[ToB Setting] Warriors and Wuxia PEACH

[Prime32]

What monsters? I mean, a DM could very well decide to add monsters or refluff monsters as exceptional humans but that's the exception not the rule, the standard assumption for W&W is that your primary opponents are other human beings or dangerous animals. Legendary animals might appear now and then, but without magic items and no literal monsters, you don't need to be buffed to the extreme and back just to keep up. You need to keep up with other martial artists of a similar level (which relies on their maneuvers and whatnot more then equipment, and even then most NPCs are built with NPC wealth by level, not PC wealth by level which will put them behind PCs), hordes of mooks, or the occasional violent wild animal/legendary animal, not aberrations, dragons, outsiders, elementals, constructs, undead, etc. which don't exist for the large part.

Well, NPCs with class levels take a lot longer to stat up; it's easier on the DM. And by monsters, I meant even things like bugbears (which would still probably have class levels). The default assumption for human-only campaigns as given in the DMG is that you just fluff everything as human (elf = graceful human, halfling = child).

[elliott20]

It's that or having to writing up new stat blocks for all the NPCs.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Well, NPCs with class levels take a lot longer to stat up; it's easier on the DM. And by monsters, I meant even things like bugbears (which would still probably have class levels). The default assumption for human-only campaigns as given in the DMG is that you just fluff everything as human (elf = graceful human, halfling = child).

I didn't even know the DMG had an example of a human only campaign. In any case, when I said human-only I literally mean, human only. With possible regional variants if I can work out how to make it work.

And statting up NPCs is a couple button presses away. Barring ToB-style NPCs, which is why I mentioned that fighter, barbarian, etc. are NPC classes rather then normally a PC one. Aside from that, you can only refluff monsters so far and still have it fit the setting especially since monstrous humanoids don't go that far in CR and you'll need to give them class levels anyway.

EDIT: I see where you're coming from, and it would be easier to refluff various monsters and creatures as unusual humans, but that goes against the aesthetic I'm trying to build. A person's success isn't born of being of a different 'breed' of human or inherited wealth/status in W&W (though the second could help), but of what they accomplish for themselves.

[elliott20]

Basically, the "race" field will always be human in this game. That's fine, actually, (I personally have always leaned towards human only games myself) but in that case, I think what you should do then is stat out some stock characters for DMs to use. i.e. a stat block for your average farmer, child, etc.

Most of the time, the only stats you'll need will be highest total skill modifier, CHA stat, and maybe an alignment.

But you can also just stat out your average soldier as a monster style block, and maybe even some standard mob style initiators. i.e. say you want to create a clan called the White Bone Clan, and you barring the top 3-5 characters in that organization, you have basically 3 stock character types, novice, warrior, instructor. (The masters always get a full sheet) If you can include info like that in the fold, it'll make using the book a lot easier.

[Prime32]

I didn't even know the DMG had an example of a human only campaign.

It was a Robin Hood campaign.

In any case, when I said human-only I literally mean, human only. With possible regional variants if I can work out how to make it work.

Would you be averse to a 1st-level-only feat which grants +2 Dex/-2 Con, various perception bonuses, and removes your extra skill point? Because that's the same thing. Besides, you're then removing classes like Eternal Blade and Deepstone Sentinel from the game.

EDIT: I see where you're coming from, and it would be easier to refluff various monsters and creatures as unusual humans, but that goes against the aesthetic I'm trying to build. A person's success isn't born of being of a different 'breed' of human or inherited wealth/status in W&W (though the second could help), but of what they accomplish for themselves.

Why would using monsters require that? You see plenty of one-shot enemies who have a "gimmick" like incredible strength (which can come from training) or being so fat it acts like armor. This also seems like a good way to introduce someone with an ambiguously magical ability without having to go for a caster with dozens of them. Heck, you could explain undead/constructs as guys using a weird drug which messes up their physiology (though Devoted Spirit doesn't use positive energy, so the negative energy thing probably wouldn't come up). Outsiders are contemplative monks, since contemplatives and monks are eventually outsiders.

[Othniel Edden]

So lets say my concept for this setting is that I want to build Cao Cao, what might that look like?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Would you be averse to a 1st-level-only feat which grants +2 Dex/-2 Con, various perception bonuses, and removes your extra skill point? Because that's the same thing. Besides, you're then removing classes like Eternal Blade and Deepstone Sentinel from the game.

Step 1. Take stupid racial requirements for PrCs that only serve for fluff out.
Step 2. ????
Step 3. Profit!

[Cieyrin]

Would you be averse to a 1st-level-only feat which grants +2 Dex/-2 Con, various perception bonuses, and removes your extra skill point? Because that's the same thing. Besides, you're then removing classes like Eternal Blade and Deepstone Sentinel from the game.

What you're suggesting is exactly what Iron Heroes did, actually. Every character gets 2 traits to differentiate them from everybody else. Things like Stat changes, Powerful Build, Small size, etc. They removed the extra skill point but left the bonus feat in place and there are background traits that can get you the extra skill point back. IH's traits are OGL, too, though I can't find them listed online, so you'd have to have the books yourself.

[Prime32]

Oh, and another link if it's helpful
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...hp?topic=11718

[Salbazier]

I had a question: How you handle healing? I honestly don't know how much using natural healing only will affect the campaign. I've only heard concern that it is too slow for an adventuring party need. I'd suggest looking for alternate rules that allows for creation of items to aid healing (but not at the level of potions), like alchemy or herbalism. Midnight Campaign setting has them. Its OGL so I can reproduce it for you if you want to know. Alternately, consider class like this or this that can heal without being reliant on magic. While an abundace of these class may break the theme, medical expert archetype (acupunture, various unique poison) is not uncommon in Wuxia genre, so they are not completely out of place.

[Cieyrin]

I had a question: How you handle healing? I honestly don't know how much using natural healing only will affect the campaign. I've only heard concern that it is too slow for an adventuring party need. I'd suggest looking for alternate rules that allows for creation of items to aid healing (but not at the level of potions), like alchemy or herbalism. Midnight Campaign setting has them. Its OGL so I can reproduce it for you if you want to know. Alternately, consider class like this or this that can heal without being reliant on magic. While an abundace of these class may break the theme, medical expert archetype (acupunture, various unique poison) is not uncommon in Wuxia genre, so they are not completely out of place.

A fairly easy solution that I've used in the past is to have Reserve Points in effect, which has the dual effect of allowing healing without magic and extending the amount of combat that can be done before having to bandage up and rest so that your wounds can recover. It also gives the setting a grittiness which I think helps set it apart, as you'll force the PCs to think about whether they should fight instead of killing everything that moves, always a good thing in my book.

Without making further alterations, at the very least Devoted Spirit can provide a bit of healing via Martial Spirit and other maneuvers. It may even make Vital Recovery actually viable.

[Prime32]

It also gives the setting a grittiness which I think helps set it apart, as you'll force the PCs to think about whether they should fight instead of killing everything that moves, always a good thing in my book.

Is wuxia supposed to be gritty?

You could try dividing hp evenly into two pools. The first is a buffer which heals rapidly while out of combat, while the latter can only be restored by bed rest. The second pool is damaged only by critical hits or when the first pool runs out.

This lets you move away from the 4 encounters per day structure (which ToB already helps with) and let the PCs fight a series of 10 bosses as easily as one boss. If someone does get badly wounded though, it's significant.

[gkathellar]

Just for the author's reference, since I don't think it's been mentioned yet, the actual name of the skillset behind all this flying and impossible jumping and whatnot you see in wuxia is qinggong, or "light-body skill." (A lot of real qinggong is basically the same as parkour.)

Is wuxia supposed to be gritty?

That really depends on the era of wuxia you're talking about, and how broadly you define the genre. I mean, One-Armed Swordsman is wuxia in my book, but nobody flies around and it's extraordinarily violent. There is some of this kind of violent wuxia with more magical gongfu and heavy qinggong, but its rarer. Still, even in such high-fantasy gems as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, bear in mind that when someone actually does take a hit with a weapon they get injured really badly.

[Cieyrin]

As gkalthellar said, there are different varieties of wuxia and it depends on what we're going for and how realistic and lethal do we want combat to be. What you just described, Prime32, is a fusion of the Vitality and Wounds Points system and the Reserve Points system. You have Vitality, which is recovered by Reserve Points between combats as you catch your breath and readjust your armor, and Wounds are where that lucky strike gets through your guard and stabs you in the kidney or when you're exhausted and barely able to defend yourself.

Also, what's wrong with having PCs think with more than their sword? Yeah, there's lots of over-the-top fighting but that hardly means that should be the only thing. Wuxia, at least to me, means having extraordinary skills as well and a knowledge of the capacity of your strength. For example, you're after a criminal that has kidnapped a goodly magistrate and has disguised himself as the magistrate and is on his estate. You don't necessarily want to maim all his guards, who think they're serving their lord honorably and defending him with their lives. You'd want to circumvent them or distract them from their duties.

Yeah, in a wuxia game you want to show yourself as bad ass but that doesn't mean you should beat the snot out of everyone that catches your ire (unless that's your schtick and then, by all means, go ahead, I just hope you can back it up, as your career be rather short if it is not).

[elliott20]

So lets say my concept for this setting is that I want to build Cao Cao, what might that look like?

Cao Cao probably has maybe 2 levels of Warlord (he started his career as a military officer), and maybe 3-6 levels of aristocrat. Really, Cao Cao was less warrior and more magistrate.

But he also doesn't really fit into this setting. Romance of the Three Kingdoms has some elements of the fantastic, but it's main stay is not martial arts kungfu action, rather politics and warfare. Now, if you're talking Cao Cao as in the goofy dynasty warriors incarnation, that's different.

As for the whole grittiness, remember that in MOST Wuxia, usually fights are ended with a single decisive blow. ToB, to a great extent, already allows for this because of the massively increased damage output potential off a single standard action (without relying on an ubercharger build, that is). Adding this system will make it even deadlier, which can vastly increase the importance of defensive maneuvers. (and any armor that has the fortification enchantment would be worth a fortune) Since you're adding the defense bonus into the mix, it actually will help make it too fatalistic.

[Othniel Edden]

Yeah, but I like the political side of the Chinese, I find it to be as fascinating as the martial side. More to the point I wanted to create a character with Cao Cao's disposition, talents, tactics and desire, but not necessarily his position.

[elliott20]

Yeah, but I like the political side of the Chinese, I find it to be as fascinating as the martial side. More to the point I wanted to create a character with Cao Cao's disposition, talents, tactics and desire, but not necessarily his position.

If the politics is your thing, D&D is the LAST system you want to try it in. Burning Wheel would be better for that.

Still, re: Cao Cao as a D&D character...

That is highly dependent upon what reading you go with. But really his main talents are high mental stats (with CHA and INT possibly being the highest), probably a rogue, in fact, and a little bit of a martial class for the military training. His alignment? Again, depends. He ranges anywhere from LN anti-hero to CE villain.

[Cieyrin]

Oh, something just came to mind that should probably be cleared up: Master of Nine. With so many disciplines and MoN supposedly having access to all, how, exactly, is it supposed to work in this setting? Do we decide which 9-10 disciplines you get as a MoN or do we truly get access to all ~20 disciplines that are in the setting? It just sounds a bit like power creep to me, especially with the last ability of the MoN.

[Burnheart]

You could replace the Master of Nine with another PrC that fits the world better though that would be quite a lot of work.

[Callos_DeTerran]

So lets say my concept for this setting is that I want to build Cao Cao, what might that look like?

That depends, are we talking Romance of the Three Kingdoms Cao Cao, Dynasty Warriors Cao Cao, or Dynasty Orochi Cao Cao? ...There's a difference, I swear!

Oh, and another link if it's helpful
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...hp?topic=11718

It certainly is interesting, but I'm not sure how I can use it until I find a good ToB monk to use..

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I had a question: How you handle healing? I honestly don't know how much using natural healing only will affect the campaign. I've only heard concern that it is too slow for an adventuring party need. I'd suggest looking for alternate rules that allows for creation of items to aid healing (but not at the level of potions), like alchemy or herbalism. Midnight Campaign setting has them. Its OGL so I can reproduce it for you if you want to know. Alternately, consider class like this or this that can heal without being reliant on magic. While an abundace of these class may break the theme, medical expert archetype (acupunture, various unique poison) is not uncommon in Wuxia genre, so they are not completely out of place.

This is a rather important question and one I've been thinking about a lot. I certainly intend to figure out some home-brew/third-party alchemy/herbalism rules which I already have some good leads on that can augment the natural healing process if used properly (or kill some one if used improperly, a surprisingly large amount of medicine can kill someone in large doses). And, like you'd said, various aspects of the 'medical expert' archetype is not uncommon in wuxia. It's worth pointing out though that you can go miles in such an archtype using the Blood Sage and Viper Fang disciplines, though more could be done to help that concept along.

Also, and I'll have to double check, but Devoted Spirit (obviously) and a few Blood Sage techniques can help keep someone alive either by direct healing or by enhancing Heal checks.

Stuff on Healing:

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A fairly easy solution that I've used in the past is to have Reserve Points in effect, which has the dual effect of allowing healing without magic and extending the amount of combat that can be done before having to bandage up and rest so that your wounds can recover. It also gives the setting a grittiness which I think helps set it apart, as you'll force the PCs to think about whether they should fight instead of killing everything that moves, always a good thing in my book.

Without making further alterations, at the very least Devoted Spirit can provide a bit of healing via Martial Spirit and other maneuvers. It may even make Vital Recovery actually viable.

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As gkalthellar said, there are different varieties of wuxia and it depends on what we're going for and how realistic and lethal do we want combat to be. What you just described, Prime32, is a fusion of the Vitality and Wounds Points system and the Reserve Points system. You have Vitality, which is recovered by Reserve Points between combats as you catch your breath and readjust your armor, and Wounds are where that lucky strike gets through your guard and stabs you in the kidney or when you're exhausted and barely able to defend yourself.

Also, what's wrong with having PCs think with more than their sword? Yeah, there's lots of over-the-top fighting but that hardly means that should be the only thing. Wuxia, at least to me, means having extraordinary skills as well and a knowledge of the capacity of your strength. For example, you're after a criminal that has kidnapped a goodly magistrate and has disguised himself as the magistrate and is on his estate. You don't necessarily want to maim all his guards, who think they're serving their lord honorably and defending him with their lives. You'd want to circumvent them or distract them from their duties.

Yeah, in a wuxia game you want to show yourself as bad ass but that doesn't mean you should beat the snot out of everyone that catches your ire (unless that's your schtick and then, by all means, go ahead, I just hope you can back it up, as your career be rather short if it is not).

As for the whole grittiness, remember that in MOST Wuxia, usually fights are ended with a single decisive blow. ToB, to a great extent, already allows for this because of the massively increased damage output potential off a single standard action (without relying on an ubercharger build, that is). Adding this system will make it even deadlier, which can vastly increase the importance of defensive maneuvers. (and any armor that has the fortification enchantment would be worth a fortune) Since you're adding the defense bonus into the mix, it actually will help make it too fatalistic.

[/QUOTE]

I've looked over some of the options suggested and while I certainly like Reserve points and Wound/Injury points, I don't think the later would work very well in a W&W game. Critical hits might be reduced in intensity since they go right to wounds, but most people aren't going to have an exceptionally high Wound total in the first place and a good Strike (note: actual strike and a martial adept strike both) could kill a player/NPC outright. I want to allow some turnaround for upsets between different leveled foes (it's why I'm using Stunting), but not THAT much of an upset chance. Higher levels become somewhat less meaningful if you're still afraid of someone 5-10 levels lowers getting a critical hit and laying you out despite all your advanced experience and training.

Reserve Points has serious potential, but I'm wondering if it might be a double-edged sword in this case. Without an abundance of magical healing, you may be back up to fighting form in a half-hour or so, but afterwards you're going to need just as long to recover as normal, or twice that to replenish your reserve points as well. You essentially turn a rest to restore say...63 hit points to a long enough rest to restore 126 hit points for a SERIOUS fight.

Ultimately, I'm not looking to make the setting particularly gritty in mechanics (that should be a function of the setting and fluff) because, at the end of the day, the PCs should be legendary figures and need to be capable of acting and feeling like one. On the other hand, I want to encourage DM and PCs alike to foster situations where they pick and choose their battles carefully. Needing 4+ days to fully recover from a difficult fight can be just as much a deterrent as actual death to many players, especially if they're on the clock to stop some dastardly plot since a fight that goes wrong could force the PCs to enter into tougher fights at less then maximium hit points (which is it's own wuxia trope but still...), but that doesn't make just relying on the normal Heal skill with the occasional boost from someone playing a character with access to Devoted Spirit/Blood Sage an ideal solution either.

As it stands right now, without adding any more variant rules, PCs are only going to charge into a fight if they're certain the enemy is weaker then themselves a.k.a mooks (as they should!) or if they're fairly certain they can bypass any bodyguards or protections their enemy might have to get at them directly which is kinda what I'm aiming for, you have to pick which fights to fight and which to go around carefully, but it leaves very little wiggle room for failure which is a bad thing. I'll think on it some more, but right now I'm thinking that adding Reserve points and some herbal/alchemical ways to boost healing are the way to go.

Cao Cao probably has maybe 2 levels of Warlord (he started his career as a military officer), and maybe 3-6 levels of aristocrat. Really, Cao Cao was less warrior and more magistrate.

But he also doesn't really fit into this setting. Romance of the Three Kingdoms has some elements of the fantastic, but it's main stay is not martial arts kungfu action, rather politics and warfare. Now, if you're talking Cao Cao as in the goofy dynasty warriors incarnation, that's different.

If the politics is your thing, D&D is the LAST system you want to try it in. Burning Wheel would be better for that.

Still, re: Cao Cao as a D&D character...

That is highly dependent upon what reading you go with. But really his main talents are high mental stats (with CHA and INT possibly being the highest), probably a rogue, in fact, and a little bit of a martial class for the military training. His alignment? Again, depends. He ranges anywhere from LN anti-hero to CE villain.

Goofy? Goofy? That man is a terror in half of those games, I would know. But, like I mentioned, and elliot20 mentioned, it depends on which version of Cao Cao you want. The politics are already there in the setting, all it takes is for the DM to make the plots of petty warlords, the Seasonal and Imperial Courts, and the various governors and lords the focus of the campaign which can happen easy, even in a wuxia game.

On the MoN: The simplest solution is to make it true to it's name. It's the master of nine discplines, the only reason ToB mentions they are the masters of all disciplines is because Wizards only made 9. Still, having access to 9 disciplines at once is still a very powerful reason to become a master of the nine considering a strong case could be made for the DM allowing the player to pick which disciplines they get to have.

[Cieyrin]

On the Reserve Point system double-edged sword bit:

Characters naturally regain lost reserve points at the same rate that they naturally heal lost hit points.

Basically, when you stop to rest, HP and RP are both restored, it's not just a single rate, so there wouldn't be extra downtime as you restore both pools. The clause on magical healing is just saying you don't get double healing, as that'd be silly.

Something else that could be useful is to steal Treat Deadly Wounds task for the Heal skill from Pathfinder. It'd give immediate curing when needed, which can be useful.

Final bit to consider is Faster Healing, which may be helpful for those who want to make rapid recoveries without using Martial Spirit to beat on trees or other such nonsense. One note, though, is apparently Realms Helps doesn't have the errata applied, so I made a quick table up on GoogleDocs with the errata applied, my own personal piece of errata that's in the rules due to me, I may add. [\egostroking]

[Partysan]

Regarding the project: I very much approve!

Regarding the Defense Bonus: I don't really get why Blademasters and Warblades would be worse at defending themselves than a Warlord who is more of a commander than a fighter type. What's your reasoning behind the distribution of those?

Regarding Weapons of Legacy: There's costs that make sense and cost that doesn't. While it's true that self-built WoL can be very powerful that's often because they allow warrior types access to magic which is a point that becomes moot in a low-magic setting like yours. Additionally while I can get behind sacrificing HP or skill points to a weapon (it's fueled by your life force or you need to study it etc.) I can't accept attack penalties. Why would you use a weapon that actively makes you worse at fighting, and why would a weapon ever do that in the first place? Granted, most weapons offer an enhancement bonus to balance it out, but that's still a significant disadvantage AND doesn't make any sense to me at all.7

More to follow...

[elliott20]

Regarding Weapons of Legacy: There's costs that make sense and cost that doesn't. While it's true that self-built WoL can be very powerful that's often because they allow warrior types access to magic which is a point that becomes moot in a low-magic setting like yours. Additionally while I can get behind sacrificing HP or skill points to a weapon (it's fueled by your life force or you need to study it etc.) I can't accept attack penalties. Why would you use a weapon that actively makes you worse at fighting, and why would a weapon ever do that in the first place? Granted, most weapons offer an enhancement bonus to balance it out, but that's still a significant disadvantage AND doesn't make any sense to me at all.7

More to follow...

The reasons listed here are the reasons that one person in the Age of Warrior project suggested that we re-write the original 9 WoLs so that they are not useless. I was certain that somebody has already done that, but cannot for the life of me figure out where to find them.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Regarding the project: I very much approve!

Regarding the Defense Bonus: I don't really get why Blademasters and Warblades would be worse at defending themselves than a Warlord who is more of a commander than a fighter type. What's your reasoning behind the distribution of those?

Simplest explanation? Warlords get heavy armor, blade masters and warblades don't, which determines who goes where on that chart.

Longer explanation? A warlord is likely to become a very important figure in a party, they guide the groups tactics, enable their allies to fight better (which can possibly turn a group who's abilities don't mesh well normally into one that is fairly decent, OOC, allowing for greater range of possible characters), and so on. They are important and train with the heaviest armor so that they are harder to hit/kill. A warlord dying could send his allies into disarray as they try to compensate for the sudden lose, so they do their best not to.

Blade masters could, in theory, get a higher defense bonus and still be justified since they could have defensive disciplines/style, but I think those styles and disciplines could account nicely for that.

Warblades are much more offense focused then a warlord, at least in regards to one-on-one combat. They sacrifice some defensive capability for greater offensive ability. That's the long explanation. XD

[Partysan]

The reasons listed here are the reasons that one person in the Age of Warrior project suggested that we re-write the original 9 WoLs so that they are not useless. I was certain that somebody has already done that, but cannot for the life of me figure out where to find them.

The main reason for me commenting on those is Callos saying she/he/xe likes them as written and I offered my counterpoint to that.

Simplest explanation? Warlords get heavy armor, blade masters and warblades don't, which determines who goes where on that chart.

Longer explanation? A warlord is likely to become a very important figure in a party, they guide the groups tactics, enable their allies to fight better (which can possibly turn a group who's abilities don't mesh well normally into one that is fairly decent, OOC, allowing for greater range of possible characters), and so on. They are important and train with the heaviest armor so that they are harder to hit/kill. A warlord dying could send his allies into disarray as they try to compensate for the sudden lose, so they do their best not to.

Blade masters could, in theory, get a higher defense bonus and still be justified since they could have defensive disciplines/style, but I think those styles and disciplines could account nicely for that.

Warblades are much more offense focused then a warlord, at least in regards to one-on-one combat. They sacrifice some defensive capability for greater offensive ability. That's the long explanation. XD

So I guess this is a bit of gamism vs simulationism. From a balancing viewpoint you're right. However coming at a everisimilitude angle I'd say that especially those who wear lighter armor are more adept at defending themselves from being hit (AC) because they can't soak as much damage (DR, in that case through armor). That way the Warlord would have highDR/midAC and the Blademaster or Warblade highAC/midDR.
But I understand where you're coming from.

[Callos_DeTerran]

The main reason for me commenting on those is Callos saying she/he/xe likes them as written and I offered my counterpoint to that.

Tis a good counter-point but I see some faint reason behind things like 'weapon that makes it harder to hit'. Not particularly 'good' reasoning but reasoning. That being if you have a powerful artifact-lite item like a Weapon of Legacy that has costs associated to it to balance out the cost and what not of it, then that balancing cost goes out the window if the penalty doesn't apply. It's similar to the problem of people choosing flaws that never impact their characters (like a spellcaster taking a penalty to melee attacks for an extra feat), the power-up becomes more of a straight gain if the penalty can just be ignored. It might as well not have a penalty in the first place.

For in-game rationale why a weapon might give an attack penalty? Well, it makes sense for 'magic-staff' type Legacy items meant for spellcasters I suppose. For swords in the like...hrmm...The best rationale I can give is that a warrior loses touch with their roots for a greater connection to the meta-physical (magic/psionics/chi/whatever)? Yeah, I got nothing. Makes for somewhat decent balance though.

So I guess this is a bit of gamism vs simulationism. From a balancing viewpoint you're right. However coming at a verisimilitude angle I'd say that especially those who wear lighter armor are more adept at defending themselves from being hit (AC) because they can't soak as much damage (DR, in that case through armor). That way the Warlord would have highDR/midAC and the Blademaster or Warblade highAC/midDR.
But I understand where you're coming from.

Well, in a normal game where it was just the class bonus to defense (and not Armor as DR, which I wouldn't advise cause the two rules seem meant to be used together), it'd make a little more sense. You're not just dodging an attack, you're directing it towards your armor to be deflected off harmlessly. That still kinda makes sense when using both rules at once, when you look at it that the classes that wear lighter armor have access to more disciplines that help with evading attacks, parrying, and avoiding blows entirely.

Another way to look at it would be that the Warlord gets highDR/highAC because a miss for a warlord (or any other class on that part of the table) is their armor absorbing the hit entirely (which it might do anyway on a hit, though not as often).

It's mostly gamism vs simulationism though.

[Partysan]

I like the concept of schools you introduce. Will you make more of them? Or shall we?
And seeing as there are quite a few homebrew disciplines in play I think it would be immensely helpful to write up a table to show which class when how and what for can get access to which discipline.

Tis a good counter-point but I see some faint reason behind things like 'weapon that makes it harder to hit'. Not particularly 'good' reasoning but reasoning. That being if you have a powerful artifact-lite item like a Weapon of Legacy that has costs associated to it to balance out the cost and what not of it, then that balancing cost goes out the window if the penalty doesn't apply. It's similar to the problem of people choosing flaws that never impact their characters (like a spellcaster taking a penalty to melee attacks for an extra feat), the power-up becomes more of a straight gain if the penalty can just be ignored. It might as well not have a penalty in the first place.

For in-game rationale why a weapon might give an attack penalty? Well, it makes sense for 'magic-staff' type Legacy items meant for spellcasters I suppose. For swords in the like...hrmm...The best rationale I can give is that a warrior loses touch with their roots for a greater connection to the meta-physical (magic/psionics/chi/whatever)? Yeah, I got nothing. Makes for somewhat decent balance though.

Well, it's true that penalties that don't afflict the character are somewhat pointless. But I contest the "somewhat decent balance" it makes for. In my perception there seems to be a general consensus that Weapons of Legacy are too weak.
While making your own Legacy is seen as somewhat lessening the problem, a lot of the power in selfmade legacies comes from metamagic reducers they can have, which makes them rather useful for casters and, as I already said, by granting mundanes access to magic powers. Furthermore WoL are very inflexible, considering that you cannot further enchant them and if you use another weapon you still have to deal with the penalties...
I won't bring out the math, but under the rules as are I'd probably avoid using a Legacy item for a Warrior character of mine and if I need such a thing for the fluff I will just take the Ancestral Relic feat. There is a limit to what you can make me pay
So even if you are of the opinion that WoL are nice as written I'd say in a low-magic setting like yours a lot of there power is diminished because some of their most powerful abilities aren't suitable for the setting. I personally would stick to things like HP, skill points, XP cost or similar, those are all still real disadvantages, but they don't lead themselves ad absurdum.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I like the concept of schools you introduce. Will you make more of them? Or shall we?
And seeing as there are quite a few homebrew disciplines in play I think it would be immensely helpful to write up a table to show which class when how and what for can get access to which discipline.

By all means feel free to invent your own schools! I've been meaning to finish the write-up for the 'royal' style and for Way of the Jiangshi (yes, I've thought up a style for people emulating hopping vampires ).

Hmm..could be a worthwhile table to make. I'll see about making it. Table made! And kinda ugly looking to be honest...

[DracoDei]

You could replace the Master of Nine with another PrC that fits the world better though that would be quite a lot of work.

Are you sure my semi-rewrite doesn't work?

[Burnheart]

Looks like it would yes i didn't see it the first time i looked in the age of warrior stuff, sorry.