Larian Studios
Posted By: Darkhain Lucky Charm and Thieving are gamebreaking. - 19/09/17 03:57 PM
With lucky charm you'll get a huge amount of powerful magic items.
With thieving you'll get all items NPC are selling/carrying for free, without any problem.
If you do this, you'll get so powerful with gear, that tactician mode become a piece of cake early on (act1) !
Early Act 1 is supposed to be easy / easier. You might want to continue playing a bit before renderering such judgement ("gamebreaking"). For example, thieving only works once per PC-thief/NPC, that means that yes, it can be an early boost, but such gear upgrades are one-time only (unless you exploit, but then you only have yourself to blame for breaking your game). In fact, I'm of the opinion that yes, thieving is broken, but broken as in "not worth the precious skillpoints", not as in "OP".
You don't steal NPC right away when you see them, you wait a few levels, till you need something good.
And even if you can't steal anymore, because you already did, you already have so many golds, that it doesn't matter.
In the alpha, Lucky Charm was literally worthless, there was no point into taking it at all. Now because there is, it's bad and has to be deleted?

Thieving was also pretty mediocre for pickpocketing because the limits were so low such that you couldn't steal anything worth taking in the first place.

Thieving gets exponentially better as you put more points into it, and each character can pickpocket once.
That means if you have some gear to get +4 thieving, you can pickpocket 6 times to clear any skill book merchant. If those characters also have some points in Thieving, then it gets even better.

I've looked pretty hard though, and +Thieving gear is pretty rare.
The same is Lucky Charm the more you have or get item with +lucky charm, the more item you'll get (which is currently insane), and the more +lucky charm you'll get.
Posted By: Wakko Re: Lucky Charm and Thieving are gamebreaking. - 22/09/17 06:38 AM
I have a question on how thieving works.
When i steal from somone after some seconds he comes on me or my party if it nearby and demand for a search. If i move far before he realise he got pickpocketed then i might get away. Anyone knows exactly how this works in terms of how far should i go or how quick he comes for me after a steal?
Originally Posted by Terodil
Early Act 1 is supposed to be easy / easier. You might want to continue playing a bit before renderering such judgement ("gamebreaking"). For example, thieving only works once per PC-thief/NPC, that means that yes, it can be an early boost, but such gear upgrades are one-time only (unless you exploit, but then you only have yourself to blame for breaking your game). In fact, I'm of the opinion that yes, thieving is broken, but broken as in "not worth the precious skillpoints", not as in "OP".


It's incredibly game breaking for someone that doesn't want to steal, the advantage you get seems insurmountable, I shouldn't need to steal, but that's all anyone gives you for advice on how to get gear or money.

@Samurai: I agree to a point. On the one hand, balancing a game around having a highly skilled thief goes against the principle of creative character design, because it railroads you into a certain direction. On the other hand, logic and game design fundamentals do tell us that you need to have a somewhat well-rounded party to overcome most, if not all, of the varied challenges the game throws at you. Gear management is a prominent challenge among these, so having a way to procure gear or at least gold should probably be on the agenda for any adventurer.

That said, I still dislike the way thieving is implemented in this game and don't use it at all any more. I do have a dedicated barterer though.
If you want to play good guys, being forced into using source and thieving is pretty much gamebreaking, because good guys would not want to do such things.
Forced? I beat the game on Tactician mode last night and I never stole a thing.
Guys, with only 7 civil abilities and 4 characters, you would have to be another level of ignorant to NOT have atleast one money making skill, be it bartering lucky find or thievery... while persuasion afaik also helps with barter prices. There is no issue with that, because with atleast 2 of these you will have enough cash atleast midgame, and it allows for both good guy and bad guy playthrough
They made Lucky Charm a worthy investment (it was much worse in the Early Access version and could loot perhaps an extra potion or fish at most), can potentially loot good rarity equipment especially early on, however you'll miss the other civil skills on that character and you'll have to let him loot every box and chest to fully benefit from the skill.

Keeping that in mind, in a multiplayer setting you'll need good communication and enstablished roles on who's doing what in the game world to make the most use out of the skill (nobody will touch or loot anything other than the player with Lucky Charm).

Also letting the Lucky charm character go first can potentially trigger conversations or events that would be best left to perhaps a Persuasion character. If the Lucky Charm character is the one looting, then on the long run, assuming a lot of looting is occurring it would be best for the character to also have some strength stat in order to be able to carry larger quantities of items in the inventory.
@Wakko

Usually you can have a secondary party member (not the thief) converse with the victim, allowing you to get as far away as desired, usually about 30m and sneaking is decent, just depends on how far away the victim can see (break your sneak in their random pathing search)

They will usually settle for other player characters in the area when they come up empty-handed with the thief, as long as their inventory is clear of stolen goods, the victim will usually warn that player to be on the look-out and proceed to searching again, after about 30 sec max (for me usually) they will settle down and resume regular behavior until stolen from again by another toon.
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On a completely seperate note, you are not forced to use Thieving but its definately a way to go, it helps with traps AND unlocking doors as well as pickpocketing so having a Lucky Charm player and a Thief always is a good idea for general gameplay, for the first act 1 point in Persuasion is enough for general checks but for convincing a guard your not where your not supposed to be? thats a bit more difficult so you can diversify in the first act and respec in acts after
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My friend and i have done extensive testing with it and Lucky Charm is far more exploitable than the limited Thieving Skill, for instance, you find 2 Ornate Chests in a dungeon vault with a few vases nearby (all unlooted) you respec your Civil Skills to 0, and progressively open chest, open chest, reload, add one Lucky Charm, open chest, open chest, reload, add one more Lucky Charm (total of two instead of previous one), open chest, etc

Not like any loot found from that method? reload to empty Lucky Charm character save, open a vase, save game, repeat the above methods and new loot will be in chests

my friend and i did this exact situation and rather than getting one legendary belt, pants, or ring + one epic weapon, shield, belt, or ring + one rare something / we got one legendary shield with 2 resistances and +4 constitution, one legendary ring with several skill buffs and +3 wit, and rare pants with one resistance and +2 initiative

conclusion LC is far more exploitable and broken, but it allows you the ultimate freedom in becoming either an awesome 5 star godwoken, or re-rolling to intentionally hobble yourself to make the game harder
isn't thievery kind of essential wrt quests that involve getting past locked doors (all in the family for example)

i never steal primarily because i have no levels in sneak, but i always have someone with eventually maxed thievery (preferably an undead character so i can forego lockpicks) to get past doors or open chests

the thing i personally don't like about thievery is that in order to get complete mileage out of it you need at least a couple of levels in sneaking (as far as i know? maybe there are ways to steal without sneaking that i'm not aware of), but that's more my own issue and not the game's at all since it's my own prerogative to not pump points into sneaking on any characters since i find myself almost never using it

i like lucky charm the way it is and even without it don't normally have any issue with money. its impact earlier on in the game is not that big as it is, calling it game breaking is hyperbolic

whether thievery is game breaking is more up in the air, but since i don't use it to the full extent that it can be used i couldn't comment
Originally Posted by Kalrakh
If you want to play good guys, being forced into using source and thieving is pretty much gamebreaking, because good guys would not want to do such things.

oh please, all my source is ethically farmed
Posted By: Okto Re: Lucky Charm and Thieving are gamebreaking. - 04/10/17 01:48 AM
Only the choicest of organic, farm to table Source thank you very much.
Originally Posted by Okto
Only the choicest of organic, farm to table Source thank you very much.


I read this in the Red Prince's voice lol!

I feel like lucky charm is pretty balanced. I have a 5 in it and find nice things pretty sparsely and randomly. In the first game it was useless from my play-throughs, I would get a lucky find on like water balloons ... ?
The issues with Thievery and Lucky Find aren't the fault of those Civil Skills; they're endemic of the absolutely insane Rocket Tag Economy that is DOS2's scaling and gear cycling.

Lucky Charm and Thievery are at a very good place right now, especially the latter; if you have a gripe with the fact that NOT taking them neuters your playstyle, take it up with the insane number ramping and kleptomaniac-enabled economy that they band-aid over.
There is no need to steal anything if you have Lucky Charm.
Pile of bones -> oh, magic ring, so cool!
Random box in dungeon -> super hyper legendary staff, yeah bring it on!

Whole my game I only used thievery to open locked doors / chests. Not to steal from anybody, because it conflicts with my ethics.

Of course you can steal and get rich, same as real life. But it's role playing. Do you want your party of "heroes" to be robbers? Are you walking path of Divine on blood of innocent and cry of traders children, because daddy lost his money to "heroes"?
Originally Posted by Darkhain

If you do this, you'll get so powerful with gear, that tactician mode become a piece of cake early on (act1) !

Cool story bro.
Don't like it - don't use it.
Originally Posted by samuraicake
Originally Posted by Terodil
Early Act 1 is supposed to be easy / easier. You might want to continue playing a bit before renderering such judgement ("gamebreaking"). For example, thieving only works once per PC-thief/NPC, that means that yes, it can be an early boost, but such gear upgrades are one-time only (unless you exploit, but then you only have yourself to blame for breaking your game). In fact, I'm of the opinion that yes, thieving is broken, but broken as in "not worth the precious skillpoints", not as in "OP".


It's incredibly game breaking for someone that doesn't want to steal, the advantage you get seems insurmountable, I shouldn't need to steal, but that's all anyone gives you for advice on how to get gear or money.


You don't NEED to steal to beat the game. YOU simply WANT to steal because of the advantage it gives. What a shock. An Ability that you invest into gives you an advantage in the game. It's almost like that's the entire point.
The only change I would make to thievery is to eliminate all +thievery gear.

A chest can only be looted once to proc lucky charm...but with +thievery gear your whole party can steal from a guy one after the other. It's gimmicky. Swap all the +X thievery tags with +sneak tags.

I also agree that thievery is kind of 'strongly advised'. Weapons and armor values go up 10%+ per level so you're at a very large disadvantage if you're not constantly recycling all your gear. I think the game would be a bit better if the scaling were reduced significantly.
Posted By: Forgy Re: Lucky Charm and Thieving are gamebreaking. - 05/10/17 10:46 PM
I almost feel there was a lack of dropped gear and LC filled in for that during the game for me. LC does feel very strong. I think the rate just needs to be toned down, and they need to let all party members benefit if one person has it. You should never have 3 people standing around while 1 loots an entire room.

Thievery... it's like they made it more annoying than DoS1 but not any more fun. It's still very useful, of course. I just don't look forward to it, unchaining people, trying to distract, sneak issues, ... bleh.
Posted By: Limz Re: Lucky Charm and Thieving are gamebreaking. - 06/10/17 12:24 AM
Lucky Charm and Thieving must be used to prevent the game from breaking.
on tactician it looks like gamesaving. So shitty loot and so expensive goods in the shops.
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