.
I'm still not convinced it's worth multiclassing or taking as a feat though.
Whether it's worth it or not will be up to the people that are considering it. I do think that there is something to be said for doing something else for sure. I do like the synergy with the Way of that Astral Self being able to make strength checks with their Wisdom Modifier. That allows for grappling to be a bigger part of the Monk's repertoire and allows that 1d4 bludgeoning damage at the start of the round to come into effect much more frequently. It's certainly arguable that half feats are typically more valuable to a monk since they increase an ability score as well as provide an ability.
Something like a wood elf (or a Shadar-Kai or Mark of the Shadow Elf, preferrably with the +1 changed to Wisdom) Shadow Monk would love getting blind fighting style and Elvish Accuracy.
Unfortunately, monks either need to have rolled stats or have an awe inspiring feat that changes the way that they can play significantly to merit forgoing a dexterity or wisdom increase. What exactly that means will obviously change from person to person and character concept to character concept.
It should work just the same as with all of the racial natural attacks. Martial arts takes whatever sources of unarmed strikes you have and lets them key off of dex or str.
I'm still not convinced it's worth multiclassing or taking as a feat though.
Me neither. Especially the multiclass. I don't think I'd take the feat on an unarmed strike focused monk unless I was going to try and make a grapple build and get some use out of that passive damage as well. I think the new Custom Lineage in ToCE for an 18 dex at level one is a better option if you're looking to choose a race and feat for bonus damage to unarmed strikes and don't care about grappling
It should work just the same as with all of the racial natural attacks. Martial arts takes whatever sources of unarmed strikes you have and lets them key off of dex or str.
I'm still not convinced it's worth multiclassing or taking as a feat though.
Me neither. Especially the multiclass. I don't think I'd take the feat on an unarmed strike focused monk unless I was going to try and make a grapple build and get some use out of that passive damage as well. I think the new Custom Lineage in ToCE for an 18 dex at level one is a better option if you're looking to choose a race and feat for bonus damage to unarmed strikes and don't care about grappling
The unfortunate part is that the dexterity half feats are rather lacking. If you can talk your DM into letting you use the Custom Lineage to give you an "elf" that gets a feat, then that would allow you to get Elven Accuracy, which would be pretty good for a shadow monk that wants to use unarmed strikes. Otherwise, Stout Nimbleness would be a great option for a monk using the Custom Lineage to make a Small character, increase their dexterity by 1, increase their speed to 35 and give them proficiency in acrobatics or Athletics along with advantage on those checks to escape being grappled. That's actually not a bad feat at all for an unarmed striking monk with the custom lineage. Skill Expert wouldn't be a bad idea for someone so inclined.
Other feats that could be interesting with a dex bonus involve weapons: Piercer, Slasher, and Weapon Master (for dedicated weapon). There is also Gunner and Revenant Blade, but those have caveats involved (are firearms part of the world building and Revenant Blade is a racial feat).
The racial feats like Elven Accuracy could be interesting but they do rely on your DM allowing them to work with the custom lineage. There isn't anything that says that you can't use it and call something an elf, a halfling, or any of the other races that have racial feats, but I can see some DMs not appreciating that and ruling against it. The Stout Nimbleness is different since it only requires a small race and you can choose to have your size be small.
Resilient doesn't work for monk since you already have Dexterity Saving Throws. You'd have to start as something else to allow for Resilient (Dexterity) and many of the obvious choices have Dexterity Saving throws as well.
The armor feats... ugh.
Which currently leaves Athlete. I have a hard time getting excited about Athlete for this purpose. It does capitalize on your amazing movement speed... if you are going prone, jumping a lot or needing to climb before 9th level or your DM doesn't read "At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling during the move" as being able to move up a vertical surface. I like that idea better on a rogue, particularly one that is using Steady Aim in a prone position.
It should work just the same as with all of the racial natural attacks. Martial arts takes whatever sources of unarmed strikes you have and lets them key off of dex or str.
I'm still not convinced it's worth multiclassing or taking as a feat though.
Me neither. Especially the multiclass. I don't think I'd take the feat on an unarmed strike focused monk unless I was going to try and make a grapple build and get some use out of that passive damage as well. I think the new Custom Lineage in ToCE for an 18 dex at level one is a better option if you're looking to choose a race and feat for bonus damage to unarmed strikes and don't care about grappling
I think the new Custom Lineage in ToCE for an 18 dex at level one is a better option if you're looking to choose a race and feat for bonus damage to unarmed strikes and don't care about grappling
I should have been clearer but I'm comparing builds using Custom Lineage to get a Half Feat against Variant Humans picking up Fighting Initiate. I don't think unarmed fighting style is good enough on a monk to deserve a dip.
Also, where is this unicorn of a game that doesn't allow feats but is okay with multiclassing?
The unfortunate part is that the dexterity half feats are rather lacking.
My point was that I think the half feat is better on a monk that wants to boost damage at level one, but that doesn't care about grappling. On those builds part of unarmed fighting style mostly wasted. The half-feat benefit could be anything and it will be more appreciated than grapple damage on a build spending no time grappling. The custom lineage + half feat route also gives you a plethora of different side abilities to choose from to develop characters, as opposed to the unarmed fighting style having a specific, combat related side benefit.
I think Stout Nimbleness and Skill Expert are both quite exciting considering they delivered all they needed to in power already by enabling an 18 dex at level 1.
You know what's up. Lol. But yeah, that's exactly the kind of build I'm talking about wanting unarmed fighting style. If only tortles got a bonus feat.
One level in Fighter to get:
Unarmed Fighting
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by y
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
hmm ok i'll look into that
Life is very busy unfortunately, gone from most Pbp's indefinitely.
If you'd like to contact me, I am on Discord at GreatAxeblade#7595, always happy to chat :)
Homebrew races: ~Otterfolk! Play as a otter!~ Playable Dryad! (Literally just the monster sheet ported to player race)
Sauce Archpriest!- Join the Supreme Court of Sauces! Join the Cult of Cults! EXTENDED SIGNATURE Tooltips
That makes zero sense for a monk.
It's a damage upgrade until level 11 if you're not using melee weapons and the bludgeoning damage works nice for grappler builds. Unarmed strikes heavy builds will love it. If you're going at least 4 levels in fighter, you can save the last for just before or just after monk 11 to change the style to something else. It works perfectly in conjunction with martial arts.
Edit: alternatively, you could get it via fighting initiate, perhaps as a human variant, and change the fighting style wherever you reach a level with an ASI in any class.
Or, the Fighting Initiate feat. You can get that as a Variant Human or Custom Lineage at level one, and it may be worth taking it at level 4 if you have high enough Dexterity and Wisdom scores.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Hold on..
It makes your unarmed strikes d8's if you aren't holding any weapons/shields. That keeps it relevant to 11, and worth a consideration overall. But I don't think fighter is the way to get it. Pick it up at level 1 as VHuman or custom race as others have mentioned.
The fact that fighting initiate is a thing now really devalues the fighter dip for me. I just think the monk gets too much out of its own class and fighter doesn't bring enough unique qualities to the table anymore. I think a fighter dip is much better on a barbarian or ranger that have some pretty weak levels in the 6-10 range. Monk wants all the monk levels it can get.
I see what you're saying. It still only works with strength though. So unless you're a strength based monk, it's not actually going to be useful.
Look at Martial Arts again. Martial arts gives you the ability to use dexterity or strength, and it lets you replace the damage die of a weapon or unarmed strike with a d4 that scales, but it doesn't force the use of the d4.
If you aren't using a shield (which you aren't as a monk) and aren't using a weapon, the d6 becomes a d8. That means that your unarmed strikes equal every weapon you can use with the exception of a dedicated weapon or Kensei versatile d8/d10 weapon. The d6 is only good until 5, but the d8 lasts until 11.
Many builds will be better served by the ASI, but unarmed strike builds will love this and can change it to something like blind fighting, dueling, archery, or whatever other fighter fighting style that strikes their fancy wherever they get a level that gives them an ASI. It's like many other feats for monks, possibly not as good as the ASI, but useful for the right build or character concept.
Yep I misread what you said.
Still, the feat only works with strength. It's 1 average damage increase per attack which isn't bad. But an ASI into your attack stat provides that and an increase in attack. I still don't really think this is useful.
Martial Arts allows the feat to work with dexterity. The only thing that the feat is doing is changing the damage of an unarmed strike from being 1 + your strength modifier to 1d6/1d8 + your strength modifier.
Martial Arts
At 1st level, your practice of martial arts gives you mastery of combat styles that use unarmed strikes and monk weapons, which are shortswords and any simple melee weapons that don’t have the two-handed or heavy property.
You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed or wielding only monk weapons and you aren’t wearing armor or wielding a shield:
Martial arts doesn't care where your damage comes from. You can use a Tabaxi's Claw attack, a Lizardfolk's Bite attack, an Aarakocra's Talon attack, a Minotaur's Horns attack, or any other attack that lets you make unarmed strikes with Martial Arts and use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls. It'll even keep the slashing or piercing damage instead of bludgeoning damage if that is the damage type of the attack.
As for average damage, yes its 2 average damage per unarmed strike until level 5 and 1 average damage per unarmed strike after that until level 11. As a human variant, you can put your 15 on dex, your 14 on wisdom and choose this as your feat for a damage increase on all of your unarmed strikes, including the bonus action attack and flurry of blows. It's a bit of a wash on the primary attacks since you can use a quarterstaff or spear with any monk and use the versatile die, but not everyone wants to use a weapon. This enables those people to use those attacks. A generous DM may even allow the damage upgrade for the natural attacks that I mentioned earlier and allow them to retain their damage type, but that's not a RAW reading for me.
Sorry, I was trying to do too many things and should have not been trying to comment on stuff. Derp.
I think you've convinced me that this works. There is an argument to be made that it shouldn't but honestly I think it's more fun to allow it.
I'm still not convinced it's worth multiclassing or taking as a feat though.
Whether it's worth it or not will be up to the people that are considering it. I do think that there is something to be said for doing something else for sure. I do like the synergy with the Way of that Astral Self being able to make strength checks with their Wisdom Modifier. That allows for grappling to be a bigger part of the Monk's repertoire and allows that 1d4 bludgeoning damage at the start of the round to come into effect much more frequently. It's certainly arguable that half feats are typically more valuable to a monk since they increase an ability score as well as provide an ability.
Something like a wood elf (or a Shadar-Kai or Mark of the Shadow Elf, preferrably with the +1 changed to Wisdom) Shadow Monk would love getting blind fighting style and Elvish Accuracy.
Unfortunately, monks either need to have rolled stats or have an awe inspiring feat that changes the way that they can play significantly to merit forgoing a dexterity or wisdom increase. What exactly that means will obviously change from person to person and character concept to character concept.
It should work just the same as with all of the racial natural attacks. Martial arts takes whatever sources of unarmed strikes you have and lets them key off of dex or str.
Me neither. Especially the multiclass. I don't think I'd take the feat on an unarmed strike focused monk unless I was going to try and make a grapple build and get some use out of that passive damage as well. I think the new Custom Lineage in ToCE for an 18 dex at level one is a better option if you're looking to choose a race and feat for bonus damage to unarmed strikes and don't care about grappling
Not every game has Feats.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The unfortunate part is that the dexterity half feats are rather lacking. If you can talk your DM into letting you use the Custom Lineage to give you an "elf" that gets a feat, then that would allow you to get Elven Accuracy, which would be pretty good for a shadow monk that wants to use unarmed strikes. Otherwise, Stout Nimbleness would be a great option for a monk using the Custom Lineage to make a Small character, increase their dexterity by 1, increase their speed to 35 and give them proficiency in acrobatics or Athletics along with advantage on those checks to escape being grappled. That's actually not a bad feat at all for an unarmed striking monk with the custom lineage. Skill Expert wouldn't be a bad idea for someone so inclined.
Other feats that could be interesting with a dex bonus involve weapons: Piercer, Slasher, and Weapon Master (for dedicated weapon). There is also Gunner and Revenant Blade, but those have caveats involved (are firearms part of the world building and Revenant Blade is a racial feat).
The racial feats like Elven Accuracy could be interesting but they do rely on your DM allowing them to work with the custom lineage. There isn't anything that says that you can't use it and call something an elf, a halfling, or any of the other races that have racial feats, but I can see some DMs not appreciating that and ruling against it. The Stout Nimbleness is different since it only requires a small race and you can choose to have your size be small.
Resilient doesn't work for monk since you already have Dexterity Saving Throws. You'd have to start as something else to allow for Resilient (Dexterity) and many of the obvious choices have Dexterity Saving throws as well.
The armor feats... ugh.
Which currently leaves Athlete. I have a hard time getting excited about Athlete for this purpose. It does capitalize on your amazing movement speed... if you are going prone, jumping a lot or needing to climb before 9th level or your DM doesn't read "At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on your turn without falling during the move" as being able to move up a vertical surface. I like that idea better on a rogue, particularly one that is using Steady Aim in a prone position.
Tortle grappler Monk!
I don't think I've ever even heard of a game that doesn't. I'm sure the exist though.
I should have been clearer but I'm comparing builds using Custom Lineage to get a Half Feat against Variant Humans picking up Fighting Initiate. I don't think unarmed fighting style is good enough on a monk to deserve a dip.
Also, where is this unicorn of a game that doesn't allow feats but is okay with multiclassing?
My point was that I think the half feat is better on a monk that wants to boost damage at level one, but that doesn't care about grappling. On those builds part of unarmed fighting style mostly wasted. The half-feat benefit could be anything and it will be more appreciated than grapple damage on a build spending no time grappling. The custom lineage + half feat route also gives you a plethora of different side abilities to choose from to develop characters, as opposed to the unarmed fighting style having a specific, combat related side benefit.
I think Stout Nimbleness and Skill Expert are both quite exciting considering they delivered all they needed to in power already by enabling an 18 dex at level 1.
You know what's up. Lol. But yeah, that's exactly the kind of build I'm talking about wanting unarmed fighting style. If only tortles got a bonus feat.
All of my games have multi classing and NO Feats =)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale