Couple questions about this skill:

1. Does it start combat if you fail?

2. What about if you succeed?

3. Can you stack hypnosis effects on a single target?

Oh yeah. On the topic of thieves...

Do the 'locksmith' and/or 'duergar locksmith' edges allow the thief to pick locks that would normally be impossible or do they only increase speed and success rate?

The help file for locksmith makes it sound like it only boosts speed and success rate. The duergar locksmith help file is ambiguous.

If they do open up a new range of locks, is the effect cumulative with the boost you get from the advanced lock picking skill?

That is to say, if you have the advanced lock picking skill and are only interested broadening the range of locks you can pick, i.e. you don't care about speed or accuracy, is there any reason to take either of the two edges?

>Oh yeah. On the topic of thieves...
>
>Do the 'locksmith' and/or 'duergar locksmith' edges allow the
>thief to pick locks that would normally be impossible

Potentially.

Understand that there isn't really any randomness to pick lock. Given your skills, set of picks, dexterity, etc., you can either pick a lock or you can't. Having one of those edges will let you pick harder locks, but there are still locks no one can pick, and it's possible that you could stack enough of the factors in your favor without them to pick any lock that can be picked.

When you say "having one of those edges" do you mean "having either of those edges" or "having one of them in particular"? Not trying to nit pick; that sentence just seemed like it could mean either thing.

What would you say to adding a special "failure" echo when a lock is impossible to pick?

As things stand, the only way to tell whether a lock is un-pickable is to roll an arial thief, find a primo pair of picks, study advanced picklock, spam both "pick lock" and "advanced picklock" to 100%, then go try to pick it. If you fail, then you can be relatively sure it can't be picked by anyone else either.

If you wanted to attach some opportunity cost to the special echo, you could either attach it to one of the existing lock picking edges, or make a separate edge. Something like "lock appraisal". Spend the edge points and you get the special echo.

If you wanted to attach some opportunity cost to the special echo, you could either attach it to one of the existing lock picking edges, or make a separate edge. Something like "lock appraisal". Spend the edge points and you get the special echo.


That just seems overly harsh. Toss the echo in there for free. Beating your head against a wall isn't fun, obviously hurts, should be frowned upon...not left ambiguous.

I was envisioning it being a pretty inexpensive edge. But yeah, free would be fine too. Could also maybe tie it to a certain skill level in "pick lock". If so, though, the required skill level should be stated in the help file.

You'll get that on any lock that requires advanced picklock when you don't have advanced picklock. After you get advanced picklock, you'll get that echo for any lock that simply can't be picked. As far as I know, any lock that is POSSIBLE to be picked, but which YOU are unable to pick, you'll just get, "You failed to pick etc..."

Also, when you get the echo, "This lock is beyond your comprehension," you can't improve in your picking skills.