CR Rating for custom puzzle encounters

[ShedShadow]

Hey there! I am designing a campaign called 'The Tower of Himajiy, for my 3.5e group (lvl8) that we will be starting in a few weeks. If my players are reading this: stop.

For those genuinely willing to help, thank you!

Spoiler: The custom design

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So, the design is a 7x7 square floor in a tower that ever goes down. They come down on one end of the room in the corner, and the next stair downward is on the opposite corner of the room. In between them is a maze of turning walls that all are in a 'T' shape, so that in a 2x2 square they block 2 squares on 2 adjacent sides, and the other two squares are only blocked on 1 adjacent side.

so:
.......A......................B..........

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It will leave a passage in squares B1 and B2. The entire floor is like this. They turn the walled 'T' shape clockwise by touching it. Then they must answer a simple arithmetic question (like "what's 3x4?") within a short period of time (matter of seconds). Regardless of their answer, the section moves and they move with it. If they answer wrong, a flame jet from the ceiling strikes them for 1d4 fire damage Reflex DC11 half (Burning Hands trap CR 2 from SRD).

So here's the question: what CR do I allocate these fire traps combined with the maze? There are a total of 43 flame jets, but they will not encounter all of them, and there is a bypass by correctly answering the question, so I haven't a clue as to what CR to give. Personally I feel it is not so difficult and would maybe give this a CR of 6, but what do you guys think?

[Albions_Angel]

Are these walls visible?

If so, what stops them just following the maze.

If not, is there a way to solve it without setting off the traps OR getting the answer right?

I have tried this sort of thing before, and maybe you are a better DM than I (not hard, tbh), but from what I have learned, real life time limits and in game "time limits" dont mix well, especially for long periods of time. Getting hit by trap after trap isnt fun either.

This sounds like a cool top down puzzle, which is good because D&D is a cool top down game. I instantly thought of the Pokemon Gen 3 Flying Type gym, with the T shaped movable walls shutting off certain areas. But heres the thing. With that, you could "metagame". You could stand at one edge and go "Ok, so this one goes left and then that one goes right and then I need to pull that one down twice, so I need to move it without going through."

You COULD do that with this, but you would need to be ok with metagaming, as the characters cant see the top down view. And you need to make sure they wont get bored or frustrated ("Dude! I was thinking! Stop flaming my character! Im bad at maths but hes got 17 Int!").

Are the spaces designed to split up the party? If so, to what effect. Can they get permanently stuck? Whats to stop the wizard sticking energy resit on the barbarian and the barbarian hacking down the walls? Is that a "valid" solution for you?

Even if they find the first floor fun, how many floors of this will you have?

Mazes are fun when doing them on your own, and they are fun in real life, but they can suck for a party once the "solution" has been realized (in this case, be quick at mental maths. In another case, walk with a stick held out to bump into invisible walls. In a 3rd, party needs to go one at a time and remember the path).

All that said, do the fire traps reset. The fire traps themselves are whatever CR they are. How many are they intended to meet if they took the shortest path? Add those CRs and add 1 for cumulative traps. But even then, sounds like a minimum of 7 traps to get from stair to stair, and CR 7 seems WAY out of line for this. This sounds like a CR 3 encounter at best. Essentially 7d4 + a few of the easiest damage to deal with, spread over the party? Yeah, I can see a band of 10 ish goblins dealing that kind of damage to a party of ECL 3s, so I would stick it at CR 3.

[Bucky]

The fire traps themselves are whatever CR they are. How many are they intended to meet if they took the shortest path? Add those CRs and add 1 for cumulative traps. But even then, sounds like a minimum of 7 traps to get from stair to stair, and CR 7 seems WAY out of line for this.

CRs get exponentially more difficult. You get 3 traps for (Trap CR + 3) and can double the number of traps for +2 CR.


If the trap is CR 1, 7 traps would be between CR 6 (1+3x2) and CR 7(1+2x2x2).

If you expected them to hit all 43 traps, the encounter would be a bit less than CR 12.

On the other hand, that's only if they're forced to walk through each trap in sequence with no rest in between and no simple way of bypassing them. I'd calculate it based on the the number of traps you'd expect them to actually visit, and subtract about 2 CR for the ability to bypass them with math.

[ShedShadow]

Thank you guys for your insights! I think you both make valid points and this should not be too hard, so probably set the Cr to 4. Thanks!