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Tweak pack adjustments to Thieving abilities while armored?


Guest Guest_NuMystic_*

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Guest Guest_NuMystic_*

New to the forum and the (overwhelming) world of game mods, so apologies in advance if my thoughts are redundant, unrealistic, or just plain uninformed... :D

 

Delighted to see that the Tweak Packs have an adjusted implementation for the use of thieving while wearing armor. One thing just doesn't make any sense to me...

 

Of course severe penalties for stealth related actions are obvious. (hiding, moving silently, picking pockets)

 

But in an empty dungeon or isolated building why would armor have any impact whatsoever on the skill with which a trained thief can disarm a lock or trap?

 

Sure it would make noise wearing chainmail, but when stealth is not an issue who cares?

 

Having to remove gauntlets? Well yeah, that makes sense, but unless I'm missing something a thief should be able to disarm a lock in full plate provided their nimble fingers are unencumbered.

 

I would love to see a minor mod adjustment to reflect these common-sense considerations. (would be great to have a battle trained thief that can suit up for pre-meditated combat situations and then strip down to leather when setting out for covert operations)

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I'll just argue that you very much need to be unencumbered when balancing on your toes / stretching / generally reaching and gripping three things at once to disarm an intricate floor/wall trap.

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Have you ever tried opening the lock on the car door while trying to hold 6 bags of groceries?

 

If that argument doesn't make sense to you, imagine that you are wearing plate armor. You have a rigid sheet of it that extends from the base of your neck to your waist with the same thing in back, you are wearing pauldrons that resemble American football shoulder padding, but it's made of metal. You've got bits of metal that hang off the bottom of the breast and back plates to protect your hips. You've got leg armor further down, and metal bowls over each knee. The straps of all of this are rather snug, as it must not be able to shift much, and you don't want to suddenly find that your leg armor is around your ankles. Now, imagine bending over to tie your shoes. You can probably manage it, but you're going to be uncomfortable. "Uncomfortable" in game terms means that you will be distracted, and not as able to pick a lock as if you were unencumbered.

 

Edit: That sounded a lot more unfriendly than it was intended. I was just trying to be descriptive, because it is hard to imagine the limitations armor imposes on your body.

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Good points well presented. Thanks. I must admit the full plate comment I made may have been pushing the point to the extreme.

 

(Though, six bags being carried *in your hands or arms* isn't a good comparision, when discussing skills that are almost entirely dependent on hand movement... at least with lock picking)

 

Let's drop the extreme example for now. I'm not interested in outfitting a thief with full plate anyway.

 

On to the ever popular leather protection...

 

Do you actually believe that merely adding metal studs to leather armor would notably impact the manual (and almost entirely finger) dexterity required to pick a lock even with the added weight? C'mon.

 

Same goes for light chainmail.

 

In Northern Canada during the coldest months of winter it reaches waaaay below zero on a regular basis. Have you seen the cumbersome layers of clothing necessary to protect against that kind of weather?

 

Meanwhile if you get locked out of your house or car in the dead of night any reasonably skilled locksmith can overcome virtually any lock with 100% success regardless of the "discomfort" or burdensome gear. (and the few locks that can't be picked have nothing to do with dexterity and comfort... they would pose the same problem in mid-summer while wearing shorts and a tank top)

 

Obviously even the most serious winter gear doesn't touch the weight and unwieldly nature of heavier armor, but when it comes to lock picking at least, there is just no way that anything up to light mail is going to seriously affect the success rate of a professional.

 

Meanwhile leather armor alone should be hurting any skill requiring silent movement.

 

Yes there are thin supple leathers, but when we're discussing the type of leather used for protection and the way such armor is constructed... I challenge anyone to move 5 inches without creaking while wearing such a thing in real life. :D

 

If leather armor is the baseline, then going without armor altogether should definitely garner a significant bonus in multiple stealth based skills.

 

Thanks for the intelligent debate!

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Judging from the table, the adjustments to lockpicking and trap finding for a decent thief are pretty minor, even with chain mail. And apparently it's straight out of the PnP Complete Book of Thieves. Though having said that, it wouldn't be difficult to increase the stealth penalty and decrease the lock/trap penalty and offer a choice of tweaks during installation. Whether the package maintainers would want to do that is another question.

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You know, it is possible that it was a game balance decision to include lock picking.

 

My example was a bit of a reach, but it was inspired by the idea that magic can be interrupted by any of a number of really trivial things, so why not lock picking? Apart from the fact that if you fail to pick a lock, you can always try it again. Well, IRL, you can. In game, if you don't meet the difficulty level of the lock, you don't meet the difficulty level of the lock.

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It is an interesting point and one that I have thought about in the past. Pickpocketing and moving silently would obviously be greatly affected by wearing heavier or more rigid armour. Lockpicking wouldn't be as bad unless you were wearing gauntlets. Detecting traps shouldn't really be affected at all, unless of course you were wearing a helmet that restricted visibility or your armour creaked or jingled so much you couldn't hear that dodgy bit of floor you just stepped on.

 

Design of plated gauntlets varied in how the metal fit over your hand. Even if you are wearing chainmail over leather gloves, while more flexible, it would still make it harder to pick a lock or disarm a trap. Just the overall thickness of whatever is being worn would cause that. It shouldn't have as high a penalty as pickpocketing or silent movement but shouldn't be far off.

 

There seems to be conflicting accounts of how restricting armour is to the wearer. Some say that movement is restricted to almost robotic movements and yet I remember reading how knights could do handstands while wearing plate armour. If the armour was so restricting that it affected your ability to swing your sword, it doesn't sound like more protection is worth the penalty. Ultimately though, each type of armour design and the amount worn varied from era to era and also, who designed it in the first place. If you have a master craftsman designing your armour, even the more sturdy plate shouldn't have as much effect on your ease of mobility when compared to poorer designed suits.

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