Kicking down doors in a d20 system

[tussock]

Break checks should do damage, so that trying to break open a door is part of the process of breaking open the door, and not working at a tangent to it.

The alternative to destroying the door isn't "breaking it", it's picking the fucking lock. Or finding the hidden lever, or going around, or getting the folk on the other side to open it, or casting knock, or speaking the magic phrase, or the thousand other ways you can get through a door in D&D. Having a function for "breaking objects" that's different from the function for "attacking an object" is just bad game design.

But then, Disable Device should also just do damage to objects, or at least let a Rogue add their sneak attack or something. See also Golems, and skills being useful.

[codeGlaze]

I think that break doors should be a yes no thing, not a rolling thing.

[...]

If your strength + Size check is greater than X, then can break the wooden door. And greater than Y you can break the iron door, and greater than Z you can break the 1ft thick stone wall, ect.

Fuck rolling.

If you can't break a door in 6 seconds, then you can't fucking break it in six seconds. Second tries with each compounding are handled by HP damage, not break checks.

if you can't break it with a break check, then you have to attack the door to break it over a few rounds (or maybe in one round) instead of using a break check. There is one mechanic, HP in which damage last round increases your chances of breaking it this round. There is another mechanic, break checks, which does not. If what you want to model is successive attempt slowly breaking the door in to chunks, you have a fucking mechanic for that already, and so declaring you should instead use a fucking mechanic which does not create progress is fucking stupid.

One could argue that slamming your shoulder into the door is an unarmed strike that benefits from 1.5x STR like a two handed weapon. Allow Power Attack with the same considerations, and a big barbarian is a serious door wrecking machine.

For smaller guys, either you've got a door with a low hardness (rotten wood, glass, etc.) or you've got a door that you're gonna need an axe or better to get through. I could probably throw myself at some beefy, iron-banded, oak door all day and make little progress.

Break checks should do damage, so that trying to break open a door is part of the process of breaking open the door, and not working at a tangent to it.

Some nitpicky simulationist details...

Should this go so far as to try and mimic hurting yourself if you fail a break check?

What about instead of doors breaking, you break them off their hinges/frames, especially for shit like metal doors?

I could see metal doors bending and denting from truly "powerful" characters... but that would require a quick metric for determining success of the break check. How would you propose including damage (or maybe degrees of success) to a break check? Would you keep hardness as per Stink's suggestion?

[Dean]

In a game where punching an iron golem deals you no damage there's no way that shouldering a door does. I think the overall solution is for doors to have break checks which let you bust through them as a move action. Passing the DC by 5 lets you move through as a free action, counting the area as difficult terrain, and passing it by 10 would let you ignore the difficult terrain part. Doors, like any other object, would also have hardness and hp and could be chopped or karate chopped down given enough time. It would also be reasonable to give any door that was dealt more than half its hp the "Broken" condition which would give anyone trying to break it a +4 to the check.

This would make children have to chop down doors to get through, weak adults have to batter them before kicking through, strong adults move through at half speed, bruisers bust through them at a jog, and the Juggernaut just moves through like they aren't there.

[Stinktopus]

What about instead of doors breaking, you break them off their hinges/frames, especially for shit like metal doors?

I would suggest that DM's consider what the weak point of the door is, and what is being targeted by the attack. Doors rammed in by the police don't split down the middle, while a door chopped through by a fireman's axe does. Perhaps supply sample hardness/hp for a quarter inch copper hinge/latch and other breaking points for the door.

As for handling it with a break DC that let's you continue moving, I'd be more in favor of "Do X more hp damage than the total with a shoulder bash and the action is move/free." Otherwise, you're still running into Kaelik's irritation of two, 24 STR, Goliath Barbarians charging the same door where one bounces off harmlessly and the other blows through it like a sheet of rice paper.

[tussock]

Just like killing a human doesn't normally result in their complete disintegration (just enough damage to stop them fighting back, permanently) so killing a door merely results in a door which no longer prevents passage.

For a giant sliding stone thing with metal pins, bars, and an adamant facing, it's just got a really high AC and a whole bunch of hit points, you're going to be a while, and the attached repeating lightning trap is a real problem. Lesser doors open with less strenuous attacks.

Smashing a door with a body-slam attack should probably just be a thing you can do to goblins and ogres too, as part of your movement, by armour or skin type, with big size mods so dragons and titans can toss around some PCs for large damage at high level with just normal rules, while also being very hard on even the strongest doors. Plus rules to climb up on big monsters, or have goblins and kobolds climb on you, to prevent that. Which is getting well away from standard d20, but whachagunnado.


Suffering damage for attacking things, gear or hands, is so 1st edition, and rather anti-heroic in a game about heroes beating their problems to death with sword and spell. The things which really need it, covered in electrified razor wire, they can have a little rule of their own. Some sort of automatic flavoured trample function when you move into their space.