The Masquerade Ball Encounter 2 (Shutting doors)

By Panzervike, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

If a lock picked door is shut after being opened in this encounter, do the special rules for the door still apply (Must pass attribute check to open) or is the door to be treated as just a normal door once the lock pick attribute check has been passed?

The text in the Quest guide states: "Each of the doors leading to Lord Theodir's vault is locked and magically sealed. they cannot be opened by normal means. When a figure performs an action to open one of the doors, he must do the following: **Pick the Lock: The figure passes X. If he passes the door is opened**…..An open door may be closed as normal.

My guess is that the door reverts to being magically sealed and must be re-opened via attributes, but that seems to make this encounter absurdly hard in favor of the Overlord

Thanks!

We played this one such that when the door was shut it had to be opened via an attribute test. It did make it extremely easy for the overlord (even without having won the first encounter). Especially difficult since the door could be shut by non-lieutenants. We think it might balance the map if monsters can not shut the door (seeing as they can not open them either).

We also played that doors reverted to the locked state. The heroes did have a good Might character, but decided that they could pick the lock and then shut the door behind them to avoid being chased by the monsters.

In our campaign, the OL won the first encounter, so was using the Riddle to pass, and the doors do not remain open in that case.

It says that Lady Eliza only ever attempts "Answer the Riddle" to open a door. Therefore I don't see a way that the Overlord can ever open a door.

Still, clever (and funny) to have monsters closing the doors if not every hero made it through on their turn.

You'll notice in the special rules for that 2nd encounter the 3 ways to "open" the door. Lady Eliza Farrow passed through the door by solving the riddle for each door with a knowledge check. When the riddle is solved, the door never opens, the person is teleported to the side and can move on, therefore the monsters never need to close the door. So the only way for the door to be opened is either picked or destroyed by strength.