So, there are two undisputed truths in all RPGs

Lies and slander.
Fire gives life and warmth. It is the movement and advancement of civilisation. It is the passion within our hearts. Fire does not have to be bad.

There is no reason why fire should be worse than the other elements. In fact, they should all be somewhat balanced.

Super easy.

>You can stop a fire easily.

It's a matter of scale. Yeah, you can stop a small fire easily but stopping a massive wildfire is about as hard as stopping a flood. The best you can do it stop it from destroying too much until it's over.

>Fire does not have to be bad.
It falls dramatically when electricity is introduced and, in fact, becomes destructive only.
>they should all be somewhat balanced.
blatantly untrue.

>Fire should always be the element of bad guys
Ew, why would you try to mandate un-originality like that?
For a good example of how to switch it up, look at A:TLA and compare final season Zuko with the witch who discovers blood-bending.

>punked by a physical god
ftfy

then water is metaphorical water and so on.

>It falls dramatically when electricity is introduced and, in fact, becomes destructive only.

Pretty sure I just cooked my dinner using fire. A gas fire but still fire.

And he almost killed said god too. But then the kid got lucky with a pointy rock in his back.

Zuko was an edgelord tho.
And bloodbending witch wasn't EVIL evil, she was more of an anti-villain using bad methods to fight worse people.

>"becomes destructive only"
>this guy doesn't know there are plants that only grow in ash
>this guy ignores phoenixes

>A gas fire but still fire.
also, this. without other elements fire cannot even exist. Truly a bitch nigga of elements.

Also the point of the thread is not "making fire look good". The point is how to make a fire-using character not be a little bitch.

Not all fire is the same anons.
There's also fluorine fire that can burn things like sand, glass and concrete.

>bad methods to fight worse people
you mean using bad methods to kidnap civilians of the country hers was at war with

Why is that?
To create a fire, the weakest of fire benders must manipulate heat.
What happens to your body if your blood starts boiling? What about your cerebrospinal fluid?
In combat, I'd say even a weak fire bender should be able to kill pretty much any opponent in a moment.

Masters, on the other hand, should be able to destroy countries by creating a fire so hot it will vaporize everything.

that's why I said final season, he became an actual character fueled by passion rather than hatred.
Also she kept possessing the nearby townsfolk and tried to make the Avatar (a child at the time) kill one of his only friends. I'd call that capital E evil!

>Fire should always be the weakest element of four (or five if you're a weeaboo).
That's not how 5 element system works, user.

>should be
Why? Says who?

>sounds like horseshit
Again, why? Why is fire the one where it's suddenly too much to have a hard to resist death power? Why the double standard?

>Destruction = bad
>The elements should not be somewhat balanced
You seems to have made your mind already, there is nothing I can do to convince you that fire does not have to be bad.
I'm sorry for you.

If we get to this sort of molecular manipulation, other elements should be better at creating fire than fire.

>hydromancer excites molecules within the water
>firefag tries to launch a measly firebolt only to get cooked fucking alive by steam

true Zuko does evaporate ice by touching it

>also, this. without other elements fire cannot even exist.

That's because it's a reaction, not an element as we know it.

If it WAS an actual element (Like it is in many fantasy settings) you'd see instances of it without fuel. See: Fire Elementals.

>you'd see instances of it without fuel.
sorry, that's bullshit.

>Firefag, having control of heat, halts the hydromancer's control of water by removing all movement from the water particles, the source of heat.
>Contines on to freeze the hydromancer to death as he controls the heat in his body to freeze him at absolute zero.
>The firefag is the greatest cryomancer ever

>Why is fire the one where it's suddenly too much to have a hard to resist death power?
Because hard to resist death powers are bullshit in general, but other elements at least can justify it.

Why? I mean, I GAVE an example of fire without fuel.

Electricity is nothing but fire's power packaged into a different form.

Yeah, so can fire, like I (and others) already pointed out.

>the only way fire can ever be useful is to intrude on other elements' domain
firefags B T F O

I'm not talking about specific molecular manipulation. I'm talking about creating fire, which pretty much any fire bender can do.
To do so, they must create immense heat.

But what if I stole all the Runes from Runescape and made elements and elementals out of all of those?

Well you're the one intruding on Air's domain by agitating oxygen in water particles.

I'm pretty sure they needed comet to even do that.

But it's much harder to justify without going into bullshit.

Electricity is wind magic.

Ice is water magic.

There is no direct scale of elemental "power". All elements excel at multiple different areas, depending how they are used.

Fire is not weak per-say, but it is singulary focused on destruction, while having very little benevolent applications.

Which is because fire is not element, it's a chemical reaction. It requires fuel which means it has to consume other elements. It's thus aberration amongst elemental magic

Remove exothermics

Regards: Cold Wizard

>I'm pretty sure they needed comet to even do that.
Only in the movie, in the series the comet just gave them enhanced power

Who said anything about Ice? Firefag is lowering the temperature of Waterfag's carbon molecules since they're both dealing at a molecular level.

Since all heat is movement of particles, Firefag has control of movement at the molecular level.

Firefag is the Flash, but on fire.

>Electricity is wind magic.

Electricity is Earth Magic idiot.

Wow this thread is autistic as shit

>justify without going into bullshit
And controlling someone's blood or breath is less bullshit? Once again, SAYS WHO?

I am personally VERY impressed with OP's dedication.

>Firefag is the Flash, but on fire.
jesus christ how horrfying

water - allows me move your blood inside your body
air - allows me to stop air inside your lungs
earth - allows me to shape carbon inside your body

>Fire - allows me to sap body heat from your body
>Now hold down user. Now you are just talking out of your ass

I'm glad I don't play in your group

>Firefag has control of movement at the molecular level.
>Firefag is the Flash, but on fire.

>But it's much harder to justify without going into bullshit.
Your capability for bullshit
>is 100% subjective
>hinges on your own suspension of disbelief
you're trying to make up some metaphysical rules, and that's ok, but you have to keep in mind that, as a designer, it behooves you to follow the rules of balance and narrative.

If you're really set on fire being weaker, then you'll have to do something to balance it out, like giving fire adepts a faster xp progression, or whatever works in your system.
If an element is strictly worse than the others, you're giving false choices to the players, that's shitty game design on your part.

>sap heat
Apparently people like to forget Sozin did this, it's not even something we're making up, the arguably most prominent elemental-manipulator series ever, which has the blood and breath thing in it, already has an example of pulling the heat out of something.

If I was running this and HAD to make fire weaker in terms of utility or hax bullshit, I'd just make a direct fire attack inherently better than any other element. Can the fire controller make structures, ice, control weather? Nope. But that won't stop him from kicking your ass in an actual fight.

Honest question here.

Why options in RPG should be balanced? I think OP's approach is fine if he outright states fire is weaker than other elements.

Both of your "truths" are retarded and untrue. I can't even come up with an example where the second thing happens, in fact fire tends to be super relevant and powerful.

He wants to have fire be the weakest element, yet also wants a fire-using villain to be threatening. Those things are incompatible.

I'd argue that you'd be losing some design space, as fire usually gets all the metaphysical 'purification', 'destruction', and 'chaos' stuff, and that by making one element the strongest in combat you'll run into issues in combat-heavy campaigns.

it's "per-se", just a head's up

FIRE BURNS GAS

This. Imagine an industrialized society where citizens are instant and endless power sources. No need for expensive fuels to refine metal, no need to carry fuel in any vehicle, less need for safety features because overheating equipment can be cooled down at will. Heat expands air, propelling shot out of a barrel, so any fire-using yokel can turn a sturdy tube and some rocks into a gun, because he generates his own propellant.

>not exploiting Phoenix imagery to hell and back
>not giving fire healing/resurrection/purification theme
>not giving fire scrying/clarity of mind spells too (e.g. actual pyromancy)

OP is even more f a faggot than usual, but why do you guys follow in his stead?

If fire = bad
And fire = worse than the other forces
Whence come fire? The fire worshippers or nations or elementals should be wiped out.

Thematically maybe, but wouldn't that require non-fire users to be more creative as opposed to just blasting their way through everything, which is what PCs arguably should be doing anyway?

I beg to differ,
During the Black Saturday fires the heat was so intense that the oils in the Eucalyptus trees would vaporize and ignite, creating a kilometer long rolling explosion.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires

They are probably shitty barbarias who breead and die by hundreds.

So the only tactic fire users know is zerg rush.

Actually, this might be an answer to my question. Thanks, thread.

I said had. If I HAD to make fire less versatile. But I'm not stupid, so I don't see the need to do that in the first place.

We're saying the same thing, the OP would waste precious design space.
That short list wasn't supposed to be final and all-inclusive, it was just 3 items from the top of my head.

Then they are not really worse than the other factions. If they are marked as the only antagonist of the setting, and survive anyhow, they must obviously be good at something - spreading like a wildfire.

Yeah, sure, but why shouldn't Fire adepts have the option for clever bullshit too?
And if they do, why should their blast-away option be better than anyone else?
It would become a false option, for NPCs only, which might or might not be your goal.

See

>firebending is shit usually, it was just powered by Bullshit plot Devise
Firebending has the disadvantage of being part of the Avatar cartoon on Nickelodeon. You're never going to see someone set on fire and burn to death, so you can't see an effective fire attack. Similarly, Sokka got his sword and immediately got LESS effective, because he cannot be shown to hit a person with it. Meanwhile, the animators don't have to put any special work into showing an air/water/earth attack knock someone about without inflicting a graphic injury, so those attacks can routinely hit and be effective in combat.

It's a bit like Heroes and its budget concerns. Anyone with a visually flashy power can only use it very very rarely, while Greg Grunberg could squint with a sound effect to mindrape people whenever he wanted.

Can you imagine Azula's body count if Avatar were aimed at the seinen anime demographic?

>Can you imagine Azula's body count if Avatar were aimed at the seinen anime demographic?
Genocide: the Anime.

This demonstrates the main and most important difference in western animation and eastern animation.

Didn't you love how they shopped out all the guns and blood in One Piece and Yu-Gi-Oh?

>blatantly untrue
>This one thing is massively weaker than all it's equivalents because I said so andI will justify this by comparing them on totally different scales!

You're like a casterfag but somehow worse

Think about all the dangerous things you can do with enough heat. You could make him a sort of stealthy guerilla warrior who runs from town to town setting devestating fires, or you could go all out and have him sling superhot balls of plasma and create thermonuclear explosions with his mind.

Bloodbending (outside of a being performed by a master during a full moon), lightningbending (outside of being performed by a master who has mastered true calmth of being), metalbending (outside of the beifong family) and energybending are all asspulls and bad writing. Like holy shit there is no need for it.

Except for bending the air away from the earth queen to choke her. That was pretty brutal

Also flying unaided and without technique was pretty shit

>Fire should always be the weakest element of four (or five if you're a weeaboo).
Fire is arguably the strongest of the elements in weeb terms, though, at least in terms of straight combat. Fire is Destruction and Revelation, burning away everything but the purest, most basic truth of things. Other elements can destroy as a side effect of their actions, but Fire embodies the concept of destruction as a Platonic ideal. It's also the element of telling magic to sit the fuck down.

Finally someone who gets it

Water? Earth? Air? Ass-elements for retards

You have a source of almost infinite, easily exploitable energy available, and you think the guy who can emulate a fucking garrote wire is impressive?

Being uneducated in (or just stupid and incapable of applying) fundamental classical mechanics and chemistry is the only reason one wouldn't quickly peg fire as the single most superior of the Aristotelian elements

That said, applying more advanced principles to the elements is a non-starter. Trying to make a coherent, comprehensive system that incorporates current knowledge of physics, will obviously just lead to abandoning the elemental paradigm and using current physical knowledge, so don't be the kind of simpleton who wants hard fantasy but also magic

>metalbending (outside of the beifong family)
i don't actually mind this so much. Metal is harder to find than straight up earth, so it feels more like a specialization than an asspull. The real problem was making everything out of goddamned platinum to try and counter metalbending.

Yeah, I'd rather they'd gone with, say, iron or bronze rather than steel. Based on my extremely limited knowledge of metallurgy, steel requires carbon. You could argue that the metalbending requires focusing on that carbon. A different element could be immune without needing to make your tanks out of bling.

A casual reminder that in the greej classical elements, fire is star matter.

Everything was in layers. Earth sunk to the bottom, water stood upon earth, air blew across water, and fire rose above air and coagulation into stars. Put air below water, and bubbles will rise. Put earth above water, and ut will sink.
Light a fire under air, and fire will rise.

>greej classical elements
depends which greek philosopher you asked, according to some it was fire, for some it was eather and others said everything was different states of water

Seriously Ozai was one of the most OP character in TLA.

>It's arguably the least useful out of combat
>what is the Industrial Revolution

sleep snug, smug

Elements are neutral, you bitch-ass baka. And fire is as good as anything else.

Under fire goes energy, under energy goes the power of sun and under sun goes the power of nuclear fusion. How can you say that is lame? Let the galaxies burn!

>others said everything was different states of water
Hilariously, probably the closest to correct as we understand science.

>Why options in RPG should be balanced?

Because creating inherently unbalanced options closes creative space for the people actually playing the game, for no raisin. In almost every case, you have other knobs to turn to create raw power differences - whatever the character progression system is (levels, spending XP for nice things, wealth,etc).

If you make one archetype inherently weaker, that might suit the particular story you want to tell, but you're making it harder to tell any other kind of story, and you're creating a pointless redundancy because now you have TWO ways of determining raw power, and you have to figure out how they interact to get the right power level for any given character. And you could have avoided this by just saying "In this setting, fire users are automatically 100 XP behind" or whatever.

sleep snug, smug.

sleep snug, smug.

...

Because OP's undisputed truths are so disputed, let's have an experiment in the opposite.

Fire is the tool of the good and righteous, lighting the way through the world's dark, icy, unfeeling expanse. By its warmth, mortal men eke out an existence.

Fire is the most powerful magic, which was guarded away from mortals in the heavens. Only by the treachery of a Promethean figure was fire stolen, and mankind elevated from primordial darkness. Now, the flame of alchemy drives forward science and technology, and purifying divine pyromancy is the only weapon powerful enough to slay the undead who will forever outnumber the living.

Fire is the stuff of dragons, have fun with it.

It would have worked better if they had also kept metalbending as requiring contact with the surface to sense the impurities.

Sleep snug, smug.

Bro, I used to live somewhere that had forest fires every summer. Even though the Fire Department knew it was coming EVERY YEAR there was literally nothing they could do to stop it. They routinely had to bring in auxiliaries from other counties just to keep houses from going up (although those stupid fucks built their house on a hill they knew was going to catch fire in the summer)

In fact last year an entire town burnt down and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Fire is far from fucking easy to stop.