Water, Earth, Fire and Air [Bending system & Base Classes]

[Xiagu]

*stops reading threads and comes up for air*

Whew! I just finished reading both the original thread and this one, and I just want to say that this is amazing. The seed-based system is pure genius.

Now that I'm done oozing compliments...

Although the Airbender doesn't seem as starved for seeds now, I notice that there's no way to change the direction that Air Blast pushes the target in. Notably, in 'The Great Divide', when Aang jumps and smashes the ground with his glider-staff, both tribes are thrown away laterally, perpendicular to the direction he smashed. If this is already included in the description for Air Blast, and I missed it, then sorry for wasting your time.

But assuming there aren't any provisions for this, I think that the glider-staff/warfans should have a more active role in Airbending. In the first/second episode, Aang extends the tailfin of the glider without extending the front, making the glider-staff look eerily like a warfan on a stick... ...so I think that a glider-staff is a sort of über warfan, or that a warfan is a weaker glider-staff.

Now onto what they should be able to do: An airbender airbending with a glider-staff should be able to create air blasts on a line. I.E. Aang smashes the ground with his glider-staff, and *poof!* there's an imaginary line 10-15 feet long with air blasts coming from each square, but perpendicular to the direction of the line.
(EDIT: http://dvdscreenshots.avatarspiritmedia.net/111/546.jpg . This is exactly what I mean by this, so you no longer need to contend with my bad explanation)

With a warfan/glider-staff, (I think this happens in the second episode, maybe?) you should be able to push things laterally. Swing your warfan/glider-staff sideways, and your enemy gets swung into a wall. And maybe a downward-smash kinda thing with a warfan/glider-staff should let you create a cone-shaped air blast?
(EDIT: http://screenshots.avatarspiritmedia.net/102/127.jpg . Aang isn't throwing Zuko, but it's the same thing, basically.)

(Am I making sense?)

Maybe this stuff is too powerful to just give to weapons like this, but they seem instrumental in doing these things. Maybe these moves should be added to a current seed, and the weapons should be a prerequisite for actually using that part of the seed?

[hr]

Now, I've been thinking of something lately... would you guys say that members of each of the four nations seem to have an innate ability to bend?

*snip*

What says you?

I really don't think that members of the four nations should have an arbitrary ability to bend. For example, I'm pretty sure that if Sokka could do any kind of pathetic bending at all, he would, seeing how he got all depressed because everyone else could do this cool bending stuff and he couldn't. Then there was that town of people with all their earthbenders abducted, and there were still plenty of people there, right?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, and you mean that people that could possibly bend things could make a bending check even if they didn't take a level in a bender class? That would require discretion on the DM's part to determine who has the innate ability to bend in them, though.

[Eighth_Seraph]

*stops reading threads and comes up for air*

Whew! I just finished reading both the original thread and this one, and I just want to say that this is amazing. The seed-based system is pure genius.

...you read both threads? Wow! There are people that still take the time to do that? I'm honored to welcome you on board the Avatar project, Xiagu. Also, thanks for the compliments, I'm glad you like it.

Although the Airbender doesn't seem as starved for seeds now, I notice that there's no way to change the direction that Air Blast pushes the target in. Notably, in 'The Great Divide', when Aang jumps and smashes the ground with his glider-staff, both tribes are thrown away laterally, perpendicular to the direction he smashed. If this is already included in the description for Air Blast, and I missed it, then sorry for wasting your time.

But assuming there aren't any provisions for this, I think that the glider-staff/warfans should have a more active role in Airbending. * credible support snipped*

Ooh. I hadn't though of that. It's definitely a great idea that we should put into the project; but how do we represent it? It could be a seed, or a feat, or a class feature, or a feature of the staff itself. Actually...I think that last one would work best. I hadn't noticed that the 'tail' end of the glider is, for all intents and purposes, a fan. We could make a class feature involving the use of fans for airbenders, then state in the airbenders' staves description that they have a fan on the tail end. Then we add the various applications that airbending staves can have on Air Blast, essentially template seeds that can be added to the Air Blast. Good idea! Anyone want to get on that?

Alright, I've been thoroughly convinced that all people of the Avatar world don't have innate bending talent, and that it's more like sorcery in D&D, but considerably more common. I would consider a feat to allow access to a single bending seed as well as limited ranks in a bending skill. This, actually, looks exactly like what I mean, with an added clause for a single seed, of course.

Bending Talent
Prerequisites: Wis 13
Benefit: You know the basic bending seeds of your culture's preferred bending style. You can buy a number of skill ranks in bending equal to your wisdom modificator.
Normal: You cannot have ranks in bending or know seeds without being a bender.

Finally, I've noticed that I've missed two major parts of the Airbender: a way to make Deflect Bending possible (they don't use Air Blast as an attack action, so they can't feasibly forego attacks without foregoing them all), and an airbending version of Manipulate/Move a Rock/Play with Fire. I can't do that right now, so if anyone has a solution to either of these problems, feel free to post it for us.

[Guyr Adamantine]

Hope it's good, but evil airbender staves and ridiculous character stats(half-sarcasm, no offense!) distracted you from this last seed. But first, do not worry, I'll critize your comments with caustic insults!

But assuming there aren't any provisions for this, I think that the glider-staff/warfans should have a more active role in Airbending. In the first/second episode, Aang extends the tailfin of the glider without extending the front, making the glider-staff look eerily like a warfan on a stick... ...so I think that a glider-staff is a sort of über warfan, or that a warfan is a weaker glider-staff.

Now onto what they should be able to do: An airbender airbending with a glider-staff should be able to create air blasts on a line. I.E. Aang smashes the ground with his glider-staff, and *poof!* there's an imaginary line 10-15 feet long with air blasts coming from each square, but perpendicular to the direction of the line.

With a warfan/glider-staff, (I think this happens in the second episode, maybe?) you should be able to push things laterally. Swing your warfan/glider-staff sideways, and your enemy gets swung into a wall. And maybe a downward-smash kinda thing with a warfan/glider-staff should let you create a cone-shaped air blast?

(Am I making sense?)

Maybe this stuff is too powerful to just give to weapons like this, but they seem instrumental in doing these things. Maybe these moves should be added to a current seed, and the weapons should be a prerequisite for actually using that part of the seed?

I posted a similar comment earlier, and just do agree with you. After all, Airbender Staves, in their description, state their great influence on multiple seeds.

O.K., Palm Bow 3.0 now.

Palm Bow(Template)
Base DC: 10
By the sole movement of your hands, you bring in existence a tunnel of rushing winds between your palms. Munitions flow from their quivers to your target in fiendish accuracy.
Applications: By adding +10 to the Airbending DC of an Air Blast(Throw), you may use it with projectiles(Arrows, bolts, shurikens, etc...). As a full-round action, if you have enough projectiles at hand, you may reunite these in an
endless, dangerous flood. You may launch 1/2 your Airbender level in arrows, bolts or bullets at the same time and of the same kind, toward a line in range. The foes are allowed a Reflex Saving Throw, DC: 10+ 1/2 Airbender Level+ Wis Bonus, and the ray deals the same damage as the projectiles used, and rolls the number of projectiles in dices. You only make one Airbending check for them all.

[Xiagu]

...you read both threads? Wow! There are people that still take the time to do that?

It started innocently enough: I found Mephibosheth's system and started reading it. Having nothing to do, I decided to read the whole thread so I wouldn't propose something already suggested. Then I found your modification of Mephibosheth's system, and the process repeated itself...

Now, about Manipulate for Airbenders...

Looking at the 'common' uses of airbending from memory, I've compiled a probably not very complete list of things Aang uses airbending for (besides combat):

• grabbing objects from farther away, pulling objects to him (i.e. bending the warfans into his hands)
• doing the spinny-rock thingy
• lifting objects with airbending
• drying himself/other people off (weak air blast?)
• slowing his fall
• stopping things?
• making things float (air shieldy-ish)

For the last two, I was thinking of when King Bumi throws a chicken leg at Aang, and he stops it and holds it in a little sphere of wind above his plate.

[hr]
I was going to say this in my first post here, but I forgot...

In the sixth episode of chapter 3, Sozin draws heat away from the lava, sorta like the way Iroh can redirect lightning. This is a little like the Quench use of the Intensity seed, but instead of putting out a fire, you're lowering the intensity, or heat. If this were to be made into a use of Intensity, it would probably either (a) decrease the die size or (b) decrease the number of dice.

Also, one little comment about the firebender: why would fire produced from the firebender's body heat do more damage than natural fire? From this, no firebender would want to draw fire from a candle or campfire once they got past level 3, because drawing fire from their own body heat does more than twice as much damage. The way I understood the increase in fire/water/earth blast damage is that there's more fire/water/earth. It seems kinda wierd to have such a big difference in the same quantity of fire.
(I'm not actually sure what I was trying to prove, but maybe you guys will...)

[Katasi]

I'm of the opinion that those levels are severely inflated. Per 3.5 rules, character's don't gain experience just through using their abilities, otherwise combat types would lag sigificantly behind spellcasters, skillmonkies, and other characters that have the capability to use their abilities out of combat. We've got a high DC, but not quite epic, seed template for Metalbending, and Redirect Lightning is a function of the Lightning feat that requires a feat to access. Katara certainly wasn't eight levels behind Zuko in Book One; she managed to beat him in the finale. Yes, she was aided by the full moon, but by 3.5 rules eight levels is an advantage that is nearly impossible to overcome. And while Aang did learn the very basics of Firebending from the exiled soldier, he hasn't used Firebending outside that one episode and he's looking for a Firebending teacher now.

Whether they gain experience for it or not mostly depends on the DM, I give XP for skill checks- required since my games tend to be low combat, even NO combat for long periods. Also Katara was only behind Zuko at the BEGINNING of the first book, by the end of the first book she was roguhly as powerful as stated for the beginning of book 2. And as previously stated, I consider the ability to use even the basics of the bending to be 1 level of the bending class. Aang can produce flames, even if he doesn't do so since that one event, thus Firebender 1.

Also I consider Metalbending to be DEFINATLY Epic, but that's my personal opinion. And the Avatar to pretty much be Epic soon after learning the second bending class.

[ErrantX]

Finally, I've noticed that I've missed two major parts of the Airbender: a way to make Deflect Bending possible (they don't use Air Blast as an attack action, so they can't feasibly forego attacks without foregoing them all), and an airbending version of Manipulate/Move a Rock/Play with Fire. I can't do that right now, so if anyone has a solution to either of these problems, feel free to post it for us.

Well, Airbender has Manipulate at level 3, but presumably you'd want to rename that for Airbender specifically.

Wind Shaping
Base DC: 5
With minor effort an Airbender may bend the air around him to create minor effects.
Body Burst: The Airbender may force the air around his body to rush away from him and push small things away from him. Be they circling insects, dirt and mud on his clothes, or annoying lemurs, the Airbender may make an Airbending check to move things away from him in a 5 foot radius, pushing them 5ft. Resisting targets of Tiny or larger may resist with an opposed Strength check, provided they way more than a pound.
Hand of Air: A technique of convenience, the Airbender learns to move objects to and from him at his whim. By changing the air pressure around and object and causing winds to form around it. So long as an object that weighs less than 5lbs is within his bending range, an Airbender may move it anywhere within his bending range. This object does not travel fast enough to cause damage. This may also be used to simply blow small amounts of air over and around objects, such as to perform minor acts of mischief or to cool hot food.


The above is kind of lame, but it can be fixed. Thoughts on it?

As far as the Air Blast thing, I'd change Fling/Push to be an attack action, and then it could work.

-X

[Copacetic]

Seeing as the firebender gets no love,(for now) I'll try to put together some seeds. Keep in mind that I've never played DnD so that's why thy have no numbers in them. I'd just mess it up big time.


Beast of the Flames

Through practice ad control, A firebender can shae hs freblast to resemble a dragon, causing extra damamge(insert numbers here) and a a chance of fear.

Combustion

By focusing hs mind, a firebender may add X damage To An attack where X is the number of other seeds combined. NOte this seed cannot be used on it's own.

Any changes/improvemet will be welcomed greatly. There's my 2p

[Xiagu]

Wind Shaping
Base DC: 5
With minor effort an Airbender may bend the air around him to create minor effects.
Body Burst: The Airbender may force the air around his body to rush away from him and push small things away from him. Be they circling insects, dirt and mud on his clothes, or annoying lemurs, the Airbender may make an Airbending check to move things away from him in a 5 foot radius, pushing them 5ft. Resisting targets of Tiny or larger may resist with an opposed Strength check, provided they way more than a pound.
Hand of Air: A technique of convenience, the Airbender learns to move objects to and from him at his whim. By changing the air pressure around and object and causing winds to form around it. So long as an object that weighs less than 5lbs is within his bending range, an Airbender may move it anywhere within his bending range. This object does not travel fast enough to cause damage. This may also be used to simply blow small amounts of air over and around objects, such as to perform minor acts of mischief or to cool hot food.

Makes sense. So would the Hand of Air enable keeping something's position constant, as in making something levitate? I can't think of anything else to add, except the ability to make one's cloak or hair blow dramatically in the wind, no matter what the wind speed or direction actually is.

Dramatic Pose: (ex) As a free action, an airbender can cause his cloak, hair, or other light things to blow backwards dramatically, regardless of the current wind conditions.

What if we added the ability to slow your fall to the Levitate seed? Or should it be a part of 'Wind Shaping'?

[hr]

(quote about airbender weaponry and effects)
Ooh. I hadn't though of that. It's definitely a great idea that we should put into the project; but how do we represent it? It could be a seed, or a feat, or a class feature, or a feature of the staff itself. Actually...I think that last one would work best. I hadn't noticed that the 'tail' end of the glider is, for all intents and purposes, a fan. We could make a class feature involving the use of fans for airbenders, then state in the airbenders' staves description that they have a fan on the tail end. Then we add the various applications that airbending staves can have on Air Blast, essentially template seeds that can be added to the Air Blast. Good idea! Anyone want to get on that?

Here's my attempt at the features that the glider-staff (or Airbender stave, whichever you prefer, but I used glider-staff in this post) and warfans provide:

(some good title goes here)
Base DC: N/A
If an airbender is using a warfan or glider-staff to airbend, he/she has additional options to apply to their Air Blasts.
• Change Direction (15 Base DC): An airbender wielding a warfan or glider-staff can use the Fling or Push form of Air Blast to push an object in in a direction other than directly away from the airbender. This is treated as a normal Air Blast, but originating from a square adjacent to the target instead of from the airbender's square. Due to the increased difficulty of bending this way, the range for and Air Blast with this applied is 10 feet/level instead of 20 feet/level.
• Glider-staff only (20 Base DC): An airbender using a glider-staff can modify the Push or Fling form of Air Blast so that it emanates from a line, instead of from her square. The airbender creates an imaginary line with a maximum length of 10 feet/level extending from her square, and two air blasts originate from each square along the line, going in opposite directions perpedicular to the line.

First, BIG question: Are the DCs reasonable?

Questions I have about the first modification:

• Should there be a restriction on the angles that the changed direction Air Blast could use? (i.e. which adjacent squares are legal)
• Should the range start out at 10-20 feet away, and attacking a target farther away increases the DC?

Questions I have about the second modification (which totally needs a picture explaining it, and/or a better pen than I to write it):

• Should each air blast from the line be weaker than the normal one?
• Should it come from a line of squares on the grid, or should the line be on the borders of the squares?
• Should the maximum distance be 5 feet/level? This seems kinda powerful. Maybe the base DC should be increased more?
• Or, should the length start out as 10-15 feet, and increasing it ups the DC for the form?

[hr]
More comments on random parts of the system... ...this post's about Overbending and ability damage! (and possibly some nitpicking)

Overbending is a great idea; it's reminiscent of Eragon's system.

I note that although fatigue is a penalty for the first level of overbending, it disappears after that, and that it never increases to exaustion...

I also disagree with having Con drain every third point of Con damage. I understand that overbending should be discouraged, but just plain Con damage would incapacitate someone for a while, given how slowly it heals. For slight to medium overbending, you're stuck for maybe 2-3 days waiting for your friends Con to return to reasonable levels, but for really bad overbending, you're stuck for maybe a week! That is, if the Con damage doesn't kill them outright. This is probably the part of me that doesn't like permanent bad things, but still... ...In a normal campaign, ability drain is curable, but in this setting, there's no way to heal it. Maybe a penalty on bending checks that takes effect after the encounter ends? (Of course, failing a bending check due to the penalty shouldn't cause overbending, that would just suck. ) Maybe something like:

{table=head]Failed By|

Effect

<5|Fatigue, -2 bending

5-9|1d4 Con, Fatigue, -4 bending

10-14|1d6 Con, Fatigue, -8 bending

15-19|2d4 Con, Exaustion, -14 bending

20-24|2d6 Con, Exaustion, -22 bending

25-29|Unconciousness

>30|Death[/table]

On a somewhat related tangent, maybe waterbenders could heal ability damage by dealing 1/4 of the damage they healed, rounded up, to themselves? This 'backlash' damage would be unhealable, so that you couldn't have chains of healers healing other healers, you would have to sit and wait for the healer to recover. And, if we wanted to extend it, maybe healing ability drain is possible, except it would inflict 4x the amount of permanant damage healed to the healer as temporary, unhealable damage.

[Eighth_Seraph]

I had been thinking about overbending myself lately, and I realized that nobody in their right mind would ever actually use it past the first stage, except in a life or death situation; in which case the levels of ability damage or drain didn't matter anyway. My first thought on a solution to that as to remove Constitution drain from the equation altogether, but make the Con damage much more dangerous by adding d4s of damage per step rather than raising the size of the damage dice (I prefer adding more dice to larger ranges, since it lets players know that they're taking relevant damage, whether they roll well or badly). As for the fatigue/exhaustion clause (or lack thereof), we can simply add effects at various stages and say that they stack, aside from the Con damage.

For example… {table=head]Failed By|

Effect

<5|Fatigue

5-9|1d4 Con damage

10-14|2d4 Con damage

15-19|3d4 Con damage, Exhaustion

20-24|4d4 Con damage

25-29|Unconciousness, 1 point Con drain

>30|Death[/table]

That way the image of a bender making a huge tidal wave, then collapsing onto her knees from exhaustion stays intact. Two fatigues stack to make a bender exhausted, and a fatigue or exhaustion beyond that knock her unconcious, with a Fortitude save every minute to wake up, lessening every minute. What do you think?

[Xiagu]

I think it makes much more sense than before; but maybe the bender should still be fatigued after they wake up from unconciousness? I don't speak from personal experiance, but I'm not sure if unconciousness is very restful or not...

And, just a thought, but it seems that if the bender overbends more and falls unconcious, after they wake up, they're walking off easier at the moment, because they're only down 1 point of Con, but if they overbended slightly less, they'd have to deal with 4d4 Con damage and exhaustion.

[Lord Tataraus]

I agree with the Con drain. Of course, I would assume that waterbenders can be trained (read: Healing Waters PrC) to cure ability damage and the most advanced can heal ability drain. But otherwise Overbending should stay the way it is. If the penalties are less severe, then you can easily cheat the system and purposefully overbend something you could never normally do.

[Xiagu]

The penalties still seem pretty harsh to me; Con damage is really damaging. Most benders would probably be satisfied with a 12 or 13 in Constitution, and if that gets suddenly lowered to 4, then they're losing 4 hp per level. Say you have a lvl 5 waterbender with say, 26 hp. If they lose 20 hp from Con damage, they're down to 6 hp, assuming that they started at full health. Then, our poor waterbender would have to walk away, because they can't run because of fatigue. Overbending's penalties seem pretty strict to me...

[Lord Tataraus]

The penalties still seem pretty harsh to me; Con damage is really damaging. Most benders would probably be satisfied with a 12 or 13 in Constitution, and if that gets suddenly lowered to 4, then they're losing 4 hp per level. Say you have a lvl 5 waterbender with say, 26 hp. If they lose 20 hp from Con damage, they're down to 6 hp, assuming that they started at full health. Then, our poor waterbender would have to walk away, because they can't run because of fatigue. Overbending's penalties seem pretty strict to me...

Right because our poor waterbender just used a seed that she would not be able to use normally for another 8 or so levels, or with a roll of natural 20 (if even that). I am assuming of course she took 4 con damage from 2d4 average. So exerting yourself like that is not good for you and not something that you should do anytime except under extreme circumstances.

[Xiagu]

Wait, then what are you trying to prove? Was my example unreasonably damaging?

Alright, new example!

Our level 5 waterbender has 20 max hp (which is around average), and +16 Waterbending (8 ranks+3 modifier+3 Skill Focus+2 Synergy). Now, our waterbender attempts to pin somebody against a wall by combining the Wave seed with Change Phase. The final DC of the form is: 34 = 15 (Wave) + 5 (Change Phase) + 5 (Additional cube for CP) + 5 (Decrease freeze time to move action) + 4 (Combining)

Our waterbender takes 10 and the result is a roll of 26, so they take Overbending penalties for 5-9 (failed by 8), which is 1d4 Con damage and Fatigue. So if they take 3 Con damage, and their Constitution falls from 12 to 9 (Modifiers change from +1 to -1, with a difference of -2), they lose 10 hp (5*-2), bringing them down to 10 hp, and they're fatigued.

I wouldn't want to overbend if I got penalties like that...

[Xiagu]

*snip*
That way the image of a bender making a huge tidal wave, then collapsing onto her knees from exhaustion stays intact. Two fatigues stack to make a bender exhausted, and a fatigue or exhaustion beyond that knock her unconcious, with a Fortitude save every minute to wake up, lessening every minute. What do you think?

I just noticed a small problem with this. If the unconciousness penalty also sets the benders hp to -1, then they'd die within the minute unless they made the 10% roll to stabilize or got medical help. Is this intentional, or was it an unoticed glitch?

[Eighth_Seraph]

Does being unconcious automatically put you at -1 HP? I was always under the impression that being at -1 HP knocked you unconscious, but that it was just one way of ending up in that state.

As for your example, I have to say that you showed through good reason that the new overbending table is at exactly at the level of punishment I wanted it to be. Overbending is, as far as I tried to represent it, going beyond what your body has the ability to bear. Yes, a -3 to constitution hurts alot when you have d6 or d8 hit dice, but then you really shouldn't be making sharp, frozen miniatures tsunamis of doom at level 5. As you progress in level, the damage becomes more bearable if you want to finish a battle before things get too ugly for your side. At low levels, only low-level overbending should be practical; and I think we've accomplished this.

About the Constitution drain and it being potentially better than Con damage: That would be a very valid point; but the Con damage stacks, since damage and drain aren't the same thing. Ssome creatures have immunity to ability damage, but not drain...or was it vice versa? Anyway, I saw this argument play itself out on the 'killing the tarrasque at low levels' thread on the Gaming forums. Does that address your concerns?

[Lord Tataraus]

From the SRD:

Knocked out and helpless. Unconsciousness can result from having current hit points between -1 and -9, or from nonlethal damage in excess of current hit points.

You are only "knocked out and helpless" nothing mentioning a change to your hit points, otherwise nonlethal damage would eventually drop someone down to -1 and dying!!

[Eighth_Seraph]

Finally, I present the first 66% of the Avatar world's resident healstick. More class abilities and seeds are coming; including a capstone ability and stats for water from spiritual sites.

(EDIT) Content moved to page 21; see Directory in the OP.

[Xiagu]

This is the old method of overbending:

Overbending: Upon failing a bending check, a bender has a choice to go ahead and do the action for which she rolled anyway. This is known as overbending and can range from strenuous to lethal, depending on the scope of what the bender is trying to do, as shown on the table below. Every third point of Constitution damage from overbending becomes Constitution drain instead.

Overbending{table=head] Failed By |Effect
<5| Fatigue1
5 – 9| 1d6 Con damage
10 – 14| 1d8 Con damage
15 – 19| 1d10 Con damage
20 – 24| 1d12 Con damage
25 – 29| Unconsciousness2
30 or more| Death [/table] 1. If the bender is already fatigued, she instead becomes exhausted, and if the bender is already exhausted, she instead takes 1d4 Constitution damage.
2. Doing this puts the bender at -1 hit points unless she was somehow below (such as through the use of the Diehard feat). The bender also takes 1d12 Constitution damage from this severity of overbending.

See, the little footnote sets your hp to -1; I assumed that this was a side effect that was unrelated to the unconsciousness effect. So no, I don't think that unconsciousness sets your hp to -1 in itself.

And this is kinda flogging a dead horse, but in the new system, since the fatigue penalty stacks with existing fatigue to create exhaustion, and that coupled with the fatigue penalty results in unconciousness, you shouldn't be able to overbend repeatedly at any level.

[hr]
The Healing Wates PrC looks good; but what's left to gain by taking the last three levels of the class? You could just take the first two levels, get the ability to cure ability damage, and you'd be set. What's left to learn?

[Darkbane]

Disciple of Healing Waters looks good so far; I look forward to seeing the rest of it. One thing I would add to the glider-staff/warfan discussion: the Airbender should not be able to knock opponents closer by airblasting them from behind. Just add a clause that says something like "The target may not be moved closer to the Airbender than it was originally."

[Xiagu]

Here's my attempt at the features that the glider-staff (or Airbender stave, whichever you prefer, but I used glider-staff in this post) and warfans provide:

(some good title goes here)
Base DC: N/A
If an airbender is using a warfan or glider-staff to airbend, he/she has additional options to apply to their Air Blasts.
• Change Direction (15 Base DC): An airbender wielding a warfan or glider-staff can use the Fling or Push form of Air Blast to push an object in in a direction other than directly away from the airbender. This is treated as a normal Air Blast, but originating from a square adjacent to the target instead of from the airbender's square. The relocated Air Blast cannot push an object closer to the Airbender. Due to the increased difficulty of bending this way, the range for and Air Blast with this applied is 10 feet/level instead of 20 feet/level.
• Linear Blast (25 Base DC): An airbender using a glider-staff can modify the Push or Fling form of Air Blast so that it emanates from a line, instead of from her square. The airbender creates an imaginary line with a maximum length of 10 feet/level extending from her square, and two air blasts originate from each square along the line, going in opposite directions perpedicular to the line.

Okay, I added the restriction you suggested, Darkbane, and also increased the DC of the 'Linear Blast' (cheesy name) to 25.

Also, may I suggest a reformatting of the seeds so that the possible augmentations are at the end of the seed instead of various places in the middle? This would make it easier to reference quickly. (Like the way psionic powers are organized in the SRD, with the "Augment" section)

About the Constitution drain and it being potentially better than Con damage: That would be a very valid point; but the Con damage stacks, since damage and drain aren't the same thing. Ssome creatures have immunity to ability damage, but not drain...or was it vice versa? Anyway, I saw this argument play itself out on the 'killing the tarrasque at low levels' thread on the Gaming forums. Does that address your concerns?

I somehow missed this the first time I read your post; yeah, this answers my question. I forgot that the things were stacking. (That is right, isn't it? for 25-29 overbending, it's unconciousness, 4d4 Con damage and 1 Con drain?) But in this setting, not many creatures would have immunity to ability damage/drain anyways.

[Eighth_Seraph]

Yes, that's exactly what would happen; I'm glad you approve of it.

Now that all four base classes are in the final revision stages and we're only really worrying about refinements and additional possibilites to them, I have a formal request for those that have helped on this project as well as any lurkers that feel they're specially suited for this task: I'd like to playtest the benders in terms of power and balance. Specifically, I want to test a reasonably optimized bender of each discipline against a standard, reasonably optimized non-cheese fighter, rogue, barbarian, Tataraus' martial artist, AND each other (and a few choice selections from Meph's comprehensive list of applicable classes on page 15). I'd like them tested at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. I'm no good at optimization or organizing play-by-post fighting matches. I'd be very appreciative if one person could start a thread on the Gaming forums here on GitP games for this purpose and invite people to participate, since I'm terrible at this sort of thing. Send me a PM if you want to do this, and we'll place a link to the new thread here on this one.

[levi]

I just read the whole thread and I have a few suggestions to make.

Firstly, we do have what I think is a canon use of Golem. However the specific form shown uses multiple seeds, so it doesn't appear as such.

What I am talking about is the Foggy Swamp plant bender's main style. I'd argue that what he does goes beyond simply combining Plantbending and Armor. It seems to me that what he's doing (as someone suggested earlier in the thread), is riding in a space within a golem. I propose that such a form requires the Armor and Golem seeds. (And, of course, in this specific case, plant bending as well.)

I don't know if the existing seed combination rules allow for such a thing or not, but if they don't, the Golem seed should have a special case for it.

The other thing is that I don't think sandbending should be a prestige class. I have several reasons for thinking so, but the main one is that most sandbenders are proably not very high level. None of the ones I've seen in the show display a huge power level and most could be assumed to be quite low level.

Furthermore, I don't think a young sandbender spends 3 or 5 or however many levels it takes to qualify for sandbending being practically useless untill they take the PrC. What seems to make more sense to me is that they are earthbenders that take Sandbending as thier first seed and apply it to practically every bending form they use.

Also, while I wouldn't object to a sandbending prestige class (with the Sandbending seed as a prereq), I don't think we've seen enough sandbending to make a full fledged class out of it. So, honestly, I think a simple sandbending seed would be more accurate to the source material.

The only things sandbenders do that other earthbenders do not is bend sand and the thing with thier sand sailers. Hardly enough to base a prestige class on if you ask me.

This is very similar to the Foggy Swamp tribe. The only special forms they have are one (that we know of) plant bender and they use Propel a whole bunch. That's it and you've seem to have decided that that doesn't warrent a prestige class.

I'll read through the rules again and try to come up with an Sandbending (Template) seed. Although I'm not entirely sure how it will work. Basically, I see it being possible to use sandbending with any other earthbending seed. Also I think the DC increase should be low enough to be negated by a Seed Focus feat or something, so sandbenders aren't too gimped by using it in every form.

Generally, you have created a great system here. I think what's needed to really compleat it is a set of martial classes specific to the world. I like the idea of a variant monk that is more realistic. However, I also think the rest of the martial classes are too deeply rooted in western fantasy to really work well in Avatar.

I really like the idea that really minor bending could be done as a feat. I also really like the minor spellcasting feats from CA, so perhaps that is why. (I even made some for the schools that got left out.) It does seem that a lot of people who are proably straight NPC classed have some bending ability. It also relives the need to replace the Adept class. This combined with Extra Seed could allow for an expert or other NPC to have a fair bending talent, but at the expense of thier feats and never as good a PC classed bender.

For instance, generic fire nation mooks could be warriors with the Fire Bending Talent feat. No need to make every one of them a bender or multiclassed. I think it'd work great.

I think the Bending Talent feat should allow the use of Foo Blast and the other first level freebie seed. It should allow for putting ranks in bending as a crossclass skill. I don't think a limit based on Wis is required because crossclass skills are expensive and have a fairly low cap. It should also qualify you for Extra Bending Seed, which is the only way a nonbender can get any of the other seeds.

I agree that class defense, armor as damage reduction, and the wounds/vitality system would work better to represent the Avatar universe than the baseline DnD systems.

Keep up the good work.

[Lord Tataraus]

Generally, you have created a great system here. I think what's needed to really compleat it is a set of martial classes specific to the world. I like the idea of a variant monk that is more realistic. However, I also think the rest of the martial classes are too deeply rooted in western fantasy to really work well in Avatar.

May I direct your attention to the Avatar Martial Artist thread where I did just that?

[Thantos]

I have a formal request for those that have helped on this project as well as any lurkers that feel they're specially suited for this task: I'd like to playtest the benders in terms of power and balance.

I will do my best to do so. I love testing things on my own personal lab rat, Called my player. It will defently be an interesting fight though. He tends to play fighters with high INT scores and is very good at it so it will be an interesting fight.

[Darkbane]

I'd certainly be willing to help out in a playtest PbP, as well.

[Lord Tataraus]

I'd definitely want to help test, especially with my Martial Artist class. I call dibs on level 20 Ocean Sentinel I'd also like to try out an airbender. Normally, I'd love to run it, but right now I'm too busy to set it up. If nothing gets done too soon though, I'll go ahead and start it.

Edit: on PbP pf course.

[Mephibosheth]

Mephibosheth here, reporting for playtesting duty. I have a definite soft spot in my heart for waterbenders...

[ErrantX]

I'm considering putting together a group sometime in the very near future to put this to the test as well. If it actually does come together, I'll post my results up here for feedback.

-X

[Guyr Adamantine]

Guyr Adamantine, reporting for duty. Earthbenders shall be tested by my hand(Read: Dices)