Talk:Pick pocket

From NWNWiki

On servers where Pick Pocket is not forbidden, a pick pocket lock on from a PvP area to a non-PvP one, if maintained, always results in a successful pick pocket attempt. Example: You are fighting someone in a PvP area, and they attempt to flee into a non-PvP area through a transition. Before they do, you have clicked on pick pocket, clicked on them, and locked on (as in, the action shows as queued in the top left corner of your screen). You follow them through the transition (because of the lock), and when you appear in the non-pvp area, your pick pocket attempt rolls (regardless of how far away from they are at this point), and is automatically successful. Have tested repeatedly, and works every single time, regardless of the pick pocket DC.

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Queries

1) I know that the amount of gold stolen in a pickpocket is equal to the modified roll against the target's DC. How does this work for items? Are they assessed at their toolkit value, or another value?

2) The article seems to indicate that the detect roll is made after the pickpocket roll, but I have had countless number of times when it was made before, even some that caused the pickpocket to be a failure simply because the target had just detected and gone hostile raising the DC by 10. How exactly do the two rolls interplay, as both rolls seem to use information from the other? Or is the spot roll instead made from a DC generated by a separate pickpocket roll from the one that stole?

WhiZard 03:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Detect mode?

Ran a test, Hostile NPC with 40 ranks in Spot (Detect mode OFF) The NPC managed to Spot a DC 62 Pick Pocket attempt. Pick Pocket does not appear to be affected by the Detect Mode penalty (which effectively halves your Spot/Listen check results).

EDIT: I redid the test with a running NPC. Standing/Running does not seem to affect this, either. If the Spot check were halved the maximum result would be 10 (die) + 20 (half rank) + 10 = 40, but the NPC managed to beat a result of 60 while running. I noticed some additional things about pickpocketing while running this test:

1. Gold is pickpocketed regardless of whether or not it is marked pickpocketable in an NPC's inventory.
2. Being spotted by an opponent causes a ~1 second animation to play before the pickpocket action. Causing the pickpocketer to chase after the target if they are out of range (distance?). When not spotted the pickpocket is instantaneous, making it impossible for the target to escape.
3. Item weight is not a factor when selecting an item for pickpocketing. (Which leads to hilarious results when a 500 lb item is pickpocketed.)
4. Identification is not a factor when targetting items (which raises questions about whether or not item value is a factor, because the bioware GetGoldPieceValue function returns 1 gp for unidentified items)

71.63.116.63 23:09, September 2, 2009 (UTC) FuzzyOne

• It's not surprising that detect mode is not checked for this — that would require BioWare to remember to check that mode when this part was coded, and they've forgotten elsewhere. Running should not affect the check, as running has no impact on any skill checks. (You cannot run while in detect mode, but there is no direct link between running and skills.) Also:

1. Gold is stored as a data field on the NPC, rather than as an item in the NPC's inventory. So ignoring the pickpocketable field is not surprising. Possibly a bug, but not surprising.
2. Interesting. I suppose the animation gets suppressed when not spotted because no one is supposed to see it. :)
3. No one said item weight was a factor.
4. I see no reason an item should not be pickpocketable simply because it is unidentified. And no one said item value is a factor.

Some people have scripted restrictions to make pick pocket make more sense (as with restricting the weight of the item), but the default implementation has no restrictions that were not mentioned. Whether those restrictions were overlooked or deemed not worth the effort, I don't know. (The game is intentionally not balanced for PvP, and BioWare might have decided to rely on the module builder to not flag any heavy items as pickpocketable.) In any case, it's generally not a good idea to assume there is a restriction that is not documented somewhere. --The Krit 10:47, September 24, 2009 (UTC)