Alternative to an Adamantium door?

[Kossuth]

First of all, forgive me if my first post is a repeat of a million previous questions, I've spent about an hour looking for the search function on this forum. Your insults and jeers are completely valid.

I've got a complete dungeon designed, lots of fun traps and undead running around, but there's one function that could kill the whole thing. I have a passage for the necromancer to bypass all of his minions and skip from the first room to the laboratory. Obviously I don't want the PCs opening this passage before they get to the laboratory the hard way.

So my question is should I just use an adamantium door with a ridiculous open lock check? I cant use a secret door, too many elves and that will just make them more curious if they come across it. The only real requirements are that its easily openable from one side and impossible from the other [without a key or a password or somesuch]

Thanks in advance! I love GITTP!

[We are playing 5th level FR 3.5. Theres a Ranger, an AoO Fighter, a wizard and a barbarian]

[Sir Chuckles]

If you make a door they'll be curious about it.
If you make it hidden they'll break it down.
If you make it out of adamantium, they'll pick it.
If you fire trap the lock, they'll break down the wall around it.

If you put a sign on the door that read "Toilet", they'll keep walking.

[Know(Nothing)]

A magic hallway of some sort? They can open the door normally but it just deposits them randomly in a room of undead unless they know the necromancer's custom spell for passing through.

Anything you choose is going to be fiat, so you might as well make it an interesting one.

[lunar2]

Set the search DC 21 points higher than the highest search modifier in the party, and don't tell them to make a search check. just because the character is an elf, doesn't mean the player needs to know he failed in a search for something. if the check fails, and it will, the player never needs to know it happened. telling a player to make a search, spot or listen check is the same thing as telling them something is about to happen. those checks should always be rolled in secret, and nothing should be said unless the check is a success.

[Coidzor]

If you want them to not be able to get through but know there's a door, make it powered by Plotnium. A drop of the necromancer's blood, their handprint, a special key that there's only one of, whatever.

If you don't want them to know, there's a number of ways to hide things from 5th level characters, especially if the BBEG in question found and repurposed something rather than making it all themselves or is much higher level.


If you make a door they'll be curious about it.
If you make it hidden they'll break it down.
If you make it out of adamantium, they'll pick it.
If you fire trap the lock, they'll break down the wall around it.

If you put a sign on the door that read "Toilet", they'll keep walking.

No, then they'll want to investigate out of sheer novelty. XD

[CombatOwl]

So my question is should I just use an adamantium door with a ridiculous open lock check? I cant use a secret door, too many elves and that will just make them more curious if they come across it. The only real requirements are that its easily openable from one side and impossible from the other [without a key or a password or somesuch]

Magic. If it's not on his banned school list, give him passwall or a scroll of passwall. Given the level, I'd go with the scroll of passwall.

Note; as a DM you always have prerogative in determining whether a skill check is applicable. You can simply say that the elves do not detect the door.

[Alabenson]

How about a wall of force covered by an illusion, that gives way to anyone holding some trinket in the possession of the necromancer? It's probably functionally undetectable for the PCs at that level, impassable without disintegrate, and lacks the potential for the PCs to decide to pull the door out of the frame and sell it as loot.

[AstralFire]

You have to use google to search the forum, the search function does not exist at the moment. So don't feel bad.

[Kossuth]

A magic hallway of some sort? They can open the door normally but it just deposits them randomly in a room of undead unless they know the necromancer's custom spell for passing through.




If you put a sign on the door that read "Toilet", they'll keep walking.

I'm gonna combine these! If they dont have a Charm of BeingtheDM'sCharacter, they will open the door and see a toilet. Love it!

Thanks everyone!

[Coidzor]

How about a wall of force covered by an illusion, that gives way to anyone holding some trinket in the possession of the necromancer? It's probably functionally undetectable for the PCs at that level, impassable without disintegrate, and lacks the potential for the PCs to decide to pull the door out of the frame and sell it as loot.

Probably the most important part, really.

[Sir Chuckles]

I'm gonna combine these! If they dont have a Charm of BeingtheDM'sCharacter, they will open the door and see a toilet. Love it!

Thanks everyone!

There is a spell called "Hallucinatory Terrain".
Your Necromancer now has a variant of that spell. Add some scent illusions.

As for the skill check, I keep a little mini-legal pad with each of my player's Spot, Listen, Search, and Sense Motive checks, as well as Fort and Will saves (For those times when they touch something that has a contact poison or an invisible Wizard casts Major Image)

[Emperor Tippy]

Make the passage as normal and then cast a Selective (the Necromancer) Wall of Stone to block off the passage. The Necromancer can just walk through it like its not there but for everyone else its a regular solid stone wall.

Or Selective Permanent Wall of Force. Put a scroll of Disintegrate in the Laboratory for the party to bring down the wall when they have dealt with the dungeon.

Don't ever use regular Adamantium doors (especially at lower levels), you are just asking the PC's to rip them out of the walls and take them away as treasure to sell.

[herrhauptmann]

Make the passage as normal and then cast a Selective (the Necromancer) Wall of Stone to block off the passage. The Necromancer can just walk through it like its not there but for everyone else its a regular solid stone wall.

Bonus if they see him run through it, and try to sprint after him to follow.
Fort save vs knocking themselves the eff out on a stone wall.

What book is 'selective' in?

[Curmudgeon]

Ineffective Weapons: Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects.
Are they carrying adamantine chisels or mining (not military) picks? Because you can just state that an adamantine dagger or sword isn't going to do any good getting through a metal door or stone wall.

One thing you can do is use some means of getting your obstacle's hardness above 20. A single manifestation of Matter Manipulation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/matterManipulation.htm) can get the hardness of an adamantine door up to the 21-25 range.
Weapons fashioned from adamantine have a natural ability to bypass hardness when sundering weapons or attacking objects, ignoring hardness less than 20. At that point you'll be subtracting at least 21 from the damage of every single attack, and their adamantine weapons will be no more effective than steel.

[lunar2]

Make the passage as normal and then cast a Selective (the Necromancer) Wall of Stone to block off the passage. The Necromancer can just walk through it like its not there but for everyone else its a regular solid stone wall.

Or Selective Permanent Wall of Force. Put a scroll of Disintegrate in the Laboratory for the party to bring down the wall when they have dealt with the dungeon.

Don't ever use regular Adamantium doors (especially at lower levels), you are just asking the PC's to rip them out of the walls and take them away as treasure to sell.

and exactly how many times have you pulled that one?


but seriously, if you're going to put in an adamantine door, it needs to be too big to fit in a portable hole.

[Scow2]

and exactly how many times have you pulled that one?


but seriously, if you're going to put in an adamantine door, it needs to be too big to fit in a portable hole.Mules and carts are very cheap in comparison to the value of an Adamantine Door too large to fit in extradimensional storage.


Are they carrying adamantine chisels or mining (not military) picks? Because you can just state that an adamantine dagger or sword isn't going to do any good getting through a metal door or stone wall.

One thing you can do is use some means of getting your obstacle's hardness above 20. A single manifestation of Matter Manipulation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/matterManipulation.htm) can get the hardness of an adamantine door up to the 21-25 range. At that point you'll be subtracting at least 21 from the damage of every single attack, and their adamantine weapons will be no more effective than steel.Saying an adamantine dagger or sword won't go through a metal door or stone wall violates RAI of Adamantine, and the DM WILL rightfully get bashed with PHBs if he tries to pull a stunt like that.

[Seerow]

Mules and carts are very cheap in comparison to the value of an Adamantine Door too large to fit in extradimensional storage.

Saying an adamantine dagger or sword won't go through a metal door or stone wall violates RAI of Adamantine, and the DM WILL rightfully get bashed with PHBs if he tries to pull a stunt like that.

Adamantine weapons not going through regular stone is a violation of RAW and a **** move, but Matter Manipulation (or more realistically, the Hardening Spell), can bump up the hardness of material. As far as I can tell, it's instantaneous and not a typed bonus, so should stack with itself.

Even barring that, I'm pretty sure DMG2 has Dwarvencraft which boosts hardness. And Stronghold Builder's Guide has Magically Reinforced Walls, which isn't too unreasonable to apply to a door, doubling HP and Hardness.

It's not too unreasonable to end up with some specially made door that really just isn't feasible to break down, even with an adamantine weapon. Of course, something like that is just a bigger red flag to players, telling them they really want to be on the other side. (Or if you make it common enough it's not a red flag, you're just going to annoy them)

[Dusk Eclipse]

I think Curmudgeon was going more from a fluff perspective, even if your dagger can ignore the hardness of rock and stuff it will take a long time and a lot of work to do it. Adamantine weapons aren't lightsabers.

[Seerow]

I think Curmudgeon was going more from a fluff perspective, even if your dagger can ignore the hardness of rock and stuff it will take a long time and a lot of work to do it. Adamantine weapons aren't lightsabers.

But as stated, that pretty much goes against the RAW. By RAW your adamantine weapon IS effectively a lightsaber, and will cut through any lesser material like a hot knife through butter.

At the very least if that's how it's going to be played, Adamantine weaponry should be much cheaper. Adamantine DR isn't all that common. I know every time I've picked up an adamantine weapon, it was primarily for dungeon smashing purposes.

[Thurbane]

So my question is should I just use an adamantium door with a ridiculous open lock check?
Knock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/knock.htm) (2nd level spell)

Set the search DC 21 points higher than the highest search modifier in the party, and don't tell them to make a search check.
Detect Secret Doors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectSecretDoors.htm) (1st level spell)

[Dusk Eclipse]

No, Adamantine just ignore hardness less than 20, you still need to damage the object's hit points, and with 15 HP/Inch of thickness it will take some time to slice through a rock wall with a dagger.

[Curmudgeon]

By RAW your adamantine weapon IS effectively a lightsaber, and will cut through any lesser material like a hot knife through butter.
No, it's not nearly like that. To damage the door enough to get through you have to remove all the hit points, which is 60 for a typical iron door. That's a lot of hits with a light weapon dealing 1d4 damage.

[Seerow]

No, it's not nearly like that. To damage the door enough to get through you have to remove all the hit points, which is 60 for a typical iron door. That's a lot of hits with a light weapon dealing 1d4 damage.

I know you're trying to latch on to the wiggle room Dusk Eclipse gave you, but let's go back to what you actually said:


Are they carrying adamantine chisels or mining (not military) picks? Because you can just state that an adamantine dagger or sword isn't going to do any good getting through a metal door or stone wall.



Not that the dagger will be slow, that it is ineffective. That if you want to get through, you should be carrying chisels or picks. Speaking of, those are tools that would typically be better due to getting to ignore hardness, which adamantine already lets you do so....

The fact that a larger weapon would be better than the dagger (since you can Two Hand power attack with it and blow through all of the hit points in a round or two) is actually completely irrelevant to the argument you initially made.

Seriously, I supported you on the whole "Make the material harder so adamantine doesn't just cut right through it", but there is no justification for the original statement of "Adamantine daggers don't cut through stone"

[Sir Chuckles]

No, Adamantine just ignore hardness less than 20, you still need to damage the object's hit points, and with 15 HP/Inch of thickness it will take some time to slice through a rock wall with a dagger.

This.

Do the Commoner test. (A Lv1 Human Commoner with 10-11 in everything put in the situation)

It would take at least 15 swings to full cut through a wall that is one inch thick (1 damage a hit, 15 rounds). At best, it would be four rounds (4 damage a hit).
Not to mention that it would be a lot of noise.
Now, clearly an Adamantine Heavy Mace would make short work of that same wall, as would a Greatsword or Greataxe, especially when wielded by a stronger person. (It could take as little as one swing for a 1in thick wall.)

A door with 60+hp will still take an average of 30 rounds (3 minutes) for our Commoner with a knife. 7 rounds (1 minute, 6 seconds) for a Fighter with a Greataxe and 14 Strength. You can get it as low as an average 4 rounds with a Raging Half-Orc Barbarian with 20 base Strength. Power attack turns it to rubble even faster.

[Sith_Happens]

This (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/phaseDoor.htm) spell might interest you.

[Venger]

Bonus if they see him run through it, and try to sprint after him to follow.
Fort save vs knocking themselves the eff out on a stone wall.

What book is 'selective' in?

it's in shining south on p 21.


No, Adamantine just ignore hardness less than 20, you still need to damage the object's hit points, and with 15 HP/Inch of thickness it will take some time to slice through a rock wall with a dagger.

or they could just use energy damage through a wand of acid splash, or if the wizard had a reserve feat such as acidic splatter or the like.

even if the door is boosted to have a hardness greater than 20 through a combination of hardening/SBG/fiat, they can still just get through it by dissolving the walls around it or just punching the hell out of them with an adamantine hammer.

[Scow2]

This.

Do the Commoner test. (A Lv1 Human Commoner with 10-11 in everything put in the situation)

It would take at least 15 swings to full cut through a wall that is one inch thick (1 damage a hit, 15 rounds). At best, it would be four rounds (4 damage a hit).
Not to mention that it would be a lot of noise.
Now, clearly an Adamantine Heavy Mace would make short work of that same wall, as would a Greatsword or Greataxe, especially when wielded by a stronger person. (It could take as little as one swing for a 1in thick wall.)

A door with 60+hp will still take an average of 30 rounds (3 minutes) for our Commoner with a knife. 7 rounds (1 minute, 6 seconds) for a Fighter with a Greataxe and 14 Strength. You can get it as low as an average 4 rounds with a Raging Half-Orc Barbarian with 20 base Strength. Power attack turns it to rubble even faster.
But you don't want to turn it to rubble! You need to be able to salvage and sell it!

And 3/5 minutes is no time at all.

[Coidzor]

Hmm. Some kind of minion, potentially haunt shifted into the controls for the portcullis to open it for the necromancer when he wants to get in? If they can't squeeze through or destroy the portcullis, it's impervious to picking locks or knock due to not being locked per se.

[Curmudgeon]

or they could just use energy damage through a wand of acid splash, or if the wizard had a reserve feat such as acidic splatter or the like.
What does that accomplish? Acid attacks subtract hardness from every attack, too.

[Ravens_cry]

If you make a door they'll be curious about it.
If you make it hidden they'll break it down.
If you make it out of adamantium, they'll pick it and then steal the door.
If you fire trap the lock, they'll break down the wall around it.

If you put a sign on the door that read "Toilet", they'll keep walking.
My additions rectify a shortcoming in your statement.
Seriously, adamantium is expensive and makes worthwhile treasure in itself.

[MonochromeTiger]

My additions rectify a shortcoming in your statement.
Seriously, adamantium is expensive and makes worthwhile treasure in itself.

see that's why when you want to bypass a series of traps and monsters...you enchant the traps not to activate on you and you make sure the monsters in your base recognize you and either like or respect you too much to attack. the more heavily you guard a "secret passage" to your room in a dungeon the more likely the adventurers are to find it and kill you quicker.

a PC is an avatar of sheer destruction and death, you give them even a SLIGHT chance to find a weakness and they will find it, use it, then feast on your DM tears as they ignore the work you put into the rest of the dungeon.

[Xerlith]

and exactly how many times have you pulled that one?


but seriously, if you're going to put in an adamantine door, it needs to be too big to fit in a portable hole.

If the party has a Warblade, I wouldn't put in a door made of adamantine at all. :smallbiggrin:

[Ravens_cry]

see that's why when you want to bypass a series of traps and monsters...you enchant the traps not to activate on you and you make sure the monsters in your base recognize you and either like or respect you too much to attack. the more heavily you guard a "secret passage" to your room in a dungeon the more likely the adventurers are to find it and kill you quicker.

a PC is an avatar of sheer destruction and death, you give them even a SLIGHT chance to find a weakness and they will find it, use it, then feast on your DM tears as they ignore the work you put into the rest of the dungeon.
True story, the doors in the infamous Tomb of Horrors module were changed from Adamantium to an enchanted material that was as hard as adamantium until taken out of the dungeon, because player characters were stealing them.

[Venger]

What does that accomplish? Acid attacks subtract hardness from every attack, too.


Energy Attacks
Acid and sonic attacks deal damage to most objects just as they do to creatures; roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit. Electricity and fire attacks deal half damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the hardness. Cold attacks deal one-quarter damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 4 before applying the hardness.

And... that's all it says. There's nothing in there about acid/sonic ignoring hardness at all. Nor is there in the rules compendium. Why does every handbook mentioning acid/sonic spells/powers say that acid/sonic ignores hardness? is there another, more ambiguous wording someplace else?

[ericgrau]

Don't put in a bypass. Have the necromancer walk by his minions. Seriously, that's the whole point of minions and traps, to guard the way in, not to provide a level appropriate challenge to the players (as far as the necromancer knows). Otherwise if there was an ultra secure way in there wouldn't even be a 2nd way in. Or it would have even more certain doom because the necromancer doesn't have to worry about accidentally walking into the death trap. After all if you can make a path that the players 100% can't go into, then you can make a second one that will 100% kill them. But you can't really do either, not without railroading. And there's a reason players hate railroading. It isn't as fun as you are imagining it will be. You have this pretty picture in your head about how everything is supposed to go, but that's your own story told to yourself, not the players' adventure. If they don't find their own way to overcome it then they won't be having any fun and since their way doesn't work they'll only be playing annoying guessing games about "what's the DM thinking now"?

Don't put in a bypass.

Never put in a friggin' bypass.

I know you mean well. Just don't put in a bypass.

Put yourself in the necromancer's shoes and ask how he would protect the way in to his home or lab or whatever this place is for. Have "him" think of the what-ifs and what he'll do to handle various situations, understanding that nothing is fool-proof. You might not get all the puzzles you wanted, but once you piece together the basic parts of an interactive world rather than an XYZ series of challenges the players will surprise you with solutions you never expected and that's where the real fun begins.

[NichG]

The wall is actually a golem enchanted with/equipped with an item of 1/day Teleport Other or similar effect (resetting trap is RAW-legit, but opens the door to PCs using resetting trap cheese, so I'd avoid it).

The golem is familiar with the interior of a second, hollow golem inside the lab whose body breaks line-of-effect for the anti-teleportation defenses in the lair (if this level of paranoia is necessary/appropriate to the BBEG's power level). The golem will only teleport the master in, and if the second golem detects anyone but the master inside of it, it will activate some nasty attacks stored in its chest cavity and basically become a suicide booth.

The party may detect the front-door-golem, but there are three things preventing them from using it to get it: the golem won't recognize them as the master, if they trick the golem they get transported into a death trap, and the golem has already used its 1/day ability and couldn't even do it if it wanted to. They may even kill the golem, but this basically just destroys the shortcut (though it might get them a nifty 1/day short range Teleport Other item as loot).

If the necromancer wants to come and go more than 1/day, he pays for it with a slight reduction in security.

Or, skip the front door golem entirely - the necromancer just uses teleport to come and go. If worried about scrying PCs, have the teleport windows where the anti-teleportation defenses are down be based on some timing/rotation governed by undead servants and otherwise known only to the necromancer. So the PCs would need to scry successfully on enough separate occasions to deduce the timing pattern (which the necromancer could just change weekly or daily as his paranoia demands).

[Know(Nothing)]

Hide from Undead makes a pretty good bypass.

[molten_dragon]

How about a permanent phase door that the necromancer meets the triggering conditions for but the players don't? It could be keyed to his name, a password the players don't know, or his alignment if the players' alignment is different from his.

If you want the players to be able to use it to get out but not in, you could have it be a password, and maybe the necromancer has it written down in his lab somewhere because he's forgetful.

[Ravens_cry]

Hide from Undead makes a pretty good bypass.
Works for the players too though.

[ericgrau]

Even so I like that kind of "bypass" better than a real one. Nothing should be (nor can be) 100% if you're not railroading. Creating more undead than you can control but making them mindless so you can hide from undead them is a nice defensive trick for a necromancer. Sure the PCs can hide from undead them, if they prepared it, or otherwise take advantage of the undeads' mindless lack of tactics. But that's where the fun begins. And it's not the necromancer's only trick.

[BWR]

No, then they'll want to investigate out of sheer novelty. XD

Unless you have cunningly made sure to add toilets to every dungeon and castle you've ever had the PCs explore. Then it's just a toilet.

[The Random NPC]

And... that's all it says. There's nothing in there about acid/sonic ignoring hardness at all. Nor is there in the rules compendium. Why does every handbook mentioning acid/sonic spells/powers say that acid/sonic ignores hardness? is there another, more ambiguous wording someplace else?

I think the idea is damage applied to creatures aren't reduce, and energy attacks bypass DR, which is the closest equivalent to hardness. It isn't that unreasonable to read that passage as acid/sonic bypasses hardness, I didn't even consider it until you pointed it out. Besides, it makes sense that acid and sonic bypasses hardness.

[ahenobarbi]

You don't need a lock at all. The door is barred from the other side. You can keep your players more than 5ft away from it too. Like put it on the other end of latrine or whatever you expect your players not to check very carefully.

[Ravens_cry]

I think the idea is damage applied to creatures aren't reduce, and energy attacks bypass DR, which is the closest equivalent to hardness. It isn't that unreasonable to read that passage as acid/sonic bypasses hardness, I didn't even consider it until you pointed it out. Besides, it makes sense that acid and sonic bypasses hardness.
It depends on the material. Most acids won't affect quartz for crap, yet vinegar will do a number on marble. So unless magic 'acid' damage is like the platonic ideal of corrosion, it really depends.

[lord_khaine]

Don't ever use regular Adamantium doors (especially at lower levels), you are just asking the PC's to rip them out of the walls and take them away as treasure to sell.

Heck, screw Adamantine, we once had an entire campaign go to a grinding halt when the gm accidentially pit in a pair of solid copper doors.
And after some quick calculations about their worth the entire party were suddenly busy dismantling them.

Later on i then had another group who would carefully remove the doors and furniture, leaving nothing behind them besides the bare stone walls. Those guys were worse than a swarm of locusts :P

[Andezzar]

If the party has a Warblade, I wouldn't put in a door made of adamantine at all. :smallbiggrin:Or anyone who has a stone dragon belt.

At level 6+ any charger should also make short work of the door. Every other round STR 18 Greatsword, pounce, leap attack should give you two attacks with 2d6base damage + 61.5*STR mod + 12Power Attack + 12/241Leap Attack average 37/49 damage, minimum 32/44. That should chip away at the hardness pretty consistently. And I didn't even factor in a magic weapon (possibly even valorous) and Rage/Whirling Frenzy.

1: If you still use the rule "If you use this tactic with a two-handed weapon, you instead triple the extra damage from Power Attack." which has not been removed by the Erratum.

[Ravens_cry]

Heck, screw Adamantine, we once had an entire campaign go to a grinding halt when the gm accidentially pit in a pair of solid copper doors.
And after some quick calculations about their worth the entire party were suddenly busy dismantling them.

Later on i then had another group who would carefully remove the doors and furniture, leaving nothing behind them besides the bare stone walls. Those guys were worse than a swarm of locusts :P
I don't know how this ended up in a published campaign, but there was a Mithral fence in a campaign my friend's were in, and they so happened to have an Adamantine machete and a portable hole.
Eventually, the DM (also a friend) just vetoed the whole thing, but it entered the group legend.

[Andezzar]

Why would anyone build a mithral fence? Its lower density and reduced penalties do nothing for a fence. That's just money down the drain, or in the PCs' pockets.

Unless of course it was the other type of fence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence_(criminal)). Warforged with a mithral body could be criminals :smallbiggrin: or even any criminal who specializes in buying stolen mithral.

[Brookshw]

Cracks in walls + gaseous form, items with short term ethereal/shadow walking etc. Why bother placing a door if you don't want there to be a way to open it?

[MonochromeTiger]

Unless of course it was the other type of fence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence_(criminal)). Warforged with a mithral body could be criminals :smallbiggrin: or even any criminal who specializes in buying stolen mithral.

"I break the fence" "there is no fence" "then who's buying our stolen stuff? I break him and salvage any valuable materials from his body" "......suddenly all valuable metal in the setting turns to normal stone, also some of that stone falls, everyone in the group dies, reroll with no gold."

[Shalist]

Wall of force can be permanencied for ~12,500g, dunno if there's an on-off switch.

Alternately, has anyone mentioned a +1 colossal riverine tower shield (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10294124#post10294124) with the 'sizing' enchantment, in lieu of an adamantine door? Give the word, and you could shrink it down to fit in the palm of your hand; give the word again, and it reverts to its natural colossal state. Assuming they can't just bypass such obstacles altogether by burrowing through the dungeon's walls or some such, of course.

[Venger]

Something like the blink shirt (or a similar dimdoor effect) means you won't even need <5ft ghost doors like you do with etherealness.

[The Random NPC]

It depends on the material. Most acids won't affect quartz for crap, yet vinegar will do a number on marble. So unless magic 'acid' damage is like the platonic ideal of corrosion, it really depends.

To be perfectly honest, it probably is, but that's firmly in the territory of GM discretion.

[Piggy Knowles]

What does that accomplish? Acid attacks subtract hardness from every attack, too.

This is arguable - the section was written poorly, so it's really not clear. There's a good case to be made for acid/sonic ignoring hardness.



Energy Attacks
Acid and sonic attacks deal damage to most objects just as they do to creatures; roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit. Electricity and fire attacks deal half damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the hardness. Cold attacks deal one-quarter damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 4 before applying the hardness.


Parsing that out - it never actually says that acid ignores hardness. However, it DOES say that acid damages objects just as it damages creatures (who typically do not have hardness), and it also says to roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit. Meanwhile, every other example specifically mentions applying hardness.

EDIT: Apparently I missed that there was a whole second page to this thread, so I was ninja'd by... a really long time. Not even sure you can call it ninja'd at this point :smalltongue:

[Krobar]

"I break the fence" "there is no fence" "then who's buying our stolen stuff? I break him and salvage any valuable materials from his body" "......suddenly all valuable metal in the setting turns to normal stone, also some of that stone falls, everyone in the group dies, reroll with no gold."

You can't put stuff in front of the players and then punish them for taking it. At least not in the way you describe. If that happened to me as a player I'd probably never play in that game or group again.

[Seerow]

You can't put stuff in front of the players and then punish them for taking it. At least not in the way you describe. If that happened to me as a player I'd probably never play in that game or group again.

Could be worse. I've had things literally arbitrarily explode when I tried to loot it. (Unfortuantely this was not a harnessable power. Believe me, I tried to loot enemies later hoping they would explode, never worked)

[MonochromeTiger]

You can't put stuff in front of the players and then punish them for taking it. At least not in the way you describe. If that happened to me as a player I'd probably never play in that game or group again.

oh it's not something I'd do, but I could see a DM getting tired enough of their players looting everything with a gp value to try it.

[Ravens_cry]

You can't put stuff in front of the players and then punish them for taking it. At least not in the way you describe. If that happened to me as a player I'd probably never play in that game or group again.
Like I said, it was a published campaign, so it wasn't the DM putting something in front of the players and snatching it away again, it was the devopers putting something in front of the players and the DM not realizing the implications until too late. I agree, this was not a good move though, and hence why it's part of the group legend.

[lunar2]

Knock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/knock.htm) (2nd level spell)

Detect Secret Doors (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectSecretDoors.htm) (1st level spell)

you're only casting detect secret doors if you have reason to believe a door is there to begin with. if the player doesn't know a search check was rolled, they won't be casting spells to find what they failed to search for.

[MonochromeTiger]

you're only casting detect secret doors if you have reason to believe a door is there to begin with. if the player doesn't know a search check was rolled, they won't be casting spells to find what they failed to search for.

if you're going into the base of a powerful magic user you'll search for hidden things, after all one might be a magic item you can use on said magic user.

[Seerow]

if you're going into the base of a powerful magic user you'll search for hidden things, after all one might be a magic item you can use on said magic user.

Problem is a secret door can be literally anywhere, and detect secret door lasts at most 1 minute per level. For a level 5 group, that's 5 minutes of detect secret doors. It can be all right after you've already cleared everything and just want to do a run through to make sure you didn't miss anything, but if the dungeon's very big (bigger than roughly 1500 feet of wall per spell slot you're willing to dedicate to it) it's still not going to be a great deal.

Typically detect secret door is going to be more useful when you have a strong reason to suspect a door in some specific place, and spend a few rounds with the spell to figure out how to open and close it.

[LordBiscuit]

The best option really is to not have the back door there. The backdoor shouldn't a be a shortcut through the dungion, but a seperate location with an alarm spell associated to it as an escape route in an awkward to access location that is inaccessable from one direction.

Otherwise, the necromancher owns the dungion. It is just as easy that the beings in there won't attack them. Or otherwise if they would they could be sealed in a cage until someone other then him/acocylte walks past if it was something he couldn't tame but has merit as a defence system. That way there is no back door, largely because the necormancher doesn't need a back door.

[Deophaun]

I've got a soft spot for door of decay in Complete Champion. One controlled undead on the outside and one controlled undead on the inside and you've got your necromancer-only portal. Just have a zombie in the inner sanctum standing in an alcove, doing nothing.

[Thurbane]

Heck, screw Adamantine, we once had an entire campaign go to a grinding halt when the gm accidentially pit in a pair of solid copper doors.
And after some quick calculations about their worth the entire party were suddenly busy dismantling them.
That happened to my group in a module, Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde, from memory.

I was the driving force behind stealing the doors as loot :smalltongue:

you're only casting detect secret doors if you have reason to believe a door is there to begin with. if the player doesn't know a search check was rolled, they won't be casting spells to find what they failed to search for.
It's SOP for my group to use Detect Secret Doors on almost every dungeon we believe we have cleared.

[Heliomance]

Some of my friends encountered an Adamantine door in a published Eberron adventure. After they cleared the dungeon, they bashed it out of the wall using an Adamantine Body warforged they'd defeated earlier as a battering ram, sold it to House Cannith, and were set for money for the rest of the campaign. The DM managed to balance it by saying they didn't have that much cash on hand, so they got a promissory note for free services to the value of the door when they needed them, and it got doled out over the course of the game. But still, it put them in a very strong position.

[(Un)Inspired]

Oh man as soon as I read the first post I got so excited. Don't use a real door at all!

Have the "door" be a mimic with class levels. Have it be a mimic with PSION levels so it can cast at anybody that thinks they're gonna be clever and try to get past it.

In fact, have it spray energy cones of acid at those pesky adventurers. Well see who melts first

[Yogibear41]

Adamantium Door? Great! Take it off the hinges melt that sucker down and forge weapons and armor out of it, the lower the level the better!


Just have it be a solid wall and the necromancer stone shape it open and closed every time he wants to leave.