Per the pathfinder rules:
Breaking Items
When a character tries to break or burst something with sudden force rather than by dealing damage, use a Strength check (rather than an attack roll and damage roll, as with the sunder special attack) to determine whether he succeeds.
Personally, I've always had a bit of an issue with this - with ability checks in general. Let's use, for example, a burly warrior and a frail wizard. The warrior has a strength of 18(+4) and the wizard has a strength of 10(+0). The two of them come across a simple door and decide to break it down.
The DC to break down a simple door is 13.
The warrior rolls poorly (he rolls an 8, which gives him a final check of 12) so he fails to break down the door even though he's broken much stronger doors in the past.
The wizard smugly steps up and tells the warrior to move aside. He rolls a 16. Bam. The door breaks open and the wizard scoffs at the clearly inept warrior.
Okay, so. I realize the following: I know that something like bashing open a door with a strength check is something that can be repeated, and the chance for the warrior to break the door is ultimately higher due to his strength score. Additionally, I can appreciate the humor that comes from the scenario I depicted.
It bothers me a little though. I haven't actually run the math, but I think the warrior with an 18 strength, and thus a +4 modifier, only has a 20% advantage over the wizard. It just does not feel right.
An idea I had that might work as a possible fix for it, is to allow characters to spend skill point ranks increasing the modifier on ability based checks. So, one would have Strength listed as a skill (I haven't decided yet if I'd make certain abilities class or cross-class) and it would go like this:
Level 4 Fighter with 18 Strength
Skills
Strength - Ranks: 4 - Mod: 4 - Total 8
This now reflects that the fighter has learned how to bash down doors well, or how to control his strength better. In essence... strength training like those that compete in strength competitions.
Anyhow, I'm not sure how or if the idea will fly. I figured I'd toss it to the wolves and see if it survives.
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I would do it this way: Increase all ability DCs by 10 + ([current DC - 10] / 2)
Make ability checks use the total ability score, not the modifier.
This is a bit math intensive on the fly, so a faster but less balanced way is to just add 10 to ability DCs, and use total ability score.
The first way doubles the success chance difference, the second does the same but makes ability checks easier than they currently are for high stat characters.
Making it a skill probably wouldn't work, as most characters that will want to make strength checks don't have many skill points to throw around on breaking doors with strength checks when a weapon attack will do.
It's a shortcoming of the system, but its simple and i like that. We could devise a better system but they would become needlessly complicated.
It bothers me a little though. I haven't actually run the math, but I think the warrior with an 18 strength, and thus a +4 modifier, only has a 20% advantage over the wizard. It just does not feel right.
You could just approximate the bend bars/life gates mechanic from 1st ed AD&D.
In otherwords, an 18/00 Strength guy could open them/etc with 40% certainty through brute strength. To use with Pathfinder, you could just say they gain double their strength modifier (12 would be +2, 18 would be +8) on Strength checks. You'd have to probably spell it out so folks didn't think you meant for it to apply to thinks like sunder and so on, even though it says clearly in the text, "When a character tries to break or burst something with sudden force rather than by dealing damage, use a Strength check (rather than an attack roll and damage roll, as with the sunder special attack) to determine whether he succeeds."