One of the drivers behind Echelon is that “fighters don’t get nice stuff” in Dungeons & Dragons 3.x. That is to say, spell casters get all the really nice stuff, non-casters tend to get stuff that isn’t relatively not-nice “because they are mundane characters”.
This video is a fight scene from Shadowless Sword and illustrates the sorts of antics higher-tier martial characters should be able to expect to do. It does look a little silly in places, but that’s not inappropriate for Echelon in that at higher tiers you should expect to be able to do things like this. Maybe not these exact things, but things clearly beyond human capability. Knocking people through stone pillars, throwing shuriken through water fast enough to be a threat, using your sword to stir the water hard enough to be a danger, use a piece of cloth as a credible weapon… all should considered valid possibilities in the middle tiers (Heroic and Master).
Basic and Expert, not so much. Those tiers model ‘real world’ abilities and degrees of power. Heroic is getting to be unbelievable, Master certainly is. Remember that in the Heroic tier casters may be able to expect minor teleport abilities (in D&D terms, blink and dimension door are third and fourth level respectively), and Master tier casters get full teleport. Martial characters should, in their own way, be as impressive.
