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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6419249" data-attributes="member: 58197">While I have little patience with players expecting the magic d20 to solve all their problems, in this case I sympathize with the player's frustration. The second scenario in particular is really obnoxious: Here, have a puzzle you can't solve until you give up and go do something else. Oh, and if you do come up with a really clever way to solve it before you're supposed to? You die. I'd be complaining too.The first scenario isn't as bad, but the NPC coming along to provide the solution is just--ugh. Typical poorly designed puzzle scenario. If you're going to put a puzzle in your adventure, you need to plan for what happens if the PCs don't figure it out, and having somebody else figure it out for them makes the whole thing feel like a waste. Why spend all that time noodling over the problem if you were just going to get handed the answer anyway?As far as mental stats and rolling to figure stuff out goes, I prefer to house-rule (if you'd call this a house rule) that Intelligence represents a PC's knowledge and book-learning; Wisdom represents a PC's perceptiveness; Charisma represents a PC's personal charm and poise. High Int doesn't mean you're super-smart, it just means you've read a lot of books and studied a lot of things. That means you have a better chance on your rolls to know stuff. But when you're trying to come up with clever plans, high Int won't help you (except by providing useful information) and low Int won't hurt you. Likewise, high Cha will ensure that you deliver a persuasive argument in an effective way, but you still have to come up with the argument yourself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 6419249, member: 58197"] While I have little patience with players expecting the magic d20 to solve all their problems, in this case I sympathize with the player's frustration. The second scenario in particular is really obnoxious: Here, have a puzzle you can't solve until you [I]give up and go do something else[/I]. Oh, and if you do come up with a really clever way to solve it before you're supposed to? You die. I'd be complaining too. The first scenario isn't as bad, but the NPC coming along to provide the solution is just--ugh. Typical poorly designed puzzle scenario. If you're going to put a puzzle in your adventure, you need to plan for what happens if the PCs don't figure it out, and having somebody else figure it out for them makes the whole thing feel like a waste. Why spend all that time noodling over the problem if you were just going to get handed the answer anyway? As far as mental stats and rolling to figure stuff out goes, I prefer to house-rule (if you'd call this a house rule) that Intelligence represents a PC's knowledge and book-learning; Wisdom represents a PC's perceptiveness; Charisma represents a PC's personal charm and poise. High Int doesn't mean you're super-smart, it just means you've read a lot of books and studied a lot of things. That means you have a better chance on your rolls to know stuff. But when you're trying to come up with clever plans, high Int won't help you (except by providing useful information) and low Int won't hurt you. Likewise, high Cha will ensure that you deliver a persuasive argument in an effective way, but you still have to come up with the argument yourself. [/QUOTE]

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