In a recent game, one of the players had his horse "Thunk" back up to a big door/very small fort gate and buck-kick it. Thunk was a heavy warhorse (horse with the advanced template & combat trained; i.e. not docile), and the wooden gate was poorly constructed, but thick (I ruled it a foot thick, but could only had 3/4 hit points before breaking into over-sized logs). The DC to break was that of a barred door; i.e. DC 25.
Now, Thunk was large, so it got +2, and had a strength score of 18 [+4]. That still meant it needed a 19 to break it down. The burly fighter needed a natural 20, and everyone was hacking at the ropes and wood, trying to get the door down as quickly as they could (the rogue was on the other side, getting swarmed by bandits).
Here is what I ruled: attempting to smash the door down took a full round action, but Thunk used strength and a half because he was two-hoof'ing it. Every-time he struck the door and failed, he did hoof damage to the door (plus strength and a half). Everyone else striking the door had to make attack rolls to do aid another actions, and any that hit also did normal damage (so long as they were used slashing or bludgeoning weapons; the long spear wasn't suit for the task). The hardness 5 made a huge difference in damage output.
In three rounds, all four people and Thunk managed to break the door down (once the door was at half hits points, the DC dropped by two, and that turn Thunk roll particularly high).
Now, this may not be the best way to handle it, but I can't see a half ton horse smashing a door without doing damage, and maybe knocking off the hinges.
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In a recent game, one of the players had his horse "Thunk" back up to a big door/very small fort gate and buck-kick it. Thunk was a heavy warhorse (horse with the advanced template & combat trained; i.e. not docile), and the wooden gate was poorly constructed, but thick (I ruled it a foot thick, but could only had 3/4 hit points before breaking into over-sized logs). The DC to break was that of a barred door; i.e. DC 25.
Now, Thunk was large, so it got +2, and had a strength score of 18 [+4]. That still meant it needed a 19 to break it down. The burly fighter needed a natural 20, and everyone was hacking at the ropes and wood, trying to get the door down as quickly as they could (the rogue was on the other side, getting swarmed by bandits).
Here is what I ruled: attempting to smash the door down took a full round action, but Thunk used strength and a half because he was two-hoof'ing it. Every-time he struck the door and failed, he did hoof damage to the door (plus strength and a half). Everyone else striking the door had to make attack rolls to do aid another actions, and any that hit also did normal damage (so long as they were used slashing or bludgeoning weapons; the long spear wasn't suit for the task). The hardness 5 made a huge difference in damage output.
In three rounds, all four people and Thunk managed to break the door down (once the door was at half hits points, the DC dropped by two, and that turn Thunk roll particularly high).
Now, this may not be the best way to handle it, but I can't see a half ton horse smashing a door without doing damage, and maybe knocking off the hinges.
Translation: They did attack rolls and damage for a while then, when it was damaged enough to be weakened, did a strength check. (You combined the two, but this is what it would look like in RAW.)
Yes, a strength check generally does damage the object to some extent, but it only does heavy damage to the "weakest link" of the object, whereas the attack rolls damage everything.
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Yea, mdt, that's true. Like, safes and locks are rated by the time it takes an experienced safecracker to defeat them.
In the iconogrphy of the game and fantasy stories, however, a lot of times you want a door like the door to Moria, where the fellowship had to find the right password to get though. To get that element, you can't have Gimli with the option of breaking out his mining tools and digging a hold around the side, or Gandalf buring an entrance with repeated acid splashes. So, if you want your adventure to have those elements, the rules are working against you on that - which is a bit paradoxical since so much of the game has the implicit assumption that door and walls *are* supposed to be barriers that channel movement, and present puzzel challenges like the door to Moria.
You mean like the "The Watcher in the Water" in the lake in front of the door that does not let them hang out there too long (or make too much noise).
Or the fact that that door was enchanted. Heck it was not even visible until the right series of thing had happened.
Also, the dwarves did not want the back door to their house destroyed (rp reason for not just breaking it down).
I am sure that if they wanted to (or had the time to), they could have either dig through it, or destroyed it with magic.
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There are plenty of reasons why one would not break through dozens of feet of solid rock to get around a door, one of which being that the door is generally easier to break, another being that it takes a while and the noises alert guards, a third being that the door is a "slow down" measure to allow guards to take you out, the fourth being that breaking rock takes a long time and you may not have the time, ... (the list could keep going)
If I had a big underground city and I wanted to prevent people from burrowing around protections, I would just ensure that the city had a few people who use large drums (or maybe magic) to listen for unauthorized tunneling that they could send guards to investigate. Even 5ft of stone takes a long while to get through, and if it doesn't then... well... you're strong enough that this whole thought exercise is likely a moot point. The earliest way to do it quickly is disintegrate, which means you're already of "legendary" power level (level 11+).
An adamantine rapier will still bend when pushed against an object, you cannot pierce through a 2 inch door with one no matter how strong you are.
That's not quite true. Given sufficient energy behind it, a rapier will penetrate a stone wall (granted it might be 1/3 it's length by the time it folds in on itself while penetrating the stone). I've seen a pitchfork tine driven through a pine tree, then the wind snapped off the rest of the pitchfork, leaving just the tine stuck through the tree.
I am sure that if they wanted to (or had the time to), they could have either dig through it, or destroyed it with magic.
Maybe Gandalf spent hours and hours in the story trying every opening spell he could think of, rather than just breaking in, just out of respect for history, but there's no rule saying players have to.
Thing is the RAW makes it *very* easy and quick to even tunnel right though a wall, much more so than either real life or as they'd need to be to function as story elements, even at low levels. You have to disregard the rules with something like mdt's McGuffin magic to have them do what they're supposed to, or have players who'll just play along.