Arelith

DC 127 on a quarter is abit stupid. Only two builds working together can hope to break in. Can I suggest that we discuss this occurance and perhaps come up with a solution to the problem of breaking and entering into someones quarter?

This isn't the first and won't be the last discussion of this but I do think it's something that could be looked at one of these days.

I think the quarter door lock DC could be capped at a score where an epic dex-based rogue with maxed open lock skill, epic skill focus and +12 tools could actually get inside to eavesdrop or ambush.

BUT, make the chest inside have a separate lock with the higher DC we have now on doors so the same rogue can't just clear out the items in any quarter they want.

Since 'discussion' was used I will drop my 2 cents in.

It costs a lot of gold to get the locks and/or traps that high along with the strength of both. I think if a character has things they really want to protect, or hide then it SHOULD require two PCs as it currently does. If you really want those secrets, then really invest in having a buddy help.

I understand the previous poster's formula about requiring an epic rogue with all maxed ability/skills/lockpicks. But IMO that is not enough of a deterrent for the players on the other side that have invested as much as mechanically possible to remain locked up.

I haven't played a thief in about a year, but when I did, there were plenty of doors that didn't come close to the 127 cap. AKA: No one succeeds all the time, even an epic thief.

Problem is an epic rogue probably won't be able to open the doors without artifact gear. The two classes that work together are trickery cleric and a bard with like 30 class levels in bard.

Problem with lowering the high end of the locks is that it's binary. If someone can get into your place once, they can get into your place every 24 hours. You're eventually cleaned out.

Lemme just summarize the last fifty threads about this since June:
The Thief Side: We should be able to get into people's houses easier

The Other Side: That wont work because if locks are useless no one will use the chests.

Sprinkled in: (many) Anecdotes about how having low-end locks ended up with people losing their entire chests contents without RP, how the rogue class like, dead, dude (rogues are in a good place right now and not being able to take ingots out of someone's house doesn't change that), and- I expect, it's pretty new- mentions that if lock dcs get dropped people will just put their actual valuables in the new Citizen Chests instead, making the lock thing moot anyway.

This is one of those interesting debates, because there is really two sides to it- both of which are pretty valid.

Side 1: I want to play a thief. If I invest two feats, 30+ skill points, and lots of time and gear in lockpick then, gosh it all, I should be able to break into things! What even is the point of having the possiblity of 'breaking into' quarters, if the difficulty is so high, and so easy to keep high, that it's basically impossible!
It's a waste of resources, time, and keeps things far to much in 'safty' for other players. They can hide in their fortress homes, put their stuff in there, knowing that they are 100% safe, all the time. It's a disservice to those people playing thieves and such. And whilst it does cost a bit of gold to keep quarter locks high - it's very easy to keep them high, and the ongoing tax cost, for most powerful adventurers, is pretty minimal.

Side 2: I want to know my stuff is safe. If we make it too easy to break into quarters, then we will find that quarter storage becomes basically useless. Let's say - for example, that tomorrow Irongron were to make it so that to break into a quarter, all you needed to do was beat a lock DC of a maximum of 80 (I'm ignoring the issue of traps and such, just to keep things simple for this argument.)
80 Is still a pretty heavy investment for any character- so you may think that's fair. Ok.
Let's look at the last arelith stats - taken I think from 24th July 2018

2033 players, 2706 alts, 5348 chars.

Source: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5956&start=25

Ok, let's presume out of all these players, only 1% makes a high level build that goes for a lockpick skill high enough to get into peoples quarters. - That's about 20 players.

Let's further presume that of these 75% don't really use that skill much, they're classy about it, they're thoughtful ect. - that's about 5 players.

That means that you have 5 people that are constantly breaking into houses and taking a single item out of each or most chests.

That means on any given day, you could be loosing up to 5 items out of your storage chest.

Now keep in mind - whilst it's not fair to say that thievery rp does not -create- rp (It does) it's not neccesarly easy to make rp out of. Because at it's core, it involves the thief playing knowingly making mistakes/leaving calling cards, giving clues ect as to their identity, and such. I've no doubt that we have players of this callibre amongst us and that this would, indeed, happen. I do doubt however that this would occur in the majority of situations. That is no disservice to the player base - a lot of you are brilliant. But asking people to conciously sabotage their character to create rp for others is the sort of thing we expect from a 30 rpr, and they're in a minority for a reason.

So what you get is a situation where people could be easily loosing multiple items from their storage boxes, with little to no roleplay, on a daily basis.

I don't think that many players would be happy with this.

EDIT: One Two Three Five also summerised the first part of this thread nicely!

So we have a connundrum - On the one hand the accusation that quarters are practically impossible to break into is pretty valid - on the other hand if it's too easy, then quarter storage especially becomes pretty much Invalid. And I think any solution we look to, must take these two arguments into account. In short - how to prevent quarters being less 'fortress like' and yet also how to ensure they have enough security that players cannot be easily 'griefed' and their security still means something.

I've had a bit of a think and I've come up with some ideas, though I'll admit all have their own strengths and drawbacks.


1) Lower DCs but put in a new rule saying that thieves breaking into quarters can only steal ONE item per day. Not one per quarter per day. One item, all together, per day.
Benefits: Keeps the amount of theft very managable. Means that people can properly rp thieves, but storage is generally pretty protected. Probably quite easy to implement.
Problems: A) Keeping track of this would be more work for DMs, and as a cat I abhour work. Also it could open up the door to 'thief griefing' wherein a thief character picks another character they don't like, and just steals one item per day from their chest day after day, which I think would be tiresome after a bit.

2) Increase further the costs of quarter security and/or when quarters are released/put up for sale, their dcs automaticaly drop back to 0/low levels, so that when they change hands, someone has to activly invest coin in raising them again.
Benefits: Makes security more costly and thus something people really have to be thoughtful about and invest in. Also if it effects tax more, then it makes 'quarter hogging' more difficult, as it means people have to be earning a constantly high amount of gold to keep up their quarter/security.
Problems: Balencing the cost/benefit ratio would be very difficult, might create a disparity between those who farm a lot, or who are very high level and traders, and those who are low level, and/or don't have time or inclination to either trade and/or go out adventuring. It would penalise low levels. It would also mean (for better or for worse) that the homes with the nicest, juciest loot in would also be the ones that were hardest to get into. It might also penalize casual players, and be offputting for new players/characters.

3) Lower lock/trap DC on quarters, but create a second 'lock' on chests, which can be set as high as present. Meaning that whilst it may be easier to break into quarters- stealing chest items is much harder.
Benefits: Opens up espianage, assassin, and spy rp far more, whilst keeping basic possessions safe. As far as I can make out, people dont' tend to mind so much people breaking into their quarters - as much as they mind people stealing their stuff.
Problems: Would not prevent fixture griefing/stealing. Further more I worry that it would require a lot of work from the Devs to impliment.

4) Create a One Use item that can be activiated to somehow bypass quarter locks. This item would either be a rare treasure drop, or else maybe craftable with extremely rare materials at a high DC. (rune crafting materials maybe?) The exact details of how it could work I'm leaving fuzzy - but I'd suggest it should be restricted to rogues and maybe assassins?
Benefits: Keeping an item rare, and one-shot, means that it cannot be used to consistantly 'grief' other players. It represents a massive investment of time and energy on behalf of the thief, whilst enabling them to at least get into quarters. It would need to be balenced to make sure that said items cannot become too common place.
Problems: Requres work/coding from the Devs, balicing issues would have to be considered. Not sure how mechanically 'possible' it is.


So those are some of my ideas. Of the lot I like idea 3 and 4 best personally, but maybe you guys have different opinions? It's a tricky subject, so let's all try to be civil and nice!

With settlement storage a thing, I'm a bit more for two and four. As a thief, you're after the chest after all. Not sure how much letting you in will do any good. Assassins would like it, however.

I want to be able to have nice/rare/event placeabkes in my house on display, w/o having to worry about coming home and finding my core 'plot' items have been jacked by someone who took it just because it can't be re-made.

Secondly the thief rules are really only in place because they've yet to be really abused. If I made a thief duo, and did daily (once per 24 hours) laps of cordor, the tower, Brog, and stole one item from each house a day for a month, how long would that last before a change came down?

I, frankly, don't understand why quarters need to be open-lockable at all, when there are so many items in the module that actually cannot be replaced.

How about

Daily lock decay 1-3 points per day lock DC on quarters decreases requiring a constant upkeep and activity, if you're one of the players who only logs in once a week you risk being broken into

Drop the cap to 100 DC, still requiring heavy investment on the rogue's end which increases cost time and effort to even "attempt" a break in but leaving it possible to do

Increase the upkeep cost of traps but not locks, generally a rogue has to be skilled for one or the other, both is a huge investment that takes up equipment enchanting slots and skillpoints as well as gear (silent hand manuals for example)

BegoneThoth wrote: Mon Sep 17, 2018 4:26 pm I want to be able to have nice/rare/event placeabkes in my house on display, w/o having to worry about coming home and finding my core 'plot' items have been jacked by someone who took it just because it can't be re-made.

Secondly the thief rules are really only in place because they've yet to be really abused. If I made a thief duo, and did daily (once per 24 hours) laps of cordor, the tower, Brog, and stole one item from each house a day for a month, how long would that last before a change came down?

I, frankly, don't understand why quarters need to be open-lockable at all, when there are so many items in the module that actually cannot be replaced.

I would argue that if you have such an irreplaceable item in your house, available only to be enjoyed by those you allow to enjoy it, that it deserves to be stolen so someone else can have a chance at it as well instead of being hidden away in an impenetrable fortress

I mean personal/plot items that cannot be replaced due to the characters/players no longer being here.

Also, the frustrating thing is, pick pocket can be countered by spot, and demands interaction by its nature. Logging into your house to see new stuff gone daily with 0 you can do about it is for the birds.

I'll concede to that, it's too easy to look at the playerlist and determine whether the owner of a house is even online at the time of the break in, but that hardly means nothing can be done about it

-investigate nearby NPCs to get descriptions of people who have been nearby recently

Hint you're probably looking at just the dexterity based descriptions.

If you're a ranger, -track will give you some information as well.

Perhaps add a feature to be able to investigate player owned doors to get some clues as to recent break in attempts, "oh look a _____ colored hair left at the scene of the crime, those footprints are about the size of a halfling"

Sure that would mean to be able to gather such information the victim of the crime would need to invest in some non min-max build skills, but I think that's a little more fair than assuming 50-70k worth of lock upgrades that they probably didn't even purchase themselves providing a thief proof home that completely counteracts a character who has invested literally everything into those skills.

Being able to gather clues from doors would also be a step in the direction of preventing a person from hitting every house every 24 hours just because they can, because doing so and leaving more clues would inevitably increase their chances of being caught as well, assuming the victims of the crime are paying attention/hiring people to investigate if they can't
I.E. Creating RP

A lot of that would be beaten by bluff. NPC's don't really know what to do with a pc that has 40 bluff.

Back to square 1.

Simple... set up epic traps so high level that no thief can see or disarm them. Then when the thieves try to open your chest they die and you can steal all their stuff instead... because f you lol.

Impossible

Im sure such traps could be made though they would prob cost millions of gold to buy and set up. Maybe dc 200 or so...

Caps at 127

BegoneThoth wrote: Mon Sep 17, 2018 6:09 pm A lot of that would be beaten by bluff. NPC's don't really know what to do with a pc that has 40 bluff.

Back to square 1.

BegoneThoth wrote: Mon Sep 17, 2018 6:33 pm Caps at 127

we're discussing ways to make improvements to this. Quoting the mechanics already in place now as reason to not even bother isn't helpful in this regard at all, maybe instead try something along the lines of;

"I can see how investigating NPC's might work but bluff would counteract it, maybe we can have bluff do less as far as NPC's getting a physical description of a character"

and again I would point out we're now talking about a theoretical character who has maximised open lock, disable device, and now Bluff being beaten by a character who has a maxxed out locked house paid for by simple grinding of gold really when you think about it, how hard is it to gather enough gold to max out the locks on a house? does it really tip the scales into balance against a character who has invested that much time and effort into being able to open insane DC locks?

Once again I see that Grumpy and some others have expressed the problem presented with this issue extremely well.

At its core it is the same dilemma we face time and time again from the development side; basically that mechanisms are sometimes put in place to prevent a small group of people acting poorly, that effectively punish many who do not. The more we remove them (as I did with kill scripts and much of the exiles), then the more work we create for DMs. It's a pretty simple ratio and one that is often hard to get right.

So without repeating what has already been said, let me clarify my own view on lockpicking, and what I hope to do with it. Please remember change can sometimes come slowly to Arelith, especially when it involves revisiting many existing scripts and adjusting the database accordingly.

As it stands we effectively have an opt in approach. Player who wish to empower rogues on the server have the option of not setting their lock DCs too high, and get to save some gold in the process. It's a very altruistic thing to do, and I very few take this approach (but some do). Personally I don't think it works, yet at the same time to make it possible for ALL locks to be penetrated would open the floodgates, and for many people largely negate the benefit of owning a quarter. 'Fixing' this is therefore going to be a lot more complex than simply lowering the max DC.

What I currently wish to achieve, and have for some time, goes roughly like this.

1. Every quarter would have a max DC based upon the value of the quarter. it would be something like a max DC of 45 + 5 for every 10k value of the property. Given that properties over 120k are mostly castles/guildhouses, I think this would work well. It stands to reason that one cannot secure a tavern room door as effectively as a castle gate.

2. Given that quarter lockpicking/bashing works via a dialog, we would enforce a 24 rule on break-ins. Once you've successfully done so you will get an automatic failure, accompanied by a 'you must wait x hours before breaking into another player property' message. This could be increased for players with an RPR of 30 or 40.

3. Any player returning home would get a message when opening their quarter door, if it shows signs of an attempted or successful break-in. This would allow them to report it to the local guard, use -investigate on any nearby NPCS, and get an idea if their property is being targetted. This would allow for RP to come of it, perhaps even a sting to catch the player red-handed.

4. Some rare item or spell would be added that could effectively scry a property for break-ins, allowing the owner to know exactly what time it occurred, along with some visual details of the intruder.

5. A extremely rare 'skeleton key' would be added to the loot matrix, requiring x rogue levels. It would be single use, and open any locked door.

So something like this has been sitting in my to-do list for quite some time, but is not going to be straightforward and the numbers are not fixed, it will also require the attention of an experienced coder who knows their way around the thousands of scripts that govern Arelith.

I Love this idea!

caldura firebourne wrote: Mon Sep 17, 2018 6:57 pm I Love this idea!

It will be difficult to achieve though. the 24 hour check for instance would have to be per-player, not per-character, to prevent someone making 20 alts. I'd also need to to ensure that each time a break in occurs it pings our out-of-game DM notification system, so we have a clear and easily accessible record of thefts.

The good news is that since Morderon completed a 'storage box' function at the banks for settlement citizens there will still be a method to fully secure particularly important items. Non-citizens may instead wish to pay castle/guildhouse owners to store something for them.

We'll see what comes of this, but it won't be overnight.

I would up the 45 dc though, since 60 lockpick is super easy to achieve.

I like idea 2, 3 and 4 by Grumpycat.
I also like all of Irongron's ideas aside from:

1. Every quarter would have a max DC based upon the value of the quarter. it would be something like a max DC of 45 + 5 for every 10k value of the property. Given that properties over 120k are mostly castles/guildhouses, I think this would work well. It stands to reason that one cannot secure a tavern room door as effectively as a castle gate.

My largest concern with this is that it would further encourage the super rich shop owners who rarely log in to get their hands on the biggest and best quarters that are really better off in the hands of people who would use them for roleplay.
We do have the vault system now which was a step towards combating that, but when someone has 10m+ gold, it makes no financial difference to them whether they have the super fancy 200k house, or a double chest vault.

My secondary concern with it is it would further encourage running bidding on the sale of these houses, driving prices up to ludicrous heights (literally in the millions; some of the fancy noble houses in cordor have sold for a million as is). Such would result in the houses only being available to the richest top percentage of the player base(which includes those shop owners who rarely actually play beyond tending their shop).



I suppose most of this could be prevented if this were implemented by making vaults have a higher base DC than the houses, encouraging those who care about item storage most to skip on a house and grab a vault instead (although more vaults would likely be needed to compensate)

45 dc is way too low. Take 20 and dex mod and gear would have you only need 1 point.

Yes, as I said its a rough idea, and the numbers are far from fixed, and the point about how it would potentially increase quarter hogging is well founded.

That being said, I wouldn't want to exclude all but the epic rogues. If a quarter has a low max DC we can add NPC guards outside, as we have in the bank vaults, or just nearby NPCs so there is always someone near to use the -investigate function on.

Most quarters on Arelith have a value of 30k+ so at the number I quoted above we'd have the really opportunities really beginning at 60 skill level. Keep in mind too that one cannot use lock picks on quarter doors.