Kicking Down the Door, Trying to find rules for busting a door's lock, not blasting a hol Options

[QHudspeth]

I'm a new 5e GM. My group recently played for the first time and they wanted to kick in a door. You know, an old fashioned, hollywood-style, boot-to-the-lock smash. The only rules we could find governing door-bashing were for destroying barriers and covered blasting a hole in the door itself, rather than attacking the lock.

Anybody have any suggestions on dealing with that or know where a rule is squirreled away?

Q

[psychophipps]

To be honest, interior doors are a joke for the most part. They barely latch and the door frames are the bare minimum needed to keep the door shut. One success, maybe two for an especially well built doorway and it's busted wide open. Also, if you get one of those "no key" doors with the twist or push button lock, firmly push a long metal rod (I use the longer Philips head screwdriver from a mini-screwdriver set) into the hole in the center of the non-locking door handle and twist. Voila!

Exterior doors are also usually pretty cheesy. I can bust open most house doors with a good body check at 6'2" and 250lbs (2, maybe 3 successes). Once you get into well-made setups with metal frames and realio-dealio locks you start rapidly getting into areas where it's time to break out the toolbox or your resident Redunkulous Troll. You hit a steel door with a steel frame and your troll will need to break out their own toolbox. Breaching charges are there for a reason, homie. Just sayin'...

[Shemhazai]

How about a knowledge skill or perception check to see if the lock, latch, hinges, or frame are weak? Shooting through a door uses the normal barrier rating, while a break down uses the weaker rating. There might also be a bar across the other side, or secure deadbolts around the edge that make breaking though even harder than putting a hole in the door itself.

That check could also go for noticing a visible alarm attached to the door liable to go off in the event a player decides to break through it that way. And don't forget the damage that would be left behind, in case the team is trying to get out of there without a trace.

[Stahlseele]

somebody look up the Bear Walks Through Walls Shapeshifter who did Trollish ammounts of Damage to objects/barriers.
i may have been posting here for years, but i still can't get the dumpshock search to find what i am looking for <.<

[Surukai]

I'd use the general rule for difficulty tasks that applies to just about everything not covered with general rules.

Thresholds for tasks
1 easy
2 average
3 hard
4 Very hard+

Basically difficulty on a scale from 1 to 5 for most tasks works for just about everything and anything in the game, except specific things with special rules, period.

More GMs should feel comfortable to just slap random thresholds to tasks and roll for it instead of trying to find specific rules for every little thing.

[Moya]

All depends on how much of a hardass you want to be about it. Surukai's method is perfectly valid and works since it's just plain simple. Otherwise, I can direct you to page 197 of your SR5 book which lists barrier ratings for items. A simple door would be the Cheap Material listing.

Cheap Material Structure 2 Armor 4
Example: drywall, plaster, door, regular tire

You roll to attack (simply to see the net hits or chance of glitch) then apply damage to the barrier and have it resist with Structure + Armor. Get enough damage to beat the Structure and you have broken the barrier.

[psychophipps]

All depends on how much of a hardass you want to be about it. Surukai's method is perfectly valid and works since it's just plain simple. Otherwise, I can direct you to page 197 of your SR5 book which lists barrier ratings for items. A simple door would be the Cheap Material listing.

Cheap Material Structure 2 Armor 4
Example: drywall, plaster, door, regular tire

You roll to attack (simply to see the net hits or chance of glitch) then apply damage to the barrier and have it resist with Structure + Armor. Get enough damage to beat the Structure and you have broken the barrier.

Interesting, but there is no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that sheetrock has an armor of 4. Most housing doors are a damn joke. One boot from an untrained methhead and the door jam around the latch is completely blown out. Your suggested method means that Joe Blow with STR 3 and no dice in Unarmed Combat can never kick open a bullshit latched hollowcore interior door because without Edge being tossed in there, they can't break the armor with even a great dice roll.

[Moya]

I am not commenting on the quality of the rules psycho, just pointing out how they read. Technically, the door is a barrier and can be taken out with an extended test. I would actually use a characters Lift/Carry or Bod+Str instead of an attack if they were untrained.

But I agree with you. Someone with an average body and strength should be able to simply knock down a basic door. My question at that point is, why even roll? As a GM if it were just a simple plastic door and a Street Sam wanted that door turned to plastic splinters I would just say it's done.

[CaptRory]

It all depends on circumstances. If there's nothing to gain or lose, and it makes sense, it shouldn't even require a check. If you're trying to do it in difficult circumstances, like trying to make an big entrance into a room full of people or doing it during combat or if you're playing a scrawny little guy, then rolling is certainly appropriate.

I think the simplified test suggested by Surukai makes the most sense. The simpler you keep things the easier and more free flowing the game is.

[Sengir]

Interesting, but there is no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that sheetrock has an armor of 4. Most housing doors are a damn joke. One boot from an untrained methhead and the door jam around the latch is completely blown out. Your suggested method means that Joe Blow with STR 3 and no dice in Unarmed Combat can never kick open a bullshit latched hollowcore interior door because without Edge being tossed in there, they can't break the armor with even a great dice roll.

Remember that the rules for attacking barriers only cover the case where you want to create a hole of at least one m². That takes some effort. Breaking open a door, or even making a small peephole, is simply not covered.


Also, STR 3 means a base melee damage of 3 S, so unless your meth head has AGI 1 and needs to default on Unarmed Combat he does have a good chance of doing damage (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Moya]

Remember that the rules for attacking barriers only cover the case where you want to create a hole of at least one m². That takes some effort. Breaking open a door, or even making a small peephole, is simply not covered.


Also, STR 3 means a base melee damage of 3 S, so unless your meth head has AGI 1 and needs to default on Unarmed Combat he does have a good chance of doing damage (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Totally true, but you are trying to break a door open not destroy it. In reality you only have to break about 6 inches of door jam that is holding in the locking mechanism. Now the idea of a meth head Shadowrunner is fun.

Funny idea for a glitch is you go to kick the door down and just put your leg through a hole you created in the door.

[Sengir]

Totally true, but you are trying to break a door open not destroy it.

Which, like I said, is wholly different from the case covered by the rules.

Then again, the rules for barriers don't make much sense to start with. From the "Shooting Through Barriers" section which is not about shooting through barriers (that is covered by "Penetrating Weapons") to arbitrarily switching between punching through and causing maximum damage to the barrier (same weapon, same ammo, totally different ballistics), it's just a bunch of weirdness. So just rolling with the standard thresholds as Surukai suggested isn't the worst idea (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


PS: Just remembered that you can also get +2 (IIRC?) damage when charging the door.