Pickpocketing
Pickpocketing is an opt-in mechanic that allows a thief to attempt to steal Coin Purse items from a victim character. The Coin Purses can be bought from Mireva for 100 GP (plus tax), and the victim will get 100 XP for each coin purse they have stolen. If they catch the thief in the act, they receive an extra 200 bonus XP.
Using the Pickpocket feat
Every character has the Pickpocket feat. When activated, Coin Purses glow yellow, and when you hover over a character that can be pickpocketed, they are highlighted in yellow, rather than the usual blue. Holding down tab after you activate Pickpocket will show you all characters around who can be pickpocketed.
Click on a character to pickpocket them. This will take 6 seconds, after which you will gain 1d3 coinpurses, worth 100 to 300 GP in total. If you or your victim moves away during that time the pickpocketing attempt will fail. If you are too far from a character you will run toward them, so it's often a good idea to try to pickpocket people nearby, so you can be less conspicuous.
After 3 seconds, you will see your character turn toward your victim and play a stealing animation. This turn and animation is only visible to you, and anyone watching who passes the skill check.
The skill check
Pickpocketing pits the Stealth of the thief against the Perception of the victim and any nearby witnesses. The thief receives the following bonuses vs their victim:
- +5 if it's night
- +1 for every creature other than themselves and the victim within 5m
- +1 for every 30 degrees they are from facing their victim (i.e. if they are at the victim's side it's +3, if they are directly behind it's +6)
Against witnesses, characters who are not being targeted:
- +5 if it's night
- +1 for every creature other than themselves and the victim within 5m
- +1 for every 30 degrees the witness is facing away from the thief
- +1 for every 2m the witness is from the thief
Thus, the victim will have the best chance of noticing the thief stealing from them, and people facing toward the thief will be more likely to notice the theft than characters facing away.
Noticing a theft
If a character passes the perception check and notices the theft, they will see both the steal animation and get floating text indicating that they've seen a theft.
If the victim notices the theft, the thief is immobilized for an additional 6 seconds while they play the 'annoyed' animation. This is to ensure that the victim gets some time to react.
Noticing a theft does not mean it is prevented. The thief still gets the Coin Purse. This will remain in their inventory and marked as Stolen until they can get to a Fence and sell their ill-gotten gains. Stolen Coin Purses can be found in a thief's inventory via a /search. This gives Reeve characters a way of proving the theft has taken place.
