Increase augments are optional, must be chosen before a bending check is made, and increase the difficulty you need to hit to successfully bend the form in the first place. (These are the ones that refer to an augment pool, though it doesn't need to be that complicated.)
What if they didn't? If you could dynamically choose how to spend your Augment Pool after your roll. Having to gamble each time you use your main class abilities is depressing. In the playtest we will either allow Taking 10 at all times or dynamic increase augments.
Then the only difference between
increase and
exceed augments would be that the first are limited by your augment pool and the second are limited by your total bending skill? I suppose it doesn't really change much, since you'd only have been gambling when threatened (that was the point). Of the two options you present I personally would prefer dynamic augments, with the caveat that you can never take 10 while threatened without spending a feat (meditation form or not). It works like a skill, so a d20 should be rolled every once in a while.
We will turn Hurricane Breath into Breath of the Dragon as well.
Good idea.
This might sound crazy and like a big change but here me out. What if you didn't need to know seeds? If you knew them all automatically and could use any of them at any time/at the same time? I like the idea of knowing all seeds because the versatility they offer. And because so many overlap it's difficult to comprehend knowing one without the other.
I agree that benders don't quite get enough seeds at first level to be really effective, and could use a faster progression otherwise, but there need to be more seeds for that to work. Dman and AstralFire wanted it to be impossible to get all the seeds so there would be some distinction between benders of the same element.
Also, the way things are set up right now is supposed to model Katara over the course of the series. She starts out barely able to splash water around (except when she's seriously pissed off) at what is probably pre-first level, but ends up able to take out dozens of mooks at a time by around 10th level and even take out a BBEG (Azula) in two-to-three rounds solo after some set-up time. That's the intent, but the system is yet to be playtested as far as I know.
On the other hand, there's so much variety available with just the seeds we have right now it's possible no two benders will be alike anyhow. You're supposed to be able to work with your DM to mix the seeds you have into new, individualized forms.
- A Waterbender with Ice shards and Water Whip could bend a Glacier Chain: a spiked chain that does half-cold damage and can have its reach augmented, among other things.
- An Earthbender could mix Earthsight with Dust Cloud to give himself blindsense in a sandstorm or blend Density with Dirt Spray to silence a caster by encasing its mouth in stone (or give Dex penalties by encasing other body parts).
- An Airbender could use Soundbending with Flowing Air Strike to cause sonic damage and deafen with unarmed strikes.
Just a few seeds can mean a plethora of options. See
these two old GitP threads for more examples (many of them outdated, but you get the idea).
Then you take Advanced Bending and double the bonus it grants. I want to see Advanced Bending doubled because it gives a compelling reason to stick it out to Bender 20 versus multiclassing out. It also grants a rather large power boost I think is in order. If we accept that the Gaang caps out at level 10-15* then there is still room to grow. Level 20 in DnD is a huge fucking deal. Taking over nations should be easy by this level, bordering on an adventuring group taking over a Plane. The Gaang simply doesn't represent this power at the end of the series, and the power level for the system seems to currently cap out at what they are capable of.
*obviously this excludes Avatar State Aang. That's what I think a level 20 should look like.
If you're gonna double its bonus you might as well make it add 1 + Bender Level to your bending skill, starting at level 3, for a smoother progression. You're essentially making Bending skill equal to
11 + 2(Bender Level) + 1/2(Other Class Levels) + Wisdom Modifier when taking 10 by that point. I thought it was the other unique class features like
Burning Rush,
Circular Attack,
Kinetic Grace,
Rock Steady and
Wind Dancer that would encourage sticking it out, though.
