10 hardness and 10 hit points, like manacles.
An especially large lock (1 inch thick) would have 30 hit points.
Breaking manacles or chain bonds with raw strength is DC 26. I imagine breaking a lock would be pretty similar, provided you can get a good grip/leverage on it.
The game actually has some rules about that.
Breaking a lock is sometimes quicker than breaking the whole door. If a PC wants to whack at a lock with a weapon, treat the typical lock as having hardness 15 and 30 hit points. A lock can only be broken if it can be attacked separately from the door, which means that a built-in lock is immune to this sort of treatment. In an occupied dungeon, every locked door should have a key somewhere.
Note that those are specifically about locks that aren't built into a door.
Unless made from adamantium or some other such substance I'd generally rule that a lock small enough to carry around is basically trivial to destroy by a strong person with the right tools. It won't be silent and I'm not vouching for the contents of the container being left in one piece, but it will be quick. Slide crowbar under hasp, pull.
I can't possibly agree with RD on ten hit points (as much as a two handed sword) let alone 30. But that might just mean I can't agree with the rule book. This happens a lot.
The game actually has some rules about that.
Breaking a lock is sometimes quicker than breaking the whole door. If a PC wants to whack at a lock with a weapon, treat the typical lock as having hardness 15 and 30 hit points. A lock can only be broken if it can be attacked separately from the door, which means that a built-in lock is immune to this sort of treatment. In an occupied dungeon, every locked door should have a key somewhere.Note that those are specifically about locks that aren't built into a door.
I wonder why that's buried in the Terrain section, and not the item destruction section.
I wonder why that's buried in the Terrain section, and not the item destruction section.
For the same reason that the encumbrance/carrying capacity isn't ANYWHERE NEAR the equipment or strength rules. Bah! Not that I can ever find the item destruction rules anyway.
At one job I worked at, there was a trailer that was padlocked, and the key was lost. The best wire cutters available from Lowes broke, barely leaving a nick in the u-bolt. A thick re-bar was placed through the bolt, and it took a burly construction worker five or six whacks with a sledgehammer to pop it. Granted, this was a modern lock, but I'm guessing locks from a thousand years ago wouldn't have been all that easy to break.
Unless made from adamantium or some other such substance I'd generally rule that a lock small enough to carry around is basically trivial to destroy by a strong person with the right tools. It won't be silent and I'm not vouching for the contents of the container being left in one piece, but it will be quick. Slide crowbar under hasp, pull.I can't possibly agree with RD on ten hit points (as much as a two handed sword) let alone 30. But that might just mean I can't agree with the rule book. This happens a lot.
If by "the right tools" you mean a high-quality angle grinder I might agree with you. But locks are damn tough things. We had a small 4mm padlock we lost the key to, and tried breaking it with an meter-long iron crowbar. We were three people, none especially weak, and we failed. Now, if it had been fastened in a vise or similar it might have been possible (though not easy), but a lock fastened in a door will naturally be able to move a bit with takes a lot of force out of the breaking.
And that was a 4mm padlock. Many of the ones we use have a diameter of a full centimeter. That's like 5 times the amount of metal to break. There's no way in hell that we could do that. Now, those are modern locks and I imagine they are quite a bit stronger than old ones, but there's a reason locks have been used for so long: They are effective. Very effective.
But awesome heroes should of course be able to do awesome stuff. Hardness 15 and 30 hit points sound about right - some random dude won't have a chance at it, but a heroic barbarian might break it in a whack or three.
.......
Also, for most padlocks, one way to pop the lock is to hammer a screwdriver into the locking mechanism. This seems to do a good job at causing the lock to open, though it does ruin the lock. Much easier than breaking the other parts of the lock.
That's a nice detail, and it makes me wonder how you might run such an attempt in-game. If a player specifically described his character as attempting to break the lock using that method, you could argue that it kind of bypasses the Hardness rating or at least a significant portion of it. Would you have them use a Disable Device check with a penalty or something else?
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Wouldn't doing that be a Disable Device check?
Wouldn't doing that be a Disable Device check?
That's what I assumed, yes, but I wondered if the Disable Device skill check assumed a more...."controlled".....attempt. I guess I meant that an attempt without the use of delicate tools ( "Toolset? Nah, i'm just gonna jam this chisel into the keyhole and smack it real hard with the pommel of my sword") might mean an adjustment to the DC or something.
Funny, the game has rules for hinges too.
In the interest of not making the guy with DD feel useless and to curtail a certain amount of metagaming, I probably wouldn't allow characters with no idea how to disable devices to disable devices. Bashing until it's broken? Sure.
Yeah, breaking locks isn't that easy. Early locks are generally pretty massive compared to today, usually a custom installation for what ever portal or object is being secured. Thet're generally *much* easier to pick than to smash open. The irony is that the lock mechanism itself is primitive, just look at old keys. They are often little more than a single flange or two with a handle. Most locks in D&D would not warrant better than a DC 15 to 20 check to pick, most towards the 15 range.
Locks on hasps that are quickly removed by violent force generally remove the hasp, not the lock.
Real locksmithing crafting custom locks by hand are worth their body weight in gold.
The modern "quick set" locks we see today are relatively hard to pick without sufficient practice and the correct tools. Bypassing them (disabling) can be done fairly quickly with a power drill, the correct drill bits, a pair of pliers, a good-sized flat-head screwdriver and a hefty channel lock. The entry knobs are generally laughably easy to bypass - the deadbolt is what slows you down. If you don't want to ruin the door, this takes anywhere from 5 minutes to as long as 2 hours or more. Sometimes you will break drill bits and screwdrivers getting through the deadbolt.
If you only have an entry lock securing your primary doors, I suggest getting new doors (pre-drilled with all the proper holes) and new good-name locks to go in those holes.
I wonder why that's buried in the Terrain section, and not the item destruction section.
Because it interferes with / channels movement. Hence: terrain. I think it shoulod have been in both sections for ease of reference myself...