Is a puzzle box considered locked?

Question

As part of some treasure the party I am in found, we found a puzzle box. I am a wizard, and I wanted to use the spell Knock to open it. Knock says:

Choose an object that you can see within range. The object can be a door, a box, a chest, a set of Manacles, a padlock, or another object that contains a mundane or magical means that prevents access.

A target that is held shut by a mundane lock or that is stuck or barred becomes unlocked, unstuck, or unbarred. If the object has multiple locks, only one of them is unlocked.

(emphasis mine). None of my party rolled high enough on an Investigation check to manage to open the box, and I said I wanted to cast Knock to open it. My rationale was that each step of the puzzle was a lock, and if I casted Knock enough times, it would open the puzzle box.

However, my DM said that the puzzle box isn't technically "locked". My thought was that since Knock will unstick or unbar doors, the item doesn't need to be technically locked with a physical lock, it just needs to prevent us from opening it. I did not want to fight about it, so I dropped it, but I was curious if there is an official ruling. However, I did read this post and I'm not sure if the top answer agrees or disagrees with my specific situation.

So, can Knock open a puzzle box? If so, would it take one casting total, or one casting for each step of the puzzle?

Update: I really appreciate the discussion on various types of puzzle boxes and I think it is really stimulating. HOWEVER, I think I was not specific enough with my description of this puzzle box. The puzzle box was described to us with a lot of clarifications: it is similar to a Japanese puzzle box (himitsu-bako) where it contains switches/levers/ moving pieces of whatever type. Moving one piece allows the next piece to be moved, and so on, until presumably the last piece, which blocks the lid from opening, is moved.

Answer 1

"A mundane or magical means of preventing access"

The rationale your DM used was that the puzzle box is not 'locked'. However, nowhere in the description of Knock does it specifically say that it works on locks.

This is because, as per the quoted section, it undoes any means (mundane or magical) of preventing access, and the fact that it later mentions only 'unlocked, unstuck, or unbarred' is clearly not intended to be limiting, since it later only references unlocking. If it were providing limitations, you would have to rule that a door with both a bar and a lock would be immune to Knock, since the last sentence only addresses locks, which would be rather silly.

It also seems that it would only require one casting to unlock the entire puzzle box, large interconnected system or not. After all, you don't need to cast the spell for each tumbler in a lock, and even extraordinarily complicated locks (some of them get truly devilish) can be undone easily with this spell. Since complexity and number of moving parts isn't an issue, Knock would therefore have to undo the entire puzzle box at once.

Now, if you had a puzzle box with 6 sides, and each one had a separate mechanism, or if there were multiple boxes inside each other, it would require multiple castings, but it does not sound like this resembles your situation.

Answer 2

RAW, Knock should not be able to open all puzzle boxes. For ones that can be considered "locked" and can be opened by Knock, I would rule a single casting is sufficient.

RAW, I would argue that the Knock spell only opens something that is

held shut by a mundane lock or that is stuck or barred

or is

held shut with arcane lock

The first paragraph of the spell describes which objects can be targeted. It does not say anything about what kinds of "means that prevent access" can actually be bypassed by the spell, only what the criteria are for targeting.

The second paragraph describes what action the spell takes against the "means", and this is very specific. I would rule that this spell does only what it says, no more. If a puzzle box has something that can be described as a locking mechanism, then I would allow the spell to open it. If however the box is not locked in any way, just cleverly crafted so that when you pull it a certain way, it falls to pieces, was it "locked"? Did you "open" it? Or did you discover a secret compartment in the middle of a block of wood? There's room for interpretation here.

Try working through these test cases: Would the Knock spell

• open a secret door that has a hidden latch that you can't find?
• open an ordinary door that has a door knob that you just didn't bother to turn? Is that a "mundane or magical means that prevents access"? If the door knob doesn't "prevent access", then how is a secret catch different, except that you don't know how to use it. Seems like that would require a divination spell, rather than a transmutation one...

For the sake of consistency, ease of implementation, and frankly my own sanity, I would rule that secret catches and similar mechanisms are not technically "locks" for the purposes of the Knock spell. They are simply hidden doorknobs. Some types of puzzle boxes would fall into this group, and those would have to be worked by other methods: ability, skill, or tool proficiency checks (maybe woodcarver's tools, or carpenter's tools, or Dexterity(Deception), or a straight-up Int check), research, divination spells, etc.

For the second part of the question, how many castings are required, again for consistency and to avoid absurdity, I would treat each movement of a puzzle box as a tumbler of a complex lock, and open them all with a single Knock spell. If knock doesn't open it on the first try, then you'll need to try something else.

Consider this: the spell doesn't tell you how many locks there are. How many Knock spells are you honestly going to throw at the ornately carved block of wood before you decide it's not really a box? Do you want all such scenarios to cause a marathon Knock-fest? This is what I mean when I talk about avoiding absurdity.

P.S. Try putting yourself in your DM's shoes for a minute. Making a ruling isn't just about rounding up some English majors and lawyers and dissecting the text of the spell's rule. The real compelling question from your DM's perspective here is: do they want puzzle boxes to be an interesting part of your game?

If they do, but any puzzle box can simply be popped open with a 2nd level spell, or even a series of 2nd level spells, then it will likely cease to be an interesting challenge element once the players have access to those spells, either because of their level or their wealth, which would be fairly early in most campaigns.

That may be fine for some campaigns, after all, higher level characters are supposed to make short work of things that are difficult or impossible for lesser mortals. It's part of the hero shtick.

But if you're a fan of these types of things and want them to remain a viable challenge even in the face of a spell like Knock, you might rule that the spell doesn't cover all of them. Which IMHO is fine as long as there are ways to figure out how to open the more problematic ones, and resources that can be gained to discover those ways. Or in the case of certain pivotal campaign McGuffins, a particular piece of information or circumstance along the heroes path that reveals the trick, just when having access to the box's contents would be the most interesting.

Answer 3

Maybe, maybe not. The DM needs to adjudicate the nature of the box's security mechanism(s).

As has been pointed out by Sanford Bassett's answer, the Knock spell works on things that are secured via a mundane or magical means. So, basically, almost anything.

It goes on to speak on the specific subset of things which are locked or barred or stuck that fall within the larger list of things that are secured via a mundane or magical means and says that these become unlocked, unbarred, or unstuck (unless the thing features more than one lock).

---

The issue, in my mind, is the exact nature of how the puzzle box is locked. This becomes the gray area that requires a DM to adjudicate. For example, consider the following two items that might be referred to as puzzle boxes:

A wooden box with seams reinforced by riveted metal. It has no obvious latches or levers but contains a riddle which, once solved, reveals that one of the rivets is, in fact, a concealed button. When pressed, the button unlatches the lid and allows access to the box's contents.

This puzzle box arguably has just one locking mechanism which is simply cleverly concealed. I personally would rule that Knock is capable of unlocking it.

Compare that box to one like this:

A wooden box with a series of knobs and toggles, each of which must be placed in the correct position to allow a corresponding latch contained within the lid to slide back and permit the box to be opened. If any one of them is not positioned correctly, it prevents its latch from sliding fully clear and allowing the lid to be opened.

Each of the knobs and toggles serves to function as a separate locking element since, if even just one is not in the correct alignment, the lid will not be openable. Could Knock, which is limited to opening just one lock at a time, affect every one of the sub mechanisms of this box at once? Or are they unique and separate locking mechanisms?

If the DM rules that they are all part of one very complex lock, then a single casting of Knock would open the box. But if the DM rules that each one is its own locking mechanism, then it would require multiple castings of Knock to bypass each locking component.

The bottom line, I think, is that the nature of the puzzle box will determine whether a single casting of Knock is sufficient for opening it and this requires a DM's interpretation/ruling.

Answer 4

The spell should probably work, but it does not have to do so under the RAW

A puzzle box is, indeed, a valid target for knock: it is a box. However, the spell does not necessarily affect its targets in any useful way. Let us take, as an example, a simple unlocked door. Reviewing the rules for knock:

A target that is held shut by a mundane lock or that is stuck or barred becomes unlocked, unstuck, or unbarred. If the object has multiple locks, only one of them is unlocked.

(emphasis mine)

The door is none of those things, so no effect applies here.

If you choose a target that is held shut with arcane lock, that spell is suppressed for 10 minutes, during which time the target can be opened and shut normally.

No arcane lock here.

When you cast the spell, a loud knock, audible from as far away as 300 feet, emanates from the target object.

This is the only part of the spell that occurs.

So, in this example case, even though the spell can target an unlocked unbarred not-stuck door, it doesn't make getting through that door any easier. A really heavy door, for example, might still be problematic to open, or a door with an unusual opening mechanism (like sliding rather than pivoting). The rules for the spell only provide mechanisms for dealing with locks, bars, and being stuck specifically.

That said, a puzzle box is generally composed of pieces that are stuck. While the DM can rule within the text that the pieces aren't really stuck since if you moved them the right way vis a vis being clever enough they could move freely, the same could generally be argued for regular stuck doors and being strong enough. Furthermore, the puzzle on a puzzle box is exactly the sort of limited mundane access prevention that knock is intended to bypass. Although it is textually possible to rule otherwise, knock should render a puzzle box openable (or open). If the DM wishes knock to not bypass a particular puzzle box for Reasons, they can always declare that it is subject to special magic that wards against such access or otherwise grant it special immunities-- there's little reason to decide to prohibit this use of the spell in general.

Answer 5

Sounds like it's Time to Metagame

Answers here have been argued both ways (that it IS or is NOT RAW). However what really matters is your story. It sounds to me like it's time to have an Out Of Character discussion with the DM (and possiblye other players) about what they are trying to accomplish.

Is the intent to be a fun RL puzzle to enhance the game? Well then solving it with a spell is going to suck all the fun out of that, and might be kind of frustrating for any of the other players who enjoy puzzles. Especially if your DM bought an actual physical puzzle box to be part of the treasure.

If this is the case I'd recommend coming up with some sort of reason why your wizard wouldn't even consider using the Knock spell. Maybe they consider it beneath them "I'm not going to waste a spell on a child's toy. Harumph!" or maybe the puzzle box is to fragile and there's a risk that using knock will break whatever is within.

On the other hand maybe the box is just there to be an obstacle for you all to overcome, in which case using knock to open it maybe should be allowed.

Ultimately it's enough of an edge case that really rather than focusing on RAW or RAI (since that won't provide a definitive answer) you should focus on what will be the most fun for your entire party (DM included!)