Originally Posted by
dman11235
As for skills, well, I think know (bending) would be a very viable new skill. I mean, skills are added all the time when necessary, and let's look at the knowledge skills:
arcana: things of arcane nature, magic, etc.
religion: deities, planar stuff (alignment based), etc. Orders fit under this the best (see the monk) btw
nature: wilderness, nature, animal, plants
geography: lands, regions, landforms
architecture and engineering: structures, etc
psionics: powers of the mind, things that utilize psionics
dungeoneering: underground, aberrations
planes: the planes themselves (the spirit world is the ethereal plane, btw)
nobility and royalty: nobles and royals, what'd you expect? (the most worthless one, btw)
Oh, and I forgot local. It doesn't exist in my mind. It's way too specific. And general at the same time. Knowledge skills in general are lame.
Back on topic now, I don't see many there that could fit bending. Religion is your best bet. So you could very easily stick it in there, like they did with monks and spiritualness in core. Now, if you create a new skill, knowledge (bending), you could maybe have it a little more general than that, and have it apply to all forms of martial art, the biggest of which would be bending (much like the biggest of all that arcana covers is arcane casters, butr it still covers magical beasts and supernatural abilities). This one skill could provide the bending you need, i.e., the checks are keyed off of this. In canon, you'd be restricted to only one class, and the avatar template (though I'm not so sure it should be a template, I feel that Aang is no more powerful than anyone else, he's just got the ability to multi-class, and should probably be a PrC instead. Though unique monsters are hard to determine what they are, especially when they're the same race as everything else). or you could leave it as-is and have the bending skill be specific to each class (waterbending, etc.). This option seems...different. On the one hand, I like it because multi-classing the bending classes is now better (you need that one class to advance the skill to its fullest) and on the other it adds more things to the game, and thus complicates things. Now I know that canon doesn't have multi-class benders aside from the avatar, but that's something to consider too here (the avatar). And as an added bonus it makes non-canon adaptation easier. The main advantages of the single knowledge skill are that it makes multi-classing easier, and doesn't introduce as many skills. The downsides are that knowledge skills are int based and that multi-classing is now a no-brainer, as you lose nothing bending power wise by doing it. Advantages of a new system that makes it a level check instead are no skill bonus manipulation (hello +30 ring!), easier calculations, and more balanced characters, especially multi-classed (you can even build it like the ToB system, where your bending level is your class level +1/2 your other levels, to represent continued training). Downsides are no skill manipulation (goodbye, +30 ring:smallfrown:), a need for a new class feature (yeah, tough, I know), and...that's all I got. The best part: you can introduce feats and items to replicate what you miss from it being a skill, and build it to suit your needs. This is, I believe the best option by far.