Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Save scumming during pickpocketing. Can you deter this?

Oh yeah "boo hoo I have no self control and keep ruining my game experience for myself by save scumming all the time even though I do not want to do that, so now I want to remove that option for every one else in this single player game".

But sure, Larian can add some kind of savescumming prevention mechanics if they want. As long as it is an option. For example one that I select when I create my character. And once it's enabled you can't disable it other than starting over with a new caracter.

Is he though? His point is exactly that it doesn't affect balance at all unless YOU, the player make it so. In other words, if you don't pick pocket at all it is literally not in the game. No enemies, NPC's or anyone else in the game will pickpocket you, anyone in your party, or anyone else in the game on their own.

It only happens if you do it. It's a mechanic entirely within the players control, and therefore can be disregarded without any fear of it being used against you in the game.

That's entirely different than say, questioning the way height advantage works. Because a player could just stroll directly into the blighted village, fail some die rolls and be sniped out by the goblins on the rooftops.(or some such other encounter)

Do you see the difference? Pickpocketing, like save scumming, is a player choice, it's something only the player does, and if you choose not to then it simply doesn't exist in the game.

I think what alot of you are talking about is self discipline. Essentially you are saying, if it's there, you cannot resist the urge. That's fine, and it would be a valid argument. It would also be a more honest one than hiding behind this "balance" thing, because you for some reason fear that admitting you don't have the self control not to do it would make you appear weak.

I don't necessarily think that's the case, but let's all at least be honest here. This is an issue of self control, not balance.

Wrong. A game must be balanced around what is possible and not around the expectations that the player will not use certain options available to him.
When pickpocketing is possible it means the game must still work when the player pickpockets everything instead of becoming completely unbalanced, even if that means some entitled players whine that they can't have easy mode (besides setting the game to easy).

Wrong. A game must be balanced around what is possible and not around the expectations that the player will not use certain options available to him.
When pickpocketing is possible it means the game must still work when the player pickpockets everything instead of becoming completely unbalanced, even if that means some entitled players whine that they can't have easy mode (besides setting the game to easy).

Wrong. A game must be balanced around what is possible and not around the expectations that the player will not use certain options available to him.
When pickpocketing is possible it means the game must still work when the player pickpockets everything instead of becoming completely unbalanced, even if that means some entitled players whine that they can't have easy mode (besides setting the game to easy).

I always wonder, people that want this kind of thing which is purely a disciplinary type measure that shouldn't effect you if you just don't do it, given Larian has limited time and resources to design the game, which features would you like to see not added just to handcuff the players? Is this more important to you than, say, Dragonborn being included as a playable race?

Limit pickpocketing in general through multiple methods IMO. Generally speaking, it's not a very compelling action to take in D&D, and not being able to steal a person's entire inventory would be a start. Limit it to things that you could reasonably take and limit it by the reactions of your companion characters, maybe some don't care but honestly who wants to be grouping with an outright thief? Obviously there are some exceptions in terms of particular quests or characters but in general when you're playing anything but an evil campaign in D&D (which are fraught with problems themselves) your PCs don't like it when other PCs steal.

Yea but you don't need to steal their entire inventory. Just their gold, over and over and over again. And then you just buy whatever you want from them with their own gold.

Also the rest of your party only seem to approve/disapprove during dialog options or sometimes during cutscenes. I've never seen them do it during actual gameplay. I'm not sure they can. Also, even if they could, since you control the entire party you could simply move them all away where they can't see what's going on and they'd never know what you did.

It may not be as simple as flipping a few lines of code and voila.

Also, I think most of us would agree, there's far more important things for Larian to be focusing on.

But pickpocketing in and of itself is not broken.

Well to be fair, if we can exclude dragonborn, then I'm okay with limiting picpocket and savescumming because dragonborn are as cringe as goblins.

In its current implementation it is, save scumming or not.

The real issue is the economy in this game is so screwed up it encourages theft. If there were ways to earn money to buy the exorbitantly expensive items that didn't involve hoarding enormous amounts of junk and carrying them all over Faerun people wouldn't have the pressure to steal and save scum.

The real issue is the economy in this game is so screwed up it encourages theft. If there were ways to earn money to buy the exorbitantly expensive items that didn't involve hoarding enormous amounts of junk and carrying them all over Faerun people wouldn't have the pressure to steal and save scum.

I understand that as a developer you cannot prevent every single game breaking possibility and you should allow a level of freedom to players because everyone plays differently. However, pickpocketing in this game currently feels very OP. Its almost game breaking. Perhaps if you were able to implement something that deterred save scumming all-together it would solve an array of issues. If you are not able to do so, please consider making stealing a more difficult process. Currently its immersion breaking and it basically requires no investment in any particular abilities. You just need a rogue and base proficiency in sleight of hand to steal 90% of items.