D&D 4E Martial classes

[Undrave]

Martial were also really big on Reliable powers, powers that are not expended if you miss with them. Really cool concept there.

Only martial power got a second source book during the pre-Essentials run...
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Martial wins.

Martial Power 2 introduced new keywords with the powers: Rattling and Invigorating (Or was that in Martial Power 1?) that were a neat concept. If you are train in Intimidate and hit with a Rattling power, you impose a -2 to that creature's next attack roll, and if you are trained in Endurance and hit with an Invigorating power, you gain temp HP. The Battlerager Fighter was basically a martial Barbarian. It made your skill choices a bit more integral to your play style in combat and gave you an interesting build to dip into or go all in with.

 

[Nefermandias]

You guys are saying Martial didn't have a controller, but that's not entirely true. The Hunter ranger (Essentials, I know...) was a Martial controller.

 

[Garthanos]

4e is my favorite edition, and the caster/martial balance is a big reason.

To me it went well beyond balance, martial became truly vivid. I could finally play an effective defender (as intimated in the earlier game) and a brilliant tactician/strategist character that evoked Alexander the Great or Mulan.

 

[Vael]

You guys are saying Martial didn't have a controller, but that's not entirely true. The Hunter ranger (Essentials, I know...) was a Martial controller.

It was also a mix of Martial and Primal, adding some spellcasting back to the Ranger.

I'll fully admit most suggestions for a Martial Controller didn't really resonate with me, but that's also admittedly a problem with Controllers in general, compared to Leaders, Strikers and Defenders, Controllers were always the most nebulous role in 4e.

 

[Voadam]

I felt 4e did the best of the editions in making characters balanced for combat overall. Having rogues and rangers be standout martial strikers was fantastic and I liked warlords as buffers and healers, given the 4e healing surge paradigm it worked well flavor wise and allowed a lot of great concept characters.

I really liked having cool physical nonmagical combat as your niche, and having it be first tier effective in D&D was great.

 

[Charlaquin]

My favorite was leaning into the Fantasy aspect and accepting that luck is an actual thing in the world and for certain characters, that's all their HP was. Damage on a miss was having such a close call that your luck literally almost ran out.

We also had the Bond rule where certain characters' HP was represented by clothing damage and healing was 'freshing up'.

Damage on a miss was literally the exact same thing as half damage on a failed save, just in a system where the aggressor rolls against the defender’s Fort Ref or Will defense instead of having the defender roll against the aggressor’s static save DC. People just get weirdly hung up on the words “hit” and “miss.”

 

[Charlaquin]

You guys are saying Martial didn't have a controller, but that's not entirely true. The Hunter ranger (Essentials, I know...) was a Martial controller.

Ish, but the Hunter was martial and primal, and most of its control abilities were primal magic.

 

[Nefermandias]

Ish, but the Hunter was martial and primal, and most of its control abilities were primal magic.

Yes, that's true. It also had the issue of being a bit redundant with the Seeker's design space.

 

[Minigiant]

I only think a martial controller as a gadgeteer. Basically a nonmagical Artificer. But then you have the ammo problem.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I only think a martial controller as a gadgeteer. Basically a nonmagical Artificer. But then you have the ammo problem.

If you ignore ammo, the problem is solved forever!