Puzzles Thread

[LaughingRogue]

One of my favorite things to do when i'm dming is have a decent amount of puzzles in the game, and make the PCs really think about how to progress,

So I ask the playground , what is your favorite puzzle you've encountered or have made for the party you DM'd for or are currently making for a game?

or

Have you ever experienced a terrible terrible puzzle at the hands of the Dm
(you know the ones I mean where it takes the group 4 hours to figure out that the answer to the puzzle is underneath the statue in the corner of the room :smallfurious:)

1. Include the situation
2. Include all necessary backstory that is required to understand the puzzle
3. How do you make it so that the puzzle isn't just Brute-forced through (this I think is key in making a good puzzle)

I will be posting my answer to this once I return home from work but I wanted to throw this up here so I could have something interesting to read when I return home,

I hope the playground has fun with this,

LaughingRogue

[Sir Homeslice]

I've experienced a terrible puzzle and I want to talk about it.

It's every single puzzle a DM has ever made my PC and the party he is associated with solve or attempt to solve.

The answer is always some obscure confusing koan-like answer the DM thought he was clever enough to think up of which means nobody will ever get it and we get to waste time by getting to sit around and do nothing while the DM watches smugly. It's that or some other flavor of horse feces the DM thought up of that involves him masturbating to himself about how clever he is (not physically). Either way, no DM I've been under has ever had a decent puzzle nor have they allowed some kind of roll to divine whatever the hell is going on in his mind.

And no, if you mention anything about being mad, unimaginative, a rollplayer, or go off on me about the good old days where everyone was an unholy fusion of MacGuyver, Batman, the Question, and whatever other omega-level resourceful paranoid super everything solving character and the people younger than you have it so swell. I don't want to hear it because every single instance of a puzzle I have ever been subject to or heard of has been a non-ending stream of pointless wankery designed by a man who expects his players to read his mind.

[LaughingRogue]

I've experienced a terrible puzzle and I want to talk about it.

It's every single puzzle a DM has ever made my PC and the party he is associated with solve or attempt to solve.

The answer is always some obscure confusing koan-like answer the DM thought he was clever enough to think up of which means nobody will ever get it and we get to waste time by getting to sit around and do nothing while the DM watches smugly. It's that or some other flavor of horse feces the DM thought up of that involves him masturbating to himself about how clever he is (not physically). Either way, no DM I've been under has ever had a decent puzzle nor have they allowed some kind of roll to divine whatever the hell is going on in his mind.

And no, if you mention anything about being mad, unimaginative, a rollplayer, or go off on me about the good old days where everyone was an unholy fusion of MacGuyver, Batman, the Question, and whatever other omega-level resourceful paranoid super everything solving character and the people younger than you have it so swell. I don't want to hear it because every single instance of a puzzle I have ever been subject to or heard of has been a non-ending stream of pointless wankery designed by a man who expects his players to read his mind.

you've exceeded my expectations with this answer, as I found it quite humorous to the point where I was laughing almost all the way through,

thank you!

Edit:: Do you think that it is the problem with the DMs you've had or the idea of puzzles in d&d to begin with

[Dragonsoul]

This is a favourite of mine,I suspect I may have read it somewhere so I won't take credit for it.

Situation
The party enters the room and the door locks behind them, the door in front is locked (Replace with warp gates as necessary)
In the room there is a dais with a 6 buttons on it and above the door is a timer counting down from five minutes with loud ominous ticks.
The buttons reset the timer.
When the timer reaches zero, the door opens.

[LaughingRogue]

This is a favourite of mine,I suspect I may have read it somewhere so I won't take credit for it.

Situation
The party enters the room and the door locks behind them, the door in front is locked (Replace with warp gates as necessary)
In the room there is a dais with a 6 buttons on it and above the door is a timer counting down from five minutes with loud ominous ticks.
The buttons reset the timer.
When the timer reaches zero, the door opens.

haha, I believe you have read that somewhere just as I believe I have read it somewhere too ... it's a classic "try to scare the crap out of your party" type move,

which in my experience is quite fun.

[Sir Homeslice]

Edit:: Do you think that it is the problem with the DMs you've had or the idea of puzzles in d&d to begin with

A bit of both, really. It's very possible to do the latter but my hatred of puzzles due to the former makes me want to disregard the latter as ever being feasible.

[docHigh]

Situation
The party enters the room and the door locks behind them, the door in front is locked (Replace with warp gates as necessary)
In the room there is a dais with a 6 buttons on it and above the door is a timer counting down from five minutes with loud ominous ticks.
The buttons reset the timer.
When the timer reaches zero, the door opens.

Exactly the same but with a little twist:
The doors shut when characters are inside. There is a pedestal just high enough for a dwarf to see a red square/button on it. Taller guys have no problems.
As the door is closed, the room starts filling with water. Pressing the button opens small hatch that lets water pour out.
The other door out is opened only when there is enough pressure on the floor, meaning that the characters have to wait out until there is enough water (water level higher above their heads). Hold your breath and sit at the bottom in your armor or swim to the top. :smallbiggrin: 30 minutes of arguing and pushing the button.

It was fun both for me and the players. Later they used the same route to escape, using the same room as kind-of-trap to leave one monster into the room soaking :p

[Gice]

In my study association (Computer Science + Mathematics department), we (a group of "regular" D&D players) decided to do a D&D-evening for people who had no experience with it and in that game we used a riddle. There were three groups:
1. about 5 (mostly) first and second year students who have little to no RPG let alone tabletop experience.
2. a group with some newbies, some experienced gamers (even a D&D player) study year 2-4
3. a group of big time WOW players, all at least 6th year students.

Group 1 solved it in about 5 minutes
Group 2 was close from the start but didn't actually get it until about 30 minutes
Group 3 took about 1.5 hours before finally finding the answer
Remember that these guys (and girls) are supposed to be trained in logic reasoning and such. It was fun to see them struggle, but for me as a DM it got boring after waiting for 20 minutes. One of the players actually tried brute-forcing words from books from the library they found.

We took it from some adventure, not sure which.

The riddle:
Here is a thing that nothing is.
'T is foolish, wanton, sober, wise.
It hath no wings, no eyes, no ears.
And yet it flies, it sees, it hears.

It lives by loss and feeds in smart.
It dwells in woe, it liveth not.
Yet ever more this hungry elf,
doth feed on nothing but itself.
Which was written on a wall in a frozen and (not quite) abandoned monastery in magical writings, speaking the correct answer would open the door to the boss battle and loot.

The answer:
The mind.

[Feytalist]

One of my all-time favourites is a staple of most adventure/rpg type video games: the beam of light/laser with swiveling mirrors that you have to direct.

I believe there has been one in every single Tomb Raider game thus far.

The one we had in one of my games had the stock standard objects you had to move out of the way with Strength, disable device etc checks, was on a timer, and spawned monsters on certain "wrong" paths.

[The Random NPC]

My all time favorite puzzle situation was one I heard on this board. The puzzle was the classic “What is more good then the greatest Celestial, more evil then the evilest Devil, the poor have it, the rich want it, and if you eat it you will die.” The character that stepped up to answer replied, (paraphrased) the answer is nothing, but that is incorrect. One of the greatest Celestials is in fact Asmodeus who is very evil. It is impossible to have nothing, and people always want something. As I own and wear a Ring of Sustenance, I have eaten nothing for several months and have yet to die. The DM said the magic puzzle imploded from the logic error.

[Feytalist]

My all time favorite puzzle situation was one I heard on this board. The puzzle was the classic “What is more good then the greatest Celestial, more evil then the evilest Devil, the poor have it, the rich want it, and if you eat it you will die.” The character that stepped up to answer replied, (paraphrased) the answer is nothing, but that is incorrect. One of the greatest Celestials is in fact Asmodeus who is very evil. It is impossible to have nothing, and people always want something. As I own and wear a Ring of Sustenance, I have eaten nothing for several months and have yet to die. The DM said the magic puzzle imploded from the logic error.

That is bloody brilliant.

[kalkyrie]

Here is one puzzle I pulled on my PCs in a recent adventure.
---

The mission is to get a barge full of important trade goods down a dwarf-built canal through a mountain.
Near the climax of the mission, the canal goes underground, and the PCs have to start opening canal lock gates to let the barge move on.

They and the barge then come up to a final (now abandoned) guard post, with a series of 6 lock gates. The gates are all controlled from an central chamber (via pulleys and chains). Originally each gate was controlled by a single lever, but now the mechanisms have rushed together, and pulling any one lever will operate multiple gates. The levers are 2 rounds of movement away from the canal area.

So far, so boring. Lets make it more interesting.

The structure of the canal near the guardpost is a T-junction. If the PCs explore fully, they see that the offshoot of the T-junction leads out of the mountain. Off a cliff. And one of the 6 lock gates is the only thing stopping the water flowing right off the mountain.

So now the PCs have a problem. They have 6 levers, and 6 gates. They could try pulling random levers and moving the barge along slowly, but if they open the 'cliff' gate while the barge is in that section, the barge (and the PCs) could fly off the cliff.

PCs are smart. They'll figure out a correct method to move the barge through, given time. Thus they'll move the barge past the 'cliff' gate, and relax as it's just a case of flipping a few levers.

This is when the Scrag (Sea Troll) sitting behind the last gate wakes up, smashes through the last lock gate, and attacks the PCs. Boss fight!
The Scrag can attack the PCs while staying in the water, thus it can regenerate (and hitting it with fire or acid gets much harder). Idea is that the PCs figure out they need to drain the water from around the Scrag. Hence PCs running madly back to the lever room, as other PCs try to stall the Scrag.

When I ran this, the PCs opened the 'cliff' gate while the Scrag, PCs and barge were within about 50' of the cliff. Was a nice climax as the dwarven fighter and Scrag started grappling at the edge of the cliff (as water was pushing them towards it), as the other PCs tried to beach the barge.
The dwarf managed to knock the scrag below 0hp, and watched as it fell unconcsicious for a few brief seconds. Just long enough for it to go off the cliff.
The barge was saved (by PCs shutting an open lock gate on it!), as was the mission.

[OracleofSilence]

personal favorite, this one works AMAZINGLY on advanced players.

a circular room with string/rope/chain in the middle. as soon as the party enters, all the doors shut, and numerous antimagic/null psionics/anti salient divine abilites fields drop on them. all the doors have no locks, and have walls of force placed on the other side, making them unopenable (they don't know this), and a voice starts counting down from 30-1.

If they pull the string it resets, if they don't when it hits 0, the voice says "have a nice day", and everything vanishes, leaving the party unharmed.

Seems harmless right? wrong. what if they were being chased? and i have been seen experienced players be totally stumped by this (they keep pulling the string to try everything possible to get out), where as it never works against new players(they panic and end up waiting thirty seconds).

[McSmack]

During my Xendrik game I put a nice puzzle together on my crew.

They were being chased by a small army of tribal drow, and had managed to make it to the ancient lost elven city they'd been seeking. The ground was covered in a fine white sand-like substance. Based on information they'd discovered earlier they knew the only way to survive was to activate the eldritch defense device located in the town square.

Most of the party was busy holding off wave after wave of enemies (drow that had pulled ahead of the main force). While the magically inclined dealt with the puzzle-key.

I looked online for some elvish looking runes/scipt and printed up two copies. I cut the symbols out and attached them to index cards. Then I laid the index cards face down on the table.

The puzzle worked a lot like the old Memory kid's game. Each round every player working on the puzzle could turn over two cards. Once they had a match they could attempt to decipher the rune using various checks (Linguistics/knowledge history/arcana depending on the character.) If successful they'd get part of the phrase that set off the defenses.

It worked out pretty well. They completed the phrase "blood eternal, freedom ever-lasting" just as the fighter went to 0HP. Suddenly the white sand (the deathless cleric had correctly identified it as ground up bone) sworled and form itself into an army of deathless soldiers, that quickly defeated the drow.

I thought it was pretty epic.

A friend of mine was running a game and the party became shipwrecked on the beach near a strange forest. The paths in the forest would change randomly from time to time. She gave the ranger a Survival skill challenge. get 5 successes before she got 3 failures. When she succeeded the ranger asked if that meant she'd successfully lead them through the forest. The GM repled "no, it just means you have the full 30 seconds to complete this maze. GO!!" The GM handed her a paper with a maze drawn on it.

It thought it was clever.

[Malimar]

You come to a room with five doors in a line. On each door is an inscription, as follows:

1 - There is a dangerous golem behind every door but one. Neither the brass golem nor the stone golem is behind this door, and the iron golem is not adjacent to this door.

2 - Each golem is enchanted to breathe an element. The electricity-breathing golem is not adjacent to this door, but the acid-breathing golem is.

3- The four golems are: a clay golem; a stone golem; a golem that breathes electricity; and a golem that breathes acid. The brass golem is not adjacent to this door, nor is the fire-breathing golem.

4 - Neither the iron golem nor the clay golem are adjacent to to this door, though one of them is adjacent to the golem that breathes acid, and the golem which breathes cold is adjacent to this door.

5 - The brass golem doesn't breathe cold or electricity. The cold- and fire-breathing golems are not adjacent to one another, but the electricity- and acid-breathing golems are.

[BlueInc]

What happens in every game I've played in:

DM: "You come across a door..."

Players: "Mellon! Mellon!"

DM: "::facepalm::"

[Barstro]

You come to a room with five doors in a line. On each door is an inscription, as follows:

Door Two is safe, assuming I did it right.

[ericgrau]

I think the best puzzles are the ones that involve the dungeons somehow... and aren't logic puzzles at all. There might have been a few the last time this topic came up.

Agreed that read-the-smug-DM's-mind is neither fun for the players nor clever of the DM.

[Barstro]

Agreed that read-the-smug-DM's-mind is neither fun for the players nor clever of the DM.

And yet most of our childhoods were built around the riddle "what's in my pocket?".

I've always found it rather illogical to have PCs solve puzzles. With property roleplaying, often the best player cannot contribute because that PC has low scores, but the Player with the Wizard PC doesn't know enough to solve the puzzle.

I was in a live roleplaying where several puzzles were involved. One particular puzzle had us stumped for hours. I explained to our DM that my character has very high intelligence and is knowledgeable on this topic (as per the bio I made weeks earlier). I explained all that my character would know. I personally knew what was needed to solve the puzzle, but didn't have the skill necessary to implement it. All to no avail; not even a hint. To top it off, the puzzle had an inadvertent misspelling that rendered it unsolvable. :smallmad:

I don't have a problem reading the DM's mind, but they should give decent hints after a while. The canal puzzle mentioned above is my idea of a great puzzle for the game.

[Zylle]

You come to a room with five doors in a line. On each door is an inscription, as follows:

1 - There is a dangerous golem behind every door but one. Neither the brass golem nor the stone golem is behind this door, and the iron golem is not adjacent to this door.

2 - Each golem is enchanted to breathe an element. The electricity-breathing golem is not adjacent to this door, but the acid-breathing golem is.

3- The four golems are: a clay golem; a stone golem; a golem that breathes electricity; and a golem that breathes acid. The brass golem is not adjacent to this door, nor is the fire-breathing golem.

4 - Neither the iron golem nor the clay golem are adjacent to to this door, though one of them is adjacent to the golem that breathes acid, and the golem which breathes cold is adjacent to this door.

5 - The brass golem doesn't breathe cold or electricity. The cold- and fire-breathing golems are not adjacent to one another, but the electricity- and acid-breathing golems are.

I REALLY like this. It takes a lot of thinking from the players, but it does have a definite answer, instead of making the players guess as to the DM's thinking process. Does anywhere know where there might be a website that has a collection of logic puzzles like this one?

[averagejoe]

I REALLY like this. It takes a lot of thinking from the players, but it does have a definite answer, instead of making the players guess as to the DM's thinking process. Does anywhere know where there might be a website that has a collection of logic puzzles like this one?

Puzzles of this sort are pretty common; there is even a common graphical method of solving them. I've even seen them utilized by some of the better math teachers I've seen. Just google, "Logic puzzles," and you'll find plenty.

[opticalshadow]

i had a lower level encounter designed to be a one off adventure, it takes place in a great now abanadoned hall and former layer of a mage who worshiped a beholder named Yelrich.

to get in you had to get past the great door, which was made out of what would seem stone, a great beholder was etched in the stone, in its eyestalks were crystals of various colors, with a good search check it would reveal two of the crystals were sharpened with their eyestalks etched with a channel that surround the beholder and ran down to the mouth.

in the mouth was a Key, however trying to reach in the mouth was met with finding that some sort of glass was blocking it. (the key was invisable the party cannot see it)

the door was semi sentitnet, and could detect danger, but also mistook danger pending on situations. casting spells at it (reguradless of type) or attacking the door (or preforming any action that could be mistaken for hostile) the door would attack with a random eyestalk (i rolled a dice) each eyestalk represented an actual beholder spell, but scaled down to a level of the party.

ultimatly to get the door a pc would have to be on each side of the door, and press their hands into the sharpend crystals, it would deal some small dmg and blood would drain from their hand, following the channel leading to the mouth, and drip down, the blood would pass though the glass and cover the key (revealing it) the glass still blocked their hands, unless they covered their hands in blood dripping from the mouth (basically blood allows passage)


i like this encounter cause early on it has alot of things going for it, and requires some thought, but none of them skill checks, its all pc dependent.
ive had pcs take a few minutes to get past ive had them take an hour, it was always fun

[Zylle]

Puzzles of this sort are pretty common; there is even a common graphical method of solving them. I've even seen them utilized by some of the better math teachers I've seen. Just google, "Logic puzzles," and you'll find plenty.

Googling was the first thing I tried, actually :)

Oddly, it didn't give me much of anything I could use, but I did find this hilariously meta puzzle: http://www.puzzlersparadise.com/onlinelogic/CharacterAdventures/CharacterAdventures.htm

[BillyBobJoe]

You come to a room with five doors in a line. On each door is an inscription, as follows:

1 - There is a dangerous golem behind every door but one. Neither the brass golem nor the stone golem is behind this door, and the iron golem is not adjacent to this door.

2 - Each golem is enchanted to breathe an element. The electricity-breathing golem is not adjacent to this door, but the acid-breathing golem is.

3- The four golems are: a clay golem; a stone golem; a golem that breathes electricity; and a golem that breathes acid. The brass golem is not adjacent to this door, nor is the fire-breathing golem.

4 - Neither the iron golem nor the clay golem are adjacent to to this door, though one of them is adjacent to the golem that breathes acid, and the golem which breathes cold is adjacent to this door.

5 - The brass golem doesn't breathe cold or electricity. The cold- and fire-breathing golems are not adjacent to one another, but the electricity- and acid-breathing golems are.

It's Door 4, I believe. Door 1 is the Iron Golem, Door 2 is the Clay Golem, Door 3 is the Brass Golem, and Door 5 is the Stone Golem.

[Malimar]

Door Two is safe, assuming I did it right.


It's Door 4, I believe. Door 1 is the Iron Golem, Door 2 is the Clay Golem, Door 3 is the Brass Golem, and Door 5 is the Stone Golem.

Answer:
Barstro makes it successfully to the next room; BillyBobJoe gets attacked by an electricity-breathing iron golem. Now the real challenge is to figure out if you made a mistake, or if I made a mistake and the puzzle does indeed allow for the configuration you describe.

Also: I have now tricked the Playground into playtesting my logic puzzle! Victory! :smallbiggrin:

Something I like about this particular puzzle is that even if you get the logic wrong, you still have a chance to win or escape the combat encounter. Only a very slim chance, particularly as my players will probably be somewhere in the in the <5 range when they come to this, but still a chance. Any good puzzle should have multiple points of potential success, though each should be more difficult than the previous.

I also didn't include any provisions against high-level divination (e.g., the doors are not made of lead), though I would probably have every door detect as magic so it at least takes more than a cantrip. So if they're high enough level when they get there, and the players really don't feel like doing any thinking, they could just scry which door is the safe one by wasting a spell or two.

The three clue rule (http://thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/three-clue-rule.html) is something DMs should always keep in mind when making puzzles of any sort: for any conclusion you want the players to make, include at least three ways for them to get to that conclusion. In this case: 1.) solve the puzzle using logic; 2.) scry which door is the safe one; 3.) open doors at random and fight the golems. One should remain open to other solutions, too, if the players happen to think of one that could plausibly work. Never say "no, that doesn't work" simply because it's not something you had accounted for.


I REALLY like this. It takes a lot of thinking from the players, but it does have a definite answer, instead of making the players guess as to the DM's thinking process. Does anywhere know where there might be a website that has a collection of logic puzzles like this one?

I don't know where one might fantasy-specific logic puzzles; I made the above one from scratch. It was pretty hard; it's a fine knife-edge to walk. Every time you add a clue, it makes the puzzle too easy; every time you take one away, it makes it unsolvable.

You might consider finding some non-fantasy-specific logic puzzles and just swapping out names and concepts; that might be easier than coming up with them entirely yourself. I know I found a website that did have bunches of generic logic puzzles when I was looking for tips on making them, though they were mostly not fantasy-specific, and I don't think I could find it again now.

[acid_ninja]

I like to think that coming up with interesting puzzle challenges is one of my strengths as a DM. I think the secret is to make it so the challenge isn’t figuring out what you’re supposed to do, but how to do it.

A couple that I liked:

The portal puzzle.
Pretty much what it says on the tin. At the entrance side of the room (south) is a pedestal with two pouches of gems – one black and one white. A plaque reads: enter the shadow and step forth from the light. Also on that side is a raised wooden drawbridge.The MacGuffin is at the far (north) side of the room behind a wall of force. Separating the two sides is an impossibly long chasm. About halfway across the chasm is a bridge that spans from the west wall to about halfway to the east. The bridge is too far away to jump. The gems, when smashed (either by throwing or with a sling) open a black or white portal. Once the PCs reach the west-east bridge they can see a recess at the base of the drawbridge. This has a rope that, when cut, will release the drawbridge and allow them to cross the chasm. However, the angle is too fine for them to get a clear shot from the end of the bridge.

The solution is for the PCs to use a portal to get to the top of the west-east bridge and then use another one to set up a straight shot at the rope. Hitting the rope is difficult (my PCs just used a magic missle) and if you enter the white portal and come out the black you take a bit of damage.

It’s a pain to draw but most gamers should get the concept right away. A bit metagame but fun.

Hot-foot it
The entrance at the south consists of a 10 foot wide ledge that spans the length of the room. At the other end is the goal (MacGuffin, way out, whatever). The intervening space consists of a death pit but there are five-foot square blocks of stone hovering in the air, five feet apart. The face of one side of each block is red and the other is blue. The red side is hot, causing damage for each round that you stand on it (fort reduces), while the blue side is safe. The fun part is that once someone jumps onto a block, all adjacent blocks flip over (I allowed a reflex save to catch the other side). As soon as the first block is touched the south wall sprouts spikes and starts moving forward slowly. Add in a flying demon to harass the characters and you have profit!

I represented block with coins – heads red, tails blue – and placed them at random on the battle mat rather than planning out placement.

Mastermind
The center of an octagonal room has a small altar. On each wall of the room is a depiction of a creature. The altar has 8 depressions and a pouch of eight tiles. The tiles each have a design on them. Each depiction has a matching design. (I used the numbers 1-8 and their mirror images joined together) As soon as the characters enter the room, light springs from the altar and animates the depicted creatures. To solve the puzzle, the characters must place the tiles in the correct order. As soon as all 8 tiles have been placed, those in the correct place merge with their slot and the picture matching that design goes inert but a fresh creature springs from the portrait matching the incorrect pieces. Placing a tile is a move action that provkes AoO so one character can place two per round.

I like this one because players who like puzzles can work on it while others can just kill stuff. The characters also have to decide how many people they can commit to working on the puzzle while the others defend them.

[RedWarrior0]

Doors and the Golems:
The correct answer is to peek in each door, and the one that doesn't have a golem is the right way.

[Malimar]

Doors and the Golems:
The correct answer is to peek in each door, and the one that doesn't have a golem is the right way.

...I should do a puzzle sometime where that really is the intended answer.

[BillyBobJoe]

Ohhh, I finally figured out why I got Door 4 instead of Door 2. In the inscription on Door 4, "they" could be taken to mean the adjacent doors. I might suggest clearing that up a bit.

[The Random NPC]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120659) is an old thread discussing puzzles.

[Boci]

Does any one know an oriental puzzle/riddle that works in English? It would help with my current game.

[Unseenmal]

Here is a pretty good site for the logic puzzle: http://www.logic-puzzles.org/init.php

[Prendre]

This is a favourite of mine,I suspect I may have read it somewhere so I won't take credit for it.

Situation
The party enters the room and the door locks behind them, the door in front is locked (Replace with warp gates as necessary)
In the room there is a dais with a 6 buttons on it and above the door is a timer counting down from five minutes with loud ominous ticks.
The buttons reset the timer.
When the timer reaches zero, the door opens.

This (and all of its subsequent derivations) really reminds me of the friggin' hatch from Lost. Really an excellent puzzle.

[RedWarrior0]

The best way with that is to lead up to it with puzzles which are similar, but have bad consequences for running out of time.

Put them in a perfectly smooth room. One of the walls is actually a Wall of Force with the illusion of a perfectly smooth wall over it. At the end of the timer, the wall of force ends. The door is a red herring.

If you're describing a puzzle room, particularly one based on a minute detail, write down your description and read it verbatim. If the players ask a question (particularly without a search or similar action), reread the description. Describe everything to a consistent level of detail, enough that they can solve the puzzle but not so much that they go looking at twenty thousand red herrings in their quest.

Another puzzle, is in two parts. The first can be anything, but there needs to be a hatchet, and it needs to be a red herring. The second is a quest to chop down a tree with a herring, or something similar. "You must break through this gate, with... a herring!". Of course, if your group doesn't know what a red herring is, it won't exactly work.

[FMArthur]

You enter a 10ft wide, 20ft tall hallway. About halfway to the hallway's end, the ceiling sharply comes down be 10ft in height. At the start of this lowered section, a massive 10ft cube of stone is held 10ft above by decrepit-looking wooden braces with incredibly rusty bolts in them. The block would completely block the hall if knocked down.

DC 28 Spot: a difficult-to-see, withered and charred 10ft length of rope lays off to the side below the boulder, lining the edge where the wall meets the floor and is the same color. Neither end appears to be attached to anything.

It's an ancient trap that apparently failed to trigger. Presumably the rope was supposed to be used to pull out the supports, but they turned out to be deceptively sturdy. Nothing happens at all if the PCs decide to ignore it and walk below.

...I posted this in a DM-dickery thread a while back. My players took over a half hour getting past this, and had to rest for the night to prepare the right spells to unblock the hallway because of how they handled this 'puzzle'.

[begooler]

My favorite puzzle was one that I solved while I (as a player) was drunk, and that I didn't realize was a puzzle.
We're in the dungeon. The dungeon is a test we are undergoing, and it is owned by the guy who has hired us.

We enter a room and there's a statue or something. I'm not paying attention, distracted by flipping through a rulebook or finding some ice. The DM continues to describe what we see in front of us, while I continue to not listen. Then I poke my head back in, and hear the tail end of this statement:

"... beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place."

Immediately I yell out, "The letter E!" (and then probably hiccup)

DM: "Dammit that was supposed to take you a while. Have you heard that riddle before?"

Me: "What riddle?"