Finding high-quality printable D&D puzzles for your tabletop is not easy. Sure, there are a few D&D puzzles in the official material but we blazed through that in a month. So what’s a puzzle lover to do?
What you need is a collection of hundreds of richly illustrated puzzles for your D&D game that you can just print and play. And we’ve got just the thing for you!
The Puzzle Bundle is the largest collection of Illustrated Printable Puzzles in the World. Not only do you get hundreds of illustrated puzzles. Some of the puzzle packs in this bundle are also puzzle systems that allow you to quickly build an infinite amount of new puzzles.
And with ‘quick’ we mean that you can simply create a puzzle on the fly during your game when you need one. Here’s an example:
Use Printable Puzzles to Create D&D Puzzles on the Fly
One of the puzzles packs that contains both premade printable puzzles and the means to create your own is Dungeon Puzzles. With this puzzle, you print 4 by 4-inch dungeon tiles.
In the premade version players are given a scrambled map of a dungeon. They must recreate the map with the printed dungeon tiles and then, rotate those pieces in their place to make sure all pieces align.
So a scrambled map would look like this:
Once they’ve rotated all the pieces you get a dungeon with connecting corridors that you can immediately drop your tokens on to start playing. So it’s both a puzzle AND a dungeon map. Clever huh?
Here’s what a part of a solved dungeon puzzle looks like:
But what about using these printable pieces for creating puzzles on the fly? Well, you can lay out any dungeon design you want with these pieces. And once you are done, just rotate them in their place and your puzzle is ready to be solved. It is THAT easy!
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We tested these and they work great. And we also use these puzzle pieces as a printed card deck for generating random dungeons.
Using Printable D&D Puzzles for Immersion
In D&D we do a lot in the theatre of the mind. But it can be taxing for DMs to constantly have to use narration to paint a picture. The only physical material DMs usually have at their disposal to build the world are:
- Maps
- Tokens and terrain
- Props
But with printable puzzles, you get a fourth way to engage your players with physical material. Full-color richly illustrated printed puzzles that players can touch and manipulate draw them deeper into your campaign world. We often just introduce the puzzle and sit back while the players enjoy themselves.
The puzzles in the Puzzle Bundle have all been designed to add something unique to your campaign world. And at the same time, they are versatile enough to be used in any campaign. There are puzzles in this pack that simply lock a door, but also ones that provide you with a whole system for creating magic items (if you choose to use them that way). And each puzzle pack comes with a printable instruction manual and suggestions for play. And if you do choose to run your games on a virtual tabletop the packs also come with pieces for that.
You can check out the Puzzle Bundle in our webshop.
Other Printable Puzzles for D&D
These are just two examples of printable puzzles. But let me show you a few other puzzles included in the puzzle bundle that you can print and play.
Potion Puzzles
Potion Puzzles took us by surprise. We were expecting a series of simple potion themed puzzles. What we got was a puzzle system that can also double as a complete system for creating magical items in your world. But you don’t have to. Potion Puzzles gives you all the creative control as a DM while adding a massive amount of flavour.
Collecting ingredients, finding potion formulas, and brewing perfumes, dyes, polishes, inks, and of course potions are all a part of solving the puzzle. You can sprinkle ingredients and formulas throughout your campaign. When your players manage to solve the puzzle, create their very own potion and use it, it’s much more significant to the story.
Magical inks can be used for scrolls, dyes for creating magical robes and so on. In short, we got more with this potion puzzles then we thought possible with such an elegant system.
Lock Puzzles
Lock Puzzles can be placed onto doors, ancient tomes, chests, and anything else you wish to secure really. The system is brilliantly easy to use and set up.
The pack comes with nine basic puzzles that each have three pieces. If you wish to create an easy challenge, just place one basic puzzle on a door. But start combining these basic puzzles, and they become increasingly difficult to solve. For intstance, if you place all nine puzzles on the same door the average group might spend about half an hour solving the puzzle. Place a single basic puzzle on a door and they’ll solve it in seconds. Oh, did we mention there are over 500 ways to combine these nine basic puzzles? So don’t worry about replay value! Door puzzles comes in printable and VTT format.
Door Puzzles
Door Puzzles can be placed onto any door to instantly change it into a challenging puzzle. You simply pick a puzzle from the stack of 20 premade setups, hand your players the key pieces and sit back while they solve the challenge. Of all the puzzles we’ve seen this one is among the easiest for DMs to setup. Door puzzles comes in printable and VTT format.
The rules are simple. Each puzzle door has a grid and a number of pegs. Players must place the key pieces over the pegs to fill out the grid. Sounds simple enough right? But the hard part is that players get ALL the key pieces to choose from. And selecting the right combination requires a lot of logical reasoning.
We found door puzzles has a nice flow of discoveries. And players can work at solving it simultaneously. You can also view this puzzle from all sides which comes in very handy if your players are sitting around the table. Finally, you can create your own puzzles with this system. So you can create an infinite amount of puzzles if you wish.
All the mentioned puzzles and many more are in the Puzzle Bundle. So be sure to check it out!
Dark Ulf is the founder and editor of DNDpuzzles.com. When not writing for DNDpuzzles he travels the multiverse and destroys demons with a crossbow in one hand and a crossword in the other.
We hope this site inspires you to put more puzzles into your D&D games.