Today's addition is the house of thousand idols. The idea was to design a maze that is simple enough to crack for those so inclined and possible to brute-force in a non-tedious manner. My proposed solution is to use symmetric rooms with many passages and no corridors, and instead make the rooms multi-state. So the trick isn't really "do we find the way", but "do we find the right way".
To emphasize this theme, I put in slow but very deadly enemies that trigger if you don't follow the right way, and a cockatrice that can fly - and so have other movement options than the PCs - and has a petrifying attack that further limits movement.
The adventure will work best if the cockatrice is a beatable but formidable foe so that players prefer avoiding it. If they can easily kill it, the maze feel too static so in that case you might want to introduce some rival adventurers or a mother-cockatrice that arrives in 1d4 turns to maintain some urgency.
Can you explain a little more about the "safe" way to navigate the maze? (Also, is it that the two-color rooms combine both characteristics? Or that they're one way if you use the "safe" entrance and the other way if you don't?)
SvaraRaderaThe paths follow the phases of the moon in the northern hemisphere: first quarter - D - full - O - third - (I - and new - . - for the clockwise path, and opposite for the counterclockwise.
RaderaAbout the two-color rooms, the idea was to have them combining two characteristics (unsafe+path, path+tree, unsafe+tree). But I like the idea of them being different depending on entrance, so maybe that's how it should be.