Force Locks

Atlantic

Hi everyone,

Does anybody know what Strength value corresponds to which 'Open Locks' Thief skill. For example, would 18 Str give me the same chance of opening locks as having an 'Open locks' skill of 50 (for example). Also, are there some locks (In BG1) which cannot be forced open but can still be picked by a thief?

SionIV

I can't say for sure, as i have never seen a list with this information. But i know that You need 60 in open lock to get the diamond up on the second floor of the Inn in candlekeep, and you can't bash this lock with 19/20 str.

elminster

Strength	           Bash Lock
3		          3
4		          4
5		          5
6		          6
7		          7
8		          8
9		          9
10		          10
11		          11
12		          12
13		          13
14		          14
15		          15
16		          16
17		          18
18		          20
18/01-50	          25
18/51-75	          30
18/76-90	          35
18/91-99	          40
18/00	         	  45
19	 	          50
20	 	          55
21	 	          60
22	 	          65
23	 	          70
24	 	          75
25	 	          80

SionIV

elminster said:

Strength Bash Lock (%)
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10
11 11
12 12
13 13
14 14
15 15
16 16
17 18
18 20
18/01-50 25
18/51-75 30
18/76-90 35
18/91-99 40
18/00 45
19 50
20 55
21 60
22 65
23 70
24 75
25 80

Nice. Where did you get these? As i never ever got the lock with the Diamond with 19 or 20 str.

elminster

SionIV said:

elminster said:

Strength Bash Lock (%)
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10
11 11
12 12
13 13
14 14
15 15
16 16
17 18
18 20
18/01-50 25
18/51-75 30
18/76-90 35
18/91-99 40
18/00 45
19 50
20 55
21 60
22 65
23 70
24 75
25 80

Nice. Where did you get these? As i never ever got the lock with the Diamond with 19 or 20 str.

http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Races_and_Stats#Strength

Atlantic

Cheers

ajwz

Also, as far as I'm aware the % thing is misleading.
25str doesnt give you an 80% chance to bash locks, it actually gives you bashes the equivelent power as a pick lock score of 80

DreadKhan

One would expect deific strength levels like 24 or 25 would straight up destroy just about any lock. Magical plot armoured ones aside.

elminster

Yea the percentage thing is my bad. I'll change it.

ZanathKariashi

It's not technically wrong, since it actually is just a flat percentage in PnP. If it fails, you can never attempt to bash that lock again.

Which can lead to some really awkward moments...where your Titan str character can't bash a door, but a 5 year old with 3 str strength gets lucky and does.


BG's system just handles it on a threshold system like Open Lock does. If you're within 5% of the target you have a 50% chance of bashing successfully per attempt, while if you're equal or greater, it's guaranteed.

the_spyder

Anyone else find it odd that the chance to force the lock is related to a thiefs chance? Seems to me that one action is nothing like the other.

ajwz

It's there to solve the repeatable issue. If it was just a % chance, you could just retry or reload if you failed which would leave thief's open lock ability as fairly useless.

ZanathKariashi

Well...technically, even the thief's lock pick is supposed to be % based, and you only get 1 attempt, though in the unlikely event you leveled and raised your OL skill during the adventure you could re-attempt it.

Same with str actually...you could attempt it at base str, then get a str spell or wear str boosting items to attempt it again, as long as your str score was higher then any previous attempts.

ajwz

Personally, I liked the NWN2 system where every container was potentially breakable, but to do so would risk damaging or destroying some of the contents inside

the_spyder

ZanathKariashi said:

Well...technically, even the thief's lock pick is supposed to be % based, and you only get 1 attempt, though in the unlikely event you leveled and raised your OL skill during the adventure you could re-attempt it.

Same with str actually...you could attempt it at base str, then get a str spell or wear str boosting items to attempt it again, as long as your str score was higher then any previous attempts.

I guess the point I was making was that if anything the relative heartiness of the lock would seem to vary inversely with it's complexity, assuming there is any correlation at all (and there doesn't need to be). it may be fiendishly difficult to pick the lock, but hit it with a club heard enough and it goes splat.

At minimum, you could have extremes wherein, like a pad lock, it is easily broken or clipped, but much harder to pick. Or you could reasonably have the lock built into the chest such that it is almost impossible to break, yet relatively easy to break. Granted you could have a lock that was both hard to break and to pick, but that just counterpoints the surrealism of the underlying metaphor, ahem, that there really isn't any connection. Or so I would imagine.

DreadKhan

ajwz said:

Personally, I liked the NWN2 system where every container was potentially breakable, but to do so would risk damaging or destroying some of the contents inside

My half-ogre fighter that used int as a dump stat forced open a deck of many things. He got +2 str, and destroyed his magic items.

TJ_Hooker

ajwz said:

It's there to solve the repeatable issue. If it was just a % chance, you could just retry or reload if you failed which would leave thief's open lock ability as fairly useless.

Kind of like how pickpockets ended up