I'm currently running a homebrew story. And one of the things I'm currently having most trouble with myself, is finding and making puzzles for my players. We are heading to our third session. Our first was a murder-mystery. The second was a zombie-story. But they'll be heading back to the city soon, and I'll need them to burglar a place.
Cue me having to come up with a good enough lock that three lowlevel characters, a barbarian, a fighter and a paladin, can pick.
So i sat down and actually made a puzzle. Might make some more the coming days. And I figured, as much trouble as I have with them, perhaps I can share them here, for people who struggle with the same problem.
So I'll post them here and try to explain them. Feel free to ask different questions.
Your own entries are welcome.
Tarnum Rockbreaker's puzzle, number 1: The Blood Vault
Below I posted a picture of the vault door. It's hidden behind a large painting, in my setting. It is a large square door with one plaque above it. And one plaque below, enscribed in a foreign language. In my setting: elfish. If translated, the text reads: "Perefe prenderesef, deviari dares." on the above plaque. On the one below it reads "Ele tempefere ele sanguane dannefe vivi." Which is a completely butchered and mangled mutation of italian. Which means: To take, you must give." and "Time and blood result in life."
A giant dwarven rune is placed in the center of it. In my setting this one stands for 'blood'.
The four dials point at roman numericals. 1 to 12, in a clockwise position. As you can see. You can read the corresponding dial to the number-lock on the right. But when your party attempts to turn the dials. They figure out they can't move them at all.
The trick to solving this one:
In order to turn the dials, one must cover their hand in fresh blood. Only with a blooded hand can one press the dials down and turn the lock. Your character must slash his own palm and turn the dials to the right four dials. Once they locked one of the dials in place, they can't do it again, until they've locked all four in place. If they put in the wrong code, the one turning the dials feels his life-force draining and he loses more blood and takes more damage. I'm working with a D4, but feel free to change the damage to fit the level of the party.
In my example the code is 5-1-5-1. Which in roman numericals is 'V-I-V-I', which reads as 'life'. Hence the butchered italian for Elfish. Time (the clock dials) and blood will result in life. And they must give their own blood for that. You can of course do without the plaques, or without the bottom one at least, and just have to make them find the right number somewhere else or torture it out of an npc or something. That way you won't have to take 5-1-5-1.
Bonus for making this a bit more troublesome:
You can have it be that once the vault door opens, the party faces a copy from the PC that opened the door. (Or PC's if more of them joined in blooding their hands to turn the dials.) You can even have the copy of the PC(s) grow stronger with how much more blood has been spilled.
I hope this helps someone. Will post more as I make more.
I did a humorous one shot for my party, which went over really well. One of the puzzles they had to solve was this:
Climb the ladder from black to white One letter at a time Every change must be alright Unless you want the slime
The idea was that they had to change the word "Black" to the word "White" by only changing one letter at a time, known as a word ladder. I gave them some INT (Investigation) rolls to know what a word ladder was. The Slime meant that every time they came up with a bad word, slime would fall from nowhere. Some possible solutions were:
BLACK > BRACK > BRICK > TRICK > TRICE >TRITE > WRITE > WHITE
BLACK > BLANK > BLINK > CLINK > CLINE > CHINE > WHINE > WHITE
BLACK > > CLACK > CLICK > CLINK > CHINK > CHINE > WHINE > WHITE
Another one I did is Can You Crack the Code? There are 9 keys in a box, each labeled with a number (1-9). The lock has 3 keys. The clue they need to find the right keys to insert into the lock is this:
2
9
1
One number is correct and well placed
2
4
5
One number is correct and displaced
4
6
3
Two numbers are correct but wrongly placed
5
7
8
This whole row is disgraced
5
6
9
One number is correct but wrongly placed
The answer is 394. Placing keys numbered 3, 9, and 4 into the lock (from left to right) will open it.
Hey,
Relatively new DM here.
I'm currently running a homebrew story. And one of the things I'm currently having most trouble with myself, is finding and making puzzles for my players.
We are heading to our third session. Our first was a murder-mystery. The second was a zombie-story. But they'll be heading back to the city soon, and I'll need them to burglar a place.
Cue me having to come up with a good enough lock that three lowlevel characters, a barbarian, a fighter and a paladin, can pick.
So i sat down and actually made a puzzle. Might make some more the coming days. And I figured, as much trouble as I have with them, perhaps I can share them here, for people who struggle with the same problem.
So I'll post them here and try to explain them. Feel free to ask different questions.
Your own entries are welcome.
Tarnum Rockbreaker's puzzle, number 1: The Blood Vault
Below I posted a picture of the vault door. It's hidden behind a large painting, in my setting.
It is a large square door with one plaque above it. And one plaque below, enscribed in a foreign language. In my setting: elfish.
If translated, the text reads: "Perefe prenderesef, deviari dares." on the above plaque. On the one below it reads "Ele tempefere ele sanguane dannefe vivi."
Which is a completely butchered and mangled mutation of italian. Which means: To take, you must give." and "Time and blood result in life."
A giant dwarven rune is placed in the center of it. In my setting this one stands for 'blood'.
The four dials point at roman numericals. 1 to 12, in a clockwise position. As you can see. You can read the corresponding dial to the number-lock on the right.
But when your party attempts to turn the dials. They figure out they can't move them at all.
The trick to solving this one:
In order to turn the dials, one must cover their hand in fresh blood. Only with a blooded hand can one press the dials down and turn the lock. Your character must slash his own palm and turn the dials to the right four dials. Once they locked one of the dials in place, they can't do it again, until they've locked all four in place. If they put in the wrong code, the one turning the dials feels his life-force draining and he loses more blood and takes more damage. I'm working with a D4, but feel free to change the damage to fit the level of the party.
In my example the code is 5-1-5-1. Which in roman numericals is 'V-I-V-I', which reads as 'life'. Hence the butchered italian for Elfish. Time (the clock dials) and blood will result in life. And they must give their own blood for that.
You can of course do without the plaques, or without the bottom one at least, and just have to make them find the right number somewhere else or torture it out of an npc or something. That way you won't have to take 5-1-5-1.
Bonus for making this a bit more troublesome:
You can have it be that once the vault door opens, the party faces a copy from the PC that opened the door. (Or PC's if more of them joined in blooding their hands to turn the dials.)
You can even have the copy of the PC(s) grow stronger with how much more blood has been spilled.
I hope this helps someone. Will post more as I make more.
I did a humorous one shot for my party, which went over really well. One of the puzzles they had to solve was this:
Climb the ladder from black to white
One letter at a time
Every change must be alright
Unless you want the slime
The idea was that they had to change the word "Black" to the word "White" by only changing one letter at a time, known as a word ladder. I gave them some INT (Investigation) rolls to know what a word ladder was. The Slime meant that every time they came up with a bad word, slime would fall from nowhere. Some possible solutions were:
BLACK > BRACK > BRICK > TRICK > TRICE >TRITE > WRITE > WHITE
BLACK > BLANK > BLINK > CLINK > CLINE > CHINE > WHINE > WHITE
BLACK > > CLACK > CLICK > CLINK > CHINK > CHINE > WHINE > WHITE
Another one I did is Can You Crack the Code? There are 9 keys in a box, each labeled with a number (1-9). The lock has 3 keys. The clue they need to find the right keys to insert into the lock is this:
2
9
1
One number is correct and well placed
2
4
5
One number is correct and displaced
4
6
3
Two numbers are correct but wrongly placed
5
7
8
This whole row is disgraced
5
6
9
One number is correct but wrongly placed
The answer is 394. Placing keys numbered 3, 9, and 4 into the lock (from left to right) will open it.
Nice one! Love logic puzzles like that last one.
I have another session tomorrow. I made a quick puzzle for them. I'll post it sometime after the session, if it goes well