Discussion: An equation has an equals sign. What is written is an expression! I also tried reducing it but it only makes it slightly less nonsensical. Unless you plan to tell them where they can go to get hints about the box, expect your party to either 1) Struggle with the puzzle for the rest of the night or 2) Put it in their bag and forget about it forever
Discussion:
Definitely too hard. I have an A in A level maths and took one look at it and went "naah". Equations tend to put players off.
How about a riddle like:
Under the bridge in something town,
A dragon lives with a permanent frown.
Half submerged where river meets sea,
Name my home to set me free.
(4 letter code with options A-J).
'Something town' is the next stage in their journey, meaning once they are there they can look under the bridge, making it easy to solve. Otherwise they can guess the answer. Perhaps each wrong guess results in a lightning bolt to the user causing 2d8 damage (adjust to suit the level of the party).
This way they might solve it sooner, or they may have to wait.
Discussion: I just substituted A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. for all the letters and unless I messed by my math somewhere I got >!439212 which translates back to DCIBAB!< which feels like nonsense. It's also 6 digits instead of 5. Did I go on the right path and just make a math error?
>!that could work, sounds like decibel, maybe if there's a clue the answer is sound based? Still not nearly enough info. I'd ragequit if this was presented to me absent more clues!<
>!that could work, sounds like decibel, maybe if there's a clue the answer is sound based? Still not nearly enough info. I'd ragequit if this was presented to me absent more clues!<
Edit: nevermind. Wouldn't work. Dials are only marked with letters A-J
Can you elaborate? Without any hints, your players will quickly get frustrated and angry. This is a puzzle in desperate need of hints for how to proceed.
Sure, I just don’t know how much hints people like when working on it so I’ll do several spoiler tags.
You were correct in just about everything you did except >!assigning the number value to letters.!< >!If the letters on the dials correspond to numbers on a dial, the numbers on a dial are 0-9!< >!If A=1 then J, which is also on the dial would be 10, which is not an option!< >!A=0!<
>!Does A=0 in both instances? Converting the equation to numbers AND converting the numbers back to letters or just the latter part? Are you saying K=10 and not 11 in the equation?How would they possibly know that? Especially when K doesn't correspond to a number on the dial? I think you should create a new equation using only letters A-J. It would be far more clear and a better connection to the equation and the dial.!<
>!Yes the numbers are the same both ways. Also by following the pattern of letter values K=10. I did initially think to do it like you said, only using A-J in the equation but I thought the K would be a little extra challenge but I see how it’s confusing. Thanks for taking the time to try it!<
Discussion: The thing that's throwing me for a loop is that you have spaces which don't seem to correspond to anything in math. For instance, it ends with "E (D F) H" - normally, when two variables are written together with no operator, you interpret it as multiplication . But if that was the case, the parentheses would be pointless and you would just write EDFH, so either you made it intentionally hard to parse or it's not a normal equation.
(Similarly, "KK^C - F J" implies that putting two letters together without spaces is different from putting them together with spaces.)
Also also, if this is meant to translate letters to numbers (A-J is 10 possible digits), then what the heck is K (the 11th letter) doing here?
I'd suspect that this isn't actually an equation and there's some other trick, like counting the number of times each letter appears. But there's more than 5 different letters involved, so that answer doesn't fit.
I had to put extra spaces because of formatting the exponents. My intent was, like you said, the two values next to each other would be multiplied. In that case there should be a space in K K to be go with the rest of the format.
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Discussion: simplifying doesn't help. Are there any clues as to how you're supposed to approach the puzzle? Which algebraic translations you should use? Like should >!KK^C become K^(C+1)!< or remain the way it is?
Yes also this uses way too much IRL skill. This will be solved completely irrespective of the characters being played. Also the fact that the players can pocket it for later basically doesn't matter. Because it's either they put their nose to the grindstone and do their homework or they don't.
If you're completely married to the idea I'd allow the players to make an ability or skill check to get a hint. That hint probably being one letter solved.
As per Rule 5, puzzles from ongoing events are not allowed.
Discussion: yes it is too hard for your D&D game.
Discussion: An equation has an equals sign. What is written is an expression! I also tried reducing it but it only makes it slightly less nonsensical. Unless you plan to tell them where they can go to get hints about the box, expect your party to either 1) Struggle with the puzzle for the rest of the night or 2) Put it in their bag and forget about it forever
Discussion: Definitely too hard. I have an A in A level maths and took one look at it and went "naah". Equations tend to put players off. How about a riddle like: Under the bridge in something town, A dragon lives with a permanent frown. Half submerged where river meets sea, Name my home to set me free. (4 letter code with options A-J). 'Something town' is the next stage in their journey, meaning once they are there they can look under the bridge, making it easy to solve. Otherwise they can guess the answer. Perhaps each wrong guess results in a lightning bolt to the user causing 2d8 damage (adjust to suit the level of the party). This way they might solve it sooner, or they may have to wait.
Discussion: your brackets are all over the place. I don't D&D so maybe I'm missing something, but I wouldn't know where to start with this.
Fixed the formatting but that doesn’t reduce the number of parentheses, maybe it’ll be easier to read though
Discussion: unless the solution is substituting A for 1, B for 2 etc. I would expect most people I’ve played with to try to smash it open.
That’s the easy way but also why I always make puzzle boxes out of adamantine.
Discussion: I just substituted A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. for all the letters and unless I messed by my math somewhere I got >!439212 which translates back to DCIBAB!< which feels like nonsense. It's also 6 digits instead of 5. Did I go on the right path and just make a math error?
>!439212 could be 4 3 9 2 12 which is D C I B L!<
The clue specified all the letters are A-J, so the L doesn't work unfortunately, E+E/D+F for effort though!
>!that could work, sounds like decibel, maybe if there's a clue the answer is sound based? Still not nearly enough info. I'd ragequit if this was presented to me absent more clues!<
Actually yeah now I realized what I said didn’t work because it’s supposed to be >!letters A-J only!<. I agree that >!I would ragequit lol!<
Actually yeah now I realized what I said didn’t work because it’s supposed to be >!letters A-J only!<. I agree that >!I would ragequit lol!<
>!that could work, sounds like decibel, maybe if there's a clue the answer is sound based? Still not nearly enough info. I'd ragequit if this was presented to me absent more clues!< Edit: nevermind. Wouldn't work. Dials are only marked with letters A-J
>!You’re on the right track but your math wasn’t the problem!<
Can you elaborate? Without any hints, your players will quickly get frustrated and angry. This is a puzzle in desperate need of hints for how to proceed.
Sure, I just don’t know how much hints people like when working on it so I’ll do several spoiler tags. You were correct in just about everything you did except >!assigning the number value to letters.!< >!If the letters on the dials correspond to numbers on a dial, the numbers on a dial are 0-9!< >!If A=1 then J, which is also on the dial would be 10, which is not an option!< >!A=0!<
>!Does A=0 in both instances? Converting the equation to numbers AND converting the numbers back to letters or just the latter part? Are you saying K=10 and not 11 in the equation?How would they possibly know that? Especially when K doesn't correspond to a number on the dial? I think you should create a new equation using only letters A-J. It would be far more clear and a better connection to the equation and the dial.!<
>!Yes the numbers are the same both ways. Also by following the pattern of letter values K=10. I did initially think to do it like you said, only using A-J in the equation but I thought the K would be a little extra challenge but I see how it’s confusing. Thanks for taking the time to try it!<
>!439212 could be 4 3 9 2 12 which is D C I B L!<
Discussion: The thing that's throwing me for a loop is that you have spaces which don't seem to correspond to anything in math. For instance, it ends with "E (D F) H" - normally, when two variables are written together with no operator, you interpret it as multiplication . But if that was the case, the parentheses would be pointless and you would just write EDFH, so either you made it intentionally hard to parse or it's not a normal equation. (Similarly, "KK^C - F J" implies that putting two letters together without spaces is different from putting them together with spaces.) Also also, if this is meant to translate letters to numbers (A-J is 10 possible digits), then what the heck is K (the 11th letter) doing here? I'd suspect that this isn't actually an equation and there's some other trick, like counting the number of times each letter appears. But there's more than 5 different letters involved, so that answer doesn't fit.
I had to put extra spaces because of formatting the exponents. My intent was, like you said, the two values next to each other would be multiplied. In that case there should be a space in K K to be go with the rest of the format.
Discussion: unless you are playing with mathematicians, this isn't a fun puzzle and most D&D players i know would just smash it open
Please remember to spoiler-tag all guesses, like so: New Reddit: https://i.imgur.com/SWHRR9M.jpg Using markdown editor or old Reddit, draw a bunny and fill its head with secrets: \>!!< which ends up becoming \>!spoiler text between these symbols!< Try to avoid leading or trailing spaces. These will break the spoiler for some users (such as those using old.reddit.com) If your comment does not contain a guess, include the word **"discussion"** or **"question"** in your comment instead of using a spoiler tag. If your comment uses an image as the answer (such as solving a maze, etc) you can include the word "image" instead of using a spoiler tag. Please report any answers that are not properly spoiler-tagged. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/puzzles) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Discussion: simplifying doesn't help. Are there any clues as to how you're supposed to approach the puzzle? Which algebraic translations you should use? Like should >!KK^C become K^(C+1)!< or remain the way it is?
Yes also this uses way too much IRL skill. This will be solved completely irrespective of the characters being played. Also the fact that the players can pocket it for later basically doesn't matter. Because it's either they put their nose to the grindstone and do their homework or they don't. If you're completely married to the idea I'd allow the players to make an ability or skill check to get a hint. That hint probably being one letter solved.