A level 5 rogue will quite probably have a thievery dc of 13, if they invest in it and max dex. The average lock has a dc of 25 and requires 4 successes. It takes a roll of 12 or better to have a single success, and will average about 9 rolls to rack up those 4 successes. With 9 rolls wherein you crit fail on a 2 or lower, the likelihood of breaking a pick is ~61%.
Should a level 5 rogue take a minute to open the average lock, and more likely than not break a pick in the process?
And let’s look at a good Lock: DC 30, requiring 5 successes. The level 5 rogue will only succeed on a 17, meaning it will take on average 20 attempts to get those 5 successes. On one attempt in a thousand our Lvl 5 rogue will open this lock before breaking a pick, and will typically break 3 in the process.
Am I missing something?
Isn’t that why old editions of D&D let you take 20 on a lot of out-of-combat things? I’m still not sure why that was removed from both D&D and Pathfinder.
Exactly. Take 20 when there is no consequence of failure and plenty of time. Take 10 when there is plenty of time and no stresfull environment.