Interesting Encounter: The Puzzle Clock

Interesting encounters are short descriptions of encounters that GMs can use to build on.  They combine unique aspects of different types of foes, terrain, skill checks, weather, combat, etc in order to provide more unique challenges than hit monster; repeat.

This week we're covering a giant puzzle encounter. Our encounter is located as the only entrance into an area that the PCs really wants to access, details left to the GM. The top level puzzle, which isn't to be explained to the players, is a clock. The entryway to the area is a portal that leads to area 1. Portals lead in order from the end of area 1 to the start of area 2, from the end of area 2 to the start of area 3, and so forth, until finally the portal at the end of area 12 leads to the area of interest.

Lore, legend, or a tavern conversation will tell the party that the entry portal only opens at noon each day. The detail that the PCs will need to discover for themselves is that the initial portal is only open for a few minutes, and that subsequent portals open for an hour each, one after the other. As a result, it will take a minimum of one hour to traverse from area to the next, and thus a total of 12 hours to reach the end. Should the PCs fail to reach the next area before the portal closes, they are stuck in that region with its dangers for 23 hours.

To add to the suspense, use an actual timer and set the portals opening and closing based on the timer. You won't want to wait an hour, so pick a time that works for your party, and stop the timer when combat starts, since combat is notoriously slow.

The 12 regions are described below. All of these dangers are magical in nature, and thus will reset periodically. Try to let the players work out the puzzles on their own. If they reach a point of frustration, let them roll for their characters to attempt to figure them out. Give hints if you need to. Keep it challenging but fun.

As puzzles go, there puzzles are meant to test a gambit of skills, not just traditional "intellectual" puzzles. Fast, strong, wise, smart, charismatic, and tough will all be needed.

1. The Lake
• The entry and exit portals lies on opposite sides of a murky lake that covers most of the room with a small shore on each side.
• In the center of the lake on one wall is a small square platform.
• There are illusions of creatures in the water barely visible to a subset of the party. The creatures would be a tough fight by themselves, but as a group would be potentially deadly to the party.
• The platform has a trap that is undetectable unless it is investigated at close range. This can be done while in the water next to the platform.
• Anyone who crawls, jumps, or otherwise touches the top of the platform will be severely injured. Optionally, use lightning and have it electrify all of the water at the same time, so anyone in the water also takes some damage.
• The plaque on the floor at the entrance states "There is only one thing to fear."
• SOLUTION: The only thing to fear is fear itself. So long as the party crosses the water directly by swimming, they are fine. If they use the platform, someone is going to have a bad time.
• GM TIP: Describe the creatures in detail and let the PCs make checks to find out what they know about the creatures they see. This will make them convincing.
2. The 3 Caves
• There is a single wandering tunnel with 3 caverns along it, increasing in size: small, medium, then large.
• There are 3 gold plates, perhaps 2 feet in diameter, in the first room. 6 Plates are in the second room and 5 plates are in the third room. Each room has 10 slots in the floor that can hold the plates.
• A protective force shield does not allow the party to approach the portal to the next region.
• The plaque on the entrance reads "Round plates into square holes."
• SOLUTION: The patterns is n x n aka n-squared, where n is 1, 2, and 3. The portal will be protected until 1 plate is in the first room, 4 are in the second, and 9 are in the third. The order does not matter, nor do the slots chosen to place the plates in.
3. The Two Chambers
• A long narrow tunnel wanders for perhaps a hundred feet before reach a single chamber that has no other exits.
• The chamber is longer than wide. There is a table with 7 colored bells on it -- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Red is the lowest note, and pitch increases up to violet being the highest note.
• The second chamber has holes in the floor that will hold the bells. 
• The plaque reads "Simplicity is the key."
• SOLUTION: The bells in the first room do nothing. There is a secret door at the far end of the room that can be detected by at least 1 person in the party. It leads to a second chamber.
• So long as the party doesn't remove the bells from the first room, the portal will open.
• The simple answer, is thus, doing basically nothing.
• GM TIP: Carefully record every action the PCs take as if it matters.
4. The Pit
• The pit is over 100 feet across and the room is magically dark, so you can't see the other side. Magic doesn't defeat this simple property.
• There is no detectable bottom to the pit. Anyone falling into the pit will take severe falling damage and be teleported back to the entry portal for this region.
• Anyone falling twice without healing in between will likely die.
• The plaque reads, "Seeing is not believing, believing is seeing."
• SOLUTION:  The party has to traverse the pit. Tying ropes together and using a grappling hook will work. Spells, potions, and other class features may help. 
• Jumping probably won't work.
• Know the distance to the other wide will require trial and error with sense other than sight, thus believing but not seeing.
5. The Colored Tiles
• There is a small entry room, a visible exit room, and in-between a large room with a colorfully tiled floor.
• The tiles are 3 ft square and colored red, yellow, orange, green, black, purple, blue, brown.
• Each tile has a different effect when someone (not an object) touches it
• RED -- fire damage
• YELLOW -- toggles the light in the room -- can you see color in pitch black darkness?
• ORANGE -- poison damage
• GREEN -- healing
• BLACK -- changes the tile colors (rotate the list); new effects happen immediately
• PURPLE -- spews slippery slime in a 10 ft radius
• BLUE -- freeze damage
• BROWN -- tile springs up, throwing anyone on it 10 ft in a random damage causing minor damage and perhaps triggering a new effect
• The plaque says "Choose a wise path."
• SOLUTION: Ideally the party would just jump from green tile to green tile, but the distances won't work out to allow that. Taking some damage is probably the best approach, but choosing the wrong tiles could be interesting.
• Testing tiles from the edge is probably a good idea.
6. The Tunnel
• A wide tunnels zigs and zags back and forther from entrance to exit.
• The tunnel breaks up line of site so each new turn cannot be seen until it is reached.
• There are random traps scattered throughout the tunnel, especially right around the corners.
• Some traps are easy to spot, but hard to decipher how they work.
• Some traps are hard or impossible to spot.
• Some traps affect other traps.
• Some traps put large distances between the trigger and the effect.
• Some traps only trigger after they have been stepped on a certain number of times.
• Add in lots of false traps, like strange looking tiles and holes in the wall that do nothing.
• Plaque reads "Watch your step."
• SOLUTION: Find the traps and avoid them.
7. Rooms of Choice
• A corridor leads from the entry portal to a circular room.
• The entry door to the circular room is a one-way door. Once in the circular room, you can't go back.
• There are 5 doors leads elsewhere covered in 9 pictograms in a 3 x 3 matrix, given first row, second row, third row.
• 4,9,2,3,5,7,8,1,6
• 2,7,6,9,5,1,4,3,8
• 6,1,8,7,5,3,2,9,4
• 8,7,4,5,1,9,6,3,2*
• 8,3,4,1,5,9,6,7,2
• When one of the doors is touched, it disappears. 4 of the doors lead to rooms full of monsters that attack when the door disappears. The 5th leads to the exit.
• Choose level appropriate monsters to fill the 4 rooms. Mix up the strategies required to defeat each.
• The plaque reads "Don't spin your magic to win."
• SOLUTION: Four of the matrices are the same, just rotated. They are also magic squares. The 5th is neither, and is marked above with an asterisk.
8. Many Steps
• There are five rooms tied together in order by corridors.
• PCs cannot enter the corridor to the next room until they deal with the current one.
• The rooms contain in order:
• An empty urn
• An empty fountain
• A small model windmill
• An unlit torch on a post
• An empty glass sphere
• Plaque reads "Build the world."
• SOLUTION: This is an elements puzzle, referring to the 5 elements being the building blocks of the world. The urn must be filled with earth. The fountain must be filled with water. Wind must turn the windmill. The torch must be lit. The glass sphere must be infused with some sort of magic.
• Dust and debris from the stone floor will provide enough earth.
• A waterskin will provide enough water.
• All of the party blowing together will turn the windmill. A spell will also work.
• A torch can be lit by normal or magical means.
• Any spell from any source can fill the sphere with magic.
9. The Gauntlet
• The gauntlet is a long hall with pairs of alcoves that mirror both sides of the corridor. There are 5 pair of alcoves.
• Each alcove contains creature or creatures. They get harder to best as the PCs move down the hall.
• At the end of the gauntlet is a room suitable for resting with the portal.
• The plaque reads "Endure."
• SOLUTION: The party has to defeat all the monsters without healing. Any healing magic by spell, potion, wand, scroll, etc, transports the party back to the start of this region and resets all of the monsters.
• The resting room at the end allows healing and, in fact, will speed natural healing.
10. Many Corridors
• 7 Parallel corridors lead from the start to the finish of this region.
• There are a couple of strong incorporeal foes (i.e. ghosts) in the corridors. 
• The foes will engage all targets they can see. If they see no targets, they move to the next corridor.
• The plaque reads "Strategize together or apart."
• SOLUTION: Because of the strategy of these foes, it may be a very good time for the party to split up or stick together, depending on the party's roles, health, and abilities. 
• If one character is really tough, they can occupy the ghosts until the rest are through.
• If one character is really weak / hurt, the rest of the party can occupy the ghost while the weak one gets through safely.
11. Columns
• There are several columns in this room scattered randomly throughout. One must pass between the columns to reach the exit portal.
• Half of the columns are glowing.
• If a PC passes between two glowing columns, both columns discharge lightning and strike the PC. They then no longer glow.
• If a PC passes between two non-glowing colums, they both start to glow.
• If a PC passes between a glowing and non-glowing column, all columns toggle whether they are glowing or not.
• The plaque reads "Don't go into the light."
• SOLUTION: Careful planning will minimize the damage taken. If one of the party is immune to lightning damage, it gets even easier to work out a solution.
• The clue refers to the light (glowing) causing lightning damage.
12. The Storyteller
• There is an entry chamber, and exit chamber, and a dragon chamber.
• There is a dragon.
• There is a fire with chairs about it.
• The dragon will request the party to have a seat by the fire and for each of them to tell a story.
• The dragon will not allow the PCs to pass without telling a story.
• The plaque read "The best seat by the fire."
• SOLUTION: This dragon needs to be convinced to let the PCs pass, or must be defeated in combat (likely PC death).
• The full quote is "The best seat by the fire is for the storyteller."
• The dragon is of neutral variety and it doesn't react to any persuasion based on arguments about good or evil.
• The dragon is not greedy, and cannot be bribed.
• The dragon cannot be persuaded by helping it to leave this place. It is content here, since it is a magical figment.
• The dragon is immune to magical / psionic effects, and has true sight. This encounter cannot be simply bypassed by any means.
• The dragon will only allow worthy individuals pass, but will not state that.
• The dragon will judge based on the epic telling of the story, not the truth of it.
• This is an opportunity for the PCs to share their backstories, share their exploits, and use their charisma-based skills. Roleplay!
• GM Tip: Let the players roll, but add bonuses for their roleplay performance.

Upon leaving the puzzle clock, all party members are fully healed with all effects removed.  This is designed as a one-way passage, so remember not to use it also as an exit.