The coordinate system, coupling matrix, and pick-break rules behind every lock in Gothic 1 Remake.
Last updated: August 12, 2026
Gothic Remake lockpicking follows one simple rule. Every lock is built from 4 to 7 rotating plates, and each plate carries a single golden pin; the lock opens when every pin sits in the center notch, position 0. A pin can rest anywhere from -3 (far left) to +3 (far right), and each turn of your pick moves its plate exactly one step in the direction you choose. The in-game dial shows these as seven holes: hole 1 is -3, hole 4 is the center, hole 7 is +3. The conversion is a straight swap: hole = position + 4, so -2 becomes hole 2 and +3 becomes hole 7; in the other direction, subtract 4.
The rail below shows the whole range with the center marked. Before you touch the pick, read the lock from left to right and note where each pin sits. Pins already in hole 4 are done — leave them alone. Turning them is wasted effort, and worse, they are often coupled to plates you still need, so a single extra click can drag your earlier work back out of position.
A concrete example: a 6-plate lock with pins at -2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 3 — holes 2, 4, 6, 4, 5, 7. Plates 2 and 4 are already home. Plate 6 needs three clicks left; plate 1 needs two clicks right. Since every click moves a plate by exactly one position, the clicks any plate needs equal the absolute value of its position: a pin at -2 needs exactly two, a pin at +3 needs exactly three. Only the direction depends on which side of center it stands on.
One more boundary to internalize: pushing a pin past +3 or -3 is not a legal move — the plate hits the wall. What that does to your pick is covered in the damage section below. For now, treat the rail as hard limits: everything that matters happens between hole 1 and hole 7.
Plates rarely move on their own — the coupling matrix is why. It records, for every pair of plates, what happens when you turn one of them, and it is the heart of the puzzle. The matrix below reads like a table: every row is a plate that can move, every column is a plate you turn. The cell where a row and a column meet tells you how the row plate reacts when you turn the column plate. Only three values exist: With, Against, and None. In the example, the cell at row 2, column 1 reads With, and the cell at row 1, column 4 reads Against.
With means both plates move in the same direction by the same number of steps: turn plate 1 one step left and plate 2 glides one step left as well. Against means the coupled plate mirrors you: turn plate 4 one step right and plate 1 moves one step left. None means the pair is fully independent — turning one leaves the other exactly where it was. A coupled plate always travels as many steps as the plate you turned; couplings change direction, never distance.
Here is why this matters, worked out with the example above. Plate 1 is Against plate 4, and plate 1 sits at position 2 (hole 6) while plate 4 sits at -1 (hole 3). Turn plate 4 two steps right: plate 4 lands at +1, and plate 1 slides two steps left to 0 — dead center. One move, two plates closer to solved. This is the rhythm behind every lock: each turn solves or partially solves several plates at once, and the real skill is choosing an order that does not undo earlier work.
Two habits prevent most input errors. First, test couplings one at a time: turn a plate once, watch which other pins move, mark the pairs, then reset. Second, trust the direction rule — With pins move together, Against pins move opposite, None never moves. If you marked a pair Against and both pins moved the same way, the coupling is actually With. The matrix is only as accurate as your observation, and one wrong cell changes the solution completely.
Every lock has two walls, one at -3 and one at +3. Turning away from them is always safe — damage only happens when a move would carry a pin past an edge. If a turn would push any pin beyond the limits, that plate is already pressed against the wall, so instead of moving, your pick takes damage. Each wall hit counts as one mistake, and mistakes are the only currency that matters: your skill level decides how many you can afford.
The budgets are fixed: Untrained 2, Trained 4, Master 6. Training never changes how plates move — it only raises the number of hits your pick survives. The gap is enormous in practice: with two mistakes, a single careless turn ends the attempt, while six mistakes let you experiment and recover from misreads.
When the pick breaks, the lock resets: every pin snaps back to its starting position and you begin again from scratch. The couplings are unchanged — it is the same lock — so your plan is still valid; you only have to repeat the turns. Because the reset is exact, a retry faces the same puzzle, only with fewer picks in your pocket. The table below collects the rules.
The practical takeaway: never turn a plate that sits against a wall in the wall's direction, and count your remaining budget before any risky move. The solver never has this problem — it treats every move that would push a plate beyond ±3 as illegal and searches only edge-safe paths, so a solution from this site will not break your pick if you follow it exactly.
| Rule | What happens |
|---|---|
| Pin pressed into the wall (-3 or +3) | Counts as 1 mistake; the pick takes damage and the plate stays put |
| Untrained budget | Pick breaks after 2 mistakes |
| Trained budget | Pick breaks after 4 mistakes |
| Master budget | Pick breaks after 6 mistakes |
| Pick breaks | Lock resets: every pin returns to its starting position |
| Master-level break | One random coupling is removed, then the lock resets as usual |
One thing changes locks permanently, and it happens only at Master level: every time your pick breaks, one random coupling is removed. The lock then resets with one less link, which usually makes the puzzle easier. Two breaks remove two couplings, and after several, a tangled six-plate lock can collapse into something you solve by eye.
That is the real lever of the Master skill. Couplings are the difficulty — free plates are easy plates. When a chest resists, deliberately breaking picks to strip links is a legitimate strategy: each broken pick is a permanent difficulty reduction. Carry a few spare picks and the math works in your favor.
Because couplings disappear one at a time, pin positions alone no longer describe the lock. That is why the solver lets you mark a coupling as Gone: after a break, find out which link vanished (the game shows it briefly), mark it Gone in the matrix step, and solve again. If you leave the link in place, the solver plans around a coupling that no longer exists — the sequence will be wrong, and following it can cost you the pick.
A clean loop for stubborn locks: break the pick, note the removed coupling, mark it Gone, solve again, repeat. When only easy couplings remain, switch to a short-solution mode and finish the chest.