I couldn't find the thread where one person posted a pretty detailed explanation of the new pick-pocket rules based on the 12_23 patch, and the Search option yielded zilch, so...

Here's what I've surmised so far based on my little experience so far with the game. :D

My Bard is level 12, pick-pocket score of 75 and a Dexterity and Speed of over 100 with various items.

Results are pre-generated for each character (assuming they have PP skill) as soon as you hit the zone, and not when you actually click pick-pocket on them. Like for contents in a chest. This based on PPing with several characters on different NPCs, then trying again in a different order. All produced the same results. You can't reload and try again because those results stay with your game. You can't rest and try again (I camped for 56 hours straight). You can't rest, leave zone, come back and try again. I guess there has to be "real-time" lapse between PPing attempts. What's worse, you can't remove the patch (if you patched the PP nerfed one) because trying to replay your saved game without it crashes the game. IMHO, it should remain as a PP skill check whenever you try to PP a NPC, and it should not be "remembered" by the game when you reload. Pump up the difficulty of the skill. E.g. certain PnP RPGs with an extremely high thieving skill still generates low percentage success. So say a 100 skill with PP would still only net you 50% chance of success. If a person is going to sit in front of a NPC and just keep PP and reload over and over again based on that difficulty, why take that away?

[ 02-23-2002: Message edited by: Annheiser ]</p>

Why not take it away like they did?

I did pp'ing no-patch & with patch and much prefer it with patch. No-patch pp'ing just makes the skill "worthless" cause with the save/re-load method you could wipe out an npc with nothing but a starting skill of 15 & increase it to max skill with no effort.

Why have a skill if its going to be a simple matter of saving/re-loading?

Is the game that difficult that you would rather do something that takes no effort or soemthing that takes some effort and you can actually feel you "acomplished" something?

Sorry but i had this argument several times and im pretty blunt on my view about this subject cause i take my RPG's seriously and hate using trainers/editors myself. The pre-patch pp'ign is what i would consider an Exploit due to poor programming & what i would place under the standard of trainers/editors.


[ 02-23-2002: Message edited by: Mage_77 ]

[ 02-23-2002: Message edited by: Mage_77 ]</p>

You're not reading my entire post.

From my understanding of the pre-patch PP, it was too easy to gain items at a quick rate. Why not just make it entirely difficult instead by lowering chances of success? To put it in simpler terms, why not base the skill off a 50% chance instead of a 100% chance as an example? If a person is going to sit for hours in front of a NPC to PP everything the NPC has, then whatever is his cup of tea.

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: Annheiser ]</p>

It's better off as it is IMO. Yes i suppose they could change it to run off the 50% as you said but then it's still simply to just sit there & pp.


Pre-Patch the statement of gaining items at a quick rate was the problem of people getting good items off npc's fairly early in the game due to the fact you could sit there and PP until you had 90+ skill with just using the save/re-load method.

Lowering the "Rate of success" just means it will take longer to earn "x amount of skill" but it will be exactly the same as if it was never changed.

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: Mage_77 ]</p>