Baldur’s Gate 3 How to Pickpocket NPCs and What To Do Before Pickpocketing

Pickpocketing may be a frowned upon act in our society, but Baldur’s Gate 3 players know it’s an essential exploit to get yourself ahead of the curve. By sneaking up and robbing NPCs of their goods, you’re able to sell off those items for gold later on or keep any useful upgrades. This is not only beneficial but fun since every character in Baldur’s Gate 3 can be pickpocketed. Now, enough about its benefits, let’s take a look at how to pickpocket in Baldur’s Gate 3.

How To Pickpocket NPCs and Steal From Their Inventory

If you’re looking to pickpocket a character, you have to enter Stealth mode first by using the Hide action. Then, sneak up behind them without being spotted and right-click on them. From the displayed options, select ‘Pickpocket’ and choose which item you want to steal from their inventory. Alternatively, you can left-click them while stealthed to automatically start pickipcketing them. This will bring up the pickpocket menu related to the victim NPC.

After you have completed this step, you’ll need to complete a dice roll. This dice roll determines if your character gets the items without getting caught or not. You have to pick the items you wish to pickpocket from the menu, with some items being more difficult to steal than others. Also, the more items you try to steal, the higher the dice roll you’ll need to escape smoothly. This is why you should always think before stealing so you don’t get caught.

Now, while this may seem simple enough, there are some particularities you need to be aware of before pickpocketing; otherwise, it could ruin your entire game.

What To Do Before Pickpocketing in Bladur’s Gate 3

Pickpocketing itself is pretty easy all you need to do is to go up to the character and right-click them. The hardest part is probably the dice roll, and that’s just based on luck. However, before you go to pickpocket someone, you should have these things in place:

Quicksave

Quicksaves are essential before you go out to pickpocket an important NPC. This is because if you’re caught pickpocketing, or another NPC sees you, you’ll have to get out of the situation somehow, either through talking or fighting. Quicksaves, while frowned upon, will allow you to redo your last actions so you don’t have to unnecessarily kill the poor NPCs.

Using a Rogue Character

Another thing you should keep in mind is that not all characters are good at pickpocketing. Characters that are more proficient in Stealth and Sleight of Hand skills should be preferred over others. They are less likely to get caught and can steal more items. These characters are usually from the Rogue class, though some other classes can qualify as well, like Bard or Monk.

While you are free to pickpocket with any character you want, the risks are greatly reduced for Rogues, especially if they chose the Thief subclass. They are better at sneaking up behind the NPC without getting spotted, and you’ll have a smoother experience overall with their stacked proficiency bonuses.

Selling Stolen Items

To keep realism alive in Baldur’s Gate 3, once you’ve stolen an item, it will show up in your inventory as red. This means you need to be cautious about how you sell it off since if you sell it to the same NPC, they might get suspicious about how you got it.

Vendors who are more reputable might also alert their fellow shopkeepers or the authorities, which can lead to you getting caught much faster without any chance to talk it out.

Using Party Member Distractions

Party members are great distractions to talk to NPCs while you pickpocket them. This reduces the NPC’s awareness and makes it easier to sneak up behind them. You can use some familiars for example, or spells like Minor Illusion, to create a distraction for your thief to get in and out unscathed.

For more guides and information on BG3, check out these related pieces from our team: Baldur’s Gate 3 How to Heal & What is the best way to gain HP, How To Use Rope in Baldur’s Gate 3, How To Free Shadowheart and Can you be evil in BG3.