Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback How is pickpocketing supposed to function?

Im having trouble wraping my head around how this works? Ive met my first vendor and have a char with good dex and slight of hand so I figured I should see what pickpocketing is like. I sneak up behind the vendor, successfully steal a sword and sneak off. The problem is whenever I return I am automatically in combat with the vendor and any NPC nearby.

So, how do they know Im the thief if I sucessfully pickpocketed and immediately left the area (and waiting a while before showing myself there again?
If this is how it works then what is even the point? If even sucessfull stealing and escape will result in guaranteed combat then why bother being a tricky thief rather than a pillaging murderhobo?

Is anyone else having better sucess? Am I just missing something?

Pick-pocketing was kinda dumb in D:OS2 as well, let's hope they improve on it but honestly I wouldn't hold my breath

Yes it was very abusable. I actually like that they have changed it so each item you steal is a separate roll with a separate difficulty. How much you want to press your luck is a fun minigame. But even DoS2s system of NPCs having heightened awareness and looking for someone to interrogate for a while is better than this.
Psionic knowledge that your group are the thieves even if you dont mess up the pickpocketing isnt very fun to interact with.

Was it after the first successful attempt or the second one?
I successfully stole once, passed the persuasion check. Nobody attacked me.
But when I came back to do the third try I was attacked. And if this is not a bug, then well done Larian.
If someone lost things twice when the same group of "creatures" was nearby they just come to the right conclusion.

No that I wouldnt have minded. Having the "did you steal" conversation raise flags would be more intelligent NPC behavior than just asking the same person 10 times if they stole something.

The way I did it was I pickpocketed an item sucessfully from the vendors inventory, then beelined to a place far away, then I spent a couple of minutes sorting my bags out, then I was going to go back and ste...ehrm I mean look at the scenerey some more, but I entered combat without any dialogue.

Anyway now I have gotten it to work as I thought it would. If I get away without failing the pickpocket check or talking to any guards looking for thieves you can some back safely to the area without suspicion. But I dont know what Im doing differently this time so I have no idea why I was suddenly tagged as an enemy without having even talked to any NPC about missing stuff.

Maybe is still a bug.
I ve got the same issue with Dammon trader in Druid Grove but have no problem to steal everything from Arron in the same location.

Something Id also like to see regarding pickpocketing is for NPCs to not always have psychic knoowledge of having been pickpocketed no matter how small a thing. Like if you overshoot the difficulty by a certain number they wouldnt even notice anything missing. It is a bit immersion breaking when a guard immediately notices a missing key, or something really small. The point of sleight of hand is to be able to take something without its owner noticing right?