Lockpicks.... Hmmm...

[The Bard of Hearts]

Ok. So the tutorial lady give you 12 lockpicks which imediately break after using them on a master level chest (apparently). Then I can't find anywhere to buy them for the longest time and can't make them. Finally I find a vendor selling lockpicks and they are priced at some 800 orens EACH!??? i are the items within ANY of the chests littering my lawn actually going to be worthwhile for the price of the lockpick?

Not only that, but the practice chest doesn't seem to require lockpicks at all. Is this the case for all locked chests? do you NEED lockpicks? or are they just a bonus? I've looked in the game I've looked out of game. Finally asking here for anyone with actual information on the subject.

Thanks for any help.

[gimmethegepgun]

It's not 800 orens per charge. That is a single item. So it's 800 orens for however many charges are on that lockpick.
You can get lockpicks cheaper and consistently in the Thieves' Guild in Derphy. You don't actually have to join to buy them, you can enter the basement in the slave auction house and buy them inside.

Lockpicks aren't required, but they do provide a bonus. I don't know how much.
Also, Gamble Chests (most commonly found for sale on innkeepers) use lockpicking for rolling to successfully open them without them breaking, and train it, and they don't use lockpicks.

[Iyasenu]

I believe Lockpicks are just a bonus.
If your Lockpicking skill severely outweighs the difficulty of the chest you're attempting to unlock, you won't require them.
But it can be quite a feat to achieve such a skill level.
I think someone on this board mentioned they needed to train up to... 120? 150? before they stopped running into chests they couldn't unlock without lockpicks.

Also, training chests are just special. They don't require lockpicks to open, and true to their name make for good ways to improve your Lockpicking skill without blowing through lockpicks.
Also, Gamble Chests that can sometimes be found in shops such as Innkeepers and whatnot also don't need lockpicks, and will train your Lockpicking skill, but can be quite costly in bulk.

Anyways, about the vendor you found lockpicks at:
If it was just a random stock of a General Goods merchant, I could understand the price being a bit bad.
But if you head to the Thieves Guild of Derphy, they should be cheaper there.
There's an NPC and a Vending Machine in the guild that stocks them, and the items they sell come with the "stolen goods" tag, which causes them to suffer a sale price reduction. (this tag disappears after you actually buy them)

And, as for lockpicks being worthwhile, the answer is almost always yes, unless your skill barely even allows a chest to be attempted with lockpicks in the first place, where your success chances would be abysmal.
But otherwise, get some nice bundles of lockpicks, with over 10 charges apiece and you should be set for a while. That'd be up to 10 locked chests you could open for a relatively small amount of money.
Especially considering locked chests usually contain orens, as well as other currencies such as platinum coins or small medals, alongside other treasures.

Additionally, if you simply don't want to unlock it yourself, you should be able to take a locked chest to an Informer NPC, and pay them to open it.
I mean, this probably will be more expensive in the long run than becoming capable of taking care of locks yourself, and indeed Informers cannot unlock chests with a "complex lock" such as the chest that Fiama gives you, so doing it yourself would be the only recourse in such cases.

Finally, that chest Fiama gives you should require about level 40-something Lockpicking to unlock with the use of Lockpicks.
43? Somewhere in that ballpark.

[The Bard of Hearts]

Thanks for all the info, guys. I appreciate it.

[The Bard of Hearts]

About the Thieves Guild then... You can't get in until you have a Karma of less, than 0? I thought I had read a few places that said you didn't need to join in order to buy the lock picks from them

[Helios]

Think you need around 40 lockpick skill to open that chest it contains some easter eggs from elona it seems and a good collar.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by The Bard of Hearts:

About the Thieves Guild then... You can't get in until you have a Karma of less, than 0? I thought I had read a few places that said you didn't need to join in order to buy the lock picks from them

In order to get in through the front door you need to join them, but you can get in without it by using a staircase in the Slave Auction House to the southeast of the inn, or by chopping down the wall to reach the staircase in the inn.

[Exar kun]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by The Bard of Hearts:

About the Thieves Guild then... You can't get in until you have a Karma of less, than 0? I thought I had read a few places that said you didn't need to join in order to buy the lock picks from them

In order to get in through the front door you need to join them, but you can get in without it by using a staircase in the Slave Auction House to the southeast of the inn, or by chopping down the wall to reach the staircase in the inn.

The only real downside is the trainer in there won't give their training services, other than that no reason to rush to join them especially since pickpocket was nerfed. I can confirm that chest Fiama gives you to try and open needs 40 lockpick, so save up those +lockpick equips and compare how much bonus stats you are actually getting since 2 items with ** to lockpick typically vary but if you find ***lockpick is probably almost 40 lockpick right there.

The gamble chests also have some extra bonus if you open several, like a bounty or a treasure map pops after so many? So there's that as those aren't a complete waste of time.

[twitch.tv/GFYE]

Furniture Merchants sell the Training Chest, buy 3-10 "about 700 a piece" of them to hold random weird items or currencies. Pick them till your eyes roll into the back of your head, they refresh within a few, 1-2 in-game hours which is only a bit of walking around the settlement. IF you aren't on OATH, do quests at Mysilia or Palmia until you have about 20 influence. Sit at the furniture merchant and save load between reloading their inventory using 1 influence until you see a training chest. buy it, and then save. Rinse repeat

I wouldn't craft them because chips are entirely drop based and currently aren't craftable.

[Lightning]

Originally posted by The Bard of Hearts:

About the Thieves Guild then... You can't get in until you have a Karma of less, than 0? I thought I had read a few places that said you didn't need to join in order to buy the lock picks from them

you don’t necessarily need a negative karma value to join the Thieves Guild. The requirement is to reduce your cumulative karma by -100 in total. This means that even if your current karma is positive, as long as you've reduced it by 100

only the karma reductions after you accept quests will count toward this total. So, you can recover karma through other means, but you’ll still need to hit that -100 cumulative reduction. I hope that clears it up!

[The Bard of Hearts]

Thanks for all the advice and info guys. I appreciate it.

[Exar kun]

Originally posted by twitch.tv/GFYE:

Furniture Merchants sell the Training Chest, buy 3-10 "about 700 a piece" of them to hold random weird items or currencies. Pick them till your eyes roll into the back of your head, they refresh within a few, 1-2 in-game hours which is only a bit of walking around the settlement. IF you aren't on OATH, do quests at Mysilia or Palmia until you have about 20 influence. Sit at the furniture merchant and save load between reloading their inventory using 1 influence until you see a training chest. buy it, and then save. Rinse repeat

I wouldn't craft them because chips are entirely drop based and currently aren't craftable.

Oh maybe thats what I was thinking of instead of the gambling chests, but I do need to double check if you get a random thing from opening a bunch of those. Microchips have a use outside of training/practice chests? Disarming traps at low level Nefias seems to give out microchips at a "decent" rate, only problem I use to encounter is they didn't stack since they'd be made of random metals.

[Tenoshii]

Originally posted by Exar kun:

Microchips have a use outside of training/practice chests?

Yeah, they are used to make a variety of things at the machine table and are intermediate components as part of more advanced electronics (i.e. fridges, TVs, etc).

Originally posted by Exar kun:

Disarming traps at low level Nefias seems to give out microchips at a "decent" rate, only problem I use to encounter is they didn't stack since they'd be made of random metals.

Yeah the random materials thing is a little frustrating, especially when something needs two microchips and you have 4 but can't craft because no two are the same material.

[gimmethegepgun]

I've only seen microchips made of silver from dismantling traps though?

[Aurelia]

Since this doesn't appear to be mentioned --
When using lockpicks, the charge cost is per turn. If you spend 3 turns lockpicking, you will expend 3 charges. You can see this in the feed log. So to expend 12 charges of a lockpick, you spent 12 turns trying to pick a lock. If your lockpicking is high enough to open the lock before a turn could be expended, no charge is used.

The second note is that if between your own lockpicking skill along with the lockpick you are still not qualified to open a chest, then it simply instafails and no lockpick charges are spent.

[The Bard of Hearts]

Thanks for the clarification. I did notice those details, but they are still worth noting for anyone else reading this ahead of time.