Pickpocketing (skill)
Pickpocketing is a non-combat skill and tutorial codex entry in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The purpose of this skill is to allow the player to steal items from unsuspecting victims. Increasing this skill will lower the chance of getting caught which could result in going to jail and/or paying a fine. The player will also need to use the skill stealth to sneak up on their victims.
Having low Conspicuousness and Visibility are quite helpful for pickpocketing at day time, while getting your Noise level as close to 0 as possible, is also pretty important - and absolutely essential for a successful outcome at night. It shouldn't need to be said that having a Torch equipped is a big no-no. Also worth mentioning is that pickpocketing the same person more than once, increases their awareness - and thus makes 2nd or 3rd attempts in a row substantially more difficult.
For learning the skill, it's best to pickpocket items one at a time from victims. While it's unclear how exactly pickpocketing experience is calculated (It's theorized that the xp reward is tied to the monetary value of the items you steal), each attempt in which you retrieve an item adds some xp on it's own to the tally. It seems that pickpocketing each item individually versus an "all-out at once" approach could yield up to 90% more skill experience! E.g. pickpocketing the alehouse maid at Sasau Wagoners' Inn gets you 136 xp for stealing all her items (sans keys) one at a time, while taking all in one fell swoop only yields 71 xp.
Peshek, the miller near Rattay, can teach Henry how to pickpocket. You can read the book series The Rule of St. Nicholas to level up this skill.
Tutorial
Note: This information is from the in-game tutorial.
Picking pockets is no joking matter. If you're caught with your fingers in someone else's purse, either by the victim or by a witness, they'll raise the alarm and you'll be pursued as a thief. In order to rob someone successfully, you first have to sneak up on them unnoticed and then by holding 'E' begin pickpocketing.
Once you've got your hand inside your victim's purse, you have to grope around inside it by holding 'E'. That's not easy, especially if your victim is on the move.- The longer you grope, the better your chances of finding the most valuable items. The progress of your groping is shown by the yellow indicator.
Once you decide you've searched long enough, you can choose from what you've found 'A' and 'D'. Each person has his own inventory, which you will gradually reveal using 'E' and the most valuable items are usually at the very bottom. But remember: it's not enough to grasp the loot - you have to get your hand out with it too - that is, go back to the top position. The amount of time you have for taking items was determined at the beginning by the amount of time spent searching. This is shown on the gold progress bar around the circumference of the purse.
Skill Description
Pickpocketing skill makes it easier to rob people on the street unnoticed and lowers the chances of witnesses seeing you in the act.
New perk points unlock at levels: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20.
Pickpocketing Perks
| Pickpocketing Perks |
| Icons | Name | Level | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
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Comrade | Lvl 2 | Increases your chance of pickpocketing someone with the same Charisma level as you have. Such people are usually dressed similarly to you. |
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Secret Pockets | Lvl 2 | When looting corpses, you'll find more money. |
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Crowd Control | Lvl 4 | Reduces your chance of being discovered when there's a lot of people around. |
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Easy Way Out | Lvl 4 | The movement of the cursor in a pickpocketing victim's inventory will be twice as fast. |
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Item Expert I | Lvl 6 | Reveals stats for half the items in a pickpocketing victim's purse. |
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Pocket Sight I | Lvl 6 | Immediately reveals one of the items in a pickpocketing victim's inventory. |
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Friendly Neighbour | Lvl 8 | If anyone who likes you at least a little catches you pickpocketing, they won't call the guard on you. Your reputation will still fall though. |
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Hidden Pockets | Lvl 8 | When arrested and searched, you'll keep some of the stolen items in your inventory. |
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Item Expert II | Lvl 10 | Reveals the stats of all items in a pickpocketing victim's purse. |
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Pocket Sight II | Lvl 10 | Immediately reveals three of the items in a pickpocketing victim's inventory. |
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Pocket Sight III | Lvl 14 | Immediately reveals all the items in a pickpocketing victim's inventory. |
Trainers
Notes
- There is a certain bug that makes it so that sleeping npcs will sometimes automatically detect you. This is theorized having to do with visibility and light sources.
- Despite this bug, the safest way to level up Pickpocketing are sleeping people at night time. There's no witnesses around, and even if your mark happens to wake up, immediately run away - and there's a slight possibility they were too sleepy to really recognize what was exactly happening or who did it (as long as you stay away for a while), avoiding you crime and reputation loss. Most prominent 'easy' locations for this (if you have no heart) are the Monastery Infirmary is Sassau, and the Refugee camp in Rattay. An additional benefit of the Infirmary is how the patients are too sick to react at all to you getting caught - and thus it's the best place for early leveling.
- A way to make things real easy for yourself, might be to empty a Lullaby potion in the common cauldron before people eat. After all, there's a huge difference between asleep vs unconscious.
- Pickpocketing wayfarers sleeping at night is theoretically the best option, since there's no guards around in the middle of the countryside. However where those wayfarers actually sleep is a huge question mark.
- One way to avoid the repercussions of your thievery is to pickpocket surrendering or sleeping bandits/Cumans. However what you avoid in reputation losses and guards, might lead to far more fatal consequences.
- The Pickpocketing (activity) by Peshek increases Henry's skill by 15 xp per successful attempt. That's much less xp than you will get through real pickpocketing, so grinding the tutorial is pretty pointless.
- The pickpocketing skill books allow Henry to unlock use of the skill without the need of being taught by Peshek, but it is advised to learn the skill from him, as it will provide a level in pickpocketing without the use of the level one skill book. This allows the player to net more early experience by reading the skill book with the skill already unlocked. It is unknown if the player can get experience from 'learning' the skill from Peshek while having already learned it from the skill book.
- Who exactly are the drunkards Peshek refers to in the pickpocketing tutorial is a bit of a mystery