Can you open a door locked by a maglock by pure physical force?

Question

I've tried searching for the answer to this question but I haven't found one. How hard is it to bust down a door locked by a maglock? Not damage the casing and rewire the guts but actually just bash it down.

Answer 1

TL;DR: Jump to "Conclusion" and ask your GM about barrier stats of the door.

What's a Maglock at all?

Depends on the door build, because maglocks come in very different shapes, and they all are bundled up under the term maglocks for the game system. Basically, you encounter 2 main types and some subtypes:

1. Electromagnetic controlled locks
2. Electromagnetic closed locks

Type 1 locks differ from the other types of mundane mechanical locks we usually encounter only by using an electromagnetic control mechanism that operates them. To name a few variants, think about these:

11. one bolt holding the door shut. It gets pulled back into the door by an electromagnet and is pushed back out by a spring once the power on the magnetic coil goes off.
12. Several bolts that work like 11, mounted like a vault or more modern doors
13. One Bolt that gets pushed into the frame by an electromagnet and is pulled out by a spring once power on the coil is off. Kind of reverse of 11.
14. Like 13, but several bolts.
15. One Bolt moved entirely by activating one of two electromagnets to push/pull the bolt and an arrest system that keeps the situation it is left in between commands.
16. Like 15, but several bolts.

How do they work at all?

Each of these has different solutions to bypass with brute force, depending on the door, placement of the lock and the material of the bolts: an 11 or single bolt 13 on a plastic door can be just broken out of the door.

A 12, 14 and 16 can be harder to be broken out, and depending on the door, destroying the door is easier than breaking the bolts.

15 & 16 is a safe lock system, that opens and locks only on command. Power out does not affect its state at all. If it can be broken out is once again more a problem of the door's stability than the bolt's accessibility/stability.

Not so many problems you have with a 13 & 14 because it is some kind of emergency release built, that opens the door in case of power out - fire escape routes use such, and just cutting power opens the door. Here cutting the power line would be preferable, but they might have a backup battery.

Now, there are also the Type 2 locks: these keep the door closed with an electromagnet. To some degree, type 13/14 is a bit like these, but a real type 2 lock has no bolts: it has just a metal piece on the door facing the frame and electromagnets in the doorframe. Once closed, the electromagnets go online and keep it shut. Forcing this type of lock open (equivalent to breaking the bolts in the Type 1 locks) is usually much harder than just bashing down the whole door, and these doors have a high power demand, so again, cutting power will shut it down. In that degree, it acts like a 13: it opens in case of power down.

Conclusion

It does entirely depend on what the GM says about the particular makeup of the door. If you can't open the lock for you can't access it or the power lines to it or hack them via the house's mainframe, you might try to break the door as of the barrier rules, because a door is a barrier and the GM screen holds hints on what stats these have. Or even better, have a fire-ax, chainsaw or welder with you to just remove the door easier.

SR3: Core p124

SR4: Core p157: Security door = reinforced material.

SR4A: Core p166: Security door = reinforced material.

SR5: Core p197: Security door = reinforced material.

Answer 2

Yes.

There are multiple types of maglocks in Shadowrun, but since you didn't state the version of the game, I will assume it's the most recent 5th edition:

Powered magnetic locks, maglocks, are widespread in 2075 and come in a wide range of sophistication. Maglock “keys” can be physical (keypad, swipe card, proximity card, memory string), biometric (see below), or any combination thereof.

(SR 5ed core rulebook, p. 363)

Each maglock key has their own way of bypassing them, other than hacking, but...

When all else fails

When everything else fails, you bash it down like a Barrier.

The first step to bypassing a maglock is to remove the case and access the maglock’s electronic guts. [...] If all else fails, the case can be smashed or shot off; treat the case as if it has a Barrier rating equal to the maglock rating. Overzealous attempts to break the case may harm the electronics inside. Re-assembling the case afterwards requires the same test.

Some maglock systems come equipped with anti-tamper systems, rated between 1 and 4. In order to bypass the anti-tamper circuits, an additional Locksmith + Agility [Physical] (anti-tamper system rating) Test must be made.

If this fails, an alarm is triggered.

(SR 5ed core rulebook, p. 363)

Maglock's cases have a Barrier Rating equal to the maglock's Device Rating, which is probably much lower than the door's barrier rating.

A regular door has a Barrier Rating of 2, with 4 Armor. While security doors have a Barrier Rating of 8, with 12 Armor.

It's usually much better to shot down or bash down the maglock rather than its door. Unless you are a Troll, or got explosives, then just explode everything down.

However, Maglocks are cheap (Device Rating * 100 nuyen, with Avail equal to its Device Rating), so larger corps (specially megacorps) will have maglocks with higher than 8 Device Rating easily on all important doors. Your average salary man will hardly have enough money to buy a maglock above a rating 5 or 6, but a megacorp can easily obtain hundreds of rating 12 or 15 maglocks for 1200-1500 nuyen a piece to protect their goods.

So, a better choice might be to break the door open, which should be treated like a Barrier aswell.

The guidelines (SR 5ed core rulebook, p.197) to destroy a barrier are the following:

Before rolling the barrier’s damage resistance test, adjust the modified Damage Value to reflect the type of attack, as noted on the Damaging Barriers Table.

Resolve the Damage Resistance Test by rolling the barrier’s Structure + Armor. Barriers ignore Stun damage.

Apply the remaining DV as damage to the barrier.

If the total boxes of damage are greater than or equal to the Structure rating, the attack has made a hole in the structure. Each hole is one square meter per increment of Structure rating. For example, an attack that dealt 30 net points of damage to a Structure 15 barrier would create a 2-square-meter hole.

You can bash down both the maglock and the door with brute force.

Assuming you deal enough damage to their barrier's structure to break them.

Note that explosives are twice as effective (DV * 2) against barriers than melee attacks or bullets, according to the table on page 198.

Bullets are less effective, dealing only a single point of damage on a single shot, two points of damage on a burst fire, and 4 points of damage on a full-auto (before adding successes from the attack roll). While melee weapons affect barriers normally.

Weapons with high armor penetration are effective aswell, as barriers got a high Armor score to absorb damage.