Open Locks

[talysman]

The Thief "open locks" skill allows thieves to open normal locks.

Or does it?

I was re-reading the Thief description in Greyhawk and noticed this: "open locks by picking or foiling magical closures". That puts an entirely different spin on thieves; maybe anyone has a chance to pick a normal lock, but only the Thief can by-pass things like Wizard Lock without the use of magic.

I never played that way back in the day, and I don't remember anything like that in later editions. What's everybody else's opinion on this?

[Mushgnome]

I've generally played the game that anyone can attempt anything, and the Thief Skill table represents a % chance for additional or exceptional success.

For example anyone (including a thief) can force open a door (by rolling 1-2 on d6 if of average strength). But a thief has a 15% (or better) chance to open the door silently and without leaving a trace, or to open a magical or high-quality door that a normal PC could not.

Another example, anyone can attempt to disarm a trap by poking it with a 10' pole or not tripping over the wire; thieves have a % chance to disarm it even if the mechanism is not obvious to the player.

This is the obvious interpretation to me based on a low-level thief's extremely low chances of success. Are 1st level thieves really supposed to fail at their core abilities 8 or 9 times out of 10? Of course not. Rather, I've always ruled they are 10-20% better than a normal PC at these activities and get even better as they (quickly) advance in level.

[talysman]

I've seen the "extraordinary abilities" approach before. I've just never seen the "open magically-locked doors" version before. I also don't remember the thief's Read Magic being so reliable before (no problem for spells of levels 1-6, level 7 and above have a chance of being reversed.) I thought it was a higher chance of spell failure, applicable to all spell scrolls regardless of level.