Just to give people more reasons to raise lockpick:

Locked containers (for inventory):


Special thanks to the legendary labfive for the sprites, they are ready to use.

throw out your ideas

A concern I'd have is whether or not it's worth spending the exp on lockpick at all, and where exactly one would find these items.

One possible solution would be to have the act of opening each box award exp depending on how hard it was to open, which would help alleviate the "wasted exp" a bit. The contents as well could maybe include exp scrolls, but largely would be best to contain rare drugs or spell scrolls or something...

A thought does occur: this could tie into giving sense magic some use as well, in a way. Perhaps with enough sense magic, you can guess (this box might contain a magical scroll!) and eventually know (this box might contain an Ishtar scroll of Magic Shield!) what the contents is of the lockbox without having to even open it? The lockboxes themselves could have a pre-determined outcome in this case, instead of the general 'pick a random item to give the player' sort of reward.

Of course it sort of largely depends on what would be carrying these boxes. Random dungeon? Pent quest?

Keep the ideas rolling in

Those boxes have potential to be siiick. I like the sprites as well. Nicely done. Who or what would be dropping them though? Just random small % drops from anything killed?

I wouldnt mind some more chances on armor pieces.
How about this:

Grab an item from a chest in AT. When you AT with that item in your inv, you get a loot box instead of a scroll in AT for every room.
You need max base lockpick for your char to open them, clicking on them would be enough.
Box linked to soul, of course.

Major/Ltcol: Bronze/Steel armor.
Col/Brig: Gold/emme.
Magen/FDM: Cry/Tit.
Random piece, so it could be bronze helmet/armor of life, of a godly bear staff item.

Might take a long time to grind to get the right armor. But maybe not.

Armor pieces aren't linked to soul, so they are tradable.

Easily expandable with different chests in AT central square to get different kind of loot boxes for different items.
A random scroll (normal, ankh, ish, any kind) no matter what level you grind?
Or keep 3 rooms with exp scrolls, and just 1 box per run through AT?

Why not have them appear randomly on the ground throughout the game? Especially in less visited areas.