Spoiler warning for the above-mentioned adventure in the keys from the golden vault book.
What is the point of the door and secret door in the wine cellar in area D23 on the map of the Delphi Mansion. You have a secret door on the map and then a very obvious and open normal door leading to the same Room.
To me, the players would have a much better tactical advantage of sneaking into the room using the normal door and using the secret door is much more likely to alarm the cultists within, also players being players they could easily jump to the basement first and go straight to the end of the "Dungeon".
Having the door inaccessible until they explore the mansion makes much more sense.
I love Francesca Baerald's work the maps are amazing but I feel like the brief made a boo-boo on the cartography here.
Only having a secret door requiring the password to encourage the group to explore makes more sense to me and is how I intend to run it but a vtt I use with a dynamic lighting feature on which I also purchased the book has it set up with that door very frustrating.
Was reading this and felt the same way. Everything behind the secret door feels like it should be “hidden” the only other thing I could imagine is the actual door is barred shut from the inside again encouraging further exploration. This seemingly typo is what brought me to find this thread itself.
Also came here looking for answers to this. It seems to me that the door either shouldn't exist, or should be closed shut requiring the DC20 skill check to open.
While preparing to run this adventure, I also could not think of a legitimate reason for the secret door, when there is a normal door leading to the same spot… which led me here in search of answers
so I played it out that as Krokulmar was crossing over from the far realm the building was changing partly crossing over into the farm realm itself a bit like the upside down in stranger things, so I hid the door on the map but when the players had defeated Markos and Krokulmar the door reappeared.
At first I was convinced I was missing something about this stupid door. It's disappointing to see that this was likely an unforced error on WotC. My solution to this is to move the magically locked door to between D26a and D26b and make the cultists in D24 an info dump for what is currently happening in the mansion and how to unlock the door. Instead of the door being hidden, it is a big solid double door with arcane runes scratched on an oak surface. There is no strength check that will force it open and casting the knock spell only fizzles (or perhaps the caster gets 1d4 force damage as they get "knocked") thanks to the magical surges, thus forcing the party to explore the mansion with a clear goal.
I'm happy I purchased the Heroic Maps version of these maps through DMsGuild. They removed that second door from the room. I came here just checking on tips and tricks and couldn't figure out what door you meant until I went to the module's map. lol
Spoiler warning for the above-mentioned adventure in the keys from the golden vault book.
What is the point of the door and secret door in the wine cellar in area D23 on the map of the Delphi Mansion.
You have a secret door on the map and then a very obvious and open normal door leading to the same Room.
To me, the players would have a much better tactical advantage of sneaking into the room using the normal door and using the secret door is much more likely to alarm the cultists within, also players being players they could easily jump to the basement first and go straight to the end of the "Dungeon".
Having the door inaccessible until they explore the mansion makes much more sense.
I love Francesca Baerald's work the maps are amazing but I feel like the brief made a boo-boo on the cartography here.
Only having a secret door requiring the password to encourage the group to explore makes more sense to me and is how I intend to run it but a vtt I use with a dynamic lighting feature on which I also purchased the book has it set up with that door very frustrating.
Was reading this and felt the same way. Everything behind the secret door feels like it should be “hidden” the only other thing I could imagine is the actual door is barred shut from the inside again encouraging further exploration.
This seemingly typo is what brought me to find this thread itself.
Also came here looking for answers to this. It seems to me that the door either shouldn't exist, or should be closed shut requiring the DC20 skill check to open.
While preparing to run this adventure, I also could not think of a legitimate reason for the secret door, when there is a normal door leading to the same spot… which led me here in search of answers
so I played it out that as Krokulmar was crossing over from the far realm the building was changing partly crossing over into the farm realm itself a bit like the upside down in stranger things, so I hid the door on the map but when the players had defeated Markos and Krokulmar the door reappeared.
At first I was convinced I was missing something about this stupid door. It's disappointing to see that this was likely an unforced error on WotC. My solution to this is to move the magically locked door to between D26a and D26b and make the cultists in D24 an info dump for what is currently happening in the mansion and how to unlock the door. Instead of the door being hidden, it is a big solid double door with arcane runes scratched on an oak surface. There is no strength check that will force it open and casting the knock spell only fizzles (or perhaps the caster gets 1d4 force damage as they get "knocked") thanks to the magical surges, thus forcing the party to explore the mansion with a clear goal.
that's a good work around.
I'm happy I purchased the Heroic Maps version of these maps through DMsGuild. They removed that second door from the room. I came here just checking on tips and tricks and couldn't figure out what door you meant until I went to the module's map. lol
Thank you for the tip. You led me to Heroic Maps and I am digging that resource