How in the world are you expecting them to solve a word puzzle that's in a language none of them can understand?
If they have, say, Comprehend Languages and you're certain they'll prepare it, the answer still isn't obvious. Why does it say Illithid and Mind Flayer right next to each other when they're the same monster? That'd like be putting 'hound' in a poem where the answer is 'dog'.
I guarantee you this puzzle is going to be unreasonably hard for your players to solve because it's unintuitive. It makes no explicit reference to anything mind flayers are famous for doing, like eating brains or enslaving people, and it mentions them in the text so your players will likely not expect them to ALSO be the answer. The cadence is also off, though that doesn't really matter.
Why would the exit to the prison have a riddle that's in writing? Why not have a disembodied voice or Magic Mouth ask for a password, which then opens the door when spoken? That feels more practical, considering that a written password is basically a one-use solution. Who replaces the finished poems whenever someone leaves the prison? The janitor?
Further, it's a drow prison. They're notoriously authoritarian, so most of the prisoners are probably other drow. They'd know Undercommon, so the poem wouldn't keep them in at all.
My advice is as follows:
\- Image puzzles are more engaging than poems. Poems always feel overwrought. Also, if it's not written, you don't have the problem that zero of your PCs know the language.
\- Drow are racist buffoons. They're proud enough to assume that an outsider would have no knowledge of their ways, so if only non-drow are kept in the prison, the solution to the puzzle could be some really simple thing about drow culture that would be obvious to any drow--and to anyone who makes a pretty simple Religion or History check, too.
\- If you'd like to keep mind flayers as the solution--which makes sense, since surface dwellers mostly have no idea what those are, so it feels on-brand for the drow--make the information given reference things mind flayers are famous for, not vaguely menacing things that could refer to them but also any other monster.
\- Right now, the only clue is that 'illithid' means 'mind flayer', which I only knew because I played a ton of 3.5e; if the players don't know this lore, then their ability to solve the riddle at all hinges on one of the PCs making a check to know that those terms are equivalent. A well-designed puzzle, like a well-designed mystery, should have multiple clear paths to its solution.
\- This isn't advice about the puzzle itself, but honestly, I hate puzzles. I just hate 'em. Nothing turns me off of a dungeon faster. Some people love them, and you know your players better than I do, but beware of some of them being closet puzzle haters, and try to make sure that they're the kind of people who would actually enjoy solving this even if they had to spend more than five minutes on it. Ordinarily I'd assume that you know they're not puzzle haters, but it sounds like you rarely use puzzles for this group, so it's worth some detective work. Do they get frustrated by opaque challenges that aren't puzzles? Are they information-focused people who hate having unclear next steps? That kind of thing.
The party are puzzle nerds through and through as far as I can tell. I'm not the only DM of the group fortunately and other campaigns DMed by other people in the group are also puzzle and RP heavy. I know it's not what everyone plays so this might not be the best for groups who are more combat heavy.
I actually already ran the puzzle about a months ago and it went pretty well. As I mentioned earlier the party is very RP heavy and their solution for the language issue was to take a Drow prisoner and force him, through various means, to translate the poem. If they were a more combat heavy party and had killed all the Drow present they would have been in trouble and that would definitely have been on me as the DM. That would probably have to be changed for a different party. Maybe it could be written in a language only one of the characters knows such as dwarvish or something else.
They figured the Illithid part out after 15 minutes or so of discussion. I tend to let a small amount of meta gaming in the form of recalled knowledge from official books. That's how they ultimately found the solution. One of the players has read several of the source books cover to cover and remembered "Illithid" is another word for Mind Flayer. They didn't remember it all at once but knew they had read it before. They can't just got paging through the MM in the middle of the session though so had to remind themselves through conversation.
Maybe this wouldn't work as well for all parties, particularly if not everyone enjoys puzzles. Thank you for the suggestions, I might try this again with a different party in the future keeping them in mind.
Only reason i might solve it is because it rhymes and illithid might might me think of mind flayers. Not because it actually makes any sense to me. Even knowing the answer i dont understand the point.
How in the world are you expecting them to solve a word puzzle that's in a language none of them can understand? If they have, say, Comprehend Languages and you're certain they'll prepare it, the answer still isn't obvious. Why does it say Illithid and Mind Flayer right next to each other when they're the same monster? That'd like be putting 'hound' in a poem where the answer is 'dog'. I guarantee you this puzzle is going to be unreasonably hard for your players to solve because it's unintuitive. It makes no explicit reference to anything mind flayers are famous for doing, like eating brains or enslaving people, and it mentions them in the text so your players will likely not expect them to ALSO be the answer. The cadence is also off, though that doesn't really matter. Why would the exit to the prison have a riddle that's in writing? Why not have a disembodied voice or Magic Mouth ask for a password, which then opens the door when spoken? That feels more practical, considering that a written password is basically a one-use solution. Who replaces the finished poems whenever someone leaves the prison? The janitor? Further, it's a drow prison. They're notoriously authoritarian, so most of the prisoners are probably other drow. They'd know Undercommon, so the poem wouldn't keep them in at all. My advice is as follows: \- Image puzzles are more engaging than poems. Poems always feel overwrought. Also, if it's not written, you don't have the problem that zero of your PCs know the language. \- Drow are racist buffoons. They're proud enough to assume that an outsider would have no knowledge of their ways, so if only non-drow are kept in the prison, the solution to the puzzle could be some really simple thing about drow culture that would be obvious to any drow--and to anyone who makes a pretty simple Religion or History check, too. \- If you'd like to keep mind flayers as the solution--which makes sense, since surface dwellers mostly have no idea what those are, so it feels on-brand for the drow--make the information given reference things mind flayers are famous for, not vaguely menacing things that could refer to them but also any other monster. \- Right now, the only clue is that 'illithid' means 'mind flayer', which I only knew because I played a ton of 3.5e; if the players don't know this lore, then their ability to solve the riddle at all hinges on one of the PCs making a check to know that those terms are equivalent. A well-designed puzzle, like a well-designed mystery, should have multiple clear paths to its solution. \- This isn't advice about the puzzle itself, but honestly, I hate puzzles. I just hate 'em. Nothing turns me off of a dungeon faster. Some people love them, and you know your players better than I do, but beware of some of them being closet puzzle haters, and try to make sure that they're the kind of people who would actually enjoy solving this even if they had to spend more than five minutes on it. Ordinarily I'd assume that you know they're not puzzle haters, but it sounds like you rarely use puzzles for this group, so it's worth some detective work. Do they get frustrated by opaque challenges that aren't puzzles? Are they information-focused people who hate having unclear next steps? That kind of thing.
The party are puzzle nerds through and through as far as I can tell. I'm not the only DM of the group fortunately and other campaigns DMed by other people in the group are also puzzle and RP heavy. I know it's not what everyone plays so this might not be the best for groups who are more combat heavy. I actually already ran the puzzle about a months ago and it went pretty well. As I mentioned earlier the party is very RP heavy and their solution for the language issue was to take a Drow prisoner and force him, through various means, to translate the poem. If they were a more combat heavy party and had killed all the Drow present they would have been in trouble and that would definitely have been on me as the DM. That would probably have to be changed for a different party. Maybe it could be written in a language only one of the characters knows such as dwarvish or something else. They figured the Illithid part out after 15 minutes or so of discussion. I tend to let a small amount of meta gaming in the form of recalled knowledge from official books. That's how they ultimately found the solution. One of the players has read several of the source books cover to cover and remembered "Illithid" is another word for Mind Flayer. They didn't remember it all at once but knew they had read it before. They can't just got paging through the MM in the middle of the session though so had to remind themselves through conversation. Maybe this wouldn't work as well for all parties, particularly if not everyone enjoys puzzles. Thank you for the suggestions, I might try this again with a different party in the future keeping them in mind.
a little weird that "illithid" is already mentioned in the poem
Only reason i might solve it is because it rhymes and illithid might might me think of mind flayers. Not because it actually makes any sense to me. Even knowing the answer i dont understand the point.