http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6126

Saw this on skyrimnexus and it is quite well done. If you are interested give it a try and some love. I'M NOT THE AUTHOR AND AM IN NO WAY RELATED TO THE MOD.

This is the description:

This is a good mod that improves the default Vanilla lockpicking and seems like it should be the standard. Not for me, though, I'm sick of lockpick mini-games that break away from realtime gameplay. When someone makes something more innovative, I'm all in.

/if u could make lockp[icking in real time and not frozen world it would make lockpicking much harder and more stressful

u would need to choose your timing better not just wait till teh guard turns around.

And I'll take it that way. That's much more immersive to me than some mini-game popup window that's been done to death. Some games already do these features brilliantly in real time and quickly as well.

Major problem with lockpicking is that its not that much rewarding... you unlock the master lock and find few cheap boots and paper inside... while you might open an unlocked chest with Ebony plate inside... I think lock difficulty should also guarantee good loot, otherwise why bother?

Just make it *not* a minigame. *I* am not a burglar, *my character* is, so it's his job to pick that lock when I tell him to, just like it's his job to craft that iron dagger when I tell him to. This also solves the time-stop problem: You don't want to be detected? Sneak. A hard lock will take longer and waste more lockpicks, the better the character gets in lockpicking the faster the lock will be opened.

I kinda like the fact that I, the player, have to do some of the work. Otherwise, what's the limit? My *character* is a dungeon delving adventurer, not *me* - so why should it ever have a "mini game" where I'm forced to control my guy while he walks around in a dungeon?

While the current LP tree s pretty pointless (at least for a player who is good at locks), I don't see that one as much better. One big failing right off the top is that it helps with dagger use and in many cases stelath). Say what? Lockpicking is largely a mental skill (witness the main practitioners today are hackers), and doesn't inately have anything to do with combat or stealth. If anything, asside from making it easier to pick locks / not break picks, it should have perks that allow crafting of lockpicks (duh) and improve the value of jewelry you make (due to knowledge if fine mechanisms).

Expert locksmiths were the clock-makers of ancient times, not its cut-purses and assassins.

While it may not be realistic, a realism based approach wouldn't do anything to make the lockpicking perks worth taking because you'd still have utility perks competing with combat perks. At least with this approach, there are benefits for the fantasy archetypal lockpicker (the cut-purse assassin) so a player doesn't get totally screwed over for getting lockpicking perks.

The unbreakable perk is lame. It completely negates the need to buy lockpicks, the increase in the lockpicking skill, and get the skeleton key.

This all the way, that effect should have been unique to the skeleton key imo. Then again skeleton key should have been much harder to find too I suppose.

In my opinion it's just fine. The key and the perk are the only way to increase durability of lockpicks in the base game (not that it's really needed there), lock picking skill has no effect on that. The key imo, is the real problem, at least this time it's supposed to be temporary, but of course the game doesn't enforce that. Remember that the unbreakable perk has a cost, all those perk points in the lock picking tree could be spent in actually useful skill trees.

With the mod, you'll have to buy a lot of lock picks (or training sessions) to get to that perk, so it seems ok. In the base game, it doesn't make a difference imo, since locks are so easy to begin with.

This mod is a big step in the right direction but it does some bizarre things. Why are there lockpicking perks that improve dagger critical hits and unarmed damage? That doesn't make any sense. Why are there two separate perks both named Manual Dexterity? The Careful Intruder perk, while actually quite cool, would make a lot more sense in the Sneak tree. I'm also a bit confused about the Burgler perk. It says it makes picking locks twice as effective while tresspassing - does that mean that picking locks is now normally half as effective when tresspassing? If not the perk would make you better at picking locks when tresspassing then when you aren't, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I'm not all critisism though, I also have a suggestion for a new perk idea. In my opinion one of the easiest ways to make lockpicking vastly more difficult would be to reset the location of the sweet spot whenever you break a lockpick. While I can pick master locks rather easily without spending an perks in the skill, I have never been able to pick one without breaking a few lockpicks feeling it out to find that sweet spot first. Change the Unbreakable perk to something like "Unshakeable" or "Concentration" and have it make the sweet spot stay still regardless of how many lockpicks you break. This would also make the skeleton key be a little more useful and less redundant to a master lockpicker.

[Edit] I really like the other changes though, increasing lockpick rarity, giving them weight (I think 0.2 is overkill and 0.1 would be better though) and changing the perks to make all locks easier to pick instead of just one rank are very good ideas. (seriously the novice lockpicking perk has got to be the most useless in the entire game, I have never so much as broken a lockpick on a novice lock let alone felt I could use a perk to make it easier)

The fact of the matter is that lockpicking is really a subset of sneak. It's a shell of a skill tree.

I think the problem with lockpicking tree is by itself picking a pock is a bit thin to build a whole skill tree on, so the author drew ideas from related gameplay: dagger for thief class style, treasure finding, etc.

I don't agree with everything that's in there but I find it vastly improve the lockpicking aspect of the game. More importantly, every single skill tree in skyrim needs this kind of redesign to bring more fun to the game.

I would prefer that there not be any overlap between lockpicking and sneak. It's not a subset of sneak, because it's not necessary to sneak to pick locks. There are more than enough locks to pick in dungeons to make the skill worth taking even for non-thieves. My character has never stolen a single item or tresspassed anywhere and he's picked almost 150 locks and has over 70 skill in lockpicking.

Heck, logically speaking as much of an argument can be made that lockpicking should be a subset of smithing as can be made for putting it under sneak. The best lockpickers are often the very smiths that make locks for a living, and few of them are criminals.

I think you have to understand at least before CK comes out, there are alot of limitation to what mods can do. Now within this limit, IMO what matters for now is what can be done without CK to improve skill tree design.

It was suggested in the comments section (lock picking requiring a lot of manual dexterity, which gives you a bit of an edge when using daggers). Also fits the thief archetype, so imo, it does make sense. The problem of vanilla lock picking is not just that you don't need the skill or its perks to open pretty much any lock, but that lock picking itself is a very small game element and making your character a master lock picker does not offer alternate solutions to quests or combat. Until that is fixed by some great overhaul mod, the lockpick tree has to be given some combat benefits to be at least a bit useful.
There are actually four, Manual Dexterity I-IV. Would of course be better to stack them all in one spot similar to other opening perks, but that would leave three perk spots empty. And it's not that easy (currently) to fill those three empty spots with effects that fit both thematically and are actually useful.
I think it could be used in both trees and make sense, but the sneak tree is already a good perk tree, the lockpicking one is not.
It means the latter, you get a bonus when picking locks while trespassing. Does it make sense? Well, some people work better under pressure or in stressful situations, so why not? Your character may just focus his attention more, because he wants to get out quickly before he is discovered (and thrown in jail).
That'd be great, but probably not achievable without scripting.
Well 100 lock picks are merely 20 weight, which is already hardly noticeable imo.
And the old perks had buggy conditions, too, making the novice perk actually affect most apprentice locks in addition to novice locks (which was true for all perks except master, which only affected very few of the master locks it should have). Not that it had a big effect, as you mentioned.

This is more of a request for my playstyle: can you make an optional mod to change "Manual Dexterity" crit buff to all attacks with lower percentage? say 1% for each tier?

One thing I agree with steepledhat is that unbreakable perk is way too OP. Maybe 50% to 100% harder to break instead?

Checked out the mod... interesting, but there's no way to increase ONLY the difficulty of lockpicking? I would like not to change the perks and all that stuff....

This is exactly what I want as well. The Morrowind lockpicking approach is good, but it is annoying since you have to click on the lock a hundred times if the percentage chance to pick the lock is low. I'd rather have a simple system that decides whether my character is able to pick a lock at all (which depends on his skill and perks) and then has a real time animation that takes longer and consumes more lockpicks the lower your skill is (and/or the less perks you have) compared to the lock level. So a character with a relatively low/average lockpick skill and only a few perks would be unable to open master and expert locks, it would take, say, 8 seconds and 4 picks to open an adept lock, 4 seconds and 2 picks for an apprentice lock and 2 seconds and 1 pick for a novice lock. Simple, not annoying and balanced. And it would make opening a lock without being seen harder since it's real time. Of course you should be able to stop picking a lock anytime to prevent getting caught or killed (if guards or enemies approach).

Regarding the mod I agree with Jupiah, it's a bit weird to have completely unrelated perks added into the perk tree. Sure, lockpicking is a thief skill, but so is smithing a warrior skill and I would think it's weird if a smithing perk would increase combat damage completely unrelated to smithing. I'd rather like to see the implementation I explained above and make the lockpicking skill useful. Unlike pickpocket that is not really hard as being able to pick locks is important for any character (and a bit more for thieves of course). If you find a nice looking chest in a dungeon and can't open it then it hurts. And for a thief it's important to open locks as fast as possible (if picking locks would happen in real time) to avoid getting caught. You could even make picking locks noisy so it attracts people nearby unless you pick a perk for it.

The vanilla system is ridiculous of course (like many other game mechanics in Skyrim...), the whole skill is useless and you can pick a lock even while fighting twenty enemies.

If anyone's still looking for a mod to alter the lockpicking perk tree, here's another perk overhaul:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6593

I'm still not totally content with it, but really I never will be until we can unfreeze time while picking locks.