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Bending Elements In D&D
I am having that strange and terrible urge to GM again. One of my major campaigns is coming to an end, and in the interim there's probably going to be a bunch of things my crew will be trying. I might put in a bid to try running something for them, IF I can come up with enough for folks to actually play with without tearing my hair out.
I really, really want to do a game with the Avatar D20 supplement the good folks of the GitP boards came up with- I don't necessarily want to run an Avatar: the Last Airbender game. So my thoughts are running around the question of what do folks think that a setting with the A:tLA system of 'magic', rather than the classic wizards, druids and clerics, would be like.
My initial thought is that the various types of 'bending are mostly human's magic, but with a couple of other species getting in on the action either as having mimicked it, or having originated it. Possibly non-human types like elves have their own magics, but I'll have to figure out what specific systems I want to include, so that things don't get too wildly out of whack (although high-level anything in a d20 system is going to be screwy any way you look at it). I like the idea of combat being more about the different moves you can do, physically or elementally, rather than straight-up fire and forget arcana.
As for the setting itself- I'm thinking that this might be taking place in a small sea, in a place where there are a lot of large islands kind of near to each other, so that boat travel is frequent but you can also fetch up on a shore where you could go for a few days without seeing water on the other side, and possibly find the edges of some larger continents where civilization's grown up. I'm seeing the elves as fairly reclusive on their particular islands, but the lower classes among them are known to show up outside their shores, fishing and trading.
Another big thing to think about- what are the problems that the adventurers are going to encounter? Things like dragons and zombies are very very classic D&D, but they aren't going to fit without some serious adjustment- like if zombies are just corpses being blood-bent by a master witch. You know, that could be an interesting thing, because as is, blood-bending is basically epic tier- it would be much easier to puppeteer a dead thing by its liquids than a live one.
I really, really want to do a game with the Avatar D20 supplement the good folks of the GitP boards came up with- I don't necessarily want to run an Avatar: the Last Airbender game. So my thoughts are running around the question of what do folks think that a setting with the A:tLA system of 'magic', rather than the classic wizards, druids and clerics, would be like.
My initial thought is that the various types of 'bending are mostly human's magic, but with a couple of other species getting in on the action either as having mimicked it, or having originated it. Possibly non-human types like elves have their own magics, but I'll have to figure out what specific systems I want to include, so that things don't get too wildly out of whack (although high-level anything in a d20 system is going to be screwy any way you look at it). I like the idea of combat being more about the different moves you can do, physically or elementally, rather than straight-up fire and forget arcana.
As for the setting itself- I'm thinking that this might be taking place in a small sea, in a place where there are a lot of large islands kind of near to each other, so that boat travel is frequent but you can also fetch up on a shore where you could go for a few days without seeing water on the other side, and possibly find the edges of some larger continents where civilization's grown up. I'm seeing the elves as fairly reclusive on their particular islands, but the lower classes among them are known to show up outside their shores, fishing and trading.
Another big thing to think about- what are the problems that the adventurers are going to encounter? Things like dragons and zombies are very very classic D&D, but they aren't going to fit without some serious adjustment- like if zombies are just corpses being blood-bent by a master witch. You know, that could be an interesting thing, because as is, blood-bending is basically epic tier- it would be much easier to puppeteer a dead thing by its liquids than a live one.
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Once upon a time, the ability to use all four elements was heartily abused in the long-ago wars of elven expansion. The gods decreed that that wasn't happening anymore, and that no one would ever be able to bend more than one element again- and further, that the elves would not bend at all. Nowadays, 'bending is considered a human magic, with the talent being found among other races usually indicating some human ancestry. But some factions- namely, a brash young elven prince whose star is rising behind the high walls of the elves' mysterious capital- think that the ability to not only regain their gods-stolen gifts, but to wield all four at once again can be recovered by delving into ancient secrets found beyond the current elven borders. His agents have broken the isolation in secret, and if he finds what he's looking for, all sorts of trouble may cut loose.
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Suggestion: If the elves are as long lived as in normal D&D or just lives to the 300 hundred as in Trudvagn, then I have hard to see them as normal farmers, they should be using one of the 'lesser' races as peasants and servants (I suggest halflings as they are good at it, don't complain as long as they have something to eat and are not as tall as the elves).
Of some reason I now picture the Elves as Edo Japanese
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I figure the peasants are more half-elven than anything, and that the farther you are from the capital, or the more you associate with the mortal types, the shorter your lifespan is, sort of borrowing from Dragon Age where elves were once immortal, but adapt so easily that being around the 'shemlen' or 'quick-children' brought them to age and die.
Ooh- now there *is* a thought. Halflings and half-elves are the peasants, but there are elven nobles to oversee things, at what is basically a punishment post out in the world. Rome, Greece, Japan, China- every big civilization had a tendency to see being away from the heart of their own culture as a punishment.
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Now I can not unsee the elves as a pointy eared version of the Crane Clan from L5R
"Ooh- now there *is* a thought. Halflings and half-elves are the peasants, but there are elven nobles to oversee things, at what is basically a punishment post out in the world. Rome, Greece, Japan, China- every big civilization had a tendency to see being away from the heart of their own culture as a punishment."
Sounds like a good idea.
B.T.W. if you did not know it so has Dragon #289 rules for wuxia ninjas
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Humm, the later is actually a good idea, the elves could be like Piandao, Mai and Ty Lee so skilled that they don’t need bending to be a high level threat.
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Hm. Bards. Their abilities are spell-like- I'm not sure they'd fit in. Better for rogues to take up the role of flim-flammery when needed.
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