Stealing in Stores - Questions (spoilers)

Oxford_Guy

I've recently started a game with a Jester, and now that I actually have a character with a high pick-pockets score, *and* knowing that there is a "Fence" in BG who will buy stolen shop goods i.e.

Black Lilly

I'm interested in stealing from stores, BUT I have no idea how this mechanic works e.g. what affects chances of success, what happens in the long run if you fail (e.g. as well as being attacked by everyone in sight, does the store stop selling to you for good?). Specifically:

* Does the chance of success vary from store to store?

* Does the chance of succsess vary from item to item?

Also how can I find out the base chance of success? I have Near Infinity installed, so can look things up, if pointed in the right direction.

Is it possible to steal even high value items (e.g. dagger of venom, full plate, light crossbow of speed, even stuff like a recharged shield amulet, which is not cheap) with a pickpockets score of 100 or do you need to go even higher (e.g. using potions of master thievery)?

How high a pickpockets score do you need to pickpocket Drizzt?

Any other pick pocketing/store stealing tips? Thanks!

AHF

I can't give you direction on looking things up, but in BG2 the base chance of success varied from store to store and some stores "have such good security" that you can't steal from them at all. The mechanic involves a combination of a random role and your pickpocket score so if you need a certain number to hit you will hit it every time if you get high enough or fail it every time if you are low enough but there is a middle range where you can pass or fail depending on the role.

The number of items you steal doesn't influence your chance of success so you can clean a store out if you have the room.

Hopefully Beamdog will prohibit stealing from the fences who buy stolen goods to eliminate the unlimited gold exploit of selling to the fence, stealing from the fence, selling to the fence, stealing....

Freche

Oxford_Guy said:

Is it possible to steal even high value items (e.g. dagger of venom, full plate, light crossbow of speed, even stuff like a recharged shield amulet, which is not cheap) with a pickpockets score of 100 or do you need to go even higher (e.g. using potions of master thievery)?

How high a pickpockets score do you need to pickpocket Drizzt?

I'm pretty sure you can't steal from Taerom and I think it's 50 in pickpocket to steal from Drizzt (I'm not 100% sure about that one, but I think I remember reading something like that on this forum)

KidCarnival

Maybe an example helps? My jester was level 4 when he sold the gems from the Prism quest to Nashkel store, then stole them back successfully and turned them in to Oublek for the quest reward. Look at what your pickpocket is at level 4 - that is enough for succeeding to steal mid-value items. I also sold and stole back Greywolf's sword. The only consequence was that I could not sell these particular items to the same store, though I don't know if other stores would have bought them. I usually steal back sold quest items or things I want to use, i.e. the sword when I realized that Shar-Teel will stay around as thief that run.

At level 1 or 2, I got caught trying to steal The One Gift Lost on Nashkel Carnival (at 3300 gold for me), and only the store owner turned hostile and got killed. I can't remember if I ever failed in a city store; I often forget I could also try to steal things.

I did succeed to pickpocket Elminster in the very first encounter on level 1, but he had no items. I was a very sad jester.

I did succeed to pickpocket from the red wizards that you meet on that one platform (Pedvale? Larswood? Somewhere on the Eastern part of the world map...). If you have Edwin in the group, they won't fight you and instead walk off the platform in a neat row, so you can pickpocket level 5 scrolls from them one by one.

TheCoffeeGod

Oxford_Guy said:

Also how can I find out the base chance of success? I have Near Infinity installed, so can look things up, if pointed in the right direction.

Stealing difficulty is listed in the sto files.
There's a difficulty number assigned to almost all sto files, though you actually can't steal from most of them.
Look in the sto files for the "Can Steal" flag, that should tell you which stores can actually be stolen from.

Oxford_Guy

AHF said:

I can't give you direction on looking things up, but in BG2 the base chance of success varied from store to store and some stores "have such good security" that you can't steal from them at all. The mechanic involves a combination of a random role and your pickpocket score so if you need a certain number to hit you will hit it every time if you get high enough or fail it every time if you are low enough but there is a middle range where you can pass or fail depending on the role.

The number of items you steal doesn't influence your chance of success so you can clean a store out if you have the room.

Hopefully Beamdog will prohibit stealing from the fences who buy stolen goods to eliminate the unlimited gold exploit of selling to the fence, stealing from the fence, selling to the fence, stealing....

Well even if they don't, I won't abuse that

Oxford_Guy

KidCarnival said:

I did succeed to pickpocket from the red wizards that you meet on that one platform (Pedvale? Larswood? Somewhere on the Eastern part of the world map...). If you have Edwin in the group, they won't fight you and instead walk off the platform in a neat row, so you can pickpocket level 5 scrolls from them one by one.

In my last game I had Edwin in my party, but still managed to kill most of them before they walked off :-)

Oxford_Guy

TheCoffeeGod said:

Oxford_Guy said:

Also how can I find out the base chance of success? I have Near Infinity installed, so can look things up, if pointed in the right direction.

Stealing difficulty is listed in the sto files.
There's a difficulty number assigned to almost all sto files, though you actually can't steal from most of them.
Look in the sto files for the "Can Steal" flag, that should tell you which stores can actually be stolen from.

Thanks, that's useful - I assume if you try to steal from stores that have this flag you automatically fail and the store owner turns hostile?

Is the steal difficulty based purely on the store, or also affected by either or both of:

* number of items

* value of the item (or possibly some stealing variable attached to the item itself)?

ZanathKariashi

It's for sure affected by the store (Bernard in BG2 is almost impossible to steal from due to a ridiculously high detect stealing rating, even chugging enough potions to bring you to the early 200's, without hitting the wrap around point, you still only have about 5-10% success chance), and item value seems to have an effect as well, possibly weight...though wands tend to be MUCH harder to steal then full plate does.

AHF

ZanathKariashi said:

(Bernard in BG2 is almost impossible to steal from due to a ridiculously high detect stealing rating, even chugging enough potions to bring you to the early 200's, without hitting the wrap around point, you still only have about 5-10% success chance)

You can chug enough potions to get even Bernard in the 100% success range. He requires a 225 to hit your mark. As you note, if you go too high (>250?), the number will wrap around and leave you with a very low score.

ZanathKariashi

Pickpocket always has a 5% chance of failure, no matter your skill and other modifiers. On the other hand, you also have at least a 5% chance to succeed no matter what.

Freche

Oxford_Guy said:

Thanks, that's useful - I assume if you try to steal from stores that have this flag you automatically fail and the store owner turns hostile?

Stores you can't steal from will not have the steal tab when you are browsing the store. You can still pickpocket the seller but that is not the same thing as stealing from his store.

CTKnightOwl

This is a regular thing I do to add about 9000-20000 gold to my inventory. When you get to Nashkel, go to the carnival and enter the large tent where the thief walks up to you and steals some gold then disappears. Have all characters us missle weapons to kill him (no rep penalty) to aquire a potion of Master Thievery. At the store in Nashkel, you can sell your Ring of Wizardry, Holiness, Ankh armor, and anything else you intend to keep that is worth more than 2000 gold. Quick save, steal them all back. (this will take multiple reloads, save after each sucessful steal) When you are done, steal some +1 Large shields for good measure.

This is not recommended for multiplayer since you WILL fail a lot unless you put points unto pickpocketing (which I never do). Even if you do just 1 item (Ring of Wiz for 9000 gold) it's worth using the potion.

Monteron has decent Pick pocket percentage but you can always pick up brave sir Garrik for the task and dump him afterwards.

cheezy but effective.

Freche

But if you rely no reloading (basically giving yourself the money guaranteed) why not just use ShadowKeeper and add the money?

Oxford_Guy

CTKnightOwl said:

This is a regular thing I do to add about 9000-20000 gold to my inventory. When you get to Nashkel, go to the carnival and enter the large tent where the thief walks up to you and steals some gold then disappears. Have all characters us missle weapons to kill him (no rep penalty) to aquire a potion of Master Thievery. At the store in Nashkel, you can sell your Ring of Wizardry, Holiness, Ankh armor, and anything else you intend to keep that is worth more than 2000 gold. Quick save, steal them all back. (this will take multiple reloads, save after each sucessful steal) When you are done, steal some +1 Large shields for good measure.

This is not recommended for multiplayer since you WILL fail a lot unless you put points unto pickpocketing (which I never do). Even if you do just 1 item (Ring of Wiz for 9000 gold) it's worth using the potion.

Monteron has decent Pick pocket percentage but you can always pick up brave sir Garrik for the task and dump him afterwards.

cheezy but effective.

I don't want to risk failing, if I can avoid it, as am trying to do a no reload game, as much as possible, but my Jester currently had 70 points in Pickpockets, with the use of the Potion, would success be almost guaranteed, or would I need a higher pickpockets score?

AHF

ZanathKariashi said:

Pickpocket always has a 5% chance of failure, no matter your skill and other modifiers. On the other hand, you also have at least a 5% chance to succeed no matter what.

In BG2, if you got your pickpocket up high enough then you didn't have any chance to fail when robbing stores. I have had thieves chug multiple potions so they had ridiculous pick pocket numbers and then clear out literally every scroll and item sold in the Adventurer's Mart (woman who sells scrolls, etc.) in SOA and in Saradush (especially mage selling scrolls) without being caught once.

I just tested this in BG:EE and stole 143 consecutive times out of 143 attempts without being caught from the merchant in Nashkel (just stopped there because that is when Imoen again filled up with arrows).

The odds of stealing 143 consecutive times when there is a 5% chance to fail every time is 0.06% so I am going to go out on a limb and say that there isn't a baseline 5% chance of failure when robbing from a store.

TheCoffeeGod

Oxford_Guy said:

I don't want to risk failing, if I can avoid it, as am trying to do a no reload game, as much as possible, but my Jester currently had 70 points in Pickpockets, with the use of the Potion, would success be almost guaranteed, or would I need a higher pickpockets score?

The Nashkel Store has a Steal Difficulty of 20.
However, even at a the 75% that I'm currently sitting at, I still fail.

ZanathKariashi

The Naskel store has a base failure chance of 20%, so it reduces your effective Pickpocket skill by 20 points (your pickpocket chance would be 50%, before any other penalties), then you have to contend with whatever penalties the item you're stealing applies (these I don't know for sure exactly aside from the fact that they exist).

But the max Pickpocket chance you can have is 95% after all modifiers, and lowest is 5%, so even with a the maximum possible Pickpocket skill without wrap-around, you are never guaranteed to steal.

You're just getting lucky, or perhaps, stealing items that cheap gives you a bonus that will allow over 95%.

KidCarnival

I never got caught in Nashkel and didn't even use potions. Level 3 - 4 at best. I'd say it's a risk worth taking.

Oxford_Guy

ZanathKariashi said:

The Naskel store has a base failure chance of 20%, so it reduces your effective Pickpocket skill by 20 points (your pickpocket chance would be 50%, before any other penalties), then you have to contend with whatever penalties the item you're stealing applies (these I don't know for sure exactly aside from the fact that they exist).

But the max Pickpocket chance you can have is 95% after all modifiers, and lowest is 5%, so even with a the maximum possible Pickpocket skill without wrap-around, you are never guaranteed to steal.

I thought you could go over 100% espc. with potions or is there still a 5% failure rate? Worth it for some items though, even if true

guston

ZanathKariashi said:

The Naskel store has a base failure chance of 20%, so it reduces your effective Pickpocket skill by 20 points (your pickpocket chance would be 50%, before any other penalties), then you have to contend with whatever penalties the item you're stealing applies (these I don't know for sure exactly aside from the fact that they exist).

But the max Pickpocket chance you can have is 95% after all modifiers, and lowest is 5%, so even with a the maximum possible Pickpocket skill without wrap-around, you are never guaranteed to steal.

What if you cast a luck spell before trying to steal?

TJ_Hooker

TheCoffeeGod said:

Oxford_Guy said:

I don't want to risk failing, if I can avoid it, as am trying to do a no reload game, as much as possible, but my Jester currently had 70 points in Pickpockets, with the use of the Potion, would success be almost guaranteed, or would I need a higher pickpockets score?

The Nashkel Store has a Steal Difficulty of 20.
However, even at a the 75% that I'm currently sitting at, I still fail.

I always thought that merchants had a flat penalty to stealing associated with them. So a Steal Difficulty of 20 would mean you pickpocketing skill is effectively 55% when trying to steal from the Nashkel store.

edit: looks like @ZanathKariashi beat me to it

JTM

Freche said:

But if you rely no reloading (basically giving yourself the money guaranteed) why not just use ShadowKeeper and add the money?

Thank you... sigh. Apparently people need to be reminded of this periodically...

AHF

ZanathKariashi said:

The Naskel store has a base failure chance of 20%, so it reduces your effective Pickpocket skill by 20 points (your pickpocket chance would be 50%, before any other penalties), then you have to contend with whatever penalties the item you're stealing applies (these I don't know for sure exactly aside from the fact that they exist).

But the max Pickpocket chance you can have is 95% after all modifiers, and lowest is 5%, so even with a the maximum possible Pickpocket skill without wrap-around, you are never guaranteed to steal.

How did I just steal 143 consecutive times with Imoen without getting caught?

AHF

Edit: I just stole another 100 consecutive times with Imoen making it 243 consecutive times.

The odds of that with a 5% failure rate are 0.00038%. That 5% baseline doesn't fly with actual testing.

bbear

You can also exploit game mechanics (if you want to). You just need to be quick. When you get detected in stealing from stores, there is about one second delay from the store screen to the dialog screen. Click pause and talk to the merchant. The thief dialog never triggers.

I usually chuck a few potions of master thievery anyway. I steal about 6-8 items in each session. Save and repeat. By mid-game, I have so much gold I didnt bother stealing anymore.

AHF said:

How did I just steal 143 consecutive times with Imoen without getting caught?

I think the chance of failure is 1% not 5% (1d100 dice). I read this from other posters in this and other forums.

ZanathKariashi

You can go over 100 skill because there's penalties, much like you can go over 100 hide/MS to allow easier hiding depending on lighting conditions. With exception to open lock and disarm traps, all thief skills are the % chance it will work.

Set trap and Detect illusion have no bonuses or penalties...they just do. Though DI checks each illusion individually, rather then a one shot per round to dispel to them, though once you get it to the 80+ range it might as well be.

Open Lock and Disarm trap use a threshold system...if you're less then the threshold, you can never succeed. For Open Locks if you're up to between 1-5 points over the threshold you have a 50% chance to succeed, and over 5 is 100%. Traps are similar. Except you need about 5 points more then the find to disarm them. Durlag's is a good example of this. There's several traps that can be found with 95 skill, but take 100 to actually disarm. And then there's weird ones, like the trap on the drawer on the bottom floor of the Candlekeep inn (that has the scrolls of Armor and Infravision in it) that has a 0 threshhold and can be detected if you use a script that forces non-thieves to attempt to search for traps, even though they don't have any skill at it at all.

AHF

Let's test further assuming 1%.

For testing conditions, I pumped Imoen up to 245 pickpocket with potions. I emptied her inventory and stole everything so that the arrows appear on the first page so I could quickly rattle off stealing 61 items before she filled up. I dumped all the items stolen to get to that point and then saved the game with empty slots since it is quicker to reload than to drop 16 items from your inventory.

So Imoen has now stolen 486 consecutive items without being caught. If there is a 1% baseline chance of being caught, the odds of stealing 486 consecutive times without failure is less 0.76%.

Then I decided since I wasted this much of my life testing this that I would steal enough so that the number dropped below a 1 in a 1000 chance that Imoen was getting lucky.

736 consecutive steals with a 1% failure rate with zero failures occurs 0.06% of the time. For fun, Imoen stole all the platemail and splint armor along with the large shields one time as well. That means the odds of this being random and there actually being a 1% failure rate is 1 in 1631. (This calculation is simple - you take .99^X where X is the number of attempts and you multiply the result by 100 to get the % chance. To get the "1 in a" you simply divide 1 by .99^X.)

I think those people are wrong.

Oxford_Guy

guston said:

ZanathKariashi said:

The Naskel store has a base failure chance of 20%, so it reduces your effective Pickpocket skill by 20 points (your pickpocket chance would be 50%, before any other penalties), then you have to contend with whatever penalties the item you're stealing applies (these I don't know for sure exactly aside from the fact that they exist).

But the max Pickpocket chance you can have is 95% after all modifiers, and lowest is 5%, so even with a the maximum possible Pickpocket skill without wrap-around, you are never guaranteed to steal.

What if you cast a luck spell before trying to steal?

Wouldn't that just add 5% to your Pick Pockets score?

Anduin

Can anyone highlight the PnP mechanic of pickpocketing and see if the steal penalties add or match up to something... I'm a 3.5 ed. Player for my sins, not a 2nd ed.

Edit: Typo if to of...

AHF

There are mods making the stealth and pick pocketing line up more closely to PnP so I would say there isn't a true match between PnP and the game mechanic.