Campaign: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
Room: #121: Fire Temple
Room Layout: Size 120' diameter circular room. Secondary inner circle of 80' diameter that is a fire pit. 40' ceiling with a spot in it just large enough for the platform that is hovering over fire pit. It's a 20x20 platform that is controlled mentally (up down left side and sideways movement)by clerics of the Fire Temple. All NPC's in the temple area are mostly immune to fire damage.
Encounter NPC's:
12th level Cleric (Fire and Evil Domains)
12th level Fighter (anti-caster build with step up, disruptive casting, lunge and other assorted feats)
Few Ogres
Few Large Fire elementals
half a dozen speedbumps (level 2 Warriors)
PC's: 6 players all level 7:
barbarian: Damage and more damage. About a billion HP
inquisitor: reach attacker, some control spells
cleric: Earth? domain, has access to Pit spells
druid: Control, summoner, utility, wolf pet
wizard: Big blasts with fire/electrical/force
monk: Anti caster/grappler
So I am trying to design an encounter that will challenge the PC's. I tend to run most of my more important encounters at epic level difficulty (at least APL +5) and this is one of those.
I'm looking for an interesting mechanic that I can throw into this, such as fire spouts, lava, ect.
The issues I have with the PC's:
The barbarian does stupid amounts of damage a round. 40-50 on a non-crit.
The monk, when he grapples something, cannot be thrown off, ever, unless I somehow roll a 35 on a d20.
The wizard clears every mook in the room on the surprise round (I consider ogres mooks)
Thanks to Blessing of Fervor from the cleric the PC's can do pretty much whatever they want in a round.
Ideas?