hello

I bumped my agility up 5 points and I tried making some lockpicks. I did about 5 gold worth of keyblanks and ended up with 5 master's iron lockpicks, a large majority professionals and a few superior/high quality and even a quality lockpick.

Now, under all of these were carved in a relatively short period of time, from mid afternoon to about closing time in shard. I had the same wound free, "none" encumbrance, using the same khri, the same knife and seemingly the same reputation (at least it should only have gotten better)

I know there is a huge amount of randomness to the lockpick crafting system, but I am wondering if there is something more.

There hasn't been any announcment of "CONFIDENCE" affecting lockpick crafting yet, but I am wondering, just based on speculation, case studies and anectodal evidence if it is in some way affecting my carving. I know there are a lot of you out there who carve hundreds of lockpicks all the time, but for someone like me with 176locks, 135 mech and 40 agi, I need every bonus I can get, so I really notice any changes.

Case study 1: successful blind disarm of "even chance" trap. It was a nerve poison trap so I didn't care if it tripped. after a few tries i managed to get it using blind without even taking my armor off. Then I tried harvesting it and got it on the first try without khri or taking off armor.
After this I put up #1, #2 and #13 and carved a master's pick, followed by a superior pick which I bucketed, folloewd by another master's pick, followed by another superior pick and then professionals for a while after that.

case study 2: snapping one keyblank after an hour of not breaking one leads to horrible carves and 5 more snapped keyblanks.

I restarted my khri, got a fresh keyblank, started it with a nice 8rt carve to stout, and then suddenly snapped it for the first time of the evening (about 4 gold worth of keyblanks). The next keyblank I started with 15rt CRUDE lockpick, and yielded a nice "high quality" pick for our friend the bucket, the worst till that point.

the next two keyblanks snapped on the first carve, and the third snapped after another nice 8rt stout start.
then I ran out of money and got kicked out of the shop.

Other than the two master's picks I made in case study 1, the only other master's's i've made were on my second keyblank after raising agility, one a few minutes after what I described in case study 1, and one the day after, after I had taken a break for some hunting, on the first keyblank I tried.

I haven't managed any since then, though my ranks and reputation are only getting better.


Please share your opinion on this matter with me, or tell me how it works if you're a GM. The randomness is really annoying when you're on the edge of skill, but it would be comforting to know there is some means of control other than simply trying over and over.


If the confidence is not an issuse, my other theory would be "pulsing" of the khri or reputation bonus. There is evidence that khri are pulse based from #4 as well as possible similarities to barb dances.
If only there was a way to be certain about our own level of skill... maybe we would just raise the time/price of lockpick carving to compensate for drastically reducing the randomness to 3 levels of lockpicks? Currently, while doing everything right, I can make quality, high quality, superior professional or master's...

'pathfinder' jed

do you think mech is responsible for the fluctuations in finished products or just for the breaking of the blanks?

I've already gotten master's, just inconsistantly.

>>There hasn't been any announcment of "CONFIDENCE" affecting lockpick crafting yet, <<

Confidence has an effect on lockpick carving. Confidence has affected lockpick carving since confidence was released.

Confidence has an effect on anything that checks the Thief bonus code - and has since it was released. What you're confusing are things that MODIFY your confidence. Currently only a few things under the core stealth mechanics modify your confidence level (notably the HIDE and BACKSTAB verbs).

You can snap as many keyblanks and carve as many duds without changing your confidence level, but when you are checked for your Thief bonus, your confidence level will modify your effective skill for that carve, but your confidence will not change based on how you did.

Each time you HIDE on a critter, however, the system will modify your confidence based on how successful you were for that action.

GameMaster Risek
Thief Development Assistant
What you think is real is your reality. - Robert Kiyosaki

oh duh, I didn't even think of it that way. Thanks Reases!


~Apprentice to Damaris
Of the Red Headed Step Child Guild
(RHCG)

i started to get masters occasionaly with 175-180 locks and 170's mech and 30 agility...throw in a lockpicking CJ (a decent one) and you get masters quite frequently.

---

~I hate sand~