You know its coming. Some kind of arbitrary throttling of this powerful ability in order to preserve some sense of economy in the game. Rather than do things like Limit the number of items you can steal like in Divinity, how about some balance fixes that are more in line with D&D?
1. Shopkeeper ability checks: Currently in situations where you just catch an unsuspecting shopkeepr looking the wrong way, and you just pick em clean and run away, they just kind of walk around the same spot looking very low effortly until they return to "sell mode" and you can creep back up and do it again. I noticed sometimes they say stuff like "there must be more evidence!" so what if there was? After a shopkeeper realizes hes been robbed, he should be allowed to make a perception check or survival check to look for tracks. When the shopkeeper passes a check like this, they follow the route the player took when they ran away. Essentially they coulld be forced to make a few more attempts before giving up and heading back... this way they dont just stand at the storefront while the player only needs to sneak off about one screen over and wait. Eventually they may track down the player and confront them, at least forcing the dialogue options to be used more.
2. Increase suspicion: So I just robbed the first vendor in the Grove. He looks around and then gives up... I sneak back up and all the required sleight of hand scores are still the same as before. Despite being robbed, he is just as easy to steal from as 2 minutes ago. Perhaps a fair way to balance pickpocketing is have the vendors get increasingly protective over their goods being stolen. "I have been robbed 3 times today! theres no way I am taking an eye off my inventory!". They could tie it in with long rests if they feel its too heavy handed but ultimately this is a light version of the divinity method, which just gave you a one shot attempt at stealing something with each guy. The difference is its still an RNG driven model but results in "required roll of 20" for scrolls after a few robberies rather than simply fully locking it out.
any other ideas out there?
Do people feel pickpocketing is too strong? or mayben the items are just too strong too early and a pickpocket can gear out teh second they hit the grove?
Should we emulate Divinities solution or take a more novel approach for this game?
I would not mind if it was made more difficult. There should definitely be some sort of timer before you can pickpocket the same person again, this to indicate they are highly aware of their surroundings until they relax. Also each time you do it, the roll needed should increase a lot, maybe reset this on a long rest.
For those who think everything is overpriced and have a hard time keeping gold, when at a vendor ask yourselves do you need this item or do you just want it. Most good gear is looted, everything you pick up can be sold, and planning rather than rushing in to combat uses less potions so what really do you need to buy? Carry only what you need, keep a few situational items at camp and sell everything else, doing this will leave you with more gold than you need.
