"... it is important to realize that any lock can be picked
with a big enough hammer."

- Sun System & Network Admin manual

If you plan on becoming a treasure hunter or in order to open locked chests in towns and dungeons, you will need Lockpicking.  Some low level chests can be opened with magery (GM magery required for level 2s) but all others will required lockpicking.  Most if not all locked chest are equiped with traps.  Traps on level 1 chests will only singe you.  Level 2, will do some serious damage.  Level 3 and above is instant death.  You may want to use the Remove Trap. But in order to use it, you will need at least 50 lockpicking and 50 detect hidden.  However, the majority of treasure hunters and lockpickers will use magery (Telekinesis) to trigger off the trap.

There is a total of 6 different levels of chests that can be found. I also display here the Cartography skill required in order to decode the map and dig up the treasure if it's a treasure chest you're seeking.

Chest Level	Lockpicking	Cartography
Level 1	52	27
Level 2	72	71
Level 3	84	81
Level 4	92	91
Level 5	100	100
Level 6	100	100

In dungeons, the chests will yield different amount of loot according to level.  So you can make quite a bit of money while training your skill.  On top of the gold, some of them also contain some magic items, armor, potions, regs and/or arrows. However, level 5 chests do not spawn in dungeons.  The higher the chest level, the harder the spawn around it, so be prepared to hide, invis, paralize or recall out.
 

Raising Lockpicking

Skill	What to Lockpick
0	Buy skill from NPC Tinker or Thief
30	Town chests
38	Lockable boxes from a tinker your level or bank chests
72	100-200 GM Lockable Boxes
95	Level 3-4 Chests in Dungeons / Towns / T-maps

For the GM Tinkered boxes, the carpenter's skills are not relevant. It's the difficulty of the lock that matters.  Lockpicking is target based so as your level increases, you will need a larger number of boxes.

Most if not all of the chests you will encounter are trapped. You will either need to use the Remove Trap skill or cast Telekinesis spell on it to set it off.  Move back a few tiles before you do so, or it will damage or kill you.

Once the trap removed, you will not be able to loot the chest if:

• It's a treasure chest that someone other than you dug up and that you are not member of the treasure hunter's party
• It's a chest or crate in town. You will need to steal its content and therefore run the risk that a NPC will call the guards on you.

This does not apply to dungeon chests or locked moveable open kegs that spawn in dungeons.  Remember though, when picking up one of those kegs, do not try to open it in your backpack. Leave it on the ground until you have set off the trap, then pick it up.

Khaldun Puzzled Chest

Khaldun is a dungeon that only exists on the Felucca facet.  Inside, these is a special type of chests that spawns and cannot be found anywhere else.  Lockpicking skills alone will not suffice to unlock them. To do so, you will need to solve a puzzle that works very much like the game "Mastermind". You have to determine the color 5 gems and put them in the right slots in the proper sequence. If you succeed, the chest will unlock.  If you fail, a trap will be set off.

There are eight possible colors. But only 5 slots to fill. Also, the same color can be used more than once.

When you double-click the chest, this pannel will come up on your screen.

Your lockpicking skill with automatically be checked.  If you have over 60, you will get a number of hints based on your skills where the puzzle will place for you a certain number of cylinders. The hint will be either the right color, or the right position, or both.
 

Skill	Correct Color	Correct Position
60	1	0
70	2	0
80	1	1
90	2	1
100	3	1

To place a cylinder in a slot, click on one of the blue buttons at the bottom to select the slot. Then click one of the grey button next to the eight cylinders to choose the color you wish to place in that slot.

To validate your sequence or to verify if a given color is part of the sequence, once you have placed 1 or more cylinders in any given slot, you can click the "OKAY" button. You will then receive one of the following messages:

• Thou hast none in the correct position and none of the correct color.
• None are in the correct position, but thou hast X of the correct color in the wrong position.
• Thou hast X of the correct color and in the correct position.
• Thou hast X of the correct color in the correct position, and also X of the correct color, but in the wrong position.

Where X indicates the number of of correct cylinders.

Once solved, the chest will open for you. The contents may include, but is not limited to: approximately 1000 gold, some gems, a treasure map, a magic item and a bag with 50 of each reagent.