What's in the 4E Player's Handbook 3

From what I've heard:
-Skill Utility Powers

-Superior Implements

-Hybrid Classes (which is essentially 2e multiclassing, with the half class versions of all 24 non-DDI classes)

-Races:
Wilden (aka the Killoren)
Githzerai (because we all love them)
Minotaur
Shardminds (crystal beings? Right now they sounds really silly to me)

-Classes:
Ardent (Psionic Leader, the Complete Psionic class redone as a warrior that wields emotions as a weapon)
Battlemind (Psionic Defender, the 3e Psychic Warrior redone for 4e, there's Quick and the shapeshifting Resilient as the types)
Monk (Psionic Striker, the old class back as a close/melee implement using class, there's Centered Breath for internal martial arts and Stonefist for external martial arts styles)
Psion (Psionic Controller, the iconic psionic class with so far just Telekinesis and Telepathy as options and what specialist Enchanter Wizards became)
Runepriest (Divine Leader, don't ask me how it's any different from a Battle-Cleric)
Seeker (Primal Controller, mystical hunter and essentially the Arcane Archer as a full class)

The Ki focuses are monk only implements. It's in the monk preview in Dragon, which also list the Monk as Psionic. The Ki power source is good and dead.

Yeah. The fact that a ki focus exists doesn't mean there's a ki power source, any more than the existence of a vorpal sword (instead of an arcane sword) means there's a vorpal power source, or a rogue's sneak attack (instead of a martial attack) means there's a sneak power source. Not every adjective is a power source. Monks do use ki (just as rogues use sneaking), but they aren't powered by it.

They killed Ki as a power source because it was untenable and failed "proof of concept" as far as classes fitting into the world.

There was no justification to have it as a power source, when all Ki classes was going to lead to was "Like X but Asian" which I find offensive to my own ethnic background. Just because a Chinese person is good at something doesn't mean he's drawing from another power source simply because he's Chinese. It's like saying that all Irish people use the power source of super-drunkeness simply because they're Irish.

Do you read Order of the Stick? Samurai is treated as a social caste there - the various samurai characters include an NPC with (3e) aristocrat levels, a paladin, and a paladin/monk.

This strip best explains it all http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html

Well, samurai didn't in the 3e Oriental Adventures hardcover. Statistically, they were just fighters with codes of honor and weapons of legacy. The Complete Warrior version was more interesting, giving them some of the supernatural intimidation abilities they had in 1st and 2nd edition, but was there really a flavor justification to give them those things? Historically, they were just knights with different weapons and armor (and really, different weapons and armor aren't justification for a separate character class, or "fighter with axe" would be a separate class from "fighter with bow"). OA didn't have a ninja base class, suggesting people just use the rogue with prestige classes. Complete Adventurer, did, but most of its powers were Ethereal Plane themed; definitely not the only way to play a ninja. If I wanted to be a ninja that wasn't connected to the Ethereal Plane, I'd just play a rogue. Most ninjas in books and movies had nothing to do with the Ethereal Plane; you could just use a rogue or assassin, though I think the Complete Adventurer ninja was more interesting than the assassin prestige class (and I'd use it even in Western settings, for orders of magical assassins there like Greyhawk's Scarlet Brotherhood). The Complete Adventurer ninja might be cool as an order of assassins that work for the xill.

An old issue of Dragon once called the 1st edition barbarian and cavalier classes "fighters with attitude problems." Which is why they got rid of those classes in 2nd edition; you could play the same sort of character as a fighter with the right proficiencies and personality. Paladins are a little different; there's a meaningful difference between fighter and "holy warrior with powers from a god." There's not really so much of a meaningful difference, as far as the concept of the classes go, between "fighter" and "Asian fighter." It's like making "soldier" and "African American funky street hip-hop soldier" separate classes. You're playing in stereotypes, when in real life they did the same thing (hit people with swords).

Well, Asia's a big place, and there's a bajillion different ethnicities there. What with limits in time and page count, they decided to stick to the ones that are the most familiar for general American audiences. I don't think they were deliberately snubbing the Korean culture any more than they were deliberately snubbing the Cambodians, Thai, or Filipinos.

As far as I'm concerned with all the types classes, it's All or Nothing. And nothing wins out.

Comparing a Rogue to a Fighter is a very bad example because they are quite different, based on their roles. A fighter is a Defender, while it may minor as a Striker, it's primary job is to lock down enemies and be the centre of fighting going on and keep enemies from fighting others. A Rogue is a striker, and well really only a striker, it's job is to take down single enemies by striking them really hard, quickly moving in and out with the right opportunities. Sneaking around clearly has an effect as far as the rules of the game goes.

I may be going on about the mechanics, but classes are clearly all about the mechanics. Things such as role-playing and one's place in the game world, and the feel of things are secondary things when comes to classes. And classes have to contain a variety of broad yet focusable concepts.

The Fighter happens to be one of the most versatile classes around, as it covers almost all archetypes of someone who is good with melee weapons. Heavy armour, Light armour, sword and shield, one big weapon, two-weapons, weapon and fist and more, there's so many options out there for a Fighter. And adding on things like paragon paths and fighting styles, you have even more things to use to make one fighter very different from another fighter. And there's many different archetypes of Fighters, that's what builds are for. You can have both a character such as Conan (the certainly not a Barbarian in 4e) and another character that's a lot like Guan Yu, and they are both clearly fighters.

There's nothing that a samurai has to distinguish it from a fighter, that couldn't be easily accomplished with just another build or paragon path.

I know of mystical abilities attributed to the Ninjas, which can easily be covered by the Assassin Class, which teleports at will, can easily become invisible and happens to be a very mystical class. But I have never heard of Samurai ever being anything mystical. The magical warriors of Asian origin that I've heard about tend to be Chinese not Japanese.

And those mystical Chinese warriors could very well be Swordmages, Monks, Battleminds, Avengers or other classes, as those in Chinese myth tend to come from varied backgrounds and philosophies. As something like a "Taoist mystic" may indeed be many possible things as it could be a Cleric, Wizard, Invoker, Shaman, Psion, Artificer or more.

That ki shout power as it was in that 3e book is still containable inside the Martial Power source. As it simply would be an attack with the fear key word. A quick search of the compendium shows that fighters currently have a lack of such powers, but a lot of the fear keyword powers that a martial class has belongs to the Warlord class.

As for what's actually in PHB3, well my opinions of the classes so far given the preview are:

Ardent (Psionic Leader): Similar but not too related to the 3e class by the same name. While the 3e Ardent were philosophers who drew power from adherence to some concepts and principles that possibly came from deities. The 4e Ardent is more of a warrior in control of emotions, whether it's their own or of those around them. You could say they're like Warlords, but an Ardent is more like someone who understands and manipulates emotions and concepts much like a Warlord uses and understands tactics.

Battlemind (Psionic Defender): The Psychic Warrior was one of my favourite classes back in 3e, and this is certainly the descendant of the Psychic Warrior. The Battlemind is a very tactical warrior, one that fights the battles first in it's mind and alters themselves accordingly, as it's a class all about fighting the biggest enemy their is and making sure it doesn't take on anyone else. I see them as being the contemplative type, who are all about acting with efficiency or sudden bursts of action, and they are perhaps one of the most mobile of the heavy armour proficient classes (they can walk on water with an at-will 2nd level utility power).

Monk (Psionic Striker): The Monk has come back even more mystical than it was before. The 2 Monk builds in this book use all implement attacks, except they're mostly touch attacks, and can use either ki foci (which enchants any of their weapon attacks) or any weapon they're proficient with as implements. The Monk has a lot of movement related powers, and can take on many opponents all at once. Certainly a class I'd like to see more of, and they're in many ways the same concepts as they were before.

Psion (Psionic Controller): The Psion is pretty well the same class as it was before. There's only telepaths and telekinetics as builds, but there'll be shapers in some form when Psionic Power comes out. Some will probably like that they're more focused in abilities, others might just hate that they aren't as versatile as they were in 3e.

Runepriest (Divine Leader): I know little about this class other than it can choose to use a rune of destruction or protection with it's attacks. Much like how the Invoker wields the Language Primeval (of the powers and ancients) through the words they spoke, the Runepriest uses the Handwriting Primeval as the basis for all their powers.

Seeker (Primal Controller): A seeker is a hunter that has a compact with the spirits to avenge/protect nature/whatever. They're essentially the Arcane Archer as a full class, using spiritually empowered arrows or throwing weapons. Different in that they're the only controller class that uses weapons rather than implements.