Why is pickpocketing a thing?

[rusty_shackleford]

Just reload until you succeed

absolutely disgusting

 

[rusty_shackleford]

also, a bunch of quests in deadfire can be solved by pickpocketing but I encountered quite a few bugs last time I did it and was blatantly obvious nobody else really bothered to use it or test it at all
most common bug was being able to acquire the same quest item/reward twice

 

[Grauken]

Games basically gice you two options:

Invest in pickpocket skill
Get caught anyway
Entire town trying to kill you now
Just reload until you succeed

OR

Put zero points into pickpocketing
Never miss it at all

It works as a skill where you can steal unique items from enemies during combat and only get them in these situations and combat is random encounter based, so no way to savescum

 

[Sykar]

Underrail does make good use of it. Fallout gives you the ability to plant stuff on people giving you some creative options to solve quests.

 

[Lady Error]

Why is Thief a class/profession in many RPG's?

 

[Dakka]

Why is Thief a class/profession in many RPG's?

Not sure, I'd rather be a pirate myself.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I really enjoyed how pickpocketing worked in Kingdom Come. It's the only RPG I can remember playing where I was spending a fair amount of time dabbling in pickpocketing. Usually, that skill is hard pass for me in games, but in that game it was really enjoyable.

That's because Kingdom Come limits how many saves you can make. It's a waste to use up a Savior Schnapp on a pickpocketing attempt, so you're more likely to roll with the punches. In most games, pickpocketing is just another casualty of savescumming.

 

[CanadianCorndog]

Why is Thief a class/profession in many RPG's?

Probably influenced by Fritz Lieber's The Gray Mouser character. Gygax was a fan.

 

[Technomancer]

Entire town trying to kill you now

Wasn't so in Dragon Age. People would just do a funny little angry animation if you got caught. And this also activated extra random encounters where kill parties would ambush you and make you pay. So getting caught was better - you unlocked extra content, earned even more xp and loot.

 

[Harthwain]

I really enjoyed how pickpocketing worked in Kingdom Come. It's the only RPG I can remember playing where I was spending a fair amount of time dabbling in pickpocketing. Usually, that skill is hard pass for me in games, but in that game it was really enjoyable.

That's because Kingdom Come limits how many saves you can make. It's a waste to use up a Savior Schnapp on a pickpocketing attempt, so you're more likely to roll with the punches. In most games, pickpocketing is just another casualty of savescumming.

In general Kingdom Come: Deliverence did many things right. I liked making potions, for example, but you if you didn't you could dedicate a skill to automatically create a potion. The only downside of this was that auto-brewing gave you fewer potions out of the same number of ingredients. I found ALL thief-related skills (stealth, pickpocketing and lockpicking) to be useful in Kingdom Come: Deliverence. To make it even better, using black cloth and no clinking armour also helped your sneaking skill. As LarryTyphoid said, limited saving made illegal activities (not just pickpocketing, but also picking locks in the open) an adrenaline-pumping exercise, because it wasn't worth wasting your time going back in time to try again most of the time.

 

[Lutte]

Why is Thief a class/profession in many RPG's?

Because you need someone who's good at scouting, noticing details, disarming (or arming) traps and occasionally opening a chest that doesn't belong to you.

And, well, someone who used to be (or still is) a thief is a good fit for that role in an adventurer's party. It's very much a legitimate RPG class.

 

[Zeriel]

Because pen and paper RPGs had them, and they could do it well. The DM wouldn't just be like "lol, the entire town turns hostile and starts chasing you down", if you failed you would get someone chasing after you, and maybe get thrown in jail. But if you got away, everything would be okay, and maybe the guy you stole from would recognize you later. Meanwhile the digital DM can't do something that intelligent, so everyone in town turns hostile and tries to kill you. If the game is slightly more intelligent the guards will run up to you and let you pay gold to avoid getting torn limb from limb, or maybe just throw you in jail if you get caught.

The other side of this is that in games you can always reload, which makes the whole "punishment" aspect of the system optional and just for "RPing". Whereas in an actual tabletop game you have to just roll with the punches.

I think games that make thieving an entire lifepath are fine though and very compelling. For example, Europa 1400 The Guild.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I really enjoyed how pickpocketing worked in Kingdom Come. It's the only RPG I can remember playing where I was spending a fair amount of time dabbling in pickpocketing. Usually, that skill is hard pass for me in games, but in that game it was really enjoyable.

That's because Kingdom Come limits how many saves you can make. It's a waste to use up a Savior Schnapp on a pickpocketing attempt, so you're more likely to roll with the punches. In most games, pickpocketing is just another casualty of savescumming.

This is the solution then. I noticed playing on Iron Man makes me not even consider doing pickpocket because I will ruin my game or just die. Limited saves might be the sweet spot.

 

[Harthwain]

Meanwhile the digital DM can't do something that intelligent, so everyone in town turns hostile and tries to kill you. If the game is slightly more intelligent the guards will run up to you and let you pay gold to avoid getting torn limb from limb, or maybe just throw you in jail if you get caught.

It all depends on how the game is made. You could come up with some very detailed reactions, but doing something like this for things that aren't main focus of the game is going to eat resources that are needed elsewhere.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I think Disco Elysium should have innovated pickpocket since it did not do much else.

 

[Harthwain]

I think Disco Elysium should have innovated pickpocket since it did not do much else.

High Interfacing turns you into a kleptomaniac. Similarly to how having high Electrochemistry turns you into an addict. I think some people on the Codex really missed this aspect of the game. If they even played it, that is.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I think Disco Elysium should have innovated pickpocket since it did not do much else.

High Interfacing turns you into a kleptomaniac. Similarly to how having high Electrochemistry turns you into an addict. I think some people on the Codex really missed this aspect of the game. If they even played it, that is.

Worth trying eventually I suppose.

 

[Funposter]

I really enjoyed how pickpocketing worked in Kingdom Come. It's the only RPG I can remember playing where I was spending a fair amount of time dabbling in pickpocketing. Usually, that skill is hard pass for me in games, but in that game it was really enjoyable.

That's because Kingdom Come limits how many saves you can make. It's a waste to use up a Savior Schnapp on a pickpocketing attempt, so you're more likely to roll with the punches. In most games, pickpocketing is just another casualty of savescumming.

In general Kingdom Come: Deliverence did many things right. I liked making potions, for example, but you if you didn't you could dedicate a skill to automatically create a potion. The only downside of this was that auto-brewing gave you fewer potions out of the same number of ingredients. I found ALL thief-related skills (stealth, pickpocketing and lockpicking) to be useful in Kingdom Come: Deliverence. To make it even better, using black cloth and no clinking armour also helped your sneaking skill. As LarryTyphoid said, limited saving made illegal activities (not just pickpocketing, but also picking locks in the open) an adrenaline-pumping exercise, because it wasn't worth wasting your time going back in time to try again most of the time.

The best thing about Pickpocketing is that it's the only way to get certain dice for Farkle, and even in a game where the economy is broken by the availability of high-end gear, swindling stupid peasants out of their gold never gets old.

 

[NecroLord]

In Fallout 2 you can head straight to NCR and get yourself a Light Support Weapon from one of the guards at Buster's Bazaar. In normal and unpatched Fallout 2 this guard had a Bozar,one of the strongest weapons in the game. I cannot remember which patch replaced it,but this seems to be the case in Fallout 2 Restoration Project.
As you can see,pickpocket is also useful in Fallout 2(depending on your playstyle).

 

[Bigg Boss]

Sure but can you use it?

 

[NecroLord]

Sure but can you use it?

Ammo for this thing is quite plentiful in the game. But yeah,one must have tagged Big Guns and have some skill investment to probably offset the Strength penalty for wielding it.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Was just pointing out the points you need to take in pickpocket without savescumming are kinda high so would require some investment.

 

[†††]

Why is Thief a class/profession in many RPG's?

To make the game more inclusive towards black players

 

[NecroLord]

Why is Thief a class/profession in many RPG's?

To make the game more inclusive towards black players

 

[Bigg Boss]

To the person it did not load for - a pic of a two black people dancing and the guy has his hands in her purse.