Help with color puzzle

[tati]

Hello! I'm new here, so be gentle, ok?

I need help to create some puzzle to my next game. The players have found this magic book, but to obtain the knowledge inside, they need to overcome several challenges. The challenges occur inside their minds, like a dream or a trance.

I've tought about six different challenges, each one related to a color. The first one - the easier - would be the red, and the hardest would be the purple. All I could think was something about light and illusions for the yellow color, until now...

Maybe you can suggest some cool ideas for a tematic red puzzle?

(Oh, and sorry for my bad English... I'm not used to write in this language. XP)

[Eloel]

There are as many altars as there are people in the party. A riddle or two around refers to Self and Blood. They get through the puzzle when at least a drop of each one of them's blood is on an altar. (1 person/altar. 1 drop of blood/person)

Cruel? Yes. Fun to watch the players kill each other? Bloody yes!

[Urist Ironblood]

Red - Blood. I like ozgun's idea of asking the players to shed their own blood, but I'd involve some skill challenges to unveil clues to the puzzle.

Orange - Fire! The players have to work together to cross a firey obstacle. Each player who successfully crosses the obstacle causes the obstacle to become progressively harder to cross (chasm over the lava widens, or imps materialize and begin throwing small fire bolts).

Yellow - Light. They find themselves in a room with a single sunbeam coming through the ceiling and a collection of prismatic gems. They need to figure out how to place the gems to unlock the door to the next challenge. Placing the gems incorrectly triggers trap effects.

Green - Poisons and antidotes. The players solve a classic logic puzzle ("the flask to the left of the tapered flask contains the antidote to the blue poison") and then voluntarily ingest one of six poisons presented to them. The ghost of an assassin holds the key to the door, so one players must fall unconscious from the poison, negotiate with the assassin's ghost for the key, and then be given the antidote, which can only mitigate the effects of the correct poison. Upon waking from the conversation, the key materializes in the now-living player's hand.

Blue - water. The players have to solve a more complicated version of the "exactly four gallons" water-jug puzzle. Each time they want to fill either jug they have to crack a glass seal on a giant water tank, whereupon they enter combat with an aquatic creature. The six giant water tanks each have creatures visible in them (and the party can make a Nature or Dungeoneering check to assess the risks) so even if they solve the puzzle, they have a strong incentive to solve it in the fewest possible moves.

Purple - stone. The players have to solve the Towers of Hanoi. The Towers of Hanoi has a fixed number of moves required to solve it depending on how many rings/levels it has, so calculate your party's healing surges and hit points. Moving a ring from a pillar to a new pillar does a fixed amount of damage, but each pillar does a different type of damage: necrotic, lightning, or acid. 3-pillar Towers of Hanoi requires (IIRC) 2^N moves, where N is the number of rings, so add up your party's hps, potions, and other at-will healing surges and use the next lowest power of 2 (probably 64 but possibly 128). A party with 70hp total would have to be very very careful about how they survived the puzzle. If you really want to be devious you could make only the even-numbered rings do damage, but then you'd have to do some serious math to scale the damage appropriately.

Since there are six colors, you should try to include the number six in the other puzzles as well. For example, the purple puzzle could have six rings; the jugs problem requires five steps, but you could use a setup with six faucets or holding tanks; the logic puzzle could involve six poisons and their antidotes.

[Eloel]

3-pillar Towers of Hanoi requires (IIRC) 2^N moves, where N is the number of rings,

Nitpick, it needs ((2^N) - 1) moves.

[Urist Ironblood]

Nitpick, it needs ((2^N) - 1) moves.

Ugh, I knew I'd get that wrong if I didn't Google it. Well, at least it wasn't (2^(N-1)) moves!

[tati]

Thanks a lot for the ideas! My game will be much more fun due to your help!