Sacred Fist of Kossuth

[DemonAbyss10]

I have been working on a Sacred Fist of Kossuth RP build. Going to be going more of the "Society of the Illuminating Flame" route with it.

As for my actual question. Still not sure exactly would be the best route of the build. As I see it I have two options.

Go heavy into Monk, full Sacred Fist progression and only go a little into cleric. This would be more a Martial arts master type of feel to the character.

The other Option would be instead of going heavy into monk, go heavy into cleric. This would be more a caster-heavy build.


So the question itself comes, which would be more lore-friendly, along with what would the pros and cons truly be with each path, along with maybe some advice on feats since I am not 100% certain on it other than that if doing melee, I want to go unarmed. I like the idea of playing an elderly Thayan monk/cleric of Kossuth that plays off of the society of the illuminating flame concept, which can definitely cause some interesting RP to happen due to that particular order wanting to wrest power from the Red Wizards.

[Snarfy]

I currently play a sacred fist with heavy cleric/SF investment, and he's no slouch. When fully warded he becomes a bit of a powerhouse, but some of those spells take a while to get up and running, and the ones that add the most to his unarmed damage tend to be rather short in duration, even when extended. Regardless, it's a fun build to play, even if his caster level is a little low for my liking(CL 28).

I imagine going the monk heavy route would get a little aggravating with dispells being the way they are, but then again you're probably not going to feel any real impact since you'll be reaping the benefits of all those monk levels and hitting hard and fast anyways.

As for what is more lore-friendly, I couldn't say. There aren't many fire based spells to choose from if you go the caster-heavy route, but there are some nice high level destructive spells that have a bit of Kossuthian fire-like flavor to them(and the domains to match that, which should always be chosen carefully). Either way, I'd say tailor the build to the RP you intend, and go from there. It'll likely be fun to play either route you choose.

[Steve]

Monk 20 / Cleric 3 / Sacred Fist 7.

Take Intuitive Attack and maximize Wisdom. Take Fiery Fist and eventually Blazing Aura.

Your fists are one with your Deity, and nearly nothing can kill you, AND the character is a Mage killer extraordinaire.

Myself, I played for a year a Monk 20 / Divine Champion 10, and he was sick (not in the covo manner, not in the head way, but in the daaaammmnnnn that’s sick yo! way).

More Kossuthians!!’

[The Whistler]

I used to run this build a year ago, makes short work of high end pvm content like vault of the dead with extended walls of fire and mass heal. stormlord is a stand in for hierophant; take spell power I, II, II, inscribe rune and faith healing for your hierophant feats. it achieves a decent implosion dc and can use sacred flames to melee in a pinch. IIRC you're looking at 45ish AB with short terms buffs which is nothing to scoff at.

protip: you can GMW your fist weapons

[DemonAbyss10]

I used to run this build a year ago, makes short work of high end pvm content like vault of the dead with extended walls of fire and mass heal. stormlord is a stand in for hierophant; take spell power I, II, II, inscribe rune and faith healing for your hierophant feats. it achieves a decent implosion dc and can use sacred flames to melee in a pinch. IIRC you're looking at 45ish AB with short terms buffs which is nothing to scoff at.

protip: you can GMW your fist weapons

Didnt even know Stormlord works with unarmed. What was unarmed damage output looking like btw?

Monk 20 / Cleric 3 / Sacred Fist 7.

Take Intuitive Attack and maximize Wisdom. Take Fiery Fist and eventually Blazing Aura.

Your fists are one with your Deity, and nearly nothing can kill you, AND the character is a Mage killer extraordinaire.

Myself, I played for a year a Monk 20 / Divine Champion 10, and he was sick (not in the covo manner, not in the head way, but in the daaaammmnnnn that’s sick yo! way).

More Kossuthians!!’

This is what I was originally intending since I planned on playing up the Monk angle moreso than the cleric side.

As for domain, I picked up Renewal for that Beautiful Contingent heal. And Fire. Still early on enough I can RCR if I want to adjust something IMO.

[The Whistler]

as I said, stormlord is a stand in for hierophant. the monk heavy build hasn't been that good ever since the divine power nerf

[DemonAbyss10]

as I said, stormlord is a stand in for hierophant. the monk heavy build hasn't been that good ever since the divine power nerf

Gonna have to wait on a reset to change it up then using RCR sadly. What were you using weapon wise? Unarmed?

[The Whistler]

sacred fist code of conduct makes using anything but fists a little silly

[DemonAbyss10]

sacred fist code of conduct makes using anything but fists a little silly

True, completely forgot about that.
Gonna give it a try I guess, just gotta wait on reset.

[chad878262]

Ah Nostalgia...Me and Tsidkenu used to have fun theory crafting debates around various sacred fist builds... Below is my opinion as it relates to SF:

- Monk heavy is not what it once was due to the change to Divine Power. The whole reason M20/C3/SF7 was a thing was because Divine Power essentially gave this build Barbarian Rage like buffs to an already solid performing build. However, Divine Power based on the new version does not provide nearly the oomph it used to. Don't get me wrong, it's still decent, but short duration of DP and the fact that your essentially a lower damage monk most of the time is kinda meh. Plus side is you have enough Monk to get Blazing Aura and use intuitive attack. It's not terrible, but certainly not the powerhouse it once was. BAB 24, CL 9 (or 13 w/ PSC) level 5 spells, 3d8 fist damage. So yea, the spells are nice, but pure monk has more damage, more spell resistance, better monkishness and the spells from cleric are all easy to strip with dispel magic and just don't provide much benefit. Sure, DP will give you +8 AB, +6 STR, but AB is capped at +20 and duration of DP is 54 seconds (or 1 min 18 seconds with PSC, more with extend spell if you go that route). The loss of one APR by increasing BAB is not really a loss here, a bigger loss is the capability to get sky high AB by jumping from 24 to 30 while still getting +4 (EB on gloves) + 3 (Bless, Aid, Prayer), +1 (Battletide), +1 (Haste), +3 (divine favor) + 1 (EP) + 12 (WIS with Owl's) for an AB of 30 (BAB) + 13 + 12 = 55. Factor in near full monk damage plus blazing aura and this was a real boss killer. It is still objectively "good" but the effective AB is closer to mid-to-high 40's instead of mid 50's.

- Caster heavy is still pretty good, the DP nerf still impacts it, but not quite as much as monk heavy. My personal favorite split (credit to Tsidkenu) is M6/C11/SF7/H6 which can have Caster Level 29 and effective monk level (for damage) of 16. Fist damage is only 2d8 and no Blazing Aura for a bump. However, nearly full caster level and you do still have Sacred Flames a couple times a day... Main thing here is this build is nearly dragon druid level of defensive. Nearly impossible to kill so is definitely playing on easy mode when you buff up. Many cleric spells are not on the breach list so can pretty much buff once and keep going in PvE for a VERY long time... This build will still rely heavily on Divine Power in the redesigned form as it would be at BAB 24 + 5 (GMW) + 2 (bless, aid) + 4 (14 STR + Bulls) + 1 (EP) = 36 with long term buffs. Note this is not AS bad as it may at first seem since you can still get Expose Weakness, but pushing that to 44 w/ Divine Power is much better... Of course you have access to the other short term buffs in larger quantities as well so Divine Favor, Prayer and Battletide and (with items) Haste can push you to near 50 AB, but remember that +20 cap so in most cases you won't use all these buffs at once. Better to use them in varying combo's to keep AB around ~40-44 at all times. This of course assumes you still go for max wisdom which will make you a pretty solid caster with solid defense as well. You could instead go for STR based which will have lower AC and fewer spells, but more AB and damage.

- Caster/Monk - Monk 13/Cleric 7/Sacred Fist 10 - At first glance this might seem to be the worst of both above options. However, for PvE I would say it's actually quite good. Caster Level with PSC is only 19 so it is quite easy to dispel, but PvE has mostly breaches (as above, many cleric spells are not on the breach list). Monk 13 means you can get blazing aura so you have better damage, greater flurry of blows and a small bit of spell resistance. CL15 (19) means you have level 8 spells, can use gloves with special features and apply GMW for +4 EB (one off from +5, unfortunately) and make use of minute/level and longer buffs easily. you might get dispelled in some area's, but will be in decent shape even when you get stripped of buffs. Unfortunately still don't qualify for Intuitive attack, but even with max WIS you can buff just like the caster heavy build. This one is a bit higher risk, but for PvE if you are a seasoned player most of the flaws can be avoided which allows you to get more of the best features of both Cleric and Monk.

Hope the above helps, whatever you decide, hope you enjoy the experience. Personally I agree with snarfy, for most players the caster heavy version will likely be the most enjoyable. Monk heavy can still be a devastating offensive powerhouse, but has a few holes in the defense. The more balanced split is in my opinion a lot of fun, but definitely has some area's where it will struggle with bosses/area's that fire a dispel. Even those, there is usually a way to utilize the environment so you can either avoid the dispel or at least rebuff safely when you know it is coming. All in all I think it will depend on the skill, knowledge and personality of the player as to which version you might enjoy.


***EDIT: forgot one of the requirement of hierophant which made M6/C8/SF10/H6 impossible. Thus I think the split is supposed to be M6/C11/SF7/H6. To be fair I may still be misstating this as it has been a very long time. Point being though the idea was M6 for KD/IKD and Hierophant 6 for SPIII (or H4 if you want to go SPII and lose two CL in which case you can get SF to 9) I think one is CL28 and the other is CL30. *shrug* at least it gives folks something to think on.