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Arturius
2007-06-20, 10:32 PM
I'm making a dungeon at the end of a long storyarc which brings the party into epic levels. I don't just throw monsters at 'em. I include RP, riddles, and puzzles. I'm having trouble coming up with some puzzles that they wouldn't get right away after having dealt with me for 20 levels. Can I get some help/suggestions?

Dementrius
2007-06-20, 11:37 PM
For generic riddles:

www.riddlenut.com/

Serpentine
2007-06-21, 12:13 AM
I'd be interested to have a look at this too - working on a tricksy dungeon. A couple I already have in mind...
Goff don't read these
1. They will enter a room the shape of an upright cylinder. The doors at each side slide shut, and a great whirring blade (like a cieling fan, except made out of very sharp obsidian) starts up overhead. If they stare at it a long time, it becomes evident that it's very slowly decending. In the floor is a wide circular groove. An examination of some loose floor tiles scattered around reveals that many of them fit in the groove. The tiles, when put together in the correct sequence, depict a stylised serpent swallowing and laying an egg - a knowledge(religion) check reveals this to be one of many depictions of the cycle of the moon. Once the tiles are put in their correct places, the whole thing spins around, giving the illusion of movement in the picture, and the blade stops and rises. Of course, then the two doors open, revealing the (insert monsters here) that have just been summoned as part of the trap...
2. There is a large room. The floor is covered in (some sort of harmful liquid - very hot or cold water, acid, lava, etc), except for a number of circular islands. At the entrance is written on the wall (something along the lines of...) "The journey from anger to joy is long and winding", as well as a stylised very very angry face. On each island, at each "corner" is a similar face, showing various emotions. The idea is that they have to jump to a certain face in sequence. Jumping to the wrong face causes the island to flip over and dump the person into the liquid.
I still need a lot more, though...

purple gelatinous cube o' Doom
2007-06-21, 12:45 AM
If you don't want to make up your own traps/puzzles, there's always the book of challenges.

TheOOB
2007-06-21, 01:33 AM
Don't go too heavy on the puzzles though, you have to remember, the characters are going through the dungeon, not the players, and I'd be willing the bet the party wizard with the insane int score could solve most puzzles in a second that would take your players an hour.

Serpentine
2007-06-21, 01:43 AM
I intend to use Int checks to give them hints. Means they can have the satisfaction of solving it themselves, but if they get stuck the more intelligent characters are more likely to have an epiphany.

Icewalker
2007-06-21, 02:20 AM
I love puzzles, and use loads in my adventures.

There's the standard "two guys, one truth one lie" that EVERYBODY KNOWS so you mess with em and make them BOTH LIE, and a secret passage other than the two paths. Don't make assumptions that the puzzle is cliched, people :smallamused:

Although that is kinda evil.


I made a set of puzzles in which there is a giant chessboard, deep into a game. Both sides are really close to checkmates. They have to push a piece into a new spot (picking either side, white or black) and then the other side moves. One of the sides is 1 move closer to a checkmate.

There is the handy grid of candles, where you can put out a candle, and the four around it go out as well. I made a set of those. Also, one good thing with those is to time them. There is a final candle on the door burning down, if it runs out, all the candles relight. Then you time the actual players.


I had one that set up a small dungeon involving a large cube, with symbols drawn on 4 of the sides, and two of them made of an odd sand-like substance. The four symbols are the symbols of various gods. two of the symbols are opposite each other, the other two are opposite sandy sides. The two opposites are opposite gods, say slaughter and mercy. They have to draw in the symbols of the opposites of the other two opposite them.

As another suggestion, I advise you look to Tempts Fate, a fund-raiser made by a webcartoonist. There are lots of handy puzzles, especially in the most recent one.

Here (http://www.goblinscomic.com/tf7.html) is a link to the most recent, several good puzzles.

Inyssius Tor
2007-06-21, 02:48 AM
There's the standard "two guys, one truth one lie" that EVERYBODY KNOWS so you mess with em and make them BOTH LIE, and a secret passage other than the two paths. Don't make assumptions that the puzzle is cliched, people :smallamused:

Sorry, I can't resist a link! (http://www.xkcd.com/c246.html)

banjo1985
2007-06-21, 05:03 AM
I've reused one puzzle quite a few times with different parties, based around a chessboard with eight different coloured queen pieces. There is some sort of riddle along the lines of "8 queens rule 8 kingdoms in a land of piece, none threatening the other. Recreate this and the path shall open for you." The players would have to place the queens on the board so that none of them could take any other piece to open the door/chest/finish some other task. I think its in an old 3rd party D&D book but not sure. It can cause quite a lot of difficulty, but its the kind of thing you can only use once.

Pagz
2007-06-21, 05:25 AM
Sorry, I can't resist a link! (http://www.xkcd.com/c246.html)Beat me to it ^^

Falconsflight
2007-06-21, 05:30 AM
If you want puzzles and traps (Not booby traps like "YOu open a door and get by an arrow" But more. "If you grab the statue, a big rolling ball of death will come at you.)

This one is just funny.
Put a sign on a door to a largish room. "Doom will befall any who cast a shadow within this room" (Or any variation of "Don't make light.")
Inside is utter darkness. Magical actually, so nothing can see through it except a light spell.
If anyone lights a torch or cast a spell or anything that would cause light -the entire room brightens. Then the Tarrasque wakes up...
(you can see it now. They bump into the tarrasque in the dark. "There's something in here! I need light!") MAke sure your charactesr are High enough level. THey don't ahve to deal with the tarrasque, they just have to run, since the tarrasque cannot leave the room... unless you want it to.

What's also nice is to give them random items that make no sense until the end of the level. Becuase, like most players, if something is presented to them that is out of place, they will carry it. For example, I made one of my dungeons with a riddle ove rhte first door and the alst door. THe first door says "When is a door, not a door" (answer: WHen it's ajar) At that point, the door turns into an actual Jar. THen at the last door, it has the same riddle over the top, and a circle imprint in the door. Touch the door with the jar, and whatever you want to happen ,happens, and tehy get through.

Yeah, Fun times fun times.

Callix
2007-06-21, 05:34 AM
If Common is underdefined, cryptic (crossword) clues can work, when well-themed. For example:
Lizards that linger: Dragons. (they drag on)
Small and sneaky, but bold at heart. (kobolds, not halflings)

You get the idea. Adapt at will.

Kurald Galain
2007-06-21, 06:07 AM
Look up the book "The Lady Or The Tiger", or indeed anything else, by Raymond Smullyan. Logic puzzles galore!

CabbageTheif
2007-06-21, 08:53 AM
here's one that i did when the party was being frusterating. there was a three-armed gargoyle statue that had the fourth arm broken off on the floor. the three hands were in the shape of holding something, and the fourth broken one was closed. they were putting some gems inside of the gargoyles hand, and the hands would animate and crush the gems. once enough gems were crushed, the fourth arm would open and give the party a gem of true seeing. but stopped halffway through when nothing happened fast enough for them

so later in the dungeon i decided to have it come back and bite them in the rear. they were in a room with three pedistals, and attop each pedistle was a dish. there were chains hanging from the dishes, and a lever in the middle of the room. also, all of the stones they had crushed in the gargoyles hands were here, each the same size as the other (they were different sizes when put in the gargoyls palm).
the lever would lower the pedistals into the ground, leaving the dishes hanging. the 'dishes' were actually part of a complicated scale, with one of the dishes weighing more than the other two. the stones had to be placed in the right ones so that the scales would come up even.

they spent an hour pulling the lever with different combinations of stones, and everytime that they got it wrong the room filled with skeletons that were summoned. the problem was that they didnt have enough stones because they didnt finish the first puzzle!!!!!

other ways to solve the puzzle includes the stoneshape spell, or using gems already on the patys person.

Saph
2007-06-21, 09:07 AM
Here's my favourite puzzle. I pulled it on the party in a variant campaign where they were all spellcasters.

After working their way through a maze, the party reaches a gateway. In front of the gateway, there's a spectral guardian. The guardian says: "Speak the password."

If they get it wrong, they get randomly teleported to one of eight rooms scattered around the maze. Each room is designed in such a way to be a clue to the puzzle. After some time, they'll be able to work their way back to the guardian and try again.

Two catches:

1) The guardian teleports you ONE AT A TIME. Whoever speaks, gets teleported.

2) There's a second, hostile party trying to get through the maze from the other side through an identical gate at the same time, and they're running into the same problems.

Hilarity ensued as the party kept trying passwords, being split up, running back through the maze to join up in pairs or groups to try new passwords and get split up again. While this was happening, in the corridors of the maze they'd keep on running into members of the other party, who they had a history with, some of whom wanted to help them and some of whom wanted to kill them. It was great fun to watch. :)

- Saph

Keld Denar
2007-06-21, 01:12 PM
The only problems at the level you propose is dealing with high level spells. Fly, Disintegrate, Teleport (Dim Door and Passwall too), Commune, Contact other Plane, Stone Shape, Gaseous Form, Plane Shift, Gate, etc all make mundane traps rather....lame. It also kind of suspends belief if you make every riddle room antimagic or dimensional anchored. Making those spells permanant is really expensive and impractical from a dungeon builders point of view. Most riddles are best at lower levels, when the PCs don't have any alternatives other than solve it, or turn back.

valadil
2007-06-21, 01:25 PM
I've used the 8 queens puzzle too. Actually I stretched it out a bit. It started with 7 queens just for warmup. Then I gave them another queen. This stuff was pretty easy since my group was all computer science people who like this sort of puzzle and have encountered it before (though they whined to no end when I wouldn't let them write code to brute force my puzles). The final part of the puzzle was harder. I gave them a ninth queen and a pawn. They had to figure out how to fit the pawn in there to block the queen from hitting another queen.

My favorite puzzle I've used came from wikipedia I think. You have one of each of the digits 1-9. You have to arrange a 9 digit number out of those such that the number is divisible by 9, the left most 8 digits form a number divisible by 8, the left most 7 digits by 7, etc. I can't remember the answer but it took me about 15 minutes. The group spent close to an hour. I like this puzzle because it's one that you can actually work at to make progress rather than be confused until someone has an epiphany. If the group needs hints give them division rules, though I'd expected most groups to have at least one player who knows a majority of them anyway.

lukelightning
2007-06-21, 01:27 PM
Bah. I hateses riddles and puzzles. It's like giving the players a Rubik's Cube and saying "solve it or your characters die."

lukelightning
2007-06-21, 01:33 PM
oops, double post

Deepblue706
2007-06-21, 01:43 PM
You come across two treasure chests, one lined in silver, the other in gold. There is a plague above both.

Gold: The Treasure is in this chest.

Silver: Only one of us tell the truth.

manda_babylon
2007-06-24, 03:08 PM
You come across two treasure chests, one lined in silver, the other in gold. There is a plague above both.

Gold: The Treasure is in this chest.

Silver: Only one of us tell the truth.

So the answer is that it doesn't matter which chest your party opens, because now, they all have the plague. :elan:

Arbitrarity
2007-06-24, 03:19 PM
The answer to the chests is, don't open the gold chest.

If the silver one tells the truth, the gold lies. If the silver lies, the gold must lie. Therefore, the treasure is not in the gold chest :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Fine. That's what the chests wan you to believe. Really, it's iron pyrite and... gilded lead. And they come emitting poison :P.

Of course you take the chests. Unless they're trapped. And if they aren't trapped, why not open them? And if there's nothing inside, you do what they did in tomb of horrors in earlier versions. Which is what you said.

Citizen Joe
2007-06-24, 08:04 PM
The answer to the chests is, don't open the gold chest.

If the silver one tells the truth, the gold lies. If the silver lies, the gold must lie. Therefore, the treasure is not in the gold chest :smallbiggrin:
But what if someone switched the positions of the chests?

The real answer is take both chests... one is lined with gold and the other is lined with silver... they're both valuable.

TheLogman
2007-06-24, 09:39 PM
Here's one I just thought up, it's a little frustrating for the PC's but if they are in good humor, they might not hurt you. Have a door with maximum protection, with a slip of paper on it, that says: Write the Password. If they write the wrong thing, they get blasted or something, I dunno, don't kill them, but make them waste spell slots, or HP, maybe deal some Ability damage. Anyway, a search of the room reveals a slip of paper that reads:

This is the password:

scruewamf

Then have them try that series of letters, find out that that isn't it, then they try scrambling up the letters, substituting them, ect. All of those things are completely incorrect. The true password? The word "This". By the time the Halfling thief gets plucky enough to try it, the party should be at around half resources, and then throw either the BBEG, or like a Balor at them. If they get in a bind, roll Int. checks for each of them, if they get a 5 or lower, hint at it. If they get a 1 with no bonuses, give it to them outright.

Icewalker
2007-06-24, 10:03 PM
Here's my favourite puzzle. I pulled it on the party in a variant campaign where they were all spellcasters.

After working their way through a maze, the party reaches a gateway. In front of the gateway, there's a spectral guardian. The guardian says: "Speak the password."

If they get it wrong, they get randomly teleported to one of eight rooms scattered around the maze. Each room is designed in such a way to be a clue to the puzzle. After some time, they'll be able to work their way back to the guardian and try again.

Two catches:

1) The guardian teleports you ONE AT A TIME. Whoever speaks, gets teleported.

2) There's a second, hostile party trying to get through the maze from the other side through an identical gate at the same time, and they're running into the same problems.

Hilarity ensued as the party kept trying passwords, being split up, running back through the maze to join up in pairs or groups to try new passwords and get split up again. While this was happening, in the corridors of the maze they'd keep on running into members of the other party, who they had a history with, some of whom wanted to help them and some of whom wanted to kill them. It was great fun to watch. :)

- Saph

Wow, that is very cool. I might use that...



I may combine it with one of my puzzles I am going to use eventually, or use it seperately:

Temple, Japan. They are in a small passageway in this temple, at the end is one of those good ol paper doors. You slide it to the side, and the party goes through. The next chamber is very small, just big enough to hold the people. The wall behind them...is now brick. The other three walls are paper which do not slide. If they walk through one, it seals behind them. Some walls are just brick, some are paper when going through one way and brick the other, some rooms spin randomly. That kinda thing.

kpenguin
2007-06-24, 10:15 PM
First, make sure the PCs have been able to cross bridges without any hassle before within the dungeon. Now place an illusory bridge across a bottomless trench/acid pool/whatever and place an invisible bridge somewhere nearby. Don't give them any hints.

Gabriel_Luna
2007-06-24, 10:38 PM
I have always been partial to riddles. They can be tricky if you don't have smart players, but most groups I run with enjoy a break from the action now and then. Int checks to provide hints (or at least rule out a wrong answer) would work well if they start to get stuck.

My personal preference are actual middle ages riddles. The Exeter Book is an actual medieval text that survived from the time (and has an amazing history, we're lucky the thing survived at all). It is nothing but a collection of riddles from the time period. Tossing in authentic riddles at your players has always struck me as poetic justice. Plus it mitigates some of the "the characters are there, not the players", since the players then have to think like a sickle-bearing peasant anyway to get the answer.

This link (http://www2.kenyon.edu/AngloSaxonRiddles/texts.htm) is to a hypertext version, complete with answers on a separate page, so that you can see if you can answer them first (just to be sure your PCs have a chance...) Some of them are totally inappropriate (referencing an obscure song from the time, for example), but many have answers like "bread" or "helmet" or the like and would fit anywhere in a D&D setting (or most other fantasy settings for that matter).

Darrin
2007-06-24, 10:51 PM
I'm making a dungeon at the end of a long storyarc which brings the party into epic levels. I don't just throw monsters at 'em. I include RP, riddles, and puzzles. I'm having trouble coming up with some puzzles that they wouldn't get right away after having dealt with me for 20 levels. Can I get some help/suggestions?

First, as for riddles, most of the work's been done for you way back in the ancient days of usenet. Google around for the Netbook of Riddles, or try here:

http://www.adnddownloads.com/riddles.php

Many of them are borrowed from fantasy novels (all the Hobbit riddles are in there), old puzzle books, or from old D&D campaigns.

Puzzles are a bit tougher. I'd suggest tracking down or dragging out some old 90's era CD-rom games like 7th Guest or Myst, and see if there's anything you can borrow in there (the 8 Queens puzzle appeared in 7th Guest, but is no doubt much older than that game). The Monkey Island series might be your best bet. Otherwise, dig around your local library for "brain teaser" or logic puzzle books.

The "pick the right chest" puzzle someone posted is actually a combination of two older puzzles, a Lying Guard or "Knights and Knaves" puzzle, and the puzzle from one of Shakespeare's plays, _A Merchant of Venice_. The two guards, one of which always lies and the other always tells the truth, appears somewhat frequently in movies/TV. Most people know it from Labyrinth or the Dr. Who serial "Pyramids of Mars". The Knights and Knaves riddles were invented by Raymond Smullyan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_and_knaves

Smullyan also played around with the caskets puzzle from _A Merchant of Venice_. Generally, three caskets are presented of varying value, and either statements are made as in the Knights and Knaves puzzle (figure out who is lying) or the chooser must decide based on the value of the casket (generally greed is rewarded with death, while the plainest, dullest, or least valuable casket has the prize). A similar puzzle was used in module B8, "Journey to the Rock".

Borrowing puzzles from old modules might work if you have newer players who might not recognize the pilfering or older players who might appreciate the nostalgia. As I recall, both I9 "Day of Al-Akbar" and I11 "Needle" are good puzzle-dungeons with examples of the now-mandatory Chessboard puzzle. (Although you might want to stay away from Gygax's puzzles... his idea of what makes a really clever puzzle is usually so far beyond what any other human being might consider "clever" that it's a wonder he hasn't been strangled yet.)

Finally, a word of advice on puzzles... always always ALWAYS provide a work-around or an alternate path to get around the puzzle. No matter how easy or obvious the puzzle might seem, a group of players can easily get sidetracked, frustrated or confused. If you bottleneck them into a dead-end and they can't figure out the puzzle... the bitterness can last decades.

In general, every single challenge or obstacle you present the players should have three different solutions:

A) Violence. HP < 0, problem solved, moving forward.
B) Negotiation. Either through roleplay or social engineering rolls.
C) Specialized Skill. This could either be through skill use (rogue skill-monkey climbs a wall, a class-specific ability (druid uses animal empathy to calm down the vorpal rabbit), or magic (luckily the mage remembered to memorize "Knock" that morning).

So if the PCs get stuck on a puzzle, make sure they have other options to explore other than beating their heads into a brick wall:

"You know, this magic door is probably only a few inches thick. We could probably just smash through it with our magic axes." (Option A, Violence.)

"Hey, that orc with a pie we ran into a few rooms back, he seemed to know quite a bit about this place. Maybe if we offered him some gold he could give us some hints to the puzzle." (Option B, Negotiation.)

"Okay, how about I put the portable hole over the magic barrier, summon a brownie, give him my scroll of "Rope Trick", and order him to read the scroll inside the portable hole, causing a dimensional rift to destroy everything in a 5' radius. That should get rid of the puzzle." (Option C, Specialized Skill.)