That -is- admittedly a pretty kickass idea. So long as a 6 barreled lock is nearly impossible I could see it being fun for both ends, especially if you could slip in some lethal traps into your locks.

well the simplest lock would be single barrel, so a 1 in 4 chance.

The most complicated lock (from a probablity point of view) would be a 6 barrel lock with 6 extra slot barrels for a...1 in 45,000 chance.

Not quite the lottery odds, but pretty high

A lock would be "immune" after a failed attempt for an arbitrary time, 15mins, 30mins, an hour etc (unless it has the clamp down, which would make it immune until the owner opens the lock) to avoid just constantly hitting it over and over.

Could even have a random rogue quest, some guy who wants to rob a house only he needs a safecracker. It would be an even harder lock (8 barrels?) so near impossible. One of those "super rare" one-time only quests.

I like this man, he can stay.

Awww, i was so hoping for the covetted "Teks seal of approval" award too

The balance challenge here is to create some incentive to use a less than perfect lock. Personally, I'm still of the opinion that thieving and theft are best left as a 'PvE' or 'Global War' things. Have each city/town have a safe or bank or lockbox or something, secured by one of Sani's locks. Having a Phantom/Marauder sneak in and steal what's inside could be a quest, could have some impact on the war effort and could bring some personal reward to the rogue.

Logging in to find that some Phantom got absurdly lucky with your 1/45,000 lock at 3am and now has your life savings isn't fun. It's not fun precisely because you did EVERYTHING right and still lost whatever you were trying to protect.

It's my experience, though, that if the dangers exceed the rewards, most people won't even bother attempting it. I would also recommend, if such a system is implemented, that people are restricted from picking locks by allies. I know this would irritate some people, but Lithmeria is a team-based game, and you shouldn't steal from your buddies.

Which still just leaves it as a pointless and annoying game mechanic, sadly. If there are player goods on the line, the risks have to be ridiculously high. If the risks are ridiculously high, no one will bother. Having NPC/City property under lock and key allows for more balanced risk/reward ratios.

In all honesty, I'd prefer that lockpicking was used for means other than theft. I.E. attacking an important target inside a secured building, a bonus towards capturing an area by breaking into the command room, or even using a theft mechanic purely for quest potential, such as stealing a "powerful artifact" or the deeds to a building, or somesuch, while the other members of your party provided assistance in other ways, like lookouts for wandering mobs that could capture you, or whathaveyou.

Ultimately I was envisioning house breaking for the purpose of execution more so than stealing. Houses don't typically have much of worth to steal, and one presumes that the cities bank/safety deposit box would be unbreakable as far as life savings go.

Sure there exists the chance that someone'll pick your 45,000 chance lock, but if one of your barrels contains a spring loaded needle of poison death, are they really all that likely to keep trying?

As for incentives to use less than perfect locks, if the time to craft them was annoyingly high, and the comm cost ridiculously expensive (The price of a house type expensive) as well as some level of durability loss through use, then presumably they'd be the property of the elite and few others.

I agree that theft should be left as much out of the picture as possible and that npc lockbreaking would be the prime use of it, I just see the potential for entertainment that goes beyond WoW/TES lockpicking, especially in a 'build a better mousetrap' fashion.

I agree with Tek.

I don't think instant-death locks should be in the game. I do however think immobilization + alarm locks should be. I also think that as per Sani, any lock that gets unsuccessfully picked should shut down for X amount of time. I think lockpicking has the potential to be an awesome minigame, if the risk/reward/fun balance is right.