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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5456427" data-attributes="member: 7006">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.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />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.)</blockquote>

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