Room of Levers

This is a fairly simple obstacle that can be inserted into a variety of locations. It consists of a room with a number of levers which have to be operated together to make the room move to allow access to another level.

The room

This stone room is a square 15ft foot wide. A set of metal double doors open into the room. The doors are attached to the walls of the corrdor outside rather than the walls of the room. The walls of the room are featureless apart from an alcove to the left of the doors which is not visible from outside the room. Inside the alcove are a number of metal levers. The broken remains of flattened gear and crushed bones litter the floor which appears to be made from a single piece of stone.

The Levers

Each lever appears to have 3 potential positions. Up, down, or middle.

All the levers are in the middle position when the room is first entered.

Each lever has labels for the up and down positions.

The levers are quite stiff and require 15lbs of force to move (so no mage hand)

The levers are locked in position when the doors are open.

One hour after the last lever was pulled, the room will reset itself and all the levers will return to the middle position.

The levers are marked with (up/down)

Start/End
Go/Stop
Increase/decrease
Up/down
Raise/lower

Effect of Levers

The room resets itself 1 hour after the last lever was pulled, which is the safest way for those in the room to exit. Until the room has reset, or has been returned to it's original position using the levers, the doors will not open.

Clues

There should be enough time between the worst effects of the room to allow a group to experiment with the levers. IF a group does need a few hints about the levers then the following can be found amongst the remains.

Single levers don't work so it must be a combination. Why didn't anyone write down the combination needed!

Well that didn't work. The two positions are definitely not opposites, but I think I am starting to see what went wrong last time

Up is definitely a bad idea. They must have used that one to clean the room.

This was written for the Riddle me this challenge

Entry Mechanism

This was designed as a way to control access to a different floor. The intention was for it to be fairly easy for someone who know how to use the levers, but risky for intruders.

When to use

This works best with parties that don't yet have options for bypassing the entire room. More powerful groups may go looking for a power source or mechanisms by destroying the walls. While this can negate the puzzle it can also be an opportunity to have them burn through limited use powers or to show that breaking a mechanisms means you can't go any further.

Locked in

Since the room resets itself it is possible that somone could get trapped on the other floor. You could include a call button for bringing the room back down or just place a warning sign about the time limit on the other floor.

Reduced Version

My original version of this had several more levers to apply spells like enlarge/reduce. This reduced version was created to be a bit more flexible as the effects could be created magically or mechanically.