"Just a Door?"
Not any more!
By Lenard Lakofka
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| Dragon | - | - | - | Dragon 53 |
An adventure has finally ended, with both
great loss and great
gain to the party. Most notably, Charlie
the fighter has become a
Lord (9th
level), Ponifax the cleric has become a High Priestess
(9th level) and Wizbangzap the magic-user
has become a Wizard (11th level). Suddenly all 3 PCs realize
that each is allowed to establish a headquarters
building. They
have already cleared the area they have
set aside for the structure and are ready to begin construction.
This article will deal with three aspects
of building a castle,
tower or temple:
1. Closures (i.e. doors, portcullises, drawbridges, etc.)
2. Magical traps and guards (Glyph of Warding,
Magic Mouth,
Wizard Lock, etc.)
3. Teleporters
Further, it will deal with the means of
encountering these
constructs and magics in the course of
an adventure.
Doors
The door to a farmer’s hut is not the
same as the door to the
treasure vault in an old dungeon. However,
Strength
Table II in
the AD&D™ Players Handbook
considers all doors in the same
way. If a figure with strength 16 shoulders
a door that is stuck,
he/she simply has a 50% chance to open
it (1-3 on d6).
I prefer to give the door a Counter Strength.
This is a number,
that measures the door’s ability to withstand
the physical
strength
of the character. If the character is stronger than the
door, he/she will always open it on the
1st try. If he/she is not,
then successive attempts must be made.
If the door is more than
3 points stronger than the character,
he/she cannot open it
by physical strength unless he/she is
willing to break the door
(or the bar, lock, etc. holding it shut).
Wooden door
A character’s chance of opening a stuck
or abnormally heavy
door depends on the difference between
the door strength and
the character’s physical strength.
If the difference is 3 or more in
favor of the door, the chance to open
the door (without breaking
it) per attempt is 0%;
a difference of 2 is a 30% chance;
a difference of 1 is a 65% chance;
if door strength and character strength
are equal, the chance is 85%,
and if the character strength is greater
than the strength of the stuck or heavy door, the chance is 100%.
Thus, if a door were rated as physical
strength 13 and a character of strength
11 shouldered it, he/she
would have a 30% chance per try to open
it. Successive attempts
would be allowed.
Stone door
What are the strengths of normal “stuck”
or heavy doors? The
following is a list of types of door,
listed according to what they
enclose and (sometimes) the condition
they are in, and the
usual strength factor of such a door:
Peasant’s
hut — usual strength 4-10 (2d4+2);
Ordinary shop, inn,
tavern — 3-12 (3d4);
Temple main door —
8-13 (d4+4);
Castle door to courtyard
— 9-15 (d6+8);
Dungeon door (good
repair) — 8-17 (3d4+5);
Dungeon door (warped
but firm) — 10-17 (d8+9);
Dungeon door (rotten)
— 3-10 (d8+2);
Treasure room — 12-19
(d8+11)
Iron door
Teamwork: Multiple figures can pool their
strengths. Use the
physical strength of the strongest figure
as the base. Add 1 point
to this for a figure that is 3 or more
points weaker, 2 points for a
figure that is 2 points weaker and 3 points
for a figure that is only
1 point weaker. Most doors can accommodate
only two pushers
at one time, but exceptions might occur.
Example: A treasure room
door is stuck (not locked) and has a
strength of 19. Two characters
wish to open it. One has a
strength of 17, the other
15. The base strength is 17. Add 2
because the helper is two
points weaker, for an effective combined strength of 19. Thus, the difference
in strengths is now 0,
and the two adventurers
have an 85% chance to open the stuck/
heavy door on the first
shot.
Naturally, doors might have bars, locks,
latches, hooks, etc.,
to strengthen them. Further, they might
be magically held or
wizard locked. It is still possible to
overcome these closures by
physical strength without having to bash
the door down. Add
the following strength factors to a door
that is secured in any of
the following ways:
Single wooden bar: 1-4 (d4);
Double wooden bar: 3-9 (2d4+1);
Single iron bar: 3-8 (d6+2);
Latch: 1-4 (d4);
Padlock: 3-10 (d8+2);
Bolt: 2-7 (d6+1);
Bolt and lock: 3-9 (2d4+1);
Hold Portal spell: 12 (constant);
Wizard
Lock: 12 (constant).
Other types of securing can be devised,
of course. If the above
treasure room door were barred and bolted
shut, the door would
have a strength of from 22 to 30! The
two figures we mentioned
could not budge it, since it is three
points stronger (at least) than
their effective total strength for this
purpose.
Wooden doors, and some metal doors, can
be broken down
by bashing, chopping and hammering. A
wooden door can
withstand a number of points of damage
equal to its physical
strength. Metal doors, held doors and
Wizard
Locked doors can
absorb from 5 to 20 more points of damage
than their strength,
depending upon the thickness of the door.
Some metal doors
might be unbreakable even after continued
bashing — this
would be defined in the design.
Thus, the given treasure room door, if
constructed of wood,
could take 22 to 30 points of damage.
We’ll assign it a strength of
28. Characters would now strike at it
with bashing, chopping
and banging weapons until the door has
taken 28 points of
damage —at which point it will break.
A character need not roll
“to hit.” He/she simply swings the weapon,
clobbers the door,
and gains his/her full strength bonus
to damage, if any. Doors
are considered as large opponents if they
are larger than 30
square feet in surface area. Note that
exceptional strength
(18/01 to 18/00) benefits the breaking
of doors, but not the mere
shouldering of doors.
Knock, knock:
A knock spell, as per its description, will
negate
two forms of securing. Always eliminate
the weakest security
device first. A knock cannot lift a portcullis,
but a levitate spell
might be able to do so. A knock can drop
a drawbridge only if
cast directly at the mechanism that opens
and closes the draw
bridge. Finally, knock is not silence,
and incidental noise can
easily arise from numerous causes.
Doors of physical strength 50 or greater
(after being locked
and secured) should be the top reasonable
limit, though a DM
could well design a door that cannot be
broken by usual means.
However, such a door should never be found
in a player character’s stronghold.
Players will try to wizard
lock every door, put a glyph in every
corridor, put magic mouths in each room,
etc. Such a load of
magic would make a thief’s hair turn white
if he tried to break in.
Further, players would object if a DM
designed such a dungeon/
castle for them to enter. A means of limiting
the use of such
spells is to allow only a specific number
of them to be operating
per 1,000 square feet. Excess use of such
spells will allow a Gate
to open to another plane of existence,
with all of the attendant
problems that will involve. Details on
this process were described in Leomund’s Tiny Hut in DRAGON #42
Teleporters
Every new castle builder would like to
include a teleport
mechanism in the design. However, being
able to cast the spell
teleport is not enough to manufacture
such a portal.
The formula is as follows: Secure a large
gem of at least 10,000
gp value. Throw Enchant an Item on it
to make it receptive. Now
cast teleport, magic mouth, and permanency.
Such a magic gem
can then be placed in a throne, under
a floor (no more than 12
real inches of non-metallic covering),
or in some other secure,
solid place.
Now a second gem must be magicked in the
same way! After
all, a teleporter only functions if it
has a place to go. Such a
teleporter would be usable at the same
chance for error as a
place “studied carefully,” i.e., a 4%
chance of teleporting high
and a 2% chance of teleporting low.
The gems used to mark the teleport points
can be as far apart
(in feet) as the gold-piece value of the
lesser gem divided by 10.
For example, if one gem is worth 20,000
gp and the other 30,000
gp, the gems could be as far as 20,000/10
= 2,000 feet apart. A
Limited wish must be uttered to “join”
two gems so they can be
used for teleporting purposes. If either
gem is moved more than
one foot, the teleporter will not function
again until a new Limited wish is cast upon the pair. A full Wish can link
up to six gems,
any two of which can be as far apart as
1/3 the value of the least
expensive gem (expressed in feet, as above).
The magic mouth
cast upon the gems during the preparation
will specify the word
or phrase that must be used to activate
the teleporter. If the
teleporter is to work by thought only,
then an ESP spell is used
instead of magic mouth.
.
| Gem Value | Usable | Will reset to be used in |
| Under 20,000 gp | Seven times/week | One hour |
| 20,000 to 49,000 | Ten times/week | Two turns |
| 50,000 to 99,000 gp | Seven times/week | Two turns |
| 100,000+ | Twelve times/day | One turn |
The Wish or Limited wish binds two teleport
gems together,
and moving one or both or destroying one
or both can release
great power. The results of moving/destroying
a gem are:
01-50% — Release of an explosion dealing
1-4 points of damage per 10,000 gp value of the gem to each character within
50 feet of the gem when it is moved/destroyed. The gem is fragmented so
that the remaining pieces are 1/20 of the gold-piece
value of the original.
51-80% — Teleportation to the site of the
other gem (random
destination if multiple gems) but the
figure will arrive stunned
for 2-8 rounds with no saving throw allowed.
96-00% — Gem destroyed/moved with no ill effects.
Dispel magic thrown on a gem used in a
teleporter in an
attempt to render it useless will have
the same effect as any
other type of attempt to damage or move
it. A full Wish used for
such an attempt allows the figure to add
45% to his/her die roll in
the above procedure.
Teleporters can also be built specifically
for use by characters
or creatures of a particular alignment,
class or ability. If this is
the case, Know
alignment or Locate object must
also be cast
when the gems are originally magicked.
