D&D 5E How do you do secret doors?

[Lidgar]

I generally do not use passive perception.

If they are not actively searching the location of the secret door (i.e., they just walk by it), I have everyone's perception modifier, so I secretly roll for them as they pass by it. I use a negative modifier from -5 to -9 depending on what the circumstances are (i.e., are they moving fast, light conditions, etc.).

That is just to notice something about the wall when they are not actively searching there. They still need to use an active Perception check to actually find the door and an Investigation check to open it.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Normally, the party doesn't spot secret doors unless they're actively looking for one and rolling Investigation checks. The door is, after all, supposed to be secret, and my standard assumption is that the architects of a dungeon are reasonably competent. If I really want to model the possibility of spotting some clue to the secret door's presence without actively searching, I'll set the DC against passive Perception at 5 or 10 points higher than the Investigation DC -- if some PC has taken the time and effort to push their Perception that high, they deserve to find it, but it's out of the range of normal parties.

 

[Horwath]

First of all, the DC.

If someone is bothered to design a secret door then he would have done it right.

So entry level DC for secret doors should be 20 atleast.

What is a point of a secret door if a village idiot can find it most of the time (DC 15)?

Average secret door, DC 20

Good quality secret door, DC 25

Masterpiece secret door, DC 30

of course you can have DC's something in between 20 and 30 as you wish.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Have the dungeon inhabitants use them.

Secret doors should be places that monsters disappear to when they flee the party.
Secret doors should be places that loot is hidden ("Wait, why does the head of the goblins have no loot at all? And why does he have an empty bookcase up against the corner of his room?").
Secret doors should be the subject of greater mysteries (See the back door into the lonely mountain for that one).
Secret doors should fill in holes in the map.

A secret door that is just... there... with loot behind it is silly. So don't place them.

 

[dco]

Passive perception if it can be seen, at least DC15 with light, DC20 dim light (darkvision). If it can not be seen because some furniture is hiding it nothing, they have to search actively.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I've got no problem with Passive Perception if the secret doors' find DC is sufficient. Perceptive characters pick up things like scuffs on the floor, cunningly-hidden hinges and the like. As DM I've often given the perceiving person a hint of a secret door, something like, "You notice the tile work in one part of the wall is slightly out of synch with the rest". NOT, "You find a secret door in the tiled wall." From there a good Investigation check is necessary to determine what this means and how to open it.

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

In my current campaign, the PCs found a map in the evil cultist high priest's chamber. It describes a secret route that leads through The Dungeon below the city to the cult's Deep Temple far beneath the city streets.

The map details how to get past several secret doors, and this handout also informs the players that secret doors in The Dungeon are not uncommon.

Right now they're facing off against a warren of filthy ratmen. The more perceptive PCs spotted the dark smudges of many dirty ratmen hands around the edges of an otherwise well-hidden secret door (and checking out what was behind that door had interesting repercussions).

I agree with most of what's been said above. If your campaign plot hinges on what's hidden behind a secret door, then your PCs find it. Period. No rolls necessary. Find a fun way to describe how they spot it.

In my DM notes I describe secret doors: Perception DCs to notice, opening mechanisms, etc., or I'll make it up on the fly if necessary.

I've been using Passive Perception, but wasn't really very satisfied with that mechanic. The above observations have hit that dissatisfaction on the head though. I think I'll discuss with my players the possibility of modifying the whole Passive Perception thing.

 

[jgsugden]

I have a perception check that can be bad with passive perception that allows a secret door to be found. However, like with traps, merely find the secret door does not mean you necessarily know how to open it. Many of my secret doors are also locked, trapped, or have komplex mechanisms that require an additional role to understand how to operate the door once it is found with perception.

I know that some of the EMAs find it frustrating when a player finds everything they have hidden in the dungeon with their passive perception score. A high passive perception indicates that the character has devoted significant resources to being able to find traps and secrets. If a players going to devote a bunch of resources to something like this, we should celebrate and reward that dedication by placing things in the dungeon that the character will find using that elevated score. The goal is not for the DM to place traps and secrets in a dungeon that the party you won't find, it is for the DM to create a fun experience for the players where their heroic abilities, including the heroic ability to find what others can't, overcome obstacles. When designing a dungeon comma I usually pretend that I'm designing it for a party of very basic Adventure where's that don't have a lot of special abilities. If the party that actually goes to the dungeon does have a bunch of special abilities comma they are rewarded for the special abilities by being able to beat some of the challenges I placed before them in a way that makes them look heroic and powerful. Players enjoy it when their characters are heroically successful. That is one of the reasons why stock modules tend to be very popular and homebrews and struggle: the dungeon is not tailored to the specific party going through the dungeon.

 

[Luz]

Then, I get each player to tell me what the character are generally doing while exploring the adventure location with the understanding that unless you're a ranger in favored terrain, you're generally either Keeping Watch for Danger or doing something else distracting from that (some exceptions may apply). They can, for example, Forage, Navigate, Draw a Map, Track, or do something like Search for Secret Doors. While doing these tasks, they are at risk of being automatically surprised if Team Monster is lurking. (But not all monsters try to gain surprise, so it's not too bad a trade-off.) Players can, of course, switch their task to something else at will.

If someone chooses Search for Secret Doors as his or her general task, then passive Perception applies while the character travels the dungeon. If that score meets or exceeds the DC for the secret doors the party passes along the way, the character is rewarded for the risk he or she has taken by noticing faint cracks in the wall or scuff marks on the floor, something like that. Then that character or the rest of the party can investigate to figure out the mechanism by which it opens which may call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check if there's an uncertain chance of figuring it out and a meaningful consequence of failure. If they can't figure it out, they can break it down, but naturally this takes time and makes noise which may call for a wandering monster check.

I generally dislike the use of passive Perception for secret doors, but this approach sounds good - I will try it out in my next session.

For the most part, I will mix it up. Just like combat encounters, finding secret doors can be easy, moderately challenging, or very difficult. Easy ones usually have a DC of 15, which means the party will (more than likely) find it if they search/investigate. Moderate or difficult secret doors take more time. A moderate secret door may be found fairly easily but the method of opening it safely (proper key or password, torch in wall sconce lever, etc.) is not. Difficult secret doors, which are used sparingly, usually have some puzzle or riddle to bypass in order to open the door. While skills like Investigation or Intelligence checks will help resolve some of these, I don't allow them auto success either. Instead, hints or clues will be provided. I want to engage the players with a well thought-out secret door and not have it trumped by a simple die roll.

A few reminders about Perception that were brought to my attention in another thread: Perception checks have a -5 penalty in dim light, and darkvision treats darkness as dim light.

Here are some excellent secret door trigger ideas:
The Dragon's Flagon Secret Door Triggers
The Dragon's Flagon More Secret Door Triggers

 

[Prakriti]

I'm running two Sunless Citadel games concurrently. Group A's highest passive Perception is 16, while Group B's is 12. Almost every trap and secret door in the adventure is DC 15. So if I use the passive Perception rules as written, Group A will find every secret door and trap, every time, and Group B will miss every trap and secret door, every time. That doesn't seem fun or fair.

I roll a d20 against the party's passive perception, using a modifier equal to the DC of the door -9. If it beats everyone's Passive Perception, then it's not seen.

...so I used this method instead. And I must say, it worked very, very well. In play, it definitely recaptures the feel of the older editions, which is what I wanted, and it solves what I feel is a serious problem in the default rules. Instead of seeing absolutely everything, Group A missed a secret door and a set of footprints in the dust, but saw two traps. Instead of the adventure proceeding in a predictable fashion, with so much predetermined by a single ability score, we had a few surprises.

Anywho, I first heard about this method last year, but it looks like the original discussion was nuked in the Great Forum Disaster. I seem to remember someone saying that this rule was actually part of the D&D Next playtest at some point, but was eventually removed. Does anyone remember if that's true, and if so, why the rule was nixed?