10 thoughts on “Who loves the Immolator and why?”

  2. Fire is always fun. I once had a player play it as pyromaniac whom the rest of the players had to stop from burning everything. It became a running joke when the party would be trying to meta game and he would chime in, in character, with “Have we considered…… BURNING IT DOWN!”

  3. I have a player who always tries the “fiery” character when she can (e.g., “Bears a Halo of Fire” when I ran Numenera for her, too). She ended up ditching The Immolator because she got tired of rolling to make a fire weapon before rolling to attack, and felt a little limited in general.

    Me, though? While the names of some of the moves seem overly goofy to me, I am really impressed with how the playbook isn’t JUST about literally setting things on fire. I love how it draws on myths and metaphors connecting fire to divination and passion, making it a capable playbook even in more investigative and less combat oriented scenarios. The player’s gotta be interested in taking those moves, though, of course, or you just end up with a fire wizard with an especially limited list of spells, as it were.

  5. I like the Immolator a lot. I know it’s not the most popular class, but I think it’s one of the more interesting ones.

    The Immolator starting moves set it up as a “Firebender” type class – a strong focus on combat and fire/heat manipulation. The Advanced Moves, though, often focus on what I’d describe as a Game of Thrones-esque Red Priest kind of character, with a lot of emphasis on sacrifice, social manipulation, and fate. You can make two very different characters just through the Advanced Moves choices.

    This extends to ability scores. Most characters have one primary stat that powers most of their utility or moves – Fighters use STR, Wizards use INT, Clerics use WIS, etc. If a player doesn’t assign their best score to that primary stat, they aren’t as effective. But the Immolator is different: they use CON and INT together for Burning Brand; WIS is used by Zuko Style, Lore of Flame, Moth to the Flame, and Watch the World Burn; CHA power Firebrand, The Enkindler, and Sick Burn. The scores you assign to these stats represent a choice of what kind of Immolator you want to play. You can drop your 17 into CON or INT or WIS or CHA and you won’t be a less effective Immolator, you’ll just be a different kind of Immolator, and I like that a lot.

  7. I like the salamander race. I’ve always played it as a non-Large offshoot of the salamander monsters we love to hate.

    Also, “salamander immolator” is just fun to say

  9. The Salamander Immolator (you’re right Michael Mendoza!) in the campaign i’m running at the moment is great! Backstory: she was a small fire salamander befriended by a wizard, who eventually betrayed her: casting her into a fire as part of a ritual. She transformed, rose out of the flames phoenix-style and destroyed the wizard. Now she is exploring the world, defending her companions with a fierce passion. She is still essentially a child – so there’s an interesting mixture of power and innocence.

    Play: Her player is particularly good at describing her burning brand and other fiery moves, and also at letting the fire get her into trouble. I’ve actually made a custom move that allows her to extinguish flames, taking damage herself depending on the size of the blaze – just to give her a bit more narrative control over how much of a crazy pyromaniac she is. She recently took the advanced move Lore of Flame, so is starting to become somewhat of an oracle.

    I’ve got more examples of fun – but i’ll leave it there for now 🙂 ~L

  10. My group has always enjoyed the immolator as a shit disturber, both socially and mechanically. They’re not a super combat heavy group so it was easy to give them puzzles they need the immolator’s skills to solve.

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