The Realms thrive on trade, and you’ll find many characters willing to buy treasures and unwanted equipment plundered from dungeons and the corpses of your enemies. You can then use the gold gained from selling off this lucre to buy potions, magical equipment, and other trinkets useful to the adventuring trade… which will then be used to generate more wealth! Sometimes, however, this virtuous cycle is interrupted by wicked individuals who realize that there are ways to shortcut the process… namely by just pick pocketing ware and money directly from merchants. This page will cover pick pocketing in Baldur’s Gate 3, covering how to steal items and avoid being caught.
(1 of 3) To steal from NPCs, you’ll need to be hidden. Be wary of each character’s line-of-sight - the more characters about, the harder sneaking will be.
How to Pick Pocket Items in Baldur’s Gate 3¶
On its surface, stealing is a simple matter. Find a target, sneak up behind them, hide (hotkey for this is “C”) then click on the target to bring up an inventory screen. Select what you want and succeed at the ensuing Sleight of Hand check and you’re golden! Or you’re in prison. Depends what you roll. Simple enough in concept, but there are some quirks and complications you need to be aware of.
The greatest complication with picking pockets is a matter of staying hidden. You must be hidden to attempt to pick someone’s pockets, and when there’s a single mark, this is a simple matter. Merchants run stores and these tend to have customers, guards, passerbys… various forms of prying eyes that can make it more difficult to engage in skullduggery without being spotted. All characters have a sight cone that’ll become apparent when it’s relevant (aka, when you’re sneaking about) which is represented by red coloration on the ground. You cannot generally hide when you’re in a character’s line of sight, and if you’re sneaking and a character turns to face you you’ll need to pass a Stealth check to remain hidden. Simply put, the more characters in an area, the more difficult it will be to steal, especially if they’re on patrol or facing multiple directions.
It’s also worth noting that different objects have different Sleight of Hand DCs, and generally the value of the object being stolen correlates with the Sleight of Hand DC. If you want to score something extremely valuable via a five finger discount you’ll need to be exceptionally skilled or persistent with the save scumming.
Victims of thievery in Baldur’s Gate 3 aren’t quite as passive about it in other games, either. Should everything go right and you manage to steal something, the mark will start looking for suspects, and suffice to say that the guy crouching in the shadows admiring some trinket that looks awfully identical to the missing parcel is going to be the first person accused. They’re also keen on alerting the guards that crimes were committed, who will also start investigating people in the vicinity. Simply put, if you stick around after stealing, you’re going to get caught, so you need to vacate the premises immediately and head far away - once the victimized character isn’t visible is a good general rule of thumb. This also means you shouldn’t linger and try to steal multiple items at a time. Steal one item, leave, wait, then if it’s worthwhile, do it again.
Should You Pick Pocket in Baldur’s Gate 3?¶
Now that we’ve covered how it works, we’ll get into the consequences… and from what we’ve played, there doesn’t seem to be any. At least, not as long as you don’t get caught. Choice magical gear can get expensive, and while you can just wait to get a new magical weapon or armor, and you can probably afford to buy potions and camping supplies… why should you if you can just steal with no ramifications? Save your money and steal, but given how much of a bother it is in some cases, you should definitely prioritize your thievery and grab things you’ll actually use.
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