Andrew Stewart 988's page

Mark Hoover wrote:

Quench wrote:

I should say that in my original post I was imagining a group on a dungeon crawl who needed to get through the next door to get to the next chamber. No time pressure on them. And thought locked doors are pointless time-wasters in such situations.

Correct-a-mundo Qbert! At least, IMO anyway.

Four guys, one with advanced lockpick training and the proper tools, with virtually NO threat to their continued survival? This should be either handwaved or you ask for the take 10 result of lockpicking and simply announce (as you said moments earlier) either it's a simple enough lock that it opens or now it's irrevocably jammed and the door needs a good kicking in.

Take that EXACT same situation though, and add either the element of cooperative Aid Another checks using different skills or some hazard such as a monster, a re-activating trap, etc...and NOW its a party!

I had a GM years ago, before these games HAD take 10's (2e) that had us stuck in a hallway. The thing was lined with small clear crystals high above; these were joined by a copper conduit along ceiling level the length of the hallway. We'd killed a couple monsters nearby and used one as a monster mop; we were sure there were no traps. Just a darkened side passage leading to a closed portcullis and this locked door.

My character, a thief/mage gets to work on the door. No threat right? it'd take a few rounds to jimmy the lock. At first the crystals began to hum, then the light in the hall got brighter and a couple rats scurried away; our hair was standing on end. Suddenly WHAM! We're all electrocuted!

My character has been flung away from the door and needs to get back to work. However a few rounds in, the cycle started again. I got the door open just as lighting hammered the hallway again! But as we flew through the open portal we had to make saves to avoid tumbling down some stairs into a vast lower hall...filled with necrophidii!

I think Quench's post clearly demonstrate the GM was a little less focussed on "charge into combat" game style. For every delay, regardless of reason, there will be creatures moving around, in a dungeon, there would likely be patrols. Every round a group spends waiting for a lock to be picked, there is a risk of discovery, for every noise they make, a greater risk of discovery. If PC perception detects a patrol, you then use skills / spells of the hide ilk, and you need to silence the patrol before it sounds the alarm. If you have a rogue type PC you need to give them an opportunity to be heroic too, I have played way too many sessions as a pointless rogue to know.

mplindustries wrote:

ZanThrax wrote:

mplindustries wrote:

checking to see how many 6 second turns it takes to pop the lock.

This exact thing happens all the time in movies and on tv shows. And when it happens in that media, the audience knows that the answer is always "one less than it takes for them to get caught". How is the same thing in a game where they might pick the lock in time if they roll well or might get caught if they roll poorly less exciting?

Because there is absolutely zero player buy in for that. No rogue in the history of D&D ever wasted a combat turn picking a lock.

When an enemy is barreling down on the party, they're not going to fret at the lock hoping the rogue doesn't blow it, they're going to get into ambush positions.

Locks are not an in-combat obstacle. If they were, they actually would be interesting. People pick locks when they're safe, when the rules for picking locks are most boring.

But honestly, even if you could get players to buy in to that trope and actually try to get away through locked doors, it would still lack excitement for two reasons:

1) In a TV show or movie or whatever, you can see the person desperately trying, tension causing music is playing, and we get cool shots at perfectly chosen angles anticipating the event. Around the table, you get a group of people watching someone roll a d20 over and over until its high enough.

2) The nature of the game would make it such that the threat baring down is either too powerful for the PCs to handle (so failing to pick the lock in time, a serious possibility) will lead to a TPK, or the threat isn't really worth running from in the first place, meaning everyone is "faking it" for the sake of the buy in.

Not Necessarily:

1) You are in a room filling with water, raising at a rate of one foot per round. There is a locked door between freedom and your rapidly impending watery doom. Unless you can get that lock picked NOW you drown if you don't have a way to breath...

Picking locks in combat is a great feature as it can open escape routes and provide access to narrow passage ways providing greater defence against hoardes by limiting how many aggressors can attack your party simultaneously. I feel from reading many comments here that too many are too interested in combat and have missed the point of the other 80% of role playing.