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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition

Pickpocket

By
Scott Peers

This page details an overview of the Pickpocket skill in Skyrim, including recommended perks, leveling tips, and where to find Pickpocket trainers.

Pickpocket, Skyrim.

Pickpocket Overview

Your Pickpocket Skill Level determines your odds of success at stealing items from characters. Most of the perks involve making specific objects easier to steal, or making equipped objects stealable. Other perks further increase your chance of stealing, allow you to poison enemies by placing poison in their pockets, or increase your own pocket management skills.

Pickpocket allows you to borrow things that you happen to have misplaced in the pockets of others. The more valuable/heavy the object, the lower your odds of success. Honestly, this seems like a skill that should have been part of the Sneak tree. Most of the perks are pretty pointless, and the entire skill is a save/load fest. The more patience you have, the less you need to invest any perks into this skill. As for its in-game utility, it’s a nice way to earn a bit of gold early on, but there are better ways to get gold, and you’ll never be able to steal something nearly as good as the items you can simply craft yourself.

Recommended Perks

Most of the perks in this tree are obviously not worth getting, as they either make already easy to steal objects easier to steal, make stealing easier against sleeping marks, or just give you a higher percentage chance of success. Save/load, you’ll be fine. The only interesting perk is Extra Pockets, which increases your carrying capacity by 100, and is worth about 200 points of Stamina - or twenty levels of attributes.

Leveling Tips

At the beginning, most items are simply beyond your skill, as value and weight determine difficulty. You’ll have to settle for low-value, light items. Sadly, expensive items level your skill faster. What’s a good compromise, then? Arrows. Steal Steel Arrows from various guards. Not because they’re terribly valuable, but because they’re useful. They’ll provide you with a good stock of arrows in the early game, and will get you past the first few levels of Pickpocket.

When your skill level reaches about 25-30, you can start targeting more lucrative objects. Gems and jewelry should become your next target, starting with Silver Rings and Garnets, and moving your way up the value ladder until you start being able to nab enchanted items. Save/loading is just a part of the process here, so settle for whatever percentages you can live with and keep your fingers crossed. Plunder the pockets of entire cities and you should level this skill up to max quickly enough. Best part is, you can sell all your stolen gems (provided you don’t use them to level up Smithing!) and jewels to the Thieves Guild fences, and disenchant the enchanted jewelry you steal to get started with Enchanting.

Pickpocket Trainer Locations

Trainer Skill Level Location
Silda the Unseen Expert (Lv. 51 - 75) Windhelm (beggar wandering the streets)
Vipir the Fleet Master (Lv. 76 - 90) Riften, Thieve’s Guide (Ragged Flagon - Cistern)
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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Bethesda Softworks
  • Platforms,
    PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, XB 360, XB One
  • Genre
    Action RPG
  • Guide Release
    11 November 2021
  • Last Updated
    7 November 2021
    Version History
  • Guide Author
    Greg Wright

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Skyrim is the homeland of the Nords, a fierce and proud warrior people who are well suited for the bitter cold and mountainous terrain which defines the land. Now scarred by civil war, Skyrim faces its darkest days with the return of the legendary dragons and their leader, the World-Eater Alduin. The future of Skyrim and even the lands beyond hangs in the balance, as the people await the prophesized Dragonborn, a hero born with the power of The Voice and the only one who can contend with the dragons. You are that Dragonborn; your task is to investigate why the dragons are returning, and discover a way to defeat them. At the same time, you’re free to explore Skyrim at your own pace, uncovering its many wonders along the way.

Version 1.2

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