Forgive my bluntness. But the current system sucks.

Now, I'm either going to be torn apart. Ignored. Or the same old arguments about it will arise, but still. I'm going to try.

The Pick Pocket System needs to be changed. Keep the Widget, I don't care about using a widget to Pick Pocket, adds more chance to RP if there is a fail.

First off, the widget doesn't take into account the items you wear that increase your Pick Pocket Skill. Which downplays any thief... a lot. (Which is kinda fair, more on that further in)

Next Point. Adding player level to the chance of spotting a Pick Pocket, not cool. I understand it is Half Player level adds to it, so... 15 at max level.
All ready, it is 20 + 15 for a chance to spot, that's a 35. Then you add the spot modifier of say, 16, which is the unmodified max spot of a character with no wisdom. That's a 51.
Now, hold on, there's more. Say there are three people nearby, within 5 meters. That's another 15 on your targets modifier. Bringing the Grand Total to 66.
That right there, all ready nullifies a thief, no matter what with the current system. Even with one extra person in close proximity that boosts the 51 to 56.. which still, screws a pick pocket, who hasn't invested in Epic Skill Focus.

To give an example. (I am using a Max focus Pick Pocket Thief vs someone who just has points in Spot)
Thief---> Max Pick Pocket 33 without a Dex Bonus. ---> Add Dex Bonus of 9, that's a 28 Unmodified Dex Score. Brings the Pick Pocket skill to 42. Now, add an extra 6 from Max Dex Gear. 48. Add Skill Focus 3, Epic Skill Focus 10 Bringing the Grand Total to 61.
VS
Average Joe ---> Level 30, 20 + 15 ----> Spot 33 which is around 16 ----> Which is a roll of 51. Will only be hit by a Thief who invested full points into Pick Pocket. BUT, an Item or spell or two can offset that, to make it so the Thief fails always. ( This is also not including weather anyone is close to Joe here, if there are two people standing right beside him, he gets an extra 10 added to his Roll)
Add Wisdom Mod to that.. well, even less of a chance.

A Thief with a 33 Pick Pocket and a 12 Dex Mod gets a 45. Which is very easily beaten.

See the problem here?
Now some may argue. "What if someone doesn't put the points into spot?" As far as I'm aware, the chances of that are slim, and regardless of how slim it is, if a Thief simply has 33 points in Pick Pocket and then their Dex Mod added to it... that's like, 45 (Given the thief has a 12 Modifier). A True Seeing, or some other minor thing easily makes the thief's attempt not worth it.
And I'm not even including those people who have over 100 Spot. A Thief can only get a maximum Pick Pocket of 61, seeing as the gear doesn't come into account with the Widget. (Given the current formula, would have a 85 vs a Thief's 61, Maximum)


What makes this even harder for any thief is that anyone can simply have a True Seeing cast on them, boosting their spot by 10, or have any spot increasing item on, or the Spot Skill Focus's. Making it completely impossible for any thief to steal... anything. Even an item like the Watchman's Helm which gives +8 to spot, is enough to shaft any up and coming thief.
(Especially as when you fail, you lose XP.. and currently, you pretty much always lose)

I know everyone thinks "Oh no, cant have anyone stealing from anyone else, because it causes grief and people get pissed and rage and cry.. " blah blah blah.
Well, a solution to that is making it so money or items are spawned for the Pick Pocket and are not directly taken from the person being Pick Pocketed. And the items don't even need to be anything 'good'.
A gem. (Job system Gem, sold to Gem Merchant or made into something via Goldsmithing)
A piece of Cloth. (Random Scrap or Job System Material, Cloth Bolt, Silk Bolt, Leather ect)
A Rusty Nail. (Random Scrap)
And of course, gold. (Not taken from the player themselves)
Or hell, a better idea, have Pick Pocketing work more like the Burglar Job, a successful pickpocket attempt spawns items/gold from that job. With a.. oh lets say 5 minute cool down for the sake of argument (And I'm sure there will be one). These stolen items can be taken to the stolen goods merchant. And sold. Or the Gem Merchant and sold.
If an attempt is failed, the cool down is extended to.. lets say.. 15 or 20 minutes, the Burglar job cool down is 10 Minutes, and as there are more players/NPC's then locked doors, a longer cool down seems acceptable.
And maybe have it so you can, as it says all ready, pick pocket the same person no more than three times per reset. Or have it so that Pick Pocketing works like the Job System Burglar on NPC's.. though if the player fails there would have to be something in place for them to be punished for being caught. Like. . I don't know. . a Beat Down.
The Angry target turns around and headbutts your character knocking them down for 4 rounds or something, then takes gold from them while their dazed.

In summary... because I've lost track of where I had intended to go (Dinner break, CURSE YOU FOOD! FOILING MY RANDOM RANT!)
The current System makes playing a thief, very undesirable. Some may say "Well that's how your supposed to feel, stealing is bad!" But that's not the point, this is Forgotten Realms, there have been and are some AMAZING thieves, and some Amazing and LARGE thieves guilds. With the current system in place, a whole chunk of RP potential is being destroyed.
(I understand with the gear not working in the Pick Pocket widget that it makes it a bit more fair on the spotter's chance to spot, for if it did work, then the Pick Pocket would would have the greater end of the stick, but to fix that one would just need to change how the spot roll's work and it would even it out a little)
Hell, have it simply d20 Spot vs d20 Pick Pocket. (e.g d20 + 100 Spot vs d20 +100 Pick Pocket.. seems fair.)

On another server I played many years ago, I ran a Thieves guild. Amazing underworld activities. Stealing gear and gold, fencing it back to the person or persons it was stolen form (Among many other things). The way we did this was, when the item was picked up, a message would appear in the combat log telling you who the original owner was (This was the fences job to find out who's it was, and who to sell it back to, normally the Thief would give a description of the person they robbed, so the fence could give it back to them....at a price of course). Not only that, if a thief was killed, by a monster or player, the items that were stolen would be visible for any who stumbled across the corpse to see. (Though the death system was different on that server, I doubt this such thing would be easily incorporated into Amia)

I may have veered off in some places, or repeated the same thing multiple times, but forgive me. I appear to be getting distracted a lot tonight.

Anyway, end of my hopefully creative criticism of the Pick Pocket System.
(I may edit this post.. after I re-read it later..tiredness is ebil)

_________________
You may clip our wings, but we will never forget what it was like to fly.

Alright, I will give my feedback on pick pocketing and rogue skills as a whole. I made a character who I intended as a classical thief in regards to the skills. Her sneaks are very nice, but she has no real focus in pve and pvp.

She is level 25, and has a skill rank of 28 in addition of a dexterity modifier of 13. This gives me a total of 41. Now, I did not put any skill foci or epic skill foci in the build, as I focused the other skills. With gear I can push them up to a max of 91, and the mythalling system works well with you to create different gear sets that are skill focused. Definetely necessary to have the widget use that boni if spot receives the same.

So you just be smart about it, though I agree the system can use some work. Pick pocket those who you know are fresh adventurers who do not run in Brogendenstein or the Abyss yet. Bump into them when they are not among people who might spot your attempt of thievery. The chance of discovery can easily be avoided, and with no benefit of robbing the glowly level 30s with their epic gear and potential spot skill foci, leave them unmolested.

So as a thief player, no, I do not think pick pocketing is too hard if you target correctly. What I agree on is that it has absolutely no use. I took the burglar job, it is less dangerous, you gain xp and you gain an amount of gold that can help you level. The 12 gold I get of robbing a level 30 with the danger of having my character branded is just silly. So I would definetely suggest a change that you get more gold. Perhaps ((3 x pick pocket skill) x level of character stolen from) as the gold amount. The idea of spawning the same job system items as the burglar seems like a good idea too.

I do think that we lack dungeons where rogues are essential to the group. Same goes for dungeons with arcane riddles. A rogue is useful at the gauntlet and the forgotten temple, but almost every other dungeon has no real use for them, as you can bash locked doors and most traps you walk over and gulp a heal afterwards, if not only use a healpack.

However, Pick pocket, like most thief skills, are really useful in rp or with DM oversight. Imagine some evil faction like the Banites would want to infiltrate Kohlingen Keep. They dress up in stolen uniforms, go there on "patrol" and a thief quickly relieves a TK of their keep key. Undetected they can get inside to do their villany, without having to slaughter themselves through an army.

This is what it already does and has for quite some time as far as I'm aware?

_________________
Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Wait, so when you pickpocket, you're picking a randomly spawned thing, instead of something on that character?

_________________
Just lurking about!

Yeah, the character who was stolen from loses nothing.

GAAAAAY!

What happened to RP actions have RP consequences, For both parties. As it is now - The victim is risking NOTHING!

_________________
Amia Minecraft Server Ip: vps1602.directvps.nl
NWN Damage Calculator: http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/dnd/
NWN Build Calculator: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Other.Detail&id=856

The problem that was outlined was the following:

Isabella steals five thousand gold or a ring of elemental fire immunity from Hashim. Hashim notices later his ring is gone, and successfully tracks this thief down. She refuses to give it back to him, so he hits her on the head with a club like a primitive ogre. The problem here is that mechanically, you can not get your item back or take something to replace it if it was already fenced. Aka, Isabella can steal gold from you, or if items are allowed, an epic item - yet Hashim has no way to get it back unless the thief player consents.

So it opens the problem that while pick pockets can take your gold or items, you can not take it back from the thief or the person who got it from the thief. If you could, then any character can take items from any other through pvp. If you make a script that marks the item permits your own item to be returned via pvp from any part, you can quickly encounter the timezone trouble or a player leaving the server with your precious item.

There's also a thing with being fun about the pickpocket widget. For example, just walking along the street without saying anything and using the widget on your marks doesn't provide a lot of meaningful RP for them or you, just a mechanical transfer. However, if you have something like a...

Pickpocket: *Clumsily walks into victim* [Uses pickpocket widget]
Victim: *Gets clunked, then hastily tries to shove Pickpocket away* Hey! Watch where you're walking!
Pickpocket: Oh my! I'm sorry sir! I was just daydreaming about the starry night yesterday at the cliffs, it was such a fantastic sight! It's something I can't get my mind off of.
Victim: Yeah, well just watch where you're going. *Grumbles*
Pickpocket: Oh, yes, once again, I'm sorry sir. Have a pleasant day! *Wink*
Victim: Yeah Yeah...

Is a lot better than.

Pickpocket: [Uses pickpocket widget]
Victim: *Does what he was doing before*

Though personally, I like this approach best:

Pickpocket: *Clumsily walks into victim, tries to subtly pick his pocket while doing so.* [Rolls dice roller pickpocket roll]
Victim: *Gets clunked, then hastily tries to shove Pickpocket away* Hey! Watch where you're walking! [Rolls spot, assuming he and any passer-bys fail the spot check]
Pickpocket: Oh my! I'm sorry sir! I was just daydreaming about the starry night yesterday at the cliffs, it was such a fantastic sight! It's something I can't get my mind off of.
Victim: Yeah, well just watch where you're going. *Grumbles* [Hands over some item and/or gold through barter]
Pickpocket: Oh, yes, once again, I'm sorry sir. Have a pleasant day! *Wink*
Victim: Yeah Yeah...


The RP potential for pickpocket is already there. Indeed, my character has used it for other sleights of hands, like painting people's cloaks, pouring honey down people's coats, cheating at dice and cards, and pulling plenty of other fast-one stunts. It's already there. I'd just recommend using the dice roller instead of the widget.

_________________
I play:

Also you forget there is a rule in place stating you do not, barring DM direction I'm sure, have to ever give over anything to another player's character.

_________________
Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

Best Pickpocket ever: 4 Drow mobbed by 4 Yuan'ti spawns and pwn'd. (Please note this is a rare occurance and in no way should anyone believe that Drow aren't as scary as they want you to believe they are.)

Human warrior happens on the carnage. Then RP's mirth at the downed Drow, rummages through pockets and bags, finds the weapons too sorry for stealing "No wonder you're all dead." Makes off with some nice items (that we all happily gave him, definately more than if he'd used the widget). And he didn't even raise us. ROFL!

_________________
Ari'aerath Dlues'athsha ~ Silver Singer with the Bow of the Sun
Clarette Feohn ~ Magic is Art.
Victoria Marrs ~ "I have an herb for that."

As far as I am aware, gear matters nothing when using the widget. RP Rolling however, worth gold.




This is the fun stuff, I agree. Though it is fairly hard to do, because.. no one wants to be stolen from.. and sadly, if they know.. they will try find a way to RP finding out even if they are oblivious. I have experienced this multiple times sadly >.<.
Saying that, not everyone will do it.. but I've only had bad experiences with it on Amia.. soo yeah >.>



Ah, well if it does, that's good.



Yes, its crap, but its to reduce anal griefing. Which is good. And as it is now, the Victim is risking XP and being labeled a thief.



They are both good ways to do it, in fact, they are the ways I do it. Well, less of the latter, I can only do that on people I know OOC.. not random strangers.



Lol... that is all.




I have a possible solution to the problem regarding stolen items. It came to me just now.
If a Thief has stolen an item, when they die.. at ANY TIME, their glow changes.. to say... Green.
They Pulse Green until Raised. This signifies that they have a stolen item on them. If a person has reason to suspect they may have been robbed by the Thief, they can then Search the character while the character is dead.
By rolling Search that is. As the Thief is dead, we could say... Base DC is.. 20. Seems like a safe number given that its rolled on a d20 to begin with.

Example.
A Band of adventurer's are fighting the Malarites in the Forest of Despair. Amongst these adventurer's is a Thief. The Thief has been stealing things from the others while they rest, taking it upon him/herself to get at them while they are unaware.. as that's clearly the best time.
One time, the Thief is caught, and manages to Bluff his way out of it saying he tripped and fell on the person while he was patrolling the area while they rested.
The person who caught him, believes the bluff, as he was asleep at the time and was awoken suddenly with the thief pushing himself up nearby. But is suspicious.
One rest time, they are ambushed, in the ensuing chaos, the Thief takes a grievous wound and dies. [Glows Green, signifying he HAS stolen items]
The suspicious one then walks over searches the Thief. [d20 roll :16 + Search Modifier 12 = 28]
The suspicious one finds something that clearly belongs to himself, as well as finding an item belonging to another person in the group, and a small stash of gold.
(The thief keeps a % of the gold stolen, but keeps none of the items)
They then decide what to do with the Thief.

Now, an addition to this. (If having the character actually steal items from characters)
Is having it so that the item is tagged. (And I know they all ready are tagged, so this should be easy enough to do)
And when a Thief is searched, instead of trading the items back to the person or persons, the Thief is to DROP the items, then they are to be picked up. When they are picked up the owner's name is displayed in the combat log.
Now this isn't saying that the person who just picked it up, instantly knows who owns the items. BUT, they can then post something that they have found some stolen goods.. and list the items... Possibly OOC hint to someone that the item is theirs... and eventually it gets back to them.

This would also enable a possible Fencing operation as well.
Fence could get the items, then at a price, sell them back to the owner. (A Cheap price, something easily affordable by the player.. don't want to drain them)
Ideally, it would be just enough, to cover what the Fence paid the Thief, and then a little on top for the Fence.

Of course, sadly, this all works on Honesty. And sadly, there are some who aren't.
BUT!!!! With the Widget being the way to steal, it makes it easy.. because you will always know who stole from you.. and I guess, if an item is missing.. so if you don't get the item back.. well, the person can be dealt with.

_________________
You may clip our wings, but we will never forget what it was like to fly.

Isn't this whole pickpocket nonsense a RP tool more than a get free stuff from a player tool? Anything else would likely be another doom on the player base numbers.

Also my understanding is the "RP" is all rogue side until he fails and is discovered?

Personally I find the whole pickpocket topic very emo "I wanna steal your stuffs with my high skill and never have to suffer for it" And yet the times I have had this wigest used on my characters I wonder, how did they know where my gold is to steal it? *coughs* metagaming widget for the loose, <roll play> vs <Roleplay>

The biggest problem with Bioware's PP system is that no matter how many ranks of spot the victim has, it's still a blank check of success against the victim. Roll a 19 (or 29 against a hostile) and you get free items no matter what! It doesn't matter that the guy sees you coming from a mile away or not. Instant win and treasure. The PPer risks nothing, after all, all he must do is meet a 19 or 29 which is pathetically easy (so much that it's possible at level 1 with 1 rank of PP). This server seems to have nulled that somewhat, which is good.

However, I can understand the staff wanting to keep PP very hard. If it spawns money out of thin air (as is suggested), the PP is literally printing his own money. What's to stop him from periodically repeatedly PPing his allies just for free money?

The money that is given is tiny. 20-40g on my recent ones. (Which you can get (And more) from taking a leisurely stroll through the Kobold Caves)
The Pick Pocket is risking things, much to everyone's "No they aren't" . . The pickpocket loses XP on fail and gets nothing.. on this, the person they steal from, also gets told that the pick pocket has made an attempt, and failed, and that they noticed (or didn't notice) it. On a critical fail, the XP loss is doubled, the Pick Pocket is Knocked Down, and the person who was being stolen from turns to face the Pick Pocket.. Right then and there, the Pick Pocket has a lot to lose. Life for one.. Or being marked as a Pick Pocket, and everyone watches out for them... yada yada.

And whats to stop the Pick Pocket from periodically repeating PP on a target? Each PP attempt on a successful target, increases the DC of the Target.. the more a Thief steals from the same person in a reset, the less and less of a chance they have of actually stealing... and.. you can only steal from the same person three times a reset.

_________________
You may clip our wings, but we will never forget what it was like to fly.

That I do believe was because long long ago, you could PVP people, and PP their dead bodies. Again and again forever. Since they are dead, they make no rolls to stop you. So just plain widgets were made to save people from such attacks. Same attackers still kill people and would spam for free gold, items and XP. So now you have what we have today. Because people can't be trusted with cool things. Something that has been proven many times over. Sadly the only way I can see this ever working is making PP like SJ and Flying. You must be trained and it is DM given. Because someone new or whatever will get a free toy and ruin it for everyone.

_________________

That is a very good suggestion actually, making it DM given. Trained. I like it.

_________________
You may clip our wings, but we will never forget what it was like to fly.

Enough said.

Amia is an RP server not a PVP server, pick pocket is an RP tool here, not a get stuff free tool, unless every non-theifs gets a tool which allows them to strip a body of a character after killing it.

Stop trying to break the rules and grief people, wrong server for that nonsense.

Nat.

Also cross posting?

Pick pocketing is a massive metagaming tool for the reasons I have outlined in the o/p suggestions thread I won't cross post more here. Please refer to the below link for the other thread by this player on this same toping.

http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=68503

_________________
Aggie Agetha War Knight (much to the chagrin of certain players and character )

I'm sorry, but pretty much none of this is remotely balanced or fair with risk vs reward, especially given the fact the PP'er will automatically succeed in taking free things no matter what the victim does. A death means nothing on a server like this one where gaining xp is easy and the quality of items here vastly outraces trivial quibbles about a trivial xp hit or someone calling you a PP.

I'd gladly sit around spending all day with 1 rank of pp, +18 pp on gear, "shaking hands" with everyone I met if that meant I had a 1 in 50 chance of scoring epic loot. Pfft. Why earn things with hard work?

XP loss is also the worst, dumbest idea.

_________________
Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

_________________
login:mirvala
Em'rae d'Ussen d'Vhid
No mercy for the kivvil
aka AgentOfLyumis

You know Rayne's describing what the widget already does, right? You lose XP on fail.

_________________

"Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words."

Like I said in that other topic, I'd forgotten that there was XP loss until I looked at the script last week.

Let me see if this chain of logic resonates with anybody:

1.) Amia is an RP server. It exists to foster RP.

2.) Pickpocketing, when done successfully, creates no RP whatsoever, in that the pickpocketed party never even knows the theft occurred and cannot participate in the encounter.

Therefore:

3.) It's in an RP server's best interest to make sure that any pickpocketing system keeps the thief burdened with a cripplingly high chance of failure.

_________________
Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

Character Portraits!

Well... I've got a problem with your second premise, and would suggest that the conclusion doesn't follow from those premises either. For 2; pickpocketing using the current system does create RP. Whether it's successful or not, it is an event which has an effect on your character, even if it's only a small one. This isn't a lack of RP - this is adding to all of those many small things which come together to build the RP experience.

For 3; why would creating a clearly one-sided and unfair system fix the issue in point 2? It would eliminate anyone thinking of taking part in pickpocketing (which is an incredibly common thing in the FR world). This effectively removes the pickpocketing from the game/world, and would remove any RP involved. It doesn't fix the issue you mentioned, it contributes to it.

The system shouldn't burden a thief with a cripplingly high chance of failure, it should just fairly compare the skills of each party involved. That would make it perfectly fair to everyone involved. A master thief can steal, a master spotter can't be stolen from, everyone else meets in the middle.

_________________
Just lurking about!

Because whether it's fair is a separate question from whether it's in the best interests of the server. I'll stick by my point #2 as indisputable: a successfully accomplished pickpocketing creates absolutely no RP whatsoever. The huge majority of the time, the victim won't ever even realize it happened at all; nobody keeps a running tab of their minute-to-minute GP total and then pauses to balance the books every once in a while. The loss of a few GP will almost always be overlooked. Even the loss of a small inventory item probably won't ever get noticed, with the way people hoard Bags of Holding and carry around their entire houses on their backs.

I stick by my conclusion: only unsuccessful pickpocket attempts create RP, therefore it's in an RP server's best interest to make sure that there's always a significant chance for any pickpocket attempt to be unsuccessful. You're absolutely right that this will disincentivize players from using the pickpockt system in the first place, but I consider that to be a good thing.

_________________
Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

Character Portraits!

Certainly, but you're saying lack of RP is the problem. So you can't fix that by making it so that there won't be any of that sort of RP. You'd need to fix it by enabling people. The best way for both thief and victim is to provide a fair system.

_________________
Just lurking about!

Except that a system which is fair to the thief can't ever be fair to the victim. Sure, if the thief was choosing targets randomly, a fair system would be fair. But in the actual Amia environment, the player of a thief will always know which characters can be victimized without consequence and which are too risky to touch: that is, the player of a thief will always have a pretty good OOC idea about which characters are lowbies or newbies and are therefore "safe." Any system that's fair to the thief therefore can't ever be fair to the victims, who can't make the corresponding choice to only ever be pickpocketed by lowbie or newbie thieves. The creep of OOC knowledge into IC pickpocketing makes a fair pickpocketing system unfair.

_________________
Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

Character Portraits!

I'm suggesting a system which is fair to both, not one sided. Both parties should have the opportunity to add to their ability to steal/resist, and it should be an even opportunity - that is to say for a master thief vs master spotter, it comes down to the d20 roll. Of course there's the risk of OOC knowledge coming into IC, but there's that same risk in almost every other situation on this game. This could also be explained IC, though. (Like a thief who stalks his mark for a while beforehand, to find out whether they're likely to notice him or not.) It depends on the players involved. Currently there's a function of the PP tool which prevents players lower than level 5 from being pickpocketed. Just add a similar function to account for what you think is an acceptable OOC barrier for new characters.

_________________
Just lurking about!

Okay, maybe the person bumping into someone and pickpocketing doesn't create much RP apart from "Oh sorry, I was distracted." ... But behind the scenes, someone is pulling the ropes of an organised crime clan, which can't happen since anyone daring to take training into Pick Pocket skill will be faced to be able to steal from only Helen Keller, but at this point even her would see it coming...

_________________
login:mirvala
Em'rae d'Ussen d'Vhid
No mercy for the kivvil
aka AgentOfLyumis

All right then, we'll get rid of the damn thing. *puts the PP widget in the airlock, presses the big red button and watches them float away*

Honestly there really has not been an argument so far that is compelling enough to put this on the to-do list. We'll get yelled at if we do it one way and whined at if we do it another way. Don't argue whether this is good for RP or not, RP is always going to vary from one situation to the next no matter what tools you have on your utility belt. Argue whether this is good for the server as a whole or whether it is detrimental. Then maybe we can put this issue to bed once and for all.

Alright:
1. This server is very concerned for balance and fairness.
2. The current Pickpocketing system is unfair, as it doesn't compare numbers equally.
Therefore,
3. It should be changed so that the numbers compare like other skill uses, such as Spot vs Hide.

That's why it should be changed. A fair and equal system which works for both parties is good for the server as a whole. I don't really care about whether it steals items or gold, or whatever. I just want it to work.

_________________
Just lurking about!

How many pockets could a pickpocket pick if a pickpocket could pick pockets?

I'm sure we're not going to find out unless this is changed.

_________________
Just lurking about!

Skill that generates money for you with little to no added effort and that as an added bonus, don't require itemization..

Why would this need to be improved when it's already good and can autosucceed on dead PC's more or less. Just because it doesn't work on people that put stuff into spot?

I see this skill as more or less an RP skill for certain situations.. And unlike other such skills like parry, bluff, persuade, etc, it actually gives you something in return.

Before Pickpocket is made any better, I say give more stuff to the less loved skills, because they don't have anything at all except fluff.

_________________
Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

ive one character, my rogue that I invested "alot" o Pick Pocket skill in. Yes, ICly and OOCly a person is smart enough to know what is considered high risk, medium risk and low risk when trying to steal. Yes, all know you succeed on a dead body. Its common sense. As, its been pointed out earlier, one can use OOCly sense for EVERYTHING on the game. PVP (well ill not escalate to fighting so and so because they are this build or lvl30 while im only lvl22) or (ill not roll a intimidation roll against that epic barbarian so and so has)..we can go on and on lol.

Ive had poor experience for successful Pick pocket often. -But- the few that were responsive and roleplayed it out were awesome. Ive Pick pocketed on high risk 80% of the time, lots of failures (most people love it when you fail) it creates lots of RP! Ive succeeded in Pick pocketing one I passed near a cave, also I wasnt aware that a DM was observing. This event the person I pick pocketed proceeded to bicker at me OOCly ..did not attempt to Role play it.<< but the DM stepped in and stated clearly all was done correct. In the end I gave back the stolen item OOCly anyways. For me it was for the Role play! I gave the person plenty of opportunity to stand there feel his pockets, look around (I was just standing there in the open with my character) and put two and two together. It was too bad on that Players part to go off OOCLY first.

So what I feel is vital to keep this skill "alive" is to treat it with respect like we do with PVP...dev crits...HIPS and more. CREATE ROLE PLAY.. fan flames to the role play flame. We dont accept random killing on this server ..there has to be what we call "RP" reason lol. ALright, so people who have this lovely Pick pocketing skill I suggest you to be a showmen/women about it in your approach (even if the person is dead and you pick their stinky body for precious items you devil you) -emote it out with flavor. Also, the person that is the "victim" either while you were dead or alive, dont just jump to OOCLY arguing or hating the person lol try and be open to Role play "roll with it". You never know what might just happen

_________________
Hard to place any eggs out of one's basket

Devastating crit creates roleplay? Whut.

_________________
feel the blood gushing from your anusfeel the blood gushing from your anus

in response to the fact it used to outright kill you...<< we have nerfed it and what my point was the RP is up to you the players to create. Also, to be technical YES ..Dev crits can like everything create RP

_________________
Hard to place any eggs out of one's basket

I think what you mean to say is that they can help better represent a particular facet of one's character. For instance, your character is a particularly ruthless killer who wields a whip. When the opportunity presents itself in combat, they break their opponent's neck with a quick yank, thus incurring the effects produced by a devastating critical hit.

_________________
feel the blood gushing from your anusfeel the blood gushing from your anus

Yes. Almost anything can be used as an opportunity for roleplay.

We have a new fella running around who happened to bump into my blackguard and move her. Blackguard immediately screams that he's a thief and chases him into the center of Cordor East and makes a huge scene. She points out that she's just walking and he hits her from behind. He's running around with his weapon out. It's obvious that he was guilty. He says he's just a good cleric looking for undead in the sewer and I'd gone batty.

Of course the guy never pickpocketed anything. The player is so green he needs mowing. He was being shown IC not to run around and bump into other players because we live in a WYSIWYG world, so unless you get told OOC that there was no shove you should assume some jackball bumped you.

And before you ask why she'd lie and say he's a thief when no pickpocket occurred? Well, she's a blackguard and felt violated that someone would have the audacity to touch her. Duh.

_________________

I played for a fair bit of time in a server that had a "fair and balanced" Pick Pocketing system. I will just say that if player count is still a concern, leave it as it is. With so many players who enjoy an actively provocative conflict-oriented roleplay, there is a chance the same will happen here as it happened there (and a couple other servers where I played for less time): Roleplay will be kept in no-pvp zones, and even the few who take the time to roleplay during xping (instead of non-stop Party chat) are likely to "waste" even less time not killing, as it leaves you open to theft.

Also it would be very unfair (and this is just MY personnal opinion) to players who arent here long enough, and dont have the access to the same items that longtimers do. A longtimer will make a new character and carry the OOC knowledge of merchants, areas, etc that will enable them to have a stelar PPer, and anyone without access (IC or OOC) to the better items and merchants, which contrary to popular belief are well-kept secrets, would be easy prey.

Another thing that I witnessed and was a concern in other servers is the relative ease with which a player with trolling tendencies could just make a PPer with the sole intention of griefing, which is very possible if the PP system gives the PPer even a slight advantage.

_________________
I play:
Frums Deedone, the Green Child
Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum

A lot of this thread is people creating hypothetical situations so biased and improbable simply to "prove" their point. And I have no interest in joining in that game.

So I will just say that ~if~ the pro pick pocketing camp really want to improve RP across the server in relation to PP and PP related issues then you do not need the pick pocket tool at all.

You already have a perfectly able system to roll skill checks. Use the dice rollers to help inform your RP and those whom you oppose.

There is absolutely no need to try to pressure the server into rewarding you for PPing with gold or items either from the marked player or out of thin air.

There are no such rewards for Icly killing a character stone dead in a lonely woods on Amia, and actually rules stating a player can not be forced or required to hand over objects regardless of IC. So I can not fathom why some players feel they should be rewarded for simply matching class skills vs. (often) cross class skills in a consequence free environment like Cordor.

Thievery like every other IC action on Amia should be a matter of the RP abilities of the players involved as it is with every other interaction that takes place in game.

Paladins don’t need a speech widget to make inspiring speeches to incite a mob to rise up and go on crusade with them.

Orc highwaymen don’t get a widget to intimidate their victims into revealing their hidden treasures.

Clerics don’t get a healing widget to tell everyone how well they prayed to their God.

And so on, all of the above and untold other situations are all resolved through the player’s RP abilities perhaps reinforced with few dice rolls (regardless of the result of the roll) a failed roll can often be more entertaining and RP positive than the most staggering (and expected) success.

I urge you all to back off the widgets and get back to characters trying to scheme against each other and that all players collaborate to make it so.

All players are allies in RP, even if their characters are enemies IC.

Happy new year all.

_________________
Aggie Agetha War Knight (much to the chagrin of certain players and character )

What Natilia said. Or do what I do, put one point into pick pocket and when you find dead folk, pick their pocket. Works everytime. Heh.

_________________
Ari'aerath Dlues'athsha ~ Silver Singer with the Bow of the Sun
Clarette Feohn ~ Magic is Art.
Victoria Marrs ~ "I have an herb for that."

Next Point. Adding player level to the chance of spotting a Pick Pocket, not cool. I understand it is Half Player level adds to it, so... 15 at max level.
All ready, it is 20 + 15 for a chance to spot, that's a 35. Then you add the spot modifier of say, 16, which is the unmodified max spot of a character with no wisdom. That's a 51.
Now, hold on, there's more. Say there are three people nearby, within 5 meters. That's another 15 on your targets modifier. Bringing the Grand Total to 66.
That right there, all ready nullifies a thief, no matter what with the current system. Even with one extra person in close proximity that boosts the 51 to 56.. which still, screws a pick pocket, who hasn't invested in Epic Skill Focus.

To give an example. (I am using a Max focus Pick Pocket Thief vs someone who just has points in Spot)
Thief---> Max Pick Pocket 33 without a Dex Bonus. ---> Add Dex Bonus of 9, that's a 28 Unmodified Dex Score. Brings the Pick Pocket skill to 42. Now, add an extra 6 from Max Dex Gear. 48. Add Skill Focus 3, Epic Skill Focus 10 Bringing the Grand Total to 61.
VS
Average Joe ---> Level 30, 20 + 15 ----> Spot 33 which is around 16 ----> Which is a roll of 51. Will only be hit by a Thief who invested full points into Pick Pocket. BUT, an Item or spell or two can offset that, to make it so the Thief fails always. ( This is also not including weather anyone is close to Joe here, if there are two people standing right beside him, he gets an extra 10 added to his Roll)
Add Wisdom Mod to that.. well, even less of a chance.

A Thief with a 33 Pick Pocket and a 12 Dex Mod gets a 45. Which is very easily beaten.

Just thought to point that all out that started this post

I honestly dont think it will cause people to quit. By the way, what is the biggest or yet most uber thing one has succeeded in stealing? Also, there is plenty of items being sold, auctioned...lots of gold out there. There is no shortage on items. I agree with the approach of just using dice for the rp to be carried out..I do it all the time. But on the other side of that coin one can say we should roll dice for everything..hell there is no point for your characters to physically move, you can just stand there in some small room and roll dice all day on the results, typing out emotes of how it all went down. All you need is the chat box We can go further by saying there is no need for grinding all day killing mobs and bosses to earn uber amounts of gold and gathering items all day..Just roll a percentile dice for the party's bold venture into the mindflayers cave. ---no-- We wouldnt want to do all of that, its a game and that's the constant challenge to mix with RP. Perhaps this thread could make people appreciate what "we" do have for pick pocketing. I honestly dont think people would pick pocket all day to earn gold and items when you can easily find a party or solo an area and earn uber amounts of gold with much less risk of exp loss. What I feel is people who have Pick pocket skill want more success to happen for proper outcome of role play. Example is what gobbledygook said " A master thief would not succeed pp a master scout" (80+ spot skill, or in listen).

Its double exp loss if you fail pp and your char is out right seen -on the ground- from the fail. If you happen to succeed, guess what a whopping 20 gold or a heal potion lol ..never have I heard of something grand or epic stolen. See for me though I ask if they are cool with the success anyways..and if they are upset I give it back but state that ICly the item "is" gone.

_________________
Hard to place any eggs out of one's basket

The pro-pickpocketing camp want a system that works fairly to both parties, not a one-sided system which works in favor of the defender. We need a tool to do this, since Bioware PP is not an acceptable solution.

Would you ask someone to do the same thing for Taunt checks in the middle of battle? No. The skill is there to represent what is going on. In the case of taunt, it's Taunt vs Concentration. For PP: It's PP vs Spot. The current system doesn't measure these fairly, hence the need for something different.

The focus here is on a fair system, not on rewards for PP. Personally I think that the items/gold should come from the pick pocketed party, and not be spawned randomly out of thin air.

There ARE rewards for killing people ICly. It all depends on why they were killed. Some people might want to make a sacrifice, some people are trying to achieve something, some people are proving a point or defending their honor/lands/etc. It's well understood that there is a rule which says a player doesn't have to hand over gold/items when they're being robbed. That rule is not relevant to the PP system. Also, people don't want to be rewarded simply for matching points, they want to be rewarded for their thievery RP. If no one is going to hand over money, and there's no system in place for a thief to actually steal from others, then there's no incentive for that sort of RP. Thievery is a HUGE part of the Forgotten Realms.

Not every IC action comes down to the RP abilities of the players involved. The game is here to represent things so that we don't need to describe what is going on every moment, every detail. My character is swinging a sword. Now he's doing it again. And again. And again. And again. The game takes care of combat, it takes care of other things too. Pickpocket is a part of the game, and a part of the world we're representing.

However, KC's have special auras made which represent the inspiring speeches, battle tactics, etc.

Intimidate is used in the Barbarian's Terrifying Rage, and otherwise functions as a social skill. PP is not a social skill.

Clerics get spells. That's a huge part of the game. Should we just tell Clerics to RP out the spells, but not cast them? After all, it's just matching points to other points. - Of course not, the spells are there to represent what is going on. So is the PP skill.

No one is suggesting that RP will simply disappear if this widget gets changed. The fact that there is a widget for the skill isn't a problem at all. The problem is that the current widget does not compare skills in a fair manner.

Fairness and balance are important on Amia, and when something is found to be unbalanced, it is generally changed. That is why people are suggesting a change of the current tool.

_________________
Just lurking about!

Just a few small thoughts on your reply as I don’t feel a confrontational pressure post of micro quoting to defeat the words of a post in detail without challenging in any meaningful way the actual message of the post is constructive. That said as I am writing this post it is longer than I intended!

So I hope you can take my following replies in the spirit in which they are given and try to view them with an unbiased eye if you can.

1st, I never touched on the fairness or unfairness of the current status quo, because I think everyone’s time is far better spent role playing such skills as PPing rather than roll playing with widgets.
(note this means both sides of the confrontation not just the character doing the PPing)

I regret that you and others seem to want to get a dice rolling advantage via ooc means over other players to provide an IC benefit so I’m afraid I can hardly count you as acting in the spirit of “fairness”


2nd, PPing is not a skill your going to use in combat, so the taunt example is not really relevant. PPing is a fine skill to use to generate rewarding RP for the thief and the mark and also bystanders who may wish to get involved to help or hinder the PPing all of whom should have fair involvement.

The system in place for rolling skills is more than up to the task and makes the whole enterprise of PPing inclusive, the widget system seems to be wholly inadequate making on several counts most importantly because it’s the use of a character skill in an ooc manner to gain an ic advantage and furthermore it does so without any player input outside of the “use“ of the item.

I would have thought that players wanting to use PP as a RP tool would support the removal of the PP widget altogether and get players back on track of Rping.

3rd, Amia PVP rules are very clear on the matter of taking things from players.



As PPing is a form of player vs. player this rule clearly applies, I draw your attention to the part “If robbed” as PPing is robbing someone again this clause without doubt include PPing attempts.

Any arguments, and there have been several in the posts made by this o/p and others that suggests or demands a player should loose items or gold from use of the PP skill is wanting something that so clearly violates this fundamental rule I feel is there to ensure Amia remains a role play server not a roll play or pvp server.

In my previous post I pointed out that there is no reward for killing a player, of course what I meant was that you could not literally strip the dead character of all items and gold carried even though in IC terms the character is a sitting duck.

Clearly PPing should render no material reward either, nor should the use of PPing be viewed as a means to material reward either from the targeted character or from “thin air”

Gobbledygook you can’t try to justify material rewards from PPing by citing the RP rewards that come from killing characters. In fact I think you are actually making a point that PPing will be (or should be) about providing RP rewards.

4th Of course dice rolling comes into it to arbitrate RP actions where there is an element of chance or where opposing actions must be valued in order to denote where an action has been successful or indeed a failure.

The combat system does this for swinging a sword, the skill rolling system does this for skills. What else is required but for players to use their imaginations to generate RP situations and use the dice roll to help inform the RP but not to dictate it.

5th special auras and combat actions have been created to make use of certain skills this is true.
I am not sure that anything you mentioned here counters the fact that player RP skills are more relevant in RP situations than an dice roll?

The KC indeed does have several aura’s that provide a combat benefit absent any RP input from the player, however they are a useful RP tool in their own right and none of them would be useful in entering a village and extolling them to glory and holy wrath to risk their lives in a fight to the death against a wight. For that you would have to rely on the RP of the player behind the character perhaps informed by a small sprinkling of relevant skill rolls.

Much like PP could (should) be.

Barbarians do indeed have several feats that make use of the some of the character skills to provide a benefit in combat, however if the same barbarian ran into a village filled with player characters and simply rolled an intimidate skill roll without providing any RP simply expecting everyone to abide by his dice roll will at best will be ignored, and more likely will be IC scorned and OOCly ridiculed.

Clerics do indeed get spells, and of course spells are at least 2/3 of any of the old PHB’s so yes they are a huge part of the game. I have neither heard no said otherwise.
However I doubt that many players will take kindly to a cleric Rping his prayers by simply casting prayer without any actual attempt to provide entreating relevant RP along with it. Especially in particular RP events and interactions outside of combat.
This applies equally to Arcane casters too, common spells used in combat will not be Rped, but special spells being cast over time as part of events and interaction will of course be different.

I have yet to suggest for any thing unfair, I simply don’t agree that a widget will provide what you want and what we deserve.

At best it’s a convenience device to make the skill rolling easier even though the entire onus is with the user of the widget, this lack of effort results in a dice roll an opposing player ~has~ to accept because he has no choice to influence it with his own roll or his own RP and is the result of zero RP from the user other than a perfunctory “I bump into you”,

At worst it’s a device some want to use to take items from others in violation of the spirit and the rule of Amia in the most consequence free manner possible.

I like many others players want to see Amia and its player base return to the ideals of an RP server, which is to say that players are allies, characters may not be.

PPing and the exploitation of it by a certain mindset of players to grief others is a matter of grave concern and speaking from personal experience of being a victim of this grief skill I feel that players using it are simply trying to grief other players and are not trying to generate or partake of interesting RP.

The more that some players try to by pass RP PVP rules with the PP skill the more this opinion is reinforced.

Thank you for your patience in reading this, I didn’t mean to post so long but one sentence seemed to spawn another and another…

p.s. Gobbledygook this isn't intended as an attack on your or anyone although your are of course free to feel as if it is

_________________
Aggie Agetha War Knight (much to the chagrin of certain players and character )

There will always be a couple of bad apples with any thing used in the game. For that person to Pick pocketed you with out RP ..well that isnt cool on their part. I wonder what the pm' s back and forth were in the after math lol. Or what RP was possibly salvaged from your character being robbed. Also, was it a considerable amount of gold/item stole?

_________________
Hard to place any eggs out of one's basket

Well suffice to say the RP was "I bump into you" and then the widget was used and the server told me that his Pick Pocket roll had been successful and that X amount of gold was stolen (metagaming here as the neither system nor the pick pocket would know where my gold was on my person or even if I had any on my person) and that I was not aware of the attempt.

So where was the inclusive entertaining RP for me in this? Even if I chose to ignore the order that I had not noticed the attempt what can I do as the thief runs of out of the market into Cordor East before I have even finished reading the yellow text PP message….I can’t attack him and there is zero fun in a "he said she said" confrontation that ultimately will lead my character to being thrown out for causing a scene because of the general incompetence of Cordor guards lol

No the current widget system is counter to RP and provides nothing but free grief attempts for a certain mindset of player, increasing the skill balancing in favour of the thief more than it already is will simply make matters worst for RPers.

_________________
Aggie Agetha War Knight (much to the chagrin of certain players and character )

I wrote a bunch of stuff for this, but I've said it all in the other thread before, so I'm not going to waste time arguing it all again. I don't understand why there is so much resistance to the introduction of a system which is fair to both thief and victim; unless those people are so proud that they don't want to ever be stolen from, or even have the possibility that it might happen.

Hopefully a DM or developer will see the very clear calculations as they currently are, notice how one-sided it is, and fix the incredible imbalance.

_________________
Just lurking about!

Many of the "arguments" put forward are so biased and self serving and so only result in equally biased and self serving replies and the ride of rotating knives goes on and on.

I think what you don't understand is that what you (and others) are asking for is not needed, counter to RP and simply a tool for griefers, its grossly misused in its current form so making it stronger just increases the ability to grief players and by passing role playing with characters.

Furthermore I would remind you that the current PP tool and any future tool you would wish for completely removes all input and choice from the target character and requires no effort on the part of the thief, how is this either "fair" or desirable on an RP server?

And you have again ignored the pvp rule about taking items from characters, its not going to go away simply because you ignore it and for me is one of the key aspects of why I will argue the PP tool needs to be removed and thief’s should be expected to use role play and skill rolls to try and manipulate their environment the same as everyone else.

You are not allowed to demand items in anyway from characters that you slay, even though Icly the character is completely at your mercy.

It therefore follows that you are not allowed to demand items from a character you merely pick pocket especially as that character may detect and react to the attempt.

And further furthermore on this server no player is required to honour the skill rolls of any other simply because they made them, without suitable RP interaction a skill roll is meaningless and this must include pick pocketing.

IMO the more I think about this topic the more I begin to wonder if PP should not be treated like a pnp spell for the purposes of permissions... seeing as it has the scope to be abused and certain kinds of players here want it to be a stronger tool for abuse, double in fact as they want it to be nigh on undefeatable for those who do not have the required counter skills as class skills, ~and~ they want to be exempt from the pvp rules so that the can take gold and items against a players will....

_________________
Aggie Agetha War Knight (much to the chagrin of certain players and character )

Point out which ones are biased or self-serving. At the moment it appears that because you're arguing so heatedly against any possibility of your character being stolen from, you are yourself biased. I am arguing for a fair system which is even, and appropriate for both thief and victim, to give each person a fair chance in the outcome.


It is needed. The current system is broken and imbalanced, so it needs to be fixed. You're suggesting the removal of an entire skill from the game, on the basis of your own bad history with other people. If griefing is happening, you need to report it. It will stop when a DM gets involved. I'm not suggesting we 'make it stronger'. I'm suggesting we make the rolls appropriate with a d20 + Pickpocket vs a d20 + Spot.


You can't remind me of something which isn't true. People roleplay regardless of the tools in use. It doesn't remove all input and choice, it simply decides whether one side is successful or not. If someone picks my pocket when I'm out in a crowded place, and I don't notice, I never had a choice whether to allow myself to be stolen from or not.


This is really important for you to understand, so I'm going to write it all in blue so it stands out a bit more. The 'technicality' rule 15, which is how it is described in the rules, does not apply to Pickpocket. The rules say at the top of the page: "The following are rules to be used when engaging in PvP (Player vs. Player) combat." You have said that pickpocket is not a form of combat. Since pickpocket is not a form of combat, and the rules clearly say that rule 15 only applies to PvP combat situations, you cannot claim that this rule has some greater meaning in another context. It is not a fundamental rule which shows the spirit of other rules, it is only a technicality, which is designed to mediate in a very specific situation. You use this whole "But it's the rules!" argument every time you talk about PP, and it is still false. It's completely inappropriate to mis-quote part of the rules without taking into consideration the surrounding rules, and their meaning. Just because you have interpreted the rules in the way you have, doesn't mean you are right. Rather than arguing about it with me, I suggest you go and ask a DM this very specific question: "Does using the pickpocket tool break the PvP Rule 15?"


All of this makes it sound as if you want to discount someone's RP if they try to pickpocket from you. You're trying to remove a system which does this fairly, then put PP down under a rule which it can't be classified under, and then say something along the lines of "If their RP isn't good enough for me, I'll just ignore it." Is any of that fair or acceptable on a Roleplay server? No. You can't ignore someone else's skills when it comes down to a function in game. Fair enough that some tiny kobold rolls 100 intimidate and says 'Boo', and you laugh at him. It doesn't work like that for pickpocket.


Do you mean me, Natalia? Do I want this skill stronger so that I can use it to abuse people? It's not a spell, it's a part of the game already. There's no need for permissions, if there is an adequate system in game. Taunt is unbeatable if you don't have the required skills, why would this be any different? And again, the PvP rules DO NOT APPLY to Pickpocket.

_________________
Just lurking about!