The open lock skill allows the character to enter locked rooms and open locked containers.

• Ability: dexterity

• Classes: assassin, rogue

• Cross-class skill: yes

• Requires training: yes

• Check: The difficulty class is determined by the lock's difficulty rating. A successful check opens the lock.

• Special: Thieves' tools can be used to provide bonuses to a character's open lock attempt, but are destroyed in the attempt whether successful or not.

• Use: Select the skill and then target a locked object.

Notes

• Allows for a take 20 when the character is not in combat.
• In many cases, bashing can be used in place of this skill, with the notable exceptions of plot doors and chests.
• A single rank in this skill can be of benefit to many characters, especially those in a single-player game. In particular, if there is a ready supply of thieves' tools, a character with a single rank in this skill can open surprisingly hard locks — assuming a (moderate) modified dexterity of 14, and +10 tools, such a character can open locks with DCs as high as 33. Even higher DCs can be reasonably met for dexterity-based characters and characters with abilities that augment this skill (e.g. bard song or the trickery domain power).