What's worth stealing?

Kneller

I'm playing a cleric/thief in a party with Imoen as a thief and I don't usually have this much thiefiness. Since she's specced to be a trapmonkey, I'll have plenty of points to spread around. I figure I'll have points for pickpocketing, Not to mention, I've read about a lot of folks playing bards, and it's made me wonder what's worth pinching

The few things I know about:
Cloak of Algernon
Ring of Regen
Rings of Gaxx and the Ram (kinda cheaty though)
various items from Elminster

Aside from that, is the skill just good for pilfering from shops?

sarevok57

you can no longer pick pocket the ring of gaxx from kangaxx anymore ( unless perhaps if you are playing a super old version, although im pretty sure 1.3 and up they got rid of that exploit )

since it looks like you are doing both games, lets see what i can think of here:
BG 1

- the bards during the silke quest, you can pick pocket each one of them before talking to them and saving them, that will give you a total of 4 potions of defence
- in the nashkiel carnival map, there is 3 note worthy dudes to pick pocket:

- the mage who summons the exploding ogre, he has a scroll of blindness and aganazzar's scorcher
- the halfling who sells you the stone to flesh scroll
- the merchant who sells you the 2 potions that will either increase your STR or INT to 25

- in the firewine bridge map on the top left hand side, i forget the dude's name, ( bentan? ) but he has a protection from magic scroll, plus the bard Poe on the bridge has a star diopside gem ( no idea how to spell it )
- in nashkiel itself you can pick pocket a potion of healing from berrun ghastkill
- thalantyr he has 2 potions that you can swipe: potion of fire resistance, potion of mind focusing
- the big time mage in Ulgoth's beard ( shandalar? ) you can swipe a whole bunch of level 4/5 mage scrolls and 2 potions of heroism
- oh, also in ulgoth's beard, you can pick pocket a ring of free action from that black gnome woman ( dubish....? forget her name, you see her as soon as you enter ulgoths beard )
- oh, and also you can pick pocket knee capper and a diamond from hurgan in the inn in ulgoth's beard
- in the undersellars of the blushing mermaid, there is a courtesan named Quelesh i believe? she has the cloak of balduran, most arguably the best cloak in the game
- the male priest in the lady luck temple ( right in front of the hall of wonders in BG the city ) he is holding a healing potion and a tome of wisdom
- in fact in that same area, there is a kid who will come up to you and ask a request out of you, if you are quick on the draw you can pick pocket the shield of falling stars from him, and then go and finish the quest he gives you and he will give you another shield of the falling stars ( although you might not be able to use both, no doubt worth some moola )
- entar silvershield is now in BG1 with the newest update, and if you go to his estate you can pick pocket a diamond and a potion of storm giant strength
- in the hall of wonders ( main entrance ) the 2 main guys there you can pick pocket both of them for a couple nice gems and a potion of fire resistance

and there are some other NPCs that you can pick pocket but it's mostly just random jewels ( like the noble in the friendly arm inn 2nd level and the mayor of beregost in his house ) but i think these are the more useful ones

now on BG2:

- ribald of coarse for that sexy ring of regeneration, and sometimes the game lets me have his longsword +2, its random, but when it does, extra icing on the cake
- in wauken's promenade, there is a noble couple at the middle bottom to right sort of area on the map ( mr and mrs harrold...... i believe their names are? ( actually it's mr and mrs ophal, jeez i was way off) whoever the noble couple is that is sitting down there are ) the male noble has x5 potion of extra healing, and a whole bunch of random treasures ( like 5+ ) and the female noble also has about 5 or so random treasures, this is great if you are coming straight out of chateau irenicus and need to extra money
- also note, the amnish soldiers ( even the ones that wake you up ) ALL hold a randomtreasure4 i believe? which means they could have a mage scroll from levels 5-8 or even cough up some nice gems, there is around 10 or so of these soldiers in the promenade online, go lift the treasures from their pockets and help lighten their load
- also, in the government building in the government district, all those chums up in that joint, pick pocket away, some of them hold the "randomtreasure" item which can sometimes yield some great scrolls or gems

when it comes to stores in BG 1 there are only 2 that i ever steal from
- the first being the "potion" store in the flaming fist quadrant of BG the city ( its kind of north eastish ) all the potions in that guy's store can be stolen from, one potion of which is the potion of shielding....? i believe its called? ( whatever the yellow one is, there are only 6 in the entire game, and this is 1 of those 6 )
- then in the same city quadrant, near the south, south westish.... there is another store, that only sells like 6 or 7 items, but one of them in the girdle of bluntness, an absolute must have for any party ( well at least a full one ) so yoink i dont pay for that one either

when it comes to stores in BG 2 the more notable stores that you can steal from:
- in the promenade near the top center of the map, there will be a dude who sells mage scrolls ( basically every spell from level 1 through 5 that was in the orginal BG ) every single one of those spells can be stolen
- the woman ( lady yuth i believe? ) inside the adventurer's mart, she sells some pretty high end mage scrolls ( even limited wish, so you can do the "i wish to go on an adventure like i've never done before" before ever going to spellhold ) and the stun spells and the like, she can also be stolen from
- also, if im not mistaken, Jayes i believe his name is, will appear to the right center side of the promenade only at night, and he has some pretty decent +2 items and scrolls, and i believe you can steal from him as well
- in the sewers, there is a guy named roger ( near the very bottom of the map ) he has a huge arsenal of potions, all of which can be stolen, plus this guy will by stolen goods as well
- also, as soon as you start chapter 2, the merchant dude above gayen bale? ( god im bad with names ) he can be stolen from as well, great place to get a gem bag "for free" if you get my drift, or even the googles of identification absolutely solid
- actually speaking about that, the black market thief ( actually she is just called "storekeep" but she does act like a black market thief ), who hangs just outside of jan jansen's home in the slums district ( she only comes out at night ) he has a whole shwack load of...... arrows of fire, or acid, forget which one ( and i mean like 20+ more stacks of 40 ) and she can be stolen from as well, if you do the buy plus sell back loop, you can increase her stacks to make it so you can theoretically make her have infinite arrows of that type ( you can do this same exploit with the merchant above gaylen with his arrows of piercing as well )
- when it comes time to ToB the merchant in the inn ( in saradush ) the wizard guy who sells you scrolls ( arcana archives? ) and the merchant outside of saradush in the north forest or whatever they all can be stolen from, so steal those boots of speed, and the scrolls you need, and buy/sell stock on those ammo stacks to make sure you have unlimited +3 arrows/+4 bullets ( or +3 bolts as well if you use that sort of thing )

jsaving

In SoA, the shop in the Copper Coronet is a very solid source of "free" items especially the ranged disruption axe which is a must-have for nearly any party. The scroll vendor in Waukeen's Promenade and the high-level scroll vendor in the northwest corner of Ribald's would fall into the same category as you can basically fully stock the spellbooks of 1-2 mages without delaying your quest for 15K gold. Later, in the Underdark, both the merchant in the southeast corner of the cave area and the merchants clustered in the southern part of the city have an enormous quantity of useful "free" items.

The one thing to be aware of is that doing this essentially knocks the game's difficulty level down a notch, which some players enjoy but others find problematic.

BrightL1ghts

Also Maevar's Guild for free rogue stones and around 8 potions of master thievery <:D

sarevok57

BrightL1ghts said:

Also Maevar's Guild for free rogue stones and around 8 potions of master thievery <:D </p>

that is where i always get my free rogue stone

jsaving said:

In SoA, the shop in the Copper Coronet is a very solid source of "free" items especially the ranged disruption axe which is a must-have for nearly any party. The scroll vendor in Waukeen's Promenade and the high-level scroll vendor in the northwest corner of Ribald's would fall into the same category as you can basically fully stock the spellbooks of 1-2 mages without delaying your quest for 15K gold. Later, in the Underdark, both the merchant in the southeast corner of the cave area and the merchants clustered in the southern part of the city have an enormous quantity of useful "free" items.

The one thing to be aware of is that doing this essentially knocks the game's difficulty level down a notch, which some players enjoy but others find problematic.

bernard in the copper coronet comes with a stellar -128 penalty on your stealing chance, so you are going to need some pretty high pick pockets if you want to steal his goodies

gorgonzola

robe of vecna, the girdle of strength from ribald, the staff of rym and all the other really expensive and useful items sold by the merchants we can not steal from are surely worth to steal.

i am not joking, you buy them, then you sell them to a merchant where you can easily steal and after you steal from him you sell and steal them from a fence or if you wish you do it with all the 4 fences of soa.
this way you can "sell" 2-5 times what you bought and own the item in the end. depending on how many fences you use you can pay those items very little or even gain money in the process (to sell and steal multiple times the same item from a single fence in my book is a lame tactic that completely kills the role playing a thief, almost as lame and role play breaking as learning and erasing multiple times the spells to gain xp faster).

other items that imo are mandatory to steal, after selling them, are the wands you get in chateau irenicus, you gain some little money but get fully charged wands that are a great help in the first part of soa, free summons, free fireballs and other useful effects that are perfect to carry you until your mages are enough leveled up to make them obsolete.

i also pickpocket almost every run the owner of the house where you find the sculptor and their horrible majordomo, they treat you like a scum for no reason, even if you are a cleric or a pally, so they deserve it.
i get only few coins from them, but is a priceless satisfaction...

not EE only. you HAVE to steal a certain tear from a certain genie to get a certain sword without changing alignment to evil, if you are not evil, and even if you are evil to have the weapon and the outcome of the good choice that imo is better.
sadly this has been nerfed in EE
i don't know if also the ring of the ram stealing exploit has been nerfed, in not EE is possible to get up to 3 of them, the ring of gax one is surely nerfed. still stealing the ring of gax is still useful, as to fight the demilich while you and not him have the ring equipped makes that battle more easy.

sarevok57

i dont know where the 3rd ring of the ram was, but now you can only get 1, once you pick pocket the ring it will no longer be on buddy's body

Kneller

gorgonzola said:

other items that imo are mandatory to steal, after selling them, are the wands you get in chateau irenicus, you gain some little money but get fully charged wands that are a great help in the first part of soa, free summons, free fireballs and other useful effects that are perfect to carry you until your mages are enough leveled up to make them obsolete.

That always kinda bothered me (for rp reasons). You take a wand with a single charge of cloudkill, sell it to some random merchant, buy/steal it back and now you have 100 charges?

I basically don't do anything when I play that I wouldn't be able to get away with in a PnP game.

gorgonzola

@Kneller that is perfectly fine. maybe that even in a "pvp soa" a player can point out that is not granted that the wand at the moment you find it is fully loaded, like a purse containing one coin at the moment you find it can contain other ones if someone puts them into it a wand can be charged behind the level of charge it has when you find it. and maybe your dm can agree. but you are the dm of your own game, if you don't want it don't do it. i, as dm of my game, allow it and don't allow other things that many players do, like learning multiple times the same spell, or prebuffing above the generic buffs i have always on before a fight using my metagame knowledge if in game there is no clue of what type of enemy i am going to meet.
to each one his taste and his choices.

@sarevok57 i never obtained the 3rd ring of ram for rp reasons, i never play evil, but i am pretty sure the trick worked. you pick pocket the mage when you agree to find the ranger, then when you bring to him the corpse after killing valigar, and again when he betrays you in the sphere.