Is stealing worth it?

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Before i start stealing from every chest and pocket i find. From what i've read it seems like it's more trouble than it's worth, having to hide gear before a pat down or needing persuation lvls to talk off guards etc.

I am in desperate need of better gear atm but if i can't remove the STOLEN tag on gear, will i just keep getting searched all the time or is it that i will only get searched if i've stolen from the same location?

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Maybe just stealing from chests etc is what i should do and not pickpocket? It seems if i pickpocket then they always come after me but i can get away with sometimes just stealing from containers.

[Chaoslink]

Yes. It’s the single best way to make money irrelevant. NPCs only go into search mode a short time. As long as you avoid them talking to you, they’ll stop looking and you’ll not have to worry. Just don’t let them initiate conversation. Waypoint away immediately for best results.

To give you an idea, by maximizing what I can steal using my thief and all the unused origin characters, I can leave act one with 2-6 copies of every available skillbook, all the best gear vendors could sell, every valuable crafting material, 80+ res scrolls and a pile of gold between 120-160k on average. That’s just act one. By the end of act two my thievery days are basically over with plenty more than 3 million gold.

[M.A.C.H.I.N.E.]

I usually have one character talk to the person I'm going to pickpocket, use my thief to do it and then Waypoint them away somewhere. End conversation and there's no risk

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Wherever you read that disregard and never support that person/website, they have absolutely no clue of what they're talking about. Stealing is one of the best if not the best way of making money next to Bartering.

If the NPC talks to your other party memebers who did not steal they will let you go. Only the person who stole has to get caught for it to matter. So steal and have that character run away from the NPC.

Stolen tag will always appear, if you steal again and get caught then all your stolen items are taken away from you ala Skyrim iirc? I never get caught anymore so I don't know.

[Yojo0o]

Steal, then run away. Super easy, lots of profit to be made.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

ok thanks so much for clearing all this up guys. I can assume that pickpocketing is the same as stealing from containers, i just run away and avoid the dialog etc? I guess i can still sell stolen goods to ant vendor?

[LeftPaw]

Absolutely at the beginning of your adventure but not so much later on as you are then rolling in gold.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

i'm at the Driftwood location, but haven't done too much outside of town. Would that still be considered the start of my adventure or am i half way through the game or something?

[Chaoslink]

Thing about act two (Driftwood) is that thievery spikes in value near the end. You’ll hit level 16 before leaving and that’s when Divine tier items come out. This is also when the final spells become available and all merchants have a massive gold stockpile. However, you can only steal once per NPC. So if you steal 8k gold early on, you won’t be able to steal the 30k or more later. Seeing as how you can effectively get up to 9 thievery near the end of the act, ideally you’d want to wait until then. This is why I tend to maximize what I steal in the first act because you’ll not want to until the end of the second. If you do that, you’re set for the rest of the game pretty much.

[snuggleform]

Another cheesy thing to consider is you can recruit up to 14 distinct mercenaries. Each one presents a new opportunity to steal gold. You can clean out everybody's inventory every time they restock until you have more gold than you know what to do with.

I'd personally stop caring about gold around 300k stocked up. Your mileage may vary.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Thing about act two (Driftwood) is that thievery spikes in value near the end. You’ll hit level 16 before leaving and that’s when Divine tier items come out. This is also when the final spells become available and all merchants have a massive gold stockpile. However, you can only steal once per NPC. So if you steal 8k gold early on, you won’t be able to steal the 30k or more later. Seeing as how you can effectively get up to 9 thievery near the end of the act, ideally you’d want to wait until then. This is why I tend to maximize what I steal in the first act because you’ll not want to until the end of the second. If you do that, you’re set for the rest of the game pretty much.

Are you saying don't pickpocket until the NPC gold boost and better weapons etc, so can i come back to driftwood later in the game and pick pocket? Don'y do it now, come back and pick pocket once i reach the divine part and NPCs have better loot?

[LeftPaw]

Originally posted by Lebowski EzRekt U Cri:

i'm at the Driftwood location, but haven't done too much outside of town. Would that still be considered the start of my adventure or am i half way through the game or something?

I am in Driftwood and I have plenty of gold to buy what I need. I guess that's because of all the stealing I did in fort joy.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

i only stole from magisters in fort joy

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Lebowski EzRekt U Cri:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Thing about act two (Driftwood) is that thievery spikes in value near the end. You’ll hit level 16 before leaving and that’s when Divine tier items come out. This is also when the final spells become available and all merchants have a massive gold stockpile. However, you can only steal once per NPC. So if you steal 8k gold early on, you won’t be able to steal the 30k or more later. Seeing as how you can effectively get up to 9 thievery near the end of the act, ideally you’d want to wait until then. This is why I tend to maximize what I steal in the first act because you’ll not want to until the end of the second. If you do that, you’re set for the rest of the game pretty much.

Are you saying don't pickpocket until the NPC gold boost and better weapons etc, so can i come back to driftwood later in the game and pick pocket? Don'y do it now, come back and pick pocket once i reach the divine part and NPCs have better loot?

If you want to get the most from it, yeah. With every possible +thievery item slot filled, you can get a thievery skill of 9. This will be too much to make good use of unless the vendors have the extra funds and higher cost items they get at 16. Steal early in the act and you’ll have maybe 300k gold if you hit every vendor. Steal near the end of the act to get a few million. With that kind of money, you can just buy anything you want and not worry about it. I often stop selling old gear and just use the send to Vengeance option and fill my stash chest.

[Adeptus Lebowski]

hmm ok, i don't wanna ruin my game by doing that though. Feels like it kinda takes the fun away a little. I think i'll steal fron containers for now and then do a little pick pocketing on non-innocents before i leave as you say. I always have morals when playing these games haha!

Thanks for replying though mate