I know that a lot of people hate it when players draw character inspiration from anime (or anime-inspired programming, as the case may be), but I'm nevertheless going for it anyway.

If any of you are familiar with the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, I'm specifically asking for your opinions.

I'm trying to create a character that acts as a waterbender, and though I'm no stranger to homebrewing I want to know if I can pull it off with published material as-is.

My group will be using the Pathfinder RPG for the game, so I'm thinking of an Unearthed Arcana simple variant druid with access to the Water domain. He'd focus on unarmed strikes and take lots of water spells, but overall I worry that the class doesn't fully embody the concept of waterbending and the bredth of applications it possesses. I certainly don't expect to duplicate it exactly (especially not in a vancian spellcasting system), but I want to capture the spirit of the concept more than anything else.

ALL Paizo or WotC books (including the magazines) are allowed, and I've already looked over Frostburn and Stormwrack, but haven't really found what I'm looking for. (The wavekeeper class is just . . . awful.)

Other ideas include a water elemental bloodline sorcerer or a swordsage (from Tome of Battle) and homebrewing a "waterbending" martial discipline. But I like said before, I want to avoid homebrewing.

ANY SUGGESTIONS?

I'm sorry to post this here, but 3.5 is pretty much dead over at the WotC boards . . .

Thanks guys!

Water Shugenja, from Complete Divine.

Spirit Shaman, focus on water based druid spells, from complete divine.

Straight up druid, but only pick water type spells.

I have Avatar: Last Airbender the RPG (D20).

My feeling is that Avatar isn't the kind of setting that lends itself well to d20.

Bending does not lend itself to spell magic it's more of a matter of martial form + magic.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this might very well be a good example of something that might be better served by either 4th Edition or using something along the White Wolf Storyteller system.

I'd say Bending would require two things knowledge of both the Element and a martial form for the type of bending required. And there can easily be more than one form used for element. Redirection of Lightning for example while a Fire Bending move uses the martial form that's taught to WaterBenders.

So if you were using a 4e mechanic you'd make a d20 role with modifers against an appropriate target. i.e. a hit against Fortitude for BloodBending. Or in Storyteller you'd use your accumulated dots to roll dice and judge the effect by the number of successes

Wow, thanks everyone for the feedback! I was definitely considering the water shugenja, but I'm concerned that most of its spells are more thematic when it comes to water than actually spells that create [water] descriptor effects, etc.

Unfortunately, my group only plays 3.5 d20 games, so a Storyteller system game is out of the question, and I'm not really allowed to use third party material either.

Maybe, I can solve my problem from a different angle . . .

Does anyone know of any past issues of Dragon that might have water spells or water-themed prestige classes?

Thanks for all the help!

This may be way outside your comfort zone, but hopefully it will help...

I'll start by saying my wife and I love Avatar--great plots, excellent character development, and a wonderful set of role-models for our son.

That said, I've put a lot of thought into what a bender character would be like in d20 and I settled on one source book, Magic of Incarnum. I don't feel that bending is really captured by d20 spells, given their constant nature and specific focus. Soulmelds, however, provide a perfect mechanic. Take the Bending Arts detailed over on the Avatar Wiki, mesh them with the existing soulmelds for some reflavoring (and maybe some custom melds with DM permission), and you're good to go. Now, the reason I threw out my opening comment is because many people seem to discount the Incarnum mechanics as too foreign/unwieldy/whatever. All I can say for this is I played an Incarnum character from 1st-15th levels and had a blast. It took me about 2.5 reads through the mechanics to really grasp the intricacies, but I found it to be a very fun system.

An old Dragon article mentioned reflavoring spells. You want to make a cabal of cold wizards, but are put off by how few low level spells their apprentices will have? Reflavor Burning Hands to spray a blast of icy shards. Same effect, different descriptor.

Quite a few spells could be thematically changed so that their effect is based off of water, or the manipulation of body within a person's body. Pick the spells you find most appropriate, and then flavor them to suit the new theme.

The ideal class, IMO, for this sort of conversion, would be the Warlock. Change the Eldritch Blast to a blast of liquid (or fire, or wind, or hurled stones) and you've got an Elemental Warlock. Pick out the most appropriate Invocations, and reflavor them as well to suit the theme (and pillaging from the Dragonfire Adept's list for extra options), and you should be good to go. Blast Invocations like Repelling Blast and Blinding Blast would seem best suited to Water, but others are probably just as easily adaptable.

Perhaps the magic system used in the Wheel of Time role playing game could serve as inspiration. However, use it carefully, because it is not very balanced.

Perhaps using genasi as race could serve as inspiration as well. You could use genasi and then multiclass them as monk/sorcerer.

My daughter is an avatar fan. When she started playing D&D recently she wanted to play a monk, and I suspect he is somewhat based on Aang, although she denies it.

I briefly played a Dwarf wizard, deliberately patterned after an Earthbender, and ran into similar problems. The solution my DM and I came up with was just to change the descriptors on a lot of existing spells to make them physical damage instead of their existing damage type. So my Scorching Ray became Stone Bolt and my Fireball was now and Earth Eruption. I also picked up a reserve feat from Complete Arcane that basically let me hurl around Mud Bullets so long as I kept an acid spell of 2nd level or higher memorized; that made a nice 'default' Earthbending attack.

You could probably do the same by changing a few descriptors on existing spells to be either physical or cold damage, and by picking up a similar reserve feat. Even just changing the description for non-damaging spells goes a long way: Entangling could summon liquid tendrils from groundwater, Fly could hurl you into the air atop a column of water, and Expeditious Retreat could mimick that wave-riding Katara did at the end of the season two finale.

My daughter is an avatar fan. When she started playing D&D recently she wanted to play a monk, and I suspect he is somewhat based on Aang, although she denies it.

She is!

My feeling is that Avatar isn't the kind of setting that lends itself well to d20.

Bending does not lend itself to spell magic it's more of a matter of martial form + magic.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this might very well be a good example of something that might be better served by either 4th Edition or using something along the White Wolf Storyteller system.

I'd say Bending would require two things knowledge of both the Element and a martial form for the type of bending required. And there can easily be more than one form used for element. Redirection of Lightning for example while a Fire Bending move uses the martial form that's taught to WaterBenders.

So if you were using a 4e mechanic you'd make a d20 role with modifers against an appropriate target. i.e. a hit against Fortitude for BloodBending. Or in Storyteller you'd use your accumulated dots to roll dice and judge the effect by the number of successes

In response to LazarX, I've come to a similar conclusion about bending in D&D. Though I wish it could happen, the system doesn't well lend itself to such things, and 4E might be the way to go. Nonetheless, when my player wanted to play a waterbender (great minds think alike, eh?) the closest thing we could do was to simply reflavor what it was he was doing every turn. He could play a monk and take that Ki Blast feat from PHB2, but we would say it was him bending the water and whipping it at his opponents. Mechanically it was identical, but flavorfully it was quite different... yet he wasn't satisfied. Eventually, (and unfortunately) we gave up.

Ironically, we did succeed in making a sort of Zuko character, in a most unlikely way: We used the Weapons of Legacy book and grabbed that scimitar that has some fiery powers (I can't remember the name). So far its been wonderfully cool, and hasn't let my player down. Maybe there's something in there for a waterbending type class, but if there is, we haven't found it.

I haven't checked out Magic of Incarnum yet... interesting suggestion. I'll take a look and see what I can find. Good luck!

Check this out: Avatar d20

Hi everyone! Thanks for all the responses!

I've made some headway since my last post, and I've settled into what I think works out pretty well. Keep in mind, it's a gestalt game.

Druid-Swordsage.

Using the Nature Bond class feature, he's picked up the Water domain instead of an animal companion. I then went through Stormwrack, Frostburn, and the Spell Compendium, cataloging every water and ice spell available to druids. Now I've got my big, flashy waterbending effects covered.

With Swordsage I mostly focused Setting Sun and Stone Dragon techniques. Setting Sun involves a lot of throws and focuses on redirecting attacks, like waterbending's inspiration, Tai Chi. Stone Dragon allows for attacks that overcome DR and hardness, immobilizing enemies (or rather, freezing them in the waterbender's case), and knockbacks. I could use unarmed strikes and just say I'm waterbending, but my DM and I came up with one better.

An orison (which in Pathfinder's 3.5, is at will!)

WATERBENDING
Conjuration [Water]
Level: Druid 0
Components: S, M
Casting Time: 1 swift action
Range: 10 ft.; see text
Effect: Weapon-like gathering of water
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You magically pull water from a nearby source no farther than 10 ft. away and wield the liquid as a light melee weapon appropriate to your size. The water deals 1d4 damage on a successful hit (critical 20/x2), which can either be slashing or bludgeoning at your choice when you make your attack roll. You can use the water to make multiple attacks, if you have any as granted by a high base attack bonus. You may choose to use the water to make a single ranged attack up to a distance of 30 ft., but doing so ends the spell.

Material Component: A full waterskin’s worth of water or otherwise harmless liquid (one half-gallon).

Since my character is from a really remote part of the world, living among frosty North-dwellers, this spell is considered kind of regional. With this orison, my character can effectively waterbend and use it as a weapon for his martial maneuvers.

I realize some of the technical writing isn't the best, so if anyone wants to help me out with it, well, that'd be great! Also, should the damage be lowered to 1d3? Balance ideas would also be really helpful!

My kid not only loves Avatar, ht looks more like him than the one that's gonna be in the new movie...

Strange though, he's never wanted to play Avatar in D&D...

definitely going to use those benders in my normal game though, it's well thought out, and works as a skill based style with it's own dangers...

Firebenders seem a bit over the top in that system though, with the ability to channel the 1d6 fire damage into their unarmed attack as well? and the 6d6 per attack at 20th level, combine that with a haste and you're looking at 24d6 dmg.

Also I'm not seeing range increments for the attacks. I would put them at 10ft.

I would also drop dmg to 1d4 at first level, then 1d6, 2d4, 1d4+1d6, 3d4 and finally 3d6. for their fire blast progression.

Another cool pic, Xaaon.