I'm sure this is all old hat for everyone, but I'd like to review my roughly one-year experience with Phase and Lock Mastery. Spoiler: my experience isn't that good.

Playing a halfling sorcerer, I make tons of use of Lock Mastery from the other side, that is, asking people to do it for me so I can Phase all my garbage. And I don't get the skill for free, I've invested some fifty-odd demonology ranks towards it.

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I read initially that I wanted to keep a spare lock assembly around, so that when I wanted to add a new container to my Phase arsenal, I could keep using the same key, get that assembly duplicated, and added to said new container.

Practically speaking, this hasn't worked out so well for me. The first time I got work, I had two identical locks made, and one installed on my case. Naturally, that case is from before modern Phase, so the game design is it resists magic, and hence purposely doesn't work with Phase. (That was great news, I had it altered from a pouch to a case with a demonology design explicitly for Phasing because pouches cannot have locks added to them; should have checked its anti-magic properties first, duh!)

Then I got that lock duplicated twice and added to a purse (some junk, I mean very fashionable container, on pshops) and a satchel (found on a creature). By and by with all my components, scrolls and inability to carry almost anything (unencumbered), I eventually wanted another phasing item. (Please note, I do really like the results of this system, just not all the bloody hoops.) I found a nice leg-worn kit for sale, and asked for my lock assembly duplicated once more, and added to the kit.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but either something was broken or a mistake was made. The result was that I had to throw out all my old keys, get two new keys made, get four more lock assemblies made, and each installed on the satchel, purse, and kit. I let the case be for the time being, since it was already a lot of work for someone, and the case can't be phased anyway.

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Now we've gotten the year covered, and it was today.

I wanted my locksmith toolkit to take a lock so I can phase my lockpicks in a sensible place (since Phasing only goes one deep), but it's scripted so it won't take a lock. Since I'd been asking around variously for a couple weeks (not too insistent, needing to usually wait around without some of my standard containers) and found someone willing to do work, I figured the case lock needed to be replaced to match my present set of keys. Anyway, Kaldonis is approaching level 80 now, and might want to hunt in OTF, so having a non-phasing locking container is smart.

Well, the locksmith forgot to duplicate my lock assembly as requested. So guess what's next? Making a new lock assembly, duplicating it five times, knocking out the locks on my satchel, kit, case, and purse, installing a lock on each, and making two new keys. Yeah, I'm definitely getting TWO spare lock assemblies made this time, because it's happened before. I did have some cool bone key blanks I saved from EG 2012, but now I'll be stuck doing stuff over the counter. I mean, was I expected to collect six bone key blanks at EG figuring I'd need all of them in little more than a year?

Also as a sorcerer, of course I know about the time consuming aspect of guild skills, so I like to tip well. I'm up to half a million paying for this service, and I'm back to square one! I'm back to square one again because this already happened and I wasn't even trying to add a lock to a new container in the final version, since the whole system is too picky about what can and can't have locks added. I feel so stupid about this, like it's my fault or something. I should have checked my pouch before I altered it into a would-be phasing case. I should have learned the first time it got screwed up that one backup assembly wasn't good enough. Live and learn, I suppose.

I guess you can know exactly how I'm going to conclude this post. Phasing is great. Lock Mastery seems pretty cool. But wow, this system is so full of "gotchas". So sure, at least this time we just say it's user error on behalf of who did the work for me not following my instructions (he's kindly offered to do all the above work for me). I guess it was user error the time before that. And the time before that, too. From my end, the system is just so horribly complicated. I mean, I guess the upshot of all this is I'm slowly getting Elanthia to understand how Lock Mastery works, despite being a sorcerer.

When I complained about the anti-magic aspect of old containers on the forums about a year ago, I was told that a merchant might come about to fix this. That's not materialized in the last year. Knocking out the lock assembly destroys the lock. Pouches can't lock but satchels are okay. Most any container that isn't a pile of junk is just not going to work. Pardon me for asking, but can we get a single bone tossed to us in this insane system?

In the end, I don't mind the fact that Phasing for weightlessness requires a lock. It doesn't make any sense from an in-game perspective, but it is was it is. Besides OTF and gremlins, it provides a relevance of adding locks with Lock Mastery, too, besides the cool factor. But is there some over-powered aspect of allowing lock assemblies to be duplicated easily? Is there a reason containers made before Phase were designed not to work with it? Could we perhaps expand the list of nouns that take locks? Or loosen the restrictions on what scripted items won't take locks, so I have any hope of ever use an auto-bundling herb kit, rather than giving it away in favor of a 200 silver creature-found satchel? I'm not even asking for all of these simultaneously, but you know, some modest improvement here would be nice.

I'm sorry I complain so much, but I avoided this system for all my years up to the end of 2012. And now when I work with it, it's mostly just a frustration and huge time killer. I cross my fingers and pray when I get lock mastery work done now, but Murphy's law hates me. Am I just horribly unlucky, or do other people find this system as restrictive and frustrating as I do?

~daid (player of Kaldonis)

[Cross-post with Sorcerous Lore, Demonology]

>that will allow them to remove the assembly, duplicate it, create keys for it...and pretty much anything else you would consider useful.

It won't allow duplication. Duplication of an assembly can only be done by the original creator of the lock assembly.

If a client wants to make use of duplicate locks, they have to get them all from the same smith, and if they are the slightest bit unsure they will have trouble tracking down the smith in the future they need to have sufficient duplicate assemblies made up to cover all their future needs as well as all their current ones when they first decide to make use of duplicate locks.

Been there, found its not possible, bugged it, discussed the technical reasons why the code won't allow it with the then guru.

If a guru does decide to get deeply into the code I'd hope that this would be one of the issues addressed, but I reckon the long shelved revision of lore implementation is far more important. Every capped smith is getting a raw deal on picking experience because that project got shelved.

When I have my rogue lock for folks, he always provides a DUPLICATE.

Any master after can use this duplicate to make more duplicates.

No rogue can duplicate an assembly without an assembly already in hand.

Thanks to everyone for making constructive replies!

>>Any master after can use this duplicate to make more duplicates.
>>No rogue can duplicate an assembly without an assembly already in hand.

>OK...color me confused...any rogue can duplicate an assembly that hasn't been attached to a container, but removal of an assembly from a container won't allow duplication by any except the original rogue? Something about that has to be wrong.

I'm confused, too! I understood any rogue could duplicate an assembly in hand, and no rogue could duplicate an installed assembly.

If the exact rogue who installed the assembly can duplicate it without a copy in hand, I may be in luck! Otherwise, I can solve my problems by tracking down a particular gnome that likes to pee on things!

Also, I will volunteer to double check KP once we get this all straightened out. It's a great help.

~daid (player of the temporally-challenged Harvest-Moon clan)