Need some ideas for a monster...

[Schadrach]

I'm running a campaign, and the party has basically used the "move from any point on any plane to any other point on any plane, regardless of barriers" effect of wish to go directly to a medium-bad's vault.

I wasn't ready for this, and my notes for the vault read: Guarded by 4-6 CR 8ish-11ish fire-themed creatures.

I need some ideas for such a critter that are more interesting than fire elementals, can preferably handle being sealed away for quite a while, and fit the whole "fire themed" bit. We're running Pathfinder, but I'm not averse to converting 3.5 or 3.0 critters at all, or 3PP material.

There are a bajillion different critters in a bajillion different books, so I thought I'd appeal to you guys.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Obsidian Oozes (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20031123a) can be pretty brutal, and they're great to use against players who can easily recognize most of the published monsters.

There are Fire, Magma, and Smoke Drakes in the Draconomicon which could be useful, especially in a large enough room to permit flight.

The Fiery Skeleton variant in Libris Mortis on page 162 would be nice, for that level I'd actually combine a few of those. A Forest Landwyrm (Draconomicon) Fiery Nimble Viscious Skeleton would be CR 9, or a Hill Landwyrm with the same treatment is CR 10. Throw in a miniboss capable of animating those and give him a few of the Corpsecrafter line of feats in Libris Mortis to put some extra bonuses on them, and be sure to include the bonuses for being created in a Desecrate spell with an evil altar present.

I'd include an extremely steamy area, with a tunnel flooded with boiling water which the PCs have to swim through to progress. Throw in a Pyrohydra, which can be especially dangerous if you switch some of its feats for Snatch, Improved Snatch, and Multisnatch, from the Draconomicon. One head can grab a medium or smaller opponent, it can conduct the grapple at -10 so only that head is considered grappling, and the rest of its heads can bite that opponent as though from outside the grapple. It could grab every party member with plenty of heads to spare, which can really screw them if they're not prepared for that sort of thing.

[Schadrach]

Obsidian Oozes (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20031123a) can be pretty brutal, and they're great to use against players who can easily recognize most of the published monsters.

There are Fire, Magma, and Smoke Drakes in the Draconomicon which could be useful, especially in a large enough room to permit flight.

The Fiery Skeleton variant in Libris Mortis on page 162 would be nice, for that level I'd actually combine a few of those. A Forest Landwyrm (Draconomicon) Fiery Nimble Viscious Skeleton would be CR 9, or a Hill Landwyrm with the same treatment is CR 10. Throw in a miniboss capable of animating those and give him a few of the Corpsecrafter line of feats in Libris Mortis to put some extra bonuses on them, and be sure to include the bonuses for being created in a Desecrate spell with an evil altar present.

I'd include an extremely steamy area, with a tunnel flooded with boiling water which the PCs have to swim through to progress. Throw in a Pyrohydra, which can be especially dangerous if you switch some of its feats for Snatch, Improved Snatch, and Multisnatch, from the Draconomicon. One head can grab a medium or smaller opponent, it can conduct the grapple at -10 so only that head is considered grappling, and the rest of its heads can bite that opponent as though from outside the grapple. It could grab every party member with plenty of heads to spare, which can really screw them if they're not prepared for that sort of thing.

I had already planned a similar pyrohydra event elsewhere in the same place, my issue being that they literally burned a wish they had available to put themselves already inside, basically changing "break in to get mcguffin" into "get mcguffin and break out", figuring that something built to defend an object from being stolen would likely be easier to break out of than in to (which it is -- my version of the pyrohydra trap involved an incline as well, they won't have to work against gravity/current on the way out; also it wasn't completely flooded, but it also wasn't water =p ). I was expecting another session to plan the inner sanctum, rather than it being teleported directly into via wish.

Now that ooze is simply delicious, there's something to it to frustrate every member of the party.