Fun with Feats 13: Ascetic Style
(art by Jack-Kaiser on DeviantArt)
We’re back with another special on feats in Pathfinder, and we’re starting off with another combat style!
As we’ve established so far, the vast majority of combat styles are for monks and other unarmed combatants, what with their focus on unarmed strikes and the like, with only a few focused on weapons, and that division is important to note because today’s subject bridges that gap.
Another thing to note is that while brawlers have their own way of making the weapons in their arsenal viable, if you try doing that with the so-called “monk weapons”, you are generally assumed to be playing sub-optimally. Your unarmed strikes are simply going to be better than even the highest-damage dice weapon eventually, and you’d only play with such a weapon to take advantage of some combat maneuver feat chain or because you found one with a really nice enchantment on it.
Which is where the ascetic style comes into play. This style is all about making monk weapons viable at later levels, as well as gain some monk-like abilities if you’re not a monk, and improve your monk-ness if you’re multiclassing and said aspect of the class is falling by the wayside.
In this way, the Ascetic Style is less a specific style than it is weapon training with your favorite monk weapons as well as finding ways to fit in training with said monk weapons even while learning another profession. Perhaps your sorcerer figures out how to use their mystic handsigns as a focus to calm their mind, or a rogue that favors a stolen monk weapon trains with it, blending monastic teachings with their on unconventional style and so on.
So yes, it’s much more than a “make monk weapons good” style, making it viable for many to users outside of that class, even if you have no monk levels to begin with, so let’s get into it!
The basics of Ascetic Style allow the user to use their chosen monk weapon (or all monk weapons if they are a monk) with other feats that require training with unarmed combat to use, allowing them to use things like medusa strike and other martial arts maneuvers with these weapons.
By achieving Ascetic Form, they can also apply all class features that focus on unarmed strikes to their weapon. Meanwhile, non-monks and those with training in other classes use their full level when determine how often they can use things like stunning fist or perfect strike.
Finally, those that master Ascetic Strike learn to deal greater harm with their monk weapons, though slightly less powerful than an unarmed monk of the same level of mastery. It also lets non-monks or any practitioners without a still mind learn the Monastic Legacy feat.
Which I will cover here since it proably won’t come up elsewhere in feat specials: Monastic Legacy lets the user use their full level as monk levels for the purposes of unarmed strike, improving the might of their punches and kicks and subsequently, the power of monk weapons via this style.