A level 5 rogue will quite probably have a thievery dc of 13, if they invest in it and max dex. The average lock has a dc of 25 and requires 4 successes. It takes a roll of 12 or better to have a single success, and will average about 9 rolls to rack up those 4 successes. With 9 rolls wherein you crit fail on a 2 or lower, the likelihood of breaking a pick is ~61%.
Should a level 5 rogue take a minute to open the average lock, and more likely than not break a pick in the process?
And let's look at a good Lock: DC 30, requiring 5 successes. The level 5 rogue will only succeed on a 17, meaning it will take on average 20 attempts to get those 5 successes. On one attempt in a thousand our Lvl 5 rogue will open this lock before breaking a pick, and will typically break 3 in the process.
Am I missing something?
Seems excessive and boring to be honest.
IRL a person can learn to pick locks fairly easily, and with rakes, bump keys and combs makes it trivial.
I think DC13 for average locks, and DC18 for exquisite ordinary locks is fair. Trained skill only. Assuming done without time constraints or distractions.
If you're trying to do it quick or while being shot at you should absolutely expect DC25 etc..
Naturally anything that's really worth locking up tight will have secondary puzzle or magical countermeasures too.
I can only base my knowledge of picking locks on watching the LockPickingLawyer. :P
So, I looked at this video, mostly because the key looks like what you'd find in a fantasy setting, and it's an older style of lock than the modern pin tumblers. He starts at 1:15, and finishes at 2:06, for a time of 51 seconds. Not too far off! and while a Pathfinder character will be pretty superheroic, the man in the video (for those who don't know) is notoriously fast at picking locks, and has even competed in timed competitions—and he's not in grave danger, like a player character likely would be. :P he also, interestingly enough, gets stuck, figure out what the problem was, and start over, which maps perfectly onto requiring multiple successes to fully open.
As for lock picks breaking, I don't know. Bean counting aside, I don't know how big of a deal it would be. I've heard LPL talk about breaking picks, but it's fairly rare, unlike what you see in most RPGs that incorporate it as an element. But he's also living in the modern day, where materials can be better and more consistent, and manufactured at scale. the people making lock picks, especially ones
a thiefan honorable rouge can get their hands on, might be making small batches by hand with whatever material they can get their hands on.So I think it's actually firmly realistic enough for suspension of disbelief.
Thanks for the good input everybody.
(at least) 2 things I was missing: Replacement picks being 3SP/negligible bulk, and critical successes.
I think Merwyn has an excellent point about the rolls being excessive when there's no time constraints, but I could see how the rolling could build tension when the rogue is trying to break into a dockside warehouse and the paladin is trying to distract the nightwatchman.
The gaminess of pick tracking is not fun, but I'd just say to buy a hundred, and instead of measuring them in qty measure them in the extra round lost fishing a replacement from your pack.