I am designing a small dungeon for my group to adventure through. It begins with two "puzzles" which are also trapped before finally coming into some Two moderate encounters and one big one. I'm not as worried about the combat as I am about the puzzles.
The first one requires the group to rotate four stone rings into the proper order before the door will unlock with the provided key. Each ring has five symbols or words on it and these are what need to be matched up. They key to solving the puzzle is directly tied to the symbols written along the walls as your approach the door. For the final 50 feet the walls on either side have one of the symbols (for a total of each symbol repeated twice on each wall). The solution is hidden among the symbols on the wall.
Incorrectly solving the puzzle causes a trap to trigger when inserting the key. This trap is a set of spikes which exit the floor impaling the person standing in the square. The spikes deal 4d4 damage then reset into the floor, the door also automatically resets. I was going to make the check to see the holes in the floor a 15-20 (they are obvious if you look at the floor) but disabling the trap is close to impossible. I was going to set it at DC 30 or more because you can't rig the puzzle and picking the lock basically requires knowing the puzzle to hit the correct pins. Does this seem too difficult? I have it set to be a CR 4 based on the trap but think it should be higher due to the puzzle.
I have a second puzzle/trap that follows this which I'll post later.
The second puzzle/trap is also tied to the previous hallway. After getting past the puzzle door the group would enter a room 50ft long and 25ft wide. The five tiles directly outside the door (in the prior hallway) have numbers in Giant (0-4). When entering the room the tiles have these number magically etched into them which light up when stepped on and display a glowing number on the tile. There are 15 tiles (in a room of 50) which do not light up and are actually pit falls.
The pit falls are 20ft dealing 2d6 damage. They also contain stale air which has bubonic plague in it. Falling in triggers a fortitude save to resist contraction. Noticing the traps is a DC 35, but disabling them only requires putting enough weight on them to trigger it to fall. Reflex save of 15 to avoid falling in (although if you attempt to dive into another trapped square you get no save for that). It is currently a CR 5 based on this. Should it be higher?
Players generally hate puzzles. Especially those of us who grew into the game in Gygaxian styled 1st edition adventures. Done well, they are memorable; but there are so many ways to do them wrong. I remember this one game I played in and we couldn't figure out the damn puzzle. SIX BLOODY HOURS we worked on it, and because the module said we couldn't get past it without solving it, we were stuck (and having a brand new DM didn't help).
The next week, we showed up, and the DM was sheepish. He hadn't fully read the puzzle, and forget to finish giving us the information we needed to unlock it!
God.
............
Ok, I'm back, cool now. Everything is cool. Had a flashback for second there, but it is really ok now. Really.
Back to puzzles; they can be great or they can utterly ruin your game. Use them with care.
Master Arminas
Well luckly there isn't anything extra to read since I designed them myself. The writing isn't hidden from them (and I'll describe it to them). Now I won't say that the symbols only match on those four spots but when they run into the puzzle they will have an idea where to go back and look. Perception checks and the characters will be able to solve it (or ill likely map out the symbols for them and have them still solve it).
The second room is the interesting one. I'm hoping it works as well as I think it will (or that they all just walk into the room and down they go lol).
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm not a big fan of puzzles either. Most of the time you either figure them out right away or wind up completely stumped. Neither situation is particularly fun.
There are some good puzzles but they are rare.
As for general trap tips, I consider hit point based traps a bit of a waste. The players trigger it and unless it kills them they just heal back up and move on.
My preference is for traps that are combined with encounters or traps that trigger encounters. Dropping the characters into a pit filled with jellyfish is a nasty trick (and will teach the players in your group to train SWIM!!) and the strength damage they take is likely to last a lot longer and make them a lot more cautious than getting smacked with a touch of hit point damage. Simple traps that knock people over or into pits can be super nasty in the middle of an encounter because it hurts the players when their hit points are scarce and delays them at a critical time.
I m going to echo Arminas and Baker, puzzles really just do not seem to work well for pathfinder (I can't really speak for other tabletops). I find that mazes work well in a dungeon, along with simple trigger items like keys, switches/levers and pressure plates.
Puzzles can work if you have enough hints around. Sometimes, if the players are taking too long, having them just make an Int check to give them a clue can really push things along. I find that positional puzzles (think sliding square puzzles, or the Water Temple in Legend of Zelda: OoT) work better than mathematical or logic puzzles. I think that if they can visualize the puzzle and manipulate it, it seems to just click better.
Also, I really really hate Minesweeper... I am so bad at it, I'd probably not enjoy that puzzle.
Mazes? Ack!
Throw in a minotaur with some class levels in barbarian, and you got yourself some terrified PC's. Level 10 gets pounce *Evil grin* CR 14 Powerful charge, I hope the wizards is in back.
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"Puzzles dont work for Pathfinder".....Say What???
I love me some puzzles and they work just dandy in D&D and Pathfinder. Number one rule though is know thy players. If your players hate em, don't use em. If you are not sure about their taste make sure to study their reactions during the session and try and gauge it for the future. If all else fails you can always ask them too.
As a GM I would never allow my players to spend 6 hours on a single puzzle! Mazes either; I had an old school GM once made us spend an entire session trying to get out of a maze and it was not fun. If the players are struggling throw them a bone. Let them make wisdom or knowledge checks over again after stumbling around. Also I would allow the rogue a second chance to disable after they fail it a first time. Of course, after the party takes trap damage a few times since they have an idea now how the thing works.
Second puzzle/trap looks just fine to me. Only worry I would have is forcing them to solve the first one without any help especially if they get frustrated. Have fun Litchfield let us know how it turns out!
As for general trap tips, I consider hit point based traps a bit of a waste. The players trigger it and unless it kills them they just heal back up and move on.My preference is for traps that are combined with encounters or traps that trigger encounters. Dropping the characters into a pit filled with jellyfish is a nasty trick (and will teach the players in your group to train SWIM!!) and the strength damage they take is likely to last a lot longer and make them a lot more cautious than getting smacked with a touch of hit point damage. Simple traps that knock people over or into pits can be super nasty in the middle of an encounter because it hurts the players when their hit points are scarce and delays them at a critical time.
I would normally agree that simple HP traps aren't much more than an annoyance but, alas, they are not a normal good party. I am actually running an evil campaign and neither cleric in the party channels positive energy or has access to cure spells. They may have a wand of cure light wounds but I'd have to check their sheets.
For future reference the party is made up of a Dwarf Cleric (Undead Lord Archetype), Human Cleric (Evangelist), Human Sorcerer (Infernal), Half-Elf Antipaladin, Human Summoner and Human Barbarian. They are all either level 6 or 7. The Dwarf also has two undead skeletons.
As for general trap tips, I consider hit point based traps a bit of a waste. The players trigger it and unless it kills them they just heal back up and move on.My preference is for traps that are combined with encounters or traps that trigger encounters. Dropping the characters into a pit filled with jellyfish is a nasty trick (and will teach the players in your group to train SWIM!!) and the strength damage they take is likely to last a lot longer and make them a lot more cautious than getting smacked with a touch of hit point damage. Simple traps that knock people over or into pits can be super nasty in the middle of an encounter because it hurts the players when their hit points are scarce and delays them at a critical time.
I would normally agree that simple HP traps aren't much more than an annoyance but, alas, they are not a normal good party. I am actually running an evil campaign and neither cleric in the party channels positive energy or has access to cure spells. They may have a wand of cure light wounds but I'd have to check their sheets.
For future reference the party is made up of a Dwarf Cleric (Undead Lord Archetype), Human Cleric (Evangelist), Human Sorcerer (Infernal), Half-Elf Antipaladin, Human Summoner and Human Barbarian. They are all either level 6 or 7. The Dwarf also has two undead skeletons.
Just an aside, even if the Cleric is evil, he can still prepare and cast Cure Light Wound spells. They aren't good aligned spells so they still jive with evil deities. Bad guys gotta heal too :)
I find that players like the traps that they can physically interact with so I'll cut up a picture or give them one of those mind puzzles to put together. Get them to make a skill check to determine how much time they have to put it together. They seem to enjoy it, but naturally its something that you're only throwing out here and there.
I think the less audio (your description) and the more interactive you make it, the more fun it is.
Just an aside, even if the Cleric is evil, he can still prepare and cast Cure Light Wound spells. They aren't good aligned spells so they still jive with evil deities. Bad guys gotta heal too :)
I always thought they would be unable to due to the text saying that you channel positive energy to cast it. While the other classes which can use the spell don't channel, the cleric must choose what kind of energy to channel (and as evil can't channel positive energy normally.) This choice also determines spontaneous casting of cure/inflict spells which seems to indicate that an evil cleric can't prepare a cure spell. He does in fact have a wand of cure light wounds purchased, so it is a moot point right now.
What? So good aligned clerics can't prepare inflict spells? That is not supported by the rules. Evil clerics can prepare (but not spontaneously convert) cure spells; good clerics can prepare (but not spontaneously convert) inflict spells.
Master Arminas
So the group quite enjoyed the two puzzles and make interesting use of their NPC resources.
The first puzzle (the Door) took them a bit but once someone noticed the matching symbols they cracked it like nothing. Never set off the trap.
The Second puzzle (minesweeper room) was very interesting. It played out very much as if an entire group of people was playing a life-or-death game of minesweeper. The Undead Lord cleric and the summoner used their respective resources to tip-toe through the room. It was very interesting watching them attempt to guess the locations of the pit falls (and guessing wrongly on multiple occasions). No PCs took damage, but they did fall in four times after incorrectly guessing the wrong location for a trap.
All in all it was a great success and I hope to be able to present them with more puzzles in the future.