Honestly, way of the four elements monk is literally just that. I don't think anything else really comes close tbh. It's the mixture of elemental control and martial skill.
Depends on which kind of bending you would want the character to specialize in. The Way of Four Elements in the PHB really doesn't have any great Earth abilities and the Fire abilities are pretty expensive Ki-point wise for the damage output. It might be fine for Air or Water if that's what you're looking for. For Earth or Fire, it might be better to just go Sorcerer and focus on either or both those elements for spells. Slightly tone-downed versions of the Phoenix or Stone UA Sorcerers would have been a better fit unless you just really like your character to punch and kick things. So for Fire, I recommend Draconic bloodline Sorcercer with the Elemental Adept feat. For Earth, you might as well play a Land Druid and argue for reflavoring some of the plant-based spells like Plant Growth and Tree Stride to apply to rocks and cliffs instead of the green stuff.
I think earthbender is the hardest. I built an earth genasi mountain druid to be a bit of one but i think maximilians earthen grasp is key to capturing the earth bending ability and that's not available to druids. So maybe a stone-giant-soul sorcerer? (The giant soul doesn't really add anything earthbendery)
(I dont remember them actually punching or kicking much in a:tla... only Ty Lee would make physical contact. I think a spell caster is better and it's up to you and your dm if their spell somatics have martial art flair)
Honestly I'd go sorcerer. I've currently got a storm sorcerer and decided to limit myself only to spells that were storm-related (lightning, thunder, water, wind), and while it's limiting, it's still really fun.
Where I'm going with that is, you could probably do that with any chosen element, just taking spells related to that element (can be loosely done, e.g. my storm sorc. taking invisibility as wind-related), and there are some UA sorcerer origins that fit that way, like the sea sorcerer, Phoenix sorcerer, or stone sorcerer.
That's an option if you don't feel like playing 4e monk.
I know this is old but for an air bender I would go soul knife rouge and then storm soccer. Soul knifes get a lot of cool tricks that could be flavored as water or air bending least of all the soul knifes themselves with a high dex and expertise you can pull off some gravity defying feats. I would personally pick Sharder-ki elf for the build flavoring the teleportations as the extra fast speeds that can be achieved through air bending.
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The most obvious seems to be using a Genasi race and Monk class. But I was wondering if you guys had any unique perspectives on how you would do it?
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Honestly, way of the four elements monk is literally just that. I don't think anything else really comes close tbh. It's the mixture of elemental control and martial skill.
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Way of four elements and magic initiate to grab a few suitable spells.
Oh, MI is a good addition
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Depends on which kind of bending you would want the character to specialize in. The Way of Four Elements in the PHB really doesn't have any great Earth abilities and the Fire abilities are pretty expensive Ki-point wise for the damage output. It might be fine for Air or Water if that's what you're looking for. For Earth or Fire, it might be better to just go Sorcerer and focus on either or both those elements for spells. Slightly tone-downed versions of the Phoenix or Stone UA Sorcerers would have been a better fit unless you just really like your character to punch and kick things. So for Fire, I recommend Draconic bloodline Sorcercer with the Elemental Adept feat. For Earth, you might as well play a Land Druid and argue for reflavoring some of the plant-based spells like Plant Growth and Tree Stride to apply to rocks and cliffs instead of the green stuff.
I think earthbender is the hardest. I built an earth genasi mountain druid to be a bit of one but i think maximilians earthen grasp is key to capturing the earth bending ability and that's not available to druids. So maybe a stone-giant-soul sorcerer? (The giant soul doesn't really add anything earthbendery)
(I dont remember them actually punching or kicking much in a:tla... only Ty Lee would make physical contact. I think a spell caster is better and it's up to you and your dm if their spell somatics have martial art flair)
Honestly I'd go sorcerer. I've currently got a storm sorcerer and decided to limit myself only to spells that were storm-related (lightning, thunder, water, wind), and while it's limiting, it's still really fun.
Where I'm going with that is, you could probably do that with any chosen element, just taking spells related to that element (can be loosely done, e.g. my storm sorc. taking invisibility as wind-related), and there are some UA sorcerer origins that fit that way, like the sea sorcerer, Phoenix sorcerer, or stone sorcerer.
That's an option if you don't feel like playing 4e monk.
I know this is old but for an air bender I would go soul knife rouge and then storm soccer. Soul knifes get a lot of cool tricks that could be flavored as water or air bending least of all the soul knifes themselves with a high dex and expertise you can pull off some gravity defying feats. I would personally pick Sharder-ki elf for the build flavoring the teleportations as the extra fast speeds that can be achieved through air bending.