Make thieves/assassins get auto-entry AND a special shop for them. Expensive but only dealing 'armour' of stealth/invis, 'weapon' of balance/true aim/hunting...

I don't see that assassins need special access. They have their own guild already.

Oh man, thought you meant access to the assassins. Skipping two now-nearly-impossible chaos traits. Noone for this for thieves/assassins? Make goodies harder to enter, let good ones in?

On a sidenote, I've always found it curious that lawful PCs can be the head of the thieves guild...

Ridiculous I think it is slightly more balanced now.

Edit - *Especially* since getting the required successes is still easy enough.

Edit - inserted some tags and added a better opinion.

Ridiculous? I'm suggesting a minor change to a minor quest that has been made slightly harder in a recent version. Keeping the difficulty of the quest the same seems to be the very definition of "balance", especially since the change to pickpockets was not intended to make this harder, and a similarly minor thematic change affecting only the most difficult class in the game, who (anyway) receives the least benefit for membership.

To be honest I'm afraid that the change to pickpockets just made this quest more difficult. The intention was to discourage people from pickpocketing very heavily, but if you do, you will end up with a high skill in pickpocketing and not be affected a lot. However, it's the low skill values that have been hit hardest. And it are precisely the people who only pickpocket for the quest that have low skill values.

I vote for just undoing the change to pickpockets. Automatic access for thieves especially would make sense too.

Why must it be easy to gain skills and training in those skills. I'm playing a Trollish Beastfighter and he was able to become a member without much difficulty and his Pickpocketing is now only at 41. It is a little bit more keystrokes than in the past, but hey it used to be just too easy. Then you might aswell just make every unlawful character get automatic access. NO. No an NO.

The question is not why must it be easier but why must it be harder. nobody had a problem with the quest at its 1.1.1 difficulty

True, nobody complained, but I'm sure many players know that it was maybe a bit too easy to accomplish.

Anyway, that's just how I feel. If the majority feels different. Who am I to argue.

p.s. I altered my original, post. Calling your suggestion ridiculous was not necessary.

Well, I didn't complain because there were more important issues in the game but I've actually always thought that quest was a bit too hard.

OK, "hard" is not the most accurate word. "Boring" is the word.

I find pickpocketing dozens of monsters pretty tedious and this quest has always been the only reason why I do it. I've always thought, even after this nerf, that 10 monsters would be more than enough. With that you've proven that you can be a thief and you don't have to grind repeatedly.

So I vote a heartfelt yes to this.

I'd suggest reducing the requirement to 10 and making Yergius give initial training to level 20 not level 1 - at the moment you have to wait till a level up before you can even realistically use it. Auto-access for thieves also makes perfect sense.

Another change could be the option to pay in for 500 gold, for those who don't want the boring grind. But doing this would inflate all of Yergius' future prices, since you're clearly a money pot ;)

I don't really see why it needs to be made easier. You have access to it from the beginning of the game, and while pickpocketing may be harder, it's not like to need to actively try to become a member immediately - you could simply make it a point to use the skill whenever you have an opportunity to do so.

But I also think a Thief should have automatic entry into the guild. It makes thematic sense. Perhaps thieves could even be offered some item by the head of the thieves' guild in exchange for undertaking a pickpocketing quest.

For Assassins, I think being a member of the thieves' guild doesn't make a lot of sense. But I could see assassins having some sort of special quest from Hotzenplotz, or even from the head of the thieves' guild, in which they are to use their assassin skills in some way.

Actually, it would be cool if each class got a special quest with a reward that goes well with that class, that gives it a tool that helps it with what it does best. Wizards could get a Ring of Mental Stability, for instance.

The required number of thefts has been reduced.

It seems the opposite is true - I've successfully pickpocketed over 40 monsters and still haven't been accepted.

Possibly related to 1697

All these years we've been having it too easy.