Make every door pickable. Viable?

[Morningfrost]

There are a lot of ways to implement an obstacle that requires a specific item to be crossed. Force fields, gates, doors and sliding walls are a few.

The way doors are implemented in DDO seems odd to me: some can be picked, some requires a key, some requires a key but can be picked.

Let's talk about the round shaped large doors: the two in the Coalescence Chamber are a good example of what I mean. My suggestion to the devs is make them pickable (maybe they are and I don't know?), although with a real high DC, much the way of the gate in Madstone Crater and the door of the control room in Prison of the Planes.

In general, I think that every door should be pickable. If a quest needs something you can't open until you get special items, any other obstacle will do (by the way, a force field could be dispelled, as well).

DC should be significantly high, so to make mechanic rogues and high open locks skills more useful even at high levels. Also, DC gets higher at every failed attempt, and there is a small risk of catastrophic failure, ie. the lock gets jammed. This will usually cause the quest to fail, so this leaves room for strategy and calculated risk.

What do you think?

[FluffyCalico]

Nope bypassing 90% of a quest is not what developers had in mind.
Not everything is pickable in DND. Also in DnD every single door that is pickable knock works on.
So if implimented correctly any wizard or sorc would be able to open the door.
Also splash rogues can reach some of the highest skill levels in search/disable/open lock.
By trying to make a DC they can't do neither will the rogue.

[Rasczak]

I don't agree. Maybe it's because I have had to live through thousands of pnp plot devices but maybe what they could do is say that you fail your check and hopefully you will see a 20 is not enough. Either way some things shoould be kept in check. Being able to unlock anything is definitely not the best idea and in pnp you normally had some unachievable dc on it so the player could attempt it but they had no chance to succeed.

[byzantinebob]

The problem with that idea is that the way locks work is that as long as you have 1 point in locks, you have a 5% chance to pick ANY lock. You always succeed on a 20. All additional points do is make it so you can pass on a lower roll.

[Ughh]

sorry...back to my original rant..this just screams EASY BUTTON...part of the story line is to find the hidden key/switch/lever.....might as well just let the tanks bash the walls in and skip mazes or have the casters hit the party with fly so we can go to the end of the quest.

[Phidius]

The problem with that idea is that the way locks work is that as long as you have 1 point in locks, you have a 5% chance to pick ANY lock. You always succeed on a 20. All additional points do is make it so you can pass on a lower roll.

Not in DDO - a 20 on a skill check isn't an auto-success, and a 1 isn't an auto-fail.

Trust me, I've failed to pick doors on a 20...

[Vordax]

There are a lot of ways to implement an obstacle that requires a specific item to be crossed. Force fields, gates, doors and sliding walls are a few.

The way doors are implemented in DDO seems odd to me: some can be picked, some requires a key, some requires a key but can be picked.

Let's talk about the round shaped large doors: the two in the Coalescence Chamber are a good example of what I mean. My suggestion to the devs is make them pickable (maybe they are and I don't know?), although with a real high DC, much the way of the gate in Madstone Crater and the door of the control room in Prison of the Planes.

In general, I think that every door should be pickable. If a quest needs something you can't open until you get special items, any other obstacle will do (by the way, a force field could be dispelled, as well).

DC should be significantly high, so to make mechanic rogues and high open locks skills more useful even at high levels. Also, DC gets higher at every failed attempt, and there is a small risk of catastrophic failure, ie. the lock gets jammed. This will usually cause the quest to fail, so this leaves room for strategy and calculated risk.

What do you think?

Sure would make Von 5 really quick!

Vordax

[SquelchHU]

The problem with that idea is that the way locks work is that as long as you have 1 point in locks, you have a 5% chance to pick ANY lock. You always succeed on a 20. All additional points do is make it so you can pass on a lower roll.

Nope. There is no automatic success on skill checks. The reason why you can get by with a low number of ranks is because of bonuses + relatively low DCs + can try again as long as at least a 20 gets it. But again, that's not automatic success. That's going in with +23, +5 tools, and rolling on the DC 50 lock until you get a 20.

And 'storyline'? You mean railroad right? Because the OP is absolutely right. There is no way in hell a door would be a serious obstacle past the first few levels. It only is in DDO because welcome to MMOs.

With that said, I'd fully support the idea but know it will never happen, because turbine is all about making a game that encourages you to go quickly yet tries to punish you for it at the same time.

[Kadran]

Sure would make Von 5 really quick!

Vordax

Not really. You'd still have to get the voice, kill Otto for the ring, talk to the faces in East, West, and North. It would save you the trouble of killing the Rust Monster. And most people would probably still have to kill him for the key anyway, as this is a raid that has many other locked doors that do NOT require a key. Thus, I would expect the DC on this door (were this ever to be implemented) to be very high.

[Rasczak]

Not really. You'd still have to get the voice, kill Otto for the ring, talk to the faces in East, West, and North. It would save you the trouble of killing the Rust Monster. And most people would probably still have to kill him for the key anyway, as this is a raid that has many other locked doors that do NOT require a key. Thus, I would expect the DC on this door (were this ever to be implemented) to be very high.


Bah beat me to it...you have to get all sides done to activate the fire geyser ;) So no it would just give people a new place to wait :p

[Mr_Ed7]

/SIGNED

ALL DOORS SHOULD BE PICKABLE.

If not, put a goofy force-field in front of it. :rolleyes:

[Kadran]

I think the OP is on to something here. Would this break the game? Not in the least.

Coalescence Chamber
Vault of Night
Jungles of Khyber
Proof is in the Poison
Enter the Kobold

I'm at work and kinda busy so I may have missed some, but these are the quests that require a specific key to open a specific door that cannot be picked or knocked.

CC - Would save a bit of time, but you have to accomplish other objectives.
VoN - As I explained in another post, you'd still have to do 95% of the dungeon. It would literally save you 2 fights. (I'm going for that chest. :-)
VoN3 - Saves you 5 seconds. The key is right next to the shrine by the beholder fight anyway...
Enter the Kobold - Saves you 5 seconds and a fight with CR 1/4 kobolds...

Proof is in the Poison - This is the only one that would be bad design. You reach the locked door very easily, then have to do 80% of the dungeon, only to loop back around to the same locked door. This would need to be changed to a lever system, or something of that nature as being able to pick the lock would make this quest a joke.

[KillEveryone]

sorry...back to my original rant..this just screams EASY BUTTON...part of the story line is to find the hidden key/switch/lever.....might as well just let the tanks bash the walls in and skip mazes or have the casters hit the party with fly so we can go to the end of the quest.

Not that I'm actually looking for an easy button but...

Bashing in wooden doors would be nice to be able to do. I'm not just talking about the ones that allow you to but there are plenty of wooden doors doors that you should be able to bash in. If the door is reinforced then bashing shouldn't work and of course those big round metal doors in coal shouldn't be bashable either.

Many doors I used the alternate key to get through in PnP.

[Cyr]

This is a rather interesting idea. I'm not exactly sure what real benefit is served by forcing players who are much higher level then a dungeon to take the long way around serves. Of course, this would not work well with the stupid ddo store opening item as you could skip large parts of quests at level with those.

[jadenkorr]

Hmm. I think that it would be better if the DC for these doors are put beyond the reach of at level characters. This would allow much higher level characters to pass through lower level quests for favour with ease (at least those with rogue skills)

This would prevent people from picking the door in coal chamber, so they can bypass a significant part of the quest. The devs (evil as they may be) that made the coal chamber, wanted the quest to be played out as such, with all the back-and-forthing. I think it wouldnt be good, if that door was pickable, and the devs would never allow it anyway.

I think the idea needs to be carefully tweaked. Allowing people to bypass objective doors is imo, an easy button. Better to just make it impossible, unless youre much higher level than the quest.

[donotdirect1]

Hmm. I think that it would be better if the DC for these doors are put beyond the reach of at level characters. This would allow much higher level characters to pass through lower level quests for favour with ease (at least those with rogue skills)

This would prevent people from picking the door in coal chamber, so they can bypass a significant part of the quest. The devs (evil as they may be) that made the coal chamber, wanted the quest to be played out as such, with all the back-and-forthing. I think it wouldnt be good, if that door was pickable, and the devs would never allow it anyway.

I think the idea needs to be carefully tweaked. Allowing people to bypass objective doors is imo, an easy button. Better to just make it impossible, unless youre much higher level than the quest.

Maybe they'll consider the "crazy DC" idea for epic characters the day they begin to work on raising the level cap. The epic level handbook has lots of examples where crazy DCs make for doings things no one else could possibly do.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Ever play this game on paper?
If you answered yes, then this thread in null & void!
http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm299/chefricochet/animated/th_aa613865.gif
(http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm299/chefricochet/animated/?action=view&current=aa613865.gif)

[Vordax]

Bah beat me to it...you have to get all sides done to activate the fire geyser ;) So no it would just give people a new place to wait :p

If you could still jump up to the ladder....

Vordax

[Kadran]

If you could still jump up to the ladder....

Vordax

Even if you could still jump up the ladders, you would make it all the way to the golem, active him, kill him, and NOT complete, as talking to all 3 faces is a REQUIRED OBJECTIVE. You'd lock yourself in a room with a dead golem, no way to complete (and still be able to advance to the dragon) and no exp. Smooth.

[Mister_Peace]

Haunted Library. It works.

[Kadran]

Haunted Library. It works.

I didn't make a list of doors that require keys OR can be picked. My list are doors that can only be unlocked by having a key. Speaking of which, there is Feast in GH that you need to get 2 keys in. Those doors cannot be picked either.

These doors (off the top of my head) have a key and can be picked:
Haunted Library
PoP
Water Works 1 (x2)
Fleshmakers Lab
Tangleroot (the supply crates)

I'm sure there are many more.

[Morningfrost]

Ever play this game on paper?
If you answered yes, then this thread in null & void!

Has been a long time since then, and never played thieves, actually.

[Morningfrost]

This would prevent people from picking the door in coal chamber, so they can bypass a significant part of the quest. The devs (evil as they may be) that made the coal chamber, wanted the quest to be played out as such, with all the back-and-forthing. I think it wouldnt be good, if that door was pickable, and the devs would never allow it anyway.

I think the idea needs to be carefully tweaked. Allowing people to bypass objective doors is imo, an easy button. Better to just make it impossible, unless youre much higher level than the quest.

I see your point. I'm not asking for easy buttons, and I do like Coalescence Chamber (I usually run it solo when I have a spare hour). It's just that I find a bit illogical having similar doors that can or can't be picked, depending on the quest. Placing crests, for one, is a clear hint you need some item. (In the same way, I find funny that you can climb ladders only on one side!).

But you are right, this would be hard to tweak (altough I think my increasing DC/failure idea can be a starting point).

[redoubt]

There are a lot of ways to implement an obstacle that requires a specific item to be crossed. Force fields, gates, doors and sliding walls are a few.

The way doors are implemented in DDO seems odd to me: some can be picked, some requires a key, some requires a key but can be picked.

Let's talk about the round shaped large doors: the two in the Coalescence Chamber are a good example of what I mean. My suggestion to the devs is make them pickable (maybe they are and I don't know?), although with a real high DC, much the way of the gate in Madstone Crater and the door of the control room in Prison of the Planes.

In general, I think that every door should be pickable. If a quest needs something you can't open until you get special items, any other obstacle will do (by the way, a force field could be dispelled, as well).

DC should be significantly high, so to make mechanic rogues and high open locks skills more useful even at high levels. Also, DC gets higher at every failed attempt, and there is a small risk of catastrophic failure, ie. the lock gets jammed. This will usually cause the quest to fail, so this leaves room for strategy and calculated risk.

What do you think?

Many people have yelled "easy button!" But in fact the OP suggested a way to help prevent that.

I've long though that many of the doors and even chest should be openable via lockpick and or bashing.

Question on knock. How high does it go? (Never had the spell.) Does it go as high as a trapsmith? If knock does get on par with trapsmith you could give the locks high SR to slow down casters.

And, as the OP said, make the DCs of normally unpickable doors high. I also like the idea that you can damage the lock if you do fail. Right now open lock is almost a dump skill because you just need enough tools and time. Get to a 20 and you're good. Search, spot and disable people actually care about getting into the "no crit-fail" catagory. Why not do this with locks?

I also like the concept of upping the DC for each failed attempt on a lock. Kinda makes sense. You're in there with tools monkeying around the the mechanism and damage it. Now its harder. Damage it enough and even the key won't work. Opps! sucks to be you. :D

Of course you'd have to put some sort of cap on the opening bells (or remove them. please...)

[redoubt]

Additional thoughts about numbers.

Say for example a level 20 dex based trapsmith

34 dex (more or less are possible, this is should be reasonable.)

23 ranks
12 dex bonus
2 hero pot
13 item
7 tools
1 luck from dice
----
58 pretty easy

23 ranks
12 dex
4 gh
15 item
7 tools
5 boost
2 luck head of GF
----
68 not to tough still

23 ranks
12 dex
4 gh
15 item
7 tools
5 boost
2 head
4 rogue open lock
4 mechanic
----
76 with dedication

alternative
23 ranks
12 dex
4 gh
15 item
7 tools
5 boost
2 head
2 song
----
70 with a couple party buffs

or add party buffs to full out trapsmith and reach 80ish open lock.

I used level 20 because i can't remember what kinds of stats you'd have at a lower level. Anyway, the idea would be that the normally pickable stuff would be at the first number (58 or as corrected since i've likely forgotten something.)

Then for picking the door that normally needs a key you'd jump toward the dedication line. Somewhere low to mid-70s.

My numbers may be off a bit, but that's the idea. Make the normally pickable stuff in the range your average normal (or hard or elite) trapsmith can do. Make the normally not-pickable stuff only doable by the few who really invest.

P.S. I think getting into counting exceptional dex, +3/4 tomes dex and TR dex would be too much for normal and hard. I'm fine counting it on elite. I guess my though is that a trapsmith should be able to normal and hard with those items, but if you want to be an "elite" trapsmith... go get'em JR!