THE GOBWOOD
Goblin, Fantasy, and RPG Blog
This is a character, like many, which I’ve had in mind for a long time. Originally designed to just be a Gnoll who likes charging through obstacles, he has been revised to fulfill more aspects of beefyboi fantasy for me. I actually got to play him once for a 1shot and it felt great grappling and snapping necks (snappling) and I even got to puppeteer one of my victims with a grapple check instead of a bluff check… the npc didn’t buy but it was a solid laugh. I present to you: Gallow, the BugBear Crasher.
Character
Gallow is a rude, crude, beefy dude who don’t take no lip but dishes it; no filter. He specializes in hand-to-hand combat blending skillfull martial techniques with brute power. He seeks adventure for thrill and bloodlust.
This part is really long so collapse if you want to skip it.
In Gallow’s day a ruthless Hobgoblin warlord raised an army and forged a small empire with ambitions to flood the realms with greenkind. The shrewd warlord was constantly searching for means to empower his military through magic, mighty beasts, superior equipment, and exotic training. Being a bugbear; prized for their raw strength and thick hide, Gallow was captured in his youth and raised in captivity to be trained to fight. The warlord, however, wished to test whether a bugbear’s natural toughness would make them suitable practitioners of Hobgoblin Ironskin martial arts so Gallow, alone, was sent to a monastery to be groomed in esoteric combat styles, stealth, and disciplines of the self.
Gallow was perpetually problematic as an ironskin acolyte- the rigid structure of daily tasks, lectures, and practicing forms was fundamentally contrary to his nature. Bugbears are known to torture food animals, tear down brush and trees for fun, and attack unprovoked; confinement to this place and this way of life was a denial of his every chaotic instinct. When he smashed the straw training dummy, he was punished. When he broke his sparring partner’s arm, he was punished. When he asked why, he was punished severely. His masters hated him and forced him to make a vow of silence carrying the penalty of death for even speaking thus taking away any means to challenge or even understand the ways of the Ironskin. He oafishly practiced their drills and combat forms, belligerently twisted their techniques to his own brutish liking, took his lashings and obeyed after; loathing their teachings in every quiet way. For 2 years he trained, silently raging, and speaking only in his mind against the seemingly pointless monastic rituals and legalism until it came time for his Trial of Steel. This rite would complete his training and initiate him as an Ironskin Monk by pitting him against his masters in a game of stamina and evasion but the Masters were ruthless. They were not testing him, like they were the hobgoblin acolytes, they were inflicting their final punishment. They struck him with their paralysis technique and, while helpless, placed a garrote around his neck. They jerked it back and forth, sawing and cutting through his flesh and vocal chords until, with a sudden release, Gallow fell to the ground. Angry and resentful, but terrified, he looked at his masters hoping that this was some sort of lesson meant to humble and dominate that would soon be undone but the masters didn’t even look back. Gallow lay there bleeding, feeling the cold creeping through his body, and within moments lost consciousness only to awake under the care of a human cleric. He grasped his neck to feel the wound but found only a scar.
The cleric and his party had destroyed the monastery opportunistically attacking while the masters were distracted with the Trial of Steel. They interrogated Gallow about the monastery, the masters, the warlord and his plans expecting the betrayed bugbear to know something special but he had no answers for them. In fact, he could barely speak at all; between the years of atrophy and the master’s garrote he could only muster low and raspy groans. They argued over what to do but eventually released him to appease the cleric who did not wish to see one he healed be promptly dead again. As Gallow fled the monastery he saw no survivors, nor did he find the bodies of any of the masters. Rubbing the scar across his throat as he ventured out; it served both as a reminder of the time he spent in miserable silence, and as a calling to never again hold his tongue. The world will hear what’s on Gallow’s mind! Even if only through mutterings and whispers…
Wandering aimlessly, foraging, stealing, and working as a mercenary he found little satisfaction and zero welcome in this new phase of his life. His voice improved some with time, though far from fully restored, and he exercised it zealously. He said what he wanted, and did as he pleased almost universally inflaming and often displacing those around him- most already uncomfortable if not downright terrified at the presence of a bugbear. Without regret, yet also without ambition, he continued in this way until he took a job for some other goblinoids- a cult of some kind marked by their earrings. He didn’t care too much for their far-fetched goals but they paid well and, for once, he wasn’t hated, rather, he was encouraged and told there was a place for him even if he didn’t believe in it. He doesn’t consider himself a part of their madness, but he’s better off working for them than some pinkskins who would just as soon turn on him. Currently between jobs, he’s always on the lookout for a good gig but theres a standing request from the cultists to pass on information about powerful spellcasters or ancient demonic artifacts; as if a simple merc would ever deal with any of that. His own personal interest, though he has done little to nothing to explore it, is wondering what became of his masters and, perhaps, entertaining a little hunger for revenge. Still, if the pay is good and there are necks to be snapped, Gallow is in for just about any game.
Build
The concept of a grappler specialist isn’t anything new. That’s what we’re going to do but, of course, we know that we can’t grapple everything so we’re going to be flexible with other avenues of attack.
1. Snatch ‘em up and shut ‘em down- we’re going to grapple targets whenever we can and we’re going to be able to deal lots of damage to them, apply effects like silence, get them into a pin same-turn, and possibly just KO them.
2. Crasher- we want to throw mf’s around and doze right over them using bull rush and overrun to deal damage, knockdown, and isolate targets.
3. Frontline – we’re specialized in maneuvers but that’s not always an option. We’ll have a plan for feats we can flex into for simple applications like “I hit it with my axe FACE!”
The Strangler archetype loses the typical unarmed strike progression and brawler’s flurry (ouch) to gain some sneak attack dice that always apply when grappling to deal damage or pinning. It’s not a ton of d6’s but its front-loaded which means we’ll be able to enjoy it immediately and sufficiently. We also lose the normal AC bonus and, instead, ignore some of the penalties of the grappled condition. We lose Knockout but gain it back in a grapple-based form and, finally, get an instant kill ability that still deals normal damage if they save. It really adds focus and flavor to the grappling but makes the normal bonking less appetizing.
Elephant in the room feat tax rules (EITR) are in play for this build, and its pretty much mandatory for any maneuver based build else you’ll suck or, at best, be a one-trick pony.
Big Ears is a goblin only trait that gives +2 to perception checks that involve hearing. This should help us scout better though it isn’t going to make us amazing at it. Plus the character art I made a while ago has big gobby ears.
Dungeon Crasher(custom trait)- Whenever an obstacle prevents you from forcing an opponent to move, you may deal +1 damage for every 5ft of movement denied by the obstacle. Gallow is a brute and likes to smash stuff, if you smash somebody into a wall you deal more damage. It’s not a lot but it makes it more worthwhile to perform up to fluff.
Garroted (custom trait)- whenever you perform a language dependent action there is a 20% chance that you are not heard or understood due your difficulty in producing a voice. Such actions may include making social skills checks or attempting to communicate during combat. The scar, however, grants a +2 bonus to intimidate against targets who can see it.
Climb- this skill is often either undervalued, because you can get flight later on, or overvalued by those thinking “I’m gonna look so cool climbing things.” This character, however, rightly ought to have incredible grip strength and body control. Its no stretch to think he should be good at holding onto and climbing things as a result so I’m investing in it for the thematic element.
Escape Artist- is another skill that seems thematically appropriate but only bother investing if you have enough INT to support it. We would probably use it to move through tight spaces and not to actually escape a grapple because our CMB is going to be as big as it gets outside of Large size.
Intimidate- seems appropriate for the character given his demeanor, but our CHA won’t support actually being good with it. Put at least 1 point in it but if we plan to intimidate someone it should be through actions. Rather than just rolling a check to coerce an NPC, you should genuinely threaten to harm the NPC and if your DM plays the NPC as unimpressed because your skill check failed, ask the DM to roll a sense motive instead. If the NPC believes you will harm them, then they should act accordingly (even if that still doesn’t mean they are coerced… might attack, call for help, or run away).
Stealth- is a skill most brawler’s won’t have as a class skill but we, being a bugbear, always have it as a class skill and we also get a +4 racial bonus to it. It’s going to pair great with the bushwack feat.
Perception- is a class skill and we do have that big ears racial trait sometimes buffing it. High stealth plus high perception equals scout and, again, bushwack is going to make great use of that role.
STR is all-important. To the exclusion of all else you must MAX your STR. Our main fun, Combat Maneuvers, are opposed by a CMD score composed of both STR+DEX while our CMB score is just STR so we are immediately at a disadvantage. Even after you add the +2 from improved feats and the +2 from the lv6 greater feat, and the +1 from solo maneuvers… many monsters will still have a pretty daunting CMD. Furthermore, our unarmed strike dice aren’t scaling due to our archetype so outside of a grapple we will really need that STR bonus to increase our striking damage. Buy to 18 and put every further point into it, no compromises. Then again, if you get to be a bugbear as intended, you get a whopping +6 to STR which should just about the same +bonuses as we would have if we were large.
DEX – we’re in a tough spot because most light armor wearers are intended to have high DEX (and vice versa) but we probably can’t afford it. We also start with +3 natural armor as a bugbear so we don’t necessarily have to. We can easily put 12 here and end up with 14 as bugbear which is plenty for combat reflexes and any more from higher point buy or enhancement bonuses is just icing on the cake.
CON – No frontliner should have less than 14 and we can have that by buying 12 as bugbear. While we’re grappled, however, we are a bit easier to hit until 2nd level and even then we are not mobile so we are likely to get surrounded. More HP is always better.
INT is less important for us as our Brawler’s Cunning lets you treat this as 13 for feats. This comes down to how many skill points you want per level. I’m dumping to 8 because I do 15 point buy but if you do 20 or higher you shouldn’t have to.
WIS is going to boost our perception making us a better scout but, more importantly, its giving us will saves. I dare not dump it but I can’t afford more either. 10 is what it is.
CHA is the proper dump for us. We’re kind of an asshole so it rightly should be low. Dump as low as you can but remember to fear the foes with CHA drain who could just 1shot you if its too low.
Feats, Choices, and Features
1- Brawler’s Cunning, Martial Flex, Martial Training, Strangle +1d6, Unarmed Combatant
2- Powerful Maneuvers, Practiced Strangler (no dex penalties), Strangle +2d6
3- Maneuver Training 1, Spiked Destroyer
4- Sleeper Hold
5- Wpn Focus: Close, Brawler’s Strike (magic), Close Weapon Mastery, Dodge(+Mobility)
6- Martial Flex (2, swift)
7- Man Train 2, Greater Grapple
8- Solo Maneuvers, Strangle +3d6
9- Practiced Strangler (threaten area), Brawler’s Strike (cold iron + silver), Extra Martial Flex
10- Martial Flex (3, free)
11- Wpn Spec: Close, Man Train 3, Combat Reflexes
12- Brawler’s Strike (aligned), Martial Flex (immediate)
13- Greater Wpn Focus: Close
14- Greater Wpn Spec: Close
15- Strangle +4d6, Man Train 4, Extra Martial Flex
16- NeckBreaker
Exposition
Brawler’s Cunning is just the token “it is ok you don’t have to be smart” ability that lets us treat our INT as if it were 13 for purposes of feat eligibility. Elephant in the room makes combat expertise not a thing but I still feel like the original pre-reqs were appropriate so, in my games, you still need to meet them to use the ability (STR13 or DEX13 to trade accuracy for damage a-la power attack or deadly aim, and INT13 to trade hit for AC a-la combat expertise) so this still matters to me.
Martial Flexibility is our core class ability. We can spend a move action to gain the use of a combat feat we don’t actually have for 1min. I’ll have a list in the combo’s section about which feats to flex into and when but we’ll be making frequent use of this mostly to gain access to unique ways to perform maneuvers or have things that help to “just bonk” baddies.
Martial Training is another eligibility ability allowing you to count as both a monk and a fighter of your brawler level for stuff like feats eligibility and uses per day of those feats. We’re not really going to make use of this.
Strangle is our other core ability replacing the monk’s unarmed strike progression with extra damage dice when grappling to deal damage or pinning. It’s a tough sacrifice, but we’ll make do and it WILL feel good when we get some grapple damage in.
Unarmed Combatant is EITR’s merging of Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Grapple and also sets the damage dice to a relevant number. It’s basically a “now you can do hand-to-hand stuff” all-in-one feat. Luckily, even though we gave up monk unarmed strike dice progression, this makes it 1d6 to start out anyway. It won’t grow, but it beats 1d3.
Powerful Maneuvers is EITR’s merging of Improved Bull Rush, Overrun, and Sunder feats. We get a +2 to each of those and no longer provoke AOO’s when attempting them. This unlocks a lot of feats for us to flex into which will be discussed in more detail in the combo’s section.
Practiced Strangler allows us to ignore the -4 penalty to DEX (-2 AC, -2 REF) while grappled and allows us to retain our dex bonus to AC too. If we can be grappling something then we’re doing really well offensively and this helps us not be boned defensively. This gets even better at lv9.
Strangle increments again at this level so suddenly you can deal 3d6+STR in a grapple at lv2. How awesome is that? We don’t get brawler’s flurry, however, so we’ll need to flex into the TWF feat if we want to attack twice at -2 but that’s ok for now. We won’t feel the loss until 8th level when brawler’s flurry would have allowed another extra attack, though by that time we can flex into improved/greater TWF (which have been merged in EITR).
Maneuver Training is a brawler ability that lets us gain +1 to a particular maneuver and +1 to CMD vs that maneuver. The verbiage bothers to tell you that it counts for CMD as well so I think it’s worth noting that the Improved maneuver feats in pathfinder (and the merged versions we took thanks to EITR) also count for CMD vs those maneuvers. That’s really great because CMD is typically higher than CMB and makes breaking our grapple, which is already done at a -5 penalty, +DEX harder. I’m picking grapple because that’s where our archetype is focused and where the coolest stuff is.
Spiked Destroyer is a feat that allows us to make an attack with armor spikes any time we succeed at a bull rush or overrun attempt. By now armor spikes should have been easy to afford but I do want to plug in here that, in my games, I’m going to allow armor spikes to be something that can be moved from armor set to armor set, as if they were part of a modular harness or something. Otherwise, if you wanted to enchant your spikes, you would be tempted to wait until you got a mithril chain shirt before bothering else you’d have to pay for em all over again.
Sleeper Hold is a pretty cool ability replacing knockout. Basically, if the target is pinned, we declare a Sleeper Hold and make our grapple check. If we succeed they face a Fort save DC=10+½lvl+STR or be K’d the F. O. Curiously the ability says it does not need to deal damage but doesn’t explain what they mean by that and begs other questions previously assumed. Must we make a grapple check to deal damage in order to use this, but we can choose not to actually deal damage so as to not kill the target? Or does it mean that we can make any kind of grapple check and, if successful, we get this effect added to it? It’s only once per day at this level, so its not like you can really abuse it, but it grows to 2x/day at 10th level and 3x at 16th level.
Weapon Focus is a basic A.F. feat but it does serve as a pre-req for some neat things later on; much later on. Why bother taking it now? Because we need something to statically make our bonkin better and I feel that +1 to hit is more important than TWF. Note that, in EITR, we don’t pick just one thing like unarmed strike- we pick a weapon group like “close weapons” which includes unarmed strike, armor spikes, spiked gauntlets, etc… which is all especially cool if you flex into the Hamatula Strike Feat. More on that in the combos section.
Brawler’s Strike is just another token ability to keep us bonkin. Our unarmed strikes count as magic for bypassing DR.
Close Weapon Mastery is a neat ability that lets any weapon in the close weapon’s group deal bigger damage dice. Specifically, in our case, they’ll deal 1d6. Since we gave up the monk progression it should just be that forever but I don’t think it would break anything to let it scale.
Dodge is merged with Mobility in EITR. It’s mostly here as a pretty broad Pre-req feat but its also really nice to boost AC and keep us a bit safer while moving to and from targets to maneuver on. Specifically this will allow us to flex into the Crane Wing style to help not die if we’re tryin to grapple someone in a crowd of baddies. It gets better next level when we can flex into two feats at once but still, the feat itself has enough value for our playstyle that its worth.
Martial Flex now allows us to flex into 2 combat feats at once, or just 1 as a swift action. Knowing 2 more feats on a whim is really freakin amazing and, I gotta say, this is the level when our build comes online. If you look in the combo’s section you’ll see that we can now be statistically awesome at something and do it in special ways all at once. I got my lists but please get creative, this is where the fun begins.
Maneuver Training now allows us to increment the first pick to +2 and pick another to gain +1. I’m probably picking Bull Rush because I really want to incentivize making it work for myself. I made that custo-trait that adds damage when smashin foes into obstacles because I felt that bull rush wasn’t very useful otherwise.
Greater Grapple is a feat we were flexing into at lvl6 but now we don’t have to. It makes us awesome at grappling, and allows us to do it with better action economy granting more attempts per turn. In standard rules you can use your standard action to make one grapple check, whether to initiate or to maintain, and then use your move action to make another grapple check to maintain. This lets us both Grapple and Pin in one turn, or just deal damage twice, or be more mobile to isolate the target. Even in the three action system this is really good because grapple was, previously, a 2-action maneuver. Now you can do it thrice. Lastly, greater grapple is a pre-req for some even higher level feats coming up.
Solo maneuvers isn’t a pre-req to anything, but it is a flat +1 to all maneuvers when you’re the only one threatening the target. And when you aren’t… well you can probably get +2 instead from flanking. Gotta get them numbers up sky high!
Strangle jumps up to 3d6 now which is pretty awesome. Greater Grapple lets you deal 4d6+STR, twice a turn (thrice in the 3 action system) and that’s going to get even better next level.
Practiced Strangler now lets you continue to threaten the spaces around you even while you are grappled/grappling which means you can make AOO’s too! In fact, now, even while pinned you don’t lose your DEX and you don’t take the -4 penalty to AC. This very powerfully mitigates one of the biggest drawbacks of grappling.
Brawler’s Strike now counts our unarmed strikes as Cold Iron and Silver vs DR. Good luck snuggling werebears.
Extra Martial Flexibility is a feat that gives us 3 more uses of martial flexibility. This is becoming more important as we gain access to higher level feats which give us more unique options in combat. As of this level we can access Rapid Grappler which lets us get even more grapples in during a round. We’re not gonna make rapid grapple a permanent feat because we don’t always need it, but more flex uses per day means we can be even more generous with how often we change out a feat and we’re going to spending more and more of it next level.
Martial Flex now lets us gain up to 3 feats at once. If doing less than three at once its more economical- 1 as a free, 2 as a swift. This is the big reason we picked up more uses of it last level, each feat costs a use so just filling up is 3 uses. This is really amazing though because we can flex into some deep trees now on a whim- like the entire crane style tree or the TWF tree.
Weapon Spec is a boring but nice feat that boosts damage. Thanks to EITR we don’t have to pick just 1 weapon- the entire Close Weapons group is affected! This means our armor spikes get it, Spiked Gauntlets would get it, and our Unarmed Strike gets it which means our grapple damage does too. I chose this over TWF still because it will pretty much ALWAYS apply to our damage no matter what we do, while TWF will still only be used when we can’t reliably do maneuvers- still best as a flex feat.
Maneuver Training gives us another maneuver at +1, the 2nd choice at +2, and our original choice of grapple at +3.
Combat Reflexes is another pre-requisite feat that we’re going to take now so that we can be even more flexible next level. We’ve been able to make AOO’s even while grappled for some time so you should know, by now, whether its realistic to expect actually getting more mileage out of this but you can now flex into some of the better area denial and counter feats with less cost.
Brawler’s strike now counts as an aligned weapon for bypassing DR though it isn’t clear whether we make an alignment choice on level-up and it’s that forever? Or if its just the opposite of our alignment? Or what…
Martial Flexibility upgrades again here allowing you to gain 1 feat as an immediate action or all three as a swift action. Getting a new feat on your opponent’s turn seems pretty useful for those highly situational feats- Lookin at you SnoutGrip. Pin Down, Deflect Arrows, and eventually CounterPunch are all great candidates for this.
Greater Weapon Focus: Close is another boring feat that we’re going to pick up because its just generally useful with another +1 to hit (total of +2 from wpn focus feats now). There are lots of feats that we would like to get to just have permanently but not all of them apply to as many things as this feat does and getting those other feats would, in many cases, just free us up to take this feat. I’m mostly talking about Rush and Overrun here because, to get the most out of those, we just need Charge-Through, Greater rush/overrun, and Hamatula Strike which are the three feats we can flex into. But we don’t need those feats when not doing those maneuvers whereas this feat affects the combos we’re doing with those manevers plus grapples plus plain old bonkin too so… it just seems right.
Greater Weapon Specialization: Close is yet another feat that, like above, applies to almost everything we do and adds +2 damage (total of +4 from weapon spec feats now). I’m tempted to take extra martial flex again but, are we really running out and would it really be better to swap feats 3 more times a day? Or is +2 damage on everything that deals damage going to give us more mileage? Well I picked THE DAMAGE BRUH!
Strangle dice increment up to +4d6 here and this should be the last bump up we see. At this time our grapple damage is 5d6+4+STR which is pretty decent.
Maneuver Training goes up again. Our first choice, grapple, should be at +4. You’ve probably already picked Bull Rush and Overrun as your 2nd and 3rd choices so the only sensible one remaining is Sunder.
At this point we are pretty much full build. We’ve got all the core foundational feats needed for opening up feat trees, and the class feature to employ them. I’m going to pick Extra Martial Flexibility again just so I can do it more but it kinda doesn’t matter.
Neckbreaker is the final archetype ability that I’m going to bother mentioning which is basically just like sleeper hold, as above, but they straight up DIE. You make your grapple check at a -5 penalty and they must make a fort save, same DC as sleeper. Even if they make their save, you still deal damage normally. The -5 penalty makes you think before using it, but there is no limit to daily uses.
Combos and Strats
Spiked Destroyer + Armor Spikes + Bull Rush/overrun + Hamatula Strike
Spiked Destroyer allows you to make a free attack with your armor spikes when you succeed at a Bull Rush or Overrun attempt, and Hamatula Strike allows you to make a free grapple when you deal piercing damage with a weapon. This is great! It’s damage, its maneuvers, and it can end in a grapple. Peak economy.
Bushwack + Stealth + any grapple feats
Bushwack is so cool I’m tempted to take it as a permanent feat but its so niche that I can’t justify it. It is also a feat that was introduced as a bugbear racial so theres extra flavor there. Basically if your target is unaware you can grapple normally then pin or chokehold as a free action. Technically we don’t have the chokehold feat, we have sleeper hold archetype feature, but it’s exactly the same thing so it’s gonna fly in my game.
These feats are going to make you better at grappling or give you additional options while in a grapple.
lv1-5 You’ll mostly want to flex into Solo maneuvers for +1, or into Unfair grip to maintain but you could also get Accomplished Sneak Attacker for another 1d6 when dealing damage. Bushwack is a stealth option for utility.
Lv6 you must flex into greater grapple for the +2 and maintain as a move action, but you can now also pick from more utility feats like Chokehold for silence or Body Shield to use your grapple victim as cover possibly damaging them.
Lv7 you are now free to flex into two grapple feats because we know greater grapple- Bushwack+Chokehold are good for stealth, Flanking Foil + Body shield are good for making yourself a target without getting boned for it, Accomplished Sneak Attacker + SoloMan/UnfairGrip are good for standard grappling.
Lv8 you no longer need Solo Maneuvers because we know it.
Lv9 you will want to flex into Rapid Grappler to get yet another grapple check in a round so back to 1 utility feat.
Lv10 lets you flex into 3 feats now, 1 will almost always be Rapid Grappler but the rest can be for utility and we also get SnoutGrip as an option vs big bitey beasties.
These are feats you can flex into to improve your ability to just hit something. It’s not our ideal strategy, but we’ll have to do plenty of it throughout our adventuring career.
Lv1-5 flex into TWF if the target is soft to get 2 attacks, or Furious Focus if the target is hard.
Lv6-9 flex into TWF and Greater TWF (EITR rolls improved and greater into one requiring DEX15), or Furious Focus and Wpn Spec. Alternatively, at lv7, Hamatula Strike could give you free chances to grapple so you’re still bonkin instead of wasting time on unlikely grapple attempts vs larger foes and if you manage to stick a grapple- great! You could then flex into grapple feats to improve odds of maintaining it or just keep committing to bonkin- either way you’ve limited their actions for the round.
Lv10+ you can flex into TWF, greater TWF, and Hamatula Strike all at once! You could also replace hamatula strike with whatever weapon focus/spec feat you haven’t picked up yet or, by lv14, Double Slice to add full STR to offhand attack instead of ½.
Lv1- flex into powerful maneuvers
Lv2 flex into either Solo Maneuvers for better odds of success, Dodge (merged with mobility) if you expect to eat an AOO on your movement, Charge-Through to make an overrun on anything in your path, or Spiked Destroyer to deal damage when you succeed.
Lv3+4 you know Spiked Destroyer so you may flex into Merciless Rush for added damage instead.
Lv5 You know Dodge/Mobility.
Lv6 You must flex into Greater Bull Rush but you can also get one other feat from above to go with it.
Lv7 You may now flex into Hamatula Strike as your 2nd feat for the combo.
Lv8+9 You know Solo Maneuvers.
Lv10+ You still need greater Bull Rush as your first feat, but you can now flex into two others at once. Charge Through and Hamatula Strike are good general choices.
Lv1- flex into powerful maneuvers
Lv2 flex into either Solo Maneuvers for better odds of success, Dodge (merged with mobility) if you expect to eat an AOO on your movement, Charge-Through to make an overrun on anything in your path, or Spiked Destroyer to deal damage when you succeed.
Lv3+4 you know Spiked Destroyer.
Lv5 You know Dodge/Mobility.
Lv6 You must flex into Greater Overrun but you can also get one other feat from above to go with it.
Lv7 You may now flex into Hamatula Strike as your 2nd feat for the combo.
Lv8+9 You know Solo Maneuvers.
Lv10 You still need Greater Overrun as your first feat, but you can now flex into two others at once. Charge Through and Hamatula Strike are good general choices. Combat Reflexes and Vicious Stomp let you take yet another AOO on targets you knock down.
11+ You now know Combat Reflexes.
When you just need to not die, or maybe protect someone else, these feats should help.
Lv1-4 flex into Dodge (merged with mobility) for AC, Deflect Arrows to block one each turn, or Flanking Foil to deny foes their flanking bonus against you.
Lv5 you know Dodge/Mobility so you can now flex into Crane Style if fighting defensively or going total defense both increasing your AC bonus and decreasing the penalties.
Lv6-9 You can now flex into two feats at once opening up Crane style with Crane Wing giving you much better, if not certain, avoidance of an attack.
Lv10 you can now flex into three feats giving you access to any of the above, or all of Crane Style + Crane Wing + Crane Riposte which lets you make an AOO in response to an attack.
Lv11 you now know Combat Reflexes and can flex into Pin Down which stops foes from moving away which pairs well with Combat Patrol which lets you make AOO’s within 15ft of you (at this level) [which which which which…]
Lv12-15 You can now flex into Pin Down as an immediate action when a foe attempts to move away from you.
Lv16+ If you can get to 18DEX you can flex into CounterPunch which lets you make an AOO in response to all attacks that miss you while unarmed.
Honestly this build’s only major weakness is that it’s a single-target specialized martial. You can flex into any feats you need for the task at hand, though feats aren’t as good as spells. You are specialized in grappling and maneuvers but a lot of the later feats affects everything you do in some way. Being a BugBear is brokenly stronk but it also ensures that this sub-optimal build has a solid chance of hitting its mark.
Roleplay
Gallow is uncomfortably abrasive, confrontational, and has a personal edict to never filter himself though, if stealth is called for or pay is on the line, he may delay his remarks. He despises tradition, laws, and etiquette making an effort to violate each in some way wherever he finds them; he won’t wish you happy birthday, walks at least a few feet past every no trespassing sign, and doesn’t shake hands unless he just took a piss. He doesn’t have be an asshole at all times, however, and his no-filter edict applies equally to things that he enjoys which are mostly vices like eating, drinking, smoking cigars and eating the charred nub, narcotics, and watching fights. If the food and grog is good he’ll hoarsely cry it in the streets literally throwing new customers in the door. If the buzz is strong he’ll let out an “MMMmmm yeeaaaaaaa….” and probably forgive any transgression until he’s sober. If a combatant lands a critical hit, friend or foe, he’ll celebrate with a rasping “Did you see what he just did?! WHAT A HIT!”
When speaking in character, be sure to feign difficulty. Your voice should be low, raspy, and close to a whisper in tone even when excited trying to achieve volume. Whenever someone makes the character mad, be sure to rub your neck as if feeling over that scar. Every poor experience he has he somehow associates with the monastery and all its trauma. If ever he is ignored or dismissed in conversation, he becomes irrationally upset and possibly violent- “HEY! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!?” As his character develops he should have to choose between pursuing personal closure over his bondage at the monastery or pursuing freedom from an unwelcoming world alongside the cultists.