The Well Lock
A well to be filled,
from four statues spilled.
When leveled, tis shown,
the dark path unknown.
Introduction
There is a large dry well in the room and it is cornered by 4 statues holding jar high above their heads. Also there is a drain valve which will dry the whole well once activated.
Each statue/jar when operated spills a certain amount of water when activated. This amount is unknown to the party.
The well is marked inside by 5 level marks, thus it is splited in 5ths. The statues will spill the water in 10ths.
To unlock the door(s) the right amount of water must be put into the well, no more or less. If the water level goes up the right amount, the door will lock again.
Example of Operation
There are four doors inside the Well room: the one where the party came from and other three to be explored. Once the players enter the room the door behind'em locks.
There are no instructions in the room on how to operate the mechanism. The players shall discover it by themselves.
They have to find a way to discover how to operate, which is the amount spilled by each statue/jar and thus begin the experiments on water level.
• The First Statue fills 8/10ths of the well;
• The Second Statue fills 1/10ths of the well;
• The Third Statue fills 3/10ths of the well;
• The Fourth Statue fills 5/10ths of the well;
To open the doors the players shall fill the well accordingly to the right amount of water, as below:
• The First Door opens with 2/5ths of the well filled (statues 2+3);
• The Second Door opens with 3/5ths of the well filled (statues 3+3);
• The Third Door opens when the well is full (statues 4+4 or 1+2+2).
• The fourth door (the one they came from) will also open when another door opens together.
There is no way to fill the well completely and control its level through the Drain Valve: It will ONLY be operable when the WHOLE well is depleted.
Adaptation
Adapt it as you wish to contextualize to your adventure/campaign.
Give or not clues/instructions, it is up to you!
Use as many numbers of doors you think right, also be free to change the amount of water needed!
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? Responses (13)
Puzzle!
The opening lines are _so_ close to rhyming. How about:
A well to be filled,
from four statues spilled.
When leveled, tis shown,
the dark path unknown.
I like that the puzzle has a reset mechanism. Players who aren't into puzzles can pretty quickly try all of the options and move along.
This reminds me of water jar questions where you have to figure out how to measure X using jars of size A, B, C, etc. Seeing that all statues empty into the same 'jar', this problem is strictly easier.
Thank you Mageek!
Actually your rhyme is much better than mine, so I'm updating the opening lines!
Cheers!
I like this - kind of reminds me of the Water puzzles in Ratchet and Clank. Speaking of that, is there anything to prevent use of other magic (or mundane) water sources to fill the well?
Valadaar,
In my humble opinion its up to each DM to define this or not!
Cheers man!
This is great! I'm terrible at thinking of puzzles, so this is incredibly useful to me. I do think it lacks the flair needed to bring it up to a 4, but frankly I'm a little in the dark as to how to add it. Maybe some prefab clues?
Definitely a solid post, and very clear. 3.5
Thought about this some more, it's clarity absolutely makes this deserving of a 4. Those clues would still improve the score, definitely.
Roack,
Thank you for your contribution! I'm glad to read this helps people! That's the intention!
I like to leave some details for the DMs to adapt to adventure/campaign situation. I use this puzzle inside a Cyclopic temple, a race the players never met nor know about.
Even if the clues were written somewhere, it was written in the cyclopic language, becoming impossible to read!
Feel free to create the clues and, if you want so, share with us!
Cheers!
Super solid dungeon puzzle! Easy enough to add in any dungeon which I love it for.
I agree about the easy reset too, that is always important and sometimes hard to do without the DM just sort of ignoring the reset.
What!? None of them fill the room and drown the players!! TPK!