A Puzzle Worthy Of Vecna

[MortalPlague]

I'm going to be running an epic encounter tomorrow evening, where my epic PCs take on Vecna, the God of Secrets. There's no plot involved; this is the finale in a series of fights to try out epic level play. However, having done justice to Ogremoch and Lolth both, I'd like to round it out with an appropriately clever fight with Vecna.

One of the touches I'm going to bring to the fight is secrecy. With Vecna being the God of Secrets, I figure the easiest way to represent that is to keep some things secret from the players, out of game. For instance, I won't write down Vecna's initiative on the list. I also won't let them know when he becomes bloodied. Or when he dies. The point of the puzzle here is to lock Vecna to the game mechanics. Once the puzzle is solved, he is locked to an initiative count, it's revealed when he becomes bloodied, and he can be slain.

I want to put together a puzzle or riddle that must be solved to negate the Secret Abilities. This shouldn't be a puzzle that requires vast player riddle-solving or puzzling abilities, but rather has a series of steps that ask for skill checks or various actions that can be performed in combat (perhaps in lieu of an attack, for the more significant actions). It needs to be a long puzzle, but not so long that the party can't complete it with a couple rounds of focused actions. I don't want to screw them over if they only figure out that the puzzle needs to be solved towards the end of the fight.

As of right now, I don't have a puzzle. I have a few ideas, some thoughts on what sort of activities may be required, but nothing concrete. ENWorld is always a great place for collective brainstorming, however, so I'll throw my ideas out there, and ask for some in return. I could definitely use some inspiration on this one!

Thoughts so far:

• I want to involve languages. Perhaps there's a message in Supernal that needs to be decoded, but the legend for decoding is written in Elven. And then the riddle is written in Deep Speech. Or maybe there's something that requires a word from a different language to toggle?
• Maybe there are statues that need to be placed in the correct order? Or shifted into the right location? Or symbols that need to be correctly constructed by turning or moving sections?
• As for subject matter, anything to do with the Gods or Primordials would be fitting. Also, schools of magic and their relationships would work well. Anything to do with knowledge and secrecy would, of course, be very appropriate.
• Different stages to the puzzle would be a big plus; I want my PCs to feel they're getting somewhere at different points. For instance, if step one was to figure out the code, then step two was to apply the code to the puzzle and solve the puzzle, then step three was to do some final task...

I don't have anything connecting the various puzzle ideas, so any bright ideas would be very much appreciated.

 

[SiderisAnon]

At the center of Vecna's throne room (or library or candle-lit vault) is a dimly glowing spherical object of brass and copper. Closer inspection reveals thousands of facets, each inscribed with runes, letters, or number.

To get at Vecna's truth, and therefore be able to kill him, the layers of this puzzle must be peeled away. Each layer offers a multitude of puzzles to peel it away, so that the players can approach different puzzles multiple ways. As each character completes a series of skill challenges, they unlock a portion of the puzzle and get one step closer to unlocking and being able to kill Vecna easier. Because of the multi-faceted and multi-dimensional nature of the object, multiple people can work on multiple layers simultaneously (which allows PCs to tag in and out of the fight to work on unlocking the puzzle).

My first though mechanically would be requiring a running total of X successes or Y total success level, depending on the system you're using.

If you have some prep time, create a stack of cards (or slips of paper). Each one has a skill challenge on it like "decode the ancient runes" with appropriate skills listed. When one "layer" is unlocked, that card is removed and another card is dealt out. This also allows you to create things like a puzzle to move statues into position, which provides a key to unlock that layer.

If you like riddles or have some, some of your cards can have an actual riddle. The PC can answer it on their turn and unlock that layer.

You probably want to have a negative consequence to failing to answering things correctly, though if Vecna and his minions are attacking the party throughout this, just having to waste an action on answering instead of fighting could be a good negative result all on its own.

If you have time to lay it out, there could be a way to have an additional card showing or to replace an existing card if something nobody wants to deal with comes up. This would be useful if you create simple descriptions of the skill challenges and have them for a wider variety of skills than the PCs have, to really show that it is Vecna's secrets. (Or describe that there are other possibilities, but that nobody in the party can understand them to try.)

 

[jcayer]

You mentioned moving pieces/statues around. One of the first puzzles I used on my players involved chess pieces.
First, put 8 knights on the board, so that none of them threaten each other. It's not hard.
Repeat with Bishops(line them all up one side), and rooks(diagonal across the board).

Now go put 8 queens on the board...it ain't easy. So much so, I think I may use this again when they fight Vecna in 6-8 months. Search on 8 queens problem for a solution.

One other thing, I recently watched the end of the new Clash of the Titans movie on HBO. For those that haven't seen it, Medusa lives in a ruined temple. The floors and pillars are shattered and she slithers around. It's an extremely dynamic and exciting environment, with lots of changing heights, sloped surfaces, etc, with lava at the bottom. I'm considering building this and having Vecna "break" the battle field when they bloody him. Start with a basic floorplan and then drop this on top when the time comes.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You're making it mighty difficult to get something good since you're only giving us a day to come up with something. You're not going to get a chance for much playtesting.

So if I'm understanding you correctly... you want sort of a skill challenge in the guise of a puzzle that needs to be solved in three stages, so as to reveal Vecna's initiative count, allow him to be bloodied, and then allow him to be killed. And you don't want the puzzle / skill challenge to be just a puzzle that the players have to solve with their own wits and no character skill rolls... nor strictly a skill challenge where it's only just PC skill checks that are required and no creative effort on the player's parts. You want a combination of both.

Okay. Here's my suggestion. To be honest... since I'm cribbing something well known (although you'd reskin it to fit the D&D mileu obviously), it might be considered "cheesy" by your players if they figure out what they're actually doing while they're playing... but at the very least, what I'm going to suggest you at least know has been playtested for decades so you know the actual puzzle mechanics will work. Here goes...

Play Clue.

Yes. I'm serious. Have the players play an adapted version of the board game Clue in the midst of the combat with Vecna. D&D and Clue are both games already set up for player minis walking around a board. All you need to do is reskin the secret card deck and the making accusations portion as part of a regular D&D turn.

Here's how I'd go about doing this:

Create/choose your map for where the fight will take place. It should be rather open and good-sized, maybe 20x20 in some interesting shape. Vecna is in the center of the room, taking up maybe a 4x4 or 5x5 square (much like the cellar stairs area does in the board game). Now instead of having the nine "rooms" like Clue has around the board... instead, you have 9 individual pedestals (the size of a regular square) spread throughout. These should each be different, so you can easily tell them apart from each other.

Now before the fight begins... you prepare a special deck of cards that are reminiscent of a Clue deck. There is a card for each PC (just like there are cards for each suspect), there is a card for each pedestal (just like there are cards for each room) and there are cards for 6 skill check "puzzles" (just like there are six cards for each murder weapon.) In the premise of the story of this fight, it is assumed that each of the nine pedestals have various types of puzzles ingrained and carved into them... each puzzle being "solved" by using one of six skills of your choice (like perhaps Perception, Insight, Religion, Arcana, Thievery and Diplomacy). Once you've made the cards, you remove at random one of each of the three categories and put them away in an envelope (like you would when choosing the suspect, weapon, and room). These are the three keys to unlocking the stages of Vecna's abilities.

The rest of the cards get shuffled together, and when the players arrive to the room, you will deal the cards out to each player just as you would in Clue. This way, every player has a partial part to the overall puzzle... and now they need to begin getting information from each other to reveal the three keys to Vecna.

On a player's turn (after they've all rolled initiative of course)... he can do the following: He can use a Standard action to make an attack against Vecna at range (using a power or a ranged basic attack, depending on the type of PC), he can use a Move action to go up to their speed adjacent to a pedestal, and if he is adjacent to a pedestal, he can use a Minor action to make an 'accusation' in order to get a clue from your fellow players. This 'accusation' (or whatever more appropriate term you want to call it) is just like Clue, where you ask for a PC, a puzzle skill check, and a pedestal. Whichever PC you are 'accusing' gets moved to the adjacent to the pedestal you are at (just like they'd get moved to the room you were in in the real game), and you attempt a skill check for whichever skill you are using in your 'accusation' (the DC of which should probably be Medium). This is basically the equivalent of the player trying to solve said puzzle on the pedestal. If the skill check was failed... the PC who was accused will reveal ONE of the three cards from their hand (if they have one or more of them) to the player in secret (just like in Clue.) The player who received the information should obviously write it down on a sheet of paper just like he would in a normal game of Clue (and you can make up gridded accusation sheets if you wanted to help the players out)

Now, if the skill check was successful... then after the accused PC has revealed his card to the player, the player may ask to see a card from any other player's hard at random. (Those of you who have played Clue:Master Detective would recognize this mechanic from the 'spyglass' squares on the game board). It's basically an extra free card reveal for a player.

Once the 'accusation' phase is done, the player's turn ends. The next player will then get to take their turn... starting from the entrance of the room, or from the pedestal they were pulled to (if they were the one 'accused' by the first player.) Just like in Clue... the process of moving to a pedestal and making an accusation in order for a card to be revealed is the same.

Once a particular player feels they know (via process of elimination) what one of the three Vecna keys is (either PC, puzzle skill or pedestal)... they may use their next turn to move up adjacent to Vecna in the center of the room and use their Minor action to unlock the first phase by telling the DM in secret what they think the hidden key is (this is different from the real game of Clue, when you usually wait until you think you know all three items total since an incorrect guess removes you from the game). If the guess was correct, then the DM can reveal which of the three keys was solved, and then let them know the Initiative count of Vecna. If the guess was not correct, the PC takes some large amount of damage (whatever you as DM choose to inflict.)

The game continues like this until someone finally deduces the second key (at which time when they move to Vecna to accuse, Vecna can become bloodied) and finally the third key (at which time Vecna can be killed.) If by some chance Vecna has actually sustained enough damage during the attacks to have become bloodied without the PCs having actually solved the second key yet to unlock the bloodied status... then Vecna's HP loss stops right above his bloodied value, and he no longer sustains any further damage until the key is solved (he's considered to have Immunity - All until then). By the same token, until the PCs solve the third key, Vecna's HP cannot drop below 1HP and he has Immunity - All until they do.

I think I've explained this in much more detail than I needed to. You basically play Clue in and around combat with Vecna. It's an easy game to grasp, and it involves players using deductive reasoning as well as their PC skills and combat abilities. And Vecna gets to stand in the middle of the room wailing away on the PCs using whatever abilities you want to want against them.

Hope this helps and is a useful idea for you (or anyone else who wants to crib it.)

 

[nogray]

Extensive Ideas

Sorry for the length, but here are a set of ideas to use or discard. Have a set of challenges in various categories, perhaps written out on cards, where the PCs have to collect a certain number of solutions to unlock each of the secrets.

As an idea, let's say you have five categories of activities (physical, mental, social, general adventuring, and player) and five layers to each (V, E, C, N, and A). You might also have a back-up for each activity, if you are a glutton for punishment (or if you get a lot of ideas). After "unlocking" the whole thing (perhaps a minor skill challenge in itself, involving some language puzzle), the characters can spend a minor action to select a row (category) or column (letter), with the other determined randomly, or a standard action (or two minors) to select both row and column. Give the player the card. It describes the challenge to unlock that letter, or at least it sets the scene.

You'll want to determine the action cost, but I am thinking that minimizing that might be a good idea. All or most of the challenges take place in a semi-real illusion that has all its effects immediately. Once they have made the selection, go right into narrating the challenge and let them resolve it. If they fail or give up, that ends their turn, but if they succeed, let them continue their turn as normal (minus the actions spent to select the challenge). As a variation, you could have each "round" of the skill challenge take a minor or move action, or something like that.

Physical cards are the characters are reenacting the discovery of a physical item that bears some secret. The skill challenges can be pulled from movie scenes, like Indiana Jones uncovering that golden idol. All athletics and acrobatics and endurance, maybe some thievery. Give the situation and let the character go at it. This is happening in a semi-real illusion, though, so you can have a "you travel the desert for weeks: make an endurance check" part of the challenge. You can also have certain failures cost a healing surge or something like that, if you so choose.

Mental cards are them using skills to do research to discover a secret. Arcana religion, maybe heal. Think Sherlock Holmes or CSI for uncovering secrets of that sort. Languages could play a big role, here, as some of the clues they are deducing could be written in different languages. I could see that being quite interesting, as you could have a special minor action to exit the challenge at a point with progress "saved." I see this as an example: "You traced the wounds on the body (heal success) to this butcher's weapon, then saw the ritual he was conducting (arcana success), now you need to decipher what he was summoning. The book is written in Elfish. Oh, you don't speak that? Spend a minor action and you can exit the challenge and let another party member come in for that." The elf-reading fighter spends a minor action on his turn to enter and read the text, but can't make a religion check for squat, so he spends a minor to exit, and the original solver spends his to get back in and gets a "having read the text, you figure out that the butcher was summoning lich vestige (religion success), who told him (some secret ..." and the card is now a success.

Social cards are all about negotiations and such. Same sort of thing as mental challenges, too, with languages potentially playing a big role. As a twist, you might consider the characters having to fail (or succeed in sabotaging) a negotiation. Perhaps reveal this with a history check ("You realize you are involved in the first peace negotiation between Bael Turath and Arkhosia. In that, the Turathi ambassador is known to have been killed by the Arkosian delegation, but he whispered a secret to his understudy before passing; you are the ambassador's understudy.")

General adventuring can cover both mini-combat scenes and complex challenges that involve more than one area above (say a negotiation, then a physical, then a mental). Maybe have a fight of one character vs. four or five minions, or a single normal monster -- likely lower in level to keep it fast. You could also run it as a combat "skill challenge" where they can use at-wills for a hit is one success, an encounter is a hit for two and a miss for one, and a daily for a hit for all the successes (three) or a miss for one or two. High level narration might be the key, here. And as a possible incentive to move quickly, have the semi-real illusion monsters inflict real damage or (in the combat skill challenge one), have the character take a surge (or half a surge) worth of damage per round. With five activities to choose from, there is no reason you can't mix and match, too.

The last one, player skill, is just giving the party a riddle or puzzle. Emphasize that they can't let it get in the way of their actions in combat, and that anyone can give the answer. This is the one that I am least sure about, though, so you could easily have some other category or a duplicate of one of the others.

Anyway, they have to collect V-E-C-N-A (from any category) to unlock the secret ability, or more interestingly, the action that will unlock the secret ability. Maybe for the action/initiative one, Vecna's hourglass becomes visible and they must break it. Then for bloodied the characters have to consume blood from Vecna's alchemical storage. To be really brutal, make it so that if Vecna becomes bloodied before all of the characters do this, he discorporates for one round and heals to full. For death, I am thinking of a Villains and Vigilantes module where there was a golem with the Hebrew word for "truth" on its head, and one way to shut it down was to erase the first character of that word, making it read "death" in Hebrew. You could have the same discorporation penalty (this time healing to his bloodied value) or just let him keep on trucking with negative hit points. For this one, maybe have the supernal phrase "Vecna's knowledge of secrets leads to lasting truth" be engraved on gold plates, and the characters must change truth to death (with a melee or ranged bludgeoning, force, or thunder attack), and rearrange them to "knowledge of secrets leads to Vecna's lasting death"

If you are interested, I will happily come up with more specifics for challenges, and I would love to discuss it more. I'll even work for brevity, next time.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Since Vecna is a god of secrets, you could have a series of riddles that cryptically describes a PC by their darkest secrets and what they have to do to unravel his web of riddles? So if the Rogue was once hired to assassinate the heir to the throne, instead of saying "The Rogue must disable the lever on the ceiling." it says "The snake who poisoned the princess must disable the lever on the ceiling."

By revealing their darkest secrets (that only they and Vecna know) they steal away part of his power. The crux is that you'd need to have PCs with rich backstories that they may be unwilling to reveal. Vecna should be able to be defeated but revealing the secrets will give the PCs an edge against him. That way it's a choice for the PC--get a boon to fight him but reveal your secrets or keep your secrets but have a harder (but still winnable) fight.

 

[nedjer]

Zodiac

 

[amerigoV]

Zodiac

Agreed - you need to put everything in a cipher. Riddles do not keep secrets.

 

[Rune]

How is keeping Vecna's initiative count secret going to play out? How will it be (fundamentally) different from just delaying or readying actions?

Whatever the case, it seems to me the best way to have the characters unlock the secrets would be to actually have the players figure them out through metagaming.

For instance, Vecna could have a set intiative that changes every round based on a specific pattern. Obviously, this pattern should favor him (perhaps by continually increasing until Vecna laps himself--effectively giving himself another turn).

The bloodied secret could be a lot easier--either Vecna's abilities change or his minions change their relationship to him in some subtle way.

Death? Well, that might require some additional sacrifice...

 

[Horatio]

The ultimate secret is, of course, one, that cannot be discovered.
So, tie one of Vecna's abilities to this.

How to beat it? By realising it is an undiscoverable secret! By realising it is a secret that cannot be discovered, the heroes should overcome this one puzzle.

Or, to kick it into higher level - it is that big of secret that even Vecna himself don't know it and cannot discover it. By confronting him with this fact, they would solve this one particular puzzle.

Another idea: revealing secrets would weaken him in some ways. For example if one character held an important secret and haven't told the rest of group (e.g. they defeated a powerfull BBEG and this one character secretly released him from his prison where they put him for whatever reasons; one character being in love with another and haven't had the balls to tell her since level 2; "do you remember the crater where the capital city was? That was me... ; etc.), by telling them in front of Vecna, that breach of secrecy would lower some of Vecnas abilities / stats / something. The bigger the secret revelaed, the harsher the penalty.