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Summary: "Survive the Gauntlet, Room #"
Encounter CR: I'm working at around 7-8
Type of Encounter: A cross between a Skill Challenge and Mini-game
Background: No specific party in mind. Certain classes and abilities, yes. The intention, easily enough, was to create an environmental obstacle that required either creativity or dogged determination to bypass (preventing the most common bypasses).
Encounter:
Set: A 40ft by 120ft stone-walled room. streching from one door to the other is a 10ft wide bridge made of highly polished stone. The bridge extends over a 35ft pit that fills the area of the room and the ceiling is 30ft high.
Obstacles:
Bridge: The bridge is sloped. This, combined with the high-polish finish make moving quickly along it's surface treacherous. If the player moves more than their movement speed across the bridge (typically 30ft), they must make a DC 17 acrobatics check or fall into the pit. If the player tries to run across the bridge, the DC increases to 25. The player may attempt a Reflex save to catch on the bridge (DC 15). However, due to the bridge's surface, it is impossible for them to get back on alone. A standard action from any other PC successfully gets them back up.
Pit: The bottom of the pit is lined with old-formation Blightburn crystals. Most of the radiative power of the crystals has long been dissipated, reducing the radiation distance to 30ft. If at any time a PC falls off the bridge, even if they catch on the edge, they are hit by the radiation (Blightburn Sickness: Fort DC 22, 1/day onset, 1/day frequency, 1d6 CON and CHA damage, 2 consecutive saves). Any character that falls takes 3d6 falling damage and 1d8 piercing+2d6 fire+1d3 CON+1d3 CHA damage (Fort DC 22 negates Ability damage and halves fire damage). A feather fall spell negates fall damage and reduces the piercing damage to 1d4. Due to the close proximity, anyone using a teleportation effect must succeed at a DC 30 caster level check.
Trap: At the end of the bridge, two grotesque statues flank the doorway. In the air around the bridge are 30 glowing small-winged orbs that dart back and forth, about the size of a walnut. The orbs are what make this particularly dangerous. Each round, each orb chooses a target (max 5/target, treat as Aid Another +2 per additional orb targeting) and can perform one of two actions: Explode violently, ejecting a burst of wind at a the PC (treat as a Bullrush with a +8 CMB that can affect Large creatures) or act as a targeted dispel magic on any character using a flight mobility spell (levitate, fly, overland flight and the like. Can only dispel these kinds of spells, treat as CL 5 with +2 per orb "assisting"). This destroys the orb. Each round, the left statue at the end vomits up to 5 orbs (maximum 30 in the room). The right statue, however, is damaged from a previous adventurer and only emits 2 orbs a round. The statues can be destroyed and prevent any more orbs from spawning.
Comment: I've not run this, as it's more of a theory-baby right now, but I wanted to share. One concern is that it's too harsh, but I'm on the fence about it.