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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Suskeyhose" data-source="post: 9142097" data-attributes="member: 6840540">I think there's one huge oversight here that might be coming from expectations set by other games or by reading too much into standard npc blocks.The "adult human average" of 4 in an attribute is not what an average locksmith would have. Each character if built like a player will have different numbers for each attribute, and NPCs are built in a way different from PCs just for convenience. To give GM fiat and make playing them easier, since their stats don't matter for their own lives, they only come into play when they come in contest with the players, so they're usually simplified.If we account for building them like a player, being a locksmith is a skilled job requiring a lot of finger dexterity, so their agility will be higher than average, and unless the character is a fresh locksmith with only one career grade they will probably have more than one rank, likeky three ranks if this is their long term career.This means an "average professional locksmith" is probably rolling 5d6 on lockpicking, with a reasonable chance of high quality lockpicks since this is their job, giving 6d6.This is a good assumption because if you check out the rules for applying careers to NPCs, it says they should be rolling at their MDP for any check related to their career, and a standard average citizen can be expected to be in the 4-7 MDP range depending on their age and level of motivation.Combined with the fact that the consequences of failure is just a little wasted time (and maybe a broken pick on a crit fumble if you're using that rule), this is perfectly reasonable, they will get you in your house in short order on a Difficult lock.To address your player's expectations here, I would call attention to their max die pool. Any area that the player has special focus they should be rolling at their max die pool. For their primary focus this should be by attribute and skill alone, and for secondary focuses this should be shored up by equipment bonuses.In your particular example, I would call attention to the fact that your player is operating without their conventional tools, and use that to help them gauge how difficult it actually is.Also in this situation, maybe even call out that the drone could've added an equipment quality bonus if it was of an appropriate quality.</blockquote>

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