D&D 4E List of Potential New Martial Practices

Garthanos · Oct 8, 2017

One flavor for Breaching ram should be splitting the mountain.... gives it a rather mythic basis.

Garthanos · Oct 19, 2017

I think Sensei is going to be a level 1 ability

Garthanos · Nov 3, 2017

Martial Arts as Practices

Garthanos Cackling with glee, this is working out pretty cool. - The cackling is over being able to make this work in Character Builder.

Some of the Martial Practices will be called Martial Arts taking them grant the character multiple martial techniques (ie items analogous to weapons and armor)

Some may also be only be aquired via a Martial Art feat ( these will have a superior weapon analog technique or maybe just some other feat worthy benefit )

AbdulAlhazred · Nov 4, 2017

I really like this approach for 4e.

Garthanos · Nov 4, 2017

The Berzerker (A martial primal class) of the Desert Wastes type could virtually have their armor class defense translated into a Martial Technique...

Garthanos · Nov 5, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
I really like this approach for 4e.

Note if the only way to learn one is by way of Martial Practice they are now all behind a feat pay wall...
and my thinking of removing the feat requirement from the Chi defense is making more sense.

AbdulAlhazred · Nov 5, 2017

Well, I don't REALLY have a problem with 'Martial Arts' requiring A feat. I mean, each new type of armor you want to wear, or weapon you want to wield, generally requires a feat. Here we're getting access to the whole shebang for one feat. This seems like a very low bar, and if your martial and these are in fact MPs technically, then you don't pay a feat at all! I don't have a problem with THAT either, and clearly some classes should get a free entre. The Monk clearly should, being technically non-Martial and really wanting to have these.

Garthanos · Nov 6, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
Well, I don't REALLY have a problem with 'Martial Arts' requiring A feat. I mean, each new type of armor you want to wear, or weapon you want to wield, generally requires a feat. Here we're getting access to the whole shebang for one feat.

Well any of the attacks that are superior are costing a feat others are basically part of categories the classes are already given access to. In some sense we are declaring that in a campaign using these rules, martial types have familiarity with these weapon and armor types too AND non - martial classes have an aditional feat to become martial in front of them as well.

Say a Constitution using Warlock wanted that Chi armor he would need a significant multi-class feat to be martial and one to learn martial practices... ofcourse both those could be seen as valuable themselves, however that is not chi armor isnt really a big armor class bump if the Warlock is doing Int/Dex investment... but it enables more focused investment in CON which maybe the point of it (or maybe they want to do more diverse attribute distribution instead of a strong secondary) and of course over investment has a cost too it be depriving reflex defense.

Hmmm in order to make melee basic attacks it takes melee training in a sense this could be seen as like gaining the armor part.

Spell casters without wand or robes arent very deprived of combat capability anyway so the martial arts kind of bring that quality to the warriors.

(isnt this feat cost to gain access in most campaigns like putting a cost on reflavoring??)

AbdulAlhazred said:
This seems like a very low bar, and if your martial and these are in fact MPs technically, then you don't pay a feat at all! I don't have a problem with THAT either, and clearly some classes should get a free entre. The Monk clearly should, being technically non-Martial and really wanting to have these.

Yeah I have been giving the warlord class free entre in to having MP ... which would have made sense from the beginning if Martial Practices had been considered a martial function from the beginning.... and if I bring the monk into Martial (rather the way of the Berzerker and the Skald did for the bard and barbarian) I could give the monk some of the recent monk flavored martial practices too.

I am also thinking in terms of campaign flavor management, this might be seen as opening it up to a game where martial has more in common with Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger than having one guy show up who fights with his hands.

AbdulAlhazred · Nov 7, 2017

Garthanos said:
(isnt this feat cost to gain access in most campaigns like putting a cost on reflavoring??)

Yeah, well, here's the conundrum. A feat is either a cost on reflavoring (you don't actually NEED whatever its giving you, it is just a lateral sort of flavor thing, do it different) OR its a feat tax (because it actually gives you something you NEED). Now, the 'feat tax' category is OK, as long as there's a BROAD list of feats you could choose next. There's also a third category of feats, which I would call 'plot enablement' which simply give your character an excuse for being able to make a check in some situation where maybe they wouldn't be able to or where they'd have to do things a different (and maybe less advantageous to their story goals) way. Of course a lot of those can turn out to be 'set dressing' (like language feats, the GM can always find some unintelligible foreign language for you to not understand if he wants). So we shouldn't look feats too closely in the mouth... lol.

Still, some are better than others. I'd say a 'gateway' feat, like MC feats or the MP feat or Ritual Caster isn't too bad. It signifies opening up a whole new range of character choices, which might be a mix of flavor, plot enablement, etc. in and of themselves, but they indicate something about the character's story and goals/values. In effect feats should ALWAYS be about RP.

This is the thought process that lead me to the 'advancement by means of boons' system of HoML. The 'picking a feat to get some number' thing should simply never exist. Its OK to get numbers from feats, but that should be a consequence and driver of RP, not a consequence of mechanics. What do you know, EGG was right!

Yeah I have been giving the warlord class free entre in to having MP ... which would have made sense from the beginning if Martial Practices had been considered a martial function from the beginning.... and if I bring the monk into Martial (rather the way of the Berzerker and the Skald did for the bard and barbarian) I could give the monk some of the recent monk flavored martial practices too.

I am also thinking in terms of campaign flavor management, this might be seen as opening it up to a game where martial has more in common with Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger than having one guy show up who fights with his hands.

Aye, and you get your MPs or whatever BECAUSE YOU STAYED IN THE TEMPLE OF Fu Wandai, not because Flying Crane Kick is .5 DPR better than picking up Broadsword Specialization.

Garthanos · Nov 7, 2017

[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]
I just remembered why I wanted the feat requirement for the Chi defense types (or atleast the focused chi), basically because there is virtually no reason to select Zen types otherwise. There is incredibly few builds of any martial classes for whom Zen would work better than Chi (a Charisma high warlord?) . If there is a feat cost to get to the Chi it makes them thematically a little more special as well. Reflexive and Zen are both or can both be secondary for a bunch of martial types making them about equal value already. Whereas strength is primary for a significant majority (making Chi easy AC). Arguably for Fighters that might be kind of appropriate though fighters kind of get their best AC after taking a feat.