How to solve it
A grid of floor plates laid out as real tiles on the map, with a close-up of the same floor alongside. Plates are named like a chessboard, with letters across and numbers down, so you can call out "B4" to the table.
There are two kinds of floor.
- Safe path. Cross from the start plate (marked with a chevron) to the goal (marked with a ring), one neighbouring plate at a time. Diagonals count.
- Hold plates. Press every true plate down, in any order. They stay down once pressed.
Step by clicking a plate on the map or in the close-up, or by moving a token onto it. In the close-up, the arrow keys move between plates, Enter or Space steps, and Home jumps back to where the party stands. On a safe path, clicking a plate that isn't next to you is refused and costs nothing. Tokens move freely, though, and any trapped plate a token crosses will spring, even off the route.
A safe plate sinks with a clunk. A wrong one sets off the trap: darts, a collapsing floor or poison gas. Usually that costs an attempt and the plates grind back up. On a path you go back to the start, and when holding plates every plate lifts. On some floors a single wrong step ends the puzzle. Sprung plates keep a scorch mark, so at least you learn something.
Search the floor rolls Perception or Investigation. A pass chalks a cross on some of the trapped plates nearest the party.
Setting it up
- What the party must do is safe path or hold plates.
- Plates across and Plates down each run from 2 to 12.
- Safe path, plate by plate or True plates take tags like B4, B3, C2 when you write the solution. Each plate on a path has to touch the one before it. You can also walk it yourself with Set the solution by playing.
- Start plate, Goal plate and How far a generated path wanders shape a generated path, from almost straight to a maze. Blank start and goal plates pick somewhere on the bottom and top rows.
- A wrong plate sets off picks the trap's look and sound. The damage itself comes from the placement's failure outcomes.
- A wrong plate ends the puzzle makes every mistake final.
- Trapped plates a passing search reveals and Search DC tune the Search the floor check.
- Plate size on the map should match your map's grid square, so a token steps one plate per square.
Difficulty grows the grid from 4×4 on Easy to 8×8 on Deadly, winds the path more, raises the search DC from 10 to 18, and on Deadly makes a wrong plate end the puzzle. Rule out a wrong option marks the nearest trapped plate.
Where it fits in a campaign
- The tomb's antechamber. A safe path across flagstones, and a clue carved over the door: "Walk as the king walked, never looking back."
- The vault of the five seals. Hold plates on brass tiles. Five party members, five true plates, and nobody can be in two places at once.
- The goblin warren floor. Put the plates in the middle of a fight. Everyone is moving tokens anyway, and the goblins know where not to step.
Running any puzzle
Every puzzle type is built and run the same way. The guide above covers what's particular to this one.
Write it once
A puzzle is a compendium entry. Create a new Puzzle in one of your compendiums and choose its type. The form has four tabs. Overview holds the type, a spoiler-free flavour line, an optional cover image and the settings below.
- Who operates it is one player driving while the party watches, everyone operating it, or you operating it while players watch. You can always operate it yourself, whatever you pick.
- Difficulty is Easy, Medium, Hard or Deadly. Changing it rewrites the settings that tier controls and leaves your solution and text alone, so pick a tier first and fine-tune afterwards.
- Solution is either written by you or generated each time the puzzle is placed. Generated is the default, so players who own the puzzle can't look up the answer. Reroll the solution each session gives a recurring puzzle a fresh answer every session.
- Limits set a maximum number of attempts, a time limit (with the option to show players the timer) and a lockout. With a lockout, running out of attempts locks the puzzle for a while. Without one, the puzzle fails.
The other three tabs are Mechanism, which holds the settings described above, Hints, where you write up to ten hints to reveal from the board when you choose, and Presentation, for the skin, the title, an intro and the text players see on success or failure.
Put it on the board
At the table, open the Puzzles tab in the dock and drag a puzzle onto the map, or click it to drop it in the middle of your view. That makes a copy for this table only. Its progress lives with the table, and the compendium entry stays untouched. Most puzzles sit on the map as an object. Pressure plates and rune sequences can also lay tiles on the scene for tokens to step on.
There's no separate step to start it. The first player to touch it starts it. In single-driver mode, that player takes the controls and everyone else watches every move live.
Run it live
Right-click a placed puzzle for the DM's controls. The most useful ones:
- Reveal a hint and Rule out a wrong option for a party that's stuck.
- Open it by magic (Knock) or Force it open when a spell or a crowbar should simply win.
- Give one more attempt, Pause the timer and Reset.
- Approve the solve or Reject the solve, with an optional reply, if you asked to approve solves first.
- Set up… to change this table's copy and choose what happens When it is solved and When it fails. Outcomes can open or unlock a door, reveal a token, object, handout or another puzzle, play an effect, post to chat, roll damage or start combat.
Skip the minigame
Not every table wants to play every puzzle. Set a placement's Just roll option to Always and the puzzle shows a single Roll to resolve button instead. Players roll the puzzle's Just roll skill against its DC, which defaults to Investigation at DC 15. A pass solves it and a fail costs an attempt. Set it to Never to make the party play it out.
