Tollenkar's Lair: difficulty of tasks?

[The Wyzard]

I just finished skimming the module. There are a lot of hidden things that require 5 or more dice to see, or locks that require 5 or more dice to pick.

That strikes me as excessive. If a PC buys a 14 DX and the lockpicking talent, they shouldn't have absolutely demoralizing odds of picking the important lock.

I think Alertness reduces the difficulty of noticing something by one die, so setting the difficulty at 5D for something *really hard to see* is fair - a PC who has a good IQ and the talent has reasonable odds of making that roll. But unless I'm missing something, these 7D locks are just ridiculous.

[Skarg]

1) I recommend playing with a good GM without reading through the adventure content, unless you know you never want to be a player and discover what's there instead of already knowing.

2) TFT philosophy is not about worlds where everything is there to enable players to successfully use their talents and never have low odds to achieve things even when they have talents for it. Tollenkar's Lair in particular is about a situation that can become extremely difficult and deadly unless you expect you may face things you are not up to, and take appropriate measures to detect, avoid, and/or flee when the situation goes bad. And even then, you may well die.

3) If you read the Thief talent, you'll see the roll to pick locks is per minute, not the chance you'll fail completely. It's one of the few tasks you're allowed to keep trying, so a lock easy enough for you to have a high chance to succeed is one where you'll pick it in one minute or less. A 5-die lock is a good hard lock to pick, but even a non-master thief with DX 13 has about a 1/6 chance each minute to succeed.

4) You're not supposed to detect everything. Some things are supposed to be hard to notice and likely not get noticed. (But Alertness reduces the dice by one, Detect Traps reduces it by two, for traps. And everyone looking can roll - er, can have the GM roll for them.)

5) Having run the adventure and GM'd TFT for years, and re-looking at these values in Tollenkar's Lair, it seems to me that the assigned levels for things are appropriate and very well thought out.

**** SPOILED ALERT BELOW ****

Most normal locks and things to notice are listed as 3 or 4 dice. I don't think there's anything on level 2 above 4 dice. Level 3 has several locks at 5 dice, maybe a thing or two at 6 - someone bought some good locks and hid things well. A clever TFT player will take this as a natural clue that they are facing more capable opponents. The 7-die locks are first-rate stuff and appear later and are an appropriate sign that you're dealing with someone with resources who knows what they're doing and means business. It's a good sign the PCs may be out of their depth, and may want to be extremely clever and/or reconsider going further. And that's a mercy, because pretty much anyone could be wiped out by going further.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by The Wyzard

That strikes me as excessive. If a PC buys a 14 DX and the lockpicking talent, they shouldn't have absolutely demoralizing odds of picking the important lock.

With 14 DX, 3D means a 90% chance of success, 4D means around a 55% chance of success and 5D means around 22%

So what Steve Jackson is saying that for those locks and hidden objects that there is a 22% chance of success for a 14 DX character to deal with them. Is that fair? It depends if you think a 1 in 5 chance of success is warranted for those situations.

[Helborn]

Remember that it's 22% per attempt not per lock. Edited to add. Also a Master Thief would roll 1 less die or 4 in this case with a better chance of success.

[Skarg]

For the locks, the 22% is just that you can pick it in the first minute you try. You can retry, if you have patience and no one shows up to disturb you.

For the spotting rolls, everyone who searches gets to try. Though you may want to have some people looking/listening instead for whether anyone is coming from each open direction...

But mainly, the adventure is not designed as "the players should expect to succeed at most/all things they try - alert PCs should be able to notice almost everything, thieves should be able to pick all the locks without spending much time, and they should defeat all the foes and loot the loot". No, it's about a situation that you have to be clever and fortunate and/or cautious, know your limits, and know when to flee and heal, to survive. And even then you may not because there are some smart and capable people down there who if they learn about you may come and hunt you down in force.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Skarg

For the locks, the 22% is just that you can pick it in the first minute you try. You can retry, if you have patience and no one shows up to disturb you.

Which interestingly means that after 7 minutes you can attempt the default 3d6 with roughly the same odds of failing (17.57% ) as one would with a 3D and a 14 DX (16.20%). ((1-.22)^7)=.1757)

[Skarg]

Put another way, the 7d lock has about the same chance of being picked by the DX 14 thief within 7 minutes as his chance to pick a 3d lock in one minute, yes?

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Put another way, the 7d lock has about the same chance of being picked by the DX 14 thief within 7 minutes as his chance to pick a 3d lock in one minute, yes?

Sub in 5d instead of 7d but otherwise your statement is correct.