The Dreaded "Puzzle Encounter" (Suggestions wanted)

[Silva Stormrage]

Hey, so in my campaign I have some players about to embark on a journey to get much need info from a mysterious wizard living in a tower alone in the mountains dubbed "The Historian". Essentially an incredibly old and knowledgable observer of the region. The Historian doesn't allow anyone to enter and generally challenges individuals with knowledge puzzles/tests or other such things to allow entry.

(My Players stay out of course. I doubt I will use any puzzles here verbatim but regardless don't spoil yourselves :smalltongue:)

However, I have not historically had the best results with puzzles on my own. I can of course google the numerous brain teasers/puzzles online and pick good ones from those but I was wondering if the playground had any suggestions on interesting puzzle encounters?

Combat is fine and actually to be expected for a few of the challenges (I am expecting 2-3 challenges) but puzzle combat encounters are difficult. I was thinking of an obstacle course similar to Portal or something similar but I wasn't sure how to design that.

So ya, I was curious if any DM's or players had interesting puzzle encounters or design philosophies for making these interesting and not just have 1 player who is invested try to solve the puzzle while the other 3 give up or have the puzzles be too painful obtuse.

[Bucky]

Where possible, follow the 3 Solutions rule. For every puzzle encounter, you should come up with three different approaches that could independently solve the encounter.

That doesn't mean there need to be three different solving-actions; it could be several ways to figure out the same action.

For example, if the answer is "pull the lever on pillar 3", one solution might be to gather all the clues and apply some logic, one might be to find just one clue that tells the answer IF you can make a tough Knowledge(History) check, and one might be to ignore the clues entirely and hack the puzzle with Disable Device, in combination with Knowledge(Architecture) or Search check, to make it safe to just try all the levers.

The main purpose of this is to keep a single oversight from blocking the party. But as a secondary benefit, it lets different players make progress on different solution-paths at the same time e.g. having one puzzling over the clues while a second looks for more and a third tries the Knowledge checks.

[Nifft]

I'm a fan of 4e's puzzle-during-combat traps.

Basically, you can either do the combat as a normal combat (albeit with a hostile environmental factor), or you can try to solve the environmental factor (the trap) while under fire from the combat threat, or you can do both at once ("split the party" while standing in the same room).

Once you win the combat, the trap part is easy.

Once you handle the trap, the combat is easier.

So there are 3 built-in paths for solving the encounter -- and then on top of that, you can add ways to circumvent the encounter entirely, and retreat from the encounter, and maybe even ways to trick the combat portion into leaving the area of the trap.

[Bucky]

Here, I've turned the pillar example into a proper puzzle.

These clues are hidden in various parts of the room:

A) The lever that opens the door is to the left of a lever that gives an electric shock.

B) Every possible result has two levers that accomplish it, except for the one beneath the face of King Bob. (pillars 1, 3 and 5 have faces; make a knowledge check to figure out King Bob's facial features)

C) Two levers that release oozes are adjacent to each other.

D) No two levers that give an electric shock are next to each other.

E) Pillar 4 does the same thing as one of its' neighbors.

F, meta-clue) Each lever does only one thing, and only one lever opens the door.

G, meta-clue) It is possible to deduce all the levers' function through only the clues in this room, without pulling any of them or using any esoteric knowledge.


King Bob is pillar 1, requiring a knowledge check to identify that he lost his left eye before his coronation and thus must be the face with an eyepatch, rather than the one with a prominent cheek scar or the one with half-elf ears.
OR players can pull levers for additional info.
OR they can use the logic below:

R=Release Ooze
O=Open Door
S=Electric Shock

Starting with the meta-clues and adding clues one at a time:

A: The pillar on the far right isn't O.

AE: Pillar 4 cannot be O. If Pillar 4 is S, Pillar 3 must be O because the other S is Pillar 5. If Pillar 4 is an R, pillar 3 cannot be O because it'd be to the left of an R.

ACE: If pillar 4 is an S, order must be RROSS. If pillar 4 is an R, the order may be SOSRR, OSSRR or OSRRS.

Add B: SOSRR is eliminated because there's no face on pillar 2.

Add D: RROSS and OSSRR are eliminated because two S are adjacent.

Order is OSRRS

You may want to mirror the puzzle just in case players decide to pull levers in order.

[ericgrau]

Where possible, follow the 3 Solutions rule. For every puzzle encounter, you should come up with three different approaches that could independently solve the encounter.

That doesn't mean there need to be three different solving-actions; it could be several ways to figure out the same action.

For example, if the answer is "pull the lever on pillar 3", one solution might be to gather all the clues and apply some logic, one might be to find just one clue that tells the answer IF you can make a tough Knowledge(History) check, and one might be to ignore the clues entirely and hack the puzzle with Disable Device, in combination with Knowledge(Architecture) or Search check, to make it safe to just try all the levers.

The main purpose of this is to keep a single oversight from blocking the party. But as a secondary benefit, it lets different players make progress on different solution-paths at the same time e.g. having one puzzling over the clues while a second looks for more and a third tries the Knowledge checks.

This. Basically don't expect the players to think the same way as you do or they could be stuck indefinitely for no good reason. Plus realistically there should always be several solutions to a problem. Often including breaking/bypassing something in an unintended way (like smashing or dimension door). If you can't think of more than 1 solution, then the puzzle is flawed.

[Silva Stormrage]

Fair enough, I will definitely try that. I like the merging of the puzzle and combat though. I will try to think of a good combination that works for the fluff of the wizard's tower.

[JeenLeen]

I suggest having some way to "brute force" through the puzzles.

By "brute force" I mean being able to try each option until they succeed. This can come with consequences, as the wrong choice does damage or other penalties. Maybe the penalty is just lowering the Historian's willingness to help. (He still provides the crucial info -- aka, the prize for this quest -- but might not give extra tidbits.)
The main boon of this method is that it lets players have a way to succeed even if they miss all the clues. (I do strongly agree with the '3 ways/clues' method as a primary means.)

There was one game I was in where we were doing an ancient dungeon. We knew one NPC was around when it was built, and the DM expected us to consult him. (Such a course of action would be normal for our party.) But we didn't. So we had almost no clues. Each room was something like "choose switch A, B, or C". The order was obviously some pattern, but as we didn't know it we just brute forced it. Which meant taking damage as the room filled with poison gas or constructs came to life to attack us.
BUT we still succeeded.

The DM was nice in that, after the dungeon, he told us how we were expected to get clues. We all agreed it was reasonable. I think saying something like that is handy to build DM-trust and avoid resentment in the players. As we went through the dungeon, we were really confused.

[PunBlake]

I'm a fan of 4e's puzzle-during-combat traps.

Basically, you can either do the combat as a normal combat (albeit with a hostile environmental factor), or you can try to solve the environmental factor (the trap) while under fire from the combat threat, or you can do both at once ("split the party" while standing in the same room).

Once you win the combat, the trap part is easy.

Once you handle the trap, the combat is easier.

So there are 3 built-in paths for solving the encounter -- and then on top of that, you can add ways to circumvent the encounter entirely, and retreat from the encounter, and maybe even ways to trick the combat portion into leaving the area of the trap.

I've had a DM use a trap like this on one of my play-groups:

A 40' square stone room has two levers inset into the wall, one at each end. At least two incorporeal ghosts (use something level-appropriate here) are hiding in the walls. Once they notice the party is in the room (listen checks through the walls), they pop out and pull the levers. If both are pulled, the floor starts to pull apart at 5'-10' per round in the center. If someone pulls one lever back into position, movement stops; if both, the floor comes back together, same speed. The ghosts will continue to pull unattended levers and hide in walls afterward... or attack when threatened. The trap itself can have whatever you want at the bottom. It was the entrance into a dungeon that could be bypassed otherwise in our case.