Role Playing in Avatar.

[Orion]

So how would this system model him? Sure, he's master tier, but if he has access to fewer styles than Azule and Iroh, that implies that he's lower level.

[Maxus]

So how would this system model him? Sure, he's master tier, but if he has access to fewer styles than Azule and Iroh, that implies that he's lower level.

If the system allows you to raise your raw power, I think we can assume he just whored his points into increasing his damage and all.

[Username17]

Shooting lightning is a really big deal in Avatar. If you can do it at all, it means you're really bad ass. There are only three people in the entire series who can do it - Firelord Ozai, his brother, and his daughter. Seriously, those are the only people. And when Iroh or Azula do it, they have to center themselves and clear their minds and work on their breath for a few seconds before they let fly. Ozai just does it. Like, while sitting down and shit. To put things in perspective: when Iroh went out and developed lightning redirection as a technique, there was only one man in the whole world that he could actually use it on: his own brother Ozai. Ozai is a scary man, and Iroh left home and spent half his life mastering techniques to defend himself from Ozai just because he is that scary.

As for Shadowbending, it appears in the associated comics with the one-off character Analay. True story: she was the result of a contest where kids could send in their ideas for characters with new bending disciplines and the best ones would show up in the comics. Shadow bending is actually pretty fucking awesome, so it is no surprise that whoever threw that one in was one of the winners.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

Unbreakable is genuinely great.

Unbreakable completely lost me when it was established that the main character had played football at the college level and yet had zero clue how much he could bench.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Since so much ground has already been covered in preceding pages, I would just like to say that I wholeheartedly approve of this thread.

[Prak]

Unbreakable is genuinely great.

Unbreakable completely lost me when it was established that the main character had played football at the college level and yet had zero clue how much he could bench.

eh, there are factors that explain that.... it's been a while and he didn't keep up. His coaches would have wanted him to not endanger himself (not knowing he couldn't), so he'd likely never have gone to his actual max.

[Josh_Kablack]

Prak: Have you or M. Night ever even talked to a jock? Even just once?

That scene is like having a scene in your movie in which a gamer is surprised to see a 20-sided die. Even though it's technically possible such a person only played GURPs/SR4/HERO/Traveller/Fate, Amber/Everway or other d6 or diceless games. Such a scene would be mind-blowingly preposterous and reveal that the writer was putting his own ignorance on screen in a ploy to gain the sympathy of an ignorant audience, even though a character with that background who didn't have that knowledge would be so exceedingly unusual as to require a special explanation why such a character wouldn't know it.

[Prak]

Prak: Have you or M. Night ever even talked to a jock? Even just once?

In my case, unfortunately, yes. I can't speak for Mr. Night, but I've strived very hard to avoid such unfortunate occasions.

That scene is like having a scene in your movie in which a gamer is surprised to see a 20-sided die. Even though it's technically possible such a person only played GURPs/SR4/HERO/Traveller/Fate, Amber/Everway or other d6 or diceless games. Such a scene would be mind-blowingly preposterous and reveal that the writer was putting his own ignorance on screen in a ploy to gain the sympathy of an ignorant audience, even though a character with that background who didn't have that knowledge would be so exceedingly unusual as to require a special explanation why such a character wouldn't know it.

Makes sense, I was just putting forth a case that explained why he wouldn't know. It was honestly one of the more forgettable scenes in the movie...

[Ganbare Gincun]

Unbreakable is genuinely great.

Unbreakable completely lost me when it was established that the main character had played football at the college level and yet had zero clue how much he could bench.

And it was completely predictable. But aside from that, it is a fairly entertaining movie. Certainly better then some of his other films like "the Happening" and "Signs". But *great*? Not so much.

[Josh_Kablack]

So, 8 episodes into the sequel series, set "70 years later" (although the math does not add up on that timing) here's what I've seen about the advanced setting and new campaign:

• Lightning throwing is no longer in any way rare - not only does Mako causually toss it around as an attack, but the Republic City powerplant hires benders to throw lightning into capacitors.
• Metalbending is no longer in any way rare - it's the default training of the Republic City police force. However it does get a new kryptonite so that you can still box up metalbenders in your prison.
• Chi Blocking is no longer in any way rare - it is the default training for the mooks of the anti-bending antagonist organization.
• Bending deletion is still foil-rare, but apparently not unique to Aang
• Bloodbending is still foil-rare, but has gotten a powerup since the last series.
• Airbending is still rare due to the fire-nation's destruction of the Air Temples - all current airbenders are blood relations of Aang (at least until the current Avatar learns airbending).
• The Avatar is still a unique position and comes with some prestige regardless of competence or eloquence.
• Bending as combat sport has evolved from the Earth-bending arena of The Boulder to incorporate multi-element teams.
• With some training and clever use of technological advances, it's possible for non-bender PCs to hold their own in a party of pro-benders. In this series that means racecars, smokescreens, explosives, taser gloves and powered armor.

[Prak]

Yeah, that whole "Platinum is too pure to metalbend!" thing made no sense, but I suppose they need some form of phlebotinum.

[Kaelik]

Yeah, that whole "Platinum is too pure to metalbend!" thing made no sense, but I suppose they need some form of phlebotinum.

Oh fuck yeah did I laugh at that. An alloy of two metals is too pure to bend.

[name_here]

Technically, elementally pure metals are not valid targets for metalbending, it works by affecting bits of rock or dirt that didn't get removed during the forging process.

Though what was wrong with putting Earthbenders in wooden cages?

[Prak]

I could have sworn the rational was "metal is a mineral, just like rocks and dirt are," not "they fucked up the forging process."

Wood probably worked until some earthbender thought "hey, there's stone down there eventually." and just reached until he was able to pull a slab of earth right through the wooden floor.

[Kaelik]

Technically, elementally pure metals are not valid targets for metalbending, it works by affecting bits of rock or dirt that didn't get removed during the forging process.

Though what was wrong with putting Earthbenders in wooden cages?

I'm legitimately confused by what you are trying to say.

What do you think rock and dirt are if not metals? They certainly aren't noble gasses.

Metal is just part of the earth, it's not like Earth benders can't lift dirt that contains Iron or Beryllium or Cadmium or Calcium in it. And those are all metals. All Dirt is just made up of big piles of undifferentiated metals.

Now, if you want to say that pure metals are different from undifferentiated metals, that would be one thing, but since they apparently can bend pure gold, but can't bend "pure" platinum, it is clearly true that the uniformity of the block of metal isn't the issue.

[Soda]

The metalbending episode specifically mentions that Toph is bending the impurities in the metal.

"Toph is able to perceive the trace amount of "un-purified" crude earth still present in the metal, target it, and utilize it to bend the purified metal itself.[1]"

[Prak]

Well, that's dumb, and makes the idea that platinum is too pure even more stupid.

[Juton]

Platinum is an element, like gold or iron, its atomic number is 78. So you can have pure Platinum.

Soil (Earth) is mainly Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Many rocks are made up of Silicon as well. Neither Carbon or Silicon is a metal.

Maybe it is different in the Avatar universe but Platinum is really rare, having enough of it to construct a massive door and multiple Mecha would require tens or hundreds of tons. Besides cost being a factor it might not be possible for anyone on planet earth to gather that much of the material.

[K]

Platinum is an element, like gold or iron, its atomic number is 78. So you can have pure Platinum.

Soil (Earth) is mainly Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Many rocks are made up of Silicon as well. Neither Carbon or Silicon is a metal.

Maybe it is different in the Avatar universe but Platinum is really rare, having enough of it to construct a massive door and multiple Mecha would require tens or hundreds of tons. Besides cost being a factor it might not be possible for anyone on planet earth to gather that much of the material.

I just assumed that they used benders to mine the stuff. The industrialist's secret underground factory kind of screams "made by benders."

Still, I'd agree that platinum has some kind of magical properties that foil earth bending. It would also explain why Korra didn't just bury the mecha instead of trying to throw other kinds of bending at them.

On an unrelated note, where is the blood bending? I've watched all the new episodes and a lot of the old ones, and that seemed to have escaped me.

[Soda]

Toph was also shown to be unable to bend gold while they were captured in the grifting episode.



Or it's gold paint.

Bloodbending is in season3episode8 and was just shown again in yesterday's episode8.

[Chamomile]

I don't think Toph's style of metalbending would've had much effect in that episode anyway. Toph almost always operates by tossing around huge chunks of the stuff, either ripping it right out of her way or sending a few metric tonnes of it flying at someone. Making bracelets into precision cutting weapons doesn't seem like something she ever bothered learning how to do.

[hyzmarca]

Well, that's dumb, and makes the idea that platinum is too pure even more stupid.

Platinum is at the bottom of the reactivity series. It's even less reactive than gold. When Toph is talking about bending "unpurified crude earths" she probably means metal oxides and sulfides (which comprise most of the metal ores around).


Smelting isn't perfect, and even if it was most metals oxidize in the air over time. Platinum just happens to be a metal that doesn't oxidize easily at all and is usually found in its native form.

[Juton]

Making bracelets into precision cutting weapons doesn't seem like something she ever bothered learning how to do.

In the episode where Katara learns blood bending Toph turns her metal bracelet into a key, so she is capable of using earth or metal bending with precision.

[Username17]

Most gold is only 58.5% pure, so in addition to gold being more reactive than platinum, it's still entirely reasonable that it might not be reactive to earthbending at all and still get warped by its contaminants.

Early on I was sure that Tarrlok was Amon without the mask, but they actually showed Amon's fingers and he has a distinctly different skin color from Tarrlok. Still: obvious villain is obvious.

-Username17

[Prak]

Makeup. But yes, obvious villain is obvious.