Elemental Bending . . . . . . .

[nonsi]

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My son's been an enthusiastic follower of the Avatar series (both) for quite a while now. He probably saw each chapter at least 3 times by now.
Every so often he shares details from the series with me (like any good son should ).

Lately I'm getting the feeling like there's quite a lot of stuff in those series to work with and compile a Monk-based or Monk-esque class to cover bending in a nice way.
Unfortunately, due to too many factors in my life, I'm unable to find the time to watch the series and collect all the associated materials.
I've managed to pick up on quite a lot, but I'm sure I also have quite a few gaps to fill.

For starters, I wish to list all the different powers shown on those series, categorized by the different elements. After that I'll be able to contemplate putting them together and formulate them into rules.

Here's what I have so far. I'd appreciate any and all help in completing the picture (or have me corrected if I'm off)………


First of all there's the basic elements: Air – Earth – Fire – Water. All elements allow you to deal damage, but I'm pretty sure all attacks also force opposed rolls vs. bull rush.

Next there are variations of those elements: Blasting (Fire) – Blood (Water) – Electricity (Air) – Metal (Earth)

I also remember Sand/Plant/Lava bending, but I don't know where to put those.

Then there are more specific powers:
- Feather Fall (Air)
- Flight (Air)
- Gust of Wind (Air)
- Spirit Travel (Air)
- Collaborative Whirlwind (Air)
- Poison (Metal (Earth))
- Tremor Sense (Earth)
- Bones of the Earth – like power (Earth duh)
- Earthquake / Tremors that knock people prone
- Drowning (Water)
- Extinguishing fires (Water)
- Pseudopod arms (Water)
- Healing (Water)
- Water-propelled movement (Water)
- Bubble (Water)
- Not a lot with Fire, other than igniting stuff, AoE inferno or making things blow up.


I don't intend to adhere to the series' storyline. I was thinking of allowing benders to access up to 2 elements (Lava bending is just begging to be associated with Earth and Fire), and to gain access to all 4 elements via a specialized feat: "Elemental Avatar", followed by Assume Avatar State (have no idea ATM what this will do) once access to all 4 elements is gained.

[Eldest]

First, if you're following the series rules instead of d&d rules, the "ascended" form of airbending is more likely to be Astral projection than lightning, which is directly a fire thing (along with explosions, which only one person in the original series at least could do). Second, fire in my opinion should also have "active" defensive manouvers, in addition to the offensive kind, as well as possibly metalcrafting or glass making (going off an excellent fanfiction piece that expanded the avatar world very logically).

[Belgarion]

All of the tribes have "advanced" versions of their own bending. Gifted fire benders can bend/create lightning.

Gifted water benders can bend more water, like tsunami levels, and blood bending. Where they control the actions of people and bend the blood in their veins. Instantly killing people, paralysis, and so on. They even took away bending powers for a time. An alternate water bending is plant bending, although I don't think it took exceptional skill. Just different environment (most classic water benders lived at the north or south pole, so not many plants).

Gifted earth benders get metal bending. I think sand bending is standard earth bending stuff. I would imagine lava bending would go to earth benders because it is simply hot rock. Not sure I can remember a case of it from the episodes I'v seen. I even saw crystal bending once.

Air bending had lots of utility from what I remember from the show. An air ball that he sat on and flew around like a magic carpet, he had a hang glider that he could use to fly with by controlling the air around it, and so on. Jumping high. Trying to remember, been awhile. But I loved the first season. Like what I have seen from Kora so far also.

Potential fire powers (I am assuming standard dnd type spells as a base but will input basics in case you don't have or aren't using that)

Fire - Burning hands (small cone from hands), fireball (aoe burst at distance), Fire shield (aoe around caster), Flame bolt (ranged single target), Lightning bolt (straight line AOE), Shocking grasp (single target touch) Bounce Lighting (aoe "hops" to nearby targets), Wall of fire (a wall of fire ), Flame blade... the list goes on. (edit: most of the time they punched and kicked and fire came out) There was another version of fire bending that Ang had to learn from a dragon. I can't for the life of me remember if it allowed him to do anything special or not.

If you don't have any edition of dnd spells then you can just google them and skim through the names. There are plenty of sites with lists. Most of them will give you a good idea for basic powers to use and/or create. At worst you will have plenty of ideas. You could also even try to find am Avatar wiki. I bet they have a list of bender powers somewhere on the net. Google is your friend.

GL. I have also thought about bringing bending into my DnD games.

[LibraryOgre]

One of the best, simplest, modifications I saw (for 3.x) was to simply treat benders as warlocks. So, an Air Bender would have an eldritch blast that took the form of air, and anything specialized beyond that would be invocations.

[Douglas]

First of all there's the basic elements: Air – Earth – Fire – Water. All elements allow you to deal damage, but I'm pretty sure all attacks also force opposed rolls vs. bull rush.

Pretty much. It's primarily a kids' show, so it's a lot more common for people to get knocked around than to get seriously hurt.

Next there are variations of those elements: Blasting (Fire) – Blood (Water) – Electricity (Air) – Metal (Earth)

Electricity is actually an advanced form of fire.

I also remember Sand/Plant/Lava bending, but I don't know where to put those.

Sand is an unusual variation of Earth, but not especially difficult or advanced.

Plant is a similarly unusual variation of Water, a bit more exotic/difficult/advanced than Sand, but not enormously so.

Lava is an extremely rare and advanced form of Earth bending.

Then there are more specific powers:
- Feather Fall (Air)
- Flight (Air)
- Gust of Wind (Air)
- Spirit Travel (Air)
- Collaborative Whirlwind (Air)
- Poison (Metal (Earth))
- Tremor Sense (Earth)
- Bones of the Earth – like power (Earth duh)
- Earthquake / Tremors that knock people prone
- Drowning (Water)
- Extinguishing fires (Water)
- Pseudopod arms (Water)
- Healing (Water)
- Water-propelled movement (Water)
- Bubble (Water)
- Not a lot with Fire, other than igniting stuff, AoE inferno or making things blow up.

These are all generally accurate, though Fire does have small scale rocketry, essentially - as in propelling yourself with a rocket by sending a focused jet of fire in the direction opposite where you want to go. Fire benders also have the ability to control existing fires, including preventing the fire from touching them. This extends even to fire conjured by other benders, though in that case the two benders' influence on the same fire compete and partially cancel.

In a more general way, anything that can be done by physically moving some amount of a given element can be done by a skilled bender of that element. Bending mostly isn't about specific moves and abilities, but the general application of telekinetically moving (and creating, in the case of Fire) an element.

I don't intend to adhere to the series' storyline. I was thinking of allowing benders to access up to 2 elements (Lava bending is just begging to be associated with Earth and Fire), and to gain access to all 4 elements via a specialized feat: "Elemental Avatar", followed by Assume Avatar State (have no idea ATM what this will do) once access to all 4 elements is gained.

This part will either barely resemble the show at all, or be ridiculously overpowered. The Avatar State in particular is in the show at full-up "one man army" levels of power. The rulers of nations listen to the Avatar partly because he, in his own person, is powerful enough to take on their entire national military and plausibly win, and the Avatar State is responsible for the bulk of that power.

[otaku123]

Hi nonsi, I applaud your interest in the "Avatar" TV series - I too am a big fan. I will just make a suggestion for you to check out "Spheres of Power" by Drop Dead Studios (you can find on Paizo.com as well). They have an Elementalist class that simulates the abilities of the characters from the show. I like the magic system which is an alternate to standard D&D / Pathfinder magic. You would probably find much to like in it.

[Arbitrarious]

You may consider looking at Pathfinder's kineticist class. It is very much an elemental flavored warlock. The d20pfsrd has them under occult adventures if you are interested.

[nonsi]

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Thanks for the info everybody. That's certainly a lot to think about.

I'll need some time to process everything. In the meantime, if anyone else have anything to add... keep'em coming.