What's the point of putting more points in an ability that you have 100% of already (such as 100% pickpocket)? Does it do you any good? Well, I had Imoen drink a potion of master thievery, and she had over 100% thieving, and I tried to get her to pickpocket a store keeper just for fun, but it failed. Why would it fail if she has over 100% chance of pp someone? Is there some sort of modifier to it?

I don't think that the theiving attributes should be thought of as a percentage...I was also wondering the same thing a few weeks ago. Someone suggested that they would not consider their character good in a particular attribute until they had atleast 125 points.

Oh, I thought it was in percent. My bad ;)

In some skills like Open Locks you don't realy need more than 100%, it's enough throughout the game and there are always potions to drink would the need arise.

First of all: The points are not percent!
What skills now should you improve how far?
IMHO
a.) Improve your Stealth skills (move silently, hide) as much as possible. They give you an infinite supply of invisibility
b.) Improve pickpocketing, opening locks, disabling traps, ... to a degree where your occasional try succeeds (about 100-125) but drink Potions of MT if you really need these skills on one occasions (want to completely rob a shopkeeper, difficult lock/trap)
c.) Depending on your game strategy choose points in set traps until it becomes normal to succeed in setting instead of failing.

i don't use pickpocketing. there are ~5 person who are really worth it and therefore it is ridiculous for me to use it.

detect illusion 100% will leave your arcane casters free spell slots as it disables as good as 1/3 of the abjuration spells.

120% in lockpick and disarm (overall) and you can go for other thiefskills. there is one trap that cannot be disarmed, sadly. it is in neb's refugy house.

100% traps. if you don't use any mods this is your ultimative killer ability. slay dragons, liches and demiliches in 1 second and grab the loot.

move silently and hide in shadows get the rest of your points.

All good till the last point. iirc hide in shadows is a waste past 100%. Once you reach that figure you always *well 99%* sucseed in hiding. Also this is the last ability you max out. once you get to say 50 % or so points then if you do not sucseed, you can wait 20 seconds and try again. [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bloodtitan:
[QB] i don't use pickpocketing. there are ~5 person who are really worth it and therefore it is ridiculous for me to use it.

Yes but the things they give u are well worth it ;) I find that 1 of them is very very helpful and i use it all the time, i couldnt live without it ;)

<span style="color: lightblue">Ignore Hide in Shadows... put your stealth points all into Move Silently.

Flipping to the back of the SoA Game manual:

Thieving skills are adjusted both by dexterity and the type of armor worn while making the attempt.

For example your thief with 18 Dex and wearing studded leather had a total of 85 points in pick pocket ability. Her Dex score will add 10% to the success roll while the armor will remove trying to pick pockets while wearing studded leather earns you a -30% to your roll. Meaning chance of success in 65%. Loose the studded armor and her chance of success soars to 95%.

The reason to have more than 100 points in any skill area is to compensate for armor worn.