The Thievery trained skilled Disable Device has the following:
Disable a Device
Two Actions
Manipulate
Source Core Rulebook pg. 253 2.0
Requirements Some devices require you to use thieves’ tools when disabling them.This action allows you to disarm a trap or another complex device. Often, a device requires numerous successes before becoming disabled, depending on its construction and complexity. Thieves’ tools are helpful and sometimes even required to Disable a Device, as determined by the GM, and sometimes a device requires a higher proficiency rank in Thievery to disable it.
Your Thievery check result determines how much progress you make.
Critical Success You disable the device, or you achieve two successes toward disabling a complex device. You leave no trace of your tampering, and you can rearm the device later, if that type of device can be rearmed.
Success You disable the device, or you achieve one success toward disabling a complex device.
Critical Failure You trigger the device.
I've seen only one trap/hazard have thieves' tools required and that was:
Armageddon Orb
Hazard 23
Rare Magical Trap
Source Core Rulebook pg. 526 2.0
Complexity Simple
Stealth DC 10 or detect magic
Description A roiling red orb, forged from a drop of the god Rovagug’s blood, rains fire from the sky when a specified condition is met.Disable Thievery DC 48 (legendary) to imbue thieves’ tools with aspects representing Asmodeus and Sarenrae and use them to drain away the orb’s power over 10 minutes; the character attempting this check takes 5 fire damage each round until the orb is depleted
Burn It All Reaction (death, divine, evocation, fire); Trigger A special condition set by the trap’s creator occurs; this is typically the event of their death. Effect Fire rains from the sky in a 100-mile radius, dealing 10d6 fire damage to creatures and objects in the area. Each creature or object can attempt a DC 46 basic Reflex save. Any creature reduced to 0 Hit Points by this damage dies instantly. This is not enough damage to completely burn away a forest or level an entire mountain or city, but it typically kills most creatures in the area.
So are thieves' tools really useless except for this one specific trap/hazard, barring homemade traps/hazards? I'm curious since a player brought it up in a game that they didn't need to have them to disarm the trap we ran into.
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Pick a Lock requires them, and I imagine so do some other specific hazards.
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And some of the thieves' tools provide an item bonus.
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And similar to a Crowbar for Force Open checks, the GM might or might not require thieves tools for Disable Device checks. Whether it is actually listed as a requirement in the stat block or not.
It might help to think of Disable a Device as a general skill action rather than one specific to thievery. Especially because a lot of hazards don't specify how many actions a disable attempt takes and this gives you a default. A device is usually a hazard, and not all hazards require thieves tools or even thievery, so building it into the activity doesn't really work.
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I mean, you don't need to use Thievery against traps or locks at all. Just attack and break them.
Perhaps I've forgotten, but aren't the rules for attacking and breaking objects...rather incomplete.
Or am I just thinking of what used to be sunder is now effectively gone.
I mean, you don't need to use Thievery against traps or locks at all. Just attack and break them.Perhaps I've forgotten, but aren't the rules for attacking and breaking objects...rather incomplete.
Yep. Fireballs don't burn chairs or curtains or stacks of paper anymore. Strikes only target creatures, and so cannot be turned on locks. There is no alternative rule to Strike, except maybe Force Open.
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By the way, do people actually use the multiple successes thing for locks? I house ruled it out along with breaking picks because it was mind-numbing and uninteresting.
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Yeah, it is pretty clearly intended that you can attack objects. The strike action just describes the most common way to make a strike (which is against a creature).
There are so many feats and abilities that just don't work unless you can attack objects, and a lot of rules describing what happens when you do attack objects, so the minor technicality of the RAW in this case will be bypassed by any competent GM.
Some of the abilities off the top of my head which are nonfunctional if you enforce the RAW;
Barbarian - Annihilating Swing, Shattering Blows
Monk - Shattering Strike
Goblin - Vandal
Animal Companions - Wrecker
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By the way, do people actually use the multiple successes thing for locks? I house ruled it out along with breaking picks because it was mind-numbing and uninteresting.
It really only makes sense in a time-sensitive situation like combat. And even then it's not really the most fun implementation.
By the way, do people actually use the multiple successes thing for locks? I house ruled it out along with breaking picks because it was mind-numbing and uninteresting.It really only makes sense in a time-sensitive situation like combat. And even then it's not really the most fun implementation.
It's not something that is easy to make fun on it's own, but I think it fills an important niche of being able to have those scenes from movies where someone is trying to pick a lock or hack a computer while their friends hold of the bad guys. You need the multiple successes for that tense combat scenario to work.
It's definitely not intended for use in a situation where there isn't time pressure.
To be honest, if there's no time pressure, lock-picking in general shouldn't require a dice roll at all as the question of "will they pick the lock" is 100% "yes" because they can just keep trying for as many actions as it takes to get it right. You may as well just tell them they succeed in the beginning so that they don't have to roll multiple dice rolls to answer a question you all already know the answer to.
Now with combat (or other time pressures like the villain running away or the monsters on the other side of a door getting a chance to detect you each time), this all changes, because the question becomes "will they pick the lock in time?" or "how much fighting does the party have to endure before they can escape through the locked door?".
If you are making players roll multiple times to pick a lock when there isn't really any time pressure, the problem isn't with the system of requiring multiple rolls, it's the GM making the mistake of not knowing when dice rolls are appropriate (and I believe that the CRB and GMG do articulate that this is part of the GMs role).
By the way, do people actually use the multiple successes thing for locks? I house ruled it out along with breaking picks because it was mind-numbing and uninteresting.It really only makes sense in a time-sensitive situation like combat. And even then it's not really the most fun implementation.It's not something that is easy to make fun on it's own, but I think it fills an important niche of being able to have those scenes from movies where someone is trying to pick a lock or hack a computer while their friends hold of the bad guys. You need the multiple successes for that tense combat scenario to work.
It's definitely not intended for use in a situation where there isn't time pressure.
To be honest, if there's no time pressure, lock-picking in general shouldn't require a dice roll at all as the question of "will they pick the lock" is 100% "yes" because they can just keep trying for as many actions as it takes to get it right. You may as well just tell them they succeed in the beginning so that they don't have to roll multiple dice rolls to answer a question you all already know the answer to.
Now with combat (or other time pressures like the villain running away or the monsters on the other side of a door getting a chance to detect you each time), this all changes, because the question becomes "will they pick the lock in time?" or "how much fighting does the party have to endure before they can escape through the locked door?".
If you are making players roll multiple times to pick a lock when there isn't really any time pressure, the problem isn't with the system of requiring multiple rolls, it's the GM making the mistake of not knowing when dice rolls are appropriate (and I believe that the CRB and GMG do articulate that this is part of the GMs role).
That would all make sense in any game that doesn't have critical failure. However, 2e does, and so they must roll since it may matter if they have limited picks and no way to repair the ones they have.
By the way, do people actually use the multiple successes thing for locks? I house ruled it out along with breaking picks because it was mind-numbing and uninteresting.
In combat it raises tension sometimes, I've enjoyed it with doors that lock automatically a few times as the party knows they need to prepare their escape route quickly because it will take time to get out, or knows they need to get creative if they need to run away. Out of combat I tell the party how many checks it takes them to unlock a lock and then handwave it because if the time pressure of combat isn't on the process is just throwing dice in a vacuum.
By the way, do people actually use the multiple successes thing for locks? I house ruled it out along with breaking picks because it was mind-numbing and uninteresting.
I found my players surprisingly enjoy the feel of picking a lock taking more than a single check. Paizo seems to have set the DC for breaking picks to be rare most of the time. So they keep working on the lock and it usually takes a few rounds. Makes the rogue or lock picker feel like they're doing something.
By the way, do people actually use the multiple successes thing for locks? I house ruled it out along with breaking picks because it was mind-numbing and uninteresting.
It feels like the predecessor to the Victory Point subsystem. I would probably just use a VP system for getting through a complicated barrier like a locked door if I wanted it to be its own encounter.
For a basic locked door, it would make more sense if there was one check and if they don't succeed, then they don't succeed. Trying again doesn't work just like it doesn't for a lot of other one-and-done skill checks.
Having locks jam if you fail once would be so horrible.