Lock Mastery Question

[Vimp]

I have a rogue who currently does not lockpick at all, however I'm considering swapping some skills over for a year or so to pick up some lock mastery.

The rogue is 60 trains, I am not familiar with LM mechanics so I don't know if this is possible, I only want to convert over enough skill to cap my smithing abilities to max at Icemule farm and orchard critter boxes to work through the LM ranks.

My questions are then:-
1/. Will this allow me to work through all LM ranks, essentially disregarding my trains and limiting my smithing skills to those comparable to a much younger rogue? (some folk say that the box difficulty you need for some LM ranks is age based and yet other folks say the difficulty is based off your smithing skills and I haven't been given a difinitive answer).
2/. If I can cap my abilities and work through all LM ranks, how many ranks in picking and disarming will I require to cap at the icemule farm/orchard boxes? (my perception is currently already doubled at 60 trains for the archery associated bonuses).

Thanks in advance you knowledgeble people you.

[GuildRat]

Lockmastery is skill based. Take contest for example: the less picking/disarming skill you have, the easier the locks will be (numerical difficulty). I don't think I saw a lock anywhere near my top lock while I was doing lockmastery. Also, during relock, the lock has to be near your skill level, not trains associated.

I would think that the minimum you would need to train in picking and disarming would be determined by whatever you expect the boxes you're going to be working with to average, with a few extra ranks to get the occasional "tough" lock/trap.

Now, on this, I have to say that in order to safely disarm scarabs, you'll need your wisdom bonus + disarm bonus to equal 126 or better.(If that hasn't changed)

Hope this helps, I'm sure someone has a bit more info on it than I do. Check out Tsoran.com for his info...there's some good stuff about what you can get away with in his lock mastery guide.

[Vimp]

I appreciate that thanks, it was the version I wanted to hear so I can begin to plan a minor conversion!
Now I just need to work out the box range from the locale and tally my skills to match, if any Icemulian rogue has input on the skills required for the farm/orchard boxes I'd appreciate hearing it.
thanks,
Vimp.

[Stretch]

What GString said, except WIS is no longer a factor in disarming (it's DEX now).

The disarm scarab threshhold used to be 50 ranks of disarm. That, however, is no longer true. I'm not even certain if the following is true anymore, but it used to be that 7 ranks or so of AS woul get you that *scritch, scritch* message on scarabs.

I'd imagine that 50 ranks of pick/disarm with lores should be enough for most level 25-30 things. That will allow you to maximize your exp per box as well as use vaalin, without sacrificing too many TP's.

Lockpick formula is something like

pick modifier * (lockpick skill + dexterity bonus) + d100 + lock difficulty

If the above is greater than 100, then click.

So if you're using a vaalin pick and have 50 ranks with a 20 DEX bonus, your max lock would be -425 without lore. God only knows what the locklore formula is.

Be warned...it's going to take you a good 3000 or so boxes to master, at the least.

[Vimp]

I was considering 60-75 ranks of each, if I stick to 60 that would make me singled and be cheapest on tp's. I know it's going to be a long journey to master, but the farm is close by and it will be easy to pull boxes from myself if business is slow from other folks!
Thanks again for the info and the max lock formula.
Vimp.