Tissue-Paper Dungeons?

[IceFractal]

What with the rather apathetic performance of the Knock ritual, I was faced with the question: "Well, how long would it take just to smash down the door instead? Less than 10 minutes?".

The answer to which was a resounding yes - not only does it not take 10 minutes, it usually won't take even 10 rounds. For instance, a typical metal door in a dungeon has 60 hp, no hardness, and most damage-types work fine. A lone wizard, just using at-wills, could blast one apart in under a minute. Even a mighty adamantine vault doors will fall in a couple minutes - or much faster if the rest of the party lends a hand.

This raises the question of walls. While the DMG has no exact formula for wall HP, a section of wall large enough to squeeze through seems smaller or equal to a statue (40 hp, if stone). Even if we assume that a wall is much sturdier than an equivalent sized statue, it's hard to argue that a man-sized section of wall is tougher than a Huge-sized statue (200 hp, if stone), passable in as little as 20 seconds by a party of five.

While this was also a problem in 3E, the hardness and reduced effect from energy at least made it a somewhat more intensive process, and not every class had at-will powers available. In 4E, it's a rare structure that motivated adventurers can't simply tunnel their way through.

 

[thatdarnedbob]

If your party finds great pleasure in acting like a dungeon crawling Katamari, let them.

 

[NMcCoy]

Knock everything down and take it with you? Sounds like D&D to me.

Na na, na na na na na-na-na-na katamari D&D...

 

[Byronic]

The only poor thing of this strategy (besides if you have some other reason to keep it open including resale value and reoccupation efforts) is that you can't *close* the door behind you in case there was something there you want to keep locked up.

But it is an annoyance.

I wonder if Wizard players are going to complain that everyone is doing his tricks a lot better?

 

[Branduil]

If your players insist on destroying all the walls in the dungeons, rather than using the doors, you might want to teach them a lesson in structural integrity.

 

[azarias]

your wizard has no at-wills that could affect a wall, door, or any other object. At heroic levels, he might have one encounter power that targets objects - Force Orb - and could shoot that at the wall once every five minutes.

The wizard won't be much better placed to level the wall at 10th or even 20th level. At 19th level he could have a daily that targets objects - Disintegrate - which would deal with a wall very nicely, just as it should; but does the wizard really want to burn a daily that way?

Wizards aside, I think your point stands. The real problem is not typed damages but weapon damage (which I think is untyped, this time out). A wizard may be a bit stumped, but a ranger can shoot down a wall much too easily for comfort.

There are some qualifiers in the DMG;

(1) at the DM's discretion, some objects may be particularly resistant to some kinds of damage; and
(2) at the DM's discretion, an object that reaches zero hp can still be whole, but not functional.

I'd say most dungeon walls are gargantuan (they are after all bigger than most 'even bigger statues', and I think an object should be considered as a whole for hit points - the game doesn't have rules for targetting parts), so that's 400hp (200, x2 for stone). I might also give stone some discretionary resistances - maybe 5 for good brick and mortar. I'd certainly give an unusual wall solid resistances: a dungeon wall of iron or force (in other words, a wall the PCs are supposed to have a very hard time getting through, if they can at all) would certainly have resistances if I were the discretionary DM. And note that although the books don't spell this out (which is a shame), they do spell out the DM's right to be sensible about this.

With the ranger shooting arrows at the wall, I'd also extend point (2) and say that the zero-HP wall is still very much whole: in fact, an arrow is only going to remove functionality from a tiny area. The ranger can blast a few bricks to dust, but it'll take a shed-load of arrows to carve out a Medium-sized hole. This goes one stage beyond the discretion advised by the books, but it's no more than a logical extension.

Hope that helps.

 

[Blair Goatsblood]

When players try hacking through dungeon walls in my game, weapons start breaking.

 

[Pistonrager]

When players try hacking through dungeon walls in my game, weapons start breaking.

Exactly. I love it when people start swinging their swords at walls.

 

[Blackbrrd]

What if your players start swinging mauls? They look like they are made for crushing stuff. Including walls. Anyway, let us say that your players hammer away at the wall/door for 10-20 minutes to get it open... They are about to enter the room, and find the whole tribe of orcs/hobgoblins/whatever waiting for them on the other side... Ooops?

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I ran into this problem in 3.5 with a certain Warlock player. It was very hard to deal with.
"I Eldrich blast it until it's gone"

"It'll take a few hours"

"Its ok, I don't run out of eldrich blast"

so... after a few rounds, I started making him get tired. Fort save DC 10 +1 every time he threw a Blast after a full minute of constant blasting.
I mean, I don't have any real magic in real life to compare to, but I'm sure it takes SOMETHING out of the caster.

I plan on modifying this in 4th if it pops up again now that everyone has powers that don't run out...

Or I'll put a Tarasque behind every door, in those 10' x 10' rooms. I mean thats just as realistic as never running out of magical ability right?