Hello everyone,

I have recently begun running my first proper campaign, we're a bit above 20 sessions in and I want to throw a sort of mini-dungeon at them. An abandoned mansion that once belonged to a slightly insane magician. And there I wanted to face them with a puzzle, that I think is rather simple, but I also have all the pieces already. To detail the puzzle with as few words as I can:

There is a door that the players will need to get through in order to progress, next to that door are two angel statues. One statue describes "Seven sages" and the other says, quote: "Bring the seven sages their doom". These seven sages are represented by six other statues and a broken one that can be found very close by. The first statue would call out these sages, one for example as "A child of the deepest pits of hell" which calls out a statue of a Tiefling, of which there is only one, the second angel statue then says "Hell's child, struck down by its own sword" the solution would be to find the statue's weapon, which is also relatively close and it is the only one of the statues that would look like it could hold a weapon, and either just hand it to the statue or strike it with it. This same concept applies to all other statues. The first angel statue describes who these people are and the second tells you what to do with them.

I hope that that explanation was not too complicated or badly worded. Now, I'm convinced that this riddle isn't incredibly hard, but my players have often surprised me with the sheer amount of stupidity they occasionally bring to the table and I would not be surprised if this went way over their heads. So my question for you, DMs of D&D Beyond, what do you usually do if your players face a riddle and absolutely cannot seem to make any progress?

You can try a few things:

1. Allow them to roll a new investigation check every time they are looking at a different part of the statue. So you have more opportunities to give them clues.

2. Allow Arcana or history checks so you can possibly be even more explicit for things like the tiefling being from hell. Or whatever else requires additional knowledge if they are stuck.

3. Give them a guide? So maybe whoever hired them is going in with them? then you have an NPC that can help out.

4. Have at least one statue that is maybe related to a strength of one of the characters. That way, if you need to, you can give that clue for free in a way the story makes sense.

Pretty sure my players would immediately try to smash all 7 statues with a hammer at the prompt "Bring the seven sages their doom." 

Maybe more of a "each statue has a weakness" or "each statue is overcome in a different way" prompt or something (but with more fancy-like language)?

if they can't make much progress, just watch. part of the fun of dnd is watching the players experimenting until they figure it out, if you tell them the answer they'll feel like they didn't actually do anything (which as a player and dm is not a good feeling) however, if the more they struggle the more it will feel like a triumph for them. hope this wasn't too confusing, the gist is it feels better to struggle but eventually get it than to be told (or heavily hinted) the answer