8 articlesLockpicking in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines allows you to enter places that maybe you shouldn’t. We’ll break down how this works and tell you how to make your character better at it.
How to Lockpick in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
Lockpicking in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is fairly simple. Unlike in other games, there’s no minigame or anything like that for lockpicking. Instead, it is entirely a stat check in this game.
As long as your character’s stats meet the lock’s difficulty requirement, you’d be able to open it. But first, you’ll need a lockpick. You get a free one from the tutorial.
If you skip the tutorial, you can buy a lockpick from Trip’s Pawnshop in Santa Monica for $90.
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If your character is skilled enough for the lock, they will successfully pick the lock. Be careful that you aren’t caught by other characters when attempting to lockpick, however.
Making your Character Better at Lockpicking
Your character’s lockpicking ability is governed by their Dexterity Attribute and Security Ability. Basically, your lockpicking ability is a combination of both stats.
For example, 3 Dexterity and 3 Security combine to give you a lockpicking skill of 6. They both also carry the same weight, so 5 Dexterity and 1 Security would also give you a lockpicking skill of 6. You can increase these stats by leveling up or finding manuals across the game world.
Blood Buff can also increase your Dexterity for a limited time, which in turn makes it easier to open difficult locks. This can be really useful during early and mid-game sections when XP is limited.
If you plan on playing a stealth-focused character, clans like Nosferatu and Malkavian benefit heavily from investing in lockpicking early. Sneaky builds gain access to extra money, ammo, blood packs, quest items, and alternate routes throughout the game.
Wrapping Things Up
Lockpicking remains one of the most valuable utility skills in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, especially with the latest Unofficial Patch versions that restored additional containers, shortcuts, and optional exploration content.
Most modern players use the Unofficial Patch, which continues receiving updates and balance adjustments. The patch fixes many bugs from the original 2004 release while also restoring cut content in the Plus version.
Due to this, exploration and lockpicking are more rewarding now than they were in the vanilla game. If you are playing on Steam, installing the Unofficial Patch is still highly recommended for stability and gameplay fixes.
GOG versions already include a patched version of the game by default, although many players still manually update to the latest release.
