Fantasy Class: Martialist
Fantasy Class: Martialist, written by Nicholas Kristof and published by The Fantasy Cartographic (TFC), is a 74 page PDF product for use in Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. The product introduces classes and rules to bring martial arts and unarmed combat to your 4E game.
If you are looking to add a solid dose of martial arts to a D&D 4E campaign, the Martialist could be just the supplement you are looking for, but a narrow focus and high price point make this an unlikely buy for most players. The writing and rules are solid and the presentation is easy to read, but for most buyers it will be too expensive and limited in its usefulness to justify purchase.
As expected, the Martialist character class excels at being a striker. The Martialist’s abilities allow it to move in to close combat and deal large amounts of damage, or hold opponents in place through powers and grappling, even moving them to different positions on the battlefield, depending on how you build your character.
Martialist powers are called Exploits. Some of the exploits are actually quite clever and give a nice flavor to the class. A good example would be Deafening Strike, the classic hand clap with an opponent’s head between the hands that not only does damage but also adds a deafened effect to the target. Another is Enfeebling Embrace, a grapple that drains strength from an opponent.
Some Exploits forgo clever names and simply describe what they do, such as Boot to the Head, Face Plant and Bang Heads. I’m not even going to explain those.
As you climb higher in levels, your Exploits become more supernatural and gonzo in nature, such as Enjoy the Punishment, a 23rd-level Encounter Exploit which allows you to spend a healing surge automatically if you are struck and actually gives you a damage bonus on your next attack if you are subjected to a critical hit! Some powers are a bit extreme, such as the aptly-named One Strike One Kill, a 23rd-level Daily Exploit that allows the attacker to do weapon damage times 6 plus stunned on a hit, or times 4 plus dazed on a miss.
Though I haven’t had the chance to test out all of the Exploits, and there are a lot of them, for the most part they seem fairly well balanced against other striker classes, and I don’t think I would have any issues bringing them into a current game.
The Martialist also presents lists of martial arts appropriate feats, such as Accurate Strike (concentrating on hand or foot) and Foot or Head Proficiency. Most felt like existing feats, but more tailored to hand-to-hand and grappling characters.
Eight Paragon Paths, mostly broken along racial lines or to provide more of a fighting style to a character, are available. Of those my favorite probably was the Thin One, a self-starving fighter who relies more on movement and finesse than on raw strength.
Three new Epic Destinies are presented – Eternal Striker, Grappler of the Gods and Wave Ruler (a sea-based destiny) – though they really just take the martial-arts theme to the Nth degree, and I wasn’t particularly impressed with any of them.
The product also includes a one-page history of the Martialist that really is only helpful if you are playing in TFC’s Radiant Spear setting, and bits of fiction to break up the long lists of Exploits and help bring some more flavor to the product. The fiction isn’t bad, and in many cases, places the Martialist within a more traditional-fantasy setting, which can help inspire those looking to make a new character.
One other area of interest in the Martialist is the lists of magical items, again being more specific and useful to a martial arts based campaign, such as variations on traditional martial arts weapons. My favorite, and the most likely to find its way into one of my games, are the wraps – basically enchanted leather and cloth bindings which are placed around arms, fists and feet to turn bare hands into magical weapons.
The interior artwork is actually rather nice. The artist VShane uses multiple black and white drawings of 4E-style races in martial arts poses and situations to help break up text and illustrate some of the ideas of the book. However, VShane seems to have chosen the least dramatic piece of artwork for the color cover, a barbarian-looking guy in an at-rest front-facing stance. This gives the cover a bit of a cartoonish and boring feel, and I really wish they had used a more dramatic piece of art, as there were several within the book which would have been much more eye catching.
The Martialist includes several pages of appendixes, making it fairly quick and easy to find specific feats, exploits, items or class descriptions. The document also includes several pages of power cards, which can be printed off and used at the table to keep track of abilities. Both are really welcome additions to any 4E product and increase the usability of the classes and abilities.
I do have a couple of grumbles with the Martialist.
Several times while reading through and testing this product, I spoke to other people about the Martialist. Every time I heard criticism of the name. Instead of calling it a Martial Artist or Dragon Warrior or something either more utilitarian or more dynamic, the Martialist title comes off as clunky and a little amateur. It reminds me of the term Mentalist, which I find to be a really awkward way of talking about a psionic class or illusionist. If I were to use the Martialist class, I certainly would be calling it something else, especially if I were pitching it to a player.
Admittedly, that is a pretty minor gripe with the product. The next isn’t as minor.
TFC was kind enough to provide me with a review copy of Fantasy Class: Martialist, but a quick look online finds the PDF retails for $9.45, which is simply too high. To pay nearly $10 for an electronic product that covers one character class, while $30-$35 could get me an official print product with multiple character classes and other resources, simply isn’t worth the price. Though I’m sure the amount of work that went into creating and testing the Martialist class is high, the payoff for the player seems limited. If you aren’t planning on using a martial arts style character in your game, there is little to attract you to this product. If you desire to use such a character, you will get some good mileage out of the Martialist, but even then each GM/player will have to decide whether it is worth $10.
For me, unless I am planning on running a full-out martial arts setting and don’t want to wait for an official WotC product, the Martialist is just too limited in its scope to be more than a novelty, and at this price certainly isn’t an impulse buy.
August 13th, 2009 at 20:40
We wanted to write and thank the Gamecryer for writing what we consider to be a very positive review.
We also wanted to correct what we believe is a slight error. While it is true that the Martialist retails for $9.45, the consumer will NEVER spend more than $7.99 for it at RPGNow.com, which has been its listed sale price since appearing there. But we have heard this comment elsewhere and have decided to lower the sale price to $5.75.
Pricing for pdf products is difficult. When originally determining a sales price, we compared the Martialist with an assortment of other pdfs available at RPGNow.com. While it only contains a single class, that class is extremely detailed. Compare the average class-specific product to the Martialist. A typical class has 75-85 core exploits, the Martialist includes 118. It contains 8 paragon paths when most new classes list 2 or 3. Three epic destinies compared to usually none. Sixteen new magic items. It also includes the power cards for all included exploits. With all of that in mind, we felt that the price was competitive for the material purchased.
Alas, the typical RPGNow customer agreed with the Gamecryer. We obviously set a price that the market wouldn’t bear and have lowered the sales price accordingly.
Thank you again for the positive review. We will be sure to send our future products your way.
The Fantasy Cartographic team