Adjustments to Treasure Hunting

Please post your suggestions as to how we should change the treasure hunting system, if at all. One of our concerns is that a single player can not recover a treasure chest alone, except perhaps for a high level rogue or bard.

Currently the system uses the cartography and digging skills. Cartography is used to decode the map into a usable form and then to follow the map to the treasure. The digging skill is used to uncover the treasure. The skill needed in cartography and digging is determined by the difficulty of the map. There are 10 levels of difficulty which we are assigning based upon the player's level.

The treasure is stored in a chest which is set to plot. The treasure, defenders, lock, and trap on the chest is determined by the map level. Opening the chest is handled via a conversation which prevents spells like knock from working, and since the chest is plot it can not be bashed.

Problem 1: At level 10 the chest requires a lock pick and disarm skill of 70, which means a level 40 rogue with maxed skills and epic skill in both lockpick and disarm is required to enter the chest.

I suggest dropping this down so that level 10 requires a skill of around 45. The chest is still hard to enter and requires a high level rogue, probably lvl 40.

Problem 2: Players with little to no skill in cartography and digging will not be able to recover from maps higher than level 3, without the help of someone with an appropriate skill level.

One solution would be to base the map on the cart/digging skill of the player. This could of course end up giving players a map they can't handle.

Another possibility is to make the chest bashable, which would of course trigger the trap and kill the average player. My problem with this is that a well guarded and highly valuable chest would be extremely tough and not likely to be busted open. Plus it doesn't promote playing in a party.