Doors are OP!

[PalladiumBrony]

OK, maybe it's just me, and I know the Heroes Unlimited setting is made to cater to a range of characters from "puny human" to "superman", but... do doors seem ridiculously OP to anyone else? Imagine you're a human police officer, standing in front of a regular wooden bathroom door with a bad guy behind it. That door has 100 SDC, and the lock (assuming a standard "latch" type door, though I'm not sure I fully grok the difference between a deadbolt and a "latch" or any of the other types of lock indicated) has 40. That's going to take you an average of 8 kicks to the lock to get into it. Not only does that make you look much less of a badass, it's crazy unrealistic in a bad way, I've seen cops bust through beefier doors in a single kick or shoulder barge. Has anyone thought of a way to resolve this? I have a couple of ideas but I would value some advice on them:

> You don't need to reduce the SDC of a door or lock to zero to bust it open (in which case I'd value ideas on what percentage seems reasonable. I've seen ideas to break doors into "segments" for damage, but that sounds like a lot of annoying book keeping, and not realistic if you're kicking or shoulder-barging the middle of the door until the lock or frame gives way (Apparently the frame or jamb around the hole into which the latch slides tends to be what gives first during a violent entry).
> Doors and locks need much less SDC - the sort of amount a regular human could smash open in one or two good kicks, if they're not barricaded or reinforced on the other side.
> Perhaps a new skill to cover "breaking and entering", or "dynamic entry", where you're using methods other than manipulating the pins and tumblers of a lock to get in - knocking out the hinges, or jimmying a door/box/whatever's locked, to bypass the lock without picking it, or to give you the knowledge (which police have, but civilians perhaps don't tend to) of exactly how and where to hit a lock to get it open, and get a massive damage bonus vs the door. I've seen varying interpretations of just how much the "lock picking" and "locksmith" skills actually cover. As far as jimmying goes, you could simply use standard combat rules with a pry bar to "attack" the lock, but that again leads to the same issue: things taking an unrealistically (and more importantly) un-fun and un-satisfyingly long time to beat their way into.
> Some combination of some/all of the above?

[Sambot]

I think kicking a door open depends on a lot of things.

The strength of the materials making the door and the doorjamb. Metal, solid oak, planks, hollow, glass, screen.

Whether or not the door opens inward or outwards.

The lock. Some are better than others. The longer that bolt is the harder it is to get through.

The screws putting the whole thing together. The Mythbusters tested this in one episode. When they used regular screws they were in on the first try. Totally surprising them. When they used longer screws it took them a lot longer.

Swat teams also have bettering rams to save their bodies. Even then, sometimes it's just easier to use the window.

[SpiritInterface]

OK, maybe it's just me, and I know the Heroes Unlimited setting is made to cater to a range of characters from "puny human" to "superman", but... do doors seem ridiculously OP to anyone else? Imagine you're a human police officer, standing in front of a regular wooden bathroom door with a bad guy behind it. That door has 100 SDC, and the lock (assuming a standard "latch" type door, though I'm not sure I fully grok the difference between a deadbolt and a "latch" or any of the other types of lock indicated) has 40. That's going to take you an average of 8 kicks to the lock to get into it. Not only does that make you look much less of a badass, it's crazy unrealistic in a bad way, I've seen cops bust through beefier doors in a single kick or shoulder barge. Has anyone thought of a way to resolve this? I have a couple of ideas but I would value some advice on them:

> You don't need to reduce the SDC of a door or lock to zero to bust it open (in which case I'd value ideas on what percentage seems reasonable. I've seen ideas to break doors into "segments" for damage, but that sounds like a lot of annoying book keeping, and not realistic if you're kicking or shoulder-barging the middle of the door until the lock or frame gives way (Apparently the frame or jamb around the hole into which the latch slides tends to be what gives first during a violent entry).
> Doors and locks need much less SDC - the sort of amount a regular human could smash open in one or two good kicks, if they're not barricaded or reinforced on the other side.
> Perhaps a new skill to cover "breaking and entering", or "dynamic entry", where you're using methods other than manipulating the pins and tumblers of a lock to get in - knocking out the hinges, or jimmying a door/box/whatever's locked, to bypass the lock without picking it, or to give you the knowledge (which police have, but civilians perhaps don't tend to) of exactly how and where to hit a lock to get it open, and get a massive damage bonus vs the door. I've seen varying interpretations of just how much the "lock picking" and "locksmith" skills actually cover. As far as jimmying goes, you could simply use standard combat rules with a pry bar to "attack" the lock, but that again leads to the same issue: things taking an unrealistically (and more importantly) un-fun and un-satisfyingly long time to beat their way into.
> Some combination of some/all of the above?

I forget where is says it in HU revised, but it mentioned that the SDC of an object is what it takes to completely destroy it, but only takes 25% damage to break it. For a lock I would say 50%. It also says that you only need to do 10% to shoot through doors and walls.