Pathfinder: Riddles and puzzles

[Scottlang]

Ok, I have a labyrinth set up, but I want to do more puzzles and riddles in it, like do something like the TV series knigmare castle, where you have a grumpy earth elemental asks 3 riddles, 3 false hoods and it or something comes up and clobbers the players, I'm looking for a puzzle that is similar to the Johavah puzzle, where you tread on the correct spelling you pass, if you fail, we'll, you plummet to a doom, (level 14/mythic 3 can limp away from the fall, so maybe a monster for a 1 on 1 play time)... Trying to mix it up, thinking of one of the elder gods or a different spelling or an uncommon known name of sorts... Please help

[Afgncaap5]

Ok, I have a labyrinth set up, but I want to do more puzzles and riddles in it, like do something like the TV series knigmare castle, where you have a grumpy earth elemental asks 3 riddles, 3 false hoods and it or something comes up and clobbers the players, I'm looking for a puzzle that is similar to the Johavah puzzle, where you tread on the correct spelling you pass, if you fail, we'll, you plummet to a doom, (level 14/mythic 3 can limp away from the fall, so maybe a monster for a 1 on 1 play time)... Trying to mix it up, thinking of one of the elder gods or a different spelling or an uncommon known name of sorts... Please help

Okay, one of the hard parts about this is that these challenges require some build up. The challenges Indy faced in the Final Crusade had been foreshadowed through most of the movie. If you want the players to spell out the name of C'thulhu ("But in the R'lyehian alphabet, C'thulhu begins with a K!"), but C'thulhu hasn't been mentioned once yet in this game, it might fall flat. If you want something like that, my recommendation is to make references to what the challenges represent be related to other characters or bits of information that've already come up.

That sorta brings up another point: if a challenge really requires a player to solve something that should have stumped everyone up until now, the player's character should have some unique perspective that they can use to help themselves solve it. Knowledge checks or bardic knowledge can be really useful here. If I can modify something I used in a game once...

Let's say you enter a stone room that has relief carvings of Lady Alexia Cindris (because the Cindris family has obviously been mentioned in song and story since level 1, right? Or because one of your players is a member of the Cindris family) from her legendary road of challenges on the way to defeat Frizidor the Frostwyrm (because the vengeful ghost of Frizidor rising again has been a recurring theme in your campaign, right?) The walls show Lady Cindris running from near where the door starts and the reliefs along the wall leading to the next door feature four wolves, four trolls, four dire bears and four medusas. Quick observation reveals that each of the reliefs are massive buttons that might be pushed into the wall, and the door on the far side is locked (and some sort of plot-exclusive magic is making it nigh impossible to break through or unlock things or whatever blah blah blah you know.) The party Bard or Wizard can tell ya that he or she is familiar with the story of Lady Alexia Cindris on the road of challenges (probably an easy knowledge check), and knows that Alexia only fought one wolf, two trolls, and three bears with no medusas at all since they're from a different story about Alexia being watched carefully lest she mess up.

To get the door to open properly, the players need to push in the second, third, and fourth wolves, the third and fourth trolls, the fourth dire bear, and all four medusas. [The logic of knowing which ones to push is determined with the assumption that the first wolf Alexia reaches is right, but any ones following the right one should be wrong, and so on for each discrete group of enemies. This at least allows some sort of fight to happen if you want one. Players arguing that they should be able to push in just any ol' image of monsters for it to count don't understand the stress that magical stonemasons endured in the old days] If they ever push in an incorrect monster or attempt to open the door without pushing in monsters, then an attack happens. Something like...

First attack: A medusa peels itself out of the image of one of the four medusas and attacks.
Second attack: Two medusas (including the first one) pull themselves out of two of the images of medusas to attack.
Third attack: Players will either expect three medusas to attack or for all four medusas to attack. So naturally, on the third attack, have three wolves, two trolls, and a dire bear pull themselves out of the walls to attack.

If the players still haven't stumbled on the correct order at this point, a medusa image can come to life and say that while it's clear that modern people don't have the sense to recall their own history, the players are persistent and something (pure of heart or or dedicated to their cause or something) and the image will open the door for them with the puzzle still unsolved.

This way, the players have an escape clause even if they never figure it out.

-Edit-
Some recommend knowledge checks:

History:
5 - Alexia fought monsters like these in her legends.
15 - Medusas come from a different story.
20 - There was only one wolf.
25 - There were three bears, all different ages but equally strong.
30 - Only two trolls tried to stop Alexia, and the Medusas were not necessarily enemies in their story, but were more like judges of character.

(You're using Pathfinder, but for anyone else using 3.5 rules instead I'd lower the DC for Bards using Bardic Knowledge by 10 for each, leaving the History checks the same between editions.)

[gr8artist]

There's one from Final Fantasy VIII that I used once. A clock in the room is broken, pointing at a specific time. Around the room are 12 images of deities or legendary beings. The puzzle is to pick the paintings of the individuals whose names contain the letters found in the roman numerals on the clock's current time.
For example, if the time was 2:30 you'd need to pick the images of Ixion and Vidar (II & VI).
If you don't want to use Roman numerals (you could argue that English:Roman is the same as Common:Dwarven), you could use letters from the spelling of the numbers on the clock.

[Ualaa]

The ultimate question... does your group enjoy puzzles and riddles?

The hard one is that either you challenge their players, in which case their classes are virtually meaningless.
And that is unfair to the Wizard with his 20 Intellect, who may also have a decent Wisdom score as well... if his cognitive functions aren't allowed to be far superior to that of his player, but his scrawny friend who plays a Barbarian/Fighter can throw Dire Bears about... unlike his player.

If you challenge the players, you should reward the players of smarter characters with clues due to their superior intellect.
That's about the best happy medium.

If the challenge is for the characters, basically everything is resolved with dice rolls.
From observing/experimenting with the area to determine there is a trap.
To the disable device check to render harmless said trap.
The challenge being for the characters is a rather boring way to go... because who wants sixteen challenging riddles, each being solved by the Wizard rolling 4+ on a d20, and getting most of them on the first guess.