RuneScoop.com - Challenge (Puzzle) Rooms

Located randomly within the dungeons of Daemonheim are special rooms with doors that cannot be opened the usual way. These challenge rooms contain content that will test your combat prowess, your non-combat skills, or possibly even your brainpower. Also often called puzzle rooms, the doors leading from these rooms will not open until the test they contain has been passed.

These rooms are infrequently encountered; I have no hard data, but if forced to come up with a number I’d say 1 in 10 rooms are challenge rooms. That said, like everything else in Daemonheim, they are generated randomly, so it is also possible to get quite a few. I’ve even seen dungeons with identical puzzle rooms adjacent to each other, connected by a door. Note, however, that they are not found in dungeon floors with a complexity level below 5.

One of the more confusing aspects of challenge rooms is that they don’t have formal names established by Jagex. In some cases you get a hint as to what to call them, such as that provided by the progress bar in “Follow the Leader”. Mostly, though, people just make up descriptive names, as I have done.

The rooms themselves also do not have any consistent way of announcing themselves. Some challenge rooms are immediately apparent because of a strange room shape on the minimap, or unique items within the room. With others, you’ll only realize you are in a challenge room when you try to open a door and are unable to!

Many of the challenges have specific skill level requirements in order to do them. These are randomly generated based on the overall skill levels of the team, but can exceed the highest level that any teammate has, even going above 99. In these cases, it is necessary to use a boosting potion to solve the challenge, though it is possible for players to find puzzles where even a potion won’t be enough to let them be completed.

Relevant tools are also needed for some challenges, such as a fishing rod to catch fish for the ferret pressure pad puzzle. Some puzzles require use of a chisel, which is always provided on the floor of the room (since there’s no other way to get one).

Having one member of the party carry a complement of tools can save time, especially in large dungeons where multiple challenge rooms are likely.

Most of the challenges aren’t really that challenging, especially once you have seen them a few times. They just take little time and effort to complete.

Some puzzles, though, can be quite hard. One good example of this is the timed toxin maze, where you have to find your way through a tight maze to the center while a timer ticks down; you get poisoned if you don’t make it in time, and that poison can add up. There’s also a challenge that requires you to fend off mysterious shades that spawn in the room, which can be very tough in some cases.

There are some challenges that require fast timing, which can make them quite challenging for those playing on high-latency connections.

Most challenges have the potential to cause damage to players. Combat-related challenges of course involve damage done by monsters, but even skill-related puzzles can hurt players. Usually the latter type involve silly “accidents” where you somehow manage to do 500 LP of damage to yourself with a pickaxe or something.

Some challenges are the same for solo players as they are for teams. In these cases, it is usually best to have one player do the challenge while others concentrate on clearing other rooms.

Some challenges require the entire team, though, or at least a number of players equal to the difficulty setting of the level. The most notorious of these is “Follow the Leader”, which cannot be solved with fewer players than the floor’s difficulty rating. This means if you do a 5:5 floor, and one person leaves, if you get a “Follow the Leader” room on the critical path, the dungeon cannot be completed.

There are also a few challenges that are easier or faster to do with a team, because players can work cooperatively. One example here is the chessboard statue pattern challenge, where four players can each take one statue to speed things up. On the other hand, combat challenges like the monstrous monolith can become very difficult in large teams.

After you encounter a puzzle room on a floor, you can talk to the smuggler in the starting room, who apparently will give you very basic hints about how to solve the room. Of course, since you’re reading the Ultimate Guide to Dungeoneering, you don’t need this anyway. :)

Table 55 contains a listing of all of the challenge/puzzle rooms in Daemonheim, along with a summary of how the challenge is resolved, data about requirements, and essential ratings. Most of this information is excerpted from the full challenge room descriptions. Note that the difficulty and time required for a puzzle can increase greatly if nobody in the team has the necessary level to complete it without using a potion...

**Table 55: Dungeoneering Challenge Rooms (Quick Reference)**
Informal Name	Skill Requirements	Tool Requirements	Overall Difficulty	Danger Level	Time Required	Number of Team Members Required	Summary of Challenge Solution
Agility Obstacles	Agility	--	Low to moderate	Low to moderate	Low	1	Navigate a series of Agility obstacles, including contortion bars and a rotating blade, to open one-way doors permitting quick access to the exit doors.
Catch the Ferret	Hunter, Woodcutting	Hatchet and knife	Moderate	Low	Low to moderate	1	Cut special “dry branches” and use them to fletch simple traps. Position the traps near escape holes and chase the ferret into one of the traps, then pick up the trap to cause a crystal around its neck to be destroyed and the doors unlocked. Alternately, try to catch the ferret bare-handed.
Collapsing Tunnels	Mining, Construction?	Pickaxe	Low	Moderate to high	Low to moderate	1	Use a pickaxe to clear fallen rubble and then reinforce support struts to make corridors safe for travel.
Colored Light Synchronization	Magic	--	Low	None	Low	1	Synchronize the timing of four colored lights by moving on and off pressure pads that cause their movement to pause.
Enigmatic Hoardstalker / Riddler	--	--	Low	Low	Low	1	Ask the Enigmatic Hoardstalker for a riddle, then give him the item from the room corresponding to the clue he gives you.
Ferret, Fish and Pressure Pad	Fishing, Cooking?, Ranged	Fly fishing rod and feathers	Low	Low	Moderate	1	Catch “smelly” fish from a special fishing spot, cook them, and toss them onto a square grid to entice a ferret to move from its starting point to a pressure pad, without causing the ferret to move over any squares with holes that let it escape into the water.
Fill the Barrel	Strength, Construction	--	Moderate	None	Moderate	1	Push your way into a barrel-filled room, repair a special water barrel, then move it around so it fills with water; then push it onto a pressure plate to unlock the doors.
Five Pairs of Combat Triangle Opponents	Mining, Crafting	Chisel (provided), pickaxe and hammer	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	1	Mine stone blocks from a crumbling wall, then carve weapons to equip five statues with the styles that defeat the combat styles of their opponents.
Fremennik Scout	Cooking, Fletching and Smithing	Hammer and knife (can be provided)	Low	None	Low	1	Help the NPC Fremennik setting up a base by fletching some bows, making some battleaxes and cooking some fish.
Follow the Leader (Mime Statues)	--	--	Low	Low	Low	Equal to difficulty level setting	Stand on the pressure pad and duplicate three emotes made by a statute.
Ice Floor	--	--	Moderate	None	Moderate	1	Slip and slide across an icy floor to reach four pressure pads placed in various locations.
“Lights Out” Tile Puzzle	Runecrafting	--	Low	Low	Low	1	Flip all of the tiles in a 5x5 grid to the same color by using a particular pattern to flip multiple tiles at once, or forcing the tiles to change (and taking damage).
Magical Construct	Magic, Crafting and Runecrafting	Chisel (provided) and hammer	Low	Low	Low	1	Take a magical rock from the crate, carve it into the shape of a missing body part on a stone construct, imbue it with energy, and then repair the construct. Then activate the construct so it opens walls blocking access to other doors in the room.
Monstrous Monolith	--	--	Moderate to high	Moderate to high	Moderate to high	1, but ful team recommended	Protect a monolith against attacks by mysterious shades as it charges in power, by drawing those attacks onto yourself and your teammates.
Power Crystal, Gaps and Guardian Sphere	Agility?	Power crystal (provided)	Moderate	Low to moderate	Moderate	1	Carrying a power crystal, jump across gaps between pillars to reach a central platform where a lodestone must be activated to open the doors, all while evading a pursuing guardian sphere.
Seeker Sentinel and Seeker Spawn Stealth	--	--	Low to moderate	Low	Low	All who navigate the room	Sneak past sentinels guarding the room by waiting until the central sentinel is looking away, and then subduing the spawn in each corner.
Sequential Ghosts	--	--	Low	Low	Low to moderate	1	Kill all of the ghosts in the room one at a time, by watching a moving spirit/vapor to determine which ghost is vulnerable to attack.
Sleeping Guards	--	--	Low to moderate	Low to moderate	Low	1	Get the keys to the doors in the room either by stealth or brute force.
Speed Switches	--	--	Low	Low to moderate	Low	Roughly equal to difficulty level setting	Flip all of the switches before the timer expires.
Statue-Chessboard Pattern Duplication	--	--	Low	None	Moderate	1	Examine the patterns made by four statues in each of two square chessboard areas, then push four statues in two other chessboard squares into the same positions.
Suspicious Grooves	--	--	Low	Moderate to high	Low	1	Navigate through three rows of spiked squares, finding the safe path by trial and error.
Timed Toxin Maze	--	--	High	Moderate to high	Moderate to high	1	Find the path to the center of a tricky maze before the timer expires; take poison damage from the expiration of the timer until the maze is completed.
Warrior, Ranger and Mage Triangle	Mining, Crafting	Chisel (provided), pickaxe and hammer	Low	Low to moderate	Low	1	Identify which of the mage, ranger or warrior statues is missing its weapone, then carve it from a block and complete the statue.

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