I’m curious how people view chests in dungeons. I use to play warrior and when I would see locked chests in dungeons and we had a rogue that chest went to the rogue as they were the only ones who could open it.
Same went for the hide of that boss in UBRS. If you couldn’t skin it yourself you had no place to roll for it.
Now I understand rolling on unlocked chests but I was curious on the majority opinion on locked chests + hide skinning.
locked chests go to the rogue, skins /roll for the skinners
I remember this being hotly debated on classic launch. There was no consensus, but the two arguments were:
Rogue: The rogue is the one who took the time to level lock picking, they should reap the benefits of their work, and the party wouldn’t have access to it anyways if they didn’t.
Party: The party worked together to reach a locked chest the rogue wouldn’t be able to access solo and rogues bring no other utility, so they owe the group for being invited.
I think the rogue should typically get the chest. The rogue chose to spend time leveling a class profession to be able to open current level locks. The group taking claim to the chest would be like a group insisting to roll on ore veins because there’s a miner present.
The argument that the rogue otherwise wouldn’t have access to the chest without the group is irrelevant as long as the chest was already along the path, like in SFK. If the group chooses to go out of the way to get to a locked chest, first, they should check if the rogue can open it, make it clear before hand that they would like to make a detour to open it, and that the group will roll for the chest.
AFAIK, it’s typically been etiquette to roll if you can open/gather/etc. and others can as well.
That is, locked boxes are like any other “locked” resource like herbs, skins, mining nodes. If you’re the only one that can gather it, then it’s yours. If there are others, you can either roll, take turns, or figure it out otherwise.
I mostly pass because of inventory issues to be honest, who has time to sort out pebbles and weeds from your potions and then random recipe that you have to keep… its a hassle, I did get a bag out of one once though…
I tend to loot what is convenient and if anyone rolls like they wanted it pass it off if it was a green or something and they had the high roll, but try to keep the flow of the group and not stop for everything,
I like the typing lesson everyone is getting from SoD
Opening chests for the group is as much their job as it is a healer’s job to keep the group alive.
If you expect exclusive rights to a chest just because you can open it, I hope you’re good at managing your threat because I won’t be healing you 
(I mostly pass on chests anyway, I just get a bit ruffled at entitlement.)
Ah, some good 'ol irony.
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I was always polite enough to let people roll. I couldn’t get to the chest without the group (or wouldn’t be there if I didn’t need to do it for some reason or another) so they should get a chance at it too.
That being said, if someone tips for doing it or gives me an item out of it I could use, I won’t fuss either.
I’m not surprised you would respond that way. I don’t think you understand what entitlement means.
If you don’t wanna share, no problem, find another group.
This is incorrect in every way. Lockpicking isn’t any part of their role. It’s an optional profession that the rogue has to spend effort and time ranking. It’s not as difficult to rank as crafting professions but it’s more-so than the gathering ones.
Unless you want to argue that ore, leather, and herbs should be rolled off, then locked chests belong only to those who can open them.
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You may be right! as I figured it just goes both ways… as you feel entitled to the spoils of a rogue (or blacksmith, or whatever) being able to open a locked box. I imagined sitting beside someone fishing, and after an hour saying, “Where’s my fish?”
But as others have said,
this is pretty common, too.
Personally, I always just “/pass.” Of note may be that I have never played a rogue, nor have I ever leveled blacksmithing.
If there is no rogue in the party and someone actually went through the chore of levelling blacksmithing and made keys and used his key to open the chest, I’d say he’s more than earned that chest, let him have everything in it.
And having levelled a rogue in classic back when it was only vanilla, Lockpicking feels the same
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I often had to spend money buying water to keep my mana up. The tank has to pay increased repair costs to get beat on more. Why is the rogue exempt here?
If a rogue can’t be bothered to level their lockpicking skill, why should I be bothered to buy water going into a dungeon? They can just wait for me to regen normally, right?
For consequential materials (ie, Arcane Crystals at the end of DM:E), I actually would have this expectation. For things that don’t have significant value, you could argue that if you wanted, I just don’t care.
I don’t feel entitled to it. Like I said, if they don’t wanna share, no problem, they can find another group. I normally don’t care and just pass anyway, but I believe in fair play and when people don’t wanna play fair, I’m not really interested.
Most of those chests are empty, but every now and then there’s an item in it that goes for a couple hundred gold. That chest wouldn’t be obtainable without the group’s combined efforts, so the contents of the chest should be available to the group.
It does not seem that we have a mutually understood definition of what “entitled” means.
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This is what the argument ultimately boils down to: greed making people feel entitled to other’s work.
Healing and and tanking are roles you are brought to dungeons for. Lockpicking is a profession. Everyone incurs whatever cost is necessary to perform their literal group role.
Same as above, but additionally you’re touching on why mana is such a god awful resource in Vanilla, which is a separate issue. It’s also one that disproportionately affects caster DPS above all else. If you are drinking much as a healer before BRD that is a skill issue. Healer is the cheapest role to operate by a large margin while leveling.
If you aren’t in a jump run this is an absurdly greedy, entitled expectation.
You are literally the one with unfair expectations.
For sure, and thank goodness, the minority.
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Indeed. I’m not saying I shouldn’t have to incur the cost of my role… so why is the rogue exempt from this? It’s part of their job to open chests. In fact, it’s what makes them a compelling group addition over any other DPS.
If you want it to yourself, you can solo it. Some classes can do this, others can’t, but if you need a team to get to the end then you should share the benefits with your team.
Unfair to who… you? Because you’re a special snowflake and feel like the unique abilities your class provides are for you and you alone, but the unique abilities that other classes provide should be shared freely?
That’s a pretty biased viewpoint.
It is not. No one thinks this or considers lockpicking when forming groups. If you unironically do you are in a vast minority. Hell you are in a vast minority even among the people who agree with you that everyone has a claim to the rogue’s profession.
Without the person with the profession the node rots. The only time you have any claim to someone else’s profession is if you put together the group with the specific intent of farming resources (and then only if you all decide it’s a group where you split everything perfectly evenly, which isn’t always the case). If it’s a regular group the people with the necessary skill roll and that’s that.
I don’t play a rogue. I don’t have any intention of playing a rogue. I don’t make arguments from a position of bias. Things are correct or they are incorrect, regardless of how that affects me.
Had this explained to me in the very same manner way back when.
Just like moon = sheep, it’s an unwritten “rule” of WoW.
There’s just a lot more communists these days…