Looking through the thief paths, I notice that these two abilities may fulfill the same need. What I'm not sure about is whether it's wholly unnecessary to take both if I want to be able to get into everything that has a lock.

My initial thought is that both do close to the same thing, but locksmith gives you a physical copy of the key, or you can make a copy of an existing key without the need for the lock to be nearby. The differences seem fairly slight, but can I choose only one and expect to not lose out?

I would prefer to leave off of locksmith if infiltrate is close to the same in efficacy, just to be able to dip further into some more useful general abilities. I'm looking to make a more RP oriented explorer type character so that, as a player with low area/object information, I can learn the item values (One reason I'm going into the mystic path, because lore by itself doesn't give you much information where statistics are concerned. It may be different once perfected but I haven't had the patience to find that out as of yet.) and the areas with relative ease. I would prefer to have identify, but mage characters don't appeal to me just yet as someone with low area knowledge because I likely won't have any idea where to look for ABS, which seem to be pretty critical for those types. Also, my gear knowledge, limited as it is, is more inclined towards physical damage types, so the mystic/pickpocket thief should hopefully be the best of both worlds as to what suits my goals.

Roll an orderly good human conjurer. Make sure your CHR (with gear) is 23 and rank up to archon. You will be able to explore much better and conjie has identify as well as "advanced identify" - you will also be able to kill mobs, something an explorer thief is completely unable to do. You don't really need wands as a conjie - you will have sanc and healing on a stick. Just don't kill goodies and you'll be fine. Joining Fort is completely optional, but if you do, do it as a scribe.

Thanks for the tip, not sure exactly what CHR is, I'm assuming C-something hit roll.

I've actually decided to go a bit of a different route after noticing a class that better appeals to me that also has identify. Honestly that is one of my biggest priorities at the moment, being able to find out the stats of an item without paying a couple gold at a time to do so. However, at some point I will want to start playing mages and conjurer seems like a good transitional class in that regard. I'll definitely give it a go at some point. Thanks again.

Scrolls of identify are very cheap and are sold in Galadon. Lore at 100% is pretty reliable - the more % you have it at, the more reliable it is. At 100% I think it only lies about weapon averages and even then, 3 times out of 5 it'll give out correct info, so by loring a weapon five times, you'll notice repeating avg number and that'll be the correct one. I do agree it's PITA to spam it up, but can usually happen during off-times or when sleeping during ranking.

The reason I suggested conjie is that it's an easy street once you can get an archon, albeit while it may be trivial for me to rank up a goodie to 36, it may be more difficult for a newbie. However, the elemental is pretty good and the familiar is nifty. It's a unique experience overall and feel more distinct than any other class. I highly recommend giving it a try and while you don't need any wands as a conjie, most if not all other players will tell you where the wand is if you tell them a clue the guildmaster gives via discuss. And half of them are easy to get.

Oh, haha, I went too deep on that one. Cha makes sense. On most of the characters I've rolled so far getting to thirty hasn't been too hard, but I've played mostly martial classes to date. Once my area knowledge gets a bit better I probably shouldn't have too much trouble getting there, especially as a goodie, I know more ranking areas for them than evils. Thanks again.

I agree with Jalim on this. Infiltrate is shocking. Advanced picklock > Infiltrate. If you search hard enough there is a post by Zulg on this topic that orders the effectiveness of opening locks.

Advanced picklock is highly disappointing now since they nerfed it several years ago. Nowdays all the actual doors/containers you take advanced picklock to actually pick, you can't.

Having said all that; since you are wanting a PvE explorer definitely take mystic path up to at LEAST glimpse. Glimpse is probably my favourite thief skill now since the advanced picklock nerf. Put points into gentlewalk, shield block and shadow disappear as well.

1.) Infiltrate can be done even while fighting (Pick Lock (and advanced) cannot) "Oh crap! I don't have the key to unlock this door (or chest), and this stupid aggo mob doesn't ever track away from that room!"
infiltrate door (or chest)/bird mob/flee

2.) Infiltrate is INT based, rather than Dex based, so if you're a gnome or elf, Infiltrate has a (slightly) higher chance of success (This is essentially (almost) a moot point, though, since a high quality pick makes up for the difference, and 100% skill + max dex guarantees success IF the lock is pickable according to your advanced training status. Of course, if you're playing a duergar, felar, or svirf thief, Infiltrate is probably not going to be as good as a physical pick.)

3.) If I recall correctly, Infiltrate has 1 round longer lag.

4.) Infiltrate requires no physical pick.

5.) Infiltrate DOES work on locks that require Advanced Picklock, but ONLY if you ALSO have Advanced Picklock (i.e. if Pick Lock + Advanced Lockpick will open the lock, then Infiltrate + Advanced Picklock will also open it).

When it comes to the Locksmith skill, you cannot create a makeshift key for an advanced lock, but you CAN create a copy of an existing key for an advanced lock. When making a copy of a key that crumbles, the copy will also crumble, but its crumble timer is longer than the original, which usually means less need to go get the original again multiple times.*

When making a copy of a key for any lock, if the original does not crumble, then the copy will also not crumble.


*True as of the last time I played a thief with the Locksmith skill, which was, admittedly, a few years ago at least.

I could be mistaken on this next comment, but I think the crumbliness of the copied key is also (at least partially) based on how successful you were in the skill check. In other words, higher skill % in Locksmith results in greater likelihood the key doesn't crumble. The last time I played a Locksmith thief, which was post-nerf, I recall talking to another locksmith thief who was active at the time, and being told that copying the Seantryn Empress's key results in a copy that crumbles just as fast as the orginal, making locksmith useless in that instance. Later, when I was able to test it out, I recall making one copy that crumbled, and then later making one that didn't. Now, as mentioned above, that was several years ago, which was very shortly post-nerfing. I don't know if that was a bug which has since been fixed, or if that was a design that was overlooked by players. I just know what I experienced at that time, and I haven't bothered to revisit that build since. I also didn't keep that character around very long due to RL interference.

Advanced Picklock still has a great many uses, and I still regularly take it with most of my thief builds. There are only a few build types in which I forgo Advanced Picklock.

The main locks that have been upgraded to resist Advanced Picklock are locks in the most difficult and dangerous of places. Specifically, all the chests in the ancient dragon lairs. Those all got nerfed about a day or two after I picked Tiamat's chest and plundered it for every item it had the potential to contain (i.e. there was nothing missing before I looted it). Also to get nerfed, though much later, was the trapdoor to Defiance, probably based on the exact same logic as the nerfing of the ancient dragon chests. Seantryn Empress chest was NEVER pickable with Advanced Picklock. That one always required a key, even if the key was a copy of the original. There may be a few other locks that have been fortified against Advanced Picklock that I've forgotten or didn't know about that USED to be pickable, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Also, when it comes to making a tanky thief, Lore of the Ages should not be ignored. When I played Tellick, I went on a hell trip and out-tanked the Nexus felar spear spec who had Dance Upon the Southern Winds and Ward of Blades for his legacy. I was using Shield Block (felar had spin), a sword, 100% dodge, 75% Lore of Ages, and had 25 dex (passed off my heavy chest to someone else in the party to carry while I tanked). The mob I was fighting had a (Famous) polearm that did shocking bite damage. To deal with the lightning damage, I had a resist lighting item (in the days when a resist item replaced vuln with full resist), so my lightning resist was equal to the felar with aegis lightning from our healer. All other protections were equal between us. The felar warrior had a superior weapon for parrying, and Spin instead of Shield block (Spin is also superior to Shield Block if I'm not mistaken), plus nearly twice my HP for being a warrior with much higher CON. Felar also had proficiency in polearm, and I didn't. And yet, Lore of the Ages trumped all his advantages. The felar was only able to hang in there between 5 to 10 rounds before he had to fall back, as he was taking damage faster than the healer could heal him. I only stepped up to try as a means of keeping the mob busy for a few rounds while the felar was in healing sleep. I ended up holding off the mob without having to flee for several ticks beyond the duration of the healing sleep. Healer had absolutely no trouble keeping up with healing me, and even had time to healing sleep himself while I held the line without healing. By the end of the fight, my Lore of the Ages skill was 100% It also allows you to avoid hostile progs from magical weapons as well, which can be a MAJOR lifesaver (or gear saver) when you come across them. Also good for avoiding elemental controls from AP unholy weapons.

So in short, if you want a tanky thief, and you're already considering the Mystic path, Lore of the Ages really adds A LOT of defense vs weapons of (Famous) rarity and beyond (I think (Infamous) counts too. Not really sure on the distinctions between (Famous) and (Infamous)).

Infiltrate is horrible and opens only very basic locks.

Locksmith path seems way better on paper than it actually is in practice. The keys you want to make copies of you can't, the locks you want to pick you can't.