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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WhatGravitas" data-source="post: 3547453" data-attributes="member: 33132">But this doesn't affect the rest at all, right? I mean WoL may be a stinker, but just because some fluff and less important part of the book incorporates it, it doesn't invalidate the rest, right? Please, don't try to pull such a strawmanYeah, but look at the Warblade. Not Kung-Fuish stuff. Let's see:Diamond Mind: The thing about Concentration is the only thing that sticks out, as well as the save-counters (i.e. replacing a save with Concentration). But the rest embodies to archetypical Swashbuckler *very* well. I mean massively powerful attacks with a Rapier (a  favoured weapon of the school), that are well-planned and precise? TOTALLY wire-fu. If it really bothers you, change the key skill to bluff, and it is a Dashing Swordsman!Iron Heart: Hardly supernatural stuff. It consists of hitting harder (akin to a pre-packaged power attack), hitting two or more foes at once (a Whirlwind Attack, that doesn't suck), disarming foes (totally new, riiight?), and some AC-helping counters (i.e. classical parrying of attacks). I can totally see that as "Knight School".Stone Dragon: Again, the most supernatural thing is getting DR for a round... and the Barbarian has perma-DR. The rest: Damage-boosting (Hitting stuff harder). Impeding actions (basically "Ouch, this hit HARD"). Totally Dwarven, really.Tiger Claw: Okay, this discipline ONLY consists of jumping over your foe and dealing more damage or attacking with two weapons or more weapons at once. The perfect Drizzt Do'Urden/Ranger/Two-Weapon Fightning embodiment. Again, I assume that two-weapon fighting rangers (Core-D&D) are standard-fantasy.White Raven: Just stuff to support charging or giving some extra actions/help to your allies. Just like the marshal done right. Nothing with jumping, flying or something over the top, except if you thing it's over the top, that a general can spur his army to excellent prowess and do some fearsome charging.So... the Warblade, if you ignore the italics and the strange artwork in the book, is totally mundane and represents mastery of skill very well. With Iron Heart and White Raven, such a warblade would totally represent a knowledgeable, solemn knight, who can battle fearsome dragons and command his army.The crusader is pretty Paladin. He gets the Devoted Spirit, which is basically full of healing, charging and alignment-based bashing. The typical holy warrior.The swordsage... well he is supernatural, I admit this. VERY supernatural, because of the Desert Wind school... but now just say that these are monks. Heck, replace monks with 'em... the flavour is pretty much the same. And if it really bothers you, cross out the firethrowing stuff there, and you're golden - because Setting Sun basically resembles the real world Martial Arts with throws and counters - it's just "monk" without the "suck".In fact, in my game, I've thrown out the book-flavour. I've redone it that way: No manoeuvre is supernatural, except the ones from Desert Wind and the "Dimension Jumps" and "Flying" from Shadow Hand. And I renamed the schools to fit more typical fantasy:Desert Wind -> Way of Staff and SwordDevoted Spririt -> Divine TeachingsDiamond Mind -> Fencing and SwashbucklingIron Heart -> Mastery of SwordsplayShadow Hand -> Assassin's LoreStone Dragon -> Dwarven StancesTiger Claw -> School of Two WeaponsWhite Raven -> Battle TacticsBetter? Yes or No?And for game balance... the spellcasters in the group still rule, if they want to rule. But since melee characters can do more than stupid bash. In fact, since the melee characters can do stuff better than usual, they are less buff-reliant, easing the load on the spellcasters. Now spellcasters can enjoy spellhurling more, because they don't need to buff the meleeists, and the meleeists can do more interesting stuff than "whackwhack". I mean, in fantasy novels, I never read that fighters just whack. They dodge, they tumble, they disarm their opponents, they duck for cover, eke out an opening for their friends - they do other things than "full attack". ToB emulates Wheel of Time, R.A. Salvatore, and Midkemia stuff so much better than "full attack" - because in novels they actually do very daring and bold stuff. Just like in ToB.I begin to feel, that the decision to "blend genres" (as it was called in the introduction) was bad... presenting the stuff with a decidedly less wire-fu inspired stuff, but with the same mechanics would've been far more efficient. Then the "flavour-group" could make their claims, and the cinematic folks... would still have interpreted it as cinematic. Talk about missed opportunity.Phew, that was long.(and rhymes with hong.)</blockquote>

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