Arkhandus said:
Hong's martial artist class, with or without the special feats, is kinda overpowered compared to the core classes (well, except for high-level casters what with their Wishes, Heals, Disintegrates, etc.).
Eh. Next you'll be saying the monk is overpowered.
It has none of the monk's restrictions or limitations,
The multiclassing limitation is a joke; plenty of people remove it, and even if they don't, all the PrCs designed for the monk bypass it anyway. The alignment restriction basically means you can't be a barb/monk, but that's hardly the reason why people complain about monks.
with the minor exception that they lose their AC bonuses and Defensive Talent AC bonus when wearing most armors or using a shield. They'e better off with armor and a shield, and there's really no reason for them not to use such tools. It takes only one level of fighter or whatnot to gain the proficiencies, if they don't want to just spend a few of their feats. (i.e. 20th martial artist vs. 20th fighter: MA may have AC 28 or so after magic items, if highly focused on Dex+Wis; FTR has AC 35 from +5 mithril full plate, +5 tower shield, and 16 Dex; 1st MA vs. 1st FTR: MA has AC 19 from 18 Dex/Wis and class bonus, FTR has AC 20 from 14 Dex, scalemail, and tower shield; so why not have both use such gear? better than needing high ability scores all around)
Multiclassing for 1 level of fighter for proficiency doesn't even cost them a valuable class ability at 20th-level or anything.
It's overpowered by dint of not using some of its powers. Right. You also seem to have missed that the MA's bonus feats only function when wearing light or no armour, if combat-related (which is most of them).
Compared to a fighter, they're getting +20 on movement skills, +6 to Reflex saves, Uncanny Dodge/Improved Uncanny Dodge/Trap Sense +6, in place of just 3 fighter feats.
I get the feeling you have no idea what can be done with feats. Notice that one of the reasons why human characters show up so often now, compared to pre-3E, is exactly because they get an extra feat compared to everybody else.
Now, granted the fighter is one of the more underpowered core classes, but if you don't houserule the fighter, there's no reason a PC shouldn't play a martial artist instead, with just 1 level of fighter or ranger for armor/shield proficiencies.
1) Hit points. You can never have too many hit points.
2) More feats.
3) The way you house rule the fighter is by making more feats for it. And everybody and his dog publishes custom fighter feats, including me. See
here,
here, and
here.
4) MAD. Look it up.
To houserule the martial artist, I'd suggest remove Trap Sense, add a limitation to Acrobatics that says it only applies in light or no armor, with no more than a light load,
You could certainly do that. However,
5) I think I've seen two occasions where people used Balance checks in the 5 years since 3E came out.
6) Jump is similarly useless once you can fly and teleport, and at high levels, that describes everyone, spellcaster or no.
7) Tumble is already usable only in light armour.
and reduce the bonuses from Acrobatics to +2 each time instead of +10 or +5.
The massive Tumble bonus is basically a style thing, to let you move around with impunity and jump off cliffs without taking damage. Having +40 Tumble isn't going to break anything that +30 wouldn't. If you can't handle 20th level people jumping off cliffs, perhaps you shouldn't be playing a 20th level game in the first place.
