Help me design a puzzle

[Kafana]

Normally I wouldn't be asking for this (and btw, if this is the wrong forum please move this thread somewhere more appropriate), but I have a rather generic and easy setup - so much so that I am sure at least a few puzzles were done with this kind of concept. What I lack is time so I was wondering if you guys can give me some references for puzzles that have been done with the following setup:

The PCs are lost in a swamp, and there are four distinct areas they can reach:
- two man made cottages
- one pond of acid
- one tribal village with many huts
- one small river with a dock emerging from a spring in a cliff and leading underground

The swamp is foggy and doesn't really adhere to the common perception of reality, i.e. if you go from A to B and then head down the same road back to A you may appear in C.

My idea is that, whichever encounters I put in a point can respawn when the PCs return to a point (possibly slightly stronger). The idea is that the PCs need to activate something in some order in all four locations, and what I want is to reward them for coming to a conclusion sooner (by having to face less encounters and drain their resources), rather than latter (but there should be a mechanism to pretty much reveal the answer if the PCs fight long enough.

If you need more information feel free to ask.

[Gildedragon]

Well for one: a survival check ought let them navigate the mists precisely, or a spot to see the village at a distance

Will o wisps are good for having decoy villages (if the spot roll is a success they see two villages. They have to pick which one to follow)

You ought map the paths: four possible roads out of any one location: one each to other location and one that loops them back to wherever they came from.

Question though: what would you do if they opt to take a boat from the docks... Or follow the river?

As for clues: some symmetry clues might be good. Something like the village sign being a sun, the river being called the Dawn, the pond's eerie glow has it called Moonlake, and the huts being on Knightfall Hill

Or something like that, give a vague sense of the order things go

[Afgncaap5]

Could I recommend a Shadow Mastiff or other "hound"-style monster for the recurring challenges?

As for a puzzle... perhaps have some sort of menhir or henge near the dock with a lot of strange runes carved in it that can only be activated if a particular paint or ointment is spread across certain of the runes, a pair of alchemical labs (suitable for making the paint) in each of the cottages, a need to gather acid and/or mutated plants from near the pond of acid for the alchemical ingredients, and... possibly the village could be the home to an Anagakok with a spellbook made of tree bark or something, a spellbook that would include notations on which of the runes need to be activated, in what order, and how? If the players don't even know how to activate the menhir or what it does, you might have that information come from the Anagakok, either as an ally or as a hostile enemy, whichever would work better.

[Gildedragon]

By the pool a tree grows.
Look up the manchineel tree for inspiration

By the docks there is a cave with some monster. A catoblepas perhaps? Or a dragon's ghost

(Ghosts are good for this thing as they regenerate. Drop the undead tag from them, make them be shadows of the Real world outside the mists.)

In the village there is a library (part of the village church) which has a book on the Mistways, mazes made by malevolent swamp spirits, and some vague quasi poetic, possibly metaphorical solution.
Perhaps veiled instructions on how to make a lamp to carve a path to the fog.

Something like:
Kn Religion check (X)*: Evil spirits shun items forged under the ringing of church bells. Darkness cannot abide the living fire, should it rebel against It.

Kn Arcana (Y): Will o Wisps are famous for leading travellers astray, but should one be persuaded to help a lost traveler, they know the paths through the fog like no other. When held in specially designed lamps, their light can cut even through the densest fog... Or project fiersome illusions

Kn nature (Z): the druids of [culture] used to utilize lanterns carved apples from the [poison tree] to guide themselves through the shadowlands, believing them to bestow protection against evil fae and worse.

Etc...

Or gather information or diplomacy with the villagers or smarter monsters might point the PCs in the direction of the puzzle solution: they used to have an alliance with the WoWs but they've grown mean, the humans broke a treaty; there is a greater evil in the heart of the swamp and either it is making it impossible to escape the space loop; OR a couple of powerful monsters have sealed it by making it impossible to get there; an unfortunate side effect being the space distortions...

*library counts as a mwrk tool for all knowledge checks here

[TheYell]

early video games had this sort of "go hut look bed get shoes" setup and it could be immensely frustrating and that was without the potential for a botched die roll.

four variables in the right order is 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 combinations except a fifth option is failure to manipulate the trigger at all so there are 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 options or 625 random combinations and thats assuming the option of total failure to manipulate any triggers is only tried once.

i would figure out what triggers the solution in the right order and then tell the party in advance with rhyming couplets that give the clues in their proper order.

Beware the Ring of Time recurled
Lest ye walk in Shadows world.

If ye would the Ring undone
Elevate the middle one.

Paste of herbs must ye grind
And smear across the runes ye find.

etc. give them a fighting chance and if they abuse the ring by dragging it out prod them with a willpower check against slipping to a neutral neutral alignment as the deliberately trod the same path over and over