The title says it all really. My players are going to have to complete several challenges in Ysgard and while most will be athletic or combat oriented one will be a tower of storm giants with riddles and puzzles. After scouring the internet I was left a bit disappointed with the puzzles around so here we are.
Because there is no reason for the puzzles existence other than to be a interesting and thoughtful challenge, so need for them to 'make sense' as they sometimes do in dnd ie. why does the wizard have a complex but solvable puzzle instead of an actually secure way to stop adventurers.
So please, give me your best and wackiest puzzles.
If you do a search of the forum and use "Puzzles" as the keyword in topic, there are a couple threads that contain a very nice selection of puzzles and tricks. I've used a few and have some set for future areas of the campaign I am running. If your generic internet search didn't uncover some interesting and applicable puzzles, there may be a couple hidden away in the threads that turn up here.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
If you do a search of the forum and use "Puzzles" as the keyword in topic, there are a couple threads that contain a very nice selection of puzzles and tricks. I've used a few and have some set for future areas of the campaign I am running. If your generic internet search didn't uncover some interesting and applicable puzzles, there may be a couple hidden away in the threads that turn up here.
Which did you use? How did you use them? Any favourites? What did your players think? Any ones that was too hard/easy?
Celestial Code: The party has done a quest chain to obtain a list of 5 dates in history. They know these dates are required to open a lock (on a door or chest), but the lock consists of 5 dials, each with the following 6 symbols: L Γ — | ⅃ ⅂ In a room near to the lock is a simple orrery consisting of a Sun, a Planet, and a Moon with a set of dials to enter dates. Entering the dates into the orrery creates different alignments of the celestial bodies, for example, the earliest date puts the Planet directly south of the Sun and the Moon directly to the east of the Planet, so that looking from above, the Sun, Planet and Moon make a capital L. The next date produces all the celestial bodies in alignment, from east to west. Entering each date from earliest to latest produces the combination L—Γ⅃ | , which opens the lock.
Druid's Poem: This is a physical puzzle consisting of two printouts created by the GM: The first is a letter from one bad guy to another. Its subject seems innocent, but the spacing of words and word choice seems odd. The second is decorative engraving consisting of an abstract design of overlapping circles, rectangles, and curved lines. Overlaid on this design is the following poem: "In a box you live / In boxes, gold you keep / And when you perish / in a box you will sleep. / Your jail is a box / made of worry and doubt / For the secrets of life / cut all boxes out. --Ancient Druid Proverb" By cutting the rectangles out of the engraving, the players create a mask that can be laid on top of the letter to reveal a secret message.
The Un-puzzle: This puzzle has no wrong answers; it's just a role-play activity disguised as a puzzle. The party enters a room with a door on the other side that is blocked by a red glowing force field. There is a fire basket in the center of the room, burning with an eerie blue flame. On the left wall is a carved marble face with an open mouth and a look of longing. On the right wall is a similar open-mouthed face with a look of terror. Above the door is the inscription: "Ask for what you most desire, name your greatest fear. You must rid yourself of both if you wish to enter here." Each PC approaches the faces and says what they most desire and their greatest fear. The faces create a small illusory object representing the desire and the fear. If both of these objects are thrown into the fire, the force field changes from red to blue and that PC is allowed to proceed. If the objects are not destroyed, they disappear in 10 minutes. The objects are non-functional; if the player decides to get smart and say they most desire a scroll of wishes or a treasure map, the writing will be smudged and unreadable. If the player tries to tell a lie, they must succeed a difficult deception check to get the object. If they fail, the face does not produce anything.
A few I can recall clearly, or semi-clearly at least, as well as where they were sourced.
Simple Chess. Players enter the room, and there is a 15 foot plain stone around 25 feet wide. Beyond the 15 feet is a grid of 3X3 squares, alternating black and white. When a player steps into the "board" they can, by attempting to move, discover it is a chessboard pattern to move within, so from the knight square, you can only move the proper movement for the knight. Once all players (and NPC's with them, I suppose) take a spot on the board (one MUST take the King's position) the enemy forces appear. I set mine to have 2 more pieces than the party and the game began. Pieces "captured" are reduced to 0 HP and the body appears on the opposite side they started. Once you topple the opposing king, you finish crossing the board, still abiding the movement rule for your piece. (Got this from a book I read, I think Escape from Undermountain?)
Mirror Snap - there is a large mirror in the room which reflects the entire room, if you move around a little. There is one thing different in the mirror image (you decide and set an appropriate DC for your group to allow Perception or Investigation to pick up on it. Adjusting the room to match the oddity in the reflection reveals a magical doorway on one wall.
Players feel a tingle as they enter a room. Place whatever you want in the room, but scrawled on the wall, somewhere near the door it reads "Sometimes it's not about where you go, but how fast you get there." Players need to RUN through the doorway to exit.
I have seen some others and have my favorites stashed away that I won't post because I know my players read these forums lol. A lot of classic riddle puzzles exist and a longer search should show some visual puzzles you can draw out on a sheet or dry erase battle map (one of which I have coming up soon) In the context mine were placed, it was presented as a series of challenges required to prove themselves worthy of the final rewards. If I was 100% impartial and it wasn't a major plot point to reveal, they may have failed due to really, really poor chess skills by the player who decided to take control (and the others let him) I found out I am a FAR superior chess player and had to essentially throw the game. Beware how difficult you make your challenges and puzzles, players can sometimes really surprise you both ways. Blowing through ones you expected to be tough and hitting a wall on more obvious ones.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
A few I can recall clearly, or semi-clearly at least, as well as where they were sourced.
Simple Chess. Players enter the room, and there is a 15 foot plain stone around 25 feet wide. Beyond the 15 feet is a grid of 3X3 squares, alternating black and white. When a player steps into the "board" they can, by attempting to move, discover it is a chessboard pattern to move within, so from the knight square, you can only move the proper movement for the knight. Once all players (and NPC's with them, I suppose) take a spot on the board (one MUST take the King's position) the enemy forces appear. I set mine to have 2 more pieces than the party and the game began. Pieces "captured" are reduced to 0 HP and the body appears on the opposite side they started. Once you topple the opposing king, you finish crossing the board, still abiding the movement rule for your piece. (Got this from a book I read, I think Escape from Undermountain?)
Mirror Snap - there is a large mirror in the room which reflects the entire room, if you move around a little. There is one thing different in the mirror image (you decide and set an appropriate DC for your group to allow Perception or Investigation to pick up on it. Adjusting the room to match the oddity in the reflection reveals a magical doorway on one wall.
Players feel a tingle as they enter a room. Place whatever you want in the room, but scrawled on the wall, somewhere near the door it reads "Sometimes it's not about where you go, but how fast you get there." Players need to RUN through the doorway to exit.
I have seen some others and have my favorites stashed away that I won't post because I know my players read these forums lol. A lot of classic riddle puzzles exist and a longer search should show some visual puzzles you can draw out on a sheet or dry erase battle map (one of which I have coming up soon) In the context mine were placed, it was presented as a series of challenges required to prove themselves worthy of the final rewards. If I was 100% impartial and it wasn't a major plot point to reveal, they may have failed due to really, really poor chess skills by the player who decided to take control (and the others let him) I found out I am a FAR superior chess player and had to essentially throw the game. Beware how difficult you make your challenges and puzzles, players can sometimes really surprise you both ways. Blowing through ones you expected to be tough and hitting a wall on more obvious ones.
This is great, thanks!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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The title says it all really. My players are going to have to complete several challenges in Ysgard and while most will be athletic or combat oriented one will be a tower of storm giants with riddles and puzzles. After scouring the internet I was left a bit disappointed with the puzzles around so here we are.
Because there is no reason for the puzzles existence other than to be a interesting and thoughtful challenge, so need for them to 'make sense' as they sometimes do in dnd ie. why does the wizard have a complex but solvable puzzle instead of an actually secure way to stop adventurers.
So please, give me your best and wackiest puzzles.
If you do a search of the forum and use "Puzzles" as the keyword in topic, there are a couple threads that contain a very nice selection of puzzles and tricks. I've used a few and have some set for future areas of the campaign I am running. If your generic internet search didn't uncover some interesting and applicable puzzles, there may be a couple hidden away in the threads that turn up here.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Which did you use? How did you use them? Any favourites? What did your players think? Any ones that was too hard/easy?
So many questions!
Celestial Code: The party has done a quest chain to obtain a list of 5 dates in history. They know these dates are required to open a lock (on a door or chest), but the lock consists of 5 dials, each with the following 6 symbols: L Γ — | ⅃ ⅂ In a room near to the lock is a simple orrery consisting of a Sun, a Planet, and a Moon with a set of dials to enter dates. Entering the dates into the orrery creates different alignments of the celestial bodies, for example, the earliest date puts the Planet directly south of the Sun and the Moon directly to the east of the Planet, so that looking from above, the Sun, Planet and Moon make a capital L. The next date produces all the celestial bodies in alignment, from east to west. Entering each date from earliest to latest produces the combination L—Γ⅃ | , which opens the lock.
Druid's Poem: This is a physical puzzle consisting of two printouts created by the GM: The first is a letter from one bad guy to another. Its subject seems innocent, but the spacing of words and word choice seems odd. The second is decorative engraving consisting of an abstract design of overlapping circles, rectangles, and curved lines. Overlaid on this design is the following poem: "In a box you live / In boxes, gold you keep / And when you perish / in a box you will sleep. / Your jail is a box / made of worry and doubt / For the secrets of life / cut all boxes out. --Ancient Druid Proverb" By cutting the rectangles out of the engraving, the players create a mask that can be laid on top of the letter to reveal a secret message.
The Un-puzzle: This puzzle has no wrong answers; it's just a role-play activity disguised as a puzzle. The party enters a room with a door on the other side that is blocked by a red glowing force field. There is a fire basket in the center of the room, burning with an eerie blue flame. On the left wall is a carved marble face with an open mouth and a look of longing. On the right wall is a similar open-mouthed face with a look of terror. Above the door is the inscription: "Ask for what you most desire, name your greatest fear. You must rid yourself of both if you wish to enter here." Each PC approaches the faces and says what they most desire and their greatest fear. The faces create a small illusory object representing the desire and the fear. If both of these objects are thrown into the fire, the force field changes from red to blue and that PC is allowed to proceed. If the objects are not destroyed, they disappear in 10 minutes. The objects are non-functional; if the player decides to get smart and say they most desire a scroll of wishes or a treasure map, the writing will be smudged and unreadable. If the player tries to tell a lie, they must succeed a difficult deception check to get the object. If they fail, the face does not produce anything.
https://sayeth.itch.io/
A few I can recall clearly, or semi-clearly at least, as well as where they were sourced.
Simple Chess. Players enter the room, and there is a 15 foot plain stone around 25 feet wide. Beyond the 15 feet is a grid of 3X3 squares, alternating black and white. When a player steps into the "board" they can, by attempting to move, discover it is a chessboard pattern to move within, so from the knight square, you can only move the proper movement for the knight. Once all players (and NPC's with them, I suppose) take a spot on the board (one MUST take the King's position) the enemy forces appear. I set mine to have 2 more pieces than the party and the game began. Pieces "captured" are reduced to 0 HP and the body appears on the opposite side they started. Once you topple the opposing king, you finish crossing the board, still abiding the movement rule for your piece. (Got this from a book I read, I think Escape from Undermountain?)
Mirror Snap - there is a large mirror in the room which reflects the entire room, if you move around a little. There is one thing different in the mirror image (you decide and set an appropriate DC for your group to allow Perception or Investigation to pick up on it. Adjusting the room to match the oddity in the reflection reveals a magical doorway on one wall.
Players feel a tingle as they enter a room. Place whatever you want in the room, but scrawled on the wall, somewhere near the door it reads "Sometimes it's not about where you go, but how fast you get there." Players need to RUN through the doorway to exit.
I have seen some others and have my favorites stashed away that I won't post because I know my players read these forums lol. A lot of classic riddle puzzles exist and a longer search should show some visual puzzles you can draw out on a sheet or dry erase battle map (one of which I have coming up soon) In the context mine were placed, it was presented as a series of challenges required to prove themselves worthy of the final rewards. If I was 100% impartial and it wasn't a major plot point to reveal, they may have failed due to really, really poor chess skills by the player who decided to take control (and the others let him) I found out I am a FAR superior chess player and had to essentially throw the game. Beware how difficult you make your challenges and puzzles, players can sometimes really surprise you both ways. Blowing through ones you expected to be tough and hitting a wall on more obvious ones.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Side note, this Book of Challenges: Dungeon Rooms, Puzzles, and Traps (3e) on DMSGuild have some excellent ideas.
This is great, thanks!