That wonderful stuff: Lava

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

I'm pretty sure that in a campaign where the GM allows you to walk across the lava by merit of your Kung-Fu training, issues like poison fumes and the wafting heat will be pretty much brushed aside :-P.

Not necessarily. If it's a setting where your abilities are unusual, you might not get a free pass on sensible concerns like that.

[Grouchy Chris]

Originally Posted by Darekun

Well, it's not like lava has a fixed temperature. So there's a wide range. I will be assigning numbers, on the principle that guessed numbers are better than none :J

Fresh from the interior, I'd guess 32d/sec burn damage from immersion. At these temperatures, even convection can't keep up, and you're probably looking at about 24d/sec burn damage from contact or being next to it. Maybe -1d/sec per hex, in open air.

I think you're overestimating the damage from being near to lava by quite a bit. Lava erupts at 700 C to 1200 C, per Wikipedia. Iron has a melting point of 1538 C, much hotter. And here is a picture of a man pouring molten iron.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/816153-001/Stone\

He's got bare forearms and a bare face, except for his goggles, and I'd say he's about five feet from the pour.

A lava flow, hot enough to still be flowing but with a crust of solid black rock, I'd guess 10d/sec from immersion, 8d/sec from contact, 5d/sec from being next to it. Also -1d/sec per hex, so you can stand a few yards away and not take damage.

Above, I linked to an account of a tourist who walks up to a lava flow of the partially crusted variety and fishes out lava rocks with a stick. He says he got his beard burnt off, but he obviously didn't take 5d of damage, nor did the stick take 10d from being immersed in the lava, which would have been sufficient to destroy it.

The basic set gives 3d/second for contact with molten metal (p. 433).

[Flyndaran]

Air is a wonderful insulator and sucky means of heat transfer.
Boiling with 212 degrees water is MUCH faster than static baking heat of 450 degrees.
Also, humans are evolved to get rid of heat much better than most animals. I believe military studies showed that people can withstand baking temperatures for longer than it takes to cook a steak.. as long as plenty of water was drunk.