Puzzles and Riddles

[Stormborn]

Inspired by this thread (particularly Fieari's excelent post) :

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=128973


What are the best puzzles and riddles you have ever used in a game? Where did you get them? How did they work?

 

[der_kluge]

Puzzles, btw.


One Al-Qadim dungeon I made had a circular room with hallways that led off the room. Levers in the center of this room made it spin clockwise or counterclockwise a certain amount of feet, depending on which lever, and whether it was pushed or pull. The idea was to line up the room to the hallways outside the circular room so that you could continue on. One of the hallways had to be lined up perfectly before it would open, so the party had to experiment with the levers to get the right combination of pushes and pulls to get it lined up right. It worked out really well.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Most effective one I ever had.

Party going down a large, natural underground corridor. They encounter a doorframe with a wooden door in it in the middle of the tunnel. Note, it's not in a wall, they can freely walk all the way around it. They examine it for traps, find none. Rogue checks if its locked, yep DC 15 lock (Party all 18th level at the time). Try detect magic, yep faint glow of magic). Party spend half hour trying to figure out WHY the doors there & what it does. They don't need to open the door, but....

They leave it. Ranger's curiousity gets the better of him. Goes back opens door. Door turns out to be gate to the bottom of the ocean on the Abyssal Plane of Excerement. Whole party buried waste deep in demon-poo, ranger nearly drowns under sea of demon pee-pee. Some things your can't buy. For everything else, there's burying the PC's in demon doo-doo.