Pathfinder D&D Puzzles #37 - Three Card Draw

The players must fulfill the requirements of a Playing Card logic puzzle by feeding three cards into an eternal flame. Should they fail, cards will fly into the air and smash the characters with bolts of lightning and electricity, but if they solve the puzzle, they will fill the luck of the cards. Can your players succeed in Three Card Draw?
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[@HowtoRPG]

You really have dominated the d&d puzzles on KZbin. Great Video.

[@WallyDM]

Thank you, my friend! Your support means a lot! The popularity of the puzzle videos and my channel, in general, has been an amazing, and humbling experience.

[@cadenceclearwater4340]

I'd go with the _"fly around the room"_ method. There's an audible _zing_ as the wrong card is fed to the flame, the edge of each card glimmers, and they launch like a flock of ravens. Make a saving throw as your blood feeds the magic of the puzzle.

[@WallyDM]

Love it. Great idea, for sure.

[@Henkz85]

I was inspired of this video to do some of my own. I can only share one of them though because the others have hints like "The King and Queen’s will are to face each other" so they are very deck specific. With hints like that you can also weave small stories into the puzzles, which give an extra layer of fun. At least the one I'll share are my hardest one. :) My puzzle: You'll need: The spades, diamond and clubs for Queens, Kings and Aces. The hints: There is a Queen to the right of a spade An ace can be found to the left of a club A club will be to the left of a diamond Some thoughts: I put this text here just so it'll be easier for you to not look at the answer right away if you want to do it yourself first. The answer will be right at the end of this chunk of text. :) I guess it's hard to evaluate myself, but I think my puzzle is a little bit harder than the one in the video because there's one clue less. It's basically the same puzzle though. I honestly think this puzzle cannot be any harder. Don't worry, it's solvable. Ok, here's the answer. Answer: Ace of spades, King of clubs, Queen of diamonds

[@WallyDM]

Hey there! Glad you were inspired to create your own puzzle! I like it! I'm sure your players will have fun with it. Also... having the king and queen face each other kinda gives me an idea for a future video... hmmm... Thank you again for the awesome comment! :)

[@XxXxXxChiixXxXxX]

Great puzzle! The answer should be ace of spades, queen of clubs, king of diamonds though.

[@anmimc]

I have been loving your puzzles! This is great one that could easily be added anywhere. Gonna have to keep this one in mind.

[@WallyDM]

Thank you for the awesome comment! I am glad you are enjoying the puzzle series and hope they work well for you in your game! :)

[@sahildhawan5663]

Great puzzles Wally! Thank you so much! I made a couple of changes for my party. I had 4 sets of cards with 3 Kings, Queens, Jacks and Aces in each set. There was a diamond, club and heart of each card in the set. I then gave them a riddle to solve to figure out the correct order: This is the story of a queen and her lover He was the right hand of the king The queen sat to his left, adorned in jewels, stealing glances at her love The poor king, alas, carried a broken heart, his trusty club to the right The lover smashed the king's head with it The king is dead, long live the king And so ends the tale of the queen and her lover Similar to the logic you had but I wanted to see if I could put it in the form of a story. One of the sets is a red herring, just to get them to think about it more. They had a lot of fun figuring it out. So thanks again!

[@WallyDM]

I absolutely love this riddle. Great idea. Well done! Well done!

[@Boomclack]

I had one problem. “A diamond will be to the left of a spade”. My issue is with “the” left. If you just said the diamond “was left” or “is left”, it would fly. The distinction between being on “the” left, and merely just “left of” something, must be made. The two “left of a spade” hints have the same data. “A diamond will be “left of” a spade” And... “A heart is “ON the” left of a spade”, would have been the difference in syntax wiggle room, as an extra clever clue for my PC’s to figure out. With reward bonus, of course. Keep up the good work. I enjoy all your puzzles.

[@WallyDM]

Ah, yes. Thank you for mentioning that Jay. Good point. We definitely need to be clear with the clues, so this was a good adjustment. Thank you for watching the videos. Welcome to the channel, glad to have ya aboard! :)

[@WalkingVirusGaming]

Great puzzle as always Wally!

[@WallyDM]

Thank you my friend!

[@jonwooldridge3766]

I will use this in my game. I like the idea of the cards animating and punishing the players. My only change would be to use the spell Cloud of Daggers as the basis. It seems to fit thematically. Great video, thanks.

[@WallyDM]

Hey there Jon! Thank you for watching the video. Good to hear that you will be able to use this in your game. I like the Cloud of Daggers idea. Sounds like a worthwhile change. Be sure to let us know how it goes. Cheers!

[@RustyKeys72]

Great work. Cheers.

[@WallyDM]

Thanks, Rusty!

[@brittanyloomis6656]

Thanks so much for this puzzle! I'm going to use it tonight in my Red and Pleasant Land mini-campaign that I'm running in 5e. I needed a puzzle to use in the Heart Queen's castle and this is perfect!!

[@WallyDM]

Hooray! Glad I could help! Be sure to let me know how it goes. :)

[@brittanyloomis6656]

@@WallyDM went over GREAT! They were so excited that I made props (I wrote the rules on a piece of paper and aged it) and brought cards. They had a ton of fun arguing over the solution and solving it. As fun as it was for them, I had five times as much fun as the DM watching them (and hoping they wouldn't trigger the fireball spell by getting it wrong right before their boss fight!) Bravo!!

[@WallyDM]

Ah, nice! I am so glad that things went well! :) As a DM... my favorite part about puzzles is exactly what you experienced... watching the players working together for a solution. Thank you for this great feedback and hope you will be able to use more ideas in the future! :)

[@mmardh799]

I like this one, Wally. What about the cards make a small paper golem or something like that? I think I saw somewhere a scroll golem...

[@WallyDM]

Oooh, absolutely. I love the paper card golem idea. I've actually templated a monster just like this a while back! Maybe I should use it someday, hmmmm.... Great idea!

[@ghitapaints91]

Thank for this nice puzzle

[@WallyDM]

Thank you for watching the video and leaving a fantastic comment, Sebastian! :)

[@hezekiahramirez6965]

Okay, how's about this? You have nine envelopes, each with a picture of the cards on them. After they solve the puzzle they pick up the correct envelopes. Inside of each there's a differently colored gem with a number next to them. Say "red - 4," "blue - 12," and "green - 9" for example. Later there's a simple 4x4 sudoku grid or something similar but different colors are subbed in for the numbers. You need five hints to solve a 16-square grid with a unique solution so there would be two gems already placed. The squares are numbered 1-16 and the three gems obtained from the card puzzle are obviously meant to go onto the grid. It's pretty obvious where we go from here. The gems are placed in their correct squares and now the puzzle is solvable. I think it's almost always a good idea to make puzzles interact to make larger puzzles. Ideally they would all form one large multi-level puzzle but that takes some planning. I can do it and I have so you can too. It's called "economy of story." In other words, you connect everything because then the consequences of each action or event are magnified. If the consequences are widespread that, by definition, makes them more impactful. Anyway, feel free to use this. Hope you like it.

[@WallyDM]

Oh wow! This is definitely really cool how you connected everything together. I may have to plan something like this in the future. Well done! I appreciate the time you put into this amazing comment!

[@VICT0RLAZL0]

Thank you 👍

[@WallyDM]

You bet!

[@tomtcom]

This sounds awesome, I might use this but I'm thinking of changing the cards to tarot cards since they have suits as well

[@WallyDM]

That's a great idea! Tarot cards would definitely add some cool flavor to it! I think I may need to get a set myself, maybe build a puzzle around tarot cards... hmmm.

[@bearhall4919]

You are a clever kat.

[@WallyDM]

Thanx! I try. :)

[@dmstretch6634]

I'm thinking that if they feed the wrong card into the flame, the PC gets covered in flame and takes fire damage, what you think?

[@WallyDM]

Absolutely. Feeding it the wrong card would be like pouring gasoline on an open flame. I dig it. Thank you for leaving a comment with your thoughts and ideas! :)

[@timrusk1916]

One way to add additional attempts would be to make all the cards face cards. Then if they throw the wrong card in the wrong flame the card burns away but spawns an aminatwd king, queen or jack. When they are defeated they turn back into cards. Additionally you could make it so the animated cards have to be defeated in the right order if you wanted to make it much more difficult

[@Raezeman]

i like it, but the concept is similar to your graves puzzle, which thematically, i enjoy more :)

[@WallyDM]

Yeah, the Graveyard Tombstones is one of my most popular puzzles and one of my favorites. and, you are correct, this one is very similar to it. I think I created this puzzle to use in an abandoned casino along with the Chamber of Tymora.

[@MarvelX42]

Okay, so what is going to happen is that the players are going to think the Kings right or MY right? Being as the King is facing the player the Kings right would be your left. The King has to be replaced by something else.

[@MarvelX42]

Also I am not going to go through and try to figure out how to work it if it means the Kings right. lol

[@WallyDM]

Ah, you know I never even thought of it that way... dang, good point!

[@WallyDM]

I am hoping my players would solve this similar to what I did here... but no worries, I will be watching them. If they figure it out a different way that makes sense, I'm cool with that too. :)

[@xMEanimations]

If you pay attention it really takes a few seconds to solve. I prefer giving my players more time to play, rather than me describing everything for the majority of the time. I think it works better if you play with a younger group of players, though.

[@flint9759]

i recently made my own really easy puzzle the players are in a situation where the walls are closing in around them a voice says, "take care or shall have your final breath soon you will discover the meaning of death" and a stairwell opens up, it the floor if the players investigate, or carefully walk down the stairwell, they shall reach the bottom if not, the stairwell, will temporarily disappear, for just enough time for them to fall through upon walking down the stairwell, or investigating it, they roll a percent dial, this is just to distract the player, it doesnt change the puzzle itself 1-80 nothing 81-100 they trip and fall, taking 0 damage when looking at the stairwell, via investigation OR perception; if no one has fallen, it is a normal stairwell, leading down to an exit if someone has fallen, it is a normal stairwell, no hole, no traps, just a normal stairwell leading to an exit if someone uses detect magic on it, tell them "its an illusion", and if you want to give them more details, tell them that "the stairwell is an illusion that is solid, except for when someone is being careless, then it disappears" when someone falls, they find them self in the rewrite history puzzle, or anything else you choose, as long as it fits with your campaign

[@WallyDM]

Very interesting... I dig it! When you run this in your game, be sure to let me know how it turns out. :)

[@flint9759]

i actually already did it, 2 people fell, the other 5 actually listened its a test of patience and listening i did it strait after my variant of the dragon arrows puzzle, as 1 of the heads was in the centre room, and thankfully they did it last

[@WallyDM]

lol. well... that's over a 70% success rate. Not too bad! :)

[@zacharyesplin9292]

Could you use all 4 of the card type of would that mess any thing up

[@WallyDM]

I think so Zachary... but we would need to alter the formula a bit. Since this is a logic puzzle at the core, we would need to ensure that all of the clues match up. Would you like me to come up with a similar puzzle that would include one of each suit?

[@russelladamt]

There is one detail not listed (prior to the solution): There will be only 1 of each suit and value. Otherwise great puzzle

[@WallyDM]

Thank you for commenting on my puzzle video. I'm glad you liked it! :)

[@HundredYearsBoar]

Doing it 😎🐗

[@WallyDM]

Awwww yes!

[@johncameron1935]

Aaaaaaahh that's not a wet erase marker thats just a marker! Is this disposable graph paper?

[@WallyDM]

Hi John! Thank you for the comment. This is my Chessex Battlemat that I purchased in the 1990s. I found that the absolute best markers to use with it are the Crayola Washables. I've been using them on this mat for years and they are amazing. Here is the video I did on it if you want to take a gander: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZeVhq2Xo55maMk

[@johncameron1935]

Wally D.M. oh, alright. If it works then thats great. And I have one of these so I'll try crayola washables too. As for the puzzle, I'd make this the final trial to obtain a deck of many things. If you fail the puzzle, the person that fed the wrong card in has to draw one card.

[@WallyDM]

Oooh, man. I really like that idea John! I have never used the Deck of Many Things in my game before and I think this idea will be the perfect build up for it. Thank you! And yes, definitely get the Crayola Washables for your Battlemat! Makes everything much easier! :)

[@johncameron1935]

Wally D.M. a few more card based encounters beforehand might be milked out of the setup, like air elementals with cards whipping about in them for extra damage or something, might be cool. If you make a couple puzzles that all have the "draw one card" fail condition, and then have them all happen at once at the end when the deck finally comes out, then you get instant hilarity.

[@WallyDM]

I definitely like where you are going with this... Sounds like an amazing night of gaming! Lots to think about here... Spoiler Alert... I actually have another playing card puzzle that I am editing... hoping to release it in February. It should fit in with this plan nicely. :)

[@lisaboudreau5390]

Great puzzle but my players would never get it.

[@WallyDM]

It can definitely be a bit tricky, for sure. Thank you for watching and commenting!

[@lisaboudreau5390]

Oh I love your videos. Very interesting ideas. I've only been Dming for a year and writing just recently. I've used a few of your traps now!

[@WallyDM]

Fantastic! I am glad that you have been able to use some of the ideas in your games. :)