Poison lava?

[Uncle Pine]

So, you can throw someone into a vat of black lotus extract and force hundreds of Fort saves on him, the DMG thoroughly depicts the benefits of bathing into acid pool and thanks to DotU Poison Spell is a thing, although you can only use it with touch spells (i.e. not Transmute Rock to Lava).

But how do you make poison lava?

3.x only, no PF. All suggestions are welcome, especially those from Mad Scientists.

[FocusWolf413]

I'd say you can't.
Many poisonous materials are organic compounds or are flammable. Both of those would be destroyed in the lava.
If you want to make a bunch of fort saves in the lava, add in the drowning rules or roll to see if body parts explode from the water vaporizing.

[Jurai]

I'd say you can't.
Many poisonous materials are organic compounds or are flammable. Both of those would be destroyed in the lava.
If you want to make a bunch of fort saves in the lava, add in the drowning rules or roll to see if body parts explode from the water vaporizing.

Take your target, say, an annoying gnome, and give him 1 point of fire resistance (Note: This evil plot assumes the common sense interpretation of lava being fire damage that ISN'T neutered by resistance). Next, trap him in a room that he has to hold his breath until he's got one or two turns left. At this point, we grab the gnome, and throw him INTO the lava. With lava-proof weights. He is now on his way to or at the bottom of the pool of lava, drowning. Bam, lots of Fort saves, all penalized since he was nearly out of breath anyway.

[Darrin]

Since lava = rock, try transmute rock to sickstone (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/fw/fw20021025a).

Or you could try major creation for some uranium 238, and then lots of heat metal until it's molten.

[ben-zayb]

The common trick to turn AoE into Melee Touch is via Spellwarp Sniper + Enlightened Fist. Problem here is that it requires "Range: Creature touched".


An alternative method requires lava qualifying as liquid. Befoul (LoM / FC1) has a range of touch, which is perfect for Poison Spell, and affects the touched body of water (or other liquid).

EDIT: Do note that poisons made from Minor Creation et al can't be used as material components. Learned it the hard way when using a druid character, where I didn't need to draw the poison manually via Natural Spell, but can only do it with non-Created poisons.

[Duke of Urrel]

You could try superheated chlorine gas, but make VERY sure you control the direction of the wind.

[Uncle Pine]

Since lava = rock, try transmute rock to sickstone (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/fw/fw20021025a).
This is awesome and doesn't require d&d-reality transparency as the uranium route. I love sickstone, but I've never noticed that spell before. Nice find!


The common trick to turn AoE into Melee Touch is via Spellwarp Sniper + Enlightened Fist. Problem here is that it requires "Range: Creature touched".
It works: Spellwarp requires an area spell with istantaneous duration and range greater than touch (i.e. Transmute Rock to Lava) and turn it into a ray, Hold Ray requires a ray spell (i.e. any Spellwarped spell) and turns it into a touch spell and Poison Spell requires a melee touch spell (i.e. any Hold Ray) and adds poison to it.
The problem is that Transmute Rock to Lava is a 9th level spell so you can't poison it with this route unless you're an epic character.


An alternative method requires lava qualifying as liquid. Befoul (LoM / FC1) has a range of touch, which is perfect for Poison Spell, and affects the touched body of water (or other liquid).

Lava is liquid at the right temperature so Befoul would work on liquid lava, although I'm not sure if Poison Spell would apply to it since Befoul lacks a Target line and it could be argued that its target is actually the water lava. Nevertheless, it can permanently turn your lava into poison lava! And it synergizes well with Transmute Rock to Sickstone, since they're both 8th level Cleric spells! I love it.

[Segev]

I doubt there are rules for heavy metal poisoning, but in theory if your lava has a high concentration of molten lead, it is poisonous as well as likely to combust the victim before it gets anywhere near him.

Also, lava flows usually release highly toxic mixtures of gas, anyway.

But mechanically, I don't have a lot of advice for you, sorry. Maybe Sandstorm has some rules for volcanoes? If so, the poisonous gasses associated may be in there.

[DrMotives]

Well, Segev mentioned molten lead, there's also mercury. Although I don't know if mercury's boiling point is above lava's melting point or not, it might cook off into superheated mercury vapor instead.

[Inevitability]

Well, Segev mentioned molten lead, there's also mercury. Although I don't know if mercury's boiling point is above lava's melting point or not, it might cook off into superheated mercury vapor instead.

Mercury evaporates at around 630 Kelvin. Lava is at least 1000 Kelvin. So all you get is poison gas that burns your skin after a second of exposure.