I near as I can tell, lava weighs slightly less than the cooled solid rock, which is much more dense than any oil.
Basalt rock is about 25 lbs to a gallon, and basalt lava about 23.5 lbs to a gallon.
So your 50 gallon vat of lava would contain almost 1,200 lbs of lava, you might need to add several hundred more pounds just for the weight of the vat itself.
A large creature with a STR of 30 might be able to lift such a vat high enough to dump it as you describe, but a creature with a 24 STR might only be able to dump such a vat Conan style.
Queen Moragan raises an excellent point.
In addition to that, such an action does require an attack roll to hit an enemy or a square.
Targeting a square is easy as they typically have low AC and a ZERO DEX mod, so AC 10 (like everything) -5 (DEX mod) = AC 5. Furthermore, with splash weapons (which this clearly is) you target an intersection, not a square. Hit AC 5 and the "splash" would probably result in "Exposure" to all 4 squares that share that intersection: 2d6 as the rules say.
Dumping on a PC (or any combatant) requires hitting that PC. It's still a splash weapon so use those rules: a ranged touch attack that would certainly just about cover the entire PC (assuming medium creature but that is never a factor in damage anyway). You could go with the "Immersion" damage, or reduce it like you did; it's obviously GM call at this point.
I would do splash "exposure" damage to adjacent squares.
I would not use a REF save - you don't get REF saves when people throw flasks of flaming oil at you; this is just a bigger/hotter version of that.
Then do the continuing damage as per the Lava rules.
Why is there a Vat of Lava? Is this a factory style setting? Is the "lava" molten rock or metal for use in construction? If so rather than lifting the vat maybe its overhead already and the large creature just needs to tip tip over. As Moragan said "lava" is liquid stone, so it weighs a significant amount.
50 Gallons of a liquid poured over you is going to fully immerse you. So, bad for players. I would treat it as a grenade weapon. Make the attack roll, splash on a miss in the nearby areas, hit means full damage.
True Story:
I often play the lava game with my cat. I lay in bed with the cover over
my legs and my cat sitting on my chest. Then I tell my cat we can't move
because the bed is surround be lava. And if we step off the bed we will
die because of the lava.
Then I pet my cat and scratch her fur until she feels relaxed. Usually
she sits on me half-sleeping, all the while I tell her to be careful of
the lava
Then, one of us gets bored and I end up planning my next Stock move to
make in the market, and make lots of money while laying in bed with my
cat.
Developer
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Bless you for making me Google "specific gravity of magma."
I agree with the others that the estimate appears to be off. Assuming a fairly typical specific gravity, we're looking at around 2300 kg/cubic meter, and your vat is about 0.189 cubic meters, which would mean nearly 1,000 pounds of igneous bliss. That's going to be tough to lift.
How would I handle it at the game table? I would treat it something like a falling object (touch attack with Large, hard object) and would subject the target to fire damage from the lava somewhere above exposure but well below full immersion—6d6, perhaps. Alternatively, I might treat it as an improvised greatclub that deals the equivalent fire damage on the first strike.
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According to The RulesTM you can lift overhead your maximum load. At Strength 26, that's 920 lbs. So if the demon has a bonus to strength or an ally assisting, it'll work out. No reason to argue this point further.
As for the Vat Of Hot Burning Death...
The numbers provided as our base, you can assume that exposure (2d6) is an approximate 10% of your body compared to immersion(20d6). Stick with the game sizes and say 5x5x5 to immerse a character. Well, we're clearly not discussing that large a quantity of lava (cheers John Compton for the search results), so full immersion is right out. We'll say roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the character can get doused. 1/4 or 1/3 of 20d6 = 5d6-6d6. Splash damage adjacent 5-6 and then victims burn until a save is made or for a set period of time. It's a pretty fair way to estimate within the constraints of the rules.
It should probably turn the floor into difficult terrain for a few rounds while it cools.
Edit:
Bigger and Smaller Creatures: The figures on Table: Carrying Capacity are for Medium bipedal creatures. A larger bipedal creature can carry more weight depending on its size category, as follows: Large ×2, Huge ×4, Gargantuan ×8, Colossal ×16. A smaller creature can carry less weight depending on its size category, as follows: Small ×3/4, Tiny ×1/2, Diminutive ×1/4, Fine ×1/8.
If the Demon is Large then you can adjust the load, but you're still well under enough weight to lift a 5x5x5 cube to immerse.
I'd base the damage on the volume of lava. 50 gallons isn't enough for full immersion unless you literally jumped into the barrel. Throwing it at somebody wouldn't fully cover them.
Beyond that, it's mostly just a judgement call. I'd probably starts somewhere around the 10d6 area. Hard to say.
so with a 26 dex and +12 BAB that is minimum +20 to ranged touch (-4 for non proficiency? -1 large creature.) minimum +15 to hit. it will probaly touch anything under the sun without a 30+ dex. if a trap dumped lava on a square it most likely would be a reflex save. if I rolled natural 20 can it critical? and deal 40d6? would a natural 1 completely miss and deal no damage? if it was a handfull of lava I could see attack roll, 2d6 damage but it's the whole freakin vat.
It's a splash weapon. There is no non-proficiency penalty with splash weapons. There are no REF saves with splash weapons. There are rules for what you do on a miss (roll direction and distance to figure out where it lands and do splash damage accordingly).
As the "whole freakin vat", just attack the intersection and do splash damage, exactly like the CRB says. Forget all the intense math and use the rules in the book.
yeah now that you mention it he does not have to lift it over his head so even if it was 1000 pounds he can still do it. looking at the numbers I'm not even as strong as I thought I don't think I can lift 115 over my head but I do think I can maneuver 115 pounds of liquid enough to dump it on someone. We can say that someone cast ant haul on him.
so I'll do it like this immersion is 5 x 5 x 5 is 125 cubic feet. 10% of that is 12.5 cubic feet
50 gallons is only 6.7 cubic feet.so humans (or medium creatures in general) aren't 125 cubic feet they are like 3 cubic feet I think it could be more like if they took a quarter of a square (like 30 cubic feet) to be fully immersed. so 6.7 / 30 is about 22% of full immersion so 22% of 20d6 is 4.4 we'll round up to 5d6.
so if 10% of full immersion is just exposure which is 3 cubic feet 6.7 / 3 = 2.2 times more than exposure. 2.2 times 10% is 22% so this logic supports 5d6 damage
ranged touch for 5d6 damage; splash damage is still 2d6 because of exposure.
I did some more math 30 cubic feet is about 230 gallons and that is how much it should be for full immersion but that is way to heavy for bad guy to lift.
turns out I needed this exact answer too.
I'm not a scientist so don't take my word as gospel. That being said, I did look into this a little bit.
50 gallons of water would weigh ~400 lbs (8.3lbs per gallon), but 50 gallons of molten gold would weigh ~8,000lbs (160lbs per gallon). So it really comes down to what earthen material the molten lava in question is actually comprised of and in what various quantities. For example, 50 gallons of lava would/should weigh as much as the type of earthen material that is molten, which could be a mixture of many different elements (aluminum, potassium, zinc, gold, sulfur, sodium, silver, etc.).
You could actually figure out the math if you knew the type of earthen materials this lava is comprised of at the various percentages. Personally, I'd just call it 1,000-1,500 lbs. and give the bad guy Ant Haul/Bull's Strength and call it a day.
As far as the Splash Weapon conundrum, I'd take DM Blake's advice. It's a splash weapon so no reflex save, attack the square and let it cause damage per the rules.
Hope this helps.