Lock Difficulty and Necessary Lock Picking Skill

I've just tested out lock picking on various lock difficulties and thought it might be beneficial to the community if I shared my results. The following experiment was done in broad daylight, and involves a simple empty chest with its lock difficulty varied from 0 to 100. The tool used to pick the lock was a standard lock pick, and no training was used on the lock pick skill. I allowed five attempts to pick the lock, and if it jammed I rested for two days (to reset the lock) and allowed five more attempts. If this worked at picking the lock, then it was counted as successful.

Results:

Lock Difficulty / Skill Needed:
0 / 1
1-7 / 2
8-29 / 3
30-80 / 4
85-90 / 5
95+ / -
I attempted to pick a lock at 95 difficulty with a lock pick skill of 5, and was unsuccessful 10 times in a row.

Of course keep in mind that Master training reduces the difficulty to half. So if you want a lock to be pick resistant except for a master, it appears that a difficulty of 100 would do it.

 

Unlocking Cantrip with 100 MA is still better

 

Thanks for the study! This is the kind of stuff that one wishes went into the manuals that come with the games that one buys.

 

@ Frigo - Perhaps. Unless you don't want to be heard while picking the lock

@Gillseng - No problem. If I run other studies I'll be sure to share them.