Top 10 Puzzles to Add to a Dungeon in DnD 5E

When it comes to puzzles in dungeons, they can don't necessarily have to be dangerous, or even that difficult. Sometimes all you need to make a good puzzle is just to find all the clues, and then solve a very simple riddle and your good to go. And in this video we'll be going over 10 puzzles you can add to your game, that you can also modify easily so the answers are not obvious.

Video edited by Selty and Pumpkinswift

--The List--
Intro: (0:00)
10-Three Slit Door: (0:18)
9- Force Wall Color : (1:40)
8- Lever Room: (2:21)
7- Animal Statue Room: (4:07)
6- Do As I Do Statue : (5:37)
5- Order Of Operations: (7:10)
4- Blood Fountain: (8:20)
3- Build Your Own Number Puzzle: (9:25)
2- Three Steps Ahead Cipher: (10:51)
1- Dragon's Mouth: (12:09)

--Social Media--

- #DnD #5e #DungeonsAndDragons

Art Assets:

[gmradio]

Heard this one from a friend. The Sword in the Mirror. The set up is simple. There is a mirror with a magic sword sticking out of the face. In the example I heard it was a vorpal sword. The mirror is magic and difficult to destroy, and destroying the mirror destoys the sword. Any character can try to pull the sword out of the mirror. The catch is their reflection also pulls on the sword. How to get the sword out?



Solution: Obscure the reflection. Fog the mirror or turn out all the lights so the reflection can not be seen. With no reflection to pull on the sword, it comes free easily.

This puzzle can be used with any item a GM wants, such as keys to unlockable doors or plot trinkets.

[sagamalmberg]

I had a dungeon once with a bunch of easier-than-you-think puzzles.
There was a rectangular room with a chasm in the middle and a thin (but stable) stone bridge over to the other side.
On the other side was a wall with a big brasscolored door covered in 20 different keyholes.
In the air over the chasm were bubbles floating, each of them containing a different key.
...
The door was not locked, and the solution was simply to walk up to the door and open it. :)

I also had another room which was cylinder shaped. No features on the wall at all except for the door they came in through, and the door they want to proceed through, plus a 1 meter tall pillar in the middle, about 2 decimeters wide, with a big red button on top of it, and a skeleton in a corner.
The moment they entered the room, the doors slam shut, and a ticking sound is heard, and the roof starts to slowly crawl downwards.
Eventually the players may (or may not) press the button in panic... which does reset the roof to the top again, but it only opens the door they came from.
Eventually they figured out that hey... the pillar is intact, the skeleton is intact, and there is no hole in the roof to accomodate the so they just waited, and allowed the roof to go down.
When the roof was JUST about to reach the pillar with the button, it stopped right before.... and the progress-door opened... which they had to crawl too because the roof was now just 1 meter above the ground, but yeah, the solution was simply to do nothing, and wait. :P

[rosangelamariapessoa]

I had made a puzzle for my endgame dungeon, it goes like this: in a dark room the party finds 4 books in each corner of the room and in the middle of the room a statue of a woman being stabbed in the chest, with other 4 holes in other parts of her body, each of the 4 books tell a similar stories with diferent endings, in the end of each stories a priest is killed, but the person that did that and with what type of blade and where in her body did they stab is always different, on the other rooms of the dungeon they always found weird daggers and swords somewhere, and each one fit the descriptions of the weapons used to kill the woman, after they had put each dagger and sword in the right place the doors behind the statue is open so they can fight the final boss of the campaign.

[Dangerous_DM]

6 statues of humans in different poses
One flexing muscles (strength)
One pulling a bow (dexterity)
One drinking poison (constitution)
One thinking (intelligence)
One playing chess (wisdom)
And One talking (charisma)
Each has a bowl in front of it so the players must put an item associated with that ability.

[blizz]

6. Statue with a sword.
Statue do a bunch of harmless poses, where the last one is stabbing himself through the heart. If player attempts this, inform him, that he will die. The solution is to remove the sword from the statue before the event, and then copy it without the sword (no killing himself at the end).

[Karanthaneos]

I had a puzzle encounter I made for one of my games.

On an isolated place you found the handle of a weapon on the ground, as if the weapon was buried and only the handle was sticking out. Any character that reached would push all the other characters away about 50' and the triggering character about 10'. Then the handle would raise in the air and a shadowy figure resembling the triggering character would materialize the same kind of weapon that character typically uses and will challenge them to a duel, making the first move (For casters, the weapon is a focus, and the shadow casts the same spells as they do). The shadow imitates their techniques, and is invulnerable to anyone but the triggering character. After the first act of aggression it is expected for the players to retaliate and continue the challenge. If the character leaves the 50' radius area the shadow disappears and the encounter resets.

Here you have two variants, either the shadow is also invulnerable to them, or any damage they deal to the shadow is also dealt to the triggering character. The shadow also mimics the character's stats, so they're effectively fighting themselves.

The solution for the encounter is for them to stop the aggression, by either getting a hold of the opponent's weapon, or stop fighting by either offering their own weapon to the shadow, or gracefully and voluntarily surrendering to the shadow. Doing so would make the shadow to do the same and allow the triggering character to take the handle of the weapon and complete the encounter.

This puzzle could also be used as a test by a powerful magic user, a fae, or even a legendary martial instructor, to see if the characters are all about just blind bloodlust, or they have the capacity to actually think in the middle of battle.

[devingunnels]

I've watched four different videos about d&d puzzles, and this is the only one that actually gave me some ideas. Thank you.

[z-manwuvsgirrafes]

I did something similar to the animal statues puzzle where the party had to imitate the animal for it to activate. Our bard sang for the bird statue, someone jumped for a frog statue, and an unconscious party member was placed in front of an opossum statue. It was great.
Another super easy puzzle that can be spiced up i used that session is making the party solve a Tower of Hanoi puzzle while also fighting off enemies in waves.

[Ultra_DuDu]

I would really have expected the button and cooldown one on this list.
There is a button at the center of a room that starts a countdown from 10 to 0. Pushing the button reset the cooldown. Once the countdown ends the door open.
It might not seems much but adventurers tends to push the button a lot of time by fear of the countdown. And it can stay up for a time.

[MalloonTarka]

My main problem with puzzles is that there often is no in-story reason for them to exist. Thinking up a reason for a puzzle is harder than making a puzzle, to me at least.

[rcschmidt]

I especially like the one where the characters turn into animals to solve a puzzle. That is a step up from the body swapping swimming pool from Jumanji 2.

[Cyberlisk]

In my game, I made something very similar to #3, but with a sequence of abstract animal pictures to represent the numbers. Like spider for 8 (legs), starfish for 5, or even something like a cat for 9 (lives).

And to prevent brute forcing they would get shocked and take lightning damage every time they push a wrong number, but that didn't happen. =)

[nickmuzekari]

Love the animal statue puzzle, especially with player agency as to choosing different animal options ... to me that's a great way to do some trade offs with ability scores or HP... for instance perhaps choosing the spider will be the quickest way to get to the item at the top of X room, but once you become a spider you have to save vs CON or take 5 points of poison damage from the initial change your body went through, etc.

[djm.o.d.]

9:49 lmao I put one of these in my game, a fake "throne room" that lead to a treasure stash if you used the arm rests as well one player walked up and "just started pulling levers" and said the order he pulls them, and nails it first try and then RPs "told you guys it was easy" LMAO

[stjacob]

That's some really cool traps! Thanks a lot man, you saved my day!

[LeavingNight]

I have to admit that if I was running the do as I do puzzle the statues would light up in sequence as the statues actions were copied by my players and when the third one lit up the room would fill with poisonous gas.( The actual solution being to just take the key off the third statue)

[pyrotechnic]

I've always used the greatest puzzle of them all

A mundane wooden unlocked door

[Xylarxcode]

It doesn't really do anything special, but when I make my puzzles, I like to make the hints to the solution in rhyme form.
For example, my last puzzle was a fairly straightforward one (or so I thought). The party came across a graveyard that had exactly 9 graves in a 3 by 3 pattern. Each gravestone has a button on top. Before the puzzle starts, the party must fight and defeat a grave guard plus some skeletons or whatever else is a fitting threat to the group in question. Upon killing them, they'll find a note that says:
Prowess in battle, you have shown
Now a test for mind, not brawn

Start bottom west for this hoard
Solve this puzzle for your reward

Star that shines brightest at night
Push that button without fright

Then to the east, two stones take
Leave this be, you must forsake

But one step back, is this the one?
Hit that trigger, perhaps you've won.

First line means nothing. It's just fluff to congratulate the group and inform them this is the clue to the puzzle. Second one means the first gravestone button they need to push is the one in the bottom corner on the west side. Third line: 'stars that shines brightest at night' means the north star, meaning the party has to go one grave up to the north and push that button. To aid with this one, I also put the marking of a star on the gravestone. The next one means they have to move two graves over to the east but they can't push that button. And the last line means that they need to step back on gravestone (to the south) and hits its button to reveal the secret treasure.

Sadly, my party did not figure it out from those hints and I ended up having to metagame a tiny bit to push them on their way. They choked on the 'north star' reference, telling me it was 'clever, but too obscure' and that, while they enjoyed the brainteaser, it felt a little bit disjointed, with every other clue being fairly easy to solve, but the north star one being in stark contrast to the others by being overly complicated and difficult. Still, they encouraged me to keep going this way and try to work on consistency, so hopefully I'll get the next one right!

[Tekarusame]

I love the random rosemi bits hidden throughout your videos on your several channels.

[Elnis]

Great video - very nice inspiration to put together something fun for my players. Thank you 🙂