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Introduction
Ever since the release of the Melee Tactics Toolbox, I have been enamored by the Circling Mongoose feat. It's feel, uniqueness and power invited me to conceive a ton of different builds which might use it to its best advantage. I think I have finally found the best build to take advantage of it, to great effect.
The Build
The engine of the build is the interaction between Circling Mongoose and Panther Style:
Panther Style
Benefit: While using this style, when an opponent makes an attack of opportunity against you for moving through a threatened square, you can spend a swift action to make a retaliatory unarmed strike attack against that opponent. Your attack is resolved after the triggering attack of opportunity.
Circling Mongoose
Benefit: When you are adjacent to a foe, as a full-round action, you can take a full-attack action to make melee attacks against the foe, moving 5 feet before each attack. You must move 5 feet before each melee attack you make, and can't exceed your maximum speed, exceed your maximum number of attacks in a round, or attack any other target until the beginning of your next turn.
You must remain adjacent to the foe, and your movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal unless you succeed at the appropriate Acrobatics checks. If your first attack against the foe hits, you are considered to be flanking the foe on your second attack. Subsequent attacks made as part of the full-attack action continue to be treated as if you were flanking the foe until one of your attacks misses, at which point your attacks are treated normally.
In summary, this would be what happens when you full-attack an adjacent enemy:
1. Move 5 feet, provoking an attack of opportunity (thanks to Circling Mongoose).
2. After the Attack of Opportunity resolves (or before, once you finish the Panther Style featline), your enemy provokes a retaliatory attack at your full attack bonus. (This is a swift action until you get Panther Claw, the second feat on the featline.)
3. After the enemy's attack of opportunity and your retaliatory attack resolves, you make your first iterative attack at your highest attack bonus.
4. If that attack hits, you get the benefits of flanking for the rest of your attacks.
5. Repeat this process until you run out of iterative attacks.
Of course, this engine has limitations:
- You need high attack (to trigger Circling Mongoose on the first hit), high AC (to survive the barrage of attacks of opportunity you'll provoke) and high Wisdom (to have a few retaliatory attacks).
- You are tight with feats, so you need to use a high-feat class - to wit: you need Improved Unarmed Strike, Dodge, Mobility, Combat Reflexes, Spring Attack, Circling Mongoose, Panther Style, Panther Claw... you probably want to finish off with Panther Parry, and then get Weapon Focus, Step Up, Following Step, Step Up and Strike...
- Circling Mongoose requires BAB +6, so this can only get online at level 6 minimum. A medium BAB class needs to wait to get until their level 9 (or level 8, if they have a bonus feat then.)
- Circling Mongoose forces you to stick with a single target for all of your attacks to maintain its benefits - it's not entirely clear whether you can abandon the benefits of Circling Mongoose and move on to a different target once your first foe is taken down.
- Heavy full-attack reliance, which can be ameliorated by taking the Step Up line.
- Smarter enemies will perhaps realize they need to stop taking attacks of opportunity on you... this is good somehow, as it allows you to use Circling Mongoose flanking bonus nonchalantly.
- Not all enemies have Combat Reflexes to make the most of this build (but it's a fairly standard feat.)
- This uses the Style feat, so unless you are a Master of Many Styles, you can't add Pummeling Charge or Dragon's Ferocity to this.
- Swift action is requires to activate the style until you take Combat Style Master.
Classes
There are a few competitors for best user of this combo:
- Monks get Improved Unarmed Strike and scaling unarmed damage, they have flurry and can spend a feat in getting a third iterative, can pick Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Mobility with their bonus feats... this helps a lot to set up. They also gain a lot of benefits from high Wisdom. That being said, they suffer from medium BAB on attacks of opportunity, lack of attack bonuses, and only medium BAB to qualify for feats, which means they'll only be able to take Circling Mongoose at level 9th.
- Brawlers get Improved Unarmed Strike and scaling unarmed damage, they have flurry, have bonus feats to ease up on build requirements, have Martial Flexibility to qualify for the required feats at level 6th... all in all, the best all-around class for this style. Before level 8th though (7th for Humans), this build is only online for 3 minutes per day thanks to martial flexibility... (can be lengthened with the right FCBs).
- Brawlers with the Snakebite Striker archetype can use Circling Mongoose to trigger Sneak Attack, but lose Martial Flexibility, which delays this build until level 8th (or 7th for Humans).
- Unarmed Fighter archetype for Fighters gets Unarmed Strike quick and cheap, a bonus Style feat, and can get this build up and running by level 6th with no problem, and gets a ton of feats afterwards to focus on other stuff. Gets a good bonus to attack and damage with unarmed strikes (just 2 points lower than a Brawler/Monk on average). As for cons, this has a lot of superfluous features that affect combat maneuvers which are not the focus of this build. Really low skillpoints, too.
- Brawler archetype for Fighters can only get online at level 7th (6th for Humans!!), and they get a few nice bonuses -- large damage bonus from Close Weapon Training (on par with Monks/Brawlers), scaling penalty to the accuracy of enemies, good tools to prevent runners, heavy armor/light shield proficiency, lots of feats to improve yourself afterwards... A pretty solid choice, though it suffers from not being able to Flurry without TWF feats and requires Double Slice to have full STR bonus on your off-hand attacks even then. Really low skillpoints, too.
- Other Fighter archetypes also qualify - the old Mutation Warrior/Martial Master combo (which has extra potency/versatility), Two-Weapon Fighter (which can do some interesting things with attacks of opportunity)...
- Human/Half-Elf/Half-Orc Slayers with the Irori Faithful Combat Style works well, particularly because they also benefit from Sneak Attack, have good armor and BAB... but the earliest they can qualify for the full-build is level 7th. Not bad though, although they also have to get Two-Weapon Fighting and Double Slice to get flurry.
- Sacred Fist and Ninja may be tempting, the former because of its use of Wisdom and flurry and the latter because of its extra attacks and Sneak Attack, but the Sacred Fist only qualifies by level 9th and the Ninja only by level 8th, which may be too much of a delay for some players. Both are also medium BAB classes, so they suffer from not having full attacks of opportunity.
- Irori Faithful Combat Style Divine Tracker Ranger actually has a pretty good leg up, obtaining some unarmed damage scaling, full-BAB, coming online at level 7th if Human (though they need to wait to level 9th to pick up Panther Claw), and they get spells to boot.
Feats
The list of feats for this kind of build are the following:
MANDATORY
- Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Circling Mongoose - half of the combo.
- Improved Unarmed Strike, Combat Reflexes, Panther Style, Panther Claw - the other half.
OPTIONAL
- Panther Parry - because why not?
- Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus - your Circling Mongoose gives out a flanking benefit if you don't miss any attacks, so this comes in handy.
- Canny Tumble - you need to provoke attacks of opportunity for this build to work... but if your GM starts making enemies not hit you with attacks of opportunity, you can use this to get a good boost to your accuracy as you use Acrobatics while tumbling around the enemy.
- Underfoot - only works for Small races, but this grants +2 AC for attacks of opportunity provoked through movement, which help with Circling Mongoose's provoked attacks.
- Step Up, Following Step, Step Up and Strike - keep them close to you.
- Stand Still - WHERE YOU GOIN', SON?!
- Improved Trip - performing this combo on a prone target is hilariously effective.
- Combat Style Master - if you need those Swift Actions for reasons.
Races
The ideal race for this build has not yet been released. It's a Small race that does not have a penalty to STR nor WIS, which is simply something that doesn't exist... the two Small races without STR penalties have WIS penalties (Monkey Goblins and Wayangs). Small is nice since it boosts attack, AC and qualifies you for Underfoot.
Humans are likely the next better choice, thanks to extra feats for quick qualification.
Active Builds
Just three active builds in way of illustration:
First, the titular build! The Snake Panther Mongoose.
20 point buy: STR15 (+2 racial, +1 4th lvl) DEX14 CON14 INT10 WIS14 CHA8
Traits; Bullied, Indomitable Faith
Feats:
1. Dodge, Mobility, (Improved Unarmed Strike)
2. Combat Reflexes
3. Panther Style
5. Spring Attack, Circling Mongoose
7. Panther Claw
Features:
- Brawler's Flurry
- Brawler's Strike
- Sneak Attack +2d6
- Knockout
- Snake Feint
Equipped:
- Light Armor (Chain Shirt with a +2 Dex belt would be best for AC)
The Fighter (Brawler) variant for those who like harrying their enemies more than making flurries:
20 point buy: STR16 (+2 racial) DEX13 CON14 INT9 WIS15 (+1 4th lvl) CHA7
Traits; Bullied, Indomitable Faith
Feats:
1. Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, Mobility
2. Combat Reflexes
3. Panther Style
4. Spring Attack
5. Panther Claw
6. Circling Mongoose
Features:
- Bravery +2
- Close Weapon Training +1/+3
- +2 on Bull Rush, Reposition, Drag checks
Equipped:
- Heavy Armor
- Heavy Shield (you can probably Unarmed Strike with one hand and headbutts if you want to TWF)
The plain Brawler variant for those who like Over-sized Goblins:
20 point buy: STR16 (+2 racial) DEX14 (+2 racial) CON12 INT8 WIS15 (+1 4th lvl) CHA8 (-2 racial)
Traits; Bullied, Indomitable Faith
Feats:
1. Dodge, (Improved Unarmed Strike)
2. Combat Reflexes
3. Panther Style
5. Mobility, Spring Attack,
6. Through Martial Flexibility: Circling Mongoose and Panther Claw as a move action for 1 minute (doable 3 times per day).
Features:
- Brawler's Flurry
- Brawler's Strike
- Maneuver Training
- Knockout
- Martial Flexibility is pretty tied up, but should become available at level 7th for at least one other feat.
Equipped:
- Light Armor (Chain Shirt with a +2 Dex belt would be best for AC)
End
That's basically it! Lots of love.
Just a wee note on the race choice; I'm pretty sure you're allowed to play a Small aasimar, so maybe one of 'em would be ideal.
Just a wee note on the race choice; I'm pretty sure you're allowed to play a Small aasimar, so maybe one of 'em would be ideal.
This is allowed, true. A Small Tiefling wouldn't be bad either.
I think a Small Plumekith Aasimar (Garuda-blooded; +2 Dex, +2 Wis, +2 Acrobatics and Fly and Invisibility as SLA) would be literally the perfect race for this.
Yes, anytime I see "free solo flanking", the first question is "how can I get sneak attack damage from this". This really feels like a nice addition to an unarmed combat focused Slayer. Especially with Sap Adept / Sap Master to let you absolutely destroy an enemy that isn't immune to non-lethal.
It's called "Wombo Combo", not "Combo Wombo".
Please fix.
I have actually been wondering about this build and using the retraining rules to make it come online earlier.
This is a HUGE stretch but I allow these arguments in my game when I DM so if your DM is lenient, maybe it will work.
If the old feat is a bonus feat granted by a class feature, you must replace it with a feat that you could choose using that class feature.considering that any class that gets unarmed strike get it as a bonus feat, you could retrain that feat if bonus feats are able to be used for combat feats or style feats. A master of many styles is allowed to grab any style feat in place of a bonus feat. And an unarmed fighter is able to grab combat feats when given bonus feats.
So why not have it go MOMS2/Unarmed1/Brawler X and retrain the the BONUS FEATS that you receive as first level, which considering you have three unarmed strikes, why not retrain those.
it totally reeks of cheese and is a VERY liberal reading of the rules, but it's a concept I had.
Very very very liberal, I'm fairly sure that statement is for things like Rangers and Monks who have a choice of multiple feats at certain levels. In a monk, using your example, improved unarmed strike isn't from a list (like the Bonus Feat class feature they get later on) but from the Unarmed Strike class feature. The only feat that is an option for that class feature is IUS. You could retrain it, but "logically" you would have to retrain IUS as that is the only option for that particular class feature.
Your interpretation hinges on all class feature options being intrinsically linked, which they aren't unless stated or written that way. IUS from Unarmed Strikes, isn't part of Bonus Feats, though it is a bonus feat from a separate class ability. They are distinct entities.
It is a really interesting feat, awesome combinations done!
If MoMS had mamy attacks it would be Worth combining Panther, moongoose and Snake style. By Level 8 picking a Third style up.
Hm. I like the Mongoose feat but it really seems like they should have made it a Style Feat. Maybe they thought that would make it too niche but to me it seems like it should be niche.
I would think that a mix of Unarmed Fighter and Master of Many Styles Monk would be a good combo for this. Master of Many Styles give early entry into Style Feats.
You said "Snake" in the subject, I had thought you were talking about Snake Style. That line of feats would work well with this but it would be difficult to work all those feats in. It seems doable by around 9th level though with a mix of MMS Monk and Unarmed Fighter.
Brawler to me seems like a bad option as it eats up Move and Swift Actions to get your feats going and you are already fighting for action economy with getting Panther Style active with a Swift Action. IMO it is better to have as much up as early as possible.
This also would be a good build for something that mixes natural attacks with unarmed attacks.
By the way, the "Snake" in the title is in the titular Snakebite Striker build, which, all in all, is the best build for this I believe.
It's called "Wombo Combo", not "Combo Wombo".
Please fix.
Flagging my post to fix my 5 am brain farts.
Plz fix mods.
The defended movement Shield Mastery feat from AMH makes this build more accesible. However it requires you to take a fighter Archetype which doesn't trade out armor training.
I have no idea what you're doing here. However I love your title. :-)
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I see some flaws in your concept: The target of your full attack must have Combat Reflexes to get more than one AoO at all. Also movement is considered only one AoO trigger no matter how much space is covered so that will only be one trigger from Circling Mongoose in any case.
Circling Mongoose specifically says "your movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal", meaning that it is a single AoO trigger even if you spend all your movement in 5 foot increments between attacks.