Pathfinder 1E The elemental bender class... (yes I'm aware of another topic like this from earlier)

[Evenglare]

So , let's get right down to it. I want to have an elemental bender class (from the last airbender/legend of korra series). I dont want a reskinned class that kind of fights like the benders. I dont want a monk with different ki skills. I dont want to use the elemental wizards. I dont want some kind of derpy warlock. I want an elemental bender class, so to the people who are just going to suggest re-skinning something, or making some cacophony of some crazy classes and race combination, just move along, this isnt why this topic exists.

Now for the people that are curious/want to help etc etc. Here's what I have running around in my head at this moment. I'm going to have a disclaimer right now saying I KNOW this isnt perfect, and I havent ever really DESIGNED a class from scratch. I do have quite a bit of experience in 3.5 and pathfinder though. Pathfinder is interesting because it really breaks the rules and reaches out of the box when addressing classes. In a good way . That's why It's so popular I'm guessing.

There are quite a few attempts at this and honestly I haven't been impressed with any of them. Most of them have been for 3.5 and those classes are generally underpowered as it is . So here we go, let's attempt to create an actual pathfinder class that can hold it's own and be considered a core class. I'm asking YOU the community for input and help balancing (as much as can be). That being said there are some base lines that I have established for this class that I am going to adhere to. These guide lines are going to give this class the feel of how bending in the game should actually work .... I'm fully aware things from the series won't translate over 1:1 , but that's not going to stop me from trying my damndest. So now to guidelines and mantra.

The Elemental Bender
-The elemental bender is 1 class, I dont want 4 different classes for something we can accomplish in one (explained later).
-The most basic things about the class follow a d8 and medium bab. I think it's a pretty good base template for what we can work with an add.
-Saves are all bad . This follows along with the single bending class. Of course all the saves will not be bad after your character is said and done, but we will get to that .
-I'm looking at the mechanics of bending and equating them how the force is used in the star wars saga system. A bender should be able to bend at any time, bending is going to be a skill to be used. I figured each bending type will be a separate skill each using a different attribute (dex for air, wisdom for water, con for earch, and strength for fire).

==The major class mechanic==
-This is what differentiates the class from all others. The class will start off with picking an elemental bending style that will define what kind of bender you are .
At level 1 you will be a novice, 6 you will be a journeyman, 11 you will an expert, 16 you will be a master, and 20 you will be a grandmaster.

I figured each of these ranks (N,J,E,M,GM) will have skills spell like abilities and other such things associated with them. And this is where I am sort of at a block. I'm not sure how to divide these things amongst the base classes. I picture us having at least 2 pages devoted to each bending style. Each style will then have Novice powers /skills /abilities /feats or whatever, and the same with the others. Each style will obviously focus on a particular style of fighting . Air will be dex based so they will be very rogue like. fire will be agressive using strength, they will be powerful and offensive similar to the barbarian or fighter. Earth benders will be defensive, but also cunning using their opponent's weaknesses against them , I'm not sure exactly what class this would relate too... But anyway, the water bender would rely on wisdom, but as such she would have a sort of well rounded ability of offense and defense.

Going back up to the part about the base class having horrible saves, I figure each of these style will grant them the particular saves (possibly even AC or HD or additional attack bonus?) that would fit the type of bender better, for instance, every so often an earth bender would get a bonus to ac, and fort saves.... or something like that.

Now the biggest thing to wrestle with is what and more importantly HOW to let the character access these abilities and at what levels? I was thinking allowing them every other level to acess a bending technique... something akin to a force power. To use this skill they must roll a bending check and then the skill roll is applied to whatever save or CMB or ac or whatever, and it happens. Normally some of the force skills has a sort of threshold ... 15-20-25 etc, so they have to use the skill check to get that high, then the effect happens, and then if they even get higher something better happens.

So basically at this point I'm pretty much out of ideas. I know a class is in there somewhere, and I have to set rules and chissle it out of that mass that is within...
Here is the actual class I have put down so far. Basically me throwing ideas on the table and then arranging them in some way....

Hit die d8
BAB medium
armor prof Light /medium
Wpn prof Simple, Martial
Skill Ranks 4 + Int Modifier


Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 +0 +0 +0 +0 Bending Style (Novice) Bending Skill +1d6
2 +1 +0 +0 +0 Bending Style Art
3 +2 +1 +1 +1 Bending Skill +2d6
4 +3 +1 +1 +1 Bending Style Art
5 +3 +1 +1 +1 Bending Skill +3d6
6 +4 +2 +2 +2 Bending Style (Journeyman)
7 +5 +2 +2 +2 Bending Skill +4d6
8 +6/+1 +2 +2 +2 Bending Style Art
9 +6/+1 +3 +3 +3 Bending Skill +5d6
10 +7/+2 +3 +3 +3 Bending Style Art
11 +8/+3 +3 +3 +3 Bending Style (Expert), Bending Skill +6d6
12 +9/+4 +4 +4 +4 Bending Style Art
13 +9/+4 +4 +4 +4 Bending Skill +7d6
14 +10/+5 +4 +4 +4 Bending Style Art
15 +11/+6/+1 +5 +5 +5 Bending Skill +8d6
16 +12/+7/+2 +5 +5 +5 Bending Style (Master)
17 +12/+7/+2 +5 +5 +5 Bending Skill +9d6
18 +13/+8/+3 +6 +6 +6 Bending Style Art
19 +14/+9/+4 +6 +6 +6 Bending Skill +10d6
20 +15/+10/+5 +6 +6 +6 Bending Style (Grandmaster)

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Some info....
I figured the bending skill +dice would allow an additional die roll when using a bending technique so many times a day... (although i didnt put the per day part in ).
The bending style art woulld essentially gaining a technique. I figure depending on the technique they may add a bonus on something permanently (to raise those saves and attack bonuses and wahtever else.) and then add some sort of power .

Each technique will be denoted (novice, journey ... etc etc.) So when you get to a tier you can choose to learn one of the same tier or lower. This can also be used to create the avatar quite easily , should the gm allow , each rank could allow a different elemental bending style , up to master. At that point you would be a fully realized avatar, and as a grandmaster, you could learn some spirit bending crap or something.

Another cool think about this system is that choosing a style doesn't have to be related to only bending elements. You could learn a warrior of kyoshi style, or blood bending , metal bending , lightening bending. Each of those could be separate bending styles . An even crazier thing (just thinking allowed) is that you could even select a different bending style from a feat or something and (if your GM let's you) you could use it but apply it to YOUR element of bending. Like uncle iroh did with water bending to fire bending.



Anyway, go and critique.

 

[N'raac]

A caveat in that I am not overly familiar with the source material, but would it make sense to design this as almost a series of classes within classes? The Bender starts with, say, d6 and Poor BAB (or d8 and medium - none of those you set out cries out for Poor), and Bad saves. It has some class skills that are common to all Benders, Simple weapon proficiencies and Light armor proficiencies. 4 + INT seems reasonable for skills.

Each Bender type then gets certain enhancements from this baseline. They get a couple of extra class skills (maybe more depending on how you pursue this development). For example, perhaps Air gets Fly as a class skill. Maybe Fire gets better weapon and armor proficiencies. They get one or more saves enhanced. They might get better HD/BAB (maybe everyone gets d8/medium, but Fire gets d10/full).

Rather than a special skill for Bending, why not structure this as a d20 + Bender Level + Attribute Modifier? You can then design the various styles as either specific abilities gained every other level, or a pool of abilities which can be selected from, with a new one gained every other level. The advantage to the latter would be an Extra Art feat. Some Arts, presumably, could be selected only at or above certain levels.

The Arts could require rolls with higher rolls gaining more powerful results. The extra dice could either be added to effect rolls or, perhaps, rolled at the start of the day as a pool. You can then declare (prior to rolling? after rolling?) use of your Skill Pool to enhance the results to obtain a desired effect. You needed a 17 and rolled a 15? Use 2 Skill Points to bump up to a 17. Announced before the roll, you would use as many points as needed to achieve the desired result (perhaps only 1 point if you have too few to get the desired result). This opens up a Feat to add, say, one more d6 to the pool. Benders could choose to be more versatile all around (taking regular feats), more versatile Benders (using Extra Style feats) and/or better at a narrower range (using Extra Skill feats).

Good luck!

 

[Evenglare]

Yes yes, good feed back. You are right ,this IS almost like a class within classes. I would have designed them as sort of archetypes but the thing is you are required to pick what element, so it isnt really like an archetype, somewhere in the middle. I guess I could make the HD poor, but really I was just going for bad saves, but if I decide to up the HD with the builds then I guess I should make the HD poor so each build will be uniform in giving a new HD.

You seem to have a hold on how I want to do this. I never even thought of giving each build it's own class skills (just never really occured to me from what little work I have done). This is exactly the kind of thinking I want.

I REALLY like the d20+bender level + attribute mod. It's much more pathfindery than my original idea. That will definitly be going in there. I figured there would a Novice pool, journeyman pool etc etc... each of these sets would have all the techniques and each technique would be written up like spells giving them cast times, and attributes (all the elements) . I suppose I could make some skills be elementless to be taken by any bender and then their inherent element could be applied. Yes yes, then I could also make a feat and give it the ability to make any technique elementless then any bender could take it (as described above with iroh learning water bending and making it his own).

I really like the dice pool feature, this is exactly what I was going for but couldnt quite pin the idea down in my mind.

This is REALLY helpfull thanks !! (I'll definitly give you credit when I put it out) Ill post back later to show what changes have been made.

 

[Anguish]

Maybe I'm missing it, but you haven't got anything regarding what makes a bender a bender. What does it DO? Details on saving throws or hit dice or how to break down its abilities really should predicate on these "bending techniques". You need to produce the meat & potatoes before you decide on the packaging.

 

[Evenglare]

Well, each of the bending styles will gained in the form of the techniques. I figured I'd get the basics of the class out of the way. Now is the time to work on the class and the techniques that would be provided by them.

 

[paradox42]

I, too, do not know the source material beyond having seen the DVDs in stores and hearing/reading online that the cartoon rocks (and the live-action movie kinda... doesn't). My advice would be to structure the class like the Sorcerer or Oracle: not because they're spellcasters, but rather because they have very few features of their own.

Think about it: what can the Sorcerer really do, besides cast spells? Well, she gets Eschew Materials at 1st level. And then the Bloodline Power. And another Bloodline Power at 3rd. And a Bloodline Spell at 3rd. And a Bloodline Spell at 5th. And a Bloodline feat, and Bloodline Spell, at 7th. Wait a minute, that Bloodline is giving her everything isn't it? All of her real class features are tied up in it (without that she's just a reskinned Wizard).

Oracle has a bit more, she's got the Oracle's Curse. Then she gets the Revelation at 1st, the Mystery Spell at 2nd, the Revelation at 3rd, Mystery Spell at 4th- you see where I'm going with this. Everything but the Oracle's Curse comes from the Mystery the player picks for the character. Everything depends on it- without the Mystery, the Oracle is just a reskinned Cleric without Channel Energy.

The Bloodlines and Mysteries practically are built-in Archetypes for those two classes; in fact, the actual Archetypes given for both classes in later books mostly just change the way the chosen Bloodline or Mystery works.

You appear to want the same thing for your Element Bender. The elements would logically become the "Bloodlines" for your class, in that case; in fact, this sort of design gives you the flexibility to come up with new ones later if you want to (for example, are there Para-element Benders, like Magma, Smoke, Mud, or Ice? How about the Oriental "Five Elements," which would base the class around Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, and Wood, in the order presented for the Wizard schools in Ultimate Magic).

If you go this route, then don't even worry about specific bending techniques and powers at the start- come up with the one global mechanic that rules them all, and put that into the class for the start. It seems like you have a decent handle on that already, especially with N'Raac's suggestions. Let everything else be filled out/in by the Element/Style chosen by the player when the character is made. The class should be pretty generic without the filled-in names and such from the "bloodlines" you make later.

Then, concentrate on finishing one of the Elements/Styles- just the one, ignoring the others as much as you can. The idea here is to get one totally finished so that you can use it as a guide or template for finishing the rest. It'll be much easier to do the others once you have the first completed one to use as a baseline, believe me.