Jagged Alliance 3 – How Does Lockpicking Work

A detailed guide on how the lockpicking system works in the Jagged Alliance 3 game.

Lockpicking Explained

Don’t know the usual number, the game has difficulty settings defined in:

const.DifficultyPresetsNew

(Which I think are set by the map designers)

• None = 0
• Easy = 30
• Medium = 50
• Hard = 70
• Very Hard = 90
• Always = 100
• Impossible = -1*

*(Will be checked before any other check and automatically fail the check).

On top of that there’s an additional difficulty (which can be random):

additionalDifficulty = InteractionRand(20, “Lockpick”) / 2

Which, if I’m not misreading the InteracterionRand function, should add up to 10 more points, as the maximum would be 20 and we half that.

Now the check itself first looks if the tool has a bonus for the skillcheck (it’s a negative number, as it lowers the difficulty).

• Vickies tool = -10
• The-Sci-Fi Crowbar = -15
• Everything Else = 0

Then it adds the Difficulty from above (so e.g. “hard” = 70; + additional Difficulty of 10 => 80).

Now it looks if the Merc got the MrFixit Perk, which gives a whopping 15 bonus and substracts that from the difficulty.

• Mr.Fixit = -15

Now it does the SkillCheck(unit, “Mechanical”, difficulty) – which has no roll and just looks if the Merc Skill is greater than the difficulty.

If you fail by more than 20 points then the lock will get blocked.