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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3263651" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't have my books with me, but I seem to recall it in the section on artifacts.  However, even if I'm wrong it doesn't effect my larger point.  I was merely providing one of the many possible explanations for why the cloaks worked by wouldn't be detected as magic.  I can provide others, for example that the cold effect is triggered in much the same way that magic mouths are triggered.  Thus, it doesn't matter that the cloaks aren't magical, they protect because the magical 'trap' doesn't go off except when approached by beings not wearing the appropriate regalia.Which is precisely the point.  Sometimes its perfectly appropriate to cut off a path completely.  A magically reinforced door with X hardness and Y hit points can always be busted down, unless you set an arbitrarly high hardness in which case you've effectively said the same thing.  But suppose the DM is tired of characters falling back on the unimaginative answer of just bashing the doors down.  Then he's well in his rights to make the door unbashable.  Doors which can't be bashed down are stock puzzles in every type of RPG from pen and paper to computer games, precisely because sometimes you want getting through the door to be a bit more questlike than just coming up to it with a hammer and bashing it to bits.Sometimes figuring out how to open the door should be a challenge.You don't know that.  The door could be opened by the application of a successful dispel magic which dispels its magical lock (or its magical fortification), by a cleric expending a turn check, by a few more ranks of open lock, by a specifically mentioned vunerability (for example, Holy Word, Disentigrate, etc.), or it could be bypassed by etherealness, or by going into gaseous form, or a clue to how to open it could be discovered through appropriate divination, or by the Bard recalling a snippet of ancient lore in the form of a riddle - all of which are alternative paths which will become easier as the characters advance in level.  Perhaps its the DM's intention to leave that mysterious unopenable door thier for several sessions, thus to increase the drama and intrigue and hense the delight when the door is finally opened.Maybe.  Maybe not.  It depends on context.Oh, I completely agree that the 'jump into the flames' example was utterly ludicrous and some of the worst DMing that I've encountered.   The only possible context in which that would make any sense is if there was a riddle prominently displayed before the room of death which hinted at the solution to the puzzle.   (This is in fact half the plot of 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'.)   But allow me to suggest a player that enjoys bashing down doors probably doesn't enjoy solving puzzles, and a player that gets upset because he isn't allowed to solve the puzzle by simply bashing down the door REALLY doesn't like solving puzzles.  Quite the contrary.  The fundamental limitation of publishes adventures is limited space.  There isn't room for lengthy listing of all the possibilities.  You can either choose to list a few approved methods, or list a few disapproved methods.  But you don't have space to deal with all the possibilities.  The assumption is that the DM will feel in the details appropriately.When you've fit a quality adventure into 32 pages minus illustrations and maps, you let me know how you feel.I didn't say that was the only reason.  But I did say that in the case originally cited, the DM and adventure writers did a perfectly good job, and I said that in no case was the actual problem that made the adventure unfun what is in this thread being called 'cheating'.   There might be bad design (like the aforementioned 'jump into the illusionary fire' trap), but it had nothing to do with what people are calling 'cheating'.  In most cases, its simply being arbitrary and failing to provide appropriate context and clues.  In the right context, the 'cheating' actually makes the adventure more fun.  What fun would 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' be, if Indiana didn't have to get the clues in order to survive the deadly traps protecting the Grail?  Irrelevant.  Either 'cheating' is a problem or its not.  If cheating is not a problem in a different situation, then you've conceded the point.So what. Then my point is proven.  They aren't really whining about cheating.  They are whining about the problem being 'too hard'.  But while some problems might be unfair, the sited problems are most certainly not.Maybe.  Maybe not.  No one likes to die.  You might as well complain about Dragon's though, which is often the last thing some characters see.  Context is everything here.Railroading isn't always bad.  It's just something that's very easy to overdo.  But every adventure railroads to a certain extent.</blockquote>

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