TOPIC: Sable Gauntlet Room 1 - How to solve it?

joshua baessler wrote: This is what I wanted to do! It would have taken longer but building a ramp would have been so cool!

My Thursday group, which I ran with three people that help build TD throughout the year, tried that method. None of them had worked on that particular puzzle but had known that was supposed to be the accepted solution.

We tried like hell but couldn't get a stable bridge built in the time allotted.

Second group through we just supported the sphere with several sticks while a few people blocked it from rolling and then turned the entire group around. That was MUCH easier.

I'll throw in a response too since I don'the see our groups method mentioned. There was a rod that had a hook hanging by a chain, the center of the group held that. Everyone except the outside people threaded the long rod through the hook, forming a cradle on the other side of the hook. The people on the ends held the ball on the sides, and the hook helped hold the center people together so that the person with the hook easily directed them as a group.

The official way to solve it was to build some sort of sling with the items on the table, hook it to the poles, then use the pole with the hook on it to lift the back of the slider and roll the ball into it, then carry it over. I hear very few (if any) parties did it that way.

On my first time through we were going to just use a bunch of sticks to keep it up in the air, but our Bard said they had tried that before and it was impossible. Then we discussed building some sort of ramp for it to roll down but I think that never would have worked.

I was VERY impressed when I watched MasterEd do it by himself. He took two flag poles and stuck three of the short stick into each flag, ending up like a big set of tongs. Then he basically lifted up the ball and moved it across. The other two of us (this was our 3-man nightmare run) just used one stick to try to steady the ball, but I'm not sure if we made any difference.

PS - the shackles were a nice touch

As one of the DMs for this room, I'll say this:

It was wonderful to watch how different people approached this puzzle. I didn't feel there was any 'Right' way to do it. I saw people build 'webs' to catch it in, baskets, tongs, partial small 'ladder' which was then moved over, and so on. Primarily people did a 'chopsticks' method.

The 'fastest' groups generally had one (or more) of these factors:
1. A leader who directed the others very cohesively to be sure all sides of the ball were supported
2. Figured out some way to keep all of the sticks moving together (usually by using other objects to join them to create some kind of support basket/tee-pee).
3. Didn't rush or panic
4. Didn't spend 75% of the time talking about it before trying something (this was the biggest issue, and I often tried to remind people of the short time limit).
5. Realized ramp wouldn't work quickly and moved to another tactic

I never saw any full-Ramp idea function: there wasn't enough time to figure out how to support it while staying far enough away, plus the shackles were a big problem with trying to spread the party out.

As a side note, I think in this room, the Rogue box was often a serious time sink (due to shackles). Usually when the Rogue was doing the box and the rest of the team waited, I suggested they at least might want to strategize...

quip wrote:

Jeff321 wrote: I heard someo. soloed it using just 4 sticks to grab it.

That was me. (We need a super cheesy grin emote)

TJRat came up with the great idea for one of our Team Yeti runs.
I figured I'd have to take push damage for the room, but attempted to modify TJRat's solution and succeeded.
Thanks TJ!

I'll never forget the excitement when it started to work, and when I managed to get it in place on the
other spider. I was jumping up and down with joy!

mmm

Thanks for the shoutout Quip, but daBear came up with the idea - it's great having an Eagle Scout Master around!

This type of puzzle is the best - teamwork, creativity and multiple success paths.

Had some time to talk with DM after we solved the puzzle. He said that the poles were initially created (with the positive/negative magnetic ends) to fabricate a ramp for the orb to roll down. However he said that when creating the poles, they realized it would take too long and need many more supports to create the ramp. Cool idea though. The letters-web/floor puzzle was the best in my opinion. Had a great group and was my first time for TD. Awesome time!

TJRat wrote:

quip wrote:

Jeff321 wrote: I heard someo. soloed it using just 4 sticks to grab it.

That was me. (We need a super cheesy grin emote)

TJRat came up with the great idea for one of our Team Yeti runs.
I figured I'd have to take push damage for the room, but attempted to modify TJRat's solution and succeeded.
Thanks TJ!

I'll never forget the excitement when it started to work, and when I managed to get it in place on the
other spider. I was jumping up and down with joy!

Thanks for the shoutout Quip, but daBear came up with the idea - it's great having an Eagle Scout Master around!

Oops, my apologies to daBear. I thought since you brought it up with me, it was your idea. Thanks Wilabear!

Dave Autzen wrote: When I ran though it, we all took one of the longer poles, and sort of grabbed the ball with all of them, then turned in a circle and dropped it onto the 2nd spider.

Took a LOT of coordination, but we succeeded. On my puzzle run, we did drop it once so everyone got hit for 3. My combat run, we managed to not drop it. So we had about 5 minutes to just chat with the Drow DM.

I was on that run, it wasn't till i did 2 more pickup runs that i realized how many people/groups had trouble with this puzzle.

Kirk Bauer wrote: The official way to solve it was to build some sort of sling with the items on the table, hook it to the poles, then use the pole with the hook on it to lift the back of the slider and roll the ball into it, then carry it over. I hear very few (if any) parties did it that way.

On my first time through we were going to just use a bunch of sticks to keep it up in the air, but our Bard said they had tried that before and it was impossible. Then we discussed building some sort of ramp for it to roll down but I think that never would have worked.

I was VERY impressed when I watched MasterEd do it by himself. He took two flag poles and stuck three of the short stick into each flag, ending up like a big set of tongs. Then he basically lifted up the ball and moved it across. The other two of us (this was our 3-man nightmare run) just used one stick to try to steady the ball, but I'm not sure if we made any difference.

PS - the shackles were a nice touch

My first group did the surround and stabilize method and were successful.

I used MasterEd's method on the other runs I did of this when time was running short and or it was the last attempt to get the ball in place. It was fairly easy to do even with just one if you tonged the ball right (and the group kept out of the way).

I heard of one group, a lady took her overshirt off (she had another under it) and put two poles through it making a nest and they used that to carry the ball over to the other side. Cool use of attire!