Question about picking boxes

[Prosperanna]

How does one go about figuring out what kind of boxes they can pick? What I mean is, I'm a level 11 rogue, with 33 ranks in both disarm and picking. So what's the highest level box I should be able to pick? And how would I go about figuring that out on my own?

Anna

[Kitsun]

Well you could try to dig up the formulas for max lock range and see if you can find someone who has documented the critters with boxes.

General rule of thumb is box difficulty is broken into groups by levels of 10. Something 11 will have about the same box difficult as 19. (This was true in GSIII, not sure if it carried)

Taylir has a site to look up lockpick mods.
http://sky.prohosting.com/ldytay/

Porcell posted a script that calculates your max lock\trap. Its at http://www.geocities.com/bladenight95/scripts.html

[Czeska]

Porcell's .cl script was NOT updated for GS4 critters last I talked to him. Be careful.

Trylia, my rogue, is tripled and can pick double her age with rare problem.

I wasn't referring to .cl

[Czeska]

I know, just adding, in my sleepy state, unclearly :)

[Edaarin]

At level 11, stick to hill trolls, ghoul masters, cave trolls, and so forth. Basically, boxes from things that are no higher than level 16. At your level, even tripled there's a chance you'll miss seeing a trap if you go any higher than that.

[Prosperanna]

Thanks guys! You've all been really helpful. :)

[Trinitis]

You might also want to point out that being 3x in traps and locks, is only 2/3rds of the lockpicking skills. Please tell me your 3x'ed in perception as well?

-Adredrin

No need to be more than 2x in perception. Unless your picking massively over your head.

[Kitsun]

Even if you see the trap with 3x perception, there's a good chance you can't get it.

I'd only 3x perception if you have a fetish for seeing rangers/rogues slip in and out of hiding or open aim with archery.

[Artha]

At level 24, I spotted a rift trap (-411 scales) on the first shot. 3x perception, 2.5x disarming and picking.

Chance I could get it? Not even worth thinking about. I think with a Vaalin lockpick and Lock lore on, I can open maybe a -535 (-515 for sure).

I'd say by 24, you should have no trouble picking above your head by a good deal.

[ThisOtherKingdom]

I think being 3x perception as a picker makes you really confident in your abilities. Even if you can't get the trap, you won't be blowing yourself up unless you're a daredevil.

[Tsoran]

OK, here's the skinny on what you can and can not pick...

First of all, with regards to perception, what the others said about only needing to 2x is pretty much correct. By the time you're 20, you'll probably be able to spot every trap in the game with no trouble. 3x in perception will not give you any advantage as far as picking is concerned.

At level 11, however, it's another story. Until you get to about 15, you will have trouble spotting scarab traps. Those are the hardest traps to spot. You'll be missing them from time to time until you get a few more levels. Tripling in perception until you get to 15 might help with that. (I'm not sure; I never tried it.) Then reduce your perception training back down to 2x by not training in it again for a few levels.

As for what boxes you can pick... you won't like the real answer. Right now you can probably pick most critters up to about level 15.

But the real answer is... there's no real answer. Box difficulties are only losely related to critter level. Some critters have insanely hard boxes for their level, while some critters have very easy boxes for their level.

You have to get a feel for which critters you can open and which ones you can't. The only way to do that is by experimentation. Pick harder and harder critters until your rate of breaking expensive picks becomes too high. There's about 500 different critters out there, but not all drop boxes, and in any given area, only some are hunted a lot. So it doesn't really take all that long to learn about the boxes you'll see picking.

Some boxes to watch out for that are insanely hard for their levels:

Spectral warriors in RR
Sand Devils on teras
roa'ters
shan
Anything in Bonespear or the Illoke Stronghold

All of those are way over your head right now, but the point is you can't go by levels. You need to learn which boxes will go CLICK and which will go SNAP.

[Czeska]

Big nod to roa'ters being hard for their level. I've also found GY boxes to be ridiculously nonconsistent, at least in GS3. A -10 followed by a -290 on the same critter can happen, but this was like every hunt. Pissed my little girl off.