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Darkxarth
2009-02-23, 02:38 PM
I am creating an adventure that takes the PCs into the Tomb of a powerful mage known as Baldric the Cunning. (:smallamused:)

In this tomb, the party will encounter 4 riddles that need to be solved in order to advance. The last time I tried to use riddles in a campaign, it worked rather poorly, in that the riddles were either absurdly easy or unbelievably difficult for the players. In an attempt to avoid this difficulty, I have avoided riddles in dungeons for over a year. Well, I have a (mostly) new group of players and I want to see how well they can handle riddles.

However, I would first like to get some feedback from you clever folk here at the forums and see how easy/difficult my riddles are to solve. I'll separate the riddles and present them to you as I intend to present them to my players, along with whatever description of the room is necessary in the case of the final riddle. I am just looking for feedback on how easy or hard it was to guess the answer to the riddles.

Thanks in advance.

Riddle #1
You approach the Tomb of Baldric the Cunning and a mouth forms on the stone doors and says,
"I am more beautiful than the face of your love, yet more terrifying than your worst fear.
Dead men eat me all the time, and if a live man eats me, he will soon join them.
The poor man has me, but the rich man wants me.
What am I?

Answer: Nothing
I know, that was an easy one. It's supposed to be.

Riddle #2
You enter the next room and the doors leading out slam behind you. A light fills the room, coming from nowhere, and another voice questions you.
"No one wants me, yet I have been given freely since the beginning of time.
All living things fear me, yet your fathers' fathers' fathers long ago embraced me.
You do not seek me, yet you stand in my house.
What am I?"

Answer: Death
They are in a tomb, I would call that a house of death.
If they answer wrong, a monster appears to fight them. Every time they answer wrong.

Riddle #3
"I float in an endless sea of blue, yet I sink every night into darkness.
I have many lesser companions, but we are never seen together.
If you truly look upon my face, you would see nothing ever more, yet without me, you would see nothing.
What am I?

Answer: Sun
Sea of blue = sky, lesser companions = stars. Too easy?
As soon as the voice finishes, the walls begin closing in on the party. 10 in-game rounds (if they want their characters to delay the walls) and 5 real-time minutes to solve the riddle.

Riddle #4
You enter a circular room with 8 other doors in it, as you enter, the door you came through melds into stone with the wall. A voice fills the chamber,
"The first door holds your first answer, the sixth your second. Twice nothing is wealth beyond imagining, while the giver of life is held in half death. What you wish for lies just beyond death, yet what you seek comes after your die. [NOTE: This is not a typo.] The exit lies beyond false hope, and the last door holds that which may help you stave off death, if you are clever enough to use it.
Door A Behind this door is a small, empty 5'x5' room.
Door BThis door contains a portal that leads to a demiplane filled with gold and jewels. As well as Diamond Golems and deadly golden snakes the size of trees. The PCs will have time to back out and close the door before they are attacked.
Door CThis 5' x 5' room contains a small pool of water on the floor. It is uncontaminated and cool, perfect for drinking.
Door DThis room contains 1 six-sided die carved from bone.
Its useChallenge Death to a game of dice, hope you roll high...
Door EThis leads to the room containing the sarcophagus of Baldric the Cunning. This is where the party needs to get. Well done. Now find the exit so you can escape with your MacGuffin and loot.
Door FThis door leads to a small 5' x 5' room with a facedown card on the floor. Picking it up reveals it to be the Death card from the Deck of Many Things (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/artifacts.htm#skull). Though I may tone it down some.
How to stave off deathGet the six-sided die from behind Door D and challenge Death to a game of chance. Good luck.
Door G
This leads to a large 15' x 30' room. Characters find that anything they wish for in this room comes true. They also find that as soon as they exit the room, their wish is ungranted. If they make an "impossible" or illogical wish, a slip of paper appears instead with writing that says, "Don't do that again." If they do it again, an inevitable of logic appears, but remains perfectly still (unless attacked, of course). If they make a third impossible/illogical wish, the inevitable attacks, and is quite difficult to beat. This repeats if they defeat the inevitable.
Door HThis door reveals a 10' circular room with a Circle of Teleportation in the center. Congratulations, you have found the exit.


EDIT: Sorry about the mistake in submitting instead of previewing. It is all set out now though.

Kurald Galain
2009-02-23, 03:20 PM
Ok.

Riddle 2 and 3 are easy. Riddle 1 slightly less so, because it's meta.

#4 isn't a riddle, and invites brute forcing for the answer. I have no idea what you mean by "half death", or "beyond your die" (room 7 since a die has 6 faces?). Twice nothing should probably be 8, but that doesn't make sense. I don't think this puzzle will give a sense of accomplishment, since players will probably think it's random.

Zaq
2009-02-23, 03:43 PM
Those are all really easy. Challenging Death to a game of dice is clever, and probably my favorite part... but anyone smart enough to figure out how to do that won't go into Death's room in the first place. The rest of it is really easy to figure out. I don't really have any suggestions for how to make this less so, but I got all of these without even trying, so take that data point as you will.

chiasaur11
2009-02-23, 03:45 PM
I say you take the riddle from Dr. McNinja last week. It's a good one.

Also, the first one... well, it's rare to find a man who wants nothing, no matter how rich he is.

OneFamiliarFace
2009-02-23, 04:19 PM
I think the 1st 3 are easy, but I think I've heard the first one before. The 3rd riddle is useless though, as it isn't included in the final room at all. And the players only have one door to select in which they actually fail the last room. The final possible problem is that players are seeking a tomb and may think that is what is signified by "death."

I do like the idea of the last room. It isn't particularly difficult, but it doesn't need to be, and it is a fun diversionary puzzle which should occupy some time and make your players feel pretty good at having beaten it. You could always design it thusly though:

Riddles 1-3 are moderate to hard. And the final room has some doors with combats (or death as you will), and the exit and sarcophagus. Knowledge of the first three riddles isn't necessary for the rooms, but it would help them narrow down the door selections.

Starscream
2009-02-23, 04:33 PM
I used to do riddle dungeons when I DM'ed for my brothers. I'm a comic book nerd, and most of mine were inspired by a certain Batman villain.

Some favorites:

Q: What is harder to catch the faster you run? You love it when I am taken away, but without me you will perish.
Answer: Breath
If the characters fail this one all the air is sucked from the room.

Q:I am alive without breath, as cold as death, never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail never clinking.
Answer: Fish
If the characters fail the room begins to flood with water, and a summoning trap adds some sharks

Q:I am blind but can look you in the eye. I cannot speak but always tell the truth.
Answer: Mirror
The party must find their way through a floor on which some tiles are trapped. Looking through a mirror will reveal which ones.

Q:You can see me, you can touch me, but you can't carry me. You can put a creature in me to catch it. You can put me in a creature to kill it. You can put me in a box to make it lighter. What am I?
Answer: Hole
If they answer correctly a hole appears in the wall, letting them pass. If they answer incorrectly it appears beneath their feet and they fall.

Wafflecart
2009-02-23, 05:01 PM
1, 2, and 3 are all relatively easy, as for the 4th, I'm still trying to figure out how it works.

Fiery Diamond
2009-02-23, 05:01 PM
1st riddle: I had to look. I couldn't figure it out. It's also wrong, unless you're using the word "want" in the sense of "need," as rich people want many things in the sense of desire.

2nd: Easy.

3rd: Took me about 15 seconds after I read it, so moderately easy. Why bother using the first two in the final room but not this one, though?

Final Room: After looking what was behind the doors, it made sense. You /do/ have typos in your post, though. You wrote: "What you wish for lies jut beyond death, yet what you seeks comes after your die. [NOTE: This is not a typo.]" What you meant to write was: "What you wish for lies just beyond death, yet what you seek comes after your die. [NOTE: This is not a typo.]" Bolding mine, of course. It confused me at first because you said it wasn't a typo - I didn't realize until later you were only referring to "comes after your die," specifying that it wasn't supposed to be "comes after you die."

More on Final Room: As a player, I'd be pretty POed about a room of wealth...that I can't have any of. And a room of wishes....that I can't keep. Also, your use of the word "last" in "last door" makes me think "eighth door" not "door I haven't named yet," so it's somewhat misleading.

Wafflecart
2009-02-23, 05:03 PM
I used to do riddle dungeons when I DM'ed for my brothers. I'm a comic book nerd, and most of mine were inspired by a certain Batman villain.

Some favorites:

Q: What is harder to catch the faster you run? You love it when I am taken away, but without me you will perish.
Answer: Breath
If the characters fail this one all the air is sucked from the room.

Q:I am alive without breath, as cold as death, never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail never clinking.
Answer: Fish
If the characters fail the room begins to flood with water, and a summoning trap adds some sharks

Q:I am blind but can look you in the eye. I cannot speak but always tell the truth.
Answer: Mirror
The party must find their way through a floor on which some tiles are trapped. Looking through a mirror will reveal which ones.

Q:You can see me, you can touch me, but you can't carry me. You can put a creature in me to catch it. You can put me in a creature to kill it. You can put me in a box to make it lighter. What am I?
Answer: Hole
If they answer correctly a hole appears in the wall, letting them pass. If they answer incorrectly it appears beneath their feet and they fall.

K, thats amazingly awesome

Paramour Pink
2009-02-23, 05:15 PM
K, thats amazingly awesome

Completely agree. It might be the lack of sleep and any kind fo food speaking, but I didn't even figure three of them out. :smallredface:

Zergrusheddie
2009-02-23, 05:19 PM
With me you walk tall.
Without me you would crawl.
Too much of me and you will fall.
What am I?

To speak my name is to destroy me!
What am I?

I am a ruthless mentor.
I teach more than anyone else.
I have killed kings, leveled cities, and perished continents.
Run as fast as you can, you will not escape.
What am I?




1.
Pride

2.
Silence

3.
Time

Flickerdart
2009-02-23, 05:34 PM
How is a raven like a writing desk?

There are a bunch of answers (from "both need a quill to really fly" to "a raven is nothing like a writing desk") so you'll have some fun with that one.

Keld Denar
2009-02-23, 05:49 PM
Learn2Google

http://www.strolen.com/netbooks/riddles2.txt

Along with THOUSANDS of other riddles. Hope the rest of your day is free, cause I just made you waste it. Your welcome.

Heliomance
2009-02-23, 06:13 PM
I am a ruthless mentor.
I teach more than anyone else.
I have killed kings, leveled cities, and perished continents.
Run as fast as you can, you will not escape.
What am I?


I prefer the variant from the Hobbit.

This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers
Slays kings, ruins towns, and pulls high mountains down.

Urthdigger
2009-02-23, 06:26 PM
The first two I actually had trouble on, though I found the third one easy, which is a good thing given they're timed. As for the last round, it was easy enough to puzzle out most of it, but there's still a few flaws. I'll go over the solution.

The first door holds your first answer
It holds nothing, the first answer you gave

the sixth your second.
Your second answer, death

Twice nothing is wealth beyond imagining,
Nothing is in room #1, so twice that... room #2 holds wealth

while the giver of life is held in half death.
More math, room #3 is half of 6. It holds water, which all things need to live.

What you wish for lies just beyond death,
You can make wishes in room #7. I'm not sure I like this one as it isn't quite obvious what it does: players may just assume there's a hidden catch or something to lead them further inside.

yet what you seeks comes after your die.
What the players came for lies in room #5, which comes after the room with the die. I don't particularly like this one as they cannot figure it out without having opened room 4 first.

The exit lies beyond false hope,
The exit lies in room #8, the room after the room of wishes that you can't even keep. Or players can assume room 7 was a room that said it was what they wished for and had nothing, and thus was false hope. Either way it works.

and the last door holds that which may help you stave off death, if you are clever enough to use it.
And the die is in the remaing room #4. I have a few problems with this: First, change the world "last" to "remaining", and "clever enough to use it" to "lucky enough". The second annoyance is how you'd have to have already entered this room in order to know it has a die, and thus is the clue for room #5.

Now, I'm not going to say not to use this however, as the players are likely to grab something to help stave off death (As that can't be anything BUT useful), and thus get the die bit out of the way. Maybe I'm just the traditional sort who expects all door puzzles to have 7 rooms of instant, no saving throw death, and one room with the reward. As was said earlier, this puzzle is just begging to be brute forced: There's no penalty for failure (Well, except the room with the card, but if you enter a room that plainly tells you it contains DEATH and pick up a card on the ground there, you deserve to die), and unlike riddles where you have all the words of the english language, you have only 8 options so it's feasible to try them all.

Starscream
2009-02-23, 06:55 PM
How is a raven like a writing desk?

There are a bunch of answers (from "both need a quill to really fly" to "a raven is nothing like a writing desk") so you'll have some fun with that one.

My favorites are "Because Poe wrote on both" and "They both have inky quills".

Of course, the entire point is that there is no answer. But that hasn't stopped people from inventing many of them.

Prometheus
2009-02-23, 08:51 PM
Riddle #1: Nothing. 3 minutes.
Riddle #2: Death. Less than a minute.
Riddle #3: The Sun. After reading the first line.
Riddle #4:
-Nothing/Wealth/Life/4/5/Death/What you seek/Starve off. 4 minutes
-Open Door 1. That was expected, but had to be done.
-Open Door 8. Tempting.
-Open Door 2. I think I will close that door.
-I believe Door 7 is false hope, since we found the exit at 8.
-I still don't have any information on 4 or 5.
-Open Door 3. If this is healing water (We test it), my party serious considers taking on the Gold Dimension at this point.
-I now believe that What you seek is beyond death (as in the one after) and after my die (presumably the d6). This however is a false hope, since apparently we don't know what we want. It seems unlikely that all those clues refer to the same thing, but I can't figure them out.
-Given how the exit specifically claims to stave off death, I am weary to open any of the doors, despite having a healing pool (presumably). However, since there has to be a door that has what we want...
-Open Door 4. Having seen the die, it makes sense that 5 has what we want.
-Open Door 5. YAY! Now we can go.
-Checks Spoilers. Yeah I definitely got things all wrong, but it looks like I got it wrong in a way that worked out.
-Decision process took about 20 minutes.

The initial riddles were easy. I recommend finding harder riddles if you want to challenge them. If you don't mind, make it a very long and difficult one, in which they get more lines of the riddle read off as the hazards get worse (more water fills in the room, more endless skeletons raise from the ground, the temperature gets hotters, the spiky walls get closer...).

I generally agree with Urthdigger on that last room full of doors. Most PCs are reluctant to go into doors of which they have no information (after all, it probably means that they got something wrong and if they did it will probably kill them). I realize now that the riddle does address those rooms (the "last" one), but there are two candidates for the "last" room and your riddle presupposes that they take things in a certain order and my simulation shows that it does make sense this way.

My favorite is the riddle from the movie MirrorMask:

What is green, hangs on walls, and whistles?

This is said so the protagonist Helena can escape the evil sphinx (named Gryphon) while it ponders the riddle.
Helena: Riddle? Riddle. So have you thought of an answer yet?
Gryphon: You can''t pass. I give up, I think, no wait, wait... Fine. What's the answer?
Helena: Okay. It's a herring.
Gryphon: But a herring isn't green.
Helena: You can paint it green.
Gryphon: But a herring doesn't hang on a wall.
Helena: You can nail it to a wall.
Gryphon: But a herring doesn't whistle!
Helena: Oh, come on. I just put that in to stop it from being too obvious.



I lost the original, but I am especially proud of a riddle I wrote for my campaign that was very long and rhymed and everything. It was spoken by a fire spirit that lives in a furnace. He warned them of a strange and foreign land that is very hostile, even to him, the furnace spirit, who can "fell the mightiest of foes". He talks about the land constrains him and defeats him. Yet oddly enough, the land is cowardly: "It flees at first upon the ground, all at once it all ran down, next it took up to the sky, I never did see a foe so shy." The answer is the tundra. This is particularly salient, since the furnace is underground in a mountain, and the mountain is covered in snow all year round. It took the players a very long time to guess, but they did finally get it.

Another popular one are real authentic Anglo-Saxon riddles (http://www.technozen.com/exeter/). They speak in old English and rhyme, which is a nice effect. However, you have to filter out a couple that make reference to God.

Colmarr
2009-02-23, 08:52 PM
Ok, I can't believe no one has asked this yet, but

"/sigh. How cunning, Baldric?"

Edit: But having now gone back and looked at the substance of the opening post, I think that the first 3 riddles are easy (probably because I've heard the variants of the "nothing" and "death" riddles before. The "sun" riddle was slightly harder, but mostly because I took a cosmological view rather than a planetary view (space is black, not blue).

I originally thought the final room was fine. I figured out the first three riddles and knew that you were playing math games when you referred to nothing and death.

But I agree with the other poster who noted that not all the rooms are accounted for, and some of the clues only make sense after opening other (unknowable) doors. I'd be annoyed by that if I was a player.

My other note (as a DM this time), is that it appears that this dungeon can be completed in less than 5 minutes by a group that's good at riddles and sticks to the quest. That could be a very short session...

Draz74
2009-02-23, 10:17 PM
For what it's worth, I got the "sun" one after one line.

Zaq
2009-02-23, 11:56 PM
Hmm. Let me see if I can add something more helpful than the simple data point of my last post.

One kind of riddle-dungeon I really like is one in which the riddles don't open the way... they tell you what the way is going to be. For example, the players find themselves in a hallway with 3 (or 4, or 5, or X) doors, each marked with a riddle. The players don't know this, but all the doors eventually meet up at the same place, though the intervening spaces are wildly different. None of the riddles will open the doors, but if the players are clever enough to figure them out, they will give hints as to what lies in these intervening spaces. They don't get to skip the dungeon by getting the turn of phrase right, and if they're stumped they can just charge in blindly, but if they're clever, they can prepare for what they find, and have some idea of what they're up against.

For example, one dungeon I used had the players at a crossroads with a signpost that lead to "Strength," "Weakness," and "Madness." (I happened to just give the clues to the players, but you could make those the answer to riddles.) Behind "strength" there was something like a minotaur or tendriculous, I forget. Behind "weakness" there were Shadows and other energy-sapping dangers. Behind "madness" there was a swarm of (heavily chaotic, homebrewed) kobolds. The players could get hints as to what was behind each door, and once they cleared the challenges in one room they were free to move on, but it didn't just cancel out the challenge.

Another one combined opening the way with a hint as to what was behind it. I again had three doors (yes, three is cliche, but it's the smallest number that feels like an actual crossroads, so the players feel like they have a real choice, but the minimum amount of work for me), and each one recited a riddle I wrote in the form of a limerick. The players had to do something to each door to make them open. One required them to use any amount of positive energy (turn undead, any cure spell, or whatever), and held a lot of annoying enemies who constantly healed each other. One required a summoned creature (which I expected to be an animal, due to the druid in the party) to be sent into a hole to press a switch; behind that door were lots of natural-type plants and animals to fight. The last door required the players to cast a curse on it (they had a plot item that, among other things, could do just that), and behind it were, naturally, several enemies that were fond of curses and debuffs. The players thus had a hint about what was behind each door, but they still had a choice. (The doors in this scenario also had another application... at the end of each challenge room was another door, that required a roleplaying answer to get past. The door demanded to know the kindest and most selfless thing they had ever done, the most neutral and impartial thing, or the most selfish and evil thing, depending on which room it was. So, each room had more to its theme than just the enemies.)

So what I'm saying is, consider the possibility of puzzles that give the players an advantage but don't necessarily let them bypass the area. The players were free to reason "Hmmm, this door required us to summon an animal, so I bet there are lots of animals behind it. I'd rather deal with animals than with things that will curse me." or "hmm, when the sign says "weakness," that probably means weakness for us. We don't have anyone with Restoration prepared, so maybe one of the other doors would be better." They get to feel clever about choosing the challenge for which they are best prepared, and they are indeed rewarded for carefully considering the riddles and thinking about the answers to them. However, if they get stumped, they're not trapped forever or anything... they're just at a disadvantage and don't get to play to their strengths.

Dixieboy
2009-02-24, 12:01 AM
I would allow an int roll for them just "knowing" though

Because you, a 10-12 int score dewd can't figure it out does not mean your 24 int wizard cannot

Starscream
2009-02-24, 04:59 AM
I would allow an int roll for them just "knowing" though

Because you, a 10-12 int score dewd can't figure it out does not mean your 24 int wizard cannot

Nah, to me the entire point is that it's a challenge for the players rather than their characters. Just because a character is intelligent doesn't mean they are clever (Gandalf was clueless as to how to get into that dwarf hall).

It's nice to give the players a task than involves more than rolling dice and whoever has the best character build wins.

Malacode
2009-02-24, 05:09 AM
I have a plan so cunnin' you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Actually, I found all of them pretty easy... The last one took me a minute, but I figured out what was behind -most- of the doors. Then again, I'm probably not average enough for this stuff, I consistently perform waaay better than anyone else I know when it comes to these lateral thinking puzzles... Me saying that the last one 'took a minute' means your players will have plenty of fun puzzling over them for a while

cupkeyk
2009-02-24, 05:23 AM
It was actually all pretty easy but i liked teh last puzzle because it encorporates the other three. Our party always has a notes taker for challenges like this one, so i am fairly familiar with the process. If the dungeon is fairly long in between and the players don't have a person taking notes then they would end up screwed.

pingcode20
2009-02-24, 06:39 AM
I liked it.

Although I was slightly hoping that door 3 would contain the sun - you really should incorporate all three puzzles, and not just the first two.

However, the Death card door and its solution I didn't really like - getting a set of dice to give the idea to try and challenge death to a game of chance? Nah, that's kind of stupid.

Here's an idea, though: When someone picks up the Death card, Death just comes in and kills them. Just like that. However, Death sticks around, with the unfortunate PC clearly stuck in the room as a ghost, their corpse lying where it is.

Death then makes a comment about being behind quota, and offers to allow the PCs to challenge him to a game of dice for their friend's soul - on a 6, he'll bring the dead PC back to life and let him go. On anything else, he takes the soul of the roller as well.

If the roll comes up six, all is well, and the party escapes death. If not, then Death does as he says and kills another party member, repeating his offer to the remaining members, saying he'll release all their friends if they win. If possible, use a loaded die for this.

If the party continues to try and fail until only one member is left, Death laughs and ask if they wouldn't rather try to improve their luck before following their comrades.

Either way, when the party leaves, he offers to let them take the dice with them, laughing about 'practice runs'.

The solution is finding the 'die room', which contains a die enchanted to always come up six, at which point, assuming a non-retarded party, everything should click.

Of course, if you go with as forgiving a puzzle as that, you should probably fiddle with the hints so the players are more likely to stumble on it.

(There's also the 'cunning plan' of having one of the characters go into the 'wish room', wish for death's die to have all sixes, have another character rescue the killed ones, then leave the room and let the wish be undone.)

...

There's an idea - approach it like one of those old adventure games. The 'Wealth Room' is supposed to be essentially impossible to get at, due to the monsters, and the 'Wish room' is supposedly useless because all wishes get cancelled out when the characters leave the room.

However, if they stumble on the idea of using a wish to somehow disable the monsters and going for the gold before the 'wisher' character leaves the room, you could throw in something nice for them. Have the gold and stuff turn out to be illusory when they try to pick it up, but once they see through the illusion, they spot an item or two that stand out now that they're looking past the illusion, which is their special reward (above and beyond the norm - something cool but not really practical, like an instant fortress or something) for being cunning buggers.

Reaper_Monkey
2009-02-24, 06:58 AM
First riddle took me a while, the second one i got almost right away, and the third was solved with the first line (so I guess the walls wouldn't have even started to move in that case).

Last one... was a bit too con-fangled for me, and I gave up trying to work out what was meant to be done and just read the spoilers. Which, depending on what character I was playing, could be exactly what I'd do if playing (I have a character who favors brute force a lot)... its too easy to just open all the doors with a "to hell with it" mindset.

Zaq makes a lot of good points though, which I'll be taking away from this and might consider actually incorporating riddles in my games now (as I tend to avoid them as its more meta-gaming with the players than role-playing with the characters, the old "I have high INT/WIS let me just roll to figure it out" argument has been done to death and I tend to side with playing characters), so thanks a lot Zaq! :smallbiggrin:

Darkxarth
2009-02-26, 09:15 AM
Thanks to everyone for your comments, I feel like I have a much better idea of how easy/difficult the riddles are.

I will probably use the riddles I have, but perhaps separate the 'riddle rooms' with more standard dungeon rooms. Of course, several of you provided other riddles, so that gives me many, many more options. As far as the last room goes, I was torn on several issues, and several of you made different suggestion (I was particularly by Death cheating and trying to kill PCs one by one). I like the idea that the PCs can open every door, because if I were a player I would want to know for sure what is behind each of them, even at the risk of trouble. A few specific comments:

- The Pool of Water is just normal water, but maybe I'll make it part of a special ingredient for a True Ressurrection Potion or something.
- Sorry about the original spelling errors in my first post, I can't imagine how confusing that might have been (particularly with the whole "not a typo" statement).
- I expect my players to take advantage of the wishing room to do something with the wealth room, and I like the idea of actually giving them something cool but impractical if they manage to do so.

Again, thanks to everyone who commented.

-DX

Dixieboy
2009-02-26, 09:45 AM
Nah, to me the entire point is that it's a challenge for the players rather than their characters. Just because a character is intelligent doesn't mean they are clever (Gandalf was clueless as to how to get into that dwarf hall).

It's nice to give the players a task than involves more than rolling dice and whoever has the best character build wins.
Well if the smart dude is currently playing a 6 int Half orc Barbarian and is the only one who can figure out the answer :smallconfused:

caden_varn
2009-02-26, 10:32 AM
One thing I would suggest - as the last riddle is kinda compound (you cannot solve some of the doors before finding what is behind others), have the riddle carved into a stone plaque rather than dictated. This allows them to go back and study it as much as needed.

Radar
2009-02-26, 11:20 AM
The wish room can be abused in many ways. Wish for scrolls of True creation for example. Generally wish for something, that indirectly can give you something else. This way one overrides the primary wish's undoing.

As for the riddles, they seemed a bit easy, but it's very subjective.

Izmir Stinger
2009-02-26, 01:25 PM
Here are a couple. First one is an easy Gollum/Bilbo style riddle I have used in a couple campaigns:

My thunder comes before my lightening,
my lightening comes before my clouds,
and my rain burns all the land it touches.
What am I?

A volcano


This one I posed in a campaign in a standard format, but was inspired by this thread to convert it into a mad-wizard style dungeon riddle. When my party solved it it they actually stood up and faced a wall (and made some hats) as if they were the brothers from the riddle and it helped them solve it.

I just converted this one from prose to verse, so if you notice any typos or anything please point them out. I know some of the rhymes are weak and not all of my couplets share the same meter, but I think it came out OK for a quickie:

Three brothers there were, kidnapped by a madman,
To them he revealed a very strange game plan
He had a box full of hats, some black and some white,
Brimless, when worn they were not within sight.

The madman had guards, whom he ordered to kill
any brother attempting to flee his ill-will.
Helpless they were, no chance to escape.
They madman, they knew, would decide their fate.

One brother was tall, another one short,
The third one was neither - an average sort.
The madman then placed them facing a wall
in a line, starting with the brother most tall.
At the end of the line was the short one, behind
the normal height brother, completing the line.
The short one could see, from his rearmost vantage,
both of his brothers heads, due to their height advantage.
The normal height brother placed in the middle
can see only the tall one for the point of this riddle.
The tallest brother, placed facing the wall,
could see neither brother, medium or small.

The madman announced, "You move and I will,
order my guards to viciously kill.
Not the cheater will die, but his brothers instead;
if you break my rules, their deaths on your head."
The brothers were faithful, their love without condition,
they would take no action to adjust their position.

From behind them the madman selected three hats,
saying, "You've one chance to live, now how about that?
each of you gets a hat, maybe black maybe white,
your own hat's color, you must guess it right.
If you state correctly the hat that you wear,
I will set all of you free, to taste the night air,
Hazard guess without knowledge, you will regret,
For one incorrect answer, three lives are forfeit.

"I will give you no clues, save what you can see,
and that one of these hats - out of the three -
is a black hat, but perhaps it is more than one,
could be two, could be all, but it is not none.
You are not all wearing white hats, but besides these scant clues
there is no other information that you can now use.
So guess!" he finishes off with a sneer,
"I've got nothing but time, we could be here all year."

The brothers are wise, and all three of them smart,
well versed in philosophy, literature and art.
Each knows the other capable to rapidly figure
out anything they could, perhaps even quicker.

A long story short, they are safe, they are free
after few minutes delay, one speaks confidently.
It was the tall brother, but how did he know?
What color did he say, that they were let go?


EDIT: Cleaned it up, fixed the meter on some couplets I didn't like, added an unclear piece of information, thanks to Kalirren.

The tall brother is wearing a black hat.

The tall and medium brothers both know that if they were both wearing white hats, the short brother would immediately be able to answer that he is wearing a black hat, because there is at least one. He doesn't, so the tall and medium brothers know that at least one of them is wearing a black hat, possibly both. If the tall one was wearing a white hat, the medium brother would quickly answer that he was wearing a black hat, because at least one of them must, but he doesn't. That tells the tall brother that his hat must be black, else one of his shorter brothers could have answered confidently - and more quickly - than he.

Prometheus
2009-02-26, 04:29 PM
The wish room can be abused in many ways. Wish for scrolls of True creation for example. Generally wish for something, that indirectly can give you something else. This way one overrides the primary wish's undoing.
As long as "undoing a wish" is at the DM's discretion, than all a DM has to do is include the ramifications of that in that process (so the creation would go away as well).

Perhaps instead of undoing all the wishes do in fact come true, but long ago someone had wished that they had the option to go back and repeat the wish (or that they wanted to go back in time in general) and the magic stuck so that individuals always return back to a time before a wish was made. Of course, this does make it much more complicated to abuse the gold room (perhaps there is some object in the room that is timeless and therefore it is the only object that can be looted). Still there is always ways the players can try to game the system (I wish that wishes endure here, I wish that I do not go back in time anymore from this point, I wish for the following wish to have always been the case, etc etc), but the important theme is that The House Always Wins.

Kalirren
2009-02-26, 06:18 PM
Izmir, that riddle doesn't work. There is no way for the third brother to free himself (elegantly, i.e., without guessing), given that he sees at least one black hat in front of him.

The riddle works if the madman lets them -all- go if -one- of them gives a correct answer.

holywhippet
2009-02-26, 06:56 PM
If anyone needs some riddles, try these from the old PC game Betrayal at Krondor: http://www3.hi.is/~eybjorn/krondor/riddtest.html Some of them are game world specific but a large number are generic.

Myrmex
2009-02-26, 07:12 PM
I prefer the variant from the Hobbit.

This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers
Slays kings, ruins towns, and pulls high mountains down.

The Tarrasque?
A 20th level wizard?

Myrmex
2009-02-26, 07:18 PM
Izmir, that riddle doesn't work. There is no way for the third brother to free himself (elegantly, i.e., without guessing), given that he sees at least one black hat in front of him.

The riddle works if the madman lets them -all- go if -one- of them gives a correct answer.

It also doesn't work because there can be any number of black hats. If the shortest brother saw any number of black hats on the others, he wouldn't speak, but this doesn't confer any additional knowledge of who is wearing the black hat(s).

Ie, the middle brother sees his taller brother with a black hat, but doesn't know if he himself wears a black hat or a white.

Izmir Stinger
2009-02-26, 07:44 PM
Izmir, that riddle doesn't work. There is no way for the third brother to free himself (elegantly, i.e., without guessing), given that he sees at least one black hat in front of him.

The riddle works if the madman lets them -all- go if -one- of them gives a correct answer.

He does, in fact, let all of them go if one guesses correctly. That information was lost when I converted it from prose. I'll add a couplet to make that clear. Thanks for the catch.

EDIT: Added two couplets and removed one I was unhappy with. The madman now explains that only one correct answer is required.


It also doesn't work because there can be any number of black hats. If the shortest brother saw any number of black hats on the others, he wouldn't speak, but this doesn't confer any additional knowledge of who is wearing the black hat(s).

Ie, the middle brother sees his taller brother with a black hat, but doesn't know if he himself wears a black hat or a white.

He doesn't need to, because the middle brother's silence indicates the tall brother's hat is black and only one brother needs to guess correctly.

Myrmex
2009-02-26, 08:01 PM
Oh, right, gotcha.

Flickerdart
2009-02-26, 08:09 PM
The Tarrasque?
A 20th level wizard?

A bored DM.

chiasaur11
2009-02-26, 10:03 PM
The Tarrasque?
A 20th level wizard?

Yeah, an epic wizard wouldn't waste his time on mountains.

Izmir Stinger
2009-11-01, 08:11 PM
@ Cheating player: You were probably all excited when you saw the other logic riddle I used during the session in this thread and figured you had outsmarted me with your google-fu. Well I've already deleted the post with the riddle you are working on you dirty cheating bastards, and it isn't google cached, so neener-neener. Go back to solving it the old fashioned way, now that you have wasted time googling this post. Somehow it wound up on another site, but it appears to be in Chinese and if the solution is posted there it isn't in English, so you fail at cheating.

@ GITP Forums: Sorry for resurrecting this zombie thread, but I have good reason. I re-used the riddle challenge I posted here in my current campaign and my players are racing to solve it as a between sessions "play by post" challenge. Googling specific lines from the poem would bring you to this thread. After they have solved it (or died for an incorrect guess) I will re-post it.

Valaqil
2009-11-02, 09:29 AM
am just looking for feedback on how easy or hard it was to guess the answer to the riddles.

Thanks in advance.


I found the first three to be incredibly easy, and the fourth to be a jump in difficulty. The fourth wasn't difficult, but actually required me to puzzle it out.

At first, I didn't think that "your first/second answer" was from their respective riddles, but the answers to something within the fourth riddle itself. Once I got started, however, it flowed nicely. I had to map out, in my head, the other doors in order to discern doors D/E, which were my last two. Nicely done, although it does follow, a bit, what Kurlad Galain said: Brute-forcing the solution.