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Long story short, the PCs had defected from an evil empire to an order of Paladins of Freedom who opposed them as part of a plot to kill a powerful Sorcerer resistance leader. Because they had, you know, been special forces for the evil empire of the setting, the Paladins required them to complete a series of tests to determine their worth. The 'Tests of Ability.'
My players liked to metagame, and (with a few exceptions) were a little dim, so I decided to mess with their expectations. While they didn't know the content of the tests, they were told their names; the Test of Strength, the Test of Speed, the Test of Endurance, the Test of Intelligence, the Test of Wisdom, and the Test of Heart. They immediately began looking at who had the best scores in each ability.
For the Test of Strength they were brought to a waterfall, and told that they had to jump into the mist. They could hear the crashing of water on rocks, and they decided it was time for a pow-wow; determine how to survive, maybe use spells or ropes to get through it alive (the falling damage would have easily killed about half of the party from that height). Except for the meat-headed Flind and the Paladin, who just ran and lept off.
When the other PCs heard their voices calling out it was okay, their guide explained that the Test of Strength tested the strength of their faith; if they would trust the guide with their life. There had never been any danger, as nets just below the mist kept the jumpers safe from harm.
For the Test of Speed, they were placed on a racetrack shaped like a huge Omega and told they needed to beat a mechanical horse to the finish line. This time, they figured it out pretty quickly; rather than running along the track, they could just cut across the grass and beat the much faster opponent there. As their guide explained, it was a test of their Speed of Thought; as CG Paladins, they value effectiveness more than hide-bound tradition and like improvisation in their employees.
For the Test of Endurance, they had to fight a massive swamp full of trolls. As they 'killed' one, it would sink into the swamp until it regenerated it's hp and attacked again. It took them FOREVER to actually take charge and not let the trolls dictate the pace of the battle; gathering the bodies and burning them while fighting off the ones who were still alive.
Like the other tests, this one wasn't just about slogging theough a fight with their Constitution scores. It was about how they endured hardship; if they took charge and fought back, or just played by the accepted rules. To my chagrin the Players still had not figured that out yet. They still thought 6 'Tests of Ability' meant one test per ability score. Ugh.
For the Test of Intelligence, they had to play chess against a Gold Dragon. In a room full of lava. Since convection works in my games, they were taking continuous fire damage (1d6/round) for several minutes. They probably would have died if they didn't have the intelligence to work as a group; using aid other checks to beat the Dragon's much higher int, and healing magic to keep them from roasting before they won. After all, as their guide said, only an unintelligent buffoon would refuse help to complete their mission.
For the Test of Wisdom, they had to move a massive Sphere of Annihilation across a chamber and through a hoop. This one... did not really have a lesson; I BS'd them something about how the wise solve problems, but it was really a chekov's gun. The Sphere of Annihilation was going to be used by the BBEG Sorcerer to trash the place later, and I didn't want it to seem like an ass-pull.
When the final test, the Test of Heart, came up the players started figuring out who had the highest Charisma score. :smallsigh: Still, one of the players had grown a brain and pointed out that none of the previous tests had been about their ability scores, and were supposed to be lateral thinking puzzles. Finally.
The actual Test of Heart consisted of a locked wooden door, which they had to pass through to complete the test. There was also a small child sitting on a stool near it, with a key around his neck. They asked the kid to give them his key, but he said the Paladins had told him not to give it to anyone. This completely stumped them.
After about 15-30 minutes of in character debate, the majority of the party had decided to kill the child and take the key. To pass a test, so they could join an order of paladins. A test called the Test of Heart. :smallfurious:
Luckily, reason prevailed and the Flind asked if the kid could open the lock for them. Seeing no reason why not to, the kid unlocked the door with the key still around his neck. There was literally only one possible way to fail the Test of Heart; by hurting the kid. They could have broken the door, used social skills or RP to convince the kid to help them, picked the lock, even stolen the key secretly or used magic. But you have to have a pure enough heart not to hurt a child. They barely passed. :smallfrown:
This all took place over one 8-10 hour session, and an in-game week, but it was definitely one of the best adventures we'd ever had at that point. I still count it as one of my favorite bits of DMing, and it really helped lighten the mood after the relentless darkness of the campaign up till then.