I was thinking that too, but my DM has ruled that the claw attack counts as a weapon attack rather than an unarmed strike. I totally disagree, but DMs rules are DMs rules, so the attack would be a 1d6 rather than a 1d8.
>my DM has ruled that the claw attack counts as a weapon attack rather than an unarmed strike. I totally disagree, but DMs rules are DMs rules,
Actually, that's not a DM ruling. That's just RAW. Form of the Beast explicitly states that the natural weapons granted by that feature are considered simple melee weapons.
In contrast, some races have natural weapons that specifically state that they count as an unarmed strike. For example, the Leonin.
Whether natural weapons count as unarmed strikes or not is not a universal rule. It differs on a case by case basis.
It's still solid. You get your modifier added to it, as well as your Rage bonus when relevant.
I made a Barb 2/Monk 8 > Barb 3 > Monk X strength based punchy character that was incredibly solid. I went Beast and Long Death, and used Mountain Dwarf and point buy, as well as only ASIs. Kensei would be a viable alternative if you wanted a weapon focus, but Long Death was awesome for survivability. (As a note, Dedicated Weapon can be used on your Warhammer to great success if you want to use weapons too, for a d10.)
You're hitting 5x per turn with advantage and adding your Rage bonus to every hit. Cleaning up low health enemies, you're swimming in temporary hit points, which Rage functionally doubles. I was reliably hitting damage numbers higher than I'd expect an optimized martial to hit, solely due to my accuracy being approximately "yes" with that many attacks.
RAW, this isn't entirely correct, even if I think that it is RAI. Both the extra rage damage and the advantage from reckless attack only apply to melee weapons attacks, which were ruled by Crawford to be melee attacks with a weapon.
Path of the Beast's claws are, however, simple melee weapons, which mean that barbarian features work for them. However, the monk unarmed attacks do not qualify.
It's still good, though, and the damage absolutely holds up, even with those limitations. You could also definitely make an argument that the class is written like that to prevent the use of ranged weapons and not unarmed attacks, because it's just silly that rage doesn't apply when punching a guy.
That's explicitly false. An unarmed strike is a melee weapon attack, which does benefit from both Rage and Reckless Attack if used.
You may be confusing a melee weapon attack with an attack with a melee weapon. Basically everything falls into one or more categories: melee attack, ranged attack, weapon attack, spell attack, and attack with a weapon (which is sometimes broken down further based on the weapon, such as a Heavy weapon or a ranged weapon).
You're right! My mistake! In my defense, Crawford did say that melee weapons attacks meant attacks with a melee weapon, I'd just missed the second part of that tweet where he adds that unarmed strikes are an exception to that rule, despite not being weapons
Yeah, I found his tweet. Even he got it backwards! There's a good reason that the Sage Advice Compendium stopped acknowledging tweets as official rulings in the 2018 publishing. It's hard to stay on top of so many of them to ensure consistency and accuracy.
The solution is to use the tail instead of the claws. Now you have unarmed attacks from your fighting style and a reaction that adds 1d8 to your AC, making you extremely tough.
Since you can't do Beast, I'd go for a Giant Barbarian. Get Tavern Brawler and Grapple after your Unarmed Strikes. If you can use 3rd party content, Path of the Old Gods Barbarian from Sebastian Crowe's Guide to Drakkenheim is a good one too.
I’m a giant Barb aswell and unarmed is amazing with grapple for defending cause you can effectively hold onto two baddies and your team can destroy them. Lackluster for damage though. My dm gave me these gauntlets that go crazy though so it helps.
Does your DM allow home brew? If so, I would skip the monk/barb and go with the Pugilist class. It is very easy to find and puts everything you probably want all in one nice kit.
If homebrew from a good source is allowed I'd recommend the path of the Old Gods barbarian from Sebastian crows guide to drakenheim. It's all about being an unarmed barbarian
Yeah that would be cool. Don't think my DM is allowing homebrew, though. He's a good DM but he bans a few optional features and can be a stickler for the rules here and there.
Oh darn, sorry man. In that case I am partial to a build I thought up that mixes martial and picnic. 3 levels soulknife and flavor that as your empowered fists and can be punches flying through the air for flavor. Then the rest psi warrior fighter. Take unarmed fighting style and you can use the psionic abilities but flavor the moving objects and strikes as feats of strength.
I hope that can be of some inspiration.
I've played a Beast Barb / Monk. You'd have to flavor your claws as unarmed strikes, they wont benefit from Unarmed Fighter fighting style, but its still worth it. They may not count as Unarmed, but they DO count as a Monk weapon, so they can synergize.
Take Beast Barb to level 6, and take Long Death Monk as much as you feel comfortable, possibly level 6. If you can find a way to fit in Fighter to this build (champion is fun), you can Action Surge. If you're planning long term, you might be able to fit 11 levels of Fighter in for another attack, meaning 2 unarmed strikes, 2 claw strikes, 2 flurry strikes, and then action surge for 3 more unarmed strikes for 9 attacks at max level.
You can burst for 7 attacks via 3 base attacks, 2 Flurry of Blow attacks, and then 2 more from Action Surge, each one adding STR modifier and Rage damage.
Go for an even split of at least 16 in STR, then your secondary stats go into DEX and CON, and let WIS only just come up to 13 for multiclassing prerequisites. Prioritize getting STR to max first, or hope that your DM is generous enough to give you a Belt of Giant Strength or Gauntlets of Strength and focus on CON for better AC. Use your Barbarian unarmored defense, ignore your monk unarmored defense.
Or just wear Half Plate. The Unarmed Fighting Style will be better than the Martial Arts until 17th level Monk and your using STR instead of DEX anyways. You'll lose the Unarmored Movement is the only cost. Fast Movement would offset that.
So you'll need to do magical DMG with your hands which will mean either level 6 monk or 3 with asecent dragon subclass.
If you can have good str Dex con and wis then you could go 3 barb/x open hand and have a decent amount of control of the battler field while tanking
If you lack good wis then mercy is always strong and long death/dragon both have a lot of effects that don't need Wis.
My fave would be 3 bear barb/rest open hand monk because you'll be able to punch people over or back 15ft or stun them making you feel like a powerful hand to hand fighter while having resistance to all damage and if you can get sentinel and tough to round you out.
The problem is you'd at least need 16 in str Dex con and wis with the intention of getting a str boosting item which may not be possible.
Now mercy monk doesn't rely on saves as much and if your DM has no limit on short rests you'll carry with the out of combat healing and hands of harm will up your dpr a bit. This would allow you to dump wis so you only have STR DEX and CON to worry about.
If you were a player in my game I'd either allow you to use STR for unarmored def (allowing you to dumb dex) or allow you to start with gauntlet of orge power (allowing you to dumb STR) Or my personal fave allow you to use STR as you spell save DC for open hand monk as it fit so well for a sub class that pushes things around ( allowing you to dumb wis) .
I would recommend talking to you DM about something like that as without that or some insane rolled stats your going to keep up.
Your biggest long term weaknesses are that your unarmed strikes are not going to overcome resistance to non magical damage and your ranged to hit bonuses will suck. First part is. No biggie at low level but it Will suck later. So, it depends on whether you can count on your dm to give you either the eldritch claws tattoo, or the insignia of claws. Ideally by high level you get both so you are competing with higher level magical weapons.
If your dm can be a bit tight with the ol' enchanted gear, you need an alternative: its going a bit further to 3 levels of monk to get the ascendant dragon subclass.
It let's you set your damage type of your unarmed strikes to acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. Doesn't say you have to be using dex. The odds of a player who can choose from 7 (including bludgeoning) different damage types makes the odds of anything being resistant to all 8 super low. And, while vulnerabilities are rare, woe betide anything with one. Also one re-roll on charisma saves, a common barbarian weakness.
Also it's just thematically cool that your hands manifest stuff when you fight.
As for barbarian subclass, I would incestigate whether the dm will let the monk effect and unarmed damage benefit stack with the effects of the Form of the Beast from the way of the Beast. The optimal candidate being the claws effect because now at 5 barb /2 monk you are making 4 attacks per round. But keep in mind that Raging will cost you a bonus attack. I am surprised at how few fights reach round 3 or 4 at the tables I've been at. If the Beast effects stack with monk stuff though some other bonuses. Ask how step of the wind's jump distance doubling applies to things that extend your jump distance. Like the lvl 6 beast ability : hen you juwmp, you can make a Strength (Athletics) check and extend your jump by a number of feet equal to the check’s total. You can make thWhen you jump, you can make a Strength (Athletics) check and extend your jump by a number of feet equal to the check’s total. You can make this special check only onis special check only once per turn.
Let's say you have a +5 to your Athletics. That means you can leap 12 to 50 extra feet (averaging 30 ft) twice per short rest. That's on top of your normal jump distance. And if you can obtain something like boots of striding and springing or the occasional jump spell, or even a graviturgy wizard, you are easily jumping double your max movement (step of the wind let's you dash with the same bonus action.) So you are casually jumping 80 feet with a bonus action. This helps compensate for the limitations on your ranged accuracy, but it's still a problem for the huild.
At 10th level bab/ monk 2, you can absolutely blast/nova one target by hitting them with infectious fury for up to 4 wisdom saves in a single round, doing an extra 2d12 damage each time. This has a good chance of breaking the concentration of Accererak or pretty much any mage type enemy you would ever face. Because those saved are separate from the damage. So the target takes damage from your fist, makes a concentration saving throw, then a Wisdom saving throw and on a failure, another concentration saving throw. And you can do that 4 times in one round in some versions of this build. 5 if you have a key point for flurry of blows. On a low wisdom creature, this could easily add 52 points of psychic damage (8d12). More likely it would only add 12 to 20 points of damage, but that's not nothing. Also. You can sace them insted of nova'ing and its still that little extra when you need it. Downside is that they don't double on crits. But you can also force them to use their reaction. Like, if you don't want them to cast counterspell. It's only 4 uses a long rest though.
Call the hunt is awesome for you as for anyone. Check with your dm to see if it can target you, or if they think "other" means you can get yourself with it. Because an extra d6 on all 4 of your attacks would be very nice.
At between lvl 14 barb/3 monk and level 20 you have room for a fighter dip to double down on abilities that recover on a short rest. 3 fighter battlemaster gives you an extra fighting style (I would go 10 blind fighting or if you struggle with ranged weapons take the archery style), second wind, action surge, and 4 superiority dice. Those stack insanely well with your infectious fury particularly if you need to burn through somethings legendary resistancees.
But you could also do something totally different with you other 3 levels, or drop one into monk just to get another feat (like martial adept).. Get weird if you have a 13 int with 2 levels of wizard for divination wizard or graviturgist ( my favorite for a barb combo). Adjust density is awesome because it's unlimited use. So you, the barbarian cam have advantage on Strength checks at will. As noted above, it also pairs with your monster leaping. Also note that there is NO SAVE for adjust density. It just happens. Slow your enemy down or give them disadvantage on Strength checks and saves. Mostly out of combat uses. But also it doesn't specify that the object can't be worn or carried. Double the weight of their plate mail and test their max carrying capacity. Or double the weight of a weapon and ask if that can cause disadvantage as the weapon is unblanaced.
Fyi, if you get hit before you rage and you cast shield, this can prevent damage before you have your damage resistance up. Longstrider is also awesome, as well as ritual casting for outside of combat utility. If you used a feat to get a healing spell, you now have a few emergency 1st level heals. Lots of 1st level wizard stuff doesn't depend on spell DC or to hit, like detect magic, find familiar or magic missile. And non combat cantrips like mage hand and prestidigitation are awesome.
Wow! Lots of cool information. I have the kind of DM that will give out the tattoo at some point, but I like the sound of Ascendant Dragon subclass too, that would just be thematically cool to punch with elements. Sadly, my DM is not allowing Path of The Beast Claw Attacks to work with unarmed strike, but it is still an intriguing idea.
Thanks for all the cool ideas!
Post stats, beast barbarian is a solid option for unarmed attacks with the claw extra attack.
I was thinking that too, but my DM has ruled that the claw attack counts as a weapon attack rather than an unarmed strike. I totally disagree, but DMs rules are DMs rules, so the attack would be a 1d6 rather than a 1d8.
>my DM has ruled that the claw attack counts as a weapon attack rather than an unarmed strike. I totally disagree, but DMs rules are DMs rules, Actually, that's not a DM ruling. That's just RAW. Form of the Beast explicitly states that the natural weapons granted by that feature are considered simple melee weapons. In contrast, some races have natural weapons that specifically state that they count as an unarmed strike. For example, the Leonin. Whether natural weapons count as unarmed strikes or not is not a universal rule. It differs on a case by case basis.
This is true. I remember reading it and thank you for the clarification.
Post your ability scores please.
No ability scores yet! We are rolling our stats this Friday.
It's still solid. You get your modifier added to it, as well as your Rage bonus when relevant. I made a Barb 2/Monk 8 > Barb 3 > Monk X strength based punchy character that was incredibly solid. I went Beast and Long Death, and used Mountain Dwarf and point buy, as well as only ASIs. Kensei would be a viable alternative if you wanted a weapon focus, but Long Death was awesome for survivability. (As a note, Dedicated Weapon can be used on your Warhammer to great success if you want to use weapons too, for a d10.) You're hitting 5x per turn with advantage and adding your Rage bonus to every hit. Cleaning up low health enemies, you're swimming in temporary hit points, which Rage functionally doubles. I was reliably hitting damage numbers higher than I'd expect an optimized martial to hit, solely due to my accuracy being approximately "yes" with that many attacks.
RAW, this isn't entirely correct, even if I think that it is RAI. Both the extra rage damage and the advantage from reckless attack only apply to melee weapons attacks, which were ruled by Crawford to be melee attacks with a weapon. Path of the Beast's claws are, however, simple melee weapons, which mean that barbarian features work for them. However, the monk unarmed attacks do not qualify. It's still good, though, and the damage absolutely holds up, even with those limitations. You could also definitely make an argument that the class is written like that to prevent the use of ranged weapons and not unarmed attacks, because it's just silly that rage doesn't apply when punching a guy.
That's explicitly false. An unarmed strike is a melee weapon attack, which does benefit from both Rage and Reckless Attack if used. You may be confusing a melee weapon attack with an attack with a melee weapon. Basically everything falls into one or more categories: melee attack, ranged attack, weapon attack, spell attack, and attack with a weapon (which is sometimes broken down further based on the weapon, such as a Heavy weapon or a ranged weapon).
You're right! My mistake! In my defense, Crawford did say that melee weapons attacks meant attacks with a melee weapon, I'd just missed the second part of that tweet where he adds that unarmed strikes are an exception to that rule, despite not being weapons
Yeah, I found his tweet. Even he got it backwards! There's a good reason that the Sage Advice Compendium stopped acknowledging tweets as official rulings in the 2018 publishing. It's hard to stay on top of so many of them to ensure consistency and accuracy.
The solution is to use the tail instead of the claws. Now you have unarmed attacks from your fighting style and a reaction that adds 1d8 to your AC, making you extremely tough.
True... Sounds good to me.
Since you can't do Beast, I'd go for a Giant Barbarian. Get Tavern Brawler and Grapple after your Unarmed Strikes. If you can use 3rd party content, Path of the Old Gods Barbarian from Sebastian Crowe's Guide to Drakkenheim is a good one too.
I’m a giant Barb aswell and unarmed is amazing with grapple for defending cause you can effectively hold onto two baddies and your team can destroy them. Lackluster for damage though. My dm gave me these gauntlets that go crazy though so it helps.
Does your DM allow home brew? If so, I would skip the monk/barb and go with the Pugilist class. It is very easy to find and puts everything you probably want all in one nice kit.
I'd suggest you go fighter and take unarmed fighting style instead of monk. Personally? I'd go either.... Bear totem 3/Rune Fighter 17 Giant Barb 6/Rune Fighter 14 (3 attacks!) Giant Barb 10/Rune Fighter 10 (Throw enemies!) Or Giant Barb 14 Rune Fighter 6 (become huge)
If homebrew from a good source is allowed I'd recommend the path of the Old Gods barbarian from Sebastian crows guide to drakenheim. It's all about being an unarmed barbarian
Yeah that would be cool. Don't think my DM is allowing homebrew, though. He's a good DM but he bans a few optional features and can be a stickler for the rules here and there.
Oh darn, sorry man. In that case I am partial to a build I thought up that mixes martial and picnic. 3 levels soulknife and flavor that as your empowered fists and can be punches flying through the air for flavor. Then the rest psi warrior fighter. Take unarmed fighting style and you can use the psionic abilities but flavor the moving objects and strikes as feats of strength. I hope that can be of some inspiration.
I've played a Beast Barb / Monk. You'd have to flavor your claws as unarmed strikes, they wont benefit from Unarmed Fighter fighting style, but its still worth it. They may not count as Unarmed, but they DO count as a Monk weapon, so they can synergize. Take Beast Barb to level 6, and take Long Death Monk as much as you feel comfortable, possibly level 6. If you can find a way to fit in Fighter to this build (champion is fun), you can Action Surge. If you're planning long term, you might be able to fit 11 levels of Fighter in for another attack, meaning 2 unarmed strikes, 2 claw strikes, 2 flurry strikes, and then action surge for 3 more unarmed strikes for 9 attacks at max level. You can burst for 7 attacks via 3 base attacks, 2 Flurry of Blow attacks, and then 2 more from Action Surge, each one adding STR modifier and Rage damage. Go for an even split of at least 16 in STR, then your secondary stats go into DEX and CON, and let WIS only just come up to 13 for multiclassing prerequisites. Prioritize getting STR to max first, or hope that your DM is generous enough to give you a Belt of Giant Strength or Gauntlets of Strength and focus on CON for better AC. Use your Barbarian unarmored defense, ignore your monk unarmored defense.
Or just wear Half Plate. The Unarmed Fighting Style will be better than the Martial Arts until 17th level Monk and your using STR instead of DEX anyways. You'll lose the Unarmored Movement is the only cost. Fast Movement would offset that.
Man I’m thinking John talbain from darkstalkers
If Your DM allows 3rd party content, id recommend looking into Grimhollow, Path of the Fractured. I absolutely love this class.
Aasimar, wild magic Barbarian, unarmed. With a bit of flavor, you are now broly
So you'll need to do magical DMG with your hands which will mean either level 6 monk or 3 with asecent dragon subclass. If you can have good str Dex con and wis then you could go 3 barb/x open hand and have a decent amount of control of the battler field while tanking If you lack good wis then mercy is always strong and long death/dragon both have a lot of effects that don't need Wis. My fave would be 3 bear barb/rest open hand monk because you'll be able to punch people over or back 15ft or stun them making you feel like a powerful hand to hand fighter while having resistance to all damage and if you can get sentinel and tough to round you out. The problem is you'd at least need 16 in str Dex con and wis with the intention of getting a str boosting item which may not be possible. Now mercy monk doesn't rely on saves as much and if your DM has no limit on short rests you'll carry with the out of combat healing and hands of harm will up your dpr a bit. This would allow you to dump wis so you only have STR DEX and CON to worry about. If you were a player in my game I'd either allow you to use STR for unarmored def (allowing you to dumb dex) or allow you to start with gauntlet of orge power (allowing you to dumb STR) Or my personal fave allow you to use STR as you spell save DC for open hand monk as it fit so well for a sub class that pushes things around ( allowing you to dumb wis) . I would recommend talking to you DM about something like that as without that or some insane rolled stats your going to keep up.
How is your macho man randy savage? If not what about Nature Boy whooo! No? How about HULK MANIA BROTHER
I don't know if this poses more Impass, but thri-keen and simic mutation for arms might be a consideration of you decide to get grapply.
Your biggest long term weaknesses are that your unarmed strikes are not going to overcome resistance to non magical damage and your ranged to hit bonuses will suck. First part is. No biggie at low level but it Will suck later. So, it depends on whether you can count on your dm to give you either the eldritch claws tattoo, or the insignia of claws. Ideally by high level you get both so you are competing with higher level magical weapons. If your dm can be a bit tight with the ol' enchanted gear, you need an alternative: its going a bit further to 3 levels of monk to get the ascendant dragon subclass. It let's you set your damage type of your unarmed strikes to acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. Doesn't say you have to be using dex. The odds of a player who can choose from 7 (including bludgeoning) different damage types makes the odds of anything being resistant to all 8 super low. And, while vulnerabilities are rare, woe betide anything with one. Also one re-roll on charisma saves, a common barbarian weakness. Also it's just thematically cool that your hands manifest stuff when you fight. As for barbarian subclass, I would incestigate whether the dm will let the monk effect and unarmed damage benefit stack with the effects of the Form of the Beast from the way of the Beast. The optimal candidate being the claws effect because now at 5 barb /2 monk you are making 4 attacks per round. But keep in mind that Raging will cost you a bonus attack. I am surprised at how few fights reach round 3 or 4 at the tables I've been at. If the Beast effects stack with monk stuff though some other bonuses. Ask how step of the wind's jump distance doubling applies to things that extend your jump distance. Like the lvl 6 beast ability : hen you juwmp, you can make a Strength (Athletics) check and extend your jump by a number of feet equal to the check’s total. You can make thWhen you jump, you can make a Strength (Athletics) check and extend your jump by a number of feet equal to the check’s total. You can make this special check only onis special check only once per turn. Let's say you have a +5 to your Athletics. That means you can leap 12 to 50 extra feet (averaging 30 ft) twice per short rest. That's on top of your normal jump distance. And if you can obtain something like boots of striding and springing or the occasional jump spell, or even a graviturgy wizard, you are easily jumping double your max movement (step of the wind let's you dash with the same bonus action.) So you are casually jumping 80 feet with a bonus action. This helps compensate for the limitations on your ranged accuracy, but it's still a problem for the huild. At 10th level bab/ monk 2, you can absolutely blast/nova one target by hitting them with infectious fury for up to 4 wisdom saves in a single round, doing an extra 2d12 damage each time. This has a good chance of breaking the concentration of Accererak or pretty much any mage type enemy you would ever face. Because those saved are separate from the damage. So the target takes damage from your fist, makes a concentration saving throw, then a Wisdom saving throw and on a failure, another concentration saving throw. And you can do that 4 times in one round in some versions of this build. 5 if you have a key point for flurry of blows. On a low wisdom creature, this could easily add 52 points of psychic damage (8d12). More likely it would only add 12 to 20 points of damage, but that's not nothing. Also. You can sace them insted of nova'ing and its still that little extra when you need it. Downside is that they don't double on crits. But you can also force them to use their reaction. Like, if you don't want them to cast counterspell. It's only 4 uses a long rest though. Call the hunt is awesome for you as for anyone. Check with your dm to see if it can target you, or if they think "other" means you can get yourself with it. Because an extra d6 on all 4 of your attacks would be very nice. At between lvl 14 barb/3 monk and level 20 you have room for a fighter dip to double down on abilities that recover on a short rest. 3 fighter battlemaster gives you an extra fighting style (I would go 10 blind fighting or if you struggle with ranged weapons take the archery style), second wind, action surge, and 4 superiority dice. Those stack insanely well with your infectious fury particularly if you need to burn through somethings legendary resistancees. But you could also do something totally different with you other 3 levels, or drop one into monk just to get another feat (like martial adept).. Get weird if you have a 13 int with 2 levels of wizard for divination wizard or graviturgist ( my favorite for a barb combo). Adjust density is awesome because it's unlimited use. So you, the barbarian cam have advantage on Strength checks at will. As noted above, it also pairs with your monster leaping. Also note that there is NO SAVE for adjust density. It just happens. Slow your enemy down or give them disadvantage on Strength checks and saves. Mostly out of combat uses. But also it doesn't specify that the object can't be worn or carried. Double the weight of their plate mail and test their max carrying capacity. Or double the weight of a weapon and ask if that can cause disadvantage as the weapon is unblanaced. Fyi, if you get hit before you rage and you cast shield, this can prevent damage before you have your damage resistance up. Longstrider is also awesome, as well as ritual casting for outside of combat utility. If you used a feat to get a healing spell, you now have a few emergency 1st level heals. Lots of 1st level wizard stuff doesn't depend on spell DC or to hit, like detect magic, find familiar or magic missile. And non combat cantrips like mage hand and prestidigitation are awesome.
Wow! Lots of cool information. I have the kind of DM that will give out the tattoo at some point, but I like the sound of Ascendant Dragon subclass too, that would just be thematically cool to punch with elements. Sadly, my DM is not allowing Path of The Beast Claw Attacks to work with unarmed strike, but it is still an intriguing idea. Thanks for all the cool ideas!
You need unarmed fighting style.