RPGMemes

Au contrare, sir or madam. I'm all for "shortcuts" as they're quite simply an illusory sigh of relief. Let them take the elevator up after all's said and done — even let them anticipate doing so as they begin the final showdown, et al.

See the hope in their eyes as they hang future plans on that gleaming shaft of transit tech, listen to them enmesh it in their exit strategies, (complete with skill-checking on the various buttons and backslapping each other when whatever they did made it work suddenly) and watch it evaporate as the chime sounds and the doors whoosh open on an array of fresh troops heading down to work...

This is that slo-mo second when they find out it's the same elevator the site's reinforcements were about to use when the heroes happened to be coming up with the exact opposite of intentions. 😜