From Warlock to Waterbender! [PEACH]

[WunSukong]

Because Monk of the Four Elements just doesn't cut it.

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/222/b/d/Male_Waterbender_by_GreenifyME.png

I am not excessively skilled using these forums so I have opted to make this a google doc and share the link here (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vHtkNi07Wk0ZySeXyXz5tPsyvJMftEBP4lf4OtF0n sE&authuser=0).

However, I would like to explain my pet-project and what I've done here.

The Monk of the Four Elements immediately appealed to my fantasy of an Avatar-like bender character and I knew I had to play one. However, having to share resources between what made you a monk and what made you a bender, as well as the steep prices of each of the abilities was a huge discouragement to me.
As I looked for ideas and options to home-brew the Way of the Four Elements and make it more balanced but also more appealing, I found that the Warlock had much of what I was looking for. Thus, my re-fluff and minor rebalance of the Warlock to make him a full-fledged Waterbender.

I did change some things around in terms of archetypes abilities and so on, but tried to keep abilities generally equivalent to pre-existent ones whether in the class or in the game. Some abilities are very monk-like, as are the skill options for the class. I only home-brewed the Pact of the Blade and a single Archetype, as I didn't feel the other pacts were Waterbender material, or at least not the Waterbender I was looking to play.

I think the most difficult aspect was changing all of the spell damage types. I tried to provide guidelines for how some spells could be maintained in their corresponding damage type, but some spells just didn't fit a water bender at all. In this case, a lot of imagination is required, and though I went through most of them and was able to come up with a "water bending translation" I did not write them all down, both for allowing each DM or player to do it themselves and because time.

I would really appreciate any and all feedback with this project, as I am sure many of you have much more experience with home brewing than I do.

5e Waterbender (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xymIPEnIxzuThAAZkDrYKI7FOJTSbpCTlx4nWX7Qf-0/edit?usp=sharing)

[Alerad]

This is great!
Is it purely Warlock or there are some elements from Monk as well?

Astral Projection seems legit if you are the Avatar, and by that level you might as well be, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Also in Legend of Korra there were some spirits involved, so conjuring spells can work for spirits and water elementals.

Thanks for sharing!

[MReav]

You could refluff certain bits to take into account spirituality that transcends any of the bending disciplines. We saw Zaheer (airbender) and Aiwei (Earthbender) being able to project their minds into the Spirit World with Korra (Avatar) soon following them despite them all being different from bending disciplines. Astral Projection thus can be something that can transcend this sort of stuff.

Stuff like Charm Person and Mass Suggestion could be done via a Bloodbending trick, where you are subtly affecting brain chemistry (possibly requiring restriction against non-organic beings).

[WunSukong]

You could refluff certain bits to take into account spirituality that transcends any of the bending disciplines. We saw Zaheer (airbender) and Aiwei (Earthbender) being able to project their minds into the Spirit World with Korra (Avatar) soon following them despite them all being different from bending disciplines. Astral Projection thus can be something that can transcend this sort of stuff.

Stuff like Charm Person and Mass Suggestion could be done via a Bloodbending trick, where you are subtly affecting brain chemistry (possibly requiring restriction against non-organic beings).

Those are good ideas, thanks for the feedback.

What I did is change some Invocations and Archetype features to make the water bender more Monk-like. So while the base chassis is a Warlock, through Invocations, Pact of the Blade changes, and Archetype features he gets some increased movement speed and Martial Arts progression.

I haven't seen the last three chapters of Legend of Korra, they're not on my region's Netflix. Ill try to see if I can get a hold of them.

As far as I've seen though, Bloodbending is anything but subtle. In the show it typically portrays people moving around somewhat erratically, with their bodies contorting in weird ways. I don't think that being able to achieve such subtle manipulations as brain chemistry seem plausible in that context.

I think that if you make your bender the Avatar, then very few spells need refluffing. However, to me, playing a random, run of the mill bender is a bit more exciting.

I feel like this could be a pretty big project, if I were to make more archetypes for each bender, compliment Pact of the Chain & Tome for less Martial benders, and add Fire Air and Water benders. Do you think it would be worthwhile to re-fluff each spell specifically, or possibly compile new spell lists for each different elemental bender?

[MReav]

As far as I've seen though, Bloodbending is anything but subtle. In the show it typically portrays people moving around somewhat erratically, with their bodies contorting in weird ways. I don't think that being able to achieve such subtle manipulations as brain chemistry seem plausible in that context.

This is season 1 stuff, so I assume you've seen it:

Amon was able to Bloodbend a person's bending away that made it look like Spirit Bending, he was also able to subtly bloodbend his opponents so he'd throw them off a bit.

You know what, just claim it's some sort of mixture of bloodbending and spirituality. Minor spoilers, but two of the big bads in the upcoming seasons are spiritual by Avatar/Korra standards. Considering that Waterbending was inspired by the moon, you can claim that you are calling upon malevolent spirits from the dark side of the moon to manipulate your foes (I am assuming inspiration, not 1-to-1 translation).

[WunSukong]

Thanks for the feedback MReav.

However, I've been wondering, would it be terribly crippling, balance-wise, to simply exclude those spells which are a bit harder to explain?

[MReav]

Honestly, I think an easier thing to do is to just refluff the esoteric stuff as being things you call upon spirits to do.

Also, water is often used in the creation of acids, so I don't think it should be excluded, while a lot of spells that deal damage by way of fire can be refluffed as superheated steam.

All the major bending disciplines were originally granted by Lion Turtles, so the idea of a Waterbending Warlock is actually not too far off the mark.

[WunSukong]

I was distracted and thought your spoiler was just a random comment in a spoiler bracket.... Curses!!!

Yeah that's actually pretty interesting about the scalding water or acidic water.... I may try that after all. I guess the spiritual stuff could work too. I had initially made it a lot more monk-estoeric-y but had decided against it. Maybe it was the right choice after all.

I'd like to know what you think about the Invocations (Forms), Archetype (Southern Style) and Pact of the Blade (Martial Arts) substitutions I made. Would any of these changes imbalance the class? What other Archetype could be made for Waterbenders, the Swamp Benders perhaps?

[MReav]

I'm better at fluff than crunch so others would be better at giving judgement.

Though I can see the Swamp Benders as having some sort of Invocation equivalent that lets them cast Animate Object on plants.