Question about Harrowstone *spoilers*

[Cerwin]

I know in HoH one of the ways to defeat all the big 5 haunts is to use the cursed item associated with them. But how are players at that level supposed to get those items. Even taking a 20 on disable device (which you can't do) no one in my party can open the door.And with a hardness of 10 and 60 go they would ha e to spend hours trying to batter their way in, and with a dc 28 str check to break it that too is beyond what they can do. So how do they get in there?

[Damon Griffin]

There are keys later on. Once the party has those, they can come back to the property room.

[Cerwin]

Right but by the time they find the keys there is a very good chance that they will have already encountered at least a couple of the big 5.

[Damon Griffin]

Perhaps they can bypass the super strong metal door by:
- breaking the stone wall around it;
- destroying the door's hinges with acid, and prying it open against the lock;
- using a 1st level break spell to break the lock;
-purchasing rusting powder (60gp, and risky)

Spoiler:

If you apply a dose of rusting powder to a metal lock or trap as part of using the Disable Device skill, you gain a +5 alchemical bonus to open the lock or disable the trap, but there is a 75% chance that the mechanism is destroyed and cannot be used afterward. If the check fails, the mechanism is destroyed. A destroyed lock cannot be unlocked (but still counts as locked for the purpose opening the locked object).

[Helaman]

I handwave it to allow for take 20 ASSUMING they are unbothered by haunts etc

[Cerwin]

I ended up letting them weaken the lock with acid (kind of like the professor did to the crypt) and then dropped the quality of the lock so they could get in.