I'm running a game involving an ancient wizard cult. The party is sent out to unlock the archives of the cult, which involves disarming their traps and passing their tests. I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about traps/ puzzles that make the party think. I've spoken to the party and they're fine with riddles, puzzles, and the like. If anyone has any ideas, I'm happy to hear them.
We did a 1-shot with a riddle in it:
The PCs are given a pair of tablets with magnetic numbers on it. One has 1 4 5 9 on one and 2 3 7 8 on the other and the PCs have to re-arrange the numbers so they're equal.
The key is to re-arrange the 8 and 9 and turn the 9 upside down and into a 6 to make 1 4 5 8 and 2 3 6 7
And I'm currently running a haunted house dungeon with the following riddle--my PCs (from Podwick/Xenique/Caelerra) better not read it:
Earlier in the dungeon, have the PCs find a potion enlarge person if they don't have any size altering magic.
The PCs enter a room with two doors and all sorts of canine animal heads on the walls: jackal, hyena, wolf, mastiff, blink dog, worg, death dog, winter wolf, hellhound, dire wolf, dire hyena, etc.
When the PCs try to leave, they exit one door and reappear in the other. No other teleportation works (this is for a 2nd level 5th Edition party, so....).
After someone gets teleported from door to door, a jackal is summoned and attacks the PCs. When it dies, a hyena gets summoned. When it dies, the next monstrous canine gets summoned in turn, etc. etc.
There is a placard leaning on an old water clock in the corner.
On the placard it says: "Reverse the flow, and likewise grow, to get ahead, they must be fed."
If the PCs muck about with the water clock, a hidden compartment opens up and a red herring falls out.
The red herring must be fed to the wolf (reverse of flow) and worg (reverse of grow) to deactivate the trap/puzzle.