Let's attempt to make an Avatar system

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys.
So I just finished binge watching The Legend of Korra, and I remembered that I loved the universe. I would like to make a system based on it, but the big problem with a Avatar based system is, it could well fail to capture the flexibility and creativity that bending provides. So I intend to point out the basic idea I want this system to go in, but I really need help with this. Without further ado, let's dive in.

So I think that this system should be "feat" based. However, I think that instead of getting feats through rigid levels, you gain them either through training or true experience, instead of a number. And the basics of bending would have their own feats, example:

Basic/novice/intermediate/advanced/superior/master blankbending.

Basic: Knowledge of basic maneuvers of a low to moderate power. (a blast of fire)
Novice: Knowledge of somewhat complicated bending maneuvers of moderate power. (rolling around on a airball)
intermediate: Ability to use bending abilities that are rather useful, and in general somewhat powerful. (Raising a small wall of earth as cover)

You see the direction this is taking. I'd also imagine feats for other types of bending, such as metal or lighting, with prerequisites in a certain level of bending (I.e lightning would require advanced firebending)
Their would be other feats as well such as feats for chi-blocking or other skills.

Sound good? I wonder if "bending" checks would make sense for difficult maneuvers, and how they would work.

Now stats would be weird, I like the idea of using four stats for each of the classical "attributes," body, mind and spirit. Now I wonder weather to include skills in any way, and how I would include them.

That's what I've got guys, what do you think? Any ideas? Thanks, and as always, go nuts.

[Ralcos]

What I do is start with a basic rule that will be what determines what succeeds/fails.
For this kind of thing, I'd probably make that rule (as an example):
Roll 2d6, and add your attribute score. If you meet or exceed the Target Number/Opposed Roll, you succeed at the task at hand.

Now, I'll help with attributes.
In the Last Airbender and Legend of Korea series, I've noticed that all benders seem to treasure a balance between physical, mental, and spiritual matters (at least, most of the time). Not all follow this ideal, but they all understand that a certain balance is needed to succeed in the bending arts.

Might --- This attribute measures your physical development and stamina, including strength, toughness, endurance, and stability.

Mind --- This attribute measures perception and understanding of the world, including willpower, sense, knowledge, and focus.

Spirit --- This attribute measures "aura" or social awareness, including charisma, sanity, morale, and leaving lasting first impressions.

Combat --- This attribute measures combat experience and tactical knowledge, including proficiency, offensive maneuvers, defensive maneuvers, and military strategy.

Skill --- This attribute measures finesse and coordination, including feats of dexterity, balance, reflexes, and initiative.

Also, I could go with a simple formula for damage.
Damage is dealt to the separate scores of Vitality, Focus, and Sanity, Dependant on the attack at hand. Most will hurt physically (dealing Vitality damage), and in extremely rare occasions, attacks can hurt a person's very soul itself (dealing Sanity damage).

Damage for ALL attacks have a base score dependant on how it deals damage.

Light Attacks deal 1 damage (daggers, firebolts, etc.) at base.

Medium Attacks deal 2 damage (swords, fireballs, etc.) at base.

Heavy Attacks deal 3 damage (greatswords, lightning strikes, etc.) at base.

Lethal Attacks deal 1d6 damage (firearms, meteor strike, etc.) at base.

Destructive Attacks deal 3d6 damage (cannon/tank/artillery, Spirit Vine Bomb, etc.) at base.

Inhuman Attacks deal 6d6 damage (nuclear blast, being hit by a mountain, etc.) at base.

Hopefully I've helped you at all with these suggestions?

[Teapot Salty]

What I do is start with a basic rule that will be what determines what succeeds/fails.
For this kind of thing, I'd probably make that rule (as an example):
Roll 2d6, and add your attribute score. If you meet or exceed the Target Number/Opposed Roll, you succeed at the task at hand.

Now, I'll help with attributes.
In the Last Airbender and Legend of Korea series, I've noticed that all benders seem to treasure a balance between physical, mental, and spiritual matters (at least, most of the time). Not all follow this ideal, but they all understand that a certain balance is needed to succeed in the bending arts.

Might --- This attribute measures your physical development and stamina, including strength, toughness, endurance, and stability.

Mind --- This attribute measures perception and understanding of the world, including willpower, sense, knowledge, and focus.

Spirit --- This attribute measures "aura" or social awareness, including charisma, sanity, morale, and leaving lasting first impressions.

Combat --- This attribute measures combat experience and tactical knowledge, including proficiency, offensive maneuvers, defensive maneuvers, and military strategy.

Skill --- This attribute measures finesse and coordination, including feats of dexterity, balance, reflexes, and initiative.

Also, I could go with a simple formula for damage.
Damage is dealt to the separate scores of Vitality, Focus, and Sanity, Dependant on the attack at hand. Most will hurt physically (dealing Vitality damage), and in extremely rare occasions, attacks can hurt a person's very soul itself (dealing Sanity damage).

Damage for ALL attacks have a base score dependant on how it deals damage.

Light Attacks deal 1 damage (daggers, firebolts, etc.) at base.

Medium Attacks deal 2 damage (swords, fireballs, etc.) at base.

Heavy Attacks deal 3 damage (greatswords, lightning strikes, etc.) at base.

Lethal Attacks deal 1d6 damage (firearms, meteor strike, etc.) at base.

Destructive Attacks deal 3d6 damage (cannon/tank/artillery, Spirit Vine Bomb, etc.) at base.

Inhuman Attacks deal 6d6 damage (nuclear blast, being hit by a mountain, etc.) at base.

Hopefully I've helped you at all with these suggestions?

This is a really good start. I assume that a more skilled bender would be able to do a medium attack as efficiently as a less skilled bender would do I light attack?

[JNAProductions]

Perhaps just make the stat "Soul" instead of Sanity? This isn't Call of Cthulhu, after all.

And not sure how much I can contribute right now, but I will be watching this thread avidly for any way to help. I love Avatar as much as any reasonable person should, and I would love to have a TTRPG for it.

Edit: Yes, to the last post. Bending and martial arts is about efficiency. Movements are quick and precise, without big flash and thunder. The better the bender, the more potent a technique they can use with less actual energy expended.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This definitely exists already (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?68630-Avatar-d20-Project-Bending-System-and-Bending-Classes-Thread-II).

But if you set out to write a new one, and you really wanted to capture the open-ended-ness of bending, I'd take a more rules-light approach. Take a page from Mutants and Masterminds (http://www.d20herosrd.com/character-creation#TOC-POWER-LEVEL)and relate character level (or some other such value) to the magnitude of your abilities-- how much matter you can affect, how hard they are to resist, how accurate you can be, and so on. Write up a handful of generic combat maneuvers-- say attack, aid, and hinder, with numbers based on your level. In actual gameplay, let players use their bending in any way they imagined-- if a check is required, just fit the level-based numbers (attack rolls, saves, DCs, and so) to the generic maneuvers.

So Grod the level 5 earth bender might have Dodge 4, Fort 6, Will 5, and Earth Bending (accuracy 4, magnitude 6). If he created a big rock and threw it at you, it'd be a DC 14 Dodge check to avoid it, but it'd do 6 damage if it hit you. He could lift 60 pounds of rock, but he'd only have a +4 modifier when attempting to, oh, sculpt said rock into a hut.

[Ralcos]

This is a really good start. I assume that a more skilled bender would be able to do a medium attack as efficiently as a less skilled bender would do I light attack?




Yes, to the last post. Bending and martial arts is about efficiency. Movements are quick and precise, without big flash and thunder. The better the bender, the more potent a technique they can use with less actual energy expended.


I definitely agree.
When coming up with these ideas to suggest to this post, I was taking into account that in TLA and LOK, there are characters who perform the same feats at different times (e.g. Uncle Iroh seems to use lightning more proficiently than his niece, Azula).
Also, being a person who took Tae-Kwon-Do, I know that moving efficiently when performing a maneuver is HEAVILY necessary in order to succeed.

[JNAProductions]

Whatever the basic vitality stat is (the physical energy you draw upon, not spiritual) shouldn't change much over a character's lifetime. If the stat is Body, then a new character should have a 5 in body and a master no more than a 7. It's more about using what you have efficiently than getting more, and keeps a more realistic level of injury/death than scaling HP/Endurance stats.

[Teapot Salty]

Another idea that I think would be good is 1 second combat rounds, to maximize flexibility, and maybe some feats for moving faster in your one second.

[JNAProductions]

Air: High mobility, good offense, little defense outside of evasion. Fragile Speedster.

Water: Good mobility, good offense, good defense, healing. Jack-of-all-trades/healer.

Earth: Low mobility*, good offense, high defense. Mighty Glacier/Stonewall.

Fire: Decent mobility**, high offense, decent defense. Glass Cannon.

*Low mobility doesn't mean slow, it just means not much in the way of dodging and maneuvering. You can shoot yourself from the ground to atop a tower with a single pillar, but you can't do much to change your path if someone shoots a fireball at you midair.

**Until you get rocket boots.

Thoughts? Places I screwed up? Ways to turn this into more solid mechanics?



Body

Might-physical strength

Agility-speed and maneuverability

Tenacity-endurance and what is drawn on for using bending

HP is derived from all Body stats. In order of importance: T>M>A

Mind

Literal-how well you think through literal things, like machines or combat

Human-how well you think about people; pyschology

Abstract-how well you philosiphize and understand abstract concepts, such as the rationale behind bending

Spirit

Strength-the raw power of your spirt
-affects the power of your bending

Balance-how wholesome and complete your spirit is
-affects your defense to anything directly against your spirit

Presence-how much your spirit affects the world
-affects how much your bending costs in terms of Chi and how easy it is for your spirit to directly affect/be affected

Chi is determined by S=B>P

Again, thoughts? Improvements I could make?

[Teapot Salty]

Air: High mobility, good offense, little defense outside of evasion. Fragile Speedster.

Water: Good mobility, good offense, good defense, healing. Jack-of-all-trades/healer.

Earth: Low mobility*, good offense, high defense. Mighty Glacier/Stonewall.

Fire: Decent mobility**, high offense, decent defense. Glass Cannon.

*Low mobility doesn't mean slow, it just means not much in the way of dodging and maneuvering. You can shoot yourself from the ground to atop a tower with a single pillar, but you can't do much to change your path if someone shoots a fireball at you midair.

**Until you get rocket boots.

Thoughts? Places I screwed up? Ways to turn this into more solid mechanics?



Body

Might-physical strength

Agility-speed and maneuverability

Tenacity-endurance and what is drawn on for using bending

HP is derived from all Body stats. In order of importance: T>M>A

Mind

Literal-how well you think through literal things, like machines or combat

Human-how well you think about people; pyschology

Abstract-how well you philosiphize and understand abstract concepts, such as the rationale behind bending

Spirit

Strength-the raw power of your spirt
-affects the power of your bending

Balance-how wholesome and complete your spirit is
-affects your defense to anything directly against your spirit

Presence-how much your spirit affects the world
-affects how much your bending costs in terms of Chi and how easy it is for your spirit to directly affect/be affected

Chi is determined by S=B>P

Again, thoughts? Improvements I could make?

Thanks for doing some stats, I think it would be the best thing to do right now, so let's hammer away.

Anyway, I was actually just about to divide stats as you have, my version:

All ability scores are flexible and can change from month to month based on previous events (you have been going to the gym every day, but you havn't been meditating, so your might would go up, but your balance down)

Body:
Might: Physical strength, gross motor skills, picking up a log, throwing a punch etc. could have an influence on less precise, powerful bending (earthbending a giant rock, blast of lightning.) Example character with high might: Tonraq (note, might can also be represented in other ways, Iroh say, would have a decent might score, despite being somewhat out of shape (at the start of ATLA) but for the purpose of bending, it might be higher, because he understands that firebending comes from breath)

Vitality: Endurance, Hp is based off of this stat, as well as any "saves" if we decide to use something like that, against physical damage (not getting knocked out from a blow to the head) Example character with high vitality: Lin or Bolin.

Dexterity: Fine motor skills, precision and agility, and speed of something like striking, lock picking, flurry of blows. Could have an influence on on fast spurts of bending or precise bending. Example character with high dexterity: Kuvira

Mind: (note, mind skills won't have a direct affect on combat, but are useful in the sense that a character can come up with plans better with a high score in a mental)
Knowledge: Amount of "data" in the brain and ability to apply it. Coming up with a battle plan, dissecting someones speech. Example character with high knowledge: Varrick.

Intuition: Fast thinking and quick action plans. Improv, reading an opponents footwork and predicting when they will attack. Example character with high intuition: Sokka

Wisdom: Street smarts and common sense. Reading people, seeing connections. Example character with high wisdom: Mako.

Spirit: (note, spirit stats could cause affects that are somewhat unexplained, like somehow speaking to someone over a large distance)
Force: How much your spirit affects the outside world, the raw strength of your spirit. Can also affect being charismatic. Your spirit score will often form the base of your bending ability, but other scores will affect other actions. For example your spirit score will improve the strength of all your bending, but lifting a heavy rock wall will take from you might score more than spirit (about a 70/30 ratio I think) Example character with high force: Toph

Balance: Ones peace with themselves. Tough to describe, but I think those reading this will get the idea. Example character with high balance: Iroh.

Connection: Ones connection with the spirit world. Ability to communicate with spirits, enter the spirit world etc. Example character with high spirit: Jinora

Also, I think waterbendings offence would be more mediocre, earthbendings defence to be much stronger, but their offence would be nuke like, but slower and easier to dodge (boulder to the face vs blast of air)

Also: nonbender benefit: two bonus feats.

[JNAProductions]

Ah, my old friend, Google Documents (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15Dou1o7T0Psg0QbcNaLNxK4uAwQ3lTwE34Rc-gQH4Dw/edit?usp=sharing).

I'm partial to my stats (big surprise, neh?) but I won't add them in until we get some consensus on what stats we want.

[Ralcos]

Another suggestion, if I'm allowed to do so.

Since you want this to be a feat-based system, how about doing something similar to how the Mass Effect series allowed you to improve your powers?

For example, an Earth Bender decides to augment his melee abilities by using a sword. When he gains enough Experience Points to buy these feats, he'll allocate these points to a Sword feat "path"/" tree".

At character generation, he can use a sword (albiet poorly, but can use it) but cannot do what swordmasters are known to do. So, wanting to be a swordmaster himself, the Earth Bender decides to gain the following feats:

Military Blade Training (AKA The "Proficiency" Feat)
Allows full use of Swords, Great swords, and other sword-like weapons without penalty. Does not allow the use of exotic blade weapons within this same category.

As he learns more about the use of his blade, he continues to spend Experience Points into training with the following feat:

Warrior's Stance
Requires at least one "Proficiency" feat.
Allows a Free Action, once per round, to change stances in battle. Another Free Action is needed to change into another stance, but you cannot change stances multiple stances in a single round.

Aggressive Stance ------ When you take this stance, you gain a +2 bonus to all attack rolls (including bending), but take a -2 penalty to all defensive rolls (including bending).

Normal Stance ------ This stance is default to any combatant. When you take this stance, you gain no bonuses or penalties.

Defensive Stance ------ When you take this stance, you gain a +2 bonus to all defensive rolls (including bending), but take a -2 to all attack rolls (including bending).


After that, he has a choice of improving his skills with his blade with the following feat:

Sword Expert (AKA The "Specialist" feat)
Requires Military Blade Training Feat
When wielding swords, great swords, and other non-exotic weapons that are similar to swords, you can trip, disarm, sunder, parry, and complete other maneuvers with these weapons without penalty.

OR

Acidic Strike
Requires Earth Bending "Proficiency" feat AND a "Proficiency" feat that uses melee weapons.
With a successful Bending roll, you can augment your next melee attack with a contained blast of acid.
If that melee attack hits, the target of that attack takes 1 acid damage per round for 3 rounds.
Bending this ability can only be done once per round as a Standard Action.


Hopefully, this could help you with planning feats.

[Teapot Salty]

Another suggestion, if I'm allowed to do so.

Since you want this to be a feat-based system, how about doing something similar to how the Mass Effect series allowed you to improve your powers?

For example, an Earth Bender decides to augment his melee abilities by using a sword. When he gains enough Experience Points to buy these feats, he'll allocate these points to a Sword feat "path"/" tree".

At character generation, he can use a sword (albiet poorly, but can use it) but cannot do what swordmasters are known to do. So, wanting to be a swordmaster himself, the Earth Bender decides to gain the following feats:

Military Blade Training (AKA The "Proficiency" Feat)
Allows full use of Swords, Great swords, and other sword-like weapons without penalty. Does not allow the use of exotic blade weapons within this same category.

As he learns more about the use of his blade, he continues to spend Experience Points into training with the following feat:

Warrior's Stance
Requires at least one "Proficiency" feat.
Allows a Free Action, once per round, to change stances in battle. Another Free Action is needed to change into another stance, but you cannot change stances multiple stances in a single round.

Aggressive Stance ------ When you take this stance, you gain a +2 bonus to all attack rolls (including bending), but take a -2 penalty to all defensive rolls (including bending).

Normal Stance ------ This stance is default to any combatant. When you take this stance, you gain no bonuses or penalties.

Defensive Stance ------ When you take this stance, you gain a +2 bonus to all defensive rolls (including bending), but take a -2 to all attack rolls (including bending).


After that, he has a choice of improving his skills with his blade with the following feat:

Sword Expert (AKA The "Specialist" feat)
Requires Military Blade Training Feat
When wielding swords, great swords, and other non-exotic weapons that are similar to swords, you can trip, disarm, sunder, parry, and complete other maneuvers with these weapons without penalty.

OR

Acidic Strike
Requires Earth Bending "Proficiency" feat AND a "Proficiency" feat that uses melee weapons.
With a successful Bending roll, you can augment your next melee attack with a contained blast of acid.
If that melee attack hits, the target of that attack takes 1 acid damage per round for 3 rounds.
Bending this ability can only be done once per round as a Standard Action.


Hopefully, this could help you with planning feats.

Awesome, good idea. I wonder if you could break my "training to get feats" system by literally doing nothing but training.

[Ralcos]

Awesome, good idea. I wonder if you could break my "training to get feats" system by literally doing nothing but training.

It's entirely possible, thinking on a simple gameplay point of view. I'd say limit this to granting specific amounts of Experience Points per session/encounter, to lessen the effect of "I'm a master of the sword, better than all on this planet" at character creation.

To help diversify the Experience Rewards, I'll suggest the following formula (Measured in DT, or Difficulty Tier) to assign to certain tasks within a session:

DT -------- Exp Granted in Session (Stacks with each other)

Nigh-Instinctual -------- 0 to 1
Easy -------- 2
Average -------- 3
Hard -------- 4
Nigh-Impossible -------- 5
Legendary -------- 6
Mythic -------- 7

Writing the rules down, I'd say, "As Gamemaster, your goal is to tell a good story and have a good time. In addition, you rank what each Player Character is doing, based on the Difficulty Tier; rating actions of said Player Characters by both ratings of role-playing the character, how realistically hard their announced task is, and finally if they succeeded or failed at the task at hand.
As Gamemaster with these Experience Rewards, these are only examples of how you could reward PCs; instead, you might grant up to 5 Experience Points for learning how to craft a Water Tribe totem, as long as it furthers the game and the game's story.
NEVER reward players that, at least in your own viewpoint, hinders both the game AND the story, making these group gatherings into Fire Nation Prisons and not a time and place to have fun.
ALWAYS reward players who think creatively, role-play their character as part of a story and not just a packet of numbers, as well as those who help the other players in the group and help make the game session fun to play."

Yet again, just another suggestion between Home-brewers.
As before, I hope this helps you in designing your game.

[manwithaplan]

Guys, people on this very forum got together in 2007 and spent a year making an Avatar d20 add-on for D&D 3.5 that I'm playing in right now. It's awesome, and very show-accurate. You have a nice idea, but you're eight years late. Even if you think Avatar d20 is too rules-heavy (and I doubt that), there's Mutants and Masterminds. The ideas here are cool, but what possible need is there for a new system?

[Teapot Salty]

Guys, people on this very forum got together in 2007 and spent a year making an Avatar d20 add-on for D&D 3.5 that I'm playing in right now. It's awesome, and very show-accurate. You have a nice idea, but you're eight years late. Even if you think Avatar d20 is too rules-heavy (and I doubt that), there's Mutants and Masterminds. The ideas here are cool, but what possible need is there for a new system?

Is that the same one Grod linked?

[manwithaplan]

Yeah. It has a website and everything, right here (https://sites.google.com/site/avatard20/).

[Rowan Wolf]

While I do enjoy D20 games in general, I was thinking perhaps looking at the storytelling systems from white-wolf and going from there (ideally Mage could have decent parallels to work from). I have look for my books and contact some friends for the one I don't own, but That might be a more flexible system for what I gather you are going for.

[Teapot Salty]

Regardless I'd still like to try my hand at getting a community made avatar system up, that would be awesome.