Lategame Pickpocket

[PUNCHDOG]

I'm working on a build that I'm hoping to add pickpocket to, but only starting once I hit early epics. I understand that it's possible to get XP for this, though I've never heard it talked about on the forums. Is the XP/gold gain significant enough for the skill cost and time commitment? Is it even possible to pickpocket late game, given how nearly every mob has someone with TS or god-level spots?

[caldura firebourne]

Pickpocket is a funny skill, sure their spot skill can affect whether you get caught or not, but it doesn't affect whether the attempt was successful, hostile creatures have a flat dc of 30 for that, and if you can hit that dc you will still get the item and any xp you would get as well.

[Hunter548]

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about Pickpocketing from a PvE standpoint. Monsters occasionally get a randomly huge spot boost (Presumably because someone thought stealth was overpowered? IDK) to an absurd degree; My level 23 stealther would get spotted by wolverines semi-frequently. Plus, at epic levels you're going to have trouble soloing areas, which is all pickpocketing monsters is really good for -- It doesn't contribute anything to a party. All it takes is one monster to spot you, and poof, dead rogue.

[PUNCHDOG]

Pickpocket is a funny skill, sure their spot skill can affect whether you get caught or not, but it doesn't affect whether the attempt was successful, hostile creatures have a flat dc of 30 for that, and if you can hit that dc you will still get the item and any xp you would get as well.

That's really weird. So a Blind Goblin is just as difficult to pickpocket as an epic ranger? Does being detected while pickpocketing in stealth draw agro, or since you're still in stealth does the mob have nothing to target?

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about Pickpocketing from a PvE standpoint. Monsters occasionally get a randomly huge spot boost (Presumably because someone thought stealth was overpowered? IDK) to an absurd degree; My level 23 stealther would get spotted by wolverines semi-frequently. Plus, at epic levels you're going to have trouble soloing areas, which is all pickpocketing monsters is really good for -- It doesn't contribute anything to a party. All it takes is one monster to spot you, and poof, dead rogue.

How significant is the XP gain? My character will be a HiPS Monk, so I'm not too bothered if I'll need to kite away a few epic-spotters to get to the rest of the mobs. Honestly, I'm thinking it might be fun to solo a dungeon, pickpocket everything without killing a mob, and escape with loot.

That is all assuming that the XP and gold gain is worth it. What's a good ballpark for a successful pickpocket? Half of what you would get killing them? One fourth?

[Durvayas]

I'm thinking it might be fun to solo a dungeon, pickpocket everything without killing a mob, and escape with loot.

Congratulations, you just demonstrated precisely why the random spot spikes were implemented in the first place.

The FL server used to have a serious problem with 'ninja looters'. People would follow parties in stealth and steal loot, and often they would bypass the entire dungeon's mobs and loot the chests at the end before competing parties could reach the chest. To a lesser extent this was happening on regulith too.

The solution was to collectively punish all stealth builds by making it virtually impossible to stealth through entire areas and dungeons without drawing aggro from something. If you somehow survived, you 'deserved' to be there. If you didn't, you didn't. This was a crushing blow to stealthers on both servers.

[PUNCHDOG]

The FL server used to have a serious problem with 'ninja looters'. People would follow parties in stealth and steal loot, and often they would bypass the entire dungeon's mobs and loot the chests at the end before competing parties could reach the chest. To a lesser extent this was happening on regulith too.

That seems almost like a good conflict point. "no loot? better pop a TS to see if we've got a tail." But I guess I could see how it could get annoying.

Still, pity the solution to people being annoying about stealth is to say no one is allowed to stealth anymore. "If you somehow survived, you 'deserved' to be there" sounds a lot like you're too high a level to be there, anyway.

Is the consensus then basically that PP isn't worth the investment?

[Lorkas]

That's really weird. So a Blind Goblin is just as difficult to pickpocket as an epic ranger? Does being detected while pickpocketing in stealth draw agro, or since you're still in stealth does the mob have nothing to target?

If you're detected while pickpocketing, two things happen: 1) the PP attempt takes much longer, playing an animation that's used only for failed PP attempts, and the PP is only rolled at the end of this animation, and 2) you are dropped from stealth at the beginning of this animation.

At a minimum, you're spending something like 3 seconds out of stealth before you get your chance to get the item. If you break off the PP attempt and run, you don't get the item.

All that to say, if your PP skill is high enough to beat the blind goblin's spot score, but not high enough to beat the epic rangers, then it is much easier to pickpocket the blind goblin. At least... without getting caught.

[Sockss]

Congratulations, you just demonstrated precisely why the random spot spikes were implemented in the first place.

To be fair the best stealthers are things that can cast invisibility infinitely, followed by things that can cast invisibility, followed by using invisibility pots.

As a caster, you can also run and loot things twice as efficiently as a a stealth build could. (Regardless of random spot bonuses, as you have no MS penalty) Double up the efficiency again if you throw some natural cast hastes in there.

Hide / MS as skills are an RP tool right now.

Pickpocket is in a similar boat, it is useful to have if you want to level a little faster and you don't mind actively left clicking and smashing a function key.

Generally you just spam it face-tanking in combat and you'll get ~20%ish more xp / mob. It'd be super slow to just be reliant on that, though - usually it's best to just put the points into something else.

[Durvayas]

invisibility doesn't work as well though, because invisible people become visible within pickpocketing range, hence why if you go invis and run past a mob but brush shoulders with it, it'll still aggro you if you aren't fast enough.

So, in that sense, casters make poor pickpockets unless they are wizards who put points into it in their rogue dip for shits-and-giggles, even then, they aren't good at not being seen at point blank. Perhaps the PP won't be detected, but they will, and a wizard in melee range is doing something very wrong.

[msterswrdsmn]

To answer your earlier question, I think the xp gain is something like 1/4 of the xp you would have gotten if you killed them.

I'm not 100% sure of that number, though. Someone else is going to have to confirm this.

[Mithreas]

The solution was to collectively punish all stealth builds by making it virtually impossible to stealth through entire areas and dungeons without drawing aggro from something. If you somehow survived, you 'deserved' to be there. If you didn't, you didn't. This was a crushing blow to stealthers on both servers.

Nonono you've missed the point -completely-.

Rogues are not as good at straight fighting as fighters are. If you invest in stealth, you probably aren't an amazing frontline warrior.

When one monster sees you in a group, what does it do? It follows you. It allows you to peel it off from the rest of the group and murder it in a back alley, one on one, without having to fight its friends. It means that when you're soloing as a stealther, you still do a bit of fighting, but with a much lower challenge level than the guy wading in and taking on whole spawns.

Yes, you can't just stealth through an epic area with your level 6 and a bunch of stealth gear, safe as houses because you can be sure nothing will ever see you. But if you build yourself for 1:1 fighting and gear up accordingly, you get to play a very different game from most builds. XP for pickpocket is about 25% of kill xp each time you steal something, and creatures will have a random number of items to steal. Plus, you can pickpocket a creature while you're fighting it for extra xp (albeit you'll get flat-footed, so timing is really important... or KD it first. Again, remember you're in a 1:1 most times) which makes up for the fact that you will tend to kill things more slowly.

I really love playing PP characters in PvM, and find it a much more interesting experience than most combat builds because things like environment really matter.

-Mith

[Lorkas]

The only problem with that logic is that the AI allows for characters to draw enemies one at a time anyway, so you wind up with a situation where that Fighter/WM/Rogue is also fighting things one on one, just at a much higher CR than the rogue.

If that's the design philosophy, I'd rather have some kind of ability that I can actively use that lets me lure enemies to different places one at a time or even in groups, without breaking stealth immediately.

Something like a hobbit throwing vegetables to make a ringwraith go the other way, and something like Solid Snake tapping on a wall to lure a single enemy in a way that wouldn't make them immediately raise the alarm for other enemies in the group (as shooting one of them would).

Both of those would be awesome, especially if coupled with an update to make luring enemies with actual projectile weapons more risky (immersion break every time, though I admit it's often necessary in the absence of an ability to lure them that makes sense).

Heck, give those lure abilities to all classes, and just make your success key off of your stealth ranks somehow (or something else, like rogue, SD, assassin or ranger levels?). A character who's bad at it would sometimes draw 2, 3, or the whole mob instead of just 1 of them. A character good at it would be able to manage encounters for a whole party really well. That could be a really awesome system if implemented well (Player Tool 2 anybody?)

Just not this every time:

It makes our characters feel like failures instead of feeling like they are doing something active to try to control the encounters. I'm fine with my character being spotted sometimes, but I have never consoled myself with the words, "Well, I'm worse at fighting due to my stealth investment, but at least that stealth ability often fails unpredictably".

[Dalenger]

"Well, I'm worse at fighting due to my stealth investment, but at least that stealth ability often fails unpredictably".

This. I get where you're coming from, Mith, but randomly failed sneaks doesn't really feel like a feature.

Something like a hobbit throwing vegetables to make a ringwraith go the other way

If you're doing it exclusively for the lulz, Rotten Tomatoes are still totally in the crafting matrix afaik.

Yes, you can't just stealth through an epic area with your level 6 and a bunch of stealth gear, safe as houses because you can be sure nothing will ever see you.

I'd agree with you that this would be an issue. However, I don't think the solution is to guarantee fail the skill on occasion. Perhaps mobs get a significant spot boost vs PCs a significant number of levels (~10) below them? So if a lvl 6 tried to sneak past anything lvl 16 or above, the mob gets the spot boost. That way, you aren't punished for sneaking through dungeons fit for your level.

[Hunter548]

Maybe a level six stealthing all the way through a dungeon isn't ideal, but neither is epic stealthers getting routinely spotted by wolverines and goblins on the Cordor Frontier. Rogues are simultaneously bad at actually fighting, and bad at stealthing too -- Because when they Inevitably get spotted (And they will inevitably get spotted no matter how much investment they put into the skill, the same way that any build will fail exile disguise checks fairly regularly), they're bad at dealing with the consequences for that failure (Killing the monster in question).

[Durvayas]

The solution was to collectively punish all stealth builds by making it virtually impossible to stealth through entire areas and dungeons without drawing aggro from something. If you somehow survived, you 'deserved' to be there. If you didn't, you didn't. This was a crushing blow to stealthers on both servers.

Nonono you've missed the point -completely-.

Rogues are not as good at straight fighting as fighters are. If you invest in stealth, you probably aren't an amazing frontline warrior.

When one monster sees you in a group, what does it do? It follows you. It allows you to peel it off from the rest of the group and murder it in a back alley, one on one, without having to fight its friends. It means that when you're soloing as a stealther, you still do a bit of fighting, but with a much lower challenge level than the guy wading in and taking on whole spawns.

Rather confident you're the one missing the point.

If a PC intends to 1v1 things, they shoot it from beyond normal detection range and take it on. You almost seem to forget that rogues SUCK at face to face combat. They're literally not made for it, hence why sneak attack, traps, and crippling strike are their thing, and they have those stealth skills in the first place. People who build sneaks DO NOT WANT TO DUEL.

If people build their character for stealth they're actively making their character a worse combatant by sinking points into hide/ms that could have been sunk into things like spellcraft, discipline, spot, tumble, etc. The last thing these people want is to be arbitrarily spotted on a regular basis by things that effectively have true seeing via astronomical spot/listen bonuses(immediately invalidating their entire stealth skill investment). If they wanted to be spotted so they could be aggroed, they would have built a more combat heavy class. Rogues are hit the hardest by this frankly nonsensical(goblins with 50 spot) and not-very-fun design decision. While things are sprinting at the rogue, the rogue is stuck walking away scared unless it wants to break stealth, at which point the rest of the group will detect them and they'll get to deal with Arelith's oh-so-fun mob AI 'it doesn't matter if you're invisible or cornersneak I'm stuck-on-you-like-fly-to-shit' aggro.

[Lorkas]

It would be amazing to be able to do something like deliberately snap a twig or make a rustling sound so that one of the NPCs gets just suspicious enough to investigate but not suspicious enough to raise the alarm. It's a sweet spot that isn't quite hit by shooting an arrow at an enemy or getting spotted outright (they'd raise the alarm immediately in both cases).

Importantly: this ability shouldn't break stealth if the check succeeds, just direct one or more enemies to a particular location. That way a rogue or assassin is better able to actually deal with the one enemy s/he draws over, by getting a sneak attack flurry in before the melee starts in earnest.

...on enemies that aren't outright immune to their main class feature, that is.

[Peppermint]

Maybe a level six stealthing all the way through a dungeon isn't ideal

With this year's basin changes, this is hardly a problem anymore, though.

[Dr_Hazard89]

Pickpocket is not really very rewarding, money or XP-wise, but any more rewarding and I can see it being abused. If you're on your own or with a fun and patient group, you can have some fun trying to sneak into the next room and robbing everyone blind before the fight starts. You'll net yourself some extra gold, XP and even some items (although I've never gotten anything but trash) if you're lucky. I would treat the skill as something to invest in for fun and RP, but it has no significant mechanical benefit. Personally, I still think it's worth it if you can spare the skillpoints.

[Sockss]

Insert remove true seeing meme + removal of random spot increase.

(They'd still be be bad, just less bad)

With regards to invis you either don't bump shoulders with a mob or use summons to move them when they're blocking. It's still super easy.

[yellowcateyes]

Yes, you can't just stealth through an epic area with your level 6 and a bunch of stealth gear, safe as houses because you can be sure nothing will ever see you. But if you build yourself for 1:1 fighting and gear up accordingly, you get to play a very different game from most builds.

You can't make stealth, parry, or utility gear anymore as a rogue. You need to find a decently-leveled enchanter for it. It's an unfortunate reality for new rogue PCs to be reliant on higher-level characters for the basic equipment needed to succeed at their class.

For example, would you be comfortable playing a new wizard if there were no NPC scroll vendors in the module? And if the only reliable source of scrolls was certain Fighters who picked a specific feat?

Either way, the random detect bonuses on monsters is just another reason why Rogue types are in a bad spot right now.

[Orian_666]

After reading this whole thread, and though i've only ever had low level stealthers, I can admit I see the logic in what Mith said but I also gotta agree with everyone else that it was executed poorly.

If aggroing one enemy at a time to fight them 1 vs 1 is your goal, which is doable a lot of the time as a rogue if you took KD or build parry with the parry changes, then it should have been implemented as a choice and not something that happens no matter what making someone who invests heavily in a skill feel like a failure at that skill.

Not everyone wants to RP that style of stealther, and those that do can, as others have stated, just pot shot the enemies 1 at a time anyway.

The intention was good, but the execution was poor. Just my opinion and all, don't mean to offend, but yea.

[Dr_Hazard89]

Oh. So that's what was going on with my SD. Had 100+ hide and 90+ ms and even low level trash would still spot me from time to time. Scouting into a room to check for mages was terrible, because I would just get machine gunned with quickened horrid wiltings.

[msterswrdsmn]

Several issues with the random spot-spike feature

1. Randomness.
Unlike trueseeing creactures, you can't really predict what is and isnt going to have a random spot boost. Which means things you DON'T want to aggro right away (mages with contingency) are just as likely to gain the boost as the next thing is.

2. Location
The "lure them away to kill one on one" doesn't work in all areas. Spawns in front of area transitions, spawns with some creatures that naturally have high spot/truesight mixed in...etc

3. Across the board
The boost seems to have as much significance to low level creatures (wolverines, goblins) as it does to high level creatures. This makes investing into stealth up to epic levels rather....lackluster.

4. Concept
The reason this was done was....why? To prevent a low level player from stealthing all the way through higher level dungeons? Was this even that big of an issue to begin with? And if someone was capable of stealthing through the dungeon and solo-killing the boss at the end....wouldn't that mean they're techincally an appropriate level for that dungeon?

[Hunter548]

After reading this whole thread, and though i've only ever had low level stealthers, I can admit I see the logic in what Mith said but I also gotta agree with everyone else that it was executed poorly.

If aggroing one enemy at a time to fight them 1 vs 1 is your goal, which is doable a lot of the time as a rogue if you took KD or build parry with the parry changes, then it should have been implemented as a choice and not something that happens no matter what making someone who invests heavily in a skill feel like a failure at that skill.

Not everyone wants to RP that style of stealther, and those that do can, as others have stated, just pot shot the enemies 1 at a time anyway.

The intention was good, but the execution was poor. Just my opinion and all, don't mean to offend, but yea.

See, I could buy this if it wasn't called a nerf to rogues when it went live however many years ago.

Everyone can lure enemies with a bow. Calling this a way to help rogues isolate enemies just smacks of spin.

[Orian_666]

After reading this whole thread, and though i've only ever had low level stealthers, I can admit I see the logic in what Mith said but I also gotta agree with everyone else that it was executed poorly.

If aggroing one enemy at a time to fight them 1 vs 1 is your goal, which is doable a lot of the time as a rogue if you took KD or build parry with the parry changes, then it should have been implemented as a choice and not something that happens no matter what making someone who invests heavily in a skill feel like a failure at that skill.

Not everyone wants to RP that style of stealther, and those that do can, as others have stated, just pot shot the enemies 1 at a time anyway.

The intention was good, but the execution was poor. Just my opinion and all, don't mean to offend, but yea.

See, I could buy this if it wasn't called a nerf to rogues when it went live however many years ago.

Everyone can lure enemies with a bow. Calling this a way to help rogues isolate enemies just smacks of spin.

I think my initial comment may have been worded incorrectly. When I said I can see the logic in what Mith said I meant that having a rogue specific means to single out enemies and draw them away makes sense to me, think of almost any stealth based game ever made almost all of them have that function.
So, I can see the "need" for having something that can lure a single enemy away, but this specific method of having individual enemies randomly getting a massive spike to Spot and Listen just isn't the way it should have been done, it's clearly an ineffective way of creating that sort of RP or gameplay style for stealthers.
In the same breath i'd say that luring an enemy with a bow shot is bad, surely the others would see that and know there were hostiles nearby and rush to help their ally, but giving a mechanical way for just stealthers (classes that can invest in both hide and MS) to pull single enemies at a time would be great.

I also agree with msterswrdsmn, why is it such a bad thing that a player can stealth through an entire dungeon of non TS enemies to get to the treasure/boss at the end? If they've invested in the ability to do that then surely they should be allowed to.