I was hoping to get some assistance from the community in working on a puzzle that I will be presenting with my players. Some background is that there is a doorway that blocks off access to 'Act 2' fo the campaign that my players need to gain access to. I want to have this doorway locked behind 4 separate keys that the players will have to get from the four bosses of Act 1. They have just slain the first boss and the end of last session so they are likely to search his body and talk to his minions this week so they will find the first key, and find out about the door (unless they kill everyone but thats on them). The 4 bosses all serve elemental evil, so the keys and puzzles are going to be elemental based.
Some background on my players is I am running a group of 3 of them who are all fairly smart, two of which have pretty extensive DnD experience (One DMs as well and the other has been world building so he can start DMing). They also enjoy a challenge so any riddles and the puzzle can be somewhat obtuse and they Will enjoy it.
So here is where I am at for what I am trying to create:
1. A doorway with 4 keyholes. I would like either the keyholes to not be obvious as to which key gots into which hole and for them to either need to solve a riddle or clue from the environment to figure out what goes where -or- I would like the keys to have to be turned in a certain order which they would most certainly need a riddle or some such to determine (I will also have an NPC with them at this point to act as the fourth person to turn at their direction so they won't need to figure out how to turn all 4 at the same time)
2. 4 different keys for them to find on the bosses. I would like these keys to be thematically appropriate and they don't necessarily need to be a traditional key. If the door was made a little easier then I would like to include some challenge in determining which key is which element, but as long as they take good notes as to where they got the keys from that would probably be easy to just bypass so I don't need this part to be a challenge.
3. Once they get through the door I want them to enter a chamber with some offshoots-either grounded again in the 4 elements or this time in like the quasi planes between the elements (such as combining fire and water to make steam). I don't want this one to be as much a thinking puzzle as they are skill challenges (such as testing the endurance of earth or such) but I have plenty of time a few levels before I have to figure out this part at all.
One last piece to include would be that by the time they are attempting to solve this puzzle (after defeating the 4 bosses) they will almost certainly know that the Elemental Evil is involved and that the four elements specifically are an answer in some way. So that is why I am looking for something more challenging then lighting a brasier or blowing something out since they will be looking for ways the elements are involved.
What if you used animal totem’s for each element, I.E Salamander, Hawk, Elephant, Stag.
then you could them the puzzles around the animals
maybe there are a bunch of elephant fountains they need to rotate to make water follow a path, maybe there is a hawk mosaic that’s a colourful Tangram, maybe an Escher Lizards based puzzle for salamander, maybe the stag has a riddle
With the 4 different elements, being the theme; here are some thoughts that came to my mind, use at your own discretion;
Instead of keys, have each boss have an glass orb with a 'spark' of one of the elements inside. Then instead of the keys being physical and 'unlocking' a door... there could be 'inserts' for the orbs to be placed in on the door.
Being '4' is the elements, you could potentially use North / South / East / West in some form with the puzzle. Have each element and or location of the bosses correlate with a different direction; then on your door, you simply put a 'North arrow' on the door, and see if the players remember where each stone came from
Similar to the N/S/E/W above, you could have your NPC have a special 'compass' that when they hover the compass over the different 'keys', they magnetically point to a different direction. Then on your door, the key ports have the same magnetic alignment when they run the compass by them.
Back to the concept of the keys... you could put some inscriptions on each key that is incomplete. But when all 4 keys are together, the players can figure out the order in which the keys go in based on the inscriptions making a complete sentence. Example;
Key 1 : the phantom
Key 2 : You are
Key 3 : ZONE
Key 4 : now entering
So the order in which they go into the door is 2, 4, 1, 3
With the concept of 4 elements... taking a reference from the old movie '5th element'... give each element a different symbol / stone, and then the door, instead of being a key slot, there are different pedestals all around that the stones have to be placed on to. Then each stone 'activates' based on the element it is.... yeah, pretty much just copy that whole scene from 5th element at this point, ha, bonus if your players haven't seen the movie
If you really want to test your players... throw in the Fibonacci sequence. (ie. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34... etc.). The Fibonacci sequence is EVERYWHERE in nature, so it could be something that ties in with the elements theme.
Don't know if these spark your interests, but hopefully it helps. Good Luck!
Something Turbo Supremo mentioned that sounded really interesting to me was the idea of having the keys be fonts of power in some way... such as being glass orbs or maybe crystals. Anyway, what form they're in doesn't really matter. The important part is that the door has some kind of device on it that's activated by a combination of the elements. What comes to mind is something where the Water trigger is set above the fire trigger, producing steam. The steam escapes through the device unless it's stopped up by the earth trigger. Perhaps the wind trigger could be set in the center and it blows the steam into a specific part of the lock that releases the door, allowing them to pass.
Hello all.
I was hoping to get some assistance from the community in working on a puzzle that I will be presenting with my players. Some background is that there is a doorway that blocks off access to 'Act 2' fo the campaign that my players need to gain access to. I want to have this doorway locked behind 4 separate keys that the players will have to get from the four bosses of Act 1. They have just slain the first boss and the end of last session so they are likely to search his body and talk to his minions this week so they will find the first key, and find out about the door (unless they kill everyone but thats on them). The 4 bosses all serve elemental evil, so the keys and puzzles are going to be elemental based.
Some background on my players is I am running a group of 3 of them who are all fairly smart, two of which have pretty extensive DnD experience (One DMs as well and the other has been world building so he can start DMing). They also enjoy a challenge so any riddles and the puzzle can be somewhat obtuse and they Will enjoy it.
So here is where I am at for what I am trying to create:
1. A doorway with 4 keyholes. I would like either the keyholes to not be obvious as to which key gots into which hole and for them to either need to solve a riddle or clue from the environment to figure out what goes where -or- I would like the keys to have to be turned in a certain order which they would most certainly need a riddle or some such to determine (I will also have an NPC with them at this point to act as the fourth person to turn at their direction so they won't need to figure out how to turn all 4 at the same time)
2. 4 different keys for them to find on the bosses. I would like these keys to be thematically appropriate and they don't necessarily need to be a traditional key. If the door was made a little easier then I would like to include some challenge in determining which key is which element, but as long as they take good notes as to where they got the keys from that would probably be easy to just bypass so I don't need this part to be a challenge.
3. Once they get through the door I want them to enter a chamber with some offshoots-either grounded again in the 4 elements or this time in like the quasi planes between the elements (such as combining fire and water to make steam). I don't want this one to be as much a thinking puzzle as they are skill challenges (such as testing the endurance of earth or such) but I have plenty of time a few levels before I have to figure out this part at all.
One last piece to include would be that by the time they are attempting to solve this puzzle (after defeating the 4 bosses) they will almost certainly know that the Elemental Evil is involved and that the four elements specifically are an answer in some way. So that is why I am looking for something more challenging then lighting a brasier or blowing something out since they will be looking for ways the elements are involved.
Thank you so much!
What if you used animal totem’s for each element, I.E Salamander, Hawk, Elephant, Stag.
then you could them the puzzles around the animals
maybe there are a bunch of elephant fountains they need to rotate to make water follow a path, maybe there is a hawk mosaic that’s a colourful Tangram, maybe an Escher Lizards based puzzle for salamander, maybe the stag has a riddle
With the 4 different elements, being the theme; here are some thoughts that came to my mind, use at your own discretion;
Don't know if these spark your interests, but hopefully it helps. Good Luck!
Something Turbo Supremo mentioned that sounded really interesting to me was the idea of having the keys be fonts of power in some way... such as being glass orbs or maybe crystals. Anyway, what form they're in doesn't really matter. The important part is that the door has some kind of device on it that's activated by a combination of the elements. What comes to mind is something where the Water trigger is set above the fire trigger, producing steam. The steam escapes through the device unless it's stopped up by the earth trigger. Perhaps the wind trigger could be set in the center and it blows the steam into a specific part of the lock that releases the door, allowing them to pass.
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