lock picking - can you eventually suceed?

rhaeloth

Will a lock eventually open if you keep attempting it. or is it set to a level restriction and fail means fail?

Lord_Tansheron

Afaik it's a percentage, but that percentage can be 0, too, if your skill is too low. So while you could try a lot and eventually succeed on a 0.1% lock (if there was one), you would never pick a 0% one unless you raise your skill to bring the percentage up.

Also of note: you can break locks if your strength is high enough; however, there are certain locks in the game that will not break even at maximum strength.

Quartz

For each lock, try picking it 5 times. If it doesn't work on the fifth attempt, it never will. I have had lock picks succeed after 4 fails on VERY rare occasion, but never anything greater than that.

TJ_Hooker

It's mostly theshold based, so each lock has a value that your lockpick skill will need to meet or exceed in order to open. There is a little bit of variability however, so if you're just shy of the minimum, you can sometimes manage to open it if you try a few times, as @Quartz suggests.

I'm pretty sure finding/disarming traps works the same way.

CaptRory

If you think you're marginally failing, you can try casting the Luck spell on your thief. That might put you over the top. Plus there's all kinds of potions and things. But yeah there's a minimum skill for unlocking locks, finding and disarming traps, etc.

stygga

I've had traps not be disarmed, try again, and I get it the second time. I've also had traps not be disarmed, and when I try they explode in my face. It's a threshold thing not a percentage thing. I've had locks not open the first couple times but then open the last time. I'm sure there's probably a 5~ point allowance for when it could work to where it will work every time. But that's all based on experience and hypothesis and not on actual hard facts.

CaptRory

Traps are tricky. So many times there'll be an odd shaped trap and I need to manually maneuver my guy to where they won't set it off before they get to the point they need tor each to disarm it.

TJ_Hooker

CaptRory said:

Traps are tricky. So many times there'll be an odd shaped trap and I need to manually maneuver my guy to where they won't set it off before they get to the point they need tor each to disarm it.

I think I remember reading somewhere that they fixed that for BG:EE, but I can't confirm because I've gotten so used to doing this that I did it out of habit in my BG:EE playthrough.

KidCarnival

I'm pretty sure some traps have a lower threshold for finding them than disarming them. So you can see them, but won't succeed at disarming without a boost of some sort (potion, luck spell).

lunar

All locks have a base threshold percentage of skill required. If your open lock skill is only below %1-5 from its required threshold, the lock may yield in a few tries. You have an approx. %50 chance to open a lock that's higher than your open locks skill by a very small percent. If the lock has a much higher threshold than your skill, open locks will always fail, no matter how many times you try. There is never a critical success.

Example:A lock has a 80 open locks requirement and Immy has 75 open locks skill. She may be able to open it in a few tries, if the first few tries fail, try again at least 5 times. The lock may eventually yield if your skill is very close to its level.

If all 5-10 attempts fail, it means the lock's difficulty is too higher than your skill (example:it requires 100 open locks where you only have 75, a big difference!) so you can not open it proper unless you raise your open locks skill. (potions, dexterity increase, level up, luck spell, etc.) There is no point to continue trying.

CaptRory

@KidCarnival Yeah. That's happened to me in Durlag's Tower. Since you can't do anything about it, its almost better not to know. Hahah~

@lunar It should go without saying, but we always have new people coming in: Using the F-Keys can really help spamming. You can try picking a lock twenty times by hitting the F Key for your thief skills and keeping the mouse over the lock to click it in the time you could click it five times just using the mouse. Same goes for trying to force a lock.

KidCarnival

Well, if you can find the trap and just fail to disarm (not set it off), you at least know you're close enough to the disarm value to have a chance with a spell or potion. I don't think the thresholds are very far apart. It would be worse if you would automatically find all traps and have no idea if you could ever succeed at disarming with the stuff you have with you. Especially in Durlag's or some other place where you can't backtrack and buy a potion so easily.

CaptRory

That's true I suppose. My thinking was more along the lines of having the situation come up in the Pen and Paper game where you can go "There's a trap over there. And I can't disarm it." And the party comes up with a work around. But you're pretty limited in doing that in a CRPG.

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KidCarnival

Really? The only traps I could see and not disarm were in Durlag's (the second level, behind the secret door leading to the trophy room or what it is; later the trap in front of the statue and the statue trap on the same level, before the teleport rune room). I never had that in the non-ToSC content.

smeagolheart

I always get find traps and open locks to 100 before I do pretty much anything else with my thief

CaptRory

I prioritize Traps because locks can be bashed or knocked. But when actually rolling a thief, I max out locks to get that gem in Candlekeep.