So, I was reading through Magic of Incarnum yesterday, and got to the flavor text of Lightning Gauntlets, and started giggling over, what I perceived, as a Fist of the North Star reference in the flavor text.
Which got me thinking: Highest damage dealable with a single unarmed strike, without using caster level shenanigans, leaving medium size, or anything similar. I wanted to have some sort of flavor, and I wanted it to be usable in nearly any game. So I sat down, fiddled with some things, and then decided really impressive numbers at 20 was all fine and dandy, but I wanted to use it in an actual game, and I pretty much settled on Greater Divine Surge as the impetus for stupid damage, without kicking flavor to the curb. So I scrapped the other builds, and decided to see what the earliest level I could pull it off happened to be. I ended up with this:
Required Resources: PHB, ToB, UA Bloodlines and flaws.
Warforged Cleric 1/Crusader 2/Moderate Bloodline 1 (Demon, Storm Giant, or Titan)/Fighter 1/RKV3/Mod bloodline +1/RKV +7/Swordsage 2/Warblade 2
Take Incarnum and Magic Domains
Ending result:
-9th level cleric casting by level 16, at caster level 11 without feats or boosts
-Crusader IL 23, Swordsage IL 23, Warblade IL 23.
Feats: Incarnum Spellshaping (Domain bonus), Shape Lightning Gauntlets (1), Battle Jump (Flaw), Divine Soultouch (Flaw), Power Attack (Bloodline Bonus at 4), Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (3), Improved Bullrush (Fighter Bonus at 5), Leap Attack (6), Shocking Fist (9), Shocktrooper (12), Whatever (15, Bloodline bonus 16 retraining, 18).
At 12th level which is the earliest the trick technically works, you battle jump leap attack the target, sacrificing 9 hp to fuel Shocking Fist (unless you have Divine Power on you, since your clerical casting consists of 3rd level spells at that point, and your BAB should be 9) for 9d4 electrical damage, using Soul Boon to grant yourself 2 free essentia, which is applied to Lightning Gauntlets along with the free 1 point from the Incarnum Spellshaping feat, and the free 1 point from Divine Soultouch, along with burning a turn attempt to both apply another 1 point of essentia and raise the soulmeld's capacity 1 point, for a total of 5 points of essentia, and another 6d6 electrical damage. Power Attack for full, for +9 damage at a -9 to AC thanks to Shocktrooper. End result at level 12 looks like (1d8 slam + str + 9 power attack)*3 + 6d6 electricty + 9d4 electricity, for a net result of 3d8 + 6d6 + 9d4 + 27 + str*3. Now, use the single 8th level manuever you have (thanks to IL 15*) to use Greater Divine Surge, sacrificing 15 points of con (limited to Initiator level, after all) for another 36d8 damage.
*(IL of 15 at level 12: 4 Crusader [2 levels + 2 bloodline] + 8 RKV [adds all 6 levels + 2 bloodline] + 3 [1/2 Non-initiator levels of 1 cleric + 2 BL and 1 fighter + 2 BL])
39d8 + 6d6 + 9d4 + 27 + str*3, which is 246 damage before strength, on average, if my math is correct. Crits are relatively irrelevant, at this point.
At level 20 with divine power, the damage should be (1d8 slam + 20 power attack + say, 5 strength)*3 + 6d6 electricity from lightning gauntlets + 20d4 electricity from shocking fist (taking 20 damage) + 52d8 from greater divine surge (sacrificing 23 con), for 55d8+75+6d6+20d4. An average of 394 damage.
Add in Aura of Chaos stance for more fun, since at level 12 you've got 54 dice of damage, of which statistically 8 of which will blow up (4.8d8s, 1d6, 2.25d4s). At level 20 you are looking at 81 dice, of which statistically 13 will blow up, with another 2 blowing up after that (7d8, 1d6, 5d4, with repeat blow ups of 1d8 and 1d4). Statistically 292 and 448 average, respectively. Net gain of 46 and 54 damage each, due to the stance. This is all without a crit. With a crit, we gain a measly 1d8+25 damage at level 20. Whoopee.
Iron Heart Surge gets rid of the con damage, and divine recovery/divine impetus recovers the maneuvers. Belt of Battle makes things nicer, with quicker recovery/multiple attacks in a round. If someone provokes an AoO, they still take everything except the Greater Divine Surge damage, since those are boosts that last until the beginning of your next turn. At higher levels, combination of Karmic/Robilar's makes it more or less suicidal to try to hit you back if you want to go that route, intentionally provoking AoOs for movement when jumping on a guy. Or add Therapeutic Mantle for extra fun when recovering HP via Iron Heart Recovery or the like. Lots of extra swift actions makes for fun.
The last four levels you can pretty much do whatever you want with, because you've got IL 17 no matter what class you take (IL 19, for crusader maneuvers). You could pick up the entire Setting Sun throw line with a single level of Swordsage at 17, and mimic the Plasma Cannon build using Lightning Throw someone whom I unfortunately cannot recall originally posted.
So, because I probably messed something up here, didn't qualify for something at the proper time, or some other such thing, any thing I missed/messed up? Any thing I could add/change to keep the build effective at all levels, without delving into too much variant adding? Obviously, adding in Valorous would net more damage, as would spellbuffing with anything other than Divine Power, much less magic gear, or weapon enhancements. Is there any way to increase the damage dealt by an slam attack besides the Improved Natural Weapon feat, or treat it as two-handed for power attack purposes, without using more than 4 class levels, changing size, or losing too much flavor? What's everyone's take? Anyone see an obvious hole I missed plugging?