doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
TO me, they're all supernatural on some level regardless, but I agree that it's silly to let anti-magic fields interfere with KI abilities. Supernatural needn't always mean "magic", as such.
But I also think there is room in the game for both a monk and a martial artist, and that while they would overlap, they would not be the same concept.
The martial Artist is how I would rebuild the Fighter. Fighting styles, Forms/Stances, abilities both passive and active based on weapon, stance, etc. Basicaly build a full martial artist, able to master a variety of weapon types, flow from one Form into another as they fight, even doing stuff like switching from using a two handed weapon defensively, to a "normal" damage focused Form, to a reach form, and some unique forms only usable withhh certain weapons. Ideally, it would be easy to learn, and would have a subclass like Champion for people who want to just stay at that easy level without losing efficacy, but other subclasses would take greater advantage of the potential complexity of combining forms, fighting styles, and weapons, with Subclass specific Tactics.
Stuff like half-swording a longsword or greatsword would be represented, as would hooking shields and limbs with your axe, shield bashing/pushing, pommel smashing, lunging, changing your footing and how you hold the weapon to gain either reach or greater defense, etc.
The Kensai would still be a Monk, because it focuses on a single weapon, but it would gain bits of Fighter in the form of a Fighting Style, Stance, and maybe a Tactic or two related to your chosen weapon. A full fighter, though, would be able to switch from sword to mace to pummel a heavily armored enemy, and have a Fighting Style and Stance and such for the situation, and then later switch from shield and one handed weapon to a long spear or a spear and an axe, keeping enemies at a distance and hooking shields and limbs with the axe, or axe and sword for a more offensive style. I'd probably limit how many weapons you can specialize in, to avoid the fighter with 15 weapons strapped to his body, but allowing weapons to be used in multiple ways would make up for that.
Just having defensive/aggressive/passive/protective stance, plus close/reach/...circling stance? would be a huge thing. If you're in Defensive Reach Stance, you threaten extra space in a way that makes moving in it harder, to keep enemies at bay. If you are in Aggressive Reach Stance, you are aggressively reaching over heads and such to stab people, like a pikeman behind a shield wall. Protective Stance would be about protecting allies. Passive would be simply what happens if you aren't in a specific stance, I guess.
I don't know, I wish I had the time to develop this into a class. Maybe when I get the next playtest iteration of my own game done, I can take a break from development there and make some new 5e stuff.
