“So you think you’re a pretty skilled knight-of-the-post huh? I can see you can probably handle a basic lock, or even a trap or two. Those slender fingers seem pretty dextrous…
But tell me, have you ever opened a Twice-Locked-Thrice-Cocked-Knock-Shocker? No? Didn’t thinks so! That’s how I lost my fingers!”
So recently I’ve entertained myself by reading old modules, and I came across an irritating design point: one of the dungeons started out with a locked, braced door. DC 20 to unlock, DC 25 to break down. No key anywhere to be found: this was literally the first challenge.
Now, for a suitably skilled party this is probably no issue, but I’ve come across situations where it is actually a bit of a downer to start a dungeon session either with frustratingly high DC rolls, or some variety of “take 20” to spend time figuring out how to open the damn door. It doesn’t really feel like high adventure when the first thing you do is struggle with something incredibly mundane.
So, instead of just complaining, I did something about it. In the below document you’ll find five strange doors to slip into your dungeon designs in lieu of boring old oaken entryways.
Cheers,
AMP
OSR – Five varied doors
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