Picking Locks

Attributes: .................Intellect & Dexterity

Level: .........................DF: 3 BCS 40%; 500 Exp

Locks of the early days were large, clumsy and only deterred those who were unskilled and had no knowledge of their workings. A skilled thief had little trouble with his bag of tools and knowledge of the locks workings. Using beeswax, he could make an imprint of the key, if it was available to him, then the TSC% represents the quality of his reproduction, no penalties for complexity and difficulty will apply when the key is made. The table below, Picking Locks Results shows how effective his efforts have been based on the crit die roll.

The game master will decide the difficulty of the lock by assigning it a penalty to open between 0 and -50% to reflect the complexity of the mechanism and its strength. It is only after a thief has tried and failed to pick a lock that he can gauge the penalties he has to face with picking that lock.

The other factor that the game master needs to decide is the time required to make the picking attempt, with most average locks taking anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes. Those of exceptional craftsmanship may require up to 5 minutes per attempt. With three failures at picking a lock the thief is considered to be baffled by the mechanisms and can not open the lock with his skill at this time. More forceful, destructive and noisy methods are required and the hammer and chisel should always be included in a burglary kit.