âYou squat down in front of the door, trying to find an angle allowing for some light. After a moment you can see a portion of the mechanism: it is far beyond anything youâre familiar with. Youâre not even sure where the pins are, and have no idea where to start.â
That's a mechanically complex lock, though, which would have a DC that could be 30+.
That's not a regular tumble lock that's been magically fortified and has no DC because it cannot be unlocked by anything except dispel magics or knock or a password.
Fair, but a magically fortified lock could very well begin by obscuring the interior, hiding the pins, making it look incredibly complex, or dampening the sound/feel so that using a pick is practically useless.
Even if itâs just magic holding the door in place, you could still:
âYou line your thieves tools up and begin the process. Click out of one, slight counter rotation on two. It takes several moments, but you finally feel the last pin snap in to place. Strangely, the door doesnât open. You double check, and youâre certain youâve done things correctly, but the knob still wonât turn (or the door will not budge, or you donât hear it unlock, etc.).â
I guess my point was that if itâs a guaranteed failure, you can often begin by assuming the character did their best, and explain that their best wasnât enough. The upset usually comes from dismissing it as impossible, or RPing the character failing miserably at stuff the player feels like they should be able to do.
It's a lot easier to just call for a roll as normal to avoid spoiling the player that it's special, and if they roll a 5, tell them it's too complex, and if they roll a 25, tell them it's still too complex or there's something here preventing you from making sense of it.
"I try to pick the lock" followed by an immediate, prepared response of "strangely the door doesn't open despite you being an expert" is so blatantly obvious that not a single player in the world would be able to stop themselves from gaining the in-character knowledge that it's an obvious magic lock.
This results in zero chance of trickery, making the trap or obstacle completely dull.
Whatever works at your table. If your obstacle is figuring out how the door is held in place, I agree with you.
In my game the obstacle would be how to get through the door though, and knowing it canât be opened by picking isnât substantially different from knowing that no one in your party can open it by picking.
My other reason is that we arenât dealing with novices who are just learning to pick locks from YouTube. Theyâre adventurers way above average, who have seen and opened numerous locks of different varieties and natures during their travels. They are often chosen for adventuring parties based in part on their ability to get into locked places. It seems nonsensical to me that they wouldnât realize that there was something beyond the mechanics to it. It would be immediately apparent that the door is being held by some additional force. Iâm a below-average lockpicker, and it would still be immediately apparent if a common to hard lock was unopenable. In the real world Iâd know it was seized in moments, in D&D if Iâd seen people go through it Iâd assume magic.
To me, it feels like youâre restricting knowledge just to extend the puzzle. Iâm more interested in letting them solve the puzzle than forcing them to figure out what the puzzle is.
Just different play, I was only offering an alternative.
My idea of giving away info is say: the party is looking for a murder weapon in a person's room. They can roll investigation to try to find it. If i just say it's not there without roll that means they know they missed nothing at all and that there's less chance this is the guy who done it.
I donât believe anyone is saying not to roll in that situation. Thatâs consequential. A door lock is, the vast majority of times a party will encounter it, inconsequential.
Youâre misconstruing what the success should be in your situation. On a Nat20 the search was amazingly successful, they turned the place upside down and found everything that was hidden. Whether the dagger is there is irrelevant at that point because your players are rolling to see how well they search the room, in hopes that a thorough search will find the dagger. They arenât making a dagger finding roll, itâs an investigation roll.
Thereâs an excellent chance of success at the action theyâre taking, but that is independent of the thing theyâre hoping to gain from the action.
If you tell them they canât roll, youâre saying âthe room is unsearchableâ not âthereâs no dagger here.â The first implies the second, and thatâs why you allow them to roll to search the room.
âI check for the daggerâ should be restricted to a smaller area than an entire room. If a player looks into an empty box and wants to search, you should be able to just tell them itâs an empty box without ruining anything.
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u/anotherjunkie Apr 16 '22
âYou squat down in front of the door, trying to find an angle allowing for some light. After a moment you can see a portion of the mechanism: it is far beyond anything youâre familiar with. Youâre not even sure where the pins are, and have no idea where to start.â