Shifting Walls

[wynteriii]

My new gaming group is going great and becoming large. We have up to 10 PC's which 5-6 show up on a regular basis (the rest stay at Morgansfort or look over the parties campsite). A dwarf player asked about the differences between shifting walls and secret doors. Wouldn't a secret door have a shifting wall?

[Metroknight]

Mechanically I would treat them the same to keep it easy. If they are made of stone then allow the dwarf use his racial ability also.

[Dimirag]

Theres no mechanical difference, only in game difference is how they work. A secret door can be like a normal one or have other ways of opening and once opened it ussually remains that way. A shifting wall closes after have turned so it needs to be activated at each use unless stuck by some means.

[SmootRK]

The way I look at Dwarf ability is that they can readily detect secret doors if those secret doors utilize stonework (such as the actual walls of a dungeon). They can just detect if something is amiss with the continuity of such stone (whether the natural stone or stonework construction where slightly dissimilar materials may have been used).

Other secret doors may have wood construction primarily (sliding bookcase, inside a home constructed of largely wood, cob, sod, etc., or are otherwise not really within a Dwarf's sense of stone work). Dwarves don't get bonus towards detecting these.

With that said, it seems that Elves should be the converse of this. They are quite perceptive of secret door detection when it comes to construction within structures, made of wood or similar building materials, and the like.... but are not so good (giving standard detection ability) when the "secret door" is of that type that Dwarves excel at. However, this would be a House-rule area that others might not agree with. Just a logical extrapolation in my mind, and I might just do this sort of adjustment behind the scenes without really explaining to my players so much.