What would a fantasy RPG be without lockpicking? A bit too open, in my opinion. And so, as is tradition, Baldur’s Gate 3 has lockpicking, with many doors closed to you unless you have the tools and skills to jimmy them open. But, it isn’t quite as simple as that; in this guide, we will be showing you how to unlock doors in Baldur’s Gate 3, and give you some tips for succeeding more often at it.
How to Lockpick
Thankfully, lockpicking in Baldur’s Gate 3 is much easier than it might seem at first. Here is a step-by-step guide for what to do:
When you find a door, you’ll know it is locked because of the lock symbol when you hover over it. If the lock symbol is red, know that trying to lockpick it is a crime, and is likely to make you very unpopular with anyone who catches you.
Make sure you have Thieves’ Tools in the inventory of the character you want to lockpick with. These tools can’t be in another party member’s inventory.
Right click on the door you want to unlock while playing as the character you want to lockpick with, and then select “Lockpick”
You’ll be presented with a Dice Roll screen, and given all the usual modifiers and buffs that will apply to the roll.
If you roll below the Difficulty Check after all modifiers have been applied, your Thieves’ Tools will break, but you will be able to use another set to try again; locks never break in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Note: Rolling a 1 on the 20-sided Dice is a Critical Failure, and will always result in you failing to unlock the door, even if your modifiers would bring it above the Difficulty Check.
If you roll at or above the Difficulty Check after all modifiers have been applies, then the door will be unlocked.
Note: Rolling a 20 on the 20-sided Dice is always a Critical Success, resulting if the door being unlocked even if the total roll would be below the Difficulty Check.
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Tips for Better Odds
Sometimes, locks will all but halt your progress (well, I suppose that is their entire point), and you will find yourself against a tough lock, wasting your Thieves’ Tools to no avail. When that happens, there are a few things you can do:
Bring Astarion with you. Unless you happen to be a Rogue (or an especially Dexterous Bard), it is very likely that Astarion, with his base stats, will be your best bet at opening any given door that stands in your way. With a starting bonus of +7, Astarion can make short work of even the toughest locks. If you can put up with his personality.
Cast Guidance. As an adventuring party, you are almost certain to have someone in your party who can cast Guidance, a Divination Cantrip available to several characters. Since Clerics get Guidance as part of nearly all of their domains, this means that having Shadowheart tag along with you in order to cast it (probably on Astarion) can add an extra +1d4 to your check.
Buy Tons of Thieves Tools. Thieves’ Tools are used often enough that there is no reason not to keep the character with the best Sleight of Hand in your party stocked up with them whenever you can. The treasures locked behind doors more than make up for however many Thieves’ Tools you require, and you can retry doors as many times as you’d like.
Now that you know how to break into virtually any room or chest (so long as it is locked by a visible mechanism), you’re ready to truly explore Larian, sleuthing your way into all of it’s nooks and crannies. Good luck!
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Graves
Graves is an avid writer, web designer, and gamer, with more ideas than he could hope to achieve in a lifetime. But, armed with a mug of coffee and an overactive imagination, he'll try. When he isn't working on a creative project, he is painting miniatures, reading cheesy sci-fi novels, or making music.
