Pick Pocketing / Lock Picking

[peewee_RotA]

I don't know if this was in classic A&A (but it looks like it was). Pick pocketing and picking locks are directly tied to the Stealth stat. There's also a 1 in 100 chance of picking doors that require keys, oddly enough. I never realized these and assumed that this wasn't the case all this time, so it's cool to know.

Anyway. I've been experimenting with gaining experience from either action. The game is designed to use half stealth score for most classes that can use the thief tools, and full stealth score for the rogue. I've taken this final result and multiplied it by 35. It averages to about 500-800exp per attempt. This is way higher than fighting experience.

My question is the thoughts on gaining xp from the action. Is it a good idea? Also, is jacking it way higher than typical fighting XP reasonable? Lastly, should you be allowed to pick pocket multiple times? (maning gaining extra XP from the same enemy)

[peewee_RotA]

Made a fork of the project on GitHub. I'll get the changes up soon enough...


In the meantime I fixed the stealing from dead issue and added in the ability to steal random junk from live monsters who have already had their main item stolen.

On top of that, while in mouselook mode I added a shortcut to stealing if theif tools are in the inventory. This affords players the ability to fight if their stealing fails.. instead of being caught offguard with no weapon.

At the moment you can technically steal while fighting (but not while the sword is swinging) So it's a way for thief characters to milk XP.... but it's a risk because you have to stop fighting for a moment. (which theoretically stops a stunlock). I think I can make the punishment even bigger to prevent it... but for now I'm going to try a playthrough with my changes.

I'll have this mod available soon

[LysleShields]

Do you give them XP if they pick pocket and the creature has had it's treasure stolen?  I would definitely stop it once successful (there is a flag on the creature when it has been picked clean).  Failed attempts could give XP but maybe at a reduced level, that way a successful pick pocket will be its own reward.  I also have to wonder if picking from different creatures should aware more XP for higher level or not.  Otherwise picking at low level will be very rewarding, but not so much later in the game.

[peewee_RotA]

The xp reward is scaled to the current pick pocket skill, which follows the original design. Rogues get full stealth towards pick pocket or pick lock. Magician, mercenary, and the new Ninja class get 50% of stealth.

So a basic pick pocket/pick lock for rogue grants 35 * STL in XP. As STL goes up, this raises, but it doesn't scale as fast as required XP for levels. So the XP bonus becomes less useful with time. Picking a supperior lock is 50 * STL. (The other classes is 35 * STL/2 and 50 * STL/2 respectively) Failing at either grants no XP.

I wanted to experiment with unlimited stealing, so I've created a pile of junk that is used in case the first item is stolen. So the flag that is set to mark a monster as out of items causes a random piece of "junk" to be given. Most of the junk is copper coins, food, and rusty weapons. Sometimes you get gold, silver, ammo, or healing potions.

This works pretty good because most characters will alarm a monster by the 3rd attempt. A very lucky thief will get 2 items and then cause alarm. After testing, attempting to steal during combat is very hard and frees up time for monsters to retaliate. There's only a small number of monsters that can legitimately be snuck up on without translucency or invisibility. The first is the druid by the teleporter in quest-1/level-1. It is extra interesting when stealing is successful because your mouse hand becomes full and you must spend time emptying it before continuing.

I plan on running my ninja through to a much higher level. If the pick pocket junk pile gets too bad, I'll remove it. Just an experiment at the moment.