Adventures in Fire

[Richards]

There are two spells in the 3.5 Manual of the Planes called attune form and avoid planar effects that attune the body to the normal "background effects" of the plane being entered. So a PC under the effects of one of those spell on the Elemental Plane of Fire would not be harmed by the flames inherent to the plane, but would still be affected by the burn effect of a fire elemental's slam or a fireball spell. That may be a way to get your PCs onto the plane you want while still allowing the inhabitants' fire-based attacks still be effective.

Johnathan

 

[Greenfield]

Bottom line, they know where they're going, and they know that everything there uses fire. They're going to be prepared for it.

Since everything there uses fire, and is pretty much immune to it, plan on the "bad guys" to have access to Cold based attacks. They'd have those because that's what's most effective to denizens of that plane, which is what they have to face 99.9% of the time.

And, of course, swords and stuff still work there.

 

[Schmoe]

Wow, there are a ton of great ideas here. Thanks to everyone for the inspiration.
[MENTION=508]Richards[/MENTION] I had completely forgotten about that spell. I want make it relatively easy to acquire some sort of permanent resistance, and affinity would work nicely. Of course, I still expect the PCs to double up on fire protection, so I think I'm going to approach it as follows.

• Establish that guards and patrols in the City of Brass are chosen from creatures that are both inherently immune to fire and also don't lose too much when faced with fire-immune opponents. So creatures like fire giants and golems will feature heavily wherever I think there will be guardians tasked with protecting against elemental natives.
• Patrols in areas of the city that cater heavily to foreigners will be prepared to combat non-natives' defenses. That means that they may have things like anti-magic grenades and wands of dispel magic.
• Magic items that deal cold damage will be at a premium and will be applied judiciously.
• General inhabitants won't necessarily be prepared with any of the above and will just have to deal with it.

That's all I've got for now, but it's a great starting point.

 

[Greenfield]

Small note: Dispel Magic's effectiveness is level dependent, topping out at ten. A typical 3rd level Wand (the level if Dispel Magic) would have a 5th level caster. If they're dealing with people higher level than that (a near certainty), such a wand would be of little use.

You could up the caster level, but that gets really pricey real fast. Consider a Staff. Also expensive, but it casts at fifth level, or the user's caster level, whichever is better.

Also remember that the City of Brass itself is open to outsiders specifically because it's an area where the constant flames of the Plane aren't there to cause continuous damage. You could let the players know this so as to play down the need for long lasting protection. They'd only need it if/when they left the City.