were pickpockets nerfed too much?

[Stingray1]

The thing is, that membership to the thief guild should not be an easy accomplishment. The problem is that pickpocketing isn't "difficult", but tedious to train.

I think if ways were implemented to make characters with a low mark in this skill succeed easier, the problem might be solved.

These suggested 'ways' as I mentioned in the RFE are: better success while the PC is unnoticed(invisibility, passes a stealth check), pickpocketing a neutral(does not care about you) 'monster', dexterity.

Gnomes, merchants, thieves and assassins are good pick pocketers. That is part of their training during apprenticeship.
Magicians are good at casting spells.
Fighters are good at fighting,etc.

Any character who only starts his training in the Drakalor chain is not going to be great at it from word go.

I know you guys want a Strong and tough archmage that can also be sneaky, but that's not the way it should be.

Imagine we start requesting that our Trollish Barbarians be adept at learning Acid Ball(exaggerating for effect) at lvl 1.

Edit2 - Jellyslayer's suggestion sounds fair too. If I was the head of the thief guild, I would definitely accept a character that stole from a shopkeeper.

Although I think some players are shooting for pickpocketing to have easier yields, not necessarily membership.

[JellySlayer]

I think the success rate is higher if you haven't attacked the creature yet, and also higher if the creature is neutral. I've only noticed a big nerf doing it in the middle of combat.

Hard to be sure, I haven't collected stats or anything--that's just my impression.

This does appear to be true. I rolled a couple thieves and tried pickpocketing around Terinyo. With <40 skill, success rate is around 50 percent and chance to anger the NPC is pretty low. Aspiring pickpockets might consider plying their trade in Terinyo or DT. It doesn't always seem to trigger the alarm even if you fail badly...

[Stingray1]

Holeinthewall might also be considered, at least there is no alarm.

[mike3]

The thing is, that membership to the thief guild should not be an easy accomplishment.

How high a level do you think the PC should have to be to gain membership? (As some of the feats suggested here -- robbing shops, robbing the water dragon -- require a fairly high level to pull off.)

[JellySlayer]

Robbing shops can be accomplished with zero risk at level 1. You just need a potion of invisibility and a bit of luck (stealth helps too).

[Stingray1]

How high a level do you think the PC should have to be to gain membership? (As some of the feats suggested here -- robbing shops, robbing the water dragon -- require a fairly high level to pull off.)

Edit - I did not mean it should be difficult either, that's why I wrote the sentence after the one you quoted. To clarify, I meant, it should require some work.

Whenever he has stolen enough items, this can be from lvl 1. It may be plausible to request that the required items be reduced somewhat, it does feel somewhat excessive. Most skill acquisitions require some work. The easiest one to get is probably Pick Pocketing. It allows you to acquire another 4 skills. Edit - 5 skills in total and they can be trained with gold. Asking for easy access to this is what I was referring to. But, as I said, there are two sides to this. Players who want to get those additional skills with less effort and players who want more items easier from Pick Pocketing.

[Stingray1]

I started a new mist elf CK last night. Acquired Pickpocketing and tried with the skill at 1/100 in the Bandit village. Not successful at such a low lvl. Tried 2 children in Terinyo, the 1st got angry on the 1st attempt, the second also and the alarm went off. So, maybe the class does make different or 1/100 is just too damn low.

The character is xl 8 now and has the skill at 44. Success is about 2 attempt on 'does not care about you' monsters and really sucks with hostile monsters. I'll see if I can reach DT tonight and try there. I'm descending slow due to challenge though, so be patient.

[anon123]

Based on what JellySlayer and you have posted, I get the impression Pick Pockets is now useless if you don't role-play a stealthy thief. Most monsters in the game will be hostile, and proving a to be successful pickpocket is a prerequisite to getting the Stealth skill if you don't start with it.

Please let us know if you at least observe better items getting stolen, or something to that effect. I just gave up in frustration when tackling my first post-pr7 vault required 10 attempts per orc at skill level 40 to yield the same loot as usual.

[gosos]

problem with making thieves guild really hard is that detect traps is almost essential as the game goes on. the high trap areas are too dangerous without it. you wont get enough wands to cover it and I think there is a spell to detect traps, but its not real common.

pickpockets isnt useless i get some items off of it when i use it, but its annoying. its 3 keys to do it and i fail alot even at 100 pickpockets. id like to find a way to reduce the annoyance (part of it is to cut down on the number of keys you have to hit). you cna replace lots of failures with if you succeed or fail your your DV goes down when using it.

[JellySlayer]

Detect traps isn't essential. That's a Guidebook-propagated myth. Alertness and/or high Dx/Pe (Sixth Sense helps a surprising amount as well) will mean you'll avoid most traps anyway. Except for ceiling traps in the Temples, most other traps are pretty harmless by midgame so you can just walk through them if you want.