Martial Arts-Why isn't there a class for Martial Artists

[Aristotle]

My first instinct would be to create a whole new base class for the martial artists. Possibly one to replace the Monk, which I've always had issues with anyway. But... I don't really think new classes are necessary. As others have pointed out the Fighter fits the bill pretty well... or could with some very minor enhancement.

I would go with a selection of new feat chains, as others have suggested. This would allow anybody to know a little bit, while a Fighter that uses his or her many feats to climb the chains a true martial artist. This would work well for unarmed martial arts. You might get away with a few feats for the armed martial artist (which I think is a perfectly valid argument) but the existing combat system and feats take care of this for the most part.

 

[Desdichado]

Which brings me back around to the idea that fighters should have access to some fairly interesting unarmed feat chains. Then you could make a fully trained martial artists, someone who is good at both, and balance between those elements as you the player see fit.

I agree that from a theoretical game design standpoint, this seems like the best option to me, and it is the whole point of the fighter class to be this type of flexible class that can serve as any type of err, fighter within the confines of the rules itself. Of course, this would be relatively easy to whip up a dozen or so feats (or steal them from OA, or monk special abilities) and make them part of the fighter list. Practically no work at all would give you the most elegant solution.

 

[Nine Hands]

There was also an update for the PDF version to 3.5, though it didn't have all the material in it that was in the print version.

Beyond Monks is a very good book (again, I refer you to the review I posted above.) It's still hard to slot into a game due the the presence of a monk, but I think that is a problem with the monk being an all too narrow archetype. If you want a martial artist that is not a monk, I highly recommend it. Even if you just want some feat chains to add some more exotic techniques to your normal characters, I recommend it.

If you want weapon fighting styles, I recommend Masters of Arms instead, but it was obvious to me (despite some people's insistence on warping the point based on technicalities) that is not what the original poster was asking for.

I was able to slide in the Martial Artist class pretty easily in my campaign, heck I even have the Oathsworn from UA. Basically they all share certain abilities which stack in certain multiclass combinations. Each class has abilities the other does not and they have worked out pretty well.

 

[Tonguez]

I agree that from a theoretical game design standpoint, this seems like the best option to me, and it is the whole point of the fighter class to be this type of flexible class that can serve as any type of err, fighter within the confines of the rules itself. Of course, this would be relatively easy to whip up a dozen or so feats (or steal them from OA, or monk special abilities) and make them part of the fighter list. Practically no work at all would give you the most elegant solution.

I'd say go with fighter with Unarmed combat feats, add in the Psionic feats (using HP instead of pp) and a few others and you have a very effective Martial Artist.

hmmm Up the walls, Flurry of Blows, Stunning Fist, Whirlwind Attack! - sounds good!

 

[Voadam]

The problem with using fighter is that the class is balanced presuming the use of weapons and armor.

Fighters make good tanks and good archers.

Fighters make OK swashbucklers and OK martial artists.

A heavily armored fighter with tons of martial arts feats can be a fun workable concept, but an unarmored unarmed fighter will be more than a bit behind equal level monks on AC and damage.

Adding fighter on to other classes can be effective in making an archetype work, a monk who goes fighter after a while has less of a spiritual aspect and more of a technical mastery of martial arts.

Similarly, a rogue who picks up a couple of levels of fighter can become a better knife fighter or swashbukling fencer rogue.

 

[barsoomcore]

My wife wanted to play an unarmed combat kind of character, one who could do a lot of damage with her fists.

Here's what I did:

One level of monk as her basic hand-to-hand training. Gets her Improved Unarmed and Stunning Fist out the gate. From then on its levels of Fighter and Rogue -- Fighter for the feats and BAB, and Rogue for the sneak attack damage.

Combine this with the Expert Tactician feat from Sword and Fist and the Unbalancing Strike feat from OA and you've got something pretty lethal.

Her combo works like this: First attack at full bonus, normal damage. Unbalancing Strike robs the defender of his Dex bonus, which immediately (via Expert Tactician) gives her a second attack at her full bonus, doing sneak attack damage. Then it's her iterative attacks, each doing sneak attack damage to the poor schmoe.

Works really well on Barsoom where very few people where much armour, so that loss of Dex bonus really hurts. She can unravel bad guys with the best of them.

A little imagination (and a small investment in source books) is all you need...

 

[Krieg]

The problem with using fighter is that the class is balanced presuming the use of weapons and armor.

Fighters make good tanks and good archers.

Fighters make OK swashbucklers and OK martial artists.

A heavily armored fighter with tons of martial arts feats can be a fun workable concept, but an unarmored unarmed fighter will be more than a bit behind equal level monks on AC and damage.

Which is exactly why the DMG suggests "modifying classes" & Dragon 310 has articles on variant classes.

Drop Heavy Armour & Shield Profs & replace with something more apropriate (ie Improved Unarmed Strike and/or Dodge). Alter the Bonus Feats available & throw in a special ability or two that can be taken instead of a Bonus Feat.

That Fighter certainly has enough flexibility that it can be used for an un-armed rather than an armed warrior.

 

[Psion]

Which is exactly why the DMG suggests "modifying classes" & Dragon 310 has articles on variant classes.

Drop Heavy Armour & Shield Profs & replace with something more apropriate (ie Improved Unarmed Strike and/or Dodge). Alter the Bonus Feats available & throw in a special ability or two that can be taken instead of a Bonus Feat.

You modify the class, don't you then have the martial artist class that everyone is looking for? Much like the Dragon classes you mention, the published (and homebrow) martial artists classes mentioned here are basically fighters modified so they don't seem like limp noodles in unarmed combat compared to monks.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Here is a Martial Artist core class made by a poster by the name of Shadowfoot over on the WotC boards. The link I have is from the archieved boards, so you can't post to it. I consider the class to be well though-out and pretty much balanced.

Martial Artist core class

 

[takyris]

This might be heresy, but if you want a viable martial arts character that is fun and balanced and doesn't break the feel of the game, then maybe D&D isn't what you ought to be playing.

I think that one of the reasons that people don't like martial artists, be they monks or unarmed fighters or whatever, in D&D, is because D&D is not designed with unarmed and unarmored combat in mind. I would posit that grappling, a vital part of unarmed fighting, is kludged into the system. It's worlds better in 3.5, but it's still different enough that a lot of people don't understand it very well -- and it doesn't ring of the fun and flair that you get from watching a movie where an unarmed guy grabs somebody's punch, locks their arm, and slams them into a wall or over a railing.

You can fix a lot of that with flavor, but it seems (in my utterly subjective opinion) that the basic design of the system is less dynamic than that. The system ALLOWS you to handwave things that make martial artists more interesting -- for example, I will almost always give that +2 bonus to hit to anyone who wants to descrive leaping over a table to kick the gun from the bad guy's hands, or that +2 bonus to defense to somebody doing a running slide under a table while bad guys fire at them -- but it isn't designed with that in mind, and most players end up not thinking of it.

d20 Modern, as noted in my examples above, goes a little ways toward trying to fix that, but to really get martial artists to be statistically powerful, you need to shift away from D&D's form of combat abstraction. Martial artists get a lot more viable when armor becomes a damage soak rather than an AC bonus, or when you get more combat bonuses for striking very well (beating AC by a larger number) -- so that instead of saying "The guy's unarmed attacks are Now as Dangerous as a dagger; two levels from now, they'll be as dangerous as a shortsword; two more levels, as dangerous as a longsword; and two levels after that, as dagerous as a greatsword", you're modelling something more dynamic.

I don't think this dynamism DOESN'T exist in armed combat -- but I think that most of us are prepared to handwave armed combat more than we are unarmed combat -- which is why there are so many books out there trying to "fix" martial artists.