Breaking Down Doors

Adventurers wanting to break down a door is a really common scenario in D&D, but one that can be surprisingly hard to adjudicate, especially when the players are under no time pressure.

The desire to transform a door into shards of timber typically occurs when the rogue fails their Dexterity check with thieves’ tools, leading to a beefier party member trying to break down the barrier instead. Nothing wrong with that, but what happens if they fail too, and then want to try again? While it’s relatively easy to tell the rogue “this lock is beyond your capabilities to pick”, it’s harder to tell a barbarian that the door won’t budge no matter how many times they hit it, because, well, it doesn’t make sense. If you hack at a (normal) wooden door long enough, it’s going to give eventually.

“If there’s no time pressure then don’t call for a roll”, you say? Well, you already called for a roll when the rogue went to pick the lock. So you’re in a bit of a quandary… if you allow the party to break down the door, without a roll (or after failing on a roll), you’ve just made the rogue feel totally useless, because it transpires that it doesn’t really matter if they fail or pass on one of their most important skills.

“Listen up Mr. Door. We can do this the easy way… or the hard way.” Art by Olga Drebas for WOTC.

So how can you rescue this situation, and call for a meaningful roll?

The answer to the problem, as you probably guessed already, is to switch the check from the “succeed / fail” dynamic to the “succeed / succeed with consequences” dynamic… also known as Failing Forwards.

In other words, to referee this common situation satisfactorily, GMs should think about some consequences for breaking down a door badly…

Consequences for Breaking Down a Door Badly…

Lost or wasted time is the obvious cost for rolling low on a breaking down a door, and even if this isn’t a pressure cooker scenario (there are no hordes of zombies closing on the party), you could make a wandering monster check the consequence of faffing around in front of this particular portal.

Otherwise noise is a natural and important consequence to consider when the party spend 10 minutes smashing down a door. Monsters or the city guard might be alerted, and opportunities might be lost or new obstacles introduced through the adventurers’ suboptimal smashing.

One additional consequence, that occurred to me recently, is that breaking through a stubborn door might easily see you get fatigued, damage your foot/shoulder, or break your blade or weapon. As the DM, be sure to ask those contributing to the task how they are smashing down the door, and warn them that a poor roll could lead to a consequence in line with their method of choice. If they use their body as a battering ram, they might get a (temporary) level of exhaustion, take 1 bludgeoning damage per 2 levels they have, or lose a recovery Hit Dice for the day from the strain. If a weapon, they might have to make a Con save for their blade or axe, or it breaks. Spamming a damage cantrip for rounds on end could also lead to exhaustion or the loss of Hit Dice, or you might rule that there’s a risk of mental fatigue which would cause the spellcaster to lose a spell slot or two.

Many times of course, the “don’t call for a roll” advice might be the right call, especially if there’s no need to either a) hurry or b) remain stealthy. In these cases you should apply that logic to the rogue’s lockpicking too. Or you just use a quick die roll to determine how long the task took, rather than whether it was successful or not. Often there are juicier encounters ahead and we don’t want to get bogged down with adjudicating a trivial task.

But if you do find yourself needing to inject some kind of drama into knocking down a portal, where not much drama is forthcoming, these other consequences might be something you can warn your players about and incorporate into the game: “Sure you will be able to break it down eventually, but if you roll badly you might get exhausted doing it. Plus you’re going to be exposed outside this tower for however long it takes you. You’re not sure how safe this area is.”

Breaking Down a (Wooden) Door Table

Sometimes it’s nice to have a table to refer to, as a standard template for these types of rolls. Here’s one you could riff off. Obviously, particularly strong or barred doors would have a higher DC, while positive modifiers might be applied for using a maul or greataxe to get the job done (much handier than a sword or shoulder in this case).

I would personally call for a raw Strength check, instead of Athletics (or a spellcasting or Con check if spamming a cantrip). Help can be granted by other PCs to offer advantage on the check, but anyone Helping suffers any negative consequences along with the leading PC.

Ok, that’s it from me on doors… I hope a few of you find it useful. If you have some better door-bashing advice for me, I’d be glad to hear it in the comments.

A Personal Note of Conscience

Ever since its inception, this blog has been a little space for me –  and you hopefully – to enjoy some carefree RPG time together, and pretty much the last thing I ever want to do on here is to discuss politics and current events. But I think something’s happening right now in the world that’s so awful that I can’t in all good conscience not talk about it, and at the very least speak out about my horror at what’s taking place right before our eyes.

I’m talking about the sickening atrocities happening on a daily basis in Palestine: namely the displacement and deliberate starving of an entire nation’s population; the ongoing mass and indiscriminate killing of citizens; the repeat bombings of hospitals; children having their limbs blown off by missiles, or having to have them amputated without anaesthetic, or slowly dying, skeletal-like of malnutrition; the targeted assassination of journalists*; and even the cold-blooded murder of desperate and starving citizens as they queue for the food that they’re being deliberately denied. I’ve been around for a long time, 47 years, and while I’ve seen a lot of horrors unfold on the world stage, I can’t recall witnessing this level of cruelty and total disregard for human life, which is made all the more horrific (to me at least) as these crimes are being perpetrated by a “western” government which is backed up by the USA and the UK.

(*always a crystal clear indication that war crimes are being committed)

There is and can be no justification for this kind of mass killing and torture, however Netanyahu continues to maim and murder with complete impunity, and continues to create a literal hell on earth for the Palestinian people. Such inhumanity is only possible due to a) the decades-long dehumanisation of the Palestinian people b) the fake narrative of “it’s complicated” that lulls bystanders into apathy and c) the cosy relationship and historic ties Israel has to the US and the UK. I’ve never been a pro-Palestinian guy, because clearly both sides have committed atrocities going back decades, and we all remember the horrors of Oct 7th. But Netanyahu’s end game of effectively wiping Palestine, and Palestinians, off the map, is so starkly atrocious that I think it behoves us all to stand up and say “not in our name”, whether we’re from Israel, US, UK or any other country that enables or has ties to Israel.

I’m really pleased that so many brave people – none braver than those protesting in Israel itself, or the Rabbis arrested in New York – are speaking out and protesting against these atrocities, and this is me adding my voice and support to those people, using the small platform I have.

(Side note: It’s absolutely crazy and sick that people can get arrested right now for protesting against a genocide – while Netanyahu massacres woman and children and the entire West stands by and watches. Our democratic rights to speak out and protest are being eroded rapidly by the likes of Trump, and even the supposedly moderate/left-wing Starmer, which is something we need to be very vigilant about IMHO).

In the face of such determined evil from morally-bankrupt leaders who are almost impossible to sway, it might feel pointless to speak out, or a waste of time, but I think it’s far preferable to silence, which can be mistaken for apathy and complicity, and is all too easy for our politicians to ignore.

When I think about what we can do in the face of a genocide, that one man is so hell-bent on making happen (and another brazenly supports, presumably so that he can build his hotels on the sun-blood-soaked Gazan coast), these were some steps I could come up with:

• Speak out, as silence enables / emboldens the perpetrators
• Encourage others to speak out
• Demand your politicians take action… write to them, they represent you!
• Sign every petition going
• Join a protest march if one is happening in your town
• Follow relevant charities like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Doctors without Borders. Demand Progress is a good US lobbying group. They often send petitions that you can sign, or make it easy for you to email your local politician (I actually got a reply from a UK politician when I sent an email via Greenpeace).

If you’re as disgusted as I am by what’s happening in Gaza, then let’s be gamers against genocide and pray that together, by speaking up, we can affect some positive change in the world.

Peace and love.

D.