I've raised my pickpocketing skill to the point where it says I can pickpocket up to level 30 NPCs (if I am understanding the pickpocket level verbage).

However, I can only pickpocket one and only one item from any merchant. All other attempts give the message "I am unable to pickpocket this item". The odd thing is I can pickpocket ANY one single item. Loading a saved game BEFORE the first pickpocket attempt is made, allows me to pickpocket ANY item in the merchant's inventory. All subsequent pickpocket attempts fail. Saving the game AFTER the first pickpocket attempt succeeds and then loading that saved game does not fix the problem even if I exit all the way to windows and run the program again.

Note: My character is level 10 and the merchants in question are those in Act I, BF 1 or the "Always fun exchanging stuff" Imp in Act one.

Has anyone run across this problem?

Have I wasted a lot of skill points by raising my pickpocket skill so high?

Does anyone have any notes/experience on pickpocket skill level vs merchant level vs success?

Thanks,
rpger