Pickpockets....why/how to?

pickpockets are fucking useless. pick warrior every time and just beat them to death for their loot

yes, I am badskeelz

Pickpockets are kinda weird.

Their combat skills max out at around what high jman would be for a warrior-- which is usually where a lot of combat classes plateau anyhow.

They also get parry really early compared to other non-warrior combat classes.

Also, sap so gud.

EVEN MORE ALSO: They get a huge bonus to the their agility stat. I've managed to land a couple of AI rolls while prioritizing strength first.

Blackjacks and saps give a bonus to your sap skill-- kinda like how dark hooded cloaks are +hide or something.

I've read on here somewhere before that etwo is great for sap because it yields a strength bonus. It makes sense, but I'm not 100% on it.

Also yes, very possible to etwo and sneak at the same time. (shit son even half giants can master stealth eventually)

gg

dont forget to steal the weapons from those scrub loser warriors before you sap them silly shitlords dont even have scan

also sneak spice into their packs if you wanna be a pro arm player

Pickpockets are the only ones who can peek/steal/unlatch properly. This is almost a world of its own. Being able to see what people are carrying is fun, and having access to their private belongings is an underrated thing. People don't leave their truly valuable and important shit in apartments, because apartments get looted fairly regularly. They keep that shit in backpacks, and now that you can open people's backpacks (you couldn't until like last year or something), nothing is safe unless it's too heavy to steal.

It's a realm of pseudo-PvP that some people find exciting. Maxed steal virtually can't fail as long as whatever you're trying to steal isn't near the weight limit of what can be stolen. Anything light, like a key or ring or dagger, you're just about guaranteed a succesful steal if your skill is maxed. Maxing steal takes some doing but isn't that much of a hurdle if you know how/where to do it. The biggest trick is to not attract staff's ire.

Some of the most interesting plots start from a cool item. Something metal, something magick, something super-rare. Get your hands on this and it can be the talking piece of a lot of conflict and interaction. You can do this basically anywhere, as long as the person isn't being guarded or watching you. You know those people who never leave the safety of the tavern, and basically cannot be PKed? You can still steal their shit. Sometimes, even just seeing that somebody has something is enough to get a small plot started.

It's not a very varied class. Consider your pickpocket a non-combat character. You can actually branch parry pretty easily and it's worth doing if you play in the 'rinth, just so you don't accidentally get killed by an NPC mugger or something. If you're playing a socialite thief, don't even bother. If you ever get killed, it'll be in the kind of situation where your combat skills would have done nothing.

Pickpocket isn't a powerful class, but it's a fairly unique one. They actually have more of a monopoly on their thing than any other mundane class really does; plenty of classes can kill in one way or another, and lockpicking doesn't need to be maxed to be of use. Poisons can be supplied by others. The other mundane classes tend to have a lot of overlap and could fill the same roles; but nobody else gets the ultra-high steal, peek and sleight of hand that it takes to safely and reliably play a thief. These are not skills that are "good enough" at advanced or whatever the other classes and subguilds can get them to. Not for most purposes, anyway. Not for the kind of shit that's fun, like stealing keys out of a closed pouch or seeing what Junior Agent Faghead keeps in his silk backpack.

It's possible to make a pickpocket slightly okay at fighting since they do branch parry, but it's not worth the trouble to attempt to make a combat career out of it. If somebody powerful decides that you should die, you're gonna have to rely on stealth and social cunning, not winning the fight. Don't bother using sap, it caps too low to be safe to use. Don't bother taking the slipknife subguild or anything like that. Just play your pickpocket like a civilian. You can spend a year in the Byn if you want to, but that's as far as you should go.

It gets boring, though. It's not a class that I've ever bothered to play for several RL months at a time, but since it's so easy to max out a pickpocket and fun for a month or two, it's an option for anyone who's looking to play some sort of mundane specialist without committing to something that takes ages. You're not getting a powerful ranger or assassin in one RL week of grinding, but you absolutely can max a pickpocket (not counting combat skills) in three days played. No other class can get good at their thing so fast.

Sneak: Just always sneak. It takes some time, but with high wisdom you can max it around 3d.

Hide: Just spam it a bit in non-crowd rooms. Pop 5x hide once an hour.

Steal: You auto-fail steal on shopkeepers. Dealing with the potential wanted flag is up to you.

Peek: You fail peek better when peeking at worn containers.

I wouldn't really bother with stealth gear on a pickpocket. Honestly, that's for assassins and rangers who are going to be out and about doing PvP and caring about avoiding detection. I find that people in the lawful parts of the city don't usually go around with scan on and spamming look. Hide and sneak become no-fail at master (potentially even a bit earlier) without the need for stealth gear. Since pickpocket hide caps at 80 instead of 90, it isn't worth trying to maximize your detection difficulty. 80 is good enough that only rangers will easily detect you. The kinds of things that require maximized stealth, like spying on somebody who will kill you if they discover you, should not be attempted by a pickpocket. Leave that to assassins and burglars.

The only skills that really matter are sneak, hide, peek, steal and sleight of hand.