User:MOURNE/Locksmithing Guide
An Introduction and Overview of the Locksmith's Trade
First published on 09/17/2017 by MOURNE, player of Nayolan
This guide is primarily aimed toward a novice audience. Updates and clarifications of the information herein are encouraged in order to maintain accuracy.
Who Can Be a Locksmith?
Anyone can train in Picking Locks, Disarming Traps, and Perception, so at the most basic level, anyone can learn to be a locksmith. Rogues have the most potential for high skill and added utility, as the only profession with the ability to train 3x per level in Picking Locks and Disarming Traps for the lowest training point cost, as well as access to the Lock Mastery Rogue Guild skill. Bards have the second lowest training point cost and can ascertain the exact size of a lock via Loresinging.
What Are Locksmith Skills Good For?
The primary use of Picking Locks and Disarming Traps is on the treasure boxes dropped by humanoid creatures all over the game world. Picking can also be used on some locked doors and gates. Plinite, a treasure drop from elementals in the Elemental Confluence, can be extracted by those sufficiently skilled in picking and disarming.
How Do I Do This?
The basic procedure for opening a treasure box is as follows:
- DETECT the box.
- If a trap is detected, DISARM the box.
- Choose a lockpick.
- PICK the box with your lockpick.
Important points:
- The box can be in your hands or on the ground in front of you.
- At low levels, low skill, or when working near your limits, you may wish to DETECT multiple times to ensure you don't miss a trap.
- Many traps will require you to have an open disarming kit on you, either worn or in an accessible container. See the Key Tools section below.
- Some traps have special ways they must be disarmed. See the Understanding Traps section below.
- Different lockpick materials have different inherent modifiers and skill requirements. See the Lockpicks article.
- You may need to try multiple times in order to succeed in disarming or picking a box.
Key Stats
- Assists with picking and disarming success.
- Assists with trap detection success.
Key Skills
Picking Locks
The general wisdom is, you'll mostly be able to pick your own boxes if you train twice a level for life (2x). 1x can see you until around the mid to late 30s outside of hunting grounds where the boxes are statistically harder. 3x will allow you to pick well above your level and put you in range of the hardest boxes out there (capped/post-cap hunting grounds and high end invasions).
Disarming Traps
The general wisdom is that you'll mostly be able to disarm your own boxes if you train twice a level for life (2x). 1x can see you till around the mid to late 30s outside of hunting grounds where the boxes are statistically harder. 3x will allow you to disarm well above your level and put you in range of the hardest boxes out there (capped/post-cap hunting grounds and high end invasions). You may find over the course of your picking career that you're more held back by hard traps than hard locks, especially if you get into Lock Mastery as a rogue and have options for opening boxes outside your picking skill range.
Perception
Traps can kill you, kill others around you, and land you in jail. This is something to be avoided. You will want to reach a threshold of 30-50 ranks as quickly as possible if you plan to be decent at detecting traps early in your career. Afterwards, you can get by with low investment in this skill if you're only using it for trap detection, though you may wish to maintain a high investment (2x) if you are also a ranged weapons user.
Arcane Symbols
This is known to help with disarming certain traps (scarabs and glyphs). 10 ranks or so should suffice for this purpose. You can disarm glyph and scarab traps without any Arcane Symbols training at all, but you may find you have more reliable reads on successful scarab disarms and more reliable success overall with a very modest investment in this skill.
Key Tools
Lockpicks
There are a range of lockpicks, each having a specific modifier (how well it helps you pick a box), strength (how likely it is to break), and requirement of ranks to use. This ranges from copper at the lowest end to vaalin at the highest. Lockpicks can be purchased at the NPC locksmith shop in each town, at merchant festivals, or created by rogues with sufficient skill in Lock Mastery. Lockpicks can break and will need repaired in order to be usable again. Repairs can be done by an NPC in town or by rogues with sufficient skill in Lock Mastery.
Disarming Kits
Some traps can be disarmed without special tools, but many will require the use of a disarming kit, which can be bought for a few hundred silvers at the nearest town NPC Locksmith shop. These kits contain a range of tools that cannot be removed normally and are only utilized as part of the DISARM command. Some of the tools within (putty and cotton) will decrease in quantity with use, but you can simply buy another kit and BUNDLE it with your existing one to top off the consumable tools. Acid vial trap components pulled by those with sufficient skill in Lock Mastery can also be bundled into the disarm kits and used on plate traps. Additionally, the kits are beltworn containers and can hold a number of items.
Calipers
Rogues with sufficient skill in Lock Mastery can use calipers to get a general idea of the lock size on the target box. Calipers lose accuracy with use and must be re-calibrated frequently. Calipers can be obtained at the various Rogue Guilds and at some transient merchant shops and festivals.
Key Commands
DETECT
This allow you to detect a trap without attempting a disarm. You may wish to use this to get multiple reads on a given trap. Have hands free aside from box being detected. At lower levels of skill, you may wish to DETECT multiple times if using on a box that seems to have no trap, just to be sure.
Syntax: DETECT <target(ie: box)>
DISARM
On first use, will detect a trap. On second use on the same trap, will attempt to disarm the trap. Have hands free aside from box being detected and/or specific tool for use in the disarm attempt, such as a lockpick on a sphere trap, or a dagger on a picked scales trap. At lower levels of skill, you may wish to DISARM multiple times if using on a box that seems to have no trap, just to be sure.
Syntax: DISARM <target(ie: box)>
PICKLOCK
Used in conjunction with a lockpick in hand, attempt to pick the lock on a box or door or gate.
Syntax: PICK <target(ie: box)> WITH MY <lockpick>
Key Considerations
Experience Gain
You won't get full experience from picking boxes until you reach 30 ranks in Picking Locks. After that point, your experience gain per box will be calculated off a number of factors, including:
- How close you are to your maximum ability for the lock with the lockpick in use
- Use of applicable Lock Pick or Disarm Enhancement spell (enhancement spells reduce experience gain)
Breakage/Repair
Lockpicks will inevitably break and must be repaired to be usable again. This can be done via an NPC locksmith in town, who will repair your pick for a silver fee and a time investment, or instantaneously by a rogue with sufficient skill in Lock Mastery who will need to purchase wire of the appropriate material for a silver fee.
Also note that the modifier and precision of the lockpick will degrade after having been broken and repaired. After enough breaks, the lockpick will no longer be able to be repaired. Occasionally, merchants will offer to reset a lockpick back to its original state.
Room Conditions
Each room in the game world has permanent light and fog settings and can also be affected by temporary light and fog effects from spells. Rogues with sufficient skill in Lock Mastery can determine the light and fog levels of a room. At this time, light and fog conditions do not appear to be affected by time of day or ambient weather.
Town Justice
Setting off a trap inside the jurisdiction of a given town will incur a charge of endangering public safety. Killing someone in town with a trap will also incur a charge of murder. Learn your limitations with practice and if you are concerned about the potential for setting off a trap, do so outside city limits.
Understanding Traps
This is critical information!
There are several different kinds of traps that can be found on boxes, and while most can be handled automatically via the DISARM command, often in conjunction with a disarm kit for the appropriate tools, some traps require different methods to disarm.
- Sphere traps require a lockpick in hand on the disarm attempt.
- Scales traps must be successfully picked first, then disarmed with a dagger in hand.
- Scarab traps must have the scarab disarmed off the box, which will cause the scarab to fall to the ground in front of the locksmith. The scarab must then be disarmed separately.
Learning the details of each trap and understanding how to disarm them as well as what damage they can cause to yourself, your tools, and the people around you is extremely important to becoming a skilled locksmith. Familiarize yourself with the different traps and what is needed to disarm them to minimize damage to life, limb, and reputation.
Offering Your Services
If you're offering your skills to the public, each town generally has a traditional spot where locksmiths are sought. These include:
- Wehnimer's Landing: The East Tower
- Icemule Trace: Town Center or the Well on Ale Street
- Solhaven: North Market East
Additionally, you can set your SERVICE information to advertise your skill and availability.
Additional Influences
- Also commonly referred to as 'locklore', this is a Minor Elemental spell that can be learned by certain professions (bards, rogues, wizards, sorcerers, warriors), and provides a temporary bonus to picking locks. The bonus is greater when the spell is self-cast than when cast by an outside source. Picking under the effects of Lock Pick Enhancement will drastically reduce the experience gained from successfully picking a lock.
- Also commonly referred to as 'traplore', this is a Minor Elemental spell that can be learned by certain professions (bards, rogues, wizards, sorcerers, warriors) and provides a temporary bonus to detecting and disarming traps. The bonus is greater when the spell is self-cast than when cast by an outside source. Disarming under the effects of Disarm Enhancement will drastically reduce the experience gained from successfully disarming a trap.
- Increases success chance of detecting traps.
Light (205) and Darkness (205 evoked)
- The brighter the light in a room, the better the picking and disarming conditions will be. Casting Light in a room that is not already fully bright will increase your chances of successfully picking a lock or disarming a trap. Casting Darkness will decrease your chances.
- Fog in a room will decrease your chances of successfully picking a lock or disarming a trap.
- Increases success chance of detecting and disarming traps.
- Increases success chance of detecting and disarming traps.
- Decreases success chance with detecting and disarming traps.
- Decreases success chance with detecting and disarming traps.
- Decreases success chance with detecting and disarming traps.
"Modding down"
- When you attempt to pick a lock and receive a numerical read but fail to unlock it, you'll receive a temporary bonus that effectively modifies the lock size smaller. The actual lock size stays the same, but you essentially have a bonus that brings its difficulty down somewhat. This effect can stack, and thus several good attempts can bring a hard lock into reach of success where it wouldn't have been on a perfect first try.
Open Rolls
- Picking uses an open roll system that can cause you to have a greater than 100 result for the random roll component of the success formula. This will be displayed as an 'outstanding' attempt and you will see a line about feeling especially lucky. It's possible to pick a lock usually outside your max range with a given pick via an open roll.
Fumbles
- Disarm and picking attempts can both result in a critical failure, resulting in setting off a trap or breaking a pick.
- Wounds and bad scars can reduce your chances at success with trap detection, trap disarming, and picking locks.
- Lockrot oil is a substance created via Alchemy that can be applied to a locked box to reduce the size of the lock. The amount depends on the rank of the potion.
- You can increase your skills by way of enhancive items, up to a maximum bonus of 50 per skill. A collection of enhancives can help the dedicated locksmith achieve success where they might otherwise need several more levels of training.
Tips and Tricks
- Keep a dagger on you for disarming scales traps.
- Rogues sufficiently skilled in Lock Mastery can create keyrings to hold your lockpicks and keys, and you don't have to take them off the keyring to use them.
- Keep some edible/drinkable Unpoison and Undisease items on hand in case you trip a green or blue scarab trap or a poison needle trap.
- If you are using Lich, the ;lockmaster script can be used to show numerical lock measurements inline when measuring a lock with calipers, as well as used to report useful information about lockpicks and your likely capabilities with them (with and without lore).
- If you are using Lich, the ;maxlock script can be used to report useful information about lockpicks and your likely capabilities with them (with and without lore).