Their bones are remarkable, too -- the colonel says something about Na'vi bones being (partially?) made of naturally occurring carbon fiber. He also says they're tough to kill. That might be worth more than the basic "size large" bonuses.
Maybe. But I doubt it; +4 to Constitution is a
huge jump in health, durability, and general vitality. Add in the +2 Natural Armor, and you've got something that's naturally about three times as durable as a human.
Example: Compare the basic combat stats of two Smart Ordinary characters; they have the same base stats before racial adjustments, and are of the same level.
Level 3 human Smart Ordinary (10 or 11 in all abilities)
- Defense: 11
- HP: 10
- MDT: 11
Level 3 na'vi Smart Ordinary (10 or 11 base abilities)
- Defense: 12
- HP: 16
- MDT: 15
What we see is a massive jump in survivability. The human can be killed by a single 9mm shot (2d6, 10+ damage or 11+ to force a Massive Damage save). The na'vi requires something a great deal nastier, such as an M-16 (2d8, 16+ damage or 15+ to force a Massive Damage save). Thus, these Na'vi require much more killing than equivalently skilled humans would.
I still say that Deadlands would be the better system for an Avatar game (or even it's descendant system, Savage Worlds) since a Size 7 anouk (+/- 1 variable) is bigger than most humans (size 6, +/- 1 variable), and
much harder to kill while still being killable. The Na'vi would be at least Size 8, probably 9; they're tall enough to be Size 10 but far too slightly built.
You could even throw out the horror elements, since they don't really fit most of the Avatar setting (though
some creatures would still have a Terror rating).
It's a conceptually simple system (open-ended roll of [Skill] number of [Trait] type, keep the highest and compare to Target Number [generally between 3 and 13, typically 5]), with a few minor variations (weapon damage is sum of all dice, divide by size of target [round down], integer result is number of wounds to the location, all creatures have 5 wounds in each location) and pretty enjoyable to play if you can wrap your head around the fact that you have to play smart or your character will die.
Mechanically, my only complaints are 1) that character creation is very limited; it's difficult to have both the breadth and depth of skill that many characters would acquire over a decade of heroic experiences. 2) As one acquires supplements, you see a creeping skill bloat; it's one thing to have a new, highly specialized, skill give new options and an easier difficulty than the more common skills, it's an entirely different thing to require these new skills to do the cool stuff you introduce them with.
Regardless of system choice, good luck with your campaign(s).
