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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 454711" data-attributes="member: 99">The passageway again descended and before long it began to get hot.  Then it got very hot until the heat became blistering.  Everyone in the party began to drink potions and cast spells to ward them against the heat.  That done, they moved forward again.Shortly, they could see the cavern ahead bathed in a reddish light.  They emerged onto a ledge overlooking a lake of lava.  Across the cavern was another ledge at a similar height to the one they stood on.  In between were a series of pillars with gaps of approximately 5 feet between each.  In short, a deathtrap if ever there was one.Furthermore, cavorting in the lava below was a trio of small figures who were playing and chasing a half dozen large rats who were climbing all over the walls of the cavern and the pillars.  Each rat was surrounded in a small cloud of smoke and seemed quite at home in the heat and flames.As the party stood there, the little red men playing in the lava came toward them.  The one in the lead showed how much he wanted to play by balling up a handful of molten rock and throwing it at Elwita.  It missed.  The rats began to scamper and leap along the walls of the cavern and move in the direction of the party.The party responded.  Elwita braced herself to take on any rat that made the leap over to the ledge the party was on.  Blodgett moved to the edge of the ledge, gauging his chances of leaping across the tops of the pillars.  Karraway, in a moment of pure inspiration, cast Water Walking on everybody in the party.  Delgath was momentarily stumped because he faced a situation that couldn’t be dealt with by using a Web.  And everything was already on fire!  Karraway was in his face demanding that the Gnome grant him a Spider Climb spell and with nothing else to do at the moment, Delgath complied.Quick Spore puffed a cloud of spores at Karraway and asked, “What should I do?”  The Cleric answered, “Stay with me.”The Magmin closed in and the heat went from powerful to overwhelming.  A rat stopped on the pillar closest to the party’s ledge and breathed a jet of fire on Elwita who shrugged off most of the damage thanks to the Endure Elements potion he drank earlier. Note that I was afraid that this encounter might turn into a bit of a pushover since I knew that the party members would each have at least 5 point of fire resistance and the most any of the foes could do was 1d8 for the Magmin’s burning touch.  What I failed to take into account was that Endure Elements protects against the FIRST 5 points of fire damage each round.  Between the Fiery Aura of 3 Magmin, the occasional Burning Touch and the fire breath of the Ash Rats, they were going to be taking at least a little damage on almost every round.  Then, they leapt into the lava…Blodgett was the first to decide that he would rather make a break for it rather than fight.  He jumped down onto the lava below the ledge and made a dash for the other side, his little Halfling feet burning all the while.  Thanks to Karraway’s spell, he could walk 2 inches above the surface of the molten rock but it was still hotter than a 2cp dagger.Karraway was next to clamber down onto the river of lava with Quick Spore close behind.  But the Magmin were closing in fast.Seeing that his stream of fire attack was doing little good, one of the Ash Rats jumped the gap from the pillar to the ledge and landed next to Elwita.  She smacked the rat with her axe and squashed it against the stone.  Nearby, Delgath had recovered his composure and cast Spider Climb on himself while contemplating his next move.  Jumping down onto the lava just seemed insane, but he didn’t like his odds of leaping across the pillars either.Across the lake of lava, Blodgett congratulated himself on making it across and tried to climb onto the far ledge.  Sadly, his toasted feet failed to gain purchase on the rock wall and he remained stuck standing on the lava.Karraway wisely cast Sanctuary on himself, forcing his foes to leave him alone or, better yet, distract themselves by attempting to fricassee his mushroom companion.  Quick Spore stood faithfully by the Cleric’s side waiting for him to move across the lake of liquid rock before the Magmin got through playing “Red Rover” with them.  Fortunately for the toadstool, the Magmin seemed more interested in the Halfling who still couldn’t climb the far cliff (poor player couldn’t roll higher than a 5 on his Climb check).Elwita sent another Ash Rat soaring through the air where it burst into hot flames during its final flight.  Delgath decided to play along with the others and Spider Climbed down to the lava and prepared to dash across to the other side, but not before launching a cluster of Magic Missiles at the closest Magmin.  To his surprise and delight, the Magmin was killed where he stood and sank beneath the molten stone.After several unsuccessful attempts to set Blodgett on fire (and several Cure potions drank by the Halfling), the Magmin lost interest and decided to go after Karraway and his fungal follower.  Even without being under attack, Blodgett still failed to climb up to the ledge.  But help was on the way.Dodging attacks by the Magmin, Karraway and Quick Spore ran over to where the Halfling was struggling.  Karraway scooped Blodgett up onto his back and climbed up onto the ledge with ease, as did Quick Spore.  As they reached the top, the Rogue whispered into the Cleric’s ear, “If you ever tell anybody about this, I’ll kill you.”Delgath gave the cluster of Magmin and Ash Rats pursuing the Cleric, Rogue and Mushroom a wide berth and easily climbed (with magical assistance) the far cliff face onto the ledge.  Meanwhile, Elwita decided that it was time to leave and jumped down onto the lava pool as her companions had done.  She made her way across while the rest of the group succeeded in holding off the Magmin and Ash Rats until the Fighter could climb up onto the ledge.Then they turned and beat feet out of there as fast as they could go.  The pursuing Magmin and Ash Rats quickly lost interest and returned to frolicking in the lava.With a growing sense of urgency, the group hustled toward the exit of the caverns.  As they went, they passed through a treacherous cavern where some sea water was coming in and meeting with one of the lava flows.  It was full of steam and visibility was reduced to 5 feet.  They carefully picked their way through until they found the exit and moments later, they were standing in a small cave overlooking the ocean.The steam room was my “safety valve encounter”.  I knew that I had probably planned too much for this single game and since it was under a time pressure, I felt it would be fair of me to have one encounter planned that I could drop if there wasn’t time for it.Originally, I had planned for the party to encounter a group of Grimlocks and their Barbarian leader in the Steam Room.  Since the Grimlocks can “see” fine in such conditions, they would have been on top of the party before they knew what was happening.  It would have given the Fighter and Rogue a bit more chance to shine and I wish we had gotten to play through it.  But it was about 10:55 at this point and the party still had to fight the Pirates, so I dropped it.Next Up:  A Pirate band this good, you don’t kill all at once</blockquote>

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