Why Shouldn't Martial Characters have powers?

[Kobold Avenger]

Anime sucks for examples, and honestly I don't care.

What I'm looking for Martial Characters to do are things on the level of what you see in Low-Budget Low-Special Effects Hong Kong Action movies. More like Fists of Fury, and many of the 1970's ealy 1980's films, that didn't rely of flashy special-effects.

 

[Simplicity]

The reason that people don't want fighters walking on air is that each of these classes has previously had very distinct sources from literature. The Ranger is a tribute to Aragorn. The Fighter is a tribute to the classical mythological/medieval warrior (from European mythology). The wizard is Gandalf, Merlin, et al. If 4e changes these sources, people who were previously very familiar with the source material will be alienated. Hercules did not clean out the stables with a chi blast from his quivering palm.

I'm fine if there is a class which can gain the ability to walk on air and use chi. Sounds like a monk to me. The monk's source material is eastern mythology. If there's some feats that let a fighter be more monky (okay, that's *not* the right word), then that's fine with me too. You have your peanut butter. Just allow me the opportunity to eat my chocolate without your damn peanut butter in it.

I dislike the fact that all asian fighters have to fit under a badly named "monk" role. But short of changing that name or having multiple fighter paths, I've not sure what the solution there is.

 

[Enforcer]

Personally, if Fighters are similar to characters from Tome of Battle, as it's been hinted they will be, I'll be a very happy gamer.

With Tome of Battle you get both "total badasses of skill" (Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, White Raven, Diamond Mind) and the whole "mystical warrior tradition" (Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit) thing going on, and they don't really overlap. Swordsages? Mystical. Warblades? Badasses of skill. Crusader is mystical too. All of this works for me. And so long as there's an option to have characters like a Warblade with all non-magic maneuvers who are still badasses at higher levels, I think we'll be just fine.

 

[Li Shenron]

Fear.
-> Anger.
-> Hate.
-> Suffering.

You are making this all up by yourself :\ As Kahuna said, I merely answered the thread question.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Personally I prefered the Swordsage, and you could have a non-mystical one, if you didn't choose any Desert Wind or Shadow Hand maneuvers.

They were the monk that's better than a monk, and the "wizards" of martial magic, as opposed to the "sorcerers" of martial that Warblades were.

One of my friends actually described the swordsage as being too powerful, because they could do things that the rogue and wizard could do with the right maneuvers, and had enough skill points to be able to do roguish things.

 

[Engilbrand]

I love the Bo9S. I like the idea of Fighters having powers. Knockdowns and massive-damage cuts are obvious. What else, though? I like the Tiger Claw or whatever school from 9S. It's about attacking fast and there are some things for jumping. While I don't believe that a Fighter should be able to fly, I have no problem with one being able to jump a ridiculous height or distance. I have no problem with a high level Fighter being so well trained that he can cut through a boulder or climb fast.
People are talking about Monks being the only ones who train their bodies. Monks train their bodies for purity or to ignore pain. Fighters train their bodies to physical perfection.
D&D is fundamentally magical in nature. Magic permeates everything. How is it difficult to believe that powerful Fighters, people who subject themselves to magical things on a daily basis and even hop between planes, wouldn't be affected by it. That's how I would explain it. Most people don't have a connection to the realm of magic. They just know that it's there. Adventurers, though, come into contact with it so much that it's like anything else. The body eventually adapts in one way or another. By high levels, why shouldn't a Fighter be able to ignore damage, jump 50 ft, fall 60 ft without care or take a Fireball with a smile? They've reached, and exceeded, the limits of the human body.

Batman- A powerful character with a lot of magical devices.

Captain America- This is how I view a high level 4E character. He's beyond the limits of a normal human. He's stronger, faster, heals quickly, can jump from a building and land without a problem and can fight multiple people for a long span of time. All that he really has is a shield. No "powers", but he's definitely beyond the realm of "I can fight good with my sword." that some people think Fighters should be relegated to. I mean, he's gone toe to toe with the Hulk! (We'll just ignore that he was recently killed with a gun.)

Superman- No magical devices. Just a super powerful being.

A world of magic will probably be like the Marvel universe. Some people are just born different and with different abilities. In D&D, these are the people who become adventurers. They have an innate connection to magic that makes them better at whatever they do. If it's a Rogue, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to disappear into shadows at high levels. If it's a Ranger, why shouldn't he be able to track a squirrel through a forest for a few miles. Wizards tap directly into magic and make it do anything that they want it to do. The martial classes just have an innate connection that improves them over time and causes them to excel at whatever they do. They can't do anything that's out of their realm of expertise, but they go beyond what they "should" be able to do if you use "real world" terms for a MAGICAL FANTASY setting.

 

[TwinBahamut]

First, I am going to agree that Samurai Champloo caps out at 10th level at most. It is practicaly the definition of Heroic levels, with a few characters going around, fighting personal battles that do not have a significant effect on anything but a local scale. And really, the heroes of that series could do very little against a D&D magic user.

Jubei Chan 2 and Rurouni Kenshin (as well as my own Guilty Gear example) are all Paragon level characters, people who stand far above the norm and affect entire nations and societies.

For Epic characters, the limit needs to be pushed even higher, to the realm of mythological heroes. I mentioned it in an older thread on this topic, but the Ramayana is a good model for this level of combat. The Rahshasa King Ravana is the closest mythological parallel to a D&D demon lord or archdevil, and the battle between him and the hero Rama is described as the two shooting millions of arrows at each other from their flying chariots. A fighter needs to be well beyond a normal fighter to stand toe-to-toe with a demon lord.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins? Yup.

And I would hardly say that there is no place in D&D for such abilities, but this seems more a facet of mystical training (forget the name of his Korean trainer) than something strictly "mundane".

IMHO, of course.

RC

Well, I think this is the fundamental source of disagreement. I have to ask the question, where is the boundary between "mundane" and "mystical", and why is it important?

I don't agree that the concepts of "ki" or such should be outside the realm of the fighter. While I may agree that they are "mystical", they are not "magical". If you think about it, "ki" is just an elaborate model for internal biology, chemical processes, and various forms of chemical, potential, and kinetic energy. It is a tool for training the body and skills of a warrior, by letting him understand how his own body works. "ki" being a form of magic is nothing but a bad D&Dism.

I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing for magic ki blasts to be given to fighters, but jumping far, runing fast, and slicing trees in half should be easy for a very high level fighter. In essence, such things are just a fighter doing the same things he has done all along, except better.

As a whole, I just don't agree that fighters should be limted to the mundane. Mundane is, pretty much by definition, boring. Mundane and fantasy (especially heroic fantasy) don't mix. I still want fighters to be weapon-users who defeat their opponents with skill, strength, and technique, but that is merely a limitation to the "physical" and to "weapon-mastery", not a limitation to the "mundane". I don't see it as stepping on the mages' toes at all.

 

[Mallus]

The Ranger is a tribute to Aragorn.

Seeing as the first ed. version could cast 'fireball' and the following versions where either two-weapon fighters or super-archers, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the D&D ranger has been a bad tribute to Aragorn.

The wizard is Gandalf...

As he would appear in comic books.

Hercules did not clean out the stables with a chi blast from his quivering palm.

He might as well have. He was the son of Zeus, not some normal man at the very edge of physical ability. His Labors involve near Justice League levels of superhuman ability.

Which point are you trying to prove with this?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Actually, a lot of people think "powers" and they think of Swordsages running fire trails, or hitting their enemies and the enemies exploding in flames, or of a warrior pulling a shadow teleport or shadow garrotte effect out of nothing. It can be "powers" without looking magical.

The Foe Hammer effect can be a good example. Once per minute or so, a fighter can find the perfect opening in a combat to launch an EXACT attack that hits a creature in a weak point in its defenses -- one which ignores any damage reductions it has. He can't do it all the time because the opportunity doesn't present itself.

He can bolster his allies' will saves by his voice, and his reassurance, just by being there, yelling a battle cry.

He can use a special martial throw to dislodge his opponents' footing, or throw them off a cliff. None of these are magical, nor need to be described as such. They're all things that you could argue could be even done in the real world. Aragorn, Roland, and King Arthur could have done any and all of these things (even the martial throw, because contrary to popular belief even Western martial arts wasn't just two people slugging it out with swords till one dropped - there are plenty of feints, off-balance maneuvers, etc. in honest-to-God-anything-goes combat.)

As someone who doesn't like the flavor of supernatural/magical powers in the martial classes, this is a good point. I don't mind if a martial character can do something incredible but I don't want them to be permeated with supernatural/magic because I don't like that flavor. Sometimes I want to play Batman, not Superman.

 

[Aldarc]

D&D assumes a world in which magic permeates the very being of existence so that it can be manipulated by humanity, so I find it odd at the presence of "non-casters." You would think that even warriors would be able to cast a spell to strengthen their shields, guide their arrows, to start a minor fire, or something along those lines.