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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6095407" data-attributes="member: 82106">Why in the world should locks ever be "only a second thought"???? Sorry, I prefer my game elements to be selectable by me, the DM, whenever I want to use them, not at only this or that level. That was half of what irked me about AD&D. Stop telling me what I should and shouldn't be doing in my game and give me rules that cover WHAT I ACTUALLY DO. lol. As for "30 types of lock" the point is there's no lock table that has to have 30 entries. In the real world there are infinite possible locks. In the game they have an attribute, level, that really isn't exactly complicated.OK, and this is different from 4e how? Sure, we use a d20 now instead of d100, but other than that...Realism, its an FRPG. I mean basically, if you want to create a character where he never ever picks a lock and theoretically has no ability to do that even for the simplest lock, and he's 30th level, that's what the game is for, to let you make up that story. IDEALLY no corner cases ever exist, but they ALWAYS will. No system is even faintly realistic.I disagree. 4e is the same as 1e/2e. The master thief is popping locks like they're nothing. He can walk through town and his 20th level +25 Thievery check will overcome every lock the townspeople have ever dreamed of. If he instead goes to the lair of the world's greatest thief and tries to pick HIS locks, well that might be a different story... Of course if locks are REALLY a big deal they'll be festooned with other interesting story elements, traps, tricks, puzzles, etc. or whatever. 4e's world does not change around the PCs, I don't know where you guys get this. The game is just more explicit in telling you that the challenges you should face should be getting harder, and providing ways to make every aspect of them as hard as you wish. People seem to vastly overvalue those concepts. They aren't meant to pervade every nook and cranny of the world. You are perfectly free to make the kings treasure vault's lock a worthless piece of junk and the rogue can unlock it on a 2. It is just set dressing, not part of the challenge, that's fine. The problem seems to be this weird double vision where when things get scaled in 1e that's one thing and when the same process happens in 4e its somehow totally different and has to be taken to ridiculous extremes so people can yell about how it broke their game or something. I mean really, take saves as an example. Saves get easier at high levels, so the monsters actually get tougher, scaling. The PCs also get nastier spells, so they keep up. Likewise monsters start having 'no save' powers, ridiculously powerful damage spells, etc. I mean LOOK at upper level 1e monsters sometime. Demon lords and such things can barbecue the whole party quicker than you can get out your toothpick. Things DO get easier, but it is basically the same thing that happens in 4e, with often less sorted out math. I also think that if your 4e game is nothing but a 'treadmill' that's dreadful. The math is just a scaffolding, a tool that lets you easily handle the stuff that doesn't matter much. IMHO if you're going through a 4e campaign by just 'follow the math' and nothing else is going on that's at very best a really narrow sort of game. It isn't much like the 4e games I've been in at all.</blockquote>

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