[Endoperez]

Have you thought about repel? Length 3 weapon and high attack work well together... If the repel attack hits, it's Awe +0, and I think even shield-parried hits count. In an era of high armor and low defence, that should work well. Except for archers.

As for heroes... perhaps a very SPECIAL shaman. Bear and Horse and Toad shamans, well, those are pretty real-world. What about a Dragon Shaman, or Wyrm Shaman, or Shaman of the Tarrasque, or something. Besides magical power, he'd have powerful intrinsic abilities.
For the melee hero, say he wears the pelt of a Kithaironic Lion and give him Kithaironic Armor, with very good protection for no encumberance or defense maluses. Base mapmove 3, base encumberance 2, base attack/defence 15 for vanilla or more for Worthy Heroes level of power, etc.


National version of Dragon Mastery in Conjuration, perhaps renamed Beast Mastery or Dragon Tribe Initiation or something, for N1 or such, could work. Depends on how you rebalance the mages, of course, and if you keep the Nature 1 pick on all of them or not.