My players do not see a reason to have a rogue character. They think the main need for a rogue is to open locks. They also see no need for a rogue when almost all the buildings are one story. Adobe buildings can't be built very high. I mentioned the exemplary spot and listen checks, sneak attack, etc., but they are adamant.
Is there a way to make a lock with bone and resin which will withstand more than one hit!
Any suggestions?
Alternately, then could be made out of a more common substance which is psionically or magically hardened. Wizard locks would still exist in places too, though not as common.
Is there something official in place to harden lock-making materials with psionics/magic?
Giant-hair rope/knot locks. I seem to recall that stuff's strong and hard to cut.
I'm not up on 3.5 Psionics - how difficult would it be to psionically make wood nice and strong?
Mekillot-bone bars would be fairly strong, I would have thought. The locking mechanism could be made of wood, but all ti does is free the bars, which are what holds the door shut.
If you can't make locks robust without metal, then people would make door security mechanisms where the strength of the lock is not the determining factor. So if you break the lock, all you've done is make it difficult to move the bolts out of the way...
Finally, if we really can't make useful locks without metal, then the next step is to create traps - they don't need metal. Let people unlock your door - they'll just get hit by the poison needle you set up.
That'll give your Rogues something to do...
I agree with Ashanti.
My players do not see a reason to have a rogue character. They think the main need for a rogue is to open locks. They also see no need for a rogue when almost all the buildings are one story. Adobe buildings can't be built very high. I mentioned the exemplary spot and listen checks, sneak attack, etc., but they are adamant.
Is there a way to make a lock with bone and resin which will withstand more than one hit!
Any suggestions?
Sheesh, thats like saying there is no reason to have a cleric if there is no one needing healed.
Rogues can do so much more than pick locks, but anyway
Most metal locks will not usually withstand too many hits either.
Things you can do.
Bone locks
wooden locks...
keyholes with twine within that needs a key cut the right way and in effect, the key latches to the twine and as you turn it it rolls the twine up, lifting a spike from a hole in the floor thus opening the door.
Also iron wood.
cheap metal locks
As for those bashing locks to get through... noise carries. If you are not the owner of something behind a lock, then you probably want to do it quietly. Maybe there are lengths of giant hair knotted tightly set up with a counterweight that is set up to fall loudly if the rope is cut, and a rogue needs to pick the lock in order to untie the giant hair and slowly lower the counterweight at the same time.
There are lots of things you can come up with, in complicated bone/wooden/knot combinations, to alert systems set up for inferior locks that alert someone of the brutish lockpick method is used.
The insects feed on ambient psionic energy but cannot be affected by telepathic psionics. This would make a good 'pad lock'.
The rogue would need to 'finess' the female bug with the 'stud bug'.
What does every one think?
Agafari wood is fairly strong, and might make a good lock. Bear in mind that most people trying to break in won't have metal, either.
Giant-hair rope/knot locks. I seem to recall that stuff's strong and hard to cut.
I'm not up on 3.5 Psionics - how difficult would it be to psionically make wood nice and strong?
Mekillot-bone bars would be fairly strong, I would have thought. The locking mechanism could be made of wood, but all ti does is free the bars, which are what holds the door shut.
If you can't make locks robust without metal, then people would make door security mechanisms where the strength of the lock is not the determining factor. So if you break the lock, all you've done is make it difficult to move the bolts out of the way...
Finally, if we really can't make useful locks without metal, then the next step is to create traps - they don't need metal. Let people unlock your door - they'll just get hit by the poison needle you set up.
That'll give your Rogues something to do...
I have implemented all of the above with limited success. My group is high level (12-15) and not much can stop them. I have added pits, traps (some deadly), locks of intricate design (even metal), guardians, red herrings, etc, but they barely slow down. Perhaps it is just their levels and playing experience (over 10 years each).
If they are worried about noise, they just cast a Silence spell and no one hears a thing.
I guess I could make the traps deadly all of the time. :lightbulb :D
Sheesh, thats like saying there is no reason to have a cleric if there is no one needing healed.
Rogues can do so much more than pick locks, but anyway
Most metal locks will not usually withstand too many hits either.
Things you can do.
Bone locks
wooden locks...
keyholes with twine within that needs a key cut the right way and in effect, the key latches to the twine and as you turn it it rolls the twine up, lifting a spike from a hole in the floor thus opening the door.
Also iron wood.
cheap metal locks
As for those bashing locks to get through... noise carries. If you are not the owner of something behind a lock, then you probably want to do it quietly. Maybe there are lengths of giant hair knotted tightly set up with a counterweight that is set up to fall loudly if the rope is cut, and a rogue needs to pick the lock in order to untie the giant hair and slowly lower the counterweight at the same time.
There are lots of things you can come up with, in complicated bone/wooden/knot combinations, to alert systems set up for inferior locks that alert someone of the brutish lockpick method is used.
More cool ideas!
I guess I need to think on a more primative level (hair,wood,bone,etc) and really sit down and design some nasty lock/trap combos. That should take them off guard.
Hang on, what about a bug of some kind, psionically trained (this profession is analogus to a lock smith) insect. The female grips on to giant hair rope(thanks Sysane). It grips really hard too. Then you got the male bug who acts as the key. The male inserts his 'key' into the female to unlock it. Rogues have a 'stud bug' analogus to a lock picking kit.
The insects feed on ambient psionic energy but cannot be affected by telepathic psionics. This would make a good 'pad lock'.
The rogue would need to 'finess' the female bug with the 'stud bug'.
What does every one think?
Another excellent idea! Of course these bugs would not be common and they would require training.
The only thing I can see as a potential problem would be forcing the bugs to stay put in the lock/trap.
Another option would be the same bug or another type which would send out a screech if messed with by anyone other than its trainer.
The whole idea of a Open Locks being a useless skill on Athas only makes sense if your campaign never deals with bandit chiefs, merchant houses, powerful defilers, or anyone else with power and money that also have a "lair" of some sort. On Athas (especially on Athas) those with power have a disproportionate amount of money, and those with money have the means to acquire complicated metal locks. And, of course, those are the kinds of villains that a fiscally-minded group of PCs is going to want to go after. Although yes, you can always just bash a lock off, that doesn't make it any less valuable - newer Athasian metal locks would also be designed with the concept that non-metal weapons and tools would be used to try and get past them, so it's quite possible that it'd be even more difficult to simply smash an Athasian lock (...with non-metal weapons, at least) than it would be on another world. Increase the Bash DC, reduce the Pick DC...fits in with the conditions the locks would be built for.
Another thing to remember is that Athas used to have a lot more available metal than it does now - so PCs exploring ruins that haven't been touched in millenia may very well run into metal locks on chests or doors.
Hang on, what about a bug of some kind, psionically trained (this profession is analogus to a lock smith) insect. The female grips on to giant hair rope(thanks Sysane). It grips really hard too. Then you got the male bug who acts as the key. The male inserts his 'key' into the female to unlock it. Rogues have a 'stud bug' analogus to a lock picking kit.
The insects feed on ambient psionic energy but cannot be affected by telepathic psionics. This would make a good 'pad lock'.
The rogue would need to 'finess' the female bug with the 'stud bug'.
What does every one think?
Sounds like a rhulisti life-shaped item to me.
The 'Bug Maker' (or lock smith in a different world) is a profession that requires a certain psionic knack to 'teach' the bug to do nothing but grip on hard. In the wild they grip in to the hide of psionic animals and feed off their psionic energy (like a real world tick).
When the male comes along with his 'key' the bug has to let go to go get fertilized. As soon as you remove the stud bug, the female re-attaches it's grip. So you could even use specially bread bugs to act like manicals. It's not to much of a stretch to assume they can subsist on the ambient psionic energy on Athas after many generations of selective breading.
They may even have come from the Forest Ridge from the halflings (the last breath of common life shaping). The knowledge filtered down to the Table lands over the years. Some of the Bugs up there could be as big as a kank!
You could treat them like regular locks in all respects. Real locks would turn to rust, bug locks die and turn brittle.
Can anyone see problems with this lock logic?
Yeah, they are pretty life shaped. I was kind of thinking about the Yuuzhan Vong bio technology and the mekillot handlers psionically training mekillots. I kind of think of it more like selective breeding plus psionics, but I suppose it all amounts to the same thing; biotech.
I think I might use it in my campaign (we are in Kragmorta) as my party are laden down with 'ancient security devices constructed of pure steel' lol.
http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/hsc09b.htm
This is an example of ancient type lock:
http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/hsc09b.htm
Sweet- and totally do-able without any metal- just replace bass with bone and whamm-o kazam-o you got yourself a DS lock- thanks Gab
I agree with Ashanti.
My players do not see a reason to have a rogue character. They think the main need for a rogue is to open locks. They also see no need for a rogue when almost all the buildings are one story. Adobe buildings can't be built very high. I mentioned the exemplary spot and listen checks, sneak attack, etc., but they are adamant.
Is there a way to make a lock with bone and resin which will withstand more than one hit!
Any suggestions?
I'd start making the buildings taller. Adobe can be built fairly high, higher with clerical magic. I've personally seen a 4 story adobe building, the first story was the foundation and it had 4 1/2 foot thick walls! Keep in mind, that's 4 stories today, at it's height it could have been 5+. I've seen the foundations of adobe walls in China that suggest 4+ stories.
I'll admit that early representations of architecture in Dark Sun suggest 1-2 stories for adobe, with taller masonry buildings being reserved for the wealthy. I've never agreed with it so I changed it. In the end you should keep it however you like. If it's not really hurting anything then there is no real reason to change it.
You've already implemented the suggestions of the other posters, so I can't be of much more help. It sounds like you have a clever bunch of players. I have the same problem, my guys are 9th and they are right on the cusp of being so awesome it hurts. I use a lot of timed 'missions'. I find that that helps.
I have decided, they are so good at smashing locks and no one wants to play a rogue, I will let them smash the locks.
Only a rogue type class can detect traps without a spell. :D
If they smash the lock, the will be in a world of hurt! I could also introduce fake locks, which are really just traps.
Ooh, I can't wait for Saturday.
Thank you for all your help.
In case you didn't catch the idea before. Locking mechanisms could be designed to be unsmashable, in that if you did smash the lock, you would merely make it impossible to open the door without breaking it down too.
The basic idea involves a spike and the simple force of gravity. The lock is connected to a spike and when turned is designed to lift the spike allowing the door to be opened. If the lock is smashed the rope connecting the spike to the lock falls into the hole that the spike is set in and it becomes virtually impossible to open the door without destroying it.
Of course, very lock can't be unsmashable so I will mix it up.
The PCs were kicked out of Tyr and they (coincidentally) are planning on making Nibenay their new home. After Mauraders of Nibeney, they have some favor with Nibenay. Several of them planned to help with the reconstruction of the city. Should be interesting how long they can live there and not cross the SK.
Once again, thanks for all your help.
The buildings in Nibenay are all made out of solid stones (I would imagine granite, but I don't remember what kind). Any city that had access to sufficiently powerfull earth clerics, could hire them to build solid stone structures of great strength and height. Nibenay is also known as the city of spires if memory serves me, and has the tablelands single largest structure (other than the pristine tower).
Yeah, Nibenay is the city that has the tower(s) with huge bridges that run to the cliff-dwelling estates of nobles and such. Great place to stage a battle with low-level characters that can't fly and/or teleport, make 'em wish they hadn't snubbed their noses at Improved Bull Rush. ;)
I'd imagine that giant hair rope tied in a series of complicated knots would be common place.
that is what i always used as locks, you could cut them but it would take you twice as long as it would to pick it. knock spell would untangle it.
that is what i always used as locks, you could cut them but it would take you twice as long as it would to pick it. knock spell would untangle it.
The Rope Use skill would also come it pretty handy as well.