Bashing Doors Open

[cadriel]

This is from my blog. (Full post here.) I thought it was worth bringing up on this board for discussion.

In The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, it says:

Generally, doors will not open by turning the handle or by a push. Doors must be forced open by strength, a roll of 1 or 2 indicating the door opens, although smaller and lighter characters may be required to roll a 1 to open doors. There can be up to three characters attempting to force open a door, but this will disallow them rapid reaction to anything awaiting them on the other side.

Philotomy noted, I think wisely, that this makes the dungeon a bit more of a weird, underworld-ish environment. The problem is, in everything I run lately, players seem to have fantastically bad luck at this roll. Three PCs will sit there for two or three goes each before someone finally gets the door open, having made a ton of racket in so doing. Which makes their lives harder strategically, and I'm fine with that, but the actual act of bashing open doors gets a bit tedious and can slow down play.

I'm thinking of a variant rule where you roll a d6, and the number you rolled gives you the number of tries it takes you to open the door, with a 6 indicating that you are totally unsuccessful and need to make further attempts. A 1 or 2 will not give monsters around a general alert and will still require the monsters to roll surprise, while a 3, 4, or 5 will not allow a surprise roll and should draw an extra wandering monster check. This would keep the original rule's spirit in tact while not letting the game get stuck in a loop where the referee says "come on, roll a 1 or 2 already."

What do folks think of that variant?

[scottenkainen]

I'll usually give a +1 bonus to each subsequent roll, so you'd need a 3 in 6 on the second round of bashing, 4 in 6 on the third round of bashing, with the assumption being that you're weakening the door. But your rule would work too.

My first experience with an Old School DM included, what I still feel, to be a rather odd interpretation of the doors rule. Since monsters don't roll for opening doors, he interpreted this as meaning that dungeon doors magically open for any monsters, even animals. I suppose, in one way, it makes sense for explaining how dungeons aren't filled with animals starving in closed rooms, but it still feels very weird to me.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[talysman]

I use the die roll as the chance of breaking down a door with one try. If that doesn't work, it takes longer, but doesn't require a die roll. I base that on a later quote from U&WA, pp 31-32 in the naval combat section:

Breaking down doors, chopping through walls or decks or cutting rigging should be set by the referee with an eye towards the players individual size and strength within any guidelines set down in these rules. So for instance when a giant attacks the door on a standard ship it will probably only cost him half his movement points while it would take ten men an entire turn to break it down.

I think an entire ten-minute turn is too long for ten men to bash down a door (presumably using a battering ram, since there otherwise wouldn't be room for all of them to bash the door individually.) So that must mean a combat turn (round) of one minute; they wouldn't be able to do anything else that round, whereas a giant could bash down the door and attack, but not move as well. From that, I would set the time for two men to bash down a door at five rounds, and one man could do it in ten rounds. I use 5+ on 1d6 instead of 1-2 on 1d6 (same diff,) so I just go with:

- on 5+, the door breaks down on a single try
- on 1-4, double the die roll and add 1 to get the number of rounds
- add +1 per extra guy involve (max +2)

[Porphyre]

Roll d6.
Exceptional Strength (15+) gives +1, weaklings and hobbits get -1. +1 per other people helping (up to +2)

5-6: door opens immediately
3-4: door opens at third/fourth try. Any chance of surprise is lost.
2-1: door remains shut after one full exploration turn of trying. Check for wandering monsters.

You can try again next exploration turn if you survived any encounter.

[Deleted]

It takes so little time to roll I never worried about it.

We reached the point where if the door didn't open on the first hit, we'd run away and go in a different direction, because hitting the door five or six times is suicidal.

I keep playing it this way because it adds an interesting decision to the game. Once the players start saying "F*ck it, move on to a different door," the game of exploration acquires a really interesting texture.

[talysman]

Incidentally, I changed my mind on the +1 per person, switching to +1 every time the manpower doubles (rounding up.) My reasoning is that you get this progression:

1 person = base roll
2 people = +1
up to 4 = +2
up to 8 = +3
9 or more = +4

A d6+4 roll will always equal or exceed the target number of 5, so this matches the example of ten men breaking down a door in one round without a roll.

[busman]

Once the players start saying "F*ck it, move on to a different door," the game of exploration acquires a really interesting texture.

Love this. Totally agreed. Gaps in the map, paranoia about the unexplored area, etc.

And goes back to the idea that not all challenges are to be overcome on the spot. Discretion and all that.

[Zenopus]

That sounds like this warning in Holmes Basic:

"Of course, if the party has to hit the door several time's [sic] before getting their roll of 1 or 2, there is no possibility of surprising the occupants of the room."

I don't see this note in Vol 3 of the LBBs, so I'm assuming Holmes added it as a clarification.


If you are looking to improve the odds in the dungeon, then you'd always want to maximum your opportunity for surprise. Thus as Gronan suggests you should always move along if you don't smash through on your first attempt.