This may not be D&D, but it is a party-based game, and there will be henchmen and companions. I’m expecting (by process of elimination) that one of the next companions will be a Ranger. The game expects you to switch them out from time to time. It’s not entirely unreasonable to assume that along the way, someone you hire can find spare points to spend in Lockpicking.
I spotted a lot of the buried things (at least, most of the ones which have maps associated) through normal play on a Rogue who had 7 Perception – the starting 6, plus one from gear (so probably many of those things could be seen with 6 PER). I put no points into PER at all with that Rogue. That’s hardly a massive investment. Jahan starts with 6 PER. Slap a piece of +1 Perception gear onto Jahan and he can find the same stuff. I don’t think that a +1 PER piece of equipment is such a crippling burden that a lock is just going too far. Not to mention that the guy with 7 PER and the guy with Lockpick don’t need to be the same guy, and there are more ways to open a chest besides lockpicking.
West Cyseal has a bunch of combat encounters and houses which feature unlocked chests. Okay fine, that is the starter area needed to give players the resources to survive, so leave those unlocked. There are many places where chests could be locked. I think that if you can take on the Lighthouse Horror and the Tiny Twins at the Burial mounds, the training wheels can come off the bike and locked chests can start appearing.
Places which have unlocked chests: the lighthouse basement, the two chests outside the burial grounds, the one outside the Sparkmaster tunnel, two of the four Burial Mounds treasure chamber chests could be locked. Most of the chests in the Black Cove are unlocked – that’s a reasonably high-level area.
The biggest problem with the key-locked chests is not that they are key-locked, but that outside of Cyseal, 100% of locked chests have keys nearby to open them.
ACTUAL EXPERIENCE AND THOUGHTS WHEN PLAYING THE GAME FOLLOWS:
It became completely predictable very quickly, and because I KNEW there was a key around, I had no reason to bother with lockpicking. Every time I was right, and I found the key I needed nearby.
I’m not griping that I wasted points into Lockpick. I didn’t. I never bothered boosting it past the starting level of 1, and I never needed to.
That was my actual experience, so don’t just derisively throw up a hand and dismiss it as “theorycrafting”. It isn’t.
