Room 14 in White Plume Mountain from Tales of the Yawning Portal includes three doors, but it doesn't say if they are open or closed when the adventurers find them.
Given how they work, it seems important to know this.
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1\$\begingroup\$ I'm not familiar with the adventure and just curious. Is there any reason for the doors to be in a fixed state for a long time? Is the White Plume Mountain abandoned? \$\endgroup\$– enkryptorMar 18, 2020 at 19:35
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\$\begingroup\$ I am not sure if there's a statute of limitations, but getting through published material can take a long time. Took us a long time to get through Against the Giants ... \$\endgroup\$– KorvinStarmastMar 18, 2020 at 20:48
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2 Answers
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Here's the relevant text:
The three doors along the corridor are made of thick metal, their edges flanged so that they overlap the door jamb on the north side and thus can be opened only by pivoting them to the north. The north side of each door has a handle so that it can be pulled open from that direction.
The doors are initially closed, and can be opened.
It might interest you to know that the 3.5 edition of this module was even more clear:
The passage ahead is blocked by a large iron door that appears quite thick and strong.
The doors are tightly stuck, and each one requires a DC21 Strength check to open from either direction.
When I run this module, the series of three doors always has a big effect on the group. They say, "oh wow, what's behind this door that's so dangerous that it needs to be so large and heavy to guard?" And then they open the door and there's another door, and another door, and it really gives the sense that something here is serious business.
(And that's valuable, because it's actually quite bad if the group doesn't take the Bubble seriously and they accidentally pop it.)
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\$\begingroup\$ I think I'm stuck on the line about can be pulled from the north side. It suggested to me that it could only be pulled, but I guess that's silly? And you can push from south side? \$\endgroup\$– NautArchMar 18, 2020 at 19:57
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2\$\begingroup\$ @NautArch: The wording seems to indicate that the doors open only one way (i.e. they can't be pulled or pushed to swing south). The mention of a handle is merely to indicate that the door can be pulled open from the north side (otherwise it could only be pushed open from the south). \$\endgroup\$– V2Blast ♦Mar 18, 2020 at 21:31
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Emphasis mine, section 14.:
they overlap the door jamb on the north side and thus can be opened only by pivoting them to the north. The north side of each door has a handle so that it can be pulled open from that direction.
These barriers are emergency doors, whose purpose is to prevent [...]
From the Dungeon: General Features (emphasis mine):
Unless otherwise noted, doors are 8 feet by 8 feet, made of oak and bound in iron. Though the doors are swollen by the dampness, and thus difficult to open
While it is uncertain, this implies dialectically that the doors are closed. Similarily, other hindrances are phrased in section 4, 9, 25, and 26 in a manner that closed doors are implied standard (otherwise they wouldn't be an obstacle).
