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LOCKPICKS/DISARM

Change Lockpicking to "Devices" as I've said before. Grant players experience for successfully picked locks and disarmed traps.

Currently lockpicking provides zero benefit aside from a few chests that are otherwise impossible to open. The overall benefit for the investment is almost negligible.

Change Lockpicks and Disarming Tools to be permanent, and only THROUGH THOSE TOOLS are you able to receive bonuses to "Devices" (i.e. Lockpicks).

LOREMASTER
Remove the dopey magnifying glass. Replace it with a book. The book, not items (such as amulet/bracers/etc) will provide the bonus to Loremaster. Grant players that successfully decipher items XP.

I think lockpicking is negligible. Most locks on doors and chests can simply be undone by destroying the doors and chests. Unless those are lv 20 chests, which doesn't quite matter anyway, all loots in chests seem to be random.

Agreed, lockpicks should not break after a single use.
Break or degrade container content if it was bashed or burnt.

Lockpicks are easy to make (nails+hammer). And you should not get XP for opening locks, you don't get XP for opening stuff with keys either. I don't want this game changing to "you have to lockpick EVERYTHING to maximize XP". Same with traps, there are tons of ways of dealing with them, none of them grant XP. Which is ok, for the same reason as with locked stuff.

On my first playthrough I invested points in Lockpicking. Then I rerolled and didn't invest any points in Lockpicking. The first time I just kept pumping it, hoping that at some point the phrase "Lockpick level too low" would stop appearing. It still does for pretty much everything which matters. Right now the ability feels rather useless.

On the other hand, I see Kantay's point that we might not want to force min/maxers into taking Lockpicking, which would essentially be the result if lockpicking granted XP. It's not like losing out on XP in a limited-XP system is ever a good thing.

That's why I think the best idea in this thread is to combine them into a single "devices" skill. That way lockpicking doesn't have to pull all the weight itself; fun things you can do with traps can be another emphasis of the ability points. Allowing players to use and install disarmed traps themselves would be a lot of fun.

I agree, combo them in one skill and reward it properly, like a better loot chance if you open instead of blowing the shit up (and in this case apply a penalty)

I find I seem to always agree with every point Mr. C. makes, and here again.

I do still agree with giving blowing up instead of properly opening containers a chance to damage (or destroy) what's inside.
As for doors, that's a bit more complicated. The "spell use degrades staff" suggestion I saw before seems to have merit for that though.