I like the sustained training thing, easily solves the dead level problem.

can I bump my bending for people without levels in the class again? Every time I post about it, it gets ignored for some other pressing matter

Quote Originally Posted by me, about 20 pages ago
I have refined my bending for non-bending classes a bit more, to reflect those who have the skill but do not have the mastery of the bending class (like katara at the beginning of the series, or maybe haru from his first appearance)

Any given bending skill is a cross-class skill if the character does not have levels in the appropriate bending class.

[maybe make bending a class skill for other classes who benefit from a high wis]

The skill grants the appropriate manipulate ability (including freeze/melt for water) and a 1d6 blast (though it incurs a -4 penalty to the attack roll without the appropriate bending study or exotic weapon proficiency feat).

Features that grant bonuses or penalties, such as the child of the sun/moon affect this skill. In addition to the synergy from knowledge (bending), 5 or more ranks in any other bending skill* grants another +2 synergy bonus.

Bending range is 30 feet, save DC 10 + 1/3 character level + the character's wisdom modifier.

Seeds: For each level that the character adds ranks to this skill, she may learn 1 seed, the maximum seeds known being her half wisdom modifier, rounded up. (Ideally, the character would have access to a teacher or scroll to learn these seeds.)

Should the character choose to take a level in the appropriate bending class, the seeds learned before taking the level do not stack with the class's seeds known. Effectively, the character cannot gain new seeds until the class's seeds known is greater than the seeds she knew before taking levels in the bending class.

Example: a level 5 monk with 18 wis has been learning a bit of airbending on the side, and knows 2 seeds. She wants to expand this ability, and decides to multi-class to airbender. She gains all the other abilities of an airbender, but will not learn any more seeds until she gains 4 levels in the class Bottom line - no character will ever know more than 11 seeds without the extra seed feat.

*I added this clause for the non-canon purposes of learning multiple bending skills, but I decided to post this here rather than the non-canon thread because the bulk of the implications are for npc benders or characters who want a bit of bending ability without multi-classing.