I'm currently playing a Dunmer Thief (which is alot of fun) and the second Thieves Guild quest required to me to pickpocked a key from a certain individual. My rank in sneak is 40, and after having failed a couple dozen times I just taunted the guy into attacking me. Which pretty much ended in putting everyone in the Balmora Counsil Club to the sword (which I had to do anyway, for another quest - but I was saving that until later). Now, am I doing something wrong or is my Sneak skill just too low? Also, if you guys have any general advice for Thieves it is quite welcome. [img]smile.gif[/img]

You need a high sneak skill ( almost 100++ ) to successfully pickpocket.

try having some sort of invisibility spell or even chameleon spell. it might help you.

The key quest has several possible strategies, and you've choosen the toughest: stealing from a thief.

The other options are bribing him-- he'll sell you the key quite easily-- or killing him and all his buddies. Before going that route, though, be sure and talk to the leader of the nearby fort: he wants these guys gone, so its a twofer...

Some might argue that if you are playing as a thief, its some how 'cheating' not to steal the object in these situations. Really though, the whole idea of being playing as a villian is to defy expectations and break the rules in creative and profitable ways.

Oru

ugh, dunmer dont make great theives. If you arent very far in the game, restart and make a khajiit. I can't imagine being able to do anything without my super sneak and security (imagine, i can sneak right in front of ordinators and steal anything i want. pickpocket almost anybody, and i'm invisible to everyone when i push the sneak button... never seen until I want to be seen).

Either way, if you dont start over. Save game while youre in the council club. Walk to the middle of the bar so that when he greets you he turns his back to the wall and faces the center of the room. This is important because others can spot you pickpocketing just as easily as he can. move around behind him and try to steal the key (push and hold sneak for a bit. if the invisibility icon shows up, all the better, but it isnt necessary since others can see you, but hopefully not the target, hold your target over the character and push space to open his 'inventory' which is things you can attempt to steal). If you fail, reload. You get alot of experience for sneak out of succesfully pickpocketing this guy, so its not worth bribing him if you want to work up your sneak skill.

Any race can be a great thief as long as his/her sneak , security skill is high enough.

Dreamer128 has done a good thing. ie kill 2 birds with one stone. :D

Isn't pickpocketing itself a SECURITY skill instead of sneak? Sneaking up on a person of course is, but I beleive I read in the manual that pickpocketing is security...

Nope, pickpocketing is a part of sneak.
Security is probing and lockpicking, i believe.

Yes, Svaerdhelgon is correct.

And that post adds what to this thread precisely? Should we all go and post "yes, the post above is correct" to all threads? Now what exactly would be the use of that, I wonder? Except of course the use to the individual posting 100s of posts every week to up their count.... Hmm.

<font size=0>Yeah I know, this post doesn't add much either, but then at least I'm not spamming for ranks. [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>

He posted "I believe". which may mean that he got some doubt about the thing that he type. I myself will use the same thing if I have doubt in what I'll type. My post above is a confirmation that what he stated is correct.

Do you have anything else in mind?