Avatar d20 fixes

[AstralFire]

Is the PDF seeds section up to date?

Yes, I've taken to updating it exclusively to save myself time. (And if you ever find blank pages out there, it's because OpenOffice seems to have some trouble exporting documents this image rich sometimes. I'm starting to double check on each export now.)

[AstralFire]

Fiddled with Claw of the Phoenix a bit so that it's not so overpoweringly awesome at low levels. Having two-three scaling mechanics available really helps with dealing with 3E's non-linearly scaling power increase. Otherwise, Firebenders seem to be okay at level 7.

[AstralFire]

Beginning work on air. It's in progress, so don't expect nearly as much out of it (it also needs about 3-4 seeds more, I have ideas for two right now), but it -is- really nice that after doing the other three, a lot of the mechanics from the others can be directly cribbed.

Water's Capture seed adjusted by me, again. I just don't really like it, for whatever reason. I think this one may stick, though.

Edit: Alpha of Air is done, brain is friiiiiied but now we just have to make adjustments for the likely many balance issues rather than actually trying to come up with new mechanics. I think.

[AstralFire]

I will be holding a playtest session at level 14, 35 PB on Thursday, hopefully the first of many. Four benders and one Tier 3 class as a ruler.

Some new feats I'm tossing around:
Form Mastery
Through much training, you have managed to master an additional form.
   Benefit: When you first take this feat, you gain Martial Lore as a class skill for all your classes (current and future).
   Select any form from any discipline which you currently have access to. Provided your bending skill is high enough, you learn the form. Your first forms learned of any discipline must be the fundamental forms of that path; all of a discipline's fundamental forms count as a single seed for the purposes of learning them.
   If you have not taken a level of any bending classes prior to taking this feat for the first time, you are considered to be a member of the class associated with the form's discipline for purposes of determining discipline access.
   Special: You may take this feat three times. Each time, it applies to a different form.
   Special: A Fighter may select Form Mastery as a bonus feat.

Open-Minded
You have opened your mind to all the possibilities that the world contains. You do not merely accept or tolerate ideas different from your own, you merge them into your consciousness and they become part of you.
   Benefit: Whenever you are able to learn new bending forms, you may learn them from any of the four disciplines. Your first forms learned of a discipline must be the fundamental forms of that path; all of a discipline's fundamental forms count as a single seed for the purposes of learning them. You may take this feat even if you cannot yet bend.
   Special: Characters with the Avatar template start out with this feat for free. In most circumstances, you need a teacher to help you start the path of another discipline.
   Special: In a canon setting, this feat should be highly restricted.

The more I look at Ski the more I think Waterbenders need something else in its place. It's the most boring and not-useful movement mode. I'd stay in Fire for better Burning Rush, Air for Evasive Roll, Earth for being basically unmoveable by 20. Water, if there was a PrC available, I'd probably want to get out of it by 10-12.

Eh, I dunno. On the other hand, Water Conservation is potentially very useful...

[AstralFire]

Okay, I think I've done everything that I can do that would be useful at the moment. I'm too drained to extoll about flavor, and I absolutely do not want to proceed with Prestige Classes without feedback and playtesting. The thing is pretty damn pretty, and I don't have enough big official art images to use a different one for each chapter.

I've made a grand total of three feats. I'm not sure how many can actually be reasonably made, given the wealth of martial feats already available, and logically allowing Supernatural Feats. I'm sorry if I've infodumped on you all.

[Zuki]

Woo-hoo, looking forward to the playtest tomorrow.

Likewise, AstralFire's updated the PDF just a little bit more with some new images, another small use for the bending mechanic to teach others, and a few more images here and there to spruce things up. Also a credits page and a really shiny ToC

...Am I allowed to talk 'bout how impressive this is? Or am I just shamelessly bumping the thread?

[AfterCrescent]

So I mentioned that this existed to a couple friends and they really want to one-shot this sometime. I'll have to read through all the changes/everything and will definitely take notes when we actually do play.

[dman11235]

Guess what!  I'm back!  And the playtesting....I died before the first and only combat even started.  Natural 3 and 2 on reflex saves vs higher level traps than us.  Because someone decided to pick up a black box on a pedestal.  Smart, huh?  The worst part: I was a waterbender....and the encounter room filled with water the round after I died.  Hopefully yours goes better?

I'll get to the new stuffs gradually over the next two days.  Right now I need to catch up with....everything in the world.

[DetectiveJabsco]

A suggestion for the PDF, The sub headings in the seeds section (Air bending, Earthbendin, Firebending, Waterbending) should be slightly Bigger, I did not realize at first I went for the Air seeds to the Earth seeds.

EDIT: I'm going to be running An RL game with 4 a PC for each element. If session 1 goes well I will start a DM Diary for it.

[AstralFire]

Guess what!  I'm back!  And the playtesting....I died before the first and only combat even started.  Natural 3 and 2 on reflex saves vs higher level traps than us.  Because someone decided to pick up a black box on a pedestal.  Smart, huh?  The worst part: I was a waterbender....and the encounter room filled with water the round after I died.  Hopefully yours goes better?

I'll get to the new stuffs gradually over the next two days.  Right now I need to catch up with....everything in the world.

Dramatic irony's a bitch, huh? I'm DMing tomorrow's playtest, and we're running four benders and one normal as a yardstick, so hopefully there won't be a repeat.  Did your party TPK?

A suggestion for the PDF, The sub headings in the seeds section (Air bending, Earthbendin, Firebending, Waterbending) should be slightly Bigger, I did not realize at first I went for the Air seeds to the Earth seeds.

EDIT: I'm going to be running An RL game with 4 a PC for each element. If session 1 goes well I will start a DM Diary for it.

I just knocked up all the bending section headers four points in size. That good?

[dman11235]

No, there was a wizard in the party.  We were fine (except me, I decided to stay dead since I came into the game not one minute game time before that and just came back as an exactly identical character).

On format: was what you fixed the seed names?  Because last I saw them, some seed names were a smaller font than the text below them.  Namely the water seeds that have more than one use (Ice Shards, Tentacle, etc.), I didn't look at the other three to see if they had the same problem.

One thing I did see: Surf is useless: Move Water+Phase Change.  Form a block of ice.  Stand on it.  Move the ice.  I may be missing something, allow me to check Surf.

EDIT: Yeah, Surf is pretty useless.  By the time you can reliably use faster surf speeds, you can move the ice as fast.  The benefit is currently that Surf is a swift action to maintain rather than a move for Move Water.  Though I don't see either one being useful in combat (too specific, mainly for getting across chasms), so it doesn't matter.  On a side note: Steady Stance: adds to balance checks as well.

[AstralFire]

No, there was a wizard in the party.  We were fine (except me, I decided to stay dead since I came into the game not one minute game time before that and just came back as an exactly identical character).

On format: was what you fixed the seed names?  Because last I saw them, some seed names were a smaller font than the text below them.  Namely the water seeds that have more than one use (Ice Shards, Tentacle, etc.), I didn't look at the other three to see if they had the same problem.

I should have fixed all of those issues for good as of this morning, when I went through the file and line by line checked every section style for consistency. The different applications don't have a bigger font though.

One thing I did see: Surf is useless: Move Water+Phase Change.  Form a block of ice.  Stand on it.  Move the ice.  I may be missing something, allow me to check Surf.

EDIT: Yeah, Surf is pretty useless.  By the time you can reliably use faster surf speeds, you can move the ice as fast.  The benefit is currently that Surf is a swift action to maintain rather than a move for Move Water.  Though I don't see either one being useful in combat (too specific, mainly for getting across chasms), so it doesn't matter.  On a side note: Steady Stance: adds to balance checks as well.

We have a lot of water things. Nix Surf, try to find something to merge it in with? (Can't find something logical in the latter case.) Am open to suggestions.

Fixing that on Steady Stance. The change won't be immediate, I have to give this thing a few minutes to relax before I export or it goes psychobillyfreakout on me.

EDIT: Upped.

[dman11235]

Merge it with Wave.  It's the most logical one I can see, and you'll want to use them together anyways, so why not?  Or we just nix it, and have Shape Water create surfboards...though I kind of like the idea of an easier long-distance movement method.  Wave (Surf) could provide that.  The sub-seed could not be powerful enough to bull-rush (or maybe it could be) and then you also surf on it.  Maintain is a full-round, but as part of that you move really fast.

[AstralFire]

Merge it with Wave.  It's the most logical one I can see, and you'll want to use them together anyways, so why not?  Or we just nix it, and have Shape Water create surfboards...though I kind of like the idea of an easier long-distance movement method.  Wave (Surf) could provide that.  The sub-seed could not be powerful enough to bull-rush (or maybe it could be) and then you also surf on it.  Maintain is a full-round, but as part of that you move really fast.

Surf was always (with my version) designed to go with Riptide. I could see merging them instead from a utility PoV, but they don't feel as logical as Wave+Surf, thematically.

Maybe it could be a skill trick for high balance waterbenders?

[DetectiveJabsco]

Much better, I'll let you know how my Play test goes.

[AstralFire]

Actually, now that I think about it, allowing creation of a surfboard as an augment to Riptide would probably work well; Riptide already carries the rules on speed boosting small objects.

[dman11235]

Skill tricks should be shot.  Great idea, terrible execution.

Though Riptide does work.  The problem with Wave was that I couldn't see it working like its own seed, it seemed more like a combo: Wave+Riptide works for this.

If you don't add it in the next two days I'll probably have an alpha version to add.

[AstralFire]

Skill tricks should be shot.  Great idea, terrible execution.

Huh. You're like the first person I respect that I can recall saying that. May I ask why?

I'll put up my attempt at a combination later today. For now, am hungry.

EDIT: Up there now.

[dman11235]

They're stupid and dumb?

It's because the re-usability was done very wrong.  And some of the bonuses are not worth the skills.  And since when should you need to do something like this to do a basic thing for that skill?  What they should have been was a combination of the skills required to do them, to make skills themselves more useful.  So one that lets you catch the opponent flat-footed is a bluff+tumble check, or just a feint, or something like that.  You shouldn't have to spend those points to get it 1/encounter.  They should be a part of the skills, rather than something extra.

[AstralFire]

I'll admit I haven't looked terribly close at what each individual skill trick does. I remember being underwhelmed with one of the ones for Jump.

I just added the rules for overbending, cooperative bending, and contested bending back in - I hadn't included them for a while. They're generally simplified versions to remove convolution, though I am playing with allowing a bender to take control of a spellcaster/manifester's element, with the roll in favor of the bender. (Since the bender is so much more limited.)