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#1 minormiracle Jul 04, 2009 4:53:27

What are some interesting dungeon puzzles people have used? Here's two involving doorways that can be used separately or together. I don't claim credit for the first one. The party is exploring a dungeon of some sort said to contain a treasure vault. They get to the vault door, but instead of opening into the treasure chamber, it acts as a portal that leads to any room in the dungeon the players think about that they've already seen. However, they can't use this power to gain entry to the treasure room since they haven't seen it. The way to "open" the door is to think about the same room that the door is located in, which causes a paradox that temporarily shuts off the door's magic and allows it to be used normally. A nastier variation of this is to put the puzzle on the inside of the treasure chamber leading out, except anyone who uses the doorway to teleport to a different room leaves behind all worn and carried possessions. (suddenly that encounter with the rag wearing, rusty dagger wielding raiders at the dungeon entrance makes sense!). The players can gain re-entry just fine, but won't be able to remove anything until they figure out the puzzle. If need be, you can convince players there has to be a way out with streetwise checks to remind them someone did escape with some treasure but was killed before he could recount his adventures, or with insight checks to realize a vault that allows no withdraws would be highly inconvenient for the depositor and thus unlikely. A second puzzle is set up like this: 1----2--3----4. 1 is the dungeon entrance, 2 the vault entrance room, 3 a nearby room, and 4 the vault itself or another section of the dungeon. The vault door in 2 is an obviously magical two way portal that leads to a previously unnoticed door in 3. If the players are smart and try to enter 2 twice in a row without returning through 3, they end up back at the entrance 1. The real way to enter 4 is to cross twice the door they first popped out of, in 3. If this is too hard for your players, you can have them spy on the curious movements of patrols who keep traveling in the same direction without an obvious circular path, or have an enemy attack, flee, then attack again in short order from the opposite direction of where it just fled. As much gleeful joy as it may bring you to combine this with the naked teleporter trap inside the vault itself, doing so may cause your players to throw things at you. Just saying.