Hey, how's it going? I was wondering what's the best way to make a strong unarmed fighter who isn't a monk? I'm playing in a test game for a homebrew game and I wanted to play an unarmed fighter. The tools given to me are actually pretty good for that, given that the race I'm playing can grapple as a bonus action when hitting an enemy with their natural weapon and the class I was given, a fighter, focuses around physical strength and gives me a temp advantage on athletics related skills, on top of having a build in powerful build feature and allowing me to grapple with enemies up to two sizes larger. I'm honestly rather excited. And yet, while grappling is fun and all, I feel like I'm falling way behind in damage with this build. Even with the unarmed fighter specialization from tasha's, I can barely squeeze out a 1d8+4+str, for a total of 12+str damage, per round, whereas other classes, like two-handed weapon fighter and archers, with the rightfeats can easily deal out 1d12+10+str, for 22+str damage, per round. And with extra attack it becomes even worse, as unmarded deals 2d8+4+str, for 20+str damage, whereas the other options deal 2d12+20+str, for a total of 44 damage, per round. That's a loss of 24 points of damage per round for an unarmed fighter. And the classes who don't get to benif from those feats have other ways to deal extra damage, like the rogue with their sneak attack and mages with high tier spells and even monks with flurry of blows which comes to 5d6+str/dex, or 30+str/dex points of damage per round. I know that d&d isn't just about high numbers, but it fells a bit unsatisfying to be the only one in the party who barely managed to deal out 20 points of damage, when everyone else deals out at least twice the amount you do.
1) Powerful Build normally doesn't allow you to grapple things one step larger than normal. It does increase how quickly you can drag smaller enemies however.
2) If you're going the Grapple route you will suffer in overall damage - but that's the point. Grappling reduces movement, forces a full action to escape, and protects your allies.
3) Your 1d8 for having two hands not wielding weapons or a shield with Unarmed Fighting Style stays whether they're both grappling or not. Take advantage of grabbing two people per round if possible. You can still attack because you can still hit them with head butts, knees, etc.
4) Your ultimate goal should be to Shove the Grappled enemies prone as quickly as possible. That means you and every other ally will get advantage on those melee attacks and the baddies will be at disadvantage to attack anyone else.
5) Grab the crusher Feat, for more shenanigans. Move those targets around at your whim.
6) Enlarge (Spell), Bear Totem (Druid subclass Feature), and the like will also go a long way in letting you connect with every Grapple and Shove.
This is the fundamental problem with optimizers - they focus far too much on calculating only the direct damage that comes from their own build, ignoring the fact that if you hold an enemy down for even one round the amount of hits, critical hits, and overall damage of the entire party skyrockets.
Edit: For reference, I play a grappler build in one of my campaigns. On the days I don't play, the party has a crazy difficult time trying to survive because the enemies swarm the spellcasters a lot faster and wreck our low-AC power-hitters much more often.
1.) I didn't say it does. Those are two different features from the same subclass.
2.) Not really. Enemy melee fighters don't really care about the reduced movement or necessarily want or even need to break free. After all, locking them into a grapple also means you can't get away from their attacks either. Not to mention those who do prefer to fight from a distance usually have an easy way to escape grapples without wasting an action, like for example misty step for mages or thunderwave for half casters. Also no, it doesn't really protect "low-AC power-hitters". Your allies still need to get into the enemies reach to land their own hits and being grappled doesn't impose disadvantage on attacks, so they are just as much in danger with or without you grappling.
4.) Not really, it's a waste of an action. Especially since others in the party have much easier ways to knock the enemy prone without wasting an action thanks to their class features. Not to mention this doesn't even account for all the enemies who are immune to being knocked prone in the first place like elementals, ghosts, mimics, oozes, plant monsters, or pretty much anything you fight in the water. Also, depending on the party build, knocking an enemy prone isn't necessarily always a good idea regardless, as all you just did was make it harder for the ranger or mage to hit the enemy as being prone imposes disadvantage on ranged attacks. (Your ranger with a ranged specialization will be so happy he has to use his mundane shortsword instead of his +1 bow against the enemy who is immune to non-magical attacks.)
6.) Maybe, but that also means you're limited to certain classes with acces to those features. I'm looking for a build that works for all classes.
Dude, you're not half as smart as you think you are, nor do you know anything about me or my playstyle. Maybe next time get off your high horse and don't try to judge people you know absolutely nothing about.
Wow, pissy reply to some valid advice and suggestions on a build that WILL, without doubt, be behind the curve damage wise, which is what was complained about in OP. As was stated, like the facts or not, an unarmed Fighter build is for utility and grappling, NOT for damage output. If you NEED to be up there in damage, you will need to drop the unarmed style, as it simply can't keep up with the builds using weapons, that offer bonus damage, bonus to hit and more.
Getting hissy with folks who try to advise how a non-optimal damage build might work isn't productive and won't change the fact that unarmed Fighter simply isn't and likely never will be, in the upper tiers of damage output. It's a build for RP/flavor purpose, or the utility of, as mentioned, shoving and controlling enemies movement and position. If damage is the goal, find another build, pick a different fighting style or go Monk so you can add some BA attacks to bring the damage up some.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
1.) I didn't say it does. Those are two different features from the same subclass.
2.) Not really. Enemy melee fighters don't really care about the reduced movement or necessarily want or even need to break free. After all, locking them into a grapple also means you can't get away from their attacks either. Not to mention those who do prefer to fight from a distance usually have an easy way to escape grapples without wasting an action, like for example misty step for mages or thunderwave for half casters. Also no, it doesn't really protect "low-AC power-hitters". Your allies still need to get into the enemies reach to land their own hits and being grappled doesn't impose disadvantage on attacks, so they are just as much in danger with or without you grappling.
4.) Not really, it's a waste of an action. Especially since others in the party have much easier ways to knock the enemy prone without wasting an action thanks to their class features. Not to mention this doesn't even account for all the enemies who are immune to being knocked prone in the first place like elementals, ghosts, mimics, oozes, plant monsters, or pretty much anything you fight in the water. Also, depending on the party build, knocking an enemy prone isn't necessarily always a good idea regardless, as all you just did was make it harder for the ranger or mage to hit the enemy as being prone imposes disadvantage on ranged attacks. (Your ranger with a ranged specialization will be so happy he has to use his mundane shortsword instead of his +1 bow against the enemy who is immune to non-magical attacks.)
6.) Maybe, but that also means you're limited to certain classes with acces to those features. I'm looking for a build that works for all classes.
Dude, you're not half as smart as you think you are, nor do you know anything about me or my playstyle. Maybe next time get off your high horse and don't try to judge people you know absolutely nothing about.
2) If you don't have a single archer or spellcaster in the party and the DM isn't sending a single archer or spellcaster against you, then you are right. Not usually the case though.
4) it doesn't use an action, just one attack. And giving the enemy disadvantage on all its attacks, and your party advantage on theirs isn't a waste. As for the <10% of enemies that are immune to prone, but not grapple, don't shove them.
Don't forget about your 1d4 of free damage each turn. And stop comparing the damage of your melee support build to the damage of a DPS optimized build. And if you must compare, at least do it right:
If you and the DPS both start with 16 STR, and you took an ASI at level 4 while they take GWM, at level 5:
You will have +7 to hit and do 8.5 (1d8+4) damage. They will have a +1 to hit and deal 21.3 (2d6+13) damage.
If the target has 15 AC and you both make 2 attacks, the average DPR is 11.05 for you and 14.93 for them. Less than 4 dpr difference.
If you spent your first turn grappling and shoving that target, dps build now does 24.64 average damage. Then you can attack with advantage next round +1d4 free damage for: 17.41.
By not attacking, you increase party DPR by 13.07. Not factoring increased crit rates or more that 1 ally.
That is the power of factoring hit % into average damage and having a support build (you) giving advantage to attack.
Don't immediately discredit good advice because you don't understand why it is good.
1.) I didn't say it does. Those are two different features from the same subclass.
2.) Not really. Enemy melee fighters don't really care about the reduced movement or necessarily want or even need to break free. After all, locking them into a grapple also means you can't get away from their attacks either. Not to mention those who do prefer to fight from a distance usually have an easy way to escape grapples without wasting an action, like for example misty step for mages or thunderwave for half casters. Also no, it doesn't really protect "low-AC power-hitters". Your allies still need to get into the enemies reach to land their own hits and being grappled doesn't impose disadvantage on attacks, so they are just as much in danger with or without you grappling.
4.) Not really, it's a waste of an action. Especially since others in the party have much easier ways to knock the enemy prone without wasting an action thanks to their class features. Not to mention this doesn't even account for all the enemies who are immune to being knocked prone in the first place like elementals, ghosts, mimics, oozes, plant monsters, or pretty much anything you fight in the water. Also, depending on the party build, knocking an enemy prone isn't necessarily always a good idea regardless, as all you just did was make it harder for the ranger or mage to hit the enemy as being prone imposes disadvantage on ranged attacks. (Your ranger with a ranged specialization will be so happy he has to use his mundane shortsword instead of his +1 bow against the enemy who is immune to non-magical attacks.)
6.) Maybe, but that also means you're limited to certain classes with acces to those features. I'm looking for a build that works for all classes.
Dude, you're not half as smart as you think you are, nor do you know anything about me or my playstyle. Maybe next time get off your high horse and don't try to judge people you know absolutely nothing about.
1) “on top of having a build in powerful build feature and allowing me to grapple with enemies up to two sizes larger.”. Literally your quote. This is not what Powerful Build does. If you’re referring to some homebrew or subclass feature then in your original post it’s a good idea to identify it directly.
2) If the enemy melee hitters are only attacking the high-HP Fighters then you’ve actually done exactly what you want them to do. If your enemy only attacks your fighters you’ve already won. I can’t imagine any decently smart enemy would use that tactic however.
Mages using Misty Step and Thunderwave is a massive success. That’s one more round the spellcaster won’t be doing something way more deadly. Also a resounding success.
Also, why I suggested shoving prone to protect your allies.
4) Shoving and Grapple are for one attack, not one action. So at level 5 with Tavern Brawler you could punch, grapple and shove in one round. For an action surge you could grapple and shove another enemy.
I also see you have developed a Schroedinger Party, that can not benefit from Grappled or Prone enemies because your party is either consisted of only Heavy melee hitters or Sharpshooting Rangers depending on which one fits your reasoning better.
6) Looking for an Unarmed build that works for “all classes”? Sure. Take Feat Fighting Adept: Unarmed Fighting Style, Feat Skill Expert: Athletics, Str-based. But some classes will work better than others (specifically ones that get Extra Attack). Those were merely ideas to improve your chances.
A Str rogue could end up using Reliable Talent, Expertise Athletics on their second attack to make it a lot more useful (especially if the first already hit with Sneak). It’s not ideal, but it’ll work.
“Dude, you're not half as smart as you think you are, nor do you know anything about me or my playstyle. Maybe next time get off your high horse and don't try to judge people you know absolutely nothing about.”
Nice lol. Don’t worry man, I lose plenty of arguments on this site and I definitely don’t know you (nor would I ever want to).
Hey, how's it going? I was wondering what's the best way to make a strong unarmed fighter who isn't a monk?
I'm playing in a test game for a homebrew game and I wanted to play an unarmed fighter. The tools given to me are actually pretty good for that, given that the race I'm playing can grapple as a bonus action when hitting an enemy with their natural weapon and the class I was given, a fighter, focuses around physical strength and gives me a temp advantage on athletics related skills, on top of having a build in powerful build feature and allowing me to grapple with enemies up to two sizes larger. I'm honestly rather excited.
And yet, while grappling is fun and all, I feel like I'm falling way behind in damage with this build. Even with the unarmed fighter specialization from tasha's, I can barely squeeze out a 1d8+4+str, for a total of 12+str damage, per round, whereas other classes, like two-handed weapon fighter and archers, with the right feats can easily deal out 1d12+10+str, for 22+str damage, per round. And with extra attack it becomes even worse, as unmarded deals 2d8+4+str, for 20+str damage, whereas the other options deal 2d12+20+str, for a total of 44 damage, per round. That's a loss of 24 points of damage per round for an unarmed fighter. And the classes who don't get to benif from those feats have other ways to deal extra damage, like the rogue with their sneak attack and mages with high tier spells and even monks with flurry of blows which comes to 5d6+str/dex, or 30+str/dex points of damage per round.
I know that d&d isn't just about high numbers, but it fells a bit unsatisfying to be the only one in the party who barely managed to deal out 20 points of damage, when everyone else deals out at least twice the amount you do.
Ok, a few things about Unarmed Fighting:
1) Powerful Build normally doesn't allow you to grapple things one step larger than normal. It does increase how quickly you can drag smaller enemies however.
2) If you're going the Grapple route you will suffer in overall damage - but that's the point. Grappling reduces movement, forces a full action to escape, and protects your allies.
3) Your 1d8 for having two hands not wielding weapons or a shield with Unarmed Fighting Style stays whether they're both grappling or not. Take advantage of grabbing two people per round if possible. You can still attack because you can still hit them with head butts, knees, etc.
4) Your ultimate goal should be to Shove the Grappled enemies prone as quickly as possible. That means you and every other ally will get advantage on those melee attacks and the baddies will be at disadvantage to attack anyone else.
5) Grab the crusher Feat, for more shenanigans. Move those targets around at your whim.
6) Enlarge (Spell), Bear Totem (Druid subclass Feature), and the like will also go a long way in letting you connect with every Grapple and Shove.
This is the fundamental problem with optimizers - they focus far too much on calculating only the direct damage that comes from their own build, ignoring the fact that if you hold an enemy down for even one round the amount of hits, critical hits, and overall damage of the entire party skyrockets.
Edit: For reference, I play a grappler build in one of my campaigns. On the days I don't play, the party has a crazy difficult time trying to survive because the enemies swarm the spellcasters a lot faster and wreck our low-AC power-hitters much more often.
Okay, to address some points:
1.) I didn't say it does. Those are two different features from the same subclass.
2.) Not really. Enemy melee fighters don't really care about the reduced movement or necessarily want or even need to break free. After all, locking them into a grapple also means you can't get away from their attacks either. Not to mention those who do prefer to fight from a distance usually have an easy way to escape grapples without wasting an action, like for example misty step for mages or thunderwave for half casters.
Also no, it doesn't really protect "low-AC power-hitters". Your allies still need to get into the enemies reach to land their own hits and being grappled doesn't impose disadvantage on attacks, so they are just as much in danger with or without you grappling.
4.) Not really, it's a waste of an action. Especially since others in the party have much easier ways to knock the enemy prone without wasting an action thanks to their class features. Not to mention this doesn't even account for all the enemies who are immune to being knocked prone in the first place like elementals, ghosts, mimics, oozes, plant monsters, or pretty much anything you fight in the water.
Also, depending on the party build, knocking an enemy prone isn't necessarily always a good idea regardless, as all you just did was make it harder for the ranger or mage to hit the enemy as being prone imposes disadvantage on ranged attacks. (Your ranger with a ranged specialization will be so happy he has to use his mundane shortsword instead of his +1 bow against the enemy who is immune to non-magical attacks.)
6.) Maybe, but that also means you're limited to certain classes with acces to those features. I'm looking for a build that works for all classes.
Dude, you're not half as smart as you think you are, nor do you know anything about me or my playstyle. Maybe next time get off your high horse and don't try to judge people you know absolutely nothing about.
Wow, pissy reply to some valid advice and suggestions on a build that WILL, without doubt, be behind the curve damage wise, which is what was complained about in OP. As was stated, like the facts or not, an unarmed Fighter build is for utility and grappling, NOT for damage output. If you NEED to be up there in damage, you will need to drop the unarmed style, as it simply can't keep up with the builds using weapons, that offer bonus damage, bonus to hit and more.
Getting hissy with folks who try to advise how a non-optimal damage build might work isn't productive and won't change the fact that unarmed Fighter simply isn't and likely never will be, in the upper tiers of damage output. It's a build for RP/flavor purpose, or the utility of, as mentioned, shoving and controlling enemies movement and position. If damage is the goal, find another build, pick a different fighting style or go Monk so you can add some BA attacks to bring the damage up some.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
2) If you don't have a single archer or spellcaster in the party and the DM isn't sending a single archer or spellcaster against you, then you are right. Not usually the case though.
4) it doesn't use an action, just one attack. And giving the enemy disadvantage on all its attacks, and your party advantage on theirs isn't a waste. As for the <10% of enemies that are immune to prone, but not grapple, don't shove them.
Don't forget about your 1d4 of free damage each turn. And stop comparing the damage of your melee support build to the damage of a DPS optimized build. And if you must compare, at least do it right:
If you and the DPS both start with 16 STR, and you took an ASI at level 4 while they take GWM, at level 5:
That is the power of factoring hit % into average damage and having a support build (you) giving advantage to attack.
Don't immediately discredit good advice because you don't understand why it is good.
Are you only planning to have Grapple because it is fun?
You don't seem to believe Brewsky's comment about it.
1) “on top of having a build in powerful build feature and allowing me to grapple with enemies up to two sizes larger.”. Literally your quote. This is not what Powerful Build does. If you’re referring to some homebrew or subclass feature then in your original post it’s a good idea to identify it directly.
2) If the enemy melee hitters are only attacking the high-HP Fighters then you’ve actually done exactly what you want them to do. If your enemy only attacks your fighters you’ve already won. I can’t imagine any decently smart enemy would use that tactic however.
Mages using Misty Step and Thunderwave is a massive success. That’s one more round the spellcaster won’t be doing something way more deadly. Also a resounding success.
Also, why I suggested shoving prone to protect your allies.
4) Shoving and Grapple are for one attack, not one action. So at level 5 with Tavern Brawler you could punch, grapple and shove in one round. For an action surge you could grapple and shove another enemy.
I also see you have developed a Schroedinger Party, that can not benefit from Grappled or Prone enemies because your party is either consisted of only Heavy melee hitters or Sharpshooting Rangers depending on which one fits your reasoning better.
6) Looking for an Unarmed build that works for “all classes”? Sure. Take Feat Fighting Adept: Unarmed Fighting Style, Feat Skill Expert: Athletics, Str-based. But some classes will work better than others (specifically ones that get Extra Attack). Those were merely ideas to improve your chances.
A Str rogue could end up using Reliable Talent, Expertise Athletics on their second attack to make it a lot more useful (especially if the first already hit with Sneak). It’s not ideal, but it’ll work.
“Dude, you're not half as smart as you think you are, nor do you know anything about me or my playstyle. Maybe next time get off your high horse and don't try to judge people you know absolutely nothing about.”
Nice lol. Don’t worry man, I lose plenty of arguments on this site and I definitely don’t know you (nor would I ever want to).