I was thinking the other day that how locks work actually offer a genius lock-designer to set-off traps if locks are not unlocked in a certain order which by design incorporates a sense of anti-magic into it.
A tumbler contains pins that need to be raised to certain levels to allow the tumbler to turn. The shape of the key expresses those levels. A lock picker raises those pins manually applying pressure to the tumbler to hold the pins out of the way.
I imagine a tumbler that is in several portions. Several keys would be used in a special sequence to turn the apportioned tumblers in a correct sequence. If any of the tumblers are turned at the wrong interval it springs a trap. Each apportioned tumbler can have a trap associated with it so every time one of them is turned out of sequence a new trap is sprung.
Perhaps such a lock would be anti-magic in its nature because any magical unlocking spell would not know what sequence to unlock the door. If you unlock the "first apportioned tumbler" first; maybe that sets off a trap. So you succeed at turning it; but at a cost.
Your entire approach seems off. You are doing the work the NPC would do, rather than the work the player/DM would do.
Basic lock would be: DC to pick. That's all you set. Maybe a cost to make as well. You do not talk about the lock design, etc. It's not that kind of game.
Trapped Lock = DC to detect, DC to deactivate, failure DC to activate by mistake. What it does when it fails, and DC to unlock/pick. Maybe a cost to make. That's what you design.
Similarly, a DM does notdo this:
"You rolled a 14 to hit? OK, his AC was 13, so you hit, I got a 17 on my percentile, so that means you hit left arm. Roll your damage - oh, 16? You managed to hit the radius bone, putting a (roll) 1 cm scratch into the bone, there are (roll) 10 ounces of blood squirting out. You think you did significant damage to the Palmurus Longus Tendon."
I agree with mog. D&D abstracts everything. So if such a lock as the OP suggests were to exist, when the rogue or artificer or whoever encounters it, they would assess that’s how this lock opens and the try to do it. All that is just put behind a higher DC.
I could see a case where you say this door actually has three locks that need to be opened in a specific order. So then our lock picker needs to make one roll to figure out the order, then 3 more to pick each lock. Which would actually make it pretty hard, because you figure that out of four rolls, the player’s going to get one bad one in there. That might also thwart a knock spell, which is the anti-magic part. Knock specifically states it would only open one lock of the three. It’s a bit vague, so it would be a DM ruling if the spell knows which order — because magic — or if the player has to declare which lock they want to try first.
I was thinking the other day that how locks work actually offer a genius lock-designer to set-off traps if locks are not unlocked in a certain order which by design incorporates a sense of anti-magic into it.
A tumbler contains pins that need to be raised to certain levels to allow the tumbler to turn. The shape of the key expresses those levels. A lock picker raises those pins manually applying pressure to the tumbler to hold the pins out of the way.
I imagine a tumbler that is in several portions. Several keys would be used in a special sequence to turn the apportioned tumblers in a correct sequence. If any of the tumblers are turned at the wrong interval it springs a trap. Each apportioned tumbler can have a trap associated with it so every time one of them is turned out of sequence a new trap is sprung.
Perhaps such a lock would be anti-magic in its nature because any magical unlocking spell would not know what sequence to unlock the door. If you unlock the "first apportioned tumbler" first; maybe that sets off a trap. So you succeed at turning it; but at a cost.
I don't think your idea is bad per se, but the way you describe it seems like it would be a bit clunky to try and fit into 5e. As Xalthu mentioned, the logical approach seems to be that the character needs to do some kind of check to figure out the right order, then a separate check for each component lock to successfully bypass it without triggering the associated trap. Not only is this a lot more rolls for a single door than the game typically assumes, given 5e's Bounded Accuracy approach even a highly skilled thief is likely going to fail at least one of them through sheer law of averages, which could hurt their class fantasy.
I do think the other part of your idea though, a lock that punishes the caster if they try to Knock in the wrong order, is fine, but whatever means the rogue has of figuring out the correct sequence would logically be available to them too. In fact, casters would have even more thanks to divinations - an Augury asking "should I Knock the top lock first" would be a pretty easy Weal or Woe unless the DM is being intentionally hostile.
In regards to the scenario involving the booby trapped lock in which the four tumblers have to be triggered in a specific, non sequential order lest each tumbler activate a trap. I’m afraid that if one actually designed a lock that way then they would very likely be the first and last person to ever use it. The reasons for that are:
When a key, or anything else for that matter is inserted into a lock, it would activate all four of the tumblers in sequence from first to last as it slides in. There is simply no way around that fact as long as the scenario is based on a nonmagical, inanimate set of tumblers with a likewise nonmagical, inanimate key. The only way the key could ever not interact with the first tumbler first and the last tumbler last is if the key went in as a smooth, solid piece of matter too thin to interact with any of the tumblers, and then somehow reshape itself inside the lock. So, unless you were using one of those changeling keys from DS9, or some kind of animate organic metal like they used (will use?) to make the T1000, it won’t work. As soon as the first person inserts the key into the lock all four traps would get triggered in such rapid success that the last would be triggered while the first is still going off.
Even if one were to say that the traps are not triggered by the order in which the tumblers are jiggered, but instead by the order in which they are set, it still can’t work. The reason being that when a key is inserted into a lock, all of the tumblers rise and fall as they make contact with the teeth on the key, but it is not until the key is full inserted that all the correct teeth of the key come into contact with the tumblers and push them to exactly the right depths for them to align and allow the lock to be opened. That means all the tumblers get set simultaneously. So if the lock required them to instead be set in any specific order to prevent the traps from triggering, then as soon as the first person used the key in the lock it would trigger all four traps.
So you see, no matter what the first person to actually use the key that fits the lock would trigger all four traps and likely not survive since the average person has somewhere between 4 HP and 9 HP, up to as many as 11 HP. The average first level rogue has at minimum (assuming Con 10+) 8 HP. So any trap or series of traps designed to dispatch even the lowliest larcenously inclined adventuresome individual would probably kill whoever might likely be using the lock in the first place.
One of the reasons that 5e was successful was it appealed to the masses with its simplicity. Complex tasks were abstracted down to in many cases a single roll. That is bad game design.
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I was thinking the other day that how locks work actually offer a genius lock-designer to set-off traps if locks are not unlocked in a certain order which by design incorporates a sense of anti-magic into it.
A tumbler contains pins that need to be raised to certain levels to allow the tumbler to turn. The shape of the key expresses those levels. A lock picker raises those pins manually applying pressure to the tumbler to hold the pins out of the way.
I imagine a tumbler that is in several portions. Several keys would be used in a special sequence to turn the apportioned tumblers in a correct sequence. If any of the tumblers are turned at the wrong interval it springs a trap. Each apportioned tumbler can have a trap associated with it so every time one of them is turned out of sequence a new trap is sprung.
Perhaps such a lock would be anti-magic in its nature because any magical unlocking spell would not know what sequence to unlock the door. If you unlock the "first apportioned tumbler" first; maybe that sets off a trap. So you succeed at turning it; but at a cost.
It sounds like what you want is a puzzle for the players to solve, rather than a lock for a character to open with a skill check or a spell
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Anton Sirius has a good point. If you want to go this route, think of it as a puzzle more than a trap. Use DM Fiat to say no lock picking attempt will work at all, until you first solve the puzzle, which should have some hints or someway for the players to get some idea what is going on.
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I was thinking the other day that how locks work actually offer a genius lock-designer to set-off traps if locks are not unlocked in a certain order which by design incorporates a sense of anti-magic into it.
A tumbler contains pins that need to be raised to certain levels to allow the tumbler to turn. The shape of the key expresses those levels. A lock picker raises those pins manually applying pressure to the tumbler to hold the pins out of the way.
I imagine a tumbler that is in several portions. Several keys would be used in a special sequence to turn the apportioned tumblers in a correct sequence. If any of the tumblers are turned at the wrong interval it springs a trap. Each apportioned tumbler can have a trap associated with it so every time one of them is turned out of sequence a new trap is sprung.
Perhaps such a lock would be anti-magic in its nature because any magical unlocking spell would not know what sequence to unlock the door. If you unlock the "first apportioned tumbler" first; maybe that sets off a trap. So you succeed at turning it; but at a cost.
Your entire approach seems off. You are doing the work the NPC would do, rather than the work the player/DM would do.
Basic lock would be: DC to pick. That's all you set. Maybe a cost to make as well. You do not talk about the lock design, etc. It's not that kind of game.
Trapped Lock = DC to detect, DC to deactivate, failure DC to activate by mistake. What it does when it fails, and DC to unlock/pick. Maybe a cost to make. That's what you design.
Similarly, a DM does not do this:
"You rolled a 14 to hit? OK, his AC was 13, so you hit, I got a 17 on my percentile, so that means you hit left arm. Roll your damage - oh, 16? You managed to hit the radius bone, putting a (roll) 1 cm scratch into the bone, there are (roll) 10 ounces of blood squirting out. You think you did significant damage to the Palmurus Longus Tendon."
I agree with mog. D&D abstracts everything. So if such a lock as the OP suggests were to exist, when the rogue or artificer or whoever encounters it, they would assess that’s how this lock opens and the try to do it. All that is just put behind a higher DC.
I could see a case where you say this door actually has three locks that need to be opened in a specific order. So then our lock picker needs to make one roll to figure out the order, then 3 more to pick each lock. Which would actually make it pretty hard, because you figure that out of four rolls, the player’s going to get one bad one in there.
That might also thwart a knock spell, which is the anti-magic part. Knock specifically states it would only open one lock of the three. It’s a bit vague, so it would be a DM ruling if the spell knows which order — because magic — or if the player has to declare which lock they want to try first.
I don't think your idea is bad per se, but the way you describe it seems like it would be a bit clunky to try and fit into 5e. As Xalthu mentioned, the logical approach seems to be that the character needs to do some kind of check to figure out the right order, then a separate check for each component lock to successfully bypass it without triggering the associated trap. Not only is this a lot more rolls for a single door than the game typically assumes, given 5e's Bounded Accuracy approach even a highly skilled thief is likely going to fail at least one of them through sheer law of averages, which could hurt their class fantasy.
I do think the other part of your idea though, a lock that punishes the caster if they try to Knock in the wrong order, is fine, but whatever means the rogue has of figuring out the correct sequence would logically be available to them too. In fact, casters would have even more thanks to divinations - an Augury asking "should I Knock the top lock first" would be a pretty easy Weal or Woe unless the DM is being intentionally hostile.
In regards to the scenario involving the booby trapped lock in which the four tumblers have to be triggered in a specific, non sequential order lest each tumbler activate a trap. I’m afraid that if one actually designed a lock that way then they would very likely be the first and last person to ever use it. The reasons for that are:
So you see, no matter what the first person to actually use the key that fits the lock would trigger all four traps and likely not survive since the average person has somewhere between 4 HP and 9 HP, up to as many as 11 HP. The average first level rogue has at minimum (assuming Con 10+) 8 HP. So any trap or series of traps designed to dispatch even the lowliest larcenously inclined adventuresome individual would probably kill whoever might likely be using the lock in the first place.
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Say what now
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It sounds like what you want is a puzzle for the players to solve, rather than a lock for a character to open with a skill check or a spell
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Anton Sirius has a good point. If you want to go this route, think of it as a puzzle more than a trap. Use DM Fiat to say no lock picking attempt will work at all, until you first solve the puzzle, which should have some hints or someway for the players to get some idea what is going on.