D&D 5E Secret Doors

[jayoungr]

I'm running an adventure with a lot of secret doors right now, and I'm struggling with how to keep them from becoming monotonous on the one hand or trivial on the other. I don't want to slow down the game while the players go over every inch of wall, but just allowing the characters with high enough Passive Perception to see them automatically means they're not actually secret at all. (Someone in my group has PP 15 at level 1.)

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep them engaging?

 

[Prakriti]

There was a good thread on secret doors a while back. I suggest reviewing it.

I still think the -9 DC method is a good one, as it adds a welcome dose of randomness and unpredictability to the game.

 

[jayoungr]

There was a good thread on secret doors a while back. I suggest reviewing it.

Thanks. I did a search before posting, but I must have missed that thread somehow.

If players aren't sure that they're seeing all doors, though, doesn't that risk the "going over every inch of the wall" problem?

 

[Charlaquin]

T E L E G R A P H I N G

When there’s a secret door to be found, hint to its presence in your description of the environment. A draft is a heavy-handed way to telegraph the presence of a secret door, but it cuts the mustard. Likewise a conspicuous lack of dust in an arc in front of where the secret door sings.

For more subtle clues, use context to imply the presence of a room that there’s no apparent door to. There’s the classic “there’s this weird room-shaped empty space in the map” but that only works if your players are mapping the dungeon as they go, and doing so accurately and precisely. Another option that’s less reliant on mapping but more reliant on level design is to have some visual cue that always goes along with secret doors. Maybe there are tapestries throughout the dungeon, and rooms with secret doors (and only rooms with secret doors) feature dragons on the tapestries.

A lot of DMs are hesitant to do this kind of thing because it can feel like giving too much away. But if the goal is to get players to pay attention to and interact with the environment, there is no surer way to achieve that than to indicate with your environmental description that there is something to be interacted with. And, while telegraphs may seem obvious to you, never underestimate the obliviousness of players. They will regularly miss things you think are painfully obvious. And when they do catch on to things, they’ll feel like they’re clever for doing so, which is exactly what you want.

 

[iserith]

If you're going to resolve finding secret doors with passive Perception while the PCs are traveling the dungeon, then I suggest you make that a trade-off against keeping watch for danger. In other words, you can't do both, unless you're a ranger in favored terrain. Therefore, the character has a chance to notice secret doors, but is automatically surprised if a stealthy monster comes calling.

Rather than do it that way though, you can also do it the way @Charlaquin suggests and telegraph the existence of the secret door in some fashion and then, if the PCs search the room, whoever is specifically searching for secret doors in a way that speaks to what was telegraphed can either find it outright or you can call for an ability check. In most dungeon environments that I run, I break down basic dungeon tasks into 10 minute blocks of time and then either have wandering monster checks every 10 minutes or every hour. This builds in a meaningful consequence for failure for these tasks.

So, for example, the PCs enter a chamber that the DM describes. The fighter keeps watch, the cleric searches for traps, the rogue looks around for stuff to loot, and the wizard searches for secret doors. This all takes 10 minutes. Resolve each task in the order that makes the most sense, asking for ability checks when necessary (Wisdom (Perception) for secret doors), make that wandering monster check (or tick 10 minutes off till the next one), and throw a monster at them if called for. If that monster is the stealthy sort, everyone but the fighter is surprised automatically. Once that's done, describe the situation as it now stands and ask what they do. Repeat till they move on.

Also remember that just finding a secret door doesn't have to be the beginning and end of the it. Sometimes figuring out how it works is also complicated and, depending on how the PCs go about it, it may call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check to make a deduction about how it operates. This is another 10-minute task in the above framework which comes with further risk of wandering monsters (or moves the clock closer to them or closer to some other time limit).

 

[Prakriti]

If players aren't sure that they're seeing all doors, though, doesn't that risk the "going over every inch of the wall" problem?

It depends on how you adjudicate that situation, really. Ideally, it shouldn't take up any additional game-time or result in any additional rolls, because repeated actions (like searching) are exactly what passive scores for supposed to be used for. So if your players say, "We're checking the walls of every corridor we pass through and every room we enter for secret doors," that's no different from saying, "We're keeping our eyes open and using our passive Perception."

If the players want to search a specific area or object more thoroughly, then I might make a roll. But if the rolling ever becomes tedious, then it's time to have a discussion with your players or re-think how you're doing things as a DM.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'm running an adventure with a lot of secret doors right now, and I'm struggling with how to keep them from becoming monotonous on the one hand or trivial on the other. I don't want to slow down the game while the players go over every inch of wall, but just allowing the characters with high enough Passive Perception to see them automatically means they're not actually secret at all. (Someone in my group has PP 15 at level 1.)

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep them engaging?

What adventure are you running?

When I see secret doors are a thing in a module, my first investigation is "how are these secret doors being used by the module?"

Example: In Tomb of Annihilation, the final dungeon has a couple secret doors. They're not presented as puzzles. The dungeon doesn't have a great time-keeping mechanics (besides not wanting to take a long rest because night hags). One is connected to a trap, but mostly they seem to be of the monotonous "you must be this Perception or taller to ride" variety. However, a closer look at the overall dungeon revealed that there are these skeletons with keys built into their heads wandering around... sometimes found in areas only accessible via secret door or even areas there's no explanation for how the skeleton got there! There were also wight dwarfs sneaking around all over the place and resetting traps. So the answer to figuring out how that module used secret doors was all about circulation. PCs following monster to an abrupt dead end, or even spying on them using the secret door. Footprints in the dust stopping at a dead end. Monsters flanking the PCs, coming from a seeming dead end. That's how I ended up using secret doors in the Tomb of the Nine Gods.

The key is figuring out the relationship of the secret doors to the specific dungeon & overall scenario holistically.

EDIT: Oh! I remembered one more way to use secret doors – besides puzzle, trap, timed exploration element, or hinting at dungeon circulation – and that's the OSR method where the players are expected to make inferences about the dungeon's layout (and potential secret rooms) based on their emerging map.

 

[jgsugden]

Secret doors are kind of a simple mechanic. Either you find them or you don't. Trying to spice that up is not going to help. And if your players invested in a high passive perception, they should be rewarded for it - finding them should be relatively trivial if they invested enough. I played with a first level human variant rogue with the observant feat and expertise in Investigation and Perception in a party (passive 22 in each) when the DM treated a passive score as the floor for any perception or investigation roll ... except he thought that it was boring of the PC just found everything without trying, so he raised all the DCs. That effectively negated that investment, and the player raised it as a beef.

My advice: Don't try to upset the applecart by playing with the DCs. Instead, build it as you would in the absence of any knowledge of the character skills, and make the interesting things about the secret doors be elements other than whether you find them. Unusual locations, sizes, opening mechanisms, etc... can all be interesting.

If you want to hide a secret door where high perception will not help, place the secret door someplace the PCs will not go. For example, how often do PCs look under a bridge? How often do they climb out the window and onto the ledge and go around the corner? I use these for secret doors I want others to use against the PCs. Sometimes the PCs will find them, despite your best efforts, but if they do, they deserve to get the advantages of finding it.

 

[Eltab]

One secret door leads to Molly and Fibber McGee's closet.
You open the door, a ton of stuff falls out (get the sound effects from the 1930s radio programs), the area in front of the door is difficult terrain (because cluttered), and there is a nifty item to pick up - a key to a future door, a Medical Kit, an Art Object, a game set, the amulet that wards you from mindless undead guards in the basement, just something the PCs will be glad they picked up ... even though that crashing racket drew the resident wandering monster's attention upon them.

 

[Shiroiken]

Passive Perception doesn't have to be a static number. Have the secret doors roll (1d20+DC-11) against the player's passive perceptions, rather than just comparing DCs. If the players slow to a crawl in order to double check every section of wall, utilize wandering monsters to keep them moving.