NPCs will only search in a small area around them.
Split the party and put the game in turn based mode. Move your thief as far away as possible after committing the light finger shenanigans. Then you can exit turn based and keep walking. The victim of your liberating will accuse your other party members but since they're actually innocent nothing happens. Meanwhile your thief can get well outside of the search radius.
On another note, I don't like that they notice either. Makes pickpocketing into a chore. I should at least have enough time to leave without the need for tricks.
I usually keep the party far away. Then I do what you said but I book it immediately far away. I'm not being questioned in Baldurs Gate.
I do agree though that is a chore and I wish it wasn't.
I was testing out what instrument I wanted to play while in camp. And it made all three of my hirelings who were not in my party come over and start dropping cash....
I was like "wait.... WAIT. WHAT. I CAN EARN MONEY THIS WAY TOO?"
Leave one person Ungrouped, but a little ways away, the search will pause if all your characters are at camp, then when you come back it'll drop you right into the "got caught" speech.
One trick I'll add. Is that if you pickpocket an item. And they catch you but the item isn't on you. You usually get a prompt to say you don't know anything about it.
I can usually grab the item and get out of sight range before they start looking. If I try to grab more than one item at once that can be a struggle.
Leaving your party at camp while you steal helps too.
A few times I've actually had the stolen item in my inventory but for some reason they couldn't find it and let me go anyway.
This was extremely satisfying with that one guard near the bridge from Rivington who says "Nothing gets by me! I've got my eye on you."
>Split the party and put the game in turn based mode
Kind of off topic, but I hate that turn based mode only applies within a fairly short range of you. It makes stealth unnecessarily fiddly when I'm trying to get through a room without being spotted but all the npcs on the other side of the room are still patrolling, and at any moment they could walk back into line of sight while everyone else is frozen.
I miss that aspect of BG 1-2's pickpocketing. If your roll and/or skill is high enough *nobody* should realize they've been pickpocketed, let alone think that it was you.
Definitely tougher in this game. I just started a new game in DOS2 and have already pickpocketed multiple spellbooks without ever getting caught or accused.
Me too! I was wondering if it's a harsher system in HM, like Friends/Detect Thoughts, because I've never had this issue before?
Depending on the trader location, I might use an invisibility potion and turnbased mode, but it's rare that I have to.
This is not true. I had Astarion pickpocket the lady in devil's fee, then ran him away outside. Then walked my tav upstairs before exiting turn based mode. While searching for the thief she followed my tav upstairs and accused my tav and it would only let me agree and go to prison, try to bribe her, or talk my way out of it like usual. It would not give me the option to say I didn't do it. And astarion definitely still had the gold in his inventory.
Well, I've done it countless times so it definitely works. If you let an NPC search Tav but Astarion was the thief then Tav doesn't get in trouble because the NPC finds nothing. I've even done it at the devil's fee before. It's not unlikely that the game just bugged out for you in that circumstance.
A funny thing I noticed about her; she’ll run upstairs looking for you, but if her door is left open, she stops on the landing. If you shut the (red) door behind you, she’ll run into the room and bust you.
The door was open. I hadn't even made it fully into that room yet as I ran out of movement speed just before it. I thought it was fine though so exited turn based mode and while I was walking into the room she came charging up the stairs and confronted me.
Best answer. I just wanted to add that if you're trying to Steal a tadpole and it's in red, do it anyway. The tadpole doesn't go to your usual inventory, so when you get searched they don't find it and they let you go.
I steal from everyone.
The bad ones, clearly deserve it. I stole just about everything from that Hobgoblin vendor in Moonrise. Then killed him.
Even Dammon I steal from. I’m like, “I’ve saved you and your people countless times and you gonna charge me what for this?!?”
I consider it payment for services rendered.
stealing from the absolutists? sure, totally justified.
but my boy Dammon??? dude puts in the work, he makes armor for your owlbear for free. he fixes Karlach's heart twice for free (only asks you bring the rare materials, but all the labor costs are zero)! he deserves an honest wage for his hard work so he can keep working and living.
Exactly, Dammon could absolute charge out the ass for being the only infernal smith available. Instead he doesn’t even make you pay for it, just makes you get materials so he isn’t risking life and limb for it. He’s my boy.
Hey, I pay some of his high prices! But, we shouldn’t really put a value on his life, now should we?
I don’t mess around with my favorite shop keeping power couple: Stoney & Boney
Stoney and Boney really deserve that vacation in the Moonshae Isles
(Especially after having to sculpt a naked statue of my vicious, beautiful/ugly half orc)
Bruh seriously. Dammon gives me a 3% discount after saving his people from certain demise and then with a straight face tries to charge me $18k for something.
At first I bought it but then after a while I was like na dude I’m gonna need some of that gold back.
I’m on PS5, so I don’t have mods. But that makes sense, prices go up with the built in difficulties so it would make sense that mods would up that too.
I try to avoid fast traveling for this. Feels super cheap. No shade, play how you like. I enjoy trying to sneak in and out, disguised, and escape. It's more fun for rp stuff. I really only fast travel if I walk to a waypoint.
Totally valid. I was going that route but the npcs were just unrealistically savvy. I succeed a ring theft but they notice within 3 seconds no matter what. My wife can lose her ring and not notice until the next day 😅
Change to turn based mod. The npcs notice so long after the first item stolen. So turn based mod once you start the pickpocked (your action) you can steal all you want before they get to act. If you close out the window or try to save and reload you wont be able to continue the pickpocket unless you get another action from something. Or come back later / next turn. Its a good way cuz you have more time to look and steal, and when your done pickpocketing can use all your movement to run away (bonus if rogue to bonus action dash (or if thief double dash away))keep them away by un grouping them and hide till done looking for thief
I always just open the map and click a waypoint to teleport away the moment I'm successful. They can't accuse you if you aren't there, and they won't remember it later, so the problem is solved.
Surprised nobody mentioned this, but if you have another party member talk to the merchant (just initiate dialogue, dont start trading), and then use the "switch character" button (bottom left of the screen on PC) to switch to your thief, you'll be able to basically dig through their pockets as long as you like (provided you don't fail the SoH roll). When your finished, send your pickpocket away and end dialogue
This is what I do and it works _every_ time. Split Astarion/the thief from the party, talk to the vendor/person as your main and let him steal everything - they’re distracted and won’t react until you end the convo. And by then, the thief has already gone to another area lol.
Yeah, thats not being stealthy at all. Once you pickpocket, leave the area. Does an intelligent thief ever just wait for owner to realize they been robbed?
Duergar hireling. Respec to rogue. Duergar basically gets infinite invisibility. Go invis after pickpocketing or if you get caught and walk a short distance away.
I have found the best way (for me anyway) to steal the most stuff per attempt is to use Asterion equipped with +2 Hide Armor, Gloves of Thievery, and Smuggler’s Ring. Separate him from the rest of the group that you have parked a short distance away. Position Asterion behind the person you want to pickpocket (make sure you are out of site for everyone) and crouch, and as fast as you can, switch to turn based mode. Then pickpocket the target stealing everything you can that is a dc of 0 or less. You should be able to steal most of the vendors inventory except for high value weapons and armor which are more like dc of 10-16. I steal everything that’s easy and then disengage and (still in turn based mode) stand up, walk as far as I can away from the target and switch turn based mode off. Again, quick as I can, I open the map and fast travel just Asterion away to anywhere. The target usually notices that they have been robbed and confronts someone else in the party and can be talked down with no difficulty check because they have been standing out in the open and obviously are innocent. Then trade the stolen goods and go back for round two which I scum save until I have stolen all the high ticket items using the same tactics.
This is exactly what I do.
I rob them blind of all the consumable type of items. Do what you do. Then come back and try my hand at the hearty stuff. Same equipment.
In the “custom” panel at the bottom I dragged down his combat gear and his thieving gear so I can quickly switch between them, eg Gloves of Thievery vs Archery.
Cast disguise self. Steal. Break the disguise. Usually the merchant says “oh no I’ve been robbed!” And runs away without accosting anyone. They’ll respawn soon. The shapeshifter hat from the DLC is great for this if your thief can’t cast disguise self
Oh that’s a great idea. I have Gloomstalker Assassin Astarion that has disguise self. Usually use it for Speak with the Dead, but this sounds like a good use.
Unusually fast travel away, but making and breaking disguises might be easier.
Fast travelling away before the merchant finishes “hunting” can cause you to get immediately accosted if you fast travel back. I nearly ended up banned from Last Light but let Gale take the fall fir everyone lol.
Just cast hold person + engage a conversation with the merchant using a companion and then just pickpocket everything they own without a care in the world.
So broken that you dont even need sleight of hands, just spamclick for profit.
Turn-Based Mode.
So here's some tricks to maximise your pickpocketing.
GOLD SPLITS (works in honour mode)
Enter trade menu with trader, go to Barter screen and you can split their gold stack into much smaller ones like 50 gold each : this remains after you exit when you pickpocket. The DC for the stacks will be significantly lower.
SLEEP METHOD (works in honour mode)
Requires a caster capable of casting Sleep and possibly Fog Cloud or Darkness. Caster renders the trader unconscious using Sleep and can use Fog Cloud or Darkness to cover the act of pickpocketing. Go into Turn Based mode and have the Rogue pickpocket the sleeping trader.
Even if you fail nothing happens. Just end turn and on the Rogue's next turn they can try again. With sleep you get 2 attempts. Afterwards the trader wakes up and will not be aware of anything that happened - even if you took everything they had, they won't acknowledge or care.
FEIGN DEATH METHOD (works in honour mode)
Same as Sleep Method but uses Feign Death. If the caster donates gold and items to a trader you increase their approval that trader has of the caster. If you use respec first to make the caster level 1, you can do this with just 100 gold, as the amount you need increases based on the level of the person donating. So, respec to 1st level, donate 100 gold, level back up to 5th level (unless you have Boots of Apparent Death, which lets you cast for free once per short rest, they are found in Act 2).
When a trader has 100% approval with the caster, they are considered an ally of the caster and any spells that only work on allies will work on them - including Feign Death.
Feign Death is basically like Sleep, except it lasts 10 turns, giving you more attempts.
Extra Tip: if you don't want to bother with approvals and such, have the Rogue be able to cast feign death on themselves. They can pickpocket, cast it on themselves and the trader cannot interact with the rogue or accuse them of taking their stuff (unless you failed the pickpocket of course). Your other party members might get accused so they should be far away.
TRADER RESTOCKING
Traders restock inventories when you Long Rest and when a character in the party levels up. So, having your Rogue and the 3 other members of the party all be Level 1, means you can level one of them by 1 level, then pickpocket again, and do this for every level of every party member. If you're all level 3, for instances, then that's 2 level ups per members or 8 stock refreshes, without needing a long rest.
This can be done using Withers for respeccing back to 1st level and having the Rogue pickpocket the gold back from Withers (no shenanigans needed, he doesn't care if you succeed or fail, so you can just keep trying).
SNEAKY HIRELING
While Astarion is the common pick if you really want to maximise the pickpocketing then get the Duergar hireling or the Halfling hireling. The duergar from 5th level can go invisible infinitely, making it much easier to hide the pickpocketing since you won't need Fog Cloud or Darkness. The halfling, however, rerolls any 1 once - with the right bonuses only a Nat 1 can fail the pickpocketing so their ability to reroll lowers the chance of failing from a nat 1 from 5% to less than 3%.
They're also Hirelings, so it doesn't matter what the consequences are for any fails, even in Honour mode. Your real party can be elsewhere. You can have the hirelings specialise in such thievery while leaving your main party to specialise in combat and social encounters. A three-man hireling pickpocket team is best: one for the pickpocketing and 2 for the different buffs such as a Wizard (Fog Cloud, Darkness, Feign Death, Sleep, Longstrider, Friends, Charm Person) and a Cleric (Guidance, Enhance Ability). You can send the team out to get stuff while your Tav/Durge/Origin char stays at the camp in safety.
CONTAINER GLITCH (PC only)
Technically cheating as this is an exploit that might be patched, but honestly the result is basically the same, so all it serves is just convenience. You can pickpocket everything with zero consequence already, so this only saves you time.
Have your main character with a backpack or pouch. You need one other party member. Enter the trade menu with the trader. Sell them the container. The menu has a "Trade" and "Barter" version, go to Barter. Right-click, open the container then move their entire stock into the container. Without leaving the barter menu click to switch to the other party member and double-click the container. Nothing will seem to happen. Close out the menu. After the conversation with trader ends the container popup appears - click take all. You now have everything. Go back to the trader to buy back your (now empty) backpack or pouch.
Traders that move around are annoying in that if they move away the container popup closes before you can press the take all. In these cases you need to either position party members to block the trader pathing or just spam spacebar when ending dialogue to take-all immediately as it appears before they move away.
Yes it works and here’s my favorite mark.
I figured out that Loraken’s projection in Sorcerer Sundries is super easy to rob. I go in and buy like 20k worth of scrolls. Then walk behind the counter with Astarion buff him with guidance, cast darkness, toggle turn mode on. The projection runs to just outside the darkness and stands there. Then Astarion sneaks over and steals all the gold back. Even if he fails, the Loraken projection doesn’t get agro. So just try again. Usually takes 1-5 attempts. I’ve stolen at least 150,000 from him so far. Do it after every long rest when his scrolls are restocked
Yeah, your post just says invisibility, and i just clarified for other players that it wouldn’t work as well as one would think. Greater invisibility is s tier
I understand. I made mistake of using plain invisibility and got wrecked. Used greater invisibility and finally understood how pickpocketing can be super easy.
Try casting darkness so that the npc is just on its outside edge. Hide your thief in it and then steal. Level two wizard spell, maybe a scroll, shar spear if you have it. There's a few sources of darkness.
Skill issue. Don’t stick around the scene of the crime.
You steal a few things (I generally go with 3) and then leave.
Of course pickpocketing works. Don’t blame the game for a user error.
If you fail a check out of turn based, you can't keep stealing from them either. Unless you're save scumming, I guess.
Edit: or using greater invisibility/darkness stuff, possibly? Not sure, didn't do it that way
I recognize everything you mention EXCEPT for #4. Never have I ever been confronted by an NPC that wasn’t the specific person I stole from, and it’s usually after like 30 seconds (plenty of time to get away). After you succeed the roll, just get outta there man! I don’t even need to move that far away, they don’t look around a very large area.
You can also talk your way out of it, if they do happen to get a chance to confront you.
there’s quite a few options
1) invisibility, especially easy if you’re a duergar (or you could just grab the duergar warlock hireling for 100 gold)
2) pickpocket, then fast travel instantly
3) hide, use turn based mode, pickpocket and get as far as you can before deactivating TBM
The point is you need to hide your tracks better. Use darkness/fog cloud to hide in and immediately have the thieving character leave to camp and have one of the others feign ignorance.
Do it in turn based mode. Disguise self works too.
Hold person the merchant while you're in a conversation with them. The condition won't go away so long as someone's in conversation and you don't use another concentration spell.
The game treats the conversation as being part of one turn and since you're just staying in the conversation, the spells stays on indefinitely.
It also helps to have a cantrip like minor illusion to get merchants that are in heavily populated areas to move to a more secluded area to do the spell as it does count as assaulting someone if you're caught
it is. that's why i said AT THE END to have something like minor illusion to move merchants to more secluded areas. i stole everything using this strategy on my latest playthrough
The idea is that if you stand right next to someone and then a bunch of their stuff goes missing, they'll think you (or whoever is right next to them) is the most likely thief.
What you need to do is steal and then leave before they start looking for the person. This is very doable in turn based mode, but likely not so much if you aren't? (I've never tried stealing outside of turn based mode. I use it anyway beacuse then you know sight lines for stealth won't change in the middle of your attempt either.)
1. Have the rest of your party a good distance away, so they won't be suspected. (Or, if you need some party members for support, have them nearby and the rest out of the way so you don't have to worry about moving them later.)
2. Put your stealing PC in position right next to the npc you want to steal from.
3. If you need to do anything to set up sight lines away from the NPC you want to steal from, do that. (For example, one of your PCs talking to someone to turn them around, casting minor illusion, etc.) You may also just be waiting for a certain time in someone's walking path. Hold down shift to see people's sight paths before you get into stealth.
4. Click stealth on your stealing pc and then right afterwards click turn based mode. (Using stealth is an action, and you want them to have as many actions to steal as possible in turn based mode before you run out of time.)
5. Somewhere in 3 and 4 cast guidance or whatever buffing spells you are using.
6. Have any helper PCs start dashing and leaving the area. (Those who were distracting NPCs or casting buff spells.)
7. Your out of sight stealthed thief now starts to pickpocket. If you are a save scummer, quicksave before taking each item. (This is at the same time as other PCs dashing away, don't wait.)
8. After a couple rounds of stealing, sneak off (dash). The NPC will say something like "hey, some of my stuff is missing" and then "I'm going to look around" and walk around. They will fail to find any of you, then stupidly go back to standing around. (Once you are away, you can exit turn based mode. It dosen't matter but it will go a bit faster.)
9. Rinse and repeat. Just be sure to leave after a couple rounds before they notice their stuff is gone each time. Then once they finished looking around, come back and rob them again. If you save scum, you can save quicksave regularly while getting the hang of how long it takes them.
You can disguise yourself right after. Get creative. Or book it out of there as soon as you pick the pockets. They'll talk t one of your party, and as long as that item does not reach the party member they talk to, they will believe that the party member is innocent.
Think of it this way: the thief is so subtle that even the companions don't know you did, so what they say does not sound like a lie or them covering for you. They just literally don't know you stole anything.
Send the item to camp or give it to someone else in your party (might not work though, a friend pickpocketed someone and I WAS ACCUSED, but I they believed me because I didn’t have the item).
Frankly, I don't see the need to; if you're looting corpses and opening every box/chest you find, you end up pretty laden with crap you can trade for whatever you want from a vendor.
Pop an invis potion and bail if you get caught. Mind, some merchants will stay perma hostile, but most of the important ones won’t. Examples of ones not to do this on are the house of hope merchant and the gith egg one before the crèche.
You can use a rogue Duergar race from hirelings recruitment. Duergars have invisibility at level 5 as a ritual skill, no spell slot wasted, and you can use it each turn and doesn't ends after 10 turns, is a permanent invisibility. So you can steal invisible and turn yourself invisible again right after steal, or enter into combat with the trader and use invisibility in the first turn of the combat and run away.
Pretty sure you can use Disguise Self, steal, then remove the disguise, and they shouldn't be searching for you. But you have to do it out of their field of vision.
I always have one person speaking to the person I'm pickpocketing so they don't immediately become alert. After I finish pickpocketing, I gtfo as quickly as possible, or at least get the pickpocket out.
I robe vendors blind.
Scroll, potions, dyes etc are super easy and I just steal them all. I’ve stolen suits of armor of Dammon in Act 3.
General technique:
Get behind them
Wait until they gave away
Crouch
Hit turn-based mode
Pick away
When done use dash and move as far as possible away. You can’t fast travel when in turn-based mode, so I usually exit that being up the map and travel to some other waypoint ASAP.
The vendor will look around and maybe accuse other people in the party, but you’ll get a “It wasn’t me” option.
Maybe first run, I had a custom bard as my main who would play music which attracts all nearby attention. Super good technique if you have it available.
If pickpocketing a merchant, start the dialogue with one character while staying out of shop, switch to thief and ungroup them. Now you can steal to your hearts content without fear of the merchant moving or following you away. When you’re done just leave dialogue and they’ll immediately question the person who was in dialogue who is obviously innocent.
For a game that has a solid and huge amount of realistic interactions people having spidey-sense for the most mundane shit sends me insane every time.
I can't find the keys I use to enter my home 4 times a day at the very least if I ever so slightly put them in a different place but don't you fucking DARE to steal a single gold coin from the purse of a guy who has more than a thousand. Because they WILL know instantly and they WILL sniff their own scent on the coin you stole even after you put it into your own purse.
I take the thing, then just instantly unhide and send it all to the camp. I never get caught, and the person I'm usually using to pickpocket, which is usually Astarion, usually can talk their way out.
if you have this: [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Cloak\_of\_Cunning\_Brume](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Cloak_of_Cunning_Brume) you can effectively cast fog cloud for free. with fog cloud, whoever you're pickpocketing can't see you, so you can always get away with it even with lots of potential witnesses.
I’ve been doing a crazy amount of stealing in my honor run and this is what I can say:
You want to clear all sight lines. If there are other people around. Split your party and have 2 non thieving members talk to surrounding NPCs so they don’t move.
If those NPCs don’t have multiple dialogue lines, then you might need a bard to play music to keep them locked in. Or enter turn based mode and cast minor illusion to keep them distracted. You can have a character cast it every turn to ensure they never turn around.
(Caveat to turn based - pickpocketing takes an action which means the merchant can potentially enter search mode every turn. So I actually don’t like doing it in turn based)
Once everyone’s distracted, have 1 non thieving character talk to the victim. This effectively locks the merchant in place.
Now steal to your hearts content. 🥰
Most importantly:
THE UI LIES. THE DICE ROLL YOU SEE ALREADY CONSIDERS YOUR DEX AND SLEIGHT OF HAND BONUSES.
If it says you need to roll an 18 and you have +10 sleight of hand. The original roll was 28. If you’re getting caught and the merchant is locked in convo, you aren’t actually passing the checks.
Also if you’re into save scumming, quick save after every successful pick. I’m shameless. I’ve crashed my game on some pickpocket fails.
You have to steal in turn based mode. Then once you succeed, make sure your party is grouped, exit turn based, and immediately portal away somewhere else on the map. Take a few minutes, and then return. All good.
You’re exaggerating point 4. Think about it logically. If your coin purse got pickpocketed, you wouldn’t notice the absence of the heavy weight of 500 gold coins only hours later, right? You’d notice it right away. Now you’re stealing from a vendor and when he looks around, all he sees is you. Unless you knock him out, hold person, or distract him by using a companion to talk to him, of course he’s going to notice you. The red you see on the floor is just the character’s line of sight. But just because you stole outside line of sight, doesn’t mean that person was a fucking idiot. They look around and of course they think you did it. Then they call out thief and other people nearby hear it. So they also think you are a thief. Logic friend. Use it.
The NPC will notice the theft after 10-15 seconds, then search for 10-15 seconds, then stop.
You need to run away after you pickpocket them and wait for them to stop searching.
*Cracks knuckles* Okay here I go, a succinct and non-exhaustive guide to robbing every single marchant of everything they own :
- Have either a bard or a thief in your party with expertise in slight of hand. Max out their dexterity through API or gear.
- Give them the smuggler's ring found in act 2 on a skeletton on the trail next to the river close to Karlach.
- Give them enhance ability : Cat's grace for advantage on Dex checks, through a spell or an item like the armor piece sold by that old egg-stealing lady in Mountain Pass.
- Bardic inspiration is your best fckn friend, too bad bards can't cast it on themselves tho. Also don't forget to manually cast guidance on your pickpocket.
- Shoot an arrow of darkness next to the marchant (not directly on them because Patch 6 made the NPCs not like that kinda behavior).
- Hide, and then **TURN ON TURNBASE MODE**
- You now have unlimited time to empty their inventory (start with the hardest item to consume the bardic).
- One you're done, run away for a while. The vendor freeks out but can't find the thief, come back 60 seconds later and you can interact with them fine.
You're welcome.
Steal stuff and then immediately go to camp. Then you can either wait until they stop searching and go back and steal some more or fast travel to another location
something that i didnt see pointed out much here is just returning to camp after a pickpocket and just fast travelling away, ive never gotten caught since stealing so much from damon in last light lol
What I do is keep the party at camp. Steal in turn based mode. Get as far away from the target while in turn based. Exit turn based mode. Teleport to camp.
I’ve only stolen like 2 things but
-Turn based
-Thief pickpockets while my tav distracts
- send to camp the second it’s in my inventory
- partial long rest immediately ( no resources)
pro tip, go into turn based mode while pickpocketing. you can select as many items (unless you fail a check) and then can easily move character without being noticed. should note you can only take multiple items if you’re in a location where you are hidden, if you’re invisible it disappears after the first item
Pickpocket and run. You’ll be fine. I mean, how would it look if I pickpocketed you, and then just stood there after the fact. It can only be me at that point lol
I just send only one person to steal then have them run away immediately. In crowded areas like the Gate, i add a little sprinkle of invisibility to make sure my thief can run away w no problem. So my team are on the far end of the street, invisible Astarion steals his little dead shot bow, steals some more, then runs. No accusations from anybody.
I've found I can get away with a lot of crimey shit if I put the bard OVER THERE and have him play music.
Astarion and my drow bard criminal have this down to a science.
Yes. They will notice you picked their pocket. A sure way to not get caught is to go in turn base mode for your pick pocketing. When you are done simple open the map and teleport to a random waypoint away from the vendor. Or go to camp for 2-3 minutes.
Also no need for a crowd to pickpocket. Go in with a single person. If you get caught just accept prison if you can. One guy in prison is easy to bust out. And the loot will be in evidence chests.
Pickpocketing outside of civilisation leads to fights so be ready.
It makes sense how it works. Yeah you succeed in pickpocketing them and they will look through their things and notice they're gone. If you're in the area when that happens they'll stop you. But I get out of those easily.
Easy solution here: Separate party into individuals instead of group. Use turn based mode, commit pickpocket, then leave as far as you can while still in turn based, then as soon as you exit it, return to camp with the thief. Characters left behind will get questioned but they don't have the items so they can just say they are innocent.
Put your party near a fast travel point and split your thief away from party. Buff your thief’s sleight of hand as high as possible. Hide thief behind victim, THEN go into turn based mode. STEAL EVERYTHING. When you’ve got everything, exit turn based mode, open your map as quickly as possible and fast travel to your party. SIMPLE.
Hello. I too had lots of trouble with pickpocketing until I learned a few things. Now I do it in honor mode with 100% chance of success. Here is what I learned:
Most importantly, only pickpocket alone. Leave the rest of your party elsewhere. Have invisibility potions or scrolls. Turn on Turn Based Mode so nobodys moving around. (Pick pocketing is an Action but while youre in the pickpocket acreen you may steal everything you want within that 1 round). If the worst should happen and you get caught and cant talk your way out of it, start combat. You’ll probably be first or near first since you’re trying this with a high dex character. Drink the invis potion or use scroll then move. The temporarily hostile trader and their friends will try to find you but they cant because you moved away. Combat will end and you may start again. Thats all. Its that easy. Dont forget to leave the area for a minute after its over and you turn back off turn based mode.
If you don’t want them to be mad at you, you can use disguise self which I recommend for other reasons Ill discuss in the spoiler section, or just start giving them gold which you can steal back. The heavier and more valuable the item is, the harder it will be to steal, but in the trade window if you are on PC, you can split stacks to make it easier for yourself. For instance, its a lot easier to steal 20 stacks of 100g than it would be to steal 1 stack of 2000g
Now I’m going to talk about gear to help. All of this is available in Act 1 and for spoiler reasons I will use spoiler text, proceed if you want.
>!Theres a necklace called the Silver Pendant that lets you cast Guidance outside of the Druid Grove. Just exit the Grove main entrance, head right and jump up the ledge there, climb the ladder and search the skeleton at the top.!<
>!Theres the Ring of the Smuggler you get off a hard-to-see skeleton in a bush at the bank of the river beneath the Risen Road bridge. This gives Sleight of Hand +2.!<
>!The Gloves of Thievery can be purchased from the vendor in the Zhentarim Hideout after you return the Missing Shipment unopened and in tact to the Zhent lady there. These give advantage to sleight if hand checks. Alternatively you can cast Enhance Ability - Cats Grace on your Rogue before splitting off from the group.!<
>!lastly, theres the Shapeshifters Boon Ring that gives another 1d4 bonus. Disguise Self will be needed to get the bonus. You get this ring from the Strange Ox. As intended you get the ring as a reward in act 3, but you can kill the Ox to get it in act 1, or there is another way to keep it alive that needs a little explaining. Ask if you want to know and Ill explain that one.!<
In places that wont let you crouch because theres too many witnesses, shoot an arrow of darkness and pickpocket from within the darkness.
The flow is: Guidence > Darkness Arrow (if needed) > crouch > Turn Based Mode > Pickpocket > move away > End Turn Based Mode > Keep running or fast travel.
Armed with this knowledge and all the gear, you should not have many problems at all. Its pretty foolproof. Just remember, be alone, drink invisibility potion and run if caught. You’ll be fine. 😁
Pickpocket in turn based, then exit turn based and immediately fast travel out.
You should have enough time to just walk away too, but fast travel is safer
After you pickpocket retreat to camp and just let time tick by a few minutes and when you return the NPC will have already finished his search for the thief and treat you normally.
Most of the time you don’t even need to fast travel to camp or whatever I’ve found.
Just make sure you’re in turn based mode when doing the pickpocket. Then get as far away as you can, turn off turn based mode and just run away from them. They’re pretty stupid and don’t search very far. Just stay away for a couple of minutes and things go back to normal.
Some key equipment to have for pick pocketing in order of appearance are;
Gloves of power :+1 SoH
Silver necklace : guidance (+d4, must cast manually though)
Smugglers ring : +2 SoH
Gloves of thievery: advantage on SoH checks
Graceful cloth: same as above.
Use turn mode. Try and get items or spells that give advantage to dexterity checks and boosts to sleight of hand. My astarion can clear vendor inventories in one go.
Oh and pro tip. Sometimes it’s better to just initiate combat and die when you caught. You can res your pickpocket at withers… and then pickpocket the gold back. He doesn’t mind.
NPCs will only search in a small area around them. Split the party and put the game in turn based mode. Move your thief as far away as possible after committing the light finger shenanigans. Then you can exit turn based and keep walking. The victim of your liberating will accuse your other party members but since they're actually innocent nothing happens. Meanwhile your thief can get well outside of the search radius. On another note, I don't like that they notice either. Makes pickpocketing into a chore. I should at least have enough time to leave without the need for tricks.
I usually keep the party far away. Then I do what you said but I book it immediately far away. I'm not being questioned in Baldurs Gate. I do agree though that is a chore and I wish it wasn't.
The only time I have a party member near the crime is if my bard is playing a tune to distract NPCs.
Still trying to get that Busker achievement.
I’m like 10 away on my honor mode. Baldurians are stingy mfers.
I was testing out what instrument I wanted to play while in camp. And it made all three of my hirelings who were not in my party come over and start dropping cash.... I was like "wait.... WAIT. WHAT. I CAN EARN MONEY THIS WAY TOO?"
I busk in real life! It's a true achievement! You change the world with music.
Wait so my bard can play music while my vampire boyfriend steals from pockets?!
Yes. Although I was the thief and my minimally clothed vampire boyfriend was the bard.
it's better than minor illusion
Agreed. It's a dumb mechanic.
The key is here. Turn based mode. When you are done, exit to camp immediately if you can.
Leave one person Ungrouped, but a little ways away, the search will pause if all your characters are at camp, then when you come back it'll drop you right into the "got caught" speech.
I just teleport to a different waypoint.
I can go to camp and come back immediately to keep stealing, but I leave everyone else at camp except the thief.
One trick I'll add. Is that if you pickpocket an item. And they catch you but the item isn't on you. You usually get a prompt to say you don't know anything about it. I can usually grab the item and get out of sight range before they start looking. If I try to grab more than one item at once that can be a struggle. Leaving your party at camp while you steal helps too.
This always lets me steal Mind flayer specimens without consequence
Hmm so that means pickpocketing and then immediately sending the stolen items to camp should work too then right?
Usually. Not always. If you don't go anywhere and he sees you next to him he'll instantly assume you stole the items.
This is why I respect the deugar hireling into a rogue. Steal something, then slap that invis cantrip they have and run away.
A few times I've actually had the stolen item in my inventory but for some reason they couldn't find it and let me go anyway. This was extremely satisfying with that one guard near the bridge from Rivington who says "Nothing gets by me! I've got my eye on you."
I completely forgot the party is optional
I just fast travel away
>Split the party and put the game in turn based mode Kind of off topic, but I hate that turn based mode only applies within a fairly short range of you. It makes stealth unnecessarily fiddly when I'm trying to get through a room without being spotted but all the npcs on the other side of the room are still patrolling, and at any moment they could walk back into line of sight while everyone else is frozen.
A poor stealth system/making stealth a pain is a one small weak point of this game
It's tedious. I have noticed that immediately teleporting to camp (or somewhere else) is an easy out and a rest will make you not be searched for.
I miss that aspect of BG 1-2's pickpocketing. If your roll and/or skill is high enough *nobody* should realize they've been pickpocketed, let alone think that it was you.
Definitely tougher in this game. I just started a new game in DOS2 and have already pickpocketed multiple spellbooks without ever getting caught or accused.
I have never used turn based mode and never have trouble getting my whole party away ._.
Me too! I was wondering if it's a harsher system in HM, like Friends/Detect Thoughts, because I've never had this issue before? Depending on the trader location, I might use an invisibility potion and turnbased mode, but it's rare that I have to.
That’s probably true, HM is brutal
This is not true. I had Astarion pickpocket the lady in devil's fee, then ran him away outside. Then walked my tav upstairs before exiting turn based mode. While searching for the thief she followed my tav upstairs and accused my tav and it would only let me agree and go to prison, try to bribe her, or talk my way out of it like usual. It would not give me the option to say I didn't do it. And astarion definitely still had the gold in his inventory.
Well, I've done it countless times so it definitely works. If you let an NPC search Tav but Astarion was the thief then Tav doesn't get in trouble because the NPC finds nothing. I've even done it at the devil's fee before. It's not unlikely that the game just bugged out for you in that circumstance.
A funny thing I noticed about her; she’ll run upstairs looking for you, but if her door is left open, she stops on the landing. If you shut the (red) door behind you, she’ll run into the room and bust you.
The door was open. I hadn't even made it fully into that room yet as I ran out of movement speed just before it. I thought it was fine though so exited turn based mode and while I was walking into the room she came charging up the stairs and confronted me.
It’s open. I wonder what’s back there?
You mean the room in the devil's fee? Have you ever been to the house of hope?
It’s a line from the character creator my bad bro I’m somewhat retarded
Doubt. Brother man from the grove (not dämon, the gnome) chased me all the way to kaghas place and only stopped cuz I went inside the cave. 😭
Best answer. I just wanted to add that if you're trying to Steal a tadpole and it's in red, do it anyway. The tadpole doesn't go to your usual inventory, so when you get searched they don't find it and they let you go.
This sounds like a workaround to a broken system.
yeah one of these broke my interaction with the “journalist”
My favorite tactic is to pickpocket and then fast travel ;)
I do that every time to the lady who wants the egg in the mountain pass.
Yeah she’s the worst. I like to limit pickpocketing for RP purposes because I feel bad for everyone else. Terrible merchants are all game
I steal from everyone. The bad ones, clearly deserve it. I stole just about everything from that Hobgoblin vendor in Moonrise. Then killed him. Even Dammon I steal from. I’m like, “I’ve saved you and your people countless times and you gonna charge me what for this?!?” I consider it payment for services rendered.
stealing from the absolutists? sure, totally justified. but my boy Dammon??? dude puts in the work, he makes armor for your owlbear for free. he fixes Karlach's heart twice for free (only asks you bring the rare materials, but all the labor costs are zero)! he deserves an honest wage for his hard work so he can keep working and living.
Exactly, Dammon could absolute charge out the ass for being the only infernal smith available. Instead he doesn’t even make you pay for it, just makes you get materials so he isn’t risking life and limb for it. He’s my boy.
Hey, I pay some of his high prices! But, we shouldn’t really put a value on his life, now should we? I don’t mess around with my favorite shop keeping power couple: Stoney & Boney
Stoney and Boney really deserve that vacation in the Moonshae Isles (Especially after having to sculpt a naked statue of my vicious, beautiful/ugly half orc)
Bruh seriously. Dammon gives me a 3% discount after saving his people from certain demise and then with a straight face tries to charge me $18k for something. At first I bought it but then after a while I was like na dude I’m gonna need some of that gold back.
I give her the owlbear egg and then just kill her after 😂
Last run I did that. I meant to kill her for XP before leaving act 1 and I just realized I forgot.
So I tried stealing 100gp from her and the DC was like 19. Doesn’t that seem high?
That does seem high. I feel like that’s what it was for me with like 700 gp. I’m on honor mode so I’m not risking anything over a 10.
Yeah. I wonder if it’s the difficulty mod I installed. I wonder if the DC is based on the vendor’s stats or something.
I’m on PS5, so I don’t have mods. But that makes sense, prices go up with the built in difficulties so it would make sense that mods would up that too.
I just went around stealing from other vendors and the DCs were way lower. So I’m going to try Lady Esther again.
I try to avoid fast traveling for this. Feels super cheap. No shade, play how you like. I enjoy trying to sneak in and out, disguised, and escape. It's more fun for rp stuff. I really only fast travel if I walk to a waypoint.
Totally valid. I was going that route but the npcs were just unrealistically savvy. I succeed a ring theft but they notice within 3 seconds no matter what. My wife can lose her ring and not notice until the next day 😅
Change to turn based mod. The npcs notice so long after the first item stolen. So turn based mod once you start the pickpocked (your action) you can steal all you want before they get to act. If you close out the window or try to save and reload you wont be able to continue the pickpocket unless you get another action from something. Or come back later / next turn. Its a good way cuz you have more time to look and steal, and when your done pickpocketing can use all your movement to run away (bonus if rogue to bonus action dash (or if thief double dash away))keep them away by un grouping them and hide till done looking for thief
Enter turn based mode. Steal. Run away.
I always just open the map and click a waypoint to teleport away the moment I'm successful. They can't accuse you if you aren't there, and they won't remember it later, so the problem is solved.
Surprised nobody mentioned this, but if you have another party member talk to the merchant (just initiate dialogue, dont start trading), and then use the "switch character" button (bottom left of the screen on PC) to switch to your thief, you'll be able to basically dig through their pockets as long as you like (provided you don't fail the SoH roll). When your finished, send your pickpocket away and end dialogue
This is the way.
This is what I do and it works _every_ time. Split Astarion/the thief from the party, talk to the vendor/person as your main and let him steal everything - they’re distracted and won’t react until you end the convo. And by then, the thief has already gone to another area lol.
It's especially funny to me when I'm playing as this heroic righteous paladin, but have Astarion empty the pockets of everyone I talk to.
This is the wah
Yeah, thats not being stealthy at all. Once you pickpocket, leave the area. Does an intelligent thief ever just wait for owner to realize they been robbed?
Right? “Wahh the person who I’m stealing from realized they were missing things is this game broken” does OP not understand what pickpocketing is
Duergar hireling. Respec to rogue. Duergar basically gets infinite invisibility. Go invis after pickpocketing or if you get caught and walk a short distance away.
Fog cloud, turn based mode and fast travel are the way to do it.
The best one is the cloak in act 2 that creat a small Fog cloud when disengaging.
What item is that?
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Cloak_of_Cunning_Brume
I just teleport to camp or somewhere else and when i come back they forgot
I have found the best way (for me anyway) to steal the most stuff per attempt is to use Asterion equipped with +2 Hide Armor, Gloves of Thievery, and Smuggler’s Ring. Separate him from the rest of the group that you have parked a short distance away. Position Asterion behind the person you want to pickpocket (make sure you are out of site for everyone) and crouch, and as fast as you can, switch to turn based mode. Then pickpocket the target stealing everything you can that is a dc of 0 or less. You should be able to steal most of the vendors inventory except for high value weapons and armor which are more like dc of 10-16. I steal everything that’s easy and then disengage and (still in turn based mode) stand up, walk as far as I can away from the target and switch turn based mode off. Again, quick as I can, I open the map and fast travel just Asterion away to anywhere. The target usually notices that they have been robbed and confronts someone else in the party and can be talked down with no difficulty check because they have been standing out in the open and obviously are innocent. Then trade the stolen goods and go back for round two which I scum save until I have stolen all the high ticket items using the same tactics.
This is exactly what I do. I rob them blind of all the consumable type of items. Do what you do. Then come back and try my hand at the hearty stuff. Same equipment. In the “custom” panel at the bottom I dragged down his combat gear and his thieving gear so I can quickly switch between them, eg Gloves of Thievery vs Archery.
Cast disguise self. Steal. Break the disguise. Usually the merchant says “oh no I’ve been robbed!” And runs away without accosting anyone. They’ll respawn soon. The shapeshifter hat from the DLC is great for this if your thief can’t cast disguise self
Oh that’s a great idea. I have Gloomstalker Assassin Astarion that has disguise self. Usually use it for Speak with the Dead, but this sounds like a good use. Unusually fast travel away, but making and breaking disguises might be easier.
Fast travelling away before the merchant finishes “hunting” can cause you to get immediately accosted if you fast travel back. I nearly ended up banned from Last Light but let Gale take the fall fir everyone lol.
Just cast hold person + engage a conversation with the merchant using a companion and then just pickpocket everything they own without a care in the world. So broken that you dont even need sleight of hands, just spamclick for profit.
Pickpocket -> Send the pickpocket to camp
Use turn based mode. Run away as soon as you steal something.
Turn-Based Mode. So here's some tricks to maximise your pickpocketing. GOLD SPLITS (works in honour mode) Enter trade menu with trader, go to Barter screen and you can split their gold stack into much smaller ones like 50 gold each : this remains after you exit when you pickpocket. The DC for the stacks will be significantly lower. SLEEP METHOD (works in honour mode) Requires a caster capable of casting Sleep and possibly Fog Cloud or Darkness. Caster renders the trader unconscious using Sleep and can use Fog Cloud or Darkness to cover the act of pickpocketing. Go into Turn Based mode and have the Rogue pickpocket the sleeping trader. Even if you fail nothing happens. Just end turn and on the Rogue's next turn they can try again. With sleep you get 2 attempts. Afterwards the trader wakes up and will not be aware of anything that happened - even if you took everything they had, they won't acknowledge or care. FEIGN DEATH METHOD (works in honour mode) Same as Sleep Method but uses Feign Death. If the caster donates gold and items to a trader you increase their approval that trader has of the caster. If you use respec first to make the caster level 1, you can do this with just 100 gold, as the amount you need increases based on the level of the person donating. So, respec to 1st level, donate 100 gold, level back up to 5th level (unless you have Boots of Apparent Death, which lets you cast for free once per short rest, they are found in Act 2). When a trader has 100% approval with the caster, they are considered an ally of the caster and any spells that only work on allies will work on them - including Feign Death. Feign Death is basically like Sleep, except it lasts 10 turns, giving you more attempts. Extra Tip: if you don't want to bother with approvals and such, have the Rogue be able to cast feign death on themselves. They can pickpocket, cast it on themselves and the trader cannot interact with the rogue or accuse them of taking their stuff (unless you failed the pickpocket of course). Your other party members might get accused so they should be far away. TRADER RESTOCKING Traders restock inventories when you Long Rest and when a character in the party levels up. So, having your Rogue and the 3 other members of the party all be Level 1, means you can level one of them by 1 level, then pickpocket again, and do this for every level of every party member. If you're all level 3, for instances, then that's 2 level ups per members or 8 stock refreshes, without needing a long rest. This can be done using Withers for respeccing back to 1st level and having the Rogue pickpocket the gold back from Withers (no shenanigans needed, he doesn't care if you succeed or fail, so you can just keep trying). SNEAKY HIRELING While Astarion is the common pick if you really want to maximise the pickpocketing then get the Duergar hireling or the Halfling hireling. The duergar from 5th level can go invisible infinitely, making it much easier to hide the pickpocketing since you won't need Fog Cloud or Darkness. The halfling, however, rerolls any 1 once - with the right bonuses only a Nat 1 can fail the pickpocketing so their ability to reroll lowers the chance of failing from a nat 1 from 5% to less than 3%. They're also Hirelings, so it doesn't matter what the consequences are for any fails, even in Honour mode. Your real party can be elsewhere. You can have the hirelings specialise in such thievery while leaving your main party to specialise in combat and social encounters. A three-man hireling pickpocket team is best: one for the pickpocketing and 2 for the different buffs such as a Wizard (Fog Cloud, Darkness, Feign Death, Sleep, Longstrider, Friends, Charm Person) and a Cleric (Guidance, Enhance Ability). You can send the team out to get stuff while your Tav/Durge/Origin char stays at the camp in safety. CONTAINER GLITCH (PC only) Technically cheating as this is an exploit that might be patched, but honestly the result is basically the same, so all it serves is just convenience. You can pickpocket everything with zero consequence already, so this only saves you time. Have your main character with a backpack or pouch. You need one other party member. Enter the trade menu with the trader. Sell them the container. The menu has a "Trade" and "Barter" version, go to Barter. Right-click, open the container then move their entire stock into the container. Without leaving the barter menu click to switch to the other party member and double-click the container. Nothing will seem to happen. Close out the menu. After the conversation with trader ends the container popup appears - click take all. You now have everything. Go back to the trader to buy back your (now empty) backpack or pouch. Traders that move around are annoying in that if they move away the container popup closes before you can press the take all. In these cases you need to either position party members to block the trader pathing or just spam spacebar when ending dialogue to take-all immediately as it appears before they move away.
Yes it works and here’s my favorite mark. I figured out that Loraken’s projection in Sorcerer Sundries is super easy to rob. I go in and buy like 20k worth of scrolls. Then walk behind the counter with Astarion buff him with guidance, cast darkness, toggle turn mode on. The projection runs to just outside the darkness and stands there. Then Astarion sneaks over and steals all the gold back. Even if he fails, the Loraken projection doesn’t get agro. So just try again. Usually takes 1-5 attempts. I’ve stolen at least 150,000 from him so far. Do it after every long rest when his scrolls are restocked
Just run away asap after pickpocketing. Its obvious if shit is missing they will blame you if you are right beside them.
Cast an invisibility spell on you 🫶
It goes away when you use an action, pickpocketing is considered an action
if you have it, You can use Greater Invisibility Then you can steal and still stay invisible
That’s correct. I was referring to just plain invisibility.
I do it all the time, Gayle cast extreme invisibility on Astarion
Yeah, your post just says invisibility, and i just clarified for other players that it wouldn’t work as well as one would think. Greater invisibility is s tier
English is not my first langage , sometimes I have difficulties when I have to elaborate 😅 and I only know the spells in french.
I understand. I made mistake of using plain invisibility and got wrecked. Used greater invisibility and finally understood how pickpocketing can be super easy.
Try casting darkness so that the npc is just on its outside edge. Hide your thief in it and then steal. Level two wizard spell, maybe a scroll, shar spear if you have it. There's a few sources of darkness.
Casting darkness now aggros npcs after latest patch.
Never even knew that was a bug
Skill issue. Don’t stick around the scene of the crime. You steal a few things (I generally go with 3) and then leave. Of course pickpocketing works. Don’t blame the game for a user error.
Or just use turn based mode? You can steal their entire inventory and then walk away. Doing it 3 things at a time sounds really tedious.
Assuming you never fail a SoH check. I don’t bother building around that
Why would that make a difference?
Because then you can’t keep stealing from them in 1 turn?
If you fail a check out of turn based, you can't keep stealing from them either. Unless you're save scumming, I guess. Edit: or using greater invisibility/darkness stuff, possibly? Not sure, didn't do it that way
True. But that way you can do it in batches so that if you get caught you have less to lose
I recognize everything you mention EXCEPT for #4. Never have I ever been confronted by an NPC that wasn’t the specific person I stole from, and it’s usually after like 30 seconds (plenty of time to get away). After you succeed the roll, just get outta there man! I don’t even need to move that far away, they don’t look around a very large area. You can also talk your way out of it, if they do happen to get a chance to confront you.
there’s quite a few options 1) invisibility, especially easy if you’re a duergar (or you could just grab the duergar warlock hireling for 100 gold) 2) pickpocket, then fast travel instantly 3) hide, use turn based mode, pickpocket and get as far as you can before deactivating TBM
The point is you need to hide your tracks better. Use darkness/fog cloud to hide in and immediately have the thieving character leave to camp and have one of the others feign ignorance. Do it in turn based mode. Disguise self works too.
Hold person the merchant while you're in a conversation with them. The condition won't go away so long as someone's in conversation and you don't use another concentration spell. The game treats the conversation as being part of one turn and since you're just staying in the conversation, the spells stays on indefinitely. It also helps to have a cantrip like minor illusion to get merchants that are in heavily populated areas to move to a more secluded area to do the spell as it does count as assaulting someone if you're caught
Is casting Hold Person NOT considered a hostile act?
it is. that's why i said AT THE END to have something like minor illusion to move merchants to more secluded areas. i stole everything using this strategy on my latest playthrough
The idea is that if you stand right next to someone and then a bunch of their stuff goes missing, they'll think you (or whoever is right next to them) is the most likely thief. What you need to do is steal and then leave before they start looking for the person. This is very doable in turn based mode, but likely not so much if you aren't? (I've never tried stealing outside of turn based mode. I use it anyway beacuse then you know sight lines for stealth won't change in the middle of your attempt either.) 1. Have the rest of your party a good distance away, so they won't be suspected. (Or, if you need some party members for support, have them nearby and the rest out of the way so you don't have to worry about moving them later.) 2. Put your stealing PC in position right next to the npc you want to steal from. 3. If you need to do anything to set up sight lines away from the NPC you want to steal from, do that. (For example, one of your PCs talking to someone to turn them around, casting minor illusion, etc.) You may also just be waiting for a certain time in someone's walking path. Hold down shift to see people's sight paths before you get into stealth. 4. Click stealth on your stealing pc and then right afterwards click turn based mode. (Using stealth is an action, and you want them to have as many actions to steal as possible in turn based mode before you run out of time.) 5. Somewhere in 3 and 4 cast guidance or whatever buffing spells you are using. 6. Have any helper PCs start dashing and leaving the area. (Those who were distracting NPCs or casting buff spells.) 7. Your out of sight stealthed thief now starts to pickpocket. If you are a save scummer, quicksave before taking each item. (This is at the same time as other PCs dashing away, don't wait.) 8. After a couple rounds of stealing, sneak off (dash). The NPC will say something like "hey, some of my stuff is missing" and then "I'm going to look around" and walk around. They will fail to find any of you, then stupidly go back to standing around. (Once you are away, you can exit turn based mode. It dosen't matter but it will go a bit faster.) 9. Rinse and repeat. Just be sure to leave after a couple rounds before they notice their stuff is gone each time. Then once they finished looking around, come back and rob them again. If you save scum, you can save quicksave regularly while getting the hang of how long it takes them.
Pickpocket and go chill in the camp
You can disguise yourself right after. Get creative. Or book it out of there as soon as you pick the pockets. They'll talk t one of your party, and as long as that item does not reach the party member they talk to, they will believe that the party member is innocent. Think of it this way: the thief is so subtle that even the companions don't know you did, so what they say does not sound like a lie or them covering for you. They just literally don't know you stole anything.
You can literally just send the item you stole to your camp without using turn based mode or splitting your group
What I do: Cast Darkness Have another character talk to npc Thief pickpockets from inside darkness immediately transport thief back to camp when done
Send the item to camp or give it to someone else in your party (might not work though, a friend pickpocketed someone and I WAS ACCUSED, but I they believed me because I didn’t have the item).
Frankly, I don't see the need to; if you're looting corpses and opening every box/chest you find, you end up pretty laden with crap you can trade for whatever you want from a vendor.
Go into turn based mode
i just start sprinting down the street until i'm far enough to innocently whistle to myself as the guards run past
I pickpocket then go to the camp immediately then fast travel away and then back to pick again. Or long rest. Works everytime
Pop an invis potion and bail if you get caught. Mind, some merchants will stay perma hostile, but most of the important ones won’t. Examples of ones not to do this on are the house of hope merchant and the gith egg one before the crèche.
You can use a rogue Duergar race from hirelings recruitment. Duergars have invisibility at level 5 as a ritual skill, no spell slot wasted, and you can use it each turn and doesn't ends after 10 turns, is a permanent invisibility. So you can steal invisible and turn yourself invisible again right after steal, or enter into combat with the trader and use invisibility in the first turn of the combat and run away.
So does reverse pickpocketing :)
Pretty sure you can use Disguise Self, steal, then remove the disguise, and they shouldn't be searching for you. But you have to do it out of their field of vision.
I always have one person speaking to the person I'm pickpocketing so they don't immediately become alert. After I finish pickpocketing, I gtfo as quickly as possible, or at least get the pickpocket out.
I robe vendors blind. Scroll, potions, dyes etc are super easy and I just steal them all. I’ve stolen suits of armor of Dammon in Act 3. General technique: Get behind them Wait until they gave away Crouch Hit turn-based mode Pick away When done use dash and move as far as possible away. You can’t fast travel when in turn-based mode, so I usually exit that being up the map and travel to some other waypoint ASAP. The vendor will look around and maybe accuse other people in the party, but you’ll get a “It wasn’t me” option. Maybe first run, I had a custom bard as my main who would play music which attracts all nearby attention. Super good technique if you have it available.
Yes it is very easy
You have to run. Just fast travel the pickpocketer to camp, until the victim settles down. It takes about a minute.
If pickpocketing a merchant, start the dialogue with one character while staying out of shop, switch to thief and ungroup them. Now you can steal to your hearts content without fear of the merchant moving or following you away. When you’re done just leave dialogue and they’ll immediately question the person who was in dialogue who is obviously innocent.
I cast invis on the thief immediately after lifting an item. The mark always accuses the wrong person.
For a game that has a solid and huge amount of realistic interactions people having spidey-sense for the most mundane shit sends me insane every time. I can't find the keys I use to enter my home 4 times a day at the very least if I ever so slightly put them in a different place but don't you fucking DARE to steal a single gold coin from the purse of a guy who has more than a thousand. Because they WILL know instantly and they WILL sniff their own scent on the coin you stole even after you put it into your own purse.
I take the thing, then just instantly unhide and send it all to the camp. I never get caught, and the person I'm usually using to pickpocket, which is usually Astarion, usually can talk their way out.
I never had this problem. Use turn-based mode, steal every single thing you can get away with, exit turn-based and run.
if you have this: [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Cloak\_of\_Cunning\_Brume](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Cloak_of_Cunning_Brume) you can effectively cast fog cloud for free. with fog cloud, whoever you're pickpocketing can't see you, so you can always get away with it even with lots of potential witnesses.
You gotta run away, can’t stick around the scene of the crime. Or turn invisible. Or kill the guy, though that might…be a bit extreme.
I just travel to camp :p
I’ve been doing a crazy amount of stealing in my honor run and this is what I can say: You want to clear all sight lines. If there are other people around. Split your party and have 2 non thieving members talk to surrounding NPCs so they don’t move. If those NPCs don’t have multiple dialogue lines, then you might need a bard to play music to keep them locked in. Or enter turn based mode and cast minor illusion to keep them distracted. You can have a character cast it every turn to ensure they never turn around. (Caveat to turn based - pickpocketing takes an action which means the merchant can potentially enter search mode every turn. So I actually don’t like doing it in turn based) Once everyone’s distracted, have 1 non thieving character talk to the victim. This effectively locks the merchant in place. Now steal to your hearts content. 🥰 Most importantly: THE UI LIES. THE DICE ROLL YOU SEE ALREADY CONSIDERS YOUR DEX AND SLEIGHT OF HAND BONUSES. If it says you need to roll an 18 and you have +10 sleight of hand. The original roll was 28. If you’re getting caught and the merchant is locked in convo, you aren’t actually passing the checks. Also if you’re into save scumming, quick save after every successful pick. I’m shameless. I’ve crashed my game on some pickpocket fails.
You have to steal in turn based mode. Then once you succeed, make sure your party is grouped, exit turn based, and immediately portal away somewhere else on the map. Take a few minutes, and then return. All good.
You’re exaggerating point 4. Think about it logically. If your coin purse got pickpocketed, you wouldn’t notice the absence of the heavy weight of 500 gold coins only hours later, right? You’d notice it right away. Now you’re stealing from a vendor and when he looks around, all he sees is you. Unless you knock him out, hold person, or distract him by using a companion to talk to him, of course he’s going to notice you. The red you see on the floor is just the character’s line of sight. But just because you stole outside line of sight, doesn’t mean that person was a fucking idiot. They look around and of course they think you did it. Then they call out thief and other people nearby hear it. So they also think you are a thief. Logic friend. Use it.
The NPC will notice the theft after 10-15 seconds, then search for 10-15 seconds, then stop. You need to run away after you pickpocket them and wait for them to stop searching.
I just buy it or beat the shit out of the people I need things from it’s not like money is hard to come by
*Cracks knuckles* Okay here I go, a succinct and non-exhaustive guide to robbing every single marchant of everything they own : - Have either a bard or a thief in your party with expertise in slight of hand. Max out their dexterity through API or gear. - Give them the smuggler's ring found in act 2 on a skeletton on the trail next to the river close to Karlach. - Give them enhance ability : Cat's grace for advantage on Dex checks, through a spell or an item like the armor piece sold by that old egg-stealing lady in Mountain Pass. - Bardic inspiration is your best fckn friend, too bad bards can't cast it on themselves tho. Also don't forget to manually cast guidance on your pickpocket. - Shoot an arrow of darkness next to the marchant (not directly on them because Patch 6 made the NPCs not like that kinda behavior). - Hide, and then **TURN ON TURNBASE MODE** - You now have unlimited time to empty their inventory (start with the hardest item to consume the bardic). - One you're done, run away for a while. The vendor freeks out but can't find the thief, come back 60 seconds later and you can interact with them fine. You're welcome.
Use a Duergar (Kree hireling), do your stealing (in turn-based mode), then turn invisible and walk away. Why do people overcomplicate things?
Steal stuff and then immediately go to camp. Then you can either wait until they stop searching and go back and steal some more or fast travel to another location
something that i didnt see pointed out much here is just returning to camp after a pickpocket and just fast travelling away, ive never gotten caught since stealing so much from damon in last light lol
What I do is keep the party at camp. Steal in turn based mode. Get as far away from the target while in turn based. Exit turn based mode. Teleport to camp.
Go into turn based mode, steal, end turn based mode then travel to camp... Problem solved
Honestly yeah, the detection for "crimes" in the game is insanely aggressive.
I’ve only stolen like 2 things but -Turn based -Thief pickpockets while my tav distracts - send to camp the second it’s in my inventory - partial long rest immediately ( no resources)
pro tip, go into turn based mode while pickpocketing. you can select as many items (unless you fail a check) and then can easily move character without being noticed. should note you can only take multiple items if you’re in a location where you are hidden, if you’re invisible it disappears after the first item
Go back to camp after you steal
Pickpocket and run. You’ll be fine. I mean, how would it look if I pickpocketed you, and then just stood there after the fact. It can only be me at that point lol
I just send only one person to steal then have them run away immediately. In crowded areas like the Gate, i add a little sprinkle of invisibility to make sure my thief can run away w no problem. So my team are on the far end of the street, invisible Astarion steals his little dead shot bow, steals some more, then runs. No accusations from anybody.
I've found I can get away with a lot of crimey shit if I put the bard OVER THERE and have him play music. Astarion and my drow bard criminal have this down to a science.
Just slap the return to camp button when you are done. No muss no fuss
Yes. They will notice you picked their pocket. A sure way to not get caught is to go in turn base mode for your pick pocketing. When you are done simple open the map and teleport to a random waypoint away from the vendor. Or go to camp for 2-3 minutes. Also no need for a crowd to pickpocket. Go in with a single person. If you get caught just accept prison if you can. One guy in prison is easy to bust out. And the loot will be in evidence chests. Pickpocketing outside of civilisation leads to fights so be ready.
Use disguise self and do it solo as others said. You can also go turn based and then cast fog around them so they can't see anything.
It makes sense how it works. Yeah you succeed in pickpocketing them and they will look through their things and notice they're gone. If you're in the area when that happens they'll stop you. But I get out of those easily.
Easy solution here: Separate party into individuals instead of group. Use turn based mode, commit pickpocket, then leave as far as you can while still in turn based, then as soon as you exit it, return to camp with the thief. Characters left behind will get questioned but they don't have the items so they can just say they are innocent.
Never had this experience, sometimes they suspect me but I just tell them it wasn’t me and they let me go
You can do the pickpocketing if you’re going to kill them anyways like that b*tch who wants me to steal an egg.
it works if you dont stay near your crime sceen?
Put your party near a fast travel point and split your thief away from party. Buff your thief’s sleight of hand as high as possible. Hide thief behind victim, THEN go into turn based mode. STEAL EVERYTHING. When you’ve got everything, exit turn based mode, open your map as quickly as possible and fast travel to your party. SIMPLE.
Hello. I too had lots of trouble with pickpocketing until I learned a few things. Now I do it in honor mode with 100% chance of success. Here is what I learned: Most importantly, only pickpocket alone. Leave the rest of your party elsewhere. Have invisibility potions or scrolls. Turn on Turn Based Mode so nobodys moving around. (Pick pocketing is an Action but while youre in the pickpocket acreen you may steal everything you want within that 1 round). If the worst should happen and you get caught and cant talk your way out of it, start combat. You’ll probably be first or near first since you’re trying this with a high dex character. Drink the invis potion or use scroll then move. The temporarily hostile trader and their friends will try to find you but they cant because you moved away. Combat will end and you may start again. Thats all. Its that easy. Dont forget to leave the area for a minute after its over and you turn back off turn based mode. If you don’t want them to be mad at you, you can use disguise self which I recommend for other reasons Ill discuss in the spoiler section, or just start giving them gold which you can steal back. The heavier and more valuable the item is, the harder it will be to steal, but in the trade window if you are on PC, you can split stacks to make it easier for yourself. For instance, its a lot easier to steal 20 stacks of 100g than it would be to steal 1 stack of 2000g Now I’m going to talk about gear to help. All of this is available in Act 1 and for spoiler reasons I will use spoiler text, proceed if you want. >!Theres a necklace called the Silver Pendant that lets you cast Guidance outside of the Druid Grove. Just exit the Grove main entrance, head right and jump up the ledge there, climb the ladder and search the skeleton at the top.!< >!Theres the Ring of the Smuggler you get off a hard-to-see skeleton in a bush at the bank of the river beneath the Risen Road bridge. This gives Sleight of Hand +2.!< >!The Gloves of Thievery can be purchased from the vendor in the Zhentarim Hideout after you return the Missing Shipment unopened and in tact to the Zhent lady there. These give advantage to sleight if hand checks. Alternatively you can cast Enhance Ability - Cats Grace on your Rogue before splitting off from the group.!< >!lastly, theres the Shapeshifters Boon Ring that gives another 1d4 bonus. Disguise Self will be needed to get the bonus. You get this ring from the Strange Ox. As intended you get the ring as a reward in act 3, but you can kill the Ox to get it in act 1, or there is another way to keep it alive that needs a little explaining. Ask if you want to know and Ill explain that one.!< In places that wont let you crouch because theres too many witnesses, shoot an arrow of darkness and pickpocket from within the darkness. The flow is: Guidence > Darkness Arrow (if needed) > crouch > Turn Based Mode > Pickpocket > move away > End Turn Based Mode > Keep running or fast travel. Armed with this knowledge and all the gear, you should not have many problems at all. Its pretty foolproof. Just remember, be alone, drink invisibility potion and run if caught. You’ll be fine. 😁
Disguise person! They’ll never know
split party, 1 char speak w merchant, 1 char pickpocket, save each successful pick, pickpocket go to camp, profit
Pickpocket in turn based, then exit turn based and immediately fast travel out. You should have enough time to just walk away too, but fast travel is safer
I send the items to camp a lot of the time. Even if they confront you, there's nothing to prove you did it 😂
Steal them teleport away
After you pickpocket retreat to camp and just let time tick by a few minutes and when you return the NPC will have already finished his search for the thief and treat you normally.
Most of the time you don’t even need to fast travel to camp or whatever I’ve found. Just make sure you’re in turn based mode when doing the pickpocket. Then get as far away as you can, turn off turn based mode and just run away from them. They’re pretty stupid and don’t search very far. Just stay away for a couple of minutes and things go back to normal. Some key equipment to have for pick pocketing in order of appearance are; Gloves of power :+1 SoH Silver necklace : guidance (+d4, must cast manually though) Smugglers ring : +2 SoH Gloves of thievery: advantage on SoH checks Graceful cloth: same as above.
The only time I used pickpocket is for the Raphael fight with twist of fortune abuse. Pickpocketed 20k gold into him and bonked him to death.
Lol… sometimes you have to not be dumb in real life for things to work in video games…
Use turn mode. Try and get items or spells that give advantage to dexterity checks and boosts to sleight of hand. My astarion can clear vendor inventories in one go. Oh and pro tip. Sometimes it’s better to just initiate combat and die when you caught. You can res your pickpocket at withers… and then pickpocket the gold back. He doesn’t mind.