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One thing I think a lot of people are mistaken about, and I think you might be as well: you don't need 3 consecutive successes to open the lock. Just three successes. So unless you are trying to pick locks mid combat you should never really need to do it in one round.
Also, as written the only penalty for broken tools is a -2. So you can still get through the lock, it will just take longer because you now need to roll a 15. But there is no further penalty for critically filing at that point either, so until you run into a trap with a failure condition there really isn't a penalty there.
The other piece is that thieves tools are cheap. As a Skyrim player I don't have a huge objection to carrying more than one being best practice. Especially since as far as I can tell the Mending spell can repair them just fine. Even at low levels that just means a prepared Caster can repair all your broken tools during downtime, for example.
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In fact, I'll go a step further upon further reflection. Your actual thievery bonus or the condition of the tools will generally be irrelevant. What matters is your proficiency level, as you can't attempt to pick a lock without being trained and I'm sure some locks require Expert, Master, or Legendary. A nat 20 is still a success, so as long as you have the required proficiency you will get through eventually. If you want to avoid excessive rolling, if someone uses broken tools you can math it out easy. Statistically you should get get a nat 20 every 20 actions, so it takes 20 rounds to get 3 successes. As a GM, you can say "it takes you a couple minutes and a lot of trial and error, but you get through."
Your thievery bonus (and by extension whether your tools are broken) is relevant in two situations: when you need to pick a lock in a hurry and for dealing with hazards. The former is probably a pretty niche situation, and it seems like picking a lock in the middle of a battle probably should be pretty hard. The latter will arise more often, but while there is a risk to your person for critically failing disable device checks, there isn't any risk to your tools becoming broken.
This means that most of the time 2 sets of tools will suffice: one of the highest possible quality that you use to disable devices, and one that you don't care about that can get broken to use for picking locks. And if carrying a back up weapon is a best practice for martials, I don't see a huge issue with carrying a back up set of tools being the best practice for thieves.
Now, there do seem to be various areas where the DCs are too high relative to PC skills, as discussed in other threads like DMW's. And I'm not sure that "your bonus doesn't really matter because you will eventually succeed without consequence" is the most desirable status quo. But at the very least I think you are focusing on the wrong perceived problem here.
tl;dr: If anything lock picking is usually a rather trivial challenge to overcome.
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What the rules actually say:
Critical FailureYou either undo one success you have already gained, or, if you have no successes, you break your tools. The tools can be used while broken, but are treated as poor-quality tools. Repairing them requires replacing the tools (costing 6 sp, or 50 sp for expert-quality thieves’ tools).
A critical failure reduces your success by 1. So you may not need three consecutive successes but you might undo some of the successes you get. Broken tools increase your critical failure chance by 10%
Your description of taking time to get the job done sacrificing a few lockpicks in the process sounds suspiciously like taking a 20. A wonderful concept that Pathfinder has entirely thrown out.
What the rules actually say:
Critical FailureYou either undo one success you have already gained, or, if you have no successes, you break your tools. The tools can be used while broken, but are treated as poor-quality tools. Repairing them requires replacing the tools (costing 6 sp, or 50 sp for expert-quality thieves’ tools).
A critical failure reduces your success by 1. So you may not need three consecutive successes but you might undo some of the successes you get. Broken tools increase your critical failure chance by 10%
Your description of taking time to get the job done sacrificing a few lockpicks in the process sounds suspiciously like taking a 20. A wonderful concept that Pathfinder has entirely thrown out.
Sacrificing one lockpick forever. For basically all locks, realistically. And yeah, it is basically taking 20. I don't necessarily have a huge problem with how it has worked out in this particular case. I think the loss of taking 10 is probably a bigger deal to me.
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During out playtest last night, the party found its first trap. I didn't get to see much of the resolution because I was helping another player figure out a rule. Yet I do recall them concluding the rogue had a 15% chance of success and some extended session of rolling dice and tracking successes. Eventually the DM just ruled the trap was disarmed. I suspect the DM was concerned the folks at the table were bored by the experience.
This doesn't feel like a mini-game. It feels like you're a spectator to randomness.
It's far easier in most cases to set off the trap or break down the door. We ran into the issue of 'what happens if you've already broken your picks and you have no more successes to to rid of.': what happens then when you crit fail? We figured that meant you destroy your picks and had to 'go home' for more. :(
My problem was that when a character encountered a door that was beyond their means they rolled and rolled and rolled without figuring out that it was beyond their means. In this case it was a bard with +3 vs a DC 20 door.
This may have been a system master issue, we didn't know the rules enough to know this lock was almost hopeless for that character and instead banged our head against the wall (instead of quitting when he got a crit fail on a 6).
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So I may have been wrong before. Lock picks don't take dents, and there's nothing in the picking a lock action which says they are destroyed. But page 175 says "An item that would take a dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed." That "or" makes me think you can destroy your lock picks.
That means that trying to pick a lock "way beyond their means" as DM Livgin references is indeed a problem. We might need some sort of perception check to establish the DC on a lock or something. Or maybe don't even require a roll for that info. Someone trained in thievery should probably know if something just flat out looks too complicated for them.
Now in defense of the specific DCs in the playtest, the locks in the first part (DC 20) don't really seem like they are meant to be picked. There are keys you can find, little consequence to breaking them open, and no real reason you have to open at least one of them at all. If how bad the odds were at picking this was made apparent to the PCs, this might function just fine.
The next section with locks uses DC 25. But at that point you've got characters that can be masters, probably with expert picks, for a +14 to their check maxed out. That's before spells like Knock, Inspire Competence, or Guidance, or a player using the aid action. They only critically fail on a nat 1. That works out pretty fine, and you may not even need replacement picks. (But they aren't THAT expensive and carrying at least one set if probably a best practice.)
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Is lock picking more of an out-of-combat/exploration mode activity? If so I think it is a little bit tedious to deal with the system as it is now. A bunch of dice rolls when not in a combat situation probably isn't very fun or exciting. Perhaps it could be evaluated and adjusted.
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Yeah, we noted our experiences of that part for the playtest, as well. Our rogue broke his picks, and we said "**** THIS!" and the fighter and axe-cleric broke down the door.
Those DCs need a little tweaking, or low-level characters better be resigned to just breaking doors to flinders and performing no stealth missions for a few levels.
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Is lock picking more of an out-of-combat/exploration mode activity? If so I think it is a little bit tedious to deal with the system as it is now. A bunch of dice rolls when not in a combat situation probably isn't very fun or exciting. Perhaps it could be evaluated and adjusted.
Yeah, it is usually going to be Exploration mode. And you aren't wrong, but I'm not sure what the right answer for it is. It wasn't like PF1 was especially interesting either, and generally the goal was to get your disable device to a point where you could safely take 10 on a trap or take 20 on a lock. Which is also itself pretty boring. I think the mutli-success thing seems slightly more interesting?
I think the big problems with the aforementioned examples are that the lock DCs are too high, but most likely because you aren't really meant to pick them.
EDIT: Yeah, looking at this, there are only 3 locks. 1 is DC 15 and 2 are DC 20. DC 15 is low enough that a trained rogue with +5 only crit fails on a 1 and is super unlikely to wind up breaking a pick. That is also the only lock where opening it especially results in something interesting happening. There's really no reason to bother trying with the DC 20 locks. I think having a lock you aren't supposed to be able to pick is a fine conceit for a game; the game should just make it apparent you probably won't open it and are more likely to break your picks.
And to be fair, there's a decent case to be made you should really just tell the players this as is. We have no appraise skills anymore or anything to identify items, and it seems to be commonly know from the rules that a lock usually has a DC 20, an expert lock has DC 25, and a master has DC 30. If the player can tell the quality of the lock (and I don't see any reason they couldn't TBH) they can tell what their odds of success are. So a 1st level character should maybe reserve lock picking for locks that look below average quality.
Yeah, we noted our experiences of that part for the playtest, as well. Our rogue broke his picks, and we said "**** THIS!" and the fighter and axe-cleric broke down the door.
Those DCs need a little tweaking, or low-level characters better be resigned to just breaking doors to flinders and performing no stealth missions for a few levels.
How?
The Break Open DC for a door is 5 higher than the Lock... so if the rogue can't pick it, most likely the barbarian can't break it open either.Note that per RAW you cannot Strike a Door (or any other noncreature object, such as a Hazard), and the vast majority of spells/powers cannot target objects either. This is obviously a massive oversight, but a noteworthy one as we have no rules for a very common scenario, taking an axe to a wooden door. Doors don't even have listed ACs like Hazards do, so it is hard to even argue that you're intended to be able to Strike/Smash them instead of using Break Open.
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I did some simulations on lockpicking. My findings were that the -2 penalty for using damaged tools basically makes it impossible to open a door without a "take 20" hand-wave. For instance, a +5 thievery check versus the DC 20 door in Lost Star takes an average of around 90 dice rolls to open if you break your lockpicks and keep going. Aid another doesn't actually help the bloat; it increases your chance of success, but it means you now have twice as many people rolling so the overall speed of play isn't improved. The only way to consistently open that DC 20 door quickly is if you have an 18 dex rogue trained in thievery with another party member trained in thievery to provide aid another and spare lockpicks if you break your first set. That only takes about 20 dice rolls on average to get through. Bottom line, the current rules are dysfunctional and in desperate need of either an overhaul, because as it stands right now for anything other than the most absurdly overprepared party, opening a door is a question of whether you get lucky or bored first.
I did some simulations on lockpicking. My findings were that the -2 penalty for using damaged tools basically makes it impossible to open a door without a "take 20" hand-wave. For instance, a +5 thievery check versus the DC 20 door in Lost Star takes an average of around 90 dice rolls to open if you break your lockpicks and keep going. Aid another doesn't actually help the bloat; it increases your chance of success, but it means you now have twice as many people rolling so the overall speed of play isn't improved. The only way to consistently open that DC 20 door quickly is if you have an 18 dex rogue trained in thievery with another party member trained in thievery to provide aid another and spare lockpicks if you break your first set. That only takes about 20 dice rolls on average to get through. Bottom line, the current rules are dysfunctional and in desperate need of either an overhaul, because as it stands right now for anything other than the most absurdly overprepared party, opening a door is a question of whether you get lucky or bored first.
The door in question was not intended to be opened without the key.
So the numbers are functioning right. Problem is in all our games the character with the lock picks didn't realize/accept that this door was beyond their means, making a poor play experience.
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...the vast majority of spells/powers cannot target objects either. This is obviously a massive oversight, but a noteworthy one as we have no rules for a very common scenario, taking an axe to a wooden door. Doors don't even have listed ACs like Hazards do, so it is hard to even argue that you're intended to be able to Strike/Smash them instead of using Break Open.
This has come up enough that I put together a list of object targeting damaging/breaking spells. Some are fairly accessible lockpick replacements.
targeted spells: Acid Splash, Acid Arrow, Polar Ray, Disintegrate, DisjunctionPowers:Force Bolt, Fire Ray, Moon Beam
AoE: Sunburst
I think that's all of them. Other spells are polite enough to leave the environment alone. Even a Meteor Swarm produces 4 14d6 gentle kisses of fire leaving your books unsinged.
Another oddity is the web spell and the Leng Spider's web trap. Damaged by fire, but only targetable by fire ray, a cleric domain power or sunburst a level 7 spell.
You could use telekinetic projectile to throw any object at a chromatic wall to destroy anything though.
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The door in question was not intended to be opened without the key.So the numbers are functioning right. Problem is in all our games the character with the lock picks didn't realize/accept that this door was beyond their means, making a poor play experience.
Not quite; that DC 20 door is well within the ability of a 1st level character to unlock... it's just slows the game to a crawl with a ridiculous amount of dice rolling. Each thievery check only takes 1 action, so you're making three dice rolls per round, so that 90 dice rolls I quoted earlier is only 3 minutes IC, which puts it on par time-wise with a take 20 in PF1. It's not the character that can't open the doors, it's the players who won't be willing to go through the odious motions.
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Yeah, we noted our experiences of that part for the playtest, as well. Our rogue broke his picks, and we said "**** THIS!" and the fighter and axe-cleric broke down the door.
Those DCs need a little tweaking, or low-level characters better be resigned to just breaking doors to flinders and performing no stealth missions for a few levels.
How?
The Break Open DC for a door is 5 higher than the Lock... so if the rogue can't pick it, most likely the barbarian can't break it open either.
Note that per RAW you cannot Strike a Door (or any other noncreature object, such as a Hazard), and the vast majority of spells/powers cannot target objects either. This is obviously a massive oversight, but a noteworthy one as we have no rules for a very common scenario, taking an axe to a wooden door. Doors don't even have listed ACs like Hazards do, so it is hard to even argue that you're intended to be able to Strike/Smash them instead of using Break Open.
Because the rules for item damage are on page 175, and the rules for materials hardness are on page 354, and because we’re playing a role playing game and not a computer game. That strike doesn’t mention “or an object” is an oversight, yes - but not an unreasonable inference to make when there are already rules for hardness and item damage. And yes, we’ve mentioned it in our reports.
Dc 18 is severe for lvl 1 characters. DC 20 is supposed to be stupid hard. The other door DC 15 still takes a while but is much more reasonable.
Not quite; that DC 20 door is well within the ability of a 1st level character to unlock... it's just slows the game to a crawl with a ridiculous amount of dice rolling. Each thievery check only takes 1 action, so you're making three dice rolls per round, so that 90 dice rolls I quoted earlier is only 3 minutes IC, which puts it on par time-wise with a take 20 in PF1. It's not the character that can't open the doors, it's the players who won't be willing to go through the odious motions.
The door in question was not intended to be opened without the key.So the numbers are functioning right. Problem is in all our games the character with the lock picks didn't realize/accept that this door was beyond their means, making a poor play experience.
How many picks do they destroy during those 90 rolls? If a broken tool takes a dent it is destroyed.
But in the end I agree with you; character success by player suffering should not be a game mechanic.
Not quite; that DC 20 door is well within the ability of a 1st level character to unlock... it's just slows the game to a crawl with a ridiculous amount of dice rolling. Each thievery check only takes 1 action, so you're making three dice rolls per round, so that 90 dice rolls I quoted earlier is only 3 minutes IC, which puts it on par time-wise with a take 20 in PF1. It's not the character that can't open the doors, it's the players who won't be willing to go through the odious motions.
The door in question was not intended to be opened without the key.So the numbers are functioning right. Problem is in all our games the character with the lock picks didn't realize/accept that this door was beyond their means, making a poor play experience.
How many picks do they destroy during those 90 rolls? If a broken tool takes a dent it is destroyed.
But in the end I agree with you; character success by player suffering should not be a game mechanic.
Pretty sure RAW you cannot destroy your lockpicks by crit failing. You break them which makes them poor quality but still usable. There is no mention of dents or anything so by RAW if you crit fail (with no successes) again nothing happens. Your tools become poor quality, which they already are so no net effect.
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Pretty sure RAW you cannot destroy your lockpicks by crit failing. You break them which makes them poor quality but still usable. There is no mention of dents or anything so by RAW if you crit fail (with no successes) again nothing happens. Your tools become poor quality, which they already are so no net effect.Not quite; that DC 20 door is well within the ability of a 1st level character to unlock... it's just slows the game to a crawl with a ridiculous amount of dice rolling. Each thievery check only takes 1 action, so you're making three dice rolls per round, so that 90 dice rolls I quoted earlier is only 3 minutes IC, which puts it on par time-wise with a take 20 in PF1. It's not the character that can't open the doors, it's the players who won't be willing to go through the odious motions.
The door in question was not intended to be opened without the key.So the numbers are functioning right. Problem is in all our games the character with the lock picks didn't realize/accept that this door was beyond their means, making a poor play experience.
How many picks do they destroy during those 90 rolls? If a broken tool takes a dent it is destroyed.
But in the end I agree with you; character success by player suffering should not be a game mechanic.
An item that would take a Dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed beyond salvage.
Note "take a Dent OR become broken".
if you have no successes, you break your tools.
So crit failure without any successes to take away results is broken. Going back to the page 175 quote, anything that breaks a broken item destroys it.
I'm not seeing how you could see this as not RAW.
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I changed the simulation to the following parameters: the character continues to attempt checks to pick the lock, swapping broken lockpicks for fresh ones every time they critically fail at a time when they have no successes. This is 1000 trials for +3 through +9 against DC 20 doors, listing the average number of broken tools, the most number of broken tools, and the average number of rolls required. This does not include aid another.
+3 vs DC 20
Average breaks = 21.305
Most breaks = 153
Average rolls = 86.583
+4 vs DC 20
Average breaks = 7.124
Most breaks = 54
Average rolls = 39.632
+5 vs DC 20
Average breaks = 2.927
Most breaks = 21
Average rolls = 22.932
+6 vs DC 20
Average breaks = 1.406
Most breaks = 13
Average rolls = 15.116
+7 vs DC 20
Average breaks = 0.69
Most breaks = 8
Average rolls = 10.84
+8 vs DC 20
Average breaks = 0.316
Most breaks = 5
Average rolls = 8.397
+9 vs DC 20
Average breaks = 0.113
Most breaks = 2
Average rolls = 6.684
So provided you have a couple of spare picks, the DC 20 door is definitely doable for a +5 kill check. That's without aid another; if you have another thievery-trained individual in the party that gets even easier. It'd still take you about 23 rolls to resolve on average, though.
An item that would take a Dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed beyond salvage.Note "take a Dent OR become broken".
if you have no successes, you break your tools.So crit failure without any successes to take away results is broken. Going back to the page 175 quote, anything that breaks a broken item destroys it.
I'm not seeing how you could see this as not RAW.
I missed it by assuming that reading the broken condition would tell me what I needed to know about the broken condition and assuming that the item damage section wasn't relevant unless the item was taking damage. But you are right.
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I missed it by assuming that reading the broken condition would tell me what I needed to know about the broken condition and assuming that the item damage section wasn't relevant unless the item was taking damage. But you are right.
An item that would take a Dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed beyond salvage.Note "take a Dent OR become broken".
if you have no successes, you break your tools.So crit failure without any successes to take away results is broken. Going back to the page 175 quote, anything that breaks a broken item destroys it.
I'm not seeing how you could see this as not RAW.
I made the same mistake for what it is worth.
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I missed it by assuming that reading the broken condition would tell me what I needed to know about the broken condition and assuming that the item damage section wasn't relevant unless the item was taking damage. But you are right.
An item that would take a Dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed beyond salvage.Note "take a Dent OR become broken".
if you have no successes, you break your tools.So crit failure without any successes to take away results is broken. Going back to the page 175 quote, anything that breaks a broken item destroys it.
I'm not seeing how you could see this as not RAW.
Ah, I understand that. I thought maybe you were seeing something I didn't and I wasn't thinking you'd missed the interaction between the sections. It's very unintuitive to say the least and caused confusion in our group when it came up. ;)
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I ran a very large number of simulations of lockpicking and posted the results in this thread a month ago.
I considered somebody with Thievery +10 picking a DC 20 lock. By the CRB's DC guidelines, this would be a non-trivial, but not espeically difficult lock to pick.
9% of the time you break your lockpicks before you succesfully pick the lock.
34% of the time when you do successfully pick it, you've had to roll more than 6 times to get through a "three successes" lock (which the rulebook says is the minimum).
As I say there, in PF2, lockpicking has become an extremely boring minigame with a high potential penalty for playing.