Door
| A wooden door. To open it, try simply walking into it, or press 'O'. You can close it by standing next to it and either doing CTRL-L-Click on the door or pressing 'C'. |
Doors are Dungeon features which are usually used to separate rooms from each other, though they may be found standing in the middle of a room as well. Found in the Dungeon and almost all branches, they are set into walls and are usually only 1x1 or 2x1 in size (though some vaults may contain far more massive doors). Walking into a door will open it, while pressing C when adjacent to one will close it. If you know that there are monsters behind a door, leaving it closed will keep them at bay unless they are aware of you and are intelligent enough to open the door, or they are capable of simply eating the door, in which case it will do you very little good. Some "doors" may also attempt to eat you, which is also less than ideal.
Many vaults will contain hidden doors as well. These cannot be seen normally, but become visible if you spend enough turns near them. You automatically search as you move around the dungeon or rest in place. The . key lets you rest/search for a single turn, while the 5 key does so for up to 100 (spotting an enemy or finding a door or trap will interrupt this). The Traps & Doors skill makes search attempts more likely to succeed, assuming there is anything there in the first place.
Doors may occasionally creak when opened, alerting nearby monsters to your presence. This is less of an issue for heavily armoured bruisers than for stealthy sorts, as they tend to wake up everything no matter what. Fortunately, the chance of this happening is 1 in (Dexterity + (Stealth + Traps & Doors)/2), so stealthy characters are unlikely to cause it anyway.
Runed Door
| A door, covered in runic writing. It looks like there is something special behind it - perhaps danger, perhaps treasure. You may break the runes and open it like any other door (i.e., by walking into it or pressing 'O'). |
Runed doors are a feature which will be added in 0.12. These doors are only found in special vaults, are indestructible, and are generally used to contain very powerful monsters or especially valuable treasure. Avoid opening them unless you're confident that you can handle something significantly out-of-depth.
Tips & Tricks
- Closing doors in front of monsters will delay them slightly even if they are able to open the door. If you are trying to buy time for one more MP or for a teleport to kick in, this can be a life saver.
- If you open a door and immediately see out-of-reach enemies capable of smiting you, tormenting you, blasting you with hellfire, or otherwise dealing heavy damage at range, don't retreat! Running gives them the opportunity to attack you as long as you're in their line of sight. If you close the door first, this forces them to come to you, robbing them of several turns they could otherwise spend blasting you, and guarantees that you'll get to act against them first. This is effective against early threats such as orc priests, as well as late-game fiends and liches.
- If you suspect there may be a hidden door in a vault, examine the walls of the vault with x; any hidden doors will show up as rock walls instead of stone or whatever material comprises the vault's walls.
History
In 0.11, hidden doors were removed from all non-vault sections of the Dungeon.
In 0.12, hidden doors will be done away with entirely, and runed doors will be added in their place.
