How would you make a fire mage feel original, something more interesting than your archetypic fireballs dunkmachine?

E X P L O S I O N S

Focus less on flame than heat?

Dark Souls style worshipping the flame as a bringer of light and life.

Make them fire worshipers like Zoroastrians, almost like clerics with some kind of fire domain. Their thing is to constantly guard and cultivate a sacred flame they always carry with them, and through which they cast magic.

building on this
in an arctic setting someone capable of creating fire that burns for extended periods/forever without using any fuel would be seen as a massive life saver.
one use i've seen for it involves the wickerman in pathfinder. it's basically a giant golem covered in fire but requires a human sacrifice to make. seeing as how one of these patrolling around a city can keep the whole thing much warmer and well lit these were seen as basically walking angels. being used as the sacrifice was volunteer only and considered a great honor, with the rest of the person's family being instantly bumped up to nobility second only to the king himself (who was the one that made the thing)

Less fireballs being thrown and more study and/or craftsmanship to push the temperature, ferocity, and combustion speed of their fire technique. Low level apprentices can ignite easily flammable material without any physical aid like flint, while advanced casters can raise whole walls of fire in an instant or concentrate the flame into blowtorches.

Did someone say Explosions?

That's a sick burn.

Design the magical theory of your setting so that fire isn't an element, it's a process.
Your main character is technically a specialized hot air mage.

Make them a hippie.

Embrace the warmth and make them kind, nurturing almost Druids

OR

All about the heat, spewing molten flame across the ground like pic related. Big (maybe explosive) flaming power from the Earth; or maybe strike down stuff from the sun?

As an honest dunk machine. The Michael Jordan of fire magic. Literally dunking fireballs on your foes.

A setting where magic is common, someone with PC strength would stand out from the crowd. Competitive magic would give you an excuse for magic games that a PC could be proficient in.

Build the world and is an interesting twist on a tired concept.

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>200 mana ulti

Have them propel themselves through the air a la Iron Man

Have them fight with the earth mage and make lava babies.

I really want interpretations for the other elements

>I like some ideas that the last airbender bring, like when they firebenders can't create fire they only can control it
You mean the shitty idea from the shitty movie adaptation?
Firebending and airbending's distinct advantage was that there was nowhere in the world they couldn't be done. You'd be hard-pressed to waterbend in a hot desert, or earthbend on the open ocean, but air is all around you, and fire comes from inside you. When Iroh is teaching Zuko, he tells him that "fire comes from the breath, not the muscles". As long as you can breath, you can create fire.

Now an actual cool idea was Combustion Man: a firebender who couldn't seem to do anything but his one weird trick (bounties hate him!), but he did it really well.

Just make sure not to wear a full helm when attempting to combust

>>PYRO BARBARIAN!

They didn't show any gore, and they cut away immediately, but holy shit I can't believe Nick allowed them to show a woman detonate her own head in a children's cartoon. It was the season 1 murder-suicide all over again.

>barbarian is just a barbarian
>finds a talking skull that has Breath Weapon (Fire)
>party thinks it's a fire spirit, or a spirit of a dragon bound to a skull, or the ghost of a caster
>nope
>it's actually the ghost of a barbarian bound to a skull that was then enchanted to breath fire
>he's just as hyped about this as the PC barbarian

I usually go by:

Crazy woman that believes herself to be a phoenix.

Professional double of Tim the enchanter number 23

Professional chef that just learbed fire magic because it was useful for his or her job.

Fire cute kobold that's very powerful but is hard to take seriously because he is damn cute.

Sumon totally not charizard, honest!

Fire elementaltist that can do anything fire related but fsils horrible at anything else.

A mage obsessed with perfection and purification refuses to use mundane fire as a test of abstinence and seeks a fire that can burn away impurities in her soul. Eventually she discovers hot air balloons and their ascention with fire and devotes herself to their creation.

A mage uses fire as an artistic medium, creating delicate lattices of flame that flash out of existence after mere seconds. Their crackles and pops strike haunting chords that hang in the air. He seeks magical fuel for his creations.

A mage bound a fire elemental to his own body for (science/to save its life/as a last-ditch defensive measure) and now struggles with the magical kickback of such a dangerous action.

A mage knows exactly one spell: fire immunity, so she sets fucking everything on fire with mundane means.

Use spells with liquid, solid, or gaseous fire.

>finds a talking skull that has Breath Weapon (Fire)

D&D has monsters that do this. They're called flameskulls.

that's awfully overspecific

Sick burn.

Make them a blackmith with their own portable equipment, use molten metal to their end, make fire enchantments for his own weapons, make them dual wield - one weapon to make an opening, and a second, white-hot weapon to make the hit

I once made a tattooed sorcerer that specialized in fire magic in PF.
He always maintained that he was a tattoo artist first, sorcerer second. Flinging fireballs is something he does on the side.
As it turns out however, he was insanely good with fire magic. We are talking DC19 10d4+20 burning hands or DC21 12d6+24 fireballs by level 8.
He was still blind to this fact and whenever someone pointed out it out he just dismisses it as "just something that he dabbles with" and offers a tattoo with a discount.

Though he essentially curb stomped every encounter, everyone involved had fun.

10/10 would burn my dick inside her.

Fire is light.

>Fire as a purging light.
>Fire as a light that shines through the dark.
>A light of blazing glory.

Or you could be cozy as fuck, like some kind of home and hearth mage. Always manage your group's camp, manage the campfire, cook. Get mad when people pick on your friends and get fired up and excited about things.

They can control any kind of energy that produces heat. Radiation, light, even sound.

Yes but you'll also never not know what the deal is with them due to the name.

I've got a Fire Mage to play sitting about with Hana Val-Kala. She' focused on fire and it's interaction with earth, working mostly with Volcanic ideas.

Despite that's not really a hostile person. The heat beneath the earth is life itself and she's a Shaman of the first flame that warmed the world. Heat is our friend, it gives us strength and it gives us warmth. We should share warmth with our every action and deed. Coldness of heart and coldness of spirit are more dire than coldness of body.

Her magic is almost entirely supportive, restoring the fire of life to the injured or having blades burn with the spirits of those who wield them. Though if you do hurt her friends, she's more than capable of causing the ground to shake and the earth's blood to envelop you.

4e Animist Shamans are a load of fun.

They're a candle mage rather than a full blown pyromancer. They can cast all sorts of spells that use different types of candles.
Or a pipe mage who uses magic by smoking various combinations of magical substances.
>fight and make babies
sounds like my parents

What about making them super calm and about putting out fires, like a magical fire-fighter?

There is in fact a manga about the fire-mage division of the fire department, created to stop a rash of people spontaneously combusting and transforming into monsters. Fire Brigade of Flames, by the Soul Eater guy. In a twist, the main character's main thing is kicking instead of punching.

>flameskulls
>that's awfully overspecific
It's pretty god damned metal, is what it is.

>Blazing green flames and mad, echoing laughter follow a disembodied skull as it patrols its demesne.
>When the undead flameskull discovers trespassers, it blasts the intruders with fiery rays from its eyes and dreadful spells called up from the dark recesses of its memory.
>Dark spellcasters fashion flameskulls from the remains of dead wizards.
>A flameskull only dimly recalls its former life. Though it might speak in its old voice and recount key events from its past, it is but an echo of its former self.

It almost makes me want to have a recruitable flameskull NPC.

>original

This word is so comedically subjective and debatable that it has no meaning

Do what you think is cool

Fire is civilization. The harnessing of fire is one of the most powerful and most relevant things humanity has ever done. Heat is movement. Heat is energy, and heat is power. There is no more visceral act of power than to create literal energy in the palm of your hand. Play an artificer fire mage who powers insane devices and churning, grinding monstrosities and who breathes life into colossal steam ships. It was literally millennia before humanity discovered a source of power that could rival fire.

You know what they didn't cut away from? Queen getting the fucking air pulled out of her lungs and slowly suffocating. Or the slow and painful act of dying of mercury poisoning. Those plus the ending made book 3 of Korra REALLY FUCKING DARK.

A mix of bard and mage, controlling fire elemental minions with music.
Kind of like a snake charmer, but charming flames instead.

>I want to be a pyromancer but I don't want to burn everything
Get out water nigger

Thermodynamics Mage, transferal of heat to the target by sucking it out of the atmosphere

make yourself immune to fire
set yourself on fire
increase your size as necessary
go wrestle people
----
summon fire elementals for the tag team

I've always thought Dramanhur from Rise of Legends was pretty cool and unique. I don't think she had any lore, but the character design of a Persian half-dragon djinn is pretty neat.

Loved that game, pity it was still pretty much in alpha when they had to push it out the door
Would have loved to see the other two civs

>Would have loved to see the other two civs
I never heard about that, although I didn't get the game until 1-2 years after it came out.

FIREY PUNCHING AND KICKING

A MARTIAL ARTIST WHOSE HOT BLOOD AND THE FLAME OF THEIR HEART BURNS WITH SUCH INTENSITY THAT THEIR FOES ARE LITERALLY SCORCHED BY THEIR PUMMELING ATTACK

Fireballs from thin air don't actually make a whole lot of sense if you think about it. It's basically just a bit of hot air and shouldn't do much damage by itself without something substantial within it to fuel it.

Flamethrower hoses things with burning fuel, napalm sticks to things while it's burning.

I could see two ways to spice up a fire mage:
1: Carries around combustible "ammo" that they can light with their magic and toss at people.
2: Radiate heat. Instead of throwing around plumes of flame, emit intense heat radiation that heats up stuff in it's path to the point of combustion (kind of like a living nuke).

Uses produce flame, control fire and mage hand for crafting like alchemy and smithing.

Uses healing fire to cleanse and regenerate wounds etc.b

Give him a personality.

>It ain't me playing in the background

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They get their powers by fugging fire elementals.

monstergirlencyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Elementalism

So, when elemental mage reach deep understanding and unity with his element, he just leaves mortal world and joins his precious elementals in their own plane?

>cute kobold that's very powerful but is hard to take seriously because he is damn cute.
That's becoming kinda stale over time.

All of the kobolds I've depicted have ended up as cute little assholes. Like angry puppies.

Conjure fire using ice

Maybe think about what fire means in the culture the fire mage comes from. In general RPG mechanics culture, fire just means AoE. In the frozen north of Clichea, fire means comfort and hospitality. In the capital city of BackstabbingPoliticsLand, fire is chaos and vandalism unless under firm control. In the desert, it's death during the day and life at night, creation and destruction in one.

That sort of thing. Or you can do what NWN2 did with Qara, write "fire sorceress" at the top of your character sheet and have everything else be based on that. Qara's a fun character for being easy to understand and straightforward. Really nothing wrong with her being "Fire, the Firey Fire-thrower".

Make it a energy mage, first is just energy escaping in the form of heat, so allow him to controll hear instead of just fire.

Alchemy-based fire mage. Different effects and abilities depending on what reagents you use as spell components. Sulfur, saltpeter, lime, wood, flour, oil, tar, etc. Blind enemies with Limelight, use Oil Slick to create burning areas on the ground, or throw sticky flaming Tar Balls onto people. At higher levels, you can start mixing reagents for combined effects!

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>a flameskull who only dimly remembers heavy metal songs
I'd buy that.

Our party had to deal with one of those in our campaign. It blasted us and called us fuckboys

We planted a magic bean under it and said bean spawned a 60 square foot pyramid (while inside a dungeon room barely large enough to hold it) that we all SOMEHOW managed to get out of the way of

We heard but one quote from inside the new permanent structure

"RELEASE ME, FUCKBOI!"

It was a good campaign

>something more interesting than your archetypic fireballs dunkmachine?

Make an actual slammin jammin fireball dunkmachine.

This

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DID SOMEBODY SAY EXPLOSIONS?

Did anyone ever make a Megumin/Torgue crossover?

Shouldn't that be 'In the name of Elpis'?

THIS IS MY DAUGHTER. SHE WILL FUCK YOU UP!

oh god i hope someone does

One man's daughter is another man's cocksleeve

HEY! THIS MOTHERFUCKER ISN'T TREATING WOMEN WITH RESPECT!

Something like this. Too much fire magic and you start to freeze to death, pulling heat out or your essence or whatnot.

Have to throw around ice magic to compensate, which will eventually overheat you and make you pass out from heat stroke.

I am very respectful of my cocksleeves, though

There were apparently two more planned at least, one of nomadic beastmen who could move their cities around like units and one ice people that we only have some concept art and place holders in the game data for

You monster.

What does the white rune do

You never know until you've taken it.

The whole kung fu moves to use fireballs is a lot more interesting than just sitting there spamming them like they're magic missiles. Very creative.

Dunno how to make it mechanically any more than fluff though.

Mechanically simple enough, fire mages are athletic and good at h2h. Basically multiclassing into monk.

Dragon disciple?

>Cook
In hindsight it's so obvious.

You can control fire and heat perfectly. So you can cook anything exactly how you want to.
Let's not forget that most fire mages are going to be in medieval settings with shitty ovens. Maintaining an exact and even heat that modern ovens do with their fancy heat sensors and heat distribution fans is hard when all you have is a metal box filled with fire.
But not for a fire mage. They can cook the best fucking steak ever. They can cook from the inside out if they want to. Because fire.

I mean how do you make combat where the player makes different attacks that feels like they're more than just "throw fireball" worded differently. Like a fighting game.

How do systems like Strike! do it?

Make them use lots of magic and obsessively use fire, but give them no fire magic.

Unseen Servants and Mage Hands rubbing torches up against everything.
Walls of Force to protect himself and direct the spread of fire.
Lots and lots of illusion magic to hide it all. Illusions of fire.
Lit candles (precariously) sewn into his hat.

>Unseen Servants and Mage Hands rubbing torches up against everything.

They could even have evocation barred by their illusion specialization.