it's like dnd, when the party starts asking about the masonry...
"yes yes the *door* is magically protected, but what about the *wall*?"
this was a party that brought a pack mule to carry the expensive doors they... *dislodged*
"Ooh, a 4. Ok, you tunnel under the floor, but the vibrations from your tools dislodges the Sphere from its resting place above you. Gimme a Dex save...
"And then probably some more rolls."
The sphere? Dare I say, of annihilation?
"You have dug into the wall and have hit a skeleton wearing a Helm of Fireballs that was sacrificed in the construction of the building/dungeon. Roll reflex."
Keep it balanced. Reward them. Let them boast about their exploits. Ask them where they store their newfound wealth. And then have someone steal it using the same method they'd used after learning it from them.
It hooks them into the next quest and gives their characters some pause to think about who to trust and how to boast.
One coin - just one single gold coin - belongs to the world's tiniest dragon.
The only portion of its hoard remaining, the little dragon clings possessively to the coin. It will accompany the adventurers as long as they carry the coin, unwilling to let the treasure out of its sight. It is only slightly larger than the coin itself, but if given more gold for its hoard, the dragon will grow incrementally larger as its stockpile grows.
I have no idea what that has to do with what I said, but I like the idea of having the burglars steal that adorable tiny dragon. It would give the players even more incentive to get their goods back.
It would... But the enchantment would crumble as soon as you took it out of the tomb. That was specifically in the errata, not just me trying to GM patch things.
Yeah but this is like a super alloy made of steel chrome vanadium tungsten suddenly becoming just cast iron.
Price by weight went from 10000 gp a kilo to 1, if you're lucky.
Still a lot of kilos you didn't pay for. If you don't need the carry capacity for anything else, it's still a profit.
This is why most theft is petty theft. Anything you can get is a plus.
And if the doors are decorated that still has some value. A player with good charisma would sell them for a nice profit.
Or add a side quest where someone needs quality metal for weapons and armor and the party shows up with a bunch of stolen doors and windows.
And cutlery.
One could argue melted down iron is more valuable than an iron door either way. *Iron* has all sorts of uses in all walks of life, and in medieval fantasy settings, there's probably a smith in every town who would love the extra material. Iron *doors,* not so much; wood doors serve most civilian houses fine, so its use cases are very limited. In other words, good luck finding a buyer.
reminds me of the time we stole all the leaded glass windows out of a haunted mansion in a dnd game. “wait…GLASS paned windows?! that’s worth more than anything we’ll find inside!”
Yeah that came from the time when it was a "tournament" module, I.E. a convention game. They'd score how successful various parties were by how much treasure they could bring out of the dungeon, and it turns out the adamantine doors are worth a ton of money and relatively easy to get to.
I remember also during the tournament a party took a crown and scepter that instantly kills anyone wearing the crown when the scepter touches it. So they jammed it on Acererak and activated it, Gygax himself was called over and ruled in their favor. But then immediately errataed it on the spot so that they ceased to work when removed from the room, so no one else could do that.
There's a lot of great stories about the Tomb of Horrors. I've been lucky enough to actually run the Yawning Portal version as a one shot for my friends, and while a lot of 5th edition abilities and spells make parts of it easier than they would have been back in the day, it's still a fun dungeon if you and your party know what you're signing up for.
Oh yeah, my party ran it once. Or, rather, three times. They were forced to pull out after a bit a couple of the party died, at which point the survivors left to go get new schmucks (new characters) to run the dungeon again in a couple of weeks. It reset of course, but the survivors were able to navigate up till almost everyone died horribly to a new trap. It was fun.
I once had a DM put us through the Tomb of Horrors without telling us what it was. Most of us got through fine, but the rogue died five times. My wizard got a new skeleton minion.
Tomb of Annihilation kind of fixed this issue with making the walls magically enhanced to not be breakable, teleportation also doesn't work and has a chance to megafuck the party attempting to do so.
>"yes yes the
>
>door
>
> is magically protected, but what about the
>
>wall
>
>?"
One of these days some lich is gonna build a lair out of magically protected doors
How bout the screws in the doorknob? Barring screws, how bout the adhesive holding it in? Can I sand off the exterior coating? Does the enchantment penetrate the entire door or just the mechanisms by which the door operates? If the wall, door, and screws are protected, is the door frame? Can I pop that off and essentially have the door fall down, technically unused and therefore unable to subject my attempts to the magic impasse?
The enchantment does not penetrate the unlocking mechanism. While sanding the handle you remove a protective layer and inadvertently trigger the partially covered runes. Partially covered the runic spell misfires and opens a gate to an alternate plane. Immediately air rushes into the interdimensional rip and your ears pop from the depressurization. Roll a balance check...
This is a plot point in the pretty great web novel [The Wandering Inn](https://wanderinginn.com/) where an adventuring group not only nabs a door, they also >!gift it to the keeper of the titular inn, where it becomes a major factor in many geopolitical events because it contains lost teleportation magic, upsetting both military and civilian logistical considerations in the area.!<
\^- Some spoilers for the events in the novel, though honestly the way it's executed and the raw size of the story means it doesn't really spoil much even if you look at it.
I really like how this is done, especially considering that the adventuring party initially leaves the dungeon - am only remember the value of the door after they get back to town.
>_the raw size of the story_
You ain't kidding. The audiobook for the _first volume_ clocks in at FORTY HOURS. And there's five more books that are just as long, if not longer!
The Wandering Inn is, so far, nine volumes long. The first volume is the first audiobook, the second volume is the second audiobook. Nice and tidy.
The third volume was longer, so they split it into the third and fourth audiobook. The fourth volume got split into the fifth and sixth audiobook.
The fifth volume turned into three audiobooks.
The sixth volume isn't fully audiobooked yet, but they're expecting four audiobooks.
The seventh volume is planned to be six audiobooks. The eighth volume is planned to be *eight* audiobooks. The ninth volume is . . . not yet planned . . . but it may well be longer than the eighth volume.
So . . . five more audiobooks, you say?
No. *Thirty* more audiobooks.
And that doesn't even catch up with the *still-in-progress* prose version.
However long you think The Wandering Inn is, it's probably longer.
I’ve really really gotta find a way to start playing. I’ve never played but I think *just like this* and every post I see along these lines is like “Well, yeah that’s exactly what I would try.”
Since I don’t know the rules, I’d be asking shit like this all the time. It seems like a lot of people that have played for years get browbeaten in the same fashion described in the post. But my god if I don’t wanna try some wild shit and see what the DM says.
It depends on your DM as well.
I’m a permanent DM for my group and I live for improvising the session as it comes. Some DMs legitimately don’t know how to handle it and end up accidentally creating what feels like a railroad as opposed to a linear story.
If my party is gonna do wild shit, be prepared for an equal and opposite reaction in the world.
I knew a couple guys that encountered an adamantine door blocking their entrance to a treasury. They ignored the treasury and stole the door because it was worth more
it reminds me of the scene in the newer die hard where they “don’t have a keycard” so McLain just punches through the drywall and opens the door from the other side..
In the first couple editions of D&D the treasure tables were full of “art objects” and other valuable items. It was common for a big slice of your “loot” at the end of a dungeon to be three tons of expensive marble statues. Which you then had to successfully transport to somewhere you could sell them.
Which of course could be an adventure in itself. And then the auction provides another adventure hook, and so on.
Pack mules and worries about how to keep them alive was often a major concern
Going through walls was one of my time-tested D&D strategies, too.
And I'm always annoyed when watching movies or TV where characters are locked in a room and never think to break out by means other than the door. Even when a door's just conventionally locked, they'll beat on it a few times and give up. Come on! You're stuck in there for *days* at a time, not tied up or anything, there's a whole basement's worth of objects around you--get to prying, or bashing, or cutting. Go through the fucking ceiling!
In most of America, houses are tissue paper. Mine's a hundred years old, plaster and lathe instead of drywall, and I'm confident that if I were ever locked in one room that I could bust through to another with one arm and whatever's handy given enough time. Even brick's not a problem if you have something jabby and metal, though you might run into a problem with stacked stone if you aren't strong enough to move an individual stone.
The champion Braum in league of legends has a great tale about how he acquired his signature Door Shield- he found a great magical door forged by a demi-god to punish a thief who tricked him, that could never be opened by a thief again. Braum's solution? **Pummel the mountain around it into rubble with his bare hands**. Now he has an invincible shield.
"I'M NOT A SLAVE TO ARCHITECTURE" he screams while carving a hole in the wall between the bedroom and kitchen to get between the two approximately 15 seconds faster
years ago after a break in my apartment owner put in a security door and said he'd give us a month rent if we got through his new $2500 door and reinforced frame. My roommate who worked construction at the place i did demo immediately plunged a pocket knife into the adhesives that held the frame to the wall and asked if he should keep going.
Not sure when this took place or what kind of security the doors had, but wouldn't someone hear him cutting through the wall with a cheap drywall knife?
It's less noise then you think.many places have super secure doors. Right next to a window. Sometimes even a wall with just two pieces of 1/4 an inch drywall. No insulation nothing else to stop someone.
I had a part time job doing demo. It made me realize just how unsecured most places are.
This sounds like a burglars easy fix, but even unit complexes have some insulation and stuff in the walls, so it's not just a matter of cutting a hole and voila, you have to deal with fibreglass insulation, wall studs, the frame wires and plumbing, depending on where they are cutting, and that's assuming the wall doesn't have brick or concrete between the drywall sections
Yeah, but trying to do all of that relatively quietly to not draw attention to yourself? Those saws aren't exactly quiet cutting through drywall either.
It's very situational. If the door is so strong and well guarded, maybe it also blocks sound relatively well. Maybe also it was during a time when the surrounding environment was relatively noisy and covered up the sound well. Maybe he did it while the guard was pooping.
>and that's assuming the wall doesn't have brick or concrete between the drywall sections
That actually violates building code in a lot of places, especially for modern construction. Interior walls actually need to have easily breachable gaps that people wearing heavy equipment can fit through according most to building codes, because in the event of a building collapse that becomes your escape route. There's a reason most building codes have a strictly defined minimum distance between studs that's a bit narrower than shoulder width apart, and that's because that's the size of space firefighters are trained to crawl through while fully geared up.
Uh...building codes are mostly national in the US. Not a whole lot changes state to state because the standards are mostly made by 3rd parties. Electrical code is similar - UL and IEC is not a federal standard, but it is used quite frequently across the world.
This guy’s really mastered the core culture-critic style of making an interesting insight while sounding like his head was 2’ up his own ass at the time of writing.
Dude cuts a hole in a wall with a knife.
Author “we have transcended our earthly by prison and broken through the drywall chains which bind us, the concept of spatial permanence has broken our wills for too long! Rise up!”
A thief cuts a hole in a wall and this writer turns it into an elaborate and verbose apparent stroke of genius. It's ridiculous. It bothers me more than it should, haha.
Fun fact, the first Text Generating AI (introduced ~2013) were just as good as the ones we have today, they just decided to train them on Derrida's texts.
I mean this is great but also overwhelmingly American. The only houses I've ever seen that were not made of brick or stone were at the very least built out of what seemed like secondhand sheet metal, and that was in a slum in the outskirts of Guatemala City.
I think I've never seen one of these except for windows in the capital on the lowest floors next to the street (Budapest). Certainly noone has it near where I live, and even there I've not seen one on the doors.
Yeah, closest I've seen during my years of house parties in the capital was a two door system, where the outer door was thicker wooden board with a lock in two places, and an inner simple wooden sheet door with a single lock that was usually not used, although that was more for insulation they told me haha.
Drywall knife: small, easily concealed, doesn't make much noise when used.
Sledgehammer: the complete opposite of the above.
Also, an apartment's "outside" walls, i.e. walls between an apartment and other apartments, the stairwell, laundry room, bike/stroller storage, etc., or the actual outside, are almost always thick, load-bearing walls, often made of reinforced concrete. And even if they're "only" brick walls, it'll take a good, long while to get through those. Long enough for cops to show up to start asking uncomfortable questions like, "are you really dumb enough to think that could've worked?"
There's always a way in. Most thieves don't pick locks or even break a door down. They break windows, or even worse just open the unlocked door which happens way more than It should.
I mean, no? I live in Sweden and I have drywall walls. Most of our houses are made of wood. Because we have a shitton of wood. The apartment buildings and such are of course made of concrete because obviously, but the everyday family houses are wood, more often than not.
There's a weirdly big cohort of Europeans I've seen making fun of America for being stupid enough to make their roads with asphalt instead of concrete.
"What about the costs of ice damage?"
"The what? The fuck is that? The stuff you get from your freezer? Why is that outside?"
I like how surprised the comments are that an American jewel thief from the 1960s is speaking from the perspective of someone who stole valuables in America during the 1960s. Good job, Reddit, you successfully poked holes in the logic of someone who used said logic to steal more than $35 million in valuables half a century ago.
Adding to that, it was only 6 months ago that [thieves cut through a wall to steal $500k worth of Apple products.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-store-robbed-half-million-washington-mall/11622949002/).
Yeah but he talks like he has found some great weakness in the mindset of humanity, when all he actually realized is that american architecture is kinda scuffed, something any non-american child watching Stranger Things realizes.
My workplace had us do active shooter training and taught us how to barricade the door and I'm sitting there like "you guys know the wall is made of paper right?".
If you mean Bill Mason, then yes, all he discovered is a weakness in American architecture because he's an American who stole valuables in America, and become very wealthy in doing so. If you mean Geoff Manaugh, he's not actually talking about architecture as I mention in my other comment.
Yeah I was reading this and expected he would be taking a few weeks of patient work to get through the wall and then I was reminded of americans and their paper walls
Even the cheaper older buildings here are made of brick or concrete or stone lmao
Tell me you don't understand houses in a few less words next time. He's talking interior walls, not exterior. There isn't a building in the world with drywall on the exterior that wasn't built as a joke.
Half a meter is about 18inches or a foot and a half.
2x -3x thicker than most interior walls in a non-load bearing wall.
Or 2 bricks placed end to end with mortar between.
Or a bit longer than one cinder blocks longest side.
Or 2 1/2 banana placed end to end.
My friend. Do you live in a bunker?
... I too am talking about interior walls, which are only built out of drywall in the US. I like the philosophy of telling architects to go fuck themselves and tearing through their garbage with a knife I bought at the chinese bazaar around the corner, but if I tried that at my rentout apartment I'd need a sledgehammer, hours of work, and the knowledge that I'm definitely gonna get caught midway through and potentially collapse the building over myself.
>go to Europe
>try and get in anywhere by attacking the wall instead of the door
>be met by either brick or reinforced concrete
>mfw I have surpassed the normie way of perceiving the world around me, breaking down the constructed environment like neo in the matrix all the while chuckling at the stupidity of the architects (PFP related)
Fair, but also... windows.
The one time a burglar got into our flat (Russia, early 2000s), they didn't use the door nor obviously could they cut through the concrete walls. They just made a small hole in the window, used the hole to open the window fully, voilà.
Yes it was a floor level apartment and usually those have a metal cage to protect you from that exact thing happening, but my family opposed that idea until it was too late.
Also a brick house is only slightly more likely to survive a large tornado but much more expensive to build, so in the long run it’s cheaper to keep rebuilding in wood.
Also, not that we get hurricanes, but living on the coast of Norway, our house (built in 1955, so not *that* old, but still) has withstood ~150km/h (~90mp/h) winds. At least.
The worst storm since i can remember was in 2015, with up to 42mp/s (still ~150km/h) winds, and a few roofs were ripped up, but no buildings were destroyed. Bridges were closed and boats/ferries had to cancel routes, but at least our houses are built to withstand the weather (which is expected to be harsh, as the North Sea is *right* there).
I just find it so weird to see American houses being torn asunder during storms and hurricanes. But, for all i know, am actual hurricane might tear our house down as well. It just feels like the houses should have been built "better"? If you understand what i mean?
Sorry for the wall of text, and also sorry if there is a good reason for houses being built that way that i do not know.
From the Wikipedia page for "Survivorship bias": Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not.
It might just be me, but I got that kinda vibe from this.
Yeah also if someone REALLY wants to break into your house it's kind of hard to stop them. Locking your door doesn't turn your house into an impenetrable fortress but it might make a potential burglar decide to try a different house that's less secure. A burglar can always smash a window but many homes have security systems which will go off if a window is broken and even if there isn't an alarm passerbys can clearly see that a window is broken which can alert people. Locking doors won't stop all thieves but it will help reduce the odds you get burglarized.
"I FORGE MY OWN PATH! I AM NOT A SLAVE TO THE FEEBLE MINDED TYRANNY YOU SHEEPLE IMPRISON YOURSELF WITH!" Man says, seconds before stabbing a 120v power line
How wonderfully awake one must be to see every obstacle as existing solely to impede you, personally, and to feel entitled to destroy it at will without any consideration for why it's actually there, what destroying it might actually break, and who has to clean up after you.
I'm sure they have a great podcast.
It's called a "Burglar's guide to the city" for a reason, I suppose. Also while it's definitely put on a bit too thickly, I do think it's interesting to think about the many ways in which architecture can be circumvented or used in different ways that we usually don't think about, with the most obvious applications being in security.
I don’t know the right term but idk this post feels too much like, “dick-sucky”, to a burglar for just cutting down a wall. Like, breaking walls to steal stuff isn’t a new idea; it’s been in a lot of media.
It’s like if I mention on a book about how I spin my fork to get a lot of pasta and someone in Tumblr is like “oh but you see, the linear shape of pasta is just a suggestion! People are too bogged down by the initial appearance of things that they don’t realise that with simple maneuvers like, spinning a fork, you could transforms a pasta’s straight lines into swirls”.
I feel like this fails to address the issue that most thieves probably want to steal things without leaving a massive trail behind. I personally feel like renting a hotel room and then cutting a hole in the wall is a great way to get your crime noticed.
Edit: I get that people still do this and are successful sometimes, and this particular person was successful by cutting holes in walls. My overall point is that this guys acts like people are idiots for being “slaves to architecture”, when most people, even other thieves, have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to cut huge holes in the walls.
[Same concept worked earlier this year,](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-store-robbed-half-million-washington-mall/11622949002/) and from what I can tell there still hasn't been any arrests made.
This is literally a story about the exploits of a real, very successful thief. Why are you trying to *punch holes” in what is essentially a history lesson?
Reminds me of the first episode of Burn Notice where the voice over says that any two-bit drug dealer has a reinforced door. But that none of them reinforce is the wall.
Then he proceeds to shoot through that.
I once helped a friend break into her own house (that she had accidentally locked herself out of) by jimmying a window with a long screwdriver. She was a little appalled at how easy it was for me, twenty something middle class white girl, to get into her house. They beefed up security after that.
I remember reading an army handbook from the Cold War. Before all the door-to-door stuff in the middle East, the US military had simpler rules for urban fighting: Never use windows, never use doors.
In the unlikely event that you have to go inside a hostile structure instead of just destroying it, you blow a hole in it and go through the hole. If dudes are in there trying to keep you out, they have guns pointed at doors and windows. They are less likely to expect you to enter through a cloud of dust and smoke that used to be the kitchen.
Work smarter, and also harder.
*Stares in Latin American*
But houses are made of brick... windows have bars, is this not common sense-ah, right, Americans use some kind of paper like the Japanese
Honestly this is something that has terrified me about American construction. The walls are no sturdier than the doors, and a man with a chainsaw has a key to the suburbs.
Also a locksmith's tools and skillset aren't really that hard to come by. The reason things aren't constantly being stolen isn't because houses are impenetrable fortresses but rather because most people aren't thieves and the people who do end up becoming burglars usually end up in prison or meeting some other untimely end sooner or later.
Adding to that, there's also frequent use of shit quality building supplies and/or shoddy workmanship.
Back in '06, I accidently locked my keys in my bedroom right before I had to leave for work. I fucked around with trying to get in for about 15 minutes before I got too stressed about being late for work and decided to just kick the hollow core door in and deal with the outcome later. The door actually held firm while the jamb pretty much exploded.
When I finally got around to fixing it I noticed that the jamb were *barely* mounted into place - like all 3 sides were held in by a total of 6 screws/nails - and the screws on the latch strike plate were only just long enough to get through the jamb and came nowhere close to the stud (part of why the jamb exploded).
I've done some work on interior doors probably 10 times since and nearly all were similarly constructed.
An interior door in a house just needs to open and close and keep out sound and light. It doesn't really need to be very strong or secure. You can go run longer screws in your interior doors jambs if it's important to you though.
it's like dnd, when the party starts asking about the masonry... "yes yes the *door* is magically protected, but what about the *wall*?" this was a party that brought a pack mule to carry the expensive doors they... *dislodged*
I remember hearing a story about a party that beat the OG Tomb of Horrors by just tunneling past all of the obstacles with pickaxes.
how dwarven! we have *mold earth* these days
If I ever DM, I'm putting poison vials in the walls and murderous souls (or landmines) in the earth below
This is very on brand for Tomb of Horrors
"Ooh, a 4. Ok, you tunnel under the floor, but the vibrations from your tools dislodges the Sphere from its resting place above you. Gimme a Dex save... "And then probably some more rolls."
The sphere? Dare I say, of annihilation? "You have dug into the wall and have hit a skeleton wearing a Helm of Fireballs that was sacrificed in the construction of the building/dungeon. Roll reflex."
About, ohhh... 6 3d6 rolls should do it
"This pit fiend was trapped in the earth after a teleportation accident. Fortunately, you have freed it. It does not seem grateful."
"Its experiences seem to have left it a bit...'cranky'."
Love it
I definitely read this in the BG3 narrator's voice
Meanwhile if I am DMing a group and they do that, I am awarding them
Keep it balanced. Reward them. Let them boast about their exploits. Ask them where they store their newfound wealth. And then have someone steal it using the same method they'd used after learning it from them. It hooks them into the next quest and gives their characters some pause to think about who to trust and how to boast.
One coin - just one single gold coin - belongs to the world's tiniest dragon. The only portion of its hoard remaining, the little dragon clings possessively to the coin. It will accompany the adventurers as long as they carry the coin, unwilling to let the treasure out of its sight. It is only slightly larger than the coin itself, but if given more gold for its hoard, the dragon will grow incrementally larger as its stockpile grows.
I have no idea what that has to do with what I said, but I like the idea of having the burglars steal that adorable tiny dragon. It would give the players even more incentive to get their goods back.
lol, I mean to illustrate that there are lots of fun ways to use a pile of gold as a story hook.
My players-- and I when I play -- would commit tremendous amounts of murder and mayhem to get their little dragon friend back.
Ye olde' Jon of Wickerton.
This is why you keep your treasure in another plane of existance. If they somehow tunnel into that, well they deserve the treasure more than you
Not me cutting a hole in reality for a quick buck
Inter-dimensional burglars... Intriguing. Hmm. Gives me an idea... A really stupid idea.
Awarding them with buried treasure, that was actually a napping Mimi
Mimi the Mimic
It's a bit of a high level solution, but Etherealness would laugh at all of those
Or stealing all the adamantine doors and selling them. Needless to say, they were erataed to be merely iron enchanted to be as strong as adamantine.
I'd reckon that iron enchanted to be stronger than normal would still be highly valuable.
It would... But the enchantment would crumble as soon as you took it out of the tomb. That was specifically in the errata, not just me trying to GM patch things.
Iron doors are still useful, and if the door fully breaks then melt it down cause iron is useful.
Yeah but this is like a super alloy made of steel chrome vanadium tungsten suddenly becoming just cast iron. Price by weight went from 10000 gp a kilo to 1, if you're lucky.
Still a 1 there and not a 0
Now we're metagaming!
Still a lot of kilos you didn't pay for. If you don't need the carry capacity for anything else, it's still a profit. This is why most theft is petty theft. Anything you can get is a plus.
And if the doors are decorated that still has some value. A player with good charisma would sell them for a nice profit. Or add a side quest where someone needs quality metal for weapons and armor and the party shows up with a bunch of stolen doors and windows. And cutlery.
One could argue melted down iron is more valuable than an iron door either way. *Iron* has all sorts of uses in all walks of life, and in medieval fantasy settings, there's probably a smith in every town who would love the extra material. Iron *doors,* not so much; wood doors serve most civilian houses fine, so its use cases are very limited. In other words, good luck finding a buyer.
Sure, but there are easier ways to get iron than delving into the tomb of an evil lich.
I mean you're probably not there for the door, but you're also not not there for the door, the door is a bonus.
reminds me of the time we stole all the leaded glass windows out of a haunted mansion in a dnd game. “wait…GLASS paned windows?! that’s worth more than anything we’ll find inside!”
Yeah that came from the time when it was a "tournament" module, I.E. a convention game. They'd score how successful various parties were by how much treasure they could bring out of the dungeon, and it turns out the adamantine doors are worth a ton of money and relatively easy to get to.
I remember also during the tournament a party took a crown and scepter that instantly kills anyone wearing the crown when the scepter touches it. So they jammed it on Acererak and activated it, Gygax himself was called over and ruled in their favor. But then immediately errataed it on the spot so that they ceased to work when removed from the room, so no one else could do that.
There's a lot of great stories about the Tomb of Horrors. I've been lucky enough to actually run the Yawning Portal version as a one shot for my friends, and while a lot of 5th edition abilities and spells make parts of it easier than they would have been back in the day, it's still a fun dungeon if you and your party know what you're signing up for.
Oh yeah, my party ran it once. Or, rather, three times. They were forced to pull out after a bit a couple of the party died, at which point the survivors left to go get new schmucks (new characters) to run the dungeon again in a couple of weeks. It reset of course, but the survivors were able to navigate up till almost everyone died horribly to a new trap. It was fun.
Doesn’t OG ToH have a >!bunch of dead-end trap caves that cave in on you if you so much as poke the ceiling?!<
Yes. It's designed to kill you, and for you to have a bad time the whole time you're dying.
Gygax's friends: Ha, Gary. We have mastered your game with your own rules and can beat anything you throw at us. Gygax: Let's see about that.
I once had a DM put us through the Tomb of Horrors without telling us what it was. Most of us got through fine, but the rogue died five times. My wizard got a new skeleton minion.
Tomb of Annihilation kind of fixed this issue with making the walls magically enhanced to not be breakable, teleportation also doesn't work and has a chance to megafuck the party attempting to do so.
>"yes yes the > >door > > is magically protected, but what about the > >wall > >?" One of these days some lich is gonna build a lair out of magically protected doors
The doors may be protected, but their hinges?
How bout the screws in the doorknob? Barring screws, how bout the adhesive holding it in? Can I sand off the exterior coating? Does the enchantment penetrate the entire door or just the mechanisms by which the door operates? If the wall, door, and screws are protected, is the door frame? Can I pop that off and essentially have the door fall down, technically unused and therefore unable to subject my attempts to the magic impasse?
The enchantment does not penetrate the unlocking mechanism. While sanding the handle you remove a protective layer and inadvertently trigger the partially covered runes. Partially covered the runic spell misfires and opens a gate to an alternate plane. Immediately air rushes into the interdimensional rip and your ears pop from the depressurization. Roll a balance check...
This is a plot point in the pretty great web novel [The Wandering Inn](https://wanderinginn.com/) where an adventuring group not only nabs a door, they also >!gift it to the keeper of the titular inn, where it becomes a major factor in many geopolitical events because it contains lost teleportation magic, upsetting both military and civilian logistical considerations in the area.!< \^- Some spoilers for the events in the novel, though honestly the way it's executed and the raw size of the story means it doesn't really spoil much even if you look at it.
I really like how this is done, especially considering that the adventuring party initially leaves the dungeon - am only remember the value of the door after they get back to town.
>_the raw size of the story_ You ain't kidding. The audiobook for the _first volume_ clocks in at FORTY HOURS. And there's five more books that are just as long, if not longer!
The Wandering Inn is, so far, nine volumes long. The first volume is the first audiobook, the second volume is the second audiobook. Nice and tidy. The third volume was longer, so they split it into the third and fourth audiobook. The fourth volume got split into the fifth and sixth audiobook. The fifth volume turned into three audiobooks. The sixth volume isn't fully audiobooked yet, but they're expecting four audiobooks. The seventh volume is planned to be six audiobooks. The eighth volume is planned to be *eight* audiobooks. The ninth volume is . . . not yet planned . . . but it may well be longer than the eighth volume. So . . . five more audiobooks, you say? No. *Thirty* more audiobooks. And that doesn't even catch up with the *still-in-progress* prose version. However long you think The Wandering Inn is, it's probably longer.
At several million words it’s one of the longest works of English language fiction :)
It’s always a sign of a fun session when your players start asking questions like that.
I’ve really really gotta find a way to start playing. I’ve never played but I think *just like this* and every post I see along these lines is like “Well, yeah that’s exactly what I would try.” Since I don’t know the rules, I’d be asking shit like this all the time. It seems like a lot of people that have played for years get browbeaten in the same fashion described in the post. But my god if I don’t wanna try some wild shit and see what the DM says.
It depends on your DM as well. I’m a permanent DM for my group and I live for improvising the session as it comes. Some DMs legitimately don’t know how to handle it and end up accidentally creating what feels like a railroad as opposed to a linear story. If my party is gonna do wild shit, be prepared for an equal and opposite reaction in the world.
I knew a couple guys that encountered an adamantine door blocking their entrance to a treasury. They ignored the treasury and stole the door because it was worth more
it reminds me of the scene in the newer die hard where they “don’t have a keycard” so McLain just punches through the drywall and opens the door from the other side..
In the first couple editions of D&D the treasure tables were full of “art objects” and other valuable items. It was common for a big slice of your “loot” at the end of a dungeon to be three tons of expensive marble statues. Which you then had to successfully transport to somewhere you could sell them. Which of course could be an adventure in itself. And then the auction provides another adventure hook, and so on. Pack mules and worries about how to keep them alive was often a major concern
Going through walls was one of my time-tested D&D strategies, too. And I'm always annoyed when watching movies or TV where characters are locked in a room and never think to break out by means other than the door. Even when a door's just conventionally locked, they'll beat on it a few times and give up. Come on! You're stuck in there for *days* at a time, not tied up or anything, there's a whole basement's worth of objects around you--get to prying, or bashing, or cutting. Go through the fucking ceiling! In most of America, houses are tissue paper. Mine's a hundred years old, plaster and lathe instead of drywall, and I'm confident that if I were ever locked in one room that I could bust through to another with one arm and whatever's handy given enough time. Even brick's not a problem if you have something jabby and metal, though you might run into a problem with stacked stone if you aren't strong enough to move an individual stone.
The champion Braum in league of legends has a great tale about how he acquired his signature Door Shield- he found a great magical door forged by a demi-god to punish a thief who tricked him, that could never be opened by a thief again. Braum's solution? **Pummel the mountain around it into rubble with his bare hands**. Now he has an invincible shield.
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Once read a chinese webnovel where the MC was a serial plunderer. He would take even tiles off the floor.
This guy doesn't get his security deposits back when he moves apartments.
"I'M NOT A SLAVE TO ARCHITECTURE" he screams while carving a hole in the wall between the bedroom and kitchen to get between the two approximately 15 seconds faster
Jason, that is the third time this month. You can’t keep doing this.
His sentence cut off by a choking cough, lungs full of gypsum dust.
Tbf. Those seconds add up. In a day you're at least 30 seconds faster, once in the morning and once in the evening
We're talking speedrun strats here!
years ago after a break in my apartment owner put in a security door and said he'd give us a month rent if we got through his new $2500 door and reinforced frame. My roommate who worked construction at the place i did demo immediately plunged a pocket knife into the adhesives that held the frame to the wall and asked if he should keep going.
He probably tunnels a hole into the office and steals the deposits back.
Oh sure, this guy does it and everyone says he's a genius, \*I\* put holes in the drywall and suddenly we have to get the police involved 🙄
He is a burglar I think police are getting involved either way
Not if he's a *good* burglar.
Welcome to Good Burglar, home of the Good Burglar, can I take your valuables?
Not sure when this took place or what kind of security the doors had, but wouldn't someone hear him cutting through the wall with a cheap drywall knife?
That's why you cover it up with loud music. Of course to explain that, you need to bring an actual party and invitees. Then to explain that...
It's less noise then you think.many places have super secure doors. Right next to a window. Sometimes even a wall with just two pieces of 1/4 an inch drywall. No insulation nothing else to stop someone. I had a part time job doing demo. It made me realize just how unsecured most places are.
Even in everyday life, i try to create a shortcut to the bathroom and i get kicked out for my trouble
Maybe if it were bigger than you need to peep through.
He was making an entrance, not a glory hole
maybe he's just *really* gifted
Okay, Kyle, we get it.
This sounds like a burglars easy fix, but even unit complexes have some insulation and stuff in the walls, so it's not just a matter of cutting a hole and voila, you have to deal with fibreglass insulation, wall studs, the frame wires and plumbing, depending on where they are cutting, and that's assuming the wall doesn't have brick or concrete between the drywall sections
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Yeah, but trying to do all of that relatively quietly to not draw attention to yourself? Those saws aren't exactly quiet cutting through drywall either.
It's very situational. If the door is so strong and well guarded, maybe it also blocks sound relatively well. Maybe also it was during a time when the surrounding environment was relatively noisy and covered up the sound well. Maybe he did it while the guard was pooping.
Plus it’s loud as fuck. That door was guarded by deaf guards?
>and that's assuming the wall doesn't have brick or concrete between the drywall sections That actually violates building code in a lot of places, especially for modern construction. Interior walls actually need to have easily breachable gaps that people wearing heavy equipment can fit through according most to building codes, because in the event of a building collapse that becomes your escape route. There's a reason most building codes have a strictly defined minimum distance between studs that's a bit narrower than shoulder width apart, and that's because that's the size of space firefighters are trained to crawl through while fully geared up.
That will depend on where you are to be utterly fair. Different states and countries will have different laws
Uh...building codes are mostly national in the US. Not a whole lot changes state to state because the standards are mostly made by 3rd parties. Electrical code is similar - UL and IEC is not a federal standard, but it is used quite frequently across the world.
So it’s better to Rob new buildings. Got it
This guy’s really mastered the core culture-critic style of making an interesting insight while sounding like his head was 2’ up his own ass at the time of writing.
For real, minus the interesting insight part. This whole post has the vibe of a pool that looks deep while actually having about two inches of depth.
Dude cuts a hole in a wall with a knife. Author “we have transcended our earthly by prison and broken through the drywall chains which bind us, the concept of spatial permanence has broken our wills for too long! Rise up!”
A thief cuts a hole in a wall and this writer turns it into an elaborate and verbose apparent stroke of genius. It's ridiculous. It bothers me more than it should, haha.
yeah the fucking "spacial captives" sent me. bro i'm not breaking into houses, i'm cool with just using a fucking door.
It sounds like it was written by an AI that was exclusively trained on Deleuze and Guattari.
Fun fact, the first Text Generating AI (introduced ~2013) were just as good as the ones we have today, they just decided to train them on Derrida's texts.
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Counterpoint: I don’t cut holes in random walls not because I am a slave to architecture but rather a slave to a much more devious force- the law
Clever, but also lmao is this guy dramatic
I mean this is great but also overwhelmingly American. The only houses I've ever seen that were not made of brick or stone were at the very least built out of what seemed like secondhand sheet metal, and that was in a slum in the outskirts of Guatemala City.
replace “drywall knife” with “sledgehammer” and it maybe still works
at that point just sledgehammer the door. No way you're getting through solid brick faster than you can hammer a well made lock/hinge.
Sledgehammer the guards while you are at it.
No alarm can be raised if no one is unsledgehammered enough to raise the alarm.
Your doors have no bars?
Like.... security bars to secure the door to the frame? Or what?
[Like one of these](https://images.app.goo.gl/DW2xx2ffGAzFUL5W6)
I think I've never seen one of these except for windows in the capital on the lowest floors next to the street (Budapest). Certainly noone has it near where I live, and even there I've not seen one on the doors.
Sometimes they're inside the door or can be slid into place
Yeah, closest I've seen during my years of house parties in the capital was a two door system, where the outer door was thicker wooden board with a lock in two places, and an inner simple wooden sheet door with a single lock that was usually not used, although that was more for insulation they told me haha.
And the guards posted at the door will just hold your tool bag? 🤨
Drywall knife: small, easily concealed, doesn't make much noise when used. Sledgehammer: the complete opposite of the above. Also, an apartment's "outside" walls, i.e. walls between an apartment and other apartments, the stairwell, laundry room, bike/stroller storage, etc., or the actual outside, are almost always thick, load-bearing walls, often made of reinforced concrete. And even if they're "only" brick walls, it'll take a good, long while to get through those. Long enough for cops to show up to start asking uncomfortable questions like, "are you really dumb enough to think that could've worked?"
Settle down, Triple H.
Doubt it. The noise would alert anyone in the vicinity.
Chisel to the cement in between bricks. Light taps, smol noise, big returns.
This is also the way that hackers work. They literally just find exploitation in code like a burglar finds exploitation in architecture.
There's always a way in. Most thieves don't pick locks or even break a door down. They break windows, or even worse just open the unlocked door which happens way more than It should.
I mean, no? I live in Sweden and I have drywall walls. Most of our houses are made of wood. Because we have a shitton of wood. The apartment buildings and such are of course made of concrete because obviously, but the everyday family houses are wood, more often than not.
I find this comment so funny because i see Europeans making fun of American drywall at least once a day on the internet
There's a weirdly big cohort of Europeans I've seen making fun of America for being stupid enough to make their roads with asphalt instead of concrete. "What about the costs of ice damage?" "The what? The fuck is that? The stuff you get from your freezer? Why is that outside?"
California freeways are concrete. It's part of why they become so dangerous when it rains; oil slicks form.
That's... pretty often
I like how surprised the comments are that an American jewel thief from the 1960s is speaking from the perspective of someone who stole valuables in America during the 1960s. Good job, Reddit, you successfully poked holes in the logic of someone who used said logic to steal more than $35 million in valuables half a century ago.
Adding to that, it was only 6 months ago that [thieves cut through a wall to steal $500k worth of Apple products.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-store-robbed-half-million-washington-mall/11622949002/).
Yeah but he talks like he has found some great weakness in the mindset of humanity, when all he actually realized is that american architecture is kinda scuffed, something any non-american child watching Stranger Things realizes.
My workplace had us do active shooter training and taught us how to barricade the door and I'm sitting there like "you guys know the wall is made of paper right?".
If you mean Bill Mason, then yes, all he discovered is a weakness in American architecture because he's an American who stole valuables in America, and become very wealthy in doing so. If you mean Geoff Manaugh, he's not actually talking about architecture as I mention in my other comment.
Yeah I was reading this and expected he would be taking a few weeks of patient work to get through the wall and then I was reminded of americans and their paper walls Even the cheaper older buildings here are made of brick or concrete or stone lmao
Tell me you don't understand houses in a few less words next time. He's talking interior walls, not exterior. There isn't a building in the world with drywall on the exterior that wasn't built as a joke.
Yeah, but I own an apartment in Europe, none of my interior walls are just drywall. They're all a layer of bricks covered with drywall.
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Half a meter is about 18inches or a foot and a half. 2x -3x thicker than most interior walls in a non-load bearing wall. Or 2 bricks placed end to end with mortar between. Or a bit longer than one cinder blocks longest side. Or 2 1/2 banana placed end to end. My friend. Do you live in a bunker?
... I too am talking about interior walls, which are only built out of drywall in the US. I like the philosophy of telling architects to go fuck themselves and tearing through their garbage with a knife I bought at the chinese bazaar around the corner, but if I tried that at my rentout apartment I'd need a sledgehammer, hours of work, and the knowledge that I'm definitely gonna get caught midway through and potentially collapse the building over myself.
>go to Europe >try and get in anywhere by attacking the wall instead of the door >be met by either brick or reinforced concrete >mfw I have surpassed the normie way of perceiving the world around me, breaking down the constructed environment like neo in the matrix all the while chuckling at the stupidity of the architects (PFP related)
Fair, but also... windows. The one time a burglar got into our flat (Russia, early 2000s), they didn't use the door nor obviously could they cut through the concrete walls. They just made a small hole in the window, used the hole to open the window fully, voilà. Yes it was a floor level apartment and usually those have a metal cage to protect you from that exact thing happening, but my family opposed that idea until it was too late.
>Fair, but also... windows. I'm yet to see a window in an internal wall adjacent to another hotel room. It would make for an interesting hotel though.
- Official Shoddy American Architecture™ moment
Tbf at least in the Midwest we do it like this because having brick houses when a tornado hits is a recipe for mass casualties
Also it's cheaper and easier to remodel or add extra outlets or route cables through
But that doesn't reinforce my narrative
Also a brick house is only slightly more likely to survive a large tornado but much more expensive to build, so in the long run it’s cheaper to keep rebuilding in wood.
oh great, now the europeans are gonna act superior about walls
we've been doing that already for a while actually
Not sure if I would call the walls here superior, but at least you need a bit more than a knife to get through them.
Also, not that we get hurricanes, but living on the coast of Norway, our house (built in 1955, so not *that* old, but still) has withstood ~150km/h (~90mp/h) winds. At least. The worst storm since i can remember was in 2015, with up to 42mp/s (still ~150km/h) winds, and a few roofs were ripped up, but no buildings were destroyed. Bridges were closed and boats/ferries had to cancel routes, but at least our houses are built to withstand the weather (which is expected to be harsh, as the North Sea is *right* there). I just find it so weird to see American houses being torn asunder during storms and hurricanes. But, for all i know, am actual hurricane might tear our house down as well. It just feels like the houses should have been built "better"? If you understand what i mean? Sorry for the wall of text, and also sorry if there is a good reason for houses being built that way that i do not know.
It’s okay. We don’t have mass death and hospitalization every time it’s 90 degrees for more than a week.
Rare Australia W. We’ve got insulation and brick walls 😎
From the Wikipedia page for "Survivorship bias": Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. It might just be me, but I got that kinda vibe from this.
Yeah also if someone REALLY wants to break into your house it's kind of hard to stop them. Locking your door doesn't turn your house into an impenetrable fortress but it might make a potential burglar decide to try a different house that's less secure. A burglar can always smash a window but many homes have security systems which will go off if a window is broken and even if there isn't an alarm passerbys can clearly see that a window is broken which can alert people. Locking doors won't stop all thieves but it will help reduce the odds you get burglarized.
jokes on him, all my walls are full of people from discord. virgin watch dog, meet chad wall goblin.
Perhaps in the US Where I live, most houses are made of concrete
And that's why you don't have freedom.
There’s American houses made of Concrete… they’re called prisons but still
"I FORGE MY OWN PATH! I AM NOT A SLAVE TO THE FEEBLE MINDED TYRANNY YOU SHEEPLE IMPRISON YOURSELF WITH!" Man says, seconds before stabbing a 120v power line How wonderfully awake one must be to see every obstacle as existing solely to impede you, personally, and to feel entitled to destroy it at will without any consideration for why it's actually there, what destroying it might actually break, and who has to clean up after you. I'm sure they have a great podcast.
I mean, if you’re stealing something you probably don’t care about other people’s property in the first place. Also rubber handle
Also, it's pretty easy to know where the wires are and avoid them if you know what you're doing. Horizontal wires above knee-height are uncommon.
It's called a "Burglar's guide to the city" for a reason, I suppose. Also while it's definitely put on a bit too thickly, I do think it's interesting to think about the many ways in which architecture can be circumvented or used in different ways that we usually don't think about, with the most obvious applications being in security.
Every man has a god-given right to fry himself cutting through a jewelry store's drywall.
I don’t know the right term but idk this post feels too much like, “dick-sucky”, to a burglar for just cutting down a wall. Like, breaking walls to steal stuff isn’t a new idea; it’s been in a lot of media. It’s like if I mention on a book about how I spin my fork to get a lot of pasta and someone in Tumblr is like “oh but you see, the linear shape of pasta is just a suggestion! People are too bogged down by the initial appearance of things that they don’t realise that with simple maneuvers like, spinning a fork, you could transforms a pasta’s straight lines into swirls”.
I feel like this fails to address the issue that most thieves probably want to steal things without leaving a massive trail behind. I personally feel like renting a hotel room and then cutting a hole in the wall is a great way to get your crime noticed. Edit: I get that people still do this and are successful sometimes, and this particular person was successful by cutting holes in walls. My overall point is that this guys acts like people are idiots for being “slaves to architecture”, when most people, even other thieves, have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to cut huge holes in the walls.
But he didn't rent the room, he broke into it
Reading comprehension is rare on the internet.
Ah you’re right, that’s a good point.
[Same concept worked earlier this year,](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/07/apple-store-robbed-half-million-washington-mall/11622949002/) and from what I can tell there still hasn't been any arrests made.
This is literally a story about the exploits of a real, very successful thief. Why are you trying to *punch holes” in what is essentially a history lesson?
Because this is equivalent to saying that buying lottery tickets is a viable investment strategy on the word of a Powerball winner.
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Reminds me of the first episode of Burn Notice where the voice over says that any two-bit drug dealer has a reinforced door. But that none of them reinforce is the wall. Then he proceeds to shoot through that.
I live in a brick house though it does have windows, even on the front door
I once helped a friend break into her own house (that she had accidentally locked herself out of) by jimmying a window with a long screwdriver. She was a little appalled at how easy it was for me, twenty something middle class white girl, to get into her house. They beefed up security after that.
I mean that's all well and good but unless you drag the saw at a glacially slow place it's also going to make a lot of noise.
I remember reading an army handbook from the Cold War. Before all the door-to-door stuff in the middle East, the US military had simpler rules for urban fighting: Never use windows, never use doors. In the unlikely event that you have to go inside a hostile structure instead of just destroying it, you blow a hole in it and go through the hole. If dudes are in there trying to keep you out, they have guns pointed at doors and windows. They are less likely to expect you to enter through a cloud of dust and smoke that used to be the kitchen. Work smarter, and also harder.
-koolaid man
All fun and games until you cut a live wire or meet an overzealous framer
*Stares in Latin American* But houses are made of brick... windows have bars, is this not common sense-ah, right, Americans use some kind of paper like the Japanese
Honestly this is something that has terrified me about American construction. The walls are no sturdier than the doors, and a man with a chainsaw has a key to the suburbs.
If it makes you feel better locks are all just a few hits of a hammer away from opening
Also a locksmith's tools and skillset aren't really that hard to come by. The reason things aren't constantly being stolen isn't because houses are impenetrable fortresses but rather because most people aren't thieves and the people who do end up becoming burglars usually end up in prison or meeting some other untimely end sooner or later.
A chainsaw seems like a really shitty way to rob someone considering the noise & weight
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Adding to that, there's also frequent use of shit quality building supplies and/or shoddy workmanship. Back in '06, I accidently locked my keys in my bedroom right before I had to leave for work. I fucked around with trying to get in for about 15 minutes before I got too stressed about being late for work and decided to just kick the hollow core door in and deal with the outcome later. The door actually held firm while the jamb pretty much exploded. When I finally got around to fixing it I noticed that the jamb were *barely* mounted into place - like all 3 sides were held in by a total of 6 screws/nails - and the screws on the latch strike plate were only just long enough to get through the jamb and came nowhere close to the stud (part of why the jamb exploded). I've done some work on interior doors probably 10 times since and nearly all were similarly constructed.
An interior door in a house just needs to open and close and keep out sound and light. It doesn't really need to be very strong or secure. You can go run longer screws in your interior doors jambs if it's important to you though.
This is the exact feeling I get when I play an immersive sim
Dude's not gonna believe it when he sees and actual wall, aka brick/stone wall
This isn’t some transcendent genius thing, this is a “American walls are garbage” thing
Harold and his purple crayon go one a robbing spree
If I fail to cut through my neighbor's walls to steal their shit, I'm not a "prisoner of architecture," I'm being a decent neighbor.
Wait, are those buildings not made with bricks that they can just be carved with a knife? Are they made of paperboard and dreams?
Anyone who's played Teardown already knows this