8 Puzzles for D&D Better Than Options from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything

good afternoon folks today on fails and flails i'm going to be going over a few puzzles in honor of tasha's cauldron everything being released just a couple days ago and in the back of the book they do offer a few puzzles that you can use in your own games so i figured i'd add on a few more that you can use as well before we get started though i just want to point out 70 of my views come from non-subscribers so if you're not subscribed and you're watching this video consider subscribing it really helps out the channel and uh helps us see us grow come on come on today's video is sponsored by keltiac the necromancer have you lost a loved one in these trying times perhaps a orc raid on your party or some adventurers lord a dragon into town because they thought it would be easier to fight it there when it's distracted by all the common people well fret not just simply write to celtic necromancer at 543 undead lane and you'll be seeing your loved ones again soon enough wait what if you purchase tasha's cauldron of everything then you've successfully allowed wizards of the coast to squeeze more money out of your wallet for a game that's basically already free to play nonetheless some of the reviews over the book have been a little bit mixed with a pretty common thought being that it's a fell a bit flat it's a little bit underwhelming and uh looking through the puzzle section which was actually kind of caught my eye there because i love throwing puzzles at my players it's a great way to kind of slow the game down you could say it's less work for the dm because you basically set it up and you allow your players to then figure it out amongst themselves uh one of the ones that really caught my eye was probably the word find puzzle and this seems like something that i would come up five minutes before a session because i didn't have anything planned it is literally i believe like a 60 square by 70 square area all comprised of five foot square blocks with a bunch of letters on them all in you know english and in it is basically just a giant word fine with words like transmutation uh enchantment evocation basically all these schools of magic spelled out somewhere in there as well as magic several times and if you step on one of the blocks that has those letters in it something bad happens so you literally just hand your players a word find puzzle and let them solve it okay i don't think i would personally use that unless i mean maybe you could have fun with it but that just seems really lazy so i'm gonna offer some different ideas some of them are probably gonna be terrible you may hate some of them maybe hopefully you'll like a few and you'll use them in your own game so let's start with them the first one is beyond simple i'm just going to call it four chains for simplicity's sake the players come into a room it's probably square to make it best and in each of the four corners of the room is a chain with a little loop on the end for tugging it the door outward is locked and it's made of a rather heavy stone door duh anyway the players find out that when they pull one of the chains towards the center and it has to be at the center for it to actually work all the way the door will lift up slightly they have to make a strength check to pull it all the way because it's pretty heavy and you know once you have about three of the chains pulled up the door lifts up just about enough for maybe a half lean or a gnome to crawl underneath once you have the fourth chain pulled in then the door raises all the way however as soon as you let go of one of the chains the door slams back down hopefully not with the half lane still underneath it so this can be solved fairly easily if you the players have some rope uh they can tie the chains together maybe you would make a strength save for the rope if that's a thing i don't think it is uh maybe they have an immovable rod which they place under the door as soon as it lifts up that's how my players figured it out so there you go that's one fun puzzle or boring puzzle however you want to see it another super one is the three monkeys your players walk in the room and they see three statues one of these statues has its ears covered one of these statues has its mouth covered and the third statue has nothing about it now to be fair this puzzle does take a little bit of out of game knowledge unless you specifically incorporated the three monkeys in your game but i feel like it's common enough that basically anybody should know so with the third statue all your players have to do is tie a blindfold around its eyes this obviously comes from the old saying see no evil hear no evil say no evil you can switch it up where instead of having to tie it around their eyes they have to gag them or instead or cover up their ears somehow depending on what's the order you want the other statues to be but there you go there's another super easy one the next one is the orbs of discord i don't know the original name for this or the original inventor who basically thought of the idea because i found it online that is the issue with the internet as soon as something good goes up on the internet it's going to be reposted about five other places until nobody knows where it originated from that's why you will only ever find my videos on my channel because nobody wants to repost them the orbs of discord is also fairly straightforward but it can be quite enjoyable i would advise against using this one if you're still playing dungeons and dragons online over roll 20 fantasy grounds maybe just discord whatever it is because this one involves a lot of talking and a lot of talking over each other which especially if you're using mics and is just a bad time so i highly recommend using this one only in person anyway your players walk into a room the exit is sealed shut and they see a number of orbs on pedestals equal to the number of players in the party one of the orbs actually for all of the orbs as soon as a player touches them it becomes fused to their hand and a special effect basically overcomes them which they are not able to end and drop the orb until one of the other players states the effect that is affecting them for the first orb they wince in pain every time somebody says a word that starts or ends in an s for the second word they have to start every sentence with the first word starting with an s and the last word in every sentence ending in an s for the third word you can earth orb you can only talk when other people are talking and those are from the original uh ones where i found online but of course players groups tend to be slightly larger so i added a few for the fourth one um or fifth six however many you have these don't really have to fall into any order the big three are the first one that i mentioned but for these ones whenever somebody talks you have to tell them to shut up you can't talk or you can only talk when other people are not talking and so on basically it all has to do with talking speech and so it really turns into just a total show especially with orbs one and two where number two person has to start every sentence with an acid ended at the nasa which obviously causes the first person pain who and also it is very difficult to speak for whoever has orb number one it is very difficult to talk without using an s so there you go there's another one next up is the pointless lever and this one is one of those ones that you can really only throw at a group once even if it's in a different campaign because as soon as your players realize the trick and how stupid it is they're not going to fall for it again it's very simple they walk into a room in the center of the room is a lever they as soon as all of them are in the door slams shut behind them and uh some magical numbers appear in the air starting counting down from 60 to zero all they see in the room is like i said the lever and when they pull the lever it resets the clock allowing them a little bit more time to search around the room as soon as the clock reaches zero the doors open and they can leave it's very simple but players are going to continuously pull and pull that lever thinking that something bad happens as soon as the timer reaches zero you can really make this one fun by adding the additional detail that lining throughout all the walls in the room are a bunch of little maybe say one inch diameter holes basically enough for like a dart or an arrow to stick through so they're thinking that as soon as the timer reaches zero a whole bunch of arrows and darts are about to fill the room and they need to stop it you can make this even worse by as soon as the clock reaching the 15 second mark or the 20 second mark basically as soon as you're getting towards the end because they've given up and they're like okay let's just let the clock run out so as soon as it hits that 15 20 second mark you start describing how they hear mechanical like whirring gears turning and like uh uh springs kind of uh tightening in the walls sounding like something's about something bad is about to happen and this is going to make them freak out more than likely and they're just going to pull the lever again restart the whole process this is if you can get your players to fall for it it can actually take a really long time i've used it a few times with obviously different groups because like i said you can't use it with the same group and i think the record is probably about 40 minutes they stayed in that room and they hated me when those doors finally opened next up is the bewitching mist your players walk into a room all the walls are lined with a bunch of mannequins and guard uniforms or armor etc and the entire room is filled with a rather thick purplish fog as soon as all the players are in have them make saving throws whether it's wisdom or charisma and all those who fail describe to them how they see the mannequins animate and start attacking them use the stat block for animated armor all the players who succeed on their saving throw they just see the players attacking the motionless mannequins it can be fun it's pretty simple uh pretty easy to overcome especially if all your or even if one player succeeds on their saving throw they can probably snap the others out of it so there you go next up is the door of shame and this one is less of a puzzle and more of a role play opportunity and i actually stole this one from acquisitions incorporated there's a door which can talk very cool thing not very original and in order to pass through the door every single one of the characters need to say one shameful fact about their past or history that they haven't told anyone before maybe this is something that one of the players has already worked in their backstory and they were looking for an opportunity to share this with the group or maybe your players just don't have a backstory at all and they have to think on their feet what is something that would align with their character or maybe their character's past which is now canon to their character the next puzzle is titled a sound argument the players walk into a room with two ghosts having a very loud and heated debate between each other at this point from when your players walk in they're essentially just insulting each other and they're mothers as soon as your players ask them about what they're arguing about they turn the discussion towards them to ask for their input the question is is it an owl bear cub or an owl bear chick real quick it's actually an owl bear chick because they're born from eggs fun fact but that's not necessarily the answer the players must give them an answer either an owl bear chick or an owl bear cub with a reasonable and sound argument and then the ghosts or specters whatever it is will let them pass if the players try just saying oh it's an aliber cub oh it's an oliver chick then the one who is trying to argue the opposite uh answer will just start insulting them so they need to basically pick a side and establish a sound and reasonable argument for that belief and then the ghost will let them pass and for the last puzzle i'm going to end this on a very dark note for those of you who have seen saw i don't recall which one it was i pretty much blocked it from memory except for this one idea because i love it so much uh if you have no idea what i'm about to talk about just type into google or youtube saw movie merry-go-round and uh prepare for some nightmares or maybe not maybe you're into that kind of stuff essentially your players walk into a room and behind a i believe it's a wall of force which is important because the wall of force cannot be dispelled you actually need to be able to cast disintegrate on it to remove or destroy a wall of force so if your players can actually do that then it's not all that important anyway on the opposite side of the wall of force is a merry-go-round with let's say five six people on it they can be children if you want to go really dark or they can just be other adventurers etc but they are all tied to the mirror go around with their heads pointed outward the mirror go around is continually spinning this whole time and let's say a magic mouth appears essentially telling them what's going to happen the merry-go-round will stop directly in front of them randomly you can just roll forward or go with whatever order you want and on the other side of wall force directly in front of where they stop is a crossbow with some sort of contraption that allows it to be repeatedly reloaded up to five or six times uh after let's say five ten seconds of the crossbow or the merry-go-round being stopped the crossbow will fire and kill whoever is in front of it the players can save up to two people if you want maybe they can save all five or six of them but for each person that they save they have to basically put their hand into a little contraption there which is going to pierce it dealing x amount of piercing damage uh which when they do that it lifts the crossbow up and so it just fires off in the air and the person is saved uh make sure that you don't land on the same person twice just so you know double jeopardy doesn't happen um but that can result in maybe four of those people being killed and like i said if you're using children that can get really dark so be uh check with your players beforehand if using that one but if you use adults and it's okay because nobody really cares about adults dying especially in dungeons and dragons plus if the adults die then you can go talk with celtic the necromancer okay well i believe that was like what 10 riddles maybe something like that or puzzles whatever it is uh so hopefully you enjoyed those let me know down in the comment section i'm going to wrap up the video here uh also down the comment section let me know some of your own fun puzzles obstacles uh maybe some traps that you use in your own games that your players had a good time with or maybe some ones that they absolutely hated those ones are also very fun for us dungeon masters so once again if you're not subscribed consider subscribing now and join the channel we have a whole lot of fun here half the time the other time we hate ourselves because our players are showing up an hour late and are trying to murder hobo everything so that's all i've got for today thank you all for watching and uh i'm out

Channel: Fails & Flails

Views: 71,538

Keywords: D&D, DnD, dungeons and dragons, ttrpg, rpg, roleplaying game, gaming, tabletop, DM, dungeon master, game master, how to, how to play D&D, tips and tricks, D&D 5th edition, D&D 5e, learn to play, basics of DnD, basics for beginners, dungeons & dragons, DM tips, 5th edition, dnd 5e, Puzzles, Tashas, tashas cauldron of everything, Tashas cauldron, Obstacles, Traps, easy puzzles, puzzles for children, d&d tashas cauldron of everything, 5e tasha, puzzles in tashas cauldron of everything

Id: zt9lYvERgeI

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2020