It sounds like in this game you just have deception giving you free money instead.
Seems like it does though.
How much can you lighten their load before they notice something is amiss?
Getting caught means you have a much harder time talking your way out…or not possible at all. Succeeding but having an irate person confront you means you can talk your way out (maybe) or get less consequences (e.g. return their stuff).
Maybe so. I have not used Deception yet (I don’t think…I am still learning all the bits).
I don’t understand the question.
You sneak up on someone (succeed stealth) and then steal something (succeed sleight-of-hand). Regardless of the success in sleight-of-hand, the target immediately accuses you and you’re forced to make a social check (deception/persuasion/maybe intimidate?) to cover for it. The third step makes the second step feel weak since the point of sleight-of-hand is to not be noticed – if you fail your sleight-of-hand, you are noticed. If you succeed, you’re still noticed, just after you took the item. It makes skill in sleight-of-hand feel dumb because you never actually quietly lift something and slip off like actual pickpockets actually do.
Imagine role playing as a ninja sneaking through a fort, except every ten feet a guard stops you and asks what you’re doing and you say you’re the janitor and he lets you go. You’re still sneaking through the fort but you don’t feel very much like a ninja now, do you? Same vibe from BG3 thievery.
Oh, and the DCs are weirdly low. I stole a key off someone and it was DC 3 and then she immediately confronted me. So, if the devs were worried about it being too easy to steal stuff, maybe don’t make the DC stupidly low.
Stealing things left out and no one is looking seems trivial to me (unoccupied room for example). I haven’t been busted for that. That is different than picking your pocket.
I have. If no one is in the room at all, it’s fine. If anyone is around, you can be successfully hidden and yoink it and people instantly know. The first time I encountered this system was stealing a magical piece of armor sitting on a table. Went turn-based, no red awareness anywhere near me, stealthed and it made no difference.
I think you missed my point. You said something that seems incorrect:
But that’s not true. The whole point of sleight of hand is getting something. So if I try to pick a pocket and fail, I get nothing and I get noticed. If I roll and succeed, I might get noticed and then have to talk my way out of it, but at least I got the item.
It’s like saying the whole point of lock picking is to open a door without being noticed. No, the point is opening a door you couldn’t open otherwise.
That’s why I asked if you failed your sleight of hand check, if you still kept the item but got accused. If that was the case, then I would agree with you that the skill has no purpose. Failure and success are not different. If you succeed, you pick the pocket, they notice that they are missing an item, and accuse you of theft. If you fail, you still get the item, they felt you as you were picking the pocket, and accuse you of theft.
But if you don’t get the item with a failed sleight of hand, then getting the item is the point of the skill. Apparently just not getting away clean.
I do admit that it’s a bit immersion-breaking, in the sense that in real life people can have their pocket picked and not realize for hours, and then go crazy trying to figure out where they left it, and not even think it was stolen. They might assume they dropped it. Putting it together immediately and accusing someone accurately isn’t even close to a guarantee. So yeah, from a role-playing/immersion perspective, it’s pretty ridiculous that everyone has super senses and immediately suspects you of picking their pocket regardless of your skill.
It still doesn’t make the skill worthless, but I share your disappointment.
ETA: It also seems like the skill should come with a disclaimer that you absolutely have to have deception in order for it to be useful. I really don’t like the idea of a skill that depends on another skill. What if you had a high dexterity and low charisma? That means you can’t pick pockets?
I wonder if there might be multiple DCs? Do they notice you every time or only sometimes? Maybe you need to beat the DC by X or more to remain undetected?
This video (queued to the right time) suggests there is a lot (number-wise) that goes into pickpocketing. I don’t claim to understand it all.
I see that guides recommend going into turn-based mode when picking a pocket, is it maybe possible that if you aren’t doing that, it increases the chance of someone noticing you right away after a successful check?
I did some research and it looks like once you pickpocket aomeone and they notice they’ll start walking around until they encounter a PC at which point they make the accusation you describe.
If they encounter another PC, then they’ll accuse the other PC and you’ll have a dialog option to defuse the situation for free.
Alternatively if you manage to stay out of their line of sight for long enough (or if you’re invisible) they’ll eventually give up.
I think it would make sense for them to have a variable amount of time before they noticed, depending on what you took and how well you rolled. That way you can escape in stealth. I’m not sure if it currently works that way or not.
I was wondering about that too, if you have to plan out “the getaway” for it to be truly successful.
I just want to note, I’ve been looking at reactions from people online about how picking pockets works in BG3, and the prevailing opinion is that it might be too easy. So I feel like we’re missing something.
If you’re in turn based mode I’d think you could sneak into enemy range, end turn, move up and pickpocket, then step back around the corner, then end turn again. That way the target can’t look for you until you’re already gone.
No idea if it works that way in practice. I really need an evil playthrough…
That’s including access to invisibility, and it does sound like it you’re invisible you should be fine to pickpocket as much as you’d like. But I hope a skilled rogue can do it without magic too.
Me running up to you and jamming my hand in your pocket is not a successful Sleight-of-Hand. That’s not what “sleight” means (use of dexterity to deceive or go undetected). Card tricks are another example of Sleight-of-Hand but if I fail to put the card up my sleeve undetected and just punch you until you agree that the card disappeared, it wasn’t a successful sleight-of-hand. The lock picking example isn’t a comparison because nothing about lock picking implied being undetected. Sleight-of-Hand has remaining undetected baked right into the name.
You almost HAVE to use turn-based to do any theft because otherwise you’re immediately noticed due to the sight cones. When you go turn-based and hide, you can see the cones to avoid them.
In a sense, it IS too easy. The actual act of yoinking something is pretty trivial (hence my comment about DC 3 checks). It’s the extra steps every time that make it feel lame. Again, I have expertise in S-o-H and Deception so it’s never been impossible for me to take something and talk my way out; it just feels stupid and immersion breaking to have to constantly do that next step.
I’m talking about from a game perspective. Sleight of hand, mechanically, gets you access to an item you would otherwise be unable to get.
I am completely supportive of you from an immersion standpoint, and tried my best to make that clear.
@Jophiel - I learned that the excessively low DC is what appears to be a display bug. Usually, rolls show a DC that’s static, and you add your bonuses to the roll. Pickpocket rolls instead set the DC displayed to [DC-Bonuses] and then make you do a straight dice roll. Mathematically it works out the same, but no other rolls are displayed this way and there’s no precedent for it in 5e rules, so I assume it’s a display bug.
Agreed, you should not be detected on a successful pickpocket role. Test if you are able to get away before the “seeking” period in turn based mode, or if you can use an accomplice party member who doesn’t hide who can catch the target’s attention before they identify your thief.
You can see sight cones at any time with left-shift.
As noted I think the low DCs are a bug
From a game perspective, I’ve never played a game of 5e, or any other TTRPG for that matter, where a successful pick pocketing check (using whatever mechanic name) didn’t mean that you did it undetected.
It’s like saying you have Fire Resistance but not the kind of Fire Resistance where you take less damage but the kind of Fire Resistance where you get fully burned but, I dunno, heal faster later on. You certainly can make a mechanic like that but calling it Fire Resistance is stupid.
True. A more detailed explanation would be that you want to go Turn Based because (a) the cones are constantly visible without extra keys and (b) the cones stay static during your turn as opposed to free movement where they tend to sweep about.
The bugged DC display makes sense since I have something like +8 to my S-o-H rolls but the point remains that the obvious solution to “too much theft” is to raise the DC rather than making a third Charisma based check.
Anyway, I’ll let it go from there. I’ll still be annoyed about it but I doubt there’s much more to say about it 
I could see a situation where a PC picks a pocket then hangs around the area, a DM has the victim roll a check afterward (like Perception) and if they succeed, they start looking around. If the PC doesn’t make an effort to remove themselves from the area, they might get asked or accused, especially if they’re a newcomer in a small town.
But in a tabletop game, you get to have nuance and cooperative storytelling and a level of roleplay that no computer game could hope to achieve.