Safe pickpocket in honour mode

[Kamuizin]

What are my options, to pickpocket with no/less risks in honour mode? Specially early game.

Afaik the bag trick is out of picture and blind vendors trigger hostility,

[brendan_in_china]

Eh? I've had Astarion pick pocket level 3 no problem. What specifically is causing most trouble?

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Kamuizin:

Safe pickpocket in honour mode
What are my options, to pickpocket with no/less risks in honour mode? Specially early game.

Afaik the bag trick is out of picture and blind vendors trigger hostility,

Leave not witnesses alive.

[brendan_in_china]

You can flee hostile vendors and return. You can also pay them to restore reputation too - which can be stolen later.

[wtiger27]

The safest option. Don't steal.

[Kamuizin]

Originally posted by brendan_in_china:

Eh? I've had Astarion pick pocket level 3 no problem. What specifically is causing most trouble?

Be caught. Would like to avoid that, since, you know, i can’t reload.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Kamuizin:

Originally posted by brendan_in_china:

Eh? I've had Astarion pick pocket level 3 no problem. What specifically is causing most trouble?

Be caught. Would like to avoid that, since, you know, i can’t reload.

You could use this to reload
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3103820559
though if you do not want that mechanic, you are better without playing Honour Mode and just go with custom and Honour Mode ruleset.

[brendan_in_china]

Originally posted by Kamuizin:

Originally posted by brendan_in_china:

Eh? I've had Astarion pick pocket level 3 no problem. What specifically is causing most trouble?

Be caught. Would like to avoid that, since, you know, i can’t reload.

Yeah but that's not a problem. They're temporarily hostile. You can escape and return,

Each vendor has challenges, Aran is probably the easiest. Draw an OA the direction opposite you want to flee, hide, dash escape. Use arrow of darkness, potion of invis,, a distant wizard casting Fog cloud, or Thief subclass with extra dash.

I've robbed them all HM. Don't recommend Ethel, Blurg or Omeluum; their perception are too high and by memory go full hostile.

[euromanijak]

Hold person the halfling merchant he is usually alone (talk to Rolan and his siblings to make them leave or stay and they will leave the area close to the merchant), and when you succeed then talk to him to pause the timer, after you are done leave the are and stop concentrating on hold person it shouldn't cause any problems

[Kamuizin]

Originally posted by brendan_in_china:

Originally posted by Kamuizin:

Be caught. Would like to avoid that, since, you know, i can’t reload.

Yeah but that's not a problem. They're temporarily hostile. You can escape and return,

Each vendor has challenges, Aran is probably the easiest. Draw an OA the direction opposite you want to flee, hide, dash escape. Use arrow of darkness, potion of invis,, a distant wizard casting Fog cloud, or Thief subclass with extra dash.

I've robbed them all HM. Don't recommend Ethel, Blurg or Omeluum; their perception are too high and by memory go full hostile.

Hmmm thx, this is good, didn't know that Blurg and Omeluium got full hostile when caught! It's an evil run, so i will just try after all the quests, if i fail i will just kill everyone.

Edit: I just used another save to make some tests. The result:

Don't know if it's Patch 7 change or not, but i can't target neutral parties with status effect now. It says "target can't be an ally". So i can't simply cast hold person, feign death or whatever on the vendor. Funny enough i can use damage spells on allies, only status effect are blocked.

While inside the blind area (fog cloud used to test) the vendor doesn't go hostile, but the immediate next turn he goes. If you fail to steal inside the blindness area the vendor still triggers the reaction banter and either you bribe, persuade or he goes hostile.

Worst of all, i don't know if this apply to everyone, but at least Arron (the first vendor of the druid grove) can't be target by status effect spells even when temporary hostile!!.

Sleep potion worked on Arron (when throw), but the moment i failed the effect of sleep immediately vanished.

And all that trouble was around a vendor without witness. Can't even imagine the trouble that steal will be with witness around.

Edit 2: after some tests i tried to get caught, but apparently the vendor doesn't call the guards, he want to kill me. I run from Arron and managed to hide, but after that he simply disappeared from the game. Every person that saw him coming for me also turned hostile and dropped their atitude to me towards the very end, refusing to speak until i give them some gifts.

Serious, if is this problematic with Arron i'm really terrified of know what will be with other vendors, that have witness around.

Edit 3: Items put inside a bag, when the vendor is knocked out, still stay there. As far as i tested, the best course of action atm is to sell a bag to a vendor, use the barter screen to put everything in the bag, steal something very cheap, to guarantee success (almost), left the thief visible but far from the vendor, and he will run towards him.

Lure him to a remote area and knock him out. Steal the bag. Long rest for the vendor to recover, bribe him so his atitute improve. Repeat.

[Kamuizin]

Bump, to display my tests in the previous post. If anyone has any insight to add, i will be happy to have them.

[brendan_in_china]

Dude, you've got to plan your escape! Don't run _into_ the grove with Arron on your tail - run towards the gate or up the side hill.

If using assassin Astarion, his actions refresh on rolling initiative. Once 'battle' starts, I deliberately draw an OA heading away from the gate. Then I double back slightly out of sight, hide and dash for the gate. Longstrider and/or helm of speed helps here.

Arron looks around for my hiding spot right next to him, fails to see me 70' away, combat ends.

Damon is trickier. An arrow of darkness helps, and there's a neat hiding spot behind his forge in the dark.

Each trader has a trick.