Help with devising interesting tests...?

[Terraism]

Before I even start, I want to say to my players (hehe, I have players now, yay!) stay out. Please. Merlissa, this means you.

I'm running a game for a group of new players - very low level - and, in short, their goal is to work through a "dungeon," in the D&D sense (though it's more of a holy testing ground) through solving various puzzles, and passing various tests, rather than killing things as they go.

I'm using this map - http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mapofweek/Dungeon1_sw2a_72.jpg - and I'd like each chamber, save the very last one, to have a test/puzzle in it. Succesfully solving each will open a pair of double doors in the long hall (with those outcroppings) that leads to the final room. Problem is, I'm at a loss at what to do. The place should have tests that would appease the Old Faith - nature - as well as the current, reigning church (LG all-around diety.) Any ideas?

I'm currently thinking a test of courage would be appropriate, but I'm not sure how to do it, given that I'd rather not have any actual combat until the very end of the 'proving ground.s'

 

[Simplicity]

The mirror test. At the smaller statue marker, have a statue of a sun god holding a chest. In the main room is a statue of a many armed woman (or a tree). Passing the test requires hanging a mirror from the correct arm/branch to cause sunlight from outside reflect towards the second statue. Inscriptions on the statues could provide clues.

 

[Desdichado]

I test of following directions.

Do not mark on your Scantrons with anything other than a No. 2 pencil.

Do not begin until you have been told to start.

Completely fill out the oval.

Do not otherwise mark on your Scantron sheet.

Put your pencils down.

 

[Terraism]

Ooh - good. I like the mirror test. Now I have one solid test. Four more to go. (Yes, this is a poorly disguised ~~BUMP~~.)

 

[Hypersmurf]

I test of following directions.

Put your pencils down.

The one I remember began with something like:

1. Read through the test completely before writing anything down.
2. Write your name in the box at the top of the page.
3. Circle answer such-and-such where blah blah.
4. Draw lines to connect the etc etc.
...
30. Ignore every instruction except 1, 2, and 30; hand in your test.

Anyone who drew any circles or lines or whatever failed the test... and while they were working their way through thirty instructions, they couldn't figure out how other people finished so quickly...!

-Hyp.

 

[ConnorSB]

A chamber full of doors, some locked, most unlocked. But to get across the chamber, you need to unlock the locked ones. So the rogue can do his thing, and get really really frustrated. The trick is, there are no keys, and the locks are fiendishly complicated, but dont ever actually unlock. That is, they are just a fiendishly complicated mechanism that isnt attached to any sort of lock at all.

Instead, each locked door has a riddle on it and each of the unlocked doors have answers on them. Some riddles are one word answers, some are multiple words, but in any case, to open a locked door, the doors with its answer must be the ONLY other doors open. That is, you cant just open all the unlocked doors and therefore "solve" all the riddles on the locked ones.

Oh, and there's monsters behind a bunch of the unlocked doors.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That is, you cant just open all the unlocked doors and therefore "solve" all the riddles on the locked ones.

Heh. Like a game of Memory.

Open one Question door, and one Answer door. If they match, they stay open. If they don't match, you get hit with 20 points of Electricity damage (Reflex half), and the doors close inexorably.

If you match all the questions and answers before your hit points run out, you pass the test.

-Hyp.