Pick pocket - too good?

[booksarefun666]

I have a sense I'll be that guy for bringing it up, but as it stands pickpocketing is by far the easiest way to make gold on this server. After a certain skill threshold, you do not get any risk of lifting a necklace that will sell for ~1k if you stack enough appraise/influence and 200 - 400 if you don't. The threshold of not getting caught seems too low, because getting 20 isn't entirely hard even at the lowest of levels if you're savvy as a player.

If you clear the entire noble's district, you can get a briefcase full of necklaces and no end of golden rings which sell for ~100 every in game day with next to no risk. I've seen some talk about gold sinks and I believe that this is a pretty solid contributor because it's:

1.) Very little risk, as in the NPCs do not provide a challenge and the chance of player interference is very little. Even player guards do not patrol that area when there's unstealthed guys walking around with two cutpurse's knives out in their hand. You can reliably start pickpocketing at level 4+, you can also push it a bit at level 2.

2.) You can do this solo. In fact, it's prefered so you do not have to split the loot.

3.) It's high reward. You can flog it at the local pawn shop at vallaki and it bites into it a fair bit, but that isn't where people flog these necklaces at and can get roughly 40k per suitcase of necklaces they take. I'm not exaggerating, because this is what I do on my own rogue characters for easy cash.

Fortunately, there's a couple of solutions I can offer for this and not all of them lies within the developers.

1.) Probably the easiest way to deal with this problem is to up the Barovian noblewoman's spot by 5 or 10. This'll make the DC needed to effectively lift a necklace without alerting the NPC guards to 25 or 30 and that's fairly harder to reach than the aforementioned 20. At the very least, this'll make pickpockets at least need to carry an invisibility potion around to avoid detection.

2.) If you play a guard, patrol around the noble's district more often. Most people do not make an effort to hide their pickpocketing so you can easily spot out a guy carrying two pursecutters and that'd greatly improve the risk of pick pocketing.

3.) Keep the difficulty as it is, but downgrade everything to silver. Downgrading it to silver will make it more in line with the difficulty I perceive from pick pocketing.

4.) DMs could check this area out a bit more and meddle in it. Sometimes the people that are pickpocketing are also good/lawful ilk and could use an alignment adjustment accordingly.

5.) Move the massive cash to Port-au-lucine and give the gems to Vallaki. It's much more traffic, guards, and therefore risk of being caught than the obscure part of Vallaki.

6.) Do nothing. It's a good gravy train but it does how you wind up with massive stacks of cash for low effort, but I think we all know this and will continue to befriend rogues to dole out coin.

What do you guys think?

[Better Dread than Dead]

Personally, I think it's fine, but perhaps there could be fewer nobles standing about. People are going to always find ways to grind/farm gold, and honestly, the Noble's District in Vallaki ensures low-level rogues have some source of income, if they're clever. Otherwise, rogues at low-levels are an absolute slog. With the gold you make from pick-pocketing, you can at least buy yourself Babby's First Stealth Gear.

DMs do mess around in the area, from time to time, as do other players. There is, believe it or not, some risk attached, if you're caught.

[booksarefun666]

There is some risk to it but in all the times I've done it personally there wasn't much I was legitimately worried about having 40k worth of stolen gear on me except the one time I got blackmailed by a MPC. It's a very reliable source of income with less risk than the other routes.

I can go farm Har'akir and this takes a few RL hours, I might have 10k to show for it on a really good day on a max spawn (assuming I don't die alone)

I can go ninjaloot and this takes less time but if you aren't particularly skilled at ninjalooting, you will die and you will have to do the whisper of shame for someone to rescue you.

I can also go pickpocket nobles and expect a giant payout in the end if the few times meddling does happen, doesn't foil me.

Even crafting profession which doesn't have huge risk to it sucks the patience out of almost everyone and takes a fair bit of time to actually make money from it.

[Dumas]

One thing I have noticed still, is that Vallaki's upper class npcs seem to offer more value for pickpocketing that Port-a-Lucines nobles. Port has more variety in loot that you can pickpocket, but the value does not seem to compare to the amount of gold that the Vallakian nobles have, nor the value of their gold rings, necklaces, etc.

Additionally, I haven't seen a real penalty to being noticed by NPCs in both cities when detected.  If an npc noble detects you, they do go hostile, and sometimes attack, but I have not seen other NPCs react negatively to the player when this happens. In fact, I have even seen guard NPCs attack the NPC that retaliated against the player character.

You can also simply just run away, and after loosing sight of the NPC that detected you, they will loose interest and not recognize you when you come back. I don't know if that is intentional or not.

[Norture]

If you're caught in the Bluewater, you get attacked by garda and are in a world of hurt. And if a DM is watching they'll have a garda report filed, since NPCs noticed you and would report it.

[Legion XXI]

Make an OCR bump of 5-10 for a failed pickpocket attempt on one of these bad boys and the problem will sort itself out.

Also you exaggerated a fair bit on some of your numbers unless this has somehow gotten WAY more lucrative from when I used to do it.  What's your appraise at to make each necklace go for 1,000gp? I used to have a character who HAD appraise, and the 2 rings, a necklace, a torch, and a cloak with appraise on it and still didn't get that much at Mist Camp or Blaustein.

Also now that this is officially public forum tier "please nerf this" knowledge I can finally put out a call for everyone to do what I occasionally do for fun-   Come here and rob these guys ICly.  They're soft targets most of the time and low level.

[booksarefun666]

Make an OCR bump of 5-10 for a failed pickpocket attempt on one of these bad boys and the problem will sort itself out.

Also you exaggerated a fair bit on some of your numbers unless this has somehow gotten WAY more lucrative from when I used to do it.  What's your appraise at to make each necklace go for 1,000gp? I used to have a character who HAD appraise, and the 2 rings, a necklace, a torch, and a cloak with appraise on it and still didn't get that much at Mist Camp or Blaustein.

I hoped back on Nicoletta to see what she used before selling her stuff. Go ahead and give this a try and report back with what you get.

Innate appraise: 3 (I swore I had more. It might be because I'm in ghost form)
Innate influence: -2
Silk clothes: +3 influence
Performance boots: +4 influence
Ring of lies x2: +8 influence
Amulet of Souek: +5 appraise
Merchant gloves: +4 appraise
Knightly cloak: +1 influence
Golden belt: +2 influence
Perfume offhand: +5 influence

I suspect since you play a vardo captain you'll have more influence/appraise flogging these things at Blaustein. You can go ahead and take screenshots showing what the actual prices are to correct me. If Nico was alive, I'd do it myself.

Even by the conservative estimate, 400 gp, that's still 5600 gp a suitcase. Perhaps an accurate representation would be a rogue with just appraise/influence gear and no skills whatsoever in appraise flogging this at blaustein.

your spirit animal is a snark emoticon, Legion. 

If you're caught in the Bluewater, you get attacked by garda and are in a world of hurt. And if a DM is watching they'll have a garda report filed, since NPCs noticed you and would report it.

You can skip the blue water and only miss out on two necklaces. If you have any chance of getting caught you could just skip and have plenty of room to run off in the sewers in the streets of Vallaki.

If you did get caught in the blue water though, definitely in trouble. I don't know how many people try this when they have less than 20 pp personally.

[Syl]

It isn't really to good, and yes if you want fast cash Valiki nobles is where it is at generally. But i've told people before and asked for the things in port to have the higher things,

I've walked around Port and pick pocketed while stealthed everything thing i could. but they only carry gems worth 1 gold and a few other odd things.

of course i had a harder time PPing in Valiki for most my charcter's existence since they were a faction enemy to the garda for being a known thief. thus limiting the payout AND made me watch for patrolling guards.

[LeviShultz]

With the appraise changes, the optimal methods for gold grinding have changed a bit. I used to be able to make 10-14k from Har-akir every 20 minutes but that's taken a significant nose dive.  Now the emphasis is on quantity over quality make PP bar none the most efficient.

What I'd like to see is a few IG mechanics to diversify the uses of PP. One idea I had was a bounty system for PP where Rogue Merchants also offer contracts for specific pieces of jewelry, letters, and other important that need to be acquired. Guard players could watch the bounty in question and other shady, RVT types might watch them as well to see if they'd make a good recruit. Rival rogues are going to be running into each other going after the same mark, should generate a bit of RP. I know I've had that happen when going after the same bounty head. The mark in question could be given better spot/listen skill scores to be a genuine risk.

[Dumas]

What I'd like to see is a few IG mechanics to diversify the uses of PP. One idea I had was a bounty system for PP where Rogue Merchants also offer contracts for specific pieces of jewelry, letters, and other important that need to be acquired. Guard players could watch the bounty in question and other shady, RVT types might watch them as well to see if they'd make a good recruit. Rival rogues are going to be running into each other going after the same mark, should generate a bit of RP. I know I've had that happen when going after the same bounty head. The mark in question could be given better spot/listen skill scores to be a genuine risk.

If this is possible in some way, it sounds like an excellent idea that would really extend some role play opportunities. Great idea, Levi

[SanneJ]

Also you exaggerated a fair bit on some of your numbers unless this has somehow gotten WAY more lucrative from when I used to do it.  What's your appraise at to make each necklace go for 1,000gp? I used to have a character who HAD appraise, and the 2 rings, a necklace, a torch, and a cloak with appraise on it and still didn't get that much at Mist Camp or Blaustein.

I did this as few times as a team, someone else stole them I sold them, I would get the coin from the gold rings (that everyone is seeming to forget) and the other pc got the coin for the necklaces. I got, if I remember correctly, 1056 for a necklace and 406 for a ring.
Also the game would do a strange thing: saying one price and giving you more, but things have chanced at the bleustein shop, so I would not know how much you could get now.

Someone with both appraise and pickpocket could easily get the same effect, but maybe not at a low lvl of course.


I'm against hard nerfing and for making the risk higher myself. and think it's just bad role play, if not done by IG choice but just to get coin, if a lawful good pc would do it (or any good and some neutral for that matter) and it should have a big IG backlash. 

[booksarefun666]

I think by sticking the fat loot in Port-au-lucine's publique it'd be immediately more dangerous, not only because it has roleplayers but it has a lot of NPC and PC guards and less sewer entrances when you get caught.

Grand theft is also a death penalty in port-au-lucine.

[LeviShultz]

Its gonna be the gendarmerie's call but pickpocketing is really really petty theft. Robbing the bank or the jewelry store is more akin to grand theft. If the players wanted they could assign a value to it, a value of 10k or more might be grand theft for example.

[booksarefun666]

Its gonna be the gendarmerie's call but pickpocketing is really really petty theft. Robbing the bank or the jewelry store is more akin to grand theft. If the players wanted they could assign a value to it, a value of 10k or more might be grand theft for example.

It would depend on the gendarme. If he frisked and found a briefcase of questionable golden necklaces it could easily be construed as grand theft.

[LeviShultz]

Let's hope they have poor appraise!

[Syl]

There is bigger treasure to be had in port, but only at night and from the thugs and such folks. I completely forgot about that lol

So I like Levi's idea of having a few bounties that are needed by pick pocketing. Like if it was possible say a valuable was stolen by some thug in port now it has to be lifted of their body. if they are just killed the item is destroyed.

But I've pulled out steel ingots as well as silver ingots from thugs as well as other many things

[DrXavierTColtrane]

So I like Levi's idea of having a few bounties that are needed by pick pocketing. Like if it was possible say a valuable was stolen by some thug in port now it has to be lifted of their body. if they are just killed the item is destroyed.

If the premise of the thread is PP may be over-powered, then creating quests that are doable only with that skill seems counter-productive.

I particularly don't like the idea of destroying the item unless PP is specifically used. That seems arbitrarily mechanical and puts a big, fat thumb on the scale of game balance.

[LeviShultz]

I'm thinking of way to diversify the role of Pick Pocket that might be interesting and create opportunities for role play. By creating other incentives for players, like quests, they can feel good about flexing some of their niche skills rather than just the monetary reward for selling a bunch of rings. Pick Pocket can be good for making money, but I think we can think of a few ways it could be utilized that might have a more meaningful impact.

I like Syl's idea of the quest item being destroyed if you kill the mark, but maybe we could allow the mark to be subdued as well. This might be a good way for more brutish rogues to have some of the same opportunities as a sneaky thief. The goal of the quest is to get the item with out killing the mark. How you accomplish this is up to you and pick pocket might be a good way to do it.

We could also considering giving it a synergy bonus with umd or spellcraft maybe. Deft fingers and hands make it easier to perform the somatic components of spells.

[LeviShultz]

A few specific quest ideas:

A certain nobleman in the Quarter Savant has an import letter that needs to be recovered. The area is filled with other NPCs and Gendarmeire, both player and ai so the risk is high. The letter is returned to the bar keep of the Double Agent in the Black Market. Sure you could just kick his ass and take it from him, but you're only gonna be able to do that so many times. Discretion is required.

A conflicting quest with a Gendarmerie bounty. There a split in the caliban gangs, someones wants the caliban bounty merely taught a lesson instead of turned in. You can either try to subdue him and rip an earing of his off, or sneakily steal it from him. It pays better than the gendarmeire bounty too. Certain players are gonna want to cut his head off and turn it in and other might only want to subdue him and help the underworld out. With players trying different ways to get payed off the same bounty its going to create mild conflict.

It's a half decent want to encourage more under world RP as well. Players are going to be going in and out of the Black Market for quests and are going to start running into each other sooner or later. Gendarm PCs could stake out the area and see if they can catch someone doing something or saying something they shouldn't.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

II like Syl's idea of the quest item being destroyed if you kill the mark....

IMO the mark could be very physically tough and perhaps have high SR, if you want to favor PP. But in principle, I prefer content that you can attempt to solve with many different skills, instead of having it restricted to one. PP might be the easiest way of accomplishing the quest, but not the only way.

FWIW, I love rogues as a class and hate that so many monsters here put rogues at a terrible disadvantage. But this discussion seems to be obscuring Books' original point in creating the thread.

(X-posted with your quest scenario.)

[Syl]

You say PP is To good or OP.. but have you really been picking pockets or have you just been Picking the pockets of non hostile NPCs using the game mechanics to your advantage and knowing the location of where to farm for gold necklaces and rings?

because remember unless it is hostile the DC ot pick pocket is only DC 20. but you can still easily fail it at low levels and be caught.

Now if you're really a thief and you PP you're not just stealing from rich folks that are easy targets, Lets see how well you fair to Hostile enemies who now have a bit higher spot and now the DC is jumped to level 30.

Hells my thief Tsubaki PPs thugs in port for the challenge now, she can be caught by them still and she has about 20ish PP skill.

and I like the idea of Levi's  subdued target instead because lets look at it, A thief doesn't kill their target, such would be a lose of profit we are not assassins who are hired to kill someone We make our mark by slipping in unseen, lifting the item and leaving without blood being on our hands.

Sure we might have to subdue people but that's just knocking them out not hard, such is a really good idea for additional bounties to be added to Port.

[SanneJ]

I love the idea of a quest board, or something like that, in the black market and maybe even in the drain!

[Syl]

I love the idea of a quest board, or something like that, in the black market and maybe even in the drain!

YES! would totally give me more things to do on my thief XD

As well as other thieves [nod nod]

[LeviShultz]

I like where this is going but were getting off topic. Going to create a thread in Systems.

[booksarefun666]

You say PP is To good or OP.. but have you really been picking pockets or have you just been Picking the pockets of non hostile NPCs using the game mechanics to your advantage and knowing the location of where to farm for gold necklaces and rings?

because remember unless it is hostile the DC ot pick pocket is only DC 20. but you can still easily fail it at low levels and be caught.

Now if you're really a thief and you PP you're not just stealing from rich folks that are easy targets, Lets see how well you fair to Hostile enemies who now have a bit higher spot and now the DC is jumped to level 30.

Hells my thief Tsubaki PPs thugs in port for the challenge now, she can be caught by them still and she has about 20ish PP skill.

and I like the idea of Levi's  subdued target instead because lets look at it, A thief doesn't kill their target, such would be a lose of profit we are not assassins who are hired to kill someone We make our mark by slipping in unseen, lifting the item and leaving without blood being on our hands.

Sure we might have to subdue people but that's just knocking them out not hard, such is a really good idea for additional bounties to be added to Port.

Yes, but the nobles aren't as hard as you say it is.