The Drunken Lizard Pub

You surely want to know how to disarm traps and pick locks as a rogue, don't you? so here is some basic to cover that.


I). Traps and Skullduggery skill
To disarm traps, you need first detect it, spot hidden skill is useful but not required here, you have to walk around the spot with the trap until you detect it.

Then all you need is your hands, hmm, actually nothing is required, even character without any skill can try to disarm a trap, although the chance to fail will be high.

All traps have a trap level, the chance to disarm them are based on your skullduggery skill level and concentration attribute.

The chance to disarm a trap sucessfully is:
Chance to disarm% = skullduggery skill level * 3 + concentration/3 + 60 - Trap Level * 10
Maximum success rate is 99%, minimum success rate is 1%

For each trap you disarmed successfully, the experience you can gain is:
Experience gained = Trap Level * 25

Of course no experience if you failed to disarm it, failing to disarm will also trigger the trap.

There are 4 other ways to remove a trap:
1). Use your own body, step on it or open the door or chest directly.
2). Use Trap Kill spell, a Tier 2 element spell.
3). Do some damage to the trap, you might need try a few times to make enough damage, also this do not work on ground trap. Ranged weapon or spell is recommended.
4). Lure a stupid enemy to step on it, only works on ground trap.
No experience from above methods, as a rogue, we usually prefer to disarm the trap, don't we?

List of traps with their level and message when triggered:

Level 1: Steam Bath
A burst of hot steam blasts your torso and face, severly scalding you!

Level 2: The Hobbler
A steel bar snaps out and smashes into your kneecaps, causing your legs to buckle!

Level 3: Barbed Darts
Several barbed darts shoot at you, piercing your arms and neck!

Level 4: Bixby's Noxious Cloud
A cloud of Nightshade spores fills your lungs!

Level 5: Festering Stew
A splash of rancid, green fluid hits your face. It smells like rotting flesh.

Level 6: Thieves' Surprise
A fiery blast of black powder explodes around you!

Level 7: Wicked Sunrise
A brilliant flash of magnesium severely burns you!

Level 8: Yara's Vengeance
A splash of searing acid sprays upon you, damaging your equipment and blistering your skin!

Level 9: Dragonbite
A large, toothy steel trap snaps down upon your legs!

Level 10: ???
A powerful trap made by orakur like the level 10 lock?



II). Locks and Pick Locks skill
To pick locks, you need at least 1 point in pick locks skill, and have at least one lockpick with you.

All locks have a lock level too, which is shown in pick lock confirm box as lock rating, the chance to success are based on your pick locks skill level and dexterity attribute.

Lock picking formula:
Chance to pick% = pick locks skill level * 3 + dexterity/3 + 50 - Lock Level * 10
Maximum success rate is 99%, minimum success rate is 1%

For each lock you picked successfully, the experience you can gain is:
Experience gained = Lock Level * 25

If you failed to pick a lock, there is also chance you will break a lockpick, the higher level the lock is, the higher chance you will break a lockpick.
As long as you have enough lockpicks in your pocket, you can always retry picking, the broken lockpicks won't block the lock.

There are 3 other ways to remove a lock:
1). Smash or blast it, actually the chest or the door instead of the lock itself.
2). Use Lock Melt spell, a Tier 2 element spell.
3). Obtain the corresponding key to unlock it. (you can't pick the lock anymore once you found the key for it)
No experience from above methods, as a rogue, we usually prefer to pick it, don't we?

Here are the list of known locks:

Level 1: a rusted, damaged lock
Level 2: a flimsy, loose lock
Level 3: a lock of moderate quality
Level 4: a somewhat good brass lock
Level 5: a good iron lock
Level 6: a very good steel lock
Level 7: an excellent Dwarven-steel lock
Level 8: a superior Dwarvish-steel lock
Level 9: a masterful adamantium lock
Level 10:a wondrous lock of unknown design

Remember, better to disarm or pick when you are out of combat and with nobody around seeing you. and it is always good to do a quick save before disarming or picking lock.

thanks. although i knew most of the information provided here, it's a nice resource you can switch to quickly to refresh your mind.

Awesome work as always dragonslayer =]
but you may have missed one possible way of getting rid of a trap
[haven't tested myself thou]
Summon a Catacomb Rat where the trap is

Yeah, those are the basic, most of them can be found directly in game, formulas in this game are usually simple, easy to find out yet still effective.

Summoning Beast won't work on trap from my testing, no matter if you have detected the trap or not, or the direction you are facing, the beast won't be summoned at the spot with trap. they are smart enough to avoid the traps too, nice idea anyway.

As always, feel free to correct me if there is anything wrong.

Can you explain please the mechanics of trap disarming and lock picking in case of 4th challege rule being active (the rule concerning predetermined seed for random functions)?

It seems to me that increasing my stats and skills does not have any impact on the locks and traps I'm trying to deal with.

I save before opening a lock, then I have a sequence of unsuccessful attempts of lockpicking, and eventually I manage to open the lock. After that I load saved game, increase my lockpicking skill and still receive _the_same_ sequence of unsuccessful attempts.

So it seems that predetermined seed makes the result of lockpicking fixed and not depending on my actual skill.

Wester Egg wrote:So it seems that predetermined seed makes the result of lockpicking fixed and not depending on my actual skill.

I experience the same. I also save the game before picking a lock and experience the _exact_ same sequence of unsuccesful attempts.

1st Sequence: Failed, try again
2nd Sequence: Lock Pick broken, try again
3rd Sequence: Success

I can load the save game a hundret times and the sequence is always exactly the same, although the lock says "52%" chance of picking this lock.

What's the deal here?

Here's how I understand this:
Let's say you need a roll of 30 out of 100 or less to open the lock.
On the first roll, you get a 48 - unsuccessful
On the second, you get a 34 - unsuccessful
On the third you get a 24 - success

If you increase your skill and now need a 32 to be successful, load the game, you would still roll the same numbers, 48, 34 and 24, with the same result because the first two rolls still aren't less than 32.

If you increase your skill much more though, say needing a 36 to be successful, you would still roll 48 and 34, but on 34, the lock would open.

So it looks like your skill increase has no effect, but it actually does. The rolls are set, but you don't know what the numbers are, so you can't verify. I hope that helps.

Buckets, this makes sense. Thank you )

Level 10 locks can't be open with lock melt.

Yeah, for level 10 locks, i forgot to add lock melt won't work on them, also, lock melt and trap skill spell have their own casting level requirement to do the job. sometimes you might even need cast trap kill a few times to remove a trap.

About the predetermined seed rule, Buckets is right, I can confirm it with my thief story during hammerLorne key stealing from the dwarven lord:

There is a level 8 lock in the door to the key room, some guards always stayed near the door and wouldn't move, hide in shadow didn't work there as there are torchs around, I couldn't kill npc or cast spells with the true healer and true warrior challenges. so the only choice is invisible potion.

But the invisible potion was hard to find with the predetermined seed rule. Every chest will have the same items once you started the game. No potion from npc with the alchemist challenge, No potion making with the true warrior challenge. By the time i went there, i got no invisible potion from every chest found so far.

The only way to get some random loot is from mob drop. I remember outlanders drop potions, but every outlanders was killed already, so i had to go to the map with outlanders. spawn some with the camping, save and repeat killing until one of them dropped a invisible potion. Took quite a few tries to make that. It is invisible potion 1 as expected drop from low level mobs, which only last 10 turns.

After I prepared the potion, I went to the lord, made a save, drunk the invisible potion right in front of the door and started my lock picking...1, 2, 3, 4, 5 all failed as expected, I am not as skilled in stealing as my bow skills: only level 10 lock picking with 42 dex, the success rate for that lock is 14%.

I was expecting to unlock it in around 8-9 turns. anyway, things wouldn't always work as the number says. 9 turns passed(the turn you drunk the potion also counted as one turn so you only have 9 tries), invisible potion went off and still no luck.

I didn't notice that and keep trying, of course, now the angry lord and guards caught me trying to steal their treasure. A few minutes later, the lord and guards are all dead, and no key from the lord even for his own room, so i went back to continue my picking work, as nobody wouldn't disturb me now,i finished it after about 15 more tries, which make a total of 24 tries at 14% success rate.

Load the game and did a few more tries from different spot or kill npcs around it first, still same result, always 24 tries at 14% rate.

So i decided to go out for some hunting and gained a new level. went back to the lord. save and first put 3 points into pick locks and 3 points into dex. retried with the 24% success rate, i was able to open the lock at 6th try. but i didn't want to waste more points into pick lock, so load and then only put 3 points into dex, 15% success rate now, wow, still be able to open the damn lock at 6th try. That means i would always roll a number 15 at 6th try for that lock after my character creation. also numbers rolled before 6th try are all greater than 24. and numbers rolled during 6-23th tries greater than 14 too, 24th try will give you a number less than 14.

That is the story, I managed to finish my job without failing the challenges, with some luck indeed. you can also see much on how the random seed works in game from that. the rule is working like this together with my experience:

1. During character creation, you also created a predetermined seed, this seed itself should be a random value so every game can be different even with the rule on.

2. After that, item generation, picking locks, disarming are based on the seed, With the rule enabled, the seed is predetermined and won't be changed anymore. For game without the rule enabled, the seed used is generated from random and changed every time so you can get different result with save/load.

chest items: based on chest level, chest id (both fixed from map data), the seed.
vendor items: based on the day you visit the vendor for new items, vendor id, the seed.
picking locks: based on the lock id, the number of tries you already made on the lock, the seed.
disarming: based on the trap id, the seed. you can only have one try on the trap.
mob drops: uncertain, mob id, type etc. but it still have random factor even with the rule enabled. but once the bag is dropped, items inside will be fixed.

Exception:
For chest with trap but without lock, if you have detected the trap before open the chest, the items inside will be different from those you may find with trap undetected.
Both result are still fixed, just two results for such chests if you don't mind to fail the true thief challenge. so the trap on the chest should also have effect during item generation. Lorewitch level 2 chests near the lever can be used as example.

So save/load won't work for predetermined seed, almost everything is predetermined once you started the game in this mode, I love that, no more wasting time to save/load for a better result.

thank you very much for the clarification. that is indeed a pretty neat feature here ... makes save/load totally useless. great!