Puzzle Ideas for a Wizard's Lair

[inertia709]

As the title says, I'm looking for some puzzle ideas for a wizard's lair. The party will be ECL 5 and the wizard will be 20 (they're not meant to fight him obviously). The idea is that the wizard is a little "batty," though not intentionally malevolent, and plane shifts out of lair, leaving the PC's to try and escape/explore after he leaves. He has used create demiplane/genesis to make a floating castle on his plane with many strange rooms and whacky planar properties. This is for a "monster of the week"-style game, though preferably 2-4 sessions rather than just 1. We haven't settled on the players' characters or even if we're playing 3.5, Pathfinder or a 3.P hybrid yet, but anything from either edition goes (even if it's 3rd party) as long as it's cool and balanced. Anyway, thanks in advance for your help!

[prufock]

Neverending Room: This long hallway appears to extend all the way to the perspective "vanishing point." No matter how long they walk, they never reach the end of it. The door behind them gets further and further away, until it too disappears. If they walk past this point, they can never get back to the door. The only way out of this, of course, is to break through a wall.

Repeating Room: They walk through a door, to a 10x10x10 nondescript room with a door directly across from the one they just came through. If they enter that door, they are in another 10x10x10 nondescript room. And again. And again. Forever. If they look back, they see themselves in the previous room. All they have to do to solve it is walk back through the door they came in through.

The Big Button: There is a room with a timer that starts when they enter. The door slams shut and locks with a near unbeatable mundane lock and arcane lock. There is a big button. If they push the button, the timer resets. The other door(s) in the room are similarly locked. All they have to do is let the timer run out and the doors all unlock. Make the timer tick like a time bomb.

Neither of these puzzles is dangerous, just annoying until you figure it out.

[Chester]

There is a large magical door guarded by two inert Helmed Horrors (or Golems, or whatever).

On the door is a riddle; the answer to the riddle involves a figure from the myths / legends of your world's particular culture.

In an adjacent room are dozens of statues / figurines of these mythological deities / characters / beings / whatever. They are basically "keys."

Place the figurine that corresponds to the riddle's answer on a pedestal / mechanism / whatever, and turn it.

If they choose the correct key, the door opens. If they choose poorly, the Helmed Horrors / Golems / whatever spring to life and attack.

[With a box]

Ridiculously large extradimentional biosphere
They think they finally got out, but it actually a large (around 10×10×10(mile) )biosphere made by the wizard
Maybe there is even a town in it...

[Vaster]

I always loved the idea of reusing traps from movies/series

Trapped hallways with letter on stones, you have to spell the name of the mage/mage's wife/etc... to pass unarmed.
Look a the method of activiation of the runes (perfect trap for a wizard)

the ghost: when the party enters the room everything the doors lock themselves. A ghostly shape pass through one players and he feels a freezing sensation with no damage.
the ghost is quite innoffensive but the players don't know it , he just want some life heat ( a players must accpet to host him for a bit until he free them)
the gaol is to play with the paranoia of the players.
I tend play the ghost innoffesive and unstoppable; the players can always destroy the doors to get out (it often end that way with my players | distinct lack of subtility amongst them)

[mashlagoo1982]

Neverending Room: This long hallway appears to extend all the way to the perspective "vanishing point." No matter how long they walk, they never reach the end of it. The door behind them gets further and further away, until it too disappears. If they walk past this point, they can never get back to the door. The only way out of this, of course, is to break through a wall.

Repeating Room: They walk through a door, to a 10x10x10 nondescript room with a door directly across from the one they just came through. If they enter that door, they are in another 10x10x10 nondescript room. And again. And again. Forever. If they look back, they see themselves in the previous room. All they have to do to solve it is walk back through the door they came in through.

The Big Button: There is a room with a timer that starts when they enter. The door slams shut and locks with a near unbeatable mundane lock and arcane lock. There is a big button. If they push the button, the timer resets. The other door(s) in the room are similarly locked. All they have to do is let the timer run out and the doors all unlock. Make the timer tick like a time bomb.

Neither of these puzzles is dangerous, just annoying until you figure it out.

Going off these ideas, create a Penrose Stairs "room". The room would have a feather fall or updraft affect depending on the individual characters actions.

The room is actually a stairwell between floors. However, when the players attempt to climb up or down, then return to where they started.

I would have the stairs suspended in a void, so the characters can see their entire path. But, they can only see their current set of stairs... nothing above or below.

Solution:
Hop down the center of the stairwell to travel to the level below (while under Feather Fall).
Jump up the center of the stairwell to travel to the level above (while under Updraft).
Edit: Alternatively, you could have the trigger to travel up a level be jumping outside the ring.

In either case, the characters travel to the appropriate level (+1 or -1), but the stairwell will still present an identical set of Penrose Stairs.
Only when they look out the entrance/exit door will they notice anything new.

[Ferronach]

have something like a modernday elevator, complete with buttons.
Force them to roleplay and only give them details like: "the room is a metal box 8'X8'X8' " "The wall has a row of illuminated circles with arcane symbols"

Give them detailed explanations of what they feel as the elevator moves: if going up "you feel heavier, your weapons are drawn to the floor" ... if going down "you feel much lighter..."

[Segev]

In an unlit room, a simple puzzle where a set of identically-shaped gems need to be placed in certain slots. The trick is that each slot is colored the same as the gem that goes in it. This is trivial to solve if you have the lights on, but if you've gone in relying on Darkvision, which is black-and-white only...



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Pick a semi-obscure spell with a material component. Spellcraft DC 20+spell level will reveal the component in question.
Determine a location in your setting where this component can be found or can be found in abundance. K: Geography with a DC in the 15-25 range, depending on your desired challenge rating, can determine this factoid.
Give the name of a character (I'll use "Parthanus" for this example) who is a historical figure in your setting.
K: Nobility to identify that he was a mage who was well-known for using the chosen spell.
K: Architecture and Engineering to identify that he was responsible for a particular tower design that is common in his homeland - which should actually have a dearth of the selected material component.
K: Geography can also identify his homeland as being a known source of the material component in question.
K: History to learn that his homeland was not always known for having that material component.
Have a map which includes both regions, done as a relief map carved and lovingly painted on a large wooden table. Monuments, buildings, and markers for cities are done in local regional styles. There are peg-holes on the table for some of these markers which seem to be missing.
Instructions/riddle given earlier or in the same room: "Take Parthanus on his quest and back home to open the way." The solution is actually to take the marker - which is shaped like the tower he is known to have designed - and place it in the peg-hole in the other region known for the material component, then put it back in his homeland. This will open a secret door.

[mashlagoo1982]

The Lounge

This room should be decorated nicely and have a variety of interesting items. Multiple other rooms of importance should connect to this room.
Optional connection to a foyer room.

Important Aspects:
All the important doors excluding the door from which the characters entered and/or the door to the foyer (if present) are locked.

Upon entering the room, a large sized golem (Mr. Escort) shaped like a sarcophagus prompts the characters for the word of entry.
Optional to find to find the word of entry earlier and not have its intent clear (DM decision).

If the word of entry is spoken within two rounds, the golem does nothing until a character places their hand upon an important door excluding the one they entered from and the door to the foyer option. When a character places their hand upon an important door, the golem moves toward the character in an effort to grapple them and place them inside its hollow portion. During this action the golem will state something like "You do not have access to those rooms. Mr. Escort will escort you out now." Once all offending characters have been captured, the golem will either move to (and deposit) the characters out through the door from when they originally entered or through to the foyer.

If the word of entry is not spoken within two rounds, the golem will attempt to grapple the characters and place them inside its hollow portion. Again, to an appropriate room. If a character places their hand upon a protected door before two rounds are up, the golem will move to grapple and capture them toward the same end.

Mr. Escort prioritizes offenders as listed below:
Special Priority: Repeat offenders - character that has interacted with important door more then once but was ignored due to favorable target through logic below (first to last)
1st: Characters CURRENTLY interacting with an important door (in order from first to last)
2nd: Closest character to the golem that has not spoken the word of entry that is also closest to an important door
3rd: Characters that had spoken the word of entry and are interacting with an important door (in order from first to last)
4th: Characters that had spoken the word of entry and had interacted with an important door but ceased the attempt (in order from first to last)

Mr. Escort Partial Stats (modify as necessary... Mr. Escort should be good at grappling)
Base Land Speed: 15 or 20ft
Grapple Bonus: +10
Strength: 24

The inside of Mr. Escort is an extra dimensional space (does not react negative with bags or holding or other such items) that can hold up to two large sized creature. Mr. Escort is padded to prevent damage from its occupants and it is aware of what it can and cannot hold. So, characters will not be intentionally harmed.

Methods to Overcome:
Players can use flaws in the offenders priority list to allow characters with the appropriate skills to unlock doors and move on. Characters can retry as often as they want as no damage is dealt by the golem. Mr. Escort does not leave the room willingly.

Yes, this is similar to the Zelda Wallmaster.

[Azraile]

Repeating Room: They walk through a door, to a 10x10x10 nondescript room with a door directly across from the one they just came through. If they enter that door, they are in another 10x10x10 nondescript room. And again. And again. Forever. If they look back, they see themselves in the previous room. All they have to do to solve it is walk back through the door they came in through.


Reminds me of the surreal maze in labrenth of time....

I think it was 5x5x5 though, and you randomly bounced around the rooms (or so it seamed, there is a pattern if you keep heading in the same detection you can see it)

In the end you just got to make it to a particular room that has one exit that leads out, but figuring that out isn't easy.....

You want some good ideas (and your players arn't fans) check out http://www.goblinscomic.org/ it has some good puzzles and traps.

[Ferronach]

DDO has a really nice "maze"/puzzle (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/165748-Enter-the-Kobold-puzzle) in a level called "Enter the Kobold"
The puzzle consists of a bunch of force walls that create a 4 X 4 grid.
In each of the square "rooms" you find 2 - 3 glowing crystals embedded in the floor.
You enter the maze by way of one of two crystals at the entrance.
When you step on the crystal you are teleported to a seemingly random "room" within the maze.
The trick is to move through the maze as though you are a chess knight (L shapes). (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/325487-Enter-The-Kobold-puzzle-maze-step-by-step-visual-guide)
The location of the crystal dictates the left/right motion, in addition to if it will be 2 forward + 1 to the side or 1 forward + 2 to the side.

This could fit nicely as Chess is a game often associated with wizards and the maze could have been created to amuse his friends.

Sorry if the links are bad. Sadly work blocks anything remotely fun, or entertaining, or even useful (other than this glorious website of course! Thank the heavens!!!!).... so sadly I cannot check them until I get home.

[mostlyharmful]

Shifting walls, between disintegrate traps, wall of stone traps, permenant image traps and wall of force traps you can mindbend your players.

Have four maps of a maze, stack them ontop of each other and each two minute intervel swap the maps. Double points if you get them to write out the room plan so they don't get lost...

[Vaz]

There is a reverse counter trap room. There is a room with one entrance, and one exit with only a stone pedestal in the centre with a big obvious button on it. As they all enter the room, the door slams shut and locks itself behind them. It cannot be broken through, neither can the walls. The door on the opposite side does the same. A Chime goes off, counting down, and the roof begins to descend. As the party run around trying anything to get themselves on the other side of the door, the timer is continually decreasing. They push the button to stop the timer, and the roof goes back up to its original setting, the back door opens, but the one to go on with stays resolutely shut.

If, after a minute, they are still in the room, the countdown begins again.

This continues until they realise that they only need to wait in the room until the count reaches zero, and then the timer resets and the door opens.

[Segev]

An arcane locked door with 13 different keyholes and a knob. Turning the knob dismisses the arcane lock long enough to open the door. See how long they spend trying to force the door or pick the (unlocked) locks before they just try opening it.

[Magesmiley]

If you want a few real world props to use as keys to pass through various areas which make the players do stuff, here are a few ideas:

1. A set of tangrams and some silhouettes on the doors with the shapes that they need to assemble in order for the door to open.
2. A 3D jigsaw puzzle (maybe in the shape of a gem or pyramid). Have the pieces scattered about the dungeon. The players need to find all of the pieces and assemble them in order to have the key to open the door to the final room.

[Nibbens]

Invent your own language using a symbol that progresses further down the alphabet you go. (ex i=a, ii=b, iii=c iiii=d and so on would be a ridiculous example of this, but explains the point) Give a few letters to the PC's and have them "translate" a phrase (here the act of translating is really a simple decoding exercise, but it's still fun, none the less and having them all working on it is satisfying to watch).

or

Have a gambling table that compels the players to bet money against a game of chance (where the chance of loss is really high) to gain a key. Have other "spectral" players playing against them as well. ***a variation on this is that one of them bets the gold key, instead of betting gold***
- this whole situation is less a puzzle, and more of a 'light encounter' that is a nice drain on party resources other than HP and spellslots (from the DMs perspective)

[Dornith]

Neverending Room: This long hallway appears to extend all the way to the perspective "vanishing point." No matter how long they walk, they never reach the end of it. The door behind them gets further and further away, until it too disappears. If they walk past this point, they can never get back to the door. The only way out of this, of course, is to break through a wall.


I had a puzzle like that for my players. Basically, it was a long hallway, but it had to teleport spells placed as triggers whenever you walked into a certain area placed like so:
*1 |2 |1 *2
The lines represent trigger zones and the stars represent destinations, and the spells only work if you're coming in from the left for the first one and right for the second.
The result is the same, but in this one, you have to figure out to go through the first teleport, and then turn around.