Talk:Martial Artist (3.5e Alternate Class Feature)

Balance

I think you underestimate Unarmed Strike and Ki Strike as abilities. They completely surpass the need for a Fighter's weapon (including magical bonuses because of the ridiculous increase in damage).

The AC bonuses replace the need for a Fighter's armor.

The Monk weapons grant the Martial Artist access to weapons even fighters don't normally get at the expense of normalcy.

I do not think this weakens the fighter, but if you really think so I'll edit it a bit to strengthen it.

I don't think you understand how thoroughly monks, and everything about them, suck. Surgo 16:44, September 9, 2009 (UTC)

A Monks gains abilities that match its flavor not its party role. We always say "Look, all these abilities have a equivalent in other martial classes, see?" But we never say, "Look, all these abilities help it a fulfill its role within the party." They suffer from a lack of versatility on-and-off the battlefield. Anything they can do, a wizard can do better. Ask any of the guys who run this site? They can take any monk ability and tell you about other classes that do it mo' better. --Jay Freedman 17:24, September 9, 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you actually understand what the monk's abilities do, much less when compared to a standard fighter. So let's take a look.

- Monk AC bonuses - Well, if the char has an 18 Wis to start, he's as good as a similar fighter in a Chain Shirt. His +1 every 5 levels fails to keep up with the fighter who is getting at least that from his armor enhancement, but at least it's free (which is good, because he needs to buy bracers and stat boosts to keep up). At level 20, and with bracers +8, you've got an ac that's slightly better than a fighter who doesn't have a shield, and significantly worse than one with. You can get an expensive amulet to boost that a bit, but since you have none of the other monk abilities that rely on wisdom that's about the only thing it does. You can get expensive gloves that boost it a bit more, but since you probably don't have ranged attacks because of your hobbled weapon proficiencies and reliance on , that's, again, about the only thing it does. But with your 3 items, you're about as good as a fighter with 2 items, and his are in slots that leave him free to get other things. You do have slightly better saves though. You also have to decide if you're going to put your leveling stat points into dex or wis to attempt to boost your ac further, splitting focus and getting a small return from it. - Decision: Fighter

- Monk Unarmed Strike - I'm not sure if this includes the flurry ability or not, but it doesn't really matter. We'll just look at straight damage for now. You start doing less than a one-hand weapon fighter of the same size (and if you want to compare flurry, we'll just give him the two-weapon tree and a light weapon, he can afford it with the feats the other guy loses), and gain an average of 1 point of damage per 4 levels until 12, after which it's 2 points per 4 levels. A fighter with a +1 weapon per 4 levels who gets flaming or something along the way matches you. If they do something mean like get flaming and shocking, you're hosed. Per core, you pay out the nose to boost your fists to something resembling a fighter's magic weapon, but it's possible, and it does allow you to keep up (or exceed them if things like flaming are allowed on it). It just has to compete for your gp with those bracers, that amulet, and those gloves you need to keep your AC up to a fighter of the same level. Who will probably be boosting str, further enlarging the damage gap while you try to decide which of your 3 (str for hitting, dex or wis for ac and saves) stats you should be boosting. - Decision: Fighter

- Ki Strike - Hooray, you can strike as a magic weapon at level 4, you'll need it. The fighter does this and gets attack and damage bonuses, but he could maybe somehow lose his weapon... yeah, that's unlikely. You get lawful at 10th, which might matter if more creatures were weak against it. Or if there weren't low level spells that did the same thing for long enough to deal with any non-planned threats. Or if a Fighter of this level couldn't just PA his way past their DR. Adamantine at 16 is handy, but since the fighter has been carrying around one of those for LEVELS now, it's not really a point for you. And while you could do the same thing, and will have to for every other material you need to hurt things, that's point against your argument for the unarmed strike progression meaning anything. - Decision: Fighter

- Good Reflex saves and Evasion - These are actually points for you, because you can't replicate them with feats or items that are cheaper than what you have to get to make up for your own weird progression. And if you boosted dex instead of str or wis you might even be able to take advantage of it, at the cost of trying to keep up with the fighter's hit and damage output. Trade offs right? - Decision: Martial Artist, but only barely.

So where does this leave us. You've dumped half of your feats from 6 on, right about the time when you could start building a decent, if one-trick, pony out of them in exchange for a bunch of abilities that require you to spend more gp keeping up and split your focus. Or, to put it another way, this variant has stripped the monk of his interesting abilities and allowed him to get a few bonus feats in their place, or stripped a fighter of its weapon and armor proficiencies and pulled feats from him when he needs them most. There's probably a way to reconcile the two if you wanted a class variant in the middle, but I don't think this is it. TarkisFlux 01:47, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, you make some good points. Thanks for pointing that out. I suppose something to make up for the fact that the character has to multitask their ability scores would be important. Perhaps adding the Monk skills and athletic abilities such as Slowfall and Speed increase would work? The character would still be somewhat martially inferior to a fighter (but only by a little) yet they would athletically superior (and thus would always have a better "run for the hills" option). Arkangelknight 15:19, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

Slow Fall is a flavor ability more than anything. The extra speed would be nice because its combat application, not because it would allow you to run away. That said, I don't really think that enhanced movement covers (in enough breadth) either the abilities to deal and avoid damage, which are still a (if the not the primary) concern(s). -- Jota 17:05, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

I think at that point you've basically given a monk some bonus feats in exchange for taking their high level weird stuff (because you can spend the low level ones on the same things a monk gets anyway), and I don't think that's a good trade off. I'd step back a bit instead, and focus on what you want the end result to be. I think balance wise you're not aiming to improve on the monk or fighter much, and that puts us into monk or fighter balance territory and saves us from making any sweeping adjustments. I think you want a guy who doesn't wear armor and can beat people up with his fists if he wants to, so let's focus on that (and if I'm wrong this won't be as helpful, but such is life). There really isn't a reason to pull all of the weapon proficiencies, because martial artists traditionally learn lots of weapons as well, and plenty of them aren't included in the monk list. So let them have all martial and monk weapons, it'll help differentiate them from monks. Let them have monk fisty progression, because it's important to the concept, and ki strikes and flurry as long as their off hand has a light weapon in it. Since you don't want them wearing armor, pull those and shields, but don't give them their wisdom bonus because it splits their focus up too much. Instead give them their Str bonus as a shield bonus to AC as long as their off hand is free, call it arm block or whatever, and give that the monk AC progression (or slightly better if you want it to keep up with regular enhancement gains). That gives you a class that fights with maybe a weapon in it's primary hand and uses it's free hand to defend itself and punch people in the face, or just punches people in the face at later levels. Because they can wield normal weapons, they're not a slave to their ki strikes, but they're certainly helpful. They can boost Str for AC and damage, or Dex if they want ranged and AC, and do one of those things well enough. I'd throw in good reflex saves too. In exchange for this, I'd pull their first 2 bonus feats, and leave the rest. These things will get them through the first few levels as well as any other fighter or monk, but they'll need their feats later on to carry them the rest of the way since they don't have any other special things going on. TarkisFlux 18:43, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

Uhm...yeah that's a brilliant idea I suppose. Using Strength as an AC buff would strike me as horribly overpowered but only if that person wore armor so allowing it to function only without armor is a pretty good idea. That would create a unique "parrying" ability that I can put in there. I like the suggestions, thank you! Please recheck the class and make another assessment. Arkangelknight 19:45, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

Deflect Arrows just let's you cancel one ranged attack against you per round; there is no AC or dice-rolling involved. Other than that it's better, but I'm not sure how well everything works out overall. It's a little hard to get the full picture with a bulleted list. -- Jota 20:07, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

(Reset Indentation)

Well, I'd probably just give them the Str to AC vs. all attacks for simplicity and to keep it slightly more worthwhile, but you can do the deflect arrows thing if you want. It makes it a substantially better feat choice than it normally would be, so you should expect people to take it more often than they otherwise might. Past that and we're into talking about what balance point you're shooting for, which I'm still not clear on. If you're aiming for monk balance level, it's ok. The lack of mid-high level feats or replacement special abilities means this class works best over levels 1-6, and starts falling behind after that because it lacks the tools to optimize itself sufficiently. You start losing bonus feats about the time you would qualify for decentish ones, so if you're aiming for fighter level of balance and relevance into the low teens you fall short. Evasion, speed bonuses, and slow fall simply do not make up for not getting shiney new abilities at mid levels, and they won't carry you to 20 by a long shot. I could see trading your first 1 or 2 fighter feats for punching and blocking and reflex saves, because you can work around these and they're generally only used for setup for good things later, but anything more than that hurts the class later on, and they just don't get enough to make up for it. Plus, this class is really really front loaded. I can spend 2 levels here and get a few special things and a couple of bonus feats, then skip out before I have to start paying for it. I'd rethink which abilities were important to the class, how people were expected to pay for them, and how that impacts their mid level game and the variant's role in multiclassing. TarkisFlux 20:33, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

I actually agree about the "front loaded" part so I'll fix that. However, just about half the original classes have that same issue. I don't really criticize a class for having the same problems as a normal base class because well, that's just it matching the same game. To criticize that strikes me as a criticism of the game itself more than the particular homebrew material. Personally I think losing only 4 feats may not be ENOUGH. Afterall, they still can acquire the same paths that fighters do as most feat paths do not exceed 5-6 prerequisites to begin with. Its sort of how a paladin gets only half the spells a cleric does. This is actually an "overpowering" of the class because of its warrior benefits and other (su) and (sp) abilities, but because it causes them to need to split their focus amongst abilities it doesn't truly overpower them. The same with all these added benefits. I think the fact that this class has the same weapon options a fighter does plus an unarmed strike to boot actually makes them superior weapon specialists though at the sacrifice of some AC benefits. The loss of four feats puts them a bit behind on the timing of fighters, but not so far that the fact that they can easily outmaneuver any fighter in heavy armor (or without for that matter). I'm not saying your points don't fly, I just generally think this class has become slightly too powerful and thus fixing the front-loading part should pretty much balance the scale save for an inch or two off. Arkangelknight 17:46, September 11, 2009 (UTC)

I thought it was more front loaded than the classes you were comparing it to, hence the comment. With your new changes it's certainly not, but it's also worse than both the core fighter and the core monk. You've basically taken a monk at this point, crapped on his skill points and class skills, stripped out the good will save, the early bonus feats, still mind, purity of body, and all of the later weird stuff in exchange for weapon proficiencies that barely matter and 3 bonus feats later on. Yes, you can use a bow with this variant, but in doing so you lose your flurry and your off hand parry. Yes, you can use a longsword in this variant, and it does all of 1 point of damage more than your basic unarmed strike. Yes, you can use a greatsword in the variant, but you lose most of your other special abilities. It's really not impressive. You've taken a fighter and given him a good reflex save, evasion, a linearly scaling off-hand weapon, and a linearly scaling shield at the cost of all but 3 of his feats. Slow fall is worthless as an ability, being replicated at low levels by a jump check and a tumble check and at higher levels by a nearly free feather fall item. Monk speed is worthless as an ability, as it allows you to 1) charge ahead of your group and out of their range to assist you (since you can't use the movement for full-attack or flurry purposes, which might actually be worth something) or 2) to run away faster than your friends, which helps you survive, but doesn't help you beat challenges. Yes, you can use it to outmaneuver fighters in heavy armor, but without spring attack (which is now expensive) you just get to dance around them while they full attack you wherever you end up. With spring attack they just ready an action and you trade blows. It's really not impressive. You can't do any of the fighter optimization required for relevance because you don't have any feats left (exaggeration, yes, but done knowingly for effect). You could get by in the first few levels, but that's about it, and even then I'd just take a monk over this.

If you think this is too powerful, then I think you need to remove abilities and give back feats, because what you have here is not balanced in a good way. Slow fall and monk speed would be the first on my chopping block. Past that I'd consider dropping, or pushing back, evasion. And if that's still not enough, I would limit their fighter bonus feats more than the core fighter, but less than the monk, and give most of them back. Having just thought of that, you could probably limit the early ones to reduce front loading. TarkisFlux 19:42, September 11, 2009 (UTC)

One question. Which balance tier is this being pitted against? → Rith ^(talk) 20:38, September 11, 2009 (UTC)

You know, I completely forgot the skills. I thought I'd already fixed that but I'd forgotten. Other than that I don't see how this is all that much weaker. This class still gains more than half the normal amount of fighter feats in addition to the higher hit points and two good saves, high base attack, a boat load of weapon proficiencies and an AC that is still good (though not great). It's not being tiered against any one tier we're just trying to decide if its within range of ANY of the tiers yet. I'm being given the argument that a fighter who loses less than half its bonus feats for more than half of the monk combat abilities (save the ones that are purely flavor) is weaker than a normal monk but I don't buy it. I do see how neglecting the skills does still leave one balancing hole for a martial artist type though. But at worst you could say this is equivalent in power to a monk. Arkangelknight 21:50, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

Alternate Formulation

A martial artist functions as a monk except as noted here:

Lose

• Good Will save
• Knowledge (arcana) and Knowledge (religion) from your class skill list.
• AC Bonus
• Bonus Feat at 1st level
• Bonus Feat at 2nd level
• Still Mind at 3rd level
• Purity of Body at 5th level
• Bonus Feat at 6th level
• Wholeness of Body at 7th level
• Diamond Body at 11th level
• Abundant Step at 12th level
• Diamond Soul at 13th level
• Quivering Palm at 15th level
• Timeless Body at 17th level
• Tongue of the Sun and the Moon at 17th level
• Empty Body at 19th level
• Perfect Self at 20th level

Gain

• All simple and martial weapon proficiencies at 1st level
• d10 Hit Die per level
• Base Attack Bonus equal to your class level
• Parrying Fists (Ex) ability at 1st level

Parrying Fists (Ex): While unarmored and not using a shield, a Martial Artist adds their Strength modifier as a shield bonus to their AC against melee attacks. This bonus increases by +1 per 4 class levels, as indicated in the AC Bonus column on the Monk class table. A Martial Artist that selects the Deflect Arrows feat may use this modifier against ranged weapon attacks as well.

• Bonus Feat at 6th level. This may by any bonus feat that a fighter may select.
• Bonus Feat at 12th level. This may by any bonus feat that a fighter may select.
• Bonus Feat at 14th level. This may by any bonus feat that a fighter may select.
• Bonus Feat at 18th level. This may by any bonus feat that a fighter may select.
• Bonus Feat at 20th level. This may by any bonus feat that a fighter may select.

Yeah, I was off on my feat count... having done an alternate formulation of the variant to make it all extra clear I'm still unhappy with it, but less so. The thing is that this variant takes away from the fighter at mid-high levels, reducing their limited ability to remain relevant, and doesn't give back things that matter at those levels. I would not take this in place of a straight fighter in a mid level game. At low levels, I'd give up the maybe 6 bonus hp and the maybe 2 points of BAB (including the iterative attack towards the end) and just take monk because it gets things I want more, like a Will save bonus and some mediocre bonus feats and AC against every attack without locking me into a feat I may not care about. At mid levels I might take this in place of a monk, but it depends strongly on my ability to find an amazing stack of feats at 6th level, when I have all of 4 feats to leverage (+ human bonus, maybe), and that's a bit of a stretch. It doesn't help that I won't see another until 9th, though the 2 at 12 (when the regular fighter is pushing it already) will be nice if I'm still relevant. So in the two areas where I could see this mattering (competing with a straight monk at low levels or a straight fighter at low-mid levels) it's a worse option than the ones on the table already. I wouldn't use this variant as written in any of the games I run and I wouldn't ask any of my DMs to let me use it as a player. You can disagree with my assessment, and that's fine; I won't attempt to dissuade you from your course further. TarkisFlux 01:20, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

I like this. Even though this is a longer list of things, it does make more sense to display it this way.

Hmm, my disagreement is that this variant is weaker than the traditional monk combat-wise. Saying its weaker than the fighter may be true in certain circumstances such as being compared to that of the fighter that has a tree of specialized feats, just "combat feats as a fighter" wouldn't cut it. I mean feats you'd need a string of 5-6 prerequisites in a row to achieve like Whirlwind Attack.

I like your variation of Parrying Fists better as I think adding that would allow this martial artist variant to catch up their AC to the traditional fighter's much more closely. Like all materials, I'd think about it a little more before allowing it. I'm a bit confused by your last few statements. Do you define "mid levels" as before 9th level?

Please continue dissuading me, I'm not convinced this class is weaker than a traditional monk, but everything else you've come up with is great and I like reading them. You really know your stuff, I hope disagreeing with one of your assessments does not make you think I disagree with all of them. Your comments have been the most helpful so far in editing this. Arkangelknight 01:34, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

Mid levels are 7-12, ish, in my head as that's where things first start falling apart in the linear fighter / quadratic wizard world. And I assumed that you had intended to provide the scaling AC bonus already to the parrying thing, else I'd really not take this over a traditional fighter at mid level. I don't know what else to say to convince you that this needs further work or a completely different approach, so I'm not going to worry about it and move on to more productive things. I'll leave it to the RC to sort from here, soon as they get moving. And one disagreement is just one disagreement, it doesn't mean anything come next topic. TarkisFlux 03:14, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I think this one has been swiftly edited to death and this is pretty much all that can be done save for a unique class altogether. Arkangelknight 15:45, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

Balance Rating

With full BAB and that many bonus feats, wouldn't this be at least Fighter-level? --Ghostwheel 11:14, February 12, 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. It's a full BAB, bigger HD, Str dependent monk without any of the special crap that actually sorta matters at levels 1-5 (will save, will save bonus, really tight bonus feats). Compared to a fighter you lose 5 of your fighter bonus feats between levels 1 and 12 to gain a reflex save (yay), evasion (yay), fast movement (mixed), slow fall (meh), unarmed strike (meh), and skills / skill points (mixed), and almost certainly have a lower AC. So I think it's viable at low levels, but it doesn't have any mid level class features worth noting and it doesn't get enough bonus feats early on to turn into mid level abilities worth noting. It's not as counter-synergistic as a monk is, but it's certainly not as viable as a mid-level fighter. - TarkisFlux 18:42, February 12, 2010 (UTC)