Strongboxes: Brown-text Craftable Items for Open Lock

[Egon the Monkey]

The 'Brown-text' craftable loot drops seem like a pretty mature and flexible mechanic now. And I've been thinking about the lack of uses for Open Lock lately. Yes, it sucked when every damn wizard ended up with 5 Open Lock just to open those locked end chests. But there's only about 2 quests that challenge Open Lock now, and it's all pass/fail. You just need Good Enough.

I think Open Lock would get interesting again if there were items that had an Open Lock Check. And the higher value you rolled on it, the more GP you got out. So rather than being a pass-fail thing of 'bring a lockpicker' they'd reward finding the best lockpicker. And if you don't have one, hauling the chest back to down and paying someone to do the job. Which is a bunch more RP! I think they could be really fun generic-table loot for Search piles (small ones) and quests (large ones). Then you create a demand for the skill everywhere, not just in a couple of quests, some exploration areas, and 1-2 randoms.

[Walrus Warwagon]

I agree. Brown text loot is awesome, and more of it would've been awesome to see, especially for skills currently unused in this mechanics. Open lock, eigneering. Not sure if there is a spellcraft ones (popular skill, so it would likely need high DCs). And so on.