Didn't I just read in a recent sourcebook some rules for lockpicking? Like, old school style? (non maglock)
Or am I imagining things? I can't seem to find it.
Thanks in advance for any help.

SotA page 100. With a little fluff text in the preceding pages.

The original rules for 3E appeared in M&M, p.27. They're with the stats for Lockpicks and Lockpick guns. I can't see any difference between the two sets of rules, so it seems that SotA is just a reprint.

Although burning up 30 Karma to get the same effect as buying a 1500 lockpick gun strikes me as masochistic.

Yeah well - you can't always carry a lockpick gun with you.

Of course, you don't encounter the old-fashioned pin-and-tumbler locks that often either.

-Siege

Bah, I run into them all the time.

I consider mechanical locks all over the place to be a hallmark of poor gming. Basically they seem to notice that charachters have skills and equipment to defeat electronic locks, but only a small fraction of players ever notice the lockpick gun in m&m. Thus their (poor) solution to this "problem" of professional breaking and entering criminals being able to break and enter is to switch to using a type of lock which is supposed to be very rare ubiquitously.

Same thing with the way all security guards seem to have 5-6 willpower.

They are regular guy on the street security guards! Shadowrunners should go through them like nothing! If you are relying on what should be low end security guards to provide a combat 'challenge' to the sam's and mages the problem isn't that your security guards are too weak, but that your plot sucks (or you really want to play a low level game of some sort)!

Not ALL security guards should have a high Willpower, but its fun to throw in that one every so often that has high Body, Willpower, and Quickness, a very good weapon skill, and maybe dermal armor, coupled with decent dice pools.

Same as when I used to play D&D, throwing in an orc or goblin with real high strength. The players get used to kicking the snot out of a certain type of opponent/monster, and when they encounter this particular one, they are very surprised.

Keeps 'em on their toes. And to use the security guard as an example, unless the security company is weeding out the total badasses, eventually the runners are going to run into one thats tough.

Yea, the occasional oddity is great. Whats best about it is that it suprises players, makes them change thier plans, gives them opportunities to do something cool.

When everything has qualities that are supposed to be rare nobody is suprised. They just grumble and figure out a way to roll more dice.

There was a difference between lock picking in M&M and SOTA and that was in the price of the lock pick gun. In M&M it gave a price for a non-cyber version of the gun that I believe was not the same as the price given in SOTA.

That could be due to research. You get different lock pick guns. This all depend on what type of lock you picking. 2 common lock pick guns are adjustable and non adjustable. This all depends ao your pins in side of a lock. Some lock the springs are stiffer than normal making it harder to pick.

That could be the only explanation.

All the more reason for runners to do some homework on a facility they are facing, little face time with some contacts might reveal something like, "Oh yeah, one more thing, rumor is this place has some old-time physical locks, ya know, non-maglocks, the stuff in those old pre-trid vids."

Why wouldn't regular old mechanical locks still show up? Most of the time they would show up in places that just need to be secure against casual curiosity. Why bother locking up your garbage with a level 5 maglock? Places where electricity is inconvinient to tap also would be prevalent. And who says you need a lock pick gun to bypass these? I don't know about you but a crowbar usually comes in pretty handy on most B&E type jobs, and if you're not concerned about setting off any security devices they can open maglocks too!

The way I look at it, mechanical locks aren't rarer, they're just cheeper and generaly less secure, and more difficult to connect to the Matrix. Most High security facilities would limit their use. However, there are plenty of places where mechanical would be more practical or cost effective than electronic locks.
Any low lifestyle housing complex would primarilary have mechinical locks, sinc ethey are simply cheaper. Man portable lock-boxes are more likely to have mechanical locks because they are more likely than a door to be physicaly abused. A mechancal lock will survive being tossed out of a 9th story window into rush hour trafic more easily than an eletronic lock will. Realitivly unsecure facilities with a tight buget probably use mechanical locks. The computer science lab at the local commitity college probably doesn't have a maglock.
Mechanical locks can be used to supliment electronic locks in a high-security facillity. When access control is important, its stupid to rely on one solution. Its also easy to to create an electronic lock that responds to a pin-and-tumbler key. Its the same principal as the electric ignition of medern automobiles. The key enlocks the key unlocks the mechanism that completes an electrical circuit.
The best and most secure maglocks should require a passcode, some type of biometric key, a pin-and-tumbler key that is made out of a specific alloy. The lock would have a detector specificly designed to respond to the magnetic properties of that key, making it neigh impossible to copy the key and litteraly impossible to pick the lock. For even more security, two physcial keys, two passcodes, and tow biometic keys than must be used at the same time ut are several meters apart.

Shrug, the books say mechanical locks are rare and mostly obsolete.

If you tell the players you are going against what it says in the books (that mechanical locks are rare) and they get a chance to get the appropriate skills and equipment it isnt a problem, but most of the times I have seen them they are just a cheap trick because the basic rules don't even have a way to defeat one. People have all sorts of ideas about fixing the oversight, for example some people decide mechanical lock picking is under the stealth skill (meaning just about every player has a fairly high skill to defeat this rare obsolute technology, heh).

Electronic locks can be just as durable as mechanical ones, probably more so. In general fewer and simpler moving parts means more durability, but either can easily be made to last many years of heavy use.

I know the mechanical door locks on my apartment building seem to break every six months (I think they are buying regular home grade doorknobs rather than the commercial ones they need with >100 uses per day), but the electronic door buzzer that looks 80 years old has never failed me.

PS colleges are exactly the kind of places that are right now converting to electronic locks, especially for shared resources like computer labs. Making and keeping track of all those keys is both impossible and expensive. Electronic lock systems allow you give and take away access without distributing, collecting, and rekeying constantly. Only the startup cost is higher, from then on it is cheaper and more secure.

If current patens hold the computer and chemistry labs will be the only rooms in a school that do have respectable security.

Edward

Just to let everyone know, You can buy Grade 3 (residential) electronic locks right now for under a 100$ that come with a keypad and with or without a key backup. For under 200$, you can buy a lock that uses a blank key with a transponder head or a lock that has a key fob like most cars do now days. The transpondered machine is accessed through a computer to change codes and erase keys. Free software updates for life and all you have to do is shell out for the blanks and startup software.