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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tequila Sunrise" data-source="post: 5839952" data-attributes="member: 40398">Balsamic Dragon solved it, so here is my new thought on handling puzzles: For every layer of misdirection that a puzzle includes, the PCs can make an [arcana?] check to gain a clue. For example this puzzle has two layers of obfuscation: the solver has to realize that the solution has nothing to do with the poem's season motif, and then has to realize that the four-pointed star is in fact a compass rose.So anyone trained in arcana can make a reasonable check to get the clue: "The season motif is misdirection. It has nothing to do with the puzzle's solution." Another check reveals that "The four-pointed star is found in the corner of every earthly map." My hope is that these clues will make puzzles solvable for my players, without just giving them away. After all, even Sherlock has DM help on his side!To give a little bit of context to this puzzle and the dungeon it's in: They were both made by a long dead mage named Lanfera, who lived in an age of opulence and enlightenment. Everything in the dungeon is optional, and the puzzle can be short-circuited by an [albeit high] arcana check. (Nobody asked me about that during the adventure though. Maybe I should have told the players so.)That was quick! If you don't mind me asking, do you have a lot of practice solving puzzles or do you just enjoy it? Or is my puzzle just that easy?(Same questions for anyone who solved my puzzle.)Yeah, using a puzzle at all is a compromise to the gamey part of D&D over the immersive part, for the sake of fun. If Lanfera really wanted to keep her property safe, there wouldn't be a puzzle at all. She'd just lock these rooms with a traditional numeric combination lock, with the code being something that the PCs have absolutely no way of knowing or guessing. (Her birthday backwards, the first five digits of pi, her social sigil number, ect.)And putting the wrong combination into the lock would trigger a massive energy surge that no 1st level PC has a hope of surviving. And the guardian monsters scattered around the dungeon would be giant elementals that the PCs have no hope of defeating.But that's not fun for anyone, so Lanfera set up puzzles to help looters plunder her stuff, with traps that give second chances and guardian elementals the size of halflings.No kidding! Unfortunately it's a lot harder to play test puzzles than it is monsters. (I can do the latter alone at home.)</blockquote>

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