[PF] Puzzle Assistance

[Karlysle]

OK, so I will be GMing a Pathfinder game soon, and seeing as it will be my first campaign GMing, I was hoping for some advice.

First of all, I was hoping to mix it up as far as encounters go, planning on (for the first session) to have two combat encounters, a few puzzles/riddles, and a chase. I was wondering if there was a good source or any good ideas for puzzles in particular, specifically ones that would be easy to make and be able to be manipulated by the party (or something along those lines). I'm also wondering the best way to implement a chase.

Any other advice to a first-time GM would be welcome as well.

[Unseenmal]

The Traps and Treachery I and II books should prove useful for traps and puzzles. Other than that, I have seen other threads here reference trap ideas and the like. Here are some simple ones from that thread that I have used (stolen) that provided me with much fun. I would give credit to those who wrote them but I honestly don't remember who did what....

#1: The party enters the room and the door locks behind them, the door in front is locked. 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.
Button 1 resets the timer
Button 2 cuts the time in half
Button 3 subtracts 1 minute
Button 4 speeds up the countdown
Button 5 adds 1 minute
Button 6 slows the countdown
When the timer reaches zero, the door opens.

I had many jaw dropped players when this was used and absolutely NOTHING happened when the timer hit 0

#2: (Variation on #1):The doors shut when characters are inside. There is a pedestal with a red square/button on it. 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. 30 minutes of arguing and pushing the button ensued with this one....

#3You 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. Otherwise, the risk triggering the trap and blocking the hallway.)

Enjoy!

[Karlysle]

I appreciate the ideas, but I was looking for something more Zelda-esque, with puzzles that they figure out in order to unlock secret rooms with treasure or something, rather than "How puzzling! You're dead." kind of GM-satisfying traps.

But thank you for responding at all, I suppose. :smallsmile:

[Unseenmal]

The traps I mentioned don't actually kill the players...it just makes them think differently. The traps I gave are not your normal "Rogue rolls disable device and defeats them" You can have the treasure room be the door on the other side of the room they are in.

How about these ones...

Puzzle #1: 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 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.
Answer: Door 2 IS SAFE.


Puzzle#2: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 provokes 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.

Puzzle #3:Basically the party reaches a long room. In the other end of it they see a large ornate stone chest which promises great riches inside it. The whole middle section of the room is covered in deadly traps. Huge buzz saws, razor blades, arrow holes, spikes, moving crushing holes, the works. And none of them is really covered up; it's all up there to spell C-E-R-T-A-I-N-D-E-A-T-H.
Above the chest there is a carved gem encrusted eye with large writing beneath it. The writing says:
"Five elements there are, None I will accept
Except one alone, that I will respect
One of them betrayed me, as did it's sustenance
Darkness came over me, damn it's existence
The second I was denied, humiliated by it
All around and it mocked me, Bitterness I tasted
The third one abandoned me, left me in shambles
The fourth surrounded me, in illusions and tumbles
The fifth stayed with me, my precious holy one
Only in its lonesome, it will avoid my death trap"

Every time the party tried to throw a rock or use a pole to search for safe spots the traps would come alive ripping whatever was standing there to shreds. In the end they figured it out and though they were really nervous about it they sent the bard to stroll through the "path of dead" naked. It worked.
Answer is LIFE! (So walking thru naked works)

Again, I didn't write these originally so I can't give the credit to the playgrounders that did.

[Quietus]

Make sure your players will actually enjoy puzzles. As a player, I hate them, and mentally shut down as soon as one is presented.

[Karlysle]

The traps I mentioned don't actually kill the players...it just makes them think differently. The traps I gave are not your normal "Rogue rolls disable device and defeats them" You can have the treasure room be the door on the other side of the room they are in.

How about these ones...

Puzzle #1: 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 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.
Answer: Door 2 IS SAFE.


Puzzle#2: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 provokes 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.

Puzzle #3:Basically the party reaches a long room. In the other end of it they see a large ornate stone chest which promises great riches inside it. The whole middle section of the room is covered in deadly traps. Huge buzz saws, razor blades, arrow holes, spikes, moving crushing holes, the works. And none of them is really covered up; it's all up there to spell C-E-R-T-A-I-N-D-E-A-T-H.
Above the chest there is a carved gem encrusted eye with large writing beneath it. The writing says:
"Five elements there are, None I will accept
Except one alone, that I will respect
One of them betrayed me, as did it's sustenance
Darkness came over me, damn it's existence
The second I was denied, humiliated by it
All around and it mocked me, Bitterness I tasted
The third one abandoned me, left me in shambles
The fourth surrounded me, in illusions and tumbles
The fifth stayed with me, my precious holy one
Only in its lonesome, it will avoid my death trap"

Every time the party tried to throw a rock or use a pole to search for safe spots the traps would come alive ripping whatever was standing there to shreds. In the end they figured it out and though they were really nervous about it they sent the bard to stroll through the "path of dead" naked. It worked.
Answer is LIFE! (So walking thru naked works)

Again, I didn't write these originally so I can't give the credit to the playgrounders that did.

Yes. Those are much more what I'm looking for. Thank you.

@Quietus: I realize that puzzles aren't for everyone, which is why I'm going to have a few different types of encounters and see which ones they like. (They will almost certainly like the combat the best, but I'm going to try other things as well.)

[flabort]

the players enter the room from below, climbing a ladder. The room is abnormally shaped, It's four 20x20ft rooms connected by a pair of 10ft wide hallways, 30 ft long, that cross in the middle (which is where the ladder comes out), so if each # is a 5x5 area:

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In each of the larger rooms, is a colored door, and a floating colored key in the middle of the room. Clockwise from the top, they are Red door/blue key, Green door/red key, yellow door/green key, blue door/yellow key. Otherwise the rooms appear featureless.
There is a plaque that reads 'I want to go further than I am from home. I wish you could fly me there'.
The keys are actually suspended in 20x20 Gelatinous Cubes (you can't see the edges because their around a corner, and the center's clear), but by simply Mage Handing (or using a similar spell on) the key, it can be drawn out with no resistance. By then mage handing it through another cube to the next door (the blue key to the green door, the red key to the yellow door, ect.), and unlocking it, it triggers a mechanism which opens the floor in front of the now unlocked door, dropping the Cube out, and the closing it back up to walk across. Now, if the PCs haven't taken the key out of THAT cube, too bad. They'll have to descend through one of the rooms to get it, but it should be accessible later in the dungeon.

This assumes the players have Mage Hand, or are clever enough to use it on something INSIDE a monster.

[Gecks]

I don't have a specific puzzle to suggest, but, especially if it is a newer group, I would strongly recommend applying the three clue rule (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/three-clue-rule.html) if the puzzle is any sort of "choke point" (IE the players need to solve the puzzle to proceed), and being open to solutions that are "against the script"

[Cole10000]

i personally like puzzles that require some thinking to get around it but at the same time you should try and avoid making it necessicary but benifical to complete, like acessing a side room with all sort of enchanting items and gold

my idea for a puzzle would be to have them recieve special items throughout whatever quest they're on and then have them use those said items in special ways to solve the puzzle.

one example of this i've seen is we found a submerged door that was too deep for us to get to without coming back up for air and have time to open the door. throughout the quest we found a very large bucket when our spellcaster did a detect magic and he identifyed it as being able to send whatever was put in it to a specific location

we checked and that specific location was the bottom of a deep well that we couldnt climb out of, so we kept it planning to try and sell it seeing as it was magical. it was several sessions later when we found the submerged door so i thought that we put the bucket in the water and have it drain the water down, and it worked.

but when we got to the door we couldnt open it any way we tried but we did see a very large key hole.

thats when one of the other guys realise that all that water was in the well now and we could probobly reach the top. so we send our best swimmer through and he finds himself in a closed cave and in it he finds a very large key, ahha

se he brings back the key and opens the door and we keep some pretty awsome loot and it helped us beat the final boss.