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Hong's Martial Artist
- Thread starter Outergod
- Start date
Hey, thanks! Glad you liked it.
You can get more martial artist goodness at my D&D site, and lots more:
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/
You can get more martial artist goodness at my D&D site, and lots more:
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/
Starseeker
First Post
For an oriental campagin a while back, I created a martial artist class too.
I think really though, it needs to be split into two catergories:
Wu Xia, and Swordsaint.
Wu Xia is the classic Chinese Knight of the Way (i.e. Crouching Tiger, most Jet Li movies) a repespected icon who rights wrongs done to the weak.
Swordsaint is the film bastardisation version of the Wu Xia, whose main inspiration comes from novels. Swordsaints have more amazing powers, a la Stormriders, Ruoni Kenshin (sorry, i dunno if i spelt that right) A Man named Hero etc.....
Anyway, basically I tihnk a Martial artist is a Fighter with the Monk's attack bonus, perhaps a AC bonus locked to Wisdom (DnD considers this the root of Ki/Qi/Chi, but I would have linked it with Charisma or even plain old Constitution) in a simliar way. However, the Martial Artist would have an open choice of feats resembling the fighters. He would, however, specialise in fighting onli with one weapon.
having no armor like the monk doesnot make up for getting the monks attack bonus, so the martial artist feats are slightly better than fighter feats.
A had a huge feat list, the link to which i will post when i get around to uploading it.
Tell me what u tihnk!
I think really though, it needs to be split into two catergories:
Wu Xia, and Swordsaint.
Wu Xia is the classic Chinese Knight of the Way (i.e. Crouching Tiger, most Jet Li movies) a repespected icon who rights wrongs done to the weak.
Swordsaint is the film bastardisation version of the Wu Xia, whose main inspiration comes from novels. Swordsaints have more amazing powers, a la Stormriders, Ruoni Kenshin (sorry, i dunno if i spelt that right) A Man named Hero etc.....
Anyway, basically I tihnk a Martial artist is a Fighter with the Monk's attack bonus, perhaps a AC bonus locked to Wisdom (DnD considers this the root of Ki/Qi/Chi, but I would have linked it with Charisma or even plain old Constitution) in a simliar way. However, the Martial Artist would have an open choice of feats resembling the fighters. He would, however, specialise in fighting onli with one weapon.
having no armor like the monk doesnot make up for getting the monks attack bonus, so the martial artist feats are slightly better than fighter feats.
A had a huge feat list, the link to which i will post when i get around to uploading it.
Tell me what u tihnk!
Martial artists sure are a popular class. 
While I grok the desire to emulate the source material as closely as possible, I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble of making up two classes or modelling feats and abilities specifically on a given tradition or genre.
Most of the classes in D&D are fairly generic. A fighter is a guy who hits things with swords or other weapons, a rogue gets to sneak around and do subtle stuff, and so on. The exact way in which one fighter hits things will be different from the next: one may be the grim, taciturn "man with no name", while the other may be a flashy, flamboyant swashbuckler. While the class remains the same, different characters can draw from different traditions. This is what allows the fighter to fit into just about any setting: whether it's Greyhawk, FR, Rokugan, Nyambe (the African setting from Atlas) or whatever, there'll always be someone whose job is to hit things with sharp sticks.
For this reason, the martial artist I made up keeps things fairly vague. You can use it to represent the wuxia swordsman, but you could also use it for a swashbuckling type if you wanted. Because it isn't tied specifically to the oriental tradition, it remains relevant regardless of setting, so long as unarmoured warriors are present. And since one of the more widespread conventions in fantasy seems to be that heroes don't worry about heavy armour, the martial artist should have a niche in quite a few places.
While I grok the desire to emulate the source material as closely as possible, I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble of making up two classes or modelling feats and abilities specifically on a given tradition or genre.
Most of the classes in D&D are fairly generic. A fighter is a guy who hits things with swords or other weapons, a rogue gets to sneak around and do subtle stuff, and so on. The exact way in which one fighter hits things will be different from the next: one may be the grim, taciturn "man with no name", while the other may be a flashy, flamboyant swashbuckler. While the class remains the same, different characters can draw from different traditions. This is what allows the fighter to fit into just about any setting: whether it's Greyhawk, FR, Rokugan, Nyambe (the African setting from Atlas) or whatever, there'll always be someone whose job is to hit things with sharp sticks.
For this reason, the martial artist I made up keeps things fairly vague. You can use it to represent the wuxia swordsman, but you could also use it for a swashbuckling type if you wanted. Because it isn't tied specifically to the oriental tradition, it remains relevant regardless of setting, so long as unarmoured warriors are present. And since one of the more widespread conventions in fantasy seems to be that heroes don't worry about heavy armour, the martial artist should have a niche in quite a few places.
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