Help! Need puzzle room ideas, quick!

[G.Cube]

I'm DMing a session tomorrow and I need ideas for puzzle rooms/floors. The team is level eight, with no casters. The puzzles can be quick, long, tricky, simple, funny, deadly, anything. I don't need specifics like DCs, maps, or any of that, just the puzzle itself and the solution.

[Palanan]

Are you looking for logical puzzles, or some sort of physical puzzle?

I'm puzzled.

:smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

Put in any CR-appropriate trap. The PCs will be puzzled why someone would guard treasure with something that costs so much more than that treasure.

[G.Cube]

Are you looking for logical puzzles, or some sort of physical puzzle?

I'm puzzled.

:smalltongue:

Logical puzzles you solve physically? Think Zelda dungeon type puzzles!

[Know(Nothing)]

Self-resetting library trap. Secret books are scattered throughout that are actually levers to open an impassable door. Search DCs should be attainable for the party. All but one of the books, when pulled, instead triggers your choice of trap. Every time the wrong book is pulled, the working one changes to the next one in a pre-set sequence. If all books are pulled simultaneously, all traps are triggered, but the door does open.

Can be particularly fun if they need to back-track through the room and remember which one came next.

Edit: As an added element of danger, have low-level baddies appear every couple minutes to keep the pressure on.

[Neknoh]

Think with portals and floor triggers?

Or.

A statue, a secret door, bits of floor falling into an abyss below, some hints and solution being to kiss the statue's hand or ring (a bronze statue all corroded and teal with age except for the still polished fingers and knuckles for example). Just shaking the hand won't work. If the players fail, they fall into the unknown which is actually a pitch black pool of water with a stony "beach", some faintly glowing mushrooms and narrow passages eventually leading back into the tunnels behind the room.
Bonus points if there is something living in the tunnels, or just remains of whatever once did, no need to truly punish the players, just spook them a bit.

Or.

Big room, two chests opposite ends of the room. Door closes behind them.
Both chests are chained to the wall and are levers that opens the way out, but only if you move them both five foot toward the other chest, needs a str check, they are both filled with some minor loot.
Handles can be at the front rather than sides of the chests if the players need hints.

[Osiris]

This
http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=501

[Invader]

Have the PC's walk into a room with all kinds of runes on the walls that detect as magic with a movable pedestal in the center with more of the same with a plaque with something to the effect of when the runes align the door will open (something more poetic would be better). The pedestal and runes actually do nothing because the door is unlocked. The PC's will spend forever trying to figure it because no one ever just tries opening the door.

[Juntao112]

I'm DMing a session tomorrow and I need ideas for puzzle rooms/floors. The team is level eight, with no casters. The puzzles can be quick, long, tricky, simple, funny, deadly, anything. I don't need specifics like DCs, maps, or any of that, just the puzzle itself and the solution.

There is an empty room with a lever in it.

The lever does nothing.

[Flickerdart]

There is an empty room with a lever in it.

The lever does nothing.

http://siliconchickens.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/lever.gif

[Sayt]

Okay, so you've got a room, in each corner is a pedestal. The players need to place weights on a specific, asymmetrical pattern (Your choice). This opens a portal in the middle of the room. Interacting with the portal targets the character with ethereal jaunt, except the ethereal plane overlap of this room is reversed, and the jaunted player needs to make the Pedastal pattern match across the Ethereal and Material planes. Do so dismisses the ethereal jaunt effect, and teleports the party to the next room.

Arcana/Int checks to point in the right direction of solving the puzzle.

[Kerilstrasz]

ok.. this is a riddle triggered door i read on my 1st D&D adventure guide book.

A room, 2 doors, the one they came and the one they need to open.
On 1 wall there is a painting about a royal family that shows 2-3 people under a large banner that sais "XANAN" (the family name).
The door has 5 levers on it. Each of them can be moved into 3 positions, Up,Middle & Down. They found the door locked with the levers at these positions: Mid,Down,Down,Down,Down,Down.

They obviously need to provide the right combination.

How to solve this..
1)The key is the family name (XANAN). 1 lever for each letter.
2)By this we can assume that 2nd&4th lever will have to be at the same position, as they represent the same letter. Same goes for 3rd & 5th. 1st lever should be alone in a different position.
3)Now.. the tricky part. When the last person used the door, when he closed the door behind him, the levers all fell down 1 position(consider this as a very very simple reset trigger).

So if you combine all of the above, the combination would either be: Up,Mid,Down,Mid or Up,Down,Mid,Down.

Maybe no player thinks about step 3. If they keep in mind step 1 and 2 then it will just take them a few more tries, but they will eventually solve it.

[zlefin]

put a duck in the dungeon, on a pedestal.
Just to mess with them.
Optional: give the duck 30 sorceror levels, but have it not do much unless provoked.

Alternately:
Put a gazebo in the dungeon with animated object, awaken construct and class levels.

[NichG]

Hey, we nearly had a TPK because of a freaking duck with Wail of the Banshee that Zagyg snuck into our backpack after we visited Boccob's divine realm... freaking nega-ducks...

Okay, that aside, I'm not sure if this is late but here's a few you can do that require physical props:

- You have a grid of lines and each line has a slot where you can put a peg in and then slide it along the line. There are, say, 5 lines and 5 pegs. Several of the pegs have string of a certain length between them. You need to place the pegs into the board so that all the strings are taut. Since each peg is constrained to move on a line, I think you want 5 strings (5 unknowns, so you want 5 equations). There may be some permutation symmetry you have to be careful about (which peg goes into which line), but that may just mean you have multiple valid solutions (better than having no solution!)

You could basically have this be justified in character by having the characters have to figure out the proper way to draw a magic circle or something, where the instructions are given in the form of distances (strings) between vertices on the circle. I ran something like this where the players had to discover the location of a lost city based on journal reports from explorers 'I traveled 34 miles from Asynia' and the like)

- I had a prison in Mechanus with a puzzle-door of sorts. There were a set of different (huge) gears, rotating in sync. The gaps between the teeth of the gears formed a hallway into the prison when the gaps overlapped. You could only however see 'through' as far as there were empty spaces, so the PCs had to deduce the sizes of the gear teeth and then figure out how to walk through without getting squished. The key element of the puzzle was that it was designed to only be passable from one direction, unless you reversed the direction of rotation of the gears - this let you eliminate one of the possibilities that were left after all observations. Unfortunately I don't think I have the specific gear layout anymore so I'll make one up right now.

Lets say there's a single 5ft square for each gear, and it 'rotates' in ticks. So a pattern like: --..--..--..-- means that its 'blocked' for two ticks, 'open' for two ticks, 'blocked' for two ticks, etc, reading left to right.



--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--
---..---..---..---..---..---..---..---
-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..--
..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..
---..---..---..---..---..---..---..---


So the solution here is to move forward by 2 on tick 4, wait a tick, then move through. Any other place in this sequence will get you crushed, and you also can't leave from the other side.

What the party sees (in terms of which gear is exposed) would be:



11231122112211421134112411221122114211


Unfortunately I think this may be insufficient to solve the puzzle (you can never see the last gear), so you may just have to give the party the full state of each gear.

[prufock]

There are 6 flat, smooth stones, and 6 slots on the door. Each stone is a different colour, with a number on one side, and a letter on the other. Each stone is the same size but slightly different mass. Each will fit into any slot.

Red - II - A - Heaviest
Orange - IV - D - Third Lightest
Yellow - VI - N - Second Heaviest
Green - I - R - Third Heaviest
Blue - V - G - Lightest
Purple - III - O - Second Lightest

As you can see there are many different possible ways to order the stones in the slots. No matter which order they put them in, though, the door is still stuck. In fact, the door is simply a stuck door, not locked at all (there is no keyhole other than the stones). A successful strength check will open the door. DC 23 (strong door) is probably appropriate.

However, the door creates a magical effect depending on which stone is in the rightmost (closest to the handle) slot. Any time a character grabs the handle (or a rope, or each other, as long as there is a connection to the handle), a magical effect produces 2 points of ability damage. If more than one character is connected, they all take the same effect (fort save for half).

Red - Str
Orange - Dex
Yellow - Con
Green - Int
Blue - Wis
Purple - Cha

You may want to roll the strength checks in secret. This puzzle can confuse a party for some time, eventually you may find the party barbarian hacking it with his greataxe.