Tome of Battle question- do associated weapons matter?

[Falcii]

So I'm looking at the initiator classes and one thing that I'm noticing is that all the styles have some form of weapon "associated" with them. The problem there being, why does that matter? I know some of the feats that are tied to the styles require an associated weapon, but in general, should I care?

Sure flavor wise, itd be bizarre for me to use some desert wind techniques with a towershield and a battle axe the size of an elf, but is there any crunchy mechanical reason I cannot?

[KillianHawkeye]

No, they really don't matter much. They're certainly not required in order to use maneuvers from the relevant style. They're just there mostly for flavor, and one or two minor bonuses like you've already noticed. That's it.

[Troacctid]

They matter for certain purposes, but in general they're not super important.

[Erit]

I think there might be a few maneuvers that require the use of a discipline weapon? I remember reading something in one of the Tiger Claw techniques about needing to have one of it's discipline weapons equipped. In general I think discipline weapons matter most for Swordsages since their Discipline Focus class ability gives you the benefits of Weapon Focus for certain weapons depending on the discipline you pick.

[Deadline]

There's one good feat I can think of where it matters (Shadow Blade). But otherwise no, it's not terribly relevant.

[DeadMech]

It might just be the bad editing of ToB. Maybe associated weapons were meant to matter, maybe at one point they were required but they choose to get rid of that limitation later.

[NomGarret]

Blade Meditation is another feat that keys off associated weapons. But yeah, it's mostly flavor. If you want to play a golf bag kind of warrior who keeps a different weapon for each style they use, great. You don't have to, however.

[Erit]

I know in Pathfinder's Path of War, using a discipline weapon increases the save DC (if any) and gives a bonus on attack or damage rolls (if any, can't remember which though) of maneuvers from that discipline.

[Blackhawk748]

As everyone else has said, they don't matter until they do. Which is mostly if you want them to matter via feat choice.

[Prime32]

I know in Pathfinder's Path of War, using a discipline weapon increases the save DC (if any) and gives a bonus on attack or damage rolls (if any, can't remember which though) of maneuvers from that discipline.PoW discipline weapons give +2 DC. Maneuvers from the Broken Blade discipline also deal +2 damage when performed with a discipline weapon (but Broken Blade is set to be nerfed in the errata, so this might be removed). There are a few PoW disciplines which only work with discipline weapons.

Note, though, that PoW uses weapon groups for this rather than individual weapons. The same ones used by the PF fighter, which can occasionally have interesting synergy.

[Erit]

PoW discipline weapons give +2 DC. Maneuvers from the Broken Blade discipline also deal +2 damage when performed with a discipline weapon (but Broken Blade is set to be nerfed in the errata, so this might be removed). There are a few PoW disciplines which only work with discipline weapons.

Note, though, that PoW uses weapon groups for this rather than individual weapons. The same ones used by the PF fighter, which can occasionally have interesting synergy.

True. But it's still an analogue, it just has the usual difference to be found between 3.5 and PF. That being "higher numbers on average", in this case the numbers being how many items.