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View Full Version : Can someone look over this puzzle to check if it makes sense?



Sgt. Cookie
2018-05-29, 08:28 AM
First off, this is a first draft of the puzzle, so if there are ambiguities or inconsistencies, please let me know. Since I already know the solution, I can't really tell. This is also my first attempt at making this type of puzzle.

Secondly, all directions are relative, so "to the left of the sorcerer" means the sorcerer's left.

Anyway, without further ado:

Five companions are they. Two are skilled at steel and stealth, while three draw power from faith, nature and stealth. Two are children of humanity, the third is a scion of the heavens, the fourth finds home in the forests, while the last is one of the little folk who roam the lands.

They are gathered around a campfire, two are lovers and sit as one, while the rest sit apart. They are dividing up the treasure from their latest adventure, five amulets that guard against a type of damage. Three are forged from metal, while two are carved from stone.

Neither human wears stone, but the one who is guarded against fire sits next to both who wear stone. To the left of the sorcerer sits the iron amulet, who's bearer is sat across from the fighter. The companion who is guarded against sonic sits across from the lovers.

The one who wears bronze talks strategy with the cleric, while the one who is guarded against acid speaks to the one who wears onyx. One of the lovers is human, while the other lover wears jade. Both the rogue and the druid sit across from a human, but the Aasimar sits across from the halfling.

Only one metal amulet is aligned with the path of the sun. The one who was not spoken to is warded against electricity and to their right sits the one who wears silver. One who wears metal is warded against acid and one who wears stone is warded against cold.

Now that you know all this I ask: To what sort of damage is each calling protected from?



Race|Class|Location|Amulet material|Energy type.

Human Fighter, North, Bronze, Fire.
Human Sorcerer, lover, east, silver, acid.
Aasimar cleric, second lover, jade, cold.
Elf rogue, south, iron, electricity.
Halfling druid, west, onyx, sonic.

Seto
2018-05-29, 10:36 AM
It's easy enough to retro-engineer once you've got the solution, but it's got a lot of moving parts that might confuse players (not to mention take up a lot of game time to resolve. Like, half a session at least.)
My recommendations (bolded recommendations are the most pressing) would be:

1. Draw up the campfire, with each dot in position, the two dots to the east, the rest sitting in one cardinal direction each. Then let them figure out which dot is which character (and which amulet, etc.). That way they have visual support. Before I looked at the solution, I was confused at the sitting arrangements of the characters. ("Like, two together and three other people, but are they sitting regularly along a circle? How close to each other are they? How many people can be sitting across how many people at once?"). That's unnecessary confusion. That way, if they know that cardinal directions are involved and the lovers are to the east (instead of sitting in a mess at south-southwest or something), the hint referring to "the sun's path" actually becomes useful.

2- The first paragraph is written like it's part of the puzzle. It's not, because it's only information that the players will receive later in the other paragraphs (race and class mostly). It leads to "figuring out what races and classes there are", which is unnecessary because you straight-up tell them in the following paragraphs. Consider removing it, making it less cryptic, or fusing it with the second paragraph ("An Aasimar, two humans, a halfing and an elf are sitting around a fire. They are cleric, druid, rogue, fighter and sorcerer.").

3- I was also confused about how the different moving parts interacted together. For example, people speaking to each other. I spent some time wondering if I was to assume that a character speaking to another meant they were sitting close, or next to each other, or across each other. Maybe that's just me overthinking it, but that could be an issue. I get that it's the kind of puzzle that's supposed to overwhelm you with many kinds of different unrelated information, but perhaps clarify that?

4- Frankly I don't want to spend an hour trying to resolve it again, but it's worth checking if a different solution is possible with the parameters you provided. Particularly, the idea that some of them might be multiclass characters makes the whole thing irrelevant. (For example, when reading "Both the rogue and the druid sit across from a human", I immediately thought: "Haha, do we have a Rogue/Druid?"). Maybe the next posters could help with that.

5- Maybe leave the players with the puzzle at the end of a session, and let them try to solve it before next session? That way they're free to each try individually, together or for those who don't like it, rely on the players who do find it fun? I'm saying that because that kind of puzzle might enthuse some players and frustrate others, because complex reasoning like that is hard to do cooperatively, and because if they find it mid-session, it's gonna eat up the rest of the afternoon.

Andor13
2018-05-29, 10:58 AM
That is a really, really tough syllogism.

It is ambiguous too. The stated conditions work for your conclusion or if the halfling and elf switch classes. Also the elf's race is ambiguous as it is never stated, it could be elf, it could be anything foresty, if that matters. Also don't put the compass points into the expected answer, the listed solution nails down relative position, but is not fixed to the map.

There are a lot of false paths to solving this, I'll be honest, I never did and I went through two sheets of paper, although I did get off on a false leg quickly.

Ninja_Prawn
2018-05-29, 01:46 PM
I agree with Seto and Andor about the ambiguities.

It also strikes me as too hard to go dropping into a D&D game, unless your players are exceptional mathematicians. I gave it a crack for half an hour and got nowhere near a solution, but then again I did fail 4th year maths at uni... :smallfrown:

jayem
2018-05-29, 02:08 PM
I agree with Seto and Andor about the ambiguities.

It also strikes me as too hard to go dropping into a D&D game, unless your players are exceptional mathematicians. I gave it a crack for half an hour and got nowhere near a solution, but then again I did fail 4th year maths at uni... :smallfrown:

There's a similar fairly standard puzzle book puzzle format, so I'd expect a high percentage of that demographic can do them (I can't do them though). You have a triangle shaped grid of grids, and then chase back the crosses and ticks (a bit suduko-ish). They normally have triple facts though "The halfling was not the sorcerer with the fire resistance!" and most of the statements are pretty clear [and all the characteristics are unique!].

Also is there a plot(/situation) justification for it?

Sgt. Cookie
2018-05-29, 04:32 PM
Thank you, everyone. Like I said, this is just a first draft so things will change. I'll try to answer as best I can, seto I'll get to you last since you went into a lot of detail.

Andor/Ninja, thanks for letting me know about those ambiguities, I'll try to clear them up in the next draft. As for dropping it in, the idea will be to use it as more of a "shortcut" lock rather than anything else.

Jayem, this isn't something I'll be using anytime soon. Short version is I'm prepping a campaign that'll be run for at least a year, so I've plenty of time to figure one out.


Seto, I'll go through these one by one.

1. Yeah, that's something I'll include in the next draft. (Or at least a description thereof).

2. I hear you on that one. I'll rework it to make races and classes clear. I'll also use it to clarify that there are no multi-classed characters.

3. Do you think mentioning where the other person they're talking to is would help? And don't forget that a little later on the puzzle talks about the one who wasn't spoken to.

4. I will certainly make sure to do that. Thanks.

5. That'll be the intended plan.

Again, thanks to all of you!

Cespenar
2018-05-30, 02:51 AM
As others said, the placement wording is the problem. By reading the first post alone, I personally don't understand:

1) If speaking also means sitting against, or if speaking is its own value?

2) Whether they are sitting in a circle of five, or circle of "four", with the lovers counting as one, or an entirely arbitrary system.

3) What "across someone" objectively means, according to the sitting system in 2.

4) Whether "...but the one who is guarded against fire sits next to both who wear stone." means the people on both his left and right sides, or a couple sitting on one side.

My suggestion would be, also as said above, either provide a schema of the sitting system, or clarify the abovementioned points to absolute perfection.

Khedrac
2018-05-30, 04:55 AM
In addition to what the others have said, you need to take a long look at wording choices:


Five companions are they. Two are skilled at steel and stealth, while three draw power from faith, nature and stealth.
Now on reading your solution this is meant to mean "Fighter, rogue, priest, druid and ????" (note - sorcerors do not draw power from stealth in any system I have heard of); but that is not actually the natural way to read it, especially when it's pretty much the first clue - I read it as "2 are fighter/rogue types and 3 are stealthy druid types".
Further nowhere do you ever state the exclusivity of the different choices - it's implicit and needs to be to solve the problem, but it's not actually stated; e.g. "five amulets that guard against a type of damage" - again I would read this as five amulets that guard aginst the same type of damage - ignoring that you have to go through the puzle to find that all 5 energy types are listed to know what there are not more than one for the same type.
Basically you need to state the exclusivity principle.

One last point, the solution method for this type of puzzle is fairly standard, but if you don't know it then you have virtually no chane of solving the problem; so if your players like puzzle fine, but if they don't - this will just annoy them.

Sgt. Cookie
2018-05-30, 12:05 PM
I can totally explain why that sentence is worded as it is: I made a typo. That last one is supposed to be "self". But considering that entire paragraph is being rewritten from the ground up, it's kind of irrelevant.