Will the real martial artist please stand up...

AbdulAlhazred said:

I think its colorable as such, kinda. Its definitely marginal, but so is the classic D&D Fighter, who can fall 100' and withstand 20 arrows without being measurably impeded (albeit you can interpret such things as other than superhuman durability to some extent, but it becomes a stretch after name level).

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AbdulAlhazred said:

What makes him more of a Samurai than any other fighter? The Japanese warrior pattern would fight with weapons, certainly. In fact any unarmed/unarmored fighting concept was only a 19th Century thing that came about after their role in warfare was obsolete and they didn't have access to armor (or sometimes even arms) anymore.

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AbdulAlhazred said:

The dividing line between Martial, Qi, and Psionic is pretty hazy. They are all 'internal power', but just with slightly different thematics. Psionics are all sci-fantasy kind of modernistic 'mind over matter' (and could border into concepts like the Sorcerer if you think about it). Qi is themed 'eastern' and explained as arcane training/mastery of ancient techniques mixed with self discipline (and thus verges into things like wizards or clerics). Martial picks up the 'Charles Atlas Superpower' and 'Bad Assery' bits, but also verges into and is hard to distinguish from Qi (Bruce Wayne for instance constantly trains his mind and body, though in most sources he doesn't utilize 'eastern' techniques to do so).

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AbdulAlhazred said:

Heck, Charles Atlas constantly trained, its the trope, but if you compare that to a Shaolin Monk, is there really any light between the two? Charles Xavier did it all by standing around and exercising his mind, purely, so we can that these things cannot totally be lumped together, but they're still all merging at some point.

In a sense maybe 'power source' wasn't that great an idea. I mean, it works in some fashion to generally categorize, but its not a 'clean' facet. Divine and Arcane (and Elemental, really Shadow too) don't cleanly separate either. I think that its best to think about it in 4e as literally SOURCE in a very simple way and just decree that the universe works this way. You can get pretty much the same effect from Psionic/Qi as you can from Martial, but they are still manifestations of fundamentally different kinds of power.

That kind of says to me that while multi-sourced classes aren't ridiculous, they can exist according to the paradigm, they may not really be the best thematics. It might be better to just say "well, I achieved this melee weapon fighting effect using divine power, that's just how my class works!"

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AbdulAlhazred said:

Can you separate 'Qi' from 'Martial'? IMHO they are basically the same thing. Supreme capability arising out of uttermost inner discipline and focus, coupled with extreme physical and mental training. Isn't some fighter power like say Unbreakable just exactly the same sort of concept as the 1e Monk is immune to poison? Its expressed in a different sort of game mechanical terms, with somewhat different limitations and uses, but in effect when a 4e fighter uses that power and shirks off damage he's saying basically the same thing the 1e monk is saying when he ignores deadly poisons. I certainly would agree that the thematics are slightly different there, but nobody would quibble with a fighter power that granted poison immunity for a limited time! (heck, there may well be one for all I know).

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Garthanos said:

Is this better than resisting poison like laughing in the face of ongoing damage less than 5 and most minion damage with a level 5 power? Brazen Assault... can't you picture the Ki streaming off of him for the duration of that encounter. (Boom attack plus Resist all damage 5)

Come and getting is a classic martial artist thematic even without Ki flavor

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Garthanos said:

Is this better than resisting poison like laughing in the face of ongoing damage less than 5 and most minion damage with a level 5 power? Brazen Assault... can't you picture the Ki streaming off of him for the duration of that encounter. (Boom attack plus Resist all damage 5)

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Garthanos said:

it strikes me that as cool as that power is a heroic it probably doesnt scale that well.

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AbdulAlhazred said:

SHouldn't be too hard to scale should it?

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Garthanos said:

Other scaling damage resistances go 5 heroic 10 paragon and 15 epic... level 5, level 15 and 25...
or boost by 1 per 2 levels over 5. Some optimizer will probably do mean things with it then

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