AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Pick pocket, -50, and what that means...

so pickpocket is minus 50 on amia, does this mean I have to max it AND buff with items to get a 1 to pick pocket anyone or, how does this work? any roll I make would land me somewhere in the negative region if i'm not mistaken.

If you take pickpocket, you start the game with a widget that lets you use Amias special pickpocketing system. Although honestly, IMO it's pretty useless, as it's insanely easy to be caught, so the only time you can pull it off is on dead bodies which will OOC piss people off, -and- you only get like, 20-30 gold and the limit is what, one person per reset? So yeah, just make it easy on yourself and don't take it.

http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=615495#p615495

*does the math...*

GOOD one...so I need to be level 30 to pickpocket a level 5? 5 being the minimum.

the example there is a fighter with 26DC which is level 12 with a poor spot skill, that is 76 points away from -50, for a level 12...really??

ed: your not kidding are you...

The -50 is counted in when using he widget. However, it takes it off base ranks only, so you don't get dex bonus, item bonus or skill focus IIRC

Quote:

don't get dex bonus, item bonus or skill focus

O_o

.........

O_o

so its a max of minus 17, maximum, meaning at level 30 you need to roll 18-20 ? wow...just, wow.

I seem to remember Disco saying something about looking at PP a while ago ... I remember making a thread about it a while ago, and I know at least some of the Team are in favour of its removal entirely.

what I time to start playing a rouge XD

I only have one thing to say to that, no. there are already a lack of pickable doors, don't further nerf rouges by removing rob person >_> saying that i'm gunna struggle to ever get some gold from people. also however, if you fail its an RP tool since someone is probably gunna chase you.

I guess a positive three maximum roll is better than, well actually no, you still can't with max pickpocket land anything above a 5 and 6.125etc is the lowest possible score for a level 5 with 0 spot. unless they have minus spot somehow.

unless my math sucks which it probably does.

and im sorry if robbing your corpse offends you but i'm a rouge, deal with it

seams like the only way it will work at all. (also on that note you can't remember anything when you regain life

)

Robbing a player character's corpse is sort of a jerk thing to do, on an OOC level, because they aren't afforded an opportunity to participate in the roleplay of it at all. It's a net loss for the victim's player, because the loss of items or gold can't even be made up for with a fun roleplayed encounter.

Pritty sure Roppi walked around pick pockiting people all day long and never got busted..

I belive i have 1 point into PP so i can loot dead players, hehe

Last edited by Glyph on Thu, Jul 29 2010, 4:07 AM, edited 1 time in total.

please explain another way that works, I know its OOCly lame as heck.

ed: however if your OOCly angered at your loss of 50~ gold or a menial item if that, think how I feel.

If you can pickpocket me, I can turn around, PvP you, and take all your stuff. Actually, No, I can't, because Pickpocket is the only means of taking something from another player without consent.

Enjoy the main argument for no 'reliable' Pickpocket being implemented.

Last edited by Glyph on Thu, Jul 29 2010, 4:34 AM, edited 2 times in total.

well, I have nothing to say to this. I hope i'm not the last amian rogue.

reading the link again... 20 + (at least 5) /2 + spot/2 = minimum 6.125

does this mean a pickpocket skill of 7 would work? is the -50 a mechanical thing? or will I epically fail...

Quote:

On a natural 20-die roll, if you didn't beat the target's DC you automatically succeed the pickpocket and if you also beat the target’s DC with your natural 20-die roll, you get a bonus lift from the target.

this is also slightly reassuring.

also spot minus 1 would put their DC -UP- to 12 O_o

BrainSplitter wrote:

If you can pickpocket me, I can turn around, PvP you, and take all your stuff. Actually, No, I can't, because Pickpocket is the only means of taking something from another player without consent.

Enjoy the main argument for no 'reliable' Pickpocket being implemented.

I'd like to point out that with one rank in PP you can turn around, PvP them and loot just as much from them as they took from you.

I dare you to do that in cordor, enjoy prison XD.

I guess I should test it at some point, probably fail, and scroll back up the stat box to see what the roll was.

ed: because if you loot me your a theif aswell

osnap reclaim of propert'a...wouldn't count :O

ed2: this --> 20 + Character Level / 2 + Spot skill / 2 <-- makes no sense, I take it / is not divide in this case?

ed3: nvm I get it...for example the maximum. 20+30=50/2=25+80=105/2=52.5, which is impossible to pickpocket with 33 max and no item boosts or focus. I think I know what i'm doing now, and its not entirely as bad as I imagined. I -hope- the minus 50 IS just mechanical.

My main gripe about PP is that the better a rogue gets at it, the fewer opportunities for RP are created (that is to say, if I'm really good at PP'ing, you'll never know about it until I'm miles away, and can't do anything about it except feel like a chump). The only way to make PP worthwhile from an RP perspective is to make sure that even a lowbie target always has a chance to foil even a masterful pickpocket, thus opening a window for RP between the thief and the target (and possibly the City Guards). And if the only way to make it RP worthwhile is to make it suck, then it should probably just be disabled completely.

That's my rational, game-mechanical argument against pickpocketing... what follows is pure opinion.

Pickpocketing is a purely a$$ move, and pickpockets should be kicked in the knees. Hard.

Yurell wrote:

BrainSplitter wrote:

If you can pickpocket me, I can turn around, PvP you, and take all your stuff. Actually, No, I can't, because Pickpocket is the only means of taking something from another player without consent.

Enjoy the main argument for no 'reliable' Pickpocket being implemented.

I'd like to point out that with one rank in PP you can turn around, PvP them and loot just as much from them as they took from you.

I can do that with zero ranks. It's not a learned skill to loot your dead corpse. Pickpocket is a terribly implemented skill for PC vs PC.

i'm sorry but a banite is worse than a pickpocket RPly

if you have an -OOC- problem with pickpocket keep it OOC. imho. there are rules, which I have read and am following, and as we have established its bad enough as it is, do not remove it, please, I don't want to be a necromancer or a paladin right now I want to be a rouge >_< and if I fail awesome please do pvp me if you can keep up

Glyph wrote:

i'm sorry but a banite is worse than a pickpocket RPly

Oh, I agree completely.

Glyph wrote:

if you have an -OOC- problem with pickpocket keep it OOC.

I *am* keeping it OOC, by laying out my arguments here on the forums. I'm arguing, OOC, that the skill (as Tormak correctly stated) was not designed for PvP use. I'd follow up his observation with the assertion that it therefore it should not be put to PvP use.

TormakSaber wrote:

I can do that with zero ranks. It's not a learned skill to loot your dead corpse. Pickpocket is a terribly implemented skill for PC vs PC.

Then why don't you give the widget to everyone?

Or, better yet, just remove PP?

Random thought ... what if pick pocket was a part of the job system???

msheeler wrote:

Random thought ... what if pick pocket was a part of the job system???

That still suffers the same complaints as the current system ... why can they not do it untrained, such as looting the bodies? Is it fair one character can remove something from the inventory of another without permission, and nothing that other can do can return it?

It's really pretty useless as it is now, and I'd rather see the skill destroyed and its slot used for another skill that people want. Such as... languages! I'm kidding.

I created something a while ago, but it seems to have a high testing/comments resistance so it kind drifted out of my attention sphere.

Quote:

Anyway, this mod uses Terra's pickpocket interceptor NWNX thinghy so I could write a completely new pp routine instead of doing stuff with widgets and negative skill effects.

Conditions that break the pickpocket routine
* target has been pickpocketed in the last 10 minutes (5 for testing)
* you are the target
* target is not a creature
* you got no PP skill ranks
* target is a PC an has less than 5 levels (disabled for testing)
* target doesn't count as a creature that has any pockets to lift
* distance between target is less than 3 meters

Pickpocket difficulty
25 base
+ target's Spot ranks (if an NPC has 0 Spot I buff to 10 + d10 for the rest of the session)
+ target's Wisdom modifier
+ 15 if seen, or
+ 30 if seen and not behind target
+ 10 * number of times being pickpocketed this session
+ 15 for every party member within 7 meters

Pickpocket roll
d100 base
+ PP ranks
+ Dex mod

Roll must be equal or larger than difficulty.

Loot & gold
On success you get either gold or loot (50% chance on either).

Gold: You take 1% of a PC's cash. The cap is levels * 250. The money you get from an NPC depends on the tileset (city gives more than forest) and ranges from 1*d100 to 3*d100.

Loot: Loot is dynamically generated and can be either a random job system gem, or a special loot item. These items come in 5 categories that are worth 5, 25, 100, 250, or 500 gold (they get 1-5 dots to show how much they are worth). Your PP roll determines in which category you fall. Each category has 6 items which range from a used handkerchief to jewelry. You get the name of the target on the item for bragging rights.

So, in effect you can't lift any 'real' item out of an inventory.

Brain had some suggestions about what happens when you fail the roll.

Blade orbs! Anyone trying to pickpocket you has a chance of instant paralysis!

Two questions:

1. Will Epic Skill Focus and magical item skill buffs contibute?
2. Is rolling a 1 stil an automatic fail? Hope not >_>

Pretty cool. Listen needs to have an impact on this, though. Because Spot already rules over Listen, don't need to make this gap bigger.

7,500 gold for a level 30 then? unless I'm wrong. That means you can walk around a group of 15+ people, try it out, get 56,250 (since it's 50%) in a short time span. That's pretty considerable. If you fail the roll, and are PvP'd and killed, perhaps you should lose 500 * CLVL gold to the person you failed it on.

Dev Disco wrote:

snip-out the awesome system.

McChickn wrote:

Brain had some suggestions about what happens when you fail the roll.

I have a suggestion: please append chunking and blood spattering if they attempt to do it on anything remotely draconic and fail.

you can all scrap everything you've said here so far and replace it with the thing that OOCly most pisses people off is calling your level 30 friends OOCly to help you escape. (and i'm leaving it there...) goblins beware ICly >=)

if you still want to complain about robbing some gold after I kill you please do, I lol at you.

however that said if you -are- a level 30 rouge going round and someone does turn around they shouldn't be able to kill you straight off the bat, its called epic dodge. also tumble, etc.

its already been said item buffs and skill focus do nothing because the default version of the system is -50, and I have to assume the tool uses a modded formula. else you couldn't get anyone with it ever. if my math was right.

if my (better attempt) at math was right you need a minimum of 7 pickpocket to get the most noob noob from noob town.

It is not useless if used responsibly in RP.

I can tell you this: If there is a DM event where you wish to pickpocket an NPC or something like that, I'm sure they will take the skill points you invested into the skill into account.

When it comes down to it, no skill is useless on Amia if you can put RP to it.

No one here ever got ripped off IRL?
Cry some more at the loss of some gold easily replaced or a little trinket.
Happens every day...and worse.
I hope those bawling over a pickpocket don't have any evil characters, hypocrite.
*stands next to Glyph* Right on man.

Kudark wrote:

No one here ever got ripped off IRL?
Cry some more at the loss of some gold easily replaced or a little trinket.

Straw man much?

Nobody's crying over the loss of gold and trinkets. We're discussing whether the PP skill is mechanically sound enough to be worthy of inclusion in the game, and if not, whether or not encouraging/allowing it is good for the RP environment. The gold itself is not the issue.

Don't be an arse, Kudark. I've gotten ripped off before, and it's not a feeling I'd like to recreate in a game I play for fun. If you want to steal from my characters, fine; I have no particular attachment to anything in their inventories. However, grant me at least the opportunity to roleplay the encounter. Steal from my characters, not me.

I'm afraid I cannot say I've gotten ripped off while dead, IRL, though. Still, I have a feeling it would be a jerk thing to do then, too.

..

Pickpocket / Sleight of hand is a wonderful skill with many uses I have been honoured to witness in my few years of playing DnD. On another server, there was a rogue that would (while in stealth) openly roll to pickpocket from you, even though on this server there were no restrictions on the skill. This led to many a great encounter between victim and thief - even when the thief was allowed to succeed, both players could appreciate what was going on. The thief would be stealing from the victim, not the thief's player from the victim's player. There was respect involved.

It would be awesome if this kind of thing could happen on Amia.

There are respectful ways to use certain skills, and disrespectful ways to use them. Learn them.

Straw Man argument? It's not.

The whole reason why this skill was nerfed was because it was not 'fun' for characters to get their items stolen.

I think the random item given from a successful pickpocket attempt is a good idea (one not from the target's invintory). The -50 should go away if only gold is really taken from a victum of pickpocket.

Logicality wrote:

Pickpocket / Sleight of hand is a wonderful skill with many uses I have been honoured to witness in my few years of playing DnD. On another server, there was a rogue that would (while in stealth) openly roll to pickpocket from you, even though on this server there were no restrictions on the skill. This led to many a great encounter between victim and thief - even when the thief was allowed to succeed, both players could appreciate what was going on. The thief would be stealing from the victim, not the thief's player from the victim's player. There was respect involved.

It would be awesome if this kind of thing could happen on Amia.

There are respectful ways to use certain skills, and disrespectful ways to use them. Learn them.

My Shaman has it. I put ranks in it as she focuses on ritualistic sleight of hand tricks.

Personally, I would love to not have to add 50 everytime I emote and roll, but I can see the benefit to keeping some restrictions on the skill.
For instance:
-Cannot loot whole sets of clothing or items over a certain weight. Anything larger than 2 inventory squares or over 1lb is just too large to be removed without someone taking notice.

-Require the thief to actually emote rather than a simple click and dash. Like Logicality stated, this allows for your victim to at least be a part of the process and RP.

DustSpray101 wrote:

-Require the thief to actually emote rather than a simple click and dash. Like Logicality stated, this allows for your victim to at least be a part of the process and RP.

I like this idea.

can't agree with that, you'd have to rob them visibly and even with invis there would be an emote, with a large risk and guarenteed rather than somewhat random outcomes. again barring if they are dead.

if I take one of your more valued items (provided you can see me I guess -_-) please let me know and I can oocly return it (no icly attacking me until after I leave if I come back to do this), but gold is gold its just numbers, and compared to how much you can get at those levels its a menial loss.

personally I think you should suck it up like I did when I found out monks do -loads- of damage to chaotics. its part of the pnp world and should be played as a rouge should be played. if you don't understand that it might be because your playing lawful good.

Drakos_Vek wrote:

Two questions:

1. Will Epic Skill Focus and magical item skill buffs contibute?
2. Is rolling a 1 stil an automatic fail? Hope not >_>

I have these same questions as Drakos (not that my rogue is around anymore).

Glyph wrote:

can't agree with that, you'd have to rob them visibly and even with invis there would be an emote, with a large risk and guarenteed rather than somewhat random outcomes. again barring if they are dead.

The widget is not what I am advocating at all. What I am saying is ditch the widget, but limit the NWN skill so that it takes you out of hiding -forcing- RP upon both thief and victim.

Example wrote:

The thief can emote: *From the shadows behind >insert victim's name< a hidden hand reaches towards a pocket* ((Roll Hide (as he was hidden and appeared in order to use the skill), use pick pocket)).

Victim can then RP something to the effect of: ((Roll spot for the hidden part alone as the game will auto roll spot vs the pickpocket attempt.)) *>insert appropriate response depending upon the rolls<*

I trust many players would be down with that sort of thing.

When I think of someone getting pick-pocketed, I imagine someone in a busy market place or busy intersection with a lot of people around and someone either "bumping" into them or just casually using sleight of hand to nab something really quickly as they pass by.

Either way, the thief is going to be visible. Not some invisible shadow creeping around in your pockets.

The whole "invisibility" aspect of rogues has me thrown off of the idea of a rogue being able to PP while stealthed.

by forcing the RP you mean get caught 100% of the time. this is not pickpocketing, this is being a fool.

the whole idea is they -don't- see you -_-

Glyph wrote:

by forcing the RP you mean get caught 100% of the time. this is not pickpocketing, this is being a fool.

the whole idea is they -don't- see you -_-

And this is my objection to encouraging the use of PP on an RP server. If used "correctly", PP denies anyone the chance for any RP. The purpose of *every* player-on-player interaction should be for *both* players to have fun RPing. What you're describing is a valid use of the PP skill, it's true... but the basic result of the valid use of that skill is that one player has fun rolling a die (not RPing), and another player has no fun, neither at the time of the roll nor later on when she discovers she's been robbed.

so your problem is you WANT me to fail 100% of the time instead of 50% meaning I can rob a maximum of one person before being chased by the whole of cordor?

shush now paladin.

Glyph wrote:

by forcing the RP you mean get caught 100% of the time. this is not pickpocketing, this is being a fool.

the whole idea is they -don't- see you -_-

Perhaps you'd rather Pickpocket oblivious NPCs? If you're not doing it for inter-player RP, please don't try to get it so that you can give rogues a bad name.

I give up, you can't give rouges a bad name they already have it, god...

no I don't want to rob NPC's, the idea is you work a crowd, christ have you never seen films? if I took a skill to get caught 100% of the time what kind of rouge would that be? a joke is what. i'm done arguing you have obviously never played a rouge before pnp or otherwise

either that or your scared of loosing those precious legal pipe herbs which are logically the least expencive relevant item to lose in a bonus roll, or somewhere between 50~1000ish gold peices, keep your oocly oocly.

I am not saying the exact polar opposite either, I'm saying it shouldn't be epically hard.

If were pickpocketing NPCs, than we just have a replica of the job system. Don't need that.

People complain that thieves pick-pocketing you remove the chance of rp, or it is just rude to steal something, people seem to forget that this is a ROLEPLAY server. Thieves are what they are, they are greedy and do no care a whit for the people they steal from (most of the time). As to the note that we 'deny' RP, that point is completly ignorant. RP can also be taken over a long period of time, with the victim growing more frustrated with those slippery-fingers and may refer to that in their future RP, or maybe even report it to a guard.

We are thieves, were not meant to be liked IC, but OOC you have to understand this is a roleplay server and in a society such a FR, there are bound to be pick-pockets roaming the streets.

Glyph wrote:

I give up, you can't give rouges a bad name they already have it, god...

They don't have a bad name. Rogue =/= Thief
They do have a bad reputation for being the tumble/umd dump class however.

Terra's new PP system looks good though

well yea you can get non-theivy type rouges but then you would be giving thieves a bad name not rouges...or treasure hunters as some like to call themselves =)

Quote:

We are thieves, were not meant to be liked IC, but OOC you have to understand this is a roleplay server and in a society such a FR, there are bound to be pick-pockets roaming the streets.

this.

Glyph wrote:

no I don't want to rob NPC's, the idea is you work a crowd, christ have you never seen films? if I took a skill to get caught 100% of the time what kind of rouge would that be? a joke is what. i'm done arguing you have obviously never played a rouge before pnp or otherwise

You're arguing against yourself with this point. (Not to mention being startlingly rude.) I have played many rogues in PnP, and some of them were skilled pickpockets. But not once with any of those rogues did I pick the pocket of the character whose player was sitting with me at the table. Not once, not ever. I could have, but I chose not to. Because those players were my collaborators: they had the same goal as me; namely, they wanted to get together and have a good time RPing. To force your own character's idea of a fun time upon your collaborators, at their direct expense, is against the spirit of the game. It's not what the Slight of Hand skill is included in the PnP game for, and if I were the DM of a player who constantly pickpocketed the other players at the table, that player would in short order find himself unwelcome at the table.

What you're arguing for is identical to the situation I describe: you're arguing in favor of pickpocketing the other players at the virtual table. The fact that their sides of the table may be in different cities or countries is inconsequential. The other PCs are your collaborators, your colleagues, and their efforts in cooperating with you to build a flourishing RP environment deserve more respect than you're giving them.

Amia already recognizes this principle in another area: PvP combat. All your arguments in favor of PP can be just as rationally applied to PvP combat, but the DMs (rightly) take a very dim view of people who force their character's idea of a good time onto the rest of the population, if that good time involves killing other PCs. They're so strict about this that the rules basically require you to get my permission before killing me (in the form of offering me an IC "out" which I must refuse before PvP can commence). PvP pickpocketing is no different. (Or at least, it shouldn't be.)

Use PP the way it was intended to be used (which is the same in NWN as in PnP): against NPCs.

Pick pocket, -50, and what that means...

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