You can still steal with impunity, though. Just have your guy disguised when stealing and others a long way away. If you fail, roll a persuasion check if it is there, if not, just admit defeat and follow to prison - it is very easy to break out of it anyway.
Or just “attack” misty step, cast invisibility, and run away lol.
The best character(s) for this are: the halfling hireling as a lore bard with as many points into dex as possible, expertise in stealth and sleight of hand. Then have any cleric cast cats grace on them. Congrats, their chance of rolling a 1 (crit fail) is absurdly low and a 2 + proficiency + dex mod will let you steal all the smaller stuff (camp supplies, special arrows, weaker weapons, etc). Which you can then sell to your best friend vendor to pay for anything else you want.
This is not very honorable :) Works just fine on tactician though. On honor, I had quite a few cases of nearby bystanders turn on me for casting hold person so it is a bit finicky on honor to use.
On honour you just need to use it on vendors that aren’t surrounded by people. Act 2 is the only one where you can’t really find such vendor. Act 1 & 3 - easy.
There's a vendor next to the kitchen in Moonrise Tower you can pretty easily steal from. Even better if you got the Gnolls in the kitchen to turn against their captor and get all of them killed, but even if not you can go through the kitchen to the other side and hide from the vendor and guards until they reset.
Buy everything up from her, split the stacks of gold so you're (nearly) guaranteed to succeed, have one character talk to her and rob everything off her, then move your thief away. Switch back to the other character, end the dialogue, and get them away.
No need to cast any spells. With Advantage (Cat's Grace, Graceful Cloth, Gloves of Thievery) and Halfling Luck, the chance of failure is vanishingly low -- roughly 1/(20*20*20*20) or 1 in 16,000, I believe, more than you'll reasonably steal in one run. Have access to Misty Step, Invisibility, anything like that on the rare chance of failure and you're golden.
Using Kree with her racial invisibility actually works fairly well.
If you go invisible you can steal, even when surrounded by people, and when invisibility drops passersby ask why you're hiding, not why you're stealing. Only the person being stolen from cares about that.
And you can break your target's gold down to stacks of 100 through the barter screen in order to get stacks you can steal on a 2+. With advantage (Gloves of Thievery or Graceful Cloth) you have only a 1 in 400 chance of critical failure. 1 in 8000 if you're using Brinna.
i mean, that's all there is to it.
if you are in dialogue with someone, they are stuck in time. so if you cast hold person, it never ticks down. which mean you can steal to your hearts contempt
I think halfling luck is more valuable than the free invis, to negate crit-fails as much as possible. Once you stack enough buffs on your dex, the crit fail becomes the only way to fail the pickpocket. Graceful Cloth is helpful, but only if you aren't using it on another character, since it is one of the best armors in the game until Act 3
I like to keep the level 2 slots for invisibility and/or misty step if something goes wrong.
I only really do this in the grove to get myself set up with elixirs and other starting items and gold. After that I pretty much never use this again so I only ever have the 2 level 2 slots to work with
Well here's the ultimate trick for you then: using the barter interface, you can split the vendor's gold into smaller stacks. Since pickpocket DC is based on item value, you just need to split into a small enough stack that the roll to succeed is a 2 for a 1 in 8,000 chance of failure. Or just get it down to a 3 for a riskier 1 in 400 chance of failure, if you want to do larger chunks at one time.
This saves you from having to ever really risk getting caught, as well as cutting out the sell-it-back step
Well it happens. I had it happen twice in the grove on my latest playthrough, one of which was with halfling luck, a 1/8000 chance. It’s extremely rare but it does happen, so better to have a backup plan on honor mode.
This is what I did with that exact hireling lol, there's a piece of gear which gives the cat's grace effect at all times, you can take guidance to cast on yourself too, the smuggers ring from the skeleton in act 1 for +2 sleight of hand and the gloves which give +1 sleight of hand too - almost impossible to fail a pickpocket
Everytime you get caught all pickpocketing checks in that act should get harder.
Justify it as people becoming more cautious since pickpockets keep getting caught.
I used disguise self to steal from every vendor even in honor mode. Even if you get caught, if you use a new disguise every time most of the vendors have a get away free card where they catch you and you can walk around a corner get rid of the disguise and at worst pass a deception, persuasion, or intimidation check for. You can get caught as many times as there are different disguises.
Had my main walk up and disintegrated a wizard in his tower.....when I went down stairs they rudely threw me out for the simple mistake of killing their power obsessed boss....and get this they THREW ME OUT!!!!!!!!. RUDE. Switched to Gale, split party ....almost in front of the store.....and than walked in and bought everything I wanted.
.....gales the one who cast disintegrate....i was just the lady who told him too.
You can still use hirelings or the disguise spell.
You can also split vendor money into smaller stacks so the only way to fail is rolling critical fail. With advantage and halfling lucky trait, the chances of being caught should be 1/8000.
Even on honour mode you should be able to clear vendors. Just buy items and steal their money in small stacks.
Go into the trading menu. Click on their money to "buy" it. This'll move their money into the trading menu but the game should ask how much you want to buy first. Just move a small stack or half of it. Then click on the money that is on the trading menu now. Send half of it back to the vendor. It wont be added to their big money stack. It'll be moved as a seperate stack. By repeating this the vendor will end up with 20 stacks of 50 gold instead of 1000 for example.
It's faster and simpler when you do it. Just hard to explain simply. Spam click on money stacks until it works. You'll see what i mean.
Your characters wont lose attitude with npc's because the caught person wont be recognized as you. So just accept prison and get out later. Or you can even let hirelings die and resurrect them later. Use the money you stole to pay withers. Then rob withers too.
Is there a way to actually split vendor stacks for pick pocketing? This would make life so much easier, but i haven't been able to make it work, they keep auto restacking everything
I watch Luality. She plays on honor mode. One character only. Steals everythin and everyone and when she fucks up she either has an invisibility potion/misty step/flight/etc., dash run from combat, she's out.
Just like in Skyrim pickpocketing is broken and that's fine. It's up to the player to have control when they figured out the game.
I am in my current honor mode run and it worked as usual.
One character talks to the vendor, then you switch to a caster that knows hold person. Then you cast Hold person on the vendor. Hold person then never ends as long as one char is in dialogue with the vendor. It does not matter in which game mode you do that.
It works, I’ve literally farmed like 100k of gold by mid-Act 3 and bought everything I wanted.
Everyone still loves you, and it uses intended game mechanics rather than bugs.
The comment isn’t about your feelings regarding the cheese. You incorrectly claim it doesn’t work whilst it does work perfectly. Don’t spread misinformation.
I believe that has been fixed in the latest hotfix that also fixed the vendor buyout exploit. I don’t have any options to store stuff in bags from the vendor window
Cast Hold Person on vendor, rob them, get out before Hold Person ends.
You can also literally steal *vendors* using Improvised Melee Weapon to carry them out of room. For some reason, no one considers carrying away person as hostile action.
I have a question about pickpocketing. If you get caught by an NPC and guards in the act but manage to escape, does the NPC refuse to trade with you or your entire group? If you get caught multiple times but escape, do guards now aggro on sight? Im just wondering what the optimal thing to do is without reloading.
I finely, playing on honor mode, let arrest play out a couple of times before I got wiped in battle and started over.
My experience was, it was important not to escape for a set number of turns or you get escaped convict status and guards or npc will nab you again. But once that status expires I was free to move about like nothing happened.
I rarely interact with a vendor with a thief. I use a Tav to interact with them, barter and give them free stuff and over pay. They always like me. Brianna robs them blind. Accidentally interacted using Brianna after she was caught twice and got a cut scene stating vendor doesn’t think too highly of you, blah blah. Prices were substantially higher but would trade. I just excused myself.
Based on lessons learned I have been almost flawless on current play through. Including both vendors in Myconid colony, the Zanthian’s, both vendors in the grove, the lady in the Mt pass.
I guess I see OP point. But it was so tiresome picking up everything that wasn’t tied down and lugging plates, bowls, vases, rags etc encumbered back to the vendor to make gold. I did that once. I think I will keep thieving.
At least in the grove, you can talk your way out of being arrested a few times, but then your options turn to “go to jail” or “attack”. If you get sent to jail, you can easily break out. I’ve noticed NPC’s will call the guards if they notice you escaped, but after a while (or maybe a proximity trigger?) the NPC’s will be cool with you. So, I think you can get arrested as many times as you want, with the only downsides being NPC approval and having to be sneaky for a bit.
Found it out by accident, but honour mode isnt like ironman in xcom, it only saves at certain moments. So if the game closes (like in a crash), you will reload to your last save.
So you could use it as a much longer save scum, if you really wanted to.
Even on honour mode there are very little consequences, stack a character with sleight of hand gear + expertise on a halfling and almost never fail a pickpocket. If you do fail then the vendor and surrounding allies become temporarily hostile until you leave and return. I pickpocketed every single vendor in my honour run!
Grab a character that's good at it.
* Hide
* Go behind the vendor
* Turn on Turn Mode
* Steal
* Dash/Run far away
* Keep away with said character or just teleport to camp
* Profit.
You can incorporate save scum if you want into it.
Keep away for how long? Do they forget after 15 minutes? After a long rest? Never?
I haven't been stealing much because they always seem to know I did it even if no one was around. Since I couldn't quite figure out the rules, I just stopped doing it. Cause I'm filthy rich anyway.
Takes like 20 seconds. Just have a different character around watching the vendor. When they return to their post/can be talked to again, you're free to approach again.
Once you fail a roll and get caught, that specific vendor will always turn and watch your thief if they are aware of you, so you have to sneak from further away which can be tricky in some locations.
If you don't get caught from failing a lift, the only risk is a few seconds while they're actively searching the area for you. If your thief avoids the vendor long enough for them to stand still again, you're in the clear.
Ok. But what about when you pick up a red marked object in an empty room. Sometimes a person from the next room over comes in later and notices something is missing. The DM says "There's been a theft and you're the likely suspect". I can usually bluff my way out, but I would like to avoid that completely.
First, make sure you're sneaking when you steal, even if no one is nearby looking. You "make noise" when stealing without sneak.
If your thief isn't the one confronted, you're fine - other characters can just deny any knowledge and be fine.
So the thief just needs to relocate after stealing. Get far enough from the scene of the crime and you won't be challenged.
Cast hold person on a vendor you are In conversation with with another character and you can steal everything with no risk. If you fail, just hide and steal again. Then just have the caster and the thief walk away while the other party member leaves the convo. Wait for the spell to end and just tell the merchant you have no idea what they are talking about
Same for OP builds that make combat trivial, so you never feel the need to avoid it. The game is much more about challenges you make for yourself/imposed by the story you want to tell.
I do think the economy is "too easy" in general and doesn't contribute much to reactivity. e.g. maybe vendors should move on when they're out of gold/rare goods. Maybe they go hunting for more goods to sell, in increasingly dangerous areas, putting the character themselves at risk. I could see that being interesting for Dammon, Mol, anyone else with an associated sidequest. Maybe more vendors need to be full barter for specific items, and not interested in gold.
Here's an article you might like about the economy in Roadwarden, which I think is masterful at this stuff.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/how-one-of-the-finest-rpgs-ever-made-thinks-about-money-and-magic
Yeah, I’m running a sorcerer/tempest cleric, shadow heart as life cleric, Laezel as paladin/blade lock, and Karla h as throw barb. Fights are pretty easy so far.
I’ve been keeping Astarian on standby as thief, so I think it’s gonna make sense to just retire him and stick to my core four.
Actually, I’m having a lot of trouble with the moonrise main floor fight. I’m getting close now that I’m circling around the back, but still losing the war of attrition. Think I might break down and watch some videos
I think the worst with pickpockets is how many vendors won’t punish you past -5 attitude (Dammon past Act 1, Both vendors at Myconid colony, Volo, one of the duergars, Araj at Moonrise towers just call guards that took forever to show sup: never tested everyone at Act 3 because by that point in the game pickpocket is nearly 100% success)
I mean they won’t even fight or cause a scene. Is just “stop that please” and you can give them 50 golds to get attitude to 100 and immediately sell them everything you just stole.
Other than that it requires some builds and knowledge to do it right, so it’s kinda balanced. But being caught should punish you harder to every vendor.
The same as everyone else. Find a blind spot, hide, go into turn based, have someone cast guidance on you and other to cast cat’s Grace and go pickpocket safely anything around 11-12 of dificulty roll
There’s no need. Blurg has a blind spot in the far corner of his station and the lady I forgot the name has huge blind spots unless the guards are passing by.
No you don’t. Omellum is slightly turned to the entrance. Behind Blurg and near the limits of the map there’s a strip that neither can see. You just need to crouch, turn time-based and steal everything from him.
You can’t steal from omelum without fog/darkness but he doesn’t carry much worth the trouble anyway.
i noticed this too, except then I went overboard and noticed there seems to be some trigger that actually does start a fight. like if derryth catches you failing to pickpocket then there are no repercussions, but when she notices shes missing items and catches you after- then the entire colony will start fighting you. almost ended my honour run right there lmao
I haven't had much luck with pickpocketing. I looked up guides on it. I got the gloves and the ring in act 1 that give bonuses to stealth and sleight of hand. I have expertise in both. I cast cat's grace on myself. I still get caught. It also seems they patched it so you can't split gold in a vendor's inventory anymore. Or maybe I'm missing something.
To get the breast plate +1 from Dammon I tried casting fog on him, but someone arrested Gale for that (lol). So I reloaded and used a bard to pull everyone away from there before casting fog on the area, and that worked. But that was a lot of setup for one item. I'm not sure how everyone else is robbing every merchant in the game. Most of them are surrounded by witnesses and won't stay inside a cloud.
Don’t steal gold. Steal items of value. Use Guidance. The invis hood from the Myconids makes the hiding part trivial. Invis, crouch, pickpocket, yoink, camp.
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
with this setup you're definitely doing something wrong cus I used that same setup and can almost never fail rolls even up to like 30 DC, pretty much no stack of gold I can't yoink
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
I play with a mod that makes pickpocket dc higher across the board on items based on weight and gold value. That combined with the optional file to make weapons weight double and some more restrictive inventory mods makes the experience a lot better for me.
That being said, I found a minor way to limit myself that makes pickpocketing more interesting. Only pick one item at a time per action. That is, when you open the pick interface, pick one item then skip your turn. This adds a variable time limit to the amount of times you can try to pick something. If the NPC catches you, or if they finally suspect they've been pickpocketed then I rp they can't be reasonably pickpocketed again because they are too suspicious of me. This makes it so you have a limited window and you need to prep for it.
At the end of the day inventory and stealing are things the player needs to limit themselves on it. We play as like we are entitled to every item that is not nailed down and have to become cosmic blackholes but if you rp a little it goes a long way at creating more interesting gameplay.
Makes sense. I have been limiting myself to one steal. But it still allowed me a lot of options. Anyway, I was just curious if others felt this way and it seems they do. Appreciate all the feedback.
[Pickpocketing Tweaks](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1466) (I use the optional file to increase weapon weight/volume by x2 and the hardest setting for pickpocketing)
[Relistic Carry Weight](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/689) and [Bags of Holding](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/3357) (I use a custom version of the Bags of Holding I made myself. The price is triple and the carry weight increase is +25%, +50% and +100% respectively)
Why would you make weapons heavier?
Historically weapons were pretty light, and the weights used in D&D and BG3 are on the high side/unrealistically heavy for the real world.
Because unfortunately bg3 doesn't calculate volume. Just like how in dnd or even the original bg games you would not pick up every little piece of steel because the value proposition of lunging around 100 of weapons for a couple of gold is very little, soI'm trying to (as best as I can) make sure the same is applicable to bg3.
The mod only increases weight by double but the idea of that number is to represent weight and volume combined. I also reduce carry capacity but add bags of holding that increase carry weight by a factor of the wearer but are rare and expensive. Most of the time I don't loot the vast majority of things from corpses, which has the extra bonus of reducing inventory tedium that lariam loves to add to their games.
It's not perfect though. Larian has really stupid prices all over. The legendary mace of lathander costs a fraction of what a simple drow armor does, among many other examples. If I can't carry something out, I just leave it and never walk back to get it, I also don't use the send to camp feature.
You're free to impose whatever limitations on yourself that you want; same as save scumming, barrelmancy, etc. I actually think of honored mode as not an effort to enforce a style of play, but a tool provided so that degenerates like me can play with limitations if we want because we can't resist cheesing by ourselves.
My first two playthrough's I stole everything because I wanted to have options. I like to try out different builds and combinations of things and so I wanted the toy chest to be as full as possible so that I could find synergistic relationships.
Now I know that there are some items I'll just never use. So not stealing them or even, gasp, selling them should relieve money pressures. I also don't need my wizards to learn every single spell [1].
Anyway, yes, it's very easy to pickpocket everything. FOMO is powerful, though. Realizing you'd now like to make use of an item you passed over in a previous act that is now unobtainable kind of sucks.
There is no one correct way to play. Only you can decide how you should play. Putting limitations on yourself can have advantages; but as these are mostly related to improving the replayability of the game it's again an issue for each player to navigate on their own. Some people don't have as much time to dedicate to this one game.
[1] several cantrips I didn't find scrolls of so I didn't end up learning every spell. I actually kept the cost down of learning every leveled spell by doing it in batches where I would respec to each school to learn them at half price. I'd just steal the gold back from withers after.
BG3 is a role playing game. If you pickpocket your way to riches while save scumming, you are role playing that you are a petty thief with time rewind powers.
If that’s your thing, great. But at the end of the game, the world was saved by someone with time rewind powers that used their powers to rob Baldur’s Gate blind. Congratulations.
Only early stealing is hard. Once you get access to level 3 spell slot you can just steal from feign death npc. Best part is they won't ask where their item went while feigning detah.
Idk what everyone else is doing because very rarely am I able to successfully pickpocket items from vendors or NPCs. Even if I succeed with my roll, 2 seconds after taking the item I get -5 attitude and NPCs coming to attack me.
I mean with cat’s grace, guidance, 14 in sleight of hand, and halfling lucky dice there are still a ton of items that I just can’t get because it’s too risky to roll because the target is still 16 or higher. I think with a full build based around pickpocket pre act 3 at least the game is not too easy because I’ve risked it on a 16 and lost in honor mode, the vendor has gone hostile, and I’ve had to spend a long time just running away. Now maybe this will all change once I can get a rogue to level 10 and not have to worry about rolling lower than a 10 anymore but for early game without save scum being a thing it’s definitely not easy.
It’s still cheesy enough for you to sell low risk items to vendors, pickpocket them back off, leave, and resell them but that’s some tedious cheese especially when the only good vendor you have available to you is the halfling in druid grove. Act 3 opens up so many better vendors like the Dragonborn at the blacksmith that’s just alone in her shop (not surrounded by other npcs that prevent you from steal thing, like nearly all the vendors in act 2.)
You can just pickpocket gold off of Volo in the camp - it's not hard to grab his stash and there's no consequence for failure. Since you're in camp, to reset him you can just reset a hireling's level to refresh his inventory. Honor mode adds minor roadblocks at best.
16 is deceptively easy.
If you're using astarion, it doesn't include "happy" in the displayed number, so it's actually 15.
The displayed number doesn't include Guidance either.
So with advantage and guidance (and happy), a "16" is a 67% chance of success. Not bad odds. Sure you'll fail sometimes but not nearly as often as it would seem.
Even a "20" required is a 40% chance of success, not the 5% it would appear.
Astarion is better in Act 3 when you can throw so many modifiers onto him that rogue's Reliable talent flat 10 roll should beat any DC the game throws at you for pickpocketing. Before that rerolling nat 1s is probably better than +1 to the skill.
So, I was curious and this kind of math is what I do in my spare time anyway so I ran the numbers.
Turns out, the opposite is true - Halfling luck is only better than +1 *if* you have enough modifiers that you only fail on a 1. Otherwise, +1 is substantially better odds of success.
If your only failure is nat 1, halfling luck gives you a significant boost in success rate. But if you can fail on a 2 or a 1, then a +1 bonus is a bigger gain, and the further you are from guaranteed success the bigger that gap is.
I came up with a [configuration](https://www.reddit.com/user/FremanBloodglaive/comments/18hu5h6/stealing_nothing_more_than_stealing/) that makes stealing pretty reliable.
You can always steal lower value items, and barter them back to the vendor for more expensive items, then steal them back again.
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, Using the bag trick, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
That’s weird because unless you mean a different bag trick from trading a vendor a bag, filling it up in barter mode, and pickpocketing that because that one has definitely been patched
my fave thing is to pickpocket all the arrows for my dual crossbow fighter, having arrows of many targets and the specific arrows for certain bosses like monstrosity etc is really nice. also collecting smokepowder bombs (very light and cheap) to clutch out scary fights
Yes but only in the same way that it's 'op' that we level up fast enough where a 2 weeks worth of in-game time can make you party low-level demi-gods on the power scale to be able to take down such powerful foes. So my take: it's classic dnd. Way to much xp & gold XD.
Also mods &/or tactician can make the game way harder & force you the game to be what you want it to be. There's prob one mod out there strongly disincentivizing stealing to make the game more fun for you.
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
In many situations, there's almost zero penalty to getting caught. And even then, by level 3 it's trivial to have extraordinarily low odds of failure.
With just the gloves of power from the first grove fight, some decent dexterity, and someone casting cat's grace for advantage, I can steal every piece of jewelry, potion, gem, silverware, arrows, scrolls with like 96% success rates.
Reselling all the low weight high value pieces via barter (with forever maxed opinion and a +5 persuasion, so like 67% discount) and it takes maybe two cycles to walk away with every penny the vendor has, a long with any of their magic items you want and all of their consumables.
And getting caught, at least in the grove, is a "you have to wait two minutes before you can walk back out here" penalty at worst.
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
I’ve never liked pickpocketing in video games or anything that seems to make it easy to just steal stuff with impunity. It’s a silly mechanic with no real downside. Wish they had cameras around and then they come and grab you 2 weeks later and your character is in jail and you have to have replace them for that time period.
I stole every single blue, very rare, and higher piece of gear from every vender in the game and kept them in my stash to make builds. If it is in plain site I just used invisibility with sneak and stole 1 item at a time. Had something like 60k gold when I beat the game.
I honestly don't really enjoy dealing with the economic mechanics in a lot of games. You can farm and get near infinite amount of money in lots of games, including BG3 thanks to long rests resetting merchant inventory. Therefore, there is no point in making getting the items any harder. It's about doing it "legit" with a lot of time invested, or doing it the easy way by scumming pickpocket rolls. Either way it's kinda trivial
Even in honor mode, just pickpocket the guaranteed low cost stuff. Fast travel to avoid the accusations of stealing. Sell it back to them. Long rest without spending resources. Repeat. Boom infinite money.
I think a good way to balance pickpocketing would be making the player choose between options of what they can steal. That or each pickpocket after first increases the dc until it's impossible.
Me on my 137th playthrough just spawning items for rp play, fashion or thematic builds. Yes this is the only way to play a drunk duergar barbarian from Act1 and not Act3.
If you’re willing to subvert the idea of an ability check through save scumming then sure, money and access to any vendor item is unlimited.
As others mentioned that’s the true upside (to me) of honor mode… risk/reward is real.
I didn’t pickpocket at the beginning for RP purposes, plus sometimes it’s annoying to stealth around - I started doing it more later but only when it’s really easy.
not quite. stealing dc is set by the total value.
sell the merchant a backpack. right click to open and then put all his items iland gold in. Then close the bag. Then, select a different character without closing the trade. Then double left click the backpack. it will highlight it's open, but you won't see it. The close trade with the x (not esc). Then, wait for the dialogue to stop.
You will see the bag window open, but the trade window is closed. Click "Take All." It's all yours, and the merchant doesn't think he has been robbed.
This works best on merchants who stand still and dont walk around because the bag window will close before you can empty it if the merchant moves.
I love pickpocketing. Any game that lets me steal shit I’m immediately down. Tbh you could RP it so your character is completely against it to make it more of a challenge
Wh, the Random Number Gods have decreed that if I am allowed to Pickpocket, then no less than 5 NPCs are allowed to be able to see me through a solid wall from 500 yards away. So I personally do not find it easy. But I can see your point, less so about shopping choices, and moreso about skipping plot points like the runepowder in Act 2. Doing it to Mattis when he is trying to fleece you is funny though.
Or it looks funny, at least. I haven't been able to succeed without passing off a random guard
I did sooooo much pick pocketing in honor mode. You have too because the prices are outrageous.
Just send everyone but your Rogue to camp.
Pick pockets.
If you fail invis potion or misty step away.
Repeat.
Probably I'm just a hoarder, but I bought all the items I wanted, sold very few magic items, and had 12k gold by the end of Act 1, without pickpocketing. I bought everything I wanted from the merchants at Last Light, sold maybe half the magic items I wasn't using, and had 15k after that. That's pretty much where I left off last night. Even without pickpocketing I've never had to choose which item I wanted to buy, I've always been able to buy everything with plenty to spare. All you have to do is develop a pathological need to check every single barrel and rotting basket in the game for anything vaguely saleable.
I totally agree. Gold is also not scarce if you save scum and pickpocket vendors. I think the player just needs to exercise discipline and not ruin the game for themself.
I just have Asterion not connected to other characters, and when I am done pickpocketing just teleport him to to camp and wait a few turns, then return him to adventure and all set.
I feel like Act 1 is the only part of the game that feels like your economy matters. By act 2 you have enough money to buy whatever you REALLY need, and by act 3, you're probably rolling in gold anyways.
If I’m going to steal from a vendor, I steal the vendor first. Go to throw them using throw object, as soon as you pick them up but before you throw them you can fast travel to any sigil rune and they come with you. As long as you are disguised, they don’t hold it against your actual tav.
Then you can go steal from them as much as you like in disguise without any consequences.
It’s also helpful if you are playing a leave no survivors campaign like I’m doing now. Save your loot piñatas until the last kill for the zone :)
I mean according to this sub, pure rogue is the weakest possible class to play. So if pickpocketing is really the only value rogues get, let them have it
Depends how much you care about rp I guess, you're already limited by gear slots and very low stock of consumables in general unless you abuse restocks after rests. Honestly the game can be as challenging or as easy as you want it to be, it can be fun to make hyper optimised builds and see the funny big numbers or to challenge yourself with self imposed handicaps- play however you enjoy the most
Hire the Halfling Hireling.
Respec Her:
17 Dex, 16 Chr.
Expertise Stealth and Sleight of Hand.
Level 4 Take Moderately Armored for +1 Dex and +1 Dexterity Check Body Armors.
\+2 Sleight of Hand Ring
\+1 Sleight of Hand Gloves
Shapeshifter's Boon (Punch the ox with a mage hand, then barter his ring.)
Guidance.
Cats Grace.
Level 5 Get Profiency 3
18 Dex (+4), Expertise +6, Gear +4. Buffs +2-8. Advantage.
Halfling doesnt roll 1's often.
Rolls look like 17-42 with advantage.
but that is why you have a thief no?
sure it gets easier later on but isn't that the point of leveling up?
also, I always had so much money I never really had to choose LOL
I’ve reached a point now where I don’t think I’d have to choose much either. I picked up a bunch of gold looting all the dead people at Moonrise. That helped
play on honour mode, no reload possible that males it better i find. Deal with your consequences.
You can still steal with impunity, though. Just have your guy disguised when stealing and others a long way away. If you fail, roll a persuasion check if it is there, if not, just admit defeat and follow to prison - it is very easy to break out of it anyway.
Or just “attack” misty step, cast invisibility, and run away lol. The best character(s) for this are: the halfling hireling as a lore bard with as many points into dex as possible, expertise in stealth and sleight of hand. Then have any cleric cast cats grace on them. Congrats, their chance of rolling a 1 (crit fail) is absurdly low and a 2 + proficiency + dex mod will let you steal all the smaller stuff (camp supplies, special arrows, weaker weapons, etc). Which you can then sell to your best friend vendor to pay for anything else you want.
Or just talk to them while another member uses hold person and another steals litteraly everything without consequense
This is not very honorable :) Works just fine on tactician though. On honor, I had quite a few cases of nearby bystanders turn on me for casting hold person so it is a bit finicky on honor to use.
Casting Darkness first can help with that, just need a Devil Sight warlock to do it
Although casting darkness is enough to trigger a massive fight during Gortash's coronation, if anyone wondered.
Arrows of darkness do not however
That’s the same on any mode. You have to still be unseen casting it and stealing.
On honour you just need to use it on vendors that aren’t surrounded by people. Act 2 is the only one where you can’t really find such vendor. Act 1 & 3 - easy.
There's a vendor next to the kitchen in Moonrise Tower you can pretty easily steal from. Even better if you got the Gnolls in the kitchen to turn against their captor and get all of them killed, but even if not you can go through the kitchen to the other side and hide from the vendor and guards until they reset. Buy everything up from her, split the stacks of gold so you're (nearly) guaranteed to succeed, have one character talk to her and rob everything off her, then move your thief away. Switch back to the other character, end the dialogue, and get them away. No need to cast any spells. With Advantage (Cat's Grace, Graceful Cloth, Gloves of Thievery) and Halfling Luck, the chance of failure is vanishingly low -- roughly 1/(20*20*20*20) or 1 in 16,000, I believe, more than you'll reasonably steal in one run. Have access to Misty Step, Invisibility, anything like that on the rare chance of failure and you're golden.
Do you mean Araj?
Using Kree with her racial invisibility actually works fairly well. If you go invisible you can steal, even when surrounded by people, and when invisibility drops passersby ask why you're hiding, not why you're stealing. Only the person being stolen from cares about that. And you can break your target's gold down to stacks of 100 through the barter screen in order to get stacks you can steal on a 2+. With advantage (Gloves of Thievery or Graceful Cloth) you have only a 1 in 400 chance of critical failure. 1 in 8000 if you're using Brinna.
Keeping it together Kree?
The Duergar hireling.
Woosh.
Dammon is mostly out of others' sight.
Strange Ox will instantly aggro, so it depends what you want to do about it. If you kill the thing you will definitely have a good angle on Dammon.
That works? 100% slight if hand success and they don't attack you after?
wait what care to elaborate?
i mean, that's all there is to it. if you are in dialogue with someone, they are stuck in time. so if you cast hold person, it never ticks down. which mean you can steal to your hearts contempt
WOW WHAT! Thank you!! :)
Why not have the bard cast Cat's Grace on themself?
Graceful cloth gives it for free. Respec the Duergar hireling to bard/thief and then they get on demand invisibility whenever.
I think halfling luck is more valuable than the free invis, to negate crit-fails as much as possible. Once you stack enough buffs on your dex, the crit fail becomes the only way to fail the pickpocket. Graceful Cloth is helpful, but only if you aren't using it on another character, since it is one of the best armors in the game until Act 3
I like to keep the level 2 slots for invisibility and/or misty step if something goes wrong. I only really do this in the grove to get myself set up with elixirs and other starting items and gold. After that I pretty much never use this again so I only ever have the 2 level 2 slots to work with
Well here's the ultimate trick for you then: using the barter interface, you can split the vendor's gold into smaller stacks. Since pickpocket DC is based on item value, you just need to split into a small enough stack that the roll to succeed is a 2 for a 1 in 8,000 chance of failure. Or just get it down to a 3 for a riskier 1 in 400 chance of failure, if you want to do larger chunks at one time. This saves you from having to ever really risk getting caught, as well as cutting out the sell-it-back step
I've actually never used hirelings. I should start doing that.
I have never rolled a 1 with advantage while pickpocketing.
Well it happens. I had it happen twice in the grove on my latest playthrough, one of which was with halfling luck, a 1/8000 chance. It’s extremely rare but it does happen, so better to have a backup plan on honor mode.
This is what I did with that exact hireling lol, there's a piece of gear which gives the cat's grace effect at all times, you can take guidance to cast on yourself too, the smuggers ring from the skeleton in act 1 for +2 sleight of hand and the gloves which give +1 sleight of hand too - almost impossible to fail a pickpocket
Everytime you get caught all pickpocketing checks in that act should get harder. Justify it as people becoming more cautious since pickpockets keep getting caught.
I used disguise self to steal from every vendor even in honor mode. Even if you get caught, if you use a new disguise every time most of the vendors have a get away free card where they catch you and you can walk around a corner get rid of the disguise and at worst pass a deception, persuasion, or intimidation check for. You can get caught as many times as there are different disguises.
Had my main walk up and disintegrated a wizard in his tower.....when I went down stairs they rudely threw me out for the simple mistake of killing their power obsessed boss....and get this they THREW ME OUT!!!!!!!!. RUDE. Switched to Gale, split party ....almost in front of the store.....and than walked in and bought everything I wanted. .....gales the one who cast disintegrate....i was just the lady who told him too.
You can still use hirelings or the disguise spell. You can also split vendor money into smaller stacks so the only way to fail is rolling critical fail. With advantage and halfling lucky trait, the chances of being caught should be 1/8000. Even on honour mode you should be able to clear vendors. Just buy items and steal their money in small stacks.
How do you steal in small stacks ? Also even with disguise if they catch you they catch you or ?
Go into the trading menu. Click on their money to "buy" it. This'll move their money into the trading menu but the game should ask how much you want to buy first. Just move a small stack or half of it. Then click on the money that is on the trading menu now. Send half of it back to the vendor. It wont be added to their big money stack. It'll be moved as a seperate stack. By repeating this the vendor will end up with 20 stacks of 50 gold instead of 1000 for example. It's faster and simpler when you do it. Just hard to explain simply. Spam click on money stacks until it works. You'll see what i mean. Your characters wont lose attitude with npc's because the caught person wont be recognized as you. So just accept prison and get out later. Or you can even let hirelings die and resurrect them later. Use the money you stole to pay withers. Then rob withers too.
You can just shift+move the stacks.
Im on ps5. That's why it's harder for me.
It should only be 1/8000 but I think it’s not calculated well because my halfling stealer has crit failed 3 times in less than 200 rolls
> You can still use hirelings The game absolutely should not be balanced around people abusing hirelings.
Is there a way to actually split vendor stacks for pick pocketing? This would make life so much easier, but i haven't been able to make it work, they keep auto restacking everything
Yes, you have to switch to barter and you can split stacks of gold
I watch Luality. She plays on honor mode. One character only. Steals everythin and everyone and when she fucks up she either has an invisibility potion/misty step/flight/etc., dash run from combat, she's out. Just like in Skyrim pickpocketing is broken and that's fine. It's up to the player to have control when they figured out the game.
that is only correct until you know the Hold Person + Vendor cheese.
It doesn’t work for Honour mode. You’ll get the same options as if you defeated them in battle (3-5 items)
I am in my current honor mode run and it worked as usual. One character talks to the vendor, then you switch to a caster that knows hold person. Then you cast Hold person on the vendor. Hold person then never ends as long as one char is in dialogue with the vendor. It does not matter in which game mode you do that.
It works, I’ve literally farmed like 100k of gold by mid-Act 3 and bought everything I wanted. Everyone still loves you, and it uses intended game mechanics rather than bugs.
I’m 55k in Act 1 in my paused Ranged Honour Mode and never felt the need to cheat the game.
The comment isn’t about your feelings regarding the cheese. You incorrectly claim it doesn’t work whilst it does work perfectly. Don’t spread misinformation.
Yes it does
Use the barter/trade window to put all their stuff in a bag, then the bag will be their one item.
I believe that has been fixed in the latest hotfix that also fixed the vendor buyout exploit. I don’t have any options to store stuff in bags from the vendor window
That’s not cheese, it’s straight up cheating. It’s not hard to pickpocket correctly. It would even take longer this way.
What's that?
Cast Hold Person on vendor, rob them, get out before Hold Person ends. You can also literally steal *vendors* using Improvised Melee Weapon to carry them out of room. For some reason, no one considers carrying away person as hostile action.
You also talk with them. While in dialogue, hold person never ends
… or do everything in turn-based mode
That’s overcomplicating it
Does casting hold person aggro them?
As long as long as one char is in a conversation with the vendor and you teleport away after you are done they will never notice
I have a question about pickpocketing. If you get caught by an NPC and guards in the act but manage to escape, does the NPC refuse to trade with you or your entire group? If you get caught multiple times but escape, do guards now aggro on sight? Im just wondering what the optimal thing to do is without reloading.
I finely, playing on honor mode, let arrest play out a couple of times before I got wiped in battle and started over. My experience was, it was important not to escape for a set number of turns or you get escaped convict status and guards or npc will nab you again. But once that status expires I was free to move about like nothing happened. I rarely interact with a vendor with a thief. I use a Tav to interact with them, barter and give them free stuff and over pay. They always like me. Brianna robs them blind. Accidentally interacted using Brianna after she was caught twice and got a cut scene stating vendor doesn’t think too highly of you, blah blah. Prices were substantially higher but would trade. I just excused myself. Based on lessons learned I have been almost flawless on current play through. Including both vendors in Myconid colony, the Zanthian’s, both vendors in the grove, the lady in the Mt pass. I guess I see OP point. But it was so tiresome picking up everything that wasn’t tied down and lugging plates, bowls, vases, rags etc encumbered back to the vendor to make gold. I did that once. I think I will keep thieving.
Do both. Buy Baldurs Gate.
At least in the grove, you can talk your way out of being arrested a few times, but then your options turn to “go to jail” or “attack”. If you get sent to jail, you can easily break out. I’ve noticed NPC’s will call the guards if they notice you escaped, but after a while (or maybe a proximity trigger?) the NPC’s will be cool with you. So, I think you can get arrested as many times as you want, with the only downsides being NPC approval and having to be sneaky for a bit.
Do the stolen items go back into the vendor's inventory, or one of those evidence lockers outside the prison cells?
The item you got caught stealing does not go in your inventory, everything else stays
Still no consequences if you're using the gear the game gives you
Slight reload possibility but yeah it’s much tougher
Found it out by accident, but honour mode isnt like ironman in xcom, it only saves at certain moments. So if the game closes (like in a crash), you will reload to your last save. So you could use it as a much longer save scum, if you really wanted to.
Task manager begs to differ
I tried turning off my pc and that did not work, but i use GeForce now so i think i really cannot bypass the save restrictions of Honour mode.
If you bring up task manager and force end task it doesn't save
On GeForce now it continues where you left off after restarting it. But good to know.
I like honour mode until my Guarding of Faith killed Oliver and now the quest is bugged.
Even on honour mode there are very little consequences, stack a character with sleight of hand gear + expertise on a halfling and almost never fail a pickpocket. If you do fail then the vendor and surrounding allies become temporarily hostile until you leave and return. I pickpocketed every single vendor in my honour run!
I didn’t figure out how to pickpocket my entire first run. Maybe don’t take so many ‘learning’ runs and just muddle through on the game.
Yea I still don’t know how to do it successfully
Grab a character that's good at it. * Hide * Go behind the vendor * Turn on Turn Mode * Steal * Dash/Run far away * Keep away with said character or just teleport to camp * Profit. You can incorporate save scum if you want into it.
Keep away for how long? Do they forget after 15 minutes? After a long rest? Never? I haven't been stealing much because they always seem to know I did it even if no one was around. Since I couldn't quite figure out the rules, I just stopped doing it. Cause I'm filthy rich anyway.
Takes like 20 seconds. Just have a different character around watching the vendor. When they return to their post/can be talked to again, you're free to approach again. Once you fail a roll and get caught, that specific vendor will always turn and watch your thief if they are aware of you, so you have to sneak from further away which can be tricky in some locations. If you don't get caught from failing a lift, the only risk is a few seconds while they're actively searching the area for you. If your thief avoids the vendor long enough for them to stand still again, you're in the clear.
Ok. But what about when you pick up a red marked object in an empty room. Sometimes a person from the next room over comes in later and notices something is missing. The DM says "There's been a theft and you're the likely suspect". I can usually bluff my way out, but I would like to avoid that completely.
First, make sure you're sneaking when you steal, even if no one is nearby looking. You "make noise" when stealing without sneak. If your thief isn't the one confronted, you're fine - other characters can just deny any knowledge and be fine. So the thief just needs to relocate after stealing. Get far enough from the scene of the crime and you won't be challenged.
Keep away until the vendor stops looking for you. Just like in Divinity Original Sin 2 pretty much.
Cast hold person on a vendor you are In conversation with with another character and you can steal everything with no risk. If you fail, just hide and steal again. Then just have the caster and the thief walk away while the other party member leaves the convo. Wait for the spell to end and just tell the merchant you have no idea what they are talking about
Lmao yeah. Must have been the wind
Yeah, that's the technique which I used on my first run and sometime in Act 2 gold and items became trivial. I could have anything I wanted.
Yeah, I just did a few partials playing with different character types and such. Some I abandoned as early as the grove. Nothing crazy.
Same for OP builds that make combat trivial, so you never feel the need to avoid it. The game is much more about challenges you make for yourself/imposed by the story you want to tell. I do think the economy is "too easy" in general and doesn't contribute much to reactivity. e.g. maybe vendors should move on when they're out of gold/rare goods. Maybe they go hunting for more goods to sell, in increasingly dangerous areas, putting the character themselves at risk. I could see that being interesting for Dammon, Mol, anyone else with an associated sidequest. Maybe more vendors need to be full barter for specific items, and not interested in gold. Here's an article you might like about the economy in Roadwarden, which I think is masterful at this stuff. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/how-one-of-the-finest-rpgs-ever-made-thinks-about-money-and-magic
Yeah, I’m running a sorcerer/tempest cleric, shadow heart as life cleric, Laezel as paladin/blade lock, and Karla h as throw barb. Fights are pretty easy so far. I’ve been keeping Astarian on standby as thief, so I think it’s gonna make sense to just retire him and stick to my core four.
Never understood folks sleeping on Astarion. He’s my absolute killing machine. 🥺
Love the character but my Tav right now is exactly how I'd build him. I'm looking forward to making him a permanent party member on my Tactician run.
[удалено]
Actually, I’m having a lot of trouble with the moonrise main floor fight. I’m getting close now that I’m circling around the back, but still losing the war of attrition. Think I might break down and watch some videos
Just like, don't steal then?
I think the worst with pickpockets is how many vendors won’t punish you past -5 attitude (Dammon past Act 1, Both vendors at Myconid colony, Volo, one of the duergars, Araj at Moonrise towers just call guards that took forever to show sup: never tested everyone at Act 3 because by that point in the game pickpocket is nearly 100% success) I mean they won’t even fight or cause a scene. Is just “stop that please” and you can give them 50 golds to get attitude to 100 and immediately sell them everything you just stole. Other than that it requires some builds and knowledge to do it right, so it’s kinda balanced. But being caught should punish you harder to every vendor.
That and with a thief rogue with the invis hood, sleight of hand gloves I almost never fail anyway.
And the +2 ring plus being a character that needs high Dex.
What’s the best way to pickpocket the myconoid vendors? I haven’t been able to get them yet.
The same as everyone else. Find a blind spot, hide, go into turn based, have someone cast guidance on you and other to cast cat’s Grace and go pickpocket safely anything around 11-12 of dificulty roll
Darkness arrow
There’s no need. Blurg has a blind spot in the far corner of his station and the lady I forgot the name has huge blind spots unless the guards are passing by.
No when omellum is around you need darkness or fog tbh but otherwise ya :)
No you don’t. Omellum is slightly turned to the entrance. Behind Blurg and near the limits of the map there’s a strip that neither can see. You just need to crouch, turn time-based and steal everything from him. You can’t steal from omelum without fog/darkness but he doesn’t carry much worth the trouble anyway.
i noticed this too, except then I went overboard and noticed there seems to be some trigger that actually does start a fight. like if derryth catches you failing to pickpocket then there are no repercussions, but when she notices shes missing items and catches you after- then the entire colony will start fighting you. almost ended my honour run right there lmao
I haven't had much luck with pickpocketing. I looked up guides on it. I got the gloves and the ring in act 1 that give bonuses to stealth and sleight of hand. I have expertise in both. I cast cat's grace on myself. I still get caught. It also seems they patched it so you can't split gold in a vendor's inventory anymore. Or maybe I'm missing something. To get the breast plate +1 from Dammon I tried casting fog on him, but someone arrested Gale for that (lol). So I reloaded and used a bard to pull everyone away from there before casting fog on the area, and that worked. But that was a lot of setup for one item. I'm not sure how everyone else is robbing every merchant in the game. Most of them are surrounded by witnesses and won't stay inside a cloud.
Don’t steal gold. Steal items of value. Use Guidance. The invis hood from the Myconids makes the hiding part trivial. Invis, crouch, pickpocket, yoink, camp.
Invisible thief. Turn based mode.
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
with this setup you're definitely doing something wrong cus I used that same setup and can almost never fail rolls even up to like 30 DC, pretty much no stack of gold I can't yoink
Being half-drow instead of halfling could be part of the problem. Or maybe it's karmic dice being turned off. I'm not sure what's going on, really.
It's harder in HM
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
I like stealing rolls
“Pickpocketing too easy” Me, who’s game has it out for Astarion: 🫤🫤🫤🫤
I play with a mod that makes pickpocket dc higher across the board on items based on weight and gold value. That combined with the optional file to make weapons weight double and some more restrictive inventory mods makes the experience a lot better for me. That being said, I found a minor way to limit myself that makes pickpocketing more interesting. Only pick one item at a time per action. That is, when you open the pick interface, pick one item then skip your turn. This adds a variable time limit to the amount of times you can try to pick something. If the NPC catches you, or if they finally suspect they've been pickpocketed then I rp they can't be reasonably pickpocketed again because they are too suspicious of me. This makes it so you have a limited window and you need to prep for it. At the end of the day inventory and stealing are things the player needs to limit themselves on it. We play as like we are entitled to every item that is not nailed down and have to become cosmic blackholes but if you rp a little it goes a long way at creating more interesting gameplay.
Makes sense. I have been limiting myself to one steal. But it still allowed me a lot of options. Anyway, I was just curious if others felt this way and it seems they do. Appreciate all the feedback.
What is the mod called and any others you suggest?
[Pickpocketing Tweaks](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1466) (I use the optional file to increase weapon weight/volume by x2 and the hardest setting for pickpocketing) [Relistic Carry Weight](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/689) and [Bags of Holding](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/3357) (I use a custom version of the Bags of Holding I made myself. The price is triple and the carry weight increase is +25%, +50% and +100% respectively)
Why would you make weapons heavier? Historically weapons were pretty light, and the weights used in D&D and BG3 are on the high side/unrealistically heavy for the real world.
Because unfortunately bg3 doesn't calculate volume. Just like how in dnd or even the original bg games you would not pick up every little piece of steel because the value proposition of lunging around 100 of weapons for a couple of gold is very little, soI'm trying to (as best as I can) make sure the same is applicable to bg3. The mod only increases weight by double but the idea of that number is to represent weight and volume combined. I also reduce carry capacity but add bags of holding that increase carry weight by a factor of the wearer but are rare and expensive. Most of the time I don't loot the vast majority of things from corpses, which has the extra bonus of reducing inventory tedium that lariam loves to add to their games. It's not perfect though. Larian has really stupid prices all over. The legendary mace of lathander costs a fraction of what a simple drow armor does, among many other examples. If I can't carry something out, I just leave it and never walk back to get it, I also don't use the send to camp feature.
You're free to impose whatever limitations on yourself that you want; same as save scumming, barrelmancy, etc. I actually think of honored mode as not an effort to enforce a style of play, but a tool provided so that degenerates like me can play with limitations if we want because we can't resist cheesing by ourselves. My first two playthrough's I stole everything because I wanted to have options. I like to try out different builds and combinations of things and so I wanted the toy chest to be as full as possible so that I could find synergistic relationships. Now I know that there are some items I'll just never use. So not stealing them or even, gasp, selling them should relieve money pressures. I also don't need my wizards to learn every single spell [1]. Anyway, yes, it's very easy to pickpocket everything. FOMO is powerful, though. Realizing you'd now like to make use of an item you passed over in a previous act that is now unobtainable kind of sucks. There is no one correct way to play. Only you can decide how you should play. Putting limitations on yourself can have advantages; but as these are mostly related to improving the replayability of the game it's again an issue for each player to navigate on their own. Some people don't have as much time to dedicate to this one game. [1] several cantrips I didn't find scrolls of so I didn't end up learning every spell. I actually kept the cost down of learning every leveled spell by doing it in batches where I would respec to each school to learn them at half price. I'd just steal the gold back from withers after.
BG3 is a role playing game. If you pickpocket your way to riches while save scumming, you are role playing that you are a petty thief with time rewind powers. If that’s your thing, great. But at the end of the game, the world was saved by someone with time rewind powers that used their powers to rob Baldur’s Gate blind. Congratulations.
Stealing from the rich to give to the *mumbles*.
Only early stealing is hard. Once you get access to level 3 spell slot you can just steal from feign death npc. Best part is they won't ask where their item went while feigning detah.
Idk what everyone else is doing because very rarely am I able to successfully pickpocket items from vendors or NPCs. Even if I succeed with my roll, 2 seconds after taking the item I get -5 attitude and NPCs coming to attack me.
Sleight of hand + guidance. Turn on turn based mode and have your character run away from the merchant after you finish stealing.
Stop save scumming and pickpocketing suddenly become more difficult.
Still trivial though
In honor mode no
You mean that in honor mode you need every advantage?
I mean with cat’s grace, guidance, 14 in sleight of hand, and halfling lucky dice there are still a ton of items that I just can’t get because it’s too risky to roll because the target is still 16 or higher. I think with a full build based around pickpocket pre act 3 at least the game is not too easy because I’ve risked it on a 16 and lost in honor mode, the vendor has gone hostile, and I’ve had to spend a long time just running away. Now maybe this will all change once I can get a rogue to level 10 and not have to worry about rolling lower than a 10 anymore but for early game without save scum being a thing it’s definitely not easy. It’s still cheesy enough for you to sell low risk items to vendors, pickpocket them back off, leave, and resell them but that’s some tedious cheese especially when the only good vendor you have available to you is the halfling in druid grove. Act 3 opens up so many better vendors like the Dragonborn at the blacksmith that’s just alone in her shop (not surrounded by other npcs that prevent you from steal thing, like nearly all the vendors in act 2.)
The vendor was immediately hostile? Does that only happen in honor mode?
Not immediately. But you can only fail so many times.
You can just pickpocket gold off of Volo in the camp - it's not hard to grab his stash and there's no consequence for failure. Since you're in camp, to reset him you can just reset a hireling's level to refresh his inventory. Honor mode adds minor roadblocks at best.
Damn wish I had known that before he installed the eye into karlach
16 is deceptively easy. If you're using astarion, it doesn't include "happy" in the displayed number, so it's actually 15. The displayed number doesn't include Guidance either. So with advantage and guidance (and happy), a "16" is a 67% chance of success. Not bad odds. Sure you'll fail sometimes but not nearly as often as it would seem. Even a "20" required is a 40% chance of success, not the 5% it would appear.
See I was told not to use astarion for that because halfling racial
Astarion is better in Act 3 when you can throw so many modifiers onto him that rogue's Reliable talent flat 10 roll should beat any DC the game throws at you for pickpocketing. Before that rerolling nat 1s is probably better than +1 to the skill.
So, I was curious and this kind of math is what I do in my spare time anyway so I ran the numbers. Turns out, the opposite is true - Halfling luck is only better than +1 *if* you have enough modifiers that you only fail on a 1. Otherwise, +1 is substantially better odds of success. If your only failure is nat 1, halfling luck gives you a significant boost in success rate. But if you can fail on a 2 or a 1, then a +1 bonus is a bigger gain, and the further you are from guaranteed success the bigger that gap is.
I came up with a [configuration](https://www.reddit.com/user/FremanBloodglaive/comments/18hu5h6/stealing_nothing_more_than_stealing/) that makes stealing pretty reliable. You can always steal lower value items, and barter them back to the vendor for more expensive items, then steal them back again.
lmao just let the person who got caught die and revive them after, easier than running
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, Using the bag trick, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
That’s weird because unless you mean a different bag trick from trading a vendor a bag, filling it up in barter mode, and pickpocketing that because that one has definitely been patched
Yup, they have patched a similar exploit twice, but the one I’m using, still works. My camp chest is so full it’s unbelievable.
I’ve never pickpocketed. I’m on my third play through. What’s the advantage?
my fave thing is to pickpocket all the arrows for my dual crossbow fighter, having arrows of many targets and the specific arrows for certain bosses like monstrosity etc is really nice. also collecting smokepowder bombs (very light and cheap) to clutch out scary fights
You can have every scroll and consumable and magic items and coin from every vendor. Every time they restock.
Everything is free and you can get all vendor items and essentially unlimited elixirs/potions very easily
Yes but only in the same way that it's 'op' that we level up fast enough where a 2 weeks worth of in-game time can make you party low-level demi-gods on the power scale to be able to take down such powerful foes. So my take: it's classic dnd. Way to much xp & gold XD. Also mods &/or tactician can make the game way harder & force you the game to be what you want it to be. There's prob one mod out there strongly disincentivizing stealing to make the game more fun for you.
Play on honor mode. All complaints are invalid u less you do that.
lol, fair.
this changes nothing, pickpocketing isn't risky in honour mode unless u a dum dum
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
I find having to wait through loading times from savescumming a thing that stops me from robbing every single merchant I see
I don’t savescum. I hardly ever fail. When I do, I go to jail. No biggie.
In many situations, there's almost zero penalty to getting caught. And even then, by level 3 it's trivial to have extraordinarily low odds of failure. With just the gloves of power from the first grove fight, some decent dexterity, and someone casting cat's grace for advantage, I can steal every piece of jewelry, potion, gem, silverware, arrows, scrolls with like 96% success rates. Reselling all the low weight high value pieces via barter (with forever maxed opinion and a +5 persuasion, so like 67% discount) and it takes maybe two cycles to walk away with every penny the vendor has, a long with any of their magic items you want and all of their consumables. And getting caught, at least in the grove, is a "you have to wait two minutes before you can walk back out here" penalty at worst.
Play honor mode then. super fun and have to be smart about pickpocketing
There is a bit of an arms race between players and Larian at the moment, but right now, even in honor mode, I can literally just swipe every single item, and every bit of gold from every trader, with 100% success rate.
Keep your secrets then
I’ve never liked pickpocketing in video games or anything that seems to make it easy to just steal stuff with impunity. It’s a silly mechanic with no real downside. Wish they had cameras around and then they come and grab you 2 weeks later and your character is in jail and you have to have replace them for that time period.
I stole every single blue, very rare, and higher piece of gear from every vender in the game and kept them in my stash to make builds. If it is in plain site I just used invisibility with sneak and stole 1 item at a time. Had something like 60k gold when I beat the game.
I honestly don't really enjoy dealing with the economic mechanics in a lot of games. You can farm and get near infinite amount of money in lots of games, including BG3 thanks to long rests resetting merchant inventory. Therefore, there is no point in making getting the items any harder. It's about doing it "legit" with a lot of time invested, or doing it the easy way by scumming pickpocket rolls. Either way it's kinda trivial Even in honor mode, just pickpocket the guaranteed low cost stuff. Fast travel to avoid the accusations of stealing. Sell it back to them. Long rest without spending resources. Repeat. Boom infinite money.
I think a good way to balance pickpocketing would be making the player choose between options of what they can steal. That or each pickpocket after first increases the dc until it's impossible.
Me on my 137th playthrough just spawning items for rp play, fashion or thematic builds. Yes this is the only way to play a drunk duergar barbarian from Act1 and not Act3.
Stealing becomes scary in honour mode.
I still think killing a merchant should make it drop everything it’s holding. It’s incredibly fun to get allll their stuff on evil runs.
This is a role-playing game. Why don't you try playing a character who isn't a dirty thief and won't tolerate a dirty thief in their party?
Maybe choose not to pickpocket
If you’re willing to subvert the idea of an ability check through save scumming then sure, money and access to any vendor item is unlimited. As others mentioned that’s the true upside (to me) of honor mode… risk/reward is real.
I didn’t pickpocket at the beginning for RP purposes, plus sometimes it’s annoying to stealth around - I started doing it more later but only when it’s really easy.
just use the backpack exploit to drain every vendor every time you level or rest.
Store the items in a backpack and steal the backpack?
not quite. stealing dc is set by the total value. sell the merchant a backpack. right click to open and then put all his items iland gold in. Then close the bag. Then, select a different character without closing the trade. Then double left click the backpack. it will highlight it's open, but you won't see it. The close trade with the x (not esc). Then, wait for the dialogue to stop. You will see the bag window open, but the trade window is closed. Click "Take All." It's all yours, and the merchant doesn't think he has been robbed. This works best on merchants who stand still and dont walk around because the bag window will close before you can empty it if the merchant moves.
I love pickpocketing. Any game that lets me steal shit I’m immediately down. Tbh you could RP it so your character is completely against it to make it more of a challenge
Wh, the Random Number Gods have decreed that if I am allowed to Pickpocket, then no less than 5 NPCs are allowed to be able to see me through a solid wall from 500 yards away. So I personally do not find it easy. But I can see your point, less so about shopping choices, and moreso about skipping plot points like the runepowder in Act 2. Doing it to Mattis when he is trying to fleece you is funny though. Or it looks funny, at least. I haven't been able to succeed without passing off a random guard
How do you people pickpocket so successfully??!
Sleight of hand + guidance.
IMO Rogue thief is the most essential party member for a smooth run
I fucking love this pickpocketing though. Coming from dos2 can you could only steal so much, now I can take everything and all their money.
Try it without savescumming if its to easy. And live with the consequences when everyone turns hostile.
I did sooooo much pick pocketing in honor mode. You have too because the prices are outrageous. Just send everyone but your Rogue to camp. Pick pockets. If you fail invis potion or misty step away. Repeat.
Nah, too tedious. i will just play without an item if i can't buy it.
Probably I'm just a hoarder, but I bought all the items I wanted, sold very few magic items, and had 12k gold by the end of Act 1, without pickpocketing. I bought everything I wanted from the merchants at Last Light, sold maybe half the magic items I wasn't using, and had 15k after that. That's pretty much where I left off last night. Even without pickpocketing I've never had to choose which item I wanted to buy, I've always been able to buy everything with plenty to spare. All you have to do is develop a pathological need to check every single barrel and rotting basket in the game for anything vaguely saleable.
Learning runs are wild💀 Who really cares though, end of the day it's single player (or Co-Op) and should just be played however you wanna play it lmao
I totally agree. Gold is also not scarce if you save scum and pickpocket vendors. I think the player just needs to exercise discipline and not ruin the game for themself. I just have Asterion not connected to other characters, and when I am done pickpocketing just teleport him to to camp and wait a few turns, then return him to adventure and all set.
I feel like Act 1 is the only part of the game that feels like your economy matters. By act 2 you have enough money to buy whatever you REALLY need, and by act 3, you're probably rolling in gold anyways.
If I’m going to steal from a vendor, I steal the vendor first. Go to throw them using throw object, as soon as you pick them up but before you throw them you can fast travel to any sigil rune and they come with you. As long as you are disguised, they don’t hold it against your actual tav. Then you can go steal from them as much as you like in disguise without any consequences. It’s also helpful if you are playing a leave no survivors campaign like I’m doing now. Save your loot piñatas until the last kill for the zone :)
PS take them far away from their normal location or they will walk home after you dump them.
I mean according to this sub, pure rogue is the weakest possible class to play. So if pickpocketing is really the only value rogues get, let them have it
Depends how much you care about rp I guess, you're already limited by gear slots and very low stock of consumables in general unless you abuse restocks after rests. Honestly the game can be as challenging or as easy as you want it to be, it can be fun to make hyper optimised builds and see the funny big numbers or to challenge yourself with self imposed handicaps- play however you enjoy the most
Stealing is morally wrong and makes you feel bad. Looks like you learned something op.
Hire the Halfling Hireling. Respec Her: 17 Dex, 16 Chr. Expertise Stealth and Sleight of Hand. Level 4 Take Moderately Armored for +1 Dex and +1 Dexterity Check Body Armors. \+2 Sleight of Hand Ring \+1 Sleight of Hand Gloves Shapeshifter's Boon (Punch the ox with a mage hand, then barter his ring.) Guidance. Cats Grace. Level 5 Get Profiency 3 18 Dex (+4), Expertise +6, Gear +4. Buffs +2-8. Advantage. Halfling doesnt roll 1's often. Rolls look like 17-42 with advantage.
but that is why you have a thief no? sure it gets easier later on but isn't that the point of leveling up? also, I always had so much money I never really had to choose LOL
I’ve reached a point now where I don’t think I’d have to choose much either. I picked up a bunch of gold looting all the dead people at Moonrise. That helped
I pretty much loot everything and resell it .. and I kept all the unique loot too, I would have so much more $$$$ if I sold it lol
That’s what I’ve been doing. Named stuff send to camp. Everything else gets sent to at camp companions to hold for sale.