Wire defuse

How to solve it

A warded device with three to six coloured wires, a serial number, five wards (Flame, Frost, Storm, Void and Life) that are each lit or dark, and maybe a countdown. Somewhere there's a manual. Cut the right wires in the right order and the wards go dark.

The manual is a list of rules. Read it from the top. The first rule that matches the device tells you which wires to cut and in what order. A rule might ask how many red wires there are, what colour the third wire is, whether the serial ends in an odd digit, or whether the Storm ward is lit. The last rule is always an "otherwise", so every device has an answer.

• Pick a wire by hovering or moving focus to it. Everyone sees the snips move.
• Cut by clicking, or with Enter or Space. The number keys 1 to 6 jump straight to a wire.

The right wire parts cleanly. Any other wire is a strike. It stays cut, the device crackles, and on some devices a strike knocks seconds off the timer. Reach the strike limit and the device goes off, failing the puzzle outright. Strikes don't use the puzzle's attempts. A detonation ends it.

Every wire colour has its own pattern and name tag, so nobody has to tell colours apart by sight alone.

The manual isn't always on the device. Sometimes the DM hands it to one player, and that player has to talk the person holding the snips through it. That's the best way to play this one.

Setting it up

• Cut order is the big choice. A rulebook written by the seed builds a fresh manual for each device. My own rulebook lets you write up to 8 rules, ending in an otherwise. A riddle and a fixed cut order skips the manual and uses your riddle and a set answer.
• Manual is engraved on the device for everyone, or a handout you give to one player. As a handout, only you see it on the device, so you share it yourself.
• Manual title defaults to "On the Safe Unmaking of Warded Devices".
• Wiring, Serial number and Lit wards are yours to set when you write the solution or a riddle. Seeded devices stamp their own.
• Seeded wires, Seeded colours, Rules before the Otherwise and Wires per rule, at most shape the generated manual.
• Riddle answer is a list of wire positions. You can also cut them in order yourself with Set the solution by playing.
• Goes off on strike is 1 to 3.
• Wrong cut shortens the timer by takes up to 300 seconds off a running timer for each wrong cut. Set a time limit on the puzzle for the countdown to show.

Difficulty adds a wire, a colour and a rule per tier, more cuts per rule on Hard and Deadly, and fewer strikes: 3 on Easy and a single strike on Deadly. Rule out a wrong option marks one intact wire as safe to leave.

Where it fits in a campaign

• The alchemist's last laugh. A still rigged to blow in a burning lab. Hand the manual to the wizard, give the snips to the barbarian, and set a two-minute timer.
• A warded reliquary. Five elemental wards and a manual in a dead language. The party has to find a translator before anyone touches a wire.
• The riddle bomb. Skip the manual. A gnome villain leaves a rhyme that names the cut order, and laughs over a sending stone while the party argues about it.

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.