What is the procedure for opening complex locks?
Specifically, CRB253 has this to say:
"Locks of higher qualities
might require multiple successes to unlock, since otherwise even
an unskilled burglar could easily crack the lock by attempting
the check until they rolled a natural 20."But there is no consequence to getting a Failure result on the Pick a Lock action.
Is it RAI and RAW that anyone can pick even the poorest lock simply by trying until they roll 20 twice?
That is, you might think you need to roll all your successes (such as 4 successes for an Average Lock) in a row, with no failures in between... but the rules don't actually say that.Not even on a critical failure is your progress reset. The only consequence for a critical failure is that you break a tool with a trivial (3-30 sp) cost.
Zapp
PS. I am aware of this old thread
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42w13?Retries-Taking-20-and-Opening-Locks
so please don't rehash its arguments, thank you.
My reading is that the successes must be consecutive, otherwise it does nothing to obtain the stated goal of preventing an untrained shmo from just rolling over and over until they got a 20.
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Why are you choosing to ignore an old thread that asks essentially the same question you are asking?
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I think the main problem is that "Pick a lock" is a mere two-action activity. It should probably be something like a one-minute exploration activity instead with lowered DCs.
I'd rather it remain something that can be done in combat, as a PC rogue concentrating on picking the lock so her party can escape through a door while her companions hold off waves of attackers makes for some good, tense action.
Personally I am pretty sure that it is meant to use the vp system from the gmg, that is keep rolling till you get your successes but crit failures drop the successes by 1 (meaning no auto success without assurance).
But asking hoping for a saviour staff member to come down and tell us is just gambling. Highly unlikely, better to just pester for a faq replacement as we still need one.
WotC did better with twitter. :(
The lock spell is fine imo (if it works with the vp system). Having the lock jam when someone gets a critical failure at 0 would be a houserule I would consider though.
If you require consecutive successes, the chances of opening a lock goes down enormously. Take a 5th level burglar versus an Average lock. The 5th level burglar has Expert Thievery (+9), Dex 18 or 19 (+4), and +1 tools, so +14. The DC is 25, so the burglar has a 50% chance of success on any one roll (and for the sake of simplicity, ignoring crits).
If you require four consecutive successes, the chance drops to about 6%. It will take about 16 attempts to succeed. Each attempt will require about two checks on average, so that's an average of about 30 checks to get the effin' door open.
Assuming there's no time pressure, and abundant access to extra picks, does rolling a d20 dozens of times hoping to get 11+ four times in a row sound like fun?
I think the main problem is that "Pick a lock" is a mere two-action activity. It should probably be something like a one-minute exploration activity instead with lowered DCs.
A PC should not be encountering a lock with a DC that high until 8 or 9 based on the DC guidelines.
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A PC should not be encountering a lock with a DC that high until 8 or 9 based on the DC guidelines.
The DC for an average (Level 3) lock is 25. Lock
At level 8 or 9 they're facing a DC 30.
Tea and Staffan are right.
Pretty radical departure though from the forms. The DC tables in the book list an 'expert' level DC as DC20 and a level 3 DC as DC18.
Weird that a level 3 item has a level 9 DC (on top of requiring four successes).
With consecutive DCs, our fifth level burglar would even have some difficulty working on a simple level lock and that's a first level item.
A PC should not be encountering a lock with a DC that high until 8 or 9 based on the DC guidelines.The DC for an average (Level 3) lock is 25. Lock
At level 8 or 9 they're facing a DC 30.
I don't believe the locks that PCs can buy and the locks that they are expected to encounter as challenges are the same, for this exact reason. The locks they can buy have high level DCs to make them actually useful for taking enemies captive without them immediately escaping 4 minutes later.
Both Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse have multiple lock picking instances that use non-complex, level appropriate DCs, rather than the lock DCs available for PCs to purchase.
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Is the Lock spell (CRB348) really intended to be as weak as it appears?
It says nothing about creating a complex lock. If not, all you need is a nat 20 to open even a magically locked door. With no penalty for failure, and no proficiency rank requirement to make the attempt, this takes an unskilled urchin ~2 minutes on average to accomplish.
Plus - isn't the DC low?
You get your spellcasting DC + 4. But a non-magical "good lock" is DC 30. And it is a complex lock requiring four successes.
The Lock spell says "When you magically lock a target, you set an Athletics and Thievery DC to open it equal to your spell DC or the base lock DC with a +4 status bonus, whichever is higher. " So you would typically only use the single check with spell DC if there is no lock already on the door or container and the wizard is just creating a lock magically. If there is already a lock on the door or container, it requires multiple checks to bypass with an escalating DC based on it's quality, and an additional +4 more because of the magic.
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Both Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse have multiple lock picking instances that use non-complex, level appropriate DCs, rather than the lock DCs available for PCs to purchase.Yes, that is what made me go look for clarification and advice regarding the issue.
It makes no sense to put a lock up against the adventurers if they can try and retry without consequence until they roll a nat 20 and simply pick the lock open.
If there is no time pressure (such as having to open the lock during an active combat encounter) and there is no consequence for failing (not even that a crit fail makes it impossible to keep trying)...
...then that is a failure of the CRB rule.
All this means is that locks are explicitly bad at keeping player characters out. Which is kind of how it should work, otherwise the GM might as well just put up a giant brick wall of "No, you can't go here yet". Lockpicking rules (and pretty much every other non-combat player-facing rule in the CRB) apply only to the players, of which there are usually 3-8 in the world. Locks are great against the other 99.9999% of the world.
So, no, the CRB isn't failing at all, it just doesn't want to lock players out of advancement entirely arbitrarily and instead prefers to use other methods than "You spend an hour trying the lock and can't seem to get through." Padlocks aren't interesting if they take a lot of table time.
Also, if the whole world stops having locks suddenly, I'm gonna start stabbing a lot more fancy lookin' chests because that there's a mimic.
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...then that is a failure of the CRB rule.I started this thread in the hopes someone would simplify the discussion, by telling me just that. Nobody seems prepared to say it out loud, for some reason.
But by the absence of any advice to the contrary, it seems clear that is the case.
So I guess I have to be the little boy pointing out the Emperor is naked. That the RAW doesn't work, isn't fit for purpose, and that houseruling is mandatory, not optional.
Again. *sigh*
If you hate everything about the game, don't play it. Problem solved.
Why are you choosing to ignore an old thread that asks essentially the same question you are asking?Ignoring?
That thread was inconclusive. I wanted a straight answer, not more speculation.
Guess what, you got exactly what the other thread got. And what all your threads get, eventually
Speculation.
One thing about the levels of locks for purchase is that has nothing to do with the level of obstacle they are. It's for Crafting (or even treasure, though that'd be weird).
So apparently a modest craftsperson can make a lock that keeps out mediocre burglars, yet not superior burglars. In a story arc, where you aren't supposed to be kept out of the next stage, it's the superior burglars coming across such locks. Bonus points if the party faced that lock many levels ago when they weren't supposed to bypass it and now can.
(Paizo's done that a few times!)
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I started this thread in the hopes someone would simplify the discussion, by telling me just that.
So you made the thread just hoping for people to echo what you wanted to hear?
That seems kind of pointless. If you've already drawn your own conclusion and don't want to hear anyone who has a different perspective, why bother?
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If you've already drawn your own conclusion and don't want to hear anyone who has a different perspective, why bother?
Because:
It is what zapp does, all the time. You get used to it somewhat.
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Zapp, just do what I've done, create a ton of House Rules (mine are currently 20 pages long), and if you can get your players to agree to use them, then they become the "official PF2e rules for Zapp's table". If you are a player in someone else's game, then try using the RAW and any house rules the GM has. If that isn't good enough, drop PF2e and play a different game.
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It is what zapp does, all the time. You get used to it somewhat.Reported.
For what?
My only contribution to this is to note that you can still lock out an untrained Urchin with either a superior lock, a level 15+ caster casting Lock, or a caster casting Lock on a good lock. You have to be able to normal fail on a 20, or you just upgrade critical failures to normal failures.
In practice, its also potentially quite expensive for an urchin to brute force a good lock due to the volume of picks required, since they'll crit fail ~18 times for every success. I do agree that it feels that the system outcomes work generally better if you require consecutive successes; it means a really good thief can click through locks in a few seconds, an adequate one facing a good lock can get through eventually with some trouble, and untrained people are effectively locked out. There's a problem with the volume of required rolls if you're in that intermediate step of not being really good enough to get through a lock and have time to work on it though.
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For what?It is what zapp does, all the time. You get used to it somewhat.Reported.
If that isn't a direct attack or insult, then I don't know what would be.
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This is not hard, people. That PF2 lock rules fails on a basic level should be evident to everybody.
The evident things aren't evident for everybody. You're hoping for too much if you're wishing for unanimous agreement. People can't even agree that the world is a spheroid.
Still, it's apparently like squeezing blood out of a stone to get acknowledgement of that from here.
Nope. Just from you, I'm afraid. The way you have presented yourself in the past has jaded nearly everyone against your alleged sincerity.
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Is it RAI and RAW that anyone can pick even the poorest lock simply by trying until they roll 20 twice?
I don't know if it's RAI, but I think that it's clearly RAW that anyone can pick the poorest quality lock by trying until they roll 15 twice, because that's actually the DC of the poorest quality lock in the Core Rulebook. I suppose a shoddy quality poor lock would be a 13.
I don't understand why you say "even the poorest quality lock" because it's only the poorest quality lock that "anyone" can pick by simply trying until they roll 15 twice. I'm not really sure I see why that's a problem, though -- we're talking about a crappy lock. Without a lock, anyone can open the door. A poor quality lock still slows someone down a bit.
Not even on a critical failure is your progress reset. The only consequence for a critical failure is that you break a tool with a trivial (3-30 sp) cost.
A poor quality lock is a level 0 item, so I'm not sure that even 3 sp is a trivial cost, but 30 sp certainly isn't.
Is the Lock spell (CRB348) really intended to be as weak as it appears?
As a first level spell, that seems reasonable.
With no penalty for failure, and no proficiency rank requirement to make the attempt, this takes an unskilled urchin ~2 minutes on average to accomplish.
Slowing pursuers by 2 minutes on average doesn't seem bad for a 1st level spell slot.
You get your spellcasting DC + 4. But a non-magical "good lock" is DC 30. And it is a complex lock requiring four successes.
No, you get your spellcasting DC +4 or the "the base lock DC with a +4 status bonus. So your non-magical "good lock," with Lock cast upon it is now DC 34, which means that a minimum +4 bonus is necessary for even a nat 20 to provide a success, with literally every roll of 19 or less breaking a pick.
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If there is no time pressure (such as having to open the lock during an active combat encounter) and there is no consequence for failing (not even that a crit fail makes it impossible to keep trying)...
A crit fail has a consequence -- a set of broken thieves' tools. So unless you paid for and are carrying a set of replacement picks, you're stuck.
If there's no time constraint, though, I'm not sure I'd even bother keeping track of how many sets of picks get broken. I'd probably just narrate that after some appropriate amount of time the lock opens.
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In practice, its also potentially quite expensive for an urchin to brute force a good lock due to the volume of picks required, since they'll crit fail ~18 times for every success.
And it takes 5 successes to open that lock, which by your estimate means about 90 sets of lock picks. What sense does it make for an "untrained urchin" to be carrying around 90 sets of extra lock picks? Where did he get the 300 silver pieces that it cost him to buy a set of thieves' tools and 90 extra sets of picks? That backstory is probably more interesting than whatever is behind that lock.
Lovely.
This is not hard, people. That PF2 lock rules fails on a basic level should be evident to everybody. Still, it's apparently like squeezing blood out of a stone to get acknowledgement of that from here.:(
The rule works fine
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With no penalty for failure, and no proficiency rank requirement to make the attempt, this takes an unskilled urchin ~2 minutes on average to accomplish.
Good news, Zapp! I just noticed that Pick a Lock is a Trained use of the Thievery skill, so it is literally impossible for your “untrained urchin” to ever pick “even the poorest lock” no matter how many nat 20s they roll.
I don't see how 5E Arcane Lock solves the problem of being allowed multiple tries when there is no time limit. Is that part of their lockpick rules? There is nothing in the spell.
It is because of how 5e handles locks in the first place. There is no critical success factor (even on a 20).
e.g. take a standard lock (equipment), it has a DC of 15 normally, it then becomes a DC of 25. Anyone who wants to pick the lock requires a +5 modifier or it is impossible (and even then that gives a 5% chance, no take 20 and the DMG suggests using the passive value of 10+mod for repeated checks).
So outside of trained individuals arcane lock prevents people who don't have maxed dex from picking it regardless of their level. Especially as gaining new skills is much less common than in PF2e.
Oh and it doesn't require the object to have a latch and also makes the object harder to break.
If that isn't a direct attack or insult, then I don't know what would be.
A statement of fact, slightly exasperated but otherwise accepting of it being how it is.
Zapp frequently adds a terms of engagement to their posts and expounds on why they want the discussion to be of a certain type or why people should follow those rules (or sometimes does it in replies to posts of a topic they start for that matter).
The post history is what it is, if you don't believe me or remember I can dig it up to prove I am not engaging in slander.
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The problem here is that the PF2 Lock spell doesn't work in the context of the overall PF2 ruleset.
It works as intended... A Magic Lock, that can be opened like all the other locks, by characters who are good at opening locks.
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Is the Lock spell (CRB348) really intended to be as weak as it appears?
Only if the reader ignores that Pick a Lock is a trained use of Theivery.
If not, all you need is a nat 20 to open even a magically locked door.
No, you need a set of thieves’ tools, training in Thievery, and a sufficient roll. And if there was an existing lock you need a the requisite number of successes.
With no penalty for failure, and no proficiency rank requirement to make the attempt, this takes an unskilled urchin ~2 minutes on average to accomplish.
But there is a proficiency rank required to make the attempt, so your “unskilled urchin” literally can’t even make an attempt.