Is it possible to get a 90% or greater pick pocket rating even on high-level stores?
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Such as the 'Adventurers Guild' and high level/important NPCs etc?
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by the way it is perfectly possible to get their items for free, or even at a positive money balance, without using the trick to sell and steal multiple times the same fence.
a thief can buy the item in a shop where is impossible or very hard to steal, then sell and steal it from a merchant that has an easy stealing level, then he can repeat it with every fence, 1 time each as there is no RP reason to justify that you sell multiple times the same unique and valuable item to the same fence without him noticing it.
in the end you have sold the item like 5 or 6 times and you are still in possess of it, so you have the item and more money then how you originally payed for it.
There in not a RP reason why a fence should inform the other ones about the items he feces or even less about the items that are steal from his shop, so that tactic is RP sound, does not abuse or exploit the fact that you can steal and sell the same item to the same person multiple times and is one of the reasons why thieves rule in those games.
Well they do have a Thieves Guild in Athkatla. Acting as an independent fence would probably be bad for your health and I think you would expect the various shopkeeper fences (and their superiors) to become aware of someone regularly visiting them all ...
in the worst case, that is that all the fences but the maevar guild one work for the same guild, and that they have to report about every stolen item, they can have good reasons to don't do it as it is not good for them, you can sell each item to a regular merchant, as it is still not flagged as stolen, then to gorch and finally to an other fence.
it is more then enough to gain more then how you spend to buy the item.
by the way you can also do it for every valuable item you loot.
having a real thief instead of a lock and traps disabler, mean to have no money problems as long as the thief spend some points in pick pocket, even without stacking multiple thieving potions of the same kind, think that i never do but is allowed by the game.
but is stealing from a person, even if a shopkeeper, you can not steal from the shop inventory, as well as from the inventory of the special merchants there and in the copper coronet.
Mae'Var is very much part of the main thieves guild. Although the PC gets involved in a falling out there, there's no reason to believe that there's no information flow between them prior to an attack being ordered on Mae'Var. If you take control of the organisation (as a thief stronghold), you are then working for the thieves guild (who will take the stronghold back if you don't look after it properly).
you are more a business owner then an employee, as long as you pay your money and you don't try to betray the main guild like mae'var you are free to do what you want, even to keep your thieves completely inactive as long as you have enough money to pay the main guild.
so maybe gorch has to report to mae'var that he has been cheated, but mae'var don't have to tell it to the main guild, that has possibly direct control on the other fences. to do it would lower his reputation as guild leader, the main guild is not going to cover his losses anyway, but maybe would replace him with some more competent leader.
it is possible that also some of the other fences are more business owners then employees, we have not real clues how a guild that control almost all the crime in the town really works, how its chain of command is structured.
my way to play the fact that fences exist and that are implemented in a way that a thief can both sell them stolen goods and stole them from the fence try to give some RP sense.
i don't stack more then 1 potion of each kind, cause doing it potentially imoen or nalia can become the best pick pocketer of the town, if i want to use stealing and pick pocketing i have to spend skill points on it.
and i don't steal or sell more then 1 time an item to a single fence, as i RP that the fences are not in contact with each other.
even if the game mechanics let you stack potions and sell and steal the same item multiple times to a fence, even if with nalia in the party, few potions, the RoV (or other item with high value) and a fence you can become the richest person of amn in a couple of in game hours.
obviously the other players are free to play as they like, and i put some self restrain in it, as also with my self given restrictions it is infinite money (related to what you can buy and is useful), and i try to balance it.
putting skill points in pick pocket is at the cost of having other thieving skills, let's say setting traps or detecting illusions, developed later. to have few key items you can not steal from the shops earlier is in my opinion balanced with having a thief that lack of other useful skills or to have one more fighter that can deal much more damage then the thief or nalia that is as good caster as a pure mage, infinite money is too powerful for my taste.
anyway also selling and stealing each valuable purchased or looted item to a regular merchant and then to a single fence, so there is no problem even if all the fences have to report directly to aran or renal, there is enough money to buy all the relevant items, like the RoV, the everard sling, the str belt, the good shields, pretty soon, if you have a decent rep (that can be rise with money) and char (that can be rise with items).
For example, I've read people that say that
> 100 is enough,
> others that you have gotta more,
> others that say that if you have 255 is enough
> others that say that you gotta have more than 255 to be sure
> others that say that if you have more than 255, the game reads it as 255=0
What a mess
i always try to don't use the wands i get in the starting dungeon, even if with tactics mod the temptation to use them is strong, and as soon as i exit the dungeon, or if i don't have a proper thief as soon as i recruit jan, i sell them to a merchant that is easy to steal from and i steal them.
at that point i have a set of fully charged wands, that i can sell and steal from a fence, being full charged the fence pay them well.
this give me the money to buy some of the powerful and expensive items that then i use in the way i told before, this allow me to have the RoV, the str belt, good AC bracers for my mages, the everard sling and what a particular party can need right at the beginning of chap 2 and still have way more money in my pockets then at the moment i came out of the starting dungeon.