Recent readers of my blog will remember that I have spent most of the year working on a new set of lock-picking mechanics, and I came up with this lock-picking proposal, which can be summarised as:
- A character needs proficiency with Thieves Tools to be able to pick a lock
- The first attempt takes d4+1 rounds
- The second attempt takes d4+1 minutes (or the rest of the turn)
- The third attempt takes a full turn
- The character can make a faster attempt – one round for the first attempt, d4+1 rounds for the second attempt, etc – with Disadvantage on the roll
- If they still haven’t succeeded after three attempts, it’s beyond the character, and they need more training (i.e. to go up a level) before they can try again
I presented it to my players, and they had some very useful suggestions (and some interesting reactions).
Reactions
The player of the rogue was very open to the approach, thought it interesting, and liked the strategy brought in by allowing a quicker attempt with Disadvantage.
It was the player of our fighter who was more concerned about nerfing the rogue, and taking the player out of action for several rounds, and a couple of players felt it too harsh, particularly the “you must level up to try again.”
But they have agreed to try it. They did make some other suggestions.
Time and Terminology
The first point they made was in my terminology of time. I’ve written a whole blog post on this, but the crux of it is my use of “turn”. When I started, a “turn” was ten minutes – the unit of time used when not in combat. That all changed with third edition, and “turn” became the point within a combat round at which a particular character gets to act, and what they do at that point.
So “ the second attempt takes d4+1 minutes (or the rest of the turn)” and “the third attempt takes a full turn” don’t make sense in current terminology. It seems the minute is now the larger unit of time.
And thinking about it again, if there’s a three strikes limit, maybe it’s sufficient with the timing anyway.
How does the player know?
The next question was how the player knows when the attempt happens, if it isn’t happening instantly, and when they make the check. Obvious options:
- The player rolls the check so they know what the result will be, and rolls the d4 to find out when it happen
- The player rolls the d4, so they know when the attempt will happen, and rolls the check once the time is up
- The GM rolls the d4, so the player just knows they are fiddling with the lock and the GM tells them when to make the check
We agreed the last option is most appropriate, which then raises the question of how that works. One of my players suggested it should be like concentrating on a spell, which seemed like a very neat approach, even giving a mechanic by which the attempt can be disrupted by combat.
When does it stop?
The other objection was the arbitrary “three strikes and you’re out”, and the requirement to gain a level (representing training) before being able to try again. Ironically, after I went through the critical failure options in my blog post and then rejecting them, at least one player suggested that as a better alternative – a critical failure (whatever the threshold for that would be) indicates that something has gone wrong, such as lockpick broken off, lock jammed, lockpick broken off in the lock, etc.
Hmmm.
In writing my recent post about time, I came across the description in Draw Steel of skill checks, and it had this paragraph:
CAN I TRY AGAIN?
In many cases when you fail a test, you can’t attempt the test again unless the circumstances of the test change. For instance, if you attempt an Agility test to pick a lock and fail, you can’t attempt to pick the lock again unless you get some better lockpicks, oil the lock, have someone demonstrate how to pick a similar lock, and so on.
The Director decides when the circumstances have changed enough to allow a new attempt at a test.
I like that compromise – something has to change, but it’s not necessarily going up a level (and I can see why my player felt that was particularly harsh, given that after 4 years of play in this campaign we are only approaching level 8, so that could be 6 months of real-world time). But I will need to see what my players think…
Updated rules
So, let’s pull this together:
- A character needs proficiency with Thieves Tools to be able to pick a lock
- An attempt takes d4+1 rounds (i.e. 12-30s) in combat, or a minute otherwise
- The character can make an attempt in a single round with Disadvantage on the roll
- The character must concentrate on their lock-picking as their action for the duration of the attempt. If they lose concentration, or take a different action, the attempt automatically fails.
- The GM rolls to determine the duration and tells the player when they can make the check
Still undecided whether to stick with the three strikes, or whether to introduce critical failures, but definitely the three strikes will be:
- If they still haven’t succeeded after three attempts, it’s beyond the character, and something needs to change in order to try again.
