Defeated by puzzle - campaign over: Here is the offending puzzle!

[DragonLancer]

I haven't seen your original post and I'm not good at puzzles myself, but I wouldn't have given up so easily.

Depending where it was, take a copy and go see if any Loremasters, mages or priests can help solve it. Using divination spells to give clues.

 

[DragonLancer]

I haven't seen your original post and I'm not good at puzzles myself, but I wouldn't have given up so easily.

Depending where it was, take a copy and go see if any Loremasters, mages or priests can help solve it. Using divination spells to give clues. If it is a map, check your own IC maps and PC knowledge to see if its familiar.

Theres always something you can do that doesn't involve solving the puzzle there and then.

 

[Bront]

I personaly like a good puzzle occasionaly (FYI, I do NOT think this is a good puzzle). However, it needs to be in game. There needs to be context to the puzzle outside of just "Here it is". And I also like to build in clues so the party can "notice" them if they get stumped for a bit.

If/when I GM, if I were to do a puzzle, I do realize that occasionaly you throw out a small bit of RP. And I'm fine with that in terms of game balance. If the Int 8 Barb is able to decrypt the message because the player is better than that, but everyone has fun working on it, I don't see anything lost. Perhaps, in game, he just sparked someone's idea (Or maybe he's an idiot savant). I'm not going to penalize the party just because one player figured out the puzzle when his character might not have.

 

[Algolei]

I thought it might be a map too, with mountains plains and water (forest might be a better thought than water). But without more info, I dismissed it for now and looked for patterns instead.

C C C A A A A A A C B B B T T
C C C A A A A A A C B B T T T
C C C A A A A A C C B B T T T
C C C C A A A A C B B T T T C
C C C C A A A C C B B T T C C
B C C C A A C C C B B T T C C
B C C C A A C C B B T T C C C
A C C C A A C C B T T T C T C
A C C C T T T C B T B B A T C
A A T T T B B C B B B B A T C
A A A T T B B C B B A A A T C
A A A T T B C C A A A A A T T
A A A A T B T T T T T T T T T
A A A T T B T T T T T T T T T
A A A T T B T T T T T T T T T

I've singled out four of the symbols by highlighting and underlining them (two are in column 7, rows 5 and 6; the other two are in column 3, rows 10 and 11). Could you double-check them for me, Roman? If two of them are wrong, then I actually found a pattern; but if they're all right, the pattern fails.

Also, can you think of any good reason why the square has 15 sides? Is the number 15 of any significance to the campaign/puzzle-maker/dungeon?

 

[Ratenef]

Roman,

Has or will your DM at least shared the solution with you? Or perhaps its source (it looks vaguely familiar)?

You say you moved on to a new game, was this puzzle a campaign breaker?

Did the DM not offer any hints?

I agreee with various other posters in that without some of the background context, it is nigh impossible to solve. However, when I voted I gave the DM the benefit of the douby and said it was difficult, as I'm certain that he would not propose an impossible puzzle.

If you have the solution, please PM me or post it, as I'd like to see what it is I'm missing.

It probably is something painfully simple, but we're all making the puzzle more difficult than it really is.

 

[Romnipotent]

Ok, maybe I am insane, or just that annoyed by this puzzle!
Heres a toy for it http://www.geocities.com/mtmagi/Puzzle.swf

oh yeah, instructions, blank squares respond to being clicked on, click and it changes to the colours, 4 cycle sequence. The colours are off tone so you can distinguish them. I know the contrast is awful but its a quick job... rubix cubey

 

[Algolei]

Don't give up yet, I think this thing is solveable....

 

[Dagger75]

So far its been 6 hours since this puzzle has been posted and hasn't been solved. I would have walked away from this in game to. There was an article in a Dragon magazine where someone said if there is a puzzle you can't solve just walk away your DM will give you the answer if he wants you to pass.

I can't believe he would let the game end over this. Is he running the new game to or is somebody else? He could have burned out as DM and this was the perfect excuse to end a game.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

So far its been 6 hours since this puzzle has been posted and hasn't been solved. I would have walked away from this in game to. There was an article in a Dragon magazine where someone said if there is a puzzle you can't solve just walk away your DM will give you the answer if he wants you to pass.

A Knowedge (whatever) or INT check might be more applicable.

The DM could figure out how hard the puzzle is. If a player manages to solve it then the DM should rule for dramatic purposes that the puzzle was solved in minutes or seconds. Otherwise the DM can rule that all puzzles are solveable in inverse proprotion to the INT of the party.

INT  HOURS
6        48
7        40
8        36
9        30
10       26
11       22
12       20
13       18
14       16
15       14
16       13
17       12
18       11
19       10
20         9
21         8
22         7
+1       -1

.. to a minimum of one hour.

If the character with the highest INT is assisted, he can add +2 to his rating, but there's a 50-50 chance the "dumber" PC figures it out before he does (e.g. Fellowship of the Ring outside the Mines of Moria).

This way a DM can challenge the party with a puzzle and reward the player if he solves it within a reasonable ammount of time. But if everyone in the party is bad at puzzles like I am, then the game can still continue with nothing lost but time.

Just a thought.

 

[IronWolf]

BiggusGeekus beat me to it! My character would like to make an Intelligence check to solve the puzzle. He is smarter than me....