Tellerve said:
Ok, umm, first jet li didn't break the dang gun he essentially disassembled it. You do the same thing when you clean the gun, he just did it with someone else holding the gun. He didn't do some chi strike to it.
I was adding flavor text. I'll write slowly: For a Hero who can do damage, breaking a gun is not terribly difficult. It's a tradeoff. Guns will always be more effective, but are vulnerable to being disarmed or broken.
Incidently, I was thinking of the scene in Lethal Weapon 4 when he rips the top off of someone's gun. Jet Li's been in enough movies that I haven't seen that it's possible he does something else in another movie and you're thinking of that.
Elusive target? Umm, how is that relevant with your orgre example?
I probably edited it and cut away something important. I was thinking in terms of the martial artist fighting an ogre while an enemy shooter took shots at him. The ogre was unbalanced, and the shooter was penalized by Elusive target. I was showing that the character was going to be tough to hit in melee combat OR by a shooter.
I haven't ramped up characters to 20th level and see where they are, I just don't do that sorta thing as I haven't every played nor dm'ed a character at those levels.
I'm less than entirely sure how you see "I didn't test out any of the rules, I just read stuff and made untested assumptions" as a valid counterargument.
You didn't say "At some levels." You just said that martial artists sucked in general. Soooo... I used a character I generated awhile back to show that you were wrong. You're now arguing that my character doesn't count. It seems more and more as though you've only given the rules a passing glance and haven't actually tried to put a character together -- yet you feel completely justified in "fixing" the martial arts feats.
Then, when your players complain that martial artists have it too good in your world, you'll make guns more powerful, too in order to "fix" them as well.
Streetfighting...ok here's a feat I don't get. "brutal and effective fighting tactics of the streets and back alleys". You need brawl as a feat to get it first of all so the 1d4 I've got to assume is non-lethal since brawling is non-lethal. How is that brutal? Brutal implies lethality to me. So then if you get it with CMA you can only use it when having non-lethal attacks.
It's listed as being applied for an unarmed OR LIGHT WEAPON attack. It adds whatever kind of damage you're already doing. Nothing in there says it has to be nonlethal damage. You could use Streetfighting with an unarmed attack or with a cleaver. Ergo, Streetfighting stacks perfectly well with unarmed lethal attacks.
As for my other estimations, well I don't want an 18 pts strength martial artist, not to mention the abysmal other scores he/she'll have with an 18 in one score, but I guess your playing md20 with really high point buys.
You guess incorrectly. He had LOUSY scores beyond his Strength. I don't recall what I used for point buy. It was either 25 or 28, which was high, but not as high as I've seen floated around here. I gave him an 18 Strength, good enough Dex to get Dodge, and whatever was left went into Con.
So yes, this was a guy whose LIFE was melee combat. He doesn't have a ton of other abilities. Welcome to d20 Modern -- you can be good at a few things, decent at many things, or excellent at one thing. You said that martial arts was lame, so I showed you that if you focused on it, it could be powerful.
Your counterargument, I'm going to guess, is that you don't want characters who have nothing beyond melee combat in their lives. Really, what you want is to be as powerful as a focused character without actually being focused on anything. And I'm sorry to tell you that that isn't going to happen. Really, this is a great argument for you. If I show you a focused character, you can agree that he's good but declare that you wanted someone more well-rounded, and if I show you an ordinary guy with a few martial arts feats, you can declare that you wanted something more powerful. We did that forty or fifty posts back in this thread.
ok get some brass knuckles, tadah. Now he's rockin' a martial artists butt.
Brass Knuckles don't stack with Brawl. Read the FAQ. You can't use Brass Knuckles and Brawl together to do 1d8 lethal damage. You'd either be doing 1d3 lethal damage, or 1d8 nonlethal.
And your 20th level martial artist doesn't have anything I see to make him better than a guy who went 6 strong, 4 tough, 10 soldier
he'd have 1d8 from improved brawl (through on some cheap brass knuckles)
1d4 streetfighting
+3 adv. melee smash
+4 soldier greater spec
+5 strength (might as well make him 18, adv to 20 like yours)
So, let's see.
Can't add level to damage on a charge attack from Flying Kick.
Have to pick different bonus feats, since you'll be getting Tough and Strong levels instead of Martial Artist levels. That sounds small, but it was a fair amount of work to get all the feats I wanted, when I qualified for them, choosing from the bonus feats available. Since you didn't deign to select feats for yourself, I'm assuming that you were gonna go with the same feats I had -- which you couldn't do with a Tough hero.
Don't get Iron Fist.
I assume you now understand that your guy wouldn't be doing 1d8 lethal damage with the brass knuckles, so really, that shafts your melee character right there. Yes, it's in the FAQ. Yes, really. Trust me. The argument has been hashed out here and on the Wizards boards, and official sources gave official responses.
AC lower, since you don't have that Fast level or Martial Artist levels.
On the other hand, your guy would probably have more hit points, and you could get something nice from those Tough talents. Not a horrible character by any stretch, but not the best at melee combat.
-Tacky
