Ah, I see the source of your confusion now. I didn't mean that the unlock spell would go into the lockpicking tree as a perk. Why would you even think that? A spell doesn't belong in a tree that focuses on using lock picks. All I said is that having an unlock spell (in alteration, for example) that could simply open any lock without needing perks, would make the lockpicking tree even more useless.

Yes of course.


Or a companion, but yes.


No, but why waste valuable points on lockpicking perks when you can do the job by simply casting one spell? We need to have a more useful lockpicking tree, not less.


Daggerfall didn't have perks.

No, you are not.

However, if you can blast the door off its damn hinges, why the heck would you bother opening the lock? I mean come on, even if open spells are removed, why wouldn't mages blast locks out of the door or chest?

Same question goes for freezing the lock/hinges of a chest and then shattering it into so many component parts.

Likewise it hardly makes the skill redundant. If you think about how it appeared to be implemented when I ran into it today (cast destruction spell at door, door opens) you could do or think of a number of things to reduce redundancy.

Besides that, lockpicking perks are already redundant because of the mechanic. I've never taken one on my thief.
You seriously think it is a better alternative to muck around with a companion?

It's a very good question.

You can make the unlock script harder to obtain on doors - expert level destruction spells with expert level mage on an expert level door, for example.

Not so many locked chests without keys?

The way this worked in morrowind/oblivion, was that there were several spells - one for each lock difficulty. Meaning that you'd need e.g. 100 alteration to learn the master lockpicking spell that'll open master locks. With this system you'd need an investment in both alteration skill and, conceivably, magicka, in order to open locks with magic. Lockpicking would still be the way to go for more mundane characters. The fact that the perks are kinda redundant is it's own problem, imho.

That said, without levitation, water-walking and open/lock spells, one of the coolest magic schools in TES has really taken a turn for the worse.

What's wrong with having a redundant skill tree? When I use spells to kill, archery is pointless and I dont level it. So what? Mages could cast spells, thieves could put points into the lockpicking tree. If mages never use the tree...well...so what? My mage doesn't use 1-handed or 2-handed, Block or Archery. So What? What is so special about Lockicking tree, that it MUST be used to open everything locked. Killing mobs doesn't have to be ONLY archery, or 1-handed, or 2-handed or spells. Why does opening locks have to be ONLY lockpicking.

For that matter, why does remaining undetected HAVE to be ONLY sneak? Why EVERYONE have to use sneak to remain undetected? If turning invisible were just as good as sneak, like oblivion where invisibility was just as good as stealth, and sneak didn't have to be leveled if it didn't fit into your current character concept...SO WHAT?

The more options you have, more you can define your different characters, every time you make a new one. You aren't supposed to use all the trees. It's a roleplaying thing.

^This.

One solution would make the perks in lockpicking more attractive/beneficial to take. As it stands you can pretty much unlock any lock with a handful of picks no matter what your lockpicking skill is. But if there were greater benefits like greater levels of loot or other benefits it would give a thief type character incentive to actually use the skill. Maybe ranks in perks like Golden Touch or Treasure Hunter that give greater gold the more ranks you take, better weapons/armor so you might find glass, ebony, daedric items earlier than they usually show up, 50%, 75%, 100% chance for special treasure, etc.... Or other things that I may be overlooking right now.

Mages would have to level up Alteration to get access to the appropriate level spell for a given lock difficulty just to get the standard loot. Heck, even if the loot was slightly lower than the standard loot in a given chest would be preferable, at least to me, if my mage didn't have to pick locks.

Same here: a mage shouldn't have to touch anything with his hands ! Need Bethesda to add lockpicking spells.

It wouldn't as mages and warriors dont use it at the moment, and if they had a spell or bashing action, they still would not use it.

On the other hand a thief that would use the perks would not use spells or bashing, so would still use the perks.

Your comment makes no sense lol

Right. My mage doesn't use archery, because he has spells. So no perk points get spent on it, when I'm playing a mage. This is not a bad thing. If the mage could also cast open spells, no perk points would be spent on lockpicking. That is not a bad thing. It's a roleplaying thing.

I seriously doubt Bethesda didn't make open spells because they thought it was "redundant". Why make Destruction spells...it just makes Archery redundant...right? So some trees don't get used when they don't fit a specific concept for your character. So what?

This is one of the many spells that I miss. And I was a bit surprised to see it gone.