D&D General How are locks so hard to open?
- Thread starter James Gasik
- Start date
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I suppose, but people do get very good at opening them with experience. Given how slowly characters in D&D get better at anything, and we have to assume someone with proficiency in Thieves' Tools has that kind of experience (unless our world is full of Rogues of level 5 and up, lol), DC's of 20 still seem a bit high*.
*unless you assume that the Rogue can just retry every six seconds, that is.
The videos tend to be locksport hobbiests and professionals yes, but just like golf zpeedsksting or swimming you don't need a hole in one or qualifying time just to get the ball in the cup or do a lap. It's a process that might take seconds minutes or even hours with most locks
LordEntrails
Hero
My wife has a purse hanger thing that kind of looks like that... I will never trust it again!
rmcoen
Adventurer
So what the consensus seems to be is:
DC 15 is a standard average lock, DC 20 is a good lock, but even an average person WITH PROFICIENCY will defeat a DC 22 lock given enough time. DC 23+ is a custom puzzle lock that no average person will succeed at picking, ever. And all of these DCs - excepting "this is beyond your skill" - are irrelevant if there is (a) no time-pressure; and/or (b) no consequence for failure. They only matter if popping the lock needs to happen fast.
Example: my rogue needed to "unlock" four elemental locks, each in a differently-charged elemental death chamber. Every round I took 2d6 damage of the appropriate element. The Fire, Cold, and Acid rooms, it mattered extremely how many rounds it took to pop the lock! (In the Lightning room, my particular lightning-immune rogue could take his time.) However, the lock on the chest in the next room, despite being DC 25, was just a 2-minute interlude (my bonus was +8; eventually I will succeed).
Even if you house-rule a failure penalty - like "you damage your picks or the lock on a Nat 1" - this mostly just leads to an exercise of dice rolling that is unfun. D&D is not a DyingLight [zombie video game] mini-game, where your twitch skills with a lock sometimes break picks and sometimes jam the lock. So this house rule needlessly complicates the task in 90% of the cases.
Having said all that, though, sometimes it can make "story-sense" that a lock is designed to counteract attempts, or break locks, or jam itself. In which case... you attack the hinges or the material of the door/container/wall, if you can! My PCs have cut the backs off many a chest, leaving the trapped lock intact and undisturbed! (Didn't stop the one chest with a contained poison gas, but it worked on most of the rest!)
In my campaign, I decided to make lockpicking less generally successful, and reward the truly skilled (i.e. rogues, and people who invested Expertise or somesuch). So instead of making "plenty of time" = "eventually get a 20", I lowered it to "2 minutes = Take 10"; insane amounts of time (like hours instead of minutes) gives Take 20 and a simple roll to see how much damage you caused your tools. A standard door or footlocker is just DC 12; a "poor" quality lock that is generally available, and easily defeated - "keeps the honest people honest." The PHB lock, DC 15, therefore means Joe Average the locksmith (DEX 10, proficiency with lockpicks) has a chance of not being able to defeat the lock without some tool damage and lots of time, but Rosie the Rogue (DEX 16) can handle it in anywhere from 6 seconds to 2 minutes.
I also increased the number of successes. Common (DC 12) locks usually take only one success, sometimes two. The PHB lock at DC 15 takes three. A Dwarven Masterlock, DC 25, might take 5 successes. Still irrelevant if your Take 10 is sufficient; when rushing or stressed (being shot at by stormtroopers, for example), failures matter. Failure 1 has no consequence, but tells you the DC and the # of needed successes. Failure 2 damages your picks (they can take 3 "hits" before needing replacement). Failure 3 jams the lock. [Nat 1 = 2 failures; Nat 20 = 2 successes]. Even then, the lock can be cleared with the application of more time... unless ... but then... oh, but, instead, you can...
See, I tried to make a mini-game of it. Instead, I created two pages of rules that no one remembers, and even when pulled out, just means the DM and the Rogue get to play "dice rolling" for 20 minutes while the other players watch. [The Thief subclass did shine here, though, because they could potentially achieve two successes a round, once with Bonus Action and once with main Action.] We used it... twice, I think? I still think it's a great idea, that just doesn't play well at the table.
DC 15 is a standard average lock, DC 20 is a good lock, but even an average person WITH PROFICIENCY will defeat a DC 22 lock given enough time. DC 23+ is a custom puzzle lock that no average person will succeed at picking, ever. And all of these DCs - excepting "this is beyond your skill" - are irrelevant if there is (a) no time-pressure; and/or (b) no consequence for failure. They only matter if popping the lock needs to happen fast.
Example: my rogue needed to "unlock" four elemental locks, each in a differently-charged elemental death chamber. Every round I took 2d6 damage of the appropriate element. The Fire, Cold, and Acid rooms, it mattered extremely how many rounds it took to pop the lock! (In the Lightning room, my particular lightning-immune rogue could take his time.) However, the lock on the chest in the next room, despite being DC 25, was just a 2-minute interlude (my bonus was +8; eventually I will succeed).
Even if you house-rule a failure penalty - like "you damage your picks or the lock on a Nat 1" - this mostly just leads to an exercise of dice rolling that is unfun. D&D is not a DyingLight [zombie video game] mini-game, where your twitch skills with a lock sometimes break picks and sometimes jam the lock. So this house rule needlessly complicates the task in 90% of the cases.
Having said all that, though, sometimes it can make "story-sense" that a lock is designed to counteract attempts, or break locks, or jam itself. In which case... you attack the hinges or the material of the door/container/wall, if you can! My PCs have cut the backs off many a chest, leaving the trapped lock intact and undisturbed! (Didn't stop the one chest with a contained poison gas, but it worked on most of the rest!)
In my campaign, I decided to make lockpicking less generally successful, and reward the truly skilled (i.e. rogues, and people who invested Expertise or somesuch). So instead of making "plenty of time" = "eventually get a 20", I lowered it to "2 minutes = Take 10"; insane amounts of time (like hours instead of minutes) gives Take 20 and a simple roll to see how much damage you caused your tools. A standard door or footlocker is just DC 12; a "poor" quality lock that is generally available, and easily defeated - "keeps the honest people honest." The PHB lock, DC 15, therefore means Joe Average the locksmith (DEX 10, proficiency with lockpicks) has a chance of not being able to defeat the lock without some tool damage and lots of time, but Rosie the Rogue (DEX 16) can handle it in anywhere from 6 seconds to 2 minutes.
I also increased the number of successes. Common (DC 12) locks usually take only one success, sometimes two. The PHB lock at DC 15 takes three. A Dwarven Masterlock, DC 25, might take 5 successes. Still irrelevant if your Take 10 is sufficient; when rushing or stressed (being shot at by stormtroopers, for example), failures matter. Failure 1 has no consequence, but tells you the DC and the # of needed successes. Failure 2 damages your picks (they can take 3 "hits" before needing replacement). Failure 3 jams the lock. [Nat 1 = 2 failures; Nat 20 = 2 successes]. Even then, the lock can be cleared with the application of more time... unless ... but then... oh, but, instead, you can...
See, I tried to make a mini-game of it. Instead, I created two pages of rules that no one remembers, and even when pulled out, just means the DM and the Rogue get to play "dice rolling" for 20 minutes while the other players watch. [The Thief subclass did shine here, though, because they could potentially achieve two successes a round, once with Bonus Action and once with main Action.] We used it... twice, I think? I still think it's a great idea, that just doesn't play well at the table.
Voadam
Legend
I don't know that there is consensus on much. The books say you need proficiency to attempt to pick a lock. Beyond that I don't remember 5e baseline guidelines for DCs and attempt/reattempt times like there were in prior editions so it is generally up to the individual DM, although there are things like the fast hands class ability to pick a lock as a bonus action for thief subclass rogues.
DMG page 103:
"Locked Doors. Characters who don't have the key to a locked door can pick the lock with a successful Dexterity check (doing so requires thieves' tools and proficiency in their use). They can also force the door with a successful Strength check, smash the door to pieces by dealing enough damage to it, or use a knock spell or similar magic. Chapter 8 provides guidelines for setting the DCs and assigning statistics to doors and other objects."
So probably the DC would use the typical DC chart and be based on the DM's call of how tough it is for a trained lockpicker to pick a lock or how tough the particular lock is judged to be.
That wording there is pretty much perfect, I'd add that bold bit. It doesn't matter if you roll a 20+4+5+12* if you don't have the right tools or the right tool is a not so discrete thing like this or this simply because the lock is tougher than the structure containing it.
* d20(20) + guidance(+4) + 20 in attrib(+5) + maxed expertise(+12).
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Out of the fiction. Rogues have niche protection and the designers assume rogues will have a high DEX and pick expertise in stealth and thieves' tools.
In the fiction. All the easy to pick locks have already been picked over the long centuries since they were placed.
In the fiction. All the easy to pick locks have already been picked over the long centuries since they were placed.
Exactly. Either a lock is made to be picked or it's an excuse to go adventuring for the special key/tool/widget/back door. Real locks are pretty much the same way.
Redwizard007
Adventurer
It is worth mentioning that a quality lock is far easier to pick than the cheap knock-offs. The cheap parts and poorly fit mechanical gizmos inside an off-brand lock may be occasionally irritating to open with a key, but they are a son of a gun to open with picks.
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