Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Descended 11-21-05, 11:33 AM	You've designed the perfect magically enchanced door. It is going to give your party a pounding headache trying to figure out how to get past it. You are awesome! You cackle gleefully all the way to your gaming session. Within a minute after the party discovers the door and has searched it for traps, the bard has max rolled a Bardic Lore check giving the party a vital clue to identifying the armored dwarf depicted on the door. Next, you let the wizard make a knowledge arcana check to try to understand how the door functions. He ends up with a modified 28. What was supposed to be a frustrated challenge has turned out to be a push over obstacle, but an obstacle that could lead to profit if the party figures out how to produce such an object themselves. What do you tell them? Suppose the wizard has Craft Wonderous Item. Do you start coming up with the actual prerequisite spells and crafting costs to make this door? Do you explain it off as "lost magic of elder days" or "probably the result of some mage's life long research"? If you give the door a recipe, a reasonable way that it was made, then your party could end up making use of that door, or selling their services to construct such a door. If you don't, then your players (well, my players, at least) tend to think you just make stuff up that doesn't make sense just to make the game difficult.
High Octane 11-21-05, 11:42 AM	"Congratulations, your profession has just changed from adventurer to doormaker. You still want to play this character?"
Neo_Leviathan 11-21-05, 11:47 AM	Sure, give them some pre-reqs for how to construct it. Off the top of my head I'd think you'd need: * Knowledge: Engineering/Architecture (after all, such a magnificent door would have to be custom fitted into each individual building.) * Craft: Smithing (I'm quite sure you'd need to *build* the door) * Knock, Arcane Lock, whatever other spells are relevant to what traps the door has. If he gets all that and starts crafting doors, let him! After all it's a magic door, he'll have to spend XP and Gold to craft it, and the market for specially enhanced doors is hardly going to be huge. Is he *really* going to end up richer than he would have if he'd just crafted a bunch of standard wondrous items and sold them?
Board_Rider 11-21-05, 11:48 AM	Tell the players that the door can most assuredly be made. However the magic is binded when the door is acutally set in place. Explain to them that this could be a decent, and much safer, way to make a living. Tell them too that the Wizard automatically figures that taking this course of action of building doors would take a LOT of time...so adventuring would be out the window. Ask the players "So, you interested?" If yes: Hand each of your players a fresh copy of a character sheet. Take their PCs. No?: "OK...lets move on then....."
Sulaco 11-21-05, 12:03 PM	What do you tell them? I would say "Are you :censored: me? You blew through this door like it was made of rice paper. Do you really think there is a market for that?"
lord warrior 11-21-05, 12:29 PM	Do not allow your cunnicgly devised puzzles to depend upon dice rolls. This should have benn done mostly through roleplaying. Single die roll can ruin a most well devised puzzle. ROLEplay.
gleep 11-21-05, 12:49 PM	Heck, forget the magic door. Take all the *normal* doors. Ever paid attention to the costs of those things? A party with some wagons and draft horses could make a few thousand gold in profit just from the doors in any decent dungeon. Why make them when its easier, cheaper, and more convenient to just take them? :D --gleep
Rocketboy13 11-21-05, 01:45 PM	I actually made this part of one of my characters backround, we would clear and renovate dungeons for sale to military organizations or wizards looking for a place in the country. :) We made enough money to finance a signifigant d20 game of a hotel and construction simulator. :plotting: The roleplaying came in with contract negotiation, the combat with the dungeon scouting and clearing, the phat lewt came with the resale of the dungeon following renovation. :dancin:
Endarire 11-21-05, 03:46 PM	"Dear baddies, We owe you one dungeon. -Signed, The Good Guys" -EE
Eightbitmage 11-21-05, 04:03 PM	Do not allow your cunnicgly devised puzzles to depend upon dice rolls. This should have benn done mostly through roleplaying. Single die roll can ruin a most well devised puzzle. Yes they were not roleplaying by expecting that the mage and bard would know something of the way magic works or about local legends. Just as they aren't roleplaying by taking advantage of the fighters 18 strength in combat. Come on Billy swing harder, you aren't roleplaying Tordek right! While the players probably should give things like this a shot, they are well within their rights to eventually have their character figure it out, or at the very least glean some clues about it. If someone is roleplaying a stupid character you wouldn't expect their character to figure the puzzle out, so why should roleplaying only work if it hurts the PCs. As for the magic door, I agree with the above posters, he is as likely to sell of such things as any other magic item. If you want the game to change to merchants and metals he is heading down the right path, otherwise tell him that you have an adventure to get back to.
Bruunwald 11-21-05, 04:03 PM	Not everything in the game needs to be explained purely in game terms, nor should everything in the game be easily and readily reproduced (mimicked, maybe), by the PCs. Any player who dares interrupt the game and the world and story I create with my hands and my sweat and time taken away from my child, to try to point behind the curtain and belittle what I have wrought because he's not sophisticated or man enough to handle a story arc like a grownup, will find the loyalists in the group turning his scorn and ridicule back on him tenfold while I watch. Then he will find himself uninvited. Fun's fun, rules are rules, but pettiness is also pettiness. And minutea cannot become the focus of the game. If it is, you might as well be a bunch of programmers punching code on your Saturday afternoon. Do these people also debate why Gandalf couldn't just dismantle the Gate at Moria? And then build a new one real quick whenever he felt like it? It's fun when you're in junior high. It's pretty pathetic after high school. Go with "forgotten technology of a lost age," and if they balk, they aren't worth playing with.
dm_avenger 11-21-05, 04:50 PM	In my current campain my pcs are stealing doors, to cut a long story short i'll just say it started with a large fansy wood and bronse door and has ended in a heavy reinforced adamantine, magicly treated, wizard locked pair of 10ft high voulted doors and if you are wondering how a bunch of lv 6's stole them it was becouse of dm error, pc: nice doors, look strong, (to dm) whats the arch made of? dm: fancy stonework pc: reinforced? dm: only enough to stop the doors weight from crushing the arch so dont fiddle pc:... were did we leave that barrel of black powder? oh yes, right here next to the arch. their main problen is in trying to move about 2 tons of adamantine doors, luckly i've a week to build a creature(s) that would need a door like that to keep them imprisoned, as a dm i do not whant them to be running around with the money from 2 tons of adamantine off my head: 1500gp per lb x 4000lb = 6 million gold!
ThePrivateer 11-21-05, 05:06 PM	Sadly, I disagree with many of the posters in this thread. First off, why not let them make it? Do your NPCs really use a different ruleset than your characters? Set a reasonable gp value for the door after they research it just like any item, and during downtime for crafting -- I assume you allow that, if you let them take crafting feats -- if they have the time and the money, let them build the door. They'll make the same profit they would selling any other magic item; twice as much gp as they put into it. (It is 1/2 base price to craft an item, no?) And if they want to kit out their stronghold with expensive, magic doors, if they can spend the money and time, why not? I'm not saying give the "formula" to the PCs -- let them research it. But the important thing is to let them. And to the "You're NPCs if you try to screw with me" fellows -- if someone spends downtime making an expensive magic sword, are they permanent NPC magic item crafters? If not, why for this special door? And Bruunwald -- if the game world cannot be expressed in terms of game rules, what's the point of playing the game with the game's rules in the first place? Your Gandalf example is a false analogy -- this is Swords and Sorcery style play, not epic fantasy -- and if nobody is able to make the door, or figure out how to make it (solving those riddles of the ancients) how did it get there, short of divine creation? Let the players play by the same rules as your NPCs, and the world your PCs inhabit. To do any less is childish at best, and autocratic at worst.
spectralphoenix 11-21-05, 05:24 PM	Tell them it requires the Craft Wondrous Architecture feat. If they're interested in burning a feat in order to make magic doors, just set a market price and let them spend time, gold, and xp as normal. They won't get any more money than if they crafted more conventional items, and I can't see them getting a combat advantage from it. And if they do get a combat advantage, simply have all your NPC's prepare Hold Portal.
Snicker 11-21-05, 05:44 PM	Any player who dares interrupt the game and the world and story I create with my hands and my sweat and time taken away from my child, to try to point behind the curtain and belittle what I have wrought because he's not sophisticated or man enough to handle a story arc like a grownup, will find the loyalists in the group turning his scorn and ridicule back on him tenfold while I watch. Then he will find himself uninvited. Look, man, I don't want to seem like I'm flaming you, but...dude, WHAT?! DM: So, you finally figure out how to open the door. PC 1: Hmmm, you know, that gives me an idea. PC 2: Oh god. DM: What? PC 1: I was just thinking...these doors are kind of neat. What if we backward engineered them and started selling them? DM: GRAAAAGH! PLAYERS ACTING CREATIVELY! DM SMASH! HURAAAAAGH! **stabs PC 1 with pencil**
Gedrin 11-21-05, 06:05 PM	Considering the ease in coming up with a completely new magic item, reverse engineering one should be no trouble at all. Of course...there may be original spells. That doesn't seem to take too long. Impassable Door of Lore, sounds 7th level ish given it is presumably impervious to most traditional forms of passage. Tools and materials. Easy. Carpenter for wooden doors...not a common adventuer skill. Smith makes for an easy time, though...you need a really good frame to hold a door that heavy. Now, you can make door that is command word activated and retails for 180000gp. Five questions: 1. How many people have 180,000gp? 2. Of those with the money, how many of them will spend it on a single door? 3. Which those with money and the desire, don't have their own enchanter type available? 4. Of those few people who are able and willing to do so, without an enchanter, which of them are going to trust "adventurers" to build the ubersecret door? 5. Of those who have the money, are willing to spend it, without and enchanter, and will allow people with the reputations of "adventurers" to build the door...how many of them will leave you alive since you know the password?
MysteryGilgamesh 11-21-05, 06:07 PM	Not everything in the game needs to be explained purely in game terms, nor should everything in the game be easily and readily reproduced (mimicked, maybe), by the PCs. Go with "forgotten technology of a lost age," and if they balk, they aren't worth playing with. Actually, if the characters are capable of deciphering it with their skills and feats, then yes, it does need to be explained in game terms. If the players want to reproduce such a thing, they need to know it (maybe with some in-character downtime to research). But you're simply insane if the wizard with Detect Magic, Spellcraft with a +20 or better mod, Identify, Arcane Sight, and any of a dozen other "Tell me what this does" spells, simply cannot figure something out. And the whole "forgotten tech of a lost age" is quite a cop out simply because you, as a GM, are unprepared to deal with something as simple as players wanting to know how to craft the Wonder Door of Sliding +20. Really, some of the answers in this thread horrify me. Do any of you actually expect any players to stand for most of this?
cypherx 11-21-05, 06:09 PM	"Congratulations, your profession has just changed from adventurer to doormaker. You still want to play this character?" you are my hero. my motto is avoid the dice. tell them what the door looks like, and let them try to think of it themselves. don't let them roll for it. this way a 1st level player has about the same chance as a 20th. you may want to find a copy of challenge and champions for more ideas. for example, dwarven statue is put in a door. he is holding an axe. there is an inscription on the door that says "comrades in arms shall be let to pass through, enemies beware, for my axe is for you." earlier, they met dwarven warriors that greeted eachother be placing their hands on eachothers shoulders and touching fore heads. if the player wants the door to open, they can place a hand on the dwarf statures shoulders, touch their fore-head to its, and the door will open. if they can't figure it out, or jsut want to bash it down, i hope they no something about dwarven craftmenship. and stone golems.
revnk 11-21-05, 06:23 PM	If you really want to humiliate them, let them reverse engineer the doors at much expense and effort, build their own set at even greater expense and effort, and then have the first NPCs to approach the door say: "Ye gods, man, look at this! Doors of Kalwinian! I didn't know they still made these things! How unbelievably quaint! If I remember correctly, you bypass the riddle by popping this pin here, yes, and if you tap it right there with your hammer, where I indicated with my staff, yep! Opens right up! I thought these things were all recalled by the original manufacturer after the Second Age of Darkness! Takes me back to my college days, we used to get stoned and open all the gates at my alma mater. Good times." And then have every single NPC who ever sees the doors do much the same thing. Heck, have NPCs stopping by to open the doors on a whim while they're passing through on their way to someplace else. Sometimes the PCs come back from an adventure and the doors are wide open with a note stuck to the front that says something like: "NISE DOR YU STOOPID LUSERS - GRIBDNAZH DA ORK" I kid, I kid. I'm not big on humiliating players for no good reason. Seriously, though? There's nothing wrong with lost arts, lost technologies and epic crafts that are the work of gods and unachievable by PCs. To the poster who asked if my NPCs follow different rules: yes, sometimes they do. Not without reason, and not if I can help it somehow, but there are forces in my world--some present still, some long-lost--that can achieve things that the players will never match. Because that's necessary in a game about wonder and epic fantasy: which is what some of us run. There's nothing wrong with a game where everything strictly follows the RAW, mind you. But some of us run worlds where the gods or Great Powers can do things that no other being can do. That's my 2 coppers, anyway.
FriendoftheDork 11-21-05, 06:59 PM	If you really want to humiliate them, let them reverse engineer the doors at much expense and effort, build their own set at even greater expense and effort, and then have the first NPCs to approach the door say: "Ye gods, man, look at this! Doors of Kalwinian! I didn't know they still made these things! How unbelievably quaint! If I remember correctly, you bypass the riddle by popping this pin here, yes, and if you tap it right there with your hammer, where I indicated with my staff, yep! Opens right up! I thought these things were all recalled by the original manufacturer after the Second Age of Darkness! Takes me back to my college days, we used to get stoned and open all the gates at my alma mater. Good times." And then have every single NPC who ever sees the doors do much the same thing. Heck, have NPCs stopping by to open the doors on a whim while they're passing through on their way to someplace else. Sometimes the PCs come back from an adventure and the doors are wide open with a note stuck to the front that says something like: "NISE DOR YU STOOPID LUSERS - GRIBDNAZH DA ORK" LOL! Great stuff! I see nothing wrong with letting them construct a door, if they have the necessary skills, tools, magic and materials. This may not be so easy though. It could be incredibly expensive to make, require some extremely rare magic components (could be an adventure to find in itself), require several experts work in stoneworking, smithing, sculpturors and security experts (rogues). And your checks... I mean knowledge arcana DC 28 is nothing, every high level wizard should be able to figure that out, and even a moderately experienced one could given time. This even reminds me of the door to Moria where gandalf struggled for some time trying to figure out the password (probably rolling lots of 1s on his knowledge checks.) And as said the "market" of such a door will be limited indeed. Perhaps a king or archmage would want one, but they will never be mass-produced.
onlybrownguy 11-21-05, 07:08 PM	here is apiece of advice don't put anything inyour dungeon that your not prepared to let you players have, who the hell wan't to adventure by making doors? and even if they do you can make it ino an adventure (like the door crafters in town have got tired of losing buisness and hire assassins to dispatch them). if that doesn't work tell them that this is a one of a kind door or you could just be straight forward, and cruel and tell tham to screw off
allenchan 11-21-05, 07:08 PM	Ye gods, so many of these replies reek of railroading. Nothing in dnd states players cant do things outside of adventuring. In fact, the DMG2 offers many possibilities and solutions to PCs having their own businesses. In my campaigns, PCs are encouraged to create a place to call home, be it a fortress or whatever else. Fortresses need doors. Many classes are best when properly using downtime between adventures (its recommended for every day of adventuring have two days of downtime). And I dont see why so many posters want to penalize a PC for playing a bard. Their Lore ability is one of the few useful things they have, dont go out of your way to shun the player's choice even more.
Always-Late 11-21-05, 07:15 PM	Well, maybe if you're exploring the ancient ruins of epic power world there might be some incredibly powerful and ancient force behind this door of unopenability, but what if it's not, say, ancient ruins of epic power, but maybe some lich's castle? Did the aforementioned lich beg a favor of some ancient and divine power to create the door? And perhaps they don't even want to make the door. Perhaps the PC's are just curious at how the door that required natural 20's from everyone worked, because it was a pretty tough door. You're going to throw them out of the game for being curious? What if they pull the door off the wall and try to carry it somewhere else, because it is, after all, loot? What if you don't even want to make a living selling doors? What if you just want to build your own freaking fort/castle/whatever?
Ogmug 11-21-05, 07:47 PM	You've designed the perfect magically enchanced door. It is going to give your party a pounding headache trying to figure out how to get past it. You are awesome! You cackle gleefully all the way to your gaming session. Within a minute after the party discovers the door and has searched it for traps, the bard has max rolled a Bardic Lore check giving the party a vital clue to identifying the armored dwarf depicted on the door. Next, you let the wizard make a knowledge arcana check to try to understand how the door functions. He ends up with a modified 28. What was supposed to be a frustrated challenge has turned out to be a push over obstacle, but an obstacle that could lead to profit if the party figures out how to produce such an object themselves. What do you tell them? Suppose the wizard has Craft Wonderous Item. Do you start coming up with the actual prerequisite spells and crafting costs to make this door? Do you explain it off as "lost magic of elder days" or "probably the result of some mage's life long research"? If you give the door a recipe, a reasonable way that it was made, then your party could end up making use of that door, or selling their services to construct such a door. If you don't, then your players (well, my players, at least) tend to think you just make stuff up that doesn't make sense just to make the game difficult. Sounds to me like you just didn't set your DC's high enough. IF you didn't want them to do things like find out the secrets of the door, you should have tried to keep the DC to (guestimated) max skill -1. This still allows for the one in a million bardic knowledge about some obscure door, or an obscure symbol, and it allows for the 1 in a million rememberance of some silly magic. Basically, a 5% chance. YOU determine how obscure knowledge of an item is. Since you didn't set it high enough, then you have to live with the consequence. Rogues can reverse engineer traps often, so why not let them. I believe the standard rule of thumb is 1 day per 1000gp cost of the item.
MysteryGilgamesh 11-21-05, 07:49 PM	here is apiece of advice don't put anything inyour dungeon that your not prepared to let you players have This is the best advice in this thread, and possibly the only bit worth following. It's as simple as that: Don't put it there, if you don't want your players to have it or want them to want to have it. You'll never have any trouble with PC's wanting to replicate the Incredible Edible Door Of Pep'To Bizz'Mol the Mighty, if you don't put the thing there in the first place.
spectralphoenix 11-21-05, 09:49 PM	Maybe the OP could shed some light on why the PC's are trying to build uber-doors in the first place. To be honest, I really can't see how the PC's building doors is going to mess up the game.
Gemmalah 11-22-05, 07:46 AM	Am I finding this thread more amusing than it was intended to be. I'm giggiling in the library and the librarian has just told me to shhh... (now i didn't know they really did that) I know that allowing players to do things you hadn't really planned for is hard. But i see no harm in allowing them to make a door even if it is a little boring. Just use this time to cook up some monsters or something. How bout a hord of monsters like dire rats or something has infested the area to find one of the spell componants, thet'll get them questing in no time. Perhaps they'll even forget why they are questing... and wonder why the treasure was a pretty flower or some powder, or just make items hard to come by but then again if they do go on a quest to get all the items then the door is going to be worth alot more.
Iabes_Q_c_a_Mahorella 11-22-05, 08:57 AM	Next time I play, I'mn preparing Reduce and Tenser's Floating Disk: at 5th level, I could make that 4000lb Adamantine door (value = 6millGP) half as large and only 400lbs, then use the Disk to float it out of the dungeon! DM: :smirk: where are going to sell 6 million GP worth of adamantine? Me: :eek: :plotting: ... um...Sigil (trading town in a neutral plane)?
Solidcobra 11-22-05, 09:42 AM	Some answers horrify me, some amuse me. Yeah, sure, i accept that some objects might be so incredible, so stupidly powerful, so amazingly rare and awesome that only someone near divine level would ever be able to create it, all knowledge on how to make this item of nigh unlimited power lost to mankind... But...a door? Besides, why take such problems making a door super-impenetrable anyway, when something like warp wood, stone shape or the like will let you walk right through it anyway? Who spends so much money on a door? The bottom line is...the fault for wanting to get money from re-creating this incredibly awesome door is not the PC's. it is the DM's for putting such a door there in the first place. Anyone who lets their NPCs go with other rules, or anyone unwilling to let their players do as they want, railroad. Railroading, kids, is the worst thing a DM can possibly do to a game. Railroading is for large babies. Don't railroad. Either don't put the door there, or put it there but be prepared for the PCs wanting to replicate it/rip it outta the frame and sell it.
angelshelper81 11-22-05, 11:58 AM	And this is why you have to work up histories on your dungeons. If I was building such a thing, and didn't want my players to be able to make it for some reason, I'd make one of the pre-requs be a spell that's no longer commonly used. (I limit my PCs to mostly PHB spells for just this reason - anything fom other books is balanced enough that I can add it later or they can research it, while keeping it 'unknown' for exotic surprises along the way.) The wizard's identify-type spells would uncover all the prerequs but that spell, and "an unknown [type] spell of about [level] power." If they really wanted to be able to use that spell and make that door, they can go track down someone who knows the exotic spell. The information the bard got fro his Lore check should make it reasonably easy for them to even figure out where they should go first to find out who made the door in the first place.
wrecan 11-23-05, 04:49 PM	What was supposed to be a frustrated challenge has turned out to be a push over obstacle, but an obstacle that could lead to profit if the party figures out how to produce such an object themselves. Like others, I am confused. What is it about this door that makes it so much more prone to profit than any other Wondrous Item that can be found in a dungeon? Frankly, I'd be flattered if I designed a trap that my players thought was so cool they wanted to go through the effort and expense to mass replicate it. As others have said, if you don't want players to make it, don't include it. Also, when trying to figure out pre-requisities, remember that the original dungeon maker would have had to go through the same expense building the original door. So if this door requires three wish spells, epic levels in arcane casting, rare heartswood from the Demiplane of Wood, and brass from Orcus' daughter's chastity belt on the eighth level of Hell, costs 10,000 XP and 100,000 gp, but the dungeon was reputedly built by the minor wizard Gemril the Pennypincher, and was used to guard a chest of 3,000 copper pieces and a potion of extra-healing, your players are going to rightly feel railroaded.
IceFractal 11-23-05, 06:54 PM	Ok, several responses to things: 1) To everyone who's said that they should roleplay figuring out the riddle and that their skills shouldn't matter: That's just plain wrong. Would you measure how many times a character hits in combat by how how well the player does in a wiffle-bat duel? Would you ask the player to jump 5' in the air when his character is making a Jump check? Sure, riddle solving is fun, and I always encourage players to try and solve the riddle themselves, giving a bit of bonus XP if they do so ... but in the end, it's the character's skill that matters, not the player's. A supergenius Wizard character is probably a lot better at solving riddles than the guy playing him, and likewise an Int 4 Orc is probably not going to solve it, even if the player is a genius. So yes, roll the skill check already. 2) Why is there so much hostility towards the characters crafting doors? It's really no different from them scribing scrolls, or crafting wondrous items - i.e. not something to do in the middle of a dungeon, but when they get some downtime, then why not? Since you always have to pay half what an item is worth in raw materials, they're not going to make any more profit on a magical door than any other type of item they might sell. 3) If they're just going to take the door out of the dungeon and sell it, then you should have followed the important DMing principle - "If the PCs shouldn't obtain/defeat it, don't put it there". If it's really essential that a BBEG taunt the players and escape, then don't have them actually be there - have them send an illusory projection of themselves. If that artifact is too powerful for the PCs, don't give them access to it - have them simply see it though a scrying spell or the like. Otherwise, you really can't count on what will happen. However, a door is a pretty bulky item to leave the dungeon with, as well as hard to sell; I wouldn't worry about it too much. 4) And always, always make sure that the walls surrounding a really tough door are as tough as the door. The world's best door does no good if the walls next to it are just normal stone. It sounds like that wasn't your problem, but it could be in future. Also, if you want somewhere to be hard to reach, make sure to line the walls in lead and put a permanent dimensional lock on it, maybe even a Teleport Redirection to someplace nasty. :devil:
tiercel 11-23-05, 07:36 PM	4) And always, always make sure that the walls surrounding a really tough door are as tough as the door. The world's best door does no good if the walls next to it are just normal stone. It sounds like that wasn't your problem, but it could be in future. This was my immediate thought. At some point, making an UBER-DOOR is a waste of time if there are easy ways to bypass it. For instance: is the area constantly protected by forbiddance or dimensional lock or some kind of permanent "wondrous architecture" (along the lines of the Stronghold Builder's book) that prevents dimensional travel? Otherwise you can just dimension door to the other side of the door, or try blinking or otherwise ethereally travelling through it (unless someone arranged an ethereal solid there). How about the walls around the door? Can someone just stone shape the doorway so that the door falls free? Can you passwall or phase door through the wall of the room you are trying to get into? Can a stubbornly determined vandal just pull out a pickaxe and chip his way through the walls? (Especially if it is an adamant pickaxe?) What about disintegrate (on the door, or the adjoining wall)? Can a smart-aleck intruder simply summon up an earth elemental, tell it to pass through the stone around the door and into the adjoining room, where it can open the door from the inside? (If the room is somehow surrounded by a cage of metal, is it enough metal that the elemental won't be able to smash through during the length of its summoning?) Is the door completely flush with the doorway, and the walls impervious not only to breaking but even cracking? If not, gaseous form will let you seep into the room. What about good old knock? The usual defense is to try and make the door too big to be affected (or to "tie the door shut" using ropes, since those are immune to knock), but you'd better have something ready there too. Presumably you will want the door itself to be inherently magical to avoid the effects of spells like shatter and shrink item (though size helps here, too). Crank that caster level up, though, because otherwise dispel magic can render the door temporarily nonmagical. (If the door is metallic, then there is also rusting grasp to contend with, potentially.) Uber-doors generally aren't worth it because of all the other defenses you need to make a door be able to hold up as a defense mechanism. The point of a door as security is that they are at least supposed to be a speed-bump that give whoever is behind the door warning/time/a little softening up of the intruders/force intruders to use magic getting around the door before engaging guardians. A door all by itself isn't going to keep many adventurers out for too long.
Thanqol 11-24-05, 04:19 AM	Yeah, think the villain-way. Build his fortress piece by-piece. I include in my dungeons a few escape tunnels that were filled in because rain/storms knocked away the cover which hid them, and traps according to the sort of pattern the BBEG runs to. My Illusionist, for example, had a storeroom that the PCs were merrily looting, unaware that lifting the big shiney longsword off the wall caused it to activate the Flaming effect on it, causing a spark to land on the floor with the invisible black powder on it. If your BBEG is going to build a bajillion GP door, then he's going to bloody well back it up with traps. Maybe a lightning bolt for every failed attempt so people can't just set up camp outside until they work it out (Like that Water-Watcher thing, only faster and more killiful). Maybe they've got to open it *while* the room is filling with poison gas. A door is a CR 0 challenge because there are no concequences for failure. A good door can make a trap far more deadly - after all, the lightning bolt that shoots everyone 6 times before they get past it is nastier than the one-shot wonder.