Help Needed: challenge/puzzle for Earth-element theme

[madwolf10]

Hello, fellow Taletellers,
My party has to make it through tests that were designed by ancient Druids to keep unwanted guests out of their very hidden grove.
The tests number 4, one for each Element.
NOTE: these Druids would have had "special consideration" for making these tests as hard as possible for... arcane users/wizards ;)
I am questioning whether these tests should be "to the death" or just "you fail" (and get shunted out of the mountain) but since these are older Druids, truest of Neutral, I am leaning towards Death is ok. Nature... let it run its course... ya know?

Need one for Earth. Not just a riddle, nor just a puzzle. More like a puzzling-physical Group Challenge. lol
Takes place under a mountain. Cavern or chamber.
No teleporting or flying in this chamber will be possible. Otherwise magic can be used, items as well.
Party is 4 7th levels PCs, on the higher-powered side, Paladin Wizard Druid Rogue.

Yes, I know of a cave-in or pit "trap." Not against using those *with other stuff/challenges* but not just those.. these are 4 veteran players, they've seen a LOT of that over the years.

Anyone care to get creative & challenging & funnel their inner Elemental Druid??

Thanks in advance!

[Sorinth]

Is the no teleporting/flying some sort magical effect preventing those spells from working or do we also need to come up with a puzzle where those won't work?

Regardless here's my setup. The chamber they enter is a very large cavern, at the center of the cavern is a worked stone circular disk. The disk and area around it are covered in what looks to be the petrified broken remains of some sort of vine/large stalk. The disk is 5ft in diameter and has a hole 1ft in diameter at it's center that is filled with loose dirt and there is Druidic writing and runes along the edge of the disk. Directly above this stone disk is the room's only exit, a vertical shaft 50ft above the cavern floor, and the shaft itself goes up some unknown distance (Long enough so that you can't just DD if not otherwise being prevented). The gravity above the disk feels extremely heavy, and this is what prevents just flying out of the chamber, anything flying over the disk must make a DC 15 Strength saving throw every round or fall prone to the ground taking double the normal falling distance due to the increased gravity.

Searching the petrified plant matter will uncover a magical petrified seed. Once unpetrified the seed is basically a Jack and the Giant Beanstalk magic bean, so if planted after it sprouts it grows to enormous size straight up through the shaft. After 1 hour the plant dies, turns to stone, and falls to the ground. When any plant is alive in the center of the stone disk the gravity returns to normal. So the beanstalk can be climbed easily enough to get out, but if some other plant is growing there they could then fly out normally as well. This is hinted at with the Druidic writing which says "From the earth the tallest trees can defy gravity".

And finally the place has a Cockatrice/Basilisk infestation, a small group will come running whenever they hear a loud crash from someone/something falling from the gravity. The fight should be a relatively easy as the main purpose is to provide the blood that is used to de-petrify the seed. That plus the other knowledge about the plant can be gained with a successful Nature check.

So they can figure out the puzzle properly and get out easily, half figure out the puzzle which disables the gravity and then allows them to exit with some likely resource usage, not figure it out and just brute force the heavy gravity saves, or not figure it out but come up with some way to mitigate the falling risk perhaps through climbing gear which could work but working too long in heavy gravity would probably require a Con check/save to avoid gaining a level of Exhaustion.

[SpikeFightwicky]

I had a semi-recent group of elemental challenges for my players and they succeeded in the earth one so far (failed at the fire one).

A constant effect in the "earth" area (a big cave hollowed out by a large burrowing earth wyrm) was that if anyone's two feet "left the ground" (mechanically this was whenever a player would jump, fly, teleport or move after taking the dash action) it would trigger tremors and deadfalls (potentially knocking players prone, and creating difficult terrain in the even of a deadfall). In the penultimate challenge, the players had to deal with varieties of earth creatures while moving their "pet rock" (a large rock they had been dragging along since it was key to a few puzzles) into specific areas which caused the ceiling to fall. The creatures all moved away from the deadfalls, and the players quickly learned to follow the creatures to avoid falling under rubble. The ceiling collapses bored holes in the floor, which eventually crumbled and gave way to a lower chamber which was basically a giant ant lion trap. The players (and remaining monsters) would roll athletics or acrobatics at the start of their turn to avoid falling closer to the center, and the ant lion would bite anything close enough (player or monster), or spit acid at the closest creature out of reach (which knocked prone - giving disadvantage on the skill check). The fight continued until:
1- The antlion dies
2- The antlion ate enough monsters (or PCs if they end up unconscious and in biting distance)
3- Enough large rocks (from the room above, which keep falling) roll into the antlion to annoy it

Lol I probably pooched my "explanation" roll on writing this out, but it's an approximation of what happened.

[madwolf10]

Those are both really cool, very neat, like em! I might be able to use parts of these, thanks to both of you :smallbiggrin:

[SpikeFightwicky]

Those are both really cool, very neat, like em! I might be able to use parts of these, thanks to both of you :smallbiggrin:

Awesome! Glad to help out :) Though if you can, please let us know how it ends up going! :smallsmile:

[Corran]

Earth challenge. Earth. Earth genasi. Earth elemental. Stones. Trees. Graves?

No real inspiration here, just some random ideas.

Does it make sense to have a tree inside the mountain? Like, a big tree. And sentient. It opens its mouth and you go inside to a dungeon where the end boss is a big nasty spider... damn.

Moving sand traps. Or moving sand passage/ escape route? What would it take for players to think that the escape route is (somehow) through the moving sand? Non stop spawning enemies? Earth elemental spawns and blocks a stone carved door and upon defeating it its pieces reassemble for another fight? And then another and another? And the real exit is through the moving sand? Hmm, give them a hint in the form of a riddle. Something they read on the room before the elemental attacks? And they have to solve it as they are doing combat.

Price of admission. To enter the earth challenge one of the pc's must remain outside. Buried under the ground. "Are you sure you want to do this? Which one stays out? Better make it back in time before your pal runs out of air", are all now part of the challenge. Have the buried pc be challenged separately (dream like illusion) and run it parallel to the main challenge so they wont get too bored.

Carrion crawlers as filler.