Thematic Challenges

[Feralventas]

Hey there folks,

I'm currently setting up a series of challenges for my players in a Pathfinder game, but I've hit something of a wall in figuring out how to present a theme in the form of an obstacle.

The set I'm presenting is Earth, Fire, Force, Lightning, and Desire. I've got Lighting, earth and desire covered, but Force and Fire are eluding me for now.

I'd like to avoid simply putting a big rock in their way and having them push it out of the way, but that's kinda my fall-back. Likewise for Fire, the best I've managed to come up with so far is a fighting scene against a fire elemental or the like.


Anyone here have some alternative suggestions?

[Slipperychicken]

Depends. What's the context?

[ReaderAt2046]

For Fire: A room with five pillars around the perimeter. You must expose all five pillars to fire simultaneously to open the door onwards.

[WeLoveFireballs]

Force: A magical key is too large to fit the lock, however when it is crushed, rather than breaking, it shrinks. The problem is is needs to get quite small and is made of a slick substance.

[Anxe]

Force could be a maze made of invisible walls of force. And within the maze roams the Minotaur of Force!

My favorite fire trap is an entire hallway that collapses into a gigantic flaming pit. Throw a fire elemental into the pit too. And maybe the walls are greased. Harder to climb, and when the flaming PCs try to get out they set the walls on fire.

[JeenLeen]

Could you post what you are using for Lighting, Earth and Desire?

The way to solve the puzzles should be linked, at least to enough of a degree that the solution to those doesn't send the players off on red herrings about how to solve the other two (unless that's what you're going for.)
If we know how you have those worked out, it could help us think of good and proper ideas for the remaining two.

Also, by Force, do you mean 'Force' as in the element in D&D (like Magic Missle) or just actual forces at work?

I like the invisible walls of force idea. (Though I'd say have that room be Dimension Locked, or some equivalent, to stop teleporting through the maze.) Even if they can solve it by creating magical, or even mundane, smoke, that's thinking intelligently and using their resources.

[Darkpaladin109]

The Fire challenge could be a maze with walls made of fire. The players take a little amount of damage each turn due to the heat. There could also be fire elementals or something similar shooting fireballs at them from above every couple of turns.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Are these actually physical obstacles, metaphorical, or both? Fire can be taken as passion, or something necessary in small doses but destructive and self-destructive if overdone--and yet still necessary for life. There are trees whose seeds can only be released from their pods after a forest fire.

In that sense, maybe make it so that the players have to set a fire to bypass the obstacle. But they must set it carefully, in regards to their surroundings, or else they risk burning the whole room and themselves to a crisp as well!

I'm sorry I can't get in more detail; I have to go soon.